The Span o' Life: A Tale of Louisbourg & Quebec. William McLennan

The Span o' Life: A Tale of Louisbourg & Quebec - William McLennan


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I MADE THEM LAUGH OVER MY APPEARANCE!”

        “SHE STOOD ERECT, HER FACE WHITE WITH EMOTION”

        “'M. LE LIEUTENANT, YOU HAVE MY SINCEREST SYMPATHY!'”

        “I CRAWLED OUT BRUISED, BUT OTHERWISE UNHURT”

        “'CHEVALIER, I KNOW YOU NOW'”

        “AND LAID THEM GENTLY ON THE STREAM”

        “THE PRIEST RECITED THE HOLY OFFICE OF THE MASS”

        “'THERE IS LITTLE I WOULD NOT DO TO PLEASE LE PÈRE JEAN'”

        “'THESE LETTERS CHANGE A DUTY INTO A PLEASURE'”

        “THE TWO MEN STOOD FACING EACH OTHER IN SILENCE”

        “A STRAIGHT PILLAR OF FIRE WENT LEAPING UP INTO THE NIGHT”

        “HE CARRIED ME THROUGH MUD AND WATER, AND SET ME IN HIS SHALLOP”

        “AND, BOWING LOW, ANSWERED HER LIVELY GREETING”

        “TANTUM ERGO SACRAMENTUM VENEREMUR CERNUI”

        “WE MADE A SAD LITTLE PROCESSION”

        “'KEEP UP, MY LAD; YOU ARE AMONG FRIENDS!'”

        “WITH HAT IN HAND CAME SPURRING ON”

        “'HE THAT DWELLETH IN THE SECRET PLACE OF THE MOST HIGH'”

        “SHE SHORTENED UP STRAPS AND ADJUSTED BUCKLES”

        “'CALL OFF YOUR MEN, CAPTAIN NAIRN!'”

        “HE THREW UP HIS HANDS WITH A WEAK CRY AND COVERED HIS FACE”

        “LIFTING HIS LANTHORN, HE HELD IT SO THAT THE LIGHT SHONE FULL UPON HER”

        “'I TAKE IT FOR GRANTED YOU ARE A NON-COMBATANT'”

        “'THE SPAN O' LIFE'S NAE LANG ENEUGH,' ETC.”

       Table of Contents

      MAXWELL'S STORY

      “Better the world should know you at a sinner than God as a hypocrite.”—Old Proverb.

      THE SPAN O' LIFE

       Table of Contents

      “AFTER HIGH FLOODS COME LOW EBBS”

      Every one knows of my connection with the ill-starred Rebellion of Prince Charles, and for this it was that I found myself, a few months after the disaster of Culloden, lying close in an obscure lodging in Greek Street, Soho, London.

      Surely a rash proceeding, you may say, this adventuring into the lion's den! But such has not been my experience: in an escalado, he who hugs closest the enemy's wall has often a better chance than he who lies at a distance. And so I, Hugh Maxwell of Kirkconnel, Chevalier of the Order of St. Louis, Captain en seconde in Berwick's Foot in the service of His Most Christian Majesty, and late Aide-de-Camp to General Lord George Murray in the misdirected affair of His Royal Highness Charles, Prince of Wales and Regent for his illustrious father, “Jacobus Tertius, Rex Angliae, Hiberniae, et Franciae, Dei Gratia”—Heaven save the mark!—found it safer and more to my taste to walk abroad in London under the nose of the usurping but victorious Hanoverian than to continue skulking under the broader heavens of the Highlands.

      I will not deny there were moments when I would rather have been enjoying the clearer atmosphere of France (for it is easier to put a brave face on such dangers once they are safely overcome than bear them with an unruffled fortitude at the time); but there I was, with just enough money to discharge my most pressing necessities, with the precious Cause for which I had sacrificed my hopes of advancement in my own regiment blown to the four corners of the Highlands—more remote and unknown up to this time than the four corners of the earth, though to all appearance about to undergo such a scouring when I left them that they would be uninhabitable for any one who was not born with the Broad Arrow printed on his back.

      I was lodging in the attic of a disreputable pot-house, kept by one of those scurvy Scots who traded on his reputed disloyalty as a lure to entice unfortunate gentlemen in similar plight to myself under his roof, and then job them off to the government at so much a head; but this I only knew of a certainty later.

      It was not long, however, before I was relieved from my penury at least, for my cousin, Lady Jane Drummond, who since my childhood had stood towards me in the relation of a mother, hearing from me of my position, raised me above all anxiety in that respect.

      I cannot help reflecting here on the inopportuneness with which Providence is sometimes pleased to bestow its gifts; the starving wretch, houseless in the streets, has an appetite and a digestion which, in this regard, make him the envy of the epicure, dowered with a wealth useless in its most cherished application. And though ingratitude has never been one of my faults, was it possible not to feel some resentment at the comparative uselessness of a blessing which fell at a time when I was debarred from any greater satisfaction than paying my mean obligations or helping some more needy unfortunate, while forced to look on those pleasures incidental to a gentleman's existence with the unsatisfied eye of forbidden indulgence?

      The banker, Mr. Drummond of Charing Cross, who was an old family friend, and through whom I had received my remittance, could or would give me no definite information of the movements of my cousin, Lady Jane, or of her probable arrival at London, so I had nothing to do but await further news and occupy my time as best I might.

      On my arrival I had laid aside all the outward marks of a gentleman, dressing myself in imitation of—say a scrivener's clerk—and, save for that bearing which is incorporate with one of my condition and becomes a second nature, not to be disguised by any outward cloak, I might fairly well pass for my exemplar.

      It was along in the month of July, when having become habituated to my situation I was accustomed to move about with greater freedom, that being in Fleet Street, I made one of the crowd to gaze at the horrid spectacle of the heads of the unfortunate Messieurs Towneley and Fletcher displayed on Temple Bar, whose cruel fate I had only escaped by my firm resolution in withstanding the unreasonable demands of the Duke of Perth to remain behind in their company in Carlisle.

      “Your Grace, though I am willing to shed the last drop of my blood for Prince Charles,” I had answered, with great firmness, “I will never allow myself to be marked out as a victim for certain destruction,” and I held to my place in the retreat.

      At such times the least error in judgment is certain to be attended by a train of inevitable disaster, and apart from my own personal escape, for which I am duly thankful, it was a satisfaction to me that his Grace later on most handsomely acknowledged himself to have been in the wrong.

      But to return: I was plunged in these sombre reflections when I heard a cry near me, a cry that has never appealed to my support in vain—that of a lady in distress. I turned at once, and there, in full view of my sympathising eyes, was as fair an object as I ever looked upon. An unfortunate lady, overcome by the sights and sounds about her, had fallen back on the shoulder of her


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