The Gleam in the North. D. K. Broster

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СКАЧАТЬ I thought it better to instruct my wife to say that I was from home, and left the house by a back window. I see now that I should have done better to show more courage, and to stay and face your visit out.”

      During this explanation Captain Jackson, his hands behind his back, was regarding the self-styled coward very fixedly. “Do you think that you can gull me into believing that you led my men that chase because of anything you did six or seven years ago, Mr. Ewen Cameron? No; you were playing the decoy—and giving the man you are hiding here a chance to get away!”

      Ardroy shrugged his shoulders. “Have it your own way, sir,” he said indifferently. “I know that a simple explanation of a natural action is seldom believed.”

      “No, only by simpletons!” retorted Captain Jackson. “However, you can try its effect upon Lieutenant-Governor Leighton at Fort William, for to Fort William you will go, Mr. Cameron, without delay. And do not imagine that I shall accompany you; I have not finished looking for your friend from Caithness, and, when you are no longer here to draw the pursuit, it may be that I shall find him.”

      It was true that Ewen had contemplated being taken to Fort William, but not exactly in his own character and upon his own account. This was a much less attractive prospect. However, there was no help for it, and the only thing that mattered was that Archie should get safely away. If only he could be certain that he had! Surely the MacMartins . . . His thoughts sped up to Slochd nan Eun.

      “Take two file of men, sergeant,” said Captain Jackson, “and set out with Mr. Cameron at once. You can reach High Bridge by nightfall, and lie there.”

      At that Alison came forward; she had put down Keithie and was holding him by the hand; he continued to regard the English officer with the same unmitigated disapproval. “Do you mean, sir, that you are sending my husband to Fort William at once—this very evening?”

      “Yes, madam. I have really no choice,” replied the soldier, who appeared to have regained control of his temper. “But if he will give me his word of honour to go peaceably, and make no attempt to escape by the way, I need not order any harsh measures for the journey. Will you do that, Mr. Cameron?”

      Ewen came back to his own situation, and to a longing to feel Keithie in his arms again for a moment. “Yes, sir, I pledge you my word as a gentleman to give no trouble on the road. Indeed, why should I?” he added. “I am innocent.”

      “But if Mr. Cameron is to go at once,” objected Alison, “pray allow me time to put together a few necessaries for him, since however short a while he stays at Fort William he will need them.”

      Instant departure was not so urgent that Captain Jackson could reasonably refuse this request. “Yes, you may do that, madam,” he replied a trifle stiffly, “provided that you are not more than a quarter of an hour about the business; otherwise the party may be benighted before they can reach High Bridge.” And he went quite civilly to hold the door for her.

      As Alison passed her husband she looked at him hard with a question in her eyes; she wanted to be sure. Again he gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head. She drew her brows together, and with a child on either side of her, the elder lagging and gazing half-frightened, half-admiringly, at his captive father, went out of the room. Captain Jackson did the same; but he left four men with muskets behind him.

      Of these Ewen took no notice, but began walking slowly up and down the room dear to him by so many memories. Now that the moment of being taken from his home was upon him he did not like it. But he would soon be back, he told himself. How heavily would he be fined by the Government for this escapade? However little, it would mean a still harder struggle to make both ends meet. But no price was too high to pay for Archie’s life—or for Keithie’s. Both of them were tangled up somehow in this payment. He wondered too, with some uneasiness, how and why the redcoats whom he had allowed to capture him had been right up by Loch na h-Iolaire when he came upon them. Dhé! that had been a chase, too—he was young enough to have enjoyed it.

      The door was opened again; there was Alison, with a little packet in her hand, and Captain Jackson behind her. “You can take leave of your wife, Mr. Cameron,” said he, motioning him to come to her at the door.

      But only, it was evident, under his eyes and in his hearing. So nothing could be said about Archie; even Gaelic was not safe, for it was quite possible that the Englishman had picked up a few words. Under the officer’s eyes, then, Ardroy took his wife in his arms and kissed her.

      “I shall not be away for long, my dear. God bless you. Kiss the boys for me.”

      To Alison Cameron it seemed incredible that he was really being taken from her with so little warning, when only a couple of hours ago he had been in her room asking about Keithie’s lost toys. And, for all either of them yet knew, he might be sacrificing himself in vain. But she looked up into his eyes and said with meaning, “I will try to do all you wish while you are away,” a wifely utterance to which Captain Jackson could hardly take exception.

      And three minutes later, with no more intimate leave-taking than that, she was at the window watching her husband being marched away under the beeches of the avenue with his little guard. Before he vanished from sight he turned and waved his hand, with the air of one who meant to be back ere any of their leaves had fluttered down.

      “I am sorry for this, madam,” said the voice of Captain Jackson behind her. “But, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, Mr. Cameron has brought it upon himself. Now understand, if you please, that no one is to leave the house on any pretext; I have not finished here yet. But you are free to go about your ordinary occupations, and I’ll see that you are not molested—so long as my order is observed.”

      For that Alison thanked him, and went upstairs to solace her loneliness by putting little Keith to bed. She had already tried to send Morag—the easiest to come at of the servants—up the brae, and had not found it feasible. And surely, surely Doctor Cameron must have taken the alarm by now and be away? Still, there was always her promise to Ewen—a promise which it began to seem impossible to carry out.

      (2)

      Yet, in a sense, that promise was already in process of being kept, though in a manner of which Alison was fortunately ignorant. At the very moment when she had finally succeeded in satisfying her younger son’s critical inquiries about ‘the gentleman downstairs that was so angry’, her eldest born, whom she had last seen seated on the stairs gazing down through the rails with deep interest at the group of soldiers in the hall, was half-way between the house and Loch na h-Iolaire, his heart beating rapidly with excitement, triumph, and another less agreeable emotion.

      Both in courage and intelligence Donald was old for his years. He knew that his mother had tried in vain to send Morag out of the house while she was making up the packet for Father. The resplendent idea had then come to him of himself carrying out Father’s wish, and warning Doctor Cameron of the presence of the soldiers, of which he partially at least grasped the importance. On the whole, he thought he would not tell his mother until the deed was accomplished . . . for it was just possible that if he mentioned his purpose beforehand she would forbid him to carry it through. As for getting out of the house, perhaps the soldiers at the various doors would not pay much attention to him, whom they probably considered just a little boy—though it was scarcely so that he thought of himself. Perhaps also they would not be aware that never in his life before had he been out so late alone. He could say that he had lost a ball in the shrubbery, and that would be true, for so he had, about a month ago; and even if it had not been true, lies seemed to be strangely permissible to-day. He could creep out of the shrubbery on the other side and then run, run all the way round the end of СКАЧАТЬ