The Leithen Stories. Buchan John
man could cover three miles of that ground in half an hour.’
‘I was thinkin’ the body was the Deevil.’
‘You saw a second man. John Macnab has an accomplice.’
Macpherson scratched his shaggy head. ‘I wouldn’t say but ye’re right, Miss Janet. Now I think of it, it was a bigger man. He didn’t bide a moment after I caught sight of him, but I got my glass on him, and he was a bigger man. Aye, a bigger man, and, maybe, a younger man.’
‘This is very disturbing,’ said Colonel Raden, walking to the window and twisting his moustache. ‘What do you make of it, Nettie?’
‘I think the affair is proceeding, as generals say about their battles, “according to plan.” We didn’t know before that John Macnab had a confederate, but of course he was bound to have one. There was nothing against it in the terms of the wager.’
‘Of course not, of course not. But what the devil was he doing on Carnbeg? There was no shot, Macpherson?’
‘There was no shot, and there will be no shot. There wass no beasts the side they were on, and Alan is up there now with one of James’s laddies.’
‘It’s exactly what we expected,’ said Janet. ‘It proves that we were right in guessing that John Macnab would take Carnmore. He came here today to frighten us about Carnbeg – make us think that he was going to try there, and get us to mass our forces. Tomorrow he’ll be on Carnmore, and then he’ll mean business. I hoped this would happen, and I was getting nervous when Agatha and Mr Bandicott came home looking as blank as the Babes in the Wood. But I wish I knew which was really John Macnab – the little one or the tall one.’
‘What does that matter?’ her parent asked.
‘Because I should be happier if he were tall. Little men are far more cunning.’
Junius Bandicott, having recovered his composure, chose to be amused. ‘I take that as a personal compliment, Miss Janet. I’m pretty big, and I can’t say I want to be thought cunning.’
‘Then John Macnab will get his salmon,’ said Janet with decision.
Junius laughed. ‘You bet he won’t. I’ve gotten the place watched like the Rum Fleet at home. A bird can’t hardly cough without its being reported to me. My fellows are on to the game, and John Macnab will have to be a mighty clever citizen to come within a mile of the Strathlarrig water. Nobody is allowed to fish it but myself till the 3rd of September is past. I reckon angling just now is the forbidden fruit in this neighbourhood. I’ve seen but the one fellow fishing in the last three days – on the bit of slack water five hundred yards below the bridge. It belongs to Crask, I think.’
Janet nodded. ‘No good except with a worm after a spate. Crask has no fishing worth the name.’
‘I saw him from the automobile early this morning,’ Junius continued. ‘Strange sight he was, too – dressed in pyjamas and rubbers – flogging away at the most helpless stretch you can imagine – dead calm, not a ripple, He had out about fifty yards of line, and when I passed he made a cast which fell with a flop about his ears. Who do you suppose he was? Somebody from Crask?’
Janet, who was the family’s authority on Crask, agreed. ‘Probably some English servant who came down before breakfast just to say he had fished for salmon.’
After tea Janet went down into the haugh. She met old Mr Bandicott returning from the Piper’s Ring, a very grubby old gentleman, and a little dashed in spirits, for he had as yet seen no sign of Harald Blacktooth’s coffin. ‘Another day’s work,’ he announced, ‘and then I win or lose. I thought I had struck it this afternoon, but it was the solid granite. If the fellow is there he’s probably in a rift of the rock. That has been known to happen. The Vikings found a natural fissure, stuck their dead chief in it, and heaped earth above to make a barrow …’
Down near the stream she met Benjie, who appeared to have worked late at his besoms, bumping over the moor to the road. He and his old pony made a more idyllic picture than ever in the mellow light of evening, almost too conventionally artistic to be real, she thought, till Benjie’s immobile figure woke to life at the sight of her and he pulled his lint-white forelock. ‘A grand nicht, lady,’ he crooned, and jogged on into the beeches’ shade … She sat on the bridge and watched the Raden waters pass from gold to amethyst and from amethyst to purple, and then sauntered back through the sweet-smelling dusk. Visions of John Macnab filled her mind, now a tall bravo with a colonial accent, now a gnarled Caliban of infinite cunning and gnome-like agility. Where in this haunted land was he ensconced – in some hazel covert, or in some clachan but-and-ben, or miles distant in a populous hotel, ready to speed in a swift car to the scene of action? … Anyhow, in twenty-four hours she would know if she had defeated this insolent challenger. On the eve of battle she had forgotten all about the stakes and her new hunter; it was the honour of Glenraden that was concerned, that little stone castle against the world.
Night fell, cool and cloudless, and the gillies went on their patrols. Carnmore was their only beat, and they returned one at a time to snatch a few hours’ rest. At dawn they went out again – with the Colonel, but without Alan, who was to follow after he had had his ration of sleep. It was arranged that the two girls and Junius Bandicott should spend the day on Carnbeg by way of extra precaution, though if a desperate man made the assault there it was not likely that Junius, who knew nothing of deer and had no hill-craft, would be able to stop him.
Janet woke in low spirits, and her depression increased as the morning advanced. She was full of vague forebodings, and of an irritable unrest to which her steady nerves had hitherto been a stranger. She wished she were a man and could be now on Carnmore, for Carnbeg, she was convinced, was out of danger. Junius, splendid in buckskin breeches and a russet sweater, she regarded with disfavour; he was a striking figure, but out of keeping with the hills, the obvious amateur, and she longed for the halting and guileful Sir Archie. Nor was her temper improved by the conduct of her companions. Agatha and Junius seemed to have an inordinate amount to say to each other, and their conversation was idiotic to the ears of a third party. Their eyes were far more on each other than on the landscape, and their telescopes were never in use. But it mattered little, for Carnbeg slept in a primordial peace. Only pipits broke the silence, only a circling merlin made movement in a spell-bound world. There were some hinds on the west side of Craig Dhu, but no stag showed – as was natural, the girl reflected, for in this weather and thus early in the season the stags would be on the highest tops. John Macnab had chosen rightly if he wanted a shot, but there were three gillies and her father to prevent him getting his beast away.
At luncheon, which was eaten by the Cailleach’s Well, Junius took to quoting poetry and Agatha to telling, very charmingly, the fairy tales of the glens. To Janet it all seemed wrong; this was not an occasion for literary philandering, when the credit of Glenraden was at stake. But even she was forced to confess that nothing was astir in the mossy wilderness. She climbed to the top of Craig Dhu and had a long spy, but, except for more hinds and one small knobber, living thing there was none. As the afternoon drew on, she drifted away from the two, who, being engrossed with each other, did not notice her departure.
She wandered through the deep heather of the Maam to where the great woods began that dipped to the Raden glen. It was pleasant walking in the cool shade of the pines on turf which was half thyme and milkwort and eyebright, and presently her spirits rose. Now and then, on some knuckle of blaeberry-covered rock which rose above the trees, she would halt, and, stretched at full length, would spy the nooks of the Home beat. There was no lack of deer there. She picked up one group and then another in the aisles and clearings of the woods, and there were shootable stags among them.
A report like a rifle-shot suddenly startled her. Then she remembered old Mr Bandicott down in the haugh, and, turning her glance in that direction, saw a thin cloud of blue smoke floating away from the Piper’s Ring.
Slowly she worked her way down-hill, aiming at the haugh about a mile upstream from the excavators. Once a startled hind and calf sprang up from her feet, and once an old fox slipped out of a pile of rocks