LAID THEM GENTLY ON THE STREAM"

"THE PRIEST RECITED THE HOLY OFFICE OF THE MASS"

"'THERE IS LITTLE I WOULD NOT DO TO PLEASE LE PERE JEAN'"

"'THESE LETTERS CHANGE A DUTY INTO A PLEASURE'"

"THE TWO MEN STOOD FACING EACH OTHER IN SILENCE"

"A STRAIGHT PILLAR OF FIRE WENT LEAPING UP INTO THE NIGHT"

"HE CARRIED ME THROUGH MUD AND WATER, AND SET ME IN HIS
SHALLOP"

"AND, BOWING LOW, ANSWERED HER LIVELY GREETING"

"TANTUM ERGO SACRAMENTUM VENEREMUR CERNUI"

"WE MADE A SAD LITTLE PROCESSION"

"'KEEP UP, MY LAD; YOU ARE AMONG FRIENDS!'"

"WITH HAT IN HAND CAME SPURRING ON"

"'HE THAT DWELLETH IN THE SECRET PLACE OF THE MOST HIGH'"

"SHE SHORTENED UP STRAPS AND ADJUSTED BUCKLES"

"'CALL OFF YOUR MEN, CAPTAIN NAIRN!'"

"HE THREW UP HIS HANDS WITH A WEAK CRY AND COVERED HIS FACE"

"LIFTING HIS LANTHORN, HE HELD IT SO THAT THE LIGHT SHONE
FULL UPON HER"

"'I TAKE IT FOR GRANTED YOU ARE A NON-COMBATANT'"

"'THE SPAN O' LIFE'S NAE LANG ENEUGH,' ETC."

Part I

MAXWELL'S STORY

"_Better the world should know you at a sinner than God as a
hypocrite._"--Old Proverb.

THE SPAN O' LIFE

CHAPTER I

"AFTER HIGH FLOODS COME LOW EBBS"

Every one knows of my connection with the ill-starred Rebellion of
Prince Charles, and for this it was that I found myself, a few
months after the disaster of Culloden, lying close in an obscure
lodging in Greek Street, Soho, London.

Surely a rash proceeding, you may say, this adventuring into the
lion's den! But such has not been my experience: in an escalado,
he who hugs closest the enemy's wall has often a better chance than
he who lies at a distance. And so I, Hugh Maxwell of Kirkconnel,
Chevalier of the Order of St. Louis, Captain en seconde in Berwick's
Foot in the service of His Most Christian Majesty, and late
Aide-de-Camp to General Lord George Murray in the misdirected affair
of His Royal Highness Charles, Prince of Wales and Regent for his
illustrious father, "Jacobus Tertius, Rex Angliae, Hiberniae, et
Franciae, Dei Gratia"--Heaven save the mark!--found it safer and
more to my taste to walk abroad in London under the nose of the
usurping but victorious Hanoverian than to continue skulking under
the broader heavens of the Highlands.

I will not deny there were moments when I would rather have been
enjoying the clearer atmosphere of France (for it is easier to put
a brave face on such dangers once they are safely overcome than
bear them with an