He was hoisted on his horse by an ostler and two local sots from the tap-room, his valise was strapped none too securely before him, and with a farewell, which was meant to be gracious but was only foolish, he tittuped into the rain.He was as drunk as an owl, though he did not know it.All afternoon he had been mixing strong Cumberland ale with the brandy he had got from the Solway free-traders, and by five o'clock had reached that state when he saw the world all gilt and rosy and himself as an applauded actor on a splendid stage.He had talked grandly to his fellow topers, and opened to their rustic wits a glimpse of the great world.They had bowed to a master, even those slow Cumbrians who admired little but fat cattle and blood horses.He had made a sensation, had seen wonder and respect in dull eyes, and tasted for a moment that esteem which he had singularly failed to find elsewhere.
But he had been prudent.The Mr.Gilbert Craster who had been travelling on secret business in Nithsdale and the Ayrshire moorlands had not been revealed in the change-house of Newbigging.There he had passed by the name, long since disused, of Gabriel Lovel, which happened to be his true one.It was a needful ,precaution, for the times were crooked.Even in a Border hamlet the name of Craster might be known and since for the present it had a Whig complexion it was well to go warily in a place where feeling ran high and at an hour when the Jacobites were on the march.But that other name of Lovel was buried deep in the forgotten scandal of London by-streets.
The gentleman late re-christened Lovel had for the moment no grudge against life.He was in the pay of a great man, no less than the lord Duke of Marlborough, and he considered that he was earning his wages.A soldier of fortune, he accepted the hire of the best paymaster; only he sold not a sword, but wits.A pedant might have called it honour, but Mr.Lovel was no pedant.He had served a dozen chiefs on different sides.For Blingbroke he had scoured France and twice imperilled his life in Highland bogs.For Somers he had travelled to Spain, and for Wharton had passed unquiet months on the Welsh marches.After his fashion he was an honest servant and reported the truth so far as his ingenuity could discern it.But, once quit of a great man's service, he sold his knowledge readily to an opponent, and had been like to be out of employment, since unless his masters gave him an engagement for life he was certain some day to carry the goods they had paid for to their rivals.But Marlborough had seen his uses, for the great Duke sat loose to parties and earnestly desired to know the facts.So for Marlborough he went into the conclaves of both Whig and Jacobite, making his complexion suit his company.
He was new come from the Scottish south-west, for the Duke was eager to know if the malcontent moorland Whigs were about to fling their blue bonnets for King James.A mission of such discomfort Mr.Lovel had never known, not even when he was a go-between for Ormonde in the Irish bogs.He had posed as an emissary from the Dutch brethren, son of an exiled Brownist, and for the first time in his life had found his regicide great-grandfather useful.The jargon of the godly fell smoothly from his tongue, and with its aid and that of certain secret letters he had found his way to the heart of the sectaries.He had sat through weary sermons in Cameronian sheilings, and been present at the childish parades of the Hebronite remnant.There was nothing to be feared in that quarter, for to them all in authority were idolaters and George no worse than James.In those moorland sojournings, too, he had got light on other matters, for he had the numbers of Kenmure's levies in his head, had visited my lord Stair at his grim Galloway castle, and had had a long midnight colloquy with Roxburghe on Tweedside.He had a pretty tale for his master, once he could get to him.But with Northumberland up and the Highlanders at Jedburgh and Kenmure coming from the west, it had been a ticklish business to cross the Border.Yet by cunning and a good horse it had been accomplished, and he found himself in Cumberland with the road open southward to the safe Lowther country.Wherefore Mr.Lovel had relaxed, and taken his ease in an inn.
He would not have admitted that he was drunk, but he presently confessed that he was not clear about his road.He had meant to lie at Brampton, and had been advised at the tavern of a short cut, a moorland bridle-path.Who had told him of it? The landlord, he thought, or the merry fellow in brown who had stood brandy to the company? Anyhow, it was to save him five miles, and that was something in this accursed weather.The path was clear--he could see it squelching below him, pale in the last wet daylight--but where the devil did it lead? Into the heart of a moss, it seemed, and yet Brampton lay out of the moors in the tilled valley.
