by John Buchan
She talked more and laughed oftener. Her voice had an airy lightness which would have made the silliest prattle charming.
‘We are going to fill the house with young people and give a ball at Christmas,’ she announced. ‘This hall is simply clamouring to be danced in. You must come, both of you. Promise me. And, Mr Leithen, it would be very nice if you brought a party from Borrowby. Young men, please. We are overstocked with girls in these parts. We must do something to make the country cheerful in winter-time.’
I observed that no season could make Fullcircle other than cheerful. ‘How nice of you!’ she cried. ‘To praise a house is to praise the householders, for a dwelling is just what its inmates make it. Borrowby is you, Mr Leithen, and Fullcircle us.’
‘Shall we exchange?’ Leithen asked.
She made a mouth. ‘Borrowby would crush me, but it suits a Gothic survival like you. Do you think you would be happy here?’
‘Happy?’ said Leithen thoughtfully. ‘Happy? Yes, undoubtedly. But it might be bad for my soul. — There’s just time for a pipe, Giffen, and then we must be off.’
I was filling my pipe as we crossed the outer hall, and was about to enter the smoking-room that I so well remembered, when Giffen laid a hand on my arm.
‘We don’t smoke there now,’ he said hastily.
He opened the door and I looked in. The place had suffered its third metamorphosis. The marble shrine which I had noticed on my first visit had been brought back, and the blue mosaic pavement and the ivory walls were bare. At the eastern end stood a little altar, with, above it, a copy of a Correggio Madonna.
A faint smell of incense hung in the air, and the fragrance of hothouse flowers. It was a chapel, but, I swear, it was a more pagan place than when it had been workroom or smoking-room.
Giffen gently shut the door. ‘Perhaps you may not have heard, but some months ago my wife became a Catholic. It is a good thing for women, I think. It gives them a regular ritual for their lives. So we restored the chapel, which had always been there in the days of the Carterons and the Applebys.’
‘And you?’ I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘I don’t bother much about that sort of thing. But I propose to follow suit. It will please Ursula and do no harm to anybody.’
We halted on the brow of the hill and looked back on the garden valley. Leithen’s laugh, as he gazed, had more awe than mirth in it. ‘That wicked little house! I’m going to hunt up every scrap I can find about old Tom Carteron. He must have been an uncommon clever fellow. He’s still alive down there and making people do as he did. In that kind of place you may expel the priest and sweep it and garnish it, but he always returns.’
The wrack was lifting before the wind, and a shaft of late watery sun fell on the grey walls. It seemed to me that the little house wore an air of gentle triumph.
Watches of the Night
The Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal, 1921 — 3
9.30 P.M.-THE GARDIEN’ HAS just put out the light and bumped noisily into his cubby-hole. The hut is as dark as the pit; an uneasy quiet reigns, and I compose myself to sleep.
This (my reason tells me) is the precious hour of rest; the storehouse of the body’s strength against the toil and tribulation of the morning; not a moment must be lost! Come, now, let me concentrate upon oblivion: I will speak softly — perhaps I shall catch it unawares — Sleep... Sleep... (It would be easier, all the same, if there were fewer lumps in this mattress, and if the straw were less prickly within the pillow.)
Sleep...
It is a grim business. Half an hour has gone already. I have tried all manner of ways; on the right side, and on the left; I have passed in hot pursuit down all the byways of my mind; I have lain in wait among the shadows of idle thought — and sleep eludes me still! It has been deaf to my prayers; it has scorned my little scientific ruses; it has treated my mathematical contrivances with contempt. As usual, it has played the woman with my over-anxious wooing, and taken a delight in denying the too assiduous lover. Fool that I am! To conquer, my wooing should, of course, be the wooing of the Apache: I must be careless and brutal, seemingly indifferent, lazily sure of my success. Men of genius have always done this. Napoleon, for instance, found sleep the moment he desired it, even on the eve of a critical battle. Wonderful!
I fear in this respect I do not resemble Napoleon. It is unfortunate.
Raymond does though; he is off already — the lucky devil. So does the Gardien. Nom d’un nom! How the man snores! It is like a double-bass played by clockwork: in spasms it is like the thunder of the Atlantic on a rock-bound shore.
Why don’t they make men wear silencers? They have to have them on motor bicycles and things. Compulsory silencers — for use in all SAC huts — a brilliant idea! (I am often exceptionally brilliant on these occasions.) It will be defended not to use them when requested to do so by other Clubists — another excellent precept for voyagers! And why not? After all, they climb Everest in gas-masks; at least, they do on the posters. Why not have some similar sort of apparatus, instruments of silence for the cabane? Surely Mr Unna could invent an ingenious device?
I wonder if it would matter very much if I murdered the Gardien quite quietly? He is probably insured. Not that it would be of much use, for another in all respects like unto him would take his place in the morning.
Hang it all!! MUST get to sleep! It is getting on for eleven o’clock by now: only two hours more, and then - breakfast and that infernal moraine. Perhaps if I try the counting game again...
One... Two... Three... Yes; we shall take quite three hours to reach the ridge. And then — how many hours? I wonder! Old Dübi is nearly lyrical about it: the stern decorum of topographical science is quite overcome; it has even compassed the majestic word ‘anfractuosities’ in its service; these are, apparently, numerous, and many of them are difficult (varappe scabreuse). Finally there will be an arête de neige tranchante, not seldom garnie d’une corniche — however, that part looked all right, as far as we could see. But, in any case, we shall have our work cut out; there will be more than one tense moment before we find the summit under foot and are at liberty to descend that glorious sweep of ridge which leads to the broad slopes beyond.
We shall... we shall...
What did you say, Raymond?
This valley, into which we are so unaccountably descending, seems strange to you? My good sir! Why — of course — it’s the... it’s the... Well — funny thing — now you come to mention it, it DOES seem a bit unfamiliar, even to me... It must be... But — never mind — we shall soon come upon things we recognise — when we get a little lower.
The curious part about it is that the Swiss map seems wrong somehow. I’ve never known it happen before. It’s really quite extraordinary! We shall have to put a pithy little note about it in the next A.J.: ‘Alpine topography still incomplete — lingering defects in Swiss maps - theory of “wet” drinks among (dry) Federal surveyors.’ It’ll cause a minor sensation! Theory questioned by Prof. X, angrily pooh-poohed by the Rev. Y, supported by General Z, and so on, to another merry controversy!
It is a very beautiful valley, Raymond! Those pastures — what an exquisite shade of green! How deliciously cool will be those woods after this furnace of a moraine...
We are going down — down — down the pathway under the pines. The sunlight creeps stealthily in through the leaves and spreads a quivering trellis-work of light at our feet. Here and there little streams play hide-and-seek with great moss-clad boulders, and gurgle happily under bushes of alpen rose: we drink as we pass downward and are well content. Anything may happen in these woods. We may wander on for ever...
Hullo — what is this?
We have come to a clearing in the forest, a grassy glade among the pines, and in the middle of it stands a large chalet, many windowed, generously roofed, and richly carved about the corners and under the eaves. The very sight of the place is an invitation. The perfect valley must possess a perfec
t inn. We approach and enter as a matter of course. We have scarcely crossed the threshold before a stately old man, clad in flowing robes of purple edged with gold, comes forward to meet us with a smile of welcome. Strange... but it is almost certainly the concierge. We murmur the usual phrases about food and beds. ‘But yes, Messieurs, everything is prepared! The Messieurs will surely bathe before they sit down to eat? All is in readiness. Excusez.’ With the utmost deference he relieves us of our axes and sacks. If we will be so good as to follow him. He leads the way down several passages, and then, opening a door suddenly, ushers us into a darkened chamber. As soon as our eyes grow accustomed to the gloom, we see that it is a beautifully appointed chambre de bain, floored with black marble, and in the centre is a circular pool of clear water from which the steam is rising softly to fill the chamber with a delicious perfume, as of a garden of roses on summer’s morning. ‘Messieurs will take an apéritif while they prepare for the bath... and a cigarette, perhaps?’
‘Certainly we will, mon ami!’ Silent-footed attendants appear from out the shadows, bearing stimulating drinks. Hastily we shed our clothing and leap into the pool. The temperature is perfect; we abandon ourselves to an ecstasy of physical well-being and delight.
Dimly I am aware of Raymond’s sun-burnt visage, like a great blood-orange, floating in a cloud of steam.
‘Ah!’ says he, in a deep languorous voice, ‘this is wonderful! Amazingly... incredibly... wonderful.’
The bath is over. The attendants bring us clean raiment, soft and very pleasant to the touch. I dress myself at leisure. Then I wander out into a spacious hall. Through a curtained doorway I get a peep into an inner room which is full of light. A magnificent banquet is being prepared within! The table groans under great bowls of silver filled with flowers and luscious fruits: melons, grapes, figs, peaches, and pomegranates. Numberless little dishes are there also, laden with the trifles which toy with the palate at unimportant intervals. From somewhere underground there comes the inviting aroma of savoury meat well cooked. Comely maidens pass with beakers of sparkling wine.
‘This,’ I find myself murmuring, ‘is a fit reward of toil. This must be the climber’s Valhalla.’
Hark!
That will be the dinner gong! The feast is about to begin. I feel I possess a hunger worthy of the occasion. We will go in. The sound of the gong is faint at first; it has a deep note, soft and seemingly distant. How sweetly it rouses the echoes of that sombre hall! Then it grows louder and more shrill; louder yet — until now it is drumming in my ears.
Ding-dong - ding-dong - ding-dong - ding-ding-ding-ding-ding...
DAMN!!
Where are my matches? Stop that infernal din, will you? I’m awake. One o’clock.
Through the window of the hut I can see a cold, triangular wedge of stars. It is a perfect night.
I tumble out of bed and start to light the fire. There is a stir among Raymond’s blankets; he sits up and rubs his eyes. Has he, too, I wonder, been piped out of Elysium on the note of the alarm?
The Shut Door
The Boys’ All-Round Book, 1926
WE WERE TALKING — said the Fusilier Captain — in our dugout near Gouzeaucourt, the night before the Boche made his counter-attack at Cambrai. There seemed no reason to anticipate bad trouble in the near future, but all the same there was a queer feeling in the air as if something ugly were about to happen, and we were all a bit edgy. You know how on these occasions men talk and smoke cigarette after cigarette to keep their nerves quiet? Well, that night we had the most interesting yarns I ever heard on the Western Front. You see, our Division had been right through the whole of Gallipoli before we were hoicked back to the West, and we had every stamp of fellow in our mess. But that night we didn’t talk about the war, but about the things we were going to do when the beastly show was over.
I, as you know, was before 1914 a peaceful Fellow of a Cambridge College, and my only journeys had been to look at manuscripts in Berlin or Rome. But there were three of us who between them had pretty well covered the globe. Peachey, who commanded ‘B’ Company, was a rich man’s son, who had spent his time since he came down from Oxford in trying to beat height records in the Himalayas. Our M.O., Hyde, had been with three big exploring expeditions — one in the Northern Congo, when a special kind of okapi was discovered, one in Eastern Tibet after new species of flowers, and one, five months before the War broke out, in South-eastern Arabia. There were some people who said he had been to Mecca in disguise, and I can well believe it, for he spoke a dozen Oriental tongues, and had written a big book on the religion of Islam. The third was a very dark horse called Lacon, and the name suited him, for he rarely opened his mouth. He had been in the engineering business somewhere in South America, and his work had taken him into odd places and odder company. You could see that from the way he would drop a quiet word now and then. He would suddenly cut in and explain some point in one of our arguments with a story, and his stories were always those of an eyewitness. It was not, ‘I have heard,’ but ‘I have seen’; and though we all pulled each other’s legs a bit, there was something about Lacon which made you believe him implicitly.
That night the talk drifted, I remember, to the things that would be left worth doing in the world. We were all fed up with our particular job of beating the Boche, and because we were young we all wanted — after we had had a rest and a drink, so to speak — to get busy with something really amusing. There was a good deal of nonsense, you know, talked about the utter weariness of the men at the front. Most of us were not weary, only bored, and wanted not peace so much as real excitement.
The Boche was extraordinarily well-behaved that night. Now and then there would be a sputter of fire, chiefly from our own outposts, but most of the time it was so quiet in that dugout that you could hear the rats scurrying and the drip of grease from the candle in the bottle-mouths. It made us all feel a little eerie, and I think Peachey talked mainly to break the spell.
He had planned, as soon as the war was over, to have a try for Everest. He drew a map on the back of a picture from L’Illustration to show us how, from Tibet, it was a comparatively simple business, starting at a high elevation up slopes set at a reasonable angle. The events of two summers ago were to disprove Peachey’s optimism.
‘It beats me what pleasure you find in climbing mountains,’ put in Hyde, who had the scientific Cambridge mind. ‘If I am going to risk my life and have the deuce of a bad time, I want to get some profit out of it - for myself or the world.’
‘What about this old war?’ somebody asked.
‘Well, I fancy there is some profit to the world in it, or we wouldn’t be here. But about Everest. What on earth’s the use of getting to the top of it?’
‘Thank God, there is no earthly use,’ said Peachey. ‘That’s just where the fun comes in.’
‘I don’t see it,’ said Hyde stubbornly. ‘There is no profit to science; at least nothing you couldn’t get from laboratory experiments with the pressure of air on a guinea pig’s lungs. You leave geology and zoology several thousand feet below you. It is simply a gymnastic feat. All right for boys, but not for grown men.’
I thought Peachey would get nettled, but he didn’t. He only smiled his slow, superior smile. ‘I couldn’t explain to a chap like you what mountaineers are after if I tried till Doomsday. It is like great poetry — you feel it or you don’t. It is our own private secret. — By the way, if we come out of this show, how are you going to employ your scientific mind?’
‘I’m off again with Mallison. There is just one big geographical riddle left unsolved, and that is the Desert of Southern Arabia. It is 800 miles by 500, and nobody has crossed it for at least 300 years. I want to put that bit of terra incognita on the map.’
‘But if you cross it,’ I said, ‘that will be just another feat — same as Peachey’s Everest.’
‘Not a bit of it. We know there was a famous trade route across it till well on in the Middle Ages, and along that route at
one time there were great cities. Sand is a good preservative, as Aurel Stein found. There is a chance of writing several new chapters in history, and of adorning a dozen more chapters with footnotes. God knows what relics of the past we might find — the lost books of Aristotle, perhaps, or some masterpiece of the Greek drama. It is a more hopeful business by a long chalk than digging bits of papyri out of Egyptian rubbish heaps. I tell you, the chances are two to one that if we do not leave our bones in the desert we will add more to human knowledge than Schliemann did at Mycenæ or Evans in Crete. We are going in from the east coast, of course. South-west Arabia is always a bit too unhealthy.’
It was then that Lacon spoke. He had a habit of sitting with his chin on his breast, puffing slowly at an old pipe, and looking at the company from under his brows. He was a hard-bitten fellow, with the sallow tint in his skin which comes from much malaria. The men liked him, for he was very considerate of their comfort, but he was never what you could call companionable. We respected him, for as a machine-gun officer he was incomparable, but he was too silent to be popular.
‘You’re only relic-hunting like the rest,’ he told Hyde.
‘I am a man of science,’ said Hyde hotly. ‘I don’t want junk for a museum, but something which may enable the world to understand its origins.’
‘All the same you are looking for relics. When you have got them you will proceed to use your imagination and make a picture of the life of the past which people will accept. I want to find a living past — the world as it was centuries ago still intact.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Hyde.
