His father cried out, struck through his apathy at last:
“The Campbells march from Fort William?”
“Ay, I saw them on the road—I slipped past them because my guide knew the shorter, hidden ways.”
A sound like a faint wail arose from the gathered crowd; a portentous sense of evil, not to be measured either by exact statement or loose phrasing, possessed them; they all turned their eyes to the Saxon woman in their midst and she in her turn gazed on the one indifferent face among them, the face of the young man Ronald, for the memory of whom she had kept her vow to save him.
“We may fly through Strath Tay,” said one.
Delia shook her head.
“The laird of Weem has been secured by the government—ye are surrounded—every avenue of the Glen is—I think, closed. I have done little—only ye cannot be murdered unwitting in your sleep.”
“They come for that—these Campbells?” demanded Ronald sullenly. “To slay us in our sleep?”
“They come with full power of sword and fire,” she answered.
She rested her weary head against the lintel of the door and again a curious smile moved her lips; she thought of the last time she had seen him and the present gray scene, the surrounding figures, the loud cursing of the Campbell name, the shrill talk of women, fell away from her. She recalled the little house in Glasgow and the coming of the Highlander, and Perseus, busy writing, plotting, coming to and fro, the even round of the days, excitement and the great hope ahead, the beacon to lead them on, recalled all this with curiosity and no regret even as she pictured the dead brother whom she had loved; once waiting idly in some great house, she had noticed pictures on the walls, a carnival on the ice, a fruit shop, a lady with a fan, she could remember them now, every detail, and as impersonal as these did she see her life of a few months ago, quiet, pleasant pictures, rising in succession, till suddenly they were shattered into darkness and one rose that blotted them out, one figure, one face.