been a modest and diffident man. From the first he had had grave fears of the success of his cause, and more than doubts about the loyalty of his comrades. He was quite prepared not only for desperate effort, but for final defeat. No man could say he had embarked on the royal service from worldly ends, and now, if he had been a shrewd Lowland Scot, he had surely consulted his safety and changed his side, as most of his friends were doing. Graham did not do this for an imperative reason--because he had been so made that he could not. There are natures which are not consciously dishonest or treacherous, but which are flexible and accommodating. They are open to the play of every influence, and are sensitive to environment; they are loyal when others are loyal, but if there be a change in spirit round them they immediately correspond, and they do so not from any selfish calculation, but merely through a quick adaptation to environment. People of this kind find themselves by an instinct on the winning side, but they would be mightily offended if they were charged with being opportunists. They are at each moment thoroughly convinced of their integrity, and are ever on the side which commends itself to their judgment; if it happens to be the side on which the sun is shining, that is a felicitous accident.
There are other natures, narrower possibly and more intractable, whose chief quality is a thoroughgoing and masterful devotion, perhaps to a person, perhaps to a cause. Once this devotion is given, it can never be changed by any circumstance except the last and most inexcusable treachery, and then it will be apt to turn into a madness of hatred which nothing will appease. There is no optimism in this character, very often a clear-sighted and painful acceptance of facts; faults are distinctly seen and difficulties are estimated at their full strength, sacrifice is discounted, and defeat 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