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

pain that lay heavy on his chest, that clutched his throat, that tugged at his heart, was as fierce as ever, but for one short second the utter weariness of spirit was gone. The old fair words of Scripture came back to him, and he murmured promises and hopes till his strength failed him for all but thought, and with closed eyes he fell back to dream.

      But only for one moment; the next he was staring blankly in a mysterious terror. Again the voices of the wind, again the shapes on floor and wall and the relentless eye of the fire. He was too helpless to move and too crazy to pray; he could only lie and stare, numb with expectancy. The liquor seemed to have driven all memory from him, and left him with a child’s heritage of dreams and stories.

      Crazily he pattered to himself a child’s charm against evil fairies, which the little folk of the moors still speak at their play,—

      “Wearie, Ovie, gang awa’, Dinna show your face at a’, Ower the muir and down the burn, Wearie, Ovie, ne’er return.”

      The black crook of the chimney was the object of his spells, for the kindly ingle was no less than a malignant twisted devil, with an awful red eye glowering through smoke.

      His breath was winnowing through his worn chest like an autumn blast in bare rafters. The horror of the black night without, all filled with the wail of sheep, and the deeper fear of the red light within, stirred his brain, not with the far-reaching fanciful terror of men, but with the crude homely fright of a little child. He would have sought, had his strength suffered him, to cower one moment in the light as a refuge from the other, and the next to hide in the darkest corner to shun the maddening glow. And with it all he was acutely conscious of the last pangs of mortality. He felt the grating of cheekbones on skin, and the sighing, which did duty for breath, rocked him with agony.

      Then a great shadow rose out of the gloom and stood shaggy in the firelight. The man’s mind was tottering, and once more he was back at his Scripture memories and vague repetitions. Aforetime his fancy had toyed with green fields, now it held to the darker places. “It was the day when Evil Merodach was king in Babylon,” came the quaint recollection, and some lingering ray of thought made him link the odd name with the amorphous presence before him. The thing moved and came nearer, touched him, and brooded by his side. He made to shriek, but no sound came, only a dry rasp in the throat and a convulsive twitch of the limbs.

      For a second he lay in the agony of a terror worse than the extremes of death. It was only his dog, returned from his watch by the door, and seeking his master. He, poor beast, knew of some sorrow vaguely and afar, and nuzzled into his side with dumb affection.

      Then from the chaos of faculties a shred of will survived. For an instant his brain cleared, for to most there comes a lull at the very article of death. He saw the bare moorland room, he felt the dissolution of his members, the palpable ebb of life. His religion had been swept from him like a rotten garment. His mind was vacant of memories, for all were driven forth by purging terror. Only some relic of manliness, the heritage of cleanly and honest days, was with him to the uttermost. With blank thoughts, without hope or vision, with naught save an aimless resolution and a causeless bravery, he passed into the short anguish which is death.

      POLITICS AND THE MAY-FLY

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      The farmer of Clachlands was a Tory, stern and unbending. It was the tradition of his family, from his grandfather, who had been land-steward to Lord Manorwater, down to his father, who had once seconded a vote of confidence in the sitting member. Such traditions, he felt, were not to be lightly despised; things might change, empires might wax and wane, but his obligation continued; a sort of perverted noblesse oblige was the farmer’s watchword in life; and by dint of much energy and bad language, he lived up to it.

      As fate would have it, the Clachlands ploughman was a Radical of Radicals. He had imbibed his opinions early in life from a speaker on the green of Gledsmuir, and ever since, by the help of a weekly penny paper and an odd volume of Gladstone’s speeches, had continued his education. Such opinions in a conservative countryside carry with them a reputation for either abnormal cleverness or abnormal folly. The fact that he was a keen fisher, a famed singer of songs, and the best judge of horses in the place, caused the verdict of his neighbours to incline to the former, and he passed for something of an oracle among his fellows. The blacksmith, who was the critic of the neighbourhood, summed up his character in a few words. “Him,” said he, in a tone of mingled dislike and admiration, “him! He would sweer white was black the morn, and dod! he would prove it tae.”

      It so happened in the early summer, when the land was green and the trout plashed in the river, that Her Majesty’s Government saw fit to appeal to an intelligent country. Among a people whose politics fight hard with their religion for a monopoly of their interests, feeling ran high and brotherly kindness departed. Houses were divided against themselves. Men formerly of no consideration found themselves suddenly important, and discovered that their intellects and conscience, which they had hitherto valued at little, were things of serious interest to their betters. The lurid light of publicity was shed upon the lives of the rival candidates; men formerly accounted worthy and respectable were proved no better than white sepulchres; and each man was filled with a morbid concern for his fellow’s character and beliefs.

      The farmer of Clachlands called a meeting of his labourers in the great dusty barn, which had been the scene of many similar gatherings. His speech on the occasion was vigorous and to the point. “Ye are a’ my men,” he said, “an’ I ‘ll see that ye vote richt. Ye ‘re uneddicated folk, and ken naething aboot the matter, sae ye just tak’ my word for’t, that the Tories are in the richt and vote accordingly. I’ve been a guid maister to ye, and it’s shurely better to pleesure me, than a wheen leein’ scoondrels whae tramp the country wi’ leather bags and printit trash.”

      Then arose from the back the ploughman, strong in his convictions. “Listen to me, you men,” says he; “just vote as ye think best. The maister’s a guid maister, as he says, but he’s nocht to dae wi’ your votin’. It’s what they ca’ inteemedation to interfere wi’ onybody in this matter. So mind that, an’ vote for the workin’-man an’ his richts.”

      Then ensued a war of violent words. “Is this a meetin’ in my barn, or a pennywaddin?”

      “Ca’t what ye please. I canna let ye mislead the men.”

      “Whae talks about misleadin’? Is’t misleadin’ to lead them richt?”

      “The question,” said the ploughman, solemnly, “is what you ca’ richt.”

      “William Laverhope, if ye werena a guid plooman, ye wad gang post-haste oot o’ here the morn.”

      “I care na what ye say. I ‘ll stand up for the richts o’ thae men.”

      “Men!”—this with deep scorn. “I could mak’ better men than thae wi’ a stick oot o’ the plantin’.”

      “Ay, ye say that noo, an’ the morn ye ‘ll be ca’in’ ilka yin o’ them Mister, a’ for their votes.”

      The farmer left in dignified disgust, vanquished but still dangerous; the ploughman in triumph mingled with despair. For he knew that his fellow- labourers cared not a whit for politics, but would follow to the letter their master’s bidding.

      The next morning rose clear and fine. There had been a great rain for the past few days, and the burns were coming down broad and surly. The Clachlands Water was chafing by bank and bridge and threatening to enter the hay-field, and every little ditch and sheep-drain was carrying its tribute of peaty water to the greater flood. The farmer of Clachlands, as he looked over the landscape from the doorstep of his dwelling, marked the state of the weather and pondered over it.

      He was not in a pleasant frame of mind that morning. He had been crossed by a ploughman, his servant. He liked the man, and so the obvious way of dealing with him—by making things uncomfortable or turning him off—was shut against