The Short Stories of John Buchan (Complete Collection). Buchan John

and scattering them, trying to curb the accursed tricks of my beast.

      After this there was nothing for it but to apologise, and what with my hurry and chagrin I was profuse enough. They looked at me with startled eyes, and one had drawn a pistol from his holster, but when they found I was no reiver they took the thing in decent part.

      “It’s a sma’ maitter,” said one with a thick burr in his voice. “The hert o’ a man and the hoofs o’ a horse are controlled by nane but our Makker, as my faither aye said. Ye ‘re no to blame, young sir.”

      I fell into line with the odd man—for they rode in pairs, and in common civility I could not push on through them. As I rode behind I had leisure to look at my company. All were elderly men, their ages lying perhaps between five and thirty and two-score, and all rode with the air of townsmen out on a holiday. They talked gravely among themselves, now looking at the sky (which was clouding over, as is the fashion in a Highland April), and now casting inquiring glances towards my place at the back. The man with whom I rode was A little fellow, younger than the rest and more ruddy and frank of face. He was willing to talk, which he did in a very vile Scots accent which I had hard work to follow. His name he said was Macneil, but he knew nothing of the Highlands, for his abode was Paisley. He questioned me of myself with some curiosity.

      “Oh, my name is Townshend,” said I, speaking the truth at random, “and I have come up from England to see if the report of your mountains be true. It is a better way of seeing the world, say I, than to philander through Italy and France. I am a quiet man of modest means with a taste for the picturesque.”

      “So, so,” said the little man. “But I could show you corn-rigs by the Cart side which are better and bonnier than a wheen muckle stony hills. But every man to his taste, and doubtless, since ye ‘re an Englander, ye ‘ll no hae seen mony brae-faces?”

      Then he fell to giving me biographies of each of the travellers, and as we were some way behind the others he could speak without fear. “The lang man in the grey coat is the Deacon o’ the Glesca Fleshers, a man o’ great substance and good repute. He’s lang had trouble wi’ thae Hieland bodies, for when he bocht nowt frae them they wad seek a loan of maybe mair than the price, and he wad get caution on some o’ their lands and cot-houses. ‘Deed, we ‘re a’ in that line, as ye micht say;” and he raked the horizon with his hand.

      “Then ye go north to recover monies?” said I, inadvertently.

      He looked cunningly into my face, and’ for a second, suspicion was large in his eyes. “Ye ‘re a gleg yin, Mr. Townds, and maybe our errand is just no that far frae what ye mean. But, speaking o’ the Deacon, he has a grandgaun business in the Trongate, and he has been elder this sax year in the Barony, and him no forty year auld. Laidly’s his name, and nane mair respeckit among the merchants o’ the city. Yon ither man wi’ him is a Maister Graham, whae comes frae the Menteith way, a kind o’ Hielander by bluid, but wi’ nae Hieland tricks in his heid. He’s a sober wud-merchant at the Broomielaw, and he has come up here on a job about some fir-wuds. Losh, there’s a walth o’ timmer in this bit,” and he scanned greedily the shady hills.

      “The twae lang red-heided men are Campbells, brithers, whae deal in yairn and wabs o’ a’ kind in the Saltmarket. Gin ye were wantin’ the guid hamespun or the fine tartan in a’ the clan colours ye wad be wise to gang there. But I’m forgetting ye dinna belang to thae pairts ava’.”

      By this time the heavens had darkened to a storm and the great rain-drops were already plashing on my face. We were now round the ribs of the hill they call Sgordhonuill and close to the edge of the Levin loch. It was a desolate, wild place, and yet on the very brink of the shore amid the birk-woods we came on the inn and the ferry.

      I must needs go in with the others, and if the place was better than certain hostels I had lodged in on my road—notably in the accursed land of Lome—it was far short of the South. And yet I dare not deny the comfort, for there was a peat-fire glowing on the hearth and the odour of cooking meat was rich for hungry nostrils. Forbye, the out-of-doors was now one pour of hail-water, which darkened the evening to a murky twilight.

      The men sat round the glow after supper and there was no more talk of going further. The loch was a chaos of white billows, so the ferry was out of the question; and as for me, who should have been that night on Glen Levin-side, there was never a thought of stirring in my head, but I fell into a deep contentment with the warmth and a full meal, and never cast a look to the blurred window. I had not yet spoken to the others, but comfort loosened their tongues, and soon we were all on terms of gossip. They set themselves to find out every point in my career and my intentions, and I, mindful of Mr. Stewart’s warning, grew as austere in manner as the Deacon himself.

      “And ye say ye traivel to see the world?” said one of the Campbells. “Man, ye’ve little to dae. Ye maunna be thrang at hame. If I had a son who was a drone like you, he wad never finger siller o’ mine.”

      “But I will shortly have a trade,” said I, “for I shall be cutting French throats in a year, Mr. Campbell, if luck favours me.”

      “Hear to him,” said the grave Campbell. “He talks of war, bloody war, as a man wad talk of a penny-wedding. Know well, young man, that I value a sodger’s trade lower than a flesher-lad’s, and have no respect for a bright sword and a red coat. I am for peace, but when I speak, for battle they are strong,” said he, finishing with a line from one of his Psalms.

      I sat rebuked, wishing myself well rid of this company. But I was not to be let alone, for the Deacon would play the inquisitor on the matter of my family.

      “What brought ye here of a’ places? There are mony pairts in the Hielands better worth seeing. Ye ‘ll hae some freends, belike, hereaways?”

      I told him, “No,” that I had few friends above the Border; but the persistent man would not be pacified. He took upon himself, as the elder, to admonish me on the faults of youth.

      “Ye are but a lad,” said he with unction, “and I wad see no ill come to ye. But the Hielands are an unsafe bit, given up to malignants and papists and black cattle. Tak your ways back, and tell your freends to thank the Lord that they see ye again.” And then he broke into a most violent abuse of the whole place, notably the parts of Appin and Lochaber. It was, he said, the last refuge of all that was vicious and wasteful in the land.

      “It is at least a place of some beauty,” I broke in with.

      “Beauty,” he cried scornfully, “d’ ye see beauty in black rocks and a grummly sea? Gie me the lown fields about Lanerick, and a’ the kind canty south country, and I wad let your bens and corries alane.”

      And then Graham launched forth in a denunciation of the people. It was strange to hear one who bore his race writ large in his name talk of the inhabitants of these parts as liars and thieves and good-for-nothings. “What have your Hielands done,” he cried, “for the wellbeing of this land? They stir up rebellions wi’ papists and the French, and harry the lands o’ the god-fearing. They look down on us merchants, and turn up their hungry noses at decent men, as if cheatry were mair gentrice than honest wark. God, I wad have the lot o’ them shipped to the Indies and set to learn a decent living.”

      I sat still during the torrent, raging at the dull company I had fallen in with, for I was hot with youth and had little admiration for the decencies. Then the Deacon, taking a Bible from his valise, declared his intention of conducting private worship ere we retired to rest. It was a ceremony I had never dreamed of before, and in truth I cannot fancy a stranger. First the company sang a psalm with vast unction and no melody. Then the Deacon read from some prophet or other, and finally we were all on our knees while a Campbell offered up a prayer.

      After that there was no thought of sitting longer, for it seemed that it was the rule of these people to make their prayers the last article in the day. They lay and snored in their comfortless beds, while I, who preferred the safety of a chair to the unknown dangers of such bedding, dozed uneasily before the peats till the grey April morning.

      Dawn came in with a tempest, and when the household was stirring and we had broken