Who the interloper might be was the burden of the inquiry.
“Armstrong’s the very man for our purpose,” said Traquair. “If any one can get through Old Noll’s armies by craft or by force, it is Will. I had no idea he was near by, or I would never have wasted thought on any other. I have known him for years, and there’s none to match him, Hielan’ or Lowlan’. We need seek nae farrar if Christie’s Wull is wullin’.”
“I have never before heard of him,” said the Reverend Alexander Henderson, of Edinburgh. “What has he done?”
“What has he not done?” asked the Earl. “The Border rings with his fame, as it has rung with the fame of his ancestors these several centuries past.”
“Oh, the Border!” cried the townsman, with the contempt of his class for the supposedly ignorant condition of that wild hilly belt which girded the waist of the land. “We all know what brings a man renown on the Border. The chief requisites are a heavy sword and a thick skull. That the proposed excursion may require a ready blade at times, I admit, but a man who depends on that will not blunder through. There are too many of his kind opposed to him in Cromwell’s army. It is not a wilderness like the Border that lies between here and Oxford, but a civilized country with cities, and men of brains in them. To win through and back requires skill and diplomacy, alertness of resource, as well as the qualities of riding hard and striking swift.”
“William Armstrong has all these qualities, and many more,” replied Traquair.
“The sample of his conduct just presented to us savors more of violence than of tact,” objected Henderson. “He comes breenging in on a private conference of his betters, carrying their sentinel on his head like a shambled sheep, and flings him in a corner. This proves him a strong man, but far from a wise one, because, for all he knew, he might have been walking into an ambuscade that would have cost him his life or liberty. It was pure luck and not foreknowledge that caused him to find a friend at our board.”
“You are in the wrong there, Henderson, quite in the wrong, for you all heard him say that the sentry refused to bring in his message to me. Armstrong knew I was here, and thus was well aware he was safe enough.”
Henderson shook his head, stubbornly unconvinced. He was a man of talk rather than of action, and knew he spoke well, so, being a born objector to other men’s proposals, his tongue was more active than his arm. When the unexpected “breenging” had occurred, every man in the room had jumped to his feet and grasped his sword, except Henderson, who sat staring, exhibiting little of that ready resource he had been commending. Now the danger was past, he apparently thought that after-eloquence made good the absence of energy in a crisis.
Traquair, ever suave so long as he carried his point, showed no signs of irritation at this line of criticism, but made comment and gave answer in a low tone and persuasive voice. The others round the table kept silence and listened to the controversy between the man of language and the man of action, ready, doubtless, to side with whichever proved the victor. The Earl leaned his elbow on the board and gazed across at his opponent.