Читать книгу The Magic Walking-Stick - John Buchan - Страница 6

Table of Contents

ON the 19th day of December Bill returned from school in time for luncheon. Never before had he looked forward so wildly to getting home again. He greeted his mother with the most perfunctory caress, dodged Peter, and rushed upstairs to his play-box. Thank Heaven, the stick was safely there! He tore off the brown paper wrappings and carried it down to the gun-room, where he put it in a special place beside his 16-bore.

It being the first day of holiday, according to fashion the afternoon was spent in a family walk. It was decided that Bill and Peter should set off together and should join the others at a place called the Roman Camp. "Let the boys have a chance of being alone," his father said.

This exactly suited Bill's book, and as they left the dining-room he clutched his small brother. "Shrimp," he said in his ear, "you are going to have the afternoon of your life."

It was a bright, mild day, with the leafless woods and the brown plough-lands lit by a pale December sun. Peter, as he trotted beside him, jerked out breathless enquiries about what Bill proposed to do, and was told to wait and see. Their sister's dog had joined them. This was a cairn terrier called Catsbane, because of his extraordinary dislike for cats, and he did not often honour the boys with his company. He was much beloved by Barbara, and Peter felt a certain responsibility for his conduct, and was always yelling and whistling him to heel.

Arrived at a clump of beeches which promised privacy, Bill first swore his brother to secrecy with the most awful oaths that he could imagine.

"Put your arm round my waist and hang on to my belt," he told him. "I'm going to take you to have a look at Glenmore."

"Don't be silly," said Peter. "That only happens in summer, and besides we haven't packed yet."

"Shut up and hold tight," said Bill.

But at the last moment anxiety for Catsbane overcame Peter; and so it befell that as Bill twirled the stick and spoke the necessary words, Peter was clutching Catsbane's collar....

The boys were looking not at the smooth boles of beeches, but at a little coppice of rowans and birches above the narrow glen of a hill burn. It was Glenmore in very truth. There was the strip of mossy lawn and the whitewashed gable-end of the lodge; there to the left, beside the walled garden, was the smoking chimney of the head stalker's cottage; there beyond the trees was the long lift of brown moorland and the peak of Stob Ghabhar. Stob Ghabhar had snow on its summit, which the boys had never seen before. To them Glenmore was the true home of the soul, but they knew it only in the glory of late summer and early autumn. In its winter dress it seemed for a moment strange. Then the sight of an old collie waddling across the lawn gave the connecting link.

"There's Wattie," Peter gasped, and lifted up his voice in an excited summons.

His brother promptly scragged him. "Don't be an ass, Shrimp," he said fiercely. "This is a secret, you fathead. This is magic. Nobody must know we are here. Come on and explore."

But Wattie had seen Catsbane, and the two dogs held high converse together. In the autumn they had always been friends. Catsbane was a proud animal and would have nothing to do with the retrievers or the stable terrier, but for some reason or another he was partial to Wattie. The two went off down the burnside.

"Here, this'll never do," said Peter. "Catsbane may not come back till to-morrow morning—he's done it before."

But there was no help for it, for the dogs had already disappeared in the thicket, and the boys were too full of excitement to have much care for the future. For an hour—it must have been an hour, Bill calculated afterwards, but it seemed like ten minutes—they visited their favourite haunts. They found the robber's cave in the glen where a raven nested, and the pool where Bill had got his first big trout, and the stretch of the river from which their father that year had had the 30-pound salmon. Then they dipped into the big fir wood which clothed the hillside. There were no blaeberries or crowberries now, but there were many woodcock. After that Bill had a shot with his catapult at a wicked old blackcock on a peat-stack. Then they found Wattie the collie, who had shaken himself loose from Catsbane, and induced him to make a third in the party.

Peter moaned about Catsbane. "What'll we say to Barbara? He's lost now—we'll never get him back."

But Bill only said, "Confound the beastly pup," and had a shot at a stray pheasant.

All their motions were as stealthy as an Indian's, and the climax of the adventure was reached when they shed Wattie, climbed the garden wall, and looked in at the window of the keeper's cottage.

Tea was laid before a bright peat fire in the parlour, so Mrs. Macrae must be expecting company. It looked a very good tea, for there were scones and pancakes and shortbread and currant loaf and heather honey. Both boys suddenly felt famished at the sight.

"Mrs. Macrae always gives me a scone and honey," Peter bleated. "I'm hungry. I want one."

So did Bill. His soul longed for food, but he kept hold of his prudence. "We dare not show ourselves," he whispered. "But perhaps we might pinch a scone. It would not be stealing, for if Mrs. Macrae saw us she'd say, 'Come awa in, laddies, and get a jeely piece.' I'll give you a back, Shrimp, and in you get."

The window was opened, and Peter was hoisted through, falling with a bang on a patchwork rug. But he never reached the table, for at that moment the parlour door opened and someone entered.

After that things happened fast. Peter, urged by Bill's anguished whisper, turned back to the window and was hauled through by the scruff of the neck. A woman's voice was heard crying—"Mercy on us, it's the bairns!" as the culprits darted into the shelter of the gooseberry bushes.

Bill realised that there was no safety in the garden, so he dragged Peter over the wall by the way they had come, thereby seriously damaging a pear tree. But they had been observed, and, as they scrambled out of a rose bed, they heard cries, and saw Mrs. Macrae appearing round the end of the wall, having come through the stable-yard. Also a figure, which looked like Angus the river gillie, was running from the same direction.

There was nothing for it but to go. Bill seized Peter with one hand and the stick with the other and spoke the words, with Angus not six yards away.... As he looked once more at the familiar beech boles, his ears were still filled with the cries of an excited woman and the frenzied barking of Wattie the collie.

The two boys, very warm and flustered, and rather scratched about the hands and legs, confronted their father and mother and their sister Barbara, who was eighteen and very proud.

"Hullo, hullo!" they heard their father say. "I thought you were hiding somewhere hereabouts. You young rascals know how to take cover, for you seemed to spring out of the ground. You look as if you had been playing football. Better walk home with us and cool down.... Bless my soul, Peter, what's that you have got? It's bog myrtle! Where on earth did you find it? I have never seen it before in Oxfordshire!"

Then Barbara raised a ladylike voice. "Oh, Mummie, look at the mess they've made of themselves! They've been among the brambles. Peter has two holes in his stocking. Just look at Bill's hands!" And she wrinkled her finical nose and sniffed.

Bill kept a diplomatic silence, and Peter, usually garrulous, did the same, for his small wrist was in his brother's savage clutch.

Then Barbara bethought herself of Catsbane. "Where's my dog?" she cried. "You know he started out with you. You wretched boys have lost him!"

There was a great hunt for Catsbane, but of course he could not be found. "I know where he is," said Barbara bitterly. "He's gone down to Johnson's farm and has probably by this time killed twenty chickens. Or he's at the badger's earth in Yewbarrow wood."

Bill's desperate grip only just prevented Peter from laughing.