my dear lord.”
That was almost all that passed between them till they came to Argyll House. And waiting in the portico, into which there drifted a faint perfume of late lilacs from the Duke’s garden, Ewen thought, “When next I stand here, the die will have been cast, one way or the other.” His heart began to beat violently, and when the door was flung open he was so pale that his companion looked at him with some uneasiness.
But as he stepped over MacCailein Mor’s threshold Ardroy had gathered up his forces, and regained at least his outward composure. The two were ushered into a large and lofty room, sparsely but massively furnished, at the end of which hung a great blue velvet curtain suggesting another room beyond. Over the hearth voyaged the lymphad, the proud galley of Lorne, a sinister device to many a clan of the West. Ewen averted his eyes from it. How long, he wondered, would he on whose ancestral banners it had fluttered keep the suppliant waiting? . . . but fortunately he neither knew as yet what name that suppliant bore, nor, indeed, that he came to sue.
But the Duke was punctual to the moment. A large clock by the wall with a heavy pendulum of gilt and crystal struck the hour, and the echo of its chimes had not died away before the velvet curtain parted in the middle, held back by an announcing lackey.
“His Grace the Duke of Argyll!”
And he who was sometimes called the King of Scotland came through—a man of seventy, upright, dignified, and rather cold, plainly but richly dressed, with a heavy full-bottomed wig framing a delicate-featured face of much intelligence—a man who had long wielded great authority, though he had only succeeded his brother the second Duke a decade ago. For more than forty years Archibald Campbell, once Lord Islay, had been the mainstay of the English Government in the North; and all this was written, without ostentation, in his air.
Lord Aveling, who had never seen the Duke at close quarters, was impressed, and wondered what the Highlander by his side was feeling, but abstained from looking at him.
“My Lord Aveling, I think?” said Argyll pleasantly, and the young man bowed. “I am sorry to hear that the Earl of Stowe is indisposed; it gives me, however, the chance of making your acquaintance.”
He came forward with a little smile and held out his hand. “Pray present me also to this gentleman, whose name I have not the honour of knowing.”
And all at once young Lord Aveling, used as he was to all the demands of society, knew nervousness—though not for himself. Something of it was apparent in his voice as he replied, “This, your Grace, is Mr. Ewen Cameron of Ardroy, a near kinsman of the gentleman now under sentence in the Tower.”
What age had left of the Duke’s eyebrows lifted. A line appeared on either side of his mouth. “And what does Mr. Ewen Cameron”—there was the faintest stress on the patronymic—“want of me?”
And his gaze, not hostile, not piercing, but unmistakably the gaze of command, rested on Aveling’s tall companion.
“Your Grace,” began Ewen; but it seemed to him that his voice was frozen in his throat. It was not awe which enchained it, for he was not in the least overawed, but realisation of this man’s power for life or death, and of his personality. He was MacCailein Mor, the Chief of the hated, swarming and triumphant race of Campbell . . . and he seemed to be feigning ignorance of why he, the Cameron, was there to wait upon him, so that he might have the reason, which he could well have guessed, put by the petitioner into words. The moment was as bitter as death to Ardroy, and he hoped that Lord Aveling would leave them alone together. But he finished his sentence.
“Your Grace, I am come on behalf of Mrs. Cameron, and by her express desire, she now having made herself close prisoner with her husband, and being therefore unable to wait upon you herself.”
“You come as the emissary of a lady, sir?” inquired the Duke smoothly. “Your errand must have my best attention then. But we stand all this while. Pray be seated, gentlemen.” He waved them towards chairs.
“If your Grace will excuse me,” put in Lord Aveling, “I will withdraw. I came but to present Mr. Cameron in my father’s stead.”
“Both of you deputies, in fact,” said Argyll, looking from one to the other, and again he smiled the little smile which did not reach his eyes. “I am sorry to lose your company, my lord, but I know that you young men (if you’ll forgive me for calling you one) have better things to occupy you than talking affairs with an old one. Mr. Cameron and I will then bid you farewell, with regret. Commend me, if you please, to his lordship, and convey to him my condolences on his indisposition.” He shook hands again with every appearance of cordiality, a footman appeared, and Aveling was gone.
The Duke turned with equal courtesy to the visitor who remained.
“And now Mr. Cameron—Cameron of Ardroy, is it not . . . Ardroy near Loch Arkaig, if I am not mistaken? Pray be seated, and let me know in what I can serve you on Mrs. Cameron’s behalf? The chance to do so is not a pleasure of frequent occurrence where one of your name is concerned.”
“If your Grace will permit me, I had rather stand,” said Ewen somewhat hoarsely. “I am come, as I am sure you can guess, as a suppliant.”
“Is that so?” remarked the Duke, looking long and steadily at him. His face betrayed nothing. “You will forgive me, perhaps, if I myself sit, for I am old and weary.” And he seated himself slowly in a high-backed chair. “You come, you say, as a suppliant, and I am to see in you the representative of Mrs. Cameron?”
“If you please, my Lord Duke—of a woman who turns to you, in her mortal distress, as her last hope.”
“I think,” said the Duke of Argyll in a soft voice, “that with a Highland gentleman such as yourself I prefer to be MacCailein Mor.”
Ewen swallowed hard. It had come to him that he could only get through his mission if he forgot that fact.
“Because for one thing,” went on Argyll, “if you are a kinsman of Doctor Cameron’s you are equally a kinsman of his brother, the late Lochiel, and of the boy who is Lochiel now.”
“Yes, I am a kinsman of all three,” said Ewen in a low voice. Archibald Campbell was trying, was he, to fancy that in some sort he had the Chief of Clan Cameron before him, about to beg for mercy? “A kinsman by marriage. And do not think, MacCailein Mor,”—he gave him the title since he wished it, and had every right to it—“do not think that Doctor Cameron himself knows of his wife’s appeal to you!”
“No? But let us be clear, Mr. Cameron, on what score she . . . you . . . which am I to say?—is appealing to me. You have not yet informed me.”
Ewen’s lip gave a little curl as he drew himself up. The Campbell knew perfectly well the nature of that appeal. He himself did not look much like a suppliant, as he stood there facing the Duke, nor did he feel like one, but he did his best to keep his tone that of a petitioner. “Mrs. Cameron desires to throw herself at your Grace’s feet, as at those of the foremost man in Scotland, whose wish is paramount with the Government in all things Scottish, to beg, to implore you to use your great influence to have the sentence on her husband commuted.”
“Commuted,” said Argyll after a moment. “Commuted to what?”
“To imprisonment, to transportation—to anything save an undeserved death.”
The Duke leant forward, his fine hands, half-hidden by their ruffles,
