CHAPTER VIIN DARKNESS AND IN LIGHTWHENthe men had disappeared into the house, Archie remained under his stairhead considering. He had been told in his instructions to discover two things—whether Logie was in touch with Ferrier, and whether ‘The Happy Land’ was frequented by the pair. Though Ferrier was in command of the small Jacobite force in Brechin, it was suspected that he spent an unknown quantity of his time in Montrose.To the first of these questions he had already mastered the answer; it only remained for him to be absolutely certain that the house in front of him was ‘The Happy Land.’ He could not swear that he was in the New Wynd, though he was morally certain of it, but there were marks upon the house which would be proof of its identity. There would be a little hole, covered by an inside sliding panel, in the door of ‘The Happy Land,’ through which its inmates could see anyone who ascended the stair without being seen themselves, and there would be the remains of an ancient ‘risp,’ or tirling-pin, at one side of it.Archie ran lightly across the street, crept up the staircase, and passed his palm over the wood. Yes, there was the hole, two inches deep in the solid door. He put in his finger and felt the panel in the farther side. Then he searched along the wall till his hand came in contact with the jagged edge of the ancient risp. There was no ring on it, for it had long been disused, but it hung there still—a useless and maimed veteran, put out of action.He returned to his post satisfied. His discoveries had earned him the right to go home, but he did not mean to do so. How he was going to get back into Balnillo House, unseen, he did not know, and had not, so far, troubled himself to imagine. Perhaps he might have to stop out all night. He hoped not, but he was not going to meet trouble half-way. The house would be locked, the household—with the exception of the errant James—abed, and his own room was not upon the ground-floor. However, these were matters for later consideration, and he would remain where he was for a time. For all he knew, Ferrier and Logie might combine business with pleasure by staying in ‘The Happy Land’ till morning; but they were just as likely to come out within measurable time, and then he could see where they went. He was quite happy, as he was everywhere.He fell to thinking of other things: of his host, with his thin, neat legs and velvet coat; of that ‘riding the circuit’ upon which the old manvalued himself so much. In his mind’s eye he figured him astride of his floundering nag at the edge of some uninviting bog in an access of precise dismay. That was how he would have wished to paint him. His powers of detachment were such that he became fascinated by the idea, and awoke from it with a start to hear the footsteps of Logie and Ferrier coming down the stairway opposite.They did not retrace their way up the Wynd, but went on to its end and turned into a street leading southwards, whilst Archie slipped along in their wake. At last they reached a wilderness of sheds and lumber, above which stood a windmill on a little eminence, and the strong smell of sea and tar proclaimed the region of the harbour. A light shone clear and large across the dark space of water, touching the moving ripples, and this Archie guessed to be the riding-light of theVenture, which lay like a sullen watch-dog under Ferryden village.He had to go very warily, for the pair in front stopped often and stood talking in low voices, but the bales and coils of rope and heaps of timber with which the quays were strewn gave him cover. He could not get close enough to them to hear what they said, but their figures were much plainer against the background of water than they had been in the streets, and he noted how often Logie would stretch out his arm, pointing to the solitary light across the strait.There was scarcely any illumination on thisside of it, and the unrigged shipping lay in darkness as Ferrier and his friend went along the quay and seated themselves on a windlass. Archie, drawing closer, could hear the rustle as the former unrolled James’s map. The soldier took out his flint and steel and struck a light, covering it with his hand, and both men bent their heads over the paper. Archie’s wrist smarted afresh as he saw it; his sleeve had rubbed the burn, and he could feel the oozing blood.He crouched behind them, peering through the medley of ropes and tackle which hung on the windlass. By standing up he could have touched the two men. He had no idea what it was that they were studying, but his sharp wits told him that it must be a map of some kind, something which might concern the English ship across the waterway. He longed to get it. His confidence in his own luck was one of the qualities that had served him best, and his confidence in his own speed was great and, moreover, well-placed. He knew that he had twelve years of advantage over James, and, from the sound of Ferrier’s voice, he judged that he had the same, or more, over him.The temptation of chance overmastered him. He raised himself noiselessly, leaned over the intervening tackle, and made a bold snatch at the map, which Ferrier held whilst James was occupied with the lighted twist of tow.But his luck was to fail him this time. Logie moved his hand, knocking it against Flemington’s,and the light caught the paper’s edge. A soft puff of sea-wind was coming in from over the strait, and in one moment the sheet was ablaze. Archie snatched back his hand and fled; but the glare of the burning paper had been bright enough to show Logie a man’s wrist, on which there was a fresh, bleeding mark.The bright flare of the paper only intensified the darkness for the two astounded men, and though each was instantly on his feet and running in the direction of the retreating footsteps, Archie had threaded the maze of amphibious obstacles and was plunging between the sheds into the street before either of them could get clear of the pitfalls of the quay.He tore on, not knowing whither he went. His start had been a good one, but as he paused to listen, which he did when he had gone some way, he could hear them following. The town was so quiet that he met nobody, and he pressed on, trusting to luck for his direction.Through the empty streets he went at the top of his speed, launched on the flood of chance, and steering as best he could for the north end of the town. Finally, an unexpected turning brought him within a few yards of the North Port. He waited close to the spot where he had first taken shelter, and listened; then, hearing nothing, he struck out at a brisk walk for the country, and was soon clear of Montrose.He sat down by the wayside to rest. He had had a more sensational night than he expected,and though his spirits were still good, his ill-luck in missing the paper he had risked so much to obtain had cooled them a little, and by the light of this disappointment he looked rather ruefully on his poor prospects of getting to bed. It was past midnight, and there seemed nothing to do but to return to Balnillo and to make himself as comfortable as he could in one of the many out-buildings which the yard by its back-door contained. The household rose early, and at the unlocking of that door he must manage to slip in and gain his bedroom.He rose, plodded home, and stole into the courtyard, where, searching in an outhouse, he found an endurable couch on a heap of straw. On this he spread his coat like a blanket, crawling under it, and, with a calmness born of perfect health and perfect nerves, was soon asleep.When dawn broke it found him wakeful. He had not rested well, for his burnt wrist was very sore, and the straw seemed to find it out and to prick the wound, no matter how he might dispose his hand. He propped himself against the wall by the open outhouse-window, whence he could see the back door of Balnillo and watch for the moment of its first opening. It would be neck or nothing then, for he must enter boldly, trusting to hit on a lucky moment.At last the growing light began to define details of the house, tracing them out on its great mass with an invisible pencil, and he thought he heard a movement within. The stable-clock struck six,and high above he could see the sun touching the slates and the stone angles of the chimney-stacks with the first fresh ethereal beam of a pure October morning. He inhaled its breath lovingly, and with it there fell from him the heaviness of his uneasy night. All was well, he told himself. His sensuous joy in the world, his love of life and its hazards and energies came back upon him, strong, clean, and ecstatic, and the sounds of a bolt withdrawn made him rise to his feet.A maidservant came out carrying a lantern, whose beam burned with feeble pretentiousness in the coming sunlight. She set it down by the threshold and went past his retreat to the stable. No doubt she was going to call the men. When she had gone by he slipped out, and in a dozen paces was inside the house.Another minute and he was in his room.He looked with some amusement at the rough effigy of himself which he had made in the bed overnight, and when he had flung the cushion back to its place he got out of his clothes and lay down, sinking into the cool luxury of the sheets with a sigh of pleasure. But he had no desire to sleep, and when a servant came to wake him half an hour later he was ready to get up. He rose, dressed, wrote out the detailed description of his night’s discoveries, and put the document in his pocket to await its chance of transmission.A message was brought to him from Lord Balnillo as he left his room, which begged his guest to excuse his company at breakfast. Hehad been long astir, and busy with his correspondence; at eleven o’clock he would be ready for his sitting, if that were agreeable to Mr. Flemington.As Mr. Flemington realized how easily he might have met the judge as he ran through the shuttered passage, his belief in the luck that had used him so scurvily last night returned.There was no sign of James as Archie sat down to his meal, though a second place was set at the table, and as he did not want to ask embarrassing questions, he made no inquiry about him. Besides which, being immoderately hungry, he was too well occupied to trouble about anyone.He went out upon the terrace when he had finished. The warm greyness of the autumn morning was lifting from the earth and it was still early enough for long shadows to lie cool on the westward side of the timber. As they shortened, the crystal of the dew was catching shafts from the sun, and the parks seemed to lie waiting till the energy of the young day should let loose the forces of life from under the mystery of its spangled veil. Where the gean-trees glowed carmine and orange, touches of quickening fire shot through the interstices of their branches, and coloured like a tress of trailing forget-me-not, the South Esk wound into the Basin of Montrose, where the tide, ebbing beyond the town, was leaving its wet sands as a feasting-ground for all sorts of roving birds whose crying voices came faintly to Archie, mellowed by distance.Truly this was a fascinating place, with its changing element of distant water, its great plain lines of pasture, its ordered vistas of foliage! The passion for beauty lay deep below the tossing, driving impulses of Flemington’s nature, and it rose up now as he stood on the yew-edged terraces of Balnillo and gazed before him. For the moment everything in his mind was swallowed up but the abstract, fundamental desire for perfection, which is, when all is said and done, humanity’s mainspring, its incessant though often erring guide, whose perverted behests we call sin, whose legitimate ones we call virtue; whose very existence is a guarantee of immortality.The world, this crystalline morning, was so beautiful to Archie that he ached with the uncomprehended longing to identify himself with perfection; to cast his body down upon the light-pervaded earth and to be one with it, to fling his soul into the heights and depths of the limitless encompassing ether, to be drawn into the heart of God’s material manifestation on earth—the sun. He understood nothing of what he felt, neither the discomfort of his imprisonment of flesh, nor the rapturous, tentative, wing-sweeps of the spirit within it. He left the garden terrace and went off towards the Basin, with the touch of that elemental flood of truth into which he had been plunged for a moment fresh on his soul. The whole universe and its contents seemed to him good—and not only good, but of consummate interest—humanity was fascinating. His failureto snatch the map from Ferrier’s hand last night only made him smile. In the perfection of this transcendent creation all was, and must be, well!His thoughts, woven of the same radiant appreciation, flew to James, whose personality appealed to him so strongly. The gentle blood which ran in the veins of the pair of brothers ran closer to the surface in the younger one; and a steadfast, unostentatious gallantry of heart seemed to be the atmosphere in which he breathed. He was one of those whose presence in a room would always be the strongest force in it, whether he spoke or was silent, and his voice had the tone of something sounding over great and hidden depths. It was not necessary to talk to him to know that he had lived a life of vicissitude, and Archie, all unsuspected, in the watches of last night had seen a side of him which did not show at Balnillo. His grim resourcefulness in small things was illustrated by the raw spot on the young man’s wrist. That episode pleased Flemington’s imagination—though it might have pleased him even better had the victim been someone else; but he bore James no malice for it, and the picture of the man haunting the dark quays, strewn with romantic, sea-going lumber, and scheming for the cause at his heart, whilst the light from the hostile ship trailed the water beside him, charmed his active fancy.But it was not only his fancy that was at work. He knew that the compelling atmosphere of Logie had not been created by mere fancy, becausethere was something larger than himself, and larger than anything he could understand, about the soldier. And feeling, as he was apt to do, every little change in the mental climate surrounding him he had guessed that Logie liked him. The thought added to the exultation produced in him by the glory of the pure morning; and he suddenly fell from his height as he remembered afresh that he was here to cheat him.It was with a shock that he heard Skirling Wattie’s pipes as he reached the Montrose road, and saw the beggar’s outlandish cart approaching, evidently on its return journey to Montrose. His heart beat against the report that lay in his pocket awaiting the opportunity that Fate was bringing nearer every moment. There was nobody to be seen as the beggar drew up beside him. The insolent joviality that pervaded the man, his almost indecent oddness—things which had pleased Archie yesterday struck cold on him now. He had no wish to stay talking to him, and he gave him the paper without a word more than the injunction to have it despatched.He left him, hurrying across the Montrose road and making for the place where the ground began to fall away to the Basin. He sat down on the scrubby waste land by a broom-bush, whose dry, burst pods hung like tattered black flags in the brush of green; their acrid smell was coming out as the sun mounted higher. Below him the marshy ground ran out to meet the water; and eastward the uncovered mud and wet sand, baredby the tide ebbing beyond Montrose, stretched along its shores to the town.The fall of the broom-covered bank was steep enough to hide anyone coming up from the lower levels, and he listened to the movements of somebody who was approaching, and to the crackling noise of the bushes as they were thrust apart.The sound stopped; and Archie, leaning forward, saw James standing half-way up the ascent, with his back turned towards him, looking out across the flats. He knew what his thoughts were. He drew his right sleeve lower. So long as he did not stretch out his arm the mark could not be seen.He did not want to appear as if he were watching Logie, so he made a slight sound, and the other turned quickly and faced him, hidden from the waist downwards in the broom. Then his crooked lip moved, and he came up the bank and threw himself down beside Flemington.
WHENthe men had disappeared into the house, Archie remained under his stairhead considering. He had been told in his instructions to discover two things—whether Logie was in touch with Ferrier, and whether ‘The Happy Land’ was frequented by the pair. Though Ferrier was in command of the small Jacobite force in Brechin, it was suspected that he spent an unknown quantity of his time in Montrose.
To the first of these questions he had already mastered the answer; it only remained for him to be absolutely certain that the house in front of him was ‘The Happy Land.’ He could not swear that he was in the New Wynd, though he was morally certain of it, but there were marks upon the house which would be proof of its identity. There would be a little hole, covered by an inside sliding panel, in the door of ‘The Happy Land,’ through which its inmates could see anyone who ascended the stair without being seen themselves, and there would be the remains of an ancient ‘risp,’ or tirling-pin, at one side of it.
Archie ran lightly across the street, crept up the staircase, and passed his palm over the wood. Yes, there was the hole, two inches deep in the solid door. He put in his finger and felt the panel in the farther side. Then he searched along the wall till his hand came in contact with the jagged edge of the ancient risp. There was no ring on it, for it had long been disused, but it hung there still—a useless and maimed veteran, put out of action.
He returned to his post satisfied. His discoveries had earned him the right to go home, but he did not mean to do so. How he was going to get back into Balnillo House, unseen, he did not know, and had not, so far, troubled himself to imagine. Perhaps he might have to stop out all night. He hoped not, but he was not going to meet trouble half-way. The house would be locked, the household—with the exception of the errant James—abed, and his own room was not upon the ground-floor. However, these were matters for later consideration, and he would remain where he was for a time. For all he knew, Ferrier and Logie might combine business with pleasure by staying in ‘The Happy Land’ till morning; but they were just as likely to come out within measurable time, and then he could see where they went. He was quite happy, as he was everywhere.
He fell to thinking of other things: of his host, with his thin, neat legs and velvet coat; of that ‘riding the circuit’ upon which the old manvalued himself so much. In his mind’s eye he figured him astride of his floundering nag at the edge of some uninviting bog in an access of precise dismay. That was how he would have wished to paint him. His powers of detachment were such that he became fascinated by the idea, and awoke from it with a start to hear the footsteps of Logie and Ferrier coming down the stairway opposite.
They did not retrace their way up the Wynd, but went on to its end and turned into a street leading southwards, whilst Archie slipped along in their wake. At last they reached a wilderness of sheds and lumber, above which stood a windmill on a little eminence, and the strong smell of sea and tar proclaimed the region of the harbour. A light shone clear and large across the dark space of water, touching the moving ripples, and this Archie guessed to be the riding-light of theVenture, which lay like a sullen watch-dog under Ferryden village.
He had to go very warily, for the pair in front stopped often and stood talking in low voices, but the bales and coils of rope and heaps of timber with which the quays were strewn gave him cover. He could not get close enough to them to hear what they said, but their figures were much plainer against the background of water than they had been in the streets, and he noted how often Logie would stretch out his arm, pointing to the solitary light across the strait.
There was scarcely any illumination on thisside of it, and the unrigged shipping lay in darkness as Ferrier and his friend went along the quay and seated themselves on a windlass. Archie, drawing closer, could hear the rustle as the former unrolled James’s map. The soldier took out his flint and steel and struck a light, covering it with his hand, and both men bent their heads over the paper. Archie’s wrist smarted afresh as he saw it; his sleeve had rubbed the burn, and he could feel the oozing blood.
He crouched behind them, peering through the medley of ropes and tackle which hung on the windlass. By standing up he could have touched the two men. He had no idea what it was that they were studying, but his sharp wits told him that it must be a map of some kind, something which might concern the English ship across the waterway. He longed to get it. His confidence in his own luck was one of the qualities that had served him best, and his confidence in his own speed was great and, moreover, well-placed. He knew that he had twelve years of advantage over James, and, from the sound of Ferrier’s voice, he judged that he had the same, or more, over him.
The temptation of chance overmastered him. He raised himself noiselessly, leaned over the intervening tackle, and made a bold snatch at the map, which Ferrier held whilst James was occupied with the lighted twist of tow.
But his luck was to fail him this time. Logie moved his hand, knocking it against Flemington’s,and the light caught the paper’s edge. A soft puff of sea-wind was coming in from over the strait, and in one moment the sheet was ablaze. Archie snatched back his hand and fled; but the glare of the burning paper had been bright enough to show Logie a man’s wrist, on which there was a fresh, bleeding mark.
The bright flare of the paper only intensified the darkness for the two astounded men, and though each was instantly on his feet and running in the direction of the retreating footsteps, Archie had threaded the maze of amphibious obstacles and was plunging between the sheds into the street before either of them could get clear of the pitfalls of the quay.
He tore on, not knowing whither he went. His start had been a good one, but as he paused to listen, which he did when he had gone some way, he could hear them following. The town was so quiet that he met nobody, and he pressed on, trusting to luck for his direction.
Through the empty streets he went at the top of his speed, launched on the flood of chance, and steering as best he could for the north end of the town. Finally, an unexpected turning brought him within a few yards of the North Port. He waited close to the spot where he had first taken shelter, and listened; then, hearing nothing, he struck out at a brisk walk for the country, and was soon clear of Montrose.
He sat down by the wayside to rest. He had had a more sensational night than he expected,and though his spirits were still good, his ill-luck in missing the paper he had risked so much to obtain had cooled them a little, and by the light of this disappointment he looked rather ruefully on his poor prospects of getting to bed. It was past midnight, and there seemed nothing to do but to return to Balnillo and to make himself as comfortable as he could in one of the many out-buildings which the yard by its back-door contained. The household rose early, and at the unlocking of that door he must manage to slip in and gain his bedroom.
He rose, plodded home, and stole into the courtyard, where, searching in an outhouse, he found an endurable couch on a heap of straw. On this he spread his coat like a blanket, crawling under it, and, with a calmness born of perfect health and perfect nerves, was soon asleep.
When dawn broke it found him wakeful. He had not rested well, for his burnt wrist was very sore, and the straw seemed to find it out and to prick the wound, no matter how he might dispose his hand. He propped himself against the wall by the open outhouse-window, whence he could see the back door of Balnillo and watch for the moment of its first opening. It would be neck or nothing then, for he must enter boldly, trusting to hit on a lucky moment.
At last the growing light began to define details of the house, tracing them out on its great mass with an invisible pencil, and he thought he heard a movement within. The stable-clock struck six,and high above he could see the sun touching the slates and the stone angles of the chimney-stacks with the first fresh ethereal beam of a pure October morning. He inhaled its breath lovingly, and with it there fell from him the heaviness of his uneasy night. All was well, he told himself. His sensuous joy in the world, his love of life and its hazards and energies came back upon him, strong, clean, and ecstatic, and the sounds of a bolt withdrawn made him rise to his feet.
A maidservant came out carrying a lantern, whose beam burned with feeble pretentiousness in the coming sunlight. She set it down by the threshold and went past his retreat to the stable. No doubt she was going to call the men. When she had gone by he slipped out, and in a dozen paces was inside the house.
Another minute and he was in his room.
He looked with some amusement at the rough effigy of himself which he had made in the bed overnight, and when he had flung the cushion back to its place he got out of his clothes and lay down, sinking into the cool luxury of the sheets with a sigh of pleasure. But he had no desire to sleep, and when a servant came to wake him half an hour later he was ready to get up. He rose, dressed, wrote out the detailed description of his night’s discoveries, and put the document in his pocket to await its chance of transmission.
A message was brought to him from Lord Balnillo as he left his room, which begged his guest to excuse his company at breakfast. Hehad been long astir, and busy with his correspondence; at eleven o’clock he would be ready for his sitting, if that were agreeable to Mr. Flemington.
As Mr. Flemington realized how easily he might have met the judge as he ran through the shuttered passage, his belief in the luck that had used him so scurvily last night returned.
There was no sign of James as Archie sat down to his meal, though a second place was set at the table, and as he did not want to ask embarrassing questions, he made no inquiry about him. Besides which, being immoderately hungry, he was too well occupied to trouble about anyone.
He went out upon the terrace when he had finished. The warm greyness of the autumn morning was lifting from the earth and it was still early enough for long shadows to lie cool on the westward side of the timber. As they shortened, the crystal of the dew was catching shafts from the sun, and the parks seemed to lie waiting till the energy of the young day should let loose the forces of life from under the mystery of its spangled veil. Where the gean-trees glowed carmine and orange, touches of quickening fire shot through the interstices of their branches, and coloured like a tress of trailing forget-me-not, the South Esk wound into the Basin of Montrose, where the tide, ebbing beyond the town, was leaving its wet sands as a feasting-ground for all sorts of roving birds whose crying voices came faintly to Archie, mellowed by distance.
Truly this was a fascinating place, with its changing element of distant water, its great plain lines of pasture, its ordered vistas of foliage! The passion for beauty lay deep below the tossing, driving impulses of Flemington’s nature, and it rose up now as he stood on the yew-edged terraces of Balnillo and gazed before him. For the moment everything in his mind was swallowed up but the abstract, fundamental desire for perfection, which is, when all is said and done, humanity’s mainspring, its incessant though often erring guide, whose perverted behests we call sin, whose legitimate ones we call virtue; whose very existence is a guarantee of immortality.
The world, this crystalline morning, was so beautiful to Archie that he ached with the uncomprehended longing to identify himself with perfection; to cast his body down upon the light-pervaded earth and to be one with it, to fling his soul into the heights and depths of the limitless encompassing ether, to be drawn into the heart of God’s material manifestation on earth—the sun. He understood nothing of what he felt, neither the discomfort of his imprisonment of flesh, nor the rapturous, tentative, wing-sweeps of the spirit within it. He left the garden terrace and went off towards the Basin, with the touch of that elemental flood of truth into which he had been plunged for a moment fresh on his soul. The whole universe and its contents seemed to him good—and not only good, but of consummate interest—humanity was fascinating. His failureto snatch the map from Ferrier’s hand last night only made him smile. In the perfection of this transcendent creation all was, and must be, well!
His thoughts, woven of the same radiant appreciation, flew to James, whose personality appealed to him so strongly. The gentle blood which ran in the veins of the pair of brothers ran closer to the surface in the younger one; and a steadfast, unostentatious gallantry of heart seemed to be the atmosphere in which he breathed. He was one of those whose presence in a room would always be the strongest force in it, whether he spoke or was silent, and his voice had the tone of something sounding over great and hidden depths. It was not necessary to talk to him to know that he had lived a life of vicissitude, and Archie, all unsuspected, in the watches of last night had seen a side of him which did not show at Balnillo. His grim resourcefulness in small things was illustrated by the raw spot on the young man’s wrist. That episode pleased Flemington’s imagination—though it might have pleased him even better had the victim been someone else; but he bore James no malice for it, and the picture of the man haunting the dark quays, strewn with romantic, sea-going lumber, and scheming for the cause at his heart, whilst the light from the hostile ship trailed the water beside him, charmed his active fancy.
But it was not only his fancy that was at work. He knew that the compelling atmosphere of Logie had not been created by mere fancy, becausethere was something larger than himself, and larger than anything he could understand, about the soldier. And feeling, as he was apt to do, every little change in the mental climate surrounding him he had guessed that Logie liked him. The thought added to the exultation produced in him by the glory of the pure morning; and he suddenly fell from his height as he remembered afresh that he was here to cheat him.
It was with a shock that he heard Skirling Wattie’s pipes as he reached the Montrose road, and saw the beggar’s outlandish cart approaching, evidently on its return journey to Montrose. His heart beat against the report that lay in his pocket awaiting the opportunity that Fate was bringing nearer every moment. There was nobody to be seen as the beggar drew up beside him. The insolent joviality that pervaded the man, his almost indecent oddness—things which had pleased Archie yesterday struck cold on him now. He had no wish to stay talking to him, and he gave him the paper without a word more than the injunction to have it despatched.
He left him, hurrying across the Montrose road and making for the place where the ground began to fall away to the Basin. He sat down on the scrubby waste land by a broom-bush, whose dry, burst pods hung like tattered black flags in the brush of green; their acrid smell was coming out as the sun mounted higher. Below him the marshy ground ran out to meet the water; and eastward the uncovered mud and wet sand, baredby the tide ebbing beyond Montrose, stretched along its shores to the town.
The fall of the broom-covered bank was steep enough to hide anyone coming up from the lower levels, and he listened to the movements of somebody who was approaching, and to the crackling noise of the bushes as they were thrust apart.
The sound stopped; and Archie, leaning forward, saw James standing half-way up the ascent, with his back turned towards him, looking out across the flats. He knew what his thoughts were. He drew his right sleeve lower. So long as he did not stretch out his arm the mark could not be seen.
He did not want to appear as if he were watching Logie, so he made a slight sound, and the other turned quickly and faced him, hidden from the waist downwards in the broom. Then his crooked lip moved, and he came up the bank and threw himself down beside Flemington.