Читать книгу The Greatest Historical Novels & Stories of D. K. Broster - D. K. Broster - Страница 51

The old house of Ardroy stood some quarter of a mile from the loch, rather strangely turning its back upon it, but, since it thus looked south, capturing the sun for a good part of the day, even in midwinter. Comfortable and unpretentious, it had already seen some hundred and thirty autumns, had sometimes rung with youthful voices, and sometimes lacked them. Now once again it had a nursery, where at this moment, by a fire of peat and logs, a rosy-cheeked Highland girl was making preparations for washing two small persons who, after scrambling about all afternoon in the heather and bracken, would probably stand in need of soap and water.

And presently their mother came through the open door, dark-haired like her younger son, slight, oval-faced, almost a girl still, for she was but in her late twenties, and combining a kind of effortless dignity with a girlish sweetness of expression.

“Are the children not home yet, Morag?” she asked, using the Gaelic, and Morag answered her lady that surely they would not be long now, and it might be that the laird himself was bringing them, for he had gone up past the place where they were playing.

“Ah, there they are,” said Lady Ardroy, for she had heard her husband’s step in the hall, and as she left the room his soft Highland voice floated up to her, even softer than its wont, for it seemed to be comforting someone. She looked over the stairs and gave an exclamation. Ardroy was dripping wet, all save his head, and in his arms, clinging to him with an occasional sob, was a pitiful little object with dark hair streaked over its face.

Ewen looked up at the same moment and saw her. “All is well, dear heart,” he said quickly. “Keithie has had a wee mishap, but here he is, safe and sound.”

He ran up the stairs and put the small wet thing, wrapped in Donald’s coat, into its mother’s arms. “Yes—the loch . . . he fell in. No harm, I think; only frightened. Luath got to him first; I was on the island.”

Alison gave a gasp. She had seized her youngest almost as if she were rescuing him from the rescuer, and was covering the damp, forlorn little face with kisses. “Darling, darling, you are safe with mother now! . . . He must be put into a hot bath at once!” She ran with him into the nursery. “Is the water heated, Morag?”

Ardroy, wet and gigantic, followed her in, and behind came the mute and coatless Donald, who stood a moment looking at the bustle, and then went and seated himself, very silent, on the window-seat. Close to the fire his mother was getting the little sodden garments off Keith, Morag was pouring out the hot water, his father, who could be of no use here, was contributing a damp patch to the nursery floor. But Keithie had ceased to cry now, and as he was put into the bath he even patted the water and raised a tiny splash.

And then, after he was immersed, he said to his mother, raising those irresistible velvety eyes, “Naughty Donald, to putch Keithie into the water!”

“Oh, my darling, my peeriewinkie, you must not say things like that!” exclaimed Alison, rather shocked. “There, we’ll forget all about falling in; you are safe home now. Towel, Morag!”

“Donald putched Keithie into the water,” repeated the little naked boy from the folds of the towel. And again, with deeper reprobation in his tone, “Naughty Donald!”

Ardroy, anxiously and helplessly watching these operations, knelt down on one knee beside his wife and son and said gently, “Donald should not have gone near the loch; that was naughty of him, but you must not tell a lie about it, Keithie!”

“Did putch My in!” reiterated the child, now wrapped in a warm blanket, and looking not unlike a chrysalis. “Did—did!”

“Yes, I did,” said a sudden voice from behind. “It’s not a lie—I did push him in.” And with that Donald advanced from the window.

His kneeling father turned so suddenly that he almost overbalanced. “You—you pushed your little brother into Loch na h-Iolaire!” he repeated, in a tone of utter incredulity, while Alison clutched the chrysalis to her, looking like a mother in a picture of the massacre of the innocents. “You pushed him in—deliberately!” repeated Ardroy once more, getting to his feet.

The child faced him, fearless but not defiant, his golden head erect, his hands clenched at his sides.

“He threw my broadsword hilt in. It was wicked of him—wicked!” The voice shook a moment. “But he is not telling a lie.”

For a second Ewen gazed, horrified, at his wife, then at his heir. “I think you had better go downstairs to my room, Donald. When I have changed my clothes I will come and talk to you there.—You’ll be getting Keithie to bed as soon as possible, I suppose, mo chridhe?”

“Donald . . . Donald!” murmured his mother, looking at the culprit with all the sorrow and surprise of the world in her eyes.

“Naughty Donald,” chanted his brother with a flushed face. “Naughty . . . naughty . . . naughty!”

“A great deal more than naughty,” thought the young father to himself, as he went to his bedroom and stripped off his wet clothes. “Good God, how came he to do such a thing?”

In the hall Luath, wet too, rose and poked a cold nose into his hand. “Yes,” said his master, “you did your duty, good dog . . . but my boy—how could he have acted so!”

He put that question squarely to the delinquent, who was waiting for him in the little room where Ardroy kept his books and rods and saw his tenantry. Donald’s blue eyes met his frankly.

“I suppose because I was angry with Keithie for being so wicked,” he replied.

Ewen sat down, and, afraid lest his horror and surprise should make him too stern, drew the child towards him. “But, surely, Donald, you are sorry and ashamed now? Think what might have happened!”

The fair head drooped a little—but not, evidently, in penitence. “I am not sorry, Father, that I threw him in. He was wicked; he took my claymore hilt that was used at Culloden and threw it in. So it was right that he should be punished.”

“Great heavens!” exclaimed his parent, loosing his hold of him at this pronouncement, “don’t you think that your little brother is of more importance than a bit of an old broadsword?”

To which Donald made the devastating reply: “No, Father, for I don’t suppose that I can ever have the hilt again, because the loch is so deep there. But some day I may have another brother; Morag said so.”

Words were smitten from the laird of Ardroy, and for a moment he gazed speechless at this example of infantile logic. “Donald,” he said at last, “I begin to think you’re a wee thing fey. Go to bed now; I’ll speak to you again in the morning.”

“If you are going to punish me, Father,” said the boy, standing up very straight, and looking up at him with his clear, undaunted eyes, “I would liefer you did it now.”

“I am afraid that you cannot have everything you wish, my son,” replied Ardroy rather grimly. “Go to your bed now, and pray to God to show you how wicked you have been. I had rather you felt that than thought about getting your punishment over quickly. Indeed, if the sight of your little brother all but drowning through your act was not punishment. . . .” He stopped, for he remembered that Donald had at least screamed for help.

But the executor of vengeance stuck to his guns. “It was Keithie who deserved punishment,” he murmured, but not very steadily.

“The child’s bewitched!” said Ewen to himself, staring at him. Then he put a hand on his shoulder. “Come now,” he said in a softer tone, “get you to bed, and think of what you would be feeling like now if Keithie had been drowned, as he certainly would have been had I not happened to be on the island, for Luath could not have scrambled right out with him. . . . And you see what disobedience leads to, for if you had not taken Keithie to the loch he could not have thrown your hilt into it.”

This argument appeared to impress the logical mind of his son. “Yes, Father,” he said in a more subdued tone. “Yes, I am sorry that I was disobedient.”

And, though Ardroy at once divined a not very satisfactory reason for this admission, he wisely did not probe into it. “Go to bed now.”

“Am I to have any supper?”

“Supper’s of small account,” replied Ewen rather absently, gazing at the golden-haired criminal. “Yes . . . I mean No—no supper.”

On that point at least he was able to come to a decision. And Donald seemed satisfied with its justice. He left the room gravely, without saying good-night.

* * * * *

Later, bending with Alison over the little bed where Donald’s victim was already nearly asleep, Ewen repeated his opinion that their elder son was fey. “And what are we to do with him? He seems to think that he was completely justified in what he did! ’Tis . . . ’tis unnatural!”

And he looked so perturbed that his wife smothered her own no less acute feelings on the subject and said consolingly, “He must at least have done it in a blind rage, dear love.”

“I hope so, indeed. But he is so uncannily calm and judicial over it now. I don’t know what to do. Ought I to thrash him?”

“You could not,” murmured Lady Ardroy. Like many large,strong men, Ewen Cameron was extraordinarily gentle with creatures that were neither. “No, I will try whether I cannot make Donald see what a dreadful thing he did. Oh, Ewen, if you had not been there. . . .” Her lips trembled, and going down on her knees she laid her head against the little mound under the bedclothes.

Keithie half woke up and bestowed a sleepy smile upon her. In common with his impenitent brother he seemed to have recovered from his fright; it was the parents of both in whose cup the dregs of the adventure were left, very disturbing to the palate.