John MacNab (5 page)

‘ ‘Deed no. Just twa hours in the mornin', and twa hours at nicht when I gang doun to the cobles at Inverlarrig. I've a heap o' time on my hands.'

‘Good. I think I can promise that you may resume your trade at Crask. But first I want you to do a job for me. There's a bicycle lying by the roadside. Bring it up to Crask this evening between six and seven. Have you a watch?'

‘No, but I can tell the time braw and fine.'

‘Go to the stables and wait for me there. I want to have a talk with you.' Leithen produced half a crown, on which the grubby paw of Fish Benjie instantly closed.

‘And look here, Benjie. You haven't seen me here, or anybody like me. Above all, you didn't see me come down from Crask this morning. If anybody asks you questions, you only saw a man on a bicycle on the road to Inverlarrig.'

The boy nodded, and his solemn face flickered for a second with a subtle smile.

‘Well, that's a bargain.' Leithen got up from his couch and turned down the river, making for the Bridge of Larrig, where the highway crossed. He looked back once, and saw Fish Benjie wheeling his bicycle into the undergrowth of the wood. He was in two minds as to whether he had done wisely in placing himself in the hands of a small ragamuffin, who for all he knew might be hand-in-glove with the Strathlarrig keepers. But the recollection of Benjie's face reassured him. He did not look like a boy who would be the pet of any constituted authority; he had the air rather of the nomad against whom the orderly world waged war. There had been an impish honesty in his face, and Leithen, who had a weakness for disreputable urchins, felt that he had taken the right course. Besides, the young sleuth-hound had got on his trail, and there had been nothing for it but to make him an ally.

He crossed the bridge, avoided the Crask road, and struck up hill by a track which followed the ravine of a burn. As he walked his mind went back to a stretch on a Canadian river, a stretch of still unruffled water warmed all day by a July sun. It had been as full as it could hold of salmon, but no artifice of his could stir them. There in the later afternoon had come an aged man from Boston, who fished with a light trout rod and cast a deft line, and placed a curious little dry-fly several feet above a fish's snout. Then, by certain strange manoeuvres, he had drawn the fly under water. Leithen had looked on and marvelled, while before sunset that ancient man hooked and landed seven good fish . . . Somehow that bit of shining sunflecked Canadian river reminded him of the unpromising stretch of the Larrig he had just been reconnoitring.

At a turn of the road he came upon his host, tramping homeward in the company of a most unprepossessing hound. Sir Archie paused for an instant to introduce Mackenzie. He was a mongrel collie of the old Highland stock, known as ‘beardies', and his tousled head, not unlike an extra-shaggy Dandie Dinmont's, was set upon a body of immense length, girth and muscle. His manners were atrocious to all except his master, and local report accused him of every canine vice except worrying sheep. He had been christened ‘The Bluidy Mackenzie' after a noted persecutor of the godly, by someone whose knowledge of history was greater than Sir Archie's, for the latter never understood the allusion. The name, however, remained his official one; commonly he was addressed as Mackenzie, but in moments of expansion he was referred to by his master as Old Bloody.

The said master seemed to be in a strange mood. He was dripping wet, having apparently fallen into the river, but his spirits soared, and he kept on smiling in a light-hearted way. He scarcely listened to Leithen, when he told him of his compact with Fish Benjie. ‘I daresay it will be all right,' he observed idiotically. ‘Is your idea to pass off one of his haddies as a young salmon on the guileless Bandicott?' For an explanation of Sir Archie's conduct the chronicler must retrace his steps.

After Leithen's departure it had seemed good to him to take the air, so, summoning Mackenzie from a dark lair in the yard, he made his way to the river – the beat below the bridge and beyond the high road, which was on Crask ground. There it was a broad brawling water, boulder-strewn and shallow, which an active man could cross dry-shod by natural stepping-stones. Sir Archie sat for a time on the near shore, listening to the sandpipers – birds which were his special favourites – and watching the whinchats on the hillside and the flashing white breasts of the water-ousels. Mackenzie lay beside him, an uneasy sphinx, tormented by a distant subtle odour of badger.

Presently Sir Archie arose and stepped out on the half-submerged boulder. He was getting very proud of the way he had learned to manage his game leg, and it occurred to him that here was a chance of testing his balance. If he could hop across on the stones to the other side he might regard himself as an able-bodied man. Balancing himself with his stick as a rope-dancer uses his pole, he in due course reached the middle of the current. After that it was more difficult, for the stones were smaller and the stream more rapid, but with an occasional splash and flounder he landed safely, to be saluted with a shower of spray from Mackenzie, who had taken the deep-water route.

‘Not so bad that, for a crock,' he told himself, as he lay full length in the sun watching the faint line of the Haripol hills overtopping the ridge of Crask.

Half an hour was spent in idleness till the dawning of hunger warned him to return. The crossing as seen from this side looked more formidable, for the first stones could only be reached by jumping a fairly broad stretch of current. Yet the jump was achieved, and with renewed confidence Sir Archie essayed the more solid boulders. All would have gone well had not he taken his eyes from the stones and observed on the bank beyond a girl's figure. She had been walking by the stream and had stopped to stare at the portent of his performance. Now Sir Archie was aware that his style of jumping was not graceful and he was discomposed by his sudden gallery. Nevertheless, the thing was so easy that he could scarcely have failed had it not been for the faithful Mackenzie. That animal had resolved to follow his master's footsteps, and was jumping steadily behind him. But three boulders from the shore they jumped simultaneously, and there was not standing-room for both. Sir Archie, already nervous, slipped, recovered himself, slipped again, and then, accompanied by Mackenzie, subsided noisily into three feet of water.

He waded ashore to find himself faced by a girl in whose face concern struggled with amusement. He lifted a dripping hand and grinned.

‘Silly exhibition, wasn't it? All the fault of Mackenzie! Idiotic brute of a dog, not to remember my game leg!'

‘You're horribly wet,' the girl said, ‘but it was sporting of you to try that crossing. What about dry clothes?'

‘Oh, no trouble about that. I've only to get up to Crask.'

‘You're Sir Archibald Roylance, aren't you? I'm Janet Raden. I've been with papa to call on you, but you're never at home.'

Sir Archie, having now got the water out of his eyes and hair, was able to regard his interlocutor. He saw a slight girl with what seemed to him astonishingly bright hair and very blue and candid eyes. She appeared to be anxious about his dry clothes, for she led the way up the bank at a great pace, while he limped behind her. Suddenly she noticed the limp.

‘Oh, please forgive me, I forgot about your leg. You had another smash, hadn't you, besides the one in the war – steeplechasing, wasn't it?'

‘Yes, but it didn't signify. I'm all right again and get about anywhere, but I'm a bit slower on the wing, you know.'

‘You're keen about horses?'

‘Love ‘em.'

‘So do I. Agatha – that's my sister – doesn't care a bit about them. She would like to live all the year at Glenraden, but – I'm ashamed to say it – I would rather have a foggy November in Warwickshire than August in Scotland. I simply dream of hunting.'

The ardent eyes and the young grace of the girl seemed marvellous things to Sir Archie. ‘I expect you go uncommon well,' he murmured.

‘No, only moderate. I only get scratch mounts. You see I stay with my Aunt Barbara, and she's too old to hunt, and has nothing in her stables but camels. But this year . . .' She broke off as she caught sight of the pools forming round Sir Archie's boots. ‘I mustn't keep you here talking. You be off home at once.'

‘Don't worry about me. I'm wet for days on end when I'm watchin' birds in the spring. You were sayin' about this year?'

Her answer was a surprising question. ‘Do you know anybody called John Macnab?'

Sir Archibald Roylance was a resourceful mountebank and did not hesitate.

‘Yes. The distiller, you mean? Dhuniewassel Whisky? I've seen his advertisements – “They drink Dhuniewassel, In cottage and castle -” That chap?'

‘No, no, somebody quite different. Listen, please, if you're not too wet, for I want you to help me. Papa has had the most extraordinary letter from somebody called John Macnab, saying he means to kill a stag in our forest between certain dates, and daring us to prevent him. He is going to hand over the beast to us if he gets it and pay fifty pounds, but if he fails he is to pay a hundred pounds. Did you ever hear of such a thing?'

‘Some infernal swindler,' said Archie darkly.

‘No. He can't be. You see the fifty pounds arrived this morning.'

‘God bless my soul!'

‘Yes. In Bank of England notes, posted from London. Papa at first wanted to tell him to go to – well, where Papa tells people he doesn't like to go. But I thought the offer so sporting that I persuaded him to take up the challenge. Indeed, I wrote the reply myself. Mr Macnab said that the money was to go to a charity, so Agatha is having the fifty pounds for her native weaving and dyeing – she's frightfully keen about that. But if we win the other fifty pounds papa says the best charity he can think of is to prevent me breaking my neck on hirelings, and I'm to have it to buy a hunter. So I'm very anxious to find out about Mr John Macnab.'

‘Probably some rich Colonial who hasn't learned manners.'

‘I don't think so. His manners are very good, to judge by his letter. I think he is a gentleman, but perhaps a little mad. We simply
must
beat him, for I've got to have that fifty pounds. And – and I want you to help me.'

‘Oh, well, you know – I mean to say – I'm not much of a fellow . . .'

‘You're very clever, and you've done all kinds of things. I feel that if you advised us we should win easily, for I'm sure you had far harder jobs in the war.'

To have a pretty young woman lauding his abilities and appealing with melting eyes for his aid was a new experience in Sir Archie's life. It was so delectable an experience that he almost forgot its awful complications. When he remembered them he flushed and stammered.

‘Really, I'd love to, but I wouldn't be any earthly good. I'm an old crock, you see. But you needn't worry – your Glenraden gillies will make short work of this bandit ... By Jove, I hope you get your hunter, Miss Raden. You've got to have it somehow. Tell you what, if I've any bright idea I'll let you know.'

‘Thank you so much. And may I consult you if I'm in difficulties?'

‘Yes, of course. I mean to say, no. Hang it, I don't know, for I don't like interferin' with your father's challenge.'

‘That means you will. Now, you mustn't wait another moment. Good-bye. Will you come over to lunch at Glenraden?'

Then she broke off and stared at him. ‘I forgot. Haven't you smallpox?'

‘What! Smallpox? Oh, I see! Has old Mother Claybody been putting that about?'

‘She came to tea yesterday twittering with terror, and warned us all not to go within a mile of Crask.'

Sir Archie laughed somewhat hollowly. ‘I had a bad toothache and my head tied up, and I daresay I said something silly, but I never thought she would take it for gospel. You see for yourself that I've nothing the matter with me.'

‘You'll have pneumonia the matter with you, unless you hurry home. Good-bye. We'll expect you to lunch the day after tomorrow.' And with a wave of her hand she was gone.

The extraordinary fact was that Sir Archie was not depressed by the new tangle which encumbered him. On the contrary, he was in the best of spirits. He hobbled gaily up the by-road to Crask, listened to Leithen, when he met him, with less than half an ear, and was happy with his own thoughts. I am at a loss to know how to describe the first shattering impact of youth and beauty on a susceptible mind. The old plan was to borrow the language of the world's poetry, the new seems to be to have recourse to the difficult jargon of psychologists and physicians; but neither, I fear, would suit Sir Archie's case. He did not think of nymphs and goddesses or of linnets in spring; still less did he plunge into the depths of a subconscious self which he was not aware of possessing. The unromantic epithet which rose to his lips was ‘jolly'. This was for certain the jolliest girl he had ever met – regular young sportswoman and amazingly good-lookin', and he was dashed if she wouldn't get her hunter. For a delirious ten minutes, which carried him to the edge of the Crask lawn, he pictured his resourcefulness placed at her service, her triumphant success, and her bright-eyed gratitude.

Then he suddenly remembered that alliance with Miss Janet Raden was treachery to his three guests. The aid she had asked for could only be given at the expense of John Macnab. He was in the miserable position of having a leg in both camps, of having unhappily received the confidences of both sides, and whatever he did he must make a mess of it. He could not desert his friends, so he must fail the lady; wherefore there could be no luncheon for him, the day after to-morrow, since another five minutes' talk with her would entangle him beyond hope. There was nothing for it but to have a return of smallpox. He groaned aloud.

‘A twinge of that beastly toothache,' he explained in reply to his companion's inquiry.