The time had come for Archie to think of his own plight and of his own prospects. He was adrift again, cut off even from the disorderly ship that had sheltered him last night, and from the unlucky sot who commanded her. His best plan would be to take the news of Hall’s capture to Edinburgh, for it would be madness for him to think of going to Perth, whilst his identity as a Government agent would be published by Ferrier and Logie all over that part of the country. He was cast down as he sat with his hand to his aching head, and now that it had resulted in that fatal meeting, his own folly in going to the island seemed incredible.
His luck had been so good all his life, and after the many years that he had trusted her, the jade had turned on him! He had been too high-handed with her, that was the explanation of it! He had asked too much. He had been over-confident in her, over-confident in himself. Flemington was neither vain nor conceited, being too heartily interested in outside things to take very personal points of view; he merely went straight on, with the joy of life lighting his progress. But now he had put the crown on his foolhardiness. He had had so many good things—strength, health, wits, charm; the stage of his stirring life whereon to use them, and behind that stage the peaceful background of the home he loved, filled with the presence of the being he most admired and revered on earth.
But new lights had broken in on him of late. Troublous lights, playing from behind a curtain that hid unknown things. Suddenly he had turned and followed them, impelled by uncomprehended forces in himself, and it seemed that in consequence all around him had shifted, disintegrated, leaving him stranded. Once more as he watched, his anxious eyes on the scene below him, his heart full of his own perplexities, a last roar of shot filled the harbour, and then, on the Venture, he saw the flag hauled down.
He rose and looked about him, telling himself that he must get as far from the neighbourhood of Montrose as he could in the shortest possible time. Sixty miles of land stretched between him and Edinburgh, and the only thing for him to do was to start by way of the nearest seaport from which he could sail for Leith. He was a very different figure from the well-appointed young man who had ridden away from Ardguys only yesterday, for he was soaked to above the knees from wading in the Esk; blood had dripped on his coat from the cut on his forehead, and his hair at the back was clogged with sand. Excitement had kept him from thinking how cold he was, and he had not known that he was shivering; but he knew it as he stood in the teeth of the fresh wind. He laughed in spite of his plight; it was so odd to think of starting for Edinburgh from a whin-bush.
He turned southwards, determining to go forward till he should strike the road leading to the seaport of Aberbrothock; by sticking to the high ground he would soon come to it at the inland end of the Basin, and by it he might reach Aberbrothock by nightfall, and thence take sail in the morning. This was the best plan he could devise, though he did not care to contemplate the miles he would have to trudge. He knew that the broken coast took a great inward curve, and that by this means he would be avoiding its ins and outs, and he wished that he did not feel so giddy and so little able to face his difficulties. He remembered that the money he had on him made a respectable sum, and realized that the less worth robbing he looked, the more likely he would be to get to his journey’s end in safety. He stepped out with an effort; southward he must go, and for some time to come Angus must know him no more.
[CHAPTER XIV
IN SEARCH OF SENSATION]
WHEN Skirling Wattie had delivered his letter to Flemington on the foregoing day, he watched the young man out of sight with disgust, and cursed him for a high-handed jackanapes. He was not used to be treated in such a fashion. There was that about Archie which took his fancy, for the suggestion of stir and movement that went everywhere with Flemington pleased him, and roused his unfailing curiosity. The beggar’s most pleasant characteristic was his interest in everybody and everything; his worst, the unseasonable brutality with which he gratified it.
A livelihood gained by his own powers of cajolery and persistence had left him without a spark of respect for his kind. He would have been a man of prowess had his limbs been intact—and destiny, in robbing his body of activity, had transferred that quality to his brains. His huge shoulders and broad fists, the arrogant male glare of his roving eye, might well hint at the wisdom of providence in keeping his sphere of action to the narrow limits of a go-cart. Those who look for likenesses between people and animals would be reminded by him of a wild boar; and it was almost shocking to anyone with a sense of fitness to hear the mellow and touching voice, rich with the indescribable quiver of pathos and tragedy, that proceeded from his bristly jaws when he sang. The world that it conjured up before imaginative listeners was a world of twilight; of stars that drew a trail of tear-dimmed lustre about the ancient haunted places of the country; stars that had shone on battlefields and on the partings of lovers; that had looked on the raids of the border, and had stood over the dark border-towers among the peat. It was a strange truth that, in the voice of this coarse and humble vagabond, lay the whole distinctive spirit of the national poetry of Scotland.
In the last few months his employment had added new zest to his life, for it was not only the pay he received for his occasional carrying of letters that was welcome to him; his bold and guileful soul delighted in the occupation for its own sake. He was something of a student of human nature, as all those who live by their wits must be of necessity; and the small services he was called upon to give brought him into contact with new varieties of men. Archie was new to him, and, in the beggar’s opinion, immeasurably more amusing than anyone he had seen yet. In modern parlance he would be called ‘a sportsman,’ this low-bred old ruffian who had lost his legs, and who was left to the mercy of his own ingenuity and to the efforts of the five dumb animals which supplemented his loss. He had—all honour to him—kept his love of life and its chances through his misfortune; and though he did not know it himself, it was his recognition of the same spirit in Flemington that made him appreciate the young man.