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“From the Orkneys south to Manann

Many a man adores you dearly.

They would come, did you but call them,

Many a stalwart Highland hero.

Who, with claymore and with shield, would

Cannon’s thunder charge unfearing.

Many a youth with ardour swelling

Loves you well in high Dunedin.

These would gather boldly round you,

Once they found that you were near them.

All the Gael their love would show you,

Faithful, though the world should leave you.”

Alasdair MacMhaigstir.

The heather was alight, and burned like tinder. Men whose clan-names are a rosary or a poem flocked about the Prince—MacDonald of Scotus, MacDonald of Keppoch, MacDonald of Glencoe, MacDonald of Morar. Cameron of Lochiel came to redeem the promise passed in the tavern months before, came reluctant, gallant, clear-eyed to foresee the madness of it all, with his Camerons seven hundred strong. Clanranald’s MacDonalds never wavered from their allegiance. They sheltered their Prince, guarded him, gave him a roof-tree and undying loyalty. Young Clanranald sailed for Skye, saw Sir Alexander MacDonald and MacLeod. They temporised, lied, and finally joined the Government side. That crafty old fox Lord Lovat flattered his Duncan Forbes, called Prince Charles “a mad and unaccountable gentleman,” wrote to Lochiel bewailing his age and infirmities, and privately recalled his son from St. Andrews University. Old Glengarry fought shy of personal service, wrung his hands over his Alastair in France, vainly seeking the elusive Charles, and turned a blind eye on his Æneas, when that doomed youth led out the clan. July burned to August. The Prince sailed to Kinlochmoidart, and a week later to Glenfinnan. On August 19th they raised the royal standard, and the hunt was afoot.

Through it all the Prince held his young head high, coaxing, cajoling, charming, broadcasting letters, promises, commands. It was his hour, and he knew it. He had burned his boats, literally, when he sent away his ship, and flung himself upon the generosity of the Highlanders. In public he was gay, gracious, and accommodating. Who shall blame him if in private his heart sometimes failed him, and he sat with hidden face, clinging to Sheridan, the strongest link between him and the old life of security? The other comforted him when he voiced his fears, lying cheerfully, strangling his own jealousy of these strange Scots who surrounded his darling.

At the head of Loch Shiel there stood a little barn, a crazy structure of warped, weather-darkened planks. The Prince quartered there on the night of the 19th, and lying wakeful, listened to the rain and the swell of water in the loch. A high, screaming wind went past. Through chinks he saw a torn sky and throbbing clouds. His mind roved over the strange, long day. There had been hours of suspense and disappointment when he first arrived in the bleak glen, companioned only by his few followers. They waited for hours, the Prince’s eyes anxiously glancing about him at the indifferent hills, the great rocks narrowing the sky, stretches of thick heather, and no further sign of human life than cattle grazing, or whaups wailing harshly overhead. At last had come the shrilling of pipe-music, the tramp of men, and all his dreams took shape and reality as the silken standard of his house curtsied in the breeze. It fanned the hot faces of the clansmen while they listened to their Prince’s impassioned speech, relying on their support, voicing the justice of his claim, his eager certitude that he did not doubt of bringing the affair to a happy issue. What he said was unintelligible to most of them, as their English was as limited as his Gaelic. He could stammer a few syllables, but nothing more. They regarded their chief as a god, and each clan followed where he led, although the Prince and his claims were incomprehensible to the majority. Now, in the vastness of the country, the greater vastness of the night, he felt his own insignificance. Whom was he to trust fully, to whom to turn? An alien in upbringing, outlook, religion, could he win these fierce, untamable Scots? He ran over their names in his mind, frowned at the lukewarmness of some that he had relied on confidently, drew out his beads, and, fingering them, slept....

Meantime, the Government, angry and alarmed, started to bestir itself in earnest. Intelligence of the Prince’s landing had startled Edinburgh on August 8th. Lord President Forbes hastened to Inverness, to rally loyalists to the Government side. An army under Sir John Cope reached Stirling, and subsequently marched northward, substantially reinforced. Thirty thousand pounds, a huge fortune in those days, were offered for Charles’s slim body and stately head. The Prince heard of it, and shrugged his shoulders. “Am I worth so much?” He called for a mirror, a French toy amongst his baggage. Looking in it, he saw an oval face and dancing eyes. “ ’Tis true they set a reward likewise on Papa’s head in the year 1715, but I imagined that as the world grew in politeness they had done so in humanity.” He was pensive for the rest of the day.

The Highlanders began to worship him. He talked to them on the march southward (making MacDonald of Morar interpret), inquiring into their legends, customs, clan-histories, and inter-marriages. If he were on the hunt for popularity, he never cheapened himself. He could give a smile one minute, a snub the next. He dazzled by his laugh, his quick talk and gay gestures, his eager hopefulness, his innumerable little arts to please and win. He saw Scotland at its fairest, heather everywhere, a royal carpet for his feet, the spilt blood and scattered gold of the gorgeous northern sunsets, great mountains lying in the heat-mist, the sudden rain that blotted out the landscape and swelled the voice of many waters. The jewel-names of Scotland slipped past like pearls upon a silken string, Kinlochiel, Fassefern, Moy, Letterfinlay. Here stood a lonely inn, flat-faced, slant of roof, its windows like eyes looking over Loch Lochy, its grey walls backed by rising slopes of mountain, dark with fir-woods. Just before crossing Loch Lochy, Charles had received intelligence of Cope’s march towards Fort Augustus, and was eager to push forward with his army to meet him. A great storm gathered and broke. Weather-bound at the inn, Charles learned that the enemy had reached Garvemore, prepared to cross the pass of Corryarrack. He swallowed food and wine, rested his men, and marched on to Invergarry.

Invergarry was a hoary hold, upon a crag, looking down into deep, still water, the house dark with many trees. Here MacDonald of Lochgarry met them, backed by a number of clansmen and young Æneas MacDonald. The old chief, his father, was absent. The dreamy-eyed boy, at nineteen already a husband and father, knelt to his Prince and bade him welcome. Charles gave the boy his hand, and received a heart of gold in exchange. Between him and this slim lad, loved of the gods, was never cloud or shadow, until Æneas MacDonald died in his Prince’s arms at Falkirk. Better perhaps for Charles Edward had the same stray shot pierced his own heart also.

The storm lifted and passed. It was late evening, with a long skein of rooks drifting lazily homewards, and the dull pink of the sky deepening to rose. The wind made music in the old trees. Hither came Fraser of Gortleg, sly mouthpiece of his kinsman Lovat. He paid his court to Lochiel, who brought him to the Prince. They sat across the table from one another, the stout Fraser with his heavy jowl and crafty eyes, the slim Prince with head flung back and sun-kissed face and hands. Charles, pinching his chin between finger and thumb, listened to the other’s arguments. “Loyal, sir? There is no more loyal man in the whole of Scotland than my cousin Lovat. He wept, sir, wept, because his infirmities of body must plead his excuse for not coming in person to throw himself at your Royal Highness’s feet. He longs to serve you.”

“C’est très bien.” The brown eyes narrowed. “And he has sent you to me, sir, pourquoi?”

“To carry assurance of his loyalty and devotion to your Royal Highness, and”—the coarse mouth took a greedy curve—“to request the patent creating him Duke of Beaufort, as promised by his gracious Majesty——”

“They all want something.” The Prince’s look was cynical. “The patent! I had it of a certainty.” He ruffled up his bright hair with both hands. “Mr. Murray!” he called.

The summons produced our old friend of the snuff-boxes. He had joined the Prince at Kinlochmoidart, with a still tongue and an uneasy conscience. He vowed that he had not encouraged Charles to land, but neither had he dissuaded him. Traquair, entrusted with letters conveying warning tales of scant support, had never delivered them. On his lordly shoulders should rest the blame. Charles had been delighted to see Murray again, and a little later appointed him his secretary. Murray would vastly have preferred to be aide-de-camp, but was given no choice. The appointment, a wise one from the point of view of Murray’s capability for the task, aroused jealousy directly by the Prince’s obvious partiality for this ready writer. He made him the repository of secrets, confidences, and wild enterprises, and the cold man listened and advised.

He and Fraser of Gortleg looked at one another, disliked one another. “The patent, sir? I will make inquiry.” He went from the room, returning with the information that Lochiel, who had had the desired document in custody for some time, had delivered it to the Prince. Charles looked charmingly vague. “Your Royal Highness may recollect that you gave orders to Colonel O’Sullivan, who has charge of the baggage, to retain everything of your own except one portmanteau, and to follow here with all speed.” The silky voice stopped.

Charles looked vexed. “It must be in one of my trunks. Peste!” He turned to his visitor. “I shall write my Lord Lovat a letter of compliment and apology, sir, which you will be good enough to deliver.” He beckoned his secretary over, who composed an admirable epistle, promising the patent as soon as found, expressing graceful thanks for my lord’s good intentions, the which Charles signed with a flourish. “And now, sir, possibly you have some advice to give us, from my Lord Lovat?”

Fraser of Gortleg stretched out stout legs. “My cousin’s advice to your Royal Highness is to march north through Stratherrick to Inverness.”

“On what grounds, sir? I design to meet Cope.”

“On the grounds of substantial support.” He struck the table. “At Inverness, the Frasers will come out, the MacLeods, Sir Alexander MacDonald, the Mackenzies, Grants, Mackintoshes.” He recited great names glibly.

Charles sat, elbows on table, his chin cupped in his hands. “This requires wiser heads than yours or mine, sir.” He turned to Murray. “Desire the Duke of Athol to come to us, Mr. Murray.”

The Duke came, saluted his Prince, bowed coldly to Mr. Fraser, and took no more fancy to him than Mr. Murray had previously done. He shook his fine head over the Inverness scheme. “My advice, sir, (as your Royal Highness has done me the honour to ask it,) is to push southward towards Edinburgh, where it will be easier to unite your followers.”

Murray of Broughton nodded approval. “There are many well disposed to your Royal Highness in the city. It should not be difficult to gain possession, and once Edinburgh is yours——”

Charles was flushed and dreaming. “A mirage, Murray, and yet—and yet——” He saw himself leading the clans southward, saw the gates of Scotland’s capital fall as fell the walls of Jericho, saw the sombre, haunted palace of Holyrood receive him, as it had received others of his fated race. He sat erect, bright-cheeked, with happy, shining eyes. “Yes, yes, I will march south,” he cried, “and you, my lord Duke”—he turned to Athol eagerly—“may be able to raise your clan before your wicked brother claims them for the Government.”

“He is not wicked, sir, merely misguided.” Athol smiled and kissed the slim hand, flung out to him in a sudden spasm of penitence.

They marched early next day, the Prince at their head, wearing Highland dress. He looked very bonny, with flushed cheeks, bright hair lifted in the wind, and the nameless charm and grace inherited from a line of kings. His heart beat fast, his hopes soared very high. The hoary walls of Invergarry rang with cheers, as the chiefs who had gathered round him gave their united pledge that each would not lay down his arms, nor seek to make peace, without the consent of the rest. Their chief had declined to come out, but under Ardshiel the Appin Stewarts mustered, two hundred and sixty strong. These comprised, besides Stewarts, MacIntyres, MacColls, MacLarens, MacInneses, and lesser names, led by the Stewarts of Invernahyle, Fasnacloich, and Achnacone. More MacDonalds came out under Lochgarry, Grants of Glenmoriston, and a notable prisoner was brought in by some Camerons. Charles looked at Cluny MacPherson, a short, dark, silent man, Lochiel’s cousin-german, old Lovat’s son-in-law. He and his clan were worth securing as allies. The Prince exerted all his fascinations, and won Cluny for evermore. It was an ill day for him when he looked into those brown eyes, and turned his back upon Hanoverian safety and support.

They came along the great Corryarrack Pass, treading Wade’s road, dipping down through the moors. They started in mist, the track wet and slippery beneath their feet, but gradually the sun unveiled, and the scent of honey hung on the still air. The far-flung country lay dim and spacious, stern mountains laughed at by impertinent little streams, the darkness of deep glens, the blue oval of innumerable lochs. Nothing broke the rare silence save the whirr of wings as some startled game-bird flew up out of cover. Even the bagpipes would have seemed a desecration.

Garvemore, that solid, non-committal stage-house, showed its gable-end as the road dived down towards it. Here they learned that Cope had disappointed and evaded them. He was marching with his army towards Inverness, taking the road by Ruthven. The Highlanders hesitated whether to turn and pursue him, but eventually continued their southward course. The brief days passed like a many-coloured pageant. One night of wind and stars the Prince slept in the heather in the midst of his army. At Blair Castle he learned to drink healths in Gaelic, and to eat haggis and cockie-leekie, at Lude to dance reels. On the evening of September 4th he rode triumphantly into Perth, gaily displaying to George Kelly the solitary guinea which represented his worldly wealth.

At Perth the anxieties and troubles of Mr. Secretary Murray began. He could afford to stand aside, bored and superior, from the open-mouthed group surrounding the Duke of Perth, as that young nobleman, in alternate voluble French or honest Scots vernacular, described the disgraceful stratagem employed by the English Government to seize him in the house of his friends. Back stairs, unsaddled horse, breathless cross-country ride, and here was His Grace, safe in the Prince’s entourage. Mr. Murray had no fear of a rival in the Duke. He was of a delicate constitution, a foreign upbringing, an unpopular religion. Colonel John Roy Stewart, my Lord Nairne, my lord’s brother, swarthy Mr. Mercer of Aldie, had all come out a few days previously. Mr. Murray ran his eye over the lot, critical and appraising. No danger did he apprehend from any of them, from the laird of Gask and his tall son, the Viscount Strathallan, doomed to fall at Culloden, or the Chevalier Johnstone, boasting of his connection with Lord Rollo, and tactfully suppressing his own association with trade. His lip curled as he contemplated young Lord Ogilvy, arrived from Angus companioned by a wife whose years, combined with his own, numbered less than forty. Well, well, youth will be served. Mr. Murray, himself but thirty, took snuff and smiled.

He left off smiling and nearly dropped the snuff-box when he saw my lord Duke of Athol enter, arm in arm with a stranger. The likeness between them betokened a close relationship, though the prematurely-aged Duke, crippled and bent by hardships and rheumatism, might have been his companion’s father instead of his brother, elder by only six years. Pride, temper, obstinacy, haughty impatience: Mr. Murray read them all in that high-nosed, aristocratic face. There was no subservience about the act as he knelt on one knee and kissed the hand which the Prince extended, smiling with alarming graciousness. Mr. Murray’s mind moved swiftly, his thin blood quickened, sensing danger. Here was his namesake, my Lord George Murray, of the house of Athol, a valuable ally in Charles’s eyes, a serious rival in Mr. Secretary’s. Rumour ran that the Prince had that day appointed Lord George Lieutenant-General of his forces. What was my lord’s history? Mr. Murray took instant steps to find this out.

He laid his gleanings before Charles’s feet at an early date. He walked warily, for it was a ticklish business, this of advising princes. Already he had summed up His Royal Highness pretty accurately. He saw that he was weak, easily swayed, very much under the dominion of stronger personalities, though a vein of stubborn obstinacy in his nature manifested itself frequently, no judge of men’s characters or motives, secretive and suspicious. The time was ripe for a gentle warning, the Secretary told himself.

He had been sent for, so could quiet his conscience by declaring that he did not seek the interview. Charles was easy of access, but very seldom to be found alone. The Duke of Perth, Lord George, Lord Strathallan, and others constantly dined or supped with him at John Hickson’s tavern, where he had taken up his quarters. Despite the dignity of frequent visitors in Highland clothes, with broadswords and white cockades, the inn speedily resembled a bear-garden, for the Prince could be, on occasion, as full of tricks and jests as a schoolboy. He was busy and happy, his purse replenished at the town’s expense, his father proclaimed king, himself fêted, flattered, and worshipped. He greeted Murray cordially, and bent his bright head over the papers the Secretary produced.

“Lord, don’t sit and look so glum, man!” He laughed into the sour face. “We are succeeding everywhere,” he boasted. “Lord Ogilvy has just left me, to go home, promising to return in a few days with his Angus men; Robertson of Struan has brought two hundred, MacGregor of Glencairnaig has come out, and likewise forty of Glengyle’s MacGregors.” He pouted gaily. “What a work ’tis to get my tongue round their names. I smile at them, and all the while I walk on ice of the thinnest. If you sound a chief as to another chief, ten to one he will draw himself up and say: ‘Your Royal Highness does me the honour to speak of my cousin, or my son-in-law, or my brother.’ ” He broke off. “Why en’t you laughing, Murray?”

“I see no reason to, sir.” The Secretary smiled wryly.

The Prince poured out wine for both, and chattered, undeterred by the remark. The light, high voice, with the accent that was so different from the varied brogues of the Irish, or the rough tongues of the Scots, ran on in the low-browed room. Outside, fields of ripe oats tossed in the wind, and the river talked to itself. The town, with its narrow streets and secretive wynds, was dark under a watching moon.

“And the letters from France and Spain.” Charles rattled on eagerly. “They were brought to me to-day by one Arbuthnot. You have read them?” He scrambled amongst scattered papers on an untidy table. “Plague take the things! Where have they vanished?” he exclaimed. “The Spanish Ambassador in Flanders, the Duc de Bouillon, promise in their masters’ names money, arms, and troops. We shall win, Murray. We shall win!”

He was so gay and confident, prattling like an excited child, that the other felt a pang at the thought of damping him. But Murray’s own position was neither so impregnable nor so secure as he wished, and he was beginning to know his Charles. He murmured something non-committal about the recent appointments His Royal Highness had made: the Duke of Perth Lieutenant-General, O’Sullivan Quartermaster-General, Sir John MacDonald Instructor of Cavalry——

“You forget my Lord George Murray.” The Prince, who had added smoking to his other Scottish accomplishments, was leaning back, watching the blue rings sailing ceilingwards.

“It is of my Lord George Murray that I would speak to your Royal Highness.” The Secretary’s eyes glowed like a cat’s in the dark.

“Comment?” The Prince was plainly unsuspicious.

Murray leaned nearer. “What does your Royal Highness know of him?”

“Do you want his biography?” Charles grinned lazily. “Athol’s brother, laird of Tullibardine, supported us in ’15 and ’19——” He broke off. “What does that look mean, mon cher?”

The thin lips unclosed slowly. “Your Royal Highness is possibly unaware of two small facts. Lord George is—or was—a Sheriff-Deputy, and”—the words dropped out like distilled poison—“on the 21st of August last, my lord visited General Cope at Crieff.”

The Prince, pipe in hand, sat staring. “C’est impossible!”

“Truth is never impossible.” The Secretary tidied papers with meticulous care. “Lord George has practically betrayed the Government. Take care, sir, that he does not betray your Royal Highness.”

The pipe clattered to the floor. “Mon Dieu! Is that why he joined?”

Murray’s narrow shoulders lifted. “Thirty thousand pounds is a vast sum, sir, and my Lord George is very much a younger son. I should beware of him.”

He went, having transacted the business for which he had been summoned, and sowed the first seeds of suspicion and mistrust in the Prince’s mind. It was ripe soil for such. Charles had already been deceived many times during his twenty-four years. He had been forced to recognise the faithlessness of the Jacobite agents, from Cockburn, who left the key to the Jacobite cipher lying on a window-seat, down to Lord Sempil and MacGregor of Balhaldie, both of whom (to use the forcible if inelegant language of Sir Thomas Sheridan) had made a nice fool of His Royal Highness. Small wonder if the young brow began to show faint furrows, the brown eyes to look askance at men whose honour was their life. In his growing perplexities he clung closer to the little coterie of Irish, John Murray, whom he had known before coming to Scotland, and the grave, loyal Athol. Athol’s brother! Impossible that he should be a traitor, the young, rebellious, warm heart cried out. Then distrust and warning laid cold hands over it. Twice a rebel, Lord George had sought and obtained a pardon from the Government after his second transgression. He had been reinstated, trusted, made the familiar friend of his Whig brother, and his eldest son held the Elector’s commission. On the heels of that damning interview with Cope, he had donned the white cockade. Why?

Perhaps Lord George himself could scarcely have answered the question. His motives in coming out were mixed, but treachery was the last thought his mind harboured. He had gone to Crieff with his Whig brother, but took no part in the conference between the latter and the Hanoverian general. He made no personal promises, although it was tacitly implied that in his recently-appointed capacity of Sheriff-Deputy he should give necessary directions for furnishing the Government troops with everything requisite during their passage through his county. But the old aim, the ancient Cause, stirred his blood strongly. The meeting with his elder, exiled brother, who had lost all for the Stuarts, the remembrance that he had fought under him at Glenshiel in ’19, swayed him yet further. He vowed fidelity to the Prince, calling down a curse if he should not prove true, and the die was cast. He was convinced, but not enthusiastic, sensible, but not sanguine, clear-eyed to face the risk and count the cost. He knew that if the rising failed, the block, the halter, or at best life-long exile, would be his portion, and ruin for his wife and family. He was prepared for everything except the element of his personal relationship with Charles, which did so much to wreck all.

Charles was a continual surprise to him. Lord George had anticipated a shy foreigner, alien in creed and custom, whom he should mould, lead, and advise. Instead, he found a brilliant, hot-headed, impetuous young creature, tireless and despotic, stiff with royal dignity one moment, the next publicly shedding impulsive tears if his plans were thwarted at a council, or playing schoolboy tricks on his Irish intimates. Lord George did not know what to make of him, nor how to deal with him.

He was like a child, one time running out unescorted into the street, and seizing his lieutenant-general, who was passing. “Lord George! Lord George! you must come and see my new horse. I have got him in a present from the Duke of Perth.” He laughed delightedly. “There! Observe how Scotch I am becoming. ‘In a present.’ ”

“I see that your Royal Highness has nothing on your head.” Lord George shook his own disapprovingly.

“Why, the sun is good for me, and this is not Italy.” Charles turned and shouted up at the window. “Sheridan! Sheridan! I want my bonnet. No, no, don’t bring it down. Throw it out to me.” A blue object whizzed through the air. He caught it deftly, and crammed it back-foremost on his sunny hair. “En avant, my lord!”

Lord George turned to issue an order in fluent Gaelic to his groom James Robertson before following. Charles sighed.

“I wish I knew Gaelic.” His brow puckered. “Will you give me lessons, my lord?”

“I have not the time, sir, and besides Gaelic is a life-study.” The tone was stiff. “Unless one is accustomed from childhood to speak it, and to be beside those speaking it continually, it is impossible to become proficient in it.”

The Prince shrugged his slim shoulders. “Braid Scots is worse. I cannot understand the half my friends say.” He gurgled reminiscently. “I was talking of Papa to Gordon of Glenbucket yesterday, saying how much I missed him, and Glenbucket said, ‘No doubt His Majesty makes of your Royal Highness,’ and when I said, ‘Makes what of my Royal Highness?’ he looked quite vexed. Hélas!”

The breach between the two incompatible temperaments widened slowly but surely. Lord George, a born soldier, skilled in warfare, double the Prince’s age, found himself obliged to conciliate, consult, and take orders from one whom, prince or no prince, he regarded as an inexperienced boy. Charles discovered a temper as fiery as that which he inherited from his Polish mother, a mulishness matching his own stiff-necked obstinacy. Young and crude, he sensed the other’s secret smile at his ignorance and rashness. The Prince was proud and imperious, Lord George haughty to a degree. Had it been a question of these two against one another, the stronger might have worn the weaker down, or the Kilkenny cats have found a parallel. But there were other actors in the play, and Charles lent a ready ear to tales.

It was not only Murray of the poisoned heart and glib tongue. Lord George and the Irish fell foul of one another directly. He summed up O’Sullivan as lazy, incompetent, and interfering, fonder of compounding new drinks than of attending to his duties as quartermaster-general—an opinion promptly carried to the Prince. Charles rose up in a fury, embraced the injured O’Sullivan, and abused Lord George. Sir Thomas Sheridan also came in for his share of censure. Lord George was openly contemptuous of the ex-tutor’s ignorance concerning the British laws and constitution, and Sheridan naturally sided with Charles when the Prince and Lord George differed. In addition, Lord George and the Duke of Perth, supposedly colleagues and raised to an equal military rank, pulled badly together from the start. Lord George despised the Duke’s youth and inexperience. The Duke distrusted Lord George ever since a bird of the air had dropped a casual hint to the effect that Lord George knew something about the Government’s attempt to arrest the Duke a few weeks previously. The whole state of affairs was miserable, undignified, unworthy of the Cause linking these men together. Lord George, the finer nature, suffered. Charles sulked.

He skirmished round the subject with the Duke of Athol, when the latter came to take his leave. The army was prepared to march southward, the taking of Edinburgh its objective before Cope’s troops, sailing from Aberdeen, could reach Leith. The Duke was to return to Blair Castle, and strive to raise more of his tenantry for the Prince’s service. Charles clung to him affectionately at parting.

“I shall miss you, my friend. Your brother is——” He made a little face. “We do not—how do you say it?—pull together.”

“My brother is sacrificing his all in your Royal Highness’s Cause.” The grave tone was a rebuke. “It is not a light thing, at his years, and with his ties, his family, his estates, all at stake.”

The Prince pouted. “You too have made sacrifices, Athol.”

“Gladly, sir.” He smiled into the wistful young face. “But it was only my poor life at hazard.” He rose painfully.

Charles still clung to him. “I shall miss your Grace. I wish you were to go along with us. Come to me soon, I beg.” The other promised silently. “Kiss me, mon ami. No, no, not my hand.” He whipped both slim ones behind him, and held up his flushed face.

The Duke, aging, ailing, childless, felt a disloyal pang of envy towards his king. Uncrowned, disappointed, at least King James had the right to call this bonny creature “My son.” “God keep your Royal Highness,” he whispered unsteadily. He gathered the slight body to him for a second, and kissed the smooth, hot cheek.

At Tullibardine the Prince ate Lord George’s salt, and softened to him somewhat. They left the wilder part of Scotland behind them, and now the Forth lay at their feet. The army halted, hesitated, whilst the chiefs consulted. Charles solved their difficulties by wading into shallow water, and coolly crossing the ford. On the far side he stood laughing and greeting each detachment that came up. He was “fey,” all declared, smiling and jesting, unknowing that every step he took brought him nearer to the woman who awaited him at Bannockburn House.

She came into his life almost abruptly. The army had marched by Stirling, a smaller Edinburgh in the way of immensely high houses and a castle built upon a rock. The latter fired a few stray shots, but while the more cowardly ducked or scattered for shelter, the Prince walked erect, his fair head high. He halted his force at Bannockburn, and went to dine with Sir Hugh Paterson. The old gentleman was Jacobite, but wary, declining to commit himself further than by a handsome entertainment. Charles was flushed and excited. His Highlanders’ approach had frightened Gardiner’s dragoons, left to guard the Forth, the length of Linlithgow. Their flight was a good omen for future victories. The sight of Bannockburn field, where his great ancestor had won his triumph, stirred him to eager talk. In the midst of it a door opened, and a woman entered the room.

She was then twenty years of age, and God, who gave her youth, had never given her beauty. Her skin was sallow, her features undistinguished, her face only saved from plainness by a pair of flashing black eyes. Beside their diamond-bright depths the Prince’s own looked hazel. Bright gaze met bright gaze before she sank in a great curtsy. Sir Hugh Paterson named her, his niece, Miss Walkinshaw, begged leave to present her——

“What! my mother’s namesake?” cried the Prince. Clementina Walkinshaw rose up from her curtsy, and made to kiss his hand, when he drew her to him, and kissed her cheek instead. He did it stiffly, formally, once for himself and once for his mother, but Miss Walkinshaw had no fault to find with the salute. There was a fine colour in her face for the nonce, and her eyes shone like black stars, as she melted unobtrusively behind her uncle’s wife, the Lady Jean. Charles neither glanced after her, nor thought of her again.

Historians have flung mud at her, calling her the evil genius of the last of the Stuarts. In sober truth she was the one woman who made any permanent impression upon Charles Edward. She served him with stark faithfulness, for him forsook her own people and her father’s house, shared with him exile and poverty, reaped no advantage, social, political, or financial, from their dubious nine years’ association, gave up their only child to comfort her “august Papa’s” last broken and forgotten days, and goes down to posterity merely as Prince Charlie’s mistress.

Charles was treading in the footsteps of his ancestors, for he passed the evening at Callander House, where Mary and the sick Darnley had halted on that last journey which had its sinister ending at Kirk-o’-Field. Between the stately walls where the fair siren slept and plotted, her thoughts busy with black-browed Bothwell, her slim descendant wove his own dreams around a shadowy crown. His host, the Earl of Kilmarnock, a ruined, desperate man, at the end of his fortunes, strove to mend them by recklessly throwing in his lot with the Prince’s wild venture. He was as ill-starred as his royal guest. For one, disappointment, defeat, years of disillusion and deepening shadow; for the other, a shorter, quicker agony, the field of Culloden, and a windy morning on Tower Hill.

They came to Linlithgow on a still, misty Sunday. It was barely six o’clock, the east flushed with red, when the Prince’s army took possession of the town. He was quiet and grave, issuing commands that the men should encamp outside, that the usual services might be held. He spent the long day in Linlithgow Palace, where he shut himself up alone with his confessor. For the office he had chosen one of Clanranald’s MacDonalds, a dour, silent man, a priest holding the rank of captain in his army. “If I am to enter Edinburgh, or fall in the attempt, I would be clean,” the Prince said. He knelt on the bare floor, and told the tale of his sins, omitting nothing. When he came forth, his face was very calm, his look high. He passed the night at a little farmhouse, east of the town. The yellow square of his lighted window stared down on his men slumbering contentedly upon the bare ground, their officers beside them, wrapped in their plaids. “So would I rather sleep,” said Charles Edward.