“Major Windham, is it not? General Lord Albemarle requests that you will not leave the camp without further orders, and that you will wait upon him at some time after His Royal Highness’s departure to-morrow.”
“Do you mean, sir,” asked Keith bluntly, “that I am to consider myself under arrest?”
“Oh, my dear Major, by no means!” answered the young man, greatly shocked. “On the contrary! His Lordship—but I am being prodigious, indiscreet—recognised in you, it seems, an acquaintance, so do not fail to wait upon him to-morrow.”
“I will do so,” said Keith. “Meanwhile, can you tell me if a certain Major Guthrie of Campbell’s regiment is in camp?”
“Major Guthrie—la, sir, I’ve not the pleasure of his acquaintance. But stay, part of Campbell’s regiment marched the day before yesterday for Badenoch, so it is like the Major is gone with them.”
“If it be a question of further burnings and floggings, I am sure he will be gone with them,” commented Keith. “Perhaps it is as well. . . . Tell his Lordship that I will certainly obey his commands to-morrow.”
Once again he spent a night at Fort Augustus after a clash with authority. But this time it was a collision with a much more devastating force than Lord Loudoun. Cumberland was not likely to forget or forgive. And Keith felt quite reckless, and glad to be rid of the prudence which had shackled him since May. He had no more to lose now. If he could have shaken the life out of Guthrie it would have been some consolation. From Lord Albemarle’s message it did not seem as if he were going to be relieved of his commission after all; but, if he were, then, by God, he would get at Guthrie somehow, and challenge him!
When Cumberland first came to Fort Augustus he had been housed in a ‘neat bower’ which was specially constructed for him, and Lieutenant-General Lord Albemarle evidently preferred this abode of his predecessor’s to a tent. It was there, at any rate, that he received Major Windham next afternoon when the racket of the Duke’s departure was over.
William Anne Keppel, second Earl of Albemarle, the son of King William’s Dutch favourite, was at this time forty-two years of age, but his portly habit of body made him look older. Plain as well as stout, he gave the impression of a kind but easily flustered nature.