Violet Jacob > Flemington

CHAPTER XIX
THE WINTER
April is slow in Scotland, distrustful of her own
identity, timid of her own powers. Half dazed
from the long winter sleep, she is often be¬
wildered, and cannot remember whether she
belongs to winter or to spring.
After the struggles and perplexities of the
months that had elapsed since Balnillo and
Christian Flemington met in Edinburgh, she had
come slowly to herself amid storms of sleet.
Beyond the Grampians, in the North, her
awakened eyes looked on a country whose heart
had been broken at Culloden. The ragged com¬
pany that gathered round its Prince on that
Wednesday morning was dispersed among the
fastnesses of the hills, or lying dead and dying
among the rushes and heather, whilst Cumber¬
land’s soldiers finished their bloody business;
the April snow that had blown in the faces of the
clansmen as they hurled their unavailing valour
on the Whig army had melted upon mounds of
slain, and in the struggle of an hour the hopes of
half a century had perished. Superior numbers,
superior artillery, and superior generalship, had
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