The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales | Page 2

upon the coast would set every
woman upon her knees and every man gripping for his musket. He had
always won: that was the terror of it. The Fates seemed to be behind
him. And now we knew that he lay upon the northern coast with a
hundred and fifty thousand veterans, and the boats for their passage.

But it is an old story, how a third of the grown folk of our country took
up arms, and how our little one-eyed, one-armed man crushed their
fleet. There was still to be a land of free thinking and free speaking in
Europe.
There was a great beacon ready on the hill by Tweedmouth, built up of
logs and tar-barrels; and I can well remember how, night after night, I
strained my eyes to see if it were ablaze. I was only eight at the time,
but it is an age when one takes a grief to heart, and I felt as though the
fate of the country hung in some fashion upon me and my vigilance.
And then one night as I looked I suddenly saw a little flicker on the
beacon hill--a single red tongue of flame in the darkness. I remember
how I rubbed my eyes, and pinched myself, and rapped my knuckles
against the stone window-sill, to make sure that I was indeed awake.
And then the flame shot higher, and I saw the red quivering line upon
the water between; and I dashed into the kitchen, screeching to my
father that the French had crossed and the Tweedmouth light was
aflame. He had been talking to Mr. Mitchell, the law student from
Edinburgh; and I can see him now as he knocked his pipe out at the
side of the fire, and looked at me from over the top of his horn
spectacles.
"Are you sure, Jock?" says he.
"Sure as death!" I gasped.
He reached out his hand for the Bible upon the table, and opened it
upon his knee as though he meant to read to us; but he shut it again in
silence, and hurried out. We went too, the law student and I, and
followed him down to the gate which opens out upon the highway.
From there we could see the red light of the big beacon, and the
glimmer of a smaller one to the north of us at Ayton. My mother came
down with two plaids to keep the chill from us, and we all stood there
until morning, speaking little to each other, and that little in a whisper.
The road had more folk on it than ever passed along it at night before;
for many of the yeomen up our way had enrolled themselves in the
Berwick volunteer regiments, and were riding now as fast as hoof could
carry them for the muster. Some had a stirrup cup or two before parting,

and I cannot forget one who tore past on a huge white horse,
brandishing a great rusty sword in the moonlight. They shouted to us as
they passed that the North Berwick Law fire was blazing, and that it
was thought that the alarm had come from Edinburgh Castle. There
were a few who galloped the other way, couriers for Edinburgh, and the
laird's son, and Master Clayton, the deputy sheriff, and such like. And
among others there was one a fine built, heavy man on a roan horse,
who pulled up at our gate and asked some question about the road. He
took off his hat to ease himself, and I saw that he had a kindly
long-drawn face, and a great high brow that shot away up into tufts of
sandy hair.
"I doubt it's a false alarm," said he. "Maybe I'd ha' done well to bide
where I was; but now I've come so far, I'll break my fast with the
regiment."
He clapped spurs to his horse, and away he went down the brae.
"I ken him weel," said our student, nodding after him. "He's a lawyer in
Edinburgh, and a braw hand at the stringin' of verses. Wattie Scott is
his name."
None of us had heard of it then; but it was not long before it was the
best known name in Scotland, and many a time we thought of how he
speered his way of us on the night of the terror.
But early in the morning we had our minds set at ease. It was grey and
cold, and my mother had gone up to the house to make a pot of tea for
us, when there came a gig down the road with Dr. Horscroft of Ayton
in it and his son Jim. The collar of the doctor's brown coat came over
his ears, and he looked in