"Let me say plainly, Mr. Graham, that you are a soldier whom any commander will be glad to enroll for life service in his army, but"--and here his Highness looked searchingly at Graham as he had once done before--"I doubt whether your calling be in the Dutch army or in any army that is of our mind or is likely to fight for our cause.
"It is not given to man to lift the veil that hides the future, but we can reason with ourselves as to what is likely, and guide our course by this faint light. I have advices from Scotland, and I know that the day will come, though it may not be yet, when there will be a great division in that land and the shedding of blood. Were you and I both in your country when that day comes, you, Mr. Graham, would draw your sword on one side and I on the other.
"We may never cross one another in the unknown days, but each man must be true to the light which God has given him. Colonel MacKay will fulfil his calling in our army and on our side; in some other army and for another side you will follow your destiny. It is seldom I speak at such length; now I have only one other word to say before I give you for the day farewell.
"Mr. Graham, I know what you think of me as clearly as if you had spoken. Let me say what I think of you. You are a gallant gentleman, full of the ideas of the past, and incapable of changing; you will be a loyal servant to your own cause, and it will be beaten. To you I owe my life. Possibly it might have been better for you to have let me fall by the sword of one of Condé's dragoons, but we are all in the hands of the Eternal, Who doeth what He wills with each man. You will receive to-day a captain's commission in the cavalry, and in some day to come, I do not know how soon, and in a way I may not at present reveal to you, I will, if God please, do a kindness to you which will be after your own heart, and enable you to rise to your own height in the great affair of life. I bid you good-morning."
Few men were ever to hear the Prince of Orange use as many words or give as much of his mind. As Claverhouse realized his fairness and understood, although only a little, then, of his foresight, and as he came to appreciate the fact that the Prince was trying to do something more lasting for him than merely conferring a commission, he was overwhelmed with a sense of the injustice he had done his Highness. He also realized his own petulance with intense shame.