The Collected Works of John Buchan (Illustrated). Buchan John
folk.”
Dickson inquired about the “new folk.”
“They’re a’ now come in the last three weeks, and there’s no’ a man o’ the auld stock left. John Blackstocks at the Wast Lodge dee’d o’ pneumony last back-end, and auld Simon Tappie at the Gairdens flitted to Maybole a year come Mairtinmas. There’s naebody at the Gairdens noo, but there’s a man come to the Wast Lodge, a blackavised body wi’ a face like bend-leather. Tam Robison used to bide at the South Lodge, but Tam got killed about Mesopotamy, and his wife took the bairns to her guidsire up at the Garpleheid. I seen the man that’s in the South Lodge gaun up the street when I was finishin’ my denner—a shilpit body and a lameter, but he hirples as fast as ither folk run. He’s no’ bonny to look at.. I canna think what the factor’s ettlin’ at to let sic ill-faured chiels come about the toun.”
Their hostess was rapidly rising in Dickson’s esteem. She sat very straight in her chair, eating with the careful gentility of a bird, and primming her thin lips after every mouthful of tea.
“Wha bides in the Big House?” he asked. “Huntingtower is the name, isn’t it?”
“When I was a lassie they ca’ed it Dalquharter Hoose, and Huntingtower was the auld rickle o’ stanes at the sea-end. But naething wad serve the last laird’s father but he maun change the name, for he was clean daft about what they ca’ antickities. Ye speir whae bides in the Hoose? Naebody, since the young laird dee’d. It’s standin’ cauld and lanely and steikit, and it aince the cheeriest dwallin’ in a’ Carrick.”
Mrs. Morran’s tone grew tragic. “It’s a queer warld wi’out the auld gentry. My faither and my guidsire and his faither afore him served the Kennedys, and my man Dauvit Morran was gemkeeper to them, and afore I mairried I was ane o’ the table-maids. They were kind folk, the Kennedys, and, like a’ the rale gentry, maist mindfu’ o’ them that served them. Sic merry nichts I’ve seen in the auld Hoose, at Hallowe’en and Hogmanay, and at the servants’ balls and the waddin’s o’ the young leddies! But the laird bode to waste his siller in stane and lime, and hadna that much to leave to his bairns. And now they’re a’ scattered or deid.”
Her grave face wore the tenderness which comes from affectionate reminiscence.
“There was never sic a laddie as young Maister Quentin. No’ a week gaed by but he was in here, cryin’, ‘Phemie Morran, I’ve come till my tea!’ Fine he likit my treacle scones, puir man. There wasna ane in the countryside sae bauld a rider at the hunt, or sic a skeely fisher. And he was clever at his books tae, a graund scholar, they said, and ettlin’ at bein’ what they ca’ a dipplemat, But that’ a’ bye wi’.”
“Quentin Kennedy—the fellow in the Tins?” Heritage asked. “I saw him in Rome when he was with the Mission.”
“I dinna ken. He was a brave sodger, but he wasna long fechtin’ in France till he got a bullet in his breist. Syne we heard tell o’ him in far awa’ bits like Russia; and syne cam’ the end o’ the war and we lookit to see him back, fishin’ the waters and ridin’ like Jehu as in the auld days. But wae’s me! It wasna permitted. The next news we got, the puir laddie was deid o’ influenzy and buried somewhere about France. The wanchancy bullet maun have weakened his chest, nae doot. So that’s the end o’ the guid stock o’ Kennedy o’ Huntingtower, whae hae been great folk sin’ the time o’ Robert Bruce. And noo the Hoose is shut up till the lawyers can get somebody sae far left to himsel’ as to tak’ it on lease, and in thae dear days it’s no’ just onybody that wants a muckle castle.”
“Who are the lawyers?” Dickson asked.
“Glendonan and Speirs in Embro. But they never look near the place, and Maister Loudon in Auchenlochan does the factorin’. He’s let the public an’ filled the twae lodges, and he’ll be thinkin’ nae doot that he’s done eneuch.”
Mrs. Morran had poured some hot water into the big slop-bowl, and had begun the operation known as “synding out” the cups. It was a hint that the meal was over, and Dickson and Heritage rose from the table. Followed by an injunction to be back for supper “on the chap o’ nine,” they strolled out into the evening. Two hours of some sort of daylight remained, and the travellers had that impulse to activity which comes to all men who, after a day of exercise and emptiness, are stayed with a satisfying tea.
“You should be happy, Dogson,” said the Poet. “Here we have all the materials for your blessed romance—old mansion, extinct family, village deserted of men, and an innkeeper whom I suspect of being a villain. I feel almost a convert to your nonsense myself. We’ll have a look at the House.”
They turned down the road which ran north by the park wall, past the inn, which looked more abandoned than ever, till they came to an entrance which was clearly the West Lodge. It had once been a pretty, modish cottage, with a thatched roof and dormer windows, but now it was badly in need of repair. A window-pane was broken and stuffed with a sack, the posts of the porch were giving inwards, and the thatch was crumbling under the attentions of a colony of starlings. The great iron gates were rusty, and on the coat of arms above them the gilding was patchy and tarnished. Apparently the gates were locked, and even the side wicket failed to open to Heritage’s vigorous shaking. Inside a weedy drive disappeared among ragged rhododendrons.
The noise brought a man to the lodge door. He was a sturdy fellow in a suit of black clothes which had not been made for him. He might have been a butler en deshabillé, but for the presence of a pair of field boots into which he had tucked the ends of his trousers. The curious thing about him was his face, which was decorated with features so tiny as to give the impression of a monstrous child. Each in itself was well enough formed, but eyes, nose, mouth, chin were of a smallness curiously out of proportion to the head and body. Such an anomaly might have been redeemed by the expression; good-humour would have invested it with an air of agreeable farce. But there was no friendliness in the man’s face. It was set like a judge’s in a stony impassiveness.
“May we walk up to the House?” Heritage asked. “We are here for a night and should like to have a look at it.”
The man advanced a step. He had either a bad cold, or a voice comparable in size to his features.
“There’s no entrance here,” he said huskily. “I have strict orders.”
“Oh, come now,” said Heritage. “It can do nobody any harm if you let us in for half an hour.”
The man advanced another step.
“You shall not come in. Go away from here. Go away, I tell you. It is private.” The words spoken by the small mouth in the small voice had a kind of childish ferocity.
The travellers turned their back on him and continued their way.
“Sich a curmudgeon!” Dickson commented. His face had flushed, for he was susceptible to rudeness. “Did you notice? That man’s a foreigner.”
“He’s a brute,” said Heritage. “But I’m not going to be done in by that class of lad. There can be no gates on the sea side, so we’ll work round that way, for I won’t sleep till I’ve seen the place.”
Presently the trees grew thinner, and the road plunged through thickets of hazel till it came to a sudden stop in a field. There the cover ceased wholly, and below them lay the glen of the Laver. Steep green banks descended to a stream which swept in coils of gold into the eye of the sunset. A little farther down the channel broadened, the slopes fell back a little, and a tongue of glittering sea ran up to meet the hill waters. The Laver is a gentle stream after it leaves its cradle heights, a stream of clear pools and long bright shallows, winding by moorland steadings and upland meadows; but in its last half-mile it goes mad, and imitates its childhood when it tumbled over granite shelves. Down in that green place the crystal water gushed and frolicked as if determined on one hour of rapturous life before joining the sedater sea.
Heritage flung himself on the turf.
“This is a good place! Ye gods, what a good place! Dogson, aren’t you glad you came? I