Early springtime is cruel on the east coast of Scotland, and it was a bitter morning in March when Dundee took another of his many farewells before he left his wife to attend the Convention at Edinburgh. It was only a month since he had come down from London, disheartened for the moment by the treachery of Royalists and the timidity of James, and he had found relief in administrating municipal affairs as Provost of Dundee. If it had been possible in consistence with his loyalty to the Jacobite cause, and the commission he had received from James, Dundee would have gladly withdrawn from public life and lived quietly with his wife.
He was an ambitious man, and of stirring spirit, but none knew better the weakness of his party, and no one on his side had been more shamefully treated. It had been his lot to leave his bride on their marriage day, and now it would be harder to leave her at a time when every husband desires to be near his wife. But the summons to be present at the Convention had come, and its business was to decide who should be King of Scotland, for though William had succeeded to the throne of England, James still reigned in law over the northern kingdom. Dundee could not be absent at the deposition of his king and the virtual close of the Stuart dynasty. As usual he would be one of a beaten party, or perhaps might stand alone; it was not his friends but his enemies who were calling him to Edinburgh, and the chances were that the hillmen would settle their account with him by assassination. His judgment told him that his presence in Edinburgh would be fruitless, and his heart held him to his home. Yet day after day he put off his going. It was now the thirteenth of March, and to-morrow the Convention would meet, and if he were to go he must go quickly.
He had been tossed in mind and troubled in heart, but the instinct of obedience to duty which Graham had obeyed through good report and evil, without reserve, and without scruple, till he had done not only the things he ought to have done, but many things also which he ought not to have done, finally triumphed. He had told Jean that morning that he must leave. His little escort of troopers were saddling their horses, and in half an hour they would be on the road, the dreary, hopeless road it was his fate to be ever travelling. Jean and he were saying their last words before this new adventure, for they both knew that every departure might be the final parting. They were standing at the door, and nothing could be grayer than their outlook. For a haar had come up from the sea, as is common on the east coast, and the cold and dripping mist blotted out the seascape; it hid the town of Dundee, which lay below Dudhope, and enveloped the castle in its cold garments, like a shroud, and chilled Graham and his wife to the very bone.