by John Buchan
He found it in his intention to go straight to London. There was vigour and decision in that act. He was taking up arms against his sea of troubles. As resolutely as he could he shut out the thought of what might happen when he got to London — further Evallonian solicitations with a horrid chance of publicity. London was at any rate familiar ground, unlike this bleak, sodden wilderness. He had never hated anything so much as that moorland cottage where for two days and three nights he had kept weary vigil. Still more did he loathe the present prospect of sour bent, gaping haggs, and mist low on the naked hills.
“How far is it to the nearest railway station?” he asked the burdened figure at his side.
“It’s about twelve miles to Glendonan,” Jaikie answered.
“Do you know anything about the trains?”
“It’s a branch line, but there’s sure to be an afternoon train to Gledmouth. The night mail stops there about eleven, I think.”
Twelve miles! Mr Craw felt some sinking of the heart, which was succeeded by a sudden consciousness of manhood. He was doing a bold thing, the kind of thing he had always admired. He had not walked twelve miles since he was a boy, but he would force himself to finish the course, however painful it might be. The sight of the laden Jaikie woke a momentary compunction, but he dared not cumber himself with the second pack. After all he was an elderly man and must husband his strength. He would find some way of making it up to Jaikie.
The road, after leaving the Back House of the Garroch, crossed a low pass between the Caldron and a spur of the great Muneraw, and then, after threading a patch of bog, began to descend the upper glen of a burn which joined a tributary of the distant Gled. Mr Craw’s modish boots had been tolerable on the fine sand and gravel of the first mile. They had become very wet in the tract of bog, where the heather grew thick in the middle of the road, and long pools of inky water filled the ruts. But as the path began its descent they became an abomination. The surface was cut by frequent rivulets which had brought down in spate large shoals of gravel. Sometimes it was deep, fine scree, sometimes a rockery of sharp-pointed stones. The soles of his boots, thin at the best, and now as sodden as a sponge, were no protection against the unyielding granite. His feet were as painful as if he was going barefoot, and his ankles ached with constant slips and twists.
He was getting warm, too. The morning chill had gone out of the air, and, though the sky was still cloudy, there was a faint glow from the hidden sun. Mr Craw began by taking off his gloves. Then he removed his raincoat, and carried it on his arm. It kept slipping and he trod on its tail, the while he minced delicately to avoid the sharper stones.
The glen opened and revealed a wide shallow valley down which flowed one of the main affluents of the Gled. The distances were hazy, but there was a glimpse of stubble fields and fir plantations, proof that they were within view of the edge of the moorlands. Mr Craw, who for some time had been walking slowly and in evident pain, sat down on the parapet of a little bridge and lifted his feet from the tormenting ground.
“How many miles more?” he asked, and when told “Seven,” he groaned.
Jaikie unbuckled his packs.
“It’s nonsense your wearing these idiotic things,” he said firmly. “In another hour you’ll have lamed yourself for a week.” From Dougal’s pack he extracted a pair of stout country boots and from his own a pair of woollen socks. “If you don’t put these on, I’ll have to carry you to Glendonan.”
Mr Craw accepted the articles with relief. He bathed his inflamed and aching feet in the burn, and encased them in Jaikie’s homespun. When he stood up he regarded his new accoutrements with disfavour. Shooting boots did not harmonise with his neat blue trousers, and he had a pride in a natty appearance. “I can change back at the station,” he observed, and for the first time that day he stepped out with a certain freedom.
His increased comfort made him magnanimous.
“You had better give me the second pack,” he volunteered.
“I can manage all right,” was Jaikie’s answer. “It’s still a long road to Glendonan.”
Presently, as the track dipped to the levels by the stream side, the surface improved, and Mr Craw, relieved of his painful bodily preoccupation, and no longer compelled to hop from stone to stone, returned to forecasting the future. Tomorrow morning he would be in London. He would go straight to the office, and, the day being Sunday, would have a little time to think things out. Bamff, his manager, was in America. He could not summon Barbon, who had his hands full at Castle Gay. Allins — Allins was on holiday — believed to be in Spain — he might conceivably get hold of Allins. There were others, too, who could assist him — his solicitor, Mr Merkins, of Merkins, Thrawn & Merkins — he had no secrets from him. And Lord Wassell, whom he had recently brought on to the board of the View — Wassell was a resourceful fellow, and deeply in his debt.
He was slipping into a better humour. It had been a preposterous adventure — something to laugh over in the future — meminisse juvabit — how did the tag go? — he had used it only the other day in one of his articles. . . . He felt rather hungry — no doubt the moorland air. He ought to be able to get a decent dinner in Gledmouth. What about his berth in the sleeping-car? It was the time of year when a good many people were returning from Scotland. Perhaps he had better wire about it from Glendonan. . . . And then a thought struck him, which brought him to a halt and set him feeling for his pocket-book.
It was Mr Craw’s provident habit always to carry in his pocket-book a sum of one hundred pounds in twenty-pound notes as an insurance against accidents. He opened the pocket-book with anxiety, and the notes were not there.
He remembered only too well what had happened. The morning he had gone to Glasgow he had emptied the contents of his pocket-book on his dressing-table in order to find the card with his architect’s address. He had not restored the notes, because they made the book too bulky, and he had proposed to get instead two fifty-pound notes from Barbon, who kept the household’s petty cash. He had forgotten to do this, and now he had nothing on his person but the loose change left from his Glasgow journey. It lay in his hand, and amounted to twelve shillings, a sixpence, two threepenny bits, and four pennies.
To a man who for the better part of a lifetime has taken money for granted and has never had to give a thought to its importance in the conduct of life, a sudden shortage comes as a horrid surprise. He finds it an outrage alike against decency and dignity. He is flung neck and crop into a world which he does not comprehend, and his dismay is hysterical.
“I have no money,” he stammered, ignoring the petty coins in his palm.
Jaikie slid the packs to the ground.
“But you offered Dougal and me twenty pounds to go to Castle Gay,” he protested.
Mr Craw explained his misadventure. Jaikie extracted from an inner pocket a skimpy leather purse, while the other watched his movements with the eyes of a hungry dog who believes that there is provender going. He assessed its contents.
“I have two pounds, thirteen and ninepence,” he announced. “I didn’t bring much, for you don’t spend money in the hills, and I knew that Dougal had plenty.”
“That’s no earthly use to me,” Mr Craw wailed.
“I don’t know. It will buy you a third-class ticket to London and leave something for our meals to-day. You’re welcome to it.”
“But what will you do?”
“I’ll go back to Mrs Catterick, and then I’ll find Dougal. I can wire for some more. I’m pretty hard up just now, but there’s a few pounds left in my allowance. You see, you can’t get any more till you get to London.”
Mr Craw’s breast was a maelstrom of confused emotions. He was not without the quality which in Scotland is called “mense,” and he was reluctant to take advantage of Jaikie’s offer and leave that unfortunate penniless. Moreover, the thought of travelling third-class by night roused his liveliest disgust. Fear, too — for he would be mixed up in the crowd, without protection against the
enemies who now beset his path. He shrank like a timid spinster from rough contacts. Almost to be preferred was this howling wilderness to the chances of such sordid travel.
“There’s another way,” said the helpful Jaikie. He wanted to get rid of his companion, but he was aware that it was his duty, if possible, to detain that companion at his side, and to detain him in the Canonry. The conclave at the Mains had instructed him to keep Mr Craw hidden, and he had no belief in London as a place of concealment. So, “against interest,” as the lawyers say, he propounded an alternative.
“We could stay hereabouts for a couple of days, and I could borrow a bicycle and slip over to Castle Gay and get some money.”
Mr Craw’s face cleared a little. He was certain now that the moors of the Canonry were better than a third-class in the London train. He brooded a little and then announced that he favoured the plan.
“Good,” said Jaikie. “Well, we needn’t go near Glendonan. We’d better strike south and sleep the night at Watermeeting. It’s a lonely place, but there’s quite a decent little inn, and it’s on the road to Gledmouth. To-morrow I’ll try to raise a bicycle and get over to Castle Gay, and with luck you may be in London on Monday morning. We needn’t hurry, for it’s not above ten miles to Watermeeting, and it doesn’t matter when we turn up.”
“I insist on carrying one of the packs,” said Mr Craw, and, his future having cleared a little, and being conscious of better behaviour, he stepped out with a certain alacrity and ease.
Presently they left the road, which descended into the Gled valley, and took a right-hand turning which zigzagged up the containing ridge and came out on a wide benty moor, once the best black-game country in Scotland, which formed the glacis of the chief range of the hills. A little after midday they lunched beside a spring, and Mr Craw was moved to commend Mrs Catterick’s scones, which at breakfast he had despised. He accepted one of Jaikie’s cigarettes. There was even a little conversation. Jaikie pointed out the main summits among a multitude which had now become ominously blue and clear, and Mr Craw was pleased to show a certain interest in the prospect of the Muneraw, the other side of which, he said, could be seen from the upper windows of Castle Gay. He became almost confidential. Landscape, he said, he loved, but with a temperate affection; his major interest was reserved for humanity. “In these hills there must be some remarkable people. The shepherds, for instance—”
“There’s some queer folk in the hills,” said Jaikie. “And I doubt there’s going to be some queer weather before this day is out. The wind’s gone to the south-west, and I don’t like the way the mist is coming down on the Black Dod.”
He was right in his forecast. About two o’clock there came a sudden sharpness into the air, the hills were blotted out in vapour, and a fine rain descended. The wind rose; the drizzle became a blast, and then a deluge, the slanting, drenching downfall of October. Jaikie’s tattered burberry and Mr Craw’s smart raincoat were soon black with the rain, which soaked the legs of their trousers and trickled behind their upturned collars. To the one this was a common experience, but to the other it was a revelation, for he had not been exposed to weather for many a year. He thought darkly of rheumatism, the twinges he had suffered from two years ago and had gone to Aix to cure. He might get pneumonia — it was a common complaint nowadays — several of his acquaintances had fluffed out like a candle with it — healthy people, too, as healthy as himself. He shivered, and thought he felt a tightness in his chest. “Can we not shelter?” he asked, casting a woeful eye round the wet periphery of moor.
“It’ll last the day,” said Jaikie. “We’d better step out, and get under cover as soon as we can. There’s no house till Watermeeting.”
The thought of Watermeeting did not console Mr Craw. A wetting was bad enough, but at the end of it there was no comforting hot bath and warm dry clothes, and the choice between bed and a deep armchair by a fire. They would have to pig it in a moorland inn, where the food would certainly be execrable, and the bed probably damp, and he had no change of raiment. Once again Mr Craw’s mind became almost hysterical. He saw sickness, possibly death, in the near future. His teeth were chattering, and, yes — he was certain he had a pain in his side.
Something loomed up in the haze, and he saw that it was a man with, in front of him, a bedraggled flock of sheep. He was a loutish fellow, much bent in the shoulders, with leggings, which lacked most of the buttons, over his disreputable breeks. By his side padded a big ruffianly collie, and he led by a string a miserable-looking terrier, at which the collie now and then snapped viciously.
The man did not turn as they came abreast. He had a bag slung on his shoulders by a string, from which protruded the nose of a bottle and the sodden end of a newspaper. The peak of his cap hid the upper part of his face; the lower part was composed of an unshaven chin, a gap-toothed mouth, and a red ferrety nose.
“Ill weather,” said Jaikie.
“Hellish,” was the answer. A sharp eye stole a sidelong glance and took in Mr Craw’s prosperous but water-logged garments. The terrier sniffed wistfully at Jaikie’s leg. Jaikie looked like the kind of person who might do something for him.
“Hae ye a smoke?” the drover asked. Jaikie reluctantly parted with a cigarette, which the other lit by making a shelter of his cap against the wind. The terrier, in order to avoid the collie, wove its string round his legs and received a savage kick.
“Where are you bound for?” Jaikie asked.
“Near by. I’ve brocht thae sheep frae Cumnock way.” Then, as an overflow of water from the creases of his cap reached his unwashen neck, he broke into profanity about the weather, concluding with a malediction on the unhappy terrier, who showed signs of again entangling his lead. The dog seemed to be a cross between wire-haired and Sealyham, a wretched little fellow with a coat as thick as a sheep’s, a thin piebald face, whiskers streaked backwards by the wet, and a scared eye. The drover brought his stick down hard on its hind quarters, and as it jumped howling away from him the collie snapped at its head. It was a bad day for the terrier.
“That’s a nice little beast,” said Jaikie.
“No bad. Pure-bred Solomon. He’s yours if ye’ll pay my price.”
“I’ve no use for a dog. Where did you get him?”
“A freend bred him. I’m askin’ a couple o’ quid. I brocht him along wi’ me to sell. What about the other yin o’ ye? He’d be the better o’ a dug.”
Mr Craw did not look as if such an acquisition would ease his discomfort. He was glancing nervously at the collie which had turned on him an old-fashioned eye. Jaikie quickened his pace, and began to circumvent the sheep.
“Haud on,” said the drover. “I turn up the next road. Gie’s your crack till the turn.”
But Jaikie had had enough of him, and the last they heard was the whining of the terrier, who had again been maltreated.
“Is that one of the hill shepherds?” Mr Craw asked.
“Hill shepherd! He’s some auction-ring tout from Glasgow. Didn’t you recognise the tongue? I’m sorry for that little dog. He stole it, of course. I hope he sells it before he kills it.”
The high crown of the moorland now began to fall away into a valley which seemed to be tributary to the Gled. The two were conscious that they were descending, but they had no prospect beyond a yard or two of dripping roadside heather. Already the burns were rising, and tawny rivulets threaded the road, all moving in the direction they were going. Jaikie set a round pace, for he wanted to save his companion from a chill, and Mr Craw did his best to keep up with it. Sometimes he stopped, put his hand to his side, and gasped — he was looking for the pain which was the precursor of pneumonia. Soon he grew warm, and his breath came short, and there had to be frequent halts to relieve his distress. In this condition of physical wretchedness and the blackest mental gloom Mr Craw became aware of a roaring of flooded waters and a bridge which spanned a porter-coloured torrent. The sight of that wintry stream combined with the driving rain and the envelopin
g mist to send a chill almost of terror to Mr Craw’s heart. He was terribly sundered from the warm kindly world which he knew. Even so, from an icy shore, might some lost Arctic explorer have regarded the approach of the Polar night.
“That’s the Gryne burn,” said Jaikie reverentially. “It’s coming down heavy. It joins the Water of Stark out there in the haugh. The inn’s not a hundred yards on.”
Presently they reached a low building, a little withdrawn from the road, on which a half-obliterated sign announced that one Thomas Johnston was licensed to sell ale and tobacco. Jaikie’s memory was of a sunny place visited once in a hot August noon, when he had drunk ginger beer on the settle by the door, and amid the sleepy clucking of hens and the bleating of sheep had watched the waters of Gryne and Stark beginning their allied journey to the lowlands. Now, as it came into view through the veils of rain, it looked a shabby place, the roughcast of the walls blotched and peeling, the unthatched stacks of bog-hay sagging drunkenly, and a disconsolate up-ended cart with a broken shaft blocking one of the windows. But at any rate here was shelter, and the smell of peat reek promised a fire.
In the stone-flagged kitchen a woman was sitting beside a table engaged in darning socks — a thin-faced elderly woman with spectacles. The kitchen was warm and comfortable, and, since she had been baking earlier in the day, there was an agreeable odour of food. On the big old-fashioned hearth a bank of peats glowed dully, and sent out fine blue spirals.
The woman looked them over very carefully in response to Jaikie’s question.
“Bide the nicht? I’m sure I dinna ken. My man’s lyin’ — he rickit his back bringin’ hame the peats, and the doctor winna let him up afore the morn. It’s a sair business lookin’ after him, and the lassie’s awa’ hame for her sister’s mairriage. Ye’ll no be wantin’ muckle?”
