Читать книгу The Greatest Historical Novels & Stories of D. K. Broster - D. K. Broster - Страница 74

When Seumas returned to his potato-peeling, his master, on the other side of the door, was already resuming his correspondence. But not the letter to Secretary Edgar which he had shown to Hector. From a locked drawer he extracted another sheet of paper, headed simply ‘Information’, and underneath the few lines already there he wrote:

“Pickle has this day spoken with one from the Highlands who says that Doctor Cameron and MacPhair of Lochdornie were certainly there at the end of September, and Doctor Cameron was then come into Lochaber, by which it may be seen that the information sent by Pickle in November last was very exact. But where the Doctor then went the informant did not know. It would not dow for Pickle to goe himself into those parts, for the Doctor distrusts him, hee knowing too much about the Doctor, and besids the risque is too great, Pickle being of such consequence there; but if hee had more mony at his disposal he cou’d employ it very well in finding a person who would goe, and undertakes hee’d find out more in a day than any government trusty in a week, or souldier in a moneth; or Pickle would be apt to corespond with persons not suspected by the disaffected, who cou’d be on the Watch for these men, if it were made worth their while. But Pickle’s jants have already cost him a deal of mony, and hee has never receaved more than his bare exspences, and is at this moment in debte to severall persons in this town, in spite of the great promasis made to him, and the great services he hath already performed, both in regard to afairs in the Highlands, and among the Pretender’s party in England. If something be not paid imediatly Pickle is not dispos’d to——”

He broke off, hastily covering the paper. “Damn you, Seumas, what do you want?”

The gillie might have entered upon a stage cue. “If I am to buy flesh for dinner——” he began timidly in his native tongue.

His master sprang up in wrath. “Do you tell me that you have spent all I gave you? Death without a priest to you! Here, take this, and see you make it last longer!”

Pulling a small handful of silver out of his breeches pocket, he flung a few coins towards him, and as Seumas meekly stooped to pick them up from the floor, sat down again and counted over the rest, his brow darkening.

He really was poor—still. Yet, for all his pretence to Hector, no one stood in less danger than he of being again confined by the English Government, and well he knew it. But though that Government left him at large to continue his services it paid them chiefly in promises; and it is galling to have sold your soul, to betray your kin, your comrades, and, as far as in you lies, your Prince, and to get so few of the thirty pieces in return. Perhaps the paymasters thought but poorly of what they obtained from the informer.

Did the letter-writer himself suspect that, as he sat there now, his chin on his hand, and that scowl darkening his face? It did not seem likely, for no services that Finlay MacPhair of Glenshian could render, however base, would ever appear to him other than great and valuable. Behind those strange light eyes was no place for remorse or shame; the almost crazy vanity which dwelt there left them no entrance to his spirit.