Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  The two did not speak for a little. They had seen that which touched in both some deep elemental spring of desire.

  Down on the level of the moss, where the green track wound among the haggs, Dougal found his tongue.

  “I would like your advice, Jaikie,” he said, “about a point of conduct. It’s not precisely a moral question, but it’s a matter of good taste. I’m drawing a big salary from the Craw firm, and I believe I give good value for it. But all the time I’m despising my job, and despising the paper I help to make up, and despising myself. Thank God, I’ve nothing to do with policy, but I ask myself if I’m justified in taking money from a thing that turns my stomach.”

  “But you’re no more responsible for the paper than the head of the case-room that sets the type. You’re a technical expert.”

  “That’s the answer I’ve been giving myself, but I’m not sure that it’s sound. It’s quite true that my leaving Craw’s would make no difference — they’d get as good a man next day at a lower wage — maybe at the same wage, for I will say that for them, they’re not skinflints. But it’s a bad thing to work at something you can’t respect. I’m condescending on my job, and that’s ruin for a man’s soul.”

  “I see very little harm in the Craw papers,” said Jaikie. “They’re silly, but they’re decent enough.”

  “Decent!” Dougal cried. “That’s just what they are not. They’re the most indecent publications on God’s earth. They’re not vicious, if that’s what you mean. They would be more decent if they had a touch of blackguardism. They pander to everything that’s shoddy and slushy and third-rate in human nature. Their politics are an opiate to prevent folk thinking. Their endless stunts, their competitions and insurances and country-holiday schemes — that’s the ordinary dodge to get up their circulation, so as to raise their advertisement prices. I don’t mind that, for it’s just common business. It’s their uplift, their infernal uplift, that makes my spine cold. Oh, Lord! There’s not a vulgar instinct, not a half-baked silliness, in the whole nation that they don’t dig out and print in leaded type. And above all, there’s the man Craw!”

  “Did you ever meet him?” Jaikie asked.

  “Never. Who has? They tell me he has a house somewhere in the Canonry, when he gets tired of his apartments in foreign hotels. But I study Craw. I’m a specialist in Craw. I’ve four big press-cutting books at home full of Craw. Here’s some of the latest.”

  Dougal dived into a pocket and produced a batch of newspaper cuttings.

  “They’re mostly about Evallonia. I don’t worry about that. If Craw wants to be a kingmaker he must fight it out with his Evallonians. . . . But listen to some of the other titles. ‘Mr Craw’s Advice to Youth!’ ‘Mr Craw on the Modern Drama.’ — He must have sat in the darkness at the back of a box, for he’d never show up in the stalls.—’Mr Craw on Modern Marriage.’ — A fine lot he knows about it!—’Mr Craw warns the Trade Unions.’ — The devil he does!—’Mr Craw on the Greatness of England.’ ‘Mr Craw’s Open Letter to the President of the U.S.A.’ Will nobody give the body a flea in his ear? . . . I could write a book about Craw. He’s perpetually denouncing, but always with a hopeful smirk. I’ve discovered his formula. ‘This is the best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a necessary evil.’ He wants to be half tonic and half sedative, but for me he’s just a plain emetic.”

  Dougal waved the cuttings like a flag.

  “The man is impregnable, for he never reads any paper but his own, and he has himself guarded like a gun-factory. But I’ve a notion that some day I’ll get him face to face. Some day I’ll have the chance of telling him just what I think of him, and what every honest man—”

  Jaikie by a dexterous twitch got possession of the cuttings, crumpled them into a ball, dropped it in a patch of peat, and ground it down with his heel.

  “What’s that you’ve done?” Dougal cried angrily. “You’ve spoiled my Craw collection.”

  “Better that than spoiling our holiday. Look here, Dougal, my lad. For a week you’ve got to put Craw and all his works out of your head. We are back in an older and pleasanter world, and I won’t have it wrecked by your filthy journalism. . . .”

  For the better part of five minutes there was a rough-and-tumble on the green moor-road, from which Jaikie ultimately escaped and fled. When peace was made the two found themselves at a gate in a dry-stone dyke.

  “Thank God,” said Dougal. “Here is the Back House at last. I want my tea.”

  Their track led them into a little yard behind the cottage, and they made their way to the front, where the slender highway which ascended the valley of the Garroch came to an end in a space of hill gravel before the door. The house was something more than a cottage, for fifty years ago it had been the residence of a prosperous sheep-farmer, before the fashion of “led” farms had spread over the upland glens. It was of two storeys and had a little wing at right angles, the corner between being filled with a huge bush of white roses. The roof was slated, the granite walls had been newly whitewashed, and were painted with the last glories of the tropæolum. A grove of scarlet-berried rowans flanked one end, beyond which lay the walled garden of potatoes and gooseberry bushes, varied with golden-rod and late-flowering phloxes. At the other end were the thatched outhouses and the walls of a sheepfold, where the apparatus for boiling tar rose like a miniature gallows above the dipping-trough. The place slept in a sunny peace. There was a hum of bees from the garden, a slow contented clucking of hens, the echo of a plashing stream descending the steeps of the Caldron, but the undertones made by these sounds were engulfed in the dominant silence. The scent of the moorlands, compounded of miles of stone and heather and winds sharp and pure as the sea, made a masterful background from which it was possible to pick out homelier odours — peat-reek, sheep, the smell of cooking food. To ear, eye, and nostril the place sent a message of intimate and delicate comfort.

  The noise of their feet on the gravel brought someone in haste to the door. It was a woman of between forty and fifty, built like a heroine of the Sagas, deep-bosomed, massive, straight as a grenadier. Her broad comely face was brown like a berry, and the dark eyes and hair told of gipsy blood in her ancestry. Her arms were bare, for she had been making butter, and her skirts were kilted, revealing a bright-coloured petticoat, so that she had the air of a Highland warrior.

  But in place of the boisterous welcome which Jaikie had expected, her greeting was laughter. She stood in the doorway and shook. Then she held up a hand to enjoin silence, and marched the two travellers to the garden gate out of earshot of the house.

  “Did you get my postcard, Mrs Catterick?” Jaikie asked, when they had come to a standstill under a rowan tree.

  “Aye, I got your postcaird, and I’m blithe to see ye baith. But ye come at an unco time. I’ve gotten anither visitor.”

  “We don’t want to inconvenience you,” Jaikie began. “We can easily go down the water to the Mains of Garroch. The herd there will take us in.”

  “Ye’ll dae nae siccan thing. It will never be said that Tibby Catterick turned twae auld freends frae her door, and there’s beds to spare for ye baith. . . . But ye come at an unco time and ye find me at an unco job. I’m a jyler.”

  “A what?”

  “A jyler. I’ve a man inbye, and I’m under bond no to let him stir a fit frae the Back House till the morn’s morn. . . . I’ll tell ye the gospel truth. My guid-brither’s son — him that’s comin’ out for a minister — is at the college, and the morn the students are electin’ what they ca’ a Rector. Weel, Erchie’s a stirrin’ lad and takes muckle ado wi their politics. It seems that there was a man on the ither side that they wanted to get oot o’ the road — it was fair eneugh, for he had pitten some terrible affronts on Erchie. So what maun the daft laddie dae but kidnap him? How it was done I canna tell, but he brocht him here late last nicht in a cawr, and pit me on my aith no to let him leave the place for thirty ‘oors. . . . So you see I’m turned jyler.” Mrs Catterick agai
n shook with silent merriment.

  “Have you got him indoors now?”

  “He’s ben the hoose in the best room. I kinnled a fire for him, for he’s a cauldrife body. What’s he like? Oh, a fosy wee man wi’ a bald heid and terrible braw claithes. Ye wad say he was ower auld to be a student, but Erchie says it takes a lang time to get through as a doctor. Linklater, they ca’ him.”

  “Has he given you any trouble?” Dougal asked anxiously. He seemed to long to assist in the task of gaoler.

  “No him. My man’s awa wi’ the crocks to Gledmouth, and, as ye ken, we hae nae weans, but I could manage twa o’ him my lane. But he never offered to resist. Just ate his supper as if he was in his ain hoose, and spak nae word except to say that he likit my scones. I lent him yin o’ John’s sarks for a nicht-gown and this mornin’ he shaved himsel’ wi’ John’s razor. He’s a quiet, saft-spoken wee body, but there’s nae crack in him. He speaks wi’ a kind o’ English tongue and he ca’s me Madam. I doot that deil Erchie maun be in the wrang o’ it, but kin’s kin and I maun tak the wyte o’ his cantrips.”

  Again Jaikie became apologetic and proposed withdrawal, and again his proposal was rejected.

  “Ye can bide here fine,” said Mrs Catterick, “now that ye ken the truth. I couldna tell it ye at the door-cheek, for ye were just forenent his windy. . . . Ye’ll hae your meat wi’ me in the kitchen, and ye can hae the twa beds in the loft. . . . Ye’d better no gang near Linklater, for he maybe wadna like folk to ken o’ this performance — nor Erchie neither. He has never stirred frae his room this day, and he’s spak no word except to speir what place he was in and how far it was frae Glen Callowa. . . . Now I think o’t, that was a queer thing to speir, for Erchie said he brocht him frae Kirkmichael. . . . Oh, and he was wantin’ to send a telegram, but I tell’t him there was nae office within saxteen miles and the post wadna be up the water till the morn. . . . I’m just wonderin’ how he’ll get off the morn, for he hasna the buits for walkin’. Ye never saw sic snod, wee, pappymashy things on a man’s feet. But there’s twa bicycles, yin o’ John’s and yin that belongs to the young herd at the west hirsel. Wi’ yin o’ them he’ll maybe manage down the road. . . . But there’s nae sense in crossin’ brigs till ye come to them. I’ve been thrang wi’ the kirnin’, but the butter’s come, and the kettle’s on the boil. Your tea will be ready as sune as ye’ve gotten your faces washed.”

  Half an hour later Jaikie and Dougal sat in the kitchen, staying a hearty hunger with farles of oatcake and new-baked scones, and a healthier thirst with immense cups of strong-brewed tea. Their hostess, now garbed somewhat more decorously, presided at the table. She apologised for the delay.

  “I had to gie Linklater his tea. He’s gettin’ terrible restless, puir man. He’s been tryin’ to read the books in the best room, but he canna fix his mind, and he’s aye writin’ telegrams. He kens ye’re here, and speired whae ye were, and I telled him twa young lads that were trampin’ the country. I could see that he was feared o’ ye, and nae wonder. It would be sair on a decent body if folk heard that he had been kidnapped by a deil like Erchie. I tried to set his mind at rest about the morn, and telled him about John’s bicycle.”

  But the meal was not the jovial affair which Jaikie remembered of old. Mrs Catterick was preoccupied, and did not expand, as was her custom, in hilarious gossip. This new task of gaoler lay heavy on her shoulders. She seemed always to be listening for sounds from the farther part of the house. Twice she left the table and tiptoed along the passage to listen at the door.

  “He’s awfu’ restless,” she reported. “He’s walkin’ aboot the floor like a hen on a het girdle. I wish he mayna loss his reason. Dod, I’ll warm Erchie’s lugs for this ploy when I get a haud o’ him. Sic a job to saddle on a decent wumman!”

  Then for a little there was peace, for a question of Jaikie’s led their hostess to an account of the great April storm of that year.

  “Thirty and three o’ the hill lambs deid in ae nicht. . . . John was oot in the snaw for nineteen ‘oors and I never looked to see him mair. Puir man, when he cam in at last he couldna eat — just a dram o’ whisky in het milk — and he sleepit a round o’ the clock. . . . I had fires in ilka room and lambs afore them in a’ the blankets I possessed. . . . Aye, and it was waur when the snaw went and the floods cam. The moss was like a sea, and the Caldron was streikit wi’ roarin’ burns. We never saw the post for a week, and every brig atween here and Portaway gaed doun to the Solway. . . . Wheesht!”

  She broke off and listened. A faint cry of “Madam” came from the other end of the house.

  “It’s him. It’s Linklater. ‘Madam’ he ca’s me. Keep us a’!”

  She hurried from the kitchen, shutting the door carefully behind her.

  When she returned it was with a solemn face.

  “He’s wonderin’ if ane o’ you lads wad take a telegram for him to the office. He’s terrible set on’t. ‘Madam,’ he says wi’ his Englishy voice, ‘I assure you it’s a matter of the first importance.’”

  “Nonsense,” said Dougal. “Sixteen miles after a long day’s tramp! He can easily wait till the morning. Besides, the office would be closed before we got there.”

  “Aye, but hearken.” Mrs Catterick’s voice was hushed in awe. “He offers twenty punds to the man that will dae his will. He’s gotten the notes in his pooch.”

  “Now where on earth,” said Dougal, “did a medical student get twenty pounds?”

  “He’s no like a student. The mair I look at him the better I see that he’s nane o’ the rough clan that Erchie rins wi’. He’s yin that’s been used wi’ his comforts. And he’s aulder than I thocht — an aulder man than John. I wadna say but that blagyird Erchie has kidnapped a Lord Provost, and whaur will we a’ be then?”

  “We had better interview him,” said Dougal. “It’s a shame to let him fret himself.”

  “Ane at a time,” advised Mrs Catterick, “for he’s as skeery as a cowt. You gang, Dougal. Ye ken the ways o’ the college lads.”

  Dougal departed and the two left behind fell silent. Mrs Catterick’s instinct for the dramatic had been roused, and she kept her eye on the door, through which the envoy would return, as if it had been the curtain of a stage play. Even Jaikie’s placidity was stirred.

  “This is a funny business, Mrs Catterick,” he said. “Dougal and I come here for peace, and we find the Back House of the Garroch turned into a robbers’ den. The Canonry is becoming a stirring place. You’ve an election on, too.”

  “So I was hearin’, and the post brings us papers about it. John maun try and vote, if he can get an orra day atween the sales. He votit last time, honest man, but we never heard richt whae got in. We’re ower far up the glens for poalitics. Wheesht! Is that Dougal?”

  It was not. He did not return for nearly half an hour, and when he came it was to put his head inside the door and violently beckon Jaikie. He led him out of doors to the corner of the garden, and then turned on him a face so excited and portentous that the appropriate utterance should have been a shout. He did not shout: he whispered hoarsely.

  “Do you mind our talk coming up the road? . . . Providence has taken me at my word. . . . Who do you think is sitting ben the house? It’s the man Craw!”

  CHAPTER IV. THE RECONNAISSANCE OF CASTLE GAY

  The westering sun was lighting up the homely furniture of Mrs Catterick’s best room — the sheepskins on the floor, the framed photographs decorated with strings of curlews’ eggs on the walls — when Dougal and Jaikie entered the presence of the great man. Mr Craw was not at the moment an impressive figure. The schoolmaster’s son of Kilmaclavers had been so long habituated to the attentions of an assiduous valet that he had found some difficulty in making his own toilet. His scanty hair was in disorder, and his spruce blue suit had attracted a good deal of whitewash from the walls of his narrow bedroom. Also he had lost what novelists call his poise. He sat in a horsehair-covered arm-chair drawn up at a table, and strove to look as if he had
command of the situation, but his eye was uncertain and his fingers drummed nervously.

  “This is Mr Galt, sir,” said Dougal, adding, “of St Mark’s College, Cambridge.”

  Mr Craw nodded.

  “Your friend is to be trusted?” and his wavering eyes sought Jaikie. What he saw cannot have greatly reassured him, for Jaikie was struggling with a strong inclination to laugh.

  “I have need to be careful,” he said, fixing his gaze upon a photograph of the late Queen Victoria, and picking his words. “I find myself, through no fault of my own, in a very delicate position. I have been the subject of an outrage on the part of — of some young men of whom I know nothing. I do not blame them. I have been myself a student of a Scottish University. . . . But it is unfortunate — most unfortunate. It was apparently a case of mistaken identity. Happily I was not recognised. . . . I am a figure of some note in the world. You will understand that I do not wish to have my name associated with an undergraduate—’rag,’ I think, is the word.”

  His two hearers nodded gravely. They were bound to respect such patent unhappiness.

  “Mr — I beg your pardon — Crombie? — has told me that he is employed on one of my papers. Therefore I have a right to call upon his assistance. He informs me that I can also count on your goodwill and discretion, sir,” and he inclined his head towards Jaikie. “It is imperative that this foolish affair should never be known to the public. I have been successful in life, and therefore I have rivals. I have taken a strong stand in public affairs, and therefore I have enemies. My position, as you are no doubt aware, is one of authority, and I do not wish my usefulness to be impaired by becoming the centre of a ridiculous tale.”