by John Buchan
“These are dreidfu’ days,” she moaned. “We were telled that Montrose’s sodgers were sons of Belial, but if they were waur than yon Leslie’s they maun be the black Deil himsel’. Wae’s me, bluid is rinnin’ like water on Aller side. There’s awfu’ tales comin’ doun from the muirs o’ wild riders and deid lasses — ay, and deid bairns — a’ the puir clamjamphry that followed the Irish. It canna be richt, sir, to meet ae blood-guiltiness wi’ anither and a waur. And yon thrawn ettercap frae Bold ridin’ wi’ the sodgers and praisin’ the Lord when anither waefu’ creature perishes! And Chasehope, they tell me — black be his fa’ — guidin’ the sodgers to the landward buts-and-bens like a dowg after rattons! Catch yon lad frontin’ an armed man, but he’s like Jehu the son of Nimshi afore defenceless women.”
David asked if any one had been near the manse.
“That’s what fickles [puzzles] me. There’s been naebody at the door, but there’s been plenty snowkin’ round. There’s a gey guid watch keepit. And waur than that, there’s sodgers in the clachan — ten men and ane they ca’ a sairgent at Lucky Weir’s. I heard routin’ as I gaed by the kirkton, and, judging by the aiths, there’s sma’ differ between them that fechts for Montrose and them that uphauds the Covenant.”
Next day the uneasiness of both increased. The place was thronged with troopers, among them the men whom David had denounced at the Greenshiel. It is probable that his hasty words had been reported, for dark looks followed him as he passed the ale-house. Moreover, Isobel had news in the village that Leslie’s main forces were even now moving towards Woodilee, and that the triumphant general himself would lodge in the village. Where would such lodging be found except in the manse? At any moment the guest-room and its contents might lie bare to hostile eyes.
By the afternoon David had come to a decision. The wounded man must at all costs be moved. But where? Calidon would be as public as the street, and besides he had heard that a picket had been stationed there in case its laird came looking for shelter. . . . The hills were too open and bare, Reiverslaw would be suspect — in any case its tenant babbled in his cups. . . . Then he had an inspiration. Why not Melanudrigill, for its repute would at ordinary times make it the perfect sanctuary? He would be a bold man, it was true, who sought a lair in its haunted recesses, but this Mark Kerr did not lack for stoutness of heart. He found him yawning and extracting indifferent entertainment from a folio of Thuanus.
Kerr only grinned when he heard of the danger.
“I might have guessed that the place would soon be hotching with Davie’s troops. And maybe I’m to have Davie in bed aside me? Faith, I fear we wouldna agree, though I’ll no deny that the man has a very respectable gift in war. . . . I must shift, you say, and indeed that is the truth of it, but hostelries are no that plenty in this countryside for one like me that’s so highly thought of by his unfriends.”
Melanudrigill was set before him, and he approved.
“The big wood. Tales of it have come down the water, but I’ve never paid much attention to clavering auld wives. . . . There’s black witchcraft, you say — you’ve seen it yourself? I care not a doit. There’s just the one kind of warlock that frichts me, and that’s a file of Davie Leslie’s men. Find me a bed in a hidy-hole and some means of getting bite and sup till I can fend for myself, and I’ll sit snug in Melanudrigill though every witch coven in Scotland sat girning round me with the Deil playing the bagpipes.”
David was clear that he must be moved that night, but he was far from clear as to how it was to be done. He did not dare to take any other into the secret, not even Reiverslaw or Amos Ritchie, for hatred of Montrose was universal among the Lowland country folk. He and Isobel might make shift to get him to the Wood, for Isobel was a muscular old woman, but there was much to do besides that — a bed to be found, food transported, some plan made for a daily visit. There was no help to be found in Woodilee.
And then he remembered Katrine Yester.
For a long time he would not admit the thought. He would not have the girl enter a place of such defilements. The notion sickened him and he put it angrily from him. . . . But he found that a new idea was growing in his mind. The Wood had been a nursery of evil, but might it not be purified and its sorceries annulled if it were used for an honest purpose? The thought of Mark Kerr, with his hard wholesome face and his mirthful eye, eating and sleeping in what had been consecrated to midnight infamies, seemed to strip from the place its malign aura. . . . To his surprise, when he thought of Mark in the wood, he found that he could think of Katrine there also, without a consciousness of sacrilege. The man was her uncle’s comrade-in-arms — he was of the cause to which she herself was vowed — she was a woman and merciful — she was his only refuge. . . . Before the dusk fell he was on the road to Calidon.
He had expected to find a house garrisoned and dragooned, and had invented an errand of ministerial duty to explain his presence. He found instead a normal Calidon — the evening bustle about the gates, an open door, and Katrine herself taking the air in the pleasance beside the dovecot. She came towards him with bright inquiring eyes.
“You have soldiers here?” he asked breathlessly.
She nodded to a corner of the house, which had been the shell of the old peel tower.
“They are there — three of them — since last night. They arrived drunk — with two wretched women tied to their stirrups. . . . We were most courteous to them, and they were not courteous to us. So Jock Dodds wiled them into the place we call the Howlet’s Nest and gave them usquebagh and strong ale till they dropped on the floor. They are prisoners and woke up an hour ago, but they may roar long and loud before a cheep is heard outside the Howlet’s Nest, and the door is stout enough to defy an army.”
“But Leslie himself will be here. Other soldiers will come, and how will you explain your prisoners?”
The girl laughed merrily. “Trust Aunt Grizel. Two lone women — violent and drunken banditti — locking them up the only way — and then a spate of texts and a fine passage about soldiers of the good cause setting an ensample. I will wager my best hawk that Aunt Grizel will talk down General Leslie and every minister in his train. . . . The women are safe in the garret, less hurt than frightened. The poor things talk only the Erse, and there’s none about the town to crack with them.”
He told her of the midnight visit to the manse and the lame man left on his hands.
“You saw him?” she whispered. “You saw the Lord Marquis. How did he look? Was he very weary and sorrowful?”
“He was weary enough, but yon face does not show sorrow. There’s an ardour in it that burns up all weakness. He would continue to hope manfully though his neck were on the block.”
“Indeed that is true, and that is why I will not despair. When I heard the news of disaster I did not shed a single tear. . . . Whom did he leave behind?”
“The tall man — Mark Kerr is his name — who was in this house of yours a year back. Him that has a cast in his eye.”
“But that is the Lord Marquis’s most familiar friend,” she cried. “The occasion must be desperate which parts them.”
“The occasion grows more desperate,” he said, and told her of the need for instant removal.
When he spoke of the Wood she showed no surprise.
“Where else so secret?” she said.
“Dare you go into it?” he asked. “For unless I have your help the business is like to prove too hard for me. I will confess that it sticks in my throat to stir one step myself into the gloom of the pines, when I ken what has been transacted there, and it sticks sorer to have you in that unholy place. But if this Kerr is to be saved, there’s need of us both. The man will have to be fed, and that would be done more easily from Calidon than from the manse.”
“Why, so it must be. I have been pining for some stirring task, and here it is to my hand. I will be your fellow-labourer, Mr. David, and we begin this very night. For a mercy there is a small moon. . . . No, Aunt Grizel shall not hear of it
. I have the keys and can leave and enter the house as I choose. When the dusk comes and our guests in the Howlet’s Nest are quiet from hoarseness, I will bid Jock Dodds carry certain plenishing to Paradise.”
A little before midnight, when even the clamour of Lucky Weir’s was still, three figures stole from the manse, after David by many reconnaissances had assured himself that the coast was clear. Montrose’s erstwhile captain was dressed like a small farmer, in David’s breeches and a coat that had once belonged to Isobel’s goodman. He had a rude crutch, with which he managed to keep up a good pace, having learnt the art, he said, during an escape from a patrol of Wallenstein’s, which for greater security had manacled the prisoners in pairs leg to leg. Isobel prospected the road before him like a faithful dog, while David steadied him with his arm. In such fashion they crossed the Hill of Deer, and in a darkness lit only by the stars came to the glade called Paradise. There they found awaiting them a glimmering girl, at the sight of whom Isobel’s fears broke loose, for she prayed in words not sanctioned by any Kirk, and her prayer was for mercy from the Good Folk.
Kerr made an attempt at a bow. “Mistress Yester, it is not the first time I have come for succour to women of your house. They say I must take to the shaws like Robin Hood, but the wildwood will be a palace if you are among its visitors.”
“Yester,” Isobel muttered to herself. “The young leddy o’ Calidon! Wha wad have thocht that the minister was acquaint there? Certes, she’s the bonny ane,” and she bobbed curtsies.
Katrine was the general. “These bundles are bedding and food. Up with them, sir, and I will guide Captain Kerr. I have also brought a covered lantern, which will light us through the pines better than your candle, Mr. David. La, this is a merry venture.”
The sense of company, the presence of Katrine and the soldier, the nature of the errand, above all the preposterous figure of Isobel, whose terrors of the Wood were scarcely outweighed by her loyalty to her master and her curiosity about the girl, took from the occasion for David all sense of awe, and even endowed it with a spice of fun and holiday. The mood lasted till they had crossed the boundary glen and entered the pines; it endured even when, feeling their way along the foot of the low cliffs, they looked downward and saw by the lantern light an eerie white stone in a dim glade. The girl guided them to a dry hollow where an arch of rock made a kind of roof and where a yard off a spring bubbled among the stones. It was she, and not Isobel, who made a couch of branches and fir boughs on which she laid the deerskins and plaids she had brought. It was she, and not David, who gathered dry sticks against the morning fire and saw that Kerr had flint and steel and tinder. It was she, too, who made a larder of a shelf in the rock, where she stored the food, and fixed certain hours of the day for further provisioning, and enjoined a variation of routes to prevent suspicion. It was she finally who presented Kerr with a pistol, shot, and powder — belonging, it is to be feared, to one of the imprisoned troopers — and who saw him to bed like a nurse with a child.
“I’m as snug here as a winter badger,” said Kerr contentedly. “I lack nought but a pipe of tobacco, and that I must whistle for, seeing that I left my spleuchan at Philiphaugh. . . . Mistress, you’ve the knack of an old campaigner. You might have been at the wars.”
“The men of my race have always been at the wars, and the women have always dreamed of them,” she said, and on his forehead she kissed him good-night.
David Leslie came to Woodilee in the morning, but did not halt, pushing on to Lanark in the afternoon. His army was in less of a hurry, and three troop-captains made their beds in the manse, while the minister slept on his study floor. They were civil enough, cadets of small houses in Fife, who had had their training in arms abroad, and cared as little for the cause they fought for as any mercenary of Tilly’s. Within two days the neighbourhood was clear of soldiery, save for the garrisons left as earth-stoppers at houses like Calidon, which might be the refuge of malignants.
For a week Mark Kerr lay in the recesses of Melanudrigill, and for David the days passed like a seraphic vision. Every night after the darkening he met Katrine in Paradise, and the two carried to the refugee his daily provender — eggs and milk, ale from the Calidon buttery, cakes which were Mistress Grizel’s, cheese which was Isobel’s. For David the spell of the Wood had gone. He looked on it now as a man does at his familiar bedroom when he wakes from a nightmare, unable to reconstruct the scene of his terrors. His crusading fury, too, had sensibly abated, for part of his wrath against witchcraft had been due to his own awe of the Wood and his disgust at such awe. Now the place was a shelter for a friend, and a meeting-ground with one he loved, and the cloud which had weighed on him since he first saw it from the Hill of Deer gave place to clear sky. Men might frequent Melanudrigill for hideous purposes, but the place itself was innocent, and he wondered with shame how he came ever to think that honest wood and water and stone could have intrinsic evil.
Nightly, in the light mists of the late September, when pine trees stood up out of vapour like mountains, and the smell of woodland ripeness was not yet tinged with decay, David and Katrine threaded the aisles and clambered among the long bracken, till a pinpoint of light showed from beside a rock and was presently revealed as Kerr’s bivouac. They would sit late with him, listening to his tales and giving him the news of the glens, while owls hooted in the boughs and from the higher levels came the faint crying of curlews. There was much business to be done between Mark and Calidon — business of Nicholas Hawkshaw’s, who had been duly put to the horn, and over whose goods, by the intrigues of Mistress Grizel, a friendly curator had been appointed, and business of his own anent the tack of Crossbasket — and Katrine carried daily messages by letter and by word of mouth. When his leg was healed there was a certain polish to be given to his appearance, and the ladies of Calidon were busy with their needles. When he left his lair at last it was just before dawn — on foot, with a blue coat instead of the hodden grey of Isobel’s goodman, and four miles on the Edinburgh road Jock Dodds from Calidon waited with a horse for him.
David would fain have had the leg prove troublesome, that the time of hiding in the Wood might be prolonged, for that season passed for him with the speed of a too happy dream. To be with Katrine was at all times bliss, but to be her partner on these dark journeys and in these midnight conclaves was a rapture of happiness. If he had lost his awe of the Wood, he had lost also the sense that in letting his heart dwell on the girl he was falling away from duty. The standards of the Kirk meant the less to him since he was in declared controversy with its representatives, and a succourer by stealth of its enemies. His canons of conduct were dissolving, and in their confusion he was willing to surrender himself to more ancient instincts. The minister was being forgotten in the man and the lover.
The lover — though no word of love was spoken between the two. They were comrades only, truant children, boy and girl on a Saturday holiday. It was a close companionship, yet as unembarrassed as that of sister and brother. In her presence David caught her mood, and laughed with it, but when absent from her he was in a passion of worship. The slim green-gowned figure danced through his waking hours and haunted his dreams. He made no plans, forecast no future; he was in that happy first stage of love which is content to live with a horizon bounded by the next meeting.
In such a frame of mind he may have grown careless, for he did not see what Isobel saw. His housekeeper, brisk with the consciousness of a partnership with her master in things unlawful and perilous, and under the glamour of Katrine’s gentrice and beauty, was as unquiet as a hen with a brood of young ducks on the pond’s edge. She clucked and fussed, and waited for David’s return in an anxious tempest. “There’s queer ongaein’s in this bit,” she told him. “When I hearken in the sma’ hours I hear feet trailin’ as saft as a tod’s [fox], and whiles a hoast [cough] or a gant [yawn] which never cam’ frae a tod’s mouth. And yestreen when ye set out, sir, there was something slipped atween the birks and the wa’ and followed. I wi
sh it mayna be your deid wraith.” He pooh-poohed her fears, but on the last night, when he parted from Katrine in Paradise, and according to his custom watched her figure as, faint in the moonlight, it crossed a field of bracken above Rood, he saw something move parallel to her in the fern. On his way home, too, as he passed the kirkton road in the first light, there was a rustling among the elders, and a divot fell mysteriously from the turf dyke.
CHAPTER XIV. THE COUNTERBLAST
He dreamed that night that he was being spied upon, and next day — with no more meetings with Katrine before him to fire his fancy — his cold reason justified the fear. The conviction was presently confirmed by a discovery of Isobel’s. Mark Kerr’s cast clothes had been hidden at first in the gloom of the rafters in David’s camceiled bedroom, but the coming of Leslie’s troops compelled her to change this place of disposal to the stable, where, in the space between the wall and the thatch, she bestowed them, wrapped stoutly in sacking. She kept an eye on the bundle, and one morning it had disappeared. More, it had clearly been stolen and hurriedly opened, for the sacking and a tarry rope which bound it were found among the nettles beyond the kirkyard wall. Compromising goods indeed to come forth of a minister’s house!
That same day Isobel returned from a visit to her cousin with a queer tale.
“Something’s gotten out, sir. The wives in the kirkton are clatterin’ like daws. ‘What’s this they tell me, gossip,’ says one, ‘about Babylonish garments found in the manse?’ ‘Faith, I kenna,’ says I. ‘They’re nane o’ my findin’, but wi’ roarin’ sodgers quartered in ilka chamber ye’ll no surprise me if some unco gear were left behind.’ ‘But it’s nae honest gear o’ Davie Leslie’s lads,’ she says, ‘but the laced coats and plumit hats o’ the malignants. And there’s a report that ithers hae sleepit in the manse this past se’nnight than our ain Covenant sodgers.’ ‘Wha tell’t ye that, my wumman,’ I says, ‘was a black leear, and a thief forbye. I’d like brawly to ken wha has been snowkin’ round our doors and carryin’ awa’ leein’ tales and maybe some o’ our plenishin’. Tell me the names, and, man or wumman, I’ll hae my fingers at their lugs.’ It was Jean of the Chasehope-fit that spoke to me, and she got mair frae me than she expeckit. There wasna ane o’ her auld misdaein’s I didna fling in her teeth.”
