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

I fancy ’twill be long before that letter is torn up.” He turned his head away quickly, and once more looked out of the chaise window, but Ewen had the impression that the smile was still upon his lips. He was somewhat puzzled; it could hardly be that the news of Doctor Cameron’s possible arrest was so agreeable to the young traveller that he meant always to preserve the letter which announced it. There must be some other reason; perhaps the missive contained some private news which had pleased him. At any rate, it still existed, and, as it was in his possession, why would he not consult it? Was it, after all, packed away in his valise?

      “I wonder what glen it could have been,” hazarded Ardroy with a reflective air. “I thought I knew all the glens in that neighbourhood” (which was false, for he had never been there).

      Lord Aveling’s left hand—the nearest to his companion—made a quick undecided movement to his breast, and Ewen held his breath. He was going at last to bring out the letter and look! But no . . . for some unimaginable reason he was not! The hand fell again, its owner murmuring something about not remembering the name, and immediately beginning, rather pointedly, to talk about something else.

      It was useless to go on harping on the matter, even though the letter was indubitably in the young man’s pocket. Perhaps, in any case, he himself was allowing its contents to assume quite undue proportions in his mind. There had been so many of these false alarms and unfruitful attempts to seize Archie—that much, at least, he had learnt at Invernacree—and a mere visitor to Edinburgh, an English traveller new to Scotland, was not the person most likely to possess the really accurate knowledge which alone could cause alarm. It was some rumour of the despatch of a warrant which Lord Aveling’s correspondent had passed on to him, some gossip which was circulating in Edinburgh, nothing more.

      (2)

      So, by the time they came with lighted lamps to Dalmally, and the little inn in the strath where they were to spend the night, Ewen, by way of revulsion, was almost ready to laugh at himself and his fears. Even if the news about the issue of the warrant were true, the information which had caused it was palpably false. As if Archie would lie hid, as Lord Aveling’s correspondent reported, within reach of Inversnaid barracks! Again, if it had been true, then, having regard to the time which had elapsed, and the extraordinary swiftness with which news was wont to travel from mouth to mouth in the Highlands, the news of Doctor Cameron’s capture in Perthshire would certainly be known here at Dalmally, almost on the borders. And a few careful questions put to the innkeeper soon after their arrival, out of Lord Aveling’s hearing, showed Ardroy that it was not. He sat down to supper with that young man in a somewhat happier frame of mind.

      The most esteemed bedroom of the inn had been put at the disposal of the guests. There happened to be two beds in it, and for persons of the same sex travelling together—or even not travelling—to share a room was so usual that the landlord did not even apologise for the necessity; he was only overheard to congratulate himself that he could offer the superior amenities of his best bedchamber to these two gentlemen.

      But the gentlemen in question did not congratulate themselves when they saw it.

      “Did you say that you once shared a room with my poor brother?” enquired Lord Aveling when their mails had been brought in and they were alone together in that uninviting apartment.

      “Hardly a room,” answered Ewen. “It was but a little hut, where one slept upon bracken.”

      “I believe that I should prefer bracken to this bed,” observed his lordship, looking with distaste at the dingy sheets which he had uncovered. “I shall not venture myself completely into it. Yet, by Gad, I’m sleepy enough.” He yawned. “I wager I shall sleep as well, perhaps better, than I have done of late at Dunstaffnage Castle, where one heard the sea-wind blowing so strong of nights.”

      “Yes, and I dare venture you found Edinburgh none too quiet neither,” observed Ewen idly, surveying his equally dubious sheets, and resolving to follow his companion’s example.

      “Oh, down at General Churchill’s quarters ’twas peaceful enough,” returned Lord Aveling, stifling another yawn, “for the Abbey stands—but there,” he added, beginning to take off his coat, “you must know better than I what is the situation of Holyrood House.”

      Ewen’s pulse suddenly quickened. “So it was General Churchill whom you were visiting in Edinburgh, my lord?”

      “Yes,” replied the young man. “I thought I had already mentioned it.” And then he began to redden; even in the meagre candle-light the colour could be seen mounting hotly to his face. “He is an old acquaintance of my father’s.”

      Ewen remained motionless, one arm out of his coat; but he was not speculating as to why the young nobleman had so curiously flushed. The thought had shot through him like an arrow: if he has been visiting the Commander-in-Chief, then his news about the warrant out for Archie is no hearsay, it is cold and deadly truth . . . and probably the letter which he received this morning announcing the fact was from General Churchill himself.

      Talking amiably between yawns, Lord Aveling proceeded to remove his wig and coat. Ewen watched him almost without realising that he was watching, so overcome was he with the revelation of the identity of the youth’s correspondent. And in the same half-tranced state he saw his fellow-traveller bend rather hurriedly over the coat, which he had flung on a chair, extract something from an inner pocket and thrust it under his pillow. The Commander-in-Chief’s letter, no doubt, which he seemed so oddly to guard from sight.

      Ewen came to life again, finished taking off his own coat, and removed his boots, in silence. Meanwhile Lord Aveling had fetched a case of pistols from his valise, and, taking out a couple of small, handsomely mounted weapons, placed them on the rickety chair beside his bed. “We are not like to use these, I hope, Mr. Cameron, but there they are, to serve whichever of us wakes first and finds a housebreaker in the room.”

      A moment or two afterwards, apologising for what he termed his unmannerly drowsiness, he had blown out his candle, thrown himself upon his bed, pulled a long travelling cloak over himself, and was asleep almost at once. Ardroy took up his candle meaning to blow it out too, but for a moment he stood there looking across his own bed at what he could see of the sleeper—no more, really, than the back of a fair, close-cropped head half-sunk in the pillow, and one slim, silk-clad foot and ankle projecting beyond the cloak. If Keith could see them together now, him and this rather charming and ingenuous young half-brother of his! Ewen blew out the light, and sat down on the side of his bed, his back to his fellow-traveller, and stared out through the greyish square of the uncurtained window.

      Had he but known that General Churchill himself was the boy’s informant, he would certainly have forced him somehow to look at his letter again, if not in the chaise, then at supper, and to tell him the name of that glen. But it was not yet too late. The letter was still there—here, rather, in this room, and only a few feet away. He had only to wake Lord Aveling and say, ‘Show me the line, the word, in your letter which concerns Doctor Cameron, for I’ll take no denial!’

      And then? Was the young Englishman going to accede quietly to that demand? Naturally not. There would be an unseemly, an unchivalrous struggle, ending, no doubt, in his overpowering the boy and reading the letter by force. Meanwhile, the house would probably be roused, and all chance of his slipping away undetected on the task of warning Archie gone.

      There was, it could not be denied, another method . . . the only prudent one . . .

      “No, that I cannot do!” said Ardroy to himself. He took his head in his hands for a moment, then got up, fetched his cloak and, lying down and covering himself up, tried to compose himself to sleep.

      The attempt was foredoomed to failure, for he could think of only one thing: Archie, betrayed but ignorant of his betrayal, and the soldiers already on their way from Inversnaid to surprise and drag him off. And here he, his cousin and friend, who had always professed so much affection for him, and into whose hands the knowledge of this attempt had so surprisingly come, lay peaceably sleeping while the tragedy drew nearer and nearer, and would not, on account