Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  The change at Ely took time, for Sir Turnour descended and examined afresh every detail of the harnessing. He shook his head over the team, two heavy chestnut wheelers, a black off leader, and for the near leader a big rawboned grey. “The worst match we’ve had,” he said, “for the most critical stage. I don’t like the look of the grey. Too young and raw.”

  Robin also shook his head.

  “That’s Empson’s way. He’s the poorest horsemaster on the road — always looking to skimp a penn’orth. We don’t complain, because it’s an easy run to Cambridge.”

  “It won’t be an easy run to Fenny Horton,” said Sir Turnour grimly, as he remounted to the box.

  Their journey now lay through a different land. They left the turnpike for a road which followed a wide dyke, and which was so uneven that it shook Eben and Bob out of their slumbers. To Jock it seemed that the coach, which on the highway had been an elegant, almost a dainty, thing, had now suddenly become top-heavy and out of proportion to the landscape. Down in these flats among the long grasses and the water-weeds it looked a precarious, lumbering contrivance, which any moment might stop from its own unwieldiness. Sir Turnour had difficulties with his cattle, for the road was narrow, and the near leader was only half-broken to harness. It had perpetually to be checked as it tried to break its pace into a canter. As for Harry Belses, he noticed none of these things — only that the sun was getting ominously low in the west, and that the twilight was drawing near.

  Presently to Sir Turnour’s relief the road climbed to the edge of a big drain which had been embanked high above the surrounding flats. On one side was a steep descent to marshy fields, and on the other the dyke, carpeted with water-buttercups and forget-me-nots and the broad leaves of water-lilies. The surface of the track was inches of powdery dust, and now and then came deep hollows, but it ran as straight as an arrow, and it had no toll-bars or side-ways. Few men would have dared to take a coach along such a road at the speed at which Sir Turnour took it, the more so as the team was not running sweetly. A jib on one side would have sent it into the water, and on the other down forty feet of slope into the marsh.

  For the first time that afternoon Sir Turnour showed signs of impatience. He looked at his watch and then at the darkening sky. To Robin the driver he said: “Ten miles to Fenny Horton — five or six to the Merry Mouth inn, which is short of the town. There we leave you to make up speed on the Huntingdon turnpike. I daren’t spring ‘em as I would like, partly because of this cursed black soil and partly because of the grey. He’s only waiting his chance to get to his tricks.”

  “Pray God he don’t,” said Robin, who sat with tight lips. “If I didn’t know your honour for the best whip in England, I’d be out of this here concern to save my neck. I’ve never driven before along the rigging of a roof, and s’help me if I ever does it again.”

  About this time Nanty was fumbling at the door which led into the cobwebbed room where the Cranmers were at meat. . . . Ten miles away on the road from Cambridge a carriage, with four horses and postilions, was moving northward, a carriage in which sat a slim, elderly gentleman, much wrapped up, for the evenings were chilly and his throat was weak. Beside him sat a younger man, who had the discreet air of a secretary. Suddenly the carriage slowed down, there was a cry from the postilions, and the noise of a ridden horse violently reined up. The elderly gentleman thought for a moment of highwaymen, till he was reassured by the rider’s voice, which was clearly that of a woman.

  A head most curiously wrapped up in shawls looked in at the window, and out of the shawls an old face showed in the waning light. The voice which spoke had a rasp and a burr which reminded the occupant of the speech of his friend Lord Melville.

  “Are you Mr Perceval? Him that’s the Prime Minister? Well, I’ve a word for you from Landbeach, where I’m biding with the auld Leddy Horningsea. Your cousin, her they call Mrs Cranmer, is in a sore trauchle. Her scoundrel of a husband is proposing the night to make away with you, and you’ve been brought here for that purpose, and the poor lassie has no power to prevent it. But word came secretly to us of the ploy, and my niece — that’s Miss Christian Evandale, whom you’ve maybe heard of — her and me came out to warn you. So back you go where you came from. It’s not you and your postilion lads that can cope with desperate men.”

  Mr Perceval had faced this kind of thing before. One glance at Miss Georgie’s face convinced him of her honesty. He hopped from his carriage.

  “There is no evil which I would not look for in Justin Cranmer. But my cousin told me she would be alone at the Merry Mouth, and I had many things to discuss with her. I do not know your name, madam, but I know Lady Horningsea well, and I am deeply beholden to you. I shall most certainly continue my journey, for I cannot fail the unhappy child. But I am happily in a position to protect myself.”

  “Unharness the leaders,” he told the postilions. “Hibbert,” he told his secretary, “take one of them and ride back to the Birdcage inn. We passed it ten minutes ago. There are ten of our mounted runners there, who have come down on Sir Giles Wintringham’s business. Bring them here — the Prime Minister’s order. Meantime, madam,” and he bowed to Miss Georgie, “I invite you to pass the time of waiting for our escort over a small collation. I have brought the materials for supper with me, for I did not trust a Fenland inn. . . .”

  Sir Turnour held his watch close to his eyes, for the dusk had deepened from amethyst to purple. “I must spring ‘em again — at all cost—’tis devilish late.” And he tickled the leaders under the bar, causing the grey to close up to his neighbour. To Jock, who was watching, it looked as if he was about to stretch them into a gallop, when suddenly there appeared in the road a wooden post, not in the middle, but about three-quarters of the distance between the drain on the right and the steep descent to the left. There was room enough for the coach in careful hands to pass between the post and the water, but as luck would have it the near leader, the grey, chose that moment to edge away from his partner. He was going to the left of the post and nothing would prevent him. Jock clutched the rail, confident that the next instant coach and horses would be precipitated down the bank.

  But in that instant the impossible happened. Sir Turnour saw that the leader’s bar would be caught by the post. He had his wheelers tight in hand and sharply drew back their reins, causing them to throw up their heads, which, acting on the pole chains, jerked the bar over the post’s top. At the same moment, hitting the near wheeler, he brought the splinter-bar clear. Neither coach, horse, nor harness touched the post. As Jock drew a long breath of relief, he saw a mile or two ahead a gleam of light reflected in water.

  “By God, sir,” Robin gasped, “that’s the nicest bit of coachmanship I ever seen. An everlasting miracle, I calls it.”

  “Simple enough,” said Sir Turnour coolly, “if you keep your head and know the meaning of proper harnessing. I couldn’t have done that if the pole chain hadn’t been the right length — and the wheelers properly curbed up. That’s why I took such pains at Ely, and it’s the truth I’m always preaching to you professionals.”

  Then he too saw the light ahead.

  “That’s the Merry Mouth,” he cried. “That’s the glow of the windows in the mere. There you drop us, and get you on to Huntingdon and ask no questions. I owe you ten guineas for this performance, Robin, my lad, and five to Abel. Now for a bit of pace down the straight.”

  The close shave at the post seemed to have pulled the team together, for the last miles were covered at a gallop which would have been fast on the Bath road. The track left the dyke side and descended into the highway almost opposite the lodge gates of Landbeach. The team turned neatly to the right, and, cheered by the better surface, swung unerringly through the dark of the trees to where the glow from the inn made a ribbon of light.

  But the miracle of their escape and the quickened speed produced no exhilaration in the four men on the top of the coach. Suddenly there descended upon them a sense of fate which caught the br
eath and chilled the heart. The light towards which they were rushing was a bale fire which might beacon desperate things. It was like riding a finish to death rather than to victory. Sir Turnour knew at last the meaning of fear, and, being unfamiliar with the thing, could only set his jaw and curse silently. Jock Kinloch clutched at the rail and kept his eyes fixed on the light ahead, choking down an inclination to scream. Upon the town-clerk of Waucht there fell a sickening apprehension of horror unknown to his sober life. Harry Belses, with pale lips, fell to praying.

  Then to Abel the guard came an inspiration. He plucked from its case his yard of tin and blew a rousing blast. That was the sound which Nanty heard as he sat pinioned in the chair.

  CHAPTER XIX. Of the Meeting of Lovers and the Home-going of Youth

  Nanty watched the hand move to the pistol. Cranmer took a long time about it, for he was enjoying himself, and he had still nearly a minute by his watch before the half-hour struck. The echo of the horn was in Nanty’s ear, but it might have been a horn of elfland for all that it meant to him. He was shut up in a prison with death. His own fate did not trouble him, for he had that strongest provoker of courage, a burning anxiety about the fate of another.

  Cranmer’s hand lifted the pistol, and as it did so two other hands closed on it. Gabriel had come out of the shadow — Nanty saw her face white in the green lamplight — and she flung her slight weight upon her husband’s arm. Her clutch was so desperate that he could not shake her off. He brought round his left hand and pushed her face away from him, but he did not loosen her grip. Her neck must have been almost dislocated, the slim arms were at a cruel tension, but still the fingers held. Nanty, in a cold sweat of misery, saw the woman he loved in an extreme of bodily pain.

  Cranmer saw it too, and there was that in the sight which roused the fiend in him. Perhaps he had never before physically maltreated her; his hate had revealed itself in subtler tortures. But now the sight of her suffering was like the smell of blood to a tiger. To Nanty’s eyes his face lost its evil beauty, for it lost humanity. Suddenly the features seemed to dissolve and blur and the eyes to become pits of fire. It was now the face, not of a devil, but of a maniac.

  He wrenched his right hand loose and held the pistol at her breast. He had forgotten his deeply meditated plan, by which he had reserved her for a long torment of public shame. He was a wild beast now, hot with the lust to kill. Her arms were bound by his left arm to her side, and the pistol barrel was an inch from her heart. His mad eyes were waiting to exult over her mortal fear.

  But fear she showed none. There was no drooping despair now about her, for she was a free woman again. She faced him squarely, her eyes mocking and challenging.

  Nanty saw her purpose. She was luring him to shoot, in the hope that her death might be the salvation of the other. The pistol was single-barrelled; if it had to be reloaded there was the chance of interruption, of some miraculous deliverance. He read her soul, and he went crazy. His bonds made movement impossible, but he had his voice. He shouted insults at Cranmer, the hoarded insults which had been shaping themselves for days in his subconscious mind. His voice rang in the silent place with a fury that might well have brought his enemy tooth and claw upon him. But the enemy did not turn his head. He was savouring the obscene delight of the torturer, holding the woman in his madman’s grip and gloating over her helplessness. . . .

  The shot rang out. . . . Nanty’s bursting eyes saw Gabriel stagger backward and collapse on the floor. But he saw another thing. Cranmer had dropped over the arm of a chair and hung limp, while his pistol clattered on the boards. . . .

  Then came a riot of confusion. Gabriel, not dead but living, was kneeling before him. She was tearing at his bonds with weak hands. “Quick, quick,” she muttered, as she wrestled with the knots. “Let us get away. God has smitten him. Quick, oh, quick.”

  Then a hand not hers slit the cords. Nanty’s cramped limbs had no power in them, and he would have fallen out of the chair if strong arms had not sustained him. He dimly recognised that he was being held by Harry Belses.

  A face rose like the moon in the green lamplight — a rosy but a solemn moon. He saw that it was Sir Turnour. He was returning a pistol to the case at his belt.

  “You have come,” Nanty cried. “Oh, thank God! Thank God!”

  Sir Turnour was looking at the figure huddled in the chair. “Stone dead,” he said. “Pretty shooting in this foul light. It wouldn’t have done to miss, or it would have been the lady’s turn. Don’t let her look this way, for it ain’t a pleasant sight. Hold her, Belses. I’ll get this thing out of sight. Gad, she’s going to faint.”

  But Gabriel did not faint. While Nanty, relieved from his bonds, had leaned forward on the table for support, Belses had taken her in his arms. She seemed to be half in a stupor. She stroked Nanty’s face as if to convince herself that he was alive, and then looked blindly round the room. Suddenly she broke from Belses, ran round the table, and stood looking down at her dead husband.

  “I killed him,” she sighed, and her voice was like a sleepwalker’s. “He was mad, but he was my husband, and I killed him. I tried to force the pistol round so that I could shoot him. I did not know I was so strong. . . . Oh, I did not know.”

  “Nonsense, my dear,” said Sir Turnour. “I shot the blackguard just when he was going to pistol you.” He picked up Cranmer’s weapon from the floor. “See, it is still loaded. Will that convince you?”

  But Gabriel was beyond argument. The cumulative anxieties of months and the tension of the last hour had numbed her mind, and left only a fevered imagination. She covered her eyes, and her fortitude broke down in hysterical sobs.

  In vain Harry Belses strove to comfort her. She was still living in a nightmare world, and, since action was no more required of her, she was left at the mercy of its terrors. Nanty, watching her with deep concern, feared for her reason. . . . He saw other faces appear in the room — Jock Kinloch, with tousled hair and blood on his cheek — the scared and homely visage of Mr Dott. He saw Eben’s great arms carry away the dead Cranmer. He heard Bob Muschat’s voice. “The redbreasts have gotten them a’ — a’ but Winfortune, wha slippit off on a horse. But first he fired the stables, and soon the hale place will be in a lowe. D’ye no smell the reek?” It was Gabriel only that he thought of. Gabriel hovering on the verge of a mindless horror, and it was plain from the faces of Belses and Sir Turnour that they saw the peril.

  Then Sir Turnour had an inspiration.

  “Where’s that dog? Where’s her spaniel? Somebody fetch the dog. It may do the trick.”

  Into the room rushed Benjamin, squandering himself about the floor, his paws slipping on the boards, his ears flopping dementedly. He found his mistress and leapt on her, pressing a wet nose against her, as she sat crouched in a chair. In a second he was in her lap, wildly endeavouring to lick her face.

  She stared at him stupidly, and then something died out of her eyes. The panic and horror disappeared, and were replaced by tenderness. Once again she knew the habitable and homely world. “Benjamin,” she crooned, as she fondled his head and pressed him to her. “Oh, Benjamin, you clever dog to have found me! I did not think ever to see you again.” Tears came, but they were healing tears.

  With Benjamin were others, one a slight little man with a kindly pinched face between the high collars of his great-coat. He sat on the table beside her and stroked her arm. “Courage, my dearest Gaby,” he said. “It is all over. You have been a lamb among wolves, but the Lord has shown you His mercy.”

  He slipped from the table, for two women had entered the room. One was young, and flushed, as if she had just come from the hunt. She flung off her riding gauntlets and took Gabriel in her arms. The other had a head most wonderfully wrapped up in shawls, but her air was that of a grenadier. She issued masterful orders.

  “What are you folk staring here for?” she cried. “D’you not see that the poor lassie is clean forfochen? Bed’s the place for you, my bairn. Your cousin’s carriage
is below, and in an hour we’ll have you between the sheets with a hot pig at your feet. Give her your arm, my lord,” she told Belses, “and don’t stand glowering like a stookie. The house is burning.”

  As the others turned to follow, Mr Spencer Perceval addressed Sir Turnour. “You have conferred infinite obligations upon me, sir,” he said in his precise tones. “You have preserved my dear ward’s life, and you have been the means of bringing to justice a gang of very dangerous miscreants. Also you have saved the State the expense of a hanging. I fear you will have to tarry here for the inquest, when the full story can be told. Be assured that his Majesty’s Government owe you a debt of which they will not be unmindful.”

  “Not me,” said Sir Turnour. “My part was only a trifling bit of coachmanship and a lucky shot. There’s the fellow that played the master hand,” and he pointed to Nanty, who was raising himself on very shaky legs.

  The Prime Minister bowed. “Pray, sir, will you tell me the name of my benefactor?”

  “My name is Anthony Lammas. I am a minister of the Kirk of Scotland and a professor of logic in a Scottish college.”

  The little man beamed.

  “A divine and a philosopher and a man of deeds. I think your nation has the monopoly of that happy combination.”