The Master of Stair 61
“Yet Lord Stair is the handsomest gentleman in Scotland, Peggy,” smiled
Breadalbane.
“Weel—he is na winning—an there is too much of the auld Viscount, wha
made his neck awry striving to listen to the divil, aboot him.”
“The divil must be Lord Stair’s advocate noo—for there is no one else
in Scotland will be.”
A silence while they gazed at the paling sky through the long windows;
then Breadalbane spoke.
“Peggy—when we gang back to the Hielands—we’ll ride through the Glen o’
Weeping, ye and I—and ye shall hae anither picture o’ it to think on
after, when the badges and music o’ the Campbells glitter and ring
through the ruins o’ Glencoe.”
“Jock—I am a fule—I dinna regret.”
“Peggy—my dear, my dear!”
She looked up at him through the vague gray light.
“Jock!” she said passionately. “I am content—an’ no afraid o’ the
living or the—dead.”
CHAPTER IV
THE LIE ACCOMPLISHED
It was toward the end of June; the commissioners had produced their
report on the Glencoe affair, yielding to the public demand to behold
their conclusions before the pleasure of the absent King was taken.
The Estates of Scotland were considering the verdict of Tweeddale’s
commission; the verdict pronouncing in measured language that a bloody
murder had been committed three years ago upon the Macdonalds of
Glencoe, and that the entire cause of this slaughter rested with the
letters of the Master of Stair. Public excitement flamed high; the
greatest gentleman in Scotland had been declared a murderer and as the
details of his crime were discussed, there were many who hoped for the
pleasure of seeing the unpopular minister hanged in the Grassmarket.
The Parliament, clamored in strong debates, roused after the sluggish
years, voted to a man that the King’s warrant did not authorize the
slaughter of the Macdonalds.
Then Lord Stair’s enemies, in the ascendant, triumphant carried against
a feeble opposition that the Glencoe affair was murder.
The feeling of the Estates passed almost beyond control; the Jacobites
and the Presbyterians caused Lord Stair’s letters to be read aloud in
the Parliament house; the statements of the witnesses: Ian Macdonald,
Sandy, his brother, some of the surviving clansmen, Glenlyon, Keppoch
and Glengarry, were discussed; the story of the entry of the Glen by
treachery; the fortnight’s feasting and card playing, the Campbells’
rising one snowy night to slay their hosts in their beds and drive out
the women and children to perish on the mountains, all the details of
cowardice and cruelty that gave the story its horror were detailed,
canvassed and made much of.
Captain Hamilton was cited in vain at the city cross; at the first hint
of the scandal, he had fled Edinburgh. Tales that in contraband,
Jacobite pamphlets had circled for three years, were now on the lips of
grave men; it was related how, with a generous hospitality, the
Macdonalds had received the Campbells who had sworn that they came in
friendliness, how they had been made welcome with simple pleasure;
pathetic pictures were drawn of a pastoral people, virtuous and
ingenuous, living in a state of idyllic innocence. Makian was
described, venerable, beloved, trampling the snows to take the oath and
returning to his clan at peace with himself and beaming with
righteousness.
The trust of these simple folk was dwelt upon; how they had taken the
bare word of their ancient enemies and harbored them in perfect faith.
How should they, in their simplicity, have suspected treachery behind
the smile of the redcoats?
Dramatic touches, too, were not lacking to this plausible tale; it was
related how Sandy Macdonald, awaking one night, had overheard a couple
of the soldiers in talk.
“I do not like the work,” one said.
“Give me an open fight—”
Then Sandy Macdonald had gone to Glenlyon and asked, in his innocence,
if anything was intended?
Glenlyon had slapped him on the back, laughing. “Why, if there had been
anything—don’t you think I should have given you a hint?”
And Sandy Macdonald, being one of the idyllic people, had no choice but
to take a Campbell’s word against the evidence of his own senses. And
to add to it, the public passion was further inflamed by pictures of
Makian and his wife shot dead as they hurried with wine to serve their
guests, of babies lying quartered in the snow and women’s fingers
chopped off for the sake of their rings, of butchered children and of
the blood-stained Campbells driving the flocks and herds of the
slaughtered people into Fort William. There was silence as to where
these captured cattle had originally come from.
The commissioners had been sworn to secrecy and the inquiry had been
conducted behind closed doors; of the actual depositions of the
witnesses few knew the truth, but their tales carefully invented,
artfully spread, were in every man’s mouth and the machinations of Lord
Stair’s enemies had converted the necessary execution of a gang of
lawless thieves into one of the most reviled crimes in the annals of
Scotland. England and France took up the cry; Justice, they said, had
suddenly cried aloud, and no one remarked how curiously silent Justice
had been over some of the Macdonald’s actions.
And the odium, the hatred, the scorn, the fury, were all directed
against one man,—Lord Stair.
He, they said, was the sole author of these abominations; he had
suppressed the Macdonalds’ oath, he had, under false pretenses,
obtained the warrant from the King, he had written letters breathing
blood and fire; he had exclaimed when he heard that it had been done:
“I only regret that any of the wretches have escaped.”
They had always hated him; these men, and it chimed well with their
mood to assume the part of avenging justice and take a pitying interest
in these wronged people.
Their enemy had put himself in the wrong before the world; they would
see it to that he paid the price.
An address was sent to the King in which justice was demanded and
judgment on the Lord Stair as the author of the “massacre” of Glencoe.
A haughty spectator of his own ruin, the Earl of Stair watched these
events in silence.
To have shown himself in the Parliament would have been to court
instant arrest; he was asked for no defense or vindication and his
pride would not permit him to offer one.
The King was in the Netherlands and no further action would be taken
until his pleasure was known; but all Scotland had decided that his
judgment must affect the estate and probably the life of the disgraced
minister.
For his own sake William could not show clemency; mercy to Lord Stair
would be complicity in his crime; the King dare not, if he would,
blacken himself to save his servant.
On this blue June afternoon, Lord Stair paced his garden; a festival of
flowers lying lavishing abroad to the kisses of the sun.
The narrow box-edged paths radiated round a central fountain full of
gold carp; a stone figure of Hylas rose from the water-lilies and
poured water from a Grecian urn, splashing into the basin.
Trees of box and yew cut into the shapes of peacocks and Chinese
pagodas framed the dark background to innumerable roses, hollyhocks and
bushes of sweet-brier. Leading to a back entrance to the house was a
wide flight of steps ending in a terrace, the balustrade being white
with jasmine.
Steadily up and down the smooth paths walked Lord Stair, his shadow now
before, now behind him.
On the edge of the fountain sat Lady Stair, feeding the carp with cake.
Her wide straw hat tied with black velvet under her round chin threw
half her face into transparent shadow; her stiff blue lutestring dress
embroidered with silver stars, spread over the dark green grass and
glimmered in the sunlight.
Faint clouds floated across the pearly sky and lay reflected among the
water-lilies; the gold fish darted through the leaves like jewels and
from the urn held by Hylas, sparkled the clear stream of water.
It was perfectly still, far-removed from the noises of the city; now
and then a little breeze rose stirring the perfume from the roses and
gently bending the hollyhocks.
Lord Stair stopped at last in his pacing to and fro, stopped so close
to his wife that his shadow fell over her and the fountain brim.
She looked up, then down again at the water. “I think my ruin is
assured,” said Lord Stair in a hard voice.
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