Foes Part 29

"One man one thing, and one another," said Strickland. "After his nature."

"No. All go seeking it in the teeth of death and horror. That's universal! Joy must be sought. But it may not wear the old face; it may wear another."

"I suppose that true joy has one face."

"When one platonizes--perhaps! I keep to-day to earth, to the cave. Do you know," said Alexander, "why I sit here wounded?"

"Of outward facts I do not know any more than is, I think, pretty generally known through this countryside."

"As--?"

Strickland looked still at the bowl of flowers. "It is known, I think, that you loved Elspeth Barrow and would have wedded her. And that, while you were from home, the man who called himself, and was called by you, your nearest friend, stepped before you--made love to her, betrayed her--and left her to bear the shame.... I myself know that he kept you in ignorance, and that, away from here, he let you still write to him in friendship and answered in that tone.... All know that she drowned herself because of him, and that you knew naught until you yourself entered the Kelpie's Pool and found her body and carried her home.... After that you left the country to find and fight Ian Rullock. Folk know, too, that he evaded you then. You returned. Then came this insurrection, and news that he was in Scotland with the Pretender. You joined the King's forces. Then, after Culloden, you found the false friend in hiding, in the mountains. The two of you fought, and, as is often the way, the injurer seemed again to win. You were dangerously wounded. He fled. Soldiers upon his track found you lying in your blood. You were carried to Inverness. d.i.c.kson and I went to you, brought you at last home. In the mean time came news that the man you fought had been taken by the soldiers. I suppose that we have all had visions of him, in prison, expecting to suffer with other conspirators."

"Yes, I have had visions ... outward facts!... Do you know the inner, northern ocean, where sleep all the wrecks?"

"As I have watched you since you were a boy, it is improbable that I should not have some divining power. In Inverness, too, while you were fevered, you talked and talked.... You have walked with Tragedy, felt her net and her strong whip." Strickland lifted his eyes from the bowl, pushed back his chair a little, and looked full at the laird of Glenfernie. "What then? Rise, Glenfernie, and leave her behind! And if you do not now, it will soon be hard for you to do so! Remember, too, that I watched your father--"

"After I find Ian Rullock in Holland or Lisbon or America--"

Strickland made a movement of deep concern. "You have met and fought this man. Do you mean so to nourish vengeance--"

"I mean so to aid and vindicate distressed Justice."

"Is it the way?"

"I think that it is the way."

Strickland was silent, seeing the uselessness. Glenfernie was one to whom conviction must come from within. A stillness held in the room, broken by the laird in the voice that was growing like his father's.

"Nothing lacks now but strength, and I am gaining that--will gain it the faster now! Travel--travel!... All my travel was preparatory to this."

"Do you mean," asked Strickland, "to kill him when you find him?"

"I like your directness. But I do not know--I do not know!... I mean to be his following fiend. To have him ever feel me--when he turns his head ever to see me!"

The other sighed sharply. He thought to himself, "Oh, mind, thy abysses!"

Indeed, Glenfernie looked at this moment stronger. He folded Jamie's letter and put it by. He drew the bowl of flowers to him and picked forth a rose. "A week--two at most--and I shall be wholly recovered!"

His voice had fiber, decision, even a kind of cheer.

Strickland thought, "It is his fancied remedy, at which he s.n.a.t.c.hes!"

Glenfernie continued: "We'll set to work to-morrow upon long arrangements! With you to manage here, I will not be missed." Without waiting for the morrow he took quill and paper and began to figure.

Strickland watched him. At last he said, "Will you go at once in three ships to Holland, Portugal, and America?"

"Has the onlooker room for irony, while to me it looks so simple? I shall ship first to the likeliest land.... In ten days--in two weeks at most--to Edinburgh--"

Strickland left him figuring and, rising, went to the window. He saw the great cedar, and in mind the pilgrim who planted it there. All the pilgrims--all the crusaders--all the men in Plutarch; the long frieze of them, the full ocean of them ... all the self-search, dressed as search of another. "I, too, I doubt not--I, too!" Buried scenes in his own life rose before Strickland. Behind him scratched Glenfernie's pen, sounded Glenfernie's voice:

"I am going to see presently if I can walk as far as the keep. In two or three days I shall ride. There are things that I shall know when I get to Edinburgh. He would take, if he could, the ship that would land him at the door of France."

CHAPTER XXIII

Alexander rode across the moors to the glen head. Two or three solitary farers that he met gave him eager good day.

"Are ye getting sae weel, laird? I am glad o' that!"

"Good day, Mr. Jardine! I rejoice to see you recovered. Well, they hung more of them yesterday!"

"Gude day, Glenfernie! It's a bonny morn, and sweet to be living!"

At noon he looked down on the Kelpie's Pool. The air was sweet and fine, bird sounds came from the purple heather. The great blue arch of the sky smiled; even the pool, reflecting day, seemed to have forgotten cold and dread. But for Glenfernie a dull, cold, sick horror overspread the place. He and Black Alan stood still upon the moor brow. Large against the long, clean, horizon sweep, they looked the sun-bathed, stone figures of horse and man, set there long ago, guarding the moor, giving warning of the kelpie.

"None has been found to warn. There is none but the kelpie waits for.... But punish--punish!"

He and Black Alan pushed on to the head of the glen. Here was Mother Binning's cot, and here he dismounted, fastening the horse to the ash-tree. Mother Binning was outdoors, gathering herbs in her ap.r.o.n.

She straightened herself as he stepped toward her. "Eh, laird of Glenfernie, ye gave me a start! I thought ye came out of the ground by the ash-tree!... Wound is healed, and life runs on to another springtime?"

"Yes, it's another springtime.... I do not think that I believe in scrying, Mother Binning. But I'm where I pick up all straws with which to build me a nest! Sit down and scry for me, will you?"

"I canna scry every day, nor every noon, nor every year. What are you wanting to see, Glenfernie?"

"Oh, just my soul's desire!"

Mother Binning turned to her door. She put down the herbs, then brought a pan of water and set it down upon the door-step, and herself beside it. "It helps--onything that's still and clear! Wait till the ripple's gane, and then dinna speak to me. But gin I see onything, it will na be sae great a thing as a soul's desire."

She sat still and he stood still, leaning against the side of her house. Mother Binning sat with fixed gaze. Her lips moved. "There's the white mist. It's clearing."

"Tell me if you see a ship."

"Yes, I see it...."

"Tell me if you see its port."

"Yes, I see."

"Describe it--the houses, the country, the dress and look of the people--"

Mother Binning did so.

"That's not Holland--that would be Lisbon. Look at the ship again, Mother. Look at the sailors. Look at the pa.s.sengers if there are any.