Chapter II: A Story and a Shelter

"You would hear more of--Culloden?" began the fugitive. "Not from me! I headed a charge of foot under Lord George Murray on that fatal day. My men were cut to pieces before my eyes. I, after what last, desperate stand for liberty one arm could make against a score of the enemy, was taken prisoner in a ditch--in a ditch, like a fox or a badger!----"

"But you escaped?" Andrew interrupted.

"Ay, I escaped, after three days of starvation and brutality. The hand of God seemed to deliver me--I know not what else to call that series of events that saw me free and able to fly for my life. Favored again by a dozen happy occurrences I reached these mountains. They are swarming with gallant fellows as unlucky as myself. Now some brave Highlander sheltered me in his cottage; now I lay, night after night, in holes and caves, when the English troops who scout the hillsides for refugees came too close to my retreat. Some weeks ago I ventured to come westward, and Solomon McMucklestane, the old minister at Sheilar Kirk, received me into his manse. He hid me there, he, at the risk of his all. I have had a brief respite for rest and the regaining of my strength."

"Have you been forced to turn from Sheilar also?" said Andrew, who listened with the deepest interest to the Jacobite's tale.

"Yes. You have heard that Colonel Danforth has lately begun his searches in the neighborhood of Sheilar? It seems that he has lately got wind of the fact that the neighborhood hides one or two lurking Jacobites. My reverend host was warned upon Monday that he and his manse were suspected. I was obliged to be off again. On Tuesday night I quitted him, directed by him to your father, and expecting to reach your farm yesterday. I saw soldiery and abandoned the highway. My path of uncertainty over these wild slopes I quickly lost. With only glimpses of the pallid Loch yonder to guide me, I have wandered in desperation. I slept last night airily--in a stout yew. This evening the sound of your axe all at once caught my ear. I followed it. You can understand that I should think it best to study your face and appearance from the shelter of the thicket before advancing to a stranger. My excitement and fear of your observing me made me careless, I presume, for I did not notice how nearly your wooden King George was done for until too late to escape his clutches. (I hope it is not an omen.) Down came the oak, and I under it.

"Such is my story, friend Andrew. I am glad to have found one from your household at last. You see before you," and Lord Geoffry again smiled bitterly, "no English spy--only a hunted, hiding follower of the Prince, come to beg for your father's and your pity, and to pray for shelter until escape from this dangerous region is possible. It has never seemed less so than now."

Andrew could contain himself no longer.

"What a blessed chance was it which led me to stay here a couple of hours later than I purposed; simply to finish bringing down that oak! Ah, my lord! You do not know my father! I do. You will be welcome a hundred times to our house, and all that we have. It will go hard if you quit Windlestrae, except in safety. Let us lose no more time in getting down to the Manor, and my father's presence. To him must you tell over your story and at once receive the earnest of his help."

"God bless you both! and after a night's rest I shall be better able to hear and discuss new plans for my welfare," said Lord Geoffry. "A little food might not be amiss either," he added carelessly. There was a peculiar sweetness in his smile and an air of dignity which had already made its fascination felt upon young Andrew Boyd.

"Ay, this _is_ a soldier indeed," the lad thought, "able to endure peril, and hunger, and thirst, and fatigue, and laugh over them!"

The boy caught up his bonnet and plaid and thrust the axe under the oak's trunk. "Take my arm, my lord," he urged courteously. The wearied man accepted it, and they set out.

"There are some questions I ought to ask, friend Andrew, while we go," said the young nobleman, as they entered a narrow, stony path leading upward from the glade. The sunless sky was still bright overhead. "First of all, have the soldiery been prowling around your Manor or its neighborhood?"

"Until lately they have scarcely shown themselves near us. Colonel Danforth and his dragoons are stationed at Neith--as you too well know--with orders from the Duke of Cumberland to arrest any suspected Jacobites. But we have seen nothing of Danforth or his band."

"And what of the Duke himself and the garrison to the northeast, at Fort Augustus?"

"They have been equally quiet. The Manor lies midway between both garrisons; the troopers have harried the settlements closer to their hand. But--but--there is a better reason, my lord, for Windlestrae's being let alone."

"And what is that? Your father's friend, at Sheilar, I think hinted at some special one. I did not pay the heed which I should to his words."

"Why, my lord, my grandfather was an Englishman like yourself; and my father lived thirty years upon English ground, and spoke the English tongue before he came hither to live. Our Scottish neighbors have always counted us Whigs! They have never ceased to suspect my father of favoring the cause of King George--though he has said many a bold word for the Lost Cause. Worse still, my father was too ill to enlist under the Prince, as he would gladly have done; and this has set our neighbors yet more bitterly against him. We have no character as patriots, sir."

"You think that the English troops in the town and at the Fort hold your father a good partisan of their own king?"

"Exactly, my lord; and hence is it, I am sure, that our Manor has been so let alone by the enemy during these past weeks of spying and searching. The ill-color of my father's name shall stand you in good stead. There is no house in Scotland where a Jacobite would less be thought a-lurking or protected. But my father has felt the unkind opinions of his Scotch neighbors very deeply."

"Strange!" said Lord Geoffry, as if to himself, "the hand of heaven seems to lead me still. To find, in the heart of Scotland, Englishmen who are loyal to the Stewarts!"

While they spoke the lad guided Lord Geoffry rapidly along the flinty, steep path, which did not admit of their now walking side by side. It so continually twisted and turned and the trees shut it in so closely that Lord Armitage presently confessed that he could not imagine which point of the compass lay before him.

"We cross directly over the top of this mountain, my lord," explained Andrew. "Windlestrae Manor lies in the valley. We shall presently go down by a steep mountain-road which our wood-cutters use, after we reach a clearing on the summit of the hill, whence you might be able to trace all your late wanderings from Balloch and get a glimpse of the chimneys of the Manor also."

Sure enough, our two quick walkers presently attained exactly this spot--the crown of the ridge. A remarkable prospect was to be viewed from it. The loch lay behind them; on the left, a wooded, rugged extent of country, stretching toward Neith; and descending from their feet, the mountain waving with foliage. In the valley below Sir Geoffry could distinctly see some substantial buildings and tall chimney-pots.

"The Manor," said Andrew, pointing at these last. To the north continued the plain, with wild hills on the west closing the scene--altogether a savage Inverness landscape, not less romantic in the evening light.

But neither wished now to tarry for gazing. They left the cleared space behind. At once began the descent of the hill. Their course was almost a series of plunges. They darted between bowlders, they overleaped trees fallen across the scarcely traceable path; they sprang over tiny cascades pouring down the slope. The excitement of such a rapid journey made Armitage forget well-nigh everything except keeping breath and footing. Andrew noticed that he was not much the better mountaineer of the two.

They landed in a glen at the foot of the mountain. "We cross this," explained Andrew. They did so, and as well two tracts of boggy land. Grain-fields and hay-ricks succeeded, and then the barns and Manor House of Windlestrae were suddenly looming before them. Lord Geoffry perceived that Andrew's father must be a man of wealth. Just as he was about to ask the boy whether it would be well for them to enter the house together, Andrew exclaimed, "Huzzah! There is my father this minute!"

"Where?" asked Lord Armitage, eagerly.

"He comes yonder, through the gate, talking with two of the farm-hands. He usually walks here after his supper."

From the southwest corner of the field approached Gilbert Boyd. He was a tall, gray-haired man, decidedly English in style and feature, but dressed in the usual attire of a Highland landholder of the best rank. He appeared engaged in an excited discussion with two stalwart servants accompanying him. Andrew and his companion could catch the sound of the uplifted voices. Andrew put his fingers to his lips and whistled shrill. The elder Boyd, startled by the sound, stopped short in a sentence and looked up. He perceived Andrew and the stranger advancing.

"Stay you where you are," Lord Geoffry heard him say quickly to the tall servants. Gilbert then came on alone. The fugitive began to wonder what sort of a reception awaited him.