by John Buchan
But, though he was a little stiff and the fire was gracious after the stormy out-of-doors, Sir Turnour did not doze. Instead he indulged in day-dreams. The shining form of Miss Kirsty Evandale tripped through the corridors of his fancy. He had never had the name of a woman-fancier — more stirring occupations had filled his time. On the whole women had bored him with their airs and graces, their extravagant demands, their exigent charms. He did not even greatly admire the female form — too full of meaningless curves and cushions, too bottle-shouldered and heavy-hipped — a well-made man seemed to him a far finer creation of God. He could talk to them, banter them, take his pleasure with them, but none had ever touched his heart. But the girl that morning — she differed from any other woman he had ever known! She walked like a free creature, she was ripe and vital and yet fresh as a spring flower, a dainty being yet wholesome as a blood-horse, and she had the most darling laughing eyes! Sir Turnour found himself moved to poetry, and strove to dig Latin tags out of his Harrow memories.
Suddenly his dream was broken. The door had opened and a stranger had entered.
Sir Turnour saw a tall man, booted and spurred and much splashed with mire, who brought into the warm room the tang of sharp weather. His shoulders were a little bent as if he were much in the saddle, and his hair, like Sir Turnour’s, was cut as short as a groom’s. But his dress, though plain, was not rustic, and he bore himself with dignity and assurance. His face was a fine oval, a little heavy perhaps at the chin; he had a small mouth and full lips, which were parted as if he were perpetually on the brink of a smile. But the notable feature was his pallor, a dead white which accentuated the darkness of his hair and eyes. It was a surprising face, for it had a beauty rare in his sex, the delicacy of a woman combined with a most masculine authority.
“Childe Harold,” thought Sir Turnour, as he hove himself out of his chair. “Or his creator?” He had stripped the young Lord Byron of many a guinea at the Cocoa Tree.
The two men bowed, and the new-comer held out his hand.
“Sir Turnour Wyse?” he said. “I am honoured to make your acquaintance, sir. Your fame has travelled even to these moorland solitudes. Your message was delivered to me, and I hastened to wait upon you to receive your commands. Would to heaven I could offer you the hospitality of Hungrygrain, but alas, at the moment my household is in confusion and no fit lodging for a gentleman.” He shrugged his shoulders as if to imply a host of petty disasters needless to recount. “In what way can I serve you, sir?”
“I am deeply obliged, Mr Cranmer. My errand is simple and should be short. I desire an interview on a strictly private matter with one whom I believe to be at present your guest. But since the affair has a certain unpleasantness, I thought it common courtesy first of all to acquaint you with my purpose and to desire your assent to it.”
Mr Cranmer looked puzzled.
“A guest? Hungrygrain has few guests.”
“I will be explicit. The gentleman I seek is my lord Belses.”
The other frowned and seemed to meditate. Then the nascent smile on his lips broadened into a laugh.
“Belses! The Snowdoun hopeful! My dear sir, you have come on a curious errand. Now I think of it I have heard some tale of a quarrel between you and his callow lordship — I returned only the other day from town — it was common gossip in the clubs. But what whim possessed you to think that you would find the cub here?”
“I had information in Scotland that he was at your house.” Sir Turnour was trying to decide just how much he disliked this dark Adonis.
Mr Cranmer bent his brows so that they made a straight line beneath his pale forehead.
“Sir Turnour,” he said, “we are two men of the world and can speak frankly. You have heard rumours of some connection between this Lord Belses and my family? I will not particularise, for the topic, as you will understand, is painful to me. But I ask you, is it likely that I would receive in my house one to whom such gossip attaches? Do I look like a man who would tamely consent to be cuckolded under his own roof-tree?”
Mr Cranmer drew himself up, and his pose was that of indignant virtue, a chivalrous and noble wrath. Sir Turnour had seen just that same pose in admired actors on the London stage. But all the time there was that lurking smile at his lips. He realised that he disliked him exceedingly.
“You can assure me that Lord Belses is not at Hungrygrain?”
“After what I have said another man might take your question as an insult, but I can make allowance for your natural irritation. You have been shamelessly misled, Sir Turnour. Lord Belses is not now in my house and never has been. Were he in my power, I should be the first to deliver him to you for just punishment. . . . That is my answer, and I rejoice that it will save you a longer stay in these poor quarters in this doleful weather.”
He held out his hand. Sir Turnour took it ungraciously, but did not forget his manners.
“I am about to dine,” he said. “Will you join me?”
“I thank you, but I have already dined — at our unfashionable Northumbrian hour. I bid you good-day, Sir Turnour, and I wish you speedily better luck in your mission.”
A minute later there was the sound of departing hooves on the cobbles of the inn yard. Sir Turnour did not resume his armchair, for he was profoundly discomposed. His information about Belses had come to him from a sure source, he had implicitly believed it, and had looked forward to bringing a tiresome affair to a proper close. But now he must resume his quest — after a snubbing. For this damned play-actor had snubbed him, had taken a high line with him, had proved him deficient in the finer feelings of a gentleman. . . . What had he heard about Cranmer? A complaisant husband. A bumpkin whose heart was in some provincial hunt. Had there not been a story, too, of heavy drinking? Yet the man’s appearance had not suggested these things. He looked active, shrewd, formidable. He had the air of one accustomed to good society. His pallor could scarcely come from a disordered liver, for his physique was vigorous, a point on which the baronet was no small authority.
Dinner was served, but Sir Turnour did scant justice to the meal. His appetite had mysteriously gone, and even the excellent port did not improve his spirits. The memory rankled of an interview in which he felt that he had shown at some disadvantage. . . . This Cranmer, could he trust him? Was he lying? But why should he lie? He could have no reason to protect Belses. . . . The one thing clear in his mind was that he detested Cranmer as vigorously as he had ever detested a fellow mortal, the more vigorously because he had no just cause for his dislike. Sir Turnour was a good-humoured man, and a hatred so irrational and intense made him uncomfortable.
The table was cleared, and he sat sipping his port in the armchair by the fire. His confused thoughts and the heat of the lamplit, shuttered room presently made him drowsy, and he thought of ringing for Jarvis to put him to bed.
Then came a small knock at the door. It opened to admit the hesitating form of a little man in a great-coat, a man with a nutcracker jaw and prominent goggle eyes.
CHAPTER VIII. In Which the Hunter Meets the Hunted
Sir Turnour stared at the singular figure which was now inside the room and busy with apologetic shuffles and bows. He seemed to be a small man of the professional class, a country doctor maybe, for sober black apparel was revealed under the flapping great-coat.
“Your pardon, sir,” said the figure. “I’m sure I beg your pardon for intruding on you. But I’m seeking the landlord, and this hostel is as short of folk as a kirk on Monday.”
Sir Turnour did not rise from his chair. He had no mind to have his private chamber treated as a taproom.
“I know nothing of the landlord’s whereabouts,” he said coldly. “I have the honour to wish you good night, sir.”
“But I cannot find him,” the little man wailed. “No, nor a Jock or Jenny to do my business. The place is as deserted as the grave. And find somebody I must, for I cannot wait.”
Sir Turnour grew cross. “What concern have I with your business?
What do you want?”
“Brandy,” was the answer.
“Confound your impudence. Do you take me for a drawer?”
“No, no, your honour.” The little man shrunk back as if he feared that the formidable presence in the chair would do him a mischief. “I was just seeking help from a fellow-Christian. The brandy is not for myself, but for a young gentleman that has gotten a sore clout on the head and now lies in a dwam.”
“Where is he?” In spite of himself Sir Turnour’s interest was awakened.
“He’s bedded at the manse.”
“The what?”
“The manse. The minister’s house. They have a manse here, though it’s not Scotland. And the wife there, who seems to have some skill of medicine, says the lad must have a cordial if he is to sleep off his weakness.”
A fantastic suspicion entered Sir Turnour’s mind.
“Who is this young man? Describe him.”
Mr Dott came a step farther into the room as he saw the baronet’s severity relax.
“That’s just what we don’t know. He came out of the wood an hour syne stottering like a palsied man, and all bloody about the forehead, and before we could speir who he was he spins round like a peery and goes off into a dwam. He’s just a laddie, your honour, and a gentleman, if I’m any judge of gentility.”
“Describe his appearance.”
“Very dirty and dishevelled, for he had been among the sheughs and craigs of the burnside. But let me see. . . . Yellow hair — I think it would be yellow, under the blood and mire. A small whitish face, and a kind of thin gentry nose. He had on him a good stand of clothes, though they had had rough usage, and his hands were as fine as a lassie’s.
“His height?”
“About the same as your own, but he’s a lath of a lad, and not buirdly like your honour.”
Mr Dott was gaining confidence. He had now recognised the man before him as the god from the machine who had intervened on Kitterston hill, and he had resolved to appeal for aid to one who was such a master of circumstance. Sir Turnour’s suspicion was growing into a certainty. His dislike of Justin Cranmer had made him violently distrustful of every word that gentleman had spoken. The man had lied to him, and he was not wont to let a lie go unpunished. For the moment he saw in Cranmer a more fitting object of his wrath than the youth who had been the purpose of his journey.
But Sir Turnour’s face was schooled to impassivity, and Mr Dott read in it none of these changing emotions. He saw in it only reflection, and it gave him hope.
“I have already seen your honour twice this day,” he said. “I was in the Mail when it coupit on Kitterston hill, and your honour came biding up like Jehu. And you passed me on the road about midday when yon ne’er-do-well from the King’s Arms was driving me here. It’s a sore time of night to disturb a gentleman, but if you could find it in your heart to do a Christian act by the poor lad . . . help me to get some brandy in this house . . . or maybe—”
Sir Turnour was on his feet, shouting for his servant, who appeared at once from the bedroom.
“Where is this manse, or whatever you call it?”
“Oh, just a step — less than a mile — a wee bit ayont the burn.”
“My boots,” he told his valet. “And get me the flask of eau-de-vie from my dressing-case. I am going out for an hour. See that the fire is kept bright, and have a glass of punch ready for my return. . . . I have not the favour of your name, Sir. Dott? Well, Mr Dott, I will accompany you to the parsonage, and have a look at the sick man. I may know something about him. And since broken heads are going in these parts, we will take precautions.”
When he had been assisted into his boots, Sir Turnour buckled under his coat a brace of pistols.
There was little talk between the two as they threaded a track through the dene much clogged with tree-roots. The baronet was occupied in nursing his wrath against Justin Cranmer, his dislike of whom was fast growing to a passion. He had never felt in this way towards Belses, whom he had considered a puppy that must taste the whip, but otherwise a mere unpleasing accident like the toothache. But Cranmer was grown man and formidable man; no mistake about that, for he had the wary eye of the duellist and the face of one not accustomed to refusal. He had been polite but arrogant, that confounded hedge-squire. Sir Turnour had longed at the time to fasten some quarrel on him, and if he had been lied to, here was ample cause for quarrel. Also the track was infernal. Mr Dott in stout high-lows, well nailed by the Waucht cobbler, made good going, but Sir Turnour’s smooth-soled riding boots were perpetually slipping on the sodden earth.
At the manse door they were met by the house-keeper.
“Ha’e ye brocht the brandy?” she demanded of Mr Dott.
“Aye, and I’ve brought a gentleman to give us a hand.”
The woman cast one look at Sir Turnour’s massive figure in the moonlight, and then bobbed a curtsey. She recognised someone of a type not often seen in Yonderdale.
“He’s come to himsel’,” she whispered. “The minister’s wi’ him. He’s snug in the best bed, and I hae the milk for his cordial on the boil. Whaur’s the brandy?”
Sir Turnour drew from the pocket of his greatcoat a silver flask. “It is eau-de-vie I’ll warrant,” he said, “such as rarely visits Northumberland. Has the sick man spoken and told who he is?”
“No yet. He has gotten his speech but nae freedom wi’t. He cried out something about an angel — Gabriel, I think it was — and then he seemed to be feared for what he had said. But his een are gettin’ mair world-like, and the minister is guidin’ him back to sense. I heard the crack o’ the twae through the door. Yince he has had his cordial he’ll be a new man.”
“Will you lead me to him at once, my good woman?”
“When I’ve gotten his draught prepared, and that’ll no be a minute. Bide ye here, sir.”
The housekeeper retreated into her tiny kitchen, and a few moments later appeared with a steaming posset-cup which sent forth an agreeable odour of good brandy. She led the way up the steep staircase and opened a bedroom door. There was a sound of talk coming through the door, which ceased when it opened.
Sir Turnour and Mr Dott, following close on her heels, saw a little square room almost filled by a great uncurtained four-poster. Beside it sat the minister, and four candles guttered in the draught of the open window. Their light showed a young man in a flannel nightgown, whose face was paler than the bleached linen of the pillowslips. His forehead was bandaged and surmounted by an incongruous red night-cap. At first his figure was blocked by the housekeeper, who was feeding him from the posset-cup. When he had drained it he lay back again upon his pillow, and a faint colour returned to his cheeks.
Sir Turnour at the bottom of the bed was gazing earnestly at the face, which was now a little in dusk, since the table with the candles had been pushed aside. Doubt, recognition, and doubt again were in the baronet’s eyes. But the sick man put an end to all uncertainty. The baronet stood out clear in the candlelight, and the patient became suddenly conscious of his gaze. He pulled himself up in bed with such vigour as to displace his night-cap and set the candles rocking.
“Wyse, by all that’s lucky!” he cried. “Speak, man. Are you Wyse, or am I raving mad?”
“My name is Turnour Wyse,” was the answer. “We shall have something to say to each other, my lord, when you are fit for speech.”
The young man let his head drop back, and his newly revealed hair was, as Mr Dott had said, as yellow as a girl’s. He laughed, but not pleasantly; his laugh had discomfort in it, and fear, and a sharp anxiety.
“Have you come here for my sake?” he asked.
Sir Turnour bowed.
“I have requested satisfaction for an insult,” he said, “and that satisfaction has been withheld. I am not in the habit of letting such requests go unanswered. So since you chose to seclude yourself from me, I have been forced to come in search of you.”
He spoke firmly, and a little pompously, for these were
the words with which he had long proposed to open this particular conversation. But to his surprise, and indeed to his alarm, he felt, as he spoke, something of a fool. This pallid youth in the flannel nightgown seemed a poor quarry for so noted a hunter. He had set out to draw a badger and found a rabbit, and he discovered that he had no fury against the rabbit. Belses, trim and handsome and point-devise, with a coterie of affected youths behind him, had annoyed him extremely; but had he been the same being as this rag of a boy?
The housekeeper intervened.
“Ye maun let him sleep, sir. The posset will dae him nae guid if ye keep him conversin’.”
But the lad in the bed seemed to have got a new vigour which could not be due only to the milk and brandy. He raised himself on the pillows, and brought a slim boyish arm outside the blankets.
“I have that to say to this gentleman which cannot wait. . . . Sir Turnour, will you believe me when I tell you that I did not hide myself from you? I was not my own master. My family intervened. . . . When I could free myself I found an urgent duty laid on me, a matter of life and death. I would beg of you to let our affair lie over till my road is clear. Be assured that when the time comes I will give you all the satisfaction you desire.”
“A matter of honour does not permit of delay,” was the answer, very stiffly spoken.
“Then, if you refuse postponement, I must take the other way. You shall have your apology, as grovelling as you please. I will eat humble pie.”
