‘Allen' and Sabina said, 'So be it, it will be a convenience to be able to distinguish him from you, at least in writing.’
The day after that came the welcome news that General Hay, with the help of Tullibardine's men, had taken Perth for the Chevalier, and that Mar was moving south, gathering men along the way, to join him there. There was good news also about old Lord Breadalbane, who had delayed his conduct to Edinburgh by claiming frailty and ill-health and retiring to bed at every opportunity. Finally he got a doctor to sign an affidavit to say that he was too ill to travel any further, and sent off his escort with it, while he slipped away to join the others in Perth, where he was joyfully reunited with his men.
By the end of September, Mar had reached Perth with his army of Highlanders, and more were expected every day. Meanwhile the Duke of Argyll had been sent from London to command the forces for the Elector, and had been joined by two regiments from the north of England and several bands of trained volunteers from Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Mavis took Allan aside and said to him, 'The time has come for you to take our men and join the others at Perth. With the men from Braco, and those from Birnie, you can take twenty armed and mounted men to General Mar, in addition to money. I have my jewels packed and ready -they are my gift.'
‘But I cannot leave you,' Allan cried in surprise.
‘You must,' Mavis said calmly. 'The men from my clan in the north have gone, and if I were a man, I would be with them, ready to fight for the true king. But it has pleased God to put me in the body of a weak and foolish woman. I can give nothing but money and prayers, but I can release you for the task by taking care of Sabina and your children. You must go, Allan Macallan: for duty; and if that does not move you, for pride.'
‘But what will you do?'
‘I shall take Sabina and the children and go back to Aberlady.'
‘That will be dangerous.'
‘It will be dangerous to stay here. With Mar at Perth and Argyll at Stirling, we are between two armies here.'
‘Sabina won't go,' Allan said shaking his head. Mavis smiled.
‘Leave me alone for that. I can manage Sabina. We'll travel slowly, and in disguise, so as not to attract attention. The idea of the disguises will reconcile her to the scheme. We'll be safer at Aberlady, for if the worst comes to the worst, we can get a boat from there, to France or Holland. Or escape across the Border. Frances and John would hide us if need be, and it would be a brave man that would follow us into Coquetdale. At all events, we cannot stay here.'
‘Yes, I see that. Well, if you are determined, it shall be as you say.’
The next day Allan took his leave of his wife and children, and the day after that Mavis and Sabina, with their servants and the children, slipped quietly away from Birnie, disguised as poor people, with a cart and a farm horse for Sabina and the baby and the luggage, and the rest of them walking. Sabina, dressed in a coarse brown woollen dress, with a length of greasy plaid round her shoulders and over her head, loved it all, and had to be restrained from asking directions of every passer-by for the delight of seeing their reactions. At all events, it took her mind very successfully from the departure of her husband.
*
Allan Macallan's first task on arriving in Perth was to find billets for his men, and that was none to easy. The town was already crowded with soldiers, and a discreet chaos seemed to reign, though it was evident that attempts were being made to organize foraging parties and various committees to run the day-to-day routine of the gathering army. He soon discovered the Battalion of Drummonds, numbering about two hundred, and led by Lord Strathal Ian, and decided the best thing would be to report to him, and let Strathallan solve his problems and likewise take charge of the money he had brought for Mar's aid. He found his lordship in a room above the tap-room of the Rose Inn, conversing with a fair-haired man so tall and broad-shouldered that he looked like to burst the tiny room at its seams. The two men were deep in some discussion when Allan knocked at the door and entered. Lord Strathallan glared at him.
‘Who are you? What do you want? Wait, I know you now - you're Allan Macallan of Braco! What the devil are you doing here?'
‘I've brought twenty men, my lord, fully armed - ' Allan began, but the tall man was staring at him with pleased surprise, and interrupted him.
‘Allan Macallan - well well! I claim you as a relative, sir, by marriage at least. If I mistake not you are married to my cousin Sabina.’
The man had large dark eyes like an Italian, and a way of pronouncing his words that was not Scottish nor yet precisely English. His blue silk coat, though hard worn, was of rich material; his wig, flung aside over the back of a chair, was even at a glance a superior one made of real hair which so closely matched the pale colour of his own that it must necessarily have cost him a small fortune.
‘Your cousin, sir?' Allan asked hesitantly. The man extended a large, shapely hand.
‘Charles Morland, sir, Earl of Chelmsford. Your wife's mother was sister to my father Ralph Morland.’
Allan took the offered hand. 'My lord,' he said, 'I am deeply honoured -'
‘So you have brought men,' Strathallan interrupted these pleasantries.
‘And money, my lord, and my wife's jewels.'
‘Money - that will please Mar,' Karellie said. 'It is no light task to feed an army, as he is discovering.'
‘It seems all he can discover,' Strathallan growled. 'He spends all his time talking about money and corn and the price of hay. When are we going to move? Does he mean to sit here in Perth for ever?'
‘He has no orders,' Karellie said gently. Strathallan thumped his fist on the table.
‘Damn it, that's what a commander in chief is for, to give orders.'
‘The Chevalier, my lord, hopes to land in the south-west with Ormonde. The rising here in Scotland is secondary.'
‘Then all the more reason for Mar to take matters into his own hands. If the Chevalier and Berwick are not coming here -'
‘But my lord, I understood the King was expected here hourly,' Allan said, perplexed. 'The King and Lord Berwick -'
‘That's what the men think, and I'll thank you not to tell them otherwise, Macallan. But if what Chelmsford says is right - damn it, the longer we give Argyll to arrange his forces, the worse for us. How long before our men start slipping away, eh?' He was speaking to Karellie again, forgetting Allan's presence as soon as his eyes were off him. Karellie leaned over the table.
‘Argyll has the bridge at Stirling, and that puts him between us and the Borderers of Northumberland. Now, if we can get across the Forth at some other point and join up with the Borderers, we'll have the whole of Scotland in our hands.’
Strathallan's eyes brightened at the prospect of some action. 'You have a plan? God damn my eyes, I'd like to hear it. I don't care what it is, so long as it is something to get me off my backside.'
‘Not my plan, but Sinclair's - to cross the Firth of Forth by boat.'
‘But there are enemy ships in the Firth. Three men-o'war and God knows how many armed fishing-boats,' Strathallan objected. 'We have no ships at all - what do you suggest, we steal rowing boats?'
‘Exactly that. And a diversion at Burnt Island, to draw off the men-of-war while we cross in the dark. We'll need people who know the coast, of course, and the best places to land . .
‘My lords,' Allan cried excitedly, 'I know the coast from Edinburgh up to North Berwick as well as I know the palms of my hands. I live there - my house is at Aberlady - I have known that coast since I was a child scrambling over rocks.’
Strathallan looked at him with interest.
‘Do you, by God? It seems you have brought us something besides men and money. Chelmsford, I think we had better have a meeting with the general as soon as possible.'
‘We can go and see him now, and arrange a time. There will have to be others in consultation. Sinclair says Hay knows the Fife coastline, where it will be best to try for boats.’
Strath
allan jumped up, ready for action. ‘Macallan, you had better come with us, since you have heard so much already. And you can give the money to Mar in person -that will convince him of your bona fides. Where are these men of yours?'
‘Outside, sir, in the field at the back of the inn.'
‘They can stay there for the time being. I'll give orders to one of my sergeants to find 'em a billet for tonight. With any luck we can be on our way tomorrow.’
*
Strathallan's hopes were too optimistic, but even so the plan was put into action promptly, and a force of 2,500 left Perth on 9 October, under the command of General Mackintosh of Borlum, known affectionately as Old Borlum, a tall, gaunt man of sixty with piercing grey eyes under ferociously bushy eyebrows, reaching the coast of Fife on Tuesday t i October.
Sinclair had gone ahead several days earlier to proclaim the Chevalier King in the fishing villages along the Fife coast and to commandeer the necessary boats. On the following day the men laid up quietly and rested, ready for the first crossing on the Wednesday night. There were to be two crossings on successive nights, for it had been estimated that it would not be possible to take over more than a thousand men in small boats and land them safely during the hours of darkness. Allan's men had joined with Lord Strathallan's Drummonds, and Allan was to go in the first party to advise on the landing. On his recommendation the boats were to head for three landing places at North Berwick, Aberlady, and Gullane; the first-comers, including the general himself, could wait safely at Aberlady House for the crossing to be completed, for the worst thing to fear was that the force should be split up and scattered.
The crossing was done in fifty or so small boats, and it was a tricky business, getting the men, some of whom had never seen a boat before, let alone been on one, aboard in the pitch darkness, rowing across, landing them, and rowing the boats back to be in place for the second crossing on Thursday night. Allan went across in the first boat to Aberlady in the exalted company of Old Borlum himself; Karellie was remaining on the Fife side to control the second night's crossing. As soon as they stepped out on to the sand, Allan despatched his servant to run up to the house to prepare them to receive the general and as many of the expedition as could be accommodated. It was just less than two weeks since Allan had seen his wife and children, but already he was overjoyed at the prospect of holding them in his arms again, even if only for a few short hours.
*
The plans for the rising in Northumberland had been in hand for some time, and the activity of messengers going from house to house had not escaped the notice of the Elector's spies. Already warrants had been issued for the arrest of Lord Derwentwater, for no better reason than he was a distant cousin of the Chevalier, and Tom Forster, the MP, because he was deep in debt as well as being a known Jacobite, and would therefore be expected to be reckless. Suspicion was also being directed against John Rathkeale, who as the grandson of the Countess of Chelmsford might well be expected to come out for the Chevalier. The gathering was set to take place on 6 October, just outside Bellingham, which was well placed at the junction of several important roads. From there the gathering would move to Rothbury, on the Alnwick road at the foot of the Cheviots, where they expected the east coast people to join them, and from where they could march straight down to Newcastle. The difficulty for Rathkeale and his men was in getting out of their own grounds, for since the warrants had gone out, they were being closely watched, and any move southward would be likely to provoke arrest. A diversionary tactic was needed, and though John hated the idea of involving Frances, her own enthusiasm overcame his objections.
‘I have as much right to do what I can for the cause,' she said. 'And Father approves, don't you?’
Francomb grinned amiably. 'She's her mother's daughter,' he said. 'I could never have kept Sabine from it, so you may as well give in now, John.' In his mind was the image of Sabine on horseback charging down on the government agents with terrible yells, just as he had seen her galloping full-cry at the hunt. 'Besides, if you can think of another way to get us out -’
John couldn't, and so it had to be. On the evening before, they lay tenderly entwined in their curtained bed, and though they did not speak, they both thought about the chances that they would never meet again.
‘I have been very happy with you,' John said at last. 'I did not give much thought to marriage when I was younger, but when grandmother said I was to marry you, I knew that you were the only person in the world I could ever have wanted to marry. And our son John -’
His voice failed him, and Frances pressed him closer in comfort. Their only surviving child was just two years old, and their joint pride.
‘Hush, darling. Don't speak of it. It's the same for poor Lord Derwentwater,' Frances said.
‘Worse in a way,' John said. 'He has only been married three years. At least you and I have had ten years together.'
‘And his wife is pregnant,' Frances added. 'That must be hard for him.'
‘I could wish I was leaving you pregnant, my hinny. Then, if anything happened to me -’
She put her hand over his mouth in the darkness. 'Don't speak of it,' she said. 'I have been happy too, my John. But we'll be happy again. When the King is on his throne, and you come home to me.’
There was no more speech. After some time, when they were drifting together into sleep, he heard her murmur, 'Perhaps you do leave me pregnant.’
He smiled, but was too far gone in sleep to answer.
The next day Frances and two of the women dressed in men's clothing, and with cloaks and hoods for further disguise, they rode out on to Emblehope moor, and set off riding hard in the direction of Otterburn. When they had gone, drawing, it was hoped, the attention of the government spies, the men slipped away in ones and twos to the woods along Rooken Edge, where the horses had been concealed for two days, and there mounted up and rode across Blackburn Common down to Greenhaugh and thence to Bellingham. In the meantime Jack Francomb, mounted on his most hardy horse, undertook the wild and solitary ride over Blackman's Law, down into Redesdale, and by the track up and over Raven's Knowe to Blindburn, to bring out his own men from the old estate. In winter it would have been certain death to attempt the ride, and even in October it was risky enough; but Francomb had been born on the Cheviots, and those bare hills had been his harsh nursemaid. On 13 October, when the Jacobites already gathered at Rothbury had moved on to Warkworth, he rode in at the head of a band of twelve armed and mounted men to join his son-in-law.
The second crossing from Fife had not had such good luck as the first. It was not to be expected that the diversionary force at Burnt Island could fool the men-of-war for ever, and the ships came up upon the little boats when they were right out in the middle of the Firth. Karellie had held back to the end of the embarkation, and saw most of what went on, and at first it looked as though there would be no trouble, for the small boats were very scattered, and it was difficult for the big, clumsy ships to do much against them. Karellie saw one boat captured, and forty-or-so men taken into custody, but while that was happening others slipped through and reached the shore, aided by the lights from the ships, which shewed them the direction and made the landing easier.
But then the men-of-war regrouped themselves, and instead of dashing hither and thither after the rowing boats, like great oxen chasing flies, they had the sense to place themselves in a line across the water and bar the way. It was impossible to go forward, and now that the tide had turned and the current was setting away from the coast of Fife, it was impossible to go back. Karellie gave orders to pull for the Fife shore, but the current and tide proved too strong, and after an exhausting few hours of rowing they were able only to land on the Isle of May, in the middle of the widest part of the estuary. It was a tiny, rocky island, wild and windswept, on which a religious foundation had once made its retreat from the world, and they were lucky to have reached it, for beyond was only the wild waste of the North Sea and no landfall before Norway. If they h
ad been swept past it, they would have perished for sure.
The men-of-war could not get close in to the island, because of the rocks and currents, but they stood as close-to as they could, preventing escape. During the night and the following morning, other boats came in, numbering around eleven, and carrying Lord Strathmore amongst others. When it was possible to assemble and count the men, they were able to estimate that around half of the second night's contingent must have got across. Therewere around two hundred of them on the island. Wearily, Karellie set about making arrangements for the shelter and feeding of his small army.
*
Allan had found his womenfolk at Aberlady House, and was rapturously reunited with Sabina, who looked none the worse for her journey, and in fact had discovered a new delight, in actually feeding her own baby at her own breast, for the wet-nurse had left them the first night when they passed by her home village, saying that she did not care to risk traipsing about the country when there were so many soldiers about. She was less delighted to see Allan than he was to see her.
‘Goodness, what are you doing here?' she asked him sharply. 'Why aren't you off fighting somewhere?'
‘We are on the way to fight, my dearest,' he said pacifically. 'Meanwhile, I must ask you to accommodate the general and his staff and some of the men. I cannot tell you too much of the plan, for fear of being overheard, but -'
‘Accommodate? I hope you don't mean feed, for we have very little in the house,' Sabina said. Mavis intervened at that point.
‘You had better bring them into the hall, Allan,' she said, 'and those who cannot fit into the hall can shelter in the stables and the barn for a while. How long will you be staying?'
‘Only for one night.'
‘How many men have you actually got out there?' Sabina asked suspiciously.
‘There will be about three hundred altogether, and others may come in during the night from -'
‘Three hundred!' Sabina cried. 'How in the world do you expect us to feed three hundred men?'
The Chevalier Page 31