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

of speech.

      “I have failed in everything,” he muttered. “But your letter—I promise you it shall go by a safe hand. I . . . I . . .” The door, opening, recalled him to an Englishman’s last obligation, the suppression of emotion before witnesses. “To-morrow,” he said, loosing his grasp, and in a tolerably composed voice, “to-morrow you will at least be out of this dismal place and free of those irons.”

      “Aye, will he,” commented the gaoler in the doorway. “And riding a braw horse forbye!”

      “I doubt I’ll make much show as a horseman,” replied Ewen. “I fear I shall fall off.”

      “Ye’re no’ like tae hae the chance, Mr. Cameron,” replied the man dryly. “Ye’ll be tied on.—Noo, sir, if ye please.”

      “What time is he to start?” asked Keith.

      “Sax o’ the clock.” The keys jingled impatiently.

      Keith took a resolve. But he did not put it into words. All he said was “Good-bye,” and, for fear of being totally unmanned, stole only the most cursory glance at the pale, gravely smiling face under the rather untidy auburn hair.

      But Ewen held out his hand again. “Beannachd leat, as we say in the Erse. ‘Blessings go with you; may a straight path be before you, and a happy end to your journey’!”

      Without answering Keith wrung the hand and went quickly up the steps past the gaoler and into the passage. He was hardly there before the heavy door clanged to between him and his last meeting with Ewen Cameron.

      “A peety,” said the gaoler reflectively, taking the key from the lock, “a peety yon muckle young man behoves to hae a rope aboot his thrapple. But there, wha will tae Cupar maun tae Cupar . . . Yon’s the way up, sir.”

      * * * * *

      At twenty minutes to seven next morning Keith Windham, having propped himself up on one elbow in his camp bed, was staring with incredulous and remorseful eyes at the watch which he had just drawn from beneath his pillow. That he should not wake in time to catch a final glimpse of Ardroy as he rode away had never occurred to him; the question last night had rather been whether he should ever get to sleep . . .

      Well, evidently old Angus MacMartin’s fates were determined that he should not see Ewen Cameron again. And after all, he thought, trying to stifle regret, did I really desire to see him carried away, bound upon a horse, by Kingston’s dragoons?

      When he was dressed he went to the door of the tent, which opened towards Loch Ness, and looked out. It was a beautiful, fresh morning, and the loch was smiling up at the flanking hills. Even the ruins of the fort, rearing themselves against that brightness, looked less blackened in the sunshine. But for Keith those gutted buildings held nothing now; and the busy camp around him was empty, too. How far on the road were they got by this time, and were the troopers riding too fast . . . ?

      He dropped the flap of the tent and, going over to the table, took out from the breast of his uniform the handkerchief with the curl of hair and the scrap of a letter, and sealed them up carefully in a little packet, first copying down the address and scrupulously averting his eyes from the rest of the torn fly-leaf in doing so. Then, wondering how soon and in what manner he should find an opportunity of fulfilling his trust, he sat on, staring at the packet, now directed in his own hand to Mrs. Ewen Cameron at an address in Havre-de-Grâce.

      What was it that Ardroy had wished him yesterday—a straight path and a happy end to his journey. Ewen’s own path seemed straighter than his, now, but the end to which it led? Keith had a sudden horrible vision, corollary of those which had haunted him in the night. He pressed his hands over his eyes and bade it begone, bade himself be as little perturbed at the prospect as Ewen himself had been yesterday—Ewen who would certainly go cheerfully and courageously to that ghastly business, but who, had it not been for his interference, might be lying now unmutilated under the turf of Ben Loy, with only the plovers and the curlews to disturb his rest.

      Keith suddenly got up and began to pace restlessly to and fro, his head on his breast. He was finding his self-defensive philosophy of a very meagre assistance now. If he were again the child he had been, the child who every night at his nurse’s knee asked so simply and naturally for what he desired, it would have been easy to utter the prayer in his heart. But of what use such supplication to the Power whose only concern with the world was that He had set it a-rolling? Yet it was some time before he came to a standstill, and, with a heavy sigh, replaced in his breast the little packet for Ewen Cameron’s wife; with this for consolation in his mind, that he who was riding southward was not yet condemned, and that till the sentence was spoken his case was not hopeless.

      * * * * *

      All that afternoon there came marching wearily back to Fort Augustus, in a woeful state of fatigue and rags, the various units of the fifteen hundred men whom Cumberland had sent out in his last battue for Prince Charles nearly a fortnight before. They had met with no success whatever.

      At nine o’clock that evening Keith, to his surprise, received a summons from Lord Albemarle, and found him heated and discomposed.

      “ ’Tis a most extraordinary and vexatious thing,” declared the Earl, pacing up and down his quarters with his heavy tread. “It seems as though the Pretender’s son must have broken through the chain of sentry posts round Clanranald’s country, and yet I can scarce believe it, they were so close together. I shall make a fresh effort, with fresh men; these poor fellows are quite worn-out with their exertions. For my part, Major Windham, I declare that to capture that young man, source of all our woes, I should with infinite pleasure walk barefoot from Pole to Pole!”

      Had Lord Albemarle but known, no such heroic pilgrimage was required of him; a ten-mile expedition that night to a certain cave in Glenmoriston would have been sufficient.

      “Your Lordship’s zeal is common knowledge,” murmured Keith, wondering what the Commander-in-Chief wanted him for. “If it could only be crowned with success . . .”

      “Aye, if only it could! One report says,” continued the Earl, going to a table and turning over some papers, “that the Pretender’s son is in Badenoch on his way to the east coast; another that he has gone north to Caithness. Some say he is still in Morar and Knoidart; and the very latest of all declares that he has gone back to the Long Island—as you know they call that chain of islands from South Uist to Lewis. It is distracting!”

      It was; but Keith could not think why he should have been summoned to hear this truth.

      “Why, bless my soul,” said Albemarle, as if he had read his thoughts, “I am so prodigiously put about that I have forgotten, I believe, to tell you, Major Windham, that you are one of the officers whom I design to employ in my new effort.”

      “My Lord!” ejaculated Keith, flushing.

      “Yes, I intend to send you without delay to the neighbourhood of Arisaig, not because I think that the young man is there at the moment, though one report says so, but because I think it not unlikely he may try in the end to escape from the very spot where he landed last July.”

      “Your Lordship is really too good,” stammered Keith, rather overcome. “If the most active vigilance——”

      “Yes,” cut in Albemarle, “I depend upon you to show that, Major Windham. Your future is in your own hands, and my reputation, too. For reasons upon which I touched the other day, it is you whom I am sending to what I cannot but consider the most likely spot for securing the person of the arch-rebel. The day that you bring him back a prisoner your difference with His Royal Highness will be no more remembered against you. And perhaps I, too,” added the Earl with a sigh, “shall be able to leave this most distasteful country.”

      “I assure your Lordship,” said Keith with a beating heart, “that failure shall not be due to any want of exertion on my part. Your generous selection of me for this expedition overwhelms me with gratitude, and whether I secure the prize or no I shall be your Lordship’s lifelong debtor for the opportunity.”

      Lord Albemarle