The Black Colonel | Page 3

as in all affairs where two men and a maid are concerned, was how to begin, more particularly as we had no idea what would be the end. The Black Colonel had said as much when he spoke the name Forbes, the third of our Aberdeenshire clans, though it may not have all the lustre of the Gordons or the Farquharsons.
"Ehum," he murmured, dropping into a Scots mannerism which made no more than an overture to speech between us, and yet signified something already said.
"Your letter was urgent," I said. "It might have been a summons to another hoisting of the Stuart Standard on the Braes of Mar."
"And would you have come?" he inquired; "would you have come?"
"It is hard," I answered coldly, "to tell what a man would or would not do if his honour could always march with his inclination. But no summons from you would bring me to the colours, even of those who were our rightful Scottish kings."
"Still, you have come to-night."
"True, but it must occur to you that it is not of the first order of a gentleman to force a meeting, by wrapping a threat in a woman's Christian name, even when you send your message by so secure a hand as that of your ghillie, Red Murdo."
He turned his head and, I felt, though I could still only see vaguely, was looking straight at me, as, certainly, I was looking at him. While we looked and saw not, a quick, low whistle came from the foot of the Pass and an answering whistle, just as low, blew from the top of it.

II--Trapped by the Red-Coats
Never, in all my experience of the hills, their fragrant peace and their rude surprises, have I been so moved by an unexpected noise as I was then, standing with the Black Colonel in the black Pass. Partly this was because the surprise was complete, being unheralded by a rustle or a movement, but, still more, because it was the magic hour at which the womb of night moves to the birth of a new day.
Mingle the void of heaven and earth, and the sense of unseen spaces; the long, sleeping mountains, with the drowsy trees that guard the foot-hills; the caressing sigh of the wind, and, maybe, the murmur of a stream flowing to the sea, and out of all this catch a whistle and its answer. They sounded strangely eerie as they died into the hills, touching us like the still small voice of the Scriptures and, also, like it, carrying a note of apprehension, even of awe.
Under stress a mind moves instantly, and two thoughts leapt into mine, that a trap had been set for the Black Colonel, and that he must suspect me of it. To be sure I was, myself, within the wings of that trap, but this perfect retort was like a gun in a bad position, it could not be brought to bear. However, my own situation, peculiar as I realized it to be, troubled me less, at the moment, than did the Black Colonel's thoughts, as I conceived them, about my honour, and I do suggest that it would have been the same with any other gentleman.
Ugly thoughts have a trick of riding double, and I fancied I heard him trying his stirrup leathers and bridle, to be satisfied they were in order. Even I thought I saw his hand drop down to his right garter, where a Highlander wears his skean-dhu, or short dirk, an ornament mostly, with its Cairngoram stone in the handle, but likewise a solid weapon in an emergency, like the present.
There, probably, I did him an injustice or, if his hand did make the furtive inquiry, I could think wrongly of the reason behind it. Anyhow, he said never a word, hating to be openly suspicious, where, as I could have sworn, on my conscience, there was no reason for suspicion, whatever might have happened among others, apart from me and my night's doings.
Thus we held our places, two unarmed men, for the Black Colonel had said in his letter that he would come weaponless, as he expected me to come, and a hose-dirk did not count, being, as I have said, in the first place, an ornament for a well-made leg, an Order of the Garter, to borrow an ancient title. We had met in the habiliments and disposition of peace, and if we were to close in strife it would not, I reasoned and hoped, be at our direct wish or bidding. Would it?
He must have been asking himself the same question, for he broke the silence in a changed voice which seemed doubly changed, because he had to keep it low, lest it should be overheard, and what he said was, "How comes