Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  The sick man was an old soldier who took life as it came. After he had drunk a bowl of gruel laced with usquebagh, he turned on his side and fell asleep. David and Isobel went down to the kitchen and, with the candle between them, looked at each other with something like consternation.

  “We must burn those clothes,” said David.

  “Na, na. I’ll make a bundle o’ them and hide them in the cupples. It’s braw raiment, gin it were cleaned. But oh, sir, this is a bonny kettle of fish! Who wad hae thocht to see such wark in the manse of Woodilee?”

  “It is a work of mercy.”

  “There’s some wad call it by anither name. There’s some wad say it was turnin’ back from the gude fight, and a faintin’ and a backslidin’ on the road. I’d be feared to think what yon thrawn minister o’ Bold wad call it, but it wadna be mercy. He’d be for savin’ the puir lad as Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite saved Sisera.”

  “I will be party to no such wickedness, which would be an offence against human charity as well as against the law of Christ.”

  “Ay, charity. I’m blithe to hear ye speak the word, sir.” Isobel’s eyes had an inclination to twinkle.

  “I must follow the guiding of my own conscience. But I would not constrain you. If the thing offends you, I will even now, before it is light, carry the man to the Greenshiel . . .”

  “A bonny gait that wad be. The avenger of blood will be chappin’ ony hour at Richie’s door, and there’s nae space at the Greenshiel to hide a mouse. Na, na, I’m no denyin’ your duty, Mr. David. There never was woman yet, young or auld, that was ill-set to a sodger, forbye yon randy Jael, wha maun hae been an unco trial to her man. And the lad upbye seems a decent body, though he skellies [squints] sair wi’ his left ee. I’se do your bidding, sir, and I hope it winna be accounted to me for sin.”

  “Can we keep him here without any one knowing of it?”

  “Brawly. The folk o’ Woodilee are sweir to come near the manse thae days. They’re feared o’ the glower they micht get from you.”

  “But if Leslie’s troopers arrive and offer to search — ?”

  “I’ll search them! I’se warrant I’d be doun on them with my ten fingers like a gled on poutry. Isobel Veitch will learn the godless loons to mak’ free with the house o’ a man o’ God. And mind, sir, if onybody speirs, ye maun brazen like a packman. Bleeze awa’ about the needcessity o’ speed in the guid cause and send them on their ways to Clyde, and maybe ye’ll be spared the sin o’ actual leein’.”

  “If need be I will not shrink from the false word, which will be forgiven in the cause of mercy.”

  “Fine, sir.” Isobel grinned appreciatively on him; for this confederacy seemed to have ended the estrangement between servant and master. “There’s a man ahint the minister in you, whilk is mair than ye can say for the feck o’ the Presbytery.”

  “And, meantime, I must be up and doing.”

  “Ye’ll awa’ to your bed and sleep out your sleep. What’s the need o’ hurry when the body’s leg is still to set. As my auld mither used to say, naething suld be done in haste but grippin’ a flea. . . . But I’ll look out some of your auld garments, for our friend will hae to cast his braw coat and put on homespun or he wins forth o’ Woodilee.”

  CHAPTER XIII. WHITE MAGIC

  The man upstairs slept for a round of the clock, and then awoke and clamoured for food. Isobel reported that he was cured of his weakness, and that the pike wound in his shoulder was no more than a scratch. “Forbye his leg, he’s as weel as you or me, and he has the hunger o’ a cadger’s powny. It was an awesome sicht to see him rivin’ my bannocks. He’s speirin’ to see ye, for nae doubt he has muckle on his mind.” The old woman was in the best of tempers, and her wizened face was puckered in a secret smile, for she and her master were now restored to friendship as partners in conspiracy.

  David found his guest clad in one of his own bedgowns, the hue of health once more on his unshaven cheeks. His first request was for a razor and for shears, and when Isobel had shorn his hair, and he had got rid of a three days’ beard, it was a head of a notable power and dignity that rested on the pillow. The high-boned, weather-beaten face, the aquiline nose, the long pointed chin were no common trooper’s, and the lines about mouth and eyes were like the pages of a book wherein the most casual could read of ripe experience. The brown eyes were dancing and mirthful, and the cast in the left one did not so much mar the expression as make it fantastically bold and daring. Here was one who had lived in strange places and was not used to fear.

  “It’s a sore burden I’ve brought on you, Mr. Sempill,” he cried, “and it’s you that’s the good Samaritan. It was my lord’s notion that I should throw myself on your compassion, for it’s a queer thing, I own, for a cavalier to be seeking a hiding-place in a manse, though Mark Kerr has had some unco ports in his day. I mind in Silesia — But there’s no time for soldiers’ tales. You’ll be wanting me out of this as soon as I can put foot to ground, and it’s blithe I’ll be to humour you. My leg is setting brawly, says that auld wife who is my chirurgeon, and in less than a week I’ll be fit to go hirpling on my road.”

  “That will be to walk into the fire,” said David. “If Montrose’s army is scattered throughout the hills, there will be such a hunt cried as will leave no sheiling unsearched.”

  “Just so. I’ll not deny that this countryside is unhealthy for folk like me. You’ll be well advised to bury or burn the clothes I had on last night, and if you can lend me a pair of grey breeks and an auld coat, I’ll depart with a lighter mind.”

  “You’ll be for the sea and the abroad?”

  “No me. It’s at the coast that they’ll be seeking me, and a wise man that’s in trouble will go where he’s no expected. I think I’ll just bide hereaways. Put me in a frieze jacket and I’ll defy Davie Leslie himself to see Mark Kerr, the gentleman-cavalier of Mackay’s, in the douce landward body that cracks of sheep and black nowt. You’ll maybe have me in your congregation, Mr. Sempill. I’m thinking of taking a tack of Crossbasket.”

  David stared. “Are you mad?” he asked.

  “Not so — only politic, as is the way of us soldiers of the Low Germany. One of my profession must think well into the future if he’s to keep his craig unraxed. I’ve had some such escapado in mind ever since I travelled north a year syne, and I’ve had a word on the matter with Nicholas Hawkshaw, so when the glee’d [squinting] auld farmer body from Teviotside seeks the tack of Crossbasket, the lawyer folk in Edinburgh will be prepared for him. Nicholas was like me — he kenned fine that our triumph in the North was fairy gold that is braw dollars one day and the next a nieve-full of bracken.”

  “Where is the laird of Calidon?”

  “By a merciful dispensation we left him sick at Linlithgow, and Nicholas, being an eident soul, had a boat trysted at the Borrowstounness, and by this time doubtless will be beating down the Forth on his way to a kinder country. He’ll be put to the horn, like many another honest gentleman, and his braw estates may be roupit. Thank the Lord, I have nothing to lose, for I’m a younger son that heired little but a sword.”

  “A month ago,” said David, “Montrose was lord of all Scotland. You tell me that everything has been lost in one battle, and that you and others were confident of its loss. Man, how did he succeed with such a rabble of the half-hearted behind him?”

  “I wouldna just call it half-hearted. We won because James Graham is the greatest captain since Gustavus went to God at Lutzen, and because he has a spirit that burns like a pure flame. But he did not ken this land of Scotland as me and Nicholas kenned it. He had a year of miracles, for that happened which was clean beyond all sense and prevision, but miracles have an ugly trick of stopping just when they are sorest needed. . . . A year syne there were three men on Tayside — Montrose and Inchbrakie and me — and that was the King’s army. By the mercy of Providence we fell in with Alasdair Macdonald on the Atholl braes, and got a kind of muster at our back. . . . There’s no Hieland blood in
you, Mr. Sempill? No? Well, it’s a very good kind of blood in its way, but it’s like the Hieland burns — either dry as the causeway or a roaring spate. It’s grand in a battle, but mortal uncertain in a campaign, if you follow me — and that James should have held it in leash till he had routed Argyll and Baillie and Hurry, and brought the Kirk and Estates to their knees, is a proof of genius for war that Gustavus never bettered. But for conquering Scotland, and keeping the conquest fixed — na, na! Hielands will never hold down Lowlands for long, and that Lowland support we reckoned on was but a rotten willow wand. My lord deceived himself, and it was not for me to enlighten him, me that had witnessed so many portents. So we kept our own thoughts — Nicholas and me — and indeed we had half a hope that a faith which had already set the hills louping might perchance remove the muckle mountains. But I tell you, sir, when we marched for the Borders I had a presage of calamity on me as black as a thundercloud.”

  “But you had the army that won Kilsyth?”

  “Not a third of it. Yonder on Bothwell haughs it melted away like a snow-wreath. Macdonald — he is Sir Alasdair now and a Captain-general, and proud of it as an auld gander — must march off with the feck of his Irishry to Argyll to settle some private scores with Clan Diarmaid. The Gordons took the dorts [sulks] — a plague on their thrawn heids — and Aboyne and his horse went off in a tirrivee. James looked for a Lowland rising, for, says he, the poor folk for whom I fight are weary of the tyranny of greedy lairds and presumptuous ministers. If so, they are ower weary to show it. What can be done with lads that grovel before a Kirk that claims the keys of Heaven and Hell? . . . If that sounds blasphemy, sir, you’ll forgive a broken man that is unlocking his heart and cannot wale [pick] his words. . . . Forbye, the Irish were like a millstone round our necks, for what profit was it to plead that Munro used them in Ireland for an honest cause? To the Lowland herds and cotters they were murdering savages, and the man that had them on his side was condemned from the beginning. The sons of Zeruiah were too strong for us.”

  “Is it true that they fight barbarously?” David asked.

  “So, so. I’ll not deny that they’re wild folk, but they havena your Kirk’s taste for murder in cold blood. There were waur things done in Methven Wood than were done at Aberdeen, and it’s like that Davie Leslie is now giving shorter shrift to the poor creatures than ever they gave to the Campbells in Lorne and Lochaber. . . . We’ll let that be, for there was never an army that did not accuse its enemies of barbarity, and the mere bruit of it on our side was enough to keep the Lowlands behind steekit doors. There were some of the nobles that we counted on — my Lord Home, and my cousin Roxburghe, and the sly tod Traquair. James was in good heart at their promises, but I mistrusted the gentry, and I was most lamentably justified, for when we were on Teviotside, where were my lords but in Leslie’s camp? — prisoners, they said — but willing refugees, as I kenned braw and well.”

  “And the battle?”

  A spasm of pain passed over the other’s face.

  “It was not, properly speaking, a battle, but more in the nature of a surprise and a rout. We were encamped on Yarrow at the gate of the hills, for the coming of Davie Leslie had altered our plans, and we were about to march westward to the Douglas lands. We were deceived by false intelligence — it was Traquair’s doing, for which some day he will get my steel in his wame — but I bitterly blame myself that an old soldier of the German wars was so readily outwitted and so remiss in the matter of outposts. . . . In the fog of the morning Davie was on us, and Douglas’s plough-lads scattered like peesweeps. There were five hundred of O’Keen’s Irish, and five score of Ogilvy’s horse, and for three hours we held Davie’s six thousand. These are odds that are just a wee bit beyond my liking, forbye that we had no meat in our bellies. Brawly they fought, the poor lads, fought as I never saw men fight in the big wars — but what would you have? . . . It’s no tale for me to tell, though it will be in my mind till my last breath.”

  He sighed, and for a moment his face was worn and old.

  “Well and on, sir,” he continued. “The upshot is that the bravest of Scottish hearts is now, by God’s grace, somewhere on the road to the Hielands, and the great venture is bye and done with, and here am I, a lameter, seeking sanctuary of a merciful opponent. If to shelter me does violence to your conscience, sir, say the word and I’ll hirple off as soon as the night falls. You’ve given me bite and sup, like a good Christian, and suffered me to get my sleep, and you’ve no call to do more for a broken malignant.”

  “My conscience is at ease anent succouring the wounded and saving a man’s life. And I have no clearness about this quarrel of Montrose and the Kirk, and would therefore give it the go-by. But I will exact the promise that, if you come off safe, you will fight no more in Scotland. In that much I am bound to serve my calling.”

  “You shall have the promise. Mark Kerr is for beating his sword into a ploughshare. What says the Word? ‘His speech shall be of cattle’ — though, now I come to think of it, that’s from what you gentry call the Apocryphal books and think little of. . . . I’m one that has no great love for idleness on the broad of his back. Have you no a book to while away the hours? Anything but divinity — I’ve lost conceit of divinity these last months when I’ve been doing battle with the divines.”

  David furnished his guest with reading which was approved, and then went forth into Woodilee. The village made holiday, and every wife was at her doorstep. A batch of troopers were drinking a tankard at Lucky Weir’s, and saluted him as he passed. The people he met had an air of relief and good temper, and looked with a friendly eye on the minister, forgetting apparently the Lammas controversies and the shut kirk, for he was a representative of the winning cause.

  Peter Pennecuik, sitting on a big stone outside the smithy, was the chief dispenser of tidings. His cheeks were swollen and his voice faltered with pride.

  “What for do ye bide in your tent, Mr. Sempill, in this hour of our deliverance? They tell me that Mr. Ebenezer of Bold has mounted his beast and ridden wi’ the horsemen to harry the ungodly’s retreat. Ay, and baith Chasehope and Mirehope have ta’en the road, for the haill land is fou’ o’ the wreckage of the wicked, as the sands o’ the Red Sea were strewed wi’ the chariots o’ Pharaoh. Our General Leslie is no ane to weaken in the guid cause, for there’s word that his musketeers hae shot the Irish in rows on the Yarrow haughs, ilk ane aside his howkit grave, and there’s orders that their women and bairns, whilk are now fleein’ to the hills, are to be seized by such as meet wi’ them, as daughters of Heth and spawn of Babylon, and be delivered up to instant judgment. Eh, sir, but the Lord has been exceeding gracious us-ward, and our griefs are maist marvellously avenged. . . . Nae doot ye’ll be proclaimin’ a solemn fast for praise and prayer.”

  David ate his dinner with a perturbed mind, for if the countryside was being scoured for fugitives on this scale, it was unlikely that the manse would remain long inviolate. But Isobel reassured him. “They wad never daur ripe the house, and for the lave I can speak them fair in the gate.” In the afternoon he set out to walk to the Greenshiel, since the road would give him a far-away glimpse of Calidon. Autumn was already chilling the air, and the horizon was a smoky purple, the heather was faded, the bracken yellowing, the rowan trees plumed with scarlet, the corn in the valley already more gold than green. To David, in whose ear was still the gloating voice of Peter Pennecuik, the place seemed to smell of death.

  At the Greenshiel he found death in bodily form. On the plot of turf outside the cottage half a dozen troopers stared from their saddles at something that lay on the ground. The men were mostly a little drunk, and had the air of a pack of terriers who have chased a cat and found it at bay — an air that was puzzled, angry, and irresolute. David strode towards them, and they gave place to him, somewhat shamefacedly. On the turf lay a wretched draggle-tailed woman, her clothes almost torn off her back, her hair in elf-locks, her bare feet raw and bloody. Her face was emaciated and of an extreme pa
llor, her shrunken breast heaved convulsively, and there was blood on her neck. Richie Smail was on his knees attempting to force some milk between her teeth. But her lips shut and unshut with her panting, and the milk was spilled. Then her mouth closed in that rigor from which there is no unloosing.

  Richie lifted his head and saw the minister.

  “She’s bye wi’t,” he said. “Puir thing, puir thing! She ran in here like a hunted maukin.” Then to the soldiers: “Ye had surely little to dae, lads, to mishandle a starvin’ lassie.”

  There was no sign of compunction on the coarse faces of the troopers.

  “An Irish b-bitch,” one hiccoughed. “What’s the steer for a bawbee joe?”

  “Tam Porteous kittled her wi’ his sword point,” said another. “Just in the way o’ daffin, ye ken. She let out a skelloch and ran like the wund.” The man put his hands to his sides and guffawed at the memory of it.

  He did not laugh long, for David was on him like a tempest. The fuddled troopers heard a denunciation which did something to sober them by chilling their marrow. As men, as soldiers, as Christians, he left them no rag to cover them. “You that fight in God’s cause,” he cried, “and are worse than brute beasts! Get back to your styes, you swine, and know that for every misdeed the Lord will exact punishment a thousandfold.” He was carried out of himself in his wrath. “I see each one of you writhing on a coming field of battle, waiting to change the torments of the flesh for the eternal agonies of Hell. You are the brave ones — your big odds gave you a chance victory over one that for a year hunted you and your like round the compass — and you purge your manhood by murdering frail women.”

  It was not a discreet speech, and a sentence or two of it pierced through their befuddlement, but it sent them packing. They were too conscious of the power of a black gown in Leslie’s army to dare to outface a minister. David marched homeward with his heart in a storm, to find an anxious Isobel.