hadst better see her for the last time ere she goes to the place of the dead." And then the cloth being lifted, Claverhouse looked on the face of his wife, with her infant child, not his, but Kilsyth's, lying at her feet. There was no abatement in the splendor of her hair, nor the pride of her countenance; the flush was still upon her cheek, and though her eyes were closed there was courage in the set of her lips. By an unexpected blow she had been stricken and perished, but in the fullness of her magnificent womanhood, and undismayed. Lying there she seemed to defy death, and her mother's curse, which had come true at last.
"So thou also art to be cut off in the midst of thy days, Jean. Better this way both for you and me, than to grow old and become feeble, and be carried to and fro, and be despised. We were born to rule and not to serve, to conquer and not to yield, to persecute if need be, but not to be persecuted. Kilsyth loved thee, it was not his blame, who would not? He did his best to please thee. Mayhap it was not much he could do, but that was not his blame. He was thy husband for awhile, but I am thy man forever. Thou art mine and I am thine, for we are of the same creed and temper. I, John Graham of Claverhouse, and not Kilsyth, will claim thee on the judgment day, and thou shalt come with me, as the eagle follows her mate; together we shall go to Heaven or to Hell, for we are one. Slain we may be, Jean, but conquered never. We have lived, we have loved, and neither in life or death can anyone make us afraid."
Outside the trumpets sounded and Claverhouse awoke, for the visions of the night had passed and the light of the morning was pouring into his room.
Book 4 Chapter 3 Faithful Unto Death
It is written in an ancient book "weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning," and with the brief darkness of the summer night passed the shadow from Claverhouse's soul. According, also, to the brightness and freshness of the early sunshine was his high hope on the eventful day, which was to decide both the fate of his king and of himself. The powers of darkness had attacked him on every side, appealing to his fear and to his faith, to his love and to his hate, to his pride and to his jealousy, to see whether they could not shake his constancy and break his spirit. They had failed at every assault, and he had conquered; he had risen above his ghostly enemies and above himself, and now, having stood fast against principalities and powers of the other world, he was convinced that his earthly enemies would be driven before him as chaff before the wind.
He knew exactly what MacKay and his army could do, and what he and his army could, in the place of issue, where, by the mercy of God, Who surely was on the side of His anointed, the battle would be fought. What would avail MacKay's parade-ground tactics and all the lessons of books, and what would avail the drilling and the manoeuvring of his hired automatons in the pass of Killiecrankie, with its wooded banks and swift running river, and narrow gorge and surrounding hills? This was no level plain for wheeling right and wheeling left, for bombarding with artillery and flanking by masses of cavalry. Claverhouse remembers the morning of the battle of Seneffe, when he rode with Carleton and longed to be on the hills with a body of Highlanders, and have the chance of taking by surprise the lumbering army of the Prince of Orange and sweeping it away by one headlong charge. The day for this onslaught had come, and by an irony, or felicity, of Providence, he has the troops he had longed for and his rival has the inert and helpless regulars.
News had come that MacKay was marching with phlegmatic steadiness and perfect confidence into the trap, and going to place himself at the greatest disadvantage for his kind of army. The Lord was giving the Whigs into his hand, and they would fall before the sun set, as a prey unto his sword. The passion of battle was in his blood, and the laurels of victory