A descriptive epithet that cannot be written down broke from Macquean.
‘What time do you expect Mr. Speid, late or early?’
‘He’ll no be at Blackport or aicht o’clock Friday first, an’ gin the coach is late, it’ll be nine. A’m thinking he’ll likely bide a’ night i’ the toon an’ come awa’ hame i’ the morn. A’m awa’ now to see and get proveesions.’
The lawyer had other business on hand, so, after a few more words with Macquean, he drove on; the servant continued his way into Kaims.
This was ill news. Barclay had played Crauford’s game for so long that it had almost become his own, and he felt like a child who sees signs of imminent collapse in the sand-castle which has stood almost to the turn of the tide. Only three more days and baffled, probably, by an old woman’s pestilent interference! If Speid had left Spain in such a hurry it was not likely that he meant to have all his trouble for nothing, and, if no delay should occur on his road, he would arrive just fifteen hours too early. It was a close business.
For all his oiled and curled appearance, his fat hands and his servility, there was something of the man of action about Barclay. Also, he was endlessly vindictive. The idea of Gilbert, triumphing at the eleventh hour, was as bitter as gall, and he resolved, while he sat looking like a hairdresser’s image in the chaise, that no strong measure he could invent should be lacking to frustrate him. As far as Crauford was concerned he had a free hand and he would use it freely. Suggestions boiled in his brain. To delay Speid in Blackport on the night he arrived would be advantageous, and, if he could only delay him till the following noon, all would be well.
He ran mentally over every possibility. Suppose, as Macquean had said, the coach should not be up to time and the traveller should come no further that night, he would scarcely start for home before nine on the next day. At ten, or thereabouts, he would reach Whanland, and, by a few minutes past eleven, Fordyce would be married to Cecilia. Everything fitted in so nearly that, assuming that it should arrive late—as it usually did—the slightest delay would settle the matter.
By the time he had alighted at his own door he had made up his mind to send a mounted messenger at once to Blackport, and, in Fordyce’s name, to secure every post-horse to be had at the two posting-houses in the town. The pretext should be the conveyance of wedding spectators to Morphie; the animals should be brought to Kaims early next morning. In the afternoon, the bridegroom was to arrive as his guest, with his best man, and he would tell him what he had done. His approval was a foregone conclusion.
Should the coach come in punctually, or should Gilbert hear, in Blackport, that the wedding was to take place at once, his plan might yet miscarry. The chances were almost even, he told himself; there were other horses, no doubt, which could be begged, borrowed, or stolen by a man determined to get forward, but there would be a delay in finding them and that delay might be the turning-point. Macquean had not informed Barclay that Jimmy Stirk was to meet Gilbert for the simple reason that he did not know it himself; Speid had asked Granny to say nothing to any person of his coming, so, though obliged to tell him to make preparations at Whanland, she had entered into no details. She had mentioned the day and hour he was expected at Blackport and that was all.