SIR EDWARD LEITHEN'S MYSTERIES - Complete Series. Buchan John

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СКАЧАТЬ deid for all that, but God kens how far he’ll run afore he drops. He’s hit in the neck, but a wee thing ower low…We can bide here a while and eat our piece. If ye wasna John Macnab I could be wishin’ we had brought a dog.”

      Lamancha, cold, wet, and disgusted, wolfed his sandwiches, had a stiff dram from his flask, and smoked a pipe before he started again. He cursed his marksmanship, and Wattie forbore to contradict him; doubtless Jim Tarras had accustomed him to a standard of skill from which this was a woeful declension. Nor would he hold out much hope. “He’ll gang into the first corrie and when he finds the wund different there he’ll turn back for the Reascuill. If this was our ain forest and the weather wasna that thick, we might get another chance at him there…Oh, aye, he might gang for ten mile. The mist is a good thing, for Macqueen will no see what’s happenin’, but if it was to lift, and he saw a’ the stags in the corrie movin’, you and me wad hae to find a hidy-hole till the dark…Are ye ready, my lord?”

      They crossed the ridge which separated them from the first corrie, close to the point where it took off from the massif of Sgurr Dearg. It was a shorter road than the one they had come by, and they could take it safely, for they were now moving up-wind, owing to the curious eddy from the south. Over the ridge it would be a different matter, for there the wind would be easterly as before. But it was a stiff climb and a slow business, for they had to make sure that they were on the track of the stag.

      Wattie trailed the blood-marks like an Indian, noticing splashes on stones and rushes which Lamancha would have missed. “He’s sair hit,” he observed at one point. “See! He tried that steep bit and couldna manage it. There’s the mark o’ his feet turnin’…He’s stoppit here…Aye, here’s his trail, and it’ll be the best for you and me. There’s nothing like a wounded beast for pickin’ the easiest road.”

      At the crest the air stirred freely, and, as it seemed to Lamancha, with a wet chill. Wattie gave a grunt of satisfaction, and sniffed it like a pointer dog. He moistened his finger and held it up; then he plucked some light grasses and tossed them into the air.

      “That’s a mercifu’ dispensation! Maybe that shot that ye think ye bauchled was the most providential shot ye ever fired…The wund is shiftin’. I looked for it afore night, but no that early in the day. It’s wearin’ round to the south. D’ye see what that means?”

      Lamancha shook his head. Disgust had made his wits dull.

      “Yon beast, as I telled ye, was a traiveller. There’s nothing to keep him in Haripol forest. But he’ll no leave it unless the wund will let him. Now it looks as if Providence was kind to us. The wund’s blawin’ from the Beallach, and he’s bound to gang up-wund.”

      The next half-hour was a period of swift drama. Sure enough, the blood-marks turned up the first corrie in the direction from which the two had come in the morning. As the ravine narrowed the stag had evidently taken to the burn, for there were splashes on the rocks and a tinge of red in the pools.

      “He’s no far off,” Wattie croaked. “See, man, he’s verra near done. He’s slippin’ sair.”

      And then, as they mounted, they came on a little pool where the water was dammed as if by a landslip. There, his body half under the cascade, lay the stag, stone dead, his great horns parting the fall like a pine swept down by a winter spate.

      The two regarded him in silence, till Wattie was moved to pronounce his epitaph.

      “It’s yersel, ye auld hero, and ye’ve come by a grand end. Ye’ve had a braw life traivellin’ the hills, and ye’ve been a braw beast, and the fame o’ ye gaed through a’ the country-side. Ye micht have dwined awa in the cauld winter and dee’d in the wame o’ a snaw-drift. Or ye might have been massacred by ane o’ the Haripol sumphs wi’ ten bullets in the big bag. But ye’ve been killed clean and straucht by John Macnab, and that is a gentleman’s death, whatever.”

      “That’s all very well,” said Lamancha, “but you know I tailored the shot.”

      “Ye’re a fule,” cried the rapt Wattie. “Ye did no siccan thing. It was a verra deeficult shot, and ye put it deid in the only place ye could see. I will not have seen many better shots at all, at all.’

      “What about the gralloch?” Lamancha asked.

      “No here. If the mist lifted Macqueen micht see us. It’s no fifty yards to the top o’ the Beallach, and we’ll find a place there for the job.”

      Wattie produced two ropes and bound the fore-feet and the hind-feet together. Then he rapidly climbed to the summit, and reported on his return that the mist was thick there, and that there were no tracks except their own of the morning. It was a weary business dragging the carcass up a nearly perpendicular slope. First with difficulty they raised it out of the burn channel, and then drew it along the steep hill-side. They had to go a long way up the hill-side to avoid the rock curtain on the edge of the Beallach, but eventually the top was reached, and the stag was deposited behind some boulders on the left of the flat ground. Here, even if the mist lifted, they would be hid from the sight of Macqueen, and from any sentries there might be on the Crask side.

      Wattie flung off his coat and proceeded with gusto to his gory task. The ravens, which had been following them for the past hour, came nearer and croaked encouragement from the ledges of Sgurr Dearg and Sgurr Mor. Wattie was in high spirits, for he whistled softly at his work; but Lamancha, after his first moment of satisfaction, was restless with anxiety. He had still to get his trophy out of the forest, and there seemed many chances of a slip between his lips and that cup. He was impatient for Wattie to finish, for the air seemed to him lightening. An ominous brightness was flushing the mist towards the south, and the rain had declined to the thinnest of drizzles. He told Wattie of his fears.

      “Aye, it’ll be a fine afternoon. I foresaw that, but that’s maybe not a bad thing, now that we’re out o’ Macqueen’s sight.”

      Wattie completed his job, and hid the horrid signs below a pile of sods and stones. “Nae poch-a-bhuie for me the day,” he grinned. “I’ve other things to think of besides my supper.” He wiped his arms and hands in the wet heather and put on his coat. Then he produced a short pipe, and, as he turned away to light it, a figure suddenly stood beside Lamancha and made his heart jump.

      “My hat!” said Palliser-Yeates, “what a head! That must be about a record for Wester Ross. I never got anything as good myself. You’re a lucky devil, Charles.”

      “Call me lucky when the beast is safe at Crask. What about your side of the hill?”

      “Pretty quiet. I’ve been here for hours and hours, wondering where on earth you two had got to…There’s four fellows stuck at intervals along the hill-side, and I shouldn’t take them to be very active citizens. But there’s a fifth who does sentry-go, and I don’t fancy the look of him so much. Looks a keen chap, and spry on his legs. What’s the orders for me? The place has been playing hide-and-seek, and half the time I’ve been sitting coughing in a wet blanket. If it stays thick I suppose my part is off.”

      Wattie, stirred again into fierce life, peered into the thinning fog.

      “Damn! The mist’s liftin’. I’ll get the beast ower the first screes afore it’s clear, and once I’m in the burn I’ll wait for ye. I can manage the first bit fine mysel’—I could manage it a’, if there was nae hurry…Bide you here till I’m weel startit, for I don’t like the news o’ that wandering navvy. And you sir”—this to Palliser-Yeates—“be ready to show yourself down the hill-side as soon as it’s clear enough for the folk to see ye. СКАЧАТЬ