Redgauntlet: A Tale Of The Eighteenth Century

In the same breath, they were both at the half-opened door of the room, Fairford entreating to speak with the Father Buonaventure, and Lilias, equally vehemently, requesting a moment’s interview with her uncle. While the sentinel hesitated what to do, his attention was called to a loud noise at the door, where a crowd had been assembled in consequence of the appalling cry, that the enemy were upon them, occasioned, as it afterwards proved, by some stragglers having at length discovered the dead bodies of Nanty Ewart and of Nixon.

Amid the confusion occasioned by this alarming incident, the sentinel ceased to attend, to his duty; and accepting Alan Fairford’s arm, Lilias found no opposition in penetrating even to the inner apartment, where the principal persons in the enterprise, whose conclave had been disturbed by this alarming incident, were now assembled in great confusion, and had been joined by the Chevalier himself.

‘Only a mutiny among these smuggling scoundrels,’ said Redgauntlet.

ONLY a mutiny, do you say?’ said Sir Richard Glendale; ‘and the lugger, the last hope of escape for,’ – he looked towards Charles, – ‘stands out to sea under a press of sail!’

‘Do not concern yourself about me,’ said the unfortunate prince; ‘this is not the worst emergency in which it has been my lot to stand; and if it were, I fear it not. Shift for yourselves, my lords and gentlemen.’

‘No, never!’ said the young Lord – . ‘Our only hope now is in an honourable resistance.’

‘Most true,’ said Redgauntlet; ‘let despair renew the union amongst us which accident disturbed. I give my voice for displaying the royal banner instantly, and – How now!’ he concluded, sternly, as Lilias, first soliciting his attention by pulling his cloak, put into his hand the scroll, and added, it was designed for that of Nixon.

Redgauntlet read – and, dropping it on the ground, continued to stare upon the spot where it fell, with raised hands and fixed eyes. Sir Richard Glendale lifted the fatal paper, read it, and saying, ‘Now all is indeed over,’ handed it to Maxwell, who said aloud, ‘Black Colin Campbell, by G – d! I heard he had come post from London last night.’

As if in echo to his thoughts, the violin of the blind man was heard, playing with spirit, The Campbells are coming,’ a celebrated clan-march.

‘The Campbells are coming in earnest,’ said MacKellar; they are upon us with the whole battalion from Carlisle.’

There was a silence of dismay, and two or three of the company began to drop out of the room.

Lord – spoke with the generous spirit of a young English nobleman. ‘If we have been fools, do not let us be cowards. We have one here more precious than us all, and come hither on our warranty – let us save him at least.’

‘True, most true,’ answered Sir Richard Glendale. ‘Let the king be first cared for.’

‘That shall be my business,’ said Redgauntlet ‘if we have but time to bring back the brig, all will be well – I will instantly dispatch a party in a fishing skiff to bring her to.’ He gave his commands to two or three of the most active among his followers. ‘Let him be once on board,’ he said, ‘and there are enough of us to stand to arms and cover his retreat.’

‘Right, right,’ said Sir Richard, ‘and I will look to points which can be made defensible; and the old powder-plot boys could not have made a more desperate resistance than we shall. Redgauntlet,’ continued he, ‘I see some of our friends are looking pale; but methinks your nephew has more mettle in his eye now than when we were in cold deliberation, with danger at a distance.’

‘It is the way of our house,’ said Redgauntlet; ‘our courage ever kindles highest on the losing side. I, too, feel that the catastrophe I have brought on must not be survived by its author. Let me first,’ he said, addressing Charles, ‘see your Majesty’s sacred person in such safety as can now be provided for it, and then’ —

‘You may spare all considerations concerning me, gentlemen,’ again repeated Charles; ‘yon mountain of Criffel shall fly as soon as I will.’

Most threw themselves at his feet with weeping and entreaty; some one or two slunk in confusion from the apartment, and were heard riding off. Unnoticed in such a scene, Darsie, his sister, and Fairford, drew together, and held each other by the hands, as those who, when a vessel is about to founder in the storm, determine to take their chance of life and death together.

Amid this scene of confusion, a gentleman, plainly dressed in a riding-habit, with a black cockade in his hat, but without any arms except a COUTEAU-DE-CHASSE, walked into the apartment without ceremony. He was a tall, thin, gentlemanly man, with a look and bearing decidedly military. He had passed through their guards, if in the confusion they now maintained any, without stop or question, and now stood, almost unarmed, among armed men, who nevertheless, gazed on him as on the angel of destruction.

‘You look coldly on me, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Sir Richard Glendale – my Lord – , we were not always such strangers. Ha, Pate-in-Peril, how is it with you? and you, too, Ingoldsby – I must not call you by any other name – why do you receive an old friend so coldly? But you guess my errand.’

‘And are prepared for it, general,’ said Redgauntlet; ‘we are not men to be penned up like sheep for the slaughter.’

‘Pshaw! you take it too seriously – let me speak but one word with you.’

‘No words can shake our purpose,’ said Redgauntlet, were your whole command, as I suppose is the case, drawn round the house.’

‘I am certainly not unsupported,’ said the general; ‘but if you would hear me’ —

‘Hear ME, sir,’ said the Wanderer, stepping forward; ‘I suppose I am the mark you aim at – I surrender myself willingly, to save these gentlemen’s danger – let this at least avail in their favour.’

An exclamation of ‘Never, never!’ broke from the little body of partisans, who threw themselves round the unfortunate prince, and would have seized or struck down Campbell, had it not been that he remained with his arms folded, and a look, rather indicating impatience because they would not hear him, than the least apprehension of violence at their hand.

At length he obtained a moment’s silence. ‘I do not,’ he said, ‘know this gentleman’ – (making a profound bow to the unfortunate prince) – ‘I do not wish to know him; it is a knowledge which would suit neither of us.’

‘Our ancestors, nevertheless, have been well acquainted,’ said Charles, unable to suppress, even at that hour of dread and danger, the painful recollections of fallen royalty.

‘In one word, General Campbell,’ said Redgauntlet, ‘is it to be peace or war? You are a man of honour, and we can trust you.’

‘I thank you, sir,’ said the general; ‘and I reply, that the answer to your question rests with yourself. Come, do not be fools, gentlemen; there was perhaps no great harm meant or intended by your gathering together in this obscure corner, for a bear-bait or a cock-fight, or whatever other amusement you may have intended, but it was a little imprudent, considering how you stand with government, and it has occasioned some anxiety. Exaggerated accounts of your purpose have been laid before government by the information of a traitor in your own counsels; and I was sent down post to take the command of a sufficient number of troops, in case these calumnies should be found to have any real foundation. I have come here, of course, sufficiently supported both with cavalry and infantry, to do whatever might be necessary; but my commands are – and I am sure they agree with my inclination – to make no arrests, nay, to make no further inquiries of any kind, if this good assembly will consider their own interest so far as to give up their immediate purpose, and return quietly home to their own houses.’

‘What! – all?’ exclaimed Sir Richard Glendale – ‘all, without exception?’

‘ALL, without one single exception’ said the general; ‘such are my orders. If you accept my terms, say so, and make haste; for things may happen to interfere with his Majesty’s kind purposes towards you all.’

‘Majesty’s kind purposes!’ said the Wanderer. ‘Do I hear you aright, sir?’

‘I speak the king’s very words, from his very lips,’ replied the general. ‘“I will,” said his Majesty, “deserve the confidence of my subjects by reposing my security in the fidelity of the millions who acknowledge my title – in the good sense and prudence of the few who continue, from the errors of education, to disown it.” His Majesty will not even believe that the most zealous Jacobites who yet remain can nourish a thought of exciting a civil war, which must be fatal to their families and themselves, besides spreading bloodshed and ruin through a peaceful land. He cannot even believe of his kinsman, that he would engage brave and generous though mistaken men, in an attempt which must ruin all who have escaped former calamities; and he is convinced, that, did curiosity or any other motive lead that person to visit this country, he would soon see it was his wisest course to return to the continent; and his Majesty compassionates his situation too much to offer any obstacle to his doing so.’

‘Is this real?’ said Redgauntlet. ‘Can you mean this? Am I – are all, are any of these gentlemen at liberty, without interruption, to embark in yonder brig, which, I see, is now again approaching the shore?’

‘You, sir – all – any of the gentlemen present,’ said the general, – ‘all whom the vessel can contain, are at liberty to embark uninterrupted by me; but I advise none to go off who have not powerful reasons unconnected with the present meeting, for this will be remembered against no one.’

‘Then, gentlemen,’ said Redgauntlet, clasping his hands together as the words burst from him, ‘the cause is lost for ever!’

General Campbell turned away to the window, as if to avoid hearing what they said. Their consultation was but momentary; for the door of escape which thus opened was as unexpected as the exigence was threatening.

‘We have your word of honour for our protection,’ said Sir Richard Glendale, ‘if we dissolve our meeting in obedience to your summons?’

‘You have, Sir Richard,’ answered the general.

‘And I also have your promise,’ said Redgauntlet, ‘that I may go on board yonder vessel, with any friend whom I may choose to accompany me?’

Not only that, Mr. Ingoldsby – or I WILL call you Mr. Redgauntlet once more – you may stay in the offing for a tide, until you are joined by any person who may remain at Fairladies. After that, there will be a sloop of war on the station, and I need not say your condition will then become perilous.’

‘Perilous it should not be, General Campbell,’ said Redgauntlet, ‘or more perilous to others than to us, if others thought as I do even in this extremity.’

‘You forget yourself, my friend,’ said the unhappy Adventurer; you forget that the arrival of this gentleman only puts the cope-stone on our already adopted resolution to abandon our bull-fight or by whatever other wild name this headlong enterprise may be termed. I bid you farewell, unfriendly friends – I bid you farewell,’ (bowing to the general) ‘my friendly foe – I leave this strand as I landed upon it, alone and to return no more!’

‘Not alone,’ said Redgauntlet, ‘while there is blood in the veins of my father’s son.’

‘Not alone,’ said the other gentlemen present, stung with feelings which almost overpowered the better reasons under which they had acted. ‘We will not disown our principles, or see your person endangered.’

‘If it be only your purpose to see the gentleman to the beach,’ said General Campbell, ‘I will myself go with you. My presence among you, unarmed, and in your power, will be a pledge of my friendly intentions, and will overawe, should such be offered, any interruption on the part of officious persons.’

‘Be it so,’ said the Adventurer, with the air of a prince to a subject, not of one who complied with the request of an enemy too powerful to be resisted.

They left the apartment – they left the house – an unauthenticated and dubious, but appalling, sensation of terror had already spread itself among the inferior retainers, who had so short time before strutted, and bustled, and thronged the doorway and the passages. A report had arisen, of which the origin could not be traced, of troops advancing towards the spot in considerable numbers; and men who, for one reason or other, were most of them amenable to the arm of power, had either shrunk into stables or corners, or fled the place entirely. There was solitude on the landscape excepting the small party which now moved towards the rude pier, where a boat lay manned, agreeably to Redgauntlet’s orders previously given.

The last heir of the Stuarts leant on Redgauntlet’s arm as they walked towards the beach; for the ground was rough, and he no longer possessed the elasticity of limb and of spirit which had, twenty years before, carried him over many a Highland hill as light as one of their native deer. His adherents followed, looking on the ground, their feelings struggling against the dictates of their reason.

General Campbell accompanied them with an air of apparent ease and indifference, but watching, at the same time, and no doubt with some anxiety, the changing features of those who acted in this extraordinary scene.

Darsie and his sister naturally followed their uncle, whose violence they no longer feared, while his character attracted their respect, and Alan Fairford attended them from interest in their fate, unnoticed in a party where all were too much occupied with their own thoughts and feelings, as well as with the impending crisis, to attend to his presence.

Half-way betwixt the house and the beach, they saw the bodies of Nanty Ewart and Cristal Nixon blackening in the sun.

‘That was your informer?’ said Redgauntlet, looking back to General Campbell, who only nodded his assent.

‘Caitiff wretch!’ exclaimed Redgauntlet; – ‘and yet the name were better bestowed on the fool who could be misled by thee.’

‘That sound broadsword cut,’ said the general, ‘has saved us the shame of rewarding a traitor.’

They arrived at the place of embarkation. The prince stood a moment with folded arms, and looked around him in deep silence. A paper was then slipped into his hands – he looked at it, and said, ‘I find the two friends I have left at Fairladies are apprised of my destination, and propose to embark from Bowness. I presume this will not be an infringement of the conditions under which you have acted?’

‘Certainly not,’ answered General Campbell; ‘they shall have all facility to join you.’

‘I wish, then,’ said Charles, ‘only another companion. Redgauntlet, the air of this country is as hostile to you as it is to me. These gentlemen have made their peace, or rather they have done nothing to break it. But you – come you and share my home where chance shall cast it. We shall never see these shores again; but we will talk of them, and of our disconcerted bull-fight.’

‘I follow you, sire, through life,’ said Redgauntlet, ‘as I would have followed you to death. Permit me one moment.’

The prince then looked round, and seeing the abashed countenances of his other adherents bent upon the ground, he hastened to say, ‘Do not think that you, gentlemen, have obliged me less because your zeal was mingled with prudence, entertained, I am sure, more on my own account and on that of your country, than from selfish apprehensions.’

He stepped from one to another, and, amid sobs and bursting tears, received the adieus of the last remnant which had hitherto supported his lofty pretensions, and addressed them individually with accents of tenderness and affection.

The general drew a little aloof, and signed to Redgauntlet to speak with him while this scene proceeded. ‘It is now all over,’ he said, ‘and Jacobite will be henceforward no longer a party name. When you tire of foreign parts, and wish to make your peace, let me know. Your restless zeal alone has impeded your pardon hitherto.’

‘And now I shall not need it,’ said Redgauntlet. ‘I leave England for ever; but I am not displeased that you should hear my family adieus. – Nephew, come hither. In presence of General Campbell, I tell you, that though to breed you up in my own political opinions has been for many years my anxious wish, I am now glad that it could not be accomplished. You pass under the service of the reigning monarch without the necessity of changing your allegiance – a change, however,’ he added, looking around him, which sits more easy on honourable men than I could have anticipated; but some wear the badge of their loyalty on their sleeve, and others in the heart. You will, from henceforth, be uncontrolled master of all the property of which forfeiture could not deprive your father – of all that belonged to him – excepting this, his good sword’ (laying his hand on the weapon he wore), ‘which shall never fight for the House of Hanover; and as my hand will never draw weapon more, I shall sink it forty fathoms deep in the wide ocean. Bless you, young man! If I have dealt harshly with you, forgive me. I had set my whole desires on one point, – God knows, with no selfish purpose; and I am justly punished by this final termination of my views, for having been too little scrupulous in the means by which I pursued them. – Niece, farewell, and may God bless you also!’

‘No, sir,’ said Lilias, seizing his hand eagerly. ‘You have been hitherto my protector, – you are now in sorrow, let me be your attendant and your comforter in exile.’

‘I thank you, my girl, for your unmerited affection; but it cannot and must not be. The curtain here falls between us. I go to the house of another. If I leave it before I quit the earth, it shall be only for the House of God. Once more, farewell both! The fatal doom,’ he said, with a melancholy smile, ‘will, I trust, now depart from the House of Redgauntlet, since its present representative has adhered to the winning side. I am convinced he will not change it, should it in turn become the losing one.’

The unfortunate Charles Edward had now given his last adieus to his downcast adherents. He made a sign with his hand to Redgauntlet, who came to assist him into the skiff. General Campbell also offered his assistance, the rest appearing too much affected by the scene which had taken place to prevent him.

‘You are not sorry, general, to do me this last act of courtesy,’ said the Chevalier; ‘and, on my part, I thank you for it. You have taught me the principle on which men on the scaffold feel forgiveness and kindness even for their executioner. Farewell!’

They were seated in the boat, which presently pulled off from the land. The Oxford divine broke out into a loud benediction, in terms which General Campbell was too generous to criticize at the time, or to remember afterwards; – nay, it is said, that, Whig and Campbell as he was, he could not help joining in the universal Amen! which resounded from the shore.