The landlord disturbed him when he had become drowsy.
"The gentleman is here—General Oglethorpe. I give him your message, and he says, pleasant-like, 'I can guess who the gentleman is. Tell him that my gratitude is not exhausted and that I will be happy if he will add to his obligations by giving me his company at supper.' Ye'd better hasten, sir, for supper is being dished up."
Alastair followed the landlord through the cobwebby back regions of the store-room and out to the gallery at the head of the stairs whence the Brown Room opened. He noticed that the dusky corridor was brightly lit just opposite the room door because of the lamps in the hall below which shone up a side passage. This glow also revealed in full detail the map which he had studied on his first night there. As he glanced at it, the two great roads from the north seemed to stand out like blood, and Brightwell, a blood-red name, to be the toll-house to shut or open them.
The Brown Room was bright with candles and firelight, and warming his back at the hearth stood a tall man in military undress. He was of a strong harsh aquiline cast of countenance; his skin was somewhat sallow from the hot countries he had dwelt in, but he carried his forty-odd years lightly, and, to Alastair's soldier eye, would be a serious antagonist with whatever weapon of hand or brain. His face relaxed at the sight of the young man and he held out his hand.
"I am overjoyed to see you again, Mr Maclean. . . . Nay, I never forget a name or a face . . . I do not ask your business here, nor will I permit you to ask mine, save in so far as all the world knows it. I have my regiment billeted at Marlock, and am on my way across England to Hull, there to join General Wade. In that there is no secret, for every old woman on Trent side proclaims it. . . . Let us fall to, sir, for I am plaguily hungry with the frosty air, and this house has a name for cookery."
General Oglethorpe proved himself a trencherman of the calibre of Mr Samuel Johnson; that is to say, he ate heartily of everything—beefsteak pie, roast sirloin, sheep's tongues, cranberry tarts and a London bag-pudding—and drank a bottle of claret, a quart of ale, and the better part of a bottle of Madeira. But unlike Mr Johnson he did not become garrulous, nor did the iron restraint of his demeanour relax. The board was cleared and he proceeded to brew a dish of punch, mixing the several ingredients of limes, rum, white sugar and hot water with the meticulosity of an alchemist. Then he produced from a flat silver box which he carried in his waistcoat pocket a number of thin brown sticks, which he offered to his companion.
"Will you try my cigarros, sir? It is a habit which I contracted in Georgia, and I find them mighty comforting to a campaigner. . . . You journey northward, Mr Maclean, but you make slow progress." He smiled with a quizzical kindliness which stripped the martinet's cloak from him and left only benevolence.
Alastair smiled back. "I journey slowly for I have had mischances. But I must mend my pace, for I am still far from my home, and my time of leave passes quick."
"From the French King's service?"
"From the French King's service."
"You are aware that there are certain rumours of war in this land?"
"I heard gossip to that effect in Paris."
General Oglethorpe laughed. "I can guess where your sympathies lie, Mr Maclean. Your name, your birthplace and your profession are signposts to them."
"I too have heard tales from which I could hazard a guess at General Oglethorpe's sentiments," said Alastair.
"Tut, tut, sir. I bear His Majesty's commission and am embarked in His Majesty's service."
"I could name some in the same case—and with the same sympathies."
The other's brows had descended and he was staring in the fire like a perplexed bird of prey.
"I do not altogether deny it. I have been a Member of Parliament for years and I have never concealed my views on politics, sir. I regret that England ever lost her natural and rightful line of kings. I have no love for Ministers with their courting of this neighbour, and baiting of that, and bleeding the commonalty of England for their crazy foreign wars. I detest and abhor the cabal of greedy bloodsuckers that call themselves Whigs. I am a Tory, sir, I serve the ancient constitution of this realm, I love and reverence its Church, and I hold this mongering of novelties an invention of the Devil. But—and it is a potentbut—I cannot wish that this attempt of the Chevalier should succeed. I must with all my soul hope that it fail and do my best to ensure that failure."
"Your conclusion scarcely accords with your premises, sir."
"More than may at first sight appear. What has a young man bred abroad in a vapid Court, and suckled into Papistry, to say to the people of England?"
"His church is the same as mine, sir. But he is no bigot, and has sworn to grant to all beliefs that full tolerance which England has denied to his."
"It is not enough. He is the young gallant, a figure from an old chivalrous world. Oh, I do not deny his attraction; I do not doubt that he can charm men's hearts. But, sir, there is a new temper in the land. You have heard of the people they call Methodists—humble folk, humble servants of Almighty God, who carry the Gospel to dark places at the expense of revilings and buffetings and persecutions. I have had them with me in Georgia, and they fight like Cromwell's Ironsides, they are tender and merciful and brave, and they preach a hope for the vilest. With them is the key of the new England, for they bring healing to the souls of the people. . . . What can your fairy Prince say to the poor and the hungry?"
General Oglethorpe's eye was lit with a fervour which softened the rigour of his face into something infinitely gentle. Alastair had no words to answer so strange a plea.
"But—but King George is no more of that way of thinking than my Prince," he stammered.
The other nodded. "I am not arguing on behalf of his present Majesty. I plead for the English people and I want no change, least of all the violent change of revolution, unless it be to their benefit. A mere transfer of monarchs will do small good to them, and it will bring needless suffering to the innocent. Therefore, I, James Oglethorpe, who am reputed a Jacobite, will do my utmost to nip this rising in the bud and confine it to the barbarous parts of the North. In the service of my country I will pretermit no effort to keep England neutral in the quarrel, for it is in England's participation that the danger lies."
Alastair deemed it wise not to answer, but, as he regarded this man who was now his declared opponent, he felt the satisfaction of a fighter who faces an honourable foe. Here was one whose hand he could clasp before he crossed swords.
"I am no Englishman," he said, "and therefore I am remote from this particular controversy."
The other's eye burned with a fanatic's heat. "I will fight like a tiger for England against all who would do her hurt. God forgive them, but there are many on my side whose hearts are like rotten eggs. They are carrion crows who flock wherever there is blood and pain. In times of civil strife, sir, the base can make money. Had you travelled north by Chester you would have passed through a land of fat pastures and spreading parks and snug manors, and had you asked the name of the fortunate owner you would have been told Sir Robert Grosvenor. You know the name? A worthy gentleman and somewhat of your way of thinking. Now Sir Robert's mother was an heiress and all the faubourgs of London between St James' and Kensington village were her fortune. Whence came that fortune, think you, to enrich the honest knights of Cheshire? 'Twas the fortune of an ancient scrivener who bought up forfeited lands from Cromwell's Government, bought cheap, and sold most profitably at his leisure. There are other fortunes to-day waiting for the skilled broker of fines and attainders. But to make the profit there must be a forfeiture, and for the forfeiture there must be first the treason. Therefore it is in the interest of base men to manufacture rebels, to encourage simple folk to take blindly some irrevocable and fatal step. Do you follow me?"
Alastair nodded automatically. He saw as in a long vista a chain of infamies and the name to them was Sir John Norreys.
"The scoundrels must be in the confidence of both sides," Oglethorpe went on. "With their victims they are honest Jacobites, but next day they are closeted with Mr Pelham in Whitehall. They will draw a poor innocent so far that he will lose his estate, but they will prevent his loss being of service to the Prince."
The man had risen and strode about the room, a formidable figure of wrath, with his jaw set sternly and his eyes hard.
"Do you know my purpose, Mr Maclean? So far as the Almighty permits me, I will save the pigeon from the crow. The pigeon will be hindered from meddling in matters of Government, his estate will be saved to him, and the crow, please God, will be plucked. Do you commend my policy?"
"It is the conduct of an honest gentleman, sir, and though I may not share your politics I would hope to share your friendship."
Oglethorpe's face relaxed into the convivial kindliness it had shown at supper.
"Then two friends and honourable opponents will shake hands and bid farewell. You will be for bed, sir, and I must return presently to my regiment."
But as the young man left the room the General seemed in no hurry to call for his horse. He flung another log on the fire, and stood by the hearth with his brows knit in meditation.
Alastair retired to his bedroom but did not undress. His brain was dazzled with new light, and he saw all the events of the past weeks in a new and awful perspective. This man Norreys was the traitor, theagent provocateurwho lured honest clodpoles to their doom and pocketed his commission on their ruin. That was what Sir Christopher Lacy had said at Cornbury—the man cared only for gain. But he must be a rogue of vast accomplishments, for he had deceived a proud lady, and he had won the confidence of a shrewd Scots lawyer. It was Kyd's beguilement that staggered him. He, a sagacious man of affairs, had used a traitor as an agent for the most precious news—news which instead of going straight to the Prince would be transferred to the enemy and used for honest men's undoing. General Oglethorpe would prevent the fellow from making his foul profit; it was the business of Alastair Maclean to stamp the breath from him, to rid the Prince's cause of a menace and the world of a villain.
He mused on this strange thing, England, which was like a spell on sober minds. Midwinter had told of Old England like a lover of his mistress, and here was this battered traveller, this Oglethorpe, thrilling to the same fervour. That was something he had not met before. He had been trained to love his family and clan and the hills of his home, and a Prince who summed up centuries of wandering loyalty. But his devotion had been for the little, intimate things, and not for matters large and impersonal like a country or a people. He felt himself suddenly and in very truth a stranger and alone. The Prince, the chiefs, the army—they were all of them strangers here. How could they ask for loyalty from what they so little understood?
The reflection pained him and he put it from him and turned to his immediate business. Kicking off his shoes, he tiptoed back through the store-cupboard and into the long corridor, at the end of which he saw the bright reflection from the hall lamp falling on the map and the Brown Room door. He listened, but there was no sound except a faint clatter from far away in the direction of the kitchen, where presumably the General's servant waited on his master's orders. He stole to the door of the Brown Room for a second, and played the eavesdropper. Yes, there were voices within, a low voice speaking fast, and another replying in monosyllables. He had no wish to overhear them, so he crept back to the store-room door, where he was securely hid. Thence he could see all that he wanted, in the patch of light by the map.
He did not wait long. The door opened, and a figure was illumined for one instant in profile before it turned to descend the stairs. It was a tall man in a long riding-coat which he had unbuttoned in the warmth of the room. He bowed his head a little as one does when one walks stealthily, and his lips were tightly pursed. But where was the sharp nose like a pen, and the pale complexion of Sir John? This man had a skin like red sandstone, a short blunt nose and a jovial mouth. He cast one glance at the map, and then went softly down the staircase.
With a queer flutter of the heart Alastair recognised Mr Nicholas Kyd.
The sinking at the heart disappeared long before Alastair reached his attic, and was replaced by a violent heat of anger. He lit a candle, for the dark irked him, and sat on his bed with his face as scarlet as if it had been buffeted. He felt his temples throb and a hot dryness at the back of his throat. For the moment thoughts of the dire peril to the Cause were swallowed up in natural fury at a rogue.
Blind fool that he had been! All the steps were now bitterly clear in his bedraggled Odyssey. At Cornbury Kyd had been sowing tares in my lord's mind—not in partnership with the Duchess Kitty, of that he was assured—he did not believe that that vivacious lady, Whig as she might be, was a partner of his villainy. From the first encounter at the roadside inn the man had dogged him; perhaps that meeting had been premeditated. The scene at Flambury, the accusing mummer in Squire Thicknesse's Justice Room, the well-informed warrant, Ben the Gypsy and his treachery—all were the doing of the pawky Lammermuir laird. General Oglethorpe would use his services but prevent his getting his reward; but there were others less scrupulous, and anyhow these services spelled death to the Prince's fortunes. . . . A second Grosvenor fortune would be achieved! No, by God, it should not, if Alastair Maclean were left another six months alive!
Sir John Norreys was the man's tool, and the news from the West passed through him to Kingston and Wade, and Ligonier and Cumberland, and Mr Pelham in London. Mr Pelham doubtless had taken steps. He would arrest the levy in the West before it had grown dangerous; and the fines and forfeitures of broken loyalists would go to enrich the Exchequer and Mr Nicholas Kyd of Greyhouses. . . . He had lost his dislike of Sir John. That huckstering baronet was only an instrument in the hand of a cleverer knave.
But why was Kyd here, when he had sent Edom to Brightwell with the news that he was not to be looked for before the close of the month? He did not believe that Edom had lied, so either there was a deeper game afoot, or Kyd had changed his plans. He thought the latter, for even rogues were the sport of circumstance. Some news had reached him of surpassing importance and he had posted all that way to see Oglethorpe, who, as a former Jacobite, would be the more readily believed by the Government when he acted against his former friends.
It stood to reason that Kyd would visit Brightwell, to see Norreys, to instruct his servant—some errand or other, even if he returned next day to the South. Brightwell was the Philippi of the campaign, the place of meetings, or why had Norreys been sent there? Even now the laird's ruddy visage and the baronet's lean jaw might be close together in some damnable machination. . . . And the lady, the poor lady. At the thought of her Alastair clenched his hands, and shut his eyes tight to kill the pain in them. That poor nymph, that dainty innocence in such a den of satyrs!
And then, oddly enough, his mood changed to a happier one as the picture of Claudia Norreys brightened on the screen of his memory. Please God, she was cut off now for ever from the man she called husband. Her eyes must soon be opened, and he pictured her loathing, her horror of disgust. There were other thoughts at the back of his mind, which he choked down, for this was no time for pretty fancies. But it comforted him to think that he was fighting for the happiness of the girl who sang "Diana."
He slept little and at dawn was up and dressed in his frieze and leather, his coarse stockings and his hob-nailed shoes. The frost was passing, and a mild south wind blew up the vale, softening the snow crust and sending runnels of water down the hollows and eaves of the great drifts. Alastair found the landlord breakfasting in the dog-kennel he called his room.
"I am going to Brightwell," he told him, "and may be absent for days. Expect me back when you see me. Keep my room locked, and leave the key as before in the crack below the broken axle-hole of the mill." Then he stepped out-of-doors, where the milkers were just opening the byres, and soon was on the hillside with his face to the High Peak.
He crossed the high road and looked at the tracks. There was one fresh and clear, that of a man in heavy boots plodding towards the inn. There were faint hoof marks also, but they seemed to be old. He reflected that the thaw could not have begun till after midnight, and that if Kyd had ridden this road his horse's track would have shown no more than the others of yesterday.
The sun was well above the horizon when he reached the park wall of Brightwell and entered the demesne by his usual gap. It was a morning like early spring, when the whole world was full of melting snows, running waters and light breezes. His plan was to go to the wood which overhung the kitchen yard and gave a prospect of the house and all its environs. There he would watch till noon, in the hope that either Kyd would appear or one of Lady Norreys' party. If the former, he would follow him and have the interview for which his soul longed; if the latter, then he would find a way of getting speech and learning the nature of the household. If nothing happened by noon, he would contrive to make his way into the kitchen as before, and trust to his wits to find an errand.
He saw no one as he forded the now turbulent stream and climbed the farther slope to the wood of hazels and ashes which clung like an eyebrow to the edge of a bare grey bluff, beneath which were the roofs of the rearmost outbuildings. But as he entered the wood he received a shock. Suddenly he had the consciousness that he was being observed, which comes as from a special sense to those who have lived much in peril of their lives in lonely places. He cowered like a rabbit, and seemed to detect very faint and far-off movements in the undergrowth which were too harsh and sudden for a wild animal. Then they ceased, and the oppression passed. He threaded his way through the undergrowth to his old lair beside a stone, where a tangle of fern hid his head, and there he sat him down to wait.
It was a very wet anchorage. The frozen ground beneath him was melting into slush, rivulets descended from the branches, vagrant winds blew avalanches of melting snow like hail in his face. He grew cold and stiff, and there was no such drama on the stage before him as might have caused him to forget his icy stall. He saw in every detail the morning awakening of a Derbyshire manor. A man with his head tied up in a stocking wheeled barrow-loads of chopped logs from the wood-hovel; another brought milk pails from the byres; while two stable-boys led out to water various horses, among which Alastair recognised those once ridden by Mr Johnson and Edom. The butler Bennet, wearing a kind of dingy smock, shuffled out-of-doors and cried shrilly for someone who failed to appear. Then came a long spell of quiet—breakfast, thought Alastair. It was broken by a stout fellow in boots, whom he had not seen before, coming from the direction of the kitchen, shouting the name of "Peter." Peter proved to be one of the stable-boys, who, having been goaded by a flight of oaths into activity, produced in a space of five minutes a horse saddled and bridled and tolerably well groomed. This the man in boots led round to the front of the house, and presently, out from the shelter of the leafless avenue, appeared Sir John Norreys, in a hurry as usual and heading for the bridle-path to Dovedale.
This told Alastair two things. First, that in all likelihood Mr Kyd had never been to Brightwell, or had left earlier, otherwise Sir John would scarcely have fled his company. Second, that the said Sir John had been restored to his lady and was living openly in the house, and not, as he had half suspected, hidden in some priest-hole in the back parts.
The morning passed on leaden wings, for the thought that Kyd was not there had dashed Alastair's spirits. Once he seemed to hear the sound of breathing close at hand, and after some search traced it to a deep bed of leaves under which a hedgehog was snoring in its winter sleep. Once the pied snout of a badger, returning late to his earth, parted the thicket. Just before noon he saw that which set his mind off on a new tack. Down the valley, a matter of half a mile from the house, a brook entered the stream from the west, and, since the hills there overhung the water, flowed for the last part of its course in a miniature ravine. Both sides of the dell were thickly covered with scrub oak, but glades had been cut, and at the intersection of two on the near bank stood a thatched hut. Alastair had noticed it before, and from his present eyrie it was clearly visible.
Below him in the courtyard the butler suddenly appeared and, shading his eyes, looked down the valley. Then he took from his pocket a handkerchief and waved it three times, staring hard after each wave. Alastair followed his gaze and saw that he was looking towards the oak wood. Presently from the hut there a figure emerged, waved a white rag three times, and disappeared in the scrub. The butler seemed satisfied, and turned back to the house, from which he emerged again with a covered basket. A boy rose from a bench, took the basket and set off at a boy's trot. Alastair watched his progress and noted that he did not take the direct road, but kept unobtrusively in the shade of thickets. He avoided the glades and reached the hut by an overland route through the scrub. He seemed to stay about a minute within, and then hurried back by the way he had gone. The butler was waiting for him in the yard, and the two talked for a little, after which the boy went off whistling.
There was someone in the hut in the oak scrub—someone who was being fed, and who did not wish to reveal himself to the house. It could only be Kyd. At the notion Alastair's face flushed and he forgot his cold vigil. The road was open for that meeting with Kyd, alone and secure, which was his main desire. Having satisfied himself that the coast was clear, he began to worm his way along the hillside.
At the edge of the covert he reconnoitred again. A figure had revealed itself in the pleasance which skirted one side of the house—a large figure which took the air on a green walk and appeared to be reading, with a book held very near its eyes. It was Mr Samuel Johnson, and for one moment he hesitated as to whether he should not first have speech with him. There was ample cover to reach him by way of a sunk fence. It was a critical decision, had he known it, but he took it lightly. His duty and his pleasure was first to settle with Kyd.
He reached the oak shaw without difficulty, and, like the boy, shunned the glades and squeezed through the thick undergrowth. He stopped once, for he thought he heard a faint whistle, but decided that it was only a bird. There were no windows in the hut, which, as he neared it, proved to be a far solider thing than he had imagined, being built of stout logs, jointed between stouter uprights, and roofed in with thatch as carefully woven as that of a dwelling-house. He listened, but all was quiet within.
The door yielded and he stepped inside with a quick motion, drawing it behind him, for the place was in sight of the house. . . . Then something smote him in the dark. He felt himself falling, and threw out his hand, which gripped only on vacancy and blackness. . . .
The first pin-prick of consciousness found him climbing. There was a sound of sea water in his ears, and the salt tingled in his eyes and nostrils, for he had been diving from the Frenchman's Rock and was still breathless with it. Now he was going up and up steeps of bracken and granite to the flat top where the ripe blackberries were. He was on Eilean a Fhraoich, had crossed over that morning in Angus Og's coble—a common Saturday's ploy. . . . But he found it very hard to get up the ledges, for they were always slipping from beneath him, and only wild clutches at the bracken kept him from slithering down to the beach. Also his head sang abominably, and there was a queer smell in his nose, more than salt, a smell like burning—burning lime. He wished he had not dived so deep. . . . Then his eyes suddenly stabbed him with pain and the beach of Eilean a Fhraoich disappeared, and the sun and the sky and the dancing sea. All was black now, with a pin-point of light which was not the sun.
"Ye struck him over hard, Ben," a voice said.
"Never you fear," came the answer. "I know the stout pretty heads of these Scotchmen." He waved the light over his face. "See, he is coming round already."
Alastair would have liked to speak, for he was worried about Eilean a Fhraoich and the smell in his nose was overpowering. But as his voice struggled to emerge it woke a deadly nausea, and he seemed to sink again down, down through cottony worlds of utter feebleness. . . .
His next conscious moment found him lying with his head propped up, while someone tried to open his lips with a spoon and pour hot liquid between them. The stuff burned his throat but did not sicken him. He moved himself to take it better and discovered that the slightest motion shot a flight of arrows through his head, arrows of an intolerable pain. So he kept very still, only opening his eyes by slow degrees. It was very dark, but there was a tiny light somewhere which showed a hand and arm moving from a bowl to his mouth and back again. . . . He began to piece his surroundings together. He was indoors somewhere and someone was feeding him, but beyond that he could tell nothing, so he slipped back into sleep.
After that he began to come again more frequently to the world, and the pain in his head and eyes bothered him less. He knew when meal-time came, for it was preceded by a dazzling brightness (which was daylight through the open door) and attended by a lesser light, which was a stable lantern. Slowly he began to reason and observe, and work his way back till he saw suddenly in his mind's eye the outside of the hut, and could remember the last waking moment. Then he heard a man's voice which woke a chord in his memory, and further bits of the past emerged. Soon he reached a stage when in a flood the whole story of his journeys and perplexities rolled back into his mind, and he grew sick again with a worse kind of nausea. Still he could not quite recapture the link; he saw everything up to a certain noon, and realised the dim world which now enveloped him, but he could not find the archway between the two. Then one day the hand that brought his food left the door wide open, and in the light of it he saw a dark gypsy-looking fellow who smiled impishly but not malevolently.
"No ill will, dear pretty gentleman," he whined. "You knew too much and were proving too inquisitive, so them as I obeys bade me put you to sleep for a tidy bit. No harm is meant you, so eat your pretty dinner and say your pretty prayers and go beddie-bye like a good little master. You're picking up strength like a cub fox."
Alastair saw again the dim door of the hut, felt the musty darkness, and the fiery pain that seemed to rend his skull. Now he had the tale complete.
The gypsy left him to feed himself, which was achieved at the expense of spilling a third of the soup. He sat on a pile of ash poles, swinging his legs, and preening himself like a jay.
"Ben was too clever for you, my dainty gentleman. He was a-watching for you days back, and when you was a-creeping belly-flat Ben was never a dozen yards behind you. He was in the wood above the stable that morning when you arrived, and 'twas him as arranged the play about the Shaw Hut with old Bennet. Not but what you had a pretty notion of travelling, my dear, and nimble legs to you. I owed you one for the day with Oglethorpe's soldiers and I paid it that morning at the Flambury meet. Now you owes me one for this device, and I'm waiting to pay it. All for a bit of sport is Ben."
Alastair let him brag and asked him but the one question. "How long have I been here?"
"Nineteen days," said the gypsy. "This is now the second day of December."
The news would have put the young man into a fever had his wits been strong enough to grasp its full meaning. As it was, he only felt hazily that things had gone very ill with him, without any impulse to take the wheel from Destiny's hand and turn it back.
All morning he drowsed. He was not uncomfortable, for he had a bed of bracken and rushes and sufficient blankets for the mild winter weather. An old woman, the wife of the butler, brought water and bathed his head daily, and the food, which was soup or stew of game, was good and sufficient. That day for the first time he felt his strength returning, and as the hours passed restlessness grew on him. It was increased by an incident which happened in the afternoon. He was awakened from a doze by the sound of steps and voices without. Two people were walking there, and since there were interstices between the logs of the wall it was possible to overhear their conversation.
Said one, a female voice, "He left Manchester two days ago?"
"Two days ago, St Andrew's Day," was the reply, "and therefore a day of happy omen for a Scot."
"So in two days he will be in D-derby."
That stammer he would have known in the babble of a thousand tongues. The other—who could he be but her husband, and the man they spoke of but the Prince?
A hand was laid on the latch and the door shook. Then a key was inserted and the lock turned. Alastair lay very quiet, but below his eyelids he saw the oblong of light blocked by a figure. That figure turned in profile the better to look at him, and he saw a sharp nose.
"He is asleep," said the man to his companion without. "He has been sick, for there was a sharp scuffle before he was taken, but now he is mending. Better for him, poor devil, had he died!"
"Oh, Jack, what will they do with him?"
"That is for His Highness to decide. A traitor's death, at any rate. He may get the benefit of his French commission and be shot, or he may swing like better men in hemp."
The other voice was quivering and anxious. "I cannot credit it. Oh, Jack, I am convinced that there is error somewhere. He may yet clear himself."
"Tut, the man was caught in open treason, intercepting messages from the West and handing them to the Government. His lies to you prove his guilt. He professed to be hastening to the Prince, and he is taken here crouching in a wood fifty miles from his road, but conveniently near General Ligonier and the Duke of Kingston."
The door was shut and the key turned, but not before Alastair heard what he took for a sigh.
There was no sleep for him that night. His head had cleared, his blood ran easily again, the strength had come back to his limbs, and every nerve in him was strung to a passion of anger. His fury was so great that it kept him calm. Most desperately had things miscarried. The Prince was on the threshold of the English midlands, and all these weeks Kyd and Norreys had been at their rogueries unchecked. Where were the western levies now? What devil's noose awaited the northern army, marching into snares laid by its own professed allies? Worse, if worse were possible, the blame would be laid on him; Norreys and Kyd had so arranged it that he would pass as traitor; doubtless they had their cooked evidence in waiting. And in the dear eyes of the lady he was guilty, her gentle heart wept for his shame. At the memory of her voice, as it had made its last protest, he could have beaten his head on the ground.
His bonds had always been light—a long chain with a padlock clasping his left ankle and fastened to a joist of the hut—for his captors trusted to the strength of the walls and his frail condition. During the night he worked at this and managed so to weaken one of the links that he thought he could break it at will. But the morning brought him a bitter disappointment. Some fresh orders must have been issued, for Gypsy Ben produced new fetters of a more formidable type, which bound Alastair to a narrow radius of movement. As a make-weight he did not lock the door, but left it ajar. "You're like me, gentleman dear," he said; "you like the sky over you and to hear birds talking round about. I can humour you in that, if you don't mind a shorter tether."
It was a fine morning, the third of December, with a loud frolicking wind and clouds that sailed in convoys. In black depression of heart Alastair watched the tiny half-moon of landscape vouchsafed to him, three yards of glade, a clump of hazels, the scarred grey bole of an ancient oak. He had toiled at his bonds till every muscle was wrung, and he had not moved a link or coupling one fraction of an inch. Breathless, furious, despairing, he watched a pert robin approaching the door in jerks, when the bird rose startled at someone's approach. Alastair, lifting dreary eyes, saw the homely countenance of Edom.
The man cried out, and stood staring.
"Guid sake, sir, is this the way of it? I heard that something ill had happened to ye, but I never jaloused this."
Hungry eyes read the speaker's face, and saw nothing there but honest perplexity.
"They have invented a lie," Alastair said, "and call me a traitor. Do you believe it?"
"Havers," said Edom cheerfully. "They never telled me that, or they'd have got the lee in their chafts. Whae said it? Yon lang wersh lad they ca' Sir John?"
"Is your master here?"
"He's comin' the morn and I'm michty glad o't. For three weeks I've been like a coo in an unco loan. But, Captain Maclean, sir, I'm wae for you, sittin' sae gash and waefu' in this auld bourock."
Alastair's eyes had never left Edom's face, and suddenly his mind was made up. He resolved to trust everything to this man's honesty.
"You can help me if you will. Can I count on you?"
"If it's onything reasonably possible," said the cautious Edom.
"I need friends. I want you to summon them."
"I'll be blithe to do that."
"You know the country round and the inns?"
"I've traivelled the feck o't on my twae feet and sampled the maist o' the publics."
"Then find a cross-roads which has broom on the signpost or an inn with an open eye painted under the sign. Whistle this air," and he hummed Midwinter's ditty.
Edom made a tolerable attempt at it. "I mind ye whustled that when we were huntit i' the big wud. And after that?"
"Someone will come to you and ask your errand. Tell him of my plight and direct him or guide him here."
Edom nodded, and without more ado turned and swung out for the river-bridge and the high road.
The hours passed slowly, for Alastair was in a ferment of hope and fear, into which like lightning-flashes in a dark sky shot now and then a passion of fury, as he remembered Claudia Norreys. He had not seen her as she stood outside the hut, but he could picture the sad disillusionment of her eyes, and the quiver of her mouth as she protested against a damning truth which she yet needs must believe. Her gentle voice sounded maddeningly in his ears. He could not forecast what his fate might be, he could not think settled thoughts, he could not plan; his mind was in that helplessness in which man falls back upon prayer.
The afternoon drew to a quiet sunset. The door of the hut remained open, and through it he saw the leafless knotted limbs of the oaks, which had before been a grey tracery against the smoky brown of the scrub, fire with gold and russet. There was no sign of Edom or his friends, but that at the best he could hardly hope for till late, there was no sign of his gaoler or of any living thing—he was left alone with the open door before him, and the strict fetters on his limbs. The sun sank, the oaks grew grey again, a shiver went through the earth as the night cold descended. The open space in the door had turned to ebony dark before there was a sound of steps.
It was Ben the Gypsy, and he had two others with him, whom Alastair could not see clearly in the light of the single lantern. The man seemed in high excitement.
"'Tis time to be stirring, pretty gentleman," he chirruped. "Hey for the high road and the hills in the dark o' the moon, says I. No time for supper, neither, but there'll be a long feast and a fine feast where you're going. Up with him, Dick lad and Tony lad. I'm running no risks with the bonds of such a fiery fearless gentleman."
Two stalwart followers swung him in their arms, and marched down one of the glades, the gypsy with the lanthorn dancing before, like a will-o'-the-wisp. At the foot of the slope were horses, and on one of them—a ragged shelty—they set him, undoing his leg bonds, and fastening them again under the animal's belly. The seat was not uncomfortable, for he had his feet in stirrups of a sort, but it was impossible for him to escape. His hands they tied, and one of the party took the shelty's bridle.
The road ran up-hill, first through woods and then in a waste of bracken and heather and scree. Black despair was Alastair's portion. His enemies had triumphed, for even if Edom discovered some of Midwinter's folk, they would find the hut empty, and how could they trace him by night over such trackless country? His body as well as his heart was broken, for the sudden change from the inertia of the hut made every limb ache and set his head swimming. Soon he was so weary that he lost all count of the way. Dimly he was conscious that they descended into glens and climbed again to ridges, but the growing chill and greater force of the wind told him that they were steadily rising. Presently the wrack was blown off the face of the sky, the winter regiment of stars shone out, and in their faint radiance he saw all about him the dark fields of the hills. Often he thought himself fainting. Repeatedly he would have fallen, but for the belly girth, and more than once he bowed over his horse's neck in deep weariness. Ben the Gypsy spoke to him, but as he did not answer rode ahead, with his lantern bobbing like a ship's riding light in a gusty harbour.
Then Alastair fell asleep, and was tortured by nightmares. Indeed all the latter part of the journey was a nightmare, sleeping and waking, for it was a steady anguish, half muffled by a sense of crazy unreality. When the party stopped at last, he came back from caverns of confused misery, and when the belly-girth was cut fell leadenly to the ground. The ride in an unnatural position had given him a violent cramp in his right leg, and the sharp pain woke him to clear consciousness. He was picked up and carried inside some building, and as he crossed the threshold had a vision of steep walls of cliff all about him.
After that he must have slept, for when he next remembered he was lying on a settle before a fire of peat and heather-roots, and, watching him through the smoke, sat Gypsy Ben, whittling a stick with a long, fine shagreen-handled knife.
"Feeling happier now?" the gypsy asked. "Soon it will be supper time and after that the soft bed and the long sleep, my darling dear. Ben's are the kind hands."
Something in the voice made Alastair shake off his torpor. The gypsy, as he first remembered him, had been a mischievous sneering fellow, and he had longed to wring his neck when he rode off grinning that day at the Flambury Hunt. In the hut he had been almost friendly, protesting that he bore no malice but only obeyed orders. But now—there was something bright and mad about those dark dancing eyes, something ghoulish in the soft gloating voice. Had his orders been changed? What plan of his foes was served by bringing him thus into this no-man's-land of the hills?
"Why am I here?" he asked, and his tongue so stumbled between his dry lips that the gypsy passed him a jug of ale that was being kept warm by the fire.
"Orders, kind precious sir. Them that I obeys has changed their mind about you, and thinks you are too dear and good for this wicked, wicked world. Therefore they hands you over to Gypsy Ben, who brings you the straight way to Journeyman John."
The other looked puzzled, and the gypsy rose and, dancing to a far end of the room, opened a large rough door like a partition in a cowshed. Instantly a great gust swept the place, driving clouds of fine dust from the hearth. A noise came from that darkness beyond the door, a steady rumbling and grinding which had been a mere undercurrent of sound when the door was shut, but now dominated the place—a sound like mill-stones working under a full press of water, joined with a curious shuddering like wind in an old garret. The gypsy stood entranced, one hand to his ear, his eyes glittering.
"That's him we call Journeyman John. Hark to him grinding his old teeth! Ah, John, hungry again! But cheer up, there's a fine supper a-coming."
He shut the door as a showman shuts a cage. The light died out of his eyes, leaving only smouldering fires.
"That's the deepest pot-hole in all the land," he said, "and John like a scaly serpent lies coiled at the foot of it. Nothing that goes in there comes out—leastways only in threads and buttons by way of Eldingill, and that long after. There's your bed made for you, master, and it's Ben's duty to tuck you in. Oh, Ben's a kind mammy."
The young man's brain had been slow to grasp the fate prepared for him, but the crazy leer which accompanied the last words brought a hideous illumination, and at the same time the faintest ray of hope. The man was clearly a madman, and therefore incalculable. With a great effort Alastair steeled his heart and composed his voice.
"What of supper?" he asked. "That comes before bed in a hospitable house."
The gypsy laughed like a magpie, high and harsh. "Supper be it!" he cried, "and a good one, for John is a generous host. Hey, Bobadilla!"
An old woman answered his cry and proceeded to lay on the table plates and glasses, a platter of bread and the end of a cheese. Presently she came back with a great dish of frizzling eggs and fried ham. The gypsy lifted the jug of ale from the fireside, and drew in a chair to the board.
"Mammy will feed her pretty chick," he said, "for the chick's claws are too dangerous to loose."
Alastair's heart had ceased fluttering, and an immense composure had settled upon him. He had even an appetite, and was able to swallow the portion of eggs and ham which the gypsy conveyed to his mouth on the end of his knife. The ale was most welcome, for his thirst was fierce, and the warmth and the spice of it recalled his bodily strength. By now he was recovering a manlier resolution. He was a soldier and had faced death often, though never in so gruesome a form. If it were the end, so let it be, but he would not abandon hope while breath was in his body. He even forced himself to a laugh.
"Tell me of this Journeyman John," he asked. "What house is this that he lurks behind?"
"A poor farm called Pennycross, with no neighbour nearer than six miles. Goody Lugg is the farmer, a worthy widow who looks after a cow and a dozen wethers and leaves the care of John to Ben and his friends. Mighty convenient fellow is John to keep in a neighbourhood. If a girl would be quit of a love-child or a wife of a stepson they come to Ben to do their business. Ay, pretty sir, and John has had dainty meat. Listen," and he thrust his face close to Alastair. "I have done a job or two for Lord Dash and Lord Mash—naming no names, as being against my sworn oath—when they were in trouble with petticoats no longer wanted. And before my time there was the young heir of Crokover—you've heard that tale. Ay, ay, the Journeyman does his work swift and clean and lasting and keeps mum!"
"Who paid you to bring me here?"
The gypsy grinned cunningly. "Since I swore no oaths and you'll never live to peach, you shall hear. Down in Brightwell live two grey she-corbies. 'Twas them gave Ben the office."
"No other?"
"No other except a red-faced Scot that rides the roads like a packman. Him I have not seen for weeks, but the corbies in Brightwell work to his bidding. All three love the bright yellow gold."
"Sir John Norreys had a part in it?"
"Nay, nay, pretty sir. Sir John, brave gentleman, was privy to your capture and imprisonment, but he knows nothing of this night's work. He is too young and raw for so rare a thing as my John."
"You are paid well, I fancy. What if I were to pay you better to let me go?"
"What you have is already mine," said the gypsy.
"A large sum will be brought you in twelve hours if you will let me send a message, and as proof of good faith I will remain here in your power till it is paid."
The gypsy's eye glittered with what was not greed.
"Though you filled my hat with guineas, my darling, I would not let you go. John is hungry, for it is long since he tasted proper meat, and I have promised him that to-night he shall sup. I have whispered it in his great ear, and he has purred happily like a cat. Think you I would disappoint John? Do not fear, pretty sir. It is midwinter and the world is cold, and full of hard folks and wan cheeks and pinched bellies. But down with John there is deep sleep and it is sunny and warm, for the fires of Hell burn next door. Nay, nay, John is not the Devil, but only a cousin on the spindle side."
In spite of his resolution Alastair felt his blood chilling as the gypsy babbled. Hope had grown very faint, for what could he do, manacled as he was, in a struggle against a lithe and powerful madman, who could call in the other companions of the night to help him? The undercurrent of sound seemed to be growing louder, and the wooden partition shook a little with the reverberation. How many minutes would pass before he was falling into that pit of echoing darkness!
"When does John sup?" he asked.
"When he calls for supper," was the answer. "At a certain hour each night the noise of his grinding becomes louder. Hark, it is beginning now. In less than half an hour he will speak. . . . You have a ring on your finger, a pretty ring—give it to Ben that it may remind him of a happy night and a sweet gentleman."
"Why do you ask for it when I am in your power, and it is yours for the taking?"
"Because a thing gifted is better than a thing taken. Plunder a man must sell, but a gift he can wear. If I had a dead man's hat on my head took from his body, it would be crying out in my ears, but if he had kindly given it me, it would fit well and hold its peace. I want that ring that I may wear it and kiss it and call to mind my darling dear."
The gypsy seized the hand and peered at the ring, a heavy jasper cut with the crest of Morvern, a tower embattled.
"Set free my hands, then, and I will give it you," said Alastair.
The gypsy grinned cunningly. "And risk your strong fingers at my throat, my pretty one. Nay, nay. Just say the words, 'I gift my ring freely and lovingly to Gypsy Ben,' and hark to the service I will do you. With my own hand I will cut your pretty throat, and save you the cruel fall down, down into the darkness. Most gentlemen fear that more than death. 'Tis unfair to the Journeyman, for he's no raven that can put up with dead carrion, but a peregrine who kills what he eats. But for this once he will pardon his servant Ben. Say the words, gentleman dear. See, it is getting very close on supper time and John is crying out."
He lifted his hand, an eldritch and evil figure, and sure enough the noise of the grinding had risen till it was like a storm in the night. The wooden partition and the windows at the far side of the room rattled violently and the whole place, roof, walls and rafters, shuddered. In a tumult a small sound pitched in a different key will sometimes make itself heard, and on Alastair's ear there fell something like a human voice. It may have been fancy, but, though he had abandoned hope, it encouraged him to play for time.
"I do not fear the darkness," he said, "or death in the darkness. But it is a notion of my family to die in the daylight. I will gladly speak the words which gift you the ring if you will let me live till dawn. It cannot be far distant."
The gypsy took from his fob a vast old silver watch. "Nay, sir, not till daybreak, which is still four hours distant. But John shall wait for one half-hour on his supper, and he cannot complain, for he will have the killing of it himself. Take your pleasure, then, for thirty minutes by this clock which Ben had of the Miller of Bryston before he was hanged at Derby. What shall we do to make the moments go merrily? Shall Ben sing to you, who soon will be singing with angels?"
The gypsy was on his feet now, his face twitching with excitement and his eyes like two coals. He skipped on the table and cut a step.
"You shall see the Gallows Jig, darling mine, which goes to the tune of 'Fairladies.'"
With grace and skill he threaded his way among the dishes on the stout oaken board, showing a lightness of foot amazing in one wearing heavy riding-boots.
"Bravo," cried Alastair. "If I were unshackled I would give you the sword-dance as we dance it in the Highlands." If the maniac could be absorbed in dance and song he might forget the passage of time. Somehow the young man believed that with daylight he would have a chance of salvation.
The gypsy leaped from the table, and took a long pull at the ale jug.
"Sing in turn or sing in chorus," he cried. "Raise a ditty, precious gentleman."
Alastair's dry throat produced a stave of Desportes—a love song which he had last heard at afête champêtreat Fontainebleau. The gypsy approved and bellowed a drinking catch. Then to Alastair's surprise he lowered his voice and sang very sweetly and truly the song of "Diana." The delicate air, with the fragrance of the wildwood in it, pierced Alastair like a sword. He remembered it as Midwinter had sung it—as Claudia Norreys had crooned it, one foot beating time by the hearth and the glow of firelight on her slim body. It roused in him a new daring and a passionate desire to live. He saw, by a glance at the watch which lay on the table, that the half-hour had already been exceeded.
"Nobly sung," he cried. "Where got you that song?"
"Once I heard a pretty lady chant it as she walked in a garden. And I have heard children sing it far away from here—and long, long ago."
The man's craziness had ebbed a little, and he was staring into the fire. Alastair, determined that he should not look at the watch, coaxed him to sing again, and praised his music, and, when he did not respond, himself sang—for this new mood had brought back his voice—a gypsy lay of his own land, a catch of the wandering Macadams that trail up and down the sea-coast. Gentle and soothing it was, with fairy music in it, which the Good Folk pipe round the sheilings on the July eves. Ben beat time to it with his hand, and after it sang "Colin on a summer day" with a chorus that imitated very prettily a tabor accompaniment. . . . Alastair's glance at the watch told him that more than an hour had passed, and he realised, too, that the noise of the Journeyman was dying down.
"Your turn," said the gypsy, who had let his legs sprawl toward the fire, and seemed like one about to go to sleep.
An unlucky inspiration came to the young man. He broke into the song of "The Naked Men" and he let his voice ring out so that the thing might have been heard outside the dwelling. For a moment the gypsy did not seem to hear; then he frowned, as if an unpleasant memory were aroused; then suddenly he woke to full consciousness.
"Hell and damnation!" he cried. "What warlock taught you that? Stop the cursed thing," and he struck the singer in the face.
Then his eye saw the watch, and his ear caught the cessation of the Journeyman's grinding. His madness flared up again, he forgot all about the ring, and he leaped upon the prisoner like a wild-cat. He dragged him, helpless as he was, from the settle and flung him across the table, sending the remains of supper crashing to the floor. Then he left him, rushed to the wooden partition, and tore it apart. From the black pit thus revealed a thin grey vapour seemed to ascend, and the noise was like the snarling of hounds in kennel.
"John is hungry," he cried. "I have kept you waiting, my darling, but your meat is ready," and he was back clutching his prisoner's middle.
The despair and apathy of the earlier hours had gone, and Alastair steeled himself to fight for his life. The gypsy's strength was always respectable and now his mania made it prepotent. The young man managed to get his manacled ankles crooked in a leg of the table, but they were plucked away with a dislocating wrench. His head grated on the floor as he was dragged towards the pit. And then he saw a chance, for the rope that bound his wrists caught in a staple fixed in the floor, apparently to make an anchorage for a chain that had worked an ancient windlass. The gypsy pulled savagely, but the good hemp held, and he was forced to drop the body and examine the obstacle. Alastair noted that beyond the pit was a naked dripping wall of cliff, and that the space between the edge and the walls of the shed inclined downward, so that anything that once reached that slope would be easily rolled into the abyss. Death was very near him and yet he could not despair. He lifted up his voice in a great shout for help. A thousand echoes rang in the pit, and following on them came the gypsy's crazy cackle.
"Do not fear, pretty darling. John's arms are soft bedding," and he dragged him over the lip of stone beyond which the slope ran to the darkness.
Once again by a miracle his foot caught. This time it was only a snag of rock, but it had a rough edge to it, and by the mercy of God, the bonds at his ankles had been already frayed. The gypsy, who had him by the shoulders and arms, tugged frantically, and the friction of the stone's edge severed the last strands. Suddenly Alastair found his ankles free, and with a desperate scramble tried to rise. But his feet were cramped and numb and he could not find a stand. A tug from the gypsy brought him to the very edge of the abyss. But the incident had wakened hope, and once again he made the vault ring with a cry for help.
It was answered. The dim place suddenly blazed with light, and there was a sound of men's voices. For an instant the gypsy loosed his hold to stare, and then with a scream resumed his efforts. But in that instant Alastair's feet had found on the very brink a crack of stone, which enabled him to brace his legs and resist. The thing was trivial and he could not hold out long, but the purchase was sufficient to prevent that last heave from hurling him into the void.
The gypsy seemed suddenly to change his mind. He let the young man's shoulders drop, so that he fell huddled by the edge, plucked the long shagreen-handled knife from his belt and struck at his neck. But the blow never fell. For in the same fraction of time something bright quivered through the air, and struck deep in his throat. The man gurgled, then grew limp like a sack, and dropped back on the ground. Then with a feeble clawing at the air he rolled over the brink, struck the side twice, and dropped till the noise of his fall was lost in the moaning of the measureless deep.
Alastair lay sick and trembling, not daring to move, for his heels were overhanging the void. A hand seized him, a strong hand; and though he cried out in terror it dragged him up the slope and into the room. . . . The intense glare stabbed his eyes and he had the same choking nausea as when he had been felled in the hut. Then he came suddenly out of the fit of horror and saw himself on the settle, ready to weep from weariness, but sane again and master of himself.
A dark friendly face was looking down at him.
"You may travel the world's roads for a hundred years," said the Spainneach, "and never be nearer death. I warned you, Sir Sandy. You have been overlong in the South."
Five hours' sleep were not enough to rest his body, but they were all that his unquiet mind would permit. He woke to a sense of great weariness combined with a feverish impulse to drive himself to the last limits of his strength. His limbs were desperately stiff, and at his first attempt to rise he rolled over. A bed had been made for him in the attic of the farm, and the view from the window showed only the benty shoulder of a hill. Slowly the doings of the night came back to him; from the bowels of the earth he seemed to hear the mutterings of Journeyman John, and he crawled down the trap-ladder in a fret to escape from the place of horror.
In the kitchen the Spainneach was cooking eggs in a pan, smiling and crooning to himself as if the morning and the world were good. He put Alastair in a chair and fed him tenderly, beating up an egg in a cup with French brandy.
"Have that for your morning's draught, Sir Sandy," he said. "You are with your friends now, so let your anxieties sleep."
"They cannot," said the young man. "I have lost weeks of precious time. My grief! but I have been the broken reed to lean on! And the Prince is in this very shire."
"To-night he will lie in Derby. Lord George Murray has led a column in advance to Congleton and the Duke of Kingston has fled back to Lichfield. His Grace of Newcastle has sent offers to the Prince. All goes well, heart's darling. Your friends have given Cumberland the slip and are on the straight road to London."
The news stirred his languid blood.
"But the West," he cried. "What news of the West—of Barrymore and Sir Watkin and Beaufort? There is the rub." And with the speaking of the words the whole story of the past weeks unrolled itself clear and he dropped his head into his hands and groaned. Then he staggered to his feet.
"There is a man reaches Brightwell this day. He must be seized—him and his papers." Swiftly he told the story of Kyd. "Let me lay hands on him and I will extort the truth though I have to roast him naked, and that truth the Prince must have before a man of us sleep. It is the magic key that will unlock St James's. Have you men to lend me?"
The Spainneach smiled. "Last night they tracked you, as few men in England could, and they were here to overpower the rascaldom that held the door. Now they are scattered, but I have a call to pipe them back like curlews. The Spoonbills are at your back, Sir Sandy."
"Then for God's sake let us be going," Alastair cried. "Have you a horse for me, for my legs are like broomshanks?"
"Two are saddled and waiting outbye. But first I have a little errand to fulfil, which the Master charged on me."
From a shed he brought armfuls of hay and straw and piled them in a corner where the joists of the roof came low and the thatch could be reached by a man's hand. Into the dry mass he flung a smouldering sod from the fire. As Alastair, stiffly feeling his stirrups, passed between the dry-stone gateposts, he heard a roaring behind him, and, turning, saw flames licking the roof.
"Presently Journeyman John will lie bare to the heavens," said the Spainneach, "and the wayfaring man, though a fool, will understand. Brightwell is your goal, Sir Sandy? 'Tis fifteen moorland miles."
"First let us go to the Sleeping Deer," was the answer. "I have a beard weeks old, and my costume is not my own. Please God, this day I am going into good society and have a high duty to perform, so I would be decently attired."
The Spainneach laughed. "Still your old self. You were always for the thing done in order. But for this Kyd of yours—he comes to Brightwell to-day, and may depart again, before you take order with him. It is desirable that he be detained?"
"By God, he shall never go," cried Alastair.
"The Spoonbills do not fight, but they can make a hedge about a man, and they can bring us news of him."
So at a grey cottage in the winding of a glen the Spainneach turned aside, telling Alastair that he would overtake him, and when he caught him up his face was content. "Mr Kyd will not enter Brightwell unknown to us," he said, "and he will assuredly not leave it."
The day had been bright in the morning, but ere they descended from the high moors to the wider valleys the wind had veered to the north, and a cold mist had blown up, which seemed a precursor of storm. Rain fell heavily and then cleared, leaving a windy sky patched with blue and ruffled with sleet blasts. The tonic weather did much to refresh Alastair's body, and to add fuel, if that were possible, to the fire in his brain. He knew that he was living and moving solely on the passion in his spirit, for his limbs were fit only for blankets and sleep. When his horse stumbled or leaned on the bit he realised that the strength had gone out of his arms. But his mind amazed him by its ardour of resolution, as if all the anxieties of the past week had been fused into one white-hot fury. . . . So far the Prince had not failed, and these forced marches which would place him between Cumberland and the capital were surely proof of undivided counsels. Perhaps he had news of the West after all. There was his own letter to Lochiel—but in that he had promised proofs at Derby, and this day the Prince would be in Derby and would not find him.
"You have seen His Highness?" he asked the Spainneach.
"At Manchester, for a brief minute, surrounded by white cockades."
"How did he look?"
"Sad and reflective—like a man who has staked much against odds and does not greatly hope."
It was the picture he had made in his own mind. But by Heaven he would change it, and bring a sparkle again to those eyes and the flush of hope to that noble brow. . . . For weeks no news could have reached the camp from the West, for Kyd would have passed it to Norreys and Norreys to one of the Whig Dukes in Nottinghamshire, and if the levies had marched from Wales the Government had had ample warning to intercept them. . . . Probably they had not started, for Kyd could no doubt counterfeit orders from the Prince. But the point was that they were there—men, armed men, and money—ready and eager for the field. His thoughts were drawing to a point now, and he realised what had been the vague fear that so long had tormented him. It was that the Prince would lose heart—nay, not he, but his Council, and instead of striking for St James's, fall back to a defensive war inside the Scottish Border. That way lay destruction, slow or speedy—with England unconverted and France uncommitted. But the bold road, the true road, would bring France and England to their side, and strike terror to the heart of their already perplexed enemy. Tower Hill or St James's! Would to God he was now by the Prince's side, instead of Lord George with his slow Atholl drawl, or the Secretary Murray, fussy and spluttering and chicken-hearted, or the Teagues, whose boldness was that of kerns and only made the others more cautious. At the thought of his Prince's haggard face he groaned aloud.
But, please God, it was still in his power to find the remedy, and by evening the peril might be past. He spurred his horse at the thought, and, since the beasts were fresh and they were now on the good turf of the vales, the miles flew fast, and they rode out of sleet showers into sun. To his surprise he found that his attitude to Kyd had changed. He loathed the man and longed to crush him, but it was as a vile creeping thing and not as a personal enemy. But against Sir John Norreys he felt a furious hatred. The thing was illogical—to hate a tool rather than the principal, the more as Norreys had done him no personal ill, while Kyd had connived at his death. But had the two been on the sward before him with drawn swords he could have left the laird of Grey houses to the Spainneach and taken the baronet for himself. Why? His heart inexorably gave the answer. The man was the husband of the russet lady; to her ears he had lied, and with his lies drawn a moan of pity from her gentle lips. For Sir John Norreys, Alastair reserved a peculiar vengeance. Kyd might fall to a file of the Prince's muskets, but Norreys must die before the cold point of his own steel. And then . . . ? Claudia would be a free woman—sorrowful, disillusioned, shamefaced, but still a child with the world before her, a white page on which love could yet write a happy tale.
They skirted the little hill on which Alastair had stood with Midwinter, and came to the high road and the door of the Sleeping Deer. There was now no need of back stairs, and Alastair, giving up his horse to an ostler, boldly entered the hall and made for the landlord's sanctum. But an elegant travelling trunk caught his eye, its leather bearing the blazon of a crowned heart, and by the fire a lackey in a red-and-blue livery was warming himself. A glance through the open door of the stable-yard revealed more red and blue, and a fine coach which three stable-boys were washing. The landlord was not in his room, but in the kitchen, superintending the slicing of hams, the plucking of pullets and the spicing of great tankards of ale. At the sight of Alastair he started, called another to take his place at the table and beckoned him out-of-doors.
"I'm joyful to see ye again, for I feared ye had come by foul play. That Scotch serving-man was here seeking ye more than once, and"—lowering his voice—"word came from the Spoonbills, and you not here to answer, and me not knowing where in hell or Derbyshire ye had got to. Ye've happened on a rare to-do at the Sleeping Deer. Her right honourable Grace, the Duchess of Queensberry, has come here to lie the night, before journeying down into the West country. She has been at Chatsworth, but the gentles is all a-fleeing south now, for fear of the wild Highlandmen. Duke William himself escorted her here, and that pretty lad, his eldest son, the Lord Hartington, and dinner is ordered for three, and my wife's like to fire the roof with perplexity. Ye'll be for your old room, doubtless. It's been kept tidy against your return, and I'll see that a bite of dinner is sent up to ye, when Her Grace is served."
The Spainneach had disappeared, so Alastair mounted to his attic and set about the long process of his toilet. His cramped fingers made a slow business of shaving, but at last his chin and cheeks were smooth, and the mirror showed a face he recognised, albeit a face hollow in the cheeks and dark about the eyes. As his dressing proceeded his self-respect stole back; the fresh-starched shirt, the well-ironed cravat, were an assurance that he had returned from savagery. By the time he had finished he felt his bodily health improved, and knew the rudiments of an appetite. The meal and the glass of brandy which the landlord brought him assisted his transformation, and he seemed to breathe again without a burden on his chest. He had bidden the landlord look out for the Spainneach, and meantime he had an errand to do on his own account; for it occurred to him that the arrival of the Duchess Kitty was the solution of one perplexity.
He walked through the store-closet to the landing above the staircase. At the half-opened door of the Brown Room stood a footman in the Queensberry colours, one who had been with his mistress at Cornbury and recognised Alastair. He bowed and let him pass; indeed he would have pushed the door wide for him had not the young man halted on the threshold. There were voices inside the room, and one of them had a familiar sound.
The sight which greeted his eyes made him shut the door firmly behind him. Duchess Kitty, still wearing the cloak of grey fur and the velvet mittens which had kept her warm in the coach, sat in the chair which Claudia had once sat in, one little foot on the hearth-stone, the other tapping impatiently on the hearth-rug. On a table lay the remains of a meal, and beside it, balancing himself with one large hand among the platters, stood Mr Samuel Johnson. It was not the Mr Johnson to whom he had bade farewell three weeks ago, but rather the distraught usher who had made the midnight raid on Cornbury. His dress was the extreme of shabbiness, his hair was in disorder, his rusty small clothes and coarse stockings were splashed with mud; and he seemed to be famished, too, for his cheeks were hollow, and for all his distress, he could not keep his eyes from straying towards the table.
"I beseech your Grace to remember your common womanhood," he was saying when Alastair's entrance diverted the Duchess's attention.
She recognised him, and a look which was almost alarm crossed her face.
"Here enters the first of the conquerors," she cried, and swept him a curtsey. "What is the latest news from the seat of war? My woman tells me that the Prince is already in Bedfordshire and that London is ablaze and King George fled to Holland. Your news, Captain Maclean?"
"I have none, madam. I have been no nearer the Prince's camp than I am at this moment."
Her eyes opened wide. "Faith, you have dallied long in the South. Have you been sick, or is Beaufort's conscience a tender plant? Or did you return to Cornbury?" Her face had grown stern.
"I left Cornbury on the day you remember, and I have not since seen my lord, your brother."
"That is well," she said, with an air of relief. "I ask no further questions lest they embarrass you. But you are come opportunely, for you can give me counsel. This gentleman," and she turned to Johnson, "has forced his company upon me, and, when you arrived, had embarked upon a monstrous tale. He bespeaks my pity, so I have composed myself to listen."
"The gentleman and I are acquainted, and I can vouch for his honesty. Nay, madam, I have a fancy that his errand is also mine."
She looked curiously from one to the other, as Johnson, rolling his head like a marionette, seized Alastair's hand. "It is the mercy of God, sir, that you have returned," the tutor cried. "I have missed you sorely, for that house of Brightwell is no better than a prison. Its master is aged and bedridden and demented, and it is governed by two malevolent spinsters. Brightwell! Bridewell is its true name. I myself have eaten little and slept bare, but that matters nothing. It is my poor lady I grieve for. 'Tis true, she has her husband, but he is little at home, and is much engrossed with affairs. Soon, too, he will ride south with his Prince, and Miss Claudia cannot travel with him nor can she be left behind in that ill-omened den. She must have a woman to befriend her in these rough days, and conduct her to Chastlecote or Weston, but she has few female friends of her rank and I knew not where to turn. But to-day, walking on the high road, I saw an equipage and learned that it was Her Grace travelling south, and that she would lie at this inn. So I ran hither like a Covent-garden porter, and have been admitted to her presence, though my appearance is not so polite as I could have desired." He bowed to the Duchess, and in his clumsiness swept her travelling-mask from the table to the floor.