Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  They strode along the road by the park wall till they reached the inn. There Heritage’s music waxed peculiarly loud. Presently from the yard, unshaven and looking as if he had slept in this clothes, came Dobson the innkeeper.

  “Good morning,” said the poet. “I hope the sickness in your house is on the mend?”

  “Thank ye, it’s no worse,” was the reply, but in the man’s heavy face there was little civility. His small grey eyes searched their faces.

  “We’re just waiting for breakfast to get on the road again. I’m jolly glad we spent the night here. We found quarters after all, you know.”

  “So I see. Whereabouts, may I ask?”

  “Mrs. Morran’s. We could always have got in there, but we didn’t want to fuss an old lady, so we thought we’d try the inn first. She’s my friend’s aunt.”

  At this amazing falsehood Dickson started, and the man observed his surprise. The eyes were turned on him like a searchlight. They roused antagonism in his peaceful soul, and with that antagonism came an impulse to back up the Poet. “Ay,” he said, “she’s my auntie Phemie, my mother’s half-sister.”

  The man turned on Heritage.

  “Where are ye for the day?”

  “Auchenlochan,” said Dickson hastily. He was still determined to shake the dust of Dalquharter from his feet.

  The innkeeper sensibly brightened. “Well, ye’ll have a fine walk. I must go in and see about my own breakfast. Good day to ye, gentlemen.”

  “That,” said Heritage as they entered the village street again, “is the first step in camouflage, to put the enemy off his guard.”

  “It was an abominable lie,” said Dickson crossly.

  “Not at all. It was a necessary and proper ruse de guerre. It explained why we spent the right here, and now Dobson and his friends can get about their day’s work with an easy mind. Their suspicions are temporarily allayed, and that will make our job easier.”

  “I’m not coming with you.”

  “I never said you were. By ‘we’ I refer to myself and the red-headed boy.”

  “Mistress, you’re my auntie,” Dickson informed Mrs. Morran as she set the porridge on the table. “This gentleman has just been telling the man at the inn that you’re my Auntie Phemie.”

  For a second their hostess looked bewildered. Then the corners of her prim mouth moved upwards in a slow smile.

  “I see,” she said. “Weel, maybe it was weel done. But if ye’re my nevoy ye’ll hae to keep up my credit, for we’re a bauld and siccar lot.”

  Half an hour later there was a furious dissension when Dickson attempted to pay for the night’s entertainment. Mrs. Morran would have none of it. “Ye’re no’ awa’ yet,” she said tartly, and the matter was complicated by Heritage’s refusal to take part in the debate. He stood aside and grinned, till Dickson in despair returned his notecase to his pocket, murmuring darkly the “he would send it from Glasgow.”

  The road to Auchenlochan left the main village street at right angles by the side of Mrs. Morran’s cottage. It was a better road than that by which they had come yesterday, for by it twice daily the postcart travelled to the post-town. It ran on the edge of the moor and on the lip of the Garple glen, till it crossed that stream and, keeping near the coast, emerged after five miles into the cultivated flats of the Lochan valley. The morning was fine, the keen air invited to high spirits, plovers piped entrancingly over the bent and linnets sang in the whins, there was a solid breakfast behind him, and the promise of a cheerful road till luncheon. The stage was set for good humour, but Dickson’s heart, which should have been ascending with the larks, stuck leadenly in his boots. He was not even relieved at putting Dalquharter behind him. The atmosphere of that unhallowed place lay still on his soul. He hated it, but he hated himself more. Here was one, who had hugged himself all his days as an adventurer waiting his chance, running away at the first challenge of adventure; a lover of Romance who fled from the earliest overture of his goddess. He was ashamed and angry, but what else was there to do? Burglary in the company of a queer poet and a queerer urchin? It was unthinkable.

  Presently, as they tramped silently on, they came to the bridge beneath which the peaty waters of the Garple ran in porter-coloured pools and tawny cascades. From a clump of elders on the other side Dougal emerged. A barefoot boy, dressed in much the same parody of a Boy Scout’s uniform, but with corduroy shorts instead of a kilt, stood before him at rigid attention. Some command was issued, the child saluted, and trotted back past the travellers with never a look at them. Discipline was strong among the Gorbals Die-Hards; no Chief of Staff ever conversed with his General under a stricter etiquette.

  Dougal received the travellers with the condescension of a regular towards civilians.

  “They’re off their gawrd,” he announced. Thomas Yownie has been shadowin’ them since skreigh o’ day, and he reports that Dobson and Lean followed ye till ye were out o’ sight o’ the houses, and syne Lean got a spy-glass and watched ye till the road turned in among the trees. That satisfied them, and they’re both away back to their jobs. Thomas Yownie’s the fell yin. Ye’ll no fickle Thomas Yownie.”

  Dougal extricated from his pouch the fag of a cigarette, lit it, and puffed meditatively. “I did a reckonissince mysel’ this morning. I was up at the Hoose afore it was light, and tried the door o’ the coal-hole. I doot they’ve gotten on our tracks, for it was lockit — aye, and wedged from the inside.”

  Dickson brightened. Was the insane venture off?

  “For a wee bit I was fair beat. But I mindit that the lassie was allowed to walk in a kind o’ a glass hoose on the side farthest away from the Garple. That was where she was singin’ yest’reen. So I reckonissinced in that direction, and I fund a queer place.” Sacred Songs and Solos was requisitioned, and on a page of it Dougal proceeded to make marks with the stump of a carpenter’s pencil. “See here,” he commanded. “There’s the glass place wi’ a door into the Hoose. That door maun be open or the lassie maun hae the key, for she comes there whenever she likes. Now’ at each end o’ the place the doors are lockit, but the front that looks on the garden is open, wi’ muckle posts and flower-pots. The trouble is that that side there’ maybe twenty feet o’ a wall between the pawrapet and the ground. It’s an auld wall wi’ cracks and holes in it, and it wouldn’t be ill to sklim. That’s why they let her gang there when she wants, for a lassie couldn’t get away without breakin’ her neck.”

  “Could we climb it?” Heritage asked.

  The boy wrinkled his brows. “I could manage it mysel’ — I think — and maybe you. I doubt if auld McCunn could get up. Ye’d have to be mighty carefu’ that nobody saw ye, for your hinder end, as ye were sklimmin’, wad be a grand mark for a gun.”

  “Lead on,” said Heritage. “We’ll try the verandah.”

  They both looked at Dickson, and Dickson, scarlet in the face, looked back at them. He had suddenly found the thought of a solitary march to Auchenlochan intolerable. Once again he was at the parting of the ways, and once more caprice determined his decision. That the coal-hole was out of the question had worked a change in his views, Somehow it seemed to him less burglarious to enter by a verandah. He felt very frightened but — for the moment — quite resolute.

  “I’m coming with you,” he said.

  “Sportsman,” said Heritage, and held out his hand. “Well done, the auld yin,” said the Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards. Dickson’s quaking heart experienced a momentary bound as he followed Heritage down the track into the Garple Dean.

  The track wound through a thick covert of hazels, now close to the rushing water, now high upon the bank so that clear sky showed through the fringes of the wood. When they had gone a little way Dougal halted them.

  “It’s a ticklish job,” he whispered. “There’s the tinklers, mind, that’s campin’ in the Dean. If they’re still in their camp we can get by easy enough, but they’re maybe wanderin’ about the wud after rabbits. Then we maun ford the water, for ye
’ll no’ cross it lower down where it’s deep. Our road is on the Hoose side o’ the Dean, and it’s awfu’ public if there’s onybody on the other side, though it’s hid well enough from folk up in the policies. Ye maun do exactly what I tell ye. When we get near danger I’ll scout on ahead, and I daur ye to move a hair o’ your heid till I give the word.”

  Presently, when they were at the edge of the water, Dougal announced his intention of crossing. Three boulders in the stream made a bridge for an active man, and Heritage hopped lightly over. Not so Dickson, who stuck fast on the second stone, and would certainly have fallen in had not Dougal plunged into the current and steadied him with a grimy hand. The leap was at last successfully taken, and the three scrambled up a rough scaur, all reddened with iron springs, till they struck a slender track running down the Dean on its northern side. Here the undergrowth was very thick, and they had gone the better part of half a mile before the covert thinned sufficiently to show them the stream beneath. Then Dougal halted them with a finger on his lips, and crept forward alone.

  He returned in three minutes. “Coast’s clear,” he whispered. “The tinklers are eatin’ their breakfast. They’re late at their meat though they’re up early seekin’ it.”

  Progress was now very slow and secret, and mainly on all fours. At one point Dougal nodded downward, and the other two saw on a patch of turf, where the Garple began to widen into its estuary, a group of figures round a small fire. There were four of them, all men, and Dickson thought he had never seen such ruffianly-looking customers. After that they moved high up the slope, in a shallow glade of a tributary burn, till they came out of the trees and found themselves looking seaward.

  On one side was the House, a hundred yards or so back from the edge, the roof showing above the precipitous scarp. Half-way down the slope became easier, a jumble of boulders and boiler-plates, till it reached the waters of the small haven, which lay calm as a mill-pond in the windless forenoon. The haven broadened out at its foot and revealed a segment of blue sea. The opposite shore was flatter, and showed what looked like an old wharf and the ruins of buildings, behind which rose a bank clad with scrub and surmounted by some gnarled and wind-crooked firs.

  “There’s dashed little cover here,” said Heritage.

  “There’s no muckle,” Dougal assented. “But they canna see us from the policies, and it’s no’ like there’s anybody watchin’ from the Hoose. The danger is somebody on the other side, but we’ll have to risk it. Once among thae big stones we’re safe. Are ye ready?”

  Five minutes later Dickson found himself gasping in the lee of a boulder, while Dougal was making a cast forward. The scout returned with a hopeful report. “I think we’re safe till we get into the policies. There’s a road that the auld folk made when ships used to come here. Down there it’s deeper than Clyde at the Broomielaw. Has the auld yin got his wind yet? There’s no time to waste.”

  Up that broken hillside they crawled, well in the cover of the tumbled stones, till they reached a low wall which was the boundary of the garden. The House was now behind them on their right rear, and as they topped the crest they had a glimpse of an ancient dovecot and the ruins of the old Huntingtower on the short thymy turf which ran seaward to the cliffs. Dougal led them along a sunk fence which divided the downs from the lawns behind the house, and, avoiding the stables, brought them by devious ways to a thicket of rhododendrons and broom. On all fours they travelled the length of the place, and came to the edge where some forgotten gardeners had once tended a herbaceous border. The border was now rank and wild, and, lying flat under the shade of an azalea, and peering through the young spears of iris, Dickson and Heritage regarded the north-western facade of the house.

  The ground before them had been a sunken garden, from which a steep wall, once covered with creepers and rock plants, rose to a long verandah, which was pillared and open on that side; but at each end built up half-way and glazed for the rest. There was a glass roof, and inside untended shrubs sprawled in broken plaster vases.

  “Ye maun bide here,” said Dougal, “and no cheep above your breath. Afore we dare to try that wall, I maun ken where Lean and Spittal and Dobson are. I’m off to spy the policies.’ He glided out of sight behind a clump of pampas grass.

  For hours, so it seemed, Dickson was left to his own unpleasant reflections. His body, prone on the moist earth, was fairly comfortable, but his mind was ill at ease. The scramble up the hillside had convinced him that he was growing old, and there was no rebound in his soul to counter the conviction. He felt listless, spiritless — an apathy with fright trembling somewhere at the back of it. He regarded the verandah wall with foreboding. How on earth could he climb that? And if he did there would be his exposed hinder-parts inviting a shot from some malevolent gentleman among the trees. He reflected that he would give a large sum of money to be out of this preposterous adventure.

  Heritage’s hand was stretched towards him, containing two of Mrs. Morran’s jellied scones, of which the Poet had been wise enough to bring a supply in his pocket. The food cheered him, for he was growing very hungry, and he began to take an interest in the scene before him instead of his own thoughts. He observed every detail of the verandah. There was a door at one end, he noted, giving on a path which wound down to the sunk garden. As he looked he heard a sound of steps and saw a man ascending this path.

  It was the lame man whom Dougal had called Spittal, the dweller in the South Lodge. Seen at closer quarters he was an odd-looking being, lean as a heron, wry-necked, but amazingly quick on his feet. Had not Mrs. Morran said that he hobbled as fast as other folk ran? He kept his eyes on the ground and seemed to be talking to himself as he went, but he was alert enough, for the dropping of a twig from a dying magnolia transferred him in an instant into a figure of active vigilance. No risks could be run with that watcher. He took a key from his pocket, opened the garden door and entered the verandah. For a moment his shuffle sounded on its tiled floor, and then he entered the door admitting from the verandah to the House. It was clearly unlocked, for there came no sound of a turning key.

  Dickson had finished the last crumbs of his scones before the man emerged again. He seemed to be in a greater hurry than ever as he locked the garden door behind him and hobbled along the west front of the House till he was lost to sight. After that the time passed slowly. A pair of yellow wagtails arrived and played at hide-and-seek among the stuccoed pillars. The little dry scratch of their claws was heard clearly in the still air. Dickson had almost fallen asleep when a smothered exclamation from Heritage woke him to attention. A girl had appeared in the verandah.

  Above the parapet he saw only her body from the waist up. She seemed to be clad in bright colours, for something red was round her shoulders and her hair was bound with an orange scarf. She was tall — that he could tell, tall and slim and very young. Her face was turned seaward, and she stood for a little scanning the broad channel, shading her eyes as if to search for something on the extreme horizon. The air was very quiet and he thought that he could hear her sigh. Then she turned and re-entered the House, while Heritage by his side began to curse under his breathe with a shocking fervour.

  One of Dickson’s troubles had been that he did not believe Dougal’s story, and the sight of the girl removed one doubt. That bright exotic thing did not belong to the Cruives or to Scotland at all, and that she should be in the House removed the place from the conventional dwelling to which the laws against burglary applied.

  There was a rustle among the rhododendrons and the fiery face of Dougal appeared. He lay between the other two, his chin on his hands, and grunted out his report.

  “After they had their dinner Dobson and Lean yokit a horse and went off to Auchenlochan. I seen them pass the Garple brig, so that’s two accounted for. Has Spittal been round here?”

  “Half an hour ago,” said Heritage, consulting a wrist watch.

  “It was him that keepit me waitin’ so long. But he’s safe enough now, for five minutes sy
ne he was splittin’ firewood at the back door o’ his hoose. I’ve found a ladder, an auld yin in yon lot o’ bushes. It’ll help wi’ the wall. There! I’ve gotten my breath again and we can start.”

  The ladder was fetched by Heritage and proved to be ancient and wanting many rungs, but sufficient in length. The three stood silent for a moment, listening like stags, and then ran across the intervening lawn to the foot of the verandah wall. Dougal went up first, then Heritage, and lastly Dickson, stiff and giddy from his long lie under the bushes. Below the parapet the verandah floor was heaped with old garden litter, rotten matting, dead or derelict bulbs, fibre, withies, and strawberry nets. It was Dougal’s intention to pull up the ladder and hide it among the rubbish against the hour of departure. But Dickson had barely put his foot on the parapet when there was a sound of steps within the House approaching the verandah door.

  The ladder was left alone. Dougal’s hand brought Dickson summarily to the floor, where he was fairly well concealed by a mess of matting. Unfortunately his head was in the vicinity of some upturned pot-plants, so that a cactus ticked his brow and a spike of aloe supported painfully the back of his neck. Heritage was prone behind two old water-butts, and Dougal was in a hamper which had once contained seed potatoes. The house door had panels of opaque glass, so the new-comer could not see the doings of the three till it was opened, and by that time all were in cover.

  The man — it was Spittal — walked rapidly along the verandah and out of the garden door. He was talking to himself again, and Dickson, who had a glimpse of his face, thought he looked both evil and furious. Then came some anxious moments, for had the man glanced back when he was once outside, he must have seen the tell-tale ladder. But he seemed immersed in his own reflections, for he hobbled steadily along the house front till he was lost to sight.