Carmen's Messenger

by Harold Bindloss

A turn shut in the valley when he reached higher ground, and a long stretch of moor rolled away ahead. Foster thought these sharp transitions from intensive cultivation to the sterile wilds were characteristic of southern Scotland. It had rained since he left Hawick, but now the sun shone down between the clouds and bright gleams and flying shadows chased each other across the waste. To the south the sky was clear and shone with a lemon-yellow glow, against which the rounded hills rose, delicately gray. In one place there was a gap that Foster thought was Liddesdale, and his path led across the latter towards the head of Tyne. Not a house broke the sweep of withered grass and heath, and only the crying of plover that circled in the distance disturbed the silence.

Foster liked the open trail and went on with a light step, until as he crossed the watershed and the country sloped to the south, he came to a wire fence and saw the black mouth of a railway tunnel beneath. It was now about two o'clock, and feeling hungry, he sat down where a bank cut off the wind, and took out some food he had bought at Hawick. He did not know if he found the shining rails and row of telegraph posts that curved away down the hillside out of place, but somehow they made him feel foolishly unconventional. His boots and mackintosh were wet, he was lunching on sweet biscuits and gingerbread, and did not know where he would spend the night, although it would not be at a comfortable hotel. Until he saw the tunnel, he had felt at home in the wilds and might have done so yet, had he, for example, been driving a flock of sheep; but the railway was disturbing.

In this country, people traveled by steam-heated trains, instead of on foot, and engaged a lawyer to defend them from their enemies. He was going back to the methods of two or three centuries ago, and not even doing this properly, since the moss-troopers who once rode through those hills carried lances instead of a check-book, which was after all his best weapon. He laughed and felt himself something of a modern Don Quixote as he lighted his pipe.

Then there was a roar in the tunnel and a North British express, leaping out through a cloud of smoke, switched his thoughts on to another track. His adventures had begun in a train, and it was in a train he met the girl who warned him not to deliver Carmen's packet. He did not see what the packet had to do with him, but he had had some trouble about it and thought it might turn up again. Then he wondered whether Daly was now in Annandale. The fellow was obviously determined to find Lawrence, and, if one admitted that he had come to England for the purpose, did not mind how much it cost him, which was rather strange. After all, blackmailing was a risky business and the Featherstones were not rich. It looked as if Daly might have some other object in tracking Lawrence, but Foster could not see what it was. Indeed, he was frankly puzzled. There was a mystery about Carmen's packet, he had been warned out of Edinburgh, and inquiries about him were afterwards made, while Daly's keenness was not quite explained. He wondered whether these things were somehow related, but at present they only offered him tangled clews that led nowhere. Well, he might be able to unravel them by and by, and getting up went on his way.

He spent the night at a lonely cothouse on the edge of a peat-moss and reached the Garth next afternoon. John let him in and after taking his mackintosh remarked: "Mr. and Mrs. Featherstone are out, but Miss Featherstone is at home; I will let her know you have arrived." Then he paused and added in a half-apologetic tone: "I hope you had a pleasant journey, sir."

Foster smiled. John had softened his imperturbable formality by just the right touch of respectful interest. In a sense, they were accomplices, but Foster thought if they had committed a crime together, the old fellow would have treated him with unmoved deference as his master's guest.

"On the whole, I had. I suppose you met the other car when you turned back at the station?"

"Yes, sir. I met it coming round the bend."

"As the road's narrow, your judgment's pretty good. Did anything happen?"

John's eyes twinkled faintly. "Not to our car, sir. The other had the bad luck to run on to the grass where the ground was soft. In fact, we had some trouble to pull her out. The gentleman seemed annoyed, sir."