Читать книгу The Watcher by the Threshold - Buchan John - Страница 6

‘Afternoon’, a self-consciously literary tale of a young boy who imagines he is a Jacobite, first appeared in Scholar Gipsies (1896) and was inspired by two of Buchan’s favourite books – Lorna Doone and Kenneth Grahame’s The Golden Age. Rich in references to Scottish history and Classical literature, it also demonstrates Buchan’s ability to evoke the sounds, smells and sights of nature from the very beginning of his literary career.

The Jacobite rushed from the house into the garden, swung himself wildly across a paling, and landed on all fours in the road. It was just past the noon; the cloudless summer day had left its zenith behind it; and the first minute degree of decadence had joined with the sun. July was not yet merged in August; the festival of nature was at its height, and the whole earth throbbed with joy. The hum of bees and the tirra of the lark, the cooing of wood-doves, the far-away calls of haymakers, and the plash of the mill-burn filled the air. It was one great world of flowers, green leaves, and the sunlit heaven above, cool waters, solemn hills, and a blue distance.

The Jacobite was of noble appearance and gallant attire, as became his name. His age might have been twelve, but he was somewhat taller than the common. He was clothed in corduroys, formerly green, now many-coloured as Joseph’s coat, and worn at the elbows to the likeness of chamois. Black, short-cut hair, thin shanks though stout as steel, a head held straight above the shoulders, a most cavalier carriage, and there you have him. A sprig of heath and a feather from a crow’s wing were stuck in his hat, and in his hand was a well-used stick with a bar nailed thwartwise, which did duty as a sword. In his belt was a knife with a broken blade, and an old news-sheet, for he made pretence that he carried state papers of high import. He stood there in the road, well-pleased with himself and content with the world. The hurried exit had been but the exuberance of his spirits. He was on no fixed journey bound. With much searching he produced from a deep pocket a George III penny, and spun it in the air. It fell face foremost in the dust, whence he picked it. Now was his course decided, and he turned resolutely to the highway.

In a little he came to a shop, a window in a flower-surrounded cottage, which proclaimed the residence of a wayside trafficker. The Jacobite considered his financial position. He possessed, he reflected, moneys to the extent of one penny and one halfpenny; this found on the road, that given by a benevolent grandfather. So he marched through the honeysuckled entrance, and stood delighted, inhaling the quaint, pleasing odours of bread and ancient brandy-balls, bacon and paraffin. He thought how proud the owner of such a place must be, and wondered mildly how such a man condescended to treat with so small a customer, from which it will be seen that he had no contempt for trade. He bought a pen’orth of treacle toffy, and stowed it about him. Fain would he have expended the other coin, but that it would have left him without supplies – a position he held hateful to the spirit of a cavalier.

Once more he stood in the sunshine, with the world before him and a thousand voices calling him hither and thither. He raced tumultuously over a field of close turf, scattering sheep before him like chaff. Then over a fence and into a byway, where he loitered for a second to fling a stone at a casual rat; and then with a whoop and a skirl of delight he was at the river.

Down its banks he strolled in all the glory of undoubted possession. There was no boy in the place who dared lift hand against him. For had he not fought his way to renown, till in a battle the week before, attended by half the village, he had defeated William Laidlaw, the shepherd’s son, who was earning his own living, and so no more in the field of fair encounter, and severely battered the said William’s face? From this combat he had been dragged by an irate grandparent, and even now he was dreeing his weird in the loss of his dog, his most faithful ally, who in a lonely kennel sadly bemoaned its master For grown-up persons he cared naught, for he knew by long experience that they were a weak-kneed folk and feeble in the race. So amid the nodding grasses he swung along, whisking the heads off the meadow-sweet with his sword, in most unmilitary fashion, telling himself that he was setting out on a journey as great as erst Sir Galahad or Sir John Mandeville, that sweetest and most truthful of knights. He had his store of provisions in his pocket; he was armed with sword and dagger and a stout heart; with another bellow of defiance he drew his blade and stalked on like Goliath of Gath, or Ajax defying the celestial lightning.

A sound in the bushes, a rustle, a movement, and the Jacobite was on his face, breathing hard and peering warily forth. It was only a thrush, so once more he got upon his feet and advanced. Just where the woods began he had a sharp conflict with a rabbit, which escaped amid a volley of stones. Once inside the cover, among the long, ghostlike firs and tremulous beeches, he felt he was on classic ground. There was every probability that an enchanter lurked among the shadows or a wild-boar in the rocks. To be sure, he had never seen such things, but they must be somewhere about. He clasped his sword a little timorously, but still with strong purpose. The river looked black and unfriendly, a fitting haunt for kelpies and mermaidens.

Soon he came to where another stream entered, a bright, prattling, sunshiny burn, such as his soul loved. Thither he felt his course lay. Now was the time to emulate the heroic John Ridd, when he tracked the Bagworthy stream and met the girl Lorna.

Without doubt some Lorna awaited his coming among the meadows by the water-side. He felt the surer when he reflected that this expedition, too, was not without danger. The land was the ground of a manor-house, watched by zealous gardeners and keepers, full of choice flowers and pleasant fruits as the garden of the Hesperides. He had once essayed the venture before and met with a sad discomfiture. While he kept the stream he had fared well enough, but it so fell out that in the meadow he espied a horse, and there his troubles began; for, approaching it in the Indian manner, he crawled under its belly in the most orthodox way, and proceeded delicately to mount it. The horse clearly was of no Indian breed, for it made off after sadly barking his shins. To add to it all, he had to flee homewards, limping across ploughed lands and through marshy woods, pursued by two irate grooms and a vociferous coachman. No. There was no lack of danger in that direction. So for form’s sake he pulled his belt tighter, looked to the edge of his dagger and the point of his sword, and made a pretence of seeking the aid of Heaven in pious, knightly fashion.

It was a gracious and comely land he entered upon. The clear water crooned among irises and white ranunculus or rippled across broad, shining shallows, or fell in a valorous plunge over a little cauld. There was no lack of fish, and had the Jacobite not been on high mission intent he would have thrown off his jacket and groped for trout beneath the banks. But not for him now were such sports. The yellow sunlight clothed the fields as in a cloth of gold, and from the midst great beech trees raised their masses of rich browns and cool greens. There were sheep there and horses, but he did not turn aside, for, like Ulysses, he had learned from misfortune. The place had an enchanting effect upon his spirits. It was like some domain in faëry, the slumbrous forest which girt the sleeping princess, or the wood beyond the world. John Ridd was forgotten, and the Jacobite, forgetful of his special calling, had fled to regions beyond history. He was recalled of a sudden by an unlooked-for barrier to his progress. The stream issued from below a high weir, and unfriendly-looking walls barred its sides.

Without an effort he rose to the occasion. Now was the opportunity for a master-mind, which had never yet met its match among the boys of his restricted acquaintance. He set himself tooth and nail to the wall. Projecting stone and mossy interstices gave him foothold. In a trice he had gained the top and was looking into a sort of refined Elysium, a paradise within a paradise. A broad pond had been formed by the stream, whereon sailed a swan and some brave-liveried ducks, and near whose margin floated water-lilies, yellow and white. Clean-shaven turf fell away from the edge, barred by the shadows of trees and bright in many places with half-opened heather. Beyond the water were little glades of the greenest grass, through which came a glimpse of stone and turret. The Jacobite’s breath went quick and fast. Things were becoming, he felt, altogether too true to nature. He had come straight upon a castle without so much as a mishap. The burden of his good fortune bore heavily on him; and he was strongly tempted to retreat. But in the end romance prevailed; with wavering footsteps he crept along the edge, ready at a glance to flop among the reeds.

But these violent tactics were not needed. Sleep seemed to have fallen upon the race of grooms and gardeners. Nothing stirred save a linnet, which came down to drink, and a moorhen which scuttled across the pool. Grasshoppers were chirping in the silence, and the faraway sound of a bell came clear and thin through the air. In a little he came to where the pond ceased and the stream began once more, not like the stream in the meadows below, but a slow, dark current among trees and steep mossy banks. Once more the adventurer’s heart beat irresolutely; once more his courage prevailed. He scrambled below trailing branches, slipped oftentimes into the shallows, and rolled among red earth till the last vestige of green was gone from his corduroys. But harsh is the decree of fate. Again he came to a barrier – this time a waterfall of great sound and volume.

Joy filled the heart of the Jacobite. This was the water-slide in the Bagworthy wood, and at the top must be the Doone’s valley. So with boldness and skill he addressed himself to the ascent. I have no inkling what the real cascade in Devon is like, but I will take my oath it was not more perilous than this. The black rocks were slippery with ooze, few helping boughs of trees were at hand, and the pool at the bottom yawned horrific and deep. But the Jacobite was skilled in such breakneck ventures. With the ease of a practised climber he swung himself from one foothold to another till he gripped the great rock which stood midway in the stream just at the summit, and, dripping and triumphant, raised himself to the dry land.

And there before him on a fallen trunk, in the most lovely dell that nature ever conceived, sat the Lady.

For a moment the Jacobite, notwithstanding his expectations, was staggered. Then his training asserted itself. He pulled a torn cap from his head, and ‘I thought you would be here,’ said he.

‘Who are you?’ said the Lady, with the curiosity of her sex, ‘and where do you come from?’

The Jacobite reflected. It was only consistent with tradition, he felt, to give some account of himself. So he proceeded compendiously to explain his birth, his antecedents, his calling, and his adventures of the day. He was delighted with the princess now he had found her. She was tall and lithe, with hair like gold, and the most charming eyes. She wore a dress of white, like a true princess, and a great hat, made according to the most correct canons of romance. She had been reading in a little book, which lay face downward at her feet. He thought of all his special heroines, Helen of Troy and Ariadne, Joan of Arc, the Queen of Scots, Rosalind, and Amy Robsart, and that most hapless and beautiful of dames, the wife of the Secretary Murray. He inwardly decided that the Lady was most like the last, which indeed was only fitting, seeing that tradition said that this place was once her home.

‘O, you delightful boy,’ said the Lady. ‘I never met any one like you before. Tell me what you think of me.’

‘You’re all right,’ said the wanderer, ‘only where do you come from? I hope you’re not going to disappear.’

‘No, indeed,’ said she. ‘I come from a place to which you will go some day, a big, stupid town, where the finest and the worst things in the world are to be found. I’m here to escape from it for a little.’

The Jacobite was keenly interested in this account of his prospective dwelling-place.

‘What are the fine things?’ he asked. ‘Ships and palaces and dogs and guns and – oh, you know what I mean?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘these things are there. And the people take very little interest in them. What they chiefly like is money.’

The Jacobite pulled out his halfpenny, and regarded it with critical interest.

‘Yes,’ she went on, ‘and lots of people don’t go to bed much at night, but they put on fine clothes and go to other people’s houses and have dinner and talk, even when they would rather be at home.’

The Jacobite looked philosophically at his clothes. They could not be called fine. He wasn’t given to talking to people whom he didn’t like, and he told the Lady so.

‘And there are others, who rule the country and don’t know anything about it, and are only good for making long speeches.’

‘But,’ said the Jacobite, incredulously, ‘don’t they know how to fight, or how do they rule if they don’t?’

‘They don’t know how to fight,’ said the Lady sadly; ‘and more, they say fighting is wrong, and want to settle everything by talking.’

The Jacobite looked mournfully skyward. If this was true, his future was dismal indeed. He had much skill in fighting, but talk he held in deep contempt.

‘But there must be heaps of knights and cavaliers left; or are they all gone to heaven?’ said he.

The Lady sighed. ‘There are some, but very few, I am afraid. And these mostly go away to foreign lands, where there is still fighting, or they hunt lions and tigers, or they stay at home very sad. And people say there is no such place as heaven, but that all that is left for us when we die is a “period of sensationless, objective existence”. Do you know what that means?’

‘No,’ said the Jacobite, stoutly, ‘and I don’t care. What awful rot!’

‘And they say that there never were such things as fairies, and that all the stories about Hector and Ulysses and William Tell and Arthur are nonsense. But we know better.’

‘Yes,’ said he, ‘we know better. They’re true to us, and it is only to stupids that they’re not true.’

‘Good,’ said the Lady. ‘There was once a man called Horace, who lived long ago, who said the same thing. You will read his book some day.’ And she repeated softly to herself,

Prætulerim scriptor delirus inersque videri,

Dum mea delectent mala me vel denique fallant,

Quam sapere et ringi.

But the Jacobite saw the slanting sun over the treetops, and he knew it was time to go home.

‘I am afraid I must go,’ he said mournfully. ‘When I grow up I will stop all that nonsense. I will hang a lot of them and banish others, and then you will like it, won’t you? Will you have some treacle toffy? It is very good.’

‘Thank you,’ said the Lady, ‘it is good.’

‘Good-bye,’ said he, ‘I will come and see you when I grow up and go to the place you spoke of.’

‘Yes, I am sure you will,’ said she, and gave him her hand.

He bent low and kissed it in true cavalier fashion.

‘There is the road up there,’ she said, ‘it’s your quickest way.’ And she looked after him as he disappeared through the trees.

The road ran east and west, and as the sun bent aslant it, it was one great belt of golden light. The Jacobite was wonderfully elated. What an afternoon he had had, just like a bit out of a book! Now there remained for him the three miles of a walk home; then tea with fresh butter and cakes such as his heart rejoiced in; and then the delights of taking the horses to drink, and riding his pony to the smithy. The prospect was soothing and serene. A mellow gaiety diffused through his being.

And yet he could not get rid of the Lady’s news. Ah! There was a true princess for you, one who agreed with him in everything; but how sad was the tale she told! Would he ever have to meet such misfortune? He felt that some day he would, and the notion pained him. But he turned back for a moment to look to the westward. The crimson heart of evening was glowing like a furnace; the long shafts of orange light were lengthening, and the apple-green was growing over the blue. Somehow or other the sight gave him heart. The valiant West, that home of El Dorados and golden cities, whither all the romance of life seems to flee, raised his sinking courage. He would, alone, like Douglas among the Saracens, lift the standard and rout all foolish and feeble folks. Some day, when he was great and tall, he would ride into the city where the Lady dwelt, and, after he had scattered her enemies, would marry her and live happy for evermore.

That for the future. For the present home and tea and a summer evening.