The Collected Works of John Buchan (Illustrated). Buchan John
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