Chapter 4

A SECRET CHAMBER.

"The cabinet now, dad, and at once," when they went up the stairs and were standing in the room. "Just give me three guesses about the mystery; but first let me examine."

It was pretty to see Kate opening the doors, curiously carved with hunting scenes, and searching the interior, tapping with her knuckles and listening for a hollow sound.

"Is it a treasure we are to find? Then that's one point. Not in the cabinet? I have it; there is a door into some other place; am n't I right?"

"Where could it be? We're in a tower cut off from the body of the Lodge, with a room above and a room below;" and the General sat down to allow full investigation.

After many journeys up and down the stair, and many questions that brought no light, Kate played a woman's trick up in her room.

"The General wishes to show me the concealed room in this tower, Janet, or whatever you call it. Would you kindly tell us how to get entrance? You need n't come down; just explain to me;" and Kate was very pleasant indeed.

"Yes, I am hearing there iss a room in the tower, Miss Kate, that strangers will not be able to find; and it would be very curious if the Carnegies did not have a safe place for an honest gentleman when he wass in a little trouble. All the good houses will have their secret places, and it will not be easy to find some of them. Oh no; now I will remember one at Glamis Castle. . . ."

"Never mind Glamis, nurse, for the General is waiting. Where is the spring? is it in the oak cabinet?"

"It will be good for the General to be resting himself after his luncheon, and he will be thinking many things in his room. Oh yes," continued Janet, settling herself down to narrative, and giving no heed to Kate's beguiling ways, "old Mary that died near a hundred would be often telling me stories of the old days when I wass a little girl, and the one I liked best wass about the hiding of the Duke of Perth."

"You will tell me that to-morrow, when I come down to see your house, Janet, and to-day you 'll tell me how to open the spring."

"But it would be a pity not to finish the story about the Duke of Perth, for it goes well, and it will be good for a Carnegie to hear it." And Kate flung herself into the window-seat, but was hugely interested all the same.

"Mary wass sitting at her door in the evening, and that would be three days after Culloden, for the news had been sent by a sure hand from the Laird, when a man came riding along the road, and as soon as Mary saw him she knew he wass somebody; but perhaps it will be too long a story," and Janet began to arrange dresses in a wardrobe.

"No, no; as you have begun it, I want to hear the end, but quick, for there 's the room to see and the rest of the Lodge before it grows dark. What like was he?"

"He wass a man that looked as if he would be commanding, but his clothes were common grey, and stained with the road. He wass very tired, and could hardly hold himself up in the saddle, and his horse wass covered with foam. 'Is this Tochty Lodge?' he asked, softening his voice as one trying to speak humbly. 'I am passing this way, and have a message for Mistress Carnegie; think you that I can have speech of her quietly?'

"So Mary will go up and tell the lady that one wass waiting to see her, and that he seemed a noble gentleman. When they came down to the courtyard he had drawn water for his horse from the well, and wass giving him to drink, thinking more of the beast that had borne him than of his own need, as became a man of birth.

"At the sight of the lady he took off his bonnet and bowed low, and asked if he might hef a private audience, to which Mistress Carnegie replied, 'We are private here,' and asked, 'Have you been with my son?'

"'We fought together for the Prince three days since--my name is Perth. I am escaping for my life, and desire a brief rest, if it please you, and bring no danger to your house.'

"'Ye had been welcome, my Lord Duke,' and Mary used to show how her mistress straightened herself, though you were the poorest soldier that had drawn his sword for the good cause, and ye will stay here till it be safe for you to escape to France.'

"He wass four weeks hidden in the room, and although the soldiers searched all the house, they could never find the place, and Mrs. Carnegie put scorn upon them, asking why they did her so much honour and whom they sought. Oh yes, it wass a cunning place for the bad times, and you will be pleased to see it."

"And the secret, Janet," cried Kate, her hand upon the door; "you know it quite well."

"So does the General, Catherine of my heart," said Janet, "and he will be liking to show it himself."

So Kate departed in a rage, and gave orders that there be no more delay, for she would not spend an afternoon seeking for rat-holes.

"No rat-hole, Kit, but a very fair chamber for a hunted man; it is twenty years and more since this door opened last, for none knows the trick of it save Janet and myself. There it goes."

A panel in the back of the cabinet slid aside behind its neighbour and left a passage through which one could squeeze himself with an effort.

"We go up a stair now, and must have light; a candle will do; the air is perfectly pure, for there 's plenty of ventilation;" and then they crept up by steps in the thickness of the walls, till they stood in a chamber under six feet high, but otherwise as large as the bedroom below. The walls were lined with wood, and there were two tiny slits that gave air, but hardly any light. The only furniture in the room was an oaken chest, clasped with iron and curiously locked.

"Our plate chest, Kit; but there 'a not much silver and gold in it, worse luck for you, lassie; in fact, we're a pack of fools to set store by it. There 's nothing in the kist but some old clothes, and perhaps some buckles and such like. I dare say there is a lock of hair also. Some day we will have a look inside."

"To-day, instantly," and Kate shook her father. "You are a dreadful hypocrite, for I can see that you would rather Tochty were burned down than this box be lost. Are there any relics of Prince Charlie in it? Quick."

"Be patient; it's a difficult key to turn; there now;" but there was not much to see--only pieces of woollen cloth tightly folded down.

"Call Janet, Kate, for she ought to see this opening, and we 'll carry everything down to my room, for no one could tell what like things are in this gloom. Yes, Perth lived here for weeks, and used to go up to the gallery where Black John's mother sat with her maid; but the son was hiding in the North, and never reached his house till he came to die."

First of all they came upon a ball dress of the former time, of white silk, with a sash of Macpherson tartan, besides much fine lace.

"That is the dress your great-grandmother wore as a bride at the Court of Versailles in the fifties. She was only a lassie, and seemed like her husband's daughter. The Prince danced with her, and they counted the dress something to be kept, and that night Locheil and Cluny also had a reel with Sheena Carnegie, while Black John looked like a young man, for he had been too sorely wounded to be able to dance with her himself." And then the General carried down with his own hands a Highland gentleman's evening dress, trews of the Royal tartan, and a velvet coat with silver buttons, and a light plaid of fine cloth.

"And this was her husband's dress that night; but why the Stewart tartan?"

"No, lassie, that is the suit the Prince wore at Holyrood, where he gave a great ball after Prestonpans, and danced with the Edinburgh ladies. It was smuggled across to France at last with other things of the Prince's, and he gave it to Carnegie. 'It will remind you of our great days,' he said, 'when the Stewarts saw their friends in Mary's Palace.'"

Last of all, the General lifted out a casket and laid it on his table. Within it was a brooch, such as might once have been worn either by a man or a woman; diamonds set in gold, and in the midst a lock of fair hair.

"Is it really, father? . . ." And Kate took the jewel in her hand.

"Yes, the Prince's hair--his wedding present to Sheena Macpherson."

Kate kissed it fervently, and passed it to Janet, who placed it carefully in the box, while the General made believe to laugh.

"Your mother wore the brooch on great occasions, and you will do the same, Kit, for auld lang syne. There are two or three families left in Perthshire that will like to see it on your breast."

"Yes, and there will maybe be more than two or three that will like to see the lady that wears it." This from Janet.

"Your compliments are a little late, and you may keep them to yourself, Janet; it would have been kinder to tell me. . . ."

"Tell you what?" And the General looked very provoking.

"I hate to be beaten." Kate first looked angry, and then laughed. "What else is there to see?"

"There is the gallery, which is the one feature in our poor house, and we will try to reach it from the Duke's hiding-place, for it was a cleverly designed hole, and had its stair up as well as down." And then they all came out into one of the strangest rooms you could find in Scotland, and one that left a pleasant picture in their minds who had seen it lit of a winter night, and the wood burning on the hearth, and Kate dancing a reel with Lord Hay or some other brisk young man, while the General looked on from one of the deep window recesses.

The gallery extended over the hall and Kate's drawing-room, and measured fifty feet long from end to end. The upper part of the walls was divided into compartments by an arcading, made of painted pilasters and flat arches. Each compartment had a motto, and this was on one side of the fireplace:

A nice wyfe and A back doore Oft maketh a rich Man poore.

And on the other:--

Give liberalye To neidfvl folke Denye nane of Them al for litle Thow knawest heir In this lyfe of what Chaunce may the Befall.

The glory of the gallery, however, was its ceiling, which was of the seventeenth century work, and so wonderful that many learned persons used to come and study it. After the great disaster when the Lodge was sold and allowed to fall to pieces, this fine work went first, and now no one examining its remains could have imagined how wonderful it was, and in its own way how beautiful. This ceiling was of wood, painted, and semi-elliptical in form, and one wet day, when we knew not what else to do, Kate and I counted more than three hundred panels. It was an arduous labour for the neck, and the General refused to help us; but I am sure that we did not make too many, for we worked time about, while the General took note of the figures, and our plan was that each finished his tale of work at some amazing beast, so that we could make no mistake. Some of the panels were circles, and they were filled in with coats-of-arms; some were squares and they contained a bestiary of that day. It was hard indeed to decide whether the circles or the squares were more interesting. The former had the arms of every family in Scotland that had the remotest connection with the Carnegies, and besides swept in a wider field, comprising David, King of Israel, who was placed near Hector of Troy, and Arthur of Brittany not far from Moses--all of whom had appropriate crests and mottoes. In the centre were the arms of our Lord Christ as Emperor of Judea, and the chief part of them was the Cross. But it came upon one with a curious shock, to see this coat among the shields of Scottish nobles. There were beasts that could be recognised at once, and these were sparingly named; but others were astounding, and above them were inscribed titles such as these: Shoe-lyon, Musket, Ostray; and one fearsome animal in the centre was designated the Ram of Arabia. This display of heraldry and natural history was reinforced by the cardinal virtues in seventeenth century dress: Charitas as an elderly female of extremely forbidding aspect, receiving two very imperfectly clad children; and Temperantia as a furious-looking person--male on the whole rather than female--pouring some liquor--surely water--from a jug into a cup, with averted face, and leaving little to be desired. The afternoon sun shining in through a western window and lingering among the black and white tracery, so that the marking of a shield came into relief or a beast suddenly glared down on one, had a weird, old-world effect.

"It's half an armoury and half a menagerie," said Kate, "and I think we 'll have tea in the library with the windows open to the Glen." And so they sat together in quietness, with books of heraldry and sport and ancient Scottish classics and such like round them, while Janet went out and in.

"So Donald has been obliged to leave his kirk;" for Kate had not yet forgiven Janet. "He says it's very bad here; I hope you won't go to such a place."

"What would Donald Macdonald be saying against it?" inquired Janet, severely.

"Oh, I don't remember--lots of things. He thought you were making too much of the minister."

"The minister iss a good man, and hass some Highland blood in him, though he hass lost his Gaelic, and he will be very pleasant in the house. If I wass seeing a sheep, and it will be putting on this side and that, and quarrelling with everybody, do you know what I will be thinking?"

"That's Donald, I suppose; well?"

"I will say to myself, that sheep iss a goat." And Janet left the room with the laurels of victory.