Violet Jacob

“ Balnillo had missed it more than he knew since he had become a completely rural character.
Archie saw the Basin of Montrose drop behind him as he rode away with a stir of mixed feelings. The net that Logie had, in all ignorance, spread for him had entangled his feet. He had never conceived a like situation, and it startled him to discover that a difficulty, nowhere touching the tangible, could be so potent, so disastrous. He felt like a man who has been tripped up and who suddenly finds himself on the ground. ”

“ When Logie and Ferrier had posted a handful of men in the empty fort, they went on towards the barque’s moorings followed by the rest, and leaving a few to guard the mouth of each street that opened on the quay. The whole world was abed behind the darkened windows and the grim stone walls that brooded like blind faces over the stealthy band passing below. When they reached the spot where the ferry-boat lay that plied between Montrose and the south shore of the strait, two men went down to the landing-stage, and, detaching her chains, got her ready to push off. ”

“ It was soon evident that, though the guns on the hill commanded the Venture, their shot was falling short of her. As the sun heaved up from beyond the bar, the quays over the water could be seen filling with people, and the town bells began to ring. An increasing crowd swarmed upon the landing-stage of the ferry, but the boat herself had been brought by James to the shore of Inchbrayock, and nobody was likely to cross the water whilst the island and the high ground seaward of the town was held by the invisible enemy which had come upon them from heaven knew where. ”

“ A wretched lamp, stuck in a niche of an opposite building, made his position all the more desirable, for the flicker which it cast would be sufficient to throw up the figure of Logie should he pass beneath it. He watched a stealthy cat cross its shine with an air of suppressed melodrama that would have befitted a man-eating tiger, and the genial bellowing of a couple of drunken men came down the High Street as he settled his shoulders against the masonry at his back and resigned himself to a probable hour of tedium.
Not a mile distant, James Logie was coming along the Montrose road. ”

“ The world, this crystalline morning, was so beautiful to Archie that he ached with the uncomprehended longing to identify himself with perfection; to cast his body down upon the light-pervaded earth and to be one with it, to fling his soul into the heights and depths of the limitless encompassing ether, to be drawn into the heart of God’s material manifestation on earth—the sun. ”

“ He pushed him gently back, patting him now and again as a nurse might pat a restless child, and Archie grew calmer. The hand quieted him. Rough, dirty, guileful, profane as he was, without scruple or conscience or anything but the desire to do the best for himself, Skirling Wattie had got, lodged in body or spirit, or in whatsoever part of man the uncomprehended force dwells, that personal magnetism which is independent alike of grace and of virtue, which can exist in a soil that is barren of either. ”

“ The glow of the tulips and the strange house by the winding water, the slim vision of Diane de Montdelys, the gallant background of the Scots Brigade, the grave at Bergen-op-Zoom—these things were like a mirage behind the figure of James. The power of seeing things picturesquely is a gift that can turn into a curse, and that power worked on his emotional and imaginative side now. ”

“ His impulse was to draw his own pistol, and to shoot the spy dead, but Archie recovered his balance, and was grappling with him so that he could not get his arm free. The strength of the slim, light young man astonished him. He was as agile as a weasel, but James found in him, added to his activity, a force that nearly matched his own.
There was no possible doubt of Logie’s complete enlightenment, though he kept his crooked mouth shut and uttered no word. ”

“ I would as soon be your prisoner as anyone else’s—sooner, I think.”
“I cannot understand you!” exclaimed Callandar, taking possession of the weapon Archie had laid down.
“It is hard enough to understand oneself, but I do at last,” said the other. “Once I thought life easy, but mine has been mighty difficult lately. From here on it will be quite simple. And there will not be much more of it, I fancy.”
“You are right there,” said Callandar grimly.
“I can see straight before me now. I tell you life has grown simple.” ”

“ When the hills were behind the riders and the levels of the country had sunk and widened out on either hand, they crossed the North Esk, which made a shallow curve by the village of Edzell. The bank rose on its western side, and the shade of the trees was delightful to the travellers, and particularly to the prisoner they carried with them. As the horses snuffed at the water they could hardly be urged through it, and Callandar and Archie dismounted on the farther shore and sat on a boulder whilst they drank. ”

“ James was preoccupied, silent, restless, and David had sometimes felt him to be inhuman in his lack of interest in small things, and in his carelessness of all but the great events of life. And now, as Balnillo stepped forth at Lady Anne Maxwell’s door, he was hugging himself at the prospect of his return to the trimmings and embroideries of existence. He walked up the circular staircase, and emerged into the candle-light of the long, low room in which his cousin’s guests were assembled. ”

“ He had slept in as many strange places of late as had the dead beggar at his feet; anxious watching and lack of food and rest were levelling the outward man to something more primitive and haggard than the gallant-looking gentleman of the days before Culloden, yet there remained to him the atmosphere that could never be obliterated, the personality that he could never lose until the earth should lie on him. ”