Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  CHAPTER IV. In which a Young Lover is Slighted

  With a preoccupied mind Mr Lammas entered the lobby of the little inn with its homely fragrance of new-kindled fires, oil-lamps and morning cooking, bowed to the smiling and flustered landlady, and heard Mr Dott order a generous breakfast. That commanding figure in the dreadnought had strongly impressed him, and he marvelled at the way in which fate was speeding up his experience. Ten hours ago he had heard from Lord Mannour the name of Sir Turnour Wyse as the main peril which threatened the young man whom it was his mission to save; Mr Tolley on the coach had spoken of him in worshipping accents; and now the man himself had appeared, a god from a machine, looking, like some Homeric hero, larger than human in the morning fog. Most clearly destiny was taking a hand in the game.

  Horses could be provided, said the landlady. The gig had been already bespoken to carry the ladies’ baggage and the servants, but the sociable was at the gentlemen’s disposal and would be ready as soon as Rob Dickson had had his brose and had caught the young mare. Again Mr Lammas had a delicious sense of being drawn into a new world. The short walk to the inn had been like a bath in cold water, for the mist was furling into airy corridors which revealed at their end the bluest of skies, and a great salty freshness was coming up from the sea. The bustle of the inn and the demand for horses was like a sudden resurrection of his boyhood. Also he was furiously hungry, and Mr Dott’s command for fresh haddocks, eggs, and a brandered collop to follow had amply interpreted his desires.

  Out from the parlour came the sound of lusty singing.

  “Katie Beardie had a coo,

  A’ black about the moo, —

  Wasna yon a denty coo! —

  Dance, Katie Beardie.”

  He recognised both the voice and the song. He opened the door to find Jock Kinloch taking his ease before the remnants of a mutton ham.

  There was nothing of the St Andrews secondar about Jock’s appearance. He wore a coarse, knitted woollen jersey, and much-stained nether garments, of which the ends were stuffed into heavy sea-boots. His head was more tousled than ever, and the weather had given his complexion the ripeness of his father’s.

  “God be kind to us!” he cried. “Nanty!” And then he stopped, for he saw that a stranger was present and changed his address to “Professor.” “You’re a sight for sore eyes, but I never looked to meet you here. I thought that at this moment you would be at Ramage’s taking your seat in the Quicksilver.”

  “I left last night with the Mail, and half an hour back we had a breakdown at the hill foot. May I present to you Mr Duncan Dott, the town-clerk of the burgh of Waucht? This is Mr John Kinloch, Mr Dott. You are no doubt familiar with his father’s name.”

  “Not Lord Mannour’s son?” said Mr Dott, relaxing his tight jaws into a grin, and holding out a cordial hand. “Indeed I know of your father, young sir, and what is more, in the old days I have often fee’d him, for he was the burgh’s favourite counsel in their bits of law business. Ay, and three months back he did us a great service. The burgh had a plea against Dalitho the tanner anent his stink-pots on Waucht Green. We lost before the Lord Ordinary — a most inequitable decision, but old Curlywee is long past his best, but the Upper House gave it in our favour, and your worthy father, sir, delivered a judgment which will long be remembered as the pure milk of the legal word. I’m honoured to meet his son. . . . You’ll take another bite of breakfast with us, for it’s a snell morning.”

  “I’ll have a cup of tea with you when the wife brings it, but I must get back to the boat. You say the Mail has spilt itself? That would be the clatter of horses I heard at the stable door and took for the gaugers from Berwick.”

  “You haven’t told me what brought you here,” said Mr Lammas. “I got a request from you on the Burntisland packet, and I need not tell you that I obeyed it. But I thought you were at Kinloch.”

  Jock winked mysteriously.

  “I’m on a bit of a jaunt,” he said. “I came down the coast yesterday with some friends of mine — friends of yours too, Professor.”

  “Where are you bound?”

  Again Jock winked.

  “That’s telling. Maybe just to see the world, and get the fine fresh air, and see the solans on the Bass.”

  “Who are your companions?”

  “The best. Who but Bob Muschat, your old crony, and Eben Garnock himself.”

  Mr Lammas started. What took the Chief Fisher in such haste down the Berwick shore, for Eben Garnock was a great man who did not stir himself except for a good purpose. It could not be fishing business, for the herrings were gone north towards the Tay. And how came a new member of the brotherhood like Jock Kinloch to be taken thus early into the inner circle?

  Jock’s face had an unwonted gravity. “I would like a word with you, Professor, before you go. Maybe I can do something for you and you for me.”

  At that moment an untidy kitchen-maid brought in the breakfast and plumped it on the table, and the landlady followed more ceremoniously with the tea-urn and a great jug of creamy milk. The travellers fell greedily upon the food, but Jock contented himself with a cup of tea and a new-baked scone. Conversation ceased while the first pangs of hunger were being quieted.

  But the peace was suddenly broken. A melancholy countenance poked itself round a half-opened door. “We’re for off” — it said, addressing Mr Lammas. “Is there onything I can do for you in Berwick? We’ll be there long or you.”

  Jock Kinloch sprang to his feet.

  “Pitten!” he cried. “Where on earth have you sprung from?”

  The head came a little farther into the room.

  “I’ve been delivered by the mercy of God from the miry pit. Have ye not heard, Mr Kinloch? The Mail coupit — or came near to coupin’ — at the foot o’ Kitterston hill, and left the hale clanjamphry o’ us on our flat feet. Nae blood spilt, the Lord be thankit, but such a stramash I never beheld.”

  “But you — What brought you here?”

  “I was with my leddies — Miss Christian Evandale of Balbarnit, and her auntie, Miss Georgina Kinethmont. Well ye ken them, Mr Kinloch. We’re off to London, and we have startit unco ill.”

  “The ladies! They took no hurt?”

  “Not a bodle. They sat snug as mice in the inside o’ the coach, though Miss Georgie was wantin’ somebody hangit for the breakdown. Syne by comes a braw gentleman in a chaise, and he whups the twasome awa’ wi’ him to Berwick. They’re at the Red Lion, and I’m followin’ wi’ their mails. I maun haste, or I’ll get the ill-scrapit side o’ Miss Georgie’s tongue.”

  The head withdrew and Jock flung himself from the room in pursuit. Sounds of whispering and then of loud command were heard from the lobby. Jock returned with a fiery face and a stern purpose in his eye.

  “I’m off, Nanty,” he said, forgetting the presence of Mr Dott. “The wind’s right and I’ll get Eben to slip down in the boat, and I’ll be there before Pitten in his old hearse of a gig. Kirsty in trouble and me not beside her — the thing’s not thinkable! You’re certain she wasn’t hurt? Tell me, did you speak to her? Did you hear her plans?”

  “Not I,” said Mr Lammas. “She and her aunt were swathed like mummies in the inside, while I took the air on the box. All I saw of her was for three minutes this morning, and all I learned was that she had a pretty face.”

  “Never mind her looks. What like was the man who picked them up in his curricle?”

  Mr Dott answered. “Well-favoured and well set-up and everything handsome about him. A young Corinthian, I doubt, for he seemed to know more about horseflesh than is becoming in a man who does not make his living by it.”

  Jock groaned.

  “I’ll be obliged, Nanty, if you lose no time in getting to Berwick. I may be glad of your company there. If they and that fellow are at the Red Lion, you had better go to the other shop — the King’s Arms — about the middle of Hide Hill as you go down to the Sand Gate. Whether they take the Highflyer or a post-chaise, I must catch them
before they leave. Meet me there in an hour’s time.”

  Mr Dott looked after the departing figure with a reflective smile.

  “A stirring lad,” he decided, “with much of his father’s spunk. Love, I suppose. Calf-love.”

  “They were children together.”

  “All the more dangerous, and the more hopeless. The affection of bairns is a poor foundation for a wooing, for the light female mind wants something new. I would not give a groat for Mr Jock’s chances, for they tell me that Miss Kirsty is like the lassie in the song — wooers pulling at her from every airt. We’d better stir our shanks, Professor, for, besides our proper business, I would like you to keep tryst with that young man.”

  Rob Dickson had eaten his brose and caught the mare, and the two embarked in an ancient vehicle which must have carried goods as well as passengers, for it was floury with pease-meal and smelt strongly of wool and tar. It was a cumbrous concern, and Rob was a poor charioteer; also the young mare, just off the grass, was both sluggish and capricious. She bored into the left side of the road, took the hills at a dragging walk, and shied furiously at every stirk that put its head over the adjacent dykes. So their progress was erratic and slow, and both grew impatient.

  “This donnered animal will have you late for your tryst,” said Mr Dott.

  “It will make me miss the Highflyer,” said Mr Lammas, “and that I cannot afford to do.”

  “We’re in too great a hurry nowadays,” said Mr Dott. “It’s an awful thing the speed of this modern world. When my father took the road it was on the outside of a beast, not in a varnished contrivance on wheels, and little it mattered to him, honest man, whether he was an hour late or a day late. But nowadays we must scour the country as if the devil were behind us, and if there’s a crack in our perjink plans the whole edifice goes blaff. Bethankit that I go no farther than Berwick, so I’m near my goal.”

  Mr Lammas, watching bitterly the stagnant rump of the young mare, asked if Mr Dott’s business would be concluded there.

  “Not precisely, but Berwick will be my headquarters. I have a journey to make into the adjacent hills. A queer bit, Professor. Heard you ever such a name as Hungrygrain in Yonderdale?”

  Mr Lammas was stirred to attention. Where had he met these uncouth syllables? He searched his memory and recollected. Last night Lord Mannour had named the place as the home of the Delilah who had enchanted Lord Belses. Here was one who could give him valuable news.

  “Strangely enough I have heard the name before. Isn’t it the property of a Mrs Cranmer?” He spoke with studied negligence, for the topic might be uncongenial to his companion.

  But Mr Dott showed no embarrassment.

  “Not precisely. Hungrygrain is the property of Justin Cranmer, Esquire, a justice of the peace and a deputy-lieutenant for the county of Northumberland, and formerly of his Majesty’s 2nd Regiment of Foot. Of him I know nothing, but report says that he is another than a good one. My business is with his lady, Gabriel Cornelia Lucy Perceval or Cranmer — it’s surely a daft-like thing to christen a woman after an archangel — in her own right mistress of Overy Hall in the county of Norfolk, a far better estate than Hungrygrain.”

  “You know this Mrs Cranmer — you have seen her?” Mr Lammas asked eagerly.

  “Never set eyes on her, but numerous letters have passed atween us. You’ll be wondering, maybe, what a country writer in Scotland has to do with a great English lady. The matter is simple. Mrs Cranmer, through her mother, who was a Hamilton of Mells, heired some sheep-farms at the head of Waucht water, which I have the factoring of, as my father had before me. The rental’s good enough, but there has aye been some factious dispute about the marches, and I’ve long had her instructions to sell if I could get a good bid. I’ve got the bid, but the deil’s in her to clinch it, for the lady is like a bog-blitter, here the day and gone the morn. So when I heard she was at Hungrygrain I sent her a letter saying I proposed to wait on her in person, got the papers together, packed my pockmanty, and here I am. A chaise to Yonderdale, which is somewhere up in the Cheviot hills, an hour with her ladyship, and then I can birl home with an easy mind.”

  The dreariest journey has its end, and the sociable was now on high ground, looking down on a plain where a broad river twined among meadows. Suddenly they found themselves on the edge of the town of Berwick, walled and ramparted like a fortress, with red roofs shining agreeably in the morning sun. They entered by the Scotch Gate and came into a broad street which was full of bustle, for a fish market was being held along one side, and from it rose the voices of vendors accustomed at sea to shout against the wind, a babble punctuated oddly by a bugle blown from the adjacent barracks. They passed the Red Lion with its flapping sign, admired the Town Hall with its elegant piazza, turned into Hide Hill, and drew up before the broad entry of the King’s Arms.

  “So this is Berwick,” remarked Mr Dott. “A burgh-town that cost Scotland muckle good blood. It’s waesome to think that our old enemies of England have got it safe in their pouch at last.”

  They were the first at the tryst, for, as they were giving their bags to the boots, who had informed them that there were rooms at their disposal, Jock Kinloch’s fiery face appeared on the kerb. He had changed his fisherman’s clothes for the kind of thing he wore at Kinloch — corduroy pantaloons and stout shoes, an ill-cut grass-green coat, and a white hunting stock. “Nothing but my old duds,” he lamented, “and me with a new suit from McKimmie’s lying in camphor. Come on, Nanty, for we’ve no time to lose — the south coach will be starting in half an hour. I had a job to persuade Eben to set me here, for he doesn’t like Berwick — that was why we put in for water this morning up the coast. He says the Meadow Haven is like hell — you can get in fine and easy, but it’s damned hard to get out.”

  While Mr Dott entered the inn, Jock took Mr Lammas at a round pace to the Red Lion, cleaving his way through the market frequenters like the forefoot of a ship through yeasty seas. In the yard of that hostelry stood the Highflyer ready for its horses, with the baggage already strapped in its place. Mr Lammas noted the chaise which he had seen that morning on Kitterston hill, and which an ostler was washing under the instructions of a gentleman’s servant. Jock, a little flustered, led the way in by a side door, and the two found themselves in a low-ceilinged hall from which a broad staircase led to the upper floors. It was empty, and he was just about to dive into a pantry in search of some servant to conduct him to the ladies, when he saw something which made him straighten his back and pull off his hat. A party was descending the stairs.

  Miss Georgie had swathed herself again for the road in clothes like a polar explorer’s, but Miss Kirsty had donned a lighter travelling cloak in the shape of a long pelisse of brown velvet, which was open in front and gave a glimpse of a pale-yellow muslin gown. Round her throat she wore a muslin kerchief like a small ruff which made a fitting base for her handsome head. Amazingly handsome she was, all ripe and golden, with her exquisite skin and bright hair and merry, commanding blue eyes. There was a flush on her face, and she was smiling, and the glimpse of white teeth between red lips increased her brilliance. Mr Lammas was impressed, but he was not dazzled, for he remembered Pitten’s words about her ancestry. There was in her beauty a promise of coming heaviness. Some day this radiant creature might be too fair of flesh, when the girlish lines had coarsened, and the peach-bloom of the complexion had gone. Even now there was just a hint of over-ripeness.

  She had been given the arm of a very splendid creature. Sir Turnour Wyse, having shed his dreadnought and submitted to the attentions of his valet, shone like Phoebus in his strength. He had a strong square face, a thought too full in the cheeks, but most wholesomely browned by weather. There was nothing flamboyant in his appearance. His dark hair, cut short in the sportsman’s style, was innocent of pomatum; his fine white hands had but the one ring; he had a plain bunch of seals at his fob. And yet everything about him breathed an air of extreme fashion, the finest and most workmanlike fash
ion. His coat, cut full about the pockets and of some tint between plum and claret, fitted his broad shoulders like a glove. His plain neckcloth was perfectly tied, and his long hunting waistcoat had not a crease in it. His breeches were elegantly shaped, his boots seemed moulded to his legs, and his tops had the bloom of a horse-chestnut. But the man’s clothes, even his figure and face, were the least of him; what made him impressive was his air of arrogant, well-bred security. Here was one whom none of life’s checks would find wanting.

  There followed, in those few minutes before the horses were put to the Highflyer, a scene which made Mr Lammas’s spine cold with misery.

  Jock Kinloch stepped forward, and it was at once apparent to his friend that he could not meet the situation. He looked shabby, flustered, provincial.

  “Kirsty,” he cried, and his voice faltered. “Are you all right, my dear? I heard of your mishap, and I’m here to offer my services.”

  It was Miss Georgie who replied, and she was clearly no friend of Jock’s. “Thank you kindly, Mr John,” she said with acid in her voice, “but we have no need of your services. Miss Evandale is on the road to the metropolis, and she has made all arrangements. What, may I make bold to speir, are you doing in Berwick when you should be at your books?”

  She had reduced him to the undergraduate, the hobbledehoy who had intruded himself upon his elders. Jock flushed and looked piteously at Miss Kirsty. But that young lady was under the glamour of a new and prodigious experience, and she had no eyes for him. Or rather she had eyes only to dazzle, not to welcome, and for this purpose Jock was poor game. He was a slave whom she had long ago mastered and who might now be sent back to the servants’ quarters. But her voice was friendly, with the casual friendliness with which one addresses a faithful but officious dog.

  “I am obliged,” she said, “but I have no call to make on your good nature. My aunt and I are about to take coach for the south. We are London-bound. We intend to pay a visit on the way. We shall meet, no doubt, come October at the fox-cubbing.”