Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  The end of the plague was for David a harder season even than its height. For with convalescence Woodilee seemed to lose its wits. Before it had sat dazed and broken under the rod; now it woke to an ardour of self-preservation. At the beginning the people seemed to be careless of infection; now the survivors were possessed with a craze to live, and fought like terrified animals to get out of danger. They could not leave the parish bounds, but those that were able fled from the village. The leaky sheilings on the hills, occupied by the ewe-milkers during the height of summer, gave lodging to many, and several died there of the violence of the frost. The outlying farms were believed to be the safer, so Mirehope and Nether Fennan had many undesired tenants in their outhouses. The result was that, in a season of convalescence, when nursing was especially needed, the bedridden were often left deserted. David tried to enlist men and women who had either escaped the plague or had been for some weeks recovered, but he got only fierce denials or an obstinate silence. The place had become brutish, and the selfishness of beasts seemed to have become the rule of life.

  The one exception was Chasehope. During the worst weeks the clachan had had no news of him, but it was rumoured that he had made a fortress of his farm-town, and had assiduously tended his own people. At any rate at Chasehope there had been only one death. Now he appeared in the street, and to David’s amazement it was clear that he came on an errand of mercy. His house seemed still to be well provided, and he brought with him a certain amount of provender. This he did not bestow indiscriminately but only on certain families, which David guessed to contain members of the coven. To these he spoke with authority, and he used his power to put reason into the distracted.

  He alone in the place seemed to have no fear of infection — to be careless of the risk which had sent panic abroad among the others. He passed the minister with a grave salutation, and showed no wish to give or ask for help; he had some business afoot which was his private concern. But the fact stood out that this man, alone in Woodilee, had mastered fear.

  Once in a cottage where a child was recovering he came upon David and Katrine. The girl was sitting on a stool by the bed making a toy out of reeds for the child’s amusement, and singing a French nursery song about Cadet Roussel and his three houses. David lifted his eyes from admiring the grace and swiftness of her hands to see Chasehope’s heavy white face in the glow of the firelight. The latter doffed his bonnet at the sight of Katrine, and murmured some civility. Clearly he knew her, for he picked up a reed from the floor. “Frae the Calidon mill-dam, belike,” he said.

  “You are the one man in Woodilee who has courage,” David said. “You are no friend of mine, Ephraim Caird, but I give you the praise of a stout heart.”

  “Why should I be feared?” the other asked. “Why should I dread to walk even in the valley of death if His rod and staff are there to comfort me?”

  “Why should you! But many professors are of a different mind.”

  “They are but poor professors, then. I fear no ill, for I am in the Lord’s hand till His appointed time.”

  “But many who do not fear death fear to die by the pest.”

  “Ay, but I have my assurance. I have the Lord’s own promise, Mr. Sempill. I ken as weel that no pest can touch me as that my name is Ephraim Caird and my habitation is Chasehope. It’s the lack o’ sound doctrine that gars folk turn cowards — they dinna lippen enough to the Lord — they havena a firm enough grip o’ their calling and election. I have my compact sure, and I ken that the Lord will no gie me a back-cast. I can rejoice even in this sore affliction, for He hath demanded a sacrifice, and what is man to question His will? Dear in His sight is the death of His saints — ay, and of sinners, too, for His judgments are not exhausted. There’s mair to come, Mr. Sempill — take tent o’ that, sir — the conviction is heavy on me that the wind o’ His displeasure has still a blast to blaw.”

  The pale eyes had almost the green of a cat’s in the dim light, and the bald brows above gave the whole face the air of a mask, which at any moment might slip and reveal nightmare lineaments. The child in the bed looked up as he spoke, saw his face and screamed in terror, and Katrine, after one glance behind her, was busied in crooning consolations. . . . In that moment David had a revelation. This man, secure in his election to grace, secure against common fear, was likewise secure against common reason. He was no hypocrite. To him the foulest sin would be no sin — its indulgence would be part of his prerogative, its blotting out an incident in his compact with the Almighty. He could lead the coven in the Wood and wallow in the lusts of the flesh, and his crimes would be but the greater vindication of God’s omnipotence. . . . In that illuminating instant madness had looked out of his eyes.

  CHAPTER XIX. THE SACRIFICE

  As March drew to its close the wheels of life began once again to run creakingly in Woodilee. The frost disappeared under a week of southwesterly gales, and then the wind moved to the east and blew dry and blighting, so that the lean beasts shivered in the infields. The gross unseasonable herbage of the winter had gone, and it promised to be a backward spring. The men went out feebly to the farm-work, and the ploughing began, though the draught-oxen were so poor in condition that the work moved slowly. The siege, too, was raised. Johnnie Dow once again showed his cautious face in the clachan and brought news of the outer world; the pack-horses again struggled through Carnwath Moss; and there came word from Kirk Aller that the meeting of the Presbytery to adjudicate on David’s case was fixed for a day in April. Mr. James rode over from Cauldshaw and the kirk was opened, but David did not renew his preachings at the kirkyard gate.

  The truth is that he was weary to the bone. Mark Riddel met him one morning on the road and drew rein sharply at the sight of his face.

  “Man David, you’re like a ghost. You’ve worked your body ower sore these last months, and if you dinna take care you’ll be on your back. You and Katrine are two inconsiderate bairns. You’ve both of you done the work of ten men, and you’ll no listen to wiser folk. Take my advice and get furth of this woeful parish till your body is rested and your mind quieter.”

  “I am summoned to my trial at Kirk Aller in a week’s time.”

  “And that’s the crown of it! That’s what you get for wearing yourself to skin and bone for a thankless folk. There are times when I scunner at my native land. There’s a rumour that Montrose has escaped abroad and is now at the Emperor’s court, and if it werena for you and Katrine I could find it in me to join him. There’s a blight on the country which affects even a brisk heart like mine, and I’m getting mortal sick of the eternal crack of nowt and wedders.”

  But though Mark came to the manse every evening and would have nursed him like a mother, David could not relax the tension of body and spirit. He slept badly, and in spite of Isobel’s coaxing ate little; his nights were filled with wild dreams, and, worse, these dreams seemed to pursue him in his waking hours. He felt no special ailment of body to which he could attribute his distress, beyond an extreme fatigue. He would take long walks by day and night, but though he returned from them very stiff and weary, they did not bring him healthful sleep. He tried to master himself, to laugh at himself, but the malaise would not be expelled. . . . He was the prey of childish fears, looking nervously for something malign to come out of the dark or round the corner. And presently the barriers of the real seemed to crumble. He saw faces where there were none, he listened to voices in the deepest silence. Once, coming at night up the manse loan, he heard footsteps on the dry earth approaching him. They grew louder, passed and died away behind him, and he realized that the footsteps were his own.

  A word of Chasehope’s stuck evilly in his memory. The Lord had demanded a sacrifice, but the sacrifice was not yet complete, the man had said. The word tortured him and he could get no relief from thinking, for the thing was beyond thought. An oppression of coming disaster weighed on him. He told himself that his enemy had meant no more than the Presbytery trial, but he could not lay the ghost. Something darker,
more terrible, hung on the skirts of his imagination. Chasehope was no doubt mad, but truth might lurk in madness; a maniac saw that which was hidden from others. It was for Katrine that he feared, and what he feared he could not give a shape to — there lay the agony of it.

  Presently his old dread of the Wood returned — that dread which he thought he had exorcised for ever. He had defied it, but what if it should prove too strong for him? In his distraught thoughts the pestilence seemed to have come out of it — Chasehope had moved unscathed through the weeks of plague — Chasehope and the devils he served were the plague’s masters. Was there some other terror still in its depths waiting to be loosed on him? He had moments of clear-sightedness, when he despised himself for his folly, and realized that to be thus faint of heart was to acknowledge defeat and to abase himself before his enemy. But the conviction returned, stronger than will or reason, and David would walk the hill with clenched hands and muttering lips, or in his closet struggle in blind prayer for a comfort that would not come.

  After Katrine’s nightly visits to Woodilee had ceased the minister had meant to go daily to Calidon. But with this new mood of terror upon him he was ashamed to face the girl; and he had sufficient manhood to put restraint upon his longings. The time came, however, when anxiety conquered scruples. He rode to Calidon with a fluttering heart, an excitement rather of fear than of joy.

  Mistress Saintserf faced him grimly.

  “What have ye done wi’ my bairn?” she demanded. “She is fair broke wi’ ridin’ the roads and tendin’ the riff-raff o’ Woodilee — and the haill parochine no worth a hair o’ her heid. Christian charity, says you — but there’s bounds to Christian charity! Ye’re a bonny lad to tak’ so little care o’ your joe.”

  Presently she condescended to details. “She has nae strength, the puir thing — clean worn out like an auld bauchle [shoe]. Yestreen I garred her tak’ to her bed, and she’s lyin’ as biddable as a wean, and her for ordinar’ sae sweir to bide still. . . . Na, ye canna see her. But dinna fash yoursel’, my man. She’s no sick — just weary wi’ ower heavy a task. A long lie in her bed will put her richt, and a change in this dowie weather. Pray for a bit blink o’ sun. . . . Ye’re lookin’ gey gash yoursel’. Ye’d be nane the waur o’ a week on your back.”

  As David rode homeward he remembered the last words and laughed at the irony. A week in bed, when he could scarcely endure three hours in a night! Mistress Saintserf’s news had put him into an agony of apprehension. He stabled his horse and set out to work off his anxiety by bodily fatigue, but it grew with every mile he walked. Weariness, he told himself, was only natural after such a winter’s toil; was not he himself worn out, and did not even Mark Riddel confess to a great fatigue? But he could not console himself with such thoughts. At any moment she might fall into a fever, and then — he remembered with dreadful distinctness the stages of the malady. Was this the last lingering effort of the pest? — he had heard of such cases coming weeks after the thing seemed to have been stayed. And always there rose in his mind Chasehope’s prophecy of a sacrifice still to come.

  He would fain have gone back to Calidon and waited for news. Instead he sent Isobel with a message to Mistress Grizel. His housekeeper was noted as a skilful nurse and an amateur leech, and he begged that she should be allowed to help in waiting upon Katrine. The sending of her did something to ease his mind, for it was a direct piece of service to his beloved; moreover, if Isobel was in Calidon, he could go there as often as he wished and have speech with her, for he was a little ashamed to reveal to Mistress Grizel his lack of fortitude. Meantime he could fend for himself, and cook what food he needed.

  The time passed on leaden feet, and the hours of darkness were one long sleepless nightmare. Next day he was early at Calidon and found Isobel with a composed face. “Ye needna tak’ it sae sair, Mr. David,” she assured him. “The leddy’s no that bad. Nae doot she’s sair weary, but the feck o’ the time she sleeps like a bairn, and there’s nae fever. There’s strong bluid in her that will no be lang ere it conquers the weakness. But losh, sir, ye’ve the face o’ a bogle. Awa’ hame wi’ ye and lie doun, or I’ll no bide anither hour in Calidon. Are ye takin’ your meat? Dinna look at me like a glum wean, but dae as I tell ye.”

  David returned to the manse, and under the influence of Isobel’s cheerfulness fell asleep in his chair and slept till the late afternoon. He awoke freshened in body, but with a new alarm at his heart. Isobel had said there was no fever, but that meant that she dreaded fever. . . . By this time it might have come. Even now Katrine might be delirious. . . . He realized how swiftly during the pest fever had succeeded listlessness.

  Nevertheless the hours of sleep had given him a greater power of self-control, and he curbed his instinct to ride forthwith to Calidon. He wandered through the house and out into the glebe, striving to fix his mind on small and homely things. It was the third day of April, but there was no sign of spring. The dislocation of the seasons had given the earth an autumnal air, for the shoals of fallen leaves lay as if it were November, and the frosts had not bleached the herbage. He remembered how a year ago at this time he had wandered on the hills and felt with joy the stirrings of new life. To-day the world was still clamped in bonds, and death was in the bare trees and the leaden sky. What had become of his high hopes? All gone save one — and that the dearest. A year ago he had had no thought of Katrine and had been happy in other things. Now these had been turned into ashes, but he had got Katrine in their stead. If she were to go — ? The thought so chilled his heart that he fled indoors, as if in the house he could barricade himself against it.

  In his study he turned over his books. He tried to pray, but set prayer was idle, for every breath he drew had become an impassioned supplication. He had out his notes on Isaiah and the prolegomena which he had completed, but his eyes could scarcely read them. How small and remote these labours seemed! Every now and then a quotation from the prophet stood out in his manuscript, and these were as ominous as a raven’s croaking. “Burning instead of beauty. . . . Their faces shall be as flames. . . . Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire. . . . This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest.”

  He turned from his notes in awe and took up his secular books. One he opened at random and saw that it was the Æneid, and the words which caught his eyes were “manibus date lilia plenis.” Small wonder that the book had opened there, for it was a well-thumbed passage; but he shuddered as if he had cast the sortes Virgilianæ and had got a doleful answer.

  In the evening he found himself some food, and since the dark was full of ghosts for him, he lit many candles and banked up the peats on the fire. He was in a strange mood, rapt out of himself, suffering not so much pain in his thoughts as a fever of expectation. His fingers drummed ceaselessly on his knees; as he looked into the glowing peats he saw forms and figures that seemed to mock him; to his unquiet ears a wind was blowing round the house — a wind that talked — though the night was very still. And always there was in his head, like the refrain of a ballad, the words “Burning instead of beauty.”

  He did not see Mark Riddel till the man was beside him and had touched his shoulder. Then he started up with a cry and encountered a grave, perturbed face.

  “You had better come to Calidon,” Mark said. “Katrine . . . she has taken a turn for the worse. She has been in a fever since midday.”

  It was the news he had been expecting, and David rose obediently.

  “I’ll go on foot,” he said. “I can run faster than any horse.”

  Mark looked at him anxiously. “You’ll do no such thing. You’d faint or you were across the Hill o’ Deer. Bide where you are and I’ll saddle your beast.”

  The two set off at a gallop, but in the rough parts of the road Mark slackened and took David’s bridle. “Hold up,” he cried. “It’ll no mend matters if you break your neck.”

  David asked only one question. “Have y
ou got a leech?” he said.

  “I’ll have no leeches. Your country botcher would only bleed her, and she hasna the strength for that. Grizel and yon wife Isobel are all the leeches that are needed, and I’m not without skill myself. Keep up your heart, David. All is no tint yet, and it’s a young life.”

  At Calidon gate David spoke again. “Is it the pest?”

  “I canna tell, for the pest has many shapes to it. Weakness and fever — there’s no other signs, though God kens that’s bad enough.”

  He was taken straight to her chamber by Isobel, and found there Mistress Grizel, a silent, stern-faced guardian. Katrine lay tossing in high delirium, moaning a little, and moving her arms feebly on the coverlet. A bandage of wet cloths was on her brow, and, as David laid his hand on it, he felt the pulse of the fever beneath. Her long dark lashes lay on her flushed cheeks, but every now and then her eyes would open in a glassy stare. He took her hand and it was dry and burning.

  “We maun let the fever rin its course,” said Mistress Grizel. “She maun fecht her ain battle without the help o’ man. God be kind to my bairn,” and she kissed the hot lips.

  “Ye’ll be puttin’ up a prayer?” she turned to David.

  “I cannot pray . . . I can only watch. . . . I beg you to let me watch here beside her.”

  “Have your way. There’s little need o’ speech if there be prayer in the heart. Isobel will get ready your chamber, for ye canna leave this house.”

  Presently David was in the sick-room alone, and if he could not pray he spent the hours on his knees. Isobel and Mistress Grizel returned from time to time; once Mark came in and put his hand on the girl’s brow. The night passed and the dawn came, but still David knelt at a chair by the bedside, his head sometimes in his hands and sometimes lifted to gaze at the face on the pillow. He was tortured with the sense of his frailty. A sacrifice, another sacrifice, was required, and for what sins but his own? He had been lacking — oh, he had been lacking in every Christian grace. In those black moments he saw himself as the chief of sinners, his struggles to rise foiled by a dragging weight of self, his ardours half-hearted, the fruits he brought forth but poor pithless stalks, his errors dark and monstrous like birds of night. He was not conscious of any special sin — only of a deep unworthiness which made him unfit to touch the hem of her garment. . . . Had ever any one so made music in the world by merely passing through it? And now — burning instead of beauty. . . .