by John Buchan
‘I shall come back to the Norlands,’ said Lombard, shaking out his pipe. ‘It was good of you to let me into this show, Hannay; I hope I haven’t misconducted myself.’
‘You were the steadiest of the lot,’ I said warmly. ‘You never gave a cheep even when things looked ugliest.’
He laughed.
‘I often wanted to. But I’m glad to find I haven’t gone quite soft. I never really thought I had. But I’ve let myself get dull and flat. That’s what this business has taught me. I want to get air and space round me, for I live in a dashed stuffy world. . . . So I’m coming back to the Norlands to make my soul.’
I suppose I must have looked at him in surprise, for he laughed again. ‘You know well enough what I mean. The Norlands are a spiritual place which you won’t find on any map. Every man must discover his own Island of Sheep. You and Clanroyden have found yours, and I’m going to find mine.’
My last recollection is of two meals in the great hall of the House. The first was the night of the coming of the Grind, or rather the small hours of the following morning. The Danish fishery boat had arrived; the malefactors were safely stowed away; and, while Haraldsen lay in his bed upstairs, in the hall were gathered the Norlanders who had saved us, both the boat parties and those who had come by land — the officers of the destroyer — Sandy, Lombard, and myself — and Anna and Peter John. The children seemed to have got their second wind, for, having been very tired and drowsy at first, they woke up before midnight to an astonishing vigour. The Danish officers, who knew the Norlands well and also Haraldsen, were the friendliest of souls. As for the Norlanders, to them the Island of Sheep was the home of legend and the Haraldsen family the centre of their mythology. At first they were shy and laggard, for your Norlander is an excellent giver but a poor taker. But they were very hungry, and Arn had provided a feast of fat things, and in twenty minutes they had squared their elbows to the job and were as merry as grigs.
I shall never forget that scene. Arn had supplemented the electric light by several score of candles, and the huge place was as bright as day. The tapestries, the carved grotesques, the many ships’ models, the curious panelling — their minutest lines and their subtlest colours were displayed in that fierce radiance. And below sat a company which might have come out of a picture in a child’s Grimm. Many of the islanders wore their cowls, for they were in doubt as to whether that vast hall should be reckoned a dwelling. And at the head of the long oaken table, in a chair like a galley’s beak, sat Anna. I had never seen anything quite like her. She had changed from rough clothes into a white silk gown, and the coronel of lights under which she sat made her seem a creature of gold and ivory. She ruled the feast, too. It was she who gave the toasts; it was she who in musical Norland thanked our preservers. Here was the true fairy-tale princess, the Queen out of the North, and to that wild gathering she lent an air of high ceremonial. But she was a stony-hearted princess, for she insisted on toasting Peter John. I don’t know what she said about him, but it got the Norlanders out of their seats and he was hoisted — Morag angrily protesting — on a dozen shoulders. A speech was demanded, and his was of two sentences. ‘Thank you all very much. — Anna, you beast, I’ll pay you out for this.’
The second meal was the following day, when the Tjaldar was about to sail under the convoy of the Danish destroyer, and the islanders had returned to their homes. We had the Tjaldar party to dinner, and Haraldsen himself was the host. I have never been present on a more fantastic occasion. Sandy said we had to do it, to mark the close of hostilities, but it was a pretty cruel business for the ex-conspirators. Albinus was a dingy figure, still considerably rattled. Barralty was the frightened intellectual trying to recover his poise, but he was a long way short of getting back his self-esteem. The lady was the most composed. She wore a charming gown, and had the wit not to make any pretences. They had got themselves into an ugly show, and were now quit of it and correspondingly grateful. But they all looked at Sandy in some awe. I gathered that, as Martel, he had been chiefly responsible for scaring the life out of them.
I think I may say that we all behaved well. Lombard talked the City to Barralty and Troth, Sandy had some polite things to say about politics, a great deal of information was vouchsafed about the Norlands, some of Haraldsen’s treasures were exhibited, and Miss Ludlow was caressingly sweet to Anna. I should add that old Arn excelled himself, that the food was perfection, and that the best of Haraldsen’s cellar was forthcoming. This last point was especially appreciated by Troth, who soon relaxed into bonhomie. I found him a very friendly fellow, with sensible notions about the Essex creeks and tides.
It was he who, before they left, made an attempt at an apology.
‘I hope, Mr. Haraldsen,’ he said, ‘that we’re all going to forgive and forget.’
Haraldsen looked down on him from his great height.
‘I ask for nothing better,’ he said. ‘I understand that you feel some grievance against me, Mr. Troth. On my father’s account, I think, and for your own father’s sake? Well, we are willing that some reparation should be made. Lord Clanroyden will tell you what.’
Sandy took from his pocket something in a chamois-leather wrapping.
‘This belonged to the late Mr. Haraldsen,’ he said. ‘It came into my hands in rather an odd way, about which I wrote to the papers. I do not intend to hand it over to the British Museum. I propose, Mr. Troth, to give it to you in full settlement of any claims you may think you have against the late Mr. Haraldsen’s estate.’
He took from a bag the tablet of emerald jade which he had shown us at Fosse.
Troth received it with a face in which surprise, greed, and a kind of shame were mingled. He turned the lovely thing over in his hands, made as if to read the inscription, and then looked at Sandy a little confusedly.
‘D’you mean that, Lord Clanroyden?’ he asked. ‘It’s extraordinarily good of you. Of course I give up any claims — I had already given them up. D’you mean me to act on what this tablet may tell me?’
‘Certainly.’
‘And to keep for myself whatever I may find?’
‘Certainly. For yourself, and any friends you want to share with you.’
Troth peered at the inscription.
‘One side’s in Latin. The other side — the important side — I suppose I can get that translated?’
‘It has been already translated,’ said Sandy gravely. ‘I have seen to that.’
‘And you found?’ The eternal treasure-hunter was in Troth’s voice.
‘We found a list of the Twelve Major Virtues and the Ninety-Nine Names of God!’
THE END
SICK HEART RIV ER
It was announced from the Canadian prime minister’s office on 10 August 1935 that the King had approved the recommendation of Buchan as the viceregal representative by commission under the royal sign-manual and signet. Buchan then departed for Canada and was sworn in as the country’s governor general in a ceremony on 2 November 1935 in the salon rouge of the parliament buildings of Quebec. Buchan was the first viceroy of Canada appointed since the enactment of the Statute of Westminster on 11 December 1931 and was thus the first to have been decided on solely by the monarch of Canada in his Canadian council. Buchan continued writing during his time as governor general, but he also thereafter took his position as viceroy seriously and from the outset made it his goal to travel the length and breadth of Canada, including, for the first time for a governor general, the arctic regions
Published in 1941, a year after the author’s death, his penultimate novel is set in Canada and is particularly poignant, since it discusses a terminally ill man, Edward Leithen, going off to die in a hidden valley in the wilderness. Buchan wrote Sick Heart River while Governor General of Canada and it is recognised as being one of his most spiritual novels, rich with themes of death and redemption.
The first edition
CONTENTS
PART I
PART II
PA
RT III
Buchan in Native headdress, 1937
PART I
“Thus said Alfred:
If thou hast a woe, tell it not to the weakling,
Tell it to thy saddle-bow, and ride singing forth.”
Proverbs of Alfred.
1
Leithen had been too busy all day to concern himself with the thoughts which hung heavily at the back of his mind. In the morning he had visited his bankers to look into his money affairs. These were satisfactory enough: for years he had been earning a large income and spending little of it; his investments were mostly in trustee stocks; he found that he possessed, at a safe computation, a considerable fortune, while his Cotswold estate would find a ready sale. Next came his solicitors, for he was too wise a man to make the mistake of many barristers and tinker with his own will. He gave instructions for bringing the old one up to date. There were a few legacies by way of mementoes to old friends, a considerable gift to his college, donations to certain charities, and the residue to his nephew Charles, his only near relation.
He forced himself to lunch at one of his clubs, in a corner where no one came near him, though Archie Roylance waved a greeting across the dining-room. Then he spent a couple of hours with his clerk in his Temple chambers, looking through the last of his briefs. There were not a great many, since, for some months, he had been steadily refusing work. The batch of cases for opinion he could soon clear off, and one big case in the Lords he must argue next week, for it involved a point of law in which he had always taken a special interest. The briefs for the following term would be returned. The clerk, who had been with him for thirty years, was getting on in life and would be glad to retire on an ample pension. Still, it was a painful parting.
“It’s a big loss to the Bar, Sir Edward, sir,” old Mellon said, “and it’s pretty well the end of things for me. You have been a kind master to me, sir, and I’m proud to have served you. I hope you are going to have many happy years yet.”
But there had been a look of pain in the old man’s eyes which told Leithen that he had guessed what he dared not hint at.
He had tea at the House of Commons with the Chief Whip, a youngish man named Ritson, who in the War had been a subaltern in his own battalion. Ritson listened to him with a wrinkled brow and troubled eyes.
“Have you told your local people?” he asked.
“I’ll write to them tomorrow. I thought I ought to tell you first. There’s no fear of losing the seat. My majority has never been less than six thousand, and there’s an excellent candidate ready in young Walmer.”
“We shall miss you terribly, you know. There’s no one to take your place.”
Leithen smiled. “I haven’t been pulling my weight lately.”
“Perhaps not. But I’m thinking of what’s coming. If there’s an election, we’re going to win all right, and we’ll want you badly in the new Government. It needn’t be a law office. You can have your pick of half a dozen jobs. Only yesterday the Chief was speaking to me about you.” And he repeated a conversation he had had with the man who would be the next Prime Minister.
“You’re all very kind. But I don’t think I want anything. I’ve done enough, as Napoleon said, ‘pour chauffer la gloire.’”
“Is it your health?” Ritson asked.
“Well, I need a rest. I’ve been pretty busy all my days and I’m tired.”
The Chief Whip hesitated.
“Things are pretty insecure in the world just now. There may be a crisis any day. Don’t you think you ought—”
Leithen smiled.
“I’ve thought of that. But if I stayed on I could do nothing to help. That isn’t a pleasant conclusion to come to, but it’s the truth.”
Ritson stood at the door of his room and watched his departing guest going down the corridor to the Central Lobby. He turned to a junior colleague who had joined him —
“I wonder what the devil’s the matter! There’s been a change in him in the last few months. But he doesn’t look a sick man. He was always a bad colour, of course, but Lamancha says he is the hardest fellow he ever knew on the hill.”
The other shook a wise head. “You never can tell. He had a roughish time in the War and the damage often takes years to come out. I think he’s right to slack off, for he must have a gruelling life at the Bar. My father tried to get him the other day as leader in a big case, and he wasn’t to be had for love or money. Simply snowed under with work!”
Leithen walked from the House towards his rooms in Down Street. He was still keeping his thoughts shut down, but in spite of himself the familiar streets awakened memories. How often he had tramped them in the far-off days when he was a pupil in chambers and the world was an oyster waiting to be opened. It was a different London then, quieter, cosier, dirtier perhaps, but sweeter smelling. On a summer evening such as this the scents would have been a compound of wood paving, horse-dung, flowers, and fresh paint, not the deadly monotony of petrol. The old land-marks, too, were disappearing. In St. James’s Street only Mr. Lock’s modest shop-window and the eighteenth-century façade of Boodle’s recalled the London of his youth. He remembered posting up this street with a high heart after he had won his first important case in court . . . and the Saturday afternoon’s strolls in it when he had changed his black regimentals for tweeds or flannels . . . and the snowy winter day when a tiny coffin on a gun-carriage marked the end of Victoria’s reign . . . and the shiny August morning in 1914 when he had been on his way to enlist with a mind half-anxious and half-exulting. He had travelled a good deal in his time, but most of his life had been spent in this square mile of west London. He did not regret the changes; he only noted them. His inner world was crumbling so fast that he had lost any craving for permanence in the externals of life.
In Piccadilly he felt his knees trembling and called a taxi. In Down Street he took the lift to his rooms, though for thirty years he had made a ritual of climbing the stairs.
The flat was full of powdery sunlight. He sank into a chair at the window to get his breath, and regarded the comfortable, shabby sitting-room. Now that he seemed to be looking at it with new eyes he noted details which familiarity had long obscured. The pictures were school and college groups, one or two mountain photographs, and, over the mantelpiece, Raeburn’s portrait of his grandfather. He was very little of a connoisseur, though at Borrowby he had three Vandykes which suited its Jacobean solemnity. There were books everywhere; they overflowed into the dining-room and his bedroom and the little hall. He reflected that what with these, and the law library in his chambers and his considerable collection at Borrowby, he must have at least twenty thousand volumes. He had been happy here, happy and busy, and for a moment — for a moment only — he felt a bitter pang of regret.
But he was still keeping his thoughts at a distance, for the time had not come to face them. Memories took the vacant place. He remembered how often he had left these rooms with a holiday zest, and how he had always returned to them with delight, for this, and not Borrowby, was his true home. How many snug winter nights had he known here, cheerful with books and firelight; and autumn twilights when he was beginning to get into the stride of his work after the long vacation; and spring mornings when the horns of elfland were blowing even in Down Street. He lay back in his chair, shut his eyes and let his memory wander. There was no harm in that, for the grim self-communion he had still to face would have no room for memories. He almost dozed.
The entry of his man, Cruddock, aroused him.
“Lord Clanroyden called you up, sir. He is in Town for the night and suggests that you might dine with him. He said the Turf Club at eight. I was to let him know, sir.”
“Tell him to come here instead. You can produce some kind of a dinner?” Leithen rather welcomed the prospect. Sandy Clanroyden would absorb his attention for an hour or two and postpone for a little the settlement with himself which his soul dreaded.
He had a bath and changed. He had been feeling listless and depressed,
but not ill, and the cold shower gave him a momentary sense of vigour and almost an appetite for food. He caught a glimpse of himself naked in the long mirror, and was shocked anew by his leanness. He had given up weighing himself, but it looked as if he had lost pounds in the past month.
Sandy arrived on the stroke of eight. Leithen, as he greeted him, reflected that he was the only one of his closer friends whom he could have borne to meet. Archie Roylance’s high spirits would have been intolerable, and Lamancha’s air of mastery over life, and Dick Hannay’s serene contentment.
He did not miss the sharp glance of his guest when he entered the room. Could some rumours have got abroad? It was clear that Sandy was setting himself to play a part, for his manner had not its usual ease. He was not talking at random, but picking his topics.
A proof was that he did not ask Leithen about his holiday plans, which, near the close of the law term, would have been a natural subject. He seemed to feel that his host’s affairs might be delicate ground, and that it was his business to distract his mind from some unhappy preoccupation. So he talked about himself and his recent doings. He had just been to Cambridge to talk to the Explorers’ Club, and had come back with strong views about modern youth.
“I’m not happy about the young entry. Oh! I don’t mean all of it. There’s plenty of lads that remind me of my own old lot. But some of the best seem to have become a bit too much introverted — isn’t that the filthy word? What’s to be done about the Owlish Young, Ned?”
“I don’t see much of youth nowadays,” said Leithen. “I seem to live among fogies. I’m one myself.”
