by John Buchan
But these were not the friendly woods of Dunnikier. The richness of the flowers was strange, and strange, too, the sweet rotting smell of the marshlands. Only the spring wind was familiar, and he took off his hat and let it blow through his hair. That wind and he were old companions, and it had not failed him now, though his learning and philosophy had gone by the board. He had lost the painful sinking of the heart which had troubled him yesterday. He told himself that he was cool and wary, but he knew that he was strung as tense as a bow.
A mile from the windmill the side-road, still oozing water from recent floods, rose slightly to a ridge of hard land which made the park of Landbeach. To the north lay a great fleet, now glittering in the sun, and covered with a multitude of wildfowl. Then came a tangle of willows already in leaf, and a clump of ancient oaks, many of them with broken boughs, some of them laid prostrate by winter gales, all of them gnarled and stunted. In the midst of this decaying grove stood a decaying house.
The Merry Mouth had no sign, for above the door only the iron stump remained of the bar on which had once swung its nameboard. It looked like the shell of a very old house which a hundred years before had been encased in a square Palladian frame. It had the solid sashed windows of the early Georges, and a portico from which the stucco was peeling, so that the pillars had hollows in them, like trees from which branches had been lopped. Once it had been a gentleman’s dwelling, for to left and right there were the ruins of a pleasance — crumbling terraces and shaggy bowers. It stood by the roadside, but it had none of the welcoming air of an inn. Pass by and leave me alone, it seemed to say, for I am sick and old, sick and weary.
There was a side entrance which appeared to lead to the taproom. Nanty pushed his way in and found himself in a dirty passage. He tried one door and found it locked; another, which gave under his pressure, and showed only a lumber room full of sheepskins and broken furniture. He hammered with his staff and shouted, and presently an old woman limped in from the back parts.
“A mug of ale, mother,” he said. “I have had a long walk and I have a longer in prospect.”
She blinked, as if she did not understand him, and he repeated his request. Her eyes were red with rheum, and she had a foul mutch atop of her dishevelled grey hair.
“We are not serving customers,” she said at last, and he noted that, like Winfortune, she had not the speech of a peasant.
“You are bound to serve me. It is the law, for this is an inn.”
“Not these seven years,” she replied. “The sign is down, if you had eyes in your head to see.”
“Then where can I get a drink?”
“Go six miles on and you’ll come to Twyford, or five miles back to Fenny Horton. Good day to you. I have no time to chatter with idle men.” And before he knew he was jostled by the crone back to the open air, and the door shut behind him. The blotched white façade of the house seemed to grin at his discomfiture. It was utterly silent, and the banging door had made a startling echo. Two moorhens scuttled across the road towards the mere.
Nanty left the place, and turned to his right into the grove of oaks through a gap in a mossy brick wall. He wanted to prospect the house and get a view of its back parts. Not knowing who might be about, he went stealthily, keeping out of sight of the windows. But he found that in that flat place there was no chance of a view, so he climbed a tree and sat in a crutch of it.
There he could reconnoitre at ease. He was looking at the east side of the house, but he could also see the back quarters. At the rear someone had built on a low wing, beyond which lay what seemed to be a stableyard. There was a tower which had once held a clock — the empty hole gaped like an eyesocket. In the yard was a huge litter of straw, as if a stack had been pulled to pieces and flung about wantonly. The place seemed empty, but his sharp eyes noted fresh horse-dung. Most of the outbuildings were of brick, but one or two were of old lichened wood, and against them the straw was piled like drifts of dirty snow.
From his perch Nanty got a new impression of the loneliness of the place. There was that flapping windmill in the west, and to the east lay Landbeach. But the windmill had no dwellers, and Landbeach was the home of a very ancient lady and an invalid girl, and no doubt a host of fatted alien servants. There were no countrymen near with the countryman’s curiosity, and whatever happened in the Merry Mouth there were none to know or to tell. To the north lay mere and fen, and to the south leagues of desolate pasture. It was a lonelier place than the most distant glens of Tweed, which had hitherto been to him the Ultima Thule of solitude.
He was just about to descend, when he saw a figure cross the stableyard. There was no mistaking the long lean body and the horseman’s stoop. He had had a lucky escape, for he had no desire as yet to come under Winfortune’s eye.
Nanty crept out of the shadow of the oaks and regained the road, and he was not easy in his mind till he had put half a mile between him and the Merry Mouth. Presently a high brick wall began on his right, which must mean the park of Landbeach. He scrambled up at a part where the coping had been broken, and looked into a wide demesne of bracken and turf and young oaks. Then he came to a lodge with a thatched roof and absurd Ionic pilasters, and turned in at the gates.
The drive wound in meaningless curves through the pastures, and dipped to a reedy lake. It was a very untidy drive, and Nanty inferred that the domain in the hands of an aged lady was not over well managed. Fallen timber lay rotting, and the windfalls of the winter had not been removed — very different from the spruce little Fife estates where not a penny’s worth was allowed to waste. But this great park had a noble spaciousness, and the fallow deer under the trees and the fantastic turreted boat-house on the lake were proofs of a past magnificence. The place, too, was riotous with light and colour, full of bird-song and flowers, and after the gloom of the inn seemed a haven of honesty and peace. He had a glimpse of a big house on his right at the end of an avenue of trees, and, since the drive seemed determined on foolish circuits, he left it and struck across the turf. He was trying to think just what he should say to Miss Christian Evandale.
His thoughts would not marshal themselves, for they were distracted by the beauty of the carpet on which he trod. It was all of blue and gold, the blue of the tiny bugle and the gold of ranunculus and primrose, and in the adjacent shadow of the trees were great drifts of wild hyacinths. . . . He would begin with Fife. He had never met the lady there, but he knew many of her friends, and he could speak of Balbarnit, of Jock, too, though that might be a perilous subject. He had been seen by her at Berwick, and she might recall his face. He remembered that he had been struck by her beauty, though not by her manners. Still, Jock had said that she had spirit. . . .
He raised his head to see, coming out from the trees, a girl with an armful of hyacinths.
She wore green, not yellow as on the former occasion, and even in that bright place she shone like a jewel. All pink and white, and golden, she was as dazzling to Nanty’s eyes as sunshine. He swept off his hat, and his words came stammeringly.
“Miss Evandale?” he faltered. “Have I the honour—”
Her face was surprised, but not unkindly.
“I am Miss Evandale,” she said. And then recognition woke in her eyes. “I have seen you, sir — only a few days back. At Berwick, was it not?”
“I was there with young Mr Kinloch. I would present myself to you as a Fife neighbour. My name is Anthony Lammas, and I profess logic and rhetoric in the college of St Andrews.”
The lady laughed, a pleasant ringing laugh. She seemed no more the modish miss, but a country girl. Nanty began to understand Jock’s infatuation. This young Diana leading the Fife Hunt would turn any boy’s head.
“And what does a St Andrews professor in the Fens, Mr Lammas?” she asked.
“That is a tale which I ask permission to tell you. Yesterday I met your man Pitten and heard that you were here. I have come to appeal to you — for your sympathy, and maybe your help. We are in a very desperate perplexity.
”
Nanty’s solemn voice made her face grave.
“We?” she asked. “Who are we?”
“Besides myself, there is Mr John Kinloch, whom you know. And two Fife fishermen. And Sir Turnour Wyse. And my lord Belses.”
Again she laughed.
“La! What a company! Jock, my madcap comrade, and two kail-suppers. Sir Turnour Wyse? That was the splendid gentleman who befriended us at Berwick? And Harry Belses! You have swept the ends of the earth for your companions. What high business does this mission portend, and what does it in this outlandish spot?”
“It is a mission of life and death, and it concerns a place close by called the Merry Mouth. We are racing against time for the life of a great man and the soul of a greater woman.”
The girl’s face sobered. Something of the shrewdness entered it which had made the Ebbendaal fortunes. She looked steadily at Nanty.
“You look a man of sense, sir,” she said. “You can have no purpose in coming to me with a fairy-tale. I will hear it. But first let me summon my aunt, who is somewhere hereabouts. You saw her at Berwick, I think — Miss Georgina Kinethmont, my mother’s sister. She has somewhat the air of a dragon who would have accounted for twenty St Georges. But she is a kindly dragon, and very, very wise.”
She gave a high, shrill, view-halloa. There was an answer in the voice of a pea-hen, and presently from a side-walk emerged a striking figure. Though the day was mild, Miss Georgie was heavily cloaked, and her hat was tied to her head by a Paisley shawl which ended in a great bow beneath her chin. She carried a staff like a weaver’s beam, which she must have borne as a weapon of offence, for she did not walk like one in need of artificial aid.
“Aunt Georgie, I present to you Professor Anthony Lammas of St Andrews, of whom you had but a glimpse at Berwick. He has come to beguile us with a tale — come from Sir Turnour Wyse and my beau Harry Belses.”
Miss Georgie rested her gloved hands on the handle of her staff, and made a silent and searching inquisition of Nanty’s face and person. It appeared that the result was not unfavourable, for when she spoke her voice was civil.
“Lammas! Lammas! I have heard of you, lad. The auld Principal speaks well of you, and our neighbour Lord Mannour says the feck o’ the brains of the college is under your hat. This is a sing’lar bit to forgather. You say you come from Sir Turnour Wyse? How the deil did you fall acquaint with him?”
“Mr Lammas has a story to tell us,” said the girl. “He promises that it is exciting. Let us get inside one of Jean’s arbours and hear it.”
She led the way to a little summer-house, with a rustic table and benches. Miss Georgie disposed herself comfortably in a corner, with Nanty beside her, while Miss Evandale sat on the table. “On with the good work, sir,” said the old woman, “as Burley said when he stuck the Archbishop on Magus Muir.”
Nanty found a difficulty in beginning, the story had so many facets. Then he resolved to make his narration a diurnal of his own doings. He told of his St Andrews mission, his dinner with Lord Mannour, and the lamentable quarrel between Sir Turnour Wyse and Lord Belses. He spoke of Mr Cranmer, and at the mention of the lady and the young man’s infatuation Miss Kirsty laughed. Clearly Harry had made no conquest of her affections.
Miss Georgie’s thoughts were on a different tack.
“Cranmer!” she cried. “The wife owns half this countryside. All from the Merry Mouth public for five miles west and ten miles north. I had it yestreen from the auld Countess. Like me she’s fond of redding up folk’s pedigrees and knowing who owns what lands, and she’s like a gazetteer for these parts. Perceval was the wife’s maiden name — a fine house in the auld days, she said, but sore declined.”
Nanty told of his visit to Yonderdale, of the chase in the night, and the vigil with the lady on the hilltops. He told his story well, for as he recapitulated the events he revived the emotions that had accompanied them. He pictured Hungrygrain as a Dark Tower from which a web of intrigue had been spun over all England. He told of the colloquies in Nickson’s cottage, of the visit to the empty house, of the plan of campaign, and of the coming to Fenny Horton. With the point of his stick on the earthen floor of the summer-house he drew a map. “See,” he said. “Here am I. There is the Merry Mouth inn. There, if the fates are kind, is now, or will soon be, the Merry Mouth boat. Somewhere between us is Cranmer. Soon, too, there will be another on the road, and that is the Prime Minister of England. To-morrow the two last will draw together on the Merry Mouth, and unless Sir Turnour and his men arrive in time there will be murder done. Cranmer will not suffer, for he has made his plans cunningly for escape, but it will be the death of his lady.”
The two women listened intently to his story, and it seemed to him that Miss Kirsty’s cheeks lost something of their roses. But Miss Georgie snorted.
“Havers, Professor! Heard you ever such a daft-like tale? This is a law-abiding country, and none of your Muscovies. What hinders you the morn to raise the countryside and make a tolbooth of the inn? That is, if you’re right in your conjecture, which I take leave to doubt.”
“Cranmer has chosen to-morrow well!” said Nanty. “It is the fight for the championship in Fenny Horton, and every male thing that can stagger will be there. That’s the English way of it, if you strip two men to the buff and set them up to pound one another.”
“Mr Lammas is right,” said the girl. “I had it from Jean’s maid, and from Pitten. All the outdoor servants will be off tonight, and will camp in the open so as to be in time. To-morrow we will feast upon cold mutton, for there won’t be a man in the house.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Miss Georgie fiercely. “We’ll compel the bodies. A servant’s a servant.”
“Not in England when the word sport is breathed,” said her niece. “Besides, what good would they be? The Landbeach keepers and stablemen are mostly ancient and doddering, and have been used to the slack sway of an old woman. The Landbeach footmen are trencher-fed hounds. Our Pitten is the best of them — he might at least fire a blunderbuss before he ran away.”
The old woman had knit her brows and was thumping her great stick on the ground. “Maybe you’re right. At Balbarnit we could have raised a dozen stout fellows, but this is not Balbarnit. A bonny kettle of fish, Professor! Murder — and the King’s chief Minister! An unholy blackguard that maunna be allowed to have his way! And a madman, too, says you. And the lady! To be honest it’s just the lady that sticks in my throat. I’ve heard of her, and of Harry Belses’ infatuation. A daft Methody, I was told, and a wild Jacobin. And here you come with a story of a suffering saint. I’ve nothing to say against Harry, except that he’s a young man and what they call romantic, which means a head stuffed with maggots. And you — well, you’ve ower long and serious a face to be lightly regarded, but you’re a philosopher and a minister of the Kirk, and therefore maybe not very well acquaint with the things of this world. As for John Kinloch, he’s no more than a will o’ the wisp. But Sir Turnour now — there you have a muckle, massy man of sense. Do you tell me that Sir Turnour takes your view of Cranmer’s wife?”
“I will be frank,” said Nanty. “He does not. But I would remind you that Lord Belses and I are the only ones of our company who have seen the lady. Sir Turnour is still sceptical of her virtue. It was on that point that he quarrelled with my Harry, and he is not a man to give up readily a prejudice. But Sir Turnour is wholly convinced of Cranmer’s villainy, and assured that some time to-morrow it will come to a head in the Merry Mouth. Therefore he is now hurrying here as fast as wind or horses can carry him.”
Again the stick thumped. It thumped rhythmically as if it was an aid to Miss Georgie’s thoughts.
“You come seeking help?” she cried. “What help can you get here? There’s me and Kirsty, two weak women. Inbye there’s another pair that’s a hantle weaker, an auld Countess and an ailing lassie. As Kirsty has told you, there’s not a man about the place to depend on. What is it you seek?”
“I do n
ot know,” Nanty shook a weary head. “I hoped for counsel from kind and honest folk. I wanted a refuge at hand for Mrs Cranmer if she should need it. I think that I also hoped for lodging, for it is imperative that I should be near the Merry Mouth.”
“I can promise you the latter two. But counsel — faith, it’s hard to see what counsel you can get. Have you riddled the thing out? Have you a plan in your head?”
“I have set out the case to myself a hundred times, but I can reach no finality. There are too many unknown things that must be left to fortune.”
“Fortune is a hussy that’s likely to be in a better temper if you meet her half-way. Hearken to me, and I’ll give you an auld wife’s reading. I’ll set out the facts, as I’ve many a time had to do on Kirsty’s business to glaikit Edinburgh writers.”
Miss Georgie settled herself on the bench, and laid her staff across her knees so that it looked like the mace in a court of justice.
“First, for Sir Turnour and Harry Belses. They must have won to Norfolk to-day, or the whole plan flies up the lum and Cranmer gets his will. If they reach Overy — is that the name of the place? — before the Cranmers go, what next?”
“I do not think that Cranmer will ever go.”
“Well, that’s the best that could happen, though it might leave something to be redd up at the Merry Mouth. Now, say that they find Cranmer gone. They will follow?”
“Like the wind. Sir Turnour is a master whip, and in Norfolk he can command what horseflesh he wants.”