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Actors All
by
They said of Ormskirk that he manifested a certain excitement on the day after Culloden, when he had seventy-two prisoners shot en masse, [Footnote: But for all that, when, near Rossinish (see Löwe), he captured Flora Macdonald and her ostensibly female companion, Ormskirk flatly declined to recognize Prince Charles. “They may well call you the Pretender, madam,” he observed to “Bettie Burke,”–“since as concerns my party you are the most desirable Pretender we could possibly imagine.” And thereupon he gave the Prince a pass out of Scotland.] but this was doubted; and in any event, such battues being comparatively rare, he by ordinary appeared to regard the universe with a composed and feline indifference.
II
“Child, child!” Ormskirk began, and made a tiny gesture of deprecation, “I perceive you are about to appeal to my better nature, and so I warn you in advance that the idiotic business has worked me into a temper absolutely ogreish.”
“The Jacobite conspiracy, you mean?” said Miss Allonby. “Oh, I suppose so. I am not particularly interested in such matters, though; I came, you understand, for a warrant, or an order, or whatever you call it, for them to let Frank out of that horrid filthy gaol.”
The Duke’s face was gravely humorous as he gazed at her for a moment or two in silence, “You know quite well,” he said at last, “that I can give you nothing of the sort.”
Miss Allonby said: “Upon my word, I never heard of such nonsense! How else is he to take me to Lady Mackworth’s ball to-night?”
“It is deplorable,” his Grace of Ormskirk conceded, “that Captain Audaine should be thus snatched from circles which he, no doubt, adorns. Still, I fear you must look for another escort; and frankly, child, if you will be advised by me, you will permit us to follow out our present intentions and take off his head–not a great deprivation when you consider he has so plainly demonstrated its contents to be of such inferior quality.”
She had drawn close to him, with widening, pitiable eyes. “You mean, then,” she demanded, “that Frank’s very life is in danger?”
“This is unfair,” the Duke complained. “You are about to go into hysterics forthwith and thus bully me into letting the man escape. You are a minx. You presume upon the fact that in the autumn I am to wed your kinswoman and bosom companion, and that my affection for her is widely known to go well past the frontier of common-sense; and also upon the fact that Marian will give me the devil if I don’t do exactly as you ask. I consider you to abuse your power unconscionably, I consider you to be a second Delilah. However, since you insist upon it, this Captain Audaine must, of course, be spared the fate he very richly merits.”
Miss Allonby had seated herself beside a table and was pensively looking up at him. “Naturally,” she said, “Marian and I, between us, will badger you into saving Frank. I shall not worry, therefore, and I must trust to Providence, I suppose, to arrange matters so that the poor boy will not catch his death of cold in your leaky gaol yonder. And now I would like to be informed of what he has been most unjustly accused.”
“His crime,” the Duke retorted, “is the not unusual one of being a fool. Oh, I am candid! All Jacobites are fools. We gave the Stuarts a fair trial, Heaven knows, and nobody but a fool would want them back.”
“I am not here to discuss politics,” a dignified Miss Allonby stated, “but simply to find out in what way Frank has been slandered.”
Ormskirk lifted one eyebrow. “It is not altogether a matter of politics. Rather, as I see it, it is a matter of common-sense. Under the Stuarts England was a prostitute among the nations, lackey in turn to Spain and France and Italy; under the Guelph the Three-per-cents. are to-day at par. The question as to which is preferable thus resolves itself into a choice between common-sense and bedlamite folly. But, unhappily, you cannot argue with a Jacobite: only four years ago Cumberland and Hawley and I rode from Aberdeen to the Highlands and left all the intervening country bare as the palm of your hand; I forget how many Jacobites we killed, but evidently not enough to convince the others. Very well: we intend to have no more such nonsense, and we must settle this particular affair by the simple device of hanging or beheading every man-Jack concerned in it.” He spoke without vehemence–rather regretfully than otherwise.