CHAPTER XII.

ST. GERMAINS.

And it was a' for our richtfu' king, We ere left Scotia's strand, my dear; And it was a' for our richtfu' king, We saw another land, my dear. OLD SONG.

Agitated by feelings such as few have experienced, on an evening in the summer of 1690, Walter Fenton found himself pursuing the dusty highway from Paris to St. Germains, the place where the hopes and the fears, the loyalty and the sorrows of the Jacobites were centred. He wore a plain suit of unlaced grey cloth, very much worn, a hat without a feather, and a plain walking-sword. He carried under his arm a small bundle, with particular care, for it contained a few necessaries and all he possessed in the world--his commission, the long-treasured letter of Dundee, and the Dutch standard he had taken at Killycrankie. These were now his whole fortune.

That day he had walked from Senlis without tasting food, and was quite exhausted. After spending his last sou on a glass of sour vin ordinaire at a small cottage near the Wood of Treason (where Ganelon in 780 formed his plot which betrayed the house of Ardennes, the peers of Charlemagne, and occasioned the defeat at Roncesvalles), he grasped his bundle, and pushed on with renewed energy. His handsome features were impressed by an air of sadness and deep abstraction, for the acute achings of present sorrow struggled with the gentler whisperings of hope, and though his feet traversed the hard flinty roadway from Paris, his thoughts were far away in the land of his childhood, and his wandering fancy luxuriated on the memory of many a much-loved scene he might be fated to behold no more, and many an episode of tenderness and love that would never be re-acted again.

How vividly he recalled every glance and graceful action of Lilian, as he had last beheld her. Nearest and dearest to his heart, she rendered the memory of his native land still more beloved, for she yet trod its soil and breathed its air, and he knew that daily she could gaze on those blue hills which are the first landmarks of the child in youth, and the last of the man in age, and to the recollection of which the emigrant and the exile cling with the tenacity of life.

The current of his thoughts was interrupted, and his cheek flushed. The great and striking brick façade of the old castle of St. Germains, with its turrets shining in the setting sun, arose before him. There dwelt he on whom the hopes of half a nation rested, and Walter drew breath more freely as he progressed; his eye sparkled, and his cheek flushed with animation, for now other and less painful thoughts were occurring to his fancy. With the buoyancy natural to youth, sorrow gave way as hope spread its rainbow before him: and bright visions of the King's triumphant return and restoration by the swords of the Cavaliers or Jacobites, mingled with his own dreams of love and honour. Fired with ardour, he often grasped his sword, and springing forward, longed to throw himself at the foot of James VII., and pour forth in transport that singularly deep and burning passion of loyalty which animated every member of his faction.

"And this is the palace of our King!" he exclaimed, with enthusiasm. "Heaven grant I may yet greet him in his old ancestral dome of Holyrood!" But the fever of his naturally excitable spirits subsided when approaching the edifice, for the air of silence and gloom that pervaded it struck a chill on his anxious heart.

"Ah," thought he, "if James should be dead!"

At the distance of twelve miles from Paris, this ancient brick chateau or palace is beautifully situated on the slope of a verdant hill, at the base of which flows the Seine, and opposite lies an immense forest. From the earliest ages, St. Germain-en-laye had been a hunting-seat of the French kings; but in compliment to his mistress, whose name was Diana, Francis I. (a monarch unequalled in gallantry, generosity, and magnificence) built the present palace in form of the letter D, with five towers, the vanes of which were gleaming like gold in the setting sun as Walter approached. A dry fosse crossed by drawbridges surrounded this noble chateau, which had on one side a range of beautiful arcades built by Henry IV. and Louis XIII., and a magnificent terrace 2,700 yards long and 50 broad, extending by the side of the dark-green forest, and from which, as our exile traversed it, he had a full view of the Seine winding through a beautiful country, bordered on each side by waving meadows, vineyards of the deepest green, and cornfields of the brightest yellow, villages of white cottages thatched with light-coloured straw, that clustered round the turreted chateaux or the ramparted châtelets of a noblesse that were then the most aristocratic in Europe.

But Walter saw only the home of the exiled Stuarts. On the ruddy brick-walls, the latticed casements, and gothic towers, the setting sun was pouring a flood of light as it set at the cloudless horizon. From the summit of the edifice, the royal standard of Britain hung down listlessly and still, and the same absence of life seemed to pervade all beneath it. The ditch was overgrown with luxuriant weeds, and long tufts of pendant grass waved in the joints of the masonry; great branches of vine and ivy had clambered up the walls of the palace, and flourished in masses on its terraced roofs and balconies. There was no one visible at any of the windows; the gateway, which was surmounted by a stone salamandre (the cognizance of Francis I.), was shut, and save two sentinels of the French guards, who stood motionless as statues on each side, and an old Jacobite gentleman or two, in full-bottomed wigs and laced coats, promenading slowly and thoughtfully on the terrace, the old chateau seemed lifeless and uninhabited.

As Walter crossed the bridge, and approached the gate with a beating heart, one of the sentinels, after giving a haughty glance at his faded and travel-stained attire, his weary aspect, and bundle, ported his musquet across, and said politely, but firmly--

"Pardonnez, monsieur."

Walter's heart swelled: had he travelled thus far, and reached the palace of his King, only to be repulsed from its gates? His colour came and went, as, with a painful mixture of pride and humility, he replied--

"Mon camarade, I am a poor Scots officer, exiled from his native country, and who has come here to take service in France." The face of the Frenchman flushed, and his eye glistened, as he drew himself up, and presented arms.

"Behold my commission," continued Walter; "I would speak with my noble Lord and Colonel the Earl of Dunbarton."

"Aha," replied the sentinel, "il est bon soldat, Monsieur Dunbartong. Passez, Monsieur officier; un gentilhomme est toujours un gentilhomme, et les braves officiers Eccossais sonts l'admiration de la France!"

Walter bowed at this compliment, the gate was opened by the porters, and, with a heart full of thoughts too deep for words, he found himself within the gloomy quadrangle of the palace of St. Germain-en-laye.

Left for some minutes to himself, he stood, bundle in hand, irresolutely surveying, with a dejected and crest-fallen air, the great and silent court. A gentleman in very plain attire, with a short wig, a well-worn beaver, and steel-hilted sword, who was slowly promenading under the arcade, suddenly turned, and the wanderer was greeted by his old friend Finland.

"Welcome to the poor cheer of St. Germain-en-laye!" cried this merry soldier (whom no fall of fortune could daunt), grasping Walter's hand. "My bon camarade, welcome to France. By all the devils, I was often grieved for thee, poor lad, and deemed thou wert doing penance in some rascally Tolbooth for our brave camisade in the north."

Walter was so much oppressed in spirit, and so weak in mind and body, that the tears rushed into his eyes, and he could only press his hand in silence.

"What the devil----my poor lad, thou seemest very faint and exhausted!"

"I have travelled on foot from Boulogne-sur-mer. I spent my last franc at St. Juste, my last sou an hour ago for a glass of vin ordinaire, and for three days no food has passed my lips."

"My God!" exclaimed Finland, striking his flushed forehead, "and my last tester went for dinner today! how shall I assist you? Travelling for three days without food! Surely the fortunes of the cavaliers are now at the lowest ebb."

"Then the tide must flow again."

"I now begin to fear it will flow no more for us. What says the player?

'There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.'

Once at least in life, every man's fortune will be at the flood, and if he misses the tide his bark is stranded on the shore for ever. But thee, poor lad! how shall I get thee food?--we are all as poor as kirk rats here. There are not less than two hundred officers of Dundee's army, and other loyal gentlemen of the Life Guards and Scottish Brigade, subsisting here on the small bounty of our gracious king, (whom Heaven in its mercy bless!) until some turn of fortune again draws forth their swords. We have each but fourpence a day, and are in great misery from lack of the most common necessaries of life. Yet we never forget that we are Scottish gentlemen, and daily attend the king's levée, with as gallant an air as if we trod the long gallery of Holyrood in our feathers and lace as of old. His grace of Gordon, my Lords of Maitland, Dunbarton, Abercorn, and others dine daily at a poor Restaurateur's, on plain stew and cabbage broth, while I have to content myself with bread and onions, and a keen appetite for sauce; while it affords me no consolation to reflect that my old ancestral tower of Finland--the gift of the Black Douglas to his favourite son--and all the fertile lands that spread around it, are now possessed by some vile, canting, crop-ear. The Earl of Dunbarton----"

"Whilom our gallant colonel--how I long for an interview!"

"He is gone to Versailles to visit le Mareschal Noailles, anent the unfortunate gentlemen who are starving here around us. He will be back tomorrow. Oh, Walter, when I see how might can triumph over right, and wickedness over more than Spartan virtue, I am almost tempted to believe there is no governing power in this wretched world; that all is the effect of chance or fate."

"Chance and fate are the reverse of each other, and this sentiment agrees not with your previous idea of 'the tide in the affairs of men.'"

"Tush! I am in a dozen minds in an hour. Let us leave these topics to such men as Mr. Ichabod Bummel. You remember that apostle of the covenant? ha, ha! A word in your ear. You saw our fair ones ere you left Scotland, I doubt not?"

"Alas, no."

"The deuce! how came that to pass? But you must dine, and where? for I have not a brass bodle, as we say at home in poor old Scotland, (God bless her, with all her errors!) I have it! the officer of the guard will lend me--or give--'tis all one; they are fine fellows, these French, and share their poor pay with us, in a spirit of charity that the apostles could not have surpassed. The gentleman and the soldier seldom seek a boon from each other in vain."

Finland calculated rightly; the French chevalier commanding the guard, on learning the cause of his present necessity, at once divided the contents of his purse, and enabled the happy borrower to lead his wearied friend to a tavern, where dinner was ordered and discussed with wonderful celerity.

"Now, Walter, I shall be glad to hear thy adventures," said Finland, when the waiting girl had cleared the dinner board and laid a decanter of wine, from which he filled their glasses. "Frontiniac dashed with brandy--you remember how often we have drank a bottle of it at Hughie Blair's, and the White Horse Hostel. How the times are changed since then! I was not at the Haughs o' Cromdale, being en route for Ireland to crave succour from James----"

"After the dispersion consequent to that ill-managed affair, I wandered from place to place, enduring such miseries as few can conceive, and was a thousand times in danger of being captured by Mackay's dragoons, who were riding down the country in every direction. Assisted by the kind and beautiful Countess of Dunbarton (who is yet intriguing in England), I procured some money, and, disguised as a Norlan drover, reached the western borders, for escape by sea from Scotland was impossible, the whole coast being watched by the English and Dutch fleet. In England my money was soon spent, and I despaired of ever reaching the port of Colchester, where I heard there lay a ship that in secret frequently transported our persecuted people to France. My bonnet and grey plaid, though they ensured my safety in the Lowlands, caused me to be viewed with hatred, jealousy, and mistrust, as soon as the Cheviot hills were left behind me, and I had not money wherewith to procure a change of costume. I travelled principally by night, and slept in ditches or thickets by day, for the villagers assailed me with stones and abuse whenever they saw me, using every bitter epithet that national animosity could inspire, while every country boor that had a couple of beagles at hand, uncoupled them to track and hunt me."

"Would to heaven I had been with thee, lad! Well."

"I remember with what bitterness I changed my last penny for a poor roll at Rippon, and eat it by the side of a ditch, near the princely castle of one who had gained a coronet by his political apostacy. I had still many miles before me, but trusting to Providence, continued my journey. Travelling by night and lying _perdu_ by day, I found myself in a waste moorland near Cawood, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The moon was rising; but I found that hunger, fatigue, and humiliation, had done their worst upon me, and that I could achieve no more. Despair entered my heart, and I threw myself down in that bleak spot to die, cursing the rebellion of our countrymen, the inhospitality of the English, and my own bad fortune. From a stupor that for some time weighed down every sense, I was roused by the trampling of a horse, and a deep bass voice crying,

"'Hollo Gaffer, art dead, or dead drunk only! Get up with a murrain, for my nag will neither stand or pass; steady--so-so--gently, zounds! gently!"

"I started, and instinctively grasped my staff, on perceiving a tall stout fellow muffled in a dark rocquelaure, with his face masked, and a hat flapped over his eyes. He rode a strong, fleet, and active horse, and carried long holsters.

"'Crush me, if it isn't a Scotch Jockey--a pedlar, I warrant!' said he, drawing a pistol from his saddlebow; 'they never travel without the ready; so hand over the bright Jacobuses or William's guilders, or else I may pop this bullet through your brain.'

"I was desperate, and replied, 'Fire! and rid me of an existence that is worthless. I have nothing to give but my life, and it is no longer of value to me.'

"'A gentleman, by this light!' replied the other, withdrawing his pistol, 'some cavalier in disguise, I warrant.'

"'You have guessed rightly; so now lead me to the nearest justice of the peace for a reward, if you will.'

"'For what do you take me?' said he, angrily. 'God bless King James, and may the great devil choak his son-in-law! Ah, had the good Dundee (a Scot though he was) survived that brave day's work, in your infernal pass of what d'ye call it? 'twould have been another case with us both today, perhaps. So thou art a Scottish cavalier?'

"'Once I was so--to-night I am a beggar, perishing by want, and without a roof to shelter me.'

"'Hast thou no money, lad?'

"'Not a penny, and have two hundred miles to travel.'

"'Hast thou no friends among the English here?'

"'Have I not said that I am poor?'

"'Right! I have learned in my time that the poor have no friends.'

"'Save God and their own hands.'

"'Right again, say I; though a highwayman, I love thee lad, for we have suffered in common from this accursed usurper, who sits in the throne of of our king. Here are thirty guineas; 'tis the half of all I have in the world, but to-morrow night may bring me better luck; take them with welcome, and spend them without scruple; but two hours ago, they were in the purse of that rascally whig, Marmaduke Langstone, of Langstone Hall. Keep to the right, and an hour's brisk walking will bring you to a hedge alehouse. Whisper my name to the wench at the bar (kiss her for me), and she will put thee on the right road for Colchester; the girl is true as steel to the good old cause.'

"'Whom shall I thank--whom remember?'

"'They call me "Highflying Tom" now, eastward of Temple Bar,' said he in a tone of bitterness; 'but when King James sat in his own chair, I was Thomas Butler, _Esquire_, of a long pedigree and an empty purse--devil else--but a gentleman every inch, sir; one that has shot his man, played at Cavagnole with King Charles, and Ombre with the Queen; drank many a bout with Rochester, ruffled it with Buckingham, and handed the fair Castlemaine and fairer Cleveland through a crowded cotillon. But it's all over now; and, d--n me! I am plain Bully Butler the highwayman.--So, sir, your servant;' and dashing spurs into his horse, he galloped away over the heath."

"Thomas Butler, of the princely house of Ormond--and 'twas he!" said Finland; "a braver spark old Ireland never sent forth to glory or disgrace. His father was a stout old Royalist, and shed his blood for King James on the banks of the Boyne. And so he hath taken to the road, the madcap! That is riding at the gallows full tilt with a vengeance!"

"But for that rencontre, I must have expired. The meeting gave me renewed energy; and (to be brief) I reached--not Colchester, but the sea-port of Saltfleet, where, in the disguise of a poor Scottish mariner, I embarked on board a smuggling craft, which landed me at Boulogne; and so--I am here."