Morning found man and dogs out betimes and migrating to the heart of the town. Wattie was one who liked to get an early draught from the fountain-head of news, to be beforehand, so to speak, with his day. The Swan inn was his goal, and he had not got up the hill towards it when his practised eye, wise in other men’s movements, saw that the world was hurrying along, drawn by some magnet stronger than its legitimate work. The women were running out of their houses too. As he toiled up the steep incline, a figure burst from the mouth of a wynd and came flying down the middle of the narrow way.
“Hey! what ails ye, man? What’s ’ahind ye?” he cried, stopping his cart and spreading out his arms as though to embrace the approaching man.
The other paused. He was a pale, foolish-looking youth, whose progress seemed as little responsible as that of a discharged missile.
“There’s fechtin’!” he yelled, apparently addressing the air in general.
“Fechtin’?”
“Ay, there’s fechtin’ at Montrose this hour syne! Div ye no hear them, ye deef muckle swine?” continued the youth, rendered abusive by excitement.
The two stared in each other’s faces as those do who listen. Dull and distant, a muffled boom drove in from the coast. A second throb followed it.
The youth dropped his raised hands and fled on.
Wattie turned his dogs, and set off down the hill without more delay. Here was the reason that Archie had left the town! It was in expectation of this present disturbance on the coast that he had slipped out of Brechin by the less frequented road round the Basin.
He scurried down the hill, scattering the children playing in the kennel with loud imprecations and threats. He sped over the bridge, and was soon climbing the rise on the farther side of the Esk. If there was fighting going on, he would make shift to see it, and Montrose would be visible from most of his road. Soon he would get a view of the distant harbour, and would see the smoke of the guns whose throats continued to trouble the air. Also, he would get forward unmolested, for there would be the width of the Basin between himself and Lord Balnillo.