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

you could spare me a moment to tell me of his end among those murdering Highlanders . . . ?” His voice was shaking, and his face, the usually set, controlled face of a superior and well-trained servant, all quivering with emotion.

      Ewen was touched; moreover no chance of learning more of the friend about whom he really knew so little, was to be lost. “Come back with me to my lodging,” he said, “and I will tell you anything you desire to know.”

      The man protested at first, but, on Ewen’s insisting, followed him at a respectful distance to Half Moon Street. So yet another inmate of Stowe House came to the vintner’s that day. The name of this one was Masters, and Ewen, bidding him sit down, told him the whole story.

      “It must have been a terrible grief to Lady Stowe,” he ended sympathetically, and was surprised to see a remarkable transformation pass over the old servant’s saddened face.

      “Did her ladyship give you that impression, sir? Nay, I can see that she did.” He hesitated, his hand over his mouth, and then broke out: “I must say it—in justice to him I must say it—and I’m not in her service, but in my lord’s—Mr. Cameron, she never cared the snap of a finger for Mr. Keith, and when he was a boy it used near to break his heart, for he worshipped her, lovely as she was. But ’twas my young lord she cared for, when he came, and rightly, for he is a very sweet-natured young gentleman. Yet she had Mr. Keith’s devotion before her second marriage, when he was her only son, and she took no heed of it—she neglected him. I could tell you stories, sir . . . but ’tis better not, and he’s dead now, my Mr. Keith, and few enough people in his life to appreciate him as they should have done. But if you did, sir, that’s a great thing for me to think of . . . and your being with him at the end, too. . . . Might I look at that ring of his you spoke of, sir, if not asking too great a favour? Oh, thank you, thank you, sir!”

      For Ewen had taken off Keith Windham’s signet ring and put it into the old man’s hand. Then he went to the window and stood looking out.

      He could not but believe the old servant. What he had told him interpreted the whole of this afternoon’s interview. Lady Stowe had avoided speaking of Keith to him at any length not from grief, but from indifference. He could hardly credit it, yet it must have been so—unless perchance it was from remorse. Well, now he knew what he thought of ladies of fashion. Poor Keith, poor Keith!

      “Masters,” he said at last, without looking round, “since you knew him well I will ask you to tell me something of Major Windham’s young days—but not now. I hope, by the way, that he and Lord Aveling were upon good terms?”

      “Very good, very good indeed,” the old man hastened to assure him. “My young lord admired Mr. Keith, I think; and Mr. Keith was fond of him, there’s no doubt, though he teased him at times for being, as he said, as pretty as a girl. But my young lord took it in good part. ’Twas he, young as he was then, that wanted to have Mr. Keith’s body brought to England for burial, but her ladyship would not. May I give you back this ring, sir, and thank you for allowing me . . .” He faltered, and, holding out the ring with one hand, sought hastily with the other for his handkerchief.

      CHAPTER XX

       ‘LOCHABER NO MORE’

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      So smart a coach drawing up on Tower Hill this fine May morning soon drew a little crowd of idlers, mostly small boys, some shouting their conviction that it contained the Lord Mayor, against others who upheld that the Prince of Wales would emerge from it. But the two gentlemen who presently stepped out did not fulfil either expectation.

      “I have brought you to this spot, Mr. Cameron,” said the younger of the two in a lowered voice, “that you may see for yourself how vain are any dreams of a rescue from that!”

      And Ewen, standing, as he knew, on perhaps the most blood-drenched spot in English history, gazed at the great fortress-prison whence most of those who had died here had come forth to the axe. And at the sight of it his heart sank, though he knew Edinburgh Castle on its eagle’s nest, and how the Bastille upreared its sinister bulk in the Faubourg St. Antoine at Paris.

      “It is a bitter kindness, Lord Aveling, but it is a kindness, and I thank you.”

      The young man motioned to him to enter the coach again, and they drove down to the entrance under the Lion Tower, where he would leave him.

      It was indeed a kind thought of the young lord’s, not only to bring him, on his father’s behalf, the permit from Lord Cornwallis to visit Doctor Cameron, but also to carry him to the Tower in his own coach. Yet as Ardroy, showing the precious paper with the Constable’s signature, followed his conductor over the moat and under the archway of the Middle Tower, he felt how powerless after all were the very real friendship of the Earl of Stowe and his son, and all their prestige. Archibald Cameron was in a place whence it would take more than aristocratic influence to free him.

      At the third, the Byward Tower, his guide halted and informed him that he must be searched here, and led him to a room for that purpose. The officials were extremely civil and considerate, but they did their work thoroughly taking from him every object about him and in his pocket save his handkerchief; his sword as a matter of course, his money, a little notebook of accounts and a pencil, even his watch. All, naturally, would be restored to him as he came out. Ewen rather wondered that he was allowed to retain his full complement of clothes, but he did not feel in spirits to make a jest of the affair.

      And then he heard, to his surprise, that Doctor Cameron was confined in the Deputy-Lieutenant’s own quarters, and that therefore he had little farther to go. Soon he found himself in a house within the fortress—in reality the lodgings of the Lieutenant of the Tower, who occupied the rank next the Constable’s in this hierarchy; but neither he nor the Constable resided here. On one side this house looked out to the river, and on the other to the Parade, Tower Green and the Chapel of St. Peter, and Ewen was told that it was by no means unusual for State prisoners to be confined in its precincts; several of the Jacobite lords had been imprisoned here.

      Then he was suddenly in the presence of the Deputy-Lieutenant himself, General Charles Rainsford. The soldier was as considerate as the rest, and even more courteous. His affability chilled Ewen to the core. Had the authorities seemed hostile or anxious . . . but no, they knew that once they were on their guard no one escaped or was rescued from the Tower of London.

      “You will find Doctor Cameron well, I think, sir,” volunteered the Deputy-Lieutenant. “My orders are so strict that I cannot allow him out of doors, even attended by a warder, to take the air, but as he has two rooms assigned to him he walks a good deal in the larger, and by that means keeps his health.”

      “Does he know that I am to visit him?”

      “He does, and has expressed the greatest pleasure at it.”

      “Mrs. Cameron is not yet arrived in London, I think?”

      “No, but the Doctor expects her shortly.”

      And on that the visitor was entrusted to a warder, and went with him up the shallow oaken stairs. They stopped before a door guarded by a private of the regiment of Guards, and when it was opened Ewen found himself in a long, narrowish room, almost a gallery, at whose farther end a figure which had evidently been pacing up and down its length had turned expectantly. They each hurried to the other, and, for the first time in their lives, embraced.

      Ewen could never remember what were the first words which passed between them, but after a while he knew that Archie and he were standing together in the embrasure of one of the windows, and that Archie was holding him by the arms and saying, in a voice of great contentment, “Ever since I heard that you were coming I have been asking myself how in the name of fortune you contrived to get permission!”

      “It was fortune herself contrived it,” answered his cousin, laughing a trifle unsteadily. “ ’Tis indeed a fairy story of luck; I will tell you of it presently. But first,” and