“You know who I am,” said Alastair. “You are aware that like your master I am in a certain service, and that between him and me there are no secrets.”
“Aye, sir. I ken that ye’re Captain Maclean, and a gude Scot, though ower far north o’ Forth for my ain taste, if your honour will forgie me.”
“You carry papers? I must know more of your journey. What is your goal?”
“A bit the name o’ Brightwell near a hill they ca’ the Peak.”
Alastair had not been prepared for this, had had no glimmering of a suspicion of it, and the news decided him.
“It is of the utmost importance that I see your papers. Your master, if he were here now, would consent.”
The man’s face flushed. “I kenna how that can be. Your honour wadna have me false to my trust.”
“You will not be false. You travel on a matter of the Prince’s interest, as I do, and I must know your errand fully in order to shape my own course. Your master and I have equal rank in His Highness’s councils.”
The other shook his head, as if perplexed. “Nae doot—nae doot. But, ye see, sir, I’ve my orders, and I maun abide by them. ‘Pit thae letters,’ my maister says, ‘intil the hand of him ye ken o’ and let naebody else get a glisk o’ them.’ ”
“Then it is my duty to take them by force,” said Alastair, showing the hilt of his sword and the butt of a pistol under his coat.
Edom’s face cleared.
“That is a wiser-like way o’ speakin’. If ye compel me I maun e’en submit, for ye’re a gentleman wi’ a sword and I’m a landward body wi’ nocht but a hazel wand. It’s no that I mistrust your honour, but we maun a’ preserve the decencies.”
He unbuttoned his coat, foraged in the recesses of his person, and from some innermost receptacle extracted a packet tied with a dozen folds of cobbler’s twine. There was no seal to break, and Alastair slit the knots with his sword. Within was a bunch of papers of the same type as those he had received from Brother Gilly, and burned in the fire of the Dog and Gun. These he put in his pocket for further study. “I must read them carefully, for they contain that which must go straight to the Prince’s ear,” he told the perplexed messenger.
But there was a further missive, which seemed to be a short personal note from Mr. Kyd to the recipient of the papers.
Dear “Achilles,”
it ran.
Affairs march smoothly and the tide sets well to bring you to Troy town, where presently I design to crack a bottle and exchange tales. The Lady Briseis purposes to join you and will not be dissuaded by her kinsman. A friendly word: mix caution with your ardour her-ward, for she has got a political enthusiasm and is devilish strong-headed. The news of the Marches and the West will travel to you with all expedition, but I must linger behind to encourage my correspondents. “Menelaus” greets you—a “Menelaus” that never owned a Helen.
The full sense of the document did not at first reach Alastair’s brain. But he caught the word “ ‘Achilles,’ ” and remembered a girl’s whispered confidence the night before. A second phrase arrested him—“Briseis”—he remembered enough of Father Dominic’s teaching to identify the reference. This Norreys, this husband of the russet lady, was far deeper in the secrets of the Cause than he had dreamed, if he were thus made the channel of vital intelligence. He was bidden act cautiously towards his new wife, and Mr. Kyd, who had heard Johnson’s accusations at Cornbury and said nothing, had all the time been in league with him. A sudden sense of a vast insecurity overcame the young man. The ground he trod on seemed shifting sand, and nowhere was there a firm and abiding landmark. And the girl too was walking in dark ways, and when she thought that she tripped over marble and cedar was in truth skimming the crust of quicksands. He grew hot with anger.
“Do you know the man to whom these are addressed?” he asked with stern brows.
Edom grinned.
“I ken how to find him. I’m to speir in certain quarters for ane Achilles, and I mind eneuch o’ what the Lauder dominie lickit intil me to ken that Achilles was a braw sodger.”
“You do not know his name? You never saw him?”
The man shook his head. “I wad like the letters back, sir,” he volunteered warily, for he was intimidated by Alastair’s dark forehead.
The latter handed back the “Achilles” letter, and began to read more carefully the other papers. Suddenly he raised his head and listened. The forest hitherto had been still with the strange dead quiet of a November noon. But now the noise of hounds was heard again, not half a mile off, as if they were hunting a line in the brushwood. He awoke with a start to the fact of his danger. What better sport for the patrons of the Flambury Hunt than to ride down a Jacobite horse-thief? A vague fury possessed him against that foolish squire with the cherubic face and the vacant blue eye.
“The hunt is cried after me,” he told Edom, “and I take it you too have no desire to advertise your whereabouts. For God’s sake let’s get out of this place. Where does this road lead?”
Edom’s answer was drowned in a hubbub of hounds which seemed to be approaching down the ride from the east. Alastair led the way from the hut up a steepish hill, sparsely wooded with scrub oak, in the hope of finding a viewpoint. Unfortunately at the top the thicket was
