The Dark Mile (Historical Novel). D. K. Broster

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      CHAPTER II

       ON HIS VERY HEARTHSTONE

       Table of Contents

      June 17th.

      “Eh, Alison, my lass, she’s going to be a beauty!” declared Miss Margaret Cameron, indicating a red and puckered object in which only the eye of faith or of close kinship could discern any such promise. Both these requirements, however, were fulfilled by the keen gaze of Miss Cameron, the infant’s great-aunt, who had brought up Ewen Cameron himself from a child.

      “You really think so?” asked Alison Cameron as, propped up in bed, she stooped her pretty becapped head with a smile over the sleeping baby in the crook of her arm. “I am afraid that Donald and Keithie may not be of that opinion when they return to-morrow. It was to-morrow that Ewen said, was it not, Aunt Marget?”

      “To-morrow it was, my dear. Now, shall I open your window a wee, since ’tis such a fine afternoon?” Erect, silver-haired and comely, she went to the window for that purpose, and gave an exclamation. “Preserve us, there’s about half a score of gillies or what not down below there! Now, might they but wear the tartan again, one could tell whose they were.”

      She continued to look out, uttering various surmises as to the identity of the invaders, until bent old Marsali, who had the entrée, came into the bedchamber.

      “There’s a gentleman below asking for Mac ’ic Ailein, and he from home,” she announced in the Gaelic and unemotionally.

      “A gentleman? Who is it?” inquired Miss Cameron with interest.

      “By what he says, it will be MacPhair of Glenshian.”

      Alison uttered a little exclamation, and her arm tightened round Miss Cameron the younger.

      “Glenshian!” exclaimed the elder lady. “And what’s Glenshian wanting here?”

      “He’s wanting the laird on an affair of business,” replied the old woman. “Then he asked could he see Lady Ardroy.”

      “The idea!” exclaimed Miss Cameron. “I will come down, Marsali, and find out what he desires. Am I sufficiently à la mode, think you, Alison? This is the first time the present Glenshian has set foot in this house, and I must not disgrace its master.”

      Alison beckoned her to the bed. “Aunt Margaret,” she said in a rather troubled voice, “I do not know how much you know, but Ewen and Glenshian are . . . not good friends. I wonder what has brought him?”

      “Not good friends? Since when?—Aye, I have fancied something of the sort. Then ’tis as well that Ewen is away,” deduced Miss Cameron briskly. “Glenshian can’t but be polite to an old woman, and he a young man too.”

      “But you say he has brought a number of gillies with him!”

      “Isn’t he but nine months or so Chief, and likes to swagger about with his tail on? Never fash yourself for that, Alison, my doo,” replied Aunt Margaret, and, after setting her cap carefully to rights at the mirror, she left the bedchamber.

      As she entered the big living-room below, a tall, red-haired young man turned round from his contemplation either of the antlers over the hearth or, possibly, of the worn escutcheon on the stone, where the motto Fideliter could more clearly be read than the half defaced bearings of the shield. For a second or two he stared at the elderly lady as if surprised; then he bowed politely in response to her rustling curtsey.

      “Good day to you, sir,” said Aunt Margaret pleasantly. “My nephew Ardroy is from home, as I expect you’ll have been told already, and his wife lies upstairs with a newborn bairn, so the task of welcoming you here falls upon me. I am Miss Cameron. Will you not be seated?”

      “When you are, madam,” replied the Chief of Glenshian politely, and waited until Miss Cameron had disposed herself. Then he sat down at no great distance and looked at her, drawing his light eyebrows together in a contraction that was half puzzled, half annoyed.

      “Ardroy will be sorry to miss you,” observed Miss Cameron after a moment. “We do not expect him back before the morrow.”

      “Aye, that makes my errand the more awkward,” responded the visitor, fingering his chin.

      “Perhaps your errand can wait, sir?” suggested Aunt Margaret. “Though I would not wish to give you the trouble of bringing yourself and your tail”—she gave a glance through the window—“these many miles again. Can I not give my nephew a message?”

      Finlay MacPhair shook his head. “My business is not an agreeable one for a gentleman to come upon to another gentleman,” he remarked.

      “Then perhaps,” suggested Miss Cameron, quite unperturbed, “you’ll find it easier to transact with a lady?”

      “Not at all,” said the new Chief, frowning. “Not at all. ’Tis no matter for a woman.”

      “Improper, do you mean?” queried his hostess. “I am old, Glenshian—nearly sixty-five. You may risk scandalising me.”

      Mr. MacPhair gave an impatient movement. “Has Ardroy no factor with whom I could deal?” he demanded.

      “I’m all the factor he’s ever had in the past,” replied Aunt Margaret with perfect truth. “He’s his own grieve now. See now, if it’s some matter of affairs, I’m sure he’ll be pleased to wait upon you at Invershian when he returns from Appin.”

      The young man’s lip curled in a sarcastic smile. “I doubt it, madam. And that would not serve, neither; the business cannot be transacted anywhere but here.”

      “Then you’ll e’en have to put yourself to the trouble of coming again, sir, or stay until Ardroy returns. This house is at your disposal.”

      “That’s out of the question,” said the visitor rather rudely. “I must then do what I have come for in Ardroy’s absence.”

      The very tiniest stiffening was apparent in Miss Cameron’s upright figure as she sat there. “If you will kindly enlighten me as to what you propose, sir, we will see about that,” quoth she.

      “Madam,” returned Mr. MacPhair with emphasis, “I will enlighten you. You have lived in the Highlands, I daresay, for——”

      “For well over half a century,” filled in Miss Cameron.

      “And you will not be a stranger to the fact that Lochaber has always been noted for cattle-lifting.”

      “Aye, nearly as noted as Glenshian,” agreed the lady, smiling.

      The Chief of that region could not have relished the quite justified retort, but he could affect not to show that he felt it. “All that,” he pursued, “is supposed—supposed—to be old history now, but . . . I’m wanting two of my best steers this week past, and I have but just come upon proof of where they went to. I regret to have to say it, madam . . . but you’ll find them amongst Ardroy’s СКАЧАТЬ