THE AFTERWORD
My pardon came next day, duly signed and sealed, with the customary rider to it that I must renounce the Stuarts, and swear allegiance to King George. I am no hero of romance, but a plain Englishman, a prosaic lover of roast beef and old claret, of farming and of fox-hunting. Our cause was dead, and might as well be buried. Not to make long of the matter, I took the oath without scruple. To my pardon there was one other proviso: that I must live on my estate until further notice. If at any time I were found ten miles from Montagu Grange, the pardon was to be void.
Aileen and I moved to our appointed home at once. It may be believed that our hearts were full of the most tender joy and love, for I had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from the jaws of death into the very sunshine of life. We had but one cloud to mar the bright light--the death of many a dear friend, and most of all, of that friendly enemy who had given his life for her good name. Moralists point out to me that he was a great sinner. I care not if it be so. Let others condemn him; I do not. Rather I cherish the memory of a gallant, faultful gentleman whose life found wrong expression. There be some to whom are given inheritance of evil nature. Then how dare we, who know not the measure of their temptation, make ourselves judges of their sin?
At the Grange we found awaiting us an unexpected visitor, a red-haired, laughing Highlander, who, though in hiding, was as full of merriment as a schoolboy home for the holidays. To Cloe he made most ardent love, and when, at last, Donald Roy slipped across the waters to St. Germains, he carried with him a promise that was redeemed after the general amnesty was pa.s.sed.
Six weeks after my pardon Malcolm Macleod and Miss Flora Macdonald stopped at the Grange for a short visit with us. They were on their way north, having been at length released without a trial, since the pa.s.sion for blood was now spent.
"We three, with Captain Donald Roy and Tony Creagh, came to London to be hangit," smiled Major Macleod as they were about to resume their journey.
"Twa-three times the rope tightened around the gullets of some of us, yet in the end we all win free. You and Tony have already embraced the other noose; Donald is in a geyan ill way, writing Latin verses to his lady"s eyes; and as for me,"--he smiled boldly at his companion--"I ride to the land of heather side by side with Miss Flora Macdonald."
Here I drop the quill, for my tale is told. For me, life is full of many quiet interests and much happiness, but even now there grips me at times a longing for those mad wild days, when death hung on a hair"s breadth, and the glamour of romance beckoned the feathered foot of youth.
FINIS