‘Well,’ said she, as her husband entered, ‘what did that impudent old

creature want? You were a long time listening to her.’

‘She was consulting me about private matters, my dear; and I don’t

consider Mrs. Stirk an impudent person.’

‘You are so fond of being mixed up with common people,’ rejoined his

wife, ‘I am sure I never could understand your tastes.’

Had the sailor never been mixed up with common people Mrs. Somerville

would not have been sitting where she was.

His feelings were stirred a good deal and he was in a mood in which

pettinesses were peculiarly offensive to him. Besides that, he was

inclined to think Granny’s acquaintance something of an honour.

‘If there were more people in the world like Mrs. Stirk, it would be a

good thing for it,’ he said shortly. ‘You are an uncommon silly woman

sometimes, Matilda.’

CHAPTER XXV

MRS. SOMERVILLE HAS SCRUPLES

MRS. SOMERVILLE retired from the breakfast-room in the height of

ill-humour: it was not often that her husband spoke to her in so plain

a manner and she was full of resentment. She was conscious that she had

behaved badly in listening at the door, and, though the act did not

seem to her such a heinous offence as it might have done to many

others, her conscience aggravated her discomfort.

But curiosity was a tough element in her, and she was stayed up through

its faint attacks by the interesting things she had overheard. Though

her ears were not sharp, and the pair on the other side of the door had

been sometimes indistinct, she had learned enough to gather what was

afoot. Evidently, Cecilia Raeburn was now breaking her heart for

Gilbert Speid, whom she had refused, and the Inspector and Mrs. Stirk

had agreed that he should be told of it; so that, if he were still

wearing the willow for the young woman, he might return in time to

snatch her from her lawful bridegroom.

She had heard a good deal from Barclay of the checkered progress of

Fordyce’s wooing and she saw Speid through the lawyer’s spectacles;

also, the drastic rebuke she had suffered from Miss Hersey Robertson on

his account had not modified her view. To add to this, he was extremely

friendly with Captain Somerville, and she was of a class which is

liable to resent its husband’s friends. She was jealous with the

dreadful jealousy of women of her breeding; not from love of the

person who is its object, but from an unsleeping fear for personal

prerogative. She determined to tell Barclay of her discoveries, though

she had no intention of telling him how she had come by them; and the

thought of this little secret revenge on the Inspector was sweet to her.

Throughout the morning she maintained an injured silence which he was

too much preoccupied to observe, and when, in the afternoon, he took

his hat and the stick he used for such journeys as were short enough

for him to attempt on foot, she watched him with a sour smile. He had

not told her where he was going, but she knew and felt superior in

consequence. She wondered when Barclay would come to see her; if he did

not arrive in the course of a day or two she must send him a note. He

was accustomed to pay her a visit at least once every week, and it was

now ten days since he had been inside her doors.

Captain Somerville, though he returned with his object attained, had

not found that attainment easy. The Miss Robertsons had always looked

favourably on him as an individual, but Miss Hersey could not forget

that he was the husband of his wife; and, since the moment when she had

risen in wrath and left the party at his house, there had been a change

in her feelings towards him. Well did she know that such a speech as

the one which had offended her could never have been uttered by the

sailor; the knowledge made no difference; Miss Hersey was strictly and

fundamentally illogical.

Gilbert had given his address to his cousins with the request that it

should not be passed on to anyone. He wanted to have as little

communication as possible with the life he had left behind, and the

news of Cecilia, for which he had begged, was the only news he cared to

receive; business letters passing between himself and Barclay were

written and read from necessity. He wished to give himself every chance

of forgetting, though, in his attempts to do so, he was nearly as

illogical as Miss Hersey.

The Inspector’s request for his direction was, therefore, in the old

ladies’ eyes, almost part and parcel of his wife’s effrontery, and it

was met by a stiff refusal and a silence which made it hard for him to

go further. The red chintz sofa bristled. It was only his emphatic

assurance that what he wished to tell Gilbert would affect him very

nearly which gained his point. Even then he could not get the address

and had to content himself with Miss Hersey’s promise, that, if he

would write his letter, seal it and deliver it to her, she would direct

and send it with all despatch. He returned, conscious of having

strained relations almost to breaking point, but he did not care; his

object was gained and that was what concerned him. He had become almost

as earnest as Granny. The florid lady who watched his return from

behind her drawing-room window-curtains observed the satisfaction in

his look.

He was a slow scribe, as a rule, and it took him some time to put the

whole sum of what Granny had told him before Speid; it was only when he

came to the end of his letter that his pen warmed to the work and he

gave him a plain slice from his opinion. ‘If your feelings are the

same,’ he wrote, ‘then your place is here; for, if you stay away a day

longer than you need, you are leaving a woman in the lurch. I do not

understand this matter but I understand that much.’ Then he added the

date of the wedding, underlined it, and assured Gilbert that he was

‘his sincere friend, Wm. Somerville.’ A few minutes later, his lady,

still at the window, saw the individual who was at once coachman,

errand-boy, and gardener disappear in the direction of Miss Robertson’s

house with a sealed packet in his hand.

It was not until evening that he sat down to think what he should say

to Cecilia. The need for haste was not so great in this case, but every

hour was of value with respect to the letter Miss Hersey was forwarding

to Gilbert. There was no knowing where he might be, nor how long it

might take in reaching him, nor how many obstacles might rise upon the

road home, even should he start the very day he received it. But, here,

it was different. The sailor bit the top of his pen as he mused; many

things had puzzled him and many things puzzled him still. He had

received a shock on hearing of Cecilia’s intended marriage. In his own

mind he had never doubted that she loved Speid, and this new placing of

her affections was the last thing he expected; if there were no

question of affection, then, so much the worse, in his eyes. He thought

little of Fordyce and imagined that she thought little of him too. He

had never supposed that money would so influence her, and his

conclusion--a reluctant one--was that the extreme poverty which must be

her portion, now Lady Eliza was gone, had driven her to the step.

Granny Stirk’s news had opened his eyes to the probability that there

were influences at work of which he knew nothing, and he was uncommon

enough to admit such a possibility. When most people know how easily

they could manage everybody else’s business, the astonishing thing is

that they should ever be in straits on their own account. But it never

astonishes them. Captain Somerville had the capacity for being

astonished, both at himself and at other people; the world, social and

geographical, had taught him that there is no royal road to the

solution of anyone’s difficulties. The man who walks about with little

contemptuous panaceas in his pocket for his friends’ troubles is

generally the man whose hair turns prematurely gray with his own. What

had Cecilia meant when she told the old woman, weeping, that she could

not help herself? He would, at least, give her the chance of helping

herself now, and she could take it or leave it as she chose. He was not

going to advise her nor to make suggestions; he would merely tell her

what he had done. He had no difficulty in justifying his act to his

conscience; he justified it to his prudence by reflecting on what she

had given the Queen of the Cadgers to understand; namely, that, if the

exile should return, she would throw all to the winds for him.

‘My writing-table is to be dusted to-day, and I shall leave this here,’

he said to his wife on the following afternoon, as he put the letter he

had written on the drawing-room mantelpiece; ‘if you can hear of anyone

going in the direction of Fullarton, I should be glad to have it

carried. It is to Miss Raeburn, in Edinburgh, so Mr. Fullarton must

address it for me.’

The Inspector was muffled in his plaid and Mrs. Somerville knew that

his duty was taking him south of Kaims; Fullarton lay north of it. As

he left the house he hesitated a moment. What if Barclay should call,

as he often did, on his way to Fullarton and his wife should entrust

him with the letter? Granny had been urgent in telling him to keep

clear of the lawyer. But he laughed at his own doubt; for, with the

worst intentions, how should Barclay know what it contained? What had

he to do with it? The old woman’s dislike of him made her take absurd

ideas into her head.

Mrs. Somerville placed the letter where it could lean against the

clock, and, when the front-door had shut behind him, she settled

herself to a comfortable afternoon by the fire; beside her lay the

materials for trimming a bonnet, and, within hand-stretch, a small

table-cover under which she might hide them at the approach of company.

As she had said to Lucilla, she ‘did not wish to get the name of

trimming her own bonnets.’ Her mind was so full of the object on the

mantelpiece that she did not hear a step on the stairs, and, greatly as

she desired Barclay’s visit, when he was ushered in, she had

temporarily forgotten his existence. The bonnet disappeared with a

scuffle.

‘You are quite a stranger, I declare!’ she exclaimed when the lawyer

had seated himself.

‘Of necessity, Mrs. Somerville--never of inclination. My time has been

scarcely my own this week past.’

‘And upon whom have you bestowed it, pray?’

‘Have no fear, ma’am. My own sex is entirely responsible. And I have

been making a slight alteration in my house; a trifle, but necessary.

I am to lodge my friend Fordyce for the wedding and his best man is

coming too--at least so he tells me. They are feather-brained, these

young fellows.’

Mrs. Somerville’s knowledge was hot within her, and she turned over in

her mind how she might begin to unfold it without committing herself.

‘It will not be a large affair,’ continued he, ‘no one but myself and

Mr. Fullarton and a handful of Fordyce’s relatives; the bride makes as

much pother about her bereavement as if it had happened yesterday. Lady

Fordyce is not to be present. I think she has taken such a poor match

very much to heart.’

‘We were invited specially by Miss Raeburn,’ interposed the lady, who

was not averse to playing a trump card when she had one.

Cecilia had personally asked the Inspector to the kirk, and had,

perforce, made up her mind to the natural consequence in the shape of

his wife; he had been Gilbert’s friend and she felt that his presence

would help her through the ordeal.

‘Then you will be of the bride’s party,’ observed Barclay, looking

superior.

‘Yes,’ replied Mrs. Somerville, settling herself snugly against the

back of her chair, ‘we shall--if there is any bride at all.’

He looked at her interrogatively.

‘I said, _if there is any bride at all_, Mr. Barclay; and for that

matter, I may add, _if there is any wedding either._’

‘What is to hinder the wedding? My dear Mrs. Somerville, you puzzle

me.’

‘Ah,’ she said, nodding her head slowly up and down, ‘you are right to

ask, and I can tell you that _Mr. Speid_ may hinder the wedding.’

‘You are speaking in riddles,’ said the lawyer, ‘I may be dull, but I

cannot follow you.’

‘If I tell what I know, you will get me into trouble,’ she said,

shaking her forefinger at him; ‘there is no trusting you men.’

‘Surely you will make an exception in my case! What have I done to

merit your distrust?’

‘Many shocking things, I have no doubt,’ she replied, archly.

‘Ma’am, you are cruel!’ he exclaimed, with a languishing look. He could

have beaten her, for he was writhing with internal curiosity.

‘Well, well; do not take it so to heart,’ said she, ‘and promise that

you will not betray me. Yesterday, after breakfast, a disreputable

person, a Mrs. Stirk, who seems to be known about here--_I_ know nothing

about her--asked to speak to the Captain. I was sitting at the

breakfast-table, but the door was open, so what they said was forced

upon me; really _forced upon me_, Mr. Barclay. Mrs. Stirk said that she

had seen Miss Raeburn and that she was crying--it was a very improbable

story--and that she was breaking her heart for Mr. Speid; she had the

impudence to tell the Captain that he should write and bring him home.’

Barclay’s eyes were almost starting out of his head.

‘You may well look surprised,’ said Mrs. Somerville, ‘but what will you

say when I tell you he has done it? And because a fishwife told him,

too! I let him know what an impudent old baggage I thought her, and I

got no thanks for my pains, I assure you!’

The lady’s voice had risen with each word.

‘Written to Speid? Impossible! How does he know where to find him?’

‘Miss Robertson is to send the letter. There will be no wedding yet, as

I tell you.’

‘He cannot get home; at any rate, it is very doubtful,’ said the

lawyer, counting on his fingers, ‘for, by the time he reaches here,

Fordyce will be a married man. And he will not stop the marriage, if he

comes. Miss Raeburn would never dare to give Fordyce the slip now, for

all her high-and-mighty ways.’

‘But the Captain has written to her too, so she will have plenty of

time to make up her mind. Look at the letter on the mantelpiece,

waiting to be taken to Fullarton. He put it there when he went out.’

Barclay sat staring at the missive and arranging his ideas. He wondered

how soon he could escape and send news of what he had heard to Fordyce;

he hesitated to hurry away at once, for he had not been to see Mrs.

Somerville for a long time, and he knew he was expected to sit with

her, as he generally did, for at least an hour. One thing was certain;

that letter on the mantelpiece should not reach Cecilia if he could

help it. The other had gone beyond recall, but he doubted it getting

into Speid’s hands in time to do much harm. Meantime, there was nothing

like prompt action.

‘It is rather curious that I should be going to Fullarton to-day; I am

on my way there at this moment. I had meant to make you a long visit

to-morrow but I could not resist the temptation of turning in as I

passed this door just now. Suppose I were to carry the letter? No good

will come of it, I am sure, but, if the Captain wishes it to go, go it

must. Can you not persuade him to think better of it?’

‘Indeed, if he heard you had been here on your way to Fullarton and I

had not sent it, he would be annoyed. But how am I to forgive you for

such a niggardly visit? You have hardly been here five minutes.’

‘By allowing me to pay you a liberal one to-morrow,’ replied the astute

Barclay. ‘I can then assure you of the safety of the letter. What am I

to do? Give me all directions.’

‘You are to hand it to Mr. Fullarton and ask him to address it and send

it to Miss Raeburn. It is a very queer business, is it not?’

‘It will smooth down. I attach no importance at all to it,’ replied he.

‘You are mighty cool about it, seeing that Mr. Fordyce is such a

friend.’

‘It can come to nothing,’ said he.

He was determined she should not suspect his feelings, which were, in

reality, tinged with dismay. If Speid should baffle them still! The

letter might reach him in time and he might easily act upon it. A

torrent of silent abuse was let loose in his heart against Granny

Stirk. He had hated her roundly for some time, and now he would have

given anything to be able to turn her off the Whanland estate

altogether. He promised himself that he would see what could be done

when this affair of Fordyce’s marriage was off his mind.

‘Mr. Fordyce should thank me for warning you,’ said Mrs. Somerville,

‘if he has any sense he will hurry on the wedding-day after this.

Whatever happens, do not betray me!’

A look in her face suggested to him that she might, in her heart,

suspect what he had in his mind. He would make sure.

‘I suppose I dare not delay this for a day or two?’ he said,

tentatively, looking from her to the letter.

‘Oh, no! no!’ she cried, in alarm. ‘Oh! what would happen if anyone

found out that I had told you?’

‘I am only joking,’ he laughed, much relieved, ‘pray, pray don’t upset

yourself, ma’am.’

‘I really do not know whether I have not done sadly wrong in speaking,’

said she, turning her eyes down. ‘I have many scruples. My name must

never, _never_ be mentioned.’

‘You insult me, Mrs. Somerville, when you talk in that way. Your name

is sacred to me, as it has ever been, and your action is most timely,

most obliging. I only regret that your own wishes forbid my telling

Fordyce of your kind interest in him--in us, I should say, for I

identify myself with my friends. I am nothing if not true. You, surely,

of all people can give me that character.’

Playfulness returned to her.

‘Come, come,’ she said, ‘you may go away. I shall not tell you what I

think for fear of making you vain!’

Barclay left the house with the precious letter in his pocket; he had

come out that afternoon, with no intention of going anywhere near

Fullarton. On reaching his own front-door he banged it so heartily with

the knocker that his maidservant felt her heart thump too. She came

running to answer the summons.

‘Order round the chaise immediately,’ he cried, ‘and see that the fire

is kept in till I come back!’

As he stood at the door, waiting for his conveyance to be brought, he

saw the strange one belonging to Captain Somerville enter the street on

its homeward way. He ran to the gate which opened on the yard behind

his house.

‘Be quick, can’t you!’ he roared to the man harnessing the horse.

What he feared he knew not, but the sight of the Inspector’s plaided

body sitting under the retrograde hood of his carriage, like an owl in

a hollow tree, made him long to be clear of the town.

CHAPTER XXVI

ALEXANDER BARCLAY DOES HIS BEST

THOUGH Barclay had no intention of allowing the letter he carried to

reach its final destination, he could not venture to stop its course

till it had passed Fullarton’s hands. He was too much afraid that

Somerville and Fullarton might meet within the next few days. The mail

office should be responsible for its loss, if that loss were ever

discovered; a contingency which he doubted strongly. He found it

exceedingly annoying to be obliged to take this farcical drive on such

a chilly afternoon, but Prudence demanded the sacrifice and he humoured

her, like a wise man. Fordyce’s obligations to him were becoming

colossal.

He found Fullarton in his library and explained that he was on his way

home. He had looked in in passing, he said, to ask him to address a

letter which Captain Somerville had given him for Miss Raeburn. He was

rather hurried, and would not send his carriage to the stables; if the

letter were directed at once, he would take it with him and leave it at

the mail office, should it still be open. Robert was not in the humour

either for gossip or business and he was glad to be rid of Barclay so

easily. He took up his pen at once. In five minutes the lawyer was on

his return road to Kaims.

The mail office was closed, as he knew it would be at that time in the

evening, and he brought his prize home; to-morrow, though he would take

several letters there in person, it would not be among their number. In

its place would be one addressed by himself to the bride-elect and

containing a formal congratulation on her marriage. Should inquiry

arise, it would be found that he had despatched a letter bearing her

name on that day. It was best that the track should lose itself on the

further side of the mail office; the rest was in the hands of

Providence. It was a badly-patched business, but it was the neatest

work he could put together at such short notice.

When the servants had gone to bed and the house was quiet, the lawyer

locked himself into his dining-room, where a snug little mahogany table

with a suggestive load of comforts stood ready by the arm of his

easy-chair. He sat down and took from his pocket the letter he had

carried about all the afternoon, reading it through carefully. As he

refreshed himself with the port he had poured out he counted again on

his fingers. But there was no use in counting; he could come to no

conclusion, for it rested purely with accident to decide how soon

Captain Somerville’s communication should reach Gilbert. If there were

no delays, if he were at Madrid or at some place within reach of it, if

he made up his mind on the spot, if he could find means to start

immediately and met no obstacle on the way--it was possible he might

arrive within a few days of the wedding. Then, everything would depend

upon Cecilia; and it would need almost superhuman courage for a woman

to draw back in such circumstances. He had done a great thing in

possessing himself of the paper he held. Little as he knew her, he

suspected her to be a person of some character, and there was no

guessing what step she might take, were she given time to think. ‘Hope

for the best and prepare for the worst.’ He was doing this throughly.

He emptied his glass, and, with the gold pencil on his fob-chain, made

a rough note in his pocket-book of the contents of Somerville’s letter;

then he crushed the epistle into a ball and stuffed it into the red

heart of the coals with the poker, holding it down till it was no more

than a flutter of black ash. This over, he wrote Fordyce an account

of what he had done. ‘I am not really apprehensive,’ he concluded,

‘but, hurry the wedding, if you can do so on any pretext, and never say

that Alexander Barclay did not do his best for you.’

Crauford was at Fordyce Castle when the news reached him and it gave

him a shock. His ally seemed to be outrunning all discretion in his

zeal; to stop a letter was such a definitely improper thing to do that

it took his breath away. Not that it was his fault, he assured himself

as he pondered on it, and it was too late to make any remonstrance;

besides which, as he had not personally committed the act, he had

nothing with which to blame himself. Things looked serious. In a few

days Speid might be on his way home. He would write to Cecilia on the

spot; nay, he would go to Edinburgh himself and persuade her to hasten

the wedding. He would invent a pretext. It was curious that, while

Barclay’s act struck him as a breach of gentlemanlike behaviour, it

never struck him from Cecilia’s point of view, though it was clear she

did not want to marry him and that she did want to marry Speid. If it

had struck him he would scarcely have understood. She was behaving most

foolishly and against her own interests; she did not seem to realize

that he had the warmest feelings for her, that he was prepared to make

her happy and give her everything she could desire. So great was the

complacency--personal and hereditary--in which he had been enveloped

since his birth, that he could not see another obvious truth which

stared him in the face: namely, that he whose wife has married one man

and loves another stands in a place which ought to terrify a demi-god.

If he hated Speid now, he might have to hate him still more in time. In

his reply to Barclay he did not remonstrate with him; what was the use

of doing so now that the thing was over?

Heartily did he wish the wedding hurried on for many reasons; one of

them was that his mother, who had taken to her bed on hearing of his

engagement, had now arisen, though her health, she said, would not

admit of her leaving Fordyce Castle or being present at the ceremony.

Nor were the protests of her family very sincere. Agneta and Mary, who

were to go to their uncle, were looking forward feverishly to their

first taste of emancipation, and Sir Thomas, having had experience of

his wife when in contact with the outer world, thought with small gusto

of repeating it. He had insisted that his daughters should go to

Fullarton and no one but himself knew what he had undergone, Lady

Fordyce being furious with her brother for having, as she said,

arranged the marriage. Everyone agreed that her decision was a merciful

one for all concerned, and, while Sir Thomas again ‘found it

convenient’ to sit up in his study till the cocks crew, the two girls

were supported by the prospect of the coming excitement.

Agneta and Crauford kept much together; but, though she was the only

person to whom he could speak with any freedom, he did not tell her

what he had heard from Barclay. He was a hero to his sister; and a

hero’s bride is conventionally supposed to have eyes for no one but

himself. Existing conventions were quite good enough for him.

His engagement was scarcely a blow to Lady Maria Milwright; for though,

as has been said, he was a hero in her eyes also, she was so simple in

character and so diffident that she had never even speculated on his

notice. Ideas of the sort were foreign to her. But, as her fingers

embroidered the handkerchief-case which she sent him as a wedding-gift,

she was overwhelmed with Miss Cecilia Raeburn’s good fortune. Agneta

was with him in his room when he unpacked the little parcel and read

the letter it contained.

‘I consider that very kind of Lady Maria; very kind indeed,’ he said.

He did not only consider it kind, he considered it forgiving and

magnanimous.

‘I wonder if you will be as happy as if you had married her?’ said

his sister, suddenly. ‘Is Miss Raeburn devoted to you, Crauford?’

The question took him rather unawares.

‘Why do you ask?’ inquired he.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Only she refused you twice, you know, brother.’

‘Not twice,’ said he. ‘She gave me great encouragement the second

time.’

‘I am sorry it is not to be a grand wedding with lots of fine company.

I should have enjoyed that. But, all the same, it will be a great

change for me and Mary. Miss Raeburn said we were to choose our own

dresses. Do you know, we have never chosen anything for ourselves

before?’

‘I am going to Edinburgh to-morrow or the next day to order my own

clothes,’ said he. ‘I have chosen stuffs already. I shall wear

claret-coloured cloth with a buff waistcoat and a satin stock. That

ought to look well, I think.’

‘We are to wear white, and white fur tippets and Leghorn bonnets with

pink rosettes. Papa gave Mary the money to pay for what we chose, for

mamma would have nothing to do with it. It is a good thing, for she

would not have given us nearly so much. Will there really be no one but

ourselves and Uncle Fullarton at the wedding, Crauford?’

‘There will be our cousin Frederick Bumfield, who is to be best man,

and my friend Mr. Barclay of Kaims. He is the Fullarton man of business

and a mighty pleasant fellow. Frederick and I are to stay at his house

for the wedding. Then there are a Captain and Mrs. Somerville whom Miss

Raeburn’--he always spoke of Cecilia as ‘Miss Raeburn,’ even to his

family--‘has invited, I cannot understand why; they are dull people and

the lady is not over genteel in her connections, I believe. Morphie

Kirk is a very small place for a wedding but Miss Raeburn has made a

particular point of being married there. I often accompanied her to it

when Lady Eliza was alive and I can guess (though she has not told

me) that she feels the suitability of our being married there for that

reason. It is a pretty feeling on her part,’ said Crauford.

Her fancy for Speid could not really go very deep, he reflected, as

this little sentiment of hers came into his mind. The meddlesome old

woman who had brought such a story to Captain Somerville might have

known how hysterical women were when there was a question of weddings.

Cecilia simply did not know her own mind.

He would see her in Edinburgh and do his best to persuade her to settle

a new date for their marriage, even should it be only a few days

earlier than the old one. And he would buy her some jewels--they would

help on his request.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE SKY FALLS ON GILBERT

GILBERT SPEID sat in the house just outside Madrid, which had

represented home to him for most of the eighteen months of his sojourn

in Spain; he was newly returned from Granada. It had been Mr. Speid’s

custom to pass a part of each year there, and it was there that he had,

according to his wish, been buried. Gilbert had gone to look at the

grave, for the decent keeping of which he paid a man a small yearly

sum, and had found his money honestly earned; then, having satisfied

himself on that point, he had wandered about in haunts familiar to him

in his youth and early manhood. It was not three years since he had set

foot in them last and he was not much more than thirty-two years old,

but it seemed to him that he looked at them across a gulf filled with

age and time. He returned to Madrid wondering why he had left it, and

finding a certain feeling of home-coming in his pleasure at seeing his

horses.

He made no pretence of avoiding his fellow-creatures and no efforts to

meet them; and as, though he spoke perfect Spanish, he had always been

a silent man, there was little difference in his demeanour. But it was

universally admitted among old acquaintances that his Scottish life had

spoiled him. He rode a great deal and frequented the same company; and

he would often stroll down to the fencing-school where he had learned

so much to practise with his old master, or with any new light which

had risen among the foils since he left Spain. He felt the pressing

need of settling to some definite aim in life, but he put off the

trouble of considering it from week to week and from month to month.

Miss Hersey wrote only occasionally, for her sight was not good, and

the world did not then fly to pens and paper on the smallest pretext as

it does now. A letter was still something of a solemnity, even to the

educated. Also, Miss Hersey thought that the sooner he forgot Cecilia

the better it would be, and the sooner he would return. She hoped he

would bring back a wife with him--always provided she were not a Roman

Catholic. She had told him of Lady Eliza’s accident and death and of

Cecilia’s removal to Fullarton, adding that she understood Miss Raeburn

was to remain there until some arrangement could be made for her

future; Mr. Fullarton was said to have promised Lady Eliza, on her

deathbed, that he would act as guardian.

It took nearly a month for a letter from Scotland to reach Madrid, and

Gilbert had asked a friend who lived near to take charge of such

correspondence as might come for him within a fortnight of his return

from Granada. He had only reached home late on the previous night, and

he was now expecting the packet to be brought to him.

He had slept long, being tired, and when he emerged from his room the

sun was brilliant. He walked out on the whitewashed veranda which ran

round the upper story of the house, and looked out on the March

landscape which the almond-blossom was already decorating. The ground

sloped away before him, and, on the north-west, the Sierra de

Guardarama cut into the sky. The pomegranates had not yet begun to

flower, but a bush which stood near the walls cast the shadow of its

leaves and stems against the glaring white. In Scotland, the buds would

scarcely yet be formed on the trees; but the air would be full of the

fresh smell of earth and that stir of life, that first invisible

undercurrent of which the body is conscious through a certain sixth

sense, would be vibrating. The Lour would be running hard and the

spring tides setting up the coast. He stood looking, with fixed eyes,

across the almond-blossom to a far-off country that he saw lying, wide

and gray, in the north, with its sea-voice calling, calling. His

servant’s footstep behind him on the stones made him turn; he was

holding out a little packet of letters.

‘These have been sent from Don Balthazar’s house,’ said the man, in

Spanish, indicating a few tied together with string. ‘The others were

at the mail-office this morning.’

Gilbert sat down on the parapet of the veranda and turned over the

letters; those that had come from his friend’s house must have been

awaiting him a week, possibly longer. There were two which interested

him, one from Miss Hersey and one directed in a hand he had seen before

but could not now identify; it was writing that he connected with

Scotland. Miss Robertson’s letter was among those which Don Balthazar

had kept and he opened it first. The old lady generally reserved any

tidings of Cecilia for the last paragraph and he forced himself to read

steadily from the beginning; for, like many high-strung people, he

found an odd attraction in such little bits of self-torture.

Half-way down the last sheet he dropped the paper as though he were

shot and the blood ran to his face in a wave. It contained the news of

Cecilia Raeburn’s engagement; she was to marry Crauford Fordyce, and

the wedding was fixed for the middle of April.

He seized the letter again and glutted his eyes with the hateful words.

‘You will cease to fret about her now,’ concluded Miss Hersey simply,

‘and that will be a good thing. I hear they are to live on a property

which belongs to Sir Thomas Fordyce in Roxburghshire. See and get you a

wife somewhere else, dear Gilbert, but not a Papist. Caroline and I

would think very ill of that.’

It was some time before he strung up his mind to read the rest of the

correspondence strewn about his feet, but, when he broke the seal of

the other Scottish letter, he looked first at the end. It was signed

‘Wm. Somerville,’ and consisted of four closely-written pages. Before

he came to the last line he sprang up, feeling as though the sky had

fallen on him. He ran through his room into the passage, shouting at

the top of his voice for his servant; the Spaniard came flying up three

steps at a time, his dark face pale. He found Gilbert standing in the

middle of the veranda; the scattered letters were blowing about, for a

sudden puff of wind had risen.

‘Pack up!’ he shouted, ‘get my things ready! I am going to England!’

‘But Señor----’

‘Go on! Begin! I tell you I am going to England to-night--sooner, if

possible! Bring me my purse. Send to Don Balthazar and tell him that I

am going in a few hours.’

He took the purse from the astonished man, and in another minute was in

the stable and slipping a bridle over one of the horse’s heads, while

the groom put on the saddle and buckled the girths. He threw himself

into it and galloped straight to the nearest inn and posting-house in

the town, for the carriage which had brought him back on the previous

night belonged to a small post-master in Toledo and could be taken no

further than Madrid.

Here he had a piece of disguised good fortune, for, though he could get

neither cattle nor conveyance that day, a Spanish Government official

was starting for France early on the morrow, and was anxious to hear of

some gentleman who might occupy the vacant seat in the carriage he had

hired and share the expenses of the road. In those days, when people

travelled armed, any addition to a party was to be welcomed. It only

remained for him to seek his friend Don Balthazar, and, through him, to

procure an introduction to the traveller. Their ways would lie together

as far as Tours.

Don Balthazar was a friend of his youth; a lean, serious-looking young

man who had turned from a luxuriant crop of wild oats and married a

woman with whom he was in love at this moment, a year after Gilbert had

gone to Scotland. He had never seen Speid so much excited and he

succeeded in calming him as the two talked over the details of the

journey. They made out that it would take ten days to reach Tours,

allowing three extra ones for any mishaps or delays which the crossing

of the Pyrenees might occasion. In France, the roads would be better

and travelling would improve. Twenty-three days would see him in

Scotland; setting out on the morrow, the fourteenth of March, he could

reasonably expect to get out of the Edinburgh coach at Blackport on the

sixth of April. The wedding was not to take place until the tenth. He

did not confide in Don Balthazar; he merely spoke of ‘urgent business.’

‘Of course it is a woman,’ said Doña Mercedes to her husband that

night.

‘But he never used to care about women,’ replied he, stroking his long

chin; ‘at least----’

‘Is there _any_ man who does not care about women?’ exclaimed the

lady, twirling the laced handkerchief she held; ‘bring me one and I

will give you whatever you like!’

‘That would be useless, if he had seen you,’ replied Don Balthazar

gallantly.

Doña Mercedes threw the handkerchief at him and both immediately forgot

Gilbert Speid.

It was as if Gilbert lived, moved, and breathed in the centre of a

whirlwind until he found himself sitting in the carriage by the Spanish

official, with Madrid dropping behind him in the haze of morning.

Inaction was restful while he could see the road rolling by under the

wheels; every furlong was a step nearer his goal. His whole mind had

been, so to speak, turned upside down by Captain Somerville’s pen. He

was no longer the lover who had divided himself from his mistress

because honour demanded it, but a man, who, as the sailor said, was

leaving a woman in the lurch; that woman being the one for whom he

would cheerfully have died four times a day any time these last two

years.

The possibility of arriving too late made him shudder; he turned cold

as he remembered how nearly he had stayed another ten days in Granada

while this unforeseen news lay waiting for him at Don Balthazar’s

house. He had a margin of some days to his credit, should anything

check his journey, and, once beyond the Pyrenees, progress would be

quicker. If delay should occur on this side of Toulouse, he could there

separate himself from his companion and drive by night as well as by

day, for he would be on the main posting-road through France.

He had not written to Cecilia. He would travel nearly as fast as the

mail and a letter would precede his arrival only by a very short space.

There had been no time, in the hurried moments of yesterday, to write

anything to her which could have the weight of his spoken words; and,

were his arrival expected, he feared the pressure that Fordyce, and

possibly Fullarton, would bring to bear upon her before she had the

support of his presence. He did not know what influences might be

surrounding her, what difficulties hedging her about; his best course

was simply to appear without warning, take her away and marry her. He

might even bring her back to Spain. But that was a detail to be

considered afterwards.

He remembered the sudden admission he had made to Granny Stirk in her

cottage and told himself that some unseen divinity must have stood by,

prompting him. How little did he suspect of the sequel to that day on

which he had caught Lady Eliza’s mare; how unconscious he was of the

friend standing before him in the person of the little old woman who

offered him her apron to dry his hands and said ‘haste ye back’ as he

left her door. He had written her a few lines, directing her to go to

Whanland and get his room ready, and adding that he wished his return

kept secret from everyone but Jimmy, who was to meet the Edinburgh

coach at Blackport on the sixth of April. He had no horses in Scotland

which could take him from Blackport to Whanland, but he would be able

to hire some sort of conveyance from the inn, and, on the road home, he

could learn as much as possible of what was happening from the lad. His

letter would, in all probability, arrive a day or so in advance of

himself, and Granny Stirk would have time to send her grandson to meet

him and make her own preparations. Though the Queen of the Cadgers

could not read, Jimmy, who had received some elementary schooling, was

capable of deciphering his simple directions.

It was eight days after leaving Madrid that the fellow-travellers

parted at Tours, having met with no delay, beyond the repairing of a

wheel which had kept them standing in a wayside village for a couple of

hours, and the almost impracticable nature of the roads in the

Pyrenees. The official had called in the help of his Government in the

matter of post-horses to the frontier, and these, though often

miserable-looking brutes, were forthcoming at every stage. Owing to the

same influence, a small mounted escort awaited them as they approached

the mountains; and the Spaniard’s servants, who occupied a second

carriage and had surfeited themselves with tales--only too well

founded--of murders and robberies committed in that part of the country,

breathed more freely.

It was with rising spirits that Speid bade his companion farewell, and,

from the window of the inn at which they had passed the night, watched

his carriage roll away on the Paris road; he had hired a decent chaise,

which was being harnessed in the courtyard below to start on the first

stage of its route to Havre, and he hoped to embark from that seaport

in three days.

Of the future which lay beyond his arrival at Whanland he scarcely

allowed himself to think, nor did he arrange any definite plan of

action. Circumstances should guide him completely and what information

he could get from Jimmy Stirk. He had no doubt at all of Cecilia’s

courage, once they should meet, and he felt that in him which must

sweep away every opposition which anyone could bring. He would force

her to come with him. There were only two people in the world--himself

and the woman he loved--and he was ready, if need be, to go to the very

altar and take her from it. She had cried out and the echo of her voice

had reached him in far-away Spain. Now, there was no power on earth

which should stand before him.

So he went on, intent on nothing but the end of his journey; looking no

further; and holding back from his brain, lest it should overwhelm him,

the too-intoxicating thought that, in a couple of weeks, she might be

his.

When, at last, from a point of rising ground a few miles from the

seaboard, he saw the waters of the English Channel, his heart leaped.

He drove into Havre just at sunset on the evening of the twenty-fifth

of March. Six days later he was in London.

He had hoped to reach it earlier, but it was with the greatest

difficulty that he was able to get a passage to Portsmouth; he had

crossed to England in a wretched fishing-boat and that bad weather,

predicted on the French shore and only risked by the boat’s owner for a

large sum of money, met and delayed him.

He saw the dark mass of Edinburgh Castle rising from the lights of the

town on the second evening after his departure from London; the speech

which surrounded the coach, as it drew up, made him realize, with a

thrill, that now, only two divisions of his journey lay between him and

Blackport--Blackport where he would meet Jimmy, perhaps hear from him

that he had seen Cecilia. Next morning found him on the road to Perth,

where he was to sleep that night.

The weather was cold and gusty on the last day of his travels, and the

Tay, as they crossed it after leaving Perth, yellow and swollen; but

the familiar wide fields and the distant wall of the Grampians stirred

his heart with their promise. The road ran up the Vale of Strathmore,

north-east of the Sidlaws; as their undulations fell away they would

stretch to Kaims and the sea, and he would once more be in that

enchanted spot of land where the North Lour ran and the woods of

Morphie unrolled themselves across its seaward course.

The last change of horses was at Forfar; from there, they were to run

through the great moor of Monrummon into Blackport, where they would be

due at eight o’clock. If he could secure anything which had wheels from

one of the posting-houses, he would sleep that night at Whanland.

The passengers buttoned their coats tightly as they went forward, for

the weather was growing worse and the wind came tearing in their faces.

Before darkness fell, fringes of rain-cloud, which had hung all day

over the Grampians, began to sweep over them. The horses laid back

their ears as heavy drops, mixed with hail, struck them in sensitive

places and the coachman’s hands were stiff on the reins from the chill

water running off his gloves. Now and again the gale raised its voice

like an angry woman, and the road reflected the lamps as though it had

been a pond. They had left Forfar some time when the coachman, in the

darkness, turned a hard, dripping face to Gilbert, who was on the

box-seat.

‘D’ye hear yon?’ he said, lifting his whip.

Speid leaned his head sideways and was conscious of a roar above the

voice of the blast; a tossing and rolling sea of noise in the air which

he thought must be like the sound of waves closing above the head of a

drowning man. It was the roar of the trees in Monrummon.

As the coach plunged in, the dark ocean of wood swallowed it up, and it

began to rock and sway on one of the bad roads intersecting the moor.

The smell of raw earth and wet heather was mixed with the strong scent

of the firs that laboured, surged, buffeted overhead in the frenzy of

the wind. The burns that, in places, crossed their road had now become

turgid torrents, dragging away soil and stones in their rush.

‘It’ll na’ do to loss oursel’s here,’ observed the coachman. ‘Haud up,

man!’

The last exclamation was addressed to the off wheeler, who had almost

slipped on a round stone laid bare by the water flaying the track. The

only inside passenger, a West-country merchant on his way north, let

down the window and put out his head, to draw it in promptly, outraged

by finding himself in such surroundings and by the behaviour of the

elements outside. Such things did not happen in Glasgow.

It was when they were on the middle of the moor that the bed of a burn,

steeper than any they had yet encountered, crossed their way. It was

not much wider than an ordinary ditch, but the force of the water

driven through it had scored the bottom deep, for the soil was soft in

its course. The coachman had his team well together as they went down

the slope to it, and Gilbert watched him, roused from his abstraction

by the fascinating knowledge that a man of parts was handling the

reins. The feet of the leaders were clear of the water and those of the

wheelers washed by the red swirl in the burn’s bed, when the air seemed

to rush more quickly a few yards to their left, and, with a crack like

that of the sky splitting, the heavy head of a fir-tree came tearing

downwards through its fellows.

The terrified horses sprang forward up the steep ground; the coach

staggered like a drunkard; the pole dipped, rocking upwards, and the

pole-chains flashed in the light of the swinging lamps as it snapped in

two.

The traces held, for they reached the further side almost by their own

impetus, and the guard was at the leaders’ heads before the Glasgow

merchant had time to let down his window, and, with all the righteous

violence of the armchair man, to launch his reproaches at the driver;

Gilbert climbed down and began to help the guard to take out the

leaders. The coachman sat quietly in his place.

‘Well, well; we’ll just need to bide whaur we are,’ he said, as the

swingle-trees were unhooked.

By the light of the lamps, the pole was found to be broken, slantwise,

across the middle and there was nothing for the passengers to do but

make the best of their position and await the morning. The gale

continued to rage; and, though the guard declared it possible to lash

the breakage together and proceed carefully by daylight, such an

attempt would be out of the question in the state of the roads, while

the storm and darkness lasted. The two other outside passengers, one of

whom was a minister, were an honest pair of fellows, and they accepted

their situation as befitted men of sense.

The window of the coach went down and the Glasgow man’s head appeared.

He had tied up his face in a woollen handkerchief with large red spots.

The ends rose above his head like rabbit’s ears.

‘You’ll take me to the end of my journey or I’ll ken the reason!’ he

shouted to the little group. ‘I’ve paid my money to get to Aberdeen and

it’s there I’m to go!’

Guard and coachman smiled, the former broadly and the latter at the

side of his mouth. Neither said anything.

‘My name’s George Anderson, and I’m very well acquaint wi’ you!’ roared

the inside passenger in the voice of one who has discovered a

conspiracy.

He had never seen any of the party till that morning, but he did not

seem to mind that.

‘The pole is broken, sir. You can see it for yourself if you will come

out,’ said Gilbert, going up to the coach.

‘Na, thank ye. I’m best whaur I am,’ said the man.

The smile now extended to the minister and his companion, and, at sight

of this, the merchant burst into fresh wrath.

‘Am I to be kept a’ the night in this place?’ he cried. ‘I warrant ye,

I’ll have the lot o’ ye sorted for this when I get to Aberdeen!’

‘If you like to ride one of the leaders into Blackport, you can,’

suggested Gilbert, with a sting in his voice; ‘the guard is going with

the mails on the other.’

‘Aye, ye’d best do that. Ye’d look bonnie riding into the town wi’ yon

thing on your head,’ said the minister, who had a short temper.

The window went up.

The united efforts of Speid and his four companions succeeded in

getting the coach to one side of the way, and three of the horses were

tied up, its shelter between them and the weather; the Glasgow merchant

remained inside while they moved it. The rain was abating and there

were a few clear patches in the sky, as, with the mail-bags slung round

him, the guard mounted the fourth horse and prepared to ride forward.

‘If you can find a boy called Stirk at the inn,’ said Gilbert, ‘tell

him to wait for me in Blackport till morning.’ And he put some money in

the man’s hand.

The guard touched his cap and disappeared.

It was a long night to Speid. The three passengers built themselves a

shelter with luggage and rolled themselves in what wraps and rugs they

had; not one of them had any desire to share the inside of the coach

with its occupant. The ground was too damp to allow a fire to burn and

what wood lay at the roadside was dripping. In a few hours the guard

returned with such tools as he could collect; the road improved further

on, he said, and the remaining six miles of the stage could be done at

a walk after the sun rose. He had seen nothing of Jimmy Stirk. He and

the coachman joined the party in the shelter.

Gilbert, unsleeping, lay with his eyes on the sky; though he had been

much tempted to go on with the guard, he would have gained little by

doing so; his choice of a night’s lodging must be between Blackport or

Monrummon, and, under the circumstances, one place was intolerable as

the other.

CHAPTER XXVIII

AGNETA ON THE UNEXPECTED

GILBERT was wrong in supposing he would arrive in Scotland on the very

heels of his letter, for it reached Granny Stirk’s hands three days

before the night which ended, for him, on Monrummon Moor. Jimmy, who

had brought it from Kaims in the evening, spelt it out successfully by

the firelight.

The old woman sat, drowned in thought, her fiery eyes on the flame; she

could not understand why Cecilia had made no response to what Captain

Somerville had written, for she had seen him on the previous day and

was aware that no word had come from Edinburgh. Though she knew that

Barclay had carried the letter to Fullarton she had no suspicion that

he had tampered with it, imagining her action and that of the sailor

unknown to anyone. How should Barclay guess its contents? Also, she had

no notion to what extent he was in Fordyce’s confidence, or what a

leading part he had played in the arrangement of the marriage. Instinct

and the remembrance of his visit to her were the only grounds for the

distrust with which she looked upon him.

She had not doubted Cecilia’s sincerity and she did not doubt it now;

but, unlike Gilbert, she was beginning to doubt her courage. She was in

this state of mind when she heard that the wedding day was changed from

the tenth to the seventh of the month; Speid would only arrive on the

evening before the ceremony. The matter had gone beyond her help and

she could not imagine what the upshot would be. But, whatever might

come of it, she was determined to play her own part to the end. Early

to-morrow morning she would send Jimmy to Kaims to tell the sailor of

the news she had received and Macquean should go, later, to get a few

provisions for Whanland; she, herself, would have a field-day in the

laird’s bedroom with mops and dusters and see that his sheets were ‘put

to the fire.’

Meanwhile, at Fordyce Castle, events, almost equal to a revolutionary

movement in significance, had taken place. Like many another tyrant,

Lady Fordyce, once bearded, began to lose the hold which custom had

given her over the souls and bodies of her family. Sir Thomas had, for

the first time, established another point of view in the house, and its

inmates were now pleased and astonished to learn that they survived.

That kind of knowledge is rarely wasted. One result of the new light

was that Agneta was allowed to accompany Crauford to Edinburgh, where

she was to try on her bridesmaid’s costume, report upon Mary’s, and

make acquaintance with her future sister-in-law.

The sight of Cecilia was a revelation to Agneta. The hide-bound

standards of home had not prepared her to meet such a person on equal

terms and she knew herself unable to do so creditably; the remembrance

of Mary’s suggestion that they might ‘give her hints’ on the doing of

her hair, and such-like details, made her feel inclined to gasp.

Cecilia suggested something selected, complicated, altogether beyond

her experience of life and outside her conception of it. Crauford, to

whom this was evident, looked on triumphantly.

‘Well?’ he began, as they returned together to their lodging in George

Street.

‘She is _quite_ different from what I expected, brother--quite

different.’

‘Did I not tell you so?’ he exclaimed.

‘You did--you did; but I did not understand. No more will Mary till she

has seen her. I am afraid she will astonish Mama dreadfully.’

Fordyce chuckled. The thought of his mother had never made him chuckle

before. But times were changing.

‘I shall write to Mary to-morrow,’ continued Agneta. ‘Crauford, I can

quite understand about the gentleman who went to Spain.’

At this her brother’s smile faded, for the words made him think of the

gentleman who might be returning from Spain. As soon as possible he

must address himself to the task before him, namely, that of persuading

Cecilia to make the wedding-day a fortnight earlier.

At the risk of wearying the reader, who has followed this history

through letters, fragments of letters, receipts of letters, and even

suppression of letters, Agneta’s somewhat ungrammatical sentiments must

be given.

‘MY DEAR MARY’ (she wrote),

‘I do not know what Mama will say. We have arrived safe and waited upon

Cousin Maitland where Miss Raeburn is staying. She is _not at all_ like

what we imagined. You said we could perhaps teach her to do her hair,

but it is most _beautifully done_, and she has a lovely tortoiseshell

comb handsomer than Lady Maria’s. She is not at all shy, even with

Crauford, but she was most obliging and polite to him and to me too.

Cousin Maitland says she thinks she likes her better than any young

lady she ever saw. I don’t know what Mama will say because I am quite

sure Miss Raeburn will not be afraid of her, for she looks as if she

were not afraid of anybody or cared for anybody very much, not even

Crauford. He told me she was very fond of flowers, but I think he must

be mistaken, for he brought her some roses that were _ever so

expensive_ at this time of year and she thanked him nicely but she

never looked at them after she had put them down. Cousin Maitland is a

very odd person; her chin and nose nearly meet and she wears long

earrings and said a lot of clever things I did not understand. She has

an enamel snuff-box with rather a shocking picture on it. It is very

nice being on a journey alone and ringing the bell when I want

anything, but Jane forgot to bring my best slippers which is tiresome,

as we are to dine with Cousin Maitland to-morrow. Give my love and

respects to our father and mother and also from Crauford. I send my

love to you.

‘Your affectionate sister,

‘AGNETA FORDYCE.

‘P.S.--She has the _loveliest_ feet.’

All the arguments and persuasions which Crauford could bring to bear on

his bride did not avail to shorten the time before the marriage by a

fortnight, for the dressmakers at work upon her very modest trousseau

declared themselves unable to finish it by that date, and Cecilia was

thankful for their objections. He had dressed up some bogey of family

convenience which he held up before her, but, by aid of its

ministrations, he was only able to knock off three days from the

interval and fix the occasion for the seventh instead of the tenth of

April. He wrote to Barclay, apprising him of the change.

When the time arrived by which some result of Somerville’s letter might

reasonably be expected, the lawyer was constant in his inquiries at the

mail office. As no sign came, he determined to drive out to Whanland

and question Macquean, for he thought that if Gilbert contemplated a

sudden return, the man in charge of the house would scarcely be

ignorant of it.

It was on the second day preceding Speid’s intended arrival that he set

out for this purpose, and, at the outskirts of the town, observed the

person he wished to see approaching with the vacillating but

self-satisfied gait peculiar to him. Rather to his surprise, Macquean

made a sign to the coachman to stop.

‘Have ye heard the news?’ he asked abruptly, his large mouth widening.

‘What news?’ cried the lawyer, leaning far out of his chaise.

‘The Laird’s to be hame, no the morn’s morn, but the morn ahint it.’

‘Has he written?’

‘Granny got a letter a day syne. She bad’ me no tell, but a’ didna mind

the auld witch. A’ kent fine the Laird wad need to tell ye.’

‘Quite right!’ exclaimed Barclay, with fervour. ‘That old she-devil is

beyond endurance.’

A descriptive epithet that cannot be written down broke from Macquean.

‘What time do you expect Mr. Speid, late or early?’

‘He’ll no be at Blackport or aicht o’clock Friday first, an’ gin the

coach is late, it’ll be nine. A’m thinking he’ll likely bide a’ night

i’ the toon an’ come awa’ hame i’ the morn. A’m awa’ now to see and get

proveesions.’

The lawyer had other business on hand, so, after a few more words with

Macquean, he drove on; the servant continued his way into Kaims.

This was ill news. Barclay had played Crauford’s game for so long that

it had almost become his own, and he felt like a child who sees signs

of imminent collapse in the sand-castle which has stood almost to the

turn of the tide. Only three more days and baffled, probably, by an old

woman’s pestilent interference! If Speid had left Spain in such a hurry

it was not likely that he meant to have all his trouble for nothing,

and, if no delay should occur on his road, he would arrive just fifteen

hours too early. It was a close business.

For all his oiled and curled appearance, his fat hands and his

servility, there was something of the man of action about Barclay.

Also, he was endlessly vindictive. The idea of Gilbert, triumphing at

the eleventh hour, was as bitter as gall, and he resolved, while he sat

looking like a hairdresser’s image in the chaise, that no strong

measure he could invent should be lacking to frustrate him. As far as

Crauford was concerned he had a free hand and he would use it freely.

Suggestions boiled in his brain. To delay Speid in Blackport on the

night he arrived would be advantageous, and, if he could only delay him

till the following noon, all would be well.

He ran mentally over every possibility. Suppose, as Macquean had said,

the coach should not be up to time and the traveller should come no

further that night, he would scarcely start for home before nine on the

next day. At ten, or thereabouts, he would reach Whanland, and, by a

few minutes past eleven, Fordyce would be married to Cecilia.

Everything fitted in so nearly that, assuming that it should arrive

late--as it usually did--the slightest delay would settle the matter.

By the time he had alighted at his own door he had made up his mind to

send a mounted messenger at once to Blackport, and, in Fordyce’s name,

to secure every post-horse to be had at the two posting-houses in the

town. The pretext should be the conveyance of wedding spectators to

Morphie; the animals should be brought to Kaims early next morning. In

the afternoon, the bridegroom was to arrive as his guest, with his best

man, and he would tell him what he had done. His approval was a

foregone conclusion.

Should the coach come in punctually, or should Gilbert hear, in

Blackport, that the wedding was to take place at once, his plan might

yet miscarry. The chances were almost even, he told himself; there were

other horses, no doubt, which could be begged, borrowed, or stolen by a

man determined to get forward, but there would be a delay in finding

them and that delay might be the turning-point. Macquean had not

informed Barclay that Jimmy Stirk was to meet Gilbert for the simple

reason that he did not know it himself; Speid had asked Granny to say

nothing to any person of his coming, so, though obliged to tell him to

make preparations at Whanland, she had entered into no details. She had

mentioned the day and hour he was expected at Blackport and that was

all.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE QUEEN OF THE CADGERS TAKES THE ROAD

THE next day broke cold and stormy and driving rain sped past the

windows of the Stirks’ cottage. In the morning Jimmy set out, having

decided to go afoot and to return with Gilbert in whatever vehicle he

should accomplish the last stage of his way home. As the day went on

the old woman’s restlessness grew, and, by afternoon, her inaction,

while so much was pending, grew intolerable to her. She opened the back

door and looked out seawards to where a patch of ragged light broke the

flying clouds. This deceitful suggestion of mending weather decided her

on the action for which she was hankering. To Kaims she would go.

Captain Somerville might, even now, have received some word from

Cecilia, and in any case, the sight of his face would soothe her

agitated mind. Her heart was so deep in what was going on that she was

at the mercy of her own nerves so long as she was unable to act; and

to-day, there was not even her grandson to distract her mind. The man’s

more enviable part was his.

It was seldom, now, that she drove herself, and it was years since she

had harnessed a horse. She wrapped her body in her thick, gray plaid,

pinning it tightly round head and shoulders, and went out to the shed

where Rob Roy was dozing peacefully in the straw, in false expectation

of a holiday. Almost before he had time to realize what she wanted, she

got him on his legs, pushed the collar over his astonished face, and

led him out across the windy yard, to where the cart stood in a

sheltered corner. In a few minutes she was turning his head towards

Kaims.

The rain held off as she splashed down the road, and, at the bridge,

the North Lour ran hard and heavy under her; the beeches round Whanland

House were swaying their upper branches when she passed, as seaweeds

sway in a pool at the in-running tide. She drove straight to the Black

Horse in the High Street, for, behind the inn-yard, was a tumbledown

shanty, where carriers, cadgers, and such of the lower classes as went

on wheels, might stable their carts when they came to the town. The

grander accommodation, which had the honour of harbouring the chaises

and phaetons of the gentry, was on the inner side of the wall. When she

had left Rob Roy she walked to the Inspector’s house and was admitted.

She was ushered straight into the Captain’s presence; he sat in his

study, dressed for the road, for he had duty near Garviekirk. The

expression he wore was one unusual to him.

‘I have made a discovery, Mrs. Stirk,’ he said, abruptly. ‘The letter I

wrote to Miss Raeburn never reached her. She has not received it.’

Her eyes seemed to pierce him through; he turned his face away.

‘I am a good deal distressed,’ he continued--‘I did not suppose

that--those one associated with--did such things.’

‘It’s Barclay!’ exclaimed Granny.

‘We cannot be quite certain,’ he went on, ‘so the less we say about it

the better. He was asked to carry it to Fullarton and I have reason to

know that it never reached Miss Raeburn. I have spoken quite freely to

you; as you have identified yourself with this affair, I felt I should

not keep anything back from you. I am sick at heart, Mrs. Stirk--sick at

heart.’

His expression was blurred by a dull suffering.

‘Fegs! ye needna fash about the likes o’ him, sir! I warrant ye it’s no

the first clortie[1] job he’s done!’

[1] Dirty.

‘It is painful,’ said he.

There was more than the Queen of the Cadgers could fathom in the honest

man’s trouble; more lying on his heart, as he drove away down the

street, than she, looking after him, could guess. The sordid knowledge

of his wife’s nature had been with him for years, shut behind bars

through which he would not glance, like some ignoble Caliban. That

morning he had been forced to look the hateful thing in the face.

A letter had come to Mrs. Somerville from Cecilia, directing her to the

private entrance at Morphie Kirk. ‘I hope Captain Somerville is well,’

was its conclusion; ‘with the exception of a note of congratulation

from Mr. Barclay I have heard nothing of anyone at Kaims since I left

Fullarton.’

Mrs. Somerville had read it aloud, stopping suddenly in the middle of

the last sentence, remembering Barclay’s semi-jocular suggestion of

delaying the letter, and turned scarlet. She was apt, in difficulties,

to lose her head.

‘I’m sure it is no fault of Mr. Barclay’s!’ she exclaimed. ‘I told him

how urgent it was.’

‘_What?_’ exclaimed the Inspector, turning in his chair.

Then, seeing how she had incriminated herself, she had plunged into

explanations. The door had been ajar--she had been unable to help

hearing what Mrs. Stirk had said on the day when he had written to Miss

Raeburn--the words had _forced_ themselves on her. It was not her fault.

She had never moved from where he had left her sitting at the

breakfast-table.

Somerville looked squarely at his wife. The door had not been ajar, for

he had fastened it carefully, as he always did before hearing private

business. He remembered doing so, perfectly.

‘It was not ajar,’ he said, in a voice she had rarely heard; ‘it was

shut. And it is impossible to hear between the two rooms.’

‘I always did hate that old woman!’ cried Mrs. Somerville, her face in

a flame, ‘and why you ever let her into the house I never did know! I’m

sure if Lucilla were here she would take my part. And now to be accused

of----’

‘What have I accused you of?’ asked her husband. ‘I have not accused

you yet. But I will. I accuse you of telling that hound, Barclay, what

you heard, and, if I sit here till to-morrow, I will have every word

you have betrayed.’

Piece by piece he dragged from her her treachery; evasions, tears,

lies, he waded through them all. Furious and frightened, what

confidences of Barclay’s she had, she divulged also. At the end he had

risen painfully and left the room.

The sailor was a hot-headed, hot-hearted man. He had no proof against

the lawyer and he knew it; but he believed him capable of anything and

was prepared to maintain his belief.

‘You may tell Barclay,’ he said, as he paused at the door, ‘that I have

no proof against him but my own conviction. If he can prove me wrong I

will apologize humbly--publicly, if he pleases. But, until that day, if

he ventures to enter my house while I can stand, I will turn him out of

it with my cane.’

When Granny Stirk had done a few matters of business in Kaims, she went

down the side-street to the back premises of the Black Horse. Before

her, a figure battled with the wind that rushed down the tunnel of

houses, and, as he turned into the yard gate, she saw that this person

was none other than Barclay. He went in without observing her, and

called to a man who was idling among the few vehicles which stood empty

about the place. She continued her way round the outside wall to the

spot where she had left Rob Roy, and untied the rope by which he was

tethered. Above, a large hole in the stonework let out a strong stable

smell from the row of dark stalls built against its inner face. The

occasional movement of horses mixed with the voices of two people who

were walking along the line of animals together.

‘Yon’s them,’ said one of the unseen individuals, as a scraping of

boots on the flags suggested that the pair had come to a standstill

under the aperture.

‘Now, how many are there exactly?’ inquired the voice of Barclay.

‘That’ll be sax frae the Crown an’ four frae the Boniton Arms--they’ve

just got the four in now. Them’s the twa grays at the end; an’ other

twa’s up yonder, the brown, an’ yon brute wi’ the rat-tail.’

‘Are you quite certain that these are all that can be had? Mind you, I

want every single beast secured that is for hire in Blackport.’

His companion made a small, semi-contemptuous sound.

‘That michtna be sae easy,’ he replied. ‘Whiles there may be a naig I

dinna ken i’ the toun--what are ye wantin’ wi’ sic a lot, sir?’

His tone implied more of the practical than the inquisitive, but the

lawyer cut him short.

‘That’s my affair,’ he replied. ‘My order is plain enough, surely. I

want every horse that is for hire in the town secured and brought

here--_every horse_, mind you. And by eight o’clock to-night they must

be out of Blackport--here, that is.’

The trace which Granny was hooking slipped through her fingers, and she

stood, open-mouthed, while the footsteps of the speakers died away. It

did not take her a moment to draw the right inference; if the lawyer

had mentioned Fordyce’s name she might not have understood so easily

what was going forward; but he had spoken as though the order had

emanated from himself, and Granny, on the other side of the wall, had a

burning lamp of wrath in her soul which illuminated his deed.

It was almost half-past five, and, in less than three hours, Gilbert

would arrive at Blackport to find that there was no available means of

getting further. She knew him well enough to be sure he would start on

foot, if need be, so soon as he should learn from Jimmy of what was to

happen on the morrow; but, meanwhile, here was Rob Roy, at the end of

the reins she held, and what belonged to the Stirk family belonged also

to the Laird of Whanland so long as she had breath to say so. She got

into her place and drove carefully out of the narrow gate into the

street. It was scarcely time for the light to fail, but the sky was

dark with rain-cloud and the weather rolling in from a wild sea that

was booming up the coast. She cared for none of these things; inland,

eight miles off, lay Blackport, and, in less than an hour, she would be

there with a horse.

Where the side-street met the High Street, an archway joined the inn

buildings to the opposite houses, and, under it, she observed Barclay

taking shelter from the sudden squall of rain which had come up in the

last few minutes. Beneath its further end, across the way, stood two

loafers, one of whom she recognised as a cadger whose cart was now

unharnessed in the yard. Though his days in the trade had begun long

after her own had ended she knew something about him; principally, that

rumour connected him with a Blackport poaching gang which had been

active in the preceding year. He looked at her as she approached and

sent an obscene word to meet her, but she neither heard nor heeded, for

her attention was set on the lawyer whom she was about to pass.

‘Where are you bound for?’ called Barclay.

Her eyes flamed.

‘Ah! ye deevil!’ she cried, ‘a’ heard ye! Look! Here’s a horse that’ll

be in Blackport the nicht!’

Before she was through the arch Barclay realized that she must have

been near him in the yard. By what chance she had understood his

business there he knew not--had not time to guess. He turned livid.

‘Stop her!’ he shouted to the two men as he made a futile dash after

the cart.

The cadger on the opposite pavement sprang forward.

‘Go on!’ roared the lawyer, ‘go on, man! Stop her! Stop her!’

Granny struck Rob Roy sharply and he plunged into his collar. The

cadger sprang at his head, but the horse swerved, and his hand fell on

the rein just behind the rings of the pad. There was a curse and a

rattle; like a snake the whip-thong curled in the air and came down

across his face, with a hissing cut that Barclay could hear where he

stood, and, as the man fell back, his hands to his eyes, the gallant

old woman swung out into the middle of the street.

‘Go on! Go after her! Five pounds if you can stop her! Ten!’ yelled

Barclay.

‘Awa’ ye go and get yer cairt!’ cried the friend who had been standing

with the cadger.

At the mention of money the man took his hands from his face; a red

wale lay across it and the water poured from his eyes.

‘He’s got a cairt yonder i’ the yaird!’ cried the friend again.

‘Quick then!’ shouted Barclay, seizing him. ‘If you stop that hell-cat

getting to Blackport to-night you shall get ten pounds and I’ll see you

come to no harm. Run!’

At this moment Granny, going at a smart trot, turned to look back, for

she was not yet out of sight; she saw the cadger pushed towards the inn

by Barclay, she saw him run back under the arch, and she understood.

She sat down in her place, her heel against the footboard, and let the

lash float out on Rob Roy’s shoulder. She knew the value of a good

start.

Showers of mud flew behind her as the little horse’s hoofs smote the

earth in the fast, steady trot to which she kept him. The east wind

almost hurled her out of her seat as she passed the fringe of the town,

for she was going north, and it came in from the sea, not half a mile

off, with a violence that blew Rob Roy’s mane stiffly out from his

neck. At the further side of Kaims flowed the South Lour, making a

large tidal lake west of it; along the north side of this estuary the

Blackport road ran, straight, but for certain indecisive bends;

practically level for eight miles. As she turned along it and found the

blast at her back she increased her pace. Not far in front the way

dipped, and a sluggish stream which drained the fields on her right

hand ran under a low, stone bridge into the marsh which edged the

‘Basin of Kaims,’ as the semi-salt lake was called. The wind had

whipped the water into small waves, for it was high tide and the swirl

almost invaded her path; a couple of gulls, tilted sideways on

outspread wings, were driven over her head. The sound of the crawling

water was drowned in the gale which was growing steadily. She pressed

on, the horse well in hand, till she reached the summit of the rise

half a mile ahead and pulled up for a moment in the shelter of a broken

wall. Turning, she strained her eyes into the dusk, and, remote from

the undercurrent of the water’s voice, on the following wind there came

to her the distant beat of hoofs.

She was old, her body’s strength was on the wane, but the fire of her

spirit was untouched, as it would be until Death’s hand, which alone

could destroy it, should find her out. Though she knew herself face to

face with a task which needed more than the force she could bring to

it, though her body was cold in the rain and the hands which steered

her were aching, her heart leaped in her as she pulled Rob Roy together

and cried to him in the wind. The Queen of the Cadgers was on the road

again.

O faithful hands that have wrought here; that have held sword, or

plough or helm! O fighters, with souls rising to the heavy odds, nerves

steadying to the shock whose force you dare, unrecking of its weight!

What will you do in the Eternity when there will be no cause to fight

for, no Goliath of Gath, twice your size, to sally forth against with

sling and stone? In that Paradise that we are promised, where will be

your place? We cannot tell. But, if there be a just God who made your

high hearts, He will answer the question whose solution is not for us.

The next three miles were almost level and she drove on steadily; she

had seen her pursuer’s nag in the Black Horse yard, a hairy-heeled bay

with a white nose who looked as if he had already travelled some

distance. Rob Roy had been little out of late and the cart was empty;

indeed, it was light enough to be a precarious seat for a woman of her

age. By the time she had done half her journey it had become dark

enough to make caution necessary, for few country travellers carried

lights in those days, and she was on the highroad which took an

eastward sweep to the coast between Perth and Aberdeen. She stopped

once more to listen and give Rob Roy his wind; for the last half mile

they had come up a gradual ascent whose length made up for its gentle

slope. He did not seem distressed and the gale had helped him, for it

was almost strong enough behind him to blow the cart forward without

his efforts.

On again, this time a little faster; the solid blackness of the fields

slid by and she passed a clump of trees, creaking and swaying over a

patch of light which she knew to be a mill-pond. Three miles more, and

she might climb down from her place to rest her stiffened limbs, before

the Laird should be due and she should go to the door of the Crown to

wait for his coming. She almost wondered whether it were her

imagination which had seen the cadger run back at Barclay’s

instigation, whether she had dreamed of the horse’s feet pursuing her

near the Basin of Kaims. She let Rob Roy walk.

Her hair was blowing over her face and she pushed back her soaking

plaid to twist it behind her ears. In a momentary lull, a clatter of

hoofs broke upon her and voices answered each other, shouting. Either

her enemy was behind with some companion of his own kidney, or there

were others abroad to-night with whom time was precious; she could hear

the wheels grind on a newly-mended piece of road she had crossed. A

cottage, passed in blind darkness, suddenly showed a lamp across the

way, and, as the driver behind her crossed the glaring stream which it

laid over his path, she saw the hairy-heeled bay’s white nose swing

into the strong light to be swallowed again by the dark. She took up

her whip.

Hitherto, she had saved her horse, but, now that there were only three

miles to be covered, she would not spare for pace. How the white-nosed

beast had crept so close she could not imagine, until it occurred to

her that the evil short-cut taken by herself on a memorable occasion,

years ago, must have served his driver too. She laid the whip

remorselessly on Rob Roy.

Fortunately for her aching bones, the road improved with its proximity

to the town, or she could scarce have kept her seat. As it was, she

could not see the stones and irregularities in her way and it might

well be that some sudden jerk would hurl her headlong into the gaping

dark. But she dared not slacken speed; she must elude her pursuer

before reaching the first outlying houses, for, were her haven in

Blackport discovered, she knew not what foul play he might set afoot.

She resolved that she would not leave Rob Roy until he was in Gilbert’s

hands, could she but get the cart into the tumbledown premises of the

friend whom she trusted, and for whose little backyard behind River

Street she determined to make. Blackport was a low place, and her

friend, who kept a small provision-shop, was a widow living alone.

Suppose she should be discovered! Suppose, after all, she should fail!

What Barclay had said to the cadger whose wheels she could now hear

racing behind she did not know, but his action in securing the

post-horses and in sending such a character after her showed that he

was prepared to go to most lengths to frustrate Speid. She had known of

men who lamed horses when it suited them; the thought of what might

happen made her set her teeth. She remembered that there was a long

knife inside the cart, used by her grandson for cleaning and cutting up

fish; if she could reach her destination it should not leave her hand;

and, while Rob Roy had a rest and a mouthful in the hour or two she

might have to wait for Gilbert, her friend should run to the Crown and

tell Jimmy where she was to be found. With a pang she renounced the joy

of meeting the Laird; her place would be behind the locked door with

her horse.

Past hedge and field they went, by gates and stone-heaps. Her head was

whirling and she was growing exhausted. She could no more hear the

wheels behind for the roaring of the wind and the rattle of her own

cart. She had never driven behind Rob Roy on any errand but a slow one

and it was long years since she had been supreme on the road; but old

practice told her that it would take a better than the hairy-heeled bay

to have lived with them for the last two miles. A crooked tree that

stood over the first milestone out of Blackport was far behind them and

the gable end of the turnpike cottage cut the sky not twenty yards

ahead.

She had forgotten the toll, and, for one moment, her stout heart

failed. But for one moment only; for the gate stood open. She could

faintly distinguish the white bars thrust back. A lantern was moving

slowly towards them; probably some vehicle had just gone by, and the

toll-keeper was about to close them. With a frantic effort, she leaned

forward and brought the whip down with all her strength on Rob Roy’s

straining back. Their rush carried them between the posts, just before

the lantern-bearer, from whom the wind’s noise had concealed their

approach, had time to slam the gate, shouting, behind them.

In a couple of minutes her pursuer drove up, to find the swearing

toll-keeper threatening him and all his kind from behind the closed

bars. In half an hour Rob Roy stood in a rough shed, while the owner of

it was hurrying through the wet streets to the Crown with a message to

Jimmy. Inside its locked door, leaning her aching back against the

wall, sat the Queen of the Cadgers, fierce, worn, vigilant; with a long

knife across her knee.

And Gilbert, his eyes on the wind-tormented sky, lay fuming in the

shelter of the disabled coach in the heart of Monrummon Moor.

CHAPTER XXX

MORPHIE KIRK

WHEN the morning of the seventh of April broke over Speid and his

companions, they lashed the damaged pole together with a coil of rope

and harnessed the wheelers. Progress was possible, though at a very

slow pace, and they started again, the guard and outside passengers

walking; from the coach’s interior, which cradled the slumbers of the

Glasgow merchant, there came no sound.

It was past eight when they crossed the South Lour where the river

curls round Blackport before plunging into the Basin of Kaims on its

seaward course; it was almost nine when Gilbert saw Jimmy Stirk’s

anxious face at the door of the Crown.

‘Eh, Laird! but a’m feared ye’re ower late!’ was the boy’s exclamation,

as they clasped hands.

‘Come! Come in here,’ said Gilbert, dragging him into a room near the

doorway.

There, in a voice lowered by reason of the slattern who was on her

knees with soap and pail, Jimmy gave him the history of the last three

days, from his grandmother’s receipt of his letter to her hurried

message of last night.

‘She’s waitin’ ye now in River Street,’ he concluded.

Without further ado they went out of the house together.

What would be the upshot of the next two hours Speid did not know and

did not dare to think. Cecilia’s freedom would pass with their passing.

Captain Somerville had said in his letter that he was writing to tell

her he had summoned him, and his heart stood still as he reflected

that, in the face of this, she had hastened her marriage by three days.

He was puzzled, dismayed, for he could not guess the full depth of

Barclay’s guilt, and the boy beside him knew no more from his

grandmother’s message than that the lawyer had cleared Blackport of all

available horses. To appear before a woman who had forgotten him on her

wedding morning, only to see her give her willing hand to another

man--was that what he had come across Europe to do? His proud heart

sickened.

Seeing that the night had passed unmolested, Granny Stirk had fallen at

daylight into an exhausted sleep; it needed Jimmy’s thunder upon the

door to awake her to the fact that Gilbert stood without. She turned

the key quickly.

‘Whanland! Whanland!’ was all that she could say as he entered.

Her face was haggard with watching and exertion.

‘Oh, Granny!’ he cried. ‘You have almost killed yourself for me!’

‘Aye, but a’m no deid yet!’ exclaimed the old woman. ‘Eh, Laird! but

it’s fine to see ye. A’m sweer to let ye gang, but ye canna loss a

minute.’

Jimmy was harnessing Rob Roy.

‘But, Granny, what does this mean? She has hurried her wedding, though

Captain Somerville told her I would come. What can I do, knowing that?’

‘Do? Ye’ll just hae to rin. Laird, she doesna ken onything. Yon tod--yon

damned, leein’ Barclay--he got a haud o’ the letter. The Captain tell’t

me that himsel’. Ye’ll need to drive.’

‘Good God!’ cried Speid.

The sight of her worn face and the knowledge of what she had done for

him smote Gilbert hard. Though time pressed he would not consent to

start till he had taken her to the Crown and left her in the landlady’s

care, with an order for fire, food and dry clothing. Then he tore out

of the door and down the street to the spot where Jimmy awaited him

with the cart. The boy’s brown, hard face cheered him, for it seemed

the very incarnation of the country he loved.

The world which lay round them as they drove out of Blackport was a new

one, fresh, chastened by the scourging of the storm. The sky was high,

blue and pale, and there was a scent of spring; underfoot, the wet

ground glistened and the young finger of morning light touched trees

and buildings as they rose from an under-world of mist.

When we look on the dying glory of evening, and again, on the spectacle

of coming day, do we not regard these sights, so alike in colour and in

mystery, with an indefinable difference of feeling? The reason is that

sunset reminds us of Time and sunrise of Eternity.

Though sunrise was long past, the remembrance of it was still abroad,

and a sense of conflict ended breathed over the ground strewn with

broken boughs, wreckage of the night. Gilbert, as he sat by his

companion and felt his heart outrunning their progress, could find no

share in this suggestion. All cried to him of peace when there was no

peace; effort was before him, possibly failure.

He knew that, though Cecilia was to be married from Fullarton, the

actual wedding would take place at Morphie, according to her own

desire. Somerville had told him so. It was now half-past nine and Jimmy

was pressing Rob Roy to his utmost, for Fullarton was the further of

the two places, some seven miles north of Kaims, and the horse would

have to put his best work into the collar were Speid to arrive in time

to see the bride before she started for the kirk.

The high hope and determination in which Gilbert had left Spain had

changed to a foreboding that, after all, he might find fate too strong;

but, though this fear lay, like a shadow, over him, he would not turn

from his wild errand. Till the ring was on Cecilia’s finger and she had

agreed in the face of minister and congregation to take Crauford

Fordyce as her husband, he meant to persevere. He smiled gloomily at

himself, sitting travel-stained and muddy, on the front of a springless

cart, with what was more to him than his life depending on the speed of

a cadger’s horse.

Among the crowd of relations, acquaintances, and companions alongside

of which a man begins life, Time and Trouble, like a pair of

witch-doctors, are busy with their rites and dances and magic sticks

selecting his friends; and often the identity of the little handful

they drag from the throng is a surprise. For Gilbert they had secured a

wooden-legged naval captain, a sullen young cadger, and a retired

fishwife with gold earrings. As he watched the ground fly past the

wheels, he recognised that the dreadful functionaries had gone far to

justify their existence by the choice they had made.

There were dark marks under pad and breeching, for the sun was growing

strong, and, though Jimmy held his horse together and used such

persuasive address as he had never been known to waste upon a human

being, he was now beginning to have recourse to the whip. Speid

realized that their pace was gradually flagging. By the time they had

done half the journey and could see, from a swelling rise, down over

the Morphie woods, it was borne in on him that Rob Roy’s step was

growing short. He made brave efforts to answer to the lash, but they

did not last, and the sweat had begun to run round his drooping ears.

The two friends looked at each other.

‘Ma’ grannie had a sair drive last nicht,’ said Jimmy.

‘Pull up for a moment and face him to the wind,’ cried Speid, jumping

down.

With handfuls of rush torn from a ditch they rubbed him down, neck,

loins, and legs, and turned his head to what breeze was moving. His

eyes stared, and, though he was close to the green fringe of grass

which bordered the roadside, he made no attempt to pick at it.

The hands of Gilbert’s watch had put ten o’clock behind them as he

looked over the far stretch to Morphie and Fullarton. Jimmy, whose

light eyes rested in dogged concern on the horse’s heaving sides, put

his shoulder under the shaft to ease off the weight of the cart. Away

beyond, on the further edge of the wood, was the kirk; even now, the

doors were probably being opened and the seats dusted for the coming

marriage.

Speid stood summing up his chances, his eyes on the spreading

landscape; he was attempting an impossibility in trying to reach

Fullarton.

‘There is no use in pushing on to Fullarton,’ he said, laying his hand

on Rob Roy’s mane, ‘we shall only break his heart, poor little brute. I

am going to leave you here and get across country to the kirk on my own

feet. Here is some money--go to the nearest farm and rest him; feed him

when he’ll eat, and come on to Whanland when you can. Whatever may

happen this morning, I shall be there in the afternoon.’

The boy nodded, measuring the miles silently that lay between them and

the distant kirk. It would be a race, he considered, but it would take

a deal to beat the Laird of Whanland.

‘Brides is aye late,’ he remarked briefly.

‘Who told you that?’ asked Gilbert, as he pulled off his overcoat and

threw it into the cart.

‘Ma’ Grannie.’

Speid vaulted over the low wall beside them and began to descend the

slope. Half-way down it he heard Jimmy’s voice crying luck to him and

saw his cap lifted in the air.

The rain of the previous day and night had made the ground heavy, and

he soon found that the remaining time would just serve him and no more.

He ran on at a steady pace, taking a straight line to the edge of the

woods; most of the fields were divided by stone dykes and those

obstacles gave him no trouble. Sometimes he slipped in wet places; once

or twice he was hailed by a labourer who stopped in his work to watch

the gentleman original enough to race over the open landscape for no

apparent reason. But he took no heed, plodding on.

When he came to where the corner of the woods protruded, a dark

triangle, into the pasture land, he struck across it. The rain had made

the pines aromatic, and the strong, clean smell refreshed him as he

went over the elastic bed of pine-needles strewn underfoot. The

undignified white bobtails of rabbits disappeared, right and left,

among the stems at his approach, and once, a roe-deer fled in leaps

into the labyrinth of trunks.

Before emerging again into the open he paused to rest and look at his

watch; walking and running, he had come well and more quickly than he

had supposed; he thanked heaven for the sound body which he had never

allowed idleness to make inactive. It wanted twenty-five minutes of

eleven, and he had covered a couple of miles in the quarter of an hour

since he had left Jimmy. He judged himself a little under two more from

Morphie kirk. The boy’s unexpected knowledge of the habits of brides

had amused him, even in his hurry, and he devoutly hoped it might prove

true.

Standing under the firs and pines, he realized the demand he was about

to make of this particular bride. He wondered if there were a woman in

the world bold enough to do what he was going to ask Cecilia to do for

him. He was going to stand up before her friends, before the bridegroom

and his relations, the guests and the onlookers, and ask her to leave

the man to whom she had promised herself for a lover she had not seen

for nearly two years; one who had not so much as an honest name to give

her. Would she do it? He reflected, with a sigh, that Jimmy’s knowledge

would scarce tell him that. But, at the same time, loving her as he

loved her, and knowing her as he knew her, he hoped.

He was off again, leaping out over a ditch circling the skirts of the

wood; he meant to follow the outline of the trees till he should come

to a track which he knew would lead him down to where the kirk stood

under a sloping bank. Many a time he had looked, from the further side

of the Lour, at the homely building with its stone belfry. It had no

beauty but that of plainness and would not have attracted anyone whose

motives in regarding it were quite simple. But, for him, it had been

enchanted, as common places are enchanted but a few times in our lives;

and now, he was to face the turning-point of his existence in its

shadow.

This run across country was the last stage of a journey begun in Spain

nearly a month since. It had come down to such a fine measurement of

time as would have made him wonder, had he been capable of any

sensation but the breathless desire to get forward. His hair was damp

upon his forehead and his clothes splashed with mud as he struck into

the foot-track leading from the higher ground to the kirk. The way went

through a thicket of brier and whin, and, from its further side, came

the voices and the rough East-coast accent of men and women; he

supposed that a certain crowd had gathered to see the bride arrive and

he knew that he was in time.

It was less than ten minutes to eleven when the assembled spectators

saw a tall man emerge from the scrub and take up his position by the

kirk door. Many recognised him and wondered, but no Whanland people

were present, and no one accosted him. He leaned a few minutes against

the wall; then, when he had recovered breath, he walked round the

building and looked in at a window. Inside, the few guests were seated,

among them Barclay, his frilled shirt making a violent spot of white in

the gloom of the kirk. Not far from him, his back to the light, was

Crauford Fordyce, stiff and immaculate in his satin stock and claret

colour; unconscious of the man who stood, not ten yards from him, at

the other side of the wall. It was evident from their bearing that, by

this hour, the minds of the allies were at rest. Gilbert returned to

the door and stood quietly by the threshold; there was an irony in the

situation which appealed to him.

While he had raced across the country, Cecilia, in her room at

Fullarton, was putting on her wedding-gown. Agneta, who looked upon her

future sister-in-law as a kind of illustrated hand-book to life, had

come to help her to fasten her veil. One of the housemaids, a

scarlet-headed wench who loved Cecilia dearly and whose face was

swollen with tears shed for her departure, stood by with a tray full of

pins.

‘You had better not wait, really, Jessie,’ said the bride in front of

the glass, ‘I am so afraid the rest of the servants will start without

you. Miss Fordyce will help me, I am sure. Give me my wreath and go

quickly.’

The servant took up her hand and kissed it loudly; then set the wreath

askew on her hair and went out, a blubbering whirl of emotion.

‘She has been a kind, good girl to me,’ said Cecilia.

‘Your hand is all wet!’ exclaimed Agneta, to whom such a scene was

astonishing.

Mary and Agneta inhabited a room together and many midnight

conversations had flowed from their bed-curtains in the last few

nights. Agneta had gone completely over to the enemy, but her sister,

who, though gentler in character, was less able to free herself from

the traditions in which she had been brought up, hung back, terrified,

from an opinion formed alone. Outwardly, she was abrupt, and Cecilia

and she had made small progress in their acquaintance.

Robert Fullarton and his brother-in-law were ready and waiting

downstairs and two carriages stood outside on the gravel sweep. Sir

Thomas and his daughters were to go in one of these, and Robert, who

was to give Cecilia away, would accompany her in the other.

Agneta and Mary had started when Cecilia stood alone in front of her

image in the glass; she held up her veil and looked into the reflected

face. It was the last time she would see Cecilia Raeburn, and, with a

kind of curiosity, she regarded the outer shell of the woman, who, it

seemed to her, had no identity left. The Cecilia who had grown up at

Morphie was dead; as dead as that companion with whom she had shared

the old house. Between the parted friends there was this momentous

difference: while one was at rest, the other had still to carry that

picture in the mirror as bravely as she could through the world, till

the long day’s work should roll by and the two should meet. She thought

of that dark morning at Morphie and of her aunt’s dying face against

Fullarton’s shoulder, and told herself that, were the moment to return,

she would not do differently. She was glad to remember that, had

Gilbert Speid come back, he would have cast no shadow between them; the

knowledge seemed to consecrate the gleam of happiness she had known

with him so briefly. But it was hard that, when the path by which they

might have reached each other had been smoothed at so terrible a cost,

the way had been empty. She was thinking of the time when two pairs of

eyes had met in a looking-glass and she had plastered his cut cheek in

the candlelight. After to-day, she must put such remembrances from her.

She dropped her veil and turned away, for Fullarton’s voice was calling

to her to come down.

While she sat beside him in the carriage, looking out, her hands were

pressed together in her lap. The rain-washed world was so beautiful,

and, between the woods touched with spring, the North Lour ran full.

The lights lying on field and hill seemed to smile. As they passed

Morphie House she kept her face turned from it; she could not trifle

with her strength. She was thankful that they would not be near the

coast where she could hear the sea-sound.

As the carriage turned from the highroad into a smaller one leading up

to the kirk, Captain Somerville’s hooded phaeton approached from Kaims

and dropped behind, following. The sailor, who sat in the front seat by

the driver, was alone, and Cecilia’s eyes met his as they drew near.

She leaned forward, smiling; it did her good to see him. Mrs.

Somerville had declined to appear; she was not well enough to go out,

she said, and it seemed, to look at her face, as though this reason

were a good one. She had scarcely slept and her eyes were red with

angry weeping. Since the preceding morning, when the Inspector had

discovered what part she had played, the two had not spoken and she

felt herself unable to face Barclay in his presence. After the wedding

the men must inevitably meet; she could not imagine what her husband

might do or say, or what would happen when the lawyer should discover

that she had betrayed him. She retired to the sanctuary of her bedroom

and sent a message downstairs at the last moment, desiring the Captain

to make her excuses to Miss Raeburn and tell her that she had too bad a

cold to be able to leave the house.

The sailor’s heart was heavy as he went and the glimpse of Cecilia

which he had caught made it no lighter. He had tried to save her and

failed. All yesterday, since his dreadful discovery, he had debated

whether or no he ought to go to Fullarton, see her, and tell her that

he had tried to bring Gilbert home; that he would, in all probability,

arrive a few hours before her marriage. He turned the question over and

over in his mind. The conclusion he came to was that, things having

gone so far, he had better hold his peace. She _could_ not draw back

now, and, being forced to go on, the knowledge that her lover would

have been in time, had she not hastened her marriage, might haunt her

all her life. If Speid arrived at the hour he was expected he would

hear from Jimmy Stirk of the wedding. Should he be determined to act,

he would do so without his--Somerville’s--intervention; and, should he

see fit to accept what now seemed the inevitable, he would, no doubt,

have the sense to leave Whanland quietly. He would go there himself, on

his return from Morphie Kirk, in the hope of finding him and inducing

him to start before anyone should see him, and before Cecilia should

learn how near to her he had been. It might well be that she would

never know it, for she was to leave Fullarton, with her husband, at two

o’clock, for Perth. They were to go south immediately.

The sailor was not sure whether he was relieved or disappointed to

find that, apparently, Speid had made no sign. Cecilia was there to

play her part; no doubt, like many another, she would come to play it

contentedly. With all his heart he pitied Gilbert. Meanwhile, as the

carriages neared their destination, he could see the evergreen arch

which some Morphie labourers had put up over the entrance at which the

bride would alight.

The kirk could not be seen from the gate of the enclosure in which it

stood, for the path took a turn round some thick bushes. A low dyke of

unpointed stone girdled it and kept at bay the broom and whins clothing

the hillock. When his phaeton stopped, Somerville got out, and was in

time to greet the bride as Fullarton handed her out of the carriage; he

did not fail to notice the tremor of the fingers he touched. He went on

and slipped into a group of bystanders surrounding the door without

observing the figure which stood near the kirk wall, a little apart.

A movement went through the group as Fullarton appeared by the tall

bushes leading Cecilia. While they advanced a man walked forward and

stood in the way; a man with splashed clothes and high boots, brown

with the soil; the wet hair was dark upon his forehead and his eyes

looked straight before him to where the bride came, brave and pale,

under her green wreath. She saw him and stopped. Her hand slipped from

Fullarton’s arm.

Unheeding Robert’s exclamation, he sprang towards her, his eyes

burning.

‘Cecilia,’ he said, almost under his breath, ‘am I too late?’

The slight commotion caused by this unexpected incident had brought

Barclay to the doorway; Crauford’s face could be seen behind his

shoulder.

‘Great Heavens! Here’s Speid!’ exclaimed the lawyer, seizing his

friend.

Fordyce moved irresolutely, longing to rush forward, but aware that

custom decreed he should await his bride’s entrance in the kirk; he

scarcely realized the import of what had happened outside its walls

while he stood, unconscious, between them. Barclay ran out to the

little group round which the onlookers were collecting, and he

followed, unable to sacrifice his annoyance to his sense of what was

expected. Not for a moment did he believe that decency could be

outraged by anything more than an interruption. In the background stood

Mary and Agneta, aghast under their pink-rosetted bonnets.

‘May I ask what you have come here for, sir?’ he inquired, approaching

Gilbert.

But Speid’s back was turned, for he was looking at Cecilia.

‘Come!’ cried Fullarton, sternly, ‘come, Cecilia! I cannot permit this.

Stand aside, Mr. Speid, if you please.’

‘Cecilia, what are you going to do?’ urged Gilbert, standing before

her, as though he would bar her progress to the kirk door. ‘I have come

back for you.’

She looked round and saw the steady eyes of Captain Somerville fixed

upon her. He had come close and was at her side, his stout figure drawn

up, his wooden leg planted firmly on the gravel; there was in his

countenance a mighty loyalty.

‘Gilbert,’ she exclaimed, with a sob in her voice, ‘thank God you have

come.’ Then she faced the bridegroom. ‘I cannot go on with this, Mr.

Fordyce,’ she said.

‘But it is too late!’ cried Robert. ‘There shall be no more of this

trifling. You are engaged to my nephew and you must fulfil your

engagement. I am here to see that you do.’

‘I will not,’ she replied.--‘Forgive me, sir--forgive me, I beg of you!

I know that I have no right to ask you to stand by me.’

‘I shall not do so, certainly,’ exclaimed Robert, angrily.

She glanced round, desperate. Captain Somerville was holding out his

arm.

‘My phaeton is outside, Miss Raeburn,’ he said, ‘and you will do me the

favour to come home with me. Speid,’ he added, ‘am I doing right?’

But Gilbert could scarcely answer. A great glory had dawned in his

face.

EPILOGUE

HERE, so far as the author’s choice is concerned, this history closes.

The man and woman, forced apart by powers greater than themselves, have

come to their own again and stand at the portal of a new life, at the

door of a structure built from the wreck of bygone things. Those who

have watched them may augur for themselves what the future is like to

be for them, and shut the book, assured that the record of these two,

for whom life held so much more than they could see with their eyes and

touch with their hands, will not fall below its mark.

But, to that vast and ingenuous multitude which has taste for the

dotted ‘i’ and the crossed ‘t,’ there remains yet a word to be added.

Cecilia stayed under Captain Somerville’s roof while the disturbing

events round her quieted themselves, and while Gilbert, who received a

challenge from Fordyce, settled the score. Even she scarcely felt

anxious, as she awaited the result of their meeting, for Speid chose

the sword as a weapon and had assured her he would deal as tenderly

with Crauford as though he were a new-born babe. This he proceeded to

do, so long as it amused him, after which he scratched him deftly on

the inside of the wrist and the seconds, who could scarce restrain

their smiles, agreed that honour was satisfied.

And so the jasmine-trees were planted at Whanland, the ideal horse

bought; the necklace with the emerald drop found the resting-place

Gilbert had desired for it. Granny Stirk, accompanied by Jimmy, went to

the second wedding which was attempted in Morphie Kirk, and which,

this time, was celebrated without interruption; she drove there in a

carriage, and the bridegroom, who was standing by the pulpit as she

arrived, left his place and conducted her on his arm to a seat near the

Miss Robertsons.

Crauford married Lady Maria Milwright, who therefore thought herself

exalted among women, and was, in reality, much too good for him.

Barclay constantly frequented his roof, making Lady Maria very happy by

his expressed admiration of her husband; he might have boasted of the

intimacy to the end of his life had he not covertly courted Agneta and

been taken in the act by Lady Fordyce. Family dignity expelled the

offender and the only person who was sorry for him was kind Lady Maria,

who rose at an unconscionable hour to preside over his breakfast before

he departed, forever, amid shame and luggage.

Agneta eloped with an English clergyman and ended her days as a

bishop’s wife, too much occupied with her position to have a thought

for that palpitating world of romance and desperation upon which she

had once cast such covetous eyes.

On the death of Captain Somerville, a few years later, the lawyer took

to himself his widow, who had contrived, by much lying and some luck,

to conceal from him her part in the betrayal of his schemes. She looked

as much out of the window and dispensed as much hospitality under her

new name and never failed to disparage Mrs. Speid of Whanland, whenever

that much-admired lady appeared either in the street or the

conversation. These were the only places in which she met her, for her

husband had long ceased to be connected, either by business or

acquaintance, with the family.

THE END

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE SHEEP-STEALERS

In one Vol. Crown 8vo. Price 6s.

Some Press Opinions

The Times: ‘Every taster of fiction knows that the most probable of the

possibilities hidden between the covers of a first novel is

disappointment. Hence the danger of hailing the occasional exception as

the achievement of genius. And yet it is possible to be grateful for a

piece of good work without comparing its creator to the giants of the

past, or prating about the finest novel of the century. Of “The

Sheep-stealers” it will be sufficient to say that it is a good piece of

work. The book is so well planned that every incident fits naturally

into its place, and helps to form a harmonious and inevitable whole.

Miss Jacob possesses a strong power of realistic description; her pen

has a life-giving knack of rendering sounds as well as scenes, and she

is not without touches of dry humour.’

Punch: ‘“The Sheep-stealers” breaks fresh ground, and Violet Jacob

tills it with exceeding vigour and success. The work is admirably done,

adding fresh zest to the palled appetite of the wayworn novel reader.’

The Spectator: ‘The emergence of a book so fresh, so original, and so

wholesome as “The Sheep-stealers” is peculiarly welcome at a time when

we are bidden to believe that all normal and native themes are

exhausted. We have been surfeited of late with the novel of “smart”

society. As an alternative to these lavishly upholstered chronicles of

corruption in high life we can cordially recommend Miss Jacob’s

powerful and engrossing romance of Herefordshire and Brecknock in the

early “forties.” It deserves to rank along with “The House with the

Green Shutters” in the limited category of those tales of the

countryside in which there is nothing provincial, particularist, or

parochial. Like all stories that deal faithfully with rural life in a

remote and unfrequented neighbourhood, it is somewhat sombre in tone;

but it is free from the crushing pessimism of the novels of Mr. Hardy,

the writer to whom on his best and most poetic side Miss Jacob is most

closely related. The portraiture of the principal characters is quite

in keeping with the remote, unsophisticated surroundings. All are

intensely and primitively human in their passions and virtues. We have

seldom read a book in which a lowly theme was treated with a happier

mixture of romance and realism. Indeed, few novelists of recent years

have set themselves so high a standard in their initial effort as Miss

Jacob, whose work is singularly free from the faults of a novice. Her

style is excellent--lucid, natural, unaffected--her energy is under

control; she understands the art of self-effacement, of omission, of

reticence, and she is as successful in dealing with her gentle as with

her simple characters. So remarkable an achievement indicates patient

preparation, and affords an excellent guarantee that the author will

not be beguiled by her immediate success into the adoption of those

methods which degrade creation into manufacture.’

The Scotsman: Miss Jacob has infused into her story some of that rare

topographical and atmospheric charm which is to be found in such books

as Stevenson’s “Catriona” or Hardy’s “Far from the Madding Crowd.” “The

Sheep-stealers” is a delightful book, a story interesting throughout,

well conceived, admirably sustained, and in parts very finely written.’

The St. James’s Gazette: ‘Good work, careful and delicate, with touches

of passion and of humour.’

The Daily Telegraph: ‘The name of the authoress of “The Sheep-stealers”

is unfamiliar, but it will unquestionably be heard of again. If this is

Miss Violet Jacob’s first essay in fiction, she is to be congratulated

most warmly upon a very powerful piece of work. Her characters stand

out clearly and sharply, and the local colour is as vivid as it is in

“Lorna Doone” or “The Return of the Native.” Her originality of theme

and treatment is unmistakable. “The Sheep-stealers” is a very good

novel: it only just misses being a great novel.’

The Field: ‘A close, sympathetic, and thoroughly sensible study of

rural life in the early nineteenth-century days. It is an admirably

constructed story.’

The Morning Post: ‘The author knows her country and its inhabitants by

heart. Neither she nor Mr. Hardy need blush because their relationship

in letters cannot be overlooked. Both the people of the valley and the

hill people who live and love and die in the fascination of the

gigantic hill are creatures of reasonable flesh and blood--creatures as

real as any to be found in the shadow-haunted granges of Wessex.’

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.

Transcriber’s Note

This transcription is based on scans of the Heinemann edition, which

are available through the National Library of Scotland:

https://digital.nls.uk/128693605

The following changes were made to the printed text:

• The advertisement for _The Sheep-Stealers_ has been moved from the

front of the text to the end.

• The footnotes have been moved from the bottom of a page to right after

the paragraph to which they refer.

• Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

• p. 26: The expensive taste was hers table--Changed “hers table” to

“her stable”.

• p. 63: continued Jimmy; ’twas i’ the airm, too.--Inserted an opening

single quotation mark before “’twas”.

• p. 78: laid it deftly across his cheekbone.--Changed “cheekbone” to

“cheek-bone” for consistency.

• p. 115: ‘How glad I am that I spoke to you about it--Inserted a period

and a closing single quotation mark after “about it”.

• p. 133: I am sorry,’ said Lady Eliza, too much cast down--Inserted an

opening single quotation mark at the beginning of the sentence.

Inconsistencies of spelling and hyphenation were not changed, except

where otherwise noted.