Читать книгу The Flight of the Heron (Historical Novel) - Historical Novel - Страница 10

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Captain Keith Windham, unwillingly revisiting the neighbourhood of High Bridge, which was populated with leaping Highlanders about nine feet high, and permeated, even in his dream, with the dronings and wailings of the bagpipe, woke, hot and angry, to find that the unpleasant strains at least were real, and were coming through the window of the room in which he lay. He remained a moment blinking, wondering if they portended some attack by a hostile clan; and finally got out of bed and hobbled to the window.

In front of the house a bearded piper was marching solemnly up and down, the ribbons on the drones of his instrument fluttering in the morning breeze. There was no sign of any armed gathering. “Good Gad, it must be the usual reveillé for the household!” thought the Englishman. “Enough to put a sensitive person out of temper for the rest of the day.” And he returned to bed and pulled the blankets over his ears.

At breakfast, an excellent meal, and a pleasant one also, where very civil enquiries were made concerning the night he had spent and the state of his injuries, Miss Cameron expressed a hope that he had not been unduly disturbed by Neil MacMartin’s piobaireachd, adding that he was not as fine a piper as his father Angus had been. Keith was then thankful that he had not heard Angus.

When the meal was over he strayed to the window and looked out, wondering how he should occupy himself all day, but determined upon one thing, that he would not let these Camerons guess how bitterly he was mortified over the matter of the bridge. Outside the porch his host (save the mark!) was already talking earnestly to a couple of Highlanders, in one of whom Captain Windham had no difficulty in recognising the ‘cut-throat’ of the previous day; the other, he fancied, was the musician of the early morning. “I wish I could persuade myself that Mr. Cameron were putting a ban upon that performance,” he thought; but he hardly hoped it.

Presently the young laird came in. He was wearing the kilt to-day, and for the first time Keith Windham thought that there was something to be said for that article of attire—at least on a man of his proportions.

“Is not that your attendant of yesterday out there?” remarked the soldier idly.

“Lachlan MacMartin? Yes. The other, the piper who, I am afraid, woke you this morning, is his brother Neil.—Captain Windham,” went on the piper’s master in a different tone, “what I am going to tell you may be news to you, or it may not, but in either case the world will soon know it. To-day is Saturday, and on Monday the Prince will set up his standard at Glenfinnan.”

There was a second’s silence. “And you, I suppose, Mr. Cameron, intend to be present . . . and to cross the Rubicon in his company?”

“All Clan Cameron will be there,” was the reply, given with a probably unconscious lift of the head. “And as in consequence of this I shall be pretty much occupied to-day, and little at home, I would advise you, if I may, not to go out of sight of the house and policies. You might——” Ewen Cameron hesitated for a moment.

“I might find myself tempted to abscond, you were going to say?” struck in his captive . . . and saw at once, from the bleak look which came into those blue eyes, that his pleasantry did not find favour.

“I should not dream of so insulting you,” replied Ardroy coldly. “I was merely going to say that it might not be oversafe for you, in that uniform, if you did.” And as he was evidently quite offended at the idea that he could be supposed to harbour such a suspicion of his prisoner, there was nothing for the latter to do but to beg his pardon, and to declare that he had spoken—as indeed he had—in the merest jest.

“But perhaps this young mountaineer cannot take a jest,” he thought to himself when they had parted. “I’ll make no more—at least outwardly.” But he was not to keep this resolution.

And indeed he had little but occasional glimpses of young Ardroy or of any of the family that morning. The whole place was in a bustle of preparation and excitement. Tenants were (Keith surmised from various indications) being collected and armed; though only single Highlanders, wild and unintelligible persons, appeared from time to time in the neighbourhood of the house. Miss Cameron and Miss Grant seemed to be equally caught up in the swirl, and Mr. Grant was invisible. The only idle person in this turmoil, the captive Englishman sat calmly on the grass plot at a little distance from the house, with The History of the Adventures of Mr. Joseph Andrews in his hand, half amused to see the inhabitants of this ant-heap—thus he thought of them—so busy over what would certainly come to nothing, like all the other Jacobite attempts.

And yet he reflected that, for all the futility of such preparations, those who made them were like to pay very dearly for them. Ewen Cameron would get himself outlawed at the least, and somehow he, whom Ewen Cameron had defeated yesterday, would be sorry. The young Highlander had certainly displayed towards his captive foe the most perfect chivalry and courtesy, and to this latter quality Keith Windham, who could himself at will display the most perfect rudeness, was never blind. And yet—a sardonically comforting reflection—a rebel must find the presence of an English soldier not a little embarrassing at this juncture.

It was partly a desire to show that he too possessed tact, and partly pure boredom, which caused Captain Windham, in the latter half of the afternoon, to disregard the warning given him earlier, and to leave the neighbourhood of the house. He helped himself to a stout stick on which to lean in case of necessity, though his ankle was remarkably better and hardly pained him at all, and started to stroll along the bank of the loch. Nobody had witnessed his departure. And in the mild, sometimes obscured sunshine, he followed the path round to the far side, thinking that could the little lake only be transported from these repellent mountains and this ugly purple heather into more civilised and less elevated surroundings, it would not be an ill piece of water.

Arrived on the farther side, he began idly to follow a track which led away from the lake and presently started to wind upwards among the heather. He continued to follow it without much thinking of what he was doing, until suddenly it brought him round a fold of the mountain-side to a space of almost level ground where, beside a group of pine-trees, stood three low thatched cottages. And there Captain Windham remained staring, not exactly at the cottages, nor at the score or so of Highlanders—men, women, and children—in front of these dwellings, with their backs turned to him, but at the rather puzzling operations which were going forward on top of the largest croft.

At first Captain Windham thought that the man astride the roof and the other on the short ladder must be repairing the thatch, until he saw that, on the contrary, portions of this were being relentlessly torn off. Then the man on the roof plunged in his arm to the shoulder and drew forth something round and flat, which he handed to the man on the ladder, who passed it down. Next came something long that glittered, then another round object, then an unmistakable musket; and with that Keith realised what he was witnessing—the bringing forth of arms which should have been given up at the Disarming Act of 1725, but which had been concealed and saved for just such an emergency as the present.

Now there came bundling out several broadswords tied together and another musket. But a man in a bright scarlet coat with blue facings and long white spatterdashes is altogether too conspicuous a figure in a mountain landscape, and Keith had not in fact been there more than a minute before a boy who had turned to pick up a targe saw him, gave a yell, and pointing, screamed out something in Gaelic. Every face was instantly turned in the intruder’s direction, and moved by the same impulse each man snatched up a weapon and came running towards him, even he on the roof sliding down with haste.

Captain Windham was too proud to turn and flee, nor would it much have advantaged him; but there he was, unarmed save for a staff, not even knowing for certain whether these hornets upon whose nest he had stumbled were Mr. Cameron’s tenants or no, but pretty sure that they would not understand English, and that he could not therefore convince them of his perfect innocence. Deeply did he curse his folly in that moment.

He had at any rate the courage not to attempt to defend himself; on the contrary, he deliberately threw his stick upon the ground, and held out his hands to show that they were empty. The foremost Highlander, who was brandishing one of those unpleasant basket-hilted swords, hesitated, as Keith had hoped, and shouted something; on which the rest rushed round, and as many hands as possible laid hold of Captain Windham’s person. He staggered under the impact, but made no resistance, for, to his great relief, he had already recognised in the foremost assailant with the broadsword the scowling visage of Lachlan MacMartin, and beside him the milder one of his brother Neil, Mr. Cameron’s piper. Even if they did not understand English, these two would at least know who he was.

“I am your master’s prisoner,” he called out, wishing the others would not press so upon him as they clutched his arms. “You had better do me no harm!”

In Lachlan’s face there was a sort of sullen and unwilling recognition. He spoke rapidly to his brother, who nodded and gave what was presumably an order. Reluctantly the clutching hands released their grip of Keith, their owners merely glowering at him; but they did not go away, though the circle now opened out a little. A couple of women had joined the group, and a small child or two; all talked excitedly. Keith had never thought to feel gratitude towards the wolf-like Lachlan, but at this moment he could almost have embraced him, since but for him and Neil his own might well have been the first blood on those resuscitated claymores.

His preserver now advanced, his hand on his dirk, and addressed the soldier, rather to his surprise, in English.

“You may pe the laird’s prisoner,” he said between his teeth, “but why did you come up here?—You came to spy, to spy!” He almost spat the words in the intruder’s face. “And with spiess, who haf seen what they should not haf seen, there iss a ferry short way . . . either thiss,” he unsheathed an inch or two of his dirk, “or the lochan down yonder with a stone round the neck!”

“I am not a spy,” retorted Captain Windham haughtily. “I knew nothing of there being cottages here; I was taking a walk, and came upon you entirely by accident.”

“A walk, when yesterday your foot wass so hurt that you must ride the laird’s horse!” hissed Lachlan, bringing out all the sibilants in this not ineffective retort. “All thiss way for pleasure with a foot that iss hurt! And then you will pe going back to the saighdearan dearg—to the red soldiers—at Kilcumein and pe telling them. . . . Ach, it will certainly pe petter . . .” And his fingers closed round the black hilt at his groin; Keith had never seen fingers which more clearly itched to draw and use a weapon.

But at this point Neil the piper intervened, laying his hand on his brother’s arm, shaking his head, and speaking earnestly in their native tongue, and Keith, concluding that a professional musician (if that term could possibly be extended to one who produced sounds like this morning’s) would be a man of peace, felt more secure, not knowing that in a fray the piper habitually gave his pipes to his boy and fought with the best. But he heartily wished himself back at the house again; it would have been far better had he taken his host’s warning to heart instead of making a foolish jest about it.

During the colloquy, however, there approached the group a handsome, venerable old man whom Keith had not previously noticed. He came towards them tapping the ground with a long staff, as if of uncertain sight, and said something first to Lachlan and then to Neil. The piper appeared to listen with attention, and on that turned to the captive.

“My father iss asking you,” he said, in a manner which suggested that he was seeking for his words in an unfamiliar tongue, “to permit him to touch you, and to pe speaking with you. He iss almost blind. He hass not the English, but I will pe speaking for him.”

“Certainly, if he wishes it,” replied Captain Windham with resignation, thinking that ‘permission’ to touch him might well have been asked earlier, and not taken so violently for granted.

Neil took his father’s hand, and led him up to the interview. The old man, who was obviously not completely blind, peered into the Englishman’s face, while his hands strayed for a moment or two over his shoulders and breast. He then addressed a question to his elder son, who translated it.

“He asks if you wass meeting a curra yesterday?”

“If I had any notion what a curra was,” returned Keith, “I might be able to satisfy your father’s curiosity. As it is——”

“A curra,” explained Neil, struggling, “iss . . . a large bird, having a long . . . a long . . .”

“It iss called ‘heron’ in the English,” interposed Lachlan. And he added violently, “Mallachd ort! wass you meeting a heron yessterday?”

The Erse sounded like an objurgation (which it was) and the speaker’s eyes as they glared at Keith had turned to dark coals. It was evidently a crime in these parts to encounter that bird, though to the heron’s victim himself it wore rather the aspect of a calamity. Ignoring this almost frenzied query he replied shortly to the official interpreter: “Yes, unfortunately I did meet a heron yesterday, which by frightening my horse led to—my being here to-day.”

Lachlan MacMartin smote his hands together with an exclamation which seemed to contain as much dismay as anger, but Neil contented himself with passing on this information to his parent, and after a short colloquy turned once more to the Englishman.

“My father iss taibhsear,” he explained. “That iss, he hass the two sights. He knew that the heron would pe making Mac—the laird to meet with you.”

“Gad, I could wish it had not!” thought Keith; but judged it more politic not to give this aspiration utterance.

“And he asks you whether you wass first meeting Mac ’ic Ailein near watter?”

“If that name denotes Mr. Ewen Cameron,” replied Keith. “I did. Near a good deal of ‘watter’.”

This was passed on to the seer, involving the repetition of a word which sounded to Captain Windham like “whisky,” and roused in his mind a conjecture that the old man was demanding, or about to demand, that beverage. None however, was produced, and after thanking the Englishman, in a very courtly way, through the medium of his son, the soothsayer departed again, shaking his head and muttering to himself; and Keith saw him, when he reached the cottages, sit down upon a bench outside the largest and appear to fall into a reverie.

Directly he was safely there, Lachlan MacMartin reverted with startling suddenness to his former character and subject of conversation.

“You haf seen what you should not haf seen, redcoat!” he repeated fiercely. “Pefore you go away from thiss place you shall be swearing to keep silence!”

“That I certainly shall not swear to do,” replied Captain Windham promptly. “I am not accustomed to take an oath at any man’s bidding, least of all at a rebel’s.”

Again the dark flame shone in the Highlander’s eyes.

“And you think that we will pe letting you go, Sassenach?”

“I think that you will be extremely sorry for the consequences if you do not,” returned the soldier. “You know quite well that if you lay a finger upon me you will have to answer for it to your master or chief, or whatever he is!”

“We are the foster-brothers of Mac ’ic Ailein,” responded Lachlan slowly. (“What, all of you?” interjected Keith. “I wish him joy of you!”) “He knows that all we do iss done for him. If we should pe making a misstake, not knowing hiss will . . . or if you should fall by chance into the loch, we should pe sorry, but we could not help it that your foot should pe slipping, for it wass hurt yessterday . . . and you would nefer go back to Kilcumein to tell the saighdearan dearg what you haf peen seeing.”

He did not now seem to be threatening, but rather, with a kind of gloomy satisfaction, thinking out a plausible course of action with regard to the intruder, and it was a good deal more disquieting to the latter than his first attitude. So was the expression on the faces of the other men when Lachlan harangued them volubly in his own language. His brother Neil alone appeared to be making some remonstrance, but in the end was evidently convinced, and almost before the unlucky officer realised what was toward, the whole group had launched themselves upon him.

Keith Windham fought desperately, but he had no chance at all, having been surrounded and almost held from the outset, and in a moment he was borne down by sheer weight of numbers. Buttons came off his uniform, his wig was torn bodily from his head by some assailant who probably imagined that he had hold of the Sassenach’s own hair, he was buffeted and nearly strangled, and lay at last with his face pressed into the heather, one man kneeling upon his shoulders, while another tied his hands behind his back, and a third, situated upon his legs, secured his ankles. Outraged and breathless, the soldier had time for only two sensations: surprise that no dirk had yet been planted in him, and wonder whether they really meant to take him down and throw him into the lake.

The struggle had been conducted almost in silence; but conversation broke out again now that he was overpowered. Only for a moment, however; then, as suddenly, it ceased, and the heavy, bony knees on Captain Windham’s shoulder-blades unexpectedly removed themselves. A sort of awestruck silence succeeded. With faint thoughts of Druids and their sacrifices in his mind Keith wondered whether the patriarchal soothsayer were now approaching to drive a knife with due solemnity into his back . . . or, just possibly, to denounce his descendants’ violence. But he could not twist himself to look, for the man on his legs, though apparently smitten motionless, was still squatting there.

And then a voice that Keith knew, vibrating with passion, suddenly shouted words in Erse whose purport he could guess. The man on his legs arose precipitately. And next moment Ewen Cameron was kneeling beside him in the heather, bending over him, a hand on his shoulder. “Captain Windham, are you hurt? God forgive me, what have they been doing? Tied!” And in a moment he had snatched a little knife out of his stocking and was cutting Keith’s bonds. “Oh, why did I let you out of my sight! For God’s sake tell me that you are not injured!”

He sounded in the extreme of anxiety—and well he might be, thought the indignant Englishman, who made no haste to reply that, if exhausted, he was as yet unwounded. He made in fact no reply at all, while the young chieftain, white with agitation and anger, helped him to his feet. When at last he stood upright, hot and dishevelled, and very conscious of the fact, Captain Windham said, in no friendly tone:

“You were just in time, I think, Mr. Cameron—that is, if, now that you are here, your savages will obey you.”

From pale the young man turned red. “I warned you, if you remember,” he said rather low, and then, leaving Captain Windham to pick up his hat and wig and to restore some order to his attire, strode towards the silent and huddled group of his retainers, who had retreated in a body nearer to the crofts. Angry and humiliated as Keith felt, it was some consolation to him, as he brushed the pieces of heather off his uniform, and pulled his wig once more over his own short dark hair, to observe that, whatever their master was saying to them in the Erse, it seemed to have a most salutary and withering effect. Even the redoubtable Lachlan, who hoarsely uttered some remark, presumably an excuse, was reduced to complete silence, either by the very terse and vigorous reply which he drew upon himself, or by the threatening attitude of the speaker.

All this time the prophetic elder had sat at his cottage door listening, with his head tilted back in the manner of the blind, but taking no part in the reckoning which was falling upon the offenders, just as (presumably) he had sat throughout the assault. And having made short work of the culprits, the rescuer now seemed in haste to remove the rescued, and came towards him, his eyes still very blue and fierce.

“If you will allow me, Captain Windham, I will take you back to the house, away from these savages, as you rightly call them.”

“Thanks, I can return safely enough, no doubt,” replied Keith indifferently, pulling down his waistcoat. “There are no more encampments of them, I believe, on the way back.”

“I should prefer to escort you,” returned Ardroy, most acutely vexed, as was evident. And, since his vexation did not at all displease the Englishman, he picked up his staff and preceded him in silence off the plateau.

They had gone some way down the mountain path before Ewen Cameron spoke again.

“I had no right to accept your sword,” he said, in a voice still bitter with mortification, “if I could not protect you against my own followers. I would not have had this happen for a thousand pounds. I can offer you no apologies that are deep enough for such an outrage.”

“Except for the loss of some buttons, I am not much the worse,” replied Keith dryly without turning his head.

“But I am,” he heard the Highlander say behind him in a low voice.

Nothing more passed between them until they had arrived at the level of the loch, but by that time a rather remarkable change had come upon Keith. Much better and more dignified to make light of the outrage which he had just suffered than to exaggerate it by sulking over it. Besides, he was beginning to be sorry for the palpable distress of that punctilious young man, Mr. Cameron of Ardroy, who could not in very justice be blamed for what had happened.

So he stopped and turned round. “Mr. Cameron,” he said frankly, “I have no one but myself to thank for the rough handling I received up yonder. You warned me not to go far afield; and moreover I acted like a fool in staying there to watch. Will you forgive my ill-temper, and let me assure you that I shall think no more of the episode except to obey your warnings more exactly in future?”

Ardroy’s face cleared wonderfully. “You really mean that, sir?”

“Assuredly. I ran my head into the lion’s mouth myself. I shall be obliged if you will not mention my folly to the ladies; a soldier’s self-esteem, you know, is easily hurt.” His smile went up a little at the corner.

A sparkle came into Ewen Cameron’s eyes. “You are generous, Captain Windham, and I am not deceived by your plea for silence. I am so ashamed, however, that I welcome it for the sake of my own self-esteem.”

“But I mean what I say,” returned Keith. (He was quick enough in the uptake, this young chief of barbarians!) “It was the act of an utter fool for me, in this uniform, to stand gaping at . . . at what was going on up there. You know what it was, I presume?” he added, with a lift of the eyebrows.

“Naturally,” said Ewen without embarrassment. “It was that which brought me up there—most fortunately. But now,” he went on with a frown, “now I am not sure that I shall allow those arms to be carried by men in my tail who have so disgraced themselves and me.—Let us go on, if you will, for when I have escorted you to the house I shall return to deal with that question.”

“You seemed,” observed Keith, as they went on once more, “to be dealing with it pretty satisfactorily just now!” (So he proposed, as a punishment, to debar the offenders from the pleasures of armed rebellion!)

“At least, before I consent to their following me on Monday,” said the dispenser of justice, striding on, “they shall all beg your pardon!”

“Oh, pray excuse them that!” exclaimed Keith, not at all welcoming the prospect. “I should be horribly embarrassed, I assure you. Moreover, I can almost sympathise with their zeal—now that there is no prospect of my being thrown into the lake here with a stone round my neck.”

His captor stopped. “Was that what they were going to do?” he asked in a horrified tone.

“They spoke of it, since I would not promise to keep silence on what I had seen. They were quite logical, you know, Mr. Cameron, for what I saw was certainly not meant for the eyes of an English officer!”

“You were my prisoner—my guest—they had no excuse whatever!” declared the young man, wrath beginning to seize on him again. “Neil and Lachlan knew that, if the others did not. And Angus—what was Angus about not to stop them?”

“Is that the blind veteran who takes such an interest in the natural history of these parts?”

“What do you mean?” asked his companion.

“Why,” answered Keith, who was after all enjoying a kind of secret revenge by quizzing him, “that he was particular to enquire, through his estimable son, your piper, whether I had encountered a heron before I made your acquaintance yesterday.”

The mention of that fowl appeared for the second time to startle his host (though until that moment Keith had forgotten its effect upon him last night). “Ah, my foster-father asked you that?” he murmured, and looked upon the Englishman with a rather troubled and speculative gaze. But Keith had found a new subject of interest. “Is the old gentleman really your foster-father?” he enquired. “But of course he must be, if his sons are your foster-brothers.”

“I think,” said the foster-son somewhat hastily, “that you can return safely from here, so, if you will excuse me, Captain Windham, I will now go back to Slochd nan Eun.”

“To execute judgment,” finished Keith with a smile. “Indeed, I am not so devoid of rancour as to wish to hinder you. But if you do condemn your foster-relations to stay at home,” he added rather meaningly, “you will be doing them a good turn rather than an ill one.”

It seemed doubtful, however, if Ewen Cameron had heard this remark, for he was already striding lightly and quickly back in the direction of the mountain path, his kilt swinging about his knees as he went.

* * * * *

It was an odd coincidence that at supper that evening, after Angus MacMartin’s name had come up in some talk between Miss Cameron and Mr. Grant, the former should turn to Captain Windham and ask if he had seen their taibhsear or seer? Seeing instantly from Ardroy’s face that he was regretting the introduction of his foster-father’s name into the conversation, Keith made malicious haste to reply that he had contrived to get as far as the soothsayer’s dwelling, and that his reception there had been a memorable experience. Immediately the ladies asked if Angus had ‘seen’ anything while the visitor was there, to which Keith, with a glance at his host, replied with great suavity that such might well have been the case, since he appeared, towards the end of the visit, to be entirely withdrawn from outward events.

“He left the honours to his interesting sons,” he explained with a smile, “who entertained me so . . . so wholeheartedly that if Mr. Cameron had not appeared upon the scene I might be there still.” But at this point Ewen, with a heightened colour, forcibly changed the conversation.