wild animal is caught in the meshes of a net.
Wild partisans, to whom every man is either white as snow or black as pitch, have gone mad over Graham, making him out, according to their craze, either an angel or a devil, and forgetting that most men are half and between. But it must be also said that those who hold John Graham to have been a Jacobite saint are the more delirious in their minds, and hysterical in their writing, for they will not hear that he ever did anything less than the best, or that the men he persecuted had any right upon their side. He is from first to last a perfect paladin of romance whom everyone is bound to praise. Then artists rush in and not only make fine trade of his good looks, but lend his beauty to the clansmen who fought at Killiecrankie, till the curtain falls upon "Bonnie Dundee" being carried to his grave by picturesque and broken-hearted Highlanders dressed in the costly panoply of the Inverness Gathering, and with faces of the style of George MacDonald or Lord Leighton. Whatever Claverhouse was, and this story at least suggests that he was brave and honorable, he was in no sense a saint, and would have been the last to claim this high degree. It is open to question whether he deserved to be called a good man, for he was ambitious of power and, perhaps for public ends, of wealth; he had no small measure of pride and jealousy in him; he was headstrong and unmanageable, and for his own side he was unrelenting and cruel. There are things he would not have done to advance his cause, as, for instance, tell lies, or stain his honor, but he never would have dreamed of showing mercy to his opponent. Nor did he ever try to enter into his mind or understand what the other man was feeling.
It is sometimes judged enough for a hero that he succeed without being clever or good, but neither did Graham pass this doubtful and dangerous test. For when you clear away the romance which heroic poetry and excited prose have flung around him, you were an optimist if you did not see his life was one long failure as well as a disappointment and a sorrow. He did bravely with the Prince of Orange, and yet somehow he missed promotion; he was the best officer the government had in Scotland, and yet it was only in the last resort he became commander-in-chief. He was the only honest man among a gang of rascals in the Scots council, and yet he was once dismissed from it; he was entitled to substantial rewards, and yet he had to make degrading appeals to obtain his due. He was loyal to foolishness, yet he was represented to the Court as a man who could not be trusted. He had only two love affairs; the first brought him the reputation of mercenary aims, and the second almost ruined his life. He embarked on a contest which was hopeless from the beginning, and died at the close of a futile victory. Except winning the heart of Jean Cochrane, he failed in everything which he attempted. With the exception of his wife he was betrayed on every hand, while a multitude hated him with all their strength and thirsted for his blood. If Jean were not true to him there would not be one star in the dark sky of Claverhouse's life.
But this irredeemable and final disaster is surely incredible. Dundee, fooled as he had been both by his master and by his friends till he was alone and forsaken, was bound to put his whole trust in his wife. Had she not made the last sacrifices for him and through dark days stood bravely by his side? Their private life had not always run smoothly, for if in one way they were well mated, because both were of the eagle breed, in another way, they were ill-suited, because they were so like. John Graham and Jean Cochrane both came of proud houses which loved to rule, and were not accustomed to yield, they both had iron and determined wills, they shared the dubious gift of a lofty temper and fiery affections. They were set upon their own ways, and so they had clashed many a time in plan and deed; hot words had passed between them, and they had been days without speech.