by John Buchan
Crouched beside the dead stag, she slowly recovered her breath. What was the next move to be? If she left the beast might not John Macnab return and make off with it? No, he wouldn’t. He was a gentleman, and would not go back on his admission of defeat. But she was anxious to drain the last drops of her cup of triumph, to confront the idle garrison of Carnmore on its return with the tangible proof of her victory. The stag should be lying at the Castle door, and she herself waiting beside it to tell her tale. She might borrow Mr Bandicott’s men to move it.
Hastily doing up her hair, she climbed out of the hollow to the little ridge which gave a prospect over the haugh. There before her, not a hundred yards distant, was the old cart and the white pony of Fish Benjie, looking as if it had been part of the landscape since the beginning of time.
Benjie had wormed his way far into the moss, for he was more than half a mile from the road. It appeared that he had finished his day’s work on the besoms, for his pony was in the shafts, and he himself was busy loading the cart with the fruits of his toil. She called out to him, but got no reply, and it was not till she stood beside him that he looked up from his work.
“Benjie,” she said, “come at once. I want you to help me. Have you been here long?”
“Since nine this mornin’, lady.” Benjie’s face was as impassive as a stump of oak.
“Didn’t you hear a shot?”
“I heard a gude wheen shots. The auld man up at the Piper’s Ring has been blastin’ awa.”
“But close to you? Didn’t you see a man — not five minutes ago?”
“Aye, I seen a man. I seen him crossin’ the water. I thought he was a gentleman from the Castle. He had a gun wi’ him.”
“It was a poacher, Benjie,” said Janet dramatically. “The poacher I wanted you to look out for. He has killed a stag, too, but I drove him away. You must help me to get the beast home. Can you get your cart over that knowe?”
“Fine, lady.”
Without more words Benjie took the reins and started the old pony. The cart floundered a little in a wet patch, tittuped over the tussocks, and descended with many jolts to the neighbourhood of the stag — Janet dancing in front of it like an Israelitish priest before the Ark of the Covenant.
The late afternoon was very hot, for down in the haugh the wind had died away. The stag weighed not less than fifteen stone, and before they finished Janet would have called them tons. Yet the great task of transshipment was accomplished. The pony was taken out of the shafts and the cart tilted, and, after some strenuous minutes, the carcase was heaved and pushed and levered on to its floor. Janet, hanging on to the shafts, with incredible exertions pulled them down, while Benjie — a tiny Atlas — prevented the beast from slipping back by bearing its weight on his shoulders. The backboard was put in its place, the mass of brooms and heather piled on the stag, the pony restored to the shafts, and the cortège was ready for the road. Benjie had his face adorned with a new scratch and a quantity of deer’s blood, Janet had nobly torn her jumper and one stocking; but these were trivial casualties for so great an action.
“Drive straight to the Castle and tell them to leave the beast before the door. You understand, Benjie? Before the door — not in the larder. I’m going to strike home through the woods, for I’m an awful sight.”
“Ye look very bonny, lady,” said the gallant Benjie as he took up the reins.
Janet watched the strange outfit lumber from the hollow and nearly upset over a hidden boulder. It had the appearance of a moving peat-stack, with a solitary horn jutting heavenwards like a withered branch. Once again the girl subsided on the heather and laughed till she ached.
* * * * *
The highway by the Larrig side slept in the golden afternoon. Not a conveyance had disturbed its peace save the baker’s cart from Inverlarrig, which had passed about three o’clock. About half-past five a man crossed it — a man who had descended from the hill and used the stepping-stones where Sir Archibald Roylance had come to grief. He was a tall man with a rifle, hatless, untidy and very warm, and he seemed to desire to be unobserved, for he made certain that the road was clear before he ventured on it. Once across, he found shelter in a clump of broom, whence he could command a long stretch of the highway, almost from Glenraden gates to the Bridge of Larrig.
Mr Palliser-Yeates, having reached sanctuary — for behind him lay the broken hillsides of Crask — mopped his brow and lit a pipe. He did not seem to be greatly distressed at the result of the afternoon. Indeed, he laughed — not wildly like Janet, but quietly and with philosophy. “A very neat hold-up,” he reflected. “Gad, she came on like a small destroying angel ... That’s the girl Archie’s been talking about... a very good girl. She looked as if she’d have taken on an army corps... Jolly romantic ending — might have come out of a novel. Only it should have been Archie, and a prospect of wedding bells — what?... Anyway, we’d have won out all right but for the girl, and I don’t mind being beaten by her... “
His meditations were interrupted by the sound of furious wheels on the lone highway, and he cautiously raised his head to see an old horse and an older cart being urged towards him at a canter. The charioteer was a small boy, and above the cart sides projected a stag’s horn.
Forgetting all precautions, he stood up, and at the sight of him Benjie, not without difficulty, checked the ardour of his much-belaboured beast, and stopped before him.
“I’ve gotten it,” he whispered hoarsely. “The stag’s in the cairt. The lassie and me histed him in, and she tell’t me to drive to the Castle. But when I was out o’ sicht o’ her, I took the auld road through the wud and here I am. We’ve gotten the stag off Glenraden ground and we can hide him up at Crask, and I’ll slip doun in the cairt afore mornin’ and leave him ootbye the Castle wi’ a letter from John Macnab. Fegs, it was a near thing!”
Benjie’s voice rose into a shrill paean, his disreputable face shone with unholy joy. And then something in Palliser-Yeates’s eyes cut short his triumph.
“Benjie, you little fool, right about turn at once. I’m much obliged to you, but it can’t be done. It isn’t the game, you know. I chucked up the sponge when Miss Raden challenged me, and I can’t go back on that. Back you go to Glenraden and hand over the stag. Quick, before you’re missed... And look here — you’re a first-class sportsman, and I’m enormously grateful to you. Here is something for your trouble.”
Benjie’s face grew very red as he swung his equipage round. “I see,” he said. “If ye like to be beat by a lassie, dinna blame me. I’m no wantin’ your money.”
The next moment the fish-cart was clattering in the other direction.
To a mystified and anxious girl, pacing the gravel in front of the Castle, entered the fish-cart. The old horse seemed in the last stages of exhaustion, and the boy who drove it was a dejected and sparrow-like figure.
“Where in the world have you been?” Janet demanded.
“I was run awa’ wi’, lady,” Benjie whined. “The auld powny didna like the smell o’ the stag. He bolted in the wud, and I didna get him stoppit till verra near the Larrig Bridge.”
“Poor little Benjie! Now you’re going to Mrs Fraser to have the best tea you ever had in your life, and you shall also have ten shillings.”
“Thank you very kindly, lady, but I canna stop for tea. I maun awa down to Inverlarrig for my fish.” But his hand closed readily on the note, for he had no compunction in taking money from one who had made him to bear the bitterness of incomprehensible defeat.
CHAPTER 6. THE RETURN OF HARALD BLACKTOOTH
Miss Janet Raden had a taste for the dramatic, which that night was nobly gratified. The space in front of the great door of the Castle became a stage of which the sole furniture was a deceased stag, but on which event succeeded event with a speed which recalled the cinema rather than the legitimate drama.
First, about six o’clock, entered Agatha and Junius Bandicott from their casual wardenship of Carnbeg. The effect upon the young man was s
urprising. Hitherto he had only half believed in John Macnab, and had regarded the defence of Glenraden as more or less of a joke. It seemed to him inconceivable that, even with the slender staffing of the forest, one man could enter and slay and recover a deer. But when he heard Janet’s tale he became visibly excited, and his careful and precise English, the bequest of his New England birth, broke down into college slang.
“The man’s a crackerjack,” he murmured reverentially. “He has us all rocketing around the mountain tops, and then takes advantage of my dad’s blasting operations and raids the front yard. He can pull the slick stuff all right, and we at Strathlarrig had better get cold towels round our heads and do some thinking. Our time’s getting short, too, for he starts at midnight the day after to-morrow... What did you say the fellow was like, Miss Janet? Young, and big, and behaved like a gentleman? It’s a tougher proposition than I thought, and I’m going home right now to put old Angus through his paces.”
With a deeply preoccupied face Junius, declining tea, fetched his car from the stableyard and took his leave.
At seven-fifteen Colonel Raden, bestriding a deer pony, emerged from the beech avenue, and waved a cheerful hand to his daughters.
“It’s all right, my dears. Not a sign of the blackguard. The men will remain on Carnmore till midnight to be perfectly safe, but I’m inclined to think that the whole thing is a fiasco. He has been frightened away by our precautions. But it’s been a jolly day on the high tops, and I have the thirst of all creation.”
Then his eyes fell on the stag. “God bless my soul,” he cried, “what is that?”
“That,” said Janet, “is the stag which John Macnab killed this afternoon.”
The Colonel promptly fell off his pony.
“Where — when?” he stammered.
“On the Home beat,’ said Janet calmly. The situation was going to be quite as dramatic as she had hoped. “I saw it fall, and ran hard and got up to it just when he was starting the gralloch. He was really quite nice about it.”
“What did he do?” her parent demanded.
“He held up his hands and laughed and cried ‘Kamerad!’ Then he ran away.”
“The scoundrel showed a proper sense of shame.”
“I don’t think he was ashamed. Why should he be, for we accepted his challenge. You know, he’s a gentleman, papa, and quite young and good looking.”
Colonel Raden’s mind was passing through swift stages from exasperation to unwilling respect. It was an infernal annoyance that John Macnab should have been suffered to intrude on the sacred soil of Glenraden, but the man had played the boldest kind of hand, and he had certainly not tailored his beast. Besides, he had been beaten — beaten by a girl, a daughter of the house. The honour of Glenraden might be considered sacrosanct after all.
A long drink restored the Colonel’s equanimity, and the thought of their careful preparations expended in the void moved him to laughter.
“‘Pon my word, Nettie, I should like to ask the fellow to dinner. I wonder where on earth he is living. He can’t be far off, for he is due at Strathlarrig very soon. What did you Bandicott say the day was?”
“Midnight, the day after to-morrow. Mr Junius feels very solemn after to- day, and has hurried home to put his house in order.”
“Nettie,” said the Colonel gravely, “I am prepared to make the modest bet that John Macnab gets his salmon. Hang it all, if he could outwit us — and he did it, confound him — he is bound to outwit the Bandicotts. I tell you what, John Macnab is a very remarkable man — a man in a million, and I’m very much inclined to wish him success.”
“So am I,” said Janet; but Agatha announced indignantly that she had never met a case of grosser selfishness. She announced, too, that she was prepared to join in the guarding of Strathlarrig.
“If you and Junius are no more use than you were on Carnbeg to-day, John Macnab needn’t worry,” said Janet sweetly.
Agatha was about to retort when there was a sudden diversion. The elder Bandicott appeared at a pace which was almost a run, breathing hard, and with all the appearance of strong excitement. Fifty yards behind him could be seen the two Strathlarrig labourers, making the best speed they could under the burden of heavy sacks. Mr Bandicott had no breath left to speak, but he motioned to his audience to give him time and permit his henchmen to arrive. These henchmen he directed to the lawn, where they dropped their sacks on the grass. Then, with an air which was almost sacramental, he turned to Colonel Raden.
“Sir,” he said, “you are privileged — WE are privileged — to assist in the greatest triumph of modern archaeology. I have found the coffin of Harald Blacktooth with the dust of Harald Blacktooth inside it.”
“The devil you have!” said the Colonel. “I suppose I ought to congratulate you, but I’m bound to say I’m rather sorry. I feel as if I had violated the tomb of my ancestors.”
“You need have no fear, sir. The dust has been reverently restored to its casket, and to-morrow the Piper’s Ring will show no trace of the work. But within the stone casket there were articles which, in the name of science, I have taken the liberty to bring with me, and which will awaken an interest among the learned not less, I am convinced, than Schliemann’s discoveries at Mycenae. I have found, sir, incredible treasures.”
“Treasures!” cried all three of his auditors, for the word has not lost its ancient magic.
Mr Bandicott, with the air of one addressing the Smithsonian Institution, signalled to his henchmen, who thereupon emptied the sacks on the lawn. A curious jumble of objects lay scattered under the evening sun — two massive torques, several bowls and flagons, spear-heads from which the hafts had long since rotted, a sword-blade, and a quantity of brooches, armlets, and rings. A dingy enough collection they made to the eyes of the onlookers as Mr Bandicott arranged them in two heaps.
“These,” he said, pointing to the torques, armlets, and flagons, “are, so far as I can judge, of solid gold.”
The Colonel called upon his Maker to sanctify his soul. “Gold! These are great things! They must be prodigiously valuable. Are they mine, or yours, or whose?”
“I am not familiar with the law of Scotland on the matter of treasure trove, but I assume that the State can annex them, paying you a percentage of their value. For myself, I gladly waive all claims. I am a man of science, sir, not a treasure-hunter... But the merit of the discovery does not lie in those objects, which can be paralleled from many tombs in Scotland and Norway. No, sir, the tremendous, the epoch-making value is to be found in these.” And he indicated some bracelets and a necklace which looked as if they were made of queerly-marked and very dirty shells.
Mr Bandicott lifted one and fingered it lovingly.
“I have found such objects in graves as far apart as the coast of Labrador and the coast of Rhode Island, and as far inland as the Ohio basin. These shells were the common funerary adjunct of the primitive inhabitants of my country, and they are peculiar to the North American Continent. Do you see what follows, sir?”
The Colonel did not, and Mr Bandicott, his voice thrilling with emotion, continued:
“It follows that Harald Blacktooth obtained them from the only place he could obtain them, the other side of the Atlantic. There is historical warrant for believing that he voyaged to Greenland; and now we know that he landed upon the main North American Continent. The legends of Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky are verified by archaeology. In you, sir, I salute, most reverently salute, the representative of a family to whom belongs the credit hitherto given to Columbus.”
Colonel Raden plucked feebly at his moustache, and Janet, I regret to say, laughed. But her untimely merriment was checked by Mr Bandicott, who was pronouncing a sort of benediction.
“I rejoice that it has been given to me, an American, to solve this secular riddle. When I think that the dust which an hour ago I touched, and which has lain for centuries under that quiet mound, was once the man who, first of Europeans, trod our soil, my imagination sta
ggers. Colonel Raden, I thank you for having given me the greatest moment of my not uneventful life.”
He took off his hat, and the Colonel rather shame-facedly removed his. The two men stood looking solemnly at each other till practical considerations occurred to the descendant of the Viking.
“What are you going to do with the loot?” he asked.
“With your permission, I will take it to Strathlarrig, where I can examine and catalogue it at my leisure. I propose to announce the find at once to the world. To-morrow I will return with my men and remove the traces of our excavation.”
Mr Bandicott departed in his car, sitting erect at the wheel in a strangely priest-like attitude, while the two men guarded the treasure behind. He had no eyes for the twilight landscape, or he would have seen in the canal- like stretch of the Larrig belonging to Crask, which lay below the rapids and was universally condemned as hopeless for fish, a solitary angler, who, as the car passed, made a most bungling amateurish cast, but who, when the coast was once more clear, flung a line of surprising delicacy. He could not see the curious way in which that angler placed his fly, laying it with a curl a yard above a moving fish, and then sinking it with a dexterous twist: nor did he see, a quarter of an hour later, the same angler land a fair salmon from water in which in the memory of man no salmon had ever been taken before.
Colonel Raden and his daughters stood watching the departing archaeologist, and as his car vanished among the beeches Janet seized her sister and whirled her into a dance. “Such a day,” she cried, when the indignant Agatha had escaped and was patting her disordered hair. “Losses — one stag, which was better dead. Gains — defeat of John Macnab, fifty pounds sterling, a share of the unknown value in Harald Blacktooth’s treasure, and the annexation of America by the Raden family.”
“You’d better say that Americas has annexed us,” said the still flustered Agatha. “They’ve dug up our barrow, and this afternoon Junius Bandicott asked me to marry him.”
