CHAPTER II: A CRY IN THE NIGHT

“PAST TEN O’CLOCK, AND A clear starry night!” the watch was bawling as I set out from my rooms to keep my appointment with Lord Balmerino. I had little doubt that a Stuart restoration was the cause for which he was recruiting, and all day I had balanced in my mind the pros and cons of such an attempt. I will never deny that the exiled race held for me a strong fascination. The Stuarts may have been weak, headstrong Kings in their prosperity, but they had the royal virtue of drawing men to them in their misfortune. They were never so well loved, nor so worthy of it, as when they lived in exile at St. Germains. Besides, though I had never mixed with politics, I was a Jacobite by inheritance. My father had fought for a restoration, and my uncle had died for it.

There were no fast bound ties to hold me back. Loyalty to the Hanoverians had no weight with me. I was a broken man, and save for my head could lose nothing by the venture. The danger of the enterprise was a merit in my eyes, for I was in the mood when a man will risk his all on an impulse.

And yet I hung back. After all an Englishman, be he never so desperate, does not fling away the scabbard without counting the cost. Young as I was I grued at the thought of the many lives that would be cut off ere their time, and in my heart I distrusted the Stuarts and doubted whether the game were worth the candle