by John Buchan
“For men port, and for heroes brandy.”
“Then brandy be it.”
“Nay, sir,” he said solemnly. “Brandy on the unheroic, such as I confess myself to be, produces too soon and certainly the effect of drunkenness. Drunkenness I love not, for I am a man accustomed to self-examination, and I am conscious when I am drunk, and that consciousness is painful. Others know not when they are drunk or sober. I know a man, a very worthy bookseller, who is so habitually and equally drunk that even his intimates cannot perceive that he is more sober at one time than another. Besides, my dear lady may summon us to a hand at cartes or to drink tea with her.”
Eventually he ordered a bottle of port, one of old madeira and one of brown sherry, that he might try all three before deciding by which he should abide. Presently Edom was summoned, and on his heels came dinner. It proved to be an excellent meal to which Mr Johnson applied himself with a serious resolution. There was thick hare soup, with all the woods and pastures in its fragrance, and a big dressed pike, caught that morning in the inn stew-pond. This the two Scots did not touch, but Mr Johnson ate of it largely, using his fingers, because, as he said, he was short-sighted and afraid of bones. Then came roast hill mutton, which he highly commended. “Yesterday,” he declared, “we also dined upon mutton — mutton ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept and ill-dressed. This is as nutty as venison.” But he reserved his highest commendations for a veal pie, made with plums, which he averred was his favourite delicacy. With the cheese and wheaten cakes which followed he sampled the three bottles and decided for the port. Alastair and Edom were by comparison spare eaters, and had watched with admiration the gallant trencher-work of their companion. For liquor they drank a light rum punch of Alastair’s compounding, while Mr Johnson consumed, in addition to divers glasses of sherry and Madeira, two bottles of rich dark port, dropping a lump of sugar into each glass and stirring it with the butt of a fork.
And all the while he talked, wisely, shrewdly, truculently, and with a gusto comparable to that which he displayed in the business of eating.
“You slept hard last night?” he asked of Alastair. “How came you here?”
“On foot. For ten days I have been in an older world with a man who is a kind of king there.” He spoke for a little of Midwinter, but Johnson was unimpressed.
“I think I have heard these boasts before, sir. When a man decries civility and exalts barbarism, it is because he is ill fitted to excel in good society. So when one praises rusticity it is because he is denied the joys of town. A man may be tired of the country, but when he is tired of London he is tired of life.”
“Yet the taste can be defended,” said Alastair. “A lover of natural beauty will be impatient of too long a sojourn in town, and if he would indulge his fancy he must leave the highway.”
Mr Johnson raised his head and puffed out his cheeks.
“No, sir, I do not assent to this fashionable cant of natural beauty, nor will I rave like a green girl over scenery. One part of the earth is very much as another to me, provided it support life. The most beautiful garden is that which produces most fruits, and the fairest stream that which is fullest of fish. As for mountains—”
The food and the wine had flushed Mr Johnson’s face, and his uncouth gestures had become more violent. Now with a wheel of his right hand he swept two glasses to the floor and narrowly missed Edom’s head.
“Mountains!” he cried, “I deny any grandeur in the spectacle. There is more emotion for me in a furlong of Cheapside than in the contemplation of mere elevated bodies.”
Edom, with an eye on the port, was whispering to Alastair that they would soon be contemplating another elevated body, when there came a knocking and the landlady entered.
“Her ladyship’s services to you, sirs,” she announced, “and she expects Mr Johnson to wait upon her after the next half-hour, and she begs him to bring also the gentleman recently arrived with whom she believes she has the honour of an acquaintance.” The landlady, having got the message by heart, delivered it with the speed and monotony of a bell-man. Mr Johnson rose to his feet and bowed.
“Our service to my lady,” he said, “and we will obey her commands. “Our service, mark you,” and he inclined towards Alastair. The summons seemed to have turned his thoughts from wine, for he refused the bottle when it was passed to him.
“The dear child is refreshed, it would seem,” he said. “She found this morning’s journey irksome, for she has little patience. Reading she cannot abide, and besides the light was poor.”
“Is madam possessed of many accomplishments?” Alastair asked, because it was clear that the other expected him to speak on the subject.
“Why no, sir. It is not right for a gentlewoman to be trained like a performing ape. Adventitious accomplishments may be possessed by any rank, but one can always distinguish the born gentlewoman.”
Then he repented.
“But I would not have you think that she is of dull wits. Nay, she is the most qualitied lady I have ever seen. She has an admirable quick mind which she puts honestly to yours. I have had rare discussions with her. Reflect, sir; she has lived always in the broad sunshine of life, and has had no spur to form her wits save her own fancy. A good mind in such a one is a greater credit than with those who are witty for a livelihood. ‘Twill serve her well in matrimony, for no woman is the worse for sense and knowledge. For the present, being not three weeks married, her mind is in a happy confusion.”
He smiled tenderly as he spoke, like a father speaking of a child.
“She is happy, I think,” he said, and repeated the phrase three times. “You have seen her,” he turned to Alastair. “You can confirm my belief that she is happy?”
“She is most deeply in love,” was the reply.
“And transmutes it into happiness,” said Johnson, and repeated with a rolling voice some lines of poetry, beating time with his hand,
“Love various minds does variously inspire;
It stirs in gentle bosoms gentle fire
Like that of incense on the altar laid.”
“There,” said he, “Dryden drew from a profundity which Pope could not reach. But it is time for us to be waiting on my lady.” He hoisted himself from his chair, brushed the crumbs from his waistcoat, straightened his rusty cravat, and opened the door with a bow to the others. He was in the best of spirits.
The landlady was waiting to show the two upstairs, Edom having meantime retired to smoke a pipe in the bar. As they ascended, the gale was still pounding on the roof and an unshuttered lattice showed a thick drift of snow on the outer sill, but over the tumult came the echo of a clear voice singing. To Alastair’s surprise it was a song he knew, the very song that Midwinter had played two nights before. “Diana and her darling crew” sang the voice, and as the door opened it was Diana herself that seemed to the young man to be walking to meet him. Vera incessu patuit Dea.
Mrs Peckover had dressed her hair, which the coach journey had disarranged, but to Alastair’s eye her air was childlike, as contrasted with the hooped and furbelowed ladies of the French court. Her skirts were straight and unmodish, so that her limbs moved freely, and the slim young neck was encircled with her only jewel — a string of pearls. The homely inn chamber, which till a few hours before had been but the Brown Room, was now to him a hall in a palace, a glade in the greenwood, or wherever else walk princesses and nymphs.
She gave him her hand and then dropped into a chair, looking at him earnestly from under her long eyelashes.
“I thought that b-by this time you would be in L-Lancashire, Captain Maclean.”
“So also did I,” and he told her the story of Gypsy Ben and his morning’s hunt. “There is business I have had news of in these parts, a riddle I must unravel before I can ride north with a quiet mind. The enemy musters in Nottinghamshire, and I must carry word of his dispositions.”
Her brown eyes had kindled. “Ben is a rogue then! By Heaven, sir, I will have him stript and whipt from Tha
mes to Severn. Never fear but my vengeance shall reach him. Oh, I am heartily glad to know the truth, for though I have used him much I have had my misgivings. He carried letters for me to my dear Sir John.” She stopped suddenly. “That is why the replies are delayed. Oh, the faithless scoundrel! I can love a foe but I do abhor all traitors. . . . Do you say the enemy musters in Nottingham?” The anger in her voice had been replaced by eagerness at this new thought.
“So it is reported, and, as I read it, he may march by this very road if he hopes to take the Prince’s flank. You at Brightwell may have the war in your garden.”
Her eyes glistened. “If only Sir John were here! There is the chance of a famous exploit. You are a soldier, sir. Show me, for I love the gossip of war.”
On the hearthstone with a charred stick he drew roughly the two roads from the north. “Here or hereabouts will lie the decision,” he said. “Cumberland cannot suffer the Prince to approach nearer London without a battle. If you hear of us south of Derby undefeated, then you may know, my lady, that honesty has won.”
She cried out, twining her hands.
“Tell me more, sir. I had thought to pass the evening playing Pope Joan with my Puffin, but you are here to teach me a better pastime. Instruct me, for I am desperate ignorant.”
Alastair repeated once again his creed in which during the past days he had come the more firmly to believe. There must be a victory in England, but in the then condition of Wales and the West a very little victory would suffice to turn the scale. The danger lay in doubting counsels in the Prince’s own circle. Boldness, and still boldness, was the only wisdom. To be cautious was to be rash; to creep soberly south with a careful eye to communications was to run a deadly peril; to cut loose and march incontinent for London was safe and prudent. “Therefore I must get quickly to the Prince’s side,” he said, “for he has many doubting Thomases around him, and few with experience of war.”
“He has my Sir John,” she said proudly. “Sir John is young, and has not seen such service as you, but he is of the same bold spirit. I know his views, for he has told them me, and they are yours.”
“There are too many half-hearted, and there is also rank treason about. Your Gypsy Ben is the type of thousands.”
She clenched her hands and held them high. “How I l-loathe it! Oh, if I thought I could betray the Cause I should hang myself. If I thought that one I loved could be a traitor I should d-die.” There was such emotion in her voice that the echo of it alarmed her and she changed her tone.
“Puffin,” she cried, “are you honest on our side? I have sometimes doubted you.”
“Madam,” Mr Johnson replied in the same bantering voice, “I can promise that at any rate I will not betray you. Being neither soldier nor statesman, I am not yet called to play an overt part in the quarrel, but I am a Prince’s man inasmuch as I believe in the divine origin of the Christian state and therefore in the divine right of monarchs to govern. I am no grey rat from Hanover.”
“Yet,” she said, with a chiding finger, “I have heard you say that a Tory was a creature generated between a non-juring parson and one’s grandmother.”
“Nay, my dear lady,” he cried, “such heresy was never mine. I only quoted it as a pernicious opinion of another, and I quoted too my answer that ‘the Devil, as the first foe to constituted authority, was the first Whig.’”
At this juncture Mrs Peckover appeared with a kettle of boiling water and the rest of the equipment of tea, which the girl dispensed out of the coarse inn earthenware and sweetened with the coarse sugar which Mr Johnson had used for his port. While the latter drank his dish noisily, she looked curiously at Alastair.
“You are no politician, Captain Maclean, and doubtless have no concern with the arguments with which our gentlemen soothe their consciences. You do not seek wealth or power — of that I am certain. What are the bonds that join you to the Prince?”
“I am a plain soldier,” he said, “and but fulfil my orders.”
“Nay, but you do not answer me. You do more than obey your orders; you are an enthusiast, as Sir John is — as I am — as that dull Puffin is not. I am curious to know the reason of your faith.”
Alastair, looking into the fire, found himself constrained to reply.
“I am of the old religion,” he said, “and loyalty to my king is one of its articles.”
She nodded. “I am a daughter of another church, which has also that teaching.”
“Also I am of the Highlands, and I love the ancient ways. My clan has fought for them and lost, and it is in my blood to fight still and risk the losing.”
Her eyes encouraged him, and he found himself telling the tale of Clan Gillian — the centuries-long feud with Clan Diarmaid, the shrinking of its lands in Mull and Morvern, the forays with Montrose and Dundee, the sounding record of its sons in the wars of Europe. He told of the old tower of Glentarnit, with the loch lapping about it, and his father who had no other child but him; of the dreams of his youth in the hot heather; of that little ragged clan which looked to him as leader and provider; and into his voice there came the pathos and passion of long memories.
“I fight for that,” he said; “for the old things.”
It seemed that he had touched her. Her eyes were misty and with a child’s gesture she laid a hand on his sleeve and stroked it. The spell which had fallen on them was broken by Mr Johnson.
“I conceive,” he said, “that the power of the Scottish chief is no less than Homeric, and his position more desirable than that of any grandee in England. He may be poor, but he has high duties and exacts a fine reverence. When I was a child my father put into my hands Martin’s book on the Western Isles, and ever since I have desired to visit them and behold the patriarchal life with my own eyes.”
“Your Highlanders are good soldiers?” she asked.
“They are the spear-point of the Prince’s strength,” said Alastair.
“It is a strange time,” said Johnson, “which sees enlisted on the same side many superfine gentlemen of France, certain sophisticated politicians of England, and these simple, brave, ignorant clansmen.”
“There is one bond which unites them all,” she cried with enthusiasm, “which places my Sir John and the humblest Scotch peasant on an equality. They have the honesty to see their duty and the courage to follow it. What can stand against loyalty? It is the faith that moves mountains.”
“Amen, my dear lady,” said Johnson, and Alastair with a sudden impulse seized her hand and carried it to his lips.
*****
The next morning dawned as silent as midnight. The wind had died, the snowfall had ceased, and the world lay choked, six-foot drifts in the road, twenty foot in the dells, and, with it all, patches of hill-top as bare as a man’s hand. The shepherds were out with the first light digging sheep from the wreaths, and the cows after milking never left the byres. No traveller appeared on the road, for a coach was a manifest impossibility, and a horse little better. Alastair and Johnson breakfasted at leisure, and presently the elder of the Weston servants brought word of the condition of the highway. This was borne by Mrs Peckover to her mistress, who summoned Mr Johnson to her to discuss the situation. The landlord was unhopeful. Unless he could put six horses to it the coach would not get to Brightwell, though a squad of men went ahead to clear the drifts. The extra four horses he could not provide since his waggons were all at Marlock and the two riding horses were useless for coach work. The best plan would be to send to Brightwell for the requisite horses, and this should be done later in the day, if no further snow fell. The lady pouted, but settled herself comfortably at cartes with her maid.
She inquired after Alastair’s plans, and was told that he would make a shift to travel, since his errand brooked no delay. Thereafter he found the landlord and drew him aside. “You were bidden by our friend to take orders from me,” he said. “I have but the one. I stay on here, but you will let it be known that I have gone — this day after noon. You will give me a retired
room with a key, forbid it to chambermaids, serve me with your own hand, and show me some way of private entry. It is important that I be thought to have left the countryside.”
The man did as he was told and Alastair spent the morning with Mr Johnson, who suffered from a grievous melancholy after the exhilaration of the night before. At first he had turned the pages of the only book in the inn, an ancient devotional work entitled “A Shove for a Heavy-sterned Christian.” But presently he flung it from him and sat sidelong in a chair with his shoulders humped, his eye dull and languid, and his left leg twitching like a man with the palsy. His voice was sharp-pitched, as if it came from a body in pain.
“I am subject to such fits,” he told Alastair. “They come when my mind is unemployed and when I have pampered my body with over-rich food. Now I suffer from both causes. Nay, sir, do not commiserate me. Each of us must live his life on the terms on which it is given him. Others have some perpetual weakness of mind or some agonising pain. I have these black moods when I see only the littleness of life and the terrors of death.”
Lady Norreys had written a letter to her husband’s great-uncle at Brightwell, and armed with it Alastair set out a little before midday. He had dressed himself in the frieze and leather with which Midwinter had provided him, for it was as good a garb as a kilt for winter snows. The direction was simple. He had but to follow the valley, for Brightwell was at its head, before the road began to climb to the watershed.
To one who had shot hinds on steeper hills in wilder winters the journey was child’s play. He made his road by the barer ridges, and circumvented the hollows or crossed them where matted furze or hazel made a foundation. He found that the higher he moved up the vale the less deep became the fall, and the shallower the wreaths, as if the force of the wind had been abated by the loftier mountains. Brightwell lay in a circle of woods on whose darkness the snow had left only a powder; before it ran the upper streams of a little river; behind it the dale became a ravine and high round-shouldered hills crowded in on it.