Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  “That’s a bad job for you,” said Jaikie sympathetically. “We won’t be much trouble. We’d like to get dry, and we want some food, and a bed to sleep in. We’re on a walking tour and we’ll take the road again first thing in the morning.”

  “I could maybe manage that. There’s just the one room, for the ceiling’s doun in the ither, and we canna get the masons out from Gledmouth to set it right. But there’s twa beds in it . . .”

  Then spoke Mr Craw, who had stripped off his raiment and flung it from him, and had edged his way to the warmth of the peats.

  “We must have a private room, madam. I presume you have a private sitting-room. Have a fire lit in it as soon as possible.”

  “Ye’re unco partic’lar,” was the answer. “What hinders ye to sit in the kitchen? There’s the best room, of course, but there hasna been a fire in the grate since last New Year’s Day, and I doot the stirlins have been biggin’ in the lum.”

  “The first thing,” said Jaikie firmly, “is to get dry. It’s too early to go to bed. If you’ll show us our room we’ll get these wet things off. I can manage fine in pyjamas, but my friend here is not so young as me, and he would be the better of something warmer. You couldn’t lend him a pair of breeks, mistress? And maybe an old coat?”

  Jaikie, when he chose to wheedle, was hard to resist, and the woman regarded him with favour. She also regarded Mr Craw appraisingly. “He’s just about the size o’ my man. I daresay I could find him some auld things o’ Tam’s. . . . Ye’d better tak off your buits here and I’ll show ye your bedroom.”

  In their wet stocking-soles the travellers followed their hostess up an uncarpeted staircase to a long low room, where were two beds and two wash-stands and little else. The rain drummed on the roof, and the place smelt as damp as a sea-cave. She brought a pail of hot water from the kitchen kettle, and two large rough towels. “I’ll be gettin’ your tea ready,” she said. “Bring doun your wet claithes, and I’ll hang them in the kitchen.”

  Jaikie stripped to the skin and towelled himself violently, but Mr Craw hung back. He was not accustomed to baring his body before strangers. Slowly and warily he divested himself of what had once been a trim blue suit, the shirt which was now a limp rag, the elegant silk underclothing. Then he stood irresolute and shamefaced, while Jaikie rummaged in the packs and announced gleefully that their contents were quite dry. Jaikie turned to find his companion shivering in the blast from the small window which he had opened.

  “Tuts, man, this will never do,” he cried. “You’ll get your death of cold. Rub yourself with the towel. Hard, man! You want to get back your circulation.”

  But Mr Craw’s efforts were so feeble that Jaikie took the matter in hand. He pummelled and slapped and scrubbed the somewhat obese nudity of his companion, as if he had been grooming a horse. He poured out a share of the hot water from the pail, and made him plunge his head into it.

  In the midst of these operations the door was half opened and a bundle of clothes was flung into the room. “That’s the best I can dae for ye,” said the voice of the hostess.

  Jaikie invested Mr Craw with a wonderful suit of pale blue silk pyjamas, and over them a pair of Mr Johnston’s trousers of well-polished pepper-and-salt homespun, and an ancient black tailed coat which may once have been its owner’s garb for Sabbaths and funerals. A strange figure the great man presented as he stumbled down the stairs, for on his feet were silk socks and a pair of soft Russia leather slippers — provided from Castle Gay — while the rest of him was like an elderly tradesman who has relinquished collar and tie in the seclusion of the home. But at any rate he was warm again, and he felt no more premonitions of pneumonia.

  Mrs Johnston met them at the foot of the stairs and indicated a door. “That’s the best room. I’ve kinnled a fire, but I doot it’s no drawin’ weel wi’ thae stirlins.”

  They found themselves in a small room in which for a moment they could see nothing because of the volume of smoke pouring from the newly-lit fire of sticks and peat. The starlings had been malignly active in the chimney. Presently through the haze might be discerned walls yellow with damp, on which hung a number of framed photographs, a mantelpiece adorned with china mugs and a clock out of action, several horsehair-covered chairs, a small, very hard sofa, and a round table decorated with two photograph albums, a book of views of Gledmouth, a workbox, and a blue-glass paraffin lamp.

  Jaikie laboured with the poker at the chimney, but the obstruction was beyond him. Blear-eyed and coughing, he turned to find Mr Craw struggling with a hermetically-sealed window.

  “We can’t stay here,” he spluttered. “This room’s uninhabitable till the chimney’s swept. Let’s get back to the kitchen. Tea should be ready by now.”

  Mrs Johnston had spread a clean cloth on the kitchen table, and ham and eggs were sizzling on the fire. She smiled grimly when she saw them.

  “I thocht ye would be smoored in the best room,” she said. “Thae stirlins are a perfect torment. . . . Ay, ye can bide here and welcome. I aye think the kitchen’s the nicest bit in the hoose. . . . There’s a feck o’ folk on the road the day, for there’s been anither man here wantin’ lodgins! I telled him we were fou’ up, and that he could mak a bed on the hay in the stable. I didna like the look o’ him, but a keeper o’ a public daurna refuse a body a meal. He’ll hae to get his tea wi’ you.”

  Presently she planted a vast brown teapot on the table, and dished up the ham and eggs. Then, announcing that she must see to her husband, she left the kitchen.

  Jaikie fell like a famished man on the viands, and Mr Craw, to his own amazement, followed suit. He had always been a small and fastidious eater, liking only very special kinds of food, and his chef had often a difficult task in tempting his capricious appetite. It was years since he had felt really hungry, and he never looked forward to the hour of dinner with the gusto of less fortunate mortals. But the hard walking in the rain, and the rough towelling in the bedroom, had awakened some forgotten instinct. How unlike the crisp shavings of bacon and the snowy puff-balls of eggs to which he was accustomed was this dish swimming in grease! Yet it tasted far better than anything he had eaten for ages. So did the thick oat-cakes and the new scones and the butter and the skim-milk cheese, and the strong tea sent a glow through his body. He had thought that he could tolerate nothing but the best China tea and little of that, and here he was drinking of the coarsest Indian brew. . . . He felt a sense of physical wellbeing to which he had long been a stranger. This was almost comfort.

  The door opened and there entered the man they had met driving sheep. He had taken off his leggings, and his wet trouser ends flapped over his grimy boots. Otherwise he had made no toilet, except to remove his cap from his head and the bag from his shoulder. His lank black hair straggled over his eyes, and the eyes themselves were unpleasant. There must have been something left in the bottle whose nose had protruded from the bag.

  He dropped into a chair and dragged it screamingly after him along the kitchen floor till he was within a yard of the table. Then he recognised the others.

  “Ye’re here,” he observed. “Whit was a’ your hurry? Gie’s a cup o’ tea. I’m no wantin’ nae meat.”

  He was obviously rather drunk. Jaikie handed him a cup of tea, which, having dropped in four lumps of sugar, he drank noisily from the saucer. It steadied him, and he spread a scone thick with butter and jelly and began to wolf it. Mr Craw regarded him with extreme distaste and a little nervousness.

  “Whit about the Solomon terrier?” he asked. “For twa quid he’s yours.”

  The question was addressed to Mr Craw, who answered coldly that he was not buying dogs.

  “Ay, but ye’ll buy this dug.”

  “Where is it?” Jaikie asked.

  “In the stable wi’ the ither yin. Toff doesna like the wee dug, so I’ve tied them up in separate stalls, or he’d hae it chowed up.”

  The rest of the meal was given up to efforts on the part of the drover to effect a sale. His p
rice came down to fifteen shillings and a glass of whisky. Questioned by Jaikie as to its pedigree, he embarked on a rambling tale, patently a lie, of a friend who bred Solomons and had presented him with this specimen in payment of a bet. Talk made the drover thirsty. He refused a second cup of tea and shouted for the hostess, and when Mrs Johnston appeared he ordered a bottle of Bass.

  Jaikie, remembering the plans for the morrow, asked if there was such a thing as a bicycle about the place, and was told that her man possessed one. She saw no objection to his borrowing it for half a day. Jaikie had found favour in her eyes.

  The drover drank his beer morosely and called for another bottle. Mrs Johnston glanced anxiously at Jaikie as she fulfilled the order, but Jaikie gave no sign. Now beer on the top of whisky is bad for the constitution, especially if little food has accompanied it, and soon the drover began to show that his case was no exception. His silence gave place to a violent garrulity. Thrusting his face close to the scandalised Mr Craw, he announced that that gentleman was gorily well going to buy the Solomon — that he had accepted the offer and that he would be sanguinarily glad to see the immediate colour of his money.

  Mr Craw withdrew his chair, and the other lurched to his feet and came after him. The profanity of the drover, delivered in a hoarse roar, brought Mrs Johnston back in alarm. The seller’s case was far from clear, but it seemed to be his argument that Mr Craw had taken delivery of a pup and was refusing payment. He was working himself into a fury at what he declared to be a case of strongly qualified bilk.

  “Can ye dae naething wi’ him?” the hostess wailed to Jaikie.

  “I think we’ve had enough of him,” was the answer. Then he lifted up his voice. “Hold on, man. Let’s see the dog. We’ve never had a proper look at it.”

  But the drover was past caring about the details of the bargain. He was pursuing Mr Craw, who, he alleged, was in possession of monies rightly due to him, and Mr Craw was retreating from the fire to the vacant part of the floor where Jaikie stood.

  Then suddenly came violent happenings. “Open the door, mistress,” cried Jaikie. The drover turned furiously towards the voice, and found himself grabbed from behind and his arms forced back. He was a biggish fellow and managed to shake himself free. There was a vicious look in his eye, and he clutched the bread-knife from the table. Now, Mrs Johnston’s rolling-pin lay on the dresser, and with this Jaikie hit him smartly on the wrist, causing the knife to clatter on the floor. The next second Jaikie’s head had butted his antagonist in the wind, and, as he stumbled forward gasping, Jaikie twisted his right arm behind his back and held it in a cruel lock. The man had still an arm loose with which he tried to clutch Jaikie’s hair, and, to his own amazement, Mr Craw found himself gripping this arm, and endeavouring to imitate Jaikie’s tactics, the while he hammered with his knee at the drover’s hind quarters. The propulsion of the two had its effect. The drover shot out of the kitchen into the rain, and the door was locked by Mrs Johnston behind him.

  “He’ll come back,” Mr Craw quavered, repenting of his temerity.

  “Not him,” said Jaikie, as he tried to smooth his hair. “I know the breed. I know the very Glasgow close he comes out of. There’s no fight in that scum. But I’m anxious about the little dog.”

  The kitchen was tidied up, and the two sat for a while by the peats. Then Mr Craw professed a desire for bed. Exercise and the recent excitement had made him weary; also he was still nervous about the drover and had a longing for sanctuary. By going to bed he would be retiring into the keep of the fortress.

  Jaikie escorted him upstairs, helped him to get out of Mr Johnston’s trousers, borrowed an extra blanket from the hostess, and an earthenware hot bottle which she called a “pig,” and saw him tucked up comfortably. Then Jaikie disappeared with the lamp, leaving him to solitude and darkness.

  Mr Craw for a little experienced the first glimmerings of peace which he had known since that fateful hour at Kirkmichael when his Hejira began. He felt restful and secure, and as his body grew warm and relaxed he had even a moment of complacence. . . . He had, unsolicited, helped to eject a ruffian from the inn kitchen. He had laid violent hands upon an enemy. The thing was so novel in his experience that the memory of it sent a curious, pleasant little shiver through his frame. He had shown himself ready in a crisis, instant in action. The thinker had proved himself also the doer. He dwelt happily with the thought. . . . Strange waters surrounded him, but so far his head was above the waves. Might there not be a purpose in it all, a high purpose? All great teachers of mankind had had to endure some sojourn in the wilderness. He thought of Mahomet and Buddha, Galileo in prison, Spinoza grinding spectacles. Sometimes he had wondered if his life were not too placid for a man with a mission. These mishaps — temporary, of course — might prove a stepping-stone from which to rise to yet higher things.

  Then he remembered the face of the drover as he had last seen him, distorted and malevolent. He had incurred the enmity of a desperate man. Would not his violence be terribly repaid? Even now, as the drunkenness died in him, his enemy would be planning his revenge. To-morrow — what of to-morrow? Mr Craw shuddered, and, as the bedroom door opened and a ray of candlelight ran across the ceiling, he almost cried aloud.

  It was only Jaikie, who carried in his arms a small dog. Its thick fleece, once white, was matted in dry mud, and the finer hair of its face and legs, streaked down with wet, gave these parts of it so preposterous an air of leanness, that it looked like a dilapidated toy dog which had lost its wheels. But it appeared to be content. It curled itself at the foot of Jaikie’s bed, and, before beginning its own toilet, licked his hand.

  “I’ve bought that fellow’s dog,” Jaikie announced. “It must have been stolen, but it has come through a lot of hands. I beat him down to four shillings.”

  “Were you not afraid?” gasped Mr Craw.

  “He’s practically sober now,” Jaikie went on. “You see, he barged into the cart beside the door and got a crack on the head that steadied him. There was nothing to be afraid of except his brute of a collie.”

  As Jaikie wriggled into bed he leaned forward and patted the head of his purchase. “I’m going to call him Woolworth,” he said, “for he’s as woolly as a sheep, and he didn’t cost much.”

  CHAPTER X. THE SECOND DAY OF THE HEJIRA — THE FORD CAR

  The storm blew itself out in the night, and the travellers awoke to a morning of soft lights and clear, rain-washed distances. They awoke also to the pea-hen call of their hostess at the foot of the stairs.

  “Megsty me!” ran the plaint. “D’ye ken what has happened? The body in the stable is off or I was up, and he’s never paid for his supper. . . . Waur nor that!” (the voice rose to a keen) “He’s ta’en yae pair o’ the breeks that was dryin’ afore the fire. The best pair! The blue yins!”

  These last words drew Mr Craw precipitately from his bed. He thrust a scared head out of the bedroom door.

  “What do you say, woman? My trousers!”

  “Aye. Your trousers! Sorrow and disgrace yon blagyird has brocht on this hoose! Whae wad keep a public? But we’ll set the pollis on him. As soon as my man’s up, he’ll yoke the gig an’ get the pollis.”

  Jaikie added his voice to the clamour.

  “I’ll be down in a jiffey, mistress, and I’ll go after him on your man’s bicycle.”

  “Ye daurna. He’ll kill ye. He’s a desperate blagyird.”

  “Give me my flannel bags,” said Jaikie, “and I’ll be on the road in ten minutes. He can’t be many miles ahead.”

  But when the two descended to the kitchen — Mr Craw chastely habited in the trousers of Mr Johnston — they were met by a wild-eyed hostess and an apple-cheeked servant girl.

  “Waur and waur!” wailed the former. “The scoondrel has stole Tam’s bicycle, and he didna tak the Glendonan road, but the road to Gledmouth, and that’s maistly doun hill. This lassie was bicyclin’ back frae her mither’s, and at the foot o’ the Kirklaw brae she seen something by
the roadside. She seen it was a bicycle, and she kent it for Tam’s bicycle, and it was a’ bashed to bits. The body maun hae run into the brig.”

  “How far off?” Jaikie asked.

  “The better pairt o’ fower miles. Na, ye’ll no make up on him. Yon’s the soupple blagyird, and he’ll be hidin’ in a Gledmouth close long or ye gat near him. Wae’s me for Tam’s guid new bicycle that cost ten pund last Martinmas.”

  “Is it much damaged?” Jaikie asked the girl.

  “Dung a’ to smithers,” was the answer. “The front wheel’s the shape o’ a peesweep’s egg, and the handle-bars are like a coo’s horn.”

  “Heard ye ever the like?” Mrs Johnston lamented. “And the pollis will never get him, and if they did he wad gang to jyle, but he couldna pay the price o’ the bicycle. It’s an unco blow, for Tam has nae siller to spare.”

  It is to Mr Craw’s credit that he did not think only of the bearing of this disaster on his own affairs.

  “I am very sorry for the misfortune,” he told his hostess. “At the moment I am travelling light and have little money. But I am not without means, and I will see that you receive the sum of ten pounds within a week.”

  He was met by a solemn stare. Certainly with his borrowed trousers, much stained collar, and draggled tie (for Jaikie had forgotten to bring from Castle Gay these minor adornments), he did not look like a moneyed man. “Thenk ye kindly,” she said, but it was obvious that she put no trust in his promise.

  Breakfast was an uncomfortable meal, hurriedly served, for Mrs Johnston was busy upstairs, preparing for the emergence of her husband from his sick room. Beside Jaikie sat Woolworth, his new purchase, very hungry, but not yet certain how far he dared to presume. He pirouetted about on his lengthy hind legs, and then slapped Jaikie’s arm with an urgent paw. Jaikie prepared for him a substantial meal of scraps, which was devoured in a twinkling. “I wonder when that beast last saw food,” he observed.