by John Buchan
She dropped again on the heather. “What a wild tangle!” she cried. “Poor Harry has enemies on all sides, but Sir Turnour Wyse is not the deadliest.” Nanty saw her face whiten, and dreaded a fainting fit.
“Not another word till you have eaten,” he said with the firmness of his St Andrews classroom. “When did you last break bread, I wonder? These eggs are ready, and a whaup’s egg is fine fare.”
He had with him bread and cheese and cold mutton, brought from the Merry Mouth. She drank two cupfuls of water, and ate half of one egg, while Nanty made a hearty meal. All the time her eyes were on him, appraising, questioning. She noted the firm set of his chin, his fresh colour, the fair hair growing a little scanty at the temples, the well-knit shoulders under the fisherman’s jersey. It was a wholesome presence belonging to a clean world, and, having dwelt so long among sidelong glances, it gave her hope. Also the night had gone and its terrors, and above her a spring dawn was flaunting its banners. The sun was high enough in the eastern sky to flood over the lip of the hollow where they sat. It was no stormy sunrise of gold and crimson, but a steady upwelling of pure light, as tonic to the body and mind as a plunge into cool water. The thin, sour smell of the wet bent was changing to a thousand subtle odours. The earliest curlews were calling, and a lark’s song came sweet and shrill from the heavens.
“I am trysted at Nickson the shepherd’s house,” he told her, “but my orders were to lie in the hills till nightfall if I could not reach it before dawn. You know the man?”
She nodded. “He’s honest, I think, but I have seen little of him. He does his own work, and keeps apart from the rest of the glen. But what takes you to him?”
“My orders. I am not here alone. Since we are both on Harry’s side, let us be frank with each other. The danger I fear is Sir Turnour Wyse. You come from Hungrygrain, knowing nothing of Sir Turnour, and you also are afraid. What is this other fear?”
“My husband,” she said. “He is . . . but I cannot tell you. You must believe me when I say that Lord Belses has put himself in my husband’s power at a moment when — when he may be tempted to use that power cruelly. He has come to Hungrygrain in secret, and he may never leave it. Do not press me farther. You are my friend, and I beg you to take my word for it. Harry is in the utmost peril, and he must be delivered. That is why I ran away from the house last night — to find a deliverer, somewhere — anywhere outside this glen where all are slaves to evil. Thank God I have found you, and you say there are others at hand. We must make a plan at once — the urgency is desperate, for it will not be many hours till Hungrygrain is empty.”
“Empty?”
“Empty.” Her voice trickled away into languor. The single word as spoken by her had an ominous sound in Nanty’s ear, but he saw that it was not the time for further questions.
“You are dropping with sleep,” he said. “Lie down here where the sun will not reach you, and doze a little. You must, if we have a heavy task before us. I will go for a walk and try to get my head clear. When I come back and find you rested we will make a plan.”
She obeyed, put the plaid under her head, and turned on her side like a tired child. Nanty walked north along the tableland, which was so full of hollows that there was no prospect beyond twenty yards. He could not be seen from any point in Yonderdale, and his route was not commanded by any higher ridge; only someone actually traversing the little plateau could find him. There were no sheep, for the land was all peat-haggs and coarse bent, and the ewes with the young lambs would be on the juicy lower pastures. He felt himself for a moment secure, and could think his own thoughts.
These thoughts were a fine confusion, but one conviction was crystal-clear. This woman, with whom he had been breakfasting on curlew’s eggs on the hill tops, was not the beldame of Jock’s tale. She had spoken of Harry as a sister might speak of a brother, or a mother of a lost child. Goodness and innocence looked out of her sad eyes. She had risked much in running away, and she had been pursued; that blew sky-high the picture of an arch-plotter with a wild folk to do her bidding. She was powerless, and her husband, the drunken boor of Jock’s story, was the master. Harry was at his mercy, but why should he want to do Harry a hurt? Did he believe him to be his wife’s lover? That seemed the likeliest explanation, and Nanty sighed, for that was just the kind of situation he had dreaded. To defend the boy against a bravo like Sir Turnour was one thing, but to shelter him from a rightfully jealous husband was quite another, and he had a strong distaste for the job. Rightfully jealous? No, he could not credit that. Harry might have been a fool, but he had got no encouragement from the lady. He reflected ruefully that in a few hours his mind had swung to a new course, and that he had become her hot partisan.
He sat down in the shade of an outcrop of rock, and tried to think. But his eyelids drooped, for the heat of the sun and the strong upland air had made him drowsy, and, except for fitful slumbers on the Edinburgh Mail, he had had no sleep for forty-eight hours. Gently he slid into unconsciousness.
Something damp and warm was on his face, and he awoke to find himself being licked by a young collie. An older and wiser dog stood a little way off, watching with some suspicion the antics of the younger, and behind it was a human figure.
Nanty scrambled to his feet in alarm, but was reassured by a voice.
“Ye’ll be the Professor?” it said. He who spoke was a tall old man, a little bent, with shaven cheeks and a ragged white beard under his chin. He leaned on a great hazel crook, and had removed his broad bonnet to cool his forehead.
“Are you Nickson?” Nanty asked, now actively awake.
“Just so,” the answer came in the soft slow drawl of Liddesdale. “I’m Tam Nickson, and ye’ll be the professor they telled me o’. It’s no often a learned man comes to Yonderdale. Since ye didna come to my house wi’ the rest this mornin’, I took a cast up the hill to look for ye. I gie the tops a look every second day, for, though the lambin’ is bye, there’s maybe twae-three late yowes among the haggs. But dinna fash yoursel’, sir, for there’s nae foot but Tam Nickson’s comes this road at this time o’ year. The rest o’ Yonderdale has ither things to think o’.”
“The other two, are they safe in your house?”
“There’s three o’ them. There’s Bob Muschat, an auld friend whae has bode wi’ me afore. There’s a blackavised lad that they tell me is the son of a great judge in Embro. And there’s a peely-wersh young man in braw clothes a wee thing the waur for wear. The threesome draibbled in at the back o’ fower o’clock.”
“The third?” Nanty cried excitedly. “Did you learn his name? Was it Lord Belses?”
“I speir nae questions, but I heard Bob ca’ him my lord. He had gotton a clour on the heid, and lookit a wee thing gash. The three o’ them made a gude meal o’ milk and bannocks, and are now sleepin’ as if they had been streikit. But dinna you stir a foot till the darkenin’, for Hungrygrain the day is like a byke o’ swarmin’ bees. Purdey frae the inn gae’d off wi’ horses at skreigh o’ day, and Winfortune has a beast saddled, and is for the road. There’s just Hartshorn and Meek and Sloan left at the house, forbye the Squire and his leddy.”
Nanty forbore to correct him on the last point.
“Tell me of the lady?” he said. “Is she like the rest?”
“When she first cam here I thocht her a innocent bit bairn, but no doubt the pitch has defiled her.”
“You know nothing of her?”
“Naething beyond a gude-day on the road. Ye maun ken, sir, I likena the broo o’ Hungrygrain. There’s nought for a believin’ man to do in this glen but draw in his skirts if he wadna be spotted. I ken little o’ what gangs on, for I hae nae pairt in it, but this I can tell you — there’s much gangs on at a’ hours, and there’s nane o’ it gude by God’s law or by man’s law. But I meddle not wi’t, though I’m aye ready, like Rahab the harlot, to gie bield to the Israelitish spies that come up against Jericho. . . . Gude day to ye, sir. It’s a fine caller morn for the hills, but see that
ye dinna leave the tops afore the darkenin’.”
The old man raised his crook in a salute, and departed, with his dogs frisking among the heather.
Nanty went back to his breakfast hollow, where he found the girl asleep. But she slept light, for, though he stepped softly, the noise of his coming awoke her, and she sat up with startled eyes. She looked like one accustomed to painful awakings.
“I bring good news,” he said. “I fell in with old Nickson on the hill. My two friends have got safely to his cottage, and they have brought with them — whom do you think? Harry Belses.”
“He has escaped? He is safe?”
“For the moment. But how they found him I do not know, nor did Nickson know. He said that Harry had got a blow on the head and looked pale, but that he had eaten well and was now sound asleep.”
“O God be thanked! It is an answer to my prayers.” She sat up and put a hand to her untidy hair. “Now I must leave you, sir. It was only Harry’s danger that tore me from Hungrygrain. I must go back, for it is there my duty lies.”
“But you cannot go like this. I will not permit it. I must have some assurance of your safety.”
She smiled sadly.
“No man or woman can give you that. I am walking a desperate road, and I must walk it alone.”
“Listen to me, Mrs Cranmer. Something is happening, or is about to happen, at Hungrygrain, which bodes no good to you. Nickson is aware of it, and says it bodes no good to God’s law or man’s law. What that is you must tell me.”
“It is no concern of yours, sir.” He saw that she forced herself to a brusqueness foreign to her nature.
“It may be no concern of mine, except that misdoings are the concern of all good citizens. I came here for Harry’s sake, and for his sake only. But it is most intimately the concern of those who came with me. You have not heard my full story. I would not tell it you if I were not convinced that you are on the side of decency, and that what is done wrong is done against your will. For I am putting my friends in your hands.”
He told her what Jock had told him — that the doings in Yonderdale were known to the Government, that Hopcraw was being watched, that the net was closing. Her cheek flushed, and at first he thought it was with anger.
“Three fishermen,” she cried. “What can three fishermen do against Hungrygrain?”
“They have much behind them,” he answered.
“Yet they are but rabbits against weasels. Oh, I cannot explain to you the bottomless futility of such ways. There is evil contemplated, horrible evil, and it is the work of desperate and subtle men. I am in the heart of it, and all that is left to me in life is the chance of thwarting it. I have little hope, but I can try. But you! And your fishermen!”
“Still we are on your side, and we can bring up potent allies. But we must know what the design is. If it is treason, there are the forces of the law to enlist. I have my duty, as you have yours.”
“I cannot tell you,” she said stubbornly. “I have reasoned out my duty and I see it clear. But it is my own duty, and I ask for no helpers.”
“Then we must go our own ways. You are for Hungrygrain, and I am for Nickson’s cottage.”
“But you cannot,” she cried. “You told me yourself that your orders were to wait till the darkening. Nickson, you say, was insistent too. You will be seen. All Hungrygrain is on the alert, like troops before a battle, and Nickson’s dwelling is as bare as a table-top. You will ruin yourself and your friends and you will ruin Harry.”
“Nevertheless, a risk must be run. My duty to Harry is not the overmastering one, as the dear boy would be the first to grant. I must meet my friends at once, tell them what little I know, and prepare a plan.”
Nanty’s temper had stiffened. He felt like some bully who threatens a child, but he saw no other way. The girl dropped her head on her hands, but when she raised it her eyes were dry. Nanty was glad of that, for he was in dread of her tears.
“You would force me to unlock melancholy cupboards . . . and you would not understand.”
But as she looked at him something in his appearance broke down her resolution. The long upper lip, the slightly prim mouth, the grave forehead disappeared, and she saw only youth like her own. Kindly wistful youth, eager to hold out a hand to distress. Competence, too, something audacious and masterful if the task were plain.
“Sit down,” she said, in a changed voice. “Beside me, so that I need not look at you. I am going to do what I have prayed that I should never be forced to do — share my miseries with another. But I think this meeting of ours was predestined by God’s purpose. You are a philosopher and may see deeper than other men. And you are a servant of the Lord and will be merciful.”
She rested her chin on her hand, and kept her eyes fixed steadily on the green bank in front of her.
“I want you to see a picture,” she began. “It is of a girl both of whose parents are dead, brought up by servants and an ancient aunt in a vast echoing house between the woods and the sea. That girl died long ago, but you must try to see her. She has few friends and none of her own age, and the world is a closed book to her. But she has other books and roams wide in a good library. She is a great student, and her head is full of happy dreams. She is devout after her fashion, and had she been a Catholic might have found a vocation as a nun, for she shrinks a little from the bustle of life. . . . And then, as she grows older, vistas open for her, bookish vistas, for she is very ignorant. She is a romantic child, and has visions of wonderful enterprises in which she is to share. Her heroes are all paladins and saints and poets. She dreams of a lover, too, a fairy-tale prince who will some day ride under her windows.”
She stopped. “Do you see the picture, sir? That girl died long ago, but she died slowly. She had a fortune, and her guardians were jealous that she should not be the prize of a fortune-hunter, so when she had grown up she was given but a sparing sight of men. Mostly they were heavy young squires, eldest sons, who thought only of horses and fat cattle, and who were shepherded unwillingly by their mothers to her presence. They were a little afraid of her, and she cared nothing for them, but all the time in her innermost heart she cherished her dream. And then one day it came true, and the fairy prince rode up. He was sad and dark and beautiful, and the world was against him. He was a poet, and a student, and a rebel against all dullness and cruelty. He had a cause to fight for, the cause of the poor and the downtrodden, and his beauty and his ardour melted her heart. They made a runaway match of it, and she became Justin Cranmer’s wife.”
“I can see your first picture,” said Nanty. “Show me the next.”
“The next is a blurred one, for it is the change of a girl into a woman, and of dreams into brutish reality. At first she was happy and they lived in Arcady — here in Yonderdale beneath us, among streams and flowers and country faces. Her lover had been a soldier, but he had resigned his commission out of honest scruples. He professed to be a friend of all humanity, and to be sworn to the cause of peace and lovingkindness among men. He liked simple hearts and the glittering world had no charms for him. Presently they went abroad and dwelt in beautiful places to which war had not come. He was always busy, and had many friends, some of them strange for one of his breeding, but she was too innocent of the ways of men to be surprised. . . . By and by she came to share in his business. She became his amanuensis, for she had a ready pen and was quick at foreign tongues. . . . In time she began to see the purpose of his work. It was to cripple the hands of those who made war and to force peace upon them. The end was so humane and she was so blind, that it was long before she understood that what she did was treason to England. And when she understood it she had gone too far, and her name was compromised. For he, her husband, did the work, but stood back and kept her in the foreground. There lay the strength of his position. In the eyes of the world he was a rustic squire who thought only of the hunt and the bottle, and that reputation he most jealously conserved. Who would suspect such a booby? And he had a second scr
een. If the name of Cranmer came into politics at all it should be his wife’s name. She was his second stalking-horse.
“I was slow to see it, for love made me blind. What first opened my eyes was the knowledge that I had lost his love, if indeed I had ever had it. I detected him in flagrant infidelities. At first I bore it in silence and hoped against hope, until the truth was too harsh to ignore. . . . My suffering made my mind more acute. I saw what complexion his doings and mine must wear to honest folk. There was one night when I summoned up courage to demand an answer, and that answer I got — as plain as a blow in the face. He flung off the mask he had worn to me. He spoke frankly. His labour among the poor and oppressed in this land was not for charity and justice, but to kindle the flames of revolution. His dealings with other countries were designed to cripple his own. His purpose was not love of humanity but hatred of England. He defied me to betray him, for he pointed out that any revelation of his intrigues would be visited upon me, since I would appear as the chief conspirator. I was the spider that in the world’s eye would be found to sit at the heart of this monstrous web, and who would believe that I was only a luckless fly? . . . Do you follow me, sir? I tell my story badly, but it is like opening graves to me.”
Nanty bowed. He was getting Jock’s tale, but from a strange new angle.
“I come to my third picture,” she went on. “It is of a woman, girl no longer, who knew the blackness of despair. I do not think I feared for myself. I could have gone to the Government, and told all, and suffered with a light heart the consequences of my folly. But if his love for me was dead, mine still burned for him. I could not forget the fairy prince of my dreams. My hope, I think, was that I might find a way of changing his purpose and undoing the ill, so I worked at his bidding, and waited for my chance with a sick heart. It never came. . . . And with one disillusionment came many. I learned more about his past. He had not honourably resigned his commission in the Army as I had believed — he had been broken, and for some scandal which made him an outcast to the few who knew of it. Slowly I came to understand him. He was consumed by a passion of hate. He hated the class in which he was born and the land that bore him. He hated all men except a few who were his slaves; but it was a cold, relentless passion with no honest fury in it, and it could brood and plan and bide its time. The more I saw of it the more I was smitten with a kind of palsy, as if I had looked on a snake. I had lost all power to act; I, too, was a slave, and he knew it. He was ostensibly kind to me, and had always an affectionate word and a caress, but I was as little to him as the pen with which he wrote his name. A tool, his principal tool, no more.”