The Chevalier

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  For hours Karellie scoured the countryside all around the town, gathering up stray troopers, exhausted and draggled with the blood of their enemies. He caught a glimpse at a distance of General Mar himself doing the same thing with the men who had gone the other way, towards the Wharry. His own trouble was that as soon as he got a few men together and left them somewhere, they would wander off again. It was a frustrating business, and time consuming.

  *

  The Jacobite left wing had had no such easy victory, against the government right wing which was under the command of General Argyll himself. They had lost their cavalry early, through a mistaken manoeuvre, and were therefore alone against the government infantry and its dragoons, who continuously charged them and drove them backwards. The Highlanders rallied every time and renewed the fight, only to be charged again, and after some hours they were driven back right to the Allan Water where, having nowhere else to go, they had to scatter, to save themselves from being driven into the water and drowned.

  It was fortunate for them that the government troops held back at that point and did not pursue them further, and were recalled a moment later by Argyll to go back up the hill and face the troops reformed there by General Mar from the original charge. It was a thing that had been seen all over the battlefield amongst the foot-soldiers, the unwillingness to kill each other. Hand to hand, the men had seen and recognized their brotherhood, and quarter was given again and again. A wiry, mouse-haired, grey-bearded man with a bad limp, which he had evidently got from an accident some years ago, to judge by his nimbleness in accomodating it, jumped into the icy Allan Water with the fearlessness of one who had learned early to swim, and got across to the other side, and there he stood in safety, banging his numb arms against his sides, and watching the action on the other side.

  What to do, was the question. There was still fighting up the hill, but he was tired, and now that they had been scattered he could see no chance of their winning. The cavalry had disappeared in the first moments of battle and had not been seen since, and without cavalry they had no chance of beating Argyll. He watched the government troops withdraw and go back up the hill, and decided it was over for him. Besides, if he stood in this cold wind for long he would surely perish. He turned and limped briskly in the direction of Kinbuck.

  He heard the crying, and at first was inclined to ignore it. The cold and wet had reached a degree of actual pain, and he longed for food and shelter. But there was something about the crying that made it impossible to ignore - it was like a young woman's, or a child's. He hesitated, cursed softly, and went to investigate. It was growing dark, and at first all he saw by the thorn thicket was a large black lump, but when he came closer he saw it was a magnificent black horse lying on its side, with its head in the lap of a young boy. It was the boy who was crying. The horse was looking at him with liquid, trusting eyes, and the boy was stroking its head and weeping, dropping great hot tears on to the black muzzle.

  ‘Hey now, boy, what's the matter?' the man asked gruffly. The boy looked up, his face tear-slobbered, but even so striking enough to make the man draw his breath sharply.

  ‘He's hurt,' the boy cried. 'He put his foot down a hole and fell - we fell all the way down the hillside - and now he can't get up, and I don't know what to do.’

  The man knelt down beside the horse and felt it over with skilled, gentle hands. It was tragic, he thought. It was one of the most beautiful horses he had ever seen.

  ‘Did you steal it?' he asked the boy abruptly.

  ‘I borrowed him. His name's Landscape, and we won a race in June at - where I live. He's the best horse in the stable. Will he be all right?' The pride and love had overcome the tears. The man put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

  ‘His back's broken. He'll never get up again.' The boy stared at him with wide, frightened eyes. 'I'm sorry. You know what you've got to do, don't you?'

  ‘I can't!' the boy cried. 'I can't!'

  ‘Then I will,' the man said. He drew his knife, and pushed the boy gently, and he rolled away and fell on his face, burying his head in his arms and sobbing. The man stroked the horse's face and neck softly, talking in an old tongue that he had not used for a long time, and the horse looked into his eyes with puzzled enquiry. He felt no pain; and all his life had been touched lovingly by men. He had no fear of the hands that touched him; and he died with no more than a surprised snort, cut off half-uttered.

  After a while, when the sobbing had eased, the man crawled to the boy and touched his shoulder, and after a moment of resistance, the boy came into his arms and leaned against him, reduced by his grief to the child he had so recently been.

  ‘We'd better get going,' the man said. 'We've got a long way to go.'

  ‘Go? Where to?' the boy asked, sniffing miserably. ‘Why, home, where else?'

  ‘To my home?'

  ‘To your home.'

  ‘You know who I am?' Jemmy asked in amazement. The man smiled grimly.

  ‘You were only a child of seven or eight when I last saw you, but you haven't changed much. I'd have known you anywhere.' He stood up and held his hand out. 'Come on,' he said.

  The boy scrambled to his feet, glad to have someone to trust in again. He felt. very cold, very tired, and very young. Will we have to walk all the way?' he asked.

  ‘I dare say,' said the man. They began to walk back towards Dunblane, for Kinbuck was now the wrong direction. The man limped faster than the boy could walk, and had to modify his pace.

  ‘What shall I call you?' the boy asked after a while. The man looked at him curiously.

  ‘Don't you know me?'

  ‘I - don't think so,' Jemmy said cautiously. He did not know any man who had a beard.

  ‘I'm Davey,' said the limping man.

  *

  It was growing dark. Karellie had sent back several platoons of men under junior officers, while he himself stayed to gather and rally more, but as darkness came on it was clear that there could be no more fighting. It was obvious that they must have won, having scattered half the enemy in the first charge, and with the strays of their own side being sent back to help the left wing deal with the other half. Tonight they would probably sleep in Dunblane, and march the next day for Edinburgh. He formed up the last few men and started out towards the battlefield, to form up with the others and receive their orders.

  He had barely passed the last house of the town when he saw the army ahead marching towards them, looking very battle-weary. He halted to wait for them; the first-corners were not men familiar to him, and he knew too little about the clans to recognize their plaid. A strange officer stared at him, and then wheeled out of line and galloped away towards the rear of his column, and it was only then that Karellie realized his mistake. It was already too late. The men marching towards him were Argyll men, not Mar's. Two officers were galloping back with the first one, to come to a halt one on either side of him. Karellie stared at them in despair.

  ‘You are Charles Earl of Chelmsford?' one of them said. His manner was courteous and his accent impeccably English. Karellie nodded wearily.

  ‘Then, my lord, I must ask you for your sword,' the man said. He sounded apologetic, almost gentle. Behind him Karellie heard one of his own men burst into noisy tears, and he wished he could have that same release. Slowly he drew his sword from its scabbard and held it out, hilt foremost, to the officer. So this was the end of his military career, he thought miserably. Not a glorious death in battle, such as might be sung of, but an ignominious surrender.

  ‘Is the battle over?' he asked.

  ‘Why, yes, my lord,' the young man said.

  ‘And who has won?' he asked. The man hesitated.

  ‘Why, my lord, we have,' he said, but his voice was so far from certain that he might just as well have said, I don't know.

  *

  They came to call it the Black Thirteenth, for on that same day, 13 November, came the surrender of Preston, the surrender of Inverness, and the battle of Sherrifmuir. At f
irst both sides claimed Sherrifmuir as their own victory, but as time went on it became plain to the onlookers that Argyll's star was rising and Mar's waning.

  At Morland Place there was gloom and despondency, on Annunciata's part because of the defeats, and on Matt's part because Jemmy had not been found, and the more time passed, the more certain he became that the boy was dead.

  A week after Sherrifmuir, a covered farm wagon came down the track from the main road to Morland Place, and pulled up on the far side of the moat, and a roughly-dressed man got down from it and came up to the main gate, where he was stopped by a servant. A dispute followed, after which the man was brought, with some reluctance, into the house, and the master informed that a pedlar wished to speak to him most urgently. It leapt to Matt's mind that here at last was news of Jemmy, and almost knocking over the servant in his haste, he ran down the stairs to the hall, where a number of servants had gathered already. Annunciata came from the chapel at the same moment, and the children, hanging over the stairs above, contributed to an impressive audience. The pedlar seemed to relish it.

  ‘Master Morland, is it?' The man had a strange accent which Annunciata recognized as coming from the Borderlands, though to Matt it was merely 'foreign'. 'Well Master, I am a pedlar, and I follow an honest trade in the north, and to say truth, don't often venture this far south. But I have a particular piece of goods to deliver to you, as I was promised it would be made worth my while to bring.'

  ‘What goods,' Matt said tonelessly, his face very pale. The old man looked at him sideways.

  ‘Human goods,' he said. Matt's face trembled.

  ‘Oh thank God, thank God! Bring him in! Why did you not bring him in? Is he hurt?'

  ‘Him? T'aint no him, master. How many goods was you expecting, in the name of fortune?’

  Matt stared uncomprehendingly, and the pedlar began to look worried.

  ‘It's a woman, and a bairn, and I was told that they'd be paid for at Morland Place very handsomely. Now if she's diddled me, I shall have something to say!' His anger was rising, and Annunciata stepped in.

  ‘Let us, for heaven's sake, see who this woman is, before any more is said. Bring her in, man, at once.'

  ‘She can't walk, missus, and that's why I left her out there. Have you a couple of strong lads to carry her?’

  In the end they all went out to the cart, pedlar, Matt, Annunciata, servants, and the children jostling behind for a better view, their faces alight with the excitement. The pedlar climbed stiffly up on to the wheel-rim, loosed the canvas at the back of the cart, threw it back, and stepped down again, to unlatch the back flap of the cart. Matt still stood dazed, unable to cope with his disappointment, and it was Annunciata who stepped forward cautiously to peer into the cart. It was full of the kind of small trash that pedlars sell, and on a heap of striped blankets lay a woman, dressed in a coarse gown of brown wool, her hair matted and tangled, her face emaciated to the point of death, a very small baby sleeping in the crook of her arm. She looked up with lacklustre eyes at Annunciata's appearance and her lips moved feebly, but no sound issued.

  ‘Holy Mother of God,' Annunciata cried softly. Matt looked in over her shoulder.

  ‘Sabina,' he cried, shocked out of his daze. 'What has he been doing to you?’

  *

  It was a day and night before she could speak, and then her story took many hours to tell, for remembering distressed her and talking exhausted her. She told of the attack on Aberlady House and the death of Mavis and Mary and Hamil. After Allan had disappeared into the house, never to return, she had lain where she was in the garden, under a bush, with the baby, for hours, until the fire died down and eventually guttered out. She had been terrified that the mob would return, and it was not until darkness fell again that she had ventured from her hiding place.

  She had discovered the central core of the house unharmed, for the fire had raged in the rooms about the hall without spreading to the hall itself. She had been afraid at first to venture upstairs, for fear the stairs would collapse, but in the end she had to find out what had happened to her husband, and had taken the chance. She had found him lying dead on the floor of the bedroom, apparently suffocated by the smoke.

  For a long time - she did not know now whether it was hours or days, for her fever had returned, and the shock and horror made everything seem unreal - she had sat on the floor, rocking back and forth, unable to leave her husband's body, unable to think what to do, afraid to venture out of the house again. Eventually, cold and hunger had roused her. She was still in her bed-gown, and had got herself dressed in whatever came to hand, and had then thought about going down to look for food. But when she got to the ground floor, she had heard noises which made her think the mob was coming back, and she had fled out of the house and into the country.

  For an unknown length of time she had wandered about, shivering with fever, weak with hunger. She thought she had been heading south all that time, for the only idea in her head now was to get to Morland Place, but she could not be sure. At last she came to a cottage standing all on its own on a piece of heathland, and afraid to knock at the door and ask for help, in case the occupants were Hanoverians, she had taken shelter in one of the outhouses. There she had been found by the goodwife of the house, who had taken her in.

  She had stayed there some days, in a raging fever. The goodwife had fed her and the baby, and asked her questions, but she had spoken no word to her, for fear of the consequences, One evening she had woken to find herself alone in the house and the fever temporarily abated. Her own clothes were spoilt from the smoke of the fire, and she had taken a dress of the woman's - the one she had still on her - and had crept away south again. She had walked a long time, eating only what she could find in the way of berries, fruit and, once or twice, things stolen from barns or houses. And then the pedlar had come along. At the limit of her strength, she had risked telling him where she was headed, and had promised him reward if he took her there. She had given him her wedding ring as surety that she was not merely a beggar, and had finally collapsed into unconsciousness.

  The doctor was called in, and said that she was suffering from starvation and exhaustion, but nothing more, and with rest and food she would recover. As her body grew stronger, the distress of her mind took over, and she had terrible nightmares about fire and hanging. Awake, her deepest distress was that she could not bury Allan, but had had to leave his poor body lying where it was.

  Matt spent a great deal of time with her, sitting by her bed and encouraging her to talk, holding her hand and soothing her when the fits of trembling took her. The baby Allen seemed to have taken no harm from his long journey, and was safe in the nursery where the maids regarded him with astonishment and awe. His survival was the touch of romance they craved in their lives. To Matt it was a terrible thing to see the Sabina he had always known as so strong and determined and full of life reduced to a shivering invalid, jumping at shadows. He swore to himself that he would nurse her back to health. It helped to take his mind from his own desperate worries.

  He did not have to worry much longer. A week after Sabina's strange arrival, a man and boy were seen coming along the track on foot, a man with a bad limp, and a boy in tattered clothes, his feet bound in rags. A servant cried out, and others joined in, and in moments Matt was running across the drawbridge to meet them. Jemmy was thinner and browner after his two-week walk, his clothes were ruined, and he smelt like a peasant, but Matt simply folded his arms round him and pressed him close.

  ‘I've been such a fool,' he acknowledged mutely.

  ‘Father -' Jemmy began nervously, wondering how he could begin to explain or apologize. Matt stood back from him to arm's length, and ruffled the matted hair with the palm of his hand.

  ‘Not now, Jemmy. No need. I am just so very glad to have you back, it is all I can manage just now.’

  And then he looked at the limping man, and his face paled. His hands dropped from Jemmy's shoulders, and everything seemed to beco
me very still, very silent, as he looked into those brown eyes; eyes in which there was such knowledge of pain that his own seemed to pale into insignificance.

  ‘Davey, is it really you?' he said. His voice was hardly more than a whisper. Davey nodded.

  ‘I brought him back to you, master,' he said. He wanted to say more, to babble with explanations as Jemmy had wanted, but his obstinate lips would not move. He wanted to beg forgiveness, to beg Matt to take this service in payment for that other, unspeakable service that went so wrong, to beg Matt to say this paid for all, so that he could go away and die somewhere in peace. But the longer the silence went on, the more impossible it became to break it; while Matt, staring and staring, could not pick any of the things he was feeling as being the most important one to say. At last Davey's shoulders seemed to slump a little further, and he began to turn away.

  ‘I'll be off, then, master,' he said.

  Matt was so dumbfounded he let him take a step or two before he found his tongue, and then he cried, 'No, Davey, don't go!' Davey hesitated, his back still turned, unable to believe what he wanted to believe.

  Matt misunderstood the hesitation, and holding his hands out said, 'Please, Davey - please! Don't go. I'm sorry.' Davey turned in amazement.

  ‘You're sorry?' he said hoarsely. Matt's face looked suddenly much younger in its innocent anxiety.

  ‘I've lost so much - I can't lose you, too. Not again.' And Davey was unable to move, even to take the proffered hand, but the expression in his eyes as he looked at Matt was like the Pentecostal tongue of flame.