But as the young man left the room the General seemed in no hurry to call for his horse. He flung another log on the fire, and stood by the hearth with his brows knit in meditation.
Alastair retired to his bedroom but did not undress. His brain was dazzled with new light, and he saw all the events of the past weeks in a new and awful perspective. This man Norreys was the traitor, the agent provocateur who lured honest clodpoles to their doom and pocketed his commission on their ruin. That was what Sir Christopher Lacy had said at Cornbury—the man cared only for gain. But he must be a rogue of vast accomplishments, for he had deceived a proud lady, and he had won the confidence of a shrewd Scots lawyer. It was Kyd's beguilement that staggered him. He, a sagacious man of affairs, had used a traitor as an agent for the most precious news—news which instead of going straight to the Prince would be transferred to the enemy and used for honest men's undoing. General Oglethorpe would prevent the fellow from making his foul profit; it was the business of Alastair Maclean to stamp the breath from him, to rid the Prince's cause of a menace and the world of a villain.
He mused on this strange thing, England, which was like a spell on sober minds. Midwinter had told of Old England like a lover of his mistress, and here was this battered traveller, this Oglethorpe, thrilling to the same fervour. That was something he had not met before. He had been trained to love his family and clan and the hills of his home, and a Prince who summed up centuries of wandering loyalty. But his devotion had been for the little, intimate things, and not for matters large and impersonal like a country or a people. He felt himself suddenly and in very truth a stranger and alone. The Prince, the chiefs, the army—they were all of them strangers here. How could they ask for loyalty from what they so little understood?
The reflection pained him and he put it from him and turned to his immediate business. Kicking off his shoes, he tiptoed back through the store-cupboard and into the long corridor, at the end of which he saw the bright reflection from the hall lamp falling on the map and the Brown Room door. He listened, but there was no sound except a faint clatter from far away in the direction of the kitchen, where presumably the General's servant waited on his master's orders. He stole to the door of the Brown Room for a second, and played the eavesdropper. Yes, there were voices within, a low voice speaking fast, and another replying in monosyllables. He had no wish to overhear them, so he crept back to the store-room door, where he was securely hid. Thence he could see all that he wanted, in the patch of light by the map.
He did not wait long. The door opened, and a figure was illumined for one instant in profile before it turned to descend the stairs. It was a tall man in a long riding-coat which he had unbuttoned in the warmth of the room. He bowed his head a little as one does when one walks stealthily, and his lips were tightly pursed. But where was the sharp nose like a pen, and the pale complexion of Sir John? This man had a skin like red sandstone, a short blunt nose and a jovial mouth. He cast one glance at the map, and then went softly down the staircase.
With a queer flutter of the heart Alastair recognised Mr Nicholas Kyd.
XII The Hut in the Oak Shaw
The sinking at the heart disappeared long before Alastair reached his attic, and was replaced by a violent heat of anger. He lit a candle, for the dark irked him, and sat on his bed with his face as scarlet as if it had been buffeted. He felt his temples throb and a hot dryness at the back of his throat. For the moment thoughts of the dire peril to the Cause were swallowed up in natural fury at a rogue.
Blind fool that he had been! All the steps were now bitterly clear in his bedraggled Odyssey. At Cornbury Kyd had been sowing tares in my lord's mind—not in partnership with the Duchess Kitty, of that he was assured—he did not believe that that vivacious lady, Whig as she might be, was a partner of his villainy. From the first encounter at the roadside inn the man had dogged him; perhaps that meeting had been premeditated. The scene at Flambury, the accusing mummer in Squire Thicknesse's Justice Room, the well-informed warrant, Ben the Gypsy and his treachery—all were the doing of the pawky Lammermuir laird. General Oglethorpe would use his services but prevent his getting his reward; but there were others less scrupulous, and anyhow these services spelled death to the Prince's fortunes. . . . A second Grosvenor fortune would be achieved! No, by God, it should not, if Alastair Maclean were left another six months alive!
Sir John Norreys was the man's tool, and the news from the West passed through him to Kingston and Wade, and Ligonier and Cumberland, and Mr Pelham in London. Mr Pelham doubtless had taken steps. He would arrest the levy in the West before it had grown dangerous; and the fines and forfeitures of broken loyalists would go to enrich the Exchequer and Mr Nicholas Kyd of Greyhouses. . . . He had lost his dislike of Sir John. That huckstering baronet was only an instrument in the hand of a cleverer knave.