The Jacobite Trilogy: The Flight of the Heron, The Gleam in the North & The Dark Mile. D. K. Broster

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СКАЧАТЬ debt which was wellnigh a grievance. There were times when he almost regretted that he had not remained and been made prisoner . . . and always times when he asked himself why Ewen Cameron had acted as he did. He was sure that he himself would not have been so foolish. The days of chivalry were over; one did not go about in this century behaving like the knights in the old romances. An enemy was an enemy—at least to a professional soldier—and it was one’s business to treat him as such.

      The cursed part of it was that people who were insane enough to behave as Ardroy had behaved somehow attained a position of superiority which was distinctly galling. And galling also was it to realise, as Keith Windham suddenly did at this moment, how much time he spent in speculating what that curious young man might be doing down there in the city spread out like a map. . . . Strange that he had not at first recognised him that night—extraordinarily handsome Ardroy had looked, and devilish cool he had kept, too, in a tight place! . . . Fool that he was, he was at it again. Keith turned from the battlements, glad of a diversion, for he had become aware of the approach of a wheeled chair, which he knew to contain the aged but spirited form of General Preston.

      General George Preston, deputy-governor of Edinburgh Castle since 1715, to whom, old and infirm though he was, it was likely that his Hanoverian Majesty owed it that that fortress had not been surrendered to the invaders, was a veteran of Marlborough’s wars, bearing in fact souvenirs of Ramillies which had ever since affected his health and his prospects of promotion. He was eighty-six years of age, even older than General Guest (now, since Cope’s flight, commander-in-chief); but whereas that warrior had scarcely left his quarters since he had removed for safety into the Castle, Preston, during the more strenuous days of the ‘blockade’, had caused himself to be wheeled round in a chair every two hours to supervise and encourage. Since Colonel Philip Windham, Keith’s father, had also fought under Marlborough, Keith had on one occasion asked the old soldier some questions about the great Duke’s battles, and found Preston very ready to hold forth on them, and in particular on that bloody fight of Malplaquet, where he had commanded the Cameronian regiment. And Keith remembered suddenly that the Scottish friend of his father’s after whom he himself was named had met his death at Malplaquet, and spoke to the old soldier about that misty John Keith of whom he knew so little.

      “Aye,” said the General, a Perthshire man himself, “I wondered that ye should bear a Scots name in front of an English, Captain Windham. I suppose yon Keith will have been in a Scottish regiment, but I don’t mind of him. ’Tis thirty-six years syne, ye ken—a lang time, more than your hale lifetime, young man.”

      So John Keith, who had fallen on a Flanders battlefield nearly forty years before, became more misty than ever. But Captain Windham’s pre-natal connection with a Scot of Malplaquet had interested old Preston in him, and he announced an intention of reporting on the zeal and vigilance which the officer of the Royals had displayed in the defence of the Castle.

      From his chair the old General beckoned to that officer now, and sent his servant out of hearing.

      “Captain Windham, a word in your ear!” And, as Keith stooped, he said gleefully. “ ’Tis a good word, if ever there was one. I’ve every reason to believe that Edinburgh will be free of these Highland pests the morn!”

      Keith gave an exclamation. “They are evacuating the city, sir?”

      The veteran chuckled. “They intend marching for England, whence I pray not a man of ’em will return alive. The news has just come in by a sure hand, but I had jaloused it already. In a day or two ye’ll not see a plaid between Greyfriars and the Nor’ Loch!”

      * * * * *

      General Preston’s sure hand had carried perfectly correct tidings. Against the wishes and the instincts of the Chiefs, Prince Charles was about to march into England, believing that he would thus rally to his standard those cautious English Jacobites on whose promised support he built such large hopes, and many others too, who had made no promises, but who would surely declare for him when he appeared in person to lead them against their alien ruler.

      And early on the morning of the first of November Ewen took his farewell of Alison in Hyndford’s Close. Lochiel’s regiment, like the bulk of the army, was already assembled at Dalkeith; for since Prestonpans the Prince had never quartered troops in the city to any great extent, and he himself was already gone. But Ewen, in order to be with his own men in this strange country to which they were bound, had resigned his position as aide-de-camp, and remained behind in order to bring away the Cameron guard, who would presently march out of Edinburgh with colours flying and the pipes playing.

      But here there was no martial display, only a knowledge that this, and not the farewell at Ardroy in August, was the real parting. Ewen was setting off to-day for something much more portentous than a mere rendezvous—armed invasion. Yet some unspoken instinct made them both try to be very matter-of-fact, especially Alison.

      “Here is a sprig of oak for your bonnet, Ewen—you’ll be wearing your clan badge now, I’m thinking. I picked it yesterday.” And she fastened beside the eagle’s feathers a little bunch of sere leaves. “And see, I have made you a new cockade . . . I doubt you’ll get your clothes mended properly. England’s a dour place, I’m sure. Oh, I wish you were not crossing the Border!”

      “Nothing venture, nothing win,” replied Ewen tritely, looking down at his bonnet, about which her fingers were busy. “I doubt, for my part, that those oakleaves will bide long on their stalks, Alison, but you may be sure I’ll wear them as long as they do. And the cockade—’tis a very fine one, my dear—I’ll bring back to you somehow. Or maybe you’ll get your first sight of it again in London!”

      “I wonder will you meet Captain Windham anywhere in England?” said Alison.

      “How that fellow runs in your head, my darling! I vow I shall soon be jealous of him. And I marching away and leaving him here in the Castle—for I suppose he is there still. Make him my compliments if you should meet him before setting out for Ardroy,” said Ewen, smiling. For to Ardroy were his betrothed and her father retiring in a day or two.

      “Ewen,” said the girl seriously, taking him by the swordbelt that crossed his breast, “will you not tell me something? Was there ever a danger that, from the injury Captain Windham did you, you might never have had the full use of your hand again?”

      “Why, what put that notion into your head?”

      “A word you let fall once, and an expression on Dr. Cameron’s face one day when I mentioned the hurt to him.”

      “For a day or two Archie did think it might be so,” conceded her lover rather unwillingly. “And I feared it myself for longer than that, and was in a fine fright about it, as you may imagine.—But, Alison,” he added quickly, as, exclaiming, “Oh, my poor darling!” she laid her head against him, “you are not to cast that up against Captain Windham. It was I that took hold of his blade, as I told you, and I am sure that he never meant——”

      “No, no,” cried Alison, lifting her head, “you mistake me. No, I am glad of what you tell me, because that hurt he did you is perhaps the fulfilment of the ‘bitter grief’ which Angus said that he should cause you . . . only happily it is averted,” she added, taking his right hand and looking earnestly at the two red, puckered seams across palm and fingers. “For that would have caused you bitter grief, Ewen, my darling.” She covered the scars with her own soft little hands, held the captive hand to her breast, and went on, eagerly pursuing her exegesis. “Indeed, if for a time you believed that you would be disabled always—how dare you have kept that from me?—he has already caused you great grief . . . and so, that part is over, and now he will only do you a service!”

      But Ewen, СКАЧАТЬ