They slept far into the overcast morning. And when they rose a further bond had been established between them, that no earthly trial could ever put asunder.
He was a man, and she was his woman.
Eighteen
The Lord Henry Purceville, Governor of MacPherson Castle and the Northern Garrison, awoke in the worst possible humor. He had quarreled bitterly with his son the night before, after being informed that one of his cavalrymen had died in disgrace, and another deserted rank in consequence. His head throbbed from the excesses of food and drink that had become habitual with him; the whore that lay sleeping beside him (his mistress) stank of his own corruption; and the prisoners he had been charged to find, in the most demanding terms, still eluded him. In the chill of early morning, he felt every day of the fifty-three years he bore.
Of all these circumstances, the quarrel with his son troubled him most deeply. It was not so much the fact of a dispute, all too common between them, as the disturbing revelation which had come from it.
Because no man, no matter how far he has strayed from the path of wisdom, wants to appear low and cowardly in the eyes of his son. And no man, retaining from childhood the slightest memory of loving female attention, can wantonly desecrate the altar of motherhood without a latent stab of conscience. Yet both these things had now risen up to haunt him, in the form of a daughter he had never seen.
If the bastard child had been a boy (as he had vaguely imagined, when he thought of it at all), the problem might have been more easily reconciled and acted upon, one way or the other. But a young woman, and still more, a young woman who had evidently sparked some feeling of affection in his son---the only person he cared for in the world---this was far more complicated.
Sending his mistress to the floor with a savage kick, he bellowed for his servants, ordered her dismissed, then sent for his son to learn the particulars of the MacCain girl. He was a man of action, and action would be taken.
One way or the other.
It was the widow Scott who woke them. A premonition of danger had come to her, and whether real or imagined, she would take no chances so long as her son remained a wanted man. She knocked on their door as the mantle clock struck eleven, and asked them to dress quickly and come out, that they might formulate precautions in the event that mounted soldiers, or other unwanted strangers appeared at the house.