by John Buchan
Sir Turnour was scandalised. This rabbit was even poorer game than he had thought. He shrugged his fine shoulders, and on his comely face came an expression of surprised disgust.
“I had thought that I was dealing with a gentleman.” he said.
The young man laughed miserably.
“A gentleman! Yes, I fancied myself one, but God knows what the word means! There are some that claim it who most foully profane it.” . . . He stopped, for there was that in the other’s face, its confidence and simplicity and large honesty, which switched his thoughts on to a new track. It was as if he was for the first time seeing clearly the man before him.
“Listen to me, sir,” he said. “I respect the punctilios of honour and would observe them. But if I am faced with a desperate crisis I will discard these punctilios like an old coat and still claim the title of gentleman. . . . If I could secure not your forbearance only, but your active help in this crisis, there is no humility to which I would not bow. I would lick your boots, sir, and think I did honourably.”
Sir Turnour was in no way mollified. He had heard this kind of talk before, and did not like it; it savoured of poets and Jacobins and creatures of sentiment who had no place in his robust world. But the earnestness of the young man’s voice impressed him in spite of himself.
“What is this crisis?” he asked. “I must hear more about it before I answer you.”
The young man looked round the room.
“I am among friends, I believe — friends, and one honourable enemy. My host is a servant of God and this woman is a ministering angel. The fourth I do not know,” and he looked at Mr Dott, “but he has an honest face. I fling myself upon your mercy. To-night I have been near death, but that is a small affair. There is worse than death in the house of Hungrygrain. There is an incarnate devil, and torture, and despair.”
“Large words,” said Sir Turnour. “Condescend to explain yourself.” But he was not wholly sceptical, for he had a notion that he had recently met the devil referred to.
Colour had come back to the young man’s face. He addressed the housekeeper. “I am perishingly hungry, for I have scarcely eaten to-day. Can you give me some bread and cheese?”
The woman expostulated. “Na, na, sir, it’s sleep ye need. Ye should hae naething on your stomach but the het milk.”
“But I am too hungry to sleep — and too hungry to speak — and speak I must. Already I feel a new man, but an empty one.”
Sir Turnour intervened.
“You were struck on the head — how long ago?”
“Four hours, perhaps.”
“And since then?”
“I have been chased.”
“And you fainted when you came here, and were senseless for half an hour? Your case is plain, sir. You have had a small concussion, which took some hours to affect you. I have suffered the same thing myself in the ring and in the hunting field. Once I went for three days with a concussion on me, pursuing my ordinary life, and then suddenly fainted dead away on the bench at Quarter Sessions, and it was an hour before I came to myself. Food will do you no harm, provided your meal is light.”
“There’s a mutton ham in the house, Marget,” said the minister. “Bring it, and some of your new scones. It’s far past my bedtime, but I think I could take a bite myself.”
Ten minutes later four pairs of jaws were busy in the little room, for even Sir Turnour had accepted a slice of mutton ham and a glass of ale. Belses, propped up on his pillows, looked wholesome enough except for his anxious eyes.
“Cranmer is at Hungrygrain — and his wife,” he said.
“I came here to see her on business,” said the aggrieved Mr Dott. “They said she was not here. There’s some unholy liars in this glen.”
“There is devilry afoot there,” Belses went on, “and she is being tortured to make her comply with it. I speak of your Squire.” He turned to the minister. “Have you anything to say in his favour?”
The old man shook his head. “I have not spoken to him for years,” he said. The housekeeper pursed her lips. “I’ll speak nae ill, but I ken nae guid o’ him.”
“You know nothing of him? No one does. He goes through the world with a mask on his face, which he removes only in this valley. Tell me, Sir Turnour, what repute has Justin Cranmer in your world?”
The baronet shrugged his shoulders. “He has the name of a rustic booby. At Mortimer’s they say he is too fond of lifting his elbow.”
“I have heard that — that is the repute he wants — but it is a lie, a monstrous lie. The man is cold and temperate and a deep schemer, but what his schemes are I cannot tell. . . . But I must go back in my tale.” The boy pressed a hand on his bandaged forehead as if to clear his recollections.
“I met Cranmer first eighteen months ago in Italy, and for a little we travelled together. He had some kind of business, I do not know what, but he was often absent from his lodgings and he had dealings with a strange medley of people. He was civil and not ill-educated, and he made a great parade of attention to his wife. The lady — but I will not speak of her,” he added as he saw Sir Turnour’s face harden. “For the moment, I am content to be neutral on the matter. It is enough to say that she has no single quality in common with her husband.
“We parted, and met again in Bruges. There Mr Cranmer’s activities were increased, and among the company he kept were some who were not fit associates for his wife. He seemed to cultivate my acquaintance and make public parade of it as if it were some sort of protection. There was one man who was much with him — Aymer was the name he went by there — an evil fellow who stank of a false bonhomie. And there were others who roused my gorge and from whom Mrs Cranmer seemed to shrink. Yet she was deep in her husband’s business, whatever it was — they often consulted together — I have seen her head bent beside his over papers. I could make nothing of it, for he is common flawed earthenware at the best, and she — she, by your leave, sir, is saint and angel.”
Sir Turnour frowned. “On that point let us keep our neutrality — it is your own word. I would hear more of the husband.”
“In London I renewed my acquaintance with the Cranmers at their house in Great George Street. The man was much away from home, and I understood that he was visiting his properties in the north, but when we met he was uncommonly civil and seemed to have the design of throwing me much into the company of his wife. At first I did not actively dislike him. My feeling was rather distrust and lack of comprehension, for I could not reconcile the repute he seemed to cultivate as a bon vivant and simple sportsman with the glimpses I had of the man in undress. In these latter I detected a subtle brain and some mysterious consuming purpose. Also there were moments when his affection for the lady seemed to ring hollow, and I have found her often with the mark of tears on her face and with terror in her eyes. You must understand that she was all kindness and innocence—”
“We will let her innocence be.”
“No, sir, but you must hear me on that, for it is most germane to my story. I formed the opinion that, just as he was intent on making a particular public repute for himself, so he was busy making one for his wife. He would twit her with Jacobinical opinions and quote her sayings in company — sometimes jocularly, sometimes ruefully, for he himself posed as a staunch Government man. Sometimes he would carry her with him to the north, and from these visits she would return a pale ghost, like one who has been in a torture-chamber. Or they would visit her own house in Norfolk, to which she professed a deep attachment, but, judging from the effect on her, these journeys were not in the nature of holidays. I was driven to conclude that Mr Cranmer was engaged in affairs in which he forced his wife to take part, and that that part was hateful to her. And I could not think that these affairs were honest.”
“You have evidence on that point?”
“None fit for a court of law. Only suspicions. I had enquiries made, but the tracks were well concealed. Twice I have seen in Great George Street the man I knew in Bruges as Aymer
— stumbled upon him as it were by an accident, which Cranmer did not regard as fortunate. But I found out one thing. His name in London is not Aymer.”
Sir Turnour laughed. “You are clearly no great success as a spy, sir.”
The other shook his head mournfully. “I am not. I know little of the underworld of the town, and the thing was too delicate to permit me to call in helpers. But day by day my conviction grew. I was assured that the lady was in deep unhappiness, and that it was her husband’s doing. I burned with indignation at the character he was getting her. But I was like a man striving with a feather bed, for there was nothing hard at which I could strike. . . . Then came certain incidents with which you are familiar. I will cut my story short, for it is only the conclusion that matters. My family laid hold on me with private lettres de cachet, and I was consigned to the family bastille. There word reached me that the Cranmers had gone to Northumberland. My mind was in a fever. I cannot tell why, but I had a fixed belief that with this journey northward some tragedy was approaching its climax, and that the lady was in desperate danger. . . . I broke from my prison. The house in Great George Street was shuttered, and tenanted only by the old man Cottle, who acted as steward. From him I had confirmation of the journey. . . . Also I found at my lodgings a letter from Mrs Cranmer.”
“She begged you to follow her?” Sir Turnour’s tone was cynical.
“She begged me to forget her and never think of her more. It was the completest congé a man ever had. But between the lines I read that her heart was broken and that she was in some deadly peril. From Cottle I had directions for the road, so without an hour’s delay I posted north.”
“From spy you became Bow Street runner?” Sir Turnour, himself a truthful man, bowed to veracity in another. Cottle had been, at various times, his own informant. “What, in God’s name, did you hope to accomplish by rushing blindly upon the seclusion of husband and wife?”
“‘Pon my soul, I don’t know.” There was a flush now on the young man’s face. “I was distraught. I could not think. I had no plan. I only knew that I must act or go mad. I rode the north road like Dick Turpin, and left some weary cattle behind me. Three days ago — it was Sunday night — I reached Hungrygrain as the dark was falling, having lost my way in those ultimate moorlands. I was alone, without a servant. The place was so silent that it seemed deserted, but I was aware that my approach had not been unobserved, and that the neighbourhood was full of eyes. And now, sir, I became an actor in an extravagant play — God send it be not a tragedy!”
Belses stopped and again put his hand to his forehead. “Let me get the stages clear, for it still seems a sort of whirligig. . . . I was admitted after a long parley by a shaggy serving-man who looked to be apter at cutting throats than at waiting table. The house was bare and in confusion, as if its occupants were about to start on a journey. I asked for the master, and had to kick my heels for an hour in an ill-lit chamber as cold as a tomb. By and by Cranmer came to me, and he was no longer the suave gentleman I had known. His face was black with suspicion and his tone was a menace. Why in hell had I come uninvited, poking my nose into another’s affairs? I was amazed, for an unexpected visit of one gentleman to another is not commonly construed as a threat, yet that was how Mr Cranmer took my arrival. I felt that I had had good warrant for my forebodings. I made a story of a hasty journey into Scotland, the road missed, and a recollection that he dwelt in the vicinity, but I could see that I was not believed. I enquired for his lady, and was told that she was not there, but had gone to her house in Norfolk. Then I thought he would have put me to the door and left me to find a lodging in the dark. But he seemed to change his mind, though with no access of graciousness. I was bidden stay the night, and conducted by the same bear of a servant to a little room up many cold stone stairs. I had a solitary meal — and was left to my own devices. I found the door locked and myself a prisoner.”
Sir Turnour had awakened to a lively interest. He had sat himself on a corner of the bed, and now leaned forward that he might not miss a word.
“In the morning I was given breakfast, but when I bade the man leave the door unlocked he only grinned. He was obeying Squire’s orders. He added in a guttural dialect, far coarser than our Scots, that I must bide till Squire came for me. All that day I looked out of a narrow window on the bare green face of a hill. Below was a stream and a path beside it, and some ruinous sheepfolds. People passed — not many — rough countryfolk — and the house with its massive walls was utterly silent. Yet I was conscious that a fierce life was going on in it somewhere and that something was preparing which concerned me most urgently. When my evening meal was brought — like a dog I was given but the two meals a day — I tried to force my way past the servant. But I was no match for him in strength. His great arms plucked me back and set me in a corner like a naughty child.
“By the second morning I was desperate. I professed to be ill, and demanded an interview with the Squire. Cranmer did not come, but instead a tall surly fellow who spoke the King’s English and seemed to be something of a doctor. When he saw that my trouble was of the mind rather than of the body, he laughed and turned his back on me. But he knew who I was, for he called me ‘my lord.’ ‘Keep quiet for a day or two,’ he said, ‘and no harm will come to you. A few nights in Hungrygrain will cool your blood, which in a young man is apt to be hottest in the spring.’
“There was no hope of escape by the door, which was solid as a rock. I turned to the window, and at first I saw no better chance there. It was flush with the wall, and had no ledge; when I craned my neck upward I found that the coping of the roof was at least twenty feet above me. The ground was perhaps thirty feet beneath — no great distance, but I had nothing with which to make a rope, for I was not a story-book hero to fashion cords out of bedclothes with no tool but my teeth and fingers. I had a thought of trying the drop, but the landing seemed hard, and a broken leg I thought would not better my position.
“So the second night came and I was still without hope. The next morning a strange thing happened. In the ground floor, or in the cellar beneath it, there must have been some store-house for fuel, for in the forenoon three country carts arrived laden with peats and proceeded to unload underneath my window. The shovelling of the stuff into the store-house was left for a later day, and in the meantime they merely decanted their loads in a great heap and went away. In that heap I saw my chance, for it made an irregular mound some ten feet high. I had now not more than twenty feet to drop, and something soft to fall on. The weather had changed, and violent flurries of rain swept down the glen, which would be nearly as good a concealment as the dark of night. I waited till the air was thick with drizzle, so that a man could not see a yard, and then ventured. The falling was not as soft as I had hoped, and I jarred every bone, but broke none. I got the peat dust out of my eyes, and started out to reconnoitre.
“My first impulse was to find my horse, or some body’s horse, and put many miles, between myself and that accursed dwelling. . . . And then a doubt struck me. Cranmer had said that his wife was in Norfolk, but he might have lied. I could not leave the place without an effort to make certain, for if his doings there were so sinister that he thought it necessary to make me prisoner, the lady, if she was in Hungrygrain, might be in an evil case. I remembered the tears I had seen in her eyes, and the shadow of terror. I could not leave till I was certain of her absence.
“So in the screen of the rain and mist I crept along the house wall. First I came to a great ruinous tower which I took to be the old peel, and which was certainly not lived in. My passage was difficult, for I had to climb into and out of a cabbage garden which lay beneath the tower. Then I found myself on the other side of the building at what I took to be the front. Rough pasture came up to the walls, but there were signs that once there had been some kind of a pleasance. Then, as ill-luck would have it, the rain storm passed and the sun came out. I dared not go farther, so I dropped down in a tuft of evergreens to wait for the next showe
r.
“As I sat there, two figures crossed the grass. One was the tall man who had visited me the previous day. He wore a leather cap with the flaps tied down over his ears, and under his arm he carried a gun like a gamekeeper. The other was the man I had known at Bruges as Aymer, and whose name in London had been Vallance. He was bareheaded, dressed roughly in country style, and he had a pen stuck behind his ear. He seemed to have come out of doors for a breath of air in the blink of fine weather. I could not mistake the large mottled face and the thick, grey, tufted eyebrows.
“Then the sky clouded and the rain began more fiercely than ever. Now was my chance, so in the cover of it I approached the house again. I calculated that I must be near the entrance — or one entrance — so I moved with caution. Most of the ground-floor windows were shuttered. The first unshuttered one opened on a kind of gun-room, for it was full of old saddlery and poles for otter hunting, and on the walls were guns and fishing rods. In the next I saw a glint of fire, and, as I raised my head above the sill, the profile of a human face.
“There were several people in the room, but in the thick weather they showed very dim, for the glass of the window was foul, and the fire was only a glow of peats. Then someone called for a light and a lamp was set on the table. I saw Cranmer plain. He was seated in a big armchair with a long pipe in his hand, and a glass of wine at his elbow. There was a decanter on the table, and the others had glasses. One I think was Aymer, but I am not clear, and I did not consider the rest, for my eyes were held by a figure at the back, who sat pen in hand as if waiting for instructions. It was Mrs Cranmer, and if ever a human countenance revealed a soul in torment it was hers. Her eyes had a blindish look as if she were trying to divert her mind from some fear by nursing a hope or a memory. But she was not succeeding. She was on the rack, and at any moment nerve and will might crack in an agony of panic.
“I lay crouched on the ground trying to think. It would be no good to enter the house, for I should only be again a prisoner. I must get away and find succour. But where? And how? Who would believe me? What friends had the lady other than myself? I could think of none, but her helplessness filled me with such fury that I was determined that if need be I would save her alone, though I should have to do murder, and though it cost me my life. My resolution was so white-hot that it made me calm. Not a minute could be wasted, for I had a sense that whatever evil was coming would come soon. I must get away from this glen to some place where Christians dwelt. I knew nothing of the countryside, but I remembered that the Yonder flowed east to the sea, and by the sea there must be towns and civilisation. Being a Scotsman I had the points of the compass in my head, so I turned east and doubled across the grass to the cover of a wood.
