Foes Part 28

"Later, I saw that you had. Perhaps then I did not wonder. In September--almost a year from that Christmas Eve--I yet did not know.

Then, in Edinburgh, I came upon Mr. Wotherspoon. He told me.... I had no wicked intent toward Elspeth Barrow--none according to my canon, which has been that of the natural man. We met by accident. We loved at once and deeply. She had in her an elf queen! But at last the human must have darkened and beset her. Had I known of those fears, those dangers, I might have turned homeward from France and every s.h.i.+ning scheme...."

"Ah no, you would not--"

"... If I would not, then certainly I should have written to Jarvis Barrow and to others, acknowledging my part--"

"Perhaps you would have done that. Perhaps not. You might have found reasons of obligation for not doing so. 'Loved deeply'! You never loved her deeply! You have loved nothing deeply save yourself!"

"Perhaps. Yet I think," said Ian, "that I would have done as much as that. But Alexander Jardine, of course, would not have taken one erring step!"

"Have you done now?"

"Yes."

Glenfernie rose to his feet. He stood against the gulf of air and his great frame seemed enlarged, like the figure of the Brocken. He was like his father, the old laird, but there glowed an extremer dark anger and power. The old laird had made himself the dream-avenger of injuries adopted, not felt at first hand. The present laird knew the wounding, the searing. "All his life my father dreamed of grappling with Grierson of Lagg. My Grierson of Lagg stands before me in the guise of a false friend and lover!... What do I care for your weighing to a scruple how much the heap of wrong falls short of the uttermost?

The dire wrong is there, to me the direst! Had I deep affection for you once? Now you speak to me of every treacherous mora.s.s, every _ignis fatuus_, past and present! The traveler through life does right to drain the bogs as they arise--put it out of their power to suck down man, woman, and child! It is not his cause alone. It is the general cause. If there be a G.o.d, He approves. Draw your sword and let us fight!"

They fought. The platform of rock was smooth enough for good footing.

They had no seconds, unless the shadows upon the hills and the mountain eagles answered for such. Ian was the highly trained fencer, adept of the sword. Glenfernie's knowledge was lesser, more casual.

But he had his bleak wrath, a pa.s.sion that did not blind nor overheat, but burned white, that set him, as it were, in a tingling, crackling arctic air, where the shadows were sharp-edged, the nerves braced and the will steel-tipped. They fought with determination and long--Ian now to save his own life, Alexander for Revenge, whose man he had become. The clash of blade against blade, the s.h.i.+fting of foot upon the rock floor, made the dominant sound upon the mountain-side. The birds stayed silent in the birch-trees. Self-service, pride, anger, jealousy, hatred--the inner vibrations were heavy.

The sword of Ian beat down his antagonist's guard, leaped, and gave a deep wound. Alexander's sword fell from his hand. He staggered and vision darkened. He came to his knees, then sank upon the ground. Ian bent over him. He felt his anger ebb. A kind of compunction seized him. He thought, "Are you so badly hurt, Old Steadfast?"

Alexander looked at him. His lips moved. "Lo, how the wicked prosper!

But do you think that Justice will have it so?" The blood gushed; he sank back in a swoon.

On this mountain-side, some distance below the fastness, a stone, displaced by a human foot, rolled down the slope with a clattering sound. The fugitive above heard it, thought, too, that he caught other sounds. He crossed to the nook whence he had view of the way of approach. Far down he saw the redcoats, and then, much nearer, coming out from dwarf woods, still King George's men.

Ian caught up his belt and pistols. He sheathed his sword. "They'll find you and save you, Glenfernie! I do not think that you will die!"

Above him sprang the height of crag, seemingly unscalable. But he had been shown the secret, just possible stair. He mounted it. Masked by bushes, it swung around an abutment and rose by ledge and natural tunnel, perilous and dizzy, but the one way out to safety. At last, a hundred feet above the old shelter, he dipped over the crag head to a saucer-like depression walled from all redcoat view by the surmounted rock. With a feeling of triumph he plunged through small firs and heather, and, pa.s.sing the mountain brow, took the way that should lead him to the next glen.

CHAPTER XXII

The laird of Glenfernie, rising from the great chair by the table, moved to the window of the room that had been his father's and mother's, the room where both had died. He remembered the wild night of snow and wind in which his father had left the body. Now it was August, and the light golden upon the gra.s.s and the pilgrim cedar.

Alexander walked slowly, with a great stick under his hand. Old Bran was dead, but a young Bran stretched himself, wagged his tail, and looked beseechingly at the master.

"I'll let you out," said the latter, "but I am a prisoner; I cannot let myself out!"

He moved haltingly to the door, opened it, and the dog ran forth.

Glenfernie returned to the window. "Prisoner." The word brought to his strongly visualizing mind prisoners and prisons through all Britain this summer--shackled prisoners, dark prisons, scaffolds.... He leaned his head against the window-frame.

"O G.o.d that my father and my grandfather served--G.o.d of old times--of Israel in Egypt! I think that I would release them all if I could--_all but one! Not him!_" He looked at the cedar. "Who was he, in truth, who planted that, perhaps for a remembrance? And he, and all men, had and have some one deep wrong that shall not be brooked!"

He stood in a brown study until there was a tap at the door. "Come in!"

Alice entered, bearing before her a bowl of flowers of all fair hues and shapes. She herself was like a bright, strong, winsome flower. "To make your room look bonny!" she said, and placed the bowl upon the table. To do so she pushed aside the books. "What a withered, snuff-brown lot! Won't you be glad when you are back in the keep with all the books?"

Glenfernie, wrapped in a brown gown, came with his stick back to the great chair before the books. "Bonny--they are bonny!" he said and touched the flowers. "I've set a week from to-day to be dressed and out of this and back to the keep. Another week, and I shall ride Black Alan."

"Ah," said Alice. "You mustn't determine that you can do it all yourself! There will be the doctor and the wound!"

Alexander took her hands and held them. "You are a fine philosopher!

Where is Strickland?"

"Helping Aunt Grizel with accounts. Do you want him?"

"When you go. But not for a long while if you will stay."

Alice regarded him with her mother's shrewdness. "Oh, Glenfernie, for all you've traveled and are so learned, it's not me nor Mr.

Strickland, but the moon now that you're wanting! I don't know what your moon is, but it's the moon!"

Alexander laughed. "And is not the moon a beautiful thing?"

"The books say that it is cold and almost dead, wrinkled and ashen.

But I've got to go," said Alice, "and I'll send you Mr. Strickland."

Strickland came presently. "You look much stronger this morning, Glenfernie. I'm glad of that! Shall I read to you, or write?"

"Read, I think. My eyes dazzle still when I try. Some strong old thing--the Plutarch there. Read the _Brutus_."

Strickland read. He thought that now Alexander listened, and that now he had traveled afar. The minutes pa.s.sed. The flowers smelled sweetly, murmuring sounds came in the open windows. Bran scratched at the door and was admitted. Far off, Alice's voice was heard singing. Strickland read on. The laird of Glenfernie was not at Rome, in the Capitol, by Pompey's statue. He walked with Elspeth Barrow the feathery green glen.

Davie appeared in the door. "A letter, sir, come post." He brought it to Glenfernie's outstretched hand.

"From Edinburgh--from Jamie," said the latter.

Strickland laid down his book and moved to the window. Standing there, his eyes upon the great cedar, ma.s.sive and tall as though it would build a tower to heaven, his mind left Brutus, Caesar, and Ca.s.sius, and played somewhat idly over the British Isles. He was recalled by an exclamation, not loud, but so intense and fierce that it startled like a meteor of the night. He turned. Glenfernie sat still in his great chair, but his features were changed, his mouth working, his eyes shooting light. Strickland advanced toward him.

"Not bad news of Jamie!"

"Not of Jamie! From Jamie." He thrust the letter under the other's eyes. "Read--read it out!"

Strickland read aloud.

"Here is authoritative news. Ian Rullock, after lying two months in the tolbooth, has escaped. A gaoler connived, it is supposed, else it would seem impossible. Galbraith tells me he would certainly have been hanged in September. It is thought that he got to Leith and on board a s.h.i.+p. Three cleared that day--for Rotterdam, for Lisbon, and Virginia."

Alexander took the letter again. "That is all of that import."

Strickland once more felt astonishment. Glenfernie's tone was quiet, almost matter-of-fact. The blood had ebbed from his face; he sat there collected, a great quiet on the heels of storm. It was impossible not to admire the power that could with such swiftness exercise control.

Strickland hesitated. He wished to speak, but did not know how far he might with wisdom. The laird forestalled him.

"Sit down! This is to be talked over, for again my course of life alters."

Strickland took his chair. He leaned his arm upon the table, his chin upon his hand. He did not look directly at the man opposite, but at the bowl of flowers between them.

"When a man has had joy and lost it, what does he do?" Glenfernie's voice was almost contemplative.