"You were bound by the 'Scrap of paper,'" Whitney remarked.
Dick chuckled.
"Our politicians have left us nothing to say about that; but I'll admit there's something convenient in the other fellows' theory. I happen to know a little about scraps of paper and there are one or two I'd be glad to disown."
"So I thought!" Andrew interposed dryly.
"Oh," Dick laughed; "my frankness is always getting me into trouble."
Soon afterward they went down the hill, talking carelessly, but Elsie's eyes were grave when she saw in the distance small scattered figures moving across the heath. There was something ominous about the soldiers' presence on the quiet moors where the black-faced sheep had long fed undisturbed.
CHAPTER VII
THE GRAY CAR
It was one o'clock in the morning, but Andrew could not sleep. He sat by an open window, looking at the tops of the firs, which stood out in black silhouette. It annoyed him to be so wakeful, as he and Whitney were to make an early start for Edinburgh; but Andrew had something to think about, for he realized that his friendship with Elsie could not be resumed where it had broken off. She had grown up while he was away, and his feeling toward her had changed. To be regarded as an elder brother no longer satisfied him, and if he were not very careful, he would find himself in love with her. This was unthinkable: first of all, because he was lame and poor, and then because it was obvious that Elsie ought to marry Dick. She had no money; Dick had plenty and, besides, Dick needed her. Elsie would keep him straight, and his weak heart would cease to trouble him when he steadied down. Andrew had long cherished an affection for both of them, and he knew that Dick trusted him.
Then he reflected that Elsie's attitude toward Dick was to a large extent protective and motherly, which was not the feeling one would expect a girl to show for the man she meant to marry; and while Dick was obviously fond of her, his attachment, so far as one could judge, was not passionate. Besides, when one came to think of it, the suggestion that their marriage must be taken for granted had come from Staffer. He had, so to speak, delicately warned Andrew off.
Andrew firmly pulled himself up. He was being led away by specious arguments. It was easy to find excuses for indulging oneself and he had promised to look after Dick. If he tried to supplant his cousin in Elsie's affection, he would be doing a dishonorable thing. There was no getting around this; but it cost him an effort to face the truth.
A soft rattle of gravel down the drive attracted Andrew's attention. Rabbits sometimes got through the netting and one might have disturbed the stones as it sprang across; but he rejected this explanation. The sound was too loud, although he imagined that there was something stealthy in it. Anybody coming toward the house across the smoothly paved bridge, would have to walk on the gravel, as there was a flower border between the drive and the shrubbery. This had a narrow grass edging, but hoops were placed along it to keep people off.
Andrew leaned forward cautiously and looked about him. It was a calm night and not very dark, although there was no moon. He could see the firs near the house cutting black against the sky, and the blurred outline of a shrubbery beside the drive to the bridge. Thin white mist rose from the ravine, and beyond it a beechwood rolled down the hill. The air was warm, and the smell of flowers and wet soil drifted into the room. There seemed to be nothing moving, however, and the sound was not repeated. For a few moments Andrew waited, expecting to hear the intruder fall over one of the hoops that edged the drive. When this did not happen, he fixed his eyes intently upon the end of the shrubbery, and then he made out a very indistinct figure moving slowly through the gloom beneath the firs.
This was strange. He had never heard of any house-breaking in the dale, and there was nothing at Appleyard to attract a burglar from the distant towns. It was too late for a villager to keep tryst with one of the maids; and a poacher would not cross the well-fenced grounds. Andrew decided that he would not give the alarm, but he slipped across the room and opened his door quietly so that he could hear if anybody entered the house. Though he stood beside it, listening closely, he heard nothing. Then he returned to the window, and saw a dark form move back into the gloom of the trees. Presently there was another soft rattle of gravel near the bridge, and after that deep silence except for the splash of water in the ravine. Andrew imagined that about five minutes had elapsed since he heard the first sound, but the prowler had gone and he must try to solve the puzzle in the morning.
He got up early and went down to the drive before anybody was about. A fresh footprint showed plainly in the flower border near the bridge, close to an opening in the shrubbery by which one could reach the lawn, as if the man had meant to jump across and had fallen a few inches short. That he had not gone along the grass edging showed that he knew the hoops were there.
Andrew examined the footprint. It was deep and clearly defined, and he thought it looked more like the impress of a well-made shooting boot than of the heavy boots the country people wore. For one thing, he could see no marks of the tackets the Scottish peasant uses. Acting on a half-understood impulse, he covered the footprint up and strolled toward the gardener, who was just coming out with his rake.
"You have a big place to take care of, Fergus, but you keep it very neat," Andrew said.
"Aye," replied the gardener. "I'm thinking it's big enough."
"Have you help?"
"Willie Grant comes over whiles, when I've mair than ordinar' to do. He has a club foot, ye'll mind, an' is no' verra active, but there's jobs he saves me."
Andrew knew the man, and knew that he could not have sprung across the flower border.
"I see Tom is still at the stables, but the man who drives the car is new. How long have they had him?"
"A year, maybe. Watson's a quiet man, an' makes no unnecessar' mess, like some o' them. He leeves in the hoose."
"Then he doesn't get up very early."
"He's at Dumfries wi' the car. There was something to be sortit an' he took her there yestreen. Mr. Staffer's for Glasgow, the morn."
After a few remarks about the garden, Andrew strolled away. He had learned that the night prowler could not have been one of the men employed at Appleyard. The fellow had apparently not entered the house, and although he had stayed long enough to deliver a message to somebody inside, Andrew had not heard a door or window open. The matter puzzled him, but he determined to say nothing about it, although he was conscious of no particular reason for his reserve.
An hour later, Whitney and he started for Edinburgh, with Dick on the carrier of the motorcycle. The machine was powerful and they meant to travel by short stages and stop at points of interest for a walk across the hills. Andrew was glad to have Dick with them, particularly as he was dubious about the visits the boy was in the habit of making to Dumfries and Lockerbie. Dick generally returned late at night and did not look his best the next morning.
Whitney enjoyed the journey. He had understood that southern Scotland was the home of scientific agriculture, and in this respect the valleys came up to his expectations; but when they left them on foot, as they did now and then, they crossed barren, wind-swept spaces clothed with bent-grass and heather. In places, lonely hills rolled from horizon to horizon without sign of life except for the black-faced sheep and the grouse that skimmed the heath.
Andrew knew every incident in the history of this rugged country, and with a little encouragement he told tales of English invasions and fierce reprisals, of stern Covenanting martyrs and their followers' fanatical cruelties. Looking down from the heights of the Lammermuirs, they saw where Cromwell crushed his Scottish pursuers; they climbed the battlements of old square towers that had defied English raids, and traced the line of Prince Charlie's march.
Whitney found it rather bewildering. There was so much romantic incident packed into two or three centuries; but he felt that he understood the insular Briton better than he had done, and this understanding improved his conception of the native-born American. It was here that some of the leading principles of American democracy were first proclaimed and fought for. Another thing was plain