Not a mile distant, James Logie was coming along the Montrose road. He had trodden it many times in the darkness during the past weeks, and his mind was roving far from his steps, far even from the errand on which he was bent. He was thinking of Archie, whom he believed to be snug in bed at Balnillo.
He had gone out last night and landed this fantastic piece of young humanity from the Den, as a man may land a salmon, and he had contemplated him ever since with a kind of fascination. Flemington was so much unlike any young man he had known that the difference half shocked him, and though he had told his brother that he liked the fellow, he had done so in spite of one side of himself. It was hard to believe that but a dozen years divided them, for he had imagined Archie much younger, and the appeal of his boyishness was a strong one to Logie, who had had so little time for boyishness himself. His life since he was fifteen had been merged in his profession, and the restoration of the Stuarts had been for many years the thing nearest to his heart. There had been one exception to this, and that had long gone out of his life, taking his youth with it. He was scarcely a sad man, but he had the habit of sadness, which is as hard a one to combat as any other, and the burst of youth and buoyancy that had come in suddenly with Archie had blown on James like a spring wind. Archie's father and grandfather had died in exile, too, with Charles Edward's parents. And his eyes reminded him of other eyes.
The events that had taken place since the landing of the Prince in July had made themselves felt all up the east coast, and the country was Jacobite almost to a man. Charles Edward had raised his standard at Glenfinnan, had marched on Edinburgh in the early part of September, and had established himself in Holyrood on the surrender of the town. After his victory over Cope at Preston Pans, he had collected his forces on Portobello sands--thirteen regiments composed of the Highland clans, five regiments of Lowlanders, two troops of horse commanded by Lords Elcho and Balmerino, with two others under Lord Kilmarnock and Lord Pitsligo. The command of the latter consisted of Angus men armed with such weapons as they owned or could gather.