VI—The Finger of Fate
Here I was in a double tangle of private affairs, for I had the Black Colonel's designs upon Marget Forbes to handle, and I had her mistaken notion of my doings to disperse. It was a drumly outlook for one whose chief equipment was honesty of purpose, with, I am afraid, little of the arts of human diplomacy.
Marget had all the woman's acute anxiety when a man's act seemed hidden, or, at least, uncertain, even if he was no more to her than a kinsman. It is from those delicate things that half our troubles spring, because, as between man and woman, they cannot be explained in words. They must be left to reveal themselves, and meanwhile they may destroy sweet possibilities or gracious relationships.
My difficulty with the Black Colonel was still more complicated, for it was as if a hair-rope of many strands, such as the Highlanders made, enwound us. We were public enemies, sworn to causes which could have no dealings with each other. Yet we had met secretly; and though that mattered little to him it might easily ruin me, or, at all events, my military career.
But, may be, I could remove that danger by a simple report to my superiors saying what had happened. Could I? No; I could not, for a woman's reputation was, all unknown to her, engaged in the affair, and that takes us directly to Marget Forbes and the Black Colonel's designs upon her name and estates.
I knew he would not stop at the sending to me of his letter, and getting no immediate answer, which was the course I had taken, if only because his last throw with affairs was involved. Therefore I looked for some further act, and, having regard to the difficulty of personal meetings, and his amiable weakness for writing, as something in which he excelled, I was not surprised when it came in the form of another dispatch, also borne secretly by the vagrant Red Murdo.
We actually had an old clanish knowledge of each other, this fellow and I, because, although he was a Farquharson, the croft on which his people dwelt was near the Gordon estate of Balmoral. We had played with each other as boys, for the feudal system of the clans was communal and democratic. It was, to take one illustration, customary for the sons of chiefs to have foster-brothers adopted from the commonalty, companions in peace time, comrades and defenders in war time.
When then, Red Murdo, who had been lurking in a peat-moss near Corgarff Castle, surprised me, out-of-doors, one day, it was with the friendly salutation, "Good-morning, Captain Ian."
"Hullo," I said, "isn't it dangerous for you to be here again?"
"Not when it's to see you, but I wis gettin' weary waitin' in this damp hole, an' the Cornel, he'll be wonderin' why I'm no' back."