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Grimond would fain have turned and answered this Jeremiah and his chorus with a touch of the sword, but his commander forbade him sharply. "We have other men to deal with," he said to Grimond, "than country fanatics, and our work is before us in Edinburgh." But he would not have been a Scot if he had been indifferent to signs, and this raven-croak the whole day long rang in his heart.
When it was agreed who should be present, and what each one should do, they closed their meeting, as they had opened it, with prayer. One of them glanced suspiciously round the kitchen as he passed through, but saw no man, for Grimond had quietly departed.
During the brief stay at Glenogilvie, Grimond hid himself with discretion, so that neither his master nor mistress either saw or heard of him, and when Dundee left his home with his men, Grimond was not in the company.
"Just ae word more, Claverhouse, and I pray ye no to be angry, for there's naebody luves ye better than Jock Grimond. I hear things ye canna hear, and I see things ye canna see. Naebody would tell you that Lady Jean and Pollock, the Covenantin' minister, are as gude as man and wife. They may no be married yet, but they will be as sune as it's safe, and that's how he comes here so often.
Now, his breath was going fast from him, and with a last effort, as Grimond dropped his head with a curse, he cried, "You have won the battle. Your cause is lost." Amid the confusion the cavalry had not noticed the fall of their commander, and Grimond found his master lying near a mound, a little above the house of Urrard.
Grimond had done his best to prevent his master's marriage with Jean Cochrane, and had never concealed his conviction that it was an act of madness; he had never been more than decently civil to his mistress, and there never had been any love lost between them.
And Dundee gripped his servant's shoulder and shook him with such violence that Grimond, a strongly built fellow, was almost thrown from his feet.
Was MacKay the man to sanction a proceeding so cowardly and so contrary to the rules of war? Of all things in the world, was not this action the one his principles would most strongly condemn? Certainly their conversation by the riverside had been suspicious, but then Grimond had made one hideous mistake before. It was possible that he had made another.
She laughed with her husband over his watchfulness, and often said, "Ye may trust me anywhere, John, if ye leave Grimond in charge. If I wanted to do wrong I should not be able." "Ye would be wise, Jean," Graham would reply, "to keep your eye on Grimond if ye are minded to play a prank, for his bite is as quick as his bark."
"Na, Kirsty" and Grimond looked shrewdly at her "I'll no say that Claverhouse isna bound to marry some day or ither, and, of course, in his posseetion it behove him to find a lady of his ain rank and his ain creed. Noo, what I'm tellin' ye is strictly between oorsel's, and ye're no to mention it even to your ain mistress.
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