A Prince of the Captivity (Unabridged). Buchan John

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СКАЧАТЬ there was no hint of any knowledge of Adam’s past. The father and son, with all the courtesy in the world, seemed to be bent on discovering his tastes in sport and his prowess in games, so that he set them down as the type of Englishman who never outgrows the standards of his public school.

      “You look uncommonly fit,” said the son, as they left the smoking-room.

      “I try to be,” said Adam. “I haven’t got many things to my credit, but one of them is a hard body.”

      “Good,” was the answer. “We’ll have a long day to-morrow. You’ll be called at five. Put on something old and light—flannel bags will do— and strong shoes. We have a bit of striding before us.”

      It was a clear cool morning when they started, and Adam thought that he had never seen such a light-foot walker as Frank Warriner. He led him out of the vale up on to the Downs at a steady pace of nearly five miles an hour. Presently the sun grew hot, but there was no slackening of their speed. Adam’s spirits rose, for he understood that his endurance was being tested, and he had little fear of the result. To his surprise their first halt was at a country rectory, where a parson in slippers gave them a tankard of home-brewed beer. He was a fantastic old gentleman, for he directed all his conversation to Adam, and engaged him in a discussion on Norse remains in Britain which appeared to be his hobby. Adam thought it strange that he should have hit on a subject which had always been one of his private interests, and for the half-hour of their visit he did his best to live up to the parson’s enthusiasm. “Good,” said Frank Warriner, as they left the house. “You managed that quite well.”

      In the early afternoon they came to a stone wall bounding a great estate. Frank led the way over the wall. “Follow me,” he said. “Colonel Ambridge is a devil about his pheasants. We’ll have some fun getting through this place.” They found themselves in a park studded with coppices, and bordered by a large wood full of thick undergrowth. Frank took an odd way of crossing prohibited ground, for he began by making himself conspicuous, walking boldly across the open in full view of a keeper’s cottage. Presently a man’s voice was heard uplifted, and the two became fugitives. They doubled back behind a group of trees, and Frank made for the big wood. They were followed, for as Adam looked behind him he saw two excited men running to cut them off.

      In the wood Frank led him through gaps in the undergrowth, stopping now and then to listen like a stag at pause. There was no doubt about the pursuit, for the noise of heavy feet and crackling twigs was loud behind them. Frank seemed to know the place well, and he had an uncanny gift of locating sound, for he twisted backward and forward like a rabbit. Adam found running bent double and eel-like crawling through bracken a far harder trial than the speed of the morning, but he managed to keep close to his companion. At last Frank straightened himself and laughed. “Now for a sprint,” he said, and he led the way at a good pace down a woodland path, which ended in an alley of rhododendrons.

      To Adam’s surprise, instead of avoiding the house they made for it. Frank slowed down at the edge of a carriage drive and walked boldly across the lawn to a stone terrace, and through French windows into a library where a man was sitting. “Hullo, Colonel Ambridge,” he said. “We’re out for a walk and looked in to pass the time of day. May I introduce my friend Mr More?”

      The Colonel, a lean dark man of about sixty, behaved like the parson. He gave them drinks, and plunged into military talk, most of it directed to Adam. This was no somnolent retired soldier, but a man remarkably up-to-date in his calling. He spoke of the French generals whose names were becoming familiar in Britain—of Joffre’s colonial service and of Foch’s Principes de la Guerre, and he was critical of the French concentration in Lorraine. France he maintained had departed from the true interpretation of the “war of manoeuvre,” and he was contemptuous of false parallels drawn from Napoleon’s bataillon carrée at Jena. He seemed to have an exact knowledge of the terrain of the war, maps were produced, and Adam, the sweat on his brow and the marks of brier scratches on his cheek, found himself debating closely on points of strategy. There was something sharp and appraising in their host’s eye as they took their leave. “Good,” said Frank again. “You handled old Ambridge well. Now for home, for we mustn’t be late.”

      The last part of the ground was covered mainly in a loping trot, which took them back along the ridge of the Downs till they looked down upon the Warriners’ house. Adam calculated that they had done nearly thirty miles, but he realised that the day had not been meant as a mere test of bodily endurance. Those queer visits had had a purpose, and he guessed what it was. To his delight it seemed to him that his companion was flagging a little—at any rate the edge was off his keenness—while he himself had got his second wind.

      He found a large tea-party at the Warriners’. “I’m going to cut it,” Frank said, “but you must show yourself. You look all right. You’ve kept amazingly tidy.” Adam obeyed, for he thought he understood the reason.

      He could have drunk pints, but he was only given one small cup of weak tea. But he had a full dose of conversation. It appeared to be the special purpose of everyone to talk to him. He had to listen to schemes of hospital work from local ladies, and to amateur military speculations from an old Yeomanry colonel. A Bishop discussed with him the ethics of the war, and a parliamentary candidate had much to say about the party truce. He felt hot, very thirsty, and rather drowsy, but he collected his wits, for he saw that his host’s eye was continually fixed on him. The elder Warriner managed to add himself to any group where Adam talked, and it appeared that he was adroitly trying to draw him out.

      “You have been drinking in the peace of England,” the Bishop told him. “To-day will be a cool oasis to remember in the feverish months before you.”

      When the guests had gone and he was left with his host, the rosy country squire seemed to have changed to somebody shrewd and authoritative.

      “We shall be alone to-night,” he said, “for Frank has gone back to camp. You acquitted yourself well, Mr More. Frank is pretty nearly all out, and he is harder than most people. I daresay you realise the purpose of to-day’s performance. In the game you are entering physical fitness is not enough. A man must have full control of his wits, and be able to use them when his bodily vitality is low. The mind must have the upper hand of the carcass, and not be drugged by exertion into apathy. You appear to fill the bill… Now you’ll want a bath before dinner.

      “By the way,” he added, “there’s one thing you may like to know. We won’t talk about the past, but long ago at school I fagged for your father.”

      Adam’s next visit was of a different kind. Slowly there had been growing in his mind the comforting reflection that he might be of use to the world, since other people seemed to take pains to assess his capacities. He recognised that the tests were only superficial—what could anyone learn of a man’s powers from a few experiments?—but that they should have been considered worth while increased his confidence. So when he was sent down to spend a day with a certain Theophilus Scrope in a little market-town in Northamptonshire he speculated on what might next be put to the proof. Certain branches of his knowledge had been probed, and his bodily strength, but no one had attempted to assay his mental powers or the quality of his nerves. The latter, he believed, would now be the subject, and he thought of Mr Scrope as a mixture of psychologist and physician.

      Mr Scrope was neither. He was a small elderly man with a Chinese cast of face, who wore a skull-cap, and sat with a tartan plaid round his shoulders, though the weather was warm. He had a dreamy eye, and a voice hoarse with age and endless cigarettes. At first his talk meandered about several continents. It appeared that he had spent much of his life in the East, and he entertained Adam with fantastic tales of the Tibetan frontier. His experiences seemed to have impressed themselves on his face, for he had the air of a wise and ancient Lama. He was fond of quoting proverbs from native languages, and now and then he would deliver oracles of his own, looking sideways СКАЧАТЬ