The Jacobite Trilogy. D. K. Broster

each other across the candle-flames. Keith began to feel annoyance.

      “Am I then to go ranging the mountains with you for ever? You will find me a great nuisance, Mr. Cameron.” (Mr. Cameron looked at that moment as if he shared this opinion.) “But perhaps this is your way of forcing Lochiel’s offer on me, for, by Gad, that is what it comes to!”

      “No, no,” said Ewen hastily, and with a frown. “I had no such intention. I will consult Lochiel again about the matter to-morrow, and——”

      “Can’t you do anything on your own responsibility, Mr. Cameron of Ardroy? Must you always consult your Chief?”

      He had goaded him at last. Ardroy’s head went up. “Had you not a commanding officer in your regiment, Captain Windham?” he enquired haughtily.

      “Touché!” said Keith, with good humour. (It was a mutual hit, though.) He liked to see his civilised young barbarian on the high horse. “But suppose, Mr. Cameron, that I do not choose to wait so long, and tell you frankly that, if you will not restore my parole to me, I shall myself withdraw it from midnight to-night?”

      “In that case,” said the barbarian with great promptitude, “I shall put two of my gillies in here with you, lock the door and sleep across it myself. . . . Do you tell me that you withdraw it?”

      There was a second or two’s silence while Keith envisaged himself thus spending the remainder of the night. It was on the tip of his tongue to enquire whether the amiable Lachlan would be one of his guards, but he suppressed the query. “No,” he said with a little grimace, “you may keep my parole and I will keep my privacy. Let us hope that your ‘commanding officer’s’ wisdom will be able to cut the knot to-morrow. I am to be ready, then, to accompany you at daybreak?”

      “If you please,” said Ardroy stiffly. “I am sorry that I can do nothing else. Good night.” He took up the candlestick and stalked out.

      Captain Keith Windham remained staring for a moment at the closed door and then began to smile rather ruefully. “A droll captivity, ’pon my honour! Had I known that I was to be trailed about in this fashion my attempt at warning might have been less disinterested than it was. But I shall not make another.”

      CHAPTER VI

       Table of Contents

      Four days later Captain Windham was sitting at evening in a dark little hut on the shores of Loch Eil, studying a pocket-book by the light of a small lantern hung on the wattled wall behind him. A pile of heather was all his seat; outside it was pouring with rain, but he, unlike almost every one else, was at least under cover and secure, as he had not been lately, from the attentions of the rapacious Highland midges.

      It was Thursday, the twenty-second of August, and since Monday he had gone with Clan Cameron wherever it went. First of all Ardroy and his contingent had rendezvoused with the main body of the clan at the very place where Keith Windham now found himself again, Kinlocheil, at the upper end of Loch Eil. Here, on that eventful Monday, Keith had had his first meeting with the courteous and polished gentleman whom Clan Cameron followed, Donald Cameron of Lochiel, nineteenth of the name. And Lochiel had appeared so much distressed at the idea of the English officer’s continual conveyance with them under guard, even possibly in bonds, for they had no place in which they could conveniently leave him behind, that Keith had been prevailed upon to extend the parole which he had tried to take back from Ardroy, and to regard it as given for the space of one week, dating from the day and hour of his capture in the Great Glen. When that week was up, his gaolers seemed to think that they would be able to make other arrangements about his custody.

      After the rendezvous the clan had proceeded westwards, in the direction of the coast, along a difficult road between close-pressed craggy mountains, where the grey rock pushed in a myriad places through its sparse covering, and came at last in the afternoon to the trysting place at Glenfinnan. Though he was treated with every civility, and rode in comfort on a horse of Ardroy’s, it had been a mortifying journey for Captain Windham. Between the ranks of Camerons marched sulkily the captured recruits of the Royals, without their arms—like himself—and even Captain Scott’s white charger formed part of the procession, to be offered to the ‘Prince’. As well, thought the Englishman, be the prisoner of wandering Arabs.

      So, scornful but half interested too, Keith Windham had been present at a scene which, a week ago, he could little have imagined himself witnessing, when, on the stretch of level ground at the head of Loch Shiel, among that wild and lonely scenery, a thousand Highland throats acclaimed the fair-haired young man standing below the folds of his banner, and the very air seemed to flash with the glitter of their drawn blades. It was very romantical and absurd, of course, besides being rank rebellion; but there was no denying that these deluded and shaggy mountaineers were in earnest, and Lochiel too, who was neither shaggy nor—so it seemed to the observer—deluded in quite the same sense . . . and certainly not absurd.

      None observing or hindering him during the following days, Captain Windham had taken the opportunity of keeping a fragmentary journal in his pocket-book, and it was these notes which, for want of anything better to do, he was now reading over in the little hut in the wet twilight.

      ‘What an Army! ’tis purely laughable!’ he had written on August 20th. ‘The Men are fine, tall Fellows enough, particularly the Camerons—but their Weapons! I have seen Muskets with broken Locks, Muskets with broken Stocks, Muskets without Ramrods, and Men without Muskets at all. There can’t be more than a Score of Saddlehorses all told, and the Draught Horses are quite insufficient for Transport over such a Road. Moreover the so-call’d “Army” is as yet compos’d of two Clans only, the Camerons and some Part of the Macdonalds, its Number being, I suppose, about thirteen hundred Men.

      ‘The Pretender’s Son I must admit to be a very personable young Man indeed, with the Bel Air; they all appear craz’d about him. My own young Achilles still very well-bred and agreeable, like his Chief. I never lookt to see so much native Polish as Lochiel exhibits. Achilles, if I mistake not, pretty well adores him. There is also a younger Brother of the Chief’s, whom they call Doctor Archibald; with him also my Warrior seems on very friendly Terms.’

      Captain Windham turned over to the next two days’ records, which were briefer, and brought him up to the present date.

      ‘August the 21st. Set out at last from that curst Spot, Glenfinnan. But, after an Advance of one Mile, the Road was found to be so bad, and the Horses so few, that the Rebels were oblig’d to leave twelve out of their Score of Swivel Guns behind, and spent some Hours burying ’em in a Bog. As their total March to-day, to a Place call’d Kinlocheil, was no more than four Miles, it looks as though ’twould be some Weeks before the Breechless reach Civilisation.

      ‘August the 22nd. At Kinlocheil all Day. Prodigious Rain. Much-needed Attempts seem to be going forward to organise the Transport, Wagons and Carts of all Sorts being collected. Have scarce seen E.C. all day.’

      But he had hardly come to these last words, when a tall, wet figure appeared without warning in the low doorway, and the diarist restored his notebook somewhat hastily to his pocket. Ardroy stooped his head to enter, taking off his bonnet and swinging it to remove the raindrops. The dampness of the rest of his attire appeared to give him no concern.

      “Good evening, Mr. Cameron! Have you been burying any more cannon?” enquired the soldier pleasantly.

      Ardroy, reddening slightly, made no reply beyond returning the ‘Good evening’, but hung up his bonnet on a nail and began to unfasten the shoulder-brooch of his plaid. There was not a very great deal of satisfaction for Captain Windham to be got out of baiting this ‘young Achilles’ of his, because Achilles kept so tight a hold upon his temper and his tongue. Or was it that he was naturally impassive? Hardly, for Keith was sure that he felt the points of the darts which he contrived from time to time to plant in him. Perhaps Ardroy thought that the best way to meet his captive’s malice was to appear unaware of it; and indeed the archer himself had to confess that this