Books: Huntingtower
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John Buchan >> Huntingtower
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"Heritage," he gasped. "Help!"
There was a sound of furniture scraped violently on the floor.
A gurgle from Dickson served as a guide, and the Poet suddenly
cascaded over the combatants. He felt for a head, found Leon's
and gripped the neck so savagely that the owner loosened his
hold on Dickson. The last-named found himself being buffeted
violently by heavy-shod feet which seemed to be manoeuvring before
an unseen enemy. He rolled out of the road and encountered another
pair of feet, this time unshod. Then came the sound of a concussion,
as if metal or wood had struck some part of a human frame, and then
a stumble and fall.
After that a good many things all seemed to happen at once.
There was a sudden light, which showed Leon blinking with a short
loaded life-preserver in his hand, and Heritage prone in front of
him on the floor. It also showed Dickson the figure of Dougal,
and more than one Die-Hard in the background. The light went out
as suddenly as it had appeared. There was a whistle and a hoarse
"Come on, men," and then for two seconds there was a desperate
silent combat. It ended with Leon's head meeting the floor so
violently that its possessor became oblivious of further proceedings.
He was dragged into a cubby-hole, which had once been used for
coats and rugs, and the door locked on him. Then the light sprang
forth again. It revealed Dougal and five Die-Hards, somewhat the
worse for wear; it revealed also Dickson squatted with outspread
waterproof very like a sitting hen.
"Where's Dobson?" he asked.
"In the boiler-house," and for once Dougal's gravity had laughter in it.
"Govey Dick! but yon was a fecht! Me and Peter Paterson and
Wee Jaikie started it, but it was the whole company afore the end.
Are ye better, Jaikie?"
"Ay, I'm better," said a pallid midget.
"He kickit Jaikie in the stomach and Jaikie was seeck," Dougal explained.
"That's the three accounted for. I think mysel' that Dobson will be
the first to get out, but he'll have his work letting out the others.
Now, I'm for flittin' to the old Tower. They'll no ken where we are
for a long time, and anyway yon place will be far easier to defend.
Without they kindle a fire and smoke us out, I don't see how
they'll beat us. Our provisions are a' there, and there's a grand
well o' water inside. Forbye there's the road down the rocks that'll
keep our communications open....But what's come to Mr. Heritage?"
Dickson to his shame had forgotten all about his friend. The Poet lay
very quiet with his head on one side and his legs crooked limply.
Blood trickled over his eyes from an ugly scar on his forehead.
Dickson felt his heart and pulse and found them faint but regular.
The man had got a swinging blow and might have a slight concussion;
for the present he was unconscious.
"All the more reason why we should flit," said Dougal. "What d'ye
say, Mr. McCunn?"
"Flit, of course, but further than the old Tower. What's the time?"
He lifted Heritage's wrist and saw from his watch that it was
half-past three. "Mercy" It's nearly morning. Afore we put these
blagyirds away, they were conversing, at least Leon and Dobson were.
They said that they expected somebody every moment, but that the
car would be late. We've still got that Somebody to tackle.
Then Leon spoke to me in the dark, thinking I was Dobson, and
cursed the wind, saying it would keep the Danish brig from getting
in at dawn as had been intended. D'you see what that means?
The worst of the lot, the ones the ladies are in terror of,
are coming by sea. Ay, and they can return by sea. We thought that
the attack would be by land, and that even if they succeeded we could
hang on to their heels and follow them, till we got them stopped.
But that's impossible! If they come in from the water, they can
go out by the water, and there'll never be more heard tell of
the ladies or of you or me."
Dougal's face was once again sunk in gloom. "What's your plan, then?"
"We must get the ladies away from here--away inland, far from the sea.
The rest of us must stand a siege in the old Tower, so that the enemy
will think we're all there. Please God we'll hold out long enough for
help to arrive. But we mustn't hang about here. There's the man
Dobson mentioned--he may come any second, and we want to be away first.
Get the ladder, Dougal....Four of you take Mr. Heritage, and two come
with me and carry the ladies' things. It's no' raining, but the
wind's enough to take the wings off a seagull."
Dickson roused Saskia and her cousin, bidding them be ready in
ten minutes. Then with the help of the Die-Hards he proceeded
to transport the necessary supplies--the stove, oil, dishes,
clothes and wraps; more than one journey was needed of small boys,
hidden under clouds of baggage. When everything had gone he
collected the keys, behind which, in various quarters of the house,
three gaolers fumed impotently, and gave them to Wee Jaikie to
dispose of in some secret nook. Then he led the two ladies to the
verandah, the elder cross and sleepy, the younger alert at the
prospect of movement.
"Tell me again," she said. "You have locked all the three up,
and they are now the imprisoned?"
"Well, it was the boys that, properly speaking, did the locking up."
"It is a great--how do you say?--a turning of the tables.
Ah--what is that?"
At the end of the verandah there was a clattering down of pots
which could not be due to the wind, since the place was sheltered.
There was as yet only the faintest hint of light, and black night
still lurked in the crannies. Followed another fall of pots,
as from a clumsy intruder, and then a man appeared, clear against
the glass door by which the path descended to the rock garden.
It was the fourth man, whom the three prisoners had awaited.
Dickson had no doubt at all about his identity. He was that villain
from whom all the others took their orders, the man whom the
Princess shuddered at. Before starting he had loaded his pistol.
Now he tugged it from his waterproof pocket, pointed it at the
other and fired.
The man seemed to be hit, for he spun round and clapped a hand to
his left arm. Then he fled through the door, which he left open.
Dickson was after him like a hound. At the door he saw him running
and raised his pistol for another shot. Then he dropped it, for he
saw something in the crouching, dodging figure which was familiar.
"A mistake," he explained to Jaikie when he returned. "But the shot
wasn't wasted. I've just had a good try at killing the factor!"
CHAPTER X
DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY
Five scouts' lanterns burned smokily in the ground room of the
keep when Dickson ushered his charges through its cavernous door.
The lights flickered in the gusts that swept after them and whistled
through the slits of the windows, so that the place was full
of monstrous shadows, and its accustomed odour of mould and disuse
was changed to a salty freshness. Upstairs on the first floor
Thomas Yownie had deposited the ladies' baggage, and was busy
making beds out of derelict iron bedsteads and the wraps brought
from their room. On the ground floor on a heap of litter covered
by an old scout's blanket lay Heritage, with Dougal in attendance.
The Chieftain had washed the blood from the Poet's brow, and the
touch of cold water was bringing him back his senses. Saskia with a
cry flew to him, and waved off Dickson who had fetched one of
the bottles of liqueur brandy. She slipped a hand inside his shirt
and felt the beating of his heart. Then her slim fingers ran
over his forehead.
"A bad blow," she muttered, "but I do not think he is ill.
There is no fracture. When I nursed in the Alexander Hospital
I learnt much about head wounds. Do not give him cognac if you
value his life."
Heritage was talking now and with strange tongues. Phrases like
"lined Digesters" and "free sulphurous acid" came from his lips.
He implored some one to tell him if "the first cook" was finished,
and he upbraided some one else for "cooling off" too fast.
The girl raised her head. "But I fear he has become mad," she said.
"Wheesht, Mem," said Dickson, who recognized the jargon.
"He's a papermaker."
Saskia sat down on the litter and lifted his head so that it rested
on her breast. Dougal at her bidding brought a certain case from
her baggage, and with swift, capable hands she made a bandage and
rubbed the wound with ointment before tying it up. Then her fingers
seemed to play about his temples and along his cheeks and neck.
She was the professional nurse now, absorbed, sexless. Heritage ceased
to babble, his eyes shut and he was asleep.
She remained where she was, so that the Poet, when a few minutes
later he woke, found himself lying with his head in her lap.
She spoke first, in an imperative tone: "You are well now.
Your head does not ache. You are strong again."
"No. Yes," he murmured. Then more clearly; "Where am I?
Oh, I remember, I caught a lick on the head. What's become
of the brutes?"
Dickson, who had extracted food from the Mearns Street box and was
pressing it on the others, replied through a mouthful of Biscuit:
"We're in the old Tower. The three are lockit up in the House.
Are you feeling better, Mr. Heritage?"
The Poet suddenly realized Saskia's position and the blood came
to his pale face. He got to his feet with an effort and held
out a hand to the girl. "I'm all right now, I think. Only a little
dicky on my legs. A thousand thanks, Princess. I've given you
a lot of trouble."
She smiled at him tenderly. "You say that when you have risked
your life for me."
"There's no time to waste," the relentless Dougal broke in.
"Comin' over here, I heard a shot. What was it?"
"It was me," said Dickson. "I was shootin' at the factor."
"Did ye hit him?"
"I think so, but I'm sorry to say not badly. When I last saw him
he was running too quick for a sore hurt man. When I fired I thought
it was the other man--the one they were expecting."
Dickson marvelled at himself, yet his speech was not bravado, but the
honest expression of his mind. He was keyed up to a mood in which he
feared nothing very much, certainly not the laws of his country.
If he fell in with the Unknown, he was entirely resolved, if
his Maker permitted him, to do murder as being the simplest
and justest solution. And if in the pursuit of this laudable
intention he happened to wing lesser game it was no fault of his.
"Well, it's a pity ye didn't get him," said Dougal, "him being
what we ken him to be....I'm for holding a council o' war, and
considerin' the whole position. So far we haven't done that badly.
We've shifted our base without serious casualties. We've got a far
better position to hold, for there's too many ways into yon Hoose,
and here there's just one. Besides, we've fickled the enemy.
They'll take some time to find out where we've gone. But, mind you,
we can't count on their staying long shut up. Dobson's no safe in
the boiler-house, for there's a skylight far up and he'll see it when
the light comes and maybe before. So we'd better get our plans ready.
A word with ye, Mr. McCunn," and he led Dickson aside.
"D'ye ken what these blagyirds were up to?" he whispered fiercely
in Dickson's ear. "They were goin' to pushion the lassie. How do I
ken, says you? Because Thomas Yownie heard Dobson say to Lean at the
scullery door, 'Have ye got the dope?' he says, and Lean says, 'Aye.'
Thomas mindit the word for he had heard about it at the Picters."
Dickson exclaimed in horror.
"What d'ye make o' that?" I'll tell ye. They wanted to make sure
of her, but they wouldn't have thought o' dope unless the men they
expectit were due to arrive at any moment. As I see it, we've to
face a siege not by the three but by a dozen or more, and it'll no'
be long till it starts. Now, isn't it a mercy we're safe in here?"
Dickson returned to the others with a grave face.
"Where d'you think the new folk are coming from?" he asked.
Heritage answered, "From Auchenlochan, I suppose? Or perhaps
down from the hills?"
"You're wrong." And he told of Leon's mistaken confidences to him in
the darkness. "They are coming from the sea, just like the old pirates."
"The sea," Heritage repeated in a dazed voice.
"Ay, the sea. Think what that means. If they had been coming by
the roads, we could have kept track of them, even if they beat us,
and some of these laddies could have stuck to them and followed
them up till help came. It can't be such an easy job to carry a
young lady against her will along Scotch roads. But the sea's
a different matter. If they've got a fast boat they could be
out of the Firth and away beyond the law before we could wake up
a single policeman. Ay, and even if the Government took it up and
warned all the ports and ships at sea, what's to hinder them to find
a hidy-hole about Ireland--or Norway? I tell you, it's a far more
desperate business than I thought, and it'll no' do to wait on and
trust that the Chief Constable will turn up afore the mischief's done.'
"The moral," said Heritage, "is that there can be no surrender.
We've got to stick it out in this old place at all costs."
"No," said Dickson emphatically. "The moral is that we must
shift the ladies. We've got the chance while Dobson and his
friends are locked up. Let's get them as far away as we can
from the sea. They're far safer tramping the moors, and it's
no' likely the new folk will dare to follow us."
"But I cannot go." Saskia, who had been listening intently,
shook her head. "I promised to wait here till my friend came.
If I leave I shall never find him."
"If you stay you certainly never will, for you'll be away
with the ruffians. Take a sensible view, Mem. You'll be no
good to your friend or your friend to you if before night you're
rocking in a ship."
The girl shook her head again, gently but decisively. "It was
our arrangement. I cannot break it. Besides, I am sure that
he will come in time, for he has never failed---"
There was a desperate finality about the quiet tones and the
weary face with the shadow of a smile on it.
Then Heritage spoke. "I don't think your plan will quite do, Dogson.
Supposing we all break for the hinterland and the Danish brig finds
the birds flown, that won't end the trouble. They will get on
the Princess's trail, and the whole persecution will start again.
I want to see things brought to a head here and now. If we can
stick it out here long enough, we may trap the whole push and rid
the world of a pretty gang of miscreants. Let them show their hand,
and then, if the police are here by that time, we can jug the lot for
piracy or something worse."
"That's all right," said Dougal, "but we'd put up a better fight if
we had the women off our mind. I've aye read that when a castle was
going to be besieged the first thing was to get rid of the civilians."
"Sensible to the last, Dougal," said Dickson approvingly.
"That's just what I'm saying. I'm strong for a fight, but put
the ladies in a safe bit first, for they're our weak point."
"Do you think that if you were fighting my enemies I would consent
to be absent?" came Saskia's reproachful question.
"'Deed no, Mem," said Dickson heartily. His martial spirit was
with Heritage, but his prudence did not sleep, and he suddenly
saw a way of placating both. "Just you listen to what I propose.
What do we amount to? Mr. Heritage, six laddies, and myself--and
I'm no more used to fighting than an old wife. We've seven
desperate villains against us, and afore night they may be seventy.
We've a fine old castle here, but for defence we want more than stone
walls--we want a garrison. I tell you we must get help somewhere.
Ay, but how, says you? Well, coming here I noticed a gentleman's house
away up ayont the railway and close to the hills. The laird's maybe not
at home, but there will be men there of some kind--gamekeepers and
woodmen and such like. My plan is to go there at once and ask for help.
Now, it's useless me going alone, for nobody would listen to me.
They'd tell me to go back to the shop or they'd think me demented.
But with you, Mem, it would be a different matter. They wouldn't
disbelieve you. So I want you to come with me, and to come at once,
for God knows how soon our need will be sore. We'll leave your
cousin with Mrs. Morran in the village, for bed's the place for her,
and then you and me will be off on our business."
The girl looked at Heritage, who nodded. "It's the only way," he said.
"Get every man jack you can raise, and if it's humanly possible get
a gun or two. I believe there's time enough, for I don't see the
brig arriving in broad daylight."
"D'you not?" Dickson asked rudely. "Have you considered what day this is?
It's the Sabbath, the best of days for an ill deed. There's no kirk
hereaways, and everybody in the parish will be sitting indoors
by the fire." He looked at his watch. "In half an hour it'll be light.
Haste you, Mem, and get ready. Dougal, what's the weather?"
The Chieftain swung open the door, and sniffed the air. The wind had
fallen for the time being, and the surge of the tides below the rocks
rose like the clamour of a mob. With the lull, mist and a thin
drizzle had cloaked the world again.
To Dickson's surprise Dougal seemed to be in good spirits.
He began to sing to a hymn tune a strange ditty.
"Class-conscious we are, and class-conscious wull be
Till our fit's on the neck o' the Boorjoyzee."
"What on earth are you singing?" Dickson inquired.
Dougal grinned. "Wee Jaikie went to a Socialist Sunday School
last winter because he heard they were for fechtin' battles.
Ay, and they telled him he was to join a thing called an International,
and Jaikie thought it was a fitba' club. But when he fund out there
was no magic lantern or swaree at Christmas he gie'd it the chuck.
They learned him a heap o' queer songs. That's one."
"What does the last word mean?"
"I don't ken. Jaikie thought it was some kind of a draigon."
"It's a daft-like thing anyway....When's high water?"
Dougal answered that to the best of his knowledge it fell between
four and five in the afternoon.
"Then that's when we may expect the foreign gentry if they think
to bring their boat in to the Garplefoot.....Dougal, lad, I trust
you to keep a most careful and prayerful watch. You had better
get the Die-Hards out of the Tower and all round the place afore
Dobson and Co. get loose, or you'll no' get a chance later.
Don't lose your mobility, as the sodgers say. Mr. Heritage can hold
the fort, but you laddies should be spread out like a screen."
"That was my notion," said Dougal. "I'll detail two Die-Hards--
Thomas Yownie and Wee Jaikie--to keep in touch with ye and watch
for you comin' back. Thomas ye ken already; ye'll no fickle
Thomas Yownie. But don't be mistook about Wee Jaikie. He's terrible
fond of greetin', but it's no fright with him but excitement.
It's just a habit he's gotten. When ye see Jaikie begin to greet,
you may be sure that Jaikie's gettin' dangerous."
The door shut behind them and Dickson found himself with his two charges
in a world dim with fog and rain and the still lingering darkness.
The air was raw, and had the sour smell which comes from soaked earth
and wet boughs when the leaves are not yet fledged. Both the women
were miserably equipped for such an expedition. Cousin Eugenie trailed
heavy furs, Saskia's only wrap was a bright-coloured shawl about her
shoulders, and both wore thin foreign shoes. Dickson insisted on
stripping off his trusty waterproof and forcing it on the Princess,
on whose slim body it hung very loose and very short. The elder woman
stumbled and whimpered and needed the constant support of his arm,
walking like a townswoman from the knees. But Saskia swung from the
hips like a free woman, and Dickson had much ado to keep up with her.
She seemed to delight in the bitter freshness of the dawn, inhaling
deep breaths of it, and humming fragments of a tune.
Guided by Thomas Yownie they took the road which Dickson and Heritage
had travelled the first evening, through the shrubberies on the north
side of the House and the side avenue beyond which the ground fell to
the Laver glen. On their right the House rose like a dark cloud, but
Dickson had lost his terror of it. There were three angry men inside
it, he remembered: long let them stay there. He marvelled at his
mood, and also rejoiced, for his worst fear had always been that he
might prove a coward. Now he was puzzled to think how he could ever
be frightened again, for his one object was to succeed, and in that
absorption fear seemed to him merely a waste of time. "It all comes
of treating the thing as a business proposition," he told himself.
But there was far more in his heart than this sober resolution.
He was intoxicated with the resurgence of youth and felt a rapture
of audacity which he never remembered in his decorous boyhood.
"I haven't been doing badly for an old man," he reflected with glee.
What, oh what had become of the pillar of commerce, the man who
might have been a bailie had he sought municipal honours, the elder
in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, the instructor of literary young men?
In the past three days he had levanted with jewels which had once
been an Emperor's and certainly were not his; he had burglariously
entered and made free of a strange house; he had played hide-and-seek
at the risk of his neck and had wrestled in the dark with a foreign
miscreant; he had shot at an eminent solicitor with intent to kill;
and he was now engaged in tramping the world with a fairytale Princess.
I blush to confess that of each of his doings he was unashamedly proud,
and thirsted for many more in the same line. "Gosh, but I'm seeing life,"
was his unregenerate conclusion.
Without sight or sound of a human being, they descended to the Laver,
climbed again by the cart track, and passed the deserted West Lodge
and inn to the village. It was almost full dawn when the three
stood in Mrs. Morran's kitchen.
"I've brought you two ladies, Auntie Phemie," said Dickson.
They made an odd group in that cheerful place, where the new-lit fire
was crackling in the big grate--the wet undignified form of Dickson,
unshaven of cheek and chin and disreputable in garb; the shrouded
figure of Cousin Eugenie, who had sunk into the arm-chair and closed
her eyes; the slim girl, into whose face the weather had whipped a
glow like blossom; and the hostess, with her petticoats kilted and
an ancient mutch on her head.
Mrs. Morran looked once at Saskia, and then did a thing which she
had not done since her girlhood. She curtseyed.
"I'm proud to see ye here, Mem. Off wi' your things, and I'll
get ye dry claes, Losh, ye're fair soppin' And your shoon!
Ye maun change your feet....Dickson! Awa' up to the loft, and dinna
you stir till I give ye a cry. The leddies will change by the fire.
And You, Mem"--this to Cousin Eugenie--"the place for you's your bed.
I'll kinnle a fire ben the hoose in a jiffey. And syne ye'll
have breakfast--ye'll hae a cup o' tea wi' me now, for the kettle's
just on the boil. Awa' wi' ye. Dickson," and she stamped her foot.
Dickson departed, and in the loft washed his face, and smoked a pipe on
the edge of the bed, watching the mist eddying up the village street.
From below rose the sounds of hospitable bustle, and when after
some twenty minutes' vigil he descended, he found Saskia toasting
stockinged toes by the fire in the great arm-chair, and Mrs. Morran
setting the table.
"Auntie Phemie, hearken to me. We've taken on too big a job for
two men and six laddies, and help we've got to get, and that
this very morning. D'you mind the big white house away up near
the hills ayont the station and east of the Ayr road? It looked like
a gentleman's shooting lodge. I was thinking of trying there. Mercy!"
The exclamation was wrung from him by his eyes settling on Saskia
and noting her apparel. Gone were her thin foreign clothes, and in
their place she wore a heavy tweed skirt cut very short, and thick
homespun stockings, which had been made for some one with larger
feet than hers. A pair of the coarse low-heeled shoes which country
folk wear in the farmyard stood warming by the hearth. She still had
her russet jumper, but round her neck hung a grey wool scarf, of the kind
known as a "Comforter." Amazingly pretty she looked in Dickson's eyes,
but with a different kind of prettiness. The sense of fragility had fled,
and he saw how nobly built she was for all her exquisiteness.
She looked like a queen, he thought, but a queen to go gipsying
through the world with.
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