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

he began . . . and in the same moment she said breathlessly, “Ewen—look!”

      He took a step or two forward, and saw, about a quarter of a mile away on the far side of the avenue, a moving growth of scarlet: and more, two thinner streams of it, like poppies, spreading out to right and left to encircle the house. Alison’s arms fell; the soft masses of her hair slipped in a coil on to her shoulder. “Soldiers!” shouted Donald, and gave a little skip of excitement.

      For a second Ewen also stood like a statue. “My God! and Archie half-disabled to-day! . . . Have I the time to get up to him? Yes, this way.” He indicated the window at the far side of the room, which looked over the back premises. “Listen, my heart, and you too, Donald! If the soldiers cut me off, and I cannot get up to Slochd nan Eun to warn him—if I see that it is hopeless to attempt it, then I shall run from them. Likely enough they’ll think I am the man they’re after, and I shall lead them as long a chase as I can, in order to give Archie time to get away . . . for some of the MacMartins may meanwhile take the alarm. Do you understand?”

      “Oh, Ewen . . .” said his wife, hesitating. He took her hands.

      “And should I be caught . . . nay, I think I’ll let myself be caught in the end . . . and they bring me to the house, you may feign to be agitated at the sight of me, but you must not know me for who I am; you must let them think that I am the man you are hiding. But you must not call me Doctor Cameron neither—you must not name me at all! If they take me off to Fort William, all the better. By the time they have got me there Archie will be miles away. Then all Colonel Leighton can do, when he recognises me, will be to send me back again. Heaven grant, though,” he added, “that the officer with these men does not know me!—Dearest love,” for Alison had turned rather white, “remember that it was for Keithie’s sake—for our sakes—that Archie came here at all! I must get him safely away if . . . if it should cost more than that!”

      “Yes,” said Alison a little faintly. “Yes . . . go—I will do as you say.”

      He held her to him for an instant and the next was throwing up the sash of the far window. “You understand too, Donald? And, Alison, I think you will have to tell a lie, and say that I myself am away from home.—One thing more”—Ewen paused with a leg over the window-sill—“if I fail to warn Archie, which I’ll contrive to let you know somehow, you must send another messenger, provided that messenger can get away without being followed.”

      He hung by his hands a moment and dropped: a loud cackling of astonished hens announced his arrival below. Lady Ardroy went back to the glass and began hastily to fasten up her hair.

      “How near are they, Donald?—Run quickly to the kitchen and tell the servants to say, if they are asked, that the laird went away to Inverness . . . yesterday . . . and that if they see him they are to pretend not to know him. And then come back to me.”

      Donald left the room like a stone from a catapult. This was great sport—and fancy a lie’s being actually enjoined by those authorities who usually regarded the mere tendency to one as so reprehensible!

      CHAPTER VI

       ‘WHO IS THIS MAN?’

       Table of Contents

      (1)

      When the officer in charge of the party of redcoats, having set his men close round the house of Ardroy, went in person to demand admittance, it was no servant, out of whom he might have surprised information, who answered his peremptory knocking, but (doubtless to his annoyance) the châtelaine herself.

      Captain Jackson, however, saluted civilly enough. “Mrs. Cameron, I think?” for, being English, he saw no reason to give those ridiculous courtesy titles to the wives of petty landowners.

      “Yes, sir,” responded Alison with dignity. “I am Mrs. Cameron. I saw you from above, and, since I have no notion why you have come, I descended in order to find out.”

      “If I may enter, madam, I will tell you why I have come,” responded the officer promptly.

      “By all means enter,” said Alison with even more of stateliness (hoping he would not notice that she was still out of breath with haste) and, waiting while he gave an order or two, preceded him into the parlour. Captain Jackson then became aware that a small boy had somehow slipped to her side.

      He took a careful look round the large room, and meanwhile Alison, studying his thin, sallow face, decided that she had never seen this officer before, and hoped, for the success of the plan, that neither had he ever seen Ewen. Behind him, through the open parlour door, she perceived her hall full of scarlet coats and white cross-belts and breeches.

      “I am here, madam,” now said the invader, fixing her with a meaning glance, “as I think you can very well guess, in the King’s name, with a warrant to search this house, in which there is every reason to believe that the owner is sheltering a rebel.”

      “Mr. Cameron is away, sir,” responded Alison. “How, therefore, can he be sheltering anyone?”

      “Away?” exclaimed Captain Jackson suspiciously. “How is that? for he was certainly at home on Thursday!”

      (‘The day of Doctor Kincaid’s visit,’ thought Alison. ‘Then he did give the alarm!’)

      “Mr. Cameron was here on Thursday,” repeated Captain Jackson with emphasis.

      “I did not deny it,” said Alison, beginning to be nettled at his tone. “Nevertheless he went away yesterday.”

      “Whither?” was the next question rapped out at her. “Whither, and for what purpose?”

      Alison’s own Highland temper began to rise now, and with the warming uprush came almost a belief in her own statement. “Does ‘the King’ really demand to know that, sir? He went to Inverness on affairs.”

      By this time Captain Jackson had no doubt realised that he had to do with a lady of spirit. “Perhaps, then, madam,” he suggested, “Mr. Cameron deputed the task of hiding the rebel to you? I think you would do it well. I must search the house thoroughly. Are any of the rooms locked?”

      “Yes, one,” said Lady Ardroy. “I will come with you and unlock it if you wish to see in.”

      “No, you’ll stay where you are, madam, if you please,” retorted the soldier. “I will trouble you for your keys—all your keys. I do not wish to damage any of your property by breaking it open.”

      Biting her lip, Alison went in silence to her writing-desk. Captain Jackson took the bunch without more ado, and a moment later Alison and her eldest son were alone . . . locked in.

      And when she heard the key turned on her the colour came flooding into her face, and she stood very erect, tapping with one foot upon the floor, in no peaceable mood.

      “Mother,” said Donald, tugging at her skirt, “the redcoat has not locked this door!” For Captain Jackson had either overlooked or chosen to disregard that, in the far corner of the room, which led into the kitchen domain.

      Alison hesitated for a moment. No, better to stay here quietly, as if she had no cause for anxiety; and better not as yet to attempt to send another messenger to Slochd nan Eun who, by blundering, might draw on Doctor Cameron just the danger to be averted. So for twenty minutes or more she waited with Donald in the living-room, wondering, calculating, praying for patience, sometimes going to the windows and looking out, hearing now and then heavy footsteps about the house and all the sounds of a search which she knew would be fruitless, and picturing the havoc which the invaders were doubtless making of her household arrangements. Perhaps, in spite of Morag’s presence, they were frightening little Keith—a thought which nearly broke her resolution of staying where she was.

      Yet,