CHAPTER II
THE CRISIS
Early springtime is cruel on the east coast of Scotland, and it was a bitter morning in March when Dundee took another of his many farewells before he left his wife to attend the Convention at Edinburgh. It was only a month since he had come down from London, disheartened for the moment by the treachery of Royalists and the timidity of James, and he had found relief in administrating municipal affairs as Provost of Dundee. If it had been possible in consistence with his loyalty to the Jacobite cause, and the commission he had received from James, Dundee would have gladly withdrawn from public life and lived quietly with his wife. He was an ambitious man, and of stirring spirit, but none knew better the weakness of his party, and no one on his side had been more shamefully treated. It had been his lot to leave his bride on their marriage day, and now it would be harder to leave her at 195 a time when every husband desires to be near his wife. But the summons to be present at the Convention had come, and its business was to decide who should be King of Scotland, for though William had succeeded to the throne of England, James still reigned in law over the northern kingdom. Dundee could not be absent at the deposition of his king and the virtual close of the Stuart dynasty. As usual he would be one of a beaten party, or perhaps might stand alone; it was not his friends but his enemies who were calling him to Edinburgh, and the chances were that the hillmen would settle their account with him by assassination. His judgment told him that his presence in Edinburgh would be fruitless, and his heart held him to his home. Yet day after day he put off his going. It was now the thirteenth of March, and to-morrow the Convention would meet, and if he were to go he must go quickly. He had been tossed in mind and troubled in heart, but the instinct of obedience to duty which Graham had obeyed through good report and evil, without reserve, and without scruple, till he had done not only the things he ought to have done, but many things also which he ought not to have done, finally triumphed. He had told Jean that morning 196 that he must leave. His little escort of troopers were saddling their horses, and in half an hour they would be on the road, the dreary, hopeless road it was his fate to be ever travelling. Jean and he were saying their last words before this new adventure, for they both knew that every departure might be the final parting. They were standing at the door, and nothing could be grayer than their outlook. For a haar had come up from the sea, as is common on the east coast, and the cold and dripping mist blotted out the seascape; it hid the town of Dundee, which lay below Dudhope, and enveloped the castle in its cold garments, like a shroud, and chilled Graham and his wife to the very bone.
“Ye will acknowledge, John, that I have never hindered you when the call came.” As she spoke Jean took his flowing hair in her hand, and he had never seen her so gentle before, for indeed she could not be called a soft or tender woman.
“Ye told me what would be the way of life for us, and it has been what ye said, and I have not complained. But this day I wish to God that ye could have stayed, for when my hour comes, and it is not far off, ye ken I will miss you sairly. Other women have their mothers with them in that strait, but for me 197 there is none; naebody but strangers. If ony evil befall thee, John, it will go ill with me, and I have in my keeping the hope of your house. Can ye no bide quietly here with me and let them that have the power do as they will in Edinburgh? No man of your own party has ever thanked you for anything ye did, and if my mother’s people do their will by you, I shall surely die and the child with me. And that will be the end of the House of Dundee. Must ye go and leave me?” And now her arm was round him, and with the other hand she caressed his face, while her warm bosom pressed against his cold, hard cuirass.
“Queensberry, for the liar he always was, said ye would be my Delilah, Jean, but that I knew was not in you,” said Dundee, smiling sadly and stroking the proud head, which he had never seen bowed before.
“You are, I believe in my soul, the bravest woman in Scotland, and I wish to God the men on our side had only had the heart of my Lady Dundee. With a hundred men and your spirit in them, Jean, we had driven William of Orange into the sea, or, at the worst, we should certainly save Scotland for the king. Well and bravely have ye stood by me since our marriage day, and if I had ever 198 consulted my own safety or sought after private ends, I believe ye would have been the first to cry shame upon me. Surely ye have been a true soldier’s wife, and ye are the same this morning, and braver even than on our wedding day.
“Do not make little of yourself, Jean, because your heart is sore and ye canna keep back the tears. It is not given to a man to understand what a woman feels in your place but I am trying to imagine, and my love is suffering with you, sweetheart. I do pity you, and I could weep with you, but tears are strange to my eyes––God made me soft without and hard within––and I have a better medicine to help you than pity.” Still he was caressing her, but she felt his body straightening within the armor.
“When ye prophesy that the fanatics of the west will be at me in Edinburgh, I suspect ye are right, but I pray you not to trouble yourself overmuch. They have shot at me before with leaden bullets and with silver, trying me first as a man and next as a devil, but no bullet touched me, and now if they fall back upon the steel there are two or three trusty lads with me who can use the sword fairly well, and though your husband be not a large man, Jean, none has had the 199 better of him when it came to sword-play. So cheer up, lass, for I may fall some day, but it will not be at the hands of a skulking Covenanter in a street brawl.