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

never come before a court-martial; it had been privately dealt with by Hawley and the Duke. Three things had combined to save him from being cashiered: the fact that Cumberland was graciously pleased to set his conduct at Fontenoy against his present lapse, that Lord Albemarle had written some words of appreciation of him in that despatch which Keith had never delivered, and that Hawley had regarded, and succeeded in making Cumberland regard, Lord Loudoun’s action in putting his staff-officer under arrest as high-handed, and to be resented. “I can’t understand your conduct, Windham,” he had said angrily to his erring subordinate, “but I’m damned if I’ll stand Lord Loudoun’s!” Hawley chafed all the more because he knew his own star to be on the decline; and thus military jealousy played no small part in saving Keith from complete disaster.

      But all was over, naturally, with his chance of being appointed to Cumberland’s staff, nor could Hawley keep him on his, even for the short time that should elapse before he resigned his own none-too-fortunate command. Although Major Windham’s might be regarded as a mere technical offence—and even Cumberland, severe as he was showing himself in matters of discipline, did not seem to regard it as more—Lord Loudoun’s treatment of it had given it so much publicity that for appearances’ sake the defaulter had to be punished. Keith had hoped that he might escape from Scotland by being sent back to his own battalion of the Royals, now in Kent, or that perhaps he would be attached to the second, just proceeding to Perth; but he was offered instead a vacancy in Battereau’s regiment, which was to remain behind with Blakeney’s when the bulk of the army should move with Cumberland to Fort Augustus. He was, in short, put on the shelf; but he was very plainly shown that it was a choice between accepting this position or sending in his papers altogether. He might indeed count himself extremely lucky that he had escaped being broke, and so the Duke himself had told him.

      The last week in May, therefore, had found him left behind in Inverness, no longer the centre of military activity now that Cumberland was gone, but rather a depôt for prisoners, entailing on the two regiments remaining in the town duties which were both dull and—to Keith Windham at least—hateful. But the shelf has an uncommonly sobering effect upon a hot-tempered and ambitious man, and it did not require two months of it to bring reflection to Major Windham. Before they were half over he was viewing his own irregular conduct in a much more critical light, and from cursing his impetuosity he had come to marvelling at his folly. Saving Ewen Cameron’s life he did not for an instant regret; he would have done the same again without a moment’s hesitation, nor did he regret his return to the shieling in the guise of the Good Samaritan; but to have dashed in that manner back to Fort Augustus while carrying a despatch, still more to have thrust himself into Lord Loudoun’s presence and almost to have brawled there—was it any wonder that he had found himself under arrest? Prudence could not undo the past, but it might modify the future, and he therefore set himself to practise this virtue in Inverness, much as it went against the grain. Warned by the fate of an officer who was court-martialled for having shown the wretched captives there some kindness, he did not go out of his way to emulate him, nor did his old wound again furnish a pretext for his withdrawal from scenes which he disliked. If the officers of Battereau’s had known him previously they would have thought him remarkably changed. General Blakeney, a hard man, had no fault to find with Hawley’s disgraced staff-officer.

      The first fruit of this new prudence had been Keith’s abstention, not only from writing to Ewen Cameron, but even from sending him a direct message. He had sent instead by an acquaintance in Bligh’s regiment, when it proceeded to Fort Augustus, a verbal recommendation to Sergeant Mullins to be faithful to the ‘commission’ which he had given him, in the hope that the sergeant would, besides obeying this injunction, pass on unsolicited to Ardroy the scanty news of himself which his messenger was instructed to add. A man under a cloud could not, he felt, afford to compromise himself still further in the matter of open friendship with a rebel—though to Cumberland and Hawley he had vigorously denied any such relations with Ewen Cameron. Made wary by his experiences with Guthrie, and afraid of giving a handle against Ewen, he had merely urged in defence of his own conduct a not unnatural anxiety about a Scottish acquaintance—the name, of course, he had been unable to withhold—who had shown him hospitality and kindness before the raising of the standard of rebellion. It was disingenuous, but in the absence of close questioning the version had served its purpose.

      And as the weeks went by he had not only made no attempt to communicate in any way with the captive Jacobite, but was careful never to enquire for him by name whenever an officer came from Fort Augustus, whence indisposition (induced, so they asserted, by their melancholy surroundings) was always bringing a few. Yet, as the clearing out of Lochaber and Badenoch proceeded, he did his best always to ascertain what prisoners were arriving at Inverness for transhipment to England, but he never found Ewen Cameron’s name among them. And at last, since he felt sure that the latter would never have been kept until July at Fort Augustus, he came to the conclusion that he must have overlooked his name in the lists, and that he had been shipped off from Inverness without his knowledge—unless he had been despatched by land from Fort Augustus to Edinburgh. Keith hoped indeed that the latter course had been taken, for he knew something of the horrible condition in which the prisoners were kept in the ships, packed together like cattle with nothing to lie upon but the stones and earth of the ballast. He was sorry, very sorry, that he had not been able to see Ardroy once more, but it was the fortune of war; and there was no denying the fact, once recognised, that this young man, to whom he had been so unusually attracted, had brought him nothing but ill-luck.

      * * * * *

      The letter, its seal broken at last, merely said that His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland commanded Major Windham’s attendance without delay at Fort Augustus. Now Cumberland, as Keith knew, was on the very eve of departure for England; the summons must evidently have some connection with that fact, and it was full of the most hopeful speculations that he went at once to procure leave of absence from his colonel.

      And when, some five hours later, he came down the descent to Loch Ness, he could not but remember the last time that he had ridden into Fort Augustus, on that wet night in May, on fire with indignation and disgust. Well, he had learnt his lesson now!

      Since Cumberland’s advent, Fort Augustus had naturally become an armed camp of a much greater size; there were hundreds more tents pitched by the Tarff, and besides these, the women’s quarters, the horse lines of the dragoon regiment of Kingston’s Horse, and quantities of cattle and ponies driven in from the ravaged countryside. As had been foreshadowed, the Earl of Albemarle, who had already been there for some time, was to succeed the Duke as commander-in-chief on the latter’s departure to-morrow. Remembering his lamentations at Perth in May, Keith wondered whether his Lordship were more reconciled to the prospect now.

      But the Duke sending for him at this juncture—it must mean something to his own advantage!

      He asked, as he had been instructed to do, for Sir Everard Faulkner, and found the ex-banker, ex-ambassador to Constantinople and patron of Voltaire at a table in a tent, very busy writing.

      “Good afternoon, Major Windham,” said he, looking up. “You have made good speed hither, which is commendable.”

      “So your letter bade me, sir.”

      “Yes,” said Sir Everard, laying down his pen. “I sent for you by His Royal Highness’s recommendation, to request your assistance on a certain matter of importance to His Majesty’s Government. If you can give it, you will lay not only me, but the Duke also, under a considerable obligation.”

      “If you will tell me what the matter is . . .” murmured Keith, amazed. To be able to lay Cumberland under an obligation was a chance not to be made light of, but he could not for the life of him imagine how he had it in his power to do so unlikely a thing.

      “I have for some time,” proceeded Sir Everard, fingering the sheets before him, “been collecting evidence against such prisoners in Inverness and elsewhere as are to be sent to England in order to take their trials. Yesterday I received a letter from the Lord Justice Clerk in Edinburgh transmitting a copy of the Duke of Newcastle’s order that prisoners are to set out as soon as may be, and that particular care is to be taken that the witnesses sent to give evidence against them should be able to prove”—he