Flemington by Violet Jacob — Read

CALLANDAR sat a little apart from his men on the fringe of the fir-wood; on the other side of the clearing on which the party had bivouacked Wattie formed the centre of a group. It was past sunset, and the troop-horses, having been watered and fed, were picketed together. Callandar's own horse snatched at the straggling bramble-shoots behind a tree.

The officer sat on a log, his chin in his hand, pondering on the amazing story that the beggar had divulged. It was impossible to know what to make of it, but, in spite of himself, he was inclined to believe it. He had questioned and cross-questioned him, but he had been able to form no definite opinion. Wattie had described his meeting with Archie on the day of the taking of the ship; he had told him how he had accompanied him on his way, how he had been forced to ask shelter for him at the farm, how he had lain and listened in the darkness to his feverish wanderings and his appeals to Logie. If the beggar's tale had been true, there seemed to be no doubt that the intelligence officer whose services were so much valued by Cumberland, had taken money from the rebels, though it seemed that he had hesitated over the business. His conscience must have smitten him even in his dreams. "I will say nothing, but I will tell you all! " he had cried to Logie. "I shall know where you are, but they shall never know! " In his delirium, he had taken the beggar for the man whose fellow-conspirator he was proving himself to be, and when consciousness was fighting to return, and he had sense enough to know that he was not speaking to Logie, it was his companion's promise to deliver a message of reassurance that had given him peace and sleep. "Tell him that he can trust me," he had said. What puzzled Callandar was the same thing that had puzzled Wattie: Why had these two men, linked together by a hidden understanding, fought? Perhaps Flemington had repented of the part he was playing, and had tried to cut himself adrift.