by John Buchan
Before we take leave of these companions of a single week I would present them to you again as they appeared on a certain sunny afternoon when the episode of Huntingtower was on the eve of closing. First we see Saskia and Alexis walking on the thymy sward of the cliff-top, looking out to the fretted blue of the sea. It is a fitting place for lovers — above all for lovers who have turned the page on a dark preface, and have before them still the long bright volume of life. The girl has her arm linked in the man’s, but as they walk she breaks often away from him, to dart into copses, to gather flowers, or to peer over the brink where the gulls wheel and oyster-catchers pipe among the shingle. She is no more the tragic muse of the past week, but a laughing child again, full of snatches of song, her eyes bright with expectation. They talk of the new world which lies before them, and her voice is happy. Then her brows contract, and, as she flings herself down on a patch of young heather, her air is thoughtful.
“I have been back among fairy tales,” she says. “I do not quite understand, Alesha. Those gallant little boys! They are youth, and youth is always full of strangeness. Mr. Heritage! He is youth, too, and poetry, perhaps, and a soldier’s tradition. I think I know him... But what about Dickson? He is the petit bourgeois, the épicier, the class which the world ridicules. He is unbelievable. The others with good fortune I might find elsewhere — in Russia perhaps. But not Dickson.”
“No,” is the answer. “You will not find him in Russia. He is what they call the middle-class, which we who were foolish used to laugh at. But he is the stuff which above all others makes a great people. He will endure when aristocracies crack and proletariats crumble. In our own land we have never known him, but till we create him our land will not be a nation.”
Half a mile away on the edge of the Laver glen Dickson and Heritage are together, Dickson placidly smoking on a tree-stump and Heritage walking excitedly about and cutting with his stick at the bracken. Sundry bandages and strips of sticking plaster still adorn the Poet, but his clothes have been tidied up by Mrs. Morran, and he has recovered something of his old precision of garb. The eyes of both are fixed on the two figures on the cliff-top. Dickson feels acutely uneasy. It is the first time that he has been alone with Heritage since the arrival of Alexis shivered the Poet’s dream. He looks to see a tragic grief; to his amazement he beholds something very like exultation.
“The trouble with you, Dogson,” says Heritage, “is that you’re a bit of an anarchist. All you false romantics are. You don’t see the extraordinary beauty of the conventions which time has consecrated. You always want novelty, you know, and the novel is usually the ugly and rarely the true. I am for romance, but upon the old, noble classic line.”
Dickson is scarcely listening. His eyes are on the distant lovers, and he longs to say something which will gently and graciously express his sympathy with his friend.
“I’m afraid,” he begins hesitatingly, “I’m afraid you’ve had a bad blow, Mr. Heritage. You’re taking it awful well, and I honour you for it.”
The Poet flings back his head. “I am reconciled,” he says. “After all ‘tis better to have loved and lost,’ you know. It has been a great experience and has shown me my own heart. I love her, I shall always love her, but I realize that she was never meant for me. Thank God I’ve been able to serve her — that is all a moth can ask of a star. I’m a better man for it, Dogson. She will be a glorious memory, and Lord! what poetry I shall write! I give her up joyfully, for she has found her mate. ‘Let us not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments!’ The thing’s too perfect to grieve about... Look! There is romance incarnate.”
He points to the figures now silhouetted against the further sea. “How does it go, Dogson?” he cries. “‘And on her lover’s arm she leant’ — what next? You know the thing.”
Dickson assists and Heritage declaims:
“And on her lover’s arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old:
Across the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day
The happy princess followed him.”
He repeats the last two lines twice and draws a deep breath. “How right!” he cries. “How absolutely right! Lord! It’s astonishing how that old bird Tennyson got the goods!”
After that Dickson leaves him and wanders among the thickets on the edge of the Huntingtower policies above the Laver glen. He feels childishly happy, wonderfully young, and at the same time supernaturally wise. Sometimes he thinks the past week has been a dream, till he touches the sticking-plaster on his brow, and finds that his left thigh is still a mass of bruises and that his right leg is woefully stiff. With that the past becomes very real again, and he sees the Garple Dean in that stormy afternoon, he wrestles again at midnight in the dark House, he stands with quaking heart by the boats to cut off the retreat. He sees it all, but without terror in the recollection, rather with gusto and a modest pride. “I’ve surely had a remarkable time,” he tells himself, and then Romance, the goddess whom he has worshipped so long, marries that furious week with the idyllic. He is supremely content, for he knows that in his humble way he has not been found wanting. Once more for him the Chavender or Chub, and long dreams among summer hills. His mind flies to the days ahead of him, when he will go wandering with his pack in many green places. Happy days they will be, the prospect with which he has always charmed his mind. Yes, but they will be different from what he had fancied, for he is another man than the complacent little fellow who set out a week ago on his travels. He has now assurance of himself, assurance of his faith. Romance, he sees, is one and indivisible ...
Below him by the edge of the stream he sees the encampment of the Gorbals Die-Hards. He calls and waves a hand, and his signal is answered. It seems to be washing day, for some scanty and tattered raiment is drying on the sward. The band is evidently in session, for it is sitting in a circle, deep in talk.
As he looks at the ancient tents, the humble equipment, the ring of small shockheads, a great tenderness comes over him. The Die-Hards are so tiny, so poor, so pitifully handicapped, and yet so bold in their meagreness. Not one of them has had anything that might be called a chance. Their few years have been spent in kennels and closes, always hungry and hunted, with none to care for them; their childish ears have been habituated to every coarseness, their small minds filled with the desperate shifts of living... And yet, what a heavenly spark was in them! He had always thought nobly of the soul; now he wants to get on his knees before the queer greatness of humanity.
A figure disengages itself from the group, and Dougal makes his way up the hill towards him. The Chieftain is not more reputable in garb than when we first saw him, nor is he more cheerful of countenance. He has one arm in a sling made out of his neckerchief, and his scraggy little throat rises bare from his voluminous shirt. All that can be said for him is that he is appreciably cleaner. He comes to a standstill and salutes with a special formality.
“Dougal,” says Dickson, “I’ve been thinking. You’re the grandest lot of wee laddies I ever heard tell of, and, forbye, you’ve saved my life. Now, I’m getting on in years, though you’ll admit that I’m not that dead old, and I’m not a poor man, and I haven’t chick or child to look after. None of you has ever had a proper chance or been right fed or educated or taken care of. I’ve just the one thing to say to you. From now on you’re my bairns, every one of you. You’re fine laddies, and I’m going to see that you turn into fine men. There’s the stuff in you to make Generals and Provosts — ay, and Prime Ministers, and Dod! it’ll not be my blame if it doesn’t get out.”
Dougal listens gravely and again salutes.
“I’ve brought ye a message,” he says. “We’ve just had a meetin’ and I’ve to report that ye’ve been unanimously eleckit Chief Die-Hard. We’re a’ hopin’ ye’ll accept.”
; “I accept,” Dickson replies. “Proudly and gratefully I accept.”
The last scene is some days later, in a certain southern suburb of Glasgow. Ulysses has come back to Ithaca, and is sitting by his fireside, waiting for the return of Penelope from the Neuk Hydropathic. There is a chill in the air, so a fire is burning in the grate, but the laden tea-table is bright with the first blooms of lilac. Dickson, in a new suit with a flower in his buttonhole, looks none the worse for his travels, save that there is still sticking-plaster on his deeply sunburnt brow. He waits impatiently with his eye on the black marble timepiece, and he fingers something in his pocket.
Presently the sound of wheels is heard, and the pea-hen voice of Tibby announces the arrival of Penelope. Dickson rushes to the door, and at the threshold welcomes his wife with a resounding kiss. He leads her into the parlour and settles her in her own chair.
“My! but it’s nice to be home again!” she says. “And everything that comfortable. I’ve had a fine time, but there’s no place like your own fireside. You’re looking awful well, Dickson. But losh! What have you been doing to your head?”
“Just a small tumble. It’s very near mended already. Ay, I’ve had a grand walking tour, but the weather was a wee bit thrawn. It’s nice to see you back again, Mamma. Now that I’m an idle man you and me must take a lot of jaunts together.”
She beams on him as she stays herself with Tibby’s scones, and when the meal is ended, Dickson draws from his pocket a slim case. The jewels have been restored to Saskia, but this is one of her own which she has bestowed upon Dickson as a parting memento. He opens the case and reveals a necklet of emeralds, any one of which is worth half the street.
“This is a present for you,” he says bashfully.
Mrs. McCunn’s eyes open wide. “You’re far too kind,” she gasps. “It must have cost an awful lot of money.”
“It didn’t cost me that much,” is the truthful answer.
She fingers the trinket and then clasps it round her neck, where the green depths of the stones glow against the black satin of her bodice. Her eyes are moist as she looks at him. “You’ve been a kind man to me,” she says, and she kisses him as she has not done since Janet’s death.
She stands up and admires the necklet in the mirror. Romance once more, thinks Dickson. That which has graced the slim throats of princesses in far-away Courts now adorns an elderly matron in a semi-detached villa; the jewels of the wild Nausicaa have fallen to the housewife Penelope.
Mrs. McCunn preens herself before the glass. “I call it very genteel,” she says. “Real stylish. It might be worn by a queen.”
“I wouldn’t say but it has,” says Dickson.
THE END
MIDWINTER
This 1923 historical novel is set during the Jacobite rising of 1745, when an army of Scottish highlanders advanced into England seeking to place Bonnie Prince Charlie, the grandson of ousted King James II, on the throne. Midwinter is written in a framing narrative of the 20th-century discovery of a manuscript, relating the adventures of Alastair Maclean, a Scotsman that had been living in France with the exiled Stuarts, who comes to England to join the Scottish army as it advances towards London. But on the way he discovers that agents supposedly helping the Jacobite cause by encouraging various nobles to commit to the cause, are actually in English pay and are passing on to the English government the valuable information about Charles Stuart.
Bonnie Prince Charlie (The Young Pretender) was the second Jacobite pretender to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland. This claim was as the eldest son of James Francis Edward Stuart, himself the son of King James VII and II. Charles is perhaps best known as the instigator of the unsuccessful Jacobite uprising of 1745, in which he led an insurrection to restore his ancestor’s monarchy, as related in the novel ‘Midwinter’.
CONTENTS
Preface by the Editor
CHAPTER I. In which a Highland Gentleman Misses his Way
CHAPTER II. In which a Nobleman is Perplexed
CHAPTER III. In which Private Matters Cut Across Affairs of State
CHAPTER IV. Mr Kyd of Greyhouses
CHAPTER V. Chance-Medley
CHAPTER VI. Introduces the Runaway Lady
CHAPTER VII. How a Man May Hunt with the Hounds and yet Run with the Hare
CHAPTER VIII. Broom at the Cross-Roads
CHAPTER IX. Old England
CHAPTER X. Snowbound at the Sleeping Deer
CHAPTER XI. Night at the Same: Two Visitors
CHAPTER XII. The Hut in the Oak Shaw
CHAPTER XIII. Journeyman John
CHAPTER XIV. Duchess Kitty on the Road
CHAPTER XV. Bids Farewell to a Scots Laird
CHAPTER XVI. Bids Farewell to an English Lady
CHAPTER XVII. Ordeal of Honour
CHAPTER XVIII. In which Three Gentlemen Confess their Nakedness
CHAPTER XIX. Ramoth-Gilead
Postscript
DEDICATION
TO
VERNON WATNEY
We two confess twin loyalties —
Wychwood beneath the April skies
Is yours, and many a scented road
That winds in June by Evenlode.
Not less when autumn fires the brake,
Yours the deep heath by Fannich’s lake,
The corries where the dun deer roar
And eagles wheel above Sgurr Mór.
So I, who love with equal mind
The southern sun, the northern wind,
The lilied lowland water-mead
And the grey hills that cradle Tweed,
Bring you this tale which haply tries
To intertwine our loyalties.
Preface by the Editor
Last year my friend, Mr Sebastian Derwent, on becoming senior partner of the reputable firm of solicitors which bears his name, instituted a very drastic clearing out of cupboards and shelves in the old house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Among a mass of derelict papers — cancelled deeds, mouldy files of correspondence, copies of pleadings in cases long ago forgotten — there was one little bundle which mystified him, since it had no apparent relation to the practice of the law. He summoned me to dinner, and, with our chairs drawn up to a bright fire and a decanter of his famous brown sherry between us, we discussed its antecedents.
First there was a document of three quarto pages, which appeared to be a fair copy in a scrivener’s hand. It started and finished abruptly, so we judged it to be a portion of a larger work. Then came a long ill-written manuscript, partly in a little volume of which the clasp and lock had been broken, and partly on loose paper which seemed to have been torn from the beginnings and ends of printed books. The paper had no watermark that we could discover, but its quality suggested the eighteenth century. Last there was a bundle of letters in various hands, all neatly docketed and dated. Mr Derwent entrusted me with the papers, for certain words and phrases in the quarto sheets had stirred my interest. After considerable study I discovered that the packet contained a story, obscure in parts, but capable of being told with some pretence of continuity.
First for the matter copied by the amanuensis. It was clearly a fragment, intended by the compiler to form part of an introduction to the work. On first reading it I rubbed my eyes and tasted the joy of the discoverer, for I believed that I had stumbled upon an unknown manuscript of Mr James Boswell, written apparently after the publication of his Life of Johnson, and designed for a supplementary volume, which, Dr Johnson being dead, he felt at liberty to compile. On reflection I grew less certain. The thing was undoubtedly the work of an intimate friend of the Great Lexicographer, but, though there were mannerisms of style and thought which suggested Mr Boswell, I did not feel able to claim his authorship with any confidence. It might be the production of one or other of the Wartons, or of Sir Robert Chambers, or of some Oxford friend of Johnson whose name has not come down to us. Mr Derwent at my request explored the records of his firm, which extended back for the better part o
f a century, but could find no evidence that it had ever done business for any member of the family of Auchinleck. Nevertheless I incline to attribute the thing to Mr Boswell, for he alone of Johnson’s circle was likely to have the eager interest in Scotland which the manuscript reveals, and the dates do not conflict with what we know of his movements. Here, at all events, is the text of it:
In the last week of June in the year 1763 Johnson was in Oxford, and I had the honour to accompany him one afternoon to the village of Elsfield, some four miles from the city, on a visit to Mr Francis Wise, one of the fellows of Trinity College and Radcliffe’s librarian. As I have already mentioned, there were certain episodes in the past life of my illustrious friend as to which I knew nothing, and certain views, nay, I venture to say prejudices, in his mind, for the origin of which I was at a loss to account. In particular I could never receive from him any narrative of his life during the years 1745 and 1746, the years of our last civil war, during which his literary career seems to have been almost totally suspended. When I endeavoured to probe the matter, he answered me with some asperity, so that I feared to embarrass him with further questions. “Sir, I was very poor,” he once said, “and misery has no chronicles.” His reticence on the point was the more vexatious to me, since, though a loyal supporter of the present Monarchy and Constitution, he always revealed a peculiar tenderness towards the unfortunate House of Stuart, and I could not but think that in some episode in his past lay the key to a sentiment which was at variance with his philosophy of government. I was also puzzled to explain to my own mind the reason for his attitude towards Scotland and the Scotch nation, which afforded him matter for constant sarcasms and frequent explosions of wrath. As the world knows, he had a lively interest in the primitive life of the Highlands, and an apparent affection for those parts, but towards the rest of Scotland he maintained a demeanour so critical as to be liable to the reproach of harshness. These prejudices, cherished so habitually that they could not be attributed to mere fits of spleen, surprised me in a man of such pre-eminent justice and wisdom, and I was driven to think that some early incident in his career must have given them birth; but my curiosity remained unsatisfied, for when I interrogated him, I was met with a sullen silence, if we were alone, and, if company were present, a tempestuous ridicule which covered me with blushes.
