The Collected Works of D. K. Broster. D. K. Broster

was over there, on the King’s affairs, in the spring) which ended in a fluxion de poitrine, and left me with somewhat of a cough and a general weakness. I doubt I shall not be my own man again for a while.—Now, gentlemen, before you tell me why I am thus honoured by your company, you’ll pledge me, I hope, in this excellent Bordeaux—But where the devil has Seumas put the glasses?”

      His guests, however, both refused the offer of the Bordeaux with so much decision and unanimity that Finlay, raising his eyebrows, left the cupboard and came and sat down.

      “Not even to drink the King’s health?” he observed. “Well, gentlemen, if you will not drink, let us get to business—unless this is a mere visit of ceremony?”

      “No, ’tis not a visit of ceremony, Mr. MacPhair,” answered Ewen gravely. “Mr. Grant has a question to ask of you, which you will greatly oblige him by answering; and I, too, find that I have one which, by your leave, I should like to put when you have answered his.”

      “This sounds, I declare, like an examination before the Privy Council,” remarked young Glenshian, his lip drawing up a little. “Pray proceed then, sirs, each in your turn! You’ll allow me, I hope, the liberty of not replying if I so wish?”

      “Nay, Mr. MacPhair, do not imagine that we come as inquisitors,” said Hector with unwonted suavity. “It will be of your courtesy only that you reply.”

      “Ask, then!” said Finlay, fixing his piercing light eyes upon him.

      Even Hector hesitated for a second, choosing his words. “Mr. MacPhair, while eternally grateful to you for your assistance in procuring my return to France last January——” He paused again, seeing in those eyes something akin to the sudden violent resentment with which their owner had at first greeted the subject on that occasion, then went on: “I should nevertheless be glad of your assurance that you did not, by pure inadvertence, let it be somewhat freely known that I had lost, along with my other papers in the Highlands, the compromising cipher letter of which I told you?”

      There was no outburst from Glenshian, but all and more of his native arrogance in his reply. “Certainly I did not,” he said contemptuously. “Why should I speak of your private affairs, Mr. Grant? They are nothing to me!”

      Hector bit his lip. “I thank you for the assurance, Mr. MacPhair. Yet that letter was hardly a private affair, and. . . . the knowledge of the loss of it has undoubtedly gone about, and has much damaged my reputation, especially in my regiment.”

      “Well, I am very sorry to hear that, Mr. Grant,” responded his host, pulling his shawl about him and crossing his legs. “But you must forgive me if I say that to lose a paper of that nature could hardly be expected to enhance it!”

      At the half-amused, half-hortatory tone Ewen fully expected Hector to flare up. But that young man remained surprisingly controlled, and answered, though with rather pinched lips, “Yet the strange thing is, that I told no one save Mr. Cameron and yourself that I had lost it!”

      Fionnlagh Ruadh turned his dangerous gaze on Mr. Cameron. “I suppose he has satisfied you that he is not the culprit?” he asked, again in that half-humorous tone. To this Hector vouchsafed no reply, and apparently Glenshian did not expect one, for he went on, “But surely, Mr. Grant, if a letter such as you told me of were sent, upon capture, to the English Government, as is natural, you could scarcely expect them to be so tender of your reputation as not to let it be known upon whom it was captured?”

      “Ay, but was it sent to the Government?” demanded Hector.

      Glenshian’s haughty head went back. “And pray how do you expect me to know that?”

      Ewen leant forward. It was the same man; after this prolonged scrutiny he felt sure of it. “That is indeed an idle question, Hector,” he observed. “And Mr. MacPhair has assured you that he had no hand in spreading the knowledge of your misfortune, which assurance no doubt you accept. I think the moment has come for me to ask my question, if he will be good enough to answer it.”

      “I hope yours is less offensive than the last!” rapped out Glenshian.

      “I am afraid it is not very pleasant,” admitted Ardroy, “and I must crave your indulgence for putting it. . . . I should wish to learn how it is, Mr. MacPhair, that you know Mr. Pelham so well as to leave his house in Arlington Street between eleven and twelve at night?”

      Oddly enough, it was Hector, not young Glenshian, who appeared most affected by this shot. “What!” he exclaimed, “do you mean to say that Mr. MacPhair was the man you saw that night?”

      But Mr. MacPhair himself was frowning at his questioner in an angry and puzzled astonishment which seemed genuine enough, “Mr. Pelham, sir?” he said sharply “—whom do you mean? You cannot, I imagine, refer to Mr. Pelham the minister of state?”

      “Yes,” said Ewen unperturbed, “I do—Mr. Henry Pelham, my Lord Newcastle’s brother. And as you leave his house so late at night, I conclude that you must know him very well.”

      Now young Glenshian pushed back his chair, his eyes glittering. “You are crazy as well as infernally insulting, Mr. Cameron of Ardroy! I do not know Mr. Pelham even by sight.”

      “Then why were you coming out of his house that night?” pursued Ardroy. “You were speaking Erse to your servant, who was carrying a link. I happened to be passing, and by its light I saw enough of your face and hair to recognise you. Perhaps you had quite legitimate business with Mr. Pelham, but it would be less disquieting if we knew what it was.”

      The young Chief had jumped to his feet, the shawl sliding to the ground; his expression was sufficiently menacing. Hector, all attention, had sprung up too, and was now at Ewen’s side.

      “Do you imagine,” said Glenshian between his teeth, “that we are in Lochaber, Mr. Cameron, and that you can safely come the bully over me, the two of you? I thought the late Lochiel had tried to civilise his clan; it seems he had not much success! I tell you that I do not know Mr. Pelham, and have never been inside his house—and God damn you to hell,” he added in an access of fury, “how dare you put such a question to me?”

      “Because,” answered Ewen unmoved, “I desire to find out who was the man that came out of Mr. Pelham’s house on the night of the fifteenth of May, a red-haired, Erse-speaking man as like you, Mr. MacPhair, as one pea is like another.”

      “I’d like to know,” broke in Finlay bitterly, “why, if you see a red-headed Highlander coming out of an English minister’s door, you must jump to the conclusion not only that he is a Jacobite playing fast and loose with his principles, but that it is the future chief of Glenshian, a man who has lain near two years in the Tower for Jacobitism? Dhé, if it were not so amazing in its impudence——”

      “You mean that I am to consider myself mistaken?”

      “I do indeed, Mr. Cameron; and before you leave this room you’ll apologise for your assumption in any words I choose to dictate! Faith, I am not sure that an apology, even the humblest, is adequate!”

      And here—if the assumption in question were mistaken—Ewen agreed with him.

      “I am quite ready to apologise, Mr. MacPhair,” he said, “if you’ll prove to me that I was wrong. On my soul, I am only too anxious that you should. Or if you will convince me that your clandestine business with the Elector’s chief minister was such as an honourable man of our party might fairly have.”

      “And who made you a judge over me?” cried Finlay the Red, and his left hand went to his side, gripping at nothing, for he was not wearing his sword. Then he flung out the other in a fiery gesture. “I’ll have that apology, by Heaven! You’ll be only too ready to offer it when you hear my secret!”

      “If you tell me that your errand to Mr. Pelham’s house——” began Ewen.

      “God’s name!” broke out the angry MacPhair, “am I to shout it at you that I never went there! He went, I don’t