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Updated: May 13, 2025
This is to be talked over, for again my course of life alters." Strickland took his chair. He leaned his arm upon the table, his chin upon his hand. He did not look directly at the man opposite, but at the bowl of flowers between them. "When a man has had joy and lost it, what does he do?" Glenfernie's voice was almost contemplative. "One man one thing, and one another," said Strickland.
It had hardly come, in this life, into Glenfernie's waking mind that it was there at all. Now with a suddenness every door clanged open. The mist parted, the thorn-wood sank, the web was torn. The palace stood, shining like home, and it was he who was afar, in the mist and the wood, and the web of idleness and oblivion in shreds about him. Set in the throne-room, upon the throne, he saw the queen.
Robin Greenlaw was in the field, coat off in the gay, warm weather. He came to Glenfernie's side, and the latter dismounted and sat with him under a tree. Greenlaw brought a stone jug and tankard and poured ale. The laird drank. "That's good, Robin!" He put down the tankard. "Are you still a poet?" "If I was so once upon a time, I hope I am so still. At any rate, I still make verses.
Glenfernie's tone was quiet, almost matter-of-fact. The blood had ebbed from his face; he sat there collected, a great quiet on the heels of storm. It was impossible not to admire the power that could with such swiftness exercise control. Strickland hesitated. He wished to speak, but did not know how far he might with wisdom. The laird forestalled him. "Sit down!
The latter knew of the worry about Jacobite plots and the drawing of Ian into that vortex Ian known now to be in Paris, writing thence twice or thrice during this autumn and early winter, letters that came to Glenfernie's hand by unusual channels, smacking all of them of Jacobite or High Tory transmissals. Strickland did not see these letters.
Her worn mantle, her wide sleeve, seemed to touch the deep stone sill. She was gone like a moth. Glenfernie's eye discovered a folded paper lying in the window. It had not been there five minutes earlier. Now it lay before him like a sudden outgrowth from the stone. He put out a hand and took it up. The woman was gone, the serving-man was gone. Outside flowed the river.
Jenny was missed. Lame now, she stayed at home and watched the passing, and talked to herself or talked to others. Gilian sat beside the old man. Behind were Menie and Merran, Thomas and Willy. Glenfernie's eyes dwelt quietly upon Jarvis and his granddaughter. When he willed he could see Elspeth beside Gilian.
Glenfernie, who would have wrestled with Grierson of Lagg at the edge of the pit; Glenfernie's mother and father, who might have had much the same feeling; their forebears beyond them with like sensations toward the Griersons of their day.... The long line of them the long line of mankind injured and injurers....
The laird of Glenfernie was not at Rome, in the Capitol, by Pompey's statue. He walked with Elspeth Barrow the feathery green glen. Davie appeared in the door. "A letter, sir, come post." He brought it to Glenfernie's outstretched hand. "From Edinburgh from Jamie," said the latter. Strickland laid down his book and moved to the window.
"I, too, I doubt not I, too!" Buried scenes in his own life rose before Strickland. Behind him scratched Glenfernie's pen, sounded Glenfernie's voice: "I am going to see presently if I can walk as far as the keep. In two or three days I shall ride. There are things that I shall know when I get to Edinburgh. He would take, if he could, the ship that would land him at the door of France."
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