A Jacobite Exile<br />Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelf by G. A. Henty (christmas read aloud txt) 📗

"This will be a good opportunity for you to serve an apprenticeship," the king said decidedly. "There is no chance of anything being done here, for months, and as you will have no opportunity of using your sword, you cannot be better employed than in polishing up your wits. I will speak to Colonel Jamieson about it this evening. Count Piper will give you full instructions, and will obtain for you, from some of our friends, lists of the names of the men who would be likely to be most useful to us. You will please to remember that the brain does a great deal more than the sword, in enabling a man to rise above his fellows. You are a brave young officer, but I have many a score of brave young officers, and it was your quick wit, in suggesting the strategy by which we crossed the Dwina without loss, that has marked you out from among others, and made me see that you are fit for something better than getting your throat cut."

The king then changed the subject with his usual abruptness, and dismissed Charlie, at the end of his ride, without any further allusion to the subject. The young fellow, however, knew enough of the king's headstrong disposition to be aware that the matter was settled, and that he could not, without incurring the king's serious displeasure, decline to accept the commission. He walked back, with a serious face, to the hut that the officers of the company occupied, and asked Harry Jervoise to come out to him.

"What is it, Charlie?" his friend said. "Has his gracious majesty been blowing you up, or has your horse broken its knees?"

"A much worse thing than either, Harry. The king appears to have taken into his head that I am cut out for a diplomatist;" and he then repeated to his friend the conversation the king had had with him.

Harry burst into a shout of laughter.

"Don't be angry, Charlie, but I cannot help it. The idea of your going, in disguise, I suppose, and trying to talk over the Jewish clothiers and cannie Scotch traders, is one of the funniest things I ever heard. And do you think the king was really in earnest?"

"The king is always in earnest," Charlie said in a vexed tone; "and, when he once takes a thing into his head, there is no gainsaying him."

"That is true enough, Charlie," Harry said, becoming serious. "Well, I have no doubt you will do it just as well as another, and after all, there will be some fun in it, and you will be in a big city, and likely to have a deal more excitement than will fall to our lot here."

"I don't think it will be at all the sort of excitement I should care for, Harry. However, my hope is, that the colonel will be able to dissuade him from the idea."

"Well, I don't know that I should wish that if I were in your place, Charlie. Undoubtedly, it is an honour being chosen for such a mission, and it is possible you may get a great deal of credit for it, as the king is always ready to push forward those who do good service. Look how much he thinks of you, because you made that suggestion about getting up a smoke to cover our passage."

"I wish I had never made it," Charlie said heartily.

"Well, in that case, Charlie, it is likely enough we should not be talking together here, for our loss in crossing the river under fire would have been terrible."

"Well, perhaps it is as well as it is," Charlie agreed. "But I did not want to attract his attention. I was very happy as I was, with you all. As for my suggestion about the straw, anyone might have thought of it. I should never have given the matter another moment's consideration, and I should be much better pleased if the king had not done so, either, instead of telling the colonel about it, and the colonel speaking to the officers, and such a ridiculous fuss being made about nothing."

"My dear Charlie," Harry said seriously, "you seem to be forgetting that we all came out here, together, to make our fortune, or at any rate to do as well as we could till the Stuarts come to the throne again, and our fathers regain their estates, a matter concerning which, let me tell you, I do not feel by any means so certain as I did in the old days. Then, you know, all our friends were of our way of thinking, and the faith that the Stuarts would return was like a matter of religion, which it was heresy to doubt for an instant. Well, you see, in the year that we have been out here one's eyes have got opened a bit, and I don't feel by any means sanguine that the Stuarts will ever come to the throne of England again, or that our fathers will recover their estates.

"You have seen here what good soldiers can do, and how powerless men possessing but little discipline, though perhaps as brave as themselves, are against them. William of Orange has got good soldiers. His Dutch troops are probably quite as good as our best Swedish regiments. They have had plenty of fighting in Ireland and elsewhere, and I doubt whether the Jacobite gentlemen, however numerous, but without training or discipline, could any more make head against them than the masses of Muscovites could against the Swedish battalions at Narva. All this means that it is necessary that we should, if possible, carve out a fortune here. So far, I certainly have no reason to grumble. On the contrary, I have had great luck. I am a lieutenant at seventeen, and, if I am not shot or carried off by fever, I may, suppose the war goes on and the army is not reduced, be a colonel at the age of forty.

"Now you, on the other hand, have, by that happy suggestion of yours, attracted the notice of the king, and he is pleased to nominate you to a mission in which there is a chance of your distinguishing yourself in another way, and of being employed in other and more important business. All this will place you much farther on the road towards making a fortune, than marching and fighting with your company would be likely to do in the course of twenty years, and I think it would be foolish in the extreme for you to exhibit any disinclination to undertake the duty."

"I suppose you are right, Harry, and I am much obliged to you for your advice, which certainly puts the matter in a light in which I had not before seen it. If I thought that I could do it well, I should not so much mind, for, as you say, there will be some fun to be got out of it, and some excitement, and there seems little chance of doing anything here for a long time. But what am I to say to the fellows? How can I argue with them? Besides, I don't talk Polish."

"I don't suppose there are ten men in the army who do so, probably not five. As to what to say, Count Piper will no doubt give you full instructions as to the line you are to take, the arguments you are to use, and the inducements you are to hold out. That is sure to be all right."

"Well, do not say anything about it, Harry, when you get back. I still hope the colonel will dissuade the king."

"Then you are singularly hopeful, Charlie, that is all I can say. You might persuade a brick wall to move out of your way, as easily as induce the King of Sweden to give up a plan he has once formed. However, I will say nothing about it."

At nine o'clock, an orderly came to the hut with a message that the colonel wished to speak to Lieutenant Carstairs. Harry gave his friend a comical look, as the latter rose and buckled on his sword.

"What is the joke, Harry?" his father asked, when Charlie had left. "Do you know what the colonel can want him for, at this time of the evening? It is not his turn for duty."

"I know, father; but I must not say."

"The lad has not been getting into a scrape, I hope?"

"Nothing serious, I can assure you; but really, I must not say anything until he comes back."

Harry's positive assurance, as to the impossibility of changing the king's decision, had pretty well dispelled any hopes Charlie might before have entertained, and he entered the colonel's room with a grave face.

"You know why I have sent for you, Carstairs?"

"Yes, sir; I am afraid that I do."

"Afraid? That is to say, you don't like it."

"Yes, sir; I own that I don't like it."

"Nor do I, lad, and I told his majesty so. I said you were too young for so risky a business. The king scoffed at the idea. He said, 'He is not much more than two years younger than I am, and if I am old enough to command an army, he is old enough to carry out this mission. We know that he is courageous. He is cool, sharp, and intelligent. Why do I choose him? Has he not saved me from the loss of about four or five thousand men, and probably a total defeat? A young fellow who can do that, ought to be able to cope with Jewish traders, and to throw dust in the eyes of the Poles.

"I have chosen him for this service for two reasons. In the first place, because I know he will do it well, and even those who consider that I am rash and headstrong, admit that I have the knack of picking out good men. In the next place, I want to reward him for the service he has done for us. I cannot, at his age, make a colonel of him, but I can give him a chance of distinguishing himself in a service in which age does not count for so much, and Count Piper, knowing my wishes in the matter, will push him forward. Moreover, in such a mission as this, his youth will be an advantage, for he is very much less likely to excite suspicion than if he were an older man.'

"The king's manner did not admit of argument, and I had only to wait and ask what were his commands. These were simply that you are to call upon his minister tomorrow, and that you would then receive full instructions.

"The king means well by you, lad, and on turning it over, I think better of the plan than I did before. I am convinced, at any rate, that you will do credit to the king's choice."

"I will do my best, sir," Charlie said. "At present, it all seems so vague to me that I can form no idea whatever as to what it will be like. I am sure that the king's intentions are, at any rate, kind. I am glad to hear you say that, on consideration, you think better of the plan. Then I may mention the matter to Major Jervoise?"

"Certainly, Carstairs, and to his son, but it must go no farther. I shall put your name in orders, as relieved from duty, and shall mention that you have been despatched on service, which might mean anything. Come and see me tomorrow, lad, after you have received Count Piper's instructions. As the king reminded me, there are many Scotchmen at Warsaw, and it is likely that some of them passed through Sweden on the way to establish themselves there, and I may very well have made their acquaintance at Gottenburg or Stockholm.

"Once established in the house of one of my countrymen, your position would be fairly safe and not altogether unpleasant, and you would be certainly far better off than a Swede would be engaged on this mission. The Swedes are, of course, regarded by the Poles as enemies, but, as there is no feeling against Englishmen or Scotchmen, you might pass about unnoticed as one of the family of a Scottish trader there, or as his assistant."

"I don't fear its being unpleasant in the least, colonel. Nor do I think anything one way or the other about my safety. I only fear that I shall not be able to carry out properly the mission intrusted to me."

"You will do your best, lad, and that is all that can be expected. You have not solicited the post, and as it is none of your choosing, your failure would be the fault of those who have sent you, and not of yourself; but in a matter of this kind there is no such thing as complete