The Gleam in the North. D. K. Broster

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Yet, as the minutes ticked away with the slowly fading daylight outside, and nothing happened, her spirits began to rise. Ewen had evidently not been stopped; indeed, if he once got safely beyond the policies it was unlikely that he would be. He had probably reached Slochd nan Eun unmolested. Surely, too, he would remain there until the soldiers had gone altogether? And, feeling at last some security on that score, Alison sat down and took up a piece of sewing.

      But she had not even threaded her needle before there was a stir and a trampling outside the house, and she jumped up and ran to the window. More soldiers . . . and someone in the midst of them, tightly held—her husband!

      And in that moment Alison knew, and was ashamed of the knowledge, that she must at the bottom of her heart have been hoping that if anyone were captured . . . No, no, she had not hoped that! For Doctor Cameron’s life was in jeopardy, while nothing could happen to Ewen save unpleasantness. In expiation of that half-wish she braced herself to the dissimulation which Ewen had enjoined. She drew the boy beside her away from the window.

      “The soldiers have caught your father, Donald, after all. Remember that you are to pretend not to know who he is, nor what he is doing here.”

      The little boy nodded with bright eyes, and held her hand rather tightly.

      “Will they do anything to me, Mother, for—saying what is not true?”

      “No, darling, not this time. And if they take Father away to Fort William, it is only what he hopes they will do; and he will soon come back to us.”

      By this time the door of the parlour was being unlocked, and in another moment Captain Jackson was striding into the room.

      “Bring him in,” he commanded, half-turning, and the redcoats brought in a rather hot, dishevelled Ardroy, with a smear of blood down his chin, and with four soldiers, no less, holding him firmly by wrists and arms and shoulders. It was not difficult for Alison to show the agitation demanded; indeed there was for an instant the risk that it might exceed its legitimate bounds; but she had herself in hand again at once. Her husband gave her one glance and shook his head almost imperceptibly to show that he had not succeeded in his attempt. Then he looked away again and studied the antlers over the hearth while the sergeant in charge of him made his report, the gist of which was that the prisoner, coming unexpectedly upon them near the lake up there, had led them the devil of a chase; indeed, had he not tripped and fallen, he might have escaped them altogether.

      “Tripped!” thought Alison scornfully—as if Ewen, with his perfect balance and his stag’s fleetness, ever tripped when he was running! He had thrown himself down for them to take, the fools! and that this really was the case she knew from the passing twitch of amusement at the corner of her husband’s bloodstained mouth. But, seeing him standing there in the power of the saighdearan dearga—oh, she wished he had not done it!

      “Well, have you anything to say, ‘Mr. Sinclair’?” demanded Captain Jackson, planting himself in front of the prize. And at the mention of that name both Ewen and his wife knew for certain that they owed this visitation to Doctor Kincaid.

      “Not to you, sir. But I should wish to offer my apologies to Lady Ardroy,” said Ewen, with an inclination of the head in Alison’s direction, “for bringing about an . . . an annoying incident in her house.”

      Captain Jackson shrugged his shoulder. “Very polite of you, egad! But, in that case, why have come here in the first instance?” He moved away a little, got out a paper, and studied it. Then he looked up, frowning.

      “Who are you?” he demanded.

      “Does not your paper tell you that?” asked Ewen pleasantly.

      Alison wondered if the officer thought that he was Lochdornie; but Lochdornie was, she believed, a man between fifty and sixty, and Doctor Cameron in the forties. Surely this officer could not take Ewen for either? Her heart began to lift a little. Captain Jackson, after looking, still with the frown, from Ewen to the paper, and from the paper to Ewen, suddenly folded it up and glared at her.

      “Madam, СКАЧАТЬ