The Dark Mile. D. K. Broster

      PROLOGUE

       THE THIRTEENTH CHIEF

       Table of Contents

      § 1

      Its own peculiarly vehement and gusty wind was curvetting about Edinburgh this October afternoon of 1754, forerunner and abettor of the brief but wholehearted squalls of rain which now and then were let loose upon the defenceless city, and sent every pedestrian running to the nearest doorway. Yet between these cloudbursts it was fine enough, and during one of these sunny intervals a young man in black, holding on to his hat, walked quickly up the slope of the Canongate. His long stride accorded well with his fine height and build, and though his mourning was new and very deep, there was no trace of recent bereavement in his air. Indeed—despite the difficulty with his hat—he held his head with a sort of natural arrogance, and his glance at his surroundings in general was something that of a newly-crowned monarch surveying his territory and subjects. For only six weeks had elapsed since the earth had been shovelled down upon his old father’s coffin in the roofless chapel of Holyrood, and the son who bore him no particular affection was come at twenty-nine into his inheritance as thirteenth Chief of Glenshian . . . into possession of a ruined castle, an empty treasury, and immense prestige in the Western Highlands. But he already possessed some very singular assets of his own.

      Just where the High Street, having succeeded the Canongate, gave way in its turn to the Lawnmarket, this Highland gentleman came to an abrupt and apparently unpremeditated halt in front of a small shop-window. It was rather a dingy window with bulging panes, evidently, from its contents, the property of a vendor of almanacs and broad-sheets; but the new Chief’s attention was pretty plainly engaged by a roughly-executed wood engraving which was propped, unframed, against a pile of books in the very centre of the window. There was nothing about this to distinguish it from any other equally bad print of the time; one could only say that it was a stock representation of a man of early middle age. But the inscription ran, “A True Effigies of Doctor Archibald Cameron, who lately suffered Death at Tyburn for High Treason.”

      At this “effigies” the young man in black stood looking with a frown, and a deepening frown. Regret, no doubt, was heavy upon him (since he too was a partisan of the White Rose) and a natural if vain desire for vengeance upon the English Government which, only a year and four months

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