Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  “Will ye sell, friend?” he asked. “I’ll give ye ten golden guineas and the best filly that ever came out o’ Strathendrick for that pistol.”

  But I told him that the offer of Strathendrick itself would not buy it.

  “No?” said he. “Well, I won’t say ye’re wrong. A man should cherish his weapon like his wife, for it carries his honour.”

  Presently, having drunk the wager, they went indoors again, all but a tall fellow who had been a looker-on, but had not been of the Lennox company. I had remarked him during the contest, a long, lean man with a bright, humorous blue eye and a fiery red head. He was maybe ten years older than me, and though he was finely dressed in town clothes, there was about his whole appearance a smack of the sea. He came forward, and, in a very Highland voice, asked my name.

  “Why should I tell you?” I said, a little nettled.

  “Just that I might carry it in my head. I have seen some pretty shooting in my day, but none like yours, young one. What’s your trade that ye’ve learned the pistol game so cleverly?”

  Now I was flushed with pride, and in no mood for a stranger’s patronage. So I told him roundly that it was none of his business, and pushed by him to Parlane’s back-door. But my brusqueness gave no offence to this odd being. He only laughed and cried after me that, if my manners were the equal of my marksmanship, I would be the best lad he had seen since his home-coming.

  I had dinner with my uncle in the Candleriggs, and sat with him late afterwards casting up accounts, so it was not till nine o’clock that I set out on my way to my lodgings. These were in the Saltmarket, close on the river front, and to reach them I went by the short road through the Friar’s Vennel. It was an ill-reputed quarter of the town, and not long before had been noted as a haunt of coiners; but I had gone through it often, and met with no hindrance.

  In the vennel stood a tall dark bit of masonry called Gilmour’s Lordship, which was pierced by long closes from which twisting stairways led to the upper landings. I was noting its gloomy aspect under the dim February moon, when a man came towards me and turned into one of the closes. He swung along with a free, careless gait that marked him as no townsman, and ere he plunged into the darkness I had a glimpse of fiery hair. It was the stranger who had accosted me in Parlane’s alley, and he was either drunk or in wild spirits, for he was singing: —

  “We’re a’ dry wi’ the drinkin’ o’t, We’re a’ dry wi’ the drinkin’ o’t. The minister kissed the fiddler’s wife, And he couldna preach for thinkin’ o’t.”

  The ribald chorus echoed from the close mouth.

  Then I saw that he was followed by three others, bent, slinking fellows, who slipped across the patches of moonlight, and eagerly scanned the empty vennel. They could not see me, for I was in shadow, and presently they too entered the close.

  The thing looked ugly, and, while I had no love for the red-haired man, I did not wish to see murder or robbery committed and stand idly by. The match of the afternoon had given me a fine notion of my prowess, though. Had I reflected, my pistol was in its case at home, and I had no weapon but a hazel staff. Happily in youth the blood is quicker than the brain, and without a thought I ran into the close and up the long stairway.

  The chorus was still being sung ahead of me, and then it suddenly ceased. In dead silence and in pitchy darkness I struggled up the stone steps, wondering what I should find at the next turning. The place was black as night, the steps were uneven, and the stairs corkscrewed most wonderfully. I wished with all my heart that I had not come, as I groped upwards hugging the wall.

  Then a cry came and a noise of hard breathing. At the same moment a door opened somewhere above my head, and a faint glow came down the stairs. Presently with a great rumble a heavy man came rolling past me, butting with his head at the stair-side. He came to anchor on a landing below me, and finding his feet plunged downwards as if the devil were at his heels. He left behind him a short Highland knife, which I picked up and put in my pocket.

  On his heels came another with his hand clapped to his side, and he moaned as he slithered past me. Something dripped from him on the stone steps.

  The light grew stronger, and as I rounded the last turning a third came bounding down, stumbling from wall to wall like a drunk man. I saw his face clearly, and if ever mortal eyes held baffled murder it was that fellow’s. There was a dark mark on his shoulder.

  Above me as I blinked stood my red-haired friend on the top landing. He had his sword drawn, and was whistling softly through his teeth, while on the right hand was an open door and an old man holding a lamp.

  “Ho!” he cried. “Here comes a fourth. God’s help, it’s my friend the marksman!”

  I did not like that naked bit of steel, but there was nothing for it but to see the thing through. When he saw that I was unarmed he returned his weapon to its sheath, and smiled broadly down on me.

  “What brings my proud gentleman up these long stairs?” he asked.

  “I saw you entering the close and three men following you. It looked bad, so I came up to see fair play.”

  “Did ye so? And a very pretty intention, Mr. What’s-your-name. But ye needna have fashed yourself. Did ye see any of our friends on the stairs?”

  “I met a big man rolling down like a football,” I said.

  “Ay, that would be Angus. He’s a clumsy stot, and never had much sense.”

  “And I met another with his hand on his side,” I said.

  “That would be little James. He’s a fine lad with a skean-dhu on a dark night, but there was maybe too much light here for his trade.”

  “And I met a third who reeled like a drunk man,” I said.

  “Ay,” said he meditatively, “that was Long Colin. He’s the flower o’ the flock, and I had to pink him. At another time and in a better place I would have liked a bout with him, for he has some notion of sword-play.”

  “Who were the men?” I asked, in much confusion, for this laughing warrior perplexed me.

  “Who but just my cousins from Glengyle. There has long been a sort of bicker between us, and they thought they had got a fine chance of ending it.”

  “And who, in Heaven’s name, are you,” I said, “that treats murder so lightly?”

  “Me?” he repeated. “Well, I might give ye the answer you gave me this very day when I speired the same question. But I am frank by nature, and I see you wish me well. Come in bye, and we’ll discuss the matter.”

  He led me into a room where a cheerful fire crackled, and got out from a press a bottle and glasses. He produced tobacco from a brass box and filled a long pipe.

  “Now,” said he, “we’ll understand each other better. Ye see before you a poor gentleman of fortune, whom poverty and a roving spirit have driven to outland bits o’ the earth to ply his lawful trade of sea-captain. They call me by different names. I have passed for a Dutch skipper, and a Maryland planter, and a French trader, and, in spite of my colour, I have been a Spanish don in the Main. At Tortuga you will hear one name, and another at Port o’ Spain, and a third at Cartagena. But, seeing we are in the city o’ Glasgow in the kindly kingdom o’ Scotland, I’ll be honest with you. My father called me Ninian Campbell, and there’s no better blood in Breadalbane.”

  What could I do after that but make him a present of the trivial facts about myself and my doings? There was a look of friendly humour about this dare-devil which captured my fancy. I saw in him the stuff of which adventurers are made, and though I was a sober merchant, I was also young. For days I had been dreaming of foreign parts and an Odyssey of strange fortunes, and here on a Glasgow stairhead I had found Ulysses himself.

  “Is it not the pity,” he cried, “that such talents as yours should rust in a dark room in the Candleriggs? Believe me, Mr. Garvald, I have seen some pretty shots, but I have never seen your better.”

  Then I told him that I was sailing within a month for Virginia, and he suddenly grew solemn.

  “It looks like Providence,” he said, “th
at we two should come together. I, too, will soon be back in the Western Seas, and belike we’ll meet. I’m something of a rover, and I never bide long in the same place, but I whiles pay a visit to James Town, and they ken me well on the Eastern Shore and the Accomac beaches.”

  He fell to giving me such advice as a traveller gives to a novice. It was strange hearing for an honest merchant, for much of it was concerned with divers ways of outwitting the law. By and by he was determined to convoy me to my lodgings, for he pointed out that I was unarmed; and I think, too, he had still hopes of another meeting with Long Colin, his cousin.

  “I leave Glasgow the morrow’s morn,” he said, “and it’s no likely we’ll meet again in Scotland. Out in Virginia, no doubt, you’ll soon be a great man, and sit in Council, and hob-nob with the Governor. But a midge can help an elephant, and I would gladly help you, for you had the goodwill to help me. If ye need aid you will go to Mercer’s Tavern at James Town down on the water front, and you will ask news of Ninian Campbell. The man will say that he never heard tell of the name, and then you will speak these words to him. You will say ‘The lymphads are on the loch, and the horn of Diarmaid has sounded.’ Keep them well in mind, for some way or other they will bring you and me together.”

  Without another word he was off, and as I committed the gibberish to memory I could hear his song going up the Saltmarket: —

  “The minister kissed the fiddler’s wife, And he couldna preach for thinkin’ o’t.”

  CHAPTER 5. MY FIRST COMING TO VIRGINIA

  There are few moments in life to compare with a traveller’s first sight of a new land which is destined to be for short or long his home. When, after a fair and speedy voyage, we passed Point Comfort, and had rid ourselves of the revenue men, and the tides bore us up the estuary of a noble river, I stood on deck and drank in the heady foreign scents with a boyish ecstasy. Presently we had opened the capital city, which seemed to me no more than a village set amid gardens, and Mr. Lambie had come aboard and greeted me. He conveyed me to the best ordinary in the town which stood over against the Court-house. Late in the afternoon, just before the dark fell, I walked out to drink my fill of the place.

  You are to remember that I was a country lad who had never set foot forth of Scotland. I was very young, and hot on the quest of new sights and doings. As I walked down the unpaven street and through the narrow tobacco-grown lanes, the strange smell of it all intoxicated me like wine.

  There was a great red sunset burning over the blue river and kindling the far forests till they glowed like jewels. The frogs were croaking among the reeds, and the wild duck squattered in the dusk. I passed an Indian, the first I had seen, with cock’s feathers on his head, and a curiously tattooed chest, moving as light as a sleep-walker. One or two townsfolk took the air, smoking their long pipes, and down by the water a negro girl was singing a wild melody. The whole place was like a mad, sweet-scented dream to one just come from the unfeatured ocean, and with a memory only of grim Scots cities and dour Scots hills. I felt as if I had come into a large and generous land, and I thanked God that I was but twenty-three.

  But as I was mooning along there came a sudden interruption on my dreams. I was beyond the houses, in a path which ran among tobacco-sheds and little gardens, with the river lapping a stone’s-throw off. Down a side alley I caught a glimpse of a figure that seemed familiar.

  ‘Twas that of a tall, hulking man, moving quickly among the tobacco plants, with something stealthy in his air. The broad, bowed shoulders and the lean head brought back to me the rainy moorlands about the Cauldstaneslap and the mad fellow whose prison I had shared. Muckle John had gone to the Plantations, and ‘twas Muckle John or the devil that was moving there in the half light.

  I cried on him, and ran down the side alley.

  But it seemed that he did not want company, for he broke into a run.

  Now in those days I rejoiced in the strength of my legs, and I was determined not to be thus balked. So I doubled after him into a maze of tobacco and melon beds.

  But it seemed he knew how to run. I caught a glimpse of his hairy legs round the corner of a shed, and then lost him in a patch of cane. Then I came out on a sort of causeway floored with boards which covered a marshy sluice, and there I made great strides on him. He was clear against the sky now, and I could see that he was clad only in shirt and cotton breeches, while at his waist flapped an ugly sheath-knife.

  Rounding the hut corner I ran full into a man.

  “Hold you,” cried the stranger, and laid hands on my arm; but I shook him off violently, and continued the race. The collision had cracked my temper, and I had a mind to give Muckle John a lesson in civility. For Muckle John it was beyond doubt; not two men in the broad earth had that ungainly bend of neck.

  The next I knew we were out on the river bank on a shore of hard clay which the tides had created. Here I saw him more clearly, and I began to doubt. I might be chasing some river-side ruffian, who would give me a knife in my belly for my pains.

  The doubt slackened my pace, and he gained on me. Then I saw his intention. There was a flat-bottomed wherry tied up by the bank, and for this he made. He flung off the rope, seized a long pole, and began to push away.

  The last rays of the westering sun fell on his face, and my hesitation vanished. For those pent-house brows and deep-set, wild-cat eyes were fixed for ever in my memory.

  I cried to him as I ran, but he never looked my road. Somehow it was borne in on me that at all costs I must have speech with him. The wherry was a yard or two from the shore when I jumped for its stern.

  I lighted firm on the wood, and for a moment looked Muckle John in the face. I saw a countenance lean like a starved wolf, with great weals as of old wounds on cheek and brow. But only for a, second, for as I balanced myself to step forward he rammed the butt of the pole in my chest, so that I staggered and fell plump in the river.

  The water was only up to my middle, but before I could clamber back he had shipped his oars, and was well into the centre of the stream.

  I stood staring like a zany, while black anger filled my heart. I plucked my pistol forth, and for a second was on the verge of murder, for I could have shot him like a rabbit. But God mercifully restrained my foolish passion, and presently the boat and the rower vanished in the evening haze.

  “This is a bonny beginning!” thought I, as I waded through the mud to the shore. I was wearing my best clothes in honour of my arrival, and they were all fouled and plashing.

  Then on the bank above me I saw the fellow who had run into me and hindered my catching Muckle John on dry land. He was shaking with laughter.

  I was silly and hot-headed in those days, and my wetting had not disposed me to be laughed at. In this fellow I saw a confederate of Gib’s, and if I had lost one I had the other. So I marched up to him and very roundly damned his insolence.

  He was a stern, lantern-jawed man of forty or so, dressed very roughly in leather breeches and a frieze coat. Long grey woollen stockings were rolled above his knees, and slung on his back was an ancient musket.

  “Easy, my lad,” he said. “It’s a free country, and there’s no statute against mirth.”

  “I’ll have you before the sheriff,” I cried. “You tripped me up when I was on the track of the biggest rogue in America.”

  “So!” said he, mocking me. “You’ll be a good judge of rogues. Was it a runaway redemptioner, maybe? You’d be looking for the twenty hogsheads reward.”

  This was more than I could stand. I was carrying a pistol in my hand, and I stuck it to his ear. “March, my friend,” I said. “You’ll walk before me to a Justice of the Peace, and explain your doings this night.”

  I had never threatened a man with a deadly weapon before, and I was to learn a most unforgettable lesson. A hand shot out, caught my wrist, and forced it upwards in a grip of steel. And when I would have used my right fist in his face another hand seized that, and my arms were padlocked.

  Cool, ironical eyes l
ooked into mine.

  “You’re very free with your little gun, my lad. Let me give you a word in season. Never hold a pistol to a man unless you mean to shoot. If your eyes waver you had better had a porridge stick.”

  He pressed my wrist back till my fingers relaxed, and he caught my pistol in his teeth. With a quick movement of the head he dropped it inside his shirt.

  “There’s some would have killed you for that trick, young sir,” he said. “It’s trying to the temper to have gunpowder so near a man’s brain. But you’re young, and, by your speech, a new-comer. So instead I’ll offer you a drink.”

  He dropped my wrists, and motioned me to follow him. Very crestfallen and ashamed, I walked in his wake to a little shanty almost on the wateredge. The place was some kind of inn, for a negro brought us two tankards of apple-jack, and tobacco pipes, and lit a foul-smelling lantern, which he set between us.

  “First,” says the man, “let me tell you that I never before clapped eyes on the long piece of rascality you were seeking. He looked like one that had cheated the gallows.”

  “He was a man I knew in Scotland,” I said grumpily.

  “Likely enough. There’s a heap of Scots redemptioners hereaways. I’m out of Scotland myself, or my forbears were, but my father was settled in the Antrim Glens. There’s wild devils among them, and your friend looked as if he had given the slip to the hounds in the marshes. There was little left of his breeches... Drink, man, or you’ll get fever from your wet duds.”

  I drank, and the strong stuff mounted to my unaccustomed brain; my tongue was loosened, my ill-temper mellowed, and I found myself telling this grim fellow much that was in my heart.

  “So you’re a merchant,” he said. “It’s not for me to call down an honest trade, but we could be doing with fewer merchants in these parts. They’re so many leeches that suck our blood. Are you here to make siller?”

  I said I was, and he laughed. “I never heard of your uncle’s business, Mr. Garvald, but you’ll find it a stiff task to compete with the lads from Bristol and London. They’ve got the whole dominion by the scruff of the neck.”