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envelope so as not to show a casual looker that it had been tampered with, and I footed it to Portree in the patched trews of the messenger, not with the lightest heart in the world. The first redcoat I met directed me to the inn where the Duke had his headquarters, and I was presently admitted to a hearing. The Duke was a ton of a little man with the phlegmatic Dutch face. He read the letter stolidly and began to ask questions as to the disposition of our squad. I lied generously, magnificently, my face every whit as wooden as his; and while I was still at it the door behind me opened and a man came in leisurely. He waited for the Duke to have done with me, softly humming a tune the while, his shadow flung in front across my track; and while he lilted there came to me a dreadful certainty that on occasion I had heard the singer and his song before. "'Then come kiss me sweet and twenty. Youth's a stuff will not endure,'" carolled the melodious voice lazily. Need I say that it belonged to my umquhile friend Sir Robert Volney. Cumberland brushed me aside with a wave of his hand. "Donner! If the Pretender is on Skye--and he must be--we've got him trapped, Volney. Our cordon stretches clear across the isle, and every outlet is guarded," he cried. "Immensely glad to hear it, sir. Let's see! Is this the twelfth time you've had him sure? 'Pon honour, he must have more lives than the proverbial cat," drawled Sir Robert insolently. There was one thing about Volney I could never enough admire. He was no respecter of persons. Come high, come low, the bite of his ironic tongue struck home. For a courtier he had the laziest scorn of those he courted that ever adventurer was hampered with; and strangely enough from him his friends in high place tolerated anything. The Prince of Wales and his brother Cumberland would not speak to each other, yet each of them fought to retain Volney as his follower. Time-servers wondered that his uncurbed speech never brought him to grief. Perhaps the secret of his security lay in his splendid careless daring; in that, and in his winning personality. "By God, Volney, sometimes I think you're half a Jacobite," said Cumberland, frowning. "Your Grace does me injustice. My bread is buttered on the Brunswick side," answered the baronet, carelessly. "But otherwise--at heart----" Volney's sardonic smile came into play. "Otherwise my well-known caution, and my approved loyalty,--Egad, I had almost forgotten that!--refute such an aspersion." "Himmel! If your loyalty is no greater than your caution it may be counted out. At the least you take delight in tormenting me. Never deny it, man! I believe you want the Pretender to get away." "One may wish the Prince----" "The Prince?" echoed Cumberland, blackly. "The Young Chevalier then, if you like that better. 'Slife, what's in a name? One may wish him to escape and be guilty of no crime. He and his brave Highlanders deserve a better fate than death. I dare swear that half your redcoats have the sneaking desire to see the young man win free out of the country. Come, my good fellow"--turning to me--"What do they call you--Campbell? Well then, Campbell, speak truth and shame the devil. Are you as keen to have the Young Chevalier taken as you pretend?" 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 r�le 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,. . . . . . .
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and he did not intend me to presume; but to Stalky and The Infant, while I admired the set of my dinner-jacket across his shoulders, he made his plans of revenge very clear indeed. He had even sketched out some of the paragraphs that were to appear in the papers, and if Stalky had allowed me to speak, I would have told him that they were rather neatly phrased. 'You ought to be able to get whackin' damages out of 'em, into the bargain,' said Stalky, after Mr. Wontner had outlined his position legally. 'My de-ah sir,' Mr. Wontner applied himself to his glass, 'it isn't a matter that gentlemen usually discuss, but, I assure you, we Wontners'--he waved a well-kept hand--'do not stand in any need of filthy lucre.' In the next three minutes, we learned exactly what his father was worth, which, as he pointed out, was a trifle no man of the world dwelt on. Stalky envied aloud, and I delivered my first kick at The Infant's ankle. Thence we drifted to education, and the Average Army Man, and the desolating vacuity--I remember these words--of Army Society, notably among its womenkind. It appeared there was some sort of narrow convention in the Army against mentioning a woman's name at Mess. We were much surprised at this--Stalky would not let me express my surprise--but we took it from Mr. Wontner, who said we might, that it was so. Next he touched on Colonels of the old school, and their cognisance of tactics. Not that he himself pretended to any skill in tactics, but after three years at the 'Varsity--none of us had had a 'Varsity education--a man insensibly contracted the habit of clear thinking. At least, he could automatically co-ordinate his ideas, and the jealousy of these muddle-headed Colonels was inconceivable. We would understand that it was his duty to force on the retirement of his Colonel, who had been in the conspiracy against him; to make his Adjutant resign or exchange; and to give the half-dozen childish subalterns who had vexed his dignity a chance to retrieve themselves in other corps--West African ones, he hoped. For himself, after the case was decided, he proposed to go on living in the regiment, just to prove--for he bore no malice--that times had changed, _nosque mutamur in illis_--if we knew what that meant. Infant had curled his legs out of reach, so I was quite free to return thanks yet once more to Allah for the diversity of His creatures in His adorable world. And so, by way of an eighty-year-old liqueur brandy, to tactics and the great General Clausewitz, unknown to the Average Army Man. Here The Infant, at a whisper from Ipps--whose face had darkened like a mulberry while he waited--excused himself and went away, but Stalky, Colonel of Territorials, wanted some tips on tactics. He got them unbrokenly for ten minutes--Wontner and Clausewitz mixed, but Wontner in a film of priceless cognac distinctly on top. When The Infant came back, he renewed his clear-spoken demand that Infant should take his depositions. I supposed this to be a family trait of the Wontners, whom I had been visualising for some time past even to the third generation. 'But, hang it all, they're both asleep!' said Infant, scowling at me. 'Ipps let 'em have the '81 port.' 'Asleep!' said Stalky, rising at once. 'I don't see that makes any difference. As a matter of form, you'd better identify them. I'll show you the way.' We followed up the white stone side-staircase that leads to the bachelors' wing. Mr. Wontner seemed surprised that the boys were not in the coal-cellar. 'Oh, a chap's assumed to be innocent until he's proved guilty,' said Stalky, mounting step by step. 'How did they get you into the sack, Mr. Wontner?' 'Jumped on me from behind--two to one,' said Mr. Wontner briefly. 'I think I handed each of them something first, but they roped my arms and legs.' 'And did they photograph you in the sack?' 'Good Heavens, no!' Mr. Wontner shuddered. 'That's lucky. Awful thing to live down--a photograph, isn't it?' said Stalky to me as we reached the landing. 'I'm thinking of the newspapers, of course.' 'Oh, but you can easily have sketches in the illustrated papers from accounts supplied by eye-witnesses,' I said. Mr. Wontner turned him round. It was the first time he had honoured me by his notice since our talk in the garage. 'Ah,' said he, 'do you pretend to any special knowledge in these matters?' 'I'm a journalist by profession,' I answered simply but nobly. 'As soon as you're at liberty, I'd like to have your account of the affair.' Now I thought he would have loved me for this, but he only replied in an uncomfortable, uncoming-on voice, 'Oh, you would, would you?' 'Not if it's any trouble, of course,' I said. 'I can always get their version from the defendants. Do either of 'em draw or sketch at all, Mr. Wontner? Or perhaps your father might--' Then he said quite hotly, 'I wish you to understand very clearly, my good man, that a gentleman's name can't be dragged through the gutter to bolster up the circulation of your wretched sheet, whatever it may be.' . . . . . . .
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