He knew of none; the boy was dead.
“I care not,” he muttered to himself. “I am the Master of Stair. I am Scotland. I do not need a home—a woman’s affection—those things are for smaller men and what matter if they point at me as a man accursed—is not my name stately high above it all? I care not.” Yet even as he spoke his head sank wearily into his hand and the helpless, useless tears were blinding him.
CHAPTER XII
THE LOVE OF DELIA
Delia Featherstonehaugh sat alone in the back parlor of “The Sleeping Queen”; it was New Year’s Eve, about six o’clock and the quiet little inn was deserted.
It stood in a dreary back street close to Westminster Abbey and was a resort well-known to Jacobites and almost unheard of by others; in the upper rooms was a printing-press that turned out hundreds of the lampoons and pamphlets that daily strewed the city and in this dull chamber more than one famous gentleman had drunk to the health of King James.
Delia had been alone all day, her brother and Jerome Caryl had been summoned to a meeting with Berwick, who was in hiding in Southwark; she knew they would return to meet the messenger from France, Mr. Wedderburn, who was due this evening, but the hour she could not tell.
The room was large and low with plain plaster walls and uncarpeted floor; on the high chimneypiece two huge white china dogs grinned at each other either side a wooden clock; the fireplace was laid with rough brown Dutch tiles that bore the history of the fall of man in rude bold figures; Delia sat in one of the well-worn chairs, and stared absently at the round fat face of Eve who looked up distressfully from the hearth, glowing red from the fire.
The room was full of the sound of bells, the bells of St. Margaret’s and the Abbey chiming together steadily. The girl listened to them dreamily, and her thoughts were in Scotland, the desolate Glencoe—the Glen o’ Weeping—were they safe, those Macdonalds?—very far-away they seemed, helpless, too, and pitiful for all their fierceness; she prayed they might have taken the oaths; she did not care to think of Ronald Macdonald as among the dead.
With a little sigh she leaned forward; she wore a long dress of dark gray silk and in the heavy curls of her hazel hair was a band of velvet of a bright pure blue; in the plain collar of her gown shone a little turquoise brooch.
Her eyes, dark brown and brooding, looked soft as pansies under her smooth white brow, and her mouth strong and gentle was very sweetly set; it was a fair musing face she rested on her hand; a face calmly troubled.