“Damnation!” cried one Leath. “What cock and bull tale is this? Not know where he was bringing you! ’Slife, I do not like it!”
I sat on the table negligently dangling one foot in air. For that matter I didn’t like it myself, but I was not going to tell him so. Brushing a speck of mud from my coat I answered carelessly,
“Like it or mislike it, devil a bit I care!”
“Ha, ha! I theenk you will find a leetle reason for caring,” said the Frenchman ominously.
“Stab me, if I understand,” cried Creagh. “Balmerino did not kidnap you here, did he? Devil take me if it’s at all clear to me!”
O’Sullivan pushed to the front with an evil laugh.
“’T is clear enough to me,” he said bluntly. “It’s the old story of one too many trusted. He hears our plans and then the smug-faced villain peaches. Next week he sees us all scragged at Tyburn. But he’s made a little mistake this time, sink me! He won’t live to see the Chevalier O’Sullivan walk off the cart. If you’ll give me leave, I’ll put a name to the gentleman. He’s what they call a spy, and stap my vitals! he doesn’t leave this room alive.”
At his words a fierce cry leaped from tense throats. A circle of white furious faces girdled me about. Rapiers hung balanced at my throat and death looked itchingly at me from many an eye.
As for me, I lazed against the table with a strange odd contraction of the heart, a sudden standing still and then a fierce pounding of the blood. Yet I was quite master of myself. Indeed I smiled at them, carelessly, as one that deprecated so much ado about nothing. And while I smiled, the wonder was passing through my mind whether the smile would still be there after they had carved the life out of me. I looked death in the face, and I found myself copying unconsciously the smirking manners of the Macaronis. Faith, ’t was a leaf from Volney’s life I was rehearsing for them.
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