The Jacobite Trilogy. D. K. Broster

cheek on her joined hands. Her father had gone to Achnacarry, Ewen was she knew not where, her aunt, she believed, in her bedchamber. It would be better, Alison thought, if she were in hers, upon her knees.

      But she could pray here, too, looking out on this blue and purple loveliness of distance, and here she might get a passing glimpse of Ewen, busy though he was, and would not thus be missing any of these precious last moments of him. The sands were slipping so fast now . . .

      Alison pulled herself up. The sands were indeed running out, but towards how glorious an hour! Prayed for and wrought for with so much faith and selfless devotion (as well as with so much crooked counter-plot and intrigue), it was to strike to-morrow, when his banner would proclaim to all the winds that the fairy prince of the hopes of a generation was here at last on Scottish soil. And to-morrow Ewen would lay his sword at those long-expected feet. Happy Ewen—happy to be among the faithful, when many were forsworn; happy in that he was a man and could play a man’s part. For what could a woman do but hope, and what had she to give but prayers!

      Again Alison checked her thoughts, or rather, a new thought came to her. Why, she gave what no one else in wide Scotland had to give—Ewen himself!

      For a moment she saw herself, as it were, irradiated by the splendour of that priceless gift; then, with a sudden terror, she knew that her will was not to a gift, but to a loan. She was only lending Ewen to the Prince. A gift is gone from one’s hands for ever; a loan comes back. She made this loan willingly—more than willingly; but as a free gift, never to be resumed—no, no!

      The door in the far corner of the room opened, and Alison swiftly withdrew the hands that she was pressing over her eyes. Miss Cameron came in, looking exactly as usual in her Sunday paduasoy, not a hair out of place beneath her cap, and no sign of agitation or excitement on her firm-featured, pleasant visage. By only one thing was this Sunday of last preparations marked off from any other, that she wore at her waist the capacious black silk pocket in which she kept the household keys.

      “Ah, there you are, child! Your father is not returned, I suppose? Where is Ewen?”

      “I do not know, Aunt Margaret.” Alison’s voice seemed to herself a little unsteady, so, with some idea of covering this deviation from the usual she added, “Nor do I know where Captain Windham is got to either.”

      “Captain Windham is down by the loch, my dear; I saw him set out in that direction. And I have my reasons for thinking he’ll not have gone farther.” There was an odd tone in Miss Cameron’s voice, and a twinkle in her eye, as she sat down on the window seat by the girl, plunging her hand into that capacious pocket of hers. “ ’Twas our redcoat that I came to speak to you about. Alison, do you know what these are?”

      She laid on the window-sill between them two buttons covered with gold thread.

      “They look,” said Alison, studying them, “like the buttons on the lapels of Captain Windham’s uniform. I noticed this morning that some were missing. How did you come by them, Aunt Margaret?”

      “Neil MacMartin brought them to me about half an hour ago. Before that they were reposing in the heather up at Slochd nan Eun, where their owner also reposed, very uncomfortably, I fear, yesterday afternoon. I can’t keep from laughing when I think of it!” declared Miss Cameron. “And, Alison, are not men the sly creatures! To think that Ewen knew of this yesterday evening, and said never a word!”

      “Knew of what, Aunt Margaret?”

      “I will tell you,” said Aunt Margaret, with visible enjoyment of the prospect. “It seems that yesterday afternoon my fine Captain very incautiously walked up to Slochd nan Eun by his lane, and arrived there just as the arms were being taken out of Angus’s thatch. Not unnaturally the MacMartins and the others thought that he was a Government spy, so they fell upon him, tied him up, and might have proceeded to I know not what extremities if Ardroy had not appeared in the very nick of time.”

      “Oh, what a dreadful thing!” said Alison, aghast.

      “Exactly Ewen’s view, as you may imagine. He has not yet forgiven the two MacMartins, whom he holds most to blame. Neil, in the greatest despair, has just been to beg me to intercede for him and Lachlan, and seemed to think that the restoration of these buttons, torn off, so I gathered, in the struggle, would go to prove their penitence.”

      “Was Captain Windham at all hurt, do you think?”

      “No, I do not think so, though I can quite believe that it was not his mother’s bosom he was in—you know the Erse saying. Neil admits that they had him on his face in the heather when they trussed him up, and that two of them sat upon him. Well, they are paying for it now. As you know, Ardroy is not in general easily angered, but when he is, he is not easily pacified neither. Neil looks like a whipped dog; ’tis really comical, and I dare say Lachlan is ready to cut his own throat. I think you had best do the interceding, my dear; and you can give Ewen the buttons to return, for we women cannot restore them to Captain Windham without his knowing that his misadventure is no longer the secret that he and Ewen hoped it was.”

      But Alison left the buttons on the sill as if she dreaded to touch them. “I wish, oh, I wish that mishap had not befallen Captain Windham!”

      “Never fash yourself about Captain Windham, my lass; I warrant he can fend for himself. Ewen should not have brought him here at a moment so inopportune—just what a man would do, without thought of consequences! At the least he might have locked him up somewhere out of harm’s way, and not made all this parade of his being a guest and the like.”

      “I think it fine of Ewen to have behaved so,” retorted Alison rather mutinously.

      “Bless you, child,” said Miss Cameron, smiling, “so it is. I’d not have him a churl. But they must have made a compact, the two deceitful bodies, not to let us know. And to think that I asked the Captain at supper last night had he seen our taibhsear—do you mind of it? And he smiling and saying he was well entertained up at Slochd nan Eun!”

      “But Ewen did not smile,” amended Alison. “He was displeased; I saw it, and wondered why.”

      “Now that you mention it, I remember I saw him glower a wee. He’s not so deep as yon Englishman, I’m thinking. All the same, he can keep a secret. . . . Alison, my bonny lass, do you think he’ll have secrets from you when you are wed?”

      “No,” said Alison, shaking her dark curls with a half-secret smile. “Or if he has, I’ll know ’tis something I had best be ignorant of.”

      “Then you’ll make a dutiful wife, my dear,” pronounced Miss Cameron, smiling too.

      “If ever I am a wife at all!” suddenly came from Alison with a catch of the breath, and she turned her head away.

      Margaret Cameron, who was never known to show much emotion, who even now, at this last hour before what might prove so tremendous a dawn, seemed mainly occupied with amusement at Captain Windham’s misfortune, gazed at that little dark head, so beautifully and proudly set on its long neck, and a profound change came over her cheerful and practical face. Thirty years ago, in the Fifteen, she too had stood where Alison stood now, and had seen her lover go from her down the dark defile. She had never seen him return. . . . Alison did not know this, and even Ewen, though he had heard the story, thought that Aunt Margaret had long ago forgotten her tragedy.

      “Oh, my dear, do not say that!”

      Struck by the unfamiliar note in the elder woman’s voice, Alison turned her head quickly, and met the look in those eyes, nearly as blue as Ewen’s. It was a surprise to her, and yet—how could she have imagined that Aunt Margaret did not realise what she, Alison, risked . . . what they both risked!

      “I did not mean that,” she exclaimed rather tremulously. “To be sure Ewen will come back, and we shall be wed some day; but I cannot help knowing, as he does, how even Lochiel himself has been torn in two by the Prince’s coming without the aid that was promised. But when Ewen goes to-morrow he shall never guess how cowardly my heart is.”

      Miss Cameron bent forward and kissed