Doggedly I turned my averted head toward him, saw the recognition leap to his eyes, and waited for the word to fall from his lips that would condemn me. Amusement chased amazement across his face.
A moment passed, still another moment. The word was not spoken. Instead he began to smile, presently to hum,
| “‘You’ll on an’ you’ll march to Carlisle ha’ To be hanged and quartered, an’ a’, an’ a’.’ |
“Come, Mont-Campbell, you haven’t answered my question yet. If you knew where Charles Edward Stuart was in hiding would you give him up?” He looked at me from under lowered lids, vastly entertained, playing with me as a cat does with a mouse.
“I am a fery good servant of the King, God bless him whatefer, and I would just do my duty,” answered I, still keeping the rôle I had assumed.
“Of course he would. Ach, liebe himmel! Any loyal man would be bound to do so,” broke in Cumberland.
Volney’s eyes shone. “I’m not so sure,” said he. “Now supposing, sir, that one had a very dear friend among the rebels; given the chance, ought he to turn him over to justice?”
“No doubt about it. Friendship ends when rebellion begins,” said the Duke, sententiously.
Sir Robert continued blandly to argue the case, looking at me out of the tail of his eye. Faith, he enjoyed himself prodigiously, which was more than I did, for I was tasting a bad quarter of an hour. “Put it this way, sir: I have a friend who has done me many good turns. Now assume that I have but to speak the word to send him to his death. Should the word be spoken?”
The Duke said dogmatically that a soldier’s first duty was to work for the success of his cause regardless of private feelings.