The Patriot Read Free

wipe that Stanfield's nose for him! And go on to greater things."
    "Be not so sure, Johnnie. Lauderdale was there ..."
    "Lauderdale? Himself! Here? Back from London?"
    "Yes. At Haddington, with the Provost. He was . . . displeased."
    "He saw you? Spoke with you?"
    "He more than spoke! He threatened me. First he sought to talk me out of standing. Then he told me that I would pay for it. My lord Belhaven too, for sponsoring me. You yourself, perhaps, Johnnie - if he saw your name . . ."
    "I care not for that! Damn the man! But - you will wish to see Belhaven. Ah - here is Margaret."
    Margaret Hamilton was a smiling if plain-faced creature, little more than a girl really, although at nineteen she had been married to Johnnie for almost three years. It was scarcely a love-match, it all having been carefully arranged in typical Hamilton fashion long before; but they made a happy and wholesome pair nevertheless. She was a great heiress, of course, which helped.
    Kissing Andrew, Margaret cheerfully went off to get wine and cakes, to bring them to the wing of the house which the old lord occupied.
    John Hamilton, first Lord Belhaven and Stenton, was now in his early seventies, and frail. But the spirit still burned brightly in that stooping frame and glowed intensely in the blue eyes deep-set in the hawklike face - and his had been a vehement spirit indeed. He had been one of the late King Charles's most bold and vigorous cavaliers, fought on many Civil War battlefields, languished in sundry prisons and escaped, and attempted an audacious rescue of his imprisoned monarch at Carisbrooke. After his sovereign's execution, with Cromwell's bloodhounds after him, he had actually feigned death for seven years. With a brother and two servants he had made to cross the great tidal Solway Sands on his way back to Scotland, but had never reached the northern shore, the others bringing only part of his clothing, to sorrowfully announce his lordship's death in the treacherous sinking sands. In fact he had returned to England and gone to work as a simple gardener, at a small manor-house, for those dangerous years of the Commonwealth, until the present monarch's glorious Restoration allowed him to return home in 1660. His only son had died; and he had persuaded the grateful Charles the Second to redestine his peerage to be heired by the young man he had chosen to marry his grand-daughter, Margaret - a kinsman, Johnnie Hamilton, eldest son of Lord Presmennan, of Session, which kept lands and title nicely in the family. His lordship, of the main Hamilton line, was the son of two Hamiltons, the grandson of four Hamiltons, had married a Hamilton and seen his daughter married to another. His wife long dead, now he lived with his grand-daughter at Beil.
    "Andrew, lad," he greeted his grandson's-in-law friend. "You get liker your good father each time I set these old eyes on you! A sore loss he was to this land. But his son, now, will make up for his untimely passing, I swear! Eh?" The voice was strong, vibrant, however feeble the body.
    "That is my hope and prayer, my lord - however lacking I feel in the abilities. Do I find your lordship well?"
    "As well as I shall ever be, I think. My time wears to its end. But I too, I hope, have heir to follow on and do the things I ought to be doing! That is, if I can wean him away from breaking horses before he breaks his own fool neck!"
    Johnnie grinned. "I have a thick and stiff neck, my lord - as you have frequently told me! And you risked yours sufficiently often - even almost on the block! But-Andrew, here, has in a manner of speaking risked his today. When he handed in his nomination-paper at Haddington. Lauderdale was there. And - displeasured!"
    "He was? That overblown toad! Save us - he comes early. Why, I wonder? It is three weeks before the opening of the new parliament. He usually spares us his company until the day before - thank God! Why? He could not possibly have got to hear? Of our plans. In London.