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

man upon him in a moment, and so he had.

      “Money! It’s not the money! You have my letters, my most private letters. . . .” And uttering a cry of rage he precipitated himself round the bottom of Ewen’s bed.

      But Ewen, despite his preoccupation, could be just as quick. The young Englishman found himself confronted by the barrel of one of his own pistols. “You shall have this letter in one moment if you wait,” said its abductor coolly. “But if you desire it intact do not try to take it from me.”

      “Wait!” ejaculated the boy, half-choking. Alight with fury—for instinct no doubt told him which of the three letters the robber held—he did a surprising thing: disregarding entirely the levelled pistol, he dropped suddenly to his knees, and, seizing his enemy by the leg, tried to throw him off his balance—and nearly succeeded. For a second Ardroy staggered; then he recovered himself.

      “You young fool!” he exclaimed angrily; clapped the pistol on the window ledge behind him, stuffed Miss Georgina Churchill’s letter into his pocket, stooped, seized the young man’s arms, tore their grip apart, and brought him, struggling and panting, to his feet. “You young fool, I want to give you your letter unharmed, and how can I, if you persist in attacking me?”

      “Unharmed!” echoed the young man, with tears of rage in his eyes. He was helpless in that grip, and knew it now. “You call it unharmed, when you have read it!”

      “I regret the necessity even more than you,” retorted Ardroy. “But you would not tell me what I needed to know. If you will go back to your bed, and give me your word of honour not to stir thence for a couple of moments, you shall have your letter again at the end of them.”

      “My word of honour—to you!” flashed the captive. “You false Highland thief, I should think you never heard the term in your life before! Give me back the letter which you have contaminated by reading—at once!”

      Ewen did not relish his language, but what right had he to resent it? “You shall have the letter back on the condition I have named,” he answered sternly. “If you oblige me to hold you like this . . . no, ’tis of no use, you cannot break away. . . . God knows when you’ll get it back. And if you attempt to cry for help” (for he thought he saw a determination of the kind pass over the handsome, distorted features) “I’ll gag you! You may be sure I should never have embarked upon this odious business if I had not meant to carry it through!”

      “ ‘Odious’!” his captive caught up the word. “You are a spy and a thief, and you pretend to dislike your trade!”

      Ewen did not trouble to deny the charge. He felt that no stone which his victim could fling at him was too sharp. “Will you give me your word?” he asked again, more gently. “I do not wish to hurt you . . . and I have not read your letter through. I was but searching in it for what I need.”

      But that avowal only raised the young lover’s fury afresh. “Damn you for a scoundrelly pickpocket!” he said between his teeth, and began to struggle anew until he was mastered once more, and his arms pinned to his sides. And thus, very white, he asked in a voice like a dagger:

      “Did you turn out my brother Keith’s pockets before, or after, you murdered him?”

      As a weapon of assault the query had more success than all his physical efforts. This stone was too sharp. Ewen caught his breath, and his grip loosened a little.

      “I deserve everything that you have said to me, Lord Aveling, but not that! Your brother was my friend.”

      “And did you read his most private correspondence when he was asleep? Give me my letter, or I’ll rouse the house—somehow!”

      The matter had come to something of an impasse. Ewen was no nearer to his goal, for as long as he had to hold this young and struggling piece of indignation he could not finish reading the passage in the letter. He decided that he should have to take a still more brutal step. At any rate, nothing could make his victim think worse of him than he did already.

      “If you do not go back and sit quietly upon your bed,” he said, with a rather ominous quietness himself, “I shall hold you with one hand, and thrust one sheet of your letter in the candle-flame with the other!”

      “You may do it—for I’ll not take it back now!” flashed out the boy instantly.

      “But if you give me your word to do as I say,” went on Ewen, as though he had not spoken, “I will restore you a sheet of it now as earnest for the return of the rest, when I have finished reading the one sentence which concerns me—Now, which is it to be, Lord Aveling?”

      In that extremely close proximity their eyes met. The young man saw no relenting in those blue ones fixed on his, hard as only blue eyes can be at need. And Ewen—Ewen did not like to think to what desperate measures he might have to resort if the card he had just played were in truth not high enough. . . .

      But the trick was won. Despite his frenzied interjection, the young lover wanted his property too much to see it reduced to ashes before him. He choked back something like a sob. “I’ll never believe in fair words . . . and a moving story again! . . . Yes, I will do it. Give me the sheet of my letter.”

      “You pledge your word not to molest or attempt to stop me, nor to give any kind of alarm?”

      “Before I do, I suppose I may know whether you intend to cut my throat, as you——” But, frantic as the youth was, Ewen’s face became so grim that he did not finish.

      “I’ll not lay a finger on you further.”

      “Then I pledge you my word—the word of an Englishman!” said the boy haughtily.

      “And I keep mine—as a Highlander,” retorted Ewen. He loosed him at once, selected that sheet of Miss Churchill’s letter which he did not require, and handed it to its owner in silence. The youth thrust it passionately inside his shirt, went back to his own bed, and, shivering with rage and exhaustion, sat down and hid his face in his hands.

      Ewen, his back half-turned, found the passage again.

      ‘Papa had a message last night from the Lord Justice-Clerk informing him that Doctor Cameron was said to be at the house of Stewart of Glenbuckie, and a warrant was immediately despatched to the post at Inversnaid.’

      Glenbuckie . . . Glenbuckie . . . in what connection had he heard of that place before? Glenbuckie was . . . good God, was it possible that he did not really know with sufficient exactitude . . . that he had committed this shameful violence for nothing? The sweat started out all over Ewen’s body, and he prayed desperately for an illuminating flash of memory. Well had that poor boy huddled there spoken of the many glens there were in Scotland!

      Then the knowledge returned to him, bearing with it a tragic recollection from the early days of the Rising, when the notoriety given to Stewart of Glenbuckie’s name by the mysterious death of its then bearer, in Buchanan of Arnprior’s house, had resulted in one’s learning the whereabouts of the glen from which he came. Yes, Glenbuckie was somewhere in the Balquhidder district—a glen running directly southward from the farther end of Loch Voil, he believed . . . a long way and a difficult. And, his mind already calculating distances and route, Ewen read the passage again. There was a little more, for Miss Georgina Churchill had been at the pains to tell her lover that the person who had sent this information to the Lord Justice-Clerk was someone who claimed to have recently met and spoken with Doctor Cameron. . . . Ewen sat down and pulled on his boots.

      For the last few moments he had almost forgotten Aveling. Putting the pistol in his pocket again he went over to him. “Here is the other sheet of your letter, my lord. You will not accept my apologies, I know, but I make them to you none the less, and sincerely—and also for borrowing the horse from Bonawe, which I propose to do as far as Tyndrum, where I hope you will find him when you arrive. If I can, I will leave your pistols there also. If not, I will pay for them.”

      The young Englishman jumped up and snatched his letter. “You’ll pay for everything one