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

Archibald Cameron, for all that he had been the Prince’s companion on that fruitless journey to Spain after the ’Forty-five, for all that he was devoted to him, body and soul, could tell the inquirer very little. The Prince, he said, kept himself so close, changed his residence so often; and a cloud of mystery of his own devising surrounded him and his movements. It had been a joy, however, to see his face again; an even greater to be sent upon this hazardous mission by him. Yes, please God, his Royal Highness would come again to Scotland some day, but there was much to be done in preparation first.

      Ewen listened rather sadly. Too many of his questions Archie was unable to answer, and at last the questioner turned to more immediate matters.

      “Did the Prince send for anyone else save you and Lochdornie to meet him at Menin?”

      “There was young Glenshian, the Chief’s son—Finlay MacPhair . . . Fionnlagh Ruadh, as they call him.”

      “Two MacPhairs! I had not fancied you so intimate with those of that name, Archie!”

      “Nor am I,” answered Archibald Cameron quickly. “But one does not choose one’s associates in a matter of this kind.”

      “Or you would not have chosen them?” queried Ewen. Doctor Cameron made no answer. “Why not?” asked Ardroy with a tinge of uneasiness. “I thought that MacPhair of Lochdornie was beyond suspicion. Of young Glenshian I know nothing.”

      “So is Lochdornie beyond suspicion,” answered the elder man. He got up and sought on the mantelshelf for a pine chip to light the still unlighted pipe he was holding, lit the chip at a candle and then, without using it, threw it into the fire. “But he does not think that I am,” he ended drily.

      “Archie! What do you mean?”

      Doctor Cameron waited a moment, looking down into the fire. “You remember that Lochdornie and I were both over in the ’49 after the Loch Arkaig gold, and that with Cluny’s assistance we contrived to take away quite a deal of it?”

      “Yes.”

      “Six thousand pounds of that went to Lady Lochiel and her family. Lochdornie—he’s an honest man and a bonny fighter, but the notion was put into his head by . . . by some third person—Lochdornie accused me of taking the money for myself.”

      “You are jesting, man!” cried Ewen in a tone of horror. “It’s impossible—you are making a mock of me!”

      “No, I am not,” answered his kinsman, with the composure which had only for a moment left him. He sat down again. “That was why I went later to Rome, to the King, to clear myself.”

      “And after that,” said Ewen, leaning forward in his chair, his eyes burning, “you can come over and work side by side with MacPhair of Lochdornie! Why, in your place, I could not trust my fingers near my dirk!”

      Doctor Cameron looked at him rather sadly. “It’s well for you, perhaps, that you are not a conspirator, Ewen. A man finds himself treading sometimes in miry ways and slippery on that road, and he’s lucky who can come through without someone calling him a blackguard. Remember, Lochdornie’s a MacPhair, and our clans have so often been at variance that there’s some excuse for him. And indeed I can put up with a MacPhair’s doubts of me so long as our Prince does not think that any of the gold has stuck to my fingers; and that he does not, thank God! Heigh-ho, my poor Jean and the children would be going about at this moment in Lille with stouter shoes to their feet if it had!” He smiled rather ruefully. “Lochdornie and I sink our difference, and get on well enough for our joint purpose. At any rate, I do not have to suspect him; he’s as loyal as the day . . . and when all’s said, he has never thought me more than mercenary. ’Tis for the Prince’s sake, Ewen; he sent me, and I came.”

      Ewen looked at him for a moment without speaking, and marvelled. To consent to work with a man who doubted one’s honesty was in his eyes a pitch of devotion more wonderful than was Doctor Cameron’s actual return to Scotland with a rope round his neck. He did not believe that his own pride would have permitted him to make so sharp a sacrifice.

      “And to think that it was on Lochdornie’s account—or so I believed at the time—that I turned back yesterday!” he said in a tone which suggested that he was not likely ever to repeat the action.

      “No, you did it for the sake of our dear Prince,” said his cousin instantly. “And wasn’t that the best motive you could have had?”

      Ardroy did not answer; he was frowning. “Is young MacPhair of Glenshian in the Highlands too?”

      “No, he remains in London. He is thought to be more useful there.”

      “Why, what does he do there? But that brings to my mind, Archie—what is this cock-and-bull story which Hector has got hold of, about a plot to kidnap the Elector and his family? He called it ‘kidnap’, but I guessed the term to cover something worse. He coupled it, too, with the name of Alexander Murray of Elibank.”

      “Hector is a very indiscreet young man,” said Doctor Cameron.

      Ewen’s face clouded still more. “It is true, then, not an idle tale?”

      “It is true,” said Doctor Cameron with evident reluctance, “that there is such a scheme afoot.”

      “And I refused to believe or at least to approve it!” exclaimed Ewen. “That indeed was why Hector left the house in anger. I swore that the Prince, who was so set against the idea of an enemy’s being taken off, could not know of it, and that you of all men could not possibly have a share in it!”

      “I have not, Ewen, and I don’t approve. It is a mad scheme, and I doubt—I hope, rather—that it will never come to the ripening. It is quite another business which has brought me to Scotland, a business that for a while yet I’ll not fully open, even to you.”

      “I have no wish to hear more secrets,” retorted Ardroy with a sigh. “I like them little enough when I do hear them. It’s ill to learn of men who serve the same master and have notions so different. Yes, I must be glad that I do not have to tread those ways, even though I live here idly and do naught for the White Rose, as Hector pointed out to me the other night.”

      He saw his cousin look at him with an expression which he could not read, save that it had sadness in it, and what seemed, too, a kind of envy. “Ewen,” he said, and laid his hand on Ewen’s knee, “when the call came in ’45 you gave everything you had, your home, your hopes of happiness, your blood. And you still have clean hands and a single heart. You bring those to the Cause to-day.”

      “Archie, how dare you speak as if you had not the same!” began the younger man quite fiercely. “You——”

      “Don’t eat me, lad! God be thanked, I have. But, as I told you, I am not without unfriends. . . . We’ll not speak of that any more. And, Ewen, how can you say that you do naught for the White Rose now when only yesternight you threw aside what might have been your child’s sole chance of life in order to warn the Prince’s messenger? If that bonny bairn upstairs had died I’d never have been able to look you in the face again. . . . You have named him after poor Major Windham, as you said you should. I see you still have the Major’s ring on your finger.”

      Ewen looked down at the ring, with a crest not his own, which he always wore, a memento of the English enemy and friend to whom he owed it that he had not been shot, a helpless fugitive, after Culloden.

      “Yes, Keithie is named after him. Strangely enough Windham, in his turn, though purely English, was named for a Scot, so he once told me. Six years, Archie, and he lies sleeping there at Morar, yet it seems but yesterday that he died.” Ardroy’s eyes darkened; they were full of pain. “He lies there—and I stand here, because of him. I might well name Keithie after Keith Windham, for there had been no Keithie if Windham had not rushed between me and the muskets that day on Beinn Laoigh.”

      “You have never chanced upon that brute Major Guthrie again, I suppose?”

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