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

not name him to me!—No, my little hero, there’s no need for you to go any farther. I have just come from Angus’s cottage myself, and they told me the gentleman was gone some time since, because of the soldiers down at the house. And, by the way, are the soldiers still there?”

      “Yes, and some of them have taken Father away to Fort William. They ran after him—he got out of a window—and they caught him and thought at first he was Doctor Cameron. Father wanted them to think that,” explained Donald with a sort of vicarious pride.

      Hector Grant’s brow grew black under the bandage. “Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, quel malheur!—I must see your mother, Donald. Go back, laochain, and try to get her to come up to me here by the loch. I’ll take you a part of the way.”

      “You are sure, Uncle Hector,” asked Donald anxiously, “that Doctor Cameron is gone away?”

      “Good child!” said Uncle Hector appreciatively. “Yes, foi de gentilhomme, Donald, he is gone. There is no need for you to continue this nocturnal adventure. And I fancy that your mother will forgive me a good deal for putting a stop to it. Come along.”

      Most willingly did Donald’s hand slide into that of his uncle. If one can be quit of a rather terrifying enterprise with honour . . . It did not seem nearly so dark now, and the water-horse had gone back into the land of bedtime stories. But there was still an obstacle to his protector’s plan of which he must inform him.

      “I don’t think, Uncle Hector,” he said doubtfully, as they began to move away, “that the soldiers will let Mother come out to see you. Nobody was to leave the house, they said. They did not see me come out. But perhaps they would let you go in?”

      Uncle Hector stopped. “They’ll let me in fast enough, I warrant—but would they let me come out again? . . . Perhaps after all I had better come no nearer. Can you go back from here alone, Donald?—but indeed I see you can, since you have such a stout heart.” (The heart in question fell a little at this flattering deduction.) “By the way, you say Keithie is better—is he quite recovered?”

      “Keithie? He is out of bed to-day. Indeed,” said Keithie’s senior rather scornfully, “ ’tis a pity he is, for he came downstairs by his lane when the soldiers were here and did a very silly thing.” And he explained in what Keithie’s foolishness had consisted. “So ’twas he that spoilt Father’s fine plan . . . which I knew all about!”

      “ ‘Fine plan’—I wonder what your mother thought of it?” once more commented Hector Grant half to himself. “Well, Donald, give her this kiss from me, and tell her that I will contrive somehow to see her, when the soldiers have gone. Meanwhile I think I’ll return to the safer hospitality of Meall Achadh. Now run home—she’ll be anxious about you.”

      He stooped and kissed the self-appointed messenger, and gave him an encouraging pat.

      “Good-night, Uncle Hector,” said Donald politely. “I will tell Mother.” And he set off at a trot which soon carried him out of sight in the dusk.

      “And now, what am I going to do?” asked Lieutenant Hector Grant in French of his surroundings. Something croaked in the rushes of Loch na h-Iolaire. “Tu dis?” he inquired, turning his head. “Nay, jesting apart, this is a pretty coil that I have set on foot!”

      CHAPTER VII

       A GREAT MANY LIES

       Table of Contents

      (1)

      It is undoubtedly easier to invite durance than to get free of it again. So Ewen found after his interview next day with old Lieutenant-Governor Leighton, now in command at Fort William, who was rather querulous, declaring with an injured air that, from what he had been told about Mr. Cameron of Ardroy, he should not have expected such conduct from him. “However,” he finished pessimistically, “disloyalty that is bred in the bone will always out, I suppose; and once a Cameron always a Cameron.”

      Since Ewen’s captor and accuser, Captain Jackson, was still absent, the brief interview produced little of value either to Colonel Leighton or himself, and Ardroy spent a good deal of that Sunday pacing round and round his bare though by no means uncomfortable place of confinement, wishing fervently that he knew whether Archie had got away in safety. Never, never, if any ill befell him, would he forgive himself for having brought him to the house. The next day Colonel Leighton had him in for examination again, chiefly in order to confront him with Captain Jackson, now returned empty-handed from his raid, and it was Ewen’s late visitor who took the more prominent part in the proceedings, either questioning the prisoner himself or prompting his elderly superior in a quite obvious manner. The reason for this procedure Ewen guessed to lie in the fact that Leighton was a newcomer at Fort William, having succeeded only a few months ago the astute Colonel Crauford, an adept at dealing with Highland difficulties, and one on whom Captain Jackson seemed to be desirous of modelling himself, if not his Colonel.

      Ewen steadily denied having had any doubtful person in his house, ‘Mr. Sinclair,’ whose presence he could not entirely explain away, being, as he had already stated, a friend on a visit, which visit had ended the day before the arrival of the military. He stuck to his story that when he himself had seen the soldiers approaching his courage had failed him, and he had dropped from a window and run from them.

      “If that is so, Mr. Cameron,” said the Lieutenant-Governor (echoing Captain Jackson), “then you must either have had a guilty conscience or you were playing the decoy. And I suspect that it was the latter, since you do not look the sort of man who would get out of a window at the mere approach of danger.”

      Ardroy supposed that this was a species of compliment. But he was feeling bored and rather disheartened at having landed himself in a captivity which promised to be longer than he had anticipated. He would not indeed regret it, he told himself, if he had saved Archie, but of that he was not perfectly sure, for though Captain Jackson had failed to capture him, yet a party from one of the scattered military posts might have done so, once the alarm was given. He looked over the heads of the two officers out of the window, whence he could get a glimpse of the waters of Loch Linnhe, shining and moving in the sun. The thought of being shut up in Fort William for an indefinite period was becoming increasingly distasteful. But it was ridiculous to suppose that they had grounds for keeping him more than a few days!

      So he declared that appearances were deceitful, and again pointed out his exemplary behaviour since his return to Scotland. He desired no more, he said, than to go on living quietly upon his land. It was no doubt very tame and unheroic thus to plead for release, but what was the use of remaining confined here if he could avoid it? And for a while after that he sat there—having been provided with a chair—hardly listening to Colonel Leighton as he prosed away, with occasional interruptions from his subordinate, but wondering what Alison was doing at this moment, and whether Keithie were any the worse for his fateful excursion downstairs; and scarcely noticing that the Colonel had ceased another of his homilies about disloyalty to listen to a young officer who had come in with some message—until his own name occurring in the communication drew his wandering attention.

      The Colonel had become quite alert. “Bring him up here at once,” he said to the newcomer, and, turning to the listless prisoner, added, “Mr. Cameron, here’s a gentleman just come and given himself up to save you, so he says, from further molestation on his behalf.”

      He had Ewen’s attention now! For one horrible moment Ardroy felt quite sick. He had the wild half-thought that Archie . . . but no, Archie was incapable of so wrong and misguided an action as throwing away his liberty and wrecking his mission merely to save him from imprisonment.

      Then through the open door came the young officer again, and after him, with a bandage about his head and a smile upon his lips, Hector.

      Ewen suppressed a gasp, but the colour which had left it came back to his face. He got up from his chair astounded, and