by John Buchan
“The rain had abated a little, and I could see perhaps fifty yards around me. So, alas, could other people. Suddenly I realised that Cranmer had his sentinels posted, for before I reached the wood a whistle was blown and answered by another, and I saw a man leap out of a clump of evergreens to intercept me. My passion had made me calm, as I have said, and also vigilant. I am light on my feet and a good runner, and I have stalked the red deer with my cousins of Breadalbane; and can hold my own with any ghillie. At that game I was not afraid of a loutish Northumbrian. . . . But I had not allowed for my ignorance of the ground. I easily gave the slip to my first pursuer, and entered the wood, which was carpeted with blaeberries and young heather. I reached a stream which I crossed by a plank bridge, and was just stopping to get my breath when I almost fell into the arms of a fellow who was running up the left bank. With the enemy also behind me, I was compelled to re-cross the water. The flood was rising and I was all but swept down into an ugly cataract, but I caught a birch root on the far bank and pulled myself up to a rocky shelf, above which I saw the steep lift of the hill.
“It was there that I nearly met my end. For a man was waiting for me, a man with a great ironshod staff. I swerved, and he struck at me — struck to kill, for if I had fallen I should have gone over the cataract. By the mercy of God his blow did not hit me squarely, but sidelong on the edge of the forehead, tearing my scalp and blinding me with blood. But the sting of it steadied me, for it was more sting than shock. I slipped from him, staggered along the shelf till I found open ground, and then breasted the hill. He was a heavy fellow and, shaken though I was, I had the pace of him.
“By that time the darkness had come. I laboured upwards, very sick in the pit of my belly, but when I had rested for a little and got the blood out of my eyes, I had some accession of strength. Near the summit of the hill I found a shelter among rocks, where I lay till the moon rose, for I was afraid of returning blindly on my tracks. After that I had a glimpse of the lie of the valley, and moved downstream, hoping soon to come upon a path. But presently I realised that the blow had been severer than I had thought, for I had a cruel pain in my eyes and began to stumble giddily. It was borne in on me that I must find a shelter, or I would swoon upon the hillside and be taken, for I was certain that Cranmer would have his hounds out after me and beat every covert in the glen. . . . There was a light beyond the stream which must come from a dwelling, and I decided that I would risk all and make for it and throw myself upon the charity of the householder.”
The young man smiled wanly.
“The rest of the tale you know. My instinct was true, for I have found friends. Friends — and one enemy, but all honest folk. I have had food and care, and now I must sleep, but I cannot close my eyes till I have made a plan. Am I safe here for the night? For be sure they will follow me.”
The housekeeper answered. “For the night, nae doubt. But after that I daurna say. Squire Cranmer has a lang airm.”
The minister shook his head. “This place is as open as an inn parlour, and there is no corner where you could be concealed. Somehow you must be off before dawn and make for Yondermouth, where you will be safe. They will not suspect your presence here for some hours. Beyond that I cannot advise you. You, sir,” and he looked towards Sir Turnour, “you are a man of the world, which I am not. Can you offer no counsel to this young man in his perplexity?”
The baronet had recovered his composure which had been momentarily disturbed by Belses’ story. He did not disbelieve it, for the voice had rung true, but he distrusted the narrator’s interpretation. He would have nothing to do with the whimsies of a romantic hobbledehoy.
“You have lived long in this place,” he addressed the minister. “Have you any warrant for thinking the squire a villain?”
“I am loath to suggest evil,” was the old man’s answer, “when I have no certain knowledge.”
“Tut, sir,” broke in the housekeeper, who had been strongly moved by Belses’ tale. “Ye needna be sae mim-mouthed. Naebody kens muckle o’ Squire’s works, but a’body kens that he’s anither than a gude yin. The fear o’ him lies like a cloud on Yonderdale. If ye stood in his road he’d thraw your neck like a hen’s.”
“Marget may be right,” said the old man. “If he has a failing, it perhaps leans in that direction.”
“Nevertheless, my lord, I think you are the victim of your own heated fancies.” Sir Turnour’s hard precise tones fell on the company like a blast of cold air. “You have chosen to idolise this lady, and you have imagined her a martyr to add to her charms. Since you are in love with her you must needs make a rogue of her husband.”
“He canna be in love wi’ her,” the housekeeper protested. “He’s a dacent young lad and she’s a married woman.”
“I do not question your facts, but your reading of them is a fairy-tale. You have offended somehow a boor, and, since he is a tyrant in this outlandish place, he has taken the ancient way of showing his displeasure. My advice to you is to make your best speed homewards, and put this Cranmer family for ever out of your mind. When we meet again in town I shall be ready to receive your apologies on the matter between us — or some better form of satisfaction. Meantime, since I see you are recovered, I shall return to bed. . . . You,” he turned to Mr Dott, “will have the goodness to show me the path to the bridge by which you brought me here.”
Sir Turnour rose to go. The boy in the bed made a last appeal.
“You are a gentleman, sir. You believe my word. Can you leave things in this posture? Will you not help me to — to save innocence from wrong?”
“No, my lord, I am too old and too wise to interfere in domestic brawls. For all I care Cranmer may be the death of his wife and swing for it — it is a result I should not deplore. I bid you good night, and you, Mr Parson, and I advise you to bustle this youth out of a neighbourhood which has become unhealthy.”
“Do you go too?” Belses cried after the retreating Mr Dott.
“No me. I’m coming back when I’ve set this gentleman on the road. Some time the morn I’ve got to see Mrs Cranmer on a small matter of business.”
Sir Turnour smiled, not unkindly. “‘Pon my honour, you’re a well-plucked attorney,” he said.
But the baronet, as he made his way, when his convoy had left him, up the steep track beyond the stream, was by no means in that mood of sceptical composure which his last words at the manse had suggested. The irritation against Belses, which had been for some days a thorn to his spirit, was now changed to a vigorous distaste for the Hungrygrain household. He disliked the woman from all he had heard of her, one of those emotional hussies who brought poor fools like Belses to grief. And for the husband he had acquired a strong detestation. The man was bully and tyrant, a disgusting fellow who ruled at his pleasure in this filthy solitude. That was perhaps no concern of his, for he was not a censor morum for rustic louts. But he had lied to him, lied grossly and insolently. That was to say, he had tried to bully him, him, Turnour Wyse, for whom the rest of the world had a wholesome respect. Could the thing be permitted to pass unchallenged? He thought not. It was borne in on him that before he left Yonderdale his dignity required that he should have some further speech with the master of Hungrygrain.
Sir Turnour threaded his way among the scrub in a very ugly temper. As he came out into a clearer patch of ground a branch caught his coat and pulled it apart, and three pairs of eyes, watching him with interest from the undergrowth, saw about his waist the belted pistols.
CHAPTER IX. Tells of a Dark Wood and a Dark Lady
The first lamps were beginning to twinkle in the Yondermouth cottages, and the riding-lights were lit in its little harbour when Nanty and his two companions took the road up the left bank of the Yonder, where in a marshy haugh it had become a tidal water noted for sea-trout. Behind them in the Merry Mouth, Eben Garnock was in conference with Davie Dimmock, the boat-builder, anent the damaged yard; it was his intention later in the night to slip up the coast in the cutter’s boat to
Hopcraw and prospect that secret haven.
Nanty wore his second-best pantaloons and his frieze gaiters, but in place of coat and waistcoat he had a knitted jersey strangely patterned in greys and browns which Eben had brought from the northern islands. Jock Kinloch was in the fisher’s clothes which he had worn that morning at the Kitterston inn, and Bob Muschat, a tawny young giant with arms like a gorilla’s, chose to travel barefoot — the soles of his feet, he said, being tougher than any shoe leather.
The cutter had stood well out from the land, and had escaped all but the fringe of the rain which cloaked the hills. Most of the voyage had been in blue weather, with a light wind on the starboard beam, and Nanty, sprawling on a heap of tarpaulins in the bows, had experienced the same lift of the heart that he had got the day before on the Burntisland packet. He dozed a little, but in spite of the night journey he did not crave sleep. The leagues of dancing water around him were a sufficient refreshment. This was very unlike the journey he had planned, a back-breaking coach ride from which he would have stiffly descended for grave conferences with Lord Snowdoun. It was something far better, for he had been whirled into the caprices of a boy’s dream. He was not neglecting duty, for he had Lord Mannour’s instructions, but he wondered what his colleagues in the Senatus would say if they could see his present quarters and company. Eben was splicing a rope, looking like a patriarch from a lost world, Jock Kinloch was peeling potatoes and singing snatches of dubious songs, and Bob Muschat at the tiller was the eternal seafarer who has not changed since the first hollowed log first adventured on the water. Nanty had the feeling that he had slipped back through a crack in time to a life which he had tried a hundred years ago. It was comforting and familiar and yet desperately exciting. He had a small quiver of fear somewhere in his blood, for his three companions, even Jock, were of a tougher breed than his own. “I’ve read too many books,” he told himself, “and spoken too many idle words. God help me, but I mustn’t shame them.”
They had their evening meal riding at anchor behind the small breakwater of Yondermouth, and as the dark fell Eben set the three ashore a little way up the Yonder estuary. It was now that there descended upon Nanty an afflatus of which he was half ashamed. When he stretched his legs over the first miles of furzy common he could have sung; when before moonrise the darkness closed in thicker upon them and they all stumbled over ditches and tussocks, he wanted to roar with laughter. The others plodded stolidly on, but he strode with a shepherd’s heather-step, and there were moments when he longed to run, so compelling did he feel the vitality in blood and sinew.
They reached a track, a faint marking in the bent, and swung to the left. “The road frae Hopcraw,” said Bob, who acted as guide. A mile or two farther and they crossed a highway. “The Alnwick road,” said Bob. A little way on the first flush of the moon lit up the sky. Beyond them the lift of the hills was plain, and a dark cleft which was the opening of Yonderdale. The bracken was wet, for they were now within the orbit of the day’s rain. “There’s been a deluge,” said Bob, “and the burns will be up. Yonder can be whiles as dry as the Well Wynd at Pittenweem, and whiles it’s a fair ocean and ill to ford. Bide a wee, sir, and let’s straighten out our plans.”
Eben had had a rough chart of Yonderdale which Nanty and Jock had studied in the afternoon, and Bob, who had more than once prospected the ground, had it clear in his head. It was he who gave the orders.
“The mune will set or three, and by that time we maun be far up the glen. Ye mind where the village lies? We maunna gang near it, for the folk there never gang to their beds, and if a craw flew up the street the hale town wad ken o’t. But we maun tak that side of the water, the south side, for the north’s ower dangerous, and we maun be at Tam Nickson’s afore it’s light, for deil a body maun see us enter Tam’s hoose.”
“Nickson’s is our military base,” Jock explained. “We can’t go ferreting about this glen without a hidy-hole. Nickson’s our friend. He came here from Annandale a donkey’s years ago, and his skill of sheep is so great that he had been kept on at high wages, though he’s not exactly popular in the place. He’s a pack-shepherd — you know what that means? — and they say he has a pack of ten-score ewes. He must have done well for himself. He’s an old man, isn’t he, Bob?”
“Auld as the Three Trees o’ Dysart. He’ll never see four-score again, but he’s a soople body for his years.”
“Well, Nickson keeps himself to himself, and, since he is the chief support of the Hungrygrain flocks, the folk leave him alone, as he leaves them alone. There’s not much happens in the glen that he doesn’t know, but he lives by himself by a burnside, so his house is our natural headquarters. He’s a friend of Eben’s, and Bob stayed with him when he was here before, and he manages now and then to send us word when there’s trouble in the wind. It’s likely Nickson’s doing that we’re here to-day.”
“If he hates Hungrygrain, why does he stay on there at his age?” Nanty asked.
“Ower auld to shift,” Bob answered. “Besides, he doesna’ hate Hungrygrain. He telled me it was the bonniest bit God ever made, but sair defiled by man. He has a terrible ill-will to the squire — some auld bicker — and he’s no that fond o’ Winfortune, and Hartshorn, and Meek, and the ither birkies. But he delves his yaird and reads his Bible — he’s a godly man, Tam — and shapes tup horns into staff-handles, and cannily lets the world gang by — except at clippin’s and speanin’s, when they tell me he’s fiercer than a twa-edged sword.”
“Are the Hungrygrain people ill to work with?” Nanty asked.
“Some say the Deil’s deid and buried in Kirkcaldy,” Bob quoted oracularly. “But he’s no in the Lang Toun, and he’s no deid. He’s live and weel and rangin’ the earth, and if there’s one bit he’s chosen for his special habitation it’s just Yonderdale. . . . We maun haste, sir, for we’ve nae time to dally. The highroad’s no for us, for there’s folk on it at a’ hours, and there’ll be mair the night, if, as Eben thinks, there’s some special traffic wi’ Hopcraw. When we’re past the brig we’ll tak a path I ken o’ up the burnside. Afore the night’s out we may hae to scatter, so we maun be clear about the rondyvoo. Tam Nickson’s house afore daylight — at a’ costs afore daylight. If ony o’ us is late he maun just lie out in the shaw till the morn’s night, for it’s death and damnation to us if we’re seen, besides destruction to Tam himsel’. Are ye clear, sir,” this to Nanty, “how ye win to Tam’s. It’s a mile abune the house of Hungrygrain where a burn comes down frae the north to Yonder — the one house on a’ the hillside, cockit up amang rowan trees on a shelf like the poop o’ a Hamburg smack. A man’s unco’ kempeckle gaun up till’t, but once he’s there he can spy out a’ Hungrygrain. . . . We maun haste if we’re to sup Tam’s sowens for breakfast.”
Bob led them at a round pace across the drove road, which Mr Dott had travelled earlier that day, into the dene of the Yonder. The stream was in spate, but not too high to forbid a passage, which was effected at the narrows between two boulders, where Nanty pleased himself by jumping more cleanly and surely than Jock, and not less well than Bob with his prehensile naked feet. After that progress was slower. Bob’s alleged path was a thing of faith rather than of sight. Where the trees were pines and the ground a carpet of needles and young whortleberries the going was good, but when whins intervened or burnt heather or the matted stumps of fallen oaks, and the moon was shut out by thick undergrowth, it was necessary to walk as delicately as Agag. Moreover, Bob was taking no chances. He never turned a corner till he had reconnoitred in advance on his belly. A sound which he could not at once identify sent him flat on his face.
“It wants a lang spoon to sup kale wi’ the Deil,” he whispered apologetically to Nanty. “I’ve been here afore, and seen Hungrygrain guardit like Edinbro Castle, and by folk that you never saw unless you went seekin’ them. Besides, we’re just fornent the inn. There’s a brig nearby, and after that we’ll tak a slype up the hill, for we maun be high up to pass Hungrygrain policies and
come in by the backside o’ Tam’s house. . . . Wheesht! What’s that?”
All three lay prone among the whortleberries. There was a gap in the trees just ahead where the moon shone, and in that gap was the figure of a man. It was a tall man in a great-coat, and he seemed to be having difficulty in keeping his footing on the slippery path. A branch pulled his coat apart, and a brace of pistols were revealed at his waist.
All three recognised him. Bob’s hand went automatically to cover Nanty’s mouth, and it was not till the figure had passed out of sight that the latter was permitted to speak.
“It’s Wyse,” Nanty groaned. “Good God. I may be too late! He is armed. . . . Can he have met Harry? Or be on his way to meet him?”
“Not at this time of night,” said Jock. “Comfort yourself, Nanty, you’re still in time. But what in the devil’s name takes the man wandering at midnight in a black wood? Where does that path lead to?”
“It runs frae the inn to the Hungrygrain road,” said Bob. “It’s no muckle o’ a road, just a path ower a plank brig. . . . Wait on, sirs. It’s the shortest way frae the manse to the village. The man had maybe some business wi’ the minister.”
