And ilka birdie had a tongue
To ca’ me back to Logie...
—Flemington
My bonny moorhen has feathers anew
They are a' fine colours, but nane o' them blue
She's red and she's white and she's green and she's grey
My bonny moorhen, come hither away
—Jacobite song
The yellow cur, worn out with the exertions and tragedies of the day and with the pain of its injured leg, was sleeping quietly in a corner of the hut, its head and front paws resting on its dead master's bonnet. It would, thought James Logie, be a pity to wake the poor animal; yet he must do so soon, for he remembered very well that this hiding-place might be known to the Government. He had come here only as a temporary retreat, until the darkness should give him cover; and the darkness was coming on now, out beyond the hut's tiny window. Somewhere out there Ferrier and Gourlay were, so he hoped, safe in their own places of refuge; and it was time for him to leave this cottage and make for some more remote spot further up the Muir... some spot whose location he had never revealed to Archie Flemington.
James had thought of Archie often in the months since they had last met, his mind returning to the intolerable memories with the perverse persistence of one who probes and picks at a wound and will not let it alone to heal. And, as such probings will discover the particular sensitivities and vulnerabilities of the wound in greater detail than the sufferer might otherwise ever have known of, Logie had come to know and understand the pain of Flemington's betrayal far better than he had done in the first shock of it. Turning it over in his mind, and dwelling more than anything else on that morning above the Basin of Montrose, when some new and vital meaning had seemed to reveal itself to him in Flemington's presence, he had come at last to a comprehension of the true reason—or, rather, the extent and significance of the reason—why that betrayal had affected him so very strongly. He had told Archie, had he not, that his eyes might have been Diane's?... Perhaps it was not so much a physical resemblance, after all, as the awareness that they inspired in James very much the same feeling.
In itself the attraction did not shock him. The wild soldier's life in which he had passed the last fourteen years had included, besides those gracious ladies whose admirer he had been—meaningless after Diane, of course, but nonetheless part of his experience—one or two equally meaningless affairs with men. These he accepted as a natural part of the life of the roving soldier, and indeed they were and are not an uncommon one, albeit they are looked upon with less acknowledgement and indulgence than the more accepted transgressions of such men with women. But there had been only one great love in his life before now, and he had scarcely thought that there could ever be another. The knowledge that Flemington had woken a part of his own heart which he had thought dead for ever would have shaken him greatly enough on its own. As it was, it made his betrayal indescribably worse: betrayal, not by the wicked father of his beloved—who, despite his power, could be placed in James's emotional imagination safely outside the sacred circle of his own love—but by the beloved himself.
It was no time to dwell on such things now. Sighing, James turned to the bag which he had flung down in a corner of the hut. He would gather together his things, put out the lantern which stood upon the little table, take up the unfortunate dog—and go.
The strong, wiry stems of the heather pushed against Flemington's shins as he strode onwards through the gathering dusk. It occurred to him, as a sort of vague whimsical suggestion, that he might have thought of them as pulling him back, or as twisting his path into a confusion before him—or of the darkness as descending upon him in another sense than the commonplace sunset. No such thing: the half-understood, unreal determination of a few hours ago was gone from him now, and his purpose was clear. Callandar was behind him, probably still trying to hide amongst the scrubby birch and rowan trees at the edge of the Muir, and the knowledge of his presence brought a little smile to Archie's face. He would want the Captain soon enough. For now, he had only one thing to do.
The little cottage was thatched with heather, and the eaves drooped so far down from the low walls that the extremities of the roof seemed almost ready to touch hands, as it were, with the still living growth of heather beneath. Archie went up to the door and called out a greeting. The light of a lantern was visible through the window, and it did not occur to Flemington that this might have any other meaning than that the crofter whom he expected to find there was at home. Not waiting for an answer, he opened the door and stepped over the threshold—
—and saw, for an instant in the lantern-light, the man crouching over an open bag at the far side of the little room. It was not the crofter. It was James Logie.
In another instant James had sprung to his feet, and above his raised pistol his face changed from the neutral expression of the experienced soldier meeting an unwelcome but not unfamiliar surprise to a horrible look of recognition.
'You!' he said.
'Logie—' said Archie, and then, 'There is no need—here, you may have my pistol. I do not want to fight. And, see, I have only the one good arm.'
Slowly, Logie lowered his own weapon and took Archie's from him. 'I suspected that the men on Huntly Hill were not the whole party,' he said. 'There were no officers amongst them, I saw. But you of all people... I suppose there are others with you now?' And he wondered if he were quite surrounded already. Certainly there would be little use in shooting Flemington if it were so.
'Keep your voice down!' said Archie now, striding forwards into the lantern-light, where for the first time Logie saw his face clearly. His expression was peculiarly intent. 'The captain in charge of that party is following me. If he hears and recognises you—and stay away from the window,' he added, as James glanced away from him and towards that window.
At the sound of Archie's voice, the dog in the corner raised its head and gave a little growl, perhaps in warning. Logie made as if to go over to it; but the animal seemed to think better of its hostility, or perhaps it was too exhausted to put up any fight, and it dropped its head back upon the Kilmarnock bonnet. With a feeling of vague bewilderment, Archie recognised both dog and bonnet: he had seen the one harnessed to Skirling Wattie's cart, and the other upon his head, at the foot of Huntly Hill a few hours before... how they had come to be here, he could not imagine. For a moment his mind fastened upon this mystery as a more comprehensible one than his sudden confrontation with James Logie.
Then Logie said, 'What do you mean? I doubt it can make any difference whether this captain sees me or not, when you are here. If you mean to lead him to me, I think you had better invite him in now.' Though he had lowered his weapon, he still held it tightly in his hand. His mind, reeling from the shock of recognition, was rapidly turning over plans: should he turn and run from the hut before this officer of Flemington's caught up with him? But there might be more soldiers upon the other side.
'I have not come here to capture you, Logie,' said Archie. 'I have come to warn you. You must leave this place now. The soldiers are closing in round the Muir, and they will soon—oh, but I did not know you would be here. I did not mean you to know...'
Archie began this speech, though he did not end it, with something like his characteristic lightness of manner. Behind it the traces of his late resolution were still clear in his face, overtaken as that had been by this sudden confusion. It was a strange combination, stranger still when taken together with his words, and Logie was at something of a loss how to respond to this bizarre speech, which was hardly that of one who was, and knew himself to be known as, a hated enemy. Flemington's appearance was changed since they had last met—though not, James supposed, as much as his own—and there was something in his dark eyes, mingled of desperation and resolve and something else, which reached towards James's heart even now... But at last he said, 'What do you mean? what trick is this?'
For it must be a trick. He saw now that Archie was not leading his commanding officer triumphantly in to arrest him. Perhaps he had been separated from his comrades after the attack, and had really not been expecting to find James here; now, alone and injured—unless that sling was a sham too!—and with no immediate means of communicating with them, he had thought fast (such a man must be able to) and decided on trying to trick James into running into some trap set for him further away. That was what he meant by imploring Logie to leave this place. Though why in the world he expected this ruse to succeed after their meeting on Inchbrayock, God only knew. In any case, James could not, as an honourable soldier, fight him now—as he would very much have liked to do, and would have done had it not been for the sling.
As it was, if Flemington wanted him to leave the hut, then surely he was safer staying; and Flemington himself was not an immediate danger.
'Oh, yes,' said Archie now, with a wry grimace. 'I remember Inchbrayock. I know quite well that you will not believe I am trying to help you. Well, don't, then. Think of me what you like, but you must go.'
His face in the flickering lantern-light wore a remarkable semblance of desperation, blended strangely with the same jaunty flippancy which had once so charmed James. Something in him—pitiful thing!—wanted very badly to believe that the emotion he saw in Flemington's face was not feigned. But it was all as false as it had been then; Flemington was a spy and a Whig and a liar, and that was all he had ever been.
Archie was smiling more calmly now, though perhaps a little wearily. Logie's silence was all the answer he needed to his last plea. 'We are at a stalemate, then?' he said. 'I suppose you cannot simply fight me—this is real enough, if you do not believe the rest,' he added, indicating his injured arm. 'Oh, hell, what is Callandar doing? I tell you he may burst in here at any moment, and there are more soldiers on their way.' Impatiently he went over to the window, where he crouched for several moments with his eyes just projecting above the sill, squinting into the dusk outside. Then he stood up, frowned, and said, 'He is not there, as far as I can make out. I expect he has decided to go back to the others. Whether they'll try to return here in the dark I don't know, but'—he shrugged expressively, a gesture as French as his r's—'it appears we are safe for a little while. In that case, Logie, will you let me explain myself?'
'What can there possibly be to explain?' said James. 'I understood everything when I saw you on Inchbrayock—and have heard more of you since then!' Part of his brain was thinking over how he might get out of the present bizarre deadlock: perhaps if he let Flemington go on talking as he seemed to want to do, it might be possible to evade whatever trap was laid outside, and find his way to a secure hiding-place from whence he might make his way off the Muir by some other route... And another part was still trying to make sense of Archie's incredible words. Was it possible that he really felt some remorse for his actions at Balnillo and Montrose, and was trying to make amends by helping James now? This did not seem likely to a mind like James's, one lacking the twisting subtleties of emotion which can give to a heart what Archie's had received that morning at Balnillo. And yet—
But nor, of course, would it make any difference to what Flemington was.
Meanwhile Flemington had sat down on the table again. The light of the lantern, placed behind him, cast little glints and shadows amongst the dark curls confined by a ribbon at the back of his neck. His mouth was open, as if he meant to speak but was not sure how to begin. Then he made up his mind, and said, 'You are quite right to say so. The mark upon my wrist—see, it is still here, though a little faded by now!—meant exactly what you thought it did. Well, then, you know what brought me to Balnillo, and you know what I was—until that morning when you and I sat together amongst the broom above the Basin of Montrose. I told you such absurd lies—living by my paintbrush; those cursed warming-pans!—and you met them with such sympathy and generosity, and with more than that... I dare say you remember.' There was, even now, a half-unconscious element of theatricality to his attitude. He had been looking away from James, gazing at the wall as though into a far greater distance; now he turned to face him, and went on, 'Logie, I've heard it said that we love what we cannot be—that we are drawn to our own opposites in perverse contradiction. Your absolute honesty filled me with horror at what I was doing. It was as simple as that. I left Balnillo, because I could not betray you as you had been betrayed before, and could not do anything to hurt you. I had already sent off my report of what I saw the night before, but after that moment I never mentioned your name. I received orders to return to the Venture, and you know where I was when the ship was taken, but I swear I never told the captain what I knew about you... Since then I have done my duty, as seemed good to me, and I have not been asked again to do what I could not do—until now. I have been in agony riding towards the Muir of Pert under orders to search for you. Today I decided what I must do. I left the party of soldiers under an excuse, and doubled back to the Muir. I meant to come here and send a message by the man who lives here, the one you told me about. I never meant you to hear my name, because I knew you would not believe me. But instead—' And he gave another eloquent little shrug, and another smile.
It was an extraordinary story. James, however, must wonder whether it was quite beyond the powers of invention of the unscrupulous and imaginative spy whom Flemington still owned himself to be. All this might still be leading up to sending him straight towards the soldiers gathering round the Muir. Also he still remembered the sullying of his own past which had been one of the worst consequences of Archie's betrayal in his mind. It had not lost any of its bitterness, and gathered yet more from the possibility that Flemington was now attempting to trick him again.
So he said, 'How dare you speak so of that day? Do you attempt to justify—to excuse—what you have done?' He went on, 'No, you are worse than I thought you. You heap lies upon lies. I will not hear that memory dragged up again in the service of some new infamy!' And he wondered whether he were accusing Archie, or attempting to convince himself.
Flemington smiled again; it was rather a kind look, with only a little sadness in it. For a moment he looked much older than his twenty-six years, then, suddenly, very young. He had quite forgotten the Muir, the darkness and the danger; he had forgotten also his late acceptance of the fact that James would never understand what he had done and why, and, in the turmoil of emotions brought on by the confrontation with him, there remained only a single central need to seek that impossible understanding by any means he might. And one such means remained to him. No understanding of facts, he had appreciated, would reach Logie; but this, not being so simple as a fact, might go further than they.
He looked away from Logie. 'No, no,' he said quietly, 'you are right. It is disgraceful of me. There must be no pretence whatever. I shall tell you all it did mean, then. What harm can it do now?' He was almost laughing, finding an unexpected relief in this final confession, and his native easy composure had returned to him. 'I dare say it is unbelievable, the idea that one morning's conversation could change so much in the heart of a man who was as inveterate a rogue as I am. I assure you it was as unexpected to me. Well—'
He rose from the table and came over to James. By now James's ideas were really changing; there was something in Flemington's manner and tone which did not so much disprove the possibility that he was lying as leave the idea of such things as lies, tricks and spying far behind, on another plane of being which had no longer any relevance to the present moment. It was not an unanswerable argument; rather, it was something in them both by which they answered each other. There was a peculiar searching expression in Archie's dark eyes, and they shone in the dim lamplight of the hut as they had shone in the morning sunlight amongst the broom... And so he let Archie come up to him and touch the fingers of his free hand, rather questioningly, to James's face; and when he came closer still and kissed him on the mouth, the kiss was returned.
At the realisation—not expected, for he had scarcely thought about his own expectations—that James was not rejecting him Archie leaned further into the kiss with a little smile of relief and joy. It was not a conscious action, and for one so used to putting careful planning and dissembling into every speech and act this in itself had a freeing quality. Perhaps James understood something of this too; as he twisted his fingers into Archie's hair and pulled him closer, he realised with a sort of dislocated relief that the Archie in his arms now was the same man he had thought he knew at Balnillo. There had, after all, been reality in what had seemed to grow between them that morning. Here it was, in the smiling curve of Archie's lips against his own, in the beat of his heart—which James could feel, behind the arm in its sling which was pulled rather awkwardly against him, thudding as though he had just run the breadth of the Muir twice over. These things were not feigned. He did not understand how or why; but so it was, and in the present moment conscious understanding was not necessary.
When they broke apart Archie paused for a moment, looking down at the floor, his eyes still shining—James kept his hand in his hair, where it had disarranged the ribbon a little, and stroked lightly along the curls behind his ear—and then he said, 'So, you see, I could not be to you what I had always been. I never did know anything like it.'
'I do not believe I knew it either,' said James, his voice a little above a whisper.
It occurred to Logie now that neither could he be quite what he had always been. The storm of bitterness upon which his soul had been tossed these many months had calmed at last, and in the first moments of the kiss the immense sense of relief—indeed like that of a sailor, tossed for hours upon roaring waves, who sees the first shaft of light break through the ragged clouds—had seemed to wipe it out entirely. Trying now to make sense of what he had just done, he remembered the lies about Flemington's artistic career which had so inspired his own sympathy, the struggle on the docks at Montrose and the despatch sent the next morning; he remembered that, with the one exception of leaving Balnillo before he was bid, Archie had been sincerely and dedicatedly working for the Government all the way through the war. His repentance of his own falsehood did not wipe it out. Yet even that seemed to be changed; in the moment of realisation that in his repentance, at least, he was quite sincere, James had lowered his own guard of pain and the consciousness of betrayal, and now the tie between them seemed more important than these enmities. In fact Logie's mind was undergoing something of a revolution, and it was little wonder if he did not quite yet make sense of it all.
He kissed Flemington again, at once more desperate and more deliberate than the first time, and for a few more moments there was nothing else in the world...
It was some time later, and they were sitting side by side on the table, their hands joined between them, when Archie laughed quietly and said, 'Oh, I forget myself! I suppose you will believe my warning, now?... I saw the captain sending for reinforcements from Brechin, or at least I believe that is what he was doing. They will sweep over the Muir when they arrive, and if you are still here they will find you. You must go now, under cover of darkness. Surely you know the place well enough to find your way out of it in the dark? I'll wager they do not.'
'What will you do?' said James abruptly.
'I? Oh, I shall slip away and escape somehow. I excused myself from the party on account of my arm, as I said; I dare say I shall go back home to Ardguys, and they shall not—'
But here James interrupted him; for, having accepted Archie's explanation of his own movements tonight, he had at least had time to think over them again in light of that fact. 'You said earlier that this captain was following you,' he said. 'How so, if you did not come here on his orders? Flemington, I can't imagine he did not recognise you.'
'I think you may call me Archie...' (this was said with a smile) '—and I suppose he did; but—it is dark, and Callandar cannot watch all the routes away from here, wherever he is now. I'll give him the slip, as I say, and—'
'But he saw where you were going,' said James impatiently. 'Did he know that you had come here to warn me? Yes, he must have thought something of the sort, or why did he follow you instead of simply going up to speak to you?' And, because he had also had time to come to some appreciation of the full significance of Archie's coming here to warn him, he went on, 'In that case you are in as much danger as I am—as a traitor! Even if you do "give him the slip"—an idea I doubt, Archie, considering the pains you have just been taking to impress upon me the dangers of escaping from this place—if he knows what you have done, he will still know it whenever you show your face, at Ardguys or anywhere else.'
Steadfastly loyal as Logie had always been to his own cause, and straightforwardly dutiful in its service, it was not easy for him to understand the mind and intentions of a man of such a very different character and in such a very different position from his own. On the other hand, he was rapidly coming to understand better what he had first dimly comprehended through the lies at Balnillo; and now another idea came to him of what Archie meant by these absurd arguments about his own escape.
'If I leave you now,' he said, keeping his voice very steady, for his suspicion might be wrong, after all, 'is that really what you will do? Slip away and try to evade capture for—what you have done?'
It was, he thought with a sort of distant amusement at himself, by far the least blameworthy lie Archie had tried to tell him yet. And those lovely eyes were surely telling the truth now...
'You have as much as admitted that this Callandar thinks you were in league with me all along. You do not know the Muir as I do; I tell you if you try to get away he may well find you. But, Archie, would you try?...'
For a long moment they held each other's gazes. Then Archie lowered his, and got up from the table with a movement at once awkward and weary. It was all the acknowledgement James needed that his suspicion had been right.
'What I once told you about my family,' Archie began, after a moment, 'was quite true. The Flemingtons of old were of your party; so my grandfather was at St Germain, and he did die in exile. But my grandmother was betrayed by the Stuarts—I shan't repeat the story; it was not a political matter—and she never forgave them. You never met my grandmother'—and here he smiled—'and I did not hear the full story of her past until after my own return from Balnillo, but perhaps you will understand me when I say that she was never one of those Whigs who speak of "the Pretender" simply out of political bigotry. Our cause was a passion with her. And she, and her home, were my world as a child, and so I never questioned the allegiance in which she brought me up. Nor did I betray its principles, such as they are. I have always done my duty, though I dare say it seems a sordid, ignoble sort of duty to a man such as you—how much more honest simply to stick a sword in one's enemies! But I have done it, nevertheless; save in one thing only, which you know.' He had been standing half turned away from James, his gaze directed vaguely towards the sleeping dog in the corner; now he faced James again and raised his eyes to him, with a little twist of the mouth that was tragic in its careless significance. 'There are loyalties and loves,' he said. 'I will not betray you again, James. You know why. But neither will I be false to my King. There are the consequences for what I have done. I shall face them.'
In this speech, which was made with a strange mixture of hesitancy and defiant pride—the product of Archie's honest and logical working out of his dilemma against a character to which such things were not familiar—were a nobility and courage which James, even with all he now knew and guessed about him, would never have suspected. It was perhaps a strange thing to be so affected by an affirmation of loyalty to his own hated enemies. But he could respect an enemy who stood truly by his own honour. James Logie was a gentleman of the eighteenth century, and lived, more truly than many who claimed the title in those days, by the code which held that honour and respect, honestly earned, were due to an enemy as well as to a friend. That Flemington was an enemy was simple and obvious; that he was true was a revelation. Also his love for Archie, no longer held in check from a belief in the falsehood of its basis, made him readier to admire him. He was glad—joyously glad—to know that Flemington was such an enemy as this.
All he could not do was let Archie do what he intended.
So he took Archie's hand and squeezed it, in acknowledgement of the things he had said, and then walked back and forth across the floor of the hut a few times, and finally turned abruptly back to Archie and said, 'You cannot do this. Come with me instead.'
After a few moments, Archie having said nothing, he pressed on, 'You are no longer safe in Scotland. I do not mean to imply anything of your King, but I doubt he will deal any more kindly with a man he believes to be a traitor than he does with his enemies, and—'
'That makes no difference!' cut in Archie. 'I have told you why I must—do what I must. Surely you understand that. As for my fate afterwards, I am content to let it lie on the knees of the gods—and the Duke of Cumberland,' he added with a smile.
The smile was too much for James. He took Archie's hand again. 'You were right,' he said, in a voice which he could no longer keep quite steady. 'There are loyalties and loves in this world... I shall be as honest as you have been, Flemington: I have seen far more and better of you tonight than I ever knew or suspected was there, at Balnillo or afterwards. Despite what I felt for you then!... I cannot watch you throw your life away after such nobility—not to speak of what you have done for me! It is the least I can do to repay you. I know how to get away in safety, and it is thanks to you that I have a chance of doing so. So come with me.'
The lantern-light flickered on the bare earth floor and on the rough wood of the table. The dog, troubled for a moment in its sleep—as well it might be, after everything that had been going on above its ears—turned its head and settled into a new position, the Kilmarnock bonnet drawn more closely towards it.
Many things were turning themselves over in Archie's mind. The fixed resolution which had settled on him when he left Captain Callandar at the foot of Huntly Hill had taken one supreme shock already this evening; even less had he expected another. There was a great deal to think and to remember. In his mind he saw the ash-trees of Ardguys, and the gates of the manse on a day long ago; the broom above the Basin of Montrose, and the heather-clad hillsides and bitter indecision of Glen Esk a few short days ago; and the decision at Huntly Hill, which at the time had seemed so final. Archie's knowledge went wider, or became imagination: he pictured Captain Callandar learning that he had lost the enemy he was seeking and the supposed friend who had proved false; and at last Ardguys again, and Madam Flemington receiving the news of what her grandson had done... It seemed that in none of these things was there an ending, or any definite decision. And there was James Logie before him now. The firm twist of his crooked lips, and the dear, guileless entreaty in his grey eyes, were a more persuasive argument than any memory.
Archie Flemington loved life. As he stood there in the half-darkness of the little hut, gazing at the man who, against all probability, had met and answered his own equally improbable love, it occurred to him that, life having discovered to him such unlooked-for richness as this, he had tonight a new reason to love it better than ever.
At last he said, quietly, 'Oh, James. You always were so generous.'
He walked back over to James, folded his free arm round his waist and kissed him again with new strength and intentness. His firm grip, the almost searching movement of his lips and the yielding angle of his head downwards to James's all seemed to speak of those things of which he had been thinking, and they spoke also of the decision he had made.
James's own feelings were scarcely simpler than his. He was aware that, after this strange night, the loyalty for which he so admired Archie would still exist as a divide between them—he had hardly thought to make a Jacobite of him, by those arguments! But if Archie went with him now, there would be time for working out those other complications when they were safe over the sea—for over the sea they must both go if they were to evade capture, and James intended to keep Archie with him, if he would come. This was a thing which, in the mental revolutions of that night, now seemed not only comprehensible but desirable. And there would be time for many other things also, when they were together, and secure in the love which still seemed at once scarcely believable and unanswerably essential.
Flemington pulled back from the kiss, and looked at him for a moment with his dark eyes shining, and then said, 'Come, then—let us go.'
On realising that Flemington had probably gone to a rendezvous with James Logie, and possibly with Ferrier too, in the hut on the Muir, Captain Callandar had decided that further pursuit of the rebels was impossible. It had galled him inexpressibly to leave them there, being far too much like running away from a fight; but it would hardly have been good sense to attempt an ambush alone, for even accounting for Archie's injury, the rebels might outnumber him, and even a man with only one good arm could still use a pistol. So he had gone back to Huntly Hill to await the return of the corporal and the rest of the soldiers from Brechin. By the time they arrived it was too dark to do anything. Since dawn they had been out combing the Muir, and now, in the middle of the next afternoon, they were there still.
The tall pine trees along the edge of this part of the Muir waved their branches in a soft wind. Bees buzzed drowsily amongst the beds of wild thyme and the brilliant blooms of the heather. From a little pond fringed with damp green moss and rushes came the gentle, rhythmic croaking of a chorus of frogs, and higher up, the curlews which nested on the slopes flew over the ground and called in their strange bubbling voices. Of human presence, however, there had been no sign all day, save one or two locals passing back and forth across the Muir. They had, of course, seen nothing of the fugitives.
Nor had there been any word from the men he had left posted in Brechin and sent orders to watch for the reappearance of Flemington.
Callandar sat down on a pine stump and looked about him. Further searching was hopeless; they must give it up soon. Preparing to take the mental step of acknowledging this defeat, he raised his eyes for a moment to the sky, perhaps entreating help from Heaven. There was a bird—one of the curlews, it might be, or a gull; it was already too far away to tell—flying off into the distance, against the afternoon sky that was so blue it seemed tinged with gold.
All day he had been avoiding actually thinking of Flemington as a man—he whose loyalties, high in the Hanoverian ranks, trusted and apparently worthy of that trust, had seemed so sure, and his character so inscrutable. Callandar had been glad, despite everything—including the shame of himself being outwitted—that Flemington was not what he had seemed to be yesterday, the weak coward defeated by the pain of his old injury; but now, it seemed, there was something stranger in his flight. Archie might, he knew, turn up somewhere in a few weeks' time, having ostensibly recovered from his injury, with no thought that he was suspected, and then it would be Callandar's task to tell what he knew of him and have him arrested. But somehow he suspected that this would not happen. Flemington had kept too far ahead of him, and would outwit him again, or had already done so.
He wondered what was the tie between Flemington and James Logie, that the baffling young man had given up, or at least greatly risked, what must have been a very advantageous position as a double agent, for the sake of saving his—master? ally? friend? And he wondered, with more than the purely practical imagination of the hunter, where they were now...
But there was no use in such speculations. Wherever they were, it was clearly not on the Muir of Pert. He and his men must return to Brechin and regroup. Probably they would make some pursuit along likely routes towards the coast; but Callandar very much suspected that this search would be no more successful than today's had been.
With a sigh, he stood up, preparing himself to give the final orders to stop the search and return to Brechin. As he did so he glanced upwards again, and saw the bird vanishing into the mysterious distances of the sky.