Salute to Adventurers

by John Buchan

  Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Aldarondo,Carol David and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

  SALUTE TO ADVENTURERS

  BY

  JOHN BUCHAN

  1798 EDINBURGH]

  TO MAJOR-GENERAL THE HON. SIR REGINALD TALBOT, K.C.B.

  I tell of old Virginian ways; And who more fit my tale to scan Than you, who knew in far-off days The eager horse of Sheridan; Who saw the sullen meads of fate, The tattered scrub, the blood-drenched sod, Where Lee, the greatest of the great, Bent to the storm of God?

  I tell lost tales of savage wars; And you have known the desert sands, The camp beneath the silver stars, The rush at dawn of Arab bands, The fruitless toil, the hopeless dream, The fainting feet, the faltering breath, While Gordon by the ancient stream Waited at ease on death.

  And now, aloof from camp and field, You spend your sunny autumn hours Where the green folds of Chiltern shield The nooks of Thames amid the flowers: You who have borne that name of pride, In honour clean from fear or stain, Which Talbot won by Henry's side In vanquished Aquitaine.

  _The reader is asked to believe that most of the characters in thistale and many of the incidents have good historical warrant. The figureof Muckle John Gib will be familiar to the readers of Patrick Walker_.

  CONTENTS.

  * * * * *

  I. THE SWEET-SINGERS II. OF A HIGH-HANDED LADY III. THE CANONGATE TOLBOOTH IV. OF A STAIRHEAD AND A SEA-CAPTAIN V. MY FIRST COMING TO VIRGINIA VI. TELLS OF MY EDUCATION VII. I BECOME AN UNPOPULAR CHARACTER VIII. RED RINGAN IX. VARIOUS DOINGS IN THE SAVANNAH X. I HEAR AN OLD SONG XI. GRAVITY OUT OF BED XII. A WORD AT THE HARBOUR-SIDE XIII. I STUMBLE INTO A GREAT FOLLY XIV. A WILD WAGER XV. I GATHER THE CLANS XVI. THE FORD OF THE RAPIDAN XVII. I RETRACE MY STEPS XVIII. OUR ADVENTURE RECEIVES A RECRUIT XIX. CLEARWATER GLEN XX. THE STOCKADE AMONG THE PINES XXI. A HAWK SCREAMS IN THE EVENING XXII. HOW A FOOL MUST GO HIS OWN ROAD XXIII. THE HORN OF DIARMAID SOUNDS XXIV. I SUFFER THE HEATHEN'S RAGE XXV. EVENTS ON THE HILL-SIDE XXVI. SHALAH XXVII. HOW I STROVE ALL NIGHT WITH THE DEVILXXVIII. HOW THREE SOULS FOUND THEIR HERITAGE

  SALUTE TO ADVENTURERS.

  CHAPTER I.

  THE SWEET-SINGERS.

  When I was a child in short-coats a spaewife came to the town-end, andfor a silver groat paid by my mother she riddled my fate. It came tolittle, being no more than that I should miss love and fortune inthe sunlight and find them in the rain. The woman was a haggard,black-faced gipsy, and when my mother asked for more she turned on herheel and spoke gibberish; for which she was presently driven out of theplace by Tarn Roberton, the baillie, and the village dogs. But thething stuck in my memory, and together with the fact that I was aThursday's bairn, and so, according to the old rhyme, "had far to go,"convinced me long ere I had come to man's estate that wanderings andsurprises would be my portion.

  It is in the rain that this tale begins. I was just turned of eighteen,and in the back-end of a dripping September set out from our moorlandhouse of Auchencairn to complete my course at Edinburgh College. Theyear was 1685, an ill year for our countryside; for the folk were atodds with the King's Government, about religion, and the land was fullof covenants and repressions. Small wonder that I was backward with mycolleging, and at an age when most lads are buckled to a calling wasstill attending the prelections of the Edinburgh masters. My father hadblown hot and cold in politics, for he was fiery and unstable bynature, and swift to judge a cause by its latest professor. He had castout with the Hamilton gentry, and, having broken the head of a dragoonin the change-house of Lesmahagow, had his little estate mulcted infines. All of which, together with some natural curiosity and a familylove of fighting, sent him to the ill-fated field of Bothwell Brig,from which he was lucky to escape with a bullet in the shoulder.Thereupon he had been put to the horn, and was now lying hid in a denin the mosses of Douglas Water. It was a sore business for my mother,who had the task of warding off prying eyes from our ragged householdand keeping the fugitive in life. She was a Tweedside woman, as strongand staunch as an oak, and with a heart in her like Robert Bruce. Andshe was cheerful, too, in the worst days, and would go about the placewith a bright eye and an old song on her lips. But the thing was beyonda woman's bearing; so I had perforce to forsake my colleging and take ahand with our family vexations. The life made me hard and watchful,trusting no man, and brusque and stiff towards the world. And yet allthe while youth was working in me like yeast, so that a spring day or awest wind would make me forget my troubles and thirst to be about akindlier business than skulking in a moorland dwelling.

  My mother besought me to leave her. "What," she would say, "has youngblood to do with this bickering of kirks and old wives' lamentations?You have to learn and see and do, Andrew. And it's time you werebeginning." But I would not listen to her, till by the mercy of God wegot my father safely forth of Scotland, and heard that he was dwellingsnugly at Leyden in as great patience as his nature allowed. ThereuponI bethought me of my neglected colleging, and, leaving my books andplenishing to come by the Lanark carrier, set out on foot forEdinburgh.

  The distance is only a day's walk for an active man, but I startedlate, and purposed to sleep the night at a cousin's house byKirknewton. Often in bright summer days I had travelled the road, whenthe moors lay yellow in the sun and larks made a cheerful chorus. Insuch weather it is a pleasant road, with long prospects to cheer thetraveller, and kindly ale-houses to rest his legs in. But that day itrained as if the floodgates of heaven had opened. When I crossed Clydeby the bridge at Hyndford the water was swirling up to the key-stone.The ways were a foot deep in mire, and about Carnwath the bog hadoverflowed and the whole neighbourhood swam in a loch. It was pitifulto see the hay afloat like water-weeds, and the green oats scarcelyshowing above the black floods. In two minutes after starting I was wetto the skin, and I thanked Providence I had left my little Dutch_Horace_ behind me in the book-box. By three in the afternoon I was asunkempt as any tinker, my hair plastered over my eyes, and every foldof my coat running like a gutter.

  Presently the time came for me to leave the road and take the short-cutover the moors; but in the deluge, where the eyes could see no morethan a yard or two into a grey wall of rain, I began to misdoubt myknowledge of the way. On the left I saw a stone dovecot and a clusterof trees about a gateway; so, knowing how few and remote were thedwellings on the moorland, I judged it wiser to seek guidance before Istrayed too far.

  The place was grown up with grass and sore neglected. Weeds made acarpet on the avenue, and the dykes were broke by cattle at a dozenplaces. Suddenly through the falling water there stood up the gaunt endof a house. It was no cot or farm, but a proud mansion, though badlyneeding repair. A low stone wall bordered a pleasance, but the gardenhad fallen out of order, and a dial-stone lay flat on the earth.

  My first thought was that the place was tenantless, till I caught sightof a thin spire of smoke struggling against the downpour. I hoped tocome on some gardener or groom from whom I could seek direction, so Iskirted the pleasance to find the kitchen door. A glow of fire in oneof the rooms cried welcome to my shivering bones, and on the far sideof the house I found signs of better care. The rank grasses had beenmown to make a walk, and in a corner flourished a little group ofpot-herbs. But there was no man to be seen, and I was about to retreatand try the farm-town, when out of the doorway stepped a girl.

  She was maybe sixteen years old, tall and well-grown, but of her face Icould see little, since she was all muffled in a great horseman'scloak. The hood of it covered her hair, and the wide flaps were foldedover her bosom.
She sniffed the chill wind, and held her head up to therain, and all the while, in a clear childish voice, she was singing.

  It was a song I had heard, one made by the great Montrose, who hadsuffered shameful death in Edinburgh thirty years before. It was aman's song, full of pride and daring, and not for the lips of a youngmaid. But that hooded girl in the wild weather sang it with a challengeand a fire that no cavalier could have bettered.

  "My dear and only love, I pray That little world of thee Be governed by no other sway Than purest monarchy."

  "For if confusion have a part, Which virtuous souls abhor, And hold a synod in thy heart, I'll never love thee more."

  So she sang, like youth daring fortune to give it aught but the best.The thing thrilled me, so that I stood gaping. Then she looked asideand saw me.

  "Your business, man?" she cried, with an imperious voice.

  I took off my bonnet, and made an awkward bow.

  "Madam, I am on my way to Edinburgh," I stammered, for I was mortallyill at ease with women. "I am uncertain of the road in this weather,and come to beg direction."

  "You left the road three miles back," she said.

  "But I am for crossing the moors," I said.

  She pushed back her hood and looked at me with laughing eyes, I saw howdark those eyes were, and how raven black her wandering curls of hair.

  "You have come to the right place," she cried. "I can direct you aswell as any Jock or Sandy about the town. Where are you going to?"

  I said Kirknewton for my night's lodging.

  "Then march to the right, up by yon planting, till you come to the HoweBurn. Follow it to the top, and cross the hill above its well-head. Thewind is blowing from the east, so keep it on your right cheek. Thatwill bring you to the springs of the Leith Water, and in an hour or twofrom there you will be back on the highroad."

  She used a manner of speech foreign to our parts, but very soft andpleasant in the ear. I thanked her, clapped on my dripping bonnet, andmade for the dykes beyond the garden. Once I looked back, but she hadno further interest in me. In the mist I could see her peering oncemore skyward, and through the drone of the deluge came an echo of hersong.

  "I'll serve thee in such noble ways, As never man before; I'll deck and crown thy head with bays, And love thee more and more."

  The encounter cheered me greatly, and lifted the depression which theeternal drizzle had settled on my spirits. That bold girl singing amartial ballad to the storm and taking pleasure in the snellness of theair, was like a rousing summons or a cup of heady wine. The pictureravished my fancy. The proud dark eye, the little wanton curls peepingfrom the hood, the whole figure alert with youth and life--they cheeredmy recollection as I trod that sour moorland. I tried to remember hersong, and hummed it assiduously till I got some kind of version, whichI shouted in my tuneless voice. For I was only a young lad, and my lifehad been bleak and barren. Small wonder that the call of youth setevery fibre of me a-quiver.

  I had done better to think of the road. I found the Howe Burn readilyenough, and scrambled up its mossy bottom. By this time the day waswearing late, and the mist was deepening into the darker shades ofnight. It is an eery business to be out on the hills at such a season,for they are deathly quiet except for the lashing of the storm. Youwill never hear a bird cry or a sheep bleat or a weasel scream. Theonly sound is the drum of the rain on the peat or its plash on aboulder, and the low surge of the swelling streams. It is the place andtime for dark deeds, for the heart grows savage; and if two enemies metin the hollow of the mist only one would go away.

  I climbed the hill above the Howe burn-head, keeping the wind on myright cheek as the girl had ordered. That took me along a rough ridgeof mountain pitted with peat-bogs into which I often stumbled. Everyminute I expected to descend and find the young Water of Leith, but ifI held to my directions I must still mount. I see now that the windmust have veered to the south-east, and that my plan was leading meinto the fastnesses of the hills; but I would have wandered for weekssooner than disobey the word of the girl who sang in the rain.Presently I was on a steep hill-side, which I ascended only to dropthrough a tangle of screes and jumper to the mires of a great bog. WhenI had crossed this more by luck than good guidance, I had anotherscramble on the steeps where the long, tough heather clogged myfootsteps.

  About eight o'clock I awoke to the conviction that I was hopelesslylost, and must spend the night in the wilderness. The rain still fellunceasingly through the pit-mirk, and I was as sodden and bleached asthe bent I trod on. A night on the hills had no terrors for me; but Iwas mortally cold and furiously hungry, and my temper grew bitteragainst the world. I had forgotten the girl and her song, and desiredabove all things on earth a dry bed and a chance of supper.

  I had been plunging and slipping in the dark mosses for maybe two hourswhen, looking down from a little rise, I caught a gleam of light.Instantly my mood changed to content. It could only be a herd'scottage, where I might hope for a peat fire, a bicker of brose, and, atthe worst, a couch of dry bracken.

  I began to run, to loosen my numbed limbs, and presently fell headlongover a little scaur into a moss-hole. When I crawled out, with peatplastering my face and hair, I found I had lost my notion of thelight's whereabouts. I strove to find another hillock, but I seemed nowto be in a flat space of bog. I could only grope blindly forwards awayfrom the moss-hole, hoping that soon I might come to a lift in thehill.

  Suddenly from the distance of about half a mile there fell on my earsthe most hideous wailing. It was like the cats on a frosty night; itwas like the clanging of pots in a tinker's cart; and it would rise nowand then to a shriek of rhapsody such as I have heard at field-preachings.Clearly the sound was human, though from what kind of crazyhuman creature I could not guess. Had I been less utterly forwanderedand the night less wild, I think I would have sped away from it as fastas my legs had carried me. But I had little choice. After all, Ireflected, the worst bedlamite must have food and shelter, and, unlessthe gleam had been a will-o'-the-wisp, I foresaw a fire. So I hastenedin the direction of the noise.

  I came on it suddenly in a hollow of the moss. There stood a ruinedsheepfold, and in the corner of two walls some plaids had beenstretched to make a tent. Before this burned a big fire of heatherroots and bog-wood, which hissed and crackled in the rain. Round itsquatted a score of women, with plaids drawn tight over their heads,who rocked and moaned like a flight of witches, and two--three men wereon their knees at the edge of the ashes. But what caught my eye was thefigure that stood before the tent. It was a long fellow, who held hisarms to heaven, and sang in a great throaty voice the wild dirge I hadbeen listening to. He held a book in one hand, from which he wouldpluck leaves and cast them on the fire, and at every burnt-offering awail of ecstasy would go up from the hooded women and kneeling men.Then with a final howl he hurled what remained of his book into theflames, and with upraised hands began some sort of prayer.

  I would have fled if I could; but Providence willed it otherwise. Theedge of the bank on which I stood had been rotted by the rain, and thewhole thing gave under my feet. I slithered down into the sheepfold,and pitched headforemost among the worshipping women. And at that, witha yell, the long man leaped over the fire and had me by the throat.

  My bones were too sore and weary to make resistance. He dragged me tothe ground before the tent, while the rest set up a skirling thatdeafened my wits. There he plumped me down, and stood glowering at melike a cat with a sparrow.

  "Who are ye, and what do ye here, disturbing the remnant of Israel?"says he.

  I had no breath in me to speak, so one of the men answered.

  "Some gangrel body, precious Mr. John," he said.

  "Nay," said another; "it's a spy o' the Amalekites."

  "It's a herd frae Linton way," spoke up a woman. "He favours the lookof one Zebedee Linklater."

  The long man silenced her. "The word of the Lord came unto His prophetGib, saying, Smite and
spare not, for the cup of the abominations ofBabylon is now full. The hour cometh, yea, it is at hand, when theelect of the earth, meaning me and two--three others, will be enthronedabove the Gentiles, and Dagon and Baal will be cast down. Are ye stillin the courts of bondage, young man, or seek ye the true light whichthe Holy One of Israel has vouchsafed to me, John Gib, his unworthyprophet?"

  Now I knew into what rabble I had strayed. It was the company whocalled themselves the Sweet-Singers, led by one Muckle John Gib, once amariner of Borrowstoneness-on-Forth. He had long been a thorn in theside of the preachers, holding certain strange heresies thatdiscomforted even the wildest of the hill-folk. They had clapped himinto prison; but the man, being three parts mad had been let go, andever since had been making strife in the westland parts of Clydesdale.I had heard much of him, and never any good. It was his way to drawafter him a throng of demented women, so that the poor, draggle-tailedcreatures forgot husband and bairns and followed him among the mosses.There were deeds of violence and blood to his name, and the look of himwas enough to spoil a man's sleep. He was about six and a half feethigh, with a long, lean head and staring cheek bones. His brows grewlike bushes, and beneath glowed his evil and sunken eyes. I rememberthat he had monstrous long arms, which hung almost to his knees, and agreat hairy breast which showed through a rent in his seaman's jerkin.In that strange place, with the dripping spell of night about me, andthe fire casting weird lights and shadows, he seemed like some devil ofthe hills awakened by magic from his ancient grave.

  But I saw it was time for me to be speaking up.

  "I am neither gangrel, nor spy, nor Amalekite, nor yet am I ZebedeeLinklater. My name is Andrew Garvald, and I have to-day left my home tomake my way to Edinburgh College. I tried a short road in the mist, andhere I am."

  "Nay, but what seek ye?" cried Muckle John. "The Lord has led ye to ourcompany by His own good way. What seek ye? I say again, and yea, athird time."

  "I go to finish my colleging," I said.

  He laughed a harsh, croaking laugh. "Little ye ken, young man. Wetravel to watch the surprising judgment which is about to overtake thewicked city of Edinburgh. An angel hath revealed it to me in a dream.Fire and brimstone will descend upon it as on Sodom and Gomorrah, andit will be consumed and wither away, with its cruel Ahabs and itspainted Jezebels, its subtle Doegs and its lying Balaams, its priestsand its judges, and its proud men of blood, its Bible-idolaters and itsfalse prophets, its purple and damask, its gold and its fine linen, andit shall be as Tyre and Sidon, so that none shall know the sitethereof. But we who follow the Lord and have cleansed His word fromhuman abominations, shall leap as he-goats upon the mountains, andenter upon the heritage of the righteous from Beth-peor even unto thecrossings of Jordan."

  In reply to this rigmarole I asked for food, since my head wasbeginning to swim from my long fast. This, to my terror, put him into agreat rage.

  "Ye are carnally minded, like the rest of them. Ye will get no fleshlyprovender here; but if ye be not besotted in your sins ye shall drinkof the Water of Life that floweth freely and eat of the honey and mannaof forgiveness."

  And then he appeared to forget my very existence. He fell into a sortof trance, with his eyes fixed on vacancy. There was a dead hush in theplace, nothing but the crackle of the fire and the steady drip of therain. I endured it as well as I might, for though my legs were sorelycramped, I did not dare to move an inch.

  After nigh half an hour he seemed to awake. "Peace be with you," hesaid to his followers. "It is the hour for sleep and prayer. I, JohnGib, will wrestle all night for your sake, as Jacob strove with theangel." With that he entered the tent.

  No one spoke to me, but the ragged company sought each theirsleeping-place. A woman with a kindly face jogged me on the elbow, andfrom the neuk of her plaid gave me a bit of oatcake and a piece ofroasted moorfowl. This made my supper, with a long drink from aneighbouring burn. None hindered my movements, so, liking little thesmell of wet, uncleanly garments which clung around the fire, I made mybed in a heather bush in the lee of a boulder, and from utter wearinessfell presently asleep.