The Mackay turned surprised eyes upon him. “Because you English from Fort William will haf burnt her house and perhaps killed her man,” he replied bluntly. “Then she wass going trying to find shelter for herself and the wean. . . . And now there iss no one to streak her and to lay the platter of salt on her preast. It iss a pity.”
He, too, with the innate reverence of his race for the dead, was standing bareheaded.
“I wish we could bury them,” said Keith. But it was out of the question; they had neither the implements nor the time; indeed, but for the food that they carried, and their horses, the same end might almost be awaiting them in these solitudes. So Mackay replaced the plaid, and they went silently back to the horses and continued their journey.
‘You English’—we English—have done this; we whose boast it has always been that we do not war with women and children; we English whose vengeance (Keith had realised it ere this) is edged by the remembrance of past panic, of the disgrace of Prestonpans and Falkirk and invasion. He went on his way with a sensation of being branded.
Yes, he had been too true a prophet. The comedy had turned to grim and bloody earnest. And, despite relief and natural exhilaration at victory—of which there was not much left in him now—despite the liberation of his native country from a menace which she affected to despise, but which in the end had terrified her, despite the vindication, at last, of the worth of trained troops, Keith Windham could say with all his heart, ‘Would God we were back in the days of farce!’ Yes, even in the days when last he was in Lochaber, for the very mortification of the rout at High Bridge last summer and of his subsequent captivity had been easier to bear than the feeling that he belonged now to a band of executioners—was indeed closely connected with the most brutal of them all. He had been gratified when Hawley, on his arrival at Edinburgh, had, on Preston’s recommendation, chosen him to fill a vacancy on his staff; but during the last two weeks he had come to loathe the position. Yet his ambitious regard for his own career forbade him to damage it by asking permission to resign his post; indeed, had he taken such a remarkable step, he would not now be on his way to Perth, having turned his back for a while on what had so sickened him.
Another half-hour passed, and the memories which had been sweeping like dark clouds over Keith’s mind began to give way to a real sensation of alarm, not so much for his personal safety as for the carrying out of his mission. Suppose they did not find their way before nightfall out of this accursed maze into which he had so blindly ventured? He consulted anew with Mackay, and they resolved to abandon the line which they had been taking, and try instead to find a way over a spur on their right, for the mountain which sent it forth was neither craggy nor strewn with scree, and the slope of the spur was such that it was even possible to make use of their horses. At the worst its summit would give them a view, and they might then be able to strike out a better route for themselves.
As Keith was putting his foot in the stirrup Dougal Mackay caught his arm and said excitedly, “I wass hearing a shout, sir!”
“I heard nothing,” responded Major Windham, listening. “Where did it come from?”
The orderly pointed ahead. “The men that shouted will pe round the other side of this beinn. Let uss make haste, sir!”
Praying that the Highlander was not mistaken Keith scrambled into the saddle, and his horse began to strain up the slope. He himself could hear nothing but the melancholy notes of a disturbed plover, which was wheeling not far above their heads, and he cursed the bird for drowning more distant sounds. Then, sharp through the mournful cry, there did come a sound, the crack of a shot—of two shots—and the mountains re-echoed with it.