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

he took to his heels, a pretty certain means, he knew, of ensuring a bullet’s being sent after him. But he was too desperately set upon escape to weigh that risk. Instant pursuit, of course, there would be; he heard the cries with which it started, and the sound of men scrambling to their feet over stones—yet not a single shot.

      Two facts, indeed, were in the Highlander’s favour, though he knew it not; no redcoat had committed so unheard-of a folly as to burden himself with his musket when off duty, and not a single man of the party at the pool happened to be fully shod when he took the alarm. Those with one boot paused to pull on the other, those with none, less cautious or more zealous, began the chase as they were—and, over shingle and edges of bare rock, did not get very far. Meanwhile, therefore, Ewen had quite a respectable start, and made the very best of it. In a few minutes he had reached the slope, part grass, part rock, part bare earth, and had hurled himself up it. For one instant he thought that a patch of earth over which he had to pull himself was going to give way and slide with his weight, but his muscles carried him to a securer spot before this could happen. And, once on the top, he found a stretch of rough but not precipitous going between him and the hamlet of Kilchoan, which now seemed his best goal. To turn the other way was to pass the fortress again.

      A glance showed him that no one had yet topped the cliff. He ran like a deer through heather stems and bog-myrtle, up slopes and down them, and when his track was crossed by a tangled hollow with a burn at the bottom he plunged gratefully down, for it meant cover, and he could work along it unseen for a little. When he was obliged to come up again on the other side he saw with thankfulness the forms of only three pursuers running stumblingly towards the ravine which they had yet to cross, and he took fresh breath and sped still faster over the moorland.

      Soon, as he went, Kilchoan bay with its string of white cottages round the shore was fully visible, under the remains of a smouldering sunset. He could see only one sailing-boat at anchor; was that the Macleans’, the Coll men’s? In another three minutes he was near enough to see figures moving about in her. Perhaps she was about to sail with the ebb. He came, still running very fast, though the pace was distressing him, through a little cluster of fishermen’s huts at the edge of the strand. “Is that boat out yonder from Coll?” he shouted to an old man at his door, and understood the ancient to pipe after him as he passed that it was, and just upon sailing.

      Ewen pulled up, breathless. “I want a boat . . . take me to her!” But he could see without being told that there was no boat within easy reach. He threw a look behind him; two scarlet-clad forms were doggedly pounding along towards the cottages, and would be on the shore in another couple of minutes. He must do without a boat. Shouting and waving to the Coll men, who seemed to have been attracted by what was going on, he ran out along a wet spit of rock and, pausing only to remove his shoes, plunged into the water.

      The sea was as calm as a summer’s and colder than anything he had ever imagined. The yellow-bladdered fingers of the low-tide seaweed slid gropingly round him, but in a moment he was clear of them, and, gasping for breath, was striking out furiously for the fishing-boat. . . . Then he was underneath her counter, and the Macleans, with exclamations which showed that they recognised him, were helping him over the side. And as by now the two persistent soldiers could be heard shouting, with gesticulations, for a boat, there was no need for the dripping fugitive to explain from whom he was escaping.

      “Will you take me with you?” he got out, panting. It was folly now even to suggest their putting about and passing Mingary to go up Loch Sunart, as he had once thought of doing.

      “Ay, will we,” said the elder Maclean. “Ye’ll please give my brother a hand with the sails, then.” He ran forward to the anchor.

      The pursuers had not even got hold of a boat before the little fishing-vessel was moving up the top of the Sound of Mull towards the open sea and the flat mass of the isle of Coll, vaguely discernible about eight miles away; while Ewen, after making fast the last halyard, had sunk drenched and exhausted on a thwart.

      * * * * *

      An hour and a half later he was sitting on a heap of nets in the bows of the Ròn, the Seal, clad in an odd assortment of garments. His own were hanging up to dry. For a February night in these latitudes the air was remarkably warm, as he had already noticed, thinking, not of himself, but of the old man to whom he had lent his arm for so many miles. But surely Mr. Oliphant had gained some kind of shelter for the night . . . only Ewen prayed that shelter were not Mingary Castle.

      Though darkness would soon shroud the little boat from Mingary, the Macleans were not willing to put about because, other considerations apart, they were carrying meal to their families in Coll, where it was needed immediately; and Ewen had to acquiesce in this reluctance, feeling, as he did, that they had already rendered him a much greater service than he could have expected of them, in thus taking him off under the very eyes of the redcoats.

      The Ròn rolled before the following wind, and the sail flapped; the younger Maclean was singing under his breath some air of the Outer Isles full of cadences at once monotonous and unexpected. A hidden moon was tingeing the heavy clouds over Mull, and at last Ewen had time to think. But thought was tumbled and broken, like those clouds. He had met his enemy, after all these years, and . . . well, what had he done with him? Saved him, or tried to, at another’s bidding, and with a reluctance which amounted to abhorrence. Small credit could he take to himself for that deed!

      The wind freshened, and seemed to be changing too; it ran cool over Ewen’s damp hair. The Ròn was feeling the Atlantic swell; blessed little boat, which had cheated his pursuers! And where was now his heat of baffled revenge—a mere cinder in his breast. Certainly it burnt with flame no longer; quenched, perhaps, as the half-fantastic thought whispered, by the cold waves of Kilchoan bay. And was he glad of it, or did he miss the purpose which had lain buried in his heart so long, the purpose which he had avowed to Archibald Cameron that evening at Ardroy, but which he could never again take out and finger over, like a treasure? Ewen did not know. Half to console himself for its loss, he reminded himself that he too had had a score, and a heavy one, against that wretched man moaning his life away above the wintry loch, and that he could never have been quite certain that his vengeance was entirely on his dead friend’s account. He could not have paid Keith Windham’s score without paying his own as well.

      Time passed; Ardroy still lay without moving, half-propped against the gunwale, his head on his arm, seeing more clearly, with every wave that heaved, dimly frothing, past the boat’s nose, from what Mr. Oliphant had saved him; beginning indeed to have shuddering glimpses of a deep and very dark place in himself full of horrible things. Well did the Gaelic name the Enemy ‘the One from the Abyss’! . . . But that very deliverance had parted him from the old man, it might be for ever, and he could not say to him now what he longed to say. Perhaps he would never be able to.

      “Will you sleep, sir?” came a voice in his ear. One of the Macleans was bending over him. “We’ll not make Coll till morning now; the wind’s gone round, and we must take a long tack to the northward. I have brought a sail to cover you.”

      Ewen looked up. The moon was gone, the clouds too; the sky was velvet dark, and sown with myriad points of light. “Thank you, Maclean; yes, I’ll sleep awhile.”

      And to himself he said, as he stretched himself on the brine-scented nets, “Thank God—and a saint of His—that I can!”

      CHAPTER XII

       AFTER SUNSET

       Table of Contents

      (1)

      “MY dear Ewen,” said old Invernacree, and he reached across and replenished his nephew’s glass, “my dear Ewen, have you not had your fill of wandering, that you cannot bide with us a few days?”

      But Ewen shook his head. “I would that I could, for I have, indeed, had my fill of wandering—near three months of it. But I must push on to Edinburgh to-morrow, to consult an advocate, as I told you, sir.”