Chapter III: "in the King's Name."

He need not have had any misgivings. The rugged face of the Master of Windlestrae underwent rapid changes as he listened to his young son's breathless story. Then he came striding across to the fugitive nobleman with outstretched palm. Andrew looked delighted enough at this quick show of cordiality to a man by whom he already was not a little fascinated.

As the elder Boyd halted in front of Lord Geoffry the latter instantly decided that he had seldom seen a more naturally commanding figure and a face fuller of resolution than this transplanted Englishman's--his tall, sturdy form, iron-grizzled hair, and keen gray eyes.

"Welcome, welcome, my lord!" he exclaimed; "welcome to the board and hearth of Windlestrae! My son has bidden you be so, and I echo his greeting. Surely all Scotland is at the service of those who have drawn blade for--its rightful sovereign."

The two men shook hands, and Boyd's mighty grip thrilled Lord Armitage's heart. He tried to falter out something about being "an ill-omened bird to flutter to so peaceful a roost."

"Peaceful? Tut, tut, my lord, no roost is peaceful when there be so many hawks in the air. Andrew, lad, run--hasten to the Manor before us. Bid Girzie and Mistress Annan prepare supper and all things suitable for our guest. I must trouble Lord Geoffry with questionings and doubtless make him many answers, while we shall come after you."

Andrew sped away toward the house, which ended the lane. The two older men came on more slowly.

"First, my lord," began Gilbert Boyd, "as my son has surely told you, you have come to the house in this neighborhood where you will be safest from pursuit. My good friends hereabouts have never forgot that my father was Southern-born and that I speak Scotch only when I must. Hence it follows that I am worthy to be hanged as a traitor. For once, though, I am glad that I stand in such sorely false light. The soldiers have troubled themselves little about Windlestrae, and have ransacked many of the loud-mouthed patriots instead."

"And you have had no raidings from Colonel Danforth's troop?" asked Lord Geoffry.

Boyd laughed disdainfully. "His soldiery have occasionally moved toward the Manor, my lord, but even that seldom. I confess, I have been surprised at my good fortune. One afternoon Danforth and his company galloped past the crossroads, a couple of miles down yonder, and asked one of my neighbors, 'Who lives up yonder?' 'Boyd of Windlestrae,' says the lad. 'Well, then, we'll go no further up that way to-day!' cries Danforth; 'that man Boyd is as sound a Whig as ourselves and his wine is most properly bad.' So away they rode, good riddance to them."

"Safe for long or not, I can at least be sure of a supper and a bedchamber less airy than a tree," Lord Armitage responded cheerily; "and both I will enjoy, although Danforth suddenly alter his mind and come to open every closet in your Manor House."

"Hm!" grunted Boyd, with a peculiar expression. "He will hardly do _that_."

They passed thatched barns and low stables. It was now growing murky and dark. The Manor House was next reached, a rambling but dignified structure, built of gray stone and apparently remarkably roomy and comfortable. Gilbert pushed open the thick oaken door and motioned his guest to enter. One or two servants were hurrying along the wainscoted hall, running in and out of a dining-parlor. Andrew appeared from this, and with him an elderly woman, Mistress Janet Annan, the housekeeper, who courtesied to the master and the unexpected guest. Andrew's mother had died in giving birth to her only child.

The hall and aforesaid dining-parlor were brightly lighted. The excellent supper--to which Lord Armitage did ravenous justice, seconded by Andrew--was hurried through in silence; Boyd absorbed in ministering to the wants of his guest. In the Manor it was already rumored that the master had suddenly met an old friend; and this explanation satisfied the present curiosity of the servants' hall.

"To-morrow morning they shall be told the truth," Boyd said reflectively. "They must not be permitted to gossip. They are all loyal-hearted men and women. And now, my lord," he continued, as Lord Geoffry pushed back his chair from the table and exclaimed, "I am quite another man already!" in his refreshment--"now you must to your rest without a moment's loss. To-morrow we can discuss together the means of forwarding you to the sea-coast. Candles, son Andrew! To the Purple Chamber."

Andrew led the way up a staircase of very respectable breadth and ease. The room designated as "the Purple Chamber"--from sundry faded hangings--proved a fair-sized apartment with three casements and a low-studded ceiling. A formidable four-posted bed and accompanying furniture graced it, and a trifle of fire flickered on the hearth. Gilbert locked the door, as Andrew set down the candlesticks on a tall chest of drawers. "Nay, wait my lad," he said, as he turned toward the door, "I have something to impart to both our guests and you."

In some surprise, Andrew returned and leaned against one of the heavy chairs in silence.

"My lord," began Boyd, turning to Armitage, "you spoke a while ago of Danforth searching the very closets--was it?--of Windlestrae Manor, if once his suspicions that it sheltered such refugees as yourself should be stirred. I care not if he do--provided no earthquake and no traitor disclose to him one of them, built in this old rookery long before my father bought it and added to it. Until this day have I preserved one secret of it from you, son, with the rest. There opens from the wall yonder as snug a hiding-hole as any in Scotland."

"A secret chamber!" ejaculated both Boyd's auditors, following the pointing of his hand.

"Ay," replied he, approaching Andrew, with a smile upon his grim features. "The Mouse's Nest--so my father heard it called. I doubt not that it hid many a Jacobite in the first uprising. Andrew, is yonder door locked? Good. Now mark!"

Boyd pushed back the hangings and pressed his hand steadily on the joining of the wainscot at some spot which he identified after an instant's quick scrutiny. To Andrew's intense astonishment, part of the jamb of the chimney-piece slid back into the thickness of the wall. A narrow door-way was revealed leading into darkness.

Andrew was more surprised at the existence of this unsuspected mystery than Lord Armitage. The latter had been shown many similar hiding-places in old French and English mansions, he declared.

"Let us within," Gilbert Boyd said; and they passed into a long and narrow sort of closet, not more than five feet wide, but of six or seven times that length. Gray stone, above, below--everywhere; rough-hewn and clammy; no plastering. The place would have been scarcely at all lighted, and that only at its upper end, without the candles carried by Boyd. An opening a few inches square, that Andrew discovered, some ten feet above their heads, seemed constructed only to admit air, although a faint light also found entrance thereby.

On the floor lay two or three stag-skins, and a couple of small stools, a taper, and flint and steel; and a pallet in the farther corner completed the furnishings.

Lord Armitage and Andrew surveyed the place curiously, and Gilbert explained the means of opening it and securing the panel from within.

"It has not been used in my recollection, my lord," he said, laughing, as the jamb reclosed. "I trust it may not be; yet if Danforth come too close, your retreat is secure; and I warrant you one he will not fathom! Knowing that I have such a guest-room for such a guest is a rare satisfaction to me to-night."

Father and son then bade the young refugee good-night and left him to get to bed; he declining all valeting from Andrew. Lord Geoffry was indeed so exhausted, and the homespun sheets of Mistress Annan's purveyance seemed so cool, that he fell back into them, asleep, almost as he touched them.

That sound repose lasted far into the afternoon of the next day. The Manor House was kept quiet by the master's order, lest word or foot-fall should waken the young knight out of season. He left his chamber, on Andrew's arm, as the tall clock on the landing of the staircase struck four.

"Ha! you look like a new man!" exclaimed Gilbert; "your color has come back; your eye sparkles like a live coal!"

Seated at the table in the dining-room, the master showed that, while his guest had slept, he had not been careless for his welfare. In the first place, the trustworthy servants of the Manor had been solemnly informed of the situation at morning prayers, and each one pledged to secrecy and assistance.

"And when do you think that I can proceed eastward to the sea-coast?" asked Lord Geoffry, anxiously.

"Within three weeks, I trust," replied the master--"not before. Inside of that time I shall have marked out your route for you, and started you in loyal hands upon it from one shelter to the other. In the meantime, you must abide here with us plain folk of Windlestrae. I am glad to say that we have heard no more of Danforth to-day."

Nor came there any such unwelcome tidings. The day passed quietly, each hour benefiting Lord Armitage in body and spirit. The second night that he slept under the Manor's roof was spent as tranquilly as the first. His strength and vivacity were doubled by it. The next few days he did nothing but eat and sleep, or, shut up for the most part within the comfortable Purple Chamber, talk with Andrew and Boyd or Mistress Annan of his travels and hardships. The rest and a sense of security did him worlds of good, and he grew more entertaining and full of merriment each hour of it.

"I never saw such a fellow!" Gilbert remarked once to Mistress Annan. "One would think that he were at ease and freedom in some court, instead of in daily danger of a hanging! What a careless, happy temper! Hearken to him, laughing this minute with my lad, as though he had never a trouble in the world!"

"And I am na sorry for it, sir," Mistress Annan stoutly responded; "'tis o' God's favor that his heart is sae licht! Wad ye hae the puir man gae roun' wi' the shadow o' the gibbet in front o' his twa bonny eyes?" Mistress Annan, in truth, was quite bewitched with Lord Geoffry's engaging glances and his gay tongue.

Both Andrew and his father observed one thing--how little the young exile spoke of England; of his home there, or of the Lowland life and cities. But he explained this one morning by confessing that he had lived most of his life in Paris, his only brother, Guy, looking after the family estate.

"I am more a Frenchman than an Englishman, I fear," he admitted, smiling; and often, as if unconsciously, he would begin a sentence in the French, that seemed to come upon his lips spontaneously; and the light songs he hummed were echoes of the gay days of Fontainebleau and the court of Louis XV. But, French or English, all the little household agreed that a more gallant, a jollier spirit had never sat at their table, or whiled away long evenings with reminiscences of famous men, fair women, and strange adventures.

It was not until the third day, by the way, that they discovered him to be a Roman Catholic; but then so great a proportion of the Stewart adherents were of the older faith that Gilbert was not displeased. Besides, the refugee was quite as devout at the morning and evening prayers and accompanying Bible-reading of the Manor family as Mistress Annan herself. That good woman was so edified by Lord Geoffry's respect to religion and solemn recognition of Providence in his escapes that she confessed to Girzie Inglis, her head hand-maiden: "Aiblins thae Papists are nae all sic children o' the Deil, as I hae been tauld! Yon's a gude young man--a gude young man! The Lord bring him to mair pairfect licht!"

So passed four days. At noon of the fourth the sky was overcast. In less than an hour thick mist and rain shut out almost all the light, and it grew so dark that the Manor had to be illumined by candles. At supper everybody was in the best of moods; Gilbert at the head of the table, the red firelight showing his grim face relaxed as he listened to Lord Geoffry's keen speeches; Andrew next the knight; and Mistress Annan forgetting to put her cup to her lips or adjust her cap more trimly, in her reluctant enjoyment of such unaccustomed fun. "I fear me 'tis no Christian behavior in me to be sae frivolous!" her Presbyterian conscience whispered; but she laughed all the more in spite of the Presbyterian conscience. Neil Auchcross, Boyd's main manager of the farm, was the only other person for whom a cover was laid. The table was bountifully spread, and Mistress Annan had set it with their store of silver, in honor of Lord Geoffry. In the kitchen the more menial servants were also supping.

Suddenly, in a brief silence throughout the dining-parlor, there came a sound to the ears of each one present. It struck them all alike with alarm. Lusty voices, not far off, were singing together.

"Hark!" exclaimed Boyd, "what do you think that sound can be?"

Auchcross leaped up and threw open the heavy window.

Through the mist and darkness rang into the cheerful old room the notes of a familiar drinking-song:

... "King George, God bless him forever!
And down with the _White Cockades!_"...

The trampling of hoofs, the dull clank of steel, accompanied this chorus, borne on the murky breeze of the night.

"Danforth's cavalry!" cried Boyd and Auchcross.

"What! coming up toward Windlestrae?" exclaimed Lord Geoffry, springing from his seat.

"I fear it--I fear it!" muttered Boyd, leaning out of the casement into the driving mist. The rest hearkened at his back, breathless.

The roystering voices, the thud of hoofs and a single whinny, sounded nearer than before.

Gilbert drew himself quickly inside the room again and pulled Neil and the shutters with him.

"It is! It is Danforth!" he cried. "This misty night, of all others! We have not a moment to waste! They may have set out directly for the Manor to see what discoveries can be made here. Very good! Andrew, ask no questions, but assemble all the household in the hall! Neil, go you to find Hugh and Malcolm. My lord, with me to the Purple Chamber--and the Mouse's Nest!"

The singers in their saddles were not fifty yards off by the time Andrew, Neil, and Mistress Annan had executed Boyd's orders, in ignorance of what was to be gained by them; and seen the four or five women and as many men-servants, constituting the Windlestrae household, seated on the benches and stools in the hall. Each one knew what was the imminent danger which had stolen a march on them and their guest. Each was prepared to do all possible to avert it. Mistress Annan and the maids were so white and trembling that Andrew feared discovery through their very looks. But Armitage was his next thought. Turning his back on the confused and whispering group in the hall, he dashed up-stairs.

"Back, son!" Gilbert Boyd exclaimed, sternly, catching the lad in his arms on the landing-place. "Back, I say! He is safe!"

"Safe? Lord Geoffry? Is he in the Mouse's Nest? Oh, father, tell me!"

The sound of the singing, mingled with calls and something like argument, as if the intruders were discussing the direction of the Manor House in the fog, now were clearly audible. Boyd sprang down-stairs into the hall, drawing Andrew with him.

"Girzie!" cried he--"Mistress Annan! They have turned up from the gate! Bring candles--candles--from the table."

They were back with them at once, the grease dripping to the floor through the trembling of their hands. Gilbert motioned them all not to move from the settles along the wainscot. "Sit ye still there," he whispered, hoarsely. He dropped into an arm-chair beside the candles, flapped open some book which he carried, and exclaimed, in a firm voice, "Let us sing the praise--of God--in the Thirtieth Psalm."--and thereupon led off the verse!

Andrew caught the idea that lay behind this extraordinary conduct. But could Windlestrae seem to Colonel Danforth a quiet Scotch household, engaged in the usual family prayers, untroubled by trembling hearts or the care of a Jacobite refugee?

Somehow or other he and the rest found voice to unite in the psalm with the master. Those approaching outside heard the melody. Then came a louder trampling, the thud of dismounting riders, loud, coarse accents, and spurs jingling on the very porch.

A thundering knock broke off the Thirtieth Psalm in its second verse. Mistress Annan gasped audibly in terror.

"Halloo there! Open, in the King's name!" rang out a stern voice.

"Andrew, open the door!" commanded Gilbert.

Andrew obeyed.