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

ten minutes or so Ewen followed his cousin uphill through the wood, sometimes pushing through tangle of various kinds, sometimes stooping almost double, sometimes running, and once or twice getting severely scratched by holly bushes. But they were not yet in sight of its upper edge when Doctor Cameron came to an abrupt stop and held up his hand.

      “Listen! I thought I heard voices ahead.”

      The wind, which had risen a good deal in the last half-hour, and now tossed the branches overhead, made it difficult to be sure of this. Ewen knelt and put his ear to the ground.

      “I hear something, undoubtedly.” He got up and looked at Archie anxiously. “If we should prove to be cut off from the hill-side, is there any place in the wood where we could lie hid—a cave or even a heap of boulders?”

      “There is nothing that I know of.—Ewen, where are you going?”

      “Only a little farther on, to reconnoitre. Oh, I’ll be careful, I promise you. Meanwhile stay you there!” And he was off before Archie could detain him.

      It took him but five minutes or so of careful stalking to be certain that there were soldiers between them and the slopes which they were hoping to gain. There were also, without doubt, soldiers somewhere in the lower part of the wood near the stream. If they could neither leave the wood, nor hide in it, Archie must infallibly be taken.

      Ewen slid round the beech-trunk against which he was pressed, meaning to retrace his steps immediately to the spot where he had left his kinsman, but for a moment he stood there motionless, with a horrible premonition at his heart. O God, it could not be that this was the end for Archie! A sort of blindness seemed to pass over his vision, and when it cleared he found his eyes fixed on something farther down the slope of the wood, a little to his left, something that he must have been looking at already without recognising it for what it was—a small thatched roof.

      It seemed like a miracle, an answer to prayer at the least. Ewen slipped back with all speed to the Doctor.

      “Yes, we are cut off,” he whispered, “and we cannot go back. But, Archie, there’s some kind of little building farther down the wood. I saw but its roof, yet it may serve us better than nothing. Let us go and look at it.”

      They hurried down the slope again. Here the dead leaves were dry, and rustled underfoot, but the need of haste overrode that of silent going. And in a few minutes they both stood looking at Ewen’s discovery, a small log hut. It stood on a level piece of the wood, with a little clearing of some ten yards square in front of it, but on its other sides bushes and stout hollies pressed close up to it.

      “I never before heard of any hut in this wood,” commented Archie in surprise, “but there it is, certainly! Perhaps the Good People have put it there for us.”

      If they had, it could not have been recently, for, as Ewen saw with relief, the logs of which it was constructed were so weathered and mossed that it was not at first very distinguishable from its surroundings. But it was in good repair, and, on going round to the front, the fugitives saw that it actually had a solid, well-fitting door—which, indeed, they found difficult to push open, though it was not secured in any way. To Ewen it seemed of good augury that it opened inwards. Some logs, years old, lay about near the entrance.

      “I don’t know that we are wise to hide here,” murmured Ardroy, “but there seems no choice.” And they went in.

      Within it was dark, for the hut had no windows. Finding that there was no means of securing the door on the inside save a crazy latch, Ewen suggested bringing in some of the stray logs and piling them against the door; so he and Archie hurriedly staggered in with several, and proceeded to lay some against the bottom, and to rear others against it at an angle in order to wedge it.

      “But we cannot stand a regular siege in here, Ewen,” objected the Doctor, looking round their dim shelter.

      “No; but if the soldiers find the door immovably fixed they may think it is so fastened up that no one could have got into the hut, and we meanwhile lying as close as weasels within they’ll likely go away again—that is, if they come at all. Please God, however, they’ll pass the place without seeing it, as we nearly did. Or they may never search this quarter of the wood at all.”

      “Yes, I think they’ll have to break the door to match-wood before they get it open now,” opined Archie. “My sorrow, but it’s dark in here!”

      Indeed, the only light now came from the hole in the thatch intended to let out the smoke, which hole also let in the rain, so that the ground beneath, in the middle of the hut, was more puddle than anything else. It seemed as if the place had been occupied by a woodcutter, for, in addition to the felled logs outside, there was a big but extremely rusty axe propped against the wall in one corner, by the side of the rough bench built into the latter; axe and bench were, with the exception of the blackened stones of the fireplace (some of which they had added to the logs against the door) the only objects there.

      So, having now no occupation but waiting upon Fate, the cousins sat down in the gloom upon this bench; and it was then that Ewen realised that he was nearly famished, and ate his provisions. Archie would not share with him.

      “And now, tell me——” each said to the other; and indeed there was much to tell, though they dared not utter more than a few sentences at a time, and those in a low voice, and must then stop to listen with all their ears.

      And Ewen learnt that Archie had come to these parts because Lochaber and the West were getting too hot to hold him, owing to the constant searches which were carried out for him; he was, he admitted, all but captured in Strontian when he went to Dungallon’s house. That was when Ewen was in Fort William. But here, up till now, he had been unmolested, and who had given notice of his presence he could not imagine.

      “And the assistance you hoped for,” asked Ewen, “is it to come soon?”

      He heard his kinsman sigh. “I’m as much in the dark about it yet, Ewen, . . . as you and I are at this moment. I begin to wonder whether Frederick of Prussia——”

      Ewen gave a stifled exclamation. “Prussia! It is Prussia then——”

      “You did not know? Prussia, and perhaps Sweden, if certain conditions were fulfilled. But how have you not learnt that?”

      “You forget; you did not tell me that night at Ardroy, and since then I have either been a close prisoner or skulking in the wilds. One night in Appin did not teach me much, especially as my cousin Ian was away. . . . And so troops are to land?”

      “They were to. ’Twas inspiriting news at first, to me and to those I visited. But time has gone on, and on . . .” Archie paused. “I am totally without information now, Ewen. My communications with Lochdornie are cut off, though I believe he is still in Scotland. But I doubt if he knows any more than I do. I verily think that if May comes and brings nothing I shall return to the Prince. Talk of what is promised is windy fare to give to longing hearts when the fulfilment tarries thus.”

      A little chill ran through his listener. He had never heard Archibald Cameron so plainly dispirited. For himself, he knew too little to proffer any encouragement; and his uncle’s words about the sunset of the Cause recurred to him. But he had not subscribed to them, nor did he now; it was too natural to hope. Even when months ago he had bitterly asked of the man at his side who was to lead them, he had not despaired, in his heart, of the coming of a day when they might be led. But, evidently, it was not to be yet . . . and here was poor Archie, risking his life to bring good tidings, and at last, after months of hardship and peril, himself doubting if the tidings were true.

      “Yes, many thousands of men were, I believe, promised,” resumed Doctor Cameron, “when the ground should be prepared. But the preparing of it has not been easy when the weeks slipped away and I could hold out naught more definite than the hopes I had brought with me in September—Not that I blame the Prince one whit for that!” he added quickly. And they both fell, and this time quite naturally, into one of the prudent silences which had continually punctuated this conversation in