Mr Standfast rh-3

by John Buchan

  He was a good draughtsman, and with his assistance I drew a rough map of the crevice where we had roosted for the night, giving its bearings carefully in relation to the burn and the sea. Then I wrote down all the details about Gresson and the Portuguese Jew, and described the latter in minute detail. I described, too, most precisely the cache where it had been arranged that the messages should be placed. That finished my stock of paper, and I left the record of the oddments overheard of the conversation for a later time. I put the thing in an old leather cigarette-case I possessed, and handed it to Wake. ‘You’ve got to go straight off to the Kyle and not waste any time on the way. Nobody suspects you, so you can travel any road you please. When you get there you ask for Mr Andrew Amos, who has some Government job in the neighbourhood. Give him that paper from me. He’ll know what to do with it all right. Tell him I’ll get somehow to the Kyle before midday the day after tomorrow. I must cover my tracks a bit, so I can’t come with you, and I want that thing in his hands just as fast as your legs will take you. If anyone tries to steal it from you, for God’s sake eat it. You can see for yourself that it’s devilish important.’

  ‘I shall be back in England in three days,’ he said. ‘Any message for your other friends?’

  ‘Forget all about me. You never saw me here. I’m still Brand, the amiable colonial studying social movements. If you meet Ivery, say you heard of me on the Clyde, deep in sedition. But if you see Miss Lamington you can tell her I’m past the Hill Difficulty. I’m coming back as soon as God will let me, and I’m going to drop right into the Biggleswick push. Only this time I’ll be a little more advanced in my views … You needn’t get cross. I’m not saying anything against your principles. The main point is that we both hate dirty treason.’

  He put the case in his waistcoat pocket. ‘I’ll go round Garsbheinn,’ he said, ‘and over by Camasunary. I’ll be at the Kyle long before evening. I meant anyhow to sleep at Broadford tonight … Goodbye, Brand, for I’ve forgotten your proper name. You’re not a bad fellow, but you’ve landed me in melodrama for the first time in my sober existence. I have a grudge against you for mixing up the Coolin with a shilling shocker. You’ve spoiled their sanctity.’

  ‘You’ve the wrong notion of romance,’ I said. ‘Why, man, last night for an hour you were in the front line - the place where the enemy forces touch our own. You were over the top - you were in No-man’s-land.’

  He laughed. ‘That is one way to look at it’; and then he stalked off and I watched his lean figure till it was round the turn of the hill.

  All that morning I smoked peacefully by the burn, and let my thoughts wander over the whole business. I had got precisely what Blenkiron wanted, a post office for the enemy. It would need careful handling, but I could see the juiciest lies passing that way to the _Grosses _Haupiquartier. Yet I had an ugly feeling at the back of my head that it had been all too easy, and that Ivery was not the man to be duped in this way for long. That set me thinking about the queer talk on the crevice. The poetry stuff I dismissed as the ordinary password, probably changed every time. But who were Chelius and Bommaerts, and what in the name of goodness were the Wild Birds and the Cage Birds? Twice in the past three years I had had two such riddles to solve - Scudder’s scribble in his pocket-book, and Harry Bullivant’s three words. I remembered how it had only been by constant chewing at them that I had got a sort of meaning, and I wondered if fate would some day expound this puzzle also.

  Meantime I had to get back to London as inconspicuously as I had come. It might take some doing, for the police who had been active in Morvern might be still on the track, and it was essential that I should keep out of trouble and give no hint to Gresson and his friends that I had been so far north. However, that was for Amos to advise me on, and about noon I picked up my waterproof with its bursting pockets and set off on a long detour up the coast. All that blessed day I scarcely met a soul. I passed a distillery which seemed to have quit business, and in the evening came to a little town on the sea where I had a bed and supper in a superior kind of public-house.

  Next day I struck southward along the coast, and had two experiences of interest. I had a good look at Ranna, and observed that the _Tobermory was no longer there. Gresson had only waited to get his job finished; he could probably twist the old captain any way he wanted. The second was that at the door of a village smithy I saw the back of the Portuguese Jew. He was talking Gaelic this time - good Gaelic it sounded, and in that knot of idlers he would have passed for the ordinariest kind of gillie.

  He did not see me, and I had no desire to give him the chance, for I had an odd feeling that the day might come when it would be good for us to meet as strangers.

  That night I put up boldly in the inn at Broadford, where they fed me nobly on fresh sea-trout and I first tasted an excellent liqueur made of honey and whisky. Next morning I was early afoot, and well before midday was in sight of the narrows of the Kyle, and the two little stone clachans which face each other across the strip of sea. About two miles from the place at a turn of the road I came upon a farmer’s gig, drawn up by the wayside, with the horse cropping the moorland grass. A man sat on the bank smoking, with his left arm hooked in the reins. He was an oldish man, with a short, square figure, and a woollen comforter enveloped his throat.

  CHAPTER EIGHT The Adventures of a Bagman

  ‘Ye’re punctual to time, Mr Brand,’ said the voice of Amos. ‘But losh! man, what have ye done to your breeks! And your buits? Ye’re no just very respectable in your appearance.’

  I wasn’t. The confounded rocks of the Coolin had left their mark on my shoes, which moreover had not been cleaned for a week, and the same hills had rent my jacket at the shoulders, and torn my trousers above the right knee, and stained every part of my apparel with peat and lichen.

  I cast myself on the bank beside Amos and lit my pipe. ‘Did you get my message?’ I asked.

  ‘Ay. It’s gone on by a sure hand to the destination we ken of. Ye’ve managed well, Mr Brand, but I wish ye were back in London.’ He sucked at his pipe, and the shaggy brows were pulled so low as to hide the wary eyes. Then he proceeded to think aloud.

  ‘Ye canna go back by Mallaig. I don’t just understand why, but they’re lookin’ for you down that line. It’s a vexatious business when your friends, meanin’ the polis, are doing their best to upset your plans and you no able to enlighten them. I could send word to the Chief Constable and get ye through to London without a stop like a load of fish from Aiberdeen, but that would be spoilin’ the fine character ye’ve been at such pains to construct. Na, na! Ye maun take the risk and travel by Muirtown without ony creedentials.’

  ‘It can’t be a very big risk,’ I interpolated.

  ‘I’m no so sure. Gresson’s left the _Tobermory. He went by here yesterday, on the Mallaig boat, and there was a wee blackavised man with him that got out at the Kyle. He’s there still, stoppin’ at the hotel. They ca’ him Linklater and he travels in whisky. I don’t like the looks of him.’

  ‘But Gresson does not suspect me?’

  ‘Maybe no. But ye wouldna like him to see ye hereaways. Yon gentry don’t leave muckle to chance. Be very certain that every man in Gresson’s lot kens all about ye, and has your description down to the mole on your chin.’

  ‘Then they’ve got it wrong,’ I replied. ‘I was speakin’ feeguratively,’ said Amos. ‘I was considerin’ your case the feck of yesterday, and I’ve brought the best I could do for ye in the gig. I wish ye were more respectable clad, but a good topcoat will hide defeecencies.’

  From behind the gig’s seat he pulled out an ancient Gladstone bag and revealed its contents. There was a bowler of a vulgar and antiquated style; there was a ready-made overcoat of some dark cloth, of the kind that a clerk wears on the road to the office; there was a pair of detachable celluloid cuffs, and there was a linen collar and dickie. Also there was a small handcase, such as bagmen carry on their rounds.

  ‘That’s your luggage,’ said Amos
with pride. ‘That wee bag’s full of samples. Ye’ll mind I took the precaution of measurin’ ye in Glasgow, so the things’ll fit. Ye’ve got a new name, Mr Brand, and I’ve taken a room for ye in the hotel on the strength of it. Ye’re Archibald McCaskie, and ye’re travellin’ for the firm o’ Todd, Sons & Brothers, of Edinburgh. Ye ken the folk? They publish wee releegious books, that ye’ve bin trying to sell for Sabbath-school prizes to the Free Kirk ministers in Skye.’

  The notion amused Amos, and he relapsed into the sombre chuckle which with him did duty for a laugh.

  I put my hat and waterproof in the bag and donned the bowler and the topcoat. They fitted fairly well. Likewise the cuffs and collar, though here I struck a snag, for I had lost my scarf somewhere in the Coolin, and Amos, pelican-like, had to surrender the rusty black tie which adorned his own person. It was a queer rig, and I felt like nothing on earth in it, but Amos was satisfied.

  ‘Mr McCaskie, sir,’ he said, ‘ye’re the very model of a publisher’s traveller. Ye’d better learn a few biographical details, which ye’ve maybe forgotten. Ye’re an Edinburgh man, but ye were some years in London, which explains the way ye speak. Ye bide at 6, Russell Street, off the Meadows, and ye’re an elder in the Nethergate U.F. Kirk. Have ye ony special taste ye could lead the crack on to, if ye’re engaged in conversation?’

  I suggested the English classics.

  ‘And very suitable. Ye can try poalitics, too. Ye’d better be a Free-trader but convertit by Lloyd George. That’s a common case, and ye’ll need to be by-ordinar common … If I was you, I would daunder about here for a bit, and no arrive at your hotel till after dark. Then ye can have your supper and gang to bed. The Muirtown train leaves at half-seven in the morning … Na, ye can’t come with me. It wouldna do for us to be seen thegither. If I meet ye in the street I’ll never let on I know ye.’

  Amos climbed into the gig and jolted off home. I went down to the shore and sat among the rocks, finishing about tea-time the remains of my provisions. In the mellow gloaming I strolled into the clachan and got a boat to put me over to the inn. It proved to be a comfortable place, with a motherly old landlady who showed me to my room and promised ham and eggs and cold salmon for supper. After a good wash, which I needed, and an honest attempt to make my clothes presentable, I descended to the meal in a coffee-room lit by a single dim parafin lamp.

  The food was excellent, and, as I ate, my spirits rose. In two days I should be back in London beside Blenkiron and somewhere within a day’s journey of Mary. I could picture no scene now without thinking how Mary fitted into it. For her sake I held Biggleswick delectable, because I had seen her there. I wasn’t sure if this was love, but it was something I had never dreamed of before, something which I now hugged the thought of. It made the whole earth rosy and golden for me, and life so well worth living that I felt like a miser towards the days to come.

  I had about finished supper, when I was joined by another guest. Seen in the light of that infamous lamp, he seemed a small, alert fellow, with a bushy, black moustache, and black hair parted in the middle. He had fed already and appeared to be hungering for human society.

  In three minutes he had told me that he had come down from Portree and was on his way to Leith. A minute later he had whipped out a card on which I read ‘J. J. Linklater’, and in the corner the name of Hatherwick Bros. His accent betrayed that he hailed from the west.

  ‘I’ve been up among the distilleries,’ he informed me. ‘It’s a poor business distillin’ in these times, wi’ the teetotallers yowlin’ about the nation’s shame and the way to lose the war. I’m a temperate man mysel’, but I would think shame to spile decent folks’ business. If the Government want to stop the drink, let them buy us out. They’ve permitted us to invest good money in the trade, and they must see that we get it back. The other way will wreck public credit. That’s what I say. Supposin’ some Labour Government takes the notion that soap’s bad for the nation? Are they goin’ to shut up Port Sunlight? Or good clothes? Or lum hats? There’s no end to their daftness if they once start on that track. A lawfu’ trade’s a lawfu’ trade, says I, and it’s contrary to public policy to pit it at the mercy of wheen cranks. D’ye no agree, sir? By the way, I havena got your name?’

  I told him and he rambled on.

  ‘We’re blenders and do a very high-class business, mostly foreign. The war’s hit us wi’ our export trade, of course, but we’re no as bad as some. What’s your line, Mr McCaskie?’

  When he heard he was keenly interested.

  ‘D’ye say so? Ye’re from Todd’s! Man, I was in the book business mysel’, till I changed it for something a wee bit more lucrative. I was on the road for three years for Andrew Matheson. Ye ken the name - Paternoster Row - I’ve forgotten the number. I had a kind of ambition to start a book-sellin’ shop of my own and to make Linklater o’ Paisley a big name in the trade. But I got the offer from Hatherwick’s, and I was wantin’ to get married, so filthy lucre won the day. And I’m no sorry I changed. If it hadna been for this war, I would have been makin’ four figures with my salary and commissions … My pipe’s out. Have you one of those rare and valuable curiosities called a spunk, Mr McCaskie?’ He was a merry little grig of a man, and he babbled on, till I announced my intention of going to bed. If this was Amos’s bagman, who had been seen in company with Gresson, I understood how idle may be the suspicions of a clever man. He had probably foregathered with Gresson on the Skye boat, and wearied that saturnine soul with his cackle.

  I was up betimes, paid my bill, ate a breakfast of porridge and fresh haddock, and walked the few hundred yards to the station. It was a warm, thick morning, with no sun visible, and the Skye hills misty to their base. The three coaches on the little train were nearly filled when I had bought my ticket, and I selected a third-class smoking carriage which held four soldiers returning from leave.

  The train was already moving when a late passenger hurried along the platform and clambered in beside me. A cheery ‘Mornin’, Mr McCaskie,’ revealed my fellow guest at the hotel.

  We jolted away from the coast up a broad glen and then on to a wide expanse of bog with big hills showing towards the north. It was a drowsy day, and in that atmosphere of shag and crowded humanity I felt my eyes closing. I had a short nap, and woke to find that Mr Linklater had changed his seat and was now beside me.

  ‘We’ll no get a Scotsman till Muirtown,’ he said. ‘Have ye nothing in your samples ye could give me to read?’

  I had forgotten about the samples. I opened the case and found the oddest collection of little books, all in gay bindings. Some were religious, with names like _Dew of Hermon and Cool Siloam; some were innocent narratives, __How Tommy saved his Pennies, _A Missionary Child in China, and _Little Susie and her Uncle. There was a _Life of David _Livingstone, a child’s book on sea-shells, and a richly gilt edition of the poems of one James Montgomery. I offered the selection to Mr Linklater, who grinned and chose the Missionary Child. ‘It’s not the reading I’m accustomed to,’ he said. ‘I like strong meat - Hall Caine and Jack London. By the way, how d’ye square this business of yours wi’ the booksellers? When I was in Matheson’s there would have been trouble if we had dealt direct wi’ the public like you.’

  The confounded fellow started to talk about the details of the book trade, of which I knew nothing. He wanted to know on what terms we sold ‘juveniles’, and what discount we gave the big wholesalers, and what class of book we put out ‘on sale’. I didn’t understand a word of his jargon, and I must have given myself away badly, for he asked me questions about firms of which I had never heard, and I had to make some kind of answer. I told myself that the donkey was harmless, and that his opinion of me mattered nothing, but as soon as I decently could I pretended to be absorbed in the Pilgrim’s Progress, a gaudy copy of which was among the samples. It opened at the episode of Christian and Hopeful in the Enchanted Ground, and in that stuffy carriage I presently followed the example of Heedless and Too-Bold and fell sound a
sleep. I was awakened by the train rumbling over the points of a little moorland junction. Sunk in a pleasing lethargy, I sat with my eyes closed, and then covertly took a glance at my companion. He had abandoned the Missionary Child and was reading a little dun-coloured book, and marking passages with a pencil. His face was absorbed, and it was a new face, not the vacant, good-humoured look of the garrulous bagman, but something shrewd, purposeful, and formidable. I remained hunched up as if still sleeping, and tried to see what the book was. But my eyes, good as they are, could make out nothing of the text or title, except that I had a very strong impression that that book was not written in the English tongue.

  I woke abruptly, and leaned over to him. Quick as lightning he slid his pencil up his sleeve and turned on me with a fatuous smile.

  ‘What d’ye make o’ this, Mr McCaskie? It’s a wee book I picked up at a roup along with fifty others. I paid five shillings for the lot. It looks like Gairman, but in my young days they didna teach us foreign languages.’

  I took the thing and turned over the pages, trying to keep any sign of intelligence out of my face. It was German right enough, a little manual of hydrography with no publisher’s name on it. It had the look of the kind of textbook a Government department might issue to its officials.

  I handed it back. ‘It’s either German or Dutch. I’m not much of a scholar, barring a little French and the Latin I got at Heriot’s Hospital … This is an awful slow train, Mr Linklater.’

  The soldiers were playing nap, and the bagman proposed a game of cards. I remembered in time that I was an elder in the Nethergate U.F. Church and refused with some asperity. After that I shut my eyes again, for I wanted to think out this new phenomenon.

  The fellow knew German - that was clear. He had also been seen in Gresson’s company. I didn’t believe he suspected me, though I suspected him profoundly. It was my business to keep strictly to my part and give him no cause to doubt me. He was clearly practising his own part on me, and I must appear to take him literally on his professions. So, presently, I woke up and engaged him in a disputatious conversation about the morality of selling strong liquors. He responded readily, and put the case for alcohol with much point and vehemence. The discussion interested the soldiers, and one of them, to show he was on Linklater’s side, produced a flask and offered him a drink. I concluded by observing morosely that the bagman had been a better man when he peddled books for Alexander Matheson, and that put the closure on the business.