The Greatest Historical Novels & Romances of D. K. Broster. D. K. Broster
has taken my papers!”
“What’s that?” asked Ewen sharply. “You were carrying papers, and they have been taken from you?”
Hector wrested himself a little away. “Who are you?” he asked suspiciously, looking up at him with the strangest eyes. “Another Government agent? Papers . . . no, I have no papers! I have but come to Scotland to visit my sister, and she’s married to a gentleman of these parts. . . . Oh, you may be easy—he’ll have naught to do now with him they name the young Pretender, so how should I be carrying treasonable papers?”
Ewen bit his lip hard. The half-stunned brain was remembering yesterday night at Ardroy. But how could he be angry with a speaker in this plight? Moreover, there was something extremely disquieting behind his utterances; he must be patient—but quick too, for precious time was slipping by, and he might somehow miss Doctor Kincaid in the oncoming darkness. If Hector would only recognise him, instead of staring at him in that hostile manner, with one hand plucking at the wet heather in which he lay!
“Hector, don’t you really know me?” he asked again, almost pleadingly. “It’s Ewen—Ewen Cameron of Ardroy, Alison’s husband!”
His sister’s name seemed, luckily, to act as a magnet to Hector’s scattered wits. They fastened on it. “Alison—Alison’s husband?” Suspicion turned to perplexity; he stared afresh. “You’re uncommonly like . . . why, it is Ardroy!” he exclaimed after a moment’s further scrutiny.
“Yes,” said Ewen, greatly relieved, “it is Ardroy, and thankful to have come upon you. Now tell me what’s wrong, and why you talk of stopping MacPhair of Lochdornie?”
Relief was on Hector’s strained face too. He passed his hand once or twice over his eyes and became almost miraculously coherent. “I was on my way to Ben Alder, to Cluny Macpherson . . . I fell in with a man as I went along the Spean . . . he must have been a Government spy. I could not shake him off. I had even to come out of my way with him—like this—lest he should guess where I was making for. . . . I stooped at last to drink of a burn, and I do not remember any more. . . . When I knew what had happened I found that he had taken everything . . . and if Lochdornie makes for Badenoch or Lochaber now he’ll be captured, for there was news of him in a letter I had on me—though it was mostly in cipher—and the redcoats will be on the alert. . . . He must be warned, for he is on his way hither—he must be warned at once, or all is lost!” Hector groaned, put a hand over his eyes again, and this time kept it there.
Ewen sat silent a moment. What a terrible misfortune! “You mentioned Archibald Cameron’s name just now,” he said uneasily. “What of his movements?”
“Doctor Cameron’s in Knoidart,” answered Hector. “He’ll not be coming this way yet, I understand. No, ’tis Lochdornie you must——” And there he stopped, removed his hand and said in a different tone, “But I am forgetting—you do not wish now to have aught to do with the Prince and his plans.”
“I never said that!” protested Ardroy. “I said . . . but no matter! I’ve given proofs enough of my loyalty, Hector!”
“Proofs? We have all given them!” returned the younger man impatiently. “Show me that I wronged you last night! You have a horse there—ride back without a moment’s delay to Glen Mallie and stop Lochdornie. I’ll give you directions.”
He looked up at his brother-in-law in a silence so dead, so devoid of any sound from the sullen water of the loch, that the very mountains seemed to be holding their breaths to listen.
“I cannot turn back now,” said Ardroy in a slow voice. “But when I have found the doctor——”
“Ah, never think of me!” cried Hector, misunderstanding. “I’ll do well enough here for the present. But to save Lochdornie you must turn back this instant! Surely some good angel sent you here, Ewen, to undo what I have done. Listen, you’ll find him——” he clutched at Ardroy, “somewhere in Glen Mallie, making towards Loch Arkaig. If he gets the length of the glen by dark it’s like he’ll spend the night in an old tumble-down croft there is on the side of Beinn Bhan—you’ll know it, I dare say, for I believe ’tis the only one there. You’ll be put to it to get there in time, I fear; yet you may meet him coming away. . . . But if once he crosses the Lochy . . .” He made a despairing gesture. “You’ll do it, Ewen?” And his unhappy eyes searched the face above him hungrily.
But Ewen turned his head aside. “I would go willingly, if . . . Do you know why I am on this road at all, Hector?” His voice grew hoarse. “My little son is very ill; I am riding after the only doctor for miles round—and he gone up Loch Treig I know not how far. How can I turn back to warn anyone until I have found him?”
“Then I must go,” said Hector wildly. “ ’Tis I have ruined Lochdornie’s plans. But I shall go so slow . . . and it is so far. . . . I shall never be in time.” He was struggling to his knees, only to be there for a second or two ere he relapsed into Ewen’s arms. “My head . . . I can’t stand . . . it swims so! O God, why did I carry that letter on me!” And he burst into tears.
Ewen let him weep, staring out over the darkening loch where some bird flew wailing like a lost spirit, and where against the desolate heights opposite he seemed to see Keithie’s flushed little face. Words spoken six years ago came back to him, when the speaker, himself in danger, was urging him to seek safety. ‘God knows, my dear Ewen, I hold that neither wife, children nor home should stand in a man’s way when duty and loyalty call him—and as you know, I have turned my back on all these.’ He could hear Archibald Cameron’s voice as if it were yesterday. Duty and loyalty—were they not calling now?
Hector had cast himself face downwards, and the scent of the bruised bog-myrtle came up strong and sweet. Ewen clenched his teeth; then he stooped and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“I will turn back,” he said almost inaudibly. “Perhaps the child is better now. . . . If anyone passes, call out; it may be the doctor—you need him.” His voice stuck in his throat, but he contrived to add, “And send him on to Ardroy.”
Hector raised his face and seized his brother-in-law’s arm in an almost convulsive grip. “You’ll go—you’ll go? God bless you, Ewen! And forgive me, forgive me! . . . Had I not been so hasty last night . . .”
“If Lochdornie be not in the croft I suppose I’ll come on him farther up the glen,” said Ewen shortly. There were no words to spare for anything save the hard choice he was making. He stripped off his cloak and wrapped it round Hector as well as Hector’s own; the night, fortunately, was not setting in cold, and when he passed Inverlair, as he returned, he would make shift to send someone to fetch the stranded wayfarer to shelter. Hector hardly seemed to hear him say this, for all his being was fixed on the question of Lochdornie and the warning, and he babbled gratitude and directions in a manner which suggested that his mind was drifting into mist once more.
But as Ewen pulled round his horse and threw himself into the saddle he could almost see Alison standing in the road to bar his return. How could he ever tell her what he had done! When he met her again he would perhaps be the murderer of his child and hers.
Soon his hoof-beats made a dwindling refrain by the dark water, and the warders of Loch Treig tossed the sound to each other as they had tossed Hector’s song. Sharp, sharp, sharp, said the echo, are the thorns of the White Rose, and the hearth where that flower has twined itself is never a safe one.
CHAPTER IV
THE MAN WITH A PRICE ON HIS HEAD
(1)
The sky was clear with morning, and even decked for the sun’s coming with a few rosy feathers of cloud, at once brighter and tenderer than those he leaves behind at evening. But the hollows of the hills were yet cold and drowsy after the night;