“Miss Delia,” said Jerome Caryl, “you remember what the Irish said after the Boyne?—‘Change kings and we will fight it again’—I feel like that now.”
“Oh, shame!” cried Delia.
“You seem turned rank Williamite,” remarked Sir Perseus, a little sourly.
“I am not,” was the firm answer, “but I see what a rope of sand we are without a leader: I see that we have to struggle against a man whose genius has made him arbitrator of Europe—and he has linked himself with William Carstairs—”
“A Scotch minister of no birth!” interrupted Delia.
“One of the cleverest men in the kingdom,” said Jerome, “and the Master of Stair is another—if you consider the Highlands, you may add Breadalbane for a fourth—call them devils, if you will, but they are men impossible to defeat.”
Sir Perseus rose impatiently:
“I think you are wrong, Jerome—why, Sir John Dalrymple, the Master of Stair, as you call him, hath roused such a storm against himself that he hardly dares to show himself in Edinburgh—any moment he might be arrested by the Parliament.”
“Nevertheless,” answered Jerome, “he holds Scotland in the hollow of his hand, he is a close friend of William of Orange, all powerful at St. James’s, he is hand and glove with Breadalbane and Carstairs and his father, Sir James—curse him.” He brought the last words out so fiercely that the others started.
“They defeat me at every turn, these men,” he continued passionately. “But, by God, they shall not get the Highlands!” He turned the soft face that was at variance with his speech toward Perseus. “That is the question of issue now,” he said. “The Highlanders must take the oaths, the government decrees it.”