by John Buchan
CHAPTER XII. Tells How a Chase Began
“Harry,” said Nanty. “Will you do me a kindness? Lend me your coat and waistcoat and a spare cravat, for I assume you have baggage with you, and take in exchange this woollen shift that Eben provided me with.”
“You may have my last shirt. But why?”
“Because I propose to set off instantly in pursuit, and my present garb is not very decent for a journey on the highroads.”
At his words the assembly in Nickson’s kitchen woke to a sharp attention. For a moment no one spoke; then Mr Dott, who had been engaged earnestly with a plate of brose, dropped his spoon and said:
“With your permission, Professor, I’ll accompany you. I have still my bit of business to see to.”
“Well done the town-clerk!” said Bob. “Man, ye’re the game one.”
“Why do you take this upon yourself, sir?” Sir Turnour asked Nanty haughtily. “Your concern in this affair is the smallest.”
“Not so. It is the chief, for I alone have heard from Mrs Cranmer’s lips the true meaning of the journey. These others know it. Have patience with me, sir, and I will tell it you.”
Nanty repeated the tale of his morning on the hill tops and his talk with the fugitive lady. He told it with a deeper emotion than he had shown at the first telling to the others, for the sight of that husk of a house had convinced him of the dark purpose of those who had left it, and he found himself keyed up to a great resolution. His mind hovered between fright and exaltation, and his quivering nerves put fire and colour into his words.
Mr Dott was profoundly impressed. He had a dog-like fidelity to his client, and was also prepared to think any ill of those who had hindered a decent Scots writer in his lawful avocation. Not so Sir Turnour.
“You believe this rigmarole?” he asked coldly. “Cranmer I grant you. He is capable of any villainy, and you may be right that he is mad. His treatment of myself is warrant for it. But I cannot swallow this romantic lady. In my judgment she is a stool-pigeon for her blackguard of a husband. I have seen her, and I mistrusted her foreign looks and her tragedy eyes. I have heard too much of her to credit her innocence. In my judgment she is the most expert coney-catcher alive, and to-day in these hills she has added another to her bag.”
“You forget, sir,” said Belses fiercely, “that we agreed that for the present we should be neutral in this matter.”
Sir Turnour bowed. “I stand corrected. I will say no more of the lady except that I am not her champion. My business is with her precious husband. Him I follow instantly, and please God I shall soon call him to account.”
The baronet’s high colour had deepened, and his eyes had the fixed stare of one whose mind is unalterably determined on a purpose about which it is not wholly clear.
“Where do you propose to seek him?” Nanty asked.
“At his wife’s house of Overy in the first instance. I understood from you that they will go there — must go there. If I miss him be assured I will pick up the scent.”
“I beg you, Sir Turnour, to listen to me,” said Nanty. “This is a desperate affair, and those engaged in it are cunning men who have been weaving their plots for years. You have a just quarrel with Cranmer, and the Government has one not less just. Put aside for a moment the innocence or guilt of the lady. We are face to face with a matter of deep national concern, and would bring the conspirators under the weighty arm of the law. If you make your private vengeance your only thought and openly follow him he will escape you. Our only hope is to match secrecy with secrecy. That is why I claim that the chief task falls to me. You are known to Cranmer. Lord Belses is known to him. In vain will you spread the snare in the sight of the bird. But of me he knows nothing — he never saw me — he is ignorant of my name. I can follow him unobserved. But I am known to Mrs Cranmer, and I may be able to give her that help which will permit her to circumvent him. We have an ally in the enemy’s camp, but that ally cannot be used except by one who is unknown to the enemy.”
“What do you propose, sir? I know nothing of you. I saw you for the first time an hour ago. Who are you?”
“You have heard that I am a professor of logic in Scotland. But I am also a young man, and I am privileged to be a member of that brotherhood of the Free Fishers to which those three others belong. I am as determined as you, sir, and my power lies in my obscurity.”
“But what is your plan? Where would you follow them? To Norfolk?”
Nanty shook his head.
“Not to Norfolk. They will go there, but the danger-point is not there. It is at some place called the Merry Mouth.”
“Merry Mouth! Merry Mouth!” Sir Turnour repeated. “An inn? I never heard of it and I know most of the roads of England. There may be a score of Merry Mouths.”
“I will find this one, and, having found it, I will trust the Almighty for the rest.”
“Gad, you’re a well-plucked one, Nanty!” said Jock Kinloch. “Are you for engaging the whole of that black crew single-handed?”
“Not single-handed. I will have Mrs. Cranmer with me.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” Sir Turnour cried. “You come back to that woman’s honesty, in which I most utterly disbelieve. I will go to Norfolk and pluck Cranmer out of his gang, and drub him as man was never drubbed before. If he has flown I will come up with him. Norfolk is my own county, and my house of Wood Rising is within twenty miles of Overy. I am known to every man-jack in the shire, and can set a hundred scouts to work. I tell you I do not credit a word of the woman’s story. I swear on my soul that whatever mischief is afoot she is deep in it—”
Mr Dott interrupted. He had finished his meal, and rose to his feet, his solemn puckered face contrasting strangely with his ruinous clothes. The prominent eyes were ablaze.
“Swear if you like, sir,” he cried, “by your broad acres and your braw house and your chariot and your blood horses, but do not swear by what you value so little as your soul.”
The unexpected passion of the words, the unexpected defiance as if a chicken had turned to outface a hawk, made a sudden silence. Sir Turnour flushed deeper, and seemed to be drawing himself up for a violent rejoinder, when Eben’s slow voice broke in. He had been puffing his pipe, and staring into the fire.
“Wait on, sirs,” he said. “There’s maybe gude sense in what the gentleman says. If them we seek gang first to Norfolk, what hinders us to try the same road? The wind is set in the nor’-west, and by my judgment it’ll bide there for the next twa-three days.”
“What the devil has the wind to do with it?” the baronet demanded.
“Mair than ye might think. Them we seek will travel by land, and, post as they please, they’ll do brawly if they cover a hundred miles in the day. Let them take the speediest coach and they’ll be little better off, for the road they seek is no the straight highroad. I’ve heard forbye o’ coaches that break down and beasts that founder. As I judge, it’s every yaird o’ twa hundred mile — liker twa hundred and fifty — frae here to the Norfolk sands. If there’s a quicker road it’s common sense for us to take it, and birse in afore them.”
“What quicker road can there be?” Sir Turnour cried scornfully. “I trust Cranmer to know all the short cuts.”
“There’s the sea,” said Eben simply.
The baronet stared. “By God, I never thought of that. You’re right. It’s the long elbow you must make to get round the Wash that stretches out the distance. There’s a straight course from the coast here to Overy Bar. But what are we talking about? Where is the ship? Have you a frigate lying offshore at your command?”
“We’ve a boat at Yondermouth that will dae as weel as ony king’s ship. Better, for there’s better folk to handle it.”
“Man, Eben, that’s an inspiration,” Nanty cried. “Will the wind hold?”
“Under Providence I think it will.” The Chief Fisher, who had seemed hitherto to be a silent spectator of the whole business, spoke now with the assurance of one used to plan and command.
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“Do you know the Norfolk shore?”
Eben smiled slowly.
“No just as weel, maybe, as I ken the Fife coast and the Buchan nesses. But there’s no a fleet or a deep frae Spurn Head to Brancaster Roads that I kenna the way o’, and mony a time or this I’ve waded the glaur o’ the Wells sea-flats.”
“Can you take us to Overy?”
“Ay. I’ve been there on lawfu’ errands and on some not so lawfu’. I wad maybe be a wee thing fickled if an easterly haar came down on us, but still I think I micht smell my way in there in ony weather.”
Sir Turnour unbent. “You seem an honest man and a capable seaman. I like your plan, so the sooner we start the better. My servant will take my chaise back to Berwick. How far off is the harbour where your boat lies?”
“Fifteen mile, maybe less. I left the Merry Mouth wi’ Davie Dimmock for some sma’ repairs. They’ll be done by this time, and she can sail when it’s our will.”
“The Merry Mouth?” Sir Turnour puzzled, then turned to Nanty. “I thought that was the inn of your fantastic tale.”
“It is also the name of Eben’s cutter. A queer omen, and I think a good one. If we have luck with one Merry Mouth at sea, we’ll maybe have luck with another on land. . . . I have a favour to ask, Sir Turnour. I want the loan of your chaise and your galloways.”
“Are you mad, sir?”
“I am desperately sane. I have the land journey to make, and while you try to intercept fugitives in Norfolk, my business is to await them at their rendezvous, which I can assure you is the real point of danger. Otherwise Mrs Cranmer would not have been so urgent. My request is that you let me have your chaise to York, where I can get a coach that will take me to Midlands. I am convinced that the Merry Mouth, be it inn or hovel or mansion, is at some place where a road from Norfolk joins the main London highway. I will find it, and I will wait there till I get some enlightenment.”
“Then you will wait the deuce of a time, sir. Why should I entrust my chaise to you, when I utterly discredit the tale to which you have pinned your faith? Besides, you have not the look of a whip. Can you handle cattle?”
Nanty shook his head.
“I never in my life tried. But I will have one with me who can,” and he looked at Jock. “Mr Kinloch is not in your class as a charioteer, Sir Turnour, but he has driven the Perth coach, and I have seen him make a fair show with a blood beast in a curricle.”
Sir Turnour brooded with a sullen face.
“Can you handle a pair?” he turned to Jock.
“I have driven a pair of Barnton’s roans,” was the answer. “I can promise you that neither the galloways nor your chaise will take any hurt from me.”
The young man spoke haughtily, for he had not forgotten his grievance against the baronet, but the latter was too preoccupied to observe it.
“You are a man of sense,” he turned to Eben. “I heartily approve your plan of the sea journey, but what do you say of this wild-cat search for a place that may exist only in a madwoman’s fancy?”
Eben lit his pipe before he replied.
“I think it wise, sir, and I counsel you to do what the professor asks. I am an auld hand at this trade, and I never like to put a’ my weight on one foot. We fisher folk like what we ca’ cross-bearin’s. And this word ‘Merry Mouth’ comin’ as it did is ane we daurna neglect. . . . But the chaise hauds three, for there’ll be little baggage. The professor and Mr Kinloch maunna gang their lane. Bob maun be wi’ them.”
“Can you sail the boat alone?”
“Fine. Besides, I’ll hae able-bodied passengers to gie me a hand if I need it. Bob maun gang wi’ you, Professor, for otherwise the twa pairties will hae no way o’ gettin’ word to the ither. Mr Kinloch is ane o’ oursels, but he’s a new member, and he’s no yet perfectly acquainted wi’ our ways. Ye maun understand that the Free Fishers gang far afield and into queer bits, and there’s few corners o’ this land where they canna pick up a friend. We’ve our ain canny ways and our ain private lines set, and Bob has been lang enough wi’ us to hae learned the set o’ them. I can get word frae Norfolk to Bob wherever he is, and he can get word to me, and wi’out Bob the twasome o’ ye wad be like coos in a strange loanin’. Forbye, there’ll maybe be trouble at the Merry Mouth or whatever they ca’ it — waur trouble than may be waitin’ in Norfolk — and three stout fellows are better than twa.”
A change suddenly came over Sir Turnour. The hard lines in which his face had fallen mellowed into good humour. He stood up to his full height, stretched his arms, looked round the company, and burst into a great jolly laugh.
“Cranmer is mad,” he cried. “So, I think, is his lady, though that is denied. But we are all mad — mad as hares in March, mad as a Meath filly! I come raging up into this accursed north country to read a lesson to a foolish youth who had forgotten his manners. When I find this youth he is so humble that the schoolmaster is at a loss, and so bold that he reads the schoolmaster himself a lesson. I find a boor whom I heartily detest and from whom I am compelled to seek satisfaction for gross insults. And then, to tangle further this already tangled business, I stumble on a gang following the same boor’s trail for another purpose, and hear dark tales which lift my private quarrel to the height of a patriotic duty. I am an orderly man, and you have made my life as disordered as a mob fair. So I am setting out, I who detest salt water, in a boat I have never seen and in charge of a sailorman of whom I know nothing except that he has an honest face. And I am asked to lend my chaise and the cattle I have hired to a bedlamite Scotch professor to go seeking a fantastic name through the length of England! Vive la bagatelle! Motley is the only wear! I surrender, gentlemen. I fall in with your crazy plans, and may the best man win!”
He turned to Belses.
“You, my lord, will, I take it, return to your distracted family?”
“With your leave, Sir Turnour, I will accompany you to Norfolk. I have the deepest interest of any in your errand.”
“I guessed as much. You have certainly my permission, if you can get that of our chief mariner.”
“And me, too, by your leave, sir,” spoke up Mr Dott. “I have still my bit of business to despatch, and I cannot go home till it is finished.”
“Just listen to the town-clerk,” said Bob, who had attached himself specially to Mr Dott. “There’s staunch folk about Waucht.”
“So be it,” said the baronet. “I make no complaint. The more the merrier when it comes to sea-sickness. I stipulate only that you do exactly as I bid you when we reach Norfolk, if we are ever so fortunate.”
“And now,” he buttoned his coat and smoothed his beaver, “now, by God, for food. I have eaten nothing all day, and am as empty as a bad filbert. I am in command, and my order to all is that we make for the inn. The worst villains have gone out of Yonderdale, including the inn-keeper. If anyone tries to stay us on the road there are six of us and we will wring his neck. Food I must have, and if there is none in the inn we will get a sheep from the hills. I summon you to dine with me forthwith on whatever fare we can find. Anyhow, there is good liquor, and my servant is a pretty hand at compounding punch. En avant.”
“We maun gang cannily out of this place,” said Eben, “and cannily till we’re a mile or mair off. Meek is still here, and the Hungrygrain folk will return, and it would never dae to bring trouble on Tam Nickson.”
The moon lit them down the stream and up the hill to the inn. To Nanty it seemed that the glen had a new atmosphere. It had lost that oppression which had weighed on his spirits from his first entrance into it. Except on the high tops it had seemed a tainted land. But now it was a hill valley in all the sweetness of the spring night, a place of running waters and sleeping birds and springing flowers. Mr Dott, whose perceptions were less acute, seemed also to be conscious of the change, for his spirits rose, and he was no longer the anxious and frustrate lawyer. He cheered the road with songs of his native land. He it was who at the inn managed to summon the pale wife, and, promising t
hat all would be handsomely paid for, demanded beds for the party and an immediate supper. He even, pursued by the gibes of Bob Muschat, made his way to the kitchen and cajoled a maid to make him a dish of toasted cheese after a recipe of his own.
Nanty shut down his thoughts, which waited like a great army in the background, tumbled into bed, and slept for eight hours a dreamless sleep. He awoke to a world of blue skies and light airs and the fresh scents of morning. He awoke also to a heavy preoccupation, which did not seem to be shared by the rest. A gig had been found to carry the party to Yondermouth. Jock Kinloch would accompany it, and bring back some clothes more suited to a lowland journey than fishermen’s togs. The others seemed to take everything as a matter of course. Sir Turnour gave his orders as if he had been in his training stable at Newmarket, and was notably civil to Jock, who had awakened in a high mood for adventure. Harry Belses was silent, but there was hope and purpose in his eyes. Eben Garnock smoked his first pipe as if he were on the quay at Pittenweem. As for Mr Dott, he had again visited the kitchen, and was accused by Bob of a purpose of love and not of greed. Bob had a verse of a wicked song:
“A bonny may went out one day
Some fresh fish for to buy,
An’ there she spied a wee toun-clerk,
An’ he followed her speedily —
Ricky doo dum dae, doo dum dae,
Ricky dicky doo dum dae.”
The singer almost got his ears boxed, and Mr Dott departed in the gig with a high air of wounded dignity.
“That’s a fine wee body,” said Bob, as he looked after him. “I wouldna’ say but he’s the teuchest o’ the lot. Love and anger will carry a man a lang gait, but when a Scots writer is out in the way o’ business, he’d walk barefoot ower the plainstanes o’ hell.”
CHAPTER XIII. Of Sundry Doings on the South Road
Jock and the gig did not return till close on midday. He brought Nanty’s baggage, who was now able, without borrowing from Harry Belses, to present again that appearance of sober dignity with which he had left St Andrews. Jock wore his green coat and corduroy breeches, a sufficiently workmanlike attire for the road, though at the Red Lion in Berwick it had shown up poorly in contrast to Sir Turnour’s elegance. Bob had somehow managed to procure a black coat of an ancient cut, and a shirt and neckcloth in harmony with it. “Eben Garnock’s,” he explained. “Eben aye carries his Sabbath coat in the Merry Mouth, for he’s an elder o’ the Kirk, and winna miss a diet o’ worship if he’s in port at a week-end. He lent them readily, for he says there’s nae means o’ grace about Norfolk.”
