“Fegs, na!” returned Wattie, “but auld Davie an’ his tolbooth’s on the ither side o’t an’ it’s no safe yonder. It’s yersel’ I hae to thank for that, Mr. Flemington. A didna ken whaur ye was, sae a gae’d up to the muckle hoose to speer for ye. The auld stock came doon himsel’. Dod! the doag gar’d him loup an’ the pipes gar’d him skelloch. But he tell’t me whaur ye was.”
“Plague take you! did you go there asking for me?” cried Archie.
“What was a to dae? A tell’t Davie ye was needin’ me to lairn ye a sang! ‘The painter-lad was seekin’ me,’ says I, ‘an’ he tell’t me to come in-by.’”
Flemington’s annoyance deepened. He did not know what the zeal of this insufferable rascal had led him to say or do in his name, and he had the rueful sense that the tangle he had paid such a heavy price to escape from was complicating round him. The officious familiarity of the piper exasperated him, and he resented Government’s choice of such a tool. He put the letter in his pocket, and began to back out of the thicket. He would read his instructions by himself.
“Hey! ye’re no awa’, man?” cried Wattie.
“I have no time to waste,” said Flemington, his foot in the stirrup.
“But ye’ve no tell’t me whaur ye’re gaein’!”
“Brechin!”
Archie called the word over his shoulder, and started off at a trot, which he kept up until he had left the alder-bushes some way behind him.