by John Buchan
The sea felt as delicious as it looked, but Bill, though a good swimmer, kept near the edge for fear of sharks. This was very different from the chill flood-waters of Alemoor. He looked down through blue depths to a floor like marble, and the water was a caress. Bill wallowed and splashed, with the fresh salt smell, which he loved, in his nostrils.
By and by he ventured a little farther out, and floated on his back, looking up at the pale, hot sky. For a little he was unconscious of the passage of time, as he drifted on the aromatic tide. Then he saw a little reef close at hand, and was just on the point of striking out for it when he cast a glance back towards the shore.
Bill got the fright of his life, for at the edge of the forest stood men — dark-skinned men — armed with spears. He had forgotten that these islands might have other things in them besides strange fruits and birds and beasts.
They had halted and were looking at his stick, but apparently they had not yet seen him. Supposing they got the stick, what on earth would happen? With a fluttering heart Bill made for the shore.
As soon as he was in shallow water the men caught sight of him and moved forward. He was perhaps fifty yards from the stick, which cast its long morning shadow on the sand, and they were two hundred yards on the farther side. At all costs he must get to it first. He sprang out of the sea, and as he ran he saw to his horror that the men ran also — ran in great bounds, shouting and brandishing their spears.
His little naked body scurried up the sand. The fifty yards seemed miles, and it was an awful thing to run towards those savage faces and not away from them. Bill felt his legs giving way beneath him, as in his nightmares, when he had found himself on a railway track with an express approaching and could scarcely move. But he ran faster than he thought, and before he knew had laid a quivering hand on the stick.
No time to put on his clothes. He managed to grab his dressing-gown with one hand and the stick with the other, and as he twirled the handle a spear whizzed by his ear.
“I want to be home,” he gasped, and the next second he stood naked between the shrubbery and the pond, clutching his dressing-gown. The Solomon Islanders had got his pyjamas and his fives-shoes, and I wonder what they made of them!
The cold of a November morning brought him quickly to his senses. He clutched his shivering body in his dressing-gown and ran by devious paths to the house. But this time the hall was clearly not for him. Happily the gun-room door was unlocked, and he was able to ascend by way of empty passages and backstairs to the nursery floor.
He did not, however, escape the eagle eye of Elsie, the nurse, who read a commination service over a boy who went out of doors imperfectly clad on such a morning. She prophesied pneumonia and plumped him into a hot bath.
Bill applied his tongue to the back of his hand. Yes, it tasted salt, and the salt smell was still in his nose. It had not been a dream.... He hugged himself in the bath and made strange gurgling sounds of joy. The experiment had been brilliantly successful, and the magic of the staff was amply proved. But he must go carefully, very carefully. He had suddenly an awful reminiscence of fearsome black faces and bloodshot eyes.
Events that morning did not go according to programme. There was no walk with the dogs, for Bill was in disgrace. Elsie wailed for lost pyjamas, of which he could give no account. Under cross-examination he was, as the newspapers say, reticent. He avoided Peter and spent the time before departure in wrapping up his new stick in many layers of brown paper and tying it firmly with string. In this way he thought he might safely carry it back to school.
But in the bustle of leaving it was somehow left behind, and Bill only discovered his loss when he was half-way to London. The discovery put him into a fever of anxiety. He could not go back for it, and there was the awful risk that in his absence Peter or Groves or some other interfering person might monkey with it. Or it might get lost. Deep gloom settled upon his spirit. At luncheon he was so morose that Aunt Alice, who had strong and unorthodox views about education, observed that he seemed to be a clear proof that the public school system was a failure.
Without the stick there were none of the delights for Bill over which he had gloated in church. His first idea was to have it sent to him, but that seemed too risky. In the past various parcels, despatched by rail or post, had gone astray. Nor was there the chance of a visit from someone at home, for his mother and father and Peter presently went up to London for several weeks.
So Bill wrote to Groves, the butler, a very ill-spelt letter, demanding that he should find the brown paper parcel and put it securely in his play-box. He enclosed one of his scanty stamps for a reply. It was four days before the answer came, and it did something to relieve Bill’s anxiety. The parcel had been found — awful thought! in Peter’s playbox — and Groves had duly stowed it away as directed. Bill breathed freely again.
But the last weeks of that half lacked gaiety. His disappointment died away, but he had many spasms of anxiety. He counted the days to the Christmas holidays.
CHAPTER IV. THE ADVENTURE OF GLENMORE.
ON the 19th day of December Bill returned from school in time for luncheon. Never before had he looked forward so wildly to getting home again. He greeted his mother with the most perfunctory caress, dodged Peter, and rushed upstairs to his playbox. Thank Heaven, the stick was safely there! He tore off the brown paper wrappings and carried it down to the gunroom, where he put it in a special place beside his 16-bore.
It being the first day of holiday, according to fashion the afternoon was spent in a family walk. It was decided that Bill and Peter should set off together and should join the others at a place called the Roman Camp. “Let the boys have a chance of being alone,” his father said.
This exactly suited Bill’s book, and as they left the dining-room he clutched his small brother. “Shrimp,” he said in his ear, “you are going to have the afternoon of your life.”
It was a bright, mild day, with the leafless woods and the brown plough-lands lit by a pale December sun. Peter, as he trotted beside him, jerked out breathless enquiries about what Bill proposed to do, and was told to wait and see. Their sister’s dog had joined them. This was a cairn terrier called Catsbane, because of his extraordinary dislike for cats, and he did not often honour the boys with his company. He was much beloved by Barbara, and Peter felt a certain responsibility for his conduct, and was always yelling and whistling him to heel.
Arrived at a clump of beeches which promised privacy, Bill first swore his brother to secrecy with the most awful oaths that he could imagine.
“Put your arm round my waist and hang on to my belt,” he told him. “I’m going to take you to have a look at Glenmore.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Peter. “That only happens in summer, and besides we haven’t packed yet.”
“Shut up and hold tight,” said Bill.
But at the last moment anxiety for Catsbane overcame Peter; and so it befell that as Bill twirled the stick and spoke the necessary words, Peter was clutching Catsbane’s collar....
The boys were looking not at the smooth boles of beeches, but at a little coppice of rowans and birches above the narrow glen of a hill burn. It was Glenmore in very truth. There was the strip of mossy lawn and the whitewashed gable-end of the lodge; there to the left, beside the walled garden, was the smoking chimney of the head stalker’s cottage; there beyond the trees was the long lift of brown moorland and the peak of Stob Ghabhar. Stob Ghabhar had snow on its summit, which the boys had never seen before. To them Glenmore was the true home of the soul, but they knew it only in the glory of late summer and early autumn. In its winter dress it seemed for a moment strange. Then the sight of an old collie waddling across the lawn gave the connecting link.
“There’s Wattie,” Peter gasped, and lifted up his voice in an excited summons.
His brother promptly scragged him. “Don’t be an ass, Shrimp,” he said fiercely. “This is a secret, you fathead. This is magic. Nobody must know we are here. Come on and explore.�
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But Wattie had seen Catsbane, and the two dogs held high converse together. In the autumn they had always been friends. Catsbane was a proud animal and would have nothing to do with the retrievers or the stable terrier, but for some reason or another he was partial to Wattie. The two went off down the burnside.
“Here, this’ll never do,” said Peter. “Catsbane may not come back till to-morrow morning — he’s done it before.”
But there was no help for it, for the dogs had already disappeared in the thicket, and the boys were too full of excitement to have much care for the future. For an hour — it must have been an hour, Bill calculated afterwards, but it seemed like ten minutes — they visited their favourite haunts. They found the robber’s cave in the glen where a raven nested, and the pool where Bill had got his first big trout, and the stretch of the river from which their father that year had had the 30-pound salmon. Then they dipped into the big fir wood which clothed the hillside. There were no blaeberries or crowberries now, but there were many woodcock. After that Bill had a shot with his catapult at a wicked old blackcock on a peat-stack. Then they found Wattie the collie, who had shaken himself loose from Catsbane, and induced him to make a third in the party.
Peter moaned about Catsbane. “What’ll we say to Barbara? He’s lost now — we’ll never get him back.”
But Bill only said, “Confound the beastly pup,” and had a shot at a stray pheasant.
All their motions were as stealthy as an Indian’s, and the climax of the adventure was reached when they shed Wattie, climbed the garden wall, and looked in at the window of the keeper’s cottage.
Tea was laid before a bright peat fire in the parlour, so Mrs. Macrae must be expecting company. It looked a very good tea, for there were scones and pancakes and shortbread and currant loaf and heather honey. Both boys suddenly felt famished at the sight.
“Mrs. Macrae always gives me a scone and honey,” Peter bleated. “I’m hungry. I want one.”
So did Bill. His soul longed for food, but he kept hold of his prudence. “We dare not show ourselves,” he whispered. “But perhaps we might pinch a scone. It would not be stealing, for if Mrs. Macrae saw us she’d say, ‘Come awa’ in, laddies, and get a jeely piece.’ I’ll give you a back, Shrimp, and in you get.”
The window was opened, and Peter was hoisted through, falling with a bang on a patchwork rug. But he never reached the table, for at that moment the parlour door opened and someone entered.
After things happened fast. Peter, urged by Bill’s anguished whisper, turned back to the window and was hauled through by the scruff of the neck. A woman’s voice was heard crying—”Mercy on us, it’s the bairns!” as the culprits darted into the shelter of the gooseberry bushes.
Bill realised that there was no safety in the garden, so he dragged Peter over the wall by the way they had come, thereby seriously damaging a pear tree. But they had been observed, and, as they scrambled out of a rose bed, they heard cries, and saw Mrs. Macrae appearing round the end of the wall, having come through the stable-yard. Also a figure, which looked like Angus the river gillie, was running from the same direction.
There was nothing for it but to go. Bill seized Peter with one hand and the stick with the other and spoke the words, with Angus not six yards away.... As he looked once more at the familiar beech boles, his ears were still filled with the cries of an excited woman and the frenzied barking of Wattie the collie.
The two boys, very warm and flustered, and rather scratched about the hands and legs, confronted their father and mother and their sister Barbara, who was eighteen and very proud.
“Hullo, hullo!” they heard their father say. “I thought you were hiding somewhere hereabouts. You young rascals know how to take cover,- for you seemed to spring out of the ground. You look as if you had been playing football. Better walk home with us and cool down.... Bless my soul, Peter, what’s that you have got? It’s bog myrtle! Where on earth did you find it? I have never seen it before in Oxfordshire!”
Then Barbara raised a ladylike voice. “Oh, Mummie, look at the mess they’ve made of themselves! They’ve been among the brambles. Peter has two holes in his stocking. Just look at Bill’s hands!” And she wrinkled her finical nose and sniffed.
Bill kept a diplomatic silence, and Peter, usually garrulous, did the same, for his small wrist was in his brother’s savage clutch.
Then Barbara bethought herself of Catsbane. “Where’s my dog?” she cried. “You know he started out with you. You wretched boys have lost him!”
There was a great hunt for Catsbane, but of course he could not be found. “I know where he is,” said Barbara bitterly. “He’s gone down to Johnson’s farm and has probably by this time killed twenty chickens. Or he’s at the badger’s earth in Yewbarrow wood.”
Bill’s desperate grip only just prevented Peter from laughing.
CHAPTER V. THE ADVENTURE OF CATSBANE.
TEA was a difficult meal. Peter was in a state of high excitement, gurgling to himself and casting secret conspiratorial glances at Bill, which Barbara intercepted. Barbara was in distress about her dog, and she read in Peter’s behaviour some guilty knowledge of its whereabouts. She cross-examined him severely, but Peter only giggled, and Barbara became very cross indeed.
Bill realised that something must be done about Catsbane, and done at once. If he were left loose in the Highlands he would be found, and people would naturally enquire what had suddenly shifted a cairn terrier five hundred miles farther north. So he fled from Peter and sought the darkness of the garden, twirled the stick, and wished himself at Glenmore....
He ought to have wished himself where Catsbane was, but the idea never occurred to him. Where he asked to be was the vicinity of the house of Hector, the second stalker, which was behind the kennels. He had seen the terrier moving in that direction, and it used to be a favourite haunt of his.
He found himself in the midst of a soft flurry of snow. When he had left Glenmore several hours earlier it had been fine weather, but the clouds had been banking up in the north. Now the snow had come, and since it was falling steadily it would be a business to find an inconspicuous white dog. The lights were lit in Hector’s cottage, and the door was open. Bill snuggled up in the darkness against the wall and observed two men standing at the threshold. One was Hector himself, and the other looked like Angus, the river gillie. The lamplight from within fell on Hector’s face, and it was very grave.
“She’s bad,” Hector was saying. “She’s awfu’ bad. We maun get the doctor or she’ll be bye wi’ it. The puir thing’s greetin’ wi’ pain. Haste ye, Angus, and awa’ on your bicycle to Abercailly and bring Dr. Porteous back wi’ ye. If he’s no at hame ye maun range the countryside till ye find him. Oh, man, hurry! I daurna’ leave her, or I’d be off mysel’.”
“But ma bicycle’s broke,” said Angus glumly. “I ran into a stane last nicht, and the front wheel’s like a peaseweep’s egg.”
“Then awa’ up the glen to Jock Rorison, the herd, and borrow his. There’s nae other bicycle about the place. Oh, man, haste ye, or ye’ll be ower late.”
Bill saw Angus start off at a trot and Hector turn wearily indoors. He was alarmed by the news, for he had been fond of Mrs. Hector, who had often stayed him and Peter with oatcakes and jam.... And then suddenly a great idea occurred to him. Abercailly was five miles off and Angus and his bicycle would take nearly an hour to reach it in the snow. But he had the staff and could be there in a second.... He twirled it and wished himself in Dr. Porteous’s back garden.
The doctor knew him by sight, and it would never do to reveal himself. He must approach the back door and pretend to be one of the cottagers’ boys from Glenmore. The darkness and the snow were in his favour. So Bill turned up the collar of his jacket and knocked loudly.
It seemed a long time before Dr. Porteous’s housekeeper opened. She peered into the night. “Wha’ is it?” she asked, blinking her eyes.
Now Bill, who had a good ear, had always
prided himself on his command of the Scots tongue. This was the moment for its use.
“It’s me,” he said, in the lilting tone of the countryside. “I’m frae Glenmore. Hector Cameron’s wife’s lyin’ awfu’ bad, and they sent me to tell the doctor that he maun come at once or she’ll dee.”
“Mercy! that’s bad news,” said the housekeeper. “The doctor’s indoors haein’ his tea. He’s had an awfu’ hard day, and he’ll be sweir to gang out in the snaw. But needs must if Ailie Cameron’s bad. D’ye ken what the trouble is?”
“I never heard,” said Bill, “but she’s greetin’ sair wi’ pain, and Hector Cameron’s in an awfu’ way about it. He said I was to get the doctor at a’ costs, though I had to look for him ower the hale parish.”
“Is it as bad as that? I’ll awa’ and tell him. Ye can come in and wait by the kitchen fire.”
“I think I’ll bide here. Ye see, I’m terrible wat.” A minute later the housekeeper returned. “The doctor will stert in the car as sune as he’s got his buits on. Wad ye like a piece?”
“Thank ye, mem,” said Bill, “but I had my tea afore I left.” And without more words he turned into the darkness.
So far, so good, Bill reflected. Dr. Porteous would be at Glenmore before Angus had well started on the herd’s bicycle. Bill felt a glow of conscious merit, the surprised glow of one who has slipped accidentally into virtue.
Now for Catsbane. Bill’s wits had returned to him, and as he turned the stick he wished to be beside the dog....
He found himself in an extraordinary place. He seemed to be high up on a hillside, but the snow was falling so fast that he could not discover his whereabouts. The ground was a tangle of boulders deep in blaeberries and long heather and of old stumps of trees. He could only think that it was the fir wood on the slopes of Stob Ghabhar, which had been cut down in the summer.