"My lord," he said to the Pretender, after a long look at Andrew, "I am dying. I pass away, here, in this green-wood, stretched at your feet, not making obeisance before you when you shall be seated on the throne of your fathers. Will you grant me a last request? By one promise you can repay all this debt which, while it lies lightly, ay, joyfully, on my heart, you say is a burden to yours."
"Oh, Boyd, Boyd—anything—everything!" exclaimed Charles, the tears filling his blue eyes.
"Unto you, then, do I commit my son. Defend him, care for him, so far as Heaven shall permit. He is as a wild partridge upon the mountains now; as art thou. But I see it, I feel it, the God of Strength shall lead thee and him hence; yea, shall deliver thee in safety from this land, and grant to thee long life and a death upon a peaceful pillow. Henceforth, remember my lad. Swear to me that thou wilt, so far as shall be in thy power, be his guardian, his protector forevermore."
"I swear it," replied Prince Charles, solemnly, taking the sobbing Andrew's hand again in his own. "I call these about us to my witness. Whither I go, shall he go; and where I lodge, shall he lodge."
"You mark?" asked Boyd, with painful eagerness, turning his eyes to those on the right and left of his couch. "So may it be! Andrew, to thy king do I commit thee. Live thou for him—die thou for him as do I, if need be. Lean over—kiss my forehead. Ah, thy face looks like thy mother's, boy, when I wedded her under the green holms at Dunmorar. So!—my lord, with this Mouse's Nest we defy Danforth——Quick, Mistress Janet, bring the candles!—we must not lose a moment! It is life and death! Captain Jermain, Captain Jermain, you can not lodge in the Purple Chamber!"——And then, with a few more muttered incoherencies in his delirium, the heroic soul of the Master of Windlestrae fled.
One by one the circle drew back or slipped away, leaving only the Prince and Andrew gazing through their tears on the face upturned to the waving oak. Presently Surgeon MacCollum came and gently laid a cloak over the still form. The sobbing Andrew was drawn away. But Charles remained on his knees, praying inaudibly, beside the dead Master's body.
CHAPTER XII.
L'ENVOI.
Perhaps history can best remind the reader of what followed. How, after some further but slighter peril, Charles Stewart was guided, by other devoted friends, by way of Bowalder and Auchnagarry, to the Castle of Lochiel and the longed-for sea-coast—one can read this for himself. There rode at anchor—oh, sight of inexpressible comfort!—the two French vessels L'Heureux and La Princesse de Conti, sent by the exiled Chevalier from Morlaix Harbor, France, and waiting until the fugitive's approach, so frequently despaired of. In L'Heureux, on the night of September 20, 1746, Charles Stewart embarked for France, with one hundred and thirty other exiled and beggared followers. From its deck, nine days later, did the unfortunate heir to the throne of the Stewarts step to the beach at Roscoff, near Morlaix—able, for the first time in weary months, to draw a free breath and look about him in perfect safety; his hopes of a kingdom broken at his back like egg-shells.
But history, which seldom has space for such trifles, does not state that ever at the Prince's side, upon sea or land, from the hour of his departure from Glenmoriston and its outlaws, there was a Highland lad, toward whom the exile showed a quiet care and affection, never for an instant relaxed, and of a sort that won the notice of all who encountered them. Little was said of his antecedents or his story. The Prince desired no questions upon the matter; but he and his gallant looking protégé seemed inseparable even in private.
And when the fugitive made that almost royal entrance to Fontainebleau to meet Louis XV., in a carriage following his own, clad in deep mourning, rode Andrew Boyd, usually spoken of as "that young Scotchman—the special confidential secretary of the Prince."