This but while one might blink an eye, then Lord Balmerino interrupted. “God’s my life! Here’s a feery-farry about nothing. Put up your toasting fork, De Vallery! The lad will not bite.”
“Warranted to be of gentle manners,” I murmured, brushing again at the Mechlin lace of my coat.
“Gentlemen are requested not to tease the animals,” laughed Creagh. He was as full of heat as a pepper castor, but he had the redeeming humour of his race.
Macdonald beat down the swords. “Are you a’ daft, gentlemen? The lad came with Balmerino. He is no spy. Put up, put up, Chevalier! Don’t glower at me like that, man! Hap-weel rap-weel, the lad shall have his chance to explain. I will see no man’s cattle hurried.”
“Peste! Let him explain then, and not summer and winter over the story,” retorted O’Sullivan sourly.
Lord Balmerino slipped an arm through mine. “If you are quite through with your play acting, gentlemen, we will back to reason and common sense again. Mr. Montagu may not be precisely a pronounced Jack, but then he doesn’t give a pinch of snuff for the Whigs either. I think we shall find him open to argument.”
“He’d better be—if he knows what’s good for him,” growled O’Sullivan.
At once I grew obstinate. “I do not take my politics under compulsion, Mr. O’Sullivan,” I flung out.
“Then you shouldn’t have come here. You’ve drawn the wine, and by God! you shall drink it.”
“Shall I? We’ll see.”
“No, no, Kenn! I promise you there shall be no compulsion,” cried the old Lord. Then to O’Sullivan in a stern whisper, “Let be, you blundering Irish man! You’re setting him against us.”
Balmerino was right. Every moment I grew colder and stiffer. If they wanted me for a recruit they were going about it the wrong way. I would not be frightened into joining them.
“Like the rest of us y’ are a ruined man. Come, better your fortune. Duty and pleasure jump together. James Montagu’s son is not afraid to take a chance,” urged the Scotch Lord.
Donald Roy’s eyes had fastened on me from the first like the grip-of steel. He had neither moved nor spoken, but I knew that he was weighing me in the balance.
“I suppose you will not be exactly in love with the wamey Dutchmen, Mr. Montagu?” he asked now.
I smiled. “If you put it that way I don’t care one jack straw for the whole clamjamfry of them.”
“I was thinking so. They are a different race from the Stuarts.”
“They are indeed,” I acquiesced dryly. Then the devil of mischief stirred in me to plague him. “There’s all the difference of bad and a vast deal worse between them. It’s a matter of comparisons,” I concluded easily.
“You are pleased to be facetious,” returned O’Sullivan sourly. “But I would ask you to remember that you are not yet out of the woods, Mr. Montagu. My Lord seems satisfied, but here are some more of us waiting a plain answer to this riddle.”
“And what may the riddle be?” I asked.
“Just this. What are you doing here?”
“Faith, that’s easy answered,” I told him jauntily. “I’m here by invitation of Lord Balmerino, and it seems I’m not overwelcome.”
Elphinstone interrupted impatiently.
“Gentlemen, we’re at cross purposes. You’re trying to drive Mr. Montagu, and I’m all for leading him. I warn you he’s not to be driven. Let us talk it over reasonably.”
“Very well,” returned O’Sullivan sulkily. “Talk as long as you please, but he doesn’t get out of this room till I’m satisfied.”
“We are engaged on a glorious enterprise to restore to these islands their ancient line of sovereigns. You say you do not care for the Hanoverians. Why not then strike a blow for the right cause?” asked Leath.
“Right and wrong are not to be divided by so clean a cut,” I told him. “I am no believer in the divine inheritance of kings. In the last analysis the people shall be the judge.”
“Of course; and we are going to put it to the test.”
“You want to set the clock back sixty years. It will not do.”
“We think it will. We are resolved at least to try,” said Balmerino.
I shrugged my shoulders. “The times are against you. The Stuarts have dropped out of the race. The mill cannot grind with the water that is past.”
“And if the water be not past?” asked Leath fiercely.
“Mar found it so in the ’15, and many honest gentlemen paid for his mistake with their heads. My father’s brother for one.”
“Mar bungled it from start to finish. He had the game in his own hands and dribbled away his chances like a coward and a fool.”
“Perhaps, but even so, much water has passed under London Bridge since then. It is sixty years since the Stuarts were driven out. Two generations have slept on it.”
“Then the third generation of sleepers shall be wakened. The stream is coming down in spate,” said Balmerino.
“I hear you say it,” I answered dryly.
“And you shall live to see us do it, Mr. Montagu. The heather’s in a blaze already. The fiery cross will be speeding from Badenoch to the Braes of Balwhidder. The clans will all rise whatever,” cried Donald Roy.
“I’m not so sure about Mr. Montagu living to see it. My friends O’Sullivan and De Vallery seem to think not,” said Creagh, giving me his odd smile. “Now, I’ll wager a crown that——”
“Whose crown did you say?” I asked politely, handing him back his smile.
“The government cannot stand out against us,” argued Balmerino. “The Duke of Newcastle is almost an imbecile. The Dutch usurper himself is over in Hanover courting a new mistress. His troops are all engaged in foreign war. There are not ten thousand soldiers on the island. At this very moment the King of France is sending fifteen thousand across in transports. He will have no difficulty in landing them and London cannot hold out.”
“Faith, he might get his army here. I’m not denying that. But I’ll promise him trouble in getting it away again.”
“The Highlands are ready to fling away the scabbard for King James III,” said Donald Roy simply.
“It is in my mind that you have done that more than once before and that because of it misguided heads louped from sturdy shoulders,” I answered.
“Wales too is full of loyal gentlemen. What can the Hanoverians do if they march across the border to join the Highlanders rolling down from the North and Marshal Saxe with his French army?”
“My imagination halts,” I answered dryly. “You will be telling me next that England is wearying for a change back to the race of Kings she has twice driven out.”
“I do say it,” cried Leath. “Bolingbroke is already negotiating with the royal family. Newcastle is a broken reed. Hervey will not stand out. Walpole is a dying man. In whom can the Dutchman trust? The nation is tired of them, their mistresses and their German brood.”
“When we had them we found these same Stuarts a dangerous and troublesome race. We could not in any manner get along with them. We drove them out, and then nothing would satisfy us but we must have them back again. Well, they had their second chance, and we found them worse than before. They had not learnt the lesson of the age. They——”
“Split me, y’are not here to lecture us,