its surrender, an unfortunate French engineer had been blown up with it. It was useless to ask the man what he really wanted to know, how Miss Alison Grant did over there in Inverness, Alison on whom he had not set eyes since Hector and he had said farewell to her last All Hallows in Edinburgh. It was a question whether they three would ever meet again, for Hector had been one of the officers left behind as part of the ill-fated garrison of Carlisle, and since the thirtieth of December he had been a prisoner in English hands. How Alison was bearing this ill news Ewen could only guess; it was all the heavier for her too, because her father was in France, having been despatched thither on a mission by the Prince directly after Falkirk.
Ewen knew that Alison and his aunt had come to Inverness in the hopes of seeing him, immediately on the news of the town’s surrender to the Highland army on February 18, but as it was before their arrival that Ewen himself had been sent off with Lord Cromarty’s composite force, the meeting had not taken place. Miss Cameron, as a letter had since told him, had thought it best on that to return to Ardroy, but, feeling sure that sooner or later Ewen’s duties would bring him to Inverness, she had left Alison there in the care of Lady Ogilvy, whose husband, with his regiment, was on the other side of the Spey. And now Lochiel had recalled Ewen—but only to accompany him on another enterprise. Of his approaching return Ewen had told Alison in a letter which he had despatched yesterday by Lachlan, but he had not told her how brief his stay would be, nor had he broached the project which was in his own mind—the determination which had been growing there since the retreat northward.
But, as he thought of what that was, the harassed look went out of his eyes, and he became deafer than ever to the ferryman’s chatter.
* * * * *
At the guardhouse by the bridge over the Ness Ewen stopped to enquire where Lady Ogilvy was to be found, for he was not sure of her lodging, and as he was talking to the officer there he heard a youthful voice behind him asking exactly the same question in Gaelic.
Ewen turned quickly, for he knew that voice. There in the entry stood a half-shy, half-excited boy of fifteen, who had never been in a town before—young Angus, Neil MacMartin’s eldest son. His face lit up, and he darted forward. “Letters, Mac ’ic Ailein!” And out of an old sporran too big for him he produced two, none the better for their sojourn in that receptacle.
With a smile and a kind word his master took them. One was from Miss Cameron to himself, the other, addressed to Miss Alison Grant at Ardroy, in an unknown and foreign-seeming hand, had been redirected by his aunt to Inverness. He put them both in his pocket, gave the lad money to procure himself food and lodging and a new pair of brogues to go home in, told him where to find his father and not to return to Ardroy without seeing him again, and himself set off in haste for Lady Ogilvy’s lodging.
But Angus Og, footsore and hungry though he was, seeing his young chieftain quite unaccompanied, pattered at a little distance behind him with all the air of a bodyguard, his head full of wild plans for joining his father and uncle in this place of many houses instead of returning to Slochd nan Eun. If they were in Mac ’ic Ailein’s tail, why not he?
Young Lady Ogilvy lodged in one of the larger houses at the lower end of Kirk Street, and as Ewen passed the many-paned projecting window on the ground-floor he caught sight of a blue ribbon confining dark curls. After that he was not much conscious of being admitted, or of anything until he found its wearer in his arms.
“Oh, my darling! . . . You were expecting me—Lachlan brought you my letter?”
Alison nodded, holding very fast to him, her eyes closed like one surrendered to ecstasy. Much as they had to say to one another, for a time neither said it; it was enough merely to be together again after the months of strain and waiting and endurance and disillusioned hopes. But when they had had their fill of looking at each other they began to talk.
“I knew that you would come back to Inverness,” said Alison happily. They were both sitting on the window seat now. And she added, with all her old gaiety, “If Lochiel would permit so forward an act, I would kiss him for having recalled you from Lord Cromarty’s force.”
“But he has not recalled me in order to stay in Inverness, darling—at least not for more than a couple of days. He and Keppoch are shortly going with reinforcements to the siege of Fort William, and I go too.”
All the peace and content was dashed out of Alison’s face. “Oh, Ewen . . . and I thought you would be staying here!” She bit her lip and the tears came into her eyes.
Her hand was in Ewen’s, and he sat a moment silent, looking down with some intentness at his ring upon it. “But we shall have two days together, m’eudail. And . . . do you not think that those two days are long enough . . . that the time has come . . . to change this ring of my mother’s for another?”
The colour ran over Alison’s face and her hand made a movement as if to withdraw itself. “Oh, my dear,” she said rather breathlessly, “not when my father is absent—not till he comes back! And not when . . . when one does not know what will befall next!”
“But, my heart,” said Ewen quietly, “that is just why I want to make you my wife. Do you not see that? Why, you should have been mine these six months. I have waited even longer than I had thought to wait, and God knows that was long enough.” And as Alison said nothing, but looked down, twisting her ring, he went on, suppressing a little sigh, “There are many reasons why we should be wed without further loss of time, and these two days that we have now seem designed for that. Our marriage could easily be arranged in the time; Mr. Hay, the Episcopal minister of Inverness is, I believe, in the town; Lochiel would take your father’s place. And I could carry you back to Ardroy, as its mistress, when we start for Fort William . . . Alison, dear love, say Yes!”
He was very gentle as he pleaded, for she seemed oddly reluctant, considering that they had been formally contracted since last July, and should indeed have been married in the autumn. She even mentioned Hector and his perilous situation, rather tentatively, as a reason for delay; but Ewen told her that her brother’s prospects were ten times better than those of most who wore the white cockade, for he held a French commission, and could not be treated otherwise than as a prisoner-of-war. And finally Alison said that she would ask Lady Ogilvy’s opinion.
Ewen tried not to be hurt. Since he had not the mistaken conviction of some young men that he knew all about women, even Alison’s feelings were sometimes a mystery to him. He longed to say, “I have not a French commission, Alison,” and leave her to draw a conclusion which might get the better of her hesitancy, but it would have been cruel. And as he looked at her in perplexity he remembered a commission of another kind, and put his hand into his pocket.
“When I saw you, Alison, everything else went out of my head. But here is a letter I should have given you ere this; forgive me. It was sent to you at Ardroy, and Aunt Marget despatched one of the MacMartin lads hither with it; and meeting me by the bridge just now he gave it to me for you. It is from France, I think.”
“I do not know the hand,” said Alison, studying the superscription, and finally breaking the seal. Ewen looked out of the window; but he did not see any of the passers-by.
Suddenly there was an exclamation from the girl beside him on the window seat. He turned; her face was drained of colour.
“My father . . . Ewen, Ewen, I must go at once—he is very ill . . . dying, they think. Oh, read!”
Horrified, Ewen read a hasty French letter, already more than two weeks old, which said that M. Grant, on the point of leaving France again, had been taken seriously ill at Havre-de-Grâce; the writer, apparently a recent French acquaintance of his, appealed to Mlle Grant to sail for France at once, if she wanted
