“I am … perfectly able to go on,” she said staunchly, her voice sounding reedy and distant. “You—you must be a deal more tired than I.”
“No, lady. I can carry ye, if—”
Her chin lifted. “I am a MacTavish,” she said, and stepped out bravely. With that first step she almost fell, for her feet seemed so worn away that she was sure she must be treading on stumps. She forced back a sob and made herself keep trying. The first pale light of dawn, streaking the eastern skies, afforded her a glimpse of the path down the crag—so precipitous and rock-strewn a slope that her courage failed her and she dared not look again. She clung tighter to the stirrup and concentrated on one step at a time, and she thought of how proud Delacourt would be when they reached him with their warning.
“MacLeod!” she called suddenly.
The big man was at her side on the instant.
“Where are we?” she demanded.
“Look there, lady.”
She turned in the direction of his pointing hand and caught her breath at the beauty of it. The skies were now a clear violet-pink. To the north loomed the rugged peaks. Closer at hand, for as far as she could see, were little ravines and towering crags threaded by the sparkle of waterfalls and the hurrying leap of rushing burns. Here and there a clear slope was gowned in the rich purple of the heather; white wraiths of mist twined lazily from high corries into the still air, and far below a great sheet of blue water spread mile upon mile to left and right of them. It was the loch that sank Prudence into despair. “Och…” she wailed tragically, “I had thought we’d come farther than this!”
MacLeod’s bushy brows went up. “Dia,” he muttered under his breath, and added, “’Tis a hard taskmaster ye are and no doubting, mistress. Come awie, then. And keep yer eyes open if ye will, for we’re more like tae be seen now ’tis daybreak, and we must head west, which is verra chancy.”
He trotted on, following the general direction of the loch.
Prudence was silent for a while, then asked a puzzled, “Are ye no heading the wrong way, MacLeod? This leads south, surely?”
“West, mistress.”
“But Loch Lochy runs southwards, I’d thought.”
“Aye. Southwestwards.” He glanced around at her, his blue eyes twinkling. “Only, yon’s Loch Arkaig, ma’am.”
Her heart gave a great leap. With a beam of joy she exclaimed, “Arkaig! Och, then we’re doing verra weell, MacLeod!”
“Better than twenty miles we’ve come this night, mistress.”
She clapped her hands. “How splendid! Do ye fancy we shall come up with them soon? Shall we be able to see them?”
“Not if Ligun Doone kens what he’s aboot. I’m of a mind we’ve passed them by long since. Nae—never look sae doom-struck. Did I no tell ye I ken this country like the back o’ me hand? A sight better nor the Captain and that gowk Lockerbie. All we’ve tae do is head fer a pass I know of, and wi’ luck we’ll spot ’em when they come through.” He thought he sounded a fine braggart and, embarrassed, closed his lips, took the tired garron’s bridle, and led on.
With her first step, Prudence slipped and came down hard, scraping the heel of her hand on the sharp gravel, and bruising her hip. MacLeod rushed back to her, and only then did she notice that he was limping. He had walked and trotted all those twenty miles, over countless rocky slopes and through hundreds of icy burns, with never a complaint, and because he was so big and strong it had failed to occur to her that he was human, too, and not above being hurt and weary. He helped her up, and she made light of her scrapes and hobbled on. She saw him watching her with a grin, and she felt ridiculously pleased that she had won the approval of this young giant whom, a few days ago, she had regarded with such abhorrence.
The sun began to come up as they struggled side by side through a ravine treacherous with shifting shale and littered with boulders from the higher slopes. Prudence was so tired she had to fight to stay awake, and she began to sing softly, every Scottish song she knew, breathless and stumbling and often improvising the words until MacLeod, chuckling, joined in. The songs faded at last, and died away, but her throbbing feet went on. She did not realize she was asleep until a hand on her shoulder woke her. She was still clutching the garron’s stirrup, and her forehead was leaning against the tired beast’s shoulder. MacLeod swept her up and carried her to a clump of dense shrubs that grew against the rock face. A burn tumbled noisily down the slope close by. She felt the spray of it, cold against her face as the Highlander put her down. He looked pale and exhausted, his eyes ringed with the shadows of fatigue. “We must hide the noo,” he said.
“Where?”
He pulled the shrubs aside to reveal a hollow cut where there would be ample room for the two of them and the little pony to lie hidden until dusk. Aching with the need to lie down in that lovely hollowed-out teacup, she mumbled, “What about the poor garron?”
MacLeod said he would water the pony and unsaddle it, then bring it into the hollow. “He can graze frae inside,” he said. “Do ye get in and lie ye doon, mistress.”
“I shall. After you come.” She was adamant, and with a sigh for the pigheadedness of even the best of women, MacLeod went over and stripped the pony of saddle and blanket and led it to the burn. He returned with the expectation of finding the girl asleep in the hollow, but she waited, her shoulder propped against the rock wall and her eyes glazed with weariness. When he had tethered the pony, she said, “Come wi’ me,” led him to the burn, and commanded, “Sit ye doon. Now dinna argue, mon! Sit ye doon!”
The broad Scots brought a grin to his face and he obeyed wonderingly. She knelt beside him and began to unlace his crude sandals. With a startled exclamation, he wrenched away. For the first time in her life, Prudence gripped a hairy male limb and hung on. Horrified, MacLeod ceased his struggles, but shrank back, peering at her with aghast eyes. “Whatever are ye aboot, lady?” he gulped.
She peeled off his tattered stockings, flinched to see his bruised and blistered feet, and exclaimed, “Oh! Ye poor wee lad!”
MacLeod was very near exhaustion, and the sight of this diminutive girl holding his great foot and calling him a ‘wee lad’ struck him as so hilarious that he began to chuckle. Glancing up in surprise, Prudence caught his mirth and the two of them sat there laughing—as she said later—like a pair of gormless thimblewits. Wiping tears from her eyes, she instructed him to soak his feet in the burn. He eyed the water dubiously, stuck in one toe, and gave a yelp.
“It will feel better soon,” said Prudence.
“Aye—it’ll be froze solid,” he grumbled.
She turned her back and, commanding him not to look, removed her shoes, slippers, and stockings. Her own feet were not in much better condition than his, but when she shyly immersed them, her breath was snatched away and she whipped her feet back.
MacLeod grinned at her. “It’ll feel better soon,” he said.
XVII
Prudence awoke stiff, cold, and hungry. At some time while she slept MacLeod had spread his plaid over her and she tugged it closer about her chin and snuggled down drowsily. Loud, drunken voices raised in dissension brought her fully to awareness. A dim light filtered in through the branches of the shrubs, and MacLeod crouched by the opening, peering out.
She crept to join him. “Who is it?” she whispered.
“The men I told ye of,” he responded as softly. “Anyone coming this way has tae travel through this pass. ’Tis why I thought we’d meet up wi’ Mr. Doone here. They’ve got some Southron—poor chappie.”
Her heart pounding, Prudence peeped through the foliage. And there he was, sure enough: the big lout in the strange leathern tunic that was like a rough patchwork quilt. He had a small, cruel mouth, hard eyes, and a sneering, vindictive expression. There were two others of his kind with him: big, crude-looking individuals, wearing dyed plaids so that the tartan was obliterated. All three were sprawled very close by the side of the burn, arguing mildly among themselves, and passing a flask ba
ck and forth. To one side, a youthful redcoat, his hands bound before him, was attempting to gather firewood, presumably to heat the contents of an iron pot that hung on a trivet nearby.
Prudence thought worriedly that if they meant to eat, they’d likely be here for some time. She glanced to the garron. It was asleep, head down. If the bounty hunters had horses, they were not within her range of vision, but she thought they must have, to have come all this way.
The young captive stumbled, dropping the branch he was attempting to haul to the site of his fire and, knocking over the trivet, sent the contents of the pot spilling into the dirt. A shout of rage went up from his captors. The bully in the leathern vest got to his feet and fetched the youth a buffet that sent him sprawling. He fell with head and shoulders in the burn, and the Scot laughed and put one large foot on the back of his neck, holding his head under.
Prudence gave a gasp of horror. MacLeod spun around and clapped a hand over her mouth. “There’s naught we can do, mistress,” he whispered. “And he’s only a redcoat, forbye.” She struggled angrily, but then the man with the leathern vest removed his foot and bent to haul the half-drowned boy from the water. “Get up, stupid dog’s meat,” he snarled, kicking his victim savagely. “Now we’ve tae find more food, damn yer eyes! Get and saddle the garrons.”
Coughing and gulping air, the redcoat came to his knees. Prudence saw that he was very young—no more than eighteen or nineteen, she judged—his fair face cruelly marked by cuts and abrasions, but his spirit unbroken as yet, evidently, for he swore feebly at his persecutor. His reward was a kick that doubled him up, and he lay choking and helpless while Prudence shook with rage that a bound prisoner should be so ill-used.
Another man, with greying straggly hair, and a long ragged beard, now clambered to his feet and demanded testily that ‘Zeke’ stop beating the boy. “If ye kick his ribs in, he’ll no be able tae lead us tae Loch nan Uamh,” he growled, “and I dinna ken the way, nor I doot we’d get much help frae the crofters hereaboots, if they’re as loyal tae Doone as yon fools we questioned last night.”
The third bounty hunter, a pallid, shifty-eyed man with long twitching hands and hunched shoulders, stood and wandered out of Prudence’s sight. “They’ll no forget us in a hurry, Jem, lad,” he jeered.
“Mur-derers!” croaked the young trooper, with valour if not wisdom. “Is that … how you mean to serve this … poor fellow you … seek?”
The pallid man came back to bend over him. “Doone will be lucky if we come up wi’ him first—he’ll die quick. If the military get their hands on him, it’s the Tower, where they’ll put him tae the question, fer he likely knows a deal o’ that fool Stuart. And when he’s nigh dead they’ll stop kindly fer rope and block, wi’ his head saved fer Tower Bridge! We do the laddie a favour, y’ken.” He seized the boy’s dishevelled fair hair, and hauled. “Up wi’ ye. We’d as well get on, since ye’ve spoiled our dinner, ye perishin’ clod.”
Prudence closed her eyes and did not move until the sound of hooves and the coarse voices began to face. She peered out then. They were making their way along the ravine, the prisoner at the end of a rope, staggering after them. “Poor lad,” she whispered.
MacLeod said, “Are ye able tae go on now, lady? As soon as yon fine gentlemen are clear, we can leave.”
“How could they?” she asked, raising appalled eyes to his face. “They were Scots, yet they cared neither for Ligun Doone nor Prince Charles. And to so brutalize that helpless lad…”
MacLeod grunted. “Did ye fancy cruelty spoke only wi’ an English accent, mistress? The deeds done by clan tae clan would make St. Peter weep, I reckon. Especially the bloody Campbells—black be their fall!” He went, muttering, to the garron and began to saddle up the sleepy animal.
Prudence slipped cautiously outside. To judge by the position of the sun it was mid-afternoon. There were clouds building above, and a cool wind tossed the tops of the few aspens and pines scattered along the ravine. The bounty hunters and their hapless prisoner were far off, but she stayed in the screening shrubs until they should be out of sight. Just before they turned the last bend, she saw the captive fall. There came the faint sound of a laugh and they spurred their horses so that the boy could not regain his feet and was dragged ruthlessly. Tears of rage and helplessness blurred her eyes as she crept from her hiding place and went to the burn to wash. There was no sign of MacLeod when she returned to the hollow, and she supposed he had gone off to attend to his own needs. The garron was saddled and chewing placidly on the shrubs at the entrance. Prudence put on her cloak, did her best to tidy her hair, and went outside again. She heard a pebble roll behind her and turned about, a smile ready for MacLeod. The smile died. The ravine seemed to tilt and her head spun.
Geoffrey Delacourt, leading Braw Blue, stood staring at her in speechless astonishment, Lockerbie and Cole, equally astounded, behind him.
“Geoffrey!” she cried, and flung herself into his arms. Briefly, those arms tightened about her. She heard him breathe her name, and one hand pressed her head closer against him. Then, she was pulled back.
“What the devil are you doing here?” His voice was harsh, his dark brows meeting in a scowl of anger.
Indignant, she wrenched away. “To bring you a message! Though much you—”
“Captain!” MacLeod scrambled down the opposite bank, his broad features alight with joy. “I hoped ye’d come up wi’ us!”
Mindful of this man’s initial reaction to his master, Lockerbie swung up the musket he carried and held it pointed steadily at MacLeod’s middle.
Delacourt pushed the long barrel aside and strode to face MacLeod, his jaw set and grim. “You brought her? Damn your eyes—are ye daft? This is no country for a woman, much less a lady of quality!”
MacLeod’s head sank. “I know,” he mumbled. “I know, sir. But—whisht, the lady wouldnae have it otherwise, and I had tae reach ye, sir.”
Delacourt tossed a glare at Prudence’s saintly martyrdom. “Why?”
“Because you are being followed by murdering cutthroats,” Prudence put in. “Do ye not recall what Aunty Mac had to say aboot the man wearing the strange coat?”
He stared at her with stark incredulity. “Great heavens! Do you say that you came all this perilous distance because of that nonsensical—”
“He was in the stables at Lakepoint,” she hurried on. “You’ll recollect I told ye I’d seen him?”
“He’s after ye the noo, master,” said MacLeod earnestly. “I saw him also, on General Wade’s Road. And he was here but a minute syne. He’s following ye, sir. And two more o’ his like wi’ him—all mean as mad dogs.”
“I’ve Lockerbie and Cole to side me, and I think we are not helpless! I charged you with the care of Miss MacTavish. She was safe in the cavern, and—”
“She wasnae safe, sir,” said MacLeod quietly. “I didnae tell the lady, fer I’d no wish tae add tae her miseries. After ye left, the scouts reported redcoats on the move. Scores of ‘em. All making straight for the wee glen. Angus Fraser had it in his mind we’d been betrayed, and was preparing tae wake the men and see if they couldnae slip away over the top o’ the crag.”
Delacourt gave a groan of exasperation. “Madness! One can but hope he did not yield to it! The troopers are likely moving this way because your Prince is believed to have been sighted heading for the Western Sea. I’ve no doubt the soldiers will pass right by the cavern and never suspect any of our people are there.” He turned a fuming glance on Prudence. “Only look at the poor girl! All mud and tatters and looking as if she’s been dragged through a gooseberry bush!”
“Well! Of all the ingrates!” Prudence drew herself up, seething with resentment. “We risked life and limb, struggled straight up mountains and all but fell doon t’other sides! Cut our poor feet to shreds for your sake and all you can say is—”
“Thank you,” he intervened, gripping her shoulders and smiling warmly at her. “Poor little lass. I am an ingrate, indeed! Bu
t—my apologies, m’dear—I cannot dawdle about here, else we’ll never come up with our quarry.”
“Quarry…? Did ye no hear us warn ye that you’re being stalked?”
He glanced at MacLeod. “Lift the lady into my saddle, if you please.” He added, “You’re mistaken, ma’am. We follow them, not t’other way around.”
“Follow—them?” she said stupidly, settling her skirts and taking the reins he handed up to her.
“Yes. And a fortunate happenstance that we did, else we’d likely have missed you. Have you a pony, MacLeod? We must hasten.”
“There is not the need to follow them,” said Prudence. “The MacLeod knows this country exceeding well, Captain. He can guide us safely to Loch nan Uamh, never fear.”
“Since you beat us here although we’d left ahead of you, I cannot doubt that.” He set one foot in the stirrup and swung up behind her. “Let’s go as quietly as may be. They’re half drunk, but I’d as lief they not hear us coming. Cole, do you slip out ahead and act as scout for us.”
Cole nodded and urged his garron past.
“Delacourt,” said Prudence, craning her neck around so as to look up at him, “do ye never listen tae what people try tae tell ye?”
He tightened his arm around her, his dark eyes twinkling into hers in a most disarming way. “Yes, m’dear. But I do not follow those animals for want of a way to Loch nan Uamh.”
“The captain is at his rescuing again, mistress,” said Lockerbie dryly.
Prudence gave a gasp. “What? Geoffrey, are ye quite daft? These hills swarm with troopers. You must not risk your life for the sake of that poor boy.”
He slapped the reins against Braw Blue’s neck. “I have risked it for your people, ma’am. I will not now leave one of my own to be murdered by those carrion.”
Admiring his courage, and fearing for his safety, she cried, “You would rather they murdered me, I suppose?”
Journey to Enchantment Page 27
