Читать книгу The Leithen Stories - Buchan John - Страница 35

CRASK – WHICH IS properly Craoisg and is so spelled by the Ordnance Survey – when the traveller approaches it from the Larrig Bridge has the air of a West Highland terrier, couchant and regardant. You are to picture a long tilt of moorland running east and west, not a smooth lawn of heather, but seamed with gullies and patched with bogs and thickets and crowned at the summit with a low line of rocks above which may be seen peeping the spikes of the distant Haripol hills. About three-quarters of the way up the slope stands the little house, whitewashed, slated, grey stone framing the narrow windows, with that attractive jumble of masonry which belongs to an adapted farm. It is approached by a road which scorns detours and runs straight from the glen highway, and it looks south over broken moorland to the shining links of the Larrig, and beyond them to the tributary vale of the Raden and the dark mountains of its source. Such is the view from the house itself, but from the garden behind there is an ampler vista, since to the left a glimpse may be had of the policies of Strathlarrig and even of a corner of that monstrous mansion, and to the right of the tidal waters of the river and the yellow sands on which in the stillest weather the Atlantic frets. Crask is at once a sanctuary and a watchtower; it commands a wide countryside and yet preserves its secrecy, for, though officially approached by a road like a ruler, there are a dozen sheltered ways of reaching it by the dips and crannies of the hill-side.

So thought a man who about five o’clock on the afternoon of the 24th of August was inconspicuously drawing towards it by way of a peat road which ran from the east through a wood of birches. Sir Edward Leithen’s air was not more cheerful than when we met him a month ago, except that there was now a certain vigour in it which came from ill-temper. He had been for a long walk in the rain, and the scent of wet bracken and birches and bog myrtle, the peaty fragrance of the hills salted with the tang of the sea, had failed to comfort, though, not so long ago, it had had the power to intoxicate. Scrambling in the dell of a burn, he had observed both varieties of the filmy fern and what he knew to be a very rare cerast, and, though an ardent botanist, he had observed them unmoved. Soon the rain had passed, the west wind blew aside the cloud-wrack, and the Haripol tops had come out black against a turquoise sky, with Sgurr Dearg, awful and remote, towering above all. Though a keen mountaineer, the spectacle had neither exhilarated nor tantalised him. He was in a bad temper, and he knew that at Crask he should find three other men in the same case, for even the debonair Sir Archie was in the dumps with a toothache.

He told himself that he had come on a fool’s errand, and the extra absurdity was that he could not quite see how he had been induced to come. He had consistently refused: so had Palliser-Yeates; Archie as a prospective host had been halting and nervous; there was even a time when Lamancha, the source of all the mischief, had seemed to waver. Nevertheless, some occult force – false shame probably – had shepherded them all here, unwilling, unconvinced, cold-footed, destined to a preposterous adventure for which not one of them had the slightest zest … Yet they had taken immense pains to arrange the thing, just as if they were all exulting in the prospect. His own clerk was to attend to the forwarding of their letters including any which might be addressed to ‘John Macnab.’ The newspapers had contained paragraphs announcing that the Countess of Lamancha had gone to Aix for a month, where she would presently be joined by her husband, who intended to spend a week drinking the waters before proceeding to his grouse-moor of Leriot on the Borders. The Times, three days ago, had recorded Sir Edward Leithen and Mr John Palliser- Yeates as among those who had left Euston for Edinburgh, and more than one social paragrapher had mentioned that the ex-Attorney-General would be spending his holiday fishing on the Tay, while the eminent banker was to be the guest of the Chancellor of the Exchequer at an informal vacation conference on the nation’s precarious finances. Lamancha had been fetched under cover of night by Archie from a station so remote that no one but a lunatic would think of using it. Palliser-Yeates had tramped for two days across the hills from the south, and Leithen himself, having been instructed to bring a Ford car, had had a miserable drive of a hundred and fifty miles in the rain, during which he had repeatedly lost his way. He had carried out his injunctions as to secrecy by arriving at two in the morning by means of this very peat road. The troops had achieved their silent concentration, and the silly business must now begin. Leithen groaned, and anathematised the memory of Jim Tarras.

As he approached the house he saw, to his amazement, a large closed car making its way down the slope. Putting his glass on it, he watched it reach the glen road and then turn east, passing the gates of Strathlarrig, till he lost it behind a shoulder of hill. Hurrying across the stable-yard, he entered the house by the back-door, disturbing Lithgow the keeper in the midst of a whispered confabulation with Lamancha’s man, whose name was Shapp. Passing through the gun-room he found, in the big smoking-room which looked over the valley, Lamancha and Palliser-Yeates with the crouch of conspirators flattening their noses on the windowpanes.

The sight of him diverted the attention of the two from the landscape.

‘This is an infernal plant,’ Palliser-Yeates exclaimed. ‘Archie swore to us that no one ever came here, and the second day a confounded great car arrives. Charles and I had just time to nip in here and lock the door, while Archie parleyed with them. He’s been uncommon quick about it. The brutes didn’t stay for more than five minutes.’

‘Who were they?’ Leithen asked.

‘Only got a side glance at them. They seemed to be a stout woman and a girl – oh, and a yelping little dog. I expect Archie kicked him, for he was giving tongue from the drawing-room.’

The door opened to admit their host, who bore in one hand a large whisky-and-soda. He dropped wearily into a chair, where he sipped the beverage. An observer might have noted that what could be seen of his wholesome face was much inflamed, and that a bandage round chin and cheeks which ended in a top-knot above his scalp gave him the appearance of Ricquet with the Tuft in the fairytale.

‘That’s all right,’ he said, in the tone of a man who has done a good piece of work. ‘I’ve choked off visitors at Crask for a bit, for the old lady will put it all round the country-side.’

‘Put what?’ said Leithen, and ‘Who is the old lady?’ asked Lamancha, and ‘Did you kick the dog?’ demanded Palliser-Yeates.

Archie looked drearily at his friends. ‘It was Lady Claybody and a daughter – I think the second one – and their horrid little dog. They won’t come back in a hurry – nobody will come back – I’m marked down as a pariah. Hang it, I may as well chuck my candidature. I’ve scuppered my prospects for the sake of you three asses.’

‘What has the blessed martyr been and done?’ asked Palliser-Yeates.

‘I’ve put a barrage round this place, that’s all. I was very civil to the Claybodys, though I felt a pretty fair guy with my head in a sling. I bustled about, talking nonsense and offerin’ tea, and then, as luck would have it, I trod on the hound. That’s the worst of my game leg. The brute nearly had me over, and it started howlin’ – you must have heard it. That dog’s a bit weak in the head, for it can’t help barkin’ just out of pure cussedness – Lady Claybody says it’s high-strung because of its fine breedin’. It got something to bark for this time, and the old woman had it in her arms fondlin’ it and lookin’ very old- fashioned at me. It seems the beast’s name is Roguie and she called it her darlin’ Wee Roguie, for she’s pickin’ up a bit of Scots since she came to live in these parts … Lucky Mackenzie wasn’t at home. He’d have eaten it … Well, after that things settled down, and I was just goin’ to order tea, when it occurred to the daughter to ask what was wrong with my face. Then I had an inspiration.’

Archie paused and smiled sourly.

‘I said I didn’t know, but I feared I might be sickenin’ for small-pox. I hinted that my face was a horrid sight under the bandage.’

‘Good for you, Archie,’ said Lamancha. ‘What happened then?’

‘They bolted – fairly ran for it. They did record time into their car – scarcely stopped to say goodbye. I suppose you realise what I’ve done, you fellows. The natives here are scared to death of infectious diseases, and if we hadn’t our own people we wouldn’t have a servant left in the house. The story will be all over the country-side in two days, and my only fear is that it may bring some medical officer of health nosin’ round … Anyhow, it will choke off visitors.’

‘Archie, you’re a brick,’ was Lamancha’s tribute.

‘I’m very much afraid I’m a fool, but thank Heaven I’m not the only one. Sime,’ he shouted in a voice of thunder, ‘what’s happened to tea?’

The shout brought the one-armed butler and Shapp with the apparatus of the meal, and an immense heap of letters all addressed to Sir Archibald Roylance.

‘Hullo! the mail has arrived,’ cried the master of the house. ‘Now let’s see what’s the news of John Macnab?’

He hunted furiously among the correspondence, tearing open envelopes and distributing letters to the others with the rapidity of a conjurer. One little sealed packet he reserved to the last, and drew from it three missives bearing the same superscription.

These he opened, glanced at, and handed to Lamancha. ‘Read ’em out, Charles,’ he said. ‘It’s the answers at last.’

Lamancha read slowly the first document, of which this is the text:

GLENRADEN CASTLE,

STRATHLARRIG,

Aug. — 19—.

SIR,

I have received your insolent letter. I do not know what kind of rascal you may be, except that you have the morals of a bandit and the assurance of a halfpenny journalist. But since you seem in your perverted way to be a sportsman, I am not the man to refuse your challenge. My reply is, sir, damn your eyes and have a try. I defy you to kill a stag in my forest between midnight on the 28th of August and midnight of the 30th. I will give instructions to my men to guard my marches, and if you should be roughly handled by them you have only to blame yourself.

Yours faithfully,

ALASTAIR RADEN.

John Macnab, Esq.

‘That’s a good fellow,’ said Archie with conviction. ‘Just the sort of letter I’d write myself. He takes things in the proper spirit. But it’s a blue look-out for your chances, my lads. What old Raden doesn’t know about deer isn’t knowledge.’

Lamancha read the second reply:

STRATHLARRIG HOUSE,

STRATHLARRIG,

Aug —, 19—.

MY DEAR SIR,

Your letter was somewhat of a surprise, but as I am not yet familiar with the customs of this country, I forbear to enlarge on this point, and since you have marked it ‘Confidential’ Iam unable to take advice. You state that you intend to kill a salmon in the Strathlarrig water between midnight on September 1 and midnight on September 3, this salmon, if killed, to remain my property. I have consulted such books as might give me guidance, and I am bound to state that in my view the laws of Scotland are hostile to your suggested enterprise. Nevertheless, I do not take my stand on the law, for I presume that your proposition is conceived in a sporting spirit, and that you dare me to stop you. Well, sir, I will see you on that hand. The fishing is not that good at present that I am inclined to quarrel about one salmon. I give you leave to use every method that may occur to you to capture that fish, and I promise to use every method that may occur to me to prevent you. In your letter you undertake to use only ‘legitimate means.’ I would have pleasure in meeting you in the same spirit, but I reckon that all means are counted legitimate in the capture of poachers.

Cordially,

JUNIUS THEODORE BANDICOTT.

Mr J. Macnab.

‘That’s the young ’un,’ Archie observed. ‘The old man was christened “Acheson,” and don’t take any interest in fishin’. He spends his time in lookin’ for Norse remains.’

‘He seems a decent sort of fellow,’ said Palliser-Yeates, ‘but I don’t quite like the last sentence. He’ll probably try shooting, same as his countrymen once did on the Beauly. Whoever gets this job will have some excitement for his money.’

Lamancha read out the last letter:

227 NORTH MELVILLE STREET,

EDINBURGH,

Aug —, 19—.

SIR,

Re Haripol Forest

Our client, the Right Honourable Lord Claybody, has read to us on the telephone your letter of Aug. – and has desired us to reply to it. We are instructed to say that our client is at a loss to understand how to take your communication, whether as a piece of impertinence or as a serious threat. If it is the latter, and you persist in your intention, we are instructed to apply to the Court for a summary interdict to prevent your entering upon his lands. We would also point out that under the Criminal Law of Scotland, any person whatsoever who commits a trespass in the daytime by entering upon any land without leave of the proprietor, in pursuit of, inter alia, deer, is liable to a fine of £2, while, if such person have his face blackened, or if five or more persons acting in concert commit the trespass, the penalty is £5 (2 & 3 William IV, c. 68).

We are, sir,

Your obedient servants,

PROSSER, MCKELPIE, AND MACLYMONT.

John Macnab, Esq.

Lamancha laughed. ‘Is that good law, Ned?’

Leithen read the letter again. ‘I suppose so. Deer being ferae naturae, there is no private property in them or common law crime in killing them, and the only remedy is to prevent trespass in pursuit of them or to punish the trespasser.’

‘It seems to me that you get off pretty lightly,’ said Archie. ‘Two quid is not much in the way of a fine, for I don’t suppose you want to black your faces or march five deep into Haripol … But what a rotten sportsman old Claybody is!’

Palliser-Yeates heaved a sigh of apparent relief. ‘I am bound to say the replies are better than I expected. It will be a devil of a business, though, to circumvent that old Highland chief, and that young American sounds formidable. Only, if we’re caught out there, we’re dealing with sportsmen and can appeal to their higher nature, you know. Claybody is probably the easiest proposition so far as getting a stag is concerned, but if we’re nobbled by him we needn’t look for mercy. Still, it’s only a couple of pounds.’

‘You’re an ass, John,’ said Leithen. ‘It’s only a couple of pounds for John Macnab. But if these infernal Edinburgh lawyers get on the job, it will be a case of producing the person of John Macnab, and then we’re all in the cart. Don’t you realise that in this fool’s game we simply cannot afford to lose – none of us?’

‘That,’ said Lamancha, ‘is beyond doubt the truth, and it’s just there that the fun comes in.’

The reception of the three letters had brightened the atmosphere. Each man had now something to think about, and, till it was time to dress for dinner, each was busy with sheets of the Ordnance maps. The rain had begun again, the curtains were drawn, and round a good fire of peats they read and smoked and dozed. Then they had hot baths, and it was a comparatively cheerful and very hungry party that assembled in the dining-room. Archie proposed champagne, but the offer was unanimously declined. ‘We ought to be in training,’ Lamancha warned him. ‘Keep the Widow for the occasions when we need comforting. They’ll come all right.’

Palliser-Yeates was enthusiastic about the food. ‘I must say, you do us very well,’ he told his host. ‘These haddocks are the best things I’ve ever eaten. How do you manage to get fresh sea-fish here?’

Archie appealed to Sime. ‘They come from Inverlarrig, Sir Erchibald,’ said the butler. ‘There’s a wee laddie comes up here sellin’ haddies verra near every day.’

‘Bless my soul, Sime. I thought no one came up here. You know my orders.’

‘This is just a tinker laddie, Sir Erchibald. He sleeps in a cairt down about Larrigmore. He just comes wi’ his powny and awa’ back, and doesna bide twae minutes. Mistress Lithgow was anxious for haddies, for she said gentlemen got awfu’ tired of saumon and trout.’

‘All right, Sime. I’ll speak to Mrs Lithgow. She’d better tell him we don’t want any more. By the way, we ought to see Lithgow after dinner. Tell him to come to the smoking-room.’

When Sime had put the port on the table and withdrawn, Leithen lifted up his voice.

‘Look here, before we get too deep into this thing, let’s make sure that we know where we are. We’re all three turned up here – why, I don’t know. But there’s still time to go back. We realise now what we’re in for. Are you clear in your minds that you want to go on?’

‘I am,’ said Lamancha doggedly. ‘I’m out for a cure. Hang it, I feel a better man already.’

‘I suppose your profession makes you take risks,’ said Leithen dryly, ‘Mine doesn’t. What about you, John?’

Palliser-Yeates shifted uneasily in his chair. ‘I don’t want to go on. I feel no kind of keenness, and my feet are rather cold. And yet – you know – I should feel rather ashamed to turn back.’

Archie uplifted his turbaned head. ‘That’s how I feel, though I’m not on myself in this piece. We’ve given hostages, and the credit of John Macnab is at stake. We’ve dared old Raden and young Bandicott, and we can’t decently cry off. Besides, I’m advertised as a smallpox patient, and it would be a pity to make a goat of myself for nothing. Mind you, I stand to lose as much as anybody, if we bungle things.’

Leithen had the air of bowing to the inevitable. ‘Very well, that’s settled. But I wish to Heaven I saw myself safely out of it. My only inducement to go on is to score off that bounder Claybody. He and his attorney’s letter put my hackles up.’

In the smoking-room Lamancha busied himself with preparing three slips of paper and writing on them three names.

‘We must hold a council of war,’ he said. ‘First of all, we have taken measures to keep our presence here secret. My man Shapp is all right. What about your people, Archie?’

‘Sime and Carfrae have been warned, and you may count on them. They’re the class of lads that ask no questions. So are the Lithgows. We’ve no neighbours, and they’re anyway not the gossiping kind, and I’ve put them on their Bible oath. I fancy they think the reason is politics. They’re a trifle scared of you, Charles, and your reputation, for they’re not accustomed to hidin’ Cabinet Ministers in the scullery. Lithgow’s a fine crusted old Tory.’

‘Good. Well, we’d better draw for beats, and get Lithgow in.’

The figure that presently appeared before them was a small man, about fifty years of age, with a great breadth of shoulder and a massive face decorated with a wispish tawny beard. His mouth had the gravity and primness of an elder of the Kirk, but his shrewd blue eyes were not grave. The son of a Tweeddale shepherd who had emigrated years before to a cheviot farm in Sutherland, he was in every line and feature the Lowlander, and his speech had still the broad intonation of the Borders. But all his life had been spent in the Highlands on this and that deer forest, and as a young stalker he had been picked out by Jim Tarras for his superior hill craft. To Archie his chief recommendation was that he was a passionate naturalist, who was as eager to stalk a rare bird with a field-glass as to lead a rifle up to deer. Other traits will appear in the course of this narrative; but it may be noted here that he was a voracious reader and in the long winter nights had amassed a store of varied knowledge, which was patently improving his master’s mind. Archie was accustomed to quote him for most of his views on matters other than ornithology and war.

‘Do you mind going over to that corner and shuffling these slips? Now, John, you draw first.’

Mr Palliser-Yeates extracted a slip from Lithgow’s massive hand.

‘Glenraden,’ he cried. ‘Whew! I’m for it this time.’ Leithen drew next. His slip read Strathlarrig.

‘Thank God, I’ve got old Claybody,’ said Lamancha. ‘Unless you want him very badly, Ned?’

Leithen shook his head. ‘I’m content. It would be a bad start to change the draw.’

‘Sit down, Wattie,’ said Archie. ‘Here’s a dram for you. We’ve summoned you to a consultation. I daresay you’ve been wonderin’ what all this fuss about secrecy has meant. I’m going to tell you. You were with Jim Tarras, and you’ve often told me about his poachin’. Well, these three gentlemen want to have a try at the same game. They’re tired of ordinary sport, and want something more excitin’. It wouldn’t do, of course, for them to appear under their real names, so they’ve invented a nom de guerre – that’s a bogus name, you know. They call themselves collectively, as you might say, John Macnab. John Macnab writes from London to three proprietors, same as Jim Tarras used to do, and proposes to take a deer or a salmon on their property within certain dates. There’s copy of the letter, and here are the replies that arrived tonight. Just you read ’em.’

Lithgow, without moving a muscle of his face, took the documents. He nodded approvingly over the original letter. He smiled broadly at Colonel Raden’s epistle, puzzled a little at Mr Bandicott’s, and wrinkled his brows over that of the Edinburgh solicitors. Then he stared into the fire, and emitted short grunts which might have equally well been chuckles or groans.

‘Well, what do you think of the chances?’ asked Archie at length.

‘Would the gentlemen be good shots?’ asked Lithgow.

‘Mr Palliser-Yeates, who has drawn Glenraden, is a very good shot,’ Archie replied, ‘and he has stalked on nearly every forest in Scotland. Lord Lamancha – Charles, you’re pretty good, aren’t you?’

‘Fair,’ was the answer. ‘Good on my day.’

‘And Sir Edward Leithen is a considerable artist on the river. Now, Wattie, you understand that they want to win – want to get the stags and the salmon – but it’s absolute sheer naked necessity that, whether they fail or succeed, they mustn’t be caught. John Macnab must remain John Macnab, an unknown blighter from London. You know who Lord Lamancha is, but perhaps you don’t know that Sir Edward Leithen is a great lawyer, and Mr Palliser-Yeates is one of the biggest bankers in the country.’

‘I ken all about the gentlemen,’ said Lithgow gravely. ‘I was readin’ Mr Yeates’s letter in The Times about the debt we was owin’ America, and I mind fine Sir Edward’s speeches in Parliament about the Irish Constitution. I didna altogether agree with him.’

‘Good for you, Wattie. You see, then, how desperately important it is that the thing shouldn’t get out. Mr Tarras didn’t much care if he was caught, but if John Macnab is uncovered there will be a high and holy row. Now you grasp the problem, and you’ve got to pull up your socks and think it out. I don’t want your views to-night, but I should like to have your notion of the chances in a general way. What’s the bettin’? Twenty to one against?’

‘Mair like a thousand,’ said Lithgow grimly. ‘It will be verra, verra deeficult. It will want a deal o’ thinkin’.’ Then he added, ‘Mr Tarras was an awfu’ grand shot. He would kill a runnin’ beast at fower hundred yards – aye, he could make certain of it.’

‘Good Lord, I’m not in that class,’ Palliser-Yeates exclaimed.

‘Aye, and he was more than a grand shot. He could creep up to a sleepin’ beast in the dark and pit a knife in its throat. The sauvages in Africa had learned him that. There was plenty o’ times when him and me were out that it wasna possible to use the rifle.’

‘We can’t compete there,’ said Lamancha dolefully.

‘But I wad not say it was impossible,’ Lithgow added more briskly. ‘It will want a deal o’ thinkin’. It might be done on Haripol – I wadna say but it might be done, but you auld man at Glenraden will be ill to get the better of. And the Strathlarrig water is an easy water to watch. Ye’ll be for only takin’ shootable beasts, like Mr Tarras, and ye’ll not be wantin’ to cleek a fish? It might be not so hard to get a wee staggie, or to sniggle a salmon in one of the deep pots.’

‘No, we must play the game by the rules. We’re not poachers.’

‘Then it will be verra, verra deeficult.’

‘You understand,’ put in Lamancha, ‘that, though we count on your help, you yourself mustn’t be suspected. It’s as important for you as for us to avoid suspicion, for if they got you it would implicate your master, and that mustn’t happen on any account.’

‘I ken that. It will be verra, verra deeficult. I said the odds were a thousand to one, but I think ten thousand wad be liker the thing.’

‘Well, go and sleep on it, and we’ll see you in the morning. An’ tell your wife I don’t want any boys comin’ up to the house with fish. She must send elsewhere and buy ’em. Good-night, Wattie.’

When Lithgow had withdrawn the four men sat silent and meditative in their chairs. One would rise now and then and knock out his pipe, but scarcely a word was spoken. It is to be presumed that the thoughts of each were on the task in hand, but Leithen’s must have wandered. ‘By the way, Archie,’ he said, ‘I saw a very pretty girl on the road this afternoon, riding a yellow pony. Who could she be?’

‘Lord knows!’ said Archie. ‘Probably one of the Raden girls. I haven’t seen ’em yet.’

When the clock struck eleven Sir Archie arose and ordered his guests to bed.

‘I think my toothache is gone,’ he said, switching off his turban and revealing a ruffled head and scarlet cheek. Then he muttered: ‘A thousand to one! Ten thousand to one! It can’t be done, you know. We’ve got to find some way of shortenin’ the odds!’