White Cockades: An Incident of the "Forty-Five"

by Edward Prime-Stevenson

"Unhand my father, villain!" the intrepid boy called out, springing like a tiger-cat on the uncouth dragoon. With a blow from his doubled fist he struck stout Roxley much more effectively than the rules of his Lordship of Queensberry now sanction—aiming at, in a gastronomic as well as a pugilistic sense, Roxley's most attackable spot—and at the same time seized him by the windpipe. Roxley, roaring and gasping, released Gilbert; then strove to clutch this puissant enemy. The mêlée might have become general, for the room rang with exclamations and threats and the scuffle of feet. But Boyd snatched Andrew to his side, waved away the servants, and cried, "Peace! peace, I say! This is no time for a brawl over a boy. Captain Jermain, command yonder fellow to keep his hands for men, not children. Andrew, leave the room."

Scarcely had Gilbert uttered such words when hasty steps came along the corridor. A cry of surprise echoed from the hall. The angry group turned. They beheld in the door-way a new participant—a short, spare little officer, of perhaps forty-five years, with grizzled hair, a thin face, set lips, and a pallid color. He stretched out his hand at the astonished disputants.

"No! Neither Andrew nor any other person must leave the room. Mr. Boyd, you and these comrades here seem not to have expected visitors so early."

It was Colonel Danforth. At his back appeared half a dozen other soldiers. Without the house were reined six times as many. The confusion within enabled the Colonel to make one of those quiet advents so dear to his cunning heart; and he had hastened up from the nearly deserted lower story to share in the extraordinary fracas, visible as well as audible through the open windows of the East Room, as he and his men had trotted up below.

With grim pleasure, he stood there. He observed the consternation his presence brought. This small, invalid-looking man! Was he the soldier never accused by his comrades of humor except to wound; devoid of enthusiasm except in cruelty, of clemency save to the dead, or, indeed, of any emotions but those allied to a ferocity and vindictiveness from which a Malaccan pirate might have borrowed?

"Captain Lionel Jermain, I believe," he said, advancing carelessly through the roomful, and still extending his hand. "This is an unexpected meeting, Mr. Boyd. I give myself the honor of this very early visit—that is, to you, not your guests—upon a matter of some import; but I am glad to find acquaintance already before me. You seem agitated here. May I take the liberty of asking you, Captain, from what has arisen this altercation? Or you, Mr. Boyd? I may be able to adjust it."

The quick, decisive voice ceased. The speaker fixed his eyes on Gilbert, though he addressed Jermain. The Captain, seeing his way very clear to violent methods of uncovering the whole puzzle and revenging himself upon fate and Windlestrae for it, saluted, assumed a more soldier like attitude and demeanor, and said, with an angry glance at Gilbert: "Colonel, you know me. I am not one to groundlessly accuse. I have lodged with Mr. Boyd overnight. I charge him with promoting the escape of a Jacobite prisoner whom I bestowed in yonder strong-room under his direction."

"And I charge that young soldier with behavior unworthy a gentleman and an officer—drunkenness, abuse, and assault, and I throw his accusation back into his face," returned Boyd, speaking clearly and decidedly. But he drew Andrew closer as he uttered his brave defiance. The worst had come to the worst; and it was now simply a question of manly behavior and the end appointed by Providence.

"Ha!" spat out Danforth, with a flash darting from his small eyes that betokened instant thunder, "is this the trouble? Ah, I am not surprised, Captain. Mr. Boyd seems to be a man concerning whom most of us have oddly been at fault. Mr. Boyd, I have heard both sides, I presume? In turn, I must inform you that I have come to you this morning to determine whether or not you have in hiding at present in your house, or have been so secreting for certain days, a Jacobite refugee—another one, I take it—named Lord Geoffry Armitage. Will you be good enough to answer whether you have known aught of the movements of such a person?"

Boyd stared back in rigid silence. Whatever he might have said—always within the truth—he had no chance to prove. For, at the mention of his gallant friend's name, Andrew, in horror and utter despair, sank gasping in a half-faint. Boyd caught him or he would have fallen at his feet, and kneeling, with his son upon his arm, looked silently up at Danforth, like an old lion beside its tormented whelp.