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

and as white’s a clout. It made it waur that the snaw was sae thick i’ the air that we couldna see a foot in front. It was like walkin’ blindfold roond the tap o’ a linn.

      Then a’ of a sudden the bare grund stopped, and we were flounderin’ among deep drifts up to the middle. And yet it was a relief, and my hert was strengthened. By this time I had clean lost coont o’ the road, but we keepit aye to the laigh land, whiles dippin’ intil a glen and whiles warslin’ up a brae face. I had learned frae mony days in hill mists to keep frae gaun roond about. We focht our way like fair deevils, for the terror o’ the place ahint had grippit us like a vice. We ne’er spak a word, but wrocht till our herts were like to burst and our een felt fou o’ bluid. It got caulder and caulder, and thicker and ever thicker. Hope had lang syne gane frae us, and fricht had ta’en its place. It was just a maitter o’ keepin’ up till we fell down, and then …

      It wasna lang ere they fund us, for find us they did, by God’s grace and the help o’ the dowg. For the beast went hame and made sic a steer that my wife roused the nearest neebor and got folk startit oot to seek us. And wad ye believe it, the dowg took them to the verra bit. They fund the doctor last, and he lay in his bed for a month and mair wi’ the effects. But for mysel’, I was nane the waur. When they took me hame, I was put to bed, and sleepit on for twenty hoor, as if I had been streikit oot. They waukened me every six hoor, and put a spoonfu’ o’ brandy doon my throat, and when a’ was feenished, I rase as weel as ever.

      It was about fower months after that I had to gang ower to Annandale wi’ sheep, and cam back by the hills. It was a road I had never been afore, and I think it was the wildest that ever man trod. I mind it was a warm, bricht day, verra het and wearisome for the walkin’. Bye and bye I cam to a place I seemed to ken, though I had never been there to my mind, and I thocht hoo I could hae seen it afore. Then I mindit that it was abune the heid o’ the Stark, and though the snaw had been in my een when I last saw it, I minded the lie o’ the land and the saft slope. I turned verra keen to ken what the place was whaur me and the doctor had had sic a fricht. So I went oot o’ my way, and climbed yae hill and gaed doun anither, till I cam to a wee rig, and lookit doun on the verra bit.

      I just lookit yince, and then turned awa’ wi’ my hert i’ my mooth.

      For there below was a great green bog, oozing and blinking in the sun.

      THE HERD OF STANDLAN

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      “When the wind is nigh and the moon is high

       And the mist on the riverside,

       Let such as fare have a very good care Of the Folk who come to ride.

       For they may meet with the riders fleet

       Who fare from the place of dread;

       And hard it is for a mortal man

       To sort at ease with the Dead.”

      —The Ballad of Grey Weather.

      When Standlan Burn leaves the mosses and hags which gave it birth, it tumbles over a succession of falls into a deep, precipitous glen, whence in time it issues into a land of level green meadows, and finally finds its rest in the Gled. Just at the opening of the ravine there is a pool shut in by high, dark cliffs, and black even on the most sunshiny day. The rocks are never dry but always black with damp and shadow. There is scarce any vegetation save stunted birks, juniper bushes, and draggled fern; and the hoot of owls and the croak of hooded crows is seldom absent from the spot. It is the famous Black Linn where in winter sheep stray and are never more heard of, and where more than once an unwary shepherd has gone to his account. It is an Inferno on the brink of a Paradise, for not a stone’s throw off is the green, lawn-like turf, the hazel thicket, and the broad, clear pools, by the edge of which on that July day the Herd of Standlan and I sat drowsily smoking and talking of fishing and the hills. There he told me this story, which I here set down as I remember it, and as it bears repetition.

      “D’ ye mind Airthur Morrant?” said the shepherd, suddenly.

      I did remember Arthur Mordaunt. Ten years past he and I had been inseparables, despite some half-dozen summers difference in age. We had fished and shot together, and together we had tramped every hill within thirty miles. He had come up from the South to try sheep-farming, and as he came of a great family and had no need to earn his bread, he found the profession pleasing. Then irresistible fate had swept me southward to college, and when after two years I came back to the place, his father was dead and he had come into his own. The next I heard of him was that in politics he was regarded as the most promising of the younger men, one of the staunchest and ablest upstays of the Constitution. His name was rapidly rising into prominence, for he seemed to exhibit that rare phenomenon of a man of birth and culture in direct sympathy with the wants of the people.

      “You mean Lord Brodakers?” said I.

      “Dinna call him by that name,” said the shepherd, darkly. “I hae nae thocht o’ him now. He’s a disgrace to his country, servin’ the Deil wi’ baith hands. But nine year syne he was a bit innocent callant wi’ nae Tory deevilry in his heid. Well, as I was sayin’, Airthur Morrant has cause to mind that place till his dying day;” and he pointed his finger to the Black Linn.

      I looked up the chasm. The treacherous water, so bright and joyful at our feet, was like ink in the great gorge. The swish and plunge of the cataract came like the regular beating of a clock, and though the weather was dry, streams of moisture seamed the perpendicular walls. It was a place eerie even on that bright summer’s day.

      “I don’t think I ever heard the story,” I said casually.

      “Maybe no,” said the shepherd. “It’s no yin I like to tell;” and he puffed sternly at his pipe, while I awaited the continuation.

      “Ye see it was like this,” he said, after a while. “It was just the beginning o’ the backend, and that year we had an awfu’ spate o’ rain. For near a week it poured hale water, and a’ doon by Drumeller and the Mossfennan haughs was yae muckle loch. Then it stopped, and an awfu’ heat came on. It dried the grund in nae time, but it hardly touched the burns; and it was rale queer to be pourin’ wi’ sweat and the grund aneath ye as dry as a potato-sack, and a’ the time the water neither to haud nor bind. A’ the waterside fields were clean stripped o’ stooks, and a guid wheen hay-ricks gaed doon tae Berwick, no to speak o’ sheep and nowt beast. But that’s anither thing.

      “Weel, ye ‘ll mind that Airthur was terrible keen on the fishing. He wad gang oot in a’ weather, and he wasna feared for ony mortal or naitural thing. Dod, I’ve seen him in Gled wi’ the water rinnin’ ower his shouthers yae cauld March day playin’ a saumon. He kenned weel aboot the fishing, for he had traivelled in Norroway and siccan outlandish places, where there’s a heap o’ big fish. So that day—and it was a Setterday tae and far ower near the Sabbath—he maun gang awa’ up Standlan Burn wi’ his rod and creel to try his luck.

      “I was bidin’ at that time, as ye mind, in the wee cot-house at the back o’ the faulds. I was alane, for it was three year afore I mairried Jess, and I wasna begun yet to the coortin’. I had been at Gledsmuir that day for some o’ the new stuff for killing sheep-mawks, and I wasna very fresh on my legs when I gaed oot after my tea that nicht to hae a look at the hill-sheep. I had had a bad year on the hill. First the lambin’-time was snaw, snaw ilka day, and I lost mair than I wad like to tell. Syne the grass a’ summer was so short wi’ the drought that the puir beasts could scarcely get a bite and were as thin as pipe-stapples. And then, to crown a’, auld Will Broun, the man that helpit me, turned ill wi’ his back, and had to bide at hame. So I had twae man’s wark on yae man’s shouthers, and was nane so weel pleased.

      “As I was saying, I gaed oot that nicht, and after lookin’ a’ the Dun Rig and the Yellow Mire and the back o’ Cramalt Craig, I cam down the burn by the road frae the auld faulds. It was geyan dark, being about seven o’clock o’ a September nicht, and I keepit weel back frae