Читать книгу The Short Stories of John Buchan (Complete Collection) - Buchan John - Страница 21

This is all a tale of an older world and a forgotten countryside. At this moment of time change has come; a screaming line of steel runs through the heather of Noman’s-land, and the holiday-maker claims the valleys for his own. But this busyness is but of yesterday, and not ten years ago the fields lay quiet to the gaze of placid beasts and the wandering stars. This story I have culled from the grave of an old fashion, and set it down for the love of a great soul and the poetry of life.

It was at the ford of the Clachlands Water in a tempestuous August, that I, an idle boy, first learned the hardships of the Lammas droving. The shepherd of the Redswirehead, my very good friend, and his three shaggy dogs, were working for their lives in an angry water. The path behind was thronged with scores of sheep bound for the Gledsmuir market, and beyond it was possible to discern through the mist the few dripping dozen which had made the passage. Between raged yards of brown foam coming down from murky hills, and the air echoed with the yelp of dogs and the perplexed cursing of men.

Before I knew I was helping in the task, with water lipping round my waist and my arms filled with a terrified sheep. It was no light task, for though the water was no more than three feet deep it was swift and strong, and a kicking hogg is a sore burden. But this was the only road; the stream might rise higher at any moment; and somehow or other those bleating flocks had to be transferred to their fellows beyond. There were six men at the labour, six men and myself, and all were cross and wearied and heavy with water.

I made my passages side by side with my friend the shepherd, and thereby felt much elated. This was a man who had dwelt all his days in the wilds and was familiar with torrents as with his own doorstep. Now and then a swimming dog would bark feebly as he was washed against us, and flatter his fool’s heart that he was aiding the work. And so we wrought on, till by mid-day I was dead- beat, and could scarce stagger through the surf, while all the men had the same gasping faces. I saw the shepherd look with longing eye up the long green valley, and mutter disconsolately in his beard.

“Is the water rising?” I asked.

“It’s no rising,” said he, “but I likena the look o’ that big, black clud upon Cairncraw. I doubt there’s been a shoor up the muirs, and a shoor there means twae mair feet o’ water in the Clachlands. God help Sandy Jamieson’s lambs, if there is.”

“How many are left?” I asked.

“Three, fower,—no abune a score and a half,” said he, running his eye over the lessened flocks. “I maun try to tak twae at a time.”

So for ten minutes he struggled with a double burden, and panted painfully at each return. Then with a sudden swift look up stream he broke off and stood up. “Get ower the water, every yin o’ ye, and leave the sheep,” he said, and to my wonder every man of the five obeyed his word, for he was known for a wise counsellor in distress.

And then I saw the reason of his command, for with a sudden swift leap forward the Clachlands rose, and flooded up to where I had stood an instant before high and dry.

“It’s come,” said the shepherd, in a tone of fate, “and there’s fifteen no ower yet, and Lord knows how they ‘ll dae’t. They ‘ll hae to gang roond by Gledsmuir Brig, and that’s twenty mile o’ a differ. ‘Deed, it’s no like that Sandy Jamieson will get a guid price the morn for sic sair forfochen beasts.”

Then with firmly gripped staff he marched stoutly into the tide till it ran hissing below his armpits. “I could dae’t alane,” he cried, “but no wi’ a burden. For, losh, if ye slippit, ye’d be in the Manor Pool afore ye could draw breath.”

And so we waited with the great white droves and five angry men beyond, and the path blocked by a surging flood. For half an hour we waited, holding anxious consultation across the stream, when to us thus busied there entered a newcomer, a helper from the ends of the earth.

He was a man of something over middle size, but with a stoop forward that shortened him to something beneath it. His dress was ragged homespun, the cast- off clothes of some sportsman, and in his arms he bore a bundle of sticks and heather-roots which marked his calling. I knew him for a tramp who long had wandered in the place, but I could not account for the whole-voiced shout of greeting which met him as he stalked down the path. He lifted his eyes and looked solemnly and long at the scene. Then something of delight came into his eye, his face relaxed, and flinging down his burden, he stripped his coat and came toward us.

“Come on, Yeddie, ye ‘re sair needed,” said the shepherd, and I watched with amazement this grizzled, crooked man seize a sheep by the fleece and drag it to the water. Then he was in the midst, stepping warily, now up, now down the channel, but always nearing the farther bank. At last with a final struggle he landed his charge, and turned to journey back. Fifteen times did he cross that water, and at the end his mean figure had wholly changed. For now he was straighter and stronger, his eye flashed, and his voice, as he cried out to the drovers, had in it a tone of command. I marveiled at the transformation; and when at length he had donned once more his ragged coat and shouldered his bundle, I asked the shepherd his name.

“They ca’ him Adam Logan,” said my friend, his face still bright with excitement, “but maist folk ca’ him ‘Streams o’ Water.’”

“Ay,” said I, “and why ‘Streams of Water’?”

“Juist for the reason ye see,” said he.

“Now I knew the shepherd’s way, and I held my peace, for it was clear that his mind was revolving other matters, concerned most probably with the high subject of the morrow’s prices. But in a little, as we crossed the moor toward his dwelling, his thoughts relaxed and he remembered my question. So he answered me thus,—

“Oh, ay; as ye were sayin’, he’s a queer man, Yeddie—aye been; guid kens whaur he cam frae first, for he’s been trampin’ the countryside since ever I mind, and that’s no yesterday. He maun be sixty year, and yet he’s as fresh as ever. If onything, he’s a thocht dafter in his ongaein’s, mair silent-like. But ye ‘ll hae heard tell o’ him afore?”

I owned ignorance.

“Tut,” said he, “ye ken nocht. But Yeddie had aye a queer crakin’ for waters. He never gangs on the road. Wi’ him it’s juist up yae glen and doon anither, and aye keepin’ by the burn-side. He kens every water i’ the warld, every bit sheuch and burnie frae Gallowa’ to Berwick. And then he kens the way o’ spates the best I ever saw, and I’ve heard tell o’ him fordin’ waters when nae ither thing could leeve i’ them. He can weyse and wark his road sae cunnin’ly on the stanes that the roughest flood, if it’s no juist fair ower his heid, canna upset him. Mony a sheep has he saved to me, and it’s mony a guid drove wad never hae won to Gledsmuir market but for Yeddie.”

I listened with a boy’s interest in any romantic narration. Somehow, the strange figure wrestling in the brown stream took fast hold on my mind, and I asked the shepherd for farther tales.

“There’s little mair to tell,” he said, “for a gangrel life is nane the liveliest. But d’ ye ken the lang-nebbit hill which cocks its tap abune the Clachlands heid? Weel, he’s got a wee bit o’ grund on the tap frae the Yerl, and there he’s howkit a grave for himsel’. He’s sworn me and twae-three ithers to bury him there, wherever he may dee. It’s a queer fancy in the auld dotterel.”

So the shepherd talked, and as at evening we stood by his door we saw a figure moving into the gathering shadows. I knew it at once, and did not need my friend’s, “There gangs ‘Streams o’ Water’” to recognise it. Something wild and pathetic in the old man’s face haunted me like a dream, and as the dusk swallowed him up, he seemed like some old Druid recalled of the gods to his ancient habitation of the moors.