[BOOK II]
[CHAPTER X
ADRIFT]
ARCHIE rode along in a dream. He had gone straight out of the garden, taken his horse from the stable, and ridden back to Forfar, following the blind resolution to escape from Ardguys before he should have time to realize what it was costing him. He had changed horses at the posting-house, and turned his face along the way he had come. Through his pain and perplexity the only thing that stood fast was his determination not to return to Balnillo. “I will go now,” he had said to Madam Flemington, and he had gone without another word, keeping his very thoughts within the walled circle of his resolution, lest they should turn to look at familiar things that might thrust out hands full of old memories to hold him back.
In the middle of his careless life he found himself cut adrift without warning from those associations that he now began to feel he had valued too little, taken for granted too much.
Balnillo was impossible for him, and in consequence he was to be a stranger in his own home. Madam Flemington had made no concession and had put no term to his banishment, and though he could not believe that such a state of things could last, and that one sudden impulse of hers could hurl him out of her life for ever, she, who had lived for him, had told him that she would “do without him.” Then, as he assured himself of this, from that dim recess wherein a latent truth hides until some outside light flashes upon its lair, came the realization that she had not lived for him alone. She had lived for him that she might make him into the instrument she desired, a weapon fashioned to her hand, wherewith she might return blow for blow.
All at once the thought made him spiritually sick, and the glory and desirableness of life seemed to fade. He could not see through its dark places, dark where all had been sunshine. He had been a boy yesterday, a man only by virtue of his astounding courage and resource, but he was awakening from boyhood, and manhood was hard. His education had begun, and he could not value the education of pain—the soundest, the most costly one there is—any more than any of us do whilst it lasts. He did not think, any more than any of us think, that perhaps when we come to lie on our death-beds we shall know that, of all the privileges of the life behind us, the greatest has been the privilege of having suffered and fought.
All he knew was that his heart ached, that he had disappointed and estranged the person he loved best, and had lost, at any rate temporarily, the home that had been so dear. But hope would not desert him, in spite of everything. Madam Flemington had gone very wide of the mark in suspecting him of any leaning towards the Stuarts, and she would soon understand how little intention he had of turning rebel. There was still work for him to do. He had been given a free hand in details, and he would go to Brechin for the night; to-morrow he must decide what to do. Possibly he would ask to be transferred to some other place. But nothing that heaven or earth could offer him should make him betray Logie.
Madam Flemington had seen him go, in ignorance of whether he had gone in obedience or in revolt. Perhaps she imagined that her arguments and the hateful story she had laid bare to him had prevailed, and that he was returning to his unfinished portrait. In the excitement of his interview with her, he had not told her anything but that he refused definitely to spy upon James any more.
He had started for Ardguys so early, and had been there such a short time, that he was back in Forfar by noon. There he left his horse, and, mounting another, set off for Brechin. He was within sight of its ancient round tower, grey among the yellowing trees above the South Esk, when close to his left hand there rose the shrill screech of a pipe, cutting into his abstraction of mind like a sharp stab of pain. It was so loud and sudden that the horse leaped to the farther side of the road, snorting, and Flemington, sitting loosely, nearly lost his seat. He pulled up the astonished animal, and peered into a thicket of alder growing by the wayside. The ground was marshy, and the stunted trees were set close, but, dividing their branches, he saw behind their screen an open patch in the midst of which was Skirling Wattie’s cart. His jovial face seemed to illuminate the spot.