Brothers & Sisters - John & Anna Buchan Edition (Collection of Their Greatest Works). Buchan John

peats, and the doctor winna let him up afore the morn. It’s a sair business lookin’ after him, and the lassie’s awa’ hame for her sister’s mairriage. Ye’ll no be wantin’ muckle?”

      “That’s a bad job for you,” said Jaikie sympathetically. “We won’t be much trouble. We’d like to get dry, and we want some food, and a bed to sleep in. We’re on a walking tour and we’ll take the road again first thing in the morning.”

      “I could maybe manage that. There’s just the one room, for the ceiling’s doun in the ither, and we canna get the masons out from Gledmouth to set it right. But there’s twa beds in it… “

      Then spoke Mr Craw, who had stripped off his raiment and flung it from him, and had edged his way to the warmth of the peats.

      “We must have a private room, madam. I presume you have a private sitting-room. Have a fire lit in it as soon as possible.”

      “Ye’re unco partic’lar,” was the answer. “What hinders ye to sit in the kitchen? There’s the best room, of course, but there hasna been a fire in the grate since last New Year’s Day, and I doot the stirlins have been biggin’ in the lum.”

      “The first thing,” said Jaikie firmly, “is to get dry. It’s too early to go to bed. If you’ll show us our room we’ll get these wet things off. I can manage fine in pyjamas, but my friend here is not so young as me, and he would be the better of something warmer. You couldn’t lend him a pair of breeks, mistress? And maybe an old coat?”

      Jaikie, when he chose to wheedle, was hard to resist, and the woman regarded him with favour. She also regarded Mr Craw appraisingly. “He’s just about the size o’ my man. I daresay I could find him some auld things o’ Tam’s… Ye’d better tak off your buits here and I’ll show ye your bedroom.”

      In their wet stocking-soles the travellers followed their hostess up an uncarpeted staircase to a long low room, where were two beds and two wash-stands and little else. The rain drummed on the roof, and the place smelt as damp as a sea-cave. She brought a pail of hot water from the kitchen kettle, and two large rough towels. “I’ll be gettin’ your tea ready,” she said. “Bring doun your wet claithes, and I’ll hang them in the kitchen.”

      Jaikie stripped to the skin and towelled himself violently, but Mr Craw hung back. He was not accustomed to baring his body before strangers. Slowly and warily he divested himself of what had once been a trim blue suit, the shirt which was now a limp rag, the elegant silk underclothing. Then he stood irresolute and shamefaced, while Jaikie rummaged in the packs and announced gleefully that their contents were quite dry. Jaikie turned to find his companion shivering in the blast from the small window which he had opened.

      “Tuts, man, this will never do,” he cried. “You’ll get your death of cold. Rub yourself with the towel. Hard, man! You want to get back your circulation.”

      But Mr Craw’s efforts were so feeble that Jaikie took the matter in hand. He pummelled and slapped and scrubbed the somewhat obese nudity of his companion, as if he had been grooming a horse. He poured out a share of the hot water from the pail, and made him plunge his head into it.

      In the midst of these operations the door was half opened and a bundle of clothes was flung into the room. “That’s the best I can dae for ye,” said the voice of the hostess.

      Jaikie invested Mr Craw with a wonderful suit of pale blue silk pyjamas, and over them a pair of Mr Johnston’s trousers of well-polished pepper-and-salt homespun, and an ancient black tailed coat which may once have been its owner’s garb for Sabbaths and funerals. A strange figure the great man presented as he stumbled down the stairs, for on his feet were silk socks and a pair of soft Russia leather slippers—provided from Castle Gay—while the rest of him was like an elderly tradesman who has relinquished collar and tie in the seclusion of the home. But at any rate he was warm again, and he felt no more premonitions of pneumonia.

      Mrs Johnston met them at the foot of the stairs and indicated a door. “That’s the best room. I’ve kinnled a fire, but I doot it’s no drawin’ weel wi’ thae stirlins.”

      They found themselves in a small room in which for a moment they could see nothing because of the volume of smoke pouring from the newly-lit fire of sticks and peat. The starlings had been malignly active in the chimney. Presently through the haze might be discerned walls yellow with damp, on which hung a number of framed photographs, a mantelpiece adorned with china mugs and a clock out of action, several horsehair-covered chairs, a small, very hard sofa, and a round table decorated with two photograph albums, a book of views of Gledmouth, a workbox, and a blue-glass paraffin lamp.

      Jaikie laboured with the poker at the chimney, but the obstruction was beyond him. Blear-eyed and coughing, he turned to find Mr Craw struggling with a hermetically-sealed window.

      “We can’t stay here,” he spluttered. “This room’s uninhabitable till the chimney’s swept. Let’s get back to the kitchen. Tea should be ready by now.”

      Mrs Johnston had spread a clean cloth on the kitchen table, and ham and eggs were sizzling on the fire. She smiled grimly when she saw them.

      “I thocht ye would be smoored in the best room,” she said. “Thae stirlins are a perfect torment… Ay, ye can bide here and welcome. I aye think the kitchen’s the nicest bit in the hoose… There’s a feck o’ folk on the road the day, for there’s been anither man here wantin’ lodgins! I telled him we were fou’ up, and that he could mak a bed on the hay in the stable. I didna like the look o’ him, but a keeper o’ a public daurna refuse a body a meal. He’ll hae to get his tea wi’ you.”

      Presently she planted a vast brown teapot on the table, and dished up the ham and eggs. Then, announcing that she must see to her husband, she left the kitchen.

      Jaikie fell like a famished man on the viands, and Mr Craw, to his own amazement, followed suit. He had always been a small and fastidious eater, liking only very special kinds of food, and his chef had often a difficult task in tempting his capricious appetite. It was years since he had felt really hungry, and he never looked forward to the hour of dinner with the gusto of less fortunate mortals. But the hard walking in the rain, and the rough towelling in the bedroom, had awakened some forgotten instinct. How unlike the crisp shavings of bacon and the snowy puff-balls of eggs to which he was accustomed was this dish swimming in grease! Yet it tasted far better than anything he had eaten for ages. So did the thick oat-cakes and the new scones and the butter and the skim-milk cheese, and the strong tea sent a glow through his body. He had thought that he could tolerate nothing but the best China tea and little of that, and here he was drinking of the coarsest Indian brew… He felt a sense of physical wellbeing to which he had long been a stranger. This was almost comfort.

      The door opened and there entered the man they had met driving sheep. He had taken off his leggings, and his wet trouser ends flapped over his grimy boots. Otherwise he had made no toilet, except to remove his cap from his head and the bag from his shoulder. His lank black hair straggled over his eyes, and the eyes themselves were unpleasant. There must have been something left in the bottle whose nose had protruded from the bag.

      He dropped into a chair and dragged it screamingly after him along the kitchen floor till he was within a yard of the table. Then he recognised the others.

      “Ye’re here,” he observed. “Whit was a’ your hurry? Gie’s a cup o’ tea. I’m no wantin’ nae meat.”

      He was obviously rather drunk. Jaikie handed him a cup of tea, which, having dropped in four lumps of sugar, he drank noisily from the saucer. It steadied him, and he spread a scone thick with butter and jelly and began to wolf it. Mr Craw regarded him with extreme distaste and a little nervousness.

      “Whit about the Solomon terrier?” he asked. “For twa quid he’s yours.”

      The question was addressed to Mr Craw, who answered coldly that he was not buying dogs.

      “Ay, but ye’ll buy this dug.”

      “Where is it?” Jaikie asked.

      “In