Dickson McCunn - Complete 'Gorbals Die-hards' Series. Buchan John

floor, where, in a large room above the hall, Heritage had bestowed his pack. He had managed to open a fold of the shutters, and there was sufficient light to see two big mahogany bedsteads without mattresses or bedclothes, and wardrobes and chests of drawers sheeted in holland. Outside the wind was rising again, but the rain had stopped. Angry watery clouds scurried across the heavens.

      Dickson made a pillow of his waterproof, stretched himself on one of the bedsteads, and, so quiet was his conscience and so weary his body from the buffetings of the past days, was almost instantly asleep. It seemed to him that he had scarcely closed his eyes when he was awakened by Dougal’s hand pinching his shoulder. He gathered that the moon was setting, for the room was pitchy dark.

      “The three o’ them is approachin’ the kitchen door,” whispered the Chieftain. “I seen them from a spy-hole I made out o’ a ventilator.”

      “Is it barricaded?” asked Heritage, who had apparently not been asleep.

      “Aye, but I’ve thought o’ a far better plan. Why should we keep them out? They’ll be safer inside. Listen! We might manage to get them in one at a time. If they can’t get in at the kitchen door, they’ll send one o’ them round to get in by another door and open to them. That gives us a chance to get them separated, and lock them up. There’s walth o’ closets and hidy-holes all over the place, each with good doors and good keys to them. Supposin’ we get the three o’ them shut up—the others, when they come, will have nobody to guide them. Of course some time or other the three will break out, but it may be ower late for them. At present we’re besieged and they’re roamin’ the country. Would it no’ be far better if they were the ones lockit up and we were goin’ loose?”

      “Supposing they don’t come in one at a time?” Dickson objected.

      “We’ll make them,” said Dougal firmly. “There’s no time to waste. Are ye for it?”

      “Yes,” said Heritage. “Who’s at the kitchen door?”

      “Peter Paterson. I told him no’ to whistle, but to wait on me… Keep your boots off. Ye’re better in your stockin’ feet. Wait you in the hall and see ye’re well hidden, for likely whoever comes in will have a lantern. Just you keep quiet unless I give ye a cry. I’ve planned it a’ out, and we’re ready for them.”

      Dougal disappeared, and Dickson and Heritage, with their boots tied round their necks by their laces, crept out to the upper landing. The hall was impenetrably dark, but full of voices, for the wind was talking in the ceiling beams, and murmuring through the long passages. The walls creaked and muttered and little bits of plaster fluttered down. The noise was an advantage for the game of hide-and-seek they proposed to play, but it made it hard to detect the enemy’s approach. Dickson, in order to get properly wakened, adventured as far as the smoking-room. It was black with night, but below the door of the adjacent room a faint line of light showed where the Princess’s lamp was burning. He advanced to the window, and heard distinctly a foot on the grovel path that led to the verandah. This sent him back to the hall in search of Dougal, whom he encountered in the passage. That boy could certainly see in the dark, for he caught Dickson’s wrist without hesitation.

      “We’ve got Spittal in the wine-cellar,” he whispered triumphantly. “The kitchen door was barricaded, and when they tried it, it wouldn’t open. ‘Bide here,’ says Dobson to Spittal, ‘and we’ll go round by another door and come back and open to ye.’ So off they went, and by that time Peter Paterson and me had the barricade down. As we expected, Spittal tries the key again and it opens quite easy. He comes in and locks it behind him, and, Dobson having took away the lantern, he gropes his way very carefu’ towards the kitchen. There’s a point where the wine-cellar door and the scullery door are aside each other. He should have taken the second, but I had it shut so he takes the first. Peter Paterson gave him a wee shove and he fell down the two-three steps into the cellar, and we turned the key on him. Yon cellar has a grand door and no windies.”

      “And Dobson and Leon are at the verandah door? With a light?”

      “Thomas Yownie’s on duty there. Ye can trust him. Ye’ll no fickle Thomas Yownie.”

      The next minutes were for Dickson a delirium of excitement not unpleasantly shot with flashes of doubt and fear. As a child he had played hide-and-seek, and his memory had always cherished the delights of the game. But how marvellous to play it thus in a great empty house, at dark of night, with the heaven filled with tempest, and with death or wounds as the stakes!

      He took refuge in a corner where a tapestry curtain and the side of a Dutch awmry gave him shelter, and from where he stood he could see the garden-room and the beginning of the tiled passage which led to the verandah door. That is to say, he could have seen these things if there had been any light, which there was not. He heard the soft flitting of bare feet, for a delicate sound is often audible in a din when a loud noise is obscured. Then a gale of wind blew towards him, as from an open door, and far away gleamed the flickering light of a lantern.

      Suddenly the light disappeared and there was a clatter on the floor and a breaking of glass. Either the wind or Thomas Yownie.

      The verandah door was shut, a match spluttered and the lantern was relit. Dobson and Leon came into the hall, both clad in long mackintoshes which glistened from the weather. Dobson halted and listened to the wind howling in the upper spaces. He cursed it bitterly, looked at his watch, and then made an observation which woke the liveliest interest in Dickson lurking beside the awmry and Heritage ensconced in the shadow of a window-seat.

      “He’s late. He should have been here five minutes syne. It would be a dirty road for his car.”

      So the Unknown was coming that night. The news made Dickson the more resolved to get the watchers under lock and key before reinforcements arrived, and so put grit in their wheels. Then his party must escape— flee anywhere so long as it was far from Dalquharter.

      “You stop here,” said Dobson, “I’ll go down and let Spidel in. We want another lamp. Get the one that the women use, and for God’s sake get a move on.”

      The sound of his feet died in the kitchen passage and then rung again on the stone stairs. Dickson’s ear of faith heard also the soft patter of naked feet as the Die-Hards preceded and followed him. He was delivering himself blind and bound into their hands.

      For a minute or two there was no sound but the wind, which had found a loose chimney cowl on the roof and screwed out of it an odd sound like the drone of a bagpipe. Dickson, unable to remain any longer in one place, moved into the centre of the hall, believing that Leon had gone to the smoking-room. It was a dangerous thing to do, for suddenly a match was lit a yard from him. He had the sense to drop low, and so was out of the main glare of the light. The man with the match apparently had no more, judging by his execrations. Dickson stood stock still, longing for the wind to fall so that he might hear the sound of the fellow’s boots on the stone floor. He gathered that they were moving towards the smoking-room.

      “Heritage,” he whispered as loud as he dared, bet there was no answer.

      Then suddenly a moving body collided with him. He jumped a step back and then stood at attention. “Is that you, Dobson?” a voice asked.

      Now behold the occasional advantage of a nick-name. Dickson thought he was being addressed as “Dogson” after the Poet’s fashion. Had he dreamed it was Leon he would not have replied, but fluttered off into the shadows, and so missed a piece of vital news.

      “Ay, it’s me.” he whispered.

      His voice and accent were Scotch, like Dobson’s, and Leon suspected nothing.

      “I do not like this wind,” he grumbled. “The Captain’s letter said at dawn, but there is no chance of the Danish brig making your little harbour in this weather. She must lie off and land the men by boats. That I do not like. It is too public.”

      The news—tremendous news, for it told that the new-comers would come by sea, which had never before entered Dickson’s head—so interested him that he stood dumb and ruminating. The silence made the Belgian suspect;