by John Buchan
“Ay,” he continued, “I accompanied yon gentry to the door. I thought it my duty to offer them a drink. They refused, though their tongues were hanging out of their mouths. That refusal makes me inclined to think that it will not be very long before Prince John sits on the throne of Evallonia. For it shows that they have no sense of humour, and without humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.”
CHAPTER XX. VALEDICTORY
Next evening the sun, as it declined over the Carrick hills, illumined a small figure plodding up the road which led to Loch Garroch. Very small the figure appeared in that spacious twilight solitude, and behind it, around it, in front of it scampered and sniffed something still smaller. Jaikie and Woolworth were setting out again on their travels, for there was still a week before the University of Cambridge claimed them. Jaikie had left Castle Gay in a sober and meditative mood. “So that’s that,” had been his not very profound reflection. Things did happen sometimes, he reminded himself, unexpected things, decisive things, momentous incidents clotted together in a little space of time. Who dare say that the world was dull? He and Dougal, setting out on an errand as prosaic as Saul’s quest of his father’s asses, had been suddenly caught up into a breathless crisis, which had stopped only on the near side of tragedy. He had been privileged to witness the discovery by an elderly gentleman of something that might almost be called his soul.
There could be no doubt about Mr Craw. Surprising developments might be looked for in that hitherto shy prophet. He had always been assured enough in his mind, but he had been only a voice booming from the sanctuary. He had been afraid of the actual world. Now that fear had gone, for there is no stiffer confidence than that which is won by a man, otherwise secure, who discovers that the one thing which he has dreaded need only be faced to be overcome. . . . Much depended upon Mrs Brisbane-Brown. Jaikie was fairly certain that there would be a marriage between the two, and he approved. They were complementary spirits. The lady’s clear, hard, good sense would keep the prophet’s feet in safe paths. He would never be timid any more. She would be an antiseptic to his sentimentality. She might make a formidable being out of the phrasing journalist.
Much depended, too, upon Dougal. It was plain that Dougal was now high in the great man’s favour. A queer business, thought Jaikie, and yet natural enough. . . . Jaikie had no illusions about how he himself was regarded by Mr Craw. Hatred was too strong a word, but beyond doubt there was dislike. He had seen the great man’s weakness, whereas Dougal had only been the witness of his strength. . . . And Craw and Dougal were alike, too. Both were dogmatists. They might profess different creeds, but they looked on life with the same eyes. Heaven alone knew what the results of the combination would be, but a combination was clearly decreed. Dougal was no more the provincial journalist; he would soon have the chief say in the direction of the Craw Press.
At the thought Jaikie had a momentary pang. He felt very remote not only from the companion of his week’s wanderings but from his ancient friend.
Mr Craw had behaved handsomely by him. He had summoned him that morning into his presence and thanked him with a very fair appearance of cordiality. He had had the decency, too, not to attempt to impose on him an obligation of silence as to their joint adventures, thereby showing that he understood at least part of Jaikie’s character.
“Mr Galt,” he had said, “I have been much impressed by your remarkable abilities. I am not clear what is the best avenue for their exercise. But I am deeply in your debt, and I shall be glad to give you any assistance in my power.”
Jaikie had thanked him, and replied that he had not made up his mind.
“You have no bias, no strong impulse?”
Jaikie had shaken his head.
“You are still very young,” Mr Craw had said, “but you must not postpone your choice too late. You must find a philosophy of life. I had found mine before I was out of my teens. There is no hope for the drifter.”
They had parted amicably, and, as he breasted the hill which led from the Callowa to the Garroch, Jaikie had found himself reflecting on this interview. He realised how oddly detached he was. He was hungry for life, as hungry as Dickson McCunn. He enjoyed every moment, but he knew that his enjoyment came largely from standing a little apart. He was not a cynic, for there was no sourness in him. He had a kindliness towards most things, and a large charity. But he did not take sides. He had not accepted any mood, or creed, or groove as his own. Vix ea nostra voco was his motto. He was only a seeker. Dougal wanted to make converts; he himself was still occupied in finding out what was in his soul.
For the first time in his life he had a sense of loneliness. . . . There was no help for it. He must be honest with himself. He must go on seeking.
At the top of the hill he halted to look down upon the Garroch glen, with the end of Lower Loch Garroch a pool of gold in the late October sun. There was a sound behind him, and he turned to see a girl coming over the crest of the hill. It was Alison, and she was in a hurry, for she was hatless, and her cob was in a lather.
She swung herself to the ground with the reins looped round an arm.
“Oh, Jaikie!” she cried. “Why did you leave without saying good-bye? I only heard by accident that you had gone, and I’ve had such a hustle to catch you up. Why did you do it?”
“I don’t know,” said Jaikie. “It seemed difficult to say good-bye to you, so I shirked it.” He spoke penitently, but there was no penitence in his face. That plain little wedge of countenance was so lit up that it was almost beautiful.
They sat down on a bank of withered heather and looked over the Garroch to the western hills.
“What fun we have had!” Alison sighed. “I hate to think that it is over. I hate your going away.”
Jaikie did not answer. It was difficult for one so sparing of speech to find words equal to that sudden glow in his eyes.
“When are we going to meet again?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “But we are going to meet again . . . often . . . always.”
He turned, and he saw in her face that comprehension which needs no words.
They sat for a little, and then she rose. “I must go back,” she said, “or Aunt Hatty will be dragging the ponds for me.”
They shook hands, quite prosaically. He watched her mount and turn her horse’s head to the Callowa, while he turned his own resolutely to the Garroch. He took a few steps and then looked back. The girl had not moved.
“Dear Jaikie,” she said, and the intervening space did not weaken the tenderness of the words. Then she put her horse into a canter, and the last he saw was a golden head disappearing over the brow of the hill.
He quickened his pace, and strode down into the Garroch valley with his mind in a happy confusion. Years later, when the two monosyllables of his name were famous in other circles than those of Rugby football, he was to remember that evening hour as a crisis in his life. For, as he walked, his thoughts moved towards a new clarity and a profound concentration. . . . He was no longer alone. The seeker had found something infinitely precious. He had a spur now to endeavour, such endeavour as would make the common bustle of life seem stagnant. A force of high velocity had been unloosed on the world.
These were not Jaikie’s explicit thoughts; he only knew that he was happy, and that he was glad to have no companion but Woolworth. He passed the shores of Lower Loch Garroch, and his singing scared the mallards out of the reeds. He came into the wide cup of the Garroch moss, shadowed by its sentinel hills, with the light of the Back House to guide him through the thickening darkness. But he was not conscious of the scene, for he was listening to the songs which youth was crooning in his heart.
Mrs Catterick knew his step on the gravel, and met him at the door.
“Bide the nicht?” she cried. “‘Deed ye may, and blithe to see ye! Ye’ve gotten rid o’ the auld man? Whae was he?”
“A gentleman from London. He’s safely home now.”
“Kee
p us a’. Just what I jaloused. That’s a stick for me to haud ower Erchie’s heid. Erchie was here twae days syne, speirin’ what had become o’ the man he had sae sair mishandled. D’ye ken what I said? I said he was deid and buried among the tatties in the yaird. No anither word could Erchie get oot o’ me, and he gae’d off wi’ an anxious hert. I’ll keep him anxious. He’ll be expectin’ the pollis ony day.”
Five minutes later Jaikie sat in the best room, while his hostess lit the peat fire.
“Ye’ve been doun by Castle Gay?” she gossiped. “It’s a braw bit, and it’s a peety the family canna afford to bide in it. It’s let to somebody — I canna mind his name. We’re on his lordship’s land here, ye ken. There’s a picture o’ Miss Alison. She used to come often here, and a hellicat lassie she was, but rale frank and innerly. I aye said they wad hae a sair job makin’ a young leddy o’ her.”
Mrs Catterick pointed to where above the mantelpiece hung a framed photograph of a girl, whose face was bordered by two solemn plaits of hair.
“It’s a bonny bit face,” she said reflectively. “There’s daftness in it, but there’s something wise and kind in her een. ‘Deed, Jaikie, when I come to look at them, they’re no unlike your ain.”
THE BLANKET OF THE DARK
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. THE PAINTED FLOOR
CHAPTER II. IN WHICH PETER IS INTRODUCED TO FORTUNE
CHAPTER III. IN WHICH PETER LURKS IN THE SHADOW
CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH PETER GOES DEEPER INTO THE GREENWOOD
CHAPTER V. THE PARLIAMENT OF BEGGARS
CHAPTER VI. IN WHICH PETER EMERGES INTO THE LIGHT
CHAPTER VII. HOW A WOULD-BE KING BECAME A FUGITIVE
CHAPTER VIII. HOW PETER SAW DEATH IN THE SWAN INN
CHAPTER IX. THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS
CHAPTER X. OF THE CONCLAVE AT LITTLE GREECE
CHAPTER XI. HOW PETER CAME AGAIN TO AVELARD
CHAPTER XII. OF THE VISION IN THE SNOW
CHAPTER XIII. THE UNLOOSING OF THE WATERS
CHAPTER XIV. HOW PETER STROVE WITH POWERS AND PRINCIPALITIES
CHAPTER XV. HOW THE SWAN OF BOHUN WENT DOWN
CHAPTER XVI. HOW PETER RETURNED TO THE GREENWOOD
EPILOGUE
“Where is Bohun? Where is Mowbray? Where is Mortimer? Nay, which is more and most of all, where is Plantagenet? They are intombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality.”
SIR RANULPHE CREWE, 1625.
TO
DOROTHY GASKELL
CHAPTER I. THE PAINTED FLOOR
Peter Pentecost, from his eyrie among the hazels, looked down on the King’s highway as it dipped from Stowood through the narrow pass to the Wood Eaton meadows. It was a King’s highway beyond question, for it was the main road from London to Worcester and the west for those who did not wish to make Oxford a halting-place; but it was a mere ribbon of rutted turf, with on each side the statutory bowshot of cleared ground between it and the forest fringes. And, as he looked, he saw the seventh magpie.
Peter was country-bred and had country lore in the back of his mind. Also, being a scholar, he respected auspices. So, having no hat to doff, he pulled his forelock. Seven magpies in one day must portend something great.
He had set off that summer morning on an errand for the cellarer of Oseney Abbey to the steward of the King’s manor of Beckley, some matter touching supplies for the Abbey kitchen. The sun had risen through lamb’s-wool mists, the river was a fleckless sheet of silver, and Peter had consecrated the day to holiday. He had done his errand long before noon, and had spent an hour watching the blue lagoons on Otmoor (there was much water out, for July had begun with rains), with the white geese like foam on the edges. The chantry priest at Horton had given him food — a crust only and a drink of ale, for the priest was bitter poor — and in the afternoon he had wandered in the Stowood glades, where the priory of Studley had right of pannage and the good sisters’ droves of swine rooted for earth-nuts. Peter was young, and holiday and high summertide could still intoxicate. He had lain on the spicy turf of the open spaces, his nose deep in thyme and rock-rose; he had made verses in the shadow of the great oaks which had been trees when Domesday Book was written; he had told his dreams aloud to himself at the well under the aspens where the Noke fletchers cut their arrows. The hours had slipped by unnoted, and the twilight was beginning when he reached his favourite haunt, a secret armchair of rock and grass above the highway. He had seen four magpies, so something was on the way.
The first things he saw in the amethyst evening were two more of the pied birds, flapping down the hollow towards Wood Eaton. After them came various figures, for at that hour the road seemed to have woken into life. Travellers appeared on it like an evening hatch of gnats.
First came a couple of friars — Franciscans by their grey habits — who had been exploiting the faithful in the Seven Towns of Otmoor. Their wallets swung emptily, for the moor-men had a poor repute among the religious. They would sleep the night, no doubt, in the Islip tithe-barn. After them appeared one of the Stowood hogwards, with the great cudgel of holly which was the badge of his trade. Peter knew what he was after. In the dusk he would get a rabbit or two for his supper on the edge of the Wood Eaton warren, for the hogwards were noted poachers.
From his view-point he could see half a mile down the road, from the foot of the hill to where it turned a corner and was lost in the oakwoods of the flats. It was like the stage of a Christmas mumming play, and Peter settled himself comfortably in his lair, and waited with zest for the entry of the next actors. This time it was a great wool-convoy, coming towards him from the Cherwell. He watched the laden horses strain up the slope, eleven of them, each like a monstrous slug buried in its wool-pack. There were five attendants, four on foot and one riding a slim shaggy grey pony. They might be London bound, or more likely for Newbury, where Jack Winchcombe had his great weaving mill and the workmen wrought all day in sheds high and dim as a minster — so many workmen that their master twenty years back had led his own battalion of spinners, carders and tuckers to Flodden Field. Peter viewed the convoy with no friendly eye. The wool barons were devouring the countryside, and ousting the peasants. He had seen with his own eyes hamlets obliterated by the rising tide of pasture. Up in Cotswold the Grevels and Celys and Midwinters might spend their wealth in setting up proud churches, but God would not be bribed. Let them remember Naboth’s vineyard, those oppressors of the poor. Had not the good Sir Thomas More cried out that in England the sheep were eating up the men?
The next arrival was a troop of gipsies, a small furtive troop, three donkeys laden with gear, five men on foot, and two women, each with an infant at breast. In his childhood Peter remembered how these vagabonds had worn gaudy clothes and played openly on fantastic instruments of music; they were shameless priggers and rufflers, but they were welcomed everywhere except by the dwellers in lonely places, for they brought mirth and magic to the countryside. Now they were under the frown of the law, and at the will of any justice could be banished forth of England, for it was believed that among them they harboured Scots and Spaniards, and plotted against the King’s peace. This troop were clad like common peasants, and drab and dingy at that, but there was no mistaking their lightfoot gait, and even at that distance Peter could mark their hazel-nut skins and bird-like beaks. They came on the stage stealthily, first reconnoitring the patch of open road, and, when they neared the other corner, sending out a scout to prospect ahead. Peter saw the scout turn his head and give a signal, and in a second the Egyptians, donkeys and all, had taken cover like weasels, and were deep in the wayside scrub.
Presently the cause was apparent. Down the hill trotted an imposing cavalcade, four gentlemen, no less than six servants armed with curtal-axes, and two led baggage-horses. One of the gentlemen was old, and his white hair mingled with the ermine collar of his purple cloak. The others rode cloakless in the warm evening. Two had the look of lawyers, being all in black and white, except for their tawny horsemen’s boots
, but the fourth was a gay gallant, with a wine-red doublet, a laced shirt, sleeves monstrously puffed and slashed, and on his head a velvet bonnet with a drooping blue feather. Two of the servants carried at their saddle-bows the flat leather boxes which scriveners used. Peter guessed their errand. They were some of the commissioners whom the King was sending far and wide throughout the land to examine into the condition of the religious houses. Their destination might be the Augustinians at Bicester or the Benedictines at Eynsham — the latter he thought, for there were better roads to Bicester from London than this, and these men were doubtless from the capital. They were in a hurry, and passed out of sight at a sharp trot, the led horses shying at the smell of the gipsy donkeys hidden in the covert. In two hours’ time they would be supping off Thames trout — for it was a Friday — in the Eynsham fratry.
When the last of the company had jolted round the far corner the stage was empty for a while. The amethyst was going out of the air, and giving place to that lemon afterglow which in a fine summer never leaves the sky till it is ousted by the splendours of dawn. The ribbon of road was beginning to glimmer white, and the high wooded sides of the glen to lose their detail to the eye and become massed shadows. . . . But the play was not yet ended, for up the road towards him came a solitary rider.
Down a gap from the west fell a shaft of lingering sunlight which illumined the traveller. Peter saw a tall man mounted on a weedy roan, which seemed to have come far, for it stumbled at the lift of the hill. His head was covered with an old plumeless bonnet, he had no cloak, his doublet was plain grey, his trunks seemed to be of leather, and between them and his boots were hose of a dingy red. He wore a narrow belt fastened in front with a jewel, and from that belt hung a silver dagger-sheath, while at his side dangled a long sword. But it did not need the weapons to proclaim that this was no servant. The man’s whole poise spoke of confidence and pride. His shaven face was weathered like a tinker’s, his eyes searched the covert as if looking for opposition, his mouth was puckered to a whistle, and now and then he flung back his head and sniffed the evening odours.
