BOOK II

FLEMINGTON

BY VIOLET JACOB

(MRS. ARTHUR JACOB)

AUTHOR OF "THE INTERLOPER," "THE SHEEP-STEALERS," &c.

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1911

TO

EVELYN FRANCES MUNRO

AUTHOR'S NOTE

THIS book has no claim to be considered an historical novel, none of

the principal people in it being historic characters; but the taking

of the ship, as also the manner of its accomplishment, is true.

V. J.

CONTENTS

BOOK I

CHAPTER PAGE

I. PROLOGUE 1

II. JETSAM 16

III. A COACH-AND-FIVE 30

IV. BUSINESS 46

V. "THE HAPPY LAND" 64

VI. IN DARKNESS AND IN LIGHT 72

VII. TREACHERY 84

VIII. THE HEAVY HAND 100

IX. "TOUJOURS DE L'AUDACE" 124

BOOK II

X. ADRIFT 135

XI. THE GUNS OF MONTROSE 150

XII. INCHBRAYOCK 161

XIII. THE INTERESTED SPECTATOR 177

XIV. IN SEARCH OF SENSATION 185

XV. WATTIE HAS THEORIES 200

XVI. THE TWO ENDS OF THE LINE 212

XVII. SOCIETY 222

XVIII. BALNILLO FINDS PERFECTION 234

BOOK III

XIX. THE WINTER 251

XX. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 263

XXI. HUNTLY HILL 280

XXII. HUNTLY HILL (_continued_) 288

XXIII. THE MUIR OF PERT 299

XXIV. THE VANITY OF MEN 313

XXV. A ROYAL DUKE 327

XXVI. THE VANISHING BIRD 335

XXVII. EPILOGUE 346

BOOK I

FLEMINGTON

CHAPTER I

PROLOGUE

MR. DUTHIE walked up the hill with the gurgle of the burn he had just

crossed purring in his ears. The road was narrow and muddy, and the

house of Ardguys, for which he was making, stood a little way in front

of him, looking across the dip threaded by the water. The tall white

walls, discoloured by damp and crowned by their steep roof, glimmered

through the ash-trees on the bank at his right hand. There was

something distasteful to the reverend man's decent mind in this homely

approach to the mansion inhabited by the lady he was on his way to

visit, and he found the remoteness of this byway among the grazing

lands of Angus oppressive.

The Kilpie burn, travelling to the river Isla, farther west, had

pushed its way through the undulations of pasture that gave this

particular tract, lying north of the Sidlaws, a definite character;

and the formation of the land seemed to suggest that some vast

ground-swell had taken place in the earth, to be arrested, suddenly,

in its heaving, for all time. Thus it was that a stranger, wandering

about, might come unwarily upon little outlying farms and cottages

hidden in the trough of these terrestrial waves, and find himself,

when he least awaited it, with his feet on a level with some humble

roof, snug in a fold of the braes. It was in one of the largest of

these miniature valleys that the house of Ardguys stood, with the

Kilpie burn running at the bottom of its sloping garden.

Mr. Duthie was not a stranger, but he did not admire the unexpected;

he disliked the approach to Ardguys, for his sense of suitability was

great; indeed, it was its greatness which was driving him on his

present errand. He had no gifts except the quality of decency, which

is a gift like any other; and he was apt, in the company of Madam

Flemington, to whose presence he was now hastening, to be made aware

of the great inconvenience of his shortcomings, and the still greater

inconvenience of his advantage. He crossed the piece of uneven turf

dividing the house from the road, and ascended the short flight of

stone steps, a spare, black figure in a three-cornered hat, to knock

with no uncertain hand upon the door. His one great quality was

staying him up.

Like the rest of his compeers in the first half of the seventeen

hundreds, Mr. Duthie wore garments of rusty blue or grey during the

week, but for this occasion he had plunged his ungainly arms and legs

into the black which he generally kept for the Sabbath-day, though the

change gave him little distinction. He was a homely and very

uncultured person; and while the approaching middle of the century was

bringing a marked improvement to country ministers as a class,

mentally and socially, he had stood still.

He was ushered into a small panelled room in which he waited alone for

a few minutes, his hat on his knee. Then there was a movement outside,

and a lady came in, whose appearance let loose upon him all those

devils of apprehension which had hovered about him as he made his way

from his manse to the chair on which he sat. He rose, stricken yet

resolute, with the cold forlorn courage which is the bravest thing in

the world.

As Madam Flemington entered, she took possession of the room to the

exclusion of everything else, and the minister felt as if he had no

right to exist. Her eyes, meeting his, reflected the idea.

Christian Flemington carried with her that atmosphere which enwraps a

woman who has been much courted by men, and, though she was just over

forty-two, and a grandmother, the most inexperienced observer might

know how strongly the fires of life were burning in her still. An

experienced one would be led to think of all kinds of disturbing

subjects by her mere presence; intrigue, love, power--a thousand

abstract yet stirring things, far, far remote from the weather-beaten

house which was the incongruous shell of this compelling personality.

Dignity was hers in an almost appalling degree, but it was a quality

unlike the vulgar conception of it; a dignity which could be all

things besides distant; unscrupulous in its uses, at times rather

brutal, outspoken, even jovial; born of absolute fearlessness, and

conveying the certainty that its possessor would speak and act as she

chose, because she regarded encroachment as impossible and had the

power of cutting the bridge between herself and humanity at will. That

power was hers to use and to abuse, and she was accustomed to do both.

In speech she could have a plain coarseness which has nothing to do

with vulgarity, and is, indeed, scarcely compatible with it; a

coarseness which is disappearing from the world in company with many

better and worse things.

She moved slowly, for she was a large woman and had never been an

active one; but the bold and steady brilliance of her eyes, which the

years had not faded, suggested swift and sudden action in a way that

was disconcerting. She had the short, straight nose common to feline

types, and time, which had spared her eyes, was duplicating her chin.

Her eyebrows, even and black, accentuated the heavy silver of her

abundant unpowdered hair, which had turned colour early, and an

immense ruby hung from each of her tiny ears in a setting of small

diamonds. Mr. Duthie, who noticed none of these things particularly,

was, nevertheless, crushed by their general combination.

It was nine years before this story opens that Christian Flemington

had left France to take up her abode on the small estate of Ardguys,

which had been left to her by a distant relation. Whilst still almost

a child, she had married a man much older than herself, and her whole

wedded life had been spent at the Court of James II. of England at St.

Germain, whither her husband, a Scottish gentleman of good birth in

the exiled King's suite, had followed his master, remaining after his

death in attendance upon his widow, Mary Beatrice of Modena.

Flemington did not long survive the King. He left his wife with one

son, who, on reaching manhood, estranged himself from his mother by an

undesirable marriage; indeed, it was immediately after this latter

event that Christian quitted her post at Court, retiring to Rouen,

where she lived until the possession of Ardguys, which she inherited a

few months later, gave her a home of her own.

Different stories were afloat concerning her departure. Many people

said that she had gambled away the greater part of her small fortune

and was forced to retrench in some quiet place; others, that she had

quarrelled with, and been dismissed by, Mary Beatrice. Others, again,

declared that she had been paid too much attention by the young

Chevalier de St. George and had found it discreet to take herself out

of his way; but the believers in this last theory were laughed to

scorn; not because the world saw anything strange in the Chevalier's

alleged infatuation, but because it was quite sure that Christian

Flemington would have acted very differently in the circumstances. But

no one could be certain of the truth: the one certain thing was that

she was gone and that since her retreat to Rouen she had openly

professed Whig sympathies. She had been settled at Ardguys, where she

kept her political leanings strictly to herself, for some little time,

when news came that smallpox had carried off her son and his

undesirable wife, and, as a consequence, their little boy was sent

home to the care of his Whig grandmother, much against the will of

those Jacobites at the Court of St. Germain who were still interested

in the family. But as nobody's objection was strong enough to affect

his pocket, the child departed.

'Madam' Flemington, as she was called by her few neighbours, was in

correspondence with none of her old friends, and none of these had the

least idea what she felt about her loss or about the prospect of the

child's arrival. She was his natural guardian, and, though so many

shook their heads at the notion of his being brought up by a rank

Whig, no one was prepared to relieve her of her responsibility. Only

Mary Beatrice, mindful of the elder Flemington's faithful services to

James, granted a small pension for the boy's upbringing from her

meagre private purse; but as this was refused by Christian, the matter

ended. And now, in the year of grace 1727, young Archie Flemington was

a boy of eight, and the living cause of the Rev. William Duthie's

present predicament.

Madam Flemington and the minister sat opposite to each other, silent.

He was evidently trying to make a beginning of his business, but his

companion was not in a mood to help him. He was a person who wearied

her, and she hated red hair; besides which, she was an Episcopalian

and out of sympathy with himself and his community. She found him

common and limited, and at the present moment, intrusive.

"It's sma' pleasure I have in coming to Ardguys the day," he began,

and then stopped, because her eyes paralyzed his tongue.

"You are no flatterer," said she.

But the contempt in her voice braced him.

"Indeed, that I am not, madam," he replied; "neither shall it be said

of me that I gang back from my duty. Nane shall assail nor make a mock

of the Kirk while I am its minister."

"Who has made a mock of the Kirk, my good man?"

"Airchie."

The vision of her eight-year-old grandson going forth, like a young

David, to war against the Presbyterian stronghold, brought back Madam

Flemington's good-humour.

"Ye may smile, madam," said Duthie, plunged deeper into the vernacular

by agitation, "ay, ye may lauch. But it ill beseems the grey hair on

yer pow."

Irony always pleased her and she laughed outright, showing her strong

white teeth. It was not only Archie and the Kirk that amused her, but

the whimsical turn of her own fate which had made her hear such an

argument from a man. It was not thus that men had approached her in

the old days.

"You are no flatterer, Mr. Duthie, as I said before."

He looked at her with uncomprehending eyes.

A shout, as of a boy playing outside, came through the window, and a

bunch of cattle upon the slope cantered by with their tails in the

air. Evidently somebody was chasing them.

"Let me hear about Archie," said the lady, recalled to the main point

by the sight.

"Madam, I would wish that ye could step west to the manse wi' me and

see the evil abomination at my gate. It would gar ye blush."

"I am obliged to you, sir. I had not thought to be put to that

necessity by one of your cloth."

"Madam----"

"Go on, Mr. Duthie. I can blush without going to the manse for it."

"An evil image has been set up upon my gate," he continued, raising

his voice as though to cry down her levity, "an idolatrous picture. I

think shame that the weans ganging by to the schule should see it. But

I rejoice that there's mony o' them doesna' ken wha it is."

"Fie, Mr. Duthie! Is it Venus?"

"It has idolatrous garments," continued he, with the loud monotony of

one shouting against a tempest, "and a muckle crown on its head----"

"Then it is not Venus," observed she. "Venus goes stripped."

"It is the Pope of Rome," went on Mr. Duthie; "I kent him when I saw

the gaudy claes o' him and the heathen vanities on his pow. I kent it

was himsel'! And it was written at the foot o' him, forbye that. Ay,

madam, there was writing too. There was a muckle bag out frae his mou'

wi' wicked words on it! 'Come awa' to Babylon wi' me, Mr. Duthie.' I

gar'd the beadle run for water and a clout, for I could not thole that

sic' a thing should be seen."

"And you left the Pope?" said Madam Flemington.

"I did," replied the minister. "I would wish to let ye see to whatlike

misuse Airchie has put his talents."

"And how do you know it was Archie's work?"

"There's naebody hereabouts but Airchie could have made sic' a thing.

The beadle tell't me that he saw him sitting ahint the whins wi' his

box of paint as he gae'd down the manse road, and syne when he came

back the image was there."

As he finished his sentence the door opened and a small figure was

arrested on the threshold by the sight of him. The little boy paused,

disconcerted and staring, and a faint colour rose in his olive face.

Then his glum look changed to a smile in which roguery, misgiving, and

an intense malicious joy were blended. He looked from one to the

other.

"Archie, come in and make your reverence to Mr. Duthie," said Madam

Flemington, who had all at once relapsed into punctiliousness.

Archie obeyed. His skin and his dark eyes hinted at his mother's

French blood, but his bow made it a certainty.

The minister offered no acknowledgment.

If Archie had any doubt about the reason of Mr. Duthie's visit, it did

not last long. The minister was not a very stern man in daily life,

but now the Pope and Madam Flemington between them had goaded him off

his normal peaceable path, and his expression bade the little boy

prepare for the inevitable. Archie reflected that his grandmother was

a disciplinarian, and his mind went to a cupboard in the attics where

she kept a cane. But the strain of childish philosophy which ran

through his volatile nature was of a practical kind, and it reminded

him that he must pay for his pleasures, and that sometimes they were

worth the expense. Even in the grip of Nemesis he was not altogether

sorry that he had drawn that picture.

Madam Flemington said nothing, and Mr. Duthie beckoned to him to come

nearer.

"Child," said he, "you have put an affront upon the whole o' the folk

of this parish. You have raised up an image to be a scandal to the

passers-by. You have set up a notorious thing in our midst, and you

have caused words to issue from its mouth that the very kirk-officer,

when he dichted it out wi' his clout, thought shame to look upon. I

have jaloused it right to complain to your grandmother and to warn

her, that she may check you before you bring disgrace and dismay upon

her and upon her house."

Archie's eyes had grown rounder as he listened, for the pomp of the

high-sounding words impressed him with a sense of importance, and he

was rather astonished to find that any deed of his own could produce

such an effect. He contemplated the minister with a curious detachment

that belonged to himself. Then he turned to look at his grandmother,

and, though her face betrayed no encouragement, the subtle smile he

had worn when he stood at the door appeared for a moment upon his

lips.

Mr. Duthie saw it. Madam Flemington had not urged one word in defence

of the culprit, but, rightly or wrongly, he scented lack of sympathy

with his errand. He turned upon her.

"I charge you--nay, I demand it of you," he exclaimed--"that you root

out the evil in yon bairn's nature! Tak' awa' from him the foolish toy

that he has put to sic' a vile use. I will require of you----"

"Sir," said Madam Flemington, rising, "I have need of nobody to teach

me how to correct my grandson. I am obliged to you for your visit, but

I will not detain you longer."

And almost before he realized what had happened, Mr. Duthie found

himself once more upon the stone steps of Ardguys.

Archie and his grandmother were left together in the panelled room.

Perhaps the boy's hopes were raised by the abrupt departure of his

accuser. He glanced tentatively at her.

"You will not take away my box?" he inquired.

"No."

"Mr. Duthie has a face like this," he said airily, drawing his small

features into a really brilliant imitation of the minister.

The answer was hardly what he expected.

"Go up to the cupboard and fetch me the cane," said Madam Flemington.

It was a short time later when Archie, rather sore, but still

comforted by his philosophy, sat among the boughs of a tree farther up

the hill. It was a favourite spot of his, for he could look down

through the light foliage over the roof of Ardguys and the Kilpie burn

to the rough road ascending beyond them. The figure of the retreating

Mr. Duthie had almost reached the top and was about to be lost in the

whin-patch across the strath. The little boy's eyes followed him

between the yellowing leaves of the tree which autumn was turning into

the clear-tinted ghost of itself. He had not escaped justice, and the

marks of tears were on his face; but they were not rancorous tears,

whose traces live in the heart long after the outward sign of their

fall has gone. They were tears forced from him by passing stress, and

their sources were shallow. Madam Flemington could deal out punishment

thoroughly, but she was not one of those who burn its raw wounds with

sour words, and her grandson had not that woeful sense of estrangement

which is the lot of many children when disciplined by those they love.

Archie adored his grandmother, and the gap of years between them was

bridged for him by his instinctive and deep admiration. She was no

companion to him, but she was a deity, and he had never dreamed of

investing her with those dull attributes which the young will tack on

to those who are much their seniors, whether they possess them or not.

Mr. Duthie, who had just reached middle life, seemed a much older

person to Archie.

He felt in his pocket for the dilapidated box which held his chief

treasures--those dirty lumps of paint with which he could do such

surprising things. No, there was not very much black left, and he must

contrive to get some more, for the adornment of the other manse

gatepost was in his mind. He would need a great deal of black, because

this time his subject would be the devil; and there should be the

same--or very nearly the same--invitation to the minister.

CHAPTER II

JETSAM

EIGHTEEN years after the last vestige of Archie's handiwork had

vanished under the beadle's 'clout' two gentlemen were sitting in the

library of a square stone mansion at the eastern end of the county of

Angus. It was evening, and they had drawn their chairs up to a

fireplace in which the flames danced between great hobs of polished

brass, shooting the light from their thrusting tongues into a lofty

room with drawn curtains and shelves of leather-bound books. Though

the shutters were closed, the two men could hear, in the pauses of

talk, a continuous distant roaring, which was the sound of surf

breaking upon the bar outside the harbour of Montrose, three miles

away. A small mahogany table with glasses and a decanter stood at Lord

Balnillo's elbow, and he looked across at his brother James (whose

life, as a soldier, had kept him much in foreign countries until the

previous year) with an expression of mingled good-will and patronage.

David Logie was one of the many Scottish gentlemen of good birth who

had made the law his profession, and he had just retired from the

Edinburgh bench, on which, as Lord Balnillo, he had sat for hard upon

a quarter of a century. His face was fresh-coloured and healthy, and,

though he had not put on so much flesh as a man of sedentary ways who

has reached the age of sixty-two might expect to carry, his main

reason for retiring had been the long journeys on horseback over

frightful roads, which a judge's duties forced him to take. Another

reason was his estate of Balnillo, which was far enough from Edinburgh

to make personal attention to it impossible. His wife Margaret, whose

portrait hung in the dining-room, had done all the business for many

years; but Margaret was dead, and perhaps David, who had been a

devoted husband, felt the need of something besides the law to fill up

his life. He was a lonely man, for he had no children, and his brother

James, who sat opposite to him, was his junior by twenty-five years.

For one who had attained to his position, he was slow and curiously

dependent on others; there was a turn about the lines of his

countenance which suggested fretfulness, and his eyes, which had

looked upon so many criminals, could be anxious. He was a considerate

landlord, and, in spite of the times in which he lived and the bottle

at his elbow, a person of very sober habits.

James Logie, who had started his career in Lord Orkney's regiment of

foot with the Scots Brigade in Holland, had the same fresh complexion

as his brother and the same dark blue eyes; but they were eyes that

had a different expression, and that seemed to see one thing at a

time. He was a squarer, shorter man than Lord Balnillo, quicker of

speech and movement. His mouth was a little crooked, for the centre of

his lower lip did not come exactly under the centre of the upper one,

and this slight mistake on the part of Nature had given his face a not

unpleasant look of virility. Most people who passed James gave him a

second glance. Both men were carefully dressed and wore fine cambric

cravats and laced coats; and the shoes of the judge, which rested on

the fender, were adorned by gilt buckles.

They had been silent for some time, as people are who have come to the

same conclusion and find that there is no more to say, and in the

quietness the heavy undercurrent of sound from the coast seemed to

grow more insistent.

"The bar is very loud to-night, Jamie," said Lord Balnillo. "I doubt

but there's bad weather coming, and I am loth to lose more trees."

"I see that the old beech by the stables wants a limb," observed the

other. "That's the only change about the place that I notice."

"There'll be more yet," said the judge.

"You've grown weather-wise since you left Edinburgh, David."

"I had other matters to think upon there," answered Balnillo, with

some pomp.

James smiled faintly, making the little twist in his lip more

apparent.

"Come out to the steps and look at the night," said he, snatching,

like most restless men, at the chance of movement.

They went out through the hall. James unbarred the front door and the

two stood at the top of the flight of stone steps.

The entrance to Balnillo House faced northward, and a wet wind from

the east, slight still, but rising, struck upon their right cheeks and

carried the heavy muffled booming in through the trees. Balnillo

looked frowning at their tops, which had begun to sway; but his

brother's attention was fixed upon a man's figure, which was emerging

from the darkness of the grass park in front of them.

"Who is that?" cried the judge, as the footsteps grew audible.

"It's a coach at the ford, ma lord--a muckle coach that's couped i'

the water! Wully an' Tam an' Andrew Robieson are seekin' to ca' it

oot, but it's fast, ma lord----"

"Is there anyone in it?" interrupted James.

"Ay, there was. But he's oot noo."

"Where is he?"

"He'll na' get forward the night," continued the man. "Ane of the

horse is lame. He cursin', ma lord, an' nae wonder--he can curse

bonnie! Robieson's got his wee laddie wi' him, and he gar'd the loonie

put his hands to his lugs. He's an elder, ye see."

The judge turned to his brother. It was not the first time that the

ford in the Den of Balnillo had been the scene of disaster, for there

was an unlucky hole in it, and the state of the roads made storm-bound

and bedraggled visitors common apparitions in the lives of country

gentlemen.

"If ye'll come wi' me, ma lord, ye'll hear him," said the labourer, to

whom the profane victim of the ford was evidently an object of

admiration.

Balnillo looked down at his silk stockings and buckled shoes.

"I should be telling the lasses to get a bed ready," he remarked

hurriedly, as he re-entered the house.

James was already throwing his leg across the fence, though it was

scarcely the cursing which attracted him, for he had heard oaths to

suit every taste in his time. He hurried across the grass after the

labourer. The night was not very dark, and they made straight for the

ford.

The Den of Balnillo ran from north to south, not a quarter of a mile

from the house, and the long chain of miry hollows and cart-ruts which

did duty for a high road from Perth to Aberdeen plunged through it at

the point for which the men were heading. It was a steep ravine filled

with trees and stones, through which the Balnillo burn flowed and fell

and scrambled at different levels on its way to join the Basin of

Montrose, as the great estuary of the river Esk was called. The ford

lay just above one of the falls by which the water leaped downwards,

and the dense darkness of the surrounding trees made it difficult for

Captain Logie to see what was happening as he descended into the black

well of the Den. He could distinguish a confusion of objects by the

light of the lantern which his brother's men had brought and set upon

a stone; the ford itself reflected nothing, for it was churned up into

a sea of mud, in which, as Logie approached, the outline of a

good-sized carriage, lying upon its side, became visible.

"Yonder's the captain coming," said a voice.

Someone lifted the lantern, and he found himself confronted by a tall

young man, whose features he could not see, but who was, no doubt, the

expert in language.

"Sir," he said, "I fear you have had a bad accident. I am come from

Lord Balnillo to find out what he can do for you."

"His lordship is mighty good," replied the young man, "and if he could

force this mud-hole--which, I am told, belongs to him--to yield up my

conveyance, I should be his servant for life."

There was a charm and softness in his voice which nullified the brisk

impertinence of his words.

"I hope you are not hurt," said James.

"Not at all, sir. Providence has spared me. But He has had no mercy

upon one of my poor nags, which has broken its knees, nor on my

stock-in-trade, which is in the water. I am a travelling painter," he

added quickly, "and had best introduce myself. My name is Archibald

Flemington."

The stranger had a difficulty in pronouncing his _r's_; he spoke them

like a Frenchman, with a purring roll.

The other was rather taken aback. Painters in those days had not the

standing in society that they have now, but the voice and manner were

unmistakably those of a man of breeding. Even his freedom was not the

upstart licence of one trying to assert himself, but the easy

expression of a roving imagination.

"I should introduce myself too," said Logie. "I am Captain James

Logie, Lord Balnillo's brother. But we must rescue

your--your--baggage. Where is your postilion?"

Flemington held up the lantern again, and its rays fell upon a man

holding the two horses which were standing together under a tree.

James went towards them.

"Poor beast," said he, as he saw the knees of one of the pair, "he

would be better in a stall. Andrew Robieson, send your boy to the

house for a light, and then you can guide them to the stables."

Meanwhile, the two other men had almost succeeded in getting the

carriage once more upon its wheels, and with the help of Flemington

and Logie, it was soon righted. They decided to leave it where it was

for the night, and it was dragged a little aside, lest it should prove

a pitfall to any chance traveller who might pass before morning.

The two gentlemen went towards the house together, and the men

followed, carring Flemington's possessions and the great square

package containing his canvases.

When they entered the library Lord Balnillo was standing with his back

to the fire.

"I have brought Mr. Flemington, brother," said Logie, "his coach has

come to grief in the Den."

Archie stopped short, and putting his heels together, made much the

same bow as he had made to Mr. Duthie eighteen years before.

A feeling of admiration went through James as the warm light of the

house revealed the person of his companion, and something in the

shrewd wrinkles round his brother's unimpressive eyes irritated him.

He felt a vivid interest in the stranger, and the cautious old man's

demeanour seemed to have raised the atmosphere of a law-court round

himself. He was surveying the new-comer with stiff urbanity.

But Archie made small account of it.

"Sir," said Balnillo, with condescension, "if you will oblige me by

making yourself at home until you can continue your road, I shall take

myself for fortunate."

"My lord," replied Archie, "if you knew how like heaven this house

appears to me after the bottomless pit in your den, you might take

yourself for the Almighty."

Balnillo gave his guest a critical look, and was met by all the soft

darkness of a pair of liquid brown eyes which drooped at the outer

corners, and were set under thick brows following their downward

lines. Gentleness, inquiry, appeal, were in them, and a quality which

the judge, like other observers, could not define--a quality that sat

far, far back from the surface. In spite of the eyes, there was no

suggestion of weakness in the slight young man, and his long chin gave

his olive face gravity. Speech and looks corresponded so little in him

that Balnillo was bewildered; but he was a hospitable man, and he

moved aside to make room for Archie on the hearth. The latter was a

sorry sight, as far as mud went; for his coat was splashed, and his

legs, from the knee down, were of the colour of clay. He held his

hands out to the blaze, stretching his fingers as a cat stretches her

claws under a caressing touch.

"Sit down and put your feet to the fire," said the judge, drawing

forward one of the large armchairs, "and James, do you call for

another glass. When did you dine, Mr. Flemington?"

"I did not dine at all, my lord. I was anxious to push on to Montrose,

and I pushed on to destruction instead."

He looked up with such a whimsical smile at his own mishaps that

Balnillo found his mouth widening in sympathy.

"I will go and tell them to make some food ready," said the captain,

in answer to a sign from his brother.

Balnillo stood contemplating the young man; the lines round his eyes

were relaxing a little; he was fundamentally inquisitive, and his

companion matched no type he had ever seen. He was a little disturbed

by his assurance, yet his instinct of patronage was tickled by the

situation.

"I am infinitely grateful to you," said Archie. "I know all the inns

in Brechin, and am very sensible how much better I am likely to dine

here than there. You are too kind."

"Then you know these parts?"

"My home is at the other end of the county--at Ardguys."

"I am familiar with the name," said Balnillo, "but until lately, I

have been so much in Edinburgh that I am out of touch with other

places. I am not even aware to whom it belongs."

"It is a little property, my lord--nothing but a few fields and a

battered old house. But it belongs to my grandmother Flemington, who

brought me up. She lives very quietly."

"Indeed, indeed," said the judge, his mind making a cast for a clue as

a hound does for the scent.

He was not successful.

"I had not taken you for a Scot," he said, after a moment.

"I have been told that," said Archie; "and that reminds me that it

would be proper to tell your lordship what I am. I am a painter, and

at this moment your hall is full of my paraphernalia."

Lord Balnillo did not usually show his feelings, but the look which,

in spite of himself, flitted across his face, sent a gleam of

entertainment through Archie.

"You are surprised," he observed, sighing. "But when a man has to mend

his fortunes he must mend them with what tools he can. Nor am I

ashamed of my trade."

"There is no need, Mr. Flemington," replied the other, with the

measured benevolence he had sometimes used upon the bench; "what you

tell me does you honour--much honour, sir."

"Then you did not take me for a painter any more than for a Scot?"

said Archie, smiling at his host.

"I did not, sir," said the judge shortly. He was not accustomed to be

questioned by his witnesses and he had the uncomfortable sensation of

being impelled, in spite of a certain prejudice, to think moderately

well of his guest.

"I have heard tell of your lordship very often," said the latter,

suddenly, "and I know very well into what good hands I have fallen. I

could wish that all the world was more like yourself."

He turned his head and stared wistfully at the coals.

Balnillo could not make out whether this young fellow's assurance or

his humility was the real key-note to the man. But he liked some of

his sentiments well enough. Archie wore his own hair, and the old man

noticed how silky and fine the brown waves were in the firelight. They

were so near his hand as their owner leaned forward that he could

almost have stroked them.

"Are you going further than Montrose?" he inquired.

"I had hoped to cozen a little employment out of Aberdeen," replied

Flemington, "but it is a mere speculation. I have a gallery of the

most attractive canvases with me--women, divines, children,

magistrates, provosts--all headless and all waiting to see what faces

chance and I may fit on to their necks. I have one lady--an angel, I

assure you, my lord!--a vision of green silk and white

roses--shoulders like satin--the hands of Venus!"

Balnillo was further bewildered. He knew little about the arts and

nothing about artists. He had looked at many a contemporary portrait

without suspecting that the original had chosen, as sitters often did,

an agreeable ready-made figure from a selection brought forward by a

painter, on which to display his or her countenance. It was a custom

which saved the trouble of many sittings and rectified much of the

niggardliness or over-generosity of Nature.

"I puzzle you, I see," added Archie, laughing, "and no doubt the hair

of Van Dyck would stand on end at some of our modern doings. But I am

not Van Dyck, unhappily, and in common with some others I do half my

business before my sitters ever see me. A client has only to choose a

suitable body for his own head, and I can tell you that many are

thankful to have the opportunity."

"I had no idea that portraits were done like that," said Lord

Balnillo; "I never heard of such an arrangement before."

"But you do not think it wrong, I hope?" exclaimed Flemington, the

gaiety dying out of his face. "There is no fraud about it! It is not

as if a man deceived his sitter."

The half-petulant distress in his voice struck Balnillo, and almost

touched him; there was something so simple and confiding in it.

"It might have entertained your lordship to see them," continued

Archie ruefully. "I should have liked to show you the strange company

I travel with."

"So you shall, Mr. Flemington," said the old man. "It would entertain

me very greatly. I only fear that the lady with the white roses may

enslave me," he added, with rather obvious jocosity.

"Indeed, now is the time for that," replied Archie, his face lighting

up again, "for I hope she may soon wear the head of some fat town

councillor's wife of Aberdeen."

As he spoke Captain Logie returned with the news that dinner was

prepared.

"I have been out to the stable to see what we could do for your

horses," said he.

"Thank you a thousand times, sir," exclaimed Archie.

Lord Balnillo watched his brother as he led the painter to the door.

"I think I will come, too, and sit with Mr. Flemington while he eats,"

he said, after a moment's hesitation.

A couple of hours later Archie found himself in a comfortable bedroom.

His valise had been soaked in the ford, and a nightshirt of Lord

Balnillo's was warming at the fire. When he had put it on he went and

looked at himself in an old-fashioned mirror which hung on the wall.

He was a good deal taller than the judge, but it was not his own image

that caused the indescribable expression on his face.

CHAPTER III

A COACH-AND-FIVE

ARCHIE sat in his bedroom at a table. The window was open, for it was

a soft October afternoon, and he looked out meditatively at the

prospect before him.

The wind that had howled in the night had spent itself towards

morning, and by midday the tormented sky had cleared and the curtain

of cloud rolled away, leaving a mellow sun smiling over the Basin of

Montrose. He had never been within some miles of Balnillo, and the

aspect of this piece of the country being new to him, his painter's

eye rested appreciatively on what he saw.

Two avenues of ancient trees ran southward, one on either side of the

house, and a succession of grass fields sloped away before him between

these bands of timber to the tidal estuary, where the water lay blue

and quiet with the ribbon of the South Esk winding into it from the

west. Beyond it the low hills with their gentle rise touched the

horizon; nearer at hand the beeches and gean-trees, so dear to Lord

Balnillo's heart, were red and gold. Here and there, where the gale

had thinned the leaves, the bareness of stem and bough let in glimpses

of the distant purple which was the veil of the farther atmosphere. To

the east, shut out from his sight by all this wood, was the town of

Montrose, set, with its pointed steeple, like the blue silhouette of

some Dutch town, between the Basin and the North Sea.

A pen was in Flemington's hand, and the very long letter he had just

written was before him.

"BALNILLO HOUSE.

"MADAM, MY DEAR GRANDMOTHER,

"I beg you to look upon the address at the head of this letter, and to

judge whether fortune has favoured your devoted grandson.

"I am _on the very spot_, and, what is more, seem like to remain there

indefinitely. Could anything in this untoward world have fallen out

better? Montrose is a bare three miles from where I sit, and I can

betake myself there on business when necessary, while I live as

secluded as I please, cheek by jowl with the very persons whose

acquaintance I had laid so many plots to compass. My dear grandmother,

could you but have seen me last night, when I lay down after my

labours, tricked out in my worshipful host's nightshirt! Though the

honest man is something of a fop in his attire, his arms are not so

long as mine, and the fine ruffles on the sleeves did little more than

adorn my elbows, which made me feel like a lady till I looked at my

skirts. Then I felt more like a highlandman. But I am telling you only

effects when you are wanting causes.

"I changed horses at Brechin, having got so far in safety just after

dark, and went on towards Montrose, with the wind rising and never a

star to look comfort at me through the coach window. Though I knew we

must be on the right road, I asked my way at every hovel we passed,

and was much interested when I was told that I was at the edge of my

Lord Balnillo's estate, and not far from his house.

"The road soon afterwards took a plunge into the very vilest place I

ever saw--a steep way scarcely fit for a cattle-road, between a mass

of trees. I put out my head and heard the rushing of water. Oh, what a

fine thing memory is! I remembered having heard of the Den of Balnillo

and being told that it was near Balnillo house, and I judged we must

be there. Another minute and we were clattering among stones; the

water was up to the axle and we rocked like a ship. One wheel was

higher than the other, and we leaned over so that I could scarcely

sit. Then I was inspired. I threw myself with all my weight against

the side, and dragged so much of my cargo of canvases as I could lay

hold of with me. There was a great splash and over we went. It was

mighty hard work getting out, for the devil caused the door to stick

fast, and I had to crawl through the window at that side of the coach

which was turned to the sky, like a roof. I hope I may never be

colder. We turned to and got the horses out and on to dry ground, and

the postilion, a very frog for slime and mud, began to shout, which

soon produced a couple of men with a lantern. I shouted too, and did

my poor best in the way of oaths to give the affair all the colour of

reality I could, and I believe I was successful. The noise brought

more people about us, and with them my lord's brother, Captain Logie,

hurrying to the rescue with a fellow who had run to the house with

news of our trouble. The result was that we ended our night, the coach

with a cracked axle and a hole in the panel, the postilion in the

servants' hall with half a bottle of good Scots whisky inside him, the

horses--one with a broken knee--in the stable, and myself, as I tell

you, in his lordship's nightshirt.

"I promise you that I thought myself happy when I got inside the

mansion--a solemn block, with a grand manner of its own and Corinthian

pillars in the dining-room. His lordship was on the hearthrug, as

solemn as his house, but with a pinched, precise look which it has not

got. He was no easy nut to crack, and it took me a little time to

establish myself with him, but the good James, his brother, left us a

little while alone, and I made all the way I could in his favour. I

may have trouble with the old man, and, at any rate, must be always at

my best with him, for he seems to me to be silly, virtuous and cunning

all at once. He is vain, too, and suspicious, and has seen so many

wicked people in his judicial career that I must not let him confound

me with them. I could see that he had difficulty in making my

occupation and appearance match to his satisfaction. He wears a

mouse-coloured velvet coat, and is very nice in the details of his

dress. I should like you to see him--not because he would amuse you,

but because it would entertain me so completely to see you together.

"James, his brother, is cut to a very different pattern. He is many

years younger than his lordship--not a dozen years older than myself,

I imagine--and he has spent much of his life with Lord Orkney's

regiment in Holland. There is something mighty attractive in his face,

though I cannot make out what it is. It is strange that, though he

seems to be a much simpler person than the old man, I feel less able

to describe him. I have had much talk with him this morning, and I

don't know when I have liked anyone better.

"And now comes the triumph of well-doing--the climax to which all this

faithful record leads. I am to paint his lordship's portrait (in his

Judge's robes), and am installed here definitely for that purpose! I

shall be grateful if you will send me my chestnut-brown suit and a

couple of fine shirts, also the silk stockings which are in the top

shelf of my cupboard, and all you can lay hands on in the matter of

cravats. My valise was soaked through and through, and, though the

clothes I am wearing were dried in the night, I am rather short of

good coats, for I expected to end in an inn at Montrose rather than in

a gentleman's house. Though I am within reach of Ardguys, and might

ride to fetch them in person, I do not want to be absent

unnecessarily. Any _important_ letters that I may send you will go by

a hand I know of. I shall go shortly to Montrose by way of procuring

myself some small necessity, and shall search for that hand. Its owner

should not be difficult to recognize, by all accounts. And now, my

dear grandmother, I shall write myself

"Your dutiful and devoted grandson,

"ARCHIBALD FLEMINGTON."

Archie sealed his letter, and then rose and leaned far out of the

window. The sun still bathed the land, but it was getting low; the

tree-tops were thrusting their heads into a light which had already

left the grass-parks slanting away from the house. The latter part of

his morning had been taken up by his host's slow inspection of his

canvases, and he longed for a sight of his surroundings. He knew that

the brothers had gone out together, and he took his hat and stood

irresolute, with his letter in his hand, before a humble-looking

little locked case, which he had himself rescued the night before from

among his submerged belongings in the coach, hesitating whether he

should commit the paper to it or keep it upon his own person. It

seemed to be a matter for some consideration. Finally, he put it into

his pocket and went out.

He set forth down one of the avenues, walking on a gorgeous carpet of

fallen leaves, and came out on a road running east and west, evidently

another connecting Brechin with Montrose. He smiled as he considered

it, realizing that, had he taken it last night, he would have escaped

the Den of Balnillo and many more desirable things at the same time.

As he stood looking up and down, he heard a liquid rush, and saw to

his right a mill-dam glimmering through the trees, evidently the goal

of the waters which had soused him so lately. He strolled towards it,

attracted by the forest of stems and golden foliage reflected in the

pool, and by the slide down which the stream poured into a field, to

wind, like a little serpent, through the grass. Just where it

disappeared stood a stone mill-house abutting on the highway, from

which came the clacking of a wheel. The miller was at his door. Archie

could see that he was watching something with interest, for the man

stood out, a distinct white figure, on the steps running up from the

road to the gaping doorway in the mill-wall.

Flemington was one of those blessed people for whom common sights do

not glide by, a mere meaningless procession of alien things.

Humanity's smallest actions had an interest for him, for he had that

love of seeing effect follow cause, which is at once priceless and

childish--priceless because anything that lifts from us the irritating

burden of ourselves for so much as a moment is priceless; and childish

because it is a survival of the years when all the universe was new.

Priceless yet again, because it will often lead us down unexpected

side-tracks of knowledge in a world in which knowledge is power.

He sat down on the low wall bounding the mill-field, for he was

determined to know what the miller was staring at. Whatever it was, it

was on the farther side of a cottage built just across the road from

the mill.

He was suddenly conscious that a bare-footed little girl with

tow-coloured hair had appeared from nowhere, and was standing beside

him. She also was staring at the house by the mill, but with

occasional furtive glances at himself. All at once the heavy drone of

a bagpipe came towards them, then the shrill notes of the chanter

began to meander up and down on the blare of sonorous sound like a

light pattern running over a dark background. The little girl removed

her eyes from the stranger and cut a caper with her bare feet, as

though she would like to dance.

It was evident that the sounds had affected Flemington, too, but not

in the same way. He made a sharp exclamation under his breath, and

turned to the child.

"Who is that playing?" he cried, putting out his hand.

She jumped back and stood staring.

"Who is that playing?" he repeated.

She was still dumb, scrubbing one foot against her bare ankle after

the manner of the shoeless when embarrassed.

Archie was exasperated. He rose, without further noticing the child,

and hurried towards the mill. When he had reached the place where the

stream dived through a stone arch under the road he found she was

following him. He heard the pad, pad, of her naked soles in the mud.

All at once she was moved to answer his question.

"Yon's Skirlin' Wattie!" she yelled after him.

But he strode on, taking no notice; fortune was playing into his hand

so wonderfully that he was ceasing to be surprised.

In the little yard of the cottage he found a small crowd of children,

two women, and the miller's man, collected round the strangest

assortment of living creatures he had ever seen. The name 'Skirlin'

Wattie' had conveyed something to him, and he was prepared for the

extraordinary, but his breath was almost taken away by the oddness of

what he saw.

In the middle of the group was a stout wooden box, which, mounted on

very low wheels, was transformed into the likeness of a rough go-cart,

and to this were yoked five dogs of differing breeds and sizes. A

half-bred mastiff in the wheel of the team was taking advantage of the

halt and lay dozing, his jowl on his paws, undisturbed by the blast of

sound which poured over his head, whilst his companion, a large,

smooth-haired yellow cur, stood alert with an almost proprietary

interest in what was going on awake in his amber eyes. The couple of

collies in front of them sniffed furtively at the bystanders, and the

wire-haired terrier, which, as leader, was harnessed singly in advance

of the lot, was sharing a bannock with a newly-breeched man-child, the

sinister nature of whose squint almost made the dog's confidence seem

misplaced.

The occupant of the cart was an elderly man, whom accident had

deprived of the lower part of his legs, both of which had been

amputated just below the knee. He had the head of Falstaff, the

shoulders of Hercules, and lack of exercise had made his thighs and

back bulge out over the sides of his carriage, even as the bag of his

pipes bulged under his elbow. He was dressed in tartan breeches and

doublet, and he wore a huge Kilmarnock bonnet with a red knob on the

top. The lower half of his face was distended by his occupation, and

at the appearance of Flemington by the gate, he turned on him, above

the billows of crimson cheek and grizzled whisker, the boldest pair of

eyes that the young man had ever met. He was a masterly piper, and as

the tune stopped a murmur of applause went through the audience.

"Man, ye're the most mountaineous player in Scotland!" said the

miller's man, who was a coiner of words.

"Aye, dod, am I!" replied the piper.

"Hae?" continued the miller's man, holding out an apple.

The beggar took it with that silent wag of the back of the head which

seems peculiar to the east coast of Scotland, and dropped it into the

cart.

Archie handed him a sixpence.

"Ye'll hae to gie us mair noo!" cried the squinting child, whose eyes

had seen straight enough, and who seemed to have a keen sense of

values.

"Aye, a sang this time," added its mother.

"Ye'll get a pucklie meal an' a bawbee gin' ye sing 'The Tod,'"*

[*Fox.] chimed in an old woman, who had suddenly put her head out of

the upper story of the cottage.

The beggar laid down his pipes and spat on earth. Then he opened his

mouth and gave forth a voice whose volume, flexibility, and extreme

sweetness seemed incredible, considering the being from whom it

emanated.

"There's a tod aye blinkin' when the nicht comes doon,

Blinkin' wi' his lang een, and keekin' round an' roun',

Creepin' by the farm-yaird when gloamin' is to fa',

And syne there'll be a chicken or a deuk awa'.

Aye, when the guidwife rises there's a deuk awa'!

"There's a lass sits greetin' ben the hoose at hame,

For when the guidwife's cankered she gie's her aye the blame,

And sair the lassie's sabbin', and fast the tears fa',

For the guidwife's tynt a bonnie hen, and it's awa'.

Aye, she's no sae easy dealt wi' when her gear's awa'!

"There's a lad aye roamin' when the day gets late,

A lang-leggit deevil wi' his hand upon the gate,

And aye the guidwife cries to him to gar the toddie fa',

For she canna thole to let her chicks an' deuks awa'.

Aye, the muckle bubbly-jock himsel' is ca'ed awa'!

"The laddie saw the tod gae by, an' killed him wi' a stane,

And the bonnie lass wha grat sae sair she sits nae mair her lane,

But the guidwife's no contented yet--her like ye never saw,

Cries she, 'This time it is the lass, an' she's awa'!'

Aye, yon laddie's waur nor ony tod, for Jean's awa'!"

Archie beat the top rail of the paling with so much enthusiasm that

the yellow cur began to bark. The beggar quieted him with a storm of

abuse.

The beldame disappeared from the window, and her steps could be heard

descending the wooden stair of the cottage. She approached the cart

with a handful of meal on a platter which Skirling Wattie tilted into

an old leather bag that hung on his carriage.

"Whaur's the bawbee?" cried the squinting child.

A shout of laughter went up, led by Archie.

"He kens there's nae muckle weicht o' meal, and wha' should ken it

better?" said the beggar, balancing the bag on his palm and winking at

the miller's man.

The latter, who happened to be the child's unacknowledged parent,

disappeared behind the house.

"One more song, and I will supply the bawbee," said Archie, throwing

another coin into the cart.

Skirling Wattie sent a considering glance at his patron; though he

might not understand refinement, he could recognize it; and much of

his local success had come from his nice appraisement of audiences.

"I'll gie ye Logie Kirk," said he.

"O Logie Kirk, among the braes

I'm thinkin' o' the merry days

Afore I trod the weary ways

That led me far frae Logie.

"Fine do I mind when I was young,

Abune thy graves the mavis sung,

And ilka birdie had a tongue

To ca' me back to Logie.

"O Logie Kirk, tho' aye the same,

The burn sings ae remembered name,

There's ne'er a voice to cry 'Come hame

To bonnie Bess at Logie!'

"Far, far awa' the years decline

That took the lassie wha was mine

And laid her sleepin' lang, lang syne

Among the braes at Logie."

His voice, and the wonderful pathos of his phrasing, fascinated

Archie, but as the last cadences fell from his mouth, the beggar

snatched up the long switch with which he drove his team and began to

roar.

"A'm awa'!" he shouted, making every wall and corner echo. "Open the

gate an' let me through, ye misbegotten bairns o' Auld Nick! Stand

back, ye clortie-faced weans, an' let me out! Round about an' up the

road! Just round about an' up the road, a' tell ye!"

The last sentences were addressed to the dogs who were now all on

their legs and mindful of the stick whirling in the air above them.

Archie could see that he was not included in the beggar's general

address, but, being nearest to the gate, he swung it open and the

whole equipage dashed through, the dogs guided with amazing dexterity

between the posts by their master's switch. The rapid circle they

described on the road as they were turned up the hill towards Brechin

seemed likely to upset the cart, but the beggar leaned outwards so

adroitly that none of the four wheels left the ground. As they went up

the incline he took up his pipes, and leaving the team to its own

guidance, tuned up and disappeared round the next bend in a blast of

sound.

Flemington would have given a great deal to run after him, and could

easily have overtaken the cart, for its pace was not very formidable.

But the whole community, including the tow-headed little girl, was

watching Skirling Wattie out of sight and speculating, he knew, upon

his own identity. So he walked leisurely on till the road turned at

the top of the hill, and he was rewarded at the other side of its bend

by the sight of the beggar halting his team by a pond at which the

dogs were drinking. He threw a look around and behind him; then, as no

human creature was to be seen, he gave a loud whistle, holding up his

arm, and began to run.

Skirling Wattie awaited him at the pond-side, and as Archie

approached, he could almost feel his bold eyes searching him from top

to toe. He stopped by the cart.

"My name is Flemington," said he.

"A've heard worse," replied the other calmly.

"And I have a description of you in my pocket," continued Archie.

"Perhaps you would like to see it."

The beggar looked up at him from under his bushy eyebrows, with a

smile of the most robust and genial effrontery that he had ever seen

on a human face.

"A'd need to," said he.

Archie took a folded paper from his pocket.

"You see that signature," he said, putting his forefinger on it.

The other reached up to take the paper.

"No, no," said Flemington, "this never goes out of my hand."

"That's you!" exclaimed the beggar, with some admiration. "Put it

back. A' ken it."

He unhooked his leather bag, which hung inside the cart on its front

board. This Archie perceived to be made, apparently for additional

strength, of two thicknesses of wood. Skirling Wattie slid the inner

plank upwards, and the young man saw a couple of sealed letters hidden

behind it, one of which was addressed to himself.

"Tak' yon," said the beggar, as the sound of a horse's tread was heard

not far off, "tak' it quick an' syne awa' ye gang! Mind ye, a gang

ilka twa days frae Montrose to Brechin, an a'm aye skirlin' as a

gang."

"And do you take this one and have it sent on from Brechin," said

Archie hurriedly, handing him the letter he had written to Madam

Flemington.

The other wagged the back of his head, and laid a finger against the

rim of his bonnet.

Archie struck into the fields by the pond, and had time to drop down

behind a whin-bush before an inoffensive-looking farmer went by on his

way between the two towns.

The beggar continued his progress, singing to himself, and Flemington,

who did not care to face the mill and the curious eyes of the

tow-headed little girl again, took a line across country back to

Balnillo.

He hated the tow-headed little girl.

CHAPTER IV

BUSINESS

EVENTS seemed to Flemington to be moving fast.

Lord Balnillo dined soon after five, and during the meal the young man

tried to detach his mind from the contents of the letter lying in his

pocket and to listen to his host's talk, which ran on the portrait to

be begun next morning.

The judge had ordered his robes to be taken out and aired carefully,

and a little room with a north aspect had been prepared for the first

sitting. The details of Archie's trade had excited the household below

stairs, and the servant who waited appeared to look upon him with the

curious mixture of awe and contempt accorded to charlatans and to

those connected with the arts. Only James seemed to remain outside the

circle of interest, like a wayfarer who pauses to watch the progress

of some wayside bargain with which he has no concern. Yet, though

Archie's occupations did not move Logie, the young man felt

intuitively that he was anything but a hostile presence.

"With your permission I shall go early to bed to-night," said

Flemington to his host, as the three sat over their wine by the

dining-room fire and the clock's hands pointed to eight.

"Fie!" said the judge; "you are a young man to be thinking of such

things at this hour."

"My bones have not forgotten yesterday----" began Archie.

"And what would you do if you had to ride the circuit, sir?" exclaimed

Balnillo, looking sideways at him like a sly old crow. "Man, James,

you and I have had other things to consider besides our bones! And

here's Mr. Flemington, who might be your son and my grandson, havering

about his bed!"

Archie laughed aloud.

"Captain Logie would need to have married young for that!" he cried.

"And I cannot picture your lordship as anybody's grandfather."

"Come, Jamie, how old are you?" inquired his brother in a tone that

had a light touch of gratification.

"I lose count nowadays," said James, sighing. "I must be near upon

eight-and-thirty, I suppose. Life's a long business, after all."

"Yours has scarcely been long enough to have begotten me, unless you

had done so at twelve years old," observed Archie.

"When I had to ride the circuit," began Balnillo, setting down his

glass and joining his hands across his waistcoat, "I had many a time

to stick fast in worse places than the Den yonder--ay, and to leave my

horse where he was and get forward on my clerk's nag. I've been forced

to sit the bench in another man's wig because my own had rolled in the

water in my luggage, and was a plaster of dirt--maybe never fit to be

seen again upon a Lord of Session's head."

Logie smiled with his crooked mouth. He remembered, though he did not

mention, the vernacular rhyme written on that occasion by some

impudent member of the junior bar:

"Auld David Balnillo gangs wantin' his wig,

And he's seekin' the loan of anither as big.

A modest request, an' there's naething agin' it,

But he'd better hae soucht a new head to put in it!"

"It was only last year," continued his brother, "that I gave up the

saddle and the bench together."

"That was more from choice than from necessity--at least, so I have

heard," said Archie.

"You heard that, Mr. Flemington?"

"My lord, do you think that we obscure country-folk know nothing? or

that reputations don't fly farther than Edinburgh? The truth is that

we of the younger generation are not made of the same stuff. That is

what my grandmother tells me so often--so often that, from force of

habit, I don't listen. But I have begun to believe it at last."

"She is a wise woman," said Balnillo.

"She has been a mighty attractive one," observed Archie meditatively;

"at least, so she was thought at St. Germain."

"At St. Germain?" exclaimed the judge.

"My grandfather died in exile with his master, and my father too,"

replied Flemington quietly.

There was a silence, and then James Logie opened his mouth to speak,

but Archie had risen.

"Let me go, Lord Balnillo," he said. "The truth is, my work needs a

steady hand, and I mean to have it when I begin your portrait

to-morrow."

When he had gone James took the empty seat by his brother.

"His grandfather with the King, and he following this womanish trade!"

he exclaimed.

"I should like to have asked him more about his father," said

Balnillo; "but----"

"He did not wish to speak; I could see that," said James. "I like the

fellow, David, in spite of his paint-pots. I would like him much if I

had time to like anything."

"I have been asking myself: am I a fool to be keeping him here?" said

the other. "Was I right to let a strange man into the house at such a

time? I am relieved, James. He is on the right side."

"He keeps his ears open, brother."

"He seems to know all about _me_," observed Balnillo. "He's a fine

lad, Jamie--a lad of fine taste; and his free tongue hasn't interfered

with his good sense. And I am relieved, as I said."

Logie smiled again. The affection he had for his brother was of that

solid quality which accepts a character in the lump, and loves it for

its best parts. David's little vanities and vacillations, his

meticulous love of small things, were plain enough to the soldier, and

he knew well that the bench and the bar alike had found plenty to make

merry over in Balnillo. He had all the loyal feeling which the Scot of

his time bore to the head of his family, and, as his sentiments

towards him sprang from the heart rather than from the brain, it is

possible that he undervalued the sudden fits of shrewdness which would

attack his brother as headache or ague might attack another man. The

fact that David's colleagues had never made this mistake was

responsible for a career the success of which surprised many who knew

the judge by hearsay alone. Drink, detail and indecision have probably

ruined more characters than any three other influences in the world;

but the two latter had not quite succeeded with Lord Balnillo, and the

former had passed him over.

"I wonder----" said James--"I wonder is it a good chance that has sent

him here? Could we make anything of him, David?"

"Whisht, James!" said the other, turning his face away quickly. "You

go too fast. And, mind you, if a man has only one notion in his head,

there are times when his skull is scarce thick enough to stand between

his thoughts and the world."

"That is true. But I doubt Flemington's mind is too much taken up with

his pictures to think what is in other men's heads."

"Maybe," replied Balnillo; "but we'll know that better a few days

hence. I am not sorry he has gone to bed."

"I will give him an hour to get between his blankets," said Logie,

drawing out his watch. "That should make him safe."

Meanwhile Flemington had reached his room and was pulling his great

package of spare canvases from under his sombre four-poster. He undid

the straps which secured them and drew from between two of them a long

dark riding-coat, thrusting back the bundle into its place. He changed

his clothes and threw those he had taken off on a chair. Then he took

the little locked box he had saved so carefully from the catastrophe

of the previous night, and, standing on the bed, he laid it on the top

of the tester, which was near enough to the ceiling to prevent any

object placed upon it from being seen. He gathered a couple of

cushions from a couch, and, beating them up, arranged them between the

bedclothes, patting them into a human-looking shape. Though he meant

to lock his door and to keep the key in his pocket during the absence

he contemplated, and though he had desired the servants not to disturb

him until an hour before breakfast, he had the good habit of preparing

for the worst.

He slipped out with the coat over his arm, turned the key and walked

softly but boldly down into the hall. He paused outside the

dining-room, listening to the hum of the brothers' voices, then

disappeared down the back-stairs. If he found the door into the

stable-yard secured he meant to call someone from the kitchen regions

to open it and to announce that he was going out to look at his

disabled horse. He would say that he intended to return through the

front door, by which Captain Logie had promised to admit him.

Everything was quiet. The only sign of life was the shrill voice of a

maid singing in the scullery as she washed the dishes, and the house

was not shut up for the night. Through the yard he went and out

unmolested, under the great arch which supported the stable clock, and

then ran swiftly round to the front. He passed under the still lighted

windows and plunged into a mass of trees and undergrowth which headed

the eastern approach.

Once among the friendly shadows, he put on the coat, buttoning it

closely about his neck, and took a small grey wig from one of its deep

pockets. When he had adjusted this under his hat he emerged, crossed

the avenue, dropped over the sunk wall dividing it from the fields,

and made down them till he reached the Montrose road. Through the

still darkness the sound of the Balnillo stable clock floated after

him, striking nine.

There was not enough light to show him anything but his nearest

surroundings. The wall which bounded the great Balnillo grass-parks

was at his left hand, and by it he guided his steps, keeping a

perpetual look out to avoid stumbling over the inequalities and loose

stones, for there were no side-paths to the roads in those days. He

knew that the town was only three miles off, and that the dark stretch

which extended on his right was the Basin of Montrose. A cold snap

played in the air, reminding him that autumn, which in Scotland keeps

its mellowness late, was some way forward, and this sting in the

breath of night was indicated by a trembling of the stars in the dark

vault overhead.

He hastened on, for time was precious. The paper which he had taken

from Skirling Wattie's hands had bid him prepare to follow Logie into

the town when dark set in, but it had been able to tell him neither at

what hour the soldier would start nor whether he would walk or ride.

His chance in meeting the beggar so soon had put him in possession of

James's usual movements immediately, but it had given him little time

to think out many details, and the gaps in his plans had been filled

in by guesswork. He did not think James would ride, for there had been

no sound of preparation in the stable. His intention was to reach the

town first, to conceal himself by its entrance, and when James should

pass, to follow him to his destination. He had a rough map of Montrose

in his possession, and with its help he had been able to locate the

house for which he suspected him to be bound--a house known by the

party he served to be one of the meeting-places of the adherents of

Charles Edward Stuart.

Archie's buoyancy of spirit was sufficient to keep at arm's length a

regret he could not quite banish; for he had the happy carelessness

that carries a man easily on any errand which has possibilities of

development, more from the cheerful love of chance than from

responsible feeling. His light-hearted courage and tenacity were

buried so deep under a luxuriance of effrontery, grace, and

mother-wit, and the glamour of a manner difficult to resist, that

hardly anyone but Madam Flemington, who had brought him up, suspected

the toughness of their quality. He had the refinement of a woman, yet

he had extorted the wonder of an east-coast Scotsman by his

comprehensive profanity; the expression, at times, of a timid girl,

yet he would plunge into a flood of difficulties, whose further shore

he did not trouble to contemplate; but these contrasts in him spoke of

no repression, no conscious effort. He merely rode every quality in

his character with a loose rein, and while he attempted to puzzle

nobody, he had the acuteness to know that his audience would puzzle

itself by its own conception of him. The regret which he ignored was

the regret that he was obliged to shadow a man who pleased him as much

as did James Logie. He realized how much more satisfaction he would

have got out of his present business had its object been Lord

Balnillo. He liked James's voice, his bearing, his crooked mouth, and

something intangible about him which he neither understood nor tried

to understand. The iron hand of Madam Flemington had brought him up so

consistently to his occupation that he accepted it as a part of life.

His painting he used as a means, not as an end, and the changes and

chances of his main employment were congenial to a temperament at once

boyish and capable.

The Pleiades rode high above Taurus, and Orion's hands were coming up

over the eastern horizon as he reached the narrow street which was the

beginning of Montrose. The place was dark and ill-lit, like every

country town of those days; and here, by the North Port, as it was

called, the irregularities of the low houses, with their outside

stairs, offered a choice of odd corners in which he might wait unseen.

He chose the narrowest part of the street, that he might see across it

the more readily, and drew back into the cavity, roofed in by the

'stairhead' of a projecting flight of steps which ran sideways up a

wall. Few people would leave the town at that hour, and those who were

still abroad were likely to keep within its limits. A wretched lamp,

stuck in a niche of an opposite building, made his position all the

more desirable, for the flicker which it cast would be sufficient to

throw up the figure of Logie should he pass beneath it. He watched a

stealthy cat cross its shine with an air of suppressed melodrama that

would have befitted a man-eating tiger, and the genial bellowing of a

couple of drunken men came down the High Street as he settled his

shoulders against the masonry at his back and resigned himself to a

probable hour of tedium.

Not a mile distant, James Logie was coming along the Montrose road. He

had trodden it many times in the darkness during the past weeks, and

his mind was roving far from his steps, far even from the errand on

which he was bent. He was thinking of Archie, whom he believed to be

snug in bed at Balnillo.

He had gone out last night and landed this fantastic piece of young

humanity from the Den, as a man may land a salmon, and he had

contemplated him ever since with a kind of fascination. Flemington was

so much unlike any young man he had known that the difference half

shocked him, and though he had told his brother that he liked the

fellow, he had done so in spite of one side of himself. It was hard to

believe that but a dozen years divided them, for he had imagined

Archie much younger, and the appeal of his boyishness was a strong one

to Logie, who had had so little time for boyishness himself. His life

since he was fifteen had been merged in his profession, and the

restoration of the Stuarts had been for many years the thing nearest

to his heart. There had been one exception to this, and that had long

gone out of his life, taking his youth with it. He was scarcely a sad

man, but he had the habit of sadness, which is as hard a one to combat

as any other, and the burst of youth and buoyancy that had come in

suddenly with Archie had blown on James like a spring wind. Archie's

father and grandfather had died in exile, too, with Charles Edward's

parents. And his eyes reminded him of other eyes.

The events that had taken place since the landing of the Prince in

July had made themselves felt all up the east coast, and the country

was Jacobite almost to a man. Charles Edward had raised his standard

at Glenfinnan, had marched on Edinburgh in the early part of

September, and had established himself in Holyrood on the surrender of

the town. After his victory over Cope at Preston Pans, he had

collected his forces on Portobello sands--thirteen regiments composed

of the Highland clans, five regiments of Lowlanders, two troops of

horse commanded by Lords Elcho and Balmerino, with two others under

Lord Kilmarnock and Lord Pitsligo. The command of the latter consisted

of Angus men armed with such weapons as they owned or could gather.

The insurgent army had entered England in two portions: one of these

led by Lord George Murray, and one by the Prince himself, who marched

at the head of his men, sharing the fatigues of the road with them,

and fascinating the imagination of the Scots by his hopeful

good-humour and his keen desire to identify himself with his soldiers.

The two bodies had concentrated on Carlisle, investing the city, and

after a few days of defiance, the mayor displayed the white flag on

the ramparts and surrendered the town keys. After this, the Prince and

his father had been proclaimed at the market cross, in presence of the

municipality.

But in spite of this success the signs of the times were not

consistently cheering to the Jacobite party. There had been many

desertions during the march across the border, and no sooner had the

Prince's troops left Edinburgh than the city had gone back to the Whig

dominion. At Perth and Dundee the wind seemed to be changing too, and

only the country places stuck steadily to the Prince and went on

recruiting for the Stuarts.

Although he was aching to go south with the invaders, now that the

English were advancing in force, Logie was kept in the neighbourhood

of Montrose by the business he had undertaken. His own instincts and

inclinations were ever those of a fighter, and he groaned in spirit

over the fate which had made it his duty to remain in Angus, concerned

with recruiting and the raising of money and arms. He had not yet

openly joined the Stuarts, in spite of his ardent devotion to their

cause, because it had been represented to him that he was, for the

moment, a more valuable asset to his party whilst he worked secretly

than he could be in the field. The question that perplexed the coast

of Angus was the landing of those French supplies so sorely needed by

the half-fed, half-clothed, half-paid troops, in the face of the

English cruisers that haunted the coast; and it was these matters that

kept Logie busy.

James knew the harbour of Montrose as men know the places which are

the scenes of the forbidden exploits of their youth. This younger son,

who was so far removed in years from the rest of his family as to be

almost like an only child, was running wild in the town among the

fisher-folk, and taking surreptitious trips across the bar when the

staid David was pursuing his respectable career at a very different

kind of bar in Edinburgh. He was the man that Montrose needed in this

emergency, and to-night he was on his way to the town; for he would

come there a couple of times in the week, as secretly as he could, to

meet one David Ferrier, a country gentleman who had joined the

regiment of six hundred men raised by Lord Ogilvie, and had been made

deputy-governor of Brechin for the Prince.

Ferrier also was a man well calculated to serve the cause. He owned a

small property and a farm not far from the village of Edzell, situated

at the foot of a glen running up into the Grampians, and his perfect

knowledge of the country and its inhabitants of all degrees gave him

an insight into every turn of feeling that swept through it in those

troubled days. The business of his farm had brought him continually

into both Brechin and Montrose, and the shepherds, travelling

incessantly with their flocks from hill to strath, formed one of his

many chains of intelligence. He had joined Lord Ogilvie a couple of

months earlier, and, though he was now stationed at Brechin with a

hundred men of his corps, he would absent himself for a night at a

time, staying quietly at Montrose in the house of a former dependent

of his own, that he might keep an eye upon the movements of an English

ship.

The Government sloop-of-war _Venture_ had come into the harbour,

carrying sixteen guns and about eighty men, and had anchored south of

the town, in the strait made by the passage of the River Esk into the

sea. Montrose, apparently, was to suffer for the work she had done as

a port for Stuart supplies, for the _Venture_, lying at a convenient

distance just under the fishing village of Ferryden, had fired heavily

on the town, though no Jacobite troops were there. The commander had

unrigged the shipping and burned two trading barques whose owners were

townsmen, and he had landed a force at the fort, which had captured

the town guns and had carried them on board a vessel lying at the

quay.

Ferrier looked with complete trust to James Logie and his brother

Balnillo. The old man, during his judicial career, had made some

parade of keeping himself aloof from politics; and as his retirement

had taken place previous to the landing of the Prince, he had sunk the

public servant in the country gentleman before the world of

politicians began to divide the sheep from the goats. For some time

few troubled their heads about the peaceable and cautious old Lord of

Session, whose inconspicuous talents were vegetating among the trees

and grass-parks that the late Lady Balnillo had husbanded so carefully

for him. As to his very much younger brother, who had been incessantly

absent from his native land, his existence was practically forgotten.

But because the Government's Secret Intelligence Department on the

east coast had remembered it at last with some suspicion, Flemington

had been sent to Montrose with directions to send his reports to its

agent in Perth. And Flemington had bettered his orders in landing

himself at Balnillo.

As Archie heard a steady tread approaching, he shrank farther back

under the stair. He could only distinguish a middle-sized male figure

which might belong to anyone, and he followed it with straining eyes

to within a few feet of the lamp. Here it paused, and, skirting the

light patch, stepped out into the middle of the way.

He scarcely breathed. He was not sure yet, though the man had come

nearer by half the street; but the height matched his expectation, and

the avoidance of the solitary light proved the desire for secrecy in

the person before him. As the man moved on he slipped from his shelter

and followed him, keeping just enough distance between them to allow

him to see the way he went.

The two figures passed up the High Street, one behind the other,

Flemington shrinking close to the walls and drawing a little nearer.

Before they had gone a hundred yards, his unconscious guide turned

suddenly into one of those narrow covered-in alleys, or closes, as

they are called, which started at right angles from the main street.

Archie dived in after him as unconcernedly as he would have dived into

the mouth of hell, had his interests taken him that way. These closes,

characteristic of Scottish towns to this day, were so long, and

burrowed under so many sightless-looking windows and doors, to emerge

in unexpected places, that he admired James's knowledge of the short

cuts of Montrose, though it seemed to him no more than natural. The

place for which he conceived him to be making was a house in the New

Wynd nicknamed the 'Happy Land,' and kept by a well-known widow for

purposes which made its insignificance an advantage. It was used, as

he had heard, by the Jacobite community, because the frequent visitors

who entered after dusk passed in without more comment from the

townspeople than could be expressed in a lifted eyebrow or a sly

nudge. It was a disconcerting moment, even to him, when the man in

front of him stopped, and what he had taken for the distant glimmer of

an open space revealed itself as a patch of whitewash with a door in

it. The close was a cul-de-sac.

Flemington stood motionless as the other knocked at the door. Flight

was undesirable, for James might give chase, and capture would mean

the end of a piece of work of which he was justly proud. He guessed

himself to be the fleeter-footed of the two, but he knew nothing of

the town's byways, and other night-birds besides Logie might join in.

But his bold wit did not desert him, for he gave a loud drunken shout,

as like those he had heard at the North Port as he could make it, and

lurched across the close. Its other inmate turned towards him, and as

he did so Archie shouted again, and, stumbling against him, subsided

upon the paved floor.

The door beyond them opened a little, showing a portion of a scared

face and a hand which held a light.

"Guid sakes! what'll be wrang?" inquired a tremulous female voice.

The man was standing over Archie, pushing him with his foot. His

answer may have reassured the questioner, but it had a different

effect upon the heap on the ground.

"Hoot, woman! don't be a fool! It's me--Ferrier!"

CHAPTER V

"THE HAPPY LAND"

THE door opened a little further.

"Here," said Ferrier to the woman, "go up and bring me the roll of

unwritten paper from the table."

"You'll no be coming in?"

"Not now. Maybe in another hour or more."

"But wha's yon?" said she.

"Lord! woman, have you lived all these years in Montrose and never

seen a drunken man?" exclaimed he impatiently. "Shut the door, I'm

telling you, and get what I want. He will not trouble you. He's past

troubling anybody."

She obeyed, and Archie heard a bolt shot on the inside.

Though he had been startled on discovering his mistake, he now felt

comforted by it, for, being unknown to Ferrier, he was much safer with

him than he would have been with James. He raised his head and tried

to get an idea of his companion's face, but the darkness of the close

was too great to let him distinguish his features. He had discovered

where he lived by accident, but though a description of the man was in

the little box now reposing on the tester of his bed at Balnillo, he

did not know him by sight. These things were going through his mind as

the woman returned from her lodger's errand, and the door had just

been made fast again when there was a step at the close's mouth and

another man came quickly in, stopping short as he found it occupied.

Ferrier coughed.

"Ferrier?" said James's voice softly. "What is this?" he asked as his

foot came in contact with Archie.

"It's a drunken brute who came roaring in here a minute syne and fell

head over heels at my door," replied the other. "The town is full of

them to-night."

He stooped down and took Flemington by the shoulder.

"Up you get!" he cried, shaking him.

Archie breathed heavily and let his whole weight hang on Ferrier's

hand.

"Haud awa' frae me, lassie!" he expostulated thickly.

Logie laughed.

"He must be far gone indeed to take you for a lass," he observed.

Ferrier gave Archie a stronger shake.

"A'll no gang hame wantin' Annie!" continued Flemington, whose humour

was beginning to find some pleasure in the situation.

The raw vernacular that he had mastered with absolute success in

childhood was at his tongue's end still.

"Come, come," said James.

Ferrier moved forward, but Archie had reached out a limp hand and

taken him by the ankle.

"Annie!" he muttered, "ma bonnie, bonnie Annie!"

Ferrier, who had nearly fallen forward, tried to strike out with his

foot, but Archie's grip, nerveless yet clinging as a limpet, held him

fast.

"A' tell ye, a'll nae gang hame wantin' Annie!" he repeated more

loudly.

"He has me by the foot, damn him!" said Ferrier.

James swore quietly but distinctly.

"Annie! _Annie!_" roared Archie, making the silent close echo again.

"Great heavens!" exclaimed the exasperated James, "we shall have the

whole town out of bed if this goes on! Shake him off, man, and let us

be going."

He bent down as he spoke and groping in the darkness, found

Flemington's heels. He seized them and began to drag him backwards as

a man drags a fighting dog. He had a grip of iron.

The effect of the sudden pull on Ferrier was to make him lose his

balance. He staggered against the side of the close, calling to Logie

to desist.

Archie still held on with back-boneless tenacity; but as the scrape of

flint and steel cut the darkness, he knew that he had carried his

superfluous pleasantries too far. He dared not loose Ferrier's ankle

and roll to the wall, lest the action should prove him to be more

wideawake and less intoxicated than he seemed. He could only bury his

face in his sleeve.

His next sensation was a violent stab of burning pain in his wrist

that made him draw it back with a groan.

"I knew that would mend matters," said James grimly, as he blew out

the tiny twist of ignited tow and replaced it and the steel box in his

pocket. "Come away--this sot has wasted our time long enough. He can

sleep off his liquor as well here as anywhere else."

"You've helped to sober him," said Ferrier, as the two men went out of

the close.

Flemington sat up. The burn stung him dreadfully, for the saltpetre in

which the tow had been dipped added to the smart. But there was no

time to be lost, so he rose and followed again.

Ferrier and Logie went off up the High Street, and turned down an

offshoot of it which Archie guessed to be the New Wynd, because it

answered to its position in his map of the town. He dashed to the

corner and watched them by the one light which illuminated the narrow

street till he could see them no longer. Then he flitted after them, a

soft-footed shadow, and withdrew under a friendly 'stairhead,' as he

had done at the North Port. A little farther on he could distinguish

the two ascending an outside stair to a squat building, and he heard

the sound of their knuckles on wood. Another minute and they were

admitted.

The two captains were let into a small room in the back premises of

'The Happy Land' by a slatternly-looking woman, who disappeared when

she had given them a light. Pens and ink lay upon the table and the

smoke of lamps had blackened the ceiling. It was a wretched place, and

the sound of rough voices came now and again from other parts of the

house. James drew up a chair, and Ferrier also sat down, tossing the

roll of paper to his companion.

"A young man called Flemington is at Balnillo painting my brother's

portrait," said Logie. "It's a pity that I have not something of his

gift for drawing."

"Flemington----?" said the other. "There is a widow Flemington who

lives a mile or so this side of the Perthshire border; but that is the

only part of the country I do not know."

"This is her grandson. She lived at St. Germain, and her husband was

with King James. He is a strange lad--a fine lad too. My brother seems

mightily taken up with him."

"Where is your plan?" asked Ferrier.

James took out a small pocket-book and laid it on the table; then he

smoothed out the roll of paper, drew the points of the compass on it,

and began to copy from the rough sketches and signs which covered the

leaf of his little book.

Ferrier watched him in silence.

"I could not do that were it to save my life," he said at last.

"I learned something, campaigning by the walls of Dantzig," replied

James.

Ferrier watched the growing of the hasty map with admiration. His own

talents for organization and tactics had given this obscure landowner

the position he held in the Prince's haphazard army, but the

professional soldier was invaluable to him. He sat wondering how he

could have got on without James.

"See," said Logie, pushing the paper to him, "here lies the _Venture_

off Ferryden, at the south side of the river, and here is Inchbrayock

Island. That English captain is a fool, or he would have landed some

men there. You and I will land on it, Ferrier. And now," he went on,

"the man is twice a fool, for, though he has taken the guns from the

fort and put them on board one of the unrigged ships, he has left her

beside the quay. This point that I have marked with a cross is where

she is moored. It would be idle not to make use of such folly! Why,

man, if we can carry through the work I have in my mind, we shall blow

the _Venture_ out of the water! Three nights I have skulked round the

harbour, and now I think that every close and every kennel that opens

its mouth upon it is in my head. And the island is the key to

everything."

Logie's eyes shone in the dim room like the eyes of some animal

watching in a cave.

"We must get possession of the ship at the quay-side," continued he.

"Then we will take a couple of the town guns and land them on

Inchbrayock. A hundred men from Brechin should be sufficient."

"It must be done at night," said the other.

"At night," said James, getting up and putting his hands on the back

of his chair. "And now, as soon as possible, we must go down to the

harbour and look carefully at the position of everything."

Ferrier stood up and stretched himself, as men so often will when they

are turning over some unacknowledged intention.

James took up the roll of paper, glanced at it and threw it down

again.

"I see it as though it had come by inspiration!" he cried. "I see that

we have a blockhead to deal with, and when heaven sends such an

advantage to His Highness, it is not you nor I, Ferrier, who will balk

its design. You will not hang back?"

He looked at his friend as though he were ready to spring at him. But

Ferrier went on with his own train of thought. He was a slower man

than Logie, but if he lacked his fire, he lacked none of his

resolution.

"You are right," he said. "A man is a fool who leaves what he has

captured on the farther side of the river, who thinks, having taken

his enemy's guns from a fort, that he can let it stand empty. He has

done these follies because he knows that there are no troops in

Montrose."

"Ay, but there are troops in Brechin!" burst out James.

"There are troops in Brechin," repeated Ferrier slowly, "and they must

be got quietly into the town. I wish there were not eight miles of

road between the two."

"I have not forgotten that," said James, "and to-night I mean to

remain here till daylight and then return home by the side of the

Basin. I will make my way along its shore and judge whether it be

possible for you to bring your men by that route. If you can get them

out of Brechin by the river-bank and so on along the side of the Esk,

you will avoid the road and I will be waiting for you at the fort."

Logie had come round the little table and stood by his friend, waiting

for him to speak.

"I will go with you," said Ferrier. "We can part below Balnillo, and

I, too, will go back to Brechin by the river. I must know every step

before I attempt to bring them in the dark. There must be no delays

when the time comes."

James drew a long sigh of relief. He had never doubted his companion's

zeal, but his heart had been on fire with the project he carried in

it, and Ferrier's complete acceptance of it was balm to his spirit. He

was a man who spared himself nothing, mentally or physically.

He folded the roll of paper and gave it to Ferrier.

"Keep it," said he. "Now we must go to the harbour."

CHAPTER VI

IN DARKNESS AND IN LIGHT

WHEN the men had disappeared into the house, Archie remained under his

stairhead considering. He had been told in his instructions to

discover two things--whether Logie was in touch with Ferrier, and

whether 'The Happy Land' was frequented by the pair. Though Ferrier

was in command of the small Jacobite force in Brechin, it was

suspected that he spent an unknown quantity of his time in Montrose.

To the first of these questions he had already mastered the answer; it

only remained for him to be absolutely certain that the house in front

of him was 'The Happy Land.' He could not swear that he was in the New

Wynd, though he was morally certain of it, but there were marks upon

the house which would be proof of its identity. There would be a

little hole, covered by an inside sliding panel, in the door of 'The

Happy Land,' through which its inmates could see anyone who ascended

the stair without being seen themselves, and there would be the

remains of an ancient 'risp,' or tirling-pin, at one side of it.

Archie ran lightly across the street, crept up the staircase, and

passed his palm over the wood. Yes, there was the hole, two inches

deep in the solid door. He put in his finger and felt the panel in the

farther side. Then he searched along the wall till his hand came in

contact with the jagged edge of the ancient risp. There was no ring on

it, for it had long been disused, but it hung there still--a useless

and maimed veteran, put out of action.

He returned to his post satisfied. His discoveries had earned him the

right to go home, but he did not mean to do so. How he was going to

get back into Balnillo House, unseen, he did not know, and had not, so

far, troubled himself to imagine. Perhaps he might have to stop out

all night. He hoped not, but he was not going to meet trouble

half-way. The house would be locked, the household--with the exception

of the errant James--abed, and his own room was not upon the

ground-floor. However, these were matters for later consideration, and

he would remain where he was for a time. For all he knew, Ferrier and

Logie might combine business with pleasure by staying in 'The Happy

Land' till morning; but they were just as likely to come out within

measurable time, and then he could see where they went. He was quite

happy, as he was everywhere.

He fell to thinking of other things: of his host, with his thin, neat

legs and velvet coat; of that 'riding the circuit' upon which the old

man valued himself so much. In his mind's eye he figured him astride

of his floundering nag at the edge of some uninviting bog in an access

of precise dismay. That was how he would have wished to paint him. His

powers of detachment were such that he became fascinated by the idea,

and awoke from it with a start to hear the footsteps of Logie and

Ferrier coming down the stairway opposite.

They did not retrace their way up the Wynd, but went on to its end and

turned into a street leading southwards, whilst Archie slipped along

in their wake. At last they reached a wilderness of sheds and lumber,

above which stood a windmill on a little eminence, and the strong

smell of sea and tar proclaimed the region of the harbour. A light

shone clear and large across the dark space of water, touching the

moving ripples, and this Archie guessed to be the riding-light of the

_Venture_, which lay like a sullen watch-dog under Ferryden village.

He had to go very warily, for the pair in front stopped often and

stood talking in low voices, but the bales and coils of rope and heaps

of timber with which the quays were strewn gave him cover. He could

not get close enough to them to hear what they said, but their figures

were much plainer against the background of water than they had been

in the streets, and he noted how often Logie would stretch out his

arm, pointing to the solitary light across the strait.

There was scarcely any illumination on this side of it, and the

unrigged shipping lay in darkness as Ferrier and his friend went along

the quay and seated themselves on a windlass. Archie, drawing closer,

could hear the rustle as the former unrolled James's map. The soldier

took out his flint and steel and struck a light, covering it with his

hand, and both men bent their heads over the paper. Archie's wrist

smarted afresh as he saw it; his sleeve had rubbed the burn, and he

could feel the oozing blood.

He crouched behind them, peering through the medley of ropes and

tackle which hung on the windlass. By standing up he could have

touched the two men. He had no idea what it was that they were

studying, but his sharp wits told him that it must be a map of some

kind, something which might concern the English ship across the

waterway. He longed to get it. His confidence in his own luck was one

of the qualities that had served him best, and his confidence in his

own speed was great and, moreover, well-placed. He knew that he had

twelve years of advantage over James, and, from the sound of Ferrier's

voice, he judged that he had the same, or more, over him.

The temptation of chance overmastered him. He raised himself

noiselessly, leaned over the intervening tackle, and made a bold

snatch at the map, which Ferrier held whilst James was occupied with

the lighted twist of tow.

But his luck was to fail him this time. Logie moved his hand, knocking

it against Flemington's, and the light caught the paper's edge. A soft

puff of sea-wind was coming in from over the strait, and in one moment

the sheet was ablaze. Archie snatched back his hand and fled; but the

glare of the burning paper had been bright enough to show Logie a

man's wrist, on which there was a fresh, bleeding mark.

The bright flare of the paper only intensified the darkness for the

two astounded men, and though each was instantly on his feet and

running in the direction of the retreating footsteps, Archie had

threaded the maze of amphibious obstacles and was plunging between the

sheds into the street before either of them could get clear of the

pitfalls of the quay.

He tore on, not knowing whither he went. His start had been a good

one, but as he paused to listen, which he did when he had gone some

way, he could hear them following. The town was so quiet that he met

nobody, and he pressed on, trusting to luck for his direction.

Through the empty streets he went at the top of his speed, launched on

the flood of chance, and steering as best he could for the north end

of the town. Finally, an unexpected turning brought him within a few

yards of the North Port. He waited close to the spot where he had

first taken shelter, and listened; then, hearing nothing, he struck

out at a brisk walk for the country, and was soon clear of Montrose.

He sat down by the wayside to rest. He had had a more sensational

night than he expected, and though his spirits were still good, his

ill-luck in missing the paper he had risked so much to obtain had

cooled them a little, and by the light of this disappointment he

looked rather ruefully on his poor prospects of getting to bed. It was

past midnight, and there seemed nothing to do but to return to

Balnillo and to make himself as comfortable as he could in one of the

many out-buildings which the yard by its back-door contained. The

household rose early, and at the unlocking of that door he must manage

to slip in and gain his bedroom.

He rose, plodded home, and stole into the courtyard, where, searching

in an outhouse, he found an endurable couch on a heap of straw. On

this he spread his coat like a blanket, crawling under it, and, with a

calmness born of perfect health and perfect nerves, was soon asleep.

When dawn broke it found him wakeful. He had not rested well, for his

burnt wrist was very sore, and the straw seemed to find it out and to

prick the wound, no matter how he might dispose his hand. He propped

himself against the wall by the open outhouse-window, whence he could

see the back door of Balnillo and watch for the moment of its first

opening. It would be neck or nothing then, for he must enter boldly,

trusting to hit on a lucky moment.

At last the growing light began to define details of the house,

tracing them out on its great mass with an invisible pencil, and he

thought he heard a movement within. The stable-clock struck six, and

high above he could see the sun touching the slates and the stone

angles of the chimney-stacks with the first fresh ethereal beam of a

pure October morning. He inhaled its breath lovingly, and with it

there fell from him the heaviness of his uneasy night. All was well,

he told himself. His sensuous joy in the world, his love of life and

its hazards and energies came back upon him, strong, clean, and

ecstatic, and the sounds of a bolt withdrawn made him rise to his

feet.

A maidservant came out carrying a lantern, whose beam burned with

feeble pretentiousness in the coming sunlight. She set it down by the

threshold and went past his retreat to the stable. No doubt she was

going to call the men. When she had gone by he slipped out, and in a

dozen paces was inside the house.

Another minute and he was in his room.

He looked with some amusement at the rough effigy of himself which he

had made in the bed overnight, and when he had flung the cushion back

to its place he got out of his clothes and lay down, sinking into the

cool luxury of the sheets with a sigh of pleasure. But he had no

desire to sleep, and when a servant came to wake him half an hour

later he was ready to get up. He rose, dressed, wrote out the detailed

description of his night's discoveries, and put the document in his

pocket to await its chance of transmission.

A message was brought to him from Lord Balnillo as he left his room,

which begged his guest to excuse his company at breakfast. He had been

long astir, and busy with his correspondence; at eleven o'clock he

would be ready for his sitting, if that were agreeable to Mr.

Flemington.

As Mr. Flemington realized how easily he might have met the judge as

he ran through the shuttered passage, his belief in the luck that had

used him so scurvily last night returned.

There was no sign of James as Archie sat down to his meal, though a

second place was set at the table, and as he did not want to ask

embarrassing questions, he made no inquiry about him. Besides which,

being immoderately hungry, he was too well occupied to trouble about

anyone.

He went out upon the terrace when he had finished. The warm greyness

of the autumn morning was lifting from the earth and it was still

early enough for long shadows to lie cool on the westward side of the

timber. As they shortened, the crystal of the dew was catching shafts

from the sun, and the parks seemed to lie waiting till the energy of

the young day should let loose the forces of life from under the

mystery of its spangled veil. Where the gean-trees glowed carmine and

orange, touches of quickening fire shot through the interstices of

their branches, and coloured like a tress of trailing forget-me-not,

the South Esk wound into the Basin of Montrose, where the tide, ebbing

beyond the town, was leaving its wet sands as a feasting-ground for

all sorts of roving birds whose crying voices came faintly to Archie,

mellowed by distance.

Truly this was a fascinating place, with its changing element of

distant water, its great plain lines of pasture, its ordered vistas of

foliage! The passion for beauty lay deep below the tossing, driving

impulses of Flemington's nature, and it rose up now as he stood on the

yew-edged terraces of Balnillo and gazed before him. For the moment

everything in his mind was swallowed up but the abstract, fundamental

desire for perfection, which is, when all is said and done, humanity's

mainspring, its incessant though often erring guide, whose perverted

behests we call sin, whose legitimate ones we call virtue; whose very

existence is a guarantee of immortality.

The world, this crystalline morning, was so beautiful to Archie that

he ached with the uncomprehended longing to identify himself with

perfection; to cast his body down upon the light-pervaded earth and to

be one with it, to fling his soul into the heights and depths of the

limitless encompassing ether, to be drawn into the heart of God's

material manifestation on earth--the sun. He understood nothing of

what he felt, neither the discomfort of his imprisonment of flesh, nor

the rapturous, tentative, wing-sweeps of the spirit within it. He left

the garden terrace and went off towards the Basin, with the touch of

that elemental flood of truth into which he had been plunged for a

moment fresh on his soul. The whole universe and its contents seemed

to him good--and not only good, but of consummate interest--humanity

was fascinating. His failure to snatch the map from Ferrier's hand

last night only made him smile. In the perfection of this transcendent

creation all was, and must be, well!

His thoughts, woven of the same radiant appreciation, flew to James,

whose personality appealed to him so strongly. The gentle blood which

ran in the veins of the pair of brothers ran closer to the surface in

the younger one; and a steadfast, unostentatious gallantry of heart

seemed to be the atmosphere in which he breathed. He was one of those

whose presence in a room would always be the strongest force in it,

whether he spoke or was silent, and his voice had the tone of

something sounding over great and hidden depths. It was not necessary

to talk to him to know that he had lived a life of vicissitude, and

Archie, all unsuspected, in the watches of last night had seen a side

of him which did not show at Balnillo. His grim resourcefulness in

small things was illustrated by the raw spot on the young man's wrist.

That episode pleased Flemington's imagination--though it might have

pleased him even better had the victim been someone else; but he bore

James no malice for it, and the picture of the man haunting the dark

quays, strewn with romantic, sea-going lumber, and scheming for the

cause at his heart, whilst the light from the hostile ship trailed the

water beside him, charmed his active fancy.

But it was not only his fancy that was at work. He knew that the

compelling atmosphere of Logie had not been created by mere fancy,

because there was something larger than himself, and larger than

anything he could understand, about the soldier. And feeling, as he

was apt to do, every little change in the mental climate surrounding

him he had guessed that Logie liked him. The thought added to the

exultation produced in him by the glory of the pure morning; and he

suddenly fell from his height as he remembered afresh that he was here

to cheat him.

It was with a shock that he heard Skirling Wattie's pipes as he

reached the Montrose road, and saw the beggar's outlandish cart

approaching, evidently on its return journey to Montrose. His heart

beat against the report that lay in his pocket awaiting the

opportunity that Fate was bringing nearer every moment. There was

nobody to be seen as the beggar drew up beside him. The insolent

joviality that pervaded the man, his almost indecent oddness--things

which had pleased Archie yesterday struck cold on him now. He had no

wish to stay talking to him, and he gave him the paper without a word

more than the injunction to have it despatched.

He left him, hurrying across the Montrose road and making for the

place where the ground began to fall away to the Basin. He sat down on

the scrubby waste land by a broom-bush, whose dry, burst pods hung

like tattered black flags in the brush of green; their acrid smell was

coming out as the sun mounted higher. Below him the marshy ground ran

out to meet the water; and eastward the uncovered mud and wet sand,

bared by the tide ebbing beyond Montrose, stretched along its shores

to the town.

The fall of the broom-covered bank was steep enough to hide anyone

coming up from the lower levels, and he listened to the movements of

somebody who was approaching, and to the crackling noise of the bushes

as they were thrust apart.

The sound stopped; and Archie, leaning forward, saw James standing

half-way up the ascent, with his back turned towards him, looking out

across the flats. He knew what his thoughts were. He drew his right

sleeve lower. So long as he did not stretch out his arm the mark could

not be seen.

He did not want to appear as if he were watching Logie, so he made a

slight sound, and the other turned quickly and faced him, hidden from

the waist downwards in the broom. Then his crooked lip moved, and he

came up the bank and threw himself down beside Flemington.

CHAPTER VII

TREACHERY

JAMES did not look as if he had been up all night, though he had spent

the most part of it on foot with Ferrier. The refreshment of morning

had bathed him too, but he was still harassed in mind by some of the

occurrences of the last few hours. Last night he had seen the mark on

the wrist stretched suddenly between himself and his friend, and had

understood its significance. It was the mark that he had put there. As

the two men listened to the flying footsteps that mystified them by

their doublings in the darkness, it had dawned upon them that the

intruder skulking behind the windlass and the tipsy reveller prone in

the close were one and the same person. The drunkard was a very daring

spy, as sober as themselves.

"You are out betimes," said Archie, with friendly innocence.

"I often am," replied James simply.

Archie pulled up a blade of grass and began to chew it meditatively.

"I see your long night has done you good," began Logie. "There were

many things I should have liked to ask you, yesterday evening, but you

went away so early that I could not."

Silence dropped upon the two: upon Logie, because his companion's

manner last night had hinted at remembrances buried in regret and

painful to dig up; on Flemington, because he knew the value of that

impression, and because he would fain put off the moment when the more

complete deception of the man whose sympathetic attitude he divined

and whose generosity of soul was so obvious, must begin. He did not

want to come to close quarters with James. He had hunted him and been

hunted by him, but he had not yet been obliged to lie to him by word

of mouth; and he had no desire to do so, here and now, in cold blood

and in the face of all this beauty and peace.

"I could not but be interested in what you said," continued the other.

"You did not tell us whether you had been at St. Germain yourself."

"Never!" replied Archie. "I was sent to Scotland at eight years old,

and I have been here ever since."

He had taken the plunge now, for he had been backwards and forwards to

France several times in the last few years, since he had begun to work

for King George, employed in watching the movements of suspicious

persons between one country and the other.

He looked down on the ground.

The more he hesitated to speak, the more he knew that he would impress

James. He understood the delicacy of his companion's feeling by

instinct. It was not only dissimulation which bade him act thus, it

was the real embarrassment and discomfort which were creeping on him

under the eyes of the honourable soldier; all the same, he hoped that

his reluctant silence would save him.

"You think me impertinent," said Logie, "but do not be afraid that I

mean to pry. I know how hard life can be and how anxious, nowadays.

There is so much loss and trouble--God knows what may happen to this

tormented country! But trouble does not seem natural when a man is

young and light-hearted, as you are."

Archie was collecting materials wherewith to screen himself from his

companion's sympathy. It would be easy to tell him some rigmarole of

early suffering, of want endured for the cause which had lain dormant,

yet living, since the unsuccessful rising of the '15, of the devotion

to it of the parents he had scarcely known, of the bitterness of their

exile, but somehow he could not force himself to do it. He remembered

those parents principally as vague people who were ceaselessly playing

cards, and whose quarrels had terrified him when he was small. His

real interest in life had begun when he arrived at Ardguys and made

the acquaintance of his grandmother, whose fascination he had felt, in

common with most other male creatures. He had had a joyous youth, and

he knew it. He had run the pastures, climbed the trees, fished the

Kilpie burn, and known every country pleasure dear to boyhood. If he

had been solitary, he had yet been perfectly happy. He had gone to

Edinburgh at seventeen, at his own ardent wish, to learn painting, not

as a profession, but as a pastime. His prospects were comfortable, for

Madam Flemington had made him her heir, and she had relations settled

in England who were always ready to bid him welcome when he crossed

the border. Life had been consistently pleasant, and had grown

exciting since the beginning of his work for Government. He wished to

Heaven he had not met James this morning.

But to Logie, Archie was merely a youth of undoubted good breeding

struggling bravely for his bread in an almost menial profession, and

he honoured him for what he deemed his courage. There was no need to

seek a reason for his poverty after hearing his words last night. His

voice, when he spoke of his father's death in exile, had implied all

that was necessary to establish a claim on James's generous and rather

bigoted heart. For him, there were only two kinds of men, those who

were for the Stuarts and those who were not. People were very reticent

about their political feelings in those days; some from pure caution

and some because these lay so deep under mountains of personal loss

and misfortune.

"I dare not look back," said Archie, at last, "I have to live by my

trade and fight the world with my brush. You live by sticking your

sword into its entrails and I by painting its face a better colour

than Nature chose for it, and I think yours is the pleasanter calling

of the two. But I am grateful to mine, all the same, and now it has

procured me the acquaintance of his lordship and the pleasure of being

where I am. I need not tell you that I find myself in clover."

"I am heartily glad of it," said James.

"Indeed, so am I," rejoined Archie, pleased at having turned the

conversation so deftly, "for you cannot think what strange things

happen to a man who has no recognized place in the minds of

respectable people."

James rolled over on his chest, leaning on his elbows, and looked up

at his companion sitting just above him with his dark, silky head

clear cut against the background of green bush. The young man's words

seemed to trip out and pirouette with impudent jauntiness in their

hearer's face. Logie did not know that Archie's management of these

puppets was a part of his charm. His detached points of view were

restful to a man like James, one continually preoccupied by large

issues. It was difficult to think of responsibilities in Archie's

presence.

"You might never imagine how much I am admired below stairs!" said the

latter. "While I painted a lady in the south, I was expected to eat

with the servants, and the attentions of a kitchen-girl all but cost

me my life. I found a challenge, offering me the choice of weapons in

the most approved manner, under my dish of porridge. It came from a

groom."

"What did you do?" asked James, astounded.

"I chose warming-pans," said Archie, "and that ended the matter."

James laughed aloud, but there was bitterness in his mirth. And this

was a man born at St. Germain!

"We laugh," said he, "but such a life could have been no laughing

matter to you."

"But I assure you it was! What else could I do?"

"You could have left the place----" began James. Then he stopped

short, remembering that beggars cannot be choosers.

His expression was not lost on Archie, who saw that the boat he had

steered so carefully into the shallows was drawing out to deep water

again, and that he had used his luxuriant imagination to small

purpose. He had so little self-consciousness that to keep James's

interest upon himself was no temptation to him, though it might have

been to some men. He cast about for something wherewith to blot his

own figure from the picture.

"And you," he said, gravely, "you who think so much of my discomforts,

and who have actually wielded the sword while I have merely threatened

to wield the warming-pan--you must have seen stranger things than the

kitchen."

"I?" said James, looking fixedly out to where the town steeple threw

its reflection on the wet sand--"yes. I have seen things that I hope

you will never see. It is not for me to speak ill of war, I who have

turned to it for consolation as a man may turn to his religion. But

war is not waged against men alone in some countries. I have seen it

when it is waged against women and little children, when it is

slaughter, not war. I have seen mothers--young, beautiful

women--fighting like wild beasts for the poor babes that cowered

behind their skirts, and I have seen their bodies afterwards. It would

be best to forget--but who can forget?"

Archie sat still, with eyes from which all levity had vanished. He had

known vaguely that James had fought under Marshal Lacy in the War of

the Polish Succession, in the bloody campaign against the Turks, and

again in Finland. The ironic futility of things in general struck him,

for it was absurd to think that this man, seared by war and wise in

the realities of events whose rumours shook Europe, one who had looked

upon death daily in company with men like Peter Lacy, should come home

to be hunted down back streets by a travelling painter. He

contemplated his companion with renewed interest; no wonder he was

ruthless in small things. He was decidedly the most fascinating person

he had known.

"And you went to these things _for consolation_--so you said?"

"For consolation. For a thing that does not exist," said the other

slowly.

He paused and turned to his companion with an expression that

horrified the young man and paralyzed his curiosity. The power in his

face seemed to have given way, revealing, for a moment, a

defencelessness like the defencelessness of a child looking upon the

dark; and it told Archie that there was something that even Logie

dreaded and that that something was memory.

The deep places he had guessed in James's soul were deep indeed, and

again Flemington was struck with humility, for his own unimportance in

contrast with this experienced man seemed little less than pitiful.

The feeling closed his lips, and he looked round at the shortening

shadows and into the stir of coming sunlight as a man looks round for

a door through which to escape from impending stress. He, who was

always ready to go forward, recoiled because of what he foresaw in

himself. His self-confidence was ebbing, for he was afraid of how much

he might be turned out of his way by the influence on him of Logie. He

wished that he could force their talk into a different channel, but

his ready wits for once would not answer the call.

Something not understood by him was moving James to expression, as

reserved men are compelled towards it at times. Perhaps the bygone

youth in him rose up in response to the youth at his side. The many

years dividing him from his brother, the judge, had never consciously

troubled him in their intercourse, but the tremendous divergence in

their respective characters had thrown him back upon himself. Archie

seemed to have the power of turning a key that Balnillo had never

held.

"But I am putting you out of conceit with the world," cried James

abruptly; "let no one do that. Take all you can, Flemington! I did--I

took it all. Love, roystering, good company, good wine, good play--all

came to me, and I had my bellyful! There were merry times in Holland

with the Scots Brigade. It was the best part of my life, and I went to

it young. I was sixteen the day I stood up on parade for the first

time."

"I have often had a mind to invade Holland," observed Archie, grasping

eagerly at the impersonal part of the subject; "it would be paradise

to one of my trade. The very thought of a windmill weaves a picture

for me, and those strange, striped flowers the Dutchmen raise--I

cannot think of their names now--I would give much to see them

growing. You must have seen them in every variety and hue."

"Ay, I saw the tulips," said James, in a strange voice.

"The Dutchmen can paint them too," said Archie hurriedly.

"What devil makes you talk of tulips?" cried James. "Fate painted the

tulips for me. Oh, Flemington, Flemington! In every country, in every

march, in every fight, among dead and dying, and among dancers and the

music they danced to, I have seen nothing but those gaudy

flowers--beds of them growing like a woven carpet, and Diane among

them!"

No feminine figure had come into the background against which stood

Archie's conception of Logie.

"Diane?" he exclaimed involuntarily.

James did not seem to hear him.

"Her eyes were like yours," he went on. "When I saw you come into the

light of the house two evenings since, I thought of her."

Neither spoke for a few moments; then James went on again:

"Fourteen years since the day I saw her last! She looked out at me

from the window with her eyes full of tears. The window was filled

with flowers--she loved them. The tulips were there again--crimson

tulips--with her white face behind them."

Flemington listened with parted lips. His personal feelings, his

shrinking dread of being drawn into the confidence of the man whom it

was his business to betray, were swallowed by a wave of interest.

"I was no more than a boy, with my head full of cards and women and

horses, and every devilry under heaven, when I went to the house among

the canals. The Conte de Montdelys had built it, for he lived in

Holland a part of the year to grow his tulips. He was a rich man--a

hard, old, pinched Frenchman--but his passion was tulip-growing, and

their cultivation was a new thing. It was a great sight to see the

gardens he had planned at the water's edge, with every colour

reflected from the beds, and the green-shuttered house in the middle.

Even the young men of the Brigade were glad to spend an afternoon

looking upon the show, and the Conte would invite now one, now

another. He loved to strut about exhibiting his gardens. Diane was his

daughter--my poor Diane! Flemington, do I weary you?"

"No, no, indeed!" cried Archie, who had been lost, wandering in an

enchanted labyrinth of bloom and colour as he listened. The image of

the house rising from among its waterways was as vivid to him as if he

had seen it with bodily eyes.

"She was so young," said the soldier, "so gentle, so little suited to

such as I. But she loved me--God knows why--and she was brave--brave

to the end, as she lay dying by the roadside . . . and sending me her

love. . . ."

He stopped and turned away; Archie could say nothing, for his throat

had grown thick. Logie's unconscious gift of filling his words with

drama--a gift which is most often given to those who suspect it

least--wrought on him.

James looked round, staring steadily and blindly over his companion's

shoulder.

"I took her away," he went on, as though describing another man's

experiences; "there was no choice, for the Conte would not tolerate

me. I was a Protestant, and I was poor, and there was a rich Spaniard

whom he favoured. So we went. We were married in Breda, and for a year

we lived in peace. Such days--such days! The Conte made no sign, and I

thought, in my folly, he would let us alone. It seemed as though we

had gained paradise at last; but I did not know him--Montdelys."

"Then the boy was born. When he was two months old I was obliged to

come back to Scotland; it was a matter concerning money which could

not be delayed, for my little fortune had to be made doubly secure

now, and I got leave from my regiment. I could not take Diane and the

child, and I left them at Breda--safe, as I thought. At twenty-three

we do not know men, not the endless treachery of them. Flemington,

when God calls us all to judgment, there will be no mercy for

treachery."

Archie's eyes, fixed on the other pair, whose keen grey light was

blurred with pain, dropped. He breathed hard, and his nostrils

quivered.

"You seem to me as young as I was then. May God preserve you from

man's treachery. He did not preserve me," said James.

"I do not know how Montdelys knew that she was defenceless," continued

he, "but I think there must have been some spy of his watching us. As

soon as I had left Holland he sent to her to say he was ill, probably

dying, and that he had forgiven all. He longed for the sight of the

boy, and he asked her to bring him that he might see his grandchild;

she was to make her home with him while I was absent, and he would

send word to me to join them on my return. Diane sent me the good news

and went, fearing nothing, to find herself a prisoner.

"And all this time he had been working--he and the Spaniard--to get

the Pope to annul our marriage, and they had succeeded. What they said

to her, what they did, I know not, and never shall know, but they

could not shake Diane. I was on my way back to Holland when she

managed to escape with the boy. Storms in the North Sea delayed me,

but I was not disturbed, knowing her to be safe. I did not know when I

landed at last that she was dead. . . . She swam the canal,

Flemington, with the child tied on her shoulders, and the

brother-officer of mine--a man in my own company, whom she had

contrived to communicate with--was waiting for her with a carriage. My

regiment had moved to Bergen-op-Zoom, and he meant to take her there.

He had arranged it with the wife of my colonel, who was to give her

shelter till I arrived, and could protect her myself. They had gone

more than half-way to Bergen when they were overtaken, early in the

morning. She was shot, Flemington. The bullet was meant for

Carmichael, the man who was with her, but it struck Diane. . . . They

laid her on the grass at the roadside and she died, holding

Carmichael's hand, and sending--sending----"

He stopped.

"And the child?" said Archie at last.

"Carmichael brought him to Bergen, with his mother. He did not live.

The bullet had grazed his poor little body as he lay in her arms, and

the exposure did the rest. They are buried at Bergen."

Again Archie was speechless.

"I killed the Spaniard," said James. "I could not reach Montdelys; he

was too old to be able to settle his differences in the world of men."

Archie did not know what to do. He longed with a bitter longing to

show his companion something of what he felt, to give him some sign of

the passion of sympathy which had shaken him as he listened; but his

tongue was tied fast by the blighting knowledge of his true position,

and to approach, by so much as a step, seemed only to blacken his soul

and to load it yet more heavily with a treachery as vile as that which

had undone James.

"I could not endure Holland afterwards," continued Logie; "once I had

looked on that Spanish hound's dead body my work was done. I left the

Scots Brigade and took service with Russia, and I joined Peter Lacy,

who was on his way to fight in Poland. Fighting was all I wanted, and

God knows I had it. I did not want to be killed, but to kill. Then I

grew weary of that, but I still stayed with Lacy, and followed him to

fight the Turks. We outlive trouble in time, Flemington; we outlive

it, though we cannot outlive memory. We outlast it--that is a better

word. I have outlasted, perhaps outlived. I can turn and look back

upon myself as though I were another being. It is only when some

chance word or circumstance brings my youth back in detail that I can

scarce bear it. You have brought it back, Flemington, and this morning

I am face to face with it again."

"It does not sound as if you had outlived it," said the young man.

"Life is made of many things," said James; "whether we have lost our

all or not, we have to plough on to the end, and it is best to plough

on merrily. Lacy never complained of me as a companion in the long

time we were together, for I was on his staff, and I took all that

came to me, as I have done always. There were some mad fellows among

us, and I was no saner than they! But life is quiet enough here in the

year since I came home to my good brother."

The mention of Lord Balnillo made Flemington start.

"Gad!" he exclaimed, rising, thankful for escape, "and I am to begin

the portrait this morning, and have set out none of my colours!"

"And I have gone breakfastless," said Logie with a smile, "and worse

than that, I have spoilt the sunshine for you with my tongue, that

should have been silent."

"No, no!" burst out Flemington rather hoarsely. "Don't think of that!

If you only knew----"

He stood, unable to finish his sentence or to utter one word of

comfort without plunging deeper into self-abhorrence.

"I must go," he stammered. "I must leave you and run."

James laid a detaining hand on him.

"Listen, Flemington," he said. "Listen before you go. We have learnt

something of each other, you and I. Promise me that if ever you should

find yourself in such a position as the one you spoke of--if you

should come to such a strait as that--if a little help could make you

free, you will come to me as if I were your brother. Your eyes are so

like Diane's--you might well be hers."

Archie stood before him, dumb, as James held out his hand.

He grasped it for a moment, and then turned from him in a tumult of

horror and despair.

CHAPTER VIII

THE HEAVY HAND

IT was on the following day that Lord Balnillo stood in front of a

three-quarter length canvas in the improvised studio; Archie had begun

to put on the colour that morning, and the judge had come quietly

upstairs to study the first dawnings of his own countenance alone.

From the midst of a chaos of paint his features were beginning to

appear, like the sun through a fog. He had brought a small hand-glass

with him, tucked away under his velvet coat where it could not be

seen, and he now produced it and began to compare his face with the

one before him. Flemington was a quick worker, and though he had been

given only two sittings, there was enough on the canvas to prompt the

gratified smile on the old man's lips. He looked alternately at his

reflection and at the judicial figure on the easel; Archie had a

tactful brush. But though Balnillo was pleased, he could not help

sighing, for he wished fervently that his ankles had been included in

the picture. He stooped and ran his hand lovingly down his silk

stockings. Then he took up the glass again and began to compose his

expression into the rather more lofty one with which Flemington had

supplied him.

In the full swing of his occupation he turned round to find the

painter standing in the doorway, but he was just too late to catch the

sudden flash of amusement that played across Archie's face as he saw

what the judge was doing. Balnillo thrust the glass out of sight and

confronted his guest.

"I thought you had gone for a stroll, sir," he said rather stiffly.

"My lord," exclaimed Flemington, "I have been searching for you

everywhere. I've come, with infinite regret, to tell you that I must

return to Ardguys at once."

Balnillo's jaw dropped.

"I have just met a messenger on the road," said the other; "he has

brought news that my grandmother is taken ill, and I must hurry home.

It is most unfortunate, most disappointing; but go I must."

"Tut, tut, tut!" exclaimed the old man, clicking his tongue against

his teeth and forgetting to hope, as politeness decreed he should,

that the matter was not serious.

"It is a heart-attack," said Archie.

"Tut, tut," said Balnillo again. "I am most distressed to hear it; I

am indeed."

"I _may_ be able to come back and finish the picture later."

"I hope so. I sincerely hope so. I was just studying the admirable

likeness when you came in," said Balnillo, who would have given a

great deal to know how much of his posturing Flemington had seen.

"Ah, my lord!" cried Archie, "a poor devil like me has no chance with

you! I saw the mirror in your hand. We painters use a piece of

looking-glass to correct our drawing, but it is few of our sitters who

know that trick."

Guilty dismay was chased by relief across Balnillo's countenance.

"You are too clever for me!" laughed Flemington. "How did you learn

it, may I ask?"

But Balnillo had got his presence of mind back.

"Casually, Mr. Flemington, casually--as one learns many things, if one

keeps one's ears open," said he.

A couple of hours later Archie was on his way home. He had left one

horse, still disabled, in the judge's stable, and he was riding the

other into Brechin, where he would get a fresh one to take him on.

Balnillo had persuaded him to leave his belongings where they were

until he knew what chance there was of an early return. He had parted

from Archie with reluctance. Although the portrait was the old man's

principal interest, its maker counted for much with him; for it was

some time since his ideas had been made to move as they always moved

in Flemington's presence. The judge got much pleasure out of his own

curiosity; and the element of the unexpected--that fascinating factor

which had been introduced into domestic life--was a continual joy.

Balnillo had missed it more than he knew since he had become a

completely rural character.

Archie saw the Basin of Montrose drop behind him as he rode away with

a stir of mixed feelings. The net that Logie had, in all ignorance,

spread for him had entangled his feet. He had never conceived a like

situation, and it startled him to discover that a difficulty, nowhere

touching the tangible, could be so potent, so disastrous. He felt like

a man who has been tripped up and who suddenly finds himself on the

ground. He had risen and fled.

The position had become intolerable. He told himself in his impetuous

way that it was more than he could bear; and now, every bit of luck he

had turned to account, every precaution he had taken, all the

ingenuity he had used to land himself in the hostile camp, were to go

for nothing, because some look in his face, some droop of the eyes,

had reminded another man of his own past, and had let loose in him an

overwhelming impulse to expression.

"Remember what I told you yesterday," had been James's last words as

Flemington put his foot in the stirrup. "There must be no more

challenges."

It was that high-coloured flower of his own imagination, the picture

of himself in the servants' hall, that had finally accomplished his

defeat. How could he betray the man who was ready to share his purse

with him?

And, putting the matter of the purse aside, his painter's imagination

was set alight. The glow of the tulips and the strange house by the

winding water, the slim vision of Diane de Montdelys, the gallant

background of the Scots Brigade, the grave at Bergen-op-Zoom--these

things were like a mirage behind the figure of James. The power of

seeing things picturesquely is a gift that can turn into a curse, and

that power worked on his emotional and imaginative side now. And

furthermore, beyond what might be called the ornamental part of his

difficulty, he realized that friendship with James, had he been free

to offer or to accept it, would have been a lifelong prize.

They had spent the preceding day together after the sitting was over,

and though Logie had opened his heart no more, and their talk had been

of the common interests of men's lives, it had strengthened Archie's

resolve to end the situation and to save himself while there was yet

time. There was nothing for it but flight. He had told the judge that

he would try to return, but he did not mean to enter the gates of

Balnillo again, not while the country was seething with Prince

Charlie's plots; perhaps never. He would remember James all his life,

but he hoped that their ways might never cross again. And, behind

that, there was regret; regret for the friend who might have been his,

who, in his secret heart, would be his always.

He could, even now, hardly realize that he had been actually turned

from his purpose. It seemed to him incredible. But there was one thing

more incredible still, and that was that he could raise his hand to

strike again at the man who had been stricken so terribly, and with

the same weapon of betrayal. It would be as if James lay wounded on a

battle-field and he should come by to stab him anew. The blow he

should deal him would have nothing to do with the past, but Archie

felt that James had so connected him in mind with the memory of the

woman he resembled--had, by that one burst of confidence, given him so

much part in the sacred kingdom of remembrance wherein she dwelt--that

it would be almost as if something from out of the past had struck at

him across her grave.

Archie sighed, weary and sick with Fate's ironic jests. There were

some things he could not do.

The two men had avoided politics. Though Flemington's insinuations had

conveyed to the brothers that he was like-minded with themselves, the

Prince's name was not mentioned. There was so much brewing in James's

brain that the very birds of the air must not hear. Sorry as he was

when Flemington met him with the news of his unexpected recall, he had

decided that it was well the young man should go. When this time of

stress was over, when--and if--the cause he served should prevail, he

would seek out Archie. The "if" was very clear to James, for he had

seen enough of men and causes, of troops and campaigns and the

practical difficulties of great movements, to know that he was

spending himself in what might well be a forlorn hope. But none the

less was he determined to see it through, for his heart was deep in

it, and besides that, he had the temperament that is attracted by

forlorn hopes.

He was a reticent man, in spite of the opening of that page in his

life which he had laid before Flemington; and reticent characters are

often those most prone to rare and unexpected bouts of

self-revelation. But when the impulse is past, and the load ever

present with them has been lightened for a moment, they will thrust it

yet farther back behind the door of their lips, and give the key a

double turn. He had enjoined Flemington to come to him as he would

come to a brother for assistance, and it had seemed to Archie that

life would have little more to offer had it only given him a brother

like James. A cloud was on his spirit as he neared Brechin.

When he left the inn and would have paid the landlord, he thrust his

hand into his pocket to discover a thin sealed packet at the bottom of

it; he drew it out, and found to his surprise that, though his name

was on it, it was unopened, and that he had never seen it before.

While he turned it over something told him that the unknown

handwriting it bore was that of James Logie. The coat he wore had hung

in the hall at Balnillo since the preceding night, and the packet must

have been slipped into it before he started.

As he rode along he broke the seal. The paper it contained had neither

beginning nor signature, yet he knew that his guess was right.

"You will be surprised at finding this," he read, "but I wish you to

read it when there are some miles between us. In these disturbed days

it is not possible to tell when we may meet again. Should you return,

I may be here or I may be gone God knows where, and for reasons of

which I need not speak, my brother may be the last man to know where I

am. But for the sake of all I spoke of yesterday, I ask you to believe

that I am your friend. Do not forget that, in any strait, I am at your

back. Because it is true, I give you these two directions: a message

carried to Rob Smith's Tavern in the Castle Wynd at Stirling will

reach me eventually, wheresoever I am. Nearer home you may hear of me

also. There is a little house on the Muir of Pert, the only house on

the north side of the Muir, a mile west of the fir-wood. The man who

lives there is in constant touch with me. If you should find yourself

in urgent need, I will send you the sum of one hundred pounds through

him.

"Flemington, you will make no hesitation in the matter. You will take

it for the sake of one I have spoken of to none but you, these years

and years past."

And now he had to go home and to tell Madam Flemington that he had

wantonly thrown away all the advantages gained in the last three days,

that he had tossed them to the wind for a mere sentimental scruple! So

far he had never quarrelled with his occupation; but now, because it

had brought him up against a soldier of fortune whose existence he had

been unaware of a few weeks ago, he had sacrificed it and played a

sorry trick on his own prospects at the same time. He was trusted and

valued by his own party, and, in spite of his youth, had given it

excellent service again and again. He could hardly expect the

determined woman who had made him what he was to see eye to eye with

him.

Christian Flemington had kept her supremacy over her grandson.

Parental authority was a much stronger thing in the mid-eighteenth

century than it is now, and she stood in the position of a parent to

him. His French blood and her long residence in France had made their

relationship something like that of a French mother and son, and she

had all his confidence in his young man's scrapes, for she recognized

phases of life that are apt to be ignored by English parents in

dealing with their children. She had cut him loose from her

apron-strings early, but she had moulded him with infinite care before

she let him go. There was a touch of genius in Archie, a flicker of

what she called the _feu sacré_, and she had kept it burning before

her own shrine. The fine unscrupulousness that was her main

characteristic, her manner of breasting the tide of circumstance full

sail, awed and charmed him. For all his boldness and initiative, his

devil-may-care independence of will, and his originality in the

conduct of his affairs, he had never freed his inner self from her

thrall, and she held him by the strong impression she had made on his

imagination years and years ago. She had set her mark upon the plastic

character of the little boy whom she had beaten for painting Mr.

Duthie's gate-post. That was an episode which he had never forgotten,

which he always thought of with a smile; and while he remembered the

sting of her cane, he also remembered her masterly routing of his

enemy before she applied it. She had punished him with the

thoroughness that was hers, but she had never allowed the minister to

know what she had done. Technically she had been on the side of the

angels, but in reality she had stood by the culprit. In spirit they

had resented Mr. Duthie together.

He slept at Forfar that night, and pushed on again next morning; and

as he saw the old house across the dip, and heard the purl of the burn

at the end of his journey, something in his heart failed him. The

liquid whisper of the water through the fine, rushlike grass spoke to

him of childhood and of the time when there was no world but Ardguys,

no monarch but Madam Flemington. He seemed to feel her influence

coming out to meet him at every step his horse took. How could he tell

his news? How could he explain what he had done? They had never

touched on ethical questions, he and she.

As he came up the muddy road between the ash-trees he felt the chilly

throe, the intense spiritual discomfort, that attends our plunges from

one atmosphere into another. It is the penalty of those who live their

lives with every nerve and fibre, who take fervent part in the lives

of other people, to suffer acutely in the struggle to loose themselves

from an environment they have just quitted, and to meet an impending

one without distress. But it is no disproportionate price to pay for

learning life as a whole. Also, it is the only price accepted.

He put his horse into the stable and went to the garden, being told

that Madam Flemington was there. The day was warm and bright, and as

he swung the gate to behind him he saw her sitting on a seat at the

angle of the farther wall. She rose at the click of the latch, and

came up the grass path to meet him between a line of espalier

apple-trees and a row of phlox on which October had still left a few

red and white blossoms.

The eighteen years that had gone by since the episode of the manse

gate-post had not done much to change her appearance. The shrinking

and obliterating of personality which comes with the passing of middle

life had not begun its work on her, and at sixty-one she was more

imposing than ever. She had grown a great deal stouter, but the

distribution of flesh had been even, and she carried her bulk with a

kind of self-conscious triumph, as a ship carries her canvas. A brown

silk mantle woven with a pattern of flower-bouquets was round her

shoulders, and she held its thick folds together with one hand; in the

other she carried the book she had been reading. Her hair was as

abundant as ever, and had grown no whiter. The sun struck on its

silver, and red flashes came from the rubies in her ears.

She said nothing as Archie approached, but her eyes spoke inquiry and

a shadow of softness flickered over so slightly round her broad lips.

She was pleased to see him, but the shadow was caused less by her

affection for him than by her appreciation of the charming figure he

presented, seen thus suddenly and advancing with so much grace of

movement in the sunlight. She stopped short when he was within a few

steps of her, and, dropping her book upon the ground without troubling

to see where it fell, held out her hand for him to kiss. He touched it

with his lips, and then, thrusting his arm into the phlox-bushes, drew

out the volume that had landed among them. From between the leaves

dropped a folded paper, on which he recognized his own handwriting.

"This is a surprise," said Madam Flemington, looking her grandson up

and down.

"I have ridden. My baggage is left at Balnillo."

The moment of explanation would have to come, but his desire was to

put it off as long as possible.

"There is your letter between the pages of my book," said she. "It

came to me this morning, and I was reading it again. It gave me

immense pleasure, Archie. I suppose you have come to search for the

clothes you mentioned. I am glad to see you, my dear; but it is a long

ride to take for a few pairs of stockings."

"You should see Balnillo's hose!" exclaimed Flemington hurriedly.

"I'll be bound the old buck's spindle-shanks cost him as much as his

estate. If he had as many legs as a centipede he would have them all

in silk."

"And not a petticoat about the place?"

"None nearer than the kitchen."

"He should have stayed in Edinburgh," said Madam Flemington, laughing.

She loved Archie's society.

"I hear that this Captain Logie is one of the most dangerous rebels in

Scotland," she went on. "If you can lay him by the heels it is a

service that will not be forgotten. So far you have done mighty well,

Archie."

They had reached the gate, and she laid her hand on his arm.

"Turn back," she said. "I must consult you. I suppose that now you

will be kept for some time at Balnillo? That nest of treason,

Montrose, will give you occupation, and you must stretch out the

portrait to match your convenience. I am going to take advantage of it

too. I shall go to Edinburgh while you are away."

"To Edinburgh?" exclaimed Flemington.

"Why not, pray?"

"But you leave Ardguys so seldom. It is years----"

"The more reason I should go now," interrupted she. "Among other

things, I must see my man of business, and I have decided to do it

now. I shall be more useful to you in Edinburgh, too. I have been too

long out of personal touch with those who can advance your interests.

I had a letter from Edinburgh yesterday; you are better thought of

there than you suspect, Archie. I did not realize how important a

scoundrel this man Logie is, nor what your despatch to Montrose

implied."

He was silent, looking on the ground.

She knew every turn of Archie's manner, every inflection of his voice.

There was a gathering sign of opposition on his face--the phantom of

some mood that must not be allowed to gain an instant's strength. It

flashed on her that he had not returned merely to fetch his clothes.

There was something wrong. She knew that at this moment he was afraid

of her, he who was afraid of nothing else.

She stopped in the path and drew herself up, considering where she

should strike. Never, never had she failed to bring him to his

bearings. There was only one fitting place for him, and that was in

the hollow of her hand.

"Grandmother, I shall not go back to Balnillo," said he vehemently.

If the earth had risen up under her feet Madam Flemington could not

have been more astonished. She stood immovable, looking at him, whilst

an inward voice, flying through her mind like a snatch of broken

sound, told her that she must keep her head. She made no feeble

mistake in that moment, for she saw the vital importance of the

conflict impending between them with clear eyes. She knew her back to

be nearer the wall than it had been yet. Her mind was as agile as her

body was by nature indolent, and it was always ready to turn in any

direction and look any foe squarely in the face. She was startled, but

she could not be shaken.

"I've left Balnillo for good," said he again. "I cannot go back--I

will not!"

"You--_will not?_" said Christian, half closing her eyes. The pupils

had contracted, and looked like tiny black beads set in a narrow

glitter of grey. "Is that what you have come home to say to _me?_"

"It is impossible!" he cried, turning away and flinging out his arms.

"It is more than I can do! I will not go man-hunting after Logie. I

will go anywhere else, do anything else, but not that!"

"There is nothing else for you to do."

"Then I will come back here."

"That you will not," said Christian.

He drew in his breath as if he had been struck.

"What are you that you should betray me, and yet think to force

yourself on me without my resenting it? What do you think I am that I

should suffer it?"

She laughed.

"I have not betrayed you," said he in a husky voice.

The loyal worship he had given her unquestioning through the long

dependence and the small but poignant vicissitudes of childhood came

back on him like a returning tide and doubled the cruelty of her

words. She was the one person against whom he felt unable to defend

himself. He loved her truly, and the thought of absolute separation

from her came over him like a chill.

"I did not think you could speak to me in this way. It is terrible!"

he said. His dark eyes were full of pain. He spoke as simply as a

little boy.

Satisfaction stole back to her. She had not lost her hold on him,

would not lose it. Another woman might have flung an affectionate word

into the balance to give the final clip to the scale, but she never

thought of doing that; neither impulse nor calculation suggested it,

because affection was not the weapon she was accustomed to trust. Her

faith was in the heavy hand. Her generalship was good enough to tell

her the exact moment of wavering in the enemy in front, the magic

instant for a fresh attack.

"You are a bitter disappointment," she said. "Life has brought me

many, but you are the greatest. I have had to go without some

necessities in my time, and I now shall have to go without you. But I

can do it, and I will."

"You mean that you will turn from me altogether?"

"Am I not plain enough? I can be plainer if you like. You shall go out

of this house and go where you will. I do not care where you go. But

you are forgetting that I have some curiosity. I wish to understand

what has happened to you since you wrote your letter. That is

excusable, surely."

"It is Logie," said he. "He has made it impossible for me. I cannot

cheat a man who has given me all his confidence."

"He gave you his confidence?" cried Madam Flemington. "Heavens! He is

well served, that stage-puppet Prince, when his servants confide in

the first stranger they meet! Captain Logie must be a man of honour!"

"He is," said Archie. "It was his own private confidence he gave me. I

heard his own history from his own lips, and, knowing it, I cannot go

on deceiving him. I like him too much."

Madam Flemington was confounded. The difficulty seemed so strangely

puerile. A whim, a fancy, was to ruin the work of years and turn

everything upside down. On the top, she was exasperated with Archie,

but underneath, it was worse. She found her influence and her power at

stake, and her slave was being wrested from her, in spite of every

interest which had bound them together. She loved him with a jealous,

untender love that was dependent on outward circumstances, and she was

proud of him. She had smiled at his devotion to her as she would have

smiled with gratified comprehension at the fidelity of a favourite

dog, understanding the creature's justifiable feeling, and knowing how

creditable it was to its intelligence.

"What has all this to do with your duty?" she demanded.

"My duty is too hard," he cried. "I cannot do it, grandmother!"

"_Too hard!_" she exclaimed. "Pah! you weary me--you disgust me. I am

sick of you, Archie!"

His lip quivered, and he met her eyes with a mist of dazed trouble in

his own. A black curtain seemed to be falling between them.

"I told him every absurdity I could imagine," said he. "I made him

believe that I was dependent upon my work for my daily bread. I did

not think he would take my lies as he did. His kindness was so

great--so generous! Grandmother, he would have had me promise to go to

him for help. How can I spy upon him and cheat him after that?"

He stopped. He could not tell her more, for he knew that the mention

of the hundred pounds would but make her more angry; the details of

what Logie had written could be given to no one. He was only waiting

for an opportunity to destroy the paper he carried.

"We have to do with principles, not men," said Madam Flemington. "He

is a rebel to his King. If I thought you were so much as dreaming of

going over to those worthless Stuarts, I would never see you nor speak

to you again. I would sooner see you dead. Is _that_ what is in your

mind?"

"There is nothing farther from my thoughts," said he. "I can have no

part with rebels. I am a Whig, and I shall always be a Whig. I have

told you the plain truth."

"And now _I_ will tell you the plain truth," said Madam Flemington.

"While I am alive you will not enter Ardguys. When you cut yourself

off from me you will do so finally. I will have no half-measures as I

have no half-sentiments. I have bred you up to support King George's

interests against the whole band of paupers at St. Germain, that you

may pay a part of the debt of injury they laid upon me and mine. Mary

Beatrice took my son from me. You do not know what you have to thank

her for, Archie, but I will tell you now! You have to thank her that

your mother was a girl of the people--of the streets--a slut taken

into the palace out of charity. She was forced on my son by the Queen

and her favourite, Lady Despard. That was how they rewarded us, my

husband and me, for our fidelity! He was in his grave, and knew

nothing, but I was there. I am here still, and I remember still!"

The little muscles round her strong lips were quivering.

Archie had never seen Madam Flemington so much disturbed, and it was

something of a shock to him to find that the power he had known always

as self-dependent, aloof, unruffled, could be at the mercy of so much

feeling.

"Lady Despard was one of that Irish rabble that followed King James

along with better people, a woman given over to prayers and

confessions and priests. She is dead, thank God! It was she who took

your mother out of the gutter, where she sang from door to door,

meaning to make a nun of her, for her voice was remarkable, and she

and her priests would have trained her for a convent choir. But the

girl had no stomach for a nunnery; the backstairs of the palace

pleased her better, and the Queen took her into her household, and

would have her sing to her in her own chamber. She was handsome, too,

and she hid the devil that was in her from the women. The men knew her

better, and the Chevalier and your father knew her best of all. But at

last Lady Despard got wind of it. They dared not turn her into the

streets for fear of the priests, and to save her own son the Queen

sacrificed mine."

She stopped, looking to see the effect of her words. Archie was very

pale.

"Is my true name Flemington?" he asked abruptly.

"You are my own flesh and blood," said she, "or you would not be

standing here. Their fear was that the Chevalier would marry her

privately, but they got him out of the way, and your father seduced

the girl. Then, to make the Chevalier doubly safe, they forced him to

make her his wife--he who was only nineteen! They did it secretly, but

when the marriage was known, I would not receive her, and I left the

court and went to Rouen. I have lived ever since in the hope of seeing

the Stuarts swept from the earth. Your father is gone, and you are all

I have left, but you shall go too if you join yourself to them."

"I shall not do that," said he.

"Do you understand now what it costs me to see you turn back?" said

Madam Flemington.

The mantle had slipped from her shoulders, and her white hands,

crossed at the wrists, lay with the fingers along her arms. She stood

trying to dissect the component parts of his trouble and to fashion

something out of them on which she might make a new attack. Forces

outside her own understanding were at work in him which were strong

enough to take the fine edge of humiliation off the history she had

just told him; she guessed their presence, unseen though they were,

and her acute practical mind was searching for them. She was like an

astronomer whose telescope is turned on the tract of sky in which, as

his science tells him, some unknown body will arise.

She had always taken his pride of race for granted, as she took her

own. The influx of the base blood of the "slut" had been a

mortification unspeakable, but to Madam Flemington, the actual

treachery practised on her had not been the crowning insult. The thing

was bad, but the manner of its doing was worse, for the Queen and Lady

Despard had used young Flemington as though he had been of no account.

The Flemingtons had served James Stuart whole-heartedly, taking his

evil fortunes as though they had been their own; they had done it of

their own free will, high-handedly. But Mary Beatrice and her

favourite had treated Christian and her son as slaves, chattels to be

sacrificed to the needs of their owner. There was enough nobility in

Christian to see that part of the business as its blackest spot.

She had kept the knowledge of it from Archie, because she had the

instinct common to all savage creatures (and Christian's affinity with

savage creatures was a close one) for the concealment of desperate

wounds. Her silks, her ruby earrings, her physical indolence, her

white hands, all the refinements that had accrued to her in her

world-loving life, all that went to make the outward presentment of

the woman, was the mere ornamental covering of the savage in her. That

savage watched Archie now.

Madam Flemington was removed by two generations from Archie, and there

was a gulf of evolution between them, unrealized by either. Their

conscious ideals might be identical; but their unconscious ideals,

those that count with nations and with individuals, were different.

And the same trouble, one that might be accepted and acknowledged by

each, must affect each differently. The old regard a tragedy through

its influences on the past, and the young through its influences on

the future. To Archie, Madam Flemington's revelation was an

insignificant thing compared to the horror that was upon him now. It

was done and it could not be undone, and he was himself, with his life

before him, in spite of it. It was like the withered leaf of a

poisonous plant, a thing rendered innocuous by the processes of

nature. What process of nature could make his agony innocuous? The

word 'treachery' had become a nightmare to him, and on every side he

was fated to hear it.

Its full meaning had only been brought home to him two days ago, and

now the hateful thing was being pressed on him by one who had suffered

from it bitterly. What could he say to her? How was he to make her see

as he saw? His difficulty was a sentimental one, and one that she

would not recognize.

Archie was not logical. He had still not much feeling about having

deceived Lord Balnillo, whose hospitality he had accepted and enjoyed,

but, as he had said, he could not go "man-hunting" after James, who

had offered him a brother's help, whose heart he had seen, whose life

had already been cut in two by the baneful thing. There was little

room in Archie's soul for anything but the shadow of that nightmare of

treachery, and the shadow was creeping towards him. Had his mother

been a grand-duchess of spotless reputation, what could her virtue or

her blue blood avail him in his present distress? She was nothing to

him, that "slut" who had brought him forth; he owed her no allegiance,

bore her no grudge. The living woman to whom he owed all stood before

him beloved, admired, cutting him to the heart.

He assented silently; but Christian understood that, though he looked

as if she had carried her point, his looks were the only really

unreliable part of him. She knew that he was that curious thing--a man

who could keep his true self separate from his moods. It had taken her

years to learn that, but she had learnt it at last.

For once she was, like other people, baffled by his naturalness. It

was plain that he suffered, yet she could not tell how she was to

mould the hard stuff hidden below his suffering. But she must work

with the heavy hand.

"You will leave here to-morrow," she said; "you shall not stay here to

shirk your duty"; and again the pupils of her eyes contracted as she

said it.

"I will go now," said he.

CHAPTER IX

"TOUJOURS DE L'AUDACE"

"DOAG," said the beggar, addressing the yellow cur, "you an' me'll

need to be speerin' aboot this. Whiles, it's no sae easy tellin'

havers frae truth."

Though Skirling Wattie was on good terms with the whole of his team,

the member of it whom he singled out for complete confidence, whom he

regarded as an employer might regard the foreman of a working gang,

was the yellow cur. The abuse he poured over the heads of his servants

was meant more as incentive than as rebuke, and he fed them well,

sharing his substance honestly with them, and looking to them for

arduous service in return. They were a faithful, intelligent lot,

good-tempered, but for one of the collies, and the accepted

predominance of the yellow cur was merely one more illustration of the

triumph of personality. His golden eyes, clear, like unclouded amber,

contrasted with the thick and vulgar yellow of his close coat, and the

contrast was like that between spirit and flesh. He was a strong,

untiring creature, with blunt jaws and legs that seemed to be made of

steel, and it was characteristic of him that he seldom laid down but

at night, and would stand turned in his traces as though waiting for

orders, looking towards his master as the latter sang or piped, whilst

his comrades, extended in the dust, took advantage of the halt.

The party was drawn up under the lee of a low wall by the grassy side

of the Brechin road, and its grotesqueness seemed greater than ever

because of its entirely unsuitable background.

The wall encircled the site of an ancient building called Magdalen

Chapel, which had long been ruined, and now only survived in one

detached fragment and in the half-obliterated traces of its

foundations. Round it the tangled grass rose, and a forest of withered

hemlock that had nearly choked out the nettles, stood up, traced like

lacework against the line of hills beyond the Basin. In summer its

powdery white threw an evanescent grace over the spot. The place was a

haunt of Skirling Wattie's, for it was a convenient half-way house

between Montrose and Brechin, and the trees about it gave a comforting

shelter from both sun and rain.

The tailboard of the cart was turned to the wall so that the piper

could lean his broad back against it, and there being not a dozen

inches between the bottom of his cart and the ground, he was hidden

from anyone who might chance to be in the chapel precincts. The

projecting stone which made a stile for those who entered the

enclosure was just level with his shoulder, and he had laid his pipes

on it while he sat with folded arms and considered the situation. He

had just been begging at a farm, and he had heard a rumour there that

Archie Flemington was gone from Balnillo, and had been seen in

Brechin, riding westwards, on the preceding morning. The beggar had

got a letter for him behind his sliding boards which had to be

delivered without delay.

"Doag," said he again, "we'll awa' to auld Davie's."

Skirling Wattie distrusted rumour, for the inexactitudes of human

observation and human tongues are better known to a man who lives by

his wits than to anybody else. He was not going to accept this news

without sifting it. To Balnillo he would go to find out whether the

report was true. The only drawback was that "auld Davie," as he called

the judge, abhorred and disapproved of beggars, and he did not know

how he might stay in the place long enough to find out what he wanted.

He was a privileged person at most houses, from the sea on the east to

Forfar on the west, but Lord Balnillo would none of him. Nevertheless,

he turned the wheels of his chariot in his direction.

He wondered, as he went along, why he had not seen Archie by the way;

but Archie had not left Balnillo by the Brechin road, being anxious to

avoid him. What was the use of receiving instructions that he could

not bring himself to carry out? The last person he wished to meet was

the beggar.

Wattie turned into the Balnillo gates and went up the avenue towards

the stable. His pipes were silent, and the fallen leaves muffled the

sound of his wheels. He knew about the mishap that had brought

Flemington as a guest to the judge, and about the portrait he was

painting, for tidings of all the happenings in the house reached the

mill sooner or later. That source of gossip was invaluable to him.

But, though the miller had confirmed the report that Flemington had

gone, he had been unable to tell him his exact destination.

He drove into the stable yard and found it empty but for a man who was

chopping wood. The latter paused between his strokes as he saw who had

arrived.

"A'm seekin' his lordship," began Wattie, by way of discovering how

the land lay.

"Then ye'll no find him," replied the woodman, who was none other than

the elder, Andrew Robieson, and who, like his master, disapproved

consistently of the beggar. He was a sly old man, and he did not think

it necessary to tell the intruder that the judge, though not in the

house, was within hearing of the pipes. It was his boast that he "left

a' to Providence," but he was not above an occasional shaping of

events to suit himself.

The beggar rolled up to the back-door at the brisk pace he reserved

for public occasions. A shriek of delight came from the kitchen window

as the blast of his pipes buzzed and droned across the yard. The tune

of the 'East Nauk of Fife' filled the place. A couple of maidservants

came out and stood giggling as Wattie acknowledged their presence by a

wag of the head that spoke gallantry, patronage, ribaldry--anything

that a privileged old rogue can convey to young womanhood blooming

near the soil. A groom came out of the stable and joined the group.

The feet of the girls were tapping the ground. The beggar's expression

grew more genially provocative, and his eyeballs rolled more

recklessly as he blew and blew; his time was perfect. The groom, who

was dancing, began to compose steps on his own account. Suddenly there

was a whirl of petticoats, and he had seized one of the girls round

the middle.

They spun and counter-spun; now loosing each other for the more

serious business of each one's individual steps, now enlacing again,

seeming flung together by some resistless elemental wind. The man's

gaze, while he danced alone, was fixed on his own feet as though he

were chiding them, admiring them, directing them through niceties

which only himself could appreciate. His partner's hair came down and

fell in a loop of dull copper-colour over her back. She was a

finely-made girl, and each curve of her body seemed to be surging

against the agitated sheath of her clothes. The odd-woman-out circled

round the pair like a fragment thrown off by the spin of some

travelling meteor. The passion for dancing that is even now part of

the life of Angus had caught all three, let loose upon them by the

piper's handling of sound and rhythm.

In the full tide of their intoxication, a door in the high wall of the

yard opened and Lord Balnillo came through it. The fragment broke from

its erratic orbit and fled into the house with a scream; the meteor, a

whirling twin-star, rushed on, unseeing. The piper, who saw well

enough, played strong and loud; not the king himself could have

stopped him in the middle of a strathspey. The yellow dog, on his feet

among his reposing companions, showed a narrow white line between his

lips, and the hackles rose upon his plebeian neck.

"Silence!" cried Lord Balnillo. But the rest of his words were drowned

by the yell of the pipes.

As the dancers drew asunder again, they saw him and stopped. His wrath

was centred on the beggar, and man and maid slunk away unrebuked.

Wattie finished his tune conscientiously. To Balnillo, impotent in the

hurricane of braying reeds, each note that kept him dumb was a new

insult, and he could see the knowledge of that fact in the piper's

face. As the music ceased, the beggar swept off his bonnet, displaying

his disreputable bald head, and bowed like the sovereign of some

jovial and misgoverned kingdom. The yellow dog's attitude forbade

Balnillo's nearer approach.

"Go!" shouted the judge, pointing a shaking forefinger into space.

"Out with you instantly! Is my house to be turned into a house of call

for every thief and vagabond in Scotland? Have I not forbidden you my

gates? Begone from here immediately, or I will send for my men to

cudgel you out!"

But he leaped back, for he had taken a step forward in his excitement,

and the yellow cur's teeth were bare.

"A'm seekin' the painter-laddie," said the beggar, giving the dog a

good-humoured cuff.

"Away with you!" cried the other, unheeding. "You are a plague to the

neighbourhood. I will have you put in Montrose jail! To-morrow, I

promise you, you will find yourself where you cannot make gentlemen's

houses into pandemoniums with your noise."

"A'd like Brechin better," rejoined the beggar; "it's couthier in

there."

Balnillo was a humane man, and he prided himself, as all the world

knew, on some improvements he had suggested in the Montrose prison. He

was speechless.

"Ay," continued Wattie, "a'm thinkin' you've sent mony a better man

than mysel' to the tolbooth. But, dod! a'm no mindin' that. A'm asking

ye, _whaur's the painter-lad?_"

One of Balnillo's fatal qualities was his power of turning in

mid-career of wrath or eloquence to daily with side-issues.

He swallowed the fury rising to his lips.

"What! Mr. Flemington?" he stammered. "What do you want of Mr.

Flemington?"

"Is yon what they ca' him? Well, a'm no seekin' onything o' him. It's

him that's seekin' me."

Astonishment put everything else out of Balnillo's mind. He glared at

the intruder, his lips pursed, his fingers working.

"He tell't me to come in-by to the muckle hoose and speer for him,"

said the other. "There was a sang he was needin'. He was seekin' to

lairn it, for he liket it fine, an' he tell't me to come awa' to the

hoose and lairn him. Dod! maybe he's forgotten. Callants like him's

whiles sweer to mind what they say, but auld stocks like you an' me's

got mair sense."

"I do not believe a word of it," protested Balnillo.

"Hoots! ye'll hae to try, or the puir lad 'll no get his sang,"

exclaimed Skirling Wattie, smiling broadly. "Just you cry on him to

come down the stair, an' we'll awa' ahint the back o' yon wa', an'

a'll lairn him the music! It's this way."

He unscrewed the chanter and blew a few piercing notes. The sound flew

into the judge's face like the impact of a shower of pebbles. He

clapped his hands to his ears.

"I tell you Mr. Flemington is not here!" he bawled, raising his voice

above the din. "He is gone. He is at Ardguys by this time."

"Man, is yon true? Ye're no leein'?" exclaimed Wattie, dropping his

weapon.

"Is yon the way to speak to his lordship?" said the deep voice of

Andrew Robieson, who had come up silently, his arms full of wood,

behind the beggar's cart.

"Turn this vagabond away!" exclaimed Balnillo, almost beside himself.

"Send for the men; bring a horsewhip from the stable! Impudent rogue!

Go, Robieson--quick, man!"

But Wattie's switch was in his hand, and the dogs were already

turning; before the elder had time to reach the stables, he had passed

out under the clock and was disappearing between the trees of the

avenue. He had learned what he wished to know, and the farther side of

Brechin would be the best place for him for the next few days. He

reflected that fortune had favoured him in keeping Captain Logie out

of the way. There would have been no parleying with Captain Logie.

BOOK II