Archie's tongue had been quiet enough. He was riding listlessly along, and, though he looked from side to side, taking in the details of what he saw from force of habit, they seemed to give him no interest. He puzzled Callandar a good deal, for he had proved to be totally different from anything that he had expected. The soldier was apt to study his fellow-men, when not entirely swallowed up by his duty, and he had been rather pleased when he found that Cumberland's brilliant intelligence officer was to accompany him down Glen Esk. He had heard much about him. Archie's quick answers and racy talk had amused the Duke, who, uncompanionable himself, felt the awkward man's amazement at the readiness of others, and scraps of Flemington's sayings had gone from lip to lip, hall-marked by his approval. Callandar was taciturn and grave, but he was not stupid, and he had begun to wonder what was amiss with his companion. He decided that his own society must be uncongenial to him, and, being a very modest man, he did not marvel at it.
But the sources of Archie's discomfort lay far, far deeper than any passing irritation. It seemed to him now, as he reached the mouth of the Glen, that there was nothing left in life to fear, because the worst that could come upon him was looming ahead, waiting for him, counting his horse's steps as he left the hills behind.
An apprehension, a mere suggestion of what might be remotely possible, a skeleton that had shown its face to him in sleepless or overwrought moments since Cumberland's victory, had become real. To most people who are haunted by a particular dread, Fate plays one of the tricks she loves so much. She is an expert boxer, and whilst each man stands up to her in his long, defensive fight, his eye upon hers, guarding himself from the blow he expects to receive in the face, she hits him in the wind and he finds himself knocked out.
But she had dealt otherwise with Archie; for a week ago he had been specially detailed to proceed to Angus to hunt for that important rebel, Captain James Logie, who was believed to have made his way southward to his native parts.
At Fort Augustus it was felt that Flemington was exactly the right man to be entrusted with the business. He was familiar with the country he had to search, he was a man of infinite resource and infinite intelligence; and Cumberland meant to be pleasant in his harsh, ungraceful manner, when he gave him his commission in person, with a hint that he expected more from Mr. Flemington than he did from anybody else. He was to accompany Captain Callandar and his three men. The officer, having made a last sweep of Glen Esk, was to go on by Brechin to Forfar, where he would be joined by another and larger party of troops that was on its way down Glen Clova from Braemar, for Cumberland was drafting small forces into Angus by way of the Grampians, and the country was filling with them.