D. Broster - The Jacobite Trilogy

As they emerged into the Grassmarket the great mass of the Castle Rock, half distinguishable against the sky, and crowned with a few lights, lifted itself as if in menace; but a few steps farther and it was blocked from view by the houses on the other side of that wide open space. Lights still burned in some of these, but everything was quiet.

“That is the house,” said the Prince in a low voice, but it was not easy to know at which he was pointing across the Grassmarket, since they all adjoined each other. “The entrance, however, is neither here nor in the West Bow, but up a close leading out of the Grassmarket, so Murray says.”

Holding their fluttering cloaks about them they crossed the Grassmarket. Away to their right, when they were over, wound the curve of the West Bow. At the mouth of the close which the Prince indicated Ewen, seeing that O’Sullivan seemed to be going to allow his master to walk first up the dark passage, strode forward, and without apology placed himself in front, and so preceded them all up the alley, his hand on his sword. He liked this place not at all.

In a moment he felt a twitch on his cloak from behind. “This will be the door of the house,” said the Prince’s voice. “See if you can summon someone. They keep uncommonly early hours hereabouts; I trust the household is not already abed.”

But Ewen, tirling the risp on the door in the gloom, welcomed this suggestion with delight, since, if it were so, the Prince would be obliged to go home again. And for some little time it did appear as if his hope were to be fulfilled, for no one came in answer to his summons. He peered up the close; it seemed to him possible that its upper end debouched on the Castle Hill itself. It was madness to have come here.

The Prince himself then seized the ring and rasped it impatiently up and down, and very soon Ewen’s heart sank again as he heard bolts being withdrawn inside. An old serving-man opened the door a little way and put his head out.

“Will Lady Easterhall receive her kinsman, Mr. Murray of Broughton, and his friends?” asked Mr. Murray’s impersonator.

The ancient servitor opened the door a little wider. “Ou, ay, Mr. Murray o’ Broughton,” he said, stifling a yawn. “Mr. Murray o’ Broughton,” he repeated, in an owl-like manner which hinted at recent refreshment. “An’ Mr. Murray’s frien’s,” he added, with another yawn but no motion to admit the visitors. “Hoo mony o’ ye wull there be then—is yon anither?” For footsteps had been coming up the close, and at the words a man passed the group, walking quickly. He did not glance at them, and it was too dark in the alley to see faces; but Ewen felt an uncomfortable suspicion that it was the same man who had passed them in the Cowgate and had looked at the Prince. But no, surely this man was shorter; moreover he had betrayed no interest in them.

“Come, man, conduct us to Lady Easterhall,” said O’Sullivan sharply. “Or is she abed?”

“Nay, her leddyship’s taking a hand at the cartes or playing at the dambrod wi’ Miss Isobel. Come ben then, sirs. Which o’ ye wull be Mr. Murray?”

But nobody answered him. They followed him towards the staircase, up which he began laboriously to toil. “Forbye her leddyship’s no’ expectin’ Mr. Murray till the morn,” they heard him mutter to himself, but soon he did little save cough as he panted and stumbled upwards, pausing once to announce that whiles he had a sair hoast.

“Take heart, my Nestor,” said the Prince in Ewen’s ear, as they arrived at the first floor. “It may be difficult to get into this house, but I have heard that it is easy to get out of it.”

Before he could explain himself the old man had opened the door of a large room, economically and most insufficiently lit by the flickering firelight and a couple of candles on a small table near the hearth, at which sat an old lady and a young playing draughts. There was no one else in the room.

“My leddy, here’s yer leddyship’s kinsman, Mr. Murray o’ Broughton, and a wheen frien’s tae veesit ye. Wull I bring some refreshment?”

From the island of light the old lady looked up surprised. “Ye veesit ower late, nephew,” she said in a little, cracked, but authoritative voice, in the Scots common even to persons of breeding. “Nane the less ye are welcome. But did ye no get my letter the day? Saunders, light the sconces and bring wine.” And, as one or two candles on the walls sprang to life and the Prince took a few steps forward, she leant from her easy chair. “Eh, John, ye’ve made a finer figure of a man than aince I thocht ye like to do! But hae ye the toothache that ye are sae happed up? Come and present your friends, and I’ll make ye acquainted with Miss Isobel Cochran, your aunt Margaret’s niece. Bestir yersel’ now wi’ the candles, Saunders—dinna don’er, man!”

The Prince removed his cloak from the lower part of his face. “Madam,” he said, bowing, “I must crave your pardon for having used your great-nephew’s name as a passport. I am not Mr. Murray, and—though I hope indeed that you will not be so cruel—I await only your word to have your good Saunders show us the door again.”

The old lady peered still farther into the only half-dispelled dimness. “Presairve us—wha’s gotten intil the hoose?” she exclaimed. “Wha is’t . . . I canna see . . .”

But the girl was on her feet, the colour rushing into her face. “Great-aunt, great-aunt, ’tis the Prince himself!”

* * * * *

Even Ewen’s disapproval was hardly proof against the scene that followed. Old Lady Easterhall rose tremulously on her ebony stick, her face working almost painfully, and attempted to kneel, which the Prince of course would not allow; while Miss Cochran, from pale that she was become, had the colour restored to her cheeks by the salute which he set on her hand as she rose from the deepest curtsy of her life. In a short time Saunders, babbling joyfully, had lit every sconce in the room, till the candle-light swam and glittered on the well-polished furniture and the half-seen satins of the visitors’ coats, seeming to concentrate itself upon the winking star of St. Andrew which—most ill-advisedly, thought the aide-de-camp—still adorned the Royal breast. And when chairs had been set, and wine brought, then at last, in a warm atmosphere of loyalty and emotion, the Prince tactfully explained his errand.

Lady Easterhall shook her becapped head. “Ah, I jaloused ’twas not to see an auld woman that your Royal Highness came here! But Craigmains is no’ come yet; he wasna to reach the toun till noon the morn. I thocht I had writ that in my letter to my nephew. Sae your Royal Highness has come here for naething.”

The Prince’s face had indeed fallen, but he recovered himself quickly. “Do not say that, madam. Have I not gained the pleasure of your acquaintance, and of Miss Cochran’s, not to speak of drinking the best claret I have tasted since I came to Edinburgh? So let us pledge the missing guest, gentlemen, and the real Murray shall deal with him to-morrow.”

On which, lifting his glass, he drank again, and Colonel O’Sullivan and Mr. Strickland followed his example. But Ewen did not; he had risen, and now remained standing behind the Prince’s chair, as one awaiting the signal to depart. Now that he had learnt the uselessness of his escapade His Highness would no doubt speedily withdraw. But that young gentleman showed no sign of such an intention. On the contrary, he began in an animated manner to question Lady Easterhall on her recollections of the Fifteen, while Miss Cochran’s hand played nervously with the neglected draughtsmen on the little table, though her eyes, wide and glamour-stricken, never left the unbidden guest. She at least, even if she knew it not, was uneasy.