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

      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 course rather baffled him. He followed up his first shaft by another.

      “You must admit that you should not have brought me here if you did not wish me to learn your military dispositions—if such I am to call that measure!”

      And if the Highlander went on pretending that the unpinning of his plaid was engaging his whole attention Keith would feel that he had drawn blood. He knew that his own conduct verged on the puerile, but the pleasure of pursuing it was too strong.

      The big brooch, however, was undone at last, and Ewen said rather dryly: “I am glad that your spirits are not suffering from the weather, Captain Windham.”

      “On the contrary,” said his prisoner cheerfully, leaning back against the wall of the hut, his hands behind his head, “I am entertaining myself by trying to recall any other great commander who began his campaign by burying most of his artillery in a swamp; but I have failed. Yet, by Gad, the plan might work a revolution in warfare—in fact ’twould end it altogether if it were carried out to its logical conclusion. Armies would take the field only to bury their muskets—and perhaps,” he added maliciously, “that will be your next step. I protest that some of them would not take much harm by the interment!”

      Ewen swung off his plaid. “Your mirth at our lack of equipment is very natural,” he replied with complete equanimity. “But perhaps our ill provision may not be widely known to our enemies. And is it not a fact within your own military experience, Captain Windham,” he went on, looking him in the face, “that it is what one supposes an enemy’s forces to be rather than what they actually are which sometimes turns the scale?”

      It was the Englishman who coloured this time. In its absence of specific reference to the mishap at High Bridge the retort was just sufficiently veiled to enable him, had he chosen, to affect unconsciousness of its sting. But he was too proud to do this.

      “I deserved that,” he admitted, scrambling to his feet with the words. “I am not such a dolt as to be unaware to what you allude. That you feel obliged to remind me of last Friday’s disgrace proves that my own remarks were not in the best of taste—and I apologise for them.”

      But his tormentor’s apology appeared to embarrass Ewen Cameron much more than his thrusts. “I am sorry I said that, Captain Windham!” he exclaimed, with a vivacity which rather astonished the other. “I ought not to have taunted you with a calamity for which you were not to blame. That was in worse taste still.”

      “Egad, Mr. Cameron, you are too punctilious,” said Keith carelessly. “But if you are of that mind—I don’t say that I am—we may fairly cry quits.”

      “For after all,” pursued Ewen, throwing down his plaid, “since you are not witnessing our preparations of your own free will, I suppose you are at liberty to make what observations you please upon them.”

      “You seem bent upon making allowances for me!” returned Keith with a smile. “However, I do not complain of that; and if Fate should ever reverse our positions, and give you, for instance, into my hands, I hope I may be able to show the same generosity.”

      Ardroy, who was now unbuckling his broadsword, stopped and gazed at him rather intently in the feeble lantern-light, feeble because it still had to contend with a measure of wet daylight. “Why, do you then anticipate our meeting again, Captain Windham?” he asked after a moment.

      “I anticipate nothing, Mr. Cameron. I am no wizard to foretell the future. Yet, but for the fact that we could not meet save as enemies, I vow ’twould give me pleasure to think that we might one day encounter each other again.” But, feeling somehow that the young man standing there looking at him took this for a mere façon de parler, he added, with a return to his bantering tone, “You can have no notion how much this tour—albeit a trifle too reminiscent of a Roman triumph—has been alleviated by having so agreeable a cicerone. Though indeed in the last twenty-four hours my glimpses of you have been few—too few.”

      So expressed, his sentiments had of course small chance of being taken for sincere. The Highlander, indeed, for all reply gave a little shrug that was almost like a Frenchman’s, spread his plaid upon the bare earth floor and laid his broadsword beside it.

      “Surely you are not going to sleep in that plaid!” exclaimed Keith, stirred out of his levity. “Why, ’tis drenched! Take my cloak, I have no mind to sleep yet, and shall not need it.”

      But