The Interloper

by Violet Jacob

BOOK II

[CHAPTER XIX
SIX MONTHS]

IT was six months since Gilbert Speid had gone from Whanland. Summer, who often lingers in the north, had stayed late into September, to be scared away by the forest fires of her successor, Autumn. The leaves had dropped, and the ice-green light which spreads above the horizon after sunset on the east coast had ushered in the winter.

Christmas, little observed in Scotland, was over; the New Year had brought its yearly rioting and its general flavour of whisky, goodwill, and demoralization. Many of the county people had resorted to their ‘town-houses’ in Kaims, where card-parties again held their sway, and Mrs. Somerville, prominent among local hostesses, dispensed a genteel hospitality.

The friendship between Barclay and Fordyce was well established, for the young gentleman had paid the lawyer a second visit, even more soothing to his feelings than the first. In the minds of these allies Gilbert’s departure had caused a great stir, for Crauford was still at Kaims when his rival summoned Barclay, and informed him that he was leaving Whanland for an indefinite time. But, though Fordyce had no difficulty in deciding that Speid’s action was the result of his being refused by Cecilia Raeburn, Kaims fitted a new and more elaborate explanation to the event each time it was mentioned. The matter had nothing to do with the young lady, said some. Mr. Speid was ruined. Anyone who did not know of his disastrous West Indian speculations must have kept his ears very tight shut. And this school of opinion—a male one—closed its hands on the top of its cane, and assumed an aspect of mingled caution and integrity. This view was generally expressed in the street.

In the drawing-rooms more luscious theories throve. Miss Raeburn, as everyone must have seen, had made a perfect fool of poor Mr. Speid. All the time she had been flirting—to call it by no worse a name—with that rich young Fordyce, and had even enticed him back, when his uncle at last succeeded in getting him out of her way. It was incredible that Mr. Speid had only now discovered how the land lay! He had taken it very hard, but surely, he ought to have known what she was! It was difficult to pity those very blind people. It was also opined that Mr. Speid’s departure was but another proof of the depravity of those who set themselves up and were overnice in their airs. He was already a married man, and justice, in the shape of an incensed Spanish lady—the mother of five children—had overtaken him while dangling after Miss Raeburn. With the greatest trouble, the stranger had been got out of the country unseen. It was a lesson.

Among the few who had any suspicions of the truth, or, at least, of a part of it, was Barclay; for he had been a young clerk in his father’s office at the time when the first Mr. Speid left Whanland in much the same way. He could not help suspecting that something connected with the mystery he remembered was now driving Gilbert from Scotland, for he scorned no means of inquiry, and had heard through channels he was not ashamed to employ, of a demeanour in Cecilia which proved it impossible that she had sent her lover away willingly. Some obstacle had come between them which was not money; the lawyer had good reasons for knowing that there was enough of that. He also knew how devoted Lady Eliza was to the young woman, and how welcome it would be to her to have her settled within such easy reach. He did not believe that any personal dislike on her part had set her against the marriage, for, however little he liked Gilbert himself, he knew him for a type of man which does not generally find its enemies among women. He was certain, in his own mind, that she had stood in the way, and his suspicion of her reasons for doing so he duly confided to Fordyce, bidding him pluck up heart; he was willing, he said, to take a heavy bet that a year hence would see Cecilia at the head of his table. Thus he expressed himself.

‘And I hope it may often see you at it too,’ rejoined Crauford, with what he considered a particularly happy turn of phrase. Barclay certainly found no fault with it.

Though Crauford’s vanity had made the part of rejected one insupportable, and therefore spurred him forward, he probably had less true appreciation of Cecilia than any person who knew her, and in the satisfactory word ‘ladylike’ he had sunk all her wonderful charm and unobvious, but very certain, beauty; he would have to be a new man before they could appeal to him as they appealed to Gilbert. What had really captivated him was her eminent suitability to great-ladyhood, for the position of being Mrs. Crauford Fordyce was such an important one in his eyes that he felt it behoved him to offer it immediately, on finding anyone who could so markedly adorn it.

But, under the manipulation of Barclay, his feelings were growing more intense, and he lashed himself into a far more ardent state of mind. The lawyer hated Gilbert with all his heart, and therefore spared no pains in urging on his rival. His desire to stand well with Fordyce and his pleasure in frustrating his client jumped the same way, and he had roused his new friend’s jealousy until he was almost as bitter against Speid as himself. Crauford, left alone, would probably have recovered from his disappointment and betaken himself elsewhere, had he not been stung by Barclay into a consistent pursuit of his object; and, as it was upon his worst qualities that the lawyer worked, his character was beginning to suffer. For all the elder man’s vulgarity, he had a great share of cleverness in dealing with those who had less brains than himself, and Fordyce was being flattered into an unscrupulousness of which no one would have believed him capable. He would have done anything to worst Gilbert.

Meantime, there was consternation at Fordyce Castle. Crauford had no wish to be more at home than was necessary, and it was only towards the end of Lady Maria Milwright’s sojourn there that he returned, to find his mother torn between wrath at his defection and fear lest he should escape anew. The latter feeling forced her into an acid compliance towards him, strange to see. But he was impervious to it, and, to the innocent admiration of Lady Maria, in whose eyes he was something of a hero, he made no acknowledgment; his mind was elsewhere. Mary and Agneta looked on timidly, well aware of a volcanic element working under their feet; and Agneta, who felt rebellion in the air and had some perception of expediency, made quite a little harvest, obtaining concessions she had scarce hoped for through her brother, to whom Lady Fordyce saw herself unable to deny anything in reason. It was a self-conscious household, and poor Lady Maria, upon whom the whole situation turned, was the only really peaceful person in it.

Macquean was again in charge of Whanland and of such things as remained in the house; the stable was empty, the picture which had so influenced Gilbert was put away with its fellows, and the iron box of jewels had returned to the bankers. The place was silent, the gates closed.

Before leaving, Speid had gone to Kaims to bid his cousins good-bye, and had remained closeted with Miss Hersey for over an hour. He said nothing of his discovery, and made no allusion to the barrier which had arisen between him and the woman he loved. He only told her that Cecilia had refused him at Lady Eliza’s wish, and that, in consequence, he meant to leave a place where he was continually reminded of her and take his trouble to Spain, that he might fight it alone. At Miss Hersey’s age there are few violent griefs, though there may be many regrets, but it was a real sorrow to her to part with her kinsman, so great was her pride in him. To her, Lady Eliza’s folly was inexplicable, and the ‘ill-talk’ on account of which she no longer visited Mrs. Somerville did not so much as enter her mind. Relations are the last to hear gossip of their kinsfolk, and the rumours of thirty years back had only reached her in the vaguest form, to be looked upon by her with the scorn which scurrilous report merits. That they had the slightest foundation was an idea which had simply never presented itself. Very few ideas of any kind presented themselves to Miss Caroline, and to Miss Hersey, none derogatory to her own family.

‘Her ladyship is very wrong, and she will be punished for it,’ said the old lady, holding her gray head very high. ‘Mr. Speid of Whanland is a match for any young lady, I can assure her.’

He looked away. Evidently ‘Speid of Whanland’ sounded differently to himself and to her. He wondered why she did not understand what had gone against him, but he could not talk about it, even to Miss Hersey.

‘You will find plenty as good as Miss Raeburn,’ she continued. ‘You should show her ladyship that others know what is to their advantage better than herself.’

Gilbert sighed, seeing that his point of view and hers could never meet. Granny Stirk would have understood him, he knew, for she had tasted life; but this frail, gentle creature had reached that sexless femininity of mind which comes after an existence spent apart from men. And he loved her none the less for her lack of comprehension, knowing the loyalty of her heart.

‘You will come back,’ she said, ‘and, maybe, bring a wife who will put the like of Miss Raeburn out of your head. I would like to see it, Gilbert; but Caroline and I are very old, and I think you will have to look for news of us on the stone in the churchyard. There are just the two names to come. But, while we are here, you must tell me anything that I can do for you after you have gone.’

‘I will write to you, ma’am,’ said Speid, his voice a little thick; ‘and, in any case, I mean to ask you a favour before I go.’

She looked at him with loving eyes.

‘I am going to give you my address,’ he said, ‘or, at least, an address that will eventually find me. I am going to ask you to send me word of anything that happens to Miss Raeburn.’

‘You should forget her, Gilbert, my dear.’

‘Oh, ma’am! you surely cannot refuse me? I have no one but you of whom I can ask it.’

‘I will do it, Gilbert.’

It was with this understanding that they parted.

To Jimmy Stirk and his grandmother his absence made a blank which nothing could fill. The old woman missed his visits and his talk, his voice and his step, his friendship which had bridged the gulf between age and youth, between rich and poor. She was hardly consoled by the occasional visits of Macquean, who would drop in now and then to recapitulate to her the circumstances of a departure which had never ceased to surprise him. He was not cut after her pattern, but she tolerated him for his master’s sake.

From Morphie bits of information had trickled; on the day of his last visit the servants had let nothing escape them, and Lady Eliza’s face, as she went about the house, was enough to convince the dullest that there was tragedy afoot. A maid had been in the passage, who had seen Gilbert as he left Cecilia.

‘Ye’ll no have gotten any word o’ the laird?’ inquired Granny on one of the first days of the young year, as Macquean stopped at her door.

‘Na, na.’

The old woman sighed, but made no gesture of invitation. From behind her, through the open half of the door, Macquean heard the sound of a pot boiling propitiously, and a comfortable smell reached him where he stood.

‘A’ was saying that a’ hadna heard just very muckle,’ continued he, his nostrils wide—‘just a sma’ word——’

‘Come away in-by,’ interrupted the Queen of the Cadgers, standing back, and holding the door generously open. ‘Maybe ye’ll take a suppie brose; they’re just newly made. Bide till a’ gie ye spune to them.’

It was warm inside the cottage, and he entered, and felt the contrast between its temperature and that of the sharp January air with satisfaction. Granny tipped some of the savoury contents of the black pot into a basin.

‘What was it ye was hearin’ about the laird?’ she asked, as she added a horn spoon to the concoction, and held it out to him.

‘Aw! it was just Wullie Nicol. He was sayin’ that he was thinkin’ the laird was clean awa’ now. It’s a piecie cauld, d’ye no think?’ replied Macquean, as well as he could for the pleasures of his occupation.

‘But what else was ye to tell me?’ she said, coming nearer.

‘There was nae mair nor that. Yon’s grand brose.’

With the exception of the old ladies in the close, no one but Barclay had heard anything of Speid. Macquean received his wages from the lawyer, and everything went on as it had done before Gilbert’s return, now more than a year since. Business letters came to Barclay at intervals, giving no address and containing no news of their writer, which were answered by him to a mail office in Madrid. To any communication which he made outside the matter in hand there was no reply. Miss Hersey had written twice, and whatever she heard in return from Speid she confided only to her sister. It was almost as though he had never been among them. The little roan hack and the cabriolet with the iron-gray mare were sold. As Wullie Nicol had said, he was ‘clean awa’ now.’

Gilbert’s one thought, when he found himself again on Spanish soil, was to obliterate each trace and remembrance of his life in Scotland, and he set his face to Madrid. On arriving, he began to gather round him everything which could help him to re-constitute life as it had been in Mr. Speid’s days, and, though he could not get back the house in which he had formerly lived, he settled not far from it with a couple of Spanish servants and began to wonder what he should do with his time. Nothing interested him, nothing held him. Old friends came flocking round him and he forced himself to respond to their cordiality; but he had no heart for them or their interests, for he had gone too far on that journey from which no one ever returns the same, the road to the knowledge of the strength of fate. Señor Gilbert was changed, said everyone; it was that cold north which had done it. The only wonder was that it had not killed him outright. And, after a time, they let him alone.

Miss Hersey’s letters did not tell him much; she heeded little of what took place outside her own house and less since he had gone; only when Sunday brought its weekly concourse to her drawing-room did she come into touch with the people round her. Of Lady Eliza, whose Presbyterian devotions were sheltered by Morphie kirk and who made no visits, she saw nothing. Now and then the news would reach Spain that ‘Miss Raeburn was well’ or that ‘Miss Raeburn had ridden into Kaims with her ladyship,’ but that was all. Gilbert had wished to cut himself completely adrift and he had his desire. The talk made by his departure subsided as the circles subside when a stone has been dropped in a duckpond; only Captain Somerville, seeing Cecilia’s face, longed to pursue him to the uttermost parts of the earth, and, with oaths and blows, if need be, to bring him back.

[CHAPTER XX
ROCKET]

THE January morning was moist and fresh as Lady Eliza and Cecilia Raeburn, with a groom following them, rode towards that part of the country where the spacious pasture-land began. The sun was at their backs and their shadows were shortening in front of them as it rose higher. The plum-coloured riding-habit was still in existence, a little more weather-stained, and holding together with a tenacity that provoked Cecilia, who had pronounced it unfit for human wear and been disregarded.

Rocket, the bay mare, was pulling at her rider and sidling along the road, taking no count of remonstrance, for she had not been out for several days.

‘I wish you had taken Mayfly, aunt,’ remarked Cecilia, whose horse walked soberly beside his fidgeting companion.

‘And why, pray?’ inquired the other, testily.

‘Rocket has never seen hounds and I am afraid she will give you some trouble when she does. At any rate, she will tire you out.’

‘Pshaw!’ replied Lady Eliza.

Six months had passed Cecilia, bringing little outward change, though, thinking of them, she felt as though six years had gone by in their stead; her spirits were apparently as even, her participation in her aunt’s interests apparently the same, for she was one who, undertaking a resolve, did not split it into two and fulfil the half she liked best. Each of our acts is made of two parts, the spirit and the letter, and it is wonderful how nominally honest people will divide them. Not that there is aught wrong in the division; the mistake lies in taking credit for the whole. She had resolved to pay for her aunt’s peace of mind with her own happiness, as it seemed that it could be bought at no other price, and she was determined that that peace of mind should be complete. She gave full measure and the irrevocableness of her gift helped her to go on with her life. It was curious that a stranger, lately introduced to her, and hearing that she lived with Lady Eliza Lamont, had called her ‘Mrs. Raeburn,’ in the belief that she was a widow. It was not an unnatural mistake, for there was something about her that suggested it. Her one day’s engagement to her lover was a subject never touched upon by the two women. Once, Lady Eliza had suspected that all was not well with her and had spoken; once in her life Cecilia had fostered a misunderstanding.

‘I could not have married him,’ she had replied; ‘I have thought over it well.’

No tone in her voice had hinted at two interpretations, and the elder woman had read the answer by the light of her own feelings.

The laird with whose harriers they were to hunt that day lived at a considerable distance. It was not often, in those times before railways and horse-boxes were invented, that there was hunting of any sort within reach of Morphie. There were no foxhounds in the county and no other harriers, though Lady Eliza had, for years, urged Fullarton to keep them; but the discussion had always ended in his saying that he could not afford such an expense and in her declaring that she would keep a pack herself. But things had gone on as they were, and a dozen or so of days in a season was all that either could generally get. This year she had only been out twice.

The meet was at a group of houses too small to be called a village, but distinguished by the presence of a public-house and the remains of an ancient stone cross. A handful of gentlemen, among whom was Robert Fullarton, had assembled on horseback when they arrived, and these, with a few farmers, made up the field. Cecilia and her aunt were the only females in the little crowd, except a drunken old woman whose remarks were of so unbridled a nature that she had to be taken away with some despatch, and the wife of the master, who, drawn up decorously in a chaise at a decent distance from the public-house, cast scathing looks upon Lady Eliza’s costume. Urchins, ploughmen, and a few nondescript men who meant to follow on foot, made a background to the hounds swarming round the foot of the stone cross and in and out between the legs of the whips’ horses. The pack, a private one, consisted of about fifteen couple.

Rocket, who expressed her astonishment at the sight of hounds by lashing out at them whenever occasion served, was very troublesome and her rider was obliged to keep her pacing about outside the fringe of bystanders until they moved off; she could not help wishing she had done as Cecilia suggested. The mare was always hot and now she bid fair to weary her out, snatching continually at her bit and never standing for a moment.

‘Her ladyship is very fond of that mare,’ observed Robert, as he and Cecilia found themselves near each other. ‘Personally, good-looking as she is, I could never put up with her. She has no vice, though.’

‘It is her first sight of hounds,’ said his companion, ‘and no other person would have the patience to keep her as quiet as she is. My aunt’s saddle could so easily be changed on to Mayfly. She will be worn out before the day is over.’

‘He will be a bold man who suggests it,’ said he, with a smile which irritated her unreasonably.

‘If he were yourself, sir, he might succeed. There’s Mayfly behind that tree with James. It could be done in a moment.’

‘It is not my affair, my dear young lady,’ said he.

They were in a part of the country where they could no longer see the Grampians as they looked into the eastern end of the Vale of Strathmore. Brown squares of plough land were beginning to vary the pastures, and, instead of the stone walls—or ‘dykes,’ as they are called on the coast—the fields were divided by thorn hedges, planted thick, and, in some cases, strengthened with fencing. On their right, the ground ran up to a fringe of scrub and whins under which dew was still grey round the roots; the spiders’ webs, threading innumerable tiny drops, looked like pieces of frosted wool, as they spread their pigmy awnings between the dried black pods of the broom and the hips of the rose briers.

The rank grass and the bracken had been beaten almost flat by the storms of winter, and they could get glimpses of the pack moving about among the bare stems and the tussocks. Fullarton and Cecilia stood in the lower ground with Lady Eliza, whose mare had quieted down a good deal as the little handful of riders spread further apart.

As the three looked up, from the outer edge of the undergrowth a brown form emerged and sped like a silent arrow down the slope towards the fields in front of them; a quiver of sound came from the whins as a hound’s head appeared from the scrub. Then, in an instant, the air was alive with music, and the pack, like a white ribbon, streamed down the hillside. The whip came slithering and sliding down the steepest part of the bank, dispersing that portion of the field which had injudiciously taken up its position close to its base, right and left. The two women and Fullarton, who were well clear of the rising ground, took their horses by the head, and Robert’s wise old horse, with nostrils dilated and ears pointing directly on the hounds, gave an appreciative shiver; Rocket lifted her forefeet, then, as she felt the touch of Lady Eliza’s heel, bounded forward through the plough.

They were almost in line as they came to the low fence which stretched across their front, and, beyond which, the hounds were running in a compact body. Rocket, who had been schooled at Morphie, jumped well in the paddock, and, though Cecilia turned rather anxiously in her saddle when she had landed on the further side of the fence, she saw, with satisfaction, that Lady Eliza was going evenly along some forty yards wide of her. They had got a better start than anyone else, but the rest of the field was coming up and there seemed likely to be a crush at a gate ahead of them which was being opened by a small boy. Fullarton ignored it and went over the hedge; his horse, who knew many things, and, among them, how to take care of himself, measuring the jump to an inch and putting himself to no inconvenience. In those days few women really rode to hounds, and, to those present who had come from a distance, Lady Eliza and her niece were objects of some astonishment.

‘Gosh me!’ exclaimed a rough old man on a still rougher pony, as he came abreast of Cecilia, ‘I’ll no say but ye can ride bonnie! Wha learned ye?’

‘My aunt,’ replied she.

‘Will yon be her?’ he inquired, shifting his ash plant into his left hand and pointing with his thumb.

She assented.

‘Gosh!’ said he again, as he dropped behind.

They were running straight down the strath along the arable land; the fields were large and Cecilia was relieved to see that Rocket was settling down and that, though she jumped big, she was carrying Lady Eliza well. The horse she herself was riding had a good mouth, and liked hounds; and when they turned aside up a drain, and, crossing the high road, were running through more broken ground, she found herself almost the only person with them, except the master, the first whip, and Fullarton, who was coming up behind. They were heading rather north-west and were in sight of the Grampians again, and dykes began to intersect the landscape. Now and then, patches of heather and bits of swamp intruded themselves on the cultivation. Though they had really only come a very few miles, they had got into a different part of the world, and she was beginning to think they would have a long ride home, considering how far they had come to the meet and how steadily they had been running inland, when the hounds checked in a small birch plantation. The fresh air blew from the hills through the leafless silver stems and the heavy clouds which hung over them seemed laden with coming rain. The ground had been rising all the way and some of the horses were rather blown, for, though the ascent was gradual, they had come fast. The old man on the rough pony got off and stood, the rein over his arm, on the outskirts of the trees; though he weighed fifteen stone he had the rudiments of humanity and his beast’s rough coat was dripping.

‘I’m thinking I’ll awa’ hame,’ he remarked to an acquaintance.

Cecilia was just looking round for Lady Eliza when an old hound’s tongue announced his discovery, and the pack made once more, with their heads down, for the lower ground.

‘Down again to the fields, I do believe,’ said Fullarton’s voice. ‘That horse of yours carries you perfectly, Cecilia.’

‘Do you know anything of my aunt?’ said she, as the hounds turned into a muddy lane between high banks.

‘She was going well when I saw her,’ he replied. ‘I think she wants to save Rocket as it is her first day. It does not do to sicken a horse with hounds at the beginning. Yes, there they go—westward again—down to the strath. I doubt but they changed their hare in the birches.’

In the first quarter of an hour he had observed how Rocket’s vehemence was giving way to the persuasion of Lady Eliza’s excellent hands, and how well the mare carried her over the fences they met. It was a pleasure to see her enjoying herself, he thought; of late, he had feared she was ageing, but to-day, she might be twenty-five, as far as nerve or spirits were concerned. What a wonderful woman she was, how fine a horsewoman, how loyal a friend! It did him good to see her happy. It was a pity she had never married, though he could not imagine her in such a situation and he smiled at the idea. But it was a pity. It looked as if Cecilia would go the same way, though he could imagine her married well enough. Two suitors in a year, both young, both well-off, both well-looking and both sent about their business—one even as far as Spain! The girl was a fool.

But, meanwhile, in spite of Fullarton’s satisfaction, Lady Eliza had not got much good out of her day. It was when she was crossing the road that she felt the mare going short; she was a little behind her companions, and, by the time she had pulled up and dismounted, they were galloping down the further side of the hedge which bounded it. Though Rocket was resting her near foreleg she would hardly stand for a moment; with staring eyes and head in the air she looked after the vanishing field and Lady Eliza could hardly get near her to examine the foot which, she suspected, had picked up a stone. She twisted round and round, chafing and snatching at the reins; she had not had enough to tire her in the least degree and her blood was up at the unwonted excitement and hot with the love of what she had seen. Lady Eliza had given orders to the groom who was riding Mayfly to keep the direction of the hounds in his eye and to have the horse waiting, as near to where they finished as possible, for her to ride home; as Fullarton had said, she did not want to give Rocket a long day, and she meant, unless the hounds were actually running, to leave them in the early afternoon. Probably he was not far off at this moment; but, looking up and down the road, she could see no one, not even a labourer nor a tramp. She stood exasperated by the short-sighted stupidity of the beast. Again and again she tried to take the foot up, but Rocket persisted in swerving whenever she came near; of all created beings, a horse can be the most enraging.

At last she got in front of her, and, slipping the reins over her arm, bent down, raising the foot almost by main force; wedged tightly between the frog and the shoe was a three-cornered flint.

She straightened herself with a sigh, for she felt that there was no chance of seeing hounds again that day. The stone was firm and it would take some time to dislodge it. She led the mare to a sign-post which stood at the roadside with all the officious, pseudo-human air of such objects, and tied her silly head short to it; then, having wedged her knee between her own knees, after the manner of smiths, began to hammer the flint with another she had picked up on a stone-heap. The thing was as tightly fixed in the foot as if it had grown there.

When, at last, she had succeeded in getting it out, her back was so stiff that she sat down on a milestone which stood close by, offering information to the world, and began to clean her gloves, which her occupation had made very dirty. There was no use in galloping, for the whole field must be miles away by this time, and her only chance of coming up with it was the possibility of the hounds doubling back on the road. She determined to stay about the place where she was and listen. She mounted from her milestone, after endless frustrated attempts, and walked Rocket as quietly along the road as she could prevail upon her to go; luck was undoubtedly against her.

Has any reader of mine ever ridden in the pitch-dark, unwitting that there is another horse near, and been silently apprized of the fact by the manner of going of the one under him? If so, he will know the exact sensations which Rocket communicated to her rider. Lady Eliza’s attention was centred in the distance in front of her, but she became aware, through the mare, that an unseen horse was not far off. In another moment, she saw the rough pony and the rough old man who had accosted Cecilia emerging from a thicket half-way up the slope above her.

‘What ails ye?’ he enquired, as he reached the road and observed, from her looks, that she had been struggling with something.

‘Have you seen the hounds?’ she cried, ignoring his question.

‘I’m awa’ hame,’ replied he, on the same principle.

‘But which way have the hounds gone? God bless me! can’t you hear?’ she cried, raising her voice louder.

‘Awa’ there!’ he shouted, waving his arm in the direction in which she was going. ‘A’ saw them coming doon again as a’ cam’ ower the brae; they’ll be doon across the road by this. Awa’ ye go!’

Before the words were well out of his mouth she was off, scattering a shower of liquid mud over him.

‘Fiech! ye auld limmer!’ he exclaimed, as he rubbed his face, watching her angrily out of sight.

As she came to a bit of road where the land sloped away gently to her left, she saw the hounds—who, as Fullarton guessed, had changed their hare—in the fields below her. They had checked again, as they crossed the highway, and just where she stood, there was a broken rail in the fence. She could tell by the marks in the mud that they had gone over it at that spot. She had an excellent chance of seeing something of the sport yet, for Rocket was as fresh as when she had come out and the land between her and the hounds was all good grass.

She turned her at the broken rail, riding quietly down the slope; then, once on the level ground of the strath, she set her going.

She put field after field behind her; for though, on the flat, she could not see far ahead, the ground was wet and the hoof-prints were deep enough to guide her. Rocket could gallop, and, in spite of her recent sins, she began to think that she liked her better than ever. She had bought her on her own initiative, having taken a fancy to her at a sale, and had ridden her for more than a year. It was from her back that she had first seen Gilbert Speid at Garviekirk. Fullarton, while admitting her good looks, had not been enthusiastic, and Cecilia had said that she was too hot and tried to dissuade her from the purchase; she remembered that she had been very much put out with the girl at the time and had asked her whether she supposed her to be made of anything breakable. Her niece had said ‘no,’ but added that she probably would be when she had ridden the mare. Cecilia could be vastly impudent when she chose; her aunt wondered if she had been impudent to Fordyce. She did not pursue the speculation, for, as she sailed through an open gate, she found herself in the same field with the tail end of the hunt and observed that some of the horses looked as though they had had enough. There must have been a sharp burst, she suspected, while she was struggling with Rocket near the sign-post. Evidently Fullarton and Cecilia were in front.

She passed the stragglers, and saw Robert’s old black horse labouring heavily in a strip of plough on the near side of a stout thickset hedge which hid the hounds from her view. Rocket saw him too and began to pull like a fiend; her stall at Morphie was next to the one in which he invariably stood when his master rode there; that being frequently, she knew him as well as she did her regular stable companions. Lady Eliza let her go, rejoicing to have recovered the ground she had lost, and to be likely, after all her difficulties, to see the end of her morning’s sport.

Fullarton was making for a thin place in the hedge, for his horse was getting tired and he was a heavy man; besides which, he knew that there was a deep drop on the other side. She resolved to take it at the same gap and began to hold Rocket hard, in order to give him time to get over before she was upon him.

But Rocket did not understand. The wisdom of the old hunter was not hers and she only knew that the woman on her back meant to baulk her of the glories in front. Her rider tried to pull her wide of the black horse, but in vain; she would have the same place. Robert was about twenty yards from her when he jumped and she gathered herself together for a rush. Lady Eliza could not hold her.

To her unutterable horror, just as the mare was about to take off, she saw that Robert’s horse had stumbled in landing and was there, in front of her—below her—recovering his feet on the grass.

With an effort of strength which those who witnessed it never forgot, she wrenched Rocket’s head aside, almost in mid-air. As they fell headlong, she had time, before her senses went, to see that she had attained her object.

For Fullarton stood, unhurt, not five paces from where she lay.

[CHAPTER XXI
THE BROKEN LINK]

IN an upper room, whose window looked into a mass of bare branches, Lady Eliza lay dying. This last act she was accomplishing with a deliberation which she had given to nothing else in her life; for it was two days since the little knot of horrified sportsmen had lifted her on to the hurdle which someone had run to fetch from a neighbouring farm. Rocket, unhurt, but for a scratch or two, had rolled over her twice and she had not fallen clear.

The hounds had just killed when Cecilia, summoned by a stranger who had pursued her for nearly half a mile, came galloping back to find her unconscious figure laid upon the grass. The men who stood round made way for her as she sprang from her horse. She went down on her knees beside her aunt and took one of her helpless hands.

‘She is not dead?’ she said, looking at Fullarton with wild eyes.

She was not dead, and, but for a few bruises, there were no marks to show what had happened; for her injuries were internal, and, when, at last, the endless journey home was over and the two doctors from Kaims had made their examination, Cecilia had heard the truth. The plum-coloured habit might be put away, for its disreputable career was done and Lady Eliza would not need it again. She had had her last ride. In a few days she would come out of the house; but, for the first time, perhaps, since it had known her, she would pass the stable door without going in.

She had been carried every step of the way home, Cecilia and Fullarton riding one on either side, and, while someone had gone to Kaims for a doctor, another had pushed his tired horse forward to Morphie to get a carriage. But, when it met them a few miles from the end of their march, it had been found impossible to transfer her to it, for consciousness was returning and each moment was agony. The men had expressed their willingness to go on, and Robert, though stiff from his fall, had taken his turn manfully. A mattress had been spread on the large dining-room table and on it they had laid the hurdle with its load. Another doctor had been brought from the town to assist his partner in the examination he thought fit to make before risking the difficult transport upstairs. Fullarton, when it was over, had taken one of the men apart. It might be hours, it might even be a couple of days, he was told. It was likely that there would be suffering, but there would be no pain at the end, he thought. The spine, as well as other organs, was injured.

And so, at last, they had carried her up to her own room. Cecilia was anxious to have one on the ground-floor made ready, but she had prayed to be taken to the familiar place, and the doctors, knowing that nothing could avail now, one way or the other, had let her have her will.

She had never had any doubts about her own condition. Before Cecilia nerved herself to tell her the verdict that had been passed, she had spoken.

‘Cecilia, my little girl,’ she had said, ‘what will become of you? What will you do? If it were not for you, child, God knows I should not mind going. But I can do nothing for you.’

‘If I could only go with you,’ whispered Cecilia, laying her face down on the sheet.

‘Perhaps I was wrong,’ continued Lady Eliza, ‘perhaps I have done harm. I knew how little I could leave you; there were others who would have taken you. And you were such a nice little girl, Cecilia, but so thin and shy ... and I shall not see you for a long time ... we went to see the horses ... look, child!... tell James to come here. Can’t you see that the mare’s head-collar is coming off?... Run, Cecilia, I tell you!’

In the intervals between the pain and delirium which tortured her for the first few nights and days, her one cry was about Cecilia—what would become of Cecilia?

Through the dark hours the girl sat soothing her and holding the feverish hand as she listened to the rambling talk. Now she was with the horses, now back in the old days when her brother was alive, now talking to Fullarton, now straying among the events of the past months; but always returning again to what weighed on her mind, Cecilia’s future. Occasionally she would speak to her as though she were Fullarton, or Fordyce, or even James the groom. Worst of all were the times when her pain was almost more than she could bear.

A woman had been got from the town to help in nursing her, a good enough soul, but, with one of those strange whims which torment the sick, Lady Eliza could not endure her in the room, and she sat in the dressing-room waiting to do anything that was wanted. Trained nurses were unknown outside hospitals in those days.

Robert had remained all night at Morphie after the accident and had sat by the bedside while she was conscious of his presence.

‘I owe you my life,’ he said to her; ‘oh, Eliza! why did you do that? My worthless existence could have so well been spared!’

He went home in the morning, to return again later, and Cecilia, who had been resting, went back to her post. The doctor now said that his patient might linger for days and departed to his business in Kaims for a few hours.

‘Robert!’ said Lady Eliza, suddenly.

‘It is I, ma’am; here I am,’ answered the girl, laying her fingers upon her arm; there was no recognition in the eyes which stared, with unnatural brilliance, into her face.

‘Robert,’ said the voice from the bed, ‘I can never go to Whanland; you shall not try to take me there ... she is not there—I know that very well—she is out on the sands—dead and buried under the sand—— But she can’t marry him.... I could never see her if she went to Whanland.... How can I part with her? Cecilia, you will not go?’

‘Here I am, dearest aunt, here I am.’ She leaned over Lady Eliza. ‘You can see me; I am close to you.’

‘Is that impostor gone?’ asked Lady Eliza.

‘Yes, yes, he has gone,’ answered Cecilia, in a choked voice.

A look came into Lady Eliza’s face as though her true mind were battling, like a swimmer, with the waves of delirium.

‘I have never told Cecilia that he is Fullarton’s son,’ she said, ‘I have never told anyone.... She was a bad woman—she has taken him from me and now her son will take my little girl.... Mr. Speid, your face is cut—come away—come away. Cecilia, we will go to the house.... But that is Fullarton standing there. Robert, I want to say something to you. Robert, you know I did not mean to speak like that! Dear Robert, have you forgiven me?... But what can I do about my little girl? What can I do for her, Fullarton?’

She held Cecilia’s fingers convulsively. The girl kept her hand closed round the feeble one on the bed-cover, as though she would put her own life and strength into it with her grasp; she fancied sometimes that it quieted the sick woman in some strange way. She sat behind the curtain like a stone; there was little time to think over what she had just heard, for the wheels of the doctor’s gig were sounding in the avenue and she must collect herself to meet him. He was to stay for the night. But now everything that had been dark was plain to her. Her lover was Fullarton’s son! Down to the very depths she saw into her aunt’s heart, and tears, as hot as any she had shed for her own griefs, fell from her eyes.

‘Thank God, I did what I could for her,’ she said.

The night that followed was quieter than the one preceding it and she sat up, having had a long rest, insisting that the doctor should go to bed; while her aunt’s mind ran on things which were for her ears alone, she did not wish for his presence. Towards morning he came in and forced her to leave the bedside, and, worn out, she slept on till it was almost noon. She awoke to find him standing over her.

‘Lady Eliza is conscious,’ he said, ‘and she is not suffering—at least, not in body. But she is very uneasy and anxious to see you. I fancy there is something on her mind. Do what you can to soothe her, Miss Raeburn, for I doubt if she will last the day; all we can hope for her now is an easy death.’

Lady Eliza lay with her eyes closed; as Cecilia entered she opened them and smiled. She went to the bed.

‘How tired you look,’ said Lady Eliza. ‘It will soon be over, my dear, and we shall have parted at last. Don’t cry, child. What a good girl you have been! Ah, my dear, I could die happy if it were not for you. I have nothing to leave you but a few pounds a year and my own belongings and the horses. Morphie will go to relations I have never seen. What am I to do for you? What are you to do? Oh, Cecilia! I should have laid by more. But I never thought of this—of dying like this—and I looked to your marrying. I have been a bad friend to you—I see that now that I come to lie here.’

‘If you speak in that way you will break my heart,’ said Cecilia, covering her face with her hands.

‘Come close; come where I can see you. You must make me a promise,’ said Lady Eliza; ‘you must promise me that you will marry. Crauford Fordyce will come back—I know that he will, for Fullarton has told me so. I said it was useless, but that is different now. Cecilia, I can’t leave you like this, with no one to protect you and no money—promise me when he comes, that you will say yes.’

‘Oh, aunt! oh, dear aunt!’ cried Cecilia. ‘Oh, not that, not that!’

‘Promise me,’ urged Lady Eliza.

‘Oh, anything but that—do not ask me that! There is only one man in the world I can ever love. It is the same now as on the day he left.’

‘Love is not for everybody,’ said Lady Eliza, slowly. ‘Some have to do without it all their lives.’

There was no sound in the room for a little time.

‘The world looks different now,’ began Lady Eliza again; ‘I don’t know if I was right to do as I did about Gilbert Sp—about Whanland. I am a wicked woman, my dear, and I cannot forgive—but you don’t know about that.’

‘If he comes back, aunt—if he comes back?’

‘But you cannot wait all your life for that. He is gone and he has said he will not come back. Put that away from you; I am thinking only of you—believe me, my darling. I beg of you, Cecilia, I pray you. You know I shall never be able to ask anything again, soon.’

‘Give me time,’ she sobbed, terribly moved.

‘In a year, Cecilia—in a year?’

Cecilia rose and went to the window. Outside, over the bare boughs, some pigeons from the dovecot were whirling in the air. Her heart was tortured within her. Crauford was almost abhorrent to her but it seemed as though the relentless driving of fate were forcing her towards him. She saw no escape. Why had Gilbert gone! His letter had made no mention of Fullarton’s name and he had only written that he could not ask her to share with him a position, which, as he now knew, was thoroughly understood by the world and which she would find unbearable. In his honesty, he had said nothing that should make her think of him as anything but a bygone episode in her life, no vow of love, none of remembrance. Even if she knew where he had gone she could not appeal to him after that. She looked back at Lady Eliza’s face on the pillow, now so white, with the shadow of coming death traced on it. She had thought that she had given up all to buy her peace, but it seemed as if there were still a higher price to be paid. As she thought of Crauford, of his dull vanity, of his slow perceptions, of his all-sufficing egotism, she shuddered. His personality was odious to her. She hated his heavy, smooth, coarse face and his heavier manner, never so hateful as when he deemed himself most pleasant. She must think of herself, not as a woman with a soul and a body, but as a dead thing that can neither feel nor hope. What mattered it what became of her now? She had lost all, absolutely all. It only remained for her to secure a quiet end to the one creature left her for a pitiful few hours.

She went back and stood by the pillow. The dumb question that met her touched her to the heart.

‘I will promise what you wish,’ she said, steadily. ‘In a year I will marry him if he asks me. But if, if’—she faltered for a moment and turned away—‘not if Gilbert Speid comes back. Aunt, tell me that I have made you happy!’

‘I can rest now,’ said Lady Eliza.

In spite of the predictions of the doctor, the days went on and still she lingered, steadily losing strength, but with a mind at ease and a simple acceptance of her case. She had not cared for Crauford, but he would stand between Cecilia and a life of poverty, of even possible hardship, and she knew that his faults were those that could only injure himself. He would never be unkind to his wife, she felt sure. The world was too bad a place for a beautiful young woman to stand alone in, and Gilbert would not come back. Why should he when the causes of his going could not be altered? Now, lying at the gate of another life, this one, as she said, looked different. Cecilia had told her, months ago, that she could never marry Speid, but her vision had cleared enough to show her that she should not have believed her. However, he was gone.

Her mind was generally clear now: bouts of pain there were, and, at night, hours of wandering talk; but her days were calm, and, as life lost its grip, suffering was loosening its hold too.

It was late one night when Cecilia, grudging every moment spent away from the bedside, saw that a change had come over her. She had been sleeping, more the sleep of exhaustion than of rest, and, as she awoke, the girl knew that their parting must be near. The doctor was due at any moment, for he slept at Morphie every night, going to his other patients in the day; he was a hard-worked man. She sat listening for his coming.

The house was very quiet as she heard his wheels roll into the courtyard. His answer to her question was the one she expected; there was little time left. She ran out to the stable herself and sent a man on horseback to Fullarton.

‘Lose no time,’ she said, as she saw him turn away.

When she re-entered the room the doctor looked at her with meaning eyes.

‘I feel very weak,’ said Lady Eliza, ‘don’t go far from me, my dear. Cecilia, is Fullarton here?’

‘I have sent for him.’

She took her seat again within sight of the eyes that always sought her own; they were calm now and she knew that the chain which had held the passing soul back from peace was broken, for she had broken it with her own hand. Whatever the consequences, whatever she might be called upon to go through, she was glad. When the time should come to face the cost, she would find courage for it.

‘You do not wish to see the minister again?’ she asked, in a little time. He had visited Lady Eliza once.

‘There is no more to say. Cecilia, do you think I shall go before Fullarton comes?’

‘I have told them to be quick. They have taken Rocket.’

‘Oh—Rocket. I shall not see Rocket again. She was a good mare. But I must not think of that now; perhaps I have thought too much of horses.’

It was nearly an hour since her messenger had gone when Cecilia looked anxiously at the clock. The doctor had given Lady Eliza what stimulant she could swallow to keep her alive till Fullarton should come, and, though she could scarcely turn her head, her dying ears were listening for his step at the door. It came at last.

‘I am here, my lady,’ he whispered, as he took Cecilia’s place.

‘I have been wearying for you, Robert,’ she said, ‘it is time to say good-bye. You have been good to me.’

He slipped his arm under the pillow and raised her till her head leaned against his shoulder. She was past feeling pain. Instead of the wig she had always insisted upon wearing, a few light locks of her own grey hair strayed on her forehead from under the lace-edged scarf Cecilia had put round her, softening her face. She looked strangely young.

Robert could not speak.

‘Eliza——’ he began, but his voice broke.

‘Be good to Cecilia, Fullarton. My little girl—if I had done differently——’

Cecilia rose from her knees and leaned over Fullarton to kiss her.

‘Aunt, I have promised. All will be well with me.’

‘Yes, yes, I know. I am happy. Robert——’

With an effort she raised her hand, whiter, more fragile than when he had admired it as they sat in the garden; even in her death she remembered that moment. And, as, for the first and last time in her life, he laid his lips upon it, the light in her eyes went out.

*****

It was nearing sunrise when he left Cecilia in the dark house, and daylight was beginning to look blue through the chinks of the shutter as it met the shine of the candles.

‘I will come back to-day,’ he said; ‘there will be a great many things I must help you about. To-morrow you must come to Fullarton.’

‘And leave her?’ she exclaimed.

‘If her friendship for me had been less,’ said he, as they parted, ‘you and I would have been happier to-day. My God! what a sacrifice!’

‘Do you call that friendship?’ she cried, facing him, straight and white in the dimness of the hall. ‘Is that what you call friendship? Mr. Fullarton, have you never understood?’

*****

Fullarton rode home in the breaking morning, his long coat buttoned high round his neck. It was chilly and the new day was rising on a world poor and grey, a world which, yesterday, had held more than he understood, and to-day, would hold less than he needed. His loss was heavy on him and he knew that he would feel it more each hour. But what bore him down was the tardy understanding of what he had done when he forged the link just broken. He had accepted a life as a gift, without thanks and without the knowledge of what he did, for he had been too intent upon himself to see the proportions of anything.

Now only was he to realize how much she had lightened for him the burden of his barren life. How often he had seen in her face the forgiveness of his ungracious words, the condoning of his little selfishnesses, how often known her patience with his ill-humours! She, who was so impatient, had she ever been ungentle with him? Once only. It was not so many months since she had asked his pardon for it as they sat on the garden bench. With what magnanimity he had forgiven her!

He entered the house and sat down at the pale fire which a housemaid had just lit. His heart was too worn, too numb, too old for tears; it could only ache. His butler, an Englishman who had been with him twenty years, came in and put some wine on the table, but he did not turn his head; the man poured out a glass and brought it to him.

‘It will do you good, sir,’ he said, ‘and your bed is ready upstairs. You should try to sleep, sir, if you are going to see her ladyship again to-day.’

Robert looked up.

‘Her ladyship is dead,’ he said.

[CHAPTER XXII
CECILIA SEES THE WILD GEESE]

THERE are some periods in life when the heart, from very excess of misery, finds a spurious relief; when pain has so dulled the nerves, that, hoping nothing, fearing nothing, we sink into an endurance that is not far from peace.

Thus it was with Cecilia Raeburn. When the vault in the little cemetery between Morphie House and Morphie Kirk had been closed over Lady Eliza, Robert brought her and all her belongings to Fullarton, in accordance with a promise he had made at the bedside of his friend. She went with him passively, once that the coffin had been taken away, for the house, after the gloom and silence of its drawn blinds, was beginning to resume its original look and the sight hurt her. She had been uprooted many times since her early youth, and, like a wayfarer, she must take the road again. Her last rest had continued for fourteen happy years whose happiness made it all the harder to look forward. Her next would be Fullarton, and, after that, possibly—probably, wherever the solid heir to the house of Fordyce should pitch his tent. But a year was a respite, for who knew what might happen in a year? He might transfer his unwelcome attentions to someone else, or death, even, might step in to save her; she had just seen how near he could creep without sign or warning. She would not look forward, but, in her secret heart, she could not banish the faint hope that Gilbert might come back.

All the dead woman’s possessions which had passed to herself she had brought to Fullarton. Necessity had compelled her to sell the furniture and the horses; and the sight of the former being carried away from its familiar place was softened to her by the fact that Robert had bought it all. He had also secured Rocket; and, although the mare’s headlong impatience had dug her owner’s grave, she had been so much loved by Lady Eliza that Cecilia could scarce have endured to think of her in strange hands. She had wished to give her to Fullarton, but he, knowing that each pound must be of importance to her, had refused to accept the gift. Rocket now stood in a stall next to the black horse she had followed with such fatal haste.

Among the many things for which Cecilia was grateful to Fullarton, not the least was the consideration which moved him to forbid Crauford the house. He was aware that his nephew meant to recommence his suit, and though, knowing her and being ignorant of Lady Eliza’s dying desire, he did not think she would accept him now more than before, he would not allow her to be annoyed. Some weeks after the funeral Fordyce had proposed himself as his uncle’s guest for a few days and been told that, for some time to come, it would be inconvenient to receive him.

During the fierce ordeal of her last days at Morphie Cecilia had had little time to turn over in her mind the startling truth which her aunt, in her delirious state, had revealed; but now, as she sat in the long Spring evenings, silent while Fullarton read, she would look earnestly at him to discover, if she might, some resemblance to his son. Occasionally she fancied she could trace it, scarcely in feature, but in voice and figure. Whether rightly or wrongly, what she had learned drew her closer to him, and she took a sad satisfaction in the thought that her lover’s father was, till she could settle some way of existence, playing father to her too. She loved him because he had been so much to Lady Eliza and because she now saw how profoundly the revelation of the part he had borne in her life moved him. He had become sadder, more cynical, more impervious to outer influence, but she knew what was making him so and loved him for the knowledge. Only on one point did she judge him hardly, and that was for the entire lack of interest or sympathy he had shown to Gilbert; not realizing what havoc had been wrought in his life by his birth nor giving due weight to the fact that, until a year previously, he had never so much as set eyes on him. His intense desire had been to bury his past—but for one adored memory—as deep as the bottomless pit and Gilbert’s return had undone the work of years. He could never look at him without the remembrance of what he had cost. He did not know if his son were aware of the bond between them and he was determined to check any approach, however small, which might come of his knowledge by an unchangeable indifference; though he could not banish him, at least he would ignore him as much as was consistent with civility of a purely formal kind. Lady Eliza had understood this and it had deepened her prejudice; what small attention she had given to Speid had been the outcome of her desire that Robert should appreciate her absolute neutrality; that he should know she treated him as she would treat any presentable young man who should become her neighbour; with neither hostility nor special encouragement.

And so Cecilia stayed on at Fullarton, silenced by Robert when she made any mention of leaving it, until spring merged into summer and Crauford Fordyce, making Barclay’s house the base of his operations, knocked once more at his uncle’s door in the propitious character of wooer. He returned in the evening to his friend with the news that Miss Raeburn had refused to listen to his proposal: while Lady Eliza had not been a year in her grave, she said, she had no wish to think of marrying. To his emphatic assurance that he would return when that period should be over she had made no reply, and, as they parted and he reiterated his intention, she had told him to hope for nothing.

‘I know what women are at when they say that!’ exclaimed Barclay; ‘there is nothing like perseverance, Fordyce. If you don’t get her next time you may laugh at me for a fool. She got nothing by her ladyship’s death, and she will find out what that means when she leaves Fullarton. Keep up heart and trust Alexander Barclay.’

Crauford’s visit shook Cecilia out of the surface composure that her unmolested life had induced, and brought home to her the truth that every day was lessening her chance of escape. Apparently, his mind was the same, and, meanwhile, no word of the man she would never cease to love came to her from any source. Once she had gone to Kaims and paid a visit to the Miss Robertsons, hoping for news of him, however meagre, but she had been stiffly received. A woman who had driven away Gilbert Speid by her cold refusal was scarcely a guest appreciated by Miss Hersey, nor was the old lady one to detect anything showing another side to the situation. She looked with some disdain upon her visitor and longed very heartily to assure her that such a fine young fellow as her kinsman was not likely to go solitary about the world for lack of a wife. She reported the visit duly when she wrote to him, but without comment.

When winter came hope died in Cecilia; there was no one to stay her up, no one to whom she could go for a touch of sympathy, and, should Fordyce carry out his threat of returning in January, the time would have come when she must redeem her word. She had felt the strength of a lion when she saw her promise bring content to Lady Eliza; now, her heart was beginning to fail. But, fail or not, there was but one end to it.

Sometimes she would go out alone and walk through the wet fields towards the river—for the higher reaches of the Lour were almost within sight of the windows of Fullarton—and look at its waters rolling seaward past that bit of country which had held so much for her. She loved it the more fiercely for the thought that she must soon turn her back on it. Once, a skein of wild geese passed over her head on their flight to the tidal marshes beyond Kaims, and the far-away scream in the air held her spellbound. High up, pushing their way to the sea, their necks outstretched as though drawn by a magnet to their goal, they held on their course; and their cry rang with the voice of the north—the voice of the soul of the coast. She leaned her head against a tree and wept unrestrainedly with the relief of one not commonly given to tears. Once more, she told herself, before leaving Fullarton, she would ride to Morphie and look at the old house from the road; so far, she had never had courage to turn her horse in that direction, though she now rode almost daily. Once too, she would go and stand by the Lour bridge where she could see the white walls of Whanland.

While Cecilia, at Fullarton, was trying to nerve herself to the part she must play, Crauford, at Fordyce, was spending a more peaceful time than he had experienced since he first confided the state of his heart to his family. Lady Fordyce’s suspicions were lulled by his demeanour and by a fact, which, to a person of more acumen, would have been alarming; namely, that he never, by any chance, mentioned Miss Raeburn’s name nor the name of anything connected with her. He had said nothing about his fruitless visit to Barclay, and Fullarton, whose inclination it was to let sleeping dogs lie, did not supplement the omission. His nephew no longer honoured him with his confidence and he had no desire to provoke another correspondence with his sister. To Cecilia also, he said nothing; while he realized that to settle herself so well would be a good thing from a worldly point of view, his contempt for Crauford gave him a liberal notion of her feelings when she refused him. He knew what had happened but he dismissed the episode without comment.

Autumn had again brought Lady Maria Milwright as a guest to Fordyce, and the prodigal son, having temporarily finished with his husks and being inwardly stayed up by Cecilia’s half-implied permission to address her again, had time for the distractions of home life. Fordyce Castle blossomed as the rose, and Mary and Agneta would, no doubt, have done the same thing, had it not been a little late for such an experience. Lady Fordyce went so far as to give a dinner-party and a school feast.

Crauford kept his own counsel strictly, and, though he had the honesty to make no advances to Lady Maria, her appreciation of him made her an agreeable companion; his sisters looked on with keen interest and Agneta was emboldened to congratulate him on his return to the paths of wisdom.

‘Admit, brother,’ she began one day as they found themselves alone together, ‘that Lady Maria is vastly superior to Miss Raeburn, after all.’

‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed he, taken aback.

‘But why is it nonsense?’ continued his sister, ‘what is amiss with Lady Maria?’

‘Her face,’ said Crauford shortly.

‘But Mama says it is absurd to think of that; I heard her say so to Papa—quite lately too.’

‘And what did he answer?’ enquired her brother, thinking of a sentiment in the memorable letter Sir Thomas had written him.

‘I think he said that he supposed all cats were grey in the dark. He could not quite have understood what Mama said; it seemed such an odd answer, for they had not been talking about cats. It made her rather angry too.’

Crauford said nothing and the two walked on. They were on the lawn, watching Sir Thomas and the local minister playing bowls in the shower of dead horse-chestnut leaves, which fell, periodically, like so many yellow fans, to the ground.

‘Did Miss Raeburn play the harp?’ asked Agneta, at last.

‘No; at least I have never heard her,’ he replied.

‘Lady Maria does; did she sing?’

‘No.’

‘Lady Maria sings. She has had lessons from an Italian master; I saw a little drawing of him that is in her workbox. What could Miss Raeburn do that you thought her so wonderful?’ persisted Agneta.

Crauford knit his brows. Cecilia’s general mastery of life was difficult to explain, nor, indeed, did he quite understand it himself.

‘She is so—so ladylike,’ he said.

‘Why do you always say that? Miss Raeburn was only a companion; now Lady Maria has a title.’

People were much more outwardly snobbish in those days than they are now that the disease has become internal; at present, it would scarcely be possible to make such a speech and survive it.

‘You know nothing about it. Miss Raeburn was Lady Eliza’s relation and she called her her niece. And why do you say “was”? She is not dead.’

‘I don’t know; I suppose, because we need not trouble about her any more. Do tell me what she was like, Crauford, I have so often wanted to know. Do, do, dear Crauford!’

‘If I tell you a great many things, will you promise to keep them entirely to yourself?’ he enquired, in an access of gracious elder brotherhood. He longed for a confidant.

‘Oh, yes! yes!’ cried Agneta, running her arm through his, ‘I will not even tell Mary.’

‘I think she has seen the folly of her refusal,’ said he, gravely. ‘I saw her a few weeks ago; in fact, I renewed my offer, but she said she could not listen to me so soon after her aunt’s death. I am going back next January and I have reason to suppose, in fact, Barc—— I am almost sure she will accept me then. I trust you will receive her kindly, Agneta. I shall look to you.’

Between gratification at his words and apprehension for the future his sister was almost struck dumb.

‘What will Mama say?’ she exclaimed when she found her tongue.

‘I am afraid it does not much matter what Mama says,’ replied Crauford, with playful intrepidity.

He knew very well that he would not be at Fordyce to hear.

But there was no use in meeting troubles half-way and Agneta was dying to know more.

‘Is she tall, brother?’

‘Rather tall,’ he replied. ‘She has a beautiful figure—very slender.’

‘As thin as Lady Maria?’

‘Good gracious, no!’ exclaimed Crauford.

‘And what is her hair like, dark or fair?’

‘Rather dark, but not black.’

‘And her eyes?’

‘Remarkable eyes—in fact, rather too extraordinary. Not quite usual.’

‘She does not squint?’ cried Agneta, seized with horror.

‘Should I wish for a wife who squinted?’ asked he, rather huffily.

‘No, no, of course not; don’t be angry, Crauford. Why do you not like her eyes?’

‘Oh, I do like them; only I wish they were more like other people’s, wider open and bluer; you will see her for yourself, Agneta. There was another man who wanted to marry her not long ago, a sulky-looking fellow called Speid; but she soon sent him away and he has gone off to Spain.’

‘Because of her? Did he really?’ exclaimed Agneta, taking a long breath as she recognised the desperate matters life could contain.

Lady Maria’s parasol, which was seen advancing in the distance between the laurel bushes, put an end to further confidences, for Lady Maria’s eyes, round enough and blue enough to satisfy anybody, had discovered the brother and sister and she was coming towards them.

Crauford, having been absent from the breakfast table, had not met the young lady that morning. He made a stiff, serio-comic bow, laying his hand on his heart. He could unbend sometimes.

‘I hope your ladyship is well to-day,’ he observed.

She blushed awkwardly, not knowing how to take his pleasantries. She looked good and modest, and, in feature, rather as if she had changed faces with a pea-hen. Agneta surveyed her from head to heel, earnestly and covertly; she did not look as if she would drive anyone to Spain. She was rather impressed by the idea of a sister-in-law who could so ruffle her brother and his sex, for, though she was over twenty-six years old, she had only read of such things in books; she had an overwhelming respect for men, and it had scarcely occurred to her that women whom one might meet every day, and who were not constitutionally wicked, could deal with them so high-handedly. The possibilities of womanhood had never dawned on her, any more than they dawn on hundreds of others, both well and ill-favoured, who live contentedly, marry early, have children frequently, and, finally, die lamented, knowing as much of the enthralling trade of being a woman as they did on the day they were born.

But Agneta was groping along the edge of a world of strange discoveries, as she stood by the bowling-green and mechanically watched the figures of her father and the Reverend Samuel Mackay straddling as they appraised their shots. Crauford and Lady Maria had long vanished into the house by the time she turned to look after them, and the bowl-players had finished their game, discussed it, and begun another. She felt that being in her brother’s confidence had given her a great stride in life.

Four months later, she stood in the same place by the bowling-green and saw him drive up the avenue to the Castle; he had been at Fullarton for nearly a week and she went round to the front door to meet him.

‘My news is important, Agneta,’ he said, as he greeted her. ‘Miss Raeburn has consented; I have come to fetch some clothes I want and am going away again to-morrow. Say nothing.’

‘Oh!’ said his sister. ‘I——’

The sentence was never completed, for Lady Fordyce appeared in the hall.

[CHAPTER XXIII
AN EMPTY HOUSE]

WHEN the decisive step had been taken and Crauford’s perseverance was at last crowned with success, he straightway informed his uncle of his good fortune; also, he begged him to say nothing of the matter till he should have gone to Fordyce Castle to announce his news. As we have seen, he did not mean to announce it in person, but he wished to see Agneta before retiring to a safe distance and writing to Sir Thomas, of whose consent the past had made him sure; from his sister he counted on hearing how soon it would be wise for him to face Lady Fordyce. Before he left Fullarton he had allowed himself one day to be spent with Cecilia.

‘You cannot expect me to go to-morrow,’ he said to her, with solemn gallantry, as he emerged from Fullarton’s study, where he had been to declare the engagement.

‘Do you not think your parents might be offended if you delay?’ she suggested faintly.

‘Let them!’ exclaimed Crauford.

All next day she had clung to Fullarton’s proximity, hating to be alone with the man with whom she was to pass her life, and feeling half desperate when Robert closeted himself with a tenant who had come to see him on business. Crauford’s blunt lack of perception made him difficult to keep at a distance, and she had now no right to hurt his feelings. On her finger was the ring he had, with much forethought, brought with him; and, had it been an iron chain on her neck, it could not have galled her more. When, at last, he had driven away, she rushed to her room and pulled it off; then she dipped her handkerchief in rose-water and dabbed her face and lips; for, though she had tried to say good-bye to him in Fullarton’s presence, she had not succeeded and she had paid heavily for her failure.

For whatever motive she was accepting his name, his protection, and the ease of life he would give her, she must treat him fairly; she felt this strongly. She had not hid from him a truth which she would have liked him better for finding more unpalatable, namely, that she did not love him.

‘You will learn to, in time,’ he had observed, complacently.

If he had said that he loved her well enough for two, or some such trite folly as men will say in like circumstances, it would have been less hateful. But he had merely changed the subject with a commonplace reflection. For all that, she felt that she was cheating him.

To play her part with any attempt at propriety, she must have time to bring her mind to it without the strain of his presence. He might appear at Fullarton at any moment, with the intention of staying for days, and Cecilia decided that she must escape from a position which became hourly more difficult. While she racked her brain in thinking how this might be effected, like a message from the skies, came a letter from her friend and Fullarton’s cousin, the Lord Advocate’s widow. ‘Though I know Mr. Crauford Fordyce very slightly,’ she wrote, ‘he is still related to me and I have to thank him warmly for being the means of bringing my dearest Miss Raeburn into the family. Would that I could see you to offer you my sincerest good wishes! I do not know whether the day is yet fixed, but, should you have time to spare me a visit, or inclination to consult the Edinburgh mantua-makers, I should receive you with a pleasure of whose reality you know me well enough to be assured.’

She had still nearly eight weeks’ respite. The wedding, which was to take place upon the tenth of April, was, at her earnest request, to be at Morphie Kirk, for she wanted to begin her new life near the scenes of the old one. She was to be married from Fullarton; Robert, having constituted himself her guardian, would give her away, and Crauford, according to time-honoured etiquette, would be lodged in Kaims; Mr. Barclay had offered his house. In justice to the bridegroom, she must not fall short of the ordinary standard of bridal appearance, and she showed Robert his cousin’s letter, saying that, with his permission, she would go to Edinburgh to buy her wedding gown. On the plea of ill-health Lady Fordyce had refused to be present at the ceremony, and it was only the joint pressure brought to bear on her by brother and husband which forced from her a reluctant consent that Mary and Agneta should go to Fullarton and play the part of bridesmaids. Sir Thomas had shown unusual decision.

It was on the day before her departure that Cecilia rode out to take a last look at Morphie. Though there was, as yet, no hint of coming spring in the air, in a month the thrushes and blackbirds would be proclaiming their belief in its approach, and a haze, like a red veil, would be touching the ends of the boughs. As she stopped on the highroad and looked across the wall at Morphie House, she felt like a returned ghost. Its new owners had left it uninhabited and the white blinds were drawn down like the eyelids of a dead face; her life there seemed sometimes so real and sometimes so incredible—as if it had never been. She saw herself going through the rooms, loitering in the garden, and performing the hundred and one duties and behests she had done so willingly. She smiled, though her heart ached, as she remembered her aunt’s short figure leaning out of a window above the stable-yard, watching the horses being brought out for exercise and calling out her orders to the men. How silent it all was now; the only moving things were the pigeons which had always haunted Morphie, the descendants of those for which Gilbert had fought two years ago. She turned away and took the road that followed the river’s course to Whanland.

Here too, everything was still, though the entrance gate was standing open. She had never yet been inside it; long before it had acquired special interest for her she had felt a curiosity about the untenanted place; but Lady Eliza had always driven by quickly, giving unsatisfactory answers to any questions she had put. She rode in, unable to resist her impulse, and sat on horseback looking up at the harled walls. The front-door was ajar, and, seeing this, she was just about to ride away, when there were footsteps behind her and Granny Stirk, her arms loaded with fresh-cut sticks, came round a corner of the house. She let her bundle fall in a clattering shower and came up to Cecilia. Since Gilbert had left she had not seen the woman who, she was sure, had been the cause of his departure, and her heart was as hard against her as the heart of Miss Hersey Robertson.

‘Do you take care of the house?’ asked Cecilia, when they had exchanged a few words.

‘Ay; whiles a’ come in-by an’ put on a bittie fire. The Laird asket me. But Macquean’s no verra canny to work wi’.’

‘Oh, Granny, let me come in!’ cried Cecilia. ‘I want so much to see this place, I shall never see it again—I am going away you know.’

The Queen of the Cadgers eyed her like an accusing angel.

‘And what for are ye no here—you that sent the Laird awa’?’ she cried. ‘Puir lad! He cam’ in-by to me, and says he, “Ye’ve been aye fine to me, Granny,” says he. And a’ just asket him, for a’ kenned him verra well, “Whaur is she?” says I. “It’s a’ done, Granny,” says he, “it’s a’ done!” An’ he sat down to the fire just wearied-like. “An’ are ye no to get her?” says I. “Na,” says he. “Aweel, ye’ll get better,” says I. A’ tell’t him that, Miss Raeburn—but he wadna believe it, puir lad.’

Cecilia had not spoken to one living creature who had met Gilbert Speid since they parted and her eyes filled with tears; she slid from her horse and stood weeping before the old woman. Her long self-control gave way, for the picture raised by Granny’s tongue unnerved her so completely that she seemed to be losing hold of everything but her own despair. She had not wept since the day she had heard the wild geese.

‘Ay! ye may greet,’ said the Queen of the Cadgers, ‘ye’ve plenty to greet for! Was there ever a lad like Whanland?’

Cecilia could not speak for sobs; when the barriers of such a nature as hers are broken down there is no power that can stay the flood.

‘He thocht the world o’ you,’ continued Granny, folding her arms; ‘there was naething braw eneuch for you wi’ him. There wasna mony that kent him as weel as a’ kent him. He didna say verra muckle, but it was sair to see him.’

‘Granny! Granny! have pity!’ cried Cecilia, ‘I cannot bear this! Oh, you don’t understand! I love him with all my heart and I shall never see him again. You are so cruel, Granny Stirk—where are the reins? I am going now.’

Blind with her tears, she groped about in the horse’s mane.

‘What ailed ye to let him awa’ then?’ exclaimed the old woman, laying her hand on the bridle.

‘I could not help it. I cannot tell you, Granny, but I had to give him up. Don’t ask me—I was obliged to give him up though I loved him better than anything in the world. It was not my fault; he knew it. I am so miserable—so miserable!’

‘An’ you that’s to be married to the Laird o’ Fullarton’s nephew!’ cried Granny Stirk.

‘I wish I were dead,’ sobbed Cecilia.

Though Granny knew nothing of the tangle in which her companion was held, she knew something of life and she knew real trouble when she saw it. Her fierceness against her was turned into a dawning pity. How any woman could give up a man she loved was a mystery to her, and how any woman could give up the Laird of Whanland, incomprehensible. But the ways of the gentry were past finding out.

‘Come awa’ in,’ she said, as Cecilia dried her eyes, ‘and a’ll cry on Macquean to tak’ the horse. Jimmy’s at the stable an’ he’ll mind it; ’twas him brocht me here i’ the cairt.’

She took the rein from her and walked round the house, leading the animal.

‘Macquean, ye thrawn brute!’ she cried, as she went, ‘tak’ yon horse to Jimmy. He’ll no touch ye, man!’

Cecilia entered, and, through a passage window, she could see Macquean in a rusty black coat, sitting on a stone-heap outside.

‘Come here, a’ tell ye!’ cried the Queen of the Cadgers.

Cecilia saw him shake his head.

‘Ye’d be mair use as a golloch[^[1]] than a man,’ said Granny, throwing the reins to her grandson, who was coming towards them.

Cecilia went into a room and sat down on a window-seat; most of the furniture was put away, and what was left had been covered up carefully by Granny and Macquean. Clementina’s portrait was gone from the wall, as well as that of the bay coach-horse, and the alcoves by the fireplace were empty of books. She sat and gazed at the bare beech-trees and the fields between Whanland and the sand-hills. He must have looked out at that view every day, and her eyes drank it in; the garden wall and the stable buildings broke its flat lines. Being on the ground floor, she could not see the sea; but the heaven above, with its long-drawn, fine clouds, wore the green-gray which suggests an ocean-sky. She was quite calm by the time Granny came in and stood beside her.

The old woman, though softened and puzzled, was yet in an inquisitorial mind; she stood before the window-seat, her arms akimbo and her skirt turned up and drawn through the placket-hole, for she had been cleaning.

‘An’ what gar’d ye put Whanland awa’ if ye liket him sae weel?’ she asked again. ‘Dod, that wasna the gait a’ wad hae gaed when a’ was a lassie!’

‘I cannot speak about it,’ answered Cecilia, rising, her face set; ‘there is no use in asking me. I was forced to do it. God knows I have no heart left. Oh, Granny! if he could but come back! In two months I shall be married.’

The Queen of the Cadgers stood silent; there was so much more in the matter than she had suspected; Cecilia might be a fool, but she was not the cold-hearted flirt whom she had pictured torturing Gilbert for her own entertainment.

‘It’s ill work mendin’ ae man’s breeks when yer hairt’s in anither ane’s pocket,’ she said.

Though mirth was far, indeed, from her, Cecilia could not help smiling at this crusty cutting from the loaf of wisdom.

‘Ah! ye may lauch now,’ exclaimed Granny solemnly, ‘but what ’ll ye do when he comes hame, an’ you married? Ye’ll need to mind yersel’ then.’

Neither of the women knew on how appropriate a spot the warning was offered, as they stood within a few feet of Clementina Speid’s empty place upon the wall.

‘I shall be gone,’ answered Cecilia. ‘I pray that I may never see his face again.’

‘Wad ye tak’ him, syne he was hame?’

‘Do you mean if he were to come now?’ asked Cecilia.

‘Ay.’

‘Oh, Granny, stop—there is no use in thinking or hoping.’

‘Wad ye gang wi’ him?’ persisted the old woman.

‘What do you think?’ cried Cecilia, facing her suddenly, ‘do you think anything could keep me back? Do you think I have ever ceased hoping or praying? Don’t torment me—I have enough to bear. Come, let me see Whanland. Show me everything, dear Granny, before I go. I shall look at it and never forget it; all my life I shall remember it. Come.’

The two went from room to room, Granny leading the way. Cecilia’s eyes devoured everything, trying to stamp each detail on her mind. They went through the lower rooms, and upstairs, their steps echoing in the carpetless passages. There was little to see but the heavy four-post beds, a few high-backed chairs which still stood in their places, and the mantelpieces carved with festoon and thyrsus. They went up to the attics and into the garret; the pictures had come back to the place in which Gilbert had first found them.

‘Yon’s the Laird’s mother,’ said Granny, turning Clementina’s portrait to the light, ‘she’s bonnie, puir thing.’

‘Was that like her?’

‘The very marrows o’ her,’ replied she.

The mother Gilbert had never seen and the bride he had never married were come face to face. The living woman looked at the painted one, searching for some trace of resemblance to the man from whom she had divided her; it was too dark for her to see the little box in Clementina’s hand. There was something in her bearing which recalled Gilbert, something in the brows and the carriage of the head.

‘Come away,’ she said at last, ‘I must go home now. I shall always thank you for showing me Whanland.’

They went downstairs and she stood on the doorstep while Granny went to the stable for her horse; the light was beginning to change; she would have to ride fast to reach Fullarton before it went. To-morrow she was to leave for Edinburgh and her return would only take place a few days before the wedding. A page in her life was turning down. She was to go to London with her husband, and, in a few months, they were to come back to settle in a place in Roxburghshire belonging to Sir Thomas Fordyce. The east coast would soon fade away from her like one of its own mists; the voice of the North Sea, which came faintly from the shore, was booming a farewell, for the tide was coming in beyond the bents.

Before she turned away she leaned down from her saddle.

‘Someday,’ she said, ‘when—if—Mr. Speid comes back, tell him that I came here and that——’

But she could not go on and rode down the short approach without ending her sentence. ‘Good-bye!’ she called at the gate, waving her hand.

Cecilia had reached Fullarton by the time Granny Stirk had finished her cleaning, for her visit had taken a good piece out of the afternoon. Though she generally was a steady worker, the old woman paused many times and laid down her duster. She took particular care of the room in which Gilbert slept, but, as she shook and beat the heavy curtains of his bed, her mind was not in her task. She was willing to admit that his passion was not altogether indefensible. As women went, Cecilia was more than very well, and, like nearly everyone who had once spoken to her, she did not deny her beauty. She pitied her too; though, it is to be feared, had her dead body been of any use to Speid, she would have stood by and seen her murdered. But, as he preferred her living, he should have her, if she, Joann Stirk, could get him home in time. Once let him come back and she would tell him what to do.

‘Ye’ll hae to drive me to Kaims i’ the cairt the morn’s morn,’ she observed to her grandson, as they bowled homewards.

‘I’m for Blackport,’ said Jimmy, laconically.

‘Ye’ll do as ye’re bid,’ replied the Queen of the Cadgers.

---

[^[1]]Blackbeetle.

[CHAPTER XXIV
A ROYAL VISIT]

WHILE Granny had shaken the curtains in Gilbert’s bedroom her mind had worked as hard as her hands; there was no doubt in it of one thing; namely, that, by hook or by crook, he must be brought home. It was a large idea for her to have conceived, because she scarcely knew where he was and had no idea how he might be reached. She understood that Barclay had means of communication with him, but, since the visit he had paid her, ostensibly to examine her mended roof, and, really to pry into Speid’s affairs, she had distrusted him fundamentally. The matter was intimate and needed the intervention of someone upon whom she could depend. As the Laird of Fullarton was uncle to the person she wished to circumvent, he also was an impossible adviser. The Miss Robertsons, under any aspect but that of being Gilbert’s relations, she looked upon as futile. ‘Twa doited auld bodies wha’s lives is nae object to them,’ as she had described them, were not worth consideration in such a case. In her strait she suddenly bethought herself of Captain Somerville. He had three special advantages; he was her idol’s friend, he was exceedingly civil to herself, and she had once seen him in uniform. This last qualification gave him something of the weight and security of a public character. Also, a person who had fought the French—all foreigners were French to her—in every quarter of the world, must surely be able to put his hand on any part of it at a moment’s notice.

As a matter of fact, she could hardly have made a better choice. The sailor, who bore a most human love to his kind, had appraised many men and women in his time, and he had a vast admiration for Granny. Gallant himself, to the core of his simple soul, he loved the quality in others, and the story of her fight with circumstances and final mastery of them had struck him in a sensitive place. On that memorable day on which she had seen him in uniform he was returning from Aberdeen, where he had gone to meet an official person, and his chaise passed her cottage. As he drove by, he saw the little upright figure standing on the doorstep, and, remembering her history, with a sudden impulse, he raised his hand and saluted her.

Though he was not, perhaps, so renowned a warrior as the Queen of the Cadgers supposed, Captain Somerville had seen a good deal of service, and had lost his leg, not in the doing of any melodramatic act, but in the ordinary course of a very steadily and efficiently performed duty. As a boy, he had gone to sea when the sea was a harder profession than it is now and when parents had had to think, not twice but many times, before committing their sons to it. He had run away and smuggled himself upon a merchantman lying in the harbour near his home, and before she sailed, he had been discovered by the first mate. His irate father, to whom he was returned, thinking to cure him of an infatuation he could not, himself, understand, arranged with the captain that he should be taken on the voyage—which was a short one—and made to work hard. ‘It would show the young fool,’ he said, ‘that the Church’—for which he was destined—‘was a more comfortable place than a ship.’ But the treatment produced an exactly contrary result. Finally, the family three-decker received the person of a younger brother, and, after much discussion, His Majesty’s Navy that of a new midshipman. More than fifteen years afterwards he got into a young man’s scrape in an obscure seaport, and emerged from it with Mrs. Somerville in tow. It was one from which a less honourable man would have escaped more fortunately. The lady was accustomed to say, in after times, that she had been ‘married from the schoolroom,’ but many who heard her suspected that there had never been a schoolroom in the matter. He had now been Coastguard Inspector at Kaims for over seven years.

The sailor was sitting at the breakfast-table next morning opposite to his wife, portions of whose figure were visible behind the urn; Miss Lucilla was away on a visit. The house stood a little back from the High Street, and, though the room was quiet, a cart which had stopped at the foot of the strip of garden was unnoticed by the pair.

‘If ye please,’ said the parlour-maid, looking in, ‘there’s a fishwife wad like to speak wi’ you.’

‘We require nothing to-day,’ said Mrs. Somerville.

‘She’s no sellin’. She’s just needing a word wi’ the Captain. It’s Mrs. Stirk—her that bides out by Garviekirk.’

‘It’s Her Majesty of the Cadgers, my dear,’ said the Inspector; ‘we must ask her to come in.’

The parlour-maid smiled.

‘She says she wad like to see ye alone, sir. “It’ll no keep,” she says.’

‘Impertinent woman!’ exclaimed Mrs. Somerville, ‘what can she have to say that I am not supposed to hear?’

‘I would do a good deal to oblige her,’ said Somerville, dragging himself up. ‘Show her into the next room.’

Granny Stirk had put on her pebble brooch; the little woollen shawl, crossed over her chest with its long ends tied behind the waist, was of a bright red and black check; her head was bare and her thick iron-gray hair held by a black net; her gold earrings shone. An indefinable rush of fresh air, brine, and tar came in with her.

‘Sit down, Mrs. Stirk,’ said Somerville, as he stumped in. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Sir,’ said she, ‘could ye tell me what’s come of the Laird o’ Whanland?’

‘God bless me!’ exclaimed the astonished sailor, ‘I think he’s in Spain.’

‘Does he no write ye? A’ mind he was aye billies[^[1]] wi’ you.’

‘I have heard nothing of him since he left.’

She made a gesture of dismay.

‘Mr. Barclay must know where he is,’ said he. ‘I could get his direction for you, I dare say, if it was anything urgent.’

‘Fie, na!’ she exclaimed. ‘Lord’s sake! dinna say a word to the like o’ him!’

‘But what is the trouble, my good woman?’

Before replying, Granny drew her chair close to his, throwing a searching look round the room and at the door; unfortunately, she could not see through the latter, but had she been able to do so, she would have noticed Mrs. Somerville standing on the door-mat.

She plunged into her tale.

‘Did ye no ken that the Laird was just deein’ for yon lassie o’ her ladyship’s? A’ ken’t it fine, but he tell’t me no to speak a word, and, dod! a’ didna. Well, he cam’ in-by to me and tell’t me he was gangin’ awa’ for she wadna tak’ him. That was the way o’t; that was what gar’d the puir lad gang. Did ye ken that, sir?’

‘I guessed it,’ said the Inspector, enormously surprised at this beginning.

‘Well,’ continued the Queen of the Cadgers, leaning forward and solemnly shaking his knee to compel attention, ‘well, she’s to be married in April month an’ she’s greetin’ hersel’ to death for the Laird.’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Somerville.

‘A’ was puttin’ on a bittie fire at Whanland yesterday—a’ do that, whiles—an’ she cam’ ridin’ up. “Oh, Granny, let me come in-by!” says she. “What way are ye no here?” says I. “What way did ye let the Laird gang?” An’ she just began greetin’ till I was near feared at her; it was aye the Laird—the Laird. I wager she canna thole yon lad she’s to get. Says I, “Wad ye tak’ him if he was to come back i’ the now?” “Oh!” says she, “div ye think I wadna? Oh! if he was hame! If he was hame!” A’ could hae greetit mysel’, Captain.’

‘But why did she not marry him at the beginning?’

‘I askit her that. “Granny,” says she, “a’ canna tell ye; a’ couldna help mysel’. There’s things a’ canna speak o’. A’ wish a’ was dead,” she says.—An’ there’s Whanland that doesna ken it!’ continued the old woman. ‘Sir, we’ll need to get him hame afore it’s ower late.’

Somerville was silent, feeling as though he were being invited to plunge into a torrent. He was certain that every word Granny said was true, for, though he had only seen Cecilia once since the news of her engagement was public, that once had been enough to show him that she was wretched. Some miserable tragedy was certainly brewing.

‘Suppose Mr. Speid has forgotten her?’ he hazarded.

‘Him forget?’ cried Granny, rising with a movement which made her earrings swing. ‘By Jarvit, Captain, a’ didna think ye was sic a fule!’

‘Perhaps I’m not,’ said he, rather nettled; ‘but what made you come to me?’

‘Was a’ to gang to the Laird o’ Fullarton that’s uncle to yon red-faced loon? Was a’ to gang to yon tod Barclay that’s aye wi’ him an’ that doesna like the Laird—a’ ken fine he doesna. Was a’ to gang to they twa auld maidies i’ the Close that doesna understand naething? Not me!’ said Granny, tossing her earrings again.

Captain Somerville put his hand on the back of his neck and ran it up over the top of his head till his nose got in the way; his hair looked like a field of oats after a rain-shower. Things did seem bad.

‘Ye’ll need to write him—that’s what ye’ll need to do. Tell him if he doesna come hame, it’ll be ower late,’ continued Granny.

‘But he may not want to come, Mrs. Stirk—he may have changed his mind. Remember, it is more than a year and a half since he left.’

‘Have a’ no tell’t ye?’ cried she. ‘There’s naebody kens the Laird as a’ ken him. Gang yer ain gait, sir, but, when Whanland kens the truth, an’ when yon lassie’s awa’ wi’ the wrang lad, you an’ me’ll need to think shame o’ oursels!’

There was scarcely anyone who could more fitly appreciate the horror of Cecilia’s position than the sailor. Long years of a companionship, whose naked uncongenialness he had decently draped with loyalty, were behind him to give point to Granny’s words; also, he thought of her face as he had last seen it; and he had that highest and rarest courage, the courage that is not afraid of responsibility. The rock on which second-rate characters go to pieces had no terrors for him.

The silence now was so deep that Mrs. Somerville, on the mat outside, began to fear a move and made as quiet a retreat as she could to the breakfast-room. She had heard enough to interest her considerably. Though the talk was resumed before she was out of earshot, she did not dare to return, for she saw, looking at the clock, that the maid might come up at any moment to clear the breakfast-table.

‘I will find out where to write to him,’ said the sailor. ‘We must lose no time, for the letter may take weeks to reach him. I am afraid it is a forlorn hope, Mrs. Stirk, but we’ll do our best. I shall write very urgently to Miss Raeburn and tell her what I have done.’

‘That’s you!’ exclaimed the old woman.

‘I must send the letter out to Fullarton to be addressed,’ continued he, ‘I have not heard where she is lodging in Edinburgh.’

‘Dinna hae ony steer wi’ that Barclay,’ said Granny. ‘He’s aye keekin’ an’ speerin’ about what doesna concern him, an’ makin’ work wi’ Mr. Fordyce.’

‘I will go to the Miss Robertsons this afternoon,’ said he, half to himself. ‘I know Miss Hersey writes to Speid. I suppose that, when I send my letter to him, I may say you have been here, Mrs. Stirk, and speak of your meeting with Miss Raeburn?’

‘Ye can that,’ replied she, preparing to go, ‘for a’m terrible pleased a’ did it. A’ll awa’ now, sir, an’ thank ye.’

Mrs. Somerville, looking out of the window, watched the Queen of the Cadgers walk down to her cart. A sneer touched the lady’s face as the old woman got in beside her grandson and was driven away.

‘Well,’ said she, as her husband entered, ‘what did that impudent old creature want? You were a long time listening to her.’

‘She was consulting me about private matters, my dear; and I don’t consider Mrs. Stirk an impudent person.’

‘You are so fond of being mixed up with common people,’ rejoined his wife, ‘I am sure I never could understand your tastes.’

Had the sailor never been mixed up with common people Mrs. Somerville would not have been sitting where she was.

His feelings were stirred a good deal and he was in a mood in which pettinesses were peculiarly offensive to him. Besides that, he was inclined to think Granny’s acquaintance something of an honour.

‘If there were more people in the world like Mrs. Stirk, it would be a good thing for it,’ he said shortly. ‘You are an uncommon silly woman sometimes, Matilda.’

---

[^[1]]Friends.

[CHAPTER XXV
MRS. SOMERVILLE HAS SCRUPLES]

MRS. SOMERVILLE retired from the breakfast-room in the height of ill-humour: it was not often that her husband spoke to her in so plain a manner and she was full of resentment. She was conscious that she had behaved badly in listening at the door, and, though the act did not seem to her such a heinous offence as it might have done to many others, her conscience aggravated her discomfort.

But curiosity was a tough element in her, and she was stayed up through its faint attacks by the interesting things she had overheard. Though her ears were not sharp, and the pair on the other side of the door had been sometimes indistinct, she had learned enough to gather what was afoot. Evidently, Cecilia Raeburn was now breaking her heart for Gilbert Speid, whom she had refused, and the Inspector and Mrs. Stirk had agreed that he should be told of it; so that, if he were still wearing the willow for the young woman, he might return in time to snatch her from her lawful bridegroom.

She had heard a good deal from Barclay of the checkered progress of Fordyce’s wooing and she saw Speid through the lawyer’s spectacles; also, the drastic rebuke she had suffered from Miss Hersey Robertson on his account had not modified her view. To add to this, he was extremely friendly with Captain Somerville, and she was of a class which is liable to resent its husband’s friends. She was jealous with the dreadful jealousy of women of her breeding; not from love of the person who is its object, but from an unsleeping fear for personal prerogative. She determined to tell Barclay of her discoveries, though she had no intention of telling him how she had come by them; and the thought of this little secret revenge on the Inspector was sweet to her.

Throughout the morning she maintained an injured silence which he was too much preoccupied to observe, and when, in the afternoon, he took his hat and the stick he used for such journeys as were short enough for him to attempt on foot, she watched him with a sour smile. He had not told her where he was going, but she knew and felt superior in consequence. She wondered when Barclay would come to see her; if he did not arrive in the course of a day or two she must send him a note. He was accustomed to pay her a visit at least once every week, and it was now ten days since he had been inside her doors.

Captain Somerville, though he returned with his object attained, had not found that attainment easy. The Miss Robertsons had always looked favourably on him as an individual, but Miss Hersey could not forget that he was the husband of his wife; and, since the moment when she had risen in wrath and left the party at his house, there had been a change in her feelings towards him. Well did she know that such a speech as the one which had offended her could never have been uttered by the sailor; the knowledge made no difference; Miss Hersey was strictly and fundamentally illogical.

Gilbert had given his address to his cousins with the request that it should not be passed on to anyone. He wanted to have as little communication as possible with the life he had left behind, and the news of Cecilia, for which he had begged, was the only news he cared to receive; business letters passing between himself and Barclay were written and read from necessity. He wished to give himself every chance of forgetting, though, in his attempts to do so, he was nearly as illogical as Miss Hersey.

The Inspector’s request for his direction was, therefore, in the old ladies’ eyes, almost part and parcel of his wife’s effrontery, and it was met by a stiff refusal and a silence which made it hard for him to go further. The red chintz sofa bristled. It was only his emphatic assurance that what he wished to tell Gilbert would affect him very nearly which gained his point. Even then he could not get the address and had to content himself with Miss Hersey’s promise, that, if he would write his letter, seal it and deliver it to her, she would direct and send it with all despatch. He returned, conscious of having strained relations almost to breaking point, but he did not care; his object was gained and that was what concerned him. He had become almost as earnest as Granny. The florid lady who watched his return from behind her drawing-room window-curtains observed the satisfaction in his look.

He was a slow scribe, as a rule, and it took him some time to put the whole sum of what Granny had told him before Speid; it was only when he came to the end of his letter that his pen warmed to the work and he gave him a plain slice from his opinion. ‘If your feelings are the same,’ he wrote, ‘then your place is here; for, if you stay away a day longer than you need, you are leaving a woman in the lurch. I do not understand this matter but I understand that much.’ Then he added the date of the wedding, underlined it, and assured Gilbert that he was ‘his sincere friend, Wm. Somerville.’ A few minutes later, his lady, still at the window, saw the individual who was at once coachman, errand-boy, and gardener disappear in the direction of Miss Robertson’s house with a sealed packet in his hand.

It was not until evening that he sat down to think what he should say to Cecilia. The need for haste was not so great in this case, but every hour was of value with respect to the letter Miss Hersey was forwarding to Gilbert. There was no knowing where he might be, nor how long it might take in reaching him, nor how many obstacles might rise upon the road home, even should he start the very day he received it. But, here, it was different. The sailor bit the top of his pen as he mused; many things had puzzled him and many things puzzled him still. He had received a shock on hearing of Cecilia’s intended marriage. In his own mind he had never doubted that she loved Speid, and this new placing of her affections was the last thing he expected; if there were no question of affection, then, so much the worse, in his eyes. He thought little of Fordyce and imagined that she thought little of him too. He had never supposed that money would so influence her, and his conclusion—a reluctant one—was that the extreme poverty which must be her portion, now Lady Eliza was gone, had driven her to the step.

Granny Stirk’s news had opened his eyes to the probability that there were influences at work of which he knew nothing, and he was uncommon enough to admit such a possibility. When most people know how easily they could manage everybody else’s business, the astonishing thing is that they should ever be in straits on their own account. But it never astonishes them. Captain Somerville had the capacity for being astonished, both at himself and at other people; the world, social and geographical, had taught him that there is no royal road to the solution of anyone’s difficulties. The man who walks about with little contemptuous panaceas in his pocket for his friends’ troubles is generally the man whose hair turns prematurely gray with his own. What had Cecilia meant when she told the old woman, weeping, that she could not help herself? He would, at least, give her the chance of helping herself now, and she could take it or leave it as she chose. He was not going to advise her nor to make suggestions; he would merely tell her what he had done. He had no difficulty in justifying his act to his conscience; he justified it to his prudence by reflecting on what she had given the Queen of the Cadgers to understand; namely, that, if the exile should return, she would throw all to the winds for him.

‘My writing-table is to be dusted to-day, and I shall leave this here,’ he said to his wife on the following afternoon, as he put the letter he had written on the drawing-room mantelpiece; ‘if you can hear of anyone going in the direction of Fullarton, I should be glad to have it carried. It is to Miss Raeburn, in Edinburgh, so Mr. Fullarton must address it for me.’

The Inspector was muffled in his plaid and Mrs. Somerville knew that his duty was taking him south of Kaims; Fullarton lay north of it. As he left the house he hesitated a moment. What if Barclay should call, as he often did, on his way to Fullarton and his wife should entrust him with the letter? Granny had been urgent in telling him to keep clear of the lawyer. But he laughed at his own doubt; for, with the worst intentions, how should Barclay know what it contained? What had he to do with it? The old woman’s dislike of him made her take absurd ideas into her head.

Mrs. Somerville placed the letter where it could lean against the clock, and, when the front-door had shut behind him, she settled herself to a comfortable afternoon by the fire; beside her lay the materials for trimming a bonnet, and, within hand-stretch, a small table-cover under which she might hide them at the approach of company. As she had said to Lucilla, she ‘did not wish to get the name of trimming her own bonnets.’ Her mind was so full of the object on the mantelpiece that she did not hear a step on the stairs, and, greatly as she desired Barclay’s visit, when he was ushered in, she had temporarily forgotten his existence. The bonnet disappeared with a scuffle.

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

‘Of necessity, Mrs. Somerville—never of inclination. My time has been scarcely my own this week past.’

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

‘Have no fear, ma’am. My own sex is entirely responsible. And I have been making a slight alteration in my house; a trifle, but necessary. I am to lodge my friend Fordyce for the wedding and his best man is coming too—at least so he tells me. They are feather-brained, these young fellows.’

Mrs. Somerville’s knowledge was hot within her, and she turned over in her mind how she might begin to unfold it without committing herself.

‘It will not be a large affair,’ continued he, ‘no one but myself and Mr. Fullarton and a handful of Fordyce’s relatives; the bride makes as much pother about her bereavement as if it had happened yesterday. Lady Fordyce is not to be present. I think she has taken such a poor match very much to heart.’

‘We were invited specially by Miss Raeburn,’ interposed the lady, who was not averse to playing a trump card when she had one.

Cecilia had personally asked the Inspector to the kirk, and had, perforce, made up her mind to the natural consequence in the shape of his wife; he had been Gilbert’s friend and she felt that his presence would help her through the ordeal.

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

‘Yes,’ replied Mrs. Somerville, settling herself snugly against the back of her chair, ‘we shall—if there is any bride at all.’

He looked at her interrogatively.

‘I said, if there is any bride at all, Mr. Barclay; and for that matter, I may add, if there is any wedding either.’

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

‘Ah,’ she said, nodding her head slowly up and down, ‘you are right to ask, and I can tell you that Mr. Speid may hinder the wedding.’

‘You are speaking in riddles,’ said the lawyer, ‘I may be dull, but I cannot follow you.’

‘If I tell what I know, you will get me into trouble,’ she said, shaking her forefinger at him; ‘there is no trusting you men.’

‘Surely you will make an exception in my case! What have I done to merit your distrust?’

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

‘Ma’am, you are cruel!’ he exclaimed, with a languishing look. He could have beaten her, for he was writhing with internal curiosity.

‘Well, well; do not take it so to heart,’ said she, ‘and promise that you will not betray me. Yesterday, after breakfast, a disreputable person, a Mrs. Stirk, who seems to be known about here—I know nothing about her—asked to speak to the Captain. I was sitting at the breakfast-table, but the door was open, so what they said was forced upon me; really forced upon me, Mr. Barclay. Mrs. Stirk said that she had seen Miss Raeburn and that she was crying—it was a very improbable story—and that she was breaking her heart for Mr. Speid; she had the impudence to tell the Captain that he should write and bring him home.’

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

‘You may well look surprised,’ said Mrs. Somerville, ‘but what will you say when I tell you he has done it? And because a fishwife told him, too! I let him know what an impudent old baggage I thought her, and I got no thanks for my pains, I assure you!’

The lady’s voice had risen with each word.

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

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

‘He cannot get home; at any rate, it is very doubtful,’ said the lawyer, counting on his fingers, ‘for, by the time he reaches here, Fordyce will be a married man. And he will not stop the marriage, if he comes. Miss Raeburn would never dare to give Fordyce the slip now, for all her high-and-mighty ways.’

‘But the Captain has written to her too, so she will have plenty of time to make up her mind. Look at the letter on the mantelpiece, waiting to be taken to Fullarton. He put it there when he went out.’

Barclay sat staring at the missive and arranging his ideas. He wondered how soon he could escape and send news of what he had heard to Fordyce; he hesitated to hurry away at once, for he had not been to see Mrs. Somerville for a long time, and he knew he was expected to sit with her, as he generally did, for at least an hour. One thing was certain; that letter on the mantelpiece should not reach Cecilia if he could help it. The other had gone beyond recall, but he doubted it getting into Speid’s hands in time to do much harm. Meantime, there was nothing like prompt action.

‘It is rather curious that I should be going to Fullarton to-day; I am on my way there at this moment. I had meant to make you a long visit to-morrow but I could not resist the temptation of turning in as I passed this door just now. Suppose I were to carry the letter? No good will come of it, I am sure, but, if the Captain wishes it to go, go it must. Can you not persuade him to think better of it?’

‘Indeed, if he heard you had been here on your way to Fullarton and I had not sent it, he would be annoyed. But how am I to forgive you for such a niggardly visit? You have hardly been here five minutes.’

‘By allowing me to pay you a liberal one to-morrow,’ replied the astute Barclay. ‘I can then assure you of the safety of the letter. What am I to do? Give me all directions.’

‘You are to hand it to Mr. Fullarton and ask him to address it and send it to Miss Raeburn. It is a very queer business, is it not?’

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

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

‘It can come to nothing,’ said he.

He was determined she should not suspect his feelings, which were, in reality, tinged with dismay. If Speid should baffle them still! The letter might reach him in time and he might easily act upon it. A torrent of silent abuse was let loose in his heart against Granny Stirk. He had hated her roundly for some time, and now he would have given anything to be able to turn her off the Whanland estate altogether. He promised himself that he would see what could be done when this affair of Fordyce’s marriage was off his mind.

‘Mr. Fordyce should thank me for warning you,’ said Mrs. Somerville, ‘if he has any sense he will hurry on the wedding-day after this. Whatever happens, do not betray me!’

A look in her face suggested to him that she might, in her heart, suspect what he had in his mind. He would make sure.

‘I suppose I dare not delay this for a day or two?’ he said, tentatively, looking from her to the letter.

‘Oh, no! no!’ she cried, in alarm. ‘Oh! what would happen if anyone found out that I had told you?’

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

‘I really do not know whether I have not done sadly wrong in speaking,’ said she, turning her eyes down. ‘I have many scruples. My name must never, never be mentioned.’

‘You insult me, Mrs. Somerville, when you talk in that way. Your name is sacred to me, as it has ever been, and your action is most timely, most obliging. I only regret that your own wishes forbid my telling Fordyce of your kind interest in him—in us, I should say, for I identify myself with my friends. I am nothing if not true. You, surely, of all people can give me that character.’

Playfulness returned to her.

‘Come, come,’ she said, ‘you may go away. I shall not tell you what I think for fear of making you vain!’

Barclay left the house with the precious letter in his pocket; he had come out that afternoon, with no intention of going anywhere near Fullarton. On reaching his own front-door he banged it so heartily with the knocker that his maidservant felt her heart thump too. She came running to answer the summons.

‘Order round the chaise immediately,’ he cried, ‘and see that the fire is kept in till I come back!’

As he stood at the door, waiting for his conveyance to be brought, he saw the strange one belonging to Captain Somerville enter the street on its homeward way. He ran to the gate which opened on the yard behind his house.

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

What he feared he knew not, but the sight of the Inspector’s plaided body sitting under the retrograde hood of his carriage, like an owl in a hollow tree, made him long to be clear of the town.

[CHAPTER XXVI
ALEXANDER BARCLAY DOES HIS BEST]

THOUGH Barclay had no intention of allowing the letter he carried to reach its final destination, he could not venture to stop its course till it had passed Fullarton’s hands. He was too much afraid that Somerville and Fullarton might meet within the next few days. The mail office should be responsible for its loss, if that loss were ever discovered; a contingency which he doubted strongly. He found it exceedingly annoying to be obliged to take this farcical drive on such a chilly afternoon, but Prudence demanded the sacrifice and he humoured her, like a wise man. Fordyce’s obligations to him were becoming colossal.

He found Fullarton in his library and explained that he was on his way home. He had looked in in passing, he said, to ask him to address a letter which Captain Somerville had given him for Miss Raeburn. He was rather hurried, and would not send his carriage to the stables; if the letter were directed at once, he would take it with him and leave it at the mail office, should it still be open. Robert was not in the humour either for gossip or business and he was glad to be rid of Barclay so easily. He took up his pen at once. In five minutes the lawyer was on his return road to Kaims.

The mail office was closed, as he knew it would be at that time in the evening, and he brought his prize home; to-morrow, though he would take several letters there in person, it would not be among their number. In its place would be one addressed by himself to the bride-elect and containing a formal congratulation on her marriage. Should inquiry arise, it would be found that he had despatched a letter bearing her name on that day. It was best that the track should lose itself on the further side of the mail office; the rest was in the hands of Providence. It was a badly-patched business, but it was the neatest work he could put together at such short notice.

When the servants had gone to bed and the house was quiet, the lawyer locked himself into his dining-room, where a snug little mahogany table with a suggestive load of comforts stood ready by the arm of his easy-chair. He sat down and took from his pocket the letter he had carried about all the afternoon, reading it through carefully. As he refreshed himself with the port he had poured out he counted again on his fingers. But there was no use in counting; he could come to no conclusion, for it rested purely with accident to decide how soon Captain Somerville’s communication should reach Gilbert. If there were no delays, if he were at Madrid or at some place within reach of it, if he made up his mind on the spot, if he could find means to start immediately and met no obstacle on the way—it was possible he might arrive within a few days of the wedding. Then, everything would depend upon Cecilia; and it would need almost superhuman courage for a woman to draw back in such circumstances. He had done a great thing in possessing himself of the paper he held. Little as he knew her, he suspected her to be a person of some character, and there was no guessing what step she might take, were she given time to think. ‘Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.’ He was doing this throughly.

He emptied his glass, and, with the gold pencil on his fob-chain, made a rough note in his pocket-book of the contents of Somerville’s letter; then he crushed the epistle into a ball and stuffed it into the red heart of the coals with the poker, holding it down till it was no more than a flutter of black ash. This over, he wrote Fordyce an account of what he had done. ‘I am not really apprehensive,’ he concluded, ‘but, hurry the wedding, if you can do so on any pretext, and never say that Alexander Barclay did not do his best for you.’

Crauford was at Fordyce Castle when the news reached him and it gave him a shock. His ally seemed to be outrunning all discretion in his zeal; to stop a letter was such a definitely improper thing to do that it took his breath away. Not that it was his fault, he assured himself as he pondered on it, and it was too late to make any remonstrance; besides which, as he had not personally committed the act, he had nothing with which to blame himself. Things looked serious. In a few days Speid might be on his way home. He would write to Cecilia on the spot; nay, he would go to Edinburgh himself and persuade her to hasten the wedding. He would invent a pretext. It was curious that, while Barclay’s act struck him as a breach of gentlemanlike behaviour, it never struck him from Cecilia’s point of view, though it was clear she did not want to marry him and that she did want to marry Speid. If it had struck him he would scarcely have understood. She was behaving most foolishly and against her own interests; she did not seem to realize that he had the warmest feelings for her, that he was prepared to make her happy and give her everything she could desire. So great was the complacency—personal and hereditary—in which he had been enveloped since his birth, that he could not see another obvious truth which stared him in the face: namely, that he whose wife has married one man and loves another stands in a place which ought to terrify a demi-god. If he hated Speid now, he might have to hate him still more in time. In his reply to Barclay he did not remonstrate with him; what was the use of doing so now that the thing was over?

Heartily did he wish the wedding hurried on for many reasons; one of them was that his mother, who had taken to her bed on hearing of his engagement, had now arisen, though her health, she said, would not admit of her leaving Fordyce Castle or being present at the ceremony. Nor were the protests of her family very sincere. Agneta and Mary, who were to go to their uncle, were looking forward feverishly to their first taste of emancipation, and Sir Thomas, having had experience of his wife when in contact with the outer world, thought with small gusto of repeating it. He had insisted that his daughters should go to Fullarton and no one but himself knew what he had undergone, Lady Fordyce being furious with her brother for having, as she said, arranged the marriage. Everyone agreed that her decision was a merciful one for all concerned, and, while Sir Thomas again ‘found it convenient’ to sit up in his study till the cocks crew, the two girls were supported by the prospect of the coming excitement.

Agneta and Crauford kept much together; but, though she was the only person to whom he could speak with any freedom, he did not tell her what he had heard from Barclay. He was a hero to his sister; and a hero’s bride is conventionally supposed to have eyes for no one but himself. Existing conventions were quite good enough for him.

His engagement was scarcely a blow to Lady Maria Milwright; for though, as has been said, he was a hero in her eyes also, she was so simple in character and so diffident that she had never even speculated on his notice. Ideas of the sort were foreign to her. But, as her fingers embroidered the handkerchief-case which she sent him as a wedding-gift, she was overwhelmed with Miss Cecilia Raeburn’s good fortune. Agneta was with him in his room when he unpacked the little parcel and read the letter it contained.

‘I consider that very kind of Lady Maria; very kind indeed,’ he said. He did not only consider it kind, he considered it forgiving and magnanimous.

‘I wonder if you will be as happy as if you had married her?’ said his sister, suddenly. ‘Is Miss Raeburn devoted to you, Crauford?’

The question took him rather unawares.

‘Why do you ask?’ inquired he.

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

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

‘I am sorry it is not to be a grand wedding with lots of fine company. I should have enjoyed that. But, all the same, it will be a great change for me and Mary. Miss Raeburn said we were to choose our own dresses. Do you know, we have never chosen anything for ourselves before?’

‘I am going to Edinburgh to-morrow or the next day to order my own clothes,’ said he. ‘I have chosen stuffs already. I shall wear claret-coloured cloth with a buff waistcoat and a satin stock. That ought to look well, I think.’

‘We are to wear white, and white fur tippets and Leghorn bonnets with pink rosettes. Papa gave Mary the money to pay for what we chose, for mamma would have nothing to do with it. It is a good thing, for she would not have given us nearly so much. Will there really be no one but ourselves and Uncle Fullarton at the wedding, Crauford?’

‘There will be our cousin Frederick Bumfield, who is to be best man, and my friend Mr. Barclay of Kaims. He is the Fullarton man of business and a mighty pleasant fellow. Frederick and I are to stay at his house for the wedding. Then there are a Captain and Mrs. Somerville whom Miss Raeburn’—he always spoke of Cecilia as ‘Miss Raeburn,’ even to his family—‘has invited, I cannot understand why; they are dull people and the lady is not over genteel in her connections, I believe. Morphie Kirk is a very small place for a wedding but Miss Raeburn has made a particular point of being married there. I often accompanied her to it when Lady Eliza was alive and I can guess (though she has not told me) that she feels the suitability of our being married there for that reason. It is a pretty feeling on her part,’ said Crauford.

Her fancy for Speid could not really go very deep, he reflected, as this little sentiment of hers came into his mind. The meddlesome old woman who had brought such a story to Captain Somerville might have known how hysterical women were when there was a question of weddings. Cecilia simply did not know her own mind.

He would see her in Edinburgh and do his best to persuade her to settle a new date for their marriage, even should it be only a few days earlier than the old one. And he would buy her some jewels—they would help on his request.

[CHAPTER XXVII
THE SKY FALLS ON GILBERT]

GILBERT SPEID sat in the house just outside Madrid, which had represented home to him for most of the eighteen months of his sojourn in Spain; he was newly returned from Granada. It had been Mr. Speid’s custom to pass a part of each year there, and it was there that he had, according to his wish, been buried. Gilbert had gone to look at the grave, for the decent keeping of which he paid a man a small yearly sum, and had found his money honestly earned; then, having satisfied himself on that point, he had wandered about in haunts familiar to him in his youth and early manhood. It was not three years since he had set foot in them last and he was not much more than thirty-two years old, but it seemed to him that he looked at them across a gulf filled with age and time. He returned to Madrid wondering why he had left it, and finding a certain feeling of home-coming in his pleasure at seeing his horses.

He made no pretence of avoiding his fellow-creatures and no efforts to meet them; and as, though he spoke perfect Spanish, he had always been a silent man, there was little difference in his demeanour. But it was universally admitted among old acquaintances that his Scottish life had spoiled him. He rode a great deal and frequented the same company; and he would often stroll down to the fencing-school where he had learned so much to practise with his old master, or with any new light which had risen among the foils since he left Spain. He felt the pressing need of settling to some definite aim in life, but he put off the trouble of considering it from week to week and from month to month.

Miss Hersey wrote only occasionally, for her sight was not good, and the world did not then fly to pens and paper on the smallest pretext as it does now. A letter was still something of a solemnity, even to the educated. Also, Miss Hersey thought that the sooner he forgot Cecilia the better it would be, and the sooner he would return. She hoped he would bring back a wife with him—always provided she were not a Roman Catholic. She had told him of Lady Eliza’s accident and death and of Cecilia’s removal to Fullarton, adding that she understood Miss Raeburn was to remain there until some arrangement could be made for her future; Mr. Fullarton was said to have promised Lady Eliza, on her deathbed, that he would act as guardian.

It took nearly a month for a letter from Scotland to reach Madrid, and Gilbert had asked a friend who lived near to take charge of such correspondence as might come for him within a fortnight of his return from Granada. He had only reached home late on the previous night, and he was now expecting the packet to be brought to him.

He had slept long, being tired, and when he emerged from his room the sun was brilliant. He walked out on the whitewashed veranda which ran round the upper story of the house, and looked out on the March landscape which the almond-blossom was already decorating. The ground sloped away before him, and, on the north-west, the Sierra de Guardarama cut into the sky. The pomegranates had not yet begun to flower, but a bush which stood near the walls cast the shadow of its leaves and stems against the glaring white. In Scotland, the buds would scarcely yet be formed on the trees; but the air would be full of the fresh smell of earth and that stir of life, that first invisible undercurrent of which the body is conscious through a certain sixth sense, would be vibrating. The Lour would be running hard and the spring tides setting up the coast. He stood looking, with fixed eyes, across the almond-blossom to a far-off country that he saw lying, wide and gray, in the north, with its sea-voice calling, calling. His servant’s footstep behind him on the stones made him turn; he was holding out a little packet of letters.

‘These have been sent from Don Balthazar’s house,’ said the man, in Spanish, indicating a few tied together with string. ‘The others were at the mail-office this morning.’

Gilbert sat down on the parapet of the veranda and turned over the letters; those that had come from his friend’s house must have been awaiting him a week, possibly longer. There were two which interested him, one from Miss Hersey and one directed in a hand he had seen before but could not now identify; it was writing that he connected with Scotland. Miss Robertson’s letter was among those which Don Balthazar had kept and he opened it first. The old lady generally reserved any tidings of Cecilia for the last paragraph and he forced himself to read steadily from the beginning; for, like many high-strung people, he found an odd attraction in such little bits of self-torture.

Half-way down the last sheet he dropped the paper as though he were shot and the blood ran to his face in a wave. It contained the news of Cecilia Raeburn’s engagement; she was to marry Crauford Fordyce, and the wedding was fixed for the middle of April.

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

‘You will cease to fret about her now,’ concluded Miss Hersey simply, ‘and that will be a good thing. I hear they are to live on a property which belongs to Sir Thomas Fordyce in Roxburghshire. See and get you a wife somewhere else, dear Gilbert, but not a Papist. Caroline and I would think very ill of that.’

It was some time before he strung up his mind to read the rest of the correspondence strewn about his feet, but, when he broke the seal of the other Scottish letter, he looked first at the end. It was signed ‘Wm. Somerville,’ and consisted of four closely-written pages. Before he came to the last line he sprang up, feeling as though the sky had fallen on him. He ran through his room into the passage, shouting at the top of his voice for his servant; the Spaniard came flying up three steps at a time, his dark face pale. He found Gilbert standing in the middle of the veranda; the scattered letters were blowing about, for a sudden puff of wind had risen.

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

‘But Señor——’

‘Go on! Begin! I tell you I am going to England to-night—sooner, if possible! Bring me my purse. Send to Don Balthazar and tell him that I am going in a few hours.’

He took the purse from the astonished man, and in another minute was in the stable and slipping a bridle over one of the horse’s heads, while the groom put on the saddle and buckled the girths. He threw himself into it and galloped straight to the nearest inn and posting-house in the town, for the carriage which had brought him back on the previous night belonged to a small post-master in Toledo and could be taken no further than Madrid.

Here he had a piece of disguised good fortune, for, though he could get neither cattle nor conveyance that day, a Spanish Government official was starting for France early on the morrow, and was anxious to hear of some gentleman who might occupy the vacant seat in the carriage he had hired and share the expenses of the road. In those days, when people travelled armed, any addition to a party was to be welcomed. It only remained for him to seek his friend Don Balthazar, and, through him, to procure an introduction to the traveller. Their ways would lie together as far as Tours.

Don Balthazar was a friend of his youth; a lean, serious-looking young man who had turned from a luxuriant crop of wild oats and married a woman with whom he was in love at this moment, a year after Gilbert had gone to Scotland. He had never seen Speid so much excited and he succeeded in calming him as the two talked over the details of the journey. They made out that it would take ten days to reach Tours, allowing three extra ones for any mishaps or delays which the crossing of the Pyrenees might occasion. In France, the roads would be better and travelling would improve. Twenty-three days would see him in Scotland; setting out on the morrow, the fourteenth of March, he could reasonably expect to get out of the Edinburgh coach at Blackport on the sixth of April. The wedding was not to take place until the tenth. He did not confide in Don Balthazar; he merely spoke of ‘urgent business.’

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

‘But he never used to care about women,’ replied he, stroking his long chin; ‘at least——’

‘Is there any man who does not care about women?’ exclaimed the lady, twirling the laced handkerchief she held; ‘bring me one and I will give you whatever you like!’

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

Doña Mercedes threw the handkerchief at him and both immediately forgot Gilbert Speid.

It was as if Gilbert lived, moved, and breathed in the centre of a whirlwind until he found himself sitting in the carriage by the Spanish official, with Madrid dropping behind him in the haze of morning. Inaction was restful while he could see the road rolling by under the wheels; every furlong was a step nearer his goal. His whole mind had been, so to speak, turned upside down by Captain Somerville’s pen. He was no longer the lover who had divided himself from his mistress because honour demanded it, but a man, who, as the sailor said, was leaving a woman in the lurch; that woman being the one for whom he would cheerfully have died four times a day any time these last two years.

The possibility of arriving too late made him shudder; he turned cold as he remembered how nearly he had stayed another ten days in Granada while this unforeseen news lay waiting for him at Don Balthazar’s house. He had a margin of some days to his credit, should anything check his journey, and, once beyond the Pyrenees, progress would be quicker. If delay should occur on this side of Toulouse, he could there separate himself from his companion and drive by night as well as by day, for he would be on the main posting-road through France.

He had not written to Cecilia. He would travel nearly as fast as the mail and a letter would precede his arrival only by a very short space. There had been no time, in the hurried moments of yesterday, to write anything to her which could have the weight of his spoken words; and, were his arrival expected, he feared the pressure that Fordyce, and possibly Fullarton, would bring to bear upon her before she had the support of his presence. He did not know what influences might be surrounding her, what difficulties hedging her about; his best course was simply to appear without warning, take her away and marry her. He might even bring her back to Spain. But that was a detail to be considered afterwards.

He remembered the sudden admission he had made to Granny Stirk in her cottage and told himself that some unseen divinity must have stood by, prompting him. How little did he suspect of the sequel to that day on which he had caught Lady Eliza’s mare; how unconscious he was of the friend standing before him in the person of the little old woman who offered him her apron to dry his hands and said ‘haste ye back’ as he left her door. He had written her a few lines, directing her to go to Whanland and get his room ready, and adding that he wished his return kept secret from everyone but Jimmy, who was to meet the Edinburgh coach at Blackport on the sixth of April. He had no horses in Scotland which could take him from Blackport to Whanland, but he would be able to hire some sort of conveyance from the inn, and, on the road home, he could learn as much as possible of what was happening from the lad. His letter would, in all probability, arrive a day or so in advance of himself, and Granny Stirk would have time to send her grandson to meet him and make her own preparations. Though the Queen of the Cadgers could not read, Jimmy, who had received some elementary schooling, was capable of deciphering his simple directions.

It was eight days after leaving Madrid that the fellow-travellers parted at Tours, having met with no delay, beyond the repairing of a wheel which had kept them standing in a wayside village for a couple of hours, and the almost impracticable nature of the roads in the Pyrenees. The official had called in the help of his Government in the matter of post-horses to the frontier, and these, though often miserable-looking brutes, were forthcoming at every stage. Owing to the same influence, a small mounted escort awaited them as they approached the mountains; and the Spaniard’s servants, who occupied a second carriage and had surfeited themselves with tales—only too well founded—of murders and robberies committed in that part of the country, breathed more freely.

It was with rising spirits that Speid bade his companion farewell, and, from the window of the inn at which they had passed the night, watched his carriage roll away on the Paris road; he had hired a decent chaise, which was being harnessed in the courtyard below to start on the first stage of its route to Havre, and he hoped to embark from that seaport in three days.

Of the future which lay beyond his arrival at Whanland he scarcely allowed himself to think, nor did he arrange any definite plan of action. Circumstances should guide him completely and what information he could get from Jimmy Stirk. He had no doubt at all of Cecilia’s courage, once they should meet, and he felt that in him which must sweep away every opposition which anyone could bring. He would force her to come with him. There were only two people in the world—himself and the woman he loved—and he was ready, if need be, to go to the very altar and take her from it. She had cried out and the echo of her voice had reached him in far-away Spain. Now, there was no power on earth which should stand before him.

So he went on, intent on nothing but the end of his journey; looking no further; and holding back from his brain, lest it should overwhelm him, the too-intoxicating thought that, in a couple of weeks, she might be his.

When, at last, from a point of rising ground a few miles from the seaboard, he saw the waters of the English Channel, his heart leaped. He drove into Havre just at sunset on the evening of the twenty-fifth of March. Six days later he was in London.

He had hoped to reach it earlier, but it was with the greatest difficulty that he was able to get a passage to Portsmouth; he had crossed to England in a wretched fishing-boat and that bad weather, predicted on the French shore and only risked by the boat’s owner for a large sum of money, met and delayed him.

He saw the dark mass of Edinburgh Castle rising from the lights of the town on the second evening after his departure from London; the speech which surrounded the coach, as it drew up, made him realize, with a thrill, that now, only two divisions of his journey lay between him and Blackport—Blackport where he would meet Jimmy, perhaps hear from him that he had seen Cecilia. Next morning found him on the road to Perth, where he was to sleep that night.

The weather was cold and gusty on the last day of his travels, and the Tay, as they crossed it after leaving Perth, yellow and swollen; but the familiar wide fields and the distant wall of the Grampians stirred his heart with their promise. The road ran up the Vale of Strathmore, north-east of the Sidlaws; as their undulations fell away they would stretch to Kaims and the sea, and he would once more be in that enchanted spot of land where the North Lour ran and the woods of Morphie unrolled themselves across its seaward course.

The last change of horses was at Forfar; from there, they were to run through the great moor of Monrummon into Blackport, where they would be due at eight o’clock. If he could secure anything which had wheels from one of the posting-houses, he would sleep that night at Whanland.

The passengers buttoned their coats tightly as they went forward, for the weather was growing worse and the wind came tearing in their faces. Before darkness fell, fringes of rain-cloud, which had hung all day over the Grampians, began to sweep over them. The horses laid back their ears as heavy drops, mixed with hail, struck them in sensitive places and the coachman’s hands were stiff on the reins from the chill water running off his gloves. Now and again the gale raised its voice like an angry woman, and the road reflected the lamps as though it had been a pond. They had left Forfar some time when the coachman, in the darkness, turned a hard, dripping face to Gilbert, who was on the box-seat.

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

Speid leaned his head sideways and was conscious of a roar above the voice of the blast; a tossing and rolling sea of noise in the air which he thought must be like the sound of waves closing above the head of a drowning man. It was the roar of the trees in Monrummon.

As the coach plunged in, the dark ocean of wood swallowed it up, and it began to rock and sway on one of the bad roads intersecting the moor. The smell of raw earth and wet heather was mixed with the strong scent of the firs that laboured, surged, buffeted overhead in the frenzy of the wind. The burns that, in places, crossed their road had now become turgid torrents, dragging away soil and stones in their rush.

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

The last exclamation was addressed to the off wheeler, who had almost slipped on a round stone laid bare by the water flaying the track. The only inside passenger, a West-country merchant on his way north, let down the window and put out his head, to draw it in promptly, outraged by finding himself in such surroundings and by the behaviour of the elements outside. Such things did not happen in Glasgow.

It was when they were on the middle of the moor that the bed of a burn, steeper than any they had yet encountered, crossed their way. It was not much wider than an ordinary ditch, but the force of the water driven through it had scored the bottom deep, for the soil was soft in its course. The coachman had his team well together as they went down the slope to it, and Gilbert watched him, roused from his abstraction by the fascinating knowledge that a man of parts was handling the reins. The feet of the leaders were clear of the water and those of the wheelers washed by the red swirl in the burn’s bed, when the air seemed to rush more quickly a few yards to their left, and, with a crack like that of the sky splitting, the heavy head of a fir-tree came tearing downwards through its fellows.

The terrified horses sprang forward up the steep ground; the coach staggered like a drunkard; the pole dipped, rocking upwards, and the pole-chains flashed in the light of the swinging lamps as it snapped in two.

The traces held, for they reached the further side almost by their own impetus, and the guard was at the leaders’ heads before the Glasgow merchant had time to let down his window, and, with all the righteous violence of the armchair man, to launch his reproaches at the driver; Gilbert climbed down and began to help the guard to take out the leaders. The coachman sat quietly in his place.

‘Well, well; we’ll just need to bide whaur we are,’ he said, as the swingle-trees were unhooked.

By the light of the lamps, the pole was found to be broken, slantwise, across the middle and there was nothing for the passengers to do but make the best of their position and await the morning. The gale continued to rage; and, though the guard declared it possible to lash the breakage together and proceed carefully by daylight, such an attempt would be out of the question in the state of the roads, while the storm and darkness lasted. The two other outside passengers, one of whom was a minister, were an honest pair of fellows, and they accepted their situation as befitted men of sense.

The window of the coach went down and the Glasgow man’s head appeared. He had tied up his face in a woollen handkerchief with large red spots. The ends rose above his head like rabbit’s ears.

‘You’ll take me to the end of my journey or I’ll ken the reason!’ he shouted to the little group. ‘I’ve paid my money to get to Aberdeen and it’s there I’m to go!’

Guard and coachman smiled, the former broadly and the latter at the side of his mouth. Neither said anything.

‘My name’s George Anderson, and I’m very well acquaint wi’ you!’ roared the inside passenger in the voice of one who has discovered a conspiracy.

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

‘The pole is broken, sir. You can see it for yourself if you will come out,’ said Gilbert, going up to the coach.

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

The smile now extended to the minister and his companion, and, at sight of this, the merchant burst into fresh wrath.

‘Am I to be kept a’ the night in this place?’ he cried. ‘I warrant ye, I’ll have the lot o’ ye sorted for this when I get to Aberdeen!’

‘If you like to ride one of the leaders into Blackport, you can,’ suggested Gilbert, with a sting in his voice; ‘the guard is going with the mails on the other.’

‘Aye, ye’d best do that. Ye’d look bonnie riding into the town wi’ yon thing on your head,’ said the minister, who had a short temper.

The window went up.

The united efforts of Speid and his four companions succeeded in getting the coach to one side of the way, and three of the horses were tied up, its shelter between them and the weather; the Glasgow merchant remained inside while they moved it. The rain was abating and there were a few clear patches in the sky, as, with the mail-bags slung round him, the guard mounted the fourth horse and prepared to ride forward.

‘If you can find a boy called Stirk at the inn,’ said Gilbert, ‘tell him to wait for me in Blackport till morning.’ And he put some money in the man’s hand.

The guard touched his cap and disappeared.

It was a long night to Speid. The three passengers built themselves a shelter with luggage and rolled themselves in what wraps and rugs they had; not one of them had any desire to share the inside of the coach with its occupant. The ground was too damp to allow a fire to burn and what wood lay at the roadside was dripping. In a few hours the guard returned with such tools as he could collect; the road improved further on, he said, and the remaining six miles of the stage could be done at a walk after the sun rose. He had seen nothing of Jimmy Stirk. He and the coachman joined the party in the shelter.

Gilbert, unsleeping, lay with his eyes on the sky; though he had been much tempted to go on with the guard, he would have gained little by doing so; his choice of a night’s lodging must be between Blackport or Monrummon, and, under the circumstances, one place was intolerable as the other.

[CHAPTER XXVIII
AGNETA ON THE UNEXPECTED]

GILBERT was wrong in supposing he would arrive in Scotland on the very heels of his letter, for it reached Granny Stirk’s hands three days before the night which ended, for him, on Monrummon Moor. Jimmy, who had brought it from Kaims in the evening, spelt it out successfully by the firelight.

The old woman sat, drowned in thought, her fiery eyes on the flame; she could not understand why Cecilia had made no response to what Captain Somerville had written, for she had seen him on the previous day and was aware that no word had come from Edinburgh. Though she knew that Barclay had carried the letter to Fullarton she had no suspicion that he had tampered with it, imagining her action and that of the sailor unknown to anyone. How should Barclay guess its contents? Also, she had no notion to what extent he was in Fordyce’s confidence, or what a leading part he had played in the arrangement of the marriage. Instinct and the remembrance of his visit to her were the only grounds for the distrust with which she looked upon him.

She had not doubted Cecilia’s sincerity and she did not doubt it now; but, unlike Gilbert, she was beginning to doubt her courage. She was in this state of mind when she heard that the wedding day was changed from the tenth to the seventh of the month; Speid would only arrive on the evening before the ceremony. The matter had gone beyond her help and she could not imagine what the upshot would be. But, whatever might come of it, she was determined to play her own part to the end. Early to-morrow morning she would send Jimmy to Kaims to tell the sailor of the news she had received and Macquean should go, later, to get a few provisions for Whanland; she, herself, would have a field-day in the laird’s bedroom with mops and dusters and see that his sheets were ‘put to the fire.’

Meanwhile, at Fordyce Castle, events, almost equal to a revolutionary movement in significance, had taken place. Like many another tyrant, Lady Fordyce, once bearded, began to lose the hold which custom had given her over the souls and bodies of her family. Sir Thomas had, for the first time, established another point of view in the house, and its inmates were now pleased and astonished to learn that they survived. That kind of knowledge is rarely wasted. One result of the new light was that Agneta was allowed to accompany Crauford to Edinburgh, where she was to try on her bridesmaid’s costume, report upon Mary’s, and make acquaintance with her future sister-in-law.

The sight of Cecilia was a revelation to Agneta. The hide-bound standards of home had not prepared her to meet such a person on equal terms and she knew herself unable to do so creditably; the remembrance of Mary’s suggestion that they might ‘give her hints’ on the doing of her hair, and such-like details, made her feel inclined to gasp. Cecilia suggested something selected, complicated, altogether beyond her experience of life and outside her conception of it. Crauford, to whom this was evident, looked on triumphantly.

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

‘She is quite different from what I expected, brother—quite different.’

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

‘You did—you did; but I did not understand. No more will Mary till she has seen her. I am afraid she will astonish Mama dreadfully.’

Fordyce chuckled. The thought of his mother had never made him chuckle before. But times were changing.

‘I shall write to Mary to-morrow,’ continued Agneta. ‘Crauford, I can quite understand about the gentleman who went to Spain.’

At this her brother’s smile faded, for the words made him think of the gentleman who might be returning from Spain. As soon as possible he must address himself to the task before him, namely, that of persuading Cecilia to make the wedding-day a fortnight earlier.

At the risk of wearying the reader, who has followed this history through letters, fragments of letters, receipts of letters, and even suppression of letters, Agneta’s somewhat ungrammatical sentiments must be given.

‘MY DEAR MARY’ (she wrote),

‘I do not know what Mama will say. We have arrived safe and waited upon Cousin Maitland where Miss Raeburn is staying. She is not at all like what we imagined. You said we could perhaps teach her to do her hair, but it is most beautifully done, and she has a lovely tortoiseshell comb handsomer than Lady Maria’s. She is not at all shy, even with Crauford, but she was most obliging and polite to him and to me too. Cousin Maitland says she thinks she likes her better than any young lady she ever saw. I don’t know what Mama will say because I am quite sure Miss Raeburn will not be afraid of her, for she looks as if she were not afraid of anybody or cared for anybody very much, not even Crauford. He told me she was very fond of flowers, but I think he must be mistaken, for he brought her some roses that were ever so expensive at this time of year and she thanked him nicely but she never looked at them after she had put them down. Cousin Maitland is a very odd person; her chin and nose nearly meet and she wears long earrings and said a lot of clever things I did not understand. She has an enamel snuff-box with rather a shocking picture on it. It is very nice being on a journey alone and ringing the bell when I want anything, but Jane forgot to bring my best slippers which is tiresome, as we are to dine with Cousin Maitland to-morrow. Give my love and respects to our father and mother and also from Crauford. I send my love to you.

‘Your affectionate sister,

‘AGNETA FORDYCE.

‘P.S.—She has the loveliest feet.’

All the arguments and persuasions which Crauford could bring to bear on his bride did not avail to shorten the time before the marriage by a fortnight, for the dressmakers at work upon her very modest trousseau declared themselves unable to finish it by that date, and Cecilia was thankful for their objections. He had dressed up some bogey of family convenience which he held up before her, but, by aid of its ministrations, he was only able to knock off three days from the interval and fix the occasion for the seventh instead of the tenth of April. He wrote to Barclay, apprising him of the change.

When the time arrived by which some result of Somerville’s letter might reasonably be expected, the lawyer was constant in his inquiries at the mail office. As no sign came, he determined to drive out to Whanland and question Macquean, for he thought that if Gilbert contemplated a sudden return, the man in charge of the house would scarcely be ignorant of it.

It was on the second day preceding Speid’s intended arrival that he set out for this purpose, and, at the outskirts of the town, observed the person he wished to see approaching with the vacillating but self-satisfied gait peculiar to him. Rather to his surprise, Macquean made a sign to the coachman to stop.

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

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

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

‘Has he written?’

‘Granny got a letter a day syne. She bad’ me no tell, but a’ didna mind the auld witch. A’ kent fine the Laird wad need to tell ye.’

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

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

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

‘He’ll no be at Blackport or aicht o’clock Friday first, an’ gin the coach is late, it’ll be nine. A’m thinking he’ll likely bide a’ night i’ the toon an’ come awa’ hame i’ the morn. A’m awa’ now to see and get proveesions.’

The lawyer had other business on hand, so, after a few more words with Macquean, he drove on; the servant continued his way into Kaims.

This was ill news. Barclay had played Crauford’s game for so long that it had almost become his own, and he felt like a child who sees signs of imminent collapse in the sand-castle which has stood almost to the turn of the tide. Only three more days and baffled, probably, by an old woman’s pestilent interference! If Speid had left Spain in such a hurry it was not likely that he meant to have all his trouble for nothing, and, if no delay should occur on his road, he would arrive just fifteen hours too early. It was a close business.

For all his oiled and curled appearance, his fat hands and his servility, there was something of the man of action about Barclay. Also, he was endlessly vindictive. The idea of Gilbert, triumphing at the eleventh hour, was as bitter as gall, and he resolved, while he sat looking like a hairdresser’s image in the chaise, that no strong measure he could invent should be lacking to frustrate him. As far as Crauford was concerned he had a free hand and he would use it freely. Suggestions boiled in his brain. To delay Speid in Blackport on the night he arrived would be advantageous, and, if he could only delay him till the following noon, all would be well.

He ran mentally over every possibility. Suppose, as Macquean had said, the coach should not be up to time and the traveller should come no further that night, he would scarcely start for home before nine on the next day. At ten, or thereabouts, he would reach Whanland, and, by a few minutes past eleven, Fordyce would be married to Cecilia. Everything fitted in so nearly that, assuming that it should arrive late—as it usually did—the slightest delay would settle the matter.

By the time he had alighted at his own door he had made up his mind to send a mounted messenger at once to Blackport, and, in Fordyce’s name, to secure every post-horse to be had at the two posting-houses in the town. The pretext should be the conveyance of wedding spectators to Morphie; the animals should be brought to Kaims early next morning. In the afternoon, the bridegroom was to arrive as his guest, with his best man, and he would tell him what he had done. His approval was a foregone conclusion.

Should the coach come in punctually, or should Gilbert hear, in Blackport, that the wedding was to take place at once, his plan might yet miscarry. The chances were almost even, he told himself; there were other horses, no doubt, which could be begged, borrowed, or stolen by a man determined to get forward, but there would be a delay in finding them and that delay might be the turning-point. Macquean had not informed Barclay that Jimmy Stirk was to meet Gilbert for the simple reason that he did not know it himself; Speid had asked Granny to say nothing to any person of his coming, so, though obliged to tell him to make preparations at Whanland, she had entered into no details. She had mentioned the day and hour he was expected at Blackport and that was all.

[CHAPTER XXIX
THE QUEEN OF THE CADGERS TAKES THE ROAD]

THE next day broke cold and stormy and driving rain sped past the windows of the Stirks’ cottage. In the morning Jimmy set out, having decided to go afoot and to return with Gilbert in whatever vehicle he should accomplish the last stage of his way home. As the day went on the old woman’s restlessness grew, and, by afternoon, her inaction, while so much was pending, grew intolerable to her. She opened the back door and looked out seawards to where a patch of ragged light broke the flying clouds. This deceitful suggestion of mending weather decided her on the action for which she was hankering. To Kaims she would go. Captain Somerville might, even now, have received some word from Cecilia, and in any case, the sight of his face would soothe her agitated mind. Her heart was so deep in what was going on that she was at the mercy of her own nerves so long as she was unable to act; and to-day, there was not even her grandson to distract her mind. The man’s more enviable part was his.

It was seldom, now, that she drove herself, and it was years since she had harnessed a horse. She wrapped her body in her thick, gray plaid, pinning it tightly round head and shoulders, and went out to the shed where Rob Roy was dozing peacefully in the straw, in false expectation of a holiday. Almost before he had time to realize what she wanted, she got him on his legs, pushed the collar over his astonished face, and led him out across the windy yard, to where the cart stood in a sheltered corner. In a few minutes she was turning his head towards Kaims.

The rain held off as she splashed down the road, and, at the bridge, the North Lour ran hard and heavy under her; the beeches round Whanland House were swaying their upper branches when she passed, as seaweeds sway in a pool at the in-running tide. She drove straight to the Black Horse in the High Street, for, behind the inn-yard, was a tumbledown shanty, where carriers, cadgers, and such of the lower classes as went on wheels, might stable their carts when they came to the town. The grander accommodation, which had the honour of harbouring the chaises and phaetons of the gentry, was on the inner side of the wall. When she had left Rob Roy she walked to the Inspector’s house and was admitted. She was ushered straight into the Captain’s presence; he sat in his study, dressed for the road, for he had duty near Garviekirk. The expression he wore was one unusual to him.

‘I have made a discovery, Mrs. Stirk,’ he said, abruptly. ‘The letter I wrote to Miss Raeburn never reached her. She has not received it.’

Her eyes seemed to pierce him through; he turned his face away.

‘I am a good deal distressed,’ he continued—‘I did not suppose that—those one associated with—did such things.’

‘It’s Barclay!’ exclaimed Granny.

‘We cannot be quite certain,’ he went on, ‘so the less we say about it the better. He was asked to carry it to Fullarton and I have reason to know that it never reached Miss Raeburn. I have spoken quite freely to you; as you have identified yourself with this affair, I felt I should not keep anything back from you. I am sick at heart, Mrs. Stirk—sick at heart.’

His expression was blurred by a dull suffering.

‘Fegs! ye needna fash about the likes o’ him, sir! I warrant ye it’s no the first clortie[^[1]] job he’s done!’

‘It is painful,’ said he.

There was more than the Queen of the Cadgers could fathom in the honest man’s trouble; more lying on his heart, as he drove away down the street, than she, looking after him, could guess. The sordid knowledge of his wife’s nature had been with him for years, shut behind bars through which he would not glance, like some ignoble Caliban. That morning he had been forced to look the hateful thing in the face.

A letter had come to Mrs. Somerville from Cecilia, directing her to the private entrance at Morphie Kirk. ‘I hope Captain Somerville is well,’ was its conclusion; ‘with the exception of a note of congratulation from Mr. Barclay I have heard nothing of anyone at Kaims since I left Fullarton.’

Mrs. Somerville had read it aloud, stopping suddenly in the middle of the last sentence, remembering Barclay’s semi-jocular suggestion of delaying the letter, and turned scarlet. She was apt, in difficulties, to lose her head.

‘I’m sure it is no fault of Mr. Barclay’s!’ she exclaimed. ‘I told him how urgent it was.’

‘What?’ exclaimed the Inspector, turning in his chair.

Then, seeing how she had incriminated herself, she had plunged into explanations. The door had been ajar—she had been unable to help hearing what Mrs. Stirk had said on the day when he had written to Miss Raeburn—the words had forced themselves on her. It was not her fault. She had never moved from where he had left her sitting at the breakfast-table.

Somerville looked squarely at his wife. The door had not been ajar, for he had fastened it carefully, as he always did before hearing private business. He remembered doing so, perfectly.

‘It was not ajar,’ he said, in a voice she had rarely heard; ‘it was shut. And it is impossible to hear between the two rooms.’

‘I always did hate that old woman!’ cried Mrs. Somerville, her face in a flame, ‘and why you ever let her into the house I never did know! I’m sure if Lucilla were here she would take my part. And now to be accused of——’

‘What have I accused you of?’ asked her husband. ‘I have not accused you yet. But I will. I accuse you of telling that hound, Barclay, what you heard, and, if I sit here till to-morrow, I will have every word you have betrayed.’

Piece by piece he dragged from her her treachery; evasions, tears, lies, he waded through them all. Furious and frightened, what confidences of Barclay’s she had, she divulged also. At the end he had risen painfully and left the room.

The sailor was a hot-headed, hot-hearted man. He had no proof against the lawyer and he knew it; but he believed him capable of anything and was prepared to maintain his belief.

‘You may tell Barclay,’ he said, as he paused at the door, ‘that I have no proof against him but my own conviction. If he can prove me wrong I will apologize humbly—publicly, if he pleases. But, until that day, if he ventures to enter my house while I can stand, I will turn him out of it with my cane.’

When Granny Stirk had done a few matters of business in Kaims, she went down the side-street to the back premises of the Black Horse. Before her, a figure battled with the wind that rushed down the tunnel of houses, and, as he turned into the yard gate, she saw that this person was none other than Barclay. He went in without observing her, and called to a man who was idling among the few vehicles which stood empty about the place. She continued her way round the outside wall to the spot where she had left Rob Roy, and untied the rope by which he was tethered. Above, a large hole in the stonework let out a strong stable smell from the row of dark stalls built against its inner face. The occasional movement of horses mixed with the voices of two people who were walking along the line of animals together.

‘Yon’s them,’ said one of the unseen individuals, as a scraping of boots on the flags suggested that the pair had come to a standstill under the aperture.

‘Now, how many are there exactly?’ inquired the voice of Barclay.

‘That’ll be sax frae the Crown an’ four frae the Boniton Arms—they’ve just got the four in now. Them’s the twa grays at the end; an’ other twa’s up yonder, the brown, an’ yon brute wi’ the rat-tail.’

‘Are you quite certain that these are all that can be had? Mind you, I want every single beast secured that is for hire in Blackport.’

His companion made a small, semi-contemptuous sound.

‘That michtna be sae easy,’ he replied. ‘Whiles there may be a naig I dinna ken i’ the toun—what are ye wantin’ wi’ sic a lot, sir?’

His tone implied more of the practical than the inquisitive, but the lawyer cut him short.

‘That’s my affair,’ he replied. ‘My order is plain enough, surely. I want every horse that is for hire in the town secured and brought here—every horse, mind you. And by eight o’clock to-night they must be out of Blackport—here, that is.’

The trace which Granny was hooking slipped through her fingers, and she stood, open-mouthed, while the footsteps of the speakers died away. It did not take her a moment to draw the right inference; if the lawyer had mentioned Fordyce’s name she might not have understood so easily what was going forward; but he had spoken as though the order had emanated from himself, and Granny, on the other side of the wall, had a burning lamp of wrath in her soul which illuminated his deed.

It was almost half-past five, and, in less than three hours, Gilbert would arrive at Blackport to find that there was no available means of getting further. She knew him well enough to be sure he would start on foot, if need be, so soon as he should learn from Jimmy of what was to happen on the morrow; but, meanwhile, here was Rob Roy, at the end of the reins she held, and what belonged to the Stirk family belonged also to the Laird of Whanland so long as she had breath to say so. She got into her place and drove carefully out of the narrow gate into the street. It was scarcely time for the light to fail, but the sky was dark with rain-cloud and the weather rolling in from a wild sea that was booming up the coast. She cared for none of these things; inland, eight miles off, lay Blackport, and, in less than an hour, she would be there with a horse.

Where the side-street met the High Street, an archway joined the inn buildings to the opposite houses, and, under it, she observed Barclay taking shelter from the sudden squall of rain which had come up in the last few minutes. Beneath its further end, across the way, stood two loafers, one of whom she recognised as a cadger whose cart was now unharnessed in the yard. Though his days in the trade had begun long after her own had ended she knew something about him; principally, that rumour connected him with a Blackport poaching gang which had been active in the preceding year. He looked at her as she approached and sent an obscene word to meet her, but she neither heard nor heeded, for her attention was set on the lawyer whom she was about to pass.

‘Where are you bound for?’ called Barclay.

Her eyes flamed.

‘Ah! ye deevil!’ she cried, ‘a’ heard ye! Look! Here’s a horse that’ll be in Blackport the nicht!’

Before she was through the arch Barclay realized that she must have been near him in the yard. By what chance she had understood his business there he knew not—had not time to guess. He turned livid.

‘Stop her!’ he shouted to the two men as he made a futile dash after the cart.

The cadger on the opposite pavement sprang forward.

‘Go on!’ roared the lawyer, ‘go on, man! Stop her! Stop her!’

Granny struck Rob Roy sharply and he plunged into his collar. The cadger sprang at his head, but the horse swerved, and his hand fell on the rein just behind the rings of the pad. There was a curse and a rattle; like a snake the whip-thong curled in the air and came down across his face, with a hissing cut that Barclay could hear where he stood, and, as the man fell back, his hands to his eyes, the gallant old woman swung out into the middle of the street.

‘Go on! Go after her! Five pounds if you can stop her! Ten!’ yelled Barclay.

‘Awa’ ye go and get yer cairt!’ cried the friend who had been standing with the cadger.

At the mention of money the man took his hands from his face; a red wale lay across it and the water poured from his eyes.

‘He’s got a cairt yonder i’ the yaird!’ cried the friend again.

‘Quick then!’ shouted Barclay, seizing him. ‘If you stop that hell-cat getting to Blackport to-night you shall get ten pounds and I’ll see you come to no harm. Run!’

At this moment Granny, going at a smart trot, turned to look back, for she was not yet out of sight; she saw the cadger pushed towards the inn by Barclay, she saw him run back under the arch, and she understood. She sat down in her place, her heel against the footboard, and let the lash float out on Rob Roy’s shoulder. She knew the value of a good start.

Showers of mud flew behind her as the little horse’s hoofs smote the earth in the fast, steady trot to which she kept him. The east wind almost hurled her out of her seat as she passed the fringe of the town, for she was going north, and it came in from the sea, not half a mile off, with a violence that blew Rob Roy’s mane stiffly out from his neck. At the further side of Kaims flowed the South Lour, making a large tidal lake west of it; along the north side of this estuary the Blackport road ran, straight, but for certain indecisive bends; practically level for eight miles. As she turned along it and found the blast at her back she increased her pace. Not far in front the way dipped, and a sluggish stream which drained the fields on her right hand ran under a low, stone bridge into the marsh which edged the ‘Basin of Kaims,’ as the semi-salt lake was called. The wind had whipped the water into small waves, for it was high tide and the swirl almost invaded her path; a couple of gulls, tilted sideways on outspread wings, were driven over her head. The sound of the crawling water was drowned in the gale which was growing steadily. She pressed on, the horse well in hand, till she reached the summit of the rise half a mile ahead and pulled up for a moment in the shelter of a broken wall. Turning, she strained her eyes into the dusk, and, remote from the undercurrent of the water’s voice, on the following wind there came to her the distant beat of hoofs.

She was old, her body’s strength was on the wane, but the fire of her spirit was untouched, as it would be until Death’s hand, which alone could destroy it, should find her out. Though she knew herself face to face with a task which needed more than the force she could bring to it, though her body was cold in the rain and the hands which steered her were aching, her heart leaped in her as she pulled Rob Roy together and cried to him in the wind. The Queen of the Cadgers was on the road again.

O faithful hands that have wrought here; that have held sword, or plough or helm! O fighters, with souls rising to the heavy odds, nerves steadying to the shock whose force you dare, unrecking of its weight! What will you do in the Eternity when there will be no cause to fight for, no Goliath of Gath, twice your size, to sally forth against with sling and stone? In that Paradise that we are promised, where will be your place? We cannot tell. But, if there be a just God who made your high hearts, He will answer the question whose solution is not for us.

The next three miles were almost level and she drove on steadily; she had seen her pursuer’s nag in the Black Horse yard, a hairy-heeled bay with a white nose who looked as if he had already travelled some distance. Rob Roy had been little out of late and the cart was empty; indeed, it was light enough to be a precarious seat for a woman of her age. By the time she had done half her journey it had become dark enough to make caution necessary, for few country travellers carried lights in those days, and she was on the highroad which took an eastward sweep to the coast between Perth and Aberdeen. She stopped once more to listen and give Rob Roy his wind; for the last half mile they had come up a gradual ascent whose length made up for its gentle slope. He did not seem distressed and the gale had helped him, for it was almost strong enough behind him to blow the cart forward without his efforts.

On again, this time a little faster; the solid blackness of the fields slid by and she passed a clump of trees, creaking and swaying over a patch of light which she knew to be a mill-pond. Three miles more, and she might climb down from her place to rest her stiffened limbs, before the Laird should be due and she should go to the door of the Crown to wait for his coming. She almost wondered whether it were her imagination which had seen the cadger run back at Barclay’s instigation, whether she had dreamed of the horse’s feet pursuing her near the Basin of Kaims. She let Rob Roy walk.

Her hair was blowing over her face and she pushed back her soaking plaid to twist it behind her ears. In a momentary lull, a clatter of hoofs broke upon her and voices answered each other, shouting. Either her enemy was behind with some companion of his own kidney, or there were others abroad to-night with whom time was precious; she could hear the wheels grind on a newly-mended piece of road she had crossed. A cottage, passed in blind darkness, suddenly showed a lamp across the way, and, as the driver behind her crossed the glaring stream which it laid over his path, she saw the hairy-heeled bay’s white nose swing into the strong light to be swallowed again by the dark. She took up her whip.

Hitherto, she had saved her horse, but, now that there were only three miles to be covered, she would not spare for pace. How the white-nosed beast had crept so close she could not imagine, until it occurred to her that the evil short-cut taken by herself on a memorable occasion, years ago, must have served his driver too. She laid the whip remorselessly on Rob Roy.

Fortunately for her aching bones, the road improved with its proximity to the town, or she could scarce have kept her seat. As it was, she could not see the stones and irregularities in her way and it might well be that some sudden jerk would hurl her headlong into the gaping dark. But she dared not slacken speed; she must elude her pursuer before reaching the first outlying houses, for, were her haven in Blackport discovered, she knew not what foul play he might set afoot. She resolved that she would not leave Rob Roy until he was in Gilbert’s hands, could she but get the cart into the tumbledown premises of the friend whom she trusted, and for whose little backyard behind River Street she determined to make. Blackport was a low place, and her friend, who kept a small provision-shop, was a widow living alone. Suppose she should be discovered! Suppose, after all, she should fail! What Barclay had said to the cadger whose wheels she could now hear racing behind she did not know, but his action in securing the post-horses and in sending such a character after her showed that he was prepared to go to most lengths to frustrate Speid. She had known of men who lamed horses when it suited them; the thought of what might happen made her set her teeth. She remembered that there was a long knife inside the cart, used by her grandson for cleaning and cutting up fish; if she could reach her destination it should not leave her hand; and, while Rob Roy had a rest and a mouthful in the hour or two she might have to wait for Gilbert, her friend should run to the Crown and tell Jimmy where she was to be found. With a pang she renounced the joy of meeting the Laird; her place would be behind the locked door with her horse.

Past hedge and field they went, by gates and stone-heaps. Her head was whirling and she was growing exhausted. She could no more hear the wheels behind for the roaring of the wind and the rattle of her own cart. She had never driven behind Rob Roy on any errand but a slow one and it was long years since she had been supreme on the road; but old practice told her that it would take a better than the hairy-heeled bay to have lived with them for the last two miles. A crooked tree that stood over the first milestone out of Blackport was far behind them and the gable end of the turnpike cottage cut the sky not twenty yards ahead.

She had forgotten the toll, and, for one moment, her stout heart failed. But for one moment only; for the gate stood open. She could faintly distinguish the white bars thrust back. A lantern was moving slowly towards them; probably some vehicle had just gone by, and the toll-keeper was about to close them. With a frantic effort, she leaned forward and brought the whip down with all her strength on Rob Roy’s straining back. Their rush carried them between the posts, just before the lantern-bearer, from whom the wind’s noise had concealed their approach, had time to slam the gate, shouting, behind them.

In a couple of minutes her pursuer drove up, to find the swearing toll-keeper threatening him and all his kind from behind the closed bars. In half an hour Rob Roy stood in a rough shed, while the owner of it was hurrying through the wet streets to the Crown with a message to Jimmy. Inside its locked door, leaning her aching back against the wall, sat the Queen of the Cadgers, fierce, worn, vigilant; with a long knife across her knee.

And Gilbert, his eyes on the wind-tormented sky, lay fuming in the shelter of the disabled coach in the heart of Monrummon Moor.

---

[^[1]]Dirty.

[CHAPTER XXX
MORPHIE KIRK]

WHEN the morning of the seventh of April broke over Speid and his companions, they lashed the damaged pole together with a coil of rope and harnessed the wheelers. Progress was possible, though at a very slow pace, and they started again, the guard and outside passengers walking; from the coach’s interior, which cradled the slumbers of the Glasgow merchant, there came no sound.

It was past eight when they crossed the South Lour where the river curls round Blackport before plunging into the Basin of Kaims on its seaward course; it was almost nine when Gilbert saw Jimmy Stirk’s anxious face at the door of the Crown.

‘Eh, Laird! but a’m feared ye’re ower late!’ was the boy’s exclamation, as they clasped hands.

‘Come! Come in here,’ said Gilbert, dragging him into a room near the doorway.

There, in a voice lowered by reason of the slattern who was on her knees with soap and pail, Jimmy gave him the history of the last three days, from his grandmother’s receipt of his letter to her hurried message of last night.

‘She’s waitin’ ye now in River Street,’ he concluded.

Without further ado they went out of the house together.

What would be the upshot of the next two hours Speid did not know and did not dare to think. Cecilia’s freedom would pass with their passing. Captain Somerville had said in his letter that he was writing to tell her he had summoned him, and his heart stood still as he reflected that, in the face of this, she had hastened her marriage by three days. He was puzzled, dismayed, for he could not guess the full depth of Barclay’s guilt, and the boy beside him knew no more from his grandmother’s message than that the lawyer had cleared Blackport of all available horses. To appear before a woman who had forgotten him on her wedding morning, only to see her give her willing hand to another man—was that what he had come across Europe to do? His proud heart sickened.

Seeing that the night had passed unmolested, Granny Stirk had fallen at daylight into an exhausted sleep; it needed Jimmy’s thunder upon the door to awake her to the fact that Gilbert stood without. She turned the key quickly.

‘Whanland! Whanland!’ was all that she could say as he entered.

Her face was haggard with watching and exertion.

‘Oh, Granny!’ he cried. ‘You have almost killed yourself for me!’

‘Aye, but a’m no deid yet!’ exclaimed the old woman. ‘Eh, Laird! but it’s fine to see ye. A’m sweer to let ye gang, but ye canna loss a minute.’

Jimmy was harnessing Rob Roy.

‘But, Granny, what does this mean? She has hurried her wedding, though Captain Somerville told her I would come. What can I do, knowing that?’

‘Do? Ye’ll just hae to rin. Laird, she doesna ken onything. Yon tod—yon damned, leein’ Barclay—he got a haud o’ the letter. The Captain tell’t me that himsel’. Ye’ll need to drive.’

‘Good God!’ cried Speid.

The sight of her worn face and the knowledge of what she had done for him smote Gilbert hard. Though time pressed he would not consent to start till he had taken her to the Crown and left her in the landlady’s care, with an order for fire, food and dry clothing. Then he tore out of the door and down the street to the spot where Jimmy awaited him with the cart. The boy’s brown, hard face cheered him, for it seemed the very incarnation of the country he loved.

The world which lay round them as they drove out of Blackport was a new one, fresh, chastened by the scourging of the storm. The sky was high, blue and pale, and there was a scent of spring; underfoot, the wet ground glistened and the young finger of morning light touched trees and buildings as they rose from an under-world of mist.

When we look on the dying glory of evening, and again, on the spectacle of coming day, do we not regard these sights, so alike in colour and in mystery, with an indefinable difference of feeling? The reason is that sunset reminds us of Time and sunrise of Eternity.

Though sunrise was long past, the remembrance of it was still abroad, and a sense of conflict ended breathed over the ground strewn with broken boughs, wreckage of the night. Gilbert, as he sat by his companion and felt his heart outrunning their progress, could find no share in this suggestion. All cried to him of peace when there was no peace; effort was before him, possibly failure.

He knew that, though Cecilia was to be married from Fullarton, the actual wedding would take place at Morphie, according to her own desire. Somerville had told him so. It was now half-past nine and Jimmy was pressing Rob Roy to his utmost, for Fullarton was the further of the two places, some seven miles north of Kaims, and the horse would have to put his best work into the collar were Speid to arrive in time to see the bride before she started for the kirk.

The high hope and determination in which Gilbert had left Spain had changed to a foreboding that, after all, he might find fate too strong; but, though this fear lay, like a shadow, over him, he would not turn from his wild errand. Till the ring was on Cecilia’s finger and she had agreed in the face of minister and congregation to take Crauford Fordyce as her husband, he meant to persevere. He smiled gloomily at himself, sitting travel-stained and muddy, on the front of a springless cart, with what was more to him than his life depending on the speed of a cadger’s horse.

Among the crowd of relations, acquaintances, and companions alongside of which a man begins life, Time and Trouble, like a pair of witch-doctors, are busy with their rites and dances and magic sticks selecting his friends; and often the identity of the little handful they drag from the throng is a surprise. For Gilbert they had secured a wooden-legged naval captain, a sullen young cadger, and a retired fishwife with gold earrings. As he watched the ground fly past the wheels, he recognised that the dreadful functionaries had gone far to justify their existence by the choice they had made.

There were dark marks under pad and breeching, for the sun was growing strong, and, though Jimmy held his horse together and used such persuasive address as he had never been known to waste upon a human being, he was now beginning to have recourse to the whip. Speid realized that their pace was gradually flagging. By the time they had done half the journey and could see, from a swelling rise, down over the Morphie woods, it was borne in on him that Rob Roy’s step was growing short. He made brave efforts to answer to the lash, but they did not last, and the sweat had begun to run round his drooping ears. The two friends looked at each other.

‘Ma’ grannie had a sair drive last nicht,’ said Jimmy.

‘Pull up for a moment and face him to the wind,’ cried Speid, jumping down.

With handfuls of rush torn from a ditch they rubbed him down, neck, loins, and legs, and turned his head to what breeze was moving. His eyes stared, and, though he was close to the green fringe of grass which bordered the roadside, he made no attempt to pick at it.

The hands of Gilbert’s watch had put ten o’clock behind them as he looked over the far stretch to Morphie and Fullarton. Jimmy, whose light eyes rested in dogged concern on the horse’s heaving sides, put his shoulder under the shaft to ease off the weight of the cart. Away beyond, on the further edge of the wood, was the kirk; even now, the doors were probably being opened and the seats dusted for the coming marriage.

Speid stood summing up his chances, his eyes on the spreading landscape; he was attempting an impossibility in trying to reach Fullarton.

‘There is no use in pushing on to Fullarton,’ he said, laying his hand on Rob Roy’s mane, ‘we shall only break his heart, poor little brute. I am going to leave you here and get across country to the kirk on my own feet. Here is some money—go to the nearest farm and rest him; feed him when he’ll eat, and come on to Whanland when you can. Whatever may happen this morning, I shall be there in the afternoon.’

The boy nodded, measuring the miles silently that lay between them and the distant kirk. It would be a race, he considered, but it would take a deal to beat the Laird of Whanland.

‘Brides is aye late,’ he remarked briefly.

‘Who told you that?’ asked Gilbert, as he pulled off his overcoat and threw it into the cart.

‘Ma’ Grannie.’

Speid vaulted over the low wall beside them and began to descend the slope. Half-way down it he heard Jimmy’s voice crying luck to him and saw his cap lifted in the air.

The rain of the previous day and night had made the ground heavy, and he soon found that the remaining time would just serve him and no more. He ran on at a steady pace, taking a straight line to the edge of the woods; most of the fields were divided by stone dykes and those obstacles gave him no trouble. Sometimes he slipped in wet places; once or twice he was hailed by a labourer who stopped in his work to watch the gentleman original enough to race over the open landscape for no apparent reason. But he took no heed, plodding on.

When he came to where the corner of the woods protruded, a dark triangle, into the pasture land, he struck across it. The rain had made the pines aromatic, and the strong, clean smell refreshed him as he went over the elastic bed of pine-needles strewn underfoot. The undignified white bobtails of rabbits disappeared, right and left, among the stems at his approach, and once, a roe-deer fled in leaps into the labyrinth of trunks.

Before emerging again into the open he paused to rest and look at his watch; walking and running, he had come well and more quickly than he had supposed; he thanked heaven for the sound body which he had never allowed idleness to make inactive. It wanted twenty-five minutes of eleven, and he had covered a couple of miles in the quarter of an hour since he had left Jimmy. He judged himself a little under two more from Morphie kirk. The boy’s unexpected knowledge of the habits of brides had amused him, even in his hurry, and he devoutly hoped it might prove true.

Standing under the firs and pines, he realized the demand he was about to make of this particular bride. He wondered if there were a woman in the world bold enough to do what he was going to ask Cecilia to do for him. He was going to stand up before her friends, before the bridegroom and his relations, the guests and the onlookers, and ask her to leave the man to whom she had promised herself for a lover she had not seen for nearly two years; one who had not so much as an honest name to give her. Would she do it? He reflected, with a sigh, that Jimmy’s knowledge would scarce tell him that. But, at the same time, loving her as he loved her, and knowing her as he knew her, he hoped.

He was off again, leaping out over a ditch circling the skirts of the wood; he meant to follow the outline of the trees till he should come to a track which he knew would lead him down to where the kirk stood under a sloping bank. Many a time he had looked, from the further side of the Lour, at the homely building with its stone belfry. It had no beauty but that of plainness and would not have attracted anyone whose motives in regarding it were quite simple. But, for him, it had been enchanted, as common places are enchanted but a few times in our lives; and now, he was to face the turning-point of his existence in its shadow.

This run across country was the last stage of a journey begun in Spain nearly a month since. It had come down to such a fine measurement of time as would have made him wonder, had he been capable of any sensation but the breathless desire to get forward. His hair was damp upon his forehead and his clothes splashed with mud as he struck into the foot-track leading from the higher ground to the kirk. The way went through a thicket of brier and whin, and, from its further side, came the voices and the rough East-coast accent of men and women; he supposed that a certain crowd had gathered to see the bride arrive and he knew that he was in time.

It was less than ten minutes to eleven when the assembled spectators saw a tall man emerge from the scrub and take up his position by the kirk door. Many recognised him and wondered, but no Whanland people were present, and no one accosted him. He leaned a few minutes against the wall; then, when he had recovered breath, he walked round the building and looked in at a window. Inside, the few guests were seated, among them Barclay, his frilled shirt making a violent spot of white in the gloom of the kirk. Not far from him, his back to the light, was Crauford Fordyce, stiff and immaculate in his satin stock and claret colour; unconscious of the man who stood, not ten yards from him, at the other side of the wall. It was evident from their bearing that, by this hour, the minds of the allies were at rest. Gilbert returned to the door and stood quietly by the threshold; there was an irony in the situation which appealed to him.

While he had raced across the country, Cecilia, in her room at Fullarton, was putting on her wedding-gown. Agneta, who looked upon her future sister-in-law as a kind of illustrated hand-book to life, had come to help her to fasten her veil. One of the housemaids, a scarlet-headed wench who loved Cecilia dearly and whose face was swollen with tears shed for her departure, stood by with a tray full of pins.

‘You had better not wait, really, Jessie,’ said the bride in front of the glass, ‘I am so afraid the rest of the servants will start without you. Miss Fordyce will help me, I am sure. Give me my wreath and go quickly.’

The servant took up her hand and kissed it loudly; then set the wreath askew on her hair and went out, a blubbering whirl of emotion.

‘She has been a kind, good girl to me,’ said Cecilia.

‘Your hand is all wet!’ exclaimed Agneta, to whom such a scene was astonishing.

Mary and Agneta inhabited a room together and many midnight conversations had flowed from their bed-curtains in the last few nights. Agneta had gone completely over to the enemy, but her sister, who, though gentler in character, was less able to free herself from the traditions in which she had been brought up, hung back, terrified, from an opinion formed alone. Outwardly, she was abrupt, and Cecilia and she had made small progress in their acquaintance.

Robert Fullarton and his brother-in-law were ready and waiting downstairs and two carriages stood outside on the gravel sweep. Sir Thomas and his daughters were to go in one of these, and Robert, who was to give Cecilia away, would accompany her in the other.

Agneta and Mary had started when Cecilia stood alone in front of her image in the glass; she held up her veil and looked into the reflected face. It was the last time she would see Cecilia Raeburn, and, with a kind of curiosity, she regarded the outer shell of the woman, who, it seemed to her, had no identity left. The Cecilia who had grown up at Morphie was dead; as dead as that companion with whom she had shared the old house. Between the parted friends there was this momentous difference: while one was at rest, the other had still to carry that picture in the mirror as bravely as she could through the world, till the long day’s work should roll by and the two should meet. She thought of that dark morning at Morphie and of her aunt’s dying face against Fullarton’s shoulder, and told herself that, were the moment to return, she would not do differently. She was glad to remember that, had Gilbert Speid come back, he would have cast no shadow between them; the knowledge seemed to consecrate the gleam of happiness she had known with him so briefly. But it was hard that, when the path by which they might have reached each other had been smoothed at so terrible a cost, the way had been empty. She was thinking of the time when two pairs of eyes had met in a looking-glass and she had plastered his cut cheek in the candlelight. After to-day, she must put such remembrances from her. She dropped her veil and turned away, for Fullarton’s voice was calling to her to come down.

While she sat beside him in the carriage, looking out, her hands were pressed together in her lap. The rain-washed world was so beautiful, and, between the woods touched with spring, the North Lour ran full. The lights lying on field and hill seemed to smile. As they passed Morphie House she kept her face turned from it; she could not trifle with her strength. She was thankful that they would not be near the coast where she could hear the sea-sound.

As the carriage turned from the highroad into a smaller one leading up to the kirk, Captain Somerville’s hooded phaeton approached from Kaims and dropped behind, following. The sailor, who sat in the front seat by the driver, was alone, and Cecilia’s eyes met his as they drew near. She leaned forward, smiling; it did her good to see him. Mrs. Somerville had declined to appear; she was not well enough to go out, she said, and it seemed, to look at her face, as though this reason were a good one. She had scarcely slept and her eyes were red with angry weeping. Since the preceding morning, when the Inspector had discovered what part she had played, the two had not spoken and she felt herself unable to face Barclay in his presence. After the wedding the men must inevitably meet; she could not imagine what her husband might do or say, or what would happen when the lawyer should discover that she had betrayed him. She retired to the sanctuary of her bedroom and sent a message downstairs at the last moment, desiring the Captain to make her excuses to Miss Raeburn and tell her that she had too bad a cold to be able to leave the house.

The sailor’s heart was heavy as he went and the glimpse of Cecilia which he had caught made it no lighter. He had tried to save her and failed. All yesterday, since his dreadful discovery, he had debated whether or no he ought to go to Fullarton, see her, and tell her that he had tried to bring Gilbert home; that he would, in all probability, arrive a few hours before her marriage. He turned the question over and over in his mind. The conclusion he came to was that, things having gone so far, he had better hold his peace. She could not draw back now, and, being forced to go on, the knowledge that her lover would have been in time, had she not hastened her marriage, might haunt her all her life. If Speid arrived at the hour he was expected he would hear from Jimmy Stirk of the wedding. Should he be determined to act, he would do so without his—Somerville’s—intervention; and, should he see fit to accept what now seemed the inevitable, he would, no doubt, have the sense to leave Whanland quietly. He would go there himself, on his return from Morphie Kirk, in the hope of finding him and inducing him to start before anyone should see him, and before Cecilia should learn how near to her he had been. It might well be that she would never know it, for she was to leave Fullarton, with her husband, at two o’clock, for Perth. They were to go south immediately.

The sailor was not sure whether he was relieved or disappointed to find that, apparently, Speid had made no sign. Cecilia was there to play her part; no doubt, like many another, she would come to play it contentedly. With all his heart he pitied Gilbert. Meanwhile, as the carriages neared their destination, he could see the evergreen arch which some Morphie labourers had put up over the entrance at which the bride would alight.

The kirk could not be seen from the gate of the enclosure in which it stood, for the path took a turn round some thick bushes. A low dyke of unpointed stone girdled it and kept at bay the broom and whins clothing the hillock. When his phaeton stopped, Somerville got out, and was in time to greet the bride as Fullarton handed her out of the carriage; he did not fail to notice the tremor of the fingers he touched. He went on and slipped into a group of bystanders surrounding the door without observing the figure which stood near the kirk wall, a little apart.

A movement went through the group as Fullarton appeared by the tall bushes leading Cecilia. While they advanced a man walked forward and stood in the way; a man with splashed clothes and high boots, brown with the soil; the wet hair was dark upon his forehead and his eyes looked straight before him to where the bride came, brave and pale, under her green wreath. She saw him and stopped. Her hand slipped from Fullarton’s arm.

Unheeding Robert’s exclamation, he sprang towards her, his eyes burning.

‘Cecilia,’ he said, almost under his breath, ‘am I too late?’

The slight commotion caused by this unexpected incident had brought Barclay to the doorway; Crauford’s face could be seen behind his shoulder.

‘Great Heavens! Here’s Speid!’ exclaimed the lawyer, seizing his friend.

Fordyce moved irresolutely, longing to rush forward, but aware that custom decreed he should await his bride’s entrance in the kirk; he scarcely realized the import of what had happened outside its walls while he stood, unconscious, between them. Barclay ran out to the little group round which the onlookers were collecting, and he followed, unable to sacrifice his annoyance to his sense of what was expected. Not for a moment did he believe that decency could be outraged by anything more than an interruption. In the background stood Mary and Agneta, aghast under their pink-rosetted bonnets.

‘May I ask what you have come here for, sir?’ he inquired, approaching Gilbert.

But Speid’s back was turned, for he was looking at Cecilia.

‘Come!’ cried Fullarton, sternly, ‘come, Cecilia! I cannot permit this. Stand aside, Mr. Speid, if you please.’

‘Cecilia, what are you going to do?’ urged Gilbert, standing before her, as though he would bar her progress to the kirk door. ‘I have come back for you.’

She looked round and saw the steady eyes of Captain Somerville fixed upon her. He had come close and was at her side, his stout figure drawn up, his wooden leg planted firmly on the gravel; there was in his countenance a mighty loyalty.

‘Gilbert,’ she exclaimed, with a sob in her voice, ‘thank God you have come.’ Then she faced the bridegroom. ‘I cannot go on with this, Mr. Fordyce,’ she said.

‘But it is too late!’ cried Robert. ‘There shall be no more of this trifling. You are engaged to my nephew and you must fulfil your engagement. I am here to see that you do.’

‘I will not,’ she replied.—‘Forgive me, sir—forgive me, I beg of you! I know that I have no right to ask you to stand by me.’

‘I shall not do so, certainly,’ exclaimed Robert, angrily.

She glanced round, desperate. Captain Somerville was holding out his arm.

‘My phaeton is outside, Miss Raeburn,’ he said, ‘and you will do me the favour to come home with me. Speid,’ he added, ‘am I doing right?’

But Gilbert could scarcely answer. A great glory had dawned in his face.

[EPILOGUE]

HERE, so far as the author’s choice is concerned, this history closes. The man and woman, forced apart by powers greater than themselves, have come to their own again and stand at the portal of a new life, at the door of a structure built from the wreck of bygone things. Those who have watched them may augur for themselves what the future is like to be for them, and shut the book, assured that the record of these two, for whom life held so much more than they could see with their eyes and touch with their hands, will not fall below its mark.

But, to that vast and ingenuous multitude which has taste for the dotted ‘i’ and the crossed ‘t,’ there remains yet a word to be added.

Cecilia stayed under Captain Somerville’s roof while the disturbing events round her quieted themselves, and while Gilbert, who received a challenge from Fordyce, settled the score. Even she scarcely felt anxious, as she awaited the result of their meeting, for Speid chose the sword as a weapon and had assured her he would deal as tenderly with Crauford as though he were a new-born babe. This he proceeded to do, so long as it amused him, after which he scratched him deftly on the inside of the wrist and the seconds, who could scarce restrain their smiles, agreed that honour was satisfied.

And so the jasmine-trees were planted at Whanland, the ideal horse bought; the necklace with the emerald drop found the resting-place Gilbert had desired for it. Granny Stirk, accompanied by Jimmy, went to the second wedding which was attempted in Morphie Kirk, and which, this time, was celebrated without interruption; she drove there in a carriage, and the bridegroom, who was standing by the pulpit as she arrived, left his place and conducted her on his arm to a seat near the Miss Robertsons.

Crauford married Lady Maria Milwright, who therefore thought herself exalted among women, and was, in reality, much too good for him. Barclay constantly frequented his roof, making Lady Maria very happy by his expressed admiration of her husband; he might have boasted of the intimacy to the end of his life had he not covertly courted Agneta and been taken in the act by Lady Fordyce. Family dignity expelled the offender and the only person who was sorry for him was kind Lady Maria, who rose at an unconscionable hour to preside over his breakfast before he departed, forever, amid shame and luggage.

Agneta eloped with an English clergyman and ended her days as a bishop’s wife, too much occupied with her position to have a thought for that palpitating world of romance and desperation upon which she had once cast such covetous eyes.

On the death of Captain Somerville, a few years later, the lawyer took to himself his widow, who had contrived, by much lying and some luck, to conceal from him her part in the betrayal of his schemes. She looked as much out of the window and dispensed as much hospitality under her new name and never failed to disparage Mrs. Speid of Whanland, whenever that much-admired lady appeared either in the street or the conversation. These were the only places in which she met her, for her husband had long ceased to be connected, either by business or acquaintance, with the family.

THE END

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BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD