John Macnab (Unabridged). Buchan John
have a pretty young woman lauding his abilities and appealing with melting eyes for his aid was a new experience in Sir Archie’s life. It was so delectable an experience that he almost forgot its awful complications. When he remembered them he flushed and stammered.
“Really, I’d love to, but I wouldn’t be any earthly good. I’m an old crock, you see. But you needn’t worry—your Glenraden gillies will make short work of this bandit…By Jove, I hope you get your hunter, Miss Raden. You’ve got to have it somehow. Tell you what, if I’ve any bright idea I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you so much. And may I consult you if I’m in difficulties?”
“Yes, of course. I mean to say, No. Hang it, I don’t know, for I don’t like interferin’ with your father’s challenge.”
“That means you will. Now, you mustn’t wait another moment. Good-bye. Will you come over to lunch at Glenraden?”
Then she broke off and stared at him. “I forgot. Haven’t you smallpox?”
“What! Smallpox? Oh, I see! Has old Mother Claybody been putting that about?”
“She came to tea yesterday twittering with terror, and warned us all not to go within a mile of Crask.”
Sir Archie laughed somewhat hollowly. “I had a bad toothache and my head tied up, and I daresay I said something silly, but I never thought she would take it for gospel. You see for yourself that I’ve nothing the matter with me.”
“You’ll have pneumonia the matter with you, unless you hurry home. Good-bye. We’ll expect you to lunch the day after to-morrow.” And with a wave of her hand she was gone.
The extraordinary fact was that Sir Archie was not depressed by the new tangle which encumbered him. On the contrary, he was in the best of spirits. He hobbled gaily up the by-road to Crask, listened to Leithen, when he met him, with less than half an ear, and was happy with his own thoughts. I am at a loss to know how to describe the first shattering impact of youth and beauty on a susceptible mind. The old plan was to borrow the language of the world’s poetry, the new seems to be to have recourse to the difficult jargon of psychologists and physicians; but neither, I fear, would suit Sir Archie’s case. He did not think of nymphs and goddesses or of linnets in spring; still less did he plunge into the depths of a subconscious self which he was not aware of possessing. The unromantic epithet which rose to his lips was “jolly.” This was for certain the jolliest girl he had ever met— regular young sportswoman and amazingly good-lookin’, and he was dashed if she wouldn’t get her hunter. For a delirious ten minutes, which carried him to the edge of the Crask lawn, he pictured his resourcefulness placed at her service, her triumphant success, and her bright-eyed gratitude.
Then he suddenly remembered that alliance with Miss Janet Raden was treachery to his three guests. The aid she had asked for could only be given at the expense of John Macnab. He was in the miserable position of having a leg in both camps, of having unhappily received the confidences of both sides, and whatever he did he must make a mess of it. He could not desert his friends, so he must fail the lady; wherefore there could be no luncheon for him, the day after to-morrow, since another five minutes’ talk with her would entangle him beyond hope. There was nothing for it but to have a return of smallpox. He groaned aloud.
“A twinge of that beastly toothache,” he explained in reply to his companion’s inquiry.
When the party met in the smoking-room that night after dinner two very weary men occupied the deepest arm-chairs. Lamancha was struggling with sleep; Palliser-Yeates was limp with fatigue, far too weary to be sleepy. “I’ve had the devil of a day,” said the latter. “Wattie took me at a racing gallop about thirty miles over bogs and crags. Lord! I’m stiff and footsore. I believe I crawled more than ten miles, and I’ve no skin left on my knees. But we spied the deuce of a lot of ground, and I see my way to the rudiments of a plan. You start off, Charles, while I collect my thoughts.”
But Lamancha was supine.
“I’m too drunk with sleep to talk,” he said. “I prospected all the south side of Haripol—all this side of the Reascuill, you know. I got a good spy from Sgurr Mor, and I tried to get up Sgurr Dearg, but stuck on the rocks. That’s a fearsome mountain, if you like. Didn’t see a blessed soul all day—no rifles out—but I heard a shot from the Machray ground. I got my glasses on to several fine beasts. It struck me that the best chance would be in the corrie between Sgurr Mor and Sgurr Dearg—there’s a nice low pass at the head to get a stag through and the place is rather tucked away from the rest of the forest. That’s as far as I’ve got at present. I want to sleep.”
Palliser-Yeates was in a very different mood. With an ordnance map spread out on his knees he expounded the result of his researches, waving his pipe excitedly.
“It’s a stiff problem, but there’s just the ghost of a hope. Wattie admitted that on the way home. Look here, you fellows—Glenraden is divided, like Gaul, into three parts. There’s the Home beat—all the low ground of the Raden glen and the little hills behind the house. Then there’s the Carnbeg beat to the east, which is the best I fancy—very easy going, not very high and with peat roads and tracks where you could shift a beast. Last there’s Carnmore, miles from anywhere, with all the highest tops and as steep as Torridon. It would be the devil of a business, if I got a stag there, to move it. Wattie and I went round the whole marches, mostly on our bellies. No, we weren’t seen—Wattie took care of that. What a noble shikari the old chap is!”
“Well, what’s your conclusion?” Leithen asked.
Palliser-Yeates shook his head. “That’s just where I’m stumped. Try to put yourself in old Raden’s place. He has only one stalker and two gillies for the whole forest, for he’s very short-handed, and as a matter of fact he stalks his beasts himself. He’ll consider where John Macnab is likeliest to have his try, and he’ll naturally decide on the Carnmore beat, for that’s by far the most secluded. You may take it from me that he has only enough men to watch one beat properly. But he’ll reflect that John Macnab has got to get his stag away, and he’ll wonder how he’ll manage it on Carnmore, for there’s only one bad track up from Inverlarrig. Therefore he’ll conclude that John Macnab may be more likely to try Carnbeg, though it’s a bit more public. You see, his decision isn’t any easier than mine. On the whole, I’m inclined to think he’ll plump for Carnmore, for he must think John Macnab a fairly desperate fellow who will aim first at killing his stag in peace, and will trust to Providence for the rest. So at the moment I favour Carnbeg.”
Leithen wrinkled his brow. “There are three of us,” he said. “That gives us a chance of a little finesse. What about letting Charles or me make a demonstration against Carnmore, while you wait at Carnbeg?”
“Good idea! I thought of that too.”
“You’d better assume Colonel Raden to be in very full possession of his wits,” Leithen continued. “The simple bluff won’t do—he’ll see through it. He’ll think that John Macnab is the same wary kind of old bird as himself. I found out in the war that it didn’t do to underrate your opponent’s brains. He’s pretty certain to expect a feint and not to be taken in. I’m for something a little subtler.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that you feint in one place, so that your opponent believes it to be a feint and pays no attention—and then you sail in and get to work in that very place.”
Palliser-Yeates whistled. “That wants thinking over…How about yourself?”
“I’ve studied the river, and you never in your life saw such a hopeless proposition, All the good pools are as open as the Serpentine. Wattie stated the odds correctly.”
“Nothing doing there?”
“Nothing doing, unless I take steps to shorten the odds. So I’ve taken in a partner.”
The others stared, and even Lamancha woke up.
“Yes. I interviewed him in the stable before