[CHAPTER XXVI
THE VANISHING BIRD]
THE houses of Brechin climb from the river up the slope, and a little camp was spread upon the crest of ground above them, looking down over the uneven pattern of walls, the rising smoke, and the woods that cradled the Esk. Such of Cumberland’s soldiery as had collected in Angus was drawn together here, and as the country was settling down, the camp was increased by detachments of horse and foot that arrived daily from various directions. The Muir of Pert was bare, left to the company of the roe-deer and the birds, for James had been traced to the coast, and the hungry North Sea had swallowed his tracks.
The spot occupied by the tents of Callandar’s troop was in the highest corner of the camp, the one farthest from the town, and the long northern light that lingered over the hill enveloped the camp sounds and sights in a still, greenish clearness. There would be a bare few hours of darkness.
Callandar was now in command of a small force consisting of a troop of his own regiment which had lately marched in, and two of his men stood sentry outside the tent in which Archie Flemington was sitting at an improvised table writing a letter.
He had been a close prisoner since his arrest on the Muir of Pert, and during the week that had elapsed, whilst correspondence about him and orders concerning him had gone to and fro between Brechin and Edinburgh, he had been exclusively under Callandar’s charge. That arrangement was the one concession made on his behalf among the many that had been asked for by his friends. At his own request he was to remain Callandar’s prisoner till the end, and it was to be Callandar’s voice that would give the order for his release at sunrise to-morrow, and Callandar’s troopers whose hands would set him free.
The two men had spent much time together. Though the officer’s responsibility did not include the necessity of seeing much of his prisoner, he had chosen to spend nearly all his leisure in Archie’s tent. They had drawn very near together, this incongruous pair, though the chasm that lay between their respective temperaments had not been bridged by words. They had sat together on many evenings, almost in silence, playing cards until one of them grew drowsy, or some officious cock crowed on the outskirts of the town. Of the incident which had brought them into their present relationship, they spoke not at all; but sometimes Archie had broken out into snatches of talk, and Callandar had listened, with his grim smile playing about his mouth, to his descriptions of the men and things amongst which his short life had thrown him. As he looked across at his companion, who sat, his eyes sparkling in the light of the lantern, his expression changing with the shades of humour that ran over his words, like shadows over growing corn, he would be brought up short against the thought of the terrible incongruity to come—death. He could not think of Archie and death. At times he would have given a great deal to pass on his responsibility to some other man, and to turn his back on the place that was to witness such a tragedy. In furthering Archie’s wishes by his own application for custody of him he had given him a great proof of friendship—how great he was only to learn as the days went by. Would to God it were over—so he would say to himself each night as he left the tent. He had thought Archie soft when they parted at the cross-roads, and he had been sorry. There was no need for sorrow on that score; never had been. The sorrow to him now was that so gallant, so brilliant a creature was to be cut off from the life of the world, to go down into the darkness, leaving so many of its inhabitants half-hearted, half-spirited, half alive, to crawl on in an existence which only interested them inasmuch as it supplied their common needs.
His hostility against Logie ran above the level of the just antagonism that a man feels for his country’s enemy, and he questioned whether his life were worth the price that Flemington was paying for it. The hurried words that Archie had spoken about Logie as they left the hovel together had told him little, and that little seemed to him inadequate to explain the tremendous consequences that had followed. What had Logie said or done that had power to turn him out of his way? A man may meet many admirable characters among his enemies without having his efforts paralyzed by the encounter. Flemington was not new to his trade, and had been long enough in the secret service to know its requirements. A certain unscrupulousness was necessarily among them, yet why had his gorge only risen against it now? Callandar could find no signs in him of the overwrought sensibility that seemed to have prompted his revolt against his task. Logie had placed his safety in Archie’s hands, and it was in order to end that safety that the young man had gone out; he had laid the trap and the quarry had fallen into it. What else had he expected? It was not that Callandar could not understand the scruple; what he could not understand was why a man of Archie’s occupation should suddenly be undone by it. Having accepted his task, his duty had been plain. In theory, a rebel, to Callandar was a rebel, no more, and Archie, by his deed, had played a rebel’s part; yet, in spite of that, the duty he must carry out on the morrow was making his heart sink within him. One thing about Archie stood out plain—he was not going to shirk his duty to his king and yet take Government money. Whatsoever his doings, the prisoner who sat in the tent over yonder would be lying under the earth to-morrow because he was prepared to pay the last price for his scruple. No, he was not soft.
Callandar would have died sooner than let him escape, yet his escape would have made him glad.
Callandar came across the camp and passed between the two sentries into Flemington’s tent. The young man looked up from his writing.
“You are busy,” said the officer.