A couple of hours later Archie found himself in a comfortable bedroom. His valise had been soaked in the ford, and a nightshirt of Lord Balnillo’s was warming at the fire. When he had put it on he went and looked at himself in an old-fashioned mirror which hung on the wall. He was a good deal taller than the judge, but it was not his own image that caused the indescribable expression on his face.
[CHAPTER III
A COACH-AND-FIVE]
ARCHIE sat in his bedroom at a table. The window was open, for it was a soft October afternoon, and he looked out meditatively at the prospect before him.
The wind that had howled in the night had spent itself towards morning, and by midday the tormented sky had cleared and the curtain of cloud rolled away, leaving a mellow sun smiling over the Basin of Montrose. He had never been within some miles of Balnillo, and the aspect of this piece of the country being new to him, his painter’s eye rested appreciatively on what he saw.
Two avenues of ancient trees ran southward, one on either side of the house, and a succession of grass fields sloped away before him between these bands of timber to the tidal estuary, where the water lay blue and quiet with the ribbon of the South Esk winding into it from the west. Beyond it the low hills with their gentle rise touched the horizon; nearer at hand the beeches and gean-trees, so dear to Lord Balnillo’s heart, were red and gold. Here and there, where the gale had thinned the leaves, the bareness of stem and bough let in glimpses of the distant purple which was the veil of the farther atmosphere. To the east, shut out from his sight by all this wood, was the town of Montrose, set, with its pointed steeple, like the blue silhouette of some Dutch town, between the Basin and the North Sea.
A pen was in Flemington’s hand, and the very long letter he had just written was before him.
“BALNILLO HOUSE.
“MADAM, MY DEAR GRANDMOTHER,
“I beg you to look upon the address at the head of this letter, and to judge whether fortune has favoured your devoted grandson.