The Gleam in the North. D. K. Broster

to listen.

      “I cannot turn back now,” said Ardroy in a slow voice. “But when I have found the doctor——”

      “Ah, never think of me!” cried Hector, misunderstanding. “I’ll do well enough here for the present. But to save Lochdornie you must turn back this instant! Surely some good angel sent you here, Ewen, to undo what I have done. Listen, you’ll find him——” he clutched at Ardroy, “somewhere in Glen Mallie, making towards Loch Arkaig. If he gets the length of the glen by dark it’s like he’ll spend the night in an old tumble-down croft there is on the side of Beinn Bhan—you’ll know it, I dare say, for I believe ’tis the only one there. You’ll be put to it to get there in time, I fear; yet you may meet him coming away. . . . But if once he crosses the Lochy . . .” He made a despairing gesture. “You’ll do it, Ewen?” And his unhappy eyes searched the face above him hungrily.

      But Ewen turned his head aside. “I would go willingly, if . . . Do you know why I am on this road at all, Hector?” His voice grew hoarse. “My little son is very ill; I am riding after the only doctor for miles round—and he gone up Loch Treig I know not how far. How can I turn back to warn anyone until I have found him?”

      “Then I must go,” said Hector wildly. “ ’Tis I have ruined Lochdornie’s plans. But I shall go so slow . . . and it is so far. . . . I shall never be in time.” He was struggling to his knees, only to be there for a second or two ere he relapsed into Ewen’s arms. “My head . . . I can’t stand . . . it swims so! O God, why did I carry that letter on me!” And he burst into tears.

      Ewen let him weep, staring out over the darkening loch where some bird flew wailing like a lost spirit, and where against the desolate heights opposite he seemed to see Keithie’s flushed little face. Words spoken six years ago came back to him, when the speaker, himself in danger, was urging him to seek safety. ‘God knows, my dear Ewen, I hold that neither wife, children nor home should stand in a man’s way when duty and loyalty call him—and as you know, I have turned my back on all these.’ He could hear Archibald Cameron’s voice as if it were yesterday. Duty and loyalty—were they not calling now?

      Hector had cast himself face downwards, and the scent of the bruised bog-myrtle came up strong and sweet. Ewen clenched his teeth; then he stooped and laid a hand on his shoulder.

      “I will turn back,” he said almost inaudibly. “Perhaps the child is better now. . . . If anyone passes, call out; it may be the doctor—you need him.” His voice stuck in his throat, but he contrived to add, “And send him on to Ardroy.”

      Hector raised his face and seized his brother-in-law’s arm in an almost convulsive grip. “You’ll go—you’ll go? God bless you, Ewen! And forgive me, forgive me! . . . Had I not been so hasty last night . . .”

      “If Lochdornie be not in the croft I suppose I’ll come on him farther up the glen,” said Ewen shortly. There were no words to spare for anything save the hard choice he was making. He stripped off his cloak and wrapped it round Hector as well as Hector’s own; the night, fortunately, was not setting in cold, and when he passed Inverlair, as he returned, he would make shift to send someone to fetch the stranded wayfarer to shelter. Hector hardly seemed to hear him say this, for all his being was fixed on the question of Lochdornie and the warning, and he babbled gratitude and directions in a manner which suggested that his mind was drifting into mist once more.

      But as Ewen pulled round his horse and threw himself into the saddle he could almost see Alison standing in the road to bar his return. How could he ever tell her what he had done! When he met her again he would perhaps be the murderer of his child and hers.

      Soon his hoof-beats made a dwindling refrain by the dark water, and the warders of Loch Treig tossed the sound to each other as they had tossed Hector’s song. Sharp, sharp, sharp, said the echo, are the thorns of the White Rose, and the hearth where that flower has twined itself is never a safe one.

      CHAPTER IV

       THE MAN WITH A PRICE ON HIS HEAD

       Table of Contents

      (1)

      The sky was clear with morning, and even decked for the sun’s coming with a few rosy feathers of cloud, at once brighter and tenderer than those he leaves behind at evening. But the hollows of the hills were yet cold and drowsy after the night; the mountain grasses, tawny and speckled like the hairs on a deerhide, stood motionless; the rust of the bracken shone with moisture. And the tiny ruined croft up the braeside, behind the old thorn which had so long guarded it from ill, seemed to slumber even more soundly than the fern and the grasses. For the little habitation was dead; half the moss-grown thatch had fallen in, and the young rowan-tree which now leant smotheringly over the roof could thrust its bright berries within if it chose.

      None the less there was life inside that abandoned shell of a building, but life which, like that outside, was scarcely yet stirring. In the half of the croft which still kept its thatch a man was lying on his back, lightly asleep; from time to time he moved a trifle, and once he opened his eyes wide and then, passing a hand over them, stared up at the sky between the rowan boughs with a little frown, as of one who is not over pleased to see daylight. Then he drew the cloak which covered him a little farther up, turned on his side, and thrusting a hand into the heap of dried bracken beneath his head, closed them again. The face on that makeshift pillow was that of a man in the middle forties, handsome and kindly, and not at first sight the face of one whom adventure or dubious dealings would have led to seek shelter in so comfortless a bedchamber, and whose apparent reluctance to leave it suggested that he had not, perhaps, enjoyed even that shelter very long.

      Presently, however, the sleeper opened his eyes again, raised his head as if listening, then laid it back in the fern and remained very still. Somewhere in the branches of the mountain ash above him a robin broke into its loud, sweet autumn song. But when it ceased a slow and rather dragging footfall could be heard, though dully, coming up the hill-side, and pausing at last outside the crazy half-shut door which was all that hid the present inmate of the ruin from the outer world. The latter, however, continued to lie without moving; perhaps he hoped thus to escape notice.

      A pause, then the broken door, catching in the weeds of the threshold, was pushed open. A tall man, his stature exaggerated by the little entry to proportions almost gigantic, stood there against the flushed sky, breathing rather fast. With one hand he leant upon the jamb, with the other he wiped the sweat from his forehead. As he stood, the light behind him, his face was not clearly discernible, nor could he, coming suddenly into this half-dark place, make out more of the man in the corner than that there was a man there.

      He peered forward. “Thank God that I have found you,” he said in Gaelic. “Give me a sign, and I will tell you why I have come.”

      The man under the cloak raised himself on an elbow. “I give you the sign of the Blackbird,” he said in the same tongue. It was the old Jacobite cant name for James Edward Stuart. “And what do you give me, honest man?”

      “I have no password,” answered the newcomer, entering. “But in exchange for the blackbird,” he gave a rather weary little laugh—“I give you the grouse, since it’s that fowl you must emulate for a while, Lochdornie. You must lie close, and not come into Lochaber as yet; I am come in all haste to warn you of that.”

      An exclamation interrupted him. The man in the corner was sitting up, throwing off the cloak which had served him for a blanket.

      “ ’Tis not Lochdornie—Lochdornie’s in Knoidart. You have warned the wrong man, my dear Ewen!” He was on his feet now, smiling and holding out his hands in welcome.

      “What! it’s you, Archie!” exclaimed Ewen in surprise so great that he involuntarily recoiled for an instant. Then he seized the outstretched hands with alacrity. “I did not know. . . . I thought it was Lochdornie I was seeking!”

      “Are