He told his companion of his doubts, unravelling each coil carefully, while the other marked his points with jerks of his pipe-bowl. When he had finished Midwinter kept silent for a little. Then “You swear by Kyd’s fidelity?” he asked.
“God in Heaven, but I must,” cried Alastair. “If he is false, I may return overseas tomorrow.”
“It is well to test all links in a chain,” was the dry answer. “But for the sake of argument we will assume him honest. Sir John Norreys is the next link to be tried. If he is rotten, then the Prince had better bide north of Ribble, for the Western auxiliaries will never move. But even if the whole hive be false, there is still hope if you act at once. This is my counsel to you, Captain Maclean. Write straightway to the Army—choose the man about the Prince who loves you most—and tell him of the great things to be hoped for from the West. Name no names, but promise before a certain date to arrive with full proof, and bid them hasten south without delay. An invasion needs heartening, and if the worst should be true no word from Kyd is likely to reach the Prince. Hearten him, therefore, so that he marches to meet you. That is the first thing. The second is that you go yourself into Derbyshire to see this Sir John Norreys. If he be true man you will find a friend; if not you may be in time to undo his treason.”
The advice was what had dimly been shaping itself in Alastair’s own mind. His ardour to be back with the Army, which for days had been a fever in his bones, had now changed to an equal ardour to solve the riddle which oppressed him. Midwinter was right; the Cause was on a razor edge and with him might lie the deciding. … There was black treachery somewhere, and far more vital for the Prince than any victory in Scotland was the keeping the road open for West England to join him. Shadows of many reasons flitted across his mind and gave strength to his resolve. He would see this man Norreys who had won so adorable a lady. He would see the lady again, and at the thought something rose in his heart which surprised him, for it was almost joy.
“Have you paper and ink?” he asked, and from a cupboard Midwinter produced them and set them before him.
He wrote to Lochiel, who was his kinsman, for though he knew Lord George Murray there was a certain jealousy between them. Very roughly he gave the figures which he had gleaned from Brother Gilly’s letter and that taken from Edom. He begged him to move the Prince to march without hesitation for the capital, and promised to reach his camp with full information before the month ended. “And the camp will, I trust, be by that time no further from St. James’s than—” He asked Midwinter for a suitable place, and was told “Derby.” He subscribed himself with the affection of a kinsman and old playmate of Morvern and Lochaber.
“I will see that it reaches its destination,” said Midwinter. “And now for the second task. The man Edom is not suspect and can travel by the high road. I will send him with one who will direct him to my lady Norreys’ party, which this day, as you tell me, sets out for Derbyshire. For yourself I counsel a discreeter part. Mark you, sir, you are sought by sundry gentlemen in Flambury as a Jacobite, and by Squire Thicknesse and his Hunt as a horse-thief. In this land suspicion is slow to waken, but in the end it runs fast and dies hard. Rumour of your figure, face, clothes, manner and bloodthirsty spirit will have already flown fifty miles. If you would be safe you must sink into Old England.”
“I will sink into Acheron if it will better my purpose.”
Midwinter regarded him critically. “Your modish clothes are in Kit’s locker, and will duly be sent after you. Now you are the born charcoal-burner, save that your eyes are too clear and your finger nails unscorched. The disguise has served your purpose today, but it is too kenspeckle except in great woodlands. Mother Jonnet will find you a better. For the rest I will guide you, for I have the key.”
“Where is this magic country?”
“All around you—behind the brake, across the hedgerow, under the branches. Some can stretch a hand and touch it—to others it is a million miles away.”
“As a child I knew it,” said Alastair, laughing. “I called it Fairyland.”
Midwinter nodded. “Children are free of it, but their elders must earn admission. It is a safe land—at any rate it is secure from common perils.”
“But it has its own dangers?”
“It makes a man look into his heart, and he may find that in it which destroys him. Also it is ambition’s mortal foe. But if you walk in it you will come to Brightwell without obstruction, for the King’s writ does not run in the greenwood.”
“Whose is the law, then?” Alastair asked.
For answer Midwinter went to the window and flung it open. “My fiddle cannot speak except with free air about it,” he said. “If any drunken rustic is on the heath he will think the pixies
