And Rupert, sharing the Prince’s dangers and his confidence more closely every day, rode up and down among the hills like a man possessed by some good angel that would not let him fear, or rest, or feel the aches that wet roads by day, wet beds by night entailed on him. Whenever a messenger was needed to go into dangerous country and fear nothing, he claimed first privilege; and it was granted him, for he had learned a strange persuasiveness.
He was at Benbicula with the Prince, where they and the crew of a small boat that had landed them met a storm of rain that was to last for fourteen hours; where they found an empty cottage, with a store of firelogs; where the Prince bought a cow for thirty shillings, and proved himself the best cook of them all. They had food that night, and a bottle of brandy among the six who still kept company together; and these unwonted luxuries brought the best gift of all—sleep, that is dear to buy when men have kept weariness at bay too long.
Rupert was at Corradale, too, where for three weeks they found safety among the islanders of Uist. The royal baggage was no heavier than a couple of shirts, and the Prince was housed in a byre so weather-rotted that he had to sleep o’ nights under a tent made of branches and cow-hides, to keep the rain from him. Yet his cheerfulness was unfeigned, for he was tired of prudence and spent his whole days hunting deer on the hills or fishing in the bay. The Uist folk knew him, and the price upon his head; the neighboring isles were thick with soldiery in pursuit, and gunboats were busy among the inland seas; and yet he moved abroad as if he were some big-hearted country gentleman, intent only on following his favourite sports in time of peace.
“You wear a charmed life, your Highness,” said Rupert, as they came down one day from shooting deer. It was near the end of their three weeks’ sojourn on the island, and the danger set so close about the Prince had harassed him, as no perils of his own could do.
“I believe you, sir,” said the other, turning suddenly. “I bear a charmed life. So does any man for whom God finds a need. We die, I think, when our work is done, but not an hour before.” And with that he laughed, and got out his clay pipe. “We shall sup on venison to-night, my friend, and I am hungry. You should not tempt me with matters of theology.”
And so it was afterwards, when they left Uist to go through constant perils, by land and sea. The Prince brought to it all—discomfort, pursuit outwitted by a hair’s breadth time after time—the same unyielding outlook. Fools and cowards might fold their hands, reconstructing yesterday and bewailing all the misadventures that might have been avoided had they done this, done that; but the Stuart took life up from each day’s beginning, and went forward, praying in entire simplicity that his shoulders might be broadened to the coming burden.
When at last, near the end of June, they came near the Skye country, a new, surprising page was turned of the story of these hunted folk. Until now they had been among men, fighting the enemy at Culloden, eluding him during the incessant, long retreat. But now a woman stepped into their lives again; and, because faith and old habit had trained them that way, they were glad that a thread of gold had come to bind the rough wounds of life together.
Not till he died would Rupert forget those days in the Western Isles. Their grace passed into abiding folksong before the year was out; and he was privileged to watch, step by step, the growth of a high regard such as the world seldom sees.
He saw Flora MacDonald’s first coming to the Prince—at Rossinish, in Uist—saw the long, startled glance they exchanged, as if each had been looking for the other since time’s beginning. And then he saw her curtsey low, saw him lift her with tender haste.
“I should kneel to you instead, Miss MacDonald,” he said. “You’ve volunteered to be my guide through dangerous seas, they tell me, and I fear for your safety, and yet—I ever liked brave women.”