Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated) Page 12

  I came to Barns at three o’clock in the afternoon, somewhat stiff from my ride, but elated with my home-coming. It was with strange feelings that I rode up the long avenue of beeches, every one of which I could have told blindfold. The cattle looked over the palings at me as if glad to see me return. Maisie cocked up her ears at the hares in the grass, and sniffed the hill air as if she had been in a prison for many days. And when I came to the bend of the road and saw the old weatherbeaten tower, my heart gave a great leap within me, for we Tweeddale men dearly love our own countryside, doubtless by reason of its exceeding beauty.

  As I rode up Tam Todd came out from the back, and seeing me, let fall the water which he was carrying and ran to my side.

  “Eh, Maister John,” said he, “I’m blithe to see ye back, sae braw and genty-like. My airm’s fair like timmer wi’ stiffness for want o’ the backsword play, and the troots in Tweed are turned as thick as peas for want o’ you to haul them oot; and twae mornings last week there were deer keekin’ in at the front-door as tame as kittlins. There’s muckle need o’ ye at hame.”

  He would have gone on in this strain for an hour, had I not cut him short by asking for my father.

  “Middlin’, just middlin’. He misses ye sair. He’ll scarce gang out-doors noo, but he’ll be a’ richt gin he sees ye again. Oh, and I’ve something mair to tell ye. That wanchancy cousin o’ yours, Maister Gilbert, cam yestreen, and he’ll be bidin’ till the deil kens when. I’se warrant he’s at meat wi’ the auld maister the noo, for he cam in frae the hills geyan hungry.”

  Now at this intelligence I was not over-pleased. My cousin was a great man and a gentleman, but never at any time over-friendly to me, and I knew that to my father he was like salt in the mouth. I blamed the ill-luck which had sent him to Barns on the very day of my home-coming. I needs must be on my dignity in his company, for he was quick to find matter for laughter, and it was hard that he should come at the time when I longed so eagerly for the free ways of the house. However, there was no help for it, I reflected, and went in.

  In the passage I met Jean Morran, my old nurse, who had heard the sound of voices, and come out to see who the newcomer might be. “Maister John, Maister John, and is’t yoursel’? It’s a glad day for the house o’ Barns when you come back”} and when I gave her the shawl-pin I had brought her from Glasgow, she had scarce any words to thank me with. So, knowing that my father would be in the dining-hall with his guest, I opened the door and walked in unbidden.

  My father sat at the head of the long oak table which had been scoured to a light-brown and shone like polished stone. Claret, his favourite drink, was in a tankard by his elbow, and many wines decked the board. Lower down sat my cousin, gallantly dressed in the fashion of the times, with a coat of fine Spanish leather and small-clothes of some rich dark stuff. His plumed hat and riding cloak of purple velvet lay on the settle at his side. His brown hair fell over his collar and shoulders and well set off his strong, brown face. He sat after the fashion of a soldier, on the side of his chair half-turned away from the table, and every now and then he would cast a piece of meat to Pierce, my old hound, who lay stretched by the fireplace.

  My father turned round as I entered, and when he saw me his face glowed with pleasure. Had we been alone we should have met otherwise, but it is not meet to show one’s feelings before a stranger, even though that stranger be one of the family. He contented himself with looking eagerly upon me and bidding me welcome in a shaking voice. I marked with grief that his eye did not seem so keen and brave as before, and that he was scarce able to rise from his chair.

  My cousin half arose and made me a grand bow in his courtly fashion.

  “Welcome, my dear cousin,” said he. “I am glad to see that your studies have had little effect on your face. “(I was flushed with hard riding.) “You look as if you had just come from a campaign. But fall to. Here are prime fish which I can commend; and venison, also good, though I have had better. Here, too, is wine, and I drink to your success, my learned cousin”; and he filled his glass and drank it at a gulp. He spoke in a half-bantering tone, though his words were kindly. I answered him briskly.

  “I had little thought to find you here, Gilbert, but I am right glad to see you. You are prospering mightily, I hear, and will soon be forgetting your poor cousins of Barns”; and after a few more words I set myself to give my father a history of my doings at Glasgow College. Again, had we been alone, 1 should have told him my causes for leaving and my wishes for my after life, but since my cousin was present, who had ever a sharp tongue, I judged it better to say nothing.

  I told my father all that I could think of, and then asked how he had fared in my absence, for I had had but few letters, and what of note had happened at Barns.

  “Ay, John,” he said, “I’m an old man. I fear that my life here will be short. I scarce can get outside without Tam Todd to lean on, and I have little sleep o’ nights. And John, I could wish that you would bide at home now, for I like to see you beside me, and you’ll have learned all the folk of Glasgow have to teach you. I once wished you a soldier, but I am glad now that I let the thing blow by, for I would have cared little to have you coming here but once in the six months, for a flying visit.”

  “Nay, uncle,” said my cousin, “you do not put the matter fairly. For myself, I believe there is none busier in Scotland than I, but. Gad, I have always time to slip home to Eaglesham for a day or more. But my father would care little though he never saw me but once in the year, for each time I go back I get a long sermon on my conduct, with my expenses for the year as a text, till I am fairly driven out of the house for peace.”

  At this my father laughed. “Ay, ay,” said he, “that’s like my brother Gilbert. He was always a hard man at the siller. Man, I mind when we were both the terrors o’ the place, but all the while not a thing would he do, if it meant the loss of a bodle. Pity but I had taken after him in that, and John would have been better supplied to-day.”

  “Oh,” I answered, “I have all I need and more.”

  Hereupon my cousin spoke with a sneer in his voice. “A groat is enough for a scholar, but the soldier must have a crown. Your scholar, as doubtless John can tell, is content if he have a sad-coloured suit, some musty books, and a stoup of bad wine; but your fine gentleman must have his horses and servants, and dress himself like his quality for all the maids to stare at, and have plenty of loose silver to fling to the gaping crowd; and he is a poor fellow indeed if he do not eat and drink the best that each tavern can give. As for me, I would as soon be a clown in the fields as a scholar, with apologies to my cousin”; and he made me another of his mocking bows.

  I answered as gently as I could that gentrice did not consist in daintiness of eating and drinking or boisterous display, and that in my opinion nothing gave so fine a flavour to gentility as a tincture of letters; but my father changed the conversation by asking Gilbert what he had been after that day.

  “‘Faith, it would be hard to say,” said he. “I got a gun from that long-legged, sour-faced groom and went up the big hill above the trees to have a shot at something. I killed a couple of hares and sprung an old muirfowl; but the day grew warm and I thought that the wood would make a pleasant shade, so I e’en turned my steps there and went to sleep below a great oak, and dreamed that I ran a man through the bowels for challenging my courage. It was an ill-omened dream, and I expected to meet with some mishap to account for it ere I got back, but I saw nothing except a lovely girl plucking primroses by the water side. Zounds, Jock, what a fool you must be never to have found out this beauty! She had hair like gold and eyes like sapphires. I’ve seen many a good-looking wench, but never one like her.”

  “And what did you do?” I asked, with my heart beating wildly.

  “Do,” he laughed. “Your scholar would have passed in silence and written odes to her as Venus or Helen for months; whereas I took off my bonnet and made haste to enter into polite conversation. But this girl would have none of me; sh
e’s a rose, I warrant, with a pretty setting of thorns. She tripped away, and when I made to follow her, became Madam Fine-airs at once, and declared that her servants were within easy reach, so I had better have a care of my conduct.”

  My father shot a sharp glance at me, and addressed my cousin. “The maid would be Marjory Veitch, old Sir John’s daughter, at Dawyck, He, poor man, has gone to his account, and her brother is abroad, so the poor girl is lonely enough in that great house. John and she have been friends from the time they were children. She has come here, too, and a pretty, modest lass she is, though she favours her mother rather than her father’s folk.”

  At this intelligence my cousin whistled long and low. “So, so,” said he, “my scholar has an eye in his head, has he — And Dawyck is not far off, and — well, no wonder you do not care for the military profession. Though, let me tell you, it is as well for the course of true love that there are few cavaliers in this countryside, else Mistress Marjory might have higher notions.”

  I answered nothing, for, though I loved Marjory well, and thought that she loved me, I had never spoken to her on the matter; for from childhood we had been comrades and friends. So I did not care to reply on a matter which I regarded as so delicate and uncertain.

  My cousin was a man who grew sorely vexed by receiving no answer from the object of his wit; and, perhaps on this account, he went further than he meant in his irritation. “Nay, John,” he went on, “you’re but a sorry fellow at the best, with your tags from the Latin, and your poor spirit. I am one of the meanest of His Majesty’s soldiers, but I can outride you, I can beat you at sword-play, at mark-shooting, at all manly sports. I can hold my head before the highest in the land; I can make the vulgar bow before me to the ground. There are no parts of a gentleman’s equipment in which I am not your better.”

  Now, had we been alone, I should not have scrupled to fling the He in his teeth, and offer to settle the matter on the spot. But I did not wish to excite my father in his feeble health, so I made no reply beyond saying that events would show the better man. My father, however, took it upon himself to defend me. “Peace, Gilbert,” he said. “I will not have my son spoken thus of in my own house. He has as much spirit as you, I’ll warrant, though he is less fond of blowing his own trumpet.” I saw with annoyance that my father plainly thought my conduct cowardly, and would have been better pleased had I struck my cousin then and there. But I knew how cruelly excited he would be by the matter, and, in his weakness, I feared the result. Also, the man was our guest, and my cousin.

  When we rose from supper I assisted my father in walking to his chair by the fire; for, though the weather was mild and spring-like, his blood was so impoverished that he felt the cold keenly. Then my cousin and myself strolled out of doors to the green lawn, below which Tweed ran low and silvery clear. I felt anger against him, yet not so much as I would have felt towards another man, had he used the same words; for I knew Gilbert to be of an absurd boasting nature, which made him do more evil than he had in his heart. Still my honour, or pride (call it what you please), was wounded, and I cast about me for some way to heal it.

  “Gilbert,” I said, “we have both done much work to-day, so we are both about equally wearied.”

  “Maybe,” said he.

  “But your horse is fresh, and a good one, as I know; and you are a good horseman, as you say yourself. You had much to say about my poor horsemanship at supper. Will you try a race with me?”

  He looked at me scornfully for a minute. “Nay, there is little honour to be got from that. You know the ground, and your horse, for all I know, may be swifter than mine. It was not of horses I spoke, but of the riders.”

  “In the race which I offer you,” I answered, “we will both start fair. Do you see yon rift in the hill beyond Scrape — It is the Red Syke, a long dark hole in the side of the hill. I have never ridden there, for the ground is rough and boggy, and I have never heard of a horseman there since Montrose’s rising. Will you dare to ride with me to yonder place and back?”

  At this my cousin’s face changed a little, for he had no liking for breaking his neck on the wild hills. And now, when I look back on the proposal, it seems a mad, foolhardy one in very truth. But then we were both young and spirited, and reckless of our lives.

  “Mount and ride,” said he. “I’ll be there and back before you are half-road, unless, indeed, I have to carry you home.”

  Together we went round to the stables, and I saddled a black horse of my father’s, for Maisie had already travelled far that day. The Weasel, we called him, for he was long and thin in the flanks, with a small head, and a pointed muzzle. He was viciously ill-tempered, and would allow no groom to saddle him; but before I had gone to Glasgow I had mounted and ridden him bareback up and down the channel of Tweed till he was dead-beat, and I half-drowned and shaken almost to pieces. Ever since this escapade he had allowed me to do what I liked with him; and, though I did not find him as pleasant to ride as the incomparable Maisie, yet I knew his great strength and fleetness. My cousin’s horse was a good cavalry charger, strong, but, as I thought, somewhat too heavy in the legs for great endurance.

  We mounted and rode together out among the trees to the fields which bordered on the hills. I was sore in the back when I started, but, after the first half-mile, my sprightliness returned, and I felt fit to ride over Broad Law. My cousin was in an ill mood, for the sport was not to his taste, though he felt bound in honour to justify his words.

  The spur of Scrape, which we came to, was called, by the country people, the Deid Wife, for there an Irish woman, the wife of one of Montrose’s camp followers, had been killed by the folk of the place after the rout at Philiphaugh. We had much ado to keep our horses from slipping back, for the loose stones which covered the face of the hill gave a feeble foothold. The Weasel took the brae like a deer, but my cousin’s heavy horse laboured and panted sorely before it reached the top. Before us stretched the long upland moors, boggy, and cleft with deep ravines, with Scrape on the right, and straight in front, six miles beyond, the great broad crest of Dollar Law. Here we separated, my cousin riding forward, while I thought the road to the left would be the surer. Clear before us lay the Red Syke, an ugly gash, into which the setting sun was beginning to cast his beams.

  And now I found myself in a most perilous position. The Weasel’s feet were light and touchy, and he stumbled among the stones and tall heather till I had sore work to keep my seat. My cousin’s horse was of a heavier make, and I could see it galloping gallantly over the broken ground. I cheered my steed with words, and patted his neck, and kept a tight hand on the rein. Sometimes we slipped among the shingle, and sometimes stumbled over rocks half-hid in brackens. Then we passed into a surer place among short, burned heather. The dry twigs gave forth a strange, creaking sound as the horse’s feet trod on them, and pufFs of grey dust and ashes, the sign of the burning, rose at every step. Then, beyond this, we went to a long stretch of crisp mountain grass, pleasant for both horse and rider. We splashed through little tumbling burns, and waded through pools left by the spring rains. But, of a sudden, the ground grew softer, and even the Weasel’s light weight could not pass in safety. At one time, indeed, I reined him back just on the brink of a treacherous well-eye, from which neither of us would have returned. I cast a glance at my cousin, who was still ahead; his heavy charger was floundering wearily, and he lashed it as if his life were at stake. Then we passed the green bog and came to a great peat-moss, full of hags, where the shepherds had been casting peats. Here the riding was more difficult, for the holes whence the peats had come were often some five feet deep, and it was no easy matter to get a horse out of that treacherous black mud. The Weasel did gallantly, and only once did I dismount, when his hind feet were too deeply sunk to permit him to leap. Beyond me I saw my cousin, riding swiftly, for the middle of the moss, as it chanced, was the firmest and evenest place. We were now scarce a hundred yards from the ravine of the Red Syke, and, even as I looked, I saw him
reach it, rest a second to give his horse breathing-space, and then turn on his homeward way.

  I came to the place a minute after, and having compassion on my brave horse, I dismounted, and eased him of my weight for a little. Then I got on his back again and set off. Gilbert I saw before me, riding, as I thought, in the worst part, and with a fury that must tell sooner or later on his heavy steed. I had scarce been a moment in the saddle, when, so strange are the ways of horses, the Weasel became aware, for the first time, of the other in front. Before, it had been a toil for him, now it became a pleasure, a race, which it lay with his honour to win. He cocked up his wicked, black ears, put down his head, and I felt the long legs gathering beneath me. I cried aloud with delight, for now I knew that no horse in Tweeddale could hope to match him when the mood was on him. He flew over the hags as if he had been in a paddock; he leaped among the hard parts of the green bog, from tussock to tussock, as skilfully as if he had known nothing but mosses all his days. We came up with Gilbert at the edge of the rough ground, lashing on his horse, with his face flushed and his teeth set. We passed him like the wind, and were galloping among the rocks and brackens, while he was painfully picking his steps. A merciful providence must have watched over the Weasel’s path that day, for never horse ran so recklessly. Among slippery boulders and cruel jagged rocks and treacherous shingle he ran like a hare. I grew exultant, laughed, and patted his neck. The sun was setting behind us, and we rode in a broad patch of yellow light. In a trice we were on the brow of the Deid Wife. Down we went, slipping yards at a time, now doubling along the side; sometimes I was almost over the horse’s head, sometimes all but ofF at the tail; there was never, since the two daft lairds rode down Horsehope Craig, such a madcap ride. I scarce know how I reached the foot in safety: but reach it I did, and rode merrily among the trees till I came to the green meadowlands about the house of Barns. Here I dismounted and waited for my cousin, for I did not care to have the serving-men laugh at him riding in after me.