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 makeweight 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,
