by John Buchan
Janet dropped her flower and looked up smiling. “You are lonely, Sandy.”
“I am lonely. That is why I want to get back to companionable things.”
A sudden happiness came into the girl’s face. She looked away from him and spoke rapidly. “Barbara once went over to Laverlaw with the Manorwaters. Do you remember? You pretended that she annoyed you...I wonder...Less than a year ago we spoke of her in the Regina Hotel. You pretended you couldn’t remember her name...I wonder again...Oh, Sandy, you are an old fool...”
He scrambled off his perch and stood above her. He was flushed under his deep sunburn. “Janet, you witch! How did you guess?”
“It wasn’t very hard. When a man like you grows tired of wandering and has a sudden longing for home, it is because he is in love with a woman and wants to take her to the place where he belongs.”
“You’ve guessed right. I suppose it has been coming on for a long time, but I didn’t know it — not till that awful night at Veiro. When we rode up and I found her in the midst of plunging horses — with her shoes all cut to bits and her ankle twisted, and dropping with fatigue, and yet as brave as a lion — and when I saw the roses on her breast all crushed and torn with her wild scramble — I think I knew. And later, when Archie arrived and his first cry was for you, I remembered that I had nobody to feel like that about...and I wanted someone — her...”
He stopped, for he felt that words were needless in view of a depth of comprehension in Janet’s crooked smile.
“I haven’t a chance, I know.” he stammered.
“Not a ghost of a chance,” she said briskly, “but you can always ask her. She’ll be here in about five minutes. I’m going for a walk to look for Luis and the others. We shan’t be back for hours and hours.”
THE END
CASTLE G AY
Published in 1930, Castle Gay is the second of Buchan’s three Dickson McCunn novels, set in south west Scotland in the Dumfries and Galloway region in the 1920s. The novel concerns McCunn, the retired Glasgow provisions merchant and adventurer, and his group of boys, known as the Gorbals Die-hards, who have gone on to Cambridge University. The plot revolves around the self-discovery of a media mogul named Craw, who is firstly the subject of mistaken identity and then the target of Balkan extremists, who wish to use his newspapers to influence their political cause. Mr Craw’s journey is overseen by Jaikie Galt, one of the young scamps in Huntingtower, who is now a Cambridge undergraduate and international rugby player. On their shared travels incognito around the Scottish wilderness, both men learn to re-evaluate their lives and values.
The first edition
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. TELLS OF A RUGBY THREE-QUARTER
CHAPTER II. INTRODUCES A GREAT MAN IN ADVERSITY
CHAPTER III. THE BACK HOUSE OF THE GARROCH
CHAPTER IV. THE RECONNAISSANCE OF CASTLE GAY
CHAPTER V. INTRODUCES A LADY
CHAPTER VI. THE TROUBLES OF A PRIVATE SECRETARY
CHAPTER VII. BEGINNING OF A GREAT MAN’S EXILE
CHAPTER VIII. CASIMIR
CHAPTER IX. THE FIRST DAY OF THE HEJIRA — THE INN AT WATERMEETING
CHAPTER X. THE SECOND DAY OF THE HEJIRA — THE FORD CAR
CHAPTER XI. THE TROUBLES OF A JOURNALIST
CHAPTER XII. PORTAWAY — THE GREEN TREE
CHAPTER XIII. PORTAWAY — RED DAVIE
CHAPTER XIV. PORTAWAY — ALISON
CHAPTER XV. DISAPPEARANCE OF MR CRAW
CHAPTER XVI. ENEMY’S COUNTRY
CHAPTER XVII. JAIKIE OPENS HIS COMMUNICATIONS
CHAPTER XVIII. SOLWAY SANDS
CHAPTER XIX. MR CRAW IS MASTER IN HIS OWN HOUSE
CHAPTER XX. VALEDICTORY
TO
SIR ALEXANDER GRANT, Bart.,
OF LOGIE AND RELUGAS
THIS COMEDY IS INSCRIBED WITH
GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION
The earlier doings of Dougal, Jaikie, and Mr Dickson McCunn will be found in a novel entitled “Huntingtower.”
J.B.
CHAPTER I. TELLS OF A RUGBY THREE-QUARTER
Mr Dickson McCunn laid down the newspaper, took his spectacles from his nose, and polished them with a blue-and-white spotted handkerchief.
“It will be a great match,” he observed to his wife. “I wish I was there to see. These Kangaroos must be a fearsome lot.” Then he smiled reflectively. “Our laddies are not turning out so bad, Mamma. Here’s Jaikie, and him not yet twenty, and he has his name blazing in the papers as if he was a Cabinet Minister.”
Mrs McCunn, a placid lady of a comfortable figure, knitted steadily. She did not share her husband’s enthusiasms.
“I know fine,” she said, “that Jaikie will be coming back with a bandaged head and his arm in a sling. Rugby in my opinion is not a game for Christians. It’s fair savagery.”
“Hoots, toots! It’s a grand ploy for young folk. You must pay a price for fame, you know. Besides, Jaikie hasn’t got hurt this long time back. He’s learning caution as he grows older, or maybe he’s getting better at the job. You mind when he was at the school we used to have the doctor to him every second Saturday night. . . . He was always a terrible bold laddie, and when he was getting dangerous his eyes used to run with tears. He’s quit of that habit now, but they tell me that when he’s real excited he turns as white as paper. Well, well! we’ve all got our queer ways. Here’s a biography of him and the other players. What’s this it says?”
Mr McCunn resumed his spectacles.
“Here it is. ‘J. Galt, born in Glasgow. Educated at the Western Academy and St Mark’s College, Cambridge . . . played last year against Oxford in the victorious Cambridge fifteen, when he scored three tries. . . . This is his first International . . . equally distinguished in defence and attack. . . . Perhaps the most unpredictable of wing three-quarters now playing. . . .’ Oh, and here’s another bit in ‘Gossip about the Teams.’” He removed his spectacles and laughed heartily. “That’s good. It calls him a ‘scholar and a gentleman.’ That’s what they always say about University players. Well, I’ll warrant he’s as good a gentleman as any, though he comes out of a back street in the Gorbals. I’m not so sure about the scholar. But he can always do anything he sets his mind to, and he’s a worse glutton for books than me. No man can tell what may happen to Jaikie yet. . . . We can take credit for these laddies of ours, for they’re all in the way of doing well for themselves, but there’s just the two of them that I feel are like our own bairns. Just Jaikie and Dougal — and goodness knows what will be the end of that red-headed Dougal. Jaikie’s a douce body, but there’s a determined daftness about Dougal. I wish he wasn’t so taken up with his misguided politics.”
“I hope they’ll not miss their train,” said the lady. “Supper’s at eight, and they should be here by seven-thirty, unless Jaikie’s in the hospital.”
“No fear,” was the cheerful answer. “More likely some of the Kangaroos will be there. We should get a telegram about the match by six o’clock.”
So after tea, while his wife departed on some domestic task, Mr McCunn took his ease with a pipe in a wicker chair on the little terrace which looked seaward. He had found the hermitage for which he had long sought, and was well content with it. The six years which had passed since he forsook the city of Glasgow and became a countryman had done little to alter his appearance. The hair had indeed gone completely from the top of his head, and what was left was greying, but there were few lines on his smooth, ruddy face, and the pale eyes had still the innocence and ardour of youth. His figure had improved, for country exercise and a sparer diet had checked the movement towards rotundity. When not engaged in some active enterprise, it was his habit to wear a tailed coat and trousers of tweed, a garb which from his boyish recollection he thought proper for a country laird, but which to the ordinary observer suggested a bookmaker. Gradually, a little self-consciously, he had acquired what he considered to be the habits of the class. He walked in his garden with a spud; his capacious
pockets contained a pruning knife and twine; he could talk quite learnedly of crops and stock, and, though he never shouldered a gun, of the prospects of game; and a fat spaniel was rarely absent from his heels.
The home he had chosen was on the spur of a Carrick moor, with the sea to the west, and to south and east a distant prospect of the blue Galloway hills. After much thought he had rejected the various country houses which were open to his purchase; he felt it necessary to erect his own sanctuary, conformable to his modest but peculiar tastes. A farm of some five hundred acres had been bought, most of it pasture-fields fenced by dry-stone dykes, but with a considerable stretch of broom and heather, and one big plantation of larch. Much of this he let off, but he retained a hundred acres where he and his grieve could make disastrous essays in agriculture. The old farm-house had been a whitewashed edifice of eight rooms, with ample outbuildings, and this he had converted into a commodious dwelling, with half a dozen spare bedrooms, and a large chamber which was at once library, smoking-room, and business-room. I do not defend Mr McCunn’s taste, for he had a memory stored with bad precedents. He hankered after little pepper-box turrets, which he thought the badge of ancientry, and in internal decoration he had an unhallowed longing for mahogany panelling, like a ship’s saloon. Also he doted on his vast sweep of gravel. Yet he had on the whole made a pleasing thing of Blaweary (it was the name which had first taken his fancy), for he stuck to harled and whitewashed walls, and he had a passion for green turf, so that, beyond the odious gravel, the lawns swept to the meadows unbroken by formal flowerbeds. These lawns were his special hobby. “There’s not a yard of turf about the place,” he would say, “that’s not as well kept as a putting-green.”
The owner from his wicker chair looked over the said lawns to a rough pasture where his cows were at graze, and then beyond a patch of yellowing bracken to the tops of a fir plantation. After that the ground fell more steeply, so that the tree-tops were silhouetted against the distant blue of the sea. It was mid-October, but the air was as balmy as June, and only the earlier dusk told of the declining year. Mr McCunn was under strict domestic orders not to sit out of doors after sunset, but he had dropped asleep and the twilight was falling when he was roused by a maid with a telegram.
In his excitement he could not find his spectacles. He tore open the envelope and thrust the pink form into the maid’s face. “Read it, lassie — read it,” he cried, forgetting the decorum of the master of a household.
“Coming seven-thirty,” the girl read primly. “Match won by single point.” Mr McCunn upset his chair, and ran, whooping, in search of his wife.
The historian must return upon his tracks in order to tell of the great event thus baldly announced. That year the Antipodes had despatched to Britain such a constellation of Rugby stars that the hearts of the home enthusiasts became as water and their joints were loosened. For years they had known and suffered from the quality of those tall young men from the South, whom the sun had toughened and tautened — their superb physique, their resourcefulness, their uncanny combination. Hitherto, while the fame of one or two players had reached these shores, the teams had been in the main a batch of dark horses, and there had been no exact knowledge to set a bar to hope. But now Australia had gathered herself together for a mighty effort, and had sent to the field a fifteen most of whose members were known only too well. She had collected her sons wherever they were to be found. Four had already played for British Universities; three had won a formidable repute in international matches in which their country of ultimate origin had entitled them to play. What club, county, or nation could resist so well equipped an enemy? And, as luck decided, it fell to Scotland, which had been having a series of disastrous seasons, to take the first shock.
That ancient land seemed for the moment to have forgotten her prowess. She could produce a strong, hard-working and effective pack, but her great three-quarter line had gone, and she had lost the scrum-half who the year before had been her chief support. Most of her fifteen were new to an international game, and had never played together. The danger lay in the enemy halves and three-quarters. The Kangaroos had two halves possessed of miraculous hands and a perfect knowledge of the game. They might be trusted to get the ball to their three-quarters, who were reputed the most formidable combination that ever played on turf. On the left wing was the mighty Charvill, an Oxford Blue and an English International; on the right Martineau, who had won fame on the cinder-track as well as on the football-field. The centres were two cunning brothers, Clauson by name, who played in a unison like Siamese twins. Against such a four Scotland could scrape up only a quartet of possibles, men of promise but not yet of performance. The hosts of Tuscany seemed strong out of all proportion to the puny defenders of Rome. And as the Scottish right-wing three-quarter, to frustrate the terrible Charvill, stood the tiny figure of J. Galt, Cambridge University, five foot six inches in height and slim as a wagtail.
To the crowd of sixty thousand and more that waited for the teams to enter the field there was vouchsafed one slender comfort. The weather, which at Blaweary was clear and sunny, was abominable in the Scottish midlands. It had rained all the preceding night, and it was hoped that the ground might be soft, inclining to mud — mud dear to the heart of our islanders but hateful to men accustomed to the firm soil of the South.
The game began in a light drizzle, and for Scotland it began disastrously. The first scrimmage was in the centre of the ground, and the ball came out to the Kangaroo scrum-half, who sent it to his stand-off. From him it went to Clauson, and then to Martineau, who ran round his opposing wing, dodged the Scottish full-back, and scored a try, which was converted. After five minutes the Kangaroos led by five points.
After that the Scottish forwards woke up, and there was a spell of stubborn defence. The Scottish full-back had a long shot at goal from a free kick, and missed, but for the rest most of the play was in the Scottish twenty-five. The Scottish pack strove their hardest, but they did no more than hold their opponents. Then once more came a quick heel out, which went to one of the Clausons, a smart cut-through, a try secured between the posts and easily converted. The score was now ten points to nil.
Depression settled upon the crowd as deep as the weather, which had stopped raining but had developed into a sour haar. Followed a period of constant kicking into touch, a dull game which the Kangaroos were supposed to eschew. Just before half-time there was a thin ray of comfort. The Scottish left-wing three-quarter, one Smail, a Borderer, intercepted a Kangaroo pass and reached the enemy twenty-five before he was brought down from behind by Martineau’s marvellous sprinting. He had been within sight of success, and half-time came with a faint hope that there was still a chance of averting a runaway defeat.
The second half began with three points to Scotland, secured from a penalty kick. Also the Scottish forwards seemed to have got a new lease of life. They carried the game well into the enemy territory, dribbling irresistibly in their loose rushes, and hooking and heeling in the grand manner from the scrums. The white uniforms of the Kangaroos were now plentifully soiled, and the dark blue of the Scots made them look the less bedraggled side. All but J. Galt. His duty had been that of desperate defence conducted with a resolute ferocity, and he had suffered in it. His jersey was half torn off his back, and his shorts were in ribbons: he limped heavily, and his small face looked as if it had been ground into the mud of his native land. He felt dull and stupid, as if he had been slightly concussed. His gift had hitherto been for invisibility; his fame had been made as a will-o’-the-wisp; now he seemed to be cast for the part of that Arnold von Winkelreid who drew all the spears to his bosom.
The ball was now coming out to the Scottish halves, but they mishandled it. It seemed impossible to get their three-quarters going. The ball either went loose, or was intercepted, or the holder was promptly tackled, and whenever there seemed a chance of a run there was always either a forward pass or a knock-on. At this period of the game the Scottish forwards were carrying
everything on their shoulders, and their backs seemed hopeless. Any moment, too, might see the deadly echelon of the Kangaroo three-quarters ripple down the field.
And then came one of those sudden gifts of fortune which make Rugby an image of life. The ball came out from a heel in a scrum not far from the Kangaroo twenty-five, and went to the Kangaroo stand-off half. He dropped it, and, before he could recover, it was gathered by the Scottish stand-off. He sent it to Smail, who passed back to the Scottish left-centre, one Morrison, an Academical from Oxford who had hitherto been pretty much of a passenger. Morrison had the good luck to have a clear avenue before him, and he had a gift of pace. Dodging the Kangaroo full-back with a neat swerve, he scored in the corner of the goal-line amid a pandemonium of cheers. The try was miraculously converted, and the score stood at ten points to eight, with fifteen minutes to play.
Now began an epic struggle, not the least dramatic in the history of the game since a century ago the Rugby schoolboy William Webb Ellis first “took the ball in his arms and ran with it.” The Kangaroos had no mind to let victory slip from their grasp, and, working like one man, they set themselves to assure it. For a little their magnificent three-quarter line seemed to have dropped out of the picture, but now most theatrically it returned to it. From a scrimmage in the Kangaroo half of the field, the ball went to their stand-off and from him to Martineau. At the moment the Scottish players were badly placed, for their three-quarters were standing wide in order to overlap the faster enemy line. It was a perfect occasion for one of Martineau’s deadly runs. He was, however, well tackled by Morrison and passed back to his scrum-half, who kicked ahead towards the left wing to Charvill. The latter gathered the ball at top-speed, and went racing down the touch-line with nothing before him but the Scottish right-wing three-quarter. It seemed a certain score, and there fell on the spectators a sudden hush. That small figure, not hitherto renowned for pace, could never match the Australian’s long, loping, deadly stride.
