Читать книгу The Flight of the Heron - Historical Novel - Страница 6

Between the red crag and the spot where he had rated his foster-brother that morning Ardroy stood alone now with his betrothed. The loch was almost more beautiful in the sunset light than when its waters had closed over his head all those hours ago, and even with Alison on his arm Ewen was conscious of this, for he adored Loch na h-Iolaire with little less than passion. So they stood, close together, looking at it, while here and there a fish rose and made his little circle, widening until it died out in the glassy infinity, and near shore a shelduck with her tiny bobbing brood swam hastily from one patch of reeds to another.

Presently Ewen took off his plaid and spread it for Alison to sit upon, and threw himself down too on the carpet of cranberries; and now he looked, not at the loch, but at her, his own (or nearly his own) at last. Alison’s hand, waited for so patiently . . . no, not always so patiently . . . strayed among the tiny leaves, and Ewen caught the little fingers, with his ring upon the least but one, and kissed them.

“And to think,” he said softly, “that by this time to-morrow we shall be contracted in writing, and you not able to get away from me!”

Alison looked down at him. In her dark eyes swam all kinds of sweetness, but mischief woke and danced now at the corners of her small, fine, close-shut mouth, which could be so tender too.

“Oh, Ewen, does the contract make you more sure of me? You’d not hold me to a bit of paper if I were to change my mind one fine morning and say, ‘Ardroy, I’m sweir to tell it, but wed you I cannot’?”

“Would I not hold you to it! Try, and see!”

One of Alison’s dimples appeared. “Indeed, I’m minded to try it, just for that, to see what you would do. What would you do, Eoghain mhóir?”

“Carry you off,” replied Ewen promptly.

“And marry me by force?”

“And marry you by force.”

“There speaks the blood of Hieland reivers! I’d think shame to say such a thing!”

“And are you not Hieland yourself, Miss Grant?” enquired her lover. “And was there never cattle-lifting done in Glenmoriston?”

“Cattle!” exclaimed Alison, the other dimple in evidence. “That I should be likened, by him that’s contracted to be married to me, to a steer or a cow!”

“I likened you to no such thing! You are like a hind, a hind that one sees just a glimpse of before it is gone, drinking at the lake on a misty morning. Oh, my heart’s darling,” he went on, dropping into Gaelic, “do not make jests upon our marriage! If I thought that you were in earnest—Alison, say that you are not in earnest!”

Alison Grant looked into the clear blue eyes, which had really grown troubled, and was instantly remorseful. “Oh, my dear, what a wretch am I to torment you thus! No, no, I was teasing; Loch na h-Iolaire shall run dry before I break my troth to you. I’ll never force you to carry me off; ’tis like I’ll be at the kirk before you.” She let him draw her head without words upon his shoulder, and they sat there silent, looking at happiness: both the happiness which they knew now, and the greater, the long happiness which was coming to them—as stable and secure in their eyes as the changeless mountains round them.

Yet Alison knew her lover’s mind, or at least a part of it, so well that she presently said, “And yet I am not jesting, Ewen, when I say that I think you would be hard put to it to choose between me and Loch na h-Iolaire—Loch na h-Iolaire and the house of Ardroy.”

His arm tightened round her. “Alison, how can you——”

“But you’ll never have to choose, m’eudail. I love this place most dearly already. I have never had a home like it to love, living as we have for so long, now in France, now in Holland. But your heart is as strongly rooted here as . . . the red crag yonder.”

Ewen gave a little sigh. “You see a long way into my heart, you that are the core of it. Indeed, when I am dying I think this is the last place I shall have sight of in my mind. I hope I may be seeing it with my eyes also.”

Alison did not shudder or change the subject, or implore him not to speak of such things, for she was Highland too, with her race’s half-mystical preoccupation with the dead. But she thought, “I hope I’ll die the same day, the same hour. . . .”

The shadows on the loch crept a little farther. Behind them Ben Tee changed colour for the hundredth time; his pointed peak seemed to soar. It grew cooler too, and Ewen wrapped the ends of the plaid about his lady.

“On Wednesday we will spend the day at Loch Arkaig,” he announced. “We will take ponies, and you and Mr. Grant shall ride.”

“And Miss Cameron?”

“Aunt Marget detests such jaunts. Meals for the parlour, and the parlour for meals, that is her creed.—Alison, are you not cold?”

“In this?” She fingered the plaid where it hung over her shoulders, and added after a moment: “How strange it will be, to wear another tartan than one’s own!”

“You shall always wear the Grant if it pleases you better.”

“No, it does not please me better,” answered Alison softly. “I feel . . . very warm in the Cameron.”

He kissed her for that, smiling, and, raising his head from his kiss, became aware of a dark object beating towards them out of the sunset sky. It was the solitary heron of the island, winging his strong way home with a deceptive slowness. The sight reminded Ewen of his morning’s encounter with Lachlan, and he was about to tell Alison of it when Fate’s messenger, who for the last five minutes had been hurrying round the loch, came past the red crag of Ardroy, and Ewen’s quick ear caught the snap of a breaking stick under the deerskin brogues. He looked quickly round. A bearded Highlander was trotting towards them under the birches and pines.

“It is Neil—what can he want? Forgive me!” He rose to his feet, and Neil MacMartin, who was Lachlan’s elder brother and Ewen’s piper, broke into a run.

“Mac Dhomhnuill Duibh has just sent this by a man on horseback,” he said somewhat breathlessly, pulling a letter from his sporran.

Ewen broke the seal. “Perhaps it is to say that Lochiel cannot come to-morrow,” he observed to his betrothed. But as he read his face showed stupefaction. “Great God!”

Alison sprang to her feet. “Ewen! Not bad news?”

“Bad? No, no!” He waved Neil out of hearing and turned to her with sparkling eyes. “The Prince has landed in Scotland!”

She was at first as amazed as he. “The Prince! Landed! When . . . where?”

Ewen consulted his letter again. “He landed at Borradale in Arisaig on the twenty-fifth. Lochiel desires me to go to Achnacarry at once.”

“He has come—at last!” said Alison to herself, almost with awe. “And you will go with Lochiel to kiss his hand, to—Oh, Ewen, how I envy you!”

The light which had come into her lover’s eyes died out a little. “I do not know that Lochiel is going to Arisaig, darling.” He glanced at the letter again. “He is troubled, I can see; there are no troops with the Prince, none of the hoped-for French help.”

“But what of that?” cried the girl. “It is not to be thought of that Lochiel’s sword, of all others, should stay in the scabbard!”

“Lochiel will do what is right and honourable; it is impossible for him ever to act otherwise,” answered Ewen, who was devoted to his Chief. “And he wants speech with me; I must set out at once. Yes, Clan Cameron will rise, not a doubt of it!”

And, youth and the natural ardour of a fighting race reasserting themselves, he snatched up his bonnet and tossed it into the air. “Ah, now I know why Lachlan and I thought we saw blood on his dirk this morning!” Then he caught Alison to him. “My dearest on earth, give me your kiss!”

It was the title of one of the ancient pibrochs that he was quoting, and the Highland girl put her arms round his neck and gave him what he asked.

* * * * *

Loch na h-Iolaire, bereft of the echoing voices, sank into a silence that was not broken until the heron rose again from the island and began to fly slowly towards the sunset. Then the stillness was rent by a sharp report; the great bird turned over twice, its wings beating wildly, and fell all huddled into the lake. A little boat shot out from the side of the creag ruadh, and in a moment or two Lachlan MacMartin, leaving his oars, was bending over the side with the end of a cord in his hand. There was a splash as he threw overboard the large stone to which the cord was fastened; and having thus removed the evidence of his blind effort to outwit destiny, he pulled quickly back to the shelter of the crag of Ardroy.

Soon the same unbroken calm, the same soft lap and ripple, the same gently fading brightness were once more round Loch na h-Iolaire; yet for all those who to-day had looked on its waters the current of life was changed for ever.