ARCHIE came over the hill, lifting his feet high among the heather. He had changed in his aspect a little since the old Glasgow days. For one thing he had changed his tailor, which always makes a great difference. And three months of the fresh Highland air and outdoor exercise, and something too of the growing habit of a little authority and command, and that of having things done for him, of saying to this man, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and he cometh, had changed the looks of Archie. And another more subtle influence had changed him. His brow had cleared of an overhanging cloud, once too ready to come down at a moment’s notice. He held his head more erect. It was not perhaps that he was in reality more sure of himself—but at least he had somehow acquired the air of being so—and he was of course more accustomed and at ease in the habits of his new life.
He could not think why he had been called in this way; and did not indeed recognise Eddy, whose presence here on the top of the moor was the last thing any one could have expected. Eddy was not fond of long walks. To stroll down to the beach with his hands in his pocket, and when he had got there, to sit on a rock and throw stones into the water, was the hardest exercise he generally indulged in, except a day’s shooting now and then, when he showed himself, notwithstanding his indolence, as to the manner born—a thing which Archie could never do. But how he should have got up here without any motive was a thing which young Rowland could not understand. “Is it you?” he cried with surprise when he came near enough to recognise his guest.
“It’s just me—which I perceive is the formula here,” cried Eddy. “I’ve no right to invite you to sit down, as this is your own place; but I can recommend that ling bush. It’s dry, and there is no gorse about to prick into your vitals. Are you in a hurry, or can you wait a bit here.”
“Oh, I am in no hurry,” said Archie. “It’s not easy to be in a hurry when you’ve got nothing to do.”
“Do you think so? I’m always in a hurry and always late—though I have nothing to do.”
“I suppose it’s according to a man’s nature,” said Archie.
“Everything is that if you go to the bottom of things. You’re one of the restless fellows that want to be doing—I don’t. I love idleness,” said Eddy, stretching himself back over the ling, with his arms extended over his head and his eyes on the sky. The sky was covered with clouds, yet there was a break of blue just over Eddy’s head, which he regarded complacently as if it had been made for his special use.
“I was surprised to see you up so far—it’s a good climb from the loch side.”
“So it is;” said Eddy, “it was not for want of something to do. So long as there’s a billiard table handy, thank heaven, you never need be without occupation. If there’s nobody to have a game with, you can at least be improving your own play.”
“I did not think of that,” said Archie.
“No, for you don’t appreciate billiards,” cried the other, “which is a pity, for it’s a fine game. I say, Rowland, when are we to have another day’s shooting? This ball takes up a lot of time; but I hope you’ll take me out on the hills at least one day again before I go?”
“When you like,” Archie said shortly.
“Well, that’s curt,” said Eddy with a laugh. “And I always like, don’t you know. By the way, I’ve got a sort of a—favour to ask you. I don’t know what you’ll say.”
Archie did not make any reply but looked up, waiting without much excitement for the demand, whatever it might be.
“Well it’s this,” said Eddy embarrassed, which was almost a new sensation to him, and gave him a sense of youth and freshness which in its way was delightful. “I don’t know what you’ll say to me for asking such a thing. It’s not as if you had your governor out and a lot of big wigs. A couple of young fellows doesn’t matter.”
Archie kept his face towards his companion with the same look of indifferent expectation, but he said nothing to help him on.
“It is not even like an invitation to the house; and the ladies probably will not be coming out again.”
There was faintly indicated on Archie’s countenance a question as to this latter statement—a sort of interrogating curl in the curve of his eyebrows; but the young man was chary of his words, and spoke no more than was indispensable.
“It is getting late in the season you know,” said Eddy, “and cold for them.”
“They don’t mind the cold,” said Archie.
“Well it’s rather cutting up here, and Mrs. Rowland—isn’t so young as the girls. However, I’m afraid they didn’t care for my man when he appeared before. It was bad taste I allow, thrusting himself into the midst of our party. But I don’t pretend that he’s much in the way of breeding. He’s a good fellow—enough—and he never had any opportunity of this sort of thing when he was younger. It’s that man Johnson, don’t you know. He’s hanging about here. I am always knocking up against him. He would be awfully pleased if you’d ask him to come with us out shooting. And I don’t think he’ll do much harm.”
“Oh,” said Archie, “the college man.”
“Yes,” replied Eddy, wincing a little, “the college man.” He had not minded at all promulgating that fiction to the ladies. It was immense fun. To do him justice it had been struck off on the spur of the moment, without any intention; but to say it to Rowland, two fellows on the hillside, was a different matter. He began to pull up the tenacious roots of the ling with both hands, struggling with them, and did not meet Archie’s eyes. Nothing could be more innocent than Archie’s eyes, which suspected nothing. Archie had scarcely been conscious of Johnson’s presence at all. He had made no mental remarks as to the breeding or want of breeding of the stranger. He had no theories about a College Don. It is doubtful, indeed, whether he had any clear impression as to what that character was. Eddy added quickly, “He’s a little uncouth. They don’t see much society, these fellows. I would not mix him up with the ladies: but he would be awfully pleased—and when it’s only two young fellows on a moor, you and me—”
“Oh, I have no objections,” said Archie. “Ask him if you like, Saumarez; it was hardly necessary to take the trouble of asking me.”
“You are an awfully good fellow, Rowland!” said Eddy, struck with a faint and very temporary sense of shame.
“Oh, if that’s all,” cried Archie with a smile which lighted up his face. It pleased him that anybody should think so, and still more that Eddy Saumarez should think so. In the exhilaration of that encouragement he went a little further, as the simple giver pleased with his own liberality is so apt to do.
“If there is anything else we can do for him? I’ll tell Roderick to see that it’s all right. And we can go out any day you like. I’m not such a hearty sportsman as you. If it wasn’t a kind of duty—but it’s pleasant when somebody enjoys it,” he said with a glow upon his brightened face.
“I enjoy it—down to the ground,” said Eddy. “It’s not that there’s so very much game; but then one has it all one’s own way. Nobody poking in before you, saying, ‘My bird?’ and then a young fellow has to give in. You’re a lucky dog, Rowland—the cock of the walk so far as the moor goes, and thought no end of at home.”
“Do you think so?” said Archie, with a sort of painful gratification. “I’m afraid that’s more than I can believe. I’m a disappointment to my father, Saumarez. I don’t know what he expected, but he expected something very different from me.”
“They are always like that,” said Eddy, with the air of an authority. “They put you in a certain grind, and then they look out for something quite different. I am just the product of my training; but the Governor jaws at me as if I were a monster: though if all tales be true, he could have given me odds, at my worst.”
Eddy spoke with the composed expression of a man whose worst had been very bad, and who had fathomed all the secrets of life. Archie could not but look on with a certain respect, though his blameless mind recoiled a little from this man of knowledge. He had no experiences of his own save of the most trifling kind, to produce.
“The worst of it all,” said Eddy, “is the money. We have all that’s nice, you know, in the way of living, and places to go to and so forth, but never any money in our pockets. I don’t know if the Governor himself is much better. It all goes on quite smoothly, and I suppose it gets paid. I don’t know. I never have a penny to bless myself with.”
“Oh, there’s no want here in that way,” said Archie. He took out a card case from his pocket, and took a piece of paper from it. “Here is something my father gave me this morning, for extra expenses he said. I told him I had no extra expenses, but it was no use. And I don’t know what to do with it,” Archie said; “you can’t buy anything at Rosmore. I’ll pay it into my bank, which is his bank too, and there it will lie.”
“Good life, Rowland! No use!” cried Eddy, with eager eyes fixed upon the cheque. He took it out of his companion’s hand, and examined it, gloating over every line. “One hundred pounds, James Rowland,” he cried. “I wish I had a few signatures like that. I wish he’d take a few pieces of paper out of his pocket of this description and offer them to me.”
“I dare say he would,” said Archie, calmly, “if he knew you were in such great need of them; but you are just romancing on that score.”
“Romancing!” cried Eddy. “I romancing! It shows how little you know. You can’t think, Rowland, what temptations a young fellow is subjected to. And then all sorts of harpies about, thirsting for your blood. Before you know where you are, they’ve got you hard and fast, and after that you never dare call your soul your own. Why this fellow John——, I mean a man in London, has got his horrid thumb on me!—Romancing!” cried Eddy, “I’d give my little finger for a bit of paper like that—and one a day as long as they lasted for ever and ever.”
To see Archie’s countenance while his companion was speaking was an experience in its way. He raised himself erect the first minute out of his habitual lounging and careless attitude. His brow cleared more and more. He pushed his hat back, revealing it with the heavy ruddy hair, pushed back too, and standing up in a thick crest: his eyes so often overcast, or gleaming out in sudden gleams, half-timorous half-defiant, were bent steadily upon Eddy’s face with something celestial in their blueness—his mother’s eyes. He had never looked out upon the world so openly, so free, with so little self-consciousness, since the first day when his father’s heart had risen at the first look of him in the humble parlour at Sauchiehall Road; and there was something of a new-developed soul, something higher, something deeper in that look now.
“Would ye that?” he said, in his native tone and accent. He took up the paper where Eddy had laid it down, spread out upon the ling for admiration. “Your little finger would be of no use to me,” he said; “but if ye want this so much, and I don’t want it at all, take it, Saumarez. You are very welcome to it, and it’s little use to me.”
Eddy raised his eyes suddenly, with a gleam of eager covetousness, to the other’s face. They were hazel eyes, with a peculiar reddish gleam, and flashed out like lanterns on the steadfast blue of Archie’s look. Then a flush came over his face, and his eyelids, which were full and in many folds, went over these two lamps like curtains drawn. “Rowland, you cover me with shame,” he said, in a voice only half audible, trembling in the air.
“What for?” said Archie: as his countenance brightened, his tone went back more and more to that obnoxious Glasgow, which his father so disliked to hear. But though it was Glasgow, there was the very soul of music in Archie’s voice. It became soft and round and dewy and liquid, with the qualities of all melting things in one. “What for? when you want it so much, and me not at all. I have nothing to do with it; and you——”
“I have a hundred things to do with it,” cried Eddy, “if I could only tell you!—if you would only understand! But you wouldn’t—an honest fellow like you, that never had a thought you were ashamed of. Oh, yes, it’s life or death, that is about what it is! I could perhaps grapple on, and struggle out. Perhaps—I don’t know if it would be enough—— Oh, I say, Rowland, it’s too great a temptation. Put it away, back in your pocket. What does it matter what becomes of a wretched fellow like me!”
There was just enough reality in this struggle against himself to give to Eddy what was generally absent from his best endeavours—an air of truth. He did try to work himself up to the point of refusing this sudden windfall which had dropped into his very hand.
“Well,” said Archie, “don’t give it up for that. I have a little more in the bank. It is not very much; it’s about fifty pounds more. My father gives me an allowance. It’s a new thing for me to have all that money, and I just never spend it. What would I spend it upon here? I got two of Rankin’s little dogues—but they’re paid for, the little dashed beasts that have taken to—somebody else—that don’t care a button for me. Come, take it, lad: and if you’ll come to my room when we get home, I’ll give ye a cheque for the rest. If it was to buy anything, ye might demur, and say as well me as you; but when it’s to free you of something on your mind——”
“I should think it was on my mind,” Eddy said, not looking up at the other face which beamed benignant upon him. Archie perhaps, was never so much at ease with himself, so conscious of power and faculty, so flattered and gratified during his whole life.
“Well—and I have nothing on my mind,” he said with a happy laugh. He doubled up the cheque and thrust it into Eddy’s hand. “And just come to my room as soon as you get back—or perhaps——” He paused a little, wondering, as he had a favour to confer, which was the best way. “I’ll tell ye what’s the best. I’ll come to yours, and then there will be no difficulty,” Archie said.
He went down over the shoulder of the hill to Rosmore, never feeling for a moment the roughness of the way, laughing at himself as he stuck in a bog or stumbled over a rock, elated, happy, twice the man he was when he threaded slowly through the harsh bushes of the ling to where Eddy awaited him. What a half-hour that had been! He had never been able to be of use to any one all his life. The experience was quite new to him, delightful above all words. He did not even remember for some time that it was Rosamond’s brother whom he thus had it in his power to deliver from mysterious and unknown troubles. The first recollection of that additional inducement produced upon him indeed rather a sobering than an exciting effect. He divined instinctively that to Rosamond this would be a horror and humiliation. Heaven forbid she should ever know! He felt nothing but delight in being able to do something for Eddy, but the thought of Rosamond covered him with sudden cold dews of alarm. Never, never, must Rosamond know. She would blame him for it, Archie foresaw. It would raise a mountain of horrible obstacles between them. She would resent the mere possibility of such a link between her brother and himself. He must warn Eddy in the first place, who was so careless, who might let it out at any moment; and in the next, he must take every precaution that no one should ever discover what had passed. Even his cheque might be compromising to Eddy; there must be no way of betraying him, no possibility left. He turned over in his mind, as he hurried home, all the precautions that could be taken to conceal the transaction. Archie was not a man of business. He had little knowledge of the ways of banks and the manner of passing money from one hand to another. But when the heart is concerned, the mind becomes ingenious. And he had thought it well out, and how it was to be done, so that whatever secrets might be revealed, nothing of this should ever come out against Eddy, before he had reached home.
Eddy himself was too much ashamed of the part he was playing to walk home with the young man who had thus come to his help. There was so much grace left in him that he could not do that. He made the excuse that he was going a little way up the loch to speak to Alick Chalmers, the universal agent, about something that was wanted for the decoration of the ball-room, and when Archie had left him he stood watching his progress over the hill till he was out of sight. He had been really touched by Archie’s kindness, and by the absolute trust that young Rowland had showed in him, and something of compunction, something of unwonted tenderness was in Eddy’s eyes as he looked after that good Samaritan. “What a good fellow he is,” he said to himself; “but Jove! how badly he carries himself. To think he should treat a man like that whom he knows so little as he knows me; but I ought to have gone with him, for he’ll be on his nose before he gets down to the road.”
He could not but laugh at the manner in which Archie cannoned off a big boulder and nearly rolled down the hill at one point in his progress. His heart was still touched, but yet to be as awkward as that, was what no man had any right to be. Then he threw himself down on the heather again and thought, steadily following out with puckered eyebrows and a set face the scheme which had sprung to being in his brain when he set his eyes on the cheque which now kept him warm against his bosom. How much fun and frolic there was in that bit of paper, if he could have used it for his own pleasure. It gleamed across him that he might yet use it for his own pleasure and let everything slide; but there are some things that are more necessary than pleasure even to the most sordid mind. He had hailed this money as a benediction from heaven when it first dropped so unexpectedly into his hands, to enable him perhaps to arrange his most pressing affairs and deliver himself from a galling presence. But by the time Eddy rose from his seat among the heather, the most lively feeling he felt in his mind was resignation, and a sense that he was giving up his personal wishes in the noble way of paying an old debt, when he might have got so much fun out of the money! It was a wonderful change of view.
He took his way to the upper end of the loch, but not to see Alick Chalmers. He went on for a mile or two on the crest of the hill, and then dropped down upon a little cluster of houses on a little knoll among the harvest fields where the scanty crop was only being gathered in in the end of October. Johnson came out of one of those houses as the young man approached.
“If you’ve anything particular to say, let us go up the hill,” he said. “It aint safe talking in these little holes. They can hear you in the other room, if not next door.”
“What makes you think I have anything to say?”
“Well, there’s those invitations you promised me,” said Johnson.
“Promised you! I said I’d ask for you. I’ll get them if you’ll do what I want for me.”
“Not a farthing more money, Master Eddy; it’s no use speaking. To mention it even, would be as much as my place is worth.”
“You fool! who’s talking of money?” said Eddy.
They mounted up slowly till they came to a little green knoll, a sort of oasis in the waste of the heather.
“There’s nobody can listen here,” he said. “I’ve brought you a payment on account, Johnson. Look here, if you’ll get him to take this, and wait for the rest till I can get it——”
“I daren’t make such a proposal, Master Eddy; he’ll have all or none—the whole sum, every penny—or he’ll write and expose you.”
“Hold your tongue, I say. Look at it first and see—it’s as good as sovereigns counted out upon the table—it’s not like a bill or that sort——”
“You don’t suppose he’d take a bill of you!”
“You needn’t be so dead sarcastic,” said Eddy. “He’s had many a worse fellow than me to deal with. Look here, Johnson, a hundred pounds down—or perhaps I could make it a hundred and fifty. It’s a pity to refuse good money. If anything were to happen to me to-morrow; if you were to put some shot into me, for instance, on Friday on the moor——”
“Do you mean?” cried Johnson, his unwholesome white face lighting up with pleasure. “I can’t do what you want, Mr. Eddy, for it don’t depend upon me: but I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me, man. It’s the thing I’ve wished most.”
“And do you think,” said Eddy, “I’m going to do that for nothing? Not such a fool, my fine fellow. A hundred and fifty, Johnson—down; and as good as gold paid over the counter. Wire him that it’s an offer, and that you’ll be able to push business among the swells you will meet. I can introduce you to half the bigwigs about——, and if you don’t make something out of them.—But I must have that confounded paper back.”
“I don’t wonder that you say so; but it’s no use speaking. If I——it depended upon me! and Master Eddy, if I can do you a good turn another time I will. You never can tell when you may want a good turn.”
“I want this good turn—that confounded bit of paper, and a little ease of my life. Look here!—and there’s more where that came from.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Johnson. He took the cheque out of the young man’s hands and examined it closely. “Yes,” he said; “it’s as good as gold. Lord, what a pity, when he was doing it, he didn’t go a little bit farther and add a nought! Another nought, and just a little bit of change in one word. Bless us all, how easy he could have done it—a touch of the pen.” Johnson put his hand on the cheque, pointing out lightly here and there where the improvement could have been made. “The one would be just as easy to him as the other,” he said “And think! then you would be set right in a moment; that bit of paper given up, and everything squared. When you have a friend like this, why can’t you get him to do something that’s of real use? A hundred’s nothing; I would advise you to keep that for yourself. It might be of use to you for pocket-money. It’s of no use to us.”
“It’s precisely a hundred pounds’ worth of use,” said Eddy.
“Ah! if you take it in that way; but he wouldn’t take it in that way. He would say it’s the tenth part of our claim, and I’m not going to let a young fellow like that (he would say—mind, it’s not me) off for a tenth of our claim. How much more money (he would say) d’ye think we’d get out of him after he had his bit of paper back. No, no, Master Eddy, no use to try on that little dodge, he’s far too old a bird. But, so far as I am concerned, if there’s anything in a moderate way I could help you in, after what you’re going to do for me——”
“How do you know I’ll do it for you now? It’s nothing for nothing in this world,” said Eddy, fiercely. “If you don’t help me, why should I take any trouble? Your day’s shooting and your ball depend upon me, and I’m willing to see you through these and introduce you to all the bigwigs, but if I get nothing in return——”
“Only a word of advice,” said Johnson. “Go back to your friend, Master Eddy, and get him to alter that thing there; he could do it with a scratch of his pen. Another nought, and there’s nothing easier for a man, when it’s his own writing, to change a word. If it looks blotchy, don’t you know he puts his initials to show it’s all right—I’ve seen it done a dozen times—that’s all he’s got to do, and everything would be square. Take it back to him, Master Eddy, that’s my advice.”
“I think you’re the devil in person, Johnson,” was what Eddy replied.