The Greatest Historical Novels & Romances of D. K. Broster. D. K. Broster

left the West altogether, owing to the persistent searches made for him.

      “Then it is well known to the English that he is in the Highlands,” said Ewen despondently, “and it is my fault!”

      “No,” said Alison with decision, “the knowledge seems too widespread for that. But enough of Doctor Archibald for the moment; I have to speak of something which concerns you both more nearly at this time—and it would be better to speak French, because of the children,” she added, plunging into that tongue, which they all three spoke with ease.

      And, beckoning them close to her, Lady Ardroy, to their no small astonishment, unfolded a plan of escape which it seemed had been devised in conjunction with young Ian Stewart of Invernacree, her husband’s cousin, and the rest of his Stewart kin in Appin. If he and Hector could succeed in getting out of the fort, and would be on the shore of Loch Linnhe at a given spot and hour on the night of Christmas Day——

      “What night?” exclaimed both her hearers together.

      Alison looked a little startled. “We had thought of Christmas night for it, because the garrison—— What are you both laughing at?”

      At that Hector laughed the more, and Ewen seized and kissed her.

      “Because, mo chridhe, you or Ian must have the two sights, I think. That is precisely the night that Hector and I were already favouring, and for exactly the same reason. Go on!”

      Flushed and eager, Alison went on. Under the fort a boat would be waiting, manned by Stewarts; this, with all possible speed, would convey them down Loch Linnhe to Invernacree in Appin, where old Alexander Stewart, Ewen’s maternal uncle, proposed that the fugitives should remain hid for a while. Some twenty miles would then lie between them and Fort William, while in any case the pursuit would probably be made in the first instance towards Ardroy.

      To all the first part of the plan Ewen agreed without demur. The presence of a boat waiting for them would solve their greatest difficulty, how to leave the neighbourhood of the fort without taking the most easily traced way therefrom, by land. For the previous part of the programme, the actual breaking out of their prison, they must as before rely upon themselves—and upon the effects of the garrison’s Christmas celebrations.

      But to taking refuge with his uncle and cousin Ewen would not agree. “If I succeed in getting free, darling, it’s more than enough that I shall owe them (Hector must please himself; but he behoves to make haste to rejoin his regiment). But I am not going to risk bringing trouble on folk who are now at peace, particularly after what took place in Appin last spring, for which an Appin man has paid so dearly. My plan is to reach Edinburgh somehow, and there secure the legal aid for which I have been vainly trying by letter. And though there is not overmuch chance of justice for a Jacobite, I would yet make an effort after it, and a free man has a better chance of this than a prisoner. The English know the justice of my case, or they would not have denied me the services of an advocate. After that, if all goes well, I shall be able to return to you and the bairns in quiet . . . and be ready for the call to arms when it comes,” he added internally, for not even to Alison had he revealed what Archibald Cameron had told him.

      After this Alison set the children to unpack the basket and to range its contents on the table. “I must keep them occupied at a distance for a few moments,” she explained, as she came back. “Now, first, for your escape from this room. Since there are bars to your windows . . . Hold out a hand, one of you!”

      “Not . . . a file?” exclaimed Hector, almost snatching from his sister the little key to freedom. “Oh, you angel from heaven!”

      Alison smiled. “ ’Twas Ian Stewart thought of that. There’s something further. You may be wondering why I have not taken off my cloak all this while. If I had, you would certainly be thinking I had lost my figure.” And, smiling, she suddenly held her mantle wide.

      “Faith, no,” admitted Hector, “that’s not the jimp waist I’ve been accustomed to see in you, my sister.”

      “Wait, and you shall know the reason for it. . . . Look out of the window, the two of you, until I bid you turn.”

      The two men obeyed. From the table came the chatter of the children, very busy over the basket. “My want to see what’s in that little pot!” “Keithie, you’ll drop that if you are not more careful; oh, here’s another cheese!”

      “Now,” said Alison’s voice, “lift up my cloak.”

      Husband and brother turned round, and, deeply puzzled, each raised a side of it. In her arms Lady Ardroy held, all huddled together, the coils of a long, thin, strong rope.

      “Take it—hide it quickly . . . don’t let the weans see it; Keithie might go talking of it before the soldiers below. I thought you might find it of service.”

      Hector flung his arms about her. “Of service! ’Tis what I have been praying for every day. Alison, you are a sister in ten thousand! Hide it under a mattress, Ewen, until we have an opportunity to dispose of it as this heroine has done—for our room might be searched if they grew suspicious. And, ma foi, if our gaolers notice anything amiss with our figures they will but think we have grown fat upon your Christmas fare, darling!”

      “Keithie help you make yours bed, Father?” asked the voice of one anxious to be helpful, as Ewen hastily carried out Hector’s first suggestion; and the voice’s owner trotted over to him and lifted an inquiring gaze. “But why you doing that now?”

      Alison whisked him away. “ ’Tis extraordinary,” she remarked in French, “how children always see what they should not!”

      * * * * *

      Nevertheless, some half-hour later, two men, each winding half a rope round their bodies beneath their clothes, would have given a good deal had those indiscreet and innocent eyes still been upon them. The room seemed so empty now; only among the provisions on the table stood, very stiffly, Keithie’s ridiculous new wooden stag, with one of its birch-twig horns hanging down broken, Keithie at the last having left the animal there for his father’s consolation. The recipient, however, found now that it came nearer than he liked to unmanning him.

      (3)

      One may arrange an escape with due regard for sheltering darkness and the festive preoccupation of one’s gaolers, may have accomplices in readiness, may join them undiscovered and get a certain distance away from one’s prison—only to find that Nature is not in a mood to lend her assistance, that she has, in fact, definitely resolved to hinder one’s flight. And in the Highlands at midwinter this lack of co-operation on her part may lead to serious consequences.

      In other words, young Ian Stewart’s boat, with its four rowers, was having an increasingly rough and toilsome journey down Loch Linnhe this Christmas night. The party had waited undetected in the boat on the upper reach of the loch near the fort, the same luck had attended their reception of the two fugitives, on whose descent from their window and down the counterscarp to the shore fortune had also smiled, and, amid mutual congratulations, rescuers and rescued had started on the twenty miles’ homeward pull. The wind, as they knew, was dead against them, hence they could not help themselves by a sail, and the tide would shortly be against them also, but these were circumstances which had for some time been anticipated. What, however, was dismaying, though not at all beyond precedent on Loch Linnhe, was the rapidity with which this contrary wind was rising in strength, and the degree to which it was lashing up the waters of the loch to anger.

      The boat itself was heavy and solid, and there was little risk of its being swamped, though now and again a wave would fling a scatter of spray over the bows. The real danger lay in the fact that its progress was being so retarded that dawn, even early day, might be upon them before they had covered nearly as much distance from Fort William as was desirable, seeing that with daylight they could be observed and reported upon from the shore. At the helm Ian Stewart, more and more uneasy, watched the pallid light spreading in the east, though the mist leant low upon the mountains of Ardgour to their right. In front, about a mile away, a