Читать книгу The Leithen Stories - Buchan John - Страница 41

SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT of the 28th day of August three men foregathered at the door of Macpherson’s cottage, and after a few words took each a different road into the dark wastes of wood and heather. Macpherson contented himself with a patrol of the low ground in the glen, for his legs were not as nimble as they once had been and his back had a rheuma ticky stiffness. Alan departed with great strides for the Carnbeg tops, and James Fraser, the youngest and the leanest, set out for Carnmore, with the speed of an Indian hunter … Darkness gave place to the translucence of early dawn: the badger trotted home from his wanderings: the hill-fox barked in the cairns to summon his household: sleepy pipits awoke: the peregrine who lived above the Grey Beallach drifted down into the glens to look for breakfast: hinds and calves moved up from the hazel shaws to the high fresh pastures: the tiny rustling noises of night disappeared in that hush which precedes the awakening of life: and then came the flood of morning gold from behind the dim eastern mountains, and in an instant the earth had wheeled into a new day. A thin spire of smoke rose from Mrs Macpherson’s chimney, and presently the three wardens of the marches arrived for breakfast. They reported that the forest was still unviolated, that no alien foot had yet entered its sacred confines. Herd-boys, the offspring of Alan and James Fraser, had taken up their post at key-points, so that if a human being was seen on the glacis of the fort the fact would at once be reported to the garrison.

‘I’m thinkin’ he’ll no come to-day,’ said Macpherson after his third cup of tea. ‘It will be the morn. The day he will be tryin’ to confuse our minds, and that will no be a difficult job wi’ you, Alan, my son.’

‘He’ll come in the da-ark,’ said Alan crossly.

‘And how would he be gettin’ a beast in the dark? The Laird was sayin’ that this man John Macnab was a gra-and sportsman. He will not be shootin’ at any little staggie, but takin’ a sizeable beast, and it’s not a howlet could be tellin’ a calf from a stag in these da-ark nights. Na, he will not shoot in the night, but he might be travellin’ in the night and gettin’ his shot in the early mornin’.’

‘What for,’ Alan asked, ‘should he not be havin’ his shot in the gloamin’ and gettin’ the beast off the ground in the da-ark?’

‘Because we will be watchin’ all hours of the day. Ye heard what the Laird said, Alan Macdonald, and you, James Fraser. This John Macnab is not to shoot a Glenraden beast at all, at all, but if he shoots one he is not to move it one foot. If it comes to fightin’, you are young lads and must break the head of him. But the Laird said for God’s sake you was to have no guns, but to fight like honest folk with your fists, and maybe a wee bit stick. The Laird was sayin’ the law was on our side, except for shootin’ … Now, James Fraser, you will take the outer marches the day, and keep an eye on the peat-roads from Inverlarrig, and you, Alan, will watch Carnbeg, and I will be takin’ the woods myself. The Laird was sayin’ that it would be Carnmore the man Macnab would be tryin’, most likely at skreigh of day the morn, and he would be hidin’ the beast, if he got one, in some hag, and waitin’ till the da-ark to shift him. So the morn we will all be on Carnmore, and I can tell you the Laird has the ground planned out so that a snipe would not be movin’ without us seein’ him.’

The early morning broadened into day, and the glen slept in the windless heat of late August. Janet Raden, sauntering down from the Castle towards the river about eleven o’clock, thought that she had never seen the place so sabbatically peaceful. To her unquiet soul the calm seemed unnatural, like a thick cloak covering some feverish activity. All the household were abroad since breakfast – her father on a preliminary reconnaissance of Carnmore, Agatha and Mr Junius Bandicott on a circuit of Carnbeg, while the gillies and their youthful allies sat perched with telescopes on eyries surveying every approach to the forest. The plans seemed perfect, but the dread of John Macnab, that dark conspirator, would not be exorcised. It was she who had devised the campaign, based on her reading of the enemy’s mind; but had she fathomed it, she asked herself? Might he not even now be preparing some master-stroke which would crumble their crude defences? Horrible stories which she had read of impersonation and the shifts of desperate characters recurred to her mind. Was John Macnab perhaps old Mr Bandicott disguised as an archaeologist? Or was he one of the Strathlarrig workmen?

She walked over the moor to the Piper’s Ring and was greeted by a mild detonation and a shower of earth. Old Mr Bandicott, very warm and stripped to his shirt, was desperately busy and most voluble about his task. There was no impersonation here, nor in the two fiery-faced labourers who were burrowing their way towards the resting-place of Harald Blacktooth. Nevertheless, her suspicion was not allayed, she felt herself in the antechamber of plotters, and looked any moment to see on the fringes of the wood or on the white ribbon of road a mysterious furtive figure which she would know for a minion of the enemy.

But the minion did not appear. As Janet stood on the rise before the bridge of Raden with her hat removed to let the faint south-west wind cool her forehead, she looked upon a scene of utter loneliness and peace. The party at the Piper’s Ring were hidden, and in all the green amphitheatre nothing stirred but the stream. Even Fish Benjie and his horse had been stricken into carven immobility. He had moved away from the road a few hundred yards into the moor, not far from the waterside, and his little figure, as he whittled at his brooms, appeared from where Janet stood to be as motionless as a boulder, while the old grey pony mused upon three legs as rapt and lifeless as an Elgin marble. The two seemed to have become one with nature, and to be as much part of the sleeping landscape as the clump of birches whose leaves did not even shimmer in that bright silent noontide.

The quiet did something to soothe Janet’s restlessness, but after luncheon, which she partook of in solitary state, she found it returning. A kind of folie de doute assailed her, not unknown to generals in the bad hours which intervene between the inception and execution of a plan. She had a strong desire to ride up to Crask and have a talk with Sir Archie, and was only restrained by the memory of that young man’s last letter, and the hint it contained of grave bodily maladies. She did not know whether to believe in these maladies or not, but clearly she could not thrust her company upon one who had shown a marked distaste for it … Yet she had her pony saddled and rode slowly in the direction of Strathlarrig, half hoping to see a limping figure on the highway. But not a soul was in sight on the long blinding stretch or at the bridge where the Crask road started up the hill. Janet turned homeward with a feeling that the world had suddenly become dispeopled. She did not turn her head once, and so failed to notice first one figure and then another, which darted across the high road, and disappeared in the thick coverts of the Crask hill-side.

At the Castle she found Agatha and Junius Bandicott having tea, and presently her father arrived in a state of heat and exhaustion. Stayed with a whisky-and-soda, Colonel Raden became communicative. He had been over the high tops of Carnmore, had visited the Carn Moss, and Corrie Gall, had penetrated the Grey Beallach, had heard the tales of the gillies and of the herd-boys in their eyries, and his report was ‘all clear.’ The deer were undisturbed, according to James Fraser, since the morning. Moreover, the peat-road from Inverlarrig had relapsed owing to recent rains into primeval bog which no wheeled vehicle and few ponies could traverse. The main fortress seemed not only unassailed but unassailable, and Colonel Raden viewed the morrow with equanimity.

The Carnbeg party had a different story to tell, or rather the main members of it had no story at all. Agatha and Junius Bandicott appeared to have sauntered idly into the pleasant wilderness of juniper and heather which lay between the mossy summits, to have lunched at leisure by the famous Cailleach’s Well, and to have sauntered home again. They reported that it had been divine weather, for a hill breeze had tempered the heat, and that they had observed the Claybodys’ yacht far out at the entrance of Loch Larrig. Also Junius had seen his first blue hare, which he called a ‘jack rabbit.’ Of anything suspicious there had been neither sign nor sound.

But at this moment a maid appeared with the announcement that ‘Macpherson was wanting to see the Colonel,’ and presently the head stalker arrived in what John Bunyan calls a ‘pelting heat.’ Generally of a pale complexion which never tanned, he was now as red as a peony, and his grey beard made a startling contrast with his flamboyant face. Usually he was an embarrassed figure inside the Castle, having difficulties in disposing of his arms and legs, but now excitement made him bold.

‘I’ve seen him, Cornel,’ he panted. ‘Seen him crawlin’ like an adder and runnin’ like a sta-ag!’

‘Seen who? Get your breath, Macpherson!’

‘Him – the man – Macnab. I beg your pardon for my pechin’, sir, but I came down the hill like I was a rollin’ stone … It was up on the backside of Craig Dhu near the old sheep-fauld. I seen a man hunkerin’ among the muckle stones, and I got my glass on him, and he was a sma’ man that I’ve never seen afore. I was wild to get a grip of him, and I started runnin’ to drive him to the Cailleach’s Well, where Miss Agatha and the gentleman was havin’ their lunch. He seen me, and he took the road I ettled, and I thought I had him, for, thinks I, the young gentleman is soople and lang in the leg. But he seen the danger and turned off down the burn, and I couldna come near him. It would have been all right if I could have made the young gentleman hear, but though I was roarin’ like a stot he was deafer than a tree. Och, it is the great peety.’

‘Agatha, what on earth were you doing?’ Janet asked severely.

Junius Bandicott blushed hotly. ‘I never heard a sound,’ he said. ‘There must be something funny about the acoustics of that place.’

Colonel Raden, who knew the power of his stalker’s lungs, looked in a mystified way from one to the other.

‘Didn’t you see Macpherson, Agatha?’ he asked. ‘He must have been in view coming over the shoulder of Craig Dhu.’

It was Agatha’s turn to blush, which she did with vigour, and, to Mr Bandicott’s eyes, with remarkable grace.

‘Ach, I was in view well enough,’ went on the tactless Macpherson, ‘and I was routin’ like a wild beast. But the twa of them was that busy talking they never lifted their eyes, and the man, as I tell you, slippit off down the burn. It is a gre-at peety, whatever.’

‘What did you do then?’ the Colonel demanded.

‘I followed him till I lost him in that awful rough corrie … But I seen him again – aye, I seen him again, away over on the Maam above the big wud. Standin’, as impident as ye please, on the sky-line.’

‘How long after you lost him in the corrie?’ Janet asked.

‘Maybe half an hour.’

‘Impossible,’ she said sharply. ‘No living man could cover three miles of that ground in half an hour.’

‘I was thinkin’ the body was the Deevil.’

‘You saw a second man. John Macnab has an accomplice.’

Macpherson scratched his shaggy head. ‘I wouldn’t say but ye’re right, Miss Janet. Now I think of it, it was a bigger man. He didn’t bide a moment after I caught sight of him, but I got my glass on him, and he was a bigger man. Aye, a bigger man, and, maybe, a younger man.’

‘This is very disturbing,’ said Colonel Raden, walking to the window and twisting his moustache. ‘What do you make of it, Nettie?’

‘I think the affair is proceeding, as generals say about their battles, “according to plan.” We didn’t know before that John Macnab had a confederate, but of course he was bound to have one. There was nothing against it in the terms of the wager.’

‘Of course not, of course not. But what the devil was he doing on Carnbeg? There was no shot, Macpherson?’

‘There was no shot, and there will be no shot. There wass no beasts the side they were on, and Alan is up there now with one of James’s laddies.’

‘It’s exactly what we expected,’ said Janet. ‘It proves that we were right in guessing that John Macnab would take Carnmore. He came here today to frighten us about Carnbeg – make us think that he was going to try there, and get us to mass our forces. Tomorrow he’ll be on Carnmore, and then he’ll mean business. I hoped this would happen, and I was getting nervous when Agatha and Mr Bandicott came home looking as blank as the Babes in the Wood. But I wish I knew which was really John Macnab – the little one or the tall one.’

‘What does that matter?’ her parent asked.

‘Because I should be happier if he were tall. Little men are far more cunning.’

Junius Bandicott, having recovered his composure, chose to be amused. ‘I take that as a personal compliment, Miss Janet. I’m pretty big, and I can’t say I want to be thought cunning.’

‘Then John Macnab will get his salmon,’ said Janet with decision.

Junius laughed. ‘You bet he won’t. I’ve gotten the place watched like the Rum Fleet at home. A bird can’t hardly cough without its being reported to me. My fellows are on to the game, and John Macnab will have to be a mighty clever citizen to come within a mile of the Strathlarrig water. Nobody is allowed to fish it but myself till the 3rd of September is past. I reckon angling just now is the forbidden fruit in this neighbourhood. I’ve seen but the one fellow fishing in the last three days – on the bit of slack water five hundred yards below the bridge. It belongs to Crask, I think.’

Janet nodded. ‘No good except with a worm after a spate. Crask has no fishing worth the name.’

‘I saw him from the automobile early this morning,’ Junius continued. ‘Strange sight he was, too – dressed in pyjamas and rubbers – flogging away at the most helpless stretch you can imagine – dead calm, not a ripple, He had out about fifty yards of line, and when I passed he made a cast which fell with a flop about his ears. Who do you suppose he was? Somebody from Crask?’

Janet, who was the family’s authority on Crask, agreed. ‘Probably some English servant who came down before breakfast just to say he had fished for salmon.’

After tea Janet went down into the haugh. She met old Mr Bandicott returning from the Piper’s Ring, a very grubby old gentleman, and a little dashed in spirits, for he had as yet seen no sign of Harald Blacktooth’s coffin. ‘Another day’s work,’ he announced, ‘and then I win or lose. I thought I had struck it this afternoon, but it was the solid granite. If the fellow is there he’s probably in a rift of the rock. That has been known to happen. The Vikings found a natural fissure, stuck their dead chief in it, and heaped earth above to make a barrow …’

Down near the stream she met Benjie, who appeared to have worked late at his besoms, bumping over the moor to the road. He and his old pony made a more idyllic picture than ever in the mellow light of evening, almost too conventionally artistic to be real, she thought, till Benjie’s immobile figure woke to life at the sight of her and he pulled his lint-white forelock. ‘A grand nicht, lady,’ he crooned, and jogged on into the beeches’ shade … She sat on the bridge and watched the Raden waters pass from gold to amethyst and from amethyst to purple, and then sauntered back through the sweet-smelling dusk. Visions of John Macnab filled her mind, now a tall bravo with a colonial accent, now a gnarled Caliban of infinite cunning and gnome-like agility. Where in this haunted land was he ensconced – in some hazel covert, or in some clachan but-and-ben, or miles distant in a populous hotel, ready to speed in a swift car to the scene of action? … Anyhow, in twenty-four hours she would know if she had defeated this insolent challenger. On the eve of battle she had forgotten all about the stakes and her new hunter; it was the honour of Glenraden that was concerned, that little stone castle against the world.

Night fell, cool and cloudless, and the gillies went on their patrols. Carnmore was their only beat, and they returned one at a time to snatch a few hours’ rest. At dawn they went out again – with the Colonel, but without Alan, who was to follow after he had had his ration of sleep. It was arranged that the two girls and Junius Bandicott should spend the day on Carnbeg by way of extra precaution, though if a desperate man made the assault there it was not likely that Junius, who knew nothing of deer and had no hill-craft, would be able to stop him.

Janet woke in low spirits, and her depression increased as the morning advanced. She was full of vague forebodings, and of an irritable unrest to which her steady nerves had hitherto been a stranger. She wished she were a man and could be now on Carnmore, for Carnbeg, she was convinced, was out of danger. Junius, splendid in buckskin breeches and a russet sweater, she regarded with disfavour; he was a striking figure, but out of keeping with the hills, the obvious amateur, and she longed for the halting and guileful Sir Archie. Nor was her temper improved by the conduct of her companions. Agatha and Junius seemed to have an inordinate amount to say to each other, and their conversation was idiotic to the ears of a third party. Their eyes were far more on each other than on the landscape, and their telescopes were never in use. But it mattered little, for Carnbeg slept in a primordial peace. Only pipits broke the silence, only a circling merlin made movement in a spell-bound world. There were some hinds on the west side of Craig Dhu, but no stag showed – as was natural, the girl reflected, for in this weather and thus early in the season the stags would be on the highest tops. John Macnab had chosen rightly if he wanted a shot, but there were three gillies and her father to prevent him getting his beast away.

At luncheon, which was eaten by the Cailleach’s Well, Junius took to quoting poetry and Agatha to telling, very charmingly, the fairy tales of the glens. To Janet it all seemed wrong; this was not an occasion for literary philandering, when the credit of Glenraden was at stake. But even she was forced to confess that nothing was astir in the mossy wilderness. She climbed to the top of Craig Dhu and had a long spy, but, except for more hinds and one small knobber, living thing there was none. As the afternoon drew on, she drifted away from the two, who, being engrossed with each other, did not notice her departure.

She wandered through the deep heather of the Maam to where the great woods began that dipped to the Raden glen. It was pleasant walking in the cool shade of the pines on turf which was half thyme and milkwort and eyebright, and presently her spirits rose. Now and then, on some knuckle of blaeberry-covered rock which rose above the trees, she would halt, and, stretched at full length, would spy the nooks of the Home beat. There was no lack of deer there. She picked up one group and then another in the aisles and clearings of the woods, and there were shootable stags among them.

A report like a rifle-shot suddenly startled her. Then she remembered old Mr Bandicott down in the haugh, and, turning her glance in that direction, saw a thin cloud of blue smoke floating away from the Piper’s Ring.

Slowly she worked her way down-hill, aiming at the haugh about a mile upstream from the excavators. Once a startled hind and calf sprang up from her feet, and once an old fox slipped out of a pile of rocks and revived thoughts of Warwickshire and her problematical hunter. Soon she was not more than three hundred feet above the stream level, and found a bracken-clad hillock where she could lie and watch the scene. There was a roebuck feeding just below her, a roebuck with fine horns, and it amused her to see the beast come nearer and nearer, since the wind was behind him. He got within five yards of the girl, who lay mute as a stone; then some impulse made him look up and meet her eye, and in a second he had streaked into cover.

Amid that delicious weather and in that home of peace Janet began to recapture her usual mirthfulness. She had been right; Carnmore was the place John Macnab would select, unless his heart had failed him, and on Carnmore he would get a warm reception. There was no need to worry any longer about John Macnab … Her thoughts went back to Agatha. Clearly Junius Bandicott was in love with her, and probably she would soon be in love with Junius Bandicott. No one could call it anything but a most suitable match, but Janet was vaguely unhappy about it, for it meant a break in their tiny household and the end of a long and affectionate, if occasionally tempestuous, comradeship. She would be very lonely at Glenraden without Agatha, and what would Agatha do when transplanted to a foreign shore – Agatha, for whom the world was bounded by her native hills? She began to figure to herself what America was like, and, as her pictures had no basis of knowledge, they soon became fantastic, and merged into dreams. The drowsy afternoon world laid its spell upon the girl, and she fell asleep.

She awoke half an hour later with the sound of a shot in her ear. It set her scrambling to her feet till she remembered the excavators at the Piper’s Ring, who were out of sight of the knoll on which she stood, somewhat on her right rear. Reassured, she lazily scanned the sleeping haugh, with the glittering Raden in the middle distance, and beyond the wooded slopes of the other side of the glen. She noticed a small troop of deer splashing through the shallows. Had they been scared by Mr Bandicott’s explosion? That was odd, for the report had been faint and they were up-wind from it.

They were badly startled, for they raced through the river and disappeared in a few breathless seconds in the farther woods … Suddenly a thought made her heart beat wildly, and she raked the ground with her glass …

There was something tawny on a patch of turf in a little hollow near the stream. A moment of anxious spying showed her that it was a dead stag. The report had not been Mr Bandicott’s dynamite, but a rifle.

Down the hill-side like a startled hind went Janet. She was choking with excitement, and had no clear idea in her head except a determination that John Macnab should not lay hand on the stricken beast. If he had pierced their defences, and got his shot, he would at any rate not get the carcass off the ground. No thought of the stakes and her hunter occurred to her – only of Glenraden and its inviolate honour.

Almost at once she lost sight of the place where the stag lay. She was now on the low ground of the haugh, in a wilderness of bogs and hollows and overgrown boulders, with half a mile of rough country between her and her goal. Soon she was panting hard: presently she had a stitch in her side; her eyes dimmed with fatigue, and her hat flew off and was left behind. It was abominable ground for speed, for there were heather-roots to trip the foot, and mires to engulf it, and noxious stones over which a runner must go warily or break an ankle. On with bursting heart went Janet, slipping, floundering, more than once taking wild tosses. Her light shoes grew leaden, her thin skirts a vast entangling quilt; her side ached and her legs were fast numbing … Then, from a slight rise, she had a glimpse of the Raden water, now very near, and the sight of a moving head. Her speed redoubled, and miraculously her aches ceased – the fire of battle filled her, as it had burned in her progenitors when they descended on their foes through the moonlit passes.

Suddenly she was at the scene of the dark deed. There lay the dead stag, and beside it a tall man with his shirt-sleeves turned up and a knife in his hand. That the miscreant should be calmly proceeding to the gralloch was like a fiery stimulant to Janet’s spirit. Gone was every vestige of fatigue, and she descended the last slope like a maenad.

‘Stop!’ she sobbed. ‘Stop, you villain!’

The man started at her voice, and drew himself up. He saw a slim dishevelled girl, hatless, her fair locks fast coming down, who, in the attitude of a tragedy queen, stood with uplifted and accusing hand. She saw a tall man, apparently young, with a very ruddy face, a thatch of sandy hair, and ancient, disreputable clothes.

‘You are beaten, John Macnab,’ cried the panting voice. ‘I forbid you to touch that stag. I …’

The man seemed to have grasped the situation, for he shut the knife and slipped it back in his pocket. Also he smiled. Also he held both hands above his head.

‘Kamerad!’ he said. ‘I acknowledge defeat, Miss Raden.’

Then he picked up his rifle and his discarded jacket, and turned and ran for it. She heard him splashing through the river, and in three minutes he was swallowed up in the farther woods.

The victorious Janet sank gasping on the turf. She wanted to cry, but changed her mind and began to laugh hysterically. After that she wanted to sing. She and she alone had defeated the marauder, while every man about the place was roosting idly on Carnmore. Now at last she remembered that hunter which would carry her in the winter over the Midland pastures. That was good, but to have beaten John Macnab was better … And then just a shade of compunction tempered her triumph. She had greatly liked the look of John Macnab. He was a gentleman – his voice bore witness to the fact, and the way he had behaved. Kamerad! He must have fought in the war and had no doubt done well. Also, he was beyond question a sportsman. The stag was just the kind of beast that a sportsman would kill – a switch-horn, going back in condition – and he had picked him out of a herd of better beasts. The shot was a workmanlike one – through the neck … And the audacity of him! His wits had beaten them all, for he had chosen the Home beat which everyone had dismissed as inviolable. Truly a foeman worthy of her steel, whom like all good fighters after victory she was disposed to love.

Crouched beside the dead stag, she slowly recovered her breath. What was the next move to be? If she left the beast might not John Macnab return and make off with it? No, he wouldn’t. He was a gentleman, and would not go back on his admission of defeat. But she was anxious to drain the last drops of her cup of triumph, to confront the idle garrison of Carnmore on its return with the tangible proof of her victory. The stag should be lying at the Castle door, and she herself waiting beside it to tell her tale. She might borrow Mr Bandicott’s men to move it.

Hastily doing up her hair, she climbed out of the hollow to the little ridge which gave a prospect over the haugh. There before her, not a hundred yards distant, was the old cart and the white pony of Fish Benjie, looking as if it had been part of the landscape since the beginning of time.

Benjie had wormed his way far into the moss, for he was more than half a mile from the road. It appeared that he had finished his day’s work on the besoms, for his pony was in the shafts, and he himself was busy loading the cart with the fruits of his toil. She called out to him, but got no reply, and it was not till she stood beside him that he looked up from his work.

‘Benjie,’ she said, ‘come at once. I want you to help me. Have you been here long?’

‘Since nine this mornin’, lady.’ Benjie’s face was as impassive as a stump of oak.

‘Didn’t you hear a shot?’

‘I heard a gude wheen shots. The auld man up at the Piper’s Ring has been blastin’ awa.’

‘But close to you? Didn’t you see a man – not five minutes ago?’

‘Aye, I seen a man. I seen him crossin’ the water. I thought he was a gentleman from the Castle. He had a gun wi’ him.’

‘It was a poacher, Benjie,’ said Janet dramatically. ‘The poacher I wanted you to look out for. He has killed a stag, too, but I drove him away. You must help me to get the beast home. Can you get your cart over that knowe?’

‘Fine, lady.’

Without more words Benjie took the reins and started the old pony. The cart floundered a little in a wet patch, tittuped over the tussocks, and descended with many jolts to the neighbourhood of the stag – Janet dancing in front of it like an Israelitish priest before the Ark of the Covenant.

The late afternoon was very hot, for down in the haugh the wind had died away. The stag weighed not less than fifteen stone, and before they finished Janet would have called them tons. Yet the great task of transhipment was accomplished. The pony was taken out of the shafts and the cart tilted, and, after some strenuous minutes, the carcase was heaved and pushed and levered on to its floor. Janet, hanging on to the shafts, with incredible exertions pulled them down, while Benjie – a tiny Atlas – prevented the beast from slipping back by bearing its weight on his shoulders. The backboard was put in its place, the mass of brooms and heather piled on the stag, the pony restored to the shafts, and the cortege was ready for the road. Benjie had his face adorned with a new scratch and a quantity of deer’s blood, Janet had nobly torn her jumper and one stocking; but these were trivial casulties for so great an action.

‘Drive straight to the Castle and tell them to leave the beast before the door. You understand, Benjie? Before the door – not in the larder. I’m going to strike home through the woods, for I’m an awful sight.’

‘Ye look very bonny, lady,’ said the gallant Benjie as he took up the reins.

Janet watched the strange outfit lumber from the hollow and nearly upset over a hidden boulder. It had the appearance of a moving peat-stack, with a solitary horn jutting heavenwards like a withered branch. Once again the girl subsided on the heather and laughed till she ached.

* * *

The highway by the Larrrig side slept in the golden afternoon. Not a conveyance had disturbed its peace save the baker’s cart from Inverlarrig, which had passed about three o’clock. About half-past five a man crossed it – a man who had descended from the hill and used the stepping-stones where Sir Archibald Roylance had come to grief. He was a tall man with a rifle, hatless, untidy and very warm, and he seemed to desire to be unobserved, for he made certain that the road was clear before he ventured on it. Once across, he found shelter in a clump of broom, whence he could command a long stretch of the highway, almost from Glenraden gates to the Bridge of Larrig.

Mr Palliser-Yeates, having reached sanctuary – for behind him lay the broken hillsides of Crask – mopped his brow and lit a pipe. He did not seem to be greatly distressed at the result of the afternoon. Indeed, he laughed – not wildly like Janet, but quietly and with philosophy. ‘A very neat hold-up,’ he reflected. ‘Gad, she came on like a small destroying angel … That’s the girl Archie’s been talking about … a very good girl. She looked as if she’d have taken on an army corps … Jolly romantic ending – might have come out of a novel. Only it should have been Archie, and a prospect of wedding bells – what? … Anyway, we’d have won out all right but for the girl, and I don’t mind being beaten by her …’

His meditations were interrupted by the sound of furious wheels on the lone highway, and he cautiously raised his head to see an old horse and an older cart being urged towards him at a canter. The charioteer was a small boy, and above the cart sides projected a stag’s horn.

Forgetting all precautions, he stood up, and at the sight of him Benjie, not without difficulty, checked the ardour of his much-belaboured beast, and stopped before him.

‘I’ve gotten it,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘The stag’s in the cairt. The lassie and me histed him in, and she tell’t me to drive to the Castle. But when I was out o’ sicht o’ her, I took the auld road through the wud and here I am. We’ve gotten the stag off Glenraden ground and we can hide him up at Crask, and I’ll slip doun i’ the cairt afore mornin’ and leave him ootbye the Castle wi’ a letter from John Macnab. Fegs, it was a near thing!’

Benjie’s voice rose into a shrill paean, his disreputable face shone with unholy joy. And then something in Palliser-Yeates’s eyes cut short his triumph.

‘Benjie, you little fool, right about turn at once. I’m much obliged to you, but it can’t be done. It isn’t the game, you know. I chucked up the sponge when Miss Raden challenged me, and I can’t go back on that. Back you go to Glenraden and hand over the stag. Quick, before you’re missed … And look here – you’re a first-class sportsman, and I’m enormously grateful to you. Here is something for your trouble.’

Benjie’s face grew very red as he swung his equipage round. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘If ye like to be beat by a lassie, dinna blame me. I’m no wantin’ your money.’

The next moment the fish-cart was clattering in the other direction.

To a mystified and anxious girl, pacing the gravel in front of the Castle, entered the fish-cart. The old horse seemed in the last stages of exhaustion, and the boy who drove it was a dejected and sparrow-like figure.

‘Where in the world have you been?’ Janet demanded.

‘I was run awa wi’, lady,’ Benjie whined. ‘The auld powny didna like the smell o’ the stag. He bolted in the wud, and I didna get him stoppit till verra near the Larrig Bridge.’

‘Poor little Benjie! Now you’re going to Mrs Fraser to have the best tea you ever had in your life, and you shall also have ten shillings.’

‘Thank you kindly, lady, but I canna stop for tea. I maun awa down to Inverlarrig for my fish.’ But his hand closed readily on the note, for he had no compunction in taking money from one who had made him to bear the bitterness of incomprehensible defeat.