Historical Novel - The Flight of the Heron (Historical Novel)

His voice was very grave. Alison, who had heard him through, answered firmly, “Yes, I know that.” But the lovely colour was gone from her cheeks, and her hands were holding each other tightly.

“It is not too late, even now,” urged her companion. “If I choose to suppress the fact that I was brought here as Mr. Cameron’s prisoner, who is to gainsay my assertion that I came as a guest? Only keep him back from this crazy rendezvous to-morrow, which can but herald disaster, and he may be able——”

“Keep him back!” exclaimed Alison. She had got up from her tree-stump. “Do you suppose that I could? Do you suppose that if I could, I would?” Her voice trembled a little.

“But, Miss Grant, consider! If this young man, this Prince of yours, had come with an army——”

“Then it would have been safe to declare for him!” broke in Alison, and her dark eyes flashed. “Oh, if that is the English way of thinking, it is not the Highland! Because he comes alone, and trusts himself to us, is not that the best of reasons why we should follow him who has the right, Captain Windham, and who may yet prove to have the might also?”

There was a short silence between them. On the other side of the loch a curlew uttered its plaintive, liquid cry. Captain Windham drew himself up a little.

“If you feel thus about the matter, Miss Grant,” he said rather dryly, “there is no more to be said. I see that you will not take my offering. The best I can wish you, then, is that the affair may burn itself out as quickly as possible, for the longer it lasts the more victims there are likely to be . . . afterwards. And I would give much, believe me, to know that Mr. Cameron of Ardroy will not be among them.”

Alison held out her hand impulsively. And she had been thinking that he was brooding on revenge! “I thank you for those words, sir,” she said with great sweetness, “because I believe that you mean them. But, though I shall not easily forget your kindness, it is—forgive me—useless to discuss the matter further.”

Captain Windham kissed her hand in silence, and offered her his arm back to the house, if she were returning thither. Alison took it readily enough, and as they left the loch, conversing on indifferent topics, she had time to taste the surprise and relief which had come to her there. If Fate’s chosen instrument—supposing he were really that—were so well disposed towards Ewen, how could he in the future be used against him?

And yet, later in the evening, waiting for Ewen’s return, she found that, unreasonably perhaps, she disliked Captain Windham’s presumption that she could, if she tried, influence her lover to betray his convictions even more than the supposition that she could be induced to try. She felt that the soldier understood neither Highlanders nor Jacobites. But for his kindly and even generous intentions she had nothing but gratitude.

* * * * *

As for Keith Windham, whose meditations by Loch na h-Iolaire had moved him to an effort which surprised him, he told himself that he had never expected any other result. They were all blinded and besotted, these Jacobites. He wondered whether Miss Grant would tell her betrothed of his attempt. With Ardroy himself he naturally should not think of expostulating; to do so would be mere waste of breath.

There was no Ardroy at supper, though it appeared that he was expected back at any moment, and Keith shortly afterwards excused himself and withdrew to his own bedchamber, having no wish to be an intruder on the lovers’ last hours together, rebels though they were. But it was too early to go to bed, so once more he pulled a couple of books at random from the shelf on the wall, and settled down by the window to read. One of them he opened before he realised what it was, and found himself staring at ‘Most heartily do we beseech Thee with Thy favour to behold our most gracious Sovereign Lord King——’ but ‘James’ had been neatly pasted over the ‘George’.

Captain Windham smiled. He held in his hand the Book of Common Prayer as used and amended by the nonjuring Episcopalian Jacobites, and saw with his own eyes the treason to which his ears might have listened earlier in the day. For though, on rising, he had forgotten that it was Sunday, this was a fact of which he had not long been suffered to remain ignorant, since after breakfast Miss Cameron had said to him in matter-of-fact tones—they were alone for the moment: “I doubt you will wish to attend Morning Prayer with us, Captain Windham, even if you be an Episcopalian, like most of the English, for I must not disguise from you that we pray, not for King George, but for King James.”

“ ‘Morning Prayer,’ ” Keith had stammered. “Is—do you—I had thought that you were all Presbyterians hereabouts . . . or Papists,” he added, suddenly remembering the old woman on Friday.

“Ah, not at all,” replied Miss Cameron composedly. “The MacDonalds of the mainland and the most of the Frasers indeed are Papists, but we Camerons are Episcopalians, and so are our neighbours, the Stewarts of Appin. But we can get to kirk but rarely, and to-day in especial, being, as you will understand, somewhat throng, we shall be obliged to worship at home.”

“And who——”

“Why, my nephew the laird, naturally,” replied Miss Cameron. “Though as Mr. Grant is with us, ’tis possible he may read the service to-day.”

“Leaving your nephew free to preach, no doubt?” suggested Keith, trying to control a twitch of the lip.

“Now you are laughing at us, sir,” observed Miss Cameron shrewdly, but with perfect good humour. “No, Ardroy does not preach. But I have the habit of reading a sermon to myself of a Sunday afternoon, and if you scoff any more ’tis likely the same exercise would benefit you, and I’ll be happy to lend you a volume of some English divine—Bishop Jeremy Taylor, for instance.”

Keith bowed and gravely assured her that if she saw fit to do this he would duly read a homily. But he had gone out into the garden smiling to himself. That model young man—he could not be more than five- or six-and-twenty—reading the Church service every Sunday to his household! He thought of the young men of his acquaintance in the army or in the fashionable world of London, the careless, loose-living subalterns, the young beaux of White’s. Ye gods, what ribald laughter would have gone up at the tale! . . . Yes, but not one of those potential mockers could have beaten Ardroy in stature or looks or at swordplay. Keith would not forget Loch Oich side in a hurry.

But he had not attended Morning Prayer.

Now he was rather wishing that he had done so, for he supposed that he would never again have the chance of seeing a young man who could fight in that style acting as chaplain. But perhaps Mr. Grant had superseded him; Keith had not enquired. At any rate Ewen Cameron was not engaged on particularly prayerful business at this moment, over at his Chief’s house, nor would he be on his knees to-morrow. Afterwards . . . well, it was likely that his relatives would have need to pray for him!

He turned over the Prayer Book idly, and it opened next at the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, and the words of the Gospel leapt at him: ‘Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my Name’s sake . . .’

Though not much of a churchgoer himself, Captain Windham was shocked at the analogy which occurred to him, and closing the Prayer Book hastily, fell to wondering what was going to be done with him to-morrow; also, whose hand had retrieved and laid upon his dressing-table the two missing buttons from his uniform which he had found there a short while ago.

It was nearly ten o’clock when he heard the beat of hoofs. They stopped in front of the porch, but he did not look out. Someone dismounted, then Keith heard Miss Grant’s voice, with her heart in it: “Ewen, you are come at last; it has been a long evening!”