.

I keep mine—as a Highlander,” retorted Ewen. He loosed him at once, selected that sheet of Miss Churchill’s letter which he did not require, and handed it to its owner in silence. The youth thrust it passionately inside his shirt, went back to his own bed, and, shivering with rage and exhaustion, sat down and hid his face in his hands.

      Ewen, his back half-turned, found the passage again.

      ‘Papa had a message last night from the Lord Justice-Clerk informing him that Doctor Cameron was said to be at the house of Stewart of Glenbuckie, and a warrant was immediately despatched to the post at Inversnaid.’

      Glenbuckie . . . Glenbuckie . . . in what connection had he heard of that place before? Glenbuckie was . . . good God, was it possible that he did not really know with sufficient exactitude . . . that he had committed this shameful violence for nothing? The sweat started out all over Ewen’s body, and he prayed desperately for an illuminating flash of memory. Well had that poor boy huddled there spoken of the many glens there were in Scotland!

      Then the knowledge returned to him, bearing with it a tragic recollection from the early days of the Rising, when the notoriety given to Stewart of Glenbuckie’s name by the mysterious death of its then bearer, in Buchanan of Arnprior’s house, had resulted in one’s learning the whereabouts of the glen from which he came. Yes, Glenbuckie was somewhere in the Balquhidder district—a glen running directly southward from the farther end of Loch Voil, he believed . . . a long way and a difficult. And, his mind already calculating distances and route, Ewen read the passage again. There was a little more, for Miss Georgina Churchill had been at the pains to tell her lover that the person who had sent this information to the Lord Justice-Clerk was someone who claimed to have recently met and spoken with Doctor Cameron. . . . Ewen sat down and pulled on his boots.

      For the last few moments he had almost forgotten Aveling. Putting the pistol in his pocket again he went over to him. “Here is the other sheet of your letter, my lord. You will not accept my apologies, I know, but I make them to you none the less, and sincerely—and also for borrowing the horse from Bonawe, which I propose to do as far as Tyndrum, where I hope you will find him when you arrive. If I can, I will leave your pistols there also. If not, I will pay for them.”

      The young Englishman jumped up and snatched his letter. “You’ll pay for everything one day, by God—in Newgate, or wherever in this barbarous country of yours they bestow their Highland robbers! And I’ll have you indicted for my brother’s murder as well as for assaulting me in order to assist an attainted rebel! Since you are his confederate, you shall swing with Doctor Cameron at Tyburn!”

      But Ewen was already unlocking the door of the room. His great dread was that the young man, strung up by rage and disillusionment to what in a woman would have been hysteria point, might forget his promise and proceed unwittingly to rouse the inn. He did not want to use the pistols in order to get clear of the premises, so he slipped as quickly as possible out of the room and locked the door on the outside, hearing, not without remorse, sounds from within which suggested that the boy had flung himself upon the bed and was weeping aloud.

      So ended, in dishonour and brutality, this encounter with his dead friend’s brother, who had acted so generously towards him, and to whom he had felt so strongly attracted. A moment only that thought flashed bitingly through Ewen’s brain; it was no time to indulge in regret or to think of consequences to himself—his immediate task was to warn Archie. To his crimes of treachery and violence he must, therefore, if he could, add that of horse-stealing.

      * * * * *

      And even as Ardroy cautiously lifted the latch of the stable door at Dalmally, away in the little rebuilt barracks near Inversnaid, on Loch Lomond, Captain Craven of Beauclerk’s regiment was reading the belated despatch from the Commander-in-Chief at Edinburgh which he had been roused from his bed to receive.

      “Too late to do anything to-night,” was his comment. Then his eyes fell upon the date which it bore. “Gad, man,” he said to the wearied messenger, “I should have received this warrant yesterday! The bird may be flown by to-morrow. What in God’s name delayed you so?”

      CHAPTER XIV

       IN TIME—AND TOO LATE

       Table of Contents

      (1)

      The fitful sun of the March afternoon came flooding straight through the open door of Mr. Stewart of Glenbuckie’s house into the hall, which was also the living-room, and through this same open door little Peggy Stewart, the room’s sole occupant, had she not been otherwise engaged, could have looked out across the drop in front of the high-standing house to the tossing slopes beyond the Calair burn. But Peggy had earlier begged from her mother, who had been baking to-day, a piece of dough, and, following the probably immemorial custom of children, had fashioned out of it, after countless remodellings, an object bearing some resemblance to the human form, with two currants for eyes. And while she sat there, regarding her handiwork with the fond yet critical gaze of the artist, before taking it to the kitchen to be baked, there suddenly appeared without warning, in the oblong of pale sunlight which was the doorway, the figure of a large, very tall man. This stalwart apparition put out a hand to knock, and then, as if disconcerted at finding the door open, withdrew it.

      Miss Peggy, who was no shyer than she need be, rose from her little stool near the spinning-wheel and advanced into the sunlight. And to a man who had ridden all night on a stolen horse, and had since, tortured by the feeling that every delay was the final and fatal one, stumbled and fought his way over the steep and unfamiliar mountain paths on the western slopes of Ben More and Stobinian, to such a man the appearance at Stewart of Glenbuckie’s door of a chubby little girl of six, dressed in a miniature tight-waisted gown of blue which almost touched the floor, and clasping in one hand what he took to be an inchoate kind of doll, was vaguely reassuring.

      “Is this the house of Mr. Duncan Stewart?” he asked.

      Gazing up at this tall stranger with her limpid blue eyes the child nodded.

      “Is he within, my dear?”

      Miss Peggy Stewart shook her curly head. “My papa is from home.”

      “And . . . have you a gentleman staying here?”

      “He is not here neither. Only Mother is here.”

      Instantly Ewen’s thoughts swung round to the worst. They had both been arrested, then, Stewart as well as Archie. The noticeable quiet of the house was due to its emptiness—only a woman and a child left there. He was too late, as he had expected all along. He put his head mutely against the support of the door, and so was found an instant later by Mrs. Stewart, who, hearing voices, had come from the kitchen.

      “Is aught amiss, sir? Are you ill?”

      Ardroy raised his head and uncovered. But this lady did not sound or look like a woman whose husband had recently been torn from her. Hope stirred again. “Madam, have the soldiers been here after . . . any person?”

      Mrs. Stewart’s calm, fair face took on a look of surprise. “No, sir, I am glad to say. But will you not enter?”

      At this bidding Ewen walked, or rather stalked, over the threshold; he was stiff. “Thank God for that!” he said fervently. “But they may be here at any moment.” He bethought him, and closed the door behind him. “There is a warrant out for . . . that person.”

      Mrs. Stewart lowered her voice. “Then it is fortunate that he is not in the house.”

      “He is away, with your husband?”

      “No, sir. Mr. Stewart is in Perth on affairs. I do not know where ‘Mr. Chalmers’ has gone this afternoon, but he will return before dark.”

      “He must at all costs be prevented from doing that, madam,” said Ewen