White Cockades: An Incident of the "Forty-Five" — John Shaqi
White Cockades: An Incident of the "Forty-Five"Prime-Stevenson, Edward
General
White Cockades: An Incident of the "Forty-Five"
Prime-Stevenson, Edward
Jacobite Rebellion, 1745-1746 -- Fiction
Lord Armitage complied. He must have expected, indeed, some special
recognition; for at the sound of that low-spoken name, "Hugh Chisholm,"
he bent toward the other man, and in a distinct tone and with a
piercingly anxious glance he repeated it--"Hugh Chisholm? Can it be
the same Chisholm? And if you be from the Braes of Glenmoriston, and
are sent to find in high-road or hedge one Lord Geoffry Armitage, and
answer to his challenge of the Lost Cause"--and he whispered it--"I am
he whom you seek, he who has despaired of meeting you or your fellows
since he left Sheilar."
The self-control of the other seemed for an instant nearly overthrown.
He murmured some words in a foreign tongue, with so passionate an
inflection that Lord Armitage checked him.
"'Tis as I scarcely dared hope!" said the latter, continuing in the
fluent French which his overjoyed interlocutor seemed entirely to
understand. "Yes, you find me here. And that it should be you, and I,
I not recognize you at sight! Did Patrick Grant send to Sheilar? I
see; I had left the house before the message could get thither. Here,
let me cut those thongs--the hounds, to so tighten them!"
Lord Armitage severed them; and he who had endured them was with
difficulty prevented from kneeling at his feet, in what may have been
a thrill of delight and gratitude--or another feeling. But there was
only too much employment for the few moments, any one of which was
liable to fatal interruption. As it was, some outside sound made their
hearts stop beating; but all remained calm again, and they spoke on in
lower and quicker voices.
"I would have been here early this afternoon but for this luckless
meeting with Jermain and his men on the road, and their capture of me.
I had a companion with me, Rab Kaims, but he escaped in the forest. I
was in despair when they bound me; but scarcely could I believe my
senses when I found that they had turned to Windlestrae, the very
place where Grant expected us to find you! I was able to breathe part
of my tidings in the ear of that lad--Boyd's son, I fancy--awhile
since. He told you? So! My security rested in my feigning to be more
wretched and wounded than I am. But, oh, Heaven! your daring, my
gracious lord, bewilders me. Suppose that----"
"Suppose nothing, Chisholm! Long ago in Paris I used to tell you that
destiny would support me through any peril. But what brings Danforth
here so unlooked for?"
"In Neith, the garrison and he have suddenly suspected Boyd's politics
to be quite mistaken hereabouts. Danforth gathered that a refugee had
taken flight from Sheilar Manse in this direction. Yesterday Patrick
Grant had word from Neith that Danforth was for riding over here after
sunrise, examining Boyd and formally searching this manor. He comes;
and you must be far away!"
"I far away, Chisholm? Truly. But where? Surely you cannot convey me
to--to the place of which you and I know, in the short time between
now and day-break?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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