Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

“I am in no mood to sing,” said the girl, but she plucked softly at the lute’s strings.

  “Tush, my lady, you are always singing. Your face is a madrigal, and your hair is a mesh of sweet notes. You are all music to the eye, so make music also for the ear.”

  The girl sighed, cast one sombre glance at Peter who was standing by the hearth, and then let her eyes rest on the smouldering logs. She touched a chord or two and began to sing:

  “Summer is come with love to town,

  Throstle in bush and lark on down

  Merrily tell their tale O.

  Folk that pine

  Now drink sunshine

  More strong than winter’s ale O.

  Sweet mistress, why so pale O?

  I hie to thee

  As river to sea

  When the deer draw to the dale O.”

  It was a rude thing of several verses, each ending with the refrain about the deer and the dale. But, as the girl sang it, it was no longer a country catch, a thing for milkmaids and shepherds, but the pæan of youth and spring with the bravado of all lovers since the world was born. Into that shuttered and curtained chamber, outside which the wet October winds blew, it carried a fragrance like flowers. Sabine sang soft and slow, her eyes on the fire, her face abstracted from Peter. She repeated one verse, and then broke into a flight of grace notes, a fantasy which she followed with her voice, a rich eddy of curious music twisting in and out in an aerial dance. She was singing to please herself, for she had forgotten Peter by the hearth and Sir Gabriel on his couch. Presently a gentle snore broke in on the music. Sir Gabriel, tired with his Welsh journey, was asleep.

  It was the fantasia, rather than the singing, which stirred Peter’s heart. For the rhythm it made was the rhythm of the dance which he had watched in the midsummer night on the Painted Floor.

  She fell silent at last, and let the lute drop, while she sat with her hands between her knees, her head bent forward.

  “I thank you.” Peter’s voice sounded intolerably harsh in his ear — the words of Mercury after the songs of Apollo. “You sing like the blessed angels. . . . I have heard that song before.”

  She bent her face slowly towards him, and he noted that her eyes were blind, as if turned back in some inward absorption. “That cannot be,” she said.

  “Nay, but it is so. Not heard it, maybe, but felt it. For I watched you dancing to that very air one July night on the Roman floor by Wood Eaton.”

  Her absorption was gone. She flushed rosily to the tips of her little ears. “You know the place?” she stammered. “You saw me? . . .”

  “I first found the place, being guided thereto by the words of an ancient deed, and with my own hands I cleared it. We are twin discoverers, mistress.”

  She rose and held out her hands, and in her eyes was a sudden wild abandonment which made their cool shallows a molten fire. She was giving herself to his arms — she was inviting him to her breast — and an answering passion awoke in the boy. But at that moment Sir Gabriel rolled off his couch and woke. He saw Peter holding Sabine’s hand to his lips, and speaking words of gratitude with a warmth which he had not looked for in one so fish-like.

  IV

  Peter was roused before dawn next morning by Lord Avelard standing by his bed. The collar of his furred night-robe stood about his head like a crest, so that to the boy’s sleepy eyes he had the air of an immense gnome.

  “The devil is in this business,” he said. “Who think you are here? One of Crummle’s wolves — Plummer his name, a Middle Temple lawyer — on his way to take reckoning with the Gloucester monks. He has a secretary with him, and four armed servants, and as a companion young Rede of Boarstall, who once saw you and inquired concerning you. What brings them here? They are ten miles out of the straight road to Gloucester, and there is no religious house in these parts to stir their greed. It may be that Crummle has got a hint of our doings and would spy out the land. I like not this young Rede’s presence, for he has been known as a King’s man, but no Crummle’s man, and yet here he is playing fugleman to the worst of them.”

  “Must I get me gone?” Peter asked.

  “Nay, that would be to make suspicion certainty, if, as I believe, they know of your presence here. But, while they know of your presence they do not know who you are. Mark well, my son. You are no more than my cousin and destined heir, Master Bonamy from Dyston in Salop. My servants have been instructed, and Sabine and Gabriel will keep up the play. God send our guests do not tarry long. It behoves us to treat the rogues like princes and welcome them like May flowers. Haply we will get from them some later news out of the east and north.”

  It was a clear mild October day, and at breakfast in the hall the sun shone full on the company. Master Plummer, the commissioner, was a black-avised man of middle age, with a yellow parchment skin, a quick eye like a fowl’s, and the voice of the hectoring lawyer. He was servile to his host, civil to Gabriel and Peter, fulsome to Sabine, but always with an air of one who condescended, and could at any moment change the velvet glove for the iron hand. He ate a breakfast of a size miraculous for one so slight, and, as he gobbled noisily, he babbled of his doings at Court, of his purchase with his master and his power with the King, and of the noble work he had wrought already in curbing the vice and gluttony of the religious. “Honest men must come to their own,” he cried so often, that it sounded as if he demanded from the company some proof of honesty.

  The other traveller, Simon Rede, for the most part kept silence. Three times Peter had seen him — once on the midsummer night in Stowood when he had envied his conquering air, once in Oxford streets, and once on that afternoon when he had ridden with Sabine from the hunt. Now, in his travelling dress which bore the stains of the road and was scarcely richer than a yeoman’s, he looked more formidable than ever. There was power in every movement of his limbs, the small shapely head set on a strong neck, the breadth of the shoulders, the gnarled brown wrists beneath his cuff-bands. His face appeared to have been weathered by hotter suns than England’s, for, except below the eyes and ears, it was the colour of dark oak, and seamed with the fine lines which come only from the glare and the spray of the sea. It was a hard face, and yet prepossessing, for its arrogance was a clean thing like a north wind, not the fussy pride of the commissary. . . . He met Peter’s eye with no sign of recognition, though he had had him in full view on that afternoon in Stowood, and, according to Sir Ralph Bonamy, had set afoot inquiries about him. Sir Gabriel was a stranger to him, but Sabine was plainly a friend. She had greeted him as such, and at breakfast his eyes were always travelling towards her, and whenever she spoke, he seemed to bend to listen. . . . Peter had a sudden conviction. This man was in love with her. He had come here because of her, using the commissary’s visit as an excuse to enter Avelard. And with this conviction came a spasm of furious jealousy.

  Master Plummer, having ridden through part of the night, was weary, so he retired to his chamber to sleep, announcing that he would push on towards Gloucester in the late afternoon. So far so good, but it was necessary to dispose safely of Master Rede. Sir Gabriel took upon himself the duty of master of ceremonies. There was a heavy buck harboured in Dainton wood, which would for certain run towards the river, where the going was good even in a soft October. So horses were brought and the four young people rode out into the sloeberry bloom of the autumn wilds. For three hours they ran the buck, but the mort was never sounded, for he took to the water and found sanctuary beyond the flooded Severn. By midday, too, the weather had changed, a torrent of rain descended, and long ere they won the shelter of Avelard the four were soaked to the bone.

  Peter had been all morning violently out of temper. The thought of Simon Rede as a lover of Sabine had thrown him into a mood of deep disquiet. Sir Gabriel’s intimacy with the girl had not perturbed him, but there was that in the other’s air of mastery which struck fear to his heart. What woman could resist one who had the face of the god of battles, and treated the world as his own demesne? Befor
e such assurance Peter felt raw and impotent. This galling sense of inferiority was increased by the incidents of the hunt. Where the others leaped their horses easily over ditches and pales, he was compelled to make an ignominious circuit. The result was that he fell far behind, and the stag had taken to the river while he was still ploughing a mile away through swampy thickets.

  From a knoll he saw the others turn, while the prickers’ horns sounded to recall the hounds. The rain had begun, and in deep disgust he too swung his horse round for home. Below him in a hollow were some charcoal-burners at work, and one of them, a young man, followed him, and touched his stirrup.

  “How far be it, master, to the skirts of Wychwood?” he asked in a broad Gloucestershire burr.

  For a moment Peter was taken aback, and could only stare. Then he remembered.

  “As far as to Peter’s Gate,” he replied.

  “Alack!” said the man, stumbling between each word, “I shall not be there in time.” Then he grinned. “I have a message for ye, brave sir. Mas’r Darking be mighty eager to see ye. Ye will get news of him at Goody Sweetbread’s. The word given me to pass on was that there was summat in the ground as concerned your fortunes.” The man pulled a forelock, and went back to his companions.

  To Peter the message was like a breeze to dispel the fog of his discontents, since it reminded him of the high road on which his feet were set. What was Simon Rede to him who would soon be the master of ten thousand men? His ambition rekindled, and burned side by side with his passion for Sabine, for the two were one.

  After dinner, while the rain pelted on the windows, came word that the commissary, fearing the swamps of the valley in such weather, had resolved to postpone his going till the morrow. So the good-humoured Sir Gabriel set himself to devise amusement for indoors. Little Welsh horses were provided, their feet cased in monstrous shoes of felt, and he and Simon held a miniature tourney on the black-and-white marble pavement of the hall. Sir Gabriel won, and was crowned by the laughing Sabine with a wreath of ivy. There was sword-play, too, in which Peter could hold his own, and a nice show of dagger-and-buckler work by Sir Gabriel, who at the French court had learned to be a master of games. Then, as the wet dusk drew in, they sat around the big hearth and talked, the commissary being engaged with Lord Avelard elsewhere.

  It was curious talk, in which Peter, restored to good humour, joined but little, sitting apart and watching the others. It began with the foreign wars, and it seemed to him that Sir Gabriel was bent on discovering, with adroit courtesy, something of Simon’s past life and present ventures. But, with equal courtesy, the other put the questions by. He had been much about the northern courts on errands for the Council, but such business was not for gossip, as Sir Gabriel well knew. Peter observed that the latter’s manner had lost its bravado, and that his face had become that of an older and shrewder man. Almost it seemed to him that it had acquired something of the hardness of the commissary upstairs.

  To the girl Simon was more forthcoming. “There is a wider world than Europe, my lady,” he said, “and I have ventured some way into it.” And then, in response to her questions, he began to tell tales, drifting casually into them, smilingly disclaiming any importance for them, and, as he spoke, his face too seemed to change. It became gentler, less wary and assured, and he smiled as if his memories were happy. He told how, as a boy, he had journeyed in the Bristol gabbarts to Gascony for wine, to Portugal with salted fish, to Ireland, and once far north, involuntarily, with a storm behind him, into icy seas. And, when come to man’s estate, he had sailed with Cabot of Bristol in the service of the King of Spain to the new world beyond the Western Sea. . . . For a space all hung on his words, and Sabine, with her head bent forward and her lips parted, never took her eyes from his face. He told of great rivers so wide that a man in midstream could see neither shore, of forests with their feet in the salt water, of strange bright fruits and birds, and dark-skinned people a touch of whose arrows brought death.

  “Gold and jewels?” she asked breathlessly. “Did you find them?”

  He laughed. “A little of each, mistress, such as a hasty seafarer can carry on board. But those lands are rich beyond mortal dreams. There is a dark blanket which covers Europe, but beyond it there are open skies and the sun.”

  She looked at him with wide eyes.

  “How can you endure to sit at Boarstall and look out on Otmoor mud, when you know that there are such brave lands for the finding?”

  Again he laughed.

  “I am an Englishman,” he said, “and I may wish to give a hand in raising the blanket that covers us.”

  At that all fell silent, for they realised that they had come very near forbidden things, and each wondered what was in the other’s heart.

  Lord Avelard broke in upon the conclave, and with him came the commissary, now rested and refreshed and in a mellow temper.

  “We have another guest,” said the old lord, “and an ill-boding one. There is a fellow here, one of the new gospellers, who has been working mischief among the Oxford clerks. He is Cambridge bred, but the devil sent him to sow tares in the Oxford fields. The proctors laid hold on him, but he escaped, and his grace of Lincoln, having a mind to end the evil, sent his men after him, and he has been taken while attempting to cross the marches into Wales. He has been brought here, and it is required that I keep him in safe custody and send him guarded to Oxford for the Bishop to deal with. They are bringing him in that I may have a look at him. Master commissary, we know well that the King’s grace, though he has a grudge against certain of the religious, has an ardent mind to pure religion and will tolerate no heresy-making.”

  The commissary nodded and blinked.

  “The King’s grace is a good Christian. And so likewise is his grace’s Vicar-General.” But he seemed uneasy, and shot a sharp glance at Simon, which Peter intercepted.

  “‘Tis a difficult time for a Christian,” said Sir Gabriel airily. “If he have a liking for the Pope he may be hanged for treason, and if he like not the mass he may burn for heresy.”

  The commissary frowned, and Lord Avelard shook a warning head. Simon had risen and Peter observed that his face had become grim.

  “What is the man’s name?” he asked, and it was clear that he strove to keep his voice soft.

  “One Sturmy or Sturdy,” said Lord Avelard. “His grace of Lincoln writes a plaguey bad hand. But here comes the fellow.”

  The outer door of the hall was thrown open by an usher, and five men entered. Four wore the Bishop’s livery and carried halberts. The fifth was the man Peter had met with the gipsies in the Stowood covert — he could not mistake the thin face and the burning eyes. He was no longer in rags, but wore a sober clerk’s garb much splashed with mire. He had damaged his left arm, which hung in a dirty sling. There was a chain round his middle, the other end of which was locked to the wrist of one of the warders.

  The prisoner seemed in no way perturbed. He looked weary and famished, but he held his head erect, and his eyes met Lord Avelard’s bent brows with a scornful composure.

  “You are one Sturmy, Nathaniel Sturmy, a clerk of Cambridge?”

  The man bowed. “I am that one.”

  “Who after working mischief in Oxford fled to Wales, but was taken on the bank of Severn?”

  “I was stayed by the Lord’s hands. He sent His floods as a sign that He had still work for me to do in England.”

  “You are charged with speaking against the holy mysteries, and with distributing certain books among the common people whereby their hearts are seduced?”

  “The charge is true. I have spoken against mummeries which pervert the truth, and I have laboured to spread the knowledge of God’s own word.”

  “You have already been found guilty of like blasphemies, and have confessed and repented. At Uxbridge you carried a faggot in a procession of heretics, and did penance on the altar-steps?”

  A spasm of pain crossed the man’s face. “Woe is me, it is true. The flesh was weak a
nd I was afeared. Now I have gotten strength to endure all things.”

  The commissary spoke out, and his tone was harsh. “A plague on such ignorant lubbers. When the King’s grace is bent on reforming Holy Church, you must needs step in with your follies, thereby delaying the good work. Know you the penalty, fellow, for your errors, the penalty established by the law’s wisdom? To be drowned in a sack or to be burned in a public place.”

  The man looked scornfully at his inquisitor.

  “Threaten those things to rich and dainty folk who are clothed in purple and have their life in this world. Thanks be to God, I care not whether I go to Heaven by land or water or fire!”

  As he spoke, he looked round the company, and his eyes fell on Simon. Some intelligence seemed to pass between them, for of a sudden his face lightened, and when Peter glanced at Simon he saw that his mouth was set hard. . . . And then Peter had a strange experience. As he looked, the world seemed to go small. The noble hall with its carvings and gildings and escutcheons suddenly shrank into a little bare place. Lord Avelard seemed a broken old man with deathlike cheeks, Sir Gabriel a painted lath, the commissary a hollow thing like an empty barrel, Sabine a pretty mask with nothing behind but a heart ticking foolishly. Even Simon looked wooden and lifeless. But this wisp of a man, manacled to his jailer, seemed to give out life as fiercely as a furnace gives out heat. There was such a convincing purpose in him that in his presence all the rest of them with their brave appurtenances dwindled and withered.

  The mood lasted but for a second. When he looked again he saw only a shabby prisoner, and heard Lord Avelard saying: “Take him away. I will furnish two extra guards to carry him to-morrow to Oxford.”

  The rest of the evening was all discomfort. The commissary was out of temper, and suspicious of everybody, notably of Sir Gabriel, whose persiflage fell as flat as rain-water in a strong sun. Simon was moody, and seemed to be thinking his own thoughts, while Lord Avelard laboured in vain to play the genial host. Sabine, too, was in an odd mood, dropping her eyes, chary of her smiles, forgetful of her graciousness of the night before. She spoke only to Simon, who gave her short answers. Peter’s jealousy burned fierce, for it had much to feed on. He went to bed angry with the world, angry with the girl, and with the conviction that in Simon Rede he had found a rival and an enemy.