John MacNab (4 page)

‘It seems to me that you get off pretty lightly,' said Archie. ‘Two quid is not much in the way of a fine, for I don't suppose you want to black your faces or march five deep into Haripol. . . But what a rotten sportsman old Claybody is!'

Palliser-Yeates heaved a sigh of apparent relief. ‘I am bound to say the replies are better than I expected. It will be a devil of a business, though, to circumvent that old Highland chief, and that young American sounds formidable. Only, if we're caught out there, we're dealing with sportsmen and can appeal to their higher nature, you know. Claybody is probably the easiest proposition so far as getting a stag is concerned, but if we're nobbled by him we needn't look for mercy. Still, it's only a couple of pounds.'

‘You're an ass, John,' said Leithen. ‘It's only a couple of pounds for John Macnab. But if these infernal Edinburgh lawyers get on the job, it will be a case of producing the person of John Macnab, and then we're all in the cart. Don't you realise that in this fool's game we simply cannot afford to lose – none of us?'

‘That,' said Lamancha, ‘is beyond doubt the truth, and it's just there that the fun comes in.'

The reception of the three letters had brightened the atmosphere. Each man had now something to think about, and, till it was time to dress for dinner, each was busy with sheets of the Ordnance maps. The rain had begun again, the curtains were drawn, and round a good fire of peats they read and smoked and dozed. Then they had hot baths, and it was a comparatively cheerful and very hungry party that assembled in the dining-room. Archie proposed champagne, but the offer was unanimously declined. ‘We ought to be in training,' Lamancha warned him. ‘Keep the Widow for the occasions when we need comforting. They'll come all right.'

Palliser-Yeates was enthusiastic about the food. ‘I must say, you do us very well,' he told his host. ‘These haddocks are the best things I've ever eaten. How do you manage to get fresh sea-fish here?'

Archie appealed to Sime. ‘They come from Inverlarrig, Sir Erchibald,' said the butler. ‘There's a wee laddie comes up here sellin' haddies verra near every day.'

‘Bless my soul, Sime. I thought no one came up here. You know my orders.'

‘This is just a tinker laddie, Sir Erchibald. He sleeps in a cairt down about Larrigmore. He just comes wi' his powny and awa' back, and doesna bide twae minutes. Mistress Lithgow was anxious for haddies, for she said gentlemen got awfu' tired of saumon and trout.'

‘All right, Sime. I'll speak to Mrs Lithgow. She'd better tell him we don't want any more. By the way, we ought to see Lithgow after dinner. Tell him to come to the smoking-room.'

When Sime had put the port on the table and withdrawn, Leithen lifted up his voice.

‘Look here, before we get too deep into this thing, let's make sure that we know where we are. We're all three turned up here – why, I don't know. But there's still time to go back. We realise now what we're in for. Are you clear in your minds that you want to go on?'

‘I am,' said Lamancha doggedly. ‘I'm out for a cure. Hang it, I feel a better man already.'

‘I suppose your profession makes you take risks,' said Leithen dryly, ‘Mine doesn't. What about you, John?'

Palliser-Yeates shifted uneasily in his chair. ‘I don't want to go on. I feel no kind of keenness, and my feet are rather cold. And yet – you know – I should feel rather ashamed to turn back.'

Archie uplifted his turbaned head. ‘That's how I feel, though I'm not on myself in this piece. We've given hostages, and the credit of John Macnab is at stake. We've dared old Raden and young Bandicott, and we can't decently cry off. Besides, I'm advertised as a smallpox patient, and it would be a pity to make a goat of myself for nothing. Mind you, I stand to lose as much as anybody, if we bungle things.'

Leithen had the air of bowing to the inevitable. ‘Very well, that's settled. But I wish to Heaven I saw myself safely out of it. My only inducement to go on is to score off that bounder Claybody. He and his attorneys' letter put my hackles up.'

In the smoking-room Lamancha busied himself with preparing three slips of paper and writing on them three names.

‘We must hold a council of war,' he said. ‘First of all, we have taken measures to keep our presence here secret. My man Shapp is all right. What about your people, Archie?'

‘Sime and Carfrae have been warned, and you may count on them. They're the class of lads that ask no questions. So are the Lithgows. We've no neighbours, and they're anyway not the gossiping kind, and I've put them on their Bible oath. I fancy they think the reason is politics. They're a trifle scared of you, Charles, and your reputation, for they're not accustomed to hidin' Cabinet Ministers in the scullery. Lithgow's a fine crusted old Tory.'

‘Good. Well, we'd better draw for beats, and get Lithgow in.'

The figure that presently appeared before them was a small man, about fifty years of age, with a great breadth of shoulder and a massive face decorated with a wispish tawny beard. His mouth had the gravity and primness of an elder of the Kirk, but his shrewd blue eyes were not grave. The son of a Tweeddale shepherd who had emigrated years before to a cheviot farm in Sutherland, he was in every line and feature the Lowlander, and his speech had still the broad intonation of the Borders. But all his life had been spent in the Highlands on this and that deer forest, and as a young stalker he had been picked out by Jim Tarras for his superior hill craft. To Archie his chief recommendation was that he was a passionate naturalist, who was as eager to stalk a rare bird with a field-glass as to lead a rifle up to deer. Other traits will appear in the course of this narrative; but it may be noted here that he was a voracious reader and in the long winter nights had amassed a store of varied knowledge, which was patently improving his master's mind. Archie was accustomed to quote him for most of his views on matters other than ornithology and war.

‘Do you mind going over to that corner and shuffling these slips? Now, John, you draw first.'

Mr Palliser-Yeates extracted a slip from Lithgow's massive hand.

‘Glenraden,' he cried. ‘Whew! I'm for it this time.'

Leithen drew next. His slip read Strathlarrig.

‘Thank God, I've got old Claybody,' said Lamancha. ‘Unless you want him very badly, Ned?'

Leithen shook his head. ‘I'm content. It would be a bad start to change the draw.'

‘Sit down, Wattie,' said Archie. ‘Here's a dram for you. We've summoned you to a consultation. I daresay you've been wonderin' what all this fuss about secrecy has meant. I'm going to tell you. You were with Jim Tarras, and you've often told me about his poachin'. Well, these three gentlemen want to have a try at the same game. They're tired of ordinary sport, and want something more excitin'. It wouldn't do, of course, for them to appear under their real names, so they've invented a
nom de guerre –
that's a bogus name, you know. They call themselves collectively, as you might say, John Macnab. John Macnab writes from London to three proprietors, same as Jim Tarras used to do, and proposes to take a deer or a salmon on their property within certain dates. There's copy of the letter, and here are the replies that arrived tonight. Just you read ‘em.'

Lithgow, without moving a muscle of his face, took the documents. He nodded approvingly over the original letter. He smiled broadly at Colonel Raden's epistle, puzzled a little at Mr Bandicott's, and wrinkled his brows over that of the Edinburgh solicitors. Then he stared into the fire, and emitted short grunts which might have equally well been chuckles or groans.

‘Well, what do you think of the chances?' asked Archie at length.

‘Would the gentlemen be good shots?' asked Lithgow.

‘Mr Palliser-Yeates, who has drawn Glenraden, is a very good shot,' Archie replied, ‘and he has stalked on nearly every forest in Scotland. Lord Lamancha – Charles, you're pretty good, aren't you?'

‘Fair,' was the answer. ‘Good on my day.'

‘And Sir Edward Leithen is a considerable artist on the river. Now, Wattie, you understand that they want to win – want to get the stags and the salmon – but it's absolute sheer naked necessity that, whether they fail or succeed, they mustn't be caught. John Macnab must remain John Macnab, an unknown blighter from London. You know who Lord Lamancha is, but perhaps you don't know that Sir Edward Leithen is a great lawyer, and Mr Palliser-Yeates is one of the biggest bankers in the country.'

‘I ken all about the gentlemen,' said Lithgow gravely. ‘I was readin' Mr Yeates's letter in
The Times
about the debt we was owin' America, and I mind fine Sir Edward's speeches in Parliament about the Irish Constitution. I didna altogether agree with him.'

‘Good for you, Wattle. You see, then, how desperately important it is that the thing shouldn't get out. Mr Tarras didn't much care if he was caught, but if John Macnab is uncovered there will be a high and holy row. Now you grasp the problem, and you've got to pull up your socks and think it out. I don't want your views to-night, but I should like to have your notion of the chances in a general way. What's the bettin'? Twenty to one against?'

‘Mair like a thousand,' said Iithgow grimly. ‘It will be verra, verra deeficult. It will want a deal o' thinkin'.' Then he added, ‘Mr Tarras was an awfu' grand shot. He would kill a runnin' beast at fower hundred yards – aye, he could make certain of it.'

‘Good Lord, I'm not in that class,' Palliser-Yeates exclaimed.

‘Aye, and he was more than a grand shot. He could creep up to a sleepin' beast in the dark and pit a knife in its throat. The sauvages in Africa had learned him that. There was plenty o' times when him and me were out that it wasna possible to use the rifle.'

‘We can't compete there,' said Lamancha dolefully.

‘But I wad not say it was impossible,' Iithgow added more briskly. ‘It will want a deal o' thinkin'. It might be done on Haripol – I wadna say but it might be done, but yon auld man at Glenraden will be ill to get the better of. And the Strathlarrig water is an easy water to watch. Ye'll be for only takin' shootable beasts, like Mr Tarras, and ye'll not be wantin' to cleek a fish? It might be not so hard to get a wee staggie, or to sniggle a salmon in one of the deep pots.'

‘No, we must play the game by the rules. We're not poachers.'

‘Then it will be verra, verra deeficult.'

‘You understand,' put in Lamancha, ‘that, though we count on your help, you yourself mustn't be suspected. It's as important for you as for us to avoid suspicion, for if they got you it would implicate your master, and that mustn't happen on any account.'

‘I ken that. It will be verra, verra deeficult. I said the odds were a thousand to one, but I think ten thousand wad be liker the thing.'

‘Well, go and sleep on it, and we'll see you in the morning. An' tell your wife I don't want any boys comin' up to the house with fish. She must send elsewhere and buy ‘em. Good-night, Wattie.'

When Iithgow had withdrawn the four men sat silent and meditative in their chairs. One would rise now and then and knock out his pipe, but scarcely a word was spoken. It is to be presumed that the thoughts of each were on the task in hand, but Leithen's must have wandered. ‘By the way, Archie,' he said, ‘I saw a very pretty girl on the road this afternoon, riding a yellow pony. Who could she be?'

‘Lord knows!' said Archie. ‘Probably one of the Raden girls. I haven't seen ‘em yet.'

When the clock struck eleven Sir Archie arose and ordered his guests to bed.

‘I think my toothache is gone,' he said, switching off his turban and revealing a ruffled head and scarlet cheek. Then he muttered: ‘A thousand to one! Ten thousand to one! It can't be done, you know. We've got to find some way of shortenin' the odds!'

Rosy-fingered Dawn, when, attended by mild airs and a sky of Italian blue, she looked in at Crask next morning, found two members of the household already astir. Mr Palliser-Yeates, coerced by Wattie Iithgow, was starting with bitter self-condemnation to prospect what his guide called ‘the yont side o' Glenraden'. A quarter of an hour later Lamancha, armed with a map and a telescope, departed alone for the crest of hill behind which lay the Haripol forest. After that peace fell on the place, and it was not till the hour of ten that Sir Edward Leithen descended for breakfast.

The glory of the morning had against his convictions made him cheerful. The place smelt so good within and without, Mrs Lithgow's scones were so succulent, the bacon so crisp, and Archie, healed of the toothache, was so preposterous and mirthful a figure that Leithen found a faint zest again in the contemplation of the future. When Archie advised him to get busy about the Larrig he did not complain, but accompanied his host to the gun-room, where he studied attentively on a large-scale map the three miles of the stream in the tenancy of Mr Bandicott.

It seemed to him that he had better equip himself for the part by some simple disguise, so, declining Archie's suggestion of a kilt, he returned to his bedroom to refit. Obviously the best line was the tourist, so he donned a stiff white shirt and a stiff dress collar with a tartan bow-tie contributed from Sime's wardrobe. Light brown boots in which he had travelled from London took the place of his nailed shoes, and his thick knickerbocker stockings bulged out above them. Sime's watch-chain, from which depended a football club medal, a vulgar green Homburg hat of Archie's, and a camera slung on his shoulders completed the equipment. His host surveyed him with approval.

‘The Blackpool season is beginning,' he observed. ‘You're the born tripper, my lad. Don't forget the picture post cards.' A bicycle was found, and the late Attorney-General zigzagged warily down the steep road to the Larrig Bridge.

He entered the highway without seeing a human soul, and according to plan turned down the glen towards Inverlarrig. There at the tiny post-office he bought the regulation picture post cards, and conversed in what he imagined to be the speech of Cockaigne with the aged post-mistress. He was eloquent on the beauties of the weather and the landscape and not reticent as to his personal affairs. He was, he said, a seeker for beauty-spots, and had heard that the best were to be found in the demesne of Strathlarrig. ‘It's private grund,' he was told, ‘but there's Americans bidin' there and they're kind folk and awfu' free with their siller. If ye ask at the lodge, they'll maybe let ye in to photograph.' The sight of an array of ginger-beer bottles inspired him to further camouflage, so he purchased two which he stuck in his side-pockets.

East of the Bridge of Larrig he came to the chasm in the river above which he knew began the Strathlarrig water. The first part was a canal-like stretch among bogs, which promised ill for fishing, but beyond a spit of rock the Larrig curled in towards the road edge, and ran in noble pools and swift streams under the shadow of great pines. This, Leithen knew from the map, was the Wood of Larrigmore, a remnant of the ancient Caledonian Forest. By the water's edge the covert was dark, but towards the roadside the trees thinned out, and the ground was delicately carpeted with heather and thymy turf. There grazed an aged white pony, and a few yards off, on the shaft of a dilapidated fish-cart, sat a small boy.

Leithen, leaning his bicycle against a tree, prospected the murky pools with the air rather of an angler than a photographer, and in the process found his stiff shirt and collar a vexation. Also the ginger-beer bottles bobbed unpleasantly at his side. So, catching sight of the boy, he beckoned him near. ‘Do you like ginger-beer?' he asked, and in reply to a vigorous nod bestowed the pair on him. The child returned like a dog to the shelter of the cart, whence might have been presently heard the sound of gluttonous enjoyment. Leithen, having satisfied himself that no mortal could take a fish in that thicket, continued up-stream till he struck the wall of the Strathlarrig domain and a vast castellated lodge.

The lodge-keeper made no objection when he sought admittance, and he turned from the gravel drive towards the river, which now flowed through a rough natural park. For a fisherman it was the water of his dreams. The pools were long and shelving, with a strong stream at the head and, below, precisely the right kind of boulders and outjutting banks to shelter fish. There were three of these pools -the ‘Duke's', the ‘Black Scour', and ‘Davie's Pot', were the names Archie had told him – and beyond, almost under the windows of the house, ‘Lady Maisie's', conspicuous for its dwarf birches and the considerable waterfall above it. Here he made believe to take a photograph, though he had no idea how a camera worked, and reflected dismally upon the magnitude of his task. The whole place was as bright and open as the Horse Guards Parade. The house commanded all four pools, which he knew to be the best, and even at midnight, with the owner unsuspecting, poaching would be nearly impossible. What would it be when the owner was warned, and legitimate methods of fishing were part of the contract?

After a glance at the house, which seemed to be deep in noontide slumber, he made his inconspicuous way past the end of a formal garden to a reach where the Larrig flowed wide and shallow over pebbles. Then came a belt of firs, and then a long tract of broken water which was obviously not a place to hold salmon. He realised, from his memory of the map, that he must be near the end of the Strathlarrig beat, for the topmost mile was a series of unfishable linns. But presently he came to a noble pool. It lay in a meadow where the hay had just been cut and was liker a bit of Tweed or Eden than a Highland stream. Its shores were low and on the near side edged with fine gravel, the far bank was a green rise unspoiled by scrub, the current entered it with a proud swirl, washed the high bank, and spread itself out in a beautifully broken tail, so that every yard of it spelled fish. Leithen stared at it with appreciative eyes. The back of a moving monster showed in mid-stream, and automatically he raised his arm in an imaginary cast.

The next second he observed a man walking across the meadow towards him, and remembered his character. Directing his camera hastily at the butt-end of a black-faced sheep on the opposite shore, he appeared to be taking a careful photograph, after which he restored the apparatus to its case and turned to reconnoitre the stranger. This proved to be a middle-aged man in ancient tweed knickerbockers of an outrageous pattern known locally as the ‘Strathlarrig tartan'. He was obviously a river-keeper, and was advancing with a resolute and minatory air.

Leithen took off his hat with a flourish.

‘Have I the honour, sir, to address the owner of this lovely spot?' he asked in what he hoped was the true accent of a tripper.

The keeper stopped short and regarded him sternly.

‘What are ye daein' here?' he demanded.

‘Picking up a few pictures, sir. I inquired at your lodge, and was told that I might presume upon your indulgence. Pardon me, if I ‘ave presumed too far. If I ‘ad known that the proprietor was at ‘and I would have sought ‘im out and addressed my ‘umble request to ‘imself

‘Ye're makin' a mistake. I'm no the laird. The laird's awa' about India. But Mr Bandicott – that's him that's the tenant – has given strict orders that naebody's to gang near the watter. I wonder Mactavish at the lodge hadna mair sense.'

‘I fear the blame is mine,' said the agreeable tourist. ‘I only asked leave to enter the grounds, but the beauty of the scenery attracted me to the river. Never ‘ave I seen a more exquisite spot.' He waved his arm towards the pool.

‘It's no that bad. But ye maun awa' out o' this. Ye'd better gang by the back road, for fear they see ye frae the hoose.'

Leithen followed him obediently, after presenting him with a cigarette, which he managed to extract without taking his case from his pocket. It should have been a fag, he reflected, and not one of Archie's special Egyptians. As they walked he conversed volubly.

‘What's the name of the river?' he asked. ‘Is it the Strathlarrig?'

‘No, it's the Larrig, and that bit you like sae weel is the Minister's Pool. There's no a pool like it in Scotland.'

‘I believe you. There is not,' was the enthusiastic reply.

‘I mean for fish. Ye'll no ken muckle aboot fishin'.'

‘I've done a bit of anglin' at ‘ome. What do you catch here? Jack and perch?'

‘Jack and perch!' cried the keeper scornfully. ‘Saumon, man. Saumon up to thirty pounds' wecht.'

‘Oh, of course, salmon. That must be a glorious sport. But a friend of mine, who has seen it done, told me it wasn't ‘ard. He said that even I could catch a salmon.'

‘Mair like a saumon wad catch you. Now, you haud down the back road, and ye'll come out aside the lodge gate. And dinna you come here again. The orders is strict, and if auld Angus was to get a grip o' ye, I wadna say what wad happen. Guid day to ye, and dinna stop till ye're out o' the gates.'

Leithen did as he was bid, circumnavigated the house, struck a farm track, and in time reached the high road. It was a very doleful tourist who trod the wayside heather past the Wood of Larrigmore. Never had he seen a finer stretch of water or one so impregnably defended. No bluff or ingenuity would avail an illicit angler on that open greensward, with every keeper mobilised and on guard. He thought less now of the idiocy of the whole proceeding than of the folly of plunging in the dark upon just that piece of river. There were many streams where Jim Tarras's feat might be achieved, but he had chosen the one stretch in all Scotland where it was starkly impossible.

The recipient of the ginger-beer was still sitting by the shafts of his cart. He seemed to be lunching, for he was carving attentively a hunk of cheese and a loaf-end with a gully-knife. As he looked up from his task Leithen saw a child of perhaps twelve summers, with a singularly alert and impudent eye, a much-freckled face, and a thatch of tow-coloured hair bleached almost white by the sun. His feet were bare, his trousers were those of a grown man, tucked up at the knees and hitched up almost under his armpits, and for a shirt he appeared to have a much-torn jersey. Weather had tanned his whole appearance into the blend of greys and browns which one sees on a hillside boulder. The boy nodded gravely to Leithen, and continued to munch.

Below the wood lay the half-mile where the Larrig wound sluggishly through a bog before precipitating itself into the chasm above the Bridge of Larrig. Leithen left his bicycle by the roadside and crossed the waste of hags and tussocks to the water's edge. It looked a thankless place for the angler. The clear streams of the Larrig seemed to have taken on the colour of their banks, and to drowse dark and deep and sullen in one gigantic peat-hole. In spite of the rain of yesterday there was little current. The place looked oily, stagnant, and unfishable – a tract through which salmon after mounting the fall would hurry to the bright pools above.

Leithen sat down in a clump of heather and lit his pipe. Something might be done with a worm after a spate, he considered, but any other lure was out of the question. The place had its merits for every purpose but taking salmon. It was a part of the Strathlarrig water outside the park pale, and it was so hopeless that it was not likely to be carefully patrolled. The high road, it was true, ran near, but it was little frequented. If only ... He suddenly sat up, and gazed intently at a ripple on the dead surface. Surely that was a fish on the move ... He kept his eyes on the river, until he saw something else which made him rub them, and fall into deep reflection . . .

He was roused by a voice at his shoulder.

‘What for will they no let me come up to Crask ony mair?' the voice demanded in a sort of tinker's whine.

Leithen turned and found the boy of the ginger-beer.

‘Hullo! You oughtn't to do that, my son. You'll give people heart disease. What was it you asked?'

‘What. . . for. . . will. . . they. . . no. . . let. . . mecome. . . up to Crask ... ony mair?'

‘I'm sure I don't know. What's Crask?'

‘Ye ken it fine. It's the big hoose up the hill. I seen you come doon frae it yoursel' this mornin'.'

Leithen was tempted to deny this allegation and assert his title of tourist, but something in the extreme intelligence of the boy's face suggested that such a course might be dangerous. Instead he said, ‘Tell me your name, and what's your business at Crask?'

‘My name's Benjamin Bogle, but I get Fish Benjie frae most folks. I've sell't haddies and flukes to Crask these twa months. But this mornin' I was tell't no to come back, and when I speired what way, the auld wife shut the door on me.'

A recollection of Sir Archie's order the night before returned to Leithen's mind, and with it a great sense of insecurity. The argus-eyed child, hot with a grievance, had seen him descend from Crask, and was therefore in a position to give away the whole show. What chance was there for secrecy with this malevolent scout hanging around?

‘Where do you live, Benjie?'

‘I bide in my cairt. My father's in jyle, and my mither's lyin' badly in Muirtown. I sell fish to a' the gentry.'

‘And you want to know why you can't sell them at Crask?'

‘Aye, I wad like to ken that. The auld wife used to be a kind body and gie me jeely pieces. What's turned her into a draygon?'

Leithen was accustomed, in the duties of his profession, to quick decisions on tactics, and now he took one which was destined to be momentous.

‘Benjie,' he said solemnly, ‘there's a lot of things in the world that I don't understand, and it stands to reason that there must be more that you don't. I'm in a position in which I badly want somebody to help me. I like the look of you. You look a trusty fellow and a keen one. Is all your time taken up selling haddies?'