The wall encircled the site of an ancient building called Magdalen Chapel, which had long been ruined, and now only survived in one detached fragment and in the half-obliterated traces of its foundations. Round it the tangled grass rose, and a forest of withered hemlock that had nearly choked out the nettles, stood up, traced like lacework against the line of hills beyond the Basin. In summer its powdery white threw an evanescent grace over the spot. The place was a haunt of Skirling Wattie’s, for it was a convenient half-way house between Montrose and Brechin, and the trees about it gave a comforting shelter from both sun and rain.
The tailboard of the cart was turned to the wall so that the piper could lean his broad back against it, and there being not a dozen inches between the bottom of his cart and the ground, he was hidden from anyone who might chance to be in the chapel precincts. The projecting stone which made a stile for those who entered the enclosure was just level with his shoulder, and he had laid his pipes on it while he sat with folded arms and considered the situation. He had just been begging at a farm, and he had heard a rumour there that Archie Flemington was gone from Balnillo, and had been seen in Brechin, riding westwards, on the preceding morning. The beggar had got a letter for him behind his sliding boards which had to be delivered without delay.
“Doag,” said he again, “we’ll awa’ to auld Davie’s.”
Skirling Wattie distrusted rumour, for the inexactitudes of human observation and human tongues are better known to a man who lives by his wits than to anybody else. He was not going to accept this news without sifting it. To Balnillo he would go to find out whether the report was true. The only drawback was that “auld Davie,” as he called the judge, abhorred and disapproved of beggars, and he did not know how he might stay in the place long enough to find out what he wanted. He was a privileged person at most houses, from the sea on the east to Forfar on the west, but Lord Balnillo would none of him. Nevertheless, he turned the wheels of his chariot in his direction.
He wondered, as he went along, why he had not seen Archie by the way; but Archie had not left Balnillo by the Brechin road, being anxious to avoid him. What was the use of receiving instructions that he could not bring himself to carry out? The last person he wished to meet was the beggar.
Wattie turned into the Balnillo gates and went up the avenue towards the stable. His pipes were silent, and the fallen leaves muffled the sound of his wheels. He knew about the mishap that had brought Flemington as a guest to the judge, and about the portrait he was painting, for tidings of all the happenings in the house reached the mill sooner or later. That source of gossip was invaluable to him. But, though the miller had confirmed the report that Flemington had gone, he had been unable to tell him his exact destination.
He drove into the stable yard and found it empty but for a man who was chopping wood. The latter paused between his strokes as he saw who had arrived.
“A’m seekin’ his lordship,” began Wattie, by way of discovering how the land lay.
“Then ye’ll no find him,” replied the woodman, who was none other than the elder, Andrew Robieson, and who, like his master, disapproved consistently of the beggar. He was a sly old man, and he did not think it necessary to tell the intruder that the judge, though not in the house, was within hearing of the pipes. It was his boast that he “left a’ to Providence,” but he was not above an occasional shaping of events to suit himself.