by John Buchan
“But had you no friends, no one to counsel you?”
She shook her head.
“I could seek no counsel, unless I told everything and that I dared not do, for I was a bird in a falcon’s clutches. I had indeed a friend, one who had been my guardian, and whom my marriage had bitterly grieved. He was a good man, who had long ago found God and served Him dutifully, but his goodness and his high position made me shun my cousin Spencer and repel all his offers of kindness.”
“Spencer? Who is he?”
“Mr Spencer Perceval, the son of my father’s brother. He who is now Prime Minister.”
“Does he know anything? Does he guess?”
“He must know something, for the Government suspects me. I have evidence of it.”
“So have I,” said Nanty, remembering Jock’s tale.
The April forenoon was bright around them, and a fresh, light wind was blowing from the north-west through the passes of Cheviot. But to Nanty, looking at the girl’s tortured face, the world seemed a prison-house full of clanking chains.
“I had one other friend,” she went on, and her voice quavered. “You can guess who he was. We met abroad and quickly became friends. My husband was gracious to him, for he made a third stalking-horse — the son of my Lord Snowdoun, his Majesty’s Secretary of State. For a little Harry’s friendship comforted me, for he saw in me only the woman I had once been. Many times I was tempted to tell him all, but I forebore for his sake, for I dreaded lest I should involve him in my miserable fortunes. Harry, as you know, is no temperate friend, and would have tried to cut the knot with violence. And soon I began to fear for him, lest my husband should treat him as he had treated me and lead him in his innocence into treason, for Harry has all the generous impulses which I once believed to be in Justin, and heeds nothing of worldly wisdom. So for his own sake I laboured to keep him at a distance. I forbade him to follow me, but he has disobeyed my bidding. Alas! I am born to be a grief and a peril to my true friends.”
“At any rate Harry is safe for the present,” said Nanty, but she interrupted him by springing to her feet.
“No, he is not safe. No one is safe. . . . I have delayed too long — I must go back to Hungrygrain. I have not told you all. In the last month I have learned something new . . . something terrible. Out of hate has come madness. My husband is mad, mad as any poor creature in Bedlam.”
“I had guessed as much.”
“I do not guess. I know. A thousand proofs have convinced me. He sleeps little now, and talks much to himself, and his face has changed. There are times when a distraught devil looks out of his eyes. . . . I think I have lost the power of fearing or I should go always in terror. He hates more than his kind and his country now — he has come to hate me. I have been his tool, and he would break me lest I should cut his hand. He used to treat me with a casual kindness. Now he is not brutal, for his voice to me is always soft, but he is planning subtle cruelties. He speaks to me with his lids half-closed, but sometimes they open and the devil looks out. I think I am about to pay the price of my weakness.”
“Good God,” Nanty cried. “You must never go back to him. Your life hangs by a thread.”
“I do not think I mind that,” she said, but there was no apathy in her voice. “My life is a small thing, and it would be cheaply spent if I could atone for all my folly. . . . But listen, sir. We may never meet again, but it would comfort me to leave with you my testament. . . . Something has brought my husband’s plans to a culmination. He is no longer concerned to stir up revolution in England and to work treason abroad. It may be that too much is known and that the Government has now the power to unmask and checkmate him. But I think the reason is different. I think that his madness is come to a climax, and that he is meditating a more gigantic wickedness. . . . I do not think — I know. He is bringing his old work to an end and blocking his old channels. Hungrygrain is to be no more his poste de commandement. He is gathering all his powers — and for all his madness his powers are great — for some desperate stroke. His purpose is murder.”
“Yourself?”
“Me, but not by a direct blow. I shall be charged with it — there will be documents — ample evidence. He himself will escape, and from some refuge abroad will laugh a madman’s laugh at the folly of mankind. But first some great one will die.”
“The King? The Prince?”
“No, they are too well guarded, and in his eyes matter less than certain others. I think that if he had his will it would be Lord Castlereagh, whom he virulently hates, but my lord is ill to come at, for he is not in office. No, it is one whom he hates as a stalwart bulwark of England, and who may be accessible to him because of me. It is my cousin Spencer Perceval.”
“But how? And when?”
“That I cannot tell. But it will be soon. Any hour my husband may leave Hungrygrain, and his errand is an errand of death. He will somehow find his chance, for he has an underground network to help him, and he is very subtle and bold. That is why I must hurry back.”
“It is a good reason why you should put all England between him and you.”
“No, for it is my only chance to redeem my wasted life. He trusts me as a creature wholly in his power, and soon I shall find out his plan. He has his accomplices, men like Winfortune and Meek from Yonderdale — and others, creeping things in the London kennels. But I am deeper in his secrets than they, and God may help me to defeat his purpose, though I have to receive his bullet in my own body.”
It was Nanty’s turn to rise. He caught her by the arm.
“Your husband is not the only mad one,” he cried. “You are going to certain death. You are only one against a thousand. Let the Government know what you know, and crush this infamy in the bud. I will myself ride day and night to take the news.”
“It is too late.” She smiled gently at his vehemence. “The powder train is laid, and I only can hinder the spark that will fire it. Justin Cranmer is a match for any Government, for if one plot were exposed he would go to earth like a fox, and next day or the day after hatch another. You cannot conceive with what triple steel he is guarded. No, I am resolved to bring this evil at any cost to an end, and I believe that God will help me. I am strong now, since I know that Harry is safe. For a little I wavered when I learned that he was a prisoner in Hungrygrain, for I feared that Justin in his madness would not scruple to do away with an unwanted witness of his doings. But God has heard my prayer for Harry, and I am free again.”
“It is monstrous.” Nanty strode up and down the hollow in his agitation. “It cannot be permitted. You are undertaking more than flesh and blood can bear.”
“I must dree my weird, as you say in Scotland,” she replied. “I will not go back the way we came in the night, so that this corner shall be unsuspected. You will wait till the twilight before you move. You promise me.”
“When do you leave Hungrygrain, and where are you going?” he cried in an agony of indecision, for it was suddenly borne in on him that he was being cast for a part in a drama more fateful than the affair of Harry Belses.
“We leave at any hour, but not, I think, before to-morrow morning. Where we go I do not know and can only guess. I think that first we shall visit my house of Overy, for there are papers there, some to be destroyed, some perhaps to be kept as evidence against me. After that I am in the dark. I think that the danger lies in London. . . . But stay, you shall have my full testament. I have gleaned one little fragment of knowledge. There is an inn called the Merry Mouth, which plays the chief part in Justin’s plans. I do not know where it is, but my belief is that it is not a hundred miles from Norfolk. It is a place of assignation, and I think it may be for my cousin — that my husband has summoned him in my name. I tell you that, for you may some day have the chance of bearing witness that my heart was honest.”
She gave him her hand, which he grasped in silence, for he could not speak. Her eyes were still tragic, but her voice was composed, and the weariness had gone out of her air. He cr
ept to the edge of the hill, and saw her figure reappear on the far side of the cleugh and descend into the glen of the Yonder. For a long time she was visible among the links of the burn, till Yonder dropped into its green ravine, and she was lost in a sudden dip of the valley. . . . As he lay with the noonday sun warming his body he prayed fervently, and, having thereby lulled his emotions, he set himself to think. He had given his word, or there and then he would have risked it and made his best speed to Nickson’s house, for he saw ahead of him an urgent duty, which with bitter unwillingness he must undertake, or never again know self-respect.
In the early dusk he crawled out of the boulders of a little ravine, circumvented the sheep-fold and the dipping-troughs, and reached the end of the cottage. Two nights before, he reflected, he had at that hour been dining with Lord Mannour a hundred miles away, amid silver and candlelight and fine linen, and now he was pitchforked into a world where even lords of session were powerless. He gave the agreed knock on the lower part of the door, and, when it was unbarred and he entered the kitchen, the first figure he saw was Eben Garnock.
CHAPTER XI. Tells of Arrivals and Departures
But it was not the unexpected sight of the Chief Fisher that held Nanty’s eyes. In Nickson’s elbow-chair, an ancient thing of oak padded with sheep skin, sat a pale young man with a bandaged forehead. In a second he was on his knees beside him.
“Harry, my dear Harry,” he cried. “God be praised that I have found you. You are ill? You are wounded?”
The young man patted the hand that had been laid on his knees.
“If I were ill,” he said, “the sight of you, old friend, would cure me. But I am well enough, though somewhat stiff in the joints. My wound is a mere scratch. I have been dosing all day here, and feel ready for any exertion. . . . But tell me, Nanty, what heaven-sent chance brought you here?”
“I came in search of you — to save you. I was told of your danger. I saw Sir Turnour Wyse last night. Have you met him?”
“My brave Nanty, did you propose to act as my second? Or, like my family, to spirit me away? Be comforted, for Sir Turnour and I have spoken together, and our feud is for the time pretermitted. Indeed, I think Sir Turnour may be in the same boat as the rest of us. Ask Nickson.”
The little kitchen had an earthen floor, except for the stone flags round the hearth. There were the remains of food on the table — a braxy ham and a plate of oaten farles, an earthenware jug of ale, and a tun-bellied whisky bottle of the kind called a “mason’s mell.” The peat fire burned briskly, and everything in the place was clean and bright as a new pin. Jock Kinloch had curled himself on a sheepskin by the hearth like a great cat, and Bob Muschat balanced himself on a corner of the table. Nickson, the host, sat on the edge of the press-bed, and Eben Garnock, square as a Dutch lugger, stood in the centre of the floor, ruminating like a cow at pasture.
Nickson spoke. “If ye mean the gentleman that’s bidin’ at the inn, he got up this mornin’ late and cried on Purdey. But Purdey was awa’ south afore day wi’ horses, and there was naebody about the place but servant lassies. So the gentleman sets off on his feet for Hungrygrain, tellin’ his bodyservant that he wad be back or lang. But he’s no back yet, and his man is rangin’ Yonderdale looking for him. He was seen to enter the house, but no to leave it.”
“He’s likely to be in my own case,” said Belses. “If you drop in at Hungrygrain you stay there. God! what a place! A man would be safer among the Moors in Africa.”
“Tell me your story,” Nanty demanded. “There’s a puzzle here which I must piece together.”
Belses repeated briefly what he had told to Sir Turnour the night before.
“Did Cranmer mean to do you a mischief?” Nanty asked.
“He meant to keep me shut up till after something happened — I do not know what. When I escaped, he and his folk meant black mischief. Muschat will tell you what befell after Wyse left me.”
Bob, from the edge of the table, took up the tale.
“Ye mind when we parted company, sir, and I was to look in at the manse and get the news, and you were for followin’ Sir Turnour. Well, I wasna long ower to brig when I met in wi’ a wee body — Dott was his name, and he said he was the town-clerk o’ Waucht. It seemed he was bidin’ at the manse, and he had been settin’ Sir Turnour on his road back. I saw that he was the man that we saw drivin’ off frae the King’s Arms this mornin’, and I minded ye had said ye kenned him, so I spoke your name and he was ready to talk. The body was a’ cockered up wi’ excitement. He telled me about Lord Belses and Sir Turnour and the wild ongaein’s at Hungrygrain afore we got to the manse door. Now ye maun ken that the manse is on the bank o’ Yonder, and when we won to it we were just about fornent whaur you and Mr Kinloch were on the ither side. I heard the scrapin’ o’ your feet, and then I heard something mair — the sound of folk comin’ the ither way that were no friends o’ yours — I heard them cry out, and the noise o’ rendin’ busses and rowin’ stanes. I jaloused what had happened, and I thocht to mysel’ that if you and Mr Kinloch could jink them — which I considered maist likely — they would come on to the manse, since they maun be seekin’ Lord Belses. So when the auld wife opened the door, I cried on her that there was nae time to lose, and that we must get my lord out o’ bed and awa’ to Tam Nickson’s afore the Hungrygrain folk got there. She’s a wise auld wife, and it wasna lang or she had my lord into his breeks and we were ready for the road. The man Dott wadna come, though I pled sair wi’ him. He said he had some law business wi’ the mistress o’ Hungrygrain and wadna stir a foot till he had settled it. I hope he didna tak ony harm when the ithers got to the manse. He was fou’ o’ argyment, and Hungrygrain is no fond o’ argyin’.”
“He’s maybe sorry now that he didna heed ye,” said Nickson. “He took no harm last night. But this mornin’ naething wad serve him but he must gang up to Hungrygrain to see the leddy. Gibbie Winfortune wasna there to shoo him awa’, so he got inside the house, and gude kens how he’s farin’ there. He maun be a dour wee body.”
“Stieve as a stane,” said Bob, “but a stane can be broke wi’ a smith’s hammer.”
“One thing more,” said Nanty. “What brings Eben here? That was not in our plans.”
The Chief Fisher had lit his deep-bowled pipe, and stood staring into the glow of the peats, a model of philosophic detachment.
“That’s easy telled,” he said. “I found things changed at Hopcraw. It’s no an easy place to enter if there’s ony wind, and there are marks to tell the channel to them that ken whaur to look for them. The marks are gone. The place is nae mair used, and the shop is shut. I argued the thing out wi’ mysel’, and my judgment was that that side o’ Hungrygrain’s trade was done wi’ and that the place for me was Hungrygrain itsel’. So I took the road up the burn, and I got here no mony minutes afore you, Professor. Na, na, I wasna seen. For a’ my buik there’s few can see Eben Garnock by day or night if he doesna choose.”
“We’ve been maist michty lucky,” said Bob, “for we have a’ forgathered here at the richt time. I can tell you I was blithe to see Mr Jock when he stauchered in just afore daybreak. He had had a sore warstle ower half the Cheviots. And I was blither to hear frae Tam that you were safe on the high tops, Mr Lammas. And we’ve gotten my lord here snatched frae the jaws o’ his pursuers.”
“You are wrong,” said Nanty. “The men you saw last night were not seeking Lord Belses. Now you will hear my story. They were seeking Mrs Cranmer, who had fled from the house.”
Belses got out of his chair. “Great God! What new horror drove her to that? Where is she? Quick, Nanty,” and he plucked the other by the shoulder.
“Sit down, Harry. It’s a long tale. She ran away because she discovered that you were a prisoner and feared for your life. She hoped to get help from somewhere outside the glen.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I found her — found her far up on the hill when I had outdistanced the pursuit. In the dark she acco
mpanied me to the head of Yonderdale, for she wished to cross the watershed. We breakfasted together on the hilltop. Then, while she slept, I walked farther and met Nickson and heard that you were in his cottage. I returned and told her, and she became a new woman. . . .
“Jock, you are a ram-headed fool. The story you told me yesterday morning was wildly wrong. If a saint of God walks the earth this day it is that lady.”
“God bless you for these words,” Belses cried. “She has found another champion. But where is she? Man, man, don’t you see that I am in torment?”
“She has gone back to Hungrygrain. Back to her duty. She is as brave as Joan of Arc. Listen. Except for what you said of her character, Jock, all your tale was true, but it was not half the truth. For many a day there has been a factory of black treason in Hungrygrain and elsewhere. You thought that the cover was a drunken boor of a Northumberland squire, but you were wrong — the cover was the poor lady. Cranmer is the devil of the piece. She has been drawn innocently into treason, and it is her name, not his, that appears in the Government’s books. You know him, Harry. You must have read his character.”
“I think that he is altogether evil,” said Belses.
“He is more — he is mad. That is his wife’s verdict which I have heard from her own lips. The man lives and moves and has his being by naked hate. He hates the army from which he was rejected in disgrace. He hates the country which owns that army. This hate has driven him distraught, so he has come to loathe all humanity save the few whom he tolerates as his tools. Above all, he hates his wife, who is his victim. But this madman is no blind blundering thing, for his brain is cool and subtle and he has full power over all his faculties. He is the most dangerous man now alive on earth, and every hour makes him more dangerous. He has finished one campaign — he is leaving Hungrygrain, and Eben has told us that Hopcraw is done with. But it is only to begin another and a more desperate. Formerly it was treason — now it is murder. And he has laid his plot so cunningly that he himself will escape and from somewhere abroad will laugh at us fools in England. His wife will be left to bear the shame, and there will be so damning a weight of evidence against her that she cannot escape the gallows.”
