"Amen!" said he.
Dramas of life do end laconically, like that, as death often comes by casual side-steps.
XII—Raiders of the Dark
A man does something in a natural way and it takes the world's ear and is called heroism. Another man does a like thing, to all purpose, but the world does not listen to it, or, anyhow, sings him no praises, all of which we try to explain by saying "Luck."
It is natural for a man to show courage in extremes, for a woman to be loving, self-sacrificing. Every now and then the Great Bookkeeper records an example for the common good; and the rest are a lost legion. We do not know why, and if we did what good would it do us, though the curiosity for knowledge is inbred, like inability, sometimes, to use it?
News of my rescue of the Black Colonel from the flood got about, and I was acclaimed as a hero of sorts. He, I fancy, for his own ends, fathered a glowing account of what happened, and as it passed from mouth to mouth it grew in glory. He meant to be grateful, and his gratitude took that form. It was his airy way, for egotism, even when it is not dislikeable, must ever carry its possessor into the picture.
Perhaps he also thought to please me, and thus to win a point towards his larger ends, for I knew they would, in no wise, be modified by what had happened. By them, as he saw his case, he had to stand or fall, and thus, in this reasoning, he had no choice at all. His bonds, in that sense, were entwined with coming events, which do not necessarily cast their shadows before, anyhow when they are events of the heart.
Now, my secret hope for the Black Colonel, the inner prayer which I hardly whispered to myself, was that he should escape his troubles as a rebel, by going away to the foreign wars, and there make a new name. I thought I might help him out of the country, even if it had to be at the risk of my commission. He would be welcome wherever he found a British camp across the sea, and no questions would be asked. Truly, there would be need to ask none, because his repute as a fighting man among the Jacobites had gone far and wide. By-and-by he could return, when the feuds of Stuart and Guelph had died down to the dross they were, though they had made a bloody toll, and sit in the home of his fathers, not merely unmolested, but honoured by both sides.
I am not going to pretend that my own inclinations were not behind this plan, for they were. Why should I seek to hide them, even from the Black Colonel himself; a hopeless thing to try, anyhow. He had one scheme for getting back to the world, and it struck bitterly across my path. I offered him another, which would attain his end, and if that were so, why should he not take it and thank me? I was not ill-disposed to him personally; certainly well enough disposed to help him—to help me. When were we to make the reckoning?
He was seeking to live up to his new pretensions as a head of a clan, and he had to find the wherewithal on which to do it. The consequence was that he used Red Murdo for taxing the country in the matter of his necessaries. If somebody, early some morning while it was still dark, awoke to ask the question: "Are you come to harry and spulzie my ha'?" it would most likely be Red Murdo who gave an insolent answer. The fellow, in fact, got swollen upon the little plunderings which his master ordered, until he was hard to keep in hand. But this, again, suited the Black Colonel, because, to push his claims, he found money handy, there being always smaller fry of the other side of friendship, who have hungry purses, or none at all.