God knows what sort of faces my nephew’s tenants, and particularly the MacMartins, will show you when you go marching over his land and driving his cattle!”
“You will please to send word in advance, madam, upon what errand I am come.”
“And have the look of countenancing it! I shall do nothing of the sort!”
To the ears of the disputants, both now thoroughly roused—and the younger and stronger aware, too, that this damned old lady had him at something of a disadvantage by her refusal of support—there came in the momentary silence the rumble of carriage-wheels. Miss Cameron, if her older hearing did not perceive it quite as quickly, was, however, at once aware, from the way he turned his head, that the intruder had heard something or other.
“That’s maybe Ardroy returning before he’s expected,” she remarked casually, though she did not think it was. “You will be able to make your request to him in person, which will no doubt be more agreeable to a gentleman like yourself than trying to bully an old woman.”
“Request,” said Finlay MacPhair, throwing back his head. “I’d have you know, madam——”
But, then, out of the corner of his eye, he perceived a chaise pass the window, and did not finish the sentence.
“Losh, it is Ardroy and the bairns!” exclaimed Miss Cameron in genuine surprise. “What brings him back before his time?” She went to the parlour door (the vehicle having meanwhile passed out of sight, and being presumably by now in the act of discharging its occupants) and called out, “Ewen, come away ben at once; here’s a visitor to see you!”
And so, a moment or two later, Ewen Cameron entered to find the enemy who, as he had declared only two nights ago, was not likely ever to trouble his house, standing in a very haughty manner almost upon its hearthstone. He had not seen Finlay MacPhair face to face—though he had seen his back—since the revelation of his treachery, two years ago, in the Chief’s London lodging, when he himself had interposed between his sword and Hector Grant’s. He stopped, speechless, in the doorway.
* * * * *
“You are surprised to see me, Ardroy?” said the visitor, showing no embarrassed consciousness at all of their last meeting. “But when you hear why I am come, I can’t but think that you will put fewer obstacles in my path than your good aunt here has seen fit to do.”
“I wonder!” thought Aunt Margaret. Her nephew’s dour expression suggested that there was one path at least in which he would place no obstacles, and that was Mr. MacPhair’s homeward one. His lips were so firmly closed that, to her, it seemed as if he were only keeping back with difficulty the utterance of this sentiment; but the traditions of Highland hospitality were too strong for him to give way to his visible desire.
“In what then can I serve you, Glenshian?” he asked in the most frigid tones, laying his hat and a riding whip upon the table as he spoke.
And Finlay the Red answered him with much directness: “By restoring to me the cattle which your tenants have lifted from me.”
A quick flush dyed Ewen’s fair skin. “I think I cannot have heard you aright, sir. My tenants do not lift cattle . . . from anyone!”
The young Chief smiled a half pitying smile. “Not with your knowledge, perhaps; I do not suggest that. But, as I was just remarking to Miss Cameron, who knows what goes on behind the laird’s back?”
“In the case of a man with so many dependents as yourself, that question may perhaps be asked,” retorted Ewen. “But I, with my mere handful”—there was no humility, rather the reverse, in his tone—“I flatter myself that I know their employments pretty well.”
Glenshian sniggered. “I would not be too ready to claim that knowledge if I were in your place, Ardroy. In the end it might prove awkward for you.”
But, before her nephew could reply to this innuendo, Aunt Margaret, already standing at the door, had slipped out of the room. Although by nature she relished a fight, it seemed to her that Ewen would prefer to have out this preposterous business unhampered by the presence of a woman. Moreover she must prepare Alison for the onslaught of her small sons. The sound of their excited voices and of racing feet was even now audible upstairs, and the hall door had just opened to admit a man in riding costume whom she recognised, without much surprise, as young Invernacree.
“Is that Ian Stewart?” she asked, and, Ian coming forward to salute her, she went on, in a voice which, despite herself, showed signs of trouble, “MacPhair of Glenshian is here, making a great pother about a couple of steers which he swears Ewen’s people have lifted from him. Whether you’d best go in on them or not I don’t know. Ewen looks very angry, but I suppose they’ll not come to blows—at least I hope not.”
Ian hesitated a moment; then he remembered something which Ewen had let fall about a dark night and a sgian dubh. “I can always leave the room if necessary,” he answered, and opening the parlour door, went in, on the sound of a voice which was not his cousin’s, to catch the words, “. . . if you refuse to put it to the proof!”
By the inflection it was the end of a sentence, and then he saw the speaker, standing at the far end of the room, young, arrogant-looking, red-haired and tall. Ewen (still taller) who faced this visitor, swung round for a second as the door opened, saw his kinsman, then turned back and said, rather as if he were hurling a missile at the man on his hearthstone:
“Very good, then! It shall be put to the proof—and here is a witness. Ian, let me present you to Mr. MacPhair of Glenshian, who has come here to accuse me of stealing two of his cattle. Glenshian, this is my cousin, Mr. Stewart the younger of Invernacree.”
CHAPTER III
BRANDED
§ 1
June 17th (continued).
Ian Stewart knew his kinsman well enough to divine that he was in a towering rage, though a stranger might not have guessed it. Across the room the red-haired young man returned his own bow by a slight inclination of the head.
“Your servant, Mr. Stewart.—Perhaps hardly an unbiassed witness, Ardroy, in view of that kinship; but let that pass. Truth will always out.”
Ian heard his cousin give an exclamation under his breath. “Is it possible that you are learning that at last?” he asked.
The new Chief moved forward a little from his stand by the hearth. “You’ll not advance your cause by being offensive, Ewen Cameron!” he retorted, his eyes lighting up. “There’s one thing you have certainly no need to learn, and that’s the advantage of having some relative or other at your heels in your dealings with me! This time, however, I trust that your intervention will not be required to save me from assassination by your henchman, as it was in the case of Mr. Grant. I owe you thanks for that intervention, if for nothing else.”
A brief but tingling silence succeeded this speech, to Ian so startling that he almost thought his ears could not have conveyed its purport aright. But one glance at Ewen’s face and pose convinced him that battle was now joined between him and the speaker over a matter more serious than
