Brothers & Sisters - John & Anna Buchan Edition (Collection of Their Greatest Works). Buchan John

Presently Dickson had the felicity of watching a young man in the costume of Prince Charles Edward (and, if the miniature in the drawing-room was to be trusted, favouring the original in most respects) being instructed by Alison, with the assistance of her gramophone, in the movements of the foursome and the eightsome reels. Dickson sat through the performance in a happy trance. The faded Stuart tartan of the kilt and plaid, the old worn velvet of the doublet, the bright silver of dirk and sword-hilt, the dim blue of the Garter riband, were part of something which he had always dreamed. The wig was impossible, for the head of the late General had been larger than the Prince’s, but Dickson applauded its absence. He had always thought of Prince Charlie as wearing his own hair, and that hair not too long.

      Mrs Brisbane-Brown appeared at dinner “en grande tenue,” as she expressed it, with a magnificent comb of diamonds surmounting her head. But Alison was in her ordinary outdoor clothes. The ball was not for her, she said, for she had far too much to do. Jaikie was due at the Castle at half-past eight, and she must be there when he arrived. “That woman Cazenove,” she observed, “is no manner of use. She has been fluttering round Mr Craw like a scared hen, and undermining his self-confidence. She is undoing all the good you did him, Aunt Hatty. I have told Bannister to carry her to her bedroom and lock her in if she gets hysterical.”

      She left before the meal was over, and her adieu to the Prince scandalised Dickson by its informality. “See that you turn up the collar of your ulster, sir, and tie a muffler round your chin. There are several people near the gate who have no business to be there. I shall have some fun dodging them myself.”

      The car, driven by Wilkie, duly arrived at the stroke of nine, and Mrs Brisbane-Brown, attended by her nephew, who was muffled, as one would expect in an Australian, against the chills of a Scots October, was packed into it by Middlemas and her maid. Dickson did not show himself. His time was not yet, and he was fortifying himself against it by a pipe and a little hot toddy.

      The story of the Ball may be read in the Canonry Standard and Portaway Advertiser, where the party from the Mains was incorrectly given as the Honourable Mrs Brisbane-Brown, the Honourable Alison Westwater, and Mr John Charvill. The Australian cousin was a huge success, and to this day many a Canonry maiden retains a tender memory of the tall young Chevalier, who danced beautifully—except in the reels, where he needed much guidance—and whose charm of manner and wide knowledge of the world upset all their preconceived notions of the inhabitants of the Antipodes. His aunt introduced him also to several of the neighbouring lairds, who found him not less agreeable than their womenkind. It was a misfortune that he left so early and so mysteriously. His name was on many virginal programmes for dances after midnight. Lord Fosterton wanted to continue his conversation with him about a new method of rearing partridges, which Mr Charvill had found in Czecho-Slovakia, and young Mr Kennedy of Kenmair, who was in the Diplomatic Service, and whose memory was haunted by a resemblance which he could not define, was anxious to exchange gossip with him about certain circles in Vienna with which he appeared to be familiar. As it was, Mr Charvill departed like Cinderella, but long before Cinderella’s hour.

      At half-past ten Wilkie returned to the Mains and Dickson’s hour had come. He wore a heavy motoring ulster and a soft black hat which belonged to Barbon. It seemed to him the nearest approach he could find to the proper headwear. From Bannister he had borrowed a small revolver, for which he had only four cartridges. He felt it incongruous—it should have been a long sword.

      At a quarter to eleven he stood on the pavement outside the Station Hotel, which was empty now, for the crowd which had watched the guests’ arrival had departed. A tall figure in a greatcoat came swiftly out. Dickson held the door open while he entered the car, and then got in beside him. His great hour had begun.

      I wish that for Dickson’s sake I could tell of a hazardous journey, of hostile eyes and sinister faces, of a harsh challenge, a brush with the enemy, an escape achieved in the teeth of odds by the subtlety and valour of the Prince’s companion. For such things Dickson longed, and for such he was prepared. But truth compels me to admit that nothing of the sort happened. The idyllic is not the epic. The idyll indeed is an Alexandrian invention, born in the days when the epic spirit had passed out of life. But Dickson, whose soul thirsted for epic, achieved beyond doubt the idyllic.

      Prince John was in a cheerful, conversational mood. He was thankful to be out of what promised to be a very tiresome entanglement. He wanted to be back in France, where he was due at a partridge shoot. He had enjoyed the ball, and purposed to take lessons in reel-dancing. “You have pretty girls in Scotland,” he said, “but none to touch Miss Westwater. In another year I back her to lead the field. There’s a good hotel, you say, at Markhaven, where I can get a few hours’ sleep… My friends by this time are in London, but we do not propose to meet till Paris… Happily the wind is slight. I am not the best of sailors.”

      He conversed pleasantly, but Dickson’s answers, if respectful, were short. He was too busy savouring the situation to talk. He addressed his companion, not as “Sir,” but as “Sire.”

      The car stopped a little beyond the hamlet of Rinks, and “Wait here,” Dickson told Wilkie; “I’ll be back in less than half an hour.” He humped the heavier of the Prince’s two cases (which was all the baggage the Prince proposed to take with him) and led him, by a road he knew well, over the benty links and by way of many plank bridges across the brackish runnels which drained the marshlands. The moon was high in the heavens, and the whole cup of the estuary brimmed with light. The trench of the Callowa was full, a silver snake in a setting of palest gold, and above it, like a magical bird, brooded the Rosabelle. Only the rare calls of sea-fowl broke into the low chuckle and whisper of the ebbing tide.

      Maclellan was waiting for them, Maclellan in sea-boots and an ancient greatcoat of frieze.

      “Man, I’m glad to see ye, Mr McCunn,” was his greeting. “I’m vexed we’re to hae sae little o’ ye, but I’m proud to be able to oblige your freend… What did you say his name was? Mr Charles? It’s a grand nicht for our job, Mr Charles. The wind’s at our back—what there is o’t. It’s no muckle the noo, but there’ll be mair oot on the Solway. We’ll be in Markhaven by ane o’ the mornin’.”

      Dickson’s ear caught Maclellan’s misapprehension of Charvill. He did not correct it, for the name Maclellan gave the Prince was the name he had long given him in his heart.

      Far down the estuary he saw the lights of a ship, and from its funnel a thin fluff of smoke showed against the pale sky.

      “That’s the yatt that’s lyin’ off Fallatown,” Maclellan said. “She’s gettin’ up steam. She’ll be for off early in the mornin’.”

      It was the last touch that was needed to complete the picture. There lay the enemy ship, the English frigate, to prevent escape. Under its jaws the Prince must slip through to the sanctuary of France. The place was no longer an inlet on a lowland firth. It was Loch Nanuamh under the dark hills of Moidart—it was some Hebridean bay, with outside the vast shadowy plain of the Atlantic…

      They were on the deck of the Rosabelle now, and, as the Prince unbuttoned his ulster to get at his cigarettes, Dickson saw the flutter of tartan, the gleam of silver, the corner of a blue riband. In that moment his spirit was enlarged. At last—at long last—his dream had come true. He was not pondering romance, he was living it… He was no more the prosperous trader, the cautious business man, the laird of a few humdrum acres, the plump elder whose seat was the chimney-corner. He was young again, and his place was the open road and the seashore and the uncharted world. He was Lochiel, with a price on his head and no home but the heather… He was Montrose in his lonely loyalty… He was Roland in the red twilight of Roncesvalles…

      The Prince was saying good-bye.

      “I’m very much obliged to you, Mr McCunn. Some day I hope we may meet again and renew our friendship. Meanwhile, will you wear this as a memento of our pleasant adventure?”

      He took a ring from his finger, a plain gold ring set with an engraved cornelian. Dickson received it blindly. He was to remember later the words which accompanied it, but at the moment he scarcely heard them. He took the Prince’s hand, bent low, and kissed it. Happily