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

a Highlander.

      But Ardroy was seeing the past, not the future, and after a moment sat down again at the table and covered his face with his hands. His half-drained glass rolled over, and the claret stain widened on the coarse cloth. Keith Windham’s brother stood looking down at him until, an instant or two later, there came a knock at the door, when he went to it, and dismissed the intruder, the postilion anxious for his lordship to start.

      When he came back Ardroy had removed his hands and regained control of himself.

      “Since we have met so strangely, you would perhaps desire me to tell you the whole story, my lord?”

      And sitting there, sometimes gazing with a strange expression at the stain on the cloth, sometimes looking as if he saw nothing, Ewen told it to the young man in detail.

      CHAPTER XIII

       THE RELUCTANT VILLAIN

       Table of Contents

      (1)

      Lord Aveling’s elderly postilion may well have wondered when, at last, the two gentlemen came out to take their places in the chaise, why they both looked so grave and pale; yet, since he had been fidgeting over the delay, to see them come at all was welcome. He whipped up his horses, and soon the travellers, not much regarding it, had had their last glimpse of lovely Etive, had crossed the tumbling Awe, and began to enter the Pass of Brander. Close above them were the mighty flanks of Cruachan; on the right the still, black water, bewitched into strange immobility before it rushed into Loch Etive, but streaked with long threads of white as they approached its birthplace in Loch Awe.

      The emotions of the inn had left both Ewen and Lord Aveling rather silent, but at last the younger man said, indicating the view from his window:

      “As you say, Mr. Cameron, my poor brother did not like the Highlands. I, too, find them, with exceptions, uncongenial. This gloomy defile, for instance, and the great mountain beneath which we are travelling, are to me oppressive.”

      “Others, and Highlanders to boot, have found Ben Cruachan oppressive, my lord,” returned Ewen with meaning. “For were you not told at Dunstaffnage that the name of this fine mountain above us has been adopted by the Campbells as their war-cry?”

      Lord Aveling looked at him. “Your clan is no friend to the Campbells, I think.”

      Ewen smiled a trifle bitterly. He wondered whether Lord Aveling had heard that enmity in his voice, or had learnt of it otherwise.

      “Forgive me if I seem impertinent in asking of your affairs, Mr. Cameron,” went on the young man, “and believe me that they are of interest to me because of your connection with my poor brother. I understand from what you have told me that you left the country after the battle of Culloden; did you find the Highlands much changed upon your return?”

      He was obviously inspired only with a friendly interest, and Ardroy, though never very prone to talk about his own concerns, found himself, to his surprise, engaged upon it almost naturally with this unknown young Englishman, his junior, he guessed, by ten years or so. Yet how could he help it? The boy had Keith Windham’s voice.

      “And so it has been possible for you to settle down quietly,” commented Lord Aveling. “I am very pleased to hear it. Not all of your name have been so wise—but then your clan is fairly numerous, is it not? For instance, that Doctor Cameron who is such a thorn in the side of the Government . . . ah, you know him, perhaps?” For Ewen had not been able to suppress a slight movement.

      “Doctor Cameron? I . . . I met him in the Rising,” he answered carelessly. Better not to say how intimate was that knowledge, for the young man would probably shut up like an oyster, and he was not averse from hearing his views on Archie.

      “It seems,” went on the youth, “that he is one of the Pre—the Prince’s chief agents. However, he has evidently come to the end of his tether in that capacity—or so I heard from . . . from Edinburgh this morning.”

      “Indeed?” remarked Ewen a little uneasily.

      “Yes; I was told that the Lord Justice-Clerk had just received information as to his whereabouts, and, having communicated it to General Churchill, had issued a warrant, which the General immediately sent to the commander of the military post at Inver—Inversnaid, I think the name was. Probably, therefore, Doctor Cameron is captured by now.”

      “Inversnaid,” repeated Ewen, after a second or two in which his hand had furtively tightened itself on his knee; “Inversnaid—that’s on the upper end of Loch Lomond. There is a barracks near it.”

      “On Loch Lomond, you say, sir? I fear my knowledge of the geography of Scotland is but small, yet I remember that Inversnaid, or something very much like it, was the name. . . . The prospect of this long lake upon our right—Loch Awe, is it not?—is very fine, Mr. Cameron!”

      “Yes, very fine indeed,” agreed his companion perfunctorily. “But—excuse me, Lord Aveling—did your correspondent say . . . I mean, was Doctor Cameron reported to be near Loch Lomond?” A growing dismay was fettering his tongue, while his brain, on the contrary, had started to go round like a wheel, revolving possibilities. Could Archie really be in that neighbourhood?

      “Loch Lomond was not mentioned in my letter,” replied the young man. “He was said to be in Glen Something-or-other, of which I can’t recall the name. You have so many glens in your country,” he added with an apologetic smile.

      What glen could it be? Those running up respectively from Loch Lomond or Loch Katrine? But Archie would never ‘skulk’ so near Inversnaid as that. If that warrant had really been despatched from Edinburgh (for the whole thing might only be a rumour) then all one could hope for was that the information on which it had been issued was incorrect. Ewen stole a glance at his fellow-traveller.

      “I’ll hazard, my lord,” said he, trying to speak carelessly, “that the place was either Glenfalloch or Glengyle.”

      Lord Aveling turned his head from contemplating the twilight beauties of Loch Awe; he looked faintly surprised. “No, it was neither of those, I am sure,” he replied; and Ewen felt that he was upon the point of adding, “Why, may I ask, are you so anxious to know?” But he did not.

      “If I could but get a sight of that letter!” thought Ewen. “If he only received it this morning it is probably still in his pocket, not in his baggage. I wish he would bring it forth!” Yes, the letter was probably there, concealed from his longing eyes only by one or two thicknesses of cloth. How could he induce Lord Aveling, who so little guessed of what vital interest the name was to him, to read through his letter again? It would never do to avow that interest openly, because the young Englishman would then certainly refuse, by gratifying his curiosity, to lend himself to the conveyance of a warning to one whom he must regard as a dangerous enemy of the Government. For to warn Archie was now beginning to be Ewen’s one desire . . . if he could only learn where to find him.

      But then he thought despairingly, “Even if I knew that, and could set off this moment, how could I possibly get there in time?” For if, as Lord Aveling had seemed to imply, the warrant had already left Edinburgh for Inversnaid by the time his letter was despatched to Dunstaffnage, then, by this morning, when he received it there, so much farther from the capital than was Inversnaid, all was over. . . . Unless indeed, by God’s mercy, this unnamed glen had been searched and found empty, as it was rumoured had happened to not a few places in the last six months.

      “You have no doubt destroyed your letter, my lord?” he suggested desperately after a while—desperately and, as he felt, clumsily.

      He saw the colour leap into the young man’s cheek—and no wonder! The question was a most unwarrantable impertinence. He would reply “And what affair is that of yours?” and there would be nothing to do save to beg his pardon.