Books: Huntingtower
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John Buchan >> Huntingtower
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It was now that he began to feel nervous. Being on the coast again
seemed to bring him inside his enemies' territory, and had not Dobson
specifically forbidden the shore? It was here that they might be
looking for him. He felt himself out of condition, very wet and
very warm, but he attained a creditable pace, for he struck a road
which had been used by manure-carts collecting seaweed. There were
faint marks on it, which he took to be the wheels of Dougal's
"machine" carrying the provision-box. Yes. On a patch of gravel
there was a double set of tracks, which showed how it had returned
to Mrs. Sempill. He was exposed to the full force of the wind,
and the strenuousness of his bodily exertions kept his fears quiescent,
till the cliffs on his left sunk suddenly and the valley of the Laver
lay before him.
A small figure rose from the shelter of a boulder, the warrior who
bore the name of Old Bill. He saluted gravely.
"Ye're just in time. The water has rose three inches since
I've been here. Ye'd better strip."
Dickson removed his boots and socks. "Breeks too," commanded
the boy; "there's deep holes ayont thae stanes."
Dickson obeyed, feeling very chilly, and rather improper.
"Now follow me," said the guide. The next moment he was stepping
delicately on very sharp pebbles, holding on to the end of the
scout's pole, while an icy stream ran to his knees.
The Laver as it reaches the sea broadens out to the width of
fifty or sixty yards and tumbles over little shelves of rock to
meet the waves. Usually it is shallow, but now it was swollen to
an average depth of a foot or more, and there were deeper pockets.
Dickson made the passage slowly and miserably, sometimes crying out
with pain as his toes struck a sharper flint, once or twice sitting
down on a boulder to blow like a whale, once slipping on his knees
and wetting the strange excrescence about his middle, which was his
tucked-up waterproof. But the crossing was at length achieved,
and on a patch of sea-pinks he dried himself perfunctorily and hastily
put on his garments. Old Bill, who seemed to be regardless of wind
or water, squatted beside him and whistled through his teeth.
Above them hung the sheer cliffs of the Huntingtower cape, so sheer
that a man below was completely hidden from any watcher on the top.
Dickson's heart fell, for he did not profess to be a cragsman and had
indeed a horror of precipitous places. But as the two scrambled
along the foot, they passed deep-cut gullies and fissures, most of
them unclimbable, but offering something more hopeful than the face.
At one of these Old Bill halted, and led the way up and over a chaos
of fallen rock and loose sand. The grey weather had brought on the
dark prematurely, and in the half-light it seemed that this ravine
was blocked by an unscalable nose of rock. Here Old Bill whistled,
and there was a reply from above. Round the corner of the nose
came Dougal.
"Up here," he commanded. "It was Mr. Heritage that fund this road."
Dickson and his guide squeezed themselves between the nose and
the cliff up a spout of stones, and found themselves in an upper
storey of the gulley, very steep, but practicable even for one
who was no cragsman. This in turn ran out against a wall up which
there led only a narrow chimney. At the foot of this were two of
the Die-Hards, and there were others above, for a rope hung down,
by the aid of which a package was even now ascending.
"That's the top," said Dougal, pointing to the rim of sky, "and that's
the last o' the supplies." Dickson noticed that he spoke in a whisper,
and that all the movements of the Die-Hards were judicious and stealthy.
"Now, it's your turn. Take a good grip o' the rope, and ye'll find
plenty holes for your feet. It's no more than ten yards and ye're
well held above."
Dickson made the attempt and found it easier than he expected.
The only trouble was his pack and waterproof, which had a tendency
to catch on jags of rock. A hand was reached out to him, he was pulled
over the edge, and then pushed down on his face. When he lifted his
head Dougal and the others had joined him, and the whole company of the
Die-Hards was assembled on a patch of grass which was concealed from the
landward view by a thicket of hazels. Another, whom he recognized as
Heritage, was coiling up the rope.
"We'd better get all the stuff into the old Tower for the present,"
Heritage was saying. "It's too risky to move it into the House now.
We'll need the thickest darkness for that, after the moon is down.
Quick, for the beastly thing will be rising soon, and before that
we must all be indoors."
Then he turned to Dickson and gripped his hand. "You're a high
class of sportsman, Dogson. And I think you're just in time."
"Are they due to-night?" Dickson asked in an excited whisper,
faint against the wind.
"I don't know about They. But I've got a notion that some
devilish queer things will happen before to-morrow morning."
CHAPTER IX
THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
The old keep of Huntingtower stood some three hundred yards from the
edge of the cliffs, a gnarled wood of hazels and oaks protecting it
from the sea-winds. It was still in fair preservation, having till
twenty years before been an adjunct of the house of Dalquharter, and
used as kitchen, buttery, and servants' quarters. There had been
residential wings attached, dating from the mid-eighteenth century,
but these had been pulled down and used for the foundations of
the new mansion. Now it stood a lonely shell, its three storeys,
each a single great room connected by a spiral stone staircase,
being dedicated to lumber and the storage of produce. But it was dry
and intact, its massive oak doors defied any weapon short of
artillery, its narrow unglazed windows would scarcely have admitted a
cat--a place portentously strong, gloomy, but yet habitable.
Dougal opened the main door with a massy key. "The lassie fund it,"
he whispered to Dickson, "somewhere about the kitchen--and I guessed
it was the key o' this castle. I was thinkin' that if things got
ower hot it would be a good plan to flit here. Change our base, like."
The Chieftain's occasional studies in war had trained his tongue
to a military jargon.
In the ground room lay a fine assortment of oddments, including
old bedsteads and servants' furniture, and what looked like ancient
discarded deerskin rugs. Dust lay thick over everything, and they
heard the scurry of rats. A dismal place, indeed, but Dickson felt
only its strangeness. The comfort of being back again among allies
had quickened his spirit to an adventurous mood. The old lords of
Huntingtower had once quarrelled and revelled and plotted here, and
now here he was at the same game. Present and past joined hands over
the gulf of years. The saga of Huntingtower was not ended.
The Die-Hards had brought with them their scanty bedding, their
lanterns and camp-kettles. These and the provisions from Mearns
Street were stowed away in a corner.
"Now for the Hoose, men," said Dougal. They stole over the downs
to the shrubbery, and Dickson found himself almost in the same place
as he had lain in three days before, watching a dusky lawn, while
the wet earth soaked through his trouser knees and the drip from the
azaleas trickled over his spine. Two of the boys fetched the ladder
and placed it against the verandah wall. Heritage first, then Dickson,
darted across the lawn and made the ascent. The six scouts followed,
and the ladder was pulled up and hidden among the verandah litter.
For a second the whole eight stood still and listened. There was no
sound except the murmur of the now falling wind and the melancholy
hooting of owls. The garrison had entered the Dark Tower.
A council in whispers was held in the garden-room.
"Nobody must show a light," Heritage observed. "It mustn't be
known that we're here. Only the Princess will have a lamp. Yes"--
this in answer to Dickson--"she knows that we're coming--you too.
We'll hunt for quarters later upstairs. You scouts, you must picket
every possible entrance. The windows are safe, I think, for they
are locked from the inside. So is the main door. But there's the
verandah door, of which they have a key, and the back door beside
the kitchen, and I'm not at all sure that there's not a way in
by the boiler-house. You understand. We're holding his place against
all comers. We must barricade the danger points. The headquarters
of the garrison will be in the hall, where a scout must be always
on duty. You've all got whistles? Well, if there's an attempt on the
verandah door the picket will whistle once, if at the back door twice,
if anywhere else three times, and it's everybody's duty, except
the picket who whistles, to get back to the hall for orders."
"That's so," assented Dougal.
"If the enemy forces an entrance we must overpower him. Any means
you like. Sticks or fists, and remember if it's a scrap in the
dark to make for the man's throat. I expect you little devils have
eyes like cats. The scoundrels must be kept away from the ladies
at all costs. If the worst comes to the worst, the Princess
has a revolver."
"So have I," said Dickson. "I got it in Glasgow."
"The deuce you have! Can you use it?"
"I don't know."
"Well, you can hand it over to me, if you like. But it oughtn't to
come to shooting, if it's only the three of them. The eight of us
should be able to manage three and one of them lame. If the others
turn up--well, God help us all! But we've got to make sure of one
thing, that no one lays hands on the Princess so long as there's one
of us left alive to hit out."
"Ye needn't be feared for that," said Dougal. There was no light
in the room, but Dickson was certain that the morose face of the
Chieftain was lit with unholy joy.
"Then off with you. Mr. McCunn and I will explain matters to the ladies."
When they were alone, Heritage's voice took a different key.
"We're in for it, Dogson, old man. There's no doubt these three
scoundrels expect reinforcements at any moment, and with them
will be one who is the devil incarnate. He's the only thing on earth
that that brave girl fears. It seems he is in love with her and
has pestered her for years. She hated the sight of him, but he
wouldn't take no, and being a powerful man--rich and well-born and
all the rest of it--she had a desperate time. I gather he was pretty
high in favour with the old Court. Then when the Bolsheviks started
he went over to them, like plenty of other grandees, and now he's
one of their chief brains--none of your callow revolutionaries,
but a man of the world, a kind of genius, she says, who can hold
his own anywhere. She believes him to be in this country, and
only waiting the right moment to turn up. Oh, it sounds ridiculous,
I know, in Britain in the twentieth century, but I learned in the war
that civilization anywhere is a very thin crust. There are a hundred
ways by which that kind of fellow could bamboozle all our law and
police and spirit her away. That's the kind of crowd we have to face."
"Did she say what he was like in appearance?"
"A face like an angel--a lost angel, she says."
Dickson suddenly had an inspiration.
"D'you mind the man you said was an Australian--at Kirkmichael?
I thought myself he was a foreigner. Well, he was asking for a
place he called Darkwater, and there's no sich place in the countryside.
I believe he meant Dalquharter. I believe he's the man she's feared of."
A gasped "By Jove!" came from the darkness. "Dogson, you've hit it.
That was five days ago, and he must have got on the right trail
by this time. He'll be here to-night. That's why the three have
been lying so quiet to-day. Well, we'll go through with it, even if
we haven't a dog's chance! Only I'm sorry that you should be mixed
up in such a hopeless business."
"Why me more than you?"
"Because it's all pure pride and joy for me to be here. Good God,
I wouldn't be elsewhere for worlds. It's the great hour of my life.
I would gladly die for her."
"Tuts, that's no' the way to talk, man. Time enough to speak about
dying when there's no other way out. I'm looking at this thing
in a business way. We'd better be seeing the ladies."
They groped into the pitchy hall, somewhere in which a Die-Hard was
on picket, and down the passage to the smoking-room. Dickson blinked
in the light of a very feeble lamp and Heritage saw that his hands
were cumbered with packages. He deposited them on a sofa and made a
ducking bow.
"I've come back, Mem, and glad to be back. Your jools are in safe
keeping, and not all the blagyirds in creation could get at them.
I've come to tell you to cheer up--a stout heart to a stey brae,
as the old folk say. I'm handling this affair as a business
proposition, so don't be feared, Mem. If there are enemies seeking
you, there's friends on the road too....Now, you'll have had your
dinner, but you'd maybe like a little dessert."
He spread before them a huge box of chocolates, the best that
Mearns Street could produce, a box of candied fruits, and another
of salted almonds. Then from his hideously overcrowded pockets he
took another box, which he offered rather shyly. "That's some powder
for your complexion. They tell me that ladies find it useful whiles."
The girl's strained face watched him at first in mystification, and
then broke slowly into a smile. Youth came back into it, the smile
changed to a laugh, a low rippling laugh like far-away bells.
She took both his hands.
"You are kind,' she said, "you are kind and brave. You are a de-ar."
And then she kissed him.
Now, as far as Dickson could remember, no one had ever kissed him
except his wife. The light touch of her lips on his forehead was
like the pressing of an electric button which explodes some powerful
charge and alters the face of a countryside. He blushed scarlet;
then he wanted to cry; then he wanted to sing. An immense exhilaration
seized him, and I am certain that if at that moment the serried ranks
of Bolshevy had appeared in the doorway, Dickson would have hurled
himself upon them with a joyful shout.
Cousin Eugenie was earnestly eating chocolates, but Saskia
had other business.
"You will hold the house?" she asked.
"Please God, yes," said Heritage. "I look at it this way.
The time is very near when your three gaolers expect the others,
their masters. They have not troubled you in the past two days as
they threatened, because it was not worth while. But they won't want
to let you out of their sight in the final hours, so they will almost
certainly come here to be on the spot. Our object is to keep them
out and confuse their plans. Somewhere in this neighbourhood,
probably very near, is the man you fear most. If we nonplus the
three watchers, they'll have to revise their policy, and that means
a delay, and every hour's delay is a gain. Mr. McCunn has found out
that the factor Loudon is in the plot, and he has purchase enough,
it seems, to blanket for a time any appeal to the law. But Mr. McCunn
has taken steps to circumvent him, and in twenty-four hours we should
have help here."
"I do not want the help of your law," the girl interrupted.
"It will entangle me.'
"Not a bit of it," said Dickson cheerfully. "You see, Mem,
they've clean lost track of the jools, and nobody knows where
they are but me. I'm a truthful man, but I'll lie like a packman
if I'm asked questions. For the rest, it's a question of kidnapping,
I understand, and that's a thing that's not to be allowed. My advice
is to go to our beds and get a little sleep while there's a chance of it.
The Gorbals Die-Hards are grand watch-dogs."
This view sounded so reasonable that it was at once acted upon.
The ladies' chamber was next door to the smoking-room--what had been
the old schoolroom. Heritage arranged with Saskia that the lamp was
to be kept burning low, and that on no account were they to move
unless summoned by him. Then he and Dickson made their way to the
hall, where there was a faint glimmer from the moon in the upper
unshuttered windows--enough to reveal the figure of Wee Jaikie on
duty at the foot of the staircase. They ascended to the second floor,
where, in a large room above the hall, Heritage had bestowed his pack.
He had managed to open a fold of the shutters, and there was sufficient
light to see two big mahogany bedsteads without mattresses or
bedclothes, and wardrobes and chests of drawers sheeted in holland.
Outside the wind was rising again, but the rain had stopped.
Angry watery clouds scurried across the heavens.
Dickson made a pillow of his waterproof, stretched himself on one of
the bedsteads, and, so quiet was his conscience and so weary his body
from the buffetings of the past days, was almost instantly asleep.
It seemed to him that he had scarcely closed his eyes when he was
awakened by Dougal's hand pinching his shoulder. He gathered that
the moon was setting, for the room was pitchy dark.
"The three o' them is approachin' the kitchen door," whispered
the Chieftain. "I seen them from a spy-hole I made out o' a ventilator."
"Is it barricaded?" asked Heritage, who had apparently not been asleep.
"Aye, but I've thought o' a far better plan. Why should we
keep them out? They'll be safer inside. Listen! We might manage
to get them in one at a time. If they can't get in at the kitchen
door, they'll send one o' them round to get in by another door and
open to them. That gives us a chance to get them separated, and
lock them up. There's walth o' closets and hidy-holes all over the
place, each with good doors and good keys to them. Supposin' we get
the three o' them shut up--the others, when they come, will have
nobody to guide them. Of course some time or other the three will
break out, but it may be ower late for them. At present we're
besieged and they're roamin' the country. Would it no' be far
better if they were the ones lockit up and we were goin' loose?"
"Supposing they don't come in one at a time?" Dickson objected.
"We'll make them," said Dougal firmly. "There's no time to waste.
Are ye for it?"
"Yes," said Heritage. "Who's at the kitchen door?"
"Peter Paterson. I told him no' to whistle, but to wait on me..
..Keep your boots off. Ye're better in your stockin' feet. Wait you
in the hall and see ye're well hidden, for likely whoever comes in
will have a lantern. Just you keep quiet unless I give ye a cry.
I've planned it a' out, and we're ready for them."
Dougal disappeared, and Dickson and Heritage, with their boots tied
round their necks by their laces, crept out to the upper landing.
The hall was impenetrably dark, but full of voices, for the wind was
talking in the ceiling beams, and murmuring through the long passages.
The walls creaked and muttered and little bits of plaster fluttered down.
The noise was an advantage for the game of hide-and-seek they
proposed to play, but it made it hard to detect the enemy's approach.
Dickson, in order to get properly wakened, adventured as far
as the smoking-room. It was black with night, but below the door of
the adjacent room a faint line of light showed where the Princess's
lamp was burning. He advanced to the window, and heard distinctly a
foot on the grovel path that led to the verandah. This sent him back
to the hall in search of Dougal, whom he encountered in the passage.
That boy could certainly see in the dark, for he caught Dickson's
wrist without hesitation.
"We've got Spittal in the wine-cellar," he whispered triumphantly.
"The kitchen door was barricaded, and when they tried it, it wouldn't open.
'Bide here,' says Dobson to Spittal, 'and we'll go round by another door
and come back and open to ye.' So off they wet, and by that time
Peter Paterson and me had the barricade down. As we expected,
Spittal tries the key again and it opens quite easy. He comes in
and locks it behind him, and, Dobson having took away the lantern,
he gropes his way very carefu' towards the kitchen. There's a point
where the wine-cellar door and the scullery door are aside each other.
He should have taken the second, but I had it shut so he takes the first.
Peter Paterson gave him a wee shove and he fell down the two-three
steps into the cellar, and we turned the key on him. Yon cellar has a
grand door and no windies."
"And Dobson and Leon are at the verandah door? With a light?"
"Thomas Yownie's on duty there. Ye can trust him. Ye'll no
fickle Thomas Yownie."
The next minutes were for Dickson a delirium of excitement not
unpleasantly shot with flashes of doubt and fear. As a child he
had played hide-and-seek, and his memory had always cherished the
delights of the game. But how marvellous to play it thus in a great
empty house, at dark of night, with the heaven filled with tempest,
and with death or wounds as the stakes!
He took refuge in a corner where a tapestry curtain and the side of
a Dutch awmry gave him shelter, and from where he stood he could see
the garden-room and the beginning of the tiled passage which led to
the verandah door. That is to say, he could have seen these things
if there had been any light, which there was not. He heard the
soft flitting of bare feet, for a delicate sound is often audible
in a din when a loud noise is obscured. Then a gale of wind
blew towards him, as from an open door, and far away gleamed the
flickering light of a lantern.
Suddenly the light disappeared and there was a clatter on the floor
and a breaking of glass. Either the wind or Thomas Yownie.
The verandah door was shut, a match spluttered and the lantern
was relit. Dobson and Leon came into the hall, both clad in long
mackintoshes which glistened from the weather. Dobson halted and
listened to the wind howling in the upper spaces. He cursed it
bitterly, looked at his watch, and then made an observation which
woke the liveliest interest in Dickson lurking beside the awmry and
Heritage ensconced in the shadow of a window-seat.
"He's late. He should have been here five minutes syne. It would be
a dirty road for his car."
So the Unknown was coming that night. The news made Dickson the more
resolved to get the watchers under lock and key before reinforcements
arrived, and so put grit in their wheels. Then his party must
escape--flee anywhere so long as it was far from Dalquharter.
"You stop here," said Dobson, "I'll go down and let Spidel in.
We want another lamp. Get the one that the women use, and for
God's sake get a move on."
The sound of his feet died in the kitchen passage and then rung
again on the stone stairs. Dickson's ear of faith heard also the
soft patter of naked feet as the Die-Hards preceded and followed him.
He was delivering himself blind and bound into their hands.
For a minute or two there was no sound but the wind, which had found
a loose chimney cowl on the roof and screwed out of it an odd sound
like the drone of a bagpipe. Dickson, unable to remain any longer in
one place, moved into the centre of the hall, believing that Leon had
gone to the smoking-room. It was a dangerous thing to do, for
suddenly a match was lit a yard from him. He had the sense to
drop low, and so was out of the main glare of the light. The man
with the match apparently had no more, judging by his execrations.
Dickson stood stock still, longing for the wind to fall so that he
might hear the sound of the fellow's boots on the stone floor.
He gathered that they were moving towards the smoking-room.
"Heritage," he whispered as loud as he dared, bet there was no answer.
Then suddenly a moving body collided with him. He jumped a step back
and then stood at attention. "Is that you, Dobson?" a voice asked.
Now behold the occasional advantage of a nick-name. Dickson thought
he was being addressed as "Dogson" after the Poet's fashion. Had he
dreamed it was Leon he would not have replied, but fluttered off
into the shadows, and so missed a piece of vital news.
"Ay, it's me." he whispered.
His voice and accent were Scotch, like Dobson's, and Leon
suspected nothing.
"I do not like this wind," he grumbled. "The Captain's letter said
at dawn, but there is no chance of the Danish brig making your little
harbour in this weather. She must lie off and land the men by boats.
That I do not like. It is too public."
The news--tremendous news, for it told that the new-comers would come
by sea, which had never before entered Dickson's head--so interested
him that he stood dumb and ruminating. The silence made the Belgian
suspect; he put out a hand and felt a waterproofed arm which might
have been Dobson's. But the height of the shoulder proved that it was
not the burly innkeeper. There was an oath, a quick movement, and
Dickson went down with a knee on his chest and two hands at his throat.
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