“Ay, deed am I. I’m from Perthshire as my native place, and I’ve been here a year. Whatever you want wi’ me it can be nae harm, for I’ve a conscience vide of offence; and folk tell me you’ve been looking for me, Sir, all through the island. There’s no question ye can put that I winna answer. I’m feared for nothing. I have a conscience vide of offence.”
Fanshawe was amused in spite of himself. “You might perhaps suit my purpose better if you were not quite so blameless,” he said. “It cannot be anything so young as you that I want. Is your name John?”
“No,” said the lad, “my name’s Willie; but wait a bit, Sir, we’ll maybe shuit you yet, a’ the same. John’s no my name, but it’s my father’s; and he’s no so young nor so innocent as me. It might be him ye wanted?”
“Na, he’s no sae foolish as that, or sae enterprising, if that’s a better word? He’s weel off at home, and has nae inducement. He’s one of the gamekeepers to Mr. Eccles, of the Langholm. Before that we used to live up in Strathmore, in the parish of Drumglen, no far from Stainbyers, where he was aye glad of a job to attend upon gentlemen, either fishing or any kind of sport, and to take the charge of their dogs when they had dogs, or of their horses—and keep guns and rods in order—or even to give a hand at the lodge.”
“That will do,” said Fanshawe, in sudden delight. “Give me your father’s address.”
But here the lad paused. “He’s in a responsible position now,” he said, “a man with a great trust; he’s risen in the world. If ye could tell me what you wanted with him, I’ll write. It might be something that wadna be consistent with his position. I’m but twenty; I’m no heeding what I do; but my father’s had a hard struggle with the world, and now he’s got the better o’t, he maunna compromise himself. I’ll write and get an answer if you’ll tell me what it is you want.”
Fanshawe had to exercise all his eloquence to overcome these delicate scruples. The lad was his mother’s son; but finally he got the information he wanted, and departed with a light heart in the steamer, carrying that precious address (already found out, though he did not know it) carefully enshrined in his pocket-book like a treasure. He was on his way to Marjory with this information on the very afternoon in which Mr. Charles trudged along the shore with his long legs, outstripping his companions. It would have been wiser, no doubt, to have gone and sought out the Macgregors at once, but Fanshawe, who was thinking little of the Macgregors, and much of Marjory, preferred to go to St. Andrews to let her know how promptly he had executed her commission. Travelling is not rapid in Fife; he had to make his impatient way through a network of railways, one interlacing the other, and leaving the unfortunate traveller an hour’s waiting here and there, at all sorts of out-of-the-way stations. His feelings during these delays need not be described; but he was compelled to submit, as all forlorn Britons are compelled to submit, to the vagaries of the railway companies. But for this he would have reached St. Andrews with his address, in time to join the party which had forestalled him. His information, of course, was not of the least importance by the time he reached his destination. He was just a few hours too late, as people so often are; but luckily he was unaware of the fact, and waited for Marjory in the room which was full of her presence, with a flutter at his heart, which prevented him from thinking very seriously of anything. He sat down by the window where he had seen her sitting, and looked out upon the sea and sky against which he had watched the outline of her features, thinking it like the picture of a saint; and all the surroundings, which were full of her, filled up the heart of the man with such a soft enchantment that for a long time he was not even impatient. She was not certain to be gracious to him, but the scene was gracious, full of her breath and influence, and permitted him to wrap himself in the shadow, as it were, of her presence, embracing him gently with all the corners and all the draperies that were fresh from her touch, enveloping him in all the nameless associations of the place in which she lived. For a long time he yielded himself up to this fascination, finding a subtle pleasure in it which stole all his strength from him, until the long shadows of the evening began to deepen, and the maids came to communicate their wonder to him. The dinner hour had arrived, and not even Mr. Charles had come home. They had gone by the shore towards the Spindle, both Miss Heriot and her uncle. Could anything have happened? Love is always fanciful, and takes fright upon any pretext. Could anything have happened? Fanshawe rushed out of the house in the subdued light of the evening, and set out over the cliffs at a pace which few people could have kept up with, fearing he knew not what, and not venturing to ask himself what he feared.
At the same hour, on the same afternoon, another visitor was entering St. Andrews, coming down from the higher ground inland upon the picturesque old town, and looking out anxiously for the first sight of its towers and ruins. Of all unaccustomed travellers this was Miss Jean Hay-Heriot, from the High Street of Comlie, in a black bonnet big enough to take in her lace “borders”—with her keen eyes noting everything along the unaccustomed road, which yet she knew so well. To visit St. Andrews at all, was a wonderful effort on her part; but to visit it at so late an hour that she and her old horse and rusty coachman must be compelled to pass the night “in a strange place,” was more wonderful still. The reason of her visit was, however, natural enough. Mr. Charles’s mysterious intimations and hints of a mysterious something which was yet to be disclosed in his family, had already travelled over the length and breadth of Fife, with that amazing celerity which is peculiar to gossip of all kinds. It had reached Miss Jean’s ears that day after her early dinner, when the Minister himself had “stepped across” to communicate the strange news, which he had learned at a meeting of Presbytery, in the most direct manner, from the Reverend Simon Stutters, of Kinnucher, who had it from Mr. Morrison, of St. Rule’s, who had it from “auld Charlie” himself. The story, as was natural, had taken form and shape in these several transmissions, and now narrated circumstantially how Tom Heriot had been entrapped by the arts of a gamekeeper’s daughter in the Highlands; how this designing creature had flirted, and held off and on, till she wound him up to the pitch of consenting to marry her privately; how then he went off in disgust and misery, and though popularly believed to have died of an injury to the spine got in the hunting-field, had in reality succumbed to the severer malady of a broken heart; and how there was now a baby produced, who was said to be Tom’s heir, to the great trouble of the family.
“I hear there’s a great body of witnesses all ready to swear to it,” said Dr. Murray; “but our old friend Charles, Miss Jean, as I need not tell you, is not of a very determined character, and perhaps if there was a bold front put upon it, we might hear another story. The worst is, there’s nobody that I know of, unless it was a man of business, that has energy to take the matter up.”