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

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СКАЧАТЬ did remember Arthur Mordaunt. Ten years past he and I had been inseparables, despite some half-dozen summers difference in age. We had fished and shot together, and together we had tramped every hill within thirty miles. He had come up from the South to try sheep-farming, and as he came of a great family and had no need to earn his bread, he found the profession pleasing. Then irresistible fate had swept me southward to college, and when after two years I came back to the place, his father was dead and he had come into his own. The next I heard of him was that in politics he was regarded as the most promising of the younger men, one of the staunchest and ablest upstays of the Constitution. His name was rapidly rising into prominence, for he seemed to exhibit that rare phenomenon of a man of birth and culture in direct sympathy with the wants of the people.

      “You mean Lord Brodakers?” said I.

      “Dinna call him by that name,” said the shepherd, darkly. “I hae nae thocht o’ him now. He’s a disgrace to his country, servin’ the Deil wi’ baith hands. But nine year syne he was a bit innocent callant wi’ nae Tory deevilry in his heid. Well, as I was sayin’, Airthur Morrant has cause to mind that place till his dying day;” and he pointed his finger to the Black Linn.

      I looked up the chasm. The treacherous water, so bright and joyful at our feet, was like ink in the great gorge. The swish and plunge of the cataract came like the regular beating of a clock, and though the weather was dry, streams of moisture seamed the perpendicular walls. It was a place eerie even on that bright summer’s day.

      “I don’t think I ever heard the story,” I said casually.

      “Maybe no,” said the shepherd. “It’s no yin I like to tell;” and he puffed sternly at his pipe, while I awaited the continuation.

      “Ye see it was like this,” he said, after a while. “It was just the beginning o’ the backend, and that year we had an awfu’ spate o’ rain. For near a week it poured hale water, and a’ doon by Drumeller and the Mossfennan haughs was yae muckle loch. Then it stopped, and an awfu’ heat came on. It dried the grund in nae time, but it hardly touched the burns; and it was rale queer to be pourin’ wi’ sweat and the grund aneath ye as dry as a potato-sack, and a’ the time the water neither to haud nor bind. A’ the waterside fields were clean stripped o’ stooks, and a guid wheen hay-ricks gaed doon tae Berwick, no to speak o’ sheep and nowt beast. But that’s anither thing.

      “Weel, ye ‘ll mind that Airthur was terrible keen on the fishing. He wad gang oot in a’ weather, and he wasna feared for ony mortal or naitural thing. Dod, I’ve seen him in Gled wi’ the water rinnin’ ower his shouthers yae cauld March day playin’ a saumon. He kenned weel aboot the fishing, for he had traivelled in Norroway and siccan outlandish places, where there’s a heap o’ big fish. So that day—and it was a Setterday tae and far ower near the Sabbath—he maun gang awa’ up Standlan Burn wi’ his rod and creel to try his luck.

      “I was bidin’ at that time, as ye mind, in the wee cot-house at the back o’ the faulds. I was alane, for it was three year afore I mairried Jess, and I wasna begun yet to the coortin’. I had been at Gledsmuir that day for some o’ the new stuff for killing sheep-mawks, and I wasna very fresh on my legs when I gaed oot after my tea that nicht to hae a look at the hill-sheep. I had had a bad year on the hill. First the lambin’-time was snaw, snaw ilka day, and I lost mair than I wad like to tell. Syne the grass a’ summer was so short wi’ the drought that the puir beasts could scarcely get a bite and were as thin as pipe-stapples. And then, to crown a’, auld Will Broun, the man that helpit me, turned ill wi’ his back, and had to bide at hame. So I had twae man’s wark on yae man’s shouthers, and was nane so weel pleased.

      “As I was saying, I gaed oot that nicht, and after lookin’ a’ the Dun Rig and the Yellow Mire and the back o’ Cramalt Craig, I cam down the burn by the road frae the auld faulds. It was geyan dark, being about seven o’clock o’ a September nicht, and I keepit weel back frae that wanchancy hole o’ a burn. Weel, I was comin’ kind o’ quick, thinkin’ o’ supper and a story-book that I was readin’ at the time, when just abune that place there, at the foot o’ the Linn, I saw a man fishing. I wondered what ony body in his senses could be daein’ at that time o’ nicht in sic a dangerous place, so I gave him a roar and bade him come back. He turned his face round and I saw in a jiffey that it was Mr. Airthur.

      “10, sir,’ I cried, ‘what for are ye fishing there? The water’s awfu’ dangerous, and the rocks are far ower slid.’

      “‘Never mind, Scott,’ he roars back cheery-like. ‘I ‘ll take care o’ mysel’.’

      “I lookit at him for twa-three meenutes, and then I saw by his rod he had yin on, and a big yin tae. He ran it up and doon the pool, and he had uncommon wark wi’ ‘t, for it was strong and there was little licht. But bye and bye he got it almost tae his feet, and was just about to lift it oot when a maist awfu’ thing happened. The tackets o’ his boots maun hae slithered on the stane, for the next thing I saw was Mr. Airthur in the muckle hungry water.

      “I dinna exactly ken what happened after that, till I found myself on the very stone he had slipped off. I maun hae come doon the face o’ the rocks, a thing I can scarcely believe when I look at them, and a thing no man ever did afore. At ony rate I ken I fell the last fifteen feet or sae, and lichted on my left airm, for I felt it crack like a rotten branch, and an awfu’ sairness ran up it.

      “Now, the pool is a whirlpool as ye ken, and if anything fa’s in, the water first smashes it against the muckle rock at the foot, then it brings it round below the fall again, and syne at the second time it carries it doon the burn. Weel, that was what happened to Mr. Airthur. I heard his heid gang dunt on the stane wi’ a sound that made me sick. This must hae dung him clean senseless, and indeed it was a wonder it didna knock his brains oot. At ony rate there was nae mair word o’ swimming, and he was swirled round below the fa’ just like a corp.

      “I kenned fine that nae time was to be lost, for if he once gaed doun the burn he wad be in Gled or ever I could say a word, and nae man wad ever see him mair in life. So doon I got on my hunkers on the stane, and waited for the turnin’. Round he came, whirling in the foam, wi’ a lang line o’ blood across his brow where the stane had cut him. It was a terrible meenute. My heart fair stood still. I put out my airm, and as he passed I grippit him and wi’ an awfu’ pu’ got him out o’ the current into the side.

      “But now I found that a waur thing still was on me. My left airm was broken, and my richt sae numbed and weak wi’ my fall that, try as I micht, I couldna raise him ony further. I thocht I wad burst a blood-vessel i’ my face and my muscles fair cracked wi’ the strain, but I could make nothing o’ ‘t. There he stuck wi’ his heid and shouthers abune the water, pu’d close until the edge of a rock.

      “What was I to dae? If I once let him slip he wad be into the stream and lost forever. But I couldna hang on here a’ nicht, and as far as I could see there wad be naebody near till the mornin’, when Ebie Blackstock passed frae the Head o’ the Hope. I roared wi’ a’ my power; but I got nae answer, naething but the rummle o’ the water and the whistling o’ some whaups on the hill.

      “Then I turned very sick wi’ terror and pain and weakness and I kenna what. My broken airm seemed a great lump o’ burnin’ coal. I maun hae given it some extra wrench when I hauled him out, for it was sae sair now that I thocht I could scarcely thole it. Forbye, pain and a’, I could hae gone off to sleep wi’ fair weariness. I had heard tell o’ men sleepin’ on their feet, but I never felt it till then. Man, if I hadna warstled wi’ mysel, I wad hae dropped off as deid’s a peery.

      “Then there was the awfu’ strain o’ keepin’ Mr. Airthur up. He was a great big man, twelve stone I ‘ll warrant, and weighing a terrible lot mair wi’ СКАЧАТЬ