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“Shift your feet in nimble flight,

You’ll be home by candle-light,

Open the gates as wide as the sky,

And let the king come riding by.”

Barley Bridge.

That fresh-complexioned citizen, Mr. Alves, W.S., mounted upon a sober cob, riding at his leisure towards Edinburgh on a fine September morning, chanced to pass near the rebel army. A blue-eyed gentleman accosted him, in whom he recognised his acquaintance, the Duke of Perth. They exchanged snuff and greetings, but His Grace made no attempt to present Mr. Alves, or to present to Mr. Alves the slim young man with the brown eyes standing a few yards in the rear. During the course of civilities Mr. Alves’s legal orb roved over guns and horses, claymores, and bare-legged Highlanders. He felt a chill run down his spine. Such warlike properties were painfully out of keeping with the long fields, dim in the mist, and the harvest peace and plenty.

“You ride to Edinburgh, my friend?” The Duke tapped his arm.

Mr. Alves tendered a plea of guilty.

The Duke smiled. “I understand, sir, that the Provost and Magistrates of the city are making great preparations against us, but we are resolved to pay them a visit.” He patted Mr. Alves’s cob. “If they will keep their arms in their possession, and allow us peaceably into the town, they will be civilly dealt with. If not, they must lay their account with military execution. Sir, is not that your Royal Highness’s pleasure?” He turned to the brown-eyed young man, who appeared to assent.

So this was the Pretender’s son? As a respectable citizen, a staunch Whig, and a servant of the law, Mr. Alves felt constrained not to look at him, much less to obey him, but as a child of Eve his natural curiosity permitted one discreet stare. Bonny enough, tall and fair, with a smile which dazzled, and an air that taught lesser men their distance, but——Mr. Alves pocketed the rest of his thoughts and went towards Edinburgh, burdened with the message.

The Provost, wrathful and incredulous, vowed that it was vastly impudent. He swore that he would not be intimidated by threats. These were the vacant words of a brave man, for the town’s position was perilous. The garrison at the Castle could not be counted on, commanded by a general in the eighties. The town guard, old and feeble men, the city volunteers, were the only other means of defence. Gardiner’s and Hamilton’s dragoons had joined forces and fled to Haddington, by way of Leith and Musselburgh. The Crown officials had retired to neighbouring places of safety. Mr. Alves unwisely conveyed the Prince’s message to the common people, who paraded the streets, impotent and frenzied. Panic possessed the town. The wildest rumours as to the strength and ferocity of the Highlanders kept pouring in. The long wynds, framing blue glimpses of the Forth, vomited terror-stricken men and women, or sheltered huddled cravens and gossipers. The Provost, with a feeble show of authority, presided over a packed meeting of citizens, and out of a thousand contrary opinions strove to extract some prudent counsel. Every one argued and advised, and whilst the clamour was at its height a letter was handed in, bearing the signature of Charles, Prince Regent, imperatively demanding the surrender of the town.

Fresh consternation followed the reading of this disagreeable document, more divided counsels, and finally several quaking bailies were dispatched to the rebel camp, to entreat time for deliberation.

And now comes my Lord Elcho, plump, debonair, four-and-twenty, with a good horse under him, a long ancestry behind him, and fifteen hundred guineas lining his pockets, to take a hand in the Jacobite game. The horse was his own, the ancestry indubitably the same, the jingling guineas the gift of his brother, who that week had married a wife, and therefore judged it more prudent to stay at home. Along the road clattered my lord, a fine, personable young gentleman, to those who did not look further than a flat back, a pair of bold eyes, and the latest mode in periwig and cravat. He was some nine months younger than the Prince, whom he had met in Paris and at Rome. The exiled king had been vastly civil to the heir of the Earl of Wemyss, now cantering gaily to prove his loyalty.

It was mid-September, the most perfect month of the twelve in Scotland. The country lay mellow and smiling, its plain lines of field draped in faint mist. Clouds of little birds flew out from the hearts of the leaning stooks, or perched chattering on the low hedgerows. Far off, against a sky dimly amethyst, the castle of Edinburgh, its smoke and spires, were lightly silhouetted. The Jacobite army had encamped south of Corstorphine, at Slateford, in the parish of Colinton. The Prince was quartered at Gray’s Mill, a little stone house, with small windows sunk deeply in its solid walls, looking out over a haphazard yard, and fields sloping to the river. As Lord Elcho approached, he saw stir and excitement, tethered horses, gaunt Highlanders in busy groups, all the panoply and insignia of civil war. His heart beat fast as he dismounted before the low door of Gray’s Mill, and demanded an audience of the Prince.

Secretary Murray received him, that sallow little man who already was gaining a greater ascendancy over Charles than others liked or approved of. He and Elcho greeted as old friends, for they had been abroad together on the same business, and each knew to a nicety how deeply the other was dipped. He ran his eye up and down my lord’s French elegance, and led the way. Charles was contentedly holding his court in a small, dingy cupboard, which served him for dining-room, bed-chamber, and hall of audience. The new-comer found him sitting at a table strewn with papers, his gay laughter indicating his presence before the door was opened. Some of his officers were standing about, dim figures in the shadows, for dusk was coming fast on noiseless feet. The sound of the river stole up through the one little window, and a great moth blundered in, striking against the walls.

Lord Elcho knelt, to be caught up into a tempestuous embrace and a whirlwind of French. Charles let him go, only to fling an arm round his shoulders, and drag him about, presenting him to everybody whom he did not already know. Elcho studied the Prince covertly, smiling out of narrowed eyes. Charles had not altered. The same rapid, impetuous talk, the same excitability, the old foreign gestures and speech. Now he was driving the rest pell-mell from the room, vowing that he must have his “cher Elcho” to himself. He would see nobody, no, not the Elector arriving should disturb them. There was a general laugh, in which the Prince joined, sitting on the table, balancing himself by two slim hands against the edge. His bright hair was in disorder, and his cheeks scarlet with excitement.

“Your Royal Highness has possibly forgotten”—Lord George Murray paused on the threshold—“that you sent a summons to the Magistrates of Edinburgh, demanding the capitulation of the city. Their answer should be here at any moment.”

“Plague take them! So I did.” Charles’s face clouded. “Well, my lord, I place them in your hands. Remember, I will listen to nothing but a complete surrender of the town.”

His gaiety had gone, leaving him looking older and sterner. At the moment he was very much the Prince, sure of his ground, his unassailable position. He made a regal figure in that mean little room. Elcho looked at him, standing himself within the shadows, and the first smouldering jealousy stirred in his narrow heart.

He came into the Cause partly from hereditary sympathies, partly from restless liking for the excitement it involved, partly for his own aggrandisement, but all along personal devotion to the young leader of the forlorn hope never stirred my Lord Elcho. Much of an age, both good to look on, both ambitious and unscrupulous, there existed no sympathy, rather a subtle jealousy, between him and Charles. Elcho was never prepared to follow meekly, to sacrifice himself for, to admire and excuse, his Prince. Later, a woman came between them, and an undischarged debt rankled like a poisonous sore in the lender’s heart.

“Sit down, mon cher.” Charles flung his slim length into a chair.

Elcho took a seat on the opposite side of the table. Candles glancing in a draught threw light over the Prince’s face, and left his own obscured. He saw the frown crumpling Charles’s forehead, the pout of the lower lip, already over full by nature. When he laughed again, it had an irritable, ill-natured sound.

“ ’Tis not a bed of roses this, by any means.” Charles spoke half to himself. “You have just seen the biggest thorn in my side.” His tone was rueful.

“Your Royal Highness means——?”

“My Lord George Murray.” A foreign shrug emphasised the name.

“Your Royal Highness’s lieutenant-general and most devoted adherent!” Elcho lounged amazed.

“I think my most devoted adherent sits opposite.” The smile and the gracious little speech were very winning. “What do you know of Lord George, my Lord Elcho?”

Elcho frowned in thought. Lord George, he knew, had a Jacobite brother and a Whig brother, each of whom claimed to be Duke of Athol. He himself had been out in ’15, out in ’19, and here he was again out in ’45. Surely a striking record of selfless devotion to the Stuart Cause! Elcho puckered puzzled brows.

“I am convinced that Lord George has joined me only to betray me.” Charles leant across the table, sinking his voice. “I do not trust him, and I beg that you will not either.”

His eyes slanted to the door, as if fearful of listening ears outside. The smiling, incredulous look on his new adherent’s face angered him. He drew himself up, the prince masking the young man who felt himself surrounded by traitors, and was uncertain in whom to put his trust. “And what can I do for you, mon ami?” he asked pleasantly.

Elcho’s eyes dropped. “I came to place myself at your Royal Highness’s service. I beg that you will dispose of me as you incline best,” he replied.

“You had better join my staff. I need another aide-de-camp. Later, we shall see about a command for you.” Charles was easy, assured, smiling. “I have but the one request to make, my lord, that you are never to talk of my affairs in Lord George’s presence.” His suddenly stern look emphasised the prohibition.

The conversation shifted to Elcho himself, his travels, his family, his ambitions. Dusk deepened in the little room, whose silence was only broken by the two voices, the endless song of the river, the jingling of a horse’s bit, or a burst of laughter from a group of men gathered round the mill door. The Prince poured out wine for himself and his new aide-de-camp. They pledged one another and the Cause.

There were only two interruptions. Between eight and nine a servant brought in an evil-smelling lamp, which he set down at the Prince’s elbow. A little later agitated voices rose in argument. Charles smiled and tiptoed to the window. “Our friends from Edinburgh, I think.”

It was too dark in the star-strewn night to distinguish anything. He sat down again, turning alertly at a knock upon the door. Elcho, obedient to his gesture, went to it. “Lord George Murray, sir?” he murmured. Charles nodded impatiently.

Lord George came in coolly, ignored Elcho, bowed stiffly to the Prince. “A deputation has arrived from the municipal authority of Edinburgh, sir.”

“Well?” Charles’s look was wary.

“They have come to beg for delay, pending the terms of surrender.”

Charles sat flushed and frowning. “Did I not give you instructions, my lord, that I would accept no terms other than a complete and immediate capitulation of the town?”

“Your Royal Highness did.” The frigid tone matched the Prince’s.

“Eh bien”—Charles shrugged his shoulders—“then why trouble me with deputations or their insolent messages?”

“They were not insolent.” Lord George spoke quietly. “Will your Royal Highness consent to receive them?”

“Never!” Charles tossed aside the request. “I do not treat with subjects. Send Mr. Murray to me,” he ordered.

The Secretary, slim, cat-footed, came to the summons. He had been outside, and the night-wind had flushed even his sallow face. The Prince bent his fair head over papers, drafting a letter, while Murray’s pen travelled swiftly, noting down the rapid words. Lord George and Elcho watched in silence.

Charles threw the former the sealed sheet. “Take this to that damned deputation, my lord.” He added with a frown: “Ask them what has become of the arms belonging to the volunteers and Edinburgh regiment.”

“I understand that they have been delivered into the castle, sir.”

Charles’s eyes flashed and he spoke with heat. “If any of the town arms are missing, I shall know what to do.” He laughed grimly. “That letter contains a sharp warning, and I have demanded an answer by two o’clock.”

As Lord George retired, an odd look passed between them: obstinate dignity on Charles’s part, defiance, anger; on Lord George’s a half-pitying scorn for the Prince’s contumacy. Charles’s clenched fist struck the table as the door closed behind the two Murrays.

“There! you see, you see!” he exclaimed passionately. The lamp danced on the rocking wood.

He turned the talk again to a former subject, but his ease had gone. They heard the deputies go back into the night, their embassage unfulfilled. Outside, a trickle of voices ran on and on. Charles frowned and drank. Lord Elcho smiled, and watched the moth at last blunder against the light, and whirl crookedly away, singed and dying. Hours later steps sounded up the stair.

Lord George came in again, unheralded and unannounced. “Another deputation, sir, who beg that your Royal Highness may be prevailed upon to see them.”

“It is useless, my lord. I declined before, and I decline again.” The Prince’s flush deepened. “How monstrous impertinent to expect such a favour!”

Lord George looked hard at the figure in the crude lamp-light. “What am I to say to them, sir?”

“Say to them? Peste! Get rid of them!” He turned impatiently to Elcho. “My Lord Elcho, Lord George has not spirit to put this order in execution. You must go and do it for him.”

Lord Elcho, well pleased, swaggered out. Behind him he heard the Prince laugh, and then retort angrily to Lord George’s quiet: “I should advise your Royal Highness to keep your head clearer than this wine will make it. Pray put that bottle away, sir.” Charles disliked advice, even when kindly meant as now. He looked suspiciously at Lord George, and proceeded to finish the bottle out of bravado.

Elcho felt his way through the soft dark to where a coach made a darker blur. Candles still burned in its lamps, enough to illumine anxious faces and imploring eyes. “Get you gone!” Elcho ordered the deputies, briefly, harshly.

The lumbering coach creaked off into the night. Elcho took a grateful breath of the sweet-smelling air before he walked back to the Prince, young, insolent, assured. The little room which housed Charles’s restless body reeked of brandy, and His Royal Highness, from the most charitable point of view, was scarcely sober. Elcho’s lip curled.

“I am obliged to you, my lord.” The Prince’s smile was peculiarly gracious.

Elcho drained the replenished glass pushed carelessly towards him. “I would not have your Royal Highness in my debt,” he murmured.

“Oh, debt!” Charles flung out his arms. “A plague on money!” he ejaculated. “The want of it is a perfect curse.”

“If your Royal Highness requires money——” Elcho set down his glass.

“Who doesn’t?” Charles shrugged and yawned. “I rode into Perth with only a single guinea in my purse, and there I filled it full enough, but my army, my officers ”—he hunched his shoulders again—“they eat it, bless them!”

“I did not come empty-handed to join your Royal Highness.”

“Don’t tempt me.” Charles sat shaken with laughter. “I may never pay you back, child.”

Elcho smiled and slid a bulky belt across the table. “I shall come to St. James’s to claim it,” he prophesied.

They drank to that day, and Charles, protesting gracefully, pocketed the fifteen hundred guineas.

The night went on, fraught with anxiety, plot, and counter-plot. A rumour reached the camp that Cope’s transports, hastening from the north, had been sighted off Dunbar. Hence the second deputation and its petition for delay. The Prince summoned his officers, begging counsel and direction. The small room was heavy with tobacco-smoke and fumes of wine. Through the haze showed the anxious, sleepless faces—John Murray, sallow and silent, his namesake Lord George, grim, determined, decided, the Duke of Perth, grey-lipped but calm, O’Sullivan, glib of tongue and reassurance, the chiefs, Lochiel, Keppoch, and many others, haggard with strain and suspense, all centred round the pale, graceful young man whose stake was mightier than theirs.

“They are playing with me, paltering with me.” Charles’s utterance sounded choked and passionate. “If we linger here, wasting precious time, the city may be relieved.” He stretched his long arms over the worn table. “I am in your hands, gentlemen. What do you advise?”

He looked so young and ardent, so pathetically helpless in his pleading, that some of them would have rased Edinburgh to the ground to gratify him. Lochiel’s suggestion of a night-surprise was caught up eagerly. Charles approved, and asked for volunteers.

“Who knows the locality?” he asked. “Murray?” The silent Secretary nodded. “Good! O’Sullivan, you had better go, and you, Keppoch. What, Ardshiel? Mais, certainly.” He held out a hand for each to kiss in turn. “Bring me back the keys of the city,” he laughed.

The lights of the little house and the glowworms of the camp were left behind. The dark mass of men moved silently through the night. It blew cold, and the leaders gathered their cloaks about their chins. A harvest moon got up and looked down with serene, unwinking contempt upon the march. They went by field-ways and over ditches, guided by Murray, alert and silent. They passed sufficiently near to the Castle to hear the voices of the sentries changing guard.

They carried gunpowder to blow up a gate, if necessary, but stratagem, not force, was wished for. Soundlessly they trod the way along the Pleasance and St. Mary’s Wynd, until the forbidding Netherbow Port checked further progress. The men were halted, and a long, cold wait ensued. Tall houses frowned down upon them, and secretive wynds opened between, that might shelter lurking enemies. They had met no one, alarmed no one, challenged no one.

Dawn was beginning to brighten the sharp sky, and the fires of hope and expectation burned lower. Secretary Murray, never a fighter, shivered and suggested an adjournment to the comparative shelter of Salisbury Crags. From this, they could send to Gray’s Mill, acquainting the Prince with their failure, and await his further orders. There was reluctant agreement, and the men were about to be massed for the retreat, when a heavy vehicle, lumbering empty down the High Street, cut the quiet.

At Gray’s Mill the Prince and Lord Elcho were exchanging reminiscences of past days, when Sir Thomas Sheridan inserted a disapproving head in the aperture of the door. “Is your Royal Highness not in bed yet?” he asked reproachfully.

“As you see, Sherry.” The Prince laughed and extended a hand in careless invitation.

“It’s two o’clock, child.” He contemplated Lord Wemyss’s heir with a severe eye. “Lord Elcho, you should not keep the Prince up.”

“Faith! I don’t think His Royal Highness looks like sleeping.” They both laughed.

Charles rose, lurched across the room, and flung his substantial weight down on the lumpy bed. Sheridan covered him with a plaid and a riding-cloak. The Prince took the other’s hand and snuggled his cheek against it. “Perhaps to-morrow night I shall lie in Holyrood,” he whispered. He drew the familiar face down to his own. “Oh, Sherry, how much hangs on to-night, and you bid me sleep!”

Sheridan kissed the forehead under the bright, disordered hair. “Of course you must, core of my heart. God bless you and keep you always.” He turned away, his eyes misty. “Come along, my lord, and tell me all about your bad doings in Paris,” he bade Elcho.

Some two hours later the Prince wakened to noise and clatter. Men ran up the stair, and broke into the room unceremoniously with shouting and congratulations. He sat, flushed and shining-eyed, listening to the incredible tale of the bloodless taking of Edinburgh town. The jealously-guarded gates had been thrown open for the exit of the returned deputies’ empty coach, and it was the work of a moment, coupled by quick wits and strong hands, for Lochiel to grip the porter and walk in. A guard was left at the gate, and the triumphant Camerons marched to the Cross. The town was Charles’s, without the firing of a single shot.

And now the mill hummed like a bee-hive with triumph and excitement. The Prince must make a state entry into the capital of his ancestors. He should go very fine, and to this end he clattered about, issuing contradictory orders, calling wildly for garments and help, chattering incessantly, flushed and appealing. Grave, older faces softened as he came out, with a blue sash over one slim shoulder, and a blue bonnet on the bright hair that Whig detractors maliciously called red. He was in wild spirits, kissing the miller’s buxom wife, hugging the miller’s children, wringing the leathery hand of the miller himself. When finally they had him in the saddle, he rent the peaceful heavens with a shriek. “My star! My order of St. Andrew! Oh! Oh! My lucky star! I will not go without it. Fetch it at once!”

Half a dozen willing volunteers dashed indoors, stuck on the stairs, argued and wrangled. Finally they returned empty-handed. The star was nowhere to be found. Charles sat obstinate and immovable. “I must have it, so no more words. I refuse to enter Edinburgh without it. Absolument non!”

Lord Elcho, with great courage, suggested that His Royal Highness might be wearing the elusive ornament. The Prince indignantly repudiated the idea, yet Elcho stuck to his guns. A deft inspection of the blue scarf revealed the treasure dangling precariously by one point from the silk. Charles, of course, was immensely surprised and indignant. “I never put it there,” he insisted calmly.

He rode off, with Elcho on his left hand, and the Duke of Perth on his right. At first he talked nonsense and asked questions, but as the city loomed closer his gaiety dropped from him. The brown eyes grew wistful, and he moved instinctively nearer Perth. His companion said something to him, and made him smile afresh.

Thus they came to the town, a haunted town for Charles, and a haunted palace to house him. A city of dead kings, and wits shrivelled by death. In its high, narrow confines, squalor and splendour jostled one another. The streets ran filth, and the towering buildings looked down with serene indifference. The eighteenth century was Edinburgh’s golden age, the ripe prime of her judges, historians, beauties, divines, and lawyers. Unluckily Charles, like Gallio, cared for none of these things. He was not intellectual, and, however much the Jacobite ladies might languish and ogle him, preferred his Highlanders.

He rode slowly, through wedges of enthusiastic, gaping, curious citizens. Edinburgh gave him a kinder reception than she afforded to his fair, frail ancestress Mary Stuart. Her it greeted with scowls, bagpipes, and haar. For Charles the haar kept at a distance, smiles and cheering replaced black looks, and he liked bagpipes very well indeed. The Whigs thought him melancholy, but the delight of the Jacobites frowned down criticism. He rode well, and looked his best on horseback. The cheers mounted to the clear sky, and his colour deepened as he realised all that this meant to him. The dreams of years, the visions of a lifetime which had brightened the dingy palace at Rome, were coming true. Holyrood threw open its doors to him, not as guest, sight-seer, or alien, but as its rightful prince and regent. He rode in through the great gateway, flanked by solid, non-committal walls that kept a thousand secrets. The inner court was sombre, a sunless square, whose grey, enclosing arms framed a space where the decaying summer’s brightness and the surging crowds outside had no place. Old Hepburn of Keith stepped forward as he dismounted, knelt to him, and with drawn sword led the way, the bright figure following.

The stone stairs were steep and worn. He walked up them lightly, easily, his proud young head erect. They brought him by way of the long, low gallery where vague, dim portraits gazed from the walls, and through a smaller panelled ante-chamber, to the bedroom where the ill-starred husband of the fairest Stuart had slept. Adjoining it were little rooms, mere slits framed in mellow panelling, lighted by narrow, latticed windows. He threw off his mood and smiled.

The long day of triumph ended. The King had been proclaimed at the Market Cross. His son had received the hand-kisses and compliments of beautiful women, the loyal assurances of some of the best blood of Scotland. At an elaborate supper he sat the central figure, regal, gracious, a jewel fitly seen in the sombre setting of this stately palace. Beyond the windows at the far end of the gallery, now astir with life and lights, the tracery of the old chapel showed black against a primrose sky. Even the dead, under its weather-stained flooring, need not have grudged him his hour.

His friends escorted him to bed in triumph, and remained in the room, the younger spirits chattering like magpies. He still kept Perth and Elcho near him, one on each of the high old chairs at either side of his canopied sleeping-couch. The rest sat about at the foot, on the floor, or clustered round the fireplace. The flames beat upon flushed, eager faces, youth and ambition in curious contrast with the dark walls, the secretive doors and little rooms, the sly, deep-set windows. The impending struggle, the battle that could not be long delayed, was in the background of all minds, but found its menace locked out of sight this night. The Prince talked and jested, during these brief hours at least a king, with pillows for a throne, and his bright hair as crown.

At midnight he sent them all away, demanding to be alone. Hours later Sheridan found him at a little window overlooking the courtyard, a ghostly form, staring out into the night. His eyes were wide and fixed. The crowd, which had lingered until late, cheering every time the fair head appeared, was dispersed. The steep, climbing wall of Salisbury Crags cut the indigo sky with a black outline. There were a few lights pricking up in the vague darkness of the town. The voices of the guard below stole up faint and thin in the eerie distance.

Sheridan put his arm round the slim, throbbing body. “Carluccio, darling, what is it? I thought you asleep hours since.”

“I cannot sleep. I am afraid to sleep.” He threw a fearful glance behind him at the dim, firelit room. “They are all here,” he whispered, “those Stuarts who reigned and danced and sinned before I was born. Can’t you see them, feel them?” He held Sheridan, and shook from head to foot. “There was blood shed in this place, and many died for them. I would not have men die for me, and yet nothing less will content me than a throne.”

Sheridan coaxed him back to bed, where he lay open-eyed until the dawn.