Archie came over the hill, lifting his feet high among the heather. He
had changed in his aspect a little since the old Glasgow days. For one
thing he had changed his tailor, which always makes a great difference.
And three months of the fresh Highland air and outdoor exercise, and
something too of the growing habit of a little authority and command,
and that of having things done for him, of saying to this man, go, and
he goeth, and to another, come, and he cometh, had changed the looks of
Archie. And another more subtle influence had changed him. His brow had
cleared of an overhanging cloud, once too ready to come down at a
moment’s notice. He held his head more erect. It was not perhaps that he
was in reality more sure of himself--but at least he had somehow
acquired the air of being so--and he was of course more accustomed and
at ease in the habits of his new life.
He could not think why he had been called in this way; and did not
indeed recognise Eddy, whose presence here on the top of the moor was
the last thing any one could have expected. Eddy was not fond of long
walks. To stroll down to the beach with his hands in his pocket, and
when he had got there, to sit on a rock and throw stones into the water,
was the hardest exercise he generally indulged in, except a day’s
shooting now and then, when he showed himself, notwithstanding his
indolence, as to the manner born--a thing which Archie could never do.
But how he should have got up here without any motive was a thing which
young Rowland could not understand. “Is it you?” he cried with surprise
when he came near enough to recognise his guest.
“It’s just me--which I perceive is the formula here,” cried Eddy. “I’ve
no right to invite you to sit down, as this is your own place; but I can
recommend that ling bush. It’s dry, and there is no gorse about to prick
into your vitals. Are you in a hurry, or can you wait a bit here.”
“Oh, I am in no hurry,” said Archie. “It’s not easy to be in a hurry
when you’ve got nothing to do.”
“Do you think so? I’m always in a hurry and always late--though I have
nothing to do.”
“I suppose it’s according to a man’s nature,” said Archie.
“Everything is that if you go to the bottom of things. You’re one of the
restless fellows that want to be doing--I don’t. I love idleness,” said
Eddy, stretching himself back over the ling, with his arms extended over
his head and his eyes on the sky. The sky was covered with clouds, yet
there was a break of blue just over Eddy’s head, which he regarded
complacently as if it had been made for his special use.
“I was surprised to see you up so far--it’s a good climb from the loch
side.”
“So it is;” said Eddy, “it was not for want of something to do. So long
as there’s a billiard table handy, thank heaven, you never need be
without occupation. If there’s nobody to have a game with, you can at
least be improving your own play.”
“I did not think of that,” said Archie.
“No, for you don’t appreciate billiards,” cried the other, “which is a
pity, for it’s a fine game. I say, Rowland, when are we to have another
day’s shooting? This ball takes up a lot of time; but I hope you’ll take
me out on the hills at least one day again before I go?”
“When you like,” Archie said shortly.
“Well, that’s curt,” said Eddy with a laugh. “And I always like, don’t
you know. By the way, I’ve got a sort of a--favour to ask you. I don’t
know what you’ll say.”
Archie did not make any reply but looked up, waiting without much
excitement for the demand, whatever it might be.
“Well it’s this,” said Eddy embarrassed, which was almost a new
sensation to him, and gave him a sense of youth and freshness which in
its way was delightful. “I don’t know what you’ll say to me for asking
such a thing. It’s not as if you had your governor out and a lot of big
wigs. A couple of young fellows doesn’t matter.”
Archie kept his face towards his companion with the same look of
indifferent expectation, but he said nothing to help him on.
“It is not even like an invitation to the house; and the ladies probably
will not be coming out again.”
There was faintly indicated on Archie’s countenance a question as to
this latter statement--a sort of interrogating curl in the curve of his
eyebrows; but the young man was chary of his words, and spoke no more
than was indispensable.
“It is getting late in the season you know,” said Eddy, “and cold for
them.”
“They don’t mind the cold,” said Archie.
“Well it’s rather cutting up here, and Mrs. Rowland--isn’t so young as
the girls. However, I’m afraid they didn’t care for my man when he
appeared before. It was bad taste I allow, thrusting himself into the
midst of our party. But I don’t pretend that he’s much in the way of
breeding. He’s a good fellow--enough--and he never had any opportunity
of this sort of thing when he was younger. It’s that man Johnson, don’t
you know. He’s hanging about here. I am always knocking up against him.
He would be awfully pleased if you’d ask him to come with us out
shooting. And I don’t think he’ll do much harm.”
“Oh,” said Archie, “the college man.”
“Yes,” replied Eddy, wincing a little, “the college man.” He had not
minded at all promulgating that fiction to the ladies. It was immense
fun. To do him justice it had been struck off on the spur of the moment,
without any intention; but to say it to Rowland, two fellows on the
hillside, was a different matter. He began to pull up the tenacious
roots of the ling with both hands, struggling with them, and did not
meet Archie’s eyes. Nothing could be more innocent than Archie’s eyes,
which suspected nothing. Archie had scarcely been conscious of Johnson’s
presence at all. He had made no mental remarks as to the breeding or
want of breeding of the stranger. He had no theories about a College
Don. It is doubtful, indeed, whether he had any clear impression as to
what that character was. Eddy added quickly, “He’s a little uncouth.
They don’t see much society, these fellows. I would not mix him up with
the ladies: but he would be awfully pleased--and when it’s only two
young fellows on a moor, you and me--”
“Oh, I have no objections,” said Archie. “Ask him if you like, Saumarez;
it was hardly necessary to take the trouble of asking me.”
“You are an awfully good fellow, Rowland!” said Eddy, struck with a
faint and very temporary sense of shame.
“Oh, if that’s all,” cried Archie with a smile which lighted up his
face. It pleased him that anybody should think so, and still more that
Eddy Saumarez should think so. In the exhilaration of that encouragement
he went a little further, as the simple giver pleased with his own
liberality is so apt to do.
“If there is anything else we can do for him? I’ll tell Roderick to see
that it’s all right. And we can go out any day you like. I’m not such a
hearty sportsman as you. If it wasn’t a kind of duty--but it’s pleasant
when somebody enjoys it,” he said with a glow upon his brightened face.
“I enjoy it--down to the ground,” said Eddy. “It’s not that there’s so
very much game; but then one has it all one’s own way. Nobody poking in
before you, saying, ‘My bird?’ and then a young fellow has to give in.
You’re a lucky dog, Rowland--the cock of the walk so far as the moor
goes, and thought no end of at home.”
“Do you think so?” said Archie, with a sort of painful gratification.
“I’m afraid that’s more than I can believe. I’m a disappointment to my
father, Saumarez. I don’t know what he expected, but he expected
something very different from me.”
“They are always like that,” said Eddy, with the air of an authority.
“They put you in a certain grind, and then they look out for something
quite different. I am just the product of my training; but the Governor
jaws at me as if I were a monster: though if all tales be true, he could
have given me odds, at my worst.”
Eddy spoke with the composed expression of a man whose worst had been
very bad, and who had fathomed all the secrets of life. Archie could not
but look on with a certain respect, though his blameless mind recoiled a
little from this man of knowledge. He had no experiences of his own save
of the most trifling kind, to produce.
“The worst of it all,” said Eddy, “is the money. We have all that’s
nice, you know, in the way of living, and places to go to and so forth,
but never any money in our pockets. I don’t know if the Governor himself
is much better. It all goes on quite smoothly, and I suppose it gets
paid. I don’t know. I never have a penny to bless myself with.”
“Oh, there’s no want here in that way,” said Archie. He took out a card
case from his pocket, and took a piece of paper from it. “Here is
something my father gave me this morning, for extra expenses he said. I
told him I had no extra expenses, but it was no use. And I don’t know
what to do with it,” Archie said; “you can’t buy anything at Rosmore.
I’ll pay it into my bank, which is his bank too, and there it will lie.”
“Good life, Rowland! No use!” cried Eddy, with eager eyes fixed upon the
cheque. He took it out of his companion’s hand, and examined it,
gloating over every line. “One hundred pounds, James Rowland,” he cried.
“I wish I had a few signatures like that. I wish he’d take a few pieces
of paper out of his pocket of this description and offer them to me.”
“I dare say he would,” said Archie, calmly, “if he knew you were in such
great need of them; but you are just romancing on that score.”
“Romancing!” cried Eddy. “I romancing! It shows how little you know. You
can’t think, Rowland, what temptations a young fellow is subjected to.
And then all sorts of harpies about, thirsting for your blood. Before
you know where you are, they’ve got you hard and fast, and after that
you never dare call your soul your own. Why this fellow John----, I mean
a man in London, has got his horrid thumb on me!--Romancing!” cried
Eddy, “I’d give my little finger for a bit of paper like that--and one a
day as long as they lasted for ever and ever.”
To see Archie’s countenance while his companion was speaking was an
experience in its way. He raised himself erect the first minute out of
his habitual lounging and careless attitude. His brow cleared more and
more. He pushed his hat back, revealing it with the heavy ruddy hair,
pushed back too, and standing up in a thick crest: his eyes so often
overcast, or gleaming out in sudden gleams, half-timorous half-defiant,
were bent steadily upon Eddy’s face with something celestial in their
blueness--his mother’s eyes. He had never looked out upon the world so
openly, so free, with so little self-consciousness, since the first day
when his father’s heart had risen at the first look of him in the humble
parlour at Sauchiehall Road; and there was something of a new-developed
soul, something higher, something deeper in that look now.
“Would ye that?” he said, in his native tone and accent. He took up the
paper where Eddy had laid it down, spread out upon the ling for
admiration. “Your little finger would be of no use to me,” he said; “but
if ye want this so much, and I don’t want it at all, take it, Saumarez.
You are very welcome to it, and it’s little use to me.”
Eddy raised his eyes suddenly, with a gleam of eager covetousness, to
the other’s face. They were hazel eyes, with a peculiar reddish gleam,
and flashed out like lanterns on the steadfast blue of Archie’s look.
Then a flush came over his face, and his eyelids, which were full and in
many folds, went over these two lamps like curtains drawn. “Rowland, you
cover me with shame,” he said, in a voice only half audible, trembling
in the air.
“What for?” said Archie: as his countenance brightened, his tone went
back more and more to that obnoxious Glasgow, which his father so
disliked to hear. But though it was Glasgow, there was the very soul of
music in Archie’s voice. It became soft and round and dewy and liquid,
with the qualities of all melting things in one. “What for? when you
want it so much, and me not at all. I have nothing to do with it; and
you----”
“I have a hundred things to do with it,” cried Eddy, “if I could only
tell you!--if you would only understand! But you wouldn’t--an honest
fellow like you, that never had a thought you were ashamed of. Oh, yes,
it’s life or death, that is about what it is! I could perhaps grapple
on, and struggle out. Perhaps--I don’t know if it would be enough----
Oh, I say, Rowland, it’s too great a temptation. Put it away, back in
your pocket. What does it matter what becomes of a wretched fellow like
me!”
There was just enough reality in this struggle against himself to give
to Eddy what was generally absent from his best endeavours--an air of
truth. He did try to work himself up to the point of refusing this
sudden windfall which had dropped into his very hand.
“Well,” said Archie, “don’t give it up for that. I have a little more in
the bank. It is not very much; it’s about fifty pounds more. My father
gives me an allowance. It’s a new thing for me to have all that money,
and I just never spend it. What would I spend it upon here? I got two of
Rankin’s little dogues--but they’re paid for, the little dashed beasts
that have taken to--somebody else--that don’t care a button for me.
Come, take it, lad: and if you’ll come to my room when we get home, I’ll
give ye a cheque for the rest. If it was to buy anything, ye might
demur, and say as well me as you; but when it’s to free you of something
on your mind----”
“I should think it was on my mind,” Eddy said, not looking up at the
other face which beamed benignant upon him. Archie perhaps, was never so
much at ease with himself, so conscious of power and faculty, so
flattered and gratified during his whole life.
“Well--and I have nothing on my mind,” he said with a happy laugh. He
doubled up the cheque and thrust it into Eddy’s hand. “And just come to
my room as soon as you get back--or perhaps----” He paused a little,
wondering, as he had a favour to confer, which was the best way. “I’ll
tell ye what’s the best. I’ll come to yours, and then there will be no
difficulty,” Archie said.
He went down over the shoulder of the hill to Rosmore, never feeling for
a moment the roughness of the way, laughing at himself as he stuck in a
bog or stumbled over a rock, elated, happy, twice the man he was when he
threaded slowly through the harsh bushes of the ling to where Eddy
awaited him. What a half-hour that had been! He had never been able to
be of use to any one all his life. The experience was quite new to him,
delightful above all words. He did not even remember for some time that
it was Rosamond’s brother whom he thus had it in his power to deliver
from mysterious and unknown troubles. The first recollection of that
additional inducement produced upon him indeed rather a sobering than an
exciting effect. He divined instinctively that to Rosamond this would be
a horror and humiliation. Heaven forbid she should ever know! He felt
nothing but delight in being able to do something for Eddy, but the
thought of Rosamond covered him with sudden cold dews of alarm. Never,
never, must Rosamond know. She would blame him for it, Archie foresaw.
It would raise a mountain of horrible obstacles between them. She would
resent the mere possibility of such a link between her brother and
himself. He must warn Eddy in the first place, who was so careless, who
might let it out at any moment; and in the next, he must take every
precaution that no one should ever discover what had passed. Even his
cheque might be compromising to Eddy; there must be no way of betraying
him, no possibility left. He turned over in his mind, as he hurried
home, all the precautions that could be taken to conceal the
transaction. Archie was not a man of business. He had little knowledge
of the ways of banks and the manner of passing money from one hand to
another. But when the heart is concerned, the mind becomes ingenious.
And he had thought it well out, and how it was to be done, so that
whatever secrets might be revealed, nothing of this should ever come out
against Eddy, before he had reached home.
Eddy himself was too much ashamed of the part he was playing to walk
home with the young man who had thus come to his help. There was so much
grace left in him that he could not do that. He made the excuse that he
was going a little way up the loch to speak to Alick Chalmers, the
universal agent, about something that was wanted for the decoration of
the ball-room, and when Archie had left him he stood watching his
progress over the hill till he was out of sight. He had been really
touched by Archie’s kindness, and by the absolute trust that young
Rowland had showed in him, and something of compunction, something of
unwonted tenderness was in Eddy’s eyes as he looked after that good
Samaritan. “What a good fellow he is,” he said to himself; “but Jove!
how badly he carries himself. To think he should treat a man like that
whom he knows so little as he knows me; but I ought to have gone with
him, for he’ll be on his nose before he gets down to the road.”
He could not but laugh at the manner in which Archie cannoned off a big
boulder and nearly rolled down the hill at one point in his progress.
His heart was still touched, but yet to be as awkward as that, was what
no man had any right to be. Then he threw himself down on the heather
again and thought, steadily following out with puckered eyebrows and a
set face the scheme which had sprung to being in his brain when he set
his eyes on the cheque which now kept him warm against his bosom. How
much fun and frolic there was in that bit of paper, if he could have
used it for his own pleasure. It gleamed across him that he might yet
use it for his own pleasure and let everything slide; but there are some
things that are more necessary than pleasure even to the most sordid
mind. He had hailed this money as a benediction from heaven when it
first dropped so unexpectedly into his hands, to enable him perhaps to
arrange his most pressing affairs and deliver himself from a galling
presence. But by the time Eddy rose from his seat among the heather, the
most lively feeling he felt in his mind was resignation, and a sense
that he was giving up his personal wishes in the noble way of paying an
old debt, when he might have got so much fun out of the money! It was a
wonderful change of view.
He took his way to the upper end of the loch, but not to see Alick
Chalmers. He went on for a mile or two on the crest of the hill, and
then dropped down upon a little cluster of houses on a little knoll
among the harvest fields where the scanty crop was only being gathered
in in the end of October. Johnson came out of one of those houses as the
young man approached.
“If you’ve anything particular to say, let us go up the hill,” he said.
“It aint safe talking in these little holes. They can hear you in the
other room, if not next door.”
“What makes you think I have anything to say?”
“Well, there’s those invitations you promised me,” said Johnson.
“Promised you! I said I’d ask for you. I’ll get them if you’ll do what I
want for me.”
“Not a farthing more money, Master Eddy; it’s no use speaking. To
mention it even, would be as much as my place is worth.”
“You fool! who’s talking of money?” said Eddy.
They mounted up slowly till they came to a little green knoll, a sort of
oasis in the waste of the heather.
“There’s nobody can listen here,” he said. “I’ve brought you a payment
on account, Johnson. Look here, if you’ll get him to take this, and wait
for the rest till I can get it----”
“I daren’t make such a proposal, Master Eddy; he’ll have all or
none--the whole sum, every penny--or he’ll write and expose you.”
“Hold your tongue, I say. Look at it first and see--it’s as good as
sovereigns counted out upon the table--it’s not like a bill or that
sort----”
“You don’t suppose he’d take a bill of _you_!”
“You needn’t be so dead sarcastic,” said Eddy. “He’s had many a worse
fellow than me to deal with. Look here, Johnson, a hundred pounds
down--or perhaps I could make it a hundred and fifty. It’s a pity to
refuse good money. If anything were to happen to me to-morrow; if you
were to put some shot into me, for instance, on Friday on the moor----”
“Do you mean?” cried Johnson, his unwholesome white face lighting up
with pleasure. “I can’t do what you want, Mr. Eddy, for it don’t depend
upon me: but I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me, man. It’s the
thing I’ve wished most.”
“And do you think,” said Eddy, “I’m going to do that for nothing? Not
such a fool, my fine fellow. A hundred and fifty, Johnson--down; and as
good as gold paid over the counter. Wire him that it’s an offer, and
that you’ll be able to push business among the swells you will meet. I
can introduce you to half the bigwigs about----, and if you don’t make
something out of them.--But I must have that confounded paper back.”
“I don’t wonder that you say so; but it’s no use speaking. If I----it
depended upon me! and Master Eddy, if I can do you a good turn another
time I will. You never can tell when you may want a good turn.”
“I want this good turn--that confounded bit of paper, and a little ease
of my life. Look here!--and there’s more where that came from.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Johnson. He took the cheque out of the young
man’s hands and examined it closely. “Yes,” he said; “it’s as good as
gold. Lord, what a pity, when he was doing it, he didn’t go a little
bit farther and add a nought! Another nought, and just a little bit of
change in one word. Bless us all, how easy he could have done it--a
touch of the pen.” Johnson put his hand on the cheque, pointing out
lightly here and there where the improvement could have been made. “The
one would be just as easy to him as the other,” he said “And think! then
you would be set right in a moment; that bit of paper given up, and
everything squared. When you have a friend like this, why can’t you get
him to do something that’s of real use? A hundred’s nothing; I would
advise you to keep that for yourself. It might be of use to you for
pocket-money. It’s of no use to us.”
“It’s precisely a hundred pounds’ worth of use,” said Eddy.
“Ah! if you take it in that way; but _he_ wouldn’t take it in that way.
He would say it’s the tenth part of our claim, and I’m not going to let
a young fellow like that (he would say--mind, it’s not me) off for a
tenth of our claim. How much more money (he would say) d’ye think we’d
get out of him after he had his bit of paper back. No, no, Master Eddy,
no use to try on that little dodge, he’s far too old a bird. But, so far
as I am concerned, if there’s anything in a moderate way I could help
you in, after what you’re going to do for me----”
“How do you know I’ll do it for you now? It’s nothing for nothing in
this world,” said Eddy, fiercely. “If you don’t help me, why should I
take any trouble? Your day’s shooting and your ball depend upon me, and
I’m willing to see you through these and introduce you to all the
bigwigs, but if I get nothing in return----”
“Only a word of advice,” said Johnson. “Go back to your friend, Master
Eddy, and get him to alter that thing there; he could do it with a
scratch of his pen. Another nought, and there’s nothing easier for a
man, when it’s his own writing, to change a word. If it looks blotchy,
don’t you know he puts his initials to show it’s all right--I’ve seen it
done a dozen times--that’s all he’s got to do, and everything would be
square. Take it back to him, Master Eddy, that’s my advice.”
“I think you’re the devil in person, Johnson,” was what Eddy replied.