“What do you want?” said the officer, amazed.
The beggar peered through the fern and saw the knot of riders and their prisoner coming along the road some little way behind.
“Whaur’s yon lad Flemington?” he demanded.
“What do you want?” exclaimed Callandar again. “If you are a beggar you have chosen a strange place to beg in.”
For answer Wattie pulled up his sliding panel and took out two sealed letters, holding them low in the shelter of the fern, as if the midges, dancing their evening dance above the bracken-tops, should not look upon them. Callandar saw that one of the letters bore his own name.
“Whisht,” said the beggar, thrusting them back quickly, “come doon here an’ hae a crack wi’ me.”
As Callandar had been concerned exclusively with troops and fighting, he knew little about the channels of information working in the country, and it took him a moment to explain the situation to himself. He dismounted under the fixed glare of the yellow dog. He was a man to whom small obstacles were invisible when he had a purpose, and he almost trod on the animal, without noticing the suppressed hostility gathering about his heels. But, so long as his master’s voice was friendly, the cur was still, for his unwavering mind answered to its every tone. Probably no spot in all Angus contained two such steadfast living creatures as did this green place by the bracken when Callandar and the yellow dog stood side by side.
The soldier tethered his horse and sat down on the moss. Wattie laid the letters before him; the second was addressed to Archie. Callandar broke the seal of the first and read it slowly through; then he sat silent, examining the signature, which was the same that Flemington had showed to the beggar on the day when he met him for the first time, months ago, by the mill of Balnillo.
He was directed to advance no farther towards Brechin, but to keep himself out of sight among the woods round Huntly Hill, and to watch the Muir of Pert, for it was known that the rebel, James Logie, was concealed somewhere between Brechin and the river. He was not upon the Balnillo estate, which, with Balnillo House, had been searched from end to end, but he was believed to be in the neighbourhood of the Muir.
“You know the contents of this?” asked Callandar, as he put away the paper inside the breast of his coat.