by John Buchan
Two days later Nanty sat in the very summer house at Landbeach in which he had first talked with the Balbarnit ladies. It was again a morning of sun and light spring airs, and the turf round them was starry with flowers. He himself still bore marks of ill usage in a bandaged head, but his sturdy nerves had suffered little damage, and the healthy colour of youth was back in his cheeks. The woman by his side had undergone an amazing transformation, as if the soul which had been long absent from her body had now returned to it. Her face was pale, but it was no longer a mask of tragedy. The ladies of Landbeach — and Lady Jane in her desire to care for another had forgotton to be an invalid — had provided her with clothes that became her better than the rough garments of the hill and the road in which Nanty had hitherto seen her. He saw that she was lovelier than he had thought, and that she was very young.
Mr Spencer Perceval, after assuring himself of the safe custody of the prisoners, and sending certain express messages to town, had taken his leave, promising that he would return in a week to claim his ward. To Nanty he had been very gracious in his shy, precise way. He had promised that the St Andrews business would be expeditiously settled. “You have put us all in bonds of gratitude,” he had said. “Lord Snowdoun is your debtor — I knew something about the affair of young Belses — and as for my ward and myself we owe you our lives. Under God, Mr Lammas,” he had added. “Let us never forget the great Disposer.”
With him had gone Sir Turnour Wyse, a man once more at peace with the world. Sir Turnour, regretting loudly that more urgent duties had prevented his seeing the championship fight at Fenny Horton, had hastened to that town to get hold of one Tarky Bald, who had won the belt after desperate battles, with a notion of matching him, for the honour of Norfolk, against his own local champion. For Sir Turnour Nanty had now not only that respect due to one who represented in all things his exact opposite, but affection for a human creature so massive and so nobly secure in its own code of life. It was Jock Kinloch who had delivered the true judgment. “Yon’s England,” he had told Nanty. “We don’t breed them like that in the north. We’re maybe cleverer and quicker, and we’re just as brave when it comes to the pinch, but we’re cockleshells compared to yon even keel. If I saw much of him I’d be always differing from him, but, man, I should also be dumb with admiration. I’ve no fear of Boney when I think of Wyse and his kind. He’s like the stone in the Bible — whoever falls on it will be broken, and on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder.”
Sir Turnour had paid proper homage to Miss Kirsty’s charms, but he had departed without regrets, for indeed no woman was ever likely to bulk large in his life. It was as well, for he would have had no chance. Jock was again the chosen cavalier, for the events of the past days seemed to have changed the modish young woman back to the country girl. It was of Fife that they spoke in that foreign lowland place, of Fife and of their childish doings. Jock, too, had altered, and out of the hobbledehoy was emerging the man, a stiff-jawed, masterful, mirthful being, with, as Nanty observed, some of his formidable father’s ways. Even Miss Georgie had taken him into her favour. It was comforting to have someone among those kindly alien grandees who spoke her own tongue.
So one love affair seemed to have happy auguries. Nanty approved with a sigh, for he had been forced to admit the downfall of his own. The first sight of Gabriel and Belses together had shown him the truth. Compared with her strength Harry was only a windlestraw, and set against her spiritual fineness no more than a clod. But this was a woman to whom a lover must be a child. Her eyes as she looked on the young man had had the maternal glow of a Madonna’s. She would shape him into something worthy, for she had the fire in her to fuse the coarsest ore and draw out the gold. . . . As for Nanty himself he had not the same need of her, and assuredly she had no need of him. The cobbler, having had his vision, must return soberly to his last.
Yet, as she sat by his side, she seemed to have disturbing thoughts.
“I cannot repay you,” she said. “You were willing to give your life for me. . . . When I saw you bound in that chair waiting on death, I seemed to be looking at a Crucifixion. I shall never get your face out of my mind. . . . Why did you do it? You did not know me as Harry knew me. We shared nothing together. Your conduct was far beyond the obligation of manhood or chivalry. It exceeded the duty of the most dutiful Christian. I cannot fathom it, and I cannot repay it. . . . What will you do now? You are too great for the common road of life.”
“No,” said Nanty. “You flatter me, for I am the commonest clay. But I will say something to you which, as soon as it is uttered, I want you to forget. I have been in love with you since I first saw you that morning on the hill. I have been happy even when I was most afraid, for I would gladly have died for you. I have been living in a dream, and all the time I knew it was a dream. . . . I am wide awake now, and I have put it behind me. Some day you will marry Harry Belses. Be kind to him, for he is my dearest friend—”
Pain was again in her face.
“Oh, I am born to bring unhappiness to those who love me!” she cried. “You have given me everything and I can give you nothing.”
“You can sometimes remember me,” he said gently.
Round the corner of the summer-house came the apologetic face of Mr Dott. He had a bundle of parchments in his hand, an ink-horn, and a quill.
“Your pardon, mem,” he said. “Your pardon, Professor. If I may make so bold I would like Mrs Cranmer’s name appended to these documents. Just the scart of a pen and my job is done, and, gudesakes, it has been a weariful job. Little I thought when I started from Waucht that I was to travel through the feck of England, not to speak of fires and slaughterings.”
Nanty laughed and was back again in the light of common day.
“Mr Dott reminds me,” he said, “that I too must be getting on with my business.”
Very early on a morning in mid-May the Merry Mouth cutter landed Nanty at the harbour of St Andrews. He had come north by the Leith packet, and, falling in with Eben Garnock in that port, had been set across the Firth in the summer night, and had reached his destination when the first cocks were crowing in the East Neuk farms. A letter had apprised Mrs McKelvie of the time of his arrival, but the packet had been slow, and but for Eben he would have been twenty-four hours late. As it was he was only a night behind his time. His landlady, expecting that he would post from Kirkcaldy, would even now be preparing his breakfast. As his feet touched the harbourside stones the town clock was striking seven.
The familiar smells of salt and tar and herrings greeted him, and on his ear fell the babble of awakening life in the little city. The jackdaws were busy in the towers of St Regulus, and he could hear the voice of a man crying the morning baps. The housewives in the wynds were fetching water from the pumps — he caught the distant clack of their tongues. The Professor of Humanity, who had a weak digestion, would be returning from his pre-breakfast walk. He felt himself welcomed by the gentle hand of old homely things. Pleasantly he thought of his little study and the drawer with the manuscript of his great treatise on the relation of art and morals, and the poem on Cardinal Beatoun which was to rival Mr Walter Scott. As he climbed the steep cobbles he reflected that he had successfully accomplished his mission. He saw the pleased surprise in the Principal’s face that so much should have been done so expeditiously; he heard his congratulatory words, and observed the sour smile of Dr Wotherspoon, his Moral Philosophy rival.
The thoughts that had filled his mind on his journey had now dispersed like an early mist. Sad thoughts they had been, some of them — regrets which he tried in vain to stifle. Memories of a face and eyes and voice which were still too vivid for his peace. But he had also had his comforting reflection that he had proved the manhood of which he had not before been wholly certain, and recovered that youth which in a poet must never be suffered to die. There had also been at the back of his head the thought that he was returning to dear and familiar things. Now as he entered Mid Street this last
had dominated and expelled the rest. He was very content to come home.
As he entered his lodgings a faint smell of burning came to his nostrils.
“Babbie,” he shouted, “you are letting the porridge burn again. Have I not told you a hundred times that I cannot abide burnt porridge?”
THE END
THE HOUSE OF THE FOUR WIND S
Published in 1935 by Hodder & Stoughton, this romantic adventure novel is set in the fictional Central European country of Evallonia in the early 1930s. Forming a sequel to Castle Gay, the narrative concerns the involvement of Scottish visitors in the overthrow of a corrupt republic and the restoration of the monarchy.
At the beginning of the novel, several characters formerly seen in Huntingtower and Castle Gay are about to go to Europe over the summer for a number of different reasons: Mr McCunn going to a German Kurhaus for his health, Alison to join her parents in the Tirol, the Roylances to attend a dull conference in Geneva, Jaikie on a walking tour, Dougal on a mission for his newspaper. Jaikie meets Randal Glynde who encourages him to visit Evallonia, which is on the verge of a revolution, and arranges for him to meet Prince Odalchini at his castle, “The House of the Four Winds”.
The first edition
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER I. THE MAN WITH THE ELEPHANT
CHAPTER II. THE HOUSE OF THE FOUR WINDS
CHAPTER III. DIVERSIONS OF A MARIONETTE
CHAPTER IV. DIFFICULTIES OF A REVOLUTIONARY
CHAPTER V. SURPRISING ENERGY OF A CONVALESCENT
CHAPTER VI. ARRIVALS AT AN INN
CHAPTER VII. “SI VIEILLESSE POUVAIT”
CHAPTER VIII. SPLENDIDE MENDAX
CHAPTER IX. NIGHT IN THE WOODS
CHAPTER X. AURUNCULEIA
CHAPTER XI. THE BLOOD-RED ROOK
CHAPTER XII. THE STREET OF THE WHITE PEACOCK
CHAPTER XIII. THE MARCH ON MELINA
ENVOI
NOTE
The earlier doings of some of the personages in this tale will be found recorded in Huntingtower and Castle Gay.
J. B.
PROLOGUE
Great events, says the philosophic historian, spring only from great causes, though the immediate occasion may be small; but I think his law must have exceptions. Of the not inconsiderable events which I am about to chronicle, the occasion was trivial, and I find it hard to detect the majestic agency behind them. What world-force, for example, ordained that Mr Dickson McCunn should slip into the Tod’s Hole in his little salmon-river on a bleak night in April; and, without changing his clothes, should thereafter make a tour of inspection of his young lambs? His action was the proximate cause of this tale, but I can see no profounder explanation of it than the inherent perversity of man.
The performance had immediate consequences for Mr McCunn. He awoke next morning with a stiff neck, an aching left shoulder, and a pain in the small of his back — he who never in his life before had had a touch of rheumatism. A vigorous rubbing with embrocation failed to relieve him, and, since he was accustomed to robust health, he found it intolerable to hobble about with a thing like a toothache in several parts of his body. Dr Murdoch was sent for from Auchenlochan, and for a fortnight Mr McCunn had to endure mustard plasters and mustard baths, to swallow various medicines, and to submit to a rigorous diet. The pains declined, but he found himself to his disgust in a low state of general health, easily tired, liable to sudden cramps, and with a poor appetite for his meals. After three weeks of this condition he lost his temper. Summer was beginning, and he reflected that, being now sixty-three years of age, he had only a limited number of summers left to him. His gorge rose at the thought of dragging his wing through the coming delectable months — long-lighted June, the hot July noons with the corncrakes busy in the hay, the days on August hills, red with heather and musical with bees. He curbed his distaste for medical science, and departed to Edinburgh to consult a specialist.
That specialist gave him a purifying time. He tested his blood and his blood pressure, kneaded every part of his frame, and for the better part of a week kept him under observation. At the end he professed himself clear in the general but perplexed in the particular.
“You’ve never been ill in your life?” he said. “Well, that is just your trouble. You’re an uncommonly strong man — heart, lungs, circulation, digestion, all in first-class order. But it stands to reason that you must have secreted poisons in your body, and you have never got them out. The best prescription for a fit old age is a bad illness in middle life, or, better still, a major operation. It drains off some of the middle-age humours. Well, you haven’t had that luck, so you’ve been a powder magazine with some nasty explosives waiting for the spark. Your tom-fool escapade in the Stinchar provided the spark, and here you are — a healthy man mysteriously gone sick. You’ve got to be pretty careful, Mr McCunn. It depends on how you behave in the next few months whether you will be able to fish for salmon on your eightieth birthday, or be doddering round with two sticks and a shawl on your seventieth.”
Mr McCunn was scared, penitent and utterly docile. He professed himself ready for the extremest measures, including the drawing of every tooth in his head.
The specialist smiled. “I don’t recommend anything so drastic. What you want first of all is an exact diagnosis. I can assess your general condition, but I can’t put my finger on the precise mischief. That needs a technique which we haven’t developed sufficiently in this country. Next, you must have treatment, but treatment is a comparatively simple affair if you first get the right diagnosis. So I am going to send you to Germany.”
Mr McCunn wailed. Banishment from his beloved Blaweary was a bitter pill.
“Yes, to Germany. To quite a pretty place called Rosensee, in Saxon Switzerland. There’s a kurhaus there run by a man called Christoph. You never heard his name, of course — few people have — but he is a therapeutic genius of the first order. You can take my word for that. I’ve known him again and again pull people out of their graves. His main subject is nerves, but he is good for everything that is difficult and mysterious, for in my opinion he is the greatest diagnoser in the world. . . . By the way, you live in Carrick? Well, I sent one of your neighbours to Rosensee last year — Sir Archibald Roylance — he was having trouble with a damaged leg — and now he walks nearly as well as you and me. It seems there was a misplaced sinew which everybody else had overlooked. . . . Dr Christoph will see you three times a day, stare at you like an owl, ask you a thousand questions and make no comment for at least a fortnight. Then he will deliver judgment, and you may take it that it will be right. After that the treatment is a simple matter. In a week or two you will be got up in green shorts and a Tyrolese hat and an alpenstock and a rope round your middle, climbing the little rocks of those parts. . . . Yes, I think I can promise you that you’ll be fit and ready for the autumn salmon.”
Mr McCunn, trained to know a competent man when he saw him, accepted the consultant’s prescription, and rooms were taken for him at the Rosensee kurhaus. His wife did not accompany him for three reasons: first, she had a profound distaste for foreign countries and regarded Germany as still a hostile State; second, she could not believe that rheumatism, which was an hereditary ailment in her own family, need be taken seriously, so she felt no real anxiety about his health; third, he forbade her. She proposed to stay at Blaweary till the end of June, and then to await her husband’s return at a Rothesay hydropathic. So early in the month Mr McCunn a little disconsolately left these shores. He took with him as body-servant and companion one Peter Wappit, who at Blaweary was game-keeper, forester and general handy-man. Peter, having fought in France with the Scots Fusiliers, and having been two years a prisoner in Germany, was believed by his master to be an adept at foreign tongues.
Nor was there any profound reason in the nature of things why Lord Rhynns, a well-preserved gentleman of sixty-seven, should have tumbled into a ditch that spring at Vallescure and broken his left leg. He was an
active man and a careful, but his mind had been busy with the Newmarket entries, so that he missed a step, rolled some yards down a steep slope of rock and bracken, and came to rest with a leg doubled unpleasantly under him. The limb was well set, but neuritis followed, with disastrous consequences to the Rhynns ménage. For his wife, whose profession was a gentle invalidism, found herself compelled to see to household affairs, and as a result was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The family moved from watering-place to watering-place, seeking a cure for his lordship’s affliction, till at the mountain village of Unnutz Lady Rhynns could bear it no longer. A telegram was despatched to their only child requiring her instant attendance upon distressed parents.
This was a serious blow to Miss Alison Westwater, who had been making very different plans for the summer. She was then in London, living with her Aunt Harriet, who two years before had espoused Mr Thomas Carlyle Craw, the newspaper magnate. It was the Craws’ purpose to go north after Ascot to the Westwater house, Castle Gay, in the Canonry, of which Mr Craw had a long lease, and Alison, for whom a very little of London sufficed, had exulted in the prospect. Now she saw before her some dismal weeks — or months — in an alien land, in the company of a valetudinarian mother and a presumably irascible father. Her dreams of Scotland, to which she was passionately attached, of salmon in the Callowa and trout in the hill lochs and bright days among the heather, had to be replaced by a dreary vista of baking foreign roads, garish foreign hotels, tarnished pine-woods, tidy clothes and all the things which her soul abominated.
There was perhaps more of a cosmic motive in the determination that summer of the doings of Mr Dougal Crombie and Sir Archibald Roylance, for in their cases we touch the fringe of high politics. Dougal was now a force, almost the force, in the Craw Press. The general manager, Mr Archibald Bamff, was growing old, he had taken to himself a wife, and his fancy toyed pleasantly with retirement to some country hermitage. So in the past year Dougal had been gradually taking over his work, and, since he had the complete confidence of Mr Craw, and the esteem of Mr Craw’s masterful wife, he found himself in his early twenties charged with much weighty and troublesome business. He was a power behind the throne, and the more potent because few suspected his presence. Only one or two people — a Cabinet minister, an occasional financial magnate, a few highly placed Government officials — realised the authority that was wielded by this sombre and downright young man. Early in June he set out on an extensive Continental trip, the avowed purpose of which was to look into certain paper-making concerns which Mr Craw had acquired after the war. But his main object was not disclosed, for it was deeply secret. Mr Craw had long interested himself in the republic of Evallonia, his sympathies being with those who sought to restore the ancient monarchy. Now it appeared that the affairs of that country were approaching a crisis, and it was Dougal’s mission to spy out the land.
