Carmen's Messenger Part 14

"Had he any luck?"

"Not much," said Foster. "Two gamekeepers turned up and although we got a few partridges Pete lost his net."

There was silence for a moment, and then another remarked: "I wouldna'

say but we ken enough. We hae helpit Pate oot before, and a change is lightsome. He can gang till the moss-side folk noo."

They let the matter drop, but Foster was given a better supper than he expected and afterwards a bed in a cupboard fixed to the kitchen wall.

XII

A COMPLICATION

At noon next day Foster sat, smoking, on a bridge near the clachan.

The air was mild and sunshine filled the hollow, while Foster had just dined upon some very appetizing broth. The broth was thick with vegetables, but he did not think the meat in it came from a barn-door fowl. The clachan was a poor and untidy place, but he was tired, and as the gamekeepers would not suspect a neatly-dressed stranger, had thought of stopping another night. When he had nearly finished his pipe. Long Pete came up. Foster, who had only seen him in the moonlight, now noted that he had a rather frank brown face and a twinkling smile.

"Ye'll be for Hawick?" he remarked.

Foster said he was going there and Pete resumed in a meaning tone: "It's a grand day for the road and ye could be in Hawick soon after it's dark."

"Just so," said Foster, who could take a hint. "But is there any reason I should start this afternoon?"

"Ye should ken. I was across the muir in the morning and found a polisman frae Yarrow at Watty Bell's. He'd come ower the hills on his bicycle and was asking if they'd seen a stranger wi' a glove on his left han'."

Foster made a little abrupt movement that he thought the other noted, but said carelessly, "The fellow must have had a rough trip."

"A road gangs roon' up the waterside, though I wouldna' say it's very good. I'm thinking he made an early start and would wait for dinner with Watty. Then ye might give him twa 'oors to get here."

Foster looked at his watch and pondered. He was beginning to understand Scottish tact and saw that Pete meant to give him a friendly warning. It was obvious that the policeman would not have set off across the hills in the dark of a winter morning unless he had been ordered to make inquiries. Moreover, since the gamekeepers had mistaken Foster for Pete, the orders had nothing to do with the poaching.

"Perhaps I had better pull out," he said. "But the fellow won't have much trouble in learning which way I've gone."

"I'm no' sure o' that. There's a road o' a sort rins west to Annandale and Lockerbie."

"But I'm not going west."

"Weel," said Pete, "ye might start that way, and I would meet ye where a sheep track rins back up the glen--ye'll ken it by the broken d.y.k.e where ye cross the burn. Then I would set ye on the road to Hawick ower the hill."

"Thanks," said Foster thoughtfully. "I suppose I ought to let the folks at the inn know I've gone towards Annandale, so they can tell the policeman?"

Pete's eyes twinkled. "It might be better if they didna' exactly tell him, but let him find it oot; but I'll see tae that. Polisman Jock is noo and then rather shairp."

Ten minutes later, Foster left the inn and set off across the moor.

The heath shone red, and here and there little pools, round which white stones lay in the dark peat, flashed in the sunshine. The pale-blue of the sky changed near the horizon to delicate green, and a soft breeze blew across the waste. Foster enjoyed the walk, although he was puzzled and somewhat disturbed. If inquiries had been made about Featherstone, he could have understood it, but the police were asking for a man with a glove on his left hand, which could only apply to him.

Daly, of course, would be glad to get him out of the way, if he had learned that he was in Scotland, but the police could not arrest a man who had done nothing wrong.

Foster now regretted that he had helped the poachers, although he thought he had made friends who would not betray him and might be useful. He had met Border Scots in Ontario, and knew something about their character. They were marked by a stern independence, inherited from their moss-trooper ancestors, and he thought Pete was a typical specimen of the virile race. The man met him at the broken d.y.k.e, and leaving the road they turned east up the side of a sparkling burn.

The narrow strip of level ground was wet and covered with moss, in which their feet sank, but the hillside was too steep to walk along.

It ran up, a slope of gray-white gra.s.s, to the ragged summit where the peat was gashed and torn. Here and there a stunted thorn tree grew in a hollow, but the glen was savagely desolate, and Foster, glancing at his companion, thought he understood why the men who wrung a living from these barren hills prospered when they came out to the rich wheat-soil of Canada. The Flowers of the Forest, who fell at Flodden, locking fast the Scottish square against the onslaught of England's finest cavalry, were bred in these wilds, and had left descendants marked by their dour stubbornness. Pete's hair was turning gray and his brown face was deeply lined, but he crossed the quaking moss with a young man's stride, and Foster thought his mouth could set hard as granite in spite of his twinkling smile. He was a man who would forget neither a favor nor an injury, and Foster was glad to feel that he was on his side.

At the head of the glen they climbed a long gra.s.sy slope and came to a tableland where the peat was torn into great black rifts and piled in hummocks. This was apparently Nature's work, but Foster could not see how the storms that burst upon the hills could have worked such havoc.

Crossing the rugged waste to a distant cairn, they sat down upon the stones, and Pete filled his pipe from Foster's pouch.

"Ye'll haud east until ye find a burn that will lead ye doon to the road; then as ye cross the breist o' a fell ye'll see the reek o'

Hawick," he said and added after a pause: "Maybe ye'll no' be stopping in the town?"

"I'll stay the night. After that, I think I'll take the hills again.

I'm going south towards Liddesdale, but I expect that's out of your beat."

Pete smiled. "There's maist to be done in my regular line this side o'

Hawick. Buccleugh looks after his hares and paltrigs weel, and his marches rin wide across the country from Teviot to Liddel. But I hae freends a' the way to the North Tyne, and there's no' many sheep sales I do not attend. If ye're wanting them, I could give ye a few directions that might help ye on the road."

Foster thanked him and listened carefully. It looked as if the poachers, who seemed to work now and then as honest drovers, knew each other well and combined for mutual protection. It might be useful to be made an honorary member of the gang.

"Weel," his companion concluded, "if ye stop at the inns I've told ye o', ye'll find folks who can haud a quiet tongue, and if ye see ony reason for it, ye can say ye're a freend o' mine."

Foster rather diffidently offered him some money, but was not surprised when the man refused the gift. Indeed, he felt that it would have jarred him had Pete taken it. The latter gave him his hand with a smile and turned back to the glen while Foster pushed on across the heath. He reflected with some amus.e.m.e.nt that Pete probably thought him a fugitive from the law.

After a time he stopped to look about. His view commanded a horizon of two or three miles, for he seemed to be near the center of the tableland. Its surface was broken by the hummocks and hollows of the peat, and tufts of white wild cotton relieved the blackness of the gashes in the soil. Sheep fed in the distance, and he heard the harsh cry of a grouse that skimmed the heath. The skyline was clear, and by and by two sharp but distant figures cut against it.

Foster's first impulse was to drop into the ling, but he did not. If the men were following him, it would take them half an hour to reach the spot he occupied and, if necessary, the roughness of the ground would enable him to reach the edge of the moor without their seeing which way he went. Besides, since he would be visible as long as he stood up, he could find out whether they were looking for him or not.

They came nearer and then vanished, and he sat down and speculated about his line of retreat. Their disappearance was suspicious, and although he thought he could baffle the rural police, it would be different if he had gamekeepers to deal with.

By and by the men reappeared, but as they did not seem anxious to cover their movements he felt relieved. It was possible that they had come to mend a fence or look for some sheep. For all that, he drew back among the hummocks, and looked for hollows where he would have a background for his figure as he resumed his march. He saw no more of the men and by and by came to a burn, which he followed to lower ground, where he found the road Pete had told him about.

It led him up and down hill, and now and then the track was faint, while when he crossed the last ridge the light was fading. Motionless gray clouds stretched across the sky, which glimmered with pale saffron in the west. Rounded hills, stained a deep blue, cut against the light, and a trail of gauzy vapor hung about a distant hollow. Since there was no mist on the moors, he knew it was the smoke of Hawick mills.

As he went down, stone d.y.k.es began to straggle up the hill. The fields they enclosed were rushy and dotted with whinns, but they got smoother and presently he came to stubble and belts of plowing. Then he turned into a good road and saw rows of lights that got gradually brighter in the valley ahead. It had been dark some time when he entered Hawick, and the damp air was filled with a thin, smoky haze. Factory windows glimmered in the haze and tall chimneys loomed above the houses. The bustle of the town fell pleasantly but strangely on his ears after the silence of the moors.

Reaching a hotel that looked comfortable, he went in, ordered dinner, and provisionally booked a room, though he did not register and explained that he could not tell yet if he would stay all night. Then, leaving his knapsack, he went into the street and stopped by a bridge where three roads met. A guide-post indicated that one led to Selkirk, and the map had shown Foster that this was the way to Peebles and Yarrow. Another ran up the waterside to Langholm and the south.

Foster lighted a cigarette and drawing his maimed hand into the sleeve of his mackintosh, leaned against the side of the bridge and watched the Selkirk road. It was not cold and the street was well lighted by the windows of the shops. Briskly moving people streamed across the bridge, as if the factory hands were going home from work, but n.o.body seemed interested in Foster and the policeman who stood by the guide-post paid him no attention. He thought about going back to the hotel when a car, traveling rather fast, came down the road and pulled up close by.

Foster leaned quietly against the bridge and did not turn his head, but saw Daly sitting beside the driver; the half-dried mud that was thickly crusted about the car indicated a long journey. An abrupt movement might be dangerous, although he did not think Daly expected to find him or Featherstone calmly lounging about the street. The driver beckoned the policeman and Foster heard him ask if one crossed the bridge for Langholm.

The man told him to turn to the right, and after speaking to the driver Daly asked if there was a garage and a good hotel near. The policeman gave him some directions, and when the car turned round and rolled away Foster followed. He pa.s.sed close by the policeman and, taking advantage of the sociable Scottish custom, nodded and remarked that it was a fine night. The man answered civilly, with a careless glance at Foster, who went on, feeling satisfied with his experiment. It was obvious that no inquiries about him had been telegraphed to Hawick and he had only Daly to deal with. This was curious, if the police were really anxious to find him.

The garage was open and Foster asked a man if he could hire a motor bicycle. The fellow said he thought so, but the manager was out, and Foster strolled about the room. Daly's driver was refilling the lamps with carbide, and when he finished asked for petrol.

"Ye're for the road again," the man who brought the tin remarked.

"For Langholm," replied the driver. "I don't expect we'll go farther to-night, but I must have things ready if the boss wants to go on."

Foster hoped the other would ask where they had come from, but he did not do so, and next moment Daly walked down some steps at the other end of the room. Knowing that a quick retreat might betray him, Foster stood still and examined a lamp he picked up. Daly crossed the floor, pa.s.sing within a yard or two.