Ian put his hands over his eyes, shook himself, started up and stood at the window.  Sky, and roofs on roofs, and in the street below toy figures, pedestrians.  “Come back—­come back to breathable air!  Now what’s to be done—­what’s to be done?” After some moments he turned and picked up the letter upon the floor and read it twice.  In memory and in imagination he could see the fishing-town, the inn there, the dunes, the ocean beach fretted by the long, incoming wave.  Perhaps and most probably, this very bright afternoon, the laird of Glenfernie waited for him there, pacing the sands, perhaps, watching the comers to the inn door....  Well, he must watch in vain.  Ian Rullock would one day give him satisfaction, but certainly not now.  Vast affairs might not be daffed aside for the laird of Glenfernie’s convenience!  Ian stood staring out of window at those huddled roofs, the challenge still in his hand.  Then, slowly, he tore the paper to pieces and committed it to the brazier where was already consumed Black Hill’s communication.

That evening he supped with Warburton, and the next morning saw him and Donal riding forth from Paris, by St.-Denis, on toward Dunkirk.  From this place, four days later, sailed the brig Cock of the North, destination the Beauly Firth.  Dr. Robert Bonshaw and his man experienced, despite the prediction of the Frenchman of quality, a rough and long voyage.  But the Cock of the North weathered tumultuous sea and wind and came, in the northern spring, to anchor in a great picture of firth and green shore and dark, piled mountains.  Dr. Robert Bonshaw and his man, going ashore and into Inverness, found hospitality there in the house of a certain merchant.  Thence, after a day or so, he traveled to the castle of a Highland chief of commanding port.  Here occurred a gathering; here letters and asseverations brought from France were read, listened to, weighed or taken without much weighing, so did the Highland desire run one way.  An old net added to itself another mesh.

Dr. Robert Bonshaw, a very fit, invigorating agent, traveled far and near through the Highlands this May, this June, this July.  It was to him an interesting, difficult, intensely occupied time; he was far from Lowland Scotland and any echoes therefrom, saving always political echoes.  He had no leisure for his own affairs, saving always that background consideration that, if the Stewarts really got back the crown, Ian Rullock was on the road to power and wealth.  This consideration was not articulate, but diffused.  It interfered not at all with the foreground activities and hard planning—­no more than did the fine Highland air.  It only spurred him as did the winy air.  The time and place were electric; he worked hard, many hours on end, and when he sought his bed he dropped at once to needed sleep.  From morn till late at night, whether in castle or house or journeying from clan to clan, he was always in company.  There was no time for old thoughts, memories, surmises.  That was one world and he was now in another.