Chapter X: All for Him

In the middle of the little lawn Danforth stopped. A portion of the dismounted guard, on seeing their leader and Captain Jermain come from the Manor House door followed by their companions and the prisoners, gathered about him. The eight or ten who remained on horseback drew as close to the centre of investigation as was practicable. It was a spirited picture--the frowning gray house, all thrown open; the sunshiny grass-plot, covered with horses and men; the group of prisoners, at whom, from time to time, Danforth looked maliciously while Captain Jermain poured his angry tale in his ear.

"That will do, Captain!" the Colonel presently interrupted; "I think I understand the course of matters sufficiently to get to the bottom of them." He leaned against a tree. "Hark ye, Mr. Boyd," and he surveyed Gilbert amid his guards. "That you are responsible for both these acts I clearly see. You are an old traitor, an old traitor, sir! You merit the fullest punishment that you have too long escaped. But I am just, sir, I am perfectly just--I do not wish to visit more than he deserves upon even the worst Jacobite rascal that draws breath. Tell me, therefore, instantly, the whole of your share, first, in this shameful treachery to Captain Jermain, and, second, everything concerning this equally treasonable Armitage business."

With as calm deliberateness as if he had been announcing the fact to Lord George Murray or Lochiel, Gilbert responded: "The Highland prisoner, brought by Captain Jermain, I ordered set at liberty this morning by his sentry. At this hour they are both beyond your pursuit."

A general cry of wrath put a period to Boyd's response. Danforth smiled--smiled in his most sinister fashion. He muttered something to Jermain. Andrew did not take his eyes from his father's set face.

"Very well, Mr. Boyd," resumed Colonel Danforth; "so much for that! Now for the next. Have you entertained this Lord Armitage under your roof?"

"That question I decline to answer, Colonel Danforth," said Gilbert.

"Which is a silly way of saying 'yes.' How long since, Mr. Boyd?"

No reply. Other interests than his own were blended in a response to this. Unforced, Gilbert would not yield an inch here.

"How long since, I say, Mr. Boyd? So reluctant? Very good. Bring that lad here!"

Gilbert could not suppress a tremor and a stifled protest as he heard this sudden order and saw Andrew pushed forward. But a hand struck the Master of Windlestrae sharply across his mouth, he was seized on either side, made to stand turned about, with his back to his son and this English inquisitor, and so held fast.

"You heard what I last asked your father, boy? Now I'll try you--and mind you speak the truth. Has this Armitage been in Windlestrae Manor within one week?"

White and defiant, Andrew looked Danforth in the face; and, remembering Gilbert's behavior, was also mute. He glanced, too, at a sapphire ring upon his finger.

Cunning Danforth! He well guessed how speediest to reach his end. He made a sign. Boyd heard a certain confusion, but was held as if in a vice. In a twinkling Andrew's clothes were, not so much pulled, as torn from his back. Three burly dragoons forced the lad into a partially stooping position. A fourth raised a leathern whip with four or five lashes.

"Speak, insolent young dog!" cried Danforth; "answer my question!"

"I will not!" retorted Andrew, suddenly struggling.

"Give it to him, Foote!" shouted the Colonel.

A whish in the air--the blows of the thongs, and a boyish shriek!

"Again!" spoke Danforth; and again the hideous instrument descended, cutting into the bared white flesh and wringing confession of the agony it inflicted--no other confession.

But before the whip could again do its fearful office Boyd wrenched himself loose. He ran to his son's side with a cry of passion and horror and sacrifice. He threw his arms about Andrew, fettered as he was, fairly dashing the monsters off by his impetuous interposition.

"Stop, stop, for the love of God!" he exclaimed. "Colonel Danforth--Captain Jermain--spare the innocent! On me, on me, do what you will! I _have_ sheltered Lord Geoffry Armitage. He was the sentry who fled with the prisoner this morning. They are safe! Do your worst, but only to me; I am responsible for everything--everything! God send all such hunted men deliverance; and God send confusion on you and your king!"

A shout from the dragoons, a confused clamor from the helpless servants, and half a dozen quick sentences from the two officers followed.

Under such a revelation, Captain Jermain was with difficulty kept from a second personal assault on his late host. Without blenching, Gilbert stood firm until all the ebullition should subside. "Courage, my brave lad!" he said to Andrew; "we could only bring worse trouble on others by longer silence. We are in the hands of the Lord of Hosts--if the worst be death, He shall sustain us in that, too!"

Danforth turned upon Boyd, with a smile which was more ominous than a whole torrent of threats.

"Thank you, Mr. Boyd. I see you have prudence in emergencies as well as adroitness. I am satisfied with your admissions for this moment. The details I shall take opportunity of hearing in the guard-house at Neith. Ah, Barkalow, you have finished your search through the house? Did you get into that secret chamber with Captain Jermain's man? Very good. Holloa, there! Into the saddle, everybody! Captain Jermain, please order your men to mount! Croft, see that Boyd and his son have horses--it will save time. Release the servants! By Jove! we have made quick work this morning. Back to Neith, instantly!"

In five minutes Andrew and Gilbert found themselves the centre of a cordon moving slowly over the Manor lawn. Protest from the servants was useless; the weeping of the faithful women was rudely silenced. In front rode Colonel Danforth and his younger colleague, who was still tracing out, angrily, the night's work, with Roxley and Dawkin, and an occasional comment from gruff Lieutenant Barkalow. But just as they gained a slight eminence, close beside the rude gate-way of the Manor that opened into the Neith Road, the Colonel reined his horse and said to the Master:

"Boyd, what shall be done to you for this traitorous business I know not; nor shall I know until I draw out of you at Neith an accounting, down to the least detail. And I will draw it--expect that! But, for your insolence and stubbornness thus far, I can show you your reward, already."

He pointed back to the Manor House through the oaks. Four belated dragoons dashed up at the same moment. What had detained them explained itself at once. Faint cries from the terrified group left masterless about the open door; a column of smoke suddenly rising against the sky--the defenceless old house was fired! Two of Danforth's cruel emissaries had slipped around to the rear and set brands to the thatch of an odd wing. In a moment the flames leaped high in air, roaring and crackling, before the eyes of its owner and his heir.

Boyd groaned. But he said no word. He watched the destroyer blaze from casement to casement, seethe against the old stone walls and surge upward in rolling masses of smoke, consuming all that was perishable before it. He had to stand there and hear his live-stock career in a panic down distant lanes as the great barn caught in turn and swelled the conflagration. Andrew covered his face. He could not bear the spectacle.

Once, however, he looked across at his father, and observed him still determined not to give his tormentors the satisfaction of a word of protest or despair over what was leaving him a ruined man; but the strong old face was working convulsively, and the overarched eyes were filled with tears.

Long afterward, Andrew used to say that it was the only time that he remembered seeing his father shed them.

"On!" commanded Danforth, abruptly, "the show is over!"

The father and son were separated; neither could they converse. They rode along, now too miserable over the past to be concerned for the future. The laughing and talking of the dragoons they heeded no longer. Once Boyd was heard to say, in a suffocated voice, "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away!" He knew what that meant now.

After about an hour's slow progress, they entered a little defile between two low hills covered with pine-trees. As the middle of it was attained, Colonel Danforth, from the van of the column, raised his eyes to a covert, and then exclaimed, "Captain Jermain! Mr. Barkalow! Look up there--beside the white bowlder. Isn't that a man skulking?"

Before the other two could answer, a shot rang out on the breeze. A dragoon cried out in anguish and fell from his horse, dead. Another shot followed--another. The figures of several men were now discernible above, leaping between the trees.

"A surprise! a surprise! At them, every man of you! 'Tis a rescue!" called out Danforth and the other officers.

But the volley that hailed on them with this order was so full and galling that it struck the troop with panic. Men were calling out in pain, or falling, right and left. A wild slogan echoed above and around from the dense shrubbery. The horses plunged, their riders rolling in the dust under their hoofs. Encumbered with their steeds, the soldiers were utterly unprepared for such an ambush. Each second came the bullets from the ensconced sharp-shooters.

"Villains! cowards!" shouted Colonel Danforth; "will you fly from a pack of Highland wolves?" But as he lashed his horse up the bluff, what seemed to be the first of a horde of gigantic, half-crazed desperadoes rushed from the thicket upon the troopers, yelling again an undistinguishable cry, and brandishing naked weapons.

This was too much even for Danforth. Over the bodies of a dozen dead or dying men of his escort, and a struggling horse or two, he fled amain, with all his cohort, regardless of aid to comrades or securing the two prisoners. But as the dragoon conducting Andrew pushed away the boy, he fired his pistol full at him. Gilbert struck his arm aside. He diverted the bullet from his son's brain to his own shoulder. And then, in a flash, the defile was abandoned to these uncouth and unknown friends, so disguised that they could not be distinguished one from the other.

Amid a rush and sundry very disconnected reassurances, Gilbert and Andrew found themselves surrounded by their panting but victorious deliverers, and urged furiously up the almost inaccessible mountain-path.

"Ask no questions now! You shall hear all soon," said one of their flying escort; "you must first be safe." Gilbert was soon discovered to be in no condition to ask questions, or, indeed, more than endure so rough a journey. The wound, which in the excitement of their rescue he had thought little of, was bleeding profusely, and he turned presently very faint from pain and weakness. In astonishment at his fortitude, so far, the riders halted behind a pile of crags, and the hurt was looked to hastily by two young men. The bullet had entered the breast, glancing from the shoulder, and its dislodgement must be a work of better opportunity. They supported Gilbert on his horse for the rest of the way, he enduring the increasing torment and weakness manfully. But Andrew was not a little alarmed to see how much his father suffered and how haggard grew his face. They had, however, chance for but a few words now; Gilbert's resolution keeping up the speed of the party at a high rate, and mounted or unmounted members of it hurrying along with an astonishingly equal rapidity.

After half an hour's ride they galloped through a ravine where it was a miracle to find a track, so savage and sombre were the surroundings. Next, a deep glen began opening below them. From those beside them neither father nor son could yet gain a syllable of explanation as to how they had come to them in their extreme need nor whither they sped; indeed, all of them spoke a particularly guttural Gaelic. But with the certainty that he and his father were delivered, there came a new hope into Andrew's heart.

Nor was that hope checked. For, presently, flushed and breathless from their downward career, he and Gilbert suddenly passed through a vast cleft, some rods wide, between two cliffs at the foot of the last mountain-spur. A rude camp lay before them. Men and women, and even children, were moving about in it, and spoil of all sorts seemed to be piled up under the shelter of booths and trees.

"Huzzah!" rang a welcome to their guards.

"Huzzah!" replied the latter's shout, the horsemen throwing themselves to the turf; some of the band talking boisterously in Gaelic, others assisting the two Boyds to dismount and paying solicitous heed to Gilbert's suffering state.

Andrew set his feet on the earth. And then out from a hut hurried a dozen men, whose bearing at once asserted high rank and broken fortunes. But the foremost figure outsped them and ran forward, and caught Andrew in an embrace, amid an acclaim, "God save the Prince!" and all about Andrew and his father men and women were kneeling upon the green sod.

"Oh, my lord, my lord!" cried Andrew, looking up into Sir Geoffry's face; "are you here? God be praised!"

"Yes, Andrew," replied the knight, with one hand upon the boy's shoulder, but extending the other to Gilbert, who knelt, despite his exhaustion, before his late guest, in a sudden awe and amazement that even the morning's terrible experiences could not check. "Yes, Andrew, I am here, dearest lad--I, your friend; and, some day, please Heaven!--your King!"