Evelyn stepped quickly out of the carriage and made no reply; but, as it happened, Marion’s unanswered question was of the greatest importance and advantage to the anxious household and deeply interested country-side. For, dropping into Saunders’ thirsty ears, like the proverbial water in the desert, it was by him shaped into the most satisfactory of conclusions to the much debated story. “It was that fellow in the bad coat,” he said, in the housekeeper’s room, as soon as he had superintended the taking in of tea. “I knew yon was the man.” Saunders was a little breathless, being a portly person, and having hurried in at the top of his speed to convey the news. “I must say Miss Marion has a great consideration for us in the other part of the house,” he added. “She asked the question just as I stood there, though I make no doubt she had ‘ad it all out afore that.” Mr. Saunders was a Scotsman by birth, but he had been in the best families, and slipped an h now and then just to show that he knew as well as any one how fine English was spoke.
And the news ran far and wide—to Rankin’s cottage, and to the Manse, and up the loch to the innumerable neighbours who had taken the profoundest interest in the story. A great many people, it turned out, had seen “yon man.” He had been observed on the lochside walking back with an ulster that was much too big for him, covering his badly-made evening coat. And all the inhabitants of the little cluster of cottages in one of which he had lived, had given Johnson up as the malefactor long ago—for had he not come in from the ball in the middle of the night, and thrown his things into his bag, and struggled off again in the ulster which was not his, over the hill to Kilrossie before it was light? At the head of the loch there was the most unfeigned satisfaction that it had proved to be “yon man.” And Archie was the subject of one prolonged ovation wherever he appeared. “I am as glad to see you back as if I had gotten a legacy,” Miss Eliza said, patting him on the back. “When I thought of the noise we were all making that night of the ball, and you, poor lad, with such trouble hanging over you, and nobody to know! But it’s all blown over now, and justice done, the Lord be praised.” The reader, better informed, knows that poor Johnson had met with anything but justice, but the opinion of the loch had happily no effect upon his equanimity, and indeed, if it could have been supposed to have had any effect, no doubt he deserved all the obloquy for something else, if not for that.
And it surprised nobody when Eddy Saumarez arrived one evening to finish his visit, as was said—that visit having been painfully cut short by the family trouble and false accusation of Archie, which his friend had been too sensitive to bear. Eddy had been a general favourite, and everybody was glad to see him, even Rankin, who received him very graciously, though with a flush upon his face, probably caused by too hot a fire. “I could accommodate you now with a puppy, if you were still in want of one,” Rankin said, fishing up a sprawling specimen of the Roy section from that nest in which he kept his nurslings warm; and he added, “I’m real glad to see you without yon spark. Ye’ll learn anither time not to try to get your fun out o’ me with a ficteetious philosopher: for I wadna be worth my salt as a philologist, not to say an observer o’ human nature, if I didna see through an ill-spoken ignoramus like yon.”
“Everybody is not like you, Rankin,” said Eddy; “all the rest swallowed him like gospel.”
“It is true,” said Rankin, “that everybody is no like me. I have maybe had advantages that are not of a common kind; but ye shouldna abuse the confidence o’ the weaker vessels. And ye never can tell at what corner ye may fall in with a man that is enlightened and that will see through your devices—at least in this country. I’m tauld there’s far less advanced intelligence in Southland pairts. Ay, that’s a fine little beast. I havena had a better since the one that went to the Princess, ye will maybe have heard o’ that—a real beauty, but he wasna appreciated. I hope you have mair sense than ever to have such a thing said of you.”
Thus Eddy’s absolution was sealed by his very accuser, and his reputation vindicated.
The scene in Rowland’s study was perhaps more difficult to get through. It was in answer to a telegram sent from Glasgow that Eddy, with some excitement, made up his mind to return to Rosmore. “Come and finish visit. Have much to say to you,” was Rowland’s message, which set Eddy’s pulses beating. For a moment a horrible thought gleamed through his mind that his confession was to be used against him, but this he soon dismissed as impossible. It was bad enough without that, and demanded an amount of courage which Eddy, though full of that quality, scarcely felt that he possessed. He was dumb when he found himself at last in the dreaded room where Archie had suffered for his fault. Eddy was a trifler born, and had the habit of taking everything lightly; his most tragic moment came between two jests—he could not have been serious for five minutes to save his life. But when he was ushered into Rowland’s room, and found himself face to face with the man whose name he had forged, whose money he had appropriated, whose heart, tough and middle-aged as it was, he had nearly broken, Eddy had not a word to say. He stood dumb before the judge who had voluntarily laid aside all power to punish him. Something rose in his throat which took away his voice. He could not have spoken had all the hopes of his life depended upon it. Happily this inability to articulate had more effect upon Rowland than the most voluble excuses could have had.
“Eddy,” he said, “I’ve sent for you, thinking I had a right. I have a grievance against you, and then, again, I have received a favour at your hands.”
Eddy made a gesture of deprecation, and tried to utter something, but could not.
“Yes,” said Rowland, gravely; “I’m not a man to make little of what you did. But when you put your life in my wife’s hands to save my son, you did me a greater service than any other man on earth could do: and you did in the circumstances all that a man could do.”