Graham of Claverhouse - Page 94/144

Dundee was not a prudent man, and he was very fearless, but for once he consulted common-sense and made ready to leave Edinburgh. It was plain that the Convention would elect William to the throne of Scotland, and as the days passed it was also very bitter to him that the Jacobites were not very keen about the rising. When he learned that his trusted friends were going to attend the Convention, and did not propose with undue haste to raise the standard for the king, Dundee concluded that if anything should be done, it would not be by such cautious spirits. As he seemed to be the sole hope of his cause, the sooner he was out of Edinburgh the better. When he was seen upon the street with fifty of his troopers, mounted and armed, there was a wild idea of arresting him, but it came to nothing. There was not time to gather the hillmen together, and there was no heart in the others to face this desperate man and his body-guard. With his men behind him, he rode down Leith Wynd unmolested, and when someone cried, "Where art thou going, Lord Dundee?" he turned him round in the saddle and answered, "Whither the spirit of Montrose will lead me." A fortnight later, in front of his house at Dudhope, he raised the standard for King James, and Jean Cochrane, a mother now, holding their infant son in her arms, stood by his side before he rode north. As he had left her on their marriage day with his troopers, so now he left her and their child, to see her only once again--a cruel meeting, before he fell. Verily, a life of storm and stress, of bitter conflicts and many partings. Verily, a man whom, right or wrong, the fates were treating as a victim and pursuing to his doom.