Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  An hour later Mr Lammas had left the coast behind him and was in a landward country of plough and pasture. Cupar Tam on the horse which carried his mails rode discreetly some yards behind, and he was left free to think his own thoughts. He might even have whistled without scandal, but at first his mind was far from whistling.

  Now that he was on the road, with every minute taking him farther from home, he was a little weighted by the importance of his mission. He, the youngest in the Senatus, had been chosen to fight this battle far away among subtle lawyers and cold men of affairs. London, which at other times he had dreamed of as an Hesperides of art and pleasure, now seemed like Bunyan’s Vanity Fair, a hard place for a simple pilgrim. Also there was the meeting that very night in Edinburgh with Lord Mannour, a formidable figure as he remembered him, bushy-browed, gimlet-eyed, with none of the joviality of his son. He shook himself with difficulty out of a mood of diffidence. The harder the task, he reminded himself, the greater the credit. He forced himself to be worldly-wise. He was a man of affairs, and must view the world with a dignified condescension. “An old head upon young shoulders” had been the Principal’s words. So he fell to repeating the arguments he meant to adduce about the Priory lands—”We are a little home of the humanities, my lords — Rome in her great days was always kindly considerate of Athens.” . . .

  But the motion of his horse sent the blood running briskly in his veins, the sun flushed his cheeks, and Mr Lammas became conscious again of the spring. The rooks were wheeling over the plough-lands, and the peesweeps and snipe were calling in every meadow. The hawthorn bushes were a young green, every hedge-root had its celandines and primroses, and there were thickets of sloe, white as if with linen laid out to bleach. The twin Lomonds poked their blue fingers into the western sky, and over them drifted little clouds like ships in sail. A great wall of stone bounded the road for a mile or two, and he knew the place for the park of Mount Moredun, of which Jock Kinloch had babbled the night before. Far up on the slopes that rose north from the Eden valley he saw too the dapper new woodlands which surrounded Balbarnit, the house of Miss Christian Evandale, that much-sought lady.

  The sight switched his thoughts to a new channel — the difficulties of youth, the eternal and lovable foppery of the world. He thought of the slim boy who had once been his pupil and the callow yearnings of which he had once been the confidant; now the boy was a grown man in a glittering world, of which a Scots professor knew nothing. He thought of Jock Kinloch eating out his heart for a girl who was destined for his betters. And at the recollection he was filled with a humorous tenderness, for was he not himself a preceptor of youth, with a duty to trim its vagaries and therefore to understand them?

  The world around him was young — young lambs in the fields, young leaves on the trees, mating birds everywhere, whispering grasses and frolic winds. When he ate bread and cheese at midday in a village alehouse his head was brimming with fancies. The vale through which he was riding seemed to him to have a classic grace, with the austere little hills rimming the horizon and a sky as blue as ever overhung a Sabine farm. He wished that he was Professor of Humanity, which had been his old ambition. He could have discoursed more happily on Horace and Virgil than on Barbara Celarent and the barren logomachies of Mr Reid. . . . He took to repeating to himself what he held to be the best of his own verses, and when the ground began to fall away towards the west and he came in sight again of the sea, he was back in the mood of the night before, and impenitently youthful.

  It was the sea that did it, and the sudden waft of salt from the gleaming firth. Below him, tucked into a nook of the coast, lay Dysart, his childhood’s home — he could see the steeple of its kirk pricking above a jumble of russet tiles, and the tall trees that surrounded the policies of its great new house, where once he had bird-nested. A schooner was tacking out with every sail set to catch the breeze — in the Norway trade, he judged from its lines. The air was diamond-clear, and on the Lothian shore he could make out the little towns, the thornbush which was the cluster of masts in Leith harbour, the Edinburgh spires on which the sun was shining, the lift of the Castle rock, and behind all the blue backbone of the Pentlands. He had a sudden vision of the world as an immense place full of blowing winds and a most joyous bustle. Classrooms and council chambers were well enough in their way, but here around him was the raw matter, the essential stuff of life, without which schools and statesmen would be idle.

  The looms were clacking in every cot-house as he rode through the weaving village of Gallatown; hammers were busy among the nailmakers of Pathhead; the smell of a tan-pit came to his nostrils with a pleasing pungency; when he descended the long slope of the Path the sight of scaly fisherfolk and tarry sailormen gave him an inconsequent delight. As he saw the horses baited, and paid off Cupar Tam, and trod the cobbles of the harbour-walk he felt inexplicably happy. He stepped aboard the grimy Leith packet with the gusto of an adventurer.

  The little ship had to tack far down the firth to get the right slant of wind, and Mr Lammas stood in its bows, amid piles of fresh-caught haddocks and much tarry lumber, in a happy dream. “Nanty,” Jock Kinloch had called him the night before, from which it appeared that the St Andrews students knew him familiarly among themselves by his boy’s name. Well, “Nanty” let it be. In a sense it was a compliment, for he could not imagine any of his starched colleagues being thus made free of the sodality of youth. He felt more like Nanty than Anthony, and the title of Professor seemed absurd. A recollection of his errand clouded him for an instant, but it was summarily dismissed. Time enough for those grave things later; let him indulge the flying minute. “It’s not often I get such a lift of the heart,” he told himself. This was the mood in which poetry was written; the thought of his literary ambitions gave a comforting air of prudence to his abandonment; there was an air jigging in his head to which fine verses might be set. Everything was making music — the light wind in the rigging, the rhythmical surge and heave of the vessel through the shining waters; and presently the blind fiddler squatted under the mast struck up, and the tune he played was “Dunbarton’s Drums.”

  A figure, looking like a fisherman in his Sabbath best, sidled up to him. He did not know the face, but the man made a familiar sign — two plucks at an unshaven chin followed by a left forefinger drawn thrice along the brows. Mr Lammas responded with the pass-word, and a huge hand was extended, in the hollow of which lay a strip of dirty paper. “I’ve gotten this for your honour from ye ken who,” said the man, and took himself off. “Mum’s the word to my father, J. K.,” were the words that Mr Lammas read, before he crumpled the scrap and dropped it overboard.

  Silly fellow to be at such pains, as if he were likely to confess a son’s infatuation to a father with whom he had weighty business! But the message seemed to sharpen his exhilaration. It had come twenty miles that day up the coast with miraculous expedition, and a certainty beyond his Majesty’s mails. The Free Fishers were a potent folk, and he was one of them. . . . A queer sensation stole into Mr Lammas’s mind, expectancy, wonder, a little fear. He was bound on a prosaic mission of which the bounds were strictly defined, but might not Providence, once he was on the road, take a hand in ravelling his purpose? He remembered something of a poem of Burns, which he had once turned into Latin longs and shorts:

  “The best-laid schemes of mice and men

  Gang aft agley.”

  He had had this sense of adventure upon him ever since he smelt the salt from the Pathhead braes. He had cherished it a little guiltily, as a lawful holiday mood, but might it not be a preparation for something momentous? Mr Lammas stepped ashore on the pier of Leith with a not unpleasant solemnity upon his spirit.

  A hackney carriage took him to his inn behind the Register House, for he had no time to lose if he would keep his appointment with Lord Mannour. There he spruced himself up, and set out briskly on foot for his lordship’s residence in Queen Street. The butler who admitted him announced that his master was for the moment engaged
with his confidential clerk, but that the Professor was expected. Mr Lammas was ushered into the withdrawing-room on the first floor, which, owing to the lack of females in the family — for her ladyship was dead these many years — was cheerless as a tomb. But the windows were bright with late sunshine, and from them he had a wonderful prospect. He looked down over Lord Moray’s meadows to the wooded glen of the Water of Leith, and beyond, across fields of ancient pasture, to a gleaming strip of firth. He saw the Fife shore smoking with its evening hearth-fires, the soft twin breasts of the Lomonds, and, to the left, at an infinite distance, the blue confusion of the Highland hills dappled with late snow. Ye gods, what a world of marvels! It was with an effort that he composed his countenance to gravity when he heard the street-door shut on the confidential clerk and his lordship’s step on the stair.

  Lord Mannour was but two years on the Bench. As Peter Kinloch he had been a noted verdict-getter, the terror of judges, whom he treated with small respect, and the joy of anxious clients. Mr Lammas had first met him when he was counsel for the University in an intricate matter of heritable property, and had respected the clean edge of his mind and the rough vigour of his tongue. At that time he had cultivated the manners of a country laird, his deep pockets looked as if they might hold twine and pruning-knives and samples of grain, and he did not condescend to trim his Fife speech to the gentility of some of his colleagues. The Bench had made his appearance more decorous, for there was no fault to be found with his full-cut black coat and well-shaped trousers, and the white neckcloth which was voluminous in an elder fashion. But he had the heavy bent shoulders of a countryman who was much on horseback, and the ruddy cheeks of a man who was much in the east wind. Sixty years of age — seeming more, for his once raven locks were prematurely white, and his thick brows hung like the eaves of a snowdrift. The contrast of the venerable hair with a face the hue of a vintage port, in which were set two brilliant dark eyes, gave him an air of masterful vitality. His repute as a lawyer was high, but higher still as a man of affairs, for he was known to be Lord Snowdoun’s chief adviser, and many believed him to be the real Minister for Scotland. In private he had a name for good talk, for he was a friend of Walter Scott, a light of the Friday Club, and, after Lord Newton, the best judge of claret in the New Town. A Tory of the old rock, there were no politics in his private life, for he was said to be happier pricking philosophic bubbles with John Playfair or Dugald Stewart, discussing the laws of taste with Francis Jeffrey, or arguing on antiquarian points with Thomas Thomson than in the company of the ponderous lairds and sleek Writers to the Signet who shared his own faith.

  He greeted Mr Lammas with a gusty friendliness. A servant was at his heels as if waiting for orders.

  “You have left your mails at Ramage’s, Professor? Away down with you, John, and have them moved to the Tappit Hen, which will be more convenient for the coach. It leaves precisely at ten o’clock, which does not allow you and me any too much time.”

  “I had bespoken a seat in to-morrow’s Quicksilver,” Mr Lammas began, but a wave of his lordship’s hand cut him short.

  “I know, I know, but I have taken the liberty to dispose otherwise. You’ll agree, when you have heard what I have to tell. You’ll travel by his Majesty’s Mail, the Fly-by-Night, and not cramp your legs and get your death of cold in Gibbie Robison’s auld daily hearse. Away, John, and see that all is in order. Meantime we’ll get to our meat. The owercome says that it’s ill speaking between a full man and a fasting, but two fasting men are worse at a crack, and you and I have much to say to each other. Follow me, for dinner is on the table, and the cockie-leekie will be cooling. My cook is a famous hand at it.”

  Mr Lammas descended to a gloomy apartment looking out on a strip of bleaching-green. The curtains were undrawn, though candles had been lit on the table and an oil-lamp on the sideboard. The walls were in shadow except the one opposite the window, where hung a picture of a fair-haired girl, one of Mr Raeburn’s happiest efforts, which Mr Lammas took to be the long-dead Mrs Kinloch. A small coal-fire burned in the grate, at which three uncorked bottles of claret were warming. The host sat himself in a chair with his back to the window, and the guest took the place adjacent to the fire.

  His lordship said grace.

  “A glass of sherry with the soup? It prepares the way for its nobler brother, Professor, even as Saul preceded the Psalmist. I hope you are a claret-drinker, which every true Scot should be. Once it was the beverage of our people — my father minded well when it was cried through the town of Stirling at six shillings Scots the chopin. Now, alack! there are gentlemen’s boards where you never see it. Too many of this degenerate age confine themselves to port, like the French Navy when Lord Nelson was on the seas. . . . You took ship from Kirkcaldy? What like were the lambs as you came through the East Neuk? You would pass within two miles of the Kinloch gates. It is my grief that the sitting of the courts prevents me being with my herds at this season of the herds’ harvest, for you must know, Professor, that I’m like Cato the Censor, agricolarum voluptatibus incredibiliter delector. I would sooner fill my mouth with hoggs and wedders than with sasines and cautioners.

  “And how’s my hopeful son?” he went on, when Mr Lammas had exhausted his scanty agricultural knowledge. “You don’t wheep at college? Pity that, for Jock, though he is eighteen years of age — no, he is past nineteen — would be often the better of a well-warmed backside.”

  “He is a young man for whom I profess an extreme partiality. His talents are considerable, his heart is warm, and he deports himself—”

  “Ay, his deportment?”

  “As decorously as can be expected from young blood.”

  “I am glad to hear you say so.” His lordship cocked a sceptical eyebrow. “I wish the partiality you speak of may not blind you to Jock’s failings. The lad’s like a jack-o’-lanthorn. He’s all I possess, and I would have him follow me and wear an advocate’s gown, like four generations of Kinlochs. He’ll aye have the kitchen-midden in Fife to fall back on if he finds the Parliament House thrawn. But his head is a wasp’s byke for maggots. Now he would be a soldier, now he’s for off abroad to see the world, and again he would be a fine gentleman and cock his beaver among his betters. There’s still more yeast than wheaten flour in yon loaf. . . . But I did not bring you here to speak of son John. Till Dickson draws the cloth I have a word to say to you on the St Andrews business that takes you south. I have prepared a small memorial to guide you, and I have sent a scart of the pen to Lord Snowdoun to advise him of my views.”

  For the rest of the meal Mr Lammas listened to a cogent summary of the points in the University’s case for presentation to the authorities of the Exchequer. Then the butler removed the table-cloth, placed two massive decanters, one of claret and one of brown sherry, a dish of nuts and a platter of biscuits on the shining mahogany, put coals on the fire, drew the curtains, lit two more candles on the mantelpiece, and left the room. Lord Mannour turned his chair towards the hearth.

  “Now we’ll get to the real business of this sederunt,” he said. “What I brought you here for is no University concern. It’s something a deal more important than that. It’s nothing less than the credit of a noble family and the future of an unhappy youth. Have you folk in St Andrews heard of a certain young lady who bides not a hundred miles from you — Miss Christian Evandale, of Balbarnit?”

  “I saw her park wall this very morning. Yes, I have heard of her, though I have not seen her.”

  “She is a year younger than my Jock, and the two were bairns together. Old Balbarnit left me her sole trustee, and it’s no light charge to have in trust youth and siller. For I would have you know that Miss Christian is the best dowered lass in the kingdom of Fife.”

  “She has beauty also, I gather. Your son has talked to me of her beauty.”

  “The devil he has!” His lordship gathered his brows. “I’ve had a notion that Jock was airting that way. The idiot will only burn his fingers, for it is not to be permit
ted. I would be indeed a faithless curator if I abused my position by seeking an advantage for my son. In this matter I will be the Roman father. Kirsty will make the brawest match in Scotland, and one that consorts with her looks and her fortune. Indeed, it is already made in all but name, and the fortunate man is one whom you are acquainted with, Professor — the young Lord Belses, no less.”

  “What does the lady say?”

  “The lady is a wise woman, and by no means disinclined to a high destiny. Why should she be averse to espouse rank and comeliness? I have seen the lad a dozen times and he’s like Phoebus Apollo.”

  “Is he willing — my young lord?”

  The brows unbent, and Lord Mannour’s face was wrinkled in a wry smile.

  “Acu rem tetigisti. In plain English, that’s the devil of it. Dismiss Miss Kirsty from your mind, for I introduced her only that you should be fully seized of the whole matter. I have had a deal to do with my Lord Snowdoun over public affairs, for when he is invalided with the gout the Lord President takes over much of the conduct of Scots business, and I am his lordship’s right hand. Likewise this affair of Kirsty brought me often, as her trustee, into consultation, for I may tell you the Snowdoun family ardently desires the match. Therefore I have heard much of Lord Belses, and had him much in my mind, and now his father has opened his heart to me. That’s why I bade you here to-night. I would speak to you, not as Questor and Professor of St Andrews, but as Anthony Lammas, umquhile governor to Lord Belses and, it may be presumed, with some influence over him. For, let me tell you, your young friend is ploughing a dangerous rig.”