CHAPTER XXI
THE CAPTURE OF LORD LOVAT
As weeks passed on and still the searchers did not come Lord Lovat's hopes rose, and schemes no doubt began to run through his mind for a continuance of the struggle or a reconciliation with the Government. It may have occurred to him to send a diplomatic message to the Duke of Cumberland at Fort Augustus, but there is no evidence to show whether he took any definite steps until it was too late.
For long after the fateful visit of Murray of Broughton he had been prepared for immediate flight, but as time passed and nothing occurred to alarm him he took to sitting in the sun or playing a hand of cards, or brooding inside the cottage upon the transience of all human greatness.
There were with him about a score of Frasers, all armed with musket and sword, and Bishop Hugh Macdonald, who did not desert the old man in his hour of need.
It was on the first of June that the sloop Furnace and Terror conveying a detachment of soldiers from the garrison of Fort William, came sailing down the coast of Knoidart and Arisaig. There they landed soldiers who began to march inland, making for Loch Morar.
It was on the north side of the loch that they espied a man making his way along the seashore—a very tall man who limped as he ran, being surprised in an open patch of country. Giving pursuit they spread out along the hill to cut him off, but when the man on the shore saw them he went away at a great pace, and had it not been that the loch curves outwards so as to make escape the more difficult, he might have gained the head of it, and won free. To avoid falling into their hands, however, he took to the loch and set out swimming for an island in the middle of it, making good headway before even they could get within shooting range.
And then, while they hunted for a boat, he scrambled upon the wooded shore and disappeared.
Lord Lovat was sitting before his cottage as the swimmer waded ashore. He looked up having dozed in the sunlight and fallen asleep.
Facing him, with water dripping from his clothes, was Muckle John.