The Dark Mile (Historical Novel). D. K. Broster

my doo,” replied Aunt Margaret, and, after setting her cap carefully to rights at the mirror, she left the bedchamber.

      As she entered the big living-room below, a tall, red-haired young man turned round from his contemplation either of the antlers over the hearth or, possibly, of the worn escutcheon on the stone, where the motto Fideliter could more clearly be read than the half defaced bearings of the shield. For a second or two he stared at the elderly lady as if surprised; then he bowed politely in response to her rustling curtsey.

      “Good day to you, sir,” said Aunt Margaret pleasantly. “My nephew Ardroy is from home, as I expect you’ll have been told already, and his wife lies upstairs with a newborn bairn, so the task of welcoming you here falls upon me. I am Miss Cameron. Will you not be seated?”

      “When you are, madam,” replied the Chief of Glenshian politely, and waited until Miss Cameron had disposed herself. Then he sat down at no great distance and looked at her, drawing his light eyebrows together in a contraction that was half puzzled, half annoyed.

      “Ardroy will be sorry to miss you,” observed Miss Cameron after a moment. “We do not expect him back before the morrow.”

      “Aye, that makes my errand the more awkward,” responded the visitor, fingering his chin.

      “Perhaps your errand can wait, sir?” suggested Aunt Margaret. “Though I would not wish to give you the trouble of bringing yourself and your tail”—she gave a glance through the window—“these many miles again. Can I not give my nephew a message?”

      Finlay MacPhair shook his head. “My business is not an agreeable one for a gentleman to come upon to another gentleman,” he remarked.

      “Then perhaps,” suggested Miss Cameron, quite unperturbed, “you’ll find it easier to transact with a lady?”

      “Not at all,” said the new Chief, frowning. “Not at all. ’Tis no matter for a woman.”

      “Improper, do you mean?” queried his hostess. “I am old, Glenshian—nearly sixty-five. You may risk scandalising me.”

      Mr. MacPhair gave an impatient movement. “Has Ardroy no factor with whom I could deal?” he demanded.

      “I’m all the factor he’s ever had in the past,” replied Aunt Margaret with perfect truth. “He’s his own grieve now. See now, if it’s some matter of affairs, I’m sure he’ll be pleased to wait upon you at Invershian when he returns from Appin.”

      The young man’s lip curled in a sarcastic smile. “I doubt it, madam. And that would not serve, neither; the business cannot be transacted anywhere but here.”

      “Then you’ll e’en have to put yourself to the trouble of coming again, sir, or stay until Ardroy returns. This house is at your disposal.”

      “That’s out of the question,” said the visitor rather rudely. “I must then do what I have come for in Ardroy’s absence.”

      The very tiniest stiffening was apparent in Miss Cameron’s upright figure as she sat there. “If you will kindly enlighten me as to what you propose, sir, we will see about that,” quoth she.

      “Madam,” returned Mr. MacPhair with emphasis, “I will enlighten you. You have lived in the Highlands, I daresay, for——”

      “For well over half a century,” filled in Miss Cameron.

      “And you will not be a stranger to the fact that Lochaber has always been noted for cattle-lifting.”

      “Aye, nearly as noted as Glenshian,” agreed the lady, smiling.

      The Chief of that region could not have relished the quite justified retort, but he could affect not to show that he felt it. “All that,” he pursued, “is supposed—supposed—to be old history now, but . . . I’m wanting two of my best steers this week past, and I have but just come upon proof of where they went to. I regret to have to say it, madam . . . but you’ll find them amongst Ardroy’s cattle!”

      Miss Cameron jumped up, a sparkle in her eye. “You accuse——”

      The young man also rose. “No, no, madam,” he protested with apparent sincerity. “I should be loth to bring such an accusation against a gentleman. But what laird in these parts knows precisely what his tenants will be about when his back is turned . . . and you say Ardroy is from home now. Yet, since the steers are branded——”

      “Aye,” broke in Miss Cameron with vivacity, “that alone proves, my good sir, that you are talking nonsense—and very offensive nonsense too! Had the cattle come here, by straying or even by reiving, you would have had them back by now, branded as you say they are.”

      “Yet I have not had them back.”

      “Then they never came here.”

      Glenshian looked at her loftily. “I have the best of reasons for knowing that they did . . . I should like to see Ardroy’s herdsman.”

      “I have no authority to allow that in his absence,” replied Miss Cameron. “I perceive,” she went on with warmth, “that you’re almost upon saying that I went and lifted your steers myself one dark night, and have them hidden—in my bedchamber belike! You may go and look, sir. But warrant you to interfere with Ardroy’s dependents I cannot.”

      “Then,” said the visitor still more loftily, “I regret, but I shall have to do it without your warrant, madam. I am not going back without my steers.”

      “You’ll go back without much reputation for civility, Mr. MacPhair!” retorted the lady. “But as you have brought some sort of an army with you, and we are only women in this house . . .” She made a gesture. “Forbye, are you sure you did not know all the while that Ardroy was from home?”

      To this suggestion Glenshian deigned no answer. He said, looking black, “There are men on Ardroy’s land, at any rate—the men who drove off my cattle.”

      “And do you think, sir, that they are going to help you find those phantom beasts?”

      “Someone is going to help me find them. I have come for that!”

      And like two duellists, the young man and the old woman faced each other. Miss Cameron made the first lunge.

      “Very good then,” she said after a moment. “Take your tail that’s out there, and go up the braeside, Glenshian, and look for your steers. But if you think that one of Ardroy’s gillies will lift a finger to help you without orders from him you are sore mistaken! In the latter end you and your gathering will likely all spend the night in a bog!” And she followed up this attack by a second. “Here’s another point for your consideration: God knows what sort of faces my nephew’s tenants, and particularly the MacMartins, will show you when you go marching over his land and driving his cattle!”

      “You will please to send word in advance, madam, upon what errand I am come.”

      “And have the look of countenancing it! I shall do nothing of the sort!”

      To the ears of the disputants, both now thoroughly roused—and the younger and stronger aware, too, that this damned old lady had him at something of a disadvantage by her refusal of support—there came in the momentary silence the rumble of carriage-wheels. Miss Cameron, if her older hearing did not perceive it quite as quickly, was, however, at once aware, from the way he turned his head, that the intruder had heard something or other.

      “That’s maybe Ardroy returning before he’s expected,” she remarked casually, though she did not think it was. “You will be able to make your request to him in person, which will no doubt be more agreeable to a gentleman like yourself than trying to bully an old woman.”

      “Request,” said Finlay MacPhair, throwing back his head. “I’d have you know, madam——”

      But, then, out of the corner of his eye, he perceived a chaise pass the window, and did not finish the sentence.

      “Losh,