“Pray do not trouble, sir,” replied Keith. “I intend to go to bed and sleep; it was only idleness which directed my hand to that shelf there. I see that you read French and Latin, Mr. Cameron?” And even as he uttered the words he thought how ill-bred was the remark, and the surprise which he had not been able entirely to keep out of his tone.
But the young Highlander answered quite simply, in his gentle, rather slow voice: “I was partly educated in France—for that, you know, is easier for us Jacobites. As to Latin, yes, I can read it still, though I am afraid that my iambics would only procure me the ferule nowadays.”
Captain Windham’s ideas about the Northern barbarians were undergoing startling changes. He had already noticed that none of the inmates of this house used the vernacular which he was accustomed to hear in the Lowlands; they spoke as good English as himself, if with an unfamiliar and not displeasing lilt. A little to cover his annoyance at his own lack of breeding he remarked, “France, yes; I suppose that your connection is close. And now that the . . . that a certain young gentleman has come thence——”
“Yes?” asked the other in a slightly guarded manner.
“No, perhaps we had best not engage upon that topic,” said Keith, with a slight smile. “I will imitate your own courteous discretion at supper, Mr. Cameron, in saying so little about the episode at the bridge, of which indeed, as a soldier, I am not proud.—By the way, having myself introduced that subject, I will ask you if you can make clear a point in connection with it which has puzzled me ever since. How was it that no attempt at pursuit—or at least no immediate attempt—was made by the body posted there?”
“That is easily explained,” replied Ewen Cameron promptly. “The Keppoch MacDonalds there dared not let you see how few they were, lest your men should have rallied and crossed the bridge after all.”
“How few?” repeated Captain Windham, thinking he had not heard aright. “But, Mr. Cameron, there were a quantity of Highlanders there, though, owing to the trees it was impossible to form an accurate estimate of their numbers.”
“No, that would be so,” said his captor, looking at him rather oddly. “You may well have thought the bridge strongly held.”
“You mean that it was not?” And, as his informant merely shook his head, Keith said impatiently, but with a sudden very unpleasant misgiving, “Do you know how many men were there, Mr. Cameron?”
Mr. Cameron had taken up a fresh log, and now placed it carefully in position on the fire before answering. “I believe,” he said, with what certainly sounded like reluctance, “that there were not above a dozen there—to be precise, eleven men and a piper.”