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Modern Web Development:
Understanding domains,
technologies, and user
experience

Dino Esposito
PUBLISHED BY
Microsoft Press
A division of Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, Washington 98052-6399
Copyright © 2016 by Dino Esposito
All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the
written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015934865
ISBN: 978-1-5093-0001-3
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
First Printing
Microsoft Press books are available through booksellers and
distributors worldwide. If you need support related to this book,
email Microsoft Press Support at [email protected]. Please
tell us what you think of this book at http://aka.ms/tellpress.
This book is provided “as-is” and expresses the author’s views and
opinions. The views, opinions and information expressed in this
book, including URL and other Internet website references, may
change without notice.
Some examples depicted herein are provided for illustration only and
are fictitious. No real association or connection is intended or should
be inferred.
Microsoft and the trademarks listed at http://www.microsoft.com on
the “Trademarks” webpage are trademarks of the Microsoft group of
companies. All other marks are property of their respective owners.
Acquisitions and Developmental Editor: Devon Musgrave
Project Editor: Steve Sagman
Editorial Production: Waypoint Press
Technical Reviewer: Marc Young
Copyeditor: Roger LeBlanc
Indexer: Toni Culley
Cover: Twist Creative • Seattle and Joel Panchot
 To my wife Silvia.
You make me feel sandy like a clepsydra. I get empty
and filled all the time; but it’s such a thin kind of sand that
even when I’m full, without you, I just feel empty.
—DINO
Contents at a glance
PART I UNDERSTANDING THE DOMAIN
CHAPTER 1 Conducting a thorough domain analysis
CHAPTER 2 Selecting the supporting architecture
CHAPTER 3 UX-driven design
CHAPTER 4 Architectural options for a web solution
CHAPTER 5 The layered architecture
Part II DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 6 ASP.NET state of the art
Whys, wherefores, and technical aspects of
CHAPTER 7
ASP.NET Core 1.0
CHAPTER 8 Core of ASP.NET MVC
CHAPTER 9 Core of Bootstrap
CHAPTER 10 Organizing the ASP.NET MVC project
CHAPTER 11 Presenting data
CHAPTER 12 Editing data
CHAPTER 13 Persistence and modeling
Part III USER EXPERIENCE
CHAPTER 14 Creating more interactive views
CHAPTER 15 Pros and cons of responsive design
CHAPTER 16 Making websites mobile-friendly
Contents
Introduction
PART I UNDERSTANDING THE DOMAIN
Chapter 1 Conducting a thorough domain analysis
Domain-driven design to the rescue
Introducing design driven by the domain
Clearing up common misconceptions about DDD
Introducing the ubiquitous language
Creating a vocabulary of domain-specific terms
Keeping business and code in sync
Introducing the bounded context
Discovering bounded contexts
Implementing bounded contexts
Introducing context mapping
Examining relationships between bounded contexts
Introducing event storming
Having unlimited modeling space
Finding events in the domain
Leading the discussion
Summary
Chapter 2 Selecting the supporting architecture
It’s all about business logic
Examining the application logic
Examining the domain logic
Exploring patterns for the business logic
Using a single model
 Exploring the elements of an object-oriented domain
model
Putting business rules inside
Discovering aggregates
Exploring the role of domain services
Implementing command and query separation
Working with the Command and Query Separation
principle
Implementing CQRS
Introducing message-based formulation
Ad-hoc infrastructure
Introducing event sourcing
Summary
Chapter 3 UX-driven design
Why a top-down approach is better than a bottom-up one
Foundation of the bottom-up approach
Planning with a top-down approach
Looking at user experience from an architectural perspective
UX is not UI
Explaining UXDD in three steps
Why UXDD is beneficial to nearly everybody
Summary
Chapter 4 Architectural options for a web solution
Assessing the available web solutions
Deciding on the best framework
Laying out a solution
Examining the role of ASP.NET Core 1.0
Considering ASP.NET as the starting point
 Examining the architectural dependencies in ASP.NET Core
1.0
Exploring the reasons to choose ASP.NET Core 1.0
Determining if you should use ASP.NET Web Forms
Examining a common scenario
ASP.NET Web Forms at a glance
What’s still good with Web Forms
Why you should move away from Web Forms
Determining if you should use ASP.NET MVC
ASP.NET MVC at a glance
What’s good with ASP.NET MVC
Weak points of ASP.NET MVC
Examining the role of ASP.NET Web API
Moving from WCF to Web API
Comparing ASP.NET Web API and ASP.NET MVC
Talking about REST
Using Web API in ASP.NET Core 1.0
Single-page applications
Setting up a SPA
Hybrid SPA
Weak points of a SPA
Summary
Chapter 5 The layered architecture
Beyond classic three-tier systems
Working with a three-tier architecture today
Fifty shades of gray areas
The presentation layer
The user experience
The input model
 The view model
The application layer
Entry point in the system’s back end
Orchestration of business processes
The domain layer
The mythical domain model
The equally mythical concept of domain services
A more pragmatic view of domain modeling
The infrastructure layer
Current state storage
Event stores
Caching layers
External services
Summary
PART II DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 6 ASP.NET state of the art
Web flavors
The web could have been different
Classic web is the winner
ASP.NET is feature-complete
No more to add is no more to add
Is it full potential or software obsolescence?
ASP.NET Core 1.0 has no new functions
It’s about the new runtime
It’s about the business model
It’s about the development model
What is the state of ASP.NET?
Chapter 7 Whys, wherefores, and technical aspects of
ASP.NET Core 1.0
The background of ASP.NET Core
The cost of a large memory footprint
Reconsidering the cloud as the silver bullet
Making the case for the necessity of a different
programming model
The impact on everyday work
The ASP.NET Core runtime at a glance
The DNX host
Hosting web applications in DNX
ASP.NET Core HTTP pipeline
ASP.NET Core for ASP.NET developers
Creating a new project
Application startup
Application settings
Authentication
Other aspects of web programming
Summary
Chapter 8 Core of ASP.NET MVC
Routing incoming requests
Simulating the ASP.NET MVC runtime
Exploring the URL routing HTTP module
Using application routes
Exploring the controller class
Looking at aspects of a controller
Writing controller classes
Processing input data
Manual parameter binding
 Model binding
Producing action results
Wrapping results
Returning HTML markup
Returning JSON content
Summary
Chapter 9 Core of Bootstrap
Bootstrap at a glance
LESS and the foundation of Bootstrap
Setting up Bootstrap
Putting Bootstrap into perspective
Responsive layouts
The grid system
Screen-based rendering
Taxonomy of today’s web elements
Restyling basic HTML elements
Restyling list HTML elements
A look at more advanced components
Bootstrap extensions
Autocompletion
Date picking
Custom components
Summary
Chapter 10 Organizing the ASP.NET MVC project
Planning the project solution
Mapping projects to the Layered Architecture pattern
Application startup
Examining application services
 Adding in other assets
Creating presentation layouts
Serving resources more effectively
Working with Bundling
Using minification
Examining other aspects
Exploring error handling
Configuring user authentication
Summary
Chapter 11 Presenting data
Structuring an HTML view
Exploring the view model
Examining the page layout
Presenting the elements of a view
Displaying a list of data items
Creating a grid view
Adding paging capabilities
Adding scrolling capabilities to page elements
Adding a detail view
Popover views
Drill-down views
Summary
Chapter 12 Editing data
A common form for the login page
Presenting the form
Processing posted data
Input forms
The Post-Redirect-Get pattern
 Form validation
Modal input forms
Quick tips for improving the user experience
Using date pickers is great, but...
Using autocompletion instead of long drop-down lists
Miscellaneous tips for large input forms
Summary
Chapter 13 Persistence and modeling
Examining the different flavors of a model
The persistence model
The domain model
The input model
The view model
Designing a persistence layer
Using an implicit and legacy data model
Using Entity Framework
The Repository pattern
Polyglot persistence
Polyglot persistence by example
Costs of polyglot persistence
Summary
PART III USER EXPERIENCE
Chapter 14 Creating more interactive views
Exposing JSON content
Creating JSON endpoints
Negotiating content
Solving the cross-origin puzzle
Designing a Web API
 Purpose of the ASP.NET Web API
Web API in the context of ASP.NET MVC
Securing a standalone Web API
Pulling content
The Ajax core
The jQuery tools
Binding data to the current DOM
Pushing content to the client
ASP.NET SignalR at a glance
Monitoring remote tasks
Other scenarios for ASP.NET SignalR
Summary
Chapter 15 Pros and cons of responsive design
Foundation of Responsive Web Design
A brief history of RWD
CSS media queries
RWD and device independence
Adapting RWD to non-desktop devices
Dealing with images
Dealing with fonts
Dealing with orientation
Summary
Chapter 16 Making websites mobile-friendly
Adapting views to the actual device
The best of HTML5 for mobile scenarios
Feature detection
Client-side device detection
A look into the future
 Device-friendly images
The ImageEngine platform
Resizing images automatically
Serving device-friendly views
What’s the best way to offer mobile content?
Server-side detection
Summary

Index

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Introduction
No later than the summer of 2008, I gave a few public talks about
the future of the web. Customers who hired me at the time heard
from this expert voice that the web of the (near) future would be
significantly different than what it was looking like in 2008. At the
time, the brilliant future of the web seemed to be in the hands of
compiled code run from within the browser.
JavaScript? It’s dead, at last! ASP.NET? It’s gone,
thankfully!
The future as I saw it back then (along with many other experts)
had only rich-client technologies in store for millions of us. And
Microsoft Silverlight stood at the center of the new web universe.
If you started hibernating in 2008 and woke up any time in the
past three or even four years, you found a different world than I, or
possibly you, had imagined. It was solidly server-side-based and
different from what the expectations were. Today, you find a web
world in which JavaScript reigns and, with it, a ton of ad hoc tools
and frameworks.
Customers who paid good money to hear my expert voice back in
2008 tell them to invest in Silverlight are now paying good money to
switch back more or less to where they were in 2008.
Well, not exactly.
This book comes at a weird time, but it’s not a weird book. Two
decades of web experience taught us that real revolutions happen
when, mostly due to rare astral alignments, a bunch of people
happen to have the same programming needs. So it was for Ajax,
and so it is today for responsive and interactive front ends. JavaScript
has been revived because it is the simplest way for programmers to
achieve goals. And because it is still effective enough to make
solutions easy to sell.
Planning a web solution today means having a solid server-side
environment to serve rich and interactive HTML pages, styled with
CSS and actioned by JavaScript. Even though a lot of new ad hoc
technologies have been developed, the real sticking points with
modern applications (which are for the most part web applications)
are domain analysis and the supporting architecture. Everything else
revolves around the implementation of a few common practices for a
few common tasks, some of which are relatively new requirements—
for example, push notifications from the server.
In this book, you will find a summary of practices and techniques
that guarantee effective solutions for your customers. The point
today is no longer to use the latest release of the latest platform or
framework. The point is just to give customers what they really want.
Tools to build software exist; ideas and plans make the difference.

Who should read this book

This book exists to help web developers improve their skills. The
inspiring principle for the book is that today we mostly write software
to mirror a piece of the real world, rather than to bend the real world
to a piece of technology.
If you just want to do your day-to-day job better, learning from the
mistakes that others made and looking at the same mistakes you
made with a more thoughtful perspective, then you should definitely
read this book.

Assumptions
This book assumes you are familiar with the Microsoft web stack.
This experience can range from having done years of Web Forms
development to being a JavaScript angel. The main focus is ASP.NET
MVC, because that will be the standard with ASP.NET Core and
remain so for the future of the ASP.NET platform. Here are some key
goals for readers of the book: learning a method general enough so
that you can start development projects with a deep understanding
of the domain of the problem, select the right approach, and go
forward with reliable coding practices.
This book might not be for you if...
If you’re looking for a step-by-step guide to some ASP.NET MVC or
perhaps Bootstrap, this book is probably not the best option you
have. It does cover basic aspects of both technologies, but it hardly
does that with the necessary slow pace of a beginner book.

Organization of this book

The book is divided in three parts: understanding the business
domain, implementing common features, and analyzing the user
experience.
Part I offers a summary of modern software architecture, with a
brief overview of domain-driven design concepts and architectural
patterns. The focus is on the real meaning of the expression domain
model and examining how it differs from other flavors of models you
might work with. Key to effective design today—an approach that
weds domain analysis and user experience—is the separation of
commands and queries into distinct stacks. This simple strategy has a
number of repercussions in terms of persistence model, scalability,
and actual implementation.
Part II begins with a summary of the ASP.NET MVC programming
model—the way to go for web developers, especially in light of the
new ASP.NET Core platform. Next, it covers Bootstrap for styling and
structuring the client side of the views and looks at techniques for
posting and presenting data.
Part III is all about user experience in the context of web
applications. Web content is consumed through various devices and
in a number of situations. This creates a need for having adaptive
front ends that “respond” intelligently to the requesting devices. In
this book, you’ll find two perspectives regarding client
responsiveness: a common responsive web design perspective and
the server-side device perspective.
So, in the end, what’s this book about?
It’s about what you need to do and know to serve your customers
in the best possible way as far as the ASP.NET platform is concerned.
At the same time, the practices and the techniques discussed in the
book position you well for participating in the bright future of
ASP.NET Core.

Finding your best starting point in this book

Overall, I see two main ways to approach the book. One is reading it
from cover to cover, paying special attention to software design and
architecture first and then taking note of how those principles get
applied in the context of common but isolated programming tasks.
The other approach consists of treating Part I—the part on software
design and architecture—as a separate book and reading it when you
feel it is necessary.

Most of the book’s chapters include hands-on samples you can use
to try out the concepts you just learned. No matter which sections
you choose to focus on, be sure to download and install the sample
applications on your system.

System requirements
To open and run provided examples, you just need a working edition
of Microsoft Visual Studio.

Downloads
All sample projects can be downloaded from the following page:
http://aka.ms/ModernWebDev/downloads
Acknowledgments
A bunch of great people made this book happen: Devon Musgrave,
Roger LeBlanc, Steve Sagman, and Marc Young. It’s a battle-tested
team that works smoothly and effectively to turn draft text into
readable and, hopefully, pleasantly readable text.
When we started this book project, we expected to cover a new
product named ASP.NET vNext, but the new product, now known as
ASP.NET Core, is still barely in sight. In light of this, we moved the
target along the way, and Devon was smart enough and flexible
enough to accept my suggestions on variations to the original plan.
Although you’ll find some information about ASP.NET Core in the
book, a new ASP.NET Core book is on its way. Ideally, it will be from
the same team!

Errata, updates, & book support

We’ve made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this book and its
companion content. You can access updates to this book—in the form
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If you discover an error that is not already listed, please submit it to
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 Part I: Understanding the
domain
CHAPTER 1 Conducting a thorough domain analysis
CHAPTER 2 Selecting the supporting architecture
CHAPTER 3 UX-driven design
CHAPTER 4 Architectural options for a web solution
CHAPTER 5 The layered architecture
Chapter 1. Conducting a thorough
domain analysis
Developers have to steep themselves in the domain to build
up knowledge of the business.
—Eric Evans

More and more developers and managers seem to agree that writing
software today is hard and getting harder every day. I, myself, can
see that software projects sometimes fail, exceed allocated budgets
or, when things don’t really go too bad, reach the production stage
only a few weeks late. I wonder why development projects so often
disappoint in this way and look around. I see some possible answers,
but I still I have no certainties to share with confidence.
When I find it hard to understand the mechanics of things, I try to
look back at the steps I went through and that reasonably led to the
current situation. At some point in my life, I was a teenager learning
about driving and parking cars. One day my dad challenged me to
take the car out of the tiny space he had parked it in.
“It’s impossible,” I said after 20 minutes of unsuccessful efforts.
“You’re wrong,” he said and patiently explained the maneuvers he
did to actually park the car. The message was clear: if there was a
way to pull it into the spot, there was a way to pull it out.
So the question that this chapter will attempt to answer is this:
what should we do to turn the process of writing applications into a
reliably successful process? I believe we have to change our current
perspective of software and, subsequently, the approach we take to
designing it.
Software is increasingly pervasive in our social and business lives.
Therefore, software is more frequently expected to mirror social and
business processes rather than approximate discrete models. But
modeling is what the current generation of software architects grew
up with.
Ultimately, writing software is not that difficult. And this is
especially true if you stop modeling and start planning it to just
mirror what you see in the real world.

Domain-driven design to the rescue

In today’s world, software adds value only when it meets true
requirements and helps streamline business processes. Software is
not necessarily about devising new business processes—there’s a
specific methodology for that, Business Process Management (BPM).
Software, instead, is about faithfully modeling segments of the real
world. These segments are effectively referred to as the business
domain.

Introducing design driven by the domain

As simple as it sounds, if those database-centric, client/server
applications we wrote for decades were still the best way to mirror
segments of the real world, probably nobody would have spent years
thinking and talking about Domain-Driven Design (DDD).
DDD is an approach to software design and development
introduced over a decade ago by Eric Evans with the clear intent of
finding a more effective way to tackle the inherent complexity of
software development. The major strength of DDD lies in the
systematic approach it offers to pinpoint and “crunch” aspects of the
business domain. DDD is revolutionary because it doesn’t rely on
increasingly powerful technologies or services to achieve business
goals through software. DDD is about understanding the core of the
business domain so that you, as a software architect, can find the
best tools to build the application. And these concrete tools may or
may not be the latest version of a given database or the most recent
service added to a given cloud platform.
In the end, DDD is just what its name says it is: design driven by
thorough analysis of the business domain. To enable you to conduct
such a thorough analysis of the business domain, DDD offers three
analysis patterns:
Ubiquitous language
Bounded context
Context mapping
I’ll go through all these patterns in the rest of the chapter.
However, I can’t ignore at this time that some misconceptions exist
regarding DDD. Therefore, before I delve deep into what DDD really
is, let me first bring up what DDD is not.

Clearing up common misconceptions about

DDD
In the original Eric Evans book (Domain-Driven Design: Tackling
Complexity in the Heart of Software, Addison-Wesley, 2003), DDD is
presented as a comprehensive set of best practices and principles for
more effectively designing and developing software projects,
especially large projects in complex business domains. DDD doesn’t
push new and revolutionary practices. It simply organizes and
systematizes existing and consolidated practices, putting the business
domain at the center of the universe.
DDD requires analysis of requirements, and then it goes through
the elaboration of a software model that matches the identified
business needs. Finally, it ends with the implementation of the
elaborated model. In the book, Evans uses the object-oriented
paradigm to illustrate the building of the software model for the
business domain. He calls the resulting software model the domain
model.
More or less at the same time, Martin Fowler (who, by the way,
wrote the foreword of the book) used the same term—domain model
—to name a design pattern for organizing the business logic of a
system. The Domain Model design pattern builds on the idea of
incorporating business rules and processes in the body of objects.
The net effect is a graph of interconnected objects that fully
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generalship was good enough to tell her the exact moment of
wavering in the enemy in front, the magic instant for a fresh attack.
“You are a bitter disappointment,” she said. “Life has brought me
many, but you are the greatest. I have had to go without some
necessities in my time, and I now shall have to go without you. But I
can do it, and I will.”
“You mean that you will turn from me altogether?”
“Am I not plain enough? I can be plainer if you like. You shall go
out of this house and go where you will. I do not care where you go.
But you are forgetting that I have some curiosity. I wish to
understand what has happened to you since you wrote your letter.
That is excusable, surely.”
“It is Logie,” said he. “He has made it impossible for me. I cannot
cheat a man who has given me all his confidence.”
“He gave you his confidence?” cried Madam Flemington.
“Heavens! He is well served, that stage-puppet Prince, when his
servants confide in the first stranger they meet! Captain Logie must
be a man of honour!”
“He is,” said Archie. “It was his own private confidence he gave
me. I heard his own history from his own lips, and, knowing it, I
cannot go on deceiving him. I like him too much.”
Madam Flemington was confounded. The difficulty seemed so
strangely puerile. A whim, a fancy, was to ruin the work of years and
turn everything upside down. On the top, she was exasperated with
Archie, but underneath, it was worse. She found her influence and
her power at stake, and her slave was being wrested from her, in
spite of every interest which had bound them together. She loved
him with a jealous, untender love that was dependent on outward
circumstances, and she was proud of him. She had smiled at his
devotion to her as she would have smiled with gratified
comprehension at the fidelity of a favourite dog, understanding the
creature’s justifiable feeling, and knowing how creditable it was to its
intelligence.
 “What has all this to do with your duty?” she demanded.
“My duty is too hard,” he cried. “I cannot do it, grandmother!”
“Too hard!” she exclaimed. “Pah! you weary me—you disgust me.
I am sick of you, Archie!”
His lip quivered, and he met her eyes with a mist of dazed trouble
in his own. A black curtain seemed to be falling between them.
“I told him every absurdity I could imagine,” said he. “I made him
believe that I was dependent upon my work for my daily bread. I did
not think he would take my lies as he did. His kindness was so great
—so generous! Grandmother, he would have had me promise to go
to him for help. How can I spy upon him and cheat him after that?”
He stopped. He could not tell her more, for he knew that the
mention of the hundred pounds would but make her more angry;
the details of what Logie had written could be given to no one. He
was only waiting for an opportunity to destroy the paper he carried.
“We have to do with principles, not men,” said Madam Flemington.
“He is a rebel to his King. If I thought you were so much as
dreaming of going over to those worthless Stuarts, I would never
see you nor speak to you again. I would sooner see you dead. Is
that what is in your mind?”
“There is nothing farther from my thoughts,” said he. “I can have
no part with rebels. I am a Whig, and I shall always be a Whig. I
have told you the plain truth.”
“And now I will tell you the plain truth,” said Madam Flemington.
“While I am alive you will not enter Ardguys. When you cut yourself
off from me you will do so finally. I will have no half-measures as I
have no half-sentiments. I have bred you up to support King
George’s interests against the whole band of paupers at St. Germain,
that you may pay a part of the debt of injury they laid upon me and
mine. Mary Beatrice took my son from me. You do not know what
you have to thank her for, Archie, but I will tell you now! You have to
thank her that your mother was a girl of the people—of the streets—
a slut taken into the palace out of charity. She was forced on my son
by the Queen and her favourite, Lady Despard. That was how they
rewarded us, my husband and me, for our fidelity! He was in his
grave, and knew nothing, but I was there. I am here still, and I
remember still!”
The little muscles round her strong lips were quivering.
Archie had never seen Madam Flemington so much disturbed, and
it was something of a shock to him to find that the power he had
known always as self-dependent, aloof, unruffled, could be at the
mercy of so much feeling.
“Lady Despard was one of that Irish rabble that followed King
James along with better people, a woman given over to prayers and
confessions and priests. She is dead, thank God! It was she who
took your mother out of the gutter, where she sang from door to
door, meaning to make a nun of her, for her voice was remarkable,
and she and her priests would have trained her for a convent choir.
But the girl had no stomach for a nunnery; the backstairs of the
palace pleased her better, and the Queen took her into her
household, and would have her sing to her in her own chamber. She
was handsome, too, and she hid the devil that was in her from the
women. The men knew her better, and the Chevalier and your father
knew her best of all. But at last Lady Despard got wind of it. They
dared not turn her into the streets for fear of the priests, and to save
her own son the Queen sacrificed mine.”
She stopped, looking to see the effect of her words. Archie was
very pale.
“Is my true name Flemington?” he asked abruptly.
“You are my own flesh and blood,” said she, “or you would not be
standing here. Their fear was that the Chevalier would marry her
privately, but they got him out of the way, and your father seduced
the girl. Then, to make the Chevalier doubly safe, they forced him to
make her his wife—he who was only nineteen! They did it secretly,
but when the marriage was known, I would not receive her, and I
left the court and went to Rouen. I have lived ever since in the hope
of seeing the Stuarts swept from the earth. Your father is gone, and
you are all I have left, but you shall go too if you join yourself to
them.”
“I shall not do that,” said he.
“Do you understand now what it costs me to see you turn back?”
said Madam Flemington.
The mantle had slipped from her shoulders, and her white hands,
crossed at the wrists, lay with the fingers along her arms. She stood
trying to dissect the component parts of his trouble and to fashion
something out of them on which she might make a new attack.
Forces outside her own understanding were at work in him which
were strong enough to take the fine edge of humiliation off the
history she had just told him; she guessed their presence, unseen
though they were, and her acute practical mind was searching for
them. She was like an astronomer whose telescope is turned on the
tract of sky in which, as his science tells him, some unknown body
will arise.
She had always taken his pride of race for granted, as she took
her own. The influx of the base blood of the “slut” had been a
mortification unspeakable, but to Madam Flemington, the actual
treachery practised on her had not been the crowning insult. The
thing was bad, but the manner of its doing was worse, for the
Queen and Lady Despard had used young Flemington as though he
had been of no account. The Flemingtons had served James Stuart
whole-heartedly, taking his evil fortunes as though they had been
their own; they had done it of their own free will, high-handedly. But
Mary Beatrice and her favourite had treated Christian and her son as
slaves, chattels to be sacrificed to the needs of their owner. There
was enough nobility in Christian to see that part of the business as
its blackest spot.
She had kept the knowledge of it from Archie, because she had
the instinct common to all savage creatures (and Christian’s affinity
with savage creatures was a close one) for the concealment of
desperate wounds. Her silks, her ruby earrings, her physical
indolence, her white hands, all the refinements that had accrued to
her in her world-loving life, all that went to make the outward
presentment of the woman, was the mere ornamental covering of
the savage in her. That savage watched Archie now.
Madam Flemington was removed by two generations from Archie,
and there was a gulf of evolution between them, unrealized by
either. Their conscious ideals might be identical; but their
unconscious ideals, those that count with nations and with
individuals, were different. And the same trouble, one that might be
accepted and acknowledged by each, must affect each differently.
The old regard a tragedy through its influences on the past, and the
young through its influences on the future. To Archie, Madam
Flemington’s revelation was an insignificant thing compared to the
horror that was upon him now. It was done and it could not be
undone, and he was himself, with his life before him, in spite of it. It
was like the withered leaf of a poisonous plant, a thing rendered
innocuous by the processes of nature. What process of nature could
make his agony innocuous? The word ‘treachery’ had become a
nightmare to him, and on every side he was fated to hear it.
Its full meaning had only been brought home to him two days
ago, and now the hateful thing was being pressed on him by one
who had suffered from it bitterly. What could he say to her? How
was he to make her see as he saw? His difficulty was a sentimental
one, and one that she would not recognize.
Archie was not logical. He had still not much feeling about having
deceived Lord Balnillo, whose hospitality he had accepted and
enjoyed, but, as he had said, he could not go “man-hunting” after
James, who had offered him a brother’s help, whose heart he had
seen, whose life had already been cut in two by the baneful thing.
There was little room in Archie’s soul for anything but the shadow of
that nightmare of treachery, and the shadow was creeping towards
him. Had his mother been a grand-duchess of spotless reputation,
what could her virtue or her blue blood avail him in his present
distress? She was nothing to him, that “slut” who had brought him
forth; he owed her no allegiance, bore her no grudge. The living
woman to whom he owed all stood before him beloved, admired,
cutting him to the heart.
He assented silently; but Christian understood that, though he
looked as if she had carried her point, his looks were the only really
unreliable part of him. She knew that he was that curious thing—a
man who could keep his true self separate from his moods. It had
taken her years to learn that, but she had learnt it at last.
For once she was, like other people, baffled by his naturalness. It
was plain that he suffered, yet she could not tell how she was to
mould the hard stuff hidden below his suffering. But she must work
with the heavy hand.
“You will leave here to-morrow,” she said; “you shall not stay here
to shirk your duty”; and again the pupils of her eyes contracted as
she said it.
“I will go now,” said he.
 CHAPTER IX
“TOUJOURS DE L’AUDACE”

“DOAG,” said the beggar, addressing the yellow cur, “you an’ me’ll
need to be speerin’ aboot this. Whiles, it’s no sae easy tellin’ havers
frae truth.”
Though Skirling Wattie was on good terms with the whole of his
team, the member of it whom he singled out for complete
confidence, whom he regarded as an employer might regard the
foreman of a working gang, was the yellow cur. The abuse he
poured over the heads of his servants was meant more as incentive
than as rebuke, and he fed them well, sharing his substance
honestly with them, and looking to them for arduous service in
return. They were a faithful, intelligent lot, good-tempered, but for
one of the collies, and the accepted predominance of the yellow cur
was merely one more illustration of the triumph of personality. His
golden eyes, clear, like unclouded amber, contrasted with the thick
and vulgar yellow of his close coat, and the contrast was like that
between spirit and flesh. He was a strong, untiring creature, with
blunt jaws and legs that seemed to be made of steel, and it was
characteristic of him that he seldom laid down but at night, and
would stand turned in his traces as though waiting for orders,
looking towards his master as the latter sang or piped, whilst his
comrades, extended in the dust, took advantage of the halt.
The party was drawn up under the lee of a low wall by the grassy
side of the Brechin road, and its grotesqueness seemed greater than
ever because of its entirely unsuitable background.
The wall encircled the site of an ancient building called Magdalen
Chapel, which had long been ruined, and now only survived in one
detached fragment and in the half-obliterated traces of its
foundations. Round it the tangled grass rose, and a forest of
withered hemlock that had nearly choked out the nettles, stood up,
traced like lacework against the line of hills beyond the Basin. In
summer its powdery white threw an evanescent grace over the spot.
The place was a haunt of Skirling Wattie’s, for it was a convenient
half-way house between Montrose and Brechin, and the trees about
it gave a comforting shelter from both sun and rain.
The tailboard of the cart was turned to the wall so that the piper
could lean his broad back against it, and there being not a dozen
inches between the bottom of his cart and the ground, he was
hidden from anyone who might chance to be in the chapel precincts.
The projecting stone which made a stile for those who entered the
enclosure was just level with his shoulder, and he had laid his pipes
on it while he sat with folded arms and considered the situation. He
had just been begging at a farm, and he had heard a rumour there
that Archie Flemington was gone from Balnillo, and had been seen in
Brechin, riding westwards, on the preceding morning. The beggar
had got a letter for him behind his sliding boards which had to be
delivered without delay.
“Doag,” said he again, “we’ll awa’ to auld Davie’s.”
Skirling Wattie distrusted rumour, for the inexactitudes of human
observation and human tongues are better known to a man who
lives by his wits than to anybody else. He was not going to accept
this news without sifting it. To Balnillo he would go to find out
whether the report was true. The only drawback was that “auld
Davie,” as he called the judge, abhorred and disapproved of
beggars, and he did not know how he might stay in the place long
enough to find out what he wanted. He was a privileged person at
most houses, from the sea on the east to Forfar on the west, but
Lord Balnillo would none of him. Nevertheless, he turned the wheels
of his chariot in his direction.
He wondered, as he went along, why he had not seen Archie by
the way; but Archie had not left Balnillo by the Brechin road, being
anxious to avoid him. What was the use of receiving instructions that
he could not bring himself to carry out? The last person he wished to
meet was the beggar.
Wattie turned into the Balnillo gates and went up the avenue
towards the stable. His pipes were silent, and the fallen leaves
muffled the sound of his wheels. He knew about the mishap that
had brought Flemington as a guest to the judge, and about the
portrait he was painting, for tidings of all the happenings in the
house reached the mill sooner or later. That source of gossip was
invaluable to him. But, though the miller had confirmed the report
that Flemington had gone, he had been unable to tell him his exact
destination.
He drove into the stable yard and found it empty but for a man
who was chopping wood. The latter paused between his strokes as
he saw who had arrived.
“A’m seekin’ his lordship,” began Wattie, by way of discovering
how the land lay.
“Then ye’ll no find him,” replied the woodman, who was none
other than the elder, Andrew Robieson, and who, like his master,
disapproved consistently of the beggar. He was a sly old man, and
he did not think it necessary to tell the intruder that the judge,
though not in the house, was within hearing of the pipes. It was his
boast that he “left a’ to Providence,” but he was not above an
occasional shaping of events to suit himself.
The beggar rolled up to the back-door at the brisk pace he
reserved for public occasions. A shriek of delight came from the
kitchen window as the blast of his pipes buzzed and droned across
the yard. The tune of the ‘East Nauk of Fife’ filled the place. A couple
of maidservants came out and stood giggling as Wattie
acknowledged their presence by a wag of the head that spoke
gallantry, patronage, ribaldry—anything that a privileged old rogue
can convey to young womanhood blooming near the soil. A groom
came out of the stable and joined the group.
 The feet of the girls were tapping the ground. The beggar’s
expression grew more genially provocative, and his eyeballs rolled
more recklessly as he blew and blew; his time was perfect. The
groom, who was dancing, began to compose steps on his own
account. Suddenly there was a whirl of petticoats, and he had seized
one of the girls round the middle.
They spun and counter-spun; now loosing each other for the more
serious business of each one’s individual steps, now enlacing again,
seeming flung together by some resistless elemental wind. The
man’s gaze, while he danced alone, was fixed on his own feet as
though he were chiding them, admiring them, directing them
through niceties which only himself could appreciate. His partner’s
hair came down and fell in a loop of dull copper-colour over her
back. She was a finely-made girl, and each curve of her body
seemed to be surging against the agitated sheath of her clothes.
The odd-woman-out circled round the pair like a fragment thrown off
by the spin of some travelling meteor. The passion for dancing that
is even now part of the life of Angus had caught all three, let loose
upon them by the piper’s handling of sound and rhythm.
In the full tide of their intoxication, a door in the high wall of the
yard opened and Lord Balnillo came through it. The fragment broke
from its erratic orbit and fled into the house with a scream; the
meteor, a whirling twin-star, rushed on, unseeing. The piper, who
saw well enough, played strong and loud; not the king himself could
have stopped him in the middle of a strathspey. The yellow dog, on
his feet among his reposing companions, showed a narrow white line
between his lips, and the hackles rose upon his plebeian neck.
“Silence!” cried Lord Balnillo. But the rest of his words were
drowned by the yell of the pipes.
As the dancers drew asunder again, they saw him and stopped.
His wrath was centred on the beggar, and man and maid slunk away
unrebuked.
Wattie finished his tune conscientiously. To Balnillo, impotent in
the hurricane of braying reeds, each note that kept him dumb was a
new insult, and he could see the knowledge of that fact in the
piper’s face. As the music ceased, the beggar swept off his bonnet,
displaying his disreputable bald head, and bowed like the sovereign
of some jovial and misgoverned kingdom. The yellow dog’s attitude
forbade Balnillo’s nearer approach.
“Go!” shouted the judge, pointing a shaking forefinger into space.
“Out with you instantly! Is my house to be turned into a house of
call for every thief and vagabond in Scotland? Have I not forbidden
you my gates? Begone from here immediately, or I will send for my
men to cudgel you out!”
But he leaped back, for he had taken a step forward in his
excitement, and the yellow cur’s teeth were bare.
“A’m seekin’ the painter-laddie,” said the beggar, giving the dog a
good-humoured cuff.
“Away with you!” cried the other, unheeding. “You are a plague to
the neighbourhood. I will have you put in Montrose jail! To-morrow,
I promise you, you will find yourself where you cannot make
gentlemen’s houses into pandemoniums with your noise.”
“A’d like Brechin better,” rejoined the beggar; “it’s couthier in
there.”
Balnillo was a humane man, and he prided himself, as all the
world knew, on some improvements he had suggested in the
Montrose prison. He was speechless.
“Ay,” continued Wattie, “a’m thinkin’ you’ve sent mony a better
man than mysel’ to the tolbooth. But, dod! a’m no mindin’ that. A’m
asking ye, whaur’s the painter-lad?”
One of Balnillo’s fatal qualities was his power of turning in mid-
career of wrath or eloquence to daily with side-issues.
He swallowed the fury rising to his lips.
“What! Mr. Flemington?” he stammered. “What do you want of Mr.
Flemington?”
 “Is yon what they ca’ him? Well, a’m no seekin’ onything o’ him.
It’s him that’s seekin’ me.”
Astonishment put everything else out of Balnillo’s mind. He glared
at the intruder, his lips pursed, his fingers working.
“He tell’t me to come in-by to the muckle hoose and speer for
him,” said the other. “There was a sang he was needin’. He was
seekin’ to lairn it, for he liket it fine, an’ he tell’t me to come awa’ to
the hoose and lairn him. Dod! maybe he’s forgotten. Callants like
him’s whiles sweer to mind what they say, but auld stocks like you
an’ me’s got mair sense.”
“I do not believe a word of it,” protested Balnillo.
“Hoots! ye’ll hae to try, or the puir lad ’ll no get his sang,”
exclaimed Skirling Wattie, smiling broadly. “Just you cry on him to
come down the stair, an’ we’ll awa’ ahint the back o’ yon wa’, an’ a’ll
lairn him the music! It’s this way.”
He unscrewed the chanter and blew a few piercing notes. The
sound flew into the judge’s face like the impact of a shower of
pebbles. He clapped his hands to his ears.
“I tell you Mr. Flemington is not here!” he bawled, raising his voice
above the din. “He is gone. He is at Ardguys by this time.”
“Man, is yon true? Ye’re no leein’?” exclaimed Wattie, dropping his
weapon.
“Is yon the way to speak to his lordship?” said the deep voice of
Andrew Robieson, who had come up silently, his arms full of wood,
behind the beggar’s cart.
“Turn this vagabond away!” exclaimed Balnillo, almost beside
himself. “Send for the men; bring a horsewhip from the stable!
Impudent rogue! Go, Robieson—quick, man!”
But Wattie’s switch was in his hand, and the dogs were already
turning; before the elder had time to reach the stables, he had
passed out under the clock and was disappearing between the trees
of the avenue. He had learned what he wished to know, and the
farther side of Brechin would be the best place for him for the next
few days. He reflected that fortune had favoured him in keeping
Captain Logie out of the way. There would have been no parleying
with Captain Logie.
BOOK II
 CHAPTER X
ADRIFT

ARCHIE rode along in a dream. He had gone straight out of the

garden, taken his horse from the stable, and ridden back to Forfar,
following the blind resolution to escape from Ardguys before he
should have time to realize what it was costing him. He had changed
horses at the posting-house, and turned his face along the way he
had come. Through his pain and perplexity the only thing that stood
fast was his determination not to return to Balnillo. “I will go now,”
he had said to Madam Flemington, and he had gone without another
word, keeping his very thoughts within the walled circle of his
resolution, lest they should turn to look at familiar things that might
thrust out hands full of old memories to hold him back.
In the middle of his careless life he found himself cut adrift
without warning from those associations that he now began to feel
he had valued too little, taken for granted too much.
Balnillo was impossible for him, and in consequence he was to be
a stranger in his own home. Madam Flemington had made no
concession and had put no term to his banishment, and though he
could not believe that such a state of things could last, and that one
sudden impulse of hers could hurl him out of her life for ever, she,
who had lived for him, had told him that she would “do without
him.” Then, as he assured himself of this, from that dim recess
wherein a latent truth hides until some outside light flashes upon its
lair, came the realization that she had not lived for him alone. She
had lived for him that she might make him into the instrument she
desired, a weapon fashioned to her hand, wherewith she might
return blow for blow.
 All at once the thought made him spiritually sick, and the glory
and desirableness of life seemed to fade. He could not see through
its dark places, dark where all had been sunshine. He had been a
boy yesterday, a man only by virtue of his astounding courage and
resource, but he was awakening from boyhood, and manhood was
hard. His education had begun, and he could not value the
education of pain—the soundest, the most costly one there is—any
more than any of us do whilst it lasts. He did not think, any more
than any of us think, that perhaps when we come to lie on our
death-beds we shall know that, of all the privileges of the life behind
us, the greatest has been the privilege of having suffered and
fought.
All he knew was that his heart ached, that he had disappointed
and estranged the person he loved best, and had lost, at any rate
temporarily, the home that had been so dear. But hope would not
desert him, in spite of everything. Madam Flemington had gone very
wide of the mark in suspecting him of any leaning towards the
Stuarts, and she would soon understand how little intention he had
of turning rebel. There was still work for him to do. He had been
given a free hand in details, and he would go to Brechin for the
night; to-morrow he must decide what to do. Possibly he would ask
to be transferred to some other place. But nothing that heaven or
earth could offer him should make him betray Logie.
Madam Flemington had seen him go, in ignorance of whether he
had gone in obedience or in revolt. Perhaps she imagined that her
arguments and the hateful story she had laid bare to him had
prevailed, and that he was returning to his unfinished portrait. In the
excitement of his interview with her, he had not told her anything
but that he refused definitely to spy upon James any more.
He had started for Ardguys so early, and had been there such a
short time, that he was back in Forfar by noon. There he left his
horse, and, mounting another, set off for Brechin. He was within
sight of its ancient round tower, grey among the yellowing trees
above the South Esk, when close to his left hand there rose the shrill
screech of a pipe, cutting into his abstraction of mind like a sharp
stab of pain. It was so loud and sudden that the horse leaped to the
farther side of the road, snorting, and Flemington, sitting loosely,
nearly lost his seat. He pulled up the astonished animal, and peered
into a thicket of alder growing by the wayside. The ground was
marshy, and the stunted trees were set close, but, dividing their
branches, he saw behind their screen an open patch in the midst of
which was Skirling Wattie’s cart. His jovial face seemed to illuminate
the spot.
“Dod!” exclaimed the piper, “ye was near doon! A’d no seek to
change wi’ you. A’m safer wi’ ma’ doags than you wi’ yon horse.
What ailed ye that ye gae’d awa’ frae Balnillo?”
“Private matters,” said Archie shortly.
“Aweel, they private matters was no far frae putting me i’ the
tolbooth. What gar’d ye no tell me ye was gaein’?”
“Have you got a letter for me?” said Flemington, as Wattie began
to draw up his sliding-board.
“Ay, there’s ane. But just wait you, ma lad, till a tell ye what a was
sayin’ to auld Davie——”
“Never mind what you said to Lord Balnillo,” broke in Flemington;
“I want my letter.”
He slipped from the saddle and looped the rein over his arm.
“Dinna bring yon brute near me!” cried Wattie, as horse and man
began to crush through the alders. “A’m fell feared o’ they unchancy
cattle.”
Archie made an impatient sound and threw the rein over a stump.
He approached the cart, and the yellow dog, who was for once lying
down, opened his wary golden eyes, watching each movement that
brought the intruder nearer to his master without raising his head.
“You are not often on this side of Brechin,” said Archie, as the
beggar handed him the packet.
“Fegs, na!” returned Wattie, “but auld Davie an’ his tolbooth’s on
the ither side o’t an’ it’s no safe yonder. It’s yersel’ I hae to thank for
that, Mr. Flemington. A didna ken whaur ye was, sae a gae’d up to
the muckle hoose to speer for ye. The auld stock came doon himsel’.
Dod! the doag gar’d him loup an’ the pipes gar’d him skelloch. But
he tell’t me whaur ye was.”
“Plague take you! did you go there asking for me?” cried Archie.
“What was a to dae? A tell’t Davie ye was needin’ me to lairn ye a
sang! ‘The painter-lad was seekin’ me,’ says I, ‘an’ he tell’t me to
come in-by.’”
Flemington’s annoyance deepened. He did not know what the zeal
of this insufferable rascal had led him to say or do in his name, and
he had the rueful sense that the tangle he had paid such a heavy
price to escape from was complicating round him. The officious
familiarity of the piper exasperated him, and he resented
Government’s choice of such a tool. He put the letter in his pocket,
and began to back out of the thicket. He would read his instructions
by himself.
“Hey! ye’re no awa’, man?” cried Wattie.
“I have no time to waste,” said Flemington, his foot in the stirrup.
“But ye’ve no tell’t me whaur ye’re gaein’!”
“Brechin!”
Archie called the word over his shoulder, and started off at a trot,
which he kept up until he had left the alder-bushes some way
behind him.
Then he broke the seal of his letter, and found that he was to
convey the substance of each report that he sent in, not only to His
Majesty’s intelligence officer at Perth, but to Captain Hall, of the
English ship Venture, that was lying under Ferryden. He was to
proceed at once to the vessel, to which further instructions for him
would be sent in a couple of days’ time.
He pocketed the letter and drew a breath of relief, blessing the
encounter that he had just cursed, for a road of escape from his
present difficulty began to open before him. He must take to his own
feet on the other side of Brechin, and go straight to the Venture. He
would be close to Montrose, in communication with it, though not
within the precincts of the town, and safe from the chance of
running against Logie. Balnillo and his brother would not know what
had become of him, and Christian Flemington would be cured of her
suspicions by the simple testimony of his whereabouts.
He would treat the two days that he had spent at the judge’s
house as if they had dropped out of his life, and merely report his
late presence in Montrose to the captain of the sloop. He would
describe his watching of the two men who came out of ‘The Happy
Land,’ and how he had followed them to the harbour through the
darkness; how he had seen them stop opposite the ship’s light as
they discussed their plans; how he had tried to secure the paper
they held. He would tell the captain that he believed some design
against the ship to be on foot, but he would not let Logie’s name
pass his lips; and he would deny any knowledge of the identity of
either man, lest the mention of Ferrier should confirm the suspicions
of those who guessed he was working with James. When he had
reported himself to Perth from the ship, he would no longer be
brought into contact with Skirling Wattie, which at that moment
struck him as an advantage.
The evenings had begun to close in early. As he crossed the Esk
bridge and walked out of Brechin, the dusk was enwrapping its
parapet like a veil. He hurried on, and struck out along the road that
would lead him to Ferryden by the southern shore of the Basin. His
way ran up a long ascent, and when he stood at the top of the hill
the outline of the moon’s disc was rising, faint behind the thin cloudy
bank that rested on the sea beyond Montrose. There was just
enough daylight left to show him the Basin lying between him and
the broken line of the town’s twinkling lights under the muffled
moon.
It was quite dark when he stood at last within hail of the Venture.
As he went along the bank at the Esk’s mouth, he could see before
him the cluster of houses that formed Ferryden village, and the
North Sea beyond it, a formless void in the night, with the tide far
out. Though the moon was well up, the cloud-bank had risen with
her, and taken all sharpness out of the atmosphere.
At his left hand the water crawled slithering at the foot of the
sloping bank, like a dark, full-fed snake, and not thirty yards out,
just where it broadened, stretching to the quays of Montrose, the
vessel lay at anchor, a stationary blot on the slow movement.
Upstream, between her and the Basin, the wedge-shaped island of
Inchbrayock split the mass of water into two portions.
Flemington halted, taking in the dark scene, which he had
contemplated from its reverse side only a few nights ago. Then he
went down to the water and put his hands round his mouth.
“Venture ahoy!” he shouted.
There was no movement on the ship. He waited, and then called
again, with the same result. Through an open porthole came a
man’s laugh, sudden, as though provoked by some unexpected jest.
The water was deep here, and the ship lay so near that every word
was carried across it to the shore.
The laugh exasperated him. He threw all the power of his lungs
into another shout.
“Who goes there?” said a voice.
“Friend,” replied Archie; and, fearing to be asked for a
countersign, he called quickly, “Despatches for Captain Hall.”
“Captain Hall is ashore,” announced a second voice, “and no one
boards us till he returns.”
The Venture was near enough to the bank for Archie to hear some
derisive comment, the words of which he could not completely
distinguish. A suppressed laugh followed.
“Damn it!” he cried, “am I to be kept here all night?”
“Like enough, if you mean to wait for the captain.”
This reply came from the open porthole, in which the light was
obliterated by the head of the man who spoke.
 There was a sound as of someone pulling him back by the heels,
and the port was an eye of light again.
Flemington turned and went up the bank, and as he reached the
top and sprang on to the path he ran into a short, stoutish figure
which was beginning to descend. An impatient expletive burst from
it.
“You needn’t hurry, sir,” said Archie, as the other hailed the vessel
querulously; “you are not likely to get on board?”
“What? what? Not board my own ship?”
Flemington was a good deal taken aback. He could not see much
in the clouded night, but no impression of authority seemed to
emanate from the indistinguishable person beside him.
“Ten thousand pardons, sir!” exclaimed the young man. “You are
Captain Hall? I have information for you, and am sent by His
Majesty’s intelligence officer in Perth to report myself to you.
Flemington is my name.”
For a minute the little man said nothing, and Archie felt rather
than saw his fidgety movements. He seemed to be hesitating.
A boat was being put off from the ship. She lay so near to them
that a mere push from her side brought the craft almost into the
bank.
“It is so dark that I must show you my credentials on board,” said
Archie, taking Captain Hall’s acquiescence for granted.
He heard his companion drawing in his breath nervously through
his teeth. No opposition was made as he stepped into the boat.
When he stood on deck beside Hall the ship was quiet and the
sounds of laughter were silent. He had the feeling that everyone on
board had got out of the way on purpose as he followed the captain
down the companion to his cabin. As the latter opened the door the
light within revealed him plainly for the first time.
He was a small ginger-haired man, whose furtive eyes were set
very close to a thin-bridged, aquiline nose; his gait was remarkable
because he trotted rather than walked; his restless fingers rubbed
one another as he spoke. He looked peevish and a little dissipated,
and his manner conveyed the idea that he felt himself to have no
business where he was. As Archie remarked that, he told himself
that it was a characteristic he had never yet seen in a seaman. His
dress was careless, and a wine-stain on his cravat caught his
companion’s eye. He had the personality of a rabbit.
Hall did not sit down, but stood at the farther side of the table
looking with a kind of grudging intentness at his guest, and
Flemington was inclined to laugh, in spite of the heavy heart he had
carried all day. The other moved about with undecided steps. When
at last he sat down, just under the swinging lamp, Archie was
certain that, though he could be called sober, he had been drinking.
“Your business, sir,” he began, in a husky voice. “I must tell you
that I am fatigued. I had hoped to go to bed in peace.”
He paused, leaning back, and surveyed Flemington with injured
distaste.
“There is no reason that you should not,” replied Archie boldly. “I
have had a devilish hard day myself. Give me a corner to lie in to-
night, and I will give you the details of my report quickly.”
He saw that he would meet with no opposition from Hall, whose
one idea was to spare himself effort, and that his own quarters on
board the Venture were sure. No doubt long practice had enabled
the man to look less muddled than he felt. He sat down opposite to
him.
The other put out his hand, as though to ward him off.
“I have no leisure for business to-night,” he said. “This is not the
time for it.”
“All the same, I have orders from Perth to report myself to you, as
I have told you already,” said Archie. “If you will listen, I will try to
make myself clear without troubling you to read anything. I have
information to give which you should hear at once.”
“I tell you that I cannot attend to you,” said Hall.
 “I shall not keep you long. You do not realize that it is important,
sir.”
“Am I to be dictated to?” exclaimed the other, raising his voice.
“This is my own ship, Mr. Flem—Fling—Fl——”
The name presented so much difficulty to Hall that it died away in
a tangled murmur, and Archie saw that to try to make him
understand anything important in his present state would be labour
lost.
“Well, sir,” said he, “I will tell you at once that I suspect an attack
on you is brewing in Montrose. I believe that it may happen at any
moment. Having delivered myself of that, I had best leave you.”
The word “attack” found its way to the captain’s brain.
“It’s impossible!” he exclaimed crossly. “Why, plague on’t, I’ve got
all the town guns! Nonsense, sir—no’sense! Come, I will call for a
bottle of wine, ’n you can go. There’s an empty bunk, I s’pose.”
The order was given and the wine was brought. Archie noticed
that the man who set the bottle and the two glasses on the table
threw a casual look at Hall’s hand, which shook as he helped his
guest. He had eaten little since morning, and drunk less. Now that
he had attained his object, and found himself in temporary shelter
and temporary peace, be realized how glad he was of the wine.
When, after a single glassful, he rose to follow the sailor who came
to show him his bunk, he turned to bid good-night to Hall. The light
hanging above the captain’s head revealed every line, every contour
of his face with merciless candour; and Flemington could see that no
lover, counting the minutes till he should be left with his mistress,
had ever longed more eagerly to be alone with her than this man
longed to be alone with the bottle before him.
Archie threw himself thankfully into his bunk. There was evidently
room for him on the ship, for there was no trace of another
occupant in the little cabin; nevertheless, it looked untidy and
unswept. The port close to which he lay was on the starboard side of
the vessel, and looked across the strait towards the town. The lamps
were nearly all extinguished on the quays, and only here and there a
yellow spot of light made a faint ladder in the water. The pleasant
trickling sound outside was soothing, with its impersonal,
monotonous whisper. He wondered how long Hall would sit
bemusing himself at the table, and what the discipline of a ship
commanded by this curiously ineffective personality could be. To-
morrow he must make out his story to the little man. He could not
reproach himself with having postponed his report, for he knew that
Hall’s brain, which might possibly be clearer in the morning, was
incapable of taking in any but the simplest impressions to-night.
Tired as he was, he did not sleep for a long time. The scenes of
the past few days ran through his head one after another—now they
appeared unreal, now almost visible to his eyes. Sometimes the
space of time they covered seemed age-long, sometimes a passing
flash. This was Saturday night, and all the events that had
culminated in the disjointing of his life had been crowded into it
since Monday. On Monday he had not suspected what lay in himself.
He would have gibed had he been told that another man’s
personality, a page out of another man’s history, could play such
havoc with his own interests.
He wondered what James was doing. Was he—now—over there in
the darkness, looking across the rolling, sea-bound water straight to
the spot on which he lay? Would he—could space be obliterated and
night illumined—look up to find his steady eyes upon him? He lay
quiet, marvelling, speculating. Then Logie, the shadowy town, the
burning autumn-trees of Balnillo, the tulips round the house in far-
away Holland, fell away from his mind, and in their place was the
familiar background of Ardguys, the Ardguys of his childhood, with
the silver-haired figure of Madam Flemington confronting him; that
terrible, unsparing presence wrapped about with something greater
and more arresting than mere beauty; the quality that had wrought
on him since he was a little lad. He turned about with a convulsive
breath that was almost a sob.
Then, at last, he slept soundly, to be awakened just at dawn by
the roar of a gun, followed by a rattle of small shot, and the frantic
hurrying of feet overhead.
 CHAPTER XI
THE GUNS OF MONTROSE

WHEN Archie lay and pictured James on the other side of the water
his vision was a true one, but, while he saw him on the quay among
the sheds and windlasses, he had set him in the wrong place.
James stood at the point of the bay formed by the Basin of
Montrose, at the inner and landward side of the town, not far from
the empty fort from which Hall had taken the guns. The sands at his
feet were bare, for the tide was out, and the salt, wet smell of the
oozing weed blew round him on the faint wind. He was waiting for
Ferrier.
They had chosen this night, as at this hour the ebbing water
would make it possible for the hundred men of Ferrier’s regiment to
keep clear of the roads, and to make their way from Brechin on the
secluded shore of the Basin. Logie had not been there long when he
heard the soft sound of coming feet, and the occasional knocking of
shoes against stone. As an increasing shadow took shape, he struck
his hand twice against his thigh, and the shadow grew still. He
struck again, and in another minute Ferrier was beside him; the
soldiers who followed halted behind their leader. The two men said
little to each other, but moved on side by side, and the small
company wound up the rising slope of the shore to the deserted fort
and gathered at its foot.
James and his friend went on a little way and stood looking east
down the townward shore of the strait past the huddled houses
massed together at this end of Montrose. The water slid to the sea,
and halfway down the long quay in front of them was moored the
unrigged barque that held the town guns—the four-pounders and
six-pounders that had pointed their muzzles for so many years from
the fort walls towards the thundering bar.
Hall had not concerned himself to bring the vessel into his own
immediate neighbourhood, nor even to put a few dozen yards of
water between her and the shore. He knew that no organized rebel
force existed within nine miles of where she lay, and that the
Jacobites among the townsmen could not attempt any hostile
movement unaided. He had eighty men on board the Venture with
him, and from them he had taken a small guard which was left in
charge of the barque. Every two or three days he would send a
party from the sloop to patrol the streets of Montrose, and to
impress disloyally inclined people. His own investigations of the place
had not been great, for, though he went ashore a good deal, it
cannot be said that King George’s interests were much furthered by
his doings when he got there.
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. Then, with no
more delay, the friends pressed on to the main business of their
expedition. As they neared the barque, a faint shine forward where
her bows pointed seaward suggested that someone on board was
waking, so, judging it best to make the attack before an alarm could
be given, the two captains ran on with their men, and were climbing
over the bulwarks and tumbling on to her deck before Captain Hall’s
guard, who were playing cards round a lantern, had time to collect
their senses.
The three players sprang to their feet, and one of them sent a
loud cry ringing into the darkness before he sprawled senseless, with
his head laid open by the butt-end of Ferrier’s pistol. In this
unlooked-for onslaught, that had come upon them as suddenly as
the swoop of a squall in a treacherous sea, they struck blindly about,
stumbling into the arms of the swarming, unrecognized figures that
had poured in on their security out of the peaceful night. James had
kicked over the lantern, and the cards lay scattered about under
foot, white spots in the dimness. The bank of cloud was thinning a
little round the moon, and the angles of the objects on deck began
to be more clearly blocked out. One of the three, who had contrived
to wrench himself from his assailant’s hold, sprang away and raced
towards the after-part of the ship, where, with the carelessness of
security, he had left his musket. Three successive shots was the
signal for help from the Venture in case of emergency, and he made
a gallant effort to get free to send this sign of distress across the
strait. But he was headed back and overpowered before he could
carry out his intention. One of his companions was lying as if dead
on the deck, and the other, who had been cajoled to silence by the
suggestive caress of a pistol at the back of his ear, was having his
arms bound behind him with his own belt.
Not a shot had been fired. Except for that one cry from the man
who lay so still at their feet, no sound but the scuffling and cursing
on the barque disturbed the quiet. Ferrier’s men hustled their
prisoners below into the cabin, where they were gagged and
secured and left under the charge of a couple of soldiers. No roving
citizen troubled the neighbourhood at this hour, for the fly-by-nights
of Montrose looked farther inland for their entertainment, and the
fisher-folk, who were the principal dwellers in the poor houses
skirting the quays, slept sound, and recked little of who might be
quarrelling out of doors so long as they lay warm within them. The
barque was some way up-stream from the general throng of
shipping—apart, and, as Hall had thought, the more safe for that, for
his calculations had taken no count of an enemy who might come
from anywhere but the town. He had never dreamed of the silent
band which had been yielded up by the misty stretches of the Basin.
James leaned over the vessel’s side towards the Venture, and
thought of Captain Hall. He had seen him in a tavern of the town,
and had been as little impressed by his looks as was Flemington. He
had noticed the uncertain eye, the restless fingers, the trotting gait,
and had held him lightly as a force; for he knew as well as most men
know who have knocked about this world that character—none other
—is the hammer that drives home every nail into the framework of
achievement.
But he had no time to spend in speculations, for his interest was
centred in the ferry-boat that was now slipping noiselessly towards
them on the current, guided down-stream by the couple of soldiers
who had unmoored her. As she reached the barque a rope was
tossed down to her, and she was made fast. The stolen guns were
hauled from their storage, and a six-pounder lowered, with its
ammunition, into the great tub that scarcely heaved on the slow
swirl of the river; and whilst the work was going on, Ferrier and
James stepped ashore to the quay, and walked each a short way
along it, watching for any movement or for the chance of surprise.
There was nothing: only, from far out beyond the shipping, a soft
rush, so low that it seemed to be part of the atmosphere itself, told
that the tide was on the turn.
In the enshrouding night the boat was loaded, and a dozen or so
of the little company pushed off with their spoil. Ferrier went with
them, and Logie, who was to follow with the second gun, watched
the craft making her way into obscurity, like some slow black river
monster pushing blindly out into space.
The scheme he had been putting together since the arrival of the
Venture was taking reality at last, and though he could stand with
folded arms on the bulwark looking calmly at the departing boat, the
fire in his heart burned hot. Custom had inured him to risks of every
kind, and if his keenness of enterprise was the same as it had been
in youth, the excitement of youth had evaporated. It was the depths
that stirred in Logie, seldom the surface. Like Archie Flemington, he
loved life, but he loved it differently. Flemington loved it consciously,
joyously, pictorially; James loved it desperately—so desperately that
his spirit had survived the shock which had robbed it of its glory, for
him. He was like a faithful lover whose mistress has been scarred by
smallpox.
He could throw himself heart and soul into the Stuart cause, its
details and necessities—all that his support of it entailed upon him,
because it had, so to speak, given him his second wind in the race of
life. Though he was an adventurer by nature, he differed from the
average adventurer in that he sought nothing for himself. He did not
conform to the average adventuring type. He was too
overwhelmingly masculine to be a dangler about women, though
since the shipwreck of his youth he had more than once followed in
the train of some complaisant goddess, and had reaped all the
benefits of her notice; he was no snatcher at casual advantages, but
a man to whom service in any interest meant solid effort and
unsparing sacrifice. Also he was one who seldom looked back. He
had done so once lately, and the act had shaken him to the heart.
Perhaps he would do so oftener when he had wrought out the
permanent need of action that lay at the foundation of his nature.
When the boat had come back, silent on the outflowing river, and
had taken her second load, he lowered himself into the stern as her
head was pulled round again towards Inchbrayock.
The scheme fashioned by the two men for the capture of the
vessel depended for its success on their possession of this island. As
soon as they should land on it, they were to entrench the two guns,
one on its south-eastern side, as near to the Venture as possible,
and the other on its northern shore, facing the quays. By this means
the small party would command, not only the ship, but the whole
breadth of the river and its landing-places, and would be able to
stop communication between Captain Hall and the town. Heavy
undergrowth covered a fair portion of Inchbrayock, and the only
buildings upon it—if buildings they could be called—were the walls of
an old graveyard and the stones and crosses they encircled. Though
the island lay at a convenient part of the strait, no bridge connected
it with Montrose, and those who wished to cross the Esk at that
point were obliged to use the ferry. The channel dividing its southern
shore from the mainland being comparatively narrow, a row of
gigantic stepping-stones carried wayfarers dry-shod across its bed,
for at low tide there was a mere streak of water curling serpent-wise
through the mud.
When the guns were got safely into position on the island it was
decided that Ferrier was to return to the barque and take the
remaining four-pounders with all despatch to a piece of rising
ground called Dial Hill, that overlooked the mass of shipping
opposite Ferryden.
He did not expect to meet with much opposition, should news of
his action be carried to the town, for its main sympathies were with
his side, and the force on the Government vessel would be
prevented from coming over the strait to oppose him until he was
settled on his eminence by the powerful dissuaders he had left
behind him on Inchbrayock. He was to begin firing from Dial Hill at
dawn, and James, who was near enough to the Venture to see any
movement that might take place on her, was to be ready with his fire
and with his small party of marksmen to check any offensive force
despatched from the ship to the quays. Hall would thus be cut off
from the town by the fire from Inchbrayock, on the one hand, and,
should he attempt a landing nearer to the watermouth, by the guns
on Dial Hill, on the other.
James had placed himself advantageously. The thicket of elder
and thorn which had engulfed one end of the burial-ground made
excellent concealment, and in front of him was the solid wall,
through a gap in which he had turned the muzzle of his six-pounder.
He sat on the stump of a thorn-tree, his head in his hands, waiting,
as he knew he would have to wait, for some time yet, till the first
round from Dial Hill should be the signal for his own attack. The
moon had made her journey by this hour, and while she had been
caught in her course through the zenith in the web of cloud and mist
that thickened the sky, she was now descending towards her rest
through a clear stretch; she swung, as though suspended above the
Basin, tilted on her back, and a little yellower as she neared the
earth, a dying, witch-like thing, halfway through her second quarter.
James, looking up, could see her between the arms of the crosses
and the leaning stones.
The strangeness of the place arrested his thoughts and turned
them into unusual tracks, for, though far from being an
unimaginative man, he was little given to deliberate contemplation.
The distant inland water under the lighted half disc was pale, and a
faintness seemed to lie upon the earth in this hour between night
and morning. His thoughts went to the only dwellers on
Inchbrayock, those who were lying under his feet—seamen, for the
most part, and fisher-folk, who had known the fury of the North Sea
that was now beginning to crawl in and to surround them in their
little township with its insidious arms, encircling in death the bodies
that had escaped it in life. Some of them had been far afield, farther
than he had ever been, in spite of all his campaigns, but they had
come in over the bar to lie here in the jaws of the outflowing river
by their native town. He wondered whether he should do the same;
times were so uncertain now that he might well take the road into
the world again. The question of where his bones should lie was a
matter of no great interest to him, and though there was a vague
restfulness in the notion of coming at last to the slopes and shadows
of Balnillo, he knew that the wideness of the world was his natural
home. Then he thought of Bergen-op-Zoom. . . .
After a while he raised his head again, roused, not by the streak
of light that was growing upon the east, but by a shot that shattered
the silence and sent the echoes rolling out from Dial Hill.
 CHAPTER XII
INCHBRAYOCK

ARCHIE sprang up, unable, for a moment, to remember where he

was. He was almost in darkness, for the port looked northward, and
the pale light barely glimmered through it, but he could just see a
spurt of white leap into the air midway across the channel, where a
second shot had struck the water. As he rushed on deck a puff of
smoke was dispersing above Dial Hill. Then another cloud rolled
from the bushes on the nearest point of Inchbrayock Island, and he
felt the Venture shiver and move in her moorings. Captain Hall’s
voice was rising above the scuffling and running that was going on
all over the ship, and the dragging about of heavy objects was
making the decks shake.
He went below and begun to hustle on his clothes, for the
morning air struck chill and he felt the need of being ready for action
of some kind. In a few minutes he came up warily and crept round
to the port side, taking what cover he could. Then a roar burst from
the side of the Venture as she opened fire.
He stood, not knowing what to do with himself. It was dreadful to
him to have to be inactive whilst his blood rose with the excitement
round him. No one on the vessel remembered his existence; he was
like a stray dog in a market-place, thrust aside by every passer
brushing by on the business of life.
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. Captain Hall was
turning his attention exclusively on Inchbrayock, and Flemington,
who had got nearer to the place where he stood, gathered from
what he could hear that the man on Dial Hill was wasting his
ammunition on a target that was out of range. A shot from the
vessel had torn up a shower of earth in the bank that sloped from
the thicket to the river-mud, and another had struck one of the
gravestones on the island, splitting it in two; but the fire went on
steadily from the dense tangle where the churchyard wall no doubt
concealed earthworks that had risen behind it in the dark hours.
This, then, was the outcome of James’s night-wanderings with
Ferrier.
Archie contemplated Captain Hall where he stood in a little group
of men. He looked even less of a personage in the morning light
than he had done in the cabin, and the young man suspected that
he had gone to bed in his clothes. This reminded him that he himself
was unwashed, unshaven, and very hungry. Whatsoever the issue of
the attack might be, there was no use in remaining starved and
dirty, and he determined to go below to forage and to find some
means of washing. There was no one to gainsay him at this time of
stress, and he walked into Hall’s cabin reflecting that he might safely
steal anything he could carry from the ship, if he were so minded,
and slip overboard across the narrow arm to the bank with nothing
worse than a wetting.
Whilst he was attending to his own necessities, the booming went
on overhead, and at last a shout from above sent him racing up
from the welcome food he had contrived to secure. The wall on
Inchbrayock was shattered in two or three places and the unseen
gun was silent. The cannonade from Dial Hill had stopped, but a
train of figures was hurrying across from the northern shore of the
island, taking shelter among the bushes and stones. A boat was
being lowered from the Venture, for the tide, now sweeping in, had
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