The Flight of the Heron by D. K. Broster

Author:D. K. Broster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2016-10-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

And thus it was that a few hours later Major Windham started back to Beinn Laoigh again, with bread and meat and wine, and an orderly who plainly thought him mad. Lieutenant Paton had seen them clear of the camp, whose commander was fortunately wrapped in slumber. Keith would not need to pass its sentries on his return, for the track up from the Tarff joined the road to the pass on the farther side of it.

He found that he had noted the position of the shieling hut better than he could have hoped, considering the disagreeable preoccupation of his mind during the ride thence with Major Guthrie, and by good chance there was a moon not much past the full. In her cold light the mountains looked inexpressibly lonely and remote as Keith rode up the sheep track to the pasture where the harmless little shelters had stood. A faint exhausted smoke yet lifted itself from one or two of the blackened ruins. The stream was chanting its changeless little song, and in the moonlight Neil MacMartin still lay on guard outside the broken door of the one unburnt shieling. Keith bent over him as he passed; he was stiffening already in the plaid which was his only garment. And Ardroy?

Taking from Mackay the lantern which he had brought for the purpose, and food and wine, Keith went rather apprehensively into the dark, low-roofed place. Except that he had flung his left arm clear, its occupant was lying as he had left him, long and quiet under the tartan covering; his eyes were closed, and he did not look very different from his dead foster-brother outside. But as the light fell on his face he moved a little and faintly said some words in Gaelic, among which Keith thought he heard Lachlan’s name. He stooped over him.

‘Ardroy,’ he said gently, and laid a hand on the arm emerging from the tattered shirt-sleeve.

At the touch, Ewen opened his eyes. But all that he saw, evidently, in the lantern-light, was the bright scarlet uniform above him. ‘What, again!’ he said, with an accent of profound weariness. ‘Shoot me in here, then; I cannot stand. Have you not...a pistol?’

Keith set the lantern on the floor and knelt down by him. ‘Ardroy, don’t you know me—Windham of the Royals? I am not come for that, but to help you, if I can.’

The dried fern rustled as the wounded man turned his head a little. Very hollow in their orbits, but blue as Keith remembered them, his eyes stared up full of unbelief. ‘Windham!’ he said at last, feebly; ‘no, it’s not possible. You are...someone else.’

‘No,’ said Keith, wondering how clear his mind might be. ‘It is really Windham, come to help you.’ He was searching meanwhile for the flask of brandy which he had left, and finding it slipped down, untouched, among the sprigs of heather, he wetted Ewen’s lips with a little of the spirit.

‘Yes, it is Windham,’ said Ewen to himself.

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