Brothers & Sisters - John & Anna Buchan Edition (Collection of Their Greatest Works). Buchan John
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Название: Brothers & Sisters - John & Anna Buchan Edition (Collection of Their Greatest Works)
Автор: Buchan John
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4064066392406
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“What on earth are you talkin’ about?” said the mystified Archie. “Join what?”
“We’re proposing to quarter ourselves on you, my lad, and take a leaf out of Jim Tarras’s book.”
Sir Archie first stared, then he laughed nervously, then he called upon his gods, then he laughed freely and long. “Do you really mean it? What an almighty rag!…But hold on a moment. It will be rather awkward for me to take a hand. You see I’ve just been adopted as prospective candidate for that part of the country.”
“So much the better. If you’re found out—which you won’t be—you’ll get the poaching vote solid, and a good deal more. Most men at heart are poachers.”
Archie shook a doubting head. “I don’t know about that. They’re an awfully respectable lot up there, and all those dashed stalkers and keepers and gillies are a sort of trade-union. The scallywags are a hopeless minority. If I get sent to quod—”
“You won’t get sent to quod. At the worst it will be a fine, and you can pay that. What’s the extreme penalty for this kind of offence, Ned?”
“I don’t know,” Leithen answered. “I’m not an authority on Scots law. But Archie’s perfectly right. We can’t go making a public exhibition of ourselves like this. We’re too old to be listening to the chimes at midnight.”
“Now, look here.” Lamancha had shaken off his glumness and was as tense and eager as a schoolboy. “Didn’t your doctor advise you to steal a horse? Well, this is a long sight easier than horse-stealing. It’s admitted that we three want a tonic. On second thoughts Archie had better stand out—he hasn’t our ailment, and a healthy man doesn’t need medicine. But we three need it, and this idea is an inspiration. Of course we take risks, but they’re sound sporting risks. After all, I’ve a reputation of a kind, and I put as much into the pool as anyone.”
His hearers regarded him with stony faces, but this in no way checked his ardour.
“It’s a perfectly first-class chance. A lonely house where you can see visitors a mile off, and an unsociable dog like Archie for a host. We write the letters and receive the answers at a London address. We arrive at Crask by stealth, and stay there unbeknown to the country-side, for Archie can count on his people and my man in a sepulchre. Also we’ve got Lithgow, who played the same game with Jim Tarras. We have a job which will want every bit of our nerve and ingenuity with a reasonable spice of danger—for, of course, if we fail we should cut queer figures. The thing is simply ordained by Heaven for our benefit. Of course you’ll come.”
“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Leithen.
“No more will I,” said Palliser-Yeates.
“Then I’ll go alone,” said Lamancha cheerfully. “I’m out for a cure, if you’re not. You’ve a month to make up your mind, and meanwhile a share in the syndicate remains open to you.”
Sir Archie looked as if he wished he had never mentioned the fatal name of Jim Tarras, “I say, you know, Charles,” he began hesitatingly, but was cut short.
“Are you going back on your invitation?” asked Lamancha sternly. “Very well, then, I’ve accepted it, and what’s more I’m going to draft a specimen letter that will go to your Highland grandee, and Claybody and the American.”
He rose with a bound and fetched a pencil and a sheet of notepaper from the nearest writing-table. “Here goes—”
“Sir, I have the honour to inform you that I propose to kill a stag—or a salmon as the case may be—on your ground between midnight on—and midnight—. We can leave the dates open for the present. The animal, of course, remains your property and will be duly delivered to you. It is a condition that it must be removed wholly outside your bounds. In the event of the undersigned failing to achieve his purpose he will pay as forfeit one hundred pounds, and if successful fifty pounds to any charity you may appoint.
“I have the honour to be, your obedient humble servant.”
“What do you say to that?” he asked. “Formal, a little official, but perfectly civil, and the writer proposes to pay his way like a gentleman. Bound to make a good impression.”
“You’ve forgotten the signature,” Leithen observed dryly.
“It must be signed with a nom de guerre.” He thought for a moment. “I’ve got it. At once business-like and mysterious.”
At the bottom of the draft he scrawled the name “John Macnab.”
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