Читать книгу D. K. Broster Collection - D. K. Broster - Страница 65

It is undoubtedly easier to invite durance than to get free of it again. So Ewen found after his interview next day with old Lieutenant-Governor Leighton, now in command at Fort William, who was rather querulous, declaring with an injured air that, from what he had been told about Mr. Cameron of Ardroy, he should not have expected such conduct from him. “However,” he finished pessimistically, “disloyalty that is bred in the bone will always out, I suppose; and once a Cameron always a Cameron.”

Since Ewen’s captor and accuser, Captain Jackson, was still absent, the brief interview produced little of value either to Colonel Leighton or himself, and Ardroy spent a good deal of that Sunday pacing round and round his bare though by no means uncomfortable place of confinement, wishing fervently that he knew whether Archie had got away in safety. Never, never, if any ill befell him, would he forgive himself for having brought him to the house. The next day Colonel Leighton had him in for examination again, chiefly in order to confront him with Captain Jackson, now returned empty-handed from his raid, and it was Ewen’s late visitor who took the more prominent part in the proceedings, either questioning the prisoner himself or prompting his elderly superior in a quite obvious manner. The reason for this procedure Ewen guessed to lie in the fact that Leighton was a newcomer at Fort William, having succeeded only a few months ago the astute Colonel Crauford, an adept at dealing with Highland difficulties, and one on whom Captain Jackson seemed to be desirous of modelling himself, if not his Colonel.

Ewen steadily denied having had any doubtful person in his house, ‘Mr. Sinclair,’ whose presence he could not entirely explain away, being, as he had already stated, a friend on a visit, which visit had ended the day before the arrival of the military. He stuck to his story that when he himself had seen the soldiers approaching his courage had failed him, and he had dropped from a window and run from them.

“If that is so, Mr. Cameron,” said the Lieutenant-Governor (echoing Captain Jackson), “then you must either have had a guilty conscience or you were playing the decoy. And I suspect that it was the latter, since you do not look the sort of man who would get out of a window at the mere approach of danger.”

Ardroy supposed that this was a species of compliment. But he was feeling bored and rather disheartened at having landed himself in a captivity which promised to be longer than he had anticipated. He would not indeed regret it, he told himself, if he had saved Archie, but of that he was not perfectly sure, for though Captain Jackson had failed to capture him, yet a party from one of the scattered military posts might have done so, once the alarm was given. He looked over the heads of the two officers out of the window, whence he could get a glimpse of the waters of Loch Linnhe, shining and moving in the sun. The thought of being shut up in Fort William for an indefinite period was becoming increasingly distasteful. But it was ridiculous to suppose that they had grounds for keeping him more than a few days!

So he declared that appearances were deceitful, and again pointed out his exemplary behaviour since his return to Scotland. He desired no more, he said, than to go on living quietly upon his land. It was no doubt very tame and unheroic thus to plead for release, but what was the use of remaining confined here if he could avoid it? And for a while after that he sat there—having been provided with a chair—hardly listening to Colonel Leighton as he prosed away, with occasional interruptions from his subordinate, but wondering what Alison was doing at this moment, and whether Keithie were any the worse for his fateful excursion downstairs; and scarcely noticing that the Colonel had ceased another of his homilies about disloyalty to listen to a young officer who had come in with some message—until his own name occurring in the communication drew his wandering attention.

The Colonel had become quite alert. “Bring him up here at once,” he said to the newcomer, and, turning to the listless prisoner, added, “Mr. Cameron, here’s a gentleman just come and given himself up to save you, so he says, from further molestation on his behalf.”

He had Ewen’s attention now! For one horrible moment Ardroy felt quite sick. He had the wild half-thought that Archie . . . but no, Archie was incapable of so wrong and misguided an action as throwing away his liberty and wrecking his mission merely to save him from imprisonment.

Then through the open door came the young officer again, and after him, with a bandage about his head and a smile upon his lips, Hector.

Ewen suppressed a gasp, but the colour which had left it came back to his face. He got up from his chair astounded, and not best pleased at this crazy deed. Hector Grant did not seem to find his situation dull; he had about him an air which it would have been unkind, though possible, to call a swagger; which air, however, dropped from him a little at the sight of his brother-in-law, in whose presence he had evidently not expected so soon to find himself. He glanced across at him with a slightly deprecatory lift of the eyebrows, while Ardroy feared that he must be looking, as he felt, rather blank. It was well-meaning of the lad, but how could it possibly help matters?

Colonel Leighton, however, glanced hopefully at the voluntary captive. “Well, sir, and so you have come to give yourself up. On what grounds, may I ask.”

“Because,” Hector answered him easily, “I heard that my brother-in-law, Mr. Cameron of Ardroy here present, had been arrested on the charge of having entertained a suspicious stranger at his house. Now as I was myself that supposed stranger——”

“Ah,” interrupted Colonel Leighton, shaking his head sagely, “I knew I was right in my conviction that Mr. Cameron was lying when he asserted that he had sheltered nobody! I knew that no one of his name was to be trusted.”

“He was not ‘sheltering’ me, sir,” replied Hector coolly. “And therefore I have come of my own free will to show you how baseless are your suspicions of him. For if a man cannot have his wife’s brother to visit him without being haled off to prison——”

“ ‘His wife’s brother.’ Who are you, then? You have not yet told us,” remarked Captain Jackson.

“Lieutenant Hector Grant, of the régiment d’Albanie in the service of His Most Christian Majesty the King of France.”

“You have papers to prove that?”

“Not on me.”

“And why not?” asked the other soldier.

“Why should I carry my commission with me when I come to pay a private visit to my sister?” asked Hector. (Evidently, thought Ewen, he was not going to admit the theft of any of his papers, though he himself suspected that the young man did, despite his denial, carry his commission with him. He wondered, and was sure that Hector was wondering too, whether the missing documents were not all the time in Colonel Leighton’s hands.)

“And that was all your business in Scotland—to visit your sister?”

“Is not that sufficient?” asked the affectionate brother. “I had not seen Lady Ardroy for a matter of two years, and she is my only near relative. After I had left the house I heard, as I say, that my presence (Heaven knows why) had thrown suspicion upon Mr. Cameron, and I hastened——”

But here Captain Jackson interrupted him. “If it was upon your behalf, Mr. Grant, that Mr. Cameron found it necessary to run so far and to tell so many lies on Saturday, then he must be greatly mortified at seeing you here now. I doubt if it was for you that he went through all that. But if, on the other hand, you were the cause of his performances, then your visit cannot have been so innocuous as you pretend.”

Hector was seen to frown. This officer was too sharp. He had outlined a nasty dilemma, and the young Highlander hardly knew upon which of its horns to impale himself and Ewen.

The Colonel now turned heavily upon Ardroy.

“Is this young man your brother-in-law, Mr. Cameron?”

“Certainly he is, sir.”

“And he did stay at your house upon a visit?”

Awkward to answer, that, considering the nature of Hector’s ‘stay’ and its exceeding brevity. Hector himself prudently looked out of a window. “Yes, he did pay me a visit.”

“And when did he arrive?”

Ewen decided that on the whole truth was best. “Last Monday evening.”

“I should be glad to know for what purpose he came.”

“You have heard, sir. He is, I repeat, my wife’s brother.”

“But that fact, Mr. Cameron,” said Colonel Leighton weightily, “does not render him immune from suspicion, especially when one considers his profession. He is a Jacobite, or he would not be in the service of the King of France.”

“You know quite well, sir,” countered Ewen, “that the King of France has by treaty abandoned the Jacobite cause.”

“Was it on Mr. Grant’s account that you behaved as you did on Saturday?” pressed the Colonel.

But Ewen replying that he did not feel himself bound to answer that question, the commanding officer turned to Hector again. “On what day, Mr. Grant, did you terminate your visit to Mr. Cameron?”

“On the day that your men invaded his house—Saturday,” answered Hector, driven to this unfortunate statement by a desire to give colour to Ewen’s ‘performances’ on that day.

“But Mr. Cameron has just told us that ‘Mr. Sinclair’ left the previous day—Friday,” put in Captain Jackson quickly, and Hector bit his lip. Obviously, it had a very awkward side, this ignorance of what Ewen had already committed himself to.

Captain Jackson permitted himself a smile. “At any rate, you were at Ardroy on Thursday, and saw Doctor Kincaid when he went to visit the sick child.”

This Hector was uncertain whether to deny or avow. He therefore said nothing.

“But since you are trying to make us believe that you are the mysterious ‘Mr. Sinclair’ from Caithness who was treating him,” pursued Captain Jackson, “you must have seen Doctor Kincaid.”

“I see no reason why I should not have done what I could for my own nephew,” answered Hector, doubling off on a new track.

“Quite so,” agreed Captain Jackson. “Then, since your visit was purely of a domestic character, one may well ask why Mr. Cameron was at such pains on that occasion to pass you off, not as a relation, but as a friend from the North? . . . And why were you then so much older, a man in the forties, instead of in the twenties, as you are to-day?”

“Was there so much difference in my appearance?” queried Hector innocently. “I was fatigued; I had been sitting up all night with the sick child.”

“Pshaw—we are wasting time!” declared Captain Jackson. “This is not ‘Mr. Sinclair’!” And the Colonel echoed him with dignity. “No, certainly not.”

“Is not Doctor Kincaid in the fort this morning sir?” asked the Captain, leaning towards him.

“I believe he is. Go and request him to come here at once, if you please, Mr. Burton,” said the Colonel to the subaltern who had brought Hector in. “And then we shall settle this question once for all.”

By this time Ewen had resumed his seat. Hector, his hands behind his back, appeared to be whistling a soundless air between his teeth. It was impossible to say whether he were regretting his fruitless effort—for plainly it was going to be fruitless—but at all events he was showing a good front to the enemy.

Doctor Kincaid hurried in, with his usual air of being very busy. “You sent for me, Colonel?”

“Yes, Doctor, if you please. Have you seen this young man before—not Mr. Cameron of Ardroy here, but the other?”

“Perhaps Doctor Kincaid does not greatly care to look at me,” suggested Ewen.

The doctor threw him a glance. “I had ma duty to do, Ardroy.” Then he looked, as desired, at the younger prisoner. “Losh, I should think I had seen him before! God’s name, young man, you’re gey hard in the heid! ’Tis the lad I found half-doited on Loch Treig side Tuesday nicht syne wi’ a dunt in it of which yon’s the sign!” He pointed to the bandage.

“Tuesday night, you say, Doctor?” asked Captain Jackson.

“Aye, Tuesday nicht, I mind well it was. I was away up Loch Treig the day to auld MacInnes there.”

Captain Jackson turned on Hector. “Perhaps, Mr. Grant,” he suggested, “you were lightheaded from this blow when you thought you were at Ardroy till Saturday.”

“And what’s to prevent me having been carried there at my brother-in-law’s orders?” queried Hector.

“ ’Tis true that Ardroy spoke of doing that,” admitted Doctor Kincaid. “He speired after the young man the day I was at his hoose. But yon was the Thursday.”

“Mr. Cameron says that Mr. Grant came to Ardroy on the Monday, and Mr. Grant himself states that he stayed there until Saturday. Yet on Tuesday, Doctor, you find him twenty miles away with a broken head. And he has the effrontery to pretend that he was the ‘Mr. Sinclair’ whom you saw in the sick child’s room at Ardroy on the Thursday!”

“Set him up!” exclaimed the doctor scornfully. “The man I saw then, as I’ve told you, Colonel, was over forty, a tall, comely man, and fair-complexioned to boot. And I told you who that man was, in my opeenion—Doctor Erchibald Cameron, the Jacobite, himself—and for this callant to seek to pretend to me that he was yon ‘Sinclair’ is fair flying in the face of such wits as Providence has gien me. Ye’d better keep him here for treatment of his ain!” And on that, scarce waiting for dismissal, Doctor Kincaid took himself off again.

“Doctor Kincaid’s advice is sound, don’t you think, Colonel?” observed Captain Jackson with some malice. “And as the roads do not seem over safe for this young man, egad, ’twere best to keep him off them for a while.”

“Your fine redcoats don’t seem able to make ’em safe, certainly,” retorted Mr. Grant.

“Come, come,” said Colonel Leighton impatiently, “we’ve had enough of bandying words. One thing is quite plain: Mr. Cameron and his kinsman here are both in collusion to shield someone else, and that person has probably been correctly named by Doctor Kincaid. Have Mr. Cameron taken back. You can put Mr. Grant in the same room with him, for the present at any rate.”