Читать книгу The Gleam in the North - D. K. Broster - Страница 11

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Alison retired early that evening, to keep an eye upon her youngest born after his immersion. But Ardroy did not go to bed at his usual hour; indeed, he remained far beyond it, and half-past eleven found him pacing up and down the big living-room, his hands behind his back. Now and again, as he turned in his perambulation, there was to be seen the merest trace of his memento of Culloden, the limp which, when he was really tired, was clearly to be recognised for one.

Deeply shocked at this fratricidal tendency in his eldest son, and puzzled how best to deal with it, the young man could not get his mind off the incident. When he looked at Luath, lying on the deerskin in front of the hearth, nose on paws and eyes following his every movement, he felt almost ashamed that the dog should have witnessed the crime which made Donald, at his early age, a potential Cain!

At last, in desperation, he went to his own sanctum, seized an account book and bore it back to the fireside. Anything to take his mind off this afternoon’s affair, were it only the ever-recurring difficulty of making income and expenditure tally. For Ewen had never received—had never wished to receive—a single louis of the French gold buried at Loch Arkaig, though it had been conveyed into Cameron territory by a Cameron, and though another Cameron, together with the proscribed chief of the Macphersons (still in hiding in Badenoch), was agent for its clandestine distribution among the Jacobite clans. Ardroy had told Doctor Archibald Cameron, Lochiel’s brother, and his own cousin and intimate, who had been the hero of its transportation and interment, that he did not need any subsidy; and John Cameron of Fassefern, the other brother, representative in the Highlands of the dead Chief’s family now in France, was only too relieved not to have another applicant clamouring for a dole from that fast dwindling hoard.

And Ardroy himself was glad of his abstention, for by this autumn of 1752 it was becoming clear that the money landed from the French ships just after the battle of Culloden, too late to be of any use in the campaign, had now succeeded in setting clan against clan and kinsman against kinsman, in raising jealousies and even—for there were ugly rumours abroad—in breeding informers. Yes, it was dragon’s teeth, after all, which Archibald Cameron had with such devotion sowed on Loch Arkaig side—seed which had sprung up, not in the guise of armed men to fight for the Stuarts, but in that of a crop of deadly poison. Even Ewen did not suspect how deadly.

In the midst of the young laird’s rather absent-minded calculations Luath suddenly raised his head and growled. Ardroy laid down his papers and listened, but he could hear nothing. The deerhound growled again, on a deep, threatening note, and rose, the hair along his neck stiffening. His eyes were fixed on the windows.

“Quiet!” said his master, and, rising also, went to one, drew aside the curtains, and looked out. He could see nothing, and yet he, too, felt that someone was there. With Luath, still growling, at his heels, he left the room, opened the door of the house, and going through the porch, stood outside.

The cool, spacious calm of the Highland night enveloped him in an instant; he saw Aldebaran brilliant in the south-east between two dark continents of cloud. Then footsteps came out of the shadows, and a slim, cloaked figure slipped quickly past him into the porch.

“Est-il permis d’entrer, mon cher?” it asked, low and half laughing. “Down, Luath—it’s a friend, good dog!”

“Who is it?” had been surprised out of Ewen in the same moment, as he turned.

“Sure, you know that!” said the voice. “But shut your door, Ardroy!”

The intruder was in the parlour now, in the lamplight, and as Ewen hastened after him he flung his hat upon the table, and advanced with both hands outstretched, a dark, slender, clear-featured young man of about five and twenty, wearing powder and a long green roquelaure.

“Hector, by all the powers!” exclaimed his involuntary host. “What——”

“What brings me here? I’ll tell you in a moment. How does Alison, and yourself, and the bairns? Faith, I’ll hardly be knowing those last again, I expect.”

“Alison is very well,” replied Ewen to Alison’s only brother. “We are all well, thank God. And Alison will be vastly pleased to see you, as I am. But why this unannounced visit, my dear Hector—and why, if I may ask, this mysterious entrance by night? ’Tis mere chance that I am not abed like the rest of the house.”

“I had my reasons,” said Hector Grant cheerfully. “Nay, I’m no deserter” (he was an officer in French service) “but I thought it wiser to slip in unnoticed if I could. I’ll tell you why anon, when I am less—you’ll pardon me for mentioning it?—less sharp-set.”

“My sorrow!” exclaimed his host. “Forgive me—I’ll have food before you in a moment. Sit down, Eachainn, and I will tell Alison of your arrival.”

Hector caught at him. “Don’t rouse her now. The morn will be time enough, and I’m wanting a few words with you first.” He threw off his roquelaure. “May I not come and forage with you, as we did—where was it . . . at Manchester, I think—in the ’45.”

“Come on then,” said his brother-in-law, a hand on his shoulder, and they each lit a candle and went, rather like schoolboys, to rifle the larder. And presently Ardroy was sitting at the table watching his midnight visitor give a very good account of a venison pie. This slim, vivacious, distinctly attractive young man might almost have passed for a Frenchman, and indeed his long residence in France had given him not a few Gallic tricks of gesture and expression. For Hector Grant had lived abroad since he entered French service at the age of sixteen—and before that too; only during the fateful year of the Rising had he spent any length of time in Britain. It was, indeed, his French commission which had saved him from the scaffold, for he had been one of the ill-fated garrison of Carlisle.

“Venison—ah, good to be back where one can have a shot at a deer again!” he presently observed with his mouth full. “I envy you, mon frère.”

“You need not,” answered Ewen. “You forget that I cannot have a shot at one; I have no means of doing it—no firearms, no, not the smallest fowling-piece. We have to snare our deer or use dogs.”

“C’est vrai; I had forgotten. But I cannot think how you submit to such a deprivation.”

“Submit?” asked Ardroy rather bitterly. “There is no choice: every Highland gentleman of our party has to submit to it, unless he has ‘qualified’ to the English Government.”

“And you still have not done that?”

Ewen flushed. “My dear Hector, how should I take an oath of fidelity to the Elector of Hanover? Do you think I’m become a Whig?”

“Faith, no—unless you’ve mightily changed since we marched into England together, seven years ago come Hallowmas. But, Eoghain, besides the arms which you have been forced to give up, there’ll surely be some which you have contrived to keep back, as has always been done in the past when these distasteful measures were imposed upon us?”

Ewen’s face darkened. “The English were cleverer this time. After the Act of ’25 no one was made to call down a curse upon himself, his kin and all his undertakings, to invoke the death of a coward and burial without a prayer in a strange land if he broke his oath that he had not, and never would have in his possession, any sword or pistol or arm whatsoever, nor would use any part of the Highland garb.”

Hector whistled. “Ma foi, you subscribed to that!”

“I had to,” answered Ewen shortly.

“I never realised that when I was here two years ago, but then my visit was so short. I did indeed know that the wearing of the tartan in any form was forbidden.”

“That,” observed Ardroy, “bears harder in a way upon the poor folk than upon us gentry. I had other clothes, if not, I could buy some; but the crofters, what else had they but their homespun plaids and philabegs and gowns? Is it any wonder that they resorted at first to all sorts of shifts and evasions of the law, and do still, wearing a piece of plain cloth merely wrapped round the waist, sewing up the kilt in the hope that it may pass for breeches, and the like?”

“But that is not the only side to it,” said the young Franco-Scot rather impatiently. “You are eloquent on the money hardship inflicted on the country folk, but surely you do not yourself relish being deprived by an enemy of the garb which has always marked us as a race?”

He was young, impetuous, not remarkable for tact, and his brother-in-law had turned his head away without reply, so that Hector Grant could not see the gleam which had come into those very blue eyes of his, nor guess the passionate resentment which was always smouldering in Ardroy’s heart over a measure which, in common with the poorest Highlander, he loathed with every fibre of his being, and which he would long ago have disobeyed but for the suffering which the consequences to him would have brought upon his wife and children.

“I should have thought——” young Grant was going on, when Ewen broke in, turning round and reaching for the claret, “Have some more wine, Hector. Now, am I really not to wake Alison to tell her that you are here?”

Hector finished his glass. “No, let her sleep, the darling! I’ll have plenty of time to talk with her—that is, if you will keep me a few days, Ardroy?”

“My dear brother, why ask? My house is yours,” said Ewen warmly.

Hector made a little gesture of thanks. “I’ll engage not to wear the tartan,” he said smiling, “nor my uniform, in case the English redcoats should mislike it.”

“That is kind of you. And, as I guess, you could not, having neither with you” (“A moi,” said Hector to this, like a fencer acknowledging a hit). “I’ll see about a bed for you now. There is one always ready for a guest, I believe.”

Again the young officer stayed him. “ ’Tis not much past midnight yet. And I want a word with you, Ewen, a serious word. I’d liefer indeed say it before I sleep under your roof, I think . . . more especially since (for your family’s sake) you have become . . . prudent.”

Ardroy’s face clouded a little. He hated the very name of ‘prudence’, and the thing too; but it was true that he had to exercise it. “Say on,” he responded rather briefly.

“Eh bien,” began Hector, his eyes on the empty wine-glass which he was twirling in his fingers, “although it is quite true that I am come hither to see my sister and her children, there is someone else whom I am very anxious to have speech with.”

“And who’s that?” asked Ewen a trifle uneasily. “You are not come, I hope, on any business connected with the Loch Arkaig treasure? ’Tis not Cluny Macpherson whom you wish to see?”

Hector looked at him and smiled. “I hope to see Cluny later—though not about the treasure. Just now it’s a man much easier to come at, a man in Lochaber, that I’m seeking—yourself, in short.”

Ewen raised his eyebrows. “You have not far to go, then.”

“I am not so sure of that,” responded young Grant cryptically. He paused a moment. “Ewen, have you ever heard of Alexander Murray?”

“The brother of Lord Murray of Elibank do you mean? Yes. What of him?”

“And Finlay MacPhair of Glenshian—young Glenshian—did you ever meet him in Paris?”

“No, I have never met him.”

“N’importe. Now listen, and I will tell you a great secret.”

He drew closer, and into Ardroy’s ears he poured the somewhat vague but (to Ewen) alarming details of a plot to surprise St. James’s Palace and kidnap the whole English Royal Family, by means, chiefly, of young officers like himself in the French service, aided by Highlanders, of whom five hundred, he alleged, could be raised in London. The German Elector, his remaining son and his grandsons once out of the way, England would acquiesce with joy in the fait accompli, and welcome her true Prince, who was to be ready on the coast. The Highlands, of course, must be prepared to rise, and quickly, for Hector believed that an early date in November had been fixed for the attempt. The Scots whom he had just mentioned were in the plot; the Earl Marischal knew of it. And Hector himself, having already resolved to spend his leave in visiting his sister, had also, it was evident, conceived the idea of offering Ardroy a share in the enterprise, apparently hoping to induce him to go to London and enrol himself among the putative five hundred Highlanders.

“But, before we discuss that,” he finished, “tell me what you think of the whole notion of this coup de main? Is it not excellent, and just what we ought to have carried out long ago, had we been wise?” And he leant back with a satisfied air as if he had no fear of the reply.

But there was no answering light on the clear, strong face opposite him. Cameron of Ardroy was looking very grave.

“You want to know what I think?” he asked slowly. “Well, first I think that the scheme is mad, and could not succeed; and secondly, that it is unworthy, and does not deserve to.”

Hector sat up in his chair. “Hé! qu’est-ce que tu me chantes là?” he cried with a frown. “Say that again!”

Ewen did not comply; instead he went on very earnestly: “You surely do not hold with assassination, Hector! But no doubt you do not see the affair in that light . . . you spoke of kidnapping, I think. O, for Heaven’s sake, have nothing to do with a plot of that kind, which the Prince would never soil his hands with!”

“You are become very squeamish on a sudden,” observed his visitor, surveying him with an air at once crestfallen and deeply resentful. “And somewhat behind the times, too, since you retired to these parts. The Prince not only knows but approves of the plan.”

His brother-in-law’s face expressed complete scepticism. “I think your enthusiasm misleads you, Hector. His Royal Highness has always refused to countenance schemes of the kind.”

“You are a trifle out of date, as I was forced to observe to you, my dear Ewen! I suppose His Royal Highness may change his mind. And, after all, it is five years or so since you have been able to know anything of his opinions. As it happens, it is in connection with this enterprise that he is sending MacPhair of Lochdornie and Doctor Cameron to Scotland. They are to work the clans meanwhile, so that when the blow is struck in London by those responsible——”

But by now Ewen was interrupting him. “Archie—Archie Cameron is connected with this plot! I’m sorry to appear to doubt you, Hector, but—since at this point we had best be frank—I don’t believe it.”

Hector’s lips were compressed, his eyes glinting. He seemed to be making an effort to keep his temper. “He’ll tell you differently, parbleu, when you meet him!”

“When I meet him! He’s not in Scotland.”

“He is, by this time! And I suppose, since he’s your cousin, and you have always been intimate with him, that he’ll come here, and mayhap you will accord him a more courteous welcome than you have me!” He pushed back his chair and got up.

Ewen did the same. “I ask your pardon if I was uncivil,” he said with some stiffness. “But I cannot be courteous over a scheme so ill-judged and so repugnant. Moreover Archibald Cameron will not come here. When he was over in ’49 on the business of the Loch Arkaig gold he purposely kept away from Ardroy.”

“Purposely? Why?—Oh, ay, lest he should compromise you, I suppose!”

“Something of the sort,” answered Ewen without flinching.

“Yes, that’s your chief preoccupation now, I see!” flared out Hector, hot as ginger. “It were much better I had not come here either, but I’ll go at once, lest I should commit that unpardonable sin!”

“Hector, Hector, do not be so hasty!” cried Ewen, angry enough himself, but still able to control his tongue. “You asked me what I thought—I told you. Give me your cloak; sit down again! Let’s leave this business till the morning, and we’ll talk of it again then.”

“No, indeed we will not!” retorted the young plotter defiantly. “I’ll find some other roof to shelter me to-night—some humbler dwelling where the White Rose is still cherished. It grows no longer at Ardroy—I see that very plainly.” He flung the cloak round him with a swing. “I’ll bid you good-night, monsieur mon beau-frère!”

Ewen had put his hands behind him; one was gripping the wrist of the other. He had turned a little pale. “You can say what you please to me in this house,” he answered between his teeth, “for you know that I cannot touch you. But if you still feel minded to repeat that about the White Rose to me to-morrow, somewhere off my land——”

“The White Rose,” broke in a gentle voice from the doorway. “Who is speaking of—— O Hector!”

It was Lady Ardroy, in her nightshift with a shawl about her. Both men stood looking at her and wondering how much she had heard.

“Hector, dear brother, what a surprise!” She ran across the big room to him. “Have you but just arrived? Take off your cloak—how delightful is this!” With the words she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him warmly.

But there must have been something amiss in her brother’s answering salute, as in her husband’s silence. “What is troubling you?” she asked, looking from one to the other, her hand still on Hector’s shoulder. “Is anything wrong? Is there . . . ill news?”

Neither of the men answered her for a moment. “Ewen considers it ill,” said Hector at last, curtly. “But it does not touch him—nor you, my dear. So I’ll say good-night; I must be going on my way.”

“Going on your way—to-night!” There was almost stupefaction in his sister’s tone. “But ’tis long past midnight; you cannot go, Hector—and where are you bound at such an hour? Ewen, make him bide here!”

“Hector must please himself,” replied her husband coldly. “But naturally I have no desire that he should continue his journey before morning.”

Alison gazed at him in dismay. Highland hospitality—and to a kinsman—offered in so half-hearted a fashion! “Surely you have not been . . . differing about anything?” (They had always been such good friends in the past.)

Again neither of them answered her at once, but they both looked a trifle like children detected in wrong-doing. “You had better go back to bed, my heart,” said Ewen gently. “Did you come down because you heard voices?”

“I came,” said Alison, her eyes suddenly clouding, “because of Keithie—I don’t know, but I fear he may be going to be ill.”

“You see, I had best go,” said her brother instantly, in a softer tone. “If you have a child ill——”

“But that is neither here nor there,” replied Alison. “O Hector, stay, stay!”

Of course the young soldier wanted to stay. But having announced in so fiery a manner that he was going, and having undeniably insulted the master of the house, how could he with dignity remain unless that master begged him to? And that Ardroy, evidently, was not minded to do.

“If Hector wishes to please you, Alison, he will no doubt bide here the night,” was all the olive-branch that he tendered. “But I gather that he fears he will compromise us by his presence. If you can persuade him that his fear is groundless, pray do so.”

“No,” said Hector, not to Ewen but to Alison. “No, best have no more words about it. It were wiser I did not sleep here to-night. I’ll come on my return . . . or perhaps to-morrow,” he added, melted by his sister’s appealing face. “I’ll find a shelter, never fear. But things have changed somewhat of late in the Highlands.”

With which mysterious words he kissed Alison again, flung his cloak once more about him, and made for the door. Lady Ardroy followed him a little way, distressed and puzzled, then stopped; half her heart, no doubt, was upstairs. But Ewen left the room after the young officer, and found him already opening the front door.

“Do me the justice to admit that I am not turning you out,” said Ardroy rather sternly. “It is your own doing; the house is open to you to-night . . . and for as long afterwards as you wish, if you apologise——”

“I’ll return when you apologise for calling me an assassin!” retorted Hector over his shoulder.

“You know I never called you so! Hector, I hate your going off in anger in this fashion, at dead of night—and how am I to know that you will not stumble into some ill affair or other with the redcoats or with broken men?”

Hector gave an unsteady laugh. “If I do, you may be sure I shall not risk ‘compromising’ you by asking for your assistance! Sleep quietly!” And, loosing that last arrow, he was lost in the darkness out of which he had come.

Ardroy stood on the edge of that darkness for a moment, swallowing down the anger which fought with his concern, for he had himself a temper as hot as Hector’s own, though it was more difficult to rouse. Hector’s last thrust was childish, but his previous stab about the White Rose had gone deep; did not Ewen himself sometimes lie awake at night contrasting past and present? . . . Yet he knew well that the root of that flower was not dead at Ardroy, though scarce a blossom might show on it. It was not dead, else one had not so felt at every turn of daily life both the ghost of its wistful fragrance and the sting of its perennial thorns.

He went back with bent head, to find Alison saying in great distress, “O dearest, what has happened between you and Hector? And Keithie is feverish; I am so afraid lest the cold water and the exposure . . . for you know he’s not very strong . . .”

Ewen put his arm round her. “Please God ’tis only a fever of cold he’s taken. . . . As for Hector—yes, I will tell you about it. He’ll think better of it, I dare say, foolish boy, in the morning.” He put out the lights on the improvised supper-table; they went upstairs, and soon there was no sound in the dark room but an occasional sigh from the deerhound stretched out in front of the dying fire.