feat is accepted. But the die is cast, and for
weal or woe--most likely woe--they must go on their way and fight the
fight to the end. This was the mould in which Dundee was cast, the
heir of shattered hopes, and the descendant of broken men, the servant
of a discredited and condemned cause. He faced the reality, and knew
that he had only one chance out of a hundred of success; but it never
entered his mind to yield to circumstances and accept the new
situation. There was indeed a moment when he would have been willing,
not to change his service, but to sheathe his sword and stand apart.
That moment was over, and now he had bidden his wife good-by and was
riding through the cold gray mist to do his weary, hopeless best for
an obstinate, foolish, impracticable king, and to put some heart, if
it were possible, into a dwindling handful of unprincipled,
self-seeking, double-minded men. The day was full of omens, and they
were all against him. Twice a hare ran across the road, and Grimond
muttered to himself as he rode behind his master, "The ill-faured
beast." As they passed through Glenfarg, a raven followed them for a
mile, croaking weirdly. A trooper's horse stumbled and fell, and the
man had to be left behind, insensible. When they halted for an hour
at Kinross it spread among the people who they were, and they were
watched by hard, unsympathetic faces. The innkeeper gave them what
they needed, but with ill grace, and it was clear that only fear of
Dundee prevented him refusing food both to man and beast. When they
left a crowd had gathered, and as they rode out from the village a
voice cried: "Woe unto the man of blood--a double woe! He goeth, but
he shall not return, his doom is fixed." An approving murmur from the
hearers showed what the Scots folk thought of John Graham. Grimond
would fain have turned and answered this Jeremiah and his chorus with
a touch of the sword, but his commander forbade him sharply. "We have
other men to deal with," he said to Grimond, "than country fanatics,
and our work is before us in Edinburgh." But he would not have been a
Scot if he had been indifferent to signs, and this raven-croak the
whole day long rang in his heart. The sun struggled for a little
through the mist, and across Loch Leven they saw on its island the
prison-house of Mary. "Grimond," said Graham, "there is where they
kept her, and by this road she went out on her last hopeless ride, and
we follow her, Jock. But not to a