The Short Stories of John Buchan (Complete Collection). Buchan John

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СКАЧАТЬ a windy neck of mountain where hags and lochans gloomed among the heather.

      And then suddenly as if from the earth there sprang up three men. Even in the mist I saw the red Cameron tartan, and my heart leapt to my mouth. Two were great stalwart men, their clothes drenched and ragged, and the rust on their weapons. But the third was clearly the gentleman—of the middle size, slim, dressed well though also in some raggedness. At the sight the six of us stopped short and gazed dumbly at the three on the path.

      I rushed forward and gripped my cousin’s hand. “Ewan,” I cried, “I am your cousin Townshend come north to put his back to yours. Thank God you are still unharmed;” and what with weariness and anxiety I had almost wept on his neck.

      At my first step my cousin had raised his pistol, but when he saw my friendliness he put it back in his belt. When he heard of my cousinship his eyes shone with kindliness, and he bade me welcome to his own sorry country. “My dear cousin,” he said, “you have found me in a perilous case and ill-fitted to play the host. But I bid you welcome for a most honest gentleman and kinsman to these few acres of heather that are all now left to me.”

      And then before the gaping faces of my comrades I stammered out my story. “Oh, Ewan, there’s death before and behind you and on all sides. There’s a troop waiting down the road and there are dragoons coming at your back. You cannot escape, and these men with me are Whigs and Glasgow traders, and no friends to the Cameron name.”

      The three men straightened themselves like startled deer.

      “How many passed you?” cried Ewan.

      “May be a score,” said I.

      He stopped for a while in deep thought.

      “Then there’s not above a dozen behind me. There are four of us here, true men, and five who are no. We must go back or forward, for a goat could not climb these craigs. Well-a-day, my cousin, if we had your five whiggishly-inclined gentlemen with us we might yet make a fight for it.” And he bit his lip and looked doubtfully at the company.

      “We will fight nane,” said the Deacon. “We are men o’ peace, traivelling to further our lawful calling. Are we to dip our hands in bluid to please a Hieland Jaicobite?” The two Campbells groaned in acquiescence, but I thought I saw a glint of something not peaceful in Graham’s eye.

      “But ye are Scots folk,” said Ewan, with a soft, wheedling note in his voice. “Ye will never see a countryman fall into the hands of redcoat English soldiers?”

      “It’s the law o’ the land,” said a Campbell, “and what for should we resist it to pleesure you? Besides, we are merchants and no fechtin’ tinklers.”

      I saw Ewan turn his head and look down the road. Far off in the stillness of the grey weather one could hear the sound of feet on the hill-gravel.

      “Gentlemen,” he cried, turning to them with a last appeal ,“you see I have no way of escape. You are all proper men, and I beseech you in God’s name to help a poor gentleman in his last extremity. If I could win past the gentry in front, there would be the seacoast straight before, where even now there lies a vessel to take me to a kinder country. I cannot think that loyalty to my clan and kin should be counted an offence in the eyes of honest men. I do not know whether you are Highland or Lowland, but you are at least men, and may God do to you as you do to me this day. Who will stand with me?”

      I sprang to his side, and the four of us stood looking down the road, where afar off came into sight the moving shapes of the foe.

      Then he turned again to the others, crying out a word in Gaelic. I do not know what it was, but it must have gone to their hearts’ core, for the little man Macneil with a sob came running toward us, and Graham took one step forward and then stopped.

      I whispered their names in Ewan’s ear and he smiled. Again he spoke in Gaelic, and this time Graham could forbear no more, but with an answering word in the same tongue he flung himself from his horse and came to our side. The two red- headed Campbells stared in some perplexity, their eyes bright with emotion and their hands twitching towards their belts.

      Meantime the sound of men came nearer and the game grew desperate. Again Ewan cried in Gaelic, and this time it was low entreaty, which to my ignorant ears sounded with great pathos. The men looked at the Deacon and at us, and then with scarlet faces they too dropped to the ground and stepped to our backs.

      Out of the mist came a line of dark weather-browned faces and the gleam of bright coats. “Will you not come?” Ewan cried to the Deacon.

      “I will see no blood shed,” said the man, with set lips.

      And then there was the sharp word of command, and ere ever I knew, the rattle of shots; and the next moment we were rushing madly down on the enemy.

      I have no clear mind of what happened. I know that the first bullet passed through my coat-collar and a second grazed my boot. I heard one of the Highlanders cry out and clap his hand to his ear, and then we were at death-grips. I used my sword as I could, but I had better have had a dirk, for we were wrestling for dear life, and there was no room for fine play. I saw dimly the steel of Ewan and the Highlanders gleam in the rain; I heard Graham roaring like a bull as he caught at the throat of an opponent. And then all was mist and madness and a great horror. I fell over a little brink of rock with a man a-top of me, and there we struggled till I choked the life out of him. After that I remember nothing till I saw the air clear and the road vacant before us.

      Two bodies lay on the heath, besides the one I had accounted for in the hollow. The rest of the soldiers had fled down the pass, and Ewan had his way of escape plain to see. But never have I seen such a change in men. My cousin’s coat was red and torn, his shoes all but cut from his feet. A little line of blood trickled over his flushed brow, but he never heeded it, for his eyes burned with the glory of battle. So, too, with his followers, save that one had a hole in his ear and the other a broken arm, which they minded as little as midge-bites. But how shall I tell of my companions? The two Campbells sat on the ground nursing wounds, with wild red hair dishevelled and hoarse blasphemy on their lips. Every now and then one would raise his head and cry some fierce word of triumph. Graham had a gash on his cheek, but he was bending his sword- point on the ground and calling Ewan his blood-brother. The little man Macneil, who had fought like a Trojan, was whimpering with excitement, rubbing his eyes, and staring doubtfully at the heavens. But the Deacon, that man of peace—what shall I say of him? He stood some fifty yards down the pass, peering through the mist at the routed fugitives, his naked sword red in his hand, his whole apparel a ruin of blood and mire, his neatly-dressed hair flying like a beldame’s. There he stood hurling the maddest oaths.

      “Hell!” he cried. “Come back and I’ll learn ye, my lads. Wait on, and I ‘ll thraw every neck and give the gleds a feed this day.”

      Ewan came up and embraced me. “Your Whigamores are the very devil, cousin, and have been the saving of me. But now we are all in the same boat, so we had better improve our time. Come, lads!” he cried, “is it for the seashore and a kinder land?”

      And all except the Deacon cried out in Gaelic the word of consent, which, being interpreted, is “Lead, and we follow.”

      THE BLACK FISHERS

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      Once upon a time, as the story goes, there lived a man in Gledsmuir, called СКАЧАТЬ