In thinking of Ewen, Keith had always pictured him where last he had
seen him, in the upper room, light and wind-blown, and when he was
conducted to the regions under the remains of the fort, he realised
with something approaching dismay that Ardroy’s quarters had not been
changed for the better. And as the door was opened, and he saw before
him, down a few steps, a sort of cellar which seemed darker than it
really was, and which smelt of damp, he was horrified, though in
reality, the fort being of quite recent construction, its ‘dungeons’
were not nearly as noisome as their name suggested.
There was one small grated window, high up, and under this Ewen was
sitting on a stool with his back to the door, reading, though there
hardly appeared sufficient light for it. He did not turn his head. “Is
that supper already, Corporal?” he asked. “What time is it then?”
“No, Mr. Cameron, nae supper, but an officer tae veesit ye.—Hae a care
o’ yon steps, sir!”
But Ewen had turned on his stool, had seen who his visitor was, and
was getting to his feet. He clashed as he moved, for he was in irons.
“Windham!” he exclaimed with an accent of surprise and pleasure. “This
is very good of you! Where have you come from?”
And as Keith, distressed by everything, the darkness, the want of
accommodation and the chains, stood rooted, Ewen, with more jangling,
limped towards him, holding out a fettered hand. He was blanched by
two months of semi-darkness, worn down by illness and insufficient
food to the framework of himself, but he was shaven and respectably
clothed, and he had all his old erectness of poise.
Keith took the proffered hand. “How long have you had _those_ on?” was
his first question.
“These irons? Only for a few days. They have just come off a man
imprisoned for a short time with me who had the distinction of helping
the Prince to escape when he was in Skye, MacDonald of Kingsburgh, and
when he was carried to Edinburgh they put them on me. I was flattered,
not having the same qualification for them. Sit down, Major, on the
stool he had, which still remains to me—or take mine, if you consider
that less treasonable. Faith, no, I suppose Kingsburgh, who was never
‘out’, is less of a rebel than I.” He laughed, shuffled to a corner,
and came back with another stool. “Now tell me how you came here, and
what your situation is now? Mullins gave me some news of you—very
scanty—in May. Are you quit of the cloud you drew upon yourself for my
sake?”
“It is of yourself that we must speak,” said Keith, hoarsely, thrown
off his balance by this unaffected cheerfulness, and deeply ashamed,
all at once, of the cowardly ‘prudence’ which had left Ardroy without
a letter. “Sit down; you should not stand, I am sure. How does your
wound?”
Rather stiffly, Ewen sat down. “Quite healed, though the leg is weak.
However, I am to ride thirty miles to-morrow, for I go to Fort William
to be identified, thence to Carlisle for trial—by what means of
transport I do not know.”
“You think that you will be identified by this man at Fort William?”
“Man? There is more than one; indeed there’ll be a measure of
jealousy, I’m thinking, who shall travel to Carlisle on my affair at
the expense of the Government.—Why, I vow it never occurred to me
before that _you_ might go, Windham, and save me the journey to Fort
William; for you can identify me, none better!”
Keith winced. “Don’t jest,” he said in a sombre voice; “don’t jest on
such a theme, I beg of you. And, Ardroy,” he added earnestly, “I doubt
whether the authorities here really place very much reliance on this
testimony from Fort William, or they would not have——” He pulled up,
biting his lip, for he had no intention of speaking of his encounter
with Cumberland. Though he had no cause for shame, he was ashamed;
moreover he did not wish to parade his own self-abnegation.
In the dim light, momentarily becoming to Keith, however, a little
less dim, the prisoner looked at him with those clear eyes of his.
Then, with a jangle, he laid his bony hand on the Englishman’s wrist.
“My sorrow, I believe my jest went near the truth! They did want you
to go as a witness against me—was not that what you were about to say?
Why, then, did you not comply?”
Keith turned on him almost savagely. “How dare you ask me that, Ewen
Cameron! Do you think I baulked Guthrie only to go in cold blood and
bring you to the scaffold myself? Are you like the Duke, that you can
fancy I would do such a thing for any consideration on earth . . . and
witness moreover to acts by which I had been the gainer?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Ewen mildly. “In truth I was not thinking of
the implications of what I said. But, Windham,” he went on anxiously,
“has not your refusal involved you once more in Cumberland’s
displeasure? I’m sure it has!”
“No, no,” said Keith mendaciously. “He was angry, but he has not
punished me further. He could not force me to be a witness; and Lord
Albemarle has subsequently shown me some favour, and holds out hopes
of employing me, which is why I am here at Fort Augustus. As far as I
am concerned, therefore, good may yet come out of evil.—But, tell me,
to what does this evidence at Fort William amount?”
But Ewen replied by another question. “What was the bribe which
Cumberland offered you to give evidence against me?”
“Bribe!” exclaimed Keith, rather over-hastily. “I said nothing about a
bribe. I want to hear about these witnesses at Fort William.”
“But _I_ want to know what you have sacrificed for my sake? Or perhaps
it would be truer to say, for the sake of your own self-respect?
Cumberland did offer you something, did he not?”
“Nothing of consequence,” answered Keith carelessly.
“You will not tell me what it was? Then I know that it was something
which you coveted. I seem fated to bring you misfortune, Windham,”
said the Highlander rather sadly. “And yet I never really wished you
other than well.”
“But I have brought you even more,” said Keith; “and indeed I wished
you well, too.” His eyes were on the heap of straw in the corner which
constituted Ewen’s bed. “If I had not ridden by the shieling hut that
day, you would be lying quietly among the mountains of your own land
and not—not about to set out for the chance, at least, of a death far
away, and . . . and much less merciful. I should like to hear you say
that you forgive me for that.”
“Forgive you for saving my life!” exclaimed Ewen. “My dear Windham,
you are really absurd! Don’t, for God’s sake, go recalling the crazy
things I said to you at our last meeting! You must remember that I was
nearly out of my senses then.”
“I know that, and I have never given them another thought, I assure
you. But there is a count,” said Keith rather hesitatingly, “on which
you must find it hard to forgive me—suffering of the mind for which I
must always hold myself in a measure responsible. You know to what I
refer.”
Ewen looked down at the floor. “I had some dark days, it is true. . . .
Yes, they were very dark . . . but not so dark after your return.
You gave me hope; and above all you gave me back that night in the
hut.” He smiled. “I often think of it. I think of it when I hear very
different stories of the English. And I suppose you know that nothing
came of my betrayal—they never even searched the place for Lochiel, I
believe. And, moreover”—he suddenly looked almost boyishly elated and
mischievous—“by some wonderful mischance I never gave the name of the
mountain where the secret place was. In my sleep I presented them with
the name of Ben Loy, where you came upon me, and they did not discover
the error until too late.”
Keith put his hand on the speaker’s knee. “I heard at Inverness, to my
satisfaction, that Lochiel had escaped capture. Then that is all over,
and your mind at rest; I am thankful.”
Ewen looked grave again. “No, it cannot be at rest until I am sure
that Lochiel knows the truth.”
“But why should he ever hear anything at all about the matter?”
“And I have thought that at my trial,” went on Ewen without taking
notice of the interruption, “I may get the chance of publicly denying
that I gave the information knowingly. And then I believe that I could
die in peace.”
Keith withdrew his hand. “Why do you make so sure of your condemnation?”
he asked almost irritably. “Of what real worth is the testimony of
persons who imagine that they saw you during a siege? No one could
swear to you out of so many Camerons!”
“You think we are all as alike as sheep?” queried Ewen, looking amused.
“But I had at least one hand-to-hand conflict with the Argyll
militia, and another day I encountered a writer of Maryburgh with whom
I had had dealings; he knew me at once, and will be only too glad to
give evidence against me; I cannot think how they have not got hold of
it already.—No, Windham, ’tis better to face the truth; once I reach
Fort William I am certainly for Carlisle, and with such good evidence
against me I have small chance of acquittal. I have known that for the
last ten days; though naturally I have not acquainted the authorities
with the excellent case they are like to have.”
And to this Keith found nothing to say. It was strange, it was
alarming, to feel, as by this time he did, how strongly their intimacy
had progressed in two months of absence and, on his side, of
deliberate abstention from communication—like the roots of two trees
growing secretly towards each other in darkness. But it was so; and
now the roots must be severed.
“I hear that some of the prisoners at Inverness intend to swear that
they were forced out,” he remarked after a silence.
“I dare say that may be true of some of them,” replied Ewen with
composure. “But you are not suggesting that I should employ that plea,
are you?”
“I know too well that you would not,” returned his visitor, and then
murmured something about transportation as a possible alternative to a
worse fate.
“Transportation!” exclaimed the Highlander. “To be sent to work in the
plantations oversea as an indentured servant! I’d far liefer be hanged
and quartered!”
Keith sighed heavily. “Yes, I have brought you nothing but harm. I
would give my right hand to save you—and I can do nothing!”
Ewen twisted round on his stool. “How can you say that? Who knows what
the want of your evidence at Carlisle may mean to me? For there is
always a chance that the witnesses at Fort William may have left or
died.”
“You have just said that once you reached Fort William there was no
chance of escaping Carlisle. I am not a child, Ardroy!” retorted
Keith, glowering at him in his own pain.
“Neither am I,” replied Ewen with a sudden smile. “Do not, therefore,
talk about wishing in vain to give your right hand for my sake, for I
strongly suspect that you have already given what means as much or
more to you.”
Keith got up, that the speaker might not see in his face how near this
guess went to the truth. “Even in my refusal to witness against you,”
he said gloomily, “I begin to think that I acted like a fool. For, as
I told His Royal Highness, if he sent me to Carlisle by force, as he
threatened to do, nothing should have prevented my testifying also to
your granting me my life in Lochaber and my liberty in Edinburgh. I
have thought since that, on that score, it might have been better to
agree to go. . . . But no, I could not have done it!” he added.
Ewen smiled up at him with a look that was almost affection, and laid
his manacled hand on his cuff. “I almost wish that you had consented,
so that we might meet again. For, if old Angus is right, this is our
last meeting—I have counted them many times. And, indeed, I do not see
how it could be otherwise. So”—his voice was very gentle—“we cannot
bring each other misfortune any more.”
The words knocked sharply at Keith’s heart. And how young the speaker
looked, for all his half-starved air; a boy going to extinction, while
he, only four years his senior, felt as if he were middle-aged. (But
no, at their last meeting, when he had trembled before him, Ewen had
not been a boy.)
“Is there nothing I can do for you?” he asked painfully. “Do your
kindred know of your situation; I suppose so?”
“I am not sure if my aunt knows. If she does, she has no doubt tried
to communicate with my wife in France, but——”
“Your wife! Then you——”
“Yes. Miss Grant and I were married at Inverness in March. She is in
France with her sick father, and since the battle I have been unable
to write to her, so that, unless my aunt has contrived to do so, she
may not know whether I am alive or dead. If _you_ would write to her,
Windham—you remember her, no doubt—that would indeed be a kindness.
Will you?”
“Certainly, if you wish it,” answered Keith, though he did not like
the prospect. “But,” he went on with a little hesitation, “why do you not
write yourself, and I would use my best endeavours that the letter
should reach her.”
“I cannot write,” said Ewen. “They will not allow me the materials; I
have often tried to come by them. You must tell her of me, if you
will; and I particularly charge you not to omit how you saved my life
and visited me, and . . . and all the rest that you have done,” he
concluded a trifle unsteadily. “That is a last command, Windham.”
But Keith had drawn a pencil from his pocket. “You had a book in your
hand when I came in; can you not tear out a blank page and write upon
that? I promise you that, if I can compass it, no eye shall see the
letter but your wife’s.”
“A book?” queried Ewen. “Ah, yes, but ’tis only a little Gaelic
psalter which I contrived to get hold of. However——” He took it out of
his pocket, remarking that the pages were but small, and, carefully
tearing out the fly-leaf, accepted the proffered pencil. Keith, unable
to withdraw as he would have wished, walked slowly up and down the
narrow place with bent head. “I have saved him for this!” was still
the burden of his thoughts. Had Ardroy been shot that day he would
have known little about it; he was barely conscious. It would have
been over in a moment, and it would have been a man’s death, too. Now
. . . he shuddered to think of the alternative, purposely prolonged
and horrible, the death of an animal in the shambles. He hoped with
all his heart that Alison Cameron, away in France, did not know, and
would never hear, the details of the English sentence for treason.
Ewen did not write much, for there was not a great deal of space on
his paper. He read it over very composedly and signed his name. Then
he folded the letter, stooped his head and put his lips to it. Keith
turned his back, but the distance between them was so small that he
knew that the writer, after that, had buried his face in his hands.
Ah, if only he had listened to him on that evening last summer, which
now seemed such centuries ago, he would not now be giving up his love,
as well as his life and lands!
But there was a clashing behind him; Ewen was getting to his feet. “I
beg your pardon for keeping you waiting so long. Since you are so good
I think that I should like to send my wife also the only remembrance
that I can send. Have you a knife, and can you trust me with it?—or,
better still, will you cut off a piece of this for her?”
He indicated his hair, and coming closer, bent his head. So Keith,
with a rather blunt penknife, and not particularly good eyesight at
the moment, sawed off a little lock on his temple.
“Women like such things,” said the young man half apologetically as
Keith, his mouth tight shut, wrapped the trophy in his handkerchief.
“And the more of which one can cheat Carlisle gate the better.” He
spoke quite lightly and calmly, but his little letter, which he gave
Keith the moment after, had been so tightly held in his hand that it
was marked with his nail-prints. “I have written the direction upon
it,” he went on, watching the Englishman put it carefully away.
“Perhaps I may be able to write to her once more from Carlisle, but
who knows? And the messenger might not be trustworthy, whereas I know
that you are.—Now, Windham, there is another matter. The money you so
generously left for my use——”
“For God’s sake don’t think of that now!” cried Keith, quite
distracted.
“But I must! Miss Cameron, if I can communicate with her, which may be
allowed at Carlisle——”
“Will you waste time over a few guineas? In Heaven’s name, take them as
a gift—cannot you see that it would be kinder to me?”
Ewen evidently saw; he could hardly fail to see it. “Very well, then I
will; and thank you for the gift. After all, I took a greater at your
hands on Beinn Laoigh. And do you remember the money you left as
payment for my clothes at Fassefern House? My sorrow, but I was angry
with you! I threw it away into the bushes, and Clanranald’s and
Keppoch’s men hunted for it all night, so I heard afterwards.” His
tone suddenly changed. “Do you mean to leave this penknife here—is
that a gift, too?”
He pointed to that object, lying where Keith had laid it down on one
of the stools in order to have both hands free to wrap up the lock of
hair. The Englishman hesitated, looking from it to the prisoner, and
read, plain to see in his eyes, the value which he would set on even
so small and blunt a weapon to-morrow. For a moment he was tempted,
against honour and duty.
“Why did you put me in mind of it?” he asked reproachfully. “I had
indeed honestly forgotten it, and had I so left it, you could have
taken it with you to-morrow! . . . But I gave Lord Albemarle my word
not to help you in any way to escape . . .”
Ewen instantly picked up the penknife, shut it, and held it out to
him. “Take it. They are sure, too, to search me before I go to-morrow.
Come,” he still held it out, “you have sacrificed enough for me; your
honour you shall not sacrifice!”
As Keith reluctantly took the knife from the shackled hand he had a
shock as if a lightning flash had stabbed asunder the sky above him
and shown him something he had never seen—never wished to see—before.
The barren and solitary path which he had marked out for himself
through life was _not_ the best! Here was a man who would never
willingly fail friend or lover, much less play them false. Now, at
this their last meeting, when friendship with him was a thing
impossible of realisation, he knew that he would have asked nothing
better—he who never wished for a friend.
Like a lightning flash too in its speed the revelation was over.
Mechanically he put the penknife away, and Ewen limped the few paces
back to his stool. “Come and sit down again, Windham,” he said, “for
once more you cannot get out if you wish to. And there is a matter
about which I have long been curious. Why do you bear a Scots name—if
I may ask without indiscretion? Have you perhaps Scottish kin?”
Keith, sitting down beside him again, shook his head. “There’s not a
soul of my blood north of Tweed. But my father, who was a soldier
also, had once a Scottish friend, killed at Malplaquet before I was
born, for whom he must have had a great affection, since he gave me
his name.”
They looked at each other, and the shadowy dead Scot of Marlborough’s
wars seemed, to his namesake at least, to assume the shape of a symbol
or a prophecy. Keith shivered suddenly.
“I can hardly hope,” said the Jacobite, “that you will care to name
your son after me when I have ended . . . not on a battlefield . . .
but I should like to feel that you will remember sometimes, not me,
but what you did for me. For whereas you think but poorly of your
fellow-men and yourself—or am I wrong?—you act, Keith Windham, very
much otherwise!”
Moved and startled, Keith dropped his gaze and stared between his
knees at the floor. Yes, they might have been friends; they were meant
to be friends—Ardroy felt that too, did he? “I . . . in truth I do not
well know what I think,” he murmured; “and, as for my actions, why, I
seem to have failed on every side.—But one thing I do know,” he went
on with a touch of defiance, “and that is, that I do not believe in
your Highland second sight. Who can say that we shall not meet
again—and you a free man?”
Ewen looked hard at him a moment. Outside the jangling of keys could
be heard coming nearer. “I wish very much that I could think so too,”
he answered simply, as he rose to his feet with a corresponding
clashing. And again the strange constriction in his throat betrayed
Keith into irritation.
“Are you so superstitious, Ardroy, that you’ll read into an old man’s
maunderings a menace that was never there? Did your foster-father say
a word about death in his precious prophecy? I warrant he did not!”
Ewen smiled. “My dear Windham, at bottom I believe as little in the
two sights as you. But surely ’tis not superstition to realise that I
am at least threatened with that fate. Yet who knows? If it pass me
by, and we ever meet again in this world, then maybe I’ll have more
time to thank you fitly for all you have done and given up for me. Yet
I do thank you now, from my heart—from my inmost heart!”
He held out his fettered hands, and Keith as he took them was hardly
capable of speech.
“I have failed in everything,” he muttered. “But your letter—I promise
you it shall go by a safe hand. I . . . I . . .” The door, opening,
recalled him to an Englishman’s last obligation, the suppression of
emotion before witnesses. “To-morrow,” he said, loosing his grasp, and
in a tolerably composed voice, “to-morrow you will at least be out of
this dismal place and free of those irons.”
“Aye, will he,” commented the gaoler in the doorway. “And riding a
braw horse forbye!”
“I doubt I’ll make much show as a horseman,” replied Ewen. “I fear I
shall fall off.”
“Ye’re no’ like tae hae the chance, Mr. Cameron,” replied the man
dryly. “Ye’ll be tied on.—Noo, sir, if ye please.”
“What time is he to start?” asked Keith.
“Sax o’ the clock.” The keys jingled impatiently.
Keith took a resolve. But he did not put it into words. All he said
was “Good-bye,” and, for fear of being totally unmanned, stole only
the most cursory glance at the pale, gravely smiling face under the
rather untidy auburn hair.
But Ewen held out his hand again. “_Beannachd leat_, as we say in the
Erse. ‘Blessings go with you; may a straight path be before you, and a
happy end to your journey’!”
Without answering Keith wrung the hand and went quickly up the steps
past the gaoler and into the passage. He was hardly there before the
heavy door clanged to between him and his last meeting with Ewen
Cameron.
“A peety,” said the gaoler reflectively, taking the key from the lock,
“a peety yon muckle young man behoves to hae a rope aboot his
thrapple. But there, wha will tae Cupar maun tae Cupar . . . Yon’s the
way up, sir.”
* * * * * *
At twenty minutes to seven next morning Keith Windham, having propped
himself up on one elbow in his camp bed, was staring with incredulous
and remorseful eyes at the watch which he had just drawn from beneath
his pillow. That he should not wake in time to catch a final glimpse
of Ardroy as he rode away had never occurred to him; the question last
night had rather been whether he should ever get to sleep . . .
Well, evidently old Angus MacMartin’s fates were determined that he
should not see Ewen Cameron again. And after all, he thought, trying
to stifle regret, did I really desire to see him carried away, bound
upon a horse, by Kingston’s dragoons?
When he was dressed he went to the door of the tent, which opened
towards Loch Ness, and looked out. It was a beautiful, fresh morning,
and the loch was smiling up at the flanking hills. Even the ruins of
the fort, rearing themselves against that brightness, looked less
blackened in the sunshine. But for Keith those gutted buildings held
nothing now; and the busy camp around him was empty, too. How far on
the road were they got by this time, and were the troopers riding too
fast . . . ?
He dropped the flap of the tent and, going over to the table, took
out from the breast of his uniform the handkerchief with the curl of
hair and the scrap of a letter, and sealed them up carefully in a
little packet, first copying down the address and scrupulously
averting his eyes from the rest of the torn fly-leaf in doing so.
Then, wondering how soon and in what manner he should find an
opportunity of fulfilling his trust, he sat on, staring at the packet,
now directed in his own hand to Mrs. Ewen Cameron at an address in
Havre-de-Grâce.
What was it that Ardroy had wished him yesterday—a straight path and a
happy end to his journey. Ewen’s own path seemed straighter than his,
now, but the end to which it led? Keith had a sudden horrible vision,
corollary of those which had haunted him in the night. He pressed his
hands over his eyes and bade it begone, bade himself be as little
perturbed at the prospect as Ewen himself had been yesterday—Ewen who
would certainly go cheerfully and courageously to that ghastly
business, but who, had it not been for his interference, might be
lying now unmutilated under the turf of Ben Loy, with only the plovers
and the curlews to disturb his rest.
Keith suddenly got up and began to pace restlessly to and fro, his
head on his breast. He was finding his self-defensive philosophy of a
very meagre assistance now. If he were again the child he had been,
the child who every night at his nurse’s knee asked so simply and
naturally for what he desired, it would have been easy to utter the
prayer in his heart. But of what use such supplication to the Power
whose only concern with the world was that He had set it a-rolling?
Yet it was some time before he came to a standstill, and, with a heavy
sigh, replaced in his breast the little packet for Ewen Cameron’s
wife; with this for consolation in his mind, that he who was riding
southward was not yet condemned, and that till the sentence was spoken
his case was not hopeless.
* * * * * *
All that afternoon there came marching wearily back to Fort Augustus,
in a woeful state of fatigue and rags, the various units of the
fifteen hundred men whom Cumberland had sent out in his last battue
for Prince Charles nearly a fortnight before. They had met with no
success whatever.
At nine o’clock that evening Keith, to his surprise, received a
summons from Lord Albemarle, and found him heated and discomposed.
“’Tis a most extraordinary and vexatious thing,” declared the Earl,
pacing up and down his quarters with his heavy tread. “It seems as
though the Pretender’s son must have broken through the chain of
sentry posts round Clanranald’s country, and yet I can scarce believe
it, they were so close together. I shall make a fresh effort, with
fresh men; these poor fellows are quite worn out with their exertions.
For my part, Major Windham, I declare that to capture that young man,
source of all our woes, I should with infinite pleasure walk barefoot
from Pole to Pole!”
Had Lord Albemarle but known, no such heroic pilgrimage was required
of him; a ten-mile expedition that night to a certain cave in
Glenmoriston would have been sufficient.
“Your Lordship’s zeal is common knowledge,” murmured Keith, wondering
what the Commander-in-Chief wanted him for. “If it could only be
crowned with success . . .”
“Aye, if only it could! One report says,” continued the Earl, going to
a table and turning over some papers, “that the Pretender’s son is in
Badenoch on his way to the east coast; another that he has gone north
to Caithness. Some say he is still in Morar and Knoidart; and the very
latest of all declares that he has gone back to the Long Island—as you
know they call that chain of islands from South Uist to Lewis. It is
distracting!”
It was; but Keith could not think why he should have been summoned to
hear this truth.
“Why, bless my soul,” said Albemarle, as if he had read his thoughts,
“I am so prodigiously put about that I have forgotten, I believe, to
tell you, Major Windham, that you are one of the officers whom I
design to employ in my new effort.”
“My Lord!” ejaculated Keith, flushing.
“Yes, I intend to send you without delay to the neighbourhood of
Arisaig, not because I think that the young man is there at the
moment, though one report says so, but because I think it not unlikely
he may try in the end to escape from the very spot where he landed
last July.”
“Your Lordship is really too good,” stammered Keith, rather overcome.
“If the most active vigilance——”
“Yes,” cut in Albemarle, “I depend upon you to show that, Major
Windham. Your future is in your own hands, and my reputation, too. For
reasons upon which I touched the other day, it is you whom I am
sending to what I cannot but consider the most likely spot for
securing the person of the arch-rebel. The day that you bring him back
a prisoner your difference with His Royal Highness will be no more
remembered against you. And perhaps I, too,” added the Earl with a
sigh, “shall be able to leave this most distasteful country.”
“I assure your Lordship,” said Keith with a beating heart, “that
failure shall not be due to any want of exertion on my part. Your
generous selection of me for this expedition overwhelms me with
gratitude, and whether I secure the prize or no I shall be your
Lordship’s lifelong debtor for the opportunity.”
Lord Albemarle nodded, pleased as one who knows that he confers a
benefit. “You will march at daybreak with a hundred men. I do not say
that you are to station yourself exclusively at this Loch nan—on my
soul, I cannot pronounce its outlandish name. Dispose your men as you
think best. My secretary is preparing a few notes for your guidance.
The devil of it is, however,” confessed the harassed commander in a
further burst of confidence, “that these informations, when one
receives them, are always a se’nnight or two out of date.” And, after
adding a few more recommendations as to Keith’s conduct, he said
kindly, “Now go and get some sleep, Windham—and good luck to your
endeavours!”
Keith went out as one who walks on air. A chance at last—the greatest,
if only he could seize it! So the day which had taken from him
something which he felt that he had never really possessed had brought
him . . . no, not compensation for the loss, for that, perhaps, he
could never have, but opportunity to do more than purge his
disgrace—to make himself the most envied man in the three kingdoms.
V
THE HERON’S FLIGHT IS ENDED
“Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.”
—SHAKESPEARE.
CHAPTER I
It was fortunate for Ewen that the sorrel horse on which he was tied
had easy paces, and that the troopers did not ride fast; fortunate too
that his arms had been bound to his sides and not behind his back, as
had at first been proposed when, limping badly, and shielding his eyes
against the unaccustomed daylight, he was brought out into the
courtyard of the fort to be mounted. For by midday so many hours in
the saddle, under a July sun, were making heavy demands on a man come
straight from close confinement and not long recovered of a severe
wound.
But from Ewen’s spirit a much heavier toll was being exacted; not by
the prospect of the death which was in all likelihood awaiting him,
not even by the remembrance of his lost Alison, but by the pain which
was actually tearing at him now, this taking leave of what he loved
better than life, the lakes and mountains of his home. This was the
real death, and he kept his lips locked lest he should cry out at its
sharpness.
The picture which had been tormenting Keith Windham he could look at
without undue shrinking; or rather, he did not trouble to look at it
any more now. Like the man who had saved him, he could not avoid the
thought that Guthrie’s musket balls had been more merciful, but the
choice had not lain in his hands; and for the last two months it had
been more important to try to keep his equanimity day after day in the
cold and darkness of his prison than to think what he should do or
feel when he came to stand in the hangman’s cart. And the parting with
Alison was over; and because he had known that the kiss in the cabin
of the brig might be their last, it had held the solemnity which had
enwrapped their hurried marriage and the bridal night whose memory was
so holy to him. Alison had been his, though for so brief a space; and
one day, as he firmly believed, they would meet again. But Beinn Tigh
. . . would he ever see again, in _that_ world, his beloved sentinel
of the stars?
Ever since its peak had appeared, all flushed by the morning sun, as
they began to ride by Loch Oich, he had kept his eyes hungrily upon
it, praying that the horses might go slower, or that one might cast a
shoe; watching it like a lover as it revealed more of its shapeliness
and dominated the shoulder, between it and the loch, behind which, as
they went farther, it would inevitably sink. And Loch na h-Iolaire,
_his_ loch, away behind there, invisible, secluded by its own
mountains! If only he could get free of these cords, swim the water
between, climb those intervening miles of scree and heather, and see
the Eagle’s Lake once more! No, never again; neither in this world nor
the next. For Loch na h-Iolaire was not like Alison and him; it had
not a soul free of time and space. Loch na h-Iolaire existed over
there, only there, on that one spot of earth, and in all the fields of
heaven there would be no lake so lovely, and in heaven the grey mists
would never swoop down on one who ambushed the deer.
At Laggan-ach-drum they had halted and rested and eaten. It was
Glengarry’s country, yet on the border of the Cameron, and Ardroy was
known there; but in the burnt and ravaged clachan there seemed to be
no man left, and no risk of a rescue. The troopers of Kingston’s Horse
had shown themselves rough but not unkindly, and the sergeant,
probably thinking that unless they gave the prisoner some attention
they would hardly get him to Fort William at the end of the day, had
him unfastened and taken off the sorrel and set down amongst them by
the roadside with food and drink. But they were very careful of him,
tying his ankles together, and putting a cord from one wrist to the
belt of the next man. And Ewen had eaten and drunk in silence, looking
at the sunlit desolation. _This_ was what had been done in the
Glen . . . done in all the countryside . . .
A young girl had passed once or twice to a half-burnt croft carrying a
bucket of water, and presently the sergeant, wanting some for the
horses, called to ask where the water came from, since here they were
no longer by a lake side. Setting down the heavy bucket, she came and
stood before him, looking on the troopers with eyes like coals, and
only once at their prisoner. (But the softness of evening was in them
then.) The sergeant, without harshness, put his question, but the girl
shook her head, and Ewen knew that she had not the English. Already he
had seen a sight that set his heart beating, for as she stooped to put
down the bucket he had caught a glimpse of the black handle of a
_sgian dubh_ in her bosom.
“Shall I ask her for you?” he suggested to the sergeant, and, hardly
waiting for the answer, he spoke rapidly to her in Gaelic, putting the
question about water indeed, but adding at the end of it, “Try to give
me your knife when I am on the horse again—if you have another for
yourself!”
The girl gave him a glance of comprehension, and turned away to show
where to fetch the water; and the sergeant had no inkling that another
question besides his had been put and answered. He even threw a word
of thanks to the interpreter.
But while they were tying Ewen on again the girl came among them, as
if curiosity had brought her to see the sight, and, heedless of the
jests which she did not understand, slipped nearer and nearer among
the horses until she seemed to be jostled against the sorrel’s
shoulder. And Ewen felt the little knife, warm from its hiding-place,
slide into his right stocking; it was only with an effort that he kept
his eyes averted and seemed unaware of her presence. But he turned his
head as they rode away, and saw her standing at gaze with her hands
joined, as though she were praying.
That was an hour agone and more. How he should ever get at, much less
use, the blade against his leg he had no idea, seeing that his arms
were immovably pinioned, but to know it there made a world of
difference. His thoughts reverted to Major Windham, to that interview
yesterday. They might have been friends had Fate willed it otherwise;
indeed he could not but think of him already as a friend, and with
wonder at what he had done for him. But why had Angus’s heron brought
them together to so little purpose, to meet, and meet, and then to
part for ever, as they had met at first, ‘by the side of water’—Loch
Oich and Loch Ness? Yet he owed his life to one of those encounters;
there was no possible doubt of that. But it was still a mystery to him
why the Englishman should have cared so much for his fate as to wreck
his own career over it. He had really behaved to Loudoun and (as far
as he could make out) to Cumberland—all honour to him for it—as if he
were fey. And he had seemed at the outset of their acquaintance of so
mocking a temper, so lightly contemptuous as scarcely even to be
hostile. One saw him with different eyes now.
But Keith Windham was swept from his thoughts again, as he realised
afresh that he was going for the last time along Loch Lochy side. It
was bright pain to look at it, but Ewen looked greedily, trying to
burn those high green slopes for ever on his memory, to be imaged
there as long as that memory itself was undissolved. There was the
steep corrie and the wall shutting out his home. What though the house
of Ardroy were ashes now, like Achnacarry and a score of others, there
were things the marauders could not touch, things dearer even than the
old house—the sweeps of fern and heather, the hundred little burns
sliding and tinkling among stones and mosses, the dark pine-trees, the
birches stepping delicately down the torrent side, the mist and the
wind, the very mountain air itself. But these, though they would
remain, were not for him any more.
And then Ewen bit his lip hard, for, to his horror, his eyes had begun
to fill, and, since he could not move a hand, all that was left was to
bow his head and pray desperately that the troopers on either side
might not observe his weakness. But they were just then absorbed in
heartfelt complaints at the detour which they were obliged to make on
his account, instead of setting out with the rest of Kingston’s Horse,
in two days’ time, for Edinburgh; and Ewen quickly swallowed the salt
upon his lips, thinking, ‘Since I am so little of a man, I must fix
my mind on something else.’ Yet here, in this dear and familiar
neighbourhood, he could think of nothing else but what was before his
eyes; and his eyes told him now that the radiance of the morning was
gone, and that clouds were coming up the Glen from the south-west,
from Loch Linnhe, with that rapidity which he knew so well of old. In
an hour it would very likely be raining hard; in less, for beyond the
Loch Arkaig break he could see that it _was_ raining . . .
Here he was, looking just as intently at the hills as before! So he
shut his eyes, afraid lest moisture should spring into them again; and
also a little because the waters of Loch Lochy, still bright, despite
the advancing clouds, were beginning queerly to dazzle him. And when
his eyes were shut he realised with increasing clearness that
physically too he was nearing the boundary-line of endurance. He had
wondered himself how he should ever accomplish the thirty-mile ride,
but the problem had not troubled him much, and the untying and rest at
Laggan had been a relief. Now—and they still had a long way to go—it
was astonishing how this sea of faintness seemed to be gaining upon
him. He reopened his eyes as he felt himself give a great lurch in the
saddle.
“Hold up!” said the trooper who had the reins. “Were ye asleep?”
Ewen shook his head. But what curious specks were floating over the
darkening landscape! He fixed his eyes on his horse’s ears; but once
or twice the whole head of the animal disappeared from his sight
altogether; and the second time that this phenomenon occurred he felt a
grip on his arm, and found the soldier on the other side looking at
him curiously. However, the man released him, saying nothing, and
Ewen, mute also, tried to straighten himself in the saddle, and looked
ahead in the direction of Ben Nevis, since perhaps it was a mistake to
look at anything close at hand. The mountain’s top was veiled. The last
time that he had seen it . . . with Lochiel . . .
But that memory had poison in it now. Oh, to have speech with Lochiel
once before he went hence! Ewen set his teeth, as waves of faintness
and of mental pain broke on him together. If he could only say to
Donald . . .
And there followed on that, surprisingly, a period in which he thought
he was speaking to Lochiel; but it must have been by some
waterfall—the waterfall near the hiding-place, perhaps—and through the
noise of the rushing water he could not make Lochiel hear what he was
saying to him. He tried and tried . . . Then all at once someone was
holding him round the body, and a voice called out, miles away, yet
close, “He was near off that time, Sergeant!”
Ewen left the waterfall and became conscious, to his astonishment,
that they were away from Lochy and within full sight of Ben Nevis and
all his brethren. Also that the whole escort had stopped. Landscape
and horses then whirled violently round. His head fell on a trooper’s
shoulder.
“The prisoner’s swounding, Sergeant! What are we to do?”
Swearing under his breath, the sergeant brought his horse alongside.
“Shamming? No, he ain’t shamming. Here,” he brought out something from
his holster, “give him a drink of his own Highland whisky—nasty stuff
it is!”
They held up Ewen’s head and put the spirit to his lips. It revived
him a little, and he tried to say something, but he himself did not
know what it was. The sergeant eyed him doubtfully.
“I’ll tell you what,” he remarked to his men, “we’ll untie his
arms—not his feet, mind you—and maybe then he can help himself by
taking a holt of the mane.—Can ye do that?”
Ewen nodded, too sick and dizzy to realise what possibilities would
thus be put within his reach.
The dragoons unfastened the cords round his arms and body, gave him
some more spirit, rubbed his cramped arms, and in a little while he
was able to do what the sergeant suggested; and presently, he leaning
hard upon the sorrel’s crest, his fingers twined in the mane, they
were going slowly down the moorland slope towards the Spean. Ewen felt
less faint now, after the whisky and the release of his arms; the fine
misty rain which had now set in was refreshing, too, so, although the
landscape showed a disposition to swim at times, he could certainly
keep in the saddle—indeed, how could he fall off, he thought, with
this rope passing from ankle to ankle beneath the horse’s belly? And
he began to think about High Bridge, still unseen, which they were
approaching, and of the part which it had played in this great and
ill-fated adventure—and in his own private fortunes, too. For down
there the first spark of revolt had flashed out; down there Keith
Windham had been turned back by MacDonald of Tiendrish and his men;
and because he had been turned back, Ewen himself was alive to-day,
and not mouldering by Neil MacMartin’s side on Beinn Laoigh.
But he was none the less on his way to death, and there was no one to
stay the redcoats from passing High Bridge now. Tiendrish, marked for
the scaffold, lay already in Edinburgh Castle; Keppoch, his chief,
slept with his broken heart among the heather on Culloden Moor;
Lochiel was a wounded outlaw with a price on his head. The gods had
taken rigorous dues from all who had been concerned in the doings of
that August day here by the Spean. Yes, strangely enough, even from
Keith Windham, who was on the other side. They had made him pay for
having dared to show compassion to those whom they pursued. It was
singular.
Unconsciously Ewen was back in the dungeon again, seeing the
Englishman’s troubled face, hearing his voice as it asked him why he
had put him in mind of the forgotten penknife . . .
And then Keith Windham’s face and voice were blotted out in an instant
by a thought which made him draw a long breath and clutch the sorrel’s
mane almost convulsively. He had something better than a blunt
penknife on his person at this very moment, and now, now that his arms
were untied, he could perhaps get it into his hand. For the last hour
he had completely forgotten the girl’s _sgian_ in his stocking; and
indeed, until recently it might as well not have been there. But now,
if he could draw it out unobserved . . .
And then? Rags of a wild, a desperate plan began to flutter before his
eyes. And only here, by the Spean, could the plan be put into
execution, because, High Bridge once crossed, it was all open moorland
to Fort William. Only by the Spean, racing along between its steep,
thickly wooded banks, was there a chance of shelter, if one could gain
it. It was a mad scheme, and would very likely result in his being
shot dead, but, if they stopped at the little change-house on the
other side of Spean, as they surely would, he would risk that. Better
to die by a bullet than by the rope and the knife. How his body would
carry out the orders of his brain he did not know; very ill, probably,
to judge from his late experiences. Yet, as he hastily plotted out
what he would do, and every moment was carried nearer to High Bridge,
Ewen had an illusory feeling of vigour; but he knew that he must not
show it. On the contrary, his present partially unbound condition
being due to his recent only too real faintness, he must continue to
simulate what for the moment he no longer felt. If only the faintness
did not come on again in earnest!
Here was the Spean in its ravine, and here the narrow bridge reared
on its two arches, its central pier rising from a large rock in the
river-bed. They clattered over it, three abreast. The bridge was
invisible, as Ewen knew, when one was fairly up the other side,
because the approach was at so sharp an angle, and the trees so
thick. And as they went up that steep approach the trees seemed even
thicker than he remembered them. If Spean did not save him, nothing
could.
The change-house came into view above them, a little low building by
the side of the road, and for a moment the prisoner knew an agonising
doubt whether the escort were going to halt there after all. Yes,
thank God, they were! Indeed, it would have been remarkable had they
passed it.
The moment the troopers stopped it was evident how little they
considered that their prisoner needed guarding now; it was very
different from the care which they had bestowed in this particular at
Laggan. Drink was brought out; nearly all swung off their horses, and
broke into jests and laughter among themselves. Ewen’s all but
collapse of a few miles back, his real and evident exhaustion now,
served him as nothing else could have done. Realising this, he let
himself slide slowly farther over his horse’s neck as though he could
scarcely sit in the saddle at all; and in fact this manœuvre called
for but little dissimulation.
And at that point the trooper who had charge of his reins, a young
man, not so boisterous as the others, was apparently smitten with
compassion. His own half-finished chopin in his hand, he looked up at
the drooping figure. “You’d be the better of another drink, eh? Shall
I fetch you one?”
Not quite sure whether this solicitude was to his advantage, Ewen
intimated that he would be glad of a cup of water. The dragoon
finished his draught, tossed the reins to one of his fellows, and
sauntered off. But the other man was too careless or too much occupied
to catch the reins, and they swung forward below the sorrel’s head,
free. This was a piece of quite unforeseen good luck. Ewen’s head sank
right on to his horse’s crest; already his right hand, apparently
dangling helpless, had slipped the little black knife out of his
stocking; now he was able unsuspected to reach the rope round his
right ankle. . . . Five seconds, and it was cut through, and the next
instant his horse was snorting and rearing from a violent prick with
the steel. The dismounted men near scattered involuntarily; Ewen
reached forward, caught a rein, turned the horse, and, before the
startled troopers in the least realised what was happening, was racing
down the slope and had disappeared in the thick fringe of trees about
the bridge.
The sorrel was so maddened that to slip off before he reached the
bridge, as he intended, was going to be a matter of difficulty, if not
of danger. But it had to be done; he threw himself across the saddle
and did it. As he reached ground he staggered and fell, wrenching his
damaged thigh, but the horse continued its wild career across the
bridge and up the farther slope as he had designed. Ewen had but a
second or two in which to pick himself up and lurch into the thick
undergrowth of the gorge ere the first of a stream of cursing horsemen
came tearing down the slope. But, as he hoped, having heard hoof-beats
on the bridge, they all went straight over it in pursuit of the now
vanished horse, never dreaming that it was riderless.
Once they were over Ewen cut away the trailing rope from his other
ankle, pocketed it, and started to plunge on as fast as he could among
the birch and rowan trees, the moss-covered stones and the undergrowth
of Spean side. He was fairly sure that he was invisible from above,
though not, perhaps, from the other side, if and when the troopers
returned. But the farther from the bridge the better. His breath came
in gasps, the jar of throwing himself off the horse had caused him
great pain and made him lamer than ever, and at last he was forced to
go forward on his hands and knees, dragging his injured leg after him.
But as he went he thought how hopeless it was; how the dragoons would
soon overtake the horse, or see from a distance that he was no longer
on its back, and, returning, would search along the river bank and
find him. And he could not possibly go much farther, weak and out of
condition as he was, with the sweat pouring off him, and Spean below
seeming to make a noise much louder than its diminished summer
clamour.
Thus crawling he finally came up against a huge green boulder, and the
obstacle daunted him. He would stop here . . . just round the farther
side. He dragged himself round somehow, and saw that what he had
thought to be one stone was two, leaning together. He tried to creep
into the dark hollow between them, a place like the tomb, but it was
too narrow for his breadth of shoulder. So he sank down by it, and lay
there with his cheek to the damp mould, and wondered whether he were
dying. Louder and louder roared the Spean below, and he somehow was
tossing in its stream. Then at least he could die in Scotland after
all. Best not to struggle . . . best to think that he was in Alison’s
arms. She would know how spent he was . . . and how cold . . . The
brawling of the river died away into darkness.
CHAPTER II
When Ewen came fully to himself again it was night, the pale Highland
summer night; he could not guess the hour. He had not been discovered,
then! He lay listening; there was no sound anywhere save the rushing
of the river below him, nothing to tell him whether the troopers had
returned or no. But now was undoubtedly the time to quit his lair and
get back over the bridge and along the short but dangerous stretch of
high road, until he could leave it and make for the river Lochy. When
he had forded Lochy and was on the other side of the Great Glen he
would be safer.
Alas, the next few minutes implanted in him a horrible doubt whether
he would ever ford Lochy, seeing that between the swimming head of
exhaustion and the twist which he had given his damaged leg in
throwing himself off the horse he could scarcely even stand, much less
walk. And although the people up at the change-house, almost within
call were, unless they had been removed, of a Cameron sept, he dared
not risk attracting their attention, for a double reason: soldiers,
his own escort or others from Fort William, might very well halt
there; and to shelter him would probably in any case be disastrous to
the poor folk themselves.
His prospects did not seem too bright. All his hope was that he might
feel more vigorous after a little more of this not very comfortable
rest. Huddled together on his side under the lee of the boulder, to
get what shelter he could from the soft, misty rain which he felt
rather than saw, he said a prayer and fell into the sleep of the
worn-out.
He was wakened by a strange, sharp noise above him, and the sensation
of something warm and damp passing over his face. Stiff and
bewildered, he opened his eyes and saw in the now undoubted, though
misty daylight, the author of these two phenomena, an agitated
sheepdog, of a breed unknown to him. As he raised himself on an elbow
the dog gave another excited bark, and immediately darted away up the
tree-grown bank.
So numbed and exhausted was the fugitive that it took him a few
seconds to realise that he was discovered. But by whom? Not by
soldiers, certainly; nor could that be the dog from the change-house.
He dragged himself into a sitting posture, got his back against the
boulder, pulled the little black knife, his only resource, from his
stocking, and waited.
Feet were coming down the steep bank, and soon two men could be seen
plunging through the birch and alder, shouting to each other in an
unfamiliar accent; in front of them plunged and capered the sheepdog,
with its tail held high, and Ewen heard a loud hearty voice saying,
“Clivver lass—aye, good bitch th’art indeed! See-ye, yon’s rebel,
Jan!” He reflected, “I can kill the dog, but what good would that do
me? Moreover I have no wish to.” And as the intelligent creature came
bounding right up to him, wagging a friendly tail, and apparently
proud of its accomplishment in having found him, he held out his left
hand in invitation. The dog sniffed once, and then licked it.
“See thon!” cried the former voice. “Dang it, see Lassie so freendly
and all!”
“Yet you had best not come too near!” called Ewen threateningly. “I am
armed!” He raised his right hand.
The larger of the men, pushing through an alder bush, instantly lifted
a stout cudgel. “If thou harmst t’ bitch—— Coom here, Lassie!”
“No, I will not harm her,” said Ewen, fending off the dog’s
demonstrations with his other arm. “But call her off; I owe her no
gratitude.”
“For foindin’ thee, thou meanst,” supplied Lassie’s owner. “Aye,
thou’st the fellow that gie t’ sogers the slip yesterday; we heerd all
aboot thee oop at t’ little hoose yonder. Eh, but thou’rt a reet smart
lad!” There was genuine admiration in his tone. “’Twere smart ti hide
thee here, so near an’ all, ’stead o’ gooin’ ower t’ brig—eh, Jan?”
“Main smart,” agreed the smaller man. “Too smart fur th’ redcoats, Ah
lay!”
The smart lad, very grim in the face, and rather grey to boot, sat
there against his boulder with the _sgian_ clutched to his breast,
point outwards, and eyed the two men with a desperate attention, as
they stood a little way higher up amid the tangle of bushes, stones
and protruding tree-roots, and looked at him. They had the appearance
of well-to-do farmers, particularly the larger, who was a tremendously
burly and powerful man with a good-tempered but masterful expression.
The smaller was of a more weazened type, and older.
“See-thee, yoong man,” said the burly stranger suddenly, “’tis no
manner o’ use ti deny that thou’rt one of these danged Highland
rebels, seein’ we’s heerd all the tale oop yonder.”
Ewen’s breath came quickly. “But I’ll not be retaken without
resistance!”
“Who says we be gooin’ ti taake thee? Happen we’ve summut else ti
moind. Coom here, Lassie, wilt thou! Dunnot be so freendly tiv a chap
wi’ a knife in his hand!”
“I tell you the dog has nothing to fear from me,” repeated Ewen. “See
then!” And on a sudden impulse he planted the _sgian_ in the damp soil
beside him and left it sticking there.
“Ah, that’s reet, yoong man—that’s jannock!” exclaimed the large
stranger in evident approval and relief. “Happen we can ’ev some clack
together noo. Hoo dost thou rackon ti get away fra this tod’s den o’
thine?”
Here, quite suddenly, the little man began to giggle. “He, he! maakes
me laugh to think of it—t’ sogers chasing reet away ower t’ brig and
Lord knaws wheer beyond! They nivver coom back, so t’ folk oop yonder
tells.”
“Aye, a good tale to tell when we gan back ower Tyne,” agreed the
large man, shaking gently with a more subdued mirth. And as Ewen, for
his part, realised that the reference to Tyne must mean that the
strangers were English, though he could not imagine what they were
doing in Lochaber, this large one burst into a great rumbling upheaval
of laughter, causing the sheepdog to bark in sympathy.
“Quiet, lass!” commanded her master, making a grab at her. “Thy new
freend here has no wish for thy noise, Ah’ll lay.” He looked straight
at the fugitive sitting there. “Hadn’t thee best get thee gone, lad,
before ’tis onny loighter?” he asked.
Was the man playing with him, or was he genuinely friendly? Ewen’s
heart gave a great bound. A momentary mist passed before his eyes.
When it cleared the large man was stooping over him, a bottle in his
hand.
“Thoo’rt nigh clemmed, lad, or ma name’s not Robert Fosdyke. Here’s t’
stuff for thee—reet Nantes. Tak’ a good soop of it!”
The fiery spirit ran like lightning through Ewen’s cramped limbs. “Why
. . . why do you treat me so kindly?” he gasped, half stupid between
the brandy and astonishment, as he returned the bottle. “You are
English, are you not? Why do you not give me up?”
Mr. Fosdyke, who had now seated himself on a large stone near, struck
his knee with some vehemence. “Ah’ll tell thee whoy! First, because t’
bitch here foond thee and took ti thee, and thou didna stick yon knife
o’ thine intiv her—but Ah’d ’ev driven in thy skool if thou hadst . . .
second, because thou’rt a sharp lad and a bold one, too; and last
because Ah’ve seen and heerd tell o’ things yonder at Fort Augustus,
wheer we went ti buy cattle, that Ah ’evn’t loiked at all. No, Ah
didn’t loike what Ah heerd of goings on.—Aye, and foorthly, t’ cattle
was woorth danged little when we’d gotten ’em; all t’ best were sold
awready.”
Ewen knew what cattle they would be; the one possession of many a
poor Highland home, as well as the herds of the gentry. He remembered
now having heard that some of the many thousands collected from
Lochaber and Badenoch were sold to English and Lowland dealers.
Apparently, then, these men were on their way south through Glencoe
and Breadalbane with such as they had bought, and now he knew why once
or twice during this conversation he had fancied that he heard sounds
of lowing at no great distance.
“I wonder if mine are all gone!” he said half to himself.
“Thou hadst cattle of thy own, lad?” enquired Mr. Fosdyke. “If thou
canst see onny o’ thine among oors oop there thou shalt have them back
again—and that’s none so generous as thou medst think, for there’s
some Ah’d as soon give away as drive all t’ waay ower t’ Border.”
Ewen gave a weak laugh. “What should I do with cattle now? I cannot
get home myself, much less drive cattle there.”
“And whoy canst thou not get home, when thou’st put summut in thy
belly?” asked the Yorkshireman.
Ewen told him why he should find it difficult, if not impossible, and
why he dared not go to the change-house either. The farmer pronounced
that he was right in the latter course, and then made the astonishing
suggestion that ‘Jan Prescott here’ should run up to the house and
bring the fugitive something to eat and drink. “Dunnot say who ’tis
for, Jan; say Ah’ve a moind ti eat by river, if thou loikes.” And
while Jan, with amazing docility, removed the birch twig which he had
been twisting between his lips and betook himself up the bank, his
companion questioned Ewen further as to the direction of his home.
“T’ other soide of t’ other river? T’ other river’s nobbut a couple of
moiles away . . . Tell thee what, lad,” he exclaimed, slapping himself
once more, “Ah’ll tak thee as far as t’ river on one of t’ nags.
Happen thou canst sit a horse still?”
“Take me there!” Ewen could only stare in amazement.
“Aye. And when thou’st gotten to this river o’ thine, hoo medst thou
cross it; happen there’s brig, or ferry?”
“No, there is a ford. The ford by which we all . . .” His voice died
away. How long ago it seemed, that elated crossing last August after
Glenfinnan!
“And when thou’rt on t’ other soide?” pursued Mr. Fosdyke.
“I’ll reach my home somehow, if I have to crawl there.”
“And who’lt thou foind theer—thy parents?”
“My aunt, who brought me up. My parents are dead.”
“No wife nor childer?”
“My wife is in France.” And why he added, “We were only married two
days before parting,” Ewen did not know.
“Poor lad,” said Mr. Fosdyke. “Whoy didstna stop at home loike a wise
man?”
Ewen, his head resting against the boulder, said, “That I could not
do,” his eyes meanwhile fixed on the form of Mr. Jan Prescott, already
descending the slope with a tankard in his hand and two large bannocks
clasped to his person. Mr. Fosdyke turned and hailed him, and in
another moment Ewen had started upon the bannocks, finding that he was
famished, having tasted nothing solid since the halt at Laggan
yesterday morning. And while he ate Mr. Robert Fosdyke unfolded his
intention to his companion, who raised no objection, except to remark,
“Happen thou’lt meet redcoats on t’ road.”
“Ah shall say t’ lad’s a drover o’ mine, then.”
“In yon petticoat thing?” queried Mr. Prescott, pointing at Ewen’s
kilt.
“He shall have thy great-coat ti cover him oop.”
“Ah dunno hoo he’ll get intiv it, then,” returned Mr. Prescott. “See
ye, Robert, Ah’d sooner he had a horse blanket than split ma coat.”
“He can have t’ loan of ma coat then,” said Mr. Fosdyke. “He’ll not
split that.—Beasts all reet oop there?” he enquired.
“As reet as ivver they’ll be,” returned his partner with gloom.
“Ah knawed as we peed too mooch for them,” growled Mr. Fosdyke in a
voice like subterranean thunder. “Goviment notice saays—well, nivver
moind what, but ’twere main different fra what t’ cattle were loike.
Hooivver, Ah weren’t comin’ all the way fra t’ other soide o’ York for
nowt.”
“York?” asked Ewen with his mouth full, since this information seemed
addressed to him. “You come from York, sir.”
“Fra near by. Dost thou knaw the toon?”
“No,” said Ewen.
“T’ sogers werena takin’ thee there yistiday?”
“It was Carlisle that I was going to in the end.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Fosdyke comprehendingly. “But some poor devils are
setting oot for York, too, we hear. Thou’s best coom along wi’ us.”
And giving his great laugh he began to embroider his pleasantry. “Thou
doesna loike the notion? Whoy not? York’s a foine toon, Ah can tell
thee, and more gates tiv it for setting rebels’ heads on than
Carlisle. Ah lay we have a row o’ them ower Micklegate Bar come
Christmas. And thou’st not wishful ti add thine?”
Ewen shook the imperilled head in question with a smile.
“No,” agreed Mr. Fosdyke, “best keep it ti lay on t’ pillow besoide
they wife’s. If she’s in France, then thou’rt not a poor man, eh?”
“I am what you call a gentleman,” replied Ewen, “though I expect that
I am poor enough now.”
“If thou’rt a gentleman,” pronounced Mr. Fosdyke, “then thou dost reet
ti keep away fra York and Carlisle, aye, and fra Lunnon, too.—Noo,
Jan, we’ll gan and see aboot t’ nags. Thou medst bide here, lad. Come
on, Lassie.”
With tramplings and cracklings they were gone, dog and all, and, but
for the yet unfinished food and drink, which were putting new life
into Ewen, the whole encounter might have been a dream. As he waited
there for their return he wondered whether Alison’s prayers had sent
these good angels, which, to his simple and straightforward faith,
seemed quite likely.
Presently the larger of the angels came back and helped him along the
slope to the scene of his exploit at the bridge. Here was the
satellite Jan with two stout nags, a flea-bitten grey and a black. A
long and ample coat (certainly not Mr. Prescott’s) was provided for
the Jacobite. “If thou wert clothed like a Christian there’d ha’ been
no need for this,” said Mr. Fosdyke with frankness as he helped him
into it; and then, the difficulty of getting into the saddle
surmounted, Ewen found himself half incredulously riding behind the
broad back of his benefactor over the brawling Spean, in his hand a
stout cattle goad to assist his steps when he should be on his feet
again.
In the two miles before they came to the river Lochy they had the luck
to meet no one. There the clouds hung so low that the other side of
the Great Glen was scarcely visible. When they came to the ford Ewen
pulled up and made to dismount. But Mr. Fosdyke caught him by the
arm. “Nay, if thou canst scarce walk on land, Ah doot thou’ll walk
thruff water! Daisy will tak thee ower. Coom on, mare.”
The two horses splashed placidly through in the mist. On the other
side Ewen struggled off, and got out of the coat.
“I cannot possibly recompense you, Mr. Fosdyke,” he began, handing it
up to him.
“If thou offer me money,” said Mr. Fosdyke threateningly, “danged if
Ah don’t tak thee back ti wheer Ah foond thee!”
“You can be reassured,” said Ewen, smiling, “for I have none. But in
any case, money does not pass between gentlemen for a service like
this. I only pray God that you will not suffer for it.”
“Ah’d loike ti see the mon that’s going ti mak me,” was the
Yorkshireman’s reply. “And Ah feel noo as Ah’ve got even wi’ Goviment
in t’ matter of t’ cattle,” he added with immense satisfaction. “And
thou think’st me a gentleman? Well, Ah’m nobbut a farmer, but Ah’m
mooch obliged ti thee for the compliment.” He shook Ewen’s hand. “Good
luck ti thee, ma lad. . . . If thou lived a few hoondred moiles nearer,
danged if Ah wouldna gie thee a pup o’ Lassie’s—but thou’rt ower far
away, ower far!” He chuckled, caught the bridle of the grey, and the
eight hoofs could be heard splashing back through the ford. Then
silence settled down again, silence, and the soft folds of mist; and
after a moment Ewen, leaning heavily on his goad, began his difficult
pilgrimage.
* * * * * *
Twenty-four hours later, very nearly at the end of his tether, he was
hobbling slowly along the last mile of that distance which ordinarily
he could have covered between one meal and the next. So slow and
painful had been his progress, and with such frequent halts, that it
had been late afternoon before he reached Loch Arkaig. And there he
had seen the pitiful charred remains left by vengeance of Lochiel’s
house of Achnacarry, almost as dear to him as his own. In that
neighbourhood above all others he had feared to come on soldiers, but
the Campbells in Government pay who had burnt and ravaged here had
long ago done their work, and the place was deserted; there was
nothing to guard now, and none against whom to hold it. A poor Cameron
woman, whose husband had been shot in cold blood as he was working in
his little field, had given Ewen shelter for the night. She told him,
what he expected to hear, that the house of Ardroy had been burnt down
by a detachment of redcoats; this she knew because the soldiers had
returned that way, and she had heard them boasting how they had left
the place in flames. Of Miss Cameron’s fate she knew nothing; but then
she never saw anyone now that her man was gone; the burnt countryside
was nearly depopulated. That Ewen had seen for himself already.
And she said with tears, as, thanking her from his soul for her
hospitality, he turned away from her door in the morning grey, “Oh Mac
’ic Ailein, for the Chief and the Chief’s kin I’d give the last rag,
the last mouthful that’s left to me—but I’m asking God why He ever let
Prince Tearlach come to Scotland.” And Ewen had no heart to find an
answer.
Against his will the question had haunted him as he hobbled on. Just a
year ago he had had the news of that coming; yes, just a year ago he
had sat with Alison by the loch and been happy—too happy perhaps. So
his father’s house was gone! But all the more was his mind set to
reach Ardroy, to find out what had befallen those who had remained
behind there: Aunt Margaret first and foremost, the servants, old
Angus and his grandchildren, the womenfolk, the fugitives from
Drumossie Moor . . . And here at last he was, going incredibly slowly,
and accompanied by a dull pain in the thigh which by this time seemed
an inseparable part of himself, but come to the spot where, after
crossing the Allt Buidhe burn, one used to discern the chimneys of the
house of Ardroy between the pines of the avenue. Since he knew that he
would never see them thus again, Ewen did not look up, but he thought,
as he crossed the burn on the stepping-stones, nearly overbalancing
from fatigue, that one thing, at least, would be the same, for not
even Cumberland could set fire to Loch na h-Iolaire.
Then, unable for the moment to get farther, he sank down among the
welcoming heather for a rest. That, just coming into bloom, was
unchanged; ‘thou art the same and thy years shall not fail’—the words
floated into his head and out again, as he felt its springy resistance
give beneath his body. Then, half lying there, twisting a tuft round
and round the fingers of one hand for the pleasure of feeling it
again, Ewen let his eyes stray to the spot where his father’s house
and his had stood. And so strong were habit and memory that he could
see its roof and chimneys still. He put a hand over his eyes to rub
away the false sight . . . but when he removed it the chimneys were
still there, and from one there floated a wisp of smoke. . . .
Trembling, he dragged himself clumsily to his feet.
* * * * * *
Like a man who dreams the impossible he stood a little later outside
the entrance door of Ardroy. The whole affair was like a dream; for
fire had certainly passed upon the house, and yet it was unharmed. The
lintel, the sides of the stone porch were blackened with smoke; the
ivy was brown and shrivelled, but not even the woodwork was injured.
The house seemed occupied; the door stood open as on fine days it was
wont to do; but there was not a creature about. Where was Aunt Marget?
Slowly Ewen went over the threshold, feeling the stone and wood like a
blind man to make sure that it was real. He could have kissed it—his
house that was not burnt after all. The sun was pouring into the
long room; there was a meal laid on the table—for Aunt Margaret?
Then where was she? The place was very silent. Perhaps—a horrible
notion—strangers held Ardroy now, enemies. He would rather it were
burnt. . . . But had harm befallen Aunt Margaret? He must find her;
shame on him to be thinking first of the house!
He was giddy with hunger and fatigue, but he had no thought of
approaching the table; he left the room and, holding very tightly by
the rail, went up the stairs. The door of Miss Cameron’s room was a
little ajar, so he pushed it gently open, too confused to knock.
Where, where was she?
And he stood in the doorway rooted, because, so unexpectedly,
everything in that neat, sunny room which he had known from a child
was just as he had always known it . . . even to Aunt Margaret
herself, sitting there by the window reading a chapter in her big
Bible, as she always did before breakfast. The surprise of its
usualness after his experiences and his fears almost stunned him, and
he remained there motionless, propping himself by the doorpost.
It was odd, however, that Aunt Marget had not heard him, for she had
not used to be deaf. The thought came to Ewen that he was perhaps
become a ghost without knowing it, and he seriously considered the
idea for a second or two. Then he took a cautious step forward.
“Aunt Margaret!”
He was not a ghost! She heard and looked up . . . it was true that her
face was almost frightened. . . .
“I have come back!” said Ewen baldly. “May I . . . may I sit on your
bed?”
He crashed on to it rather than sat upon it, hitting his head against
the post at the bottom, since all at once he could not see very well.
But Aunt Margaret did not scold him; in fact he perceived, after a
little, that she was crying as she sat beside him, and attempting, as
if he were a child again, to kiss his head where he had struck it.
“Oh, Ewen, my boy—my darling, darling boy!”
* * * * * *
“Then did that poor woman dream that the house was burnt down?” asked
Ewen some quarter of an hour later, gazing at Miss Cameron in
perplexity, as she planted before him, ensconced as he was in the
easy-chair in her bedroom, the last components of a large repast. For
allow him to descend and eat downstairs she would not; indeed, after
the first questions and emotions were over, she was for hustling him
up to the attics and hiding him there. But, Ewen having announced with
great firmness that he was too lame to climb a stair that was little
better than a ladder, she compromised on her bedchamber for the
moment, and, with Marsali’s assistance, brought up thither the first
really satisfying meal which Ewen had seen for more than three months.
In answer to his question she now began to laugh, though her eyes were
still moist. “The house _was_ set fire to—in a way. Eat, _Eoghain_,
for you look starving; and you shall hear the tale of its escape.”
Ewen obeyed her and was told the story. But not yet having, so it
seemed to him, the full use of his faculties, he was not quite clear
how much of the house’s immunity was due to chance, to connivance on
the part of the officer commanding the detachment sent to burn it, and
to the blandishments of Miss Cameron herself. At any rate, after
searching, though not plundering, the house of Ardroy from top to
bottom (for whom or what was not quite clear to Ewen, since at that
date he was safely a prisoner at Fort Augustus), firing about half the
crofts near, collecting what cattle they could lay their hands on, the
most having already been sent up into the folds of the mountains, and
slaying a dozen or so of Miss Cameron’s hens, they had piled wood
against the front of the house, with what intention was obvious. It
was a moment of great anguish for Miss Cameron. But the soldiers were
almost ready to march ere the fuel was lighted. And as they were
setting fire to the pine-branches and the green ash-boughs the
officer approached her and said in a low voice, “Madam, I have carried
out my instructions—and it is not my fault if this wood is damp.
That’s enough, Sergeant; ’twill burn finely. Column, march!”
Directly they were out of sight Miss Cameron and Marsali, the younger
maidservants and the old gardener, seizing rakes and brooms and
fireirons, had pulled away the thickly smoking but as yet harmless
branches. “And then I bethought me, Ewen, that ’twould be proper there
should be as much smoke as possible, to convince the world, and
especially the redcoats, should they take a look back. A house cannot
burn, even in a spot so remote as this, without there being some
evidence of it in the air. So we made a great pile of all that stuff
at a safe distance from the house—and, my grief, the trouble it was to
get it to burn! Most of the day we tended it; and a nasty thick reek
it made, and a blaze in the end. That’s how the house was burnt. . . .
What ails you, my bairn?”
But this time Ewen was able hastily to dash the back of his hand over
his eyes. He could face her, therefore, unashamed, and reaching out
for her hand, put his lips to it in silence.
CHAPTER III
Not infrequently in the past had Miss Margaret Cameron animadverted on
the obstinacy which lay hidden (as his temper was hidden) under her
nephew’s usually gentle speech and ways. And now, at the greatest
crisis in his life, when that life itself might hang upon his
prudence, poor Miss Cameron was faced in her young relative with a
display of this quality which really distracted her.
On that joyful and wonderful morning of his return she had allowed him
(she put it so) to retire to his own bed in his own room ‘just for the
once’; the garrets, the cellar or a bothy on the braeside being
designated as his future residences. Ewen did not argue—indeed he was
not capable of it; he fell into his bed and slept for fourteen hours
without waking.
Once he was there, and so obviously in need of rest and attention,
Miss Cameron had not, of course, the heart to turn him out; but she
kept a guard of young MacMartins and others round the house ready to
give tongue in case of a surprise, and promised herself to banish the
returned fugitive to more secluded regions directly he was able to
leave his room. But when, after three days, Ewen did so, it was not to
retire into this destined seclusion; on the contrary, he began at once
to limp about, acquainting himself with what had happened to his
tenants in his absence, trying to discover the fate of those who had
never returned—among whom was Lachlan MacMartin—visiting the nearer
crofts in person, and interviewing the inhabitants of the farther at
the house. Presently, he said, he would ‘take to the heather,’
perhaps; but, as his aunt could see, he was yet too lame for it; and,
as for the garrets or the cellar, he was just as safe in his own
bedchamber as in those uncomfortable retreats.
Yielding on this point with what she hoped was the wisdom of the
serpent, Miss Cameron then returned to a subject much nearer her
heart: Ardroy’s departure for France or Holland, which he would
attempt, she assumed, as soon as he could hear of a likely vessel and
was fit to undertake the journey to the coast.
“France?” queried Ewen, as if he had heard this suggestion for the
first time. It was the fifth evening after his return; Miss Cameron
was sitting knitting in the long parlour, and he stretched in a chair
opposite to her. The windows were closely curtained, and young Angus
MacMartin and a still younger brother prowled delightedly in the
avenue keeping watch. “France, Aunt Margaret? What put that into your
head?”
Miss Cameron laid down her knitting. “Because you cannot stay here,
Ewen. And France is in my head rather than Holland or Denmark
because—well, surely you can guess—because your wife is there.”
Ewen got out of his chair and limped to one of the windows. “I am not
leaving Scotland at present,” he said quietly, and drew aside the
curtain. “We need not therefore discuss the claims of one country over
another.”
“You cannot mean to stay here at Ardroy! Ewen, are you daft? And, in
the name of the Good Being, don’t show yourself at a lighted window
like that!”
“’Tis so light outside that the candles do not carry,” returned her
nephew. Indeed but for Miss Cameron’s prudence they would not have
been sitting thus curtained, but in daylight. “Moreover no one will
come to look for me here; the house has been ‘burnt,’” he went on,
using the argument he had already used half a dozen times. And he
continued to look out; at least Margaret Cameron thought that he was
looking out. In reality he had his eyes shut, that he might not see
Alison’s face—a vain device, for he saw it all the clearer.
His aunt was silent for a moment, for he had implanted in her mind a
most disturbing doubt.
“Well,” she said at last dryly, “I should think that if Major Windham,
to whom you owe so much, knew of this freak of yours, he would regret
the sacrifices which he had made in order to save you, when this is
the use to which you put your liberty.”
“I think Major Windham would understand,” said Ewen rather shortly.
“Understand what?”
There was no answer. “Then I doubt if the ghost of poor Neil, who died
for you, or of Lachlan, would understand!”
Ewen turned at that, but stayed where he was. “Poor Neil indeed; may
his share of Paradise be his!” he said in a softened tone. “And
Lachlan, too, if he be dead. Since you speak of my foster-brothers,
Aunt Margaret, and reproachfully, then you must know that this is one
reason why I do not wish to leave Ardroy, because it shames me to take
ship for France myself and desert those others who cannot flee, for
whose fate I am responsible. Moreover, I have started the rebuilding
of the burnt crofts, and——”
“Trust a man to think that he is the only being who can oversee
anything practical! I wonder,” observed Miss Cameron, “how much of
rebuilding and repairs I have not ordered and supervised when you were
nothing but a small wild boy, Ewen, falling into the loch and losing
yourself on the braes above it!”
He hobbled over to her. “I know, I know. No laird ever had a better
factor than you, Aunt Margaret!”
Miss Cameron’s knitting slid to the floor. “Had! Aye, I’m getting an
old wife now, ’tis plain, that you dare not leave the reins to me for
a year or so, while you take your head out of the lion’s mouth for a
while.”