“Good God, Archie, how did you hear that story? It’s not true—Major Windham did not betray me—he saved me!”
“Did he? Well, I’d far liefer hear that than the other thing. But that was what Lachlan MacMartin told us, when he came hotfoot to us at Achnacarry at the beginning of May.”
“Lachlan—Lachlan went to Achnacarry!” exclaimed Ewen in amazement.
“Yes, he appeared there one day nearly crazy with rage and remorse because you had been captured while he had left you in order to get food. He wanted Donald to march against Fort Augustus and deliver you.”
Ewen had begun to limp distractedly about the room. “I did not know that. But, great heavens, what a story to get abroad about Major Windham! Archie, he saved my life at the last minute; I was actually up against the wall before the firing-party when he dashed in between at the risk of his own. I should not be here now for you to bully but for him. It is true that I, too, God forgive me, was deluded enough for a short time to think his goodness calculated treachery, but at least I did not spread it abroad. And that is only part of what he has done and given up for me.” He gave his cousin a sketch of the rest. “I cannot think how Lachlan got such a mistaken notion into his head, for he was not there when I was found and taken, and he can hardly have met with that scoundrel Guthrie, who is capable of any lie.”
“What has become of Lachlan—is he here at Ardroy?”
“No, he has never returned, and no one knows anything of him; he has undoubtedly been either captured or killed, and much more probably killed, I fear. But I wish he had not spread this slander; ’tis at least to be hoped that no word of it reaches poor Windham!”
“I like to see in you, Ewen,” said his cousin, “the same concern for another man’s honour as for your own. But you know the Erse proverb, ‘A lie goes but on one leg’.”
“Like me,” commented Ewen with a smile. “Yet you think that in France I may go on two again?”
“You will certainly have a better chance of it. Then I may tell Lochiel, when I get back to Badenoch, that you consent to be reasonable?”