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

more, rather wistfully. “Go home to Mother now, Donald?”

      “All in good time,” said Master Donald in a lordly fashion. “Sit down again, if you are tired.”

      “Not tired,” retorted little Keith, but his mouth began to droop. “Want to go home—Luath goned!” He tugged at the hand which held him.

      “Be quiet!” exclaimed his brother impatiently, intent on the distant stag—if stag it were. He loosed his hold of Keith’s hand, and, putting down the claymore hilt, used both his own to shade his eyes, remembering the thrill, the rather awful thrill, of coming once upon an eight-pointer which severe weather had brought down almost to the house. This object was certainly moving; now a birch-tree by the loch-side blocked his view of it. Donald himself moved a little farther to the left to avoid the birch branches, almost as breathless as if he had really been stalking the beast. But in a minute or two he could see no further sign of it on the distant hill-side, and came back to his actual surroundings to find that his small brother was no longer beside him, but had trotted out to the very brink of the loch, in a place where Donald had always been told that the water was as deep as a kirk.

      “Keith, come back at once!” he shouted in dismay. “You know that you are not to go there!”

      And then he missed the claymore hilt which he had laid down a yard or so away; and crying, “How dare you take my sword!” flung himself after the truant.

      But before he could reach it the small figure had turned an exultant face. “My got yours toy!” And then he had it no longer, for with all his childish might he had thrown it from him into the water. There was a delightful splash. “It’s away!” announced Keithie, laughing gleefully.

      Donald stood there arrested, his rosy face gone white as paper. For despite the small strength which had thrown the thing, the irreplaceable relic was indeed ‘away’ . . . and since the loch was so deep there, and he could not swim. . . . Then the hot Highland blood came surging back to his heart, and, blind with a child’s unthinking rage, he pounced on the malefactor. One furious push, and he had sent his three-year-old brother to join the claymore hilt in the place where Loch na h-Iolaire was as deep as a kirk.

      (4)

      A child’s scream—two screams—made Ewen Cameron throw down his rod and spring to his feet. In that stillness of the heart of the hills, and over water, sounds travelled undimmed, and he had for a little time been well aware of childish voices at a distance, and had known them, too, for those of his own boys. But since it never occurred to him that the children were there unattended, he was not perturbed: he would row over to them presently.

      But now. . . . He ran across the islet in a panic. The screams prolonged themselves; he heard himself called. God! what had happened? Then he saw.

      On the shore of the loch, looking very small against the great old pines behind him, stood a boy rigid with terror, screaming in Gaelic and English for his father, for Angus, for anyone . . . and in the water not far from shore was something struggling, rising, disappearing. . . . Ardroy jumped into the small boat in which he had rowed to the island, and began to pull like a madman towards the shore, his head over his shoulder the while. And thus he saw that there was something else in the loch also—a long, narrow head forging quickly through the water towards the scene of the accident, that place near land, indeed, but deep enough to drown twenty children. Luath, bless him, thought the young man, has gone in from a distance. Before he had rowed many more strokes he himself dropped his oars, and, without pausing even to strip off his coat, had plunged in himself. Even then, strong swimmer though he was, he doubted if he should be in time. . . . The dog had got there first, and had seized the child, but was more occupied in trying to get him bodily out of the loch than in keeping his head above water. But with a stroke or two more Ardroy was up to them, only praying that he should not have to struggle with Luath for possession. Mercifully the deerhound obeyed his command to let go, and in another moment Ewen Cameron was scrambling out of Loch na h-Iolaire, himself fully as terrified as either of the children, but clutching to him a sodden, choking little bundle, incoherent between fright and loch-water.

      (5)

      The old house of Ardroy stood some quarter of a mile from the loch, rather strangely turning its back upon it, but, since it thus looked south, capturing the sun for a good part of the day, even in midwinter. Comfortable and unpretentious, it had already seen some hundred and thirty autumns, had sometimes rung with youthful voices, and sometimes lacked them. Now once again it had a nursery, where at this moment, by a fire of peat and logs, a rosy-cheeked Highland girl was making preparations for washing two small persons who, after scrambling about all afternoon in the heather and bracken, would probably stand in need of soap and water.

      And presently their mother came through the open door, dark-haired like her younger son, slight, oval-faced, almost a girl still, for she was but in her late twenties, and combining a kind of effortless dignity with a girlish sweetness of expression.

      “Are the children not home yet, Morag?” she asked, using the Gaelic, and Morag answered her lady that surely they would not be long now, and it might be that the laird himself was bringing them, for he had gone up past the place where they were playing.

      “Ah, there they are,” said Lady Ardroy, for she had heard her husband’s step in the hall, and as she left the room his soft Highland voice floated up to her, even softer than its wont, for it seemed to be comforting someone. She looked over the stairs and gave an exclamation. Ardroy was dripping wet, all save his head, and in his arms, clinging to him with an occasional sob, was a pitiful little object with dark hair streaked over its face.

      Ewen looked up at the same moment and saw her. “All is well, dear heart,” he said quickly. “Keithie has had a wee mishap, but here he is, safe and sound.”

      He ran up the stairs and put the small wet thing, wrapped in Donald’s coat, into its mother’s arms. “Yes—the loch . . . he fell in. No harm, I think; only frightened. Luath got to him first; I was on the island.”

      Alison gave a gasp. She had seized her youngest almost as if she were rescuing him from the rescuer, and was covering the damp, forlorn little face with kisses. “Darling, darling, you are safe with mother now! . . . He must be put into a hot bath at once!” She ran with him into the nursery. “Is the water heated, Morag?”

      Ardroy, wet and gigantic, followed her in, and behind came the mute and coatless Donald, who stood a moment looking at the bustle, and then went and seated himself, very silent, on the window-seat. Close to the fire his mother was getting the little sodden garments off Keith, Morag was pouring out the hot water, his father, who could be of no use here, was contributing a damp patch to the nursery floor. But Keithie had ceased to cry now, and as he was put into the bath he even patted the water and raised a tiny splash.

      And then, after he was immersed, he said to his mother, raising those irresistible velvety eyes, “Naughty Donald, to putch Keithie into the water!”

      “Oh, my darling, my peeriewinkie, you must not say things like that!” exclaimed Alison, rather shocked. “There, we’ll forget all about falling in; you are safe home now. Towel, Morag!”

      “Donald putched Keithie into the water,” repeated the little naked boy from the folds of the towel. And again, with deeper reprobation in his tone, “Naughty Donald!”

      Ardroy, anxiously and helplessly watching these operations, knelt down on one knee beside his wife and son and said gently, “Donald should not have gone near the loch; that was naughty of him, but you must not tell a lie about it, Keithie!”

      “Did putch My in!” reiterated the child, now wrapped in a warm blanket, and looking not unlike a chrysalis. “Did—did!”

      “Yes, I did,” said a sudden voice from behind. “It’s not a lie—I did push him in.” And with that Donald advanced from the window.

      His kneeling father turned so suddenly that he almost overbalanced. “You—you pushed your little brother