The Sun of the Mind

I. Capture—and Escape

At nine o'clock in the evening of the day on which Ewen Cameron was conveyed from Fort Augustus, Major Windham received a summons from Lord Albemarle. He found that peer much out of temper, pacing up and down his tent and speaking distractedly of the vexatious difficulties he faced in managing affairs in Scotland and in attempting to find out in what hiding-place the Pretender's son might now be concealed. Keith stood patiently by the tent-flap and waited for his lordship to discover what bearing all this might have upon his own position.

Albemarle was in the midst of recounting a report he had lately heard about Charles Edward's having been seen in the neighbourhood of a place called Sheilar Manse, near Loch Arkaig, when he suddenly stopped pacing and interrupted his own speech by saying, 'Why, bless my soul! I am so entirely distracted that I have forgotten to tell you, Major Windham, that you are one of the officers whom I design to employ in this new effort.'

'My Lord!' exclaimed Keith.

'Yes,' said Albemarle, rubbing his hands together, 'I intend to send you to the assistance of Colonel Danforth, a highly capable man who is currently in command of a troop of dragoons at Fort William. As I say, we believe that the Pretender's son may be in the neighbourhood of Loch Arkaig, and Danforth is to lead an expedition up towards Sheilar Manse to search for him there. I think you will be well suited to assist him. For one thing, you have seen the Pretender's son in person, at Glenfinnan, have you not?'

'I have,' said Keith, still reeling.

'Danforth has not had that good fortune, and neither has any other of his party. You will be able to identify the quarry, should they find him! And I have every confidence in your skill and resource in assisting with the search. The day that you bring the arch-rebel back a prisoner, having played such a pivotal part in his capture, your difference with His Royal Highness the Duke will be no more remembered against you.'

Keith, by now having recovered a little of his composure, was able to thank Lord Albemarle in tolerably rational terms for this opportunity; and a few minutes later he left the tent, in spirits which he could scarcely have imagined earlier that day. It could be no compensation for what he had lost—for there never would be that... but it was a chance to do far more than wipe out the disgrace of his late conduct. If he should succeed in this task, he would gain more than even his ambition had ever thought of.

The early sun of the Highland summer was just brushing the scattered, wispy clouds with faint pink, and giving a still richer colour to the purple heather upon the mountain peaks, as Major Windham prepared himself to set out from Fort Augustus the next day. He would meet this Colonel Danforth outside Fort William in the afternoon, and there was little trouble to be anticipated from the journey along the Glen, for the state of the country was very different from what it had been when, nearly a year ago, Keith had first ridden that way along Loch Lochy side.

He had just finished a hasty breakfast of porridge, and was standing outside his tent watching the growing dawn—a fine sight it made, even in this uncongenial country!—when he saw an acquaintance of his, an officer of Kingston's Horse, walking between the tents a little way away, and bade him good morning.

The officer made a face, and replied that it was not such a good morning for everyone, 'for the prisoner who was taken from here yesterday morning—Cameron of Ardroy—has escaped. He gave his escort the slip at High Bridge, it seems, and there has been no sign of him since. There'll be quite some trouble about it, I don't doubt.'

Once again Keith was struck almost dumb; but this time it was rather more important to show no sign of his discomposure, and so he summoned all his effort to make some appropriate comment upon the misfortune of this escape. All the while his brain was a whirl of stunned amazement. What an incredible piece of good fortune this was for his friend, and therefore for himself—for Ewen's happiness was his own. It was no matter about that horribly-remembered penknife, after all...

Keith must set about his preparations, however, and he did so in a kind of haze, picturing to himself now Ewen safe amongst the heather or seeing his own house of Ardroy once more, now himself lauded and celebrated as the captor of the Pretender's son. Could such good fortune exist in the world, that both those things should come to pass?

But half an hour later, as he rode along with the half-ruined bulk of Fort Augustus receding behind him, another possibility occurred to him. Colonel Danforth's main business was to search for the Pretender's son at Sheilar Manse; but that place lay near Loch Arkaig, and was it not therefore in the near neighbourhood of Ardroy? ...Might Danforth not decide to take the opportunity to search for another fugitive known to be in that area—or simply come upon him by chance, as he made his weary way back towards his own house?

The River Oich lay to his right, with the sun glittering upon its clear water. Keith glanced towards it... and saw a large bird, flying along above the bank with an air of unhurried placidity. As he watched, the heron alighted near the top of a riverside alder and remained there, an incongruous patch of grey amidst the green leaves, turning its head from side to side to survey the scene.

Surely it was not likely, considering the question rationally, that those fears of his would come to pass; and, moreover, he and Ewen Cameron had no more meetings left, if that prophecy of Ardroy's foster-father was to be believed. But the heron seemed to bring a sense of foreboding, so that he could almost believe—if he gave any credence to the absurd superstition at all—that it signified something other than that simply numbered ending; and it did not take the gathering mist, which had blotted out that bright sun before the morning was over, to bring a chill to Keith's heart that day.

Ewen hobbled onwards, thoughts of the poor woman who had given him shelter for the night, and her parting question, still in his mind as they had been ever since he had left her... But even more did he dwell on what she had told him—her news of the fate of Ardroy. His father's house was gone!... Yet all the more was his mind set to reach Ardroy, that he might find out what had befallen those who had remained behind there: Aunt Margaret, the servants, old Angus and his grandchildren, the womenfolk, the fugitives from Drumossie Moor... And perhaps it was because he was so dwelling on thoughts of them all, instead of paying close attention to his surroundings, or perhaps it was because of the pain and weakness which grew stronger with every weary, halting step, that he did not see the redcoat party until they were almost upon him.

There was no time to respond—certainly there was no question of running or hiding. Ewen could only stand there in feeble dismay as the leader of the party rode forward.

'Halloa!' said this man, a cheerful-looking young officer whose most distinctive feature was a fearsome moustache. He peered down at Ewen. 'By Jove, Roxley, I believe we've got another one! Say, my good fellow, what is your name, and what is your business here?'

Vainly Ewen tried to summon his exhausted wits. Could he pass himself off as an innocent clansman simply going about his ordinary business? No, that would hardly be plausible in his present state; and, in any case, he knew well that there was no such thing as an innocent clansman in these days and in the eyes of men such as these. So, unable to think of anything else, he kept silent.

'Don't want to tell us, hmm?' said the officer. His tone was musing rather than cruel. 'Got something to hide?... I say, Roxley,' he added, turning to a junior officer who had ridden up to join him, 'that prisoner we heard about at Fort Augustus, who escaped on the way to Fort William—what was the description given out? A tall, red-haired fellow, wasn't he?'

The man addressed as Roxley nodded. 'Ewen Cameron of Ardroy—he escaped at High Bridge yesterday,' he said. 'And this man fits his description perfectly.'

The officer laughed. 'Well, what a piece of luck this is!' he said. 'We shall have something to show for ourselves when we reach Fort William. Here—Tracey, Saville, secure him.'

Two more redcoats came forward and tied Ewen's hands behind his back; the cords were harsh upon skin scarcely twenty-four hours free of the shackles of Fort Augustus, and Ewen tried not to wince visibly. He could not offer any resistance. Someone said something about his not being able to walk—'like the other one'—and shortly afterwards Ewen found himself mounted upon a horse behind one of his captors, and the party moving off again up the glen.

His mind was dull and dim. So near had he been to his home! Even if the house of Ardroy was really burned, he would have been safe there, hiding amongst the heather, surrounded by his own people; and, what was more precious even than safety, he would have seen his beloved Loch na h-Iolaire again. Now all that promise was torn away, and once more there lay ahead of him captivity and Carlisle Gate. He had been so close...

Ewen's head swan, and the scenery faded in and out of sight before him. They were, he believed, heading northwest, between the shore of Loch Arkaig and the road to Ardroy; he vaguely remembered having come up here with Lochiel once, a long time ago. Why the redcoats should go this way now he could not think, for they had spoken of Fort William, and it was not the road to that place... But he could not keep his mind upon any one object for very long, and other thoughts drifted across his awareness. He thought for a while of Keith Windham, back at Fort Augustus, who would surely have been glad to hear of Ewen's escape, and who would be dismayed at the news of his recapture; now it was as it had been at their parting, and they would never meet again, as they might have done one day had Ewen successfully escaped.

Impressions from his surroundings reached him but indistinctly; thus he was aware at one point that his captor of the handsome moustache introduced himself, belatedly, as Captain Lionel Jermain; and at another that there walked beside his own horse a Highlander, dressed in shirt and belted plaid, whose hands were bound like his own, and he remembered how the soldiers had spoken of 'another one'. This fellow-prisoner noticed Ewen looking at him, for he met Ewen's unsteady gaze with a look that spoke of compassion and concern; Ewen attempted an encouraging smile in response, though they could not speak to each other without exciting their captors' suspicion.

So they continued for an unmeasurable length of time. Presently it began to grow dark through the lingering mist; the soldiers, apparently to keep up their spirits, began to sing with more cheerfulness than tunefulness the anti-Jacobite drinking song—

...'King George, God bless him forever!
And down with the White Cockades!'...

But Captain Jermain did not join in this poetical chorus; he rode ahead of the main group, looking rapidly from side to side, and it suddenly occurred to Ewen that the captain had lost his way, and did not know where they were. Despite its weariness, his heart sped up: might there be some opportunity in this? He glanced down at the other prisoner, who raised his eyebrows; evidently he had had the same thought. Ewen wondered desperately how he might go about breaking or loosening the cords round his wrists. The girl's sgian was still in his stocking, where he had replaced it after his escape at High Bridge; might he reach it somehow?

But this hope, too, was to be dashed. Before Ewen could get any further in his wondering, the men's singing had begun to give way to shouts and exclamations, and, looking in the same direction which had drawn their attention, Ewen perceived the twinkling lights of a large house a little way further along the road.

Captain Jermain reined in his horse and faced his troop. 'Roxley—Dawkin,' he said, 'we are in luck! For I believe that this is the manor house of Windlestrae. There is no cause for alarm after all; we shall ask Mr Boyd to grant us shelter for the night, and carry on to Fort William to-morrow.'

It was with sinking heart that Ewen heard these words, for he had heard of Gilbert Boyd of Windlestrae, who, with his house standing a little way off from the northern shore of Loch Arkaig, was a near neighbour of Ewen's and of Lochiel's. But he was no Cameron, nor a chieftain or tacksman of any other clan. Ewen did not now recall the singular tangle of purchases, leases, inheritances and other legal complications surrounding this odd little parcel of land, by which an English family had somehow come into the holding of it, but hold it they had done for a generation, and Gilbert Boyd had amongst his native neighbours a reputation as the staunchest and most notorious Whig this side of the Campbell lands.

The party rode up to the great house, and Captain Jermain dismounted and beat a thundering tattoo upon the door. There was a pause of some moments, during which hurried movements could be heard inside the house; and then the door was opened by a fair-haired lad of sixteen or so.

Jermain peered into the gloom of the hallway. 'Is this the Manor House of Windlestrae?' he said, '—and do I address its master?'

Ewen tried to follow the captain's gaze further into the hall, where, behind the boy who had opened the door—Boyd's son, he supposed, for he remembered that Boyd had a son of about that age, whose name was Andrew—other figures were visible; but his view and his movements were both restricted by the soldier who sat before him. However, he was able to hear the reply to Jermain, from a man who now came forward into the doorway: 'It is. I am Gilbert Boyd, the Master of Windlestrae, sir. What is your pleasure?'

So this house was Windlestrae, and this man was Gilbert Boyd the English Whig! Ewen slumped back in the saddle. He felt faint; with this last withering of hope, all the pain and weariness of yesterday's long walk on his injured leg seemed to rush back upon him like a dark cloud descending upon his head.

For the next several minutes he had little notion of what happened. Presently he was aware that he was on his feet again, and being half-escorted, half-dragged along a stone-flagged corridor by one of the redcoats and another man, apparently a servant of the house. Walking in front of them were a second redcoat and Ewen's fellow prisoner; and from somewhere behind them came Captain Jermain's voice, saying, 'Yes, Mr Boyd, that room will do splendidly. Saville and Tracey can have their supper there, and keep watch over their charges meanwhile.'

They came to a little back kitchen, where Ewen was deposited in a rough wooden chair and the others sat down upon benches. In another minute the servant returned and handed round bread, cheese, cold mutton and whisky. The two prisoners were left at the side of the room while their captors ate; if they were to get any supper at all, it would evidently not be until later, perhaps when the redcoats had finished their own food and might use their undivided attention to prevent the prisoners from making any attempt at escape. From time to time during the meal, while the soldiers talked over their day's journeying, their opinions of Captain Jermain, the merits or otherwise of the hospitality of Windlestrae as exhibited in their supper, and other such subjects, the other prisoner cast glances of mingled compassion and curiosity upon Ewen.

During the next hour or two some highly interesting events took place involving Mr Boyd, his young son Andrew, Captain Jermain and certain other persons with whom the reader may already be acquainted, in connection with that secret chamber hidden in the walls of Windlestrae Manor and called the Mouse's Nest. But of these happenings Ewen knew nothing, for he and the other prisoner were kept all the time in the back kitchen, under the guard of Saville and Tracey.

The eyes of these soldiers, however, became progressively less watchful as the evening advanced, for after finishing their supper and giving the prisoners a little morsel of food they began to avail themselves very freely indeed of the flagons of ale and glasses of whisky with which Mr Boyd's servants seemed happy to supply them.

Ewen watched these proceedings in frank astonishment. He had seen already, so he thought, enough discreditable behaviour of one sort or another from the soldiers of the Elector, but this was altogether a new species of disgracefulness. The two redcoats alternated between loud merriment and—whenever the Windlestrae servants made an appearance at the door of the back kitchen—angry demands for more liquor. It was at a new height of this various clamour that the other prisoner, who had been leaning back against the wall where he sat with an appearance of faintness, whispered to Ewen in Gaelic, 'Do you suppose the captain knows about this?'

Ewen sat up. 'I don't know,' he said, 'but I fear 'twill not be much help to us. The people at Windlestrae—'

But here he was interrupted by the appearance at the door, not of the much-harassed servant, but of Andrew Boyd with a flagon in his hands. This he offered to the soldiers, who were happy to receive it; but, just as he placed it on the table, Ewen's fellow prisoner suddenly let out a moan.

'Water,' he said faintly, and speaking this time in English. 'For pity's sake, sir, some water?'

'Oh—' said Andrew, looking from him to the guards as if in confusion, and then, addressing the soldiers, 'May I give your prisoners a glass of water?'

They assented, and the lad fetched two glasses of water. He went first to the other prisoner, who appeared far weaker than he had been but a few minutes before; Andrew was obliged to lean close over him and raise his head with one hand while guiding the cup to his lips with the other. Then he brought the second glass to Ewen, preparing to do the same for him.

Ewen took a grateful gulp of the cold water; but although it went a long way towards clearing his tired mind, what happened next went further, for Andrew Boyd whispered as he bent over him, 'You are with friends—though we cannot help you.'

Only a few moments elapsed before Andrew had turned away from him and left the room, and Ewen was far too much stunned to attempt a reply. Andrew Boyd and his father, friends of his! What could this mean? Might the common report about their political allegiance be mistaken, after all—or was this some trick? He looked at the other prisoner, who was leaning back again with his eyes closed, as if in relief.

Saville and Tracey were mightily pleased with the flagon which Andrew had brought them; so pleased, in fact, that they evidently wanted no more help from the servants, for the next time one of them appeared at the door he was repulsed with shouts of anger and somewhat doubtfully coherent queries as to whether or not the brave soldiers could get any peace in this place.

It seemed that they could not. A few minutes later, when Saville had struck up again the soldiers' favourite poetical tribute to the Elector—

...'King George, God bless him forever!
And down with the White Cockades!'...

—and Tracey was apparently attempting to drown him out with a clashing verse of a totally different song—

...'They turned from that place as the fox, when hounds do chase
They tremble at the name, Cumberland!'

—there came another knock on the door, which opened this time to reveal the figure of the elder Boyd.

He addressed the soldiers. 'Do you lack anything, gentlemen?' he said, in his mild, careful English voice, 'or are you disposed to seek your rest?'

Tracey glowered at him; clearly the redcoats were in no mood to look kindly upon these hospitable overtures. 'No,' he said. 'We'll go to bed when we please, and not before. Shut the door!'

Boyd did so, but not before casting a brief but significant glance towards the two prisoners. Ewen's heart leapt. Was he seeing too much in that glance? Surely not...

'Tracey, my friend, has this door a key? I say—yes, I do say we lock it against the meddle—meddlesome fools!' opined Saville, brandishing his cup with such an extravagant gesture that its so highly-valued contents were in serious danger of slopping onto the floor.

'I have no key—damned tiresome,' replied Tracey vaguely. 'But see here! this will do just as well.' And, rising, he picked up one of the empty chairs and wedged it under the door-handle as a makeshift barricade, then stood back and surveyed his handiwork. 'There! That will secure our peace.'

So neither of the Boyds could return to the back kitchen, and Ewen and his fellow prisoner were treated to a further spectacle of the dignified and regular conduct of the British Army. Fortunately the two redcoats showed far more interest in their own celebrations than in annoying their prisoners, but the noise of their shouts and singing and the clatter of their cups were difficult to endure, all the more so when they must be endured alongside pain and weariness. Ewen heartily wished they would be quiet so that he might rest.

Presently, however, they did grow more subdued. Their voices died down from shouts to drowsy murmurs; they leaned against each other where they sat; they placed their cups heavily down upon the table and did not lift them any more—in short, they passed into that latter phase of drunkenness in which hearty roistering is succeeded by heavy stupor, and went to sleep.

Ewen, in contrast, watched his guards' progress towards that happy state with increasing alertness and growing glee. How amazingly fortunate! As Saville drooped his head down onto his arms, and as Tracey attempted clumsily to shift into a more comfortable position upon the bench, Ewen exchanged a glance with the other prisoner, who nodded; and a few minutes later, when both redcoats were securely slumbering, Ewen finally spoke.

'I have a knife in my stocking,' he said—whispering, and keeping to the Gaelic as an added precaution. 'The captain neglected to search me, and now—if you can reach it—'

The other prisoner's eyes widened. 'What a chance!' he said.

'But wait!' said Ewen. 'The Boyd lad told me that they are our friends. Do you believe it?'

'Yes; he said the same to me,' said the other prisoner, 'and I know for a fact that the Boyds of Windlestrae are of our party, though their reputation is otherwise.' Despite his ragged appearance—no more ragged than his own, Ewen supposed, after all—his accent and manner were those of a gentleman.

'Thank God!' said Ewen. 'If we can find our way out of here, they will help us... But how do you know? Forgive me, but my home is in this neighbourhood—my name is Ewen Cameron of Ardroy—and I've never heard otherwise than that the Boyds were loyal supporters of the Elector.'

'I had better not say too much here'—with a glance at the sleeping redcoats—'but the name of this house was given me as the likely place of refuge of—my master, a Jacobite gentleman who was in the battle at Culloden. I am Hugh Chisholm, and I come from Glenmoriston, where there are a party of us gathered... perhaps you understand me?

Ewen shook his head. He had no acquaintances in Glenmoriston, which was a Grant country, and knew nothing of whatever plots this Hugh Chisholm might be involved in; but already he trusted him, for they were comrades in adversity, and in loyalty to that cause which had suffered so bitter a loss, and the ties forged by such shared sorrows are strong. The revelation that his hosts were secretly of his own party; the knowledge that he had a friend beside him; the unlooked-for chance of escape which had so miraculously presented itself—all these things together acted upon Ewen's heart with the effect of a spark upon dry heather, or that of the draught of wine which, taken more temperately than Saville and Tracey were accustomed to imbibe their drink, gives a reviving energy to a failing spirit. He thought suddenly of Keith Windham, whose character and conduct made such a contrast to those of his fellow-soldiers here; perhaps they would meet again one day after all...

'But let us go!' said Ewen, interrupting his own wandering thoughts. 'Here is the knife—' And he indicated the stocking on his good leg.

Hugh Chisholm bent down and reached awkwardly forward with his tied hands. Having extracted the sgian, he set to work—clumsily, but successfully—on the bonds round Ewen's wrists, and then gave the knife to Ewen to do the same for him. Another minute and their legs too were free; and then Chisholm removed the chair from its position beneath the door-handle and stood for a moment with his ear pressed against the door, listening.

'All is quiet,' he said. 'I say we go now. If the household are all friendly to us, we only need avoid the rest of the soldiers—and then we can find a chance to slip out of the house before we are missed!'

Ewen nodded and pulled himself to his feet. 'And then,' he said, 'we might hide up in the hills—for I suppose you will not want to leave the neighbourhood of Windlestrae, if this gentleman of whom you speak might still be here?'

'Indeed,' said Chisholm, 'I must find him, if he is still here. But'—for Ewen was limping carefully across the room—'forgive me—I am not so badly hurt as I let our captors believe, but I fear there was no feigning with you, my friend! Can you walk?'

'Well enough,' said Ewen determinedly.

Chisholm grimaced at this; but he opened the door a little way and glanced to right and left along the passageway. 'There's no one in sight,' he said. 'Come.'

And so Ewen followed him out into the corridor, and the slumbering Saville and Tracey were left to their dreams.

II. At Windlestrae Manor

'We came in this way, didn't we?' whispered Hugh Chisholm, pointing down the corridor to the left.

Ewen could scarcely remember; but he agreed to the plan of going that way in search of the door through which they had entered, and they set off. But as they went along, a sound of voices and a clattering of cups, faint at first, grew gradually louder up ahead; it was evident that, whether or not there was an outside door ahead of them, there certainly was an occupied room. They exchanged glances.

'Captain Jermain and the others?' said Ewen, whispering as quietly as he could.

'I am afraid so,' replied Chisholm. He shook his head, thinking quickly. 'No—'tis too hazardous. We shall try the other way; there may be a back door.'

So they turned about and went to retrace their path; but they had not taken three steps upon the great smooth flagstones of the floor when another step sounded behind them.

Ewen looked round, in dread of seeing a red-coated figure come into view round the corner. In another moment a figure had appeared—but he wore no red coat. It was not Jermain or either of his subordinates. It was Andrew Boyd.

He saw them—and he stopped abruptly, his eyes widening in the light of the lantern he carried. Ewen held his breath. Now he and Hugh Chisholm would find out for certain whether these Boyds were really their friends...

'You have escaped!' exclaimed Andrew in a whisper. 'How—but no, we must find you a safe hiding-place first. Follow me, sirs.'

As the fugitives followed Andrew back down the passage—Chisholm giving Ewen his arm to lean upon, for this fresh exertion, such a short time after his painful journey from Spean side, was taxing his strength a little—prisoners and host exchanged introductions.

'And so you will help us!' finished Ewen. 'I cannot thank you enough—'twas fortunate indeed that the soldiers brought us to your house this night.'

'I certainly will,' said Andrew, his eyes sparkling. Evidently this brave lad was an ardent Jacobite indeed—or perhaps it was sheer love of adventure which animated his spirit so at the prospect of danger. 'Captain Jermain and the other two soldiers are at supper in the parlour with my father,' he went on, 'and we can keep them there for a while yet. But what has become of the two who were guarding you?'

And Ewen, with delight in his voice despite his fatigue, explained to Andrew the fate of Saville and Tracey, and his own stratagem by which he and Chisholm had escaped their not very secure clutches.

But Hugh Chisholm was already thinking of another thing. 'Tell me, Andrew,' he said as the lad led him and Ewen round a corner and onto an ascending staircase, 'have you lately sheltered in this house, or met anywhere about the country here, a fugitive gentleman by the name of Lord Geoffry Armitage?'

'Oh, yes, we have!' cried Andrew. 'Sir, Lord Geoffry Armitage is here in this house at this very moment'—an inarticulate exclamation from Chisholm greeted this announcement—'and I have told him about you, and he thought that you might be a person he was expecting. You are, then?'

'I am,' said Chisholm with a smile of relief.

Ewen listened to this exchange in some puzzlement. This gentleman—Lord Geoffry Armitage—had been at Culloden, so Chisholm had said; and yet Ewen was positive that he had never heard the name before, though he ought to recognise the names of all the titled lords who had fought upon that fatal day. Even more strangely, it was an English name, and there had certainly been no English lords upon the Jacobite side at Drumossie Moor. But perhaps the name was a false one, adopted to disguise the identity of some well-known Scottish Jacobite; and this guess was naturally followed by curiosity as to who the man was. For a moment Ewen entertained a wild surmise that it might be Lochiel—with feelings of mingled hope that they might meet and he unburden himself of the awful truth of his betrayal at Fort Augustus, and dismay at the prospect of Lochiel here and in danger. But no, it was not possible, for Lochiel would have told Ewen of any false name he planned to use—just as he had told him of the hiding-place upon Beinn Bhreac...

'He is hiding in the attics,' went on Andrew. He spoke in a rapid whisper, but with a brightness overspreading his features as he spoke more of this mysterious Lord Armitage, whom he evidently admired greatly. 'We've had a sore trial this evening keeping him safe from the soldiers! I will take you to him, and my father and I will endeavour to keep Jermain from any suspicion of your escape. Then perhaps you can slip out of the house together?

'That is an excellent plan,' said Ewen, looking at Chisholm, who nodded.

'And,' said Chisholm, ''tis all the more important that we make our flight with as little delay as possible—Andrew, I believe I just managed to whisper to you, when you last visited us, a word about Danforth.'

'You did, sir!' said Andrew. 'Is he really coming here?'

They were now halfway up the second flight of stairs, Chisholm still assisting Ewen, and Andrew fell back to walk on Ewen's other side and lend the additional support of his own arm. 'I am afraid he is,' said Chisholm. 'Andrew, the soldiers at Fort William have finally begun to suspect that your worthy father's politics may not be what they have always been supposed. Yesterday a friend of mine heard that Danforth intends to ride over here to-morrow—in pursuit of Lord Armitage!'

'Then you and he must be away!' said Andrew. The sounds of the dining-parlour below had by now faded from their hearing, and Andrew ventured to raise his voice above a whisper at last. 'But in a moment you shall tell Lord Armitage yourself, sir, for he is here.' And, so saying, he shone his lantern upon the old, gnarled oak wood of a little door, apparently that of a lumber-room; another moment and he had opened the door and stepped through, gesturing for Chisholm and Ewen to follow.

'Andrew!' said a voice from within the lumber-room. 'My faithful friend—what news? But—'

The person who had, upon perceiving the arrival of the party, started up from his makeshift seat upon a pile of dried hides and come forward to greet Andrew, broke off abruptly when he saw the two others who accompanied him; but, if he was surprised at their appearance, Ewen was even more astonished. The room was dim in the light of lantern and candle, and the man's face was in shadow, but Ewen grew more sure with every word he spoke that he knew his voice. Yes, he had certainly heard it before—at Culloden, indeed, and before that in Edinburgh...

'My lord, the prisoners did not need my help, for you see they have already escaped!' said Andrew. 'The soldiers guarding them fell asleep, and they cut their bonds and slipped out of the room. This is Hugh Chisholm, and Ewen Cameron of Ardroy—Lord Geoffry Armitage.'

'Ardroy!' said Lord Armitage, taking up the candle and moving it towards his visitors. 'Yes, I see it is.'

'I am not mistaken, then,' said Ewen breathlessly. 'But, Your—'

'Hush!' interrupted the man whom Ewen thus began to address. 'Here my only name is Lord Geoffry Armitage, and you must use no other, my honest Ardroy. I shall explain all presently. But you'—he turned to Chisholm—'surely recognise that name, if you are the same Hugh Chisholm who comes from the Braes of Glenmoriston, and whom I have despaired of meeting ever since I left Sheilar Manse.'

Hugh Chisholm, who had been looking back and forth between Ewen, Andrew and—him whom we shall continue to call Lord Geoffry Armitage—in growing amazement, now exclaimed, 'Yes, it is I—and I find you here!' Evidently he recognised Lord Armitage just as well as Ewen did.

'My sorrow, gentlemen,' said Lord Armitage with a soft laugh, 'I ought to have known you both at sight! But sit down—we have much to discuss, and more to do. You too, Andrew—unless your presence is required downstairs again, to allay suspicion?'

Andrew hesitated. 'I ought to tell my father that the prisoners have escaped,' he said, 'for we shall have to keep Jermain and the other soldiers occupied for as long as possible, to keep them from finding it out. I hardly know how I can, when he is in the room with them... But I'll go, and see what I can do.'

'You are a good, brave lad, Andrew,' said Lord Armitage, smiling. It was the sort of smile which Ewen had often seen upon his face, in Edinburgh and elsewhere—cheerful and courageous, the look of a hero reflecting back the bright rays which the sun of Fortune casts upon him—but softened and mellowed by the sadder fortunes of these latter days, and perhaps by something else also. 'I have every confidence that you will find a way to keep your red-coated guests at bay. Come back to us, if you can.'

Andrew nodded, his face flushed with pleasure, and left the room.

Armitage and Chisholm now began a rapid discussion of plans—to which Ewen contributed a little, though hindered both by his ignorance of their previous relations and by the pain of his leg. It appeared that Chisholm had been travelling towards Loch Arkaig from Glenmoriston, intending to rendezvous with Lord Armitage and guide him back to that place of safety, but had been intercepted on the way by Captain Jermain and his party.

'And then, losing their way in the mist, the soldiers turned towards Windlestrae—the very place where I expected to find you!' said Chisholm. 'I could scarcely believe my luck.'

'I believe it,' said Armitage, with another of his smiles. 'Remember what I used to tell you in Paris, my dear Chisholm. But you, Ardroy, I'll wager, did not expect to find me here! By what strange chance do you come to this place?'

Briefly Ewen told the story of his escape and recapture. 'But we must be quick,' he finished, turning to Hugh Chisholm, 'for these soldiers cannot well remain in the dark about our escape for very long—and you say that Danforth comes here to-morrow!'

'So he does,' said Chisholm, 'and you, Lord Armitage, must be far away.'

'Truly!' said Lord Armitage. 'But where? Surely we have not time between now and day-break to reach—the place you and I both know of?'

'There is no reason why we should not,' said Chisholm, and his adventurer's eyes shone in the candlelight. 'Probably Patrick Grant has made arrangements for us to be met on the way. Oh, Ardroy,' he added, 'you are a Cameron; are you perhaps some relation to Dr Archibald Cameron?'

Ewen's heart leapt. Had Chisholm seen Archie? 'Yes—he is my cousin! Have you news of him—or of Lochiel?'

Chisholm nodded. 'He has been an invaluable messenger to us these last weeks among the mountains. 'Tis partly thanks to him that we know so much about Danforth's movements and intentions—and we may well meet him where we are going. I do not know where Lochiel is at present, but I know he is safe, and that Dr Cameron has been with him lately.'

Just then the sound of footsteps came from outside the door. The three fugitives held their breath; but it was the stalwart Andrew who stood revealed in the doorway a moment later.

'All's well,' he said. 'The soldiers suspect nothing; my father is keeping them occupied as long as possible—and, truth to tell, they have drunk so much at their supper that 'twill not be so difficult. But are you ready to leave, sirs? I will let you out at a side door, before your flight is discovered.'

'Excellent work, Andrew, and your father too!' cried Lord Geoffry. 'And when Danforth arrives here to-morrow, he will find that three birds instead of one have flown.' He stood up, making the shadows dance and flicker upon the walls and upon the jumbled furniture with which the room was piled as he lifted the candle. 'Gentlemen, let us be on our way.'

Ewen and Chisholm rose to follow him to the door; but as they did so, Ewen suddenly stumbled and fell heavily against Chisholm, who had extended an arm to support him again. Pain shot through his thigh, and his vision blurred.

'Ardroy!' exclaimed Lord Geoffry. 'Ah, you are more badly hurt than you let us see... Can you walk?'

Ewen sat carefully back down upon the pile of hides, holding his hand to his whirling head. 'I fear,' he said unsteadily, 'I fear that I cannot go with you. I've walked a long way on this leg already, but...'

'—But you cannot walk any farther,' finished Lord Armitage. 'My dear Ardroy, this is unfortunate!' He was peering at Ewen in the light of the candle, his dark eyes full of concern, while Chisholm and Andrew stood by with expressions of like worry.

Now Andrew stepped forward. 'You two go,' he said to Lord Armitage and Chisholm. 'We will shelter him here. It will be an easy matter to make the soldiers believe that we have already searched up here—they are in no state to search the entire house themselves to-night.'

'But to-morrow!' said Lord Geoffry. 'What will become of you and your father, Andrew, when Danforth arrives and finds, not only that you have allowed us to escape, but that you are still sheltering another prisoner? And what will become of you, Ardroy? Oh, I cannot bear it! Chisholm, go you alone. I cannot leave them.'

Ewen all but started up from his seat, before another shooting pain forced him back down. 'No!' he cried, and then, getting his alarm under control, went on, 'Forgive me, Your—my lord; you cannot possibly be of aid to me or to the Boyds if you stay here. And think of what it would mean were you to be taken or killed now—far more than if the same fate were to befall me.'

Lord Geoffry was smiling at him rather sadly as he spoke. 'You are right, Ardroy, of course,' he said now. 'I recall I once reproached you in terms none too graceful for your excessive solicitude for my safety—but your old head is wise enough to-night. I shall go.'

Ewen nodded, relieved. 'Farewell, then, my lord,' he said, 'and to you too, Chisholm. May you swiftly reach that place of safety!'

Chisholm bowed. 'Farewell, Ardroy,' he said. 'You have been a great friend to me to-day, and I shan't forget your friendship. I hope we may meet again in happier days.'

And Lord Armitage extended his arm to clasp Ewen's uplifted hand, and bade him farewell also. 'And I hope most fervently that you will join us in safety very soon, my faithful Ardroy,' he said, and the candlelight sparkled in his eyes.

But neither of the four gathered in that room had any notion of just how soon they were all to meet again, nor what strange and remarkable adventures would intervene to bring that meeting about.

Ewen lay back wearily upon the piled skins and tried to contemplate the varied events and fortunes of that evening. He was half fearful of some sudden uproar from the lower part of the house; but some minutes passed and no sound came, and so he concluded that Hugh Chisholm and—Lord Geoffry... were making good their escape, undiscovered. That was by far the most important thing. But what of his own chances? Captain Jermain and his company had proved themselves amazingly incompetent, and if Ewen was lucky would continue to do so, but this Colonel Danforth sounded an altogether more formidable foe; surely he would search the house from attics to cellars when he arrived to-morrow. Might Ewen, strengthened by a night's rest, manage to slip away before then?... He might. Perhaps he would hide amongst the heather near the house, and then he need not go very far. But even that might not be possible; and if it were not, Ewen would face the dismal prospect of his second escape being followed by a second recapture.

But Lord Geoffry was free—and so, he remembered with a little warm glow at his heart, was Lochiel.

Once again footsteps sounded outside the door, which opened to admit Andrew Boyd, carrying a pile of blankets in his arms.

'All is well,' he said. 'They've gone, and the captain still knows nothing. I suppose he will want to go and collect you and Hugh Chisholm from the back kitchen before long, and then he'll find out that you have escaped; but, if he insists on searching the house, we will assure him that we have looked up here. Now, can I make you more comfortable?'

So saying, he brought the blankets over to where Ewen lay and began to arrange them into a makeshift bed and covers atop the hides. The removal of the blankets from his arms revealed that he also carried a little bundle, which he gave to Ewen, saying, 'I suppose they gave you little enough to eat earlier—have as much of that as you want.'

Ewen took the parcel gladly. It proved to contain a generously-cut slice of pigeon-pie and a couple of apples, upon which he at once set to work.

'Andrew,' he said, after swallowing a mouthful of pie and pulling a blanket round himself—it did nothing to ease the fierce pain in his leg, but the warmth cheered him, all the same—'will you tell me how Lord Geoffry Armitage came to this house? I know him, and I confess I was astonished to meet him here.' He spoke—despite his tiredness—partly out of real curiosity, and also from a sense that he would be doing Andrew a kindness by asking him to talk about Lord Armitage. Andrew was perhaps ten years younger than Ewen; to-night the fugitive of Culloden felt acutely the distance between this cheerful, nimbly-springing lad and himself, but it was not very long ago that he had been so young, and less since he had been so carefree, and he believed he understood something of Andrew's feelings and of the heart that felt them.

Andrew sat down upon the pile of hides beside him, placing his lantern between them. 'Of course,' he said. 'I was quite as surprised as you, at first! It was a few afternoons ago, when I was cutting timber in our wood over the glen...'

And he told Ewen how he had nearly crushed the unfortunate Lord Geoffry under the tree he had been cutting, but had happily rescued him and, upon learning of his fugitive state, taken him to the house, where he had been lying for some days when Captain Jermain and his company arrived. He told of the narrow escape Lord Geoffry had had earlier that very evening, when Jermain took it into his head to investigate the Mouse's Nest, that ingenious hidden chamber where the Jacobite had been concealed. All this was spoken with a quiet smile which seemed to illuminate Andrew's face more than did the steady light of the lantern; and all with a guileless admiration which made it quite clear that Andrew had no idea that Lord Armitage had any other name.

'You've had quite the adventure,' observed Ewen, 'and so has he! I am glad he is safe away.'

'So am I,' said Andrew fervently. 'And...' He hesitated, but went on, 'Before he left, he gave me this—see.' He held out his hand, upon the finger of which was a golden ring set with a glittering sapphire.

'A fine gift!' said Ewen, really impressed. But he had always been generous... and again Ewen was reminded of Edinburgh. 'I know Lord Geoffry,' he said, 'and if he gave you this, he must value very highly the courage you have shown on his behalf.'

And he returned the smile in Andrew's blue eyes, which shone scarcely less than the jewel upon his finger.

'But I'm forgetting myself—you must sleep!' said Andrew. 'I am sorry for keeping you here listening to me.'

'Not at all,' said Ewen. 'It has been a most worthy story. But you're right; I ought to sleep.' Indeed, he was weary. He pulled his blanket up round his shoulders and settled down.

'I will come and wake you in the morning,' said Andrew. 'I hope you'll be feeling stronger then—we must try to get you away before Danforth arrives.'

'I'm sure I shall,' said Ewen firmly.

'Even if 'tis only into the heather above the house—or perhaps the wood where I met Lord Geoffry! There are plenty of places to hide; never fear.' And, his expression changing as with a sudden inspiration, he added, 'And you will be quite safe to-night. I shall break the lock on one of the side-doors downstairs, to make it look as if you've all escaped that way, and they will have no suspicion that anyone is up here... Good-night, then, sir.'

'Ardroy,' said Ewen, holding up his hand to clasp Andrew's. 'Good-night, Andrew—and thank you.'

'Good-night, Ardroy,' said Andrew, smiling at the adult address of equality. 'Thank you too.'

And then he was gone. He left a candle in the room for Ewen's benefit; as the sound of Andrew's footsteps faded away down the corridor outside, Ewen turned over to blow out the candle and then half-collapsed back onto the makeshift bed of skins and plaids. For a few minutes, as he slipped gratefully towards sleep, he turned over in his thoughts his conversation with Andrew; and as he did so, Keith Windham came suddenly back to his mind again, as he had already done more than once that day. Andrew Boyd's face seemed to place itself alongside this returned remembrance, and upon the threshold of sleep, Ewen saw an unexpected significance in the comparison. The utter, trusting adoration which had been in Andrew's eyes and voice as he spoke of 'Lord Geoffry' was the love of a heart sixteen years old for a friend who might well be a hero. Ewen's feelings for his own friend could not be so simple; and yet there was a resemblance between them, for it was also love that he felt for Keith. Yes, he and Andrew were alike indeed—even more alike than he had appreciated.

Above the ruin of Achnacarry House the clouds had gathered in monstrous, gloomy shapes, dark mass piling upon grey. The nearer mountain peaks were misty in their veils of cloud, while the further were not visible at all. The unwelcome promise of the clouds had not yet been fulfilled, however, for only a few sparse and indecisive drops of rain blew into Major Windham's face as he rode up the glen; but, he thought with spirits sinking even lower than they had been at the start of the ride, it would surely not be long.

In front of Keith as he rode along were the straight, red-coated back of Colonel Danforth and the swishing black tail of his horse, and this, if possible, was an even more dispiriting sight than the weather. Keith had made his rendezvous with the colonel, as planned, two days ago, and two days had been far more than enough time in which to comprehend what sort of man Colonel Danforth was, and to become heartily and wearily sick at the prospect of the days and weeks stretching out ahead, to be spent in Danforth's company—and what was worse, under his command.

Keith wondered idly whether Danforth and Major Guthrie had ever met. They would have suited each other quite ideally.

There had been no stopping the pursuits on which Danforth had been determined on spending the day after Major Windham had joined him; but Keith, with the memory ever before him of his late 'prudence' at Inverness, and of how bitterly he had repented of that prudence once returned to the company of Ewen Cameron, had gone through the day with a hateful sickness at his own impotence—a revulsion which grew stronger with every hour and every hour's fresh and more hateful deed. Here was no honour nor even common decency. In Danforth's company, wearing the same scarlet as he and obliged tacitly to condone his every action, Keith could believe he had been right, back in May, in thinking himself branded...

At last, however, he had been able to persuade Danforth, by means of careful suggestion, of the wisdom of returning to their mission to find the Pretender's son. And thus it was that on this early morning—very early by the clock, if not by the July sun of the Highlands—they were riding up to the place called Windlestrae. Danforth had received intelligence that a Jacobite fugitive under the name of Lord Geoffry Armitage had fled in this direction from Sheilar Manse; and that Gilbert Boyd, the owner of Windlestrae, was not the loyal Whig he had always been supposed, and might now be sheltering this man. The name 'Lord Geoffry Armitage' could not be his real one, for no such lord existed, and the command at Fort William had formed a pretty shrewd surmise as to his probable real identity.

And now the dark stone walls and high chimneys of Windlestrae were coming into view round a spur of one of the hills. The house was quiet; smoke ascended from some of the chimneys, but no people were visible outside.

Contrary to Keith's pessimistic expectations a gap had appeared in the clouds, and yellow-gold morning shone upon the waving leaves of the tall oaks and limes which surrounded the Manor. It was in the face of this growing loveliness that Colonel Danforth, with a sly smile upon his face, reined in his horse and addressed his men, reiterating the orders they were to carry out once they reached the house. He was fond of a quiet advent, and the earliness of the hour would give him a good opportunity this morning—and he would be aided, if he had but known it, by the excesses of which Jermain and his companions had been guilty the previous night. The most part of the men, led by Major Windham, were to remain in the grounds, while Danforth himself went into the house and there endeavoured to ascertain whether its inmates knew anything of the movements of a man calling himself Lord Geoffry Armitage.

'And what we do after that, gentlemen,' he concluded, with rather a grim smile in Keith's direction, 'depends upon what they tell us.'

III. The Brightness Clears the Gloom

'Ah, Andrew,' said Captain Jermain, looking up from the bowl of porridge which he had been spooning hastily into his mouth. 'Come to help us carry out our plans?'

The captain's jovial young face wore an unwontedly haggard expression; even his moustache seemed to have contrived to droop in a discouraged manner down from his cheeks. This was not without reason. He had gone last night after midnight to the back kitchen in which sat Saville and Tracey, thinking to retrieve the two prisoners and deposit them safely in the strong-room leading off the East Room, which Gilbert Boyd had suggested as the most suitable place for their confinement. This would, he had imagined, be a simple task of a few minutes, much more than which Jermain was not by that time in a condition to contemplate; so it was to his very great dismay that he found his men sound asleep and the two prisoners vanished away. Gilbert Boyd had at once offered the assistance of his household in the search which must ensue, and the side-door leading into the garden, which Andrew, true to his word, had contrived to make appear as if it had been forced, was soon found. A full search of the gardens and grounds was impossible in that misty night, and a few experimental forays with lanterns had found nothing; and so Jermain, practically electrified with alarm, embarrassment and apprehension, but yet failing entirely to overcome the limitations of his earlier condition, had been forced to give up the effort and retire to bed. Now, a sober and a chastened man, he was planning another attempt on the grounds—though with little hope after the passage of so much time.

And all the while the second prisoner had lain hidden in the attic. Andrew had gone to see Ardroy before coming downstairs; he was, he said, feeling much better this morning, and an attempt was to be made to smuggle him out of the house on one side while Jermain was busy on the other. It would not be easy. Andrew's heart beat as he sat down to his own breakfast, for even more of his courage, resource and ingenuity would be called for if Ardroy was successfully to evade Jermain and his men—and Danforth, who all the time must be journeying towards the house.

But if Ardroy could only get up as far as the wood over the glen, he would be perfectly safe. And Andrew would do his utmost. If he succeeded, he would be restoring a friend of Lord Geoffry Armitage to him; and perhaps Lord Geoffry would get to hear of the part Andrew had played in Ardroy's escape!...

So he sat quietly at the table with his father and the soldiers—only Roxley and Dawkin accompanied their captain this morning, for Saville and Tracey were in disgrace—and listened to Jermain talking over his plans. And Jermain was saying, 'Very well, then; Dawkin and I will search the shrubbery while you, Boyd, comb the kitchen gard—' when he was interrupted by a quiet but firm knock at the parlour door.

Gilbert Boyd rose and went to answer this most unexpected arrival; but he had scarcely taken two steps across the room when the door opened and admitted a small, stern-featured man in a red coat—Colonel Danforth himself.

For a few moments there was absolute silence in the parlour, while the colonel surveyed the faces staring at him in various shades of astonishment, bafflement and dismay. Then he spoke.

'Captain Lionel Jermain, I presume?'

And so saying, he took a few smart, confident steps towards where Jermain sat—revealing, as he did so, the half-a-dozen soldiers who stood outside the doorway behind him.

Jermain's mouth hung open beneath his moustache. This was going absolutely from bad to worse; to have allowed, by his own careless negligence, two valuable prisoners to give him the slip, and now to be confronted with a superior officer to whom he must at once confess his fault! Nervously he rose and shook Danforth's extended hand.

'You seem somewhat perturbed, captain,' remarked the colonel. 'Am I to gather that all does not go well at Windlestrae Manor?' And he glanced across the table at Andrew, who was staring at Danforth while trying his utmost to conceal the horror he felt.

Jermain gulped. But it had to be done. He took the plunge. 'Sir, we have suffered a great misfortune,' he said. 'Two rebel prisoners whom I intended to confine for the night at this house have... very unfortunately escaped. But I mean to recover them! We have just now been planning—'

'Ah,' interrupted Danforth, imbuing the single vowel with an incredible wealth of meaning—and that perhaps not quite the meaning which Jermain had expected. 'Yes,' he went on, 'I am not at all surprised to hear of such a thing happening in this house. No doubt you expected Mr Gilbert Boyd'—he turned to that gentleman, who had returned to the table and was standing beside Andrew—'that loyal friend of King George, to help you in keeping these prisoners secure. But I fear we have all been sadly mistaken in Mr Boyd; in fact, I suspect that he may have had a hand in this escape! Mr Boyd, I may as well tell you plainly my purpose in making you this visit. It is to ascertain whether you have at any time sheltered in this house a Jacobite fugitive by the name of Lord Geoffry Armitage.'

Throughout the colonel's speech Andrew's face had been growing steadily paler. Danforth arrived in the house, and poor Cameron of Ardroy still concealed in the attic! What were they to do? His mind was a whirl of dismay and of desperate plans for Ardroy's rescue from Danforth; and it was into this turmoil that there came the name, spoken by that dreadful voice, of his own dear, gallant friend. It was more than Andrew's brave heart could bear. He swooned away where he stood.

Danforth regarded dispassionately the sight of Gilbert Boyd rushing to catch his son in his supporting and comforting arms. 'Hmm,' he said, 'I believe we have our answer. Mr Boyd, consider yourself under arrest—and your son also!'

And poor Andrew had scarcely raised his head from his father's shoulder or stood, shakily, on his own feet again before the shackles were clapped onto his wrists.

'Now, gentlemen, bring the prisoners outside!' said Danforth to one group of his men, in a voice now full of barely-disguised glee. 'The rest of you, search the house, and bring whatever you find out onto the lawn. There I shall hold court; and I rather think,' he added, with an unpleasant smile at Captain Jermain, 'that what I find there will prove a solution to all our difficulties.'

It might have been an age for which Major Windham remained motionless upon the wide green lawn in front of the Manor House, while the still uncertain beams of morning light slanting through the clouds grew steadily in strength until they glinted, and then glittered, upon the house's many windows. His horse grew restless, and he spoke a quiet word or two to calm the beast. He tried not to dwell upon thoughts of what Danforth might be getting up to inside. A chaffinch twittered and flourished its merry song from one of the tall, gnarled pines along the northern edge of the lawn, a totally inappropriate and increasingly irritating accompaniment to the events going on in the human world.

But at last there was movement. A small door at the side of the house opened, and out strode Colonel Danforth. He was accompanied by only two of the half-a-dozen men who had entered the house with him, but these two were leading two prisoners—a resolutely grim middle-aged man and a terrified boy, evidently the owner of Windlestrae and his heir—and following them were three more soldiers who did not belong to Danforth's company, and whom Keith did not recognise.

'Ah, Major Windham,' said Danforth cheerfully as the party arrived, to curious looks from the men ranged behind Keith. Cheerfulness from Danforth could not be a good sign; unless, perhaps, they had some clue regarding the Pretender's son?... The Colonel now beckoned to his subordinate officer to dismount and join him; and, while Keith's horse was led away by a subaltern, Danforth explained to him the situation as he had found it inside the house.

'It only remains,' he concluded, 'to establish exactly what shelter this house has been, or indeed still is, to our friend "Lord Geoffry Armitage"'—the inverted commas were audible—'so called. Newbiggin, take your men to assist in searching the house. Windham, stay here.'

By this time the two prisoners had been brought forward to the centre of the little gathering. The poor boy—he could be no older than sixteen or so—was as white as a Highland mist, and looked fairly ready to collapse; indeed, he was half-supported where he stood by the soldier in charge of him.

'So; we shall begin!' went on Danforth briskly. He rounded on the elder Boyd. 'Tell me instantly,' he said, all the appearance of good humour gone from his tone, 'what was your part in this hideous trick played upon Captain Jermain; and what you know—for I know that you do know—about Lord Geoffry Armitage.'

Gilbert Boyd stood calmly upright as he replied, 'I arranged for the escape of Captain Jermain's two Highland prisoners this morning. They got safely away, and are by now far beyond your pursuit.' Up to this point he had been facing away from Danforth and apparently addressing his speech to the chaffinch in its pine tree. Now he turned to look directly at the colonel. 'Of Lord Geoffry Armitage,' he said, clearly and distinctly, 'I shall tell you nothing.'

Danforth gave a laugh which was totally devoid of amusement. 'I see,' he said. 'Well, then, we shall have to try... other methods. Bring that lad here!' The soldier holding Andrew shoved him roughly forward, so that he stumbled and almost fell. 'Well, boy,' said Danforth, wheeling round to face him, 'I hope you intend to be more cooperative than your father. Will you answer my questions?'

Throughout these proceedings Keith had been standing to one side, his face expressionless and his mind a growing turmoil of rage. To find out information about 'Lord Geoffry Armitage' was Danforth's duty; to commit, and to take enjoyment in, such gratuitous cruelty was not... Keith hoped that the boy would speak, and keep Danforth from proceeding to whatever extremity he had in mind next—probably firing the house and dragging father and son off as prisoners to Fort William—and yet it occurred to him also how bitter would be the success, and how little gratifying the credit to himself in it, if they should achieve the capture of the Pretender's son by such means as this.

Andrew Boyd had by now kept silence for fully two minutes; during which time there was no sound save the chaffinch's incessant song.

In an instant, and without warning or obvious cause, Danforth's demeanour changed from lofty irony to open fury. 'Speak, you insolent young dog of a rebel!' he roared.

'I will not!' cried Andrew.

Danforth did not reply to this. Instead he turned to the men behind him, and a hint of amusement—very grim amusement—entered his manner. 'Very well,' he said. 'Foote, you know what to do.'

He addressed Foote, but his gaze as he spoke was fixed upon the face of Major Windham. He knew how Keith would regard what he was about to do, and to force his subordinate to stand by and watch his cruelties gave him almost as much pleasure as to inflict them on the unfortunate prisoners themselves.

Foote and his men began their preparations, and in a flash Keith saw what they were about to do. At first he did not believe it. Even the detestable Guthrie had not actually gone to such a length when Ewen Cameron had been his captive... But there could be no doubt. Already one man was tearing off the boy's shirt, and another was fingering the whip ready to raise it—

The thought of Ewen Cameron, bringing with it thoughts of honour, nobility, generosity and—yes, friendship—things greater than military ambition—all at once made Keith's next action incredibly simple. He would not stand by and watch while the Colonel tortured a boy—no matter the consequences for himself.

He took a step forward and opened his mouth to speak—

And the soldiers who had been sent to search the house came running up, interrupting the scene upon the lawn. Two at the rear of the party were dragging another prisoner with them.

Danforth motioned for Foote to cease his horrible preparations. 'Ah,' he said to the new arrivals, 'you have found something! Well, perhaps this business'—he wrinkled his nose at Foote and his companion with the whip, as though affecting to disdain the 'business'—'will not be necessary after all. Major Windham, tell me: is this the man whom we have been hoping to meet under the name of Lord Geoffry Armitage?'

The prisoner was brought forward for Keith's inspection; and all at once he found himself looking straight into the astonished blue eyes of Ewen Cameron.

'No,' said Keith, in a voice he scarcely recognised, 'that is not he.'

He had not looked away, and neither had Ewen. Dear God, Ardroy looked exhausted; far worse than he had done at Fort Augustus a few days before... He evidently could not walk on his injured leg, and in the lines of his face was an incredible weariness. But the eyes which still gazed upon Keith had a fierce light in them, and the initial shock of recognition had turned into something else; there was hope in those blue eyes, and...

'Not the supposed Lord Armitage—another rebel, then!' said Danforth thoughtfully. 'One of your prisoners, I suppose, Jermain?... Well, then, perhaps you have something to say about Lord Geoffry Armitage. But I fear you won't tell us any more than this young rebel of a Boyd would. Foote!'

The last couple of minutes had been full of shock and surprise for Keith; yet somewhere in the back of his mind there was still turning the decision he had made, and had only been prevented from carrying out by the sudden appearance of the soldiers with Ewen, when Foote had first been ordered to turn the whip upon Andrew Boyd. It had become stronger for the time gained; it was even more clearly the only possible thing to do. So now, as Foote returned to his preparations before both Andrew and Ewen, Keith did not stop to think again. He tore his gaze away from Ewen's and stepped forward.

'Sir, you must stop this madness at once!' he said, in a voice which still sounded strange to him. 'It is outrageous. Have you no regard for honour, or—you propose to flog a young boy and a wounded man!'

So far had rage and moral determination, the stronger for being so mingled, carried him; now he suddenly saw how outrageous his own outburst must appear, viewed in the light of speech to a superior officer. He wanted to achieve his purpose; he tried to moderate himself to something to which Danforth—small enough hope!—might actually listen.

'Surely, sir, we have established beyond doubt that Lord Geoffry Armitage has been here, and is here no more,' he said. 'Anything further is merely wasting time, when we could be pursuing him.'

Danforth had been regarding him with a look of dispassionate and mildly amazed interest throughout this, but only now did he speak. 'Upon my soul,' he said, with a little laugh, 'I expected to find Jacobites skulking in the attics of Windlestrae Manor; I had no notion I would find them amongst my own officers! Major Windham, these are rebels; they are no better than dogs, and if you insist upon thinking more of them than that, then I am obliged to suspect you of sympathising with them in other ways also. Consider yourself under arrest. Newbiggin!'

And in a few moments more Keith had been stripped of his sword and shoved forward, hands tied, to stand with the other three prisoners, as helpless as they. His new companions stared at him—Gilbert Boyd with admiration, Andrew with wonder and Ewen Cameron with another expression again.

'But our rebel Major was right in one thing,' continued Danforth; 'we are wasting our time here. I hope to hear more of Lord Armitage in the guard-room at Fort William—and to do more than hear of him very soon after that. Very well, then; to Fort William! Perhaps, Mr Boyd,' he added in an undertone, addressing Gilbert Boyd but making himself audible to Keith, 'you will find yourself more cooperative after a journey spent thinking the question over.'

And so the strange procession began to move off towards the Loch Arkaig road: the colonel with his redcoats and his prisoners—and one who was both.

Keith had been returned to his horse, for disarmed and with his hands secured he was in no danger of escaping. He rode along like one in a trance. This was a greater thing than his turning back from his errand to see Ewen at Fort Augustus, a greater even than his refusal to give evidence at Ewen's trial; he had been given chances enough already, and this surely meant the end to all his military ambitions. Considered by the code of men like Lord Albemarle and the Duke of Cumberland, there could be no excuse for what he had just done.

And yet he did not regret it. Riding along between the grim green mountains of Loch Arkaig side he found, to a little amazement, that he was not a man of prudence any longer. Because he had intervened, Andrew Boyd was riding along at his side, captive but uninjured; and Ewen, his friend, was no more hurt than he had already been when the soldiers had brought him out onto the lawn. No; whatever might be the consequences for his own future, it was a good thing that he had done to-day.

He only hoped that it would not be undone when they reached Fort William. Danforth had certainly meant, in his last speech, to threaten further cruelties; and his thirst for bloody retribution was not yet quenched. For, at a cry from Andrew Boyd, Keith had glanced back at the house of Windlestrae, and he saw it going up in flames.

Once more Ewen was riding along, a prisoner, accompanied by other prisoners to whom he could not speak. But his wish of the previous afternoon that he might exchange a few words with Hugh Chisholm was nothing to his wish now to talk to Keith Windham. He had known that Keith was a man who valued honour as highly as Ewen did himself, very different from those other Government soldiers of whose behaviour Ewen had seen a little and heard more. He had known that Keith was his friend, and that he had already risked serious consequences for his own career more than once in order to help Ewen. But to see him this morning criticise a superior officer before witnesses, and in terms quite as strong as the man's behaviour had, indeed, really deserved, and receive for it such a swift and decisive punishment... all this was another thing again from what he had already known of Keith Windham.

Neither had Ewen forgotten the thoughts which had passed through his mind before he fell asleep the night before... and he was scarcely conscious, as he rode along, that he himself was in all probability bound for Carlisle and the traitor's death which he had so nearly escaped. He gazed at Keith, riding a few paces ahead of him, and wondered and wondered—both at what he had done, and about what would be the consequences for Keith himself.

And it was into the midst of these absorbing thoughts that, from high up on a steeply wooded hillside past which they were riding, there suddenly rang out a shot—and one of the redcoats a short way in front of Ewen fell senseless from his horse.

More shots followed; and within a few moments the hillside was swarming with Highlanders, rushing down upon the procession with fearsome Gaelic shouts.

'An ambush!' cried Colonel Danforth. 'At them, all of you!'

Ewen's heart leapt at the prospect of rescue and escape once again. Though he in his injured state could do little to help the rescuers, they did quite well enough without help, for the bold downhill charge of the Highlanders, succeeding so rapidly upon their sudden appearance, overwhelmed the terrified dragoons.

Many of the redcoats fled at once, regardless of Danforth's shrieked orders to stay and fight; and the rescuers turned their attention to picking off the remaining soldiers surrounding the prisoners. The man guarding Ewen was shot, and Ewen's hands freed by a swift and precise cut of a dirk, leaving him to direct his horse as best he could; but, while he was still trying to regain control amidst the chaos, he glanced up from the reins for a moment and saw one of the Highlanders in front of him—about to rush upon Keith.

Of course—Keith still wore a red coat; even if they noticed his bound hands, which they might not do in the confusion, he would still appear to this rescue party as an enemy. Desperately Ewen urged his horse forward, and placed himself between Keith and his assailant.

'Do not hurt him—he is a friend!' he cried out in Gaelic.

The Highlander, a fearsome red-bearded man almost as tall as Ewen himself, checked his attack just before his broadsword could connect with Ewen's out-flung arm, and stared at Ewen in bafflement.

'He is a redcoat,' went on Ewen, 'but he is a prisoner like me. He tried to help us—he is my friend, not an enemy!'

The would-be attacker frowned. 'You make a strange choice of friends!' he remarked. 'But I see that you're right; he is a prisoner. I apologise to you both!' And he turned away towards the remaining soldiers, and did not attempt any further attack upon Major Windham.

Ewen, relieved, turned his attention to Keith himself, and rode forward and started to undo the cords which tied Keith's hands. ''Tis a rescue,' he said in English, rather unnecessarily, 'but I have told them you are a friend. They won't hurt you.' And, impulsively, without thinking very far through the implications of the suggestion, he added, 'Come with us.'

For by now Danforth's party were entirely vanquished—those who had not been killed were fled or fleeing away down the road. Keith stared after these last stragglers with a frown; but, as he looked, his face suddenly changed.

'That man means—' he began; but there was no time to finish the sentence. With a manoeuvre really impressive in one only just freed from bonds and with a fraction of a second to react, he brought his horse forward and round and gave both Gilbert and Andrew Boyd a violent push to one side—a mere moment before a musket-ball went whistling through the space where Gilbert's arm, flung out to protect Andrew, had been.

This vindictive parting-shot thwarted, the soldiers disappeared entirely. The Highlanders were clustering round the two Boyds, helping them up onto the hillside whence the rescuers had descended, and now a small group of them—amongst them the red-bearded man who had tried to attack Keith—came round behind the other two prisoners, and Ewen and Keith, without any further opportunity for speech, found themselves shepherded onto the same path, which led by steep slopes and narrow, winding loops up the hillside and away.

Up through the low, dense woodland and down into a narrow glen on the far side the rescue party led the four freed prisoners. Andrew Boyd kept close to his father at the front of the group, while Ewen and Keith rode along behind.

'I do not know where they are taking us,' said Ewen in an undertone to Keith. 'They've told us to ask no questions, and that all will be revealed soon. But I'm certain that they are friends.' And then he stopped, suddenly confused, for by 'friends' he of course meant Jacobites.

Keith looked sceptical, but nodded in acceptance of this. Other matters than their destination, however, were occupying his mind. 'Ardroy, can you ride?' he said sharply. 'Your leg—I don't know how far you have walked on it since we last met, but you look—here, let me help you.' And he brought his horse alongside Ewen's and extended a hand, as if unsure exactly how to help him but determined to do so somehow.

'I can do well enough—I've had the night to rest in,' said Ewen, but he pressed Keith's hand in no less grateful thanks. He would gladly have said more—much more—but at that moment the stony ground before them, which had narrowed into a pass between two high cliffs at the head of a glen, began to open out again. And here, in a little level space sheltered by steep braes and clinging birches, there was spread a camp, crowded with people who came forward to welcome the new arrivals with hearty cheers.

Ewen had been trying to follow the progress of their journey from what he knew of this part of the country; and they were now, he supposed, somewhere in the upper reaches of Glengarry or Glenmoriston. And that must mean—

But his conclusion was confirmed almost before he had reached it; for out of the gathered crowd there now emerged a person who would, even had he not had the advantage of a stature which raised his head considerably above the common level, have been very clearly the principal figure in it. He was a fair-haired young man with a graceful manner which gave the lie to the rough clothes of a common Highlander; he came towards them—in fact, he came towards Andrew—with outstretched arms, and from the manner of all those about him it was quite plain that he was no longer disguising himself under the name of Lord Geoffry Armitage.

IV. Keith Windham's Choice

Keith Windham stared at the man standing before him with feelings indescribably compounded of amazement, disbelief, anger and frustration. Here, then, was the quarry whom he had been hunting, and of whose capture he had had such brilliant hopes during the brief time before Colonel Danforth and his conduct had practically wiped such thoughts from his mind. For a moment wild ideas flashed through his brain of somehow communicating Charles Edward's presence to Fort William; of seeing the Pretender's son brought back there a prisoner; of the adulation and acclaim which would be his as the man who had succeeded in making this impossible capture; of the distinction which his own conduct would receive in the inevitable comparison with that of Colonel Danforth and the rest of his officers... But this was all quite impossible, and the recognition of its impossibility brought the extremely equivocal position in which Keith now found himself very clearly to his mind. He was surrounded by enemies in their dozens, if not hundreds; he might as well be their prisoner—in fact, for all he knew they already considered him as such, and certainly he would be able to make little resistance if they tried to secure him. Nor was that the only consideration...

Charles Edward had been speaking to Andrew Boyd and then to the wild Highlanders who had rescued them from Danforth's clutches, his manner every bit as polished and chivalrous as Keith remembered it from a certain day long ago at Glenfinnan; but now he turned his attention to the other rescued prisoners.

'Ardroy!' he said. 'I am glad indeed to see that you have followed us after all. See, here is Hugh Chisholm; after we parted last night he led me to this place, and we have been quite safe here for hours. But who is your companion?'

Hastily Ewen introduced Keith to his Prince, and explained—in diplomatically brief terms—the redcoat's presence among the Jacobite prisoners.

'Major Windham,' said Charles with a gracious smile. 'I believe I recognise your name; did you not accompany Ardroy last August, on an occasion when we all met?... But I shall not remind you of such things now. I do not flatter myself that you are very happy to see me, or to be where you are, but nevertheless you have my heartfelt thanks for speaking in defence of my friends. I should have been grieved indeed if Ardroy, or my dear Andrew and his good father, had suffered any further on my account. We owe good faith to our enemies as well as to our friends, Major, and I am happy to know that some, at least, of my own enemies are ready to extend that same good faith to us.'

His manner was gravely earnest. Such cursed romantical grace! He spoke every bit as though he really was a prince in this strange, outlaw little kingdom among the wild mountains. Keith inclined his head. 'Thank you, sir,' he said.

'But, Ardroy,' went on Charles, facing Ewen again, 'you have no doubt been taxing that leg of yours further in getting here. I shall call Dr MacCullom—he is our chief surgeon here, when your good cousin is not paying us one of his visits.'

And with a smile at Ewen and a look of undimmed graciousness at Keith, he hurried away, apparently determined to summon the doctor himself.

When he had gone, Ewen dismounted from his horse—in an unsteady slide which was a long way indeed from the graceful movements which Keith remembered from their first meeting, very long ago—and sat down heavily upon the ground. Keith dismounted also, and at once knelt down beside him in the heather, where he found himself facing a tall, dark Highlander who had rushed to Ewen's other side.

Keith could not say anything; but he took Ewen's hand, and Ewen smiled at him.

'I want nothing, Windham,' he said, his voice perfectly calm. 'I have overstrained this poor leg, that's all; and I believe I shall get rest enough here.'

'That you shall,' said the dark Highlander at Ewen's other side. Ewen smiled at him. 'MacCullom will be here presently—I believe he is seeing to one or two of your rescuers, who were wounded in the fighting, just now. But in the meantime I can certainly find you some food and drink! I'll bring them here—do not move.'

'Thank you, Chisholm,' said Ewen.

The Highlander, with a polite if puzzled nod at Keith, rose and disappeared into the crowd. Ewen made as if to lie back upon the heather, but sat up again with a pained little frown; the movement must have strained the injured muscle.

Keith pulled off his coat. 'Here—will this help?' he said, folding it once or twice and placing it beneath Ewen's back to support him. For a moment his arms were about Ewen's body, and he felt him warm and tense and horribly fragile against him.

Gingerly Ewen lay back again upon the folded coat. 'Yes, that is more comfortable,' he said. 'Thank you, Windham.' And he pressed Keith's hand once again.

For a few moments they remained there, hand in hand, with the life of the Jacobite camp going on about them and the sun shining high above the craggy slopes which sheltered it. The uncertain morning had turned into a fine day; a slight breeze whispered through the heather and rushes and cotton-grass, and the far distant croaking voice of a raven calling to its fellows echoed down from somewhere high on the mountain slopes.

Then Ewen began, 'It has been a strange chance—' at the same time as Keith said, 'Ardroy, you must tell me—' They both laughed, and at once the load upon Keith's mind was lightened a little. Yes, perhaps, he could say to Ewen the things he had been thinking of... Ewen indicated that Keith should continue.

So, 'Ardroy,' he said, 'you will forgive my curiosity; you must tell me how you came to be at Windlestrae. For, as you were perhaps about to say,' he added with a small smile, 'it is a strange thing that we should meet again, when it seemed the five meetings of your foster-father's prophecy were over.'

'So it is,' said Ewen. 'Well... had you heard about my escape from the party taking me to Fort William? I imagine the news of it got out.'

'I had,' said Keith. 'I was very glad to hear it.'

Ewen looked away for a moment, up towards that high scree-slope where the ravens were flying; and then, turning back towards Keith, he began an account of how he had come to be at Windlestrae when Danforth and his men had arrived. As he was finishing his narrative Hugh Chisholm returned, carrying a small loaf of barley-bread and three steaming bowls of stew upon a tray—for the 'bonny moorhen' and his loyal followers did not starve upon the mountains that summer, when there were deer and hares and grouse and plover to be had.

Ewen accepted one bowl gratefully, and performed a brief introduction while Chisholm handed another to Keith. 'Chisholm was my fellow-prisoner in Captain Jermain's company,' he explained.

Chisholm smiled, and after a few more words of inquiry and reassurance, left them to go and eat his own dinner.

For a little while after he had gone they were silent, while they both made a fair attack upon the stew. It was, Keith had to admit, uncommonly good considering the circumstances of its cooking—certainly superior to the general standard of army-camp fare in his own experience. And it seemed to be doing Ewen good. Supported by the coat and the springy heather upon which it was laid, he sat up a little higher; his face was regaining its usual colour, and he looked more composed and more comfortable than he had been.

At last Keith said quietly, 'I was sorry to see Windlestrae Manor burned. It was plainly a great grief to Mr Boyd.' That Gilbert Boyd was an unrepentant rebel, who had known quite well what he risked when he pledged his support to a treasonous cause, did not signify at all—not when placed next to the memory of the tears that had trickled down his cheeks as he looked back at the burning house.

'It was,' said Ewen. And then he went on, in a voice not quite like any that Keith had ever heard from him before, 'I have been told that the house of Ardroy has suffered the same fate.'
A few days ago, perhaps, Keith would have greeted this statement with shocked disbelief; for there could be no reason to fire the house while Ewen himself was not there and was, in fact, safely in custody at Fort Augustus... No reason, that was to say, but a gratuitous, vindictive cruelty—and after his time in Danforth's company he could believe that had been reason enough. He shook his head, seeking for the impossible words which might be adequate. 'I am... Oh, Ardroy, I'm very sorry,' he said at last. And perhaps his tone said what the words did not.

'Thank you,' said Ewen. He had bowed his head, but the grief written upon his face was not hidden from Keith.

Keith said nothing more, feeling that he ought to let Ewen decide when to speak again on some other subject. And, after a while, Ewen did raise his head and summon back that brave cheerfulness which had been in his manner during their last meeting in the cell at Fort Augustus. He took up his bowl again, and mopped up the last of the stew with the crust of the bread.

'Very good,' he murmured, placing the bowl to one side amongst the tussocks of the grass. 'But, Windham,' he went on, 'we ought to discuss your situation.'

Keith sat up. Of course this had been coming; it was a very irregular situation he was in, and there was much that had to be decided. 'I am,' he said, a little stiffly, 'to consider myself your prisoner here, I suppose?'

'I suppose you are,' said Ewen. 'Ah, I don't know what is the best thing to do... I should very much like to speak to Lochiel about it, but—' He broke off. Keith smiled to himself at the sudden memory of another time when Ewen had been so scrupulous in consulting his Chief upon the matter of what to do with his inconvenient prisoner; but the mention of Lochiel seemed to have acted otherwise upon Ewen's mind, for he was frowning as though remembering some disagreeable idea. But he went on, 'There is nothing else for us to do, for if you were let go now, you might go back to Fort William and tell the garrison there exactly where the Prince is. But I hope that the Prince will soon be able to get away from Scotland; and once he has, there will be no reason for you to remain a prisoner any longer, and I shall be able to let you go. Perhaps even sooner, if we can find some way to contrive for you to know nothing of where His Royal Highness is—the next time he moves his camp on, perhaps, you and I might stay behind, and I take you somewhere else...'

''Twould be rather unnecessary,' said Keith, 'for I have no notion of where we are now.'

Ewen, who had been working out these plans to himself with his brows drawn together in concentration, now smiled; and Keith returned the smile. The situation was, they must both recognise, not a little absurd; but in its absurdity there was something more, for they were talking together of Keith's status as a prisoner, not as two mutually-respectful enemies discussing terms, but with the simple confidence and trusting candour that belong to friendship.

But, even then, Ewen had forgotten something—something which had been working itself out in Keith's mind ever since they left Windlestrae. If Keith did return to Fort William, he might very well get no chance to inform anyone of anything about the Pretender's son. He pictured Danforth back at the fort, raging in the indignity of the ambush on his party and the loss of his prisoners. Was it likely that Danforth would allow him, after what he had done upon the lawn at Windlestrae, to claim the credit for finding out the whereabouts of the Pretender's son after all—and that as a more or less direct, although unintended, consequence of his defiance of Danforth himself? It was scarcely likely. Danforth's pride, vengefulness and wanton cruelty—and, after all, the regular and acknowledged rules by which Keith as an officer was bound to abide—would admit of only one consequence for what Keith had done... and he must in honesty admit that, for more reasons than a strict loyalty to the Articles of War, it was Colonel Danforth and not Major Windham who would find allies and defenders in the ranks of command. His honour, his obligations and—yes, his love for Ewen Cameron, had led him at last away from the demands of his commission and his superiors more definitely than could be allowed; there would be no special lenience from Lord Albemarle this time. It was overwhelmingly likely, in fact, that Major Windham would find himself rewarded for that defiance in the same way as the too-compassionate officer of Inverness had been rewarded for his kindness.

Keith looked up from these unpleasant thoughts to find Ewen watching him with steady and very blue eyes.

'Windham, I'm sorry,' he said quietly. 'After all you have—It must be a great hardship to find yourself a prisoner once again. I wish it was not necessary.'

'I was not—pray, do not think of it,' said Keith. ''Tis nothing.'

'You were not thinking of that?' said Ewen. 'But, Windham, something is troubling you; you will forgive me if I say that I can see that much.' And evidently he was already forming some guess as to what else the trouble might be, for after a few moments of silence he continued, still speaking steadily, 'I have not yet thanked you properly for your... intervention at Windlestrae this morning. When we last met I spoke of how much you had done, and how much you had sacrificed, for my sake... this morning we met again, and you sacrificed, I think, far more than that. Windham, I do not know how to answer your kindness—'

Keith turned away, blinking angrily. The sun was very bright upon the bare crags of the mountainside above them. 'Kindness!' he said. 'Ardroy, don't talk of sacrifices. For God's sake, Danforth was about to torture both you and the Boyd lad. It was the barest common decency to attempt to stop him.' And he had not stopped Danforth, not truly; for, had the colonel succeeded in bringing his prisoners to Fort William, a worse fate would surely have awaited them there. It was only through the action of their Jacobite rescuers that that fate had been averted entirely.

Still Ewen's calmness did not desert him. 'But I think your commanders would not see it that way, would they?... Forgive me, Windham; I do not mean to speak ill of your side in general.'

Surely he did not! Keith—who was remembering his recent altercation with the Duke of Cumberland, as well as older scenes with Major Guthrie and others—almost said that it was no more than they deserved, but bit back the remark. 'There is nothing to forgive,' he said shortly.

'But I must ask you,' went on Ewen, shifting himself into a more comfortable position against Keith's folded coat, 'whether, while you are our prisoner here, I may receive again what you gave me once before. I suppose that escape can hardly be a practical possibility just at present'—and he looked up at the busy camp, which, though to Keith's mind it might have been a thousand miles away from himself and Ewen just then, was yet still all about them—'but the question will arise sooner or later. Will you consider yourself obliged to attempt an escape whenever it becomes possible—or will you give us your parole of honour?'

Keith said nothing. His hand found a patch of the bell-heather which grew abundantly in this moorland hollow and played absently with the rough stem below the little hanging flowers. A meadow pipit rose up from behind a boulder ten or fifteen paces away, bursting into emphatic song; Keith hardly heard it.

He must go back—whether by escaping whenever he should get the chance, or through being let go by the Jacobites whenever they considered it proper. Not to do so would be desertion, plainly and simply. And he was not afraid of the consequences which he must, surely, face. He did not regret his outburst at Windlestrae; he was prepared to defend himself as far as he might, and whatever Colonel Danforth, Lord Albemarle or any other such authority should regard as the proper result of that disobedience, he would bear with patience and with honour. But—

As the pipit, with a particularly dramatic trilled flourish, fluttered back down towards its perch upon the boulder, there came to Keith—in another lightning flash, it might have been—a clear recognition of the true choice he faced. Yes, he might go back to Fort William, face the court-martial and probably lose the career which he had already placed in such dire jeopardy. But what would be the worth of a judgement passed upon him by such men as Danforth? —or Guthrie, or indeed the Duke of Cumberland himself? The flames climbing high up the walls of Windlestrae Manor, horribly bright in the gentle morning, would keep recurring to his mind; and he remembered also the other things which he had seen in Colonel Danforth's company, and certain words which he had heard spoken by the Duke, and what he in his 'prudence' had forced himself to overlook or to endure at Inverness a few months ago, as if he saw them all in a true light for the first time.

Keith Windham had always accepted as a basic fact of existence the argument—beneath whose wings so many of the wrongs of this world flourish—that duty must come before the inclinations or the conscience of the individual, for if it did not then the entire structure, not only of the discipline of the Army but of civilised society itself, would have no foundation, and its total collapse would be far worse than the regrettable admission of a few abuses. For how much did that count when the structure itself, standing as it did upon a foundation made up of men like Danforth, was rotten through and through?

And what obligations had he—a soldier, yes, but a man of honour first—to such a thing as that?

No, he did not regret his outburst at Windlestrae. It had saved Ewen, and Andrew Boyd; and he was beginning to see that, in another sense, it had also saved himself.

Absorbed in these thoughts, he had been hardly aware of Ewen, who sat beside him there in the heather; but Ewen had been watching him all the time, and now he reached out a careful hand and placed it over Keith's own hand where it rested amongst the stems of the heather and the blades of the grass.

Startled, Keith looked up sharply. Ewen's deep blue eyes held an expression at once kind, cautious and almost searching; but it was not one of blame, and there was certainly nothing in it of triumph. How much, Keith wondered, did he already understand? He had understood so much even at Fort Augustus ('...you act, Keith Windham, very much otherwise!')...

'I think,' said Keith, speaking very slowly, 'that it would be better—for us all... if I were to stay here for a while... without your having to worry about guard or restraint of any kind. Indeed, you have enough to give you anxiety as it is!' He attempted a smile, but the attempt did not progress very far. He shook his head. 'As to whether you have my parole of honour... I believe we have both seen enough of late of what the honour of the Army means.'

'I have seen more than enough of what your honour means, Windham,' interrupted Ewen.

Keith smiled. 'I thank you. But, Ardroy... I may as well tell you now that I do not intend to go back to Fort William, or—or to the Army at all, even when it is in my power to do so. I mean to resign my commission. I shall tell you my reasons—though I think you already guess some of them.'

'I believe I do,' said Ewen. 'And, Windham—Keith, if I may call a friend so,' he added with a slightly hesitating smile, 'I'll tell you in turn that I think no less whatever of you or your honour for deciding so. I fact, I think a great deal more!'

Keith bowed his head, and after a few moments, turned over his hand and wrapped his fingers round Ewen's; Ewen adjusted his own grip so that their fingers were more tightly twined together. There followed a silence, while the pipit resumed its energetic song above them.

'There will be time to discuss these things at greater length later,' said Keith at last; for he felt that he had said about as much as he was capable of to-day. And perhaps he was aware—with his hand still lying clasped in Ewen's—that before very long there would be other things to discuss between them also...

'Certainly,' said Ewen, smiling. 'But I shall reassure you now that—however you are to be regarded—you may stay with me as long as you wish.'

'Thank you, Ewen,' said Keith. 'But, come, we'll speak no more of such weighty matters now; you are greatly hurt—you must rest! Are you quite comfortable?'

Ewen said that he was perfectly comfortable. He pressed Keith's hand again, before letting go of it at last and lying back upon the ground. 'I won't deny that I have had a hard few days,' he said, 'but I believe things have ended up—if not for the best'—he looked away for a moment, and Keith guessed that he was thinking of the house of Ardroy—'then as well as I could have asked. Oh, Keith, I am glad you're here.'

Keith was suddenly aware of a great exhaustion, more mental than physical, which, coming upon him unnoticed during the travails of the last days and hours—if not for longer than that—now threatened to overwhelm him. He wanted rest as much as Ewen did... He moved closer to Ewen and, a little awkwardly, lay down upon the ground beside him. 'I am glad also,' he said; and then he looked from Ewen up into the blue Highland sky, where the untiring pipit was making another song-flight against the brightness of the sun.

The sun, which had remained almost undimmed by clouds for much of that day, was now sinking behind the hills to the west; the ravens of the high mountainside had chased each other slowly homewards over the scree slopes, their croaking calls fading away into mysterious silence. Ewen listened to them, his eyes closed, until they had quite disappeared, and then he opened his eyes and lay gazing for a while at the darkening sky.

Dr MacCullom, once he had seen to the casualties of the ambush, had been able to turn his attention to Ewen, and now, though his leg still hurt dully and would surely—as Ewen, in spite of his own determination, was obliged to admit—require a good deal of rest before he would regain the full use of it, it at least had a fresh bandage and the doctor's assurance that it would heal well in time. Now he was resting as he was bidden, lying upon his plaid outside the tent which Hugh Chisholm, good friend as he had proved, had procured for him, and into which Keith Windham had retired to sleep a little while ago.

Poor Keith! Surely he needed rest. Ewen was still amazed at everything he had done, both this day and before; and yet, in another sense, he was beginning to understand Keith better than ever. And what an amazing thing it was that he had done, in stating that he meant to resign his commission... Of course there were those who had, inarguably, deserted from one side and joined the other simply out of belated devotion to the Jacobite cause; indeed, one of Ewen's distant Stewart cousins, enlisted in the Hanoverian army before there had been much hope of the right cause soon meeting it again on the field, had done just that at the battle of Prestonpans, and neither he nor Ewen saw any dishonour in the thing. But this was something entirely different. Ewen thought back over the events of his various captivities, and the opportunities which he had had of observing the conduct of the British Army: his first meeting with Major Guthrie and the time he had spent in his camp; the horrible torments which he had endured at the hands of Captain Greening at Fort Augustus, and the livelier memory of his argument with Lord Loudoun; the wasteful drunkenness of Saville and Tracey, and their captain's lack of care in commanding or guiding them to anything better. He, who was so disposed to think well of his enemies, must now admit that these various sorts of bad behaviour were no aberration from an honourable standard, but the average of what they represented—and that not incidentally so. He understood that Keith Windham, who was himself honourable and dignified far beyond the standard of his companions, must have had reason to think along similar lines, and he guessed that Colonel Danforth had not been a poor source of illustrative examples. Therefore he understood the choice Keith had made, and it did not seem shameful to him—rather, it gladdened his heart to think that Keith would no longer be counted amongst the same ranks as those others. Yet it was still so bold and definite a statement as to be rather staggering; and it left a great deal still to be reckoned with.

Ewen turned his head and glanced at the flap of the tent behind him, where Keith was sleeping. They would have much to discuss over the coming days; and Ewen smiled as he looked forward to the time they were to have together. What Keith would actually do next, he had little idea; but, given that he had been made a prisoner by Danforth before coming here and making his decision, he would very probably be regarded by the Government as an enemy, and it might even be expedient for him to follow Ewen into exile. Might Ewen, as his friend, suggest such a thing?... Aside from every other consideration, Ewen was facing the prospect of life in a foreign land, separated from his beloved home, quite alone; it would be a comfort to have such a friend as Keith by his side, away over the water. It seemed incredible that Keith would ever do such a thing, but he had already done so much that was incredible.

And, standing a little aside from all these thoughts as though it hesitated to join the company, there was the other thought, of what he had understood about Keith—or about his own heart—the previous night. Keith had spoken to him so honestly, and looked at him with such open trust and friendship, earlier that day; the touch of his hand still seemed to linger on Ewen's, where beneath his fingers there was now only the familiar sturdy wool of his plaid. Might he hope—might there grow up between them, if they remained together, another sort of friendship?...

But now, out of the murmuring noise of the camp, there sounded a step, and Ewen turned his head to see Andrew Boyd walking through the heather towards him.

He reached up a hand in greeting. 'Andrew! How fares your father?'

Andrew clasped his hand with a smile, and sat down beside him. 'He is better,' he said. 'I think he is very weak. The sight of Windlestrae burning—his own house, you know, which my grandfather built—was a great sorrow to him...' His face as he spoke showed that it had been little less a grief to the heir than to the owner of that house. 'But coming here has given him hope, and Dr MacCullom says he will regain strength in time. But, Ardroy, how are you?'

And Ewen replied that he was well, and gave an account of the good doctor's pronouncements about himself.

They sat together there for a few minutes, while the sunset deepened from gold to red. Then Andrew said, 'Major Windham...', and trailed off, as though uncertain what exactly he wanted to say about the Major.

'Yes?' said Ewen gently.

'I—I ought to thank him,' said the boy, looking round at the tent, 'for what he did for both me and you this morning. And later, also—I believe he saved my father's life, by pushing him out of the way of that musket-shot!'

'You may do so to-morrow,' said Ewen, 'for he's sleeping now. I am sure he will like to hear it.'

Andrew nodded. 'But, Ardroy, I beg your pardon—who is he? Is he of our party, or—Danforth made him a prisoner so suddenly, I didn't know what to think.'

Ewen thought for a few moments before he spoke. The air was getting cooler, though at this time of year the night would not be very cold; above their heads a few strips of cloud reflected still the glory of the sunset. 'He is not of our party,' he said at last, 'but he is a man of honour—honour and courage and true loyalty; a man who would never fail a friend... and I believe he is finding that his own party have not enough honour of their own to deserve his loyalty any longer.'

Andrew's blue eyes were wide. 'That's a great thing,' he said softly.

'It is,' said Ewen. Then he laughed. 'Between him, and you and your father, Andrew, I am finding that those we believe to be our enemies may often surprise us! As for who Keith Windham is... he is my friend.' He said this with a frank simplicity which gave those words, 'my friend', all the significance which, when said of a man like Keith Windham, they truly deserve.

'I can see that he is,' said Andrew. He turned half away from Ewen, looking through the dusk back towards the middle of the camp, where bright cooking-fires were burning and indistinct figures moving about in front of them; and he added in a soft voice, 'I think I should like to have a friend like that.'

Ewen watched the lad's face with its wistful smile; in the dim gloaming light his eyes yet held a sparkle. It was not difficult to guess whom he had in mind with that wish. 'I hope you may,' he said. 'After what I have seen of your courage and loyalty, Andrew, I think you would deserve it; and, if I may say it, I believe he thinks so too.'

Andrew lowered his head. He was blushing again, even in the dusk; but he understood too well the seriousness of Ewen's statement to be overcome by embarrassment, and instead he took it as it was intended. After a few moments he turned back to Ewen and said, 'Thank you.'

And Ewen smiled.

'But, Andrew,' he added presently, 'it is late, and we've all had a long day! You ought to get some sleep—and so should I.'

'Ah, you're right,' said Andrew, getting to his feet; and they wished each other good-night and parted, firm friends.

Ewen remained a few minutes longer outside, while the darkness upon the camp grew deeper, and the stars above the mountains brighter. Then, with a sigh, he raised himself carefully to his still unsteady feet and went into the tent.

There Keith Windham was lying, deep in slumber; the arm which was flung out from under the blankets was clad in only a shirt-sleeve, and his short hair was dark against the pillow. Ewen could not keep from stopping and watching him for a few moments, for the sight tugged at his heart in a way he still did not fully understand—Keith Windham was a man of so many unexpected turns and surprises—and, as he did, Keith frowned slightly in his sleep and turned his head to one side, before his sharp features slowly relaxed into an expression of peace and something like contentment.

Yes, Ewen would like very much for his friend to stay with him.

He lay down beside Keith, wrapped his plaid round himself and closed his eyes. And before he fell asleep—which he did very soon, for he was fairly exhausted after the events of the day—he thought to himself once again what marvellous and unlooked-for depths could discover themselves in people whom one had supposed to be one's enemies.

V. L'Envoi

Perhaps history can best remind the reader of what followed. After his sojourn amongst the gallant outlaws of Glenmoriston, Charles Edward Stuart at last gained the coast, and thence the ship L'Heureux—in which he was carried off to France, safety and perpetual exile from the land of his birthright. With him went some two hundred followers, likewise exiled and beggared. Amongst these were Donald Cameron of Lochiel and his scarcely less famous brother Dr Archibald Cameron; but the annals of history do not mention a certain more obscure Cameron cousin of these, with whom they enjoyed a happy reunion even as they took their sad farewell of Scotland.

The history books may also be forgiven for not mentioning two further names of those who sailed with the Prince on that voyage. One was a Highland lad who had gone with Charles on all his wanderings ever since Glenmoriston, and who was to remain at the Prince's side for the next several years, in all the various places in which he lived upon the Continent, his closest and most ever-faithful companion. The other was an English soldier, whose exact position remained something of a puzzle to most of those who were on the voyage: some said that he was a prisoner, kept with his Jacobite captors after their escape from Scotland for obscure reasons, and some that he was a deserter who had himself turned Jacobite at what was surely the least profitable time possible. But no doubt Charles, and Ewen Cameron of Ardroy, knew well enough the reasons for his presence. In any case, he remained with Cameron of Ardroy for all the years during which he was in France, and everyone who saw them together remarked how entirely inseparable they always were, and how much happiness the sadly exiled Jacobite had in the company of his friend.

And in time, after the passing of the Act of Indemnity, and the death of Lochiel from a broken heart, Ewen Cameron returned to his own country and to the house of Ardroy—which, as he had learnt from his cousin Archibald before he left Scotland, was not burned after all, and which his good aunt Margaret had kept in order for him all this time. A short while afterwards he was joined in the Highlands by Andrew Boyd; for Gilbert, worn down by grief and travail, had also died, and it was as a service to his memory, as well as in the interests of his own still-living friend, that Charles Edward, through various efforts and schemes, finally succeeded in having restored to Andrew the lands of Windlestrae. Andrew now set about rebuilding the Manor House, gathering his father's old servants and tenants round him again and establishing himself in his old home.

For long years Ewen Cameron and Andrew Boyd lived well and happily on their respective estates. They were ever the warmest and friendliest of neighbours, constantly visiting each other and having much happiness in each other's company. It is true that in both their lives there were certain irregularities; neither of them ever married, for instance, but it did not seem that they were lonely or unhappy. Ewen Cameron, besides enjoying a fairly constant rotation of visiting relations from the Cameron and Stewart clans, and friends from an even wider sweep of the Highlands—and amongst the most frequent and valued of these was Hugh Chisholm—had living with him at Ardroy the very same English friend with whom he had left Scotland in '46—though he was a redcoat no longer; and this unusual arrangement apparently suited them both perfectly. As for Andrew Boyd, he was scarcely less hospitable a host; but a rumour went about, as rumours will do, that he had some sweetheart away over the sea, for he would sometimes gaze to the southward with a wistful look of reminiscence, or speak of France and the other places in which he had lived on the Continent with a certain peculiar fondness. And occasionally he left Windlestrae to go on long journeys abroad, no one knew exactly where—unless, perhaps, he confided it to his friend Ewen Cameron.

The history books tell how Charles Edward Stuart came never back to Scotland, and the hopes of the Jacobite cause, which had once shone so brightly, slowly dwindled away into the obscurity of history's might-have-beens. But in the gardens of both Ardroy and Windlestrae there still grew white roses, which bloomed every summer as fair as ever they had been; and neither Ewen Cameron nor Andrew Boyd ever forgot what that ill-fated year of 1745 had brought them both.