“I doubt it, for I fear she will be gone by the time Donald could reach the coast, or His Royal Highness either. But do not delay your departure on that account, Ewen, for the larger the party getting off from shore the more hazardous is the attempt—at least, if there are any soldiers left in those parts now. (There cannot, at any rate, be many.) Now I must be getting on my way.”
“You will not pass the night with us?” suggested Ewen. “Aunt Margaret seems to have a high opinion of the garrets as a refuge.”
Dr. Cameron shook his head. “I must push on; ’tis only five o’clock. God bless you, my dear Ewen, and bring us to meet again—even though it be not in Scotland!”
“I wish I were coming with you to Ben Alder,” said Ewen rather wistfully, halting after his visitor down the stairs.
“Trust me to do your business with Donald as well as you could do it yourself—nay, better, for I suspect that you would leave out certain episodes.—You’ll be rid of this fellow at last, Miss Margaret,” he said to the figure waiting at the foot of the stairs. “I’ve sorted him!”
“’Tis you have the skill, Archibald Cameron,” replied the lady, beaming on him. “None of my prayers would move him. You’ll drink a health with us before you go?”
And under the picture of King James the Third and Eighth the three of them drained their glasses to the Cause which had already taken its last, its mortal wound.
Next day Ewen kept his word, and set about his departure. A garron was found for him to ride, and two of his men who had followed him through the campaign were to accompany him to the coast. Yielding to pressure, he had agreed to take young Angus MacMartin with him to France as his personal servant. He could not refuse it to Neil’s memory and to old Angus’s prayers that a MacMartin should be about him still.
He was to leave at dusk, since travelling by night would be less hazardous, and a little before sundown he went up to Slochd nan Eun to take leave of his foster-father, with whom he had had little converse since his return, for Angus had been ill and clouded in mind. But he had borne the loss of his two sons with an almost fierce resignation; it seemed as if he had asked no better fate for them, especially for Neil. He had recovered from his illness now, but he was rather frail and still at times a little confused. A daughter looked after him in the old cottage which had once rung with the laughter of many children, and with Ewen’s own; but the old man was alone, crouched over the fire, with a plaid across his knees when Ewen, helping himself on the ascent with a staff, arrived at the door.