“And who will that harm most?” said Eddy. “I’ll pay up, of course; but who do you think would suffer most—I, only a boy when you got me into your accursed hands, or him, an old bloated, money-lending, sixty per cent., blood-sucking——”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head. Do you think he’ll mind what the papers may say? Look here, Eddy Saumarez, why don’t you go to your Governor and make a clean breast of it, and settle it up so as nothing should ever be brought against you again? You’ve got a lot of relations that wouldn’t like to be dragged through the mud.”
“Do you think they mind what the papers may say?” said Eddy, sardonically; “when that’s the case on both sides, there can’t be much to be done either way.”
“Well, smart people don’t, somehow,” said Johnson, “no more than we do—they’re so used to it. It aint my business to dictate how you’re to do it, but somehow you’ll have to do it. You may get the money how you please, but you must get it, and not a moment later than the 31st. Now that’s settled, I can give my thoughts to getting up the part.”
When he was left by his companion, Eddy went up by himself upon the moors, which was a kind of excursion he did not usually enjoy. He went up breasting the hill like a deer or a mountaineer, nor caring where he went, through ling and bracken, among the prickly whins, and over the treacherous quagmires of moss and bog. Something was in his mind which made him indifferent to all the accidents of the way. When he had reached the very top of the ridge he threw himself down upon the dark heather with his face upon the ground, falling as if he had been shot, and lay there for a few moments motionless as if he had died. Nature accommodates herself very easily to any vagary of rest. The dark figure seemed for a moment to disturb and break the line of vegetation, but had not been there a moment before the grasses and the ling seemed to take a new beginning, starting up from under him, the long myrtles rustling their heads, the Grass of Parnassus waving its white stars. So they would have done had he been dead, covering him over, hiding him in the bosom of the soil. He lay for a little while thus, harmonised and composed into quiet under the still touch of the hill, so that when he got up again he seemed to leave a broad and angry void where he had been. What passed in his mind while he buried his face in the coolness of the earth, and hid himself from the eye of day, it would be hard to tell—perhaps only the working of his quick brain as to what he could do in the emergency in which he found himself, perhaps compunction, miserable thoughts of the past, more miserable reflections on the future. But nothing of this was visible when he raised himself from that momentary collapse. He sat down upon the heather with his face towards the lake, and pondered, clutching at his hair with both his hands, setting his elbows on his knees. What was it he was thinking of out there upon the lonely moor, not a living creature near him except the wild creatures on the hills, the insects in the moorland vegetation. His short-sighted eyes roamed vaguely over the heather, pausing upon here and there a gleam of water in a hollow, turning instinctively, like a child toward a light, to the deep loch lying far below. But he saw little or nothing with these wandering eyes. They were bent upon visionary objects, seeing scenes and visions which had nothing to do with the moor or the loch of Rosmore.
Presently Eddy took something from his pocket, a piece of paper with a few words upon it, which he studied intently. His eyes came back from their roaming to fix themselves intently, with the contraction of the eyebrows which marked their defect, upon the paper. They were sharp eyes though they were short-sighted, seeing everything within their limited range with a keenness and mastery of every detail quite unusual, a power of observation which was more precious than the longest sight. What was it he was trying to master? A few uninteresting words, nothing of the slightest importance. Then he took out a pencil and wrote something, repeating the same characters again and again. What was it? He kept the paper so cautiously in his hand that had he been startled by any intruder he could have doubled it up in a moment, and hidden it in his hollowed palm. It was somewhat strange to see such a precaution taken on the wide stretch of moor, which was as desolate as a moor could be, some part of it dark with the blistered stems of heather which had been burned, the rest dewy and glistening with the moisture with which a few days of rain had soaked the country. The very insects were hushed by the cold of the October afternoon. A few desolate cheepings low among the heather betrayed a lowly nest here and there. In the distance a road came like a black ribbon over a corner of the slope. Eddy sent another anxious look round him, and returned to his paper, writing the same letters over and over again. Was it the name of his love? What was it? He held it so carefully under the shadow of his hand that even had some one risen silently from the heather, and looked over his shoulder, it would have been difficult to see.
This was not exactly what happened. What happened was that—coming along the dark road in the distance, Eddy spied a figure, which made him start to his feet and hastily return to his pocket the little document. He sat down again, but with his face that way, watching who it was who was approaching. There was something in the outline and the gait, those points which are all the short-sighted have to go upon, which seemed to indicate a person he knew. It was not the moment which Eddy would have chosen to encounter Archie Rowland, but there was something in his own occupation just suspended, and in the curious fancy which had brought him here, the object which he only knew, which made him eager to disarm any possible suspicion on the part of his hosts at Rosmore—which impelled him at least not to avoid the meeting. Suddenly he got up and began waving his arms about to attract the attention of the passer-by, who, pausing and standing still a moment to consider who called him, at length decided to change his course and came towards the figure thus signalling to him across the summit of the hill.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Archie came over the hill, lifting his feet high among the heather. He had changed in his aspect a little since the old Glasgow days. For one thing he had changed his tailor, which always makes a great difference. And three months of the fresh Highland air and outdoor exercise, and something too of the growing habit of a little authority and command, and that of having things done for him, of saying to this man, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and he cometh, had changed the looks of Archie. And another more subtle influence had changed him. His brow had cleared of an overhanging cloud, once too ready to come down at a moment’s notice. He held his head more erect. It was not perhaps that he was in reality more sure of himself—but at least he had somehow acquired the air of being so—and he was of course more accustomed and at ease in the habits of his new life.
He could not think why he had been called in this way; and did not indeed recognise Eddy, whose presence here on the top of the moor was the last thing any one could have expected. Eddy was not fond of long walks. To stroll down to the beach with his hands in his pocket, and when he had got there, to sit on a rock and throw stones into the water, was the hardest exercise he generally indulged in, except a day’s shooting now and then, when he showed himself, notwithstanding his indolence, as to the manner born—a thing which Archie could never do. But how he should have got up here without any motive was a thing which young Rowland could not understand. “Is it you?” he cried with surprise when he came near enough to recognise his guest.