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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Huntingtower, by John Buchan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Huntingtower
+
+Author: John Buchan
+
+Release Date: December 6, 2011 [EBook #3782]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUNTINGTOWER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Edward A. White, Robert F. Jaffe, Kirsten
+Tozer, Charlene Taylor, Cathy Maxam and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+In footnote number 1 (page 72) the author refers to
+a sketch on the frontispiece of the book.  At the time of posting this
+book to Project Gutenberg, it was verified by the content provider that
+there is no frontispiece in this particular edition of Huntingtower.
+
+In the plain-text version of this ebook italics are indicated by
+_underscores_.
+
+Obvious typographical errors have been corrected without comment. One
+example of an obvious typographical error is on page 237 where the word
+"shamefaceedly" was changed to "shamefacedly". Other than obvious
+typographical errors, the author's original spelling has been left
+intact. This includes the use of unconventional spelling and dialect.
+
+Inconsistencies in the author's use of hyphens and accent marks have
+been left unchanged, as in the original text.
+
+The following four changes were made to punctuation and spelling:
+
+     1. Page 96: An apostrophe was removed from the word "an'" in the
+     phrase "I've found a ladder, an auld yin" (an old one).
+
+     2. Page 100: A question mark was changed to a period in the phrase
+     "... he realised that he was in the presence of something the like
+     of which he had never met in his life before."
+
+     4. Page 187: An apostrophe was removed from the word "wing's" in
+     the phrase "... take the wings off a seagull."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  HUNTINGTOWER
+
+  JOHN BUCHAN
+
+
+
+
+_By_ JOHN BUCHAN
+
+
+  HUNTINGTOWER
+  THE PATH OF THE KING
+  MR. STANDFAST
+  GREENMANTLE
+  THE WATCHERS BY THE THRESHOLD
+  SALUTE TO ADVENTURES
+  PRESTER JOHN
+  THE POWER HOUSE
+  THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS
+  THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME
+
+
+NEW YORK: GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+  HUNTINGTOWER
+
+  BY
+  JOHN BUCHAN
+
+  NEW [Illustration] YORK
+  GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1922,
+  BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  HUNTINGTOWER.  II
+
+  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+W. P. KER
+
+
+_If the Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford has not
+forgotten the rock whence he was hewn, this simple story may give him an
+hour of entertainment. I offer it to you because I think you have met my
+friend Dickson McCunn, and I dare to hope that you may even in your many
+sojournings in the Westlands have encountered one or other of the
+Gorbals Die-Hards. If you share my kindly feeling for Dickson, you will
+be interested in some facts which I have lately ascertained about his
+ancestry. In his veins there flows a portion of the redoubtable blood of
+the Nicol Jarvies. When the Bailie, you remember, returned from his
+journey to Rob Roy beyond the Highland Line, he espoused his housekeeper
+Mattie, "an honest man's daughter and a near cousin o' the Laird o'
+Limmerfield." The union was blessed with a son, who succeeded to the
+Bailie's business and in due course begat daughters, one of whom married
+a certain Ebenezer McCunn, of whom there is record in the archives of
+the Hammermen of Glasgow. Ebenezer's grandson, Peter by name, was
+Provost of Kirkintilloch, and his second son was the father of my hero
+by his marriage with Robina Dickson, eldest daughter of one Robert
+Dickson, a tenant-farmer in the Lennox. So there are coloured threads in
+Mr. McCunn's pedigree, and, like the Bailie, he can count kin, should he
+wish, with Rob Roy himself through "the auld wife ayont the fire at
+Stuckavrallachan."_
+
+_Such as it is, I dedicate to you the story, and ask for no better
+verdict on it than that of that profound critic of life and literature,
+Mr. Huckleberry Finn, who observed of the_ Pilgrim's Progress, _that he
+"considered the statements interesting, but steep."_
+
+J. B.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                    PAGE
+
+  PROLOGUE                                            11
+
+  CHAPTER
+
+     I HOW A RETIRED PROVISION MERCHANT FELT
+        THE IMPULSE OF SPRING                         17
+
+    II OF MR. JOHN HERITAGE AND THE DIFFERENCE
+        IN POINTS OF VIEW                             28
+
+   III HOW CHILDE ROLAND AND ANOTHER CAME TO
+        THE DARK TOWER                                46
+
+    IV DOUGAL                                         70
+
+     V OF THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER                   85
+
+    VI HOW MR. McCUNN DEPARTED WITH RELIEF AND
+        RETURNED WITH RESOLUTION                     114
+
+   VII SUNDRY DOINGS IN THE MIRK                     135
+
+  VIII HOW A MIDDLE-AGED CRUSADER ACCEPTED A
+        CHALLENGE                                    154
+
+    IX THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES               171
+
+     X DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY            189
+
+    XI GRAVITY OUT OF BED                            209
+
+   XII HOW MR. McCUNN COMMITTED AN ASSAULT
+        UPON AN ALLY                                 225
+
+  XIII THE COMING OF THE DANISH BRIG                 244
+
+   XIV THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES              257
+
+    XV THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION          286
+
+   XVI IN WHICH A PRINCESS LEAVES A DARK TOWER
+        AND A PROVISION MERCHANT RETURNS TO
+        HIS FAMILY                                   306
+
+
+
+
+HUNTINGTOWER
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+
+The girl came into the room with a darting movement like a swallow,
+looked round her with the same birdlike quickness, and then ran across
+the polished floor to where a young man sat on a sofa with one leg laid
+along it.
+
+"I have saved you this dance, Quentin," she said, pronouncing the name
+with a pretty staccato. "You must be so lonely not dancing, so I will
+sit with you. What shall we talk about?"
+
+The young man did not answer at once, for his gaze was held by her face.
+He had never dreamed that the gawky and rather plain little girl whom he
+had romped with long ago in Paris would grow into such a being. The
+clean delicate lines of her figure, the exquisite pure colouring of hair
+and skin, the charming young arrogance of the eyes--this was beauty, he
+reflected, a miracle, a revelation. Her virginal fineness and her dress,
+which was the tint of pale fire, gave her the air of a creature of ice
+and flame.
+
+"About yourself, please, Saskia," he said. "Are you happy now that you
+are a grown-up lady?"
+
+"Happy!" Her voice had a thrill in it like music, frosty music. "The
+days are far too short. I grudge the hours when I must sleep. They say
+it is sad for me to make my début in a time of war. But the world is
+very kind to me, and after all it is a victorious war for our Russia.
+And listen to this, Quentin. To-morrow I am to be allowed to begin
+nursing at the Alexander Hospital. What do you think of that?"
+
+The time was January, 1916, and the place a room in the great Nirski
+Palace. No hint of war, no breath from the snowy streets, entered that
+curious chamber where Prince Peter Nirski kept some of the chief of his
+famous treasures. It was notable for its lack of drapery and
+upholstering--only a sofa or two and a few fine rugs on the cedar floor.
+The walls were of a green marble veined like malachite, the ceiling was
+of darker marble inlaid with white intaglios. Scattered everywhere were
+tables and cabinets laden with celadon china, and carved jade, and
+ivories, and shimmering Persian and Rhodian vessels. In all the room
+there was scarcely anything of metal and no touch of gilding or bright
+colour. The light came from green alabaster censers, and the place swam
+in a cold green radiance like some cavern below the sea. The air was
+warm and scented, and though it was very quiet there, a hum of voices
+and the strains of dance music drifted to it from the pillared corridor
+in which could be seen the glare of lights from the great ballroom
+beyond.
+
+The young man had a thin face with lines of suffering round the mouth
+and eyes. The warm room had given him a high colour, which increased
+his air of fragility. He felt a little choked by the place, which seemed
+to him for both body and mind a hot-house, though he knew very well that
+the Nirski Palace on this gala evening was in no way typical of the land
+or its masters. Only a week ago he had been eating black bread with its
+owner in a hut on the Volhynian front.
+
+"You have become amazing, Saskia," he said. "I won't pay my old
+playfellow compliments; besides, you must be tired of them. I wish you
+happiness all the day long like a fairy-tale Princess. But a crock like
+me can't do much to help you to it. The service seems to be the wrong
+way round, for here you are wasting your time talking to me."
+
+She put her hand on his. "Poor Quentin! Is the leg very bad?"
+
+He laughed. "Oh, no. It's mending famously. I'll be able to get about
+without a stick in another month, and then you've got to teach me all
+the new dances."
+
+The jigging music of a two-step floated down the corridor. It made the
+young man's brow contract, for it brought to him a vision of dead faces
+in the gloom of a November dusk. He had once had a friend who used to
+whistle that air, and he had seen him die in the Hollebeke mud. There
+was something _macabre_ in the tune.... He was surely morbid this
+evening, for there seemed something _macabre_ about the house, the room,
+the dancing, all Russia.... These last days he had suffered from a sense
+of calamity impending, of a dark curtain drawing down upon a splendid
+world. They didn't agree with him at the Embassy, but he could not get
+rid of the notion.
+
+The girl saw his sudden abstraction.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" she asked. It had been her favourite
+question as a child.
+
+"I was thinking that I rather wished you were still in Paris."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because I think you would be safer."
+
+"Oh, what nonsense, Quentin dear! Where should I be safe if not in my
+own Russia, where I have friends--oh, so many, and tribes and tribes of
+relations? It is France and England that are unsafe with the German guns
+grumbling at their doors.... My complaint is that my life is too
+cosseted and padded. I am too secure, and I do not want to be secure."
+
+The young man lifted a heavy casket from a table at his elbow. It was of
+dark green imperial jade, with a wonderfully carved lid. He took off the
+lid and picked up three small oddments of ivory--a priest with a beard,
+a tiny soldier and a draught-ox. Putting the three in a triangle, he
+balanced the jade box on them.
+
+"Look, Saskia! If you were living inside that box you would think it
+very secure. You would note the thickness of the walls and the hardness
+of the stone, and you would dream away in a peaceful green dusk. But all
+the time it would be held up by trifles--brittle trifles."
+
+She shook her head. "You do not understand. You cannot understand. We
+are a very old and strong people with roots deep, deep in the earth."
+
+"Please God you are right," he said. "But, Saskia, you know that if I
+can ever serve you, you have only to command me. Now I can do no more
+for you than the mouse for the lion--at the beginning of the story. But
+the story had an end, you remember, and some day it may be in my power
+to help you. Promise to send for me."
+
+The girl laughed merrily. "The King of Spain's daughter," she quoted,
+
+    "Came to visit me,
+     And all for the love
+     Of my little nut-tree."
+
+The other laughed also, as a young man in the uniform of the
+Preobrajenski Guard approached to claim the girl. "Even a nut-tree may
+be a shelter in a storm," he said.
+
+"Of course I promise, Quentin," she said. "_Au revoir._ Soon I will come
+and take you to supper, and we will talk of nothing but nut-trees."
+
+He watched the two leave the room, her gown glowing like a tongue of
+fire in the shadowy archway. Then he slowly rose to his feet, for he
+thought that for a little he would watch the dancing. Something moved
+beside him, and he turned in time to prevent the jade casket from
+crashing to the floor. Two of the supports had slipped.
+
+He replaced the thing on its proper table and stood silent for a
+moment.
+
+"The priest and the soldier gone, and only the beast of burden left....
+If I were inclined to be superstitious, I should call that a dashed bad
+omen."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+HOW A RETIRED PROVISION MERCHANT FELT THE IMPULSE OF SPRING
+
+
+Mr. Dickson McCunn completed the polishing of his smooth cheeks with the
+towel, glanced appreciatively at their reflection in the looking-glass,
+and then permitted his eyes to stray out of the window. In the little
+garden lilacs were budding, and there was a gold line of daffodils
+beside the tiny greenhouse. Beyond the sooty wall a birch flaunted its
+new tassels, and the jackdaws were circling about the steeple of the
+Guthrie Memorial Kirk. A blackbird whistled from a thorn-bush, and Mr.
+McCunn was inspired to follow its example. He began a tolerable version
+of "Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch."
+
+He felt singularly light-hearted, and the immediate cause was his safety
+razor. A week ago he had bought the thing in a sudden fit of enterprise,
+and now he shaved in five minutes, where before he had taken twenty, and
+no longer confronted his fellows, at least one day in three, with a
+countenance ludicrously mottled by sticking-plaster. Calculation
+revealed to him the fact that in his fifty-five years, having begun to
+shave at eighteen, he had wasted three thousand three hundred and
+seventy hours--or one hundred and forty days--or between four and five
+months--by his neglect of this admirable invention. Now he felt that he
+had stolen a march on Time. He had fallen heir, thus late, to a fortune
+in unpurchasable leisure.
+
+He began to dress himself in the sombre clothes in which he had been
+accustomed for thirty-five years and more to go down to the shop in
+Mearns Street. And then a thought came to him which made him discard the
+grey-striped trousers, sit down on the edge of his bed, and muse.
+
+Since Saturday the shop was a thing of the past. On Saturday at
+half-past eleven, to the accompaniment of a glass of dubious sherry, he
+had completed the arrangements by which the provision shop in Mearns
+Street, which had borne so long the legend of D. McCunn, together with
+the branches in Crossmyloof and the Shaws, became the property of a
+company, yclept the United Supply Stores, Limited. He had received in
+payment cash, debentures and preference shares, and his lawyers and his
+own acumen had acclaimed the bargain. But all the week-end he had been a
+little sad. It was the end of so old a song, and he knew no other tune
+to sing. He was comfortably off, healthy, free from any particular cares
+in life, but free too from any particular duties. "Will I be going to
+turn into a useless old man?" he asked himself.
+
+But he had woke up this Monday to the sound of the blackbird, and the
+world, which had seemed rather empty twelve hours before, was now brisk
+and alluring. His prowess in quick shaving assured him of his youth.
+"I'm no' that dead old," he observed, as he sat on the edge of the bed,
+to his reflection in the big looking-glass.
+
+It was not an old face. The sandy hair was a little thin on the top and
+a little grey at the temples, the figure was perhaps a little too full
+for youthful elegance, and an athlete would have censured the neck as
+too fleshy for perfect health. But the cheeks were rosy, the skin clear,
+and the pale eyes singularly childlike. They were a little weak, those
+eyes, and had some difficulty in looking for long at the same object, so
+that Mr. McCunn did not stare people in the face, and had, in
+consequence, at one time in his career acquired a perfectly undeserved
+reputation for cunning. He shaved clean, and looked uncommonly like a
+wise, plump schoolboy. As he gazed at his simulacrum he stopped
+whistling "Roy's Wife" and let his countenance harden into a noble
+sternness. Then he laughed, and observed in the language of his youth
+that "There was life in the auld dowg yet." In that moment the soul of
+Mr. McCunn conceived the Great Plan.
+
+The first sign of it was that he swept all his business garments
+unceremoniously on to the floor. The next that he rootled at the bottom
+of a deep drawer and extracted a most disreputable tweed suit. It had
+once been what I believe is called a Lovat mixture, but was now a
+nondescript sub-fusc, with bright patches of colour like moss on
+whinstone. He regarded it lovingly, for it had been for twenty years his
+holiday wear, emerging annually for a hallowed month to be stained with
+salt and bleached with sun. He put it on, and stood shrouded in an
+odour of camphor. A pair of thick nailed boots and a flannel shirt and
+collar completed the equipment of the sportsman. He had another long
+look at himself in the glass, and then descended whistling to breakfast.
+This time the tune was "Macgregor's Gathering," and the sound of it
+stirred the grimy lips of a man outside who was delivering
+coals--himself a Macgregor--to follow suit. Mr. McCunn was a very
+fountain of music that morning.
+
+Tibby, the aged maid, had his newspaper and letters waiting by his
+plate, and a dish of ham and eggs frizzling near the fire. He fell to
+ravenously but still musingly, and he had reached the stage of scones
+and jam before he glanced at his correspondence. There was a letter from
+his wife now holidaying at the Neuk Hydropathic. She reported that her
+health was improving, and that she had met various people who had known
+somebody who had known somebody else whom she had once known herself.
+Mr. McCunn read the dutiful pages and smiled. "Mamma's enjoying herself
+fine," he observed to the teapot. He knew that for his wife the earthly
+paradise was a hydropathic, where she put on her afternoon dress and
+every jewel she possessed when she rose in the morning, ate large meals
+of which the novelty atoned for the nastiness, and collected an immense
+casual acquaintance with whom she discussed ailments, ministers, sudden
+deaths, and the intricate genealogies of her class. For his part he
+rancorously hated hydropathics, having once spent a black week under the
+roof of one in his wife's company. He detested the food, the Turkish
+baths (he had a passionate aversion to baring his body before
+strangers), the inability to find anything to do and the compulsion to
+endless small talk. A thought flitted over his mind which he was too
+loyal to formulate. Once he and his wife had had similar likings, but
+they had taken different roads since their child died. Janet! He saw
+again--he was never quite free from the sight--the solemn little
+white-frocked girl who had died long ago in the spring.
+
+It may have been the thought of the Neuk Hydropathic, or more likely the
+thin clean scent of the daffodils with which Tibby had decked the table,
+but long ere breakfast was finished the Great Plan had ceased to be an
+airy vision and become a sober well-masoned structure. Mr. McCunn--I may
+confess it at the start--was an incurable romantic.
+
+He had had a humdrum life since the day when he had first entered his
+uncle's shop with the hope of some day succeeding that honest grocer;
+and his feet had never strayed a yard from his sober rut. But his mind,
+like the Dying Gladiator's, had been far away. As a boy he had voyaged
+among books, and they had given him a world where he could shape his
+career according to his whimsical fancy. Not that Mr. McCunn was what is
+known as a great reader. He read slowly and fastidiously, and sought in
+literature for one thing alone. Sir Walter Scott had been his first
+guide, but he read the novels not for their insight into human character
+or for their historical pageantry, but because they gave him material
+wherewith to construct fantastic journeys. It was the same with
+Dickens. A lit tavern, a stage-coach, post-horses, the clack of hoofs on
+a frosty road, went to his head like wine. He was a Jacobite not because
+he had any views on Divine Right, but because he had always before his
+eyes a picture of a knot of adventurers in cloaks, new landed from
+France, among the western heather.
+
+On this select basis he had built up his small library--Defoe, Hakluyt,
+Hazlitt and the essayists, Boswell, some indifferent romances and a
+shelf of spirited poetry. His tastes became known, and he acquired a
+reputation for a scholarly habit. He was president of the Literary
+Society of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, and read to its members a variety
+of papers full of a gusto which rarely became critical. He had been
+three times chairman at Burns Anniversary dinners, and had delivered
+orations in eulogy of the national Bard; not because he greatly admired
+him--he thought him rather vulgar--but because he took Burns as an
+emblem of the un-Burns-like literature which he loved. Mr. McCunn was no
+scholar and was sublimely unconscious of background. He grew his flowers
+in his small garden-plot oblivious of their origin so long as they gave
+him the colour and scent he sought. Scent, I say, for he appreciated
+more than the mere picturesque. He had a passion for words and cadences,
+and would be haunted for weeks by a cunning phrase, savouring it as a
+connoisseur savours a vintage. Wherefore long ago, when he could ill
+afford it, he had purchased the Edinburgh _Stevenson_. They were the
+only large books on his shelves, for he had a liking for small
+volumes--things he could stuff into his pocket in that sudden journey
+which he loved to contemplate.
+
+Only he had never taken it. The shop had tied him up for eleven months
+in the year, and the twelfth had always found him settled decorously
+with his wife in some seaside villa. He had not fretted, for he was
+content with dreams. He was always a little tired, too, when the
+holidays came, and his wife told him he was growing old. He consoled
+himself with tags from the more philosophic of his authors, but he
+scarcely needed consolation. For he had large stores of modest
+contentment.
+
+But now something had happened. A spring morning and a safety razor had
+convinced him that he was still young. Since yesterday he was a man of a
+large leisure. Providence had done for him what he would never have done
+for himself. The rut in which he had travelled so long had given place
+to open country. He repeated to himself one of the quotations with which
+he had been wont to stir the literary young men at the Guthrie Memorial
+Kirk:
+
+    "What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all;
+       Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold:
+       When we mind labour, then only, we're too old--
+     What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?"
+
+He would go journeying--who but he?--pleasantly.
+
+It sounds a trivial resolve, but it quickened Mr. McCunn to the depths
+of his being. A holiday, and alone! On foot, of course, for he must
+travel light. He would buckle on a pack after the approved fashion. He
+had the very thing in a drawer upstairs, which he had bought some years
+ago at a sale. That and a waterproof and a stick, and his outfit was
+complete. A book, too, and, as he lit his first pipe, he considered what
+it should be. Poetry, clearly, for it was the Spring, and besides poetry
+could be got in pleasantly small bulk. He stood before his bookshelves
+trying to select a volume, rejecting one after another as inapposite.
+Browning--Keats, Shelley--they seemed more suited for the hearth than
+for the roadside. He did not want anything Scots, for he was of opinion
+that Spring came more richly in England and that English people had a
+better notion of it. He was tempted by the Oxford Anthology, but was
+deterred by its thickness, for he did not possess the thin-paper
+edition. Finally he selected Izaak Walton. He had never fished in his
+life, but _The Compleat Angler_ seemed to fit his mood. It was old and
+curious and learned and fragrant with the youth of things. He remembered
+its falling cadences, its country songs and wise meditations. Decidedly
+it was the right scrip for his pilgrimage.
+
+Characteristically he thought last of where he was to go. Every bit of
+the world beyond his front door had its charms to the seeing eye. There
+seemed nothing common or unclean that fresh morning. Even a walk among
+coal-pits had its attractions.... But since he had the right to choose,
+he lingered over it like an epicure. Not the Highlands, for Spring came
+late among their sour mosses. Some place where there were fields and
+woods and inns, somewhere, too, within call of the sea. It must not be
+too remote, for he had no time to waste on train journeys; nor too near,
+for he wanted a countryside untainted. Presently he thought of Carrick.
+A good green land, as he remembered it, with purposeful white roads and
+public-houses sacred to the memory of Burns; near the hills but yet
+lowland, and with a bright sea chafing on its shores. He decided on
+Carrick, found a map and planned his journey.
+
+Then he routed out his knapsack, packed it with a modest change of
+raiment, and sent out Tibby to buy chocolate and tobacco and to cash a
+cheque at the Strathclyde Bank. Till Tibby returned he occupied himself
+with delicious dreams.... He saw himself daily growing browner and
+leaner, swinging along broad highways or wandering in bypaths. He
+pictured his seasons of ease, when he unslung his pack and smoked in
+some clump of lilacs by a burnside--he remembered a phrase of
+Stevenson's somewhat like that. He would meet and talk with all sorts of
+folk; an exhilarating prospect, for Mr. McCunn loved his kind. There
+would be the evening hour before he reached his inn, when, pleasantly
+tired, he would top some ridge and see the welcoming lights of a little
+town. There would be the lamp-lit after-supper time when he would read
+and reflect, and the start in the gay morning, when tobacco tastes
+sweetest and even fifty-five seems young. It would be holiday of the
+purest, for no business now tugged at his coat-tails. He was beginning a
+new life, he told himself, when he could cultivate the seedling
+interests which had withered beneath the far-reaching shade of the shop.
+Was ever a man more fortunate or more free?
+
+Tibby was told that he was going off for a week or two. No letters need
+be forwarded, for he would be constantly moving, but Mrs. McCunn at the
+Neuk Hydropathic would be kept informed of his whereabouts. Presently he
+stood on his doorstep, a stocky figure in ancient tweeds, with a bulging
+pack slung on his arm, and a stout hazel stick in his hand. A passer-by
+would have remarked an elderly shopkeeper bent apparently on a day in
+the country, a common little man on a prosaic errand. But the passer-by
+would have been wrong, for he could not see into the heart. The plump
+citizen was the eternal pilgrim; he was Jason, Ulysses, Eric the Red,
+Albuquerque, Cortez--starting out to discover new worlds.
+
+Before he left Mr. McCunn had given Tibby a letter to post. That morning
+he had received an epistle from a benevolent acquaintance, one
+Mackintosh, regarding a group of urchins who called themselves the
+"Gorbals Die-Hards." Behind the premises in Mearns Street lay a tract of
+slums, full of mischievous boys with whom his staff waged truceless war.
+But lately there had started among them a kind of unauthorised and
+unofficial Boy Scouts, who, without uniform or badge or any kind of
+paraphernalia, followed the banner of Sir Robert Baden-Powell and
+subjected themselves to a rude discipline. They were far too poor to
+join an orthodox troop, but they faithfully copied what they believed to
+be the practices of more fortunate boys. Mr. McCunn had witnessed their
+pathetic parades, and had even passed the time of day with their leader,
+a red-haired savage called Dougal. The philanthropic Mackintosh had
+taken an interest in the gang and now desired subscriptions to send them
+to camp in the country.
+
+Mr. McCunn, in his new exhilaration, felt that he could not deny to
+others what he proposed for himself. His last act before leaving was to
+send Mackintosh ten pounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+OF MR. JOHN HERITAGE AND THE DIFFERENCE IN POINTS OF VIEW
+
+
+Dickson McCunn was never to forget the first stage in that pilgrimage. A
+little after midday he descended from a grimy third-class carriage at a
+little station whose name I have forgotten. In the village near-by he
+purchased some new-baked buns and ginger biscuits, to which he was
+partial, and followed by the shouts of urchins, who admired his
+pack--"Look at the auld man gaun to the schule"--he emerged into open
+country. The late April noon gleamed like a frosty morning, but the air,
+though tonic, was kind. The road ran over sweeps of moorland where
+curlews wailed, and into lowland pastures dotted with very white, very
+vocal lambs. The young grass had the warm fragrance of new milk. As he
+went he munched his buns, for he had resolved to have no plethoric
+midday meal, and presently he found the burnside nook of his fancy, and
+halted to smoke. On a patch of turf close to a grey stone bridge he had
+out his Walton and read the chapter on "The Chavender or Chub." The
+collocation of words delighted him and inspired him to verse. "Lavender
+or Lub"--"Pavender or Pub"--"Gravender or Grub"--but the monosyllables
+proved too vulgar for poetry. Regretfully he desisted.
+
+The rest of the road was as idyllic as the start. He would tramp
+steadily for a mile or so and then saunter, leaning over bridges to
+watch the trout in the pools, admiring from a dry-stone dyke the
+unsteady gambols of new-born lambs, kicking up dust from strips of
+moor-burn on the heather. Once by a fir-wood he was privileged to
+surprise three lunatic hares waltzing. His cheeks glowed with the sun;
+he moved in an atmosphere of pastoral, serene and contented. When the
+shadows began to lengthen he arrived at the village of Cloncae, where he
+proposed to lie. The inn looked dirty, but he found a decent widow,
+above whose door ran the legend in home-made lettering, "Mrs. brockie
+tea and Coffee," and who was willing to give him quarters. There he
+supped handsomely off ham and eggs, and dipped into a work called
+_Covenanting Worthies_, which garnished a table decorated with
+sea-shells. At half-past nine precisely he retired to bed and
+unhesitating sleep.
+
+Next morning he awoke to a changed world. The sky was grey and so low
+that his outlook was bounded by a cabbage garden, while a surly wind
+prophesied rain. It was chilly, too, and he had his breakfast beside the
+kitchen fire. Mrs. Brockie could not spare a capital letter for her
+surname on the signboard, but she exalted it in her talk. He heard of a
+multitude of Brockies, ascendant, descendant and collateral, who seemed
+to be in a fair way to inherit the earth. Dickson listened
+sympathetically, and lingered by the fire. He felt stiff from
+yesterday's exercise, and the edge was off his spirit.
+
+The start was not quite what he had pictured. His pack seemed heavier,
+his boots tighter, and his pipe drew badly. The first miles were all
+uphill, with a wind tingling his ears, and no colours in the landscape
+but brown and grey. Suddenly he awoke to the fact that he was dismal,
+and thrust the notion behind him. He expanded his chest and drew in long
+draughts of air. He told himself that this sharp weather was better than
+sunshine. He remembered that all travellers in romances battled with
+mist and rain. Presently his body recovered comfort and vigour, and his
+mind worked itself into cheerfulness.
+
+He overtook a party of tramps and fell into talk with them. He had
+always had a fancy for the class, though he had never known anything
+nearer it than city beggars. He pictured them as philosophic vagabonds,
+full of quaint turns of speech, unconscious Borrovians. With these
+samples his disillusionment was speedy. The party was made up of a
+ferret-faced man with a red nose, a draggle-tailed woman, and a child in
+a crazy perambulator. Their conversation was one-sided, for it
+immediately resolved itself into a whining chronicle of misfortunes and
+petitions for relief. It cost him half a crown to be rid of them.
+
+The road was alive with tramps that day. The next one did the accosting.
+Hailing Mr. McCunn as "Guv'nor," he asked to be told the way to
+Manchester. The objective seemed so enterprising that Dickson was
+impelled to ask questions, and heard, in what appeared to be in the
+accents of the Colonies, the tale of a career of unvarying calamity.
+There was nothing merry or philosophic about this adventurer. Nay, there
+was something menacing. He eyed his companion's waterproof covetously,
+and declared that he had had one like it which had been stolen from him
+the day before. Had the place been lonely he might have contemplated
+highway robbery, but they were at the entrance to a village, and the
+sight of a public-house awoke his thirst. Dickson parted with him at the
+cost of sixpence for a drink.
+
+He had no more company that morning except an aged stone-breaker whom he
+convoyed for half a mile. The stone-breaker also was soured with the
+world. He walked with a limp, which, he said, was due to an accident
+years before, when he had been run into by "ane o' thae damned
+velocipeeds." The word revived in Dickson memories of his youth, and he
+was prepared to be friendly. But the ancient would have none of it. He
+inquired morosely what he was after, and, on being told, remarked that
+he might have learned more sense. "It's a daft-like thing for an auld
+man like you to be traivellin' the roads. Ye maun be ill-off for a job."
+Questioned as to himself he became, as the newspapers say, "reticent,"
+and having reached his bing of stones, turned rudely to his duties.
+"Awa' hame wi' ye," were his parting words. "It's idle scoondrels like
+you that maks wark for honest folk like me."
+
+The morning was not a success, but the strong air had given Dickson such
+an appetite that he resolved to break his rule, and, on reaching the
+little town of Kilchrist, he sought luncheon at the chief hotel. There
+he found that which revived his spirits. A solitary bagman shared the
+meal, who revealed the fact that he was in the grocery line. There
+followed a well-informed and most technical conversation. He was drawn
+to speak of the United Supply Stores, Limited, of their prospects and of
+their predecessor, Mr. McCunn, whom he knew well by repute but had never
+met. "Yon's the clever one," he observed. "I've always said there's no
+longer head in the city of Glasgow than McCunn. An old-fashioned firm,
+but it has aye managed to keep up with the times. He's just retired,
+they tell me, and in my opinion it's a big loss to the provision
+trade...." Dickson's heart glowed within him. Here was Romance; to be
+praised incognito; to enter a casual inn and find that fame had preceded
+him. He warmed to the bagman, insisted on giving him a liqueur and a
+cigar, and finally revealed himself. "I'm Dickson McCunn," he said,
+"taking a bit holiday. If there's anything I can do for you when I get
+back, just let me know." With mutual esteem they parted.
+
+He had need of all his good spirits, for he emerged into an unrelenting
+drizzle. The environs of Kilchrist are at the best unlovely, and in the
+wet they were as melancholy as a graveyard. But the encounter with the
+bagman had worked wonders with Dickson, and he strode lustily into the
+weather, his waterproof collar buttoned round his chin. The road climbed
+to a bare moor, where lagoons had formed in the ruts, and the mist
+showed on each side only a yard or two of soaking heather. Soon he was
+wet; presently every part of him, boots, body and pack, was one vast
+sponge. The waterproof was not water-proof, and the rain penetrated to
+his most intimate garments. Little he cared. He felt lighter, younger,
+than on the idyllic previous day. He enjoyed the buffets of the storm,
+and one wet mile succeeded another to the accompaniment of Dickson's
+shouts and laughter. There was no one abroad that afternoon, so he could
+talk aloud to himself and repeat his favourite poems. About five in the
+evening there presented himself at the Black Bull Inn at Kirkmichael a
+soaked, disreputable, but most cheerful traveller.
+
+Now the Black Bull at Kirkmichael is one of the few very good inns left
+in the world. It is an old place and an hospitable, for it has been for
+generations a haunt of anglers, who above all other men understand
+comfort. There are always bright fires there, and hot water, and old
+soft leather armchairs, and an aroma of good food and good tobacco, and
+giant trout in glass cases, and pictures of Captain Barclay of Urie
+walking to London, and Mr. Ramsay of Barnton winning a horse-race, and
+the three-volume edition of the Waverley Novels with many volumes
+missing, and indeed all those things which an inn should have. Also
+there used to be--there may still be--sound vintage claret in the
+cellars. The Black Bull expects its guests to arrive in every stage of
+dishevelment, and Dickson was received by a cordial landlord, who
+offered dry garments as a matter of course. The pack proved to have
+resisted the elements, and a suit of clothes and slippers were provided
+by the house. Dickson, after a glass of toddy, wallowed in a hot bath,
+which washed all the stiffness out of him. He had a fire in his bedroom,
+beside which he wrote the opening passages of that diary he had vowed to
+keep, descanting lyrically upon the joys of ill weather. At seven
+o'clock, warm and satisfied in soul, and with his body clad in raiment
+several sizes too large for it, he descended to dinner.
+
+At one end of the long table in the dining-room sat a group of anglers.
+They looked jovial fellows, and Dickson would fain have joined them;
+but, having been fishing all day in the Loch o' the Threshes, they were
+talking their own talk, and he feared that his admiration for Izaak
+Walton did not qualify him to butt into the erudite discussions of
+fishermen. The landlord seemed to think likewise, for he drew back a
+chair for him at the other end, where sat a young man absorbed in a
+book. Dickson gave him good evening and got an abstracted reply. The
+young man supped the Black Bull's excellent broth with one hand, and
+with the other turned the pages of his volume. A glance convinced
+Dickson that the work was French, a literature which did not interest
+him. He knew little of the tongue and suspected it of impropriety.
+
+Another guest entered and took the chair opposite the bookish young man.
+He was also young--not more than thirty-three--and to Dickson's eye, was
+the kind of person he would have liked to resemble. He was tall and
+free from any superfluous flesh; his face was lean, fine-drawn and
+deeply sunburnt so that the hair above showed oddly pale; the hands were
+brown and beautifully shaped, but the forearm revealed by the loose
+cuffs of his shirt was as brawny as a blacksmith's. He had rather pale
+blue eyes, which seemed to have looked much at the sun, and a small
+moustache the colour of ripe hay. His voice was low and pleasant, and he
+pronounced his words precisely, like a foreigner.
+
+He was very ready to talk, but in defiance of Dr. Johnson's warning, his
+talk was all questions. He wanted to know everything about the
+neighbourhood--who lived in what houses, what were the distances between
+the towns, what harbours would admit what class of vessel. Smiling
+agreeably, he put Dickson through a catechism to which he knew none of
+the answers. The landlord was called in, and proved more helpful. But on
+one matter he was fairly at a loss. The catechist asked about a house
+called Darkwater, and was met with a shake of the head. "I know no
+sic-like name in this countryside, sir," and the catechist looked
+disappointed.
+
+The literary young man said nothing, but ate trout abstractedly, one eye
+on his book. The fish had been caught by the anglers in the Loch o' the
+Threshes, and phrases describing their capture floated from the other
+end of the table. The young man had a second helping, and then refused
+the excellent hill mutton that followed, contenting himself with cheese.
+Not so Dickson and the catechist. They ate everything that was set
+before them, topping up with a glass of port. Then the latter, who had
+been talking illuminatingly about Spain, rose, bowed and left the table,
+leaving Dickson, who liked to linger over his meals, to the society of
+the ichthyophagous student.
+
+He nodded towards the book. "Interesting?" he asked.
+
+The young man shook his head and displayed the name on the cover.
+"Anatole France. I used to be crazy about him, but now he seems rather a
+back number." Then he glanced towards the just-vacated chair.
+"Australian," he said.
+
+"How d'you know?"
+
+"Can't mistake them. There's nothing else so lean and fine produced on
+the globe to-day. I was next door to them at Pozičres and saw them
+fight. Lord! Such men! Now and then you had a freak, but most looked
+like Phoebus Apollo."
+
+Dickson gazed with a new respect at his neighbour, for he had not
+associated him with battle-fields. During the war he had been a fervent
+patriot, but, though he had never heard a shot himself, so many of his
+friends' sons and nephews, not to mention cousins of his own, had seen
+service, that he had come to regard the experience as commonplace. Lions
+in Africa and bandits in Mexico seemed to him novel and romantic things,
+but not trenches and airplanes which were the whole world's property.
+But he could scarcely fit his neighbour into even his haziest picture of
+war. The young man was tall and a little round-shouldered; he had
+short-sighted, rather prominent brown eyes, untidy black hair and dark
+eyebrows which came near to meeting. He wore a knickerbocker suit of
+bluish-grey tweed, a pale blue shirt, a pale blue collar and a dark blue
+tie--a symphony of colour which seemed too elaborately considered to be
+quite natural. Dickson had set him down as an artist or a newspaper
+correspondent, objects to him of lively interest. But now the
+classification must be reconsidered.
+
+"So you were in the war," he said encouragingly.
+
+"Four blasted years," was the savage reply. "And I never want to hear
+the name of the beastly thing again."
+
+"You said he was an Australian," said Dickson, casting back. "But I
+thought Australians had a queer accent, like the English."
+
+"They've all kind of accents, but you can never mistake their voice.
+It's got the sun in it. Canadians have got grinding ice in theirs, and
+Virginians have got butter. So have the Irish. In Britain there are no
+voices, only speaking tubes. It isn't safe to judge men by their accent
+only. You yourself I take to be Scotch, but for all I know you may be a
+senator from Chicago or a Boer General."
+
+"I'm from Glasgow. My name's Dickson McCunn." He had a faint hope that
+the announcement might affect the other as it had affected the bagman at
+Kilchrist.
+
+"Golly, what a name!" exclaimed the young man rudely.
+
+Dickson was nettled. "It's very old Highland," he said. "It means the
+son of a dog."
+
+"Which--Christian name or surname?" Then the young man appeared to think
+he had gone too far, for he smiled pleasantly. "And a very good name
+too. Mine is prosaic by comparison. They call me John Heritage."
+
+"That," said Dickson, mollified, "is like a name out of a book. With
+that name by rights you should be a poet."
+
+Gloom settled on the young man's countenance. "It's a dashed sight too
+poetic. It's like Edwin Arnold and Alfred Austin and Dante Gabriel
+Rossetti. Great poets have vulgar monosyllables for names, like Keats.
+The new Shakespeare when he comes along will probably be called Grubb or
+Jubber, if he isn't Jones. With a name like yours I might have a chance.
+_You_ should be the poet."
+
+"I'm very fond of reading," said Dickson modestly.
+
+A slow smile crumpled Mr. Heritage's face. "There's a fire in the
+smoking-room," he observed as he rose. "We'd better bag the armchairs
+before these fishing louts take them." Dickson followed obediently. This
+was the kind of chance acquaintance for whom he had hoped, and he was
+prepared to make the most of him.
+
+The fire burned bright in the little dusky smoking-room, lighted by one
+oil-lamp. Mr. Heritage flung himself into a chair, stretched his long
+legs and lit a pipe.
+
+"You like reading?" he asked. "What sort? Any use for poetry?"
+
+"Plenty," said Dickson. "I've aye been fond of learning it up and
+repeating it to myself when I had nothing to do. In church and waiting
+on trains, like. It used to be Tennyson, but now it's more Browning. I
+can say a lot of Browning."
+
+The other screwed his face into an expression of disgust. "I know the
+stuff. 'Damask cheeks and dewy sister eyelids.' Or else the Ercles
+vein--'God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world.' No good, Mr.
+McCunn. All back numbers. Poetry's not a thing of pretty round phrases
+or noisy invocations. It's life itself, with the tang of the raw world
+in it--not a sweetmeat for middle-class women in parlours."
+
+"Are you a poet, Mr. Heritage?"
+
+"No, Dogson, I'm a paper-maker."
+
+This was a new view to Mr. McCunn. "I just once knew a paper-maker," he
+observed reflectively. "They called him Tosh. He drank a bit."
+
+"Well, I don't drink," said the other. "I'm a paper-maker, but that's
+for my bread and butter. Some day for my own sake I may be a poet."
+
+"Have you published anything?"
+
+The eager admiration in Dickson's tone gratified Mr. Heritage. He drew
+from his pocket a slim book. "My firstfruits," he said, rather shyly.
+
+Dickson received it with reverence. It was a small volume in grey paper
+boards with a white label on the back, and it was lettered:
+"_Whorls--John Heritage's Book_." He turned the pages and read a little.
+"It's a nice wee book," he observed at length.
+
+"Good God, if you call it nice, I must have failed pretty badly," was
+the irritated answer.
+
+Dickson read more deeply and was puzzled. It seemed worse than the worst
+of Browning to understand. He found one poem about a garden entitled
+"Revue." "Crimson and resonant clangs the dawn," said the poet. Then he
+went on to describe noonday:
+
+    "Sunflowers, tall Grenadiers, ogle the roses' short-skirted ballet.
+     The fumes of dark sweet wine hidden in frail petals
+     Madden the drunkard bees."
+
+This seemed to him an odd way to look at things, and he boggled over a
+phrase about an "epicene lily." Then came evening: "The painted gauze of
+the stars flutters in a fold of twilight crape," sang Mr. Heritage; and
+again, "The moon's pale leprosy sloughs the fields."
+
+Dickson turned to other verses which apparently enshrined the writer's
+memory of the trenches. They were largely compounded of oaths, and
+rather horrible, lingering lovingly over sights and smells which every
+one is aware of, but most people contrive to forget. He did not like
+them. Finally he skimmed a poem about a lady who turned into a bird. The
+evolution was described with intimate anatomical details which scared
+the honest reader.
+
+He kept his eyes on the book for he did not know what to say. The trick
+seemed to be to describe nature in metaphors mostly drawn from
+music-halls and haberdashers' shops, and, when at a loss, to fall to
+cursing. He thought it frankly very bad, and he laboured to find words
+which would combine politeness and honesty.
+
+"Well?" said the poet.
+
+"There's a lot of fine things here, but--but the lines don't just seem
+to scan very well."
+
+Mr. Heritage laughed. "Now I can place you exactly. You like the meek
+rhyme and the conventional epithet. Well, I don't. The world has passed
+beyond that prettiness. You want the moon described as a Huntress or a
+gold disc or a flower--I say it's oftener like a beer barrel or a
+cheese. You want a wealth of jolly words and real things ruled out as
+unfit for poetry. I say there's nothing unfit for poetry. Nothing,
+Dogson! Poetry's everywhere, and the real thing is commoner among drabs
+and pot-houses and rubbish heaps than in your Sunday parlours. The
+poet's business is to distil it out of rottenness, and show that it is
+all one spirit, the thing that keeps the stars in their place.... I
+wanted to call my book '_Drains_,' for drains are sheer poetry, carrying
+off the excess and discards of human life to make the fields green and
+the corn ripen. But the publishers kicked. So I called it '_Whorls_,' to
+express my view of the exquisite involution of all things. Poetry is the
+fourth dimension of the soul.... Well, let's hear about your taste in
+prose."
+
+Mr. McCunn was much bewildered, and a little inclined to be cross. He
+disliked being called Dogson, which seemed to him an abuse of his
+etymological confidences. But his habit of politeness held.
+
+He explained rather haltingly his preferences in prose.
+
+Mr. Heritage listened with wrinkled brows.
+
+"You're even deeper in the mud than I thought," he remarked. "You live
+in a world of painted laths and shadows. All this passion for the
+picturesque! Trash, my dear man, like a schoolgirl's novelette heroes.
+You make up romances about gipsies and sailors and the blackguards they
+call pioneers, but you know nothing about them. If you did, you would
+find they had none of the gilt and gloss you imagine. But the great
+things they have got in common with all humanity you ignore. It's
+like--it's like sentimentalising about a pancake because it looked like
+a buttercup, and all the while not knowing that it was good to eat."
+
+At that moment the Australian entered the room to get a light for his
+pipe. He wore a motor-cyclist's overalls and appeared to be about to
+take the road. He bade them good night and it seemed to Dickson that his
+face, seen in the glow of the fire, was drawn and anxious, unlike that
+of the agreeable companion at dinner.
+
+"There," said Mr. Heritage, nodding after the departing figure. "I dare
+say you have been telling yourself stories about that chap--life in the
+bush, stock-riding and the rest of it. But probably he's a bank-clerk
+from Melbourne.... Your romanticism is one vast self-delusion and it
+blinds your eye to the real thing. We have got to clear it out and with
+it all the damnable humbug of the Kelt."
+
+Mr. McCunn, who spelt the word with a soft "C," was puzzled. "I thought
+a kelt was a kind of a no-weel fish," he interposed.
+
+But the other, in the flood-tide of his argument, ignored the
+interruption. "That's the value of the war," he went on. "It has burst
+up all the old conventions, and we've got to finish the destruction
+before we can build. It is the same with literature and religion and
+society and politics. At them with the axe, say I. I have no use for
+priests and pedants. I've no use for upper classes and middle classes.
+There's only one class that matters, the plain man, the workers, who
+live close to life."
+
+"The place for you," said Dickson dryly, "is in Russia among the
+Bolsheviks."
+
+Mr. Heritage approved. "They are doing a great work in their own
+fashion. We needn't imitate all their methods--they're a trifle crude
+and have too many Jews among them--but they've got hold of the right end
+of the stick. They seek truth and reality."
+
+Mr. McCunn was slowly being roused.
+
+"What brings you wandering hereaways?" he asked.
+
+"Exercise," was the answer. "I've been kept pretty closely tied up all
+winter. And I want leisure and quiet to think over things."
+
+"Well, there's one subject you might turn your attention to. You'll have
+been educated like a gentleman?"
+
+"Nine wasted years--five at Harrow, four at Cambridge."
+
+"See here, then. You're daft about the working-class and have no use for
+any other. But what in the name of goodness do you know about
+working-men?... I come out of them myself, and have lived next door to
+them all my days. Take them one way and another, they're a decent sort,
+good and bad like the rest of us. But there's a wheen daft folk that
+would set them up as models--close to truth and reality, says you. It's
+sheer ignorance, for you're about as well acquaint with the working-man
+as with King Solomon. You say I make up fine stories about tinklers and
+sailor-men because I know nothing about them. That's maybe true. But
+you're at the same job yourself. You ideelise the working-man, you and
+your kind, because you're ignorant. You say that he's seeking for truth,
+when he's only looking for a drink and a rise in wages. You tell me he's
+near reality, but I tell you that his notion of reality is often just a
+short working day and looking on at a footba'-match on Saturday.... And
+when you run down what you call the middle-classes that do
+three-quarters of the world's work and keep the machine going and the
+working man in a job, then I tell you you're talking havers. Havers!"
+
+Mr. McCunn, having delivered his defence of the bourgeoisie, rose
+abruptly and went to bed. He felt jarred and irritated. His innocent
+little private domain had been badly trampled by this stray bull of a
+poet. But as he lay in bed, before blowing out his candle, he had
+recourse to Walton, and found a passage on which, as on a pillow, he
+went peacefully to sleep:
+
+    "As I left this place, and entered into the next field, a second
+    pleasure entertained me; 'twas a handsome milkmaid, that had not yet
+    attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any fears
+    of many things that will never be, as too many men too often do; but
+    she cast away all care, and sang like a nightingale; her voice was
+    good, and the ditty fitted for it; it was the smooth song that was
+    made by _Kit Marlow_ now at least fifty years ago. And the
+    milkmaid's mother sung an answer to it, which was made by _Sir
+    Walter Raleigh_ in his younger days. They were old-fashioned poetry,
+    but choicely good; I think much better than the strong lines that
+    are now in fashion in this critical age."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HOW CHILDE ROLAND AND ANOTHER CAME TO THE DARK TOWER
+
+
+Dickson woke with a vague sense of irritation. As his recollections took
+form they produced a very unpleasant picture of Mr. John Heritage. The
+poet had loosened all his placid idols, so that they shook and rattled
+in the niches where they had been erstwhile so secure. Mr. McCunn had a
+mind of a singular candour, and was prepared most honestly at all times
+to revise his views. But by this iconoclast he had been only irritated
+and in no way convinced. "_Sich_ poetry!" he muttered to himself as he
+shivered in his bath (a daily cold tub instead of his customary hot one
+on Saturday night being part of the discipline of his holiday). "And yon
+blethers about the working-man!" he ingeminated as he shaved. He
+breakfasted alone, having outstripped even the fishermen, and as he ate
+he arrived at conclusions. He had a great respect for youth, but a line
+must be drawn somewhere. "The man's a child," he decided, "and not like
+to grow up. The way he's besotted on everything daftlike, if it's only
+_new_. And he's no rightly young either--speaks like an auld dominie,
+whiles. And he's rather impident," he concluded, with memories of
+"Dogson."... He was very clear that he never wanted to see him again;
+that was the reason of his early breakfast. Having clarified his mind by
+definitions, Dickson felt comforted. He paid his bill, took an
+affectionate farewell of the landlord, and at 7.30 precisely stepped out
+into the gleaming morning.
+
+It was such a day as only a Scots April can show. The cobbled streets of
+Kirkmichael still shone with the night's rain, but the storm clouds had
+fled before a mild south wind, and the whole circumference of the sky
+was a delicate translucent blue. Homely breakfast smells came from the
+houses and delighted Mr. McCunn's nostrils; a squalling child was a
+pleasant reminder of an awakening world, the urban counterpart to the
+morning song of birds; even the sanitary cart seemed a picturesque
+vehicle. He bought his ration of buns and ginger biscuits at a baker's
+shop whence various ragamuffin boys were preparing to distribute the
+householders' bread, and took his way up the Gallows Hill to the Burgh
+Muir almost with regret at leaving so pleasant a habitation.
+
+A chronicle of ripe vintages must pass lightly over small beer. I will
+not dwell on his leisurely progress in the bright weather, or on his
+luncheon in a coppice of young firs, or on his thoughts which had
+returned to the idyllic. I take up the narrative at about three o'clock
+in the afternoon, when he is revealed seated on a milestone examining
+his map. For he had come, all unwitting, to a turning of the ways, and
+his choice is the cause of this veracious history.
+
+The place was high up on a bare moor, which showed a white lodge among
+pines, a white cottage in a green nook by a burnside, and no other marks
+of human dwelling. To his left, which was the east, the heather rose to
+a low ridge of hill, much scarred with peat-bogs, behind which appeared
+the blue shoulder of a considerable mountain. Before him the road was
+lost momentarily in the woods of a shooting-box, but reappeared at a
+great distance climbing a swell of upland which seemed to be the glacis
+of a jumble of bold summits. There was a pass there, the map told him,
+which led into Galloway. It was the road he had meant to follow, but as
+he sat on the milestone his purpose wavered. For there seemed greater
+attractions in the country which lay to the westward. Mr. McCunn, be it
+remembered, was not in search of brown heath and shaggy wood; he wanted
+greenery and the Spring.
+
+Westward there ran out a peninsula in the shape of an isosceles
+triangle, of which his present highroad was the base. At a distance of a
+mile or so a railway ran parallel to the road, and he could see the
+smoke of a goods train waiting at a tiny station islanded in acres of
+bog. Thence the moor swept down to meadows and scattered copses, above
+which hung a thin haze of smoke which betokened a village. Beyond it
+were further woodlands, not firs but old shady trees, and as they
+narrowed to a point the gleam of two tiny estuaries appeared on either
+side. He could not see the final cape, but he saw the sea beyond it,
+flawed with catspaws, gold in the afternoon sun, and on it a small
+herring smack flapping listless sails.
+
+Something in the view caught and held his fancy. He conned his map, and
+made out the names. The peninsula was called the Cruives--an old name
+apparently, for it was in antique lettering. He vaguely remembered that
+"cruives" had something to do with fishing, doubtless in the two streams
+which flanked it. One he had already crossed, the Laver, a clear
+tumbling water springing from green hills; the other, the Garple,
+descended from the rougher mountains to the south. The hidden village
+bore the name of Dalquharter, and the uncouth syllables awoke some vague
+recollection in his mind. The great house in the trees beyond--it must
+be a great house, for the map showed large policies--was Huntingtower.
+
+The last name fascinated and almost decided him. He pictured an ancient
+keep by the sea, defended by converging rivers, which some old Comyn
+lord of Galloway had built to command the shore road and from which he
+had sallied to hunt in his wild hills.... He liked the way the moor
+dropped down to green meadows, and the mystery of the dark woods beyond.
+He wanted to explore the twin waters, and see how they entered that
+strange shimmering sea. The odd names, the odd cul-de-sac of a
+peninsula, powerfully attracted him. Why should he not spend a night
+there, for the map showed clearly that Dalquharter had an inn? He must
+decide promptly, for before him a side-road left the highway, and the
+signpost bore the legend, "Dalquharter and Huntingtower."
+
+Mr. McCunn, being a cautious and pious man, took the omens. He tossed a
+penny--heads go on, tails turn aside. It fell tails.
+
+He knew as soon as he had taken three steps down the side-road that he
+was doing something momentous, and the exhilaration of enterprise stole
+into his soul. It occurred to him that this was the kind of landscape
+that he had always especially hankered after, and had made pictures of
+when he had a longing for the country on him--a wooded cape between
+streams, with meadows inland and then a long lift of heather. He had the
+same feeling of expectancy, of something most interesting and curious on
+the eve of happening, that he had had long ago when he waited on the
+curtain rising at his first play. His spirits soared like the lark, and
+he took to singing. If only the inn at Dalquharter were snug and empty,
+this was going to be a day in ten thousand. Thus mirthfully he swung
+down the rough grass-grown road, past the railway, till he came to a
+point where heath began to merge in pasture, and dry-stone walls split
+the moor into fields. Suddenly his pace slackened and song died on his
+lips. For, approaching from the right by a tributary path, was the Poet.
+
+Mr. Heritage saw him afar off and waved a friendly hand. In spite of his
+chagrin Dickson could not but confess that he had misjudged his critic.
+Striding with long steps over the heather, his jacket open to the wind,
+his face a-glow and his capless head like a whin-bush for disorder, he
+cut a more wholesome and picturesque figure than in the smoking-room
+the night before. He seemed to be in a companionable mood, for he
+brandished his stick and shouted greetings.
+
+"Well met!" he cried; "I was hoping to fall in with you again. You must
+have thought me a pretty fair cub last night."
+
+"I did that," was the dry answer.
+
+"Well, I want to apologise. God knows what made me treat you to a
+university-extension lecture. I may not agree with you, but every man's
+entitled to his own views, and it was dashed poor form for me to start
+jawing you."
+
+Mr. McCunn had no gift of nursing anger, and was very susceptible to
+apologies.
+
+"That's all right," he murmured. "Don't mention it. I'm wondering what
+brought you down here, for it's off the road."
+
+"Caprice. Pure caprice. I liked the look of this butt-end of nowhere."
+
+"Same here. I've aye thought there was something terrible nice about a
+wee cape with a village at the neck of it and a burn each side."
+
+"Now that's interesting," said Mr. Heritage. "You're obsessed by a
+particular type of landscape. Ever read Freud?"
+
+Dickson shook his head.
+
+"Well, you've got an odd complex somewhere. I wonder where the key lies.
+Cape--woods--two rivers--moor behind. Ever been in love, Dogson?"
+
+Mr. McCunn was startled. "Love" was a word rarely mentioned in his
+circle except on death-beds. "I've been a married man for thirty years,"
+he said hurriedly.
+
+"That won't do. It should have been a hopeless affair--the last sight of
+the lady on a spur of coast with water on three sides--that kind of
+thing, you know. Or it might have happened to an ancestor.... But you
+don't look the kind of breed for hopeless attachments. More likely some
+scoundrelly old Dogson long ago found sanctuary in this sort of place.
+Do you dream about it?"
+
+"Not exactly."
+
+"Well, I do. The queer thing is that I've got the same prepossession as
+you. As soon as I spotted this Cruives place on the map this morning, I
+saw it was what I was after. When I came in sight of it I almost
+shouted. I don't very often dream, but when I do that's the place I
+frequent. Odd, isn't it?"
+
+Mr. McCunn was deeply interested at this unexpected revelation of
+romance. "Maybe it's being in love," he daringly observed.
+
+The Poet demurred. "No. I'm not a connoisseur of obvious sentiment. That
+explanation might fit your case, but not mine. I'm pretty certain
+there's something hideous at the back of _my_ complex--some grim old
+business tucked away back in the ages. For though I'm attracted by the
+place, I'm frightened too!"
+
+There seemed no room for fear in the delicate landscape now opening
+before them. In front in groves of birch and rowans smoked the first
+houses of a tiny village. The road had become a green "loaning" on the
+ample margin of which cattle grazed. The moorland still showed itself in
+spits of heather, and some distance off, where a rivulet ran in a
+hollow, there were signs of a fire and figures near it. These last Mr.
+Heritage regarded with disapproval.
+
+"Some infernal trippers!" he murmured. "Or Boy Scouts. They desecrate
+everything. Why can't the _tunicatus popellus_ keep away from a paradise
+like this!" Dickson, a democrat who felt nothing incongruous in the
+presence of other holiday-makers, was meditating a sharp rejoinder, when
+Mr. Heritage's tone changed.
+
+"Ye gods! What a village!" he cried, as they turned a corner. There were
+not more than a dozen whitewashed houses, all set in little gardens of
+wallflower and daffodil and early fruit blossom. A triangle of green
+filled the intervening space, and in it stood an ancient wooden pump.
+There was no schoolhouse or kirk; not even a post-office--only a red box
+in a cottage side. Beyond rose the high wall and the dark trees of the
+demesne, and to the right up a by-road which clung to the park edge
+stood a two-storeyed building which bore the legend "The Cruives Inn."
+
+The Poet became lyrical. "At last!" he cried. "The village of my dreams!
+Not a sign of commerce! No church or school or beastly recreation hall!
+Nothing but these divine little cottages and an ancient pub! Dogson, I
+warn you, I'm going to have the devil of a tea." And he declaimed:
+
+             "Thou shalt hear a song
+    After a while which Gods may listen to;
+    But place the flask upon the board and wait
+    Until the stranger hath allayed his thirst,
+    For poets, grasshoppers and nightingales
+    Sing cheerily but when the throat is moist."
+
+Dickson, too, longed with sensual gusto for tea. But, as they drew
+nearer, the inn lost its hospitable look. The cobbles of the yard were
+weedy, as if rarely visited by traffic, a pane in a window was broken,
+and the blinds hung tattered. The garden was a wilderness, and the
+doorstep had not been scoured for weeks. But the place had a landlord,
+for he had seen them approach and was waiting at the door to meet them.
+
+He was a big man in his shirt sleeves, wearing old riding breeches
+unbuttoned at the knees, and thick ploughman's boots. He had no
+leggings, and his fleshy calves were imperfectly covered with woollen
+socks. His face was large and pale, his neck bulged, and he had a gross
+unshaven jowl. He was a type familiar to students of society; not the
+innkeeper, which is a thing consistent with good breeding and all the
+refinements; a type not unknown in the House of Lords, especially among
+recent creations, common enough in the House of Commons and the City of
+London, and by no means infrequent in the governing circles of Labour;
+the type known to the discerning as the Licensed Victualler.
+
+His face was wrinkled in official smiles, and he gave the travellers a
+hearty good afternoon.
+
+"Can we stop here for the night?" Dickson asked.
+
+The landlord looked sharply at him, and then replied to Mr. Heritage.
+His expression passed from official bonhomie to official contrition.
+
+"Impossible, gentlemen. Quite impossible.... Ye couldn't have come at a
+worse time. I've only been here a fortnight myself, and we haven't got
+right shaken down yet. Even then I might have made shift to do with ye,
+but the fact is we've illness in the house, and I'm fair at my wits'
+end. It breaks my heart to turn gentlemen away and me that keen to get
+the business started. But there it is!" He spat vigorously as if to
+emphasise the desperation of his quandary.
+
+The man was clearly Scots, but his native speech was overlaid with
+something alien, something which might have been acquired in America or
+in going down to the sea in ships. He hitched his breeches, too, with a
+nautical air.
+
+"Is there nowhere else we can put up?" Dickson asked.
+
+"Not in this one-horse place. Just a wheen auld wives that packed
+thegether they haven't room for an extra hen. But it's grand weather,
+and it's not above seven miles to Auchenlochan. Say the word and I'll
+yoke the horse and drive ye there."
+
+"Thank you. We prefer to walk," said Mr. Heritage. Dickson would have
+tarried to inquire after the illness in the house, but his companion
+hurried him off. Once he looked back, and saw the landlord still on the
+doorstep gazing after them.
+
+"That fellow's a swine," said Mr. Heritage sourly. "I wouldn't trust my
+neck in his pothouse. Now, Dogson, I'm hanged if I'm going to leave this
+place. We'll find a corner in the village somehow. Besides, I'm
+determined on tea."
+
+The little street slept in the clear pure light of an early April
+evening. Blue shadows lay on the white road, and a delicate aroma of
+cooking tantalised hungry nostrils. The near meadows shone like pale
+gold against the dark lift of the moor. A light wind had begun to blow
+from the west and carried the faintest tang of salt. The village at that
+hour was pure Paradise, and Dickson was of the Poet's opinion. At all
+costs they must spend the night there.
+
+They selected a cottage whiter and neater than the others, which stood
+at a corner, where a narrow lane turned southward. Its thatched roof had
+been lately repaired, and starched curtains of a dazzling whiteness
+decorated the small, closely-shut windows. Likewise it had a green door
+and a polished brass knocker.
+
+Tacitly the duty of envoy was entrusted to Mr. McCunn. Leaving the other
+at the gate, he advanced up the little path lined with quartz stones,
+and politely but firmly dropped the brass knocker. He must have been
+observed, for ere the noise had ceased the door opened, and an elderly
+woman stood before him. She had a sharply-cut face, the rudiments of a
+beard, big spectacles on her nose, and an old-fashioned lace cap on her
+smooth white hair. A little grim she looked at first sight, because of
+her thin lips and Roman nose, but her mild curious eyes corrected the
+impression and gave the envoy confidence.
+
+"Good afternoon, mistress," he said, broadening his voice to something
+more rustical than his normal Glasgow speech. "Me and my friend are
+paying our first visit here, and we're terrible taken up with the place.
+We would like to bide the night, but the inn is no' taking folk. Is
+there any chance, think you, of a bed here?"
+
+"I'll no tell ye a lee," said the woman. "There's twae guid beds in the
+loft. But I dinna tak' lodgers and I dinna want to be bothered wi' ye.
+I'm an auld wumman and no' as stoot as I was. Ye'd better try doun the
+street. Eppie Home micht tak' ye."
+
+Dickson wore his most ingratiating smile. "But, mistress, Eppie Home's
+house is no' yours. We've taken a tremendous fancy to this bit. Can you
+no' manage to put with us for the one night? We're quiet auld-fashioned
+folk and we'll no' trouble you much. Just our tea and maybe an egg to
+it, and a bowl of porridge in the morning."
+
+The woman seemed to relent. "Whaur's your freend?" she asked, peering
+over her spectacles towards the garden gate. The waiting Mr. Heritage,
+seeing her eyes moving in his direction, took off his cap with a brave
+gesture and advanced. "Glorious weather, Madam," he declared.
+
+"English," whispered Dickson to the woman, in explanation.
+
+She examined the Poet's neat clothes and Mr. McCunn's homely garments,
+and apparently found them reassuring. "Come in," she said shortly. "I
+see ye're wilfu' folk and I'll hae to dae my best for ye."
+
+A quarter of an hour later the two travellers, having been introduced to
+two spotless beds in the loft, and having washed luxuriously at the pump
+in the back yard, were seated in Mrs. Morran's kitchen before a meal
+which fulfilled their wildest dreams. She had been baking that morning,
+so there were white scones and barley scones, and oaten farles, and
+russet pancakes. There were three boiled eggs for each of them; there
+was a segment of an immense currant cake ("a present from my guid
+brither last Hogmanay"); there was skim-milk cheese; there were several
+kinds of jam, and there was a pot of dark-gold heather honey. "Try hinny
+and aitcake," said their hostess. "My man used to say he never fund
+onything as guid in a' his days."
+
+Presently they heard her story. Her name was Morran, and she had been a
+widow these ten years. Of her family her son was in South Africa, one
+daughter a lady's maid in London, and the other married to a
+schoolmaster in Kyle. The son had been in France fighting, and had come
+safely through. He had spent a month or two with her before his return,
+and, she feared, had found it dull. "There's no' a man body in the
+place. Naething but auld wives."
+
+That was what the innkeeper had told them. Mr. McCunn inquired
+concerning the inn.
+
+"There's new folk just come. What's this they ca'
+them?--Robson--Dobson--aye, Dobson. What for wad they no' tak' ye in?
+Does the man think he's a laird to refuse folk that gait?"
+
+"He said he had illness in the house."
+
+Mrs. Morran meditated. "Whae in the world can be lyin' there? The man
+bides his lane. He got a lassie frae Auchenlochan to cook, but she and
+her box gaed off in the post-cairt yestreen. I doot he tell't ye a lee,
+though it's no for me to juidge him. I've never spoken a word to ane o'
+thae new folk."
+
+Dickson inquired about the "new folk."
+
+"They're a' new come in the last three weeks, and there's no' a man o'
+the auld stock left. John Blackstocks at the Wast Lodge dee'd o'
+pneumony last back-end, and auld Simon Tappie at the Gairdens flitted to
+Maybole a year come Mairtinmas. There's naebody at the Gairdens noo, but
+there's a man come to the Wast Lodge, a blackavised body wi' a face like
+bend-leather. Tam Robison used to bide at the South Lodge, but Tam got
+killed about Mesopotamy, and his wife took the bairns to her guidsire up
+at the Garpleheid. I seen the man that's in the South Lodge gaun up the
+street when I was finishin' my denner--a shilpit body and a lameter, but
+he hirples as fast as ither folk run. He's no' bonny to look at. I canna
+think what the factor's ettlin' at to let sic' ill-faured chiels come
+about the toun."
+
+Their hostess was rapidly rising in Dickson's esteem. She sat very
+straight in her chair, eating with the careful gentility of a bird, and
+primming her thin lips after every mouthful of tea.
+
+"Who bides in the Big House?" he asked. "Huntingtower is the name, isn't
+it?"
+
+"When I was a lassie they ca'ed it Dalquharter Hoose, and Huntingtower
+was the auld rickle o' stanes at the sea-end. But naething wad serve the
+last laird's faither but he maun change the name, for he was clean daft
+about what they ca' antickities. Ye speir whae bides in the Hoose?
+Naebody, since the young laird dee'd. It's standin' cauld and lanely and
+steikit, and it aince the cheeriest dwallin' in a' Carrick."
+
+Mrs. Morran's tone grew tragic. "It's a queer warld wi'out the auld
+gentry. My faither and my guidsire and his faither afore him served the
+Kennedys, and my man Dauvit Morran was gemkeeper to them, and afore I
+mairried I was ane o' the table-maids. They were kind folk, the
+Kennedys, and, like a' the rale gentry, maist mindfu' o' them that
+served them. Sic' merry nichts I've seen in the auld Hoose, at
+Hallowe'en and Hogmanay, and at the servants' balls and the waddin's o'
+the young leddies! But the laird bode to waste his siller in stane and
+lime, and hadna that much to leave to his bairns. And now they've a'
+scattered or deid."
+
+Her grave face wore the tenderness which comes from affectionate
+reminiscence.
+
+"There was never sic a laddie as young Maister Quentin. No' a week gaed
+by but he was in here, cryin', 'Phemie Morran, I've come till my tea!'
+Fine he likit my treacle scones, puir man. There wasna ane in the
+countryside sae bauld a rider at the hunt, or sic a skeely fisher. And
+he was clever at his books tae, a graund scholar, they said, and ettlin'
+at bein' what they ca' a dipplemat. But that's a' bye wi'."
+
+"Quentin Kennedy--the fellow in the Tins?" Heritage asked. "I saw him in
+Rome when he was with the Mission."
+
+"I dinna ken. He was a brave sodger, but he wasna long fechtin' in
+France till he got a bullet in his breist. Syne we heard tell o' him in
+far awa' bits like Russia; and syne cam' the end o' the war and we
+lookit to see him back, fishin' the waters and ridin' like Jehu as in
+the auld days. But wae's me! It wasna permitted. The next news we got,
+the puir laddie was deid o' influenzy and buried somewhere about France.
+The wanchancy bullet maun have weakened his chest, nae doot. So that's
+the end o' the guid stock o' Kennedy o' Huntingtower, whae hae been
+great folk sin' the time o' Robert Bruce. And noo the Hoose is shut up
+till the lawyers can get somebody sae far left to himsel' as to tak' it
+on lease, and in thae dear days it's no' just onybody that wants a
+muckle castle."
+
+"Who are the lawyers?" Dickson asked.
+
+"Glendonan and Speirs in Embro. But they never look near the place, and
+Maister Loudoun in Auchenlochan does the factorin'. He's let the public
+an' filled the twae lodges, and he'll be thinkin' nae doot that he's
+done eneuch."
+
+Mrs. Morran had poured some hot water into the big slop-bowl, and had
+begun the operation known as "synding out" the cups. It was a hint that
+the meal was over and Dickson and Heritage rose from the table. Followed
+by an injunction to be back for supper "on the chap o' nine," they
+strolled out into the evening. Two hours of some sort of daylight
+remained, and the travellers had that impulse to activity which comes to
+all men who, after a day of exercise and emptiness, are stayed with a
+satisfying tea.
+
+"You should be happy, Dogson," said the Poet. "Here we have all the
+materials for your blessed romance--old mansion, extinct family, village
+deserted of men and an innkeeper whom I suspect of being a villain. I
+feel almost a convert to your nonsense myself. We'll have a look at the
+House."
+
+They turned down the road which ran north by the park wall, past the inn
+which looked more abandoned than ever, till they came to an entrance
+which was clearly the West Lodge. It had once been a pretty, modish
+cottage, with a thatched roof and dormer windows, but now it was badly
+in need of repair. A window-pane was broken and stuffed with a sack, the
+posts of the porch were giving inwards, and the thatch was crumbling
+under the attentions of a colony of starlings. The great iron gates were
+rusty, and on the coat of arms above them the gilding was patchy and
+tarnished.
+
+Apparently the gates were locked, and even the side wicket failed to
+open to Heritage's vigorous shaking. Inside a weedy drive disappeared
+among ragged rhododendrons.
+
+The noise brought a man to the lodge door. He was a sturdy fellow in a
+suit of black clothes which had not been made for him. He might have
+been a butler _en deshabille_, but for the presence of a pair of field
+boots into which he had tucked the ends of his trousers. The curious
+thing about him was his face, which was decorated with features so tiny
+as to give the impression of a monstrous child. Each in itself was well
+enough formed, but eyes, nose, mouth, chin were of a smallness curiously
+out of proportion to the head and body. Such an anomaly might have been
+redeemed by the expression; good-humour would have invested it with an
+air of agreeable farce. But there was no friendliness in the man's face.
+It was set like a judge's in a stony impassiveness.
+
+"May we walk up to the House?" Heritage asked. "We are here for a night
+and should like to have a look at it."
+
+The man advanced a step. He had either a bad cold, or a voice comparable
+in size to his features.
+
+"There's no entrance here," he said huskily. "I have strict orders."
+
+"Oh, come now," said Heritage. "It can do nobody any harm if you let us
+in for half an hour."
+
+The man advanced another step.
+
+"You shall not come in. Go away from here. Go away, I tell you. It is
+private." The words spoken by the small mouth in the small voice had a
+kind of childish ferocity.
+
+The travellers turned their back on him and continued their way.
+
+"Sich a curmudgeon!" Dickson commented. His face had flushed, for he was
+susceptible to rudeness. "Did you notice? That man's a foreigner."
+
+"He's a brute," said Heritage. "But I'm not going to be done in by that
+class of lad. There can be no gates on the sea side, so we'll work round
+that way, for I won't sleep till I've seen the place."
+
+Presently the trees grew thinner, and the road plunged through thickets
+of hazel till it came to a sudden stop in a field. There the cover
+ceased wholly, and below them lay the glen of the Laver. Steep green
+banks descended to a stream which swept in coils of gold into the eye of
+the sunset. A little further down the channel broadened, the slopes fell
+back a little, and a tongue of glittering sea ran up to meet the hill
+waters. The Laver is a gentle stream after it leaves its cradle heights,
+a stream of clear pools and long bright shallows, winding by moorland
+steadings and upland meadows; but in its last half-mile it goes mad, and
+imitates its childhood when it tumbled over granite shelves. Down in
+that green place the crystal water gushed and frolicked as if determined
+on one hour of rapturous life before joining the sedater sea.
+
+Heritage flung himself on the turf.
+
+"This is a good place! Ye gods, what a good place! Dogson, aren't you
+glad you came? I think everything's bewitched to-night. That village is
+bewitched, and that old woman's tea. Good white magic! And that foul
+innkeeper and that brigand at the gate. Black magic! And now here is the
+home of all enchantment--'island valley of Avilion'--'waters that
+listen for lovers'--all the rest of it!"
+
+Dickson observed and marvelled.
+
+"I can't make you out, Mr. Heritage. You were saying last night you were
+a great democrat, and yet you were objecting to yon laddies camping on
+the moor. And you very near bit the neb off me when I said I liked
+Tennyson. And now...." Mr. McCunn's command of language was inadequate
+to describe the transformation.
+
+"You're a precise, pragmatical Scot," was the answer. "Hang it, man,
+don't remind me that I'm inconsistent. I've a poet's licence to play the
+fool, and if you don't understand me, I don't in the least understand
+myself. All I know is that I'm feeling young and jolly and that it's the
+Spring."
+
+Mr. Heritage was assuredly in a strange mood. He began to whistle with a
+far-away look in his eye.
+
+"Do you know what that is?" he asked suddenly.
+
+Dickson, who could not detect any tune, said No.
+
+"It's an _aria_ from a Russian opera that came out just before the war.
+I've forgotten the name of the fellow who wrote it. Jolly thing, isn't
+it? I always remind myself of it when I'm in this mood, for it is linked
+with the greatest experience of my life. You said, I think, that you had
+never been in love?"
+
+Dickson replied in the native fashion. "Have you?" he asked.
+
+"I have, and I am--been for two years. I was down with my battalion on
+the Italian front early in 1918, and because I could speak the language
+they hoicked me out and sent me to Rome on a liaison job. It was Easter
+time and fine weather and, being glad to get out of the trenches, I was
+pretty well pleased with myself and enjoying life.... In the place where
+I stayed there was a girl. She was a Russian, a princess of a great
+family, but a refugee and of course as poor as sin.... I remember how
+badly dressed she was among all the well-to-do Romans. But, my God, what
+a beauty! There was never anything in the world like her.... She was
+little more than a child, and she used to sing that air in the morning
+as she went down the stairs.... They sent me back to the front before I
+had a chance of getting to know her, but she used to give me little
+timid good mornings, and her voice and eyes were like an angel's.... I'm
+over my head in love, but it's hopeless, quite hopeless. I shall never
+see her again."
+
+"I'm sure I'm honoured by your confidence," said Dickson reverently.
+
+The Poet, who seemed to draw exhilaration from the memory of his
+sorrows, arose and fetched him a clout on the back. "Don't talk of
+confidence as if you were a reporter," he said. "What about that House?
+If we're to see it before the dark comes we'd better hustle."
+
+The green slopes on their left, as they ran seaward, were clothed
+towards their summit with a tangle of broom and light scrub. The two
+forced their way through this, and found to their surprise that on this
+side there were no defences of the Huntingtower demesne. Along the crest
+ran a path which had once been gravelled and trimmed. Beyond through a
+thicket of laurels and rhododendrons they came on a long unkempt aisle
+of grass, which seemed to be one of those side avenues often found in
+connection with old Scots dwellings. Keeping along this they reached a
+grove of beech and holly through which showed a dim shape of masonry. By
+a common impulse they moved stealthily, crouching in cover, till at the
+far side of the wood they found a sunk fence and looked over an acre or
+two of what had once been lawn and flower-beds to the front of the
+mansion.
+
+The outline of the building was clearly silhouetted against the glowing
+west, but since they were looking at the east face the detail was all in
+shadow. But, dim as it was, the sight was enough to give Dickson the
+surprise of his life. He had expected something old and baronial. But
+this was new, raw and new, not twenty years built. Some madness had
+prompted its creator to set up a replica of a Tudor house in a
+countryside where the thing was unheard of. All the tricks were
+there--oriel windows, lozenged panes, high twisted chimney stacks; the
+very stone was red, as if to imitate the mellow brick of some ancient
+Kentish manor. It was new, but it was also decaying. The creepers had
+fallen from the walls, the pilasters on the terrace were tumbling down,
+lichen and moss were on the doorsteps. Shuttered, silent, abandoned, it
+stood like a harsh _memento mori_ of human hopes.
+
+Dickson had never before been affected by an inanimate thing with so
+strong a sense of disquiet. He had pictured an old stone tower on a
+bright headland; he found instead this raw thing among trees. The
+decadence of the brand-new repels as something against nature, and this
+new thing was decadent. But there was a mysterious life in it, for
+though not a chimney smoked, it seemed to enshrine a personality and to
+wear a sinister _aura_. He felt a lively distaste, which was almost
+fear. He wanted to get far away from it as fast as possible. The sun,
+now sinking very low, sent up rays which kindled the crests of a group
+of firs to the left of the front door. He had the absurd fancy that they
+were torches flaming before a bier.
+
+It was well that the two had moved quietly and kept in shadow. Footsteps
+fell on their ears, on the path which threaded the lawn just beyond the
+sunk-fence. It was the keeper of the West Lodge and he carried something
+on his back, but both that and his face were indistinct in the
+half-light.
+
+Other footsteps were heard, coming from the other side of the lawn. A
+man's shod feet rang on the stone of a flagged path, and from their
+irregular fall it was plain that he was lame. The two men met near the
+door, and spoke together. Then they separated, and moved one down each
+side of the house. To the two watchers they had the air of a patrol, or
+of warders pacing the corridors of a prison.
+
+"Let's get out of this," said Dickson, and turned to go.
+
+The air had the curious stillness which precedes the moment of sunset,
+when the birds of day have stopped their noises and the sounds of night
+have not begun. But suddenly in the silence fell notes of music. They
+seemed to come from the house, a voice singing softly but with great
+beauty and clearness.
+
+Dickson halted in his steps. The tune, whatever it was, was like a fresh
+wind to blow aside his depression. The house no longer looked
+sepulchral. He saw that the two men had hurried back from their patrol,
+had met and exchanged some message, and made off again as if alarmed by
+the music. Then he noticed his companion....
+
+Heritage was on one knee with his face rapt and listening. He got to his
+feet and appeared to be about to make for the House. Dickson caught him
+by the arm and dragged him into the bushes, and he followed
+unresistingly, like a man in a dream. They ploughed through the thicket,
+recrossed the grass avenue, and scrambled down the hillside to the banks
+of the stream.
+
+Then for the first time Dickson observed that his companion's face was
+very white, and that sweat stood on his temples. Heritage lay down and
+lapped up water like a dog. Then he turned a wild eye on the other.
+
+"I am going back," he said. "That is the voice of the girl I saw in
+Rome, and it is singing her song!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DOUGAL
+
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Dickson. "You're coming home to
+your supper. It was to be on the chap of nine."
+
+"I'm going back to that place."
+
+The man was clearly demented and must be humoured. "Well, you must wait
+till the morn's morning. It's very near dark now, and those are two ugly
+customers wandering about yonder. You'd better sleep the night on it."
+
+Mr. Heritage seemed to be persuaded. He suffered himself to be led up
+the now dusky slopes to the gate where the road from the village ended.
+He walked listlessly like a man engaged in painful reflection. Once only
+he broke the silence.
+
+"You heard the singing?" he asked.
+
+Dickson was a very poor hand at a lie. "I heard something," he admitted.
+
+"You heard a girl's voice singing?"
+
+"It sounded like that," was the admission. "But I'm thinking it might
+have been a seagull."
+
+"You're a fool," said the Poet rudely.
+
+The return was a melancholy business, compared to the bright speed of
+the outward journey. Dickson's mind was a chaos of feelings, all of them
+unpleasant. He had run up against something which he violently, blindly
+detested, and the trouble was that he could not tell why. It was all
+perfectly absurd, for why on earth should an ugly house, some overgrown
+trees and a couple of ill-favoured servants so malignly affect him? Yet
+this was the fact; he had strayed out of Arcady into a sphere that
+filled him with revolt and a nameless fear. Never in his experience had
+he felt like this, this foolish childish panic which took all the colour
+and zest out of life. He tried to laugh at himself but failed. Heritage,
+stumbling alone by his side, effectually crushed his effort to discover
+humour in the situation. Some exhalation from that infernal place had
+driven the Poet mad. And then that voice singing! A seagull, he had
+said. More like a nightingale, he reflected--a bird which in the flesh
+he had never met.
+
+Mrs. Morran had the lamp lit and a fire burning in her cheerful kitchen.
+The sight of it somewhat restored Dickson's equanimity, and to his
+surprise he found that he had an appetite for supper. There was new
+milk, thick with cream, and most of the dainties which had appeared at
+tea, supplemented by a noble dish of shimmering "potted-head." The
+hostess did not share their meal, being engaged in some duties in the
+little cubby-hole known as the back kitchen.
+
+Heritage drank a glass of milk but would not touch food.
+
+"I called this place Paradise four hours ago," he said. "So it is, but I
+fancy it is next door to Hell. There is something devilish going on
+inside that park wall and I mean to get to the bottom of it."
+
+"Hoots! Nonsense!" Dickson replied with affected cheerfulness.
+"To-morrow you and me will take the road for Auchenlochan. We needn't
+trouble ourselves about an ugly old house and a wheen impident
+lodge-keepers."
+
+"To-morrow I'm going to get inside the place. Don't come unless you
+like, but it's no use arguing with me. My mind is made up."
+
+Heritage cleared a space on the table and spread out a section of a
+large-scale Ordnance map.
+
+"I must clear my head about the topography, the same as if this were a
+battle-ground. Look here, Dogson.... The road past the inn that we went
+by to-night runs north and south." He tore a page from a note-book and
+proceeded to make a rough sketch.[1]... "One end we know abuts on the
+Laver glen, and the other stops at the South Lodge. Inside the wall
+which follows the road is a long belt of plantation--mostly beeches and
+ash--then to the west a kind of park, and beyond that the lawns of the
+house. Strips of plantation with avenues between follow the north and
+south sides of the park. On the sea side of the House are the stables
+and what looks like a walled garden, and beyond them what seems to be
+open ground with an old dovecot marked and the ruins of Huntingtower
+keep. Beyond that there is more open ground, till you come to the cliffs
+of the cape. Have you got that?... It looks possible from the contouring
+to get on to the sea cliffs by following the Laver, for all that side
+is broken up into ravines.... But look at the other side--the Garple
+glen. It's evidently a deep-cut gully, and at the bottom it opens out
+into a little harbour. There's deep water there, you observe. Now the
+House on the south side--the Garple side--is built fairly close to the
+edge of the cliffs. Is that all clear in your head? We can't reconnoitre
+unless we've got a working notion of the lie of the land."
+
+[Footnote 1: The reader is referred to the improved version of Mr.
+Heritage's sketch reproduced as a frontispiece.]
+
+Dickson was about to protest that he had no intention of reconnoitring,
+when a hubbub arose in the back kitchen. Mrs. Morran's voice was heard
+in shrill protest.
+
+"Ye ill laddie! Eh--ye--ill--laddie! [_crescendo_] Makin' a hash o' my
+back door wi' your dirty feet! What are ye slinkin' roond here for, when
+I tell't ye this mornin' that I wad sell ye nae mair scones till ye paid
+for the last lot? Ye're a wheen thievin' hungry callants, and if there
+were a polisman in the place I'd gie ye in chairge.... What's that ye
+say? Ye're no' wantin' meat? Ye want to speak to the gentlemen that's
+bidin' here? Ye ken the auld ane, says you? I believe it's a muckle lee,
+but there's the gentlemen to answer ye theirsels."
+
+Mrs. Morran, brandishing a dishclout dramatically, flung open the door,
+and with a vigorous push propelled into the kitchen a singular figure.
+
+It was a stunted boy, who from his face might have been fifteen years
+old, but had the stature of a child of twelve. He had a thatch of fiery
+red hair above a pale freckled countenance. His nose was snub, his eyes
+a sulky grey-green, and his wide mouth disclosed large and damaged
+teeth. But remarkable as was his visage, his clothing was still
+stranger. On his head was the regulation Boy Scout hat, but it was
+several sizes too big, and was squashed down upon his immense red ears.
+He wore a very ancient khaki shirt, which had once belonged to a
+full-grown soldier, and the spacious sleeves were rolled up at the
+shoulders and tied with string, revealing a pair of skinny arms. Round
+his middle hung what was meant to be a kilt--a kilt of home manufacture,
+which may once have been a tablecloth, for its bold pattern suggested no
+known clan tartan. He had a massive belt, in which was stuck a broken
+gully-knife, and round his neck was knotted the remnant of what had once
+been a silk bandana. His legs and feet were bare, blue, scratched, and
+very dirty, and his toes had the prehensile look common to monkeys and
+small boys who summer and winter go bootless. In his hand was a long
+ash-pole, new cut from some coppice.
+
+The apparition stood glum and lowering on the kitchen floor. As Dickson
+stared at it he recalled Mearns Street and the band of irregular Boy
+Scouts who paraded to the roll of tin cans. Before him stood Dougal,
+Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards. Suddenly he remembered the
+philanthropic Mackintosh, and his own subscription of ten pounds to the
+camp fund. It pleased him to find the rascals here, for in the
+unpleasant affairs on the verge of which he felt himself they were a
+comforting reminder of the peace of home.
+
+"I'm glad to see you, Dougal," he said pleasantly. "How are you all
+getting on?" And then, with a vague reminiscence of the Scouts'
+code--"Have you been minding to perform a good deed every day?"
+
+The Chieftain's brow darkened.
+
+"'_Good deeds!_'" he repeated bitterly. "I tell ye I'm fair wore out wi'
+good deeds. Yon man Mackintosh tell't me this was going to be a grand
+holiday. Holiday! Govey Dick! It's been like a Setterday night in Main
+Street--a' fechtin', fechtin'."
+
+No collocation of letters could reproduce Dougal's accent, and I will
+not attempt it. There was a touch of Irish in it, a spice of music-hall
+patter, as well as the odd lilt of the Glasgow vernacular. He was strong
+in vowels, but the consonants, especially the letter "t," were only
+aspirations.
+
+"Sit down and let's hear about things," said Dickson.
+
+The boy turned his head to the still open back door, where Mrs. Morran
+could be heard at her labours. He stepped across and shut it. "I'm no'
+wantin' that auld wife to hear," he said. Then he squatted down on the
+patchwork rug by the hearth, and warmed his blue-black shins. Looking
+into the glow of the fire, he observed, "I seen you two up by the Big
+Hoose the night."
+
+"The devil you did," said Heritage, roused to a sudden attention. "And
+where were you?"
+
+"Seven feet from your head, up a tree. It's my chief hidy-hole, and
+Gosh! I need one, for Lean's after me wi' a gun. He got a shot at me
+two days syne."
+
+Dickson exclaimed, and Dougal with morose pride showed a rent in his
+kilt. "If I had had on breeks, he'd ha' got me."
+
+"Who's Lean?" Heritage asked.
+
+"The man wi' the black coat. The other--the lame one--they ca' Spittal."
+
+"How d'you know?"
+
+"I've listened to them crackin' thegither."
+
+"But what for did the man want to shoot at you?" asked the scandalised
+Dickson.
+
+"What for? Because they're frightened to death o' onybody going near
+their auld Hoose. They're a pair of deevils, worse nor any Red Indian,
+but for a' that they're sweatin' wi' fright. What for? says you. Because
+they're hidin' a Secret. I knew it as soon as I seen the man Lean's
+face. I once seen the same kind o' scoondrel at the Picters. When he
+opened his mouth to swear, I kenned he was a foreigner, like the lads
+down at the Broomielaw. That looked black, but I hadn't got at the worst
+of it. Then he loosed off at me wi' his gun."
+
+"Were you not feared?" said Dickson.
+
+"Ay, I was feared. But ye'll no' choke off the Gorbals Die-Hards wi' a
+gun. We held a meetin' round the camp fire, and we resolved to get to
+the bottom o' the business. Me bein' their Chief, it was my duty to make
+what they ca' a reckonissince, for that was the dangerous job. So a'
+this day I've been going on my belly about thae policies. I've found
+out some queer things."
+
+Heritage had risen and was staring down at the small squatting figure.
+
+"What have you found out? Quick. Tell me at once." His voice was sharp
+and excited.
+
+"Bide a wee," said the unwinking Dougal. "I'm no' going to let ye into
+this business till I ken that ye'll help. It's a far bigger job than I
+thought. There's more in it than Lean and Spittal. There's the big man
+that keeps the public--Dobson, they ca' him. He's a Namerican, which
+looks bad. And there's two-three tinklers campin' down in the Garple
+Dean. They're in it, for Dobson was colloguin' wi' them a' mornin'. When
+I seen ye, I thought ye were more o' the gang, till I mindit that one o'
+ye was auld McCunn that has the shop in Mearns Street. I seen that ye
+didn't like the look o' Lean, and I followed ye here, for I was thinkin'
+I needit help."
+
+Heritage plucked Dougal by the shoulder and lifted him to his feet.
+
+"For God's sake, boy," he cried, "tell us what you know!"
+
+"Will ye help?"
+
+"Of course, you little fool."
+
+"Then swear," said the ritualist. From a grimy wallet he extracted a
+limp little volume which proved to be a damaged copy of a work entitled
+_Sacred Songs and Solos_. "Here! Take that in your right hand and put
+your left hand on my pole, and say after me, 'I swear no' to blab what
+is telled me in secret and to be swift and sure in obeyin' orders,
+s'help me God!' Syne kiss the bookie."
+
+Dickson at first refused, declaring it was all havers, but Heritage's
+docility persuaded him to follow suit. The two were sworn.
+
+"Now," said Heritage.
+
+Dougal squatted again on the hearth-rug, and gathered the eyes of his
+audience. He was enjoying himself.
+
+"This day," he said slowly, "I got inside the Hoose."
+
+"Stout fellow," said Heritage; "and what did you find there?"
+
+"I got inside that Hoose, but it wasn't once or twice I tried. I found a
+corner where I was out o' sight o' anybody unless they had come there
+seekin' me, and I sklimmed up a rone pipe, but a' the windies were
+lockit and I verra near broke my neck. Syne I tried the roof, and a sore
+sklim I had, but when I got there there were no skylights. At the end I
+got in by the coal-hole. That's why ye're maybe thinkin' I'm no' very
+clean."
+
+Heritage's patience was nearly exhausted.
+
+"I don't want to hear how you got in. What did you find, you little
+devil?"
+
+"Inside the Hoose," said Dougal slowly (and there was a melancholy sense
+of anti-climax in his voice, as of one who had hoped to speak of gold
+and jewels and armed men)--"inside that Hoose there's nothing but two
+women."
+
+Heritage sat down before him with a stern face.
+
+"Describe them," he commanded.
+
+"One o' them is dead auld, as auld as the wife here. She didn't look to
+me very right in the head."
+
+"And the other?"
+
+"Oh, just a lassie."
+
+"What was she like?"
+
+Dougal seemed to be searching for adequate words. "She is ..." he began.
+Then a popular song gave him inspiration. "She's pure as the lully in
+the dell!"
+
+In no way discomposed by Heritage's fierce interrogatory air, he
+continued: "She's either foreign or English, for she couldn't understand
+what I said, and I could make nothing o' her clippit tongue. But I could
+see she had been greetin'. She looked feared, yet kind o' determined. I
+speired if I could do anything for her, and when she got my meaning she
+was terrible anxious to ken if I had seen a man--a big man, she said,
+wi' a yellow beard. She didn't seem to ken his name, or else she
+wouldn't tell me. The auld wife was mortal feared, and was aye speakin'
+in a foreign langwidge. I seen at once that what frightened them was
+Lean and his friends, and I was just starting to speir about them when
+there came a sound like a man walkin' along the passage. She was for
+hidin' me in behind a sofy, but I wasn't going to be trapped like that,
+so I got out by the other door and down the kitchen stairs and into the
+coal-hole. Gosh, it was a near thing!"
+
+The boy was on his feet. "I must be off to the camp to give out the
+orders for the morn. I'm going back to that Hoose, for it's a fight
+atween the Gorbals Die-Hards and the scoundrels that are frightenin'
+thae women. The question is, Are ye comin' with me? Mind, ye've sworn.
+But if ye're no', I'm going mysel', though I'll no' deny I'd be glad o'
+company. _You_ anyway----" he added, nodding at Heritage. "Maybe auld
+McCunn wouldn't get through the coal-hole."
+
+"You're an impident laddie," said the outraged Dickson. "It's no' likely
+we're coming with you. Breaking into other folks' houses! It's a job for
+the police!"
+
+"Please yersel'," said the Chieftain and looked at Heritage.
+
+"I'm on," said that gentleman.
+
+"Well, just you set out the morn as if ye were for a walk up the Garple
+glen. I'll be on the road and I'll have orders for ye."
+
+Without more ado Dougal left by way of the back kitchen. There was a
+brief denunciation from Mrs. Morran, then the outer door banged and he
+was gone.
+
+The Poet sat still with his head in his hands, while Dickson, acutely
+uneasy, prowled about the floor. He had forgotten even to light his
+pipe.
+
+"You'll not be thinking of heeding that ragamuffin boy," he ventured.
+
+"I'm certainly going to get into the House to-morrow," Heritage
+answered, "and if he can show me a way so much the better. He's a
+spirited youth. Do you breed many like him in Glasgow?"
+
+"Plenty," said Dickson sourly. "See here, Mr. Heritage. You can't
+expect me to be going about burgling houses on the word of a blagyird
+laddie. I'm a respectable man--aye been. Besides, I'm here for a
+holiday, and I've no call to be mixing myself up in strangers' affairs."
+
+"You haven't. Only, you see, I think there's a friend of mine in that
+place, and anyhow there are women in trouble. If you like, we'll say
+good-bye after breakfast, and you can continue as if you had never
+turned aside to this damned peninsula. But I've got to stay."
+
+Dickson groaned. What had become of his dream of idylls, his gentle
+bookish romance? Vanished before a reality which smacked horribly of
+crude melodrama and possibly of sordid crime. His gorge rose at the
+picture, but a thought troubled him. Perhaps all romance in its hour of
+happening was rough and ugly like this, and only shone rosy in the
+retrospect. Was he being false to his deepest faith?
+
+"Let's have Mrs. Morran in," he ventured. "She's a wise old body and I'd
+like to hear her opinion of this business. We'll get common sense from
+her."
+
+"I don't object," said Heritage. "But no amount of common sense will
+change my mind."
+
+Their hostess forestalled them by returning at that moment to the
+kitchen.
+
+"We want your advice, mistress," Dickson told her, and accordingly, like
+a barrister with a client, she seated herself carefully in the big easy
+chair, found and adjusted her spectacles, and waited with hands folded
+on her lap to hear the business. Dickson narrated their pre-supper
+doings, and gave a sketch of Dougal's evidence. His exposition was
+cautious and colourless, and without conviction. He seemed to expect a
+robust incredulity in his hearer.
+
+Mrs. Morran listened with the gravity of one in church. When Dickson
+finished she seemed to meditate.
+
+"There's no blagyird trick that would surprise me in thae new folk.
+What's that ye ca' them--Lean and Spittal? Eppie Home threepit to me
+they were furriners and these are no furrin names."
+
+"What I want to hear from you, Mrs. Morran," said Dickson impressively,
+"is whether you think there's anything in that boy's story?"
+
+"I think it's maist likely true. He's a terrible impident callant, but
+he's no' a leear."
+
+"Then you think that a gang of ruffians have got two lone women shut up
+in that House for their own purposes?"
+
+"I wadna wonder."
+
+"But it's ridiculous! This is a Christian and law-abiding country. What
+would the police say?"
+
+"They never troubled Dalquharter muckle. There's no' a polisman nearer
+than Knockraw--yin Johnnie Trummle, and he's as useless as a frostit
+tattie."
+
+"The wiselike thing, as I think," said Dickson, "would be to turn the
+Procurator-Fiscal on to the job. It's his business, no' ours."
+
+"Weel, I wadna say but ye're richt," said the lady.
+
+"What would you do if you were us?" Dickson's tone was subtly
+confidential. "My friend here wants to get into the House the morn with
+that red-haired laddie to satisfy himself about the facts. I say no. Let
+sleeping dogs lie, I say, and if you think the beasts are mad report to
+the authorities. What would you do yourself?"
+
+"If I were you," came the emphatic reply, "I would tak' the first train
+hame the morn, and when I got hame I wad bide there. Ye're a dacent
+body, but ye're no' the kind to be traivellin' the roads."
+
+"And if you were me?" Heritage asked with his queer crooked smile.
+
+"If I was a young and yauld like you I wad gang into the Hoose, and I
+wadna rest till I had riddled oot the truith and jyled every scoondrel
+about the place. If ye dinna gang, 'faith I'll kilt my coats and gang
+mysel'. I havena served the Kennedys for forty year no' to hae the
+honour o' the Hoose at my hert.... Ye speired my advice, sirs, and ye've
+gotten it. Now I maun clear awa' your supper."
+
+Dickson asked for a candle, and, as on the previous night, went abruptly
+to bed. The oracle of prudence to which he had appealed had betrayed him
+and counselled folly. But was it folly? For him, assuredly, for Dickson
+McCunn, late of Mearns Street, Glasgow, wholesale and retail provision
+merchant, elder in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, and fifty-five years of
+age. Ay, that was the rub. He was getting old. The woman had seen it and
+had advised him to go home. Yet the plea was curiously irksome, though
+it gave him the excuse he needed. If you played at being young, you had
+to take up the obligations of youth, and he thought derisively of his
+boyish exhilaration of the past days. Derisively, but also sadly. What
+had become of that innocent joviality he had dreamed of, that happy
+morning pilgrimage of Spring enlivened by tags from the poets? His
+goddess had played him false. Romance had put upon him too hard a trial.
+
+He lay long awake, torn between common sense and a desire to be loyal to
+some vague whimsical standard. Heritage a yard distant appeared also to
+be sleepless, for the bed creaked with his turning. Dickson found
+himself envying one whose troubles, whatever they might be, were not
+those of a divided mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OF THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER
+
+
+Very early next morning, while Mrs. Morran was still cooking breakfast,
+Dickson and Heritage might have been observed taking the air in the
+village street. It was the Poet who had insisted upon this walk, and he
+had his own purpose. They looked at the spires of smoke piercing the
+windless air, and studied the daffodils in the cottage gardens. Dickson
+was glum, but Heritage seemed in high spirits. He varied his garrulity
+with spells of cheerful whistling.
+
+They strode along the road by the park wall till they reached the inn.
+There Heritage's music waxed peculiarly loud. Presently from the yard,
+unshaven and looking as if he had slept in his clothes, came Dobson the
+innkeeper.
+
+"Good morning," said the Poet. "I hope the sickness in your house is on
+the mend?"
+
+"Thank ye, it's no worse," was the reply, but in the man's heavy face
+there was little civility. His small grey eyes searched their faces.
+
+"We're just waiting on breakfast to get on the road again. I'm jolly
+glad we spent the night here. We found quarters after all, you know."
+
+"So I see. Whereabouts, may I ask?"
+
+"Mrs. Morran's. We could always have got in there, but we didn't want
+to fuss an old lady, so we thought we'd try the inn first. She's my
+friend's aunt."
+
+At this amazing falsehood Dickson started, and the man observed his
+surprise. The eyes were turned on him like a searchlight. They roused
+antagonism in his peaceful soul, and with that antagonism came an
+impulse to back up the Poet. "Ay," he said, "she's my Auntie Phemie, my
+mother's half-sister."
+
+The man turned on Heritage.
+
+"Where are ye for the day?"
+
+"Auchenlochan," said Dickson hastily. He was still determined to shake
+the dust of Dalquharter from his feet.
+
+The innkeeper sensibly brightened. "Well, ye'll have a fine walk. I must
+go in and see about my own breakfast. Good day to ye, gentlemen."
+
+"That," said Heritage as they entered the village street again, "is the
+first step in camouflage, to put the enemy off his guard."
+
+"It was an abominable lie," said Dickson crossly.
+
+"Not at all. It was a necessary and proper _ruse de guerre_. It
+explained why we spent the night here, and now Dobson and his friends
+can get about their day's work with an easy mind. Their suspicions are
+temporarily allayed, and that will make our job easier."
+
+"I'm not coming with you."
+
+"I never said you were. By 'we' I refer to myself and the red-headed
+boy."
+
+"Mistress, you're my auntie," Dickson informed Mrs. Morran as she set
+the porridge on the table. "This gentleman has just been telling the man
+at the inn that you're my Auntie Phemie."
+
+For a second their hostess looked bewildered. Then the corners of her
+prim mouth moved upwards in a slow smile.
+
+"I see," she said. "Weel, maybe it was weel done. But if ye're my nevoy
+ye'll hae to keep up my credit, for we're a bauld and siccar lot."
+
+Half an hour later there was a furious dissension when Dickson attempted
+to pay for the night's entertainment. Mrs. Morran would have none of it.
+"Ye're no' awa' yet," she said tartly, and the matter was complicated by
+Heritage's refusal to take part in the debate. He stood aside and
+grinned, till Dickson in despair returned his note-case to his pocket,
+murmuring darkly that "he would send it from Glasgow."
+
+The road to Auchenlochan left the main village street at right angles by
+the side of Mrs. Morran's cottage. It was a better road than that which
+they had come yesterday, for by it twice daily the post-cart travelled
+to the post-town. It ran on the edge of the moor and on the lip of the
+Garple glen, till it crossed that stream and, keeping near the coast,
+emerged after five miles into the cultivated flats of the Lochan valley.
+The morning was fine, the keen air invited to high spirits, plovers
+piped entrancingly over the bent and linnets sang in the whins, there
+was a solid breakfast behind him, and the promise of a cheerful road
+till luncheon. The stage was set for good humour, but Dickson's heart,
+which should have been ascending with the larks, stuck leadenly in his
+boots. He was not even relieved at putting Dalquharter behind him. The
+atmosphere of that unhallowed place lay still on his soul. He hated it,
+but he hated himself more. Here was one, who had hugged himself all his
+days as an adventurer waiting his chance, running away at the first
+challenge of adventure; a lover of Romance who fled from the earliest
+overture of his goddess. He was ashamed and angry, but what else was
+there to do? Burglary in the company of a queer poet and a queerer
+urchin? It was unthinkable.
+
+Presently as they tramped silently on they came to the bridge beneath
+which the peaty waters of the Garple ran in porter-coloured pools and
+tawny cascades. From a clump of elders on the other side Dougal emerged.
+A barefoot boy, dressed in much the same parody of a Boy Scout's
+uniform, but with corduroy shorts instead of a kilt, stood before him at
+rigid attention. Some command was issued, the child saluted, and trotted
+back past the travellers with never a look at them. Discipline was
+strong among the Gorbals Die-Hards; no Chief of Staff ever conversed
+with his General under a stricter etiquette.
+
+Dougal received the travellers with the condescension of a regular
+towards civilians.
+
+"They're off their gawrd," he announced. "Thomas Yownie has been
+shadowin' them since skreigh o' day, and he reports that Dobson and Lean
+followed ye till ye were out o' sight o' the houses, and syne Lean got a
+spy-glass and watched ye till the road turned in among the trees. That
+satisfied them, and they're both away back to their jobs. Thomas
+Yownie's the fell yin. Ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+Dougal extricated from his pouch the fag of a cigarette, lit it and
+puffed meditatively. "I did a reckonissince mysel' this morning. I was
+up at the Hoose afore it was light, and tried the door o' the coal-hole.
+I doot they've gotten on our tracks, for it was lockit--ay, and wedged
+from the inside."
+
+Dickson brightened. Was the insane venture off?
+
+"For a wee bit I was fair beat. But I mindit that the lassie was allowed
+to walk in a kind o' a glass hoose on the side farthest away from the
+Garple. That was where she was singin' yest'reen. So I reckonissinced in
+that direction, and I fund a queer place." _Sacred Songs and Solos_ was
+requisitioned, and on a page of it Dougal proceeded to make marks with
+the stump of a carpenter's pencil. "See here," he commanded. "There's
+the glass place wi' a door into the Hoose. That door must be open or the
+lassie must have the key, for she comes there whenever she likes. Now,
+at each end o' the place the doors are lockit, but the front that looks
+on the garden is open, wi' muckle posts and flower-pots. The trouble is
+that that side there's maybe twenty feet o' a wall between the pawrapet
+and the ground. It's an auld wall wi' cracks and holes in it, and it
+wouldn't be ill to sklim. That's why they let her gang there when she
+wants, for a lassie couldn't get away without breakin' her neck."
+
+"Could we climb it?" Heritage asked.
+
+The boy wrinkled his brows. "I could manage it mysel'--I think--and
+maybe you. I doubt if auld McCunn could get up. Ye'd have to be mighty
+carefu' that nobody saw ye, for your hinder end, as ye were sklimmin',
+wad be a grand mark for a gun."
+
+"Lead on," said Heritage. "We'll try the verandah."
+
+They both looked at Dickson, and Dickson, scarlet in the face, looked
+back at them. He had suddenly found the thought of a solitary march to
+Auchenlochan intolerable. Once again he was at the parting of the ways,
+and once more caprice determined his decision. That the coal-hole was
+out of the question had worked a change in his views. Somehow it seemed
+to him less burglarious to enter by a verandah. He felt very frightened
+but--for the moment--quite resolute.
+
+"I'm coming with you," he said.
+
+"Sportsman," said Heritage and held out his hand. "Well done, the auld
+yin," said the Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards. Dickson's quaking
+heart experienced a momentary bound as he followed Heritage down the
+track into the Garple Dean.
+
+The track wound through a thick covert of hazels, now close to the
+rushing water, now high upon the bank so that clear sky showed through
+the fringes of the wood. When they had gone a little way Dougal halted
+them.
+
+"It's a ticklish job," he whispered. "There's the tinklers, mind, that's
+campin' in the Dean. If they're still in their camp we can get by easy
+enough, but they're maybe wanderin' about the wud after rabbits.... Then
+we must ford the water, for ye'll no' cross it lower down where it's
+deep.... Our road is on the Hoose side o' the Dean and it's awfu' public
+if there's onybody on the other side, though it's hid well enough from
+folk up in the policies.... Ye must do exactly what I tell ye. When we
+get near danger I'll scout on ahead, and I daur ye to move a hair o'
+your head till I give the word."
+
+Presently, when they were at the edge of the water, Dougal announced his
+intention of crossing. Three boulders in the stream made a bridge for an
+active man and Heritage hopped lightly over. Not so Dickson, who stuck
+fast on the second stone, and would certainly have fallen in had not
+Dougal plunged into the current and steadied him with a grimy hand. The
+leap was at last successfully taken, and the three scrambled up a rough
+scaur, all reddened with iron springs, till they struck a slender track
+running down the Dean on its northern side. Here the undergrowth was
+very thick, and they had gone the better part of half a mile before the
+covert thinned sufficiently to show them the stream beneath. Then Dougal
+halted them with a finger on his lips, and crept forward alone.
+
+He returned in three minutes. "Coast's clear," he whispered. "The
+tinklers are eatin' their breakfast. They're late at their meat though
+they're up early seekin' it."
+
+Progress was now very slow and secret and mainly on all fours. At one
+point Dougal nodded downward, and the other two saw on a patch of turf,
+where the Garple began to widen into its estuary, a group of figures
+round a small fire. There were four of them, all men, and Dickson
+thought he had never seen such ruffianly-looking customers. After that
+they moved high up the slope, in a shallow glade of a tributary burn,
+till they came out of the trees and found themselves looking seaward.
+
+On one side was the House, a hundred yards or so back from the edge, the
+roof showing above the precipitous scarp. Half-way down the slope became
+easier, a jumble of boulders and boiler-plates, till it reached the
+waters of the small haven, which lay calm as a mill-pond in the windless
+forenoon. The haven broadened out at its foot and revealed a segment of
+blue sea. The opposite shore was flatter and showed what looked like an
+old wharf and the ruins of buildings, behind which rose a bank clad with
+scrub and surmounted by some gnarled and wind-crooked firs.
+
+"There's dashed little cover here," said Heritage.
+
+"There's no muckle," Dougal assented. "But they canna see us from the
+policies, and it's no' like there's anybody watchin' from the Hoose. The
+danger is somebody on the other side, but we'll have to risk it. Once
+among thae big stones we're safe. Are ye ready?"
+
+Five minutes later Dickson found himself gasping in the lee of a
+boulder, while Dougal was making a cast forward. The scout returned with
+a hopeful report. "I think we're safe, till we get into the policies.
+There's a road that the auld folk made when ships used to come here.
+Down there it's deeper than Clyde at the Broomilaw. Has the auld yin got
+his wind yet? There's no time to waste."
+
+Up that broken hillside they crawled, well in the cover of the tumbled
+stones, till they reached a low wall which was the boundary of the
+garden. The House was now behind them on their right rear, and as they
+topped the crest they had a glimpse of an ancient dovecot and the ruins
+of the old Huntingtower on the short thymy turf which ran seaward to the
+cliffs. Dougal led them along a sunk fence which divided the downs from
+the lawns behind the house, and, avoiding the stables, brought them by
+devious ways to a thicket of rhododendrons and broom. On all fours they
+travelled the length of the place, and came to the edge where some
+forgotten gardeners had once tended a herbaceous border. The border was
+now rank and wild, and, lying flat under the shade of an azalea, and
+peering through the young spears of iris, Dickson and Heritage regarded
+the north-western façade of the house.
+
+The ground before them had been a sunken garden, from which a steep
+wall, once covered with creepers and rock plants, rose to a long
+verandah, which was pillared and open on that side; but at each end
+built up half-way and glazed for the rest. There was a glass roof, and
+inside untended shrubs sprawled in broken plaster vases.
+
+"Ye must bide here," said Dougal, "and no cheep above your breath. Afore
+we dare to try that wall, I must ken where Lean and Spittal and Dobson
+are. I'm off to spy the policies." He glided out of sight behind a clump
+of pampas grass.
+
+For hours, so it seemed, Dickson was left to his own unpleasant
+reflections. His body, prone on the moist earth, was fairly comfortable,
+but his mind was ill at ease. The scramble up the hillside had convinced
+him that he was growing old, and there was no rebound in his soul to
+counter the conviction. He felt listless, spiritless--an apathy with
+fright trembling somewhere at the back of it. He regarded the verandah
+wall with foreboding. How on earth could he climb that? And if he did
+there would be his exposed hinder-parts inviting a shot from some
+malevolent gentleman among the trees. He reflected that he would give a
+large sum of money to be out of this preposterous adventure.
+
+Heritage's hand was stretched towards him, containing two of Mrs.
+Morran's jellied scones, of which the Poet had been wise enough to bring
+a supply in his pocket. The food cheered him, for he was growing very
+hungry, and he began to take an interest in the scene before him instead
+of his own thoughts. He observed every detail of the verandah. There was
+a door at one end, he noted, giving on a path which wound down to the
+sunk garden. As he looked he heard a sound of steps and saw a man
+ascending this path.
+
+It was the lame man whom Dougal had called Spittal, the dweller in the
+South Lodge. Seen at closer quarters he was an odd-looking being, lean
+as a heron, wry-necked, but amazingly quick on his feet. Had not Mrs.
+Morran said that he hobbled as fast as other folk ran? He kept his eyes
+on the ground and seemed to be talking to himself as he went, but he was
+alert enough, for the dropping of a twig from a dying magnolia
+transferred him in an instant into a figure of active vigilance. No
+risks could be run with that watcher. He took a key from his pocket,
+opened the garden door and entered the verandah. For a moment his
+shuffle sounded on its tiled floor, and then he entered the door
+admitting from the verandah to the House. It was clearly unlocked for
+there came no sound of a turning key.
+
+Dickson had finished the last crumbs of his scones before the man
+emerged again. He seemed to be in a greater hurry than ever, as he
+locked the garden door behind him and hobbled along the west front of
+the House till he was lost to sight. After that the time passed slowly.
+A pair of yellow wagtails arrived and played at hide-and-seek among the
+stuccoed pillars. The little dry scratch of their claws was heard
+clearly in the still air. Dickson had almost fallen asleep when a
+smothered exclamation from Heritage woke him to attention. A girl had
+appeared in the verandah.
+
+Above the parapet he saw only her body from the waist up. She seemed to
+be clad in bright colours, for something red was round her shoulders and
+her hair was bound with an orange scarf. She was tall--that he could
+tell, tall and slim and very young. Her face was turned seaward, and she
+stood for a little scanning the broad channel, shading her eyes as if
+to search for something on the extreme horizon. The air was very quiet
+and he thought that he could hear her sigh. Then she turned and
+re-entered the House, while Heritage by his side began to curse under
+his breath with a shocking fervour.
+
+One of Dickson's troubles had been that he did not really believe
+Dougal's story, and the sight of the girl removed one doubt. That bright
+exotic thing did not belong to the Cruives or to Scotland at all, and
+that she should be in the House removed the place from the conventional
+dwelling to which the laws against burglary applied.
+
+There was a rustle among the rhododendrons and the fiery face of Dougal
+appeared. He lay between the other two, his chin on his hands, and
+grunted out his report.
+
+"After they had their dinner Dobson and Lean yokit a horse and went off
+to Auchenlochan. I seen them pass the Garple brig, so that's two
+accounted for. Has Spittal been round here?"
+
+"Half an hour ago," said Heritage, consulting a wrist watch.
+
+"It was him that keepit me waitin' so long. But he's safe enough now,
+for five minutes syne he was splittin' firewood at the back door o' his
+hoose.... I've found a ladder, an auld yin in ahint yon lot o' bushes.
+It'll help wi' the wall. There! I've gotten my breath again and we can
+start."
+
+The ladder was fetched by Heritage and proved to be ancient and wanting
+many rungs, but sufficient in length. The three stood silent for a
+moment, listening like stags, and then ran across the intervening lawn
+to the foot of the verandah wall. Dougal went up first, then Heritage,
+and lastly Dickson, stiff and giddy from his long lie under the bushes.
+Below the parapet the verandah floor was heaped with old garden litter,
+rotten matting, dead or derelict bulbs, fibre, withies and strawberry
+nets. It was Dougal's intention to pull up the ladder and hide it among
+the rubbish against the hour of departure. But Dickson had barely put
+his foot on the parapet when there was a sound of steps within the House
+approaching the verandah door.
+
+The ladder was left alone. Dougal's hand brought Dickson summarily to
+the floor, where he was fairly well concealed by a mess of matting.
+Unfortunately his head was in the vicinity of some upturned pot-plants,
+so that a cactus ticked his brow and a spike of aloe supported painfully
+the back of his neck. Heritage was prone behind two old water-butts, and
+Dougal was in a hamper which had once contained seed potatoes. The house
+door had panels of opaque glass, so the new-comer could not see the
+doings of the three till it was opened, and by that time all were in
+cover.
+
+The man--it was Spittal--walked rapidly along the verandah and out of
+the garden door. He was talking to himself again, and Dickson, who had a
+glimpse of his face, thought he looked both evil and furious. Then came
+some anxious moments, for had the man glanced back when he was once
+outside, he must have seen the tell-tale ladder. But he seemed immersed
+in his own reflections, for he hobbled steadily along the house front
+till he was lost to sight.
+
+"That'll be the end o' them the night," said Dougal, as he helped
+Heritage to pull up the ladder and stow it away. "We've got the place to
+oursels, now. Forward, men, forward." He tried the handle of the house
+door and led the way in.
+
+A narrow paved passage took them into what had once been the garden
+room, where the lady of the house had arranged her flowers, and the
+tennis racquets and croquet mallets had been kept. It was very dusty and
+on the cobwebbed walls still hung a few soiled garden overalls. A door
+beyond opened into a huge murky hall, murky, for the windows were
+shuttered, and the only light came through things like port-holes far up
+in the wall. Dougal, who seemed to know his way about, halted them.
+"Stop here till I scout a bit. The women bide in a wee room through that
+muckle door." Bare feet stole across the oak flooring, there was the
+sound of a door swinging on its hinges, and then silence and darkness.
+Dickson put out a hand for companionship and clutched Heritage's; to his
+surprise it was cold and all a-tremble. They listened for voices, and
+thought they could detect a far-away sob.
+
+It was some minutes before Dougal returned. "A bonny kettle o' fish," he
+whispered. "They're both greetin'. We're just in time. Come on, the pair
+o' ye."
+
+Through a green baize door they entered a passage which led to the
+kitchen regions, and turned in at the first door on their right. From
+its situation Dickson calculated that the room lay on the seaward side
+of the House next to the verandah. The light was bad, for the two
+windows were partially shuttered, but it had plainly been a
+smoking-room, for there were pipe-racks by the hearth, and on the walls
+a number of old school and college photographs, a couple of oars with
+emblazoned names, and a variety of stags' and roebucks' heads. There was
+no fire in the grate, but a small oil-stove burned inside the fender. In
+a stiff-backed chair sat an elderly woman, who seemed to feel the cold,
+for she was muffled to the neck in a fur coat. Beside her, so that the
+late afternoon light caught her face and head, stood a girl.
+
+Dickson's first impression was of a tall child. The pose, startled and
+wild and yet curiously stiff and self-conscious, was that of a child
+striving to remember a forgotten lesson. One hand clutched a
+handkerchief, the other was closing and unclosing on a knob of the chair
+back. She was staring at Dougal, who stood like a gnome in the centre of
+the floor. "Here's the gentlemen I was tellin' ye about," was his
+introduction, but her eyes did not move.
+
+Then Heritage stepped forward. "We have met before, Mademoiselle," he
+said. "Do you remember Easter in 1918--in the house in the Trinitá dei
+Monte?"
+
+The girl looked at him.
+
+"I do not remember," she said slowly.
+
+"But I was the English officer who had the apartments on the floor
+below you. I saw you every morning. You spoke to me sometimes."
+
+"You are a soldier?" she asked, with a new note in her voice.
+
+"I was then--till the war finished."
+
+"And now? Why have you come here?"
+
+"To offer you help if you need it. If not, to ask your pardon and go
+away."
+
+The shrouded figure in the chair burst suddenly into rapid hysterical
+talk in some foreign tongue which Dickson suspected of being French.
+Heritage replied in the same language, and the girl joined in with sharp
+questions. Then the Poet turned to Dickson.
+
+"This is my friend. If you will trust us we will do our best to save
+you."
+
+The eyes rested on Dickson's face, and he realised that he was in the
+presence of something the like of which he had never met in his life
+before. It was a loveliness greater than he had imagined was permitted
+by the Almighty to His creatures. The little face was more square than
+oval, with a low broad brow and proud exquisite eyebrows. The eyes were
+of a colour which he could never decide on; afterwards he used to allege
+obscurely that they were the colour of everything in Spring. There was a
+delicate pallor in the cheeks, and the face bore signs of suffering and
+care, possibly even of hunger; but for all that there was youth there,
+eternal and triumphant! Not youth such as he had known it, but youth
+with all history behind it, youth with centuries of command in its blood
+and the world's treasures of beauty and pride in its ancestry. Strange,
+he thought, that a thing so fine should be so masterful. He felt abashed
+in every inch of him.
+
+As the eyes rested on him their sorrowfulness seemed to be shot with
+humour. A ghost of a smile lurked there, to which Dickson promptly
+responded. He grinned and bowed.
+
+"Very pleased to meet you, Mem. I'm Mr. McCunn from Glasgow."
+
+"You don't even know my name," she said.
+
+"We don't," said Heritage.
+
+"They call me Saskia. This," nodding to the chair, "is my cousin
+Eugčnie.... We are in very great trouble. But why should I tell you? I
+do not know you. You cannot help me."
+
+"We can try," said Heritage. "Part of your trouble we know already
+through that boy. You are imprisoned in this place by scoundrels. We are
+here to help you to get out. We want to ask no questions--only to do
+what you bid us."
+
+"You are not strong enough," she said sadly. "A young man--an old
+man--and a little boy. There are many against us, and any moment there
+may be more."
+
+It was Dougal's turn to break in. "There's Lean and Spittal and Dobson
+and four tinklers in the Dean--that's seven; but there's us three and
+five more Gorbals Die-Hards--that's eight."
+
+There was something in the boy's truculent courage that cheered her.
+
+"I wonder," she said, and her eyes fell on each in turn.
+
+Dickson felt impelled to intervene.
+
+"I think this is a perfectly simple business. Here's a lady shut up in
+this house against her will by a wheen blagyirds. This is a free country
+and the law doesn't permit that. My advice is for one of us to inform
+the police at Auchenlochan and get Dobson and his friends took up and
+the lady set free to do what she likes. That is, if these folks are
+really molesting her, which is not yet quite clear to my mind."
+
+"Alas! It is not so simple as that," she said. "I dare not invoke your
+English law, for perhaps in the eyes of that law I am a thief."
+
+"Deary me, that's a bad business," said the startled Dickson.
+
+The two women talked together in some strange tongue, and the elder
+appeared to be pleading and the younger objecting. Then Saskia seemed to
+come to a decision.
+
+"I will tell you all," and she looked straight at Heritage. "I do not
+think you would be cruel or false, for you have honourable faces....
+Listen, then. I am a Russian and for two years have been an exile. I
+will not speak of my house, for it is no more, or how I escaped, for it
+is the common tale of all of us. I have seen things more terrible than
+any dream and yet lived, but I have paid a price for such experience.
+First I went to Italy where there were friends, and I wished only to
+have peace among kindly people. About poverty I do not care, for, to us,
+who have lost all the great things, the want of bread is a little
+matter. But peace was forbidden me, for I learned that we Russians had
+to win back our fatherland again and that the weakest must work in that
+cause. So I was set my task and it was very hard.... There were jewels
+which once belonged to my Emperor--they had been stolen by the brigands
+and must be recovered. There were others still hidden in Russia which
+must be brought to a safe place. In that work I was ordered to share."
+
+She spoke in almost perfect English, with a certain foreign precision.
+Suddenly she changed to French, and talked rapidly to Heritage.
+
+"She has told me about her family," he said, turning to Dickson. "It is
+among the greatest in Russia, the very greatest after the throne."
+Dickson could only stare.
+
+"Our enemies soon discovered me," she went on. "Oh, but they are very
+clever, these enemies, and they have all the criminals of the world to
+aid them. Here you do not understand what they are. You good people in
+England think they are well-meaning dreamers who are forced into
+violence by the persecution of Western Europe. But you are wrong. Some
+honest fools there are among them, but the power--the true power--lies
+with madmen and degenerates, and they have for allies the special devil
+that dwells in each country. That is why they cast their net as wide as
+mankind."
+
+She shivered, and for a second her face wore a look which Dickson never
+forgot, the look of one who has looked over the edge of life into the
+outer dark.
+
+"There were certain jewels of great price which were about to be turned
+into guns and armies for our enemies. These our people recovered and the
+charge of them was laid on me. Who would suspect, they said, a foolish
+girl? But our enemies were very clever, and soon the hunt was cried
+against me. They tried to rob me of them, but they failed, for I too had
+become clever. Then they asked the help of the law--first in Italy and
+then in France. Oh, it was subtly done. Respectable bourgeois, who hated
+the Bolsheviki but had bought long ago the bonds of my country, desired
+to be repaid their debts out of the property of the Russian Crown which
+might be found in the West. But behind them were the Jews, and behind
+the Jews our unsleeping enemies. Once I was enmeshed in the law I would
+be safe for them, and presently they would find the hiding-place of the
+treasure, and while the bourgeois were clamouring in the courts, it
+would be safe in their pockets. So I fled. For months I have been
+fleeing and hiding. They have tried to kidnap me many times, and once
+they have tried to kill me, but I, too, have become very clever--oh,
+very clever. And I have learned not to fear."
+
+This simple recital affected Dickson's honest soul with the liveliest
+indignation. "Sich doings!" he exclaimed, and he could not forbear from
+whispering to Heritage an extract from that gentleman's conversation the
+first night at Kirkmichael. "We needn't imitate all their methods, but
+they've got hold of the right end of the stick. They seek truth and
+reality." The reply from the Poet was an angry shrug.
+
+"Why and how did you come here?" he asked.
+
+"I always meant to come to England, for I thought it the sanest place in
+a mad world. Also it is a good country to hide in, for it is apart from
+Europe, and your police, as I thought, do not permit evil men to be
+their own law. But especially I had a friend, a Scottish gentleman, whom
+I knew in the days when we Russians were still a nation. I saw him again
+in Italy, and since he was kind and brave I told him some part of my
+troubles. He was called Quentin Kennedy, and now he is dead. He told me
+that in Scotland he had a lonely château where I could hide secretly and
+safely, and against the day when I might be hard-pressed he gave me a
+letter to his steward, bidding him welcome me as a guest when I made
+application. At that time I did not think I would need such sanctuary,
+but a month ago the need became urgent, for the hunt in France was very
+close on me. So I sent a message to the steward as Captain Kennedy told
+me."
+
+"What is his name?" Heritage asked.
+
+She spelt it, "Monsieur Loudon--L-O-U-D-O-N in the town of
+Auchenlochan."
+
+"The factor," said Dickson. "And what then?"
+
+"Some spy must have found me out. I had a letter from this Loudon
+bidding me come to Auchenlochan. There I found no steward to receive me,
+but another letter saying that that night a carriage would be in waiting
+to bring me here. It was midnight when we arrived, and we were brought
+in by strange ways to this house, with no light but a single candle.
+Here we were welcomed indeed, but by an enemy."
+
+"Which?" asked Heritage. "Dobson or Lean or Spittal?"
+
+"Dobson I do not know. Léon was there. He is no Russian, but a Belgian
+who was a valet in my father's service till he joined the Bolsheviki.
+Next day the Lett Spidel came, and I knew that I was in very truth
+entrapped. For of all our enemies he is, save one, the most subtle and
+unwearied."
+
+Her voice had trailed off into flat weariness. Again Dickson was
+reminded of a child, for her arms hung limp by her side; and her slim
+figure in its odd clothes was curiously like that of a boy in a school
+blazer. Another resemblance perplexed him. She had a hint of
+Janet--about the mouth--Janet, that solemn little girl those twenty
+years in her grave.
+
+Heritage was wrinkling his brows. "I don't think I quite understand. The
+jewels? You have them with you?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"These men wanted to rob you. Why didn't they do it between here and
+Auchenlochan? You had no chance to hide them on the journey. Why did
+they let you come here where you were in a better position to baffle
+them?"
+
+She shook her head. "I cannot explain--except perhaps, that Spidel had
+not arrived that night, and Léon may have been waiting instructions."
+
+The other still looked dissatisfied. "They are either clumsier villains
+than I take them to be, or there is something deeper in the business
+than we understand. These jewels--are they here?"
+
+His tone was so sharp that she looked startled--almost suspicious. Then
+she saw that in his face which reassured her. "I have them hidden here.
+I have grown very skilful in hiding things."
+
+"Have they searched for them?"
+
+"The first day they demanded them of me. I denied all knowledge. Then
+they ransacked this house--I think they ransack it daily, but I am too
+clever for them. I am not allowed to go beyond the verandah, and when at
+first I disobeyed there was always one of them in wait to force me back
+with a pistol behind my head. Every morning Léon brings us food for the
+day--good food, but not enough, so that Cousin Eugčnie is always hungry,
+and each day he and Spidel question and threaten me. This afternoon
+Spidel has told me that their patience is at an end. He has given me
+till to-morrow at noon to produce the jewels. If not, he says I will
+die."
+
+"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed.
+
+"There will be no mercy for us," she said solemnly. "He and his kind
+think as little of shedding blood as of spilling water. But I do not
+think he will kill me. I think I will kill him first, but after that I
+shall surely die. As for Cousin Eugčnie, I do not know."
+
+Her level matter-of-fact tone seemed to Dickson most shocking, for he
+could not treat it as mere melodrama. It carried a horrid conviction.
+"We must get you out of this at once," he declared.
+
+"I cannot leave. I will tell you why. When I came to this country I
+appointed one to meet me here. He is a kinsman who knows England well,
+for he fought in your army. With him by my side I have no fear. It is
+altogether needful that I wait for him."
+
+"Then there is something more which you haven't told us?" Heritage
+asked.
+
+Was there the faintest shadow of a blush on her cheek? "There is
+something more," she said.
+
+She spoke to Heritage in French and Dickson caught the name "Alexis" and
+a word which sounded like "prance." The Poet listened eagerly and
+nodded. "I have heard of him," he said.
+
+"But have you not seen him? A tall man with a yellow beard, who bears
+himself proudly. Being of my mother's race he has eyes like mine."
+
+"That's the man she was askin' me about yesterday," said Dougal, who had
+squatted on the floor.
+
+Heritage shook his head. "We only came here last night. When did you
+expect Prince--your friend?"
+
+"I hoped to find him here before me. Oh, it is his not coming that
+terrifies me. I must wait and hope. But if he does not come in time
+another may come before him."
+
+"The ones already here are not all the enemies that threaten you?"
+
+"Indeed, no. The worst has still to come, and till I know he is here I
+do not greatly fear Spidel or Léon. They receive orders and do not give
+them."
+
+Heritage ran a perplexed hand through his hair. The sunset which had
+been flaming for some time in the unshuttered panes was now passing into
+the dark. The girl lit a lamp after first shuttering the rest of the
+windows. As she turned it up the odd dusty room and its strange company
+were revealed more clearly and Dickson saw with a shock how haggard was
+the beautiful face. A great pity seized him and almost conquered his
+timidity.
+
+"It is very difficult to help you," Heritage was saying. "You won't
+leave this place, and you won't claim the protection of the law. You are
+very independent, Mademoiselle, but it can't go on for ever. The man you
+fear may arrive at any moment. At any moment, too, your treasure may be
+discovered."
+
+"It is that that weighs on me," she cried. "The jewels! They are my
+solemn trust, but they burden me terribly. If I were only rid of them
+and knew them to be safe I should face the rest with a braver mind."
+
+"If you'll take my advice," said Dickson slowly, "you'll get them
+deposited in a bank and take a receipt for them. A Scotch bank is no' in
+a hurry to surrender a deposit without it gets the proper authority."
+
+Heritage brought his hands together with a smack. "That's an idea. Will
+you trust us to take these things and deposit them safely?"
+
+For a little she was silent and her eyes were fixed on each of the trio
+in turn. "I will trust you," she said at last. "I think you will not
+betray me."
+
+"By God, we won't!" said the Poet fervently. "Dogson, it's up to you.
+You march off to Glasgow in double quick time and place the stuff in
+your own name in your own bank. There's not a moment to lose. D'you
+hear?"
+
+"I will that." To his own surprise Dickson spoke without hesitation.
+Partly it was because of his merchant's sense of property, which made
+him hate the thought that miscreants should acquire that to which they
+had no title; but mainly it was the appeal in those haggard childish
+eyes. "But I'm not going to be tramping the country in the night
+carrying a fortune and seeking for trains that aren't there. I'll go the
+first thing in the morning."
+
+"Where are they?" Heritage asked.
+
+"That I do not tell. But I will fetch them."
+
+She left the room and presently returned with three odd little parcels
+wrapped in leather and tied with thongs of raw hide. She gave them to
+Heritage, who held them appraisingly in his hand and then passed them to
+Dickson.
+
+"I do not ask about their contents. We take them from you as they are,
+and, please God, when the moment comes they will be returned to you as
+you gave them. You trust us, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"I trust you, for you are a soldier. Oh, and I thank you from my heart,
+my friends." She held out a hand to each, which caused Heritage to grow
+suddenly very red.
+
+"I will remain in the neighbourhood to await developments," he said.
+"We had better leave you now. Dougal, lead on."
+
+Before going, he took the girl's hand again, and with a sudden movement
+bent and kissed it. Dickson shook it heartily. "Cheer up, Mem," he
+observed. "There's a better time coming." His last recollection of her
+eyes was of a soft mistiness not far from tears. His pouch and pipe had
+strange company jostling them in his pocket as he followed the others
+down the ladder into the night.
+
+Dougal insisted that they must return by the road of the morning. "We
+daren't go by the Laver, for that would bring us by the public-house. If
+the worst comes to the worst, and we fall in wi' any of the deevils,
+they must think ye've changed your mind and come back from
+Auchenlochan."
+
+The night smelt fresh and moist as if a break in the weather were
+imminent. As they scrambled along the Garple Dean a pinprick of light
+below showed where the tinklers were busy by their fire. Dickson's
+spirits suffered a sharp fall and he began to marvel at his temerity.
+What in Heaven's name had he undertaken? To carry very precious things,
+to which certainly he had no right, through the enemy to distant
+Glasgow. How could he escape the notice of the watchers? He was already
+suspect, and the sight of him back again in Dalquharter would double
+that suspicion. He must brazen it out, but he distrusted his powers with
+such tell-tale stuff in his pockets. They might murder him anywhere on
+the moor road or in an empty railway carriage. An unpleasant memory of
+various novels he had read in which such things happened haunted his
+mind.... There was just one consolation. This job over, he would be quit
+of the whole business. And honourably quit, too, for he would have
+played a manly part in a most unpleasant affair. He could retire to the
+idyllic with the knowledge that he had not been wanting when Romance
+called. Not a soul should ever hear of it, but he saw himself in the
+future tramping green roads or sitting by his winter fireside pleasantly
+retelling himself the tale.
+
+Before they came to the Garple bridge Dougal insisted that they should
+separate, remarking that "it would never do if we were seen thegither."
+Heritage was despatched by a short cut over fields to the left, which
+eventually, after one or two plunges into ditches, landed him safely in
+Mrs. Morran's back yard. Dickson and Dougal crossed the bridge and
+tramped Dalquharter-wards by the highway. There was no sign of human
+life in that quiet place with owls hooting and rabbits rustling in the
+undergrowth. Beyond the woods they came in sight of the light in the
+back kitchen, and both seemed to relax their watchfulness when it was
+most needed. Dougal sniffed the air and looked seaward.
+
+"It's coming on to rain," he observed. "There should be a muckle star
+there, and when you can't see it it means wet weather wi' this wind."
+
+"What star?" Dickson asked.
+
+"The one wi' the Irish-lukkin' name. What's that they call it? O'Brien?"
+And he pointed to where the constellation of the Hunter should have been
+declining on the western horizon.
+
+There was a bend of the road behind them, and suddenly round it came a
+dogcart driven rapidly. Dougal slipped like a weasel into a bush, and
+presently Dickson stood revealed in the glare of a lamp. The horse was
+pulled up sharply and the driver called out to him. He saw that it was
+Dobson the innkeeper with Léon beside him.
+
+"Who is it?" cried the voice. "Oh, you! I thought ye were off the day?"
+
+Dickson rose nobly to the occasion.
+
+"I thought myself I was. But I didn't think much of Auchenlochan, and I
+took a fancy to come back and spend the last night of my holiday with my
+Auntie. I'm off to Glasgow first thing the morn's morn."
+
+"So!" said the voice. "Queer thing I never saw ye on the Auchenlochan
+road, where ye can see three mile before ye."
+
+"I left early and took it easy along the shore."
+
+"Did ye so? Well, good-night to ye."
+
+Five minutes later Dickson walked into Mrs. Morran's kitchen, where
+Heritage was busy making up for a day of short provender.
+
+"I'm for Glasgow to-morrow, Auntie Phemie," he cried. "I want you to
+loan me a wee trunk with a key, and steek the doors and windows, for
+I've a lot to tell you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+HOW MR. McCUNN DEPARTED WITH RELIEF AND RETURNED WITH RESOLUTION
+
+
+At seven o'clock on the following morning the post-cart, summoned by an
+early message from Mrs. Morran, appeared outside the cottage. In it sat
+the ancient postman, whose real home was Auchenlochan, but who slept
+alternate nights in Dalquharter, and beside him Dobson the innkeeper.
+Dickson and his hostess stood at the garden-gate, the former with his
+pack on his back and at his feet a small stout wooden box, of the kind
+in which cheeses are transported, garnished with an immense padlock.
+Heritage for obvious reasons did not appear; at the moment he was
+crouched on the floor of the loft watching the departure through a gap
+in the dimity curtains.
+
+The traveller, after making sure that Dobson was looking, furtively
+slipped the key of the trunk into his knapsack.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Auntie Phemie," he said. "I'm sure you've been awful
+kind to me, and I don't know how to thank you for all you're sending."
+
+"Tuts, Dickson, my man, they're hungry folk about Glesca that'll be glad
+o' my scones and jeelie. Tell Mirren I'm rale pleased wi' her man and
+haste ye back soon."
+
+The trunk was deposited on the floor of the cart and Dickson clambered
+into the back seat. He was thankful that he had not to sit next to
+Dobson, for he had tell-tale stuff on his person. The morning was wet,
+so he wore his waterproof, which concealed his odd tendency to stoutness
+about the middle.
+
+Mrs. Morran played her part well, with all the becoming gravity of an
+affectionate aunt, but so soon as the post-cart turned the bend of the
+road her demeanour changed. She was torn with convulsions of silent
+laughter. She retreated to the kitchen, sank into a chair, wrapped her
+face in her apron and rocked. Heritage, descending, found her struggling
+to regain composure. "D'ye ken his wife's name?" she gasped. "I ca'ed
+her Mirren! And maybe the body's no mairried! Hech sirs! Hech sirs!"
+
+Meantime Dickson was bumping along the moor-road on the back of the
+post-cart. He had worked out a plan, just as he had been used aforetime
+to devise a deal in foodstuffs. He had expected one of the watchers to
+turn up, and was rather relieved that it should be Dobson, whom he
+regarded as "the most natural beast" of the three. Somehow he did not
+think that he would be molested before he reached the station, since his
+enemies would still be undecided in their minds. Probably they only
+wanted to make sure that he had really departed to forget all about him.
+But if not, he had his plan ready.
+
+"Are you travelling to-day?" he asked the innkeeper.
+
+"Just as far as the station to see about some oil-cake I'm expectin'.
+What's in your wee kist? Ye came here wi' nothing but the bag on your
+back."
+
+"Ay, the kist is no' mine. It's my auntie's. She's a kind body, and
+nothing would serve but she must pack a box for me to take back. Let me
+see. There's a baking of scones; three pots of honey and one of rhubarb
+jam--she was aye famous for her rhubarb jam; a mutton ham, which you
+can't get for love or money in Glasgow; some home-made black puddings
+and a wee skim-milk cheese. I doubt I'll have to take a cab from the
+station."
+
+Dobson appeared satisfied, lit a short pipe and relapsed into
+meditation. The long uphill road, ever climbing to where far off showed
+the tiny whitewashed buildings which were the railway station, seemed
+interminable this morning. The aged postman addressed strange
+objurgations to his aged horse and muttered reflections to himself, the
+innkeeper smoked, and Dickson stared back into the misty hollow where
+lay Dalquharter. The south-west wind had brought up a screen of rain
+clouds and washed all the countryside in a soft wet grey. But the eye
+could still travel a fair distance, and Dickson thought he had a glimpse
+of a figure on a bicycle leaving the village two miles back. He wondered
+who it could be. Not Heritage, who had no bicycle. Perhaps some woman
+who was conspicuously late for the train. Women were the chief cyclists
+nowadays in country places.
+
+Then he forgot about the bicycle and twisted his neck to watch the
+station. It was less than a mile off now, and they had no time to
+spare, for away to the south among the hummocks of the bog he saw the
+smoke of the train coming from Auchenlochan. The postman also saw it and
+whipped up his beast into a clumsy canter. Dickson, always nervous about
+being late for trains, forced his eyes away and regarded again the road
+behind them. Suddenly the cyclist had become quite plain--a little more
+than a mile behind--a man, and pedalling furiously in spite of the stiff
+ascent.... It could only be one person--Léon. He must have discovered
+their visit to the House yesterday and be on the way to warn Dobson. If
+he reached the station before the train, there would be no journey to
+Glasgow that day for one respectable citizen.
+
+Dickson was in a fever of impatience and fright. He dared not abjure the
+postman to hurry, lest Dobson should turn his head and descry his
+colleague. But that ancient man had begun to realise the shortness of
+time and was urging the cart along at a fair pace, since they were now
+on the flatter shelf of land which carried the railway. Dickson kept his
+eyes fixed on the bicycle and his teeth shut tight on his lower lip. Now
+it was hidden by the last dip of hill; now it emerged into view not a
+quarter of a mile behind, and its rider gave vent to a shrill call.
+Luckily the innkeeper did not hear, for at that moment with a jolt the
+cart pulled up at the station door, accompanied by the roar of the
+incoming train.
+
+Dickson whipped down from the back seat and seized the solitary porter.
+"Label the box for Glasgow and into the van with it. Quick, man, and
+there'll be a shilling for you." He had been doing some rapid thinking
+these last minutes and had made up his mind. If Dobson and he were alone
+in a carriage he could not have the box there; that must be elsewhere,
+so that Dobson could not examine it if he were set on violence,
+somewhere in which it could still be a focus of suspicion and attract
+attention from his person. He took his ticket, and rushed on to the
+platform, to find the porter and the box at the door of the guard's van.
+Dobson was not there. With the vigour of a fussy traveller he shouted
+directions to the guard to take good care of his luggage, hurled a
+shilling at the porter and ran for a carriage. At that moment he became
+aware of Dobson hurrying through the entrance. He must have met Léon and
+heard news from him, for his face was red and his ugly brows darkening.
+
+The train was in motion. "Here, you!" Dobson's voice shouted. "Stop! I
+want a word wi' ye." Dickson plunged at a third-class carriage, for he
+saw faces behind the misty panes, and above all things then he feared an
+empty compartment. He clambered on to the step, but the handle would not
+turn, and with a sharp pang of fear he felt the innkeeper's grip on his
+arm. Then some Samaritan from within let down the window, opened the
+door and pulled him up. He fell on a seat and a second later Dobson
+staggered in beside him.
+
+Thank Heaven, the dirty little carriage was nearly full. There were two
+herds, each with a dog and a long hazel crook, and an elderly woman who
+looked like a ploughman's wife out for a day's marketing. And there was
+one other whom Dickson recognised with a peculiar joy--the bagman in the
+provision line of business whom he had met three days before at
+Kilchrist.
+
+The recognition was mutual. "Mr. McCunn!" the bagman exclaimed. "My, but
+that was running it fine! I hope you've had a pleasant holiday, sir?"
+
+"Very pleasant. I've been spending two nights with friends down
+hereaways. I've been very fortunate in the weather, for it has broke
+just when I'm leaving."
+
+Dickson sank back on the hard cushions. It had been a near thing, but so
+far he had won. He wished his heart did not beat so fast, and he hoped
+he did not betray his disorder in his face. Very deliberately he hunted
+for his pipe and filled it slowly. Then he turned to Dobson. "I didn't
+know you were travelling the day. What about your oil-cake?"
+
+"I've changed my mind," was the gruff answer.
+
+"Was that you I heard crying on me, when we were running for the train?"
+
+"Ay. I thought ye had forgot about your kist."
+
+"No fear," said Dickson. "I'm no' likely to forget my auntie's scones."
+
+He laughed pleasantly and then turned to the bagman. Thereafter the
+compartment hummed with the technicalities of the grocery trade. He
+exerted himself to draw out his companion, to have him refer to the
+great firm of D. McCunn, so that the innkeeper might be ashamed of his
+suspicions. What nonsense to imagine that a noted and wealthy Glasgow
+merchant--the bagman's tone was almost reverential--would concern
+himself with the affairs of a forgotten village and a tumbledown house!
+
+Presently the train drew up at Kirkmichael station. The woman descended,
+and Dobson, after making sure that no one else meant to follow her
+example, also left the carriage. A porter was shouting: "Fast train to
+Glasgow--Glasgow next stop." Dickson watched the innkeeper shoulder his
+way through the crowd in the direction of the booking office. "He's off
+to send a telegram," he decided. "There'll be trouble waiting for me at
+the other end."
+
+When the train moved on he found himself disinclined for further talk.
+He had suddenly become meditative, and curled up in a corner with his
+head hard against the window pane, watching the wet fields and
+glistening roads as they slipped past. He had his plans made for his
+conduct at Glasgow, but Lord! how he loathed the whole business! Last
+night he had had a kind of gusto in his desire to circumvent villainy;
+at Dalquharter station he had enjoyed a momentary sense of triumph; now
+he felt very small, lonely and forlorn. Only one thought far at the back
+of his mind cropped up now and then to give him comfort. He was entering
+on the last lap. Once get this detestable errand done and he would be a
+free man, free to go back to the kindly humdrum life from which he
+should never have strayed. Never again, he vowed, never again. Rather
+would he spend the rest of his days in hydropathics than come within
+the pale of such horrible adventures. Romance, forsooth! This was not
+the mild goddess he had sought, but an awful harpy who battened on the
+souls of men.
+
+He had some bad minutes as the train passed through the suburbs, and
+along the grimy embankment by which the southern lines enter the city.
+But as it rumbled over the river bridge and slowed down before the
+terminus, his vitality suddenly revived. He was a business man, and
+there was now something for him to do.
+
+After a rapid farewell to the bagman, he found a porter and hustled his
+box out of the van in the direction of the left-luggage office. Spies,
+summoned by Dobson's telegram, were, he was convinced, watching his
+every movement, and he meant to see that they missed nothing. He
+received his ticket for the box, and slowly and ostentatiously stowed it
+away in his pack. Swinging the said pack on his arm he sauntered through
+the entrance hall to the row of waiting taxi-cabs, and selected that one
+which seemed to him to have the oldest and most doddering driver. He
+deposited the pack inside on the seat, and then stood still as if struck
+with a sudden thought.
+
+"I breakfasted terrible early," he told the driver. "I think I'll have a
+bite to eat. Will you wait?"
+
+"Ay," said the man, who was reading a grubby sheet of newspaper. "I'll
+wait as long as ye like, for it's you that pays."
+
+Dickson left his pack in the cab and, oddly enough for a careful man, he
+did not shut the door. He re-entered the station, strolled to the
+bookstall and bought a _Glasgow Herald_. His steps then tended to the
+refreshment room, where he ordered a cup of coffee and two Bath buns,
+and seated himself at a small table. There he was soon immersed in the
+financial news, and though he sipped his coffee he left the buns
+untasted. He took out a penknife and cut various extracts from the
+_Herald_, bestowing them carefully in his pocket. An observer would have
+seen an elderly gentleman absorbed in market quotations.
+
+After a quarter of an hour had been spent in this performance he
+happened to glance at the clock and rose with an exclamation. He bustled
+out to his taxi and found the driver still intent upon his reading.
+"Here I am at last," he said cheerily, and had a foot on the step, when
+he stopped suddenly with a cry. It was a cry of alarm, but also of
+satisfaction.
+
+"What's become of my pack? I left it on the seat, and now it's gone!
+There's been a thief here."
+
+The driver, roused from his lethargy, protested in the name of his gods
+that no one had been near it. "Ye took it into the station wi' ye," he
+urged.
+
+"I did nothing of the kind. Just you wait here till I see the inspector.
+A bonny watch _you_ keep on a gentleman's things."
+
+But Dickson did not interview the railway authorities. Instead he
+hurried to the left-luggage office. "I deposited a small box here a
+short time ago. I mind the number. Is it there still?"
+
+The attendant glanced at a shelf. "A wee deal box with iron bands. It
+was took out ten minutes syne. A man brought the ticket and took it away
+on his shoulder."
+
+"Thank you. There's been a mistake, but the blame's mine. My man mistook
+my orders."
+
+Then he returned to the now nervous taxi-driver. "I've taken it up with
+the station-master and he's putting the police on. You'll likely be
+wanted, so I gave him your number. It's a fair disgrace that there
+should be so many thieves about this station. It's not the first time
+I've lost things. Drive me to West George Street and look sharp." And he
+slammed the door with the violence of an angry man.
+
+But his reflections were not violent, for he smiled to himself. "That
+was pretty neat. They'll take some time to get the kist open, for I
+dropped the key out of the train after we left Kirkmichael. That gives
+me a fair start. If I hadn't thought of that, they'd have found some way
+to grip me and ripe me long before I got to the Bank." He shuddered as
+he thought of the dangers he had escaped. "As it is, they're off the
+track for half an hour at least, while they're rummaging among Auntie
+Phemie's scones." At the thought he laughed heartily, and when he
+brought the taxi-cab to a standstill by rapping on the front window, he
+left it with a temper apparently restored. Obviously he had no grudge
+against the driver, who to his immense surprise was rewarded with ten
+shillings.
+
+Three minutes later Mr. McCunn might have been seen entering the head
+office of the Strathclyde Bank, and inquiring for the manager. There
+was no hesitation about him now, for his foot was on his native heath.
+The chief cashier received him with deference, in spite of his
+unorthodox garb, for he was not the least honoured of the bank's
+customers. As it chanced he had been talking about him that very morning
+to a gentleman from London. "The strength of this city," he had said,
+tapping his eyeglasses on his knuckles, "does not lie in its dozen very
+rich men, but in the hundred or two homely folk who make no parade of
+wealth. Men like Dickson McCunn, for example, who live all their life in
+a semi-detached villa and die worth half a million." And the Londoner
+had cordially assented.
+
+So Dickson was ushered promptly into an inner room, and was warmly
+greeted by Mr. Mackintosh, the patron of the Gorbals Die-Hards.
+
+"I must thank you for your generous donation, McCunn. Those boys will
+get a little fresh air and quiet after the smoke and din of Glasgow. A
+little country peace to smooth out the creases in their poor little
+souls."
+
+"Maybe," said Dickson, with a vivid recollection of Dougal as he had
+last seen him. Somehow he did not think that peace was likely to be the
+portion of that devoted band. "But I've not come here to speak about
+that."
+
+He took off his waterproof; then his coat and waistcoat; and showed
+himself a strange figure with sundry bulges about the middle. The
+manager's eyes grew very round. Presently these excrescences were
+revealed as linen bags sewn on to his shirt, and fitting into the hollow
+between ribs and hip. With some difficulty he slit the bags and
+extracted three hide-bound packages.
+
+"See here, Mackintosh," he said solemnly. "I hand you over these
+parcels, and you're to put them in the innermost corner of your strong
+room. You needn't open them. Just put them away as they are, and write
+me a receipt for them. Write it now."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh obediently took pen in hand.
+
+"What'll I call them?" he asked.
+
+"Just the three leather parcels handed to you by Dickson McCunn, Esq.,
+naming the date."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh wrote. He signed his name with his usual flourish and
+handed the slip to his client.
+
+"Now," said Dickson, "you'll put that receipt in the strong box where
+you keep my securities, and you'll give it up to nobody but me in
+person, and you'll surrender the parcels only on presentation of the
+receipt. D'you understand?"
+
+"Perfectly. May I ask any questions?"
+
+"You'd better not if you don't want to hear lees."
+
+"What's in the packages?" Mr. Mackintosh weighed them in his hand.
+
+"That's asking," said Dickson. "But I'll tell ye this much. It's jools."
+
+"Your own?"
+
+"No, but I'm their trustee."
+
+"Valuable?"
+
+"I was hearing they were worth more than a million pounds."
+
+"God bless my soul," said the startled manager. "I don't like this kind
+of business, McCunn."
+
+"No more do I. But you'll do it to oblige an old friend and a good
+customer. If you don't know much about the packages you know all about
+me. Now, mind, I trust you."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh forced himself to a joke. "Did you maybe steal them?"
+
+Dickson grinned. "Just what I did. And that being so, I want you to let
+me out by the back door."
+
+When he found himself in the street he felt the huge relief of a boy who
+had emerged with credit from the dentist's chair. Remembering that there
+would be no midday dinner for him at home, his first step was to feed
+heavily at a restaurant. He had, so far as he could see, surmounted all
+his troubles, his one regret being that he had lost his pack, which
+contained among other things his _Izaak Walton_ and his safety razor. He
+bought another razor and a new Walton, and mounted an electric tram-car
+_en route_ for home.
+
+Very contented with himself he felt as the car swung across the Clyde
+bridge. He had done well--but of that he did not want to think, for the
+whole beastly thing was over. He was going to bury that memory, to be
+resurrected perhaps on a later day when the unpleasantness had been
+forgotten. Heritage had his address, and knew where to come when it was
+time to claim the jewels. As for the watchers, they must have ceased to
+suspect him, when they discovered the innocent contents of his knapsack
+and Mrs. Morran's box. Home for him, and a luxurious tea by his own
+fireside; and then an evening with his books, for Heritage's nonsense
+had stimulated his literary fervour. He would dip into his old
+favourites again to confirm his faith. To-morrow he would go for a jaunt
+somewhere--perhaps down the Clyde, or to the South of England, which he
+had heard was a pleasant, thickly peopled country. No more lonely inns
+and deserted villages for him; henceforth he would make certain of
+comfort and peace.
+
+The rain had stopped, and, as the car moved down the dreary vista of
+Eglinton Street, the sky opened into fields of blue and the April sun
+silvered the puddles. It was in such place and under such weather that
+Dickson suffered an overwhelming experience.
+
+It is beyond my skill, being all unlearned in the game of
+psycho-analysis, to explain how this thing happened. I concern myself
+only with facts. Suddenly the pretty veil of self-satisfaction was rent
+from top to bottom, and Dickson saw a figure of himself within, a smug
+leaden little figure which simpered and preened itself and was hollow as
+a rotten nut. And he hated it.
+
+The horrid truth burst on him that Heritage had been right. He only
+played with life. That imbecile image was a mere spectator, content to
+applaud, but shrinking from the contact of reality. It had been all
+right as a provision merchant, but when it fancied itself capable of
+higher things it had deceived itself. Foolish little image with its
+brave dreams and its swelling words from Browning! All make-believe of
+the feeblest. He was a coward, running away at the first threat of
+danger. It was as if he were watching a tall stranger with a wand
+pointing to the embarrassed phantom that was himself, and ruthlessly
+exposing its frailties! And yet the pitiless showman was himself
+too--himself as he wanted to be, cheerful, brave, resourceful,
+indomitable.
+
+Dickson suffered a spasm of mortal agony. "Oh, I'm surely not so bad as
+all that," he groaned. But the hurt was not only in his pride. He saw
+himself being forced to new decisions, and each alternative was of the
+blackest. He fairly shivered with the horror of it. The car slipped past
+a suburban station from which passengers were emerging--comfortable
+black-coated men such as he had once been. He was bitterly angry with
+Providence for picking him out of the great crowd of sedentary folk for
+this sore ordeal. "Why was I tethered to sich a conscience?" was his
+moan. But there was that stern inquisitor with his pointer exploring his
+soul. "You flatter yourself you have done your share," he was saying.
+"You will make pretty stories about it to yourself, and some day you may
+tell your friends, modestly disclaiming any special credit. But you will
+be a liar, for you know you are afraid. You are running away when the
+work is scarcely begun, and leaving it to a few boys and a poet whom you
+had the impudence the other day to despise. I think you are worse than a
+coward. I think you are a cad."
+
+His fellow-passengers on the top of the car saw an absorbed middle-aged
+gentleman who seemed to have something the matter with his bronchial
+tubes. They could not guess at the tortured soul. The decision was
+coming nearer, the alternatives loomed up dark and inevitable. On one
+side was submission to ignominy, on the other a return to that place,
+which he detested, and yet loathed himself for detesting. "It seems I'm
+not likely to have much peace either way," he reflected dismally.
+
+How the conflict would have ended had it continued on these lines I
+cannot say. The soul of Mr. McCunn was being assailed by moral and
+metaphysical adversaries with which he had not been trained to deal. But
+suddenly it leapt from negatives to positives. He saw the face of the
+girl in the shuttered House, so fair and young and yet so haggard. It
+seemed to be appealing to him to rescue it from a great loneliness and
+fear. Yes, he had been right, it had a strange look of his Janet--the
+wide-open eyes, the solemn mouth. What was to become of that child if he
+failed her in her great need?
+
+Now Dickson was a practical man and this view of the case brought him
+into a world which he understood. "It's fair ridiculous," he reflected.
+"Nobody there to take a grip of things. Just a wheen Gorbals keelies and
+the lad Heritage. Not a business man among the lot."
+
+The alternatives, which hove before him like two great banks of cloud,
+were altering their appearance. One was becoming faint and tenuous; the
+other, solid as ever, was just a shade less black. He lifted his eyes
+and saw in the near distance the corner of the road which led to his
+home. "I must decide before I reach that corner," he told himself.
+
+Then his mind became apathetic. He began to whistle dismally through his
+teeth, watching the corner as it came nearer. The car stopped with a
+jerk. "I'll go back," he said aloud, clambering down the steps. The
+truth was he had decided five minutes before when he first saw Janet's
+face.
+
+He walked briskly to his house, entirely refusing to waste any more
+energy on reflection. "This is a business proposition," he told himself,
+"and I'm going to handle it as sich." Tibby was surprised to see him and
+offered him tea in vain. "I'm just back for a few minutes. Let's see the
+letters."
+
+There was one from his wife. She proposed to stay another week at the
+Neuk Hydropathic and suggested that he might join her and bring her
+home. He sat down and wrote a long affectionate reply, declining, but
+expressing his delight that she was soon returning. "That's very likely
+the last time Mamma will hear from me," he reflected, but--oddly
+enough--without any great fluttering of the heart.
+
+Then he proceeded to be furiously busy. He sent out Tibby to buy another
+knapsack and to order a cab and to cash a considerable cheque. In the
+knapsack he packed a fresh change of clothing and the new safety razor,
+but no books, for he was past the need of them. That done, he drove to
+his solicitors.
+
+"What like a firm are Glendonan and Speirs in Edinburgh?" he asked the
+senior partner.
+
+"Oh, very respectable. Very respectable indeed. Regular Edinburgh W.S.
+lot. Do a lot of factoring."
+
+"I want you to telephone through to them and inquire about a place in
+Carrick called Huntingtower, near the village of Dalquharter. I
+understand it's to let, and I'm thinking of taking a lease of it."
+
+The senior partner after some delay got through to Edinburgh, and was
+presently engaged in the feverish dialectic which the long-distance
+telephone involves. "I want to speak to Mr. Glendonan himself.... Yes,
+yes, Mr. Caw of Paton and Linklater.... Good afternoon.... Huntingtower.
+Yes, in Carrick. Not to let? But I understand it's been in the market
+for some months. You say you've an idea it has just been let. But my
+client is positive that you're mistaken, unless the agreement was made
+this morning.... You'll inquire? Oh, I see. The actual factoring is done
+by your local agent. Mr. James Loudon, in Auchenlochan. You think my
+client had better get into touch with him at once. Just wait a minute,
+please."
+
+He put his hand over the receiver. "Usual Edinburgh way of doing
+business," he observed caustically. "What do you want done?"
+
+"I'll run down and see this Loudon. Tell Glendonan and Speirs to advise
+him to expect me, for I'll go this very day."
+
+Mr. Caw resumed his conversation. "My client would like a telegram sent
+at once to Mr. Loudon introducing him. He's Mr. Dickson McCunn of Mearns
+Street--the great provision merchant, you know. Oh, yes! Good for any
+rent. Refer if you like to the Strathclyde Bank, but you can take my
+word for it. Thank you. Then that's settled. Good-bye."
+
+Dickson's next visit was to a gunmaker who was a fellow-elder with him
+in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk.
+
+"I want a pistol and a lot of cartridges," he announced. "I'm not caring
+what kind it is, so long as it is a good one and not too big."
+
+"For yourself?" the gunmaker asked. "You must have a licence, I doubt,
+and there's a lot of new regulations."
+
+"I can't wait on a licence. It's for a cousin of mine who's off to
+Mexico at once. You've got to find some way of obliging an old friend,
+Mr. McNair."
+
+Mr. McNair scratched his head. "I don't see how I can sell you one. But
+I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll lend you one. It belongs to my nephew,
+Peter Tait, and has been lying in a drawer ever since he came back from
+the front. He has no use for it now that he's a placed minister."
+
+So Dickson bestowed in the pockets of his waterproof a service revolver
+and fifty cartridges, and bade his cab take him to the shop in Mearns
+Street. For a moment the sight of the familiar place struck a pang to
+his breast, but he choked down unavailing regrets. He ordered a great
+hamper of foodstuffs--the most delicate kind of tinned goods, two
+perfect hams, tongues, Strassburg pies, chocolate, cakes, biscuits and,
+as a last thought, half a dozen bottles of old liqueur brandy. It was to
+be carefully packed, addressed to Mrs. Morran, Dalquharter Station, and
+delivered in time for him to take down by the 7.33 train. Then he drove
+to the terminus and dined with something like a desperate peace in his
+heart.
+
+On this occasion he took a first-class ticket, for he wanted to be
+alone. As the lights began to be lit in the wayside stations and the
+clear April dusk darkened into night, his thoughts were sombre yet
+resigned. He opened the window and let the sharp air of the Renfrewshire
+uplands fill the carriage. It was fine weather again after the rain, and
+a bright constellation--perhaps Dougal's friend O'Brien--hung in the
+western sky. How happy he would have been a week ago had he been
+starting thus for a country holiday! He could sniff the faint scent of
+moor-burn and ploughed earth which had always been his first reminder of
+spring. But he had been pitchforked out of that old happy world and
+could never enter it again. Alas! for the roadside fire, the cosy inn,
+the _Compleat Angler_, the Chavender or Chub!
+
+And yet--and yet! He had done the right thing, though the Lord alone
+knew how it would end. He began to pluck courage from his very
+melancholy and hope from his reflections upon the transitoriness of
+life. He was austerely following Romance as he conceived it, and if that
+capricious lady had taken one dream from him she might yet reward him
+with a better. Tags of poetry came into his head which seemed to favour
+this philosophy--particularly some lines of Browning on which he used to
+discourse to his Kirk Literary Society. Uncommon silly, he considered,
+these homilies of his must have been, mere twitterings of the unfledged.
+But now he saw more in the lines, a deeper interpretation which he had
+earned the right to make.
+
+    "Oh, world, where all things change and nought abides,
+     Oh, life, the long mutation--is it so?
+     Is it with life as with the body's change?--
+     Where, e'en tho' better follow, good must pass."
+
+That was as far as he could get, though he cudgelled his memory to
+continue. Moralising thus, he became drowsy, and was almost asleep when
+the train drew up at the station of Kirkmichael.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SUNDRY DOINGS IN THE MIRK
+
+
+From Kirkmichael on the train stopped at every station, but no passenger
+seemed to leave or arrive at the little platforms white in the moon. At
+Dalquharter the case of provisions was safely transferred to the porter
+with instructions to take charge of it till it was sent for. During the
+next ten minutes Dickson's mind began to work upon his problem with a
+certain briskness. It was all nonsense that the law of Scotland could
+not be summoned to the defence. The jewels had been safely got rid of,
+and who was to dispute their possession? Not Dobson and his crew, who
+had no sort of title, and were out for naked robbery. The girl had
+spoken of greater dangers from new enemies--kidnapping perhaps. Well,
+that was felony, and the police must be brought in. Probably if all were
+known the three watchers had criminal records, pages long, filed at
+Scotland Yard. The man to deal with that side of the business was Loudon
+the factor, and to him he was bound in the first place. He had made a
+clear picture in his head of this Loudon--a derelict old country writer,
+formal, pedantic, lazy, anxious only to get an unprofitable business off
+his hands with the least possible trouble, never going near the place
+himself, and ably supported in his lethargy by conceited Edinburgh
+Writers to the Signet. "Sich notions of business!" he murmured. "I
+wonder that there's a single county family in Scotland no' in the
+bankruptcy court!" It was his mission to wake up Mr. James Loudon.
+
+Arrived at Auchenlochan he went first to the Salutation Hotel, a
+pretentious place sacred to golfers. There he engaged a bedroom for the
+night and, having certain scruples, paid for it in advance. He also had
+some sandwiches prepared which he stowed in his pack, and filled his
+flask with whisky. "I'm going home to Glasgow by the first train
+to-morrow," he told the landlady, "and now I've got to see a friend.
+I'll not be back till late." He was assured that there would be no
+difficulty about his admittance at any hour, and directed how to find
+Mr. Loudon's dwelling.
+
+It was an old house fronting direct on the street, with a fanlight above
+the door and a neat brass plate bearing the legend "Mr. James Loudon,
+Writer." A lane ran up one side leading apparently to a garden, for the
+moonlight showed the dusk of trees. In front was the main street of
+Auchenlochan, now deserted save for a single roysterer, and opposite
+stood the ancient town house, with arches where the country folk came at
+the spring and autumn hiring fairs. Dickson rang the antiquated bell,
+and was presently admitted to a dark hall floored with oil-cloth, where
+a single gas-jet showed that on one side was the business office and on
+the other the living-rooms. Mr. Loudon was at supper, he was told, and
+he sent in his card. Almost at once the door at the end on the left
+side was flung open and a large figure appeared flourishing a napkin.
+"Come in, sir, come in," it cried. "I've just finished a bite of meat.
+Very glad to see you. Here, Maggie, what d'you mean by keeping the
+gentleman standing in that outer darkness?"
+
+The room into which Dickson was ushered was small and bright, with a red
+paper on the walls, a fire burning and a big oil lamp in the centre of a
+table. Clearly Mr. Loudon had no wife, for it was a bachelor's den in
+every line of it. A cloth was laid on a corner of the table, on which
+stood the remnants of a meal. Mr. Loudon seemed to have been about to
+make a brew of punch, for a kettle simmered by the fire, and lemons and
+sugar flanked a pot-bellied whisky decanter of the type that used to be
+known as a "mason's mell."
+
+The sight of the lawyer was a surprise to Dickson and dissipated his
+notions of an aged and lethargic incompetent. Mr. Loudon was a strongly
+built man who could not be a year over fifty. He had a ruddy face,
+clean-shaven except for a grizzled moustache; his grizzled hair was
+thinning round the temples; but his skin was unwrinkled and his eyes had
+all the vigour of youth. His tweed suit was well cut, and the buff
+waistcoat with flaps and pockets and the plain leather watchguard hinted
+at the sportsman, as did the half-dozen racing prints on the wall. A
+pleasant high-coloured figure he made; his voice had the frank ring due
+to much use out of doors; and his expression had the singular candour
+which comes from grey eyes with large pupils and a narrow iris.
+
+"Sit down, Mr. McCunn. Take the arm-chair by the fire. I've had a wire
+from Glendonan and Speirs about you. I was just going to have a glass of
+toddy--a grand thing for these uncertain April nights. You'll join me?
+No? Well, you'll smoke anyway. There's cigars at your elbow. Certainly,
+a pipe if you like. This is Liberty Hall."
+
+Dickson found some difficulty in the part for which he had cast himself.
+He had expected to condescend upon an elderly inept and give him sharp
+instructions; instead he found himself faced with a jovial, virile
+figure which certainly did not suggest incompetence. It has been
+mentioned already that he had always great difficulty in looking any one
+in the face, and this difficulty was intensified when he found himself
+confronted with bold and candid eyes. He felt abashed and a little
+nervous.
+
+"I've come to see you about Huntingtower House," he began.
+
+"I know. So Glendonan's informed me. Well, I'm very glad to hear it. The
+place has been standing empty far too long, and that is worse for a new
+house than an old house. There's not much money to spend on it either,
+unless we can make sure of a good tenant. How did you hear about it?"
+
+"I was taking a bit holiday and I spent a night at Dalquharter with an
+old auntie of mine. You must understand I've just retired from business,
+and I'm thinking of finding a country place. I used to have the big
+provision shop in Mearns Street--now the United Supply Stores, Limited.
+You've maybe heard of it?"
+
+The other bowed and smiled. "Who hasn't? The name of Dickson McCunn is
+known far beyond the city of Glasgow."
+
+Dickson was not insensible of the flattery, and he continued with more
+freedom. "I took a walk and got a glisk of the House and I liked the
+look of it. You see, I want a quiet bit a good long way from a town, and
+at the same time a house with all modern conveniences. I suppose
+Huntingtower has that?"
+
+"When it was built fifteen years ago it was considered a model--six
+bathrooms, its own electric light plant, steam heating, an independent
+boiler for hot water, the whole bag of tricks. I won't say but what some
+of these contrivances will want looking to, for the place has been some
+time empty, but there can be nothing very far wrong, and I can guarantee
+that the bones of the house are good."
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Dickson. "I don't mind spending a little
+money myself if the place suits me. But of that, of course, I'm not yet
+certain, for I've only had a glimpse of the outside. I wanted to get
+into the policies, but a man at the lodge wouldn't let me. They're a
+mighty uncivil lot down there."
+
+"I'm very sorry to hear that," said Mr. Loudon in a tone of concern.
+
+"Ay, and if I take the place I'll stipulate that you get rid of the
+lodgekeepers."
+
+"There won't be the slightest difficulty about that, for they are only
+weekly tenants. But I'm vexed to hear they were uncivil. I was glad to
+get any tenant that offered, and they were well recommended to me."
+
+"They're foreigners."
+
+"One of them is--a Belgian refugee that Lady Morewood took an interest
+in. But the other--Spittal, they call him--I thought he was Scotch."
+
+"He's not that. And I don't like the innkeeper either. I would want him
+shifted."
+
+Mr. Loudon laughed. "I dare say Dobson is a rough diamond. There's worse
+folk in the world all the same, but I don't think he will want to stay.
+He only went there to pass the time till he heard from his brother in
+Vancouver. He's a roving spirit, and will be off overseas again."
+
+"That's all right!" said Dickson, who was beginning to have horrid
+suspicions that he might be on a wild-goose chase after all. "Well, the
+next thing is for me to see over the House."
+
+"Certainly. I'd like to go with you myself. What day would suit you? Let
+me see. This is Friday. What about this day week?"
+
+"I was thinking of to-morrow. Since I'm down in these parts I may as
+well get the job done."
+
+Mr. Loudon looked puzzled. "I quite see that. But I don't think it's
+possible. You see, I have to consult the owners and get their consent to
+a lease. Of course they have the general purpose of letting, but--well,
+they're queer folk the Kennedys," and his face wore the half-embarrassed
+smile of an honest man preparing to make confidences. "When poor Mr.
+Quentin died, the place went to his two sisters in joint ownership. A
+very bad arrangement, as you can imagine. It isn't entailed, and I've
+always been pressing them to sell, but so far they won't hear of it.
+They both married Englishmen, so it will take a day or two to get in
+touch with them. One, Mrs. Stukely, lives in Devonshire. The other--Miss
+Katie that was--married Sir Francis Morewood, the general, and I hear
+that she's expected back in London next Monday from the Riviera. I'll
+wire and write first thing to-morrow morning. But you must give me a day
+or two."
+
+Dickson felt himself waking up. His doubts about his own sanity were
+dissolving, for, as his mind reasoned, the factor was prepared to do
+anything he asked--but only after a week had gone. What he was concerned
+with was the next few days.
+
+"All the same I would like to have a look at the place to-morrow, even
+if nothing comes of it."
+
+Mr. Loudon looked seriously perplexed. "You will think me absurdly
+fussy, Mr. McCunn, but I must really beg of you to give up the idea. The
+Kennedys, as I have said, are--well, not exactly like other people, and
+I have the strictest orders not to let any one visit the house without
+their express leave. It sounds a ridiculous rule, but I assure you it's
+as much as my job is worth to disregard it."
+
+"D'you mean to say not a soul is allowed inside the House?"
+
+"Not a soul."
+
+"Well, Mr. Loudon, I'm going to tell you a queer thing, which I think
+you ought to know. When I was taking a walk the other night--your
+Belgian wouldn't let me into the policies, but I went down the
+glen--what's that they call it? the Garple Dean--I got round the back
+where the old ruin stands and I had a good look at the House. I tell you
+there was somebody in it."
+
+"It would be Spittal, who acts as caretaker."
+
+"It was not. It was a woman. I saw her on the verandah."
+
+The candid grey eyes were looking straight at Dickson, who managed to
+bring his own shy orbs to meet them. He thought that he detected a shade
+of hesitation. Then Mr. Loudon got up from his chair and stood on the
+hearthrug looking down at his visitor. He laughed, with some
+embarrassment, but ever so pleasantly.
+
+"I really don't know what you will think of me, Mr. McCunn. Here are
+you, coming to do us all a kindness, and lease that infernal white
+elephant, and here have I been steadily hoaxing you for the last five
+minutes. I humbly ask your pardon. Set it down to the loyalty of an old
+family lawyer. Now, I am going to tell you the truth and take you into
+our confidence, for I know we are safe with you. The Kennedys
+are--always have been--just a wee bit queer. Old inbred stock, you know.
+They will produce somebody like poor Mr. Quentin, who was as sane as you
+or me, but as a rule in every generation there is one member of the
+family--or more--who is just a little bit----" and he tapped his
+forehead. "Nothing violent, you understand, but just not quite 'wise and
+world-like,' as the old folk say. Well, there's a certain old lady, an
+aunt of Mr. Quentin and his sisters, who has always been about tenpence
+in the shilling. Usually she lives at Bournemouth, but one of her crazes
+is a passion for Huntingtower, and the Kennedys have always humoured her
+and had her to stay every spring. When the House was shut up that became
+impossible, but this year she took such a craving to come back, that
+Lady Morewood asked me to arrange it. It had to be kept very quiet, but
+the poor old thing is perfectly harmless, and just sits and knits with
+her maid and looks out of the seaward windows. Now you see why I can't
+take you there to-morrow. I have to get rid of the old lady, who in any
+case was travelling south early next week. Do you understand?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Dickson with some fervour. He had learned exactly what
+he wanted. The factor was telling him lies. Now he knew where to place
+Mr. Loudon.
+
+He always looked back upon what followed as a very creditable piece of
+play-acting for a man who had small experience in that line.
+
+"Is the old lady a wee wizened body, with a black cap and something like
+a white cashmere shawl round her shoulders?"
+
+"You describe her exactly," Mr. Loudon replied eagerly.
+
+"That would explain the foreigners."
+
+"Of course. We couldn't have natives who would make the thing the clash
+of the countryside."
+
+"Of course not. But it must be a difficult job to keep a business like
+that quiet. Any wandering policeman might start inquiries. And supposing
+the lady became violent?"
+
+"Oh, there's no fear of that. Besides, I've a position in this
+county--Deputy Fiscal and so forth--and a friend of the Chief Constable.
+I think I may be trusted to do a little private explaining if the need
+arose."
+
+"I see," said Dickson. He saw, indeed, a great deal which would give him
+food for furious thought. "Well, I must just possess my soul in
+patience. Here's my Glasgow address, and I look to you to send me a
+telegram whenever you're ready for me. I'm at the Salutation to-night,
+and go home to-morrow with the first train. Wait a minute"--and he
+pulled out his watch--"there's a train stops at Auchenlochan at 10.17. I
+think I'll catch that.... Well, Mr. Loudon, I'm very much obliged to
+you, and I'm glad to think that it'll no be long till we renew our
+acquaintance."
+
+The factor accompanied him to the door, diffusing geniality. "Very
+pleased indeed to have met you. A pleasant journey and a quick return."
+
+The street was still empty. Into a corner of the arches opposite the
+moon was shining, and Dickson retired thither to consult his map of the
+neighbourhood. He found what he wanted and, as he lifted his eyes,
+caught sight of a man coming down the causeway. Promptly he retired into
+the shadow and watched the new-comer. There could be no mistake about
+the figure; the bulk, the walk, the carriage of the head marked it for
+Dobson. The inn-keeper went slowly past the factor's house; then halted
+and retraced his steps; then, making sure that the street was empty,
+turned into the side lane which led to the garden.
+
+This was what sailors call a cross-bearing, and strengthened Dickson's
+conviction. He delayed no longer, but hurried down the side street by
+which the north road leaves the town.
+
+He had crossed the bridge of Lochan and was climbing the steep ascent
+which led to the heathy plateau separating that stream from the Garple
+before he had got his mind quite clear on the case. _First_, Loudon was
+in the plot, whatever it was; responsible for the details of the girl's
+imprisonment, but not the main author. That must be the Unknown who was
+still to come, from whom Spidel took his orders. Dobson was probably
+Loudon's special henchman, working directly under him. _Secondly_, the
+immediate object had been the jewels, and they were happily safe in the
+vaults of the incorruptible Mackintosh. But, _third_--and this only on
+Saskia's evidence--the worst danger to her began with the arrival of the
+Unknown. What could that be? Probably, kidnapping. He was prepared to
+believe anything of people like Bolsheviks. And, _fourth_, this danger
+was due within the next day or two. Loudon had been quite willing to let
+him into the house and to sack all the watchers within a week from that
+date. The natural and right thing was to summon the aid of the law,
+but, _fifth_, that would be a slow business with Loudon able to put
+spokes in the wheels and befog the authorities, and the mischief would
+be done before a single policeman showed his face in Dalquharter.
+Therefore, _sixth_, he and Heritage must hold the fort in the meantime,
+and he would send a wire to his lawyer, Mr. Caw, to get to work with the
+constabulary. _Seventh_, he himself was probably free from suspicion in
+both Loudon's and Dobson's minds as a harmless fool. But that freedom
+would not survive his reappearance in Dalquharter. He could say, to be
+sure, that he had come back to see his auntie, but that would not
+satisfy the watchers, since, so far as they knew, he was the only man
+outside the gang who was aware that people were dwelling in the House.
+They would not tolerate his presence in the neighbourhood.
+
+He formulated his conclusions as if it were an ordinary business deal,
+and rather to his surprise was not conscious of any fear. As he pulled
+together the belt of his waterproof he felt the reassuring bulges in its
+pockets which were his pistol and cartridges. He reflected that it must
+be very difficult to miss with a pistol if you fired it at, say, three
+yards, and if there was to be shooting that would be his range. Mr.
+McCunn had stumbled on the precious truth that the best way to be rid of
+quaking knees is to keep a busy mind.
+
+He crossed the ridge of the plateau and looked down on the Garple glen.
+There were the lights of Dalquharter--or rather a single light, for the
+inhabitants went early to bed. His intention was to seek quarters with
+Mrs. Morran, when his eye caught a gleam in a hollow of the moor a
+little to the east. He knew it for the camp-fire around which Dougal's
+warriors bivouacked. The notion came to him to go there instead, and
+hear the news of the day before entering the cottage. So he crossed the
+bridge, skirted a plantation of firs, and scrambled through the broom
+and heather in what he took to be the right direction.
+
+The moon had gone down, and the quest was not easy. Dickson had come to
+the conclusion that he was on the wrong road, when he was summoned by a
+voice which seemed to arise out of the ground.
+
+"Who goes there?"
+
+"What's that you say?"
+
+"Who goes there?" The point of a pole was held firmly against his chest.
+
+"I'm Mr. McCunn, a friend of Dougal's."
+
+"Stand, friend." The shadow before him whistled and another shadow
+appeared. "Report to the Chief that there's a man here, name o' McCunn,
+seekin' for him."
+
+Presently the messenger returned with Dougal and a cheap lantern which
+he flashed in Dickson's face.
+
+"Oh, it's you," said that leader, who had his jaw bound up as if he had
+the toothache. "What are ye doing back here?"
+
+"To tell the truth, Dougal," was the answer, "I couldn't stay away. I
+was fair miserable when I thought of Mr. Heritage and you laddies left
+to yourselves. My conscience simply wouldn't let me stop at home, so
+here I am."
+
+Dougal grunted, but clearly he approved, for from that moment he treated
+Dickson with a new respect. Formerly when he had referred to him at all
+it had been as "auld McCunn." Now it was "Mister McCunn." He was given
+rank as a worthy civilian ally.
+
+The bivouac was a cheerful place in the wet night. A great fire of pine
+roots and old paling posts hissed in the fine rain, and around it
+crouched several urchins busy making oatmeal cakes in the embers. On one
+side a respectable lean-to had been constructed by nailing a plank to
+two fir-trees, running sloping poles thence to the ground, and thatching
+the whole with spruce branches and heather. On the other side two small
+dilapidated home-made tents were pitched. Dougal motioned his companion
+into the lean-to, where they had some privacy from the rest of the band.
+
+"Well, what's your news?" Dickson asked. He noticed that the Chieftain
+seemed to have been comprehensively in the wars, for apart from the
+bandage on his jaw, he had numerous small cuts on his brow, and a great
+rent in one of his shirt sleeves. Also he appeared to be going lame, and
+when he spoke a new gap was revealed in his large teeth.
+
+"Things," said Dougal solemnly, "has come to a bonny cripus. This very
+night we've been in a battle."
+
+He spat fiercely, and the light of war burned in his eyes.
+
+"It was the tinklers from the Garple Dean. They yokit on us about seven
+o'clock, just at the darkenin'. First they tried to bounce us. We
+weren't wanted here, they said, so we'd better clear. I telled them that
+it was them that wasn't wanted. 'Awa' to Finnick,' says I. 'D'ye think
+we take our orders from dirty ne'er-do-weels like you?' 'By God,' says
+they, 'we'll cut your lights out,' and then the battle started."
+
+"What happened?" Dickson asked excitedly.
+
+"They were four muckle men against six laddies, and they thought they
+had an easy job! Little they kenned the Gorbals Die-Hards! I had been
+expectin' something of the kind, and had made my plans. They first tried
+to pu' down our tents and burn them. I let them get within five yards,
+reservin' my fire. The first volley--stones from our hands and our
+catties--halted them, and before they could recover three of us had got
+hold o' burnin' sticks frae the fire and were lammin' into them. We
+kinnled their claes, and they fell back swearin' and stampin' to get the
+fire out. Then I gave the word and we were on them wi' our poles, usin'
+the points accordin' to instructions. My orders was to keep a good
+distance, for if they had grippit one o' us he'd ha' been done for. They
+were roarin' mad by now, and twae had out their knives, but they
+couldn't do muckle, for it was gettin' dark, and they didn't ken the
+ground like us, and were aye trippin' and tumblin'. But they pressed us
+hard, and one o' them landed me an awful clype on the jaw. They were
+still aiming at our tents, and I saw that if they got near the fire
+again it would be the end o' us. So I blew my whistle for Thomas Yownie,
+who was in command o' the other half of us, with instructions to fall
+upon their rear. That brought Thomas up, and the tinklers had to face
+round about and fight a battle on two fronts. We charged them and they
+broke, and the last seen o' them they were coolin' their burns in the
+Garple."
+
+"Well done, man. Had you many casualties?"
+
+"We're a' a wee thing battered, but nothing to hurt. I'm the worst, for
+one o' them had a grip o' me for about three seconds, and Gosh! he was
+fierce."
+
+"They're beaten off for the night, anyway?"
+
+"Ay, for the night. But they'll come back, never fear. That's why I said
+that things had come to a cripus."
+
+"What's the news from the House?"
+
+"A quiet day, and no word o' Lean or Dobson."
+
+Dickson nodded. "They were hunting me."
+
+"Mr. Heritage has gone to bide in the Hoose. They were watchin' the
+Garple Dean, so I took him round by the Laver foot and up the rocks.
+He's a grand climber, yon. We fund a road up the rocks and got in by the
+verandy. Did ye ken that the lassie had a pistol? Well, she has, and it
+seems that Mr. Heritage is a good shot wi' a pistol, so there's some
+hope thereaways.... Are the jools safe?"
+
+"Safe in the bank. But the jools were not the main thing."
+
+Dougal nodded. "So I was thinkin'. The lassie wasn't muckle the easier
+for gettin' rid o' them. I didn't just quite understand what she said to
+Mr. Heritage, for they were aye wanderin' into foreign langwidges, but
+it seems she's terrible feared o' somebody that may turn up any moment.
+What's the reason I can't say. She's maybe got a secret, or maybe it's
+just that she's ower bonny."
+
+"That's the trouble," said Dickson and proceeded to recount his
+interview with the factor, to which Dougal gave close attention. "Now
+the way I read the thing is this. There's a plot to kidnap that lady,
+for some infernal purpose, and it depends on the arrival of some person
+or persons, and it's due to happen in the next day or two. If we try to
+work it through the police alone, they'll beat us, for Loudon will
+manage to hang the business up till it's too late. So we must take up
+the job ourselves. We must stand a siege, Mr. Heritage and me and you
+laddies, and for that purpose we'd better all keep together. It won't be
+extra easy to carry her off from all of us, and if they do manage it
+we'll stick to their heels.... Man, Dougal, isn't it a queer thing that
+whiles law-abiding folk have to make their own laws?... So my plan is
+that the lot of us get into the House and form a garrison. If you don't,
+the tinklers will come back and you'll no' beat them in the daylight."
+
+"I doubt no'," said Dougal. "But what about our meat?"
+
+"We must lay in provisions. We'll get what we can from Mrs. Morran, and
+I've left a big box of fancy things at Dalquharter station. Can you
+laddies manage to get it down here?"
+
+Dougal reflected. "Ay, we can hire Mrs. Sempill's powny, the same that
+fetched our kit."
+
+"Well, that's your job to-morrow. See, I'll write you a line to the
+station-master. And will you undertake to get it some way into the
+House?"
+
+"There's just the one road open--by the rocks. It'll have to be done. It
+_can_ be done."
+
+"And I've another job. I'm writing this telegram to a friend in Glasgow
+who will put a spoke in Mr. Loudon's wheel. I want one of you to go to
+Kirkmichael to send it from the telegraph office there."
+
+Dougal placed the wire to Mr. Caw in his bosom. "What about yourself? We
+want somebody outside to keep his eyes open. It's bad strawtegy to cut
+off your communications."
+
+Dickson thought for a moment. "I believe you're right. I believe the
+best plan for me is to go back to Mrs. Morran's as soon as the old
+body's like to be awake. You can always get at me there, for it's easy
+to slip into her back kitchen without anybody in the village seeing
+you.... Yes, I'll do that, and you'll come and report developments to
+me. And now I'm for a bite and a pipe. It's hungry work travelling the
+country in the small hours."
+
+"I'm going to introjuice ye to the rest o' us," said Dougal. "Here,
+men!" he called, and four figures rose from the side of the fire. As
+Dickson munched a sandwich he passed in review the whole company of the
+Gorbals Die-Hards, for the pickets were also brought in, two others
+taking their places. There was Thomas Yownie, the Chief of Staff, with a
+wrist wound up in the handkerchief which he had borrowed from his neck.
+There was a burly lad who wore trousers much too large for him, and who
+was known as Peer Pairson, a contraction presumably for Peter Paterson.
+After him came a lean tall boy who answered to the name of Napoleon.
+There was a midget of a child, desperately sooty in the face either from
+battle or from fire-tending, who was presented as Wee Jaikie. Last came
+the picket who had held his pole at Dickson's chest, a sandy-haired
+warrior with a snub nose and the mouth and jaw of a pug-dog. He was Old
+Bill, or in Dougal's parlance "Auld Bull."
+
+The Chieftain viewed his scarred following with a grim content. "That's
+a tough lot for ye, Mr. McCunn. Used a' their days wi' sleepin' in
+coalrees and dunnies and dodgin' the polis. Ye'll no beat the Gorbals
+Die-Hards."
+
+"You're right, Dougal," said Dickson. "There's just the six of you. If
+there were a dozen, I think this country would be needing some new kind
+of a government."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+HOW A MIDDLE-AGED CRUSADER ACCEPTED A CHALLENGE
+
+
+The first cocks had just begun to crow and the clocks had not yet struck
+five when Dickson presented himself at Mrs. Morran's back door. That
+active woman had already been half an hour out of bed, and was drinking
+her morning cup of tea in the kitchen. She received him with cordiality,
+nay, with relief.
+
+"Eh, sirs, but I'm glad to see ye back. Guid kens what's gaun on at the
+Hoose thae days. Mr. Heritage left here yestreen, creepin' round by
+dyke-sides and berry-busses like a wheasel. It's a mercy to get a
+responsible man in the place. I aye had a notion ye wad come back, for,
+thinks I, nevoy Dickson is no the yin to desert folk in trouble....
+Whaur's my wee kist?... Lost, ye say. That's a peety, for it's been my
+cheese-box thae thirty year."
+
+Dickson ascended to the loft, having announced his need of at least
+three hours' sleep. As he rolled into bed his mind was curiously at
+ease. He felt equipped for any call that might be made on him. That Mrs.
+Morran should welcome him back as a resource in need gave him a new
+assurance of manhood.
+
+He woke between nine and ten to the sound of rain lashing against the
+garret window. As he picked his way out of the mazes of sleep and
+recovered the skein of his immediate past, he found to his disgust that
+he had lost his composure. All the flock of fears that had left him
+when, on the top of the Glasgow tram-car, he had made the great decision
+had flown back again and settled like black crows on his spirit. He was
+running a horrible risk and all for a whim. What business had he to be
+mixing himself up in things he did not understand? It might be a huge
+mistake, and then he would be a laughing stock; for a moment he repented
+his telegram to Mr. Caw. Then he recanted that suspicion; there could be
+no mistake, except the fatal one that he had taken on a job too big for
+him. He sat on the edge of his bed and shivered, with his eyes on the
+grey drift of rain. He would have felt more stout-hearted had the sun
+been shining.
+
+He shuffled to the window and looked out. There in the village street
+was Dobson, and Dobson saw him. That was a bad blunder, for his reason
+told him that he should have kept his presence in Dalquharter hid as
+long as possible.
+
+There was a knock at the cottage door, and presently Mrs. Morran
+appeared.
+
+"It's the man frae the inn," she announced. "He's wantin' a word wi' ye.
+Speakin' verra ceevil, too."
+
+"Tell him to come up," said Dickson. He might as well get the interview
+over. Dobson had seen Loudon and must know of their conversation. The
+sight of himself back again when he had pretended to be off to Glasgow
+would remove him effectually from the class of the unsuspected. He
+wondered just what line Dobson would take.
+
+The innkeeper obtruded his bulk through the low door. His face was
+wrinkled into a smile, which nevertheless left the small eyes ungenial.
+His voice had a loud vulgar cordiality. Suddenly Dickson was conscious
+of a resemblance, a resemblance to somebody whom he had recently seen.
+It was Loudon. There was the same thrusting of the chin forward, the
+same odd cheek-bones, the same unctuous heartiness of speech. The
+innkeeper, well washed and polished and dressed, would be no bad copy of
+the factor. They must be near kin, perhaps brothers.
+
+"Good morning to you, Mr. McCunn. Man, it's pitifu' weather, and just
+when the farmers are wanting a dry seed-bed. What brings ye back here?
+Ye travel the country like a drover."
+
+"Oh, I'm a free man now and I took a fancy to this place. An idle body
+has nothing to do but please himself."
+
+"I hear ye're taking a lease of Huntingtower?"
+
+"Now who told you that?"
+
+"Just the clash of the place. Is it true?"
+
+Dickson looked sly and a little annoyed.
+
+"I maybe had half a thought of it, but I'll thank you not to repeat the
+story. It's a big house for a plain man like me, and I haven't properly
+inspected it."
+
+"Oh, I'll keep mum, never fear. But if ye've that sort of notion, I can
+understand you not being able to keep away from the place."
+
+"That's maybe the fact," Dickson admitted.
+
+"Well! It's just on that point I want a word with you." The innkeeper
+seated himself unbidden on the chair which held Dickson's modest
+raiment. He leaned forward and with a coarse forefinger tapped Dickson's
+pyjama-clad knees. "I can't have ye wandering about the place. I'm very
+sorry, but I've got my orders from Mr. Loudon. So if you think that by
+bidin' here ye can see more of the House and the policies, ye're wrong,
+Mr. McCunn. It can't be allowed, for we're no' ready for ye yet. D'ye
+understand? That's Mr. Loudon's orders.... Now, would it not be a far
+better plan if ye went back to Glasgow and came back in a week's time?
+I'm thinking of your own comfort, Mr. McCunn."
+
+Dickson was cogitating hard. This man was clearly instructed to get rid
+of him at all costs for the next few days. The neighbourhood had to be
+cleared for some black business. The tinklers had been deputed to drive
+out the Gorbals Die-Hards, and as for Heritage they seemed to have lost
+track of him. He, Dickson, was now the chief object of their care. But
+what could Dobson do if he refused? He dared not show his true hand. Yet
+he might, if sufficiently irritated. It became Dickson's immediate
+object to get the innkeeper to reveal himself by rousing his temper. He
+did not stop to consider the policy of this course; he imperatively
+wanted things cleared up and the issue made plain.
+
+"I'm sure I'm much obliged to you for thinking so much about my
+comfort," he said in a voice into which he hoped he had insinuated a
+sneer. "But I'm bound to say you're awful suspicious folk about here.
+You needn't be feared for your old policies. There's plenty of nice
+walks about the roads, and I want to explore the sea-coast."
+
+The last words seemed to annoy the innkeeper. "That's no' allowed
+either," he said. "The shore's as private as the policies.... Well, I
+wish ye joy tramping the roads in the glaur."
+
+"It's a queer thing," said Dickson meditatively, "that you should keep
+an hotel and yet be set on discouraging people from visiting this
+neighbourhood. I tell you what, I believe that hotel of yours is all
+sham. You've some other business, you and these lodgekeepers, and in my
+opinion it's not a very creditable one."
+
+"What d'ye mean?" asked Dobson sharply.
+
+"Just what I say. You must expect a body to be suspicious, if you treat
+him as you're treating me." Loudon must have told this man the story
+with which he had been fobbed off about the half-witted Kennedy
+relative. Would Dobson refer to that?
+
+The innkeeper had an ugly look on his face, but he controlled his temper
+with an effort. "There's no cause for suspicion," he said. "As far as
+I'm concerned it's all honest and aboveboard."
+
+"It doesn't look like it. It looks as if you were hiding something up in
+the House which you don't want me to see."
+
+Dobson jumped from his chair, his face pale with anger. A man in pyjamas
+on a raw morning does not feel at his bravest, and Dickson quailed under
+the expectation of assault. But even in his fright he realised that
+Loudon could not have told Dobson the tale of the half-witted lady. The
+last remark had cut clean through all camouflage and reached the quick.
+
+"What the hell d' ye mean?" he cried. "Ye're a spy, are ye? Ye fat
+little fool, for two cents I'd wring your neck."
+
+Now it is an odd trait of certain mild people that a suspicion of
+threat, a hint of bullying, will rouse some unsuspected obstinacy deep
+down in their souls. The insolence of the man's speech woke a quiet but
+efficient little devil in Dickson.
+
+"That's a bonny tone to adopt in addressing a gentleman. If you've
+nothing to hide what way are you so touchy? I can't be a spy unless
+there's something to spy on."
+
+The innkeeper pulled himself together. He was apparently acting on
+instructions, and had not yet come to the end of them. He made an
+attempt at a smile.
+
+"I'm sure I beg your pardon if I spoke too hot. But it nettled me to
+hear ye say that.... I'll be quite frank with ye, Mr. McCunn, and,
+believe me, I'm speaking in your best interests. I give ye my word
+there's nothing wrong up at the House. I'm on the side of the law, and
+when I tell ye the whole story ye'll admit it. But I can't tell it ye
+yet.... This is a wild, lonely bit and very few folk bide in it. And
+these are wild times, when a lot of queer things happen that never get
+into the papers. I tell ye it's for your own good to leave Dalquharter
+for the present. More I can't say, but I ask ye to look at it as a
+sensible man. Ye're one that's accustomed to a quiet life and no' meant
+for rough work. Ye'll do no good if you stay, and, maybe, ye'll land
+yourself in bad trouble."
+
+"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed. "What is it you're expecting? Sinn
+Fein?"
+
+The innkeeper nodded. "Something like that."
+
+"Did you ever hear the like? I never did think much of the Irish."
+
+"Then ye'll take my advice and go home? Tell ye what, I'll drive ye to
+the station."
+
+Dickson got up from the bed, found his new safety-razor and began to
+strop it. "No, I think I'll bide. If you're right there'll be more to
+see than glaury roads."
+
+"I'm warning ye, fair and honest. Ye ... can't ... be ... allowed ... to
+... stay ... here!"
+
+"Well, I never!" said Dickson. "Is there any law in Scotland, think you,
+that forbids a man to stop a day or two with his auntie?"
+
+"Ye'll stay?"
+
+"Ay, I'll stay."
+
+"By God, we'll see about that."
+
+For a moment Dickson thought that he would be attacked, and he measured
+the distance that separated him from the peg whence hung his waterproof
+with the pistol in its pocket. But the man restrained himself and moved
+to the door. There he stood and cursed him with a violence and a venom
+which Dickson had not believed possible. The full hand was on the table
+now.
+
+"Ye wee pot-bellied, pig-heided Glasgow grocer," (I paraphrase), "would
+_you_ set up to defy me? I tell ye, I'll make ye rue the day ye were
+born." His parting words were a brilliant sketch of the maltreatment in
+store for the body of the defiant one.
+
+"Impident dog," said Dickson without heat. He noted with pleasure that
+the innkeeper hit his head violently against the low lintel, and,
+missing a step, fell down the loft stairs into the kitchen, where Mrs.
+Morran's tongue could be heard speeding him trenchantly from the
+premises.
+
+Left to himself, Dickson dressed leisurely, and by and by went down to
+the kitchen and watched his hostess making broth. The fracas with Dobson
+had done him all the good in the world, for it had cleared the problem
+of dubieties and had put an edge on his temper. But he realised that it
+made his continued stay in the cottage undesirable. He was now the focus
+of all suspicion, and the innkeeper would be as good as his word and try
+to drive him out of the place by force. Kidnapping, most likely, and
+that would be highly unpleasant, besides putting an end to his
+usefulness. Clearly he must join the others. The soul of Dickson
+hungered at the moment for human companionship. He felt that his courage
+would be sufficient for any team-work, but might waver again if he were
+left to play a lone hand.
+
+He lunched nobly off three plates of Mrs. Morran's kail--an early lunch,
+for that lady, having breakfasted at five, partook of the midday meal
+about eleven. Then he explored her library, and settled himself by the
+fire with a volume of Covenanting tales, entitled _Gleanings among the
+Mountains_. It was a most practical work for one in his position, for it
+told how various eminent saints of that era escaped the attention of
+Claverhouse's dragoons. Dickson stored up in his memory several of the
+incidents in case they should come in handy. He wondered if any of his
+forbears had been Covenanters; it comforted him to think that some old
+progenitor might have hunkered behind turf walls and been chased for his
+life in the heather. "Just like me," he reflected. "But the dragoons
+weren't foreigners, and there was a kind of decency about Claverhouse
+too."
+
+About four o'clock Dougal presented himself in the back kitchen. He was
+an even wilder figure than usual, for his bare legs were mud to the
+knees, his kilt and shirt clung sopping to his body, and, having lost
+his hat, his wet hair was plastered over his eyes. Mrs. Morran said, not
+unkindly, that he looked "like a wull-cat glowerin' through a whin
+buss."
+
+"How are you, Dougal?" Dickson asked genially. "Is the peace of nature
+smoothing out the creases in your poor little soul?"
+
+"What's that ye say?"
+
+"Oh, just what I heard a man say in Glasgow. How have you got on?"
+
+"Not so bad. Your telegram was sent this mornin'. Old Bill took it in to
+Kirkmichael. That's the first thing. Second, Thomas Yownie has took a
+party to get down the box from the station. He got Mrs. Sempill's powny
+and he took the box ayont the Laver by the ford at the herd's hoose and
+got it on to the shore maybe a mile ayont Laverfoot. He managed to get
+the machine up as far as the water, but he could get no farther, for
+ye'll no' get a machine over the wee waterfa' just before the Laver ends
+in the sea. So he sent one o' the men back with it to Mrs. Sempill, and,
+since the box was ower heavy to carry, he opened it and took the stuff
+across in bits. It's a' safe in the hole at the foot o' the Huntingtower
+rocks, and he reports that the rain has done it no harm. Thomas has made
+a good job of it. Ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+"And what about your camp on the moor?"
+
+"It was broke up afore daylight. Some of our things we've got with us,
+and most is hid near at hand. The tents are in the auld wife's
+henhoose," and he jerked his disreputable head in the direction of the
+back door.
+
+"Have the tinklers been back?"
+
+"Ay. They turned up about ten o'clock, no doubt intendin' murder. I left
+Wee Jaikie to watch developments. They fund him sittin' on a stone,
+greetin' sore. When he saw them, he up and started to run, and they
+cried on him to stop, but he wouldn't listen. Then they cried out where
+were the rest, and he telled them they were feared for their lives and
+had run away. After that they offered to catch him, but ye'll no' catch
+Jaikie in a hurry. When he had run round about them till they were
+wappit, he out wi' his catty and got one o' them on the lug. Syne he
+made for the Laverfoot and reported."
+
+"Man, Dougal, you've managed fine. Now I've something to tell you," and
+Dickson recounted his interview with the innkeeper. "I don't think it's
+safe for me to bide here, and if I did, I wouldn't be any use, hiding in
+cellars and such like, and not daring to stir a foot. I'm coming with
+you to the House. Now tell me how to get there."
+
+Dougal agreed to this view. "There's been nothing doing at the Hoose the
+day, but they're keepin' a close watch on the policies. The cripus may
+come any moment. There's no doubt, Mr. McCunn, that ye're in danger, for
+they'll serve you as the tinklers tried to serve us. Listen to me. Ye'll
+walk up the station road, and take the second turn on your left, a wee
+grass road that'll bring ye to the ford at the herd's hoose. Cross the
+Laver--there's a plank bridge--and take straight across the moor in the
+direction of the peakit hill they call Grey Carrick. Ye'll come to a big
+burn, which ye must follow till ye get to the shore. Then turn south,
+keepin' the water's edge till ye reach the Laver, where you'll find one
+o' us to show ye the rest of the road.... I must be off now, and I
+advise ye not to be slow of startin', for wi' this rain the water's
+risin' quick. It's a mercy it's such coarse weather, for it spoils the
+veesibility."
+
+"Auntie Phemie," said Dickson a few minutes later, "will you oblige me
+by coming for a short walk?"
+
+"The man's daft," was the answer.
+
+"I'm not. I'll explain if you'll listen.... You see," he concluded, "the
+dangerous bit for me is just the mile out of the village. They'll no' be
+so likely to try violence if there's somebody with me that could be a
+witness. Besides, they'll maybe suspect less if they just see a decent
+body out for a breath of air with his auntie."
+
+Mrs. Morran said nothing, but retired, and returned presently equipped
+for the road. She had indued her feet with goloshes and pinned up her
+skirts till they looked like some demented Paris mode. An ancient bonnet
+was tied under her chin with strings, and her equipment was completed by
+an exceedingly smart tortoise-shell-handled umbrella, which, she
+explained, had been a Christmas present from her son.
+
+"I'll convoy ye as far as the Laverfoot herd's," she announced. "The
+wife's a freend o' mine and will set me a bit on the road back. Ye
+needna fash for me. I'm used to a' weathers."
+
+The rain had declined to a fine drizzle, but a tearing wind from the
+south-west scoured the land. Beyond the shelter of the trees the moor
+was a battle-ground of gusts which swept the puddles into spindrift and
+gave to the stagnant bog-pools the appearance of running water. The wind
+was behind the travellers, and Mrs. Morran, like a full-rigged ship,
+was hustled before it, so that Dickson, who had linked arms with her,
+was sometimes compelled to trot.
+
+"However will you get home, mistress?" he murmured anxiously.
+
+"Fine. The wind will fa' at the darkenin'. This'll be a sair time for
+ships at sea."
+
+Not a soul was about, as they breasted the ascent of the station road
+and turned down the grassy bypath to the Laverfoot herd's. The herd's
+wife saw them from afar and was at the door to receive them.
+
+"Megsty! Phemie Morran!" she shrilled. "Wha wad ettle to see ye on a day
+like this? John's awa' at Dumfries, buyin' tups. Come in, the baith o'
+ye. The kettle's on the boil."
+
+"This is my nevoy Dickson," said Mrs. Morran. "He's gaun to stretch his
+legs ayont the burn, and come back by the Ayr road. But I'll be blithe
+to tak' my tea wi' ye, Elspeth.... Now, Dickson, I'll expect ye back on
+the chap o' seeven."
+
+He crossed the rising stream on a swaying plank and struck into the
+moorland, as Dougal had ordered, keeping the bald top of Grey Carrick
+before him. In that wild place with the tempest battling overhead he had
+no fear of human enemies. Steadily he covered the ground, till he
+reached the west-flowing burn that was to lead him to the shore. He
+found it an entertaining companion, swirling into black pools, foaming
+over little falls, and lying in dark canal-like stretches in the flats.
+Presently it began to descend steeply in a narrow green gully, where
+the going was bad, and Dickson, weighted with pack and waterproof, had
+much ado to keep his feet on the sodden slopes. Then, as he rounded a
+crook of hill, the ground fell away from his feet, the burn swept in a
+water-slide to the boulders of the shore, and the storm-tossed sea lay
+before him.
+
+It was now that he began to feel nervous. Being on the coast again
+seemed to bring him inside his enemies' territory, and had not Dobson
+specifically forbidden the shore? It was here that they might be looking
+for him. He felt himself out of condition, very wet and very warm, but
+he attained a creditable pace, for he struck a road which had been used
+by manure-carts collecting seaweed. There were faint marks on it, which
+he took to be the wheels of Dougal's "machine" carrying the
+provision-box. Yes. On a patch of gravel there was a double set of
+tracks, which showed how it had returned to Mrs. Sempill. He was exposed
+to the full force of the wind, and the strenuousness of his bodily
+exertions kept his fears quiescent, till the cliffs on his left sunk
+suddenly and the valley of the Laver lay before him.
+
+A small figure rose from the shelter of a boulder, the warrior who bore
+the name of Old Bill. He saluted gravely.
+
+"Ye're just in time. The water has rose three inches since I've been
+here. Ye'd better strip."
+
+Dickson removed his boots and socks. "Breeks, too," commanded the boy;
+"there's deep holes ayont thae stanes."
+
+Dickson obeyed, feeling very chilly, and rather improper. "Now, follow
+me," said the guide. The next moment he was stepping delicately on very
+sharp pebbles, holding on to the end of the scout's pole, while an icy
+stream ran to his knees.
+
+The Laver as it reaches the sea broadens out to the width of fifty or
+sixty yards and tumbles over little shelves of rock to meet the waves.
+Usually it is shallow, but now it was swollen to an average depth of a
+foot or more, and there were deeper pockets. Dickson made the passage
+slowly and miserably, sometimes crying out with pain as his toes struck
+a sharper flint, once or twice sitting down on a boulder to blow like a
+whale, once slipping on his knees and wetting the strange excrescence
+about his middle, which was his tucked-up waterproof. But the crossing
+was at length achieved, and on a patch of sea-pinks he dried himself
+perfunctorily and hastily put on his garments. Old Bill, who seemed to
+be regardless of wind or water, squatted beside him and whistled through
+his teeth.
+
+Above them hung the sheer cliffs of the Huntingtower cape, so sheer that
+a man below was completely hidden from any watcher on the top. Dickson's
+heart fell, for he did not profess to be a cragsman and had indeed a
+horror of precipitous places. But as the two scrambled along the foot,
+they passed deep-cut gullies and fissures, most of them unclimbable, but
+offering something more hopeful than the face. At one of these Old Bill
+halted and led the way up and over a chaos of fallen rock and loose
+sand. The grey weather had brought on the dark prematurely, and in the
+half-light it seemed that this ravine was blocked by an unscalable mass
+of rock. Here Old Bill whistled, and there was a reply from above. Round
+the corner of the mass came Dougal.
+
+"Up here," he commanded. "It was Mr. Heritage that fund this road."
+
+Dickson and his guide squeezed themselves between the mass and the cliff
+up a spout of stones, and found themselves in an upper storey of the
+gulley, very steep but practicable even for one who was no cragsman.
+This in turn ran out against a wall up which there led only a narrow
+chimney. At the foot of this were two of the Die-Hards, and there were
+others above, for a rope hung down by the aid of which a package was
+even now ascending.
+
+"That's the top," said Dougal, pointing to the rim of sky, "and that's
+the last o' the supplies." Dickson noticed that he spoke in a whisper,
+and that all the movements of the Die-Hards were judicious and stealthy.
+"Now, it's your turn. Take a good grip o' the rope, and ye'll find
+plenty holes for your feet. It's no more than ten yards and ye're well
+held above."
+
+Dickson made the attempt and found it easier than he expected. The only
+trouble was his pack and waterproof, which had a tendency to catch on
+jags of rock. A hand was reached out to him, he was pulled over the
+edge, and then pushed down on his face.
+
+When he lifted his head Dougal and the others had joined him and the
+whole company of the Die-Hards was assembled on a patch of grass which
+was concealed from the landward view by a thicket of hazels. Another,
+whom he recognised as Heritage, was coiling up the rope.
+
+"We'd better get all the stuff into the old Tower for the present,"
+Heritage was saying. "It's too risky to move it into the House now.
+We'll need the thickest darkness for that, after the moon is down.
+Quick, for the beastly thing will be rising soon and before that we must
+all be indoors."
+
+Then he turned to Dickson, and gripped his hand. "You're a high class of
+sportsman, Dogson. And I think you're just in time."
+
+"Are they due to-night?" Dickson asked in an excited whisper, faint
+against the wind.
+
+"I don't know about They. But I've got a notion that some devilish queer
+things will happen before to-morrow morning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
+
+
+The old keep of Huntingtower stood some three hundred yards from the
+edge of the cliffs, a gnarled wood of hazels and oaks protecting it from
+the sea-winds. It was still in fair preservation, having till twenty
+years before been an adjunct of the house of Dalquharter, and used as
+kitchen, buttery and servants' quarters. There had been residential
+wings attached, dating from the mid-eighteenth century, but these had
+been pulled down and used for the foundations of the new mansion. Now it
+stood a lonely shell, its three storeys, each a single great room
+connected by a spiral stone staircase, being dedicated to lumber and the
+storage of produce. But it was dry and intact, its massive oak doors
+defied any weapon short of artillery, its narrow unglazed windows would
+scarcely have admitted a cat--a place portentously strong, gloomy, but
+yet habitable.
+
+Dougal opened the main door with a massy key. "The lassie fund it," he
+whispered to Dickson, "somewhere about the kitchen--and I guessed it was
+the key o' this castle. I was thinkin' that if things got ower hot it
+would be a good plan to flit here. Change our base, like." The
+Chieftain's occasional studies in war had trained his tongue to a
+military jargon.
+
+In the ground room lay a fine assortment of oddments, including old
+bedsteads and servants' furniture, and what looked like ancient
+discarded deer-skin rugs. Dust lay thick over everything, and they heard
+the scurry of rats. A dismal place, indeed, but Dickson felt only its
+strangeness. The comfort of being back again among allies had quickened
+his spirit to an adventurous mood. The old lords of Huntingtower had
+once quarrelled and revelled and plotted here, and now here he was at
+the same game. Present and past joined hands over the gulf of years. The
+saga of Huntingtower was not ended.
+
+The Die-Hards had brought with them their scanty bedding, their lanterns
+and camp kettles. These and the provisions from Mearns Street were
+stowed away in a corner.
+
+"Now for the Hoose, men," said Dougal. They stole over the downs to the
+shrubbery, and Dickson found himself almost in the same place as he had
+lain in three days before, watching a dusky lawn, while the wet earth
+soaked through his trouser knees and the drip from the azaleas trickled
+over his spine. Two of the boys fetched the ladder and placed it against
+the verandah wall. Heritage first, then Dickson darted across the lawn
+and made the ascent. The six scouts followed, and the ladder was pulled
+up and hidden among the verandah litter. For a second the whole eight
+stood still and listened. There was no sound except the murmur of the
+now falling wind and the melancholy hooting of owls. The garrison had
+entered the Dark Tower.
+
+A council in whispers was held in the garden room.
+
+"Nobody must show a light," Heritage observed. "It mustn't be known that
+we're here. Only the Princess will have a lamp. Yes"--this in answer to
+Dickson, "she knows that we're coming--you too. We'll hunt for quarters
+later upstairs. You scouts, you must picket every possible entrance. The
+windows are safe, I think, for they are locked from the inside. So is
+the main door. But there's the verandah door, of which they have a key,
+and the back door beside the kitchen, and I'm not at all sure that
+there's not a way in by the boiler-house. You understand. We're holding
+this place against all comers. We must barricade the danger points. The
+headquarters of the garrison will be in the hall, where a scout must be
+always on duty. You've all got whistles? Well, if there's an attempt on
+the verandah door the picket will whistle once, if at the back door
+twice, if anywhere else three times, and it's everybody's duty, except
+the picket who whistles, to get back to the hall for orders."
+
+"That's so," assented Dougal.
+
+"If the enemy forces an entrance we must overpower him. Any means you
+like. Sticks or fists, and remember that if it's a scrap in the dark
+make for the man's throat. I expect you little devils have eyes like
+cats. The scoundrels must be kept away from the ladies at all costs. If
+the worst comes to the worst, the Princess has a revolver."
+
+"So have I," said Dickson. "I got it in Glasgow."
+
+"The deuce you have! Can you use it?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, you can hand it over to me, if you like. But it oughtn't to come
+to shooting, if it's only the three of them. The eight of us should be
+able to manage three and one of them lame. If the others turn up--well,
+God help us all! But we've got to make sure of one thing, that no one
+lays hands on the Princess so long as there's one of us left alive to
+hit out."
+
+"Ye needn't be feared for that," said Dougal. There was no light in the
+room, but Dickson was certain that the morose face of the Chieftain was
+lit with unholy joy.
+
+"Then off with you. Mr. McCunn and I will explain matters to the
+ladies."
+
+When they were alone, Heritage's voice took a different key. "We're in
+for it, Dogson, old man. There's no doubt these three scoundrels expect
+reinforcements at any moment, and with them will be one who is the devil
+incarnate. He's the only thing on earth that that brave girl fears. It
+seems he is in love with her and has pestered her for years. She hated
+the sight of him, but he wouldn't take no, and being a powerful
+man--rich and well-born and all the rest of it--she had a desperate
+time. I gather he was pretty high in favour with the old Court. Then
+when the Bolsheviks started he went over to them, like plenty of other
+grandees, and now he's one of their chief brains--none of your callow
+revolutionaries, but a man of the world, a kind of genius, she says, who
+can hold his own anywhere. She believes him to be in this country, and
+only waiting the right moment to turn up. Oh, it sounds ridiculous, I
+know, in Britain in the twentieth century, but I learned in the war that
+civilisation anywhere is a very thin crust. There are a hundred ways by
+which that kind of fellow could bamboozle all our law and police and
+spirit her away. That's the kind of crowd we have to face."
+
+"Did she say what he was like in appearance?"
+
+"A face like an angel--a lost angel, she says."
+
+Dickson suddenly had an inspiration.
+
+"D'you mind the man you said was an Australian--at Kirkmichael? I
+thought myself he was a foreigner. Well, he was asking for a place he
+called Darkwater, and there's no sich place in the countryside. I
+believe he meant Dalquharter. I believe he's the man she's feared of."
+
+A gasped "By Jove!" came from the darkness. "Dogson, you've hit it. That
+was five days ago, and he must have got on the right trail by this time.
+He'll be here to-night. That's why the three have been lying so quiet
+to-day. Well, we'll go through with it, even if we haven't a dog's
+chance. Only I'm sorry that you should be mixed up in such a hopeless
+business."
+
+"Why me more than you?"
+
+"Because it's all pure pride and joy for me to be here. Good God, I
+wouldn't be elsewhere for worlds. It's the great hour of my life. I
+would gladly die for her."
+
+"Tuts, that's no' the way to talk, man. Time enough to speak about dying
+when there's no other way out. I'm looking at this thing in a business
+way. We'd better be seeing the ladies."
+
+They groped into the pitchy hall, somewhere in which a Die-Hard was on
+picket, and down the passage to the smoking-room. Dickson blinked in the
+light of a very feeble lamp and Heritage saw that his hands were
+cumbered with packages. He deposited them on a sofa and made a ducking
+bow.
+
+"I've come back, Mem, and glad to be back. Your jools are in safe
+keeping, and not all the blagyirds in creation could get at them. I've
+come to tell you to cheer up--a stout heart to a stey brae, as the old
+folk say. I'm handling this affair as a business proposition, so don't
+be feared, Mem. If there are enemies seeking you, there's friends on the
+road too.... Now, you'll have had your dinner, but you'd maybe like a
+little dessert."
+
+He spread before them a huge box of chocolates, the best that Mearns
+Street could produce, a box of candied fruits, and another of salted
+almonds. Then from his hideously overcrowded pockets he took another
+box, which he offered rather shyly. "That's some powder for your
+complexion. They tell me that ladies find it useful whiles."
+
+The girl's strained face watched him at first in mystification, and then
+broke slowly into a smile. Youth came back to it, the smile changed to a
+laugh, a low rippling laugh like far-away bells. She took both his
+hands.
+
+"You are kind," she said, "you are kind and brave. You are a de-ar."
+
+And then she kissed him.
+
+Now, as far as Dickson could remember, no one had ever kissed him except
+his wife. The light touch of her lips on his forehead was like the
+pressing of an electric button which explodes some powerful charge and
+alters the face of a countryside. He blushed scarlet; then he wanted to
+cry; then he wanted to sing. An immense exhilaration seized him, and I
+am certain that if at that moment the serried ranks of Bolshevism had
+appeared in the doorway, Dickson would have hurled himself upon them
+with a joyful shout.
+
+Cousin Eugčnie was earnestly eating chocolates, but Saskia had other
+business.
+
+"You will hold the house?" she asked.
+
+"Please God, yes," said Heritage. "I look at it this way. The time is
+very near when your three gaolers expect the others, their masters. They
+have not troubled you in the past two days as they threatened, because
+it was not worth while. But they won't want to let you out of their
+sight in the final hours, so they will almost certainly come here to be
+on the spot. Our object is to keep them out and confuse their plans.
+Somewhere in this neighbourhood, probably very near, is the man you fear
+most. If we nonplus the three watchers, they'll have to revise their
+policy, and that means a delay, and every hour's delay is a gain. Mr.
+McCunn has found out that the factor Loudon is in the plot, and he has
+purchase enough, it seems, to blanket for a time any appeal to the law.
+But Mr. McCunn has taken steps to circumvent him, and in twenty-four
+hours we should have help here."
+
+"I do not want the help of your law," the girl interrupted. "It will
+entangle me."
+
+"Not a bit of it," said Dickson cheerfully. "You see, Mem, they've clean
+lost track of the jools, and nobody knows where they are but me. I'm a
+truthful man, but I'll lie like a packman if I'm asked questions. For
+the rest, it's a question of kidnapping, I understand, and that's a
+thing that's not to be allowed. My advice is to go to our beds and get a
+little sleep while there's a chance of it. The Gorbals Die-Hards are
+grand watch-dogs."
+
+This view sounded so reasonable that it was at once acted upon. The
+ladies' chamber was next door to the smoking-room--what had been the old
+schoolroom. Heritage arranged with Saskia that the lamp was to be kept
+burning low, and that on no account were they to move unless summoned by
+him. Then he and Dickson made their way to the hall, where there was a
+faint glimmer from the moon in the upper unshuttered windows--enough to
+reveal the figure of Wee Jaikie on duty at the foot of the staircase.
+They ascended to the second floor, where, in a large room above the
+hall, Heritage had bestowed his pack. He had managed to open a fold of
+the shutters, and there was sufficient light to see two big mahogany
+bedsteads without mattresses or bedclothes, and wardrobes and chests of
+drawers sheeted in holland. Outside the wind was rising again, but the
+rain had stopped. Angry watery clouds scurried across the heavens.
+
+Dickson made a pillow of his waterproof, stretched himself on one of the
+bedsteads and, so quiet was his conscience and so weary his body from
+the buffetings of the past days, was almost instantly asleep. It seemed
+to him that he had scarcely closed his eyes when he was awakened by
+Dougal's hand pinching his shoulder. He gathered that the moon was
+setting, for the room was pitchy dark.
+
+"The three o' them is approachin' the kitchen door," whispered the
+Chieftain. "I seen them from a spy-hole I made out o' a ventilator."
+
+"Is it barricaded?" asked Heritage, who had apparently not been asleep.
+
+"Ay, but I've thought o' a far better plan. Why should we keep them out?
+They'll be safer inside. Listen! We might manage to get them in one at a
+time. If they can't get in at the kitchen door, they'll send one o' them
+round to get in by another door and open to them. That gives us a chance
+to get them separated, and lock them up. There's walth o' closets and
+hidy-holes all over the place, each with good doors and good keys to
+them. Supposin' we get the three o' them shut up--the others, when they
+come, will have nobody to guide them. Of course some time or other the
+three will break out, but it may be ower late for them. At present we're
+besieged and they're roamin' the country. Would it no' be far better if
+they were the ones lockit up and we were goin' loose?"
+
+"Supposing they don't come in one at a time?" Dickson objected.
+
+"We'll make them," said Dougal firmly. "There's no time to waste. Are ye
+for it?"
+
+"Yes," said Heritage. "Who's at the kitchen door?"
+
+"Peter Paterson. I told him no' to whistle, but to wait on me.... Keep
+your boots off. Ye're better in your stockin' feet. Wait you in the hall
+and see ye're well hidden, for likely whoever comes in will have a
+lantern. Just you keep quiet unless I give ye a cry. I've planned it a'
+out, and we're ready for them."
+
+Dougal disappeared, and Dickson and Heritage, with their boots tied
+round their necks by their laces, crept out to the upper landing. The
+hall was impenetrably dark, but full of voices, for the wind was talking
+in the ceiling beams, and murmuring through the long passages. The walls
+creaked and muttered and little bits of plaster fluttered down. The
+noise was an advantage for the game of hide-and-seek they proposed to
+play, but it made it hard to detect the enemy's approach. Dickson, in
+order to get properly wakened, adventured as far as the smoking-room. It
+was black with night, but below the door of the adjacent room a faint
+line of light showed where the Princess's lamp was burning. He advanced
+to the window, and heard distinctly a foot on the gravel path that led
+to the verandah. This sent him back to the hall in search of Dougal,
+whom he encountered in the passage. That boy could certainly see in the
+dark, for he caught Dickson's wrist without hesitation.
+
+"We've got Spittal in the wine-cellar," he whispered triumphantly. "The
+kitchen door was barricaded, and when they tried it, it wouldn't open.
+'Bide here,' says Dobson to Spittal, 'and we'll go round by another door
+and come back and open to ye.' So off they went, and by that time Peter
+Paterson and me had the barricade down. As we expected, Spittal tried
+the key again and it opens quite easy. He comes in and locks it behind
+him, and, Dobson having took away the lantern, he gropes his way very
+carefu' towards the kitchen. There's a point where the wine-cellar door
+and the scullery door are aside each other. He should have taken the
+second, but I had it shut so he takes the first. Peter Paterson gave him
+a wee shove and he fell down the two-three steps into the cellar, and we
+turned the key on him. Yon cellar has a grand door and no windies."
+
+"And Dobson and Léon are at the verandah door? With a light?"
+
+"Thomas Yownie's on duty there. Ye can trust him. Ye'll no fickle Thomas
+Yownie."
+
+The next minutes were for Dickson a delirium of excitement not
+unpleasantly shot with flashes of doubt and fear. As a child he had
+played hide-and-seek, and his memory had always cherished the delights
+of the game. But how marvellous to play it thus in a great empty house,
+at dark of night, with the heaven filled with tempest, and with death or
+wounds as the stakes!
+
+He took refuge in a corner where a tapestry curtain and the side of a
+Dutch awmry gave him shelter, and from where he stood he could see the
+garden-room and the beginning of the tiled passage which led to the
+verandah door. That is to say, he could have seen these things if there
+had been any light, which there was not. He heard the soft flitting of
+bare feet, for a delicate sound is often audible in a din when a loud
+noise is obscured. Then a gale of wind blew towards him, as from an open
+door, and far away gleamed the flickering light of a lantern.
+
+Suddenly the light disappeared and there was a clatter on the floor and
+a breaking of glass. Either the wind or Thomas Yownie.
+
+The verandah door was shut, a match spluttered and the lantern was
+relit. Dobson and Léon came into the hall, both clad in long
+mackintoshes which glistened from the weather. Dobson halted and
+listened to the wind howling in the upper spaces. He cursed it bitterly,
+looked at his watch, and then made an observation which woke the
+liveliest interest in Dickson lurking beside the awmry and Heritage
+ensconced in the shadow of a window-seat.
+
+"He's late. He should have been here five minutes syne. It would be a
+dirty road for his car."
+
+So the Unknown was coming that night. The news made Dickson the more
+resolved to get the watchers under lock and key before reinforcements
+arrived, and so put grit in their wheels. Then his party must
+escape--flee anywhere so long as it was far from Dalquharter.
+
+"You stop here," said Dobson, "I'll go down and let Spidel in. We want
+another lamp. Get the one that the women use and for God's sake get a
+move on."
+
+The sound of his feet died in the kitchen passage and then rung again
+on the stone stairs. Dickson's ear of faith heard also the soft patter
+of naked feet as the Die-Hards preceded and followed him. He was
+delivering himself blind and bound into their hands.
+
+For a minute or two there was no sound but the wind, which had found a
+loose chimney cowl on the roof and screwed out of it an odd sound like
+the drone of a bagpipe. Dickson, unable to remain any longer in one
+place, moved into the centre of the hall, believing that Léon had gone
+to the smoking-room. It was a dangerous thing to do, for suddenly a
+match was lit a yard from him. He had the sense to drop low, and so was
+out of the main glare of the light. The man with the match apparently
+had no more, judging by his execrations. Dickson stood stock still,
+longing for the wind to fall so that he might hear the sound of the
+fellow's boots on the stone floor. He gathered that they were moving
+towards the smoking-room.
+
+"Heritage," he whispered as loud as he dared, but there was no answer.
+
+Then suddenly a moving body collided with him. He jumped a step back and
+then stood at attention, "Is that you, Dobson?" a voice asked.
+
+Now behold the occasional advantage of a nickname. Dickson thought he
+was being addressed as "Dogson" after the Poet's fashion. Had he dreamed
+it was Léon he would not have replied, but fluttered off into the
+shadows and so missed a piece of vital news.
+
+"Ay, it's me," he whispered.
+
+His voice and accent were Scotch, like Dobson's, and Léon suspected
+nothing.
+
+"I do not like this wind," he grumbled. "The Captain's letter said at
+dawn, but there is no chance of the Danish brig making your little
+harbour in this weather. She must lie off and land the men by boats.
+That I do not like. It is too public."
+
+The news--tremendous news, for it told that the new-comers would come by
+sea, which had never before entered Dickson's head--so interested him
+that he stood dumb and ruminating. The silence made the Belgian suspect;
+he put out a hand and felt a waterproofed arm which might have been
+Dobson's. But the height of the shoulder proved that it was not the
+burly innkeeper. There was an oath, a quick movement, and Dickson went
+down with a knee on his chest and two hands at his throat.
+
+"Heritage," he gasped. "Help!"
+
+There was a sound of furniture scraped violently on the floor. A gurgle
+from Dickson served as a guide, and the Poet suddenly cascaded over the
+combatants. He felt for a head, found Léon's, and gripped the neck so
+savagely that the owner loosened his hold on Dickson. The last-named
+found himself being buffeted violently by heavy-shod feet which seemed
+to be manoeuvring before an unseen enemy. He rolled out of the road and
+encountered another pair of feet, this time unshod. Then came a sound of
+a concussion, as if metal or wood had struck some part of a human frame,
+and then a stumble and fall.
+
+After that a good many things all seemed to happen at once. There was a
+sudden light, which showed Léon blinking with a short loaded
+life-preserver in his hand, and Heritage prone in front of him on the
+floor. It also showed Dickson the figure of Dougal, and more than one
+Die-Hard in the background. The light went out as suddenly as it had
+appeared. There was a whistle, and a hoarse "Come on, men," and then for
+two seconds there was a desperate silent combat. It ended with Léon's
+head meeting the floor so violently that its possessor became oblivious
+of further proceedings. He was dragged into a cubby-hole, which had once
+been used for coats and rugs, and the door locked on him. Then the light
+sprang forth again. It revealed Dougal and five Die-Hards, somewhat the
+worse for wear; it revealed also Dickson squatted with outspread
+waterproof very like a sitting hen.
+
+"Where's Dobson?" he asked.
+
+"In the boiler-house," and for once Dougal's gravity had laughter in it.
+"Govey Dick! but yon was a fecht! Me and Peter Paterson and Wee Jaikie
+started it, but it was the whole company afore the end. Are ye better,
+Jaikie?"
+
+"Ay, I'm better," said a pallid midget.
+
+"He kickit Jaikie in the stomach and Jaikie was seeck," Dougal
+explained. "That's the three accounted for. Now they're safe for five
+hours at the least. I think mysel' that Dobson will be the first to get
+out, but he'll have his work letting out the others. Now, I'm for
+flittin' to the old Tower. They'll no ken where we are for a long time,
+and anyway yon place will be far easier to defend. Without they kindle
+a fire and smoke us out, I don't see how they'll beat us. Our provisions
+are a' there, and there's a grand well o' water inside. Forbye there's
+the road down the rocks that'll keep our communications open.... But
+what's come to Mr. Heritage?"
+
+Dickson to his shame had forgotten all about his friend. The Poet lay
+very quiet with his head on one side and his legs crooked limply. Blood
+trickled over his eyes from an ugly scar on his forehead. Dickson felt
+his heart and pulse and found them faint but regular. The man had got a
+swinging blow and might have a slight concussion; for the present he was
+unconscious.
+
+"All the more reason why we should flit," said Dougal. "What d'ye say,
+Mr. McCunn?"
+
+"Flit, of course, but further than the old Tower. What's the time?" He
+lifted Heritage's wrist and saw from his watch that it was half-past
+three. "Mercy! It's nearly morning. Afore we put these blagyirds away,
+they were conversing, at least Léon and Dobson were. They said that they
+expected somebody every moment, but that the car would be late. We've
+still got that Somebody to tackle. Then Léon spoke to me in the dark,
+thinking I was Dobson, and cursed the wind, saying it would keep the
+Danish brig from getting in at dawn as had been intended. D'you see what
+that means? The worst of the lot, the ones the ladies are in terror of,
+are coming by sea. Ay, and they can return by sea. We thought that the
+attack would be by land, and that even if they succeeded we could hang
+on to their heels and follow them, till we got them stopped. But that's
+impossible! If they come in from the water, they can go out by the
+water, and there'll never be more heard tell of the ladies or of you or
+me."
+
+Dougal's face was once again sunk in gloom. "What's your plan, then?"
+
+"We must get the ladies away from here--away inland, far from the sea.
+The rest of us must stand a siege in the old Tower, so that the enemy
+will think we're all there. Please God we'll hold out long enough for
+help to arrive. But we mustn't hang about here. There's the man Dobson
+mentioned--he may come any second, and we want to be away first. Get the
+ladder, Dougal.... Four of you take Mr. Heritage, and two come with me
+and carry the ladies' things. It's no' raining, but the wind's enough to
+take the wings off a seagull."
+
+Dickson roused Saskia and her cousin, bidding them be ready in ten
+minutes. Then with the help of the Die-Hards he proceeded to transport
+the necessary supplies--the stove, oil, dishes, clothes and wraps; more
+than one journey was needed of small boys, hidden under clouds of
+baggage. When everything had gone he collected the keys, behind which,
+in various quarters of the house, three gaolers fumed impotently, and
+gave them to Wee Jaikie to dispose of in some secret nook. Then he led
+the two ladies to the verandah, the elder cross and sleepy, the younger
+alert at the prospect of movement.
+
+"Tell me again," she said. "You have locked all the three up, and they
+are now the imprisoned?"
+
+"Well, it was the boys that, properly speaking, did the locking up."
+
+"It is a great--how do you say?--a turning of the tables. Ah--what is
+that?"
+
+At the end of the verandah there was a clattering down of pots which
+could not be due to the wind, since the place was sheltered. There was
+still only the faintest hint of light, and black night still lurked in
+the crannies. Followed another fall of pots, as from a clumsy intruder,
+and then a man appeared, clear against the glass door by which the path
+descended to the rock garden.
+
+It was the fourth man, whom the three prisoners had awaited. Dickson had
+no doubt at all about his identity. He was that villain from whom all
+the others took their orders, the man whom the Princess shuddered at.
+Before starting he had loaded his pistol. Now he tugged it from his
+waterproof pocket, pointed it at the other and fired.
+
+The man seemed to be hit, for he spun round and clapped a hand to his
+left arm. Then he fled through the door, which he left open.
+
+Dickson was after him like a hound. At the door he saw him running and
+raised his pistol for another shot. Then he dropped it, for he saw
+something in the crouching, dodging figure which was familiar.
+
+"A mistake," he explained to Jaikie when he returned. "But the shot
+wasn't wasted. I've just had a good try at killing the factor!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY
+
+
+Five scouts' lanterns burned smokily in the ground room of the keep when
+Dickson ushered his charges through its cavernous door. The lights
+flickered in the gusts that swept after them and whistled through the
+slits of window, so that the place was full of monstrous shadows, and
+its accustomed odour of mould and disuse was changed to a salty
+freshness. Upstairs on the first floor Thomas Yownie had deposited the
+ladies' baggage, and was busy making beds out of derelict iron bedsteads
+and the wraps brought from their room. On the ground floor on a heap of
+litter covered by an old scout's blanket lay Heritage, with Dougal in
+attendance.
+
+The Chieftain had washed the blood from the Poet's brow and the touch of
+cold water was bringing back his senses. Saskia with a cry flew to him,
+and waved off Dickson who had fetched one of the bottles of liqueur
+brandy. She slipped a hand inside his shirt and felt the beating of his
+heart. Then her slim fingers ran over his forehead.
+
+"A bad blow," she muttered, "but I do not think he is ill. There is no
+fracture. When I nursed in the Alexander Hospital I learnt much about
+head wounds. Do not give him cognac if you value his life."
+
+Heritage was talking now and with strange tongues. Phrases like "lined
+digesters" and "free sulphurous acid" came from his lips. He implored
+some one to tell him if "the first cook" was finished, and he upbraided
+some one else for "cooling off" too fast.
+
+The girl raised her head. "But I fear he has become mad," she said.
+
+"Wheesht, Mem," said Dickson, who recognised the jargon. "He's a paper
+maker."
+
+Saskia sat down on the litter and lifted his head so that it rested on
+her breast. Dougal at her bidding brought a certain case from her
+baggage, and with swift, capable hands she made a bandage and rubbed the
+wound with ointment before tying it up. Then her fingers seemed to play
+about his temples and along his cheeks and neck. She was the
+professional nurse now, absorbed, sexless. Heritage ceased to babble,
+his eyes shut and he was asleep.
+
+She remained where she was, so that the Poet, when a few minutes later
+he woke, found himself lying with his head in her lap. She spoke first,
+in an imperative tone: "You are well now. Your head does not ache. You
+are strong again."
+
+"No. Yes," he murmured. Then more clearly: "Where am I? Oh, I remember,
+I caught a lick on the head. What's become of the brutes?"
+
+Dickson, who had extracted food from the Mearns Street box and was
+pressing it on the others, replied through a mouthful of biscuit: "We're
+in the old Tower. The three are lockit up in the House. Are you feeling
+better, Mr. Heritage?"
+
+The Poet suddenly realised Saskia's position and the blood came to his
+pale face. He got to his feet with an effort and held out a hand to the
+girl. "I'm all right now, I think. Only a little dicky on my legs. A
+thousand thanks, Princess. I've given you a lot of trouble."
+
+She smiled at him tenderly. "You say that when you have risked your life
+for me."
+
+"There's no time to waste," the relentless Dougal broke in. "Comin' over
+here, I heard a shot. What was it?"
+
+"It was me," said Dickson. "I was shootin' at the factor."
+
+"Did ye hit him?"
+
+"I think so, but I'm sorry to say not badly. When I last saw him he was
+running too quick for a sore hurt man. When I fired I thought it was the
+other man--the one they were expecting."
+
+Dickson marvelled at himself, yet his speech was not bravado but the
+honest expression of his mind. He was keyed up to a mood in which he
+feared nothing very much, certainly not the laws of his country. If he
+fell in with the Unknown, he was entirely resolved, if his Maker
+permitted him, to do murder as being the simplest and justest solution.
+And if in the pursuit of this laudable intention he happened to wing
+lesser game it was no fault of his.
+
+"Well, it's a pity ye didn't get him," said Dougal, "him being what we
+ken him to be.... I'm for holding a council o' war, and considerin' the
+whole position. So far we haven't done that badly. We've shifted our
+base without serious casualties. We've got a far better position to
+hold, for there's too many ways into yon Hoose, and here there's just
+one. Besides, we've fickled the enemy. They'll take some time to find
+out where we've gone. But, mind you, we can't count on their staying
+long shut up. Dobson's no' safe in the boiler-house, for there's a
+skylight far up and he'll see it when the light comes and maybe before.
+So we'd better get our plans ready. A word with ye, Mr. McCunn," and he
+led Dickson aside.
+
+"D'ye ken what these blagyirds were up to," he whispered fiercely in
+Dickson's ear. "They were goin' to pushion the lassie. How do I ken,
+says you? Because Thomas Yownie heard Dobson say to Lean at the scullery
+door, 'Have ye got the dope?' he says, and Lean says, 'Ay.' Thomas
+mindit the word for he had heard about it at the Picters."
+
+Dickson exclaimed in horror.
+
+"What d'ye make o' that? I'll tell ye. They wanted to make sure of her,
+but they wouldn't have thought o' dope unless the men they expectit were
+due to arrive any moment. As I see it, we've to face a siege not by the
+three but by a dozen or more, and it'll no' be long till it starts. Now,
+isn't it a mercy we're safe in here?"
+
+Dickson returned to the others with a grave face.
+
+"Where d'you think the new folk are coming from?" he asked.
+
+Heritage answered, "From Auchenlochan, I suppose? Or perhaps down from
+the hills?"
+
+"You're wrong." And he told of Léon's mistaken confidences to him in
+the darkness. "They are coming from the sea, just like the old pirates."
+
+"The sea," Heritage repeated in a dazed voice.
+
+"Ay, the sea. Think what that means. If they had been coming by the
+roads, we could have kept track of them, even if they beat us, and some
+of these laddies could have stuck to them and followed them up till help
+came. It can't be such an easy job to carry a young lady against her
+will along Scotch roads. But the sea's a different matter. If they've
+got a fast boat they could be out of the Firth and away beyond the law
+before we could wake up a single policeman. Ay, and even if the
+Government took it up and warned all the ports and ships at sea, what's
+to hinder them to find a hidy-hole about Ireland--or Norway? I tell you,
+it's a far more desperate business than I thought, and it'll no' do to
+wait on and trust that the Chief Constable will turn up afore the
+mischief's done."
+
+"The moral," said Heritage, "is that there can be no surrender. We've
+got to stick it out in this old place at all costs."
+
+"No," said Dickson emphatically. "The moral is that we must shift the
+ladies. We've got the chance while Dobson and his friends are locked up.
+Let's get them as far away as we can from the sea. They're far safer
+tramping the moors, and it's no' likely the new folk will dare to follow
+us."
+
+"But I cannot go." Saskia, who had been listening intently, shook her
+head. "I promised to wait here till my friend came. If I leave I shall
+never find him."
+
+"If you stay you certainly never will, for you'll be away with the
+ruffians. Take a sensible view, Mem. You'll be no good to your friend or
+your friend to you if before night you're rocking in a ship."
+
+The girl shook her head again, gently but decisively. "It was our
+arrangement. I cannot break it. Besides, I am sure that he will come in
+time, for he has never failed----"
+
+There was a desperate finality about the quiet tones and the weary face
+with the shadow of a smile on it.
+
+Then Heritage spoke. "I don't think your plan will quite do, Dogson.
+Supposing we all break for the hinterland and the Danish brig finds the
+birds flown, that won't end the trouble. They will get on the Princess's
+trail, and the whole persecution will start again. I want to see things
+brought to a head here and now. If we can stick it out here long enough,
+we may trap the whole push and rid the world of a pretty gang of
+miscreants. Once let them show their hand, and then, if the police are
+here by that time, we can jug the lot for piracy or something worse."
+
+"That's all right," said Dougal, "but we'd put up a better fight if we
+had the women off our mind. I've aye read that when a castle was going
+to be besieged the first thing was to rid get of the civilians."
+
+"Sensible to the last, Dougal," said Dickson approvingly. "That's just
+what I'm saying. I'm strong for a fight, but put the ladies in a safe
+bit first, for they're our weak point."
+
+"Do you think that if you were fighting my enemies, I would consent to
+be absent?" came Saskia's reproachful question.
+
+"'Deed no, Mem," said Dickson heartily. His martial spirit was with
+Heritage, but his prudence did not sleep, and he suddenly saw a way of
+placating both. "Just you listen to what I propose. What do we amount
+to? Mr. Heritage, six laddies, and myself--and I'm no more used to
+fighting than an old wife. We've seven desperate villains against us,
+and afore night they may be seventy. We've a fine old castle here, but
+for defence we want more than stone walls--we want a garrison. I tell
+you we must get help somewhere. Ay, but how, says you? Well, coming here
+I noticed a gentleman's house away up ayont the railway and close to the
+hills. The laird's maybe not at home, but there will be men there of
+some kind--gamekeepers and woodmen and such like. My plan is to go there
+at once and ask for help. Now, it's useless me going alone, for nobody
+would listen to me. They'd tell me to go back to the shop or they'd
+think me demented. But with you, Mem, it would be a different matter.
+They wouldn't disbelieve you. So I want you to come with me and to come
+at once, for God knows how soon our need will be sore. We'll leave your
+cousin with Mrs. Morran in the village, for bed's the place for her, and
+then you and me will be off on our business."
+
+The girl looked at Heritage, who nodded. "It's the only way," he said.
+"Get every man jack you can raise, and if it's humanly possible get a
+gun or two. I believe there's time enough, for I don't see the brig
+arriving in broad daylight."
+
+"D'you not?" Dickson asked rudely. "Have you considered what day this
+is? It's the Sabbath, the best of days for an ill deed. There's no kirk
+hereaways, and everybody in the parish will be sitting indoors by the
+fire." He looked at his watch. "In half an hour it'll be light. Haste
+you, Mem, and get ready. Dougal, what's the weather?"
+
+The Chieftain swung open the door, and sniffed the air. The wind had
+fallen for the time being, and the surge of the tides below the rocks
+rose like the clamour of a mob. With the lull, mist and a thin drizzle
+had cloaked the world again.
+
+To Dickson's surprise Dougal seemed to be in good spirits. He began to
+sing to a hymn tune a strange ditty.
+
+    "Class-conscious we are, and class-conscious wull be
+     Till our fit's on the neck o' the Boorjoyzee."
+
+"What on earth are you singing?" Dickson inquired.
+
+Dougal grinned. "Wee Jaikie went to a Socialist Sunday school last
+winter because he heard they were for fechtin' battles. Ay, and they
+telled him he was to jine a thing called an International, and Jaikie
+thought it was a fitba' club. But when he fund out there was no magic
+lantern or swaree at Christmas he gie'd it the chuck. They learned him
+a heap o' queer songs. That's one."
+
+"What does the last word mean?"
+
+"I don't ken. Jaikie thought it was some kind of a draigon."
+
+"It's a daft-like thing anyway.... When's high water?"
+
+Dougal answered that to the best of his knowledge it fell between four
+and five in the afternoon.
+
+"Then that's when we may expect the foreign gentry if they think to
+bring their boat in to the Garple foot.... Dougal, lad, I trust you to
+keep a most careful and prayerful watch. You had better get the
+Die-Hards out of the Tower and all round the place afore Dobson and Co.
+get loose, or you'll no' get a chance later. Don't lose your mobility,
+as the sodgers say. Mr. Heritage can hold the fort, but you laddies
+should be spread out like a screen."
+
+"That was my notion," said Dougal. "I'll detail two Die-Hards--Thomas
+Yownie and Wee Jaikie--to keep in touch with ye and watch for ye comin'
+back. Thomas ye ken already; ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie. But don't be
+mistook about Wee Jaikie. He's terrible fond of greetin', but it's no
+fright with him but excitement. It's just a habit he's gotten. When ye
+see Jaikie begin to greet, ye may be sure that Jaikie's gettin'
+dangerous."
+
+The door shut behind them and Dickson found himself with his two charges
+in a world dim with fog and rain and the still lingering darkness. The
+air was raw, and had the sour smell which comes from soaked earth and
+wet boughs when the leaves are not yet fledged. Both the women were
+miserably equipped for such an expedition. Cousin Eugčnie trailed heavy
+furs, Saskia's only wrap was a bright-coloured shawl about her
+shoulders, and both wore thin foreign shoes. Dickson insisted on
+stripping off his trusty waterproof and forcing it on the Princess, on
+whose slim body it hung very loose and very short. The elder woman
+stumbled and whimpered and needed the constant support of his arm,
+walking like a townswoman from the knees. But Saskia swung from the hips
+like a free woman, and Dickson had much ado to keep up with her. She
+seemed to delight in the bitter freshness of the dawn, inhaling deep
+breaths of it, and humming fragments of a tune.
+
+Guided by Thomas Yownie they took the road which Dickson and Heritage
+had travelled the first evening, through the shrubberies on the north
+side of the House and the side avenue beyond which the ground fell to
+the Laver glen. On their right the House rose like a dark cloud, but
+Dickson had lost his terror of it. There were three angry men inside it,
+he remembered: long let them stay there. He marvelled at his mood, and
+also rejoiced, for his worst fear had always been that he might prove a
+coward. Now he was puzzled to think how he could ever be frightened
+again, for his one object was to succeed, and in that absorption fear
+seemed to him merely a waste of time. "It all comes of treating the
+thing as a business proposition," he told himself.
+
+But there was far more in his heart than this sober resolution. He was
+intoxicated with the resurgence of youth and felt a rapture of audacity
+which he never remembered in his decorous boyhood. "I haven't been doing
+badly for an old man," he reflected with glee. What, oh, what had become
+of the pillar of commerce, the man who might have been a Bailie had he
+sought municipal honours, the elder in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, the
+instructor of literary young men? In the past three days he had levanted
+with jewels which had once been an Emperor's and certainly were not his;
+he had burglariously entered and made free of a strange house; he had
+played hide-and-seek at the risk of his neck and had wrestled in the
+dark with a foreign miscreant; he had shot at an eminent solicitor with
+intent to kill; and he was now engaged in tramping the world with a
+fairy-tale Princess. I blush to confess that of each of his doings he
+was unashamedly proud, and thirsted for many more in the same line.
+"Gosh, but I'm seeing life," was his unregenerate conclusion.
+
+Without sight or sound of a human being, they descended to the Laver,
+climbed again by the cart track, and passed the deserted West Lodge and
+inn to the village. It was almost full dawn when the three stood in Mrs.
+Morran's kitchen.
+
+"I've brought you two ladies, Auntie Phemie," said Dickson.
+
+They made an odd group in that cheerful place, where the new-lit fire
+was crackling in the big grate--the wet undignified form of Dickson,
+unshaven of cheek and chin and disreputable in garb: the shrouded
+figure of Cousin Eugčnie, who had sunk into the arm-chair and closed her
+eyes; the slim girl, into whose face the weather had whipped a glow like
+blossom; and the hostess, with her petticoats kilted and an ancient
+mutch on her head.
+
+Mrs. Morran looked once at Saskia, and then did a thing which she had
+not done since her girlhood. She curtseyed.
+
+"I'm proud to see ye here, Mem. Off wi' your things, and I'll get ye dry
+claes. Losh, ye're fair soppin'. And your shoon! Ye maun change your
+feet.... Dickson! Awa' up to the loft, and dinna you stir till I give ye
+a cry. The leddies will change by the fire. And you, Mem"--this to
+Cousin Eugčnie--"the place for you's your bed. I'll kinnle a fire ben
+the hoose in a jiffy. And syne ye'll have breakfast--ye'll hae a cup o'
+tea wi' me now, for the kettle's just on the boil. Awa' wi' ye,
+Dickson," and she stamped her foot.
+
+Dickson departed, and in the loft washed his face, and smoked a pipe on
+the edge of the bed, watching the mist eddying up the village street.
+From below rose the sounds of hospitable bustle, and when after some
+twenty minutes' vigil he descended, he found Saskia toasting stockinged
+toes by the fire in the great arm-chair, and Mrs. Morran setting the
+table.
+
+"Auntie Phemie, hearken to me. We've taken on too big a job for two men
+and six laddies, and help we've got to get, and that this very morning.
+D'you mind the big white house away up near the hills ayont the station
+and east of the Ayr road? It looked like a gentleman's shooting lodge. I
+was thinking of trying there. Mercy!"
+
+The exclamation was wrung from him by his eyes settling on Saskia and
+noting her apparel. Gone were her thin foreign clothes, and in their
+place she wore a heavy tweed skirt cut very short, and thick homespun
+stockings, which had been made for some one with larger feet than hers.
+A pair of the coarse low-heeled shoes, which country folk wear in the
+farmyard, stood warming by the hearth. She still had her russet jumper,
+but round her neck hung a grey wool scarf, of the kind known as a
+"comforter." Amazingly pretty she looked in Dickson's eyes, but with a
+different kind of prettiness. The sense of fragility had fled, and he
+saw how nobly built she was for all her exquisiteness. She looked like a
+queen, he thought, but a queen to go gipsying through the world with.
+
+"Ay, they're some o' Elspeth's things, rale guid furthy claes," said
+Mrs. Morran complacently. "And the shoon are what she used to gang about
+the byres wi' when she was in the Castlewham dairy. The leddy was
+tellin' me she was for trampin' the hills, and thae things will keep her
+dry and warm.... I ken the hoose ye mean. They ca' it the Mains of
+Garple. And I ken the man that bides in it. He's yin Sir Erchibald
+Roylance. English, but his mither was a Dalziel. I'm no weel acquaint
+wi' his forbears, but I'm weel eneuch acquaint wi' Sir Erchie, and
+'better a guid coo than a coo o' a guid kind,' as my mither used to say.
+He used to be an awfu' wild callant, a freend o' puir Maister Quentin,
+and up to ony deevilry. But they tell me he's a quieter lad since the
+war, and sair lamed by fa'in oot o' an airyplane."
+
+"Will he be at the Mains just now?" Dickson asked.
+
+"I wadna wonder. He has a muckle place in England, but he aye used to
+come here in the back-end for the shootin' and in Aprile for birds. He's
+clean daft about birds. He'll be out a' day at the Craig watchin'
+solans, or lyin' a' mornin' i' the moss lookin' at bog-blitters."
+
+"Will he help, think you?"
+
+"I'll wager he'll help. Onyway it's your best chance, and better a wee
+bush than nae beild. Now, sit in to your breakfast."
+
+It was a merry meal. Mrs. Morran dispensed tea and gnomic wisdom. Saskia
+ate heartily, speaking little, but once or twice laying her hand softly
+on her hostess's gnarled fingers. Dickson was in such spirits that he
+gobbled shamelessly, being both hungry and hurried, and he spoke of the
+still unconquered enemy with ease and disrespect, so that Mrs. Morran
+was moved to observe that there was "naething sae bauld as a blind
+mear." But when in a sudden return of modesty he belittled his
+usefulness and talked sombrely of his mature years he was told that he
+"wad never be auld wi' sae muckle honesty." Indeed it was very clear
+that Mrs. Morran approved of her nephew.
+
+They did not linger over breakfast, for both were impatient to be on the
+road. Mrs. Morran assisted Saskia to put on Elspeth's shoes. "'Even a
+young fit finds comfort in an auld bauchle,' as my mother, honest woman,
+used to say." Dickson's waterproof was restored to him, and for Saskia
+an old raincoat belonging to the son in South Africa was discovered,
+which fitted her better. "Siccan weather," said the hostess, as she
+opened the door to let in a swirl of wind. "The deil's aye kind to his
+ain. Haste ye back, Mem, and be sure I'll tak' guid care o' your leddy
+cousin."
+
+The proper way to the Mains of Garple was either by the station and the
+Ayr road, or by the Auchenlochan highway, branching off half a mile
+beyond the Garple bridge. But Dickson, who had been studying the map and
+fancied himself as a pathfinder, chose the direct route across the Long
+Muir as being at once shorter and more sequestered. With the dawn the
+wind had risen again, but it had shifted towards the north-west and was
+many degrees colder. The mist was furling on the hills like sails, the
+rain had ceased, and out at sea the eye covered a mile or two of wild
+water. The moor was drenching wet, and the peat bogs were brimming with
+inky pools, so that soon the travellers were soaked to the knees.
+Dickson had no fear of pursuit, for he calculated that Dobson and his
+friends, even if they had got out, would be busy looking for the truants
+in the vicinity of the House and would presently be engaged with the old
+Tower. But he realised, too, that speed on his errand was vital, for at
+any moment the Unknown might arrive from the sea.
+
+So he kept up a good pace, half-running, half-striding, till they had
+passed the railway, and he found himself gasping with a stitch in his
+side, and compelled to rest in the lee of what had once been a
+sheepfold. Saskia amazed him. She moved over the rough heather like a
+deer, and it was her hand that helped him across the deeper hags. Before
+such youth and vigour he felt clumsy and old. She stood looking down at
+him as he recovered his breath, cool, unruffled, alert as Diana. His
+mind fled to Heritage, and it occurred to him suddenly that the Poet had
+set his affections very high. Loyalty drove him to speak a word for his
+friend.
+
+"I've got the easy job," he said. "Mr. Heritage will have the whole pack
+on him in that old Tower, and him with such a sore clout on his head.
+I've left him my pistol. He's a terrible brave man!"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Ay, and he's a poet too."
+
+"So?" she said. "I did not know. He is very young."
+
+"He's a man of very high ideels."
+
+She puzzled at the word, and then smiled. "I know him. He is like many
+of our young men in Russia, the students--his mind is in a ferment and
+he does not know what he wants. But he is brave."
+
+This seemed to Dickson's loyal soul but a chilly tribute.
+
+"I think he is in love with me," she continued.
+
+He looked up startled and saw in her face that which gave him a view
+into a strange new world. He had thought that women blushed when they
+talked of love, but her eyes were as grave and candid as a boy's. Here
+was one who had gone through waters so deep that she had lost the
+foibles of sex. Love to her was only a word of ill omen, a threat on the
+lips of brutes, an extra battalion of peril in an army of perplexities.
+He felt like some homely rustic who finds himself swept unwittingly into
+the moonlight hunt of Artemis and her maidens.
+
+"He is a romantic," she said. "I have known so many like him."
+
+"He's no' that," said Dickson shortly. "Why, he used to be aye laughing
+at me for being romantic. He's one that's looking for truth and reality,
+he says, and he's terrible down on the kind of poetry I like myself."
+
+She smiled. "They all talk so. But you, my friend Dickson" (she
+pronounced the name in two staccato syllables ever so prettily), "you
+are different. Tell me about yourself."
+
+"I'm just what you see--a middle-aged retired grocer."
+
+"Grocer?" she queried. "Ah, yes, _épicier_. But you are a very
+remarkable _épicier_. Mr. Heritage I understand, but you and those
+little boys--no. I am sure of one thing--you are not a romantic. You are
+too humorous and--and----I think you are like Ulysses, for it would not
+be easy to defeat you."
+
+Her eyes were kind, nay affectionate, and Dickson experienced a
+preposterous rapture in his soul, followed by a sinking, as he realised
+how far the job was still from being completed.
+
+"We must be getting on, Mem," he said hastily, and the two plunged again
+into the heather.
+
+The Ayr road was crossed, and the fir wood around the Mains became
+visible, and presently the white gates of the entrance. A wind-blown
+spire of smoke beyond the trees proclaimed that the house was not
+untenanted. As they entered the drive the Scots firs were tossing in the
+gale, which blew fiercely at this altitude, but, the dwelling itself
+being more in the hollow, the daffodil clumps on the lawn were but
+mildly fluttered.
+
+The door was opened by a one-armed butler who bore all the marks of the
+old regular soldier. Dickson produced a card and asked to see his master
+on urgent business. Sir Archibald was at home, he was told, and had just
+finished breakfast. The two were led into a large bare chamber which had
+all the chill and mustiness of a bachelor's drawing-room. The butler
+returned, and said Sir Archibald would see him. "I'd better go myself
+first and prepare the way, Mem," Dickson whispered and followed the man
+across the hall.
+
+He found himself ushered into a fair-sized room where a bright fire was
+burning. On a table lay the remains of breakfast, and the odour of food
+mingled pleasantly with the scent of peat. The horns and heads of big
+game, foxes' masks, the model of a gigantic salmon and several bookcases
+adorned the wall, and books and maps were mixed with decanters and
+cigar-boxes on the long sideboard. After the wild out of doors the
+place seemed the very shrine of comfort. A young man sat in an armchair
+by the fire with a leg on a stool; he was smoking a pipe, and reading
+the _Field_, and on another stool at his elbow was a pile of new novels.
+He was a pleasant brown-faced young man, with remarkably smooth hair and
+a roving humorous eye.
+
+"Come in, Mr. McCunn. Very glad to see you. If, as I take it, you're the
+grocer, you're a household name in these parts. I get all my supplies
+from you, and I've just been makin' inroads on one of your divine hams.
+Now, what can I do for you?"
+
+"I'm very proud to hear what you say, Sir Archibald. But I've not come
+on business. I've come with the queerest story you ever heard in your
+life, and I've come to ask your help."
+
+"Go ahead. A good story is just what I want this vile mornin'."
+
+"I'm not here alone. I've a lady with me."
+
+"God bless my soul! A lady!"
+
+"Ay, a princess. She's in the next room."
+
+The young man looked wildly at him and waved the book he had been
+reading.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. McCunn, but are you quite sober? I beg your pardon. I
+see you are. But you know, it isn't done. Princesses don't as a rule
+come here after breakfast to pass the time of day. It's more absurd than
+this shocker I've been readin'."
+
+"All the same it's a fact. She'll tell you the story herself, and you'll
+believe her quick enough. But to prepare your mind I'll just give you a
+sketch of the events of the last few days."
+
+Before the sketch was concluded the young man had violently rung the
+bell. "Sime," he shouted to the servant, "clear away this mess and lay
+the table again. Order more breakfast, all the breakfast you can get.
+Open the windows and get the tobacco smoke out of the air. Tidy up the
+place for there's a lady comin'. Quick, you juggins!"
+
+He was on his feet now, and, with his arm in Dickson's, was heading for
+the door.
+
+"My sainted aunt! And you topped off with pottin' at the factor. I've
+seen a few things in my day, but I'm blessed if I ever met a bird like
+you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+GRAVITY OUT OF BED
+
+
+It is probable that Sir Archibald Roylance did not altogether believe
+Dickson's tale; it may be that he considered him an agreeable romancer,
+or a little mad, or no more than a relief to the tedium of a wet Sunday
+morning. But his incredulity did not survive one glance at Saskia as she
+stood in that bleak drawing-room among Victorian water-colours and faded
+chintzes. The young man's boyishness deserted him. He stopped short in
+his tracks, and made a profound and awkward bow. "I am at your service,
+Mademoiselle," he said, amazed at himself. The words seemed to have come
+out of a confused memory of plays and novels.
+
+She inclined her head--a little on one side, and looked towards Dickson.
+
+"Sir Archibald's going to do his best for us," said that squire of
+dames. "I was telling him that we had had our breakfast."
+
+"Let's get out of this sepulchre," said their host, who was recovering
+himself. "There's a roasting fire in my den. Of course you'll have
+something to eat--hot coffee, anyhow--I've trained my cook to make
+coffee like a Frenchwoman. The housekeeper will take charge of you, if
+you want to tidy up, and you must excuse our ramshackle ways, please. I
+don't believe there's ever been a lady in this house before, you know."
+
+He led her to the smoking-room and ensconced her in the great chair by
+the fire. Smilingly she refused a series of offers which ranged from a
+sheepskin mantle which he had got in the Pamirs and which he thought
+might fit her, to hot whisky and water as a specific against a chill.
+But she accepted a pair of slippers and deftly kicked off the brogues
+provided by Mrs. Morran. Also, while Dickson started rapaciously on a
+second breakfast, she allowed him to pour her out a cup of coffee.
+
+"You are a soldier?" she asked.
+
+"Two years infantry--5th Battalion Lennox Highlanders, and then Flying
+Corps. Top-hole time I had too, till the day before the Armistice when
+my luck gave out and I took a nasty toss. Consequently I'm not as fast
+on my legs now as I'd like to be."
+
+"You were a friend of Captain Kennedy?"
+
+"His oldest. We were at the same private school, and he was at m'
+tutor's, and we were never much separated till he went abroad to cram
+for the Diplomatic and I started east to shoot things."
+
+"Then I will tell you what I told Captain Kennedy." Saskia, looking into
+the heart of the peats, began the story of which we have already heard a
+version, but she told it differently, for she was telling it to one who
+more or less belonged to her own world. She mentioned names at which the
+other nodded. She spoke of a certain Paul Abreskov. "I heard of him at
+Bokhara in 1912," said Sir Archie, and his face grew solemn. Sometimes
+she lapsed into French, and her hearer's brow wrinkled, but he appeared
+to follow. When she had finished he drew a long breath.
+
+"My Aunt! What a time you've been through! I've seen pluck in my day,
+but yours! It's not thinkable. D'you mind if I ask a question, Princess?
+Bolshevism we know all about, and I admit Trotsky and his friends are a
+pretty effective push; but how on earth have they got a world-wide graft
+going in the time so that they can stretch their net to an
+out-of-the-way spot like this? It looks as if they had struck a Napoleon
+somewhere."
+
+"You do not understand," she said. "I cannot make any one
+understand--except a Russian. My country has been broken to pieces, and
+there is no law in it; therefore it is a nursery of crime. So would
+England be, or France, if you had suffered the same misfortunes. My
+people are not wickeder than others, but for the moment they are sick
+and have no strength. As for the government of the Bolsheviki it matters
+little, for it will pass. Some parts of it may remain, but it is a
+government of the sick and fevered, and cannot endure in health. Lenin
+may be a good man--I do not think so, but I do not know--but if he were
+an archangel he could not alter things. Russia is mortally sick and
+therefore all evil is unchained, and the criminals have no one to check
+them. There is crime everywhere in the world, and the unfettered crime
+in Russia is so powerful that it stretches its hand to crime throughout
+the globe and there is a great mobilising everywhere of wicked men. Once
+you boasted that law was international and that the police in one land
+worked with the police of all others. To-day that is true about
+criminals. After a war evil passions are loosed, and, since Russia is
+broken, in her they can make their headquarters.... It is not
+Bolshevism, the theory, you need fear, for that is a weak and dying
+thing. It is crime, which to-day finds its seat in my country, but is
+not only Russian. It has no fatherland. It is as old as human nature and
+as wide as the earth."
+
+"I see," said Sir Archie. "Gad, here have I been vegetatin' and thinkin'
+that all excitement had gone out of life with the war, and sometimes
+even regrettin' that the beastly old thing was over, and all the while
+the world fairly hummin' with interest. And Loudon too!"
+
+"I would like your candid opinion on yon factor, Sir Archibald," said
+Dickson.
+
+"I can't say I ever liked him, and I've once or twice had a row with
+him, for he used to bring his pals to shoot over Dalquharter and he
+didn't quite play the game by me. But I know dashed little about him,
+for I've been a lot away. Bit hairy about the heels, of course. A great
+figure at local race-meetin's, and used to toady old Carforth and the
+huntin' crowd. He has a pretty big reputation as a sharp lawyer and some
+of the thick-headed lairds swear by him, but Quentin never could stick
+him. It's quite likely he's been gettin' into Queer Street, for he was
+always speculatin' in horse-flesh, and I fancy he plunged a bit on the
+Turf. But I can't think how he got mixed up in this show."
+
+"I'm positive Dobson's his brother."
+
+"And put this business in his way. That would explain it all right....
+He must be runnin' for pretty big stakes, for that kind of lad don't
+dabble in crime for six-and-eightpence.... Now for the layout. You've
+got three men shut up in Dalquharter House, who by this time have
+probably escaped. One of you--what's his name?--Heritage?--is in the old
+Tower, and you think that _they_ think the Princess is still there and
+will sit round the place like terriers. Sometime to-day the Danish brig
+will arrive with reinforcements, and then there will be a hefty fight.
+Well, the first thing to be done is to get rid of Loudon's stymie with
+the authorities. Princess, I'm going to carry you off in my car to the
+Chief Constable. The second thing is for you after that to stay on here.
+It's a deadly place on a wet day, but it's safe enough."
+
+Saskia shook her head and Dickson spoke for her.
+
+"You'll no' get her to stop here. I've done my best, but she's
+determined to be back at Dalquharter. You see she's expecting a friend,
+and besides, if there's going to be a battle she'd like to be in it. Is
+that so, Mem?"
+
+Sir Archie looked helplessly around him, and the sight of the girl's
+face convinced him that argument would be fruitless. "Anyhow she must
+come with me to the Chief Constable. Lethington's a slow bird on the
+wing, and I don't see myself convincin' him that he must get busy unless
+I can produce the Princess. Even then it may be a tough job, for it's
+Sunday, and in these parts people go to sleep till Monday mornin'."
+
+"That's just what I'm trying to get at," said Dickson. "By all means go
+to the Chief Constable, and tell him it's life or death. My lawyer in
+Glasgow, Mr. Caw, will have been stirring him up yesterday, and you two
+should complete the job.... But what I'm feared is that he'll not be in
+time. As you say, it's the Sabbath day, and the police are terrible
+slow. Now any moment that brig may be here, and the trouble will start.
+I'm wanting to save the Princess, but I'm wanting too to give these
+blagyirds the roughest handling they ever got in their lives. Therefore
+I say there's no time to lose. We're far ower few to put up a fight, and
+we want every man you've got about this place to hold the fort till the
+police come."
+
+Sir Archibald looked upon the earnest flushed face of Dickson with
+admiration. "I'm blessed if you're not the most whole-hearted brigand
+I've ever struck."
+
+"I'm not. I'm just a business man."
+
+"Do you realise that you're levying a private war and breaking every law
+of the land?"
+
+"Hoots!" said Dickson. "I don't care a docken about the law. I'm for
+seeing this job through. What force can you produce?"
+
+"Only cripples, I'm afraid. There's Sime, my butler. He was a Fusilier
+Jock and, as you saw, has lost an arm. Then McGuffog the keeper is a
+good man, but he's still got a Turkish bullet in his thigh. The
+chauffeur, Carfrae, was in the Yeomanry, and lost half a foot, and
+there's myself, as lame as a duck. The herds on the home farm are no
+good, for one's seventy and the other is in bed with jaundice. The Mains
+can produce four men, but they're rather a job lot."
+
+"They'll do fine," said Dickson heartily. "All sodgers, and no doubt all
+good shots. Have you plenty guns?"
+
+Sir Archie burst into uproarious laughter. "Mr. McCunn, you're a man
+after my own heart. I'm under your orders. If I had a boy I'd put him
+into the provision trade, for it's the place to see fightin'. Yes, we've
+no end of guns. I advise shot-guns, for they've more stoppin' power in a
+rush than a rifle, and I take it it's a rough-and-tumble we're lookin'
+for."
+
+"Right," said Dickson. "I saw a bicycle in the hall. I want you to lend
+it me, for I must be getting back. You'll take the Princess and do the
+best you can with the Chief Constable."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then you'll load up your car with your folk, and come down the hill to
+Dalquharter. There'll be a laddie, or maybe more than one, waiting for
+you on this side the village to give you instructions. Take your orders
+from them. If it's a red-haired ruffian called Dougal you'll be wise to
+heed what he says, for he has a grand head for battles."
+
+Five minutes later Dickson was pursuing a quavering course like a snipe
+down the avenue. He was a miserable performer on a bicycle. Not for
+twenty years had he bestridden one, and he did not understand such new
+devices as free-wheels and change of gears. The mounting had been the
+worst part and it had only been achieved by the help of a rockery. He
+had begun by cutting into two flower-beds, and missing a birch tree by
+inches. But he clung on desperately, well knowing that if he fell off it
+would be hard to remount, and at length he gained the avenue. When he
+passed the lodge gates he was riding fairly straight, and when he turned
+off the Ayr highway to the side road that led to Dalquharter he was more
+or less master of his machine.
+
+He crossed the Garple by an ancient hunch-backed bridge, observing even
+in his absorption with the handle-bars that the stream was in roaring
+spate. He wrestled up the further hill, with aching calf-muscles, and
+got to the top just before his strength gave out. Then as the road
+turned seaward he had the slope with him, and enjoyed some respite. It
+was no case for putting up his feet, for the gale was blowing hard on
+his right cheek, but the downward grade enabled him to keep his course
+with little exertion. His anxiety to get back to the scene of action was
+for the moment appeased, since he knew he was making as good speed as
+the weather allowed, so he had leisure for thought.
+
+But the mind of this preposterous being was not on the business before
+him. He dallied with irrelevant things--with the problems of youth and
+love. He was beginning to be very nervous about Heritage, not as the
+solitary garrison of the old Tower, but as the lover of Saskia. That
+everybody should be in love with her appeared to him only proper, for he
+had never met her like, and assumed that it did not exist. The desire
+of the moth for the star seemed to him a reasonable thing, since
+hopeless loyalty and unrequited passion were the eternal stock-in-trade
+of romance. He wished he were twenty-five himself to have the chance of
+indulging in such sentimentality for such a lady. But Heritage was not
+like him and would never be content with a romantic folly.... He had
+been in love with her for two years--a long time. He spoke about wanting
+to die for her, which was a flight beyond Dickson himself. "I doubt it
+will be what they call a 'grand passion,'" he reflected with reverence.
+But it was hopeless; he saw quite clearly that it was hopeless.
+
+Why, he could not have explained, for Dickson's instincts were subtler
+than his intelligence. He recognised that the two belonged to different
+circles of being, which nowhere intersected. That mysterious lady, whose
+eyes had looked through life to the other side, was no mate for the
+Poet. His faithful soul was agitated, for he had developed for Heritage
+a sincere affection. It would break his heart, poor man. There was he
+holding the fort alone and cheering himself with delightful fancies
+about one remoter than the moon. Dickson wanted happy endings, and here
+there was no hope of such. He hated to admit that life could be crooked,
+but the optimist in him was now fairly dashed.
+
+Sir Archie might be the fortunate man, for of course he would soon be in
+love with her, if he were not so already. Dickson like all his class had
+a profound regard for the country gentry. The business Scot does not
+usually revere wealth, though he may pursue it earnestly, nor does he
+specially admire rank in the common sense. But for ancient race he has
+respect in his bones, though it may happen that in public he denies it,
+and the laird has for him a secular association with good family.... Sir
+Archie might do. He was young, good-looking, obviously gallant.... But
+no! He was not quite right either. Just a trifle too light in weight,
+too boyish and callow. The Princess must have youth, but it should be
+mighty youth, the youth of a Napoleon or a Cćsar. He reflected that the
+Great Montrose, for whom he had a special veneration, might have filled
+the bill. Or young Harry with his beaver up? Or Claverhouse in the
+picture with the flush of temper on his cheek?
+
+The meditations of the match-making Dickson came to an abrupt end. He
+had been riding negligently, his head bent against the wind, and his
+eyes vaguely fixed on the wet hill-gravel of the road. Of his immediate
+environs he was pretty well unconscious. Suddenly he was aware of
+figures on each side of him who advanced menacingly. Stung to activity
+he attempted to increase his pace, which was already good, for the road
+at this point descended steeply. Then, before he could prevent it, a
+stick was thrust into his front wheel, and the next second he was
+describing a curve through the air. His head took the ground, he felt a
+spasm of blinding pain, and then a sense of horrible suffocation before
+his wits left him.
+
+"Are ye sure it's the richt man, Ecky?" said a voice which he did not
+hear.
+
+"Sure. It's the Glesca body Dobson telled us to look for yesterday. It's
+a pund note atween us for this job. We'll tie him up in the wud till
+we've time to attend to him."
+
+"Is he bad?"
+
+"It doesna maitter," said the one called Ecky. "He'll be deid onyway
+long afore the morn."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Morran all forenoon was in a state of un-Sabbatical disquiet. After
+she had seen Saskia and Dickson start she finished her housewifely
+duties, took Cousin Eugčnie her breakfast, and made preparation for the
+midday dinner. The invalid in the bed in the parlour was not a repaying
+subject. Cousin Eugčnie belonged to that type of elderly women who,
+having been spoiled in youth, find the rest of life fall far short of
+their expectations. Her voice had acquired a perpetual wail, and the
+corners of what had once been a pretty mouth drooped in an eternal
+peevishness. She found herself in a morass of misery and shabby
+discomfort, but had her days continued in an even tenor she would still
+have lamented. "A dingy body," was Mrs. Morran's comment, but she
+laboured in kindness. Unhappily they had no common language, and it was
+only by signs that the hostess could discover her wants and show her
+goodwill. She fed her and bathed her face, saw to the fire and left her
+to sleep. "I'm boilin' a hen to mak' broth for your denner, Mem. Try and
+get a bit sleep now." The purport of the advice was clear, and Cousin
+Eugčnie turned obediently on her pillow.
+
+It was Mrs. Morran's custom of a Sunday to spend the morning in devout
+meditation. Some years before she had given up tramping the five miles
+to kirk, on the ground that having been a regular attendant for fifty
+years she had got all the good out of it that was probable. Instead she
+read slowly aloud to herself the sermon printed in a certain religious
+weekly which reached her every Saturday, and concluded with a chapter or
+two of the Bible. But to-day something had gone wrong with her mind. She
+could not follow the thread of the Reverend Doctor MacMichael's
+discourse. She could not fix her attention on the wanderings and
+misdeeds of Israel as recorded in the Book of Exodus. She must always be
+getting up to look at the pot on the fire, or to open the back door and
+study the weather. For a little she fought against her unrest, and then
+she gave up the attempt at concentration. She took the big pot off the
+fire and allowed it to simmer, and presently she fetched her boots and
+umbrella, and kilted her petticoats. "I'll be none the waur o' a breath
+o' caller air," she decided.
+
+The wind was blowing great guns but there was only the thinnest sprinkle
+of rain. Sitting on the hen-house roof and munching a raw turnip was a
+figure which she recognised as the smallest of the Die-Hards. Between
+bites he was singing dolefully to the tune of "Annie Laurie" one of the
+ditties of his quondam Sunday school:
+
+    "The Boorjoys' brays are bonny,
+       Too-roo-ra-roo-raloo,
+     But the Worrkers o' the Worrld
+       Wull gar them a' look blue,
+     Wull gar them a' look blue,
+       And droon them in the sea,
+     And--for bonnie Annie Laurie
+       I'll lay me down and dee."
+
+"Losh, laddie," she cried, "that's cauld food for the stamach. Come
+indoors about midday and I'll gie ye a plate o' broth!" The Die-Hard
+saluted and continued on the turnip.
+
+She took the Auchenlochan road across the Garple bridge, for that was
+the best road to the Mains and by it Dickson and the others might be
+returning. Her equanimity at all seasons was like a Turk's, and she
+would not have admitted that anything mortal had power to upset or
+excite her: nevertheless it was a fast-beating heart that she now bore
+beneath her Sunday jacket. Great events, she felt, were on the eve of
+happening, and of them she was a part. Dickson's anxiety was hers, to
+bring things to a business-like conclusion. The honour of Huntingtower
+was at stake and of the old Kennedys. She was carrying out Mr. Quentin's
+commands, the dead boy who used to clamour for her treacle scones. And
+there was more than duty in it, for youth was not dead in her old
+heart, and adventure had still power to quicken it.
+
+Mrs. Morran walked well, with the steady long paces of the Scots
+countrywoman. She left the Auchenlochan road and took the side path
+along the tableland to the Mains. But for the surge of the gale and the
+far-borne boom of the furious sea there was little noise; not a bird
+cried in the uneasy air. With the wind behind her Mrs. Morran breasted
+the ascent till she had on her right the moorland running south to the
+Lochan valley and on her left Garple chafing in its deep forested
+gorges. Her eyes were quick and she noted with interest a weasel
+creeping from a fern-clad cairn. A little way on she passed an old ewe
+in difficulties and assisted it to rise. "But for me, my wumman, ye'd
+hae been braxy ere nicht," she told it as it departed bleating. Then she
+realised that she had come a certain distance. "Losh, I maun be gettin'
+back or the hen will be spiled," she cried, and was on the verge of
+turning.
+
+But something caught her eye a hundred yards further on the road. It was
+something which moved with the wind like a wounded bird, fluttering from
+the roadside to a puddle and then back to the rushes. She advanced to
+it, missed it, and caught it.
+
+It was an old dingy green felt hat, and she recognised it as Dickson's.
+
+Mrs. Morran's brain, after a second of confusion, worked fast and
+clearly. She examined the road and saw that a little way on the gravel
+had been violently agitated. She detected several prints of hobnailed
+boots. There were prints too, on a patch of peat on the south side
+behind a tall bank of sods. "That's where they were hidin'," she
+concluded. Then she explored on the other side in a thicket of hazels
+and wild raspberries, and presently her perseverance was rewarded. The
+scrub was all crushed and pressed as if several persons had been forcing
+a passage. In a hollow was a gleam of something white. She moved towards
+it with a quaking heart, and was relieved to find that it was only a new
+and expensive bicycle with the front wheel badly buckled.
+
+Mrs. Morran delayed no longer. If she had walked well on her out
+journey, she beat all records on the return. Sometimes she would run
+till her breath failed; then she would slow down till anxiety once more
+quickened her pace. To her joy on the Dalquharter side of the Garple
+bridge she observed the figure of a Die-Hard. Breathless, flushed, with
+her bonnet awry and her umbrella held like a scimitar, she seized on the
+boy.
+
+"Awfu' doin's! They've grippit Maister McCunn up the Mains road just
+afore the second milestone and forenent the auld bucht. I fund his hat,
+and a bicycle's lyin' broken in the wud. Haste ye, man, and get the rest
+and awa' and seek him. It'll be the tinklers frae the Dean. I'd gang
+mysel', but my legs are ower auld. Oh, laddie, dinna stop to speir
+questions. They'll hae him murdered or awa' to sea. And maybe the leddy
+was wi' him and they've got them baith. Wae's me! Wae's me!"
+
+The Die-Hard, who was Wee Jaikie, did not delay. His eyes had filled
+with tears at her news, which we know to have been his habit. When Mrs.
+Morran, after indulging in a moment of barbaric keening, looked back the
+road she had come, she saw a small figure trotting up the hill like a
+terrier who has been left behind. As he trotted he wept bitterly. Jaikie
+was getting dangerous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HOW MR. McCUNN COMMITTED AN ASSAULT UPON AN ALLY
+
+
+Dickson always maintained that his senses did not leave him for more
+than a second or two, but he admitted that he did not remember very
+clearly the events of the next few hours. He was conscious of a bad pain
+above his eyes, and something wet trickling down his cheek. There was a
+perpetual sound of water in his ears and of men's voices. He found
+himself dropped roughly on the ground and forced to walk, and was aware
+that his legs were inclined to wobble. Somebody had a grip on each arm,
+so that he could not defend his face from the brambles, and that worried
+him, for his whole head seemed one aching bruise and he dreaded anything
+touching it. But all the time he did not open his mouth, for silence was
+the one duty that his muddled wits enforced. He felt that he was not the
+master of his mind, and he dreaded what he might disclose if he began to
+babble.
+
+Presently there came a blank space of which he had no recollection at
+all. The movement had stopped, and he was allowed to sprawl on the
+ground. He thought that his head had got another whack from a bough, and
+that the pain put him into a stupor. When he awoke he was alone.
+
+He discovered that he was strapped very tightly to a young Scotch fir.
+His arms were bent behind him and his wrists tied together with cords
+knotted at the back of the tree; his legs were shackled, and further
+cords fastened them to the bole. Also there was a halter round the trunk
+and just under his chin, so that while he breathed freely enough, he
+could not move his head. Before him was a tangle of bracken and scrub,
+and beyond that the gloom of dense pines; but as he could only see
+directly in front his prospect was strictly circumscribed.
+
+Very slowly he began to take his bearings. The pain in his head was now
+dulled and quite bearable, and the flow of blood had stopped, for he
+felt the incrustation of it beginning on his cheeks. There was a
+tremendous noise all around him, and he traced this to the swaying of
+tree-tops in the gale. But there was an undercurrent of deeper
+sound--water surely, water churning among rocks. It was a stream--the
+Garple of course--and then he remembered where he was and what had
+happened.
+
+I do not wish to portray Dickson as a hero, for nothing would annoy him
+more; but I am bound to say that his first clear thought was not of his
+own danger. It was intense exasperation at the miscarriage of his plans.
+Long ago he should have been with Dougal arranging operations, giving
+him news of Sir Archie, finding out how Heritage was faring, deciding
+how to use the coming reinforcements. Instead he was trussed up in a
+wood, a prisoner of the enemy, and utterly useless to his side. He
+tugged at his bonds, and nearly throttled himself. But they were of
+good tarry cord and did not give a fraction of an inch. Tears of bitter
+rage filled his eyes and made furrows on his encrusted cheeks. Idiot
+that he had been, he had wrecked everything! What would Saskia and
+Dougal and Sir Archie do without a business man by their side? There
+would be a muddle, and the little party would walk into a trap. He saw
+it all very clearly. The men from the sea would overpower them, there
+would be murder done, and an easy capture of the Princess; and the
+police would turn up at long last to find an empty headland.
+
+He had also most comprehensively wrecked himself, and at the thought the
+most genuine panic seized him. There was no earthly chance of escape,
+for he was tucked away in this infernal jungle till such time as his
+enemies had time to deal with him. As to what that dealing would be like
+he had no doubts, for they knew that he had been their chief opponent.
+Those desperate ruffians would not scruple to put an end to him. His
+mind dwelt with horrible fascination upon throat-cutting, no doubt
+because of the presence of the cord below his chin. He had heard it was
+not a painful death; at any rate he remembered a clerk he had once had,
+a feeble, timid creature, who had twice attempted suicide that way.
+Surely it could not be very bad, and it would soon be over.
+
+But another thought came to him. They would carry him off in the ship
+and settle with him at their leisure. No swift merciful death for him.
+He had read dreadful tales of the Bolsheviks' skill in torture, and now
+they all came back to him--stories of Chinese mercenaries, and men
+buried alive, and death by agonising inches. He felt suddenly very cold
+and sick, and hung in his bonds for he had no strength in his limbs.
+Then the pressure on his throat braced him, and also quickened his numb
+mind. The liveliest terror ran like quicksilver through his veins.
+
+He endured some moments of this anguish, till after many despairing
+clutches at his wits he managed to attain a measure of self-control. He
+certainly wasn't going to allow himself to become mad. Death was death
+whatever form it took, and he had to face death as many better men had
+done before him. He had often thought about it and wondered how he
+should behave if the thing came to him. Respectably, he had hoped;
+heroically, he had sworn in his moments of confidence. But he had never
+for an instant dreamed of this cold, lonely, dreadful business. Last
+Sunday, he remembered, he had been basking in the afternoon sun in his
+little garden and reading about the end of Fergus MacIvor in _Waverley_
+and thrilling to the romance of it; and then Tibby had come out and
+summoned him in to tea. Then he had rather wanted to be a Jacobite in
+the '45 and in peril of his neck, and now Providence had taken him most
+terribly at his word.
+
+A week ago----! He groaned at the remembrance of that sunny garden. In
+seven days he had found a new world and tried a new life, and had come
+now to the end of it. He did not want to die, less now than ever with
+such wide horizons opening before him. But that was the worst of it, he
+reflected, for to have a great life great hazards must be taken, and
+there was always the risk of this sudden extinguisher.... Had he to
+choose again, far better the smooth sheltered bypath than this accursed
+romantic highway on to which he had blundered.... No, by Heaven, no!
+Confound it, if he had to choose he would do it all again. Something
+stiff and indomitable in his soul was bracing him to a manlier humour.
+There was no one to see the figure strapped to the fir, but had there
+been a witness he would have noted that at this stage Dickson shut his
+teeth and that his troubled eyes looked very steadily before him.
+
+His business, he felt, was to keep from thinking, for if he thought at
+all there would be a flow of memories, of his wife, his home, his books,
+his friends, to unman him. So he steeled himself to blankness, like a
+sleepless man imagining white sheep in a gate.... He noted a robin below
+the hazels, strutting impudently. And there was a tit on a bracken
+frond, which made the thing sway like one of the see-saws he used to
+play with as a boy. There was no wind in that undergrowth, and any
+movement must be due to bird or beast. The tit flew off, and the
+oscillations of the bracken slowly died away. Then they began again, but
+more violently, and Dickson could not see the bird that caused them. It
+must be something down at the roots of the covert, a rabbit, perhaps, or
+a fox, or a weasel.
+
+He watched for the first sign of the beast, and thought he caught a
+glimpse of tawny fur. Yes, there it was--pale dirty yellow, a weasel
+clearly. Then suddenly the patch grew larger, and to his amazement he
+looked at a human face--the face of a pallid small boy.
+
+A head disentangled itself, followed by thin shoulders, and then by a
+pair of very dirty bare legs. The figure raised itself and looked
+sharply round to make certain that the coast was clear. Then it stood up
+and saluted, revealing the well-known lineaments of Wee Jaikie.
+
+At the sight Dickson knew that he was safe by that certainty of instinct
+which is independent of proof, like the man who prays for a sign and has
+his prayer answered. He observed that the boy was quietly sobbing.
+Jaikie surveyed the position for an instant with red-rimmed eyes and
+then unclasped a knife, feeling the edge of the blade on his thumb. He
+darted behind the fir, and a second later Dickson's wrists were free.
+Then he sawed at the legs, and cut the shackles which tied them
+together, and then--most circumspectly--assaulted the cord which bound
+Dickson's neck to the trunk. There now remained only the two bonds which
+fastened the legs and the body to the tree.
+
+There was a sound in the wood different from the wind and stream. Jaikie
+listened like a startled hind.
+
+"They're comin' back," he gasped. "Just you bide where ye are and let on
+ye're still tied up."
+
+He disappeared in the scrub as inconspicuously as a rat, while two of
+the tinklers came up the slope from the waterside. Dickson in a fever of
+impatience cursed Wee Jaikie for not cutting his remaining bonds so that
+he could at least have made a dash for freedom. And then he realised
+that the boy had been right. Feeble and cramped as he was, he would have
+stood no chance in a race.
+
+One of the tinklers was the man called Ecky. He had been running hard,
+and was mopping his brow.
+
+"Hob's seen the brig," he said. "It's droppin' anchor ayont the Dookits
+whaur there's a beild frae the wund and deep water. They'll be landit in
+half an 'oor. Awa' you up to the Hoose and tell Dobson, and me and Sim
+and Hob will meet the boats at the Garplefit."
+
+The other cast a glance towards Dickson.
+
+"What about him?" he asked.
+
+The two scrutinised their prisoner from a distance of a few paces.
+Dickson, well aware of his peril, held himself as stiff as if every bond
+had been in place. The thought flashed on him that if he were too
+immobile they might think he was dying or dead, and come close to
+examine him. If they only kept their distance, the dusk of the wood
+would prevent them detecting Jaikie's handiwork.
+
+"What'll you take to let me go?" he asked plaintively.
+
+"Naething that you could offer, my mannie," said Ecky.
+
+"I'll give you a five-pound note apiece."
+
+"Produce the siller," said the other.
+
+"It's in my pocket."
+
+"It's no' that. We riped your pooches lang syne."
+
+"I'll take you to Glasgow with me and pay you there. Honour bright."
+
+Ecky spat. "D'ye think we're gowks? Man, there's no siller ye could pay
+wad mak' it worth our while to lowse ye. Bide quiet there and ye'll see
+some queer things ere nicht. C'way, Davie."
+
+The two set off at a good pace down the stream, while Dickson's pulsing
+heart returned to its normal rhythm. As the sound of their feet died
+away Wee Jaikie crawled out from cover, dry-eyed now and very
+business-like. He slit the last thongs, and Dickson fell limply on his
+face.
+
+"Losh, laddie, I'm awful stiff," he groaned. "Now, listen. Away all your
+pith to Dougal, and tell him that the brig's in and the men will be
+landing inside the hour. Tell him I'm coming as fast as my legs will let
+me. The Princess will likely be there already and Sir Archibald and his
+men, but if they're no', tell Dougal they're coming. Haste you, Jaikie.
+And see here, I'll never forget what you've done for me the day. You're
+a fine wee laddie!"
+
+The obedient Die-Hard disappeared, and Dickson painfully and laboriously
+set himself to climb the slope. He decided that his quickest and safest
+route lay by the highroad, and he had also some hopes of recovering his
+bicycle. On examining his body he seemed to have sustained no very great
+damage, except a painful cramping of legs and arms and a certain
+dizziness in the head. His pockets had been thoroughly rifled, and he
+reflected with amusement that he, the well-to-do Mr. McCunn, did not
+possess at the moment a single copper.
+
+But his spirits were soaring, for somehow his escape had given him an
+assurance of ultimate success. Providence had directly interfered on his
+behalf by the hand of Wee Jaikie, and that surely meant that it would
+see him through. But his chief emotion was an ardour of impatience to
+get to the scene of action. He must be at Dalquharter before the men
+from the sea; he must find Dougal and discover his dispositions.
+Heritage would be on guard in the Tower and in a very little the enemy
+would be round it. It would be just like the Princess to try and enter
+there, but at all costs that must be hindered. She and Sir Archie must
+not be cornered in stone walls, but must keep their communications open
+and fall on the enemy's flank. Oh, if the police would only come in
+time, what a rounding-up of miscreants that day would see!
+
+As the trees thinned on the brow of the slope and he saw the sky, he
+realised that the afternoon was far advanced. It must be well on for
+five o'clock. The wind still blew furiously, and the oaks on the fringes
+of the wood were whipped like saplings. Ruefully he admitted that the
+gale would not defeat the enemy. If the brig found a sheltered anchorage
+on the south side of the headland beyond the Garple, it would be easy
+enough for boats to make the Garple mouth, though it might be a
+difficult job to get out again. The thought quickened his steps, and he
+came out of cover on to the public road without a prior reconnaissance.
+
+Just in front of him stood a motor-bicycle. Something had gone wrong
+with it for its owner was tinkering at it, on the side farthest from
+Dickson. A wild hope seized him that this might be the vanguard of the
+police, and he went boldly towards it. The owner, who was kneeling,
+raised his face at the sound of footsteps and Dickson looked into his
+eyes.
+
+He recognised them only too well. They belonged to the man he had seen
+in the inn at Kirkmichael, the man whom Heritage had decided was an
+Australian, but whom they now knew to be their arch-enemy--the man
+called Paul who had persecuted the Princess for years and whom alone of
+all beings on earth she feared. He had been expected before, but had
+arrived now in the nick of time while the brig was casting anchor.
+Saskia had said that he had a devil's brain, and Dickson, as he stared
+at him, saw a fiendish cleverness in his straight brows and a
+remorseless cruelty in his stiff jaw and his pale eyes.
+
+He achieved the bravest act of his life. Shaky and dizzy as he was, with
+freedom newly opened to him and the mental torments of his captivity
+still an awful recollection, he did not hesitate. He saw before him the
+villain of the drama, the one man that stood between the Princess and
+peace of mind. He regarded no consequences, gave no heed to his own
+fate, and thought only how to put his enemy out of action. There was a
+big spanner lying on the ground. He seized it and with all his strength
+smote at the man's face.
+
+The motor-cyclist, kneeling and working hard at his machine, had raised
+his head at Dickson's approach and beheld a wild apparition--a short man
+in ragged tweeds, with a bloody brow and long smears of blood on his
+cheeks. The next second he observed the threat of attack, and ducked his
+head so that the spanner only grazed his scalp. The motor-bicycle
+toppled over, its owner sprang to his feet, and found the short man,
+very pale and gasping, about to renew the assault. In such a crisis
+there was no time for inquiry, and the cyclist was well trained in
+self-defence. He leaped the prostrate bicycle, and before his assailant
+could get in a blow brought his left fist into violent contact with his
+chin. Dickson tottered back a step or two and then subsided among the
+bracken.
+
+He did not lose his senses, but he had no more strength in him. He felt
+horribly ill, and struggled in vain to get up. The cyclist, a gigantic
+figure, towered above him. "Who the devil are you?" he was asking. "What
+do you mean by it?"
+
+Dickson had no breath for words, and knew that if he tried to speak he
+would be very sick. He could only stare up like a dog at the angry eyes.
+Angry beyond question they were, but surely not malevolent. Indeed, as
+they looked at the shameful figure on the ground, amusement filled them.
+The face relaxed into a smile.
+
+"Who on earth are you?" the voice repeated. And then into it came
+recognition. "I've seen you before. I believe you're the little man I
+saw last week at the Black Bull. Be so good as to explain why you want
+to murder me?"
+
+Explanation was beyond Dickson, but his conviction was being wofully
+shaken. Saskia had said her enemy was as beautiful as a devil--he
+remembered the phrase, for he had thought it ridiculous. This man was
+magnificent, but there was nothing devilish in his lean grave face.
+
+"What's your name?" the voice was asking.
+
+"Tell me yours first," Dickson essayed to stutter between spasms of
+nausea.
+
+"My name is Alexander Nicholson," was the answer.
+
+"Then you're no' the man." It was a cry of wrath and despair.
+
+"You're a very desperate little chap. For whom had I the honour to be
+mistaken?"
+
+Dickson had now wriggled into a sitting position and had clasped his
+hands above his aching head.
+
+"I thought you were a Russian, name of Paul," he groaned.
+
+"Paul! Paul who?"
+
+"Just Paul. A Bolshevik and an awful bad lot."
+
+Dickson could not see the change which his words wrought in the other's
+face. He found himself picked up in strong arms and carried to a
+bog-pool where his battered face was carefully washed, his throbbing
+brows laved, and a wet handkerchief bound over them. Then he was given
+brandy in the socket of a flask, which eased his nausea. The cyclist ran
+his bicycle to the roadside, and found a seat for Dickson behind the
+turf-dyke of the old bucht.
+
+"Now you are going to tell me everything," he said. "If the Paul who is
+your enemy is the Paul I think him, then we are allies."
+
+But Dickson did not need this assurance. His mind had suddenly received
+a revelation. The Princess had expected an enemy, but also a friend.
+Might not this be the long-awaited friend, for whose sake she was rooted
+to Huntingtower with all its terrors?
+
+"Are you sure you name's no' Alexis?" he asked.
+
+"In my own country I was called Alexis Nicolaevitch, for I am a Russian.
+But for some years I have made my home with your folk, and I call myself
+Alexander Nicholson, which is the English form. Who told you about
+Alexis?"
+
+"Give me your hand," said Dickson shamefacedly. "Man, she's been looking
+for you for weeks. You're terribly behind the fair."
+
+"She!" he cried. "For God's sake tell me all you know."
+
+"Ay, she--the Princess. But what are we havering here for? I tell you at
+this moment she's somewhere down about the old Tower, and there's
+boatloads of blagyirds landing from the sea. Help me up, man, for I must
+be off. The story will keep. Losh, it's very near the darkening. If
+you're Alexis, you're just about in time for a battle."
+
+But Dickson on his feet was but a frail creature. He was still
+deplorably giddy, and his legs showed an unpleasing tendency to crumple.
+"I'm fair done," he moaned. "You see, I've been tied up all day to a
+tree and had two sore bashes on my head. Get you on that bicycle and
+hurry on, and I'll hirple after you the best I can. I'll direct you the
+road, and if you're lucky you'll find a Die-Hard about the village. Away
+with you, man, and never mind me."
+
+"We go together," said the other quietly. "You can sit behind me and
+hang on to my waist. Before you turned up I had pretty well got the
+thing in order."
+
+Dickson in a fever of impatience sat by while the Russian put the
+finishing touches to the machine, and as well as his anxiety allowed put
+him in possession of the main facts of the story. He told of how he and
+Heritage had come to Dalquharter, of the first meeting with Saskia, of
+the trip to Glasgow with the jewels, of the exposure of Loudon the
+factor, of last night's doings in the House, and of the journey that
+morning to the Mains of Garple. He sketched the figures on the
+scene--Heritage and Sir Archie, Dobson and his gang, the Gorbals
+Die-Hards. He told of the enemy's plans so far as he knew them.
+
+"Looked at from a business point of view," he said, "the situation's
+like this. There's Heritage in the Tower, with Dobson, Léon and Spidel
+sitting round him. Somewhere about the place there's the Princess and
+Sir Archibald and three men with guns from the Mains. Dougal and his
+five laddies are running loose in the policies. And there's four
+tinklers and God knows how many foreign ruffians pushing up from the
+Garplefoot, and a brig lying waiting to carry off the ladies. Likewise
+there's the police, somewhere on the road, though the dear kens when
+they'll turn up. It's awful the incompetence of our Government, and the
+rates and taxes that high!... And there's you and me by this roadside,
+and I'm no more use than a tattie-bogle.... That's the situation, and
+the question is what's our plan to be? We must keep the blagyirds in
+play till the police come, and at the same time we must keep the
+Princess out of danger. That's why I'm wanting back, for they've sore
+need of a business head. Yon Sir Archibald's a fine fellow, but I doubt
+he'll be a bit rash, and the Princess is no' to hold or bind. Our first
+job is to find Dougal and get a grip of the facts."
+
+"I am going to the Princess," said the Russian.
+
+"Ay, that'll be best. You'll be maybe able to manage her, for you'll be
+well acquaint."
+
+"She is my kinswoman. She is also my affianced wife."
+
+"Keep us!" Dickson exclaimed, with a doleful thought of Heritage. "What
+ailed you then no' to look after her better?"
+
+"We have been long separated, because it was her will. She had work to
+do and disappeared from me, though I searched all Europe for her. Then
+she sent me word, when the danger became extreme, and summoned me to her
+aid. But she gave me poor directions, for she did not know her own plans
+very clearly. She spoke of a place called Darkwater, and I have been
+hunting half Scotland for it. It was only last night that I heard of
+Dalquharter and guessed that that might be the name. But I was far down
+in Galloway, and have ridden fifty miles to-day."
+
+"It's a queer thing, but I wouldn't take you for a Russian."
+
+Alexis finished his work and put away his tools. "For the present," he
+said, "I am an Englishman, till my country comes again to her senses.
+Ten years ago I left Russia, for I was sick of the foolishness of my
+class and wanted a free life in a new world. I went to Australia and
+made good as an engineer. I am a partner in a firm which is pretty well
+known even in Britain. When war broke out I returned to fight for my
+people, and when Russia fell out of the war, I joined the Australians in
+France and fought with them till the Armistice. And now I have only one
+duty left, to save the Princess and take her with me to my new home till
+Russia is a nation once more."
+
+Dickson whistled joyfully. "So Mr. Heritage was right. He aye said you
+were an Australian.... And you're a business man! That's grand hearing
+and puts my mind at rest. You must take charge of the party at the
+House, for Sir Archibald's a daft young lad and Mr. Heritage is a poet.
+I thought I would have to go myself, but I doubt I would just be a
+hindrance with my dwaibly legs. I'd be better outside, watching for the
+police.... Are you ready, sir?"
+
+Dickson not without difficulty perched himself astride the luggage
+carrier, firmly grasping the rider round the middle. The machine
+started, but it was evidently in a bad way, for it made poor going till
+the descent towards the main Auchenlochan road. On the slope it warmed
+up and they crossed the Garple bridge at a fair pace. There was to be no
+pleasant April twilight, for the stormy sky had already made dusk, and
+in a very little the dark would fall. So sombre was the evening that
+Dickson did not notice a figure in the shadow of the roadside pines till
+it whistled shrilly on its fingers. He cried on Alexis to stop, and,
+this being accomplished with some suddenness, fell off at Dougal's feet.
+
+"What's the news?" he demanded.
+
+Dougal glanced at Alexis and seemed to approve his looks.
+
+"Napoleon has just reported that three boatloads, making either
+twenty-three or twenty-four men--they were gey ill to count--has landed
+at Garplefit and is makin' their way to the auld Tower. The tinklers
+warned Dobson and soon it'll be a' bye wi' Heritage."
+
+"The Princess is not there?" was Dickson's anxious inquiry.
+
+"Na, na. Heritage is there his lone. They were for joinin' him, but I
+wouldn't let them. She came wi' a man they call Sir Erchibald and three
+gemkeepers wi' guns. I stoppit their cawr up the road and tell't them
+the lie o' the land. Yon Sir Erchibald has poor notions o' strawtegy. He
+was for bangin' into the auld Tower straight away and shootin' Dobson if
+he tried to stop them. 'Havers,' say I, 'let them break their teeth on
+the Tower, thinkin' the leddy's inside, and that'll give us time, for
+Heritage is no' the lad to surrender in a hurry.'"
+
+"Where are they now?"
+
+"In the Hoose o' Dalquharter, and a sore job I had gettin' them in.
+We've shifted our base again, without the enemy suspectin'."
+
+"Any word of the police?"
+
+"The polis!" and Dougal spat cynically. "It seems they're a dour crop to
+shift. Sir Erchibald was sayin' that him and the lassie had been to the
+Chief Constable, but the man was terrible auld and slow. They convertit
+him, but he threepit that it would take a long time to collect his men
+and that there was no danger o' the brig landin' afore night. He's wrong
+there onyway, for they're landit."
+
+"Dougal," said Dickson, "you've heard the Princess speak of a friend she
+was expecting here called Alexis. This is him. You can address him as
+Mr. Nicholson. Just arrived in the nick of time. You must get him into
+the House, for he's the best right to be beside the lady.... Jaikie
+would tell you that I've been sore mishandled the day, and am no' very
+fit for a battle. But Mr. Nicholson's a business man and he'll do as
+well. You're keeping the Die-Hards outside, I hope?"
+
+"Ay. Thomas Yownie's in charge, and Jaikie will be in and out with
+orders. They've instructions to watch for the polis, and keep an eye on
+the Garplefit. It's a mortal long front to hold, but there's no other
+way. I must be in the Hoose mysel'. Thomas Yownie's headquarters is the
+auld wife's hen-hoose."
+
+At that moment in a pause of the gale came the far-borne echo of a shot.
+
+"Pistol," said Alexis.
+
+"Heritage," said Dougal. "Trade will be gettin' brisk with him. Start
+your machine and I'll hang on ahint. We'll try the road by the West
+Lodge."
+
+Presently the pair disappeared in the dusk, the noise of the engine was
+swallowed up in the wild orchestra of the wind, and Dickson hobbled
+towards the village in a state of excitement which made him oblivious of
+his wounds. That lonely pistol shot was, he felt, the bell to ring up
+the curtain on the last act of the play.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE COMING OF THE DANISH BRIG
+
+
+Mr. John Heritage, solitary in the old Tower, found much to occupy his
+mind. His giddiness was passing, though the dregs of a headache
+remained, and his spirits rose with his responsibilities. At daybreak he
+breakfasted out of the Mearns Street provision box, and made tea in one
+of the Die-Hards' camp kettles. Next he gave some attention to his
+toilet, necessary after the rough-and-tumble of the night. He made shift
+to bathe in icy water from the Tower well, shaved, tidied up his clothes
+and found a clean shirt from his pack. He carefully brushed his hair,
+reminding himself that thus had the Spartans done before Thermopylć. The
+neat and somewhat pallid young man that emerged from these rites then
+ascended to the first floor to reconnoitre the landscape from the narrow
+unglazed windows.
+
+If any one had told him a week ago that he would be in so strange a
+world he would have quarrelled violently with his informant. A week ago
+he was a cynical clear-sighted modern, a contemner of illusions, a
+swallower of formulas, a breaker of shams--one who had seen through the
+heroical and found it silly. Romance and such-like toys were playthings
+for fatted middle-age, not for strenuous and cold-eyed youth. But the
+truth was that now he was altogether spellbound by these toys. To think
+that he was serving his lady was rapture--ecstasy, that for her he was
+single-handed venturing all. He rejoiced to be alone with his private
+fancies. His one fear was that the part he had cast himself for should
+be needless, that the men from the sea should not come, or that
+reinforcements would arrive before he should be called upon. He hoped
+alone to make a stand against thousands. What the upshot might be he did
+not trouble to inquire. Of course the Princess would be saved, but first
+he must glut his appetite for the heroic.
+
+He made a diary of events that day, just as he used to do at the front.
+At twenty minutes past eight he saw the first figure coming from the
+House. It was Spidel, who limped round the Tower, tried the door, and
+came to a halt below the window. Heritage stuck out his head and wished
+him good morning, getting in reply an amazed stare. The man was not
+disposed to talk, though Heritage made some interesting observations on
+the weather, but departed quicker than he came, in the direction of the
+West Lodge.
+
+Just before nine o'clock he returned with Dobson and Léon. They made a
+very complete reconnaissance of the Tower, and for a moment Heritage
+thought that they were about to try to force an entrance. They tugged
+and hammered at the great oak door, which he had further strengthened by
+erecting behind it a pile of the heaviest lumber he could find in the
+place. It was imperative that they should not get in, and he got
+Dickson's pistol ready with the firm intention of shooting them if
+necessary. But they did nothing, except to hold a conference in the
+hazel clump a hundred yards to the north, when Dobson seemed to be
+laying down the law, and Léon spoke rapidly with a great fluttering of
+hands. They were obviously puzzled by the sight of Heritage, whom they
+believed to have left the neighbourhood. Then Dobson went off, leaving
+Léon and Spidel on guard, one at the edge of the shrubberies between the
+Tower and the House, the other on the side nearest the Laver glen. These
+were their posts, but they did sentry-go around the building, and passed
+so close to Heritage's window that he could have tossed a cigarette on
+their heads.
+
+It occurred to him that he ought to get busy with camouflage. They must
+be convinced that the Princess was in the place, for he wanted their
+whole mind to be devoted to the siege. He rummaged among the ladies'
+baggage, and extracted a skirt and a coloured scarf. The latter he
+managed to flutter so that it could be seen at the window the next time
+one of the watchers came within sight. He also fixed up the skirt so
+that the fringe of it could be seen, and, when Léon appeared below, he
+was in the shadow talking rapid French in a very fair imitation of the
+tones of Cousin Eugčnie. The ruse had its effect, for Léon promptly went
+off to tell Spidel, and when Dobson appeared he too was given the news.
+This seemed to settle their plans, for all three remained on guard,
+Dobson nearest to the Tower, seated on an outcrop of rock with his
+mackintosh collar turned up, and his eyes usually turned to the misty
+sea.
+
+By this time it was eleven o'clock, and the next three hours passed
+slowly with Heritage. He fell to picturing the fortunes of his friends.
+Dickson and the Princess should by this time be far inland, out of
+danger and in the way of finding succour. He was confident that they
+would return, but he trusted not too soon, for he hoped for a run for
+his money as Horatius in the Gate. After that he was a little torn in
+his mind. He wanted the Princess to come back and to be somewhere near
+if there was a fight going, so that she might be a witness of his
+devotion. But she must not herself run any risk, and he became anxious
+when he remembered her terrible sangfroid. Dickson could no more
+restrain her than a child could hold a greyhound.... But of course it
+would never come to that. The police would turn up long before the brig
+appeared--Dougal had thought that would not be till high tide, between
+four and five--and the only danger would be to the pirates. The three
+watchers would be put in the bag, and the men from the sea would walk
+into a neat trap. This reflection seemed to take all the colour out of
+Heritage's prospect. Peril and heroism were not to be his lot--only
+boredom.
+
+A little after twelve two of the tinklers appeared with some news which
+made Dobson laugh and pat them on the shoulder. He seemed to be giving
+them directions, pointing seaward and southward. He nodded to the Tower,
+where Heritage took the opportunity of again fluttering Saskia's scarf
+athwart the window. The tinklers departed at a trot, and Dobson lit his
+pipe as if well pleased. He had some trouble with it in the wind, which
+had risen to an uncanny violence. Even the solid Tower rocked with it,
+and the sea was a waste of spindrift and low scurrying cloud. Heritage
+discovered a new anxiety--this time about the possibility of the brig
+landing at all. He wanted a complete bag, and it would be tragic if they
+got only the three seedy ruffians now circumambulating his fortress.
+
+About one o'clock he was greatly cheered by the sight of Dougal. At the
+moment Dobson was lunching off a hunk of bread and cheese directly
+between the Tower and the House, just short of the crest of the ridge on
+the other side of which lay the stables and the shrubberies; Léon was on
+the north side opposite the Tower door, and Spidel was at the south end
+near the edge of the Garple glen. Heritage, watching the ridge behind
+Dobson and the upper windows of the House which appeared over it, saw on
+the very crest something like a tuft of rusty bracken which he had not
+noticed before. Presently the tuft moved, and a hand shot up from it
+waving a rag of some sort. Dobson at the moment was engaged with a
+bottle of porter, and Heritage could safely wave a hand in reply. He
+could now make out clearly the red head of Dougal.
+
+The Chieftain, having located the three watchers, proceeded to give an
+exhibition of his prowess for the benefit of the lonely inmate of the
+Tower. Using as cover a drift of bracken, he wormed his way down till
+he was not six yards from Dobson, and Heritage had the privilege of
+seeing his grinning countenance a very little way above the innkeeper's
+head. Then he crawled back and reached the neighbourhood of Léon, who
+was sitting on a fallen Scotch fir. At that moment it occurred to the
+Belgian to visit Dobson. Heritage's breath stopped, but Dougal was
+ready, and froze into a motionless blur in the shadow of a hazel bush.
+Then he crawled very fast into the hollow where Léon had been sitting,
+seized something which looked like a bottle, and scrambled back to the
+ridge. At the top he waved the object, whatever it was, but Heritage
+could not reply, for Dobson happened to be looking towards the window.
+That was the last he saw of the Chieftain, but presently he realised
+what was the booty he had annexed. It must be Léon's life-preserver,
+which the night before had broken Heritage's head.
+
+After that cheering episode boredom again set in. He collected some food
+from the Mearns Street box, and indulged himself with a glass of liqueur
+brandy. He was beginning to feel miserably cold, so he carried up some
+broken wood and made a fire on the immense hearth in the upper chamber.
+Anxiety was clouding his mind again, for it was now two o'clock, and
+there was no sign of the reinforcements which Dickson and the Princess
+had gone to find. The minutes passed, and soon it was three o'clock, and
+from the window he saw only the top of the gaunt shuttered House, now
+and then hidden by squalls of sleet, and Dobson squatted like an
+Eskimo, and trees dancing like a witch-wood in the gale. All the vigour
+of the morning seemed to have gone out of his blood; he felt lonely and
+apprehensive and puzzled. He wished he had Dickson beside him, for that
+little man's cheerful voice and complacent triviality would be a
+comfort.... Also, he was abominably cold. He put on his waterproof, and
+turned his attention to the fire. It needed re-kindling, and he hunted
+in his pockets for paper, finding only the slim volume lettered
+_Whorls_.
+
+I set it down as the most significant commentary on his state of mind.
+He regarded the book with intense disfavour, tore it in two, and used a
+handful of its fine deckle-edged leaves to get the fire going. They
+burned well, and presently the rest followed. Well for Dickson's peace
+of mind that he was not a witness of such vandalism.
+
+A little warmer but in no way more cheerful, he resumed his watch near
+the window. The day was getting darker, and promised an early dusk. His
+watch told him that it was after four, and still nothing had happened.
+Where on earth were Dickson and the Princess? Where in the name of all
+that was holy were the police? Any minute now the brig might arrive and
+land its men, and he would be left there as a burnt-offering to their
+wrath. There must have been an infernal muddle somewhere.... Anyhow the
+Princess was out of the trouble, but where the Lord alone knew....
+Perhaps the reinforcements were lying in wait for the boats at the
+Garplefoot. That struck him as a likely explanation, and comforted him.
+Very soon he might hear the sound of an engagement to the south, and the
+next thing would be Dobson and his crew in flight. He was determined to
+be in the show somehow and would be very close on their heels. He felt a
+peculiar dislike to all three, but especially to Léon. The Belgian's
+small baby features had for four days set him clenching his fists when
+he thought of them.
+
+The next thing he saw was one of the tinklers running hard towards the
+Tower. He cried something to Dobson, which Heritage could not catch, but
+which woke the latter to activity. The innkeeper shouted to Léon and
+Spidel, and the tinkler was excitedly questioned. Dobson laughed and
+slapped his thigh. He gave orders to the others, and himself joined the
+tinkler and hurried off in the direction of the Garplefoot. Something
+was happening there, something of ill omen, for the man's face and
+manner had been triumphant. Were the boats landing?
+
+As Heritage puzzled over this event, another figure appeared on the
+scene. It was a big man in knickerbockers and mackintosh, who came round
+the end of the House from the direction of the South Lodge. At first he
+thought it was the advance-guard from his own side, the help which
+Dickson had gone to find, and he only restrained himself in time from
+shouting a welcome. But surely their supports would not advance so
+confidently in enemy country. The man strode over the slopes as if
+looking for somebody; then he caught sight of Léon and waved him to
+come. Léon must have known him, for he hastened to obey.
+
+The two were about thirty yards from Heritage's window. Léon was telling
+some story volubly, pointing now to the Tower and now towards the sea.
+The big man nodded as if satisfied. Heritage noted that his right arm
+was tied up, and that the mackintosh sleeve was empty, and that brought
+him enlightenment. It was Loudon the factor, whom Dickson had winged the
+night before. The two of them passed out of view in the direction of
+Spidel.
+
+The sight awoke Heritage to the supreme unpleasantness of his position.
+He was utterly alone on the headland, and his allies had vanished into
+space, while the enemy plans, moving like clock-work, were approaching
+their consummation. For a second he thought of leaving the Tower and
+hiding somewhere in the cliffs. He dismissed the notion unwillingly, for
+he remembered the task that had been set him. He was there to hold the
+fort to the last--to gain time, though he could not for the life of him
+see what use time was to be when all the strategy of his own side seemed
+to have miscarried. Anyhow, the blackguards would be sold for they would
+not find the Princess. But he felt a horrid void in the pit of his
+stomach, and a looseness about his knees.
+
+The moments passed more quickly as he wrestled with his fears. The next
+he knew the empty space below his window was filling with figures. There
+was a great crowd of them, rough fellows with seamen's coats, still
+dripping as if they had had a wet landing. Dobson was with them, but
+for the rest they were strange figures.
+
+Now that the expected had come at last Heritage's nerves grew calmer. He
+made out that the newcomers were trying the door, and he waited to hear
+it fall, for such a mob could soon force it. But instead a voice called
+from beneath.
+
+"Will you please open to us?" it said.
+
+He stuck his head out and saw a little group with one man at the head of
+it, a young man clad in oilskins whose face was dim in the murky
+evening. The voice was that of a gentleman.
+
+"I have orders to open to no one," Heritage replied.
+
+"Then I fear we must force an entrance," said the voice.
+
+"You can go to the devil," said Heritage.
+
+That defiance was the screw which his nerves needed. His temper had
+risen, he had forgotten all about the Princess, he did not even remember
+his isolation. His job was to make a fight for it. He ran up the
+staircase which led to the attics of the Tower, for he recollected that
+there was a window there which looked over the ground before the door.
+The place was ruinous, the floor filled with holes, and a part of the
+roof sagged down in a corner. The stones around the window were loose
+and crumbling and he managed to pull several out so that the slit was
+enlarged. He found himself looking down on a crowd of men, who had
+lifted the fallen tree on which Léon had perched, and were about to use
+it as a battering ram.
+
+"The first fellow who comes within six yards of the door I shoot," he
+shouted.
+
+There was a white wave below as every face was turned to him. He ducked
+back his head in time as a bullet chipped the side of the window.
+
+But his position was a good one, for he had a hole in the broken wall
+through which he could see, and could shoot with his hand at the edge of
+the window while keeping his body in cover. The battering party resumed
+their task, and as the tree swung nearer, he fired at the foremost of
+them. He missed, but the shot for a moment suspended operations.
+
+Again they came on, and again he fired. This time he damaged somebody,
+for the trunk was dropped.
+
+A voice gave orders, a sharp authoritative voice. The battering squad
+dissolved, and there was a general withdrawal out of the line of fire
+from the window. Was it possible that he had intimidated them? He could
+hear the sound of voices, and then a single figure came into sight
+again, holding something in its hand.
+
+He did not fire, for he recognised the futility of his efforts. The
+baseball swing of the figure below could not be mistaken. There was a
+roar beneath, and a flash of fire, as the bomb exploded on the door.
+Then came a rush of men, and the Tower had fallen.
+
+Heritage clambered through a hole in the roof and gained the topmost
+parapet. He had still a pocketful of cartridges, and there in a coign of
+the old battlements he would prove an ugly customer to the pursuit.
+Only one at a time could reach that siege perilous.... They would not
+take long to search the lower rooms, and then would be hot on the trail
+of the man who had fooled them. He had not a scrap of fear left or even
+of anger--only triumph at the thought of how properly those ruffians had
+been sold. "Like schoolboys they who unaware"--instead of two women they
+had found a man with a gun. And the Princess was miles off and forever
+beyond their reach. When they had settled with him they would no doubt
+burn the House down, but that would serve them little. From his airy
+pinnacle he could see the whole sea-front of Huntingtower, a blur in the
+dusk but for the ghostly eyes of its white-shuttered windows.
+
+Something was coming from it, running lightly over the lawns, lost for
+an instant in the trees, and then appearing clear on the crest of the
+ridge where some hours earlier Dougal had lain. With horror he saw that
+it was a girl. She stood with the wind plucking at her skirts and hair,
+and she cried in a high, clear voice which pierced even the confusion of
+the gale. What she cried he could not tell for it was in a strange
+tongue....
+
+But it reached the besiegers. There was a sudden silence in the din
+below him and then a confusion of shouting. The men seemed to be pouring
+out of the gap which had been the doorway, and as he peered over the
+parapet first one and then another entered his area of vision. The girl
+on the ridge, as soon as she saw that she had attracted attention,
+turned and ran back, and after her up the slopes went the pursuit
+bunched like hounds on a good scent.
+
+Mr. John Heritage, swearing terribly, started to retrace his steps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
+
+
+The military historian must often make shift to write of battles with
+slender data, but he can pad out his deficiencies by learned parallels.
+If his were the talented pen describing this, the latest action fought
+on British soil against a foreign foe, he would no doubt be crippled by
+the absence of written orders and war diaries. But how eloquently he
+would discant on the resemblance between Dougal and Gouraud--how the
+plan of leaving the enemy to waste his strength upon a deserted position
+was that which on the 15th of July, 1918, the French general had used
+with decisive effect in Champagne! But Dougal had never heard of
+Gouraud, and I cannot claim that, like the Happy Warrior, he
+
+              "through the heat of conflict kept the law
+    In calmness made, and saw what he foresaw."
+
+I have had the benefit of discussing the affair with him and his
+colleagues, but I should offend against historic truth if I represented
+the main action as anything but a scrimmage--a "soldiers' battle," the
+historian would say, a Malplaquet, an Albuera.
+
+Just after half-past three that afternoon the Commander-in-Chief was
+revealed in a very bad temper. He had intercepted Sir Archie's car,
+and, since Léon was known to be fully occupied, had brought it in by the
+West Lodge, and hidden it behind a clump of laurels. There he had held a
+hoarse council of war. He had cast an appraising eye over Sime the
+butler, Carfrae the chauffeur, and McGuffog the gamekeeper, and his
+brows had lightened when he beheld Sir Archie with an armful of guns and
+two big cartridge-magazines. But they had darkened again at the first
+words of the leader of the reinforcements.
+
+"Now for the Tower," Sir Archie had observed cheerfully. "We should be a
+match for the three watchers, my lad, and it's time that poor devil
+What's-his-name was relieved."
+
+"A bonny-like plan that would be," said Dougal. "Man, ye would be
+walkin' into the very trap they want. In an hour, or maybe two, the rest
+will turn up from the sea and they'd have ye tight by the neck. Na, na!
+It's time we're wantin', and the longer they think we're a' in the auld
+Tower the better for us. What news o' the polis?"
+
+He listened to Sir Archie's report with a gloomy face.
+
+"Not afore the darkenin'? They'll be ower late--the polis are aye ower
+late. It looks as if we had the job to do oursels. What's _your_
+notion?"
+
+"God knows," said the baronet whose eyes were on Saskia. "What's yours?"
+
+The deference conciliated Dougal. "There's just the one plan that's
+worth a docken. There's five o' us here, and there's plenty weapons.
+Besides there's five Die-Hards somewhere about, and though they've
+never tried it afore they can be trusted to loose off a gun. My advice
+is to hide at the Garplefoot and stop the boats landin'. We'd have the
+tinklers on our flank, no doubt, but I'm not muckle feared o' them. It
+wouldn't be easy for the boats to get in wi' this tearin' wind and us
+firin' volleys from the shore."
+
+Sir Archie stared at him with admiration. "You're a hearty young
+fire-eater. But Great Scott! we can't go pottin' at strangers before we
+find out their business. This is a law-abidin' country, and we're not
+entitled to start shootin' except in self-defence. You can wash that
+plan out, for it ain't feasible."
+
+Dougal spat cynically. "For all that it's the right strawtegy. Man, we
+might sink the lot, and then turn and settle wi' Dobson, and all afore
+the first polisman showed his neb. It would be a grand performance. But
+I was feared ye wouldn't be for it.... Well, there's just the one other
+thing to do. We must get inside the Hoose and put it in a state of
+defence. Heritage has McCunn's pistol, and he'll keep them busy for a
+bit. When they've finished wi' him and find the place is empty, they'll
+try the Hoose and we'll give them a warm reception. That should keep us
+goin' till the polis arrive, unless they're comin' wi' the blind
+carrier."
+
+Sir Archie nodded. "But why put ourselves in their power at all? They're
+at present barking up the wrong tree. Let them bark up another wrong
+'un. Why shouldn't the House remain empty? I take it we're here to
+protect the Princess. Well, we'll have done that if they go off
+empty-handed."
+
+Dougal looked up to the heavens. "I wish McCunn was here," he sighed.
+"Ay, we've got to protect the Princess, and there's just the one way to
+do it, and that's to put an end to this crowd o' blagyirds. If they gang
+empty-handed, they'll come again another day, either here or somewhere
+else, and it won't be long afore they get the lassie. But if we finish
+with them now she can sit down wi' an easy mind. That's why we've got to
+hang on to them till the polis comes. There's no way out o' this
+business but a battle."
+
+He found an ally. "Dougal is right," said Saskia. "If I am to have
+peace, by some way or other the fangs of my enemies must be drawn for
+ever."
+
+He swung round and addressed her formally. "Mem, I'm askin' ye for the
+last time. Will ye keep out of this business? Will ye gang back and sit
+doun aside Mrs. Morran's fire and have your tea and wait till we come
+for ye? Ye can do no good, and ye're puttin' yourself terrible in the
+enemy's power. If we're beat and ye're no' there, they get very little
+satisfaction, but if they get _you_ they get what they've come seekin'.
+I tell ye straight--ye're an encumbrance."
+
+She laughed mischievously. "I can shoot better than you," she said.
+
+He ignored the taunt. "Will ye listen to sense and fall to the rear?"
+
+"I will not," she said.
+
+"Then gang your own gait. I'm ower wise to argy-bargy wi' women. The
+Hoose be it!"
+
+It was a journey which sorely tried Dougal's temper. The only way in was
+by the verandah, but the door at the west end had been locked, and the
+ladder had disappeared. Now of his party three were lame, one lacked an
+arm, and one was a girl; besides, there were the guns and cartridges to
+transport. Moreover, at more than one point before the verandah was
+reached the route was commanded by a point on the ridge near the old
+Tower, and that had been Spidel's position when Dougal made his last
+reconnaissance. It behoved to pass these points swiftly and
+unobtrusively, and his company was neither swift nor unobtrusive.
+McGuffog had a genius for tripping over obstacles, and Sir Archie was
+for ever proffering his aid to Saskia, who was in a position to give
+rather than to receive, being far the most active of the party. Once
+Dougal had to take the gamekeeper's head and force it down, a
+performance which would have led to an immediate assault but for Sir
+Archie's presence. Nor did the latter escape. "Will ye stop heedin' the
+lassie, and attend to your own job," the Chieftain growled. "Ye're
+makin' as much noise as a road-roller."
+
+Arrived at the foot of the verandah wall there remained the problem of
+the escalade. Dougal clambered up like a squirrel by the help of cracks
+in the stones, and he could be heard trying the handle of the door into
+the House. He was absent for about five minutes and then his head peeped
+over the edge accompanied by the hooks of an iron ladder. "From the
+boiler-house," he informed them as they stood clear for the thing to
+drop. It proved to be little more than half the height of the wall.
+
+Saskia ascended first, and had no difficulty in pulling herself over the
+parapet. Then came the guns and ammunition, and then the one-armed Sime,
+who turned out to be an athlete. But it was no easy matter getting up
+the last three. Sir Archie anathematised his frailties. "Nice old crock
+to go tiger-shootin' with," he told the Princess. "But set me to
+something where my confounded leg don't get in the way, and I'm still
+pretty useful!" Dougal, mopping his brow with the rag he called his
+handkerchief, observed sourly that he objected to going scouting with a
+herd of elephants.
+
+Once indoors his spirits rose. The party from the Mains had brought
+several electric torches and the one lamp was presently found and lit.
+"We can't count on the polis," Dougal announced, "and when the
+foreigners is finished wi' the Tower they'll come on here. If no', we
+must make them. What is it the sodgers call it? Forcin' a battle? Now
+see here! There's the two roads into this place, the back door and the
+verandy, leavin' out the front door which is chained and lockit. They'll
+try those two roads first and we must get them well barricaded in time.
+But mind, if there's a good few o' them, it'll be an easy job to batter
+in the front door or the windies, so we maun be ready for that."
+
+He told off a fatigue party--the Princess, Sir Archie and McGuffog--to
+help in moving furniture to the several doors. Sime and Carfrae
+attended to the kitchen entrance, while he himself made a tour of the
+ground-floor windows. For half an hour the empty house was loud with
+strange sounds. McGuffog, who was a giant in strength, filled the
+passage at the verandah end with an assortment of furniture ranging from
+a grand piano to a vast mahogany sofa, while Saskia and Sir Archie
+pillaged the bedrooms and packed up the interstices with mattresses in
+lieu of sandbags. Dougal on his return saw fit to approve their work.
+
+"That'll fickle the blagyirds. Down at the kitchen door we've got a
+mangle, five wash-tubs and the best part of a ton o' coal. It's the
+windies I'm anxious about, for they're ower big to fill up. But I've
+gotten tubs o' water below them and a lot o' wire-nettin' I fund in the
+cellar."
+
+Sir Archie morosely wiped his brow. "I can't say I ever hated a job
+more," he told Saskia. "It seems pretty cool to march into somebody
+else's house and make free with his furniture. I hope to goodness our
+friends from the sea do turn up, or we'll look pretty foolish. Loudon
+will have a score against me he won't forget."
+
+"Ye're no' weakenin'?" asked Dougal fiercely.
+
+"Not a bit. Only hopin' somebody hasn't made a mighty big mistake."
+
+"Ye needn't be feared for that. Now you listen to your instructions.
+We're terrible few for such a big place, but we maun make up for
+shortness o' numbers by extra mobility. The gemkeeper will keep the
+windy that looks on the verandy, and fell any man that gets through.
+You'll hold the verandy door, and the ither lame man--is't Carfrae ye
+call him?--will keep the back door. I've telled the one-armed man, who
+has some kind of a head on him, that he maun keep on the move, watchin'
+to see if they try the front door or any o' the other windies. If they
+do, he takes his station there. D'ye follow?"
+
+Sir Archie nodded gloomily. "What is my post?" Saskia asked.
+
+"I've appointed ye my Chief of Staff," was the answer. "Ye see we've no
+reserves. If this door's the dangerous bit, it maun be reinforced from
+elsewhere; and that'll want savage thinkin'. Ye'll have to be ay on the
+move, Mem, and keep me informed. If they break in at two bits, we're
+beat, and there'll be nothin' for it but to retire to our last position.
+Ye ken the room ayont the hall where they keep the coats. That's our
+last trench, and at the worst we fall back there and stick it out. It
+has a strong door and a wee windy, so they'll no' be able to get in on
+our rear. We should be able to put up a good defence there, unless they
+fire the place over our heads.... Now, we'd better give out the guns."
+
+"We don't want any shootin' if we can avoid it," said Sir Archie, who
+found his distaste for Dougal growing, though he was under the spell of
+the one being there who knew precisely his own mind.
+
+"Just what I was goin' to say. My instructions is, reserve your fire,
+and don't loose off till you have a man up against the end o' your
+barrel."
+
+"Good Lord, we'll get into a horrible row. The whole thing may be a
+mistake, and we'll be had up for wholesale homicide. No man shall fire
+unless I give the word."
+
+The Commander-in-Chief looked at him darkly. Some bitter retort was on
+his tongue, but he restrained himself.
+
+"It appears," he said, "that ye think I'm doin' all this for fun. I'll
+no 'argy wi' ye. There can be just the one general in a battle, but I'll
+give ye permission to say the word when to fire.... Macgreegor!" he
+muttered, a strange expletive only used in moments of deep emotion.
+"I'll wager ye'll be for sayin' the word afore I'd say it mysel'."
+
+He turned to the Princess. "I hand over to you, till I am back, for I
+maun be off and see to the Die-Hards. I wish I could bring them in here,
+but I daren't lose my communications. I'll likely get in by the
+boiler-house skylight when I come back, but it might be as well to keep
+a road open here unless ye're actually attacked."
+
+Dougal clambered over the mattresses and the grand piano; a flicker of
+waning daylight appeared for a second as he squeezed through the door,
+and Sir Archie was left staring at the wrathful countenance of McGuffog.
+He laughed ruefully.
+
+"I've been in about forty battles, and here's that little devil rather
+worried about my pluck, and talkin' to me like a corps commander to a
+newly joined second-lieutenant. All the same he's a remarkable child,
+and we'd better behave as if we were in for a real shindy. What do you
+think, Princess?"
+
+"I think we are in for what you call a shindy. I am in command,
+remember. I order you to serve out the guns."
+
+This was done, a shot-gun and a hundred cartridges to each, while
+McGuffog, who was a marksman, was also given a sporting Mannlicher, and
+two other rifles, a .303 and a small-bore Holland, were kept in reserve
+in the hall. Sir Archie, free from Dougal's compelling presence, gave
+the gamekeeper peremptory orders not to shoot till he was bidden, and
+Carfrae at the kitchen door was warned to the same effect. The shuttered
+house, where the only light apart from the garden-room was the feeble
+spark of the electric torches, had the most disastrous effect upon his
+spirits. The gale which roared in the chimney and eddied among the
+rafters of the hall seemed an infernal commotion in a tomb.
+
+"Let's go upstairs," he told Saskia; "there must be a view from the
+upper windows."
+
+"You can see the top of the old Tower, and part of the sea," she said.
+"I know it well, for it was my only amusement to look at it. On clear
+days, too, one could see high mountains far in the west." His depression
+seemed to have affected her, for she spoke listlessly, unlike the vivid
+creature who had led the way in.
+
+In a gaunt west-looking bedroom, the one in which Heritage and Dickson
+had camped the night before, they opened a fold of the shutters and
+looked out into a world of grey wrack and driving rain. The Tower roof
+showed mistily beyond the ridge of down, but its environs were not in
+their prospect. The lower regions of the House had been gloomy enough,
+but this bleak place with its drab outlook struck a chill to Sir
+Archie's soul. He dolefully lit a cigarette.
+
+"This is a pretty rotten show for you," he told her. "It strikes me as a
+rather unpleasant brand of nightmare."
+
+"I have been living with nightmares for three years," she said wearily.
+
+He cast his eyes round the room. "I think the Kennedys were mad to build
+this confounded barrack. I've always disliked it, and old Quentin hadn't
+any use for it either. Cold, cheerless, raw monstrosity! It hasn't been
+a very giddy place for you, Princess."
+
+"It has been my prison, when I hoped it would be a sanctuary. But it may
+yet be my salvation."
+
+"I'm sure I hope so. I say, you must be jolly hungry. I don't suppose
+there's any chance of tea for you."
+
+She shook her head. She was looking fixedly at the Tower, as if she
+expected something to appear there, and he followed her eyes.
+
+"Rum old shell, that. Quentin used to keep all kinds of live stock
+there, and when we were boys it was our castle where we played at bein'
+robber chiefs. It'll be dashed queer if the real thing should turn up
+this time. I suppose McCunn's Poet is roostin' there all by his lone.
+Can't say I envy him his job."
+
+Suddenly she caught his arm. "I see a man," she whispered. "There! He is
+behind those far bushes. There is his head again!"
+
+It was clearly a man, but he presently disappeared, for he had come
+round by the south end of the House, past the stables, and had now gone
+over the ridge.
+
+"The cut of his jib is uncommonly like Loudon, the factor. I thought
+McCunn had stretched him on a bed of pain. Lord, if this thing should
+turn out a farce, I simply can't face Loudon.... I say, Princess, you
+don't suppose by any chance that McCunn's a little bit wrong in the
+head?"
+
+She turned her candid eyes on him. "You are in a very doubting mood."
+
+"My feet are cold and I don't mind admittin' it. Hanged if I know what
+it is, but I don't feel this show a bit real. If it isn't, we're in a
+fair way to make howlin' idiots of ourselves, and get pretty well
+embroiled with the law. It's all right for the red-haired boy, for he
+can take everything seriously, even play. I could do the same thing
+myself when I was a kid. I don't mind runnin' some kinds of risk--I've
+had a few in my time--but this is so infernally outlandish and I--I
+don't quite believe in it. That is to say, I believe in it right enough
+when I look at you or listen to McCunn, but as soon as my eyes are off
+you I begin to doubt again. I'm gettin' old and I've a stake in the
+country, and I daresay I'm gettin' a bit of a prig--anyway I don't want
+to make a jackass of myself. Besides, there's this foul weather and
+this beastly house to ice my feet."
+
+He broke off with an exclamation, for on the grey cloud-bounded stage in
+which the roof of the Tower was the central feature, actors had
+appeared. Dim hurrying shapes showed through the mist, dipping over the
+ridge, as if coming from the Garplefoot.
+
+She seized his arm and he saw that her listlessness was gone. Her eyes
+were shining.
+
+"It is they," she cried. "The nightmare is real at last. Do you doubt
+now?"
+
+He could only stare, for these shapes arriving and vanishing like wisps
+of fog still seemed to him phantasmal. The girl held his arm tightly
+clutched, and craned towards the window space. He tried to open the
+frame, and succeeded in smashing the glass. A swirl of wind drove
+inwards and blew a loose lock of Saskia's hair across his brow.
+
+"I wish Dougal were back," he muttered, and then came the crack of a
+shot.
+
+The pressure on his arm slackened, and a pale face was turned to him.
+"He is alone--Mr. Heritage. He has no chance. They will kill him like a
+dog."
+
+"They'll never get in," he assured her. "Dougal said the place could
+hold out for hours."
+
+Another shot followed and presently a third. She twined her hands and
+her eyes were wild.
+
+"We can't leave him to be killed," she gasped.
+
+"It's the only game. We're playin' for time, remember. Besides he won't
+be killed. Great Scott!"
+
+As he spoke, a sudden explosion cleft the drone of the wind and a patch
+of gloom flashed into yellow light.
+
+"Bomb!" he cried. "Lord, I might have thought of that."
+
+The girl had sprung back from the window. "I cannot bear it. I will not
+see him murdered in sight of his friends. I am going to show myself, and
+when they see me they will leave him.... No, you must stay here.
+Presently they will be round this house. Don't be afraid for me--I am
+very quick of foot."
+
+"For God's sake, don't! Here, Princess, stop," and he clutched at her
+skirt. "Look here, I'll go."
+
+"You can't. You have been wounded. I am in command, you know. Keep the
+door open till I come back."
+
+He hobbled after her, but she easily eluded him. She was smiling now,
+and blew a kiss to him. "La, la, la," she trilled, as she ran down the
+stairs. He heard her voice below, admonishing McGuffog. Then he pulled
+himself together and went back to the window. He had brought the little
+Holland with him, and he poked its barrel through the hole in the glass.
+
+"Curse my game leg," he said, almost cheerfully, for the situation was
+now becoming one with which he could cope. "I ought to be able to hold
+up the pursuit a bit. My aunt! What a girl!"
+
+With the rifle cuddled to his shoulder he watched a slim figure come
+into sight on the lawn, running towards the ridge. He reflected that she
+must have dropped from the high verandah wall. That reminded him that
+something must be done to make the wall climbable for her return, so he
+went down to McGuffog, and the two squeezed through the barricaded door
+to the verandah. The boiler-house ladder was still in position, but it
+did not reach half the height, so McGuffog was adjured to stand by to
+help, and in the meantime to wait on duty by the wall. Then he hurried
+upstairs to his watch-tower.
+
+The girl was in sight, almost on the crest of the high ground. There she
+stood for a moment, one hand clutching at her errant hair, the other
+shielding her eyes from the sting of the rain. He heard her cry, as
+Heritage had heard her, but since the wind was blowing towards him the
+sound came louder and fuller. Again she cried, and then stood motionless
+with her hands above her head. It was only for an instant, for the next
+he saw she had turned and was racing down the slope, jumping the little
+scrogs of hazel like a deer. On the ridge appeared faces, and then over
+it swept a mob of men.
+
+She had a start of some fifty yards, and laboured to increase it, having
+doubtless the verandah wall in mind. Sir Archie, sick with anxiety,
+nevertheless spared time to admire her prowess. "Gad! she's a miler," he
+ejaculated. "She'll do it. I'm hanged if she don't do it."
+
+Against men in seaman's boots and heavy clothing she had a clear
+advantage. But two shook themselves loose from the pack and began to
+gain on her. At the main shrubbery they were not thirty yards behind,
+and in her passage through it her skirts must have delayed her, for when
+she emerged the pursuit had halved the distance. He got the sights of
+the rifle on the first man, but the lawns sloped up towards the house,
+and to his consternation he found that the girl was in the line of fire.
+Madly he ran to the other window of the room, tore back the shutters,
+shivered the glass, and flung his rifle to his shoulder. The fellow was
+within three yards of her, but thank God! he had now a clear field. He
+fired low and just ahead of him, and had the satisfaction to see him
+drop like a rabbit, shot in the leg. His companion stumbled over him,
+and for a moment the girl was safe.
+
+But her speed was failing. She passed out of sight on the verandah side
+of the house, and the rest of the pack had gained ominously over the
+easier ground of the lawn. He thought for a moment of trying to stop
+them by his fire, but realised that if every shot told there would still
+be enough of them left to make sure of her capture. The only chance was
+at the verandah, and he went downstairs at a pace undreamed of since the
+days when he had two whole legs.
+
+McGuffog, Mannlicher in hand, was poking his neck over the wall. The
+pursuit had turned the corner and were about twenty yards off; the girl
+was at the foot of the ladder, breathless, drooping with fatigue. She
+tried to climb, limply and feebly, and very slowly, as if she were too
+giddy to see clear. Above were two cripples, and at her back the van of
+the now triumphant pack.
+
+Sir Archie, game leg or no, was on the parapet preparing to drop down
+and hold off the pursuit were it only for seconds. But at that moment he
+was aware that the situation had changed.
+
+At the foot of the ladder a tall man seemed to have sprung out of the
+ground. He caught the girl in his arms, climbed the ladder, and
+McGuffog's great hands reached down and seized her and swung her into
+safety. Up the wall, by means of cracks and tufts, was shinning a small
+boy.
+
+The stranger coolly faced the pursuers and at the sight of him they
+checked, those behind stumbling against those in front. He was speaking
+to them in a foreign tongue, and to Sir Archie's ear the words were like
+the crack of a lash. The hesitation was only for a moment, for a voice
+among them cried out, and the whole pack gave tongue shrilly and surged
+on again. But that instant of check had given the stranger his chance.
+He was up the ladder, and, gripping the parapet, found rest for his feet
+in a fissure. Then he bent down, drew up the ladder, handed it to
+McGuffog and with a mighty heave pulled himself over the top.
+
+He seemed to hope to defend the verandah, but the door at the west end
+was being assailed by a contingent of the enemy, and he saw that its
+thin woodwork was yielding.
+
+"Into the House," he cried, as he picked up the ladder and tossed it
+over the wall on the pack surging below. He was only just in time, for
+the west door yielded. In two steps he had followed McGuffog through the
+chink into the passage, and the concussion of the grand piano pushed
+hard against the verandah door from within coincided with the first
+battering on the said door from without.
+
+In the garden-room the feeble lamp showed a strange grouping. Saskia had
+sunk into a chair to get her breath, and seemed too dazed to be aware of
+her surroundings. Dougal was manfully striving to appear at his ease,
+but his lip was quivering.
+
+"A near thing that time," he observed. "It was the blame of that man's
+auld motor-bicycle."
+
+The stranger cast sharp eyes around the place and company.
+
+"An awkward corner, gentlemen," he said. "How many are there of you?
+Four men and a boy? And you have placed guards at all the entrances?"
+
+"They have bombs," Sir Archie reminded him.
+
+"No doubt. But I do not think they will use them here--or their guns,
+unless there is no other way. Their purpose is kidnapping, and they hope
+to do it secretly and slip off without leaving a trace. If they
+slaughter us, as they easily can, the cry will be out against them, and
+their vessel will be unpleasantly hunted. Half their purpose is already
+spoiled, for it is no longer secret.... They may break us by sheer
+weight, and I fancy the first shooting will be done by us. It's the
+windows I'm afraid of."
+
+Some tone in his quiet voice reached the girl in the wicker chair. She
+looked up wildly, saw him and with a cry of "Alesha" ran to his arms.
+There she hung, while his hand fondled her hair, like a mother with a
+scared child. Sir Archie, watching the whole thing in some stupefaction,
+thought he had never in his days seen more nobly matched human
+creatures.
+
+"It is my friend," she cried triumphantly, "the friend whom I appointed
+to meet me here. Oh, I did well to trust him. Now we need not fear
+anything."
+
+As if in ironical answer came a great crashing at the verandah door, and
+the twanging of chords cruelly mishandled. The grand piano was suffering
+internally from the assaults of the boiler-house ladder.
+
+"Wull I gie them a shot?" was McGuffog's hoarse inquiry.
+
+"Action stations," Alexis ordered, for the command seemed to have
+shifted to him from Dougal. "The windows are the danger. The boy will
+patrol the ground floor, and give us warning, and I and this man,"
+pointing to Sime, "will be ready at the threatened point. And for God's
+sake no shooting, unless I give the word. If we take them on at that
+game we haven't a chance."
+
+He said something to Saskia in Russian and she smiled assent and went to
+Sir Archie's side. "You and I must keep this door," she said.
+
+Sir Archie was never very clear afterwards about the events of the next
+hour. The Princess was in the maddest spirits, as if the burden of three
+years had slipped from her and she was back in her first girlhood. She
+sang as she carried more lumber to the pile--perhaps the song which had
+once entranced Heritage, but Sir Archie had no ear for music. She
+mocked at the furious blows which rained at the other end, for the door
+had gone now, and in the windy gap could be seen a blur of dark faces.
+Oddly enough, he found his own spirits mounting to meet hers. It was
+real business at last, the qualms of the civilian had been forgotten,
+and there was rising in him that joy in a scrap which had once made him
+one of the most daring airmen on the Western Front. The only thing that
+worried him now was the coyness about shooting. What on earth were his
+rifles and shot-guns for unless to be used? He had seen the enemy from
+the verandah wall, and a more ruffianly crew he had never dreamed of.
+They meant the uttermost business, and against such it was surely the
+duty of good citizens to wage whole-hearted war.
+
+The Princess was humming to herself a nursery rhyme. "The King of
+Spain's daughter," she crooned, "came to visit me, and all for the
+sake----Oh, that poor piano!" In her clear voice she cried something in
+Russian, and the wind carried a laugh from the verandah. At the sound of
+it she stopped. "I had forgotten," she said. "Paul is there. I had
+forgotten." After that she was very quiet, but she redoubled her labours
+at the barricade.
+
+To the man it seemed that the pressure from without was slackening. He
+called to McGuffog to ask about the garden-room window, and the reply
+was reassuring. The gamekeeper was gloomily contemplating Dougal's tubs
+of water and wire-netting, as he might have contemplated a vermin trap.
+
+Sir Archie was growing acutely anxious--the anxiety of the defender of a
+straggling fortress which is vulnerable at a dozen points. It seemed to
+him that strange noises were coming from the rooms beyond the hall. Did
+the back door lie that way? And was not there a smell of smoke in the
+air? If they tried fire in such a gale the place would burn like
+matchwood.
+
+He left his post and in the hall found Dougal.
+
+"All quiet," the Chieftain reported. "Far ower quiet. I don't like it.
+The enemy's no' puttin' out his strength yet. The Russian says a' the
+west windies are terrible dangerous. Him and the chauffeur's doin' their
+best, but ye can't block thae muckle glass panes."
+
+He returned to the Princess, and found that the attack had indeed
+languished on that particular barricade. The withers of the grand piano
+were left unwrung, and only a faint scuffling informed him that the
+verandah was not empty. "They're gathering for an attack elsewhere," he
+told himself. But what if that attack were a feint? He and McGuffog must
+stick to their post, for in his belief the verandah door and the
+garden-room window were the easiest places where an entry in mass could
+be forced.
+
+Suddenly Dougal's whistle blew, and with it came a most almighty crash
+somewhere towards the west side. With a shout of "Hold tight,
+McGuffog," Sir Archie bolted into the hall, and, led by the sound,
+reached what had once been the ladies' bedroom. A strange sight met his
+eyes, for the whole framework of one window seemed to have been thrust
+inward, and in the gap Alexis was swinging a fender. Three of the enemy
+were in the room--one senseless on the floor, one in the grip of Sime,
+whose single hand was tightly clenched on his throat, and one engaged
+with Dougal in a corner. The Die-Hard leader was sore pressed, and to
+his help Sir Archie went. The fresh assault made the seaman duck his
+head, and Dougal seized the occasion to smite him hard with something
+which caused him to roll over. It was Spidel's life-preserver which he
+had annexed that afternoon.
+
+Alexis at the window seemed to have for a moment daunted the attack.
+"Bring that table," he cried, and the thing was jammed into the gap.
+"Now you"--this to Sime--"get the man from the back door to hold this
+place with his gun. There's no attack there. It's about time for
+shooting now, or we'll have them in our rear. What in heaven is that?"
+
+It was McGuffog whose great bellow resounded down the corridor. Sir
+Archie turned and shuffled back, to be met by a distressing spectacle.
+The lamp, burning as peacefully as it might have burned on an old lady's
+tea-table, revealed the window of the garden-room driven bodily inward,
+shutters and all, and now forming an inclined bridge over Dougal's
+ineffectual tubs. In front of it stood McGuffog, swinging his gun by the
+barrel and yelling curses, which, being mainly couched in the
+vernacular, were happily meaningless to Saskia. She herself stood at the
+hall door, plucking at something hidden in her breast. He saw that it
+was a little ivory-handled pistol.
+
+The enemy's feint had succeeded, for even as Sir Archie looked three men
+leaped into the room. On the neck of one the butt of McGuffog's gun
+crashed, but two scrambled to their feet and made for the girl. Sir
+Archie met the first with his fist, a clean drive on the jaw, followed
+by a damaging hook with his left that put him out of action. The other
+hesitated for an instant and was lost, for McGuffog caught him by the
+waist from behind and sent him through the broken frame to join his
+comrades without.
+
+"Up the stairs," Dougal was shouting, for the little room beyond the
+hall was clearly impossible. "Our flank's turned. They're pourin'
+through the other windy." Out of a corner of his eye Sir Archie caught
+sight of Alexis, with Sime and Carfrae in support, being slowly forced
+towards them along the corridor. "Upstairs," he shouted. "Come on,
+McGuffog. Lead on, Princess." He dashed out the lamp, and the place was
+in darkness.
+
+With this retreat from the forward trench line ended the opening phase
+of the battle. It was achieved in good order, and position was taken up
+on the first-floor landing, dominating the main staircase and the
+passage that led to the back stairs. At their back was a short corridor
+ending in a window which gave on the north side of the House above the
+verandah, and from which an active man might descend to the verandah
+roof. It had been carefully reconnoitred beforehand by Dougal, and his
+were the dispositions.
+
+The odd thing was that the retreating force were in good heart. The
+three men from the Mains were warming to their work, and McGuffog wore
+an air of genial ferocity. "Dashed fine position I call this," said Sir
+Archie. Only Alexis was silent and preoccupied. "We are still at their
+mercy," he said. "Pray God your police come soon." He forbade shooting
+yet awhile. "The lady is our strong card," he said. "They won't use
+their guns while she is with us, but if it ever comes to shooting they
+can wipe us out in a couple of minutes. One of you watch that window,
+for Paul Abreskov is no fool."
+
+Their exhilaration was short-lived. Below in the hall it was black
+darkness save for a greyness at the entrance of the verandah passage;
+but the defence was soon aware that the place was thick with men.
+Presently there came a scuffling from Carfrae's post towards the back
+stairs, and a cry as of some one choking. And at the same moment a flare
+was lit below which brought the whole hall from floor to rafters into
+blinding light.
+
+It revealed a crowd of figures, some still in the hall and some half-way
+up the stairs, and it revealed, too, more figures at the end of the
+upper landing where Carfrae had been stationed. The shapes were
+motionless like mannequins in a shop window.
+
+"They've got us treed all right," Sir Archie groaned. "What the devil
+are they waiting for?"
+
+"They wait for their leader," said Alexis.
+
+No one of the party will ever forget the ensuing minutes. After the
+hubbub of the barricades the ominous silence was like icy water,
+chilling and petrifying with an indefinable fear. There was no sound but
+the wind, but presently mingled with it came odd wild voices.
+
+"Hear to the whaups," McGuffog whispered.
+
+Sir Archie, who found the tension unbearable, sought relief in
+contradiction. "You're an unscientific brute, McGuffog," he told his
+henchman. "It's a disgrace that a gamekeeper should be such a rotten
+naturalist. What would whaups be doin' here at this time of year?"
+
+"A' the same, I could swear it's whaups, Sir Erchibald."
+
+Then Dougal broke in and his voice was excited. "It's no whaups. That's
+our patrol signal. Man, there's hope for us yet. I believe it's the
+polis."
+
+His words were unheeded, for the figures below drew apart and a young
+man came through them. His beautifully-shaped dark head was bare, and as
+he moved he unbuttoned his oilskins and showed the trim dark-blue garb
+of the yachtsman. He walked confidently up the stairs, an odd elegant
+figure among his heavy companions.
+
+"Good afternoon, Alexis," he said in English. "I think we may now regard
+this interesting episode as closed. I take it that you surrender.
+Saskia, dear, you are coming with me on a little journey. Will you tell
+my men where to find your baggage?"
+
+The reply was in Russian. Alexis' voice was as cool as the other's, and
+it seemed to wake him to anger. He replied in a rapid torrent of words,
+and appealed to the men below, who shouted back. The flare was dying
+down, and shadows again hid most of the hall.
+
+Dougal crept up behind Sir Archie. "Here, I think it's the polis.
+They're whistlin' outbye, and I hear folk cryin' to each other--no' the
+foreigners."
+
+Again Alexis spoke, and then Saskia joined in. What she said rang sharp
+with contempt, and her fingers played with her little pistol.
+
+Suddenly before the young man could answer Dobson bustled towards him.
+The innkeeper was labouring under some strong emotion, for he seemed to
+be pleading and pointing urgently towards the door.
+
+"I tell ye it's the polis," whispered Dougal. "They're nickit."
+
+There was a swaying in the crowd and anxious faces. Men surged in,
+whispered and went out, and a clamour arose which the leader stilled
+with a fierce gesture.
+
+"You there," he cried, looking up, "you English. We mean you no ill, but
+I require you to hand over to me the lady and the Russian who is with
+her. I give you a minute by my watch to decide. If you refuse my men are
+behind you and around you, and you go with me to be punished at my
+leisure."
+
+"I warn you," cried Sir Archie. "We are armed, and will shoot down any
+one who dares to lay a hand on us."
+
+"You fool," came the answer. "I can send you all to eternity before you
+touch a trigger."
+
+Léon was by his side now--Léon and Spidel, imploring him to do something
+which he angrily refused. Outside there was a new clamour, faces showing
+at the door and then vanishing, and an anxious hum filled the hall....
+Dobson appeared again and this time he was a figure of fury.
+
+"Are ye daft, man?" he cried. "I tell ye the polis are closin' round us,
+and there's no' a moment to lose if we would get back to the boats. If
+ye'll no' think o' your own neck, I'm thinkin' o' mine. The whole
+thing's a bloody misfire. Come on, lads, if ye're no' besotted on
+destruction."
+
+Léon laid a hand on the leader's arm and was roughly shaken off. Spidel
+fared no better, and the little group on the upper landing saw the two
+shrug their shoulders and make for the door. The hall was emptying fast,
+and the watchers had gone from the back stairs. The young man's voice
+rose to a scream; he commanded, threatened, cursed; but panic was in the
+air and he had lost his mastery.
+
+"Quick," croaked Dougal, "now's the time for the counter-attack."
+
+But the figure on the stairs held them motionless. They could not see
+his face, but by instinct they knew that it was distraught with fury and
+defeat. The flare blazed up again as the flame caught a knot of fresh
+powder, and once more the place was bright with the uncanny light....
+The hall was empty save for the pale man who was in the act of turning.
+
+He looked back. "If I go now, I will return. The world is not wide
+enough to hide you from me, Saskia."
+
+"You will never get her," said Alexis.
+
+A sudden devil flamed into his eyes, the devil of some ancestral
+savagery, which would destroy what is desired but unattainable. He swung
+round, his hand went to his pocket, something clicked, and his arm shot
+out like a baseball pitcher's.
+
+So intent was the gaze of the others on him, that they did not see a
+second figure ascending the stairs. Just as Alexis flung himself before
+the Princess, the new-comer caught the young man's outstretched arm and
+wrenched something from his hand. The next second he had hurled it into
+a far corner where stood the great fireplace. There was a blinding sheet
+of flame, a dull roar, and then billow upon billow of acrid smoke. As it
+cleared they saw that the fine Italian chimneypiece, the pride of the
+builder of the House, was a mass of splinters, and that a great hole had
+been blown through the wall into what had been the dining-room.... A
+figure was sitting on the bottom step feeling its bruises. The last
+enemy had gone.
+
+When Mr. John Heritage raised his eyes he saw the Princess with a very
+pale face in the arms of a tall man whom he had never seen before. If he
+was surprised at the sight, he did not show it. "Nasty little bomb
+that. Time fuse. I remember we struck the brand first in July '18."
+
+"Are they rounded up?" Sir Archie asked.
+
+"They've bolted. Whether they'll get away is another matter. I left half
+the mounted police a minute ago at the top of the West Lodge avenue. The
+other lot went to the Garplefoot to cut off the boats."
+
+"Good Lord, man," Sir Archie cried, "the police have been here for the
+last ten minutes."
+
+"You're wrong. They came with me."
+
+"Then what on earth----?" began the astonished baronet. He stopped
+short, for he suddenly got his answer. Into the hall from the verandah
+limped a boy. Never was there seen so ruinous a child. He was dripping
+wet, his shirt was all but torn off his back, his bleeding nose was
+poorly staunched by a wisp of handkerchief, his breeches were in
+ribbons, and his poor bare legs looked as if they had been
+comprehensively kicked and scratched. Limpingly he entered, yet with a
+kind of pride, like some small cock-sparrow who has lost most of his
+plumage but has vanquished his adversary.
+
+With a yell Dougal went down the stairs. The boy saluted him, and they
+gravely shook hands. It was the meeting of Wellington and Blücher.
+
+The Chieftain's voice shrilled in triumph, but there was a break in it.
+The glory was almost too great to be borne.
+
+"I kenned it," he cried. "It was the Gorbals Die-Hards. There stands the
+man that done it.... Ye'll no' fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION
+
+
+We left Mr. McCunn, full of aches but desperately resolute in spirit,
+hobbling by the Auchenlochan road into the village of Dalquharter. His
+goal was Mrs. Morran's hen-house, which was Thomas Yownie's _poste de
+commandement_. The rain had come on again, and, though in other weather
+there would have been a slow twilight, already the shadow of night had
+the world in its grip. The sea even from the high ground was invisible,
+and all to westward and windward was a ragged screen of dark cloud. It
+was foul weather for foul deeds.
+
+Thomas Yownie was not in the hen-house, but in Mrs. Morran's kitchen,
+and with him were the pug-faced boy known as Old Bill, and the sturdy
+figure of Peter Paterson. But the floor was held by the hostess. She
+still wore her big boots, her petticoats were still kilted, and round
+her venerable head in lieu of a bonnet was drawn a tartan shawl.
+
+"Eh, Dickson, but I'm blithe to see ye. And, puir man, ye've been sair
+mishandled. This is the awfu'est Sabbath day that ever you and me pit
+in. I hope it'll be forgiven us.... Whaur's the young leddy?"
+
+"Dougal was saying she was in the House with Sir Archibald and the men
+from the Mains."
+
+"Wae's me!" Mrs. Morran keened. "And what kind o' place is yon for her?
+Thae laddies tell me there's boatfu's o' scoondrels landit at the
+Garplefit. They'll try the auld Tower, but they'll no' wait there when
+they find it toom, and they'll be inside the Hoose in a jiffy and awa'
+wi' the puir lassie. Sirs, it maunna be. Ye're lippenin' to the polis,
+but in a' my days I never kenned the polis in time. We maun be up and
+daein' oorsels. Oh, if I could get a haud o' that red-heided Dougal...."
+
+As she spoke, there came on the wind the dull reverberation of an
+explosion.
+
+"Keep us, what's that?" she cried.
+
+"It's dinnymite," said Peter Paterson.
+
+"That's the end o' the auld Tower," observed Thomas Yownie in his quiet
+even voice. "And it's likely the end o' the man Heritage."
+
+"Lord peety us!" the old woman wailed. "And us standin' here like
+stookies and no' liftin' a hand. Awa' wi' ye, laddies, and dae
+something. Awa' you too, Dickson, or I'll tak' the road mysel'."
+
+"I've got orders," said the Chief of Staff, "no' to move till the
+sityation's clear. Napoleon's up at the Tower and Jaikie in the
+policies. I maun wait on their reports."
+
+For a moment Mrs. Morran's attention was distracted by Dickson, who
+suddenly felt very faint and sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. "Man,
+ye're as white as a dish-clout," she exclaimed with compunction. "Ye're
+fair wore out, and ye'll have had nae meat sin' your breakfast. See, and
+I'll get ye a cup o' tea."
+
+She proved to be in the right, for as soon as Dickson had swallowed some
+mouthfuls of her strong scalding brew the colour came back to his
+cheeks, and he announced that he felt better. "Ye'll fortify it wi' a
+dram," she told him, and produced a black bottle from her cupboard. "My
+father aye said that guid whiskey and het tea keepit the doctor's gig
+oot o' the close."
+
+The back door opened and Napoleon entered, his thin shanks blue with
+cold. He saluted and made his report in a voice shrill with excitement.
+
+"The Tower has fallen. They've blown in the big door, and the feck o'
+them's inside."
+
+"And Mr. Heritage?" was Dickson's anxious inquiry.
+
+"When I last saw him he was up at a windy, shootin'. I think he's gotten
+on to the roof. I wouldna wonder but the place is on fire."
+
+"Here, this is awful," Dickson groaned. "We can't let Mr. Heritage be
+killed that way. What strength is the enemy?"
+
+"I counted twenty-seven, and there's stragglers comin' up from the
+boats."
+
+"And there's me and you five laddies here, and Dougal and the others
+shut up in the House." He stopped in sheer despair. It was a fix from
+which the most enlightened business mind showed no escape. Prudence,
+inventiveness were no longer in question; only some desperate course of
+violence.
+
+"We must create a diversion," he said. "I'm for the Tower, and you
+laddies must come with me. We'll maybe see a chance. Oh, but I wish I
+had my wee pistol."
+
+"If ye're gaun there, Dickson, I'm comin' wi' ye," Mrs. Morran
+announced.
+
+Her words revealed to Dickson the preposterousness of the whole
+situation, and for all his anxiety he laughed. "Five laddies, a
+middle-aged man and an auld wife," he cried. "Dod, it's pretty hopeless.
+It's like the thing in the Bible about the weak things of the world
+trying to confound the strong."
+
+"The Bible's whiles richt," Mrs. Morran answered drily. "Come on, for
+there's no time to lose."
+
+The door opened again to admit the figure of Wee Jaikie. There were no
+tears in his eyes, and his face was very white.
+
+"They're a' round the Hoose," he croaked. "I was up a tree forenent the
+verandy and seen them. The lassie ran oot and cried on them from the top
+o' the brae, and they a' turned and hunted her back. Gosh, but it was a
+near thing. I seen the Captain sklimmin' the wall, and a muckle man took
+the lassie and flung her up the ladder. They got inside just in time and
+steekit the door, and now the whole pack is roarin' round the Hoose
+seekin' a road in. They'll no' be long over the job, neither."
+
+"What about Mr. Heritage?"
+
+"They're no' heedin' about him any more. The auld Tower's bleezin'."
+
+"Worse and worse," said Dickson. "If the police don't come in the next
+ten minutes, they'll be away with the Princess. They've beaten all
+Dougal's plans, and it's a straight fight with odds of six to one. It's
+not possible."
+
+Mrs. Morran for the first time seemed to lose hope. "Eh, the puir
+lassie!" she wailed, and sinking on a chair covered her face with her
+shawl.
+
+"Laddies, can you no' think of a plan?" asked Dickson, his voice flat
+with despair.
+
+Then Thomas Yownie spoke. So far he had been silent, but under his
+tangled thatch of hair, his mind had been busy. Jaikie's report seemed
+to bring him to a decision.
+
+"It's gey dark," he said, "and it's gettin' darker."
+
+There was that in his voice which promised something, and Dickson
+listened.
+
+"The enemy's mostly foreigners, but Dobson's there and I think he's a
+kind of guide to them. Dobson's feared of the polis, and if we can
+terrify Dobson he'll terrify the rest."
+
+"Ay, but where are the police?"
+
+"They're no' here yet, but they're comin'. The fear o' them is aye in
+Dobson's mind. If he thinks the polis has arrived, he'll put the wind up
+the lot.... _We_ maun be the polis."
+
+Dickson could only stare while the Chief of Staff unfolded his scheme. I
+do not know to whom the Muse of History will give the credit of the
+tactics of "infiltration"--whether to Ludendorff or von Hutier or some
+other proud captain of Germany, or to Foch, who revised and perfected
+them. But I know that the same notion was at this moment of crisis
+conceived by Thomas Yownie, whom no parents acknowledged, who slept
+usually in a coal cellar, and who had picked up his education among
+Gorbals closes and along the wharves of Clyde.
+
+"It's gettin' dark," he said, "and the enemy are that busy tryin' to
+break into the Hoose that they'll no' be thinkin' o' their rear. The
+five o' us Die-Hards is grand at dodgin' and keepin' out of sight, and
+what hinders us to get in among them, so that they'll hear us but never
+see us? We're used to the ways o' the polis, and can imitate them fine.
+Forbye we've all got our whistles, which are the same as a bobbie's
+birl, and Old Bill and Peter are grand at copyin' a man's voice. Since
+the Captain is shut up in the Hoose, the command falls to me, and that's
+my plan."
+
+With a piece of chalk he drew on the kitchen floor a rough sketch of the
+environs of Huntingtower. Peter Paterson was to move from the
+shrubberies beyond the verandah, Napoleon from the stables, Old Bill
+from the Tower, while Wee Jaikie and Thomas himself were to advance as
+if from the Garplefoot, so that the enemy might fear for his
+communications. "As soon as one o' ye gets into position he's to gie the
+patrol cry, and when each o' ye has heard five cries, he's to advance.
+Begin birlin' and roarin' afore ye get among them, and keep it up till
+ye're at the Hoose wall. If they've gotten inside, in ye go after them.
+I trust each Die-Hard to use his judgment, and above all to keep out o'
+sight and no let himsel' be grippit."
+
+The plan, like all great tactics, was simple, and no sooner was it
+expounded than it was put into action. The Die-Hards faded out of the
+kitchen like fog-wreaths, and Dickson and Mrs. Morran were left looking
+at each other. They did not look long. The bare feet of Wee Jaikie had
+not crossed the threshold fifty seconds, before they were followed by
+Mrs. Morran's out-of-doors boots and Dickson's tackets. Arm in arm the
+two hobbled down the back path behind the village which led to the South
+Lodge. The gate was unlocked, for the warder was busy elsewhere, and
+they hastened up the avenue. Far off Dickson thought he saw shapes
+fleeting across the park, which he took to be the shock-troops of his
+own side, and he seemed to hear snatches of song. Jaikie was giving
+tongue, and this was what he sang:
+
+    "Proley Tarians, arise!
+     Wave the Red Flag to the skies,
+     Heed nae mair the Fat Man's lees,
+       Stap them doun his throat!
+     Nocht to loss except our chains,
+     We maun drain oor dearest veins--
+     A' the worrld shall be our gains----"
+
+But he tripped over a rabbit wire and thereafter conserved his breath.
+
+The wind was so loud that no sound reached them from the House, which
+blank and immense now loomed before them. Dickson's ears were alert for
+the noise of shots or the dull crash of bombs; hearing nothing, he
+feared the worst, and hurried Mrs. Morran at a pace which endangered
+her life. He had no fear for himself, arguing that his foes were seeking
+higher game, and judging, too, that the main battle must be round the
+verandah at the other end. The two passed the shrubbery where the road
+forked, one path running to the back door and one to the stables. They
+took the latter and presently came out on the downs, with the ravine of
+the Garple on their left, the stables in front, and on the right the
+hollow of a formal garden running along the west side of the House.
+
+The gale was so fierce, now that they had no wind-break between them and
+the ocean, that Mrs. Morran could wrestle with it no longer, and found
+shelter in the lee of a clump of rhododendrons. Darkness had all but
+fallen, and the house was a black shadow against the dusky sky, while a
+confused greyness marked the sea. The old Tower showed a tooth of
+masonry; there was no glow from it, so the fire, which Jaikie had
+reported, must have died down. A whaup cried loudly, and very eerily:
+then another.
+
+The birds stirred up Mrs. Morran. "That's the laddies' patrol," she
+gasped. "Count the cries, Dickson."
+
+Another bird wailed, this time very near. Then there was perhaps three
+minutes' silence, till a fainter wheeple came from the direction of the
+Tower. "Four," said Dickson, but he waited in vain on the fifth. He had
+not the acute hearing of the boys, and could not catch the faint echo of
+Peter Paterson's signal beyond the verandah. The next he heard was a
+shrill whistle cutting into the wind, and then others in rapid
+succession from different quarters, and something which might have been
+the hoarse shouting of angry men.
+
+The Gorbals Die-Hards had gone into action.
+
+Dull prose is no medium to tell of that wild adventure. The sober
+sequence of the military historian is out of place in recording deeds
+that knew not sequence or sobriety. Were I a bard, I would cast this
+tale in excited verse, with a lilt which would catch the speed of the
+reality. I would sing of Napoleon, not unworthy of his great namesake,
+who penetrated to the very window of the ladies' bedroom, where the
+framework had been driven in and men were pouring through; of how there
+he made such pandemonium with his whistle that men tumbled back and ran
+about blindly seeking for guidance; of how in the long run his pugnacity
+mastered him, so that he engaged in combat with an unknown figure and
+the two rolled into what had once been a fountain. I would hymn Peter
+Paterson, who across tracts of darkness engaged Old Bill in a
+conversation which would have done no discredit to a Gallogate
+policeman. He pretended to be making reports and seeking orders. "We've
+gotten three o' the deevils, sir. What'll we dae wi' them?" he shouted;
+and back would come the reply in a slightly more genteel voice: "Fall
+them to the rear. Tamson has charge of the prisoners." Or it would be:
+"They've gotten pistols, sir. What's the orders?" and the answer would
+be: "Stick to your batons. The guns are posted on the knowe, so we
+needn't hurry." And over all the din there would be a perpetual
+whistling and a yelling of "Hands up!"
+
+I would sing, too, of Wee Jaikie, who was having the red-letter hour of
+his life. His fragile form moved like a lizard in places where no mortal
+could be expected, and he varied his duties with impish assaults upon
+the persons of such as came in his way. His whistle blew in a man's ear
+one second and the next yards away. Sometimes he was moved to song, and
+unearthly fragments of "Class-conscious we are" or "Proley Tarians,
+arise!" mingled with the din, like the cry of seagulls in a storm. He
+saw a bright light flare up within the house which warned him not to
+enter, but he got as far as the garden-room, in whose dark corners he
+made havoc. Indeed he was almost too successful, for he created panic
+where he went, and one or two fired blindly at the quarter where he had
+last been heard. These shots were followed by frenzied prohibitions from
+Spidel and were not repeated. Presently he felt that aimless surge of
+men that is the prelude to flight, and heard Dobson's great voice
+roaring in the hall. Convinced that the crisis had come, he made his way
+outside, prepared to harass the rear of any retirement. Tears now flowed
+down his face, and he could not have spoken for sobs, but he had never
+been so happy.
+
+But chiefly would I celebrate Thomas Yownie, for it was he who brought
+fear into the heart of Dobson. He had a voice of singular compass, and
+from the verandah he made it echo round the House. The efforts of Old
+Bill and Peter Paterson had been skilful indeed, but those of Thomas
+Yownie were deadly. To some leader beyond he shouted news: "Robison's
+just about finished wi' his lot, and then he'll get the boats." A
+furious charge upset him, and for a moment he thought he had been
+discovered. But it was only Dobson rushing to Léon, who was leading the
+men in the doorway. Thomas fled to the far end of the verandah, and
+again lifted up his voice. "All foreigners," he shouted, "except the man
+Dobson. Ay. Ay. Ye've got Loudon? Well done!"
+
+It must have been this last performance which broke Dobson's nerve and
+convinced him that the one hope lay in a rapid retreat to the
+Garplefoot. There was a tumbling of men in the doorway, a muttering of
+strange tongues, and the vision of the innkeeper shouting to Léon and
+Spidel. For a second he was seen in the faint reflection that the light
+in the hall cast as far as the verandah, a wild figure urging the
+retreat with a pistol clapped to the head of those who were too confused
+by the hurricane of events to grasp the situation. Some of them dropped
+over the wall, but most huddled like sheep through the door on the west
+side, a jumble of struggling, panic-stricken mortality. Thomas Yownie,
+staggered at the success of his tactics, yet kept his head and did his
+utmost to confuse the retreat, and the triumphant shouts and whistles of
+the other Die-Hards showed that they were not unmindful of this final
+duty....
+
+The verandah was empty, and he was just about to enter the House, when
+through the west door came a figure, breathing hard and bent apparently
+on the same errand. Thomas prepared for battle, determined that no
+straggler of the enemy should now wrest from him victory, but, as the
+figure came into the faint glow at the doorway, he recognised it as
+Heritage. And at the same moment he heard something which made his tense
+nerves relax. Away on the right came sounds, a thud of galloping horses
+on grass and the jingle of bridle reins and the voices of men. It was
+the real thing at last. It is a sad commentary on his career, but now
+for the first time in his brief existence Thomas Yownie felt charitably
+disposed towards the police.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Poet, since we left him blaspheming on the roof of the Tower, had
+been having a crowded hour of most inglorious life. He had started to
+descend at a furious pace, and his first misadventure was that he
+stumbled and dropped Dickson's pistol over the parapet. He tried to mark
+where it might have fallen in the gloom below, and this lost him
+precious minutes. When he slithered through the trap into the attic
+room, where he had tried to hold up the attack, he discovered that it
+was full of smoke which sought in vain to escape by the narrow window.
+Volumes of it were pouring up the stairs, and when he attempted to
+descend he found himself choked and blinded. He rushed gasping to the
+window, filled his lungs with fresh air, and tried again, but he got no
+further than the first turn, from which he could see through the cloud
+red tongues of flame in the ground room. This was solemn indeed, so he
+sought another way out. He got on the roof, for he remembered a
+chimney-stack, cloaked with ivy, which was built straight from the
+ground, and he thought he might climb down it.
+
+He found the chimney and began the descent, confidently, for he had once
+borne a good reputation at the Montanvert and Cortina. At first all went
+well, for stones stuck out at decent intervals like the rungs of a
+ladder, and roots of ivy supplemented their deficiencies. But presently
+he came to a place where the masonry had crumbled into a cave, and left
+a gap some twenty feet high. Below it he could dimly see a thick mass of
+ivy which would enable him to cover the further forty feet to the
+ground, but at that cave he stuck most finally. All round the lime and
+stone had lapsed into debris, and he could find no safe foothold. Worse
+still, the block on which he relied proved loose, and only by a
+dangerous traverse did he avert disaster.
+
+There he hung for a minute or two, with a cold void in his stomach. He
+had always distrusted the handiwork of man as a place to scramble on,
+and now he was planted in the dark on a decomposing wall, with an
+excellent chance of breaking his neck, and with the most urgent need for
+haste. He could see the windows of the House and, since he was sheltered
+from the gale, he could hear the faint sound of blows on woodwork. There
+was clearly the devil to pay there, and yet here he was helplessly
+stuck.... Setting his teeth, he started to ascend again. Better the fire
+than this cold breakneck emptiness.
+
+It took him the better part of half an hour to get back, and he passed
+through many moments of acute fear. Footholds which had seemed secure
+enough in the descent now proved impossible, and more than once he had
+his heart in his mouth when a rotten ivy stump or a wedge of stone gave
+in his hands, and dropped dully into the pit of night, leaving him
+crazily spread-eagled. When at last he reached the top he rolled on his
+back and felt very sick. Then, as he realised his safety, his impatience
+revived. At all costs he would force his way out though he should be
+grilled like a herring.
+
+The smoke was less thick in the attic, and with his handkerchief wet
+with the rain and bound across his mouth he made a dash for the ground
+room. It was as hot as a furnace, for everything inflammable in it
+seemed to have caught fire, and the lumber glowed in piles of hot ashes.
+But the floor and walls were stone, and only the blazing jambs of the
+door stood between him and the outer air. He had burned himself
+considerably as he stumbled downwards, and the pain drove him to a wild
+leap through the broken arch, where he miscalculated the distance,
+charred his shins, and brought down a red-hot fragment of the lintel on
+his head. But the thing was done, and a minute later he was rolling like
+a dog in the wet bracken to cool his burns and put out various
+smouldering patches on his raiment.
+
+Then he started running for the House, but, confused by the darkness, he
+bore too much to the north, and came out in the side avenue from which
+he and Dickson had reconnoitred on the first evening. He saw on the
+right a glow in the verandah which, as we know, was the reflection of
+the flare in the hall, and he heard a babble of voices. But he heard
+something more, for away on his left was the sound which Thomas Yownie
+was soon to hear--the trampling of horses. It was the police at last,
+and his task was to guide them at once to the critical point of
+action.... Three minutes later a figure like a scarecrow was admonishing
+a bewildered sergeant, while his hands plucked feverishly at a horse's
+bridle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is time to return to Dickson in his clump of rhododendrons.
+Tragically aware of his impotence he listened to the tumult of the
+Die-Hards, hopeful when it was loud, despairing when there came a
+moment's lull, while Mrs. Morran like a Greek chorus drew loudly upon
+her store of proverbial philosophy and her memory of Scripture texts.
+Twice he tried to reconnoitre towards the scene of battle, but only
+blundered into sunken plots and pits in the Dutch garden. Finally he
+squatted beside Mrs. Morran, lit his pipe, and took a firm hold on his
+patience.
+
+It was not tested for long. Presently he was aware that a change had
+come over the scene--that the Die-Hards' whistles and shouts were being
+drowned in another sound, the cries of panicky men. Dobson's bellow was
+wafted to him. "Auntie Phemie," he shouted, "the innkeeper's getting
+rattled. Dod, I believe they're running." For at that moment twenty
+paces on his left the van of the retreat crashed through the creepers on
+the garden's edge and leaped the wall that separated it from the cliffs
+of the Garplefoot.
+
+The old woman was on her feet.
+
+"God be thankit, is't the polis?"
+
+"Maybe. Maybe no'. But they're running."
+
+Another bunch of men raced past, and he heard Dobson's voice.
+
+"I tell you, they're broke. Listen, it's horses. Ay, it's the police,
+but it was the Die-Hards that did the job.... Here! They mustn't escape.
+Have the police had the sense to send men to the Garplefoot?"
+
+Mrs. Morran, a figure like an ancient prophetess, with her tartan shawl
+lashing in the gale, clutched him by the shoulder.
+
+"Doun to the waterside and stop them. Ye'll no' be beat by wee laddies!
+On wi' ye and I'll follow! There's gaun to be a juidgment on evil-doers
+this nicht."
+
+Dickson needed no urging. His heart was hot within him, and the
+weariness and stiffness had gone from his limbs. He, too, tumbled over
+the wall, and made for what he thought was the route by which he had
+originally ascended from the stream. As he ran he made ridiculous
+efforts to cry like a whaup in the hope of summoning the Die-Hards. One,
+indeed, he found--Napoleon, who had suffered a grievous pounding in the
+fountain and had only escaped by an eel-like agility which had aforetime
+served him in good stead with the law of his native city. Lucky for
+Dickson was the meeting, for he had forgotten the road and would
+certainly have broken his neck. Led by the Die-Hard he slid forty feet
+over screes and boiler-plates, with the gale plucking at him, found a
+path, lost it, and then tumbled down a raw bank of earth to the flat
+ground beside the harbour. During all this performance, he has told me,
+he had no thought of fear, nor any clear notion what he meant to do. He
+just wanted to be in at the finish of the job.
+
+Through the narrow entrance the gale blew as through a funnel, and the
+usually placid waters of the harbour were a mass of angry waves. Two
+boats had been launched and were plunging furiously, and on one of them
+a lantern dipped and fell. By its light he could see men holding a
+further boat by the shore. There was no sign of the police; he reflected
+that probably they had become tangled in the Garple Dean. The third boat
+was waiting for some one.
+
+Dickson--a new Ajax by the ships--divined who this some one must be and
+realised his duty. It was the leader, the arch-enemy, the man whose
+escape must at all costs be stopped. Perhaps he had the Princess with
+him, thus snatching victory from apparent defeat. In any case he must be
+tackled, and a fierce anxiety gripped his heart. "Aye finish a job," he
+told himself, and peered up into the darkness of the cliffs, wondering
+just how he should set about it, for except in the last few days he had
+never engaged in combat with a fellow-creature.
+
+"When he comes, you grip his legs," he told Napoleon, "and get him
+down. He'll have a pistol, and we're done if he's on his feet."
+
+There was a cry from the boats, a shout of guidance, and the light on
+the water was waved madly. "They must have good eyesight," thought
+Dickson, for he could see nothing. And then suddenly he was aware of
+steps in front of him, and a shape like a man rising out of the void at
+his left hand.
+
+In the darkness Napoleon missed his tackle, and the full shock came on
+Dickson. He aimed at what he thought was the enemy's throat, found only
+an arm and was shaken off as a mastiff might shake off a toy terrier. He
+made another clutch, fell, and in falling caught his opponent's leg so
+that he brought him down. The man was immensely agile, for he was up in
+a second and something hot and bright blew into Dickson's face. The
+pistol bullet had passed through the collar of his faithful waterproof,
+slightly singeing his neck. But it served its purpose, for Dickson
+paused, gasping, to consider where he had been hit, and before he could
+resume the chase the last boat had pushed off into deep water.
+
+To be shot at from close quarters is always irritating, and the novelty
+of the experience increased Dickson's natural wrath. He fumed on the
+shore like a deerhound when the stag has taken to the sea. So hot was
+his blood that he would have cheerfully assaulted the whole crew had
+they been within his reach. Napoleon, who had been incapacitated for
+speed by having his stomach and bare shanks savagely trampled upon,
+joined him, and together they watched the bobbing black specks as they
+crawled out of the estuary into the grey spindrift which marked the
+harbour mouth.
+
+But as he looked the wrath died out of Dickson's soul. For he saw that
+the boats had indeed sailed on a desperate venture, and that a pursuer
+was on their track more potent than his breathless middle-age. The tide
+was on the ebb, and the gale was driving the Atlantic breakers
+shoreward, and in the jaws of the entrance the two waters met in an
+unearthly turmoil. Above the noise of the wind came the roar of the
+flooded Garple and the fret of the harbour, and far beyond all the
+crashing thunder of the conflict at the harbour mouth. Even in the
+darkness, against the still faintly grey western sky, the spume could be
+seen rising like waterspouts. But it was the ear rather than the eye
+which made certain presage of disaster. No boat could face the challenge
+of that loud portal.
+
+As Dickson struggled against the wind and stared, his heart melted and a
+great awe fell upon him. He may have wept; it is certain that he prayed.
+"Poor souls, poor souls!" he repeated. "I doubt the last hour or two has
+been a poor preparation for eternity."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tide next day brought the dead ashore. Among them was a young man,
+different in dress and appearance from the rest--a young man with a
+noble head and a finely-cut classic face, which was not marred like the
+others from pounding among the Garple rocks. His dark hair was washed
+back from his brow, and the mouth, which had been hard in life, was now
+relaxed in the strange innocence of death.
+
+Dickson gazed at the body and observed that there was a slight
+deformation between the shoulders.
+
+"Poor fellow," he said. "That explains a lot.... As my father used to
+say, cripples have a right to be cankered."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+IN WHICH A PRINCESS LEAVES A DARK TOWER AND A PROVISION MERCHANT RETURNS
+TO HIS FAMILY
+
+
+The three days of storm ended in the night, and with the wild weather
+there departed from the Cruives something which had weighed on Dickson's
+spirits since he first saw the place. Monday--only a week from the
+morning when he had conceived his plan of holiday--saw the return of the
+sun and the bland airs of spring. Beyond the blue of the yet restless
+waters rose dim mountains tipped with snow, like some Mediterranean
+seascape. Nesting birds were busy on the Laver banks and in the
+Huntingtower thickets; the village smoked peacefully to the clear skies;
+even the House looked cheerful if dishevelled. The Garple Dean was a
+garden of swaying larches, linnets, and wild anemones. Assuredly,
+thought Dickson, there had come a mighty change in the countryside, and
+he meditated a future discourse to the Literary Society of the Guthrie
+Memorial Kirk on "Natural Beauty in Relation to the Mind of Man."
+
+It remains for the chronicler to gather up the loose ends of his tale.
+There was no newspaper story with bold headlines of this the most recent
+assault on the shores of Britain. Alexis Nicolaevitch, once a Prince of
+Muscovy and now Mr. Alexander Nicholson of the rising firm of Sprot and
+Nicholson of Melbourne, had interest enough to prevent it. For it was
+clear that if Saskia was to be saved from persecution, her enemies must
+disappear without trace from the world, and no story be told of the wild
+venture which was their undoing. The constabulary of Carrick and
+Scotland Yard were indisposed to ask questions, under a hint from their
+superiors, the more so as no serious damage had been done to the persons
+of His Majesty's lieges, and no lives had been lost except by the
+violence of Nature. The Procurator-Fiscal investigated the case of the
+drowned men, and reported that so many foreign sailors, names and
+origins unknown, had perished in attempting to return to their ship at
+the Garplefoot. The Danish brig had vanished into the mist of the
+northern seas. But one signal calamity the Procurator-Fiscal had to
+record. The body of Loudon the factor was found on the Monday morning
+below the cliffs, his neck broken by a fall. In the darkness and
+confusion he must have tried to escape in that direction, and he had
+chosen an impracticable road or had slipped on the edge. It was returned
+as "death by misadventure" and the _Carrick Herald_ and the
+_Auchenlochan Advertiser_ excelled themselves in eulogy. Mr. Loudon,
+they said, had been widely known in the south-west of Scotland as an
+able and trusted lawyer, an assiduous public servant, and not least as a
+good sportsman. It was the last trait which had led to his death, for,
+in his enthusiasm for wild nature, he had been studying bird life on the
+cliffs of the Cruives during the storm, and had made that fatal slip
+which had deprived the shire of a wise counsellor and the best of good
+fellows.
+
+The tinklers of the Garplefoot took themselves off, and where they may
+now be pursuing their devious courses is unknown to the chronicler.
+Dobson, too, disappeared, for he was not among the dead from the boats.
+He knew the neighbourhood and probably made his way to some port from
+which he took passage to one or other of those foreign lands which had
+formerly been honoured by his patronage. Nor did all the Russians
+perish. Three were found skulking next morning in the woods, starving
+and ignorant of any tongue but their own, and five more came ashore much
+battered but alive. Alexis took charge of the eight survivors, and
+arranged to pay their passage to one of the British Dominions and to
+give them a start in a new life. They were broken creatures, with the
+dazed look of lost animals, and four of them had been peasants on
+Saskia's estates. Alexis spoke to them in their own language. "In my
+grandfather's time," he said, "you were serfs. Then there came a change,
+and for some time you were free men. Now you have slipped back into
+being slaves again--the worst of slaveries, for you have been the serfs
+of fools and scoundrels and the black passion of your own hearts. I give
+you a chance of becoming free men once more. You have the task before
+you of working out your own salvation. Go, and God be with you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before we take leave of these companions of a single week I would
+present them to you again as they appeared on a certain sunny afternoon
+when the episode of Huntingtower was on the eve of closing. First we see
+Saskia and Alexis walking on the thymy sward of the cliff-top, looking
+out to the fretted blue of the sea. It is a fitting place for lovers,
+above all for lovers who have turned the page on a dark preface, and
+have before them still the long bright volume of life. The girl has her
+arm linked with the man's, but as they walk she breaks often away from
+him, to dart into copses, to gather flowers, or to peer over the brink
+where the gulls wheel and oyster-catchers pipe among the shingle. She is
+no more the tragic muse of the past week, but a laughing child again,
+full of snatches of song, her eyes bright with expectation. They talk of
+the new world which lies before them, and her voice is happy. Then her
+brows contract, and, as she flings herself down on a patch of young
+heather, her air is thoughtful.
+
+"I have been back among fairy tales," she says. "I do not quite
+understand, Alesha. Those gallant little boys! They are youth, and youth
+is always full of strangeness. Mr. Heritage! He is youth, too, and
+poetry, perhaps, and a soldier's tradition. I think I know him.... But
+what about Dickson? He is the _petit bourgeois_, the _épicier_, the
+class which the world ridicules. He is unbelievable. The others with
+good fortune I might find elsewhere--in Russia perhaps. But not
+Dickson."
+
+"No," is the answer. "You will not find him in Russia. He is what we
+call the middle-class, which we who were foolish used to laugh at. But
+he is the stuff which above all others makes a great people. He will
+endure when aristocracies crack and proletariats crumble. In our own
+land we have never known him, but till we create him our land will not
+be a nation."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half a mile away on the edge of the Laver glen Dickson and Heritage are
+together, Dickson placidly smoking on a tree-stump and Heritage walking
+excitedly about and cutting with his stick at the bracken. Sundry
+bandages and strips of sticking plaster still adorn the Poet, but his
+clothes have been tidied up by Mrs. Morran, and he has recovered
+something of his old precision of garb. The eyes of both are fixed on
+the two figures on the cliff-top. Dickson feels acutely uneasy. It is
+the first time that he has been alone with Heritage since the arrival of
+Alexis shivered the Poet's dream. He looks to see a tragic grief; to his
+amazement he beholds something very like exultation.
+
+"The trouble about you, Dogson," says Heritage, "is that you're a bit of
+an anarchist. All you false romantics are. You don't see the
+extraordinary beauty of the conventions which time has consecrated. You
+always want novelty, you know, and the novel is usually the ugly and
+rarely the true. I am for romance, but upon the old, noble classic
+lines."
+
+Dickson is scarcely listening. His eyes are on the distant lovers and he
+longs to say something which will gently and graciously express his
+sympathy with his friend.
+
+"I'm afraid," he begins hesitatingly, "I'm afraid you've had a bad blow,
+Mr. Heritage. You're taking it awful well, and I honour you for it."
+
+The Poet flings back his head. "I am reconciled," he says. "After all
+''tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.'
+It has been a great experience and has shown me my own heart. I love
+her, I shall always love her, but I realise that she was never meant for
+me. Thank God I've been able to serve her--that is all a moth can ask of
+a star. I'm a better man for it, Dogson. She will be a glorious memory,
+and Lord! what poetry I shall write! I give her up joyfully, for she has
+found her true mate. 'Let us not to the marriage of true minds admit
+impediments!' The thing's too perfect to grieve about.... Look! There is
+romance incarnate."
+
+He points to the figures now silhouetted against the further sea. "How
+does it go, Dogson?" he cries. "'And on her lover's arm she leant'--what
+next? You know the thing."
+
+Dickson assists and Heritage declaims:
+
+    "And on her lover's arm she leant,
+       And round her waist she felt it fold,
+     And far across the hills they went
+       In that new world which is the old:
+     Across the hills, and far away
+       Beyond their utmost purple rim,
+     And deep into the dying day
+       The happy princess followed him."
+
+He repeats the last two lines twice and draws a deep breath. "How
+right!" he cries. "How absolutely right! Lord! It's astonishing how that
+old bird Tennyson got the goods!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After that Dickson leaves him and wanders among the thickets on the edge
+of the Huntingtower policies above the Laver glen. He feels childishly
+happy, wonderfully young, and at the same time supernaturally wise.
+Sometimes he thinks the past week has been a dream, till he touches the
+sticking-plaster on his brow, and finds that his left thigh is still a
+mass of bruises and that his right leg is wofully stiff. With that the
+past becomes very real again, and he sees the Garple Dean in that stormy
+afternoon, he wrestles again at midnight in the dark House, he stands
+with quaking heart by the boats to cut off the retreat. He sees it all,
+but without terror in the recollection, rather with gusto and a modest
+pride. "I've surely had a remarkable time," he tells himself, and then
+Romance, the goddess whom he has worshipped so long, marries that
+furious week with the idyllic. He is supremely content, for he knows
+that in his humble way he has not been found wanting. Once more for him
+the Chavender or Chub, and long dreams among summer hills. His mind
+flies to the days ahead of him, when he will go wandering with his pack
+in many green places. Happy days they will be, the prospect with which
+he has always charmed his mind. Yes, but they will be different from
+what he had fancied, for he is another man than the complacent little
+fellow who set out a week ago on his travels. He has now assurance of
+himself, assurance of his faith. Romance, he sees, is one and
+indivisible....
+
+Below him by the edge of the stream he sees the encampment of the
+Gorbals Die-Hards. He calls and waves a hand, and his signal is
+answered. It seems to be washing day, for some scanty and tattered
+raiment is drying on the sward. The band is evidently in session, for it
+is sitting in a circle, deep in talk.
+
+As he looks at the ancient tents, the humble equipment, the ring of
+small shockheads, a great tenderness comes over him. The Die-Hards are
+so tiny, so poor, so pitifully handicapped, and yet so bold in their
+meagreness. Not one of them has had anything that might be called a
+chance. Their few years have been spent in kennels and closes, always
+hungry and hunted, with none to care for them; their childish ears have
+been habituated to every coarseness, their small minds filled with the
+desperate shifts of living.... And yet, what a heavenly spark was in
+them! He had always thought nobly of the soul; now he wants to get on
+his knees before the queer greatness of humanity.
+
+A figure disengages itself from the group, and Dougal makes his way up
+the hill towards him. The Chieftain is not more reputable in garb than
+when we first saw him, nor is he more cheerful of countenance. He has
+one arm in a sling made out of his neckerchief, and his scraggy little
+throat rises bare from his voluminous shirt. All that can be said for
+him is that he is appreciably cleaner. He comes to a standstill and
+salutes with a special formality.
+
+"Dougal," says Dickson, "I've been thinking. You're the grandest lot of
+wee laddies I ever heard tell of, and, forbye, you've saved my life.
+Now, I'm getting on in years, though you'll admit that I'm not that dead
+old, and I'm not a poor man, and I haven't chick or child to look after.
+None of you has ever had a proper chance or been right fed or educated
+or taken care of. I've just the one thing to say to you. From now on
+you're _my_ bairns, every one of you. You're fine laddies, and I'm going
+to see that you turn into fine men. There's the stuff in you to make
+Generals and Provosts--ay, and Prime Ministers, and Dod! it'll not be my
+blame if it doesn't get out."
+
+Dougal listens gravely and again salutes.
+
+"I've brought ye a message," he says. "We've just had a meetin' and I've
+to report that ye've been unanimously eleckit Chief Die-Hard. We're a'
+hopin' ye'll accept."
+
+"I accept," Dickson replies. "Proudly and gratefully I accept."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last scene is some days later, in a certain southern suburb of
+Glasgow. Ulysses has come back to Ithaca, and is sitting by his
+fireside, waiting on the return of Penelope from the Neuk Hydropathic.
+There is a chill in the air, so a fire is burning in the grate, but the
+laden tea-table is bright with the first blooms of lilac. Dickson, in a
+new suit with a flower in his buttonhole, looks none the worse for his
+travels, save that there is still sticking-plaster on his deeply
+sunburnt brow. He waits impatiently with his eye on the black marble
+timepiece, and he fingers something in his pocket.
+
+Presently the sound of wheels is heard, and the peahen voice of Tibby
+announces the arrival of Penelope. Dickson rushes to the door and at the
+threshold welcomes his wife with a resounding kiss. He leads her into
+the parlour and settles her in her own chair.
+
+"My! but it's nice to be home again!" she says. "And everything that
+comfortable. I've had a fine time, but there's no place like your own
+fireside. You're looking awful well, Dickson. But losh! What have you
+been doing to your head?"
+
+"Just a small tumble. It's very near mended already. Ay, I've had a
+grand walking tour, but the weather was a wee bit thrawn. It's nice to
+see you back again, Mamma. Now that I'm an idle man you and me must take
+a lot of jaunts together."
+
+She beams on him as she stays herself with Tibby's scones, and when the
+meal is ended, Dickson draws from his pocket a slim case. The jewels
+have been restored to Saskia, but this is one of her own which she has
+bestowed upon Dickson as a parting memento. He opens the case and
+reveals a necklet of emeralds, any one of which is worth half the
+street.
+
+"This is a present for you," he says bashfully.
+
+Mrs. McCunn's eyes open wide. "You're far too kind," she gasps. "It
+must have cost an awful lot of money."
+
+"It didn't cost me that much," is the truthful answer.
+
+She fingers the trinket and then clasps it round her neck, where the
+green depths of the stones glow against the black satin of her bodice.
+Her eyes are moist as she looks at him. "You've been a kind man to me,"
+she says, and she kisses him as she has not done since Janet's death.
+
+She stands up and admires the necklet in the mirror. Romance once more,
+thinks Dickson. That which has graced the slim throats of princesses in
+far-away Courts now adorns an elderly matron in a semi-detached villa;
+the jewels of the wild Nausicaa have fallen to the housewife Penelope.
+
+Mrs. McCunn preens herself before the glass. "I call it very genteel,"
+she says. "Real stylish. It might be worn by a queen."
+
+"I wouldn't say but it has," says Dickson.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Huntingtower, by John Buchan
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Huntingtower, by John Buchan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Huntingtower
+
+Author: John Buchan
+
+Release Date: December 6, 2011 [EBook #3782]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUNTINGTOWER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Edward A. White, Robert F. Jaffe, Kirsten
+Tozer, Charlene Taylor, Cathy Maxam and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="notes">
+<p>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:</p>
+
+<p> In footnote number <a href="#FNanchor_1_1">1</a> (page 72) the author refers to
+a sketch on the frontisepiece of the book.  At the time of posting this
+book to Project Gutenberg, it was verified by the content provider that
+there is no frontispiece in this particular edition of Huntingtower.</p>
+
+<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected without comment.  One
+example of an obvious typographical error is on page 237 where the word
+"shamefaceedly" was changed to "shamefacedly".  Other than obvious
+typographical errors, the author's original spelling has been left intact.
+This includes the use of unconventional spelling and dialect.</p>
+
+<p>Inconsistencies in the author's use of hyphens and accent marks have been
+left unchanged, as in the original text.</p>
+
+<p>The following four changes were made to punctuation and spelling:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>1. Page 96:  An apostrophe was removed from the word "an'" in the phrase
+"I've found a ladder, an auld yin" (an old one).</p>
+
+<p>2.  Page 100:  A question mark was changed to a period in the phrase "... he
+realised that he was in the presence of something the like of which he had
+never met in his life before."</p>
+
+
+<p>4.  Page 187:  An apostrophe was removed from the word "wing's" in the
+phrase "... take the wings off a seagull."</p></blockquote>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>
+<span  class="bb bt">HUNTINGTOWER</span></h1>
+
+<p class="center bigger">JOHN BUCHAN
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p class="center"><span class="small"><i>By</i></span> <span class="big">JOHN BUCHAN</span></p>
+
+<div class="figborder">
+<p class="bind small">
+HUNTINGTOWER<br />
+THE PATH OF THE KING<br />
+MR. STANDFAST<br />
+GREENMANTLE<br />
+THE WATCHERS BY THE THRESHOLD<br />
+SALUTE TO ADVENTURES<br />
+PRESTER JOHN<br />
+THE POWER HOUSE<br />
+THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS<br />
+THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center bspace">NEW YORK: GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>
+HUNTINGTOWER</h2>
+
+<p class="center small">BY</p>
+<p class="center bspace"><span class="big">JOHN BUCHAN</span></p>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table summary="logo">
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdt">NEW </td>
+
+<td>
+<div class="figcenter"><a id="i003" name="i003"></a>
+<img src="images/i003.jpg" alt="logo" />
+</div>
+</td>
+
+<td class="tdt">YORK</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center bspace">GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="center small bspace">
+COPYRIGHT, 1922,<br />
+BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a id="i004" name="i004"></a>
+<img src="images/i004.jpg" alt="logo2" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center small">HUNTINGTOWER.  II<br />
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p class="center"><span class="small">TO</span><br />
+
+<span class="big">W. P. KER</span></p>
+
+
+<p><i>If the Professor of Poetry in the University of
+Oxford has not forgotten the rock whence he was
+hewn, this simple story may give him an hour of
+entertainment. I offer it to you because I think you
+have met my friend Dickson McCunn, and I dare
+to hope that you may even in your many sojournings
+in the Westlands have encountered one or other of
+the Gorbals Die-Hards. If you share my kindly
+feeling for Dickson, you will be interested in some
+facts which I have lately ascertained about his ancestry.
+In his veins there flows a portion of the
+redoubtable blood of the Nicol Jarvies. When the
+Bailie, you remember, returned from his journey to
+Rob Roy beyond the Highland Line, he espoused
+his housekeeper Mattie, "an honest man's daughter
+and a near cousin o' the Laird o' Limmerfield."
+The union was blessed with a son, who succeeded to
+the Bailie's business and in due course begat daughters,
+one of whom married a certain Ebenezer
+McCunn, of whom there is record in the archives of
+the Hammermen of Glasgow. Ebenezer's grandson,
+Peter by name, was Provost of Kirkintilloch,
+and his second son was the father of my hero by his
+marriage with Robina Dickson, eldest daughter of
+one Robert Dickson, a tenant-farmer in the Lennox.
+So there are coloured threads in Mr. McCunn's
+pedigree, and, like the Bailie, he can count kin,
+should he wish, with Rob Roy himself through "the
+auld wife ayont the fire at Stuckavrallachan."</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Such as it is, I dedicate to you the story, and ask
+for no better verdict on it than that of that profound
+critic of life and literature, Mr. Huckleberry
+Finn, who observed of the</i> Pilgrim's Progress, <i>that
+he "considered the statements interesting, but
+steep."</i></p>
+
+<p class="big right">
+J. B.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="center t2">
+<table
+    summary="contents">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+<td class="tdl"></td>
+<td class="tdr"><span class="small">PAGE</span></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#PROLOGUE">PROLOGUE</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">11</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><span class="small">CHAPTER</span></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">I</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">HOW A RETIRED PROVISION MERCHANT FELT THE IMPULSE OF SPRING</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">17</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">II</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">OF MR. JOHN HERITAGE AND THE DIFFERENCE IN POINTS OF VIEW</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">28</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">III</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">HOW CHILDE ROLAND AND ANOTHER CAME TO THE DARK TOWER</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">46</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">IV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">DOUGAL</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">70</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">V</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">OF THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">85</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">VI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">HOW MR. M<sup>c</sup>CUNN DEPARTED WITH RELIEF AND RETURNED WITH RESOLUTION</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">114</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">VII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">SUNDRY DOINGS IN THE MIRK</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">135</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">VIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">HOW A MIDDLE-AGED CRUSADER ACCEPTED A CHALLENGE</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">154</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">IX</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">171</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">X</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">189</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">XI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">GRAVITY OUT OF BED</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">209</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">XII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">HOW MR. M<sup>c</sup>CUNN COMMITTED AN ASSAULT UPON AN ALLY</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">225</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">XIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">THE COMING OF THE DANISH BRIG</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">244</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">XIV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">257</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">XV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">286</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdrp">XVI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="hang1 ptab"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">IN WHICH A PRINCESS LEAVES A DARK TOWER AND A PROVISION MERCHANT RETURNS TO HIS FAMILY</a></p></td>
+<td class="tdr">306</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="HUNTINGTOWER" id="HUNTINGTOWER"></a>HUNTINGTOWER</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PROLOGUE" id="PROLOGUE"></a>PROLOGUE</h2>
+
+
+<p>The girl came into the room with a darting
+movement like a swallow, looked round her
+with the same birdlike quickness, and then ran
+across the polished floor to where a young man sat
+on a sofa with one leg laid along it.</p>
+
+<p>"I have saved you this dance, Quentin," she said,
+pronouncing the name with a pretty staccato. "You
+must be so lonely not dancing, so I will sit with you.
+What shall we talk about?"</p>
+
+<p>The young man did not answer at once, for his
+gaze was held by her face. He had never dreamed
+that the gawky and rather plain little girl whom he
+had romped with long ago in Paris would grow into
+such a being. The clean delicate lines of her figure,
+the exquisite pure colouring of hair and skin, the
+charming young arrogance of the eyes&mdash;this was
+beauty, he reflected, a miracle, a revelation. Her
+virginal fineness and her dress, which was the tint
+of pale fire, gave her the air of a creature of ice
+and flame.</p>
+
+<p>"About yourself, please, Saskia," he said. "Are
+you happy now that you are a grown-up lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Happy!" Her voice had a thrill in it like music,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+frosty music. "The days are far too short. I
+grudge the hours when I must sleep. They say it
+is sad for me to make my début in a time of war.
+But the world is very kind to me, and after all it is
+a victorious war for our Russia. And listen to this,
+Quentin. To-morrow I am to be allowed to begin
+nursing at the Alexander Hospital. What do you
+think of that?"</p>
+
+<p>The time was January, 1916, and the place a
+room in the great Nirski Palace. No hint of war,
+no breath from the snowy streets, entered that
+curious chamber where Prince Peter Nirski kept
+some of the chief of his famous treasures. It was
+notable for its lack of drapery and upholstering&mdash;only
+a sofa or two and a few fine rugs on the cedar
+floor. The walls were of a green marble veined
+like malachite, the ceiling was of darker marble
+inlaid with white intaglios. Scattered everywhere
+were tables and cabinets laden with celadon china,
+and carved jade, and ivories, and shimmering Persian
+and Rhodian vessels. In all the room there
+was scarcely anything of metal and no touch of
+gilding or bright colour. The light came from
+green alabaster censers, and the place swam in a
+cold green radiance like some cavern below the sea.
+The air was warm and scented, and though it was
+very quiet there, a hum of voices and the strains
+of dance music drifted to it from the pillared corridor
+in which could be seen the glare of lights from
+the great ballroom beyond.</p>
+
+<p>The young man had a thin face with lines of suffering
+round the mouth and eyes. The warm room<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+had given him a high colour, which increased his
+air of fragility. He felt a little choked by the
+place, which seemed to him for both body and mind
+a hot-house, though he knew very well that the
+Nirski Palace on this gala evening was in no way
+typical of the land or its masters. Only a week ago
+he had been eating black bread with its owner in
+a hut on the Volhynian front.</p>
+
+<p>"You have become amazing, Saskia," he said.
+"I won't pay my old playfellow compliments; besides,
+you must be tired of them. I wish you happiness
+all the day long like a fairy-tale Princess.
+But a crock like me can't do much to help you to it.
+The service seems to be the wrong way round, for
+here you are wasting your time talking to me."</p>
+
+<p>She put her hand on his. "Poor Quentin! Is
+the leg very bad?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "Oh, no. It's mending famously.
+I'll be able to get about without a stick in another
+month, and then you've got to teach me all the new
+dances."</p>
+
+<p>The jigging music of a two-step floated down the
+corridor. It made the young man's brow contract,
+for it brought to him a vision of dead faces in the
+gloom of a November dusk. He had once had a
+friend who used to whistle that air, and he had seen
+him die in the Hollebeke mud. There was something
+<i>macabre</i> in the tune.... He was surely
+morbid this evening, for there seemed something
+<i>macabre</i> about the house, the room, the dancing, all
+Russia.... These last days he had suffered from
+a sense of calamity impending, of a dark curtain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+drawing down upon a splendid world. They didn't
+agree with him at the Embassy, but he could not get
+rid of the notion.</p>
+
+<p>The girl saw his sudden abstraction.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you thinking about?" she asked. It
+had been her favourite question as a child.</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking that I rather wished you were
+still in Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"But why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I think you would be safer."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what nonsense, Quentin dear! Where
+should I be safe if not in my own Russia, where I
+have friends&mdash;oh, so many, and tribes and tribes
+of relations? It is France and England that are
+unsafe with the German guns grumbling at their
+doors.... My complaint is that my life is too
+cosseted and padded. I am too secure, and I do
+not want to be secure."</p>
+
+<p>The young man lifted a heavy casket from a table
+at his elbow. It was of dark green imperial jade,
+with a wonderfully carved lid. He took off the lid
+and picked up three small oddments of ivory&mdash;a
+priest with a beard, a tiny soldier and a draught-ox.
+Putting the three in a triangle, he balanced the jade
+box on them.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Saskia! If you were living inside that
+box you would think it very secure. You would
+note the thickness of the walls and the hardness of
+the stone, and you would dream away in a peaceful
+green dusk. But all the time it would be held up
+by trifles&mdash;brittle trifles."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. "You do not understand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+You cannot understand. We are a very old and
+strong people with roots deep, deep in the earth."</p>
+
+<p>"Please God you are right," he said. "But,
+Saskia, you know that if I can ever serve you, you
+have only to command me. Now I can do no more
+for you than the mouse for the lion&mdash;at the beginning
+of the story. But the story had an end, you
+remember, and some day it may be in my power to
+help you.   Promise to send for me."</p>
+
+<p>The girl laughed merrily. "The King of Spain's
+daughter," she quoted,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4q">"Came to visit me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And all for the love<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Of my little nut-tree."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The other laughed also, as a young man in the
+uniform of the Preobrajenski Guard approached to
+claim the girl. "Even a nut-tree may be a shelter
+in a storm," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I promise, Quentin," she said. "<i>Au
+revoir.</i> Soon I will come and take you to supper,
+and we will talk of nothing but nut-trees."</p>
+
+<p>He watched the two leave the room, her gown
+glowing like a tongue of fire in the shadowy archway.
+Then he slowly rose to his feet, for he
+thought that for a little he would watch the dancing.
+Something moved beside him, and he turned
+in time to prevent the jade casket from crashing to
+the floor.  Two of the supports had slipped.</p>
+
+<p>He replaced the thing on its proper table and
+stood silent for a moment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The priest and the soldier gone, and only the
+beast of burden left.... If I were inclined to be
+superstitious, I should call that a dashed bad omen."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<p class="center">HOW A RETIRED PROVISION MERCHANT FELT THE
+IMPULSE OF SPRING</p>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Dickson McCunn completed the polishing
+of his smooth cheeks with the towel,
+glanced appreciatively at their reflection in the
+looking-glass, and then permitted his eyes to stray
+out of the window. In the little garden lilacs were
+budding, and there was a gold line of daffodils beside
+the tiny greenhouse. Beyond the sooty wall a
+birch flaunted its new tassels, and the jackdaws were
+circling about the steeple of the Guthrie Memorial
+Kirk. A blackbird whistled from a thorn-bush, and
+Mr. McCunn was inspired to follow its example.
+He began a tolerable version of "Roy's Wife of
+Aldivalloch."</p>
+
+<p>He felt singularly light-hearted, and the immediate
+cause was his safety razor. A week ago he had
+bought the thing in a sudden fit of enterprise, and
+now he shaved in five minutes, where before he had
+taken twenty, and no longer confronted his fellows,
+at least one day in three, with a countenance ludicrously
+mottled by sticking-plaster. Calculation revealed
+to him the fact that in his fifty-five years,
+having begun to shave at eighteen, he had wasted
+three thousand three hundred and seventy hours&mdash;or
+one hundred and forty days&mdash;or between four<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+and five months&mdash;by his neglect of this admirable
+invention. Now he felt that he had stolen a march
+on Time. He had fallen heir, thus late, to a fortune
+in unpurchasable leisure.</p>
+
+<p>He began to dress himself in the sombre clothes
+in which he had been accustomed for thirty-five
+years and more to go down to the shop in Mearns
+Street. And then a thought came to him which
+made him discard the grey-striped trousers, sit down
+on the edge of his bed, and muse.</p>
+
+<p>Since Saturday the shop was a thing of the past.
+On Saturday at half-past eleven, to the accompaniment
+of a glass of dubious sherry, he had completed
+the arrangements by which the provision shop in
+Mearns Street, which had borne so long the legend
+of D. McCunn, together with the branches in
+Crossmyloof and the Shaws, became the property
+of a company, yclept the United Supply Stores,
+Limited. He had received in payment cash, debentures
+and preference shares, and his lawyers and
+his own acumen had acclaimed the bargain. But
+all the week-end he had been a little sad. It was
+the end of so old a song, and he knew no other tune
+to sing. He was comfortably off, healthy, free from
+any particular cares in life, but free too from any
+particular duties. "Will I be going to turn into a
+useless old man?" he asked himself.</p>
+
+<p>But he had woke up this Monday to the sound
+of the blackbird, and the world, which had seemed
+rather empty twelve hours before, was now brisk
+and alluring. His prowess in quick shaving assured
+him of his youth.   "I'm no' that dead old," he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+observed, as he sat on the edge of the bed, to his
+reflection in the big looking-glass.</p>
+
+<p>It was not an old face. The sandy hair was a
+little thin on the top and a little grey at the temples,
+the figure was perhaps a little too full for youthful
+elegance, and an athlete would have censured the
+neck as too fleshy for perfect health. But the cheeks
+were rosy, the skin clear, and the pale eyes singularly
+childlike. They were a little weak, those eyes,
+and had some difficulty in looking for long at the
+same object, so that Mr. McCunn did not stare
+people in the face, and had, in consequence, at one
+time in his career acquired a perfectly undeserved
+reputation for cunning. He shaved clean, and
+looked uncommonly like a wise, plump schoolboy.
+As he gazed at his simulacrum he stopped whistling
+"Roy's Wife" and let his countenance harden into
+a noble sternness. Then he laughed, and observed
+in the language of his youth that "There was life
+in the auld dowg yet." In that moment the soul
+of Mr. McCunn conceived the Great Plan.</p>
+
+<p>The first sign of it was that he swept all his business
+garments unceremoniously on to the floor. The
+next that he rootled at the bottom of a deep drawer
+and extracted a most disreputable tweed suit. It
+had once been what I believe is called a Lovat mixture,
+but was now a nondescript sub-fusc, with
+bright patches of colour like moss on whinstone.
+He regarded it lovingly, for it had been for twenty
+years his holiday wear, emerging annually for a
+hallowed month to be stained with salt and bleached
+with sun.  He put it on, and stood shrouded in an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+odour of camphor. A pair of thick nailed boots
+and a flannel shirt and collar completed the equipment
+of the sportsman. He had another long look
+at himself in the glass, and then descended whistling
+to breakfast. This time the tune was "Macgregor's
+Gathering," and the sound of it stirred the grimy
+lips of a man outside who was delivering coals&mdash;himself
+a Macgregor&mdash;to follow suit. Mr. McCunn
+was a very fountain of music that morning.</p>
+
+<p>Tibby, the aged maid, had his newspaper and
+letters waiting by his plate, and a dish of ham and
+eggs frizzling near the fire. He fell to ravenously
+but still musingly, and he had reached the stage of
+scones and jam before he glanced at his correspondence.
+There was a letter from his wife now
+holidaying at the Neuk Hydropathic. She reported
+that her health was improving, and that she had
+met various people who had known somebody who
+had known somebody else whom she had once
+known herself. Mr. McCunn read the dutiful
+pages and smiled. "Mamma's enjoying herself
+fine," he observed to the teapot. He knew that for
+his wife the earthly paradise was a hydropathic,
+where she put on her afternoon dress and every
+jewel she possessed when she rose in the morning,
+ate large meals of which the novelty atoned for the
+nastiness, and collected an immense casual acquaintance
+with whom she discussed ailments, ministers,
+sudden deaths, and the intricate genealogies of her
+class. For his part he rancorously hated hydropathics,
+having once spent a black week under the
+roof of one in his wife's company. He detested the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+food, the Turkish baths (he had a passionate aversion
+to baring his body before strangers), the inability
+to find anything to do and the compulsion to
+endless small talk. A thought flitted over his mind
+which he was too loyal to formulate. Once he and
+his wife had had similar likings, but they had taken
+different roads since their child died. Janet! He
+saw again&mdash;he was never quite free from the sight&mdash;the
+solemn little white-frocked girl who had died
+long ago in the spring.</p>
+
+<p>It may have been the thought of the Neuk Hydropathic,
+or more likely the thin clean scent of the
+daffodils with which Tibby had decked the table,
+but long ere breakfast was finished the Great Plan
+had ceased to be an airy vision and become a sober
+well-masoned structure. Mr. McCunn&mdash;I may confess
+it at the start&mdash;was an incurable romantic.</p>
+
+<p>He had had a humdrum life since the day when
+he had first entered his uncle's shop with the hope
+of some day succeeding that honest grocer; and his
+feet had never strayed a yard from his sober rut.
+But his mind, like the Dying Gladiator's, had been
+far away. As a boy he had voyaged among books,
+and they had given him a world where he could
+shape his career according to his whimsical fancy.
+Not that Mr. McCunn was what is known as a
+great reader. He read slowly and fastidiously, and
+sought in literature for one thing alone. Sir Walter
+Scott had been his first guide, but he read the novels
+not for their insight into human character or for
+their historical pageantry, but because they gave
+him material wherewith to construct fantastic jour<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>neys.
+It was the same with Dickens. A lit tavern,
+a stage-coach, post-horses, the clack of hoofs on a
+frosty road, went to his head like wine. He was a
+Jacobite not because he had any views on Divine
+Right, but because he had always before his eyes
+a picture of a knot of adventurers in cloaks, new
+landed from France, among the western heather.</p>
+
+<p>On this select basis he had built up his small
+library&mdash;Defoe, Hakluyt, Hazlitt and the essayists,
+Boswell, some indifferent romances and a shelf of
+spirited poetry. His tastes became known, and he
+acquired a reputation for a scholarly habit. He was
+president of the Literary Society of the Guthrie
+Memorial Kirk, and read to its members a variety
+of papers full of a gusto which rarely became
+critical. He had been three times chairman at
+Burns Anniversary dinners, and had delivered orations
+in eulogy of the national Bard; not because he
+greatly admired him&mdash;he thought him rather vulgar&mdash;but
+because he took Burns as an emblem of the
+un-Burns-like literature which he loved. Mr. McCunn
+was no scholar and was sublimely unconscious
+of background. He grew his flowers in his small
+garden-plot oblivious of their origin so long as they
+gave him the colour and scent he sought. Scent, I
+say, for he appreciated more than the mere picturesque.
+He had a passion for words and cadences,
+and would be haunted for weeks by a cunning
+phrase, savouring it as a connoisseur savours a vintage.
+Wherefore long ago, when he could ill afford
+it, he had purchased the Edinburgh <i>Stevenson</i>.
+They were the only large books on his shelves, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+he had a liking for small volumes&mdash;things he could
+stuff into his pocket in that sudden journey which
+he loved to contemplate.</p>
+
+<p>Only he had never taken it. The shop had tied
+him up for eleven months in the year, and the
+twelfth had always found him settled decorously
+with his wife in some seaside villa. He had not
+fretted, for he was content with dreams. He was
+always a little tired, too, when the holidays came,
+and his wife told him he was growing old. He
+consoled himself with tags from the more philosophic
+of his authors, but he scarcely needed consolation.
+For he had large stores of modest contentment.</p>
+
+<p>But now something had happened. A spring
+morning and a safety razor had convinced him that
+he was still young. Since yesterday he was a man
+of a large leisure. Providence had done for him
+what he would never have done for himself. The
+rut in which he had travelled so long had given
+place to open country. He repeated to himself one
+of the quotations with which he had been wont to
+stir the literary young men at the Guthrie Memorial
+Kirk:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4q">"What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all;<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold:<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">When we mind labour, then only, we're too old&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He would go journeying&mdash;who but he?&mdash;pleasantly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It sounds a trivial resolve, but it quickened Mr.
+McCunn to the depths of his being. A holiday, and
+alone! On foot, of course, for he must travel
+light. He would buckle on a pack after the approved
+fashion. He had the very thing in a drawer
+upstairs, which he had bought some years ago at a
+sale. That and a waterproof and a stick, and his
+outfit was complete. A book, too, and, as he lit his
+first pipe, he considered what it should be. Poetry,
+clearly, for it was the Spring, and besides poetry
+could be got in pleasantly small bulk. He stood
+before his bookshelves trying to select a volume,
+rejecting one after another as inapposite. Browning&mdash;Keats,
+Shelley&mdash;they seemed more suited for
+the hearth than for the roadside. He did not want
+anything Scots, for he was of opinion that Spring
+came more richly in England and that English people
+had a better notion of it. He was tempted by
+the Oxford Anthology, but was deterred by its
+thickness, for he did not possess the thin-paper edition.
+Finally he selected Izaak Walton. He had
+never fished in his life, but <i>The Compleat Angler</i>
+seemed to fit his mood. It was old and curious and
+learned and fragrant with the youth of things. He
+remembered its falling cadences, its country songs
+and wise meditations. Decidedly it was the right
+scrip for his pilgrimage.</p>
+
+<p>Characteristically he thought last of where he was
+to go. Every bit of the world beyond his front door
+had its charms to the seeing eye. There seemed
+nothing common or unclean that fresh morning.
+Even a walk among coal-pits had its attractions....<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+But since he had the right to choose, he lingered
+over it like an epicure. Not the Highlands,
+for Spring came late among their sour mosses.
+Some place where there were fields and woods and
+inns, somewhere, too, within call of the sea. It
+must not be too remote, for he had no time to waste
+on train journeys; nor too near, for he wanted a
+countryside untainted. Presently he thought of
+Carrick. A good green land, as he remembered it,
+with purposeful white roads and public-houses
+sacred to the memory of Burns; near the hills but
+yet lowland, and with a bright sea chafing on its
+shores. He decided on Carrick, found a map and
+planned his journey.</p>
+
+<p>Then he routed out his knapsack, packed it with
+a modest change of raiment, and sent out Tibby to
+buy chocolate and tobacco and to cash a cheque at
+the Strathclyde Bank. Till Tibby returned he occupied
+himself with delicious dreams.... He saw
+himself daily growing browner and leaner, swinging
+along broad highways or wandering in bypaths.
+He pictured his seasons of ease, when he unslung
+his pack and smoked in some clump of lilacs by a
+burnside&mdash;he remembered a phrase of Stevenson's
+somewhat like that. He would meet and talk with
+all sorts of folk; an exhilarating prospect, for Mr.
+McCunn loved his kind. There would be the evening
+hour before he reached his inn, when, pleasantly
+tired, he would top some ridge and see the
+welcoming lights of a little town. There would be
+the lamp-lit after-supper time when he would read
+and reflect, and the start in the gay morning, when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+tobacco tastes sweetest and even fifty-five seems
+young. It would be holiday of the purest, for no
+business now tugged at his coat-tails. He was beginning
+a new life, he told himself, when he could
+cultivate the seedling interests which had withered
+beneath the far-reaching shade of the shop. Was
+ever a man more fortunate or more free?</p>
+
+<p>Tibby was told that he was going off for a week
+or two. No letters need be forwarded, for he
+would be constantly moving, but Mrs. McCunn at
+the Neuk Hydropathic would be kept informed of
+his whereabouts. Presently he stood on his doorstep,
+a stocky figure in ancient tweeds, with a bulging
+pack slung on his arm, and a stout hazel stick
+in his hand. A passer-by would have remarked an
+elderly shopkeeper bent apparently on a day in the
+country, a common little man on a prosaic errand.
+But the passer-by would have been wrong, for he
+could not see into the heart. The plump citizen
+was the eternal pilgrim; he was Jason, Ulysses,
+Eric the Red, Albuquerque, Cortez&mdash;starting out to
+discover new worlds.</p>
+
+<p>Before he left Mr. McCunn had given Tibby a
+letter to post. That morning he had received an
+epistle from a benevolent acquaintance, one Mackintosh,
+regarding a group of urchins who called
+themselves the "Gorbals Die-Hards." Behind the
+premises in Mearns Street lay a tract of slums, full
+of mischievous boys with whom his staff waged
+truceless war. But lately there had started among
+them a kind of unauthorised and unofficial Boy
+Scouts, who, without uniform or badge or any kind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+of paraphernalia, followed the banner of Sir Robert
+Baden-Powell and subjected themselves to a
+rude discipline. They were far too poor to join
+an orthodox troop, but they faithfully copied what
+they believed to be the practices of more fortunate
+boys. Mr. McCunn had witnessed their pathetic
+parades, and had even passed the time of day with
+their leader, a red-haired savage called Dougal.
+The philanthropic Mackintosh had taken an interest
+in the gang and now desired subscriptions to send
+them to camp in the country.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. McCunn, in his new exhilaration, felt that
+he could not deny to others what he proposed for
+himself. His last act before leaving was to send
+Mackintosh ten pounds.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<p class="center">OF MR. JOHN HERITAGE AND  THE DIFFERENCE IN
+POINTS OF VIEW</p>
+
+
+<p>Dickson McCunn was never to forget the
+first stage in that pilgrimage. A little after
+midday he descended from a grimy third-class carriage
+at a little station whose name I have forgotten.
+In the village near-by he purchased some
+new-baked buns and ginger biscuits, to which he was
+partial, and followed by the shouts of urchins, who
+admired his pack&mdash;"Look at the auld man gaun to
+the schule"&mdash;he emerged into open country. The
+late April noon gleamed like a frosty morning, but
+the air, though tonic, was kind. The road ran over
+sweeps of moorland where curlews wailed, and into
+lowland pastures dotted with very white, very vocal
+lambs.   The young grass had the warm fragrance
+of new milk.  As he went he munched his buns, for
+he had resolved to have no plethoric midday meal,
+and presently he found the burnside nook of his
+fancy, and halted to smoke.   On a patch of turf
+close to a grey stone bridge he had out his Walton
+and read the chapter on "The Chavender or Chub."
+The collocation of words delighted him and inspired
+him to verse.  "Lavender or Lub"&mdash;"Pavender
+or Pub"&mdash;"Gravender or Grub"&mdash;but the monosyllables
+proved too vulgar for poetry.   Regretfully
+he desisted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The rest of the road was as idyllic as the start.
+He would tramp steadily for a mile or so and then
+saunter, leaning over bridges to watch the trout in
+the pools, admiring from a dry-stone dyke the unsteady
+gambols of new-born lambs, kicking up dust
+from strips of moor-burn on the heather. Once by
+a fir-wood he was privileged to surprise three lunatic
+hares waltzing. His cheeks glowed with the sun;
+he moved in an atmosphere of pastoral, serene and
+contented. When the shadows began to lengthen
+he arrived at the village of Cloncae, where he proposed
+to lie. The inn looked dirty, but he found
+a decent widow, above whose door ran the legend
+in home-made lettering, "Mrs. brockie tea and
+Coffee," and who was willing to give him quarters.
+There he supped handsomely off ham and eggs, and
+dipped into a work called <i>Covenanting Worthies</i>,
+which garnished a table decorated with sea-shells.
+At half-past nine precisely he retired to bed and
+unhesitating sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning he awoke to a changed world.
+The sky was grey and so low that his outlook was
+bounded by a cabbage garden, while a surly wind
+prophesied rain. It was chilly, too, and he had his
+breakfast beside the kitchen fire. Mrs. Brockie
+could not spare a capital letter for her surname on
+the signboard, but she exalted it in her talk. He
+heard of a multitude of Brockies, ascendant, descendant
+and collateral, who seemed to be in a fair
+way to inherit the earth. Dickson listened sympathetically,
+and lingered by the fire. He felt stiff from
+yesterday's exercise, and the edge was off his spirit.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The start was not quite what he had pictured.
+His pack seemed heavier, his boots tighter, and his
+pipe drew badly. The first miles were all uphill,
+with a wind tingling his ears, and no colours in the
+landscape but brown and grey. Suddenly he awoke
+to the fact that he was dismal, and thrust the notion
+behind him. He expanded his chest and drew in
+long draughts of air. He told himself that this
+sharp weather was better than sunshine. He remembered
+that all travellers in romances battled
+with mist and rain. Presently his body recovered
+comfort and vigour, and his mind worked itself
+into cheerfulness.</p>
+
+<p>He overtook a party of tramps and fell into talk
+with them. He had always had a fancy for the
+class, though he had never known anything nearer it
+than city beggars. He pictured them as philosophic
+vagabonds, full of quaint turns of speech, unconscious
+Borrovians. With these samples his disillusionment
+was speedy. The party was made up
+of a ferret-faced man with a red nose, a draggle-tailed
+woman, and a child in a crazy perambulator.
+Their conversation was one-sided, for it immediately
+resolved itself into a whining chronicle of misfortunes
+and petitions for relief. It cost him half
+a crown to be rid of them.</p>
+
+<p>The road was alive with tramps that day. The
+next one did the accosting. Hailing Mr. McCunn
+as "Guv'nor," he asked to be told the way to Manchester.
+The objective seemed so enterprising that
+Dickson was impelled to ask questions, and heard,
+in what appeared to be in the accents of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+Colonies, the tale of a career of unvarying calamity.
+There was nothing merry or philosophic about this
+adventurer. Nay, there was something menacing.
+He eyed his companion's waterproof covetously, and
+declared that he had had one like it which had been
+stolen from him the day before. Had the place
+been lonely he might have contemplated highway
+robbery, but they were at the entrance to a village,
+and the sight of a public-house awoke his thirst.
+Dickson parted with him at the cost of sixpence for
+a drink.</p>
+
+<p>He had no more company that morning except an
+aged stone-breaker whom he convoyed for half a
+mile. The stone-breaker also was soured with the
+world. He walked with a limp, which, he said, was
+due to an accident years before, when he had been
+run into by "ane o' thae damned velocipeeds." The
+word revived in Dickson memories of his youth,
+and he was prepared to be friendly. But the ancient
+would have none of it. He inquired morosely
+what he was after, and, on being told, remarked
+that he might have learned more sense. "It's a
+daft-like thing for an auld man like you to be
+traivellin' the roads. Ye maun be ill-off for a job."
+Questioned as to himself he became, as the newspapers
+say, "reticent," and having reached his bing
+of stones, turned rudely to his duties. "Awa' hame
+wi' ye," were his parting words. "It's idle
+scoondrels like you that maks wark for honest
+folk like me."</p>
+
+<p>The morning was not a success, but the strong
+air had given Dickson such an appetite that he re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>solved
+to break his rule, and, on reaching the little
+town of Kilchrist, he sought luncheon at the chief
+hotel. There he found that which revived his
+spirits. A solitary bagman shared the meal, who
+revealed the fact that he was in the grocery line.
+There followed a well-informed and most technical
+conversation. He was drawn to speak of the
+United Supply Stores, Limited, of their prospects
+and of their predecessor, Mr. McCunn, whom he
+knew well by repute but had never met. "Yon's
+the clever one," he observed. "I've always said
+there's no longer head in the city of Glasgow than
+McCunn. An old-fashioned firm, but it has aye
+managed to keep up with the times. He's just retired,
+they tell me, and in my opinion it's a big
+loss to the provision trade...." Dickson's heart
+glowed within him. Here was Romance; to be
+praised incognito; to enter a casual inn and find
+that fame had preceded him. He warmed to the
+bagman, insisted on giving him a liqueur and a
+cigar, and finally revealed himself. "I'm Dickson
+McCunn," he said, "taking a bit holiday. If there's
+anything I can do for you when I get back, just let
+me know." With mutual esteem they parted.</p>
+
+<p>He had need of all his good spirits, for he
+emerged into an unrelenting drizzle. The environs
+of Kilchrist are at the best unlovely, and in the wet
+they were as melancholy as a graveyard. But the
+encounter with the bagman had worked wonders
+with Dickson, and he strode lustily into the weather,
+his waterproof collar buttoned round his chin. The
+road climbed to a bare moor, where lagoons had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+formed in the ruts, and the mist showed on each
+side only a yard or two of soaking heather. Soon
+he was wet; presently every part of him, boots,
+body and pack, was one vast sponge. The waterproof
+was not water-proof, and the rain penetrated
+to his most intimate garments. Little he cared.
+He felt lighter, younger, than on the idyllic previous
+day. He enjoyed the buffets of the storm, and one
+wet mile succeeded another to the accompaniment of
+Dickson's shouts and laughter. There was no one
+abroad that afternoon, so he could talk aloud to
+himself and repeat his favourite poems. About
+five in the evening there presented himself at the
+Black Bull Inn at Kirkmichael a soaked, disreputable,
+but most cheerful traveller.</p>
+
+<p>Now the Black Bull at Kirkmichael is one of the
+few very good inns left in the world. It is an old
+place and an hospitable, for it has been for generations
+a haunt of anglers, who above all other men
+understand comfort. There are always bright fires
+there, and hot water, and old soft leather armchairs,
+and an aroma of good food and good
+tobacco, and giant trout in glass cases, and pictures
+of Captain Barclay of Urie walking to London, and
+Mr. Ramsay of Barnton winning a horse-race, and
+the three-volume edition of the Waverley Novels
+with many volumes missing, and indeed all those
+things which an inn should have. Also there used
+to be&mdash;there may still be&mdash;sound vintage claret in
+the cellars. The Black Bull expects its guests to
+arrive in every stage of dishevelment, and Dickson
+was received by a cordial landlord, who offered dry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+garments as a matter of course. The pack proved
+to have resisted the elements, and a suit of clothes
+and slippers were provided by the house. Dickson,
+after a glass of toddy, wallowed in a hot bath,
+which washed all the stiffness out of him. He had
+a fire in his bedroom, beside which he wrote the
+opening passages of that diary he had vowed to
+keep, descanting lyrically upon the joys of ill
+weather. At seven o'clock, warm and satisfied in
+soul, and with his body clad in raiment several sizes
+too large for it, he descended to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>At one end of the long table in the dining-room
+sat a group of anglers. They looked jovial fellows,
+and Dickson would fain have joined them; but, having
+been fishing all day in the Loch o' the Threshes,
+they were talking their own talk, and he feared that
+his admiration for Izaak Walton did not qualify
+him to butt into the erudite discussions of fishermen.
+The landlord seemed to think likewise, for he drew
+back a chair for him at the other end, where sat a
+young man absorbed in a book. Dickson gave him
+good evening and got an abstracted reply. The
+young man supped the Black Bull's excellent broth
+with one hand, and with the other turned the pages
+of his volume. A glance convinced Dickson that
+the work was French, a literature which did not
+interest him. He knew little of the tongue and
+suspected it of impropriety.</p>
+
+<p>Another guest entered and took the chair opposite
+the bookish young man. He was also young&mdash;not
+more than thirty-three&mdash;and to Dickson's eye,
+was the kind of person he would have liked to re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>semble.
+He was tall and free from any superfluous
+flesh; his face was lean, fine-drawn and deeply sunburnt
+so that the hair above showed oddly pale; the
+hands were brown and beautifully shaped, but the
+forearm revealed by the loose cuffs of his shirt was
+as brawny as a blacksmith's. He had rather pale
+blue eyes, which seemed to have looked much at the
+sun, and a small moustache the colour of ripe hay.
+His voice was low and pleasant, and he pronounced
+his words precisely, like a foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>He was very ready to talk, but in defiance of Dr.
+Johnson's warning, his talk was all questions. He
+wanted to know everything about the neighbourhood&mdash;who
+lived in what houses, what were the distances
+between the towns, what harbours would
+admit what class of vessel. Smiling agreeably, he
+put Dickson through a catechism to which he knew
+none of the answers. The landlord was called in,
+and proved more helpful. But on one matter he
+was fairly at a loss. The catechist asked about a
+house called Darkwater, and was met with a shake
+of the head. "I know no sic-like name in this countryside,
+sir," and the catechist looked disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>The literary young man said nothing, but ate
+trout abstractedly, one eye on his book. The fish
+had been caught by the anglers in the Loch o' the
+Threshes, and phrases describing their capture
+floated from the other end of the table. The young
+man had a second helping, and then refused the
+excellent hill mutton that followed, contenting himself
+with cheese. Not so Dickson and the catechist.
+They ate everything that was set before them, top<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>ping
+up with a glass of port. Then the latter, who
+had been talking illuminatingly about Spain, rose,
+bowed and left the table, leaving Dickson, who liked
+to linger over his meals, to the society of the
+ichthyophagous student.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded towards the book. "Interesting?"
+he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The young man shook his head and displayed the
+name on the cover. "Anatole France. I used to
+be crazy about him, but now he seems rather a back
+number." Then he glanced towards the just-vacated
+chair.   "Australian," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"How d'you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't mistake them. There's nothing else so
+lean and fine produced on the globe to-day. I was
+next door to them at Pozičres and saw them fight.
+Lord! Such men! Now and then you had a freak,
+but most looked like Ph&oelig;bus Apollo."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson gazed with a new respect at his neighbour,
+for he had not associated him with battle-fields.
+During the war he had been a fervent
+patriot, but, though he had never heard a shot himself,
+so many of his friends' sons and nephews, not
+to mention cousins of his own, had seen service,
+that he had come to regard the experience as commonplace.
+Lions in Africa and bandits in Mexico
+seemed to him novel and romantic things, but not
+trenches and airplanes which were the whole world's
+property. But he could scarcely fit his neighbour
+into even his haziest picture of war. The young
+man was tall and a little round-shouldered; he had
+short-sighted, rather prominent brown eyes, untidy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+black hair and dark eyebrows which came near to
+meeting. He wore a knickerbocker suit of bluish-grey
+tweed, a pale blue shirt, a pale blue collar and
+a dark blue tie&mdash;a symphony of colour which seemed
+too elaborately considered to be quite natural.
+Dickson had set him down as an artist or a newspaper
+correspondent, objects to him of lively interest.
+But now the classification must be reconsidered.</p>
+
+<p>"So you were in the war," he said encouragingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Four blasted years," was the savage reply.
+"And I never want to hear the name of the beastly
+thing again."</p>
+
+<p>"You said he was an Australian," said Dickson,
+casting back. "But I thought Australians had a
+queer accent, like the English."</p>
+
+<p>"They've all kind of accents, but you can never
+mistake their voice. It's got the sun in it. Canadians
+have got grinding ice in theirs, and Virginians
+have got butter. So have the Irish. In Britain
+there are no voices, only speaking tubes. It isn't
+safe to judge men by their accent only. You yourself
+I take to be Scotch, but for all I know you may
+be a senator from Chicago or a Boer General."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm from Glasgow. My name's Dickson McCunn."
+He had a faint hope that the announcement
+might affect the other as it had affected the bagman
+at Kilchrist.</p>
+
+<p>"Golly, what a name!" exclaimed the young man
+rudely.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson was nettled. "It's very old Highland,"
+he said.  "It means the son of a dog."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Which&mdash;Christian name or surname?" Then
+the young man appeared to think he had gone too
+far, for he smiled pleasantly. "And a very good
+name too. Mine is prosaic by comparison. They
+call me John Heritage."</p>
+
+<p>"That," said Dickson, mollified, "is like a name
+out of a book. With that name by rights you
+should be a poet."</p>
+
+<p>Gloom settled on the young man's countenance.
+"It's a dashed sight too poetic. It's like Edwin
+Arnold and Alfred Austin and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
+Great poets have vulgar monosyllables for
+names, like Keats. The new Shakespeare when he
+comes along will probably be called Grubb or
+Jubber, if he isn't Jones. With a name like
+yours I might have a chance. <i>You</i> should be the
+poet."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm very fond of reading," said Dickson modestly.</p>
+
+<p>A slow smile crumpled Mr. Heritage's face.
+"There's a fire in the smoking-room," he observed
+as he rose. "We'd better bag the armchairs before
+these fishing louts take them." Dickson followed
+obediently. This was the kind of chance acquaintance
+for whom he had hoped, and he was prepared
+to make the most of him.</p>
+
+<p>The fire burned bright in the little dusky smoking-room,
+lighted by one oil-lamp. Mr. Heritage flung
+himself into a chair, stretched his long legs and lit
+a pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"You like reading?" he asked.   "What sort?
+Any use for poetry?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Plenty," said Dickson. "I've aye been fond of
+learning it up and repeating it to myself when I had
+nothing to do. In church and waiting on trains,
+like. It used to be Tennyson, but now it's more
+Browning.  I can say a lot of Browning."</p>
+
+<p>The other screwed his face into an expression of
+disgust. "I know the stuff. 'Damask cheeks and
+dewy sister eyelids.' Or else the Ercles vein&mdash;'God's
+in His Heaven, all's right with the world.'
+No good, Mr. McCunn. All back numbers.
+Poetry's not a thing of pretty round phrases or
+noisy invocations. It's life itself, with the tang of
+the raw world in it&mdash;not a sweetmeat for middle-class
+women in parlours."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you a poet, Mr. Heritage?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Dogson, I'm a paper-maker."</p>
+
+<p>This was a new view to Mr. McCunn. "I just
+once knew a paper-maker," he observed reflectively.
+"They called him Tosh.  He drank a bit."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't drink," said the other. "I'm a
+paper-maker, but that's for my bread and butter.
+Some day for my own sake I may be a poet."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you published anything?"</p>
+
+<p>The eager admiration in Dickson's tone gratified
+Mr. Heritage. He drew from his pocket a slim
+book.  "My firstfruits," he said, rather shyly.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson received it with reverence. It was a
+small volume in grey paper boards with a white
+label on the back, and it was lettered: "<i>Whorls&mdash;John
+Heritage's Book</i>." He turned the pages and
+read a little. "It's a nice wee book," he observed
+at length.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good God, if you call it nice, I must have failed
+pretty badly," was the irritated answer.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson read more deeply and was puzzled. It
+seemed worse than the worst of Browning to
+understand. He found one poem about a garden
+entitled "Revue." "Crimson and resonant clangs
+the dawn," said the poet. Then he went on to
+describe noonday:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0q">"Sunflowers, tall Grenadiers, ogle the roses' short-skirted ballet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fumes of dark sweet wine hidden in frail petals<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Madden the drunkard bees."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This seemed to him an odd way to look at things,
+and he boggled over a phrase about an "epicene
+lily." Then came evening: "The painted gauze of
+the stars flutters in a fold of twilight crape," sang
+Mr. Heritage; and again, "The moon's pale leprosy
+sloughs the fields."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson turned to other verses which apparently
+enshrined the writer's memory of the trenches.
+They were largely compounded of oaths, and rather
+horrible, lingering lovingly over sights and smells
+which every one is aware of, but most people contrive
+to forget. He did not like them. Finally he
+skimmed a poem about a lady who turned into a
+bird. The evolution was described with intimate
+anatomical details which scared the honest
+reader.</p>
+
+<p>He kept his eyes on the book for he did not know
+what to say.   The trick seemed to be to describe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+nature in metaphors mostly drawn from music-halls
+and haberdashers' shops, and, when at a loss,
+to fall to cursing. He thought it frankly very bad,
+and he laboured to find words which would combine
+politeness and honesty.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said the poet.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a lot of fine things here, but&mdash;but the
+lines don't just seem to scan very well."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Heritage laughed. "Now I can place you
+exactly. You like the meek rhyme and the conventional
+epithet. Well, I don't. The world has
+passed beyond that prettiness. You want the moon
+described as a Huntress or a gold disc or a flower&mdash;I
+say it's oftener like a beer barrel or a cheese.
+You want a wealth of jolly words and real things
+ruled out as unfit for poetry. I say there's nothing
+unfit for poetry. Nothing, Dogson! Poetry's
+everywhere, and the real thing is commoner among
+drabs and pot-houses and rubbish heaps than in your
+Sunday parlours. The poet's business is to distil it
+out of rottenness, and show that it is all one spirit,
+the thing that keeps the stars in their place.... I
+wanted to call my book '<i>Drains</i>,' for drains are
+sheer poetry, carrying off the excess and discards
+of human life to make the fields green and the corn
+ripen. But the publishers kicked. So I called it
+'<i>Whorls</i>,' to express my view of the exquisite involution
+of all things. Poetry is the fourth dimension
+of the soul.... Well, let's hear about your
+taste in prose."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. McCunn was much bewildered, and a little
+inclined to be cross.   He disliked being called<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+Dogson, which seemed to him an abuse of his
+etymological confidences. But his habit of politeness
+held.</p>
+
+<p>He explained rather haltingly his preferences in
+prose.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Heritage listened with wrinkled brows.</p>
+
+<p>"You're even deeper in the mud than I thought,"
+he remarked. "You live in a world of painted laths
+and shadows. All this passion for the picturesque!
+Trash, my dear man, like a schoolgirl's novelette
+heroes. You make up romances about gipsies and
+sailors and the blackguards they call pioneers, but
+you know nothing about them. If you did, you
+would find they had none of the gilt and gloss you
+imagine. But the great things they have got in
+common with all humanity you ignore. It's like&mdash;it's
+like sentimentalising about a pancake because it
+looked like a buttercup, and all the while not knowing
+that it was good to eat."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the Australian entered the room
+to get a light for his pipe. He wore a motor-cyclist's
+overalls and appeared to be about to take
+the road. He bade them good night and it seemed
+to Dickson that his face, seen in the glow of the
+fire, was drawn and anxious, unlike that of the
+agreeable companion at dinner.</p>
+
+<p>"There," said Mr. Heritage, nodding after the
+departing figure. "I dare say you have been telling
+yourself stories about that chap&mdash;life in the bush,
+stock-riding and the rest of it. But probably he's a
+bank-clerk from Melbourne.... Your romanticism
+is one vast self-delusion and it blinds your eye<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+to the real thing. We have got to clear it out and
+with it all the damnable humbug of the Kelt."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. McCunn, who spelt the word with a soft
+"C," was puzzled. "I thought a kelt was a kind
+of a no-weel fish," he interposed.</p>
+
+<p>But the other, in the flood-tide of his argument,
+ignored the interruption. "That's the value of the
+war," he went on. "It has burst up all the old conventions,
+and we've got to finish the destruction before
+we can build. It is the same with literature
+and religion and society and politics. At them with
+the axe, say I. I have no use for priests and
+pedants. I've no use for upper classes and middle
+classes. There's only one class that matters, the
+plain man, the workers, who live close to life."</p>
+
+<p>"The place for you," said Dickson dryly, "is in
+Russia among the Bolsheviks."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Heritage approved. "They are doing a
+great work in their own fashion. We needn't imitate
+all their methods&mdash;they're a trifle crude and
+have too many Jews among them&mdash;but they've got
+hold of the right end of the stick. They seek truth
+and reality."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. McCunn was slowly being roused.</p>
+
+<p>"What brings you wandering hereaways?" he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Exercise," was the answer. "I've been kept
+pretty closely tied up all winter. And I want leisure
+and quiet to think over things."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's one subject you might turn your
+attention to. You'll have been educated like a
+gentleman?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nine wasted years&mdash;five at Harrow, four at
+Cambridge."</p>
+
+<p>"See here, then. You're daft about the working-class
+and have no use for any other. But what in
+the name of goodness do you know about working-men?...
+I come out of them myself, and have
+lived next door to them all my days. Take them
+one way and another, they're a decent sort, good
+and bad like the rest of us. But there's a wheen
+daft folk that would set them up as models&mdash;close
+to truth and reality, says you. It's sheer ignorance,
+for you're about as well acquaint with the working-man
+as with King Solomon. You say I make up
+fine stories about tinklers and sailor-men because I
+know nothing about them. That's maybe true.
+But you're at the same job yourself. You ideelise
+the working-man, you and your kind, because you're
+ignorant. You say that he's seeking for truth, when
+he's only looking for a drink and a rise in wages.
+You tell me he's near reality, but I tell you that his
+notion of reality is often just a short working day
+and looking on at a footba'-match on Saturday....
+And when you run down what you call the
+middle-classes that do three-quarters of the world's
+work and keep the machine going and the working
+man in a job, then I tell you you're talking havers.
+Havers!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. McCunn, having delivered his defence of the
+bourgeoisie, rose abruptly and went to bed. He
+felt jarred and irritated. His innocent little private
+domain had been badly trampled by this stray bull
+of a poet. But as he lay in bed, before blowing out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+his candle, he had recourse to Walton, and found
+a passage on which, as on a pillow, he went peacefully
+to sleep:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"As I left this place, and entered into the next
+field, a second pleasure entertained me; 'twas a
+handsome milkmaid, that had not yet attained so
+much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any
+fears of many things that will never be, as too many
+men too often do; but she cast away all care, and
+sang like a nightingale; her voice was good, and the
+ditty fitted for it; it was the smooth song that was
+made by <i>Kit Marlow</i> now at least fifty years ago.
+And the milkmaid's mother sung an answer to it,
+which was made by <i>Sir Walter Raleigh</i> in his
+younger days. They were old-fashioned poetry, but
+choicely good; I think much better than the strong
+lines that are now in fashion in this critical age."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<p class="center">HOW CHILDE ROLAND AND ANOTHER CAME TO THE
+DARK TOWER</p>
+
+
+<p>Dickson woke with a vague sense of irritation.
+As his recollections took form they produced
+a very unpleasant picture of Mr. John Heritage.
+The poet had loosened all his placid idols, so that
+they shook and rattled in the niches where they had
+been erstwhile so secure. Mr. McCunn had a mind
+of a singular candour, and was prepared most honestly
+at all times to revise his views. But by this
+iconoclast he had been only irritated and in no way
+convinced. "<i>Sich</i> poetry!" he muttered to himself
+as he shivered in his bath (a daily cold tub instead
+of his customary hot one on Saturday night being
+part of the discipline of his holiday). "And yon
+blethers about the working-man!" he ingeminated
+as he shaved. He breakfasted alone, having outstripped
+even the fishermen, and as he ate he arrived
+at conclusions. He had a great respect for youth,
+but a line must be drawn somewhere. "The man's
+a child," he decided, "and not like to grow up. The
+way he's besotted on everything daftlike, if it's only
+<i>new</i>. And he's no rightly young either&mdash;speaks
+like an auld dominie, whiles. And he's rather impident,"
+he concluded, with memories of "Dogson."...
+He was very clear that he never wanted to see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+him again; that was the reason of his early breakfast.
+Having clarified his mind by definitions, Dickson
+felt comforted. He paid his bill, took an affectionate
+farewell of the landlord, and at 7.30 precisely
+stepped out into the gleaming morning.</p>
+
+<p>It was such a day as only a Scots April can show.
+The cobbled streets of Kirkmichael still shone with
+the night's rain, but the storm clouds had fled before
+a mild south wind, and the whole circumference of
+the sky was a delicate translucent blue. Homely
+breakfast smells came from the houses and delighted
+Mr. McCunn's nostrils; a squalling child
+was a pleasant reminder of an awakening world,
+the urban counterpart to the morning song of birds;
+even the sanitary cart seemed a picturesque vehicle.
+He bought his ration of buns and ginger biscuits
+at a baker's shop whence various ragamuffin boys
+were preparing to distribute the householders'
+bread, and took his way up the Gallows Hill to the
+Burgh Muir almost with regret at leaving so pleasant
+a habitation.</p>
+
+<p>A chronicle of ripe vintages must pass lightly
+over small beer. I will not dwell on his leisurely
+progress in the bright weather, or on his luncheon
+in a coppice of young firs, or on his thoughts which
+had returned to the idyllic. I take up the narrative
+at about three o'clock in the afternoon, when he is
+revealed seated on a milestone examining his map.
+For he had come, all unwitting, to a turning of the
+ways, and his choice is the cause of this veracious
+history.</p>
+
+<p>The place was high up on a bare moor, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+showed a white lodge among pines, a white cottage
+in a green nook by a burnside, and no other marks
+of human dwelling. To his left, which was the
+east, the heather rose to a low ridge of hill, much
+scarred with peat-bogs, behind which appeared the
+blue shoulder of a considerable mountain. Before
+him the road was lost momentarily in the woods
+of a shooting-box, but reappeared at a great distance
+climbing a swell of upland which seemed to
+be the glacis of a jumble of bold summits. There
+was a pass there, the map told him, which led into
+Galloway. It was the road he had meant to follow,
+but as he sat on the milestone his purpose wavered.
+For there seemed greater attractions in the country
+which lay to the westward. Mr. McCunn, be it
+remembered, was not in search of brown heath and
+shaggy wood; he wanted greenery and the Spring.</p>
+
+<p>Westward there ran out a peninsula in the shape
+of an isosceles triangle, of which his present highroad
+was the base. At a distance of a mile or so
+a railway ran parallel to the road, and he could see
+the smoke of a goods train waiting at a tiny station
+islanded in acres of bog. Thence the moor swept
+down to meadows and scattered copses, above
+which hung a thin haze of smoke which betokened
+a village. Beyond it were further woodlands, not
+firs but old shady trees, and as they narrowed to a
+point the gleam of two tiny estuaries appeared on
+either side. He could not see the final cape, but he
+saw the sea beyond it, flawed with catspaws, gold
+in the afternoon sun, and on it a small herring
+smack flapping listless sails.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Something in the view caught and held his fancy.
+He conned his map, and made out the names. The
+peninsula was called the Cruives&mdash;an old name apparently,
+for it was in antique lettering. He
+vaguely remembered that "cruives" had something
+to do with fishing, doubtless in the two streams
+which flanked it. One he had already crossed, the
+Laver, a clear tumbling water springing from green
+hills; the other, the Garple, descended from the
+rougher mountains to the south. The hidden village
+bore the name of Dalquharter, and the uncouth
+syllables awoke some vague recollection in his mind.
+The great house in the trees beyond&mdash;it must be a
+great house, for the map showed large policies&mdash;was
+Huntingtower.</p>
+
+<p>The last name fascinated and almost decided him.
+He pictured an ancient keep by the sea, defended
+by converging rivers, which some old Comyn lord
+of Galloway had built to command the shore road
+and from which he had sallied to hunt in his wild
+hills.... He liked the way the moor dropped
+down to green meadows, and the mystery of the
+dark woods beyond. He wanted to explore the twin
+waters, and see how they entered that strange
+shimmering sea. The odd names, the odd cul-de-sac
+of a peninsula, powerfully attracted him. Why
+should he not spend a night there, for the map
+showed clearly that Dalquharter had an inn? He
+must decide promptly, for before him a side-road
+left the highway, and the signpost bore the legend,
+"Dalquharter and Huntingtower."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. McCunn, being a cautious and pious man,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+took the omens. He tossed a penny&mdash;heads go on,
+tails turn aside.   It fell tails.</p>
+
+<p>He knew as soon as he had taken three steps
+down the side-road that he was doing something
+momentous, and the exhilaration of enterprise
+stole into his soul. It occurred to him that this
+was the kind of landscape that he had always especially
+hankered after, and had made pictures of
+when he had a longing for the country on him&mdash;a
+wooded cape between streams, with meadows inland
+and then a long lift of heather. He had the
+same feeling of expectancy, of something most interesting
+and curious on the eve of happening, that
+he had had long ago when he waited on the curtain
+rising at his first play. His spirits soared like the
+lark, and he took to singing. If only the inn at
+Dalquharter were snug and empty, this was going
+to be a day in ten thousand. Thus mirthfully he
+swung down the rough grass-grown road, past the
+railway, till he came to a point where heath began
+to merge in pasture, and dry-stone walls split the
+moor into fields. Suddenly his pace slackened and
+song died on his lips. For, approaching from the
+right by a tributary path, was the Poet.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Heritage saw him afar off and waved a
+friendly hand. In spite of his chagrin Dickson
+could not but confess that he had misjudged his
+critic. Striding with long steps over the heather,
+his jacket open to the wind, his face a-glow and his
+capless head like a whin-bush for disorder, he cut
+a more wholesome and picturesque figure than in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+the smoking-room the night before. He seemed
+to be in a companionable mood, for he brandished
+his stick and shouted greetings.</p>
+
+<p>"Well met!" he cried; "I was hoping to fall in
+with you again. You must have thought me a
+pretty fair cub last night."</p>
+
+<p>"I did that," was the dry answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I want to apologise. God knows what
+made me treat you to a university-extension lecture.
+I may not agree with you, but every man's entitled
+to his own views, and it was dashed poor form
+for me to start jawing you."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. McCunn had no gift of nursing anger, and
+was very susceptible to apologies.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," he murmured. "Don't mention
+it. I'm wondering what brought you down
+here, for it's off the road."</p>
+
+<p>"Caprice. Pure caprice. I liked the look of this
+butt-end of nowhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Same here. I've aye thought there was something
+terrible nice about a wee cape with a village
+at the neck of it and a burn each side."</p>
+
+<p>"Now that's interesting," said Mr. Heritage.
+"You're obsessed by a particular type of landscape.
+Ever read Freud?"</p>
+
+<p>Dickson shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you've got an odd complex somewhere.
+I wonder where the key lies. Cape&mdash;woods&mdash;two
+rivers&mdash;moor behind. Ever been in love, Dogson?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. McCunn was startled.   "Love" was a word<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+rarely mentioned in his circle except on death-beds.
+"I've been a married man for thirty years," he said
+hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>"That won't do. It should have been a hopeless
+affair&mdash;the last sight of the lady on a spur of coast
+with water on three sides&mdash;that kind of thing, you
+know. Or it might have happened to an ancestor....
+But you don't look the kind of breed for
+hopeless attachments. More likely some scoundrelly
+old Dogson long ago found sanctuary in this
+sort of place.   Do you dream about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I do. The queer thing is that I've got
+the same prepossession as you. As soon as I
+spotted this Cruives place on the map this morning,
+I saw it was what I was after. When I came
+in sight of it I almost shouted. I don't very often
+dream, but when I do that's the place I frequent.
+Odd, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. McCunn was deeply interested at this unexpected
+revelation of romance. "Maybe it's being
+in love," he daringly observed.</p>
+
+<p>The Poet demurred. "No. I'm not a connoisseur
+of obvious sentiment. That explanation might
+fit your case, but not mine. I'm pretty certain
+there's something hideous at the back of <i>my</i> complex&mdash;some
+grim old business tucked away back in
+the ages. For though I'm attracted by the place,
+I'm frightened too!"</p>
+
+<p>There seemed no room for fear in the delicate
+landscape now opening before them. In front in
+groves of birch and rowans smoked the first houses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+of a tiny village. The road had become a green
+"loaning" on the ample margin of which cattle
+grazed. The moorland still showed itself in spits
+of heather, and some distance off, where a rivulet
+ran in a hollow, there were signs of a fire and figures
+near it. These last Mr. Heritage regarded with
+disapproval.</p>
+
+<p>"Some infernal trippers!" he murmured. "Or
+Boy Scouts. They desecrate everything. Why
+can't the <i>tunicatus popellus</i> keep away from a
+paradise like this!" Dickson, a democrat who felt
+nothing incongruous in the presence of other
+holiday-makers, was meditating a sharp rejoinder,
+when Mr. Heritage's tone changed.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye gods! What a village!" he cried, as they
+turned a corner. There were not more than a
+dozen whitewashed houses, all set in little gardens
+of wallflower and daffodil and early fruit blossom.
+A triangle of green filled the intervening space, and
+in it stood an ancient wooden pump. There was
+no schoolhouse or kirk; not even a post-office&mdash;only
+a red box in a cottage side. Beyond rose the
+high wall and the dark trees of the demesne, and
+to the right up a by-road which clung to the park
+edge stood a two-storeyed building which bore the
+legend "The Cruives Inn."</p>
+
+<p>The Poet became lyrical. "At last!" he cried.
+"The village of my dreams! Not a sign of commerce!
+No church or school or beastly recreation
+hall! Nothing but these divine little cottages and
+an ancient pub! Dogson, I warn you, I'm going to
+have the devil of a tea." And he declaimed:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">"Thou shalt hear a song<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">After a while which Gods may listen to;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But place the flask upon the board and wait<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Until the stranger hath allayed his thirst,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For poets, grasshoppers and nightingales<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sing cheerily but when the throat is moist."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Dickson, too, longed with sensual gusto for tea.
+But, as they drew nearer, the inn lost its hospitable
+look. The cobbles of the yard were weedy, as if
+rarely visited by traffic, a pane in a window was
+broken, and the blinds hung tattered. The garden
+was a wilderness, and the doorstep had not been
+scoured for weeks. But the place had a landlord,
+for he had seen them approach and was waiting at
+the door to meet them.</p>
+
+<p>He was a big man in his shirt sleeves, wearing
+old riding breeches unbuttoned at the knees, and
+thick ploughman's boots. He had no leggings, and
+his fleshy calves were imperfectly covered with
+woollen socks. His face was large and pale, his
+neck bulged, and he had a gross unshaven jowl.
+He was a type familiar to students of society; not
+the innkeeper, which is a thing consistent with good
+breeding and all the refinements; a type not unknown
+in the House of Lords, especially among
+recent creations, common enough in the House of
+Commons and the City of London, and by no means
+infrequent in the governing circles of Labour; the
+type known to the discerning as the Licensed
+Victualler.</p>
+
+<p>His face was wrinkled in official smiles, and he
+gave the travellers a hearty good afternoon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Can we stop here for the night?" Dickson
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>The landlord looked sharply at him, and then
+replied to Mr. Heritage. His expression passed
+from official bonhomie to official contrition.</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible, gentlemen. Quite impossible....
+Ye couldn't have come at a worse time. I've only
+been here a fortnight myself, and we haven't got
+right shaken down yet. Even then I might have
+made shift to do with ye, but the fact is we've
+illness in the house, and I'm fair at my wits' end.
+It breaks my heart to turn gentlemen away and me
+that keen to get the business started. But there it
+is!" He spat vigorously as if to emphasise the
+desperation of his quandary.</p>
+
+<p>The man was clearly Scots, but his native speech
+was overlaid with something alien, something which
+might have been acquired in America or in going
+down to the sea in ships. He hitched his breeches,
+too, with a nautical air.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there nowhere else we can put up?" Dickson
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not in this one-horse place. Just a wheen auld
+wives that packed thegether they haven't room for
+an extra hen. But it's grand weather, and it's not
+above seven miles to Auchenlochan. Say the word
+and I'll yoke the horse and drive ye there."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. We prefer to walk," said Mr.
+Heritage. Dickson would have tarried to inquire
+after the illness in the house, but his companion
+hurried him off. Once he looked back, and saw the
+landlord still on the doorstep gazing after them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That fellow's a swine," said Mr. Heritage
+sourly. "I wouldn't trust my neck in his pothouse.
+Now, Dogson, I'm hanged if I'm going to leave this
+place. We'll find a corner in the village somehow.
+Besides, I'm determined on tea."</p>
+
+<p>The little street slept in the clear pure light of an
+early April evening. Blue shadows lay on the white
+road, and a delicate aroma of cooking tantalised
+hungry nostrils. The near meadows shone like pale
+gold against the dark lift of the moor. A light
+wind had begun to blow from the west and carried
+the faintest tang of salt. The village at that hour
+was pure Paradise, and Dickson was of the Poet's
+opinion. At all costs they must spend the night
+there.</p>
+
+<p>They selected a cottage whiter and neater than
+the others, which stood at a corner, where a narrow
+lane turned southward. Its thatched roof had
+been lately repaired, and starched curtains of a
+dazzling whiteness decorated the small, closely-shut
+windows. Likewise it had a green door and a polished
+brass knocker.</p>
+
+<p>Tacitly the duty of envoy was entrusted to Mr.
+McCunn. Leaving the other at the gate, he advanced
+up the little path lined with quartz stones,
+and politely but firmly dropped the brass knocker.
+He must have been observed, for ere the noise had
+ceased the door opened, and an elderly woman
+stood before him. She had a sharply-cut face, the
+rudiments of a beard, big spectacles on her nose,
+and an old-fashioned lace cap on her smooth white
+hair.   A little grim she looked at first sight, be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>cause
+of her thin lips and Roman nose, but her
+mild curious eyes corrected the impression and
+gave the envoy confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"Good afternoon, mistress," he said, broadening
+his voice to something more rustical than his normal
+Glasgow speech. "Me and my friend are paying
+our first visit here, and we're terrible taken up with
+the place. We would like to bide the night, but the
+inn is no' taking folk. Is there any chance, think
+you, of a bed here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll no tell ye a lee," said the woman. "There's
+twae guid beds in the loft. But I dinna tak' lodgers
+and I dinna want to be bothered wi' ye. I'm an
+auld wumman and no' as stoot as I was. Ye'd
+better try doun the street. Eppie Home micht
+tak' ye."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson wore his most ingratiating smile. "But,
+mistress, Eppie Home's house is no' yours. We've
+taken a tremendous fancy to this bit. Can you no'
+manage to put with us for the one night? We're
+quiet auld-fashioned folk and we'll no' trouble you
+much. Just our tea and maybe an egg to it, and
+a bowl of porridge in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>The woman seemed to relent. "Whaur's your
+freend?" she asked, peering over her spectacles
+towards the garden gate. The waiting Mr. Heritage,
+seeing her eyes moving in his direction, took
+off his cap with a brave gesture and advanced.
+"Glorious weather, Madam," he declared.</p>
+
+<p>"English," whispered Dickson to the woman, in
+explanation.</p>
+
+<p>She examined the Poet's neat clothes and Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+McCunn's homely garments, and apparently found
+them reassuring. "Come in," she said shortly.
+"I see ye're wilfu' folk and I'll hae to dae my best
+for ye."</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour later the two travellers,
+having been introduced to two spotless beds in the
+loft, and having washed luxuriously at the pump in
+the back yard, were seated in Mrs. Morran's
+kitchen before a meal which fulfilled their wildest
+dreams. She had been baking that morning, so
+there were white scones and barley scones, and
+oaten farles, and russet pancakes. There were
+three boiled eggs for each of them; there was a
+segment of an immense currant cake ("a present
+from my guid brither last Hogmanay"); there was
+skim-milk cheese; there were several kinds of jam,
+and there was a pot of dark-gold heather honey.
+"Try hinny and aitcake," said their hostess. "My
+man used to say he never fund onything as guid in
+a' his days."</p>
+
+<p>Presently they heard her story. Her name was
+Morran, and she had been a widow these ten years.
+Of her family her son was in South Africa, one
+daughter a lady's maid in London, and the other
+married to a schoolmaster in Kyle. The son had
+been in France fighting, and had come safely
+through. He had spent a month or two with her
+before his return, and, she feared, had found it dull.
+"There's no' a man body in the place. Naething
+but auld wives."</p>
+
+<p>That was what the innkeeper had told them.
+Mr. McCunn inquired concerning the inn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There's new folk just come. What's this they
+ca' them?&mdash;Robson&mdash;Dobson&mdash;aye, Dobson. What
+for wad they no' tak' ye in? Does the man think
+he's a laird to refuse folk that gait?"</p>
+
+<p>"He said he had illness in the house."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran meditated. "Whae in the world
+can be lyin' there? The man bides his lane. He
+got a lassie frae Auchenlochan to cook, but she and
+her box gaed off in the post-cairt yestreen. I doot
+he tell't ye a lee, though it's no for me to juidge
+him. I've never spoken a word to ane o' thae new
+folk."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson inquired about the "new folk."</p>
+
+<p>"They're a' new come in the last three weeks,
+and there's no' a man o' the auld stock left. John
+Blackstocks at the Wast Lodge dee'd o' pneumony
+last back-end, and auld Simon Tappie at the Gairdens
+flitted to Maybole a year come Mairtinmas.
+There's naebody at the Gairdens noo, but there's
+a man come to the Wast Lodge, a blackavised body
+wi' a face like bend-leather. Tam Robison used to
+bide at the South Lodge, but Tam got killed about
+Mesopotamy, and his wife took the bairns to her
+guidsire up at the Garpleheid. I seen the man
+that's in the South Lodge gaun up the street when
+I was finishin' my denner&mdash;a shilpit body and a
+lameter, but he hirples as fast as ither folk run.
+He's no' bonny to look at. I canna think what the
+factor's ettlin' at to let sic' ill-faured chiels come
+about the toun."</p>
+
+<p>Their hostess was rapidly rising in Dickson's
+esteem.   She sat very straight in her chair, eating<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+with the careful gentility of a bird, and primming
+her thin lips after every mouthful of tea.</p>
+
+<p>"Who bides in the Big House?" he asked.
+"Huntingtower is the name, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"When I was a lassie they ca'ed it Dalquharter
+Hoose, and Huntingtower was the auld rickle o'
+stanes at the sea-end. But naething wad serve the
+last laird's faither but he maun change the name,
+for he was clean daft about what they ca' antickities.
+Ye speir whae bides in the Hoose? Naebody,
+since the young laird dee'd. It's standin' cauld and
+lanely and steikit, and it aince the cheeriest dwallin'
+in a' Carrick."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran's tone grew tragic. "It's a queer
+warld wi'out the auld gentry. My faither and my
+guidsire and his faither afore him served the Kennedys,
+and my man Dauvit Morran was gemkeeper
+to them, and afore I mairried I was ane o' the table-maids.
+They were kind folk, the Kennedys, and,
+like a' the rale gentry, maist mindfu' o' them that
+served them. Sic' merry nichts I've seen in the auld
+Hoose, at Hallowe'en and Hogmanay, and at the
+servants' balls and the waddin's o' the young
+leddies! But the laird bode to waste his siller in
+stane and lime, and hadna that much to leave to his
+bairns. And now they've a' scattered or deid."</p>
+
+<p>Her grave face wore the tenderness which comes
+from affectionate reminiscence.</p>
+
+<p>"There was never sic a laddie as young Maister
+Quentin. No' a week gaed by but he was in here,
+cryin', 'Phemie Morran, I've come till my tea!'
+Fine he likit my treacle scones, puir man. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+wasna ane in the countryside sae bauld a rider at
+the hunt, or sic a skeely fisher. And he was clever
+at his books tae, a graund scholar, they said, and
+ettlin' at bein' what they ca' a dipplemat. But
+that's a' bye wi'."</p>
+
+<p>"Quentin Kennedy&mdash;the fellow in the Tins?"
+Heritage asked. "I saw him in Rome when he was
+with the Mission."</p>
+
+<p>"I dinna ken. He was a brave sodger, but he
+wasna long fechtin' in France till he got a bullet in
+his breist. Syne we heard tell o' him in far awa'
+bits like Russia; and syne cam' the end o' the war
+and we lookit to see him back, fishin' the waters
+and ridin' like Jehu as in the auld days. But wae's
+me! It wasna permitted. The next news we got,
+the puir laddie was deid o' influenzy and buried
+somewhere about France. The wanchancy bullet
+maun have weakened his chest, nae doot. So
+that's the end o' the guid stock o' Kennedy o'
+Huntingtower, whae hae been great folk sin' the
+time o' Robert Bruce. And noo the Hoose is shut
+up till the lawyers can get somebody sae far left
+to himsel' as to tak' it on lease, and in thae dear
+days it's no' just onybody that wants a muckle
+castle."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are the lawyers?" Dickson asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Glendonan and Speirs in Embro. But they
+never look near the place, and Maister Loudoun
+in Auchenlochan does the factorin'. He's let the
+public an' filled the twae lodges, and he'll be thinkin'
+nae doot that he's done eneuch."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran had poured some hot water into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+the big slop-bowl, and had begun the operation
+known as "synding out" the cups. It was a hint
+that the meal was over and Dickson and Heritage
+rose from the table. Followed by an injunction to
+be back for supper "on the chap o' nine," they
+strolled out into the evening. Two hours of some
+sort of daylight remained, and the travellers had
+that impulse to activity which comes to all men who,
+after a day of exercise and emptiness, are stayed
+with a satisfying tea.</p>
+
+<p>"You should be happy, Dogson," said the Poet.
+"Here we have all the materials for your blessed
+romance&mdash;old mansion, extinct family, village deserted
+of men and an innkeeper whom I suspect of
+being a villain. I feel almost a convert to your
+nonsense myself. We'll have a look at the House."</p>
+
+<p>They turned down the road which ran north by
+the park wall, past the inn which looked more abandoned
+than ever, till they came to an entrance which
+was clearly the West Lodge. It had once been a
+pretty, modish cottage, with a thatched roof and
+dormer windows, but now it was badly in need of
+repair. A window-pane was broken and stuffed with
+a sack, the posts of the porch were giving inwards,
+and the thatch was crumbling under the attentions
+of a colony of starlings. The great iron gates were
+rusty, and on the coat of arms above them the gilding
+was patchy and tarnished.</p>
+
+<p>Apparently the gates were locked, and even the
+side wicket failed to open to Heritage's vigorous
+shaking. Inside a weedy drive disappeared among
+ragged rhododendrons.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The noise brought a man to the lodge door. He
+was a sturdy fellow in a suit of black clothes which
+had not been made for him. He might have been a
+butler <i>en deshabille</i>, but for the presence of a pair
+of field boots into which he had tucked the ends of
+his trousers. The curious thing about him was his
+face, which was decorated with features so tiny as
+to give the impression of a monstrous child. Each
+in itself was well enough formed, but eyes, nose,
+mouth, chin were of a smallness curiously out of
+proportion to the head and body. Such an anomaly
+might have been redeemed by the expression; good-humour
+would have invested it with an air of agreeable
+farce. But there was no friendliness in the
+man's face. It was set like a judge's in a stony
+impassiveness.</p>
+
+<p>"May we walk up to the House?" Heritage
+asked. "We are here for a night and should like
+to have a look at it."</p>
+
+<p>The man advanced a step. He had either a bad
+cold, or a voice comparable in size to his features.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no entrance here," he said huskily. "I
+have strict orders."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come now," said Heritage. "It can do
+nobody any harm if you let us in for half an hour."</p>
+
+<p>The man advanced another step.</p>
+
+<p>"You shall not come in. Go away from here.
+Go away, I tell you. It is private." The words
+spoken by the small mouth in the small voice had
+a kind of childish ferocity.</p>
+
+<p>The travellers turned their back on him and continued
+their way.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Sich a curmudgeon!" Dickson commented. His
+face had flushed, for he was susceptible to rudeness.
+"Did you notice?  That man's a foreigner."</p>
+
+<p>"He's a brute," said Heritage. "But I'm not
+going to be done in by that class of lad. There can
+be no gates on the sea side, so we'll work round
+that way, for I won't sleep till I've seen the place."</p>
+
+<p>Presently the trees grew thinner, and the road
+plunged through thickets of hazel till it came to a
+sudden stop in a field. There the cover ceased
+wholly, and below them lay the glen of the Laver.
+Steep green banks descended to a stream which
+swept in coils of gold into the eye of the sunset. A
+little further down the channel broadened, the slopes
+fell back a little, and a tongue of glittering sea ran
+up to meet the hill waters. The Laver is a gentle
+stream after it leaves its cradle heights, a stream
+of clear pools and long bright shallows, winding by
+moorland steadings and upland meadows; but in its
+last half-mile it goes mad, and imitates its childhood
+when it tumbled over granite shelves. Down
+in that green place the crystal water gushed and
+frolicked as if determined on one hour of rapturous
+life before joining the sedater sea.</p>
+
+<p>Heritage flung himself on the turf.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a good place! Ye gods, what a good
+place! Dogson, aren't you glad you came? I think
+everything's bewitched to-night. That village is
+bewitched, and that old woman's tea. Good white
+magic! And that foul innkeeper and that brigand
+at the gate. Black magic! And now here is the
+home of all enchantment&mdash;'island valley of Avilion'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>&mdash;'waters
+that listen for lovers'&mdash;all the rest of it!"</p>
+
+<p>Dickson observed and marvelled.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't make you out, Mr. Heritage. You were
+saying last night you were a great democrat, and
+yet you were objecting to yon laddies camping on
+the moor. And you very near bit the neb off me
+when I said I liked Tennyson. And now...."
+Mr. McCunn's command of language was inadequate
+to describe the transformation.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a precise, pragmatical Scot," was the
+answer. "Hang it, man, don't remind me that I'm
+inconsistent. I've a poet's licence to play the fool,
+and if you don't understand me, I don't in the least
+understand myself. All I know is that I'm feeling
+young and jolly and that it's the Spring."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Heritage was assuredly in a strange mood.
+He began to whistle with a far-away look in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what that is?" he asked suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson, who could not detect any tune, said No.</p>
+
+<p>"It's an <i>aria</i> from a Russian opera that came out
+just before the war. I've forgotten the name of
+the fellow who wrote it. Jolly thing, isn't it? I
+always remind myself of it when I'm in this mood,
+for it is linked with the greatest experience of my
+life. You said, I think, that you had never been
+in love?"</p>
+
+<p>Dickson replied in the native fashion. "Have
+you?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I have, and I am&mdash;been for two years. I was
+down with my battalion on the Italian front early
+in 1918, and because I could speak the language
+they hoicked me out and sent me to Rome on a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+liaison job. It was Easter time and fine weather
+and, being glad to get out of the trenches, I was
+pretty well pleased with myself and enjoying life....
+In the place where I stayed there was a girl.
+She was a Russian, a princess of a great family, but
+a refugee and of course as poor as sin.... I remember
+how badly dressed she was among all the
+well-to-do Romans. But, my God, what a beauty!
+There was never anything in the world like her....
+She was little more than a child, and she used
+to sing that air in the morning as she went down the
+stairs.... They sent me back to the front before
+I had a chance of getting to know her, but she used
+to give me little timid good mornings, and her voice
+and eyes were like an angel's.... I'm over my
+head in love, but it's hopeless, quite hopeless. I
+shall never see her again."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I'm honoured by your confidence," said
+Dickson reverently.</p>
+
+<p>The Poet, who seemed to draw exhilaration from
+the memory of his sorrows, arose and fetched him
+a clout on the back. "Don't talk of confidence as
+if you were a reporter," he said. "What about
+that House? If we're to see it before the dark
+comes we'd better hustle."</p>
+
+<p>The green slopes on their left, as they ran seaward,
+were clothed towards their summit with a
+tangle of broom and light scrub. The two forced
+their way through this, and found to their surprise
+that on this side there were no defences of the
+Huntingtower demesne. Along the crest ran a path
+which had once been gravelled and trimmed. Be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>yond
+through a thicket of laurels and rhododendrons
+they came on a long unkempt aisle of grass,
+which seemed to be one of those side avenues often
+found in connection with old Scots dwellings. Keeping
+along this they reached a grove of beech and
+holly through which showed a dim shape of masonry.
+By a common impulse they moved stealthily,
+crouching in cover, till at the far side of the
+wood they found a sunk fence and looked over an
+acre or two of what had once been lawn and flower-beds
+to the front of the mansion.</p>
+
+<p>The outline of the building was clearly silhouetted
+against the glowing west, but since they were looking
+at the east face the detail was all in shadow.
+But, dim as it was, the sight was enough to give
+Dickson the surprise of his life. He had expected
+something old and baronial. But this was new,
+raw and new, not twenty years built. Some madness
+had prompted its creator to set up a replica of
+a Tudor house in a countryside where the thing
+was unheard of. All the tricks were there&mdash;oriel
+windows, lozenged panes, high twisted chimney
+stacks; the very stone was red, as if to imitate the
+mellow brick of some ancient Kentish manor. It
+was new, but it was also decaying. The creepers
+had fallen from the walls, the pilasters on the terrace
+were tumbling down, lichen and moss were on
+the doorsteps. Shuttered, silent, abandoned, it
+stood like a harsh <i>memento mori</i> of human hopes.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson had never before been affected by an
+inanimate thing with so strong a sense of disquiet.
+He had pictured an old stone tower on a bright<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+headland; he found instead this raw thing among
+trees. The decadence of the brand-new repels as
+something against nature, and this new thing was
+decadent. But there was a mysterious life in it, for
+though not a chimney smoked, it seemed to enshrine
+a personality and to wear a sinister <i>aura</i>. He felt
+a lively distaste, which was almost fear. He
+wanted to get far away from it as fast as possible.
+The sun, now sinking very low, sent up rays which
+kindled the crests of a group of firs to the left of
+the front door. He had the absurd fancy that they
+were torches flaming before a bier.</p>
+
+<p>It was well that the two had moved quietly and
+kept in shadow. Footsteps fell on their ears, on
+the path which threaded the lawn just beyond the
+sunk-fence. It was the keeper of the West Lodge
+and he carried something on his back, but both that
+and his face were indistinct in the half-light.</p>
+
+<p>Other footsteps were heard, coming from the
+other side of the lawn. A man's shod feet rang on
+the stone of a flagged path, and from their irregular
+fall it was plain that he was lame. The two men
+met near the door, and spoke together. Then they
+separated, and moved one down each side of the
+house. To the two watchers they had the air of a
+patrol, or of warders pacing the corridors of a
+prison.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's get out of this," said Dickson, and turned
+to go.</p>
+
+<p>The air had the curious stillness which precedes
+the moment of sunset, when the birds of day have
+stopped their noises and the sounds of night have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+not begun. But suddenly in the silence fell notes of
+music. They seemed to come from the house, a
+voice singing softly but with great beauty and
+clearness.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson halted in his steps. The tune, whatever
+it was, was like a fresh wind to blow aside his depression.
+The house no longer looked sepulchral.
+He saw that the two men had hurried back from
+their patrol, had met and exchanged some message,
+and made off again as if alarmed by the music.
+Then he noticed his companion....</p>
+
+<p>Heritage was on one knee with his face rapt and
+listening. He got to his feet and appeared to be
+about to make for the House. Dickson caught him
+by the arm and dragged him into the bushes, and
+he followed unresistingly, like a man in a dream.
+They ploughed through the thicket, recrossed the
+grass avenue, and scrambled down the hillside to
+the banks of the stream.</p>
+
+<p>Then for the first time Dickson observed that his
+companion's face was very white, and that sweat
+stood on his temples. Heritage lay down and
+lapped up water like a dog. Then he turned a wild
+eye on the other.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going back," he said. "That is the voice
+of the girl I saw in Rome, and it is singing her
+song!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<p class="center">DOUGAL</p>
+
+
+<p>"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Dickson.
+"You're coming home to your supper. It
+was to be on the chap of nine."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going back to that place."</p>
+
+<p>The man was clearly demented and must be humoured.
+"Well, you must wait till the morn's
+morning. It's very near dark now, and those are
+two ugly customers wandering about yonder. You'd
+better sleep the night on it."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Heritage seemed to be persuaded. He suffered
+himself to be led up the now dusky slopes to
+the gate where the road from the village ended.
+He walked listlessly like a man engaged in painful
+reflection. Once only he broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>"You heard the singing?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson was a very poor hand at a lie. "I heard
+something," he admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"You heard a girl's voice singing?"</p>
+
+<p>"It sounded like that," was the admission. "But
+I'm thinking it might have been a seagull."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a fool," said the Poet rudely.</p>
+
+<p>The return was a melancholy business, compared
+to the bright speed of the outward journey. Dickson's
+mind was a chaos of feelings, all of them
+unpleasant. He had run up against something<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+which he violently, blindly detested, and the trouble
+was that he could not tell why. It was all perfectly
+absurd, for why on earth should an ugly house,
+some overgrown trees and a couple of ill-favoured
+servants so malignly affect him? Yet this was the
+fact; he had strayed out of Arcady into a sphere
+that filled him with revolt and a nameless fear.
+Never in his experience had he felt like this, this
+foolish childish panic which took all the colour and
+zest out of life. He tried to laugh at himself but
+failed. Heritage, stumbling alone by his side, effectually
+crushed his effort to discover humour in
+the situation. Some exhalation from that infernal
+place had driven the Poet mad. And then that
+voice singing! A seagull, he had said. More like
+a nightingale, he reflected&mdash;a bird which in the
+flesh he had never met.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran had the lamp lit and a fire burning
+in her cheerful kitchen. The sight of it somewhat
+restored Dickson's equanimity, and to his surprise
+he found that he had an appetite for supper. There
+was new milk, thick with cream, and most of the
+dainties which had appeared at tea, supplemented
+by a noble dish of shimmering "potted-head." The
+hostess did not share their meal, being engaged in
+some duties in the little cubby-hole known as the
+back kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>Heritage drank a glass of milk but would not
+touch food.</p>
+
+<p>"I called this place Paradise four hours ago," he
+said. "So it is, but I fancy it is next door to Hell.
+There is something devilish going on inside that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+park wall and I mean to get to the bottom of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Hoots! Nonsense!" Dickson replied with affected
+cheerfulness. "To-morrow you and me will
+take the road for Auchenlochan. We needn't trouble
+ourselves about an ugly old house and a wheen
+impident lodge-keepers."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow I'm going to get inside the place.
+Don't come unless you like, but it's no use arguing
+with me.  My mind is made up."</p>
+
+<p>Heritage cleared a space on the table and spread
+out a section of a large-scale Ordnance map.</p>
+
+<p>"I must clear my head about the topography, the
+same as if this were a battle-ground. Look here,
+Dogson.... The road past the inn that we went
+by to-night runs north and south." He tore a page
+from a note-book and proceeded to make a rough
+sketch.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>... "One end we know abuts on the
+Laver glen, and the other stops at the South Lodge.
+Inside the wall which follows the road is a long belt
+of plantation&mdash;mostly beeches and ash&mdash;then to the
+west a kind of park, and beyond that the lawns of
+the house. Strips of plantation with avenues between
+follow the north and south sides of the park.
+On the sea side of the House are the stables and
+what looks like a walled garden, and beyond them
+what seems to be open ground with an old dovecot
+marked and the ruins of Huntingtower keep. Beyond
+that there is more open ground, till you come
+to the cliffs of the cape. Have you got that?...
+It looks possible from the contouring to get on to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+the sea cliffs by following the Laver, for all that
+side is broken up into ravines.... But look at the
+other side&mdash;the Garple glen. It's evidently a deep-cut
+gully, and at the bottom it opens out into a little
+harbour. There's deep water there, you observe.
+Now the House on the south side&mdash;the Garple side&mdash;is
+built fairly close to the edge of the cliffs. Is
+that all clear in your head? We can't reconnoitre
+unless we've got a working notion of the lie of the
+land."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson was about to protest that he had no intention
+of reconnoitring, when a hubbub arose in
+the back kitchen. Mrs. Morran's voice was heard
+in shrill protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye ill laddie! Eh&mdash;ye&mdash;ill&mdash;laddie! [<i>crescendo</i>]
+Makin' a hash o' my back door wi' your dirty feet!
+What are ye slinkin' roond here for, when I tell't
+ye this mornin' that I wad sell ye nae mair scones
+till ye paid for the last lot? Ye're a wheen thievin'
+hungry callants, and if there were a polisman in the
+place I'd gie ye in chairge.... What's that ye
+say? Ye're no' wantin' meat? Ye want to speak
+to the gentlemen that's bidin' here? Ye ken the
+auld ane, says you? I believe it's a muckle lee, but
+there's the gentlemen to answer ye theirsels."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran, brandishing a dishclout dramatically,
+flung open the door, and with a vigorous
+push propelled into the kitchen a singular figure.</p>
+
+<p>It was a stunted boy, who from his face might
+have been fifteen years old, but had the stature of
+a child of twelve. He had a thatch of fiery red
+hair above a pale freckled countenance. His nose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+was snub, his eyes a sulky grey-green, and his wide
+mouth disclosed large and damaged teeth. But remarkable
+as was his visage, his clothing was still
+stranger. On his head was the regulation Boy
+Scout hat, but it was several sizes too big, and was
+squashed down upon his immense red ears. He
+wore a very ancient khaki shirt, which had once belonged
+to a full-grown soldier, and the spacious
+sleeves were rolled up at the shoulders and tied
+with string, revealing a pair of skinny arms. Round
+his middle hung what was meant to be a kilt&mdash;a
+kilt of home manufacture, which may once have been
+a tablecloth, for its bold pattern suggested no
+known clan tartan. He had a massive belt, in
+which was stuck a broken gully-knife, and round
+his neck was knotted the remnant of what had once
+been a silk bandana. His legs and feet were bare,
+blue, scratched, and very dirty, and his toes had the
+prehensile look common to monkeys and small boys
+who summer and winter go bootless. In his hand
+was a long ash-pole, new cut from some coppice.</p>
+
+<p>The apparition stood glum and lowering on the
+kitchen floor. As Dickson stared at it he recalled
+Mearns Street and the band of irregular Boy
+Scouts who paraded to the roll of tin cans. Before
+him stood Dougal, Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards.
+Suddenly he remembered the philanthropic
+Mackintosh, and his own subscription of ten pounds
+to the camp fund. It pleased him to find the rascals
+here, for in the unpleasant affairs on the verge of
+which he felt himself they were a comforting reminder
+of the peace of home.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad to see you, Dougal," he said pleasantly.
+"How are you all getting on?" And then, with a
+vague reminiscence of the Scouts' code&mdash;"Have
+you been minding to perform a good deed every
+day?"</p>
+
+<p>The Chieftain's brow darkened.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Good deeds!</i>'" he repeated bitterly. "I tell
+ye I'm fair wore out wi' good deeds. Yon man
+Mackintosh tell't me this was going to be a grand
+holiday. Holiday! Govey Dick! It's been like
+a Setterday night in Main Street&mdash;a' fechtin',
+fechtin'."</p>
+
+<p>No collocation of letters could reproduce Dougal's
+accent, and I will not attempt it. There was a
+touch of Irish in it, a spice of music-hall patter, as
+well as the odd lilt of the Glasgow vernacular. He
+was strong in vowels, but the consonants, especially
+the letter "t," were only aspirations.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down and let's hear about things," said
+Dickson.</p>
+
+<p>The boy turned his head to the still open back
+door, where Mrs. Morran could be heard at her
+labours. He stepped across and shut it. "I'm no'
+wantin' that auld wife to hear," he said. Then he
+squatted down on the patchwork rug by the hearth,
+and warmed his blue-black shins. Looking into the
+glow of the fire, he observed, "I seen you two up by
+the Big Hoose the night."</p>
+
+<p>"The devil you did," said Heritage, roused to a
+sudden attention. "And where were you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Seven feet from your head, up a tree. It's my
+chief hidy-hole, and Gosh! I need one, for Lean's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+after me wi' a gun. He got a shot at me two days
+syne."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson exclaimed, and Dougal with morose pride
+showed a rent in his kilt. "If I had had on breeks,
+he'd ha' got me."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's Lean?" Heritage asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The man wi' the black coat. The other&mdash;the
+lame one&mdash;they ca' Spittal."</p>
+
+<p>"How d'you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've listened to them crackin' thegither."</p>
+
+<p>"But what for did the man want to shoot at
+you?" asked the scandalised Dickson.</p>
+
+<p>"What for? Because they're frightened to death
+o' onybody going near their auld Hoose. They're
+a pair of deevils, worse nor any Red Indian, but
+for a' that they're sweatin' wi' fright. What for?
+says you. Because they're hidin' a Secret. I knew
+it as soon as I seen the man Lean's face. I once
+seen the same kind o' scoondrel at the Picters.
+When he opened his mouth to swear, I kenned he
+was a foreigner, like the lads down at the
+Broomielaw. That looked black, but I hadn't got
+at the worst of it. Then he loosed off at me wi'
+his gun."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you not feared?" said Dickson.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, I was feared. But ye'll no' choke off the
+Gorbals Die-Hards wi' a gun. We held a meetin'
+round the camp fire, and we resolved to get to the
+bottom o' the business. Me bein' their Chief, it
+was my duty to make what they ca' a reckonissince,
+for that was the dangerous job. So a' this day I've<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+been going on my belly about thae policies. I've
+found out some queer things."</p>
+
+<p>Heritage had risen and was staring down at the
+small squatting figure.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you found out? Quick. Tell me
+at once." His voice was sharp and excited.</p>
+
+<p>"Bide a wee," said the unwinking Dougal. "I'm
+no' going to let ye into this business till I ken that
+ye'll help. It's a far bigger job than I thought.
+There's more in it than Lean and Spittal. There's
+the big man that keeps the public&mdash;Dobson, they
+ca' him. He's a Namerican, which looks bad. And
+there's two-three tinklers campin' down in the
+Garple Dean. They're in it, for Dobson was colloguin'
+wi' them a' mornin'. When I seen ye, I
+thought ye were more o' the gang, till I mindit that
+one o' ye was auld McCunn that has the shop in
+Mearns Street. I seen that ye didn't like the look
+o' Lean, and I followed ye here, for I was thinkin'
+I needit help."</p>
+
+<p>Heritage plucked Dougal by the shoulder and
+lifted him to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, boy," he cried, "tell us what
+you know!"</p>
+
+<p>"Will ye help?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, you little fool."</p>
+
+<p>"Then swear," said the ritualist. From a grimy
+wallet he extracted a limp little volume which
+proved to be a damaged copy of a work entitled
+<i>Sacred Songs and Solos</i>. "Here! Take that in
+your right hand and put your left hand on my pole,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+and say after me, 'I swear no' to blab what is telled
+me in secret and to be swift and sure in obeyin'
+orders, s'help me God!' Syne kiss the bookie."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson at first refused, declaring it was all
+havers, but Heritage's docility persuaded him to
+follow suit. The two were sworn.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Heritage.</p>
+
+<p>Dougal squatted again on the hearth-rug, and
+gathered the eyes of his audience. He was enjoying
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>"This day," he said slowly, "I got inside the
+Hoose."</p>
+
+<p>"Stout fellow," said Heritage; "and what did you
+find there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I got inside that Hoose, but it wasn't once or
+twice I tried. I found a corner where I was out o'
+sight o' anybody unless they had come there seekin'
+me, and I sklimmed up a rone pipe, but a' the
+windies were lockit and I verra near broke my neck.
+Syne I tried the roof, and a sore sklim I had, but
+when I got there there were no skylights. At the
+end I got in by the coal-hole. That's why ye're
+maybe thinkin' I'm no' very clean."</p>
+
+<p>Heritage's patience was nearly exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to hear how you got in. What
+did you find, you little devil?"</p>
+
+<p>"Inside the Hoose," said Dougal slowly (and
+there was a melancholy sense of anti-climax in his
+voice, as of one who had hoped to speak of gold
+and jewels and armed men)&mdash;"inside that Hoose
+there's nothing but two women."</p>
+
+<p>Heritage sat down before him with a stern face.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Describe them," he commanded.</p>
+
+<p>"One o' them is dead auld, as auld as the wife
+here. She didn't look to me very right in the head."</p>
+
+<p>"And the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, just a lassie."</p>
+
+<p>"What was she like?"</p>
+
+<p>Dougal seemed to be searching for adequate
+words. "She is ..." he began. Then a popular
+song gave him inspiration. "She's pure as the lully
+in the dell!"</p>
+
+<p>In no way discomposed by Heritage's fierce interrogatory
+air, he continued: "She's either foreign
+or English, for she couldn't understand what I said,
+and I could make nothing o' her clippit tongue. But
+I could see she had been greetin'. She looked
+feared, yet kind o' determined. I speired if I could
+do anything for her, and when she got my meaning
+she was terrible anxious to ken if I had seen a man&mdash;a
+big man, she said, wi' a yellow beard. She
+didn't seem to ken his name, or else she wouldn't
+tell me. The auld wife was mortal feared, and was
+aye speakin' in a foreign langwidge. I seen at once
+that what frightened them was Lean and his
+friends, and I was just starting to speir about them
+when there came a sound like a man walkin' along
+the passage. She was for hidin' me in behind a
+sofy, but I wasn't going to be trapped like that, so
+I got out by the other door and down the kitchen
+stairs and into the coal-hole. Gosh, it was a near
+thing!"</p>
+
+<p>The boy was on his feet. "I must be off to the
+camp to give out the orders for the morn. I'm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+going back to that Hoose, for it's a fight atween
+the Gorbals Die-Hards and the scoundrels that are
+frightenin' thae women. The question is, Are ye
+comin' with me? Mind, ye've sworn. But if ye're
+no', I'm going mysel', though I'll no' deny I'd be
+glad o' company. <i>You</i> anyway&mdash;&mdash;" he added,
+nodding at Heritage. "Maybe auld McCunn
+wouldn't get through the coal-hole."</p>
+
+<p>"You're an impident laddie," said the outraged
+Dickson. "It's no' likely we're coming with you.
+Breaking into other folks' houses! It's a job for
+the police!"</p>
+
+<p>"Please yersel'," said the Chieftain and looked
+at Heritage.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm on," said that gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, just you set out the morn as if ye were
+for a walk up the Garple glen. I'll be on the road
+and I'll have orders for ye."</p>
+
+<p>Without more ado Dougal left by way of the
+back kitchen. There was a brief denunciation from
+Mrs. Morran, then the outer door banged and he
+was gone.</p>
+
+<p>The Poet sat still with his head in his hands,
+while Dickson, acutely uneasy, prowled about the
+floor.  He had forgotten even to light his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll not be thinking of heeding that ragamuffin
+boy," he ventured.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm certainly going to get into the House to-morrow,"
+Heritage answered, "and if he can show
+me a way so much the better. He's a spirited
+youth. Do you breed many like him in Glasgow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty," said Dickson sourly.   "See here, Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+Heritage. You can't expect me to be going about
+burgling houses on the word of a blagyird laddie.
+I'm a respectable man&mdash;aye been. Besides, I'm
+here for a holiday, and I've no call to be mixing
+myself up in strangers' affairs."</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't. Only, you see, I think there's a
+friend of mine in that place, and anyhow there are
+women in trouble. If you like, we'll say good-bye
+after breakfast, and you can continue as if you had
+never turned aside to this damned peninsula. But
+I've got to stay."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson groaned. What had become of his
+dream of idylls, his gentle bookish romance? Vanished
+before a reality which smacked horribly of
+crude melodrama and possibly of sordid crime.
+His gorge rose at the picture, but a thought troubled
+him. Perhaps all romance in its hour of happening
+was rough and ugly like this, and only shone
+rosy in the retrospect. Was he being false to his
+deepest faith?</p>
+
+<p>"Let's have Mrs. Morran in," he ventured.
+"She's a wise old body and I'd like to hear her
+opinion of this business. We'll get common sense
+from her."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't object," said Heritage. "But no amount
+of common sense will change my mind."</p>
+
+<p>Their hostess forestalled them by returning at
+that moment to the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"We want your advice, mistress," Dickson told
+her, and accordingly, like a barrister with a client,
+she seated herself carefully in the big easy chair,
+found and adjusted her spectacles, and waited with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+hands folded on her lap to hear the business.
+Dickson narrated their pre-supper doings, and gave
+a sketch of Dougal's evidence. His exposition was
+cautious and colourless, and without conviction. He
+seemed to expect a robust incredulity in his hearer.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran listened with the gravity of one in
+church. When Dickson finished she seemed to
+meditate.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no blagyird trick that would surprise me
+in thae new folk. What's that ye ca' them&mdash;Lean
+and Spittal? Eppie Home threepit to me they
+were furriners and these are no furrin names."</p>
+
+<p>"What I want to hear from you, Mrs. Morran,"
+said Dickson impressively, "is whether you think
+there's anything in that boy's story?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it's maist likely true. He's a terrible
+impident callant, but he's no' a leear."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you think that a gang of ruffians have got
+two lone women shut up in that House for their
+own purposes?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wadna wonder."</p>
+
+<p>"But it's ridiculous! This is a Christian and
+law-abiding country.  What would the police say?"</p>
+
+<p>"They never troubled Dalquharter muckle.
+There's no' a polisman nearer than Knockraw&mdash;yin
+Johnnie Trummle, and he's as useless as a frostit
+tattie."</p>
+
+<p>"The wiselike thing, as I think," said Dickson,
+"would be to turn the Procurator-Fiscal on to the
+job.   It's his business, no' ours."</p>
+
+<p>"Weel, I wadna say but ye're richt," said the
+lady.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What would you do if you were us?" Dickson's
+tone was subtly confidential. "My friend here
+wants to get into the House the morn with that
+red-haired laddie to satisfy himself about the facts.
+I say no. Let sleeping dogs lie, I say, and if you
+think the beasts are mad report to the authorities.
+What would you do yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I were you," came the emphatic reply, "I
+would tak' the first train hame the morn, and when
+I got hame I wad bide there. Ye're a dacent body,
+but ye're no' the kind to be traivellin' the roads."</p>
+
+<p>"And if you were me?" Heritage asked with his
+queer crooked smile.</p>
+
+<p>"If I was a young and yauld like you I wad gang
+into the Hoose, and I wadna rest till I had riddled
+oot the truith and jyled every scoondrel about the
+place. If ye dinna gang, 'faith I'll kilt my coats
+and gang mysel'. I havena served the Kennedys
+for forty year no' to hae the honour o' the Hoose
+at my hert.... Ye speired my advice, sirs, and
+ye've gotten it. Now I maun clear awa' your
+supper."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson asked for a candle, and, as on the previous
+night, went abruptly to bed. The oracle of
+prudence to which he had appealed had betrayed
+him and counselled folly. But was it folly? For
+him, assuredly, for Dickson McCunn, late of
+Mearns Street, Glasgow, wholesale and retail provision
+merchant, elder in the Guthrie Memorial
+Kirk, and fifty-five years of age. Ay, that was the
+rub. He was getting old. The woman had seen
+it and had advised him to go home.  Yet the plea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+was curiously irksome, though it gave him the excuse
+he needed. If you played at being young, you
+had to take up the obligations of youth, and he
+thought derisively of his boyish exhilaration of the
+past days. Derisively, but also sadly. What had
+become of that innocent joviality he had dreamed
+of, that happy morning pilgrimage of Spring enlivened
+by tags from the poets? His goddess had
+played him false. Romance had put upon him too
+hard a trial.</p>
+
+<p>He lay long awake, torn between common sense
+and a desire to be loyal to some vague whimsical
+standard. Heritage a yard distant appeared also
+to be sleepless, for the bed creaked with his turning.
+Dickson found himself envying one whose
+troubles, whatever they might be, were not those
+of a divided mind.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<p class="center">OF THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER</p>
+
+
+<p>Very early next morning, while Mrs. Morran
+was still cooking breakfast, Dickson and
+Heritage might have been observed taking the air
+in the village street. It was the Poet who had insisted
+upon this walk, and he had his own purpose.
+They looked at the spires of smoke piercing the
+windless air, and studied the daffodils in the cottage
+gardens. Dickson was glum, but Heritage seemed
+in high spirits. He varied his garrulity with spells
+of cheerful whistling.</p>
+
+<p>They strode along the road by the park wall till
+they reached the inn. There Heritage's music
+waxed peculiarly loud. Presently from the yard,
+unshaven and looking as if he had slept in his
+clothes, came Dobson the innkeeper.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning," said the Poet. "I hope the
+sickness in your house is on the mend?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank ye, it's no worse," was the reply, but in
+the man's heavy face there was little civility. His
+small grey eyes searched their faces.</p>
+
+<p>"We're just waiting on breakfast to get on the
+road again. I'm jolly glad we spent the night here.
+We found quarters after all, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"So I see. Whereabouts, may I ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Morran's. We could always have got in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+there, but we didn't want to fuss an old lady, so
+we thought we'd try the inn first. She's my friend's
+aunt."</p>
+
+<p>At this amazing falsehood Dickson started, and
+the man observed his surprise. The eyes were
+turned on him like a searchlight. They roused
+antagonism in his peaceful soul, and with that antagonism
+came an impulse to back up the Poet.
+"Ay," he said, "she's my Auntie Phemie, my
+mother's half-sister."</p>
+
+<p>The man turned on Heritage.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are ye for the day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Auchenlochan," said Dickson hastily. He was
+still determined to shake the dust of Dalquharter
+from his feet.</p>
+
+<p>The innkeeper sensibly brightened. "Well, ye'll
+have a fine walk. I must go in and see about my
+own breakfast. Good day to ye, gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>"That," said Heritage as they entered the village
+street again, "is the first step in camouflage, to
+put the enemy off his guard."</p>
+
+<p>"It was an abominable lie," said Dickson crossly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. It was a necessary and proper <i>ruse
+de guerre</i>. It explained why we spent the night
+here, and now Dobson and his friends can get about
+their day's work with an easy mind. Their suspicions
+are temporarily allayed, and that will make
+our job easier."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not coming with you."</p>
+
+<p>"I never said you were. By 'we' I refer to myself
+and the red-headed boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Mistress, you're my auntie," Dickson informed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+Mrs. Morran as she set the porridge on the table.
+"This gentleman has just been telling the man at
+the inn that you're my Auntie Phemie."</p>
+
+<p>For a second their hostess looked bewildered.
+Then the corners of her prim mouth moved upwards
+in a slow smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," she said. "Weel, maybe it was weel
+done. But if ye're my nevoy ye'll hae to keep up
+my credit, for we're a bauld and siccar lot."</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later there was a furious dissension
+when Dickson attempted to pay for the night's
+entertainment. Mrs. Morran would have none of
+it. "Ye're no' awa' yet," she said tartly, and the
+matter was complicated by Heritage's refusal to
+take part in the debate. He stood aside and
+grinned, till Dickson in despair returned his note-case
+to his pocket, murmuring darkly that "he
+would send it from Glasgow."</p>
+
+<p>The road to Auchenlochan left the main village
+street at right angles by the side of Mrs. Morran's
+cottage. It was a better road than that which they
+had come yesterday, for by it twice daily the post-cart
+travelled to the post-town. It ran on the edge
+of the moor and on the lip of the Garple glen, till
+it crossed that stream and, keeping near the coast,
+emerged after five miles into the cultivated flats of
+the Lochan valley. The morning was fine, the keen
+air invited to high spirits, plovers piped entrancingly
+over the bent and linnets sang in the whins,
+there was a solid breakfast behind him, and the
+promise of a cheerful road till luncheon. The stage
+was set for good humour, but Dickson's heart, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+should have been ascending with the larks, stuck
+leadenly in his boots. He was not even relieved at
+putting Dalquharter behind him. The atmosphere
+of that unhallowed place lay still on his soul. He
+hated it, but he hated himself more. Here was one,
+who had hugged himself all his days as an adventurer
+waiting his chance, running away at the first
+challenge of adventure; a lover of Romance who
+fled from the earliest overture of his goddess. He
+was ashamed and angry, but what else was there to
+do? Burglary in the company of a queer poet and
+a queerer urchin?  It was unthinkable.</p>
+
+<p>Presently as they tramped silently on they came
+to the bridge beneath which the peaty waters of the
+Garple ran in porter-coloured pools and tawny
+cascades. From a clump of elders on the other side
+Dougal emerged. A barefoot boy, dressed in much
+the same parody of a Boy Scout's uniform, but with
+corduroy shorts instead of a kilt, stood before him
+at rigid attention. Some command was issued, the
+child saluted, and trotted back past the travellers
+with never a look at them. Discipline was strong
+among the Gorbals Die-Hards; no Chief of Staff
+ever conversed with his General under a stricter
+etiquette.</p>
+
+<p>Dougal received the travellers with the condescension
+of a regular towards civilians.</p>
+
+<p>"They're off their gawrd," he announced.
+"Thomas Yownie has been shadowin' them since
+skreigh o' day, and he reports that Dobson and
+Lean followed ye till ye were out o' sight o' the
+houses, and syne Lean got a spy-glass and watched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+ye till the road turned in among the trees. That
+satisfied them, and they're both away back to their
+jobs. Thomas Yownie's the fell yin. Ye'll no fickle
+Thomas Yownie."</p>
+
+<p>Dougal extricated from his pouch the fag of a
+cigarette, lit it and puffed meditatively. "I did a
+reckonissince mysel' this morning. I was up at the
+Hoose afore it was light, and tried the door o' the
+coal-hole. I doot they've gotten on our tracks, for
+it was lockit&mdash;ay, and wedged from the inside."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson brightened. Was the insane venture off?</p>
+
+<p>"For a wee bit I was fair beat. But I mindit
+that the lassie was allowed to walk in a kind o' a
+glass hoose on the side farthest away from the
+Garple. That was where she was singin' yest'reen.
+So I reckonissinced in that direction, and I fund a
+queer place." <i>Sacred Songs and Solos</i> was requisitioned,
+and on a page of it Dougal proceeded to
+make marks with the stump of a carpenter's pencil.
+"See here," he commanded. "There's the glass
+place wi' a door into the Hoose. That door must
+be open or the lassie must have the key, for she
+comes there whenever she likes. Now, at each end
+o' the place the doors are lockit, but the front that
+looks on the garden is open, wi' muckle posts and
+flower-pots. The trouble is that that side there's
+maybe twenty feet o' a wall between the pawrapet
+and the ground. It's an auld wall wi' cracks and
+holes in it, and it wouldn't be ill to sklim. That's
+why they let her gang there when she wants, for a
+lassie couldn't get away without breakin' her neck."</p>
+
+<p>"Could we climb it?" Heritage asked.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The boy wrinkled his brows. "I could manage
+it mysel'&mdash;I think&mdash;and maybe you. I doubt if auld
+McCunn could get up. Ye'd have to be mighty
+carefu' that nobody saw ye, for your hinder end,
+as ye were sklimmin', wad be a grand mark for a
+gun."</p>
+
+<p>"Lead on," said Heritage. "We'll try the
+verandah."</p>
+
+<p>They both looked at Dickson, and Dickson,
+scarlet in the face, looked back at them. He had
+suddenly found the thought of a solitary march to
+Auchenlochan intolerable. Once again he was at
+the parting of the ways, and once more caprice determined
+his decision. That the coal-hole was out
+of the question had worked a change in his views.
+Somehow it seemed to him less burglarious to enter
+by a verandah. He felt very frightened but&mdash;for
+the moment&mdash;quite resolute.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm coming with you," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Sportsman," said Heritage and held out his
+hand. "Well done, the auld yin," said the Chieftain
+of the Gorbals Die-Hards. Dickson's quaking
+heart experienced a momentary bound as he followed
+Heritage down the track into the Garple
+Dean.</p>
+
+<p>The track wound through a thick covert of
+hazels, now close to the rushing water, now high
+upon the bank so that clear sky showed through the
+fringes of the wood. When they had gone a little
+way Dougal halted them.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a ticklish job," he whispered. "There's the
+tinklers, mind, that's campin' in the Dean.   If<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+they're still in their camp we can get by easy enough,
+but they're maybe wanderin' about the wud after
+rabbits.... Then we must ford the water, for
+ye'll no' cross it lower down where it's deep....
+Our road is on the Hoose side o' the Dean and it's
+awfu' public if there's onybody on the other side,
+though it's hid well enough from folk up in the
+policies.... Ye must do exactly what I tell ye.
+When we get near danger I'll scout on ahead, and
+I daur ye to move a hair o' your head till I give
+the word."</p>
+
+<p>Presently, when they were at the edge of the
+water, Dougal announced his intention of crossing.
+Three boulders in the stream made a bridge for an
+active man and Heritage hopped lightly over. Not
+so Dickson, who stuck fast on the second stone, and
+would certainly have fallen in had not Dougal
+plunged into the current and steadied him with a
+grimy hand. The leap was at last successfully
+taken, and the three scrambled up a rough scaur,
+all reddened with iron springs, till they struck a
+slender track running down the Dean on its northern
+side. Here the undergrowth was very thick, and
+they had gone the better part of half a mile before
+the covert thinned sufficiently to show them the
+stream beneath. Then Dougal halted them with a
+finger on his lips, and crept forward alone.</p>
+
+<p>He returned in three minutes. "Coast's clear,"
+he whispered. "The tinklers are eatin' their breakfast.
+They're late at their meat though they're up
+early seekin' it."</p>
+
+<p>Progress was now very slow and secret and mainly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+on all fours. At one point Dougal nodded downward,
+and the other two saw on a patch of turf,
+where the Garple began to widen into its estuary,
+a group of figures round a small fire. There were
+four of them, all men, and Dickson thought he had
+never seen such ruffianly-looking customers. After
+that they moved high up the slope, in a shallow
+glade of a tributary burn, till they came out of the
+trees and found themselves looking seaward.</p>
+
+<p>On one side was the House, a hundred yards or
+so back from the edge, the roof showing above the
+precipitous scarp. Half-way down the slope became
+easier, a jumble of boulders and boiler-plates, till
+it reached the waters of the small haven, which
+lay calm as a mill-pond in the windless forenoon.
+The haven broadened out at its foot and revealed
+a segment of blue sea. The opposite shore was
+flatter and showed what looked like an old wharf
+and the ruins of buildings, behind which rose a bank
+clad with scrub and surmounted by some gnarled
+and wind-crooked firs.</p>
+
+<p>"There's dashed little cover here," said Heritage.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no muckle," Dougal assented. "But
+they canna see us from the policies, and it's no' like
+there's anybody watchin' from the Hoose. The
+danger is somebody on the other side, but we'll
+have to risk it. Once among thae big stones we're
+safe. Are ye ready?"</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later Dickson found himself gasping
+in the lee of a boulder, while Dougal was
+making a cast forward. The scout returned with
+a hopeful report.   "I think we're safe, till we get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+into the policies. There's a road that the auld folk
+made when ships used to come here. Down there
+it's deeper than Clyde at the Broomilaw. Has the
+auld yin got his wind yet? There's no time to
+waste."</p>
+
+<p>Up that broken hillside they crawled, well in the
+cover of the tumbled stones, till they reached a low
+wall which was the boundary of the garden. The
+House was now behind them on their right rear,
+and as they topped the crest they had a glimpse of
+an ancient dovecot and the ruins of the old Huntingtower
+on the short thymy turf which ran seaward
+to the cliffs. Dougal led them along a sunk fence
+which divided the downs from the lawns behind the
+house, and, avoiding the stables, brought them by
+devious ways to a thicket of rhododendrons and
+broom. On all fours they travelled the length of
+the place, and came to the edge where some forgotten
+gardeners had once tended a herbaceous
+border. The border was now rank and wild, and,
+lying flat under the shade of an azalea, and peering
+through the young spears of iris, Dickson and Heritage
+regarded the north-western façade of the house.</p>
+
+<p>The ground before them had been a sunken
+garden, from which a steep wall, once covered with
+creepers and rock plants, rose to a long verandah,
+which was pillared and open on that side; but at
+each end built up half-way and glazed for the rest.
+There was a glass roof, and inside untended shrubs
+sprawled in broken plaster vases.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye must bide here," said Dougal, "and no cheep
+above your breath. Afore we dare to try that wall,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+I must ken where Lean and Spittal and Dobson are.
+I'm off to spy the policies." He glided out of sight
+behind a clump of pampas grass.</p>
+
+<p>For hours, so it seemed, Dickson was left to his
+own unpleasant reflections. His body, prone on the
+moist earth, was fairly comfortable, but his mind
+was ill at ease. The scramble up the hillside had
+convinced him that he was growing old, and there
+was no rebound in his soul to counter the conviction.
+He felt listless, spiritless&mdash;an apathy with
+fright trembling somewhere at the back of it. He
+regarded the verandah wall with foreboding. How
+on earth could he climb that? And if he did there
+would be his exposed hinder-parts inviting a shot
+from some malevolent gentleman among the trees.
+He reflected that he would give a large sum of
+money to be out of this preposterous adventure.</p>
+
+<p>Heritage's hand was stretched towards him, containing
+two of Mrs. Morran's jellied scones, of
+which the Poet had been wise enough to bring a
+supply in his pocket. The food cheered him, for
+he was growing very hungry, and he began to take
+an interest in the scene before him instead of his
+own thoughts. He observed every detail of the
+verandah. There was a door at one end, he noted,
+giving on a path which wound down to the sunk
+garden. As he looked he heard a sound of steps
+and saw a man ascending this path.</p>
+
+<p>It was the lame man whom Dougal had called
+Spittal, the dweller in the South Lodge. Seen at
+closer quarters he was an odd-looking being, lean
+as a heron, wry-necked, but amazingly quick on his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+feet. Had not Mrs. Morran said that he hobbled
+as fast as other folk ran? He kept his eyes on the
+ground and seemed to be talking to himself as he
+went, but he was alert enough, for the dropping
+of a twig from a dying magnolia transferred him
+in an instant into a figure of active vigilance. No
+risks could be run with that watcher. He took a
+key from his pocket, opened the garden door and
+entered the verandah. For a moment his shuffle
+sounded on its tiled floor, and then he entered the
+door admitting from the verandah to the House. It
+was clearly unlocked for there came no sound of
+a turning key.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson had finished the last crumbs of his
+scones before the man emerged again. He seemed
+to be in a greater hurry than ever, as he locked the
+garden door behind him and hobbled along the west
+front of the House till he was lost to sight. After
+that the time passed slowly. A pair of yellow wagtails
+arrived and played at hide-and-seek among the
+stuccoed pillars. The little dry scratch of their
+claws was heard clearly in the still air. Dickson
+had almost fallen asleep when a smothered exclamation
+from Heritage woke him to attention. A girl
+had appeared in the verandah.</p>
+
+<p>Above the parapet he saw only her body from
+the waist up. She seemed to be clad in bright
+colours, for something red was round her shoulders
+and her hair was bound with an orange scarf. She
+was tall&mdash;that he could tell, tall and slim and very
+young. Her face was turned seaward, and she
+stood for a little scanning the broad channel, shad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>ing
+her eyes as if to search for something on the
+extreme horizon. The air was very quiet and he
+thought that he could hear her sigh. Then she
+turned and re-entered the House, while Heritage by
+his side began to curse under his breath with a
+shocking fervour.</p>
+
+<p>One of Dickson's troubles had been that he did
+not really believe Dougal's story, and the sight of
+the girl removed one doubt. That bright exotic
+thing did not belong to the Cruives or to Scotland
+at all, and that she should be in the House removed
+the place from the conventional dwelling to which
+the laws against burglary applied.</p>
+
+<p>There was a rustle among the rhododendrons and
+the fiery face of Dougal appeared. He lay between
+the other two, his chin on his hands, and grunted
+out his report.</p>
+
+<p>"After they had their dinner Dobson and Lean
+yokit a horse and went off to Auchenlochan. I seen
+them pass the Garple brig, so that's two accounted
+for. Has Spittal been round here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Half an hour ago," said Heritage, consulting a
+wrist watch.</p>
+
+<p>"It was him that keepit me waitin' so long. But
+he's safe enough now, for five minutes syne he was
+splittin' firewood at the back door o' his hoose....
+I've found a ladder, an auld yin in ahint yon
+lot o' bushes. It'll help wi' the wall. There! I've
+gotten my breath again and we can start."</p>
+
+<p>The ladder was fetched by Heritage and proved
+to be ancient and wanting many rungs, but sufficient
+in length. The three stood silent for a moment,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+listening like stags, and then ran across the intervening
+lawn to the foot of the verandah wall.
+Dougal went up first, then Heritage, and lastly
+Dickson, stiff and giddy from his long lie under the
+bushes. Below the parapet the verandah floor was
+heaped with old garden litter, rotten matting, dead
+or derelict bulbs, fibre, withies and strawberry nets.
+It was Dougal's intention to pull up the ladder and
+hide it among the rubbish against the hour of departure.
+But Dickson had barely put his foot on
+the parapet when there was a sound of steps within
+the House approaching the verandah door.</p>
+
+<p>The ladder was left alone. Dougal's hand
+brought Dickson summarily to the floor, where he
+was fairly well concealed by a mess of matting.
+Unfortunately his head was in the vicinity of some
+upturned pot-plants, so that a cactus ticked his brow
+and a spike of aloe supported painfully the back of
+his neck. Heritage was prone behind two old water-butts,
+and Dougal was in a hamper which had once
+contained seed potatoes. The house door had
+panels of opaque glass, so the new-comer could not
+see the doings of the three till it was opened, and
+by that time all were in cover.</p>
+
+<p>The man&mdash;it was Spittal&mdash;walked rapidly along
+the verandah and out of the garden door. He was
+talking to himself again, and Dickson, who had a
+glimpse of his face, thought he looked both evil and
+furious. Then came some anxious moments, for
+had the man glanced back when he was once outside,
+he must have seen the tell-tale ladder. But he
+seemed immersed in his own reflections, for he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+hobbled steadily along the house front till he was
+lost to sight.</p>
+
+<p>"That'll be the end o' them the night," said
+Dougal, as he helped Heritage to pull up the ladder
+and stow it away. "We've got the place to oursels,
+now. Forward, men, forward." He tried the
+handle of the house door and led the way in.</p>
+
+<p>A narrow paved passage took them into what had
+once been the garden room, where the lady of the
+house had arranged her flowers, and the tennis
+racquets and croquet mallets had been kept. It was
+very dusty and on the cobwebbed walls still hung a
+few soiled garden overalls. A door beyond opened
+into a huge murky hall, murky, for the windows
+were shuttered, and the only light came through
+things like port-holes far up in the wall. Dougal,
+who seemed to know his way about, halted them.
+"Stop here till I scout a bit. The women bide in a
+wee room through that muckle door." Bare feet
+stole across the oak flooring, there was the sound
+of a door swinging on its hinges, and then silence
+and darkness. Dickson put out a hand for companionship
+and clutched Heritage's; to his surprise
+it was cold and all a-tremble. They listened for
+voices, and thought they could detect a far-away
+sob.</p>
+
+<p>It was some minutes before Dougal returned. "A
+bonny kettle o' fish," he whispered. "They're both
+greetin'. We're just in time. Come on, the pair
+o' ye."</p>
+
+<p>Through a green baize door they entered a passage
+which led to the kitchen regions, and turned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+in at the first door on their right. From its situation
+Dickson calculated that the room lay on the
+seaward side of the House next to the verandah.
+The light was bad, for the two windows were partially
+shuttered, but it had plainly been a smoking-room,
+for there were pipe-racks by the hearth, and
+on the walls a number of old school and college
+photographs, a couple of oars with emblazoned
+names, and a variety of stags' and roebucks' heads.
+There was no fire in the grate, but a small oil-stove
+burned inside the fender. In a stiff-backed chair sat
+an elderly woman, who seemed to feel the cold, for
+she was muffled to the neck in a fur coat. Beside
+her, so that the late afternoon light caught her face
+and head, stood a girl.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson's first impression was of a tall child.
+The pose, startled and wild and yet curiously stiff
+and self-conscious, was that of a child striving to
+remember a forgotten lesson. One hand clutched
+a handkerchief, the other was closing and unclosing
+on a knob of the chair back. She was staring at
+Dougal, who stood like a gnome in the centre of the
+floor. "Here's the gentlemen I was tellin' ye
+about," was his introduction, but her eyes did not
+move.</p>
+
+<p>Then Heritage stepped forward. "We have met
+before, Mademoiselle," he said. "Do you remember
+Easter in 1918&mdash;in the house in the Trinitá dei
+Monte?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not remember," she said slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"But I was the English officer who had the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+apartments on the floor below you. I saw you
+every morning.   You spoke to me sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a soldier?" she asked, with a new note
+in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I was then&mdash;till the war finished."</p>
+
+<p>"And now?  Why have you come here?"</p>
+
+<p>"To offer you help if you need it. If not, to ask
+your pardon and go away."</p>
+
+<p>The shrouded figure in the chair burst suddenly
+into rapid hysterical talk in some foreign tongue
+which Dickson suspected of being French. Heritage
+replied in the same language, and the girl joined in
+with sharp questions. Then the Poet turned to
+Dickson.</p>
+
+<p>"This is my friend. If you will trust us we will
+do our best to save you."</p>
+
+<p>The eyes rested on Dickson's face, and he realised
+that he was in the presence of something the like
+of which he had never met in his life before. It
+was a loveliness greater than he had imagined was
+permitted by the Almighty to His creatures. The
+little face was more square than oval, with a low
+broad brow and proud exquisite eyebrows. The
+eyes were of a colour which he could never decide
+on; afterwards he used to allege obscurely that they
+were the colour of everything in Spring. There was
+a delicate pallor in the cheeks, and the face bore
+signs of suffering and care, possibly even of hunger;
+but for all that there was youth there, eternal and
+triumphant! Not youth such as he had known it,
+but youth with all history behind it, youth with centuries
+of command in its blood and the world's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+treasures of beauty and pride in its ancestry.
+Strange, he thought, that a thing so fine should be
+so masterful. He felt abashed in every inch of him.</p>
+
+<p>As the eyes rested on him their sorrowfulness
+seemed to be shot with humour. A ghost of a smile
+lurked there, to which Dickson promptly responded.
+He grinned and bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Very pleased to meet you, Mem. I'm Mr. McCunn
+from Glasgow."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't even know my name," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"We don't," said Heritage.</p>
+
+<p>"They call me Saskia. This," nodding to the
+chair, "is my cousin Eugčnie.... We are in very
+great trouble. But why should I tell you? I do
+not know you.  You cannot help me."</p>
+
+<p>"We can try," said Heritage. "Part of your
+trouble we know already through that boy. You
+are imprisoned in this place by scoundrels. We are
+here to help you to get out. We want to ask no
+questions&mdash;only to do what you bid us."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not strong enough," she said sadly.
+"A young man&mdash;an old man&mdash;and a little boy.
+There are many against us, and any moment there
+may be more."</p>
+
+<p>It was Dougal's turn to break in. "There's
+Lean and Spittal and Dobson and four tinklers in
+the Dean&mdash;that's seven; but there's us three and
+five more Gorbals Die-Hards&mdash;that's eight."</p>
+
+<p>There was something in the boy's truculent courage
+that cheered her.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," she said, and her eyes fell on each
+in turn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dickson felt impelled to intervene.</p>
+
+<p>"I think this is a perfectly simple business.
+Here's a lady shut up in this house against her will
+by a wheen blagyirds. This is a free country and
+the law doesn't permit that. My advice is for one
+of us to inform the police at Auchenlochan and get
+Dobson and his friends took up and the lady set
+free to do what she likes. That is, if these folks
+are really molesting her, which is not yet quite clear
+to my mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! It is not so simple as that," she said.
+"I dare not invoke your English law, for perhaps
+in the eyes of that law I am a thief."</p>
+
+<p>"Deary me, that's a bad business," said the
+startled Dickson.</p>
+
+<p>The two women talked together in some strange
+tongue, and the elder appeared to be pleading and
+the younger objecting. Then Saskia seemed to
+come to a decision.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you all," and she looked straight at
+Heritage. "I do not think you would be cruel or
+false, for you have honourable faces.... Listen,
+then. I am a Russian and for two years have been
+an exile. I will not speak of my house, for it is
+no more, or how I escaped, for it is the common
+tale of all of us. I have seen things more terrible
+than any dream and yet lived, but I have paid a
+price for such experience. First I went to Italy
+where there were friends, and I wished only to have
+peace among kindly people. About poverty I do
+not care, for, to us, who have lost all the great
+things, the want of bread is a little matter.   But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+peace was forbidden me, for I learned that we Russians
+had to win back our fatherland again and that
+the weakest must work in that cause. So I was set
+my task and it was very hard.... There were
+jewels which once belonged to my Emperor&mdash;they
+had been stolen by the brigands and must be recovered.
+There were others still hidden in Russia
+which must be brought to a safe place. In that
+work I was ordered to share."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke in almost perfect English, with a certain
+foreign precision. Suddenly she changed to
+French, and talked rapidly to Heritage.</p>
+
+<p>"She has told me about her family," he said,
+turning to Dickson. "It is among the greatest in
+Russia, the very greatest after the throne." Dickson
+could only stare.</p>
+
+<p>"Our enemies soon discovered me," she went on.
+"Oh, but they are very clever, these enemies, and
+they have all the criminals of the world to aid them.
+Here you do not understand what they are. You
+good people in England think they are well-meaning
+dreamers who are forced into violence by the persecution
+of Western Europe. But you are wrong.
+Some honest fools there are among them, but the
+power&mdash;the true power&mdash;lies with madmen and degenerates,
+and they have for allies the special devil
+that dwells in each country. That is why they cast
+their net as wide as mankind."</p>
+
+<p>She shivered, and for a second her face wore a
+look which Dickson never forgot, the look of one
+who has looked over the edge of life into the outer
+dark.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There were certain jewels of great price which
+were about to be turned into guns and armies for
+our enemies. These our people recovered and the
+charge of them was laid on me. Who would suspect,
+they said, a foolish girl? But our enemies
+were very clever, and soon the hunt was cried
+against me. They tried to rob me of them, but they
+failed, for I too had become clever. Then they
+asked the help of the law&mdash;first in Italy and then
+in France. Oh, it was subtly done. Respectable
+bourgeois, who hated the Bolsheviki but had bought
+long ago the bonds of my country, desired to be
+repaid their debts out of the property of the Russian
+Crown which might be found in the West. But behind
+them were the Jews, and behind the Jews our
+unsleeping enemies. Once I was enmeshed in the
+law I would be safe for them, and presently they
+would find the hiding-place of the treasure, and
+while the bourgeois were clamouring in the courts,
+it would be safe in their pockets. So I fled. For
+months I have been fleeing and hiding. They have
+tried to kidnap me many times, and once they have
+tried to kill me, but I, too, have become very clever&mdash;oh,
+very clever. And I have learned not to fear."</p>
+
+<p>This simple recital affected Dickson's honest soul
+with the liveliest indignation. "Sich doings!" he
+exclaimed, and he could not forbear from whispering
+to Heritage an extract from that gentleman's
+conversation the first night at Kirkmichael. "We
+needn't imitate all their methods, but they've got
+hold of the right end of the stick.  They seek truth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+and reality." The reply from the Poet was an
+angry shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"Why and how did you come here?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I always meant to come to England, for I
+thought it the sanest place in a mad world. Also it
+is a good country to hide in, for it is apart from
+Europe, and your police, as I thought, do not permit
+evil men to be their own law. But especially
+I had a friend, a Scottish gentleman, whom I knew
+in the days when we Russians were still a nation.
+I saw him again in Italy, and since he was kind and
+brave I told him some part of my troubles. He was
+called Quentin Kennedy, and now he is dead. He
+told me that in Scotland he had a lonely château
+where I could hide secretly and safely, and against
+the day when I might be hard-pressed he gave me
+a letter to his steward, bidding him welcome me as
+a guest when I made application. At that time I
+did not think I would need such sanctuary, but a
+month ago the need became urgent, for the hunt in
+France was very close on me. So I sent a message
+to the steward as Captain Kennedy told me."</p>
+
+<p>"What is his name?" Heritage asked.</p>
+
+<p>She spelt it, "Monsieur Loudon&mdash;L-O-U-D-O-N
+in the town of Auchenlochan."</p>
+
+<p>"The factor," said Dickson.   "And what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some spy must have found me out. I had a
+letter from this Loudon bidding me come to Auchenlochan.
+There I found no steward to receive me,
+but another letter saying that that night a carriage
+would be in waiting to bring me here.  It was mid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>night
+when we arrived, and we were brought in by
+strange ways to this house, with no light but a single
+candle. Here we were welcomed indeed, but by an
+enemy."</p>
+
+<p>"Which?" asked Heritage. "Dobson or Lean
+or Spittal?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dobson I do not know. Léon was there. He
+is no Russian, but a Belgian who was a valet in my
+father's service till he joined the Bolsheviki. Next
+day the Lett Spidel came, and I knew that I was in
+very truth entrapped. For of all our enemies he
+is, save one, the most subtle and unwearied."</p>
+
+<p>Her voice had trailed off into flat weariness.
+Again Dickson was reminded of a child, for her
+arms hung limp by her side; and her slim figure in
+its odd clothes was curiously like that of a boy in
+a school blazer. Another resemblance perplexed
+him. She had a hint of Janet&mdash;about the mouth&mdash;Janet,
+that solemn little girl those twenty years in
+her grave.</p>
+
+<p>Heritage was wrinkling his brows. "I don't
+think I quite understand. The jewels? You have
+them with you?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"These men wanted to rob you. Why didn't they
+do it between here and Auchenlochan? You had no
+chance to hide them on the journey. Why did they
+let you come here where you were in a better position
+to baffle them?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. "I cannot explain&mdash;except
+perhaps, that Spidel had not arrived that night, and
+Léon may have been waiting instructions."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The other still looked dissatisfied. "They are
+either clumsier villains than I take them to be, or
+there is something deeper in the business than we
+understand.  These jewels&mdash;are they here?"</p>
+
+<p>His tone was so sharp that she looked startled&mdash;almost
+suspicious. Then she saw that in his face
+which reassured her. "I have them hidden here.
+I have grown very skilful in hiding things."</p>
+
+<p>"Have they searched for them?"</p>
+
+<p>"The first day they demanded them of me. I
+denied all knowledge. Then they ransacked this
+house&mdash;I think they ransack it daily, but I am too
+clever for them. I am not allowed to go beyond
+the verandah, and when at first I disobeyed there
+was always one of them in wait to force me back
+with a pistol behind my head. Every morning Léon
+brings us food for the day&mdash;good food, but not
+enough, so that Cousin Eugčnie is always hungry,
+and each day he and Spidel question and threaten
+me. This afternoon Spidel has told me that their
+patience is at an end. He has given me till to-morrow
+at noon to produce the jewels. If not, he
+says I will die."</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"There will be no mercy for us," she said solemnly.
+"He and his kind think as little of shedding
+blood as of spilling water. But I do not think he
+will kill me. I think I will kill him first, but after
+that I shall surely die. As for Cousin Eugčnie, I
+do not know."</p>
+
+<p>Her level matter-of-fact tone seemed to Dickson
+most shocking, for he could not treat it as mere<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+melodrama. It carried a horrid conviction. "We
+must get you out of this at once," he declared.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot leave. I will tell you why. When I
+came to this country I appointed one to meet me
+here. He is a kinsman who knows England well,
+for he fought in your army. With him by my side
+I have no fear. It is altogether needful that I wait
+for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Then there is something more which you haven't
+told us?" Heritage asked.</p>
+
+<p>Was there the faintest shadow of a blush on her
+cheek? "There is something more," she said.</p>
+
+<p>She spoke to Heritage in French and Dickson
+caught the name "Alexis" and a word which sounded
+like "prance." The Poet listened eagerly and nodded.
+"I have heard of him," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"But have you not seen him? A tall man with
+a yellow beard, who bears himself proudly. Being
+of my mother's race he has eyes like mine."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the man she was askin' me about yesterday,"
+said Dougal, who had squatted on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Heritage shook his head. "We only came here
+last night. When did you expect Prince&mdash;your
+friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hoped to find him here before me. Oh, it is
+his not coming that terrifies me. I must wait and
+hope. But if he does not come in time another may
+come before him."</p>
+
+<p>"The ones already here are not all the enemies
+that threaten you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, no. The worst has still to come, and
+till I know he is here I do not greatly fear Spidel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+or Léon. They receive orders and do not give
+them."</p>
+
+<p>Heritage ran a perplexed hand through his hair.
+The sunset which had been flaming for some time in
+the unshuttered panes was now passing into the
+dark. The girl lit a lamp after first shuttering the
+rest of the windows. As she turned it up the odd
+dusty room and its strange company were revealed
+more clearly and Dickson saw with a shock how
+haggard was the beautiful face. A great pity seized
+him and almost conquered his timidity.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very difficult to help you," Heritage was
+saying. "You won't leave this place, and you won't
+claim the protection of the law. You are very independent,
+Mademoiselle, but it can't go on for
+ever. The man you fear may arrive at any moment.
+At any moment, too, your treasure may be discovered."</p>
+
+<p>"It is that that weighs on me," she cried. "The
+jewels! They are my solemn trust, but they burden
+me terribly. If I were only rid of them and knew
+them to be safe I should face the rest with a braver
+mind."</p>
+
+<p>"If you'll take my advice," said Dickson slowly,
+"you'll get them deposited in a bank and take a
+receipt for them. A Scotch bank is no' in a hurry
+to surrender a deposit without it gets the proper
+authority."</p>
+
+<p>Heritage brought his hands together with a
+smack. "That's an idea. Will you trust us to take
+these things and deposit them safely?"</p>
+
+<p>For a little she was silent and her eyes were fixed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+on each of the trio in turn. "I will trust you," she
+said at last. "I think you will not betray me."</p>
+
+<p>"By God, we won't!" said the Poet fervently.
+"Dogson, it's up to you. You march off to Glasgow
+in double quick time and place the stuff in your own
+name in your own bank. There's not a moment to
+lose.  D'you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will that." To his own surprise Dickson
+spoke without hesitation. Partly it was because of
+his merchant's sense of property, which made him
+hate the thought that miscreants should acquire that
+to which they had no title; but mainly it was the
+appeal in those haggard childish eyes. "But I'm
+not going to be tramping the country in the night
+carrying a fortune and seeking for trains that aren't
+there. I'll go the first thing in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are they?" Heritage asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That I do not tell.  But I will fetch them."</p>
+
+<p>She left the room and presently returned with
+three odd little parcels wrapped in leather and tied
+with thongs of raw hide. She gave them to Heritage,
+who held them appraisingly in his hand and
+then passed them to Dickson.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not ask about their contents. We take
+them from you as they are, and, please God, when
+the moment comes they will be returned to you as
+you gave them.  You trust us, Mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p>"I trust you, for you are a soldier. Oh, and I
+thank you from my heart, my friends." She held
+out a hand to each, which caused Heritage to grow
+suddenly very red.</p>
+
+<p>"I will remain in the neighbourhood to await<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+developments," he said. "We had better leave you
+now.   Dougal, lead on."</p>
+
+<p>Before going, he took the girl's hand again, and
+with a sudden movement bent and kissed it. Dickson
+shook it heartily. "Cheer up, Mem," he observed.
+"There's a better time coming." His last
+recollection of her eyes was of a soft mistiness not
+far from tears. His pouch and pipe had strange
+company jostling them in his pocket as he followed
+the others down the ladder into the night.</p>
+
+<p>Dougal insisted that they must return by the road
+of the morning. "We daren't go by the Laver, for
+that would bring us by the public-house. If the
+worst comes to the worst, and we fall in wi' any
+of the deevils, they must think ye've changed your
+mind and come back from Auchenlochan."</p>
+
+<p>The night smelt fresh and moist as if a break in
+the weather were imminent. As they scrambled
+along the Garple Dean a pinprick of light below
+showed where the tinklers were busy by their fire.
+Dickson's spirits suffered a sharp fall and he began
+to marvel at his temerity. What in Heaven's name
+had he undertaken? To carry very precious things,
+to which certainly he had no right, through the
+enemy to distant Glasgow. How could he escape
+the notice of the watchers? He was already suspect,
+and the sight of him back again in Dalquharter
+would double that suspicion. He must brazen it
+out, but he distrusted his powers with such tell-tale
+stuff in his pockets. They might murder him anywhere
+on the moor road or in an empty railway carriage.
+An unpleasant memory of various novels he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+had read in which such things happened haunted his
+mind.... There was just one consolation. This
+job over, he would be quit of the whole business.
+And honourably quit, too, for he would have played
+a manly part in a most unpleasant affair. He could
+retire to the idyllic with the knowledge that he had
+not been wanting when Romance called. Not a soul
+should ever hear of it, but he saw himself in the
+future tramping green roads or sitting by his winter
+fireside pleasantly retelling himself the tale.</p>
+
+<p>Before they came to the Garple bridge Dougal
+insisted that they should separate, remarking that
+"it would never do if we were seen thegither."
+Heritage was despatched by a short cut over fields
+to the left, which eventually, after one or two
+plunges into ditches, landed him safely in Mrs.
+Morran's back yard. Dickson and Dougal crossed
+the bridge and tramped Dalquharter-wards by the
+highway. There was no sign of human life in that
+quiet place with owls hooting and rabbits rustling in
+the undergrowth. Beyond the woods they came in
+sight of the light in the back kitchen, and both
+seemed to relax their watchfulness when it was most
+needed.  Dougal sniffed the air and looked seaward.</p>
+
+<p>"It's coming on to rain," he observed. "There
+should be a muckle star there, and when you can't
+see it it means wet weather wi' this wind."</p>
+
+<p>"What star?" Dickson asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The one wi' the Irish-lukkin' name. What's
+that they call it? O'Brien?" And he pointed to
+where the constellation of the Hunter should have
+been declining on the western horizon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a bend of the road behind them, and
+suddenly round it came a dogcart driven rapidly.
+Dougal slipped like a weasel into a bush, and presently
+Dickson stood revealed in the glare of a lamp.
+The horse was pulled up sharply and the driver
+called out to him. He saw that it was Dobson the
+innkeeper with Léon beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it?" cried the voice. "Oh, you! I
+thought ye were off the day?"</p>
+
+<p>Dickson rose nobly to the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought myself I was. But I didn't think
+much of Auchenlochan, and I took a fancy to come
+back and spend the last night of my holiday with
+my Auntie. I'm off to Glasgow first thing the
+morn's morn."</p>
+
+<p>"So!" said the voice. "Queer thing I never saw
+ye on the Auchenlochan road, where ye can see three
+mile before ye."</p>
+
+<p>"I left early and took it easy along the shore."</p>
+
+<p>"Did ye so?  Well, good-night to ye."</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later Dickson walked into Mrs.
+Morran's kitchen, where Heritage was busy making
+up for a day of short provender.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm for Glasgow to-morrow, Auntie Phemie,"
+he cried. "I want you to loan me a wee trunk with
+a key, and steek the doors and windows, for I've a
+lot to tell you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<p class="center">HOW MR. M<sup>c</sup>CUNN DEPARTED WITH RELIEF AND
+RETURNED WITH RESOLUTION</p>
+
+
+<p>At seven o'clock on the following morning the
+post-cart, summoned by an early message from
+Mrs. Morran, appeared outside the cottage. In it
+sat the ancient postman, whose real home was
+Auchenlochan, but who slept alternate nights in
+Dalquharter, and beside him Dobson the innkeeper.
+Dickson and his hostess stood at the garden-gate,
+the former with his pack on his back and at his feet
+a small stout wooden box, of the kind in which
+cheeses are transported, garnished with an immense
+padlock. Heritage for obvious reasons did not
+appear; at the moment he was crouched on the floor
+of the loft watching the departure through a gap
+in the dimity curtains.</p>
+
+<p>The traveller, after making sure that Dobson
+was looking, furtively slipped the key of the trunk
+into his knapsack.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, good-bye, Auntie Phemie," he said. "I'm
+sure you've been awful kind to me, and I don't know
+how to thank you for all you're sending."</p>
+
+<p>"Tuts, Dickson, my man, they're hungry folk
+about Glesca that'll be glad o' my scones and jeelie.
+Tell Mirren I'm rale pleased wi' her man and haste
+ye back soon."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The trunk was deposited on the floor of the cart
+and Dickson clambered into the back seat. He was
+thankful that he had not to sit next to Dobson, for
+he had tell-tale stuff on his person. The morning
+was wet, so he wore his waterproof, which concealed
+his odd tendency to stoutness about the middle.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran played her part well, with all the
+becoming gravity of an affectionate aunt, but so soon
+as the post-cart turned the bend of the road her
+demeanour changed. She was torn with convulsions
+of silent laughter. She retreated to the kitchen,
+sank into a chair, wrapped her face in her apron
+and rocked. Heritage, descending, found her struggling
+to regain composure. "D'ye ken his wife's
+name?" she gasped. "I ca'ed her Mirren! And
+maybe the body's no mairried! Hech sirs! Hech
+sirs!"</p>
+
+<p>Meantime Dickson was bumping along the moor-road
+on the back of the post-cart. He had worked
+out a plan, just as he had been used aforetime to
+devise a deal in foodstuffs. He had expected one
+of the watchers to turn up, and was rather relieved
+that it should be Dobson, whom he regarded as "the
+most natural beast" of the three. Somehow he did
+not think that he would be molested before he
+reached the station, since his enemies would still be
+undecided in their minds. Probably they only
+wanted to make sure that he had really departed to
+forget all about him. But if not, he had his plan
+ready.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you travelling to-day?" he asked the innkeeper.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Just as far as the station to see about some oil-cake
+I'm expectin'. What's in your wee kist? Ye
+came here wi' nothing but the bag on your back."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, the kist is no' mine. It's my auntie's. She's
+a kind body, and nothing would serve but she must
+pack a box for me to take back. Let me see.
+There's a baking of scones; three pots of honey and
+one of rhubarb jam&mdash;she was aye famous for her
+rhubarb jam; a mutton ham, which you can't get
+for love or money in Glasgow; some home-made
+black puddings and a wee skim-milk cheese. I doubt
+I'll have to take a cab from the station."</p>
+
+<p>Dobson appeared satisfied, lit a short pipe and
+relapsed into meditation. The long uphill road,
+ever climbing to where far off showed the tiny whitewashed
+buildings which were the railway station,
+seemed interminable this morning. The aged postman
+addressed strange objurgations to his aged
+horse and muttered reflections to himself, the innkeeper
+smoked, and Dickson stared back into the
+misty hollow where lay Dalquharter. The south-west
+wind had brought up a screen of rain clouds
+and washed all the countryside in a soft wet grey.
+But the eye could still travel a fair distance, and
+Dickson thought he had a glimpse of a figure on a
+bicycle leaving the village two miles back. He wondered
+who it could be. Not Heritage, who had no
+bicycle. Perhaps some woman who was conspicuously
+late for the train. Women were the chief
+cyclists nowadays in country places.</p>
+
+<p>Then he forgot about the bicycle and twisted his
+neck to watch the station. It was less than a mile<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+off now, and they had no time to spare, for away
+to the south among the hummocks of the bog he
+saw the smoke of the train coming from Auchenlochan.
+The postman also saw it and whipped up
+his beast into a clumsy canter. Dickson, always
+nervous about being late for trains, forced his eyes
+away and regarded again the road behind them.
+Suddenly the cyclist had become quite plain&mdash;a little
+more than a mile behind&mdash;a man, and pedalling
+furiously in spite of the stiff ascent.... It could
+only be one person&mdash;Léon. He must have discovered
+their visit to the House yesterday and be on
+the way to warn Dobson. If he reached the station
+before the train, there would be no journey to Glasgow
+that day for one respectable citizen.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson was in a fever of impatience and fright.
+He dared not abjure the postman to hurry, lest
+Dobson should turn his head and descry his colleague.
+But that ancient man had begun to realise
+the shortness of time and was urging the cart along
+at a fair pace, since they were now on the flatter
+shelf of land which carried the railway. Dickson
+kept his eyes fixed on the bicycle and his teeth shut
+tight on his lower lip. Now it was hidden by the
+last dip of hill; now it emerged into view not a
+quarter of a mile behind, and its rider gave vent to
+a shrill call. Luckily the innkeeper did not hear,
+for at that moment with a jolt the cart pulled up
+at the station door, accompanied by the roar of the
+incoming train.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson whipped down from the back seat and
+seized the solitary porter. "Label the box for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+Glasgow and into the van with it. Quick, man, and
+there'll be a shilling for you." He had been doing
+some rapid thinking these last minutes and had made
+up his mind. If Dobson and he were alone in a
+carriage he could not have the box there; that must
+be elsewhere, so that Dobson could not examine it
+if he were set on violence, somewhere in which it
+could still be a focus of suspicion and attract attention
+from his person. He took his ticket, and rushed
+on to the platform, to find the porter and the box
+at the door of the guard's van. Dobson was not
+there. With the vigour of a fussy traveller he
+shouted directions to the guard to take good care
+of his luggage, hurled a shilling at the porter and
+ran for a carriage. At that moment he became
+aware of Dobson hurrying through the entrance.
+He must have met Léon and heard news from him,
+for his face was red and his ugly brows darkening.</p>
+
+<p>The train was in motion. "Here, you!" Dobson's
+voice shouted. "Stop! I want a word wi' ye."
+Dickson plunged at a third-class carriage, for he saw
+faces behind the misty panes, and above all things
+then he feared an empty compartment. He clambered
+on to the step, but the handle would not turn,
+and with a sharp pang of fear he felt the innkeeper's
+grip on his arm. Then some Samaritan
+from within let down the window, opened the door
+and pulled him up. He fell on a seat and a second
+later Dobson staggered in beside him.</p>
+
+<p>Thank Heaven, the dirty little carriage was
+nearly full. There were two herds, each with a dog
+and a long hazel crook, and an elderly woman who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+looked like a ploughman's wife out for a day's marketing.
+And there was one other whom Dickson
+recognised with a peculiar joy&mdash;the bagman in the
+provision line of business whom he had met three
+days before at Kilchrist.</p>
+
+<p>The recognition was mutual. "Mr. McCunn!"
+the bagman exclaimed. "My, but that was running
+it fine! I hope you've had a pleasant holiday, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very pleasant. I've been spending two nights
+with friends down hereaways. I've been very fortunate
+in the weather, for it has broke just when
+I'm leaving."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson sank back on the hard cushions. It had
+been a near thing, but so far he had won. He
+wished his heart did not beat so fast, and he hoped
+he did not betray his disorder in his face. Very
+deliberately he hunted for his pipe and filled it
+slowly. Then he turned to Dobson. "I didn't
+know you were travelling the day. What about
+your oil-cake?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've changed my mind," was the gruff answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Was that you I heard crying on me, when we
+were running for the train?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay. I thought ye had forgot about your kist."</p>
+
+<p>"No fear," said Dickson. "I'm no' likely to
+forget my auntie's scones."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed pleasantly and then turned to the
+bagman. Thereafter the compartment hummed
+with the technicalities of the grocery trade. He
+exerted himself to draw out his companion, to have
+him refer to the great firm of D. McCunn, so that
+the innkeeper might be ashamed of his suspicions.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+What nonsense to imagine that a noted and wealthy
+Glasgow merchant&mdash;the bagman's tone was almost
+reverential&mdash;would concern himself with the affairs
+of a forgotten village and a tumbledown house!</p>
+
+<p>Presently the train drew up at Kirkmichael station.
+The woman descended, and Dobson, after
+making sure that no one else meant to follow her
+example, also left the carriage. A porter was shouting:
+"Fast train to Glasgow&mdash;Glasgow next stop."
+Dickson watched the innkeeper shoulder his way
+through the crowd in the direction of the booking
+office. "He's off to send a telegram," he decided.
+"There'll be trouble waiting for me at the other
+end."</p>
+
+<p>When the train moved on he found himself disinclined
+for further talk. He had suddenly become
+meditative, and curled up in a corner with his head
+hard against the window pane, watching the wet
+fields and glistening roads as they slipped past. He
+had his plans made for his conduct at Glasgow, but
+Lord! how he loathed the whole business! Last
+night he had had a kind of gusto in his desire to
+circumvent villainy; at Dalquharter station he had
+enjoyed a momentary sense of triumph; now he
+felt very small, lonely and forlorn. Only one
+thought far at the back of his mind cropped up now
+and then to give him comfort. He was entering on
+the last lap. Once get this detestable errand done
+and he would be a free man, free to go back to the
+kindly humdrum life from which he should never
+have strayed. Never again, he vowed, never again.
+Rather would he spend the rest of his days in hydro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>pathics
+than come within the pale of such horrible
+adventures. Romance, forsooth! This was not the
+mild goddess he had sought, but an awful harpy
+who battened on the souls of men.</p>
+
+<p>He had some bad minutes as the train passed
+through the suburbs, and along the grimy embankment
+by which the southern lines enter the city. But
+as it rumbled over the river bridge and slowed down
+before the terminus, his vitality suddenly revived.
+He was a business man, and there was now something
+for him to do.</p>
+
+<p>After a rapid farewell to the bagman, he found
+a porter and hustled his box out of the van in the
+direction of the left-luggage office. Spies, summoned
+by Dobson's telegram, were, he was convinced,
+watching his every movement, and he meant
+to see that they missed nothing. He received his
+ticket for the box, and slowly and ostentatiously
+stowed it away in his pack. Swinging the said pack
+on his arm he sauntered through the entrance hall
+to the row of waiting taxi-cabs, and selected that
+one which seemed to him to have the oldest and
+most doddering driver. He deposited the pack inside
+on the seat, and then stood still as if struck
+with a sudden thought.</p>
+
+<p>"I breakfasted terrible early," he told the driver.
+"I think I'll have a bite to eat.   Will you wait?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," said the man, who was reading a grubby
+sheet of newspaper. "I'll wait as long as ye like,
+for it's you that pays."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson left his pack in the cab and, oddly
+enough for a careful man, he did not shut the door.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+He re-entered the station, strolled to the bookstall
+and bought a <i>Glasgow Herald</i>. His steps then
+tended to the refreshment room, where he ordered
+a cup of coffee and two Bath buns, and seated himself
+at a small table. There he was soon immersed
+in the financial news, and though he sipped his coffee
+he left the buns untasted. He took out a penknife
+and cut various extracts from the <i>Herald</i>, bestowing
+them carefully in his pocket. An observer would
+have seen an elderly gentleman absorbed in market
+quotations.</p>
+
+<p>After a quarter of an hour had been spent in this
+performance he happened to glance at the clock and
+rose with an exclamation. He bustled out to his
+taxi and found the driver still intent upon his reading.
+"Here I am at last," he said cheerily, and had
+a foot on the step, when he stopped suddenly with
+a cry. It was a cry of alarm, but also of satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"What's become of my pack? I left it on the
+seat, and now it's gone! There's been a thief here."</p>
+
+<p>The driver, roused from his lethargy, protested
+in the name of his gods that no one had been near it.
+"Ye took it into the station wi' ye," he urged.</p>
+
+<p>"I did nothing of the kind. Just you wait here
+till I see the inspector. A bonny watch <i>you</i> keep on
+a gentleman's things."</p>
+
+<p>But Dickson did not interview the railway authorities.
+Instead he hurried to the left-luggage
+office. "I deposited a small box here a short time
+ago.  I mind the number.  Is it there still?"</p>
+
+<p>The attendant glanced at a shelf.   "A wee deal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+box with iron bands. It was took out ten minutes
+syne. A man brought the ticket and took it away
+on his shoulder."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. There's been a mistake, but the
+blame's mine.   My man mistook my orders."</p>
+
+<p>Then he returned to the now nervous taxi-driver.
+"I've taken it up with the station-master and he's
+putting the police on. You'll likely be wanted, so
+I gave him your number. It's a fair disgrace that
+there should be so many thieves about this station.
+It's not the first time I've lost things. Drive me to
+West George Street and look sharp." And he
+slammed the door with the violence of an angry
+man.</p>
+
+<p>But his reflections were not violent, for he smiled
+to himself. "That was pretty neat. They'll take
+some time to get the kist open, for I dropped the
+key out of the train after we left Kirkmichael.
+That gives me a fair start. If I hadn't thought of
+that, they'd have found some way to grip me and
+ripe me long before I got to the Bank." He shuddered
+as he thought of the dangers he had escaped.
+"As it is, they're off the track for half an hour at
+least, while they're rummaging among Auntie
+Phemie's scones." At the thought he laughed
+heartily, and when he brought the taxi-cab to a
+standstill by rapping on the front window, he left
+it with a temper apparently restored. Obviously
+he had no grudge against the driver, who to his
+immense surprise was rewarded with ten shillings.</p>
+
+<p>Three minutes later Mr. McCunn might have
+been seen entering the head office of the Strathclyde<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+Bank, and inquiring for the manager. There was
+no hesitation about him now, for his foot was on
+his native heath. The chief cashier received him
+with deference, in spite of his unorthodox garb, for
+he was not the least honoured of the bank's customers.
+As it chanced he had been talking about
+him that very morning to a gentleman from London.
+"The strength of this city," he had said, tapping
+his eyeglasses on his knuckles, "does not lie in its
+dozen very rich men, but in the hundred or two
+homely folk who make no parade of wealth. Men
+like Dickson McCunn, for example, who live all
+their life in a semi-detached villa and die worth half
+a million." And the Londoner had cordially assented.</p>
+
+<p>So Dickson was ushered promptly into an inner
+room, and was warmly greeted by Mr. Mackintosh,
+the patron of the Gorbals Die-Hards.</p>
+
+<p>"I must thank you for your generous donation,
+McCunn. Those boys will get a little fresh air and
+quiet after the smoke and din of Glasgow. A little
+country peace to smooth out the creases in their poor
+little souls."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe," said Dickson, with a vivid recollection
+of Dougal as he had last seen him. Somehow he
+did not think that peace was likely to be the portion
+of that devoted band. "But I've not come here to
+speak about that."</p>
+
+<p>He took off his waterproof; then his coat and
+waistcoat; and showed himself a strange figure with
+sundry bulges about the middle. The manager's
+eyes grew very round.  Presently these excrescences<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+were revealed as linen bags sewn on to his shirt,
+and fitting into the hollow between ribs and hip.
+With some difficulty he slit the bags and extracted
+three hide-bound packages.</p>
+
+<p>"See here, Mackintosh," he said solemnly. "I
+hand you over these parcels, and you're to put them
+in the innermost corner of your strong room. You
+needn't open them. Just put them away as they are,
+and write me a receipt for them.  Write it now."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Mackintosh obediently took pen in hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What'll I call them?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Just the three leather parcels handed to you by
+Dickson McCunn, Esq., naming the date."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Mackintosh wrote. He signed his name
+with his usual flourish and handed the slip to his
+client.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Dickson, "you'll put that receipt in
+the strong box where you keep my securities, and
+you'll give it up to nobody but me in person, and
+you'll surrender the parcels only on presentation of
+the receipt.   D'you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly.  May I ask any questions?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better not if you don't want to hear lees."</p>
+
+<p>"What's in the packages?" Mr. Mackintosh
+weighed them in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"That's asking," said Dickson. "But I'll tell ye
+this much. It's jools."</p>
+
+<p>"Your own?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I'm their trustee."</p>
+
+<p>"Valuable?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was hearing they were worth more than a million
+pounds."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"God bless my soul," said the startled manager.
+"I don't like this kind of business, McCunn."</p>
+
+<p>"No more do I. But you'll do it to oblige an old
+friend and a good customer. If you don't know
+much about the packages you know all about me.
+Now, mind, I trust you."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Mackintosh forced himself to a joke. "Did
+you maybe steal them?"</p>
+
+<p>Dickson grinned. "Just what I did. And that
+being so, I want you to let me out by the back door."</p>
+
+<p>When he found himself in the street he felt the
+huge relief of a boy who had emerged with credit
+from the dentist's chair. Remembering that there
+would be no midday dinner for him at home, his
+first step was to feed heavily at a restaurant. He
+had, so far as he could see, surmounted all his troubles,
+his one regret being that he had lost his pack,
+which contained among other things his <i>Izaak
+Walton</i> and his safety razor. He bought another
+razor and a new Walton, and mounted an electric
+tram-car <i>en route</i> for home.</p>
+
+<p>Very contented with himself he felt as the car
+swung across the Clyde bridge. He had done well&mdash;but
+of that he did not want to think, for the whole
+beastly thing was over. He was going to bury that
+memory, to be resurrected perhaps on a later day
+when the unpleasantness had been forgotten. Heritage
+had his address, and knew where to come when
+it was time to claim the jewels. As for the watchers,
+they must have ceased to suspect him, when they
+discovered the innocent contents of his knapsack
+and Mrs. Morran's box.   Home for him, and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+luxurious tea by his own fireside; and then an evening
+with his books, for Heritage's nonsense had
+stimulated his literary fervour. He would dip into
+his old favourites again to confirm his faith. To-morrow
+he would go for a jaunt somewhere&mdash;perhaps
+down the Clyde, or to the South of England,
+which he had heard was a pleasant, thickly peopled
+country. No more lonely inns and deserted villages
+for him; henceforth he would make certain of comfort
+and peace.</p>
+
+<p>The rain had stopped, and, as the car moved
+down the dreary vista of Eglinton Street, the sky
+opened into fields of blue and the April sun silvered
+the puddles. It was in such place and under such
+weather that Dickson suffered an overwhelming
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>It is beyond my skill, being all unlearned in the
+game of psycho-analysis, to explain how this thing
+happened. I concern myself only with facts. Suddenly
+the pretty veil of self-satisfaction was rent
+from top to bottom, and Dickson saw a figure of
+himself within, a smug leaden little figure which
+simpered and preened itself and was hollow as a
+rotten nut. And he hated it.</p>
+
+<p>The horrid truth burst on him that Heritage had
+been right. He only played with life. That imbecile
+image was a mere spectator, content to applaud,
+but shrinking from the contact of reality. It had
+been all right as a provision merchant, but when it
+fancied itself capable of higher things it had deceived
+itself. Foolish little image with its brave
+dreams and its swelling words from Browning! All<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+make-believe of the feeblest. He was a coward,
+running away at the first threat of danger. It was
+as if he were watching a tall stranger with a wand
+pointing to the embarrassed phantom that was himself,
+and ruthlessly exposing its frailties! And yet
+the pitiless showman was himself too&mdash;himself as
+he wanted to be, cheerful, brave, resourceful, indomitable.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson suffered a spasm of mortal agony. "Oh,
+I'm surely not so bad as all that," he groaned. But
+the hurt was not only in his pride. He saw himself
+being forced to new decisions, and each alternative
+was of the blackest. He fairly shivered with the
+horror of it. The car slipped past a suburban station
+from which passengers were emerging&mdash;comfortable
+black-coated men such as he had once been.
+He was bitterly angry with Providence for picking
+him out of the great crowd of sedentary folk for
+this sore ordeal. "Why was I tethered to sich a
+conscience?" was his moan. But there was that
+stern inquisitor with his pointer exploring his soul.
+"You flatter yourself you have done your share,"
+he was saying. "You will make pretty stories about
+it to yourself, and some day you may tell your
+friends, modestly disclaiming any special credit.
+But you will be a liar, for you know you are afraid.
+You are running away when the work is scarcely
+begun, and leaving it to a few boys and a poet whom
+you had the impudence the other day to despise.
+I think you are worse than a coward. I think you
+are a cad."</p>
+
+<p>His fellow-passengers on the top of the car saw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+an absorbed middle-aged gentleman who seemed to
+have something the matter with his bronchial tubes.
+They could not guess at the tortured soul. The decision
+was coming nearer, the alternatives loomed
+up dark and inevitable. On one side was submission
+to ignominy, on the other a return to that place,
+which he detested, and yet loathed himself for detesting.
+"It seems I'm not likely to have much
+peace either way," he reflected dismally.</p>
+
+<p>How the conflict would have ended had it continued
+on these lines I cannot say. The soul of Mr.
+McCunn was being assailed by moral and metaphysical
+adversaries with which he had not been
+trained to deal. But suddenly it leapt from negatives
+to positives. He saw the face of the girl in
+the shuttered House, so fair and young and yet so
+haggard. It seemed to be appealing to him to
+rescue it from a great loneliness and fear. Yes, he
+had been right, it had a strange look of his Janet&mdash;the
+wide-open eyes, the solemn mouth. What
+was to become of that child if he failed her in her
+great need?</p>
+
+<p>Now Dickson was a practical man and this view
+of the case brought him into a world which he
+understood. "It's fair ridiculous," he reflected.
+"Nobody there to take a grip of things. Just a
+wheen Gorbals keelies and the lad Heritage. Not
+a business man among the lot."</p>
+
+<p>The alternatives, which hove before him like two
+great banks of cloud, were altering their appearance.
+One was becoming faint and tenuous; the
+other, solid as ever, was just a shade less black.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+He lifted his eyes and saw in the near distance the
+corner of the road which led to his home. "I must
+decide before I reach that corner," he told himself.</p>
+
+<p>Then his mind became apathetic. He began to
+whistle dismally through his teeth, watching the
+corner as it came nearer. The car stopped with a
+jerk. "I'll go back," he said aloud, clambering
+down the steps. The truth was he had decided five
+minutes before when he first saw Janet's face.</p>
+
+<p>He walked briskly to his house, entirely refusing
+to waste any more energy on reflection. "This is
+a business proposition," he told himself, "and I'm
+going to handle it as sich." Tibby was surprised
+to see him and offered him tea in vain. "I'm just
+back for a few minutes. Let's see the letters."</p>
+
+<p>There was one from his wife. She proposed to
+stay another week at the Neuk Hydropathic and
+suggested that he might join her and bring her
+home. He sat down and wrote a long affectionate
+reply, declining, but expressing his delight that she
+was soon returning. "That's very likely the last
+time Mamma will hear from me," he reflected, but&mdash;oddly
+enough&mdash;without any great fluttering of
+the heart.</p>
+
+<p>Then he proceeded to be furiously busy. He sent
+out Tibby to buy another knapsack and to order
+a cab and to cash a considerable cheque. In the
+knapsack he packed a fresh change of clothing and
+the new safety razor, but no books, for he was past
+the need of them. That done, he drove to his
+solicitors.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What like a firm are Glendonan and Speirs in
+Edinburgh?" he asked the senior partner.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very respectable. Very respectable indeed.
+Regular Edinburgh W.S. lot. Do a lot of factoring."</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to telephone through to them and
+inquire about a place in Carrick called Huntingtower,
+near the village of Dalquharter. I understand
+it's to let, and I'm thinking of taking a lease
+of it."</p>
+
+<p>The senior partner after some delay got through
+to Edinburgh, and was presently engaged in the
+feverish dialectic which the long-distance telephone
+involves. "I want to speak to Mr. Glendonan himself....
+Yes, yes, Mr. Caw of Paton and Linklater....
+Good afternoon.... Huntingtower.
+Yes, in Carrick. Not to let? But I understand
+it's been in the market for some months. You say
+you've an idea it has just been let. But my client is
+positive that you're mistaken, unless the agreement
+was made this morning.... You'll inquire? Oh,
+I see. The actual factoring is done by your local
+agent. Mr. James Loudon, in Auchenlochan. You
+think my client had better get into touch with him
+at once. Just wait a minute, please."</p>
+
+<p>He put his hand over the receiver. "Usual Edinburgh
+way of doing business," he observed caustically.
+"What do you want done?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll run down and see this Loudon. Tell Glendonan
+and Speirs to advise him to expect me, for
+I'll go this very day."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Caw resumed his conversation. "My client<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+would like a telegram sent at once to Mr. Loudon
+introducing him. He's Mr. Dickson McCunn of
+Mearns Street&mdash;the great provision merchant, you
+know. Oh, yes! Good for any rent. Refer if you
+like to the Strathclyde Bank, but you can take my
+word for it. Thank you. Then that's settled.
+Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson's next visit was to a gunmaker who was
+a fellow-elder with him in the Guthrie Memorial
+Kirk.</p>
+
+<p>"I want a pistol and a lot of cartridges," he announced.
+"I'm not caring what kind it is, so long
+as it is a good one and not too big."</p>
+
+<p>"For yourself?" the gunmaker asked. "You
+must have a licence, I doubt, and there's a lot of
+new regulations."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't wait on a licence. It's for a cousin of
+mine who's off to Mexico at once. You've got to
+find some way of obliging an old friend, Mr.
+McNair."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. McNair scratched his head. "I don't see
+how I can sell you one. But I'll tell you what I'll
+do&mdash;I'll lend you one. It belongs to my nephew,
+Peter Tait, and has been lying in a drawer ever since
+he came back from the front. He has no use for
+it now that he's a placed minister."</p>
+
+<p>So Dickson bestowed in the pockets of his waterproof
+a service revolver and fifty cartridges, and
+bade his cab take him to the shop in Mearns Street.
+For a moment the sight of the familiar place struck
+a pang to his breast, but he choked down unavailing
+regrets. He ordered a great hamper of foodstuffs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>&mdash;the
+most delicate kind of tinned goods, two perfect
+hams, tongues, Strassburg pies, chocolate, cakes,
+biscuits and, as a last thought, half a dozen bottles
+of old liqueur brandy. It was to be carefully
+packed, addressed to Mrs. Morran, Dalquharter
+Station, and delivered in time for him to take down
+by the 7.33 train. Then he drove to the terminus
+and dined with something like a desperate peace in
+his heart.</p>
+
+<p>On this occasion he took a first-class ticket, for
+he wanted to be alone. As the lights began to be
+lit in the wayside stations and the clear April dusk
+darkened into night, his thoughts were sombre yet
+resigned. He opened the window and let the sharp
+air of the Renfrewshire uplands fill the carriage.
+It was fine weather again after the rain, and a bright
+constellation&mdash;perhaps Dougal's friend O'Brien&mdash;hung
+in the western sky. How happy he would
+have been a week ago had he been starting thus for
+a country holiday! He could sniff the faint scent
+of moor-burn and ploughed earth which had always
+been his first reminder of spring. But he had been
+pitchforked out of that old happy world and could
+never enter it again. Alas! for the roadside fire,
+the cosy inn, the <i>Compleat Angler</i>, the Chavender
+or Chub!</p>
+
+<p>And yet&mdash;and yet! He had done the right thing,
+though the Lord alone knew how it would end.
+He began to pluck courage from his very melancholy
+and hope from his reflections upon the transitoriness
+of life. He was austerely following Romance
+as he conceived it, and if that capricious lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+had taken one dream from him she might yet
+reward him with a better. Tags of poetry came
+into his head which seemed to favour this philosophy&mdash;particularly
+some lines of Browning on
+which he used to discourse to his Kirk Literary
+Society. Uncommon silly, he considered, these
+homilies of his must have been, mere twitterings
+of the unfledged. But now he saw more in the lines,
+a deeper interpretation which he had earned the
+right to make.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0q">"Oh, world, where all things change and nought abides,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, life, the long mutation&mdash;is it so?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is it with life as with the body's change?&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where, e'en tho' better follow, good must pass."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>That was as far as he could get, though he cudgelled
+his memory to continue. Moralising thus, he became
+drowsy, and was almost asleep when the train
+drew up at the station of Kirkmichael.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<p class="center">SUNDRY DOINGS IN THE MIRK</p>
+
+
+<p>From Kirkmichael on the train stopped at every
+station, but no passenger seemed to leave or
+arrive at the little platforms white in the moon. At
+Dalquharter the case of provisions was safely transferred
+to the porter with instructions to take charge
+of it till it was sent for. During the next ten minutes
+Dickson's mind began to work upon his problem
+with a certain briskness. It was all nonsense
+that the law of Scotland could not be summoned
+to the defence. The jewels had been safely got rid
+of, and who was to dispute their possession? Not
+Dobson and his crew, who had no sort of title, and
+were out for naked robbery. The girl had spoken
+of greater dangers from new enemies&mdash;kidnapping
+perhaps. Well, that was felony, and the police
+must be brought in. Probably if all were known
+the three watchers had criminal records, pages long,
+filed at Scotland Yard. The man to deal with that
+side of the business was Loudon the factor, and to
+him he was bound in the first place. He had made
+a clear picture in his head of this Loudon&mdash;a derelict
+old country writer, formal, pedantic, lazy,
+anxious only to get an unprofitable business off his
+hands with the least possible trouble, never going
+near the place himself, and ably supported in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+lethargy by conceited Edinburgh Writers to the
+Signet. "Sich notions of business!" he murmured.
+"I wonder that there's a single county family in
+Scotland no' in the bankruptcy court!" It was his
+mission to wake up Mr. James Loudon.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at Auchenlochan he went first to the
+Salutation Hotel, a pretentious place sacred to
+golfers. There he engaged a bedroom for the
+night and, having certain scruples, paid for it in
+advance. He also had some sandwiches prepared
+which he stowed in his pack, and filled his flask with
+whisky. "I'm going home to Glasgow by the first
+train to-morrow," he told the landlady, "and now
+I've got to see a friend. I'll not be back till late."
+He was assured that there would be no difficulty
+about his admittance at any hour, and directed how
+to find Mr. Loudon's dwelling.</p>
+
+<p>It was an old house fronting direct on the street,
+with a fanlight above the door and a neat brass
+plate bearing the legend "Mr. James Loudon,
+Writer." A lane ran up one side leading apparently
+to a garden, for the moonlight showed the
+dusk of trees. In front was the main street of
+Auchenlochan, now deserted save for a single
+roysterer, and opposite stood the ancient town
+house, with arches where the country folk came at
+the spring and autumn hiring fairs. Dickson rang
+the antiquated bell, and was presently admitted to
+a dark hall floored with oil-cloth, where a single
+gas-jet showed that on one side was the business
+office and on the other the living-rooms. Mr.
+Loudon was at supper, he was told, and he sent in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+his card. Almost at once the door at the end on
+the left side was flung open and a large figure appeared
+flourishing a napkin. "Come in, sir, come
+in," it cried. "I've just finished a bite of meat.
+Very glad to see you. Here, Maggie, what d'you
+mean by keeping the gentleman standing in that
+outer darkness?"</p>
+
+<p>The room into which Dickson was ushered was
+small and bright, with a red paper on the walls, a
+fire burning and a big oil lamp in the centre of a
+table. Clearly Mr. Loudon had no wife, for it was
+a bachelor's den in every line of it. A cloth was
+laid on a corner of the table, on which stood the
+remnants of a meal. Mr. Loudon seemed to have
+been about to make a brew of punch, for a kettle
+simmered by the fire, and lemons and sugar flanked
+a pot-bellied whisky decanter of the type that used
+to be known as a "mason's mell."</p>
+
+<p>The sight of the lawyer was a surprise to Dickson
+and dissipated his notions of an aged and
+lethargic incompetent. Mr. Loudon was a strongly
+built man who could not be a year over fifty. He
+had a ruddy face, clean-shaven except for a grizzled
+moustache; his grizzled hair was thinning round the
+temples; but his skin was unwrinkled and his eyes
+had all the vigour of youth. His tweed suit was
+well cut, and the buff waistcoat with flaps and
+pockets and the plain leather watchguard hinted at
+the sportsman, as did the half-dozen racing prints
+on the wall. A pleasant high-coloured figure he
+made; his voice had the frank ring due to much use
+out of doors; and his expression had the singular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+candour which comes from grey eyes with large
+pupils and a narrow iris.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, Mr. McCunn. Take the arm-chair by
+the fire. I've had a wire from Glendonan and
+Speirs about you. I was just going to have a glass
+of toddy&mdash;a grand thing for these uncertain April
+nights. You'll join me? No? Well, you'll smoke
+anyway. There's cigars at your elbow. Certainly,
+a pipe if you like.  This is Liberty Hall."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson found some difficulty in the part for
+which he had cast himself. He had expected to
+condescend upon an elderly inept and give him
+sharp instructions; instead he found himself faced
+with a jovial, virile figure which certainly did not
+suggest incompetence. It has been mentioned already
+that he had always great difficulty in looking
+any one in the face, and this difficulty was intensified
+when he found himself confronted with bold and
+candid eyes.  He felt abashed and a little nervous.</p>
+
+<p>"I've come to see you about Huntingtower
+House," he began.</p>
+
+<p>"I know. So Glendonan's informed me. Well,
+I'm very glad to hear it. The place has been standing
+empty far too long, and that is worse for a new
+house than an old house. There's not much money
+to spend on it either, unless we can make sure of
+a good tenant.   How did you hear about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was taking a bit holiday and I spent a night
+at Dalquharter with an old auntie of mine. You
+must understand I've just retired from business,
+and I'm thinking of finding a country place. I
+used to have the big provision shop in Mearns<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+Street&mdash;now the United Supply Stores, Limited.
+You've maybe heard of it?"</p>
+
+<p>The other bowed and smiled. "Who hasn't?
+The name of Dickson McCunn is known far beyond
+the city of Glasgow."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson was not insensible of the flattery, and he
+continued with more freedom. "I took a walk and
+got a glisk of the House and I liked the look of it.
+You see, I want a quiet bit a good long way from
+a town, and at the same time a house with all modern
+conveniences. I suppose Huntingtower has
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"When it was built fifteen years ago it was considered
+a model&mdash;six bathrooms, its own electric
+light plant, steam heating, an independent boiler
+for hot water, the whole bag of tricks. I won't
+say but what some of these contrivances will want
+looking to, for the place has been some time empty,
+but there can be nothing very far wrong, and I can
+guarantee that the bones of the house are good."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's all right," said Dickson. "I don't
+mind spending a little money myself if the place
+suits me. But of that, of course, I'm not yet certain,
+for I've only had a glimpse of the outside. I
+wanted to get into the policies, but a man at the
+lodge wouldn't let me. They're a mighty uncivil
+lot down there."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm very sorry to hear that," said Mr. Loudon
+in a tone of concern.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and if I take the place I'll stipulate that
+you get rid of the lodgekeepers."</p>
+
+<p>"There won't be the slightest difficulty about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+that, for they are only weekly tenants. But I'm
+vexed to hear they were uncivil. I was glad to get
+any tenant that offered, and they were well recommended
+to me."</p>
+
+<p>"They're foreigners."</p>
+
+<p>"One of them is&mdash;a Belgian refugee that Lady
+Morewood took an interest in. But the other&mdash;Spittal,
+they call him&mdash;I thought he was Scotch."</p>
+
+<p>"He's not that. And I don't like the innkeeper
+either.   I would want him shifted."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Loudon laughed. "I dare say Dobson is a
+rough diamond. There's worse folk in the world
+all the same, but I don't think he will want to stay.
+He only went there to pass the time till he heard
+from his brother in Vancouver. He's a roving
+spirit, and will be off overseas again."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right!" said Dickson, who was beginning
+to have horrid suspicions that he might be
+on a wild-goose chase after all. "Well, the next
+thing is for me to see over the House."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. I'd like to go with you myself.
+What day would suit you? Let me see. This is
+Friday.   What about this day week?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking of to-morrow. Since I'm down
+in these parts I may as well get the job done."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Loudon looked puzzled. "I quite see that.
+But I don't think it's possible. You see, I have to
+consult the owners and get their consent to a lease.
+Of course they have the general purpose of letting,
+but&mdash;well, they're queer folk the Kennedys," and
+his face wore the half-embarrassed smile of an
+honest man preparing to make confidences.  "When<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>
+poor Mr. Quentin died, the place went to his two
+sisters in joint ownership. A very bad arrangement,
+as you can imagine. It isn't entailed, and I've always
+been pressing them to sell, but so far they
+won't hear of it. They both married Englishmen,
+so it will take a day or two to get in touch with
+them. One, Mrs. Stukely, lives in Devonshire.
+The other&mdash;Miss Katie that was&mdash;married Sir
+Francis Morewood, the general, and I hear that
+she's expected back in London next Monday from
+the Riviera. I'll wire and write first thing to-morrow
+morning. But you must give me a day or
+two."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson felt himself waking up. His doubts
+about his own sanity were dissolving, for, as his
+mind reasoned, the factor was prepared to do anything
+he asked&mdash;but only after a week had gone.
+What he was concerned with was the next few
+days.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same I would like to have a look at
+the place to-morrow, even if nothing comes of it."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Loudon looked seriously perplexed. "You
+will think me absurdly fussy, Mr. McCunn, but I
+must really beg of you to give up the idea. The
+Kennedys, as I have said, are&mdash;well, not exactly like
+other people, and I have the strictest orders not to
+let any one visit the house without their express
+leave. It sounds a ridiculous rule, but I assure you
+it's as much as my job is worth to disregard it."</p>
+
+<p>"D'you mean to say not a soul is allowed inside
+the House?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a soul."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Loudon, I'm going to tell you a queer
+thing, which I think you ought to know. When I
+was taking a walk the other night&mdash;your Belgian
+wouldn't let me into the policies, but I went down
+the glen&mdash;what's that they call it? the Garple Dean&mdash;I
+got round the back where the old ruin stands
+and I had a good look at the House. I tell you
+there was somebody in it."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be Spittal, who acts as caretaker."</p>
+
+<p>"It was not. It was a woman. I saw her on
+the verandah."</p>
+
+<p>The candid grey eyes were looking straight at
+Dickson, who managed to bring his own shy orbs
+to meet them. He thought that he detected a
+shade of hesitation. Then Mr. Loudon got up
+from his chair and stood on the hearthrug looking
+down at his visitor. He laughed, with some embarrassment,
+but ever so pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't know what you will think of me,
+Mr. McCunn. Here are you, coming to do us all
+a kindness, and lease that infernal white elephant,
+and here have I been steadily hoaxing you for the
+last five minutes. I humbly ask your pardon. Set
+it down to the loyalty of an old family lawyer.
+Now, I am going to tell you the truth and take you
+into our confidence, for I know we are safe with
+you. The Kennedys are&mdash;always have been&mdash;just
+a wee bit queer. Old inbred stock, you know.
+They will produce somebody like poor Mr. Quentin,
+who was as sane as you or me, but as a rule in every
+generation there is one member of the family&mdash;or
+more&mdash;who is just a little bit&mdash;&mdash;" and he tapped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+his forehead. "Nothing violent, you understand,
+but just not quite 'wise and world-like,' as the old
+folk say. Well, there's a certain old lady, an aunt
+of Mr. Quentin and his sisters, who has always been
+about tenpence in the shilling. Usually she lives at
+Bournemouth, but one of her crazes is a passion for
+Huntingtower, and the Kennedys have always humoured
+her and had her to stay every spring. When
+the House was shut up that became impossible, but
+this year she took such a craving to come back, that
+Lady Morewood asked me to arrange it. It had
+to be kept very quiet, but the poor old thing is perfectly
+harmless, and just sits and knits with her
+maid and looks out of the seaward windows. Now
+you see why I can't take you there to-morrow. I
+have to get rid of the old lady, who in any case was
+travelling south early next week. Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly," said Dickson with some fervour.
+He had learned exactly what he wanted. The factor
+was telling him lies. Now he knew where to
+place Mr. Loudon.</p>
+
+<p>He always looked back upon what followed as a
+very creditable piece of play-acting for a man who
+had small experience in that line.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the old lady a wee wizened body, with a black
+cap and something like a white cashmere shawl
+round her shoulders?"</p>
+
+<p>"You describe her exactly," Mr. Loudon replied
+eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"That would explain the foreigners."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course.   We couldn't have natives who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+would make the thing the clash of the countryside."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. But it must be a difficult job to
+keep a business like that quiet. Any wandering
+policeman might start inquiries. And supposing the
+lady became violent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there's no fear of that. Besides, I've a
+position in this county&mdash;Deputy Fiscal and so forth&mdash;and
+a friend of the Chief Constable. I think I
+may be trusted to do a little private explaining if
+the need arose."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Dickson. He saw, indeed, a great
+deal which would give him food for furious thought.
+"Well, I must just possess my soul in patience.
+Here's my Glasgow address, and I look to you to
+send me a telegram whenever you're ready for me.
+I'm at the Salutation to-night, and go home to-morrow
+with the first train. Wait a minute"&mdash;and
+he pulled out his watch&mdash;"there's a train stops at
+Auchenlochan at 10.17. I think I'll catch that....
+Well, Mr. Loudon, I'm very much obliged to
+you, and I'm glad to think that it'll no be long till
+we renew our acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>The factor accompanied him to the door, diffusing
+geniality. "Very pleased indeed to have met
+you.   A pleasant journey and a quick return."</p>
+
+<p>The street was still empty. Into a corner of the
+arches opposite the moon was shining, and Dickson
+retired thither to consult his map of the neighbourhood.
+He found what he wanted and, as he lifted
+his eyes, caught sight of a man coming down the
+causeway.   Promptly he retired into the shadow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+and watched the new-comer. There could be no
+mistake about the figure; the bulk, the walk, the
+carriage of the head marked it for Dobson. The
+inn-keeper went slowly past the factor's house; then
+halted and retraced his steps; then, making sure that
+the street was empty, turned into the side lane
+which led to the garden.</p>
+
+<p>This was what sailors call a cross-bearing, and
+strengthened Dickson's conviction. He delayed no
+longer, but hurried down the side street by which
+the north road leaves the town.</p>
+
+<p>He had crossed the bridge of Lochan and was
+climbing the steep ascent which led to the heathy
+plateau separating that stream from the Garple
+before he had got his mind quite clear on the case.
+<i>First</i>, Loudon was in the plot, whatever it was; responsible
+for the details of the girl's imprisonment,
+but not the main author. That must be the Unknown
+who was still to come, from whom Spidel
+took his orders. Dobson was probably Loudon's
+special henchman, working directly under him.
+<i>Secondly</i>, the immediate object had been the jewels,
+and they were happily safe in the vaults of the incorruptible
+Mackintosh. But, <i>third</i>&mdash;and this only
+on Saskia's evidence&mdash;the worst danger to her began
+with the arrival of the Unknown. What could
+that be? Probably, kidnapping. He was prepared
+to believe anything of people like Bolsheviks. And,
+<i>fourth</i>, this danger was due within the next day or
+two. Loudon had been quite willing to let him into
+the house and to sack all the watchers within a week
+from that date. The natural and right thing was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+to summon the aid of the law, but, <i>fifth</i>, that would
+be a slow business with Loudon able to put spokes
+in the wheels and befog the authorities, and the
+mischief would be done before a single policeman
+showed his face in Dalquharter. Therefore, <i>sixth</i>,
+he and Heritage must hold the fort in the meantime,
+and he would send a wire to his lawyer, Mr.
+Caw, to get to work with the constabulary. <i>Seventh</i>,
+he himself was probably free from suspicion
+in both Loudon's and Dobson's minds as a harmless
+fool. But that freedom would not survive his
+reappearance in Dalquharter. He could say, to be
+sure, that he had come back to see his auntie, but
+that would not satisfy the watchers, since, so far
+as they knew, he was the only man outside the gang
+who was aware that people were dwelling in the
+House. They would not tolerate his presence in
+the neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>He formulated his conclusions as if it were an
+ordinary business deal, and rather to his surprise
+was not conscious of any fear. As he pulled together
+the belt of his waterproof he felt the reassuring
+bulges in its pockets which were his pistol
+and cartridges. He reflected that it must be very
+difficult to miss with a pistol if you fired it at, say,
+three yards, and if there was to be shooting that
+would be his range. Mr. McCunn had stumbled
+on the precious truth that the best way to be rid
+of quaking knees is to keep a busy mind.</p>
+
+<p>He crossed the ridge of the plateau and looked
+down on the Garple glen. There were the lights of
+Dalquharter&mdash;or rather a single light, for the in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>habitants
+went early to bed. His intention was to
+seek quarters with Mrs. Morran, when his eye
+caught a gleam in a hollow of the moor a little to
+the east. He knew it for the camp-fire around
+which Dougal's warriors bivouacked. The notion
+came to him to go there instead, and hear the news
+of the day before entering the cottage. So he
+crossed the bridge, skirted a plantation of firs, and
+scrambled through the broom and heather in what
+he took to be the right direction.</p>
+
+<p>The moon had gone down, and the quest was
+not easy. Dickson had come to the conclusion
+that he was on the wrong road, when he was summoned
+by a voice which seemed to arise out of the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Who goes there?"</p>
+
+<p>"What's that you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who goes there?" The point of a pole was
+held firmly against his chest.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm Mr. McCunn, a friend of Dougal's."</p>
+
+<p>"Stand, friend." The shadow before him whistled
+and another shadow appeared. "Report to the
+Chief that there's a man here, name o' McCunn,
+seekin' for him."</p>
+
+<p>Presently the messenger returned with Dougal
+and a cheap lantern which he flashed in Dickson's
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's you," said that leader, who had his jaw
+bound up as if he had the toothache. "What are
+ye doing back here?"</p>
+
+<p>"To tell the truth, Dougal," was the answer, "I
+couldn't stay away.   I was fair miserable when I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
+thought of Mr. Heritage and you laddies left to
+yourselves. My conscience simply wouldn't let me
+stop at home, so here I am."</p>
+
+<p>Dougal grunted, but clearly he approved, for
+from that moment he treated Dickson with a new
+respect. Formerly when he had referred to him at
+all it had been as "auld McCunn." Now it was
+"Mister McCunn." He was given rank as a
+worthy civilian ally.</p>
+
+<p>The bivouac was a cheerful place in the wet night.
+A great fire of pine roots and old paling posts
+hissed in the fine rain, and around it crouched several
+urchins busy making oatmeal cakes in the
+embers. On one side a respectable lean-to had been
+constructed by nailing a plank to two fir-trees, running
+sloping poles thence to the ground, and thatching
+the whole with spruce branches and heather.
+On the other side two small dilapidated home-made
+tents were pitched. Dougal motioned his companion
+into the lean-to, where they had some privacy
+from the rest of the band.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what's your news?" Dickson asked. He
+noticed that the Chieftain seemed to have been
+comprehensively in the wars, for apart from the
+bandage on his jaw, he had numerous small cuts on
+his brow, and a great rent in one of his shirt
+sleeves. Also he appeared to be going lame, and
+when he spoke a new gap was revealed in his large
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Things," said Dougal solemnly, "has come to
+a bonny cripus. This very night we've been in a
+battle."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He spat fiercely, and the light of war burned in
+his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"It was the tinklers from the Garple Dean. They
+yokit on us about seven o'clock, just at the darkenin'.
+First they tried to bounce us. We weren't
+wanted here, they said, so we'd better clear. I
+telled them that it was them that wasn't wanted.
+'Awa' to Finnick,' says I. 'D'ye think we take our
+orders from dirty ne'er-do-weels like you?' 'By
+God,' says they, 'we'll cut your lights out,' and then
+the battle started."</p>
+
+<p>"What happened?" Dickson asked excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"They were four muckle men against six laddies,
+and they thought they had an easy job! Little they
+kenned the Gorbals Die-Hards! I had been expectin'
+something of the kind, and had made my
+plans. They first tried to pu' down our tents and
+burn them. I let them get within five yards, reservin'
+my fire. The first volley&mdash;stones from our
+hands and our catties&mdash;halted them, and before
+they could recover three of us had got hold o'
+burnin' sticks frae the fire and were lammin' into
+them. We kinnled their claes, and they fell back
+swearin' and stampin' to get the fire out. Then I
+gave the word and we were on them wi' our poles,
+usin' the points accordin' to instructions. My
+orders was to keep a good distance, for if they had
+grippit one o' us he'd ha' been done for. They
+were roarin' mad by now, and twae had out their
+knives, but they couldn't do muckle, for it was
+gettin' dark, and they didn't ken the ground like us,
+and were aye trippin' and tumblin'.   But they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+pressed us hard, and one o' them landed me an
+awful clype on the jaw. They were still aiming at
+our tents, and I saw that if they got near the fire
+again it would be the end o' us. So I blew my
+whistle for Thomas Yownie, who was in command
+o' the other half of us, with instructions to fall
+upon their rear. That brought Thomas up, and
+the tinklers had to face round about and fight a
+battle on two fronts. We charged them and they
+broke, and the last seen o' them they were coolin'
+their burns in the Garple."</p>
+
+<p>"Well done, man. Had you many casualties?"</p>
+
+<p>"We're a' a wee thing battered, but nothing to
+hurt. I'm the worst, for one o' them had a grip
+o' me for about three seconds, and Gosh! he was
+fierce."</p>
+
+<p>"They're beaten off for the night, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, for the night. But they'll come back, never
+fear. That's why I said that things had come to
+a cripus."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the news from the House?"</p>
+
+<p>"A quiet day, and no word o' Lean or Dobson."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson nodded. "They were hunting me."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Heritage has gone to bide in the Hoose.
+They were watchin' the Garple Dean, so I took him
+round by the Laver foot and up the rocks. He's
+a grand climber, yon. We fund a road up the rocks
+and got in by the verandy. Did ye ken that the
+lassie had a pistol? Well, she has, and it seems
+that Mr. Heritage is a good shot wi' a pistol, so
+there's some hope thereaways.... Are the jools
+safe?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Safe in the bank. But the jools were not the
+main thing."</p>
+
+<p>Dougal nodded. "So I was thinkin'. The lassie
+wasn't muckle the easier for gettin' rid o' them. I
+didn't just quite understand what she said to Mr.
+Heritage, for they were aye wanderin' into foreign
+langwidges, but it seems she's terrible feared o'
+somebody that may turn up any moment. What's
+the reason I can't say. She's maybe got a secret,
+or maybe it's just that she's ower bonny."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the trouble," said Dickson and proceeded
+to recount his interview with the factor, to which
+Dougal gave close attention. "Now the way I read
+the thing is this. There's a plot to kidnap that
+lady, for some infernal purpose, and it depends on
+the arrival of some person or persons, and it's due
+to happen in the next day or two. If we try to
+work it through the police alone, they'll beat us, for
+Loudon will manage to hang the business up till
+it's too late. So we must take up the job ourselves.
+We must stand a siege, Mr. Heritage and me and
+you laddies, and for that purpose we'd better all
+keep together. It won't be extra easy to carry her
+off from all of us, and if they do manage it we'll
+stick to their heels.... Man, Dougal, isn't it a
+queer thing that whiles law-abiding folk have to
+make their own laws?... So my plan is that the
+lot of us get into the House and form a garrison.
+If you don't, the tinklers will come back and you'll
+no' beat them in the daylight."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt no'," said Dougal. "But what about
+our meat?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We must lay in provisions. We'll get what we
+can from Mrs. Morran, and I've left a big box
+of fancy things at Dalquharter station. Can you
+laddies manage to get it down here?"</p>
+
+<p>Dougal reflected. "Ay, we can hire Mrs. Sempill's
+powny, the same that fetched our kit."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's your job to-morrow. See, I'll
+write you a line to the station-master. And will
+you undertake to get it some way into the House?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's just the one road open&mdash;by the rocks.
+It'll have to be done. It <i>can</i> be done."</p>
+
+<p>"And I've another job. I'm writing this telegram
+to a friend in Glasgow who will put a spoke
+in Mr. Loudon's wheel. I want one of you to go
+to Kirkmichael to send it from the telegraph office
+there."</p>
+
+<p>Dougal placed the wire to Mr. Caw in his bosom.
+"What about yourself? We want somebody outside
+to keep his eyes open. It's bad strawtegy to
+cut off your communications."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson thought for a moment. "I believe
+you're right. I believe the best plan for me is to
+go back to Mrs. Morran's as soon as the old body's
+like to be awake. You can always get at me there,
+for it's easy to slip into her back kitchen without
+anybody in the village seeing you.... Yes, I'll do
+that, and you'll come and report developments to
+me. And now I'm for a bite and a pipe. It's hungry
+work travelling the country in the small hours."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to introjuice ye to the rest o' us," said
+Dougal. "Here, men!" he called, and four figures
+rose from the side of the fire. As Dickson munched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+a sandwich he passed in review the whole company
+of the Gorbals Die-Hards, for the pickets were also
+brought in, two others taking their places. There
+was Thomas Yownie, the Chief of Staff, with a
+wrist wound up in the handkerchief which he had
+borrowed from his neck. There was a burly lad
+who wore trousers much too large for him, and
+who was known as Peer Pairson, a contraction presumably
+for Peter Paterson. After him came a
+lean tall boy who answered to the name of Napoleon.
+There was a midget of a child, desperately
+sooty in the face either from battle or from fire-tending,
+who was presented as Wee Jaikie. Last
+came the picket who had held his pole at Dickson's
+chest, a sandy-haired warrior with a snub nose and
+the mouth and jaw of a pug-dog. He was Old Bill,
+or in Dougal's parlance "Auld Bull."</p>
+
+<p>The Chieftain viewed his scarred following with
+a grim content. "That's a tough lot for ye, Mr.
+McCunn. Used a' their days wi' sleepin' in coalrees
+and dunnies and dodgin' the polis. Ye'll no
+beat the Gorbals Die-Hards."</p>
+
+<p>"You're right, Dougal," said Dickson. "There's
+just the six of you.  If there were a dozen, I think
+this country would be needing some new kind of a
+government."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<p class="center">HOW A MIDDLE-AGED CRUSADER ACCEPTED A
+CHALLENGE</p>
+
+
+<p>The first cocks had just begun to crow and the
+clocks had not yet struck five when Dickson
+presented himself at Mrs. Morran's back door.
+That active woman had already been half an hour
+out of bed, and was drinking her morning cup of
+tea in the kitchen. She received him with cordiality,
+nay, with relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh, sirs, but I'm glad to see ye back. Guid
+kens what's gaun on at the Hoose thae days. Mr.
+Heritage left here yestreen, creepin' round by
+dyke-sides and berry-busses like a wheasel. It's a
+mercy to get a responsible man in the place. I aye
+had a notion ye wad come back, for, thinks I, nevoy
+Dickson is no the yin to desert folk in trouble....
+Whaur's my wee kist?... Lost, ye say. That's
+a peety, for it's been my cheese-box thae thirty
+year."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson ascended to the loft, having announced
+his need of at least three hours' sleep. As he rolled
+into bed his mind was curiously at ease. He felt
+equipped for any call that might be made on him.
+That Mrs. Morran should welcome him back as a
+resource in need gave him a new assurance of manhood.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He woke between nine and ten to the sound of
+rain lashing against the garret window. As he
+picked his way out of the mazes of sleep and recovered
+the skein of his immediate past, he found
+to his disgust that he had lost his composure. All
+the flock of fears that had left him when, on the top
+of the Glasgow tram-car, he had made the great
+decision had flown back again and settled like black
+crows on his spirit. He was running a horrible risk
+and all for a whim. What business had he to be
+mixing himself up in things he did not understand?
+It might be a huge mistake, and then he would be
+a laughing stock; for a moment he repented his
+telegram to Mr. Caw. Then he recanted that suspicion;
+there could be no mistake, except the fatal
+one that he had taken on a job too big for him. He
+sat on the edge of his bed and shivered, with his
+eyes on the grey drift of rain. He would have felt
+more stout-hearted had the sun been shining.</p>
+
+<p>He shuffled to the window and looked out. There
+in the village street was Dobson, and Dobson saw
+him. That was a bad blunder, for his reason told
+him that he should have kept his presence in Dalquharter
+hid as long as possible.</p>
+
+<p>There was a knock at the cottage door, and presently
+Mrs. Morran appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the man frae the inn," she announced.
+"He's wantin' a word wi' ye. Speakin' verra
+ceevil, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him to come up," said Dickson. He might
+as well get the interview over. Dobson had seen
+Loudon and must know of their conversation.  The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+sight of himself back again when he had pretended
+to be off to Glasgow would remove him effectually
+from the class of the unsuspected. He wondered
+just what line Dobson would take.</p>
+
+<p>The innkeeper obtruded his bulk through the low
+door. His face was wrinkled into a smile, which
+nevertheless left the small eyes ungenial. His voice
+had a loud vulgar cordiality. Suddenly Dickson
+was conscious of a resemblance, a resemblance to
+somebody whom he had recently seen. It was
+Loudon. There was the same thrusting of the chin
+forward, the same odd cheek-bones, the same
+unctuous heartiness of speech. The innkeeper, well
+washed and polished and dressed, would be no bad
+copy of the factor. They must be near kin, perhaps
+brothers.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning to you, Mr. McCunn. Man, it's
+pitifu' weather, and just when the farmers are wanting
+a dry seed-bed. What brings ye back here?
+Ye travel the country like a drover."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm a free man now and I took a fancy to
+this place. An idle body has nothing to do but
+please himself."</p>
+
+<p>"I hear ye're taking a lease of Huntingtower?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now who told you that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just the clash of the place. Is it true?"</p>
+
+<p>Dickson looked sly and a little annoyed.</p>
+
+<p>"I maybe had half a thought of it, but I'll thank
+you not to repeat the story. It's a big house for
+a plain man like me, and I haven't properly inspected
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll keep mum, never fear. But if ye've<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+that sort of notion, I can understand you not being
+able to keep away from the place."</p>
+
+<p>"That's maybe the fact," Dickson admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Well! It's just on that point I want a word
+with you." The innkeeper seated himself unbidden
+on the chair which held Dickson's modest raiment.
+He leaned forward and with a coarse forefinger
+tapped Dickson's pyjama-clad knees. "I can't have
+ye wandering about the place. I'm very sorry, but
+I've got my orders from Mr. Loudon. So if you
+think that by bidin' here ye can see more of the
+House and the policies, ye're wrong, Mr. McCunn.
+It can't be allowed, for we're no' ready for ye yet.
+D'ye understand? That's Mr. Loudon's orders....
+Now, would it not be a far better plan if ye
+went back to Glasgow and came back in a week's
+time? I'm thinking of your own comfort, Mr.
+McCunn."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson was cogitating hard. This man was
+clearly instructed to get rid of him at all costs for
+the next few days. The neighbourhood had to be
+cleared for some black business. The tinklers had
+been deputed to drive out the Gorbals Die-Hards,
+and as for Heritage they seemed to have lost track
+of him. He, Dickson, was now the chief object of
+their care. But what could Dobson do if he refused?
+He dared not show his true hand. Yet he
+might, if sufficiently irritated. It became Dickson's
+immediate object to get the innkeeper to reveal himself
+by rousing his temper. He did not stop to consider
+the policy of this course; he imperatively
+wanted things cleared up and the issue made plain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I'm much obliged to you for thinking
+so much about my comfort," he said in a voice into
+which he hoped he had insinuated a sneer. "But
+I'm bound to say you're awful suspicious folk about
+here. You needn't be feared for your old policies.
+There's plenty of nice walks about the roads, and
+I want to explore the sea-coast."</p>
+
+<p>The last words seemed to annoy the innkeeper.
+"That's no' allowed either," he said. "The shore's
+as private as the policies.... Well, I wish ye joy
+tramping the roads in the glaur."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a queer thing," said Dickson meditatively,
+"that you should keep an hotel and yet be set on
+discouraging people from visiting this neighbourhood.
+I tell you what, I believe that hotel of yours
+is all sham. You've some other business, you and
+these lodgekeepers, and in my opinion it's not a very
+creditable one."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean?" asked Dobson sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Just what I say. You must expect a body to be
+suspicious, if you treat him as you're treating me."
+Loudon must have told this man the story with
+which he had been fobbed off about the half-witted
+Kennedy relative. Would Dobson refer to that?</p>
+
+<p>The innkeeper had an ugly look on his face, but
+he controlled his temper with an effort. "There's
+no cause for suspicion," he said. "As far as I'm
+concerned it's all honest and aboveboard."</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't look like it. It looks as if you were
+hiding something up in the House which you don't
+want me to see."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dobson jumped from his chair, his face pale with
+anger. A man in pyjamas on a raw morning does
+not feel at his bravest, and Dickson quailed under
+the expectation of assault. But even in his fright
+he realised that Loudon could not have told Dobson
+the tale of the half-witted lady. The last remark
+had cut clean through all camouflage and reached
+the quick.</p>
+
+<p>"What the hell d' ye mean?" he cried. "Ye're
+a spy, are ye? Ye fat little fool, for two cents I'd
+wring your neck."</p>
+
+<p>Now it is an odd trait of certain mild people that
+a suspicion of threat, a hint of bullying, will rouse
+some unsuspected obstinacy deep down in their
+souls. The insolence of the man's speech woke a
+quiet but efficient little devil in Dickson.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a bonny tone to adopt in addressing a
+gentleman. If you've nothing to hide what way are
+you so touchy? I can't be a spy unless there's
+something to spy on."</p>
+
+<p>The innkeeper pulled himself together. He was
+apparently acting on instructions, and had not yet
+come to the end of them. He made an attempt at
+a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I beg your pardon if I spoke too hot.
+But it nettled me to hear ye say that.... I'll be
+quite frank with ye, Mr. McCunn, and, believe me,
+I'm speaking in your best interests. I give ye my
+word there's nothing wrong up at the House. I'm
+on the side of the law, and when I tell ye the whole
+story ye'll admit it.  But I can't tell it ye yet....<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+This is a wild, lonely bit and very few folk bide
+in it. And these are wild times, when a lot of queer
+things happen that never get into the papers. I tell
+ye it's for your own good to leave Dalquharter for
+the present. More I can't say, but I ask ye to look
+at it as a sensible man. Ye're one that's accustomed
+to a quiet life and no' meant for rough work.
+Ye'll do no good if you stay, and, maybe, ye'll land
+yourself in bad trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed. "What is
+it you're expecting? Sinn Fein?"</p>
+
+<p>The innkeeper nodded. "Something like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever hear the like? I never did think
+much of the Irish."</p>
+
+<p>"Then ye'll take my advice and go home? Tell
+ye what, I'll drive ye to the station."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson got up from the bed, found his new
+safety-razor and began to strop it. "No, I think
+I'll bide. If you're right there'll be more to see
+than glaury roads."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm warning ye, fair and honest. Ye ...
+can't ... be ... allowed ... to ... stay ...
+here!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I never!" said Dickson. "Is there any
+law in Scotland, think you, that forbids a man to
+stop a day or two with his auntie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye'll stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, I'll stay."</p>
+
+<p>"By God, we'll see about that."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Dickson thought that he would be
+attacked, and he measured the distance that separated
+him from the peg whence hung his waterproof<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+with the pistol in its pocket. But the man restrained
+himself and moved to the door. There he stood
+and cursed him with a violence and a venom which
+Dickson had not believed possible. The full hand
+was on the table now.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye wee pot-bellied, pig-heided Glasgow grocer,"
+(I paraphrase), "would <i>you</i> set up to defy me? I
+tell ye, I'll make ye rue the day ye were born."
+His parting words were a brilliant sketch of the
+maltreatment in store for the body of the defiant
+one.</p>
+
+<p>"Impident dog," said Dickson without heat. He
+noted with pleasure that the innkeeper hit his head
+violently against the low lintel, and, missing a step,
+fell down the loft stairs into the kitchen, where
+Mrs. Morran's tongue could be heard speeding him
+trenchantly from the premises.</p>
+
+<p>Left to himself, Dickson dressed leisurely, and by
+and by went down to the kitchen and watched his
+hostess making broth. The fracas with Dobson
+had done him all the good in the world, for it had
+cleared the problem of dubieties and had put an
+edge on his temper. But he realised that it made
+his continued stay in the cottage undesirable. He
+was now the focus of all suspicion, and the innkeeper
+would be as good as his word and try to
+drive him out of the place by force. Kidnapping,
+most likely, and that would be highly unpleasant,
+besides putting an end to his usefulness. Clearly
+he must join the others. The soul of Dickson
+hungered at the moment for human companionship.
+He felt that his courage would be sufficient for any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+team-work, but might waver again if he were left
+to play a lone hand.</p>
+
+<p>He lunched nobly off three plates of Mrs. Morran's
+kail&mdash;an early lunch, for that lady, having
+breakfasted at five, partook of the midday meal
+about eleven. Then he explored her library, and
+settled himself by the fire with a volume of Covenanting
+tales, entitled <i>Gleanings among the Mountains</i>.
+It was a most practical work for one in his
+position, for it told how various eminent saints of
+that era escaped the attention of Claverhouse's
+dragoons. Dickson stored up in his memory several
+of the incidents in case they should come in
+handy. He wondered if any of his forbears had
+been Covenanters; it comforted him to think that
+some old progenitor might have hunkered behind
+turf walls and been chased for his life in the
+heather. "Just like me," he reflected. "But the
+dragoons weren't foreigners, and there was a kind
+of decency about Claverhouse too."</p>
+
+<p>About four o'clock Dougal presented himself in
+the back kitchen. He was an even wilder figure
+than usual, for his bare legs were mud to the knees,
+his kilt and shirt clung sopping to his body, and,
+having lost his hat, his wet hair was plastered over
+his eyes. Mrs. Morran said, not unkindly, that he
+looked "like a wull-cat glowerin' through a whin
+buss."</p>
+
+<p>"How are you, Dougal?" Dickson asked genially.
+"Is the peace of nature smoothing out the creases
+in your poor little soul?"</p>
+
+<p>"What's that ye say?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, just what I heard a man say in Glasgow.
+How have you got on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so bad. Your telegram was sent this mornin'.
+Old Bill took it in to Kirkmichael. That's
+the first thing. Second, Thomas Yownie has took
+a party to get down the box from the station. He
+got Mrs. Sempill's powny and he took the box
+ayont the Laver by the ford at the herd's hoose and
+got it on to the shore maybe a mile ayont Laverfoot.
+He managed to get the machine up as far
+as the water, but he could get no farther, for ye'll
+no' get a machine over the wee waterfa' just before
+the Laver ends in the sea. So he sent one o' the
+men back with it to Mrs. Sempill, and, since the
+box was ower heavy to carry, he opened it and took
+the stuff across in bits. It's a' safe in the hole at
+the foot o' the Huntingtower rocks, and he reports
+that the rain has done it no harm. Thomas has
+made a good job of it. Ye'll no fickle Thomas
+Yownie."</p>
+
+<p>"And what about your camp on the moor?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was broke up afore daylight. Some of our
+things we've got with us, and most is hid near at
+hand. The tents are in the auld wife's henhoose,"
+and he jerked his disreputable head in the direction
+of the back door.</p>
+
+<p>"Have the tinklers been back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay. They turned up about ten o'clock, no
+doubt intendin' murder. I left Wee Jaikie to watch
+developments. They fund him sittin' on a stone,
+greetin' sore. When he saw them, he up and
+started to run, and they cried on him to stop, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+he wouldn't listen. Then they cried out where were
+the rest, and he telled them they were feared for
+their lives and had run away. After that they
+offered to catch him, but ye'll no' catch Jaikie in a
+hurry. When he had run round about them till
+they were wappit, he out wi' his catty and got one
+o' them on the lug. Syne he made for the Laverfoot
+and reported."</p>
+
+<p>"Man, Dougal, you've managed fine. Now I've
+something to tell you," and Dickson recounted his
+interview with the innkeeper. "I don't think it's
+safe for me to bide here, and if I did, I wouldn't
+be any use, hiding in cellars and such like, and not
+daring to stir a foot. I'm coming with you to the
+House. Now tell me how to get there."</p>
+
+<p>Dougal agreed to this view. "There's been
+nothing doing at the Hoose the day, but they're
+keepin' a close watch on the policies. The cripus
+may come any moment. There's no doubt, Mr.
+McCunn, that ye're in danger, for they'll serve you
+as the tinklers tried to serve us. Listen to me.
+Ye'll walk up the station road, and take the second
+turn on your left, a wee grass road that'll bring ye
+to the ford at the herd's hoose. Cross the Laver&mdash;there's
+a plank bridge&mdash;and take straight across the
+moor in the direction of the peakit hill they call
+Grey Carrick. Ye'll come to a big burn, which ye
+must follow till ye get to the shore. Then turn
+south, keepin' the water's edge till ye reach the
+Laver, where you'll find one o' us to show ye the
+rest of the road.... I must be off now, and I
+advise ye not to be slow of startin', for wi' this rain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+the water's risin' quick. It's a mercy it's such
+coarse weather, for it spoils the veesibility."</p>
+
+<p>"Auntie Phemie," said Dickson a few minutes
+later, "will you oblige me by coming for a short
+walk?"</p>
+
+<p>"The man's daft," was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not. I'll explain if you'll listen.... You
+see," he concluded, "the dangerous bit for me is
+just the mile out of the village. They'll no' be so
+likely to try violence if there's somebody with me
+that could be a witness. Besides, they'll maybe
+suspect less if they just see a decent body out for
+a breath of air with his auntie."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran said nothing, but retired, and returned
+presently equipped for the road. She had
+indued her feet with goloshes and pinned up her
+skirts till they looked like some demented Paris
+mode. An ancient bonnet was tied under her chin
+with strings, and her equipment was completed by
+an exceedingly smart tortoise-shell-handled umbrella,
+which, she explained, had been a Christmas
+present from her son.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll convoy ye as far as the Laverfoot herd's,"
+she announced. "The wife's a freend o' mine and
+will set me a bit on the road back. Ye needna fash
+for me.   I'm used to a' weathers."</p>
+
+<p>The rain had declined to a fine drizzle, but a
+tearing wind from the south-west scoured the land.
+Beyond the shelter of the trees the moor was a
+battle-ground of gusts which swept the puddles into
+spindrift and gave to the stagnant bog-pools the
+appearance of running water. The wind was behind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
+the travellers, and Mrs. Morran, like a full-rigged
+ship, was hustled before it, so that Dickson, who
+had linked arms with her, was sometimes compelled
+to trot.</p>
+
+<p>"However will you get home, mistress?" he murmured
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Fine. The wind will fa' at the darkenin'.
+This'll be a sair time for ships at sea."</p>
+
+<p>Not a soul was about, as they breasted the
+ascent of the station road and turned down the
+grassy bypath to the Laverfoot herd's. The herd's
+wife saw them from afar and was at the door to
+receive them.</p>
+
+<p>"Megsty! Phemie Morran!" she shrilled. "Wha
+wad ettle to see ye on a day like this? John's awa'
+at Dumfries, buyin' tups. Come in, the baith o'
+ye. The kettle's on the boil."</p>
+
+<p>"This is my nevoy Dickson," said Mrs. Morran.
+"He's gaun to stretch his legs ayont the burn, and
+come back by the Ayr road. But I'll be blithe to
+tak' my tea wi' ye, Elspeth.... Now, Dickson,
+I'll expect ye back on the chap o' seeven."</p>
+
+<p>He crossed the rising stream on a swaying plank
+and struck into the moorland, as Dougal had
+ordered, keeping the bald top of Grey Carrick before
+him. In that wild place with the tempest
+battling overhead he had no fear of human enemies.
+Steadily he covered the ground, till he reached the
+west-flowing burn that was to lead him to the shore.
+He found it an entertaining companion, swirling
+into black pools, foaming over little falls, and lying
+in dark canal-like stretches in the flats. Presently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+it began to descend steeply in a narrow green gully,
+where the going was bad, and Dickson, weighted
+with pack and waterproof, had much ado to keep
+his feet on the sodden slopes. Then, as he rounded
+a crook of hill, the ground fell away from his feet,
+the burn swept in a water-slide to the boulders of
+the shore, and the storm-tossed sea lay before him.</p>
+
+<p>It was now that he began to feel nervous. Being
+on the coast again seemed to bring him inside his
+enemies' territory, and had not Dobson specifically
+forbidden the shore? It was here that they might
+be looking for him. He felt himself out of condition,
+very wet and very warm, but he attained a
+creditable pace, for he struck a road which had been
+used by manure-carts collecting seaweed. There
+were faint marks on it, which he took to be the
+wheels of Dougal's "machine" carrying the provision-box.
+Yes. On a patch of gravel there was a
+double set of tracks, which showed how it had returned
+to Mrs. Sempill. He was exposed to the full
+force of the wind, and the strenuousness of his
+bodily exertions kept his fears quiescent, till the
+cliffs on his left sunk suddenly and the valley of
+the Laver lay before him.</p>
+
+<p>A small figure rose from the shelter of a boulder,
+the warrior who bore the name of Old Bill. He
+saluted gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye're just in time. The water has rose three
+inches since I've been here. Ye'd better strip."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson removed his boots and socks. "Breeks,
+too," commanded the boy; "there's deep holes
+ayont thae stanes."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dickson obeyed, feeling very chilly, and rather
+improper. "Now, follow me," said the guide. The
+next moment he was stepping delicately on very
+sharp pebbles, holding on to the end of the scout's
+pole, while an icy stream ran to his knees.</p>
+
+<p>The Laver as it reaches the sea broadens out to
+the width of fifty or sixty yards and tumbles over
+little shelves of rock to meet the waves. Usually
+it is shallow, but now it was swollen to an average
+depth of a foot or more, and there were deeper
+pockets. Dickson made the passage slowly and
+miserably, sometimes crying out with pain as his
+toes struck a sharper flint, once or twice sitting
+down on a boulder to blow like a whale, once slipping
+on his knees and wetting the strange excrescence
+about his middle, which was his tucked-up
+waterproof. But the crossing was at length
+achieved, and on a patch of sea-pinks he dried himself
+perfunctorily and hastily put on his garments.
+Old Bill, who seemed to be regardless of wind or
+water, squatted beside him and whistled through
+his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Above them hung the sheer cliffs of the Huntingtower
+cape, so sheer that a man below was completely
+hidden from any watcher on the top.
+Dickson's heart fell, for he did not profess to be
+a cragsman and had indeed a horror of precipitous
+places. But as the two scrambled along the foot,
+they passed deep-cut gullies and fissures, most of
+them unclimbable, but offering something more
+hopeful than the face. At one of these Old Bill
+halted and led the way up and over a chaos of fallen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+rock and loose sand. The grey weather had
+brought on the dark prematurely, and in the half-light
+it seemed that this ravine was blocked by an
+unscalable mass of rock. Here Old Bill whistled,
+and there was a reply from above. Round the
+corner of the mass came Dougal.</p>
+
+<p>"Up here," he commanded. "It was Mr. Heritage
+that fund this road."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson and his guide squeezed themselves between
+the mass and the cliff up a spout of stones,
+and found themselves in an upper storey of the
+gulley, very steep but practicable even for one who
+was no cragsman. This in turn ran out against a
+wall up which there led only a narrow chimney. At
+the foot of this were two of the Die-Hards, and
+there were others above, for a rope hung down by
+the aid of which a package was even now ascending.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the top," said Dougal, pointing to the
+rim of sky, "and that's the last o' the supplies."
+Dickson noticed that he spoke in a whisper, and
+that all the movements of the Die-Hards were
+judicious and stealthy. "Now, it's your turn. Take
+a good grip o' the rope, and ye'll find plenty holes
+for your feet. It's no more than ten yards and
+ye're well held above."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson made the attempt and found it easier
+than he expected. The only trouble was his pack
+and waterproof, which had a tendency to catch on
+jags of rock. A hand was reached out to him, he
+was pulled over the edge, and then pushed down
+on his face.</p>
+
+<p>When he lifted his head Dougal and the others<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+had joined him and the whole company of the Die-Hards
+was assembled on a patch of grass which
+was concealed from the landward view by a thicket
+of hazels. Another, whom he recognised as Heritage,
+was coiling up the rope.</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better get all the stuff into the old Tower
+for the present," Heritage was saying. "It's too
+risky to move it into the House now. We'll need
+the thickest darkness for that, after the moon is
+down. Quick, for the beastly thing will be rising
+soon and before that we must all be indoors."</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned to Dickson, and gripped his hand.
+"You're a high class of sportsman, Dogson. And
+I think you're just in time."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they due to-night?" Dickson asked in an
+excited whisper, faint against the wind.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about They. But I've got a notion
+that some devilish queer things will happen before
+to-morrow morning."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES</p>
+
+
+<p>The old keep of Huntingtower stood some
+three hundred yards from the edge of the
+cliffs, a gnarled wood of hazels and oaks protecting
+it from the sea-winds. It was still in fair preservation,
+having till twenty years before been an adjunct
+of the house of Dalquharter, and used as kitchen,
+buttery and servants' quarters. There had been
+residential wings attached, dating from the mid-eighteenth
+century, but these had been pulled down
+and used for the foundations of the new mansion.
+Now it stood a lonely shell, its three storeys, each
+a single great room connected by a spiral stone
+staircase, being dedicated to lumber and the storage
+of produce. But it was dry and intact, its massive
+oak doors defied any weapon short of artillery, its
+narrow unglazed windows would scarcely have admitted
+a cat&mdash;a place portentously strong, gloomy,
+but yet habitable.</p>
+
+<p>Dougal opened the main door with a massy key.
+"The lassie fund it," he whispered to Dickson,
+"somewhere about the kitchen&mdash;and I guessed it
+was the key o' this castle. I was thinkin' that if
+things got ower hot it would be a good plan to flit
+here. Change our base, like." The Chieftain's
+occasional studies in war had trained his tongue to
+a military jargon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the ground room lay a fine assortment of oddments,
+including old bedsteads and servants' furniture,
+and what looked like ancient discarded deer-skin
+rugs. Dust lay thick over everything, and they
+heard the scurry of rats. A dismal place, indeed,
+but Dickson felt only its strangeness. The comfort
+of being back again among allies had quickened his
+spirit to an adventurous mood. The old lords of
+Huntingtower had once quarrelled and revelled and
+plotted here, and now here he was at the same game.
+Present and past joined hands over the gulf of
+years. The saga of Huntingtower was not
+ended.</p>
+
+<p>The Die-Hards had brought with them their
+scanty bedding, their lanterns and camp kettles.
+These and the provisions from Mearns Street were
+stowed away in a corner.</p>
+
+<p>"Now for the Hoose, men," said Dougal. They
+stole over the downs to the shrubbery, and Dickson
+found himself almost in the same place as he had
+lain in three days before, watching a dusky lawn,
+while the wet earth soaked through his trouser
+knees and the drip from the azaleas trickled over
+his spine. Two of the boys fetched the ladder and
+placed it against the verandah wall. Heritage first,
+then Dickson darted across the lawn and made the
+ascent. The six scouts followed, and the ladder
+was pulled up and hidden among the verandah litter.
+For a second the whole eight stood still and listened.
+There was no sound except the murmur of the now
+falling wind and the melancholy hooting of owls.
+The garrison had entered the Dark Tower.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A council in whispers was held in the garden
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody must show a light," Heritage observed.
+"It mustn't be known that we're here. Only the
+Princess will have a lamp. Yes"&mdash;this in answer
+to Dickson, "she knows that we're coming&mdash;you
+too. We'll hunt for quarters later upstairs. You
+scouts, you must picket every possible entrance.
+The windows are safe, I think, for they are locked
+from the inside. So is the main door. But there's
+the verandah door, of which they have a key, and
+the back door beside the kitchen, and I'm not at all
+sure that there's not a way in by the boiler-house.
+You understand. We're holding this place against
+all comers. We must barricade the danger points.
+The headquarters of the garrison will be in the hall,
+where a scout must be always on duty. You've all
+got whistles? Well, if there's an attempt on the
+verandah door the picket will whistle once, if at the
+back door twice, if anywhere else three times, and
+it's everybody's duty, except the picket who whistles,
+to get back to the hall for orders."</p>
+
+<p>"That's so," assented Dougal.</p>
+
+<p>"If the enemy forces an entrance we must overpower
+him. Any means you like. Sticks or fists,
+and remember that if it's a scrap in the dark make
+for the man's throat. I expect you little devils have
+eyes like cats. The scoundrels must be kept away
+from the ladies at all costs. If the worst comes to
+the worst, the Princess has a revolver."</p>
+
+<p>"So have I," said Dickson. "I got it in Glasgow."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The deuce you have!  Can you use it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you can hand it over to me, if you like.
+But it oughtn't to come to shooting, if it's only the
+three of them. The eight of us should be able to
+manage three and one of them lame. If the others
+turn up&mdash;well, God help us all! But we've got
+to make sure of one thing, that no one lays hands
+on the Princess so long as there's one of us left
+alive to hit out."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye needn't be feared for that," said Dougal.
+There was no light in the room, but Dickson was
+certain that the morose face of the Chieftain was
+lit with unholy joy.</p>
+
+<p>"Then off with you. Mr. McCunn and I will
+explain matters to the ladies."</p>
+
+<p>When they were alone, Heritage's voice took a
+different key. "We're in for it, Dogson, old man.
+There's no doubt these three scoundrels expect reinforcements
+at any moment, and with them will be
+one who is the devil incarnate. He's the only thing
+on earth that that brave girl fears. It seems he
+is in love with her and has pestered her for years.
+She hated the sight of him, but he wouldn't take no,
+and being a powerful man&mdash;rich and well-born and
+all the rest of it&mdash;she had a desperate time. I
+gather he was pretty high in favour with the old
+Court. Then when the Bolsheviks started he went
+over to them, like plenty of other grandees, and now
+he's one of their chief brains&mdash;none of your callow
+revolutionaries, but a man of the world, a kind of
+genius, she says, who can hold his own anywhere.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+She believes him to be in this country, and only waiting
+the right moment to turn up.   Oh, it sounds
+ridiculous, I know, in Britain in the twentieth century,
+but I learned in the war that civilisation anywhere
+is a very thin crust. There are a hundred
+ways by which that kind of fellow could bamboozle
+all our law and police and spirit her away. That's
+the kind of crowd we have to face."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she say what he was like in appearance?"</p>
+
+<p>"A face like an angel&mdash;a lost angel, she says."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson suddenly had an inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>"D'you mind the man you said was an Australian&mdash;at
+Kirkmichael? I thought myself he was a foreigner.
+Well, he was asking for a place he called
+Darkwater, and there's no sich place in the countryside.
+I believe he meant Dalquharter. I believe
+he's the man she's feared of."</p>
+
+<p>A gasped "By Jove!" came from the darkness.
+"Dogson, you've hit it. That was five days ago,
+and he must have got on the right trail by this time.
+He'll be here to-night. That's why the three have
+been lying so quiet to-day. Well, we'll go through
+with it, even if we haven't a dog's chance. Only
+I'm sorry that you should be mixed up in such a
+hopeless business."</p>
+
+<p>"Why me more than you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it's all pure pride and joy for me to
+be here. Good God, I wouldn't be elsewhere for
+worlds. It's the great hour of my life. I would
+gladly die for her."</p>
+
+<p>"Tuts, that's no' the way to talk, man. Time
+enough to speak about dying when there's no other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+way out. I'm looking at this thing in a business
+way.   We'd better be seeing the ladies."</p>
+
+<p>They groped into the pitchy hall, somewhere in
+which a Die-Hard was on picket, and down the passage
+to the smoking-room. Dickson blinked in the
+light of a very feeble lamp and Heritage saw that
+his hands were cumbered with packages. He deposited
+them on a sofa and made a ducking bow.</p>
+
+<p>"I've come back, Mem, and glad to be back.
+Your jools are in safe keeping, and not all the blagyirds
+in creation could get at them. I've come to
+tell you to cheer up&mdash;a stout heart to a stey brae,
+as the old folk say. I'm handling this affair as a
+business proposition, so don't be feared, Mem. If
+there are enemies seeking you, there's friends on the
+road too.... Now, you'll have had your dinner,
+but you'd maybe like a little dessert."</p>
+
+<p>He spread before them a huge box of chocolates,
+the best that Mearns Street could produce, a box
+of candied fruits, and another of salted almonds.
+Then from his hideously overcrowded pockets he
+took another box, which he offered rather shyly.
+"That's some powder for your complexion. They
+tell me that ladies find it useful whiles."</p>
+
+<p>The girl's strained face watched him at first in
+mystification, and then broke slowly into a smile.
+Youth came back to it, the smile changed to a laugh,
+a low rippling laugh like far-away bells. She took
+both his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"You are kind," she said, "you are kind and
+brave.   You are a de-ar."</p>
+
+<p>And then she kissed him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Now, as far as Dickson could remember, no one
+had ever kissed him except his wife. The light
+touch of her lips on his forehead was like the pressing
+of an electric button which explodes some powerful
+charge and alters the face of a countryside.
+He blushed scarlet; then he wanted to cry; then he
+wanted to sing. An immense exhilaration seized
+him, and I am certain that if at that moment the
+serried ranks of Bolshevism had appeared in the
+doorway, Dickson would have hurled himself upon
+them with a joyful shout.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Eugčnie was earnestly eating chocolates,
+but Saskia had other business.</p>
+
+<p>"You will hold the house?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Please God, yes," said Heritage. "I look at it
+this way. The time is very near when your three
+gaolers expect the others, their masters. They have
+not troubled you in the past two days as they threatened,
+because it was not worth while. But they
+won't want to let you out of their sight in the final
+hours, so they will almost certainly come here to
+be on the spot. Our object is to keep them out and
+confuse their plans. Somewhere in this neighbourhood,
+probably very near, is the man you fear most.
+If we nonplus the three watchers, they'll have to
+revise their policy, and that means a delay, and
+every hour's delay is a gain. Mr. McCunn has
+found out that the factor Loudon is in the plot, and
+he has purchase enough, it seems, to blanket for a
+time any appeal to the law. But Mr. McCunn has
+taken steps to circumvent him, and in twenty-four
+hours we should have help here."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I do not want the help of your law," the girl
+interrupted. "It will entangle me."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of it," said Dickson cheerfully. "You
+see, Mem, they've clean lost track of the jools, and
+nobody knows where they are but me. I'm a truthful
+man, but I'll lie like a packman if I'm asked
+questions. For the rest, it's a question of kidnapping,
+I understand, and that's a thing that's not to
+be allowed. My advice is to go to our beds and get
+a little sleep while there's a chance of it. The
+Gorbals Die-Hards are grand watch-dogs."</p>
+
+<p>This view sounded so reasonable that it was at
+once acted upon. The ladies' chamber was next
+door to the smoking-room&mdash;what had been the old
+schoolroom. Heritage arranged with Saskia that
+the lamp was to be kept burning low, and that on
+no account were they to move unless summoned by
+him. Then he and Dickson made their way to the
+hall, where there was a faint glimmer from the
+moon in the upper unshuttered windows&mdash;enough to
+reveal the figure of Wee Jaikie on duty at the foot
+of the staircase. They ascended to the second floor,
+where, in a large room above the hall, Heritage had
+bestowed his pack. He had managed to open a fold
+of the shutters, and there was sufficient light to see
+two big mahogany bedsteads without mattresses or
+bedclothes, and wardrobes and chests of drawers
+sheeted in holland. Outside the wind was rising
+again, but the rain had stopped. Angry watery
+clouds scurried across the heavens.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson made a pillow of his waterproof,
+stretched himself on one of the bedsteads and, so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+quiet was his conscience and so weary his body from
+the buffetings of the past days, was almost instantly
+asleep. It seemed to him that he had scarcely
+closed his eyes when he was awakened by Dougal's
+hand pinching his shoulder. He gathered that
+the moon was setting, for the room was pitchy
+dark.</p>
+
+<p>"The three o' them is approachin' the kitchen
+door," whispered the Chieftain. "I seen them from
+a spy-hole I made out o' a ventilator."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it barricaded?" asked Heritage, who had
+apparently not been asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, but I've thought o' a far better plan. Why
+should we keep them out? They'll be safer inside.
+Listen! We might manage to get them in one at
+a time. If they can't get in at the kitchen door,
+they'll send one o' them round to get in by another
+door and open to them. That gives us a chance to
+get them separated, and lock them up. There's
+walth o' closets and hidy-holes all over the place,
+each with good doors and good keys to them. Supposin'
+we get the three o' them shut up&mdash;the others,
+when they come, will have nobody to guide them.
+Of course some time or other the three will break
+out, but it may be ower late for them. At present
+we're besieged and they're roamin' the country.
+Would it no' be far better if they were the ones
+lockit up and we were goin' loose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Supposing they don't come in one at a time?"
+Dickson objected.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll make them," said Dougal firmly. "There's
+no time to waste.  Are ye for it?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Heritage. "Who's at the kitchen
+door?"</p>
+
+<p>"Peter Paterson. I told him no' to whistle, but
+to wait on me.... Keep your boots off. Ye're
+better in your stockin' feet. Wait you in the hall
+and see ye're well hidden, for likely whoever comes
+in will have a lantern. Just you keep quiet unless
+I give ye a cry. I've planned it a' out, and we're
+ready for them."</p>
+
+<p>Dougal disappeared, and Dickson and Heritage,
+with their boots tied round their necks by their
+laces, crept out to the upper landing. The hall was
+impenetrably dark, but full of voices, for the wind
+was talking in the ceiling beams, and murmuring
+through the long passages. The walls creaked and
+muttered and little bits of plaster fluttered down.
+The noise was an advantage for the game of hide-and-seek
+they proposed to play, but it made it hard
+to detect the enemy's approach. Dickson, in order
+to get properly wakened, adventured as far as the
+smoking-room. It was black with night, but below
+the door of the adjacent room a faint line of light
+showed where the Princess's lamp was burning. He
+advanced to the window, and heard distinctly a foot
+on the gravel path that led to the verandah. This
+sent him back to the hall in search of Dougal, whom
+he encountered in the passage. That boy could certainly
+see in the dark, for he caught Dickson's wrist
+without hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"We've got Spittal in the wine-cellar," he whispered
+triumphantly. "The kitchen door was barricaded,
+and when they tried it, it wouldn't open.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+'Bide here,' says Dobson to Spittal, 'and we'll go
+round by another door and come back and open to
+ye.' So off they went, and by that time Peter
+Paterson and me had the barricade down. As we
+expected, Spittal tried the key again and it opens
+quite easy. He comes in and locks it behind him,
+and, Dobson having took away the lantern, he
+gropes his way very carefu' towards the kitchen.
+There's a point where the wine-cellar door and the
+scullery door are aside each other. He should have
+taken the second, but I had it shut so he takes the
+first. Peter Paterson gave him a wee shove and he
+fell down the two-three steps into the cellar, and
+we turned the key on him. Yon cellar has a grand
+door and no windies."</p>
+
+<p>"And Dobson and Léon are at the verandah
+door? With a light?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thomas Yownie's on duty there. Ye can trust
+him. Ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie."</p>
+
+<p>The next minutes were for Dickson a delirium
+of excitement not unpleasantly shot with flashes of
+doubt and fear. As a child he had played hide-and-seek,
+and his memory had always cherished the
+delights of the game. But how marvellous to play
+it thus in a great empty house, at dark of night,
+with the heaven filled with tempest, and with death
+or wounds as the stakes!</p>
+
+<p>He took refuge in a corner where a tapestry curtain
+and the side of a Dutch awmry gave him
+shelter, and from where he stood he could see the
+garden-room and the beginning of the tiled passage
+which led to the verandah door. That is to say, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+could have seen these things if there had been any
+light, which there was not. He heard the soft
+flitting of bare feet, for a delicate sound is often
+audible in a din when a loud noise is obscured. Then
+a gale of wind blew towards him, as from an open
+door, and far away gleamed the flickering light of
+a lantern.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the light disappeared and there was a
+clatter on the floor and a breaking of glass. Either
+the wind or Thomas Yownie.</p>
+
+<p>The verandah door was shut, a match spluttered
+and the lantern was relit. Dobson and Léon came
+into the hall, both clad in long mackintoshes which
+glistened from the weather. Dobson halted and
+listened to the wind howling in the upper spaces.
+He cursed it bitterly, looked at his watch, and then
+made an observation which woke the liveliest interest
+in Dickson lurking beside the awmry and
+Heritage ensconced in the shadow of a window-seat.</p>
+
+<p>"He's late. He should have been here five minutes
+syne. It would be a dirty road for his car."</p>
+
+<p>So the Unknown was coming that night. The
+news made Dickson the more resolved to get the
+watchers under lock and key before reinforcements
+arrived, and so put grit in their wheels. Then his
+party must escape&mdash;flee anywhere so long as it was
+far from Dalquharter.</p>
+
+<p>"You stop here," said Dobson, "I'll go down and
+let Spidel in. We want another lamp. Get the one
+that the women use and for God's sake get a
+move on."</p>
+
+<p>The sound of his feet died in the kitchen passage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+and then rung again on the stone stairs. Dickson's
+ear of faith heard also the soft patter of naked feet
+as the Die-Hards preceded and followed him. He
+was delivering himself blind and bound into their
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>For a minute or two there was no sound but the
+wind, which had found a loose chimney cowl on the
+roof and screwed out of it an odd sound like the
+drone of a bagpipe. Dickson, unable to remain any
+longer in one place, moved into the centre of the
+hall, believing that Léon had gone to the smoking-room.
+It was a dangerous thing to do, for suddenly
+a match was lit a yard from him. He had the sense
+to drop low, and so was out of the main glare of the
+light. The man with the match apparently had no
+more, judging by his execrations. Dickson stood
+stock still, longing for the wind to fall so that he
+might hear the sound of the fellow's boots on the
+stone floor. He gathered that they were moving
+towards the smoking-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Heritage," he whispered as loud as he dared,
+but there was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly a moving body collided with him.
+He jumped a step back and then stood at attention,
+"Is that you, Dobson?" a voice asked.</p>
+
+<p>Now behold the occasional advantage of a nickname.
+Dickson thought he was being addressed as
+"Dogson" after the Poet's fashion. Had he
+dreamed it was Léon he would not have replied,
+but fluttered off into the shadows and so missed a
+piece of vital news.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, it's me," he whispered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His voice and accent were Scotch, like Dobson's,
+and Léon suspected nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not like this wind," he grumbled. "The
+Captain's letter said at dawn, but there is no chance
+of the Danish brig making your little harbour in
+this weather. She must lie off and land the men
+by boats. That I do not like.  It is too public."</p>
+
+<p>The news&mdash;tremendous news, for it told that the
+new-comers would come by sea, which had never
+before entered Dickson's head&mdash;so interested him
+that he stood dumb and ruminating. The silence
+made the Belgian suspect; he put out a hand and
+felt a waterproofed arm which might have been
+Dobson's. But the height of the shoulder proved
+that it was not the burly innkeeper. There was an
+oath, a quick movement, and Dickson went down
+with a knee on his chest and two hands at his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Heritage," he gasped. "Help!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a sound of furniture scraped violently
+on the floor. A gurgle from Dickson served as a
+guide, and the Poet suddenly cascaded over the
+combatants. He felt for a head, found Léon's,
+and gripped the neck so savagely that the owner
+loosened his hold on Dickson. The last-named
+found himself being buffeted violently by heavy-shod
+feet which seemed to be man&oelig;uvring before
+an unseen enemy. He rolled out of the road and
+encountered another pair of feet, this time unshod.
+Then came a sound of a concussion, as if metal or
+wood had struck some part of a human frame, and
+then a stumble and fall.</p>
+
+<p>After that a good many things all seemed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+happen at once. There was a sudden light, which
+showed Léon blinking with a short loaded life-preserver
+in his hand, and Heritage prone in front
+of him on the floor. It also showed Dickson the
+figure of Dougal, and more than one Die-Hard in
+the background. The light went out as suddenly
+as it had appeared. There was a whistle, and a
+hoarse "Come on, men," and then for two seconds
+there was a desperate silent combat. It ended with
+Léon's head meeting the floor so violently that its
+possessor became oblivious of further proceedings.
+He was dragged into a cubby-hole, which had once
+been used for coats and rugs, and the door locked
+on him. Then the light sprang forth again. It revealed
+Dougal and five Die-Hards, somewhat the
+worse for wear; it revealed also Dickson squatted
+with outspread waterproof very like a sitting hen.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Dobson?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"In the boiler-house," and for once Dougal's
+gravity had laughter in it. "Govey Dick! but yon
+was a fecht! Me and Peter Paterson and Wee
+Jaikie started it, but it was the whole company afore
+the end. Are ye better, Jaikie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, I'm better," said a pallid midget.</p>
+
+<p>"He kickit Jaikie in the stomach and Jaikie was
+seeck," Dougal explained. "That's the three accounted
+for. Now they're safe for five hours at
+the least. I think mysel' that Dobson will be the
+first to get out, but he'll have his work letting out
+the others. Now, I'm for flittin' to the old Tower.
+They'll no ken where we are for a long time, and
+anyway yon place will be far easier to defend.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+Without they kindle a fire and smoke us out, I don't
+see how they'll beat us. Our provisions are a' there,
+and there's a grand well o' water inside. Forbye
+there's the road down the rocks that'll keep our
+communications open.... But what's come to Mr.
+Heritage?"</p>
+
+<p>Dickson to his shame had forgotten all about his
+friend. The Poet lay very quiet with his head on
+one side and his legs crooked limply. Blood
+trickled over his eyes from an ugly scar on his forehead.
+Dickson felt his heart and pulse and found
+them faint but regular. The man had got a swinging
+blow and might have a slight concussion; for
+the present he was unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>"All the more reason why we should flit," said
+Dougal.  "What d'ye say, Mr. McCunn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Flit, of course, but further than the old Tower.
+What's the time?" He lifted Heritage's wrist and
+saw from his watch that it was half-past three.
+"Mercy! It's nearly morning. Afore we put these
+blagyirds away, they were conversing, at least
+Léon and Dobson were. They said that they expected
+somebody every moment, but that the car
+would be late. We've still got that Somebody to
+tackle. Then Léon spoke to me in the dark, thinking
+I was Dobson, and cursed the wind, saying it
+would keep the Danish brig from getting in at dawn
+as had been intended. D'you see what that means?
+The worst of the lot, the ones the ladies are in
+terror of, are coming by sea. Ay, and they can
+return by sea. We thought that the attack would
+be by land, and that even if they succeeded we could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+hang on to their heels and follow them, till we got
+them stopped. But that's impossible! If they come
+in from the water, they can go out by the water,
+and there'll never be more heard tell of the ladies
+or of you or me."</p>
+
+<p>Dougal's face was once again sunk in gloom.
+"What's your plan, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"We must get the ladies away from here&mdash;away
+inland, far from the sea. The rest of us must stand
+a siege in the old Tower, so that the enemy will
+think we're all there. Please God we'll hold out
+long enough for help to arrive. But we mustn't
+hang about here. There's the man Dobson mentioned&mdash;he
+may come any second, and we want to
+be away first. Get the ladder, Dougal.... Four
+of you take Mr. Heritage, and two come with me
+and carry the ladies' things. It's no' raining, but
+the wind's enough to take the wings off a seagull."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson roused Saskia and her cousin, bidding
+them be ready in ten minutes. Then with the help
+of the Die-Hards he proceeded to transport the
+necessary supplies&mdash;the stove, oil, dishes, clothes
+and wraps; more than one journey was needed of
+small boys, hidden under clouds of baggage. When
+everything had gone he collected the keys, behind
+which, in various quarters of the house, three
+gaolers fumed impotently, and gave them to Wee
+Jaikie to dispose of in some secret nook. Then he
+led the two ladies to the verandah, the elder cross
+and sleepy, the younger alert at the prospect of
+movement.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me again," she said. "You have locked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
+all the three up, and they are now the imprisoned?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it was the boys that, properly speaking,
+did the locking up."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a great&mdash;how do you say?&mdash;a turning of
+the tables. Ah&mdash;what is that?"</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the verandah there was a clattering
+down of pots which could not be due to the wind,
+since the place was sheltered. There was still only
+the faintest hint of light, and black night still
+lurked in the crannies. Followed another fall of
+pots, as from a clumsy intruder, and then a man
+appeared, clear against the glass door by which the
+path descended to the rock garden.</p>
+
+<p>It was the fourth man, whom the three prisoners
+had awaited. Dickson had no doubt at all about
+his identity. He was that villain from whom all
+the others took their orders, the man whom the
+Princess shuddered at. Before starting he had
+loaded his pistol. Now he tugged it from his
+waterproof pocket, pointed it at the other and fired.</p>
+
+<p>The man seemed to be hit, for he spun round and
+clapped a hand to his left arm. Then he fled
+through the door, which he left open.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson was after him like a hound. At the door
+he saw him running and raised his pistol for another
+shot. Then he dropped it, for he saw something
+in the crouching, dodging figure which was
+familiar.</p>
+
+<p>"A mistake," he explained to Jaikie when he returned.
+"But the shot wasn't wasted. I've just
+had a good try at killing the factor!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<p class="center">DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY</p>
+
+
+<p>Five scouts' lanterns burned smokily in the
+ground room of the keep when Dickson ushered
+his charges through its cavernous door. The lights
+flickered in the gusts that swept after them and
+whistled through the slits of window, so that the
+place was full of monstrous shadows, and its accustomed
+odour of mould and disuse was changed to
+a salty freshness. Upstairs on the first floor
+Thomas Yownie had deposited the ladies' baggage,
+and was busy making beds out of derelict iron bedsteads
+and the wraps brought from their room. On
+the ground floor on a heap of litter covered by an
+old scout's blanket lay Heritage, with Dougal in
+attendance.</p>
+
+<p>The Chieftain had washed the blood from the
+Poet's brow and the touch of cold water was bringing
+back his senses. Saskia with a cry flew to him,
+and waved off Dickson who had fetched one of the
+bottles of liqueur brandy. She slipped a hand inside
+his shirt and felt the beating of his heart. Then
+her slim fingers ran over his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"A bad blow," she muttered, "but I do not think
+he is ill. There is no fracture. When I nursed in
+the Alexander Hospital I learnt much about head
+wounds. Do not give him cognac if you value his
+life."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Heritage was talking now and with strange
+tongues. Phrases like "lined digesters" and "free
+sulphurous acid" came from his lips. He implored
+some one to tell him if "the first cook" was finished,
+and he upbraided some one else for "cooling off"
+too fast.</p>
+
+<p>The girl raised her head. "But I fear he has
+become mad," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Wheesht, Mem," said Dickson, who recognised
+the jargon.   "He's a paper maker."</p>
+
+<p>Saskia sat down on the litter and lifted his head
+so that it rested on her breast. Dougal at her bidding
+brought a certain case from her baggage, and
+with swift, capable hands she made a bandage and
+rubbed the wound with ointment before tying it up.
+Then her fingers seemed to play about his temples
+and along his cheeks and neck. She was the professional
+nurse now, absorbed, sexless. Heritage
+ceased to babble, his eyes shut and he was asleep.</p>
+
+<p>She remained where she was, so that the Poet,
+when a few minutes later he woke, found himself
+lying with his head in her lap. She spoke first, in
+an imperative tone: "You are well now. Your head
+does not ache. You are strong again."</p>
+
+<p>"No. Yes," he murmured. Then more clearly:
+"Where am I? Oh, I remember, I caught a lick
+on the head.  What's become of the brutes?"</p>
+
+<p>Dickson, who had extracted food from the
+Mearns Street box and was pressing it on the others,
+replied through a mouthful of biscuit: "We're in the
+old Tower. The three are lockit up in the House.
+Are you feeling better, Mr. Heritage?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Poet suddenly realised Saskia's position and
+the blood came to his pale face. He got to his feet
+with an effort and held out a hand to the girl.
+"I'm all right now, I think. Only a little dicky on
+my legs. A thousand thanks, Princess. I've given
+you a lot of trouble."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled at him tenderly. "You say that when
+you have risked your life for me."</p>
+
+<p>"There's no time to waste," the relentless Dougal
+broke in. "Comin' over here, I heard a shot.
+What was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was me," said Dickson. "I was shootin' at
+the factor."</p>
+
+<p>"Did ye hit him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so, but I'm sorry to say not badly.
+When I last saw him he was running too quick for
+a sore hurt man. When I fired I thought it was the
+other man&mdash;the one they were expecting."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson marvelled at himself, yet his speech was
+not bravado but the honest expression of his mind.
+He was keyed up to a mood in which he feared
+nothing very much, certainly not the laws of his
+country. If he fell in with the Unknown, he was
+entirely resolved, if his Maker permitted him, to
+do murder as being the simplest and justest solution.
+And if in the pursuit of this laudable intention he
+happened to wing lesser game it was no fault of his.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's a pity ye didn't get him," said Dougal,
+"him being what we ken him to be.... I'm for
+holding a council o' war, and considerin' the whole
+position. So far we haven't done that badly.
+We've shifted our base without serious casualties.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
+We've got a far better position to hold, for there's
+too many ways into yon Hoose, and here there's
+just one. Besides, we've fickled the enemy. They'll
+take some time to find out where we've gone. But,
+mind you, we can't count on their staying long shut
+up. Dobson's no' safe in the boiler-house, for
+there's a skylight far up and he'll see it when the
+light comes and maybe before. So we'd better get
+our plans ready. A word with ye, Mr. McCunn,"
+and he led Dickson aside.</p>
+
+<p>"D'ye ken what these blagyirds were up to," he
+whispered fiercely in Dickson's ear. "They were
+goin' to pushion the lassie. How do I ken, says
+you? Because Thomas Yownie heard Dobson say
+to Lean at the scullery door, 'Have ye got the
+dope?' he says, and Lean says, 'Ay.' Thomas
+mindit the word for he had heard about it at the
+Picters."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson exclaimed in horror.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye make o' that? I'll tell ye. They
+wanted to make sure of her, but they wouldn't have
+thought o' dope unless the men they expectit were
+due to arrive any moment. As I see it, we've to
+face a siege not by the three but by a dozen or
+more, and it'll no' be long till it starts. Now, isn't
+it a mercy we're safe in here?"</p>
+
+<p>Dickson returned to the others with a grave face.</p>
+
+<p>"Where d'you think the new folk are coming
+from?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Heritage answered, "From Auchenlochan, I suppose?
+Or perhaps down from the hills?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're wrong."   And he told of Léon's mis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>taken
+confidences to him in the darkness. "They
+are coming from the sea, just like the old pirates."</p>
+
+<p>"The sea," Heritage repeated in a dazed voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, the sea. Think what that means. If they
+had been coming by the roads, we could have kept
+track of them, even if they beat us, and some of
+these laddies could have stuck to them and followed
+them up till help came. It can't be such an easy
+job to carry a young lady against her will along
+Scotch roads. But the sea's a different matter. If
+they've got a fast boat they could be out of the
+Firth and away beyond the law before we could
+wake up a single policeman. Ay, and even if the
+Government took it up and warned all the ports
+and ships at sea, what's to hinder them to find a
+hidy-hole about Ireland&mdash;or Norway? I tell you,
+it's a far more desperate business than I thought,
+and it'll no' do to wait on and trust that the Chief
+Constable will turn up afore the mischief's done."</p>
+
+<p>"The moral," said Heritage, "is that there can
+be no surrender. We've got to stick it out in this
+old place at all costs."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Dickson emphatically. "The moral
+is that we must shift the ladies. We've got the
+chance while Dobson and his friends are locked up.
+Let's get them as far away as we can from the sea.
+They're far safer tramping the moors, and it's no'
+likely the new folk will dare to follow us."</p>
+
+<p>"But I cannot go." Saskia, who had been listening
+intently, shook her head. "I promised to wait
+here till my friend came. If I leave I shall never
+find him."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If you stay you certainly never will, for you'll
+be away with the ruffians. Take a sensible view,
+Mem. You'll be no good to your friend or your
+friend to you if before night you're rocking in a
+ship."</p>
+
+<p>The girl shook her head again, gently but decisively.
+"It was our arrangement. I cannot break
+it. Besides, I am sure that he will come in time,
+for he has never failed&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There was a desperate finality about the quiet
+tones and the weary face with the shadow of a smile
+on it.</p>
+
+<p>Then Heritage spoke. "I don't think your plan
+will quite do, Dogson. Supposing we all break for
+the hinterland and the Danish brig finds the birds
+flown, that won't end the trouble. They will get
+on the Princess's trail, and the whole persecution
+will start again. I want to see things brought to a
+head here and now. If we can stick it out here long
+enough, we may trap the whole push and rid the
+world of a pretty gang of miscreants. Once let
+them show their hand, and then, if the police are
+here by that time, we can jug the lot for piracy or
+something worse."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," said Dougal, "but we'd put
+up a better fight if we had the women off our mind.
+I've aye read that when a castle was going to be
+besieged the first thing was to rid get of the
+civilians."</p>
+
+<p>"Sensible to the last, Dougal," said Dickson approvingly.
+"That's just what I'm saying.   I'm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+strong for a fight, but put the ladies in a safe bit
+first, for they're our weak point."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think that if you were fighting my
+enemies, I would consent to be absent?" came
+Saskia's reproachful question.</p>
+
+<p>"'Deed no, Mem," said Dickson heartily. His
+martial spirit was with Heritage, but his prudence
+did not sleep, and he suddenly saw a way of placating
+both. "Just you listen to what I propose.
+What do we amount to? Mr. Heritage, six laddies,
+and myself&mdash;and I'm no more used to fighting than
+an old wife. We've seven desperate villains against
+us, and afore night they may be seventy. We've a
+fine old castle here, but for defence we want more
+than stone walls&mdash;we want a garrison. I tell you
+we must get help somewhere. Ay, but how, says
+you? Well, coming here I noticed a gentleman's
+house away up ayont the railway and close to the
+hills. The laird's maybe not at home, but there will
+be men there of some kind&mdash;gamekeepers and woodmen
+and such like. My plan is to go there at once
+and ask for help. Now, it's useless me going alone,
+for nobody would listen to me. They'd tell me to
+go back to the shop or they'd think me demented.
+But with you, Mem, it would be a different matter.
+They wouldn't disbelieve you. So I want you to
+come with me and to come at once, for God knows
+how soon our need will be sore. We'll leave your
+cousin with Mrs. Morran in the village, for bed's
+the place for her, and then you and me will be off
+on our business."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The girl looked at Heritage, who nodded. "It's
+the only way," he said. "Get every man jack you
+can raise, and if it's humanly possible get a gun or
+two. I believe there's time enough, for I don't see
+the brig arriving in broad daylight."</p>
+
+<p>"D'you not?" Dickson asked rudely. "Have
+you considered what day this is? It's the Sabbath,
+the best of days for an ill deed. There's no kirk
+hereaways, and everybody in the parish will be sitting
+indoors by the fire." He looked at his watch.
+"In half an hour it'll be light. Haste you, Mem,
+and get ready. Dougal, what's the weather?"</p>
+
+<p>The Chieftain swung open the door, and sniffed
+the air. The wind had fallen for the time being,
+and the surge of the tides below the rocks rose like
+the clamour of a mob. With the lull, mist and a
+thin drizzle had cloaked the world again.</p>
+
+<p>To Dickson's surprise Dougal seemed to be in
+good spirits. He began to sing to a hymn tune a
+strange ditty.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0q">"Class-conscious we are, and class-conscious wull be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till our fit's on the neck o' the Boorjoyzee."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"What on earth are you singing?" Dickson
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>Dougal grinned. "Wee Jaikie went to a Socialist
+Sunday school last winter because he heard they
+were for fechtin' battles. Ay, and they telled him
+he was to jine a thing called an International, and
+Jaikie thought it was a fitba' club. But when he
+fund out there was no magic lantern or swaree at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+Christmas he gie'd it the chuck. They learned him
+a heap o' queer songs. That's one."</p>
+
+<p>"What does the last word mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't ken. Jaikie thought it was some kind
+of a draigon."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a daft-like thing anyway.... When's high
+water?"</p>
+
+<p>Dougal answered that to the best of his knowledge
+it fell between four and five in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Then that's when we may expect the foreign
+gentry if they think to bring their boat in to the
+Garple foot.... Dougal, lad, I trust you to keep
+a most careful and prayerful watch. You had
+better get the Die-Hards out of the Tower and all
+round the place afore Dobson and Co. get loose,
+or you'll no' get a chance later. Don't lose your
+mobility, as the sodgers say. Mr. Heritage can
+hold the fort, but you laddies should be spread out
+like a screen."</p>
+
+<p>"That was my notion," said Dougal. "I'll detail
+two Die-Hards&mdash;Thomas Yownie and Wee Jaikie&mdash;to
+keep in touch with ye and watch for ye comin'
+back. Thomas ye ken already; ye'll no fickle
+Thomas Yownie. But don't be mistook about Wee
+Jaikie. He's terrible fond of greetin', but it's no
+fright with him but excitement. It's just a habit
+he's gotten. When ye see Jaikie begin to greet, ye
+may be sure that Jaikie's gettin' dangerous."</p>
+
+<p>The door shut behind them and Dickson found
+himself with his two charges in a world dim with
+fog and rain and the still lingering darkness. The
+air was raw, and had the sour smell which comes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+from soaked earth and wet boughs when the leaves
+are not yet fledged. Both the women were miserably
+equipped for such an expedition. Cousin Eugčnie
+trailed heavy furs, Saskia's only wrap was a
+bright-coloured shawl about her shoulders, and both
+wore thin foreign shoes. Dickson insisted on stripping
+off his trusty waterproof and forcing it on the
+Princess, on whose slim body it hung very loose and
+very short. The elder woman stumbled and whimpered
+and needed the constant support of his arm,
+walking like a townswoman from the knees. But
+Saskia swung from the hips like a free woman, and
+Dickson had much ado to keep up with her. She
+seemed to delight in the bitter freshness of the
+dawn, inhaling deep breaths of it, and humming
+fragments of a tune.</p>
+
+<p>Guided by Thomas Yownie they took the road
+which Dickson and Heritage had travelled the first
+evening, through the shrubberies on the north side
+of the House and the side avenue beyond which the
+ground fell to the Laver glen. On their right the
+House rose like a dark cloud, but Dickson had lost
+his terror of it. There were three angry men inside
+it, he remembered: long let them stay there. He
+marvelled at his mood, and also rejoiced, for his
+worst fear had always been that he might prove a
+coward. Now he was puzzled to think how he could
+ever be frightened again, for his one object was
+to succeed, and in that absorption fear seemed
+to him merely a waste of time. "It all comes of
+treating the thing as a business proposition," he
+told himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But there was far more in his heart than this
+sober resolution. He was intoxicated with the resurgence
+of youth and felt a rapture of audacity
+which he never remembered in his decorous boyhood.
+"I haven't been doing badly for an old
+man," he reflected with glee. What, oh, what had
+become of the pillar of commerce, the man who
+might have been a Bailie had he sought municipal
+honours, the elder in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk,
+the instructor of literary young men? In the past
+three days he had levanted with jewels which had
+once been an Emperor's and certainly were not his;
+he had burglariously entered and made free of a
+strange house; he had played hide-and-seek at the
+risk of his neck and had wrestled in the dark with
+a foreign miscreant; he had shot at an eminent
+solicitor with intent to kill; and he was now engaged
+in tramping the world with a fairy-tale Princess.
+I blush to confess that of each of his doings he was
+unashamedly proud, and thirsted for many more in
+the same line. "Gosh, but I'm seeing life," was his
+unregenerate conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>Without sight or sound of a human being, they
+descended to the Laver, climbed again by the cart
+track, and passed the deserted West Lodge and inn
+to the village. It was almost full dawn when the
+three stood in Mrs. Morran's kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"I've brought you two ladies, Auntie Phemie,"
+said Dickson.</p>
+
+<p>They made an odd group in that cheerful place,
+where the new-lit fire was crackling in the big grate&mdash;the
+wet undignified form of Dickson, unshaven<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+of cheek and chin and disreputable in garb: the
+shrouded figure of Cousin Eugčnie, who had sunk
+into the arm-chair and closed her eyes; the slim
+girl, into whose face the weather had whipped a
+glow like blossom; and the hostess, with her petticoats
+kilted and an ancient mutch on her head.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran looked once at Saskia, and then
+did a thing which she had not done since her girlhood.
+She curtseyed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm proud to see ye here, Mem. Off wi' your
+things, and I'll get ye dry claes. Losh, ye're fair
+soppin'. And your shoon! Ye maun change your
+feet.... Dickson! Awa' up to the loft, and
+dinna you stir till I give ye a cry. The leddies will
+change by the fire. And you, Mem"&mdash;this to
+Cousin Eugčnie&mdash;"the place for you's your bed.
+I'll kinnle a fire ben the hoose in a jiffy. And syne
+ye'll have breakfast&mdash;ye'll hae a cup o' tea wi' me
+now, for the kettle's just on the boil. Awa' wi' ye,
+Dickson," and she stamped her foot.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson departed, and in the loft washed his
+face, and smoked a pipe on the edge of the bed,
+watching the mist eddying up the village street.
+From below rose the sounds of hospitable bustle,
+and when after some twenty minutes' vigil he
+descended, he found Saskia toasting stockinged toes
+by the fire in the great arm-chair, and Mrs. Morran
+setting the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Auntie Phemie, hearken to me. We've taken
+on too big a job for two men and six laddies, and
+help we've got to get, and that this very morning.
+D'you mind the big white house away up near the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+hills ayont the station and east of the Ayr road?
+It looked like a gentleman's shooting lodge. I was
+thinking of trying there.   Mercy!"</p>
+
+<p>The exclamation was wrung from him by his eyes
+settling on Saskia and noting her apparel. Gone
+were her thin foreign clothes, and in their place she
+wore a heavy tweed skirt cut very short, and thick
+homespun stockings, which had been made for some
+one with larger feet than hers. A pair of the
+coarse low-heeled shoes, which country folk wear
+in the farmyard, stood warming by the hearth.
+She still had her russet jumper, but round her neck
+hung a grey wool scarf, of the kind known as a
+"comforter." Amazingly pretty she looked in
+Dickson's eyes, but with a different kind of prettiness.
+The sense of fragility had fled, and he saw
+how nobly built she was for all her exquisiteness.
+She looked like a queen, he thought, but a queen
+to go gipsying through the world with.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, they're some o' Elspeth's things, rale guid
+furthy claes," said Mrs. Morran complacently.
+"And the shoon are what she used to gang about
+the byres wi' when she was in the Castlewham dairy.
+The leddy was tellin' me she was for trampin' the
+hills, and thae things will keep her dry and warm....
+I ken the hoose ye mean. They ca' it the
+Mains of Garple. And I ken the man that bides
+in it. He's yin Sir Erchibald Roylance. English,
+but his mither was a Dalziel. I'm no weel acquaint
+wi' his forbears, but I'm weel eneuch acquaint wi'
+Sir Erchie, and 'better a guid coo than a coo o' a
+guid kind,' as my mither used to say.  He used to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
+be an awfu' wild callant, a freend o' puir Maister
+Quentin, and up to ony deevilry. But they tell me
+he's a quieter lad since the war, and sair lamed by
+fa'in oot o' an airyplane."</p>
+
+<p>"Will he be at the Mains just now?" Dickson
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I wadna wonder. He has a muckle place in
+England, but he aye used to come here in the back-end
+for the shootin' and in Aprile for birds. He's
+clean daft about birds. He'll be out a' day at the
+Craig watchin' solans, or lyin' a' mornin' i' the moss
+lookin' at bog-blitters."</p>
+
+<p>"Will he help, think you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll wager he'll help. Onyway it's your best
+chance, and better a wee bush than nae beild. Now,
+sit in to your breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>It was a merry meal. Mrs. Morran dispensed
+tea and gnomic wisdom. Saskia ate heartily, speaking
+little, but once or twice laying her hand softly
+on her hostess's gnarled fingers. Dickson was in
+such spirits that he gobbled shamelessly, being both
+hungry and hurried, and he spoke of the still unconquered
+enemy with ease and disrespect, so that Mrs.
+Morran was moved to observe that there was
+"naething sae bauld as a blind mear." But when
+in a sudden return of modesty he belittled his usefulness
+and talked sombrely of his mature years he
+was told that he "wad never be auld wi' sae muckle
+honesty." Indeed it was very clear that Mrs.
+Morran approved of her nephew.</p>
+
+<p>They did not linger over breakfast, for both were
+impatient to be on the road.  Mrs. Morran assisted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+Saskia to put on Elspeth's shoes. "'Even a young
+fit finds comfort in an auld bauchle,' as my mother,
+honest woman, used to say." Dickson's waterproof
+was restored to him, and for Saskia an old raincoat
+belonging to the son in South Africa was discovered,
+which fitted her better. "Siccan weather,"
+said the hostess, as she opened the door to let in a
+swirl of wind. "The deil's aye kind to his ain.
+Haste ye back, Mem, and be sure I'll tak' guid care
+o' your leddy cousin."</p>
+
+<p>The proper way to the Mains of Garple was
+either by the station and the Ayr road, or by the
+Auchenlochan highway, branching off half a mile
+beyond the Garple bridge. But Dickson, who had
+been studying the map and fancied himself as a
+pathfinder, chose the direct route across the Long
+Muir as being at once shorter and more sequestered.
+With the dawn the wind had risen again, but it had
+shifted towards the north-west and was many degrees
+colder. The mist was furling on the hills like
+sails, the rain had ceased, and out at sea the eye
+covered a mile or two of wild water. The moor
+was drenching wet, and the peat bogs were brimming
+with inky pools, so that soon the travellers
+were soaked to the knees. Dickson had no fear of
+pursuit, for he calculated that Dobson and his
+friends, even if they had got out, would be busy
+looking for the truants in the vicinity of the House
+and would presently be engaged with the old Tower.
+But he realised, too, that speed on his errand was
+vital, for at any moment the Unknown might arrive
+from the sea.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So he kept up a good pace, half-running, half-striding,
+till they had passed the railway, and he
+found himself gasping with a stitch in his side, and
+compelled to rest in the lee of what had once been
+a sheepfold. Saskia amazed him. She moved over
+the rough heather like a deer, and it was her hand
+that helped him across the deeper hags. Before
+such youth and vigour he felt clumsy and old. She
+stood looking down at him as he recovered his
+breath, cool, unruffled, alert as Diana. His mind
+fled to Heritage, and it occurred to him suddenly
+that the Poet had set his affections very high.
+Loyalty drove him to speak a word for his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got the easy job," he said. "Mr. Heritage
+will have the whole pack on him in that old Tower,
+and him with such a sore clout on his head. I've
+left him my pistol. He's a terrible brave man!"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and he's a poet too."</p>
+
+<p>"So?" she said. "I did not know. He is very
+young."</p>
+
+<p>"He's a man of very high ideels."</p>
+
+<p>She puzzled at the word, and then smiled. "I
+know him. He is like many of our young men in
+Russia, the students&mdash;his mind is in a ferment
+and he does not know what he wants. But he is
+brave."</p>
+
+<p>This seemed to Dickson's loyal soul but a chilly
+tribute.</p>
+
+<p>"I think he is in love with me," she continued.</p>
+
+<p>He looked up startled and saw in her face that
+which gave him a view into a strange new world.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>
+He had thought that women blushed when they
+talked of love, but her eyes were as grave and
+candid as a boy's. Here was one who had gone
+through waters so deep that she had lost the foibles
+of sex. Love to her was only a word of ill omen,
+a threat on the lips of brutes, an extra battalion of
+peril in an army of perplexities. He felt like some
+homely rustic who finds himself swept unwittingly
+into the moonlight hunt of Artemis and her
+maidens.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a romantic," she said. "I have known
+so many like him."</p>
+
+<p>"He's no' that," said Dickson shortly. "Why,
+he used to be aye laughing at me for being romantic.
+He's one that's looking for truth and
+reality, he says, and he's terrible down on the kind
+of poetry I like myself."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled. "They all talk so. But you, my
+friend Dickson" (she pronounced the name in two
+staccato syllables ever so prettily), "you are different.
+Tell me about yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm just what you see&mdash;a middle-aged retired
+grocer."</p>
+
+<p>"Grocer?" she queried. "Ah, yes, <i>épicier</i>. But
+you are a very remarkable <i>épicier</i>. Mr. Heritage
+I understand, but you and those little boys&mdash;no. I
+am sure of one thing&mdash;you are not a romantic. You
+are too humorous and&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;I think you are
+like Ulysses, for it would not be easy to defeat
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were kind, nay affectionate, and Dickson
+experienced a preposterous rapture in his soul, fol<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>lowed
+by a sinking, as he realised how far the job
+was still from being completed.</p>
+
+<p>"We must be getting on, Mem," he said hastily,
+and the two plunged again into the heather.</p>
+
+<p>The Ayr road was crossed, and the fir wood
+around the Mains became visible, and presently the
+white gates of the entrance. A wind-blown spire of
+smoke beyond the trees proclaimed that the house
+was not untenanted. As they entered the drive the
+Scots firs were tossing in the gale, which blew
+fiercely at this altitude, but, the dwelling itself being
+more in the hollow, the daffodil clumps on the lawn
+were but mildly fluttered.</p>
+
+<p>The door was opened by a one-armed butler who
+bore all the marks of the old regular soldier. Dickson
+produced a card and asked to see his master on
+urgent business. Sir Archibald was at home, he
+was told, and had just finished breakfast. The two
+were led into a large bare chamber which had all
+the chill and mustiness of a bachelor's drawing-room.
+The butler returned, and said Sir Archibald
+would see him. "I'd better go myself first and prepare
+the way, Mem," Dickson whispered and followed
+the man across the hall.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself ushered into a fair-sized room
+where a bright fire was burning. On a table lay the
+remains of breakfast, and the odour of food mingled
+pleasantly with the scent of peat. The horns
+and heads of big game, foxes' masks, the model of
+a gigantic salmon and several bookcases adorned
+the wall, and books and maps were mixed with
+decanters and cigar-boxes on the long sideboard.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+After the wild out of doors the place seemed the
+very shrine of comfort. A young man sat in an
+armchair by the fire with a leg on a stool; he was
+smoking a pipe, and reading the <i>Field</i>, and on
+another stool at his elbow was a pile of new novels.
+He was a pleasant brown-faced young man, with
+remarkably smooth hair and a roving humorous eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, Mr. McCunn. Very glad to see you.
+If, as I take it, you're the grocer, you're a household
+name in these parts. I get all my supplies
+from you, and I've just been makin' inroads on one
+of your divine hams. Now, what can I do for
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm very proud to hear what you say, Sir
+Archibald. But I've not come on business. I've
+come with the queerest story you ever heard in your
+life, and I've come to ask your help."</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead. A good story is just what I want
+this vile mornin'."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not here alone. I've a lady with me."</p>
+
+<p>"God bless my soul! A lady!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, a princess. She's in the next room."</p>
+
+<p>The young man looked wildly at him and waved
+the book he had been reading.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, Mr. McCunn, but are you quite
+sober? I beg your pardon. I see you are. But
+you know, it isn't done. Princesses don't as a rule
+come here after breakfast to pass the time of day.
+It's more absurd than this shocker I've been
+readin'."</p>
+
+<p>"All the same it's a fact. She'll tell you the story
+herself, and you'll believe her quick enough.   But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+to prepare your mind I'll just give you a sketch of
+the events of the last few days."</p>
+
+<p>Before the sketch was concluded the young man
+had violently rung the bell. "Sime," he shouted
+to the servant, "clear away this mess and lay the
+table again. Order more breakfast, all the breakfast
+you can get. Open the windows and get the
+tobacco smoke out of the air. Tidy up the place for
+there's a lady comin'.   Quick, you juggins!"</p>
+
+<p>He was on his feet now, and, with his arm in
+Dickson's, was heading for the door.</p>
+
+<p>"My sainted aunt! And you topped off with
+pottin' at the factor. I've seen a few things in my
+day, but I'm blessed if I ever met a bird like you!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<p class="center">GRAVITY OUT OF BED</p>
+
+
+<p>It is probable that Sir Archibald Roylance did not
+altogether believe Dickson's tale; it may be that
+he considered him an agreeable romancer, or a little
+mad, or no more than a relief to the tedium of a
+wet Sunday morning. But his incredulity did not
+survive one glance at Saskia as she stood in that
+bleak drawing-room among Victorian water-colours
+and faded chintzes. The young man's boyishness
+deserted him. He stopped short in his tracks, and
+made a profound and awkward bow. "I am at your
+service, Mademoiselle," he said, amazed at himself.
+The words seemed to have come out of a confused
+memory of plays and novels.</p>
+
+<p>She inclined her head&mdash;a little on one side, and
+looked towards Dickson.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Archibald's going to do his best for us," said
+that squire of dames. "I was telling him that we
+had had our breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's get out of this sepulchre," said their host,
+who was recovering himself. "There's a roasting
+fire in my den. Of course you'll have something to
+eat&mdash;hot coffee, anyhow&mdash;I've trained my cook to
+make coffee like a Frenchwoman. The housekeeper
+will take charge of you, if you want to tidy up, and
+you must excuse our ramshackle ways, please. I
+don't believe there's ever been a lady in this house
+before, you know."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He led her to the smoking-room and ensconced
+her in the great chair by the fire. Smilingly she
+refused a series of offers which ranged from a
+sheepskin mantle which he had got in the Pamirs
+and which he thought might fit her, to hot whisky
+and water as a specific against a chill. But she accepted
+a pair of slippers and deftly kicked off the
+brogues provided by Mrs. Morran. Also, while
+Dickson started rapaciously on a second breakfast,
+she allowed him to pour her out a cup of coffee.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a soldier?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Two years infantry&mdash;5th Battalion Lennox
+Highlanders, and then Flying Corps. Top-hole
+time I had too, till the day before the Armistice
+when my luck gave out and I took a nasty toss.
+Consequently I'm not as fast on my legs now as
+I'd like to be."</p>
+
+<p>"You were a friend of Captain Kennedy?"</p>
+
+<p>"His oldest. We were at the same private
+school, and he was at m' tutor's, and we were never
+much separated till he went abroad to cram for the
+Diplomatic and I started east to shoot things."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will tell you what I told Captain Kennedy."
+Saskia, looking into the heart of the peats,
+began the story of which we have already heard a
+version, but she told it differently, for she was telling
+it to one who more or less belonged to her own
+world. She mentioned names at which the other
+nodded. She spoke of a certain Paul Abreskov. "I
+heard of him at Bokhara in 1912," said Sir Archie,
+and his face grew solemn. Sometimes she lapsed
+into French, and her hearer's brow wrinkled, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+he appeared to follow. When she had finished he
+drew a long breath.</p>
+
+<p>"My Aunt! What a time you've been through!
+I've seen pluck in my day, but yours! It's not
+thinkable. D'you mind if I ask a question, Princess?
+Bolshevism we know all about, and I admit
+Trotsky and his friends are a pretty effective push;
+but how on earth have they got a world-wide graft
+going in the time so that they can stretch their net
+to an out-of-the-way spot like this? It looks as if
+they had struck a Napoleon somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not understand," she said. "I cannot
+make any one understand&mdash;except a Russian. My
+country has been broken to pieces, and there is no
+law in it; therefore it is a nursery of crime. So
+would England be, or France, if you had suffered
+the same misfortunes. My people are not wickeder
+than others, but for the moment they are sick and
+have no strength. As for the government of the
+Bolsheviki it matters little, for it will pass. Some
+parts of it may remain, but it is a government of the
+sick and fevered, and cannot endure in health.
+Lenin may be a good man&mdash;I do not think so, but
+I do not know&mdash;but if he were an archangel he
+could not alter things. Russia is mortally sick and
+therefore all evil is unchained, and the criminals
+have no one to check them. There is crime everywhere
+in the world, and the unfettered crime in
+Russia is so powerful that it stretches its hand to
+crime throughout the globe and there is a great
+mobilising everywhere of wicked men. Once you
+boasted that law was international and that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+police in one land worked with the police of all
+others. To-day that is true about criminals. After
+a war evil passions are loosed, and, since Russia is
+broken, in her they can make their headquarters....
+It is not Bolshevism, the theory, you need
+fear, for that is a weak and dying thing. It is
+crime, which to-day finds its seat in my country, but
+is not only Russian. It has no fatherland. It is
+as old as human nature and as wide as the earth."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Sir Archie. "Gad, here have I
+been vegetatin' and thinkin' that all excitement had
+gone out of life with the war, and sometimes even
+regrettin' that the beastly old thing was over, and
+all the while the world fairly hummin' with interest.
+And Loudon too!"</p>
+
+<p>"I would like your candid opinion on yon factor,
+Sir Archibald," said Dickson.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't say I ever liked him, and I've once or
+twice had a row with him, for he used to bring his
+pals to shoot over Dalquharter and he didn't quite
+play the game by me. But I know dashed little
+about him, for I've been a lot away. Bit hairy
+about the heels, of course. A great figure at local
+race-meetin's, and used to toady old Carforth and
+the huntin' crowd. He has a pretty big reputation
+as a sharp lawyer and some of the thick-headed
+lairds swear by him, but Quentin never could stick
+him. It's quite likely he's been gettin' into Queer
+Street, for he was always speculatin' in horse-flesh,
+and I fancy he plunged a bit on the Turf. But I
+can't think how he got mixed up in this show."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm positive Dobson's his brother."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And put this business in his way. That would
+explain it all right.... He must be runnin' for
+pretty big stakes, for that kind of lad don't dabble
+in crime for six-and-eightpence.... Now for the
+layout. You've got three men shut up in Dalquharter
+House, who by this time have probably
+escaped. One of you&mdash;what's his name?&mdash;Heritage?&mdash;is
+in the old Tower, and you think that <i>they</i>
+think the Princess is still there and will sit round
+the place like terriers. Sometime to-day the Danish
+brig will arrive with reinforcements, and then there
+will be a hefty fight. Well, the first thing to be
+done is to get rid of Loudon's stymie with the authorities.
+Princess, I'm going to carry you off in
+my car to the Chief Constable. The second thing
+is for you after that to stay on here. It's a deadly
+place on a wet day, but it's safe enough."</p>
+
+<p>Saskia shook her head and Dickson spoke for her.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll no' get her to stop here. I've done my
+best, but she's determined to be back at Dalquharter.
+You see she's expecting a friend, and besides, if
+there's going to be a battle she'd like to be in it.
+Is that so, Mem?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Archie looked helplessly around him, and the
+sight of the girl's face convinced him that argument
+would be fruitless. "Anyhow she must come with
+me to the Chief Constable. Lethington's a slow
+bird on the wing, and I don't see myself convincin'
+him that he must get busy unless I can produce the
+Princess. Even then it may be a tough job, for it's
+Sunday, and in these parts people go to sleep till
+Monday mornin'."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I'm trying to get at," said
+Dickson. "By all means go to the Chief Constable,
+and tell him it's life or death. My lawyer in Glasgow,
+Mr. Caw, will have been stirring him up yesterday,
+and you two should complete the job....
+But what I'm feared is that he'll not be in time.
+As you say, it's the Sabbath day, and the police are
+terrible slow. Now any moment that brig may be
+here, and the trouble will start. I'm wanting to
+save the Princess, but I'm wanting too to give these
+blagyirds the roughest handling they ever got in
+their lives. Therefore I say there's no time to lose.
+We're far ower few to put up a fight, and we want
+every man you've got about this place to hold the
+fort till the police come."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Archibald looked upon the earnest flushed
+face of Dickson with admiration. "I'm blessed if
+you're not the most whole-hearted brigand I've
+ever struck."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not. I'm just a business man."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you realise that you're levying a private
+war and breaking every law of the land?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hoots!" said Dickson. "I don't care a docken
+about the law. I'm for seeing this job through.
+What force can you produce?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only cripples, I'm afraid. There's Sime, my
+butler. He was a Fusilier Jock and, as you saw,
+has lost an arm. Then McGuffog the keeper is a
+good man, but he's still got a Turkish bullet in his
+thigh. The chauffeur, Carfrae, was in the Yeomanry,
+and lost half a foot, and there's myself, as
+lame as a duck. The herds on the home farm are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+no good, for one's seventy and the other is in bed
+with jaundice. The Mains can produce four men,
+but they're rather a job lot."</p>
+
+<p>"They'll do fine," said Dickson heartily. "All
+sodgers, and no doubt all good shots. Have you
+plenty guns?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Archie burst into uproarious laughter. "Mr.
+McCunn, you're a man after my own heart. I'm
+under your orders. If I had a boy I'd put him into
+the provision trade, for it's the place to see fightin'.
+Yes, we've no end of guns. I advise shot-guns, for
+they've more stoppin' power in a rush than a rifle,
+and I take it it's a rough-and-tumble we're lookin'
+for."</p>
+
+<p>"Right," said Dickson. "I saw a bicycle in the
+hall. I want you to lend it me, for I must be getting
+back. You'll take the Princess and do the
+best you can with the Chief Constable."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'll load up your car with your folk,
+and come down the hill to Dalquharter. There'll
+be a laddie, or maybe more than one, waiting for
+you on this side the village to give you instructions.
+Take your orders from them. If it's a red-haired
+ruffian called Dougal you'll be wise to heed what
+he says, for he has a grand head for battles."</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later Dickson was pursuing a quavering
+course like a snipe down the avenue. He was
+a miserable performer on a bicycle. Not for twenty
+years had he bestridden one, and he did not understand
+such new devices as free-wheels and change
+of gears.  The mounting had been the worst part<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+and it had only been achieved by the help of a
+rockery. He had begun by cutting into two flower-beds,
+and missing a birch tree by inches. But he
+clung on desperately, well knowing that if he fell
+off it would be hard to remount, and at length he
+gained the avenue. When he passed the lodge
+gates he was riding fairly straight, and when he
+turned off the Ayr highway to the side road that
+led to Dalquharter he was more or less master of
+his machine.</p>
+
+<p>He crossed the Garple by an ancient hunch-backed
+bridge, observing even in his absorption with the
+handle-bars that the stream was in roaring spate.
+He wrestled up the further hill, with aching calf-muscles,
+and got to the top just before his strength
+gave out. Then as the road turned seaward he had
+the slope with him, and enjoyed some respite. It
+was no case for putting up his feet, for the gale
+was blowing hard on his right cheek, but the downward
+grade enabled him to keep his course with
+little exertion. His anxiety to get back to the scene
+of action was for the moment appeased, since he
+knew he was making as good speed as the weather
+allowed, so he had leisure for thought.</p>
+
+<p>But the mind of this preposterous being was not
+on the business before him. He dallied with irrelevant
+things&mdash;with the problems of youth and love.
+He was beginning to be very nervous about Heritage,
+not as the solitary garrison of the old Tower,
+but as the lover of Saskia. That everybody should
+be in love with her appeared to him only proper,
+for he had never met her like, and assumed that it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+did not exist. The desire of the moth for the star
+seemed to him a reasonable thing, since hopeless
+loyalty and unrequited passion were the eternal
+stock-in-trade of romance. He wished he were
+twenty-five himself to have the chance of indulging
+in such sentimentality for such a lady. But Heritage
+was not like him and would never be content
+with a romantic folly.... He had been in love
+with her for two years&mdash;a long time. He spoke
+about wanting to die for her, which was a flight
+beyond Dickson himself. "I doubt it will be what
+they call a 'grand passion,'" he reflected with reverence.
+But it was hopeless; he saw quite clearly
+that it was hopeless.</p>
+
+<p>Why, he could not have explained, for Dickson's
+instincts were subtler than his intelligence. He
+recognised that the two belonged to different circles
+of being, which nowhere intersected. That mysterious
+lady, whose eyes had looked through life to
+the other side, was no mate for the Poet. His
+faithful soul was agitated, for he had developed
+for Heritage a sincere affection. It would break
+his heart, poor man. There was he holding the
+fort alone and cheering himself with delightful
+fancies about one remoter than the moon. Dickson
+wanted happy endings, and here there was no hope
+of such. He hated to admit that life could be
+crooked, but the optimist in him was now fairly
+dashed.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Archie might be the fortunate man, for of
+course he would soon be in love with her, if he were
+not so already. Dickson like all his class had a pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>found
+regard for the country gentry. The business
+Scot does not usually revere wealth, though he may
+pursue it earnestly, nor does he specially admire
+rank in the common sense. But for ancient race he
+has respect in his bones, though it may happen
+that in public he denies it, and the laird has for him
+a secular association with good family.... Sir
+Archie might do. He was young, good-looking,
+obviously gallant.... But no! He was not quite
+right either. Just a trifle too light in weight, too
+boyish and callow. The Princess must have youth,
+but it should be mighty youth, the youth of a Napoleon
+or a Cćsar. He reflected that the Great
+Montrose, for whom he had a special veneration,
+might have filled the bill. Or young Harry with
+his beaver up? Or Claverhouse in the picture with
+the flush of temper on his cheek?</p>
+
+<p>The meditations of the match-making Dickson
+came to an abrupt end. He had been riding negligently,
+his head bent against the wind, and his eyes
+vaguely fixed on the wet hill-gravel of the road.
+Of his immediate environs he was pretty well unconscious.
+Suddenly he was aware of figures on
+each side of him who advanced menacingly. Stung
+to activity he attempted to increase his pace, which
+was already good, for the road at this point descended
+steeply. Then, before he could prevent it,
+a stick was thrust into his front wheel, and the next
+second he was describing a curve through the air.
+His head took the ground, he felt a spasm of blinding
+pain, and then a sense of horrible suffocation
+before his wits left him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Are ye sure it's the richt man, Ecky?" said a
+voice which he did not hear.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure. It's the Glesca body Dobson telled us to
+look for yesterday. It's a pund note atween us for
+this job. We'll tie him up in the wud till we've
+time to attend to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he bad?"</p>
+
+<p>"It doesna maitter," said the one called Ecky.
+"He'll be deid onyway long afore the morn."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran all forenoon was in a state of un-Sabbatical
+disquiet. After she had seen Saskia and
+Dickson start she finished her housewifely duties,
+took Cousin Eugčnie her breakfast, and made
+preparation for the midday dinner. The invalid
+in the bed in the parlour was not a repaying subject.
+Cousin Eugčnie belonged to that type of
+elderly women who, having been spoiled in youth,
+find the rest of life fall far short of their expectations.
+Her voice had acquired a perpetual wail,
+and the corners of what had once been a pretty
+mouth drooped in an eternal peevishness. She
+found herself in a morass of misery and shabby
+discomfort, but had her days continued in an even
+tenor she would still have lamented. "A dingy
+body," was Mrs. Morran's comment, but she laboured
+in kindness. Unhappily they had no common
+language, and it was only by signs that the
+hostess could discover her wants and show her
+goodwill. She fed her and bathed her face, saw
+to the fire and left her to sleep. "I'm boilin' a hen
+to mak' broth for your denner, Mem.  Try and get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>
+a bit sleep now." The purport of the advice was
+clear, and Cousin Eugčnie turned obediently on her
+pillow.</p>
+
+<p>It was Mrs. Morran's custom of a Sunday to
+spend the morning in devout meditation. Some
+years before she had given up tramping the five
+miles to kirk, on the ground that having been a
+regular attendant for fifty years she had got all the
+good out of it that was probable. Instead she read
+slowly aloud to herself the sermon printed in a certain
+religious weekly which reached her every Saturday,
+and concluded with a chapter or two of the
+Bible. But to-day something had gone wrong with
+her mind. She could not follow the thread of the
+Reverend Doctor MacMichael's discourse. She
+could not fix her attention on the wanderings and
+misdeeds of Israel as recorded in the Book of
+Exodus. She must always be getting up to look at
+the pot on the fire, or to open the back door and
+study the weather. For a little she fought against
+her unrest, and then she gave up the attempt at
+concentration. She took the big pot off the fire and
+allowed it to simmer, and presently she fetched her
+boots and umbrella, and kilted her petticoats. "I'll
+be none the waur o' a breath o' caller air," she
+decided.</p>
+
+<p>The wind was blowing great guns but there was
+only the thinnest sprinkle of rain. Sitting on the
+hen-house roof and munching a raw turnip was a
+figure which she recognised as the smallest of the
+Die-Hards.  Between bites he was singing dolefully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+to the tune of "Annie Laurie" one of the ditties of
+his quondam Sunday school:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5q">"The Boorjoys' brays are bonny,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Too-roo-ra-roo-raloo,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">But the Worrkers o' the Worrld<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Wull gar them a' look blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Wull gar them a' look blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And droon them in the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">And&mdash;for bonnie Annie Laurie<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">I'll lay me down and dee."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Losh, laddie," she cried, "that's cauld food for
+the stamach. Come indoors about midday and I'll
+gie ye a plate o' broth!" The Die-Hard saluted
+and continued on the turnip.</p>
+
+<p>She took the Auchenlochan road across the
+Garple bridge, for that was the best road to the
+Mains and by it Dickson and the others might be
+returning. Her equanimity at all seasons was like
+a Turk's, and she would not have admitted that
+anything mortal had power to upset or excite her:
+nevertheless it was a fast-beating heart that she now
+bore beneath her Sunday jacket. Great events, she
+felt, were on the eve of happening, and of them
+she was a part. Dickson's anxiety was hers, to
+bring things to a business-like conclusion. The
+honour of Huntingtower was at stake and of the
+old Kennedys. She was carrying out Mr. Quentin's
+commands, the dead boy who used to clamour for
+her treacle scones. And there was more than duty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
+in it, for youth was not dead in her old heart, and
+adventure had still power to quicken it.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran walked well, with the steady long
+paces of the Scots countrywoman. She left the
+Auchenlochan road and took the side path along the
+tableland to the Mains. But for the surge of the
+gale and the far-borne boom of the furious sea there
+was little noise; not a bird cried in the uneasy air.
+With the wind behind her Mrs. Morran breasted
+the ascent till she had on her right the moorland
+running south to the Lochan valley and on her left
+Garple chafing in its deep forested gorges. Her
+eyes were quick and she noted with interest a weasel
+creeping from a fern-clad cairn. A little way on
+she passed an old ewe in difficulties and assisted it
+to rise. "But for me, my wumman, ye'd hae been
+braxy ere nicht," she told it as it departed bleating.
+Then she realised that she had come a certain distance.
+"Losh, I maun be gettin' back or the hen
+will be spiled," she cried, and was on the verge of
+turning.</p>
+
+<p>But something caught her eye a hundred yards
+further on the road. It was something which moved
+with the wind like a wounded bird, fluttering from
+the roadside to a puddle and then back to the
+rushes. She advanced to it, missed it, and caught it.</p>
+
+<p>It was an old dingy green felt hat, and she recognised
+it as Dickson's.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran's brain, after a second of confusion,
+worked fast and clearly. She examined the
+road and saw that a little way on the gravel had
+been violently agitated. She detected several prints<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
+of hobnailed boots. There were prints too, on a
+patch of peat on the south side behind a tall bank
+of sods. "That's where they were hidin'," she concluded.
+Then she explored on the other side in a
+thicket of hazels and wild raspberries, and presently
+her perseverance was rewarded. The scrub was all
+crushed and pressed as if several persons had been
+forcing a passage. In a hollow was a gleam of
+something white. She moved towards it with a
+quaking heart, and was relieved to find that it was
+only a new and expensive bicycle with the front
+wheel badly buckled.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran delayed no longer. If she had
+walked well on her out journey, she beat all records
+on the return. Sometimes she would run till
+her breath failed; then she would slow down till
+anxiety once more quickened her pace. To her joy
+on the Dalquharter side of the Garple bridge she
+observed the figure of a Die-Hard. Breathless,
+flushed, with her bonnet awry and her umbrella held
+like a scimitar, she seized on the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Awfu' doin's! They've grippit Maister McCunn
+up the Mains road just afore the second milestone
+and forenent the auld bucht. I fund his hat,
+and a bicycle's lyin' broken in the wud. Haste ye,
+man, and get the rest and awa' and seek him. It'll
+be the tinklers frae the Dean. I'd gang mysel', but
+my legs are ower auld. Oh, laddie, dinna stop to
+speir questions. They'll hae him murdered or awa'
+to sea. And maybe the leddy was wi' him and
+they've got them baith. Wae's me! Wae's me!"</p>
+
+<p>The Die-Hard, who was Wee Jaikie, did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+delay. His eyes had filled with tears at her news,
+which we know to have been his habit. When Mrs.
+Morran, after indulging in a moment of barbaric
+keening, looked back the road she had come, she
+saw a small figure trotting up the hill like a terrier
+who has been left behind. As he trotted he wept
+bitterly. Jaikie was getting dangerous.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<p class="center">HOW MR. M<sup>c</sup>CUNN COMMITTED AN ASSAULT
+UPON AN ALLY</p>
+
+
+<p>Dickson always maintained that his senses did
+not leave him for more than a second or two,
+but he admitted that he did not remember very
+clearly the events of the next few hours. He was
+conscious of a bad pain above his eyes, and something
+wet trickling down his cheek. There was a
+perpetual sound of water in his ears and of men's
+voices. He found himself dropped roughly on the
+ground and forced to walk, and was aware that his
+legs were inclined to wobble. Somebody had a grip
+on each arm, so that he could not defend his face
+from the brambles, and that worried him, for his
+whole head seemed one aching bruise and he
+dreaded anything touching it. But all the time he
+did not open his mouth, for silence was the one duty
+that his muddled wits enforced. He felt that he
+was not the master of his mind, and he dreaded
+what he might disclose if he began to babble.</p>
+
+<p>Presently there came a blank space of which he
+had no recollection at all. The movement had
+stopped, and he was allowed to sprawl on the
+ground. He thought that his head had got another
+whack from a bough, and that the pain put him
+into a stupor. When he awoke he was alone.</p>
+
+<p>He discovered that he was strapped very tightly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>
+to a young Scotch fir. His arms were bent behind
+him and his wrists tied together with cords knotted
+at the back of the tree; his legs were shackled, and
+further cords fastened them to the bole. Also
+there was a halter round the trunk and just under
+his chin, so that while he breathed freely enough,
+he could not move his head. Before him was a
+tangle of bracken and scrub, and beyond that the
+gloom of dense pines; but as he could only see
+directly in front his prospect was strictly circumscribed.</p>
+
+<p>Very slowly he began to take his bearings. The
+pain in his head was now dulled and quite bearable,
+and the flow of blood had stopped, for he felt the
+incrustation of it beginning on his cheeks. There
+was a tremendous noise all around him, and he
+traced this to the swaying of tree-tops in the gale.
+But there was an undercurrent of deeper sound&mdash;water
+surely, water churning among rocks. It was
+a stream&mdash;the Garple of course&mdash;and then he remembered
+where he was and what had happened.</p>
+
+<p>I do not wish to portray Dickson as a hero, for
+nothing would annoy him more; but I am bound
+to say that his first clear thought was not of his own
+danger. It was intense exasperation at the miscarriage
+of his plans. Long ago he should have
+been with Dougal arranging operations, giving him
+news of Sir Archie, finding out how Heritage was
+faring, deciding how to use the coming reinforcements.
+Instead he was trussed up in a wood, a
+prisoner of the enemy, and utterly useless to his
+side. He tugged at his bonds, and nearly throttled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+himself. But they were of good tarry cord and
+did not give a fraction of an inch. Tears of bitter
+rage filled his eyes and made furrows on his encrusted
+cheeks. Idiot that he had been, he had
+wrecked everything! What would Saskia and
+Dougal and Sir Archie do without a business man
+by their side? There would be a muddle, and the
+little party would walk into a trap. He saw it all
+very clearly. The men from the sea would overpower
+them, there would be murder done, and an
+easy capture of the Princess; and the police would
+turn up at long last to find an empty headland.</p>
+
+<p>He had also most comprehensively wrecked himself,
+and at the thought the most genuine panic
+seized him. There was no earthly chance of escape,
+for he was tucked away in this infernal jungle till
+such time as his enemies had time to deal with him.
+As to what that dealing would be like he had no
+doubts, for they knew that he had been their chief
+opponent. Those desperate ruffians would not
+scruple to put an end to him. His mind dwelt with
+horrible fascination upon throat-cutting, no doubt
+because of the presence of the cord below his chin.
+He had heard it was not a painful death; at any
+rate he remembered a clerk he had once had, a
+feeble, timid creature, who had twice attempted
+suicide that way. Surely it could not be very bad,
+and it would soon be over.</p>
+
+<p>But another thought came to him. They would
+carry him off in the ship and settle with him at their
+leisure. No swift merciful death for him. He had
+read dreadful tales of the Bolsheviks' skill in tor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>ture,
+and now they all came back to him&mdash;stories
+of Chinese mercenaries, and men buried alive, and
+death by agonising inches. He felt suddenly very
+cold and sick, and hung in his bonds for he had no
+strength in his limbs. Then the pressure on his
+throat braced him, and also quickened his numb
+mind. The liveliest terror ran like quicksilver
+through his veins.</p>
+
+<p>He endured some moments of this anguish, till
+after many despairing clutches at his wits he managed
+to attain a measure of self-control. He certainly
+wasn't going to allow himself to become mad.
+Death was death whatever form it took, and he
+had to face death as many better men had done
+before him. He had often thought about it and
+wondered how he should behave if the thing came
+to him. Respectably, he had hoped; heroically, he
+had sworn in his moments of confidence. But he
+had never for an instant dreamed of this cold,
+lonely, dreadful business. Last Sunday, he remembered,
+he had been basking in the afternoon sun in
+his little garden and reading about the end of
+Fergus MacIvor in <i>Waverley</i> and thrilling to the
+romance of it; and then Tibby had come out and
+summoned him in to tea. Then he had rather
+wanted to be a Jacobite in the '45 and in peril of
+his neck, and now Providence had taken him most
+terribly at his word.</p>
+
+<p>A week ago&mdash;&mdash;! He groaned at the remembrance
+of that sunny garden. In seven days he had
+found a new world and tried a new life, and had
+come now to the end of it.  He did not want to die,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+less now than ever with such wide horizons opening
+before him. But that was the worst of it, he reflected,
+for to have a great life great hazards must
+be taken, and there was always the risk of this
+sudden extinguisher.... Had he to choose again,
+far better the smooth sheltered bypath than this
+accursed romantic highway on to which he had
+blundered.... No, by Heaven, no! Confound
+it, if he had to choose he would do it all again.
+Something stiff and indomitable in his soul was
+bracing him to a manlier humour. There was no
+one to see the figure strapped to the fir, but had
+there been a witness he would have noted that at
+this stage Dickson shut his teeth and that his
+troubled eyes looked very steadily before him.</p>
+
+<p>His business, he felt, was to keep from thinking,
+for if he thought at all there would be a flow of
+memories, of his wife, his home, his books, his
+friends, to unman him. So he steeled himself to
+blankness, like a sleepless man imagining white
+sheep in a gate.... He noted a robin below the
+hazels, strutting impudently. And there was a tit
+on a bracken frond, which made the thing sway
+like one of the see-saws he used to play with as a
+boy. There was no wind in that undergrowth, and
+any movement must be due to bird or beast. The
+tit flew off, and the oscillations of the bracken
+slowly died away. Then they began again, but
+more violently, and Dickson could not see the bird
+that caused them. It must be something down at
+the roots of the covert, a rabbit, perhaps, or a fox,
+or a weasel.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He watched for the first sign of the beast, and
+thought he caught a glimpse of tawny fur. Yes,
+there it was&mdash;pale dirty yellow, a weasel clearly.
+Then suddenly the patch grew larger, and to his
+amazement he looked at a human face&mdash;the face of
+a pallid small boy.</p>
+
+<p>A head disentangled itself, followed by thin
+shoulders, and then by a pair of very dirty bare
+legs. The figure raised itself and looked sharply
+round to make certain that the coast was clear.
+Then it stood up and saluted, revealing the well-known
+lineaments of Wee Jaikie.</p>
+
+<p>At the sight Dickson knew that he was safe by
+that certainty of instinct which is independent of
+proof, like the man who prays for a sign and has
+his prayer answered. He observed that the boy
+was quietly sobbing. Jaikie surveyed the position
+for an instant with red-rimmed eyes and then unclasped
+a knife, feeling the edge of the blade on his
+thumb. He darted behind the fir, and a second
+later Dickson's wrists were free. Then he sawed
+at the legs, and cut the shackles which tied them
+together, and then&mdash;most circumspectly&mdash;assaulted
+the cord which bound Dickson's neck to the trunk.
+There now remained only the two bonds which
+fastened the legs and the body to the tree.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sound in the wood different from
+the wind and stream. Jaikie listened like a startled
+hind.</p>
+
+<p>"They're comin' back," he gasped.   "Just you
+bide where ye are and let on ye're still tied up."</p>
+
+<p>He disappeared in the scrub as inconspicuously as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+a rat, while two of the tinklers came up the slope
+from the waterside. Dickson in a fever of impatience
+cursed Wee Jaikie for not cutting his remaining
+bonds so that he could at least have made a
+dash for freedom. And then he realised that the
+boy had been right. Feeble and cramped as he was,
+he would have stood no chance in a race.</p>
+
+<p>One of the tinklers was the man called Ecky.
+He had been running hard, and was mopping his
+brow.</p>
+
+<p>"Hob's seen the brig," he said. "It's droppin'
+anchor ayont the Dookits whaur there's a beild frae
+the wund and deep water. They'll be landit in half
+an 'oor. Awa' you up to the Hoose and tell
+Dobson, and me and Sim and Hob will meet the
+boats at the Garplefit."</p>
+
+<p>The other cast a glance towards Dickson.</p>
+
+<p>"What about him?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The two scrutinised their prisoner from a distance
+of a few paces. Dickson, well aware of his peril,
+held himself as stiff as if every bond had been in
+place. The thought flashed on him that if he were
+too immobile they might think he was dying or
+dead, and come close to examine him. If they only
+kept their distance, the dusk of the wood would
+prevent them detecting Jaikie's handiwork.</p>
+
+<p>"What'll you take to let me go?" he asked
+plaintively.</p>
+
+<p>"Naething that you could offer, my mannie,"
+said Ecky.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give you a five-pound note apiece."</p>
+
+<p>"Produce the siller," said the other.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's in my pocket."</p>
+
+<p>"It's no' that. We riped your pooches lang
+syne."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take you to Glasgow with me and pay you
+there. Honour bright."</p>
+
+<p>Ecky spat. "D'ye think we're gowks? Man,
+there's no siller ye could pay wad mak' it worth
+our while to lowse ye. Bide quiet there and ye'll
+see some queer things ere nicht. C'way, Davie."</p>
+
+<p>The two set off at a good pace down the stream,
+while Dickson's pulsing heart returned to its normal
+rhythm. As the sound of their feet died away Wee
+Jaikie crawled out from cover, dry-eyed now and
+very business-like. He slit the last thongs, and
+Dickson fell limply on his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Losh, laddie, I'm awful stiff," he groaned.
+"Now, listen. Away all your pith to Dougal, and
+tell him that the brig's in and the men will be landing
+inside the hour. Tell him I'm coming as fast
+as my legs will let me. The Princess will likely be
+there already and Sir Archibald and his men, but
+if they're no', tell Dougal they're coming. Haste
+you, Jaikie. And see here, I'll never forget what
+you've done for me the day. You're a fine wee
+laddie!"</p>
+
+<p>The obedient Die-Hard disappeared, and Dickson
+painfully and laboriously set himself to climb
+the slope. He decided that his quickest and safest
+route lay by the highroad, and he had also some
+hopes of recovering his bicycle. On examining his
+body he seemed to have sustained no very great
+damage, except a painful cramping of legs and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
+arms and a certain dizziness in the head. His
+pockets had been thoroughly rifled, and he reflected
+with amusement that he, the well-to-do Mr. McCunn,
+did not possess at the moment a single copper.</p>
+
+<p>But his spirits were soaring, for somehow his
+escape had given him an assurance of ultimate success.
+Providence had directly interfered on his
+behalf by the hand of Wee Jaikie, and that surely
+meant that it would see him through. But his chief
+emotion was an ardour of impatience to get to the
+scene of action. He must be at Dalquharter before
+the men from the sea; he must find Dougal and
+discover his dispositions. Heritage would be on
+guard in the Tower and in a very little the enemy
+would be round it. It would be just like the Princess
+to try and enter there, but at all costs that
+must be hindered. She and Sir Archie must not be
+cornered in stone walls, but must keep their communications
+open and fall on the enemy's flank.
+Oh, if the police would only come in time, what a
+rounding-up of miscreants that day would see!</p>
+
+<p>As the trees thinned on the brow of the slope and
+he saw the sky, he realised that the afternoon was
+far advanced. It must be well on for five o'clock.
+The wind still blew furiously, and the oaks on the
+fringes of the wood were whipped like saplings.
+Ruefully he admitted that the gale would not defeat
+the enemy. If the brig found a sheltered anchorage
+on the south side of the headland beyond the Garple,
+it would be easy enough for boats to make the
+Garple mouth, though it might be a difficult job to
+get out again. The thought quickened his steps,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+and he came out of cover on to the public road
+without a prior reconnaissance.</p>
+
+<p>Just in front of him stood a motor-bicycle. Something
+had gone wrong with it for its owner was
+tinkering at it, on the side farthest from Dickson.
+A wild hope seized him that this might be the vanguard
+of the police, and he went boldly towards it.
+The owner, who was kneeling, raised his face at the
+sound of footsteps and Dickson looked into his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>He recognised them only too well. They belonged
+to the man he had seen in the inn at Kirkmichael,
+the man whom Heritage had decided was
+an Australian, but whom they now knew to be their
+arch-enemy&mdash;the man called Paul who had persecuted
+the Princess for years and whom alone of all
+beings on earth she feared. He had been expected
+before, but had arrived now in the nick of time
+while the brig was casting anchor. Saskia had said
+that he had a devil's brain, and Dickson, as he
+stared at him, saw a fiendish cleverness in his
+straight brows and a remorseless cruelty in his stiff
+jaw and his pale eyes.</p>
+
+<p>He achieved the bravest act of his life. Shaky
+and dizzy as he was, with freedom newly opened to
+him and the mental torments of his captivity still
+an awful recollection, he did not hesitate. He saw
+before him the villain of the drama, the one man
+that stood between the Princess and peace of mind.
+He regarded no consequences, gave no heed to his
+own fate, and thought only how to put his enemy
+out of action. There was a big spanner lying on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+the ground. He seized it and with all his strength
+smote at the man's face.</p>
+
+<p>The motor-cyclist, kneeling and working hard at
+his machine, had raised his head at Dickson's approach
+and beheld a wild apparition&mdash;a short man
+in ragged tweeds, with a bloody brow and long
+smears of blood on his cheeks. The next second
+he observed the threat of attack, and ducked his
+head so that the spanner only grazed his scalp.
+The motor-bicycle toppled over, its owner sprang
+to his feet, and found the short man, very pale and
+gasping, about to renew the assault. In such a
+crisis there was no time for inquiry, and the cyclist
+was well trained in self-defence. He leaped the
+prostrate bicycle, and before his assailant could get
+in a blow brought his left fist into violent contact
+with his chin. Dickson tottered back a step or two
+and then subsided among the bracken.</p>
+
+<p>He did not lose his senses, but he had no more
+strength in him. He felt horribly ill, and struggled
+in vain to get up. The cyclist, a gigantic figure,
+towered above him. "Who the devil are you?"
+he was asking. "What do you mean by it?"</p>
+
+<p>Dickson had no breath for words, and knew that
+if he tried to speak he would be very sick. He
+could only stare up like a dog at the angry eyes.
+Angry beyond question they were, but surely not
+malevolent. Indeed, as they looked at the shameful
+figure on the ground, amusement filled them. The
+face relaxed into a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Who on earth are you?" the voice repeated.
+And then into it came recognition. "I've seen you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+before. I believe you're the little man I saw last
+week at the Black Bull. Be so good as to explain
+why you want to murder me?"</p>
+
+<p>Explanation was beyond Dickson, but his conviction
+was being wofully shaken. Saskia had said
+her enemy was as beautiful as a devil&mdash;he remembered
+the phrase, for he had thought it ridiculous.
+This man was magnificent, but there was nothing
+devilish in his lean grave face.</p>
+
+<p>"What's your name?" the voice was asking.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me yours first," Dickson essayed to stutter
+between spasms of nausea.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Alexander Nicholson," was the
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you're no' the man." It was a cry of
+wrath and despair.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a very desperate little chap. For whom
+had I the honour to be mistaken?"</p>
+
+<p>Dickson had now wriggled into a sitting position
+and had clasped his hands above his aching head.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were a Russian, name of Paul,"
+he groaned.</p>
+
+<p>"Paul! Paul who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just Paul. A Bolshevik and an awful bad lot."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson could not see the change which his words
+wrought in the other's face. He found himself
+picked up in strong arms and carried to a bog-pool
+where his battered face was carefully washed, his
+throbbing brows laved, and a wet handkerchief
+bound over them. Then he was given brandy in
+the socket of a flask, which eased his nausea. The
+cyclist ran his bicycle to the roadside, and found<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+a seat for Dickson behind the turf-dyke of the old
+bucht.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you are going to tell me everything," he
+said. "If the Paul who is your enemy is the Paul
+I think him, then we are allies."</p>
+
+<p>But Dickson did not need this assurance. His
+mind had suddenly received a revelation. The
+Princess had expected an enemy, but also a friend.
+Might not this be the long-awaited friend, for
+whose sake she was rooted to Huntingtower with
+all its terrors?</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure you name's no' Alexis?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"In my own country I was called Alexis Nicolaevitch,
+for I am a Russian. But for some years I
+have made my home with your folk, and I call
+myself Alexander Nicholson, which is the English
+form.  Who told you about Alexis?"</p>
+
+<p>"Give me your hand," said Dickson shamefacedly.
+"Man, she's been looking for you for weeks.
+You're terribly behind the fair."</p>
+
+<p>"She!" he cried. "For God's sake tell me all
+you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, she&mdash;the Princess. But what are we havering
+here for? I tell you at this moment she's somewhere
+down about the old Tower, and there's boatloads
+of blagyirds landing from the sea. Help me
+up, man, for I must be off. The story will keep.
+Losh, it's very near the darkening. If you're Alexis,
+you're just about in time for a battle."</p>
+
+<p>But Dickson on his feet was but a frail creature.
+He was still deplorably giddy, and his legs showed
+an unpleasing tendency to crumple. "I'm fair<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+done," he moaned. "You see, I've been tied up all
+day to a tree and had two sore bashes on my head.
+Get you on that bicycle and hurry on, and I'll hirple
+after you the best I can. I'll direct you the road,
+and if you're lucky you'll find a Die-Hard about
+the village. Away with you, man, and never mind
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"We go together," said the other quietly. "You
+can sit behind me and hang on to my waist. Before
+you turned up I had pretty well got the thing in
+order."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson in a fever of impatience sat by while the
+Russian put the finishing touches to the machine,
+and as well as his anxiety allowed put him in possession
+of the main facts of the story. He told of
+how he and Heritage had come to Dalquharter, of
+the first meeting with Saskia, of the trip to Glasgow
+with the jewels, of the exposure of Loudon the
+factor, of last night's doings in the House, and of
+the journey that morning to the Mains of Garple.
+He sketched the figures on the scene&mdash;Heritage and
+Sir Archie, Dobson and his gang, the Gorbals Die-Hards.
+He told of the enemy's plans so far as he
+knew them.</p>
+
+<p>"Looked at from a business point of view," he
+said, "the situation's like this. There's Heritage in
+the Tower, with Dobson, Léon and Spidel sitting
+round him. Somewhere about the place there's the
+Princess and Sir Archibald and three men with guns
+from the Mains. Dougal and his five laddies are
+running loose in the policies. And there's four
+tinklers and God knows how many foreign ruffians<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
+pushing up from the Garplefoot, and a brig lying
+waiting to carry off the ladies. Likewise there's
+the police, somewhere on the road, though the dear
+kens when they'll turn up. It's awful the incompetence
+of our Government, and the rates and taxes
+that high!... And there's you and me by this
+roadside, and I'm no more use than a tattie-bogle....
+That's the situation, and the question is what's
+our plan to be? We must keep the blagyirds in
+play till the police come, and at the same time we
+must keep the Princess out of danger. That's why
+I'm wanting back, for they've sore need of a business
+head. Yon Sir Archibald's a fine fellow, but
+I doubt he'll be a bit rash, and the Princess is no'
+to hold or bind. Our first job is to find Dougal
+and get a grip of the facts."</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to the Princess," said the Russian.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, that'll be best. You'll be maybe able to
+manage her, for you'll be well acquaint."</p>
+
+<p>"She is my kinswoman. She is also my affianced
+wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Keep us!" Dickson exclaimed, with a doleful
+thought of Heritage. "What ailed you then no' to
+look after her better?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have been long separated, because it was
+her will. She had work to do and disappeared from
+me, though I searched all Europe for her. Then
+she sent me word, when the danger became extreme,
+and summoned me to her aid. But she gave me
+poor directions, for she did not know her own plans
+very clearly. She spoke of a place called Darkwater,
+and I have been hunting half Scotland for it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+It was only last night that I heard of Dalquharter
+and guessed that that might be the name. But I
+was far down in Galloway, and have ridden fifty
+miles to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a queer thing, but I wouldn't take you for
+a Russian."</p>
+
+<p>Alexis finished his work and put away his tools.
+"For the present," he said, "I am an Englishman,
+till my country comes again to her senses. Ten
+years ago I left Russia, for I was sick of the foolishness
+of my class and wanted a free life in a new
+world. I went to Australia and made good as an
+engineer. I am a partner in a firm which is pretty
+well known even in Britain. When war broke out
+I returned to fight for my people, and when Russia
+fell out of the war, I joined the Australians in
+France and fought with them till the Armistice.
+And now I have only one duty left, to save the
+Princess and take her with me to my new home till
+Russia is a nation once more."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson whistled joyfully. "So Mr. Heritage
+was right. He aye said you were an Australian....
+And you're a business man! That's grand
+hearing and puts my mind at rest. You must take
+charge of the party at the House, for Sir Archibald's
+a daft young lad and Mr. Heritage is a poet.
+I thought I would have to go myself, but I doubt
+I would just be a hindrance with my dwaibly legs.
+I'd be better outside, watching for the police....
+Are you ready, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Dickson not without difficulty perched himself
+astride the luggage carrier, firmly grasping the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+rider round the middle. The machine started, but
+it was evidently in a bad way, for it made poor
+going till the descent towards the main Auchenlochan
+road. On the slope it warmed up and they
+crossed the Garple bridge at a fair pace. There
+was to be no pleasant April twilight, for the stormy
+sky had already made dusk, and in a very little the
+dark would fall. So sombre was the evening that
+Dickson did not notice a figure in the shadow of
+the roadside pines till it whistled shrilly on its
+fingers. He cried on Alexis to stop, and, this being
+accomplished with some suddenness, fell off at
+Dougal's feet.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the news?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Dougal glanced at Alexis and seemed to approve
+his looks.</p>
+
+<p>"Napoleon has just reported that three boatloads,
+making either twenty-three or twenty-four
+men&mdash;they were gey ill to count&mdash;has landed at
+Garplefit and is makin' their way to the auld Tower.
+The tinklers warned Dobson and soon it'll be a'
+bye wi' Heritage."</p>
+
+<p>"The Princess is not there?" was Dickson's
+anxious inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>"Na, na. Heritage is there his lone. They were
+for joinin' him, but I wouldn't let them. She came
+wi' a man they call Sir Erchibald and three gemkeepers
+wi' guns. I stoppit their cawr up the road
+and tell't them the lie o' the land. Yon Sir Erchibald
+has poor notions o' strawtegy. He was for
+bangin' into the auld Tower straight away and
+shootin' Dobson if he tried to stop them.  'Havers,'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
+say I, 'let them break their teeth on the Tower,
+thinkin' the leddy's inside, and that'll give us time,
+for Heritage is no' the lad to surrender in a
+hurry.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Where are they now?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the Hoose o' Dalquharter, and a sore job I
+had gettin' them in. We've shifted our base again,
+without the enemy suspectin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Any word of the police?"</p>
+
+<p>"The polis!" and Dougal spat cynically. "It
+seems they're a dour crop to shift. Sir Erchibald
+was sayin' that him and the lassie had been to the
+Chief Constable, but the man was terrible auld and
+slow. They convertit him, but he threepit that it
+would take a long time to collect his men and that
+there was no danger o' the brig landin' afore night.
+He's wrong there onyway, for they're landit."</p>
+
+<p>"Dougal," said Dickson, "you've heard the Princess
+speak of a friend she was expecting here called
+Alexis. This is him. You can address him as Mr.
+Nicholson. Just arrived in the nick of time. You
+must get him into the House, for he's the best right
+to be beside the lady.... Jaikie would tell you
+that I've been sore mishandled the day, and am no'
+very fit for a battle. But Mr. Nicholson's a business
+man and he'll do as well. You're keeping the
+Die-Hards outside, I hope?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay. Thomas Yownie's in charge, and Jaikie
+will be in and out with orders. They've instructions
+to watch for the polis, and keep an eye on the
+Garplefit. It's a mortal long front to hold, but
+there's no other way. I must be in the Hoose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+mysel'. Thomas Yownie's headquarters is the auld
+wife's hen-hoose."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment in a pause of the gale came the
+far-borne echo of a shot.</p>
+
+<p>"Pistol," said Alexis.</p>
+
+<p>"Heritage," said Dougal. "Trade will be gettin'
+brisk with him. Start your machine and I'll hang
+on ahint.  We'll try the road by the West Lodge."</p>
+
+<p>Presently the pair disappeared in the dusk, the
+noise of the engine was swallowed up in the wild
+orchestra of the wind, and Dickson hobbled towards
+the village in a state of excitement which made him
+oblivious of his wounds. That lonely pistol shot
+was, he felt, the bell to ring up the curtain on the
+last act of the play.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE COMING OF THE DANISH BRIG</p>
+
+
+<p>Mr. John Heritage, solitary in the old
+Tower, found much to occupy his mind. His
+giddiness was passing, though the dregs of a headache
+remained, and his spirits rose with his responsibilities.
+At daybreak he breakfasted out of the
+Mearns Street provision box, and made tea in one
+of the Die-Hards' camp kettles. Next he gave some
+attention to his toilet, necessary after the rough-and-tumble
+of the night. He made shift to bathe
+in icy water from the Tower well, shaved, tidied
+up his clothes and found a clean shirt from his
+pack. He carefully brushed his hair, reminding
+himself that thus had the Spartans done before
+Thermopylć. The neat and somewhat pallid young
+man that emerged from these rites then ascended
+to the first floor to reconnoitre the landscape from
+the narrow unglazed windows.</p>
+
+<p>If any one had told him a week ago that he
+would be in so strange a world he would have quarrelled
+violently with his informant. A week ago
+he was a cynical clear-sighted modern, a contemner
+of illusions, a swallower of formulas, a breaker of
+shams&mdash;one who had seen through the heroical and
+found it silly. Romance and such-like toys were
+playthings for fatted middle-age, not for strenuous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+and cold-eyed youth. But the truth was that now
+he was altogether spellbound by these toys. To
+think that he was serving his lady was rapture&mdash;ecstasy,
+that for her he was single-handed venturing
+all. He rejoiced to be alone with his private
+fancies. His one fear was that the part he had cast
+himself for should be needless, that the men from
+the sea should not come, or that reinforcements
+would arrive before he should be called upon. He
+hoped alone to make a stand against thousands.
+What the upshot might be he did not trouble to
+inquire. Of course the Princess would be saved,
+but first he must glut his appetite for the heroic.</p>
+
+<p>He made a diary of events that day, just as he
+used to do at the front. At twenty minutes past
+eight he saw the first figure coming from the House.
+It was Spidel, who limped round the Tower, tried
+the door, and came to a halt below the window.
+Heritage stuck out his head and wished him good
+morning, getting in reply an amazed stare. The
+man was not disposed to talk, though Heritage
+made some interesting observations on the weather,
+but departed quicker than he came, in the direction
+of the West Lodge.</p>
+
+<p>Just before nine o'clock he returned with Dobson
+and Léon. They made a very complete reconnaissance
+of the Tower, and for a moment Heritage
+thought that they were about to try to force an
+entrance. They tugged and hammered at the great
+oak door, which he had further strengthened by
+erecting behind it a pile of the heaviest lumber he
+could find in the place. It was imperative that they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+should not get in, and he got Dickson's pistol ready
+with the firm intention of shooting them if necessary.
+But they did nothing, except to hold a conference
+in the hazel clump a hundred yards to the
+north, when Dobson seemed to be laying down the
+law, and Léon spoke rapidly with a great fluttering
+of hands. They were obviously puzzled by the
+sight of Heritage, whom they believed to have left
+the neighbourhood. Then Dobson went off, leaving
+Léon and Spidel on guard, one at the edge of the
+shrubberies between the Tower and the House, the
+other on the side nearest the Laver glen. These
+were their posts, but they did sentry-go around the
+building, and passed so close to Heritage's window
+that he could have tossed a cigarette on their heads.</p>
+
+<p>It occurred to him that he ought to get busy with
+camouflage. They must be convinced that the
+Princess was in the place, for he wanted their whole
+mind to be devoted to the siege. He rummaged
+among the ladies' baggage, and extracted a skirt
+and a coloured scarf. The latter he managed to
+flutter so that it could be seen at the window the
+next time one of the watchers came within sight.
+He also fixed up the skirt so that the fringe of it
+could be seen, and, when Léon appeared below, he
+was in the shadow talking rapid French in a very
+fair imitation of the tones of Cousin Eugčnie. The
+ruse had its effect, for Léon promptly went off to
+tell Spidel, and when Dobson appeared he too was
+given the news. This seemed to settle their plans,
+for all three remained on guard, Dobson nearest
+to the Tower, seated on an outcrop of rock with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>
+his mackintosh collar turned up, and his eyes
+usually turned to the misty sea.</p>
+
+<p>By this time it was eleven o'clock, and the next
+three hours passed slowly with Heritage. He fell
+to picturing the fortunes of his friends. Dickson
+and the Princess should by this time be far inland,
+out of danger and in the way of finding succour.
+He was confident that they would return, but he
+trusted not too soon, for he hoped for a run for his
+money as Horatius in the Gate. After that he was
+a little torn in his mind. He wanted the Princess
+to come back and to be somewhere near if there
+was a fight going, so that she might be a witness of
+his devotion. But she must not herself run any risk,
+and he became anxious when he remembered her
+terrible sangfroid. Dickson could no more restrain
+her than a child could hold a greyhound.... But
+of course it would never come to that. The police
+would turn up long before the brig appeared&mdash;Dougal
+had thought that would not be till high tide,
+between four and five&mdash;and the only danger would
+be to the pirates. The three watchers would be put
+in the bag, and the men from the sea would walk
+into a neat trap. This reflection seemed to take all
+the colour out of Heritage's prospect. Peril and
+heroism were not to be his lot&mdash;only boredom.</p>
+
+<p>A little after twelve two of the tinklers appeared
+with some news which made Dobson laugh and pat
+them on the shoulder. He seemed to be giving
+them directions, pointing seaward and southward.
+He nodded to the Tower, where Heritage took
+the opportunity of again fluttering Saskia's scarf<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+athwart the window. The tinklers departed at a
+trot, and Dobson lit his pipe as if well pleased. He
+had some trouble with it in the wind, which had
+risen to an uncanny violence. Even the solid Tower
+rocked with it, and the sea was a waste of spindrift
+and low scurrying cloud. Heritage discovered a
+new anxiety&mdash;this time about the possibility of the
+brig landing at all. He wanted a complete bag,
+and it would be tragic if they got only the three
+seedy ruffians now circumambulating his fortress.</p>
+
+<p>About one o'clock he was greatly cheered by the
+sight of Dougal. At the moment Dobson was
+lunching off a hunk of bread and cheese directly between
+the Tower and the House, just short of the
+crest of the ridge on the other side of which lay
+the stables and the shrubberies; Léon was on the
+north side opposite the Tower door, and Spidel was
+at the south end near the edge of the Garple glen.
+Heritage, watching the ridge behind Dobson and
+the upper windows of the House which appeared
+over it, saw on the very crest something like a tuft
+of rusty bracken which he had not noticed before.
+Presently the tuft moved, and a hand shot up from
+it waving a rag of some sort. Dobson at the moment
+was engaged with a bottle of porter, and
+Heritage could safely wave a hand in reply. He
+could now make out clearly the red head of
+Dougal.</p>
+
+<p>The Chieftain, having located the three watchers,
+proceeded to give an exhibition of his prowess for
+the benefit of the lonely inmate of the Tower.
+Using as cover a drift of bracken, he wormed his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+way down till he was not six yards from Dobson,
+and Heritage had the privilege of seeing his grinning
+countenance a very little way above the innkeeper's
+head. Then he crawled back and reached
+the neighbourhood of Léon, who was sitting on a
+fallen Scotch fir. At that moment it occurred to the
+Belgian to visit Dobson. Heritage's breath stopped,
+but Dougal was ready, and froze into a motionless
+blur in the shadow of a hazel bush. Then he
+crawled very fast into the hollow where Léon had
+been sitting, seized something which looked like a
+bottle, and scrambled back to the ridge. At the top
+he waved the object, whatever it was, but Heritage
+could not reply, for Dobson happened to be looking
+towards the window. That was the last he saw of
+the Chieftain, but presently he realised what was
+the booty he had annexed. It must be Léon's life-preserver,
+which the night before had broken Heritage's
+head.</p>
+
+<p>After that cheering episode boredom again set
+in. He collected some food from the Mearns
+Street box, and indulged himself with a glass of
+liqueur brandy. He was beginning to feel miserably
+cold, so he carried up some broken wood and
+made a fire on the immense hearth in the upper
+chamber. Anxiety was clouding his mind again,
+for it was now two o'clock, and there was no sign
+of the reinforcements which Dickson and the Princess
+had gone to find. The minutes passed, and
+soon it was three o'clock, and from the window he
+saw only the top of the gaunt shuttered House, now
+and then hidden by squalls of sleet, and Dobson<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+squatted like an Eskimo, and trees dancing like a
+witch-wood in the gale. All the vigour of the morning
+seemed to have gone out of his blood; he felt
+lonely and apprehensive and puzzled. He wished
+he had Dickson beside him, for that little man's
+cheerful voice and complacent triviality would be a
+comfort.... Also, he was abominably cold. He
+put on his waterproof, and turned his attention to
+the fire. It needed re-kindling, and he hunted in his
+pockets for paper, finding only the slim volume lettered
+<i>Whorls</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I set it down as the most significant commentary
+on his state of mind. He regarded the book with
+intense disfavour, tore it in two, and used a handful
+of its fine deckle-edged leaves to get the fire going.
+They burned well, and presently the rest followed.
+Well for Dickson's peace of mind that he was not
+a witness of such vandalism.</p>
+
+<p>A little warmer but in no way more cheerful, he
+resumed his watch near the window. The day was
+getting darker, and promised an early dusk. His
+watch told him that it was after four, and still nothing
+had happened. Where on earth were Dickson
+and the Princess? Where in the name of all that
+was holy were the police? Any minute now the brig
+might arrive and land its men, and he would be left
+there as a burnt-offering to their wrath. There
+must have been an infernal muddle somewhere....
+Anyhow the Princess was out of the trouble,
+but where the Lord alone knew.... Perhaps the
+reinforcements were lying in wait for the boats at
+the Garplefoot.   That struck him as a likely ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>planation,
+and comforted him. Very soon he might
+hear the sound of an engagement to the south, and
+the next thing would be Dobson and his crew in
+flight. He was determined to be in the show somehow
+and would be very close on their heels. He
+felt a peculiar dislike to all three, but especially to
+Léon. The Belgian's small baby features had for
+four days set him clenching his fists when he thought
+of them.</p>
+
+<p>The next thing he saw was one of the tinklers
+running hard towards the Tower. He cried something
+to Dobson, which Heritage could not catch,
+but which woke the latter to activity. The innkeeper
+shouted to Léon and Spidel, and the tinkler
+was excitedly questioned. Dobson laughed and
+slapped his thigh. He gave orders to the others,
+and himself joined the tinkler and hurried off in the
+direction of the Garplefoot. Something was happening
+there, something of ill omen, for the man's
+face and manner had been triumphant. Were the
+boats landing?</p>
+
+<p>As Heritage puzzled over this event, another
+figure appeared on the scene. It was a big man in
+knickerbockers and mackintosh, who came round
+the end of the House from the direction of the
+South Lodge. At first he thought it was the
+advance-guard from his own side, the help which
+Dickson had gone to find, and he only restrained
+himself in time from shouting a welcome. But
+surely their supports would not advance so confidently
+in enemy country. The man strode over the
+slopes as if looking for somebody; then he caught<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+sight of Léon and waved him to come. Léon must
+have known him, for he hastened to obey.</p>
+
+<p>The two were about thirty yards from Heritage's
+window. Léon was telling some story volubly,
+pointing now to the Tower and now towards the
+sea. The big man nodded as if satisfied. Heritage
+noted that his right arm was tied up, and that the
+mackintosh sleeve was empty, and that brought him
+enlightenment. It was Loudon the factor, whom
+Dickson had winged the night before. The two of
+them passed out of view in the direction of Spidel.</p>
+
+<p>The sight awoke Heritage to the supreme unpleasantness
+of his position. He was utterly alone
+on the headland, and his allies had vanished into
+space, while the enemy plans, moving like clock-work,
+were approaching their consummation. For
+a second he thought of leaving the Tower and
+hiding somewhere in the cliffs. He dismissed the
+notion unwillingly, for he remembered the task that
+had been set him. He was there to hold the fort
+to the last&mdash;to gain time, though he could not for
+the life of him see what use time was to be when
+all the strategy of his own side seemed to have miscarried.
+Anyhow, the blackguards would be sold
+for they would not find the Princess. But he felt
+a horrid void in the pit of his stomach, and a looseness
+about his knees.</p>
+
+<p>The moments passed more quickly as he wrestled
+with his fears. The next he knew the empty space
+below his window was filling with figures. There
+was a great crowd of them, rough fellows with seamen's
+coats, still dripping as if they had had a wet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+landing. Dobson was with them, but for the rest
+they were strange figures.</p>
+
+<p>Now that the expected had come at last Heritage's
+nerves grew calmer. He made out that the
+newcomers were trying the door, and he waited to
+hear it fall, for such a mob could soon force it. But
+instead a voice called from beneath.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you please open to us?" it said.</p>
+
+<p>He stuck his head out and saw a little group with
+one man at the head of it, a young man clad in oilskins
+whose face was dim in the murky evening.
+The voice was that of a gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"I have orders to open to no one," Heritage
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I fear we must force an entrance," said
+the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"You can go to the devil," said Heritage.</p>
+
+<p>That defiance was the screw which his nerves
+needed. His temper had risen, he had forgotten all
+about the Princess, he did not even remember his
+isolation. His job was to make a fight for it. He
+ran up the staircase which led to the attics of the
+Tower, for he recollected that there was a window
+there which looked over the ground before the door.
+The place was ruinous, the floor filled with holes,
+and a part of the roof sagged down in a corner.
+The stones around the window were loose and
+crumbling and he managed to pull several out so
+that the slit was enlarged. He found himself looking
+down on a crowd of men, who had lifted the
+fallen tree on which Léon had perched, and were
+about to use it as a battering ram.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The first fellow who comes within six yards of
+the door I shoot," he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>There was a white wave below as every face was
+turned to him. He ducked back his head in time
+as a bullet chipped the side of the window.</p>
+
+<p>But his position was a good one, for he had a
+hole in the broken wall through which he could see,
+and could shoot with his hand at the edge of the
+window while keeping his body in cover. The battering
+party resumed their task, and as the tree
+swung nearer, he fired at the foremost of them.
+He missed, but the shot for a moment suspended
+operations.</p>
+
+<p>Again they came on, and again he fired. This
+time he damaged somebody, for the trunk was
+dropped.</p>
+
+<p>A voice gave orders, a sharp authoritative voice.
+The battering squad dissolved, and there was a general
+withdrawal out of the line of fire from the
+window. Was it possible that he had intimidated
+them? He could hear the sound of voices, and then
+a single figure came into sight again, holding something
+in its hand.</p>
+
+<p>He did not fire, for he recognised the futility of
+his efforts. The baseball swing of the figure below
+could not be mistaken. There was a roar beneath,
+and a flash of fire, as the bomb exploded on the
+door. Then came a rush of men, and the Tower
+had fallen.</p>
+
+<p>Heritage clambered through a hole in the roof
+and gained the topmost parapet. He had still a
+pocketful of cartridges, and there in a coign of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>
+old battlements he would prove an ugly customer
+to the pursuit. Only one at a time could reach that
+siege perilous.... They would not take long to
+search the lower rooms, and then would be hot on
+the trail of the man who had fooled them. He
+had not a scrap of fear left or even of anger&mdash;only
+triumph at the thought of how properly those
+ruffians had been sold. "Like schoolboys they who
+unaware"&mdash;instead of two women they had found
+a man with a gun. And the Princess was miles off
+and forever beyond their reach. When they had
+settled with him they would no doubt burn the
+House down, but that would serve them little.
+From his airy pinnacle he could see the whole sea-front
+of Huntingtower, a blur in the dusk but for
+the ghostly eyes of its white-shuttered windows.</p>
+
+<p>Something was coming from it, running lightly
+over the lawns, lost for an instant in the trees, and
+then appearing clear on the crest of the ridge
+where some hours earlier Dougal had lain. With
+horror he saw that it was a girl. She stood with
+the wind plucking at her skirts and hair, and she
+cried in a high, clear voice which pierced even the
+confusion of the gale. What she cried he could not
+tell for it was in a strange tongue....</p>
+
+<p>But it reached the besiegers. There was a sudden
+silence in the din below him and then a confusion
+of shouting. The men seemed to be pouring out
+of the gap which had been the doorway, and as he
+peered over the parapet first one and then another
+entered his area of vision. The girl on the ridge,
+as soon as she saw that she had attracted attention,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
+turned and ran back, and after her up the slopes
+went the pursuit bunched like hounds on a good
+scent.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. John Heritage, swearing terribly, started to
+retrace his steps.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES</p>
+
+
+<p>The military historian must often make shift to
+write of battles with slender data, but he can
+pad out his deficiencies by learned parallels. If his
+were the talented pen describing this, the latest
+action fought on British soil against a foreign foe,
+he would no doubt be crippled by the absence of
+written orders and war diaries. But how eloquently
+he would discant on the resemblance between
+Dougal and Gouraud&mdash;how the plan of leaving the
+enemy to waste his strength upon a deserted position
+was that which on the 15th of July, 1918, the
+French general had used with decisive effect in
+Champagne! But Dougal had never heard of
+Gouraud, and I cannot claim that, like the Happy
+Warrior, he</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"through the heat of conflict kept the law<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In calmness made, and saw what he foresaw."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I have had the benefit of discussing the affair with
+him and his colleagues, but I should offend against
+historic truth if I represented the main action as
+anything but a scrimmage&mdash;a "soldiers' battle," the
+historian would say, a Malplaquet, an Albuera.</p>
+
+<p>Just after half-past three that afternoon the
+Commander-in-Chief was revealed in a very bad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+temper. He had intercepted Sir Archie's car, and,
+since Léon was known to be fully occupied, had
+brought it in by the West Lodge, and hidden it behind
+a clump of laurels. There he had held a
+hoarse council of war. He had cast an appraising
+eye over Sime the butler, Carfrae the chauffeur, and
+McGuffog the gamekeeper, and his brows had lightened
+when he beheld Sir Archie with an armful of
+guns and two big cartridge-magazines. But they
+had darkened again at the first words of the leader
+of the reinforcements.</p>
+
+<p>"Now for the Tower," Sir Archie had observed
+cheerfully. "We should be a match for the three
+watchers, my lad, and it's time that poor devil
+What's-his-name was relieved."</p>
+
+<p>"A bonny-like plan that would be," said Dougal.
+"Man, ye would be walkin' into the very trap they
+want. In an hour, or maybe two, the rest will turn
+up from the sea and they'd have ye tight by the
+neck. Na, na! It's time we're wantin', and the
+longer they think we're a' in the auld Tower the
+better for us.   What news o' the polis?"</p>
+
+<p>He listened to Sir Archie's report with a gloomy
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Not afore the darkenin'? They'll be ower late&mdash;the
+polis are aye ower late. It looks as if we had
+the job to do oursels.  What's <i>your</i> notion?"</p>
+
+<p>"God knows," said the baronet whose eyes were
+on Saskia. "What's yours?"</p>
+
+<p>The deference conciliated Dougal. "There's just
+the one plan that's worth a docken. There's five o'
+us here, and there's plenty weapons. Besides<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+there's five Die-Hards somewhere about, and
+though they've never tried it afore they can be
+trusted to loose off a gun. My advice is to hide
+at the Garplefoot and stop the boats landin'. We'd
+have the tinklers on our flank, no doubt, but I'm
+not muckle feared o' them. It wouldn't be easy for
+the boats to get in wi' this tearin' wind and us firin'
+volleys from the shore."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Archie stared at him with admiration.
+"You're a hearty young fire-eater. But Great
+Scott! we can't go pottin' at strangers before we
+find out their business. This is a law-abidin' country,
+and we're not entitled to start shootin' except
+in self-defence. You can wash that plan out, for
+it ain't feasible."</p>
+
+<p>Dougal spat cynically. "For all that it's the right
+strawtegy. Man, we might sink the lot, and then
+turn and settle wi' Dobson, and all afore the first
+polisman showed his neb. It would be a grand performance.
+But I was feared ye wouldn't be for it....
+Well, there's just the one other thing to do.
+We must get inside the Hoose and put it in a state
+of defence. Heritage has McCunn's pistol, and
+he'll keep them busy for a bit. When they've
+finished wi' him and find the place is empty, they'll
+try the Hoose and we'll give them a warm reception.
+That should keep us goin' till the polis arrive,
+unless they're comin' wi' the blind carrier."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Archie nodded. "But why put ourselves in
+their power at all? They're at present barking up
+the wrong tree. Let them bark up another wrong
+'un. Why shouldn't the House remain empty? I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+take it we're here to protect the Princess. Well,
+we'll have done that if they go off empty-handed."</p>
+
+<p>Dougal looked up to the heavens. "I wish McCunn
+was here," he sighed. "Ay, we've got to
+protect the Princess, and there's just the one way
+to do it, and that's to put an end to this crowd o'
+blagyirds. If they gang empty-handed, they'll
+come again another day, either here or somewhere
+else, and it won't be long afore they get the lassie.
+But if we finish with them now she can sit down
+wi' an easy mind. That's why we've got to hang
+on to them till the polis comes. There's no way
+out o' this business but a battle."</p>
+
+<p>He found an ally. "Dougal is right," said
+Saskia. "If I am to have peace, by some way or
+other the fangs of my enemies must be drawn for
+ever."</p>
+
+<p>He swung round and addressed her formally.
+"Mem, I'm askin' ye for the last time. Will ye
+keep out of this business? Will ye gang back and
+sit doun aside Mrs. Morran's fire and have your
+tea and wait till we come for ye? Ye can do no
+good, and ye're puttin' yourself terrible in the
+enemy's power. If we're beat and ye're no' there,
+they get very little satisfaction, but if they get <i>you</i>
+they get what they've come seekin'. I tell ye
+straight&mdash;ye're an encumbrance."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed mischievously. "I can shoot better
+than you," she said.</p>
+
+<p>He ignored the taunt. "Will ye listen to sense
+and fall to the rear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not," she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then gang your own gait. I'm ower wise to
+argy-bargy wi' women. The Hoose be it!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a journey which sorely tried Dougal's
+temper. The only way in was by the verandah, but
+the door at the west end had been locked, and the
+ladder had disappeared. Now of his party three
+were lame, one lacked an arm, and one was a girl;
+besides, there were the guns and cartridges to transport.
+Moreover, at more than one point before the
+verandah was reached the route was commanded
+by a point on the ridge near the old Tower, and
+that had been Spidel's position when Dougal made
+his last reconnaissance. It behoved to pass these
+points swiftly and unobtrusively, and his company
+was neither swift nor unobtrusive. McGuffog had
+a genius for tripping over obstacles, and Sir Archie
+was for ever proffering his aid to Saskia, who was
+in a position to give rather than to receive, being
+far the most active of the party. Once Dougal had
+to take the gamekeeper's head and force it down,
+a performance which would have led to an immediate
+assault but for Sir Archie's presence. Nor did
+the latter escape. "Will ye stop heedin' the lassie,
+and attend to your own job," the Chieftain growled.
+"Ye're makin' as much noise as a road-roller."</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at the foot of the verandah wall there
+remained the problem of the escalade. Dougal
+clambered up like a squirrel by the help of cracks
+in the stones, and he could be heard trying the
+handle of the door into the House. He was absent
+for about five minutes and then his head peeped
+over the edge accompanied by the hooks of an iron<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+ladder. "From the boiler-house," he informed
+them as they stood clear for the thing to drop. It
+proved to be little more than half the height of
+the wall.</p>
+
+<p>Saskia ascended first, and had no difficulty in
+pulling herself over the parapet. Then came the
+guns and ammunition, and then the one-armed
+Sime, who turned out to be an athlete. But it was
+no easy matter getting up the last three. Sir
+Archie anathematised his frailties. "Nice old crock
+to go tiger-shootin' with," he told the Princess.
+"But set me to something where my confounded leg
+don't get in the way, and I'm still pretty useful!"
+Dougal, mopping his brow with the rag he called
+his handkerchief, observed sourly that he objected
+to going scouting with a herd of elephants.</p>
+
+<p>Once indoors his spirits rose. The party from
+the Mains had brought several electric torches and
+the one lamp was presently found and lit. "We
+can't count on the polis," Dougal announced, "and
+when the foreigners is finished wi' the Tower they'll
+come on here. If no', we must make them. What
+is it the sodgers call it? Forcin' a battle? Now
+see here! There's the two roads into this place,
+the back door and the verandy, leavin' out the front
+door which is chained and lockit. They'll try those
+two roads first and we must get them well barricaded
+in time. But mind, if there's a good few o'
+them, it'll be an easy job to batter in the front door
+or the windies, so we maun be ready for that."</p>
+
+<p>He told off a fatigue party&mdash;the Princess, Sir
+Archie and McGuffog&mdash;to help in moving furniture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+to the several doors. Sime and Carfrae attended
+to the kitchen entrance, while he himself made a
+tour of the ground-floor windows. For half an
+hour the empty house was loud with strange sounds.
+McGuffog, who was a giant in strength, filled the
+passage at the verandah end with an assortment of
+furniture ranging from a grand piano to a vast
+mahogany sofa, while Saskia and Sir Archie pillaged
+the bedrooms and packed up the interstices with
+mattresses in lieu of sandbags. Dougal on his return
+saw fit to approve their work.</p>
+
+<p>"That'll fickle the blagyirds. Down at the
+kitchen door we've got a mangle, five wash-tubs and
+the best part of a ton o' coal. It's the windies I'm
+anxious about, for they're ower big to fill up. But
+I've gotten tubs o' water below them and a lot o'
+wire-nettin' I fund in the cellar."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Archie morosely wiped his brow. "I can't
+say I ever hated a job more," he told Saskia. "It
+seems pretty cool to march into somebody else's
+house and make free with his furniture. I hope to
+goodness our friends from the sea do turn up, or
+we'll look pretty foolish. Loudon will have a score
+against me he won't forget."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye're no' weakenin'?" asked Dougal fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit. Only hopin' somebody hasn't made
+a mighty big mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye needn't be feared for that. Now you listen
+to your instructions. We're terrible few for such
+a big place, but we maun make up for shortness o'
+numbers by extra mobility. The gemkeeper will
+keep the windy that looks on the verandy, and fell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+any man that gets through. You'll hold the verandy
+door, and the ither lame man&mdash;is't Carfrae ye call
+him?&mdash;will keep the back door. I've telled the
+one-armed man, who has some kind of a head on
+him, that he maun keep on the move, watchin' to
+see if they try the front door or any o' the other
+windies. If they do, he takes his station there.
+D'ye follow?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Archie nodded gloomily. "What is my
+post?" Saskia asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I've appointed ye my Chief of Staff," was the
+answer. "Ye see we've no reserves. If this door's
+the dangerous bit, it maun be reinforced from elsewhere;
+and that'll want savage thinkin'. Ye'll have
+to be ay on the move, Mem, and keep me informed.
+If they break in at two bits, we're beat,
+and there'll be nothin' for it but to retire to our
+last position. Ye ken the room ayont the hall
+where they keep the coats. That's our last trench,
+and at the worst we fall back there and stick it out.
+It has a strong door and a wee windy, so they'll
+no' be able to get in on our rear. We should be
+able to put up a good defence there, unless they fire
+the place over our heads.... Now, we'd better
+give out the guns."</p>
+
+<p>"We don't want any shootin' if we can avoid it,"
+said Sir Archie, who found his distaste for Dougal
+growing, though he was under the spell of the one
+being there who knew precisely his own mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Just what I was goin' to say. My instructions
+is, reserve your fire, and don't loose off till you have
+a man up against the end o' your barrel."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, we'll get into a horrible row. The
+whole thing may be a mistake, and we'll be had up
+for wholesale homicide. No man shall fire unless
+I give the word."</p>
+
+<p>The Commander-in-Chief looked at him darkly.
+Some bitter retort was on his tongue, but he restrained
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>"It appears," he said, "that ye think I'm doin'
+all this for fun. I'll no 'argy wi' ye. There can be
+just the one general in a battle, but I'll give ye
+permission to say the word when to fire.... Macgreegor!"
+he muttered, a strange expletive only
+used in moments of deep emotion. "I'll wager
+ye'll be for sayin' the word afore I'd say it
+mysel'."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to the Princess. "I hand over to you,
+till I am back, for I maun be off and see to the Die-Hards.
+I wish I could bring them in here, but I
+daren't lose my communications. I'll likely get in
+by the boiler-house skylight when I come back, but
+it might be as well to keep a road open here unless
+ye're actually attacked."</p>
+
+<p>Dougal clambered over the mattresses and the
+grand piano; a flicker of waning daylight appeared
+for a second as he squeezed through the door, and
+Sir Archie was left staring at the wrathful countenance
+of McGuffog.  He laughed ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been in about forty battles, and here's that
+little devil rather worried about my pluck, and
+talkin' to me like a corps commander to a newly
+joined second-lieutenant. All the same he's a remarkable
+child, and we'd better behave as if we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
+were in for a real shindy. What do you think,
+Princess?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think we are in for what you call a shindy.
+I am in command, remember. I order you to serve
+out the guns."</p>
+
+<p>This was done, a shot-gun and a hundred cartridges
+to each, while McGuffog, who was a marksman,
+was also given a sporting Mannlicher, and two
+other rifles, a .303 and a small-bore Holland, were
+kept in reserve in the hall. Sir Archie, free from
+Dougal's compelling presence, gave the gamekeeper
+peremptory orders not to shoot till he was bidden,
+and Carfrae at the kitchen door was warned to the
+same effect. The shuttered house, where the only
+light apart from the garden-room was the feeble
+spark of the electric torches, had the most disastrous
+effect upon his spirits. The gale which
+roared in the chimney and eddied among the rafters
+of the hall seemed an infernal commotion in a tomb.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go upstairs," he told Saskia; "there must
+be a view from the upper windows."</p>
+
+<p>"You can see the top of the old Tower, and part
+of the sea," she said. "I know it well, for it was
+my only amusement to look at it. On clear days,
+too, one could see high mountains far in the west."
+His depression seemed to have affected her, for she
+spoke listlessly, unlike the vivid creature who had
+led the way in.</p>
+
+<p>In a gaunt west-looking bedroom, the one in
+which Heritage and Dickson had camped the night
+before, they opened a fold of the shutters and
+looked out into a world of grey wrack and driving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
+rain. The Tower roof showed mistily beyond the
+ridge of down, but its environs were not in their
+prospect. The lower regions of the House had been
+gloomy enough, but this bleak place with its drab
+outlook struck a chill to Sir Archie's soul. He dolefully
+lit a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a pretty rotten show for you," he told
+her. "It strikes me as a rather unpleasant brand
+of nightmare."</p>
+
+<p>"I have been living with nightmares for three
+years," she said wearily.</p>
+
+<p>He cast his eyes round the room. "I think the
+Kennedys were mad to build this confounded barrack.
+I've always disliked it, and old Quentin
+hadn't any use for it either. Cold, cheerless, raw
+monstrosity! It hasn't been a very giddy place for
+you, Princess."</p>
+
+<p>"It has been my prison, when I hoped it would
+be a sanctuary. But it may yet be my salvation."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I hope so. I say, you must be jolly
+hungry. I don't suppose there's any chance of tea
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. She was looking fixedly at
+the Tower, as if she expected something to appear
+there, and he followed her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Rum old shell, that. Quentin used to keep all
+kinds of live stock there, and when we were boys
+it was our castle where we played at bein' robber
+chiefs. It'll be dashed queer if the real thing should
+turn up this time. I suppose McCunn's Poet is
+roostin' there all by his lone. Can't say I envy him
+his job."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she caught his arm. "I see a man," she
+whispered. "There! He is behind those far
+bushes. There is his head again!"</p>
+
+<p>It was clearly a man, but he presently disappeared,
+for he had come round by the south end
+of the House, past the stables, and had now gone
+over the ridge.</p>
+
+<p>"The cut of his jib is uncommonly like Loudon,
+the factor. I thought McCunn had stretched him
+on a bed of pain. Lord, if this thing should turn
+out a farce, I simply can't face Loudon.... I say,
+Princess, you don't suppose by any chance that McCunn's
+a little bit wrong in the head?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned her candid eyes on him. "You are in
+a very doubting mood."</p>
+
+<p>"My feet are cold and I don't mind admittin' it.
+Hanged if I know what it is, but I don't feel this
+show a bit real. If it isn't, we're in a fair way to
+make howlin' idiots of ourselves, and get pretty well
+embroiled with the law. It's all right for the red-haired
+boy, for he can take everything seriously,
+even play. I could do the same thing myself when
+I was a kid. I don't mind runnin' some kinds of
+risk&mdash;I've had a few in my time&mdash;but this is so infernally
+outlandish and I&mdash;I don't quite believe in
+it. That is to say, I believe in it right enough when
+I look at you or listen to McCunn, but as soon as
+my eyes are off you I begin to doubt again. I'm
+gettin' old and I've a stake in the country, and I
+daresay I'm gettin' a bit of a prig&mdash;anyway I don't
+want to make a jackass of myself. Besides, there's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+this foul weather and this beastly house to ice my
+feet."</p>
+
+<p>He broke off with an exclamation, for on the grey
+cloud-bounded stage in which the roof of the Tower
+was the central feature, actors had appeared. Dim
+hurrying shapes showed through the mist, dipping
+over the ridge, as if coming from the Garplefoot.</p>
+
+<p>She seized his arm and he saw that her listlessness
+was gone. Her eyes were shining.</p>
+
+<p>"It is they," she cried. "The nightmare is real
+at last. Do you doubt now?"</p>
+
+<p>He could only stare, for these shapes arriving and
+vanishing like wisps of fog still seemed to him
+phantasmal. The girl held his arm tightly clutched,
+and craned towards the window space. He tried to
+open the frame, and succeeded in smashing the glass.
+A swirl of wind drove inwards and blew a loose
+lock of Saskia's hair across his brow.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish Dougal were back," he muttered, and
+then came the crack of a shot.</p>
+
+<p>The pressure on his arm slackened, and a pale
+face was turned to him. "He is alone&mdash;Mr. Heritage.
+He has no chance. They will kill him like
+a dog."</p>
+
+<p>"They'll never get in," he assured her. "Dougal
+said the place could hold out for hours."</p>
+
+<p>Another shot followed and presently a third.
+She twined her hands and her eyes were wild.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't leave him to be killed," she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the only game. We're playin' for time, remember.
+Besides he won't be killed. Great Scott!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, a sudden explosion cleft the drone
+of the wind and a patch of gloom flashed into yellow
+light.</p>
+
+<p>"Bomb!" he cried. "Lord, I might have thought
+of that."</p>
+
+<p>The girl had sprung back from the window. "I
+cannot bear it. I will not see him murdered in sight
+of his friends. I am going to show myself, and
+when they see me they will leave him.... No,
+you must stay here. Presently they will be round
+this house. Don't be afraid for me&mdash;I am very
+quick of foot."</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, don't! Here, Princess, stop,"
+and he clutched at her skirt. "Look here, I'll go."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't. You have been wounded. I am in
+command, you know. Keep the door open till I
+come back."</p>
+
+<p>He hobbled after her, but she easily eluded him.
+She was smiling now, and blew a kiss to him. "La,
+la, la," she trilled, as she ran down the stairs. He
+heard her voice below, admonishing McGuffog.
+Then he pulled himself together and went back to
+the window. He had brought the little Holland
+with him, and he poked its barrel through the hole
+in the glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Curse my game leg," he said, almost cheerfully,
+for the situation was now becoming one with which
+he could cope. "I ought to be able to hold up the
+pursuit a bit. My aunt! What a girl!"</p>
+
+<p>With the rifle cuddled to his shoulder he watched
+a slim figure come into sight on the lawn, running
+towards the ridge. He reflected that she must have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
+dropped from the high verandah wall. That reminded
+him that something must be done to make
+the wall climbable for her return, so he went down
+to McGuffog, and the two squeezed through the
+barricaded door to the verandah. The boiler-house
+ladder was still in position, but it did not reach half
+the height, so McGuffog was adjured to stand by
+to help, and in the meantime to wait on duty by the
+wall.  Then he hurried upstairs to his watch-tower.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was in sight, almost on the crest of the
+high ground. There she stood for a moment, one
+hand clutching at her errant hair, the other shielding
+her eyes from the sting of the rain. He heard
+her cry, as Heritage had heard her, but since the
+wind was blowing towards him the sound came
+louder and fuller. Again she cried, and then stood
+motionless with her hands above her head. It was
+only for an instant, for the next he saw she had
+turned and was racing down the slope, jumping the
+little scrogs of hazel like a deer. On the ridge
+appeared faces, and then over it swept a mob of
+men.</p>
+
+<p>She had a start of some fifty yards, and laboured
+to increase it, having doubtless the verandah wall
+in mind. Sir Archie, sick with anxiety, nevertheless
+spared time to admire her prowess. "Gad! she's a
+miler," he ejaculated. "She'll do it. I'm hanged
+if she don't do it."</p>
+
+<p>Against men in seaman's boots and heavy clothing
+she had a clear advantage. But two shook
+themselves loose from the pack and began to gain
+on her. At the main shrubbery they were not thirty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>
+yards behind, and in her passage through it her
+skirts must have delayed her, for when she emerged
+the pursuit had halved the distance. He got the
+sights of the rifle on the first man, but the lawns
+sloped up towards the house, and to his consternation
+he found that the girl was in the line of fire.
+Madly he ran to the other window of the room,
+tore back the shutters, shivered the glass, and flung
+his rifle to his shoulder. The fellow was within
+three yards of her, but thank God! he had now a
+clear field. He fired low and just ahead of him, and
+had the satisfaction to see him drop like a rabbit,
+shot in the leg. His companion stumbled over him,
+and for a moment the girl was safe.</p>
+
+<p>But her speed was failing. She passed out of
+sight on the verandah side of the house, and the
+rest of the pack had gained ominously over the
+easier ground of the lawn. He thought for a moment
+of trying to stop them by his fire, but realised
+that if every shot told there would still be enough
+of them left to make sure of her capture. The only
+chance was at the verandah, and he went downstairs
+at a pace undreamed of since the days when he had
+two whole legs.</p>
+
+<p>McGuffog, Mannlicher in hand, was poking his
+neck over the wall. The pursuit had turned the
+corner and were about twenty yards off; the girl was
+at the foot of the ladder, breathless, drooping with
+fatigue. She tried to climb, limply and feebly, and
+very slowly, as if she were too giddy to see clear.
+Above were two cripples, and at her back the van
+of the now triumphant pack.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sir Archie, game leg or no, was on the parapet
+preparing to drop down and hold off the pursuit
+were it only for seconds. But at that moment he
+was aware that the situation had changed.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the ladder a tall man seemed to
+have sprung out of the ground. He caught the girl
+in his arms, climbed the ladder, and McGuffog's
+great hands reached down and seized her and
+swung her into safety. Up the wall, by means of
+cracks and tufts, was shinning a small boy.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger coolly faced the pursuers and at the
+sight of him they checked, those behind stumbling
+against those in front. He was speaking to them
+in a foreign tongue, and to Sir Archie's ear the
+words were like the crack of a lash. The hesitation
+was only for a moment, for a voice among them
+cried out, and the whole pack gave tongue shrilly
+and surged on again. But that instant of check had
+given the stranger his chance. He was up the
+ladder, and, gripping the parapet, found rest for
+his feet in a fissure. Then he bent down, drew up
+the ladder, handed it to McGuffog and with a
+mighty heave pulled himself over the top.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to hope to defend the verandah, but
+the door at the west end was being assailed by a
+contingent of the enemy, and he saw that its thin
+woodwork was yielding.</p>
+
+<p>"Into the House," he cried, as he picked up the
+ladder and tossed it over the wall on the pack surging
+below. He was only just in time, for the west
+door yielded. In two steps he had followed McGuffog
+through the chink into the passage, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
+concussion of the grand piano pushed hard against
+the verandah door from within coincided with the
+first battering on the said door from without.</p>
+
+<p>In the garden-room the feeble lamp showed a
+strange grouping. Saskia had sunk into a chair to
+get her breath, and seemed too dazed to be aware
+of her surroundings. Dougal was manfully striving
+to appear at his ease, but his lip was quivering.</p>
+
+<p>"A near thing that time," he observed. "It was
+the blame of that man's auld motor-bicycle."</p>
+
+<p>The stranger cast sharp eyes around the place
+and company.</p>
+
+<p>"An awkward corner, gentlemen," he said.
+"How many are there of you? Four men and a
+boy? And you have placed guards at all the entrances?"</p>
+
+<p>"They have bombs," Sir Archie reminded him.</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt. But I do not think they will use
+them here&mdash;or their guns, unless there is no other
+way. Their purpose is kidnapping, and they hope
+to do it secretly and slip off without leaving a trace.
+If they slaughter us, as they easily can, the cry will
+be out against them, and their vessel will be unpleasantly
+hunted. Half their purpose is already
+spoiled, for it is no longer secret.... They may
+break us by sheer weight, and I fancy the first
+shooting will be done by us. It's the windows I'm
+afraid of."</p>
+
+<p>Some tone in his quiet voice reached the girl in
+the wicker chair. She looked up wildly, saw him
+and with a cry of "Alesha" ran to his arms. There
+she hung, while his hand fondled her hair, like a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+mother with a scared child. Sir Archie, watching
+the whole thing in some stupefaction, thought he
+had never in his days seen more nobly matched
+human creatures.</p>
+
+<p>"It is my friend," she cried triumphantly, "the
+friend whom I appointed to meet me here. Oh, I
+did well to trust him. Now we need not fear anything."</p>
+
+<p>As if in ironical answer came a great crashing at
+the verandah door, and the twanging of chords
+cruelly mishandled. The grand piano was suffering
+internally from the assaults of the boiler-house
+ladder.</p>
+
+<p>"Wull I gie them a shot?" was McGuffog's hoarse
+inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>"Action stations," Alexis ordered, for the command
+seemed to have shifted to him from Dougal.
+"The windows are the danger. The boy will patrol
+the ground floor, and give us warning, and I and
+this man," pointing to Sime, "will be ready at the
+threatened point. And for God's sake no shooting,
+unless I give the word. If we take them on at that
+game we haven't a chance."</p>
+
+<p>He said something to Saskia in Russian and she
+smiled assent and went to Sir Archie's side. "You
+and I must keep this door," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Archie was never very clear afterwards about
+the events of the next hour. The Princess was in
+the maddest spirits, as if the burden of three years
+had slipped from her and she was back in her first
+girlhood. She sang as she carried more lumber to
+the pile&mdash;perhaps the song which had once en<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>tranced
+Heritage, but Sir Archie had no ear for
+music. She mocked at the furious blows which
+rained at the other end, for the door had gone now,
+and in the windy gap could be seen a blur of dark
+faces. Oddly enough, he found his own spirits
+mounting to meet hers. It was real business at last,
+the qualms of the civilian had been forgotten, and
+there was rising in him that joy in a scrap which
+had once made him one of the most daring airmen
+on the Western Front. The only thing that worried
+him now was the coyness about shooting.
+What on earth were his rifles and shot-guns for
+unless to be used? He had seen the enemy from
+the verandah wall, and a more ruffianly crew he had
+never dreamed of. They meant the uttermost business,
+and against such it was surely the duty of good
+citizens to wage whole-hearted war.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess was humming to herself a nursery
+rhyme. "The King of Spain's daughter," she
+crooned, "came to visit me, and all for the sake&mdash;&mdash;Oh,
+that poor piano!" In her clear voice she cried
+something in Russian, and the wind carried a laugh
+from the verandah. At the sound of it she stopped.
+"I had forgotten," she said. "Paul is there. I had
+forgotten." After that she was very quiet, but she
+redoubled her labours at the barricade.</p>
+
+<p>To the man it seemed that the pressure from
+without was slackening. He called to McGuffog to
+ask about the garden-room window, and the reply
+was reassuring. The gamekeeper was gloomily
+contemplating Dougal's tubs of water and wire-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>netting,
+as he might have contemplated a vermin
+trap.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Archie was growing acutely anxious&mdash;the
+anxiety of the defender of a straggling fortress
+which is vulnerable at a dozen points. It seemed
+to him that strange noises were coming from the
+rooms beyond the hall. Did the back door lie that
+way? And was not there a smell of smoke in the
+air? If they tried fire in such a gale the place would
+burn like matchwood.</p>
+
+<p>He left his post and in the hall found Dougal.</p>
+
+<p>"All quiet," the Chieftain reported. "Far ower
+quiet. I don't like it. The enemy's no' puttin' out
+his strength yet. The Russian says a' the west
+windies are terrible dangerous. Him and the chauffeur's
+doin' their best, but ye can't block thae
+muckle glass panes."</p>
+
+<p>He returned to the Princess, and found that the
+attack had indeed languished on that particular barricade.
+The withers of the grand piano were left
+unwrung, and only a faint scuffling informed him
+that the verandah was not empty. "They're gathering
+for an attack elsewhere," he told himself.
+But what if that attack were a feint? He and McGuffog
+must stick to their post, for in his belief the
+verandah door and the garden-room window were
+the easiest places where an entry in mass could be
+forced.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Dougal's whistle blew, and with it came
+a most almighty crash somewhere towards the west
+side. With a shout of "Hold tight, McGuffog,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
+Sir Archie bolted into the hall, and, led by the
+sound, reached what had once been the ladies' bedroom.
+A strange sight met his eyes, for the whole
+framework of one window seemed to have been
+thrust inward, and in the gap Alexis was swinging
+a fender. Three of the enemy were in the room&mdash;one
+senseless on the floor, one in the grip of Sime,
+whose single hand was tightly clenched on his
+throat, and one engaged with Dougal in a corner.
+The Die-Hard leader was sore pressed, and to his
+help Sir Archie went. The fresh assault made the
+seaman duck his head, and Dougal seized the occasion
+to smite him hard with something which caused
+him to roll over. It was Spidel's life-preserver
+which he had annexed that afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>Alexis at the window seemed to have for a moment
+daunted the attack. "Bring that table," he
+cried, and the thing was jammed into the gap.
+"Now you"&mdash;this to Sime&mdash;"get the man from the
+back door to hold this place with his gun. There's
+no attack there. It's about time for shooting now,
+or we'll have them in our rear. What in heaven is
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>It was McGuffog whose great bellow resounded
+down the corridor. Sir Archie turned and shuffled
+back, to be met by a distressing spectacle. The
+lamp, burning as peacefully as it might have burned
+on an old lady's tea-table, revealed the window of
+the garden-room driven bodily inward, shutters and
+all, and now forming an inclined bridge over
+Dougal's ineffectual tubs. In front of it stood McGuffog,
+swinging his gun by the barrel and yelling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>
+curses, which, being mainly couched in the vernacular,
+were happily meaningless to Saskia. She
+herself stood at the hall door, plucking at something
+hidden in her breast. He saw that it was a
+little ivory-handled pistol.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy's feint had succeeded, for even as Sir
+Archie looked three men leaped into the room. On
+the neck of one the butt of McGuffog's gun crashed,
+but two scrambled to their feet and made for the
+girl. Sir Archie met the first with his fist, a clean
+drive on the jaw, followed by a damaging hook
+with his left that put him out of action. The other
+hesitated for an instant and was lost, for McGuffog
+caught him by the waist from behind and sent him
+through the broken frame to join his comrades
+without.</p>
+
+<p>"Up the stairs," Dougal was shouting, for the
+little room beyond the hall was clearly impossible.
+"Our flank's turned. They're pourin' through the
+other windy." Out of a corner of his eye Sir Archie
+caught sight of Alexis, with Sime and Carfrae in
+support, being slowly forced towards them along
+the corridor. "Upstairs," he shouted. "Come on,
+McGuffog. Lead on, Princess." He dashed out
+the lamp, and the place was in darkness.</p>
+
+<p>With this retreat from the forward trench line
+ended the opening phase of the battle. It was
+achieved in good order, and position was taken up
+on the first-floor landing, dominating the main staircase
+and the passage that led to the back stairs. At
+their back was a short corridor ending in a window
+which gave on the north side of the House above<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+the verandah, and from which an active man might
+descend to the verandah roof. It had been carefully
+reconnoitred beforehand by Dougal, and his
+were the dispositions.</p>
+
+<p>The odd thing was that the retreating force were
+in good heart. The three men from the Mains
+were warming to their work, and McGuffog wore
+an air of genial ferocity. "Dashed fine position I
+call this," said Sir Archie. Only Alexis was silent
+and preoccupied. "We are still at their mercy," he
+said. "Pray God your police come soon." He
+forbade shooting yet awhile. "The lady is our
+strong card," he said. "They won't use their guns
+while she is with us, but if it ever comes to shooting
+they can wipe us out in a couple of minutes. One
+of you watch that window, for Paul Abreskov is no
+fool."</p>
+
+<p>Their exhilaration was short-lived. Below in the
+hall it was black darkness save for a greyness at
+the entrance of the verandah passage; but the defence
+was soon aware that the place was thick with
+men. Presently there came a scuffling from Carfrae's
+post towards the back stairs, and a cry as of
+some one choking. And at the same moment a flare
+was lit below which brought the whole hall from
+floor to rafters into blinding light.</p>
+
+<p>It revealed a crowd of figures, some still in the
+hall and some half-way up the stairs, and it revealed,
+too, more figures at the end of the upper landing
+where Carfrae had been stationed. The shapes
+were motionless like mannequins in a shop window.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They've got us treed all right," Sir Archie
+groaned.   "What the devil are they waiting for?"</p>
+
+<p>"They wait for their leader," said Alexis.</p>
+
+<p>No one of the party will ever forget the ensuing
+minutes. After the hubbub of the barricades the
+ominous silence was like icy water, chilling and
+petrifying with an indefinable fear. There was no
+sound but the wind, but presently mingled with it
+came odd wild voices.</p>
+
+<p>"Hear to the whaups," McGuffog whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Archie, who found the tension unbearable,
+sought relief in contradiction. "You're an unscientific
+brute, McGuffog," he told his henchman. "It's
+a disgrace that a gamekeeper should be such a
+rotten naturalist. What would whaups be doin'
+here at this time of year?"</p>
+
+<p>"A' the same, I could swear it's whaups, Sir
+Erchibald."</p>
+
+<p>Then Dougal broke in and his voice was excited.
+"It's no whaups. That's our patrol signal. Man,
+there's hope for us yet.   I believe it's the polis."</p>
+
+<p>His words were unheeded, for the figures below
+drew apart and a young man came through them.
+His beautifully-shaped dark head was bare, and as
+he moved he unbuttoned his oilskins and showed the
+trim dark-blue garb of the yachtsman. He walked
+confidently up the stairs, an odd elegant figure
+among his heavy companions.</p>
+
+<p>"Good afternoon, Alexis," he said in English.
+"I think we may now regard this interesting episode
+as closed. I take it that you surrender.
+Saskia, dear, you are coming with me on a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>
+journey. Will you tell my men where to find your
+baggage?"</p>
+
+<p>The reply was in Russian. Alexis' voice was as
+cool as the other's, and it seemed to wake him to
+anger. He replied in a rapid torrent of words, and
+appealed to the men below, who shouted back. The
+flare was dying down, and shadows again hid most
+of the hall.</p>
+
+<p>Dougal crept up behind Sir Archie. "Here, I
+think it's the polis. They're whistlin' outbye, and
+I hear folk cryin' to each other&mdash;no' the foreigners."</p>
+
+<p>Again Alexis spoke, and then Saskia joined in.
+What she said rang sharp with contempt, and her
+fingers played with her little pistol.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly before the young man could answer
+Dobson bustled towards him. The innkeeper was
+labouring under some strong emotion, for he seemed
+to be pleading and pointing urgently towards the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell ye it's the polis," whispered Dougal.
+"They're nickit."</p>
+
+<p>There was a swaying in the crowd and anxious
+faces. Men surged in, whispered and went out, and
+a clamour arose which the leader stilled with a fierce
+gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"You there," he cried, looking up, "you English.
+We mean you no ill, but I require you to hand over
+to me the lady and the Russian who is with her. I
+give you a minute by my watch to decide. If you
+refuse my men are behind you and around you, and
+you go with me to be punished at my leisure."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I warn you," cried Sir Archie. "We are armed,
+and will shoot down any one who dares to lay a
+hand on us."</p>
+
+<p>"You fool," came the answer. "I can send you
+all to eternity before you touch a trigger."</p>
+
+<p>Léon was by his side now&mdash;Léon and Spidel,
+imploring him to do something which he angrily
+refused. Outside there was a new clamour, faces
+showing at the door and then vanishing, and an
+anxious hum filled the hall.... Dobson appeared
+again and this time he was a figure of fury.</p>
+
+<p>"Are ye daft, man?" he cried. "I tell ye the
+polis are closin' round us, and there's no' a moment
+to lose if we would get back to the boats. If ye'll
+no' think o' your own neck, I'm thinkin' o' mine.
+The whole thing's a bloody misfire. Come on, lads,
+if ye're no' besotted on destruction."</p>
+
+<p>Léon laid a hand on the leader's arm and was
+roughly shaken off. Spidel fared no better, and the
+little group on the upper landing saw the two shrug
+their shoulders and make for the door. The hall
+was emptying fast, and the watchers had gone from
+the back stairs. The young man's voice rose to a
+scream; he commanded, threatened, cursed; but
+panic was in the air and he had lost his mastery.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick," croaked Dougal, "now's the time for
+the counter-attack."</p>
+
+<p>But the figure on the stairs held them motionless.
+They could not see his face, but by instinct they
+knew that it was distraught with fury and defeat.
+The flare blazed up again as the flame caught a knot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>
+of fresh powder, and once more the place was bright
+with the uncanny light.... The hall was empty
+save for the pale man who was in the act of
+turning.</p>
+
+<p>He looked back. "If I go now, I will return.
+The world is not wide enough to hide you from me,
+Saskia."</p>
+
+<p>"You will never get her," said Alexis.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden devil flamed into his eyes, the devil of
+some ancestral savagery, which would destroy what
+is desired but unattainable. He swung round, his
+hand went to his pocket, something clicked, and his
+arm shot out like a baseball pitcher's.</p>
+
+<p>So intent was the gaze of the others on him, that
+they did not see a second figure ascending the stairs.
+Just as Alexis flung himself before the Princess, the
+new-comer caught the young man's outstretched
+arm and wrenched something from his hand. The
+next second he had hurled it into a far corner where
+stood the great fireplace. There was a blinding
+sheet of flame, a dull roar, and then billow upon
+billow of acrid smoke. As it cleared they saw that
+the fine Italian chimneypiece, the pride of the
+builder of the House, was a mass of splinters, and
+that a great hole had been blown through the wall
+into what had been the dining-room.... A figure
+was sitting on the bottom step feeling its bruises.
+The last enemy had gone.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. John Heritage raised his eyes he saw
+the Princess with a very pale face in the arms of a
+tall man whom he had never seen before. If he
+was surprised at the sight, he did not show it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>
+"Nasty little bomb that. Time fuse. I remember
+we struck the brand first in July '18."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they rounded up?" Sir Archie asked.</p>
+
+<p>"They've bolted. Whether they'll get away is
+another matter. I left half the mounted police a
+minute ago at the top of the West Lodge avenue.
+The other lot went to the Garplefoot to cut off the
+boats."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, man," Sir Archie cried, "the police
+have been here for the last ten minutes."</p>
+
+<p>"You're wrong.   They came with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what on earth&mdash;&mdash;?" began the astonished
+baronet. He stopped short, for he suddenly
+got his answer. Into the hall from the verandah
+limped a boy. Never was there seen so ruinous a
+child. He was dripping wet, his shirt was all but
+torn off his back, his bleeding nose was poorly
+staunched by a wisp of handkerchief, his breeches
+were in ribbons, and his poor bare legs looked as if
+they had been comprehensively kicked and scratched.
+Limpingly he entered, yet with a kind of pride, like
+some small cock-sparrow who has lost most of his
+plumage but has vanquished his adversary.</p>
+
+<p>With a yell Dougal went down the stairs. The
+boy saluted him, and they gravely shook hands. It
+was the meeting of Wellington and Blücher.</p>
+
+<p>The Chieftain's voice shrilled in triumph, but
+there was a break in it. The glory was almost too
+great to be borne.</p>
+
+<p>"I kenned it," he cried. "It was the Gorbals
+Die-Hards. There stands the man that done it....
+Ye'll no' fickle Thomas Yownie."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION</p>
+
+
+<p>We left Mr. McCunn, full of aches but desperately
+resolute in spirit, hobbling by the
+Auchenlochan road into the village of Dalquharter.
+His goal was Mrs. Morran's hen-house, which was
+Thomas Yownie's <i>poste de commandement</i>. The
+rain had come on again, and, though in other
+weather there would have been a slow twilight, already
+the shadow of night had the world in its grip.
+The sea even from the high ground was invisible,
+and all to westward and windward was a ragged
+screen of dark cloud. It was foul weather for foul
+deeds.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Yownie was not in the hen-house, but in
+Mrs. Morran's kitchen, and with him were the pug-faced
+boy known as Old Bill, and the sturdy figure
+of Peter Paterson. But the floor was held by the
+hostess. She still wore her big boots, her petticoats
+were still kilted, and round her venerable head in
+lieu of a bonnet was drawn a tartan shawl.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh, Dickson, but I'm blithe to see ye. And,
+puir man, ye've been sair mishandled. This is the
+awfu'est Sabbath day that ever you and me pit in.
+I hope it'll be forgiven us.... Whaur's the young
+leddy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dougal was saying she was in the House with
+Sir Archibald and the men from the Mains."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Wae's me!" Mrs. Morran keened. "And what
+kind o' place is yon for her? Thae laddies tell me
+there's boatfu's o' scoondrels landit at the Garplefit.
+They'll try the auld Tower, but they'll no' wait
+there when they find it toom, and they'll be inside
+the Hoose in a jiffy and awa' wi' the puir lassie.
+Sirs, it maunna be. Ye're lippenin' to the polis, but
+in a' my days I never kenned the polis in time. We
+maun be up and daein' oorsels. Oh, if I could get
+a haud o' that red-heided Dougal...."</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke, there came on the wind the dull
+reverberation of an explosion.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep us, what's that?" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"It's dinnymite," said Peter Paterson.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the end o' the auld Tower," observed
+Thomas Yownie in his quiet even voice. "And it's
+likely the end o' the man Heritage."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord peety us!" the old woman wailed. "And
+us standin' here like stookies and no' liftin' a hand.
+Awa' wi' ye, laddies, and dae something. Awa' you
+too, Dickson, or I'll tak' the road mysel'."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got orders," said the Chief of Staff, "no' to
+move till the sityation's clear. Napoleon's up at the
+Tower and Jaikie in the policies. I maun wait on
+their reports."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Mrs. Morran's attention was distracted
+by Dickson, who suddenly felt very faint and
+sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. "Man, ye're
+as white as a dish-clout," she exclaimed with compunction.
+"Ye're fair wore out, and ye'll have had
+nae meat sin' your breakfast. See, and I'll get ye
+a cup o' tea."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She proved to be in the right, for as soon as
+Dickson had swallowed some mouthfuls of her
+strong scalding brew the colour came back to his
+cheeks, and he announced that he felt better. "Ye'll
+fortify it wi' a dram," she told him, and produced
+a black bottle from her cupboard. "My father aye
+said that guid whiskey and het tea keepit the doctor's
+gig oot o' the close."</p>
+
+<p>The back door opened and Napoleon entered, his
+thin shanks blue with cold. He saluted and made
+his report in a voice shrill with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"The Tower has fallen. They've blown in the
+big door, and the feck o' them's inside."</p>
+
+<p>"And Mr. Heritage?" was Dickson's anxious
+inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>"When I last saw him he was up at a windy,
+shootin'. I think he's gotten on to the roof. I
+wouldna wonder but the place is on fire."</p>
+
+<p>"Here, this is awful," Dickson groaned. "We
+can't let Mr. Heritage be killed that way. What
+strength is the enemy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I counted twenty-seven, and there's stragglers
+comin' up from the boats."</p>
+
+<p>"And there's me and you five laddies here, and
+Dougal and the others shut up in the House." He
+stopped in sheer despair. It was a fix from which
+the most enlightened business mind showed no
+escape. Prudence, inventiveness were no longer
+in question; only some desperate course of violence.</p>
+
+<p>"We must create a diversion," he said. "I'm for
+the Tower, and you laddies must come with me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+We'll maybe see a chance. Oh, but I wish I had
+my wee pistol."</p>
+
+<p>"If ye're gaun there, Dickson, I'm comin' wi' ye,"
+Mrs. Morran announced.</p>
+
+<p>Her words revealed to Dickson the preposterousness
+of the whole situation, and for all his anxiety
+he laughed. "Five laddies, a middle-aged man
+and an auld wife," he cried. "Dod, it's pretty
+hopeless. It's like the thing in the Bible about the
+weak things of the world trying to confound the
+strong."</p>
+
+<p>"The Bible's whiles richt," Mrs. Morran answered
+drily. "Come on, for there's no time to
+lose."</p>
+
+<p>The door opened again to admit the figure of
+Wee Jaikie. There were no tears in his eyes, and
+his face was very white.</p>
+
+<p>"They're a' round the Hoose," he croaked. "I
+was up a tree forenent the verandy and seen them.
+The lassie ran oot and cried on them from the top
+o' the brae, and they a' turned and hunted her back.
+Gosh, but it was a near thing. I seen the Captain
+sklimmin' the wall, and a muckle man took the lassie
+and flung her up the ladder. They got inside just
+in time and steekit the door, and now the whole
+pack is roarin' round the Hoose seekin' a road in.
+They'll no' be long over the job, neither."</p>
+
+<p>"What about Mr. Heritage?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're no' heedin' about him any more. The
+auld Tower's bleezin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Worse and worse," said Dickson. "If the
+police don't come in the next ten minutes, they'll be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+away with the Princess. They've beaten all
+Dougal's plans, and it's a straight fight with odds
+of six to one.  It's not possible."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran for the first time seemed to lose
+hope. "Eh, the puir lassie!" she wailed, and sinking
+on a chair covered her face with her shawl.</p>
+
+<p>"Laddies, can you no' think of a plan?" asked
+Dickson, his voice flat with despair.</p>
+
+<p>Then Thomas Yownie spoke. So far he had
+been silent, but under his tangled thatch of hair, his
+mind had been busy. Jaikie's report seemed to
+bring him to a decision.</p>
+
+<p>"It's gey dark," he said, "and it's gettin' darker."</p>
+
+<p>There was that in his voice which promised
+something, and Dickson listened.</p>
+
+<p>"The enemy's mostly foreigners, but Dobson's
+there and I think he's a kind of guide to them.
+Dobson's feared of the polis, and if we can terrify
+Dobson he'll terrify the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, but where are the police?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're no' here yet, but they're comin'. The
+fear o' them is aye in Dobson's mind. If he thinks
+the polis has arrived, he'll put the wind up the lot....
+<i>We</i> maun be the polis."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson could only stare while the Chief of Staff
+unfolded his scheme. I do not know to whom the
+Muse of History will give the credit of the tactics
+of "infiltration"&mdash;whether to Ludendorff or von
+Hutier or some other proud captain of Germany,
+or to Foch, who revised and perfected them. But
+I know that the same notion was at this moment of
+crisis conceived by Thomas Yownie, whom no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+parents acknowledged, who slept usually in a coal
+cellar, and who had picked up his education among
+Gorbals closes and along the wharves of Clyde.</p>
+
+<p>"It's gettin' dark," he said, "and the enemy are
+that busy tryin' to break into the Hoose that they'll
+no' be thinkin' o' their rear. The five o' us Die-Hards
+is grand at dodgin' and keepin' out of sight,
+and what hinders us to get in among them, so that
+they'll hear us but never see us? We're used to the
+ways o' the polis, and can imitate them fine. Forbye
+we've all got our whistles, which are the same as a
+bobbie's birl, and Old Bill and Peter are grand at
+copyin' a man's voice. Since the Captain is shut
+up in the Hoose, the command falls to me, and
+that's my plan."</p>
+
+<p>With a piece of chalk he drew on the kitchen floor
+a rough sketch of the environs of Huntingtower.
+Peter Paterson was to move from the shrubberies
+beyond the verandah, Napoleon from the stables,
+Old Bill from the Tower, while Wee Jaikie and
+Thomas himself were to advance as if from the
+Garplefoot, so that the enemy might fear for his
+communications. "As soon as one o' ye gets into
+position he's to gie the patrol cry, and when each
+o' ye has heard five cries, he's to advance. Begin
+birlin' and roarin' afore ye get among them, and
+keep it up till ye're at the Hoose wall. If they've
+gotten inside, in ye go after them. I trust each
+Die-Hard to use his judgment, and above all to keep
+out o' sight and no let himsel' be grippit."</p>
+
+<p>The plan, like all great tactics, was simple, and
+no sooner was it expounded than it was put into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>
+action. The Die-Hards faded out of the kitchen
+like fog-wreaths, and Dickson and Mrs. Morran
+were left looking at each other. They did not look
+long. The bare feet of Wee Jaikie had not crossed
+the threshold fifty seconds, before they were followed
+by Mrs. Morran's out-of-doors boots and
+Dickson's tackets. Arm in arm the two hobbled
+down the back path behind the village which led
+to the South Lodge. The gate was unlocked, for
+the warder was busy elsewhere, and they hastened
+up the avenue. Far off Dickson thought he saw
+shapes fleeting across the park, which he took to be
+the shock-troops of his own side, and he seemed to
+hear snatches of song. Jaikie was giving tongue,
+and this was what he sang:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4q">"Proley Tarians, arise!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Wave the Red Flag to the skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Heed nae mair the Fat Man's lees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Stap them doun his throat!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Nocht to loss except our chains,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">We maun drain oor dearest veins&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A' the worrld shall be our gains&mdash;&mdash;"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But he tripped over a rabbit wire and thereafter
+conserved his breath.</p>
+
+<p>The wind was so loud that no sound reached
+them from the House, which blank and immense
+now loomed before them. Dickson's ears were
+alert for the noise of shots or the dull crash of
+bombs; hearing nothing, he feared the worst, and
+hurried Mrs. Morran at a pace which endangered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
+her life. He had no fear for himself, arguing that
+his foes were seeking higher game, and judging,
+too, that the main battle must be round the verandah
+at the other end. The two passed the shrubbery
+where the road forked, one path running to
+the back door and one to the stables. They took
+the latter and presently came out on the downs,
+with the ravine of the Garple on their left, the
+stables in front, and on the right the hollow of a
+formal garden running along the west side of the
+House.</p>
+
+<p>The gale was so fierce, now that they had no
+wind-break between them and the ocean, that Mrs.
+Morran could wrestle with it no longer, and found
+shelter in the lee of a clump of rhododendrons.
+Darkness had all but fallen, and the house was a
+black shadow against the dusky sky, while a confused
+greyness marked the sea. The old Tower
+showed a tooth of masonry; there was no glow
+from it, so the fire, which Jaikie had reported, must
+have died down. A whaup cried loudly, and very
+eerily: then another.</p>
+
+<p>The birds stirred up Mrs. Morran. "That's the
+laddies' patrol," she gasped. "Count the cries,
+Dickson."</p>
+
+<p>Another bird wailed, this time very near. Then
+there was perhaps three minutes' silence, till a
+fainter wheeple came from the direction of the
+Tower. "Four," said Dickson, but he waited in
+vain on the fifth. He had not the acute hearing of
+the boys, and could not catch the faint echo of Peter
+Paterson's signal beyond the verandah.  The next<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
+he heard was a shrill whistle cutting into the wind,
+and then others in rapid succession from different
+quarters, and something which might have been the
+hoarse shouting of angry men.</p>
+
+<p>The Gorbals Die-Hards had gone into action.</p>
+
+<p>Dull prose is no medium to tell of that wild adventure.
+The sober sequence of the military historian
+is out of place in recording deeds that knew
+not sequence or sobriety. Were I a bard, I would
+cast this tale in excited verse, with a lilt which would
+catch the speed of the reality. I would sing of
+Napoleon, not unworthy of his great namesake, who
+penetrated to the very window of the ladies' bedroom,
+where the framework had been driven in and
+men were pouring through; of how there he made
+such pandemonium with his whistle that men tumbled
+back and ran about blindly seeking for guidance;
+of how in the long run his pugnacity mastered
+him, so that he engaged in combat with an unknown
+figure and the two rolled into what had once been
+a fountain. I would hymn Peter Paterson, who
+across tracts of darkness engaged Old Bill in a conversation
+which would have done no discredit to a
+Gallogate policeman. He pretended to be making
+reports and seeking orders. "We've gotten three
+o' the deevils, sir. What'll we dae wi' them?" he
+shouted; and back would come the reply in a slightly
+more genteel voice: "Fall them to the rear. Tamson
+has charge of the prisoners." Or it would be:
+"They've gotten pistols, sir. What's the orders?"
+and the answer would be: "Stick to your batons.
+The guns are posted on the knowe, so we needn't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>
+hurry." And over all the din there would be a
+perpetual whistling and a yelling of "Hands up!"</p>
+
+<p>I would sing, too, of Wee Jaikie, who was having
+the red-letter hour of his life. His fragile form
+moved like a lizard in places where no mortal could
+be expected, and he varied his duties with impish
+assaults upon the persons of such as came in his
+way. His whistle blew in a man's ear one second
+and the next yards away. Sometimes he was moved
+to song, and unearthly fragments of "Class-conscious
+we are" or "Proley Tarians, arise!" mingled
+with the din, like the cry of seagulls in a storm. He
+saw a bright light flare up within the house which
+warned him not to enter, but he got as far as the
+garden-room, in whose dark corners he made havoc.
+Indeed he was almost too successful, for he created
+panic where he went, and one or two fired blindly
+at the quarter where he had last been heard. These
+shots were followed by frenzied prohibitions from
+Spidel and were not repeated. Presently he felt
+that aimless surge of men that is the prelude to
+flight, and heard Dobson's great voice roaring in
+the hall. Convinced that the crisis had come, he
+made his way outside, prepared to harass the rear
+of any retirement. Tears now flowed down his
+face, and he could not have spoken for sobs, but
+he had never been so happy.</p>
+
+<p>But chiefly would I celebrate Thomas Yownie,
+for it was he who brought fear into the heart of
+Dobson. He had a voice of singular compass, and
+from the verandah he made it echo round the
+House.  The efforts of Old Bill and Peter Paterson<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
+had been skilful indeed, but those of Thomas
+Yownie were deadly. To some leader beyond he
+shouted news: "Robison's just about finished wi' his
+lot, and then he'll get the boats." A furious charge
+upset him, and for a moment he thought he had
+been discovered. But it was only Dobson rushing
+to Léon, who was leading the men in the doorway.
+Thomas fled to the far end of the verandah, and
+again lifted up his voice. "All foreigners," he
+shouted, "except the man Dobson. Ay. Ay.
+Ye've got Loudon?  Well done!"</p>
+
+<p>It must have been this last performance which
+broke Dobson's nerve and convinced him that the
+one hope lay in a rapid retreat to the Garplefoot.
+There was a tumbling of men in the doorway, a
+muttering of strange tongues, and the vision of the
+innkeeper shouting to Léon and Spidel. For a second
+he was seen in the faint reflection that the
+light in the hall cast as far as the verandah, a wild
+figure urging the retreat with a pistol clapped to
+the head of those who were too confused by the
+hurricane of events to grasp the situation. Some
+of them dropped over the wall, but most huddled
+like sheep through the door on the west side,
+a jumble of struggling, panic-stricken mortality.
+Thomas Yownie, staggered at the success of his
+tactics, yet kept his head and did his utmost to confuse
+the retreat, and the triumphant shouts and
+whistles of the other Die-Hards showed that they
+were not unmindful of this final duty....</p>
+
+<p>The verandah was empty, and he was just about
+to enter the House, when through the west door<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>
+came a figure, breathing hard and bent apparently
+on the same errand. Thomas prepared for battle,
+determined that no straggler of the enemy should
+now wrest from him victory, but, as the figure came
+into the faint glow at the doorway, he recognised
+it as Heritage. And at the same moment he heard
+something which made his tense nerves relax.
+Away on the right came sounds, a thud of galloping
+horses on grass and the jingle of bridle reins
+and the voices of men. It was the real thing at
+last. It is a sad commentary on his career, but now
+for the first time in his brief existence Thomas
+Yownie felt charitably disposed towards the police.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The Poet, since we left him blaspheming on the
+roof of the Tower, had been having a crowded hour
+of most inglorious life. He had started to descend
+at a furious pace, and his first misadventure was
+that he stumbled and dropped Dickson's pistol over
+the parapet. He tried to mark where it might have
+fallen in the gloom below, and this lost him precious
+minutes. When he slithered through the trap into
+the attic room, where he had tried to hold up the
+attack, he discovered that it was full of smoke which
+sought in vain to escape by the narrow window.
+Volumes of it were pouring up the stairs, and when
+he attempted to descend he found himself choked
+and blinded. He rushed gasping to the window,
+filled his lungs with fresh air, and tried again, but
+he got no further than the first turn, from which
+he could see through the cloud red tongues of flame
+in the ground room.   This was solemn indeed, so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>
+he sought another way out. He got on the roof,
+for he remembered a chimney-stack, cloaked with
+ivy, which was built straight from the ground, and
+he thought he might climb down it.</p>
+
+<p>He found the chimney and began the descent,
+confidently, for he had once borne a good reputation
+at the Montanvert and Cortina. At first all
+went well, for stones stuck out at decent intervals
+like the rungs of a ladder, and roots of ivy supplemented
+their deficiencies. But presently he came to
+a place where the masonry had crumbled into a cave,
+and left a gap some twenty feet high. Below it he
+could dimly see a thick mass of ivy which would
+enable him to cover the further forty feet to the
+ground, but at that cave he stuck most finally. All
+round the lime and stone had lapsed into debris,
+and he could find no safe foothold. Worse still, the
+block on which he relied proved loose, and only by
+a dangerous traverse did he avert disaster.</p>
+
+<p>There he hung for a minute or two, with a cold
+void in his stomach. He had always distrusted the
+handiwork of man as a place to scramble on, and
+now he was planted in the dark on a decomposing
+wall, with an excellent chance of breaking his neck,
+and with the most urgent need for haste. He could
+see the windows of the House and, since he was
+sheltered from the gale, he could hear the faint
+sound of blows on woodwork. There was clearly
+the devil to pay there, and yet here he was helplessly
+stuck.... Setting his teeth, he started to ascend
+again. Better the fire than this cold breakneck
+emptiness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It took him the better part of half an hour to
+get back, and he passed through many moments of
+acute fear. Footholds which had seemed secure
+enough in the descent now proved impossible, and
+more than once he had his heart in his mouth when a
+rotten ivy stump or a wedge of stone gave in his
+hands, and dropped dully into the pit of night, leaving
+him crazily spread-eagled. When at last he
+reached the top he rolled on his back and felt very
+sick. Then, as he realised his safety, his impatience
+revived. At all costs he would force his way out
+though he should be grilled like a herring.</p>
+
+<p>The smoke was less thick in the attic, and with
+his handkerchief wet with the rain and bound across
+his mouth he made a dash for the ground room. It
+was as hot as a furnace, for everything inflammable
+in it seemed to have caught fire, and the lumber
+glowed in piles of hot ashes. But the floor and walls
+were stone, and only the blazing jambs of the door
+stood between him and the outer air. He had
+burned himself considerably as he stumbled downwards,
+and the pain drove him to a wild leap
+through the broken arch, where he miscalculated the
+distance, charred his shins, and brought down a red-hot
+fragment of the lintel on his head. But the
+thing was done, and a minute later he was rolling
+like a dog in the wet bracken to cool his burns and
+put out various smouldering patches on his raiment.</p>
+
+<p>Then he started running for the House, but, confused
+by the darkness, he bore too much to the
+north, and came out in the side avenue from which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>
+he and Dickson had reconnoitred on the first evening.
+He saw on the right a glow in the verandah
+which, as we know, was the reflection of the flare in
+the hall, and he heard a babble of voices. But he
+heard something more, for away on his left was the
+sound which Thomas Yownie was soon to hear&mdash;the
+trampling of horses. It was the police at last,
+and his task was to guide them at once to the critical
+point of action.... Three minutes later a figure
+like a scarecrow was admonishing a bewildered
+sergeant, while his hands plucked feverishly at a
+horse's bridle.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>It is time to return to Dickson in his clump of
+rhododendrons. Tragically aware of his impotence
+he listened to the tumult of the Die-Hards, hopeful
+when it was loud, despairing when there came a
+moment's lull, while Mrs. Morran like a Greek
+chorus drew loudly upon her store of proverbial
+philosophy and her memory of Scripture texts.
+Twice he tried to reconnoitre towards the scene of
+battle, but only blundered into sunken plots and pits
+in the Dutch garden. Finally he squatted beside
+Mrs. Morran, lit his pipe, and took a firm hold on
+his patience.</p>
+
+<p>It was not tested for long. Presently he was
+aware that a change had come over the scene&mdash;that
+the Die-Hards' whistles and shouts were being
+drowned in another sound, the cries of panicky men.
+Dobson's bellow was wafted to him. "Auntie
+Phemie," he shouted, "the innkeeper's getting rattled.
+Dod, I believe they're running."  For at that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>
+moment twenty paces on his left the van of the retreat
+crashed through the creepers on the garden's
+edge and leaped the wall that separated it from the
+cliffs of the Garplefoot.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman was on her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"God be thankit, is't the polis?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe. Maybe no'.  But they're running."</p>
+
+<p>Another bunch of men raced past, and he heard
+Dobson's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, they're broke. Listen, it's horses.
+Ay, it's the police, but it was the Die-Hards that
+did the job.... Here! They mustn't escape.
+Have the police had the sense to send men to the
+Garplefoot?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Morran, a figure like an ancient prophetess,
+with her tartan shawl lashing in the gale, clutched
+him by the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Doun to the waterside and stop them. Ye'll no'
+be beat by wee laddies! On wi' ye and I'll follow!
+There's gaun to be a juidgment on evil-doers this
+nicht."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson needed no urging. His heart was hot
+within him, and the weariness and stiffness had gone
+from his limbs. He, too, tumbled over the wall,
+and made for what he thought was the route by
+which he had originally ascended from the stream.
+As he ran he made ridiculous efforts to cry like a
+whaup in the hope of summoning the Die-Hards.
+One, indeed, he found&mdash;Napoleon, who had suffered
+a grievous pounding in the fountain and had
+only escaped by an eel-like agility which had aforetime
+served him in good stead with the law of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+native city. Lucky for Dickson was the meeting,
+for he had forgotten the road and would certainly
+have broken his neck. Led by the Die-Hard he slid
+forty feet over screes and boiler-plates, with the
+gale plucking at him, found a path, lost it, and then
+tumbled down a raw bank of earth to the flat ground
+beside the harbour. During all this performance,
+he has told me, he had no thought of fear, nor any
+clear notion what he meant to do. He just wanted
+to be in at the finish of the job.</p>
+
+<p>Through the narrow entrance the gale blew as
+through a funnel, and the usually placid waters of
+the harbour were a mass of angry waves. Two
+boats had been launched and were plunging furiously,
+and on one of them a lantern dipped and fell.
+By its light he could see men holding a further boat
+by the shore. There was no sign of the police; he
+reflected that probably they had become tangled in
+the Garple Dean. The third boat was waiting for
+some one.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson&mdash;a new Ajax by the ships&mdash;divined who
+this some one must be and realised his duty. It was
+the leader, the arch-enemy, the man whose escape
+must at all costs be stopped. Perhaps he had the
+Princess with him, thus snatching victory from
+apparent defeat. In any case he must be tackled,
+and a fierce anxiety gripped his heart. "Aye finish
+a job," he told himself, and peered up into the
+darkness of the cliffs, wondering just how he should
+set about it, for except in the last few days he had
+never engaged in combat with a fellow-creature.</p>
+
+<p>"When he comes, you grip his legs," he told<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>
+Napoleon, "and get him down. He'll have a pistol,
+and we're done if he's on his feet."</p>
+
+<p>There was a cry from the boats, a shout of guidance,
+and the light on the water was waved madly.
+"They must have good eyesight," thought Dickson,
+for he could see nothing. And then suddenly he
+was aware of steps in front of him, and a shape like
+a man rising out of the void at his left hand.</p>
+
+<p>In the darkness Napoleon missed his tackle, and
+the full shock came on Dickson. He aimed at what
+he thought was the enemy's throat, found only an
+arm and was shaken off as a mastiff might shake off
+a toy terrier. He made another clutch, fell, and in
+falling caught his opponent's leg so that he brought
+him down. The man was immensely agile, for he
+was up in a second and something hot and bright
+blew into Dickson's face. The pistol bullet had
+passed through the collar of his faithful waterproof,
+slightly singeing his neck. But it served its
+purpose, for Dickson paused, gasping, to consider
+where he had been hit, and before he could resume
+the chase the last boat had pushed off into deep
+water.</p>
+
+<p>To be shot at from close quarters is always irritating,
+and the novelty of the experience increased
+Dickson's natural wrath. He fumed on the shore
+like a deerhound when the stag has taken to the sea.
+So hot was his blood that he would have cheerfully
+assaulted the whole crew had they been within his
+reach. Napoleon, who had been incapacitated for
+speed by having his stomach and bare shanks savagely
+trampled upon, joined him, and together they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+watched the bobbing black specks as they crawled
+out of the estuary into the grey spindrift which
+marked the harbour mouth.</p>
+
+<p>But as he looked the wrath died out of Dickson's
+soul. For he saw that the boats had indeed sailed
+on a desperate venture, and that a pursuer was on
+their track more potent than his breathless middle-age.
+The tide was on the ebb, and the gale was
+driving the Atlantic breakers shoreward, and in the
+jaws of the entrance the two waters met in an unearthly
+turmoil. Above the noise of the wind came
+the roar of the flooded Garple and the fret of the
+harbour, and far beyond all the crashing thunder
+of the conflict at the harbour mouth. Even in the
+darkness, against the still faintly grey western sky,
+the spume could be seen rising like waterspouts.
+But it was the ear rather than the eye which made
+certain presage of disaster. No boat could face the
+challenge of that loud portal.</p>
+
+<p>As Dickson struggled against the wind and stared,
+his heart melted and a great awe fell upon him.
+He may have wept; it is certain that he prayed.
+"Poor souls, poor souls!" he repeated. "I doubt
+the last hour or two has been a poor preparation
+for eternity."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The tide next day brought the dead ashore.
+Among them was a young man, different in dress
+and appearance from the rest&mdash;a young man with
+a noble head and a finely-cut classic face, which was
+not marred like the others from pounding among
+the Garple rocks.  His dark hair was washed back<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>
+from his brow, and the mouth, which had been hard
+in life, was now relaxed in the strange innocence of
+death.</p>
+
+<p>Dickson gazed at the body and observed that
+there was a slight deformation between the
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor fellow," he said. "That explains a lot....
+As my father used to say, cripples have a
+right to be cankered."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<p class="center">IN WHICH A PRINCESS LEAVES A DARK TOWER AND
+A PROVISION MERCHANT RETURNS TO HIS FAMILY</p>
+
+
+<p>The three days of storm ended in the night,
+and with the wild weather there departed
+from the Cruives something which had weighed on
+Dickson's spirits since he first saw the place. Monday&mdash;only
+a week from the morning when he had
+conceived his plan of holiday&mdash;saw the return of
+the sun and the bland airs of spring. Beyond the
+blue of the yet restless waters rose dim mountains
+tipped with snow, like some Mediterranean seascape.
+Nesting birds were busy on the Laver banks
+and in the Huntingtower thickets; the village
+smoked peacefully to the clear skies; even the House
+looked cheerful if dishevelled. The Garple Dean
+was a garden of swaying larches, linnets, and wild
+anemones. Assuredly, thought Dickson, there had
+come a mighty change in the countryside, and he
+meditated a future discourse to the Literary Society
+of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk on "Natural
+Beauty in Relation to the Mind of Man."</p>
+
+<p>It remains for the chronicler to gather up the
+loose ends of his tale. There was no newspaper
+story with bold headlines of this the most recent
+assault on the shores of Britain. Alexis Nicolaevitch,
+once a Prince of Muscovy and now Mr. Alex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>ander
+Nicholson of the rising firm of Sprot and
+Nicholson of Melbourne, had interest enough to
+prevent it. For it was clear that if Saskia was to be
+saved from persecution, her enemies must disappear
+without trace from the world, and no story be told
+of the wild venture which was their undoing. The
+constabulary of Carrick and Scotland Yard were indisposed
+to ask questions, under a hint from their
+superiors, the more so as no serious damage had
+been done to the persons of His Majesty's lieges,
+and no lives had been lost except by the violence of
+Nature. The Procurator-Fiscal investigated the
+case of the drowned men, and reported that so
+many foreign sailors, names and origins unknown,
+had perished in attempting to return to their ship
+at the Garplefoot. The Danish brig had vanished
+into the mist of the northern seas. But one signal
+calamity the Procurator-Fiscal had to record. The
+body of Loudon the factor was found on the Monday
+morning below the cliffs, his neck broken by
+a fall. In the darkness and confusion he must
+have tried to escape in that direction, and he had
+chosen an impracticable road or had slipped on the
+edge. It was returned as "death by misadventure"
+and the <i>Carrick Herald</i> and the <i>Auchenlochan Advertiser</i>
+excelled themselves in eulogy. Mr. Loudon,
+they said, had been widely known in the south-west
+of Scotland as an able and trusted lawyer, an
+assiduous public servant, and not least as a good
+sportsman. It was the last trait which had led to
+his death, for, in his enthusiasm for wild nature,
+he had been studying bird life on the cliffs of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>
+Cruives during the storm, and had made that fatal
+slip which had deprived the shire of a wise counsellor
+and the best of good fellows.</p>
+
+<p>The tinklers of the Garplefoot took themselves
+off, and where they may now be pursuing their
+devious courses is unknown to the chronicler. Dobson,
+too, disappeared, for he was not among the
+dead from the boats. He knew the neighbourhood
+and probably made his way to some port from which
+he took passage to one or other of those foreign
+lands which had formerly been honoured by his
+patronage. Nor did all the Russians perish. Three
+were found skulking next morning in the woods,
+starving and ignorant of any tongue but their own,
+and five more came ashore much battered but alive.
+Alexis took charge of the eight survivors, and arranged
+to pay their passage to one of the British
+Dominions and to give them a start in a new life.
+They were broken creatures, with the dazed look
+of lost animals, and four of them had been peasants
+on Saskia's estates. Alexis spoke to them in their
+own language. "In my grandfather's time," he
+said, "you were serfs. Then there came a change,
+and for some time you were free men. Now you
+have slipped back into being slaves again&mdash;the worst
+of slaveries, for you have been the serfs of fools
+and scoundrels and the black passion of your own
+hearts. I give you a chance of becoming free men
+once more. You have the task before you of working
+out your own salvation. Go, and God be with
+you."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p><hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Before we take leave of these companions of a
+single week I would present them to you again as
+they appeared on a certain sunny afternoon when
+the episode of Huntingtower was on the eve of
+closing. First we see Saskia and Alexis walking on
+the thymy sward of the cliff-top, looking out to the
+fretted blue of the sea. It is a fitting place for
+lovers, above all for lovers who have turned the
+page on a dark preface, and have before them still
+the long bright volume of life. The girl has her
+arm linked with the man's, but as they walk she
+breaks often away from him, to dart into copses, to
+gather flowers, or to peer over the brink where the
+gulls wheel and oyster-catchers pipe among the
+shingle. She is no more the tragic muse of the past
+week, but a laughing child again, full of snatches of
+song, her eyes bright with expectation. They talk
+of the new world which lies before them, and her
+voice is happy. Then her brows contract, and, as
+she flings herself down on a patch of young heather,
+her air is thoughtful.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been back among fairy tales," she says.
+"I do not quite understand, Alesha. Those gallant
+little boys! They are youth, and youth is always
+full of strangeness. Mr. Heritage! He is youth,
+too, and poetry, perhaps, and a soldier's tradition.
+I think I know him.... But what about Dickson?
+He is the <i>petit bourgeois</i>, the <i>épicier</i>, the class
+which the world ridicules. He is unbelievable. The
+others with good fortune I might find elsewhere&mdash;in
+Russia perhaps. But not Dickson."</p>
+
+<p>"No," is the answer. "You will not find him in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>
+Russia. He is what we call the middle-class, which
+we who were foolish used to laugh at. But he is
+the stuff which above all others makes a great people.
+He will endure when aristocracies crack and
+proletariats crumble. In our own land we have
+never known him, but till we create him our land
+will not be a nation."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Half a mile away on the edge of the Laver glen
+Dickson and Heritage are together, Dickson placidly
+smoking on a tree-stump and Heritage walking
+excitedly about and cutting with his stick at the
+bracken. Sundry bandages and strips of sticking
+plaster still adorn the Poet, but his clothes have
+been tidied up by Mrs. Morran, and he has recovered
+something of his old precision of garb. The
+eyes of both are fixed on the two figures on the cliff-top.
+Dickson feels acutely uneasy. It is the first
+time that he has been alone with Heritage since the
+arrival of Alexis shivered the Poet's dream. He
+looks to see a tragic grief; to his amazement he beholds
+something very like exultation.</p>
+
+<p>"The trouble about you, Dogson," says Heritage,
+"is that you're a bit of an anarchist. All you false
+romantics are. You don't see the extraordinary
+beauty of the conventions which time has consecrated.
+You always want novelty, you know, and
+the novel is usually the ugly and rarely the true. I
+am for romance, but upon the old, noble classic
+lines."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson is scarcely listening. His eyes are on the
+distant lovers and he longs to say something which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>
+will gently and graciously express his sympathy with
+his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid," he begins hesitatingly, "I'm afraid
+you've had a bad blow, Mr. Heritage. You're
+taking it awful well, and I honour you for it."</p>
+
+<p>The Poet flings back his head. "I am reconciled,"
+he says. "After all ''tis better to have loved and
+lost, than never to have loved at all.' It has been
+a great experience and has shown me my own heart.
+I love her, I shall always love her, but I realise that
+she was never meant for me. Thank God I've been
+able to serve her&mdash;that is all a moth can ask of a
+star. I'm a better man for it, Dogson. She will
+be a glorious memory, and Lord! what poetry I
+shall write! I give her up joyfully, for she has
+found her true mate. 'Let us not to the marriage
+of true minds admit impediments!' The thing's
+too perfect to grieve about.... Look! There is
+romance incarnate."</p>
+
+<p>He points to the figures now silhouetted against
+the further sea. "How does it go, Dogson?" he
+cries. "'And on her lover's arm she leant'&mdash;what
+next? You know the thing."</p>
+
+<p>Dickson assists and Heritage declaims:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4q">"And on her lover's arm she leant,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">And round her waist she felt it fold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And far across the hills they went<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">In that new world which is the old:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Across the hills, and far away<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Beyond their utmost purple rim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And deep into the dying day<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">The happy princess followed him."<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>He repeats the last two lines twice and draws a
+deep breath. "How right!" he cries. "How absolutely
+right! Lord! It's astonishing how that old
+bird Tennyson got the goods!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>After that Dickson leaves him and wanders
+among the thickets on the edge of the Huntingtower
+policies above the Laver glen. He feels childishly
+happy, wonderfully young, and at the same
+time supernaturally wise. Sometimes he thinks the
+past week has been a dream, till he touches the
+sticking-plaster on his brow, and finds that his left
+thigh is still a mass of bruises and that his right
+leg is wofully stiff. With that the past becomes
+very real again, and he sees the Garple Dean in
+that stormy afternoon, he wrestles again at midnight
+in the dark House, he stands with quaking
+heart by the boats to cut off the retreat. He sees
+it all, but without terror in the recollection, rather
+with gusto and a modest pride. "I've surely had
+a remarkable time," he tells himself, and then Romance,
+the goddess whom he has worshipped so
+long, marries that furious week with the idyllic.
+He is supremely content, for he knows that in his
+humble way he has not been found wanting. Once
+more for him the Chavender or Chub, and long
+dreams among summer hills. His mind flies to the
+days ahead of him, when he will go wandering with
+his pack in many green places. Happy days they
+will be, the prospect with which he has always
+charmed his mind. Yes, but they will be different
+from what he had fancied, for he is another man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
+than the complacent little fellow who set out a week
+ago on his travels. He has now assurance of himself,
+assurance of his faith. Romance, he sees, is
+one and indivisible....</p>
+
+<p>Below him by the edge of the stream he sees the
+encampment of the Gorbals Die-Hards. He calls
+and waves a hand, and his signal is answered. It
+seems to be washing day, for some scanty and tattered
+raiment is drying on the sward. The band is
+evidently in session, for it is sitting in a circle, deep
+in talk.</p>
+
+<p>As he looks at the ancient tents, the humble equipment,
+the ring of small shockheads, a great tenderness
+comes over him. The Die-Hards are so tiny,
+so poor, so pitifully handicapped, and yet so bold in
+their meagreness. Not one of them has had anything
+that might be called a chance. Their few
+years have been spent in kennels and closes, always
+hungry and hunted, with none to care for them;
+their childish ears have been habituated to every
+coarseness, their small minds filled with the desperate
+shifts of living.... And yet, what a heavenly
+spark was in them! He had always thought
+nobly of the soul; now he wants to get on his knees
+before the queer greatness of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>A figure disengages itself from the group, and
+Dougal makes his way up the hill towards him.
+The Chieftain is not more reputable in garb than
+when we first saw him, nor is he more cheerful of
+countenance. He has one arm in a sling made out
+of his neckerchief, and his scraggy little throat rises
+bare from his voluminous shirt. All that can be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>
+said for him is that he is appreciably cleaner. He
+comes to a standstill and salutes with a special
+formality.</p>
+
+<p>"Dougal," says Dickson, "I've been thinking.
+You're the grandest lot of wee laddies I ever heard
+tell of, and, forbye, you've saved my life. Now,
+I'm getting on in years, though you'll admit that
+I'm not that dead old, and I'm not a poor man, and
+I haven't chick or child to look after. None of you
+has ever had a proper chance or been right fed or
+educated or taken care of. I've just the one thing
+to say to you. From now on you're <i>my</i> bairns,
+every one of you. You're fine laddies, and I'm going
+to see that you turn into fine men. There's the
+stuff in you to make Generals and Provosts&mdash;ay,
+and Prime Ministers, and Dod! it'll not be my
+blame if it doesn't get out."</p>
+
+<p>Dougal listens gravely and again salutes.</p>
+
+<p>"I've brought ye a message," he says. "We've
+just had a meetin' and I've to report that ye've been
+unanimously eleckit Chief Die-Hard. We're a'
+hopin' ye'll accept."</p>
+
+<p>"I accept," Dickson replies. "Proudly and gratefully
+I accept."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The last scene is some days later, in a certain
+southern suburb of Glasgow. Ulysses has come
+back to Ithaca, and is sitting by his fireside, waiting
+on the return of Penelope from the Neuk Hydropathic.
+There is a chill in the air, so a fire is burning
+in the grate, but the laden tea-table is bright
+with the first blooms of lilac. Dickson, in a new<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>
+suit with a flower in his buttonhole, looks none the
+worse for his travels, save that there is still sticking-plaster
+on his deeply sunburnt brow. He waits impatiently
+with his eye on the black marble timepiece,
+and he fingers something in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the sound of wheels is heard, and the
+peahen voice of Tibby announces the arrival of
+Penelope. Dickson rushes to the door and at the
+threshold welcomes his wife with a resounding kiss.
+He leads her into the parlour and settles her in her
+own chair.</p>
+
+<p>"My! but it's nice to be home again!" she says.
+"And everything that comfortable. I've had a fine
+time, but there's no place like your own fireside.
+You're looking awful well, Dickson. But losh!
+What have you been doing to your head?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just a small tumble. It's very near mended
+already. Ay, I've had a grand walking tour, but
+the weather was a wee bit thrawn. It's nice to
+see you back again, Mamma. Now that I'm an
+idle man you and me must take a lot of jaunts together."</p>
+
+<p>She beams on him as she stays herself with Tibby's
+scones, and when the meal is ended, Dickson draws
+from his pocket a slim case. The jewels have been
+restored to Saskia, but this is one of her own which
+she has bestowed upon Dickson as a parting
+memento. He opens the case and reveals a necklet
+of emeralds, any one of which is worth half the
+street.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a present for you," he says bashfully.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. McCunn's eyes open wide. "You're far<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>
+too kind," she gasps. "It must have cost an awful
+lot of money."</p>
+
+<p>"It didn't cost me that much," is the truthful
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>She fingers the trinket and then clasps it round
+her neck, where the green depths of the stones glow
+against the black satin of her bodice. Her eyes are
+moist as she looks at him. "You've been a kind
+man to me," she says, and she kisses him as she has
+not done since Janet's death.</p>
+
+<p>She stands up and admires the necklet in the
+mirror. Romance once more, thinks Dickson. That
+which has graced the slim throats of princesses in
+far-away Courts now adorns an elderly matron in
+a semi-detached villa; the jewels of the wild Nausicaa
+have fallen to the housewife Penelope.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. McCunn preens herself before the glass. "I
+call it very genteel," she says. "Real stylish. It
+might be worn by a queen."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't say but it has," says Dickson.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center big">THE END</p>
+
+
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The reader is referred to the improved version of Mr. Heritage's
+sketch reproduced as a frontispiece.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Huntingtower, by John Buchan
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Huntingtower, by John Buchan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Huntingtower
+
+Author: John Buchan
+
+Release Date: December 6, 2011 [EBook #3782]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUNTINGTOWER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Edward A. White, Robert F. Jaffe, Kirsten
+Tozer, Charlene Taylor, Cathy Maxam and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+In footnote number 1 (page 72) the author refers to
+a sketch on the frontispiece of the book.  At the time of posting this
+book to Project Gutenberg, it was verified by the content provider that
+there is no frontispiece in this particular edition of Huntingtower.
+
+In the plain-text version of this ebook italics are indicated by
+_underscores_.
+
+Obvious typographical errors have been corrected without comment. One
+example of an obvious typographical error is on page 237 where the word
+"shamefaceedly" was changed to "shamefacedly". Other than obvious
+typographical errors, the author's original spelling has been left
+intact. This includes the use of unconventional spelling and dialect.
+
+Inconsistencies in the author's use of hyphens and accent marks have
+been left unchanged, as in the original text.
+
+The following four changes were made to punctuation and spelling:
+
+     1. Page 96: An apostrophe was removed from the word "an'" in the
+     phrase "I've found a ladder, an auld yin" (an old one).
+
+     2. Page 100: A question mark was changed to a period in the phrase
+     "... he realised that he was in the presence of something the like
+     of which he had never met in his life before."
+
+     4. Page 187: An apostrophe was removed from the word "wing's" in
+     the phrase "... take the wings off a seagull."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  HUNTINGTOWER
+
+  JOHN BUCHAN
+
+
+
+
+_By_ JOHN BUCHAN
+
+
+  HUNTINGTOWER
+  THE PATH OF THE KING
+  MR. STANDFAST
+  GREENMANTLE
+  THE WATCHERS BY THE THRESHOLD
+  SALUTE TO ADVENTURES
+  PRESTER JOHN
+  THE POWER HOUSE
+  THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS
+  THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME
+
+
+NEW YORK: GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+  HUNTINGTOWER
+
+  BY
+  JOHN BUCHAN
+
+  NEW [Illustration] YORK
+  GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1922,
+  BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  HUNTINGTOWER.  II
+
+  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+W. P. KER
+
+
+_If the Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford has not
+forgotten the rock whence he was hewn, this simple story may give him an
+hour of entertainment. I offer it to you because I think you have met my
+friend Dickson McCunn, and I dare to hope that you may even in your many
+sojournings in the Westlands have encountered one or other of the
+Gorbals Die-Hards. If you share my kindly feeling for Dickson, you will
+be interested in some facts which I have lately ascertained about his
+ancestry. In his veins there flows a portion of the redoubtable blood of
+the Nicol Jarvies. When the Bailie, you remember, returned from his
+journey to Rob Roy beyond the Highland Line, he espoused his housekeeper
+Mattie, "an honest man's daughter and a near cousin o' the Laird o'
+Limmerfield." The union was blessed with a son, who succeeded to the
+Bailie's business and in due course begat daughters, one of whom married
+a certain Ebenezer McCunn, of whom there is record in the archives of
+the Hammermen of Glasgow. Ebenezer's grandson, Peter by name, was
+Provost of Kirkintilloch, and his second son was the father of my hero
+by his marriage with Robina Dickson, eldest daughter of one Robert
+Dickson, a tenant-farmer in the Lennox. So there are coloured threads in
+Mr. McCunn's pedigree, and, like the Bailie, he can count kin, should he
+wish, with Rob Roy himself through "the auld wife ayont the fire at
+Stuckavrallachan."_
+
+_Such as it is, I dedicate to you the story, and ask for no better
+verdict on it than that of that profound critic of life and literature,
+Mr. Huckleberry Finn, who observed of the_ Pilgrim's Progress, _that he
+"considered the statements interesting, but steep."_
+
+J. B.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                    PAGE
+
+  PROLOGUE                                            11
+
+  CHAPTER
+
+     I HOW A RETIRED PROVISION MERCHANT FELT
+        THE IMPULSE OF SPRING                         17
+
+    II OF MR. JOHN HERITAGE AND THE DIFFERENCE
+        IN POINTS OF VIEW                             28
+
+   III HOW CHILDE ROLAND AND ANOTHER CAME TO
+        THE DARK TOWER                                46
+
+    IV DOUGAL                                         70
+
+     V OF THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER                   85
+
+    VI HOW MR. McCUNN DEPARTED WITH RELIEF AND
+        RETURNED WITH RESOLUTION                     114
+
+   VII SUNDRY DOINGS IN THE MIRK                     135
+
+  VIII HOW A MIDDLE-AGED CRUSADER ACCEPTED A
+        CHALLENGE                                    154
+
+    IX THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES               171
+
+     X DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY            189
+
+    XI GRAVITY OUT OF BED                            209
+
+   XII HOW MR. McCUNN COMMITTED AN ASSAULT
+        UPON AN ALLY                                 225
+
+  XIII THE COMING OF THE DANISH BRIG                 244
+
+   XIV THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES              257
+
+    XV THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION          286
+
+   XVI IN WHICH A PRINCESS LEAVES A DARK TOWER
+        AND A PROVISION MERCHANT RETURNS TO
+        HIS FAMILY                                   306
+
+
+
+
+HUNTINGTOWER
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+
+The girl came into the room with a darting movement like a swallow,
+looked round her with the same birdlike quickness, and then ran across
+the polished floor to where a young man sat on a sofa with one leg laid
+along it.
+
+"I have saved you this dance, Quentin," she said, pronouncing the name
+with a pretty staccato. "You must be so lonely not dancing, so I will
+sit with you. What shall we talk about?"
+
+The young man did not answer at once, for his gaze was held by her face.
+He had never dreamed that the gawky and rather plain little girl whom he
+had romped with long ago in Paris would grow into such a being. The
+clean delicate lines of her figure, the exquisite pure colouring of hair
+and skin, the charming young arrogance of the eyes--this was beauty, he
+reflected, a miracle, a revelation. Her virginal fineness and her dress,
+which was the tint of pale fire, gave her the air of a creature of ice
+and flame.
+
+"About yourself, please, Saskia," he said. "Are you happy now that you
+are a grown-up lady?"
+
+"Happy!" Her voice had a thrill in it like music, frosty music. "The
+days are far too short. I grudge the hours when I must sleep. They say
+it is sad for me to make my debut in a time of war. But the world is
+very kind to me, and after all it is a victorious war for our Russia.
+And listen to this, Quentin. To-morrow I am to be allowed to begin
+nursing at the Alexander Hospital. What do you think of that?"
+
+The time was January, 1916, and the place a room in the great Nirski
+Palace. No hint of war, no breath from the snowy streets, entered that
+curious chamber where Prince Peter Nirski kept some of the chief of his
+famous treasures. It was notable for its lack of drapery and
+upholstering--only a sofa or two and a few fine rugs on the cedar floor.
+The walls were of a green marble veined like malachite, the ceiling was
+of darker marble inlaid with white intaglios. Scattered everywhere were
+tables and cabinets laden with celadon china, and carved jade, and
+ivories, and shimmering Persian and Rhodian vessels. In all the room
+there was scarcely anything of metal and no touch of gilding or bright
+colour. The light came from green alabaster censers, and the place swam
+in a cold green radiance like some cavern below the sea. The air was
+warm and scented, and though it was very quiet there, a hum of voices
+and the strains of dance music drifted to it from the pillared corridor
+in which could be seen the glare of lights from the great ballroom
+beyond.
+
+The young man had a thin face with lines of suffering round the mouth
+and eyes. The warm room had given him a high colour, which increased
+his air of fragility. He felt a little choked by the place, which seemed
+to him for both body and mind a hot-house, though he knew very well that
+the Nirski Palace on this gala evening was in no way typical of the land
+or its masters. Only a week ago he had been eating black bread with its
+owner in a hut on the Volhynian front.
+
+"You have become amazing, Saskia," he said. "I won't pay my old
+playfellow compliments; besides, you must be tired of them. I wish you
+happiness all the day long like a fairy-tale Princess. But a crock like
+me can't do much to help you to it. The service seems to be the wrong
+way round, for here you are wasting your time talking to me."
+
+She put her hand on his. "Poor Quentin! Is the leg very bad?"
+
+He laughed. "Oh, no. It's mending famously. I'll be able to get about
+without a stick in another month, and then you've got to teach me all
+the new dances."
+
+The jigging music of a two-step floated down the corridor. It made the
+young man's brow contract, for it brought to him a vision of dead faces
+in the gloom of a November dusk. He had once had a friend who used to
+whistle that air, and he had seen him die in the Hollebeke mud. There
+was something _macabre_ in the tune.... He was surely morbid this
+evening, for there seemed something _macabre_ about the house, the room,
+the dancing, all Russia.... These last days he had suffered from a sense
+of calamity impending, of a dark curtain drawing down upon a splendid
+world. They didn't agree with him at the Embassy, but he could not get
+rid of the notion.
+
+The girl saw his sudden abstraction.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" she asked. It had been her favourite
+question as a child.
+
+"I was thinking that I rather wished you were still in Paris."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because I think you would be safer."
+
+"Oh, what nonsense, Quentin dear! Where should I be safe if not in my
+own Russia, where I have friends--oh, so many, and tribes and tribes of
+relations? It is France and England that are unsafe with the German guns
+grumbling at their doors.... My complaint is that my life is too
+cosseted and padded. I am too secure, and I do not want to be secure."
+
+The young man lifted a heavy casket from a table at his elbow. It was of
+dark green imperial jade, with a wonderfully carved lid. He took off the
+lid and picked up three small oddments of ivory--a priest with a beard,
+a tiny soldier and a draught-ox. Putting the three in a triangle, he
+balanced the jade box on them.
+
+"Look, Saskia! If you were living inside that box you would think it
+very secure. You would note the thickness of the walls and the hardness
+of the stone, and you would dream away in a peaceful green dusk. But all
+the time it would be held up by trifles--brittle trifles."
+
+She shook her head. "You do not understand. You cannot understand. We
+are a very old and strong people with roots deep, deep in the earth."
+
+"Please God you are right," he said. "But, Saskia, you know that if I
+can ever serve you, you have only to command me. Now I can do no more
+for you than the mouse for the lion--at the beginning of the story. But
+the story had an end, you remember, and some day it may be in my power
+to help you. Promise to send for me."
+
+The girl laughed merrily. "The King of Spain's daughter," she quoted,
+
+    "Came to visit me,
+     And all for the love
+     Of my little nut-tree."
+
+The other laughed also, as a young man in the uniform of the
+Preobrajenski Guard approached to claim the girl. "Even a nut-tree may
+be a shelter in a storm," he said.
+
+"Of course I promise, Quentin," she said. "_Au revoir._ Soon I will come
+and take you to supper, and we will talk of nothing but nut-trees."
+
+He watched the two leave the room, her gown glowing like a tongue of
+fire in the shadowy archway. Then he slowly rose to his feet, for he
+thought that for a little he would watch the dancing. Something moved
+beside him, and he turned in time to prevent the jade casket from
+crashing to the floor. Two of the supports had slipped.
+
+He replaced the thing on its proper table and stood silent for a
+moment.
+
+"The priest and the soldier gone, and only the beast of burden left....
+If I were inclined to be superstitious, I should call that a dashed bad
+omen."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+HOW A RETIRED PROVISION MERCHANT FELT THE IMPULSE OF SPRING
+
+
+Mr. Dickson McCunn completed the polishing of his smooth cheeks with the
+towel, glanced appreciatively at their reflection in the looking-glass,
+and then permitted his eyes to stray out of the window. In the little
+garden lilacs were budding, and there was a gold line of daffodils
+beside the tiny greenhouse. Beyond the sooty wall a birch flaunted its
+new tassels, and the jackdaws were circling about the steeple of the
+Guthrie Memorial Kirk. A blackbird whistled from a thorn-bush, and Mr.
+McCunn was inspired to follow its example. He began a tolerable version
+of "Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch."
+
+He felt singularly light-hearted, and the immediate cause was his safety
+razor. A week ago he had bought the thing in a sudden fit of enterprise,
+and now he shaved in five minutes, where before he had taken twenty, and
+no longer confronted his fellows, at least one day in three, with a
+countenance ludicrously mottled by sticking-plaster. Calculation
+revealed to him the fact that in his fifty-five years, having begun to
+shave at eighteen, he had wasted three thousand three hundred and
+seventy hours--or one hundred and forty days--or between four and five
+months--by his neglect of this admirable invention. Now he felt that he
+had stolen a march on Time. He had fallen heir, thus late, to a fortune
+in unpurchasable leisure.
+
+He began to dress himself in the sombre clothes in which he had been
+accustomed for thirty-five years and more to go down to the shop in
+Mearns Street. And then a thought came to him which made him discard the
+grey-striped trousers, sit down on the edge of his bed, and muse.
+
+Since Saturday the shop was a thing of the past. On Saturday at
+half-past eleven, to the accompaniment of a glass of dubious sherry, he
+had completed the arrangements by which the provision shop in Mearns
+Street, which had borne so long the legend of D. McCunn, together with
+the branches in Crossmyloof and the Shaws, became the property of a
+company, yclept the United Supply Stores, Limited. He had received in
+payment cash, debentures and preference shares, and his lawyers and his
+own acumen had acclaimed the bargain. But all the week-end he had been a
+little sad. It was the end of so old a song, and he knew no other tune
+to sing. He was comfortably off, healthy, free from any particular cares
+in life, but free too from any particular duties. "Will I be going to
+turn into a useless old man?" he asked himself.
+
+But he had woke up this Monday to the sound of the blackbird, and the
+world, which had seemed rather empty twelve hours before, was now brisk
+and alluring. His prowess in quick shaving assured him of his youth.
+"I'm no' that dead old," he observed, as he sat on the edge of the bed,
+to his reflection in the big looking-glass.
+
+It was not an old face. The sandy hair was a little thin on the top and
+a little grey at the temples, the figure was perhaps a little too full
+for youthful elegance, and an athlete would have censured the neck as
+too fleshy for perfect health. But the cheeks were rosy, the skin clear,
+and the pale eyes singularly childlike. They were a little weak, those
+eyes, and had some difficulty in looking for long at the same object, so
+that Mr. McCunn did not stare people in the face, and had, in
+consequence, at one time in his career acquired a perfectly undeserved
+reputation for cunning. He shaved clean, and looked uncommonly like a
+wise, plump schoolboy. As he gazed at his simulacrum he stopped
+whistling "Roy's Wife" and let his countenance harden into a noble
+sternness. Then he laughed, and observed in the language of his youth
+that "There was life in the auld dowg yet." In that moment the soul of
+Mr. McCunn conceived the Great Plan.
+
+The first sign of it was that he swept all his business garments
+unceremoniously on to the floor. The next that he rootled at the bottom
+of a deep drawer and extracted a most disreputable tweed suit. It had
+once been what I believe is called a Lovat mixture, but was now a
+nondescript sub-fusc, with bright patches of colour like moss on
+whinstone. He regarded it lovingly, for it had been for twenty years his
+holiday wear, emerging annually for a hallowed month to be stained with
+salt and bleached with sun. He put it on, and stood shrouded in an
+odour of camphor. A pair of thick nailed boots and a flannel shirt and
+collar completed the equipment of the sportsman. He had another long
+look at himself in the glass, and then descended whistling to breakfast.
+This time the tune was "Macgregor's Gathering," and the sound of it
+stirred the grimy lips of a man outside who was delivering
+coals--himself a Macgregor--to follow suit. Mr. McCunn was a very
+fountain of music that morning.
+
+Tibby, the aged maid, had his newspaper and letters waiting by his
+plate, and a dish of ham and eggs frizzling near the fire. He fell to
+ravenously but still musingly, and he had reached the stage of scones
+and jam before he glanced at his correspondence. There was a letter from
+his wife now holidaying at the Neuk Hydropathic. She reported that her
+health was improving, and that she had met various people who had known
+somebody who had known somebody else whom she had once known herself.
+Mr. McCunn read the dutiful pages and smiled. "Mamma's enjoying herself
+fine," he observed to the teapot. He knew that for his wife the earthly
+paradise was a hydropathic, where she put on her afternoon dress and
+every jewel she possessed when she rose in the morning, ate large meals
+of which the novelty atoned for the nastiness, and collected an immense
+casual acquaintance with whom she discussed ailments, ministers, sudden
+deaths, and the intricate genealogies of her class. For his part he
+rancorously hated hydropathics, having once spent a black week under the
+roof of one in his wife's company. He detested the food, the Turkish
+baths (he had a passionate aversion to baring his body before
+strangers), the inability to find anything to do and the compulsion to
+endless small talk. A thought flitted over his mind which he was too
+loyal to formulate. Once he and his wife had had similar likings, but
+they had taken different roads since their child died. Janet! He saw
+again--he was never quite free from the sight--the solemn little
+white-frocked girl who had died long ago in the spring.
+
+It may have been the thought of the Neuk Hydropathic, or more likely the
+thin clean scent of the daffodils with which Tibby had decked the table,
+but long ere breakfast was finished the Great Plan had ceased to be an
+airy vision and become a sober well-masoned structure. Mr. McCunn--I may
+confess it at the start--was an incurable romantic.
+
+He had had a humdrum life since the day when he had first entered his
+uncle's shop with the hope of some day succeeding that honest grocer;
+and his feet had never strayed a yard from his sober rut. But his mind,
+like the Dying Gladiator's, had been far away. As a boy he had voyaged
+among books, and they had given him a world where he could shape his
+career according to his whimsical fancy. Not that Mr. McCunn was what is
+known as a great reader. He read slowly and fastidiously, and sought in
+literature for one thing alone. Sir Walter Scott had been his first
+guide, but he read the novels not for their insight into human character
+or for their historical pageantry, but because they gave him material
+wherewith to construct fantastic journeys. It was the same with
+Dickens. A lit tavern, a stage-coach, post-horses, the clack of hoofs on
+a frosty road, went to his head like wine. He was a Jacobite not because
+he had any views on Divine Right, but because he had always before his
+eyes a picture of a knot of adventurers in cloaks, new landed from
+France, among the western heather.
+
+On this select basis he had built up his small library--Defoe, Hakluyt,
+Hazlitt and the essayists, Boswell, some indifferent romances and a
+shelf of spirited poetry. His tastes became known, and he acquired a
+reputation for a scholarly habit. He was president of the Literary
+Society of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, and read to its members a variety
+of papers full of a gusto which rarely became critical. He had been
+three times chairman at Burns Anniversary dinners, and had delivered
+orations in eulogy of the national Bard; not because he greatly admired
+him--he thought him rather vulgar--but because he took Burns as an
+emblem of the un-Burns-like literature which he loved. Mr. McCunn was no
+scholar and was sublimely unconscious of background. He grew his flowers
+in his small garden-plot oblivious of their origin so long as they gave
+him the colour and scent he sought. Scent, I say, for he appreciated
+more than the mere picturesque. He had a passion for words and cadences,
+and would be haunted for weeks by a cunning phrase, savouring it as a
+connoisseur savours a vintage. Wherefore long ago, when he could ill
+afford it, he had purchased the Edinburgh _Stevenson_. They were the
+only large books on his shelves, for he had a liking for small
+volumes--things he could stuff into his pocket in that sudden journey
+which he loved to contemplate.
+
+Only he had never taken it. The shop had tied him up for eleven months
+in the year, and the twelfth had always found him settled decorously
+with his wife in some seaside villa. He had not fretted, for he was
+content with dreams. He was always a little tired, too, when the
+holidays came, and his wife told him he was growing old. He consoled
+himself with tags from the more philosophic of his authors, but he
+scarcely needed consolation. For he had large stores of modest
+contentment.
+
+But now something had happened. A spring morning and a safety razor had
+convinced him that he was still young. Since yesterday he was a man of a
+large leisure. Providence had done for him what he would never have done
+for himself. The rut in which he had travelled so long had given place
+to open country. He repeated to himself one of the quotations with which
+he had been wont to stir the literary young men at the Guthrie Memorial
+Kirk:
+
+    "What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all;
+       Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold:
+       When we mind labour, then only, we're too old--
+     What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?"
+
+He would go journeying--who but he?--pleasantly.
+
+It sounds a trivial resolve, but it quickened Mr. McCunn to the depths
+of his being. A holiday, and alone! On foot, of course, for he must
+travel light. He would buckle on a pack after the approved fashion. He
+had the very thing in a drawer upstairs, which he had bought some years
+ago at a sale. That and a waterproof and a stick, and his outfit was
+complete. A book, too, and, as he lit his first pipe, he considered what
+it should be. Poetry, clearly, for it was the Spring, and besides poetry
+could be got in pleasantly small bulk. He stood before his bookshelves
+trying to select a volume, rejecting one after another as inapposite.
+Browning--Keats, Shelley--they seemed more suited for the hearth than
+for the roadside. He did not want anything Scots, for he was of opinion
+that Spring came more richly in England and that English people had a
+better notion of it. He was tempted by the Oxford Anthology, but was
+deterred by its thickness, for he did not possess the thin-paper
+edition. Finally he selected Izaak Walton. He had never fished in his
+life, but _The Compleat Angler_ seemed to fit his mood. It was old and
+curious and learned and fragrant with the youth of things. He remembered
+its falling cadences, its country songs and wise meditations. Decidedly
+it was the right scrip for his pilgrimage.
+
+Characteristically he thought last of where he was to go. Every bit of
+the world beyond his front door had its charms to the seeing eye. There
+seemed nothing common or unclean that fresh morning. Even a walk among
+coal-pits had its attractions.... But since he had the right to choose,
+he lingered over it like an epicure. Not the Highlands, for Spring came
+late among their sour mosses. Some place where there were fields and
+woods and inns, somewhere, too, within call of the sea. It must not be
+too remote, for he had no time to waste on train journeys; nor too near,
+for he wanted a countryside untainted. Presently he thought of Carrick.
+A good green land, as he remembered it, with purposeful white roads and
+public-houses sacred to the memory of Burns; near the hills but yet
+lowland, and with a bright sea chafing on its shores. He decided on
+Carrick, found a map and planned his journey.
+
+Then he routed out his knapsack, packed it with a modest change of
+raiment, and sent out Tibby to buy chocolate and tobacco and to cash a
+cheque at the Strathclyde Bank. Till Tibby returned he occupied himself
+with delicious dreams.... He saw himself daily growing browner and
+leaner, swinging along broad highways or wandering in bypaths. He
+pictured his seasons of ease, when he unslung his pack and smoked in
+some clump of lilacs by a burnside--he remembered a phrase of
+Stevenson's somewhat like that. He would meet and talk with all sorts of
+folk; an exhilarating prospect, for Mr. McCunn loved his kind. There
+would be the evening hour before he reached his inn, when, pleasantly
+tired, he would top some ridge and see the welcoming lights of a little
+town. There would be the lamp-lit after-supper time when he would read
+and reflect, and the start in the gay morning, when tobacco tastes
+sweetest and even fifty-five seems young. It would be holiday of the
+purest, for no business now tugged at his coat-tails. He was beginning a
+new life, he told himself, when he could cultivate the seedling
+interests which had withered beneath the far-reaching shade of the shop.
+Was ever a man more fortunate or more free?
+
+Tibby was told that he was going off for a week or two. No letters need
+be forwarded, for he would be constantly moving, but Mrs. McCunn at the
+Neuk Hydropathic would be kept informed of his whereabouts. Presently he
+stood on his doorstep, a stocky figure in ancient tweeds, with a bulging
+pack slung on his arm, and a stout hazel stick in his hand. A passer-by
+would have remarked an elderly shopkeeper bent apparently on a day in
+the country, a common little man on a prosaic errand. But the passer-by
+would have been wrong, for he could not see into the heart. The plump
+citizen was the eternal pilgrim; he was Jason, Ulysses, Eric the Red,
+Albuquerque, Cortez--starting out to discover new worlds.
+
+Before he left Mr. McCunn had given Tibby a letter to post. That morning
+he had received an epistle from a benevolent acquaintance, one
+Mackintosh, regarding a group of urchins who called themselves the
+"Gorbals Die-Hards." Behind the premises in Mearns Street lay a tract of
+slums, full of mischievous boys with whom his staff waged truceless war.
+But lately there had started among them a kind of unauthorised and
+unofficial Boy Scouts, who, without uniform or badge or any kind of
+paraphernalia, followed the banner of Sir Robert Baden-Powell and
+subjected themselves to a rude discipline. They were far too poor to
+join an orthodox troop, but they faithfully copied what they believed to
+be the practices of more fortunate boys. Mr. McCunn had witnessed their
+pathetic parades, and had even passed the time of day with their leader,
+a red-haired savage called Dougal. The philanthropic Mackintosh had
+taken an interest in the gang and now desired subscriptions to send them
+to camp in the country.
+
+Mr. McCunn, in his new exhilaration, felt that he could not deny to
+others what he proposed for himself. His last act before leaving was to
+send Mackintosh ten pounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+OF MR. JOHN HERITAGE AND THE DIFFERENCE IN POINTS OF VIEW
+
+
+Dickson McCunn was never to forget the first stage in that pilgrimage. A
+little after midday he descended from a grimy third-class carriage at a
+little station whose name I have forgotten. In the village near-by he
+purchased some new-baked buns and ginger biscuits, to which he was
+partial, and followed by the shouts of urchins, who admired his
+pack--"Look at the auld man gaun to the schule"--he emerged into open
+country. The late April noon gleamed like a frosty morning, but the air,
+though tonic, was kind. The road ran over sweeps of moorland where
+curlews wailed, and into lowland pastures dotted with very white, very
+vocal lambs. The young grass had the warm fragrance of new milk. As he
+went he munched his buns, for he had resolved to have no plethoric
+midday meal, and presently he found the burnside nook of his fancy, and
+halted to smoke. On a patch of turf close to a grey stone bridge he had
+out his Walton and read the chapter on "The Chavender or Chub." The
+collocation of words delighted him and inspired him to verse. "Lavender
+or Lub"--"Pavender or Pub"--"Gravender or Grub"--but the monosyllables
+proved too vulgar for poetry. Regretfully he desisted.
+
+The rest of the road was as idyllic as the start. He would tramp
+steadily for a mile or so and then saunter, leaning over bridges to
+watch the trout in the pools, admiring from a dry-stone dyke the
+unsteady gambols of new-born lambs, kicking up dust from strips of
+moor-burn on the heather. Once by a fir-wood he was privileged to
+surprise three lunatic hares waltzing. His cheeks glowed with the sun;
+he moved in an atmosphere of pastoral, serene and contented. When the
+shadows began to lengthen he arrived at the village of Cloncae, where he
+proposed to lie. The inn looked dirty, but he found a decent widow,
+above whose door ran the legend in home-made lettering, "Mrs. brockie
+tea and Coffee," and who was willing to give him quarters. There he
+supped handsomely off ham and eggs, and dipped into a work called
+_Covenanting Worthies_, which garnished a table decorated with
+sea-shells. At half-past nine precisely he retired to bed and
+unhesitating sleep.
+
+Next morning he awoke to a changed world. The sky was grey and so low
+that his outlook was bounded by a cabbage garden, while a surly wind
+prophesied rain. It was chilly, too, and he had his breakfast beside the
+kitchen fire. Mrs. Brockie could not spare a capital letter for her
+surname on the signboard, but she exalted it in her talk. He heard of a
+multitude of Brockies, ascendant, descendant and collateral, who seemed
+to be in a fair way to inherit the earth. Dickson listened
+sympathetically, and lingered by the fire. He felt stiff from
+yesterday's exercise, and the edge was off his spirit.
+
+The start was not quite what he had pictured. His pack seemed heavier,
+his boots tighter, and his pipe drew badly. The first miles were all
+uphill, with a wind tingling his ears, and no colours in the landscape
+but brown and grey. Suddenly he awoke to the fact that he was dismal,
+and thrust the notion behind him. He expanded his chest and drew in long
+draughts of air. He told himself that this sharp weather was better than
+sunshine. He remembered that all travellers in romances battled with
+mist and rain. Presently his body recovered comfort and vigour, and his
+mind worked itself into cheerfulness.
+
+He overtook a party of tramps and fell into talk with them. He had
+always had a fancy for the class, though he had never known anything
+nearer it than city beggars. He pictured them as philosophic vagabonds,
+full of quaint turns of speech, unconscious Borrovians. With these
+samples his disillusionment was speedy. The party was made up of a
+ferret-faced man with a red nose, a draggle-tailed woman, and a child in
+a crazy perambulator. Their conversation was one-sided, for it
+immediately resolved itself into a whining chronicle of misfortunes and
+petitions for relief. It cost him half a crown to be rid of them.
+
+The road was alive with tramps that day. The next one did the accosting.
+Hailing Mr. McCunn as "Guv'nor," he asked to be told the way to
+Manchester. The objective seemed so enterprising that Dickson was
+impelled to ask questions, and heard, in what appeared to be in the
+accents of the Colonies, the tale of a career of unvarying calamity.
+There was nothing merry or philosophic about this adventurer. Nay, there
+was something menacing. He eyed his companion's waterproof covetously,
+and declared that he had had one like it which had been stolen from him
+the day before. Had the place been lonely he might have contemplated
+highway robbery, but they were at the entrance to a village, and the
+sight of a public-house awoke his thirst. Dickson parted with him at the
+cost of sixpence for a drink.
+
+He had no more company that morning except an aged stone-breaker whom he
+convoyed for half a mile. The stone-breaker also was soured with the
+world. He walked with a limp, which, he said, was due to an accident
+years before, when he had been run into by "ane o' thae damned
+velocipeeds." The word revived in Dickson memories of his youth, and he
+was prepared to be friendly. But the ancient would have none of it. He
+inquired morosely what he was after, and, on being told, remarked that
+he might have learned more sense. "It's a daft-like thing for an auld
+man like you to be traivellin' the roads. Ye maun be ill-off for a job."
+Questioned as to himself he became, as the newspapers say, "reticent,"
+and having reached his bing of stones, turned rudely to his duties.
+"Awa' hame wi' ye," were his parting words. "It's idle scoondrels like
+you that maks wark for honest folk like me."
+
+The morning was not a success, but the strong air had given Dickson such
+an appetite that he resolved to break his rule, and, on reaching the
+little town of Kilchrist, he sought luncheon at the chief hotel. There
+he found that which revived his spirits. A solitary bagman shared the
+meal, who revealed the fact that he was in the grocery line. There
+followed a well-informed and most technical conversation. He was drawn
+to speak of the United Supply Stores, Limited, of their prospects and of
+their predecessor, Mr. McCunn, whom he knew well by repute but had never
+met. "Yon's the clever one," he observed. "I've always said there's no
+longer head in the city of Glasgow than McCunn. An old-fashioned firm,
+but it has aye managed to keep up with the times. He's just retired,
+they tell me, and in my opinion it's a big loss to the provision
+trade...." Dickson's heart glowed within him. Here was Romance; to be
+praised incognito; to enter a casual inn and find that fame had preceded
+him. He warmed to the bagman, insisted on giving him a liqueur and a
+cigar, and finally revealed himself. "I'm Dickson McCunn," he said,
+"taking a bit holiday. If there's anything I can do for you when I get
+back, just let me know." With mutual esteem they parted.
+
+He had need of all his good spirits, for he emerged into an unrelenting
+drizzle. The environs of Kilchrist are at the best unlovely, and in the
+wet they were as melancholy as a graveyard. But the encounter with the
+bagman had worked wonders with Dickson, and he strode lustily into the
+weather, his waterproof collar buttoned round his chin. The road climbed
+to a bare moor, where lagoons had formed in the ruts, and the mist
+showed on each side only a yard or two of soaking heather. Soon he was
+wet; presently every part of him, boots, body and pack, was one vast
+sponge. The waterproof was not water-proof, and the rain penetrated to
+his most intimate garments. Little he cared. He felt lighter, younger,
+than on the idyllic previous day. He enjoyed the buffets of the storm,
+and one wet mile succeeded another to the accompaniment of Dickson's
+shouts and laughter. There was no one abroad that afternoon, so he could
+talk aloud to himself and repeat his favourite poems. About five in the
+evening there presented himself at the Black Bull Inn at Kirkmichael a
+soaked, disreputable, but most cheerful traveller.
+
+Now the Black Bull at Kirkmichael is one of the few very good inns left
+in the world. It is an old place and an hospitable, for it has been for
+generations a haunt of anglers, who above all other men understand
+comfort. There are always bright fires there, and hot water, and old
+soft leather armchairs, and an aroma of good food and good tobacco, and
+giant trout in glass cases, and pictures of Captain Barclay of Urie
+walking to London, and Mr. Ramsay of Barnton winning a horse-race, and
+the three-volume edition of the Waverley Novels with many volumes
+missing, and indeed all those things which an inn should have. Also
+there used to be--there may still be--sound vintage claret in the
+cellars. The Black Bull expects its guests to arrive in every stage of
+dishevelment, and Dickson was received by a cordial landlord, who
+offered dry garments as a matter of course. The pack proved to have
+resisted the elements, and a suit of clothes and slippers were provided
+by the house. Dickson, after a glass of toddy, wallowed in a hot bath,
+which washed all the stiffness out of him. He had a fire in his bedroom,
+beside which he wrote the opening passages of that diary he had vowed to
+keep, descanting lyrically upon the joys of ill weather. At seven
+o'clock, warm and satisfied in soul, and with his body clad in raiment
+several sizes too large for it, he descended to dinner.
+
+At one end of the long table in the dining-room sat a group of anglers.
+They looked jovial fellows, and Dickson would fain have joined them;
+but, having been fishing all day in the Loch o' the Threshes, they were
+talking their own talk, and he feared that his admiration for Izaak
+Walton did not qualify him to butt into the erudite discussions of
+fishermen. The landlord seemed to think likewise, for he drew back a
+chair for him at the other end, where sat a young man absorbed in a
+book. Dickson gave him good evening and got an abstracted reply. The
+young man supped the Black Bull's excellent broth with one hand, and
+with the other turned the pages of his volume. A glance convinced
+Dickson that the work was French, a literature which did not interest
+him. He knew little of the tongue and suspected it of impropriety.
+
+Another guest entered and took the chair opposite the bookish young man.
+He was also young--not more than thirty-three--and to Dickson's eye, was
+the kind of person he would have liked to resemble. He was tall and
+free from any superfluous flesh; his face was lean, fine-drawn and
+deeply sunburnt so that the hair above showed oddly pale; the hands were
+brown and beautifully shaped, but the forearm revealed by the loose
+cuffs of his shirt was as brawny as a blacksmith's. He had rather pale
+blue eyes, which seemed to have looked much at the sun, and a small
+moustache the colour of ripe hay. His voice was low and pleasant, and he
+pronounced his words precisely, like a foreigner.
+
+He was very ready to talk, but in defiance of Dr. Johnson's warning, his
+talk was all questions. He wanted to know everything about the
+neighbourhood--who lived in what houses, what were the distances between
+the towns, what harbours would admit what class of vessel. Smiling
+agreeably, he put Dickson through a catechism to which he knew none of
+the answers. The landlord was called in, and proved more helpful. But on
+one matter he was fairly at a loss. The catechist asked about a house
+called Darkwater, and was met with a shake of the head. "I know no
+sic-like name in this countryside, sir," and the catechist looked
+disappointed.
+
+The literary young man said nothing, but ate trout abstractedly, one eye
+on his book. The fish had been caught by the anglers in the Loch o' the
+Threshes, and phrases describing their capture floated from the other
+end of the table. The young man had a second helping, and then refused
+the excellent hill mutton that followed, contenting himself with cheese.
+Not so Dickson and the catechist. They ate everything that was set
+before them, topping up with a glass of port. Then the latter, who had
+been talking illuminatingly about Spain, rose, bowed and left the table,
+leaving Dickson, who liked to linger over his meals, to the society of
+the ichthyophagous student.
+
+He nodded towards the book. "Interesting?" he asked.
+
+The young man shook his head and displayed the name on the cover.
+"Anatole France. I used to be crazy about him, but now he seems rather a
+back number." Then he glanced towards the just-vacated chair.
+"Australian," he said.
+
+"How d'you know?"
+
+"Can't mistake them. There's nothing else so lean and fine produced on
+the globe to-day. I was next door to them at Pozieres and saw them
+fight. Lord! Such men! Now and then you had a freak, but most looked
+like Phoebus Apollo."
+
+Dickson gazed with a new respect at his neighbour, for he had not
+associated him with battle-fields. During the war he had been a fervent
+patriot, but, though he had never heard a shot himself, so many of his
+friends' sons and nephews, not to mention cousins of his own, had seen
+service, that he had come to regard the experience as commonplace. Lions
+in Africa and bandits in Mexico seemed to him novel and romantic things,
+but not trenches and airplanes which were the whole world's property.
+But he could scarcely fit his neighbour into even his haziest picture of
+war. The young man was tall and a little round-shouldered; he had
+short-sighted, rather prominent brown eyes, untidy black hair and dark
+eyebrows which came near to meeting. He wore a knickerbocker suit of
+bluish-grey tweed, a pale blue shirt, a pale blue collar and a dark blue
+tie--a symphony of colour which seemed too elaborately considered to be
+quite natural. Dickson had set him down as an artist or a newspaper
+correspondent, objects to him of lively interest. But now the
+classification must be reconsidered.
+
+"So you were in the war," he said encouragingly.
+
+"Four blasted years," was the savage reply. "And I never want to hear
+the name of the beastly thing again."
+
+"You said he was an Australian," said Dickson, casting back. "But I
+thought Australians had a queer accent, like the English."
+
+"They've all kind of accents, but you can never mistake their voice.
+It's got the sun in it. Canadians have got grinding ice in theirs, and
+Virginians have got butter. So have the Irish. In Britain there are no
+voices, only speaking tubes. It isn't safe to judge men by their accent
+only. You yourself I take to be Scotch, but for all I know you may be a
+senator from Chicago or a Boer General."
+
+"I'm from Glasgow. My name's Dickson McCunn." He had a faint hope that
+the announcement might affect the other as it had affected the bagman at
+Kilchrist.
+
+"Golly, what a name!" exclaimed the young man rudely.
+
+Dickson was nettled. "It's very old Highland," he said. "It means the
+son of a dog."
+
+"Which--Christian name or surname?" Then the young man appeared to think
+he had gone too far, for he smiled pleasantly. "And a very good name
+too. Mine is prosaic by comparison. They call me John Heritage."
+
+"That," said Dickson, mollified, "is like a name out of a book. With
+that name by rights you should be a poet."
+
+Gloom settled on the young man's countenance. "It's a dashed sight too
+poetic. It's like Edwin Arnold and Alfred Austin and Dante Gabriel
+Rossetti. Great poets have vulgar monosyllables for names, like Keats.
+The new Shakespeare when he comes along will probably be called Grubb or
+Jubber, if he isn't Jones. With a name like yours I might have a chance.
+_You_ should be the poet."
+
+"I'm very fond of reading," said Dickson modestly.
+
+A slow smile crumpled Mr. Heritage's face. "There's a fire in the
+smoking-room," he observed as he rose. "We'd better bag the armchairs
+before these fishing louts take them." Dickson followed obediently. This
+was the kind of chance acquaintance for whom he had hoped, and he was
+prepared to make the most of him.
+
+The fire burned bright in the little dusky smoking-room, lighted by one
+oil-lamp. Mr. Heritage flung himself into a chair, stretched his long
+legs and lit a pipe.
+
+"You like reading?" he asked. "What sort? Any use for poetry?"
+
+"Plenty," said Dickson. "I've aye been fond of learning it up and
+repeating it to myself when I had nothing to do. In church and waiting
+on trains, like. It used to be Tennyson, but now it's more Browning. I
+can say a lot of Browning."
+
+The other screwed his face into an expression of disgust. "I know the
+stuff. 'Damask cheeks and dewy sister eyelids.' Or else the Ercles
+vein--'God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world.' No good, Mr.
+McCunn. All back numbers. Poetry's not a thing of pretty round phrases
+or noisy invocations. It's life itself, with the tang of the raw world
+in it--not a sweetmeat for middle-class women in parlours."
+
+"Are you a poet, Mr. Heritage?"
+
+"No, Dogson, I'm a paper-maker."
+
+This was a new view to Mr. McCunn. "I just once knew a paper-maker," he
+observed reflectively. "They called him Tosh. He drank a bit."
+
+"Well, I don't drink," said the other. "I'm a paper-maker, but that's
+for my bread and butter. Some day for my own sake I may be a poet."
+
+"Have you published anything?"
+
+The eager admiration in Dickson's tone gratified Mr. Heritage. He drew
+from his pocket a slim book. "My firstfruits," he said, rather shyly.
+
+Dickson received it with reverence. It was a small volume in grey paper
+boards with a white label on the back, and it was lettered:
+"_Whorls--John Heritage's Book_." He turned the pages and read a little.
+"It's a nice wee book," he observed at length.
+
+"Good God, if you call it nice, I must have failed pretty badly," was
+the irritated answer.
+
+Dickson read more deeply and was puzzled. It seemed worse than the worst
+of Browning to understand. He found one poem about a garden entitled
+"Revue." "Crimson and resonant clangs the dawn," said the poet. Then he
+went on to describe noonday:
+
+    "Sunflowers, tall Grenadiers, ogle the roses' short-skirted ballet.
+     The fumes of dark sweet wine hidden in frail petals
+     Madden the drunkard bees."
+
+This seemed to him an odd way to look at things, and he boggled over a
+phrase about an "epicene lily." Then came evening: "The painted gauze of
+the stars flutters in a fold of twilight crape," sang Mr. Heritage; and
+again, "The moon's pale leprosy sloughs the fields."
+
+Dickson turned to other verses which apparently enshrined the writer's
+memory of the trenches. They were largely compounded of oaths, and
+rather horrible, lingering lovingly over sights and smells which every
+one is aware of, but most people contrive to forget. He did not like
+them. Finally he skimmed a poem about a lady who turned into a bird. The
+evolution was described with intimate anatomical details which scared
+the honest reader.
+
+He kept his eyes on the book for he did not know what to say. The trick
+seemed to be to describe nature in metaphors mostly drawn from
+music-halls and haberdashers' shops, and, when at a loss, to fall to
+cursing. He thought it frankly very bad, and he laboured to find words
+which would combine politeness and honesty.
+
+"Well?" said the poet.
+
+"There's a lot of fine things here, but--but the lines don't just seem
+to scan very well."
+
+Mr. Heritage laughed. "Now I can place you exactly. You like the meek
+rhyme and the conventional epithet. Well, I don't. The world has passed
+beyond that prettiness. You want the moon described as a Huntress or a
+gold disc or a flower--I say it's oftener like a beer barrel or a
+cheese. You want a wealth of jolly words and real things ruled out as
+unfit for poetry. I say there's nothing unfit for poetry. Nothing,
+Dogson! Poetry's everywhere, and the real thing is commoner among drabs
+and pot-houses and rubbish heaps than in your Sunday parlours. The
+poet's business is to distil it out of rottenness, and show that it is
+all one spirit, the thing that keeps the stars in their place.... I
+wanted to call my book '_Drains_,' for drains are sheer poetry, carrying
+off the excess and discards of human life to make the fields green and
+the corn ripen. But the publishers kicked. So I called it '_Whorls_,' to
+express my view of the exquisite involution of all things. Poetry is the
+fourth dimension of the soul.... Well, let's hear about your taste in
+prose."
+
+Mr. McCunn was much bewildered, and a little inclined to be cross. He
+disliked being called Dogson, which seemed to him an abuse of his
+etymological confidences. But his habit of politeness held.
+
+He explained rather haltingly his preferences in prose.
+
+Mr. Heritage listened with wrinkled brows.
+
+"You're even deeper in the mud than I thought," he remarked. "You live
+in a world of painted laths and shadows. All this passion for the
+picturesque! Trash, my dear man, like a schoolgirl's novelette heroes.
+You make up romances about gipsies and sailors and the blackguards they
+call pioneers, but you know nothing about them. If you did, you would
+find they had none of the gilt and gloss you imagine. But the great
+things they have got in common with all humanity you ignore. It's
+like--it's like sentimentalising about a pancake because it looked like
+a buttercup, and all the while not knowing that it was good to eat."
+
+At that moment the Australian entered the room to get a light for his
+pipe. He wore a motor-cyclist's overalls and appeared to be about to
+take the road. He bade them good night and it seemed to Dickson that his
+face, seen in the glow of the fire, was drawn and anxious, unlike that
+of the agreeable companion at dinner.
+
+"There," said Mr. Heritage, nodding after the departing figure. "I dare
+say you have been telling yourself stories about that chap--life in the
+bush, stock-riding and the rest of it. But probably he's a bank-clerk
+from Melbourne.... Your romanticism is one vast self-delusion and it
+blinds your eye to the real thing. We have got to clear it out and with
+it all the damnable humbug of the Kelt."
+
+Mr. McCunn, who spelt the word with a soft "C," was puzzled. "I thought
+a kelt was a kind of a no-weel fish," he interposed.
+
+But the other, in the flood-tide of his argument, ignored the
+interruption. "That's the value of the war," he went on. "It has burst
+up all the old conventions, and we've got to finish the destruction
+before we can build. It is the same with literature and religion and
+society and politics. At them with the axe, say I. I have no use for
+priests and pedants. I've no use for upper classes and middle classes.
+There's only one class that matters, the plain man, the workers, who
+live close to life."
+
+"The place for you," said Dickson dryly, "is in Russia among the
+Bolsheviks."
+
+Mr. Heritage approved. "They are doing a great work in their own
+fashion. We needn't imitate all their methods--they're a trifle crude
+and have too many Jews among them--but they've got hold of the right end
+of the stick. They seek truth and reality."
+
+Mr. McCunn was slowly being roused.
+
+"What brings you wandering hereaways?" he asked.
+
+"Exercise," was the answer. "I've been kept pretty closely tied up all
+winter. And I want leisure and quiet to think over things."
+
+"Well, there's one subject you might turn your attention to. You'll have
+been educated like a gentleman?"
+
+"Nine wasted years--five at Harrow, four at Cambridge."
+
+"See here, then. You're daft about the working-class and have no use for
+any other. But what in the name of goodness do you know about
+working-men?... I come out of them myself, and have lived next door to
+them all my days. Take them one way and another, they're a decent sort,
+good and bad like the rest of us. But there's a wheen daft folk that
+would set them up as models--close to truth and reality, says you. It's
+sheer ignorance, for you're about as well acquaint with the working-man
+as with King Solomon. You say I make up fine stories about tinklers and
+sailor-men because I know nothing about them. That's maybe true. But
+you're at the same job yourself. You ideelise the working-man, you and
+your kind, because you're ignorant. You say that he's seeking for truth,
+when he's only looking for a drink and a rise in wages. You tell me he's
+near reality, but I tell you that his notion of reality is often just a
+short working day and looking on at a footba'-match on Saturday.... And
+when you run down what you call the middle-classes that do
+three-quarters of the world's work and keep the machine going and the
+working man in a job, then I tell you you're talking havers. Havers!"
+
+Mr. McCunn, having delivered his defence of the bourgeoisie, rose
+abruptly and went to bed. He felt jarred and irritated. His innocent
+little private domain had been badly trampled by this stray bull of a
+poet. But as he lay in bed, before blowing out his candle, he had
+recourse to Walton, and found a passage on which, as on a pillow, he
+went peacefully to sleep:
+
+    "As I left this place, and entered into the next field, a second
+    pleasure entertained me; 'twas a handsome milkmaid, that had not yet
+    attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any fears
+    of many things that will never be, as too many men too often do; but
+    she cast away all care, and sang like a nightingale; her voice was
+    good, and the ditty fitted for it; it was the smooth song that was
+    made by _Kit Marlow_ now at least fifty years ago. And the
+    milkmaid's mother sung an answer to it, which was made by _Sir
+    Walter Raleigh_ in his younger days. They were old-fashioned poetry,
+    but choicely good; I think much better than the strong lines that
+    are now in fashion in this critical age."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HOW CHILDE ROLAND AND ANOTHER CAME TO THE DARK TOWER
+
+
+Dickson woke with a vague sense of irritation. As his recollections took
+form they produced a very unpleasant picture of Mr. John Heritage. The
+poet had loosened all his placid idols, so that they shook and rattled
+in the niches where they had been erstwhile so secure. Mr. McCunn had a
+mind of a singular candour, and was prepared most honestly at all times
+to revise his views. But by this iconoclast he had been only irritated
+and in no way convinced. "_Sich_ poetry!" he muttered to himself as he
+shivered in his bath (a daily cold tub instead of his customary hot one
+on Saturday night being part of the discipline of his holiday). "And yon
+blethers about the working-man!" he ingeminated as he shaved. He
+breakfasted alone, having outstripped even the fishermen, and as he ate
+he arrived at conclusions. He had a great respect for youth, but a line
+must be drawn somewhere. "The man's a child," he decided, "and not like
+to grow up. The way he's besotted on everything daftlike, if it's only
+_new_. And he's no rightly young either--speaks like an auld dominie,
+whiles. And he's rather impident," he concluded, with memories of
+"Dogson."... He was very clear that he never wanted to see him again;
+that was the reason of his early breakfast. Having clarified his mind by
+definitions, Dickson felt comforted. He paid his bill, took an
+affectionate farewell of the landlord, and at 7.30 precisely stepped out
+into the gleaming morning.
+
+It was such a day as only a Scots April can show. The cobbled streets of
+Kirkmichael still shone with the night's rain, but the storm clouds had
+fled before a mild south wind, and the whole circumference of the sky
+was a delicate translucent blue. Homely breakfast smells came from the
+houses and delighted Mr. McCunn's nostrils; a squalling child was a
+pleasant reminder of an awakening world, the urban counterpart to the
+morning song of birds; even the sanitary cart seemed a picturesque
+vehicle. He bought his ration of buns and ginger biscuits at a baker's
+shop whence various ragamuffin boys were preparing to distribute the
+householders' bread, and took his way up the Gallows Hill to the Burgh
+Muir almost with regret at leaving so pleasant a habitation.
+
+A chronicle of ripe vintages must pass lightly over small beer. I will
+not dwell on his leisurely progress in the bright weather, or on his
+luncheon in a coppice of young firs, or on his thoughts which had
+returned to the idyllic. I take up the narrative at about three o'clock
+in the afternoon, when he is revealed seated on a milestone examining
+his map. For he had come, all unwitting, to a turning of the ways, and
+his choice is the cause of this veracious history.
+
+The place was high up on a bare moor, which showed a white lodge among
+pines, a white cottage in a green nook by a burnside, and no other marks
+of human dwelling. To his left, which was the east, the heather rose to
+a low ridge of hill, much scarred with peat-bogs, behind which appeared
+the blue shoulder of a considerable mountain. Before him the road was
+lost momentarily in the woods of a shooting-box, but reappeared at a
+great distance climbing a swell of upland which seemed to be the glacis
+of a jumble of bold summits. There was a pass there, the map told him,
+which led into Galloway. It was the road he had meant to follow, but as
+he sat on the milestone his purpose wavered. For there seemed greater
+attractions in the country which lay to the westward. Mr. McCunn, be it
+remembered, was not in search of brown heath and shaggy wood; he wanted
+greenery and the Spring.
+
+Westward there ran out a peninsula in the shape of an isosceles
+triangle, of which his present highroad was the base. At a distance of a
+mile or so a railway ran parallel to the road, and he could see the
+smoke of a goods train waiting at a tiny station islanded in acres of
+bog. Thence the moor swept down to meadows and scattered copses, above
+which hung a thin haze of smoke which betokened a village. Beyond it
+were further woodlands, not firs but old shady trees, and as they
+narrowed to a point the gleam of two tiny estuaries appeared on either
+side. He could not see the final cape, but he saw the sea beyond it,
+flawed with catspaws, gold in the afternoon sun, and on it a small
+herring smack flapping listless sails.
+
+Something in the view caught and held his fancy. He conned his map, and
+made out the names. The peninsula was called the Cruives--an old name
+apparently, for it was in antique lettering. He vaguely remembered that
+"cruives" had something to do with fishing, doubtless in the two streams
+which flanked it. One he had already crossed, the Laver, a clear
+tumbling water springing from green hills; the other, the Garple,
+descended from the rougher mountains to the south. The hidden village
+bore the name of Dalquharter, and the uncouth syllables awoke some vague
+recollection in his mind. The great house in the trees beyond--it must
+be a great house, for the map showed large policies--was Huntingtower.
+
+The last name fascinated and almost decided him. He pictured an ancient
+keep by the sea, defended by converging rivers, which some old Comyn
+lord of Galloway had built to command the shore road and from which he
+had sallied to hunt in his wild hills.... He liked the way the moor
+dropped down to green meadows, and the mystery of the dark woods beyond.
+He wanted to explore the twin waters, and see how they entered that
+strange shimmering sea. The odd names, the odd cul-de-sac of a
+peninsula, powerfully attracted him. Why should he not spend a night
+there, for the map showed clearly that Dalquharter had an inn? He must
+decide promptly, for before him a side-road left the highway, and the
+signpost bore the legend, "Dalquharter and Huntingtower."
+
+Mr. McCunn, being a cautious and pious man, took the omens. He tossed a
+penny--heads go on, tails turn aside. It fell tails.
+
+He knew as soon as he had taken three steps down the side-road that he
+was doing something momentous, and the exhilaration of enterprise stole
+into his soul. It occurred to him that this was the kind of landscape
+that he had always especially hankered after, and had made pictures of
+when he had a longing for the country on him--a wooded cape between
+streams, with meadows inland and then a long lift of heather. He had the
+same feeling of expectancy, of something most interesting and curious on
+the eve of happening, that he had had long ago when he waited on the
+curtain rising at his first play. His spirits soared like the lark, and
+he took to singing. If only the inn at Dalquharter were snug and empty,
+this was going to be a day in ten thousand. Thus mirthfully he swung
+down the rough grass-grown road, past the railway, till he came to a
+point where heath began to merge in pasture, and dry-stone walls split
+the moor into fields. Suddenly his pace slackened and song died on his
+lips. For, approaching from the right by a tributary path, was the Poet.
+
+Mr. Heritage saw him afar off and waved a friendly hand. In spite of his
+chagrin Dickson could not but confess that he had misjudged his critic.
+Striding with long steps over the heather, his jacket open to the wind,
+his face a-glow and his capless head like a whin-bush for disorder, he
+cut a more wholesome and picturesque figure than in the smoking-room
+the night before. He seemed to be in a companionable mood, for he
+brandished his stick and shouted greetings.
+
+"Well met!" he cried; "I was hoping to fall in with you again. You must
+have thought me a pretty fair cub last night."
+
+"I did that," was the dry answer.
+
+"Well, I want to apologise. God knows what made me treat you to a
+university-extension lecture. I may not agree with you, but every man's
+entitled to his own views, and it was dashed poor form for me to start
+jawing you."
+
+Mr. McCunn had no gift of nursing anger, and was very susceptible to
+apologies.
+
+"That's all right," he murmured. "Don't mention it. I'm wondering what
+brought you down here, for it's off the road."
+
+"Caprice. Pure caprice. I liked the look of this butt-end of nowhere."
+
+"Same here. I've aye thought there was something terrible nice about a
+wee cape with a village at the neck of it and a burn each side."
+
+"Now that's interesting," said Mr. Heritage. "You're obsessed by a
+particular type of landscape. Ever read Freud?"
+
+Dickson shook his head.
+
+"Well, you've got an odd complex somewhere. I wonder where the key lies.
+Cape--woods--two rivers--moor behind. Ever been in love, Dogson?"
+
+Mr. McCunn was startled. "Love" was a word rarely mentioned in his
+circle except on death-beds. "I've been a married man for thirty years,"
+he said hurriedly.
+
+"That won't do. It should have been a hopeless affair--the last sight of
+the lady on a spur of coast with water on three sides--that kind of
+thing, you know. Or it might have happened to an ancestor.... But you
+don't look the kind of breed for hopeless attachments. More likely some
+scoundrelly old Dogson long ago found sanctuary in this sort of place.
+Do you dream about it?"
+
+"Not exactly."
+
+"Well, I do. The queer thing is that I've got the same prepossession as
+you. As soon as I spotted this Cruives place on the map this morning, I
+saw it was what I was after. When I came in sight of it I almost
+shouted. I don't very often dream, but when I do that's the place I
+frequent. Odd, isn't it?"
+
+Mr. McCunn was deeply interested at this unexpected revelation of
+romance. "Maybe it's being in love," he daringly observed.
+
+The Poet demurred. "No. I'm not a connoisseur of obvious sentiment. That
+explanation might fit your case, but not mine. I'm pretty certain
+there's something hideous at the back of _my_ complex--some grim old
+business tucked away back in the ages. For though I'm attracted by the
+place, I'm frightened too!"
+
+There seemed no room for fear in the delicate landscape now opening
+before them. In front in groves of birch and rowans smoked the first
+houses of a tiny village. The road had become a green "loaning" on the
+ample margin of which cattle grazed. The moorland still showed itself in
+spits of heather, and some distance off, where a rivulet ran in a
+hollow, there were signs of a fire and figures near it. These last Mr.
+Heritage regarded with disapproval.
+
+"Some infernal trippers!" he murmured. "Or Boy Scouts. They desecrate
+everything. Why can't the _tunicatus popellus_ keep away from a paradise
+like this!" Dickson, a democrat who felt nothing incongruous in the
+presence of other holiday-makers, was meditating a sharp rejoinder, when
+Mr. Heritage's tone changed.
+
+"Ye gods! What a village!" he cried, as they turned a corner. There were
+not more than a dozen whitewashed houses, all set in little gardens of
+wallflower and daffodil and early fruit blossom. A triangle of green
+filled the intervening space, and in it stood an ancient wooden pump.
+There was no schoolhouse or kirk; not even a post-office--only a red box
+in a cottage side. Beyond rose the high wall and the dark trees of the
+demesne, and to the right up a by-road which clung to the park edge
+stood a two-storeyed building which bore the legend "The Cruives Inn."
+
+The Poet became lyrical. "At last!" he cried. "The village of my dreams!
+Not a sign of commerce! No church or school or beastly recreation hall!
+Nothing but these divine little cottages and an ancient pub! Dogson, I
+warn you, I'm going to have the devil of a tea." And he declaimed:
+
+             "Thou shalt hear a song
+    After a while which Gods may listen to;
+    But place the flask upon the board and wait
+    Until the stranger hath allayed his thirst,
+    For poets, grasshoppers and nightingales
+    Sing cheerily but when the throat is moist."
+
+Dickson, too, longed with sensual gusto for tea. But, as they drew
+nearer, the inn lost its hospitable look. The cobbles of the yard were
+weedy, as if rarely visited by traffic, a pane in a window was broken,
+and the blinds hung tattered. The garden was a wilderness, and the
+doorstep had not been scoured for weeks. But the place had a landlord,
+for he had seen them approach and was waiting at the door to meet them.
+
+He was a big man in his shirt sleeves, wearing old riding breeches
+unbuttoned at the knees, and thick ploughman's boots. He had no
+leggings, and his fleshy calves were imperfectly covered with woollen
+socks. His face was large and pale, his neck bulged, and he had a gross
+unshaven jowl. He was a type familiar to students of society; not the
+innkeeper, which is a thing consistent with good breeding and all the
+refinements; a type not unknown in the House of Lords, especially among
+recent creations, common enough in the House of Commons and the City of
+London, and by no means infrequent in the governing circles of Labour;
+the type known to the discerning as the Licensed Victualler.
+
+His face was wrinkled in official smiles, and he gave the travellers a
+hearty good afternoon.
+
+"Can we stop here for the night?" Dickson asked.
+
+The landlord looked sharply at him, and then replied to Mr. Heritage.
+His expression passed from official bonhomie to official contrition.
+
+"Impossible, gentlemen. Quite impossible.... Ye couldn't have come at a
+worse time. I've only been here a fortnight myself, and we haven't got
+right shaken down yet. Even then I might have made shift to do with ye,
+but the fact is we've illness in the house, and I'm fair at my wits'
+end. It breaks my heart to turn gentlemen away and me that keen to get
+the business started. But there it is!" He spat vigorously as if to
+emphasise the desperation of his quandary.
+
+The man was clearly Scots, but his native speech was overlaid with
+something alien, something which might have been acquired in America or
+in going down to the sea in ships. He hitched his breeches, too, with a
+nautical air.
+
+"Is there nowhere else we can put up?" Dickson asked.
+
+"Not in this one-horse place. Just a wheen auld wives that packed
+thegether they haven't room for an extra hen. But it's grand weather,
+and it's not above seven miles to Auchenlochan. Say the word and I'll
+yoke the horse and drive ye there."
+
+"Thank you. We prefer to walk," said Mr. Heritage. Dickson would have
+tarried to inquire after the illness in the house, but his companion
+hurried him off. Once he looked back, and saw the landlord still on the
+doorstep gazing after them.
+
+"That fellow's a swine," said Mr. Heritage sourly. "I wouldn't trust my
+neck in his pothouse. Now, Dogson, I'm hanged if I'm going to leave this
+place. We'll find a corner in the village somehow. Besides, I'm
+determined on tea."
+
+The little street slept in the clear pure light of an early April
+evening. Blue shadows lay on the white road, and a delicate aroma of
+cooking tantalised hungry nostrils. The near meadows shone like pale
+gold against the dark lift of the moor. A light wind had begun to blow
+from the west and carried the faintest tang of salt. The village at that
+hour was pure Paradise, and Dickson was of the Poet's opinion. At all
+costs they must spend the night there.
+
+They selected a cottage whiter and neater than the others, which stood
+at a corner, where a narrow lane turned southward. Its thatched roof had
+been lately repaired, and starched curtains of a dazzling whiteness
+decorated the small, closely-shut windows. Likewise it had a green door
+and a polished brass knocker.
+
+Tacitly the duty of envoy was entrusted to Mr. McCunn. Leaving the other
+at the gate, he advanced up the little path lined with quartz stones,
+and politely but firmly dropped the brass knocker. He must have been
+observed, for ere the noise had ceased the door opened, and an elderly
+woman stood before him. She had a sharply-cut face, the rudiments of a
+beard, big spectacles on her nose, and an old-fashioned lace cap on her
+smooth white hair. A little grim she looked at first sight, because of
+her thin lips and Roman nose, but her mild curious eyes corrected the
+impression and gave the envoy confidence.
+
+"Good afternoon, mistress," he said, broadening his voice to something
+more rustical than his normal Glasgow speech. "Me and my friend are
+paying our first visit here, and we're terrible taken up with the place.
+We would like to bide the night, but the inn is no' taking folk. Is
+there any chance, think you, of a bed here?"
+
+"I'll no tell ye a lee," said the woman. "There's twae guid beds in the
+loft. But I dinna tak' lodgers and I dinna want to be bothered wi' ye.
+I'm an auld wumman and no' as stoot as I was. Ye'd better try doun the
+street. Eppie Home micht tak' ye."
+
+Dickson wore his most ingratiating smile. "But, mistress, Eppie Home's
+house is no' yours. We've taken a tremendous fancy to this bit. Can you
+no' manage to put with us for the one night? We're quiet auld-fashioned
+folk and we'll no' trouble you much. Just our tea and maybe an egg to
+it, and a bowl of porridge in the morning."
+
+The woman seemed to relent. "Whaur's your freend?" she asked, peering
+over her spectacles towards the garden gate. The waiting Mr. Heritage,
+seeing her eyes moving in his direction, took off his cap with a brave
+gesture and advanced. "Glorious weather, Madam," he declared.
+
+"English," whispered Dickson to the woman, in explanation.
+
+She examined the Poet's neat clothes and Mr. McCunn's homely garments,
+and apparently found them reassuring. "Come in," she said shortly. "I
+see ye're wilfu' folk and I'll hae to dae my best for ye."
+
+A quarter of an hour later the two travellers, having been introduced to
+two spotless beds in the loft, and having washed luxuriously at the pump
+in the back yard, were seated in Mrs. Morran's kitchen before a meal
+which fulfilled their wildest dreams. She had been baking that morning,
+so there were white scones and barley scones, and oaten farles, and
+russet pancakes. There were three boiled eggs for each of them; there
+was a segment of an immense currant cake ("a present from my guid
+brither last Hogmanay"); there was skim-milk cheese; there were several
+kinds of jam, and there was a pot of dark-gold heather honey. "Try hinny
+and aitcake," said their hostess. "My man used to say he never fund
+onything as guid in a' his days."
+
+Presently they heard her story. Her name was Morran, and she had been a
+widow these ten years. Of her family her son was in South Africa, one
+daughter a lady's maid in London, and the other married to a
+schoolmaster in Kyle. The son had been in France fighting, and had come
+safely through. He had spent a month or two with her before his return,
+and, she feared, had found it dull. "There's no' a man body in the
+place. Naething but auld wives."
+
+That was what the innkeeper had told them. Mr. McCunn inquired
+concerning the inn.
+
+"There's new folk just come. What's this they ca'
+them?--Robson--Dobson--aye, Dobson. What for wad they no' tak' ye in?
+Does the man think he's a laird to refuse folk that gait?"
+
+"He said he had illness in the house."
+
+Mrs. Morran meditated. "Whae in the world can be lyin' there? The man
+bides his lane. He got a lassie frae Auchenlochan to cook, but she and
+her box gaed off in the post-cairt yestreen. I doot he tell't ye a lee,
+though it's no for me to juidge him. I've never spoken a word to ane o'
+thae new folk."
+
+Dickson inquired about the "new folk."
+
+"They're a' new come in the last three weeks, and there's no' a man o'
+the auld stock left. John Blackstocks at the Wast Lodge dee'd o'
+pneumony last back-end, and auld Simon Tappie at the Gairdens flitted to
+Maybole a year come Mairtinmas. There's naebody at the Gairdens noo, but
+there's a man come to the Wast Lodge, a blackavised body wi' a face like
+bend-leather. Tam Robison used to bide at the South Lodge, but Tam got
+killed about Mesopotamy, and his wife took the bairns to her guidsire up
+at the Garpleheid. I seen the man that's in the South Lodge gaun up the
+street when I was finishin' my denner--a shilpit body and a lameter, but
+he hirples as fast as ither folk run. He's no' bonny to look at. I canna
+think what the factor's ettlin' at to let sic' ill-faured chiels come
+about the toun."
+
+Their hostess was rapidly rising in Dickson's esteem. She sat very
+straight in her chair, eating with the careful gentility of a bird, and
+primming her thin lips after every mouthful of tea.
+
+"Who bides in the Big House?" he asked. "Huntingtower is the name, isn't
+it?"
+
+"When I was a lassie they ca'ed it Dalquharter Hoose, and Huntingtower
+was the auld rickle o' stanes at the sea-end. But naething wad serve the
+last laird's faither but he maun change the name, for he was clean daft
+about what they ca' antickities. Ye speir whae bides in the Hoose?
+Naebody, since the young laird dee'd. It's standin' cauld and lanely and
+steikit, and it aince the cheeriest dwallin' in a' Carrick."
+
+Mrs. Morran's tone grew tragic. "It's a queer warld wi'out the auld
+gentry. My faither and my guidsire and his faither afore him served the
+Kennedys, and my man Dauvit Morran was gemkeeper to them, and afore I
+mairried I was ane o' the table-maids. They were kind folk, the
+Kennedys, and, like a' the rale gentry, maist mindfu' o' them that
+served them. Sic' merry nichts I've seen in the auld Hoose, at
+Hallowe'en and Hogmanay, and at the servants' balls and the waddin's o'
+the young leddies! But the laird bode to waste his siller in stane and
+lime, and hadna that much to leave to his bairns. And now they've a'
+scattered or deid."
+
+Her grave face wore the tenderness which comes from affectionate
+reminiscence.
+
+"There was never sic a laddie as young Maister Quentin. No' a week gaed
+by but he was in here, cryin', 'Phemie Morran, I've come till my tea!'
+Fine he likit my treacle scones, puir man. There wasna ane in the
+countryside sae bauld a rider at the hunt, or sic a skeely fisher. And
+he was clever at his books tae, a graund scholar, they said, and ettlin'
+at bein' what they ca' a dipplemat. But that's a' bye wi'."
+
+"Quentin Kennedy--the fellow in the Tins?" Heritage asked. "I saw him in
+Rome when he was with the Mission."
+
+"I dinna ken. He was a brave sodger, but he wasna long fechtin' in
+France till he got a bullet in his breist. Syne we heard tell o' him in
+far awa' bits like Russia; and syne cam' the end o' the war and we
+lookit to see him back, fishin' the waters and ridin' like Jehu as in
+the auld days. But wae's me! It wasna permitted. The next news we got,
+the puir laddie was deid o' influenzy and buried somewhere about France.
+The wanchancy bullet maun have weakened his chest, nae doot. So that's
+the end o' the guid stock o' Kennedy o' Huntingtower, whae hae been
+great folk sin' the time o' Robert Bruce. And noo the Hoose is shut up
+till the lawyers can get somebody sae far left to himsel' as to tak' it
+on lease, and in thae dear days it's no' just onybody that wants a
+muckle castle."
+
+"Who are the lawyers?" Dickson asked.
+
+"Glendonan and Speirs in Embro. But they never look near the place, and
+Maister Loudoun in Auchenlochan does the factorin'. He's let the public
+an' filled the twae lodges, and he'll be thinkin' nae doot that he's
+done eneuch."
+
+Mrs. Morran had poured some hot water into the big slop-bowl, and had
+begun the operation known as "synding out" the cups. It was a hint that
+the meal was over and Dickson and Heritage rose from the table. Followed
+by an injunction to be back for supper "on the chap o' nine," they
+strolled out into the evening. Two hours of some sort of daylight
+remained, and the travellers had that impulse to activity which comes to
+all men who, after a day of exercise and emptiness, are stayed with a
+satisfying tea.
+
+"You should be happy, Dogson," said the Poet. "Here we have all the
+materials for your blessed romance--old mansion, extinct family, village
+deserted of men and an innkeeper whom I suspect of being a villain. I
+feel almost a convert to your nonsense myself. We'll have a look at the
+House."
+
+They turned down the road which ran north by the park wall, past the inn
+which looked more abandoned than ever, till they came to an entrance
+which was clearly the West Lodge. It had once been a pretty, modish
+cottage, with a thatched roof and dormer windows, but now it was badly
+in need of repair. A window-pane was broken and stuffed with a sack, the
+posts of the porch were giving inwards, and the thatch was crumbling
+under the attentions of a colony of starlings. The great iron gates were
+rusty, and on the coat of arms above them the gilding was patchy and
+tarnished.
+
+Apparently the gates were locked, and even the side wicket failed to
+open to Heritage's vigorous shaking. Inside a weedy drive disappeared
+among ragged rhododendrons.
+
+The noise brought a man to the lodge door. He was a sturdy fellow in a
+suit of black clothes which had not been made for him. He might have
+been a butler _en deshabille_, but for the presence of a pair of field
+boots into which he had tucked the ends of his trousers. The curious
+thing about him was his face, which was decorated with features so tiny
+as to give the impression of a monstrous child. Each in itself was well
+enough formed, but eyes, nose, mouth, chin were of a smallness curiously
+out of proportion to the head and body. Such an anomaly might have been
+redeemed by the expression; good-humour would have invested it with an
+air of agreeable farce. But there was no friendliness in the man's face.
+It was set like a judge's in a stony impassiveness.
+
+"May we walk up to the House?" Heritage asked. "We are here for a night
+and should like to have a look at it."
+
+The man advanced a step. He had either a bad cold, or a voice comparable
+in size to his features.
+
+"There's no entrance here," he said huskily. "I have strict orders."
+
+"Oh, come now," said Heritage. "It can do nobody any harm if you let us
+in for half an hour."
+
+The man advanced another step.
+
+"You shall not come in. Go away from here. Go away, I tell you. It is
+private." The words spoken by the small mouth in the small voice had a
+kind of childish ferocity.
+
+The travellers turned their back on him and continued their way.
+
+"Sich a curmudgeon!" Dickson commented. His face had flushed, for he was
+susceptible to rudeness. "Did you notice? That man's a foreigner."
+
+"He's a brute," said Heritage. "But I'm not going to be done in by that
+class of lad. There can be no gates on the sea side, so we'll work round
+that way, for I won't sleep till I've seen the place."
+
+Presently the trees grew thinner, and the road plunged through thickets
+of hazel till it came to a sudden stop in a field. There the cover
+ceased wholly, and below them lay the glen of the Laver. Steep green
+banks descended to a stream which swept in coils of gold into the eye of
+the sunset. A little further down the channel broadened, the slopes fell
+back a little, and a tongue of glittering sea ran up to meet the hill
+waters. The Laver is a gentle stream after it leaves its cradle heights,
+a stream of clear pools and long bright shallows, winding by moorland
+steadings and upland meadows; but in its last half-mile it goes mad, and
+imitates its childhood when it tumbled over granite shelves. Down in
+that green place the crystal water gushed and frolicked as if determined
+on one hour of rapturous life before joining the sedater sea.
+
+Heritage flung himself on the turf.
+
+"This is a good place! Ye gods, what a good place! Dogson, aren't you
+glad you came? I think everything's bewitched to-night. That village is
+bewitched, and that old woman's tea. Good white magic! And that foul
+innkeeper and that brigand at the gate. Black magic! And now here is the
+home of all enchantment--'island valley of Avilion'--'waters that
+listen for lovers'--all the rest of it!"
+
+Dickson observed and marvelled.
+
+"I can't make you out, Mr. Heritage. You were saying last night you were
+a great democrat, and yet you were objecting to yon laddies camping on
+the moor. And you very near bit the neb off me when I said I liked
+Tennyson. And now...." Mr. McCunn's command of language was inadequate
+to describe the transformation.
+
+"You're a precise, pragmatical Scot," was the answer. "Hang it, man,
+don't remind me that I'm inconsistent. I've a poet's licence to play the
+fool, and if you don't understand me, I don't in the least understand
+myself. All I know is that I'm feeling young and jolly and that it's the
+Spring."
+
+Mr. Heritage was assuredly in a strange mood. He began to whistle with a
+far-away look in his eye.
+
+"Do you know what that is?" he asked suddenly.
+
+Dickson, who could not detect any tune, said No.
+
+"It's an _aria_ from a Russian opera that came out just before the war.
+I've forgotten the name of the fellow who wrote it. Jolly thing, isn't
+it? I always remind myself of it when I'm in this mood, for it is linked
+with the greatest experience of my life. You said, I think, that you had
+never been in love?"
+
+Dickson replied in the native fashion. "Have you?" he asked.
+
+"I have, and I am--been for two years. I was down with my battalion on
+the Italian front early in 1918, and because I could speak the language
+they hoicked me out and sent me to Rome on a liaison job. It was Easter
+time and fine weather and, being glad to get out of the trenches, I was
+pretty well pleased with myself and enjoying life.... In the place where
+I stayed there was a girl. She was a Russian, a princess of a great
+family, but a refugee and of course as poor as sin.... I remember how
+badly dressed she was among all the well-to-do Romans. But, my God, what
+a beauty! There was never anything in the world like her.... She was
+little more than a child, and she used to sing that air in the morning
+as she went down the stairs.... They sent me back to the front before I
+had a chance of getting to know her, but she used to give me little
+timid good mornings, and her voice and eyes were like an angel's.... I'm
+over my head in love, but it's hopeless, quite hopeless. I shall never
+see her again."
+
+"I'm sure I'm honoured by your confidence," said Dickson reverently.
+
+The Poet, who seemed to draw exhilaration from the memory of his
+sorrows, arose and fetched him a clout on the back. "Don't talk of
+confidence as if you were a reporter," he said. "What about that House?
+If we're to see it before the dark comes we'd better hustle."
+
+The green slopes on their left, as they ran seaward, were clothed
+towards their summit with a tangle of broom and light scrub. The two
+forced their way through this, and found to their surprise that on this
+side there were no defences of the Huntingtower demesne. Along the crest
+ran a path which had once been gravelled and trimmed. Beyond through a
+thicket of laurels and rhododendrons they came on a long unkempt aisle
+of grass, which seemed to be one of those side avenues often found in
+connection with old Scots dwellings. Keeping along this they reached a
+grove of beech and holly through which showed a dim shape of masonry. By
+a common impulse they moved stealthily, crouching in cover, till at the
+far side of the wood they found a sunk fence and looked over an acre or
+two of what had once been lawn and flower-beds to the front of the
+mansion.
+
+The outline of the building was clearly silhouetted against the glowing
+west, but since they were looking at the east face the detail was all in
+shadow. But, dim as it was, the sight was enough to give Dickson the
+surprise of his life. He had expected something old and baronial. But
+this was new, raw and new, not twenty years built. Some madness had
+prompted its creator to set up a replica of a Tudor house in a
+countryside where the thing was unheard of. All the tricks were
+there--oriel windows, lozenged panes, high twisted chimney stacks; the
+very stone was red, as if to imitate the mellow brick of some ancient
+Kentish manor. It was new, but it was also decaying. The creepers had
+fallen from the walls, the pilasters on the terrace were tumbling down,
+lichen and moss were on the doorsteps. Shuttered, silent, abandoned, it
+stood like a harsh _memento mori_ of human hopes.
+
+Dickson had never before been affected by an inanimate thing with so
+strong a sense of disquiet. He had pictured an old stone tower on a
+bright headland; he found instead this raw thing among trees. The
+decadence of the brand-new repels as something against nature, and this
+new thing was decadent. But there was a mysterious life in it, for
+though not a chimney smoked, it seemed to enshrine a personality and to
+wear a sinister _aura_. He felt a lively distaste, which was almost
+fear. He wanted to get far away from it as fast as possible. The sun,
+now sinking very low, sent up rays which kindled the crests of a group
+of firs to the left of the front door. He had the absurd fancy that they
+were torches flaming before a bier.
+
+It was well that the two had moved quietly and kept in shadow. Footsteps
+fell on their ears, on the path which threaded the lawn just beyond the
+sunk-fence. It was the keeper of the West Lodge and he carried something
+on his back, but both that and his face were indistinct in the
+half-light.
+
+Other footsteps were heard, coming from the other side of the lawn. A
+man's shod feet rang on the stone of a flagged path, and from their
+irregular fall it was plain that he was lame. The two men met near the
+door, and spoke together. Then they separated, and moved one down each
+side of the house. To the two watchers they had the air of a patrol, or
+of warders pacing the corridors of a prison.
+
+"Let's get out of this," said Dickson, and turned to go.
+
+The air had the curious stillness which precedes the moment of sunset,
+when the birds of day have stopped their noises and the sounds of night
+have not begun. But suddenly in the silence fell notes of music. They
+seemed to come from the house, a voice singing softly but with great
+beauty and clearness.
+
+Dickson halted in his steps. The tune, whatever it was, was like a fresh
+wind to blow aside his depression. The house no longer looked
+sepulchral. He saw that the two men had hurried back from their patrol,
+had met and exchanged some message, and made off again as if alarmed by
+the music. Then he noticed his companion....
+
+Heritage was on one knee with his face rapt and listening. He got to his
+feet and appeared to be about to make for the House. Dickson caught him
+by the arm and dragged him into the bushes, and he followed
+unresistingly, like a man in a dream. They ploughed through the thicket,
+recrossed the grass avenue, and scrambled down the hillside to the banks
+of the stream.
+
+Then for the first time Dickson observed that his companion's face was
+very white, and that sweat stood on his temples. Heritage lay down and
+lapped up water like a dog. Then he turned a wild eye on the other.
+
+"I am going back," he said. "That is the voice of the girl I saw in
+Rome, and it is singing her song!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DOUGAL
+
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Dickson. "You're coming home to
+your supper. It was to be on the chap of nine."
+
+"I'm going back to that place."
+
+The man was clearly demented and must be humoured. "Well, you must wait
+till the morn's morning. It's very near dark now, and those are two ugly
+customers wandering about yonder. You'd better sleep the night on it."
+
+Mr. Heritage seemed to be persuaded. He suffered himself to be led up
+the now dusky slopes to the gate where the road from the village ended.
+He walked listlessly like a man engaged in painful reflection. Once only
+he broke the silence.
+
+"You heard the singing?" he asked.
+
+Dickson was a very poor hand at a lie. "I heard something," he admitted.
+
+"You heard a girl's voice singing?"
+
+"It sounded like that," was the admission. "But I'm thinking it might
+have been a seagull."
+
+"You're a fool," said the Poet rudely.
+
+The return was a melancholy business, compared to the bright speed of
+the outward journey. Dickson's mind was a chaos of feelings, all of them
+unpleasant. He had run up against something which he violently, blindly
+detested, and the trouble was that he could not tell why. It was all
+perfectly absurd, for why on earth should an ugly house, some overgrown
+trees and a couple of ill-favoured servants so malignly affect him? Yet
+this was the fact; he had strayed out of Arcady into a sphere that
+filled him with revolt and a nameless fear. Never in his experience had
+he felt like this, this foolish childish panic which took all the colour
+and zest out of life. He tried to laugh at himself but failed. Heritage,
+stumbling alone by his side, effectually crushed his effort to discover
+humour in the situation. Some exhalation from that infernal place had
+driven the Poet mad. And then that voice singing! A seagull, he had
+said. More like a nightingale, he reflected--a bird which in the flesh
+he had never met.
+
+Mrs. Morran had the lamp lit and a fire burning in her cheerful kitchen.
+The sight of it somewhat restored Dickson's equanimity, and to his
+surprise he found that he had an appetite for supper. There was new
+milk, thick with cream, and most of the dainties which had appeared at
+tea, supplemented by a noble dish of shimmering "potted-head." The
+hostess did not share their meal, being engaged in some duties in the
+little cubby-hole known as the back kitchen.
+
+Heritage drank a glass of milk but would not touch food.
+
+"I called this place Paradise four hours ago," he said. "So it is, but I
+fancy it is next door to Hell. There is something devilish going on
+inside that park wall and I mean to get to the bottom of it."
+
+"Hoots! Nonsense!" Dickson replied with affected cheerfulness.
+"To-morrow you and me will take the road for Auchenlochan. We needn't
+trouble ourselves about an ugly old house and a wheen impident
+lodge-keepers."
+
+"To-morrow I'm going to get inside the place. Don't come unless you
+like, but it's no use arguing with me. My mind is made up."
+
+Heritage cleared a space on the table and spread out a section of a
+large-scale Ordnance map.
+
+"I must clear my head about the topography, the same as if this were a
+battle-ground. Look here, Dogson.... The road past the inn that we went
+by to-night runs north and south." He tore a page from a note-book and
+proceeded to make a rough sketch.[1]... "One end we know abuts on the
+Laver glen, and the other stops at the South Lodge. Inside the wall
+which follows the road is a long belt of plantation--mostly beeches and
+ash--then to the west a kind of park, and beyond that the lawns of the
+house. Strips of plantation with avenues between follow the north and
+south sides of the park. On the sea side of the House are the stables
+and what looks like a walled garden, and beyond them what seems to be
+open ground with an old dovecot marked and the ruins of Huntingtower
+keep. Beyond that there is more open ground, till you come to the cliffs
+of the cape. Have you got that?... It looks possible from the contouring
+to get on to the sea cliffs by following the Laver, for all that side
+is broken up into ravines.... But look at the other side--the Garple
+glen. It's evidently a deep-cut gully, and at the bottom it opens out
+into a little harbour. There's deep water there, you observe. Now the
+House on the south side--the Garple side--is built fairly close to the
+edge of the cliffs. Is that all clear in your head? We can't reconnoitre
+unless we've got a working notion of the lie of the land."
+
+[Footnote 1: The reader is referred to the improved version of Mr.
+Heritage's sketch reproduced as a frontispiece.]
+
+Dickson was about to protest that he had no intention of reconnoitring,
+when a hubbub arose in the back kitchen. Mrs. Morran's voice was heard
+in shrill protest.
+
+"Ye ill laddie! Eh--ye--ill--laddie! [_crescendo_] Makin' a hash o' my
+back door wi' your dirty feet! What are ye slinkin' roond here for, when
+I tell't ye this mornin' that I wad sell ye nae mair scones till ye paid
+for the last lot? Ye're a wheen thievin' hungry callants, and if there
+were a polisman in the place I'd gie ye in chairge.... What's that ye
+say? Ye're no' wantin' meat? Ye want to speak to the gentlemen that's
+bidin' here? Ye ken the auld ane, says you? I believe it's a muckle lee,
+but there's the gentlemen to answer ye theirsels."
+
+Mrs. Morran, brandishing a dishclout dramatically, flung open the door,
+and with a vigorous push propelled into the kitchen a singular figure.
+
+It was a stunted boy, who from his face might have been fifteen years
+old, but had the stature of a child of twelve. He had a thatch of fiery
+red hair above a pale freckled countenance. His nose was snub, his eyes
+a sulky grey-green, and his wide mouth disclosed large and damaged
+teeth. But remarkable as was his visage, his clothing was still
+stranger. On his head was the regulation Boy Scout hat, but it was
+several sizes too big, and was squashed down upon his immense red ears.
+He wore a very ancient khaki shirt, which had once belonged to a
+full-grown soldier, and the spacious sleeves were rolled up at the
+shoulders and tied with string, revealing a pair of skinny arms. Round
+his middle hung what was meant to be a kilt--a kilt of home manufacture,
+which may once have been a tablecloth, for its bold pattern suggested no
+known clan tartan. He had a massive belt, in which was stuck a broken
+gully-knife, and round his neck was knotted the remnant of what had once
+been a silk bandana. His legs and feet were bare, blue, scratched, and
+very dirty, and his toes had the prehensile look common to monkeys and
+small boys who summer and winter go bootless. In his hand was a long
+ash-pole, new cut from some coppice.
+
+The apparition stood glum and lowering on the kitchen floor. As Dickson
+stared at it he recalled Mearns Street and the band of irregular Boy
+Scouts who paraded to the roll of tin cans. Before him stood Dougal,
+Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards. Suddenly he remembered the
+philanthropic Mackintosh, and his own subscription of ten pounds to the
+camp fund. It pleased him to find the rascals here, for in the
+unpleasant affairs on the verge of which he felt himself they were a
+comforting reminder of the peace of home.
+
+"I'm glad to see you, Dougal," he said pleasantly. "How are you all
+getting on?" And then, with a vague reminiscence of the Scouts'
+code--"Have you been minding to perform a good deed every day?"
+
+The Chieftain's brow darkened.
+
+"'_Good deeds!_'" he repeated bitterly. "I tell ye I'm fair wore out wi'
+good deeds. Yon man Mackintosh tell't me this was going to be a grand
+holiday. Holiday! Govey Dick! It's been like a Setterday night in Main
+Street--a' fechtin', fechtin'."
+
+No collocation of letters could reproduce Dougal's accent, and I will
+not attempt it. There was a touch of Irish in it, a spice of music-hall
+patter, as well as the odd lilt of the Glasgow vernacular. He was strong
+in vowels, but the consonants, especially the letter "t," were only
+aspirations.
+
+"Sit down and let's hear about things," said Dickson.
+
+The boy turned his head to the still open back door, where Mrs. Morran
+could be heard at her labours. He stepped across and shut it. "I'm no'
+wantin' that auld wife to hear," he said. Then he squatted down on the
+patchwork rug by the hearth, and warmed his blue-black shins. Looking
+into the glow of the fire, he observed, "I seen you two up by the Big
+Hoose the night."
+
+"The devil you did," said Heritage, roused to a sudden attention. "And
+where were you?"
+
+"Seven feet from your head, up a tree. It's my chief hidy-hole, and
+Gosh! I need one, for Lean's after me wi' a gun. He got a shot at me
+two days syne."
+
+Dickson exclaimed, and Dougal with morose pride showed a rent in his
+kilt. "If I had had on breeks, he'd ha' got me."
+
+"Who's Lean?" Heritage asked.
+
+"The man wi' the black coat. The other--the lame one--they ca' Spittal."
+
+"How d'you know?"
+
+"I've listened to them crackin' thegither."
+
+"But what for did the man want to shoot at you?" asked the scandalised
+Dickson.
+
+"What for? Because they're frightened to death o' onybody going near
+their auld Hoose. They're a pair of deevils, worse nor any Red Indian,
+but for a' that they're sweatin' wi' fright. What for? says you. Because
+they're hidin' a Secret. I knew it as soon as I seen the man Lean's
+face. I once seen the same kind o' scoondrel at the Picters. When he
+opened his mouth to swear, I kenned he was a foreigner, like the lads
+down at the Broomielaw. That looked black, but I hadn't got at the worst
+of it. Then he loosed off at me wi' his gun."
+
+"Were you not feared?" said Dickson.
+
+"Ay, I was feared. But ye'll no' choke off the Gorbals Die-Hards wi' a
+gun. We held a meetin' round the camp fire, and we resolved to get to
+the bottom o' the business. Me bein' their Chief, it was my duty to make
+what they ca' a reckonissince, for that was the dangerous job. So a'
+this day I've been going on my belly about thae policies. I've found
+out some queer things."
+
+Heritage had risen and was staring down at the small squatting figure.
+
+"What have you found out? Quick. Tell me at once." His voice was sharp
+and excited.
+
+"Bide a wee," said the unwinking Dougal. "I'm no' going to let ye into
+this business till I ken that ye'll help. It's a far bigger job than I
+thought. There's more in it than Lean and Spittal. There's the big man
+that keeps the public--Dobson, they ca' him. He's a Namerican, which
+looks bad. And there's two-three tinklers campin' down in the Garple
+Dean. They're in it, for Dobson was colloguin' wi' them a' mornin'. When
+I seen ye, I thought ye were more o' the gang, till I mindit that one o'
+ye was auld McCunn that has the shop in Mearns Street. I seen that ye
+didn't like the look o' Lean, and I followed ye here, for I was thinkin'
+I needit help."
+
+Heritage plucked Dougal by the shoulder and lifted him to his feet.
+
+"For God's sake, boy," he cried, "tell us what you know!"
+
+"Will ye help?"
+
+"Of course, you little fool."
+
+"Then swear," said the ritualist. From a grimy wallet he extracted a
+limp little volume which proved to be a damaged copy of a work entitled
+_Sacred Songs and Solos_. "Here! Take that in your right hand and put
+your left hand on my pole, and say after me, 'I swear no' to blab what
+is telled me in secret and to be swift and sure in obeyin' orders,
+s'help me God!' Syne kiss the bookie."
+
+Dickson at first refused, declaring it was all havers, but Heritage's
+docility persuaded him to follow suit. The two were sworn.
+
+"Now," said Heritage.
+
+Dougal squatted again on the hearth-rug, and gathered the eyes of his
+audience. He was enjoying himself.
+
+"This day," he said slowly, "I got inside the Hoose."
+
+"Stout fellow," said Heritage; "and what did you find there?"
+
+"I got inside that Hoose, but it wasn't once or twice I tried. I found a
+corner where I was out o' sight o' anybody unless they had come there
+seekin' me, and I sklimmed up a rone pipe, but a' the windies were
+lockit and I verra near broke my neck. Syne I tried the roof, and a sore
+sklim I had, but when I got there there were no skylights. At the end I
+got in by the coal-hole. That's why ye're maybe thinkin' I'm no' very
+clean."
+
+Heritage's patience was nearly exhausted.
+
+"I don't want to hear how you got in. What did you find, you little
+devil?"
+
+"Inside the Hoose," said Dougal slowly (and there was a melancholy sense
+of anti-climax in his voice, as of one who had hoped to speak of gold
+and jewels and armed men)--"inside that Hoose there's nothing but two
+women."
+
+Heritage sat down before him with a stern face.
+
+"Describe them," he commanded.
+
+"One o' them is dead auld, as auld as the wife here. She didn't look to
+me very right in the head."
+
+"And the other?"
+
+"Oh, just a lassie."
+
+"What was she like?"
+
+Dougal seemed to be searching for adequate words. "She is ..." he began.
+Then a popular song gave him inspiration. "She's pure as the lully in
+the dell!"
+
+In no way discomposed by Heritage's fierce interrogatory air, he
+continued: "She's either foreign or English, for she couldn't understand
+what I said, and I could make nothing o' her clippit tongue. But I could
+see she had been greetin'. She looked feared, yet kind o' determined. I
+speired if I could do anything for her, and when she got my meaning she
+was terrible anxious to ken if I had seen a man--a big man, she said,
+wi' a yellow beard. She didn't seem to ken his name, or else she
+wouldn't tell me. The auld wife was mortal feared, and was aye speakin'
+in a foreign langwidge. I seen at once that what frightened them was
+Lean and his friends, and I was just starting to speir about them when
+there came a sound like a man walkin' along the passage. She was for
+hidin' me in behind a sofy, but I wasn't going to be trapped like that,
+so I got out by the other door and down the kitchen stairs and into the
+coal-hole. Gosh, it was a near thing!"
+
+The boy was on his feet. "I must be off to the camp to give out the
+orders for the morn. I'm going back to that Hoose, for it's a fight
+atween the Gorbals Die-Hards and the scoundrels that are frightenin'
+thae women. The question is, Are ye comin' with me? Mind, ye've sworn.
+But if ye're no', I'm going mysel', though I'll no' deny I'd be glad o'
+company. _You_ anyway----" he added, nodding at Heritage. "Maybe auld
+McCunn wouldn't get through the coal-hole."
+
+"You're an impident laddie," said the outraged Dickson. "It's no' likely
+we're coming with you. Breaking into other folks' houses! It's a job for
+the police!"
+
+"Please yersel'," said the Chieftain and looked at Heritage.
+
+"I'm on," said that gentleman.
+
+"Well, just you set out the morn as if ye were for a walk up the Garple
+glen. I'll be on the road and I'll have orders for ye."
+
+Without more ado Dougal left by way of the back kitchen. There was a
+brief denunciation from Mrs. Morran, then the outer door banged and he
+was gone.
+
+The Poet sat still with his head in his hands, while Dickson, acutely
+uneasy, prowled about the floor. He had forgotten even to light his
+pipe.
+
+"You'll not be thinking of heeding that ragamuffin boy," he ventured.
+
+"I'm certainly going to get into the House to-morrow," Heritage
+answered, "and if he can show me a way so much the better. He's a
+spirited youth. Do you breed many like him in Glasgow?"
+
+"Plenty," said Dickson sourly. "See here, Mr. Heritage. You can't
+expect me to be going about burgling houses on the word of a blagyird
+laddie. I'm a respectable man--aye been. Besides, I'm here for a
+holiday, and I've no call to be mixing myself up in strangers' affairs."
+
+"You haven't. Only, you see, I think there's a friend of mine in that
+place, and anyhow there are women in trouble. If you like, we'll say
+good-bye after breakfast, and you can continue as if you had never
+turned aside to this damned peninsula. But I've got to stay."
+
+Dickson groaned. What had become of his dream of idylls, his gentle
+bookish romance? Vanished before a reality which smacked horribly of
+crude melodrama and possibly of sordid crime. His gorge rose at the
+picture, but a thought troubled him. Perhaps all romance in its hour of
+happening was rough and ugly like this, and only shone rosy in the
+retrospect. Was he being false to his deepest faith?
+
+"Let's have Mrs. Morran in," he ventured. "She's a wise old body and I'd
+like to hear her opinion of this business. We'll get common sense from
+her."
+
+"I don't object," said Heritage. "But no amount of common sense will
+change my mind."
+
+Their hostess forestalled them by returning at that moment to the
+kitchen.
+
+"We want your advice, mistress," Dickson told her, and accordingly, like
+a barrister with a client, she seated herself carefully in the big easy
+chair, found and adjusted her spectacles, and waited with hands folded
+on her lap to hear the business. Dickson narrated their pre-supper
+doings, and gave a sketch of Dougal's evidence. His exposition was
+cautious and colourless, and without conviction. He seemed to expect a
+robust incredulity in his hearer.
+
+Mrs. Morran listened with the gravity of one in church. When Dickson
+finished she seemed to meditate.
+
+"There's no blagyird trick that would surprise me in thae new folk.
+What's that ye ca' them--Lean and Spittal? Eppie Home threepit to me
+they were furriners and these are no furrin names."
+
+"What I want to hear from you, Mrs. Morran," said Dickson impressively,
+"is whether you think there's anything in that boy's story?"
+
+"I think it's maist likely true. He's a terrible impident callant, but
+he's no' a leear."
+
+"Then you think that a gang of ruffians have got two lone women shut up
+in that House for their own purposes?"
+
+"I wadna wonder."
+
+"But it's ridiculous! This is a Christian and law-abiding country. What
+would the police say?"
+
+"They never troubled Dalquharter muckle. There's no' a polisman nearer
+than Knockraw--yin Johnnie Trummle, and he's as useless as a frostit
+tattie."
+
+"The wiselike thing, as I think," said Dickson, "would be to turn the
+Procurator-Fiscal on to the job. It's his business, no' ours."
+
+"Weel, I wadna say but ye're richt," said the lady.
+
+"What would you do if you were us?" Dickson's tone was subtly
+confidential. "My friend here wants to get into the House the morn with
+that red-haired laddie to satisfy himself about the facts. I say no. Let
+sleeping dogs lie, I say, and if you think the beasts are mad report to
+the authorities. What would you do yourself?"
+
+"If I were you," came the emphatic reply, "I would tak' the first train
+hame the morn, and when I got hame I wad bide there. Ye're a dacent
+body, but ye're no' the kind to be traivellin' the roads."
+
+"And if you were me?" Heritage asked with his queer crooked smile.
+
+"If I was a young and yauld like you I wad gang into the Hoose, and I
+wadna rest till I had riddled oot the truith and jyled every scoondrel
+about the place. If ye dinna gang, 'faith I'll kilt my coats and gang
+mysel'. I havena served the Kennedys for forty year no' to hae the
+honour o' the Hoose at my hert.... Ye speired my advice, sirs, and ye've
+gotten it. Now I maun clear awa' your supper."
+
+Dickson asked for a candle, and, as on the previous night, went abruptly
+to bed. The oracle of prudence to which he had appealed had betrayed him
+and counselled folly. But was it folly? For him, assuredly, for Dickson
+McCunn, late of Mearns Street, Glasgow, wholesale and retail provision
+merchant, elder in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, and fifty-five years of
+age. Ay, that was the rub. He was getting old. The woman had seen it and
+had advised him to go home. Yet the plea was curiously irksome, though
+it gave him the excuse he needed. If you played at being young, you had
+to take up the obligations of youth, and he thought derisively of his
+boyish exhilaration of the past days. Derisively, but also sadly. What
+had become of that innocent joviality he had dreamed of, that happy
+morning pilgrimage of Spring enlivened by tags from the poets? His
+goddess had played him false. Romance had put upon him too hard a trial.
+
+He lay long awake, torn between common sense and a desire to be loyal to
+some vague whimsical standard. Heritage a yard distant appeared also to
+be sleepless, for the bed creaked with his turning. Dickson found
+himself envying one whose troubles, whatever they might be, were not
+those of a divided mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OF THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER
+
+
+Very early next morning, while Mrs. Morran was still cooking breakfast,
+Dickson and Heritage might have been observed taking the air in the
+village street. It was the Poet who had insisted upon this walk, and he
+had his own purpose. They looked at the spires of smoke piercing the
+windless air, and studied the daffodils in the cottage gardens. Dickson
+was glum, but Heritage seemed in high spirits. He varied his garrulity
+with spells of cheerful whistling.
+
+They strode along the road by the park wall till they reached the inn.
+There Heritage's music waxed peculiarly loud. Presently from the yard,
+unshaven and looking as if he had slept in his clothes, came Dobson the
+innkeeper.
+
+"Good morning," said the Poet. "I hope the sickness in your house is on
+the mend?"
+
+"Thank ye, it's no worse," was the reply, but in the man's heavy face
+there was little civility. His small grey eyes searched their faces.
+
+"We're just waiting on breakfast to get on the road again. I'm jolly
+glad we spent the night here. We found quarters after all, you know."
+
+"So I see. Whereabouts, may I ask?"
+
+"Mrs. Morran's. We could always have got in there, but we didn't want
+to fuss an old lady, so we thought we'd try the inn first. She's my
+friend's aunt."
+
+At this amazing falsehood Dickson started, and the man observed his
+surprise. The eyes were turned on him like a searchlight. They roused
+antagonism in his peaceful soul, and with that antagonism came an
+impulse to back up the Poet. "Ay," he said, "she's my Auntie Phemie, my
+mother's half-sister."
+
+The man turned on Heritage.
+
+"Where are ye for the day?"
+
+"Auchenlochan," said Dickson hastily. He was still determined to shake
+the dust of Dalquharter from his feet.
+
+The innkeeper sensibly brightened. "Well, ye'll have a fine walk. I must
+go in and see about my own breakfast. Good day to ye, gentlemen."
+
+"That," said Heritage as they entered the village street again, "is the
+first step in camouflage, to put the enemy off his guard."
+
+"It was an abominable lie," said Dickson crossly.
+
+"Not at all. It was a necessary and proper _ruse de guerre_. It
+explained why we spent the night here, and now Dobson and his friends
+can get about their day's work with an easy mind. Their suspicions are
+temporarily allayed, and that will make our job easier."
+
+"I'm not coming with you."
+
+"I never said you were. By 'we' I refer to myself and the red-headed
+boy."
+
+"Mistress, you're my auntie," Dickson informed Mrs. Morran as she set
+the porridge on the table. "This gentleman has just been telling the man
+at the inn that you're my Auntie Phemie."
+
+For a second their hostess looked bewildered. Then the corners of her
+prim mouth moved upwards in a slow smile.
+
+"I see," she said. "Weel, maybe it was weel done. But if ye're my nevoy
+ye'll hae to keep up my credit, for we're a bauld and siccar lot."
+
+Half an hour later there was a furious dissension when Dickson attempted
+to pay for the night's entertainment. Mrs. Morran would have none of it.
+"Ye're no' awa' yet," she said tartly, and the matter was complicated by
+Heritage's refusal to take part in the debate. He stood aside and
+grinned, till Dickson in despair returned his note-case to his pocket,
+murmuring darkly that "he would send it from Glasgow."
+
+The road to Auchenlochan left the main village street at right angles by
+the side of Mrs. Morran's cottage. It was a better road than that which
+they had come yesterday, for by it twice daily the post-cart travelled
+to the post-town. It ran on the edge of the moor and on the lip of the
+Garple glen, till it crossed that stream and, keeping near the coast,
+emerged after five miles into the cultivated flats of the Lochan valley.
+The morning was fine, the keen air invited to high spirits, plovers
+piped entrancingly over the bent and linnets sang in the whins, there
+was a solid breakfast behind him, and the promise of a cheerful road
+till luncheon. The stage was set for good humour, but Dickson's heart,
+which should have been ascending with the larks, stuck leadenly in his
+boots. He was not even relieved at putting Dalquharter behind him. The
+atmosphere of that unhallowed place lay still on his soul. He hated it,
+but he hated himself more. Here was one, who had hugged himself all his
+days as an adventurer waiting his chance, running away at the first
+challenge of adventure; a lover of Romance who fled from the earliest
+overture of his goddess. He was ashamed and angry, but what else was
+there to do? Burglary in the company of a queer poet and a queerer
+urchin? It was unthinkable.
+
+Presently as they tramped silently on they came to the bridge beneath
+which the peaty waters of the Garple ran in porter-coloured pools and
+tawny cascades. From a clump of elders on the other side Dougal emerged.
+A barefoot boy, dressed in much the same parody of a Boy Scout's
+uniform, but with corduroy shorts instead of a kilt, stood before him at
+rigid attention. Some command was issued, the child saluted, and trotted
+back past the travellers with never a look at them. Discipline was
+strong among the Gorbals Die-Hards; no Chief of Staff ever conversed
+with his General under a stricter etiquette.
+
+Dougal received the travellers with the condescension of a regular
+towards civilians.
+
+"They're off their gawrd," he announced. "Thomas Yownie has been
+shadowin' them since skreigh o' day, and he reports that Dobson and Lean
+followed ye till ye were out o' sight o' the houses, and syne Lean got a
+spy-glass and watched ye till the road turned in among the trees. That
+satisfied them, and they're both away back to their jobs. Thomas
+Yownie's the fell yin. Ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+Dougal extricated from his pouch the fag of a cigarette, lit it and
+puffed meditatively. "I did a reckonissince mysel' this morning. I was
+up at the Hoose afore it was light, and tried the door o' the coal-hole.
+I doot they've gotten on our tracks, for it was lockit--ay, and wedged
+from the inside."
+
+Dickson brightened. Was the insane venture off?
+
+"For a wee bit I was fair beat. But I mindit that the lassie was allowed
+to walk in a kind o' a glass hoose on the side farthest away from the
+Garple. That was where she was singin' yest'reen. So I reckonissinced in
+that direction, and I fund a queer place." _Sacred Songs and Solos_ was
+requisitioned, and on a page of it Dougal proceeded to make marks with
+the stump of a carpenter's pencil. "See here," he commanded. "There's
+the glass place wi' a door into the Hoose. That door must be open or the
+lassie must have the key, for she comes there whenever she likes. Now,
+at each end o' the place the doors are lockit, but the front that looks
+on the garden is open, wi' muckle posts and flower-pots. The trouble is
+that that side there's maybe twenty feet o' a wall between the pawrapet
+and the ground. It's an auld wall wi' cracks and holes in it, and it
+wouldn't be ill to sklim. That's why they let her gang there when she
+wants, for a lassie couldn't get away without breakin' her neck."
+
+"Could we climb it?" Heritage asked.
+
+The boy wrinkled his brows. "I could manage it mysel'--I think--and
+maybe you. I doubt if auld McCunn could get up. Ye'd have to be mighty
+carefu' that nobody saw ye, for your hinder end, as ye were sklimmin',
+wad be a grand mark for a gun."
+
+"Lead on," said Heritage. "We'll try the verandah."
+
+They both looked at Dickson, and Dickson, scarlet in the face, looked
+back at them. He had suddenly found the thought of a solitary march to
+Auchenlochan intolerable. Once again he was at the parting of the ways,
+and once more caprice determined his decision. That the coal-hole was
+out of the question had worked a change in his views. Somehow it seemed
+to him less burglarious to enter by a verandah. He felt very frightened
+but--for the moment--quite resolute.
+
+"I'm coming with you," he said.
+
+"Sportsman," said Heritage and held out his hand. "Well done, the auld
+yin," said the Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards. Dickson's quaking
+heart experienced a momentary bound as he followed Heritage down the
+track into the Garple Dean.
+
+The track wound through a thick covert of hazels, now close to the
+rushing water, now high upon the bank so that clear sky showed through
+the fringes of the wood. When they had gone a little way Dougal halted
+them.
+
+"It's a ticklish job," he whispered. "There's the tinklers, mind, that's
+campin' in the Dean. If they're still in their camp we can get by easy
+enough, but they're maybe wanderin' about the wud after rabbits.... Then
+we must ford the water, for ye'll no' cross it lower down where it's
+deep.... Our road is on the Hoose side o' the Dean and it's awfu' public
+if there's onybody on the other side, though it's hid well enough from
+folk up in the policies.... Ye must do exactly what I tell ye. When we
+get near danger I'll scout on ahead, and I daur ye to move a hair o'
+your head till I give the word."
+
+Presently, when they were at the edge of the water, Dougal announced his
+intention of crossing. Three boulders in the stream made a bridge for an
+active man and Heritage hopped lightly over. Not so Dickson, who stuck
+fast on the second stone, and would certainly have fallen in had not
+Dougal plunged into the current and steadied him with a grimy hand. The
+leap was at last successfully taken, and the three scrambled up a rough
+scaur, all reddened with iron springs, till they struck a slender track
+running down the Dean on its northern side. Here the undergrowth was
+very thick, and they had gone the better part of half a mile before the
+covert thinned sufficiently to show them the stream beneath. Then Dougal
+halted them with a finger on his lips, and crept forward alone.
+
+He returned in three minutes. "Coast's clear," he whispered. "The
+tinklers are eatin' their breakfast. They're late at their meat though
+they're up early seekin' it."
+
+Progress was now very slow and secret and mainly on all fours. At one
+point Dougal nodded downward, and the other two saw on a patch of turf,
+where the Garple began to widen into its estuary, a group of figures
+round a small fire. There were four of them, all men, and Dickson
+thought he had never seen such ruffianly-looking customers. After that
+they moved high up the slope, in a shallow glade of a tributary burn,
+till they came out of the trees and found themselves looking seaward.
+
+On one side was the House, a hundred yards or so back from the edge, the
+roof showing above the precipitous scarp. Half-way down the slope became
+easier, a jumble of boulders and boiler-plates, till it reached the
+waters of the small haven, which lay calm as a mill-pond in the windless
+forenoon. The haven broadened out at its foot and revealed a segment of
+blue sea. The opposite shore was flatter and showed what looked like an
+old wharf and the ruins of buildings, behind which rose a bank clad with
+scrub and surmounted by some gnarled and wind-crooked firs.
+
+"There's dashed little cover here," said Heritage.
+
+"There's no muckle," Dougal assented. "But they canna see us from the
+policies, and it's no' like there's anybody watchin' from the Hoose. The
+danger is somebody on the other side, but we'll have to risk it. Once
+among thae big stones we're safe. Are ye ready?"
+
+Five minutes later Dickson found himself gasping in the lee of a
+boulder, while Dougal was making a cast forward. The scout returned with
+a hopeful report. "I think we're safe, till we get into the policies.
+There's a road that the auld folk made when ships used to come here.
+Down there it's deeper than Clyde at the Broomilaw. Has the auld yin got
+his wind yet? There's no time to waste."
+
+Up that broken hillside they crawled, well in the cover of the tumbled
+stones, till they reached a low wall which was the boundary of the
+garden. The House was now behind them on their right rear, and as they
+topped the crest they had a glimpse of an ancient dovecot and the ruins
+of the old Huntingtower on the short thymy turf which ran seaward to the
+cliffs. Dougal led them along a sunk fence which divided the downs from
+the lawns behind the house, and, avoiding the stables, brought them by
+devious ways to a thicket of rhododendrons and broom. On all fours they
+travelled the length of the place, and came to the edge where some
+forgotten gardeners had once tended a herbaceous border. The border was
+now rank and wild, and, lying flat under the shade of an azalea, and
+peering through the young spears of iris, Dickson and Heritage regarded
+the north-western facade of the house.
+
+The ground before them had been a sunken garden, from which a steep
+wall, once covered with creepers and rock plants, rose to a long
+verandah, which was pillared and open on that side; but at each end
+built up half-way and glazed for the rest. There was a glass roof, and
+inside untended shrubs sprawled in broken plaster vases.
+
+"Ye must bide here," said Dougal, "and no cheep above your breath. Afore
+we dare to try that wall, I must ken where Lean and Spittal and Dobson
+are. I'm off to spy the policies." He glided out of sight behind a clump
+of pampas grass.
+
+For hours, so it seemed, Dickson was left to his own unpleasant
+reflections. His body, prone on the moist earth, was fairly comfortable,
+but his mind was ill at ease. The scramble up the hillside had convinced
+him that he was growing old, and there was no rebound in his soul to
+counter the conviction. He felt listless, spiritless--an apathy with
+fright trembling somewhere at the back of it. He regarded the verandah
+wall with foreboding. How on earth could he climb that? And if he did
+there would be his exposed hinder-parts inviting a shot from some
+malevolent gentleman among the trees. He reflected that he would give a
+large sum of money to be out of this preposterous adventure.
+
+Heritage's hand was stretched towards him, containing two of Mrs.
+Morran's jellied scones, of which the Poet had been wise enough to bring
+a supply in his pocket. The food cheered him, for he was growing very
+hungry, and he began to take an interest in the scene before him instead
+of his own thoughts. He observed every detail of the verandah. There was
+a door at one end, he noted, giving on a path which wound down to the
+sunk garden. As he looked he heard a sound of steps and saw a man
+ascending this path.
+
+It was the lame man whom Dougal had called Spittal, the dweller in the
+South Lodge. Seen at closer quarters he was an odd-looking being, lean
+as a heron, wry-necked, but amazingly quick on his feet. Had not Mrs.
+Morran said that he hobbled as fast as other folk ran? He kept his eyes
+on the ground and seemed to be talking to himself as he went, but he was
+alert enough, for the dropping of a twig from a dying magnolia
+transferred him in an instant into a figure of active vigilance. No
+risks could be run with that watcher. He took a key from his pocket,
+opened the garden door and entered the verandah. For a moment his
+shuffle sounded on its tiled floor, and then he entered the door
+admitting from the verandah to the House. It was clearly unlocked for
+there came no sound of a turning key.
+
+Dickson had finished the last crumbs of his scones before the man
+emerged again. He seemed to be in a greater hurry than ever, as he
+locked the garden door behind him and hobbled along the west front of
+the House till he was lost to sight. After that the time passed slowly.
+A pair of yellow wagtails arrived and played at hide-and-seek among the
+stuccoed pillars. The little dry scratch of their claws was heard
+clearly in the still air. Dickson had almost fallen asleep when a
+smothered exclamation from Heritage woke him to attention. A girl had
+appeared in the verandah.
+
+Above the parapet he saw only her body from the waist up. She seemed to
+be clad in bright colours, for something red was round her shoulders and
+her hair was bound with an orange scarf. She was tall--that he could
+tell, tall and slim and very young. Her face was turned seaward, and she
+stood for a little scanning the broad channel, shading her eyes as if
+to search for something on the extreme horizon. The air was very quiet
+and he thought that he could hear her sigh. Then she turned and
+re-entered the House, while Heritage by his side began to curse under
+his breath with a shocking fervour.
+
+One of Dickson's troubles had been that he did not really believe
+Dougal's story, and the sight of the girl removed one doubt. That bright
+exotic thing did not belong to the Cruives or to Scotland at all, and
+that she should be in the House removed the place from the conventional
+dwelling to which the laws against burglary applied.
+
+There was a rustle among the rhododendrons and the fiery face of Dougal
+appeared. He lay between the other two, his chin on his hands, and
+grunted out his report.
+
+"After they had their dinner Dobson and Lean yokit a horse and went off
+to Auchenlochan. I seen them pass the Garple brig, so that's two
+accounted for. Has Spittal been round here?"
+
+"Half an hour ago," said Heritage, consulting a wrist watch.
+
+"It was him that keepit me waitin' so long. But he's safe enough now,
+for five minutes syne he was splittin' firewood at the back door o' his
+hoose.... I've found a ladder, an auld yin in ahint yon lot o' bushes.
+It'll help wi' the wall. There! I've gotten my breath again and we can
+start."
+
+The ladder was fetched by Heritage and proved to be ancient and wanting
+many rungs, but sufficient in length. The three stood silent for a
+moment, listening like stags, and then ran across the intervening lawn
+to the foot of the verandah wall. Dougal went up first, then Heritage,
+and lastly Dickson, stiff and giddy from his long lie under the bushes.
+Below the parapet the verandah floor was heaped with old garden litter,
+rotten matting, dead or derelict bulbs, fibre, withies and strawberry
+nets. It was Dougal's intention to pull up the ladder and hide it among
+the rubbish against the hour of departure. But Dickson had barely put
+his foot on the parapet when there was a sound of steps within the House
+approaching the verandah door.
+
+The ladder was left alone. Dougal's hand brought Dickson summarily to
+the floor, where he was fairly well concealed by a mess of matting.
+Unfortunately his head was in the vicinity of some upturned pot-plants,
+so that a cactus ticked his brow and a spike of aloe supported painfully
+the back of his neck. Heritage was prone behind two old water-butts, and
+Dougal was in a hamper which had once contained seed potatoes. The house
+door had panels of opaque glass, so the new-comer could not see the
+doings of the three till it was opened, and by that time all were in
+cover.
+
+The man--it was Spittal--walked rapidly along the verandah and out of
+the garden door. He was talking to himself again, and Dickson, who had a
+glimpse of his face, thought he looked both evil and furious. Then came
+some anxious moments, for had the man glanced back when he was once
+outside, he must have seen the tell-tale ladder. But he seemed immersed
+in his own reflections, for he hobbled steadily along the house front
+till he was lost to sight.
+
+"That'll be the end o' them the night," said Dougal, as he helped
+Heritage to pull up the ladder and stow it away. "We've got the place to
+oursels, now. Forward, men, forward." He tried the handle of the house
+door and led the way in.
+
+A narrow paved passage took them into what had once been the garden
+room, where the lady of the house had arranged her flowers, and the
+tennis racquets and croquet mallets had been kept. It was very dusty and
+on the cobwebbed walls still hung a few soiled garden overalls. A door
+beyond opened into a huge murky hall, murky, for the windows were
+shuttered, and the only light came through things like port-holes far up
+in the wall. Dougal, who seemed to know his way about, halted them.
+"Stop here till I scout a bit. The women bide in a wee room through that
+muckle door." Bare feet stole across the oak flooring, there was the
+sound of a door swinging on its hinges, and then silence and darkness.
+Dickson put out a hand for companionship and clutched Heritage's; to his
+surprise it was cold and all a-tremble. They listened for voices, and
+thought they could detect a far-away sob.
+
+It was some minutes before Dougal returned. "A bonny kettle o' fish," he
+whispered. "They're both greetin'. We're just in time. Come on, the pair
+o' ye."
+
+Through a green baize door they entered a passage which led to the
+kitchen regions, and turned in at the first door on their right. From
+its situation Dickson calculated that the room lay on the seaward side
+of the House next to the verandah. The light was bad, for the two
+windows were partially shuttered, but it had plainly been a
+smoking-room, for there were pipe-racks by the hearth, and on the walls
+a number of old school and college photographs, a couple of oars with
+emblazoned names, and a variety of stags' and roebucks' heads. There was
+no fire in the grate, but a small oil-stove burned inside the fender. In
+a stiff-backed chair sat an elderly woman, who seemed to feel the cold,
+for she was muffled to the neck in a fur coat. Beside her, so that the
+late afternoon light caught her face and head, stood a girl.
+
+Dickson's first impression was of a tall child. The pose, startled and
+wild and yet curiously stiff and self-conscious, was that of a child
+striving to remember a forgotten lesson. One hand clutched a
+handkerchief, the other was closing and unclosing on a knob of the chair
+back. She was staring at Dougal, who stood like a gnome in the centre of
+the floor. "Here's the gentlemen I was tellin' ye about," was his
+introduction, but her eyes did not move.
+
+Then Heritage stepped forward. "We have met before, Mademoiselle," he
+said. "Do you remember Easter in 1918--in the house in the Trinita dei
+Monte?"
+
+The girl looked at him.
+
+"I do not remember," she said slowly.
+
+"But I was the English officer who had the apartments on the floor
+below you. I saw you every morning. You spoke to me sometimes."
+
+"You are a soldier?" she asked, with a new note in her voice.
+
+"I was then--till the war finished."
+
+"And now? Why have you come here?"
+
+"To offer you help if you need it. If not, to ask your pardon and go
+away."
+
+The shrouded figure in the chair burst suddenly into rapid hysterical
+talk in some foreign tongue which Dickson suspected of being French.
+Heritage replied in the same language, and the girl joined in with sharp
+questions. Then the Poet turned to Dickson.
+
+"This is my friend. If you will trust us we will do our best to save
+you."
+
+The eyes rested on Dickson's face, and he realised that he was in the
+presence of something the like of which he had never met in his life
+before. It was a loveliness greater than he had imagined was permitted
+by the Almighty to His creatures. The little face was more square than
+oval, with a low broad brow and proud exquisite eyebrows. The eyes were
+of a colour which he could never decide on; afterwards he used to allege
+obscurely that they were the colour of everything in Spring. There was a
+delicate pallor in the cheeks, and the face bore signs of suffering and
+care, possibly even of hunger; but for all that there was youth there,
+eternal and triumphant! Not youth such as he had known it, but youth
+with all history behind it, youth with centuries of command in its blood
+and the world's treasures of beauty and pride in its ancestry. Strange,
+he thought, that a thing so fine should be so masterful. He felt abashed
+in every inch of him.
+
+As the eyes rested on him their sorrowfulness seemed to be shot with
+humour. A ghost of a smile lurked there, to which Dickson promptly
+responded. He grinned and bowed.
+
+"Very pleased to meet you, Mem. I'm Mr. McCunn from Glasgow."
+
+"You don't even know my name," she said.
+
+"We don't," said Heritage.
+
+"They call me Saskia. This," nodding to the chair, "is my cousin
+Eugenie.... We are in very great trouble. But why should I tell you? I
+do not know you. You cannot help me."
+
+"We can try," said Heritage. "Part of your trouble we know already
+through that boy. You are imprisoned in this place by scoundrels. We are
+here to help you to get out. We want to ask no questions--only to do
+what you bid us."
+
+"You are not strong enough," she said sadly. "A young man--an old
+man--and a little boy. There are many against us, and any moment there
+may be more."
+
+It was Dougal's turn to break in. "There's Lean and Spittal and Dobson
+and four tinklers in the Dean--that's seven; but there's us three and
+five more Gorbals Die-Hards--that's eight."
+
+There was something in the boy's truculent courage that cheered her.
+
+"I wonder," she said, and her eyes fell on each in turn.
+
+Dickson felt impelled to intervene.
+
+"I think this is a perfectly simple business. Here's a lady shut up in
+this house against her will by a wheen blagyirds. This is a free country
+and the law doesn't permit that. My advice is for one of us to inform
+the police at Auchenlochan and get Dobson and his friends took up and
+the lady set free to do what she likes. That is, if these folks are
+really molesting her, which is not yet quite clear to my mind."
+
+"Alas! It is not so simple as that," she said. "I dare not invoke your
+English law, for perhaps in the eyes of that law I am a thief."
+
+"Deary me, that's a bad business," said the startled Dickson.
+
+The two women talked together in some strange tongue, and the elder
+appeared to be pleading and the younger objecting. Then Saskia seemed to
+come to a decision.
+
+"I will tell you all," and she looked straight at Heritage. "I do not
+think you would be cruel or false, for you have honourable faces....
+Listen, then. I am a Russian and for two years have been an exile. I
+will not speak of my house, for it is no more, or how I escaped, for it
+is the common tale of all of us. I have seen things more terrible than
+any dream and yet lived, but I have paid a price for such experience.
+First I went to Italy where there were friends, and I wished only to
+have peace among kindly people. About poverty I do not care, for, to us,
+who have lost all the great things, the want of bread is a little
+matter. But peace was forbidden me, for I learned that we Russians had
+to win back our fatherland again and that the weakest must work in that
+cause. So I was set my task and it was very hard.... There were jewels
+which once belonged to my Emperor--they had been stolen by the brigands
+and must be recovered. There were others still hidden in Russia which
+must be brought to a safe place. In that work I was ordered to share."
+
+She spoke in almost perfect English, with a certain foreign precision.
+Suddenly she changed to French, and talked rapidly to Heritage.
+
+"She has told me about her family," he said, turning to Dickson. "It is
+among the greatest in Russia, the very greatest after the throne."
+Dickson could only stare.
+
+"Our enemies soon discovered me," she went on. "Oh, but they are very
+clever, these enemies, and they have all the criminals of the world to
+aid them. Here you do not understand what they are. You good people in
+England think they are well-meaning dreamers who are forced into
+violence by the persecution of Western Europe. But you are wrong. Some
+honest fools there are among them, but the power--the true power--lies
+with madmen and degenerates, and they have for allies the special devil
+that dwells in each country. That is why they cast their net as wide as
+mankind."
+
+She shivered, and for a second her face wore a look which Dickson never
+forgot, the look of one who has looked over the edge of life into the
+outer dark.
+
+"There were certain jewels of great price which were about to be turned
+into guns and armies for our enemies. These our people recovered and the
+charge of them was laid on me. Who would suspect, they said, a foolish
+girl? But our enemies were very clever, and soon the hunt was cried
+against me. They tried to rob me of them, but they failed, for I too had
+become clever. Then they asked the help of the law--first in Italy and
+then in France. Oh, it was subtly done. Respectable bourgeois, who hated
+the Bolsheviki but had bought long ago the bonds of my country, desired
+to be repaid their debts out of the property of the Russian Crown which
+might be found in the West. But behind them were the Jews, and behind
+the Jews our unsleeping enemies. Once I was enmeshed in the law I would
+be safe for them, and presently they would find the hiding-place of the
+treasure, and while the bourgeois were clamouring in the courts, it
+would be safe in their pockets. So I fled. For months I have been
+fleeing and hiding. They have tried to kidnap me many times, and once
+they have tried to kill me, but I, too, have become very clever--oh,
+very clever. And I have learned not to fear."
+
+This simple recital affected Dickson's honest soul with the liveliest
+indignation. "Sich doings!" he exclaimed, and he could not forbear from
+whispering to Heritage an extract from that gentleman's conversation the
+first night at Kirkmichael. "We needn't imitate all their methods, but
+they've got hold of the right end of the stick. They seek truth and
+reality." The reply from the Poet was an angry shrug.
+
+"Why and how did you come here?" he asked.
+
+"I always meant to come to England, for I thought it the sanest place in
+a mad world. Also it is a good country to hide in, for it is apart from
+Europe, and your police, as I thought, do not permit evil men to be
+their own law. But especially I had a friend, a Scottish gentleman, whom
+I knew in the days when we Russians were still a nation. I saw him again
+in Italy, and since he was kind and brave I told him some part of my
+troubles. He was called Quentin Kennedy, and now he is dead. He told me
+that in Scotland he had a lonely chateau where I could hide secretly and
+safely, and against the day when I might be hard-pressed he gave me a
+letter to his steward, bidding him welcome me as a guest when I made
+application. At that time I did not think I would need such sanctuary,
+but a month ago the need became urgent, for the hunt in France was very
+close on me. So I sent a message to the steward as Captain Kennedy told
+me."
+
+"What is his name?" Heritage asked.
+
+She spelt it, "Monsieur Loudon--L-O-U-D-O-N in the town of
+Auchenlochan."
+
+"The factor," said Dickson. "And what then?"
+
+"Some spy must have found me out. I had a letter from this Loudon
+bidding me come to Auchenlochan. There I found no steward to receive me,
+but another letter saying that that night a carriage would be in waiting
+to bring me here. It was midnight when we arrived, and we were brought
+in by strange ways to this house, with no light but a single candle.
+Here we were welcomed indeed, but by an enemy."
+
+"Which?" asked Heritage. "Dobson or Lean or Spittal?"
+
+"Dobson I do not know. Leon was there. He is no Russian, but a Belgian
+who was a valet in my father's service till he joined the Bolsheviki.
+Next day the Lett Spidel came, and I knew that I was in very truth
+entrapped. For of all our enemies he is, save one, the most subtle and
+unwearied."
+
+Her voice had trailed off into flat weariness. Again Dickson was
+reminded of a child, for her arms hung limp by her side; and her slim
+figure in its odd clothes was curiously like that of a boy in a school
+blazer. Another resemblance perplexed him. She had a hint of
+Janet--about the mouth--Janet, that solemn little girl those twenty
+years in her grave.
+
+Heritage was wrinkling his brows. "I don't think I quite understand. The
+jewels? You have them with you?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"These men wanted to rob you. Why didn't they do it between here and
+Auchenlochan? You had no chance to hide them on the journey. Why did
+they let you come here where you were in a better position to baffle
+them?"
+
+She shook her head. "I cannot explain--except perhaps, that Spidel had
+not arrived that night, and Leon may have been waiting instructions."
+
+The other still looked dissatisfied. "They are either clumsier villains
+than I take them to be, or there is something deeper in the business
+than we understand. These jewels--are they here?"
+
+His tone was so sharp that she looked startled--almost suspicious. Then
+she saw that in his face which reassured her. "I have them hidden here.
+I have grown very skilful in hiding things."
+
+"Have they searched for them?"
+
+"The first day they demanded them of me. I denied all knowledge. Then
+they ransacked this house--I think they ransack it daily, but I am too
+clever for them. I am not allowed to go beyond the verandah, and when at
+first I disobeyed there was always one of them in wait to force me back
+with a pistol behind my head. Every morning Leon brings us food for the
+day--good food, but not enough, so that Cousin Eugenie is always hungry,
+and each day he and Spidel question and threaten me. This afternoon
+Spidel has told me that their patience is at an end. He has given me
+till to-morrow at noon to produce the jewels. If not, he says I will
+die."
+
+"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed.
+
+"There will be no mercy for us," she said solemnly. "He and his kind
+think as little of shedding blood as of spilling water. But I do not
+think he will kill me. I think I will kill him first, but after that I
+shall surely die. As for Cousin Eugenie, I do not know."
+
+Her level matter-of-fact tone seemed to Dickson most shocking, for he
+could not treat it as mere melodrama. It carried a horrid conviction.
+"We must get you out of this at once," he declared.
+
+"I cannot leave. I will tell you why. When I came to this country I
+appointed one to meet me here. He is a kinsman who knows England well,
+for he fought in your army. With him by my side I have no fear. It is
+altogether needful that I wait for him."
+
+"Then there is something more which you haven't told us?" Heritage
+asked.
+
+Was there the faintest shadow of a blush on her cheek? "There is
+something more," she said.
+
+She spoke to Heritage in French and Dickson caught the name "Alexis" and
+a word which sounded like "prance." The Poet listened eagerly and
+nodded. "I have heard of him," he said.
+
+"But have you not seen him? A tall man with a yellow beard, who bears
+himself proudly. Being of my mother's race he has eyes like mine."
+
+"That's the man she was askin' me about yesterday," said Dougal, who had
+squatted on the floor.
+
+Heritage shook his head. "We only came here last night. When did you
+expect Prince--your friend?"
+
+"I hoped to find him here before me. Oh, it is his not coming that
+terrifies me. I must wait and hope. But if he does not come in time
+another may come before him."
+
+"The ones already here are not all the enemies that threaten you?"
+
+"Indeed, no. The worst has still to come, and till I know he is here I
+do not greatly fear Spidel or Leon. They receive orders and do not give
+them."
+
+Heritage ran a perplexed hand through his hair. The sunset which had
+been flaming for some time in the unshuttered panes was now passing into
+the dark. The girl lit a lamp after first shuttering the rest of the
+windows. As she turned it up the odd dusty room and its strange company
+were revealed more clearly and Dickson saw with a shock how haggard was
+the beautiful face. A great pity seized him and almost conquered his
+timidity.
+
+"It is very difficult to help you," Heritage was saying. "You won't
+leave this place, and you won't claim the protection of the law. You are
+very independent, Mademoiselle, but it can't go on for ever. The man you
+fear may arrive at any moment. At any moment, too, your treasure may be
+discovered."
+
+"It is that that weighs on me," she cried. "The jewels! They are my
+solemn trust, but they burden me terribly. If I were only rid of them
+and knew them to be safe I should face the rest with a braver mind."
+
+"If you'll take my advice," said Dickson slowly, "you'll get them
+deposited in a bank and take a receipt for them. A Scotch bank is no' in
+a hurry to surrender a deposit without it gets the proper authority."
+
+Heritage brought his hands together with a smack. "That's an idea. Will
+you trust us to take these things and deposit them safely?"
+
+For a little she was silent and her eyes were fixed on each of the trio
+in turn. "I will trust you," she said at last. "I think you will not
+betray me."
+
+"By God, we won't!" said the Poet fervently. "Dogson, it's up to you.
+You march off to Glasgow in double quick time and place the stuff in
+your own name in your own bank. There's not a moment to lose. D'you
+hear?"
+
+"I will that." To his own surprise Dickson spoke without hesitation.
+Partly it was because of his merchant's sense of property, which made
+him hate the thought that miscreants should acquire that to which they
+had no title; but mainly it was the appeal in those haggard childish
+eyes. "But I'm not going to be tramping the country in the night
+carrying a fortune and seeking for trains that aren't there. I'll go the
+first thing in the morning."
+
+"Where are they?" Heritage asked.
+
+"That I do not tell. But I will fetch them."
+
+She left the room and presently returned with three odd little parcels
+wrapped in leather and tied with thongs of raw hide. She gave them to
+Heritage, who held them appraisingly in his hand and then passed them to
+Dickson.
+
+"I do not ask about their contents. We take them from you as they are,
+and, please God, when the moment comes they will be returned to you as
+you gave them. You trust us, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"I trust you, for you are a soldier. Oh, and I thank you from my heart,
+my friends." She held out a hand to each, which caused Heritage to grow
+suddenly very red.
+
+"I will remain in the neighbourhood to await developments," he said.
+"We had better leave you now. Dougal, lead on."
+
+Before going, he took the girl's hand again, and with a sudden movement
+bent and kissed it. Dickson shook it heartily. "Cheer up, Mem," he
+observed. "There's a better time coming." His last recollection of her
+eyes was of a soft mistiness not far from tears. His pouch and pipe had
+strange company jostling them in his pocket as he followed the others
+down the ladder into the night.
+
+Dougal insisted that they must return by the road of the morning. "We
+daren't go by the Laver, for that would bring us by the public-house. If
+the worst comes to the worst, and we fall in wi' any of the deevils,
+they must think ye've changed your mind and come back from
+Auchenlochan."
+
+The night smelt fresh and moist as if a break in the weather were
+imminent. As they scrambled along the Garple Dean a pinprick of light
+below showed where the tinklers were busy by their fire. Dickson's
+spirits suffered a sharp fall and he began to marvel at his temerity.
+What in Heaven's name had he undertaken? To carry very precious things,
+to which certainly he had no right, through the enemy to distant
+Glasgow. How could he escape the notice of the watchers? He was already
+suspect, and the sight of him back again in Dalquharter would double
+that suspicion. He must brazen it out, but he distrusted his powers with
+such tell-tale stuff in his pockets. They might murder him anywhere on
+the moor road or in an empty railway carriage. An unpleasant memory of
+various novels he had read in which such things happened haunted his
+mind.... There was just one consolation. This job over, he would be quit
+of the whole business. And honourably quit, too, for he would have
+played a manly part in a most unpleasant affair. He could retire to the
+idyllic with the knowledge that he had not been wanting when Romance
+called. Not a soul should ever hear of it, but he saw himself in the
+future tramping green roads or sitting by his winter fireside pleasantly
+retelling himself the tale.
+
+Before they came to the Garple bridge Dougal insisted that they should
+separate, remarking that "it would never do if we were seen thegither."
+Heritage was despatched by a short cut over fields to the left, which
+eventually, after one or two plunges into ditches, landed him safely in
+Mrs. Morran's back yard. Dickson and Dougal crossed the bridge and
+tramped Dalquharter-wards by the highway. There was no sign of human
+life in that quiet place with owls hooting and rabbits rustling in the
+undergrowth. Beyond the woods they came in sight of the light in the
+back kitchen, and both seemed to relax their watchfulness when it was
+most needed. Dougal sniffed the air and looked seaward.
+
+"It's coming on to rain," he observed. "There should be a muckle star
+there, and when you can't see it it means wet weather wi' this wind."
+
+"What star?" Dickson asked.
+
+"The one wi' the Irish-lukkin' name. What's that they call it? O'Brien?"
+And he pointed to where the constellation of the Hunter should have been
+declining on the western horizon.
+
+There was a bend of the road behind them, and suddenly round it came a
+dogcart driven rapidly. Dougal slipped like a weasel into a bush, and
+presently Dickson stood revealed in the glare of a lamp. The horse was
+pulled up sharply and the driver called out to him. He saw that it was
+Dobson the innkeeper with Leon beside him.
+
+"Who is it?" cried the voice. "Oh, you! I thought ye were off the day?"
+
+Dickson rose nobly to the occasion.
+
+"I thought myself I was. But I didn't think much of Auchenlochan, and I
+took a fancy to come back and spend the last night of my holiday with my
+Auntie. I'm off to Glasgow first thing the morn's morn."
+
+"So!" said the voice. "Queer thing I never saw ye on the Auchenlochan
+road, where ye can see three mile before ye."
+
+"I left early and took it easy along the shore."
+
+"Did ye so? Well, good-night to ye."
+
+Five minutes later Dickson walked into Mrs. Morran's kitchen, where
+Heritage was busy making up for a day of short provender.
+
+"I'm for Glasgow to-morrow, Auntie Phemie," he cried. "I want you to
+loan me a wee trunk with a key, and steek the doors and windows, for
+I've a lot to tell you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+HOW MR. McCUNN DEPARTED WITH RELIEF AND RETURNED WITH RESOLUTION
+
+
+At seven o'clock on the following morning the post-cart, summoned by an
+early message from Mrs. Morran, appeared outside the cottage. In it sat
+the ancient postman, whose real home was Auchenlochan, but who slept
+alternate nights in Dalquharter, and beside him Dobson the innkeeper.
+Dickson and his hostess stood at the garden-gate, the former with his
+pack on his back and at his feet a small stout wooden box, of the kind
+in which cheeses are transported, garnished with an immense padlock.
+Heritage for obvious reasons did not appear; at the moment he was
+crouched on the floor of the loft watching the departure through a gap
+in the dimity curtains.
+
+The traveller, after making sure that Dobson was looking, furtively
+slipped the key of the trunk into his knapsack.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Auntie Phemie," he said. "I'm sure you've been awful
+kind to me, and I don't know how to thank you for all you're sending."
+
+"Tuts, Dickson, my man, they're hungry folk about Glesca that'll be glad
+o' my scones and jeelie. Tell Mirren I'm rale pleased wi' her man and
+haste ye back soon."
+
+The trunk was deposited on the floor of the cart and Dickson clambered
+into the back seat. He was thankful that he had not to sit next to
+Dobson, for he had tell-tale stuff on his person. The morning was wet,
+so he wore his waterproof, which concealed his odd tendency to stoutness
+about the middle.
+
+Mrs. Morran played her part well, with all the becoming gravity of an
+affectionate aunt, but so soon as the post-cart turned the bend of the
+road her demeanour changed. She was torn with convulsions of silent
+laughter. She retreated to the kitchen, sank into a chair, wrapped her
+face in her apron and rocked. Heritage, descending, found her struggling
+to regain composure. "D'ye ken his wife's name?" she gasped. "I ca'ed
+her Mirren! And maybe the body's no mairried! Hech sirs! Hech sirs!"
+
+Meantime Dickson was bumping along the moor-road on the back of the
+post-cart. He had worked out a plan, just as he had been used aforetime
+to devise a deal in foodstuffs. He had expected one of the watchers to
+turn up, and was rather relieved that it should be Dobson, whom he
+regarded as "the most natural beast" of the three. Somehow he did not
+think that he would be molested before he reached the station, since his
+enemies would still be undecided in their minds. Probably they only
+wanted to make sure that he had really departed to forget all about him.
+But if not, he had his plan ready.
+
+"Are you travelling to-day?" he asked the innkeeper.
+
+"Just as far as the station to see about some oil-cake I'm expectin'.
+What's in your wee kist? Ye came here wi' nothing but the bag on your
+back."
+
+"Ay, the kist is no' mine. It's my auntie's. She's a kind body, and
+nothing would serve but she must pack a box for me to take back. Let me
+see. There's a baking of scones; three pots of honey and one of rhubarb
+jam--she was aye famous for her rhubarb jam; a mutton ham, which you
+can't get for love or money in Glasgow; some home-made black puddings
+and a wee skim-milk cheese. I doubt I'll have to take a cab from the
+station."
+
+Dobson appeared satisfied, lit a short pipe and relapsed into
+meditation. The long uphill road, ever climbing to where far off showed
+the tiny whitewashed buildings which were the railway station, seemed
+interminable this morning. The aged postman addressed strange
+objurgations to his aged horse and muttered reflections to himself, the
+innkeeper smoked, and Dickson stared back into the misty hollow where
+lay Dalquharter. The south-west wind had brought up a screen of rain
+clouds and washed all the countryside in a soft wet grey. But the eye
+could still travel a fair distance, and Dickson thought he had a glimpse
+of a figure on a bicycle leaving the village two miles back. He wondered
+who it could be. Not Heritage, who had no bicycle. Perhaps some woman
+who was conspicuously late for the train. Women were the chief cyclists
+nowadays in country places.
+
+Then he forgot about the bicycle and twisted his neck to watch the
+station. It was less than a mile off now, and they had no time to
+spare, for away to the south among the hummocks of the bog he saw the
+smoke of the train coming from Auchenlochan. The postman also saw it and
+whipped up his beast into a clumsy canter. Dickson, always nervous about
+being late for trains, forced his eyes away and regarded again the road
+behind them. Suddenly the cyclist had become quite plain--a little more
+than a mile behind--a man, and pedalling furiously in spite of the stiff
+ascent.... It could only be one person--Leon. He must have discovered
+their visit to the House yesterday and be on the way to warn Dobson. If
+he reached the station before the train, there would be no journey to
+Glasgow that day for one respectable citizen.
+
+Dickson was in a fever of impatience and fright. He dared not abjure the
+postman to hurry, lest Dobson should turn his head and descry his
+colleague. But that ancient man had begun to realise the shortness of
+time and was urging the cart along at a fair pace, since they were now
+on the flatter shelf of land which carried the railway. Dickson kept his
+eyes fixed on the bicycle and his teeth shut tight on his lower lip. Now
+it was hidden by the last dip of hill; now it emerged into view not a
+quarter of a mile behind, and its rider gave vent to a shrill call.
+Luckily the innkeeper did not hear, for at that moment with a jolt the
+cart pulled up at the station door, accompanied by the roar of the
+incoming train.
+
+Dickson whipped down from the back seat and seized the solitary porter.
+"Label the box for Glasgow and into the van with it. Quick, man, and
+there'll be a shilling for you." He had been doing some rapid thinking
+these last minutes and had made up his mind. If Dobson and he were alone
+in a carriage he could not have the box there; that must be elsewhere,
+so that Dobson could not examine it if he were set on violence,
+somewhere in which it could still be a focus of suspicion and attract
+attention from his person. He took his ticket, and rushed on to the
+platform, to find the porter and the box at the door of the guard's van.
+Dobson was not there. With the vigour of a fussy traveller he shouted
+directions to the guard to take good care of his luggage, hurled a
+shilling at the porter and ran for a carriage. At that moment he became
+aware of Dobson hurrying through the entrance. He must have met Leon and
+heard news from him, for his face was red and his ugly brows darkening.
+
+The train was in motion. "Here, you!" Dobson's voice shouted. "Stop! I
+want a word wi' ye." Dickson plunged at a third-class carriage, for he
+saw faces behind the misty panes, and above all things then he feared an
+empty compartment. He clambered on to the step, but the handle would not
+turn, and with a sharp pang of fear he felt the innkeeper's grip on his
+arm. Then some Samaritan from within let down the window, opened the
+door and pulled him up. He fell on a seat and a second later Dobson
+staggered in beside him.
+
+Thank Heaven, the dirty little carriage was nearly full. There were two
+herds, each with a dog and a long hazel crook, and an elderly woman who
+looked like a ploughman's wife out for a day's marketing. And there was
+one other whom Dickson recognised with a peculiar joy--the bagman in the
+provision line of business whom he had met three days before at
+Kilchrist.
+
+The recognition was mutual. "Mr. McCunn!" the bagman exclaimed. "My, but
+that was running it fine! I hope you've had a pleasant holiday, sir?"
+
+"Very pleasant. I've been spending two nights with friends down
+hereaways. I've been very fortunate in the weather, for it has broke
+just when I'm leaving."
+
+Dickson sank back on the hard cushions. It had been a near thing, but so
+far he had won. He wished his heart did not beat so fast, and he hoped
+he did not betray his disorder in his face. Very deliberately he hunted
+for his pipe and filled it slowly. Then he turned to Dobson. "I didn't
+know you were travelling the day. What about your oil-cake?"
+
+"I've changed my mind," was the gruff answer.
+
+"Was that you I heard crying on me, when we were running for the train?"
+
+"Ay. I thought ye had forgot about your kist."
+
+"No fear," said Dickson. "I'm no' likely to forget my auntie's scones."
+
+He laughed pleasantly and then turned to the bagman. Thereafter the
+compartment hummed with the technicalities of the grocery trade. He
+exerted himself to draw out his companion, to have him refer to the
+great firm of D. McCunn, so that the innkeeper might be ashamed of his
+suspicions. What nonsense to imagine that a noted and wealthy Glasgow
+merchant--the bagman's tone was almost reverential--would concern
+himself with the affairs of a forgotten village and a tumbledown house!
+
+Presently the train drew up at Kirkmichael station. The woman descended,
+and Dobson, after making sure that no one else meant to follow her
+example, also left the carriage. A porter was shouting: "Fast train to
+Glasgow--Glasgow next stop." Dickson watched the innkeeper shoulder his
+way through the crowd in the direction of the booking office. "He's off
+to send a telegram," he decided. "There'll be trouble waiting for me at
+the other end."
+
+When the train moved on he found himself disinclined for further talk.
+He had suddenly become meditative, and curled up in a corner with his
+head hard against the window pane, watching the wet fields and
+glistening roads as they slipped past. He had his plans made for his
+conduct at Glasgow, but Lord! how he loathed the whole business! Last
+night he had had a kind of gusto in his desire to circumvent villainy;
+at Dalquharter station he had enjoyed a momentary sense of triumph; now
+he felt very small, lonely and forlorn. Only one thought far at the back
+of his mind cropped up now and then to give him comfort. He was entering
+on the last lap. Once get this detestable errand done and he would be a
+free man, free to go back to the kindly humdrum life from which he
+should never have strayed. Never again, he vowed, never again. Rather
+would he spend the rest of his days in hydropathics than come within
+the pale of such horrible adventures. Romance, forsooth! This was not
+the mild goddess he had sought, but an awful harpy who battened on the
+souls of men.
+
+He had some bad minutes as the train passed through the suburbs, and
+along the grimy embankment by which the southern lines enter the city.
+But as it rumbled over the river bridge and slowed down before the
+terminus, his vitality suddenly revived. He was a business man, and
+there was now something for him to do.
+
+After a rapid farewell to the bagman, he found a porter and hustled his
+box out of the van in the direction of the left-luggage office. Spies,
+summoned by Dobson's telegram, were, he was convinced, watching his
+every movement, and he meant to see that they missed nothing. He
+received his ticket for the box, and slowly and ostentatiously stowed it
+away in his pack. Swinging the said pack on his arm he sauntered through
+the entrance hall to the row of waiting taxi-cabs, and selected that one
+which seemed to him to have the oldest and most doddering driver. He
+deposited the pack inside on the seat, and then stood still as if struck
+with a sudden thought.
+
+"I breakfasted terrible early," he told the driver. "I think I'll have a
+bite to eat. Will you wait?"
+
+"Ay," said the man, who was reading a grubby sheet of newspaper. "I'll
+wait as long as ye like, for it's you that pays."
+
+Dickson left his pack in the cab and, oddly enough for a careful man, he
+did not shut the door. He re-entered the station, strolled to the
+bookstall and bought a _Glasgow Herald_. His steps then tended to the
+refreshment room, where he ordered a cup of coffee and two Bath buns,
+and seated himself at a small table. There he was soon immersed in the
+financial news, and though he sipped his coffee he left the buns
+untasted. He took out a penknife and cut various extracts from the
+_Herald_, bestowing them carefully in his pocket. An observer would have
+seen an elderly gentleman absorbed in market quotations.
+
+After a quarter of an hour had been spent in this performance he
+happened to glance at the clock and rose with an exclamation. He bustled
+out to his taxi and found the driver still intent upon his reading.
+"Here I am at last," he said cheerily, and had a foot on the step, when
+he stopped suddenly with a cry. It was a cry of alarm, but also of
+satisfaction.
+
+"What's become of my pack? I left it on the seat, and now it's gone!
+There's been a thief here."
+
+The driver, roused from his lethargy, protested in the name of his gods
+that no one had been near it. "Ye took it into the station wi' ye," he
+urged.
+
+"I did nothing of the kind. Just you wait here till I see the inspector.
+A bonny watch _you_ keep on a gentleman's things."
+
+But Dickson did not interview the railway authorities. Instead he
+hurried to the left-luggage office. "I deposited a small box here a
+short time ago. I mind the number. Is it there still?"
+
+The attendant glanced at a shelf. "A wee deal box with iron bands. It
+was took out ten minutes syne. A man brought the ticket and took it away
+on his shoulder."
+
+"Thank you. There's been a mistake, but the blame's mine. My man mistook
+my orders."
+
+Then he returned to the now nervous taxi-driver. "I've taken it up with
+the station-master and he's putting the police on. You'll likely be
+wanted, so I gave him your number. It's a fair disgrace that there
+should be so many thieves about this station. It's not the first time
+I've lost things. Drive me to West George Street and look sharp." And he
+slammed the door with the violence of an angry man.
+
+But his reflections were not violent, for he smiled to himself. "That
+was pretty neat. They'll take some time to get the kist open, for I
+dropped the key out of the train after we left Kirkmichael. That gives
+me a fair start. If I hadn't thought of that, they'd have found some way
+to grip me and ripe me long before I got to the Bank." He shuddered as
+he thought of the dangers he had escaped. "As it is, they're off the
+track for half an hour at least, while they're rummaging among Auntie
+Phemie's scones." At the thought he laughed heartily, and when he
+brought the taxi-cab to a standstill by rapping on the front window, he
+left it with a temper apparently restored. Obviously he had no grudge
+against the driver, who to his immense surprise was rewarded with ten
+shillings.
+
+Three minutes later Mr. McCunn might have been seen entering the head
+office of the Strathclyde Bank, and inquiring for the manager. There
+was no hesitation about him now, for his foot was on his native heath.
+The chief cashier received him with deference, in spite of his
+unorthodox garb, for he was not the least honoured of the bank's
+customers. As it chanced he had been talking about him that very morning
+to a gentleman from London. "The strength of this city," he had said,
+tapping his eyeglasses on his knuckles, "does not lie in its dozen very
+rich men, but in the hundred or two homely folk who make no parade of
+wealth. Men like Dickson McCunn, for example, who live all their life in
+a semi-detached villa and die worth half a million." And the Londoner
+had cordially assented.
+
+So Dickson was ushered promptly into an inner room, and was warmly
+greeted by Mr. Mackintosh, the patron of the Gorbals Die-Hards.
+
+"I must thank you for your generous donation, McCunn. Those boys will
+get a little fresh air and quiet after the smoke and din of Glasgow. A
+little country peace to smooth out the creases in their poor little
+souls."
+
+"Maybe," said Dickson, with a vivid recollection of Dougal as he had
+last seen him. Somehow he did not think that peace was likely to be the
+portion of that devoted band. "But I've not come here to speak about
+that."
+
+He took off his waterproof; then his coat and waistcoat; and showed
+himself a strange figure with sundry bulges about the middle. The
+manager's eyes grew very round. Presently these excrescences were
+revealed as linen bags sewn on to his shirt, and fitting into the hollow
+between ribs and hip. With some difficulty he slit the bags and
+extracted three hide-bound packages.
+
+"See here, Mackintosh," he said solemnly. "I hand you over these
+parcels, and you're to put them in the innermost corner of your strong
+room. You needn't open them. Just put them away as they are, and write
+me a receipt for them. Write it now."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh obediently took pen in hand.
+
+"What'll I call them?" he asked.
+
+"Just the three leather parcels handed to you by Dickson McCunn, Esq.,
+naming the date."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh wrote. He signed his name with his usual flourish and
+handed the slip to his client.
+
+"Now," said Dickson, "you'll put that receipt in the strong box where
+you keep my securities, and you'll give it up to nobody but me in
+person, and you'll surrender the parcels only on presentation of the
+receipt. D'you understand?"
+
+"Perfectly. May I ask any questions?"
+
+"You'd better not if you don't want to hear lees."
+
+"What's in the packages?" Mr. Mackintosh weighed them in his hand.
+
+"That's asking," said Dickson. "But I'll tell ye this much. It's jools."
+
+"Your own?"
+
+"No, but I'm their trustee."
+
+"Valuable?"
+
+"I was hearing they were worth more than a million pounds."
+
+"God bless my soul," said the startled manager. "I don't like this kind
+of business, McCunn."
+
+"No more do I. But you'll do it to oblige an old friend and a good
+customer. If you don't know much about the packages you know all about
+me. Now, mind, I trust you."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh forced himself to a joke. "Did you maybe steal them?"
+
+Dickson grinned. "Just what I did. And that being so, I want you to let
+me out by the back door."
+
+When he found himself in the street he felt the huge relief of a boy who
+had emerged with credit from the dentist's chair. Remembering that there
+would be no midday dinner for him at home, his first step was to feed
+heavily at a restaurant. He had, so far as he could see, surmounted all
+his troubles, his one regret being that he had lost his pack, which
+contained among other things his _Izaak Walton_ and his safety razor. He
+bought another razor and a new Walton, and mounted an electric tram-car
+_en route_ for home.
+
+Very contented with himself he felt as the car swung across the Clyde
+bridge. He had done well--but of that he did not want to think, for the
+whole beastly thing was over. He was going to bury that memory, to be
+resurrected perhaps on a later day when the unpleasantness had been
+forgotten. Heritage had his address, and knew where to come when it was
+time to claim the jewels. As for the watchers, they must have ceased to
+suspect him, when they discovered the innocent contents of his knapsack
+and Mrs. Morran's box. Home for him, and a luxurious tea by his own
+fireside; and then an evening with his books, for Heritage's nonsense
+had stimulated his literary fervour. He would dip into his old
+favourites again to confirm his faith. To-morrow he would go for a jaunt
+somewhere--perhaps down the Clyde, or to the South of England, which he
+had heard was a pleasant, thickly peopled country. No more lonely inns
+and deserted villages for him; henceforth he would make certain of
+comfort and peace.
+
+The rain had stopped, and, as the car moved down the dreary vista of
+Eglinton Street, the sky opened into fields of blue and the April sun
+silvered the puddles. It was in such place and under such weather that
+Dickson suffered an overwhelming experience.
+
+It is beyond my skill, being all unlearned in the game of
+psycho-analysis, to explain how this thing happened. I concern myself
+only with facts. Suddenly the pretty veil of self-satisfaction was rent
+from top to bottom, and Dickson saw a figure of himself within, a smug
+leaden little figure which simpered and preened itself and was hollow as
+a rotten nut. And he hated it.
+
+The horrid truth burst on him that Heritage had been right. He only
+played with life. That imbecile image was a mere spectator, content to
+applaud, but shrinking from the contact of reality. It had been all
+right as a provision merchant, but when it fancied itself capable of
+higher things it had deceived itself. Foolish little image with its
+brave dreams and its swelling words from Browning! All make-believe of
+the feeblest. He was a coward, running away at the first threat of
+danger. It was as if he were watching a tall stranger with a wand
+pointing to the embarrassed phantom that was himself, and ruthlessly
+exposing its frailties! And yet the pitiless showman was himself
+too--himself as he wanted to be, cheerful, brave, resourceful,
+indomitable.
+
+Dickson suffered a spasm of mortal agony. "Oh, I'm surely not so bad as
+all that," he groaned. But the hurt was not only in his pride. He saw
+himself being forced to new decisions, and each alternative was of the
+blackest. He fairly shivered with the horror of it. The car slipped past
+a suburban station from which passengers were emerging--comfortable
+black-coated men such as he had once been. He was bitterly angry with
+Providence for picking him out of the great crowd of sedentary folk for
+this sore ordeal. "Why was I tethered to sich a conscience?" was his
+moan. But there was that stern inquisitor with his pointer exploring his
+soul. "You flatter yourself you have done your share," he was saying.
+"You will make pretty stories about it to yourself, and some day you may
+tell your friends, modestly disclaiming any special credit. But you will
+be a liar, for you know you are afraid. You are running away when the
+work is scarcely begun, and leaving it to a few boys and a poet whom you
+had the impudence the other day to despise. I think you are worse than a
+coward. I think you are a cad."
+
+His fellow-passengers on the top of the car saw an absorbed middle-aged
+gentleman who seemed to have something the matter with his bronchial
+tubes. They could not guess at the tortured soul. The decision was
+coming nearer, the alternatives loomed up dark and inevitable. On one
+side was submission to ignominy, on the other a return to that place,
+which he detested, and yet loathed himself for detesting. "It seems I'm
+not likely to have much peace either way," he reflected dismally.
+
+How the conflict would have ended had it continued on these lines I
+cannot say. The soul of Mr. McCunn was being assailed by moral and
+metaphysical adversaries with which he had not been trained to deal. But
+suddenly it leapt from negatives to positives. He saw the face of the
+girl in the shuttered House, so fair and young and yet so haggard. It
+seemed to be appealing to him to rescue it from a great loneliness and
+fear. Yes, he had been right, it had a strange look of his Janet--the
+wide-open eyes, the solemn mouth. What was to become of that child if he
+failed her in her great need?
+
+Now Dickson was a practical man and this view of the case brought him
+into a world which he understood. "It's fair ridiculous," he reflected.
+"Nobody there to take a grip of things. Just a wheen Gorbals keelies and
+the lad Heritage. Not a business man among the lot."
+
+The alternatives, which hove before him like two great banks of cloud,
+were altering their appearance. One was becoming faint and tenuous; the
+other, solid as ever, was just a shade less black. He lifted his eyes
+and saw in the near distance the corner of the road which led to his
+home. "I must decide before I reach that corner," he told himself.
+
+Then his mind became apathetic. He began to whistle dismally through his
+teeth, watching the corner as it came nearer. The car stopped with a
+jerk. "I'll go back," he said aloud, clambering down the steps. The
+truth was he had decided five minutes before when he first saw Janet's
+face.
+
+He walked briskly to his house, entirely refusing to waste any more
+energy on reflection. "This is a business proposition," he told himself,
+"and I'm going to handle it as sich." Tibby was surprised to see him and
+offered him tea in vain. "I'm just back for a few minutes. Let's see the
+letters."
+
+There was one from his wife. She proposed to stay another week at the
+Neuk Hydropathic and suggested that he might join her and bring her
+home. He sat down and wrote a long affectionate reply, declining, but
+expressing his delight that she was soon returning. "That's very likely
+the last time Mamma will hear from me," he reflected, but--oddly
+enough--without any great fluttering of the heart.
+
+Then he proceeded to be furiously busy. He sent out Tibby to buy another
+knapsack and to order a cab and to cash a considerable cheque. In the
+knapsack he packed a fresh change of clothing and the new safety razor,
+but no books, for he was past the need of them. That done, he drove to
+his solicitors.
+
+"What like a firm are Glendonan and Speirs in Edinburgh?" he asked the
+senior partner.
+
+"Oh, very respectable. Very respectable indeed. Regular Edinburgh W.S.
+lot. Do a lot of factoring."
+
+"I want you to telephone through to them and inquire about a place in
+Carrick called Huntingtower, near the village of Dalquharter. I
+understand it's to let, and I'm thinking of taking a lease of it."
+
+The senior partner after some delay got through to Edinburgh, and was
+presently engaged in the feverish dialectic which the long-distance
+telephone involves. "I want to speak to Mr. Glendonan himself.... Yes,
+yes, Mr. Caw of Paton and Linklater.... Good afternoon.... Huntingtower.
+Yes, in Carrick. Not to let? But I understand it's been in the market
+for some months. You say you've an idea it has just been let. But my
+client is positive that you're mistaken, unless the agreement was made
+this morning.... You'll inquire? Oh, I see. The actual factoring is done
+by your local agent. Mr. James Loudon, in Auchenlochan. You think my
+client had better get into touch with him at once. Just wait a minute,
+please."
+
+He put his hand over the receiver. "Usual Edinburgh way of doing
+business," he observed caustically. "What do you want done?"
+
+"I'll run down and see this Loudon. Tell Glendonan and Speirs to advise
+him to expect me, for I'll go this very day."
+
+Mr. Caw resumed his conversation. "My client would like a telegram sent
+at once to Mr. Loudon introducing him. He's Mr. Dickson McCunn of Mearns
+Street--the great provision merchant, you know. Oh, yes! Good for any
+rent. Refer if you like to the Strathclyde Bank, but you can take my
+word for it. Thank you. Then that's settled. Good-bye."
+
+Dickson's next visit was to a gunmaker who was a fellow-elder with him
+in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk.
+
+"I want a pistol and a lot of cartridges," he announced. "I'm not caring
+what kind it is, so long as it is a good one and not too big."
+
+"For yourself?" the gunmaker asked. "You must have a licence, I doubt,
+and there's a lot of new regulations."
+
+"I can't wait on a licence. It's for a cousin of mine who's off to
+Mexico at once. You've got to find some way of obliging an old friend,
+Mr. McNair."
+
+Mr. McNair scratched his head. "I don't see how I can sell you one. But
+I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll lend you one. It belongs to my nephew,
+Peter Tait, and has been lying in a drawer ever since he came back from
+the front. He has no use for it now that he's a placed minister."
+
+So Dickson bestowed in the pockets of his waterproof a service revolver
+and fifty cartridges, and bade his cab take him to the shop in Mearns
+Street. For a moment the sight of the familiar place struck a pang to
+his breast, but he choked down unavailing regrets. He ordered a great
+hamper of foodstuffs--the most delicate kind of tinned goods, two
+perfect hams, tongues, Strassburg pies, chocolate, cakes, biscuits and,
+as a last thought, half a dozen bottles of old liqueur brandy. It was to
+be carefully packed, addressed to Mrs. Morran, Dalquharter Station, and
+delivered in time for him to take down by the 7.33 train. Then he drove
+to the terminus and dined with something like a desperate peace in his
+heart.
+
+On this occasion he took a first-class ticket, for he wanted to be
+alone. As the lights began to be lit in the wayside stations and the
+clear April dusk darkened into night, his thoughts were sombre yet
+resigned. He opened the window and let the sharp air of the Renfrewshire
+uplands fill the carriage. It was fine weather again after the rain, and
+a bright constellation--perhaps Dougal's friend O'Brien--hung in the
+western sky. How happy he would have been a week ago had he been
+starting thus for a country holiday! He could sniff the faint scent of
+moor-burn and ploughed earth which had always been his first reminder of
+spring. But he had been pitchforked out of that old happy world and
+could never enter it again. Alas! for the roadside fire, the cosy inn,
+the _Compleat Angler_, the Chavender or Chub!
+
+And yet--and yet! He had done the right thing, though the Lord alone
+knew how it would end. He began to pluck courage from his very
+melancholy and hope from his reflections upon the transitoriness of
+life. He was austerely following Romance as he conceived it, and if that
+capricious lady had taken one dream from him she might yet reward him
+with a better. Tags of poetry came into his head which seemed to favour
+this philosophy--particularly some lines of Browning on which he used to
+discourse to his Kirk Literary Society. Uncommon silly, he considered,
+these homilies of his must have been, mere twitterings of the unfledged.
+But now he saw more in the lines, a deeper interpretation which he had
+earned the right to make.
+
+    "Oh, world, where all things change and nought abides,
+     Oh, life, the long mutation--is it so?
+     Is it with life as with the body's change?--
+     Where, e'en tho' better follow, good must pass."
+
+That was as far as he could get, though he cudgelled his memory to
+continue. Moralising thus, he became drowsy, and was almost asleep when
+the train drew up at the station of Kirkmichael.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SUNDRY DOINGS IN THE MIRK
+
+
+From Kirkmichael on the train stopped at every station, but no passenger
+seemed to leave or arrive at the little platforms white in the moon. At
+Dalquharter the case of provisions was safely transferred to the porter
+with instructions to take charge of it till it was sent for. During the
+next ten minutes Dickson's mind began to work upon his problem with a
+certain briskness. It was all nonsense that the law of Scotland could
+not be summoned to the defence. The jewels had been safely got rid of,
+and who was to dispute their possession? Not Dobson and his crew, who
+had no sort of title, and were out for naked robbery. The girl had
+spoken of greater dangers from new enemies--kidnapping perhaps. Well,
+that was felony, and the police must be brought in. Probably if all were
+known the three watchers had criminal records, pages long, filed at
+Scotland Yard. The man to deal with that side of the business was Loudon
+the factor, and to him he was bound in the first place. He had made a
+clear picture in his head of this Loudon--a derelict old country writer,
+formal, pedantic, lazy, anxious only to get an unprofitable business off
+his hands with the least possible trouble, never going near the place
+himself, and ably supported in his lethargy by conceited Edinburgh
+Writers to the Signet. "Sich notions of business!" he murmured. "I
+wonder that there's a single county family in Scotland no' in the
+bankruptcy court!" It was his mission to wake up Mr. James Loudon.
+
+Arrived at Auchenlochan he went first to the Salutation Hotel, a
+pretentious place sacred to golfers. There he engaged a bedroom for the
+night and, having certain scruples, paid for it in advance. He also had
+some sandwiches prepared which he stowed in his pack, and filled his
+flask with whisky. "I'm going home to Glasgow by the first train
+to-morrow," he told the landlady, "and now I've got to see a friend.
+I'll not be back till late." He was assured that there would be no
+difficulty about his admittance at any hour, and directed how to find
+Mr. Loudon's dwelling.
+
+It was an old house fronting direct on the street, with a fanlight above
+the door and a neat brass plate bearing the legend "Mr. James Loudon,
+Writer." A lane ran up one side leading apparently to a garden, for the
+moonlight showed the dusk of trees. In front was the main street of
+Auchenlochan, now deserted save for a single roysterer, and opposite
+stood the ancient town house, with arches where the country folk came at
+the spring and autumn hiring fairs. Dickson rang the antiquated bell,
+and was presently admitted to a dark hall floored with oil-cloth, where
+a single gas-jet showed that on one side was the business office and on
+the other the living-rooms. Mr. Loudon was at supper, he was told, and
+he sent in his card. Almost at once the door at the end on the left
+side was flung open and a large figure appeared flourishing a napkin.
+"Come in, sir, come in," it cried. "I've just finished a bite of meat.
+Very glad to see you. Here, Maggie, what d'you mean by keeping the
+gentleman standing in that outer darkness?"
+
+The room into which Dickson was ushered was small and bright, with a red
+paper on the walls, a fire burning and a big oil lamp in the centre of a
+table. Clearly Mr. Loudon had no wife, for it was a bachelor's den in
+every line of it. A cloth was laid on a corner of the table, on which
+stood the remnants of a meal. Mr. Loudon seemed to have been about to
+make a brew of punch, for a kettle simmered by the fire, and lemons and
+sugar flanked a pot-bellied whisky decanter of the type that used to be
+known as a "mason's mell."
+
+The sight of the lawyer was a surprise to Dickson and dissipated his
+notions of an aged and lethargic incompetent. Mr. Loudon was a strongly
+built man who could not be a year over fifty. He had a ruddy face,
+clean-shaven except for a grizzled moustache; his grizzled hair was
+thinning round the temples; but his skin was unwrinkled and his eyes had
+all the vigour of youth. His tweed suit was well cut, and the buff
+waistcoat with flaps and pockets and the plain leather watchguard hinted
+at the sportsman, as did the half-dozen racing prints on the wall. A
+pleasant high-coloured figure he made; his voice had the frank ring due
+to much use out of doors; and his expression had the singular candour
+which comes from grey eyes with large pupils and a narrow iris.
+
+"Sit down, Mr. McCunn. Take the arm-chair by the fire. I've had a wire
+from Glendonan and Speirs about you. I was just going to have a glass of
+toddy--a grand thing for these uncertain April nights. You'll join me?
+No? Well, you'll smoke anyway. There's cigars at your elbow. Certainly,
+a pipe if you like. This is Liberty Hall."
+
+Dickson found some difficulty in the part for which he had cast himself.
+He had expected to condescend upon an elderly inept and give him sharp
+instructions; instead he found himself faced with a jovial, virile
+figure which certainly did not suggest incompetence. It has been
+mentioned already that he had always great difficulty in looking any one
+in the face, and this difficulty was intensified when he found himself
+confronted with bold and candid eyes. He felt abashed and a little
+nervous.
+
+"I've come to see you about Huntingtower House," he began.
+
+"I know. So Glendonan's informed me. Well, I'm very glad to hear it. The
+place has been standing empty far too long, and that is worse for a new
+house than an old house. There's not much money to spend on it either,
+unless we can make sure of a good tenant. How did you hear about it?"
+
+"I was taking a bit holiday and I spent a night at Dalquharter with an
+old auntie of mine. You must understand I've just retired from business,
+and I'm thinking of finding a country place. I used to have the big
+provision shop in Mearns Street--now the United Supply Stores, Limited.
+You've maybe heard of it?"
+
+The other bowed and smiled. "Who hasn't? The name of Dickson McCunn is
+known far beyond the city of Glasgow."
+
+Dickson was not insensible of the flattery, and he continued with more
+freedom. "I took a walk and got a glisk of the House and I liked the
+look of it. You see, I want a quiet bit a good long way from a town, and
+at the same time a house with all modern conveniences. I suppose
+Huntingtower has that?"
+
+"When it was built fifteen years ago it was considered a model--six
+bathrooms, its own electric light plant, steam heating, an independent
+boiler for hot water, the whole bag of tricks. I won't say but what some
+of these contrivances will want looking to, for the place has been some
+time empty, but there can be nothing very far wrong, and I can guarantee
+that the bones of the house are good."
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Dickson. "I don't mind spending a little
+money myself if the place suits me. But of that, of course, I'm not yet
+certain, for I've only had a glimpse of the outside. I wanted to get
+into the policies, but a man at the lodge wouldn't let me. They're a
+mighty uncivil lot down there."
+
+"I'm very sorry to hear that," said Mr. Loudon in a tone of concern.
+
+"Ay, and if I take the place I'll stipulate that you get rid of the
+lodgekeepers."
+
+"There won't be the slightest difficulty about that, for they are only
+weekly tenants. But I'm vexed to hear they were uncivil. I was glad to
+get any tenant that offered, and they were well recommended to me."
+
+"They're foreigners."
+
+"One of them is--a Belgian refugee that Lady Morewood took an interest
+in. But the other--Spittal, they call him--I thought he was Scotch."
+
+"He's not that. And I don't like the innkeeper either. I would want him
+shifted."
+
+Mr. Loudon laughed. "I dare say Dobson is a rough diamond. There's worse
+folk in the world all the same, but I don't think he will want to stay.
+He only went there to pass the time till he heard from his brother in
+Vancouver. He's a roving spirit, and will be off overseas again."
+
+"That's all right!" said Dickson, who was beginning to have horrid
+suspicions that he might be on a wild-goose chase after all. "Well, the
+next thing is for me to see over the House."
+
+"Certainly. I'd like to go with you myself. What day would suit you? Let
+me see. This is Friday. What about this day week?"
+
+"I was thinking of to-morrow. Since I'm down in these parts I may as
+well get the job done."
+
+Mr. Loudon looked puzzled. "I quite see that. But I don't think it's
+possible. You see, I have to consult the owners and get their consent to
+a lease. Of course they have the general purpose of letting, but--well,
+they're queer folk the Kennedys," and his face wore the half-embarrassed
+smile of an honest man preparing to make confidences. "When poor Mr.
+Quentin died, the place went to his two sisters in joint ownership. A
+very bad arrangement, as you can imagine. It isn't entailed, and I've
+always been pressing them to sell, but so far they won't hear of it.
+They both married Englishmen, so it will take a day or two to get in
+touch with them. One, Mrs. Stukely, lives in Devonshire. The other--Miss
+Katie that was--married Sir Francis Morewood, the general, and I hear
+that she's expected back in London next Monday from the Riviera. I'll
+wire and write first thing to-morrow morning. But you must give me a day
+or two."
+
+Dickson felt himself waking up. His doubts about his own sanity were
+dissolving, for, as his mind reasoned, the factor was prepared to do
+anything he asked--but only after a week had gone. What he was concerned
+with was the next few days.
+
+"All the same I would like to have a look at the place to-morrow, even
+if nothing comes of it."
+
+Mr. Loudon looked seriously perplexed. "You will think me absurdly
+fussy, Mr. McCunn, but I must really beg of you to give up the idea. The
+Kennedys, as I have said, are--well, not exactly like other people, and
+I have the strictest orders not to let any one visit the house without
+their express leave. It sounds a ridiculous rule, but I assure you it's
+as much as my job is worth to disregard it."
+
+"D'you mean to say not a soul is allowed inside the House?"
+
+"Not a soul."
+
+"Well, Mr. Loudon, I'm going to tell you a queer thing, which I think
+you ought to know. When I was taking a walk the other night--your
+Belgian wouldn't let me into the policies, but I went down the
+glen--what's that they call it? the Garple Dean--I got round the back
+where the old ruin stands and I had a good look at the House. I tell you
+there was somebody in it."
+
+"It would be Spittal, who acts as caretaker."
+
+"It was not. It was a woman. I saw her on the verandah."
+
+The candid grey eyes were looking straight at Dickson, who managed to
+bring his own shy orbs to meet them. He thought that he detected a shade
+of hesitation. Then Mr. Loudon got up from his chair and stood on the
+hearthrug looking down at his visitor. He laughed, with some
+embarrassment, but ever so pleasantly.
+
+"I really don't know what you will think of me, Mr. McCunn. Here are
+you, coming to do us all a kindness, and lease that infernal white
+elephant, and here have I been steadily hoaxing you for the last five
+minutes. I humbly ask your pardon. Set it down to the loyalty of an old
+family lawyer. Now, I am going to tell you the truth and take you into
+our confidence, for I know we are safe with you. The Kennedys
+are--always have been--just a wee bit queer. Old inbred stock, you know.
+They will produce somebody like poor Mr. Quentin, who was as sane as you
+or me, but as a rule in every generation there is one member of the
+family--or more--who is just a little bit----" and he tapped his
+forehead. "Nothing violent, you understand, but just not quite 'wise and
+world-like,' as the old folk say. Well, there's a certain old lady, an
+aunt of Mr. Quentin and his sisters, who has always been about tenpence
+in the shilling. Usually she lives at Bournemouth, but one of her crazes
+is a passion for Huntingtower, and the Kennedys have always humoured her
+and had her to stay every spring. When the House was shut up that became
+impossible, but this year she took such a craving to come back, that
+Lady Morewood asked me to arrange it. It had to be kept very quiet, but
+the poor old thing is perfectly harmless, and just sits and knits with
+her maid and looks out of the seaward windows. Now you see why I can't
+take you there to-morrow. I have to get rid of the old lady, who in any
+case was travelling south early next week. Do you understand?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Dickson with some fervour. He had learned exactly what
+he wanted. The factor was telling him lies. Now he knew where to place
+Mr. Loudon.
+
+He always looked back upon what followed as a very creditable piece of
+play-acting for a man who had small experience in that line.
+
+"Is the old lady a wee wizened body, with a black cap and something like
+a white cashmere shawl round her shoulders?"
+
+"You describe her exactly," Mr. Loudon replied eagerly.
+
+"That would explain the foreigners."
+
+"Of course. We couldn't have natives who would make the thing the clash
+of the countryside."
+
+"Of course not. But it must be a difficult job to keep a business like
+that quiet. Any wandering policeman might start inquiries. And supposing
+the lady became violent?"
+
+"Oh, there's no fear of that. Besides, I've a position in this
+county--Deputy Fiscal and so forth--and a friend of the Chief Constable.
+I think I may be trusted to do a little private explaining if the need
+arose."
+
+"I see," said Dickson. He saw, indeed, a great deal which would give him
+food for furious thought. "Well, I must just possess my soul in
+patience. Here's my Glasgow address, and I look to you to send me a
+telegram whenever you're ready for me. I'm at the Salutation to-night,
+and go home to-morrow with the first train. Wait a minute"--and he
+pulled out his watch--"there's a train stops at Auchenlochan at 10.17. I
+think I'll catch that.... Well, Mr. Loudon, I'm very much obliged to
+you, and I'm glad to think that it'll no be long till we renew our
+acquaintance."
+
+The factor accompanied him to the door, diffusing geniality. "Very
+pleased indeed to have met you. A pleasant journey and a quick return."
+
+The street was still empty. Into a corner of the arches opposite the
+moon was shining, and Dickson retired thither to consult his map of the
+neighbourhood. He found what he wanted and, as he lifted his eyes,
+caught sight of a man coming down the causeway. Promptly he retired into
+the shadow and watched the new-comer. There could be no mistake about
+the figure; the bulk, the walk, the carriage of the head marked it for
+Dobson. The inn-keeper went slowly past the factor's house; then halted
+and retraced his steps; then, making sure that the street was empty,
+turned into the side lane which led to the garden.
+
+This was what sailors call a cross-bearing, and strengthened Dickson's
+conviction. He delayed no longer, but hurried down the side street by
+which the north road leaves the town.
+
+He had crossed the bridge of Lochan and was climbing the steep ascent
+which led to the heathy plateau separating that stream from the Garple
+before he had got his mind quite clear on the case. _First_, Loudon was
+in the plot, whatever it was; responsible for the details of the girl's
+imprisonment, but not the main author. That must be the Unknown who was
+still to come, from whom Spidel took his orders. Dobson was probably
+Loudon's special henchman, working directly under him. _Secondly_, the
+immediate object had been the jewels, and they were happily safe in the
+vaults of the incorruptible Mackintosh. But, _third_--and this only on
+Saskia's evidence--the worst danger to her began with the arrival of the
+Unknown. What could that be? Probably, kidnapping. He was prepared to
+believe anything of people like Bolsheviks. And, _fourth_, this danger
+was due within the next day or two. Loudon had been quite willing to let
+him into the house and to sack all the watchers within a week from that
+date. The natural and right thing was to summon the aid of the law,
+but, _fifth_, that would be a slow business with Loudon able to put
+spokes in the wheels and befog the authorities, and the mischief would
+be done before a single policeman showed his face in Dalquharter.
+Therefore, _sixth_, he and Heritage must hold the fort in the meantime,
+and he would send a wire to his lawyer, Mr. Caw, to get to work with the
+constabulary. _Seventh_, he himself was probably free from suspicion in
+both Loudon's and Dobson's minds as a harmless fool. But that freedom
+would not survive his reappearance in Dalquharter. He could say, to be
+sure, that he had come back to see his auntie, but that would not
+satisfy the watchers, since, so far as they knew, he was the only man
+outside the gang who was aware that people were dwelling in the House.
+They would not tolerate his presence in the neighbourhood.
+
+He formulated his conclusions as if it were an ordinary business deal,
+and rather to his surprise was not conscious of any fear. As he pulled
+together the belt of his waterproof he felt the reassuring bulges in its
+pockets which were his pistol and cartridges. He reflected that it must
+be very difficult to miss with a pistol if you fired it at, say, three
+yards, and if there was to be shooting that would be his range. Mr.
+McCunn had stumbled on the precious truth that the best way to be rid of
+quaking knees is to keep a busy mind.
+
+He crossed the ridge of the plateau and looked down on the Garple glen.
+There were the lights of Dalquharter--or rather a single light, for the
+inhabitants went early to bed. His intention was to seek quarters with
+Mrs. Morran, when his eye caught a gleam in a hollow of the moor a
+little to the east. He knew it for the camp-fire around which Dougal's
+warriors bivouacked. The notion came to him to go there instead, and
+hear the news of the day before entering the cottage. So he crossed the
+bridge, skirted a plantation of firs, and scrambled through the broom
+and heather in what he took to be the right direction.
+
+The moon had gone down, and the quest was not easy. Dickson had come to
+the conclusion that he was on the wrong road, when he was summoned by a
+voice which seemed to arise out of the ground.
+
+"Who goes there?"
+
+"What's that you say?"
+
+"Who goes there?" The point of a pole was held firmly against his chest.
+
+"I'm Mr. McCunn, a friend of Dougal's."
+
+"Stand, friend." The shadow before him whistled and another shadow
+appeared. "Report to the Chief that there's a man here, name o' McCunn,
+seekin' for him."
+
+Presently the messenger returned with Dougal and a cheap lantern which
+he flashed in Dickson's face.
+
+"Oh, it's you," said that leader, who had his jaw bound up as if he had
+the toothache. "What are ye doing back here?"
+
+"To tell the truth, Dougal," was the answer, "I couldn't stay away. I
+was fair miserable when I thought of Mr. Heritage and you laddies left
+to yourselves. My conscience simply wouldn't let me stop at home, so
+here I am."
+
+Dougal grunted, but clearly he approved, for from that moment he treated
+Dickson with a new respect. Formerly when he had referred to him at all
+it had been as "auld McCunn." Now it was "Mister McCunn." He was given
+rank as a worthy civilian ally.
+
+The bivouac was a cheerful place in the wet night. A great fire of pine
+roots and old paling posts hissed in the fine rain, and around it
+crouched several urchins busy making oatmeal cakes in the embers. On one
+side a respectable lean-to had been constructed by nailing a plank to
+two fir-trees, running sloping poles thence to the ground, and thatching
+the whole with spruce branches and heather. On the other side two small
+dilapidated home-made tents were pitched. Dougal motioned his companion
+into the lean-to, where they had some privacy from the rest of the band.
+
+"Well, what's your news?" Dickson asked. He noticed that the Chieftain
+seemed to have been comprehensively in the wars, for apart from the
+bandage on his jaw, he had numerous small cuts on his brow, and a great
+rent in one of his shirt sleeves. Also he appeared to be going lame, and
+when he spoke a new gap was revealed in his large teeth.
+
+"Things," said Dougal solemnly, "has come to a bonny cripus. This very
+night we've been in a battle."
+
+He spat fiercely, and the light of war burned in his eyes.
+
+"It was the tinklers from the Garple Dean. They yokit on us about seven
+o'clock, just at the darkenin'. First they tried to bounce us. We
+weren't wanted here, they said, so we'd better clear. I telled them that
+it was them that wasn't wanted. 'Awa' to Finnick,' says I. 'D'ye think
+we take our orders from dirty ne'er-do-weels like you?' 'By God,' says
+they, 'we'll cut your lights out,' and then the battle started."
+
+"What happened?" Dickson asked excitedly.
+
+"They were four muckle men against six laddies, and they thought they
+had an easy job! Little they kenned the Gorbals Die-Hards! I had been
+expectin' something of the kind, and had made my plans. They first tried
+to pu' down our tents and burn them. I let them get within five yards,
+reservin' my fire. The first volley--stones from our hands and our
+catties--halted them, and before they could recover three of us had got
+hold o' burnin' sticks frae the fire and were lammin' into them. We
+kinnled their claes, and they fell back swearin' and stampin' to get the
+fire out. Then I gave the word and we were on them wi' our poles, usin'
+the points accordin' to instructions. My orders was to keep a good
+distance, for if they had grippit one o' us he'd ha' been done for. They
+were roarin' mad by now, and twae had out their knives, but they
+couldn't do muckle, for it was gettin' dark, and they didn't ken the
+ground like us, and were aye trippin' and tumblin'. But they pressed us
+hard, and one o' them landed me an awful clype on the jaw. They were
+still aiming at our tents, and I saw that if they got near the fire
+again it would be the end o' us. So I blew my whistle for Thomas Yownie,
+who was in command o' the other half of us, with instructions to fall
+upon their rear. That brought Thomas up, and the tinklers had to face
+round about and fight a battle on two fronts. We charged them and they
+broke, and the last seen o' them they were coolin' their burns in the
+Garple."
+
+"Well done, man. Had you many casualties?"
+
+"We're a' a wee thing battered, but nothing to hurt. I'm the worst, for
+one o' them had a grip o' me for about three seconds, and Gosh! he was
+fierce."
+
+"They're beaten off for the night, anyway?"
+
+"Ay, for the night. But they'll come back, never fear. That's why I said
+that things had come to a cripus."
+
+"What's the news from the House?"
+
+"A quiet day, and no word o' Lean or Dobson."
+
+Dickson nodded. "They were hunting me."
+
+"Mr. Heritage has gone to bide in the Hoose. They were watchin' the
+Garple Dean, so I took him round by the Laver foot and up the rocks.
+He's a grand climber, yon. We fund a road up the rocks and got in by the
+verandy. Did ye ken that the lassie had a pistol? Well, she has, and it
+seems that Mr. Heritage is a good shot wi' a pistol, so there's some
+hope thereaways.... Are the jools safe?"
+
+"Safe in the bank. But the jools were not the main thing."
+
+Dougal nodded. "So I was thinkin'. The lassie wasn't muckle the easier
+for gettin' rid o' them. I didn't just quite understand what she said to
+Mr. Heritage, for they were aye wanderin' into foreign langwidges, but
+it seems she's terrible feared o' somebody that may turn up any moment.
+What's the reason I can't say. She's maybe got a secret, or maybe it's
+just that she's ower bonny."
+
+"That's the trouble," said Dickson and proceeded to recount his
+interview with the factor, to which Dougal gave close attention. "Now
+the way I read the thing is this. There's a plot to kidnap that lady,
+for some infernal purpose, and it depends on the arrival of some person
+or persons, and it's due to happen in the next day or two. If we try to
+work it through the police alone, they'll beat us, for Loudon will
+manage to hang the business up till it's too late. So we must take up
+the job ourselves. We must stand a siege, Mr. Heritage and me and you
+laddies, and for that purpose we'd better all keep together. It won't be
+extra easy to carry her off from all of us, and if they do manage it
+we'll stick to their heels.... Man, Dougal, isn't it a queer thing that
+whiles law-abiding folk have to make their own laws?... So my plan is
+that the lot of us get into the House and form a garrison. If you don't,
+the tinklers will come back and you'll no' beat them in the daylight."
+
+"I doubt no'," said Dougal. "But what about our meat?"
+
+"We must lay in provisions. We'll get what we can from Mrs. Morran, and
+I've left a big box of fancy things at Dalquharter station. Can you
+laddies manage to get it down here?"
+
+Dougal reflected. "Ay, we can hire Mrs. Sempill's powny, the same that
+fetched our kit."
+
+"Well, that's your job to-morrow. See, I'll write you a line to the
+station-master. And will you undertake to get it some way into the
+House?"
+
+"There's just the one road open--by the rocks. It'll have to be done. It
+_can_ be done."
+
+"And I've another job. I'm writing this telegram to a friend in Glasgow
+who will put a spoke in Mr. Loudon's wheel. I want one of you to go to
+Kirkmichael to send it from the telegraph office there."
+
+Dougal placed the wire to Mr. Caw in his bosom. "What about yourself? We
+want somebody outside to keep his eyes open. It's bad strawtegy to cut
+off your communications."
+
+Dickson thought for a moment. "I believe you're right. I believe the
+best plan for me is to go back to Mrs. Morran's as soon as the old
+body's like to be awake. You can always get at me there, for it's easy
+to slip into her back kitchen without anybody in the village seeing
+you.... Yes, I'll do that, and you'll come and report developments to
+me. And now I'm for a bite and a pipe. It's hungry work travelling the
+country in the small hours."
+
+"I'm going to introjuice ye to the rest o' us," said Dougal. "Here,
+men!" he called, and four figures rose from the side of the fire. As
+Dickson munched a sandwich he passed in review the whole company of the
+Gorbals Die-Hards, for the pickets were also brought in, two others
+taking their places. There was Thomas Yownie, the Chief of Staff, with a
+wrist wound up in the handkerchief which he had borrowed from his neck.
+There was a burly lad who wore trousers much too large for him, and who
+was known as Peer Pairson, a contraction presumably for Peter Paterson.
+After him came a lean tall boy who answered to the name of Napoleon.
+There was a midget of a child, desperately sooty in the face either from
+battle or from fire-tending, who was presented as Wee Jaikie. Last came
+the picket who had held his pole at Dickson's chest, a sandy-haired
+warrior with a snub nose and the mouth and jaw of a pug-dog. He was Old
+Bill, or in Dougal's parlance "Auld Bull."
+
+The Chieftain viewed his scarred following with a grim content. "That's
+a tough lot for ye, Mr. McCunn. Used a' their days wi' sleepin' in
+coalrees and dunnies and dodgin' the polis. Ye'll no beat the Gorbals
+Die-Hards."
+
+"You're right, Dougal," said Dickson. "There's just the six of you. If
+there were a dozen, I think this country would be needing some new kind
+of a government."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+HOW A MIDDLE-AGED CRUSADER ACCEPTED A CHALLENGE
+
+
+The first cocks had just begun to crow and the clocks had not yet struck
+five when Dickson presented himself at Mrs. Morran's back door. That
+active woman had already been half an hour out of bed, and was drinking
+her morning cup of tea in the kitchen. She received him with cordiality,
+nay, with relief.
+
+"Eh, sirs, but I'm glad to see ye back. Guid kens what's gaun on at the
+Hoose thae days. Mr. Heritage left here yestreen, creepin' round by
+dyke-sides and berry-busses like a wheasel. It's a mercy to get a
+responsible man in the place. I aye had a notion ye wad come back, for,
+thinks I, nevoy Dickson is no the yin to desert folk in trouble....
+Whaur's my wee kist?... Lost, ye say. That's a peety, for it's been my
+cheese-box thae thirty year."
+
+Dickson ascended to the loft, having announced his need of at least
+three hours' sleep. As he rolled into bed his mind was curiously at
+ease. He felt equipped for any call that might be made on him. That Mrs.
+Morran should welcome him back as a resource in need gave him a new
+assurance of manhood.
+
+He woke between nine and ten to the sound of rain lashing against the
+garret window. As he picked his way out of the mazes of sleep and
+recovered the skein of his immediate past, he found to his disgust that
+he had lost his composure. All the flock of fears that had left him
+when, on the top of the Glasgow tram-car, he had made the great decision
+had flown back again and settled like black crows on his spirit. He was
+running a horrible risk and all for a whim. What business had he to be
+mixing himself up in things he did not understand? It might be a huge
+mistake, and then he would be a laughing stock; for a moment he repented
+his telegram to Mr. Caw. Then he recanted that suspicion; there could be
+no mistake, except the fatal one that he had taken on a job too big for
+him. He sat on the edge of his bed and shivered, with his eyes on the
+grey drift of rain. He would have felt more stout-hearted had the sun
+been shining.
+
+He shuffled to the window and looked out. There in the village street
+was Dobson, and Dobson saw him. That was a bad blunder, for his reason
+told him that he should have kept his presence in Dalquharter hid as
+long as possible.
+
+There was a knock at the cottage door, and presently Mrs. Morran
+appeared.
+
+"It's the man frae the inn," she announced. "He's wantin' a word wi' ye.
+Speakin' verra ceevil, too."
+
+"Tell him to come up," said Dickson. He might as well get the interview
+over. Dobson had seen Loudon and must know of their conversation. The
+sight of himself back again when he had pretended to be off to Glasgow
+would remove him effectually from the class of the unsuspected. He
+wondered just what line Dobson would take.
+
+The innkeeper obtruded his bulk through the low door. His face was
+wrinkled into a smile, which nevertheless left the small eyes ungenial.
+His voice had a loud vulgar cordiality. Suddenly Dickson was conscious
+of a resemblance, a resemblance to somebody whom he had recently seen.
+It was Loudon. There was the same thrusting of the chin forward, the
+same odd cheek-bones, the same unctuous heartiness of speech. The
+innkeeper, well washed and polished and dressed, would be no bad copy of
+the factor. They must be near kin, perhaps brothers.
+
+"Good morning to you, Mr. McCunn. Man, it's pitifu' weather, and just
+when the farmers are wanting a dry seed-bed. What brings ye back here?
+Ye travel the country like a drover."
+
+"Oh, I'm a free man now and I took a fancy to this place. An idle body
+has nothing to do but please himself."
+
+"I hear ye're taking a lease of Huntingtower?"
+
+"Now who told you that?"
+
+"Just the clash of the place. Is it true?"
+
+Dickson looked sly and a little annoyed.
+
+"I maybe had half a thought of it, but I'll thank you not to repeat the
+story. It's a big house for a plain man like me, and I haven't properly
+inspected it."
+
+"Oh, I'll keep mum, never fear. But if ye've that sort of notion, I can
+understand you not being able to keep away from the place."
+
+"That's maybe the fact," Dickson admitted.
+
+"Well! It's just on that point I want a word with you." The innkeeper
+seated himself unbidden on the chair which held Dickson's modest
+raiment. He leaned forward and with a coarse forefinger tapped Dickson's
+pyjama-clad knees. "I can't have ye wandering about the place. I'm very
+sorry, but I've got my orders from Mr. Loudon. So if you think that by
+bidin' here ye can see more of the House and the policies, ye're wrong,
+Mr. McCunn. It can't be allowed, for we're no' ready for ye yet. D'ye
+understand? That's Mr. Loudon's orders.... Now, would it not be a far
+better plan if ye went back to Glasgow and came back in a week's time?
+I'm thinking of your own comfort, Mr. McCunn."
+
+Dickson was cogitating hard. This man was clearly instructed to get rid
+of him at all costs for the next few days. The neighbourhood had to be
+cleared for some black business. The tinklers had been deputed to drive
+out the Gorbals Die-Hards, and as for Heritage they seemed to have lost
+track of him. He, Dickson, was now the chief object of their care. But
+what could Dobson do if he refused? He dared not show his true hand. Yet
+he might, if sufficiently irritated. It became Dickson's immediate
+object to get the innkeeper to reveal himself by rousing his temper. He
+did not stop to consider the policy of this course; he imperatively
+wanted things cleared up and the issue made plain.
+
+"I'm sure I'm much obliged to you for thinking so much about my
+comfort," he said in a voice into which he hoped he had insinuated a
+sneer. "But I'm bound to say you're awful suspicious folk about here.
+You needn't be feared for your old policies. There's plenty of nice
+walks about the roads, and I want to explore the sea-coast."
+
+The last words seemed to annoy the innkeeper. "That's no' allowed
+either," he said. "The shore's as private as the policies.... Well, I
+wish ye joy tramping the roads in the glaur."
+
+"It's a queer thing," said Dickson meditatively, "that you should keep
+an hotel and yet be set on discouraging people from visiting this
+neighbourhood. I tell you what, I believe that hotel of yours is all
+sham. You've some other business, you and these lodgekeepers, and in my
+opinion it's not a very creditable one."
+
+"What d'ye mean?" asked Dobson sharply.
+
+"Just what I say. You must expect a body to be suspicious, if you treat
+him as you're treating me." Loudon must have told this man the story
+with which he had been fobbed off about the half-witted Kennedy
+relative. Would Dobson refer to that?
+
+The innkeeper had an ugly look on his face, but he controlled his temper
+with an effort. "There's no cause for suspicion," he said. "As far as
+I'm concerned it's all honest and aboveboard."
+
+"It doesn't look like it. It looks as if you were hiding something up in
+the House which you don't want me to see."
+
+Dobson jumped from his chair, his face pale with anger. A man in pyjamas
+on a raw morning does not feel at his bravest, and Dickson quailed under
+the expectation of assault. But even in his fright he realised that
+Loudon could not have told Dobson the tale of the half-witted lady. The
+last remark had cut clean through all camouflage and reached the quick.
+
+"What the hell d' ye mean?" he cried. "Ye're a spy, are ye? Ye fat
+little fool, for two cents I'd wring your neck."
+
+Now it is an odd trait of certain mild people that a suspicion of
+threat, a hint of bullying, will rouse some unsuspected obstinacy deep
+down in their souls. The insolence of the man's speech woke a quiet but
+efficient little devil in Dickson.
+
+"That's a bonny tone to adopt in addressing a gentleman. If you've
+nothing to hide what way are you so touchy? I can't be a spy unless
+there's something to spy on."
+
+The innkeeper pulled himself together. He was apparently acting on
+instructions, and had not yet come to the end of them. He made an
+attempt at a smile.
+
+"I'm sure I beg your pardon if I spoke too hot. But it nettled me to
+hear ye say that.... I'll be quite frank with ye, Mr. McCunn, and,
+believe me, I'm speaking in your best interests. I give ye my word
+there's nothing wrong up at the House. I'm on the side of the law, and
+when I tell ye the whole story ye'll admit it. But I can't tell it ye
+yet.... This is a wild, lonely bit and very few folk bide in it. And
+these are wild times, when a lot of queer things happen that never get
+into the papers. I tell ye it's for your own good to leave Dalquharter
+for the present. More I can't say, but I ask ye to look at it as a
+sensible man. Ye're one that's accustomed to a quiet life and no' meant
+for rough work. Ye'll do no good if you stay, and, maybe, ye'll land
+yourself in bad trouble."
+
+"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed. "What is it you're expecting? Sinn
+Fein?"
+
+The innkeeper nodded. "Something like that."
+
+"Did you ever hear the like? I never did think much of the Irish."
+
+"Then ye'll take my advice and go home? Tell ye what, I'll drive ye to
+the station."
+
+Dickson got up from the bed, found his new safety-razor and began to
+strop it. "No, I think I'll bide. If you're right there'll be more to
+see than glaury roads."
+
+"I'm warning ye, fair and honest. Ye ... can't ... be ... allowed ... to
+... stay ... here!"
+
+"Well, I never!" said Dickson. "Is there any law in Scotland, think you,
+that forbids a man to stop a day or two with his auntie?"
+
+"Ye'll stay?"
+
+"Ay, I'll stay."
+
+"By God, we'll see about that."
+
+For a moment Dickson thought that he would be attacked, and he measured
+the distance that separated him from the peg whence hung his waterproof
+with the pistol in its pocket. But the man restrained himself and moved
+to the door. There he stood and cursed him with a violence and a venom
+which Dickson had not believed possible. The full hand was on the table
+now.
+
+"Ye wee pot-bellied, pig-heided Glasgow grocer," (I paraphrase), "would
+_you_ set up to defy me? I tell ye, I'll make ye rue the day ye were
+born." His parting words were a brilliant sketch of the maltreatment in
+store for the body of the defiant one.
+
+"Impident dog," said Dickson without heat. He noted with pleasure that
+the innkeeper hit his head violently against the low lintel, and,
+missing a step, fell down the loft stairs into the kitchen, where Mrs.
+Morran's tongue could be heard speeding him trenchantly from the
+premises.
+
+Left to himself, Dickson dressed leisurely, and by and by went down to
+the kitchen and watched his hostess making broth. The fracas with Dobson
+had done him all the good in the world, for it had cleared the problem
+of dubieties and had put an edge on his temper. But he realised that it
+made his continued stay in the cottage undesirable. He was now the focus
+of all suspicion, and the innkeeper would be as good as his word and try
+to drive him out of the place by force. Kidnapping, most likely, and
+that would be highly unpleasant, besides putting an end to his
+usefulness. Clearly he must join the others. The soul of Dickson
+hungered at the moment for human companionship. He felt that his courage
+would be sufficient for any team-work, but might waver again if he were
+left to play a lone hand.
+
+He lunched nobly off three plates of Mrs. Morran's kail--an early lunch,
+for that lady, having breakfasted at five, partook of the midday meal
+about eleven. Then he explored her library, and settled himself by the
+fire with a volume of Covenanting tales, entitled _Gleanings among the
+Mountains_. It was a most practical work for one in his position, for it
+told how various eminent saints of that era escaped the attention of
+Claverhouse's dragoons. Dickson stored up in his memory several of the
+incidents in case they should come in handy. He wondered if any of his
+forbears had been Covenanters; it comforted him to think that some old
+progenitor might have hunkered behind turf walls and been chased for his
+life in the heather. "Just like me," he reflected. "But the dragoons
+weren't foreigners, and there was a kind of decency about Claverhouse
+too."
+
+About four o'clock Dougal presented himself in the back kitchen. He was
+an even wilder figure than usual, for his bare legs were mud to the
+knees, his kilt and shirt clung sopping to his body, and, having lost
+his hat, his wet hair was plastered over his eyes. Mrs. Morran said, not
+unkindly, that he looked "like a wull-cat glowerin' through a whin
+buss."
+
+"How are you, Dougal?" Dickson asked genially. "Is the peace of nature
+smoothing out the creases in your poor little soul?"
+
+"What's that ye say?"
+
+"Oh, just what I heard a man say in Glasgow. How have you got on?"
+
+"Not so bad. Your telegram was sent this mornin'. Old Bill took it in to
+Kirkmichael. That's the first thing. Second, Thomas Yownie has took a
+party to get down the box from the station. He got Mrs. Sempill's powny
+and he took the box ayont the Laver by the ford at the herd's hoose and
+got it on to the shore maybe a mile ayont Laverfoot. He managed to get
+the machine up as far as the water, but he could get no farther, for
+ye'll no' get a machine over the wee waterfa' just before the Laver ends
+in the sea. So he sent one o' the men back with it to Mrs. Sempill, and,
+since the box was ower heavy to carry, he opened it and took the stuff
+across in bits. It's a' safe in the hole at the foot o' the Huntingtower
+rocks, and he reports that the rain has done it no harm. Thomas has made
+a good job of it. Ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+"And what about your camp on the moor?"
+
+"It was broke up afore daylight. Some of our things we've got with us,
+and most is hid near at hand. The tents are in the auld wife's
+henhoose," and he jerked his disreputable head in the direction of the
+back door.
+
+"Have the tinklers been back?"
+
+"Ay. They turned up about ten o'clock, no doubt intendin' murder. I left
+Wee Jaikie to watch developments. They fund him sittin' on a stone,
+greetin' sore. When he saw them, he up and started to run, and they
+cried on him to stop, but he wouldn't listen. Then they cried out where
+were the rest, and he telled them they were feared for their lives and
+had run away. After that they offered to catch him, but ye'll no' catch
+Jaikie in a hurry. When he had run round about them till they were
+wappit, he out wi' his catty and got one o' them on the lug. Syne he
+made for the Laverfoot and reported."
+
+"Man, Dougal, you've managed fine. Now I've something to tell you," and
+Dickson recounted his interview with the innkeeper. "I don't think it's
+safe for me to bide here, and if I did, I wouldn't be any use, hiding in
+cellars and such like, and not daring to stir a foot. I'm coming with
+you to the House. Now tell me how to get there."
+
+Dougal agreed to this view. "There's been nothing doing at the Hoose the
+day, but they're keepin' a close watch on the policies. The cripus may
+come any moment. There's no doubt, Mr. McCunn, that ye're in danger, for
+they'll serve you as the tinklers tried to serve us. Listen to me. Ye'll
+walk up the station road, and take the second turn on your left, a wee
+grass road that'll bring ye to the ford at the herd's hoose. Cross the
+Laver--there's a plank bridge--and take straight across the moor in the
+direction of the peakit hill they call Grey Carrick. Ye'll come to a big
+burn, which ye must follow till ye get to the shore. Then turn south,
+keepin' the water's edge till ye reach the Laver, where you'll find one
+o' us to show ye the rest of the road.... I must be off now, and I
+advise ye not to be slow of startin', for wi' this rain the water's
+risin' quick. It's a mercy it's such coarse weather, for it spoils the
+veesibility."
+
+"Auntie Phemie," said Dickson a few minutes later, "will you oblige me
+by coming for a short walk?"
+
+"The man's daft," was the answer.
+
+"I'm not. I'll explain if you'll listen.... You see," he concluded, "the
+dangerous bit for me is just the mile out of the village. They'll no' be
+so likely to try violence if there's somebody with me that could be a
+witness. Besides, they'll maybe suspect less if they just see a decent
+body out for a breath of air with his auntie."
+
+Mrs. Morran said nothing, but retired, and returned presently equipped
+for the road. She had indued her feet with goloshes and pinned up her
+skirts till they looked like some demented Paris mode. An ancient bonnet
+was tied under her chin with strings, and her equipment was completed by
+an exceedingly smart tortoise-shell-handled umbrella, which, she
+explained, had been a Christmas present from her son.
+
+"I'll convoy ye as far as the Laverfoot herd's," she announced. "The
+wife's a freend o' mine and will set me a bit on the road back. Ye
+needna fash for me. I'm used to a' weathers."
+
+The rain had declined to a fine drizzle, but a tearing wind from the
+south-west scoured the land. Beyond the shelter of the trees the moor
+was a battle-ground of gusts which swept the puddles into spindrift and
+gave to the stagnant bog-pools the appearance of running water. The wind
+was behind the travellers, and Mrs. Morran, like a full-rigged ship,
+was hustled before it, so that Dickson, who had linked arms with her,
+was sometimes compelled to trot.
+
+"However will you get home, mistress?" he murmured anxiously.
+
+"Fine. The wind will fa' at the darkenin'. This'll be a sair time for
+ships at sea."
+
+Not a soul was about, as they breasted the ascent of the station road
+and turned down the grassy bypath to the Laverfoot herd's. The herd's
+wife saw them from afar and was at the door to receive them.
+
+"Megsty! Phemie Morran!" she shrilled. "Wha wad ettle to see ye on a day
+like this? John's awa' at Dumfries, buyin' tups. Come in, the baith o'
+ye. The kettle's on the boil."
+
+"This is my nevoy Dickson," said Mrs. Morran. "He's gaun to stretch his
+legs ayont the burn, and come back by the Ayr road. But I'll be blithe
+to tak' my tea wi' ye, Elspeth.... Now, Dickson, I'll expect ye back on
+the chap o' seeven."
+
+He crossed the rising stream on a swaying plank and struck into the
+moorland, as Dougal had ordered, keeping the bald top of Grey Carrick
+before him. In that wild place with the tempest battling overhead he had
+no fear of human enemies. Steadily he covered the ground, till he
+reached the west-flowing burn that was to lead him to the shore. He
+found it an entertaining companion, swirling into black pools, foaming
+over little falls, and lying in dark canal-like stretches in the flats.
+Presently it began to descend steeply in a narrow green gully, where
+the going was bad, and Dickson, weighted with pack and waterproof, had
+much ado to keep his feet on the sodden slopes. Then, as he rounded a
+crook of hill, the ground fell away from his feet, the burn swept in a
+water-slide to the boulders of the shore, and the storm-tossed sea lay
+before him.
+
+It was now that he began to feel nervous. Being on the coast again
+seemed to bring him inside his enemies' territory, and had not Dobson
+specifically forbidden the shore? It was here that they might be looking
+for him. He felt himself out of condition, very wet and very warm, but
+he attained a creditable pace, for he struck a road which had been used
+by manure-carts collecting seaweed. There were faint marks on it, which
+he took to be the wheels of Dougal's "machine" carrying the
+provision-box. Yes. On a patch of gravel there was a double set of
+tracks, which showed how it had returned to Mrs. Sempill. He was exposed
+to the full force of the wind, and the strenuousness of his bodily
+exertions kept his fears quiescent, till the cliffs on his left sunk
+suddenly and the valley of the Laver lay before him.
+
+A small figure rose from the shelter of a boulder, the warrior who bore
+the name of Old Bill. He saluted gravely.
+
+"Ye're just in time. The water has rose three inches since I've been
+here. Ye'd better strip."
+
+Dickson removed his boots and socks. "Breeks, too," commanded the boy;
+"there's deep holes ayont thae stanes."
+
+Dickson obeyed, feeling very chilly, and rather improper. "Now, follow
+me," said the guide. The next moment he was stepping delicately on very
+sharp pebbles, holding on to the end of the scout's pole, while an icy
+stream ran to his knees.
+
+The Laver as it reaches the sea broadens out to the width of fifty or
+sixty yards and tumbles over little shelves of rock to meet the waves.
+Usually it is shallow, but now it was swollen to an average depth of a
+foot or more, and there were deeper pockets. Dickson made the passage
+slowly and miserably, sometimes crying out with pain as his toes struck
+a sharper flint, once or twice sitting down on a boulder to blow like a
+whale, once slipping on his knees and wetting the strange excrescence
+about his middle, which was his tucked-up waterproof. But the crossing
+was at length achieved, and on a patch of sea-pinks he dried himself
+perfunctorily and hastily put on his garments. Old Bill, who seemed to
+be regardless of wind or water, squatted beside him and whistled through
+his teeth.
+
+Above them hung the sheer cliffs of the Huntingtower cape, so sheer that
+a man below was completely hidden from any watcher on the top. Dickson's
+heart fell, for he did not profess to be a cragsman and had indeed a
+horror of precipitous places. But as the two scrambled along the foot,
+they passed deep-cut gullies and fissures, most of them unclimbable, but
+offering something more hopeful than the face. At one of these Old Bill
+halted and led the way up and over a chaos of fallen rock and loose
+sand. The grey weather had brought on the dark prematurely, and in the
+half-light it seemed that this ravine was blocked by an unscalable mass
+of rock. Here Old Bill whistled, and there was a reply from above. Round
+the corner of the mass came Dougal.
+
+"Up here," he commanded. "It was Mr. Heritage that fund this road."
+
+Dickson and his guide squeezed themselves between the mass and the cliff
+up a spout of stones, and found themselves in an upper storey of the
+gulley, very steep but practicable even for one who was no cragsman.
+This in turn ran out against a wall up which there led only a narrow
+chimney. At the foot of this were two of the Die-Hards, and there were
+others above, for a rope hung down by the aid of which a package was
+even now ascending.
+
+"That's the top," said Dougal, pointing to the rim of sky, "and that's
+the last o' the supplies." Dickson noticed that he spoke in a whisper,
+and that all the movements of the Die-Hards were judicious and stealthy.
+"Now, it's your turn. Take a good grip o' the rope, and ye'll find
+plenty holes for your feet. It's no more than ten yards and ye're well
+held above."
+
+Dickson made the attempt and found it easier than he expected. The only
+trouble was his pack and waterproof, which had a tendency to catch on
+jags of rock. A hand was reached out to him, he was pulled over the
+edge, and then pushed down on his face.
+
+When he lifted his head Dougal and the others had joined him and the
+whole company of the Die-Hards was assembled on a patch of grass which
+was concealed from the landward view by a thicket of hazels. Another,
+whom he recognised as Heritage, was coiling up the rope.
+
+"We'd better get all the stuff into the old Tower for the present,"
+Heritage was saying. "It's too risky to move it into the House now.
+We'll need the thickest darkness for that, after the moon is down.
+Quick, for the beastly thing will be rising soon and before that we must
+all be indoors."
+
+Then he turned to Dickson, and gripped his hand. "You're a high class of
+sportsman, Dogson. And I think you're just in time."
+
+"Are they due to-night?" Dickson asked in an excited whisper, faint
+against the wind.
+
+"I don't know about They. But I've got a notion that some devilish queer
+things will happen before to-morrow morning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
+
+
+The old keep of Huntingtower stood some three hundred yards from the
+edge of the cliffs, a gnarled wood of hazels and oaks protecting it from
+the sea-winds. It was still in fair preservation, having till twenty
+years before been an adjunct of the house of Dalquharter, and used as
+kitchen, buttery and servants' quarters. There had been residential
+wings attached, dating from the mid-eighteenth century, but these had
+been pulled down and used for the foundations of the new mansion. Now it
+stood a lonely shell, its three storeys, each a single great room
+connected by a spiral stone staircase, being dedicated to lumber and the
+storage of produce. But it was dry and intact, its massive oak doors
+defied any weapon short of artillery, its narrow unglazed windows would
+scarcely have admitted a cat--a place portentously strong, gloomy, but
+yet habitable.
+
+Dougal opened the main door with a massy key. "The lassie fund it," he
+whispered to Dickson, "somewhere about the kitchen--and I guessed it was
+the key o' this castle. I was thinkin' that if things got ower hot it
+would be a good plan to flit here. Change our base, like." The
+Chieftain's occasional studies in war had trained his tongue to a
+military jargon.
+
+In the ground room lay a fine assortment of oddments, including old
+bedsteads and servants' furniture, and what looked like ancient
+discarded deer-skin rugs. Dust lay thick over everything, and they heard
+the scurry of rats. A dismal place, indeed, but Dickson felt only its
+strangeness. The comfort of being back again among allies had quickened
+his spirit to an adventurous mood. The old lords of Huntingtower had
+once quarrelled and revelled and plotted here, and now here he was at
+the same game. Present and past joined hands over the gulf of years. The
+saga of Huntingtower was not ended.
+
+The Die-Hards had brought with them their scanty bedding, their lanterns
+and camp kettles. These and the provisions from Mearns Street were
+stowed away in a corner.
+
+"Now for the Hoose, men," said Dougal. They stole over the downs to the
+shrubbery, and Dickson found himself almost in the same place as he had
+lain in three days before, watching a dusky lawn, while the wet earth
+soaked through his trouser knees and the drip from the azaleas trickled
+over his spine. Two of the boys fetched the ladder and placed it against
+the verandah wall. Heritage first, then Dickson darted across the lawn
+and made the ascent. The six scouts followed, and the ladder was pulled
+up and hidden among the verandah litter. For a second the whole eight
+stood still and listened. There was no sound except the murmur of the
+now falling wind and the melancholy hooting of owls. The garrison had
+entered the Dark Tower.
+
+A council in whispers was held in the garden room.
+
+"Nobody must show a light," Heritage observed. "It mustn't be known that
+we're here. Only the Princess will have a lamp. Yes"--this in answer to
+Dickson, "she knows that we're coming--you too. We'll hunt for quarters
+later upstairs. You scouts, you must picket every possible entrance. The
+windows are safe, I think, for they are locked from the inside. So is
+the main door. But there's the verandah door, of which they have a key,
+and the back door beside the kitchen, and I'm not at all sure that
+there's not a way in by the boiler-house. You understand. We're holding
+this place against all comers. We must barricade the danger points. The
+headquarters of the garrison will be in the hall, where a scout must be
+always on duty. You've all got whistles? Well, if there's an attempt on
+the verandah door the picket will whistle once, if at the back door
+twice, if anywhere else three times, and it's everybody's duty, except
+the picket who whistles, to get back to the hall for orders."
+
+"That's so," assented Dougal.
+
+"If the enemy forces an entrance we must overpower him. Any means you
+like. Sticks or fists, and remember that if it's a scrap in the dark
+make for the man's throat. I expect you little devils have eyes like
+cats. The scoundrels must be kept away from the ladies at all costs. If
+the worst comes to the worst, the Princess has a revolver."
+
+"So have I," said Dickson. "I got it in Glasgow."
+
+"The deuce you have! Can you use it?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, you can hand it over to me, if you like. But it oughtn't to come
+to shooting, if it's only the three of them. The eight of us should be
+able to manage three and one of them lame. If the others turn up--well,
+God help us all! But we've got to make sure of one thing, that no one
+lays hands on the Princess so long as there's one of us left alive to
+hit out."
+
+"Ye needn't be feared for that," said Dougal. There was no light in the
+room, but Dickson was certain that the morose face of the Chieftain was
+lit with unholy joy.
+
+"Then off with you. Mr. McCunn and I will explain matters to the
+ladies."
+
+When they were alone, Heritage's voice took a different key. "We're in
+for it, Dogson, old man. There's no doubt these three scoundrels expect
+reinforcements at any moment, and with them will be one who is the devil
+incarnate. He's the only thing on earth that that brave girl fears. It
+seems he is in love with her and has pestered her for years. She hated
+the sight of him, but he wouldn't take no, and being a powerful
+man--rich and well-born and all the rest of it--she had a desperate
+time. I gather he was pretty high in favour with the old Court. Then
+when the Bolsheviks started he went over to them, like plenty of other
+grandees, and now he's one of their chief brains--none of your callow
+revolutionaries, but a man of the world, a kind of genius, she says, who
+can hold his own anywhere. She believes him to be in this country, and
+only waiting the right moment to turn up. Oh, it sounds ridiculous, I
+know, in Britain in the twentieth century, but I learned in the war that
+civilisation anywhere is a very thin crust. There are a hundred ways by
+which that kind of fellow could bamboozle all our law and police and
+spirit her away. That's the kind of crowd we have to face."
+
+"Did she say what he was like in appearance?"
+
+"A face like an angel--a lost angel, she says."
+
+Dickson suddenly had an inspiration.
+
+"D'you mind the man you said was an Australian--at Kirkmichael? I
+thought myself he was a foreigner. Well, he was asking for a place he
+called Darkwater, and there's no sich place in the countryside. I
+believe he meant Dalquharter. I believe he's the man she's feared of."
+
+A gasped "By Jove!" came from the darkness. "Dogson, you've hit it. That
+was five days ago, and he must have got on the right trail by this time.
+He'll be here to-night. That's why the three have been lying so quiet
+to-day. Well, we'll go through with it, even if we haven't a dog's
+chance. Only I'm sorry that you should be mixed up in such a hopeless
+business."
+
+"Why me more than you?"
+
+"Because it's all pure pride and joy for me to be here. Good God, I
+wouldn't be elsewhere for worlds. It's the great hour of my life. I
+would gladly die for her."
+
+"Tuts, that's no' the way to talk, man. Time enough to speak about dying
+when there's no other way out. I'm looking at this thing in a business
+way. We'd better be seeing the ladies."
+
+They groped into the pitchy hall, somewhere in which a Die-Hard was on
+picket, and down the passage to the smoking-room. Dickson blinked in the
+light of a very feeble lamp and Heritage saw that his hands were
+cumbered with packages. He deposited them on a sofa and made a ducking
+bow.
+
+"I've come back, Mem, and glad to be back. Your jools are in safe
+keeping, and not all the blagyirds in creation could get at them. I've
+come to tell you to cheer up--a stout heart to a stey brae, as the old
+folk say. I'm handling this affair as a business proposition, so don't
+be feared, Mem. If there are enemies seeking you, there's friends on the
+road too.... Now, you'll have had your dinner, but you'd maybe like a
+little dessert."
+
+He spread before them a huge box of chocolates, the best that Mearns
+Street could produce, a box of candied fruits, and another of salted
+almonds. Then from his hideously overcrowded pockets he took another
+box, which he offered rather shyly. "That's some powder for your
+complexion. They tell me that ladies find it useful whiles."
+
+The girl's strained face watched him at first in mystification, and then
+broke slowly into a smile. Youth came back to it, the smile changed to a
+laugh, a low rippling laugh like far-away bells. She took both his
+hands.
+
+"You are kind," she said, "you are kind and brave. You are a de-ar."
+
+And then she kissed him.
+
+Now, as far as Dickson could remember, no one had ever kissed him except
+his wife. The light touch of her lips on his forehead was like the
+pressing of an electric button which explodes some powerful charge and
+alters the face of a countryside. He blushed scarlet; then he wanted to
+cry; then he wanted to sing. An immense exhilaration seized him, and I
+am certain that if at that moment the serried ranks of Bolshevism had
+appeared in the doorway, Dickson would have hurled himself upon them
+with a joyful shout.
+
+Cousin Eugenie was earnestly eating chocolates, but Saskia had other
+business.
+
+"You will hold the house?" she asked.
+
+"Please God, yes," said Heritage. "I look at it this way. The time is
+very near when your three gaolers expect the others, their masters. They
+have not troubled you in the past two days as they threatened, because
+it was not worth while. But they won't want to let you out of their
+sight in the final hours, so they will almost certainly come here to be
+on the spot. Our object is to keep them out and confuse their plans.
+Somewhere in this neighbourhood, probably very near, is the man you fear
+most. If we nonplus the three watchers, they'll have to revise their
+policy, and that means a delay, and every hour's delay is a gain. Mr.
+McCunn has found out that the factor Loudon is in the plot, and he has
+purchase enough, it seems, to blanket for a time any appeal to the law.
+But Mr. McCunn has taken steps to circumvent him, and in twenty-four
+hours we should have help here."
+
+"I do not want the help of your law," the girl interrupted. "It will
+entangle me."
+
+"Not a bit of it," said Dickson cheerfully. "You see, Mem, they've clean
+lost track of the jools, and nobody knows where they are but me. I'm a
+truthful man, but I'll lie like a packman if I'm asked questions. For
+the rest, it's a question of kidnapping, I understand, and that's a
+thing that's not to be allowed. My advice is to go to our beds and get a
+little sleep while there's a chance of it. The Gorbals Die-Hards are
+grand watch-dogs."
+
+This view sounded so reasonable that it was at once acted upon. The
+ladies' chamber was next door to the smoking-room--what had been the old
+schoolroom. Heritage arranged with Saskia that the lamp was to be kept
+burning low, and that on no account were they to move unless summoned by
+him. Then he and Dickson made their way to the hall, where there was a
+faint glimmer from the moon in the upper unshuttered windows--enough to
+reveal the figure of Wee Jaikie on duty at the foot of the staircase.
+They ascended to the second floor, where, in a large room above the
+hall, Heritage had bestowed his pack. He had managed to open a fold of
+the shutters, and there was sufficient light to see two big mahogany
+bedsteads without mattresses or bedclothes, and wardrobes and chests of
+drawers sheeted in holland. Outside the wind was rising again, but the
+rain had stopped. Angry watery clouds scurried across the heavens.
+
+Dickson made a pillow of his waterproof, stretched himself on one of the
+bedsteads and, so quiet was his conscience and so weary his body from
+the buffetings of the past days, was almost instantly asleep. It seemed
+to him that he had scarcely closed his eyes when he was awakened by
+Dougal's hand pinching his shoulder. He gathered that the moon was
+setting, for the room was pitchy dark.
+
+"The three o' them is approachin' the kitchen door," whispered the
+Chieftain. "I seen them from a spy-hole I made out o' a ventilator."
+
+"Is it barricaded?" asked Heritage, who had apparently not been asleep.
+
+"Ay, but I've thought o' a far better plan. Why should we keep them out?
+They'll be safer inside. Listen! We might manage to get them in one at a
+time. If they can't get in at the kitchen door, they'll send one o' them
+round to get in by another door and open to them. That gives us a chance
+to get them separated, and lock them up. There's walth o' closets and
+hidy-holes all over the place, each with good doors and good keys to
+them. Supposin' we get the three o' them shut up--the others, when they
+come, will have nobody to guide them. Of course some time or other the
+three will break out, but it may be ower late for them. At present we're
+besieged and they're roamin' the country. Would it no' be far better if
+they were the ones lockit up and we were goin' loose?"
+
+"Supposing they don't come in one at a time?" Dickson objected.
+
+"We'll make them," said Dougal firmly. "There's no time to waste. Are ye
+for it?"
+
+"Yes," said Heritage. "Who's at the kitchen door?"
+
+"Peter Paterson. I told him no' to whistle, but to wait on me.... Keep
+your boots off. Ye're better in your stockin' feet. Wait you in the hall
+and see ye're well hidden, for likely whoever comes in will have a
+lantern. Just you keep quiet unless I give ye a cry. I've planned it a'
+out, and we're ready for them."
+
+Dougal disappeared, and Dickson and Heritage, with their boots tied
+round their necks by their laces, crept out to the upper landing. The
+hall was impenetrably dark, but full of voices, for the wind was talking
+in the ceiling beams, and murmuring through the long passages. The walls
+creaked and muttered and little bits of plaster fluttered down. The
+noise was an advantage for the game of hide-and-seek they proposed to
+play, but it made it hard to detect the enemy's approach. Dickson, in
+order to get properly wakened, adventured as far as the smoking-room. It
+was black with night, but below the door of the adjacent room a faint
+line of light showed where the Princess's lamp was burning. He advanced
+to the window, and heard distinctly a foot on the gravel path that led
+to the verandah. This sent him back to the hall in search of Dougal,
+whom he encountered in the passage. That boy could certainly see in the
+dark, for he caught Dickson's wrist without hesitation.
+
+"We've got Spittal in the wine-cellar," he whispered triumphantly. "The
+kitchen door was barricaded, and when they tried it, it wouldn't open.
+'Bide here,' says Dobson to Spittal, 'and we'll go round by another door
+and come back and open to ye.' So off they went, and by that time Peter
+Paterson and me had the barricade down. As we expected, Spittal tried
+the key again and it opens quite easy. He comes in and locks it behind
+him, and, Dobson having took away the lantern, he gropes his way very
+carefu' towards the kitchen. There's a point where the wine-cellar door
+and the scullery door are aside each other. He should have taken the
+second, but I had it shut so he takes the first. Peter Paterson gave him
+a wee shove and he fell down the two-three steps into the cellar, and we
+turned the key on him. Yon cellar has a grand door and no windies."
+
+"And Dobson and Leon are at the verandah door? With a light?"
+
+"Thomas Yownie's on duty there. Ye can trust him. Ye'll no fickle Thomas
+Yownie."
+
+The next minutes were for Dickson a delirium of excitement not
+unpleasantly shot with flashes of doubt and fear. As a child he had
+played hide-and-seek, and his memory had always cherished the delights
+of the game. But how marvellous to play it thus in a great empty house,
+at dark of night, with the heaven filled with tempest, and with death or
+wounds as the stakes!
+
+He took refuge in a corner where a tapestry curtain and the side of a
+Dutch awmry gave him shelter, and from where he stood he could see the
+garden-room and the beginning of the tiled passage which led to the
+verandah door. That is to say, he could have seen these things if there
+had been any light, which there was not. He heard the soft flitting of
+bare feet, for a delicate sound is often audible in a din when a loud
+noise is obscured. Then a gale of wind blew towards him, as from an open
+door, and far away gleamed the flickering light of a lantern.
+
+Suddenly the light disappeared and there was a clatter on the floor and
+a breaking of glass. Either the wind or Thomas Yownie.
+
+The verandah door was shut, a match spluttered and the lantern was
+relit. Dobson and Leon came into the hall, both clad in long
+mackintoshes which glistened from the weather. Dobson halted and
+listened to the wind howling in the upper spaces. He cursed it bitterly,
+looked at his watch, and then made an observation which woke the
+liveliest interest in Dickson lurking beside the awmry and Heritage
+ensconced in the shadow of a window-seat.
+
+"He's late. He should have been here five minutes syne. It would be a
+dirty road for his car."
+
+So the Unknown was coming that night. The news made Dickson the more
+resolved to get the watchers under lock and key before reinforcements
+arrived, and so put grit in their wheels. Then his party must
+escape--flee anywhere so long as it was far from Dalquharter.
+
+"You stop here," said Dobson, "I'll go down and let Spidel in. We want
+another lamp. Get the one that the women use and for God's sake get a
+move on."
+
+The sound of his feet died in the kitchen passage and then rung again
+on the stone stairs. Dickson's ear of faith heard also the soft patter
+of naked feet as the Die-Hards preceded and followed him. He was
+delivering himself blind and bound into their hands.
+
+For a minute or two there was no sound but the wind, which had found a
+loose chimney cowl on the roof and screwed out of it an odd sound like
+the drone of a bagpipe. Dickson, unable to remain any longer in one
+place, moved into the centre of the hall, believing that Leon had gone
+to the smoking-room. It was a dangerous thing to do, for suddenly a
+match was lit a yard from him. He had the sense to drop low, and so was
+out of the main glare of the light. The man with the match apparently
+had no more, judging by his execrations. Dickson stood stock still,
+longing for the wind to fall so that he might hear the sound of the
+fellow's boots on the stone floor. He gathered that they were moving
+towards the smoking-room.
+
+"Heritage," he whispered as loud as he dared, but there was no answer.
+
+Then suddenly a moving body collided with him. He jumped a step back and
+then stood at attention, "Is that you, Dobson?" a voice asked.
+
+Now behold the occasional advantage of a nickname. Dickson thought he
+was being addressed as "Dogson" after the Poet's fashion. Had he dreamed
+it was Leon he would not have replied, but fluttered off into the
+shadows and so missed a piece of vital news.
+
+"Ay, it's me," he whispered.
+
+His voice and accent were Scotch, like Dobson's, and Leon suspected
+nothing.
+
+"I do not like this wind," he grumbled. "The Captain's letter said at
+dawn, but there is no chance of the Danish brig making your little
+harbour in this weather. She must lie off and land the men by boats.
+That I do not like. It is too public."
+
+The news--tremendous news, for it told that the new-comers would come by
+sea, which had never before entered Dickson's head--so interested him
+that he stood dumb and ruminating. The silence made the Belgian suspect;
+he put out a hand and felt a waterproofed arm which might have been
+Dobson's. But the height of the shoulder proved that it was not the
+burly innkeeper. There was an oath, a quick movement, and Dickson went
+down with a knee on his chest and two hands at his throat.
+
+"Heritage," he gasped. "Help!"
+
+There was a sound of furniture scraped violently on the floor. A gurgle
+from Dickson served as a guide, and the Poet suddenly cascaded over the
+combatants. He felt for a head, found Leon's, and gripped the neck so
+savagely that the owner loosened his hold on Dickson. The last-named
+found himself being buffeted violently by heavy-shod feet which seemed
+to be manoeuvring before an unseen enemy. He rolled out of the road and
+encountered another pair of feet, this time unshod. Then came a sound of
+a concussion, as if metal or wood had struck some part of a human frame,
+and then a stumble and fall.
+
+After that a good many things all seemed to happen at once. There was a
+sudden light, which showed Leon blinking with a short loaded
+life-preserver in his hand, and Heritage prone in front of him on the
+floor. It also showed Dickson the figure of Dougal, and more than one
+Die-Hard in the background. The light went out as suddenly as it had
+appeared. There was a whistle, and a hoarse "Come on, men," and then for
+two seconds there was a desperate silent combat. It ended with Leon's
+head meeting the floor so violently that its possessor became oblivious
+of further proceedings. He was dragged into a cubby-hole, which had once
+been used for coats and rugs, and the door locked on him. Then the light
+sprang forth again. It revealed Dougal and five Die-Hards, somewhat the
+worse for wear; it revealed also Dickson squatted with outspread
+waterproof very like a sitting hen.
+
+"Where's Dobson?" he asked.
+
+"In the boiler-house," and for once Dougal's gravity had laughter in it.
+"Govey Dick! but yon was a fecht! Me and Peter Paterson and Wee Jaikie
+started it, but it was the whole company afore the end. Are ye better,
+Jaikie?"
+
+"Ay, I'm better," said a pallid midget.
+
+"He kickit Jaikie in the stomach and Jaikie was seeck," Dougal
+explained. "That's the three accounted for. Now they're safe for five
+hours at the least. I think mysel' that Dobson will be the first to get
+out, but he'll have his work letting out the others. Now, I'm for
+flittin' to the old Tower. They'll no ken where we are for a long time,
+and anyway yon place will be far easier to defend. Without they kindle
+a fire and smoke us out, I don't see how they'll beat us. Our provisions
+are a' there, and there's a grand well o' water inside. Forbye there's
+the road down the rocks that'll keep our communications open.... But
+what's come to Mr. Heritage?"
+
+Dickson to his shame had forgotten all about his friend. The Poet lay
+very quiet with his head on one side and his legs crooked limply. Blood
+trickled over his eyes from an ugly scar on his forehead. Dickson felt
+his heart and pulse and found them faint but regular. The man had got a
+swinging blow and might have a slight concussion; for the present he was
+unconscious.
+
+"All the more reason why we should flit," said Dougal. "What d'ye say,
+Mr. McCunn?"
+
+"Flit, of course, but further than the old Tower. What's the time?" He
+lifted Heritage's wrist and saw from his watch that it was half-past
+three. "Mercy! It's nearly morning. Afore we put these blagyirds away,
+they were conversing, at least Leon and Dobson were. They said that they
+expected somebody every moment, but that the car would be late. We've
+still got that Somebody to tackle. Then Leon spoke to me in the dark,
+thinking I was Dobson, and cursed the wind, saying it would keep the
+Danish brig from getting in at dawn as had been intended. D'you see what
+that means? The worst of the lot, the ones the ladies are in terror of,
+are coming by sea. Ay, and they can return by sea. We thought that the
+attack would be by land, and that even if they succeeded we could hang
+on to their heels and follow them, till we got them stopped. But that's
+impossible! If they come in from the water, they can go out by the
+water, and there'll never be more heard tell of the ladies or of you or
+me."
+
+Dougal's face was once again sunk in gloom. "What's your plan, then?"
+
+"We must get the ladies away from here--away inland, far from the sea.
+The rest of us must stand a siege in the old Tower, so that the enemy
+will think we're all there. Please God we'll hold out long enough for
+help to arrive. But we mustn't hang about here. There's the man Dobson
+mentioned--he may come any second, and we want to be away first. Get the
+ladder, Dougal.... Four of you take Mr. Heritage, and two come with me
+and carry the ladies' things. It's no' raining, but the wind's enough to
+take the wings off a seagull."
+
+Dickson roused Saskia and her cousin, bidding them be ready in ten
+minutes. Then with the help of the Die-Hards he proceeded to transport
+the necessary supplies--the stove, oil, dishes, clothes and wraps; more
+than one journey was needed of small boys, hidden under clouds of
+baggage. When everything had gone he collected the keys, behind which,
+in various quarters of the house, three gaolers fumed impotently, and
+gave them to Wee Jaikie to dispose of in some secret nook. Then he led
+the two ladies to the verandah, the elder cross and sleepy, the younger
+alert at the prospect of movement.
+
+"Tell me again," she said. "You have locked all the three up, and they
+are now the imprisoned?"
+
+"Well, it was the boys that, properly speaking, did the locking up."
+
+"It is a great--how do you say?--a turning of the tables. Ah--what is
+that?"
+
+At the end of the verandah there was a clattering down of pots which
+could not be due to the wind, since the place was sheltered. There was
+still only the faintest hint of light, and black night still lurked in
+the crannies. Followed another fall of pots, as from a clumsy intruder,
+and then a man appeared, clear against the glass door by which the path
+descended to the rock garden.
+
+It was the fourth man, whom the three prisoners had awaited. Dickson had
+no doubt at all about his identity. He was that villain from whom all
+the others took their orders, the man whom the Princess shuddered at.
+Before starting he had loaded his pistol. Now he tugged it from his
+waterproof pocket, pointed it at the other and fired.
+
+The man seemed to be hit, for he spun round and clapped a hand to his
+left arm. Then he fled through the door, which he left open.
+
+Dickson was after him like a hound. At the door he saw him running and
+raised his pistol for another shot. Then he dropped it, for he saw
+something in the crouching, dodging figure which was familiar.
+
+"A mistake," he explained to Jaikie when he returned. "But the shot
+wasn't wasted. I've just had a good try at killing the factor!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY
+
+
+Five scouts' lanterns burned smokily in the ground room of the keep when
+Dickson ushered his charges through its cavernous door. The lights
+flickered in the gusts that swept after them and whistled through the
+slits of window, so that the place was full of monstrous shadows, and
+its accustomed odour of mould and disuse was changed to a salty
+freshness. Upstairs on the first floor Thomas Yownie had deposited the
+ladies' baggage, and was busy making beds out of derelict iron bedsteads
+and the wraps brought from their room. On the ground floor on a heap of
+litter covered by an old scout's blanket lay Heritage, with Dougal in
+attendance.
+
+The Chieftain had washed the blood from the Poet's brow and the touch of
+cold water was bringing back his senses. Saskia with a cry flew to him,
+and waved off Dickson who had fetched one of the bottles of liqueur
+brandy. She slipped a hand inside his shirt and felt the beating of his
+heart. Then her slim fingers ran over his forehead.
+
+"A bad blow," she muttered, "but I do not think he is ill. There is no
+fracture. When I nursed in the Alexander Hospital I learnt much about
+head wounds. Do not give him cognac if you value his life."
+
+Heritage was talking now and with strange tongues. Phrases like "lined
+digesters" and "free sulphurous acid" came from his lips. He implored
+some one to tell him if "the first cook" was finished, and he upbraided
+some one else for "cooling off" too fast.
+
+The girl raised her head. "But I fear he has become mad," she said.
+
+"Wheesht, Mem," said Dickson, who recognised the jargon. "He's a paper
+maker."
+
+Saskia sat down on the litter and lifted his head so that it rested on
+her breast. Dougal at her bidding brought a certain case from her
+baggage, and with swift, capable hands she made a bandage and rubbed the
+wound with ointment before tying it up. Then her fingers seemed to play
+about his temples and along his cheeks and neck. She was the
+professional nurse now, absorbed, sexless. Heritage ceased to babble,
+his eyes shut and he was asleep.
+
+She remained where she was, so that the Poet, when a few minutes later
+he woke, found himself lying with his head in her lap. She spoke first,
+in an imperative tone: "You are well now. Your head does not ache. You
+are strong again."
+
+"No. Yes," he murmured. Then more clearly: "Where am I? Oh, I remember,
+I caught a lick on the head. What's become of the brutes?"
+
+Dickson, who had extracted food from the Mearns Street box and was
+pressing it on the others, replied through a mouthful of biscuit: "We're
+in the old Tower. The three are lockit up in the House. Are you feeling
+better, Mr. Heritage?"
+
+The Poet suddenly realised Saskia's position and the blood came to his
+pale face. He got to his feet with an effort and held out a hand to the
+girl. "I'm all right now, I think. Only a little dicky on my legs. A
+thousand thanks, Princess. I've given you a lot of trouble."
+
+She smiled at him tenderly. "You say that when you have risked your life
+for me."
+
+"There's no time to waste," the relentless Dougal broke in. "Comin' over
+here, I heard a shot. What was it?"
+
+"It was me," said Dickson. "I was shootin' at the factor."
+
+"Did ye hit him?"
+
+"I think so, but I'm sorry to say not badly. When I last saw him he was
+running too quick for a sore hurt man. When I fired I thought it was the
+other man--the one they were expecting."
+
+Dickson marvelled at himself, yet his speech was not bravado but the
+honest expression of his mind. He was keyed up to a mood in which he
+feared nothing very much, certainly not the laws of his country. If he
+fell in with the Unknown, he was entirely resolved, if his Maker
+permitted him, to do murder as being the simplest and justest solution.
+And if in the pursuit of this laudable intention he happened to wing
+lesser game it was no fault of his.
+
+"Well, it's a pity ye didn't get him," said Dougal, "him being what we
+ken him to be.... I'm for holding a council o' war, and considerin' the
+whole position. So far we haven't done that badly. We've shifted our
+base without serious casualties. We've got a far better position to
+hold, for there's too many ways into yon Hoose, and here there's just
+one. Besides, we've fickled the enemy. They'll take some time to find
+out where we've gone. But, mind you, we can't count on their staying
+long shut up. Dobson's no' safe in the boiler-house, for there's a
+skylight far up and he'll see it when the light comes and maybe before.
+So we'd better get our plans ready. A word with ye, Mr. McCunn," and he
+led Dickson aside.
+
+"D'ye ken what these blagyirds were up to," he whispered fiercely in
+Dickson's ear. "They were goin' to pushion the lassie. How do I ken,
+says you? Because Thomas Yownie heard Dobson say to Lean at the scullery
+door, 'Have ye got the dope?' he says, and Lean says, 'Ay.' Thomas
+mindit the word for he had heard about it at the Picters."
+
+Dickson exclaimed in horror.
+
+"What d'ye make o' that? I'll tell ye. They wanted to make sure of her,
+but they wouldn't have thought o' dope unless the men they expectit were
+due to arrive any moment. As I see it, we've to face a siege not by the
+three but by a dozen or more, and it'll no' be long till it starts. Now,
+isn't it a mercy we're safe in here?"
+
+Dickson returned to the others with a grave face.
+
+"Where d'you think the new folk are coming from?" he asked.
+
+Heritage answered, "From Auchenlochan, I suppose? Or perhaps down from
+the hills?"
+
+"You're wrong." And he told of Leon's mistaken confidences to him in
+the darkness. "They are coming from the sea, just like the old pirates."
+
+"The sea," Heritage repeated in a dazed voice.
+
+"Ay, the sea. Think what that means. If they had been coming by the
+roads, we could have kept track of them, even if they beat us, and some
+of these laddies could have stuck to them and followed them up till help
+came. It can't be such an easy job to carry a young lady against her
+will along Scotch roads. But the sea's a different matter. If they've
+got a fast boat they could be out of the Firth and away beyond the law
+before we could wake up a single policeman. Ay, and even if the
+Government took it up and warned all the ports and ships at sea, what's
+to hinder them to find a hidy-hole about Ireland--or Norway? I tell you,
+it's a far more desperate business than I thought, and it'll no' do to
+wait on and trust that the Chief Constable will turn up afore the
+mischief's done."
+
+"The moral," said Heritage, "is that there can be no surrender. We've
+got to stick it out in this old place at all costs."
+
+"No," said Dickson emphatically. "The moral is that we must shift the
+ladies. We've got the chance while Dobson and his friends are locked up.
+Let's get them as far away as we can from the sea. They're far safer
+tramping the moors, and it's no' likely the new folk will dare to follow
+us."
+
+"But I cannot go." Saskia, who had been listening intently, shook her
+head. "I promised to wait here till my friend came. If I leave I shall
+never find him."
+
+"If you stay you certainly never will, for you'll be away with the
+ruffians. Take a sensible view, Mem. You'll be no good to your friend or
+your friend to you if before night you're rocking in a ship."
+
+The girl shook her head again, gently but decisively. "It was our
+arrangement. I cannot break it. Besides, I am sure that he will come in
+time, for he has never failed----"
+
+There was a desperate finality about the quiet tones and the weary face
+with the shadow of a smile on it.
+
+Then Heritage spoke. "I don't think your plan will quite do, Dogson.
+Supposing we all break for the hinterland and the Danish brig finds the
+birds flown, that won't end the trouble. They will get on the Princess's
+trail, and the whole persecution will start again. I want to see things
+brought to a head here and now. If we can stick it out here long enough,
+we may trap the whole push and rid the world of a pretty gang of
+miscreants. Once let them show their hand, and then, if the police are
+here by that time, we can jug the lot for piracy or something worse."
+
+"That's all right," said Dougal, "but we'd put up a better fight if we
+had the women off our mind. I've aye read that when a castle was going
+to be besieged the first thing was to rid get of the civilians."
+
+"Sensible to the last, Dougal," said Dickson approvingly. "That's just
+what I'm saying. I'm strong for a fight, but put the ladies in a safe
+bit first, for they're our weak point."
+
+"Do you think that if you were fighting my enemies, I would consent to
+be absent?" came Saskia's reproachful question.
+
+"'Deed no, Mem," said Dickson heartily. His martial spirit was with
+Heritage, but his prudence did not sleep, and he suddenly saw a way of
+placating both. "Just you listen to what I propose. What do we amount
+to? Mr. Heritage, six laddies, and myself--and I'm no more used to
+fighting than an old wife. We've seven desperate villains against us,
+and afore night they may be seventy. We've a fine old castle here, but
+for defence we want more than stone walls--we want a garrison. I tell
+you we must get help somewhere. Ay, but how, says you? Well, coming here
+I noticed a gentleman's house away up ayont the railway and close to the
+hills. The laird's maybe not at home, but there will be men there of
+some kind--gamekeepers and woodmen and such like. My plan is to go there
+at once and ask for help. Now, it's useless me going alone, for nobody
+would listen to me. They'd tell me to go back to the shop or they'd
+think me demented. But with you, Mem, it would be a different matter.
+They wouldn't disbelieve you. So I want you to come with me and to come
+at once, for God knows how soon our need will be sore. We'll leave your
+cousin with Mrs. Morran in the village, for bed's the place for her, and
+then you and me will be off on our business."
+
+The girl looked at Heritage, who nodded. "It's the only way," he said.
+"Get every man jack you can raise, and if it's humanly possible get a
+gun or two. I believe there's time enough, for I don't see the brig
+arriving in broad daylight."
+
+"D'you not?" Dickson asked rudely. "Have you considered what day this
+is? It's the Sabbath, the best of days for an ill deed. There's no kirk
+hereaways, and everybody in the parish will be sitting indoors by the
+fire." He looked at his watch. "In half an hour it'll be light. Haste
+you, Mem, and get ready. Dougal, what's the weather?"
+
+The Chieftain swung open the door, and sniffed the air. The wind had
+fallen for the time being, and the surge of the tides below the rocks
+rose like the clamour of a mob. With the lull, mist and a thin drizzle
+had cloaked the world again.
+
+To Dickson's surprise Dougal seemed to be in good spirits. He began to
+sing to a hymn tune a strange ditty.
+
+    "Class-conscious we are, and class-conscious wull be
+     Till our fit's on the neck o' the Boorjoyzee."
+
+"What on earth are you singing?" Dickson inquired.
+
+Dougal grinned. "Wee Jaikie went to a Socialist Sunday school last
+winter because he heard they were for fechtin' battles. Ay, and they
+telled him he was to jine a thing called an International, and Jaikie
+thought it was a fitba' club. But when he fund out there was no magic
+lantern or swaree at Christmas he gie'd it the chuck. They learned him
+a heap o' queer songs. That's one."
+
+"What does the last word mean?"
+
+"I don't ken. Jaikie thought it was some kind of a draigon."
+
+"It's a daft-like thing anyway.... When's high water?"
+
+Dougal answered that to the best of his knowledge it fell between four
+and five in the afternoon.
+
+"Then that's when we may expect the foreign gentry if they think to
+bring their boat in to the Garple foot.... Dougal, lad, I trust you to
+keep a most careful and prayerful watch. You had better get the
+Die-Hards out of the Tower and all round the place afore Dobson and Co.
+get loose, or you'll no' get a chance later. Don't lose your mobility,
+as the sodgers say. Mr. Heritage can hold the fort, but you laddies
+should be spread out like a screen."
+
+"That was my notion," said Dougal. "I'll detail two Die-Hards--Thomas
+Yownie and Wee Jaikie--to keep in touch with ye and watch for ye comin'
+back. Thomas ye ken already; ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie. But don't be
+mistook about Wee Jaikie. He's terrible fond of greetin', but it's no
+fright with him but excitement. It's just a habit he's gotten. When ye
+see Jaikie begin to greet, ye may be sure that Jaikie's gettin'
+dangerous."
+
+The door shut behind them and Dickson found himself with his two charges
+in a world dim with fog and rain and the still lingering darkness. The
+air was raw, and had the sour smell which comes from soaked earth and
+wet boughs when the leaves are not yet fledged. Both the women were
+miserably equipped for such an expedition. Cousin Eugenie trailed heavy
+furs, Saskia's only wrap was a bright-coloured shawl about her
+shoulders, and both wore thin foreign shoes. Dickson insisted on
+stripping off his trusty waterproof and forcing it on the Princess, on
+whose slim body it hung very loose and very short. The elder woman
+stumbled and whimpered and needed the constant support of his arm,
+walking like a townswoman from the knees. But Saskia swung from the hips
+like a free woman, and Dickson had much ado to keep up with her. She
+seemed to delight in the bitter freshness of the dawn, inhaling deep
+breaths of it, and humming fragments of a tune.
+
+Guided by Thomas Yownie they took the road which Dickson and Heritage
+had travelled the first evening, through the shrubberies on the north
+side of the House and the side avenue beyond which the ground fell to
+the Laver glen. On their right the House rose like a dark cloud, but
+Dickson had lost his terror of it. There were three angry men inside it,
+he remembered: long let them stay there. He marvelled at his mood, and
+also rejoiced, for his worst fear had always been that he might prove a
+coward. Now he was puzzled to think how he could ever be frightened
+again, for his one object was to succeed, and in that absorption fear
+seemed to him merely a waste of time. "It all comes of treating the
+thing as a business proposition," he told himself.
+
+But there was far more in his heart than this sober resolution. He was
+intoxicated with the resurgence of youth and felt a rapture of audacity
+which he never remembered in his decorous boyhood. "I haven't been doing
+badly for an old man," he reflected with glee. What, oh, what had become
+of the pillar of commerce, the man who might have been a Bailie had he
+sought municipal honours, the elder in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, the
+instructor of literary young men? In the past three days he had levanted
+with jewels which had once been an Emperor's and certainly were not his;
+he had burglariously entered and made free of a strange house; he had
+played hide-and-seek at the risk of his neck and had wrestled in the
+dark with a foreign miscreant; he had shot at an eminent solicitor with
+intent to kill; and he was now engaged in tramping the world with a
+fairy-tale Princess. I blush to confess that of each of his doings he
+was unashamedly proud, and thirsted for many more in the same line.
+"Gosh, but I'm seeing life," was his unregenerate conclusion.
+
+Without sight or sound of a human being, they descended to the Laver,
+climbed again by the cart track, and passed the deserted West Lodge and
+inn to the village. It was almost full dawn when the three stood in Mrs.
+Morran's kitchen.
+
+"I've brought you two ladies, Auntie Phemie," said Dickson.
+
+They made an odd group in that cheerful place, where the new-lit fire
+was crackling in the big grate--the wet undignified form of Dickson,
+unshaven of cheek and chin and disreputable in garb: the shrouded
+figure of Cousin Eugenie, who had sunk into the arm-chair and closed her
+eyes; the slim girl, into whose face the weather had whipped a glow like
+blossom; and the hostess, with her petticoats kilted and an ancient
+mutch on her head.
+
+Mrs. Morran looked once at Saskia, and then did a thing which she had
+not done since her girlhood. She curtseyed.
+
+"I'm proud to see ye here, Mem. Off wi' your things, and I'll get ye dry
+claes. Losh, ye're fair soppin'. And your shoon! Ye maun change your
+feet.... Dickson! Awa' up to the loft, and dinna you stir till I give ye
+a cry. The leddies will change by the fire. And you, Mem"--this to
+Cousin Eugenie--"the place for you's your bed. I'll kinnle a fire ben
+the hoose in a jiffy. And syne ye'll have breakfast--ye'll hae a cup o'
+tea wi' me now, for the kettle's just on the boil. Awa' wi' ye,
+Dickson," and she stamped her foot.
+
+Dickson departed, and in the loft washed his face, and smoked a pipe on
+the edge of the bed, watching the mist eddying up the village street.
+From below rose the sounds of hospitable bustle, and when after some
+twenty minutes' vigil he descended, he found Saskia toasting stockinged
+toes by the fire in the great arm-chair, and Mrs. Morran setting the
+table.
+
+"Auntie Phemie, hearken to me. We've taken on too big a job for two men
+and six laddies, and help we've got to get, and that this very morning.
+D'you mind the big white house away up near the hills ayont the station
+and east of the Ayr road? It looked like a gentleman's shooting lodge. I
+was thinking of trying there. Mercy!"
+
+The exclamation was wrung from him by his eyes settling on Saskia and
+noting her apparel. Gone were her thin foreign clothes, and in their
+place she wore a heavy tweed skirt cut very short, and thick homespun
+stockings, which had been made for some one with larger feet than hers.
+A pair of the coarse low-heeled shoes, which country folk wear in the
+farmyard, stood warming by the hearth. She still had her russet jumper,
+but round her neck hung a grey wool scarf, of the kind known as a
+"comforter." Amazingly pretty she looked in Dickson's eyes, but with a
+different kind of prettiness. The sense of fragility had fled, and he
+saw how nobly built she was for all her exquisiteness. She looked like a
+queen, he thought, but a queen to go gipsying through the world with.
+
+"Ay, they're some o' Elspeth's things, rale guid furthy claes," said
+Mrs. Morran complacently. "And the shoon are what she used to gang about
+the byres wi' when she was in the Castlewham dairy. The leddy was
+tellin' me she was for trampin' the hills, and thae things will keep her
+dry and warm.... I ken the hoose ye mean. They ca' it the Mains of
+Garple. And I ken the man that bides in it. He's yin Sir Erchibald
+Roylance. English, but his mither was a Dalziel. I'm no weel acquaint
+wi' his forbears, but I'm weel eneuch acquaint wi' Sir Erchie, and
+'better a guid coo than a coo o' a guid kind,' as my mither used to say.
+He used to be an awfu' wild callant, a freend o' puir Maister Quentin,
+and up to ony deevilry. But they tell me he's a quieter lad since the
+war, and sair lamed by fa'in oot o' an airyplane."
+
+"Will he be at the Mains just now?" Dickson asked.
+
+"I wadna wonder. He has a muckle place in England, but he aye used to
+come here in the back-end for the shootin' and in Aprile for birds. He's
+clean daft about birds. He'll be out a' day at the Craig watchin'
+solans, or lyin' a' mornin' i' the moss lookin' at bog-blitters."
+
+"Will he help, think you?"
+
+"I'll wager he'll help. Onyway it's your best chance, and better a wee
+bush than nae beild. Now, sit in to your breakfast."
+
+It was a merry meal. Mrs. Morran dispensed tea and gnomic wisdom. Saskia
+ate heartily, speaking little, but once or twice laying her hand softly
+on her hostess's gnarled fingers. Dickson was in such spirits that he
+gobbled shamelessly, being both hungry and hurried, and he spoke of the
+still unconquered enemy with ease and disrespect, so that Mrs. Morran
+was moved to observe that there was "naething sae bauld as a blind
+mear." But when in a sudden return of modesty he belittled his
+usefulness and talked sombrely of his mature years he was told that he
+"wad never be auld wi' sae muckle honesty." Indeed it was very clear
+that Mrs. Morran approved of her nephew.
+
+They did not linger over breakfast, for both were impatient to be on the
+road. Mrs. Morran assisted Saskia to put on Elspeth's shoes. "'Even a
+young fit finds comfort in an auld bauchle,' as my mother, honest woman,
+used to say." Dickson's waterproof was restored to him, and for Saskia
+an old raincoat belonging to the son in South Africa was discovered,
+which fitted her better. "Siccan weather," said the hostess, as she
+opened the door to let in a swirl of wind. "The deil's aye kind to his
+ain. Haste ye back, Mem, and be sure I'll tak' guid care o' your leddy
+cousin."
+
+The proper way to the Mains of Garple was either by the station and the
+Ayr road, or by the Auchenlochan highway, branching off half a mile
+beyond the Garple bridge. But Dickson, who had been studying the map and
+fancied himself as a pathfinder, chose the direct route across the Long
+Muir as being at once shorter and more sequestered. With the dawn the
+wind had risen again, but it had shifted towards the north-west and was
+many degrees colder. The mist was furling on the hills like sails, the
+rain had ceased, and out at sea the eye covered a mile or two of wild
+water. The moor was drenching wet, and the peat bogs were brimming with
+inky pools, so that soon the travellers were soaked to the knees.
+Dickson had no fear of pursuit, for he calculated that Dobson and his
+friends, even if they had got out, would be busy looking for the truants
+in the vicinity of the House and would presently be engaged with the old
+Tower. But he realised, too, that speed on his errand was vital, for at
+any moment the Unknown might arrive from the sea.
+
+So he kept up a good pace, half-running, half-striding, till they had
+passed the railway, and he found himself gasping with a stitch in his
+side, and compelled to rest in the lee of what had once been a
+sheepfold. Saskia amazed him. She moved over the rough heather like a
+deer, and it was her hand that helped him across the deeper hags. Before
+such youth and vigour he felt clumsy and old. She stood looking down at
+him as he recovered his breath, cool, unruffled, alert as Diana. His
+mind fled to Heritage, and it occurred to him suddenly that the Poet had
+set his affections very high. Loyalty drove him to speak a word for his
+friend.
+
+"I've got the easy job," he said. "Mr. Heritage will have the whole pack
+on him in that old Tower, and him with such a sore clout on his head.
+I've left him my pistol. He's a terrible brave man!"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Ay, and he's a poet too."
+
+"So?" she said. "I did not know. He is very young."
+
+"He's a man of very high ideels."
+
+She puzzled at the word, and then smiled. "I know him. He is like many
+of our young men in Russia, the students--his mind is in a ferment and
+he does not know what he wants. But he is brave."
+
+This seemed to Dickson's loyal soul but a chilly tribute.
+
+"I think he is in love with me," she continued.
+
+He looked up startled and saw in her face that which gave him a view
+into a strange new world. He had thought that women blushed when they
+talked of love, but her eyes were as grave and candid as a boy's. Here
+was one who had gone through waters so deep that she had lost the
+foibles of sex. Love to her was only a word of ill omen, a threat on the
+lips of brutes, an extra battalion of peril in an army of perplexities.
+He felt like some homely rustic who finds himself swept unwittingly into
+the moonlight hunt of Artemis and her maidens.
+
+"He is a romantic," she said. "I have known so many like him."
+
+"He's no' that," said Dickson shortly. "Why, he used to be aye laughing
+at me for being romantic. He's one that's looking for truth and reality,
+he says, and he's terrible down on the kind of poetry I like myself."
+
+She smiled. "They all talk so. But you, my friend Dickson" (she
+pronounced the name in two staccato syllables ever so prettily), "you
+are different. Tell me about yourself."
+
+"I'm just what you see--a middle-aged retired grocer."
+
+"Grocer?" she queried. "Ah, yes, _epicier_. But you are a very
+remarkable _epicier_. Mr. Heritage I understand, but you and those
+little boys--no. I am sure of one thing--you are not a romantic. You are
+too humorous and--and----I think you are like Ulysses, for it would not
+be easy to defeat you."
+
+Her eyes were kind, nay affectionate, and Dickson experienced a
+preposterous rapture in his soul, followed by a sinking, as he realised
+how far the job was still from being completed.
+
+"We must be getting on, Mem," he said hastily, and the two plunged again
+into the heather.
+
+The Ayr road was crossed, and the fir wood around the Mains became
+visible, and presently the white gates of the entrance. A wind-blown
+spire of smoke beyond the trees proclaimed that the house was not
+untenanted. As they entered the drive the Scots firs were tossing in the
+gale, which blew fiercely at this altitude, but, the dwelling itself
+being more in the hollow, the daffodil clumps on the lawn were but
+mildly fluttered.
+
+The door was opened by a one-armed butler who bore all the marks of the
+old regular soldier. Dickson produced a card and asked to see his master
+on urgent business. Sir Archibald was at home, he was told, and had just
+finished breakfast. The two were led into a large bare chamber which had
+all the chill and mustiness of a bachelor's drawing-room. The butler
+returned, and said Sir Archibald would see him. "I'd better go myself
+first and prepare the way, Mem," Dickson whispered and followed the man
+across the hall.
+
+He found himself ushered into a fair-sized room where a bright fire was
+burning. On a table lay the remains of breakfast, and the odour of food
+mingled pleasantly with the scent of peat. The horns and heads of big
+game, foxes' masks, the model of a gigantic salmon and several bookcases
+adorned the wall, and books and maps were mixed with decanters and
+cigar-boxes on the long sideboard. After the wild out of doors the
+place seemed the very shrine of comfort. A young man sat in an armchair
+by the fire with a leg on a stool; he was smoking a pipe, and reading
+the _Field_, and on another stool at his elbow was a pile of new novels.
+He was a pleasant brown-faced young man, with remarkably smooth hair and
+a roving humorous eye.
+
+"Come in, Mr. McCunn. Very glad to see you. If, as I take it, you're the
+grocer, you're a household name in these parts. I get all my supplies
+from you, and I've just been makin' inroads on one of your divine hams.
+Now, what can I do for you?"
+
+"I'm very proud to hear what you say, Sir Archibald. But I've not come
+on business. I've come with the queerest story you ever heard in your
+life, and I've come to ask your help."
+
+"Go ahead. A good story is just what I want this vile mornin'."
+
+"I'm not here alone. I've a lady with me."
+
+"God bless my soul! A lady!"
+
+"Ay, a princess. She's in the next room."
+
+The young man looked wildly at him and waved the book he had been
+reading.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. McCunn, but are you quite sober? I beg your pardon. I
+see you are. But you know, it isn't done. Princesses don't as a rule
+come here after breakfast to pass the time of day. It's more absurd than
+this shocker I've been readin'."
+
+"All the same it's a fact. She'll tell you the story herself, and you'll
+believe her quick enough. But to prepare your mind I'll just give you a
+sketch of the events of the last few days."
+
+Before the sketch was concluded the young man had violently rung the
+bell. "Sime," he shouted to the servant, "clear away this mess and lay
+the table again. Order more breakfast, all the breakfast you can get.
+Open the windows and get the tobacco smoke out of the air. Tidy up the
+place for there's a lady comin'. Quick, you juggins!"
+
+He was on his feet now, and, with his arm in Dickson's, was heading for
+the door.
+
+"My sainted aunt! And you topped off with pottin' at the factor. I've
+seen a few things in my day, but I'm blessed if I ever met a bird like
+you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+GRAVITY OUT OF BED
+
+
+It is probable that Sir Archibald Roylance did not altogether believe
+Dickson's tale; it may be that he considered him an agreeable romancer,
+or a little mad, or no more than a relief to the tedium of a wet Sunday
+morning. But his incredulity did not survive one glance at Saskia as she
+stood in that bleak drawing-room among Victorian water-colours and faded
+chintzes. The young man's boyishness deserted him. He stopped short in
+his tracks, and made a profound and awkward bow. "I am at your service,
+Mademoiselle," he said, amazed at himself. The words seemed to have come
+out of a confused memory of plays and novels.
+
+She inclined her head--a little on one side, and looked towards Dickson.
+
+"Sir Archibald's going to do his best for us," said that squire of
+dames. "I was telling him that we had had our breakfast."
+
+"Let's get out of this sepulchre," said their host, who was recovering
+himself. "There's a roasting fire in my den. Of course you'll have
+something to eat--hot coffee, anyhow--I've trained my cook to make
+coffee like a Frenchwoman. The housekeeper will take charge of you, if
+you want to tidy up, and you must excuse our ramshackle ways, please. I
+don't believe there's ever been a lady in this house before, you know."
+
+He led her to the smoking-room and ensconced her in the great chair by
+the fire. Smilingly she refused a series of offers which ranged from a
+sheepskin mantle which he had got in the Pamirs and which he thought
+might fit her, to hot whisky and water as a specific against a chill.
+But she accepted a pair of slippers and deftly kicked off the brogues
+provided by Mrs. Morran. Also, while Dickson started rapaciously on a
+second breakfast, she allowed him to pour her out a cup of coffee.
+
+"You are a soldier?" she asked.
+
+"Two years infantry--5th Battalion Lennox Highlanders, and then Flying
+Corps. Top-hole time I had too, till the day before the Armistice when
+my luck gave out and I took a nasty toss. Consequently I'm not as fast
+on my legs now as I'd like to be."
+
+"You were a friend of Captain Kennedy?"
+
+"His oldest. We were at the same private school, and he was at m'
+tutor's, and we were never much separated till he went abroad to cram
+for the Diplomatic and I started east to shoot things."
+
+"Then I will tell you what I told Captain Kennedy." Saskia, looking into
+the heart of the peats, began the story of which we have already heard a
+version, but she told it differently, for she was telling it to one who
+more or less belonged to her own world. She mentioned names at which the
+other nodded. She spoke of a certain Paul Abreskov. "I heard of him at
+Bokhara in 1912," said Sir Archie, and his face grew solemn. Sometimes
+she lapsed into French, and her hearer's brow wrinkled, but he appeared
+to follow. When she had finished he drew a long breath.
+
+"My Aunt! What a time you've been through! I've seen pluck in my day,
+but yours! It's not thinkable. D'you mind if I ask a question, Princess?
+Bolshevism we know all about, and I admit Trotsky and his friends are a
+pretty effective push; but how on earth have they got a world-wide graft
+going in the time so that they can stretch their net to an
+out-of-the-way spot like this? It looks as if they had struck a Napoleon
+somewhere."
+
+"You do not understand," she said. "I cannot make any one
+understand--except a Russian. My country has been broken to pieces, and
+there is no law in it; therefore it is a nursery of crime. So would
+England be, or France, if you had suffered the same misfortunes. My
+people are not wickeder than others, but for the moment they are sick
+and have no strength. As for the government of the Bolsheviki it matters
+little, for it will pass. Some parts of it may remain, but it is a
+government of the sick and fevered, and cannot endure in health. Lenin
+may be a good man--I do not think so, but I do not know--but if he were
+an archangel he could not alter things. Russia is mortally sick and
+therefore all evil is unchained, and the criminals have no one to check
+them. There is crime everywhere in the world, and the unfettered crime
+in Russia is so powerful that it stretches its hand to crime throughout
+the globe and there is a great mobilising everywhere of wicked men. Once
+you boasted that law was international and that the police in one land
+worked with the police of all others. To-day that is true about
+criminals. After a war evil passions are loosed, and, since Russia is
+broken, in her they can make their headquarters.... It is not
+Bolshevism, the theory, you need fear, for that is a weak and dying
+thing. It is crime, which to-day finds its seat in my country, but is
+not only Russian. It has no fatherland. It is as old as human nature and
+as wide as the earth."
+
+"I see," said Sir Archie. "Gad, here have I been vegetatin' and thinkin'
+that all excitement had gone out of life with the war, and sometimes
+even regrettin' that the beastly old thing was over, and all the while
+the world fairly hummin' with interest. And Loudon too!"
+
+"I would like your candid opinion on yon factor, Sir Archibald," said
+Dickson.
+
+"I can't say I ever liked him, and I've once or twice had a row with
+him, for he used to bring his pals to shoot over Dalquharter and he
+didn't quite play the game by me. But I know dashed little about him,
+for I've been a lot away. Bit hairy about the heels, of course. A great
+figure at local race-meetin's, and used to toady old Carforth and the
+huntin' crowd. He has a pretty big reputation as a sharp lawyer and some
+of the thick-headed lairds swear by him, but Quentin never could stick
+him. It's quite likely he's been gettin' into Queer Street, for he was
+always speculatin' in horse-flesh, and I fancy he plunged a bit on the
+Turf. But I can't think how he got mixed up in this show."
+
+"I'm positive Dobson's his brother."
+
+"And put this business in his way. That would explain it all right....
+He must be runnin' for pretty big stakes, for that kind of lad don't
+dabble in crime for six-and-eightpence.... Now for the layout. You've
+got three men shut up in Dalquharter House, who by this time have
+probably escaped. One of you--what's his name?--Heritage?--is in the old
+Tower, and you think that _they_ think the Princess is still there and
+will sit round the place like terriers. Sometime to-day the Danish brig
+will arrive with reinforcements, and then there will be a hefty fight.
+Well, the first thing to be done is to get rid of Loudon's stymie with
+the authorities. Princess, I'm going to carry you off in my car to the
+Chief Constable. The second thing is for you after that to stay on here.
+It's a deadly place on a wet day, but it's safe enough."
+
+Saskia shook her head and Dickson spoke for her.
+
+"You'll no' get her to stop here. I've done my best, but she's
+determined to be back at Dalquharter. You see she's expecting a friend,
+and besides, if there's going to be a battle she'd like to be in it. Is
+that so, Mem?"
+
+Sir Archie looked helplessly around him, and the sight of the girl's
+face convinced him that argument would be fruitless. "Anyhow she must
+come with me to the Chief Constable. Lethington's a slow bird on the
+wing, and I don't see myself convincin' him that he must get busy unless
+I can produce the Princess. Even then it may be a tough job, for it's
+Sunday, and in these parts people go to sleep till Monday mornin'."
+
+"That's just what I'm trying to get at," said Dickson. "By all means go
+to the Chief Constable, and tell him it's life or death. My lawyer in
+Glasgow, Mr. Caw, will have been stirring him up yesterday, and you two
+should complete the job.... But what I'm feared is that he'll not be in
+time. As you say, it's the Sabbath day, and the police are terrible
+slow. Now any moment that brig may be here, and the trouble will start.
+I'm wanting to save the Princess, but I'm wanting too to give these
+blagyirds the roughest handling they ever got in their lives. Therefore
+I say there's no time to lose. We're far ower few to put up a fight, and
+we want every man you've got about this place to hold the fort till the
+police come."
+
+Sir Archibald looked upon the earnest flushed face of Dickson with
+admiration. "I'm blessed if you're not the most whole-hearted brigand
+I've ever struck."
+
+"I'm not. I'm just a business man."
+
+"Do you realise that you're levying a private war and breaking every law
+of the land?"
+
+"Hoots!" said Dickson. "I don't care a docken about the law. I'm for
+seeing this job through. What force can you produce?"
+
+"Only cripples, I'm afraid. There's Sime, my butler. He was a Fusilier
+Jock and, as you saw, has lost an arm. Then McGuffog the keeper is a
+good man, but he's still got a Turkish bullet in his thigh. The
+chauffeur, Carfrae, was in the Yeomanry, and lost half a foot, and
+there's myself, as lame as a duck. The herds on the home farm are no
+good, for one's seventy and the other is in bed with jaundice. The Mains
+can produce four men, but they're rather a job lot."
+
+"They'll do fine," said Dickson heartily. "All sodgers, and no doubt all
+good shots. Have you plenty guns?"
+
+Sir Archie burst into uproarious laughter. "Mr. McCunn, you're a man
+after my own heart. I'm under your orders. If I had a boy I'd put him
+into the provision trade, for it's the place to see fightin'. Yes, we've
+no end of guns. I advise shot-guns, for they've more stoppin' power in a
+rush than a rifle, and I take it it's a rough-and-tumble we're lookin'
+for."
+
+"Right," said Dickson. "I saw a bicycle in the hall. I want you to lend
+it me, for I must be getting back. You'll take the Princess and do the
+best you can with the Chief Constable."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then you'll load up your car with your folk, and come down the hill to
+Dalquharter. There'll be a laddie, or maybe more than one, waiting for
+you on this side the village to give you instructions. Take your orders
+from them. If it's a red-haired ruffian called Dougal you'll be wise to
+heed what he says, for he has a grand head for battles."
+
+Five minutes later Dickson was pursuing a quavering course like a snipe
+down the avenue. He was a miserable performer on a bicycle. Not for
+twenty years had he bestridden one, and he did not understand such new
+devices as free-wheels and change of gears. The mounting had been the
+worst part and it had only been achieved by the help of a rockery. He
+had begun by cutting into two flower-beds, and missing a birch tree by
+inches. But he clung on desperately, well knowing that if he fell off it
+would be hard to remount, and at length he gained the avenue. When he
+passed the lodge gates he was riding fairly straight, and when he turned
+off the Ayr highway to the side road that led to Dalquharter he was more
+or less master of his machine.
+
+He crossed the Garple by an ancient hunch-backed bridge, observing even
+in his absorption with the handle-bars that the stream was in roaring
+spate. He wrestled up the further hill, with aching calf-muscles, and
+got to the top just before his strength gave out. Then as the road
+turned seaward he had the slope with him, and enjoyed some respite. It
+was no case for putting up his feet, for the gale was blowing hard on
+his right cheek, but the downward grade enabled him to keep his course
+with little exertion. His anxiety to get back to the scene of action was
+for the moment appeased, since he knew he was making as good speed as
+the weather allowed, so he had leisure for thought.
+
+But the mind of this preposterous being was not on the business before
+him. He dallied with irrelevant things--with the problems of youth and
+love. He was beginning to be very nervous about Heritage, not as the
+solitary garrison of the old Tower, but as the lover of Saskia. That
+everybody should be in love with her appeared to him only proper, for he
+had never met her like, and assumed that it did not exist. The desire
+of the moth for the star seemed to him a reasonable thing, since
+hopeless loyalty and unrequited passion were the eternal stock-in-trade
+of romance. He wished he were twenty-five himself to have the chance of
+indulging in such sentimentality for such a lady. But Heritage was not
+like him and would never be content with a romantic folly.... He had
+been in love with her for two years--a long time. He spoke about wanting
+to die for her, which was a flight beyond Dickson himself. "I doubt it
+will be what they call a 'grand passion,'" he reflected with reverence.
+But it was hopeless; he saw quite clearly that it was hopeless.
+
+Why, he could not have explained, for Dickson's instincts were subtler
+than his intelligence. He recognised that the two belonged to different
+circles of being, which nowhere intersected. That mysterious lady, whose
+eyes had looked through life to the other side, was no mate for the
+Poet. His faithful soul was agitated, for he had developed for Heritage
+a sincere affection. It would break his heart, poor man. There was he
+holding the fort alone and cheering himself with delightful fancies
+about one remoter than the moon. Dickson wanted happy endings, and here
+there was no hope of such. He hated to admit that life could be crooked,
+but the optimist in him was now fairly dashed.
+
+Sir Archie might be the fortunate man, for of course he would soon be in
+love with her, if he were not so already. Dickson like all his class had
+a profound regard for the country gentry. The business Scot does not
+usually revere wealth, though he may pursue it earnestly, nor does he
+specially admire rank in the common sense. But for ancient race he has
+respect in his bones, though it may happen that in public he denies it,
+and the laird has for him a secular association with good family.... Sir
+Archie might do. He was young, good-looking, obviously gallant.... But
+no! He was not quite right either. Just a trifle too light in weight,
+too boyish and callow. The Princess must have youth, but it should be
+mighty youth, the youth of a Napoleon or a Caesar. He reflected that the
+Great Montrose, for whom he had a special veneration, might have filled
+the bill. Or young Harry with his beaver up? Or Claverhouse in the
+picture with the flush of temper on his cheek?
+
+The meditations of the match-making Dickson came to an abrupt end. He
+had been riding negligently, his head bent against the wind, and his
+eyes vaguely fixed on the wet hill-gravel of the road. Of his immediate
+environs he was pretty well unconscious. Suddenly he was aware of
+figures on each side of him who advanced menacingly. Stung to activity
+he attempted to increase his pace, which was already good, for the road
+at this point descended steeply. Then, before he could prevent it, a
+stick was thrust into his front wheel, and the next second he was
+describing a curve through the air. His head took the ground, he felt a
+spasm of blinding pain, and then a sense of horrible suffocation before
+his wits left him.
+
+"Are ye sure it's the richt man, Ecky?" said a voice which he did not
+hear.
+
+"Sure. It's the Glesca body Dobson telled us to look for yesterday. It's
+a pund note atween us for this job. We'll tie him up in the wud till
+we've time to attend to him."
+
+"Is he bad?"
+
+"It doesna maitter," said the one called Ecky. "He'll be deid onyway
+long afore the morn."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Morran all forenoon was in a state of un-Sabbatical disquiet. After
+she had seen Saskia and Dickson start she finished her housewifely
+duties, took Cousin Eugenie her breakfast, and made preparation for the
+midday dinner. The invalid in the bed in the parlour was not a repaying
+subject. Cousin Eugenie belonged to that type of elderly women who,
+having been spoiled in youth, find the rest of life fall far short of
+their expectations. Her voice had acquired a perpetual wail, and the
+corners of what had once been a pretty mouth drooped in an eternal
+peevishness. She found herself in a morass of misery and shabby
+discomfort, but had her days continued in an even tenor she would still
+have lamented. "A dingy body," was Mrs. Morran's comment, but she
+laboured in kindness. Unhappily they had no common language, and it was
+only by signs that the hostess could discover her wants and show her
+goodwill. She fed her and bathed her face, saw to the fire and left her
+to sleep. "I'm boilin' a hen to mak' broth for your denner, Mem. Try and
+get a bit sleep now." The purport of the advice was clear, and Cousin
+Eugenie turned obediently on her pillow.
+
+It was Mrs. Morran's custom of a Sunday to spend the morning in devout
+meditation. Some years before she had given up tramping the five miles
+to kirk, on the ground that having been a regular attendant for fifty
+years she had got all the good out of it that was probable. Instead she
+read slowly aloud to herself the sermon printed in a certain religious
+weekly which reached her every Saturday, and concluded with a chapter or
+two of the Bible. But to-day something had gone wrong with her mind. She
+could not follow the thread of the Reverend Doctor MacMichael's
+discourse. She could not fix her attention on the wanderings and
+misdeeds of Israel as recorded in the Book of Exodus. She must always be
+getting up to look at the pot on the fire, or to open the back door and
+study the weather. For a little she fought against her unrest, and then
+she gave up the attempt at concentration. She took the big pot off the
+fire and allowed it to simmer, and presently she fetched her boots and
+umbrella, and kilted her petticoats. "I'll be none the waur o' a breath
+o' caller air," she decided.
+
+The wind was blowing great guns but there was only the thinnest sprinkle
+of rain. Sitting on the hen-house roof and munching a raw turnip was a
+figure which she recognised as the smallest of the Die-Hards. Between
+bites he was singing dolefully to the tune of "Annie Laurie" one of the
+ditties of his quondam Sunday school:
+
+    "The Boorjoys' brays are bonny,
+       Too-roo-ra-roo-raloo,
+     But the Worrkers o' the Worrld
+       Wull gar them a' look blue,
+     Wull gar them a' look blue,
+       And droon them in the sea,
+     And--for bonnie Annie Laurie
+       I'll lay me down and dee."
+
+"Losh, laddie," she cried, "that's cauld food for the stamach. Come
+indoors about midday and I'll gie ye a plate o' broth!" The Die-Hard
+saluted and continued on the turnip.
+
+She took the Auchenlochan road across the Garple bridge, for that was
+the best road to the Mains and by it Dickson and the others might be
+returning. Her equanimity at all seasons was like a Turk's, and she
+would not have admitted that anything mortal had power to upset or
+excite her: nevertheless it was a fast-beating heart that she now bore
+beneath her Sunday jacket. Great events, she felt, were on the eve of
+happening, and of them she was a part. Dickson's anxiety was hers, to
+bring things to a business-like conclusion. The honour of Huntingtower
+was at stake and of the old Kennedys. She was carrying out Mr. Quentin's
+commands, the dead boy who used to clamour for her treacle scones. And
+there was more than duty in it, for youth was not dead in her old
+heart, and adventure had still power to quicken it.
+
+Mrs. Morran walked well, with the steady long paces of the Scots
+countrywoman. She left the Auchenlochan road and took the side path
+along the tableland to the Mains. But for the surge of the gale and the
+far-borne boom of the furious sea there was little noise; not a bird
+cried in the uneasy air. With the wind behind her Mrs. Morran breasted
+the ascent till she had on her right the moorland running south to the
+Lochan valley and on her left Garple chafing in its deep forested
+gorges. Her eyes were quick and she noted with interest a weasel
+creeping from a fern-clad cairn. A little way on she passed an old ewe
+in difficulties and assisted it to rise. "But for me, my wumman, ye'd
+hae been braxy ere nicht," she told it as it departed bleating. Then she
+realised that she had come a certain distance. "Losh, I maun be gettin'
+back or the hen will be spiled," she cried, and was on the verge of
+turning.
+
+But something caught her eye a hundred yards further on the road. It was
+something which moved with the wind like a wounded bird, fluttering from
+the roadside to a puddle and then back to the rushes. She advanced to
+it, missed it, and caught it.
+
+It was an old dingy green felt hat, and she recognised it as Dickson's.
+
+Mrs. Morran's brain, after a second of confusion, worked fast and
+clearly. She examined the road and saw that a little way on the gravel
+had been violently agitated. She detected several prints of hobnailed
+boots. There were prints too, on a patch of peat on the south side
+behind a tall bank of sods. "That's where they were hidin'," she
+concluded. Then she explored on the other side in a thicket of hazels
+and wild raspberries, and presently her perseverance was rewarded. The
+scrub was all crushed and pressed as if several persons had been forcing
+a passage. In a hollow was a gleam of something white. She moved towards
+it with a quaking heart, and was relieved to find that it was only a new
+and expensive bicycle with the front wheel badly buckled.
+
+Mrs. Morran delayed no longer. If she had walked well on her out
+journey, she beat all records on the return. Sometimes she would run
+till her breath failed; then she would slow down till anxiety once more
+quickened her pace. To her joy on the Dalquharter side of the Garple
+bridge she observed the figure of a Die-Hard. Breathless, flushed, with
+her bonnet awry and her umbrella held like a scimitar, she seized on the
+boy.
+
+"Awfu' doin's! They've grippit Maister McCunn up the Mains road just
+afore the second milestone and forenent the auld bucht. I fund his hat,
+and a bicycle's lyin' broken in the wud. Haste ye, man, and get the rest
+and awa' and seek him. It'll be the tinklers frae the Dean. I'd gang
+mysel', but my legs are ower auld. Oh, laddie, dinna stop to speir
+questions. They'll hae him murdered or awa' to sea. And maybe the leddy
+was wi' him and they've got them baith. Wae's me! Wae's me!"
+
+The Die-Hard, who was Wee Jaikie, did not delay. His eyes had filled
+with tears at her news, which we know to have been his habit. When Mrs.
+Morran, after indulging in a moment of barbaric keening, looked back the
+road she had come, she saw a small figure trotting up the hill like a
+terrier who has been left behind. As he trotted he wept bitterly. Jaikie
+was getting dangerous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HOW MR. McCUNN COMMITTED AN ASSAULT UPON AN ALLY
+
+
+Dickson always maintained that his senses did not leave him for more
+than a second or two, but he admitted that he did not remember very
+clearly the events of the next few hours. He was conscious of a bad pain
+above his eyes, and something wet trickling down his cheek. There was a
+perpetual sound of water in his ears and of men's voices. He found
+himself dropped roughly on the ground and forced to walk, and was aware
+that his legs were inclined to wobble. Somebody had a grip on each arm,
+so that he could not defend his face from the brambles, and that worried
+him, for his whole head seemed one aching bruise and he dreaded anything
+touching it. But all the time he did not open his mouth, for silence was
+the one duty that his muddled wits enforced. He felt that he was not the
+master of his mind, and he dreaded what he might disclose if he began to
+babble.
+
+Presently there came a blank space of which he had no recollection at
+all. The movement had stopped, and he was allowed to sprawl on the
+ground. He thought that his head had got another whack from a bough, and
+that the pain put him into a stupor. When he awoke he was alone.
+
+He discovered that he was strapped very tightly to a young Scotch fir.
+His arms were bent behind him and his wrists tied together with cords
+knotted at the back of the tree; his legs were shackled, and further
+cords fastened them to the bole. Also there was a halter round the trunk
+and just under his chin, so that while he breathed freely enough, he
+could not move his head. Before him was a tangle of bracken and scrub,
+and beyond that the gloom of dense pines; but as he could only see
+directly in front his prospect was strictly circumscribed.
+
+Very slowly he began to take his bearings. The pain in his head was now
+dulled and quite bearable, and the flow of blood had stopped, for he
+felt the incrustation of it beginning on his cheeks. There was a
+tremendous noise all around him, and he traced this to the swaying of
+tree-tops in the gale. But there was an undercurrent of deeper
+sound--water surely, water churning among rocks. It was a stream--the
+Garple of course--and then he remembered where he was and what had
+happened.
+
+I do not wish to portray Dickson as a hero, for nothing would annoy him
+more; but I am bound to say that his first clear thought was not of his
+own danger. It was intense exasperation at the miscarriage of his plans.
+Long ago he should have been with Dougal arranging operations, giving
+him news of Sir Archie, finding out how Heritage was faring, deciding
+how to use the coming reinforcements. Instead he was trussed up in a
+wood, a prisoner of the enemy, and utterly useless to his side. He
+tugged at his bonds, and nearly throttled himself. But they were of
+good tarry cord and did not give a fraction of an inch. Tears of bitter
+rage filled his eyes and made furrows on his encrusted cheeks. Idiot
+that he had been, he had wrecked everything! What would Saskia and
+Dougal and Sir Archie do without a business man by their side? There
+would be a muddle, and the little party would walk into a trap. He saw
+it all very clearly. The men from the sea would overpower them, there
+would be murder done, and an easy capture of the Princess; and the
+police would turn up at long last to find an empty headland.
+
+He had also most comprehensively wrecked himself, and at the thought the
+most genuine panic seized him. There was no earthly chance of escape,
+for he was tucked away in this infernal jungle till such time as his
+enemies had time to deal with him. As to what that dealing would be like
+he had no doubts, for they knew that he had been their chief opponent.
+Those desperate ruffians would not scruple to put an end to him. His
+mind dwelt with horrible fascination upon throat-cutting, no doubt
+because of the presence of the cord below his chin. He had heard it was
+not a painful death; at any rate he remembered a clerk he had once had,
+a feeble, timid creature, who had twice attempted suicide that way.
+Surely it could not be very bad, and it would soon be over.
+
+But another thought came to him. They would carry him off in the ship
+and settle with him at their leisure. No swift merciful death for him.
+He had read dreadful tales of the Bolsheviks' skill in torture, and now
+they all came back to him--stories of Chinese mercenaries, and men
+buried alive, and death by agonising inches. He felt suddenly very cold
+and sick, and hung in his bonds for he had no strength in his limbs.
+Then the pressure on his throat braced him, and also quickened his numb
+mind. The liveliest terror ran like quicksilver through his veins.
+
+He endured some moments of this anguish, till after many despairing
+clutches at his wits he managed to attain a measure of self-control. He
+certainly wasn't going to allow himself to become mad. Death was death
+whatever form it took, and he had to face death as many better men had
+done before him. He had often thought about it and wondered how he
+should behave if the thing came to him. Respectably, he had hoped;
+heroically, he had sworn in his moments of confidence. But he had never
+for an instant dreamed of this cold, lonely, dreadful business. Last
+Sunday, he remembered, he had been basking in the afternoon sun in his
+little garden and reading about the end of Fergus MacIvor in _Waverley_
+and thrilling to the romance of it; and then Tibby had come out and
+summoned him in to tea. Then he had rather wanted to be a Jacobite in
+the '45 and in peril of his neck, and now Providence had taken him most
+terribly at his word.
+
+A week ago----! He groaned at the remembrance of that sunny garden. In
+seven days he had found a new world and tried a new life, and had come
+now to the end of it. He did not want to die, less now than ever with
+such wide horizons opening before him. But that was the worst of it, he
+reflected, for to have a great life great hazards must be taken, and
+there was always the risk of this sudden extinguisher.... Had he to
+choose again, far better the smooth sheltered bypath than this accursed
+romantic highway on to which he had blundered.... No, by Heaven, no!
+Confound it, if he had to choose he would do it all again. Something
+stiff and indomitable in his soul was bracing him to a manlier humour.
+There was no one to see the figure strapped to the fir, but had there
+been a witness he would have noted that at this stage Dickson shut his
+teeth and that his troubled eyes looked very steadily before him.
+
+His business, he felt, was to keep from thinking, for if he thought at
+all there would be a flow of memories, of his wife, his home, his books,
+his friends, to unman him. So he steeled himself to blankness, like a
+sleepless man imagining white sheep in a gate.... He noted a robin below
+the hazels, strutting impudently. And there was a tit on a bracken
+frond, which made the thing sway like one of the see-saws he used to
+play with as a boy. There was no wind in that undergrowth, and any
+movement must be due to bird or beast. The tit flew off, and the
+oscillations of the bracken slowly died away. Then they began again, but
+more violently, and Dickson could not see the bird that caused them. It
+must be something down at the roots of the covert, a rabbit, perhaps, or
+a fox, or a weasel.
+
+He watched for the first sign of the beast, and thought he caught a
+glimpse of tawny fur. Yes, there it was--pale dirty yellow, a weasel
+clearly. Then suddenly the patch grew larger, and to his amazement he
+looked at a human face--the face of a pallid small boy.
+
+A head disentangled itself, followed by thin shoulders, and then by a
+pair of very dirty bare legs. The figure raised itself and looked
+sharply round to make certain that the coast was clear. Then it stood up
+and saluted, revealing the well-known lineaments of Wee Jaikie.
+
+At the sight Dickson knew that he was safe by that certainty of instinct
+which is independent of proof, like the man who prays for a sign and has
+his prayer answered. He observed that the boy was quietly sobbing.
+Jaikie surveyed the position for an instant with red-rimmed eyes and
+then unclasped a knife, feeling the edge of the blade on his thumb. He
+darted behind the fir, and a second later Dickson's wrists were free.
+Then he sawed at the legs, and cut the shackles which tied them
+together, and then--most circumspectly--assaulted the cord which bound
+Dickson's neck to the trunk. There now remained only the two bonds which
+fastened the legs and the body to the tree.
+
+There was a sound in the wood different from the wind and stream. Jaikie
+listened like a startled hind.
+
+"They're comin' back," he gasped. "Just you bide where ye are and let on
+ye're still tied up."
+
+He disappeared in the scrub as inconspicuously as a rat, while two of
+the tinklers came up the slope from the waterside. Dickson in a fever of
+impatience cursed Wee Jaikie for not cutting his remaining bonds so that
+he could at least have made a dash for freedom. And then he realised
+that the boy had been right. Feeble and cramped as he was, he would have
+stood no chance in a race.
+
+One of the tinklers was the man called Ecky. He had been running hard,
+and was mopping his brow.
+
+"Hob's seen the brig," he said. "It's droppin' anchor ayont the Dookits
+whaur there's a beild frae the wund and deep water. They'll be landit in
+half an 'oor. Awa' you up to the Hoose and tell Dobson, and me and Sim
+and Hob will meet the boats at the Garplefit."
+
+The other cast a glance towards Dickson.
+
+"What about him?" he asked.
+
+The two scrutinised their prisoner from a distance of a few paces.
+Dickson, well aware of his peril, held himself as stiff as if every bond
+had been in place. The thought flashed on him that if he were too
+immobile they might think he was dying or dead, and come close to
+examine him. If they only kept their distance, the dusk of the wood
+would prevent them detecting Jaikie's handiwork.
+
+"What'll you take to let me go?" he asked plaintively.
+
+"Naething that you could offer, my mannie," said Ecky.
+
+"I'll give you a five-pound note apiece."
+
+"Produce the siller," said the other.
+
+"It's in my pocket."
+
+"It's no' that. We riped your pooches lang syne."
+
+"I'll take you to Glasgow with me and pay you there. Honour bright."
+
+Ecky spat. "D'ye think we're gowks? Man, there's no siller ye could pay
+wad mak' it worth our while to lowse ye. Bide quiet there and ye'll see
+some queer things ere nicht. C'way, Davie."
+
+The two set off at a good pace down the stream, while Dickson's pulsing
+heart returned to its normal rhythm. As the sound of their feet died
+away Wee Jaikie crawled out from cover, dry-eyed now and very
+business-like. He slit the last thongs, and Dickson fell limply on his
+face.
+
+"Losh, laddie, I'm awful stiff," he groaned. "Now, listen. Away all your
+pith to Dougal, and tell him that the brig's in and the men will be
+landing inside the hour. Tell him I'm coming as fast as my legs will let
+me. The Princess will likely be there already and Sir Archibald and his
+men, but if they're no', tell Dougal they're coming. Haste you, Jaikie.
+And see here, I'll never forget what you've done for me the day. You're
+a fine wee laddie!"
+
+The obedient Die-Hard disappeared, and Dickson painfully and laboriously
+set himself to climb the slope. He decided that his quickest and safest
+route lay by the highroad, and he had also some hopes of recovering his
+bicycle. On examining his body he seemed to have sustained no very great
+damage, except a painful cramping of legs and arms and a certain
+dizziness in the head. His pockets had been thoroughly rifled, and he
+reflected with amusement that he, the well-to-do Mr. McCunn, did not
+possess at the moment a single copper.
+
+But his spirits were soaring, for somehow his escape had given him an
+assurance of ultimate success. Providence had directly interfered on his
+behalf by the hand of Wee Jaikie, and that surely meant that it would
+see him through. But his chief emotion was an ardour of impatience to
+get to the scene of action. He must be at Dalquharter before the men
+from the sea; he must find Dougal and discover his dispositions.
+Heritage would be on guard in the Tower and in a very little the enemy
+would be round it. It would be just like the Princess to try and enter
+there, but at all costs that must be hindered. She and Sir Archie must
+not be cornered in stone walls, but must keep their communications open
+and fall on the enemy's flank. Oh, if the police would only come in
+time, what a rounding-up of miscreants that day would see!
+
+As the trees thinned on the brow of the slope and he saw the sky, he
+realised that the afternoon was far advanced. It must be well on for
+five o'clock. The wind still blew furiously, and the oaks on the fringes
+of the wood were whipped like saplings. Ruefully he admitted that the
+gale would not defeat the enemy. If the brig found a sheltered anchorage
+on the south side of the headland beyond the Garple, it would be easy
+enough for boats to make the Garple mouth, though it might be a
+difficult job to get out again. The thought quickened his steps, and he
+came out of cover on to the public road without a prior reconnaissance.
+
+Just in front of him stood a motor-bicycle. Something had gone wrong
+with it for its owner was tinkering at it, on the side farthest from
+Dickson. A wild hope seized him that this might be the vanguard of the
+police, and he went boldly towards it. The owner, who was kneeling,
+raised his face at the sound of footsteps and Dickson looked into his
+eyes.
+
+He recognised them only too well. They belonged to the man he had seen
+in the inn at Kirkmichael, the man whom Heritage had decided was an
+Australian, but whom they now knew to be their arch-enemy--the man
+called Paul who had persecuted the Princess for years and whom alone of
+all beings on earth she feared. He had been expected before, but had
+arrived now in the nick of time while the brig was casting anchor.
+Saskia had said that he had a devil's brain, and Dickson, as he stared
+at him, saw a fiendish cleverness in his straight brows and a
+remorseless cruelty in his stiff jaw and his pale eyes.
+
+He achieved the bravest act of his life. Shaky and dizzy as he was, with
+freedom newly opened to him and the mental torments of his captivity
+still an awful recollection, he did not hesitate. He saw before him the
+villain of the drama, the one man that stood between the Princess and
+peace of mind. He regarded no consequences, gave no heed to his own
+fate, and thought only how to put his enemy out of action. There was a
+big spanner lying on the ground. He seized it and with all his strength
+smote at the man's face.
+
+The motor-cyclist, kneeling and working hard at his machine, had raised
+his head at Dickson's approach and beheld a wild apparition--a short man
+in ragged tweeds, with a bloody brow and long smears of blood on his
+cheeks. The next second he observed the threat of attack, and ducked his
+head so that the spanner only grazed his scalp. The motor-bicycle
+toppled over, its owner sprang to his feet, and found the short man,
+very pale and gasping, about to renew the assault. In such a crisis
+there was no time for inquiry, and the cyclist was well trained in
+self-defence. He leaped the prostrate bicycle, and before his assailant
+could get in a blow brought his left fist into violent contact with his
+chin. Dickson tottered back a step or two and then subsided among the
+bracken.
+
+He did not lose his senses, but he had no more strength in him. He felt
+horribly ill, and struggled in vain to get up. The cyclist, a gigantic
+figure, towered above him. "Who the devil are you?" he was asking. "What
+do you mean by it?"
+
+Dickson had no breath for words, and knew that if he tried to speak he
+would be very sick. He could only stare up like a dog at the angry eyes.
+Angry beyond question they were, but surely not malevolent. Indeed, as
+they looked at the shameful figure on the ground, amusement filled them.
+The face relaxed into a smile.
+
+"Who on earth are you?" the voice repeated. And then into it came
+recognition. "I've seen you before. I believe you're the little man I
+saw last week at the Black Bull. Be so good as to explain why you want
+to murder me?"
+
+Explanation was beyond Dickson, but his conviction was being wofully
+shaken. Saskia had said her enemy was as beautiful as a devil--he
+remembered the phrase, for he had thought it ridiculous. This man was
+magnificent, but there was nothing devilish in his lean grave face.
+
+"What's your name?" the voice was asking.
+
+"Tell me yours first," Dickson essayed to stutter between spasms of
+nausea.
+
+"My name is Alexander Nicholson," was the answer.
+
+"Then you're no' the man." It was a cry of wrath and despair.
+
+"You're a very desperate little chap. For whom had I the honour to be
+mistaken?"
+
+Dickson had now wriggled into a sitting position and had clasped his
+hands above his aching head.
+
+"I thought you were a Russian, name of Paul," he groaned.
+
+"Paul! Paul who?"
+
+"Just Paul. A Bolshevik and an awful bad lot."
+
+Dickson could not see the change which his words wrought in the other's
+face. He found himself picked up in strong arms and carried to a
+bog-pool where his battered face was carefully washed, his throbbing
+brows laved, and a wet handkerchief bound over them. Then he was given
+brandy in the socket of a flask, which eased his nausea. The cyclist ran
+his bicycle to the roadside, and found a seat for Dickson behind the
+turf-dyke of the old bucht.
+
+"Now you are going to tell me everything," he said. "If the Paul who is
+your enemy is the Paul I think him, then we are allies."
+
+But Dickson did not need this assurance. His mind had suddenly received
+a revelation. The Princess had expected an enemy, but also a friend.
+Might not this be the long-awaited friend, for whose sake she was rooted
+to Huntingtower with all its terrors?
+
+"Are you sure you name's no' Alexis?" he asked.
+
+"In my own country I was called Alexis Nicolaevitch, for I am a Russian.
+But for some years I have made my home with your folk, and I call myself
+Alexander Nicholson, which is the English form. Who told you about
+Alexis?"
+
+"Give me your hand," said Dickson shamefacedly. "Man, she's been looking
+for you for weeks. You're terribly behind the fair."
+
+"She!" he cried. "For God's sake tell me all you know."
+
+"Ay, she--the Princess. But what are we havering here for? I tell you at
+this moment she's somewhere down about the old Tower, and there's
+boatloads of blagyirds landing from the sea. Help me up, man, for I must
+be off. The story will keep. Losh, it's very near the darkening. If
+you're Alexis, you're just about in time for a battle."
+
+But Dickson on his feet was but a frail creature. He was still
+deplorably giddy, and his legs showed an unpleasing tendency to crumple.
+"I'm fair done," he moaned. "You see, I've been tied up all day to a
+tree and had two sore bashes on my head. Get you on that bicycle and
+hurry on, and I'll hirple after you the best I can. I'll direct you the
+road, and if you're lucky you'll find a Die-Hard about the village. Away
+with you, man, and never mind me."
+
+"We go together," said the other quietly. "You can sit behind me and
+hang on to my waist. Before you turned up I had pretty well got the
+thing in order."
+
+Dickson in a fever of impatience sat by while the Russian put the
+finishing touches to the machine, and as well as his anxiety allowed put
+him in possession of the main facts of the story. He told of how he and
+Heritage had come to Dalquharter, of the first meeting with Saskia, of
+the trip to Glasgow with the jewels, of the exposure of Loudon the
+factor, of last night's doings in the House, and of the journey that
+morning to the Mains of Garple. He sketched the figures on the
+scene--Heritage and Sir Archie, Dobson and his gang, the Gorbals
+Die-Hards. He told of the enemy's plans so far as he knew them.
+
+"Looked at from a business point of view," he said, "the situation's
+like this. There's Heritage in the Tower, with Dobson, Leon and Spidel
+sitting round him. Somewhere about the place there's the Princess and
+Sir Archibald and three men with guns from the Mains. Dougal and his
+five laddies are running loose in the policies. And there's four
+tinklers and God knows how many foreign ruffians pushing up from the
+Garplefoot, and a brig lying waiting to carry off the ladies. Likewise
+there's the police, somewhere on the road, though the dear kens when
+they'll turn up. It's awful the incompetence of our Government, and the
+rates and taxes that high!... And there's you and me by this roadside,
+and I'm no more use than a tattie-bogle.... That's the situation, and
+the question is what's our plan to be? We must keep the blagyirds in
+play till the police come, and at the same time we must keep the
+Princess out of danger. That's why I'm wanting back, for they've sore
+need of a business head. Yon Sir Archibald's a fine fellow, but I doubt
+he'll be a bit rash, and the Princess is no' to hold or bind. Our first
+job is to find Dougal and get a grip of the facts."
+
+"I am going to the Princess," said the Russian.
+
+"Ay, that'll be best. You'll be maybe able to manage her, for you'll be
+well acquaint."
+
+"She is my kinswoman. She is also my affianced wife."
+
+"Keep us!" Dickson exclaimed, with a doleful thought of Heritage. "What
+ailed you then no' to look after her better?"
+
+"We have been long separated, because it was her will. She had work to
+do and disappeared from me, though I searched all Europe for her. Then
+she sent me word, when the danger became extreme, and summoned me to her
+aid. But she gave me poor directions, for she did not know her own plans
+very clearly. She spoke of a place called Darkwater, and I have been
+hunting half Scotland for it. It was only last night that I heard of
+Dalquharter and guessed that that might be the name. But I was far down
+in Galloway, and have ridden fifty miles to-day."
+
+"It's a queer thing, but I wouldn't take you for a Russian."
+
+Alexis finished his work and put away his tools. "For the present," he
+said, "I am an Englishman, till my country comes again to her senses.
+Ten years ago I left Russia, for I was sick of the foolishness of my
+class and wanted a free life in a new world. I went to Australia and
+made good as an engineer. I am a partner in a firm which is pretty well
+known even in Britain. When war broke out I returned to fight for my
+people, and when Russia fell out of the war, I joined the Australians in
+France and fought with them till the Armistice. And now I have only one
+duty left, to save the Princess and take her with me to my new home till
+Russia is a nation once more."
+
+Dickson whistled joyfully. "So Mr. Heritage was right. He aye said you
+were an Australian.... And you're a business man! That's grand hearing
+and puts my mind at rest. You must take charge of the party at the
+House, for Sir Archibald's a daft young lad and Mr. Heritage is a poet.
+I thought I would have to go myself, but I doubt I would just be a
+hindrance with my dwaibly legs. I'd be better outside, watching for the
+police.... Are you ready, sir?"
+
+Dickson not without difficulty perched himself astride the luggage
+carrier, firmly grasping the rider round the middle. The machine
+started, but it was evidently in a bad way, for it made poor going till
+the descent towards the main Auchenlochan road. On the slope it warmed
+up and they crossed the Garple bridge at a fair pace. There was to be no
+pleasant April twilight, for the stormy sky had already made dusk, and
+in a very little the dark would fall. So sombre was the evening that
+Dickson did not notice a figure in the shadow of the roadside pines till
+it whistled shrilly on its fingers. He cried on Alexis to stop, and,
+this being accomplished with some suddenness, fell off at Dougal's feet.
+
+"What's the news?" he demanded.
+
+Dougal glanced at Alexis and seemed to approve his looks.
+
+"Napoleon has just reported that three boatloads, making either
+twenty-three or twenty-four men--they were gey ill to count--has landed
+at Garplefit and is makin' their way to the auld Tower. The tinklers
+warned Dobson and soon it'll be a' bye wi' Heritage."
+
+"The Princess is not there?" was Dickson's anxious inquiry.
+
+"Na, na. Heritage is there his lone. They were for joinin' him, but I
+wouldn't let them. She came wi' a man they call Sir Erchibald and three
+gemkeepers wi' guns. I stoppit their cawr up the road and tell't them
+the lie o' the land. Yon Sir Erchibald has poor notions o' strawtegy. He
+was for bangin' into the auld Tower straight away and shootin' Dobson if
+he tried to stop them. 'Havers,' say I, 'let them break their teeth on
+the Tower, thinkin' the leddy's inside, and that'll give us time, for
+Heritage is no' the lad to surrender in a hurry.'"
+
+"Where are they now?"
+
+"In the Hoose o' Dalquharter, and a sore job I had gettin' them in.
+We've shifted our base again, without the enemy suspectin'."
+
+"Any word of the police?"
+
+"The polis!" and Dougal spat cynically. "It seems they're a dour crop to
+shift. Sir Erchibald was sayin' that him and the lassie had been to the
+Chief Constable, but the man was terrible auld and slow. They convertit
+him, but he threepit that it would take a long time to collect his men
+and that there was no danger o' the brig landin' afore night. He's wrong
+there onyway, for they're landit."
+
+"Dougal," said Dickson, "you've heard the Princess speak of a friend she
+was expecting here called Alexis. This is him. You can address him as
+Mr. Nicholson. Just arrived in the nick of time. You must get him into
+the House, for he's the best right to be beside the lady.... Jaikie
+would tell you that I've been sore mishandled the day, and am no' very
+fit for a battle. But Mr. Nicholson's a business man and he'll do as
+well. You're keeping the Die-Hards outside, I hope?"
+
+"Ay. Thomas Yownie's in charge, and Jaikie will be in and out with
+orders. They've instructions to watch for the polis, and keep an eye on
+the Garplefit. It's a mortal long front to hold, but there's no other
+way. I must be in the Hoose mysel'. Thomas Yownie's headquarters is the
+auld wife's hen-hoose."
+
+At that moment in a pause of the gale came the far-borne echo of a shot.
+
+"Pistol," said Alexis.
+
+"Heritage," said Dougal. "Trade will be gettin' brisk with him. Start
+your machine and I'll hang on ahint. We'll try the road by the West
+Lodge."
+
+Presently the pair disappeared in the dusk, the noise of the engine was
+swallowed up in the wild orchestra of the wind, and Dickson hobbled
+towards the village in a state of excitement which made him oblivious of
+his wounds. That lonely pistol shot was, he felt, the bell to ring up
+the curtain on the last act of the play.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE COMING OF THE DANISH BRIG
+
+
+Mr. John Heritage, solitary in the old Tower, found much to occupy his
+mind. His giddiness was passing, though the dregs of a headache
+remained, and his spirits rose with his responsibilities. At daybreak he
+breakfasted out of the Mearns Street provision box, and made tea in one
+of the Die-Hards' camp kettles. Next he gave some attention to his
+toilet, necessary after the rough-and-tumble of the night. He made shift
+to bathe in icy water from the Tower well, shaved, tidied up his clothes
+and found a clean shirt from his pack. He carefully brushed his hair,
+reminding himself that thus had the Spartans done before Thermopylae. The
+neat and somewhat pallid young man that emerged from these rites then
+ascended to the first floor to reconnoitre the landscape from the narrow
+unglazed windows.
+
+If any one had told him a week ago that he would be in so strange a
+world he would have quarrelled violently with his informant. A week ago
+he was a cynical clear-sighted modern, a contemner of illusions, a
+swallower of formulas, a breaker of shams--one who had seen through the
+heroical and found it silly. Romance and such-like toys were playthings
+for fatted middle-age, not for strenuous and cold-eyed youth. But the
+truth was that now he was altogether spellbound by these toys. To think
+that he was serving his lady was rapture--ecstasy, that for her he was
+single-handed venturing all. He rejoiced to be alone with his private
+fancies. His one fear was that the part he had cast himself for should
+be needless, that the men from the sea should not come, or that
+reinforcements would arrive before he should be called upon. He hoped
+alone to make a stand against thousands. What the upshot might be he did
+not trouble to inquire. Of course the Princess would be saved, but first
+he must glut his appetite for the heroic.
+
+He made a diary of events that day, just as he used to do at the front.
+At twenty minutes past eight he saw the first figure coming from the
+House. It was Spidel, who limped round the Tower, tried the door, and
+came to a halt below the window. Heritage stuck out his head and wished
+him good morning, getting in reply an amazed stare. The man was not
+disposed to talk, though Heritage made some interesting observations on
+the weather, but departed quicker than he came, in the direction of the
+West Lodge.
+
+Just before nine o'clock he returned with Dobson and Leon. They made a
+very complete reconnaissance of the Tower, and for a moment Heritage
+thought that they were about to try to force an entrance. They tugged
+and hammered at the great oak door, which he had further strengthened by
+erecting behind it a pile of the heaviest lumber he could find in the
+place. It was imperative that they should not get in, and he got
+Dickson's pistol ready with the firm intention of shooting them if
+necessary. But they did nothing, except to hold a conference in the
+hazel clump a hundred yards to the north, when Dobson seemed to be
+laying down the law, and Leon spoke rapidly with a great fluttering of
+hands. They were obviously puzzled by the sight of Heritage, whom they
+believed to have left the neighbourhood. Then Dobson went off, leaving
+Leon and Spidel on guard, one at the edge of the shrubberies between the
+Tower and the House, the other on the side nearest the Laver glen. These
+were their posts, but they did sentry-go around the building, and passed
+so close to Heritage's window that he could have tossed a cigarette on
+their heads.
+
+It occurred to him that he ought to get busy with camouflage. They must
+be convinced that the Princess was in the place, for he wanted their
+whole mind to be devoted to the siege. He rummaged among the ladies'
+baggage, and extracted a skirt and a coloured scarf. The latter he
+managed to flutter so that it could be seen at the window the next time
+one of the watchers came within sight. He also fixed up the skirt so
+that the fringe of it could be seen, and, when Leon appeared below, he
+was in the shadow talking rapid French in a very fair imitation of the
+tones of Cousin Eugenie. The ruse had its effect, for Leon promptly went
+off to tell Spidel, and when Dobson appeared he too was given the news.
+This seemed to settle their plans, for all three remained on guard,
+Dobson nearest to the Tower, seated on an outcrop of rock with his
+mackintosh collar turned up, and his eyes usually turned to the misty
+sea.
+
+By this time it was eleven o'clock, and the next three hours passed
+slowly with Heritage. He fell to picturing the fortunes of his friends.
+Dickson and the Princess should by this time be far inland, out of
+danger and in the way of finding succour. He was confident that they
+would return, but he trusted not too soon, for he hoped for a run for
+his money as Horatius in the Gate. After that he was a little torn in
+his mind. He wanted the Princess to come back and to be somewhere near
+if there was a fight going, so that she might be a witness of his
+devotion. But she must not herself run any risk, and he became anxious
+when he remembered her terrible sangfroid. Dickson could no more
+restrain her than a child could hold a greyhound.... But of course it
+would never come to that. The police would turn up long before the brig
+appeared--Dougal had thought that would not be till high tide, between
+four and five--and the only danger would be to the pirates. The three
+watchers would be put in the bag, and the men from the sea would walk
+into a neat trap. This reflection seemed to take all the colour out of
+Heritage's prospect. Peril and heroism were not to be his lot--only
+boredom.
+
+A little after twelve two of the tinklers appeared with some news which
+made Dobson laugh and pat them on the shoulder. He seemed to be giving
+them directions, pointing seaward and southward. He nodded to the Tower,
+where Heritage took the opportunity of again fluttering Saskia's scarf
+athwart the window. The tinklers departed at a trot, and Dobson lit his
+pipe as if well pleased. He had some trouble with it in the wind, which
+had risen to an uncanny violence. Even the solid Tower rocked with it,
+and the sea was a waste of spindrift and low scurrying cloud. Heritage
+discovered a new anxiety--this time about the possibility of the brig
+landing at all. He wanted a complete bag, and it would be tragic if they
+got only the three seedy ruffians now circumambulating his fortress.
+
+About one o'clock he was greatly cheered by the sight of Dougal. At the
+moment Dobson was lunching off a hunk of bread and cheese directly
+between the Tower and the House, just short of the crest of the ridge on
+the other side of which lay the stables and the shrubberies; Leon was on
+the north side opposite the Tower door, and Spidel was at the south end
+near the edge of the Garple glen. Heritage, watching the ridge behind
+Dobson and the upper windows of the House which appeared over it, saw on
+the very crest something like a tuft of rusty bracken which he had not
+noticed before. Presently the tuft moved, and a hand shot up from it
+waving a rag of some sort. Dobson at the moment was engaged with a
+bottle of porter, and Heritage could safely wave a hand in reply. He
+could now make out clearly the red head of Dougal.
+
+The Chieftain, having located the three watchers, proceeded to give an
+exhibition of his prowess for the benefit of the lonely inmate of the
+Tower. Using as cover a drift of bracken, he wormed his way down till
+he was not six yards from Dobson, and Heritage had the privilege of
+seeing his grinning countenance a very little way above the innkeeper's
+head. Then he crawled back and reached the neighbourhood of Leon, who
+was sitting on a fallen Scotch fir. At that moment it occurred to the
+Belgian to visit Dobson. Heritage's breath stopped, but Dougal was
+ready, and froze into a motionless blur in the shadow of a hazel bush.
+Then he crawled very fast into the hollow where Leon had been sitting,
+seized something which looked like a bottle, and scrambled back to the
+ridge. At the top he waved the object, whatever it was, but Heritage
+could not reply, for Dobson happened to be looking towards the window.
+That was the last he saw of the Chieftain, but presently he realised
+what was the booty he had annexed. It must be Leon's life-preserver,
+which the night before had broken Heritage's head.
+
+After that cheering episode boredom again set in. He collected some food
+from the Mearns Street box, and indulged himself with a glass of liqueur
+brandy. He was beginning to feel miserably cold, so he carried up some
+broken wood and made a fire on the immense hearth in the upper chamber.
+Anxiety was clouding his mind again, for it was now two o'clock, and
+there was no sign of the reinforcements which Dickson and the Princess
+had gone to find. The minutes passed, and soon it was three o'clock, and
+from the window he saw only the top of the gaunt shuttered House, now
+and then hidden by squalls of sleet, and Dobson squatted like an
+Eskimo, and trees dancing like a witch-wood in the gale. All the vigour
+of the morning seemed to have gone out of his blood; he felt lonely and
+apprehensive and puzzled. He wished he had Dickson beside him, for that
+little man's cheerful voice and complacent triviality would be a
+comfort.... Also, he was abominably cold. He put on his waterproof, and
+turned his attention to the fire. It needed re-kindling, and he hunted
+in his pockets for paper, finding only the slim volume lettered
+_Whorls_.
+
+I set it down as the most significant commentary on his state of mind.
+He regarded the book with intense disfavour, tore it in two, and used a
+handful of its fine deckle-edged leaves to get the fire going. They
+burned well, and presently the rest followed. Well for Dickson's peace
+of mind that he was not a witness of such vandalism.
+
+A little warmer but in no way more cheerful, he resumed his watch near
+the window. The day was getting darker, and promised an early dusk. His
+watch told him that it was after four, and still nothing had happened.
+Where on earth were Dickson and the Princess? Where in the name of all
+that was holy were the police? Any minute now the brig might arrive and
+land its men, and he would be left there as a burnt-offering to their
+wrath. There must have been an infernal muddle somewhere.... Anyhow the
+Princess was out of the trouble, but where the Lord alone knew....
+Perhaps the reinforcements were lying in wait for the boats at the
+Garplefoot. That struck him as a likely explanation, and comforted him.
+Very soon he might hear the sound of an engagement to the south, and the
+next thing would be Dobson and his crew in flight. He was determined to
+be in the show somehow and would be very close on their heels. He felt a
+peculiar dislike to all three, but especially to Leon. The Belgian's
+small baby features had for four days set him clenching his fists when
+he thought of them.
+
+The next thing he saw was one of the tinklers running hard towards the
+Tower. He cried something to Dobson, which Heritage could not catch, but
+which woke the latter to activity. The innkeeper shouted to Leon and
+Spidel, and the tinkler was excitedly questioned. Dobson laughed and
+slapped his thigh. He gave orders to the others, and himself joined the
+tinkler and hurried off in the direction of the Garplefoot. Something
+was happening there, something of ill omen, for the man's face and
+manner had been triumphant. Were the boats landing?
+
+As Heritage puzzled over this event, another figure appeared on the
+scene. It was a big man in knickerbockers and mackintosh, who came round
+the end of the House from the direction of the South Lodge. At first he
+thought it was the advance-guard from his own side, the help which
+Dickson had gone to find, and he only restrained himself in time from
+shouting a welcome. But surely their supports would not advance so
+confidently in enemy country. The man strode over the slopes as if
+looking for somebody; then he caught sight of Leon and waved him to
+come. Leon must have known him, for he hastened to obey.
+
+The two were about thirty yards from Heritage's window. Leon was telling
+some story volubly, pointing now to the Tower and now towards the sea.
+The big man nodded as if satisfied. Heritage noted that his right arm
+was tied up, and that the mackintosh sleeve was empty, and that brought
+him enlightenment. It was Loudon the factor, whom Dickson had winged the
+night before. The two of them passed out of view in the direction of
+Spidel.
+
+The sight awoke Heritage to the supreme unpleasantness of his position.
+He was utterly alone on the headland, and his allies had vanished into
+space, while the enemy plans, moving like clock-work, were approaching
+their consummation. For a second he thought of leaving the Tower and
+hiding somewhere in the cliffs. He dismissed the notion unwillingly, for
+he remembered the task that had been set him. He was there to hold the
+fort to the last--to gain time, though he could not for the life of him
+see what use time was to be when all the strategy of his own side seemed
+to have miscarried. Anyhow, the blackguards would be sold for they would
+not find the Princess. But he felt a horrid void in the pit of his
+stomach, and a looseness about his knees.
+
+The moments passed more quickly as he wrestled with his fears. The next
+he knew the empty space below his window was filling with figures. There
+was a great crowd of them, rough fellows with seamen's coats, still
+dripping as if they had had a wet landing. Dobson was with them, but
+for the rest they were strange figures.
+
+Now that the expected had come at last Heritage's nerves grew calmer. He
+made out that the newcomers were trying the door, and he waited to hear
+it fall, for such a mob could soon force it. But instead a voice called
+from beneath.
+
+"Will you please open to us?" it said.
+
+He stuck his head out and saw a little group with one man at the head of
+it, a young man clad in oilskins whose face was dim in the murky
+evening. The voice was that of a gentleman.
+
+"I have orders to open to no one," Heritage replied.
+
+"Then I fear we must force an entrance," said the voice.
+
+"You can go to the devil," said Heritage.
+
+That defiance was the screw which his nerves needed. His temper had
+risen, he had forgotten all about the Princess, he did not even remember
+his isolation. His job was to make a fight for it. He ran up the
+staircase which led to the attics of the Tower, for he recollected that
+there was a window there which looked over the ground before the door.
+The place was ruinous, the floor filled with holes, and a part of the
+roof sagged down in a corner. The stones around the window were loose
+and crumbling and he managed to pull several out so that the slit was
+enlarged. He found himself looking down on a crowd of men, who had
+lifted the fallen tree on which Leon had perched, and were about to use
+it as a battering ram.
+
+"The first fellow who comes within six yards of the door I shoot," he
+shouted.
+
+There was a white wave below as every face was turned to him. He ducked
+back his head in time as a bullet chipped the side of the window.
+
+But his position was a good one, for he had a hole in the broken wall
+through which he could see, and could shoot with his hand at the edge of
+the window while keeping his body in cover. The battering party resumed
+their task, and as the tree swung nearer, he fired at the foremost of
+them. He missed, but the shot for a moment suspended operations.
+
+Again they came on, and again he fired. This time he damaged somebody,
+for the trunk was dropped.
+
+A voice gave orders, a sharp authoritative voice. The battering squad
+dissolved, and there was a general withdrawal out of the line of fire
+from the window. Was it possible that he had intimidated them? He could
+hear the sound of voices, and then a single figure came into sight
+again, holding something in its hand.
+
+He did not fire, for he recognised the futility of his efforts. The
+baseball swing of the figure below could not be mistaken. There was a
+roar beneath, and a flash of fire, as the bomb exploded on the door.
+Then came a rush of men, and the Tower had fallen.
+
+Heritage clambered through a hole in the roof and gained the topmost
+parapet. He had still a pocketful of cartridges, and there in a coign of
+the old battlements he would prove an ugly customer to the pursuit.
+Only one at a time could reach that siege perilous.... They would not
+take long to search the lower rooms, and then would be hot on the trail
+of the man who had fooled them. He had not a scrap of fear left or even
+of anger--only triumph at the thought of how properly those ruffians had
+been sold. "Like schoolboys they who unaware"--instead of two women they
+had found a man with a gun. And the Princess was miles off and forever
+beyond their reach. When they had settled with him they would no doubt
+burn the House down, but that would serve them little. From his airy
+pinnacle he could see the whole sea-front of Huntingtower, a blur in the
+dusk but for the ghostly eyes of its white-shuttered windows.
+
+Something was coming from it, running lightly over the lawns, lost for
+an instant in the trees, and then appearing clear on the crest of the
+ridge where some hours earlier Dougal had lain. With horror he saw that
+it was a girl. She stood with the wind plucking at her skirts and hair,
+and she cried in a high, clear voice which pierced even the confusion of
+the gale. What she cried he could not tell for it was in a strange
+tongue....
+
+But it reached the besiegers. There was a sudden silence in the din
+below him and then a confusion of shouting. The men seemed to be pouring
+out of the gap which had been the doorway, and as he peered over the
+parapet first one and then another entered his area of vision. The girl
+on the ridge, as soon as she saw that she had attracted attention,
+turned and ran back, and after her up the slopes went the pursuit
+bunched like hounds on a good scent.
+
+Mr. John Heritage, swearing terribly, started to retrace his steps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
+
+
+The military historian must often make shift to write of battles with
+slender data, but he can pad out his deficiencies by learned parallels.
+If his were the talented pen describing this, the latest action fought
+on British soil against a foreign foe, he would no doubt be crippled by
+the absence of written orders and war diaries. But how eloquently he
+would discant on the resemblance between Dougal and Gouraud--how the
+plan of leaving the enemy to waste his strength upon a deserted position
+was that which on the 15th of July, 1918, the French general had used
+with decisive effect in Champagne! But Dougal had never heard of
+Gouraud, and I cannot claim that, like the Happy Warrior, he
+
+              "through the heat of conflict kept the law
+    In calmness made, and saw what he foresaw."
+
+I have had the benefit of discussing the affair with him and his
+colleagues, but I should offend against historic truth if I represented
+the main action as anything but a scrimmage--a "soldiers' battle," the
+historian would say, a Malplaquet, an Albuera.
+
+Just after half-past three that afternoon the Commander-in-Chief was
+revealed in a very bad temper. He had intercepted Sir Archie's car,
+and, since Leon was known to be fully occupied, had brought it in by the
+West Lodge, and hidden it behind a clump of laurels. There he had held a
+hoarse council of war. He had cast an appraising eye over Sime the
+butler, Carfrae the chauffeur, and McGuffog the gamekeeper, and his
+brows had lightened when he beheld Sir Archie with an armful of guns and
+two big cartridge-magazines. But they had darkened again at the first
+words of the leader of the reinforcements.
+
+"Now for the Tower," Sir Archie had observed cheerfully. "We should be a
+match for the three watchers, my lad, and it's time that poor devil
+What's-his-name was relieved."
+
+"A bonny-like plan that would be," said Dougal. "Man, ye would be
+walkin' into the very trap they want. In an hour, or maybe two, the rest
+will turn up from the sea and they'd have ye tight by the neck. Na, na!
+It's time we're wantin', and the longer they think we're a' in the auld
+Tower the better for us. What news o' the polis?"
+
+He listened to Sir Archie's report with a gloomy face.
+
+"Not afore the darkenin'? They'll be ower late--the polis are aye ower
+late. It looks as if we had the job to do oursels. What's _your_
+notion?"
+
+"God knows," said the baronet whose eyes were on Saskia. "What's yours?"
+
+The deference conciliated Dougal. "There's just the one plan that's
+worth a docken. There's five o' us here, and there's plenty weapons.
+Besides there's five Die-Hards somewhere about, and though they've
+never tried it afore they can be trusted to loose off a gun. My advice
+is to hide at the Garplefoot and stop the boats landin'. We'd have the
+tinklers on our flank, no doubt, but I'm not muckle feared o' them. It
+wouldn't be easy for the boats to get in wi' this tearin' wind and us
+firin' volleys from the shore."
+
+Sir Archie stared at him with admiration. "You're a hearty young
+fire-eater. But Great Scott! we can't go pottin' at strangers before we
+find out their business. This is a law-abidin' country, and we're not
+entitled to start shootin' except in self-defence. You can wash that
+plan out, for it ain't feasible."
+
+Dougal spat cynically. "For all that it's the right strawtegy. Man, we
+might sink the lot, and then turn and settle wi' Dobson, and all afore
+the first polisman showed his neb. It would be a grand performance. But
+I was feared ye wouldn't be for it.... Well, there's just the one other
+thing to do. We must get inside the Hoose and put it in a state of
+defence. Heritage has McCunn's pistol, and he'll keep them busy for a
+bit. When they've finished wi' him and find the place is empty, they'll
+try the Hoose and we'll give them a warm reception. That should keep us
+goin' till the polis arrive, unless they're comin' wi' the blind
+carrier."
+
+Sir Archie nodded. "But why put ourselves in their power at all? They're
+at present barking up the wrong tree. Let them bark up another wrong
+'un. Why shouldn't the House remain empty? I take it we're here to
+protect the Princess. Well, we'll have done that if they go off
+empty-handed."
+
+Dougal looked up to the heavens. "I wish McCunn was here," he sighed.
+"Ay, we've got to protect the Princess, and there's just the one way to
+do it, and that's to put an end to this crowd o' blagyirds. If they gang
+empty-handed, they'll come again another day, either here or somewhere
+else, and it won't be long afore they get the lassie. But if we finish
+with them now she can sit down wi' an easy mind. That's why we've got to
+hang on to them till the polis comes. There's no way out o' this
+business but a battle."
+
+He found an ally. "Dougal is right," said Saskia. "If I am to have
+peace, by some way or other the fangs of my enemies must be drawn for
+ever."
+
+He swung round and addressed her formally. "Mem, I'm askin' ye for the
+last time. Will ye keep out of this business? Will ye gang back and sit
+doun aside Mrs. Morran's fire and have your tea and wait till we come
+for ye? Ye can do no good, and ye're puttin' yourself terrible in the
+enemy's power. If we're beat and ye're no' there, they get very little
+satisfaction, but if they get _you_ they get what they've come seekin'.
+I tell ye straight--ye're an encumbrance."
+
+She laughed mischievously. "I can shoot better than you," she said.
+
+He ignored the taunt. "Will ye listen to sense and fall to the rear?"
+
+"I will not," she said.
+
+"Then gang your own gait. I'm ower wise to argy-bargy wi' women. The
+Hoose be it!"
+
+It was a journey which sorely tried Dougal's temper. The only way in was
+by the verandah, but the door at the west end had been locked, and the
+ladder had disappeared. Now of his party three were lame, one lacked an
+arm, and one was a girl; besides, there were the guns and cartridges to
+transport. Moreover, at more than one point before the verandah was
+reached the route was commanded by a point on the ridge near the old
+Tower, and that had been Spidel's position when Dougal made his last
+reconnaissance. It behoved to pass these points swiftly and
+unobtrusively, and his company was neither swift nor unobtrusive.
+McGuffog had a genius for tripping over obstacles, and Sir Archie was
+for ever proffering his aid to Saskia, who was in a position to give
+rather than to receive, being far the most active of the party. Once
+Dougal had to take the gamekeeper's head and force it down, a
+performance which would have led to an immediate assault but for Sir
+Archie's presence. Nor did the latter escape. "Will ye stop heedin' the
+lassie, and attend to your own job," the Chieftain growled. "Ye're
+makin' as much noise as a road-roller."
+
+Arrived at the foot of the verandah wall there remained the problem of
+the escalade. Dougal clambered up like a squirrel by the help of cracks
+in the stones, and he could be heard trying the handle of the door into
+the House. He was absent for about five minutes and then his head peeped
+over the edge accompanied by the hooks of an iron ladder. "From the
+boiler-house," he informed them as they stood clear for the thing to
+drop. It proved to be little more than half the height of the wall.
+
+Saskia ascended first, and had no difficulty in pulling herself over the
+parapet. Then came the guns and ammunition, and then the one-armed Sime,
+who turned out to be an athlete. But it was no easy matter getting up
+the last three. Sir Archie anathematised his frailties. "Nice old crock
+to go tiger-shootin' with," he told the Princess. "But set me to
+something where my confounded leg don't get in the way, and I'm still
+pretty useful!" Dougal, mopping his brow with the rag he called his
+handkerchief, observed sourly that he objected to going scouting with a
+herd of elephants.
+
+Once indoors his spirits rose. The party from the Mains had brought
+several electric torches and the one lamp was presently found and lit.
+"We can't count on the polis," Dougal announced, "and when the
+foreigners is finished wi' the Tower they'll come on here. If no', we
+must make them. What is it the sodgers call it? Forcin' a battle? Now
+see here! There's the two roads into this place, the back door and the
+verandy, leavin' out the front door which is chained and lockit. They'll
+try those two roads first and we must get them well barricaded in time.
+But mind, if there's a good few o' them, it'll be an easy job to batter
+in the front door or the windies, so we maun be ready for that."
+
+He told off a fatigue party--the Princess, Sir Archie and McGuffog--to
+help in moving furniture to the several doors. Sime and Carfrae
+attended to the kitchen entrance, while he himself made a tour of the
+ground-floor windows. For half an hour the empty house was loud with
+strange sounds. McGuffog, who was a giant in strength, filled the
+passage at the verandah end with an assortment of furniture ranging from
+a grand piano to a vast mahogany sofa, while Saskia and Sir Archie
+pillaged the bedrooms and packed up the interstices with mattresses in
+lieu of sandbags. Dougal on his return saw fit to approve their work.
+
+"That'll fickle the blagyirds. Down at the kitchen door we've got a
+mangle, five wash-tubs and the best part of a ton o' coal. It's the
+windies I'm anxious about, for they're ower big to fill up. But I've
+gotten tubs o' water below them and a lot o' wire-nettin' I fund in the
+cellar."
+
+Sir Archie morosely wiped his brow. "I can't say I ever hated a job
+more," he told Saskia. "It seems pretty cool to march into somebody
+else's house and make free with his furniture. I hope to goodness our
+friends from the sea do turn up, or we'll look pretty foolish. Loudon
+will have a score against me he won't forget."
+
+"Ye're no' weakenin'?" asked Dougal fiercely.
+
+"Not a bit. Only hopin' somebody hasn't made a mighty big mistake."
+
+"Ye needn't be feared for that. Now you listen to your instructions.
+We're terrible few for such a big place, but we maun make up for
+shortness o' numbers by extra mobility. The gemkeeper will keep the
+windy that looks on the verandy, and fell any man that gets through.
+You'll hold the verandy door, and the ither lame man--is't Carfrae ye
+call him?--will keep the back door. I've telled the one-armed man, who
+has some kind of a head on him, that he maun keep on the move, watchin'
+to see if they try the front door or any o' the other windies. If they
+do, he takes his station there. D'ye follow?"
+
+Sir Archie nodded gloomily. "What is my post?" Saskia asked.
+
+"I've appointed ye my Chief of Staff," was the answer. "Ye see we've no
+reserves. If this door's the dangerous bit, it maun be reinforced from
+elsewhere; and that'll want savage thinkin'. Ye'll have to be ay on the
+move, Mem, and keep me informed. If they break in at two bits, we're
+beat, and there'll be nothin' for it but to retire to our last position.
+Ye ken the room ayont the hall where they keep the coats. That's our
+last trench, and at the worst we fall back there and stick it out. It
+has a strong door and a wee windy, so they'll no' be able to get in on
+our rear. We should be able to put up a good defence there, unless they
+fire the place over our heads.... Now, we'd better give out the guns."
+
+"We don't want any shootin' if we can avoid it," said Sir Archie, who
+found his distaste for Dougal growing, though he was under the spell of
+the one being there who knew precisely his own mind.
+
+"Just what I was goin' to say. My instructions is, reserve your fire,
+and don't loose off till you have a man up against the end o' your
+barrel."
+
+"Good Lord, we'll get into a horrible row. The whole thing may be a
+mistake, and we'll be had up for wholesale homicide. No man shall fire
+unless I give the word."
+
+The Commander-in-Chief looked at him darkly. Some bitter retort was on
+his tongue, but he restrained himself.
+
+"It appears," he said, "that ye think I'm doin' all this for fun. I'll
+no 'argy wi' ye. There can be just the one general in a battle, but I'll
+give ye permission to say the word when to fire.... Macgreegor!" he
+muttered, a strange expletive only used in moments of deep emotion.
+"I'll wager ye'll be for sayin' the word afore I'd say it mysel'."
+
+He turned to the Princess. "I hand over to you, till I am back, for I
+maun be off and see to the Die-Hards. I wish I could bring them in here,
+but I daren't lose my communications. I'll likely get in by the
+boiler-house skylight when I come back, but it might be as well to keep
+a road open here unless ye're actually attacked."
+
+Dougal clambered over the mattresses and the grand piano; a flicker of
+waning daylight appeared for a second as he squeezed through the door,
+and Sir Archie was left staring at the wrathful countenance of McGuffog.
+He laughed ruefully.
+
+"I've been in about forty battles, and here's that little devil rather
+worried about my pluck, and talkin' to me like a corps commander to a
+newly joined second-lieutenant. All the same he's a remarkable child,
+and we'd better behave as if we were in for a real shindy. What do you
+think, Princess?"
+
+"I think we are in for what you call a shindy. I am in command,
+remember. I order you to serve out the guns."
+
+This was done, a shot-gun and a hundred cartridges to each, while
+McGuffog, who was a marksman, was also given a sporting Mannlicher, and
+two other rifles, a .303 and a small-bore Holland, were kept in reserve
+in the hall. Sir Archie, free from Dougal's compelling presence, gave
+the gamekeeper peremptory orders not to shoot till he was bidden, and
+Carfrae at the kitchen door was warned to the same effect. The shuttered
+house, where the only light apart from the garden-room was the feeble
+spark of the electric torches, had the most disastrous effect upon his
+spirits. The gale which roared in the chimney and eddied among the
+rafters of the hall seemed an infernal commotion in a tomb.
+
+"Let's go upstairs," he told Saskia; "there must be a view from the
+upper windows."
+
+"You can see the top of the old Tower, and part of the sea," she said.
+"I know it well, for it was my only amusement to look at it. On clear
+days, too, one could see high mountains far in the west." His depression
+seemed to have affected her, for she spoke listlessly, unlike the vivid
+creature who had led the way in.
+
+In a gaunt west-looking bedroom, the one in which Heritage and Dickson
+had camped the night before, they opened a fold of the shutters and
+looked out into a world of grey wrack and driving rain. The Tower roof
+showed mistily beyond the ridge of down, but its environs were not in
+their prospect. The lower regions of the House had been gloomy enough,
+but this bleak place with its drab outlook struck a chill to Sir
+Archie's soul. He dolefully lit a cigarette.
+
+"This is a pretty rotten show for you," he told her. "It strikes me as a
+rather unpleasant brand of nightmare."
+
+"I have been living with nightmares for three years," she said wearily.
+
+He cast his eyes round the room. "I think the Kennedys were mad to build
+this confounded barrack. I've always disliked it, and old Quentin hadn't
+any use for it either. Cold, cheerless, raw monstrosity! It hasn't been
+a very giddy place for you, Princess."
+
+"It has been my prison, when I hoped it would be a sanctuary. But it may
+yet be my salvation."
+
+"I'm sure I hope so. I say, you must be jolly hungry. I don't suppose
+there's any chance of tea for you."
+
+She shook her head. She was looking fixedly at the Tower, as if she
+expected something to appear there, and he followed her eyes.
+
+"Rum old shell, that. Quentin used to keep all kinds of live stock
+there, and when we were boys it was our castle where we played at bein'
+robber chiefs. It'll be dashed queer if the real thing should turn up
+this time. I suppose McCunn's Poet is roostin' there all by his lone.
+Can't say I envy him his job."
+
+Suddenly she caught his arm. "I see a man," she whispered. "There! He is
+behind those far bushes. There is his head again!"
+
+It was clearly a man, but he presently disappeared, for he had come
+round by the south end of the House, past the stables, and had now gone
+over the ridge.
+
+"The cut of his jib is uncommonly like Loudon, the factor. I thought
+McCunn had stretched him on a bed of pain. Lord, if this thing should
+turn out a farce, I simply can't face Loudon.... I say, Princess, you
+don't suppose by any chance that McCunn's a little bit wrong in the
+head?"
+
+She turned her candid eyes on him. "You are in a very doubting mood."
+
+"My feet are cold and I don't mind admittin' it. Hanged if I know what
+it is, but I don't feel this show a bit real. If it isn't, we're in a
+fair way to make howlin' idiots of ourselves, and get pretty well
+embroiled with the law. It's all right for the red-haired boy, for he
+can take everything seriously, even play. I could do the same thing
+myself when I was a kid. I don't mind runnin' some kinds of risk--I've
+had a few in my time--but this is so infernally outlandish and I--I
+don't quite believe in it. That is to say, I believe in it right enough
+when I look at you or listen to McCunn, but as soon as my eyes are off
+you I begin to doubt again. I'm gettin' old and I've a stake in the
+country, and I daresay I'm gettin' a bit of a prig--anyway I don't want
+to make a jackass of myself. Besides, there's this foul weather and
+this beastly house to ice my feet."
+
+He broke off with an exclamation, for on the grey cloud-bounded stage in
+which the roof of the Tower was the central feature, actors had
+appeared. Dim hurrying shapes showed through the mist, dipping over the
+ridge, as if coming from the Garplefoot.
+
+She seized his arm and he saw that her listlessness was gone. Her eyes
+were shining.
+
+"It is they," she cried. "The nightmare is real at last. Do you doubt
+now?"
+
+He could only stare, for these shapes arriving and vanishing like wisps
+of fog still seemed to him phantasmal. The girl held his arm tightly
+clutched, and craned towards the window space. He tried to open the
+frame, and succeeded in smashing the glass. A swirl of wind drove
+inwards and blew a loose lock of Saskia's hair across his brow.
+
+"I wish Dougal were back," he muttered, and then came the crack of a
+shot.
+
+The pressure on his arm slackened, and a pale face was turned to him.
+"He is alone--Mr. Heritage. He has no chance. They will kill him like a
+dog."
+
+"They'll never get in," he assured her. "Dougal said the place could
+hold out for hours."
+
+Another shot followed and presently a third. She twined her hands and
+her eyes were wild.
+
+"We can't leave him to be killed," she gasped.
+
+"It's the only game. We're playin' for time, remember. Besides he won't
+be killed. Great Scott!"
+
+As he spoke, a sudden explosion cleft the drone of the wind and a patch
+of gloom flashed into yellow light.
+
+"Bomb!" he cried. "Lord, I might have thought of that."
+
+The girl had sprung back from the window. "I cannot bear it. I will not
+see him murdered in sight of his friends. I am going to show myself, and
+when they see me they will leave him.... No, you must stay here.
+Presently they will be round this house. Don't be afraid for me--I am
+very quick of foot."
+
+"For God's sake, don't! Here, Princess, stop," and he clutched at her
+skirt. "Look here, I'll go."
+
+"You can't. You have been wounded. I am in command, you know. Keep the
+door open till I come back."
+
+He hobbled after her, but she easily eluded him. She was smiling now,
+and blew a kiss to him. "La, la, la," she trilled, as she ran down the
+stairs. He heard her voice below, admonishing McGuffog. Then he pulled
+himself together and went back to the window. He had brought the little
+Holland with him, and he poked its barrel through the hole in the glass.
+
+"Curse my game leg," he said, almost cheerfully, for the situation was
+now becoming one with which he could cope. "I ought to be able to hold
+up the pursuit a bit. My aunt! What a girl!"
+
+With the rifle cuddled to his shoulder he watched a slim figure come
+into sight on the lawn, running towards the ridge. He reflected that she
+must have dropped from the high verandah wall. That reminded him that
+something must be done to make the wall climbable for her return, so he
+went down to McGuffog, and the two squeezed through the barricaded door
+to the verandah. The boiler-house ladder was still in position, but it
+did not reach half the height, so McGuffog was adjured to stand by to
+help, and in the meantime to wait on duty by the wall. Then he hurried
+upstairs to his watch-tower.
+
+The girl was in sight, almost on the crest of the high ground. There she
+stood for a moment, one hand clutching at her errant hair, the other
+shielding her eyes from the sting of the rain. He heard her cry, as
+Heritage had heard her, but since the wind was blowing towards him the
+sound came louder and fuller. Again she cried, and then stood motionless
+with her hands above her head. It was only for an instant, for the next
+he saw she had turned and was racing down the slope, jumping the little
+scrogs of hazel like a deer. On the ridge appeared faces, and then over
+it swept a mob of men.
+
+She had a start of some fifty yards, and laboured to increase it, having
+doubtless the verandah wall in mind. Sir Archie, sick with anxiety,
+nevertheless spared time to admire her prowess. "Gad! she's a miler," he
+ejaculated. "She'll do it. I'm hanged if she don't do it."
+
+Against men in seaman's boots and heavy clothing she had a clear
+advantage. But two shook themselves loose from the pack and began to
+gain on her. At the main shrubbery they were not thirty yards behind,
+and in her passage through it her skirts must have delayed her, for when
+she emerged the pursuit had halved the distance. He got the sights of
+the rifle on the first man, but the lawns sloped up towards the house,
+and to his consternation he found that the girl was in the line of fire.
+Madly he ran to the other window of the room, tore back the shutters,
+shivered the glass, and flung his rifle to his shoulder. The fellow was
+within three yards of her, but thank God! he had now a clear field. He
+fired low and just ahead of him, and had the satisfaction to see him
+drop like a rabbit, shot in the leg. His companion stumbled over him,
+and for a moment the girl was safe.
+
+But her speed was failing. She passed out of sight on the verandah side
+of the house, and the rest of the pack had gained ominously over the
+easier ground of the lawn. He thought for a moment of trying to stop
+them by his fire, but realised that if every shot told there would still
+be enough of them left to make sure of her capture. The only chance was
+at the verandah, and he went downstairs at a pace undreamed of since the
+days when he had two whole legs.
+
+McGuffog, Mannlicher in hand, was poking his neck over the wall. The
+pursuit had turned the corner and were about twenty yards off; the girl
+was at the foot of the ladder, breathless, drooping with fatigue. She
+tried to climb, limply and feebly, and very slowly, as if she were too
+giddy to see clear. Above were two cripples, and at her back the van of
+the now triumphant pack.
+
+Sir Archie, game leg or no, was on the parapet preparing to drop down
+and hold off the pursuit were it only for seconds. But at that moment he
+was aware that the situation had changed.
+
+At the foot of the ladder a tall man seemed to have sprung out of the
+ground. He caught the girl in his arms, climbed the ladder, and
+McGuffog's great hands reached down and seized her and swung her into
+safety. Up the wall, by means of cracks and tufts, was shinning a small
+boy.
+
+The stranger coolly faced the pursuers and at the sight of him they
+checked, those behind stumbling against those in front. He was speaking
+to them in a foreign tongue, and to Sir Archie's ear the words were like
+the crack of a lash. The hesitation was only for a moment, for a voice
+among them cried out, and the whole pack gave tongue shrilly and surged
+on again. But that instant of check had given the stranger his chance.
+He was up the ladder, and, gripping the parapet, found rest for his feet
+in a fissure. Then he bent down, drew up the ladder, handed it to
+McGuffog and with a mighty heave pulled himself over the top.
+
+He seemed to hope to defend the verandah, but the door at the west end
+was being assailed by a contingent of the enemy, and he saw that its
+thin woodwork was yielding.
+
+"Into the House," he cried, as he picked up the ladder and tossed it
+over the wall on the pack surging below. He was only just in time, for
+the west door yielded. In two steps he had followed McGuffog through the
+chink into the passage, and the concussion of the grand piano pushed
+hard against the verandah door from within coincided with the first
+battering on the said door from without.
+
+In the garden-room the feeble lamp showed a strange grouping. Saskia had
+sunk into a chair to get her breath, and seemed too dazed to be aware of
+her surroundings. Dougal was manfully striving to appear at his ease,
+but his lip was quivering.
+
+"A near thing that time," he observed. "It was the blame of that man's
+auld motor-bicycle."
+
+The stranger cast sharp eyes around the place and company.
+
+"An awkward corner, gentlemen," he said. "How many are there of you?
+Four men and a boy? And you have placed guards at all the entrances?"
+
+"They have bombs," Sir Archie reminded him.
+
+"No doubt. But I do not think they will use them here--or their guns,
+unless there is no other way. Their purpose is kidnapping, and they hope
+to do it secretly and slip off without leaving a trace. If they
+slaughter us, as they easily can, the cry will be out against them, and
+their vessel will be unpleasantly hunted. Half their purpose is already
+spoiled, for it is no longer secret.... They may break us by sheer
+weight, and I fancy the first shooting will be done by us. It's the
+windows I'm afraid of."
+
+Some tone in his quiet voice reached the girl in the wicker chair. She
+looked up wildly, saw him and with a cry of "Alesha" ran to his arms.
+There she hung, while his hand fondled her hair, like a mother with a
+scared child. Sir Archie, watching the whole thing in some stupefaction,
+thought he had never in his days seen more nobly matched human
+creatures.
+
+"It is my friend," she cried triumphantly, "the friend whom I appointed
+to meet me here. Oh, I did well to trust him. Now we need not fear
+anything."
+
+As if in ironical answer came a great crashing at the verandah door, and
+the twanging of chords cruelly mishandled. The grand piano was suffering
+internally from the assaults of the boiler-house ladder.
+
+"Wull I gie them a shot?" was McGuffog's hoarse inquiry.
+
+"Action stations," Alexis ordered, for the command seemed to have
+shifted to him from Dougal. "The windows are the danger. The boy will
+patrol the ground floor, and give us warning, and I and this man,"
+pointing to Sime, "will be ready at the threatened point. And for God's
+sake no shooting, unless I give the word. If we take them on at that
+game we haven't a chance."
+
+He said something to Saskia in Russian and she smiled assent and went to
+Sir Archie's side. "You and I must keep this door," she said.
+
+Sir Archie was never very clear afterwards about the events of the next
+hour. The Princess was in the maddest spirits, as if the burden of three
+years had slipped from her and she was back in her first girlhood. She
+sang as she carried more lumber to the pile--perhaps the song which had
+once entranced Heritage, but Sir Archie had no ear for music. She
+mocked at the furious blows which rained at the other end, for the door
+had gone now, and in the windy gap could be seen a blur of dark faces.
+Oddly enough, he found his own spirits mounting to meet hers. It was
+real business at last, the qualms of the civilian had been forgotten,
+and there was rising in him that joy in a scrap which had once made him
+one of the most daring airmen on the Western Front. The only thing that
+worried him now was the coyness about shooting. What on earth were his
+rifles and shot-guns for unless to be used? He had seen the enemy from
+the verandah wall, and a more ruffianly crew he had never dreamed of.
+They meant the uttermost business, and against such it was surely the
+duty of good citizens to wage whole-hearted war.
+
+The Princess was humming to herself a nursery rhyme. "The King of
+Spain's daughter," she crooned, "came to visit me, and all for the
+sake----Oh, that poor piano!" In her clear voice she cried something in
+Russian, and the wind carried a laugh from the verandah. At the sound of
+it she stopped. "I had forgotten," she said. "Paul is there. I had
+forgotten." After that she was very quiet, but she redoubled her labours
+at the barricade.
+
+To the man it seemed that the pressure from without was slackening. He
+called to McGuffog to ask about the garden-room window, and the reply
+was reassuring. The gamekeeper was gloomily contemplating Dougal's tubs
+of water and wire-netting, as he might have contemplated a vermin trap.
+
+Sir Archie was growing acutely anxious--the anxiety of the defender of a
+straggling fortress which is vulnerable at a dozen points. It seemed to
+him that strange noises were coming from the rooms beyond the hall. Did
+the back door lie that way? And was not there a smell of smoke in the
+air? If they tried fire in such a gale the place would burn like
+matchwood.
+
+He left his post and in the hall found Dougal.
+
+"All quiet," the Chieftain reported. "Far ower quiet. I don't like it.
+The enemy's no' puttin' out his strength yet. The Russian says a' the
+west windies are terrible dangerous. Him and the chauffeur's doin' their
+best, but ye can't block thae muckle glass panes."
+
+He returned to the Princess, and found that the attack had indeed
+languished on that particular barricade. The withers of the grand piano
+were left unwrung, and only a faint scuffling informed him that the
+verandah was not empty. "They're gathering for an attack elsewhere," he
+told himself. But what if that attack were a feint? He and McGuffog must
+stick to their post, for in his belief the verandah door and the
+garden-room window were the easiest places where an entry in mass could
+be forced.
+
+Suddenly Dougal's whistle blew, and with it came a most almighty crash
+somewhere towards the west side. With a shout of "Hold tight,
+McGuffog," Sir Archie bolted into the hall, and, led by the sound,
+reached what had once been the ladies' bedroom. A strange sight met his
+eyes, for the whole framework of one window seemed to have been thrust
+inward, and in the gap Alexis was swinging a fender. Three of the enemy
+were in the room--one senseless on the floor, one in the grip of Sime,
+whose single hand was tightly clenched on his throat, and one engaged
+with Dougal in a corner. The Die-Hard leader was sore pressed, and to
+his help Sir Archie went. The fresh assault made the seaman duck his
+head, and Dougal seized the occasion to smite him hard with something
+which caused him to roll over. It was Spidel's life-preserver which he
+had annexed that afternoon.
+
+Alexis at the window seemed to have for a moment daunted the attack.
+"Bring that table," he cried, and the thing was jammed into the gap.
+"Now you"--this to Sime--"get the man from the back door to hold this
+place with his gun. There's no attack there. It's about time for
+shooting now, or we'll have them in our rear. What in heaven is that?"
+
+It was McGuffog whose great bellow resounded down the corridor. Sir
+Archie turned and shuffled back, to be met by a distressing spectacle.
+The lamp, burning as peacefully as it might have burned on an old lady's
+tea-table, revealed the window of the garden-room driven bodily inward,
+shutters and all, and now forming an inclined bridge over Dougal's
+ineffectual tubs. In front of it stood McGuffog, swinging his gun by the
+barrel and yelling curses, which, being mainly couched in the
+vernacular, were happily meaningless to Saskia. She herself stood at the
+hall door, plucking at something hidden in her breast. He saw that it
+was a little ivory-handled pistol.
+
+The enemy's feint had succeeded, for even as Sir Archie looked three men
+leaped into the room. On the neck of one the butt of McGuffog's gun
+crashed, but two scrambled to their feet and made for the girl. Sir
+Archie met the first with his fist, a clean drive on the jaw, followed
+by a damaging hook with his left that put him out of action. The other
+hesitated for an instant and was lost, for McGuffog caught him by the
+waist from behind and sent him through the broken frame to join his
+comrades without.
+
+"Up the stairs," Dougal was shouting, for the little room beyond the
+hall was clearly impossible. "Our flank's turned. They're pourin'
+through the other windy." Out of a corner of his eye Sir Archie caught
+sight of Alexis, with Sime and Carfrae in support, being slowly forced
+towards them along the corridor. "Upstairs," he shouted. "Come on,
+McGuffog. Lead on, Princess." He dashed out the lamp, and the place was
+in darkness.
+
+With this retreat from the forward trench line ended the opening phase
+of the battle. It was achieved in good order, and position was taken up
+on the first-floor landing, dominating the main staircase and the
+passage that led to the back stairs. At their back was a short corridor
+ending in a window which gave on the north side of the House above the
+verandah, and from which an active man might descend to the verandah
+roof. It had been carefully reconnoitred beforehand by Dougal, and his
+were the dispositions.
+
+The odd thing was that the retreating force were in good heart. The
+three men from the Mains were warming to their work, and McGuffog wore
+an air of genial ferocity. "Dashed fine position I call this," said Sir
+Archie. Only Alexis was silent and preoccupied. "We are still at their
+mercy," he said. "Pray God your police come soon." He forbade shooting
+yet awhile. "The lady is our strong card," he said. "They won't use
+their guns while she is with us, but if it ever comes to shooting they
+can wipe us out in a couple of minutes. One of you watch that window,
+for Paul Abreskov is no fool."
+
+Their exhilaration was short-lived. Below in the hall it was black
+darkness save for a greyness at the entrance of the verandah passage;
+but the defence was soon aware that the place was thick with men.
+Presently there came a scuffling from Carfrae's post towards the back
+stairs, and a cry as of some one choking. And at the same moment a flare
+was lit below which brought the whole hall from floor to rafters into
+blinding light.
+
+It revealed a crowd of figures, some still in the hall and some half-way
+up the stairs, and it revealed, too, more figures at the end of the
+upper landing where Carfrae had been stationed. The shapes were
+motionless like mannequins in a shop window.
+
+"They've got us treed all right," Sir Archie groaned. "What the devil
+are they waiting for?"
+
+"They wait for their leader," said Alexis.
+
+No one of the party will ever forget the ensuing minutes. After the
+hubbub of the barricades the ominous silence was like icy water,
+chilling and petrifying with an indefinable fear. There was no sound but
+the wind, but presently mingled with it came odd wild voices.
+
+"Hear to the whaups," McGuffog whispered.
+
+Sir Archie, who found the tension unbearable, sought relief in
+contradiction. "You're an unscientific brute, McGuffog," he told his
+henchman. "It's a disgrace that a gamekeeper should be such a rotten
+naturalist. What would whaups be doin' here at this time of year?"
+
+"A' the same, I could swear it's whaups, Sir Erchibald."
+
+Then Dougal broke in and his voice was excited. "It's no whaups. That's
+our patrol signal. Man, there's hope for us yet. I believe it's the
+polis."
+
+His words were unheeded, for the figures below drew apart and a young
+man came through them. His beautifully-shaped dark head was bare, and as
+he moved he unbuttoned his oilskins and showed the trim dark-blue garb
+of the yachtsman. He walked confidently up the stairs, an odd elegant
+figure among his heavy companions.
+
+"Good afternoon, Alexis," he said in English. "I think we may now regard
+this interesting episode as closed. I take it that you surrender.
+Saskia, dear, you are coming with me on a little journey. Will you tell
+my men where to find your baggage?"
+
+The reply was in Russian. Alexis' voice was as cool as the other's, and
+it seemed to wake him to anger. He replied in a rapid torrent of words,
+and appealed to the men below, who shouted back. The flare was dying
+down, and shadows again hid most of the hall.
+
+Dougal crept up behind Sir Archie. "Here, I think it's the polis.
+They're whistlin' outbye, and I hear folk cryin' to each other--no' the
+foreigners."
+
+Again Alexis spoke, and then Saskia joined in. What she said rang sharp
+with contempt, and her fingers played with her little pistol.
+
+Suddenly before the young man could answer Dobson bustled towards him.
+The innkeeper was labouring under some strong emotion, for he seemed to
+be pleading and pointing urgently towards the door.
+
+"I tell ye it's the polis," whispered Dougal. "They're nickit."
+
+There was a swaying in the crowd and anxious faces. Men surged in,
+whispered and went out, and a clamour arose which the leader stilled
+with a fierce gesture.
+
+"You there," he cried, looking up, "you English. We mean you no ill, but
+I require you to hand over to me the lady and the Russian who is with
+her. I give you a minute by my watch to decide. If you refuse my men are
+behind you and around you, and you go with me to be punished at my
+leisure."
+
+"I warn you," cried Sir Archie. "We are armed, and will shoot down any
+one who dares to lay a hand on us."
+
+"You fool," came the answer. "I can send you all to eternity before you
+touch a trigger."
+
+Leon was by his side now--Leon and Spidel, imploring him to do something
+which he angrily refused. Outside there was a new clamour, faces showing
+at the door and then vanishing, and an anxious hum filled the hall....
+Dobson appeared again and this time he was a figure of fury.
+
+"Are ye daft, man?" he cried. "I tell ye the polis are closin' round us,
+and there's no' a moment to lose if we would get back to the boats. If
+ye'll no' think o' your own neck, I'm thinkin' o' mine. The whole
+thing's a bloody misfire. Come on, lads, if ye're no' besotted on
+destruction."
+
+Leon laid a hand on the leader's arm and was roughly shaken off. Spidel
+fared no better, and the little group on the upper landing saw the two
+shrug their shoulders and make for the door. The hall was emptying fast,
+and the watchers had gone from the back stairs. The young man's voice
+rose to a scream; he commanded, threatened, cursed; but panic was in the
+air and he had lost his mastery.
+
+"Quick," croaked Dougal, "now's the time for the counter-attack."
+
+But the figure on the stairs held them motionless. They could not see
+his face, but by instinct they knew that it was distraught with fury and
+defeat. The flare blazed up again as the flame caught a knot of fresh
+powder, and once more the place was bright with the uncanny light....
+The hall was empty save for the pale man who was in the act of turning.
+
+He looked back. "If I go now, I will return. The world is not wide
+enough to hide you from me, Saskia."
+
+"You will never get her," said Alexis.
+
+A sudden devil flamed into his eyes, the devil of some ancestral
+savagery, which would destroy what is desired but unattainable. He swung
+round, his hand went to his pocket, something clicked, and his arm shot
+out like a baseball pitcher's.
+
+So intent was the gaze of the others on him, that they did not see a
+second figure ascending the stairs. Just as Alexis flung himself before
+the Princess, the new-comer caught the young man's outstretched arm and
+wrenched something from his hand. The next second he had hurled it into
+a far corner where stood the great fireplace. There was a blinding sheet
+of flame, a dull roar, and then billow upon billow of acrid smoke. As it
+cleared they saw that the fine Italian chimneypiece, the pride of the
+builder of the House, was a mass of splinters, and that a great hole had
+been blown through the wall into what had been the dining-room.... A
+figure was sitting on the bottom step feeling its bruises. The last
+enemy had gone.
+
+When Mr. John Heritage raised his eyes he saw the Princess with a very
+pale face in the arms of a tall man whom he had never seen before. If he
+was surprised at the sight, he did not show it. "Nasty little bomb
+that. Time fuse. I remember we struck the brand first in July '18."
+
+"Are they rounded up?" Sir Archie asked.
+
+"They've bolted. Whether they'll get away is another matter. I left half
+the mounted police a minute ago at the top of the West Lodge avenue. The
+other lot went to the Garplefoot to cut off the boats."
+
+"Good Lord, man," Sir Archie cried, "the police have been here for the
+last ten minutes."
+
+"You're wrong. They came with me."
+
+"Then what on earth----?" began the astonished baronet. He stopped
+short, for he suddenly got his answer. Into the hall from the verandah
+limped a boy. Never was there seen so ruinous a child. He was dripping
+wet, his shirt was all but torn off his back, his bleeding nose was
+poorly staunched by a wisp of handkerchief, his breeches were in
+ribbons, and his poor bare legs looked as if they had been
+comprehensively kicked and scratched. Limpingly he entered, yet with a
+kind of pride, like some small cock-sparrow who has lost most of his
+plumage but has vanquished his adversary.
+
+With a yell Dougal went down the stairs. The boy saluted him, and they
+gravely shook hands. It was the meeting of Wellington and Bluecher.
+
+The Chieftain's voice shrilled in triumph, but there was a break in it.
+The glory was almost too great to be borne.
+
+"I kenned it," he cried. "It was the Gorbals Die-Hards. There stands the
+man that done it.... Ye'll no' fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION
+
+
+We left Mr. McCunn, full of aches but desperately resolute in spirit,
+hobbling by the Auchenlochan road into the village of Dalquharter. His
+goal was Mrs. Morran's hen-house, which was Thomas Yownie's _poste de
+commandement_. The rain had come on again, and, though in other weather
+there would have been a slow twilight, already the shadow of night had
+the world in its grip. The sea even from the high ground was invisible,
+and all to westward and windward was a ragged screen of dark cloud. It
+was foul weather for foul deeds.
+
+Thomas Yownie was not in the hen-house, but in Mrs. Morran's kitchen,
+and with him were the pug-faced boy known as Old Bill, and the sturdy
+figure of Peter Paterson. But the floor was held by the hostess. She
+still wore her big boots, her petticoats were still kilted, and round
+her venerable head in lieu of a bonnet was drawn a tartan shawl.
+
+"Eh, Dickson, but I'm blithe to see ye. And, puir man, ye've been sair
+mishandled. This is the awfu'est Sabbath day that ever you and me pit
+in. I hope it'll be forgiven us.... Whaur's the young leddy?"
+
+"Dougal was saying she was in the House with Sir Archibald and the men
+from the Mains."
+
+"Wae's me!" Mrs. Morran keened. "And what kind o' place is yon for her?
+Thae laddies tell me there's boatfu's o' scoondrels landit at the
+Garplefit. They'll try the auld Tower, but they'll no' wait there when
+they find it toom, and they'll be inside the Hoose in a jiffy and awa'
+wi' the puir lassie. Sirs, it maunna be. Ye're lippenin' to the polis,
+but in a' my days I never kenned the polis in time. We maun be up and
+daein' oorsels. Oh, if I could get a haud o' that red-heided Dougal...."
+
+As she spoke, there came on the wind the dull reverberation of an
+explosion.
+
+"Keep us, what's that?" she cried.
+
+"It's dinnymite," said Peter Paterson.
+
+"That's the end o' the auld Tower," observed Thomas Yownie in his quiet
+even voice. "And it's likely the end o' the man Heritage."
+
+"Lord peety us!" the old woman wailed. "And us standin' here like
+stookies and no' liftin' a hand. Awa' wi' ye, laddies, and dae
+something. Awa' you too, Dickson, or I'll tak' the road mysel'."
+
+"I've got orders," said the Chief of Staff, "no' to move till the
+sityation's clear. Napoleon's up at the Tower and Jaikie in the
+policies. I maun wait on their reports."
+
+For a moment Mrs. Morran's attention was distracted by Dickson, who
+suddenly felt very faint and sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. "Man,
+ye're as white as a dish-clout," she exclaimed with compunction. "Ye're
+fair wore out, and ye'll have had nae meat sin' your breakfast. See, and
+I'll get ye a cup o' tea."
+
+She proved to be in the right, for as soon as Dickson had swallowed some
+mouthfuls of her strong scalding brew the colour came back to his
+cheeks, and he announced that he felt better. "Ye'll fortify it wi' a
+dram," she told him, and produced a black bottle from her cupboard. "My
+father aye said that guid whiskey and het tea keepit the doctor's gig
+oot o' the close."
+
+The back door opened and Napoleon entered, his thin shanks blue with
+cold. He saluted and made his report in a voice shrill with excitement.
+
+"The Tower has fallen. They've blown in the big door, and the feck o'
+them's inside."
+
+"And Mr. Heritage?" was Dickson's anxious inquiry.
+
+"When I last saw him he was up at a windy, shootin'. I think he's gotten
+on to the roof. I wouldna wonder but the place is on fire."
+
+"Here, this is awful," Dickson groaned. "We can't let Mr. Heritage be
+killed that way. What strength is the enemy?"
+
+"I counted twenty-seven, and there's stragglers comin' up from the
+boats."
+
+"And there's me and you five laddies here, and Dougal and the others
+shut up in the House." He stopped in sheer despair. It was a fix from
+which the most enlightened business mind showed no escape. Prudence,
+inventiveness were no longer in question; only some desperate course of
+violence.
+
+"We must create a diversion," he said. "I'm for the Tower, and you
+laddies must come with me. We'll maybe see a chance. Oh, but I wish I
+had my wee pistol."
+
+"If ye're gaun there, Dickson, I'm comin' wi' ye," Mrs. Morran
+announced.
+
+Her words revealed to Dickson the preposterousness of the whole
+situation, and for all his anxiety he laughed. "Five laddies, a
+middle-aged man and an auld wife," he cried. "Dod, it's pretty hopeless.
+It's like the thing in the Bible about the weak things of the world
+trying to confound the strong."
+
+"The Bible's whiles richt," Mrs. Morran answered drily. "Come on, for
+there's no time to lose."
+
+The door opened again to admit the figure of Wee Jaikie. There were no
+tears in his eyes, and his face was very white.
+
+"They're a' round the Hoose," he croaked. "I was up a tree forenent the
+verandy and seen them. The lassie ran oot and cried on them from the top
+o' the brae, and they a' turned and hunted her back. Gosh, but it was a
+near thing. I seen the Captain sklimmin' the wall, and a muckle man took
+the lassie and flung her up the ladder. They got inside just in time and
+steekit the door, and now the whole pack is roarin' round the Hoose
+seekin' a road in. They'll no' be long over the job, neither."
+
+"What about Mr. Heritage?"
+
+"They're no' heedin' about him any more. The auld Tower's bleezin'."
+
+"Worse and worse," said Dickson. "If the police don't come in the next
+ten minutes, they'll be away with the Princess. They've beaten all
+Dougal's plans, and it's a straight fight with odds of six to one. It's
+not possible."
+
+Mrs. Morran for the first time seemed to lose hope. "Eh, the puir
+lassie!" she wailed, and sinking on a chair covered her face with her
+shawl.
+
+"Laddies, can you no' think of a plan?" asked Dickson, his voice flat
+with despair.
+
+Then Thomas Yownie spoke. So far he had been silent, but under his
+tangled thatch of hair, his mind had been busy. Jaikie's report seemed
+to bring him to a decision.
+
+"It's gey dark," he said, "and it's gettin' darker."
+
+There was that in his voice which promised something, and Dickson
+listened.
+
+"The enemy's mostly foreigners, but Dobson's there and I think he's a
+kind of guide to them. Dobson's feared of the polis, and if we can
+terrify Dobson he'll terrify the rest."
+
+"Ay, but where are the police?"
+
+"They're no' here yet, but they're comin'. The fear o' them is aye in
+Dobson's mind. If he thinks the polis has arrived, he'll put the wind up
+the lot.... _We_ maun be the polis."
+
+Dickson could only stare while the Chief of Staff unfolded his scheme. I
+do not know to whom the Muse of History will give the credit of the
+tactics of "infiltration"--whether to Ludendorff or von Hutier or some
+other proud captain of Germany, or to Foch, who revised and perfected
+them. But I know that the same notion was at this moment of crisis
+conceived by Thomas Yownie, whom no parents acknowledged, who slept
+usually in a coal cellar, and who had picked up his education among
+Gorbals closes and along the wharves of Clyde.
+
+"It's gettin' dark," he said, "and the enemy are that busy tryin' to
+break into the Hoose that they'll no' be thinkin' o' their rear. The
+five o' us Die-Hards is grand at dodgin' and keepin' out of sight, and
+what hinders us to get in among them, so that they'll hear us but never
+see us? We're used to the ways o' the polis, and can imitate them fine.
+Forbye we've all got our whistles, which are the same as a bobbie's
+birl, and Old Bill and Peter are grand at copyin' a man's voice. Since
+the Captain is shut up in the Hoose, the command falls to me, and that's
+my plan."
+
+With a piece of chalk he drew on the kitchen floor a rough sketch of the
+environs of Huntingtower. Peter Paterson was to move from the
+shrubberies beyond the verandah, Napoleon from the stables, Old Bill
+from the Tower, while Wee Jaikie and Thomas himself were to advance as
+if from the Garplefoot, so that the enemy might fear for his
+communications. "As soon as one o' ye gets into position he's to gie the
+patrol cry, and when each o' ye has heard five cries, he's to advance.
+Begin birlin' and roarin' afore ye get among them, and keep it up till
+ye're at the Hoose wall. If they've gotten inside, in ye go after them.
+I trust each Die-Hard to use his judgment, and above all to keep out o'
+sight and no let himsel' be grippit."
+
+The plan, like all great tactics, was simple, and no sooner was it
+expounded than it was put into action. The Die-Hards faded out of the
+kitchen like fog-wreaths, and Dickson and Mrs. Morran were left looking
+at each other. They did not look long. The bare feet of Wee Jaikie had
+not crossed the threshold fifty seconds, before they were followed by
+Mrs. Morran's out-of-doors boots and Dickson's tackets. Arm in arm the
+two hobbled down the back path behind the village which led to the South
+Lodge. The gate was unlocked, for the warder was busy elsewhere, and
+they hastened up the avenue. Far off Dickson thought he saw shapes
+fleeting across the park, which he took to be the shock-troops of his
+own side, and he seemed to hear snatches of song. Jaikie was giving
+tongue, and this was what he sang:
+
+    "Proley Tarians, arise!
+     Wave the Red Flag to the skies,
+     Heed nae mair the Fat Man's lees,
+       Stap them doun his throat!
+     Nocht to loss except our chains,
+     We maun drain oor dearest veins--
+     A' the worrld shall be our gains----"
+
+But he tripped over a rabbit wire and thereafter conserved his breath.
+
+The wind was so loud that no sound reached them from the House, which
+blank and immense now loomed before them. Dickson's ears were alert for
+the noise of shots or the dull crash of bombs; hearing nothing, he
+feared the worst, and hurried Mrs. Morran at a pace which endangered
+her life. He had no fear for himself, arguing that his foes were seeking
+higher game, and judging, too, that the main battle must be round the
+verandah at the other end. The two passed the shrubbery where the road
+forked, one path running to the back door and one to the stables. They
+took the latter and presently came out on the downs, with the ravine of
+the Garple on their left, the stables in front, and on the right the
+hollow of a formal garden running along the west side of the House.
+
+The gale was so fierce, now that they had no wind-break between them and
+the ocean, that Mrs. Morran could wrestle with it no longer, and found
+shelter in the lee of a clump of rhododendrons. Darkness had all but
+fallen, and the house was a black shadow against the dusky sky, while a
+confused greyness marked the sea. The old Tower showed a tooth of
+masonry; there was no glow from it, so the fire, which Jaikie had
+reported, must have died down. A whaup cried loudly, and very eerily:
+then another.
+
+The birds stirred up Mrs. Morran. "That's the laddies' patrol," she
+gasped. "Count the cries, Dickson."
+
+Another bird wailed, this time very near. Then there was perhaps three
+minutes' silence, till a fainter wheeple came from the direction of the
+Tower. "Four," said Dickson, but he waited in vain on the fifth. He had
+not the acute hearing of the boys, and could not catch the faint echo of
+Peter Paterson's signal beyond the verandah. The next he heard was a
+shrill whistle cutting into the wind, and then others in rapid
+succession from different quarters, and something which might have been
+the hoarse shouting of angry men.
+
+The Gorbals Die-Hards had gone into action.
+
+Dull prose is no medium to tell of that wild adventure. The sober
+sequence of the military historian is out of place in recording deeds
+that knew not sequence or sobriety. Were I a bard, I would cast this
+tale in excited verse, with a lilt which would catch the speed of the
+reality. I would sing of Napoleon, not unworthy of his great namesake,
+who penetrated to the very window of the ladies' bedroom, where the
+framework had been driven in and men were pouring through; of how there
+he made such pandemonium with his whistle that men tumbled back and ran
+about blindly seeking for guidance; of how in the long run his pugnacity
+mastered him, so that he engaged in combat with an unknown figure and
+the two rolled into what had once been a fountain. I would hymn Peter
+Paterson, who across tracts of darkness engaged Old Bill in a
+conversation which would have done no discredit to a Gallogate
+policeman. He pretended to be making reports and seeking orders. "We've
+gotten three o' the deevils, sir. What'll we dae wi' them?" he shouted;
+and back would come the reply in a slightly more genteel voice: "Fall
+them to the rear. Tamson has charge of the prisoners." Or it would be:
+"They've gotten pistols, sir. What's the orders?" and the answer would
+be: "Stick to your batons. The guns are posted on the knowe, so we
+needn't hurry." And over all the din there would be a perpetual
+whistling and a yelling of "Hands up!"
+
+I would sing, too, of Wee Jaikie, who was having the red-letter hour of
+his life. His fragile form moved like a lizard in places where no mortal
+could be expected, and he varied his duties with impish assaults upon
+the persons of such as came in his way. His whistle blew in a man's ear
+one second and the next yards away. Sometimes he was moved to song, and
+unearthly fragments of "Class-conscious we are" or "Proley Tarians,
+arise!" mingled with the din, like the cry of seagulls in a storm. He
+saw a bright light flare up within the house which warned him not to
+enter, but he got as far as the garden-room, in whose dark corners he
+made havoc. Indeed he was almost too successful, for he created panic
+where he went, and one or two fired blindly at the quarter where he had
+last been heard. These shots were followed by frenzied prohibitions from
+Spidel and were not repeated. Presently he felt that aimless surge of
+men that is the prelude to flight, and heard Dobson's great voice
+roaring in the hall. Convinced that the crisis had come, he made his way
+outside, prepared to harass the rear of any retirement. Tears now flowed
+down his face, and he could not have spoken for sobs, but he had never
+been so happy.
+
+But chiefly would I celebrate Thomas Yownie, for it was he who brought
+fear into the heart of Dobson. He had a voice of singular compass, and
+from the verandah he made it echo round the House. The efforts of Old
+Bill and Peter Paterson had been skilful indeed, but those of Thomas
+Yownie were deadly. To some leader beyond he shouted news: "Robison's
+just about finished wi' his lot, and then he'll get the boats." A
+furious charge upset him, and for a moment he thought he had been
+discovered. But it was only Dobson rushing to Leon, who was leading the
+men in the doorway. Thomas fled to the far end of the verandah, and
+again lifted up his voice. "All foreigners," he shouted, "except the man
+Dobson. Ay. Ay. Ye've got Loudon? Well done!"
+
+It must have been this last performance which broke Dobson's nerve and
+convinced him that the one hope lay in a rapid retreat to the
+Garplefoot. There was a tumbling of men in the doorway, a muttering of
+strange tongues, and the vision of the innkeeper shouting to Leon and
+Spidel. For a second he was seen in the faint reflection that the light
+in the hall cast as far as the verandah, a wild figure urging the
+retreat with a pistol clapped to the head of those who were too confused
+by the hurricane of events to grasp the situation. Some of them dropped
+over the wall, but most huddled like sheep through the door on the west
+side, a jumble of struggling, panic-stricken mortality. Thomas Yownie,
+staggered at the success of his tactics, yet kept his head and did his
+utmost to confuse the retreat, and the triumphant shouts and whistles of
+the other Die-Hards showed that they were not unmindful of this final
+duty....
+
+The verandah was empty, and he was just about to enter the House, when
+through the west door came a figure, breathing hard and bent apparently
+on the same errand. Thomas prepared for battle, determined that no
+straggler of the enemy should now wrest from him victory, but, as the
+figure came into the faint glow at the doorway, he recognised it as
+Heritage. And at the same moment he heard something which made his tense
+nerves relax. Away on the right came sounds, a thud of galloping horses
+on grass and the jingle of bridle reins and the voices of men. It was
+the real thing at last. It is a sad commentary on his career, but now
+for the first time in his brief existence Thomas Yownie felt charitably
+disposed towards the police.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Poet, since we left him blaspheming on the roof of the Tower, had
+been having a crowded hour of most inglorious life. He had started to
+descend at a furious pace, and his first misadventure was that he
+stumbled and dropped Dickson's pistol over the parapet. He tried to mark
+where it might have fallen in the gloom below, and this lost him
+precious minutes. When he slithered through the trap into the attic
+room, where he had tried to hold up the attack, he discovered that it
+was full of smoke which sought in vain to escape by the narrow window.
+Volumes of it were pouring up the stairs, and when he attempted to
+descend he found himself choked and blinded. He rushed gasping to the
+window, filled his lungs with fresh air, and tried again, but he got no
+further than the first turn, from which he could see through the cloud
+red tongues of flame in the ground room. This was solemn indeed, so he
+sought another way out. He got on the roof, for he remembered a
+chimney-stack, cloaked with ivy, which was built straight from the
+ground, and he thought he might climb down it.
+
+He found the chimney and began the descent, confidently, for he had once
+borne a good reputation at the Montanvert and Cortina. At first all went
+well, for stones stuck out at decent intervals like the rungs of a
+ladder, and roots of ivy supplemented their deficiencies. But presently
+he came to a place where the masonry had crumbled into a cave, and left
+a gap some twenty feet high. Below it he could dimly see a thick mass of
+ivy which would enable him to cover the further forty feet to the
+ground, but at that cave he stuck most finally. All round the lime and
+stone had lapsed into debris, and he could find no safe foothold. Worse
+still, the block on which he relied proved loose, and only by a
+dangerous traverse did he avert disaster.
+
+There he hung for a minute or two, with a cold void in his stomach. He
+had always distrusted the handiwork of man as a place to scramble on,
+and now he was planted in the dark on a decomposing wall, with an
+excellent chance of breaking his neck, and with the most urgent need for
+haste. He could see the windows of the House and, since he was sheltered
+from the gale, he could hear the faint sound of blows on woodwork. There
+was clearly the devil to pay there, and yet here he was helplessly
+stuck.... Setting his teeth, he started to ascend again. Better the fire
+than this cold breakneck emptiness.
+
+It took him the better part of half an hour to get back, and he passed
+through many moments of acute fear. Footholds which had seemed secure
+enough in the descent now proved impossible, and more than once he had
+his heart in his mouth when a rotten ivy stump or a wedge of stone gave
+in his hands, and dropped dully into the pit of night, leaving him
+crazily spread-eagled. When at last he reached the top he rolled on his
+back and felt very sick. Then, as he realised his safety, his impatience
+revived. At all costs he would force his way out though he should be
+grilled like a herring.
+
+The smoke was less thick in the attic, and with his handkerchief wet
+with the rain and bound across his mouth he made a dash for the ground
+room. It was as hot as a furnace, for everything inflammable in it
+seemed to have caught fire, and the lumber glowed in piles of hot ashes.
+But the floor and walls were stone, and only the blazing jambs of the
+door stood between him and the outer air. He had burned himself
+considerably as he stumbled downwards, and the pain drove him to a wild
+leap through the broken arch, where he miscalculated the distance,
+charred his shins, and brought down a red-hot fragment of the lintel on
+his head. But the thing was done, and a minute later he was rolling like
+a dog in the wet bracken to cool his burns and put out various
+smouldering patches on his raiment.
+
+Then he started running for the House, but, confused by the darkness, he
+bore too much to the north, and came out in the side avenue from which
+he and Dickson had reconnoitred on the first evening. He saw on the
+right a glow in the verandah which, as we know, was the reflection of
+the flare in the hall, and he heard a babble of voices. But he heard
+something more, for away on his left was the sound which Thomas Yownie
+was soon to hear--the trampling of horses. It was the police at last,
+and his task was to guide them at once to the critical point of
+action.... Three minutes later a figure like a scarecrow was admonishing
+a bewildered sergeant, while his hands plucked feverishly at a horse's
+bridle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is time to return to Dickson in his clump of rhododendrons.
+Tragically aware of his impotence he listened to the tumult of the
+Die-Hards, hopeful when it was loud, despairing when there came a
+moment's lull, while Mrs. Morran like a Greek chorus drew loudly upon
+her store of proverbial philosophy and her memory of Scripture texts.
+Twice he tried to reconnoitre towards the scene of battle, but only
+blundered into sunken plots and pits in the Dutch garden. Finally he
+squatted beside Mrs. Morran, lit his pipe, and took a firm hold on his
+patience.
+
+It was not tested for long. Presently he was aware that a change had
+come over the scene--that the Die-Hards' whistles and shouts were being
+drowned in another sound, the cries of panicky men. Dobson's bellow was
+wafted to him. "Auntie Phemie," he shouted, "the innkeeper's getting
+rattled. Dod, I believe they're running." For at that moment twenty
+paces on his left the van of the retreat crashed through the creepers on
+the garden's edge and leaped the wall that separated it from the cliffs
+of the Garplefoot.
+
+The old woman was on her feet.
+
+"God be thankit, is't the polis?"
+
+"Maybe. Maybe no'. But they're running."
+
+Another bunch of men raced past, and he heard Dobson's voice.
+
+"I tell you, they're broke. Listen, it's horses. Ay, it's the police,
+but it was the Die-Hards that did the job.... Here! They mustn't escape.
+Have the police had the sense to send men to the Garplefoot?"
+
+Mrs. Morran, a figure like an ancient prophetess, with her tartan shawl
+lashing in the gale, clutched him by the shoulder.
+
+"Doun to the waterside and stop them. Ye'll no' be beat by wee laddies!
+On wi' ye and I'll follow! There's gaun to be a juidgment on evil-doers
+this nicht."
+
+Dickson needed no urging. His heart was hot within him, and the
+weariness and stiffness had gone from his limbs. He, too, tumbled over
+the wall, and made for what he thought was the route by which he had
+originally ascended from the stream. As he ran he made ridiculous
+efforts to cry like a whaup in the hope of summoning the Die-Hards. One,
+indeed, he found--Napoleon, who had suffered a grievous pounding in the
+fountain and had only escaped by an eel-like agility which had aforetime
+served him in good stead with the law of his native city. Lucky for
+Dickson was the meeting, for he had forgotten the road and would
+certainly have broken his neck. Led by the Die-Hard he slid forty feet
+over screes and boiler-plates, with the gale plucking at him, found a
+path, lost it, and then tumbled down a raw bank of earth to the flat
+ground beside the harbour. During all this performance, he has told me,
+he had no thought of fear, nor any clear notion what he meant to do. He
+just wanted to be in at the finish of the job.
+
+Through the narrow entrance the gale blew as through a funnel, and the
+usually placid waters of the harbour were a mass of angry waves. Two
+boats had been launched and were plunging furiously, and on one of them
+a lantern dipped and fell. By its light he could see men holding a
+further boat by the shore. There was no sign of the police; he reflected
+that probably they had become tangled in the Garple Dean. The third boat
+was waiting for some one.
+
+Dickson--a new Ajax by the ships--divined who this some one must be and
+realised his duty. It was the leader, the arch-enemy, the man whose
+escape must at all costs be stopped. Perhaps he had the Princess with
+him, thus snatching victory from apparent defeat. In any case he must be
+tackled, and a fierce anxiety gripped his heart. "Aye finish a job," he
+told himself, and peered up into the darkness of the cliffs, wondering
+just how he should set about it, for except in the last few days he had
+never engaged in combat with a fellow-creature.
+
+"When he comes, you grip his legs," he told Napoleon, "and get him
+down. He'll have a pistol, and we're done if he's on his feet."
+
+There was a cry from the boats, a shout of guidance, and the light on
+the water was waved madly. "They must have good eyesight," thought
+Dickson, for he could see nothing. And then suddenly he was aware of
+steps in front of him, and a shape like a man rising out of the void at
+his left hand.
+
+In the darkness Napoleon missed his tackle, and the full shock came on
+Dickson. He aimed at what he thought was the enemy's throat, found only
+an arm and was shaken off as a mastiff might shake off a toy terrier. He
+made another clutch, fell, and in falling caught his opponent's leg so
+that he brought him down. The man was immensely agile, for he was up in
+a second and something hot and bright blew into Dickson's face. The
+pistol bullet had passed through the collar of his faithful waterproof,
+slightly singeing his neck. But it served its purpose, for Dickson
+paused, gasping, to consider where he had been hit, and before he could
+resume the chase the last boat had pushed off into deep water.
+
+To be shot at from close quarters is always irritating, and the novelty
+of the experience increased Dickson's natural wrath. He fumed on the
+shore like a deerhound when the stag has taken to the sea. So hot was
+his blood that he would have cheerfully assaulted the whole crew had
+they been within his reach. Napoleon, who had been incapacitated for
+speed by having his stomach and bare shanks savagely trampled upon,
+joined him, and together they watched the bobbing black specks as they
+crawled out of the estuary into the grey spindrift which marked the
+harbour mouth.
+
+But as he looked the wrath died out of Dickson's soul. For he saw that
+the boats had indeed sailed on a desperate venture, and that a pursuer
+was on their track more potent than his breathless middle-age. The tide
+was on the ebb, and the gale was driving the Atlantic breakers
+shoreward, and in the jaws of the entrance the two waters met in an
+unearthly turmoil. Above the noise of the wind came the roar of the
+flooded Garple and the fret of the harbour, and far beyond all the
+crashing thunder of the conflict at the harbour mouth. Even in the
+darkness, against the still faintly grey western sky, the spume could be
+seen rising like waterspouts. But it was the ear rather than the eye
+which made certain presage of disaster. No boat could face the challenge
+of that loud portal.
+
+As Dickson struggled against the wind and stared, his heart melted and a
+great awe fell upon him. He may have wept; it is certain that he prayed.
+"Poor souls, poor souls!" he repeated. "I doubt the last hour or two has
+been a poor preparation for eternity."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tide next day brought the dead ashore. Among them was a young man,
+different in dress and appearance from the rest--a young man with a
+noble head and a finely-cut classic face, which was not marred like the
+others from pounding among the Garple rocks. His dark hair was washed
+back from his brow, and the mouth, which had been hard in life, was now
+relaxed in the strange innocence of death.
+
+Dickson gazed at the body and observed that there was a slight
+deformation between the shoulders.
+
+"Poor fellow," he said. "That explains a lot.... As my father used to
+say, cripples have a right to be cankered."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+IN WHICH A PRINCESS LEAVES A DARK TOWER AND A PROVISION MERCHANT RETURNS
+TO HIS FAMILY
+
+
+The three days of storm ended in the night, and with the wild weather
+there departed from the Cruives something which had weighed on Dickson's
+spirits since he first saw the place. Monday--only a week from the
+morning when he had conceived his plan of holiday--saw the return of the
+sun and the bland airs of spring. Beyond the blue of the yet restless
+waters rose dim mountains tipped with snow, like some Mediterranean
+seascape. Nesting birds were busy on the Laver banks and in the
+Huntingtower thickets; the village smoked peacefully to the clear skies;
+even the House looked cheerful if dishevelled. The Garple Dean was a
+garden of swaying larches, linnets, and wild anemones. Assuredly,
+thought Dickson, there had come a mighty change in the countryside, and
+he meditated a future discourse to the Literary Society of the Guthrie
+Memorial Kirk on "Natural Beauty in Relation to the Mind of Man."
+
+It remains for the chronicler to gather up the loose ends of his tale.
+There was no newspaper story with bold headlines of this the most recent
+assault on the shores of Britain. Alexis Nicolaevitch, once a Prince of
+Muscovy and now Mr. Alexander Nicholson of the rising firm of Sprot and
+Nicholson of Melbourne, had interest enough to prevent it. For it was
+clear that if Saskia was to be saved from persecution, her enemies must
+disappear without trace from the world, and no story be told of the wild
+venture which was their undoing. The constabulary of Carrick and
+Scotland Yard were indisposed to ask questions, under a hint from their
+superiors, the more so as no serious damage had been done to the persons
+of His Majesty's lieges, and no lives had been lost except by the
+violence of Nature. The Procurator-Fiscal investigated the case of the
+drowned men, and reported that so many foreign sailors, names and
+origins unknown, had perished in attempting to return to their ship at
+the Garplefoot. The Danish brig had vanished into the mist of the
+northern seas. But one signal calamity the Procurator-Fiscal had to
+record. The body of Loudon the factor was found on the Monday morning
+below the cliffs, his neck broken by a fall. In the darkness and
+confusion he must have tried to escape in that direction, and he had
+chosen an impracticable road or had slipped on the edge. It was returned
+as "death by misadventure" and the _Carrick Herald_ and the
+_Auchenlochan Advertiser_ excelled themselves in eulogy. Mr. Loudon,
+they said, had been widely known in the south-west of Scotland as an
+able and trusted lawyer, an assiduous public servant, and not least as a
+good sportsman. It was the last trait which had led to his death, for,
+in his enthusiasm for wild nature, he had been studying bird life on the
+cliffs of the Cruives during the storm, and had made that fatal slip
+which had deprived the shire of a wise counsellor and the best of good
+fellows.
+
+The tinklers of the Garplefoot took themselves off, and where they may
+now be pursuing their devious courses is unknown to the chronicler.
+Dobson, too, disappeared, for he was not among the dead from the boats.
+He knew the neighbourhood and probably made his way to some port from
+which he took passage to one or other of those foreign lands which had
+formerly been honoured by his patronage. Nor did all the Russians
+perish. Three were found skulking next morning in the woods, starving
+and ignorant of any tongue but their own, and five more came ashore much
+battered but alive. Alexis took charge of the eight survivors, and
+arranged to pay their passage to one of the British Dominions and to
+give them a start in a new life. They were broken creatures, with the
+dazed look of lost animals, and four of them had been peasants on
+Saskia's estates. Alexis spoke to them in their own language. "In my
+grandfather's time," he said, "you were serfs. Then there came a change,
+and for some time you were free men. Now you have slipped back into
+being slaves again--the worst of slaveries, for you have been the serfs
+of fools and scoundrels and the black passion of your own hearts. I give
+you a chance of becoming free men once more. You have the task before
+you of working out your own salvation. Go, and God be with you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before we take leave of these companions of a single week I would
+present them to you again as they appeared on a certain sunny afternoon
+when the episode of Huntingtower was on the eve of closing. First we see
+Saskia and Alexis walking on the thymy sward of the cliff-top, looking
+out to the fretted blue of the sea. It is a fitting place for lovers,
+above all for lovers who have turned the page on a dark preface, and
+have before them still the long bright volume of life. The girl has her
+arm linked with the man's, but as they walk she breaks often away from
+him, to dart into copses, to gather flowers, or to peer over the brink
+where the gulls wheel and oyster-catchers pipe among the shingle. She is
+no more the tragic muse of the past week, but a laughing child again,
+full of snatches of song, her eyes bright with expectation. They talk of
+the new world which lies before them, and her voice is happy. Then her
+brows contract, and, as she flings herself down on a patch of young
+heather, her air is thoughtful.
+
+"I have been back among fairy tales," she says. "I do not quite
+understand, Alesha. Those gallant little boys! They are youth, and youth
+is always full of strangeness. Mr. Heritage! He is youth, too, and
+poetry, perhaps, and a soldier's tradition. I think I know him.... But
+what about Dickson? He is the _petit bourgeois_, the _epicier_, the
+class which the world ridicules. He is unbelievable. The others with
+good fortune I might find elsewhere--in Russia perhaps. But not
+Dickson."
+
+"No," is the answer. "You will not find him in Russia. He is what we
+call the middle-class, which we who were foolish used to laugh at. But
+he is the stuff which above all others makes a great people. He will
+endure when aristocracies crack and proletariats crumble. In our own
+land we have never known him, but till we create him our land will not
+be a nation."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half a mile away on the edge of the Laver glen Dickson and Heritage are
+together, Dickson placidly smoking on a tree-stump and Heritage walking
+excitedly about and cutting with his stick at the bracken. Sundry
+bandages and strips of sticking plaster still adorn the Poet, but his
+clothes have been tidied up by Mrs. Morran, and he has recovered
+something of his old precision of garb. The eyes of both are fixed on
+the two figures on the cliff-top. Dickson feels acutely uneasy. It is
+the first time that he has been alone with Heritage since the arrival of
+Alexis shivered the Poet's dream. He looks to see a tragic grief; to his
+amazement he beholds something very like exultation.
+
+"The trouble about you, Dogson," says Heritage, "is that you're a bit of
+an anarchist. All you false romantics are. You don't see the
+extraordinary beauty of the conventions which time has consecrated. You
+always want novelty, you know, and the novel is usually the ugly and
+rarely the true. I am for romance, but upon the old, noble classic
+lines."
+
+Dickson is scarcely listening. His eyes are on the distant lovers and he
+longs to say something which will gently and graciously express his
+sympathy with his friend.
+
+"I'm afraid," he begins hesitatingly, "I'm afraid you've had a bad blow,
+Mr. Heritage. You're taking it awful well, and I honour you for it."
+
+The Poet flings back his head. "I am reconciled," he says. "After all
+''tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.'
+It has been a great experience and has shown me my own heart. I love
+her, I shall always love her, but I realise that she was never meant for
+me. Thank God I've been able to serve her--that is all a moth can ask of
+a star. I'm a better man for it, Dogson. She will be a glorious memory,
+and Lord! what poetry I shall write! I give her up joyfully, for she has
+found her true mate. 'Let us not to the marriage of true minds admit
+impediments!' The thing's too perfect to grieve about.... Look! There is
+romance incarnate."
+
+He points to the figures now silhouetted against the further sea. "How
+does it go, Dogson?" he cries. "'And on her lover's arm she leant'--what
+next? You know the thing."
+
+Dickson assists and Heritage declaims:
+
+    "And on her lover's arm she leant,
+       And round her waist she felt it fold,
+     And far across the hills they went
+       In that new world which is the old:
+     Across the hills, and far away
+       Beyond their utmost purple rim,
+     And deep into the dying day
+       The happy princess followed him."
+
+He repeats the last two lines twice and draws a deep breath. "How
+right!" he cries. "How absolutely right! Lord! It's astonishing how that
+old bird Tennyson got the goods!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After that Dickson leaves him and wanders among the thickets on the edge
+of the Huntingtower policies above the Laver glen. He feels childishly
+happy, wonderfully young, and at the same time supernaturally wise.
+Sometimes he thinks the past week has been a dream, till he touches the
+sticking-plaster on his brow, and finds that his left thigh is still a
+mass of bruises and that his right leg is wofully stiff. With that the
+past becomes very real again, and he sees the Garple Dean in that stormy
+afternoon, he wrestles again at midnight in the dark House, he stands
+with quaking heart by the boats to cut off the retreat. He sees it all,
+but without terror in the recollection, rather with gusto and a modest
+pride. "I've surely had a remarkable time," he tells himself, and then
+Romance, the goddess whom he has worshipped so long, marries that
+furious week with the idyllic. He is supremely content, for he knows
+that in his humble way he has not been found wanting. Once more for him
+the Chavender or Chub, and long dreams among summer hills. His mind
+flies to the days ahead of him, when he will go wandering with his pack
+in many green places. Happy days they will be, the prospect with which
+he has always charmed his mind. Yes, but they will be different from
+what he had fancied, for he is another man than the complacent little
+fellow who set out a week ago on his travels. He has now assurance of
+himself, assurance of his faith. Romance, he sees, is one and
+indivisible....
+
+Below him by the edge of the stream he sees the encampment of the
+Gorbals Die-Hards. He calls and waves a hand, and his signal is
+answered. It seems to be washing day, for some scanty and tattered
+raiment is drying on the sward. The band is evidently in session, for it
+is sitting in a circle, deep in talk.
+
+As he looks at the ancient tents, the humble equipment, the ring of
+small shockheads, a great tenderness comes over him. The Die-Hards are
+so tiny, so poor, so pitifully handicapped, and yet so bold in their
+meagreness. Not one of them has had anything that might be called a
+chance. Their few years have been spent in kennels and closes, always
+hungry and hunted, with none to care for them; their childish ears have
+been habituated to every coarseness, their small minds filled with the
+desperate shifts of living.... And yet, what a heavenly spark was in
+them! He had always thought nobly of the soul; now he wants to get on
+his knees before the queer greatness of humanity.
+
+A figure disengages itself from the group, and Dougal makes his way up
+the hill towards him. The Chieftain is not more reputable in garb than
+when we first saw him, nor is he more cheerful of countenance. He has
+one arm in a sling made out of his neckerchief, and his scraggy little
+throat rises bare from his voluminous shirt. All that can be said for
+him is that he is appreciably cleaner. He comes to a standstill and
+salutes with a special formality.
+
+"Dougal," says Dickson, "I've been thinking. You're the grandest lot of
+wee laddies I ever heard tell of, and, forbye, you've saved my life.
+Now, I'm getting on in years, though you'll admit that I'm not that dead
+old, and I'm not a poor man, and I haven't chick or child to look after.
+None of you has ever had a proper chance or been right fed or educated
+or taken care of. I've just the one thing to say to you. From now on
+you're _my_ bairns, every one of you. You're fine laddies, and I'm going
+to see that you turn into fine men. There's the stuff in you to make
+Generals and Provosts--ay, and Prime Ministers, and Dod! it'll not be my
+blame if it doesn't get out."
+
+Dougal listens gravely and again salutes.
+
+"I've brought ye a message," he says. "We've just had a meetin' and I've
+to report that ye've been unanimously eleckit Chief Die-Hard. We're a'
+hopin' ye'll accept."
+
+"I accept," Dickson replies. "Proudly and gratefully I accept."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last scene is some days later, in a certain southern suburb of
+Glasgow. Ulysses has come back to Ithaca, and is sitting by his
+fireside, waiting on the return of Penelope from the Neuk Hydropathic.
+There is a chill in the air, so a fire is burning in the grate, but the
+laden tea-table is bright with the first blooms of lilac. Dickson, in a
+new suit with a flower in his buttonhole, looks none the worse for his
+travels, save that there is still sticking-plaster on his deeply
+sunburnt brow. He waits impatiently with his eye on the black marble
+timepiece, and he fingers something in his pocket.
+
+Presently the sound of wheels is heard, and the peahen voice of Tibby
+announces the arrival of Penelope. Dickson rushes to the door and at the
+threshold welcomes his wife with a resounding kiss. He leads her into
+the parlour and settles her in her own chair.
+
+"My! but it's nice to be home again!" she says. "And everything that
+comfortable. I've had a fine time, but there's no place like your own
+fireside. You're looking awful well, Dickson. But losh! What have you
+been doing to your head?"
+
+"Just a small tumble. It's very near mended already. Ay, I've had a
+grand walking tour, but the weather was a wee bit thrawn. It's nice to
+see you back again, Mamma. Now that I'm an idle man you and me must take
+a lot of jaunts together."
+
+She beams on him as she stays herself with Tibby's scones, and when the
+meal is ended, Dickson draws from his pocket a slim case. The jewels
+have been restored to Saskia, but this is one of her own which she has
+bestowed upon Dickson as a parting memento. He opens the case and
+reveals a necklet of emeralds, any one of which is worth half the
+street.
+
+"This is a present for you," he says bashfully.
+
+Mrs. McCunn's eyes open wide. "You're far too kind," she gasps. "It
+must have cost an awful lot of money."
+
+"It didn't cost me that much," is the truthful answer.
+
+She fingers the trinket and then clasps it round her neck, where the
+green depths of the stones glow against the black satin of her bodice.
+Her eyes are moist as she looks at him. "You've been a kind man to me,"
+she says, and she kisses him as she has not done since Janet's death.
+
+She stands up and admires the necklet in the mirror. Romance once more,
+thinks Dickson. That which has graced the slim throats of princesses in
+far-away Courts now adorns an elderly matron in a semi-detached villa;
+the jewels of the wild Nausicaa have fallen to the housewife Penelope.
+
+Mrs. McCunn preens herself before the glass. "I call it very genteel,"
+she says. "Real stylish. It might be worn by a queen."
+
+"I wouldn't say but it has," says Dickson.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Huntingtower, by John Buchan
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #3782 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3782)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Huntingtower, by John Buchan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Huntingtower
+
+Author: John Buchan
+
+Posting Date: May 19, 2009 [EBook #3782]
+Release Date: February, 2003
+First Posted: June 12, 2001
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUNTINGTOWER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Edward A. White, Robert F. Jaffe, and Kirsten
+Tozer. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HUNTINGTOWER
+
+
+BY
+
+JOHN BUCHAN
+
+
+
+
+To  W. P. Ker.
+
+
+
+If the Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford has not
+forgotten the rock whence he was hewn, this simple story may give an
+hour of entertainment.  I offer it to you because I think you have met
+my friend Dickson McCunn, and I dare to hope that you may even in your
+many sojournings in the Westlands have encountered one or other of the
+Gorbals Die-Hards. If you share my kindly feeling for Dickson, you will
+be interested in some facts which I have lately ascertained about his
+ancestry.  In his veins there flows a portion of the redoubtable blood
+of the Nicol Jarvies.  When the Bailie, you remember, returned from his
+journey to Rob Roy beyond the Highland Line, he espoused his
+housekeeper Mattie, "an honest man's daughter and a near cousin o' the
+Laird o' Limmerfield."  The union was blessed with a son, who succeeded
+to the Bailie's business and in due course begat daughters, one of whom
+married a certain Ebenezer McCunn, of whom there is record in the
+archives of the Hammermen of Glasgow. Ebenezer's grandson, Peter by
+name, was Provost of Kirkintilloch, and his second son was the father
+of my hero by his marriage with Robina Dickson, oldest daughter of one
+Robert Dickson, a tenant-farmer in the Lennox.  So there are coloured
+threads in Mr. McCunn's pedigree, and, like the Bailie, he can count
+kin, should he wish, with Rob Roy himself through "the auld wife ayont
+the fire at Stuckavrallachan."
+
+Such as it is, I dedicate to you the story, and ask for no better
+verdict on it than that of that profound critic of life and literature,
+Mr. Huckleberry Finn, who observed of the Pilgrim's Progress that he
+"considered the statements interesting, but tough."
+
+J.B.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+Prologue
+
+
+1. How a Retired Provision Merchant felt the Impulse of Spring.
+
+2. Of Mr. John Heritage and the Difference in Points of View.
+
+3. How Childe Roland and Another came to the Dark tower.
+
+4. Dougal.
+
+5. Of the Princess in the Tower.
+
+6. How Mr. McCunn departed with Relief and returned with Resolution.
+
+7. Sundry Doings in the Mirk.
+
+8. How a Middle-aged Crusader accepted a Challenge.
+
+9. The First Battle of the Cruives.
+
+10. Deals with an Escape and a Journey.
+
+11. Gravity out of Bed.
+
+12. How Mr. McCunn committed an Assault upon an Ally.
+
+13. The Coming of the Danish Brig.
+
+14. The Second Battle of the Cruives.
+
+15. The Gorbals Die-Hards go into Action.
+
+16. In which a Princess leaves a Dark Tower and a Provision Merchant
+    returns to his Family.
+
+
+
+
+HUNTINGTOWER.
+
+
+PROLOGUE.
+
+The girl came into the room with a darting movement like a swallow,
+looked round her with the same birdlike quickness, and then ran across
+the polished floor to where a young man sat on a sofa with one leg laid
+along it.
+
+"I have saved you this dance, Quentin," she said, pronouncing the name
+with a pretty staccato.  "You must be lonely not dancing, so I will sit
+with you.  What shall we talk about?"
+
+The young man did not answer at once, for his gaze was held by her
+face.  He had never dreamed that the gawky and rather plain little girl
+whom he had romped with long ago in Paris would grow into such a being.
+The clean delicate lines of her figure, the exquisite pure colouring of
+hair and skin, the charming young arrogance of the eyes--this was
+beauty, he reflected, a miracle, a revelation. Her virginal fineness
+and her dress, which was the tint of pale fire, gave her the air of a
+creature of ice and flame.
+
+"About yourself, please, Saskia," he said.  "Are you happy now that you
+are a grown-up lady?"
+
+"Happy!"  Her voice had a thrill in it like music, frosty music. "The
+days are far too short.  I grudge the hours when I must sleep. They say
+it is sad for me to make my debut in a time of war. But the world is
+very kind to me, and after all it is a victorious war for our Russia.
+And listen to me, Quentin.  To-morrow I am to be allowed to begin
+nursing at the Alexander Hospital.  What do you think of that?"
+
+The time was January 1916, and the place a room in the great Nirski
+Palace.  No hint of war, no breath from the snowy streets, entered that
+curious chamber where Prince Peter Nirski kept some of the chief of his
+famous treasures.  It was notable for its lack of drapery and
+upholstering--only a sofa or two and a few fine rugs on the cedar
+floor.  The walls were of a green marble veined like malachite, the
+ceiling was of darker marble inlaid with white intaglios. Scattered
+everywhere were tables and cabinets laden with celadon china, and
+carved jade, and ivories, and shimmering Persian and Rhodian vessels.
+In all the room there was scarcely anything of metal and no touch of
+gilding or bright colour.  The light came from green alabaster censers,
+and the place swam in a cold green radiance like some cavern below the
+sea.  The air was warm and scented, and though it was very quiet there,
+a hum of voices and the strains of dance music drifted to it from the
+pillared corridor in which could be seen the glare of lights from the
+great ballroom beyond.
+
+The young man had a thin face with lines of suffering round the mouth
+and eyes.  The warm room had given him a high colour, which increased
+his air of fragility.  He felt a little choked by the place, which
+seemed to him for both body and mind a hot-house, though he knew very
+well that the Nirski Palace on this gala evening was in no way typical
+of the land or its masters.  Only a week ago he had been eating black
+bread with its owner in a hut on the Volhynian front.
+
+"You have become amazing, Saskia," he said.  "I won't pay my old
+playfellow compliments; besides, you must be tired of them.  I wish you
+happiness all the day long like a fairy-tale Princess.  But a crock
+like me can't do much to help you to it.  The service seems to be the
+wrong way round, for here you are wasting your time talking to me."
+
+She put her hand on his.  "Poor Quentin!  Is the leg very bad?"
+
+He laughed.  "O, no.  It's mending famously.  I'll be able to get about
+without a stick in another month, and then you've got to teach me all
+the new dances."
+
+The jigging music of a two-step floated down the corridor.  It made the
+young man's brow contract, for it brought to him a vision of dead faces
+in the gloom of a November dusk.  He had once had a friend who used to
+whistle that air, and he had seen him die in the Hollebeke mud.  There
+was something macabre in the tune....  He was surely morbid this
+evening, for there seemed something macabre about the house, the room,
+the dancing, all Russia....  These last days he had suffered from a
+sense of calamity impending, of a dark curtain drawing down upon a
+splendid world.  They didn't agree with him at the Embassy, but he
+could not get rid of the notion.
+
+The girl saw his sudden abstraction.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" she asked.  It had been her favourite
+question as a child.
+
+"I was thinking that I rather wished you were still in Paris."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because I think you would be safer."
+
+"Oh, what nonsense, Quentin dear!  Where should I be safe if not in my
+own Russia, where I have friends--oh, so many, and tribes and tribes of
+relations?  It is France and England that are unsafe with the German
+guns grumbling at their doors.... My complaint is that my life is too
+cosseted and padded.  I am too secure, and I do not want to be secure."
+
+The young man lifted a heavy casket from a table at his elbow.  It was
+of dark green imperial jade, with a wonderfully carved lid.  He took
+off the lid and picked up three small oddments of ivory--a priest with
+a beard, a tiny soldier, and a draught-ox.  Putting the three in a
+triangle, he balanced the jade box on them.
+
+"Look, Saskia!  If you were living inside that box you would think it
+very secure.  You would note the thickness of the walls and the
+hardness of the stone, and you would dream away in a peaceful green
+dusk.  But all the time it would be held up by trifles--brittle
+trifles."
+
+She shook her head.  "You do not understand.  You cannot understand. We
+are a very old and strong people with roots deep, deep in the earth."
+
+"Please God you are right," he said.  "But, Saskia, you know that if I
+can ever serve you, you have only to command me.  Now I can do no more
+for you than the mouse for the lion--at the beginning of the story. But
+the story had an end, you remember, and some day it may be in my power
+to help you.  Promise to send for me."
+
+The girl laughed merrily.  "The King of Spain's daughter," she quoted,
+
+  "Came to visit me,
+  And all for the love
+  Of my little nut-tree."
+
+
+The other laughed also, as a young man in the uniform of the
+Preobrajenski Guards approached to claim the girl.  "Even a nut-tree
+may be a shelter in a storm," he said.
+
+"Of course I promise, Quentin," she said.  "Au revoir.  Soon I will
+come and take you to supper, and we will talk of nothing but nut-trees."
+
+He watched the two leave the room, her gown glowing like a tongue of
+fire in that shadowy archway.  Then he slowly rose to his feet, for he
+thought that for a little he would watch the dancing. Something moved
+beside him, and he turned in time to prevent the jade casket from
+crashing to the floor.  Two of the supports had slipped.
+
+He replaced the thing on its proper table and stood silent for a moment.
+
+"The priest and the soldier gone, and only the beast of burden left. If
+I were inclined to be superstitious, I should call that a dashed bad
+omen."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+HOW A RETIRED PROVISION MERCHANT FELT THE IMPULSE OF SPRING
+
+
+Mr. Dickson McCunn completed the polishing of his smooth cheeks with
+the towel, glanced appreciatively at their reflection in the
+looking-glass, and then permitted his eyes to stray out of the window.
+In the little garden lilacs were budding, and there was a gold line of
+daffodils beside the tiny greenhouse.  Beyond the sooty wall a birch
+flaunted its new tassels, and the jackdaws were circling about the
+steeple of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk.  A blackbird whistled from a
+thorn-bush, and Mr. McCunn was inspired to follow its example. He began
+a tolerable version of "Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch."
+
+He felt singularly light-hearted, and the immediate cause was his
+safety razor.  A week ago he had bought the thing in a sudden fit of
+enterprise, and now he shaved in five minutes, where before he had
+taken twenty, and no longer confronted his fellows, at least one day in
+three, with a countenance ludicrously mottled by sticking-plaster.
+Calculation revealed to him the fact that in his fifty-five years,
+having begun to shave at eighteen, he had wasted three thousand three
+hundred and seventy hours--or one hundred and forty days--or between
+four and five months--by his neglect of this admirable invention.  Now
+he felt that he had stolen a march on Time.  He had fallen heir, thus
+late, to a fortune in unpurchasable leisure.
+
+He began to dress himself in the sombre clothes in which he had been
+accustomed for thirty-five years and more to go down to the shop in
+Mearns Street.  And then a thought came to him which made him discard
+the grey-striped trousers, sit down on the edge of his bed, and muse.
+
+Since Saturday the shop was a thing of the past.  On Saturday at
+half-past eleven, to the accompaniment of a glass of dubious sherry, he
+had completed the arrangements by which the provision shop in Mearns
+Street, which had borne so long the legend of D. McCunn, together with
+the branches in Crossmyloof and the Shaws, became the property of a
+company, yclept the United Supply Stores, Limited. He had received in
+payment cash, debentures and preference shares, and his lawyers and his
+own acumen had acclaimed the bargain. But all the week-end he had been
+a little sad.  It was the end of so old a song, and he knew no other
+tune to sing.  He was comfortably off, healthy, free from any
+particular cares in life, but free too from any particular duties.
+"Will I be going to turn into a useless old man?" he asked himself.
+
+But he had woke up this Monday to the sound of the blackbird, and the
+world, which had seemed rather empty twelve hours before, was now brisk
+and alluring.  His prowess in quick shaving assured him of his youth.
+"I'm no' that dead old," he observed, as he sat on the edge of he bed,
+to his reflection in the big looking-glass.
+
+It was not an old face.  The sandy hair was a little thin on the top
+and a little grey at the temples, the figure was perhaps a little too
+full for youthful elegance, and an athlete would have censured the neck
+as too fleshy for perfect health.  But the cheeks were rosy, the skin
+clear, and the pale eyes singularly childlike. They were a little weak,
+those eyes, and had some difficulty in looking for long at the same
+object, so that Mr. McCunn did not stare people in the face, and had,
+in consequence, at one time in his career acquired a perfectly
+undeserved reputation for cunning. He shaved clean, and looked
+uncommonly like a wise, plump schoolboy. As he gazed at his simulacrum
+he stopped whistling "Roy's Wife" and let his countenance harden into a
+noble sternness.  Then he laughed, and observed in the language of his
+youth that there was "life in the auld dowg yet."  In that moment the
+soul of Mr. McCunn conceived the Great Plan.
+
+The first sign of it was that he swept all his business garments
+unceremoniously on to the floor.  The next that he rootled at the
+bottom of a deep drawer and extracted a most disreputable tweed suit.
+It had once been what I believe is called a Lovat mixture, but was now
+a nondescript sub-fusc, with bright patches of colour like moss on
+whinstone.  He regarded it lovingly, for it had been for twenty years
+his holiday wear, emerging annually for a hallowed month to be stained
+with salt and bleached with sun.  He put it on, and stood shrouded in
+an odour of camphor.  A pair of thick nailed boots and a flannel shirt
+and collar completed the equipment of the sportsman.  He had another
+long look at himself in the glass, and then descended whistling to
+breakfast.  This time the tune was "Macgregors' Gathering," and the
+sound of it stirred the grimy lips of a man outside who was delivering
+coals--himself a Macgregor--to follow suit.  Mr McCunn was a very
+fountain of music that morning.
+
+Tibby, the aged maid, had his newspaper and letters waiting by his
+plate, and a dish of ham and eggs frizzling near the fire.  He fell to
+ravenously but still musingly, and he had reached the stage of scones
+and jam before he glanced at his correspondence.  There was a letter
+from his wife now holidaying at the Neuk Hydropathic. She reported that
+her health was improving, and that she had met various people who had
+known somebody else whom she had once known herself.  Mr. McCunn read
+the dutiful pages and smiled. "Mamma's enjoying herself fine," he
+observed to the teapot. He knew that for his wife the earthly paradise
+was a hydropathic, where she put on her afternoon dress and every jewel
+she possessed when she rose in the morning, ate large meals of which
+the novelty atoned for the nastiness, and collected an immense casual
+acquaintance, with whom she discussed ailments, ministers, sudden
+deaths, and the intricate genealogies of her class.  For his part he
+rancorously hated hydropathics, having once spent a black week under
+the roof of one in his wife's company.  He detested the food, the
+Turkish baths (he had a passionate aversion to baring his body before
+strangers), the inability to find anything to do and the compulsion to
+endless small talk.  A thought flitted over his mind which he was too
+loyal to formulate.  Once he and his wife had had similar likings, but
+they had taken different roads since their child died.  Janet!  He saw
+again--he was never quite free from the sight--the solemn little
+white-frocked girl who had died long ago in the Spring.
+
+It may have been the thought of the Neuk Hydropathic, or more likely
+the thin clean scent of the daffodils with which Tibby had decked the
+table, but long ere breakfast was finished the Great Plan had ceased to
+be an airy vision and become a sober well-masoned structure.  Mr.
+McCunn--I may confess it at the start--was an incurable romantic.
+
+He had had a humdrum life since the day when he had first entered his
+uncle's shop with the hope of some day succeeding that honest grocer;
+and his feet had never strayed a yard from his sober rut. But his mind,
+like the Dying Gladiator's, had been far away. As a boy he had voyaged
+among books, and they had given him a world where he could shape his
+career according to his whimsical fancy. Not that Mr. McCunn was what
+is known as a great reader. He read slowly and fastidiously, and sought
+in literature for one thing alone.  Sir Walter Scott had been his first
+guide, but he read the novels not for their insight into human
+character or for their historical pageantry, but because they gave him
+material wherewith to construct fantastic journeys.  It was the same
+with Dickens. A lit tavern, a stage-coach, post-horses, the clack of
+hoofs on a frosty road, went to his head like wine.  He was a Jacobite
+not because he had any views on Divine Right, but because he had always
+before his eyes a picture of a knot of adventurers in cloaks, new
+landed from France among the western heather.
+
+On this select basis he had built up his small library--Defoe, Hakluyt,
+Hazlitt and the essayists, Boswell, some indifferent romances, and a
+shelf of spirited poetry.  His tastes became known, and he acquired a
+reputation for a scholarly habit.  He was president of the Literary
+Society of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, and read to its members a variety
+of papers full of a gusto which rarely became critical.  He had been
+three times chairman at Burns Anniversary dinners, and had delivered
+orations in eulogy of the national Bard; not because he greatly admired
+him--he thought him rather vulgar--but because he took Burns as an
+emblem of the un-Burns-like literature which he loved.  Mr. McCunn was
+no scholar and was sublimely unconscious of background.  He grew his
+flowers in his small garden-plot oblivious of their origin so long as
+they gave him the colour and scent he sought.  Scent, I say, for he
+appreciated more than the mere picturesque.  He had a passion for words
+and cadences, and would be haunted for weeks by a cunning phrase,
+savouring it as a connoisseur savours a vintage. Wherefore long ago,
+when he could ill afford it, he had purchased the Edinburgh Stevenson.
+They were the only large books on his shelves, for he had a liking for
+small volumes--things he could stuff into his pocket in that sudden
+journey which he loved to contemplate.
+
+Only he had never taken it.  The shop had tied him up for eleven months
+in the year, and the twelfth had always found him settled decorously
+with his wife in some seaside villa.  He had not fretted, for he was
+content with dreams.  He was always a little tired, too, when the
+holidays came, and his wife told him he was growing old. He consoled
+himself with tags from the more philosophic of his authors, but he
+scarcely needed consolation.  For he had large stores of modest
+contentment.
+
+But now something had happened.  A spring morning and a safety razor
+had convinced him that he was still young.  Since yesterday he was a
+man of a large leisure.  Providence had done for him what he would
+never have done for himself.  The rut in which he had travelled so long
+had given place to open country.  He repeated to himself one of the
+quotations with which he had been wont to stir the literary young men
+at the Guthrie Memorial Kirk:
+
+  "What's a man's age?  He must hurry more, that's all;
+  Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold:
+  When we mind labour, then only, we're too old--
+  What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?
+
+He would go journeying--who but he?--pleasantly."
+
+It sounds a trivial resolve, but it quickened Mr. McCunn to the depths
+of his being.  A holiday, and alone!  On foot, of course, for he must
+travel light.  He would buckle on a pack after the approved fashion.
+He had the very thing in a drawer upstairs, which he had bought some
+years ago at a sale.  That and a waterproof and a stick, and his outfit
+was complete.  A book, too, and, as he lit his first pipe, he
+considered what it should be.  Poetry, clearly, for it was the Spring,
+and besides poetry could be got in pleasantly small bulk.  He stood
+before his bookshelves trying to select a volume, rejecting one after
+another as inapposite.  Browning--Keats, Shelley--they seemed more
+suited for the hearth than for the roadside.  He did not want anything
+Scots, for he was of opinion that Spring came more richly in England
+and that English people had a better notion of it.  He was tempted by
+the Oxford Anthology, but was deterred by its thickness, for he did not
+possess the thin-paper edition.  Finally he selected Izaak Walton.  He
+had never fished in his life, but The Compleat Angler seemed to fit his
+mood. It was old and curious and learned and fragrant with the youth of
+things.  He remembered its falling cadences, its country songs and wise
+meditations.  Decidedly it was the right scrip for his pilgrimage.
+
+Characteristically he thought last of where he was to go.  Every bit of
+the world beyond his front door had its charms to the seeing eye. There
+seemed nothing common or unclean that fresh morning.  Even a walk among
+coal-pits had its attractions.... But since he had the right to choose,
+he lingered over it like an epicure.  Not the Highlands, for Spring
+came late among their sour mosses.  Some place where there were fields
+and woods and inns, somewhere, too, within call of the sea.  It must
+not be too remote, for he had no time to waste on train journeys; nor
+too near, for he wanted a countryside untainted. Presently he thought
+of Carrick.  A good green land, as he remembered it, with purposeful
+white roads and public-houses sacred to the memory of Burns; near the
+hills but yet lowland, and with a bright sea chafing on its shores.  He
+decided on Carrick, found a map, and planned his journey.
+
+Then he routed out his knapsack, packed it with a modest change of
+raiment, and sent out Tibby to buy chocolate and tobacco and to cash a
+cheque at the Strathclyde Bank.  Till Tibby returned he occupied
+himself with delicious dreams.... He saw himself daily growing browner
+and leaner, swinging along broad highways or wandering in bypaths.  He
+pictured his seasons of ease, when he unslung his pack and smoked in
+some clump of lilacs by a burnside--he remembered a phrase of
+Stevenson's somewhat like that.  He would meet and talk with all sorts
+of folk; an exhilarating prospect, for Mr. McCunn loved his kind.
+There would be the evening hour before he reached his inn, when,
+pleasantly tired, he would top some ridge and see the welcoming lights
+of a little town.  There would be the lamp-lit after-supper time when
+he would read and reflect, and the start in the gay morning, when
+tobacco tastes sweetest and even fifty-five seems young.  It would be
+holiday of the purest, for no business now tugged at his coat-tails.
+He was beginning a new life, he told himself, when he could cultivate
+the seedling interests which had withered beneath the far-reaching
+shade of the shop.  Was ever a man more fortunate or more free?
+
+Tibby was told that he was going off for a week or two.  No letters
+need be forwarded, for he would be constantly moving, but Mrs. McCunn
+at the Neuk Hydropathic would be kept informed of his whereabouts.
+Presently he stood on his doorstep, a stocky figure in ancient tweeds,
+with a bulging pack slung on his arm, and a stout hazel stick in his
+hand.  A passer-by would have remarked an elderly shopkeeper bent
+apparently on a day in the country, a common little man on a prosaic
+errand.  But the passer-by would have been wrong, for he could not see
+into the heart.  The plump citizen was the eternal pilgrim; he was
+Jason, Ulysses, Eric the Red, Albuquerque, Cortez--starting out to
+discover new worlds.
+
+Before he left Mr. McCunn had given Tibby a letter to post. That
+morning he had received an epistle from a benevolent acquaintance, one
+Mackintosh, regarding a group of urchins who called themselves the
+"Gorbals Die-Hards."  Behind the premises in Mearns Street lay a tract
+of slums, full of mischievous boys, with whom his staff waged truceless
+war.  But lately there had started among them a kind of unauthorized
+and unofficial Boy Scouts, who, without uniform or badge or any kind of
+paraphernalia, followed the banner of Sir Robert Baden-Powell and
+subjected themselves to a rude discipline.  They were far too poor to
+join an orthodox troop, but they faithfully copied what they believed
+to be the practices of more fortunate boys.  Mr. McCunn had witnessed
+their pathetic parades, and had even passed the time of day with their
+leader, a red-haired savage called Dougal.  The philanthropic
+Mackintosh had taken an interest in the gang and now desired
+subscriptions to send them to camp in the country.
+
+Mr. McCunn, in his new exhilaration, felt that he could not deny to
+others what he proposed for himself.  His last act before leaving was
+to send Mackintosh ten pounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+OF MR. JOHN HERITAGE AND THE DIFFERENCE IN POINTS OF VIEW
+
+
+Dickson McCunn was never to forget the first stage in that pilgrimage.
+A little after midday he descended from a grimy third-class carriage at
+a little station whose name I have forgotten.  In the village nearby he
+purchased some new-baked buns and ginger biscuits, to which he was
+partial, and followed by the shouts of urchins, who admired his
+pack--"Look at the auld man gaun to the schule"--he emerged into open
+country.   The late April noon gleamed like a frosty morning, but the
+air, though tonic, was kind.  The road ran over sweeps of moorland
+where curlews wailed, and into lowland pastures dotted with very white,
+very vocal lambs.  The young grass had the warm fragrance of new milk.
+As he went he munched his buns, for he had resolved to have no
+plethoric midday meal, and presently he found the burnside nook of his
+fancy, and halted to smoke.  On a patch of turf close to a grey stone
+bridge he had out his Walton and read the chapter on "The Chavender or
+Chub."  The collocation of words delighted him and inspired him to
+verse.  "Lavender or Lub"--"Pavender or Pub"-"Gravender or Grub"--but
+the monosyllables proved too vulgar for poetry.  Regretfully he
+desisted.
+
+The rest of the road was as idyllic as the start.  He would tramp
+steadily for a mile or so and then saunter, leaning over bridges to
+watch the trout in the pools, admiring from a dry-stone dyke the
+unsteady gambols of new-born lambs, kicking up dust from strips of
+moor-burn on the heather.  Once by a fir-wood he was privileged to
+surprise three lunatic hares waltzing.  His cheeks glowed with the sun;
+he moved in an atmosphere of pastoral, serene and contented. When the
+shadows began to lengthen he arrived at the village of Cloncae, where
+he proposed to lie.  The inn looked dirty, but he found a decent widow,
+above whose door ran the legend in home-made lettering, "Mrs. brockie
+tea and Coffee," and who was willing to give him quarters.  There he
+supped handsomely off ham and eggs, and dipped into a work called
+Covenanting Worthies, which garnished a table decorated with
+sea-shells.  At half-past nine precisely he retired to bed and
+unhesitating sleep.
+
+Next morning he awoke to a changed world.  The sky was grey and so low
+that his outlook was bounded by a cabbage garden, while a surly wind
+prophesied rain.  It was chilly, too, and he had his breakfast beside
+the kitchen fire.  Mrs. Brockie could not spare a capital letter for
+her surname on the signboard, but she exalted it in her talk.  He heard
+of a multitude of Brockies, ascendant, descendant, and collateral, who
+seemed to be in a fair way to inherit the earth. Dickson listened
+sympathetically, and lingered by the fire.  He felt stiff from
+yesterday's exercise, and the edge was off his spirit.
+
+The start was not quite what he had pictured.  His pack seemed heavier,
+his boots tighter, and his pipe drew badly.  The first miles were all
+uphill, with a wind tingling his ears, and no colours in the landscape
+but brown and grey.  Suddenly he awoke to the fact that he was dismal,
+and thrust the notion behind him.  He expanded his chest and drew in
+long draughts of air.  He told himself that this sharp weather was
+better than sunshine.  He remembered that all travellers in romances
+battled with mist and rain.  Presently his body recovered comfort and
+vigour, and his mind worked itself into cheerfulness.
+
+He overtook a party of tramps and fell into talk with them.  He had
+always had a fancy for the class, though he had never known anything
+nearer it than city beggars.  He pictured them as philosophic
+vagabonds, full of quaint turns of speech, unconscious Borrovians. With
+these samples his disillusionment was speedy.  The party was made up of
+a ferret-faced man with a red nose, a draggle-tailed woman, and a child
+in a crazy perambulator.  Their conversation was one-sided, for it
+immediately resolved itself into a whining chronicle of misfortunes and
+petitions for relief.  It cost him half a crown to be rid of them.
+
+The road was alive with tramps that day.  The next one did the
+accosting.  Hailing Mr. McCunn as "Guv'nor," he asked to be told the
+way to Manchester.  The objective seemed so enterprising that Dickson
+was impelled to ask questions, and heard, in what appeared to be in the
+accents of the Colonies, the tale of a career of unvarying calamity.
+There was nothing merry or philosophic about this adventurer.  Nay,
+there was something menacing.  He eyed his companion's waterproof
+covetously, and declared that he had had one like it which had been
+stolen from him the day before.  Had the place been lonely he might
+have contemplated highway robbery, but they were at the entrance to a
+village, and the sight of a public-house awoke his thirst.  Dickson
+parted with him at the cost of sixpence for a drink.
+
+He had no more company that morning except an aged stone-breaker whom
+he convoyed for half a mile.  The stone-breaker also was soured with
+the world.  He walked with a limp, which, he said, was due to an
+accident years before, when he had been run into by "ane of thae damned
+velocipeeds."  The word revived in Dickson memories of his youth, and
+he was prepared to be friendly.  But the ancient would have none of it.
+He inquired morosely what he was after, and, on being told remarked
+that he might have learned more sense. "It's a daft-like thing for an
+auld man like you to be traivellin' the roads.  Ye maun be ill-off for
+a job."  Questioned as to himself, he became, as the newspapers say,
+"reticent," and having reached his bing of stones, turned rudely to his
+duties.  "Awa' hame wi' ye," were his parting words.  "It's idle
+scoondrels like you that maks wark for honest folk like me."
+
+The morning was not a success, but the strong air had given Dickson
+such an appetite that he resolved to break his rule, and, on reaching
+the little town of Kilchrist, he sought luncheon at the chief hotel.
+There he found that which revived his spirits. A solitary bagman shared
+the meal, who revealed the fact that he was in the grocery line.  There
+followed a well-informed and most technical conversation.  He was drawn
+to speak of the United Supply Stores, Limited, of their prospects and
+of their predecessor, Mr. McCunn, whom he knew well by repute but had
+never met. "Yon's the clever one." he observed.  "I've always said
+there's no longer head in the city of Glasgow than McCunn.  An
+old-fashioned firm, but it has aye managed to keep up with the times.
+He's just retired, they tell me, and in my opinion it's a big loss to
+the provision trade...."  Dickson's heart glowed within him.  Here was
+Romance; to be praised incognito; to enter a casual inn and find that
+fame had preceded him.  He warmed to the bagman, insisted on giving him
+a liqueur and a cigar, and finally revealed himself. "I'm Dickson
+McCunn," he said, "taking a bit holiday.  If there's anything I can do
+for you when I get back, just let me know."  With mutual esteem they
+parted.
+
+He had need of all his good spirits, for he emerged into an unrelenting
+drizzle.  The environs of Kilchrist are at the best unlovely, and in
+the wet they were as melancholy as a graveyard. But the encounter with
+the bagman had worked wonders with Dickson, and he strode lustily into
+the weather, his waterproof collar buttoned round his chin.  The road
+climbed to a bare moor, where lagoons had formed in the ruts, and the
+mist showed on each side only a yard or two of soaking heather.  Soon
+he was wet; presently every part of him--boots, body, and pack--was one
+vast sponge. The waterproof was not water-proof, and the rain
+penetrated to his most intimate garments.  Little he cared.  He felt
+lighter, younger, than on the idyllic previous day.  He enjoyed the
+buffets of the storm, and one wet mile succeeded another to the
+accompaniment of Dickson's shouts and laughter.  There was no one
+abroad that afternoon, so he could talk aloud to himself and repeat his
+favourite poems.  About five in the evening there presented himself at
+the Black Bull Inn at Kirkmichael a soaked, disreputable, but most
+cheerful traveller.
+
+Now the Black Bull at Kirkmichael is one of the few very good inns left
+in the world.  It is an old place and an hospitable, for it has been
+for generations a haunt of anglers, who above all other men understand
+comfort.  There are always bright fires there, and hot water, and old
+soft leather armchairs, and an aroma of good food and good tobacco, and
+giant trout in glass cases, and pictures of Captain Barclay of Urie
+walking to London and Mr. Ramsay of Barnton winning a horse-race, and
+the three-volume edition of the Waverley Novels with many volumes
+missing, and indeed all those things which an inn should have.  Also
+there used to be--there may still be--sound vintage claret in the
+cellars.  The Black Bull expects its guests to arrive in every stage of
+dishevelment, and Dickson was received by a cordial landlord, who
+offered dry garments as a matter of course.  The pack proved to have
+resisted the elements, and a suit of clothes and slippers were provided
+by the house. Dickson, after a glass of toddy, wallowed in a hot bath,
+which washed all the stiffness out of him.  He had a fire in his
+bedroom, beside which he wrote the opening passages of that diary he
+had vowed to keep, descanting lyrically upon the joys of ill weather.
+At seven o'clock, warm and satisfied in soul, and with his body clad in
+raiment several sizes too large for it, he descended to dinner.
+
+At one end of the long table in the dining-room sat a group of anglers.
+They looked jovial fellows, and Dickson would fain have joined them;
+but, having been fishing all day in the Lock o' the Threshes, they were
+talking their own talk, and he feared that his admiration for Izaak
+Walton did not qualify him to butt into the erudite discussions of
+fishermen.  The landlord seemed to think likewise, for he drew back a
+chair for him at the other end, where sat a young man absorbed in a
+book.  Dickson gave him good evening, and got an abstracted reply.  The
+young man supped the Black Bull's excellent broth with one hand, and
+with the other turned the pages of his volume. A glance convinced
+Dickson that the work was French, a literature which did not interest
+him.  He knew little of the tongue and suspected it of impropriety.
+
+Another guest entered and took the chair opposite the bookish young
+man.  He was also young--not more than thirty-three--and to Dickson's
+eye was the kind of person he would have liked to resemble. He was tall
+and free from any superfluous flesh; his face was lean, fine-drawn, and
+deeply sunburnt, so that the hair above showed oddly pale; the hands
+were brown and beautifully shaped, but the forearm revealed by the
+loose cuffs of his shirt was as brawny as a blacksmith's.  He had
+rather pale blue eyes, which seemed to have looked much at the sun, and
+a small moustache the colour of ripe hay. His voice was low and
+pleasant, and he pronounced his words precisely, like a foreigner.
+
+He was very ready to talk, but in defiance of Dr. Johnson's warning,
+his talk was all questions.  He wanted to know everything about the
+neighbourhood--who lived in what houses, what were the distances
+between the towns, what harbours would admit what class of vessel.
+Smiling agreeably, he put Dickson through a catechism to which he knew
+none of the answers.  The landlord was called in, and proved more
+helpful.  But on one matter he was fairly at a loss. The catechist
+asked about a house called Darkwater, and was met with a shake of the
+head.  "I know no sic-like name in this countryside, sir," and the
+catechist looked disappointed.
+
+The literary young man said nothing, but ate trout abstractedly, one
+eye on his book.  The fish had been caught by the anglers in the Loch
+o' the Threshes, and phrases describing their capture floated from the
+other end of the table.  The young man had a second helping, and then
+refused the excellent hill mutton that followed, contenting himself
+with cheese.  Not so Dickson and the catechist. They ate everything
+that was set before them, topping up with a glass of port.  Then the
+latter, who had been talking illuminatingly about Spain, rose, bowed,
+and left the table, leaving Dickson, who liked to linger over his
+meals, to the society of the ichthyophagous student.
+
+He nodded towards the book. "Interesting?" he asked.
+
+The young man shook his head and displayed the name on the cover.
+"Anatole France.  I used to be crazy about him, but now he seems rather
+a back number."  Then he glanced towards the just-vacated chair.
+"Australian," he said.
+
+"How d'you know?"
+
+"Can't mistake them.  There's nothing else so lean and fine produced on
+the globe to-day.  I was next door to them at Pozieres and saw them
+fight.  Lord!  Such men!  Now and then you had a freak, but most looked
+like Phoebus Apollo."
+
+Dickson gazed with a new respect at his neighbour, for he had not
+associated him with battle-fields.  During the war he had been a
+fervent patriot, but, though he had never heard a shot himself, so many
+of his friends' sons and nephews, not to mention cousins of his own,
+had seen service, that he had come to regard the experience as
+commonplace.  Lions in Africa and bandits in Mexico seemed to him novel
+and romantic things, but not trenches and airplanes which were the
+whole world's property.  But he could scarcely fit his neighbour into
+even his haziest picture of war.  The young man was tall and a little
+round-shouldered; he had short-sighted, rather prominent brown eyes,
+untidy black hair and dark eyebrows which came near to meeting.  He
+wore a knickerbocker suit of bluish-grey tweed, a pale blue shirt, a
+pale blue collar, and a dark blue tie--a symphony of colour which
+seemed too elaborately considered to be quite natural.  Dickson had set
+him down as an artist or a newspaper correspondent, objects to him of
+lively interest.  But now the classification must be reconsidered.
+
+"So you were in the war," he said encouragingly.
+
+"Four blasted years," was the savage reply. "And I never want to hear
+the name of the beastly thing again."
+
+"You said he was an Australian," said Dickson, casting back.  "But I
+thought Australians had a queer accent, like the English."
+
+"They've all kind of accents, but you can never mistake their voice.
+It's got the sun in it.  Canadians have got grinding ice in theirs, and
+Virginians have got butter.  So have the Irish.  In Britain there are
+no voices, only speaking-tubes.  It isn't safe to judge men by their
+accent only.  You yourself I take to be Scotch, but for all I know you
+may be a senator from Chicago or a Boer General."
+
+"I'm from Glasgow.  My name's Dickson McCunn."  He had a faint hope
+that the announcement might affect the other as it had affected the
+bagman at Kilchrist.
+
+"Golly, what a name!" exclaimed the young man rudely.
+
+Dickson was nettled.  "It's very old Highland," he said.  "It means the
+son of a dog."
+
+"Which--Christian name or surname?"  Then the young man appeared to
+think he had gone too far, for he smiled pleasantly.  "And a very good
+name too.  Mine is prosaic by comparison.  They call me John Heritage."
+
+"That," said Dickson, mollified, "is like a name out of a book. With
+that name by rights you should be a poet."
+
+Gloom settled on the young man's countenance.  "It's a dashed sight too
+poetic.  It's like Edwin Arnold and Alfred Austin and Dante Gabriel
+Rossetti.  Great poets have vulgar monosyllables for names, like Keats.
+The new Shakespeare when he comes along will probably be called Grubb
+or Jubber, if he isn't Jones.  With a name like yours I might have a
+chance.  You should be the poet."
+
+"I'm very fond of reading," said Dickson modestly.
+
+A slow smile crumpled Mr. Heritage's face.  "There's a fire in the
+smoking-room," he observed as he rose.  "We'd better bag the armchairs
+before these fishing louts take them."  Dickson followed obediently.
+This was the kind of chance acquaintance for whom he had hoped, and he
+was prepared to make the most of him.
+
+The fire burned bright in the little dusky smoking-room, lighted by one
+oil-lamp.  Mr. Heritage flung himself into a chair, stretched his long
+legs, and lit a pipe.
+
+"You like reading?" he asked.  "What sort?  Any use for poetry?"
+
+"Plenty," said Dickson.  "I've aye been fond of learning it up and
+repeating it to myself when I had nothing to do.  In church and waiting
+on trains, like.  It used to be Tennyson, but now it's more Browning.
+I can say a lot of Browning."
+
+The other screwed his face into an expression of disgust.  "I know the
+stuff. 'Damask cheeks and dewy sister eyelids.' Or else the Ercles
+vein--'God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world.' No good, Mr.
+McCunn.  All back numbers.  Poetry's not a thing of pretty round
+phrases or noisy invocations.  It's life itself, with the tang of the
+raw world in it--not a sweetmeat for middle-class women in parlours."
+
+"Are you a poet, Mr. Heritage?"
+
+"No, Dogson, I'm a paper-maker."
+
+This was a new view to Mr. McCunn.  "I just once knew a paper-maker,"
+he observed reflectively, "They called him Tosh.  He drank a bit."
+
+"Well, I don't drink," said the other.  "I'm a paper-maker, but that's
+for my bread and butter.  Some day for my own sake I may be a poet."
+
+"Have you published anything?"
+
+The eager admiration in Dickson's tone gratified Mr. Heritage. He drew
+from his pocket a slim book.  "My firstfruits," he said, rather shyly.
+
+Dickson received it with reverence.  It was a small volume in grey
+paper boards with a white label on the back, and it was lettered:
+WHORLS-JOHN HERITAGE'S BOOK.  He turned the pages and read a little.
+"It's a nice wee book," he observed at length.
+
+"Good God, if you call it nice, I must have failed pretty badly," was
+the irritated answer.
+
+Dickson read more deeply and was puzzled.  It seemed worse than the
+worst of Browning to understand.  He found one poem about a garden
+entitled "Revue."  "Crimson and resonant clangs the dawn," said the
+poet.  Then he went on to describe noonday:
+
+  "Sunflowers, tall Grenadiers, ogle the roses' short-skirted ballet.
+  The fumes of dark sweet wine hidden in frail petals
+  Madden the drunkard bees."
+
+This seemed to him an odd way to look at things, and he boggled over a
+phrase about an "epicene lily."  Then came evening: "The painted gauze
+of the stars flutters in a fold of twilight crape," sang Mr. Heritage;
+and again, "The moon's pale leprosy sloughs the fields."
+
+Dickson turned to other verses which apparently enshrined the writer's
+memory of the trenches.  They were largely compounded of oaths, and
+rather horrible, lingering lovingly over sights and smells which every
+one is aware of, but most people contrive to forget.  He did not like
+them.  Finally he skimmed a poem about a lady who turned into a bird.
+The evolution was described with intimate anatomical details which
+scared the honest reader.
+
+He kept his eyes on the book, for he did not know what to say. The
+trick seemed to be to describe nature in metaphors mostly drawn from
+music-halls and haberdashers' shops, and, when at a loss, to fall to
+cursing.  He thought it frankly very bad, and he laboured to find words
+which would combine politeness and honesty.
+
+"Well?" said the poet.
+
+"There's a lot of fine things here, but--but the lines don't just seem
+to scan very well."
+
+Mr. Heritage laughed.  "Now I can place you exactly.  You like the meek
+rhyme and the conventional epithet.  Well, I don't.  The world has
+passed beyond that prettiness.  You want the moon described as a
+Huntress or a gold disc or a flower--I say it's oftener like a beer
+barrel or a cheese.  You want a wealth of jolly words and real things
+ruled out as unfit for poetry.  I say there's nothing unfit for poetry.
+Nothing, Dogson!  Poetry's everywhere, and the real thing is commoner
+among drabs and pot-houses and rubbish-heaps than in your Sunday
+parlours.  The poet's business is to distil it out of rottenness, and
+show that it is all one spirit, the thing that keeps the stars in their
+place.... I wanted to call my book 'Drains,' for drains are sheer
+poetry carrying off the excess and discards of human life to make the
+fields green and the corn ripen. But the publishers kicked.  So I
+called it 'Whorls,' to express my view of the exquisite involution of
+all things.  Poetry is the fourth dimension of the soul.... Well, let's
+hear about your taste in prose."
+
+Mr. McCunn was much bewildered, and a little inclined to be cross. He
+disliked being called Dogson, which seemed to him an abuse of his
+etymological confidences.  But his habit of politeness held.
+
+He explained rather haltingly his preferences in prose.
+
+Mr. Heritage listened with wrinkled brows.
+
+"You're even deeper in the mud than I thought," he remarked. "You live
+in a world of painted laths and shadows.  All this passion for the
+picturesque! Trash, my dear man, like a schoolgirl's novelette heroes.
+You make up romances about gipsies and sailors, and the blackguards
+they call pioneers, but you know nothing about them.  If you did, you
+would find they had none of the gilt and gloss you imagine.  But the
+great things they have got in common with all humanity you ignore.
+It's like--it's like sentimentalising about a pancake because it looked
+like a buttercup, and all the while not knowing that it was good to
+eat."
+
+At that moment the Australian entered the room to get a light for his
+pipe.  He wore a motor-cyclist's overalls and appeared to be about to
+take the road.  He bade them good night, and it seemed to Dickson that
+his face, seen in the glow of the fire, was drawn and anxious, unlike
+that of the agreeable companion at dinner.
+
+"There," said Mr. Heritage, nodding after the departing figure. "I dare
+say you have been telling yourself stories about that chap--life in the
+bush, stockriding and the rest of it. But probably he's a bank-clerk
+from Melbourne.... Your romanticism is one vast self-delusion, and it
+blinds your eye to the real thing. We have got to clear it out, and
+with it all the damnable humbug of the Kelt."
+
+Mr. McCunn, who spelt the word with a soft "C," was puzzled. "I thought
+a kelt was a kind of a no-weel fish," he interposed.
+
+But the other, in the flood-tide of his argument, ignored the
+interruption.  "That's the value of the war," he went on. "It has burst
+up all the old conventions, and we've got to finish the destruction
+before we can build.  It is the same with literature and religion, and
+society and politics.  At them with the axe, say I. I have no use for
+priests and pedants.  I've no use for upper classes and middle classes.
+There's only one class that matters, the plain man, the workers, who
+live close to life."
+
+"The place for you," said Dickson dryly, "is in Russia among the
+Bolsheviks."
+
+Mr. Heritage approved.  "They are doing a great work in their own
+fashion.  We needn't imitate all their methods--they're a trifle crude
+and have too many Jews among them--but they've got hold of the right
+end of the stick.  They seek truth and reality."
+
+Mr. McCunn was slowly being roused.
+
+"What brings you wandering hereaways?" he asked.
+
+"Exercise," was the answer.  "I've been kept pretty closely tied up all
+winter.  And I want leisure and quiet to think over things."
+
+"Well, there's one subject you might turn your attention to. You'll
+have been educated like a gentleman?"
+
+"Nine wasted years--five at Harrow, four at Cambridge."
+
+"See here, then.  You're daft about the working-class and have no use
+for any other.  But what in the name of goodness do you know about
+working-men?...  I come out of them myself, and have lived next door to
+them all my days.  Take them one way and another, they're a decent
+sort, good and bad like the rest of us.  But there's a wheen daft folk
+that would set them up as models--close to truth and reality, says you.
+It's sheer ignorance, for you're about as well acquaint with the
+working-man as with King Solomon.  You say I make up fine stories about
+tinklers and sailor-men because I know nothing about them.  That's
+maybe true.  But you're at the same job yourself. You ideelise the
+working man, you and your kind, because you're ignorant.  You say that
+he's seeking for truth, when he's only looking for a drink and a rise
+in wages.  You tell me he's near reality, but I tell you that his
+notion of reality is often just a short working day and looking on at a
+footba'-match on Saturday.... And when you run down what you call the
+middle-classes that do three-quarters of the world's work and keep the
+machine going and the working-man in a job, then I tell you you're
+talking havers.  Havers!"
+
+Mr. McCunn, having delivered his defence of the bourgeoisie, rose
+abruptly and went to bed.  He felt jarred and irritated. His innocent
+little private domain had been badly trampled by this stray bull of a
+poet.  But as he lay in bed, before blowing out his candle, he had
+recourse to Walton, and found a passage on which, as on a pillow, he
+went peacefully to sleep:
+
+
+"As I left this place, and entered into the next field, a second
+pleasure entertained me; 'twas a handsome milkmaid, that had not yet
+attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any fears of
+many things that will never be, as too many men too often do; but she
+cast away all care, and sang like a nightingale; her voice was good,
+and the ditty fitted for it; it was the smooth song that was made by
+Kit Marlow now at least fifty years ago.  And the milkmaid's mother
+sung an answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh in his
+younger days.  They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good; I
+think much better than the strong lines that are now in fashion in this
+critical age."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HOW CHILDE ROLAND AND ANOTHER CAME TO THE DARK TOWER
+
+
+Dickson woke with a vague sense of irritation.  As his recollections
+took form they produced a very unpleasant picture of Mr. John Heritage.
+The poet had loosened all his placid idols, so that they shook and
+rattled in the niches where they had been erstwhile so secure. Mr.
+McCunn had a mind of a singular candour, and was prepared most honestly
+at all times to revise his views.  But by this iconoclast he had been
+only irritated and in no way convinced.  "Sich poetry!" he muttered to
+himself as he shivered in his bath (a daily cold tub instead of his
+customary hot one on Saturday night being part of the discipline of his
+holiday).  "And yon blethers about the working-man!" he ingeminated as
+he shaved.  He breakfasted alone, having outstripped even the
+fishermen, and as he ate he arrived at conclusions.  He had a great
+respect for youth, but a line must be drawn somewhere. "The man's a
+child," he decided, "and not like to grow up.  The way he's besotted on
+everything daftlike, if it's only new.  And he's no rightly young
+either--speaks like an auld dominie, whiles. And he's rather impident,"
+he concluded, with memories of "Dogson.".... He was very clear that he
+never wanted to see him again; that was the reason of his early
+breakfast.  Having clarified his mind by definitions, Dickson felt
+comforted.  He paid his bill, took an affectionate farewell of the
+landlord, and at 7.30 precisely stepped out into the gleaming morning.
+
+It was such a day as only a Scots April can show.  The cobbled streets
+of Kirkmichael still shone with the night's rain, but the storm clouds
+had fled before a mild south wind, and the whole circumference of the
+sky was a delicate translucent blue. Homely breakfast smells came from
+the houses and delighted Mr. McCunn's nostrils; a squalling child was a
+pleasant reminder of an awakening world, the urban counterpart to the
+morning song of birds; even the sanitary cart seemed a picturesque
+vehicle. He bought his ration of buns and ginger biscuits at a baker's
+shop whence various ragamuffin boys were preparing to distribute the
+householders' bread, and took his way up the Gallows Hill to the Burgh
+Muir almost with regret at leaving so pleasant a habitation.
+
+A chronicle of ripe vintages must pass lightly over small beer. I will
+not dwell on his leisurely progress in the bright weather, or on his
+luncheon in a coppice of young firs, or on his thoughts which had
+returned to the idyllic.  I take up the narrative at about three
+o'clock in the afternoon, when he is revealed seated on a milestone
+examining his map.  For he had come, all unwitting, to a turning of the
+ways, and his choice is the cause of this veracious history.
+
+The place was high up on a bare moor, which showed a white lodge among
+pines, a white cottage in a green nook by a burnside, and no other
+marks of human dwelling.  To his left, which was the east, the heather
+rose to a low ridge of hill, much scarred with peat-bogs, behind which
+appeared the blue shoulder of a considerable mountain. Before him the
+road was lost momentarily in the woods of a shooting-box, but
+reappeared at a great distance climbing a swell of upland which seemed
+to be the glacis of a jumble of bold summits.  There was a pass there,
+the map told him, which led into Galloway.  It was the road he had
+meant to follow, but as he sat on the milestone his purpose wavered.
+For there seemed greater attractions in the country which lay to the
+westward.  Mr. McCunn, be it remembered, was not in search of brown
+heath and shaggy wood; he wanted greenery and the Spring.
+
+Westward there ran out a peninsula in the shape of an isosceles
+triangle, of which his present high-road was the base.  At a distance
+of a mile or so a railway ran parallel to the road, and he could see
+the smoke of a goods train waiting at a tiny station islanded in acres
+of bog.  Thence the moor swept down to meadows and scattered copses,
+above which hung a thin haze of smoke which betokened a village.
+Beyond it were further woodlands, not firs but old shady trees, and as
+they narrowed to a point the gleam of two tiny estuaries appeared on
+either side.  He could not see the final cape, but he saw the sea
+beyond it, flawed with catspaws, gold in the afternoon sun, and on it a
+small herring smack flopping listless sails.
+
+Something in the view caught and held his fancy.  He conned his map,
+and made out the names.  The peninsula was called the Cruives--an old
+name apparently, for it was in antique lettering.  He vaguely
+remembered that "cruives" had something to do with fishing, doubtless
+in the two streams which flanked it.  One he had already crossed, the
+Laver, a clear tumbling water springing from green hills; the other,
+the Garple, descended from the rougher mountains to the south.  The
+hidden village bore the name of Dalquharter, and the uncouth syllables
+awoke some vague recollection in his mind. The great house in the trees
+beyond--it must be a great house, for the map showed large
+policies--was Huntingtower.
+
+The last name fascinated and almost decided him.  He pictured an
+ancient keep by the sea, defended by converging rivers, which some old
+Comyn lord of Galloway had built to command the shore road, and from
+which he had sallied to hunt in his wild hills.... He liked the way the
+moor dropped down to green meadows, and the mystery of the dark woods
+beyond.  He wanted to explore the twin waters, and see how they entered
+that strange shimmering sea.  The odd names, the odd cul-de-sac of a
+peninsula, powerfully attracted him. Why should he not spend a night
+there, for the map showed clearly that Dalquharter had an inn?  He must
+decide promptly, for before him a side-road left the highway, and the
+signpost bore the legend, "Dalquharter and Huntingtower."
+
+Mr. McCunn, being a cautious and pious man, took the omens. He tossed a
+penny--heads go on, tails turn aside.  It fell tails.
+
+He knew as soon as he had taken three steps down the side-road that he
+was doing something momentous, and the exhilaration of enterprise stole
+into his soul.  It occurred to him that this was the kind of landscape
+that he had always especially hankered after, and had made pictures of
+when he had a longing for the country on him--a wooded cape between
+streams, with meadows inland and then a long lift of heather. He had
+the same feeling of expectancy, of something most interesting and
+curious on the eve of happening, that he had had long ago when he
+waited on the curtain rising at his first play.  His spirits soared
+like the lark, and he took to singing.  If only the inn at Dalquharter
+were snug and empty, this was going to be a day in ten thousand. Thus
+mirthfully he swung down the rough grass-grown road, past the railway,
+till he came to a point where heath began to merge in pasture, and
+dry-stone walls split the moor into fields.  Suddenly his pace
+slackened and song died on his lips.  For, approaching from the right
+by a tributary path was the Poet.
+
+Mr. Heritage saw him afar off and waved a friendly hand.  In spite of
+his chagrin Dickson could not but confess that he had misjudged his
+critic.  Striding with long steps over the heather, his jacket open to
+the wind, his face a-glow and his capless head like a whin-bush for
+disorder, he cut a more wholesome figure than in the smoking-room the
+night before.  He seemed to be in a companionable mood, for he
+brandished his stick and shouted greetings.
+
+"Well met!" he cried; "I was hoping to fall in with you again. You must
+have thought me a pretty fair cub last night."
+
+"I did that," was the dry answer.
+
+"Well, I want to apologize.  God knows what made me treat you to a
+university-extension lecture.  I may not agree with you, but every
+man's entitled to his own views, and it was dashed poor form for me to
+start jawing you."
+
+Mr. McCunn had no gift of nursing anger, and was very susceptible to
+apologies.
+
+"That's all right," he murmured. "Don't mention it.  I'm wondering what
+brought you down here, for it's off the road."
+
+"Caprice.  Pure caprice.  I liked the look of this butt-end of nowhere."
+
+"Same here. I've aye thought there was something terrible nice about a
+wee cape with a village at the neck of it and a burn each side."
+
+"Now that's interesting," said Mr. Heritage.  "You're obsessed by a
+particular type of landscape.  Ever read Freud?"
+
+Dickson shook his head.
+
+"Well, you've got an odd complex somewhere.  I wonder where the key
+lies. Cape--woods--two rivers--moor behind.  Ever been in love, Dogson?"
+
+Mr. McCunn was startled.   "Love" was a word rarely mentioned in his
+circle except on death-beds,  "I've been a married man for thirty
+years," he said hurriedly.
+
+"That won't do.  It should have been a hopeless affair-the last sight
+of the lady on a spur of coast with water on three sides--that kind of
+thing, you know, or it might have happened to an ancestor.... But you
+don't look the kind of breed for hopeless attachments. More likely some
+scoundrelly old Dogson long ago found sanctuary in this sort of place.
+Do you dream about it?"
+
+"Not exactly."
+
+"Well, I do.  The queer thing is that I've got the same prepossession
+as you.  As soon as I spotted this Cruives place on the map this
+morning, I saw it was what I was after.  When I came in sight of it I
+almost shouted.  I don't very often dream but when I do that's the
+place I frequent.  Odd, isn't it?"
+
+Mr. McCunn was deeply interested at this unexpected revelation of
+romance.  "Maybe it's being in love," he daringly observed.
+
+The Poet demurred.  "No.  I'm not a connoisseur of obvious sentiment.
+That explanation might fit your case, but not mine.  I'm pretty certain
+there's something hideous at the back of MY complex--some grim old
+business tucked away back in the ages.  For though I'm attracted by the
+place, I'm frightened too!"
+
+There seemed no room for fear in the delicate landscape now opening
+before them.  In front, in groves of birch and rowan, smoked the first
+houses of a tiny village.  The road had become a green "loaning," on
+the ample margin of which cattle grazed.  The moorland still showed
+itself in spits of heather, and some distance off, where a rivulet ran
+in a hollow, there were signs of a fire and figures near it. These last
+Mr. Heritage regarded with disapproval.
+
+"Some infernal trippers!" he murmured.  "Or Boy Scouts. They desecrate
+everything.  Why can't the TUNICATUS POPELLUS keep away from a paradise
+like this!"  Dickson, a democrat who felt nothing incongruous in the
+presence of other holiday-makers, was meditating a sharp rejoinder,
+when Mr. Heritage's tone changed.
+
+"Ye gods!  What a village!" he cried, as they turned a corner. There
+were not more than a dozen whitewashed houses, all set in little
+gardens of wallflower and daffodil and early fruit blossom. A triangle
+of green filled the intervening space, and in it stood an ancient
+wooden pump.  There was no schoolhouse or kirk; not even a
+post-office--only a red box in a cottage side.  Beyond rose the high
+wall and the dark trees of the demesne, and to the right up a by-road
+which clung to the park edge stood a two-storeyed building which bore
+the legend "The Cruives Inn."
+
+The Poet became lyrical.  "At last!" he cried.  "The village of my
+dreams!  Not a sign of commerce!  No church or school or beastly
+recreation hall!  Nothing but these divine little cottages and an
+ancient pub!  Dogson, I warn you, I'm going to have the devil of a
+tea."  And he declaimed:
+
+             "Thou shalt hear a song
+  After a while which Gods may listen to;
+  But place the flask upon the board and wait
+  Until the stranger hath allayed his thirst,
+  For poets, grasshoppers, and nightingales
+  Sing cheerily but when the throat is moist."
+
+
+Dickson, too, longed with sensual gusto for tea.  But, as they drew
+nearer, the inn lost its hospitable look.  The cobbles of the yard were
+weedy, as if rarely visited by traffic, a pane in a window was broken,
+and the blinds hung tattered.  The garden was a wilderness, and the
+doorstep had not been scoured for weeks.  But the place had a landlord,
+for he had seen them approach and was waiting at the door to meet them.
+
+He was a big man in his shirt sleeves, wearing old riding breeches
+unbuttoned at the knees, and thick ploughman's boots.  He had no
+leggings, and his fleshy calves were imperfectly covered with woollen
+socks.  His face was large and pale, his neck bulged, and he had a
+gross unshaven jowl.  He was a type familiar to students of society;
+not the innkeeper, which is a thing consistent with good breeding and
+all the refinements; a type not unknown in the House of Lords,
+especially among recent creations, common enough in the House of
+Commons and the City of London, and by no means infrequent in the
+governing circles of Labour; the type known to the discerning as the
+Licensed Victualler.
+
+His face was wrinkled in official smiles, and he gave the travellers a
+hearty good afternoon.
+
+"Can we stop here for the night?" Dickson asked.
+
+The landlord looked sharply at him, and then replied to Mr. Heritage.
+His expression passed from official bonhomie to official contrition.
+
+"Impossible, gentlemen.  Quite impossible.... Ye couldn't have come at
+a worse time.  I've only been here a fortnight myself, and we haven't
+got right shaken down yet.  Even then I might have made shift to do
+with ye, but the fact is we've illness in the house, and I'm fair at my
+wits' end.  It breaks my heart to turn gentlemen away and me that keen
+to get the business started.  But there it is!" He spat vigorously as
+if to emphasize the desperation of his quandary.
+
+The man was clearly Scots, but his native speech was overlaid with
+something alien, something which might have been acquired in America or
+in going down to the sea in ships.  He hitched his breeches, too, with
+a nautical air.
+
+"Is there nowhere else we can put up?"  Dickson asked.
+
+"Not in this one-horse place.  Just a wheen auld wives that packed
+thegether they haven't room for an extra hen.  But it's grand weather,
+and it's not above seven miles to Auchenlochan.  Say the word and I'll
+yoke the horse and drive ye there."
+
+"Thank you.  We prefer to walk,"  said Mr. Heritage.  Dickson would
+have tarried to inquire after the illness in the house, but his
+companion hurried him off.   Once he looked back, and saw the landlord
+still on the doorstep gazing after them.
+
+"That fellow's a swine," said Mr. Heritage sourly.  "I wouldn't trust
+my neck in his pot-house.  Now, Dogson, I'm hanged if I'm going to
+leave this place.  We'll find a corner in the village somehow. Besides,
+I'm determined on tea."
+
+The little street slept in the clear pure light of an early April
+evening.  Blue shadows lay on the white road, and a delicate aroma of
+cooking tantalized hungry nostrils.  The near meadows shone like pale
+gold against the dark lift of the moor.  A light wind had begun to blow
+from the west and carried the faintest tang of salt. The village at
+that hour was pure Paradise, and Dickson was of the Poet's opinion.  At
+all costs they must spend the night there.
+
+They selected a cottage whiter and neater than the others, which stood
+at a corner, where a narrow lane turned southward.  Its thatched roof
+had been lately repaired, and starched curtains of a dazzling whiteness
+decorated the small, closely-shut windows.  Likewise it had a green
+door and a polished brass knocker.
+
+Tacitly the duty of envoy was entrusted to Mr. McCunn.  Leaving the
+other at the gate, he advanced up the little path lined with quartz
+stones, and politely but firmly dropped the brass knocker.  He must
+have been observed, for ere the noise had ceased the door opened, and
+an elderly woman stood before him.  She had a sharply-cut face, the
+rudiments of a beard, big spectacles on her nose, and an old-fashioned
+lace cap on her smooth white hair.  A little grim she looked at first
+sight, because of her thin lips and roman nose, but her mild curious
+eyes corrected the impression and gave the envoy confidence.
+
+"Good afternoon, mistress," he said, broadening his voice to something
+more rustical than his normal Glasgow speech.  "Me and my friend are
+paying our first visit here, and we're terrible taken up with the
+place.  We would like to bide the night, but the inn is no' taking
+folk.  Is there any chance, think you, of a bed here?"
+
+"I'll no tell ye a lee," said the woman.  "There's twae guid beds in
+the loft.  But I dinna tak' lodgers and I dinna want to be bothered wi'
+ye.  I'm an auld wumman and no' as stoot as I was.  Ye'd better try
+doun the street.  Eppie Home micht tak' ye."
+
+Dickson wore his most ingratiating smile.  "But, mistress, Eppie Home's
+house is no' yours.  We've taken a tremendous fancy to this bit. Can
+you no' manage to put up with us for the one night?  We're quiet
+auld-fashioned folk and we'll no' trouble you much.  Just our tea and
+maybe an egg to it, and a bowl of porridge in the morning."
+
+The woman seemed to relent.  "Whaur's your freend?" she asked, peering
+over her spectacles towards the garden gate.  The waiting Mr. Heritage,
+seeing he eyes moving in his direction, took off his cap with a brave
+gesture and advanced.  "Glorious weather, madam," he declared.
+
+"English," whispered Dickson to the woman, in explanation.
+
+She examined the Poet's neat clothes and Mr. McCunn's homely garments,
+and apparently found them reassuring.  "Come in," she said shortly.  "I
+see ye're wilfu' folk and I'll hae to dae my best for ye."
+
+A quarter of an hour later the two travellers, having been introduced
+to two spotless beds in the loft, and having washed luxuriously at the
+pump in the back yard, were seated in Mrs. Morran's kitchen before a
+meal which fulfilled their wildest dreams. She had been baking that
+morning, so there were white scones and barley scones, and oaten
+farles, and russet pancakes.  There were three boiled eggs for each of
+them; there was a segment of an immense currant cake ("a present from
+my guid brither last Hogmanay"); there was skim milk cheese; there were
+several kinds of jam, and there was a pot of dark-gold heather honey.
+"Try hinny and aitcake," said their hostess.  "My man used to say he
+never fund onything as guid in a' his days."
+
+Presently they heard her story.  Her name was Morran, and she had been
+a widow these ten years.  Of her family her son was in South Africa,
+one daughter a lady's-maid in London, and the other married to a
+schoolmaster in Kyle.  The son had been in France fighting, and had
+come safely through.  He had spent a month or two with her before his
+return, and, she feared, had found it dull.  "There's no' a man body in
+the place.  Naething but auld wives."
+
+That was what the innkeeper had told them.  Mr. McCunn inquired
+concerning the inn.
+
+"There's new folk just came.  What's this they ca'
+them?--Robson--Dobson--aye, Dobson.  What far wad they no' tak' ye in?
+Does the man think he's a laird to refuse folk that gait?"
+
+"He said he had illness in the house."
+
+Mrs. Morran meditated.  "Whae in the world can be lyin' there? The man
+bides his lane.  He got a lassie frae Auchenlochan to cook, but she and
+her box gaed off in the post-cairt yestreen.  I doot he tell't ye a
+lee, though it's no for me to juidge him.  I've never spoken a word to
+ane o' thae new folk."
+
+Dickson inquired about the "new folk."
+
+"They're a' now come in the last three weeks, and there's no' a man o'
+the auld stock left.  John Blackstocks at the Wast Lodge dee'd o'
+pneumony last back-end, and auld Simon Tappie at the Gairdens flitted
+to Maybole a year come Mairtinmas.  There's naebody at the Gairdens
+noo, but there's a man come to the Wast Lodge, a blackavised body wi' a
+face like bend-leather.  Tam Robison used to bide at the South Lodge,
+but Tam got killed about Mesopotamy, and his wife took the bairns to
+her guidsire up at the Garpleheid.  I seen the man that's in the South
+Lodge gaun up the street when I was finishin' my denner--a shilpit body
+and a lameter, but he hirples as fast as ither folk run.  He's no'
+bonny to look at..  I canna think what the factor's ettlin' at to let
+sic ill-faured chiels come about the toun."
+
+Their hostess was rapidly rising in Dickson's esteem.  She sat very
+straight in her chair, eating with the careful gentility of a bird, and
+primming her thin lips after every mouthful of tea.
+
+"Wha bides in the Big House?" he asked.  "Huntingtower is the name,
+isn't it?"
+
+"When I was a lassie they ca'ed it Dalquharter Hoose, and Huntingtower
+was the auld rickle o' stanes at the sea-end. But naething wad serve
+the last laird's father but he maun change the name, for he was clean
+daft about what they ca' antickities. Ye speir whae bides in the Hoose?
+Naebody, since the young laird dee'd. It's standin' cauld and lanely
+and steikit, and it aince the cheeriest dwallin' in a' Carrick."
+
+Mrs. Morran's tone grew tragic.  "It's a queer warld wi'out the auld
+gentry. My faither and my guidsire and his faither afore him served the
+Kennedys, and my man Dauvit Morran was gemkeeper to them, and afore I
+mairried I was ane o' the table-maids.  They were kind folk, the
+Kennedys, and, like a' the rale gentry, maist mindfu' o' them that
+served them.  Sic merry nichts I've seen in the auld Hoose, at
+Hallowe'en and Hogmanay, and at the servants' balls and the waddin's o'
+the young leddies!  But the laird bode to waste his siller in stane and
+lime, and hadna that much to leave to his bairns. And now they're a'
+scattered or deid."
+
+Her grave face wore the tenderness which comes from affectionate
+reminiscence.
+
+"There was never sic a laddie as young Maister Quentin.  No' a week
+gaed by but he was in here, cryin', 'Phemie Morran, I've come till my
+tea!'  Fine he likit my treacle scones, puir man.  There wasna ane in
+the countryside sae bauld a rider at the hunt, or sic a skeely fisher.
+And he was clever at his books tae, a graund scholar, they said, and
+ettlin' at bein' what they ca' a dipplemat, But that' a' bye wi'."
+
+"Quentin Kennedy--the fellow in the Tins?"  Heritage asked.  "I saw him
+in Rome when he was with the Mission."
+
+"I dinna ken.  He was a brave sodger, but he wasna long fechtin' in
+France till he got a bullet in his breist.  Syne we heard tell o' him
+in far awa' bits like Russia; and syne cam' the end o' the war and we
+lookit to see him back, fishin' the waters and ridin' like Jehu as in
+the auld days.  But wae's me!  It wasna permitted. The next news we
+got, the puir laddie was deid o' influenzy and buried somewhere about
+France.  The wanchancy bullet maun have weakened his chest, nae doot.
+So that's the end o' the guid stock o' Kennedy o' Huntingtower, whae
+hae been great folk sin' the time o' Robert Bruce.  And noo the Hoose
+is shut up till the lawyers can get somebody sae far left to himsel' as
+to tak' it on lease, and in thae dear days it's no' just onybody that
+wants a muckle castle."
+
+"Who are the lawyers?"  Dickson asked.
+
+"Glendonan and Speirs in Embro.  But they never look near the place,
+and Maister Loudon in Auchenlochan does the factorin'.  He's let the
+public an' filled the twae lodges, and he'll be thinkin' nae doot that
+he's done eneuch."
+
+Mrs. Morran had poured some hot water into the big slop-bowl, and had
+begun the operation known as "synding out" the cups.  It was a hint
+that the meal was over, and Dickson and Heritage rose from the table.
+Followed by an injunction to be back for supper "on the chap o' nine,"
+they strolled out into the evening.  Two hours of some sort of daylight
+remained, and the travellers had that impulse to activity which comes
+to all men who, after a day of exercise and emptiness, are stayed with
+a satisfying tea.
+
+"You should be happy, Dogson," said the Poet.  "Here we have all the
+materials for your blessed romance--old mansion, extinct family,
+village deserted of men, and an innkeeper whom I suspect of being a
+villain.  I feel almost a convert to your nonsense myself. We'll have a
+look at the House."
+
+They turned down the road which ran north by the park wall, past the
+inn, which looked more abandoned than ever, till they came to an
+entrance which was clearly the West Lodge.  It had once been a pretty,
+modish cottage, with a thatched roof and dormer windows, but now it was
+badly in need of repair.  A window-pane was broken and stuffed with a
+sack, the posts of the porch were giving inwards, and the thatch was
+crumbling under the attentions of a colony of starlings.  The great
+iron gates were rusty, and on the coat of arms above them the gilding
+was patchy and tarnished.  Apparently the gates were locked, and even
+the side wicket failed to open to Heritage's vigorous shaking.  Inside
+a weedy drive disappeared among ragged rhododendrons.
+
+The noise brought a man to the lodge door.  He was a sturdy fellow in a
+suit of black clothes which had not been made for him. He might have
+been a butler EN DESHABILLE, but for the presence of a pair of field
+boots into which he had tucked the ends of his trousers. The curious
+thing about him was his face, which was decorated with features so tiny
+as to give the impression of a monstrous child. Each in itself was well
+enough formed, but eyes, nose, mouth, chin were of a smallness
+curiously out of proportion to the head and body. Such an anomaly might
+have been redeemed by the expression; good-humour would have invested
+it with an air of agreeable farce. But there was no friendliness in the
+man's face.  It was set like a judge's in a stony impassiveness.
+
+"May we walk up to the House?"  Heritage asked.  "We are here for a
+night and should like to have a look at it."
+
+The man advanced a step.  He had either a bad cold, or a voice
+comparable in size to his features.
+
+"There's no entrance here," he said huskily. "I have strict orders."
+
+"Oh, come now," said Heritage.  "It can do nobody any harm if you let
+us in for half an hour."
+
+The man advanced another step.
+
+"You shall not come in.  Go away from here.  Go away, I tell you. It is
+private."  The words spoken by the small mouth in the small voice had a
+kind of childish ferocity.
+
+The travellers turned their back on him and continued their way.
+
+"Sich a curmudgeon!"  Dickson commented.  His face had flushed, for he
+was susceptible to rudeness.  "Did you notice?  That man's a foreigner."
+
+"He's a brute," said Heritage.  "But I'm not going to be done in by
+that class of lad.  There can be no gates on the sea side, so we'll
+work round that way, for I won't sleep till I've seen the place."
+
+Presently the trees grew thinner, and the road plunged through thickets
+of hazel till it came to a sudden stop in a field. There the cover
+ceased wholly, and below them lay the glen of the Laver.  Steep green
+banks descended to a stream which swept in coils of gold into the eye
+of the sunset.  A little farther down the channel broadened, the slopes
+fell back a little, and a tongue of glittering sea ran up to meet the
+hill waters.  The Laver is a gentle stream after it leaves its cradle
+heights, a stream of clear pools and long bright shallows, winding by
+moorland steadings and upland meadows; but in its last half-mile it
+goes mad, and imitates its childhood when it tumbled over granite
+shelves.  Down in that green place the crystal water gushed and
+frolicked as if determined on one hour of rapturous life before joining
+the sedater sea.
+
+Heritage flung himself on the turf.
+
+"This is a good place!  Ye gods, what a good place!  Dogson, aren't you
+glad you came?  I think everything's bewitched to-night. That village
+is bewitched, and that old woman's tea.  Good white magic! And that
+foul innkeeper and that brigand at the gate.  Black magic! And now here
+is the home of all enchantment--'island valley of Avilion'--'waters
+that listen for lovers'--all the rest of it!"
+
+Dickson observed and marvelled.
+
+"I can't make you out, Mr. Heritage.  You were saying last night you
+were a great democrat, and yet you were objecting to yon laddies
+camping on the moor.  And you very near bit the neb off me when I said
+I liked Tennyson.  And now..."  Mr. McCunn's command of language was
+inadequate to describe the transformation.
+
+"You're a precise, pragmatical Scot," was the answer.  "Hang it, man,
+don't remind me that I'm inconsistent.  I've a poet's licence to play
+the fool, and if you don't understand me, I don't in the least
+understand myself.  All I know is that I'm feeling young and jolly, and
+that it's the Spring."
+
+Mr. Heritage was assuredly in a strange mood.  He began to whistle with
+a far-away look in his eye.
+
+"Do you know what that is?" he asked suddenly.
+
+Dickson, who could not detect any tune, said "No."
+
+"It's an aria from a Russian opera that came out just before the war.
+I've forgotten the name of the fellow who wrote it.  Jolly thing, isn't
+it?  I always remind myself of it when I'm in this mood, for it is
+linked with the greatest experience of my life.  You said, I think,
+that you had never been in love?"
+
+Dickson replied in the native fashion.  "Have you?" he asked.
+
+"I have, and I am--been for two years.  I was down with my battalion on
+the Italian front early in 1918, and because I could speak the language
+they hoicked me out and sent me to Rome on a liaison job. It was Easter
+time and fine weather, and, being glad to get out of the trenches, I
+was pretty well pleased with myself and enjoying life.... In the place
+where I stayed there was a girl.  She was a Russian, a princess of a
+great family, but a refugee, and of course as poor as sin.... I
+remember how badly dressed she was among all the well-to-do Romans.
+But, my God, what a beauty!  There was never anything in the world like
+her....  She was little more than a child, and she used to sing that
+air in the morning as she went down the stairs.... They sent me back to
+the front before I had a chance of getting to know her, but she used to
+give me little timid good mornings, and her voice and eyes were like an
+angel's.... I'm over my head in love, but it's hopeless, quite
+hopeless.  I shall never see her again."
+
+"I'm sure I'm honoured by your confidence," said Dickson reverently.
+
+The Poet, who seemed to draw exhilaration from the memory of his
+sorrows, arose and fetched him a clout on the back.  "Don't talk of
+confidence, as if you were a reporter," he said.  "What about that
+House?  If we're to see it before the dark comes we'd better hustle."
+
+The green slopes on their left, as they ran seaward, were clothed
+towards their summit with a tangle of broom and light scrub. The two
+forced their way through it, and found to their surprise that on this
+side there were no defences of the Huntingtower demesne. Along the
+crest ran a path which had once been gravelled and trimmed. Beyond,
+through a thicket of laurels and rhododendrons, they came on a long
+unkempt aisle of grass, which seemed to be one of those side avenues
+often found in connection with old Scots dwellings. Keeping along this
+they reached a grove of beech and holly through which showed a dim
+shape of masonry.  By a common impulse they moved stealthily, crouching
+in cover, till at the far side of the wood they found a sunk fence and
+looked over an acre or two of what had once been lawn and flower-beds
+to the front of the mansion.
+
+The outline of the building was clearly silhouetted against the glowing
+west, but since they were looking at the east face the detail was all
+in shadow.  But, dim as it was, the sight was enough to give Dickson
+the surprise of his life.  He had expected something old and baronial.
+But this was new, raw and new, not twenty years built. Some madness had
+prompted its creator to set up a replica of a Tudor house in a
+countryside where the thing was unheard of.  All the tricks were
+there--oriel windows, lozenged panes, high twisted chimney stacks; the
+very stone was red, as if to imitate the mellow brick of some ancient
+Kentish manor.  It was new, but it was also decaying. The creepers had
+fallen from the walls, the pilasters on the terrace were tumbling down,
+lichen and moss were on the doorsteps.  Shuttered, silent, abandoned,
+it stood like a harsh memento mori of human hopes.
+
+Dickson had never before been affected by an inanimate thing with so
+strong a sense of disquiet.  He had pictured an old stone tower on a
+bright headland; he found instead this raw thing among trees. The
+decadence of the brand-new repels as something against nature, and this
+new thing was decadent.  But there was a mysterious life in it, for
+though not a chimney smoked, it seemed to enshrine a personality and to
+wear a sinister aura.  He felt a lively distaste, which was almost
+fear.  He wanted to get far away from it as fast as possible.  The sun,
+now sinking very low, sent up rays which kindled the crests of a group
+of firs to the left of the front door.
+
+He had the absurd fancy that they were torches flaming before a bier.
+
+It was well that the two had moved quietly and kept in shadow.
+Footsteps fell on their ears, on the path which threaded the lawn just
+beyond the sunk-fence.  It was the keeper of the West Lodge and he
+carried something on his back, but both that and his face were
+indistinct in the half-light.
+
+Other footsteps were heard, coming from the other side of the lawn. A
+man's shod feet rang on the stone of a flagged path, and from their
+irregular fall it was plain that he was lame.  The two men met near the
+door, and spoke together.  Then they separated, and moved one down each
+side of the house.  To the two watchers they had the air of a patrol,
+or of warders pacing the corridors of a prison.
+
+"Let's get out of this," said Dickson, and turned to go.
+
+The air had the curious stillness which precedes the moment of sunset,
+when the birds of day have stopped their noises and the sounds of night
+have not begun.  But suddenly in the silence fell notes of music.  They
+seemed to come from the house, a voice singing softly but with great
+beauty and clearness.
+
+Dickson halted in his steps.  The tune, whatever it was, was like a
+fresh wind to blow aside his depression.  The house no longer looked
+sepulchral. He saw that the two men had hurried back from their patrol,
+had met and exchanged some message, and made off again as if alarmed by
+the music. Then he noticed his companion....
+
+Heritage was on one knee with his face rapt and listening. He got to
+his feet and appeared to be about to make for the House. Dickson caught
+him by the arm and dragged him into the bushes, and he followed
+unresistingly, like a man in a dream.  They ploughed through the
+thicket, recrossed the grass avenue, and scrambled down the hillside to
+the banks of the stream.
+
+Then for the first time Dickson observed that his companion's face was
+very white, and that sweat stood on his temples.  Heritage lay down and
+lapped up water like a dog.  Then he turned a wild eye on the other.
+
+"I am going back," he said.  "That is the voice of the girl I saw in
+Rome, and it is singing her song!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DOUGAL
+
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Dickson.  "You're coming home to
+your supper.  It was to be on the chap of nine."
+
+"I'm going back to that place."
+
+The man was clearly demented and must be humoured.  "Well, you must
+wait till the morn's morning.  It's very near dark now, and those are
+two ugly customers wandering about yonder.  You'd better sleep the
+night on it."
+
+Mr. Heritage seemed to be persuaded.  He suffered himself to be led up
+the now dusky slopes to the gate where the road from the village ended.
+He walked listlessly like a man engaged in painful reflection.  Once
+only he broke the silence.
+
+"You heard the singing?" he asked.
+
+Dickson was a very poor hand at a lie.  "I heard something," he
+admitted.
+
+"You heard a girl's voice singing?"
+
+"It sounded like that," was the admission.  "But I'm thinking it might
+have been a seagull."
+
+"You're a fool," said the Poet rudely.
+
+The return was a melancholy business, compared to the bright speed of
+the outward journey.  Dickson's mind was a chaos of feelings, all of
+them unpleasant.  He had run up against something which he violently,
+blindly detested, and the trouble was that he could not tell why.  It
+was all perfectly absurd, for why on earth should an ugly house, some
+overgrown trees, and a couple of ill-favoured servants so malignly
+affect him?  Yet this was the fact; he had strayed out of Arcady into a
+sphere that filled him with revolt and a nameless fear.  Never in his
+experience had he felt like this, this foolish childish panic which
+took all the colour and zest out of life.  He tried to laugh at himself
+but failed.  Heritage, stumbling along by his side, effectually crushed
+his effort to discover humour in the situation.  Some exhalation from
+that infernal place had driven the Poet mad.  And then that voice
+singing! A seagull, he had said.  More like a nightingale, he
+reflected--a bird which in the flesh he had never met.
+
+Mrs. Morran had the lamp lit and a fire burning in her cheerful
+kitchen.  The sight of it somewhat restored Dickson's equanimity, and
+to his surprise he found that he had an appetite for supper. There was
+new milk, thick with cream, and most of the dainties which had appeared
+at tea, supplemented by a noble dish of shimmering "potted-head."  The
+hostess did not share their meal, being engaged in some duties in the
+little cubby-hole known as the back kitchen.
+
+Heritage drank a glass of milk but would not touch food.
+
+"I called this place Paradise four hours ago," he said.  "So it is, but
+I fancy it is next door to Hell.  There is something devilish going on
+inside that park wall, and I mean to get to the bottom of it."
+
+"Hoots!  Nonsense!"  Dickson replied with affected cheerfulness.
+"To-morrow you and me will take the road for Auchenlochan. We needn't
+trouble ourselves about an ugly old house and a wheen impident
+lodge-keepers."
+
+"To-morrow I'm going to get inside the place.  Don't come unless you
+like, but it's no use arguing with me.  My mind is made up."
+
+Heritage cleared a space on the table and spread out a section of a
+large-scale Ordnance map.
+
+"I must clear my head about the topography, the same as if this were a
+battle-ground.  Look here, Dogson....  The road past the inn that we
+went by to-night runs north and south."  He tore a page from a
+note-book and proceeded to make a rough sketch....  "One end we know
+abuts on the Laver glen, and the other stops at the South Lodge. Inside
+the wall which follows the road is a long belt of plantation--mostly
+beeches and ash--then to the west a kind of park, and beyond that the
+lawns of the house.  Strips of plantation with avenues between follow
+the north and south sides of the park.  On the sea side of the House
+are the stables and what looks like a walled garden, and beyond them
+what seems to be open ground with an old dovecot marked, and the ruins
+of Huntingtower keep.  Beyond that there is more open ground, till you
+come to the cliffs of the cape. Have you got that?... It looks possible
+from the contouring to get on to the sea cliffs by following the Laver,
+for all that side is broken up into ravines.... But look at the other
+side--the Garple glen. It's evidently a deep-cut gully, and at the
+bottom it opens out into a little harbour.  There's deep water there,
+you observe.  Now the House on the south side--the Garple side--is
+built fairly close to the edge of the cliffs.  Is that all clear in
+your head?  We can't reconnoitre unless we've got a working notion of
+the lie of the land."
+
+Dickson was about to protest that he had no intention of reconnoitring,
+when a hubbub arose in the back kitchen. Mrs. Morran's voice was heard
+in shrill protest.
+
+"Ye ill laddie!  Eh--ye--ill--laddie! (crescendo)  Makin' a hash o' my
+back door wi' your dirty feet!  What are ye slinkin' roond here for,
+when I tell't ye this mornin' that I wad sell ye nae mair scones till
+ye paid for the last lot?  Ye're a wheen thievin' hungry callants, and
+if there were a polisman in the place I'd gie ye in chairge.... What's
+that ye say?  Ye're no' wantin' meat?  Ye want to speak to the
+gentlemen that's bidin' here?  Ye ken the auld ane, says you?  I
+believe it's a muckle lee, but there's the gentlemen to answer ye
+theirsels."
+
+Mrs. Morran, brandishing a dishclout dramatically, flung open the door,
+and with a vigorous push propelled into the kitchen a singular figure.
+
+It was a stunted boy, who from his face might have been fifteen years
+old, but had the stature of a child of twelve.  He had a thatch of
+fiery red hair above a pale freckled countenance. His nose was snub,
+his eyes a sulky grey-green, and his wide mouth disclosed large and
+damaged teeth.  But remarkable as was his visage, his clothing was
+still stranger.  On his head was the regulation Boy Scout hat, but it
+was several sizes too big, and was squashed down upon his immense red
+ears.  He wore a very ancient khaki shirt, which had once belonged to a
+full-grown soldier, and the spacious sleeves were rolled up at the
+shoulders and tied with string, revealing a pair of skinny arms.  Round
+his middle hung what was meant to be a kilt--a kilt of home
+manufacture, which may once have been a tablecloth, for its bold
+pattern suggested no known clan tartan.  He had a massive belt, in
+which was stuck a broken gully-knife, and round his neck was knotted
+the remnant of what had once been a silk bandanna.  His legs and feet
+were bare, blue, scratched, and very dirty, and this toes had the
+prehensile look common to monkeys and small boys who summer and winter
+go bootless. In his hand was a long ash-pole, new cut from some coppice.
+
+The apparition stood glum and lowering on the kitchen floor. As Dickson
+stared at it he recalled Mearns Street and the band of irregular Boy
+Scouts who paraded to the roll of tin cans. Before him stood Dougal,
+Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards. Suddenly he remembered the
+philanthropic Mackintosh, and his own subscription of ten pounds to the
+camp fund.  It pleased him to find the rascals here, for in the
+unpleasant affairs on the verge of which he felt himself they were a
+comforting reminder of the peace of home.
+
+"I'm glad to see you, Dougal," he said pleasantly.  "How are you all
+getting on?"  And then, with a vague reminiscence of the Scouts'
+code--"Have you been minding to perform a good deed every day?"
+
+The Chieftain's brow darkened.
+
+"'Good Deeds!'" he repeated bitterly.  "I tell ye I'm fair wore out wi'
+good deeds.  Yon man Mackintosh tell't me this was going to be a grand
+holiday.  Holiday!  Govey Dick!  It's been like a Setterday night in
+Main Street--a' fechtin', fechtin'."
+
+No collocation of letters could reproduce Dougal's accent, and I will
+not attempt it.  There was a touch of Irish in it, a spice of
+music-hall patter, as well as the odd lilt of the Glasgow vernacular.
+He was strong in vowels, but the consonants, especially the letter "t,"
+were only aspirations.
+
+"Sit down and let's hear about things," said Dickson.
+
+The boy turned his head to the still open back door, where Mrs. Morran
+could be heard at her labours.  He stepped across and shut it. "I'm no'
+wantin' that auld wife to hear," he said.  Then he squatted down on the
+patchwork rug by the hearth, and warmed his blue-black shins. Looking
+into the glow of the fire, he observed, "I seen you two up by the Big
+Hoose the night."
+
+"The devil you did," said Heritage, roused to a sudden attention. "And
+where were you?"
+
+"Seven feet from your head, up a tree.  It's my chief hidy-hole, and
+Gosh! I need one, for Lean's after me wi' a gun.  He had a shot at me
+two days syne."
+
+Dickson exclaimed, and Dougal with morose pride showed a rent in his
+kilt.  "If I had had on breeks, he'd ha' got me."
+
+"Who's Lean?" Heritage asked.
+
+"The man wi' the black coat.  The other--the lame one--they ca'
+Spittal."
+
+"How d'you know?"
+
+"I've listened to them crackin' thegither."
+
+"But what for did the man want to shoot at you?" asked the scandalized
+Dickson.
+
+"What for?  Because they're frightened to death o' onybody going near
+their auld Hoose.  They're a pair of deevils, worse nor any Red Indian,
+but for a' that they're sweatin' wi' fright.  What for? says you.
+Because they're hiding a Secret.  I knew it as soon as I seen the man
+Lean's face.  I once seen the same kind o' scoondrel at the Picters.
+When he opened his mouth to swear, I kenned he was a foreigner, like
+the lads down at the Broomielaw.  That looked black, but I hadn't got
+at the worst of it.  Then he loosed off at me wi' his gun."
+
+"Were you not feared?" said Dickson.
+
+"Ay, I was feared.  But ye'll no' choke off the Gorbals Die-Hards wi' a
+gun.  We held a meetin' round the camp fire, and we resolved to get to
+the bottom o' the business.  Me bein' their Chief, it was my duty to
+make what they ca' a reckonissince, for that was the dangerous job.  So
+a' this day I've been going on my belly about thae policies.  I've
+found out some queer things."
+
+Heritage had risen and was staring down at the small squatting figure.
+
+"What have you found out?  Quick.  Tell me at once."  His voice was
+sharp and excited.
+
+"Bide a wee," said the unwinking Dougal.  "I'm no' going to let ye into
+this business till I ken that ye'll help.  It's a far bigger job than I
+thought.  There's more in it than Lean and Spittal. There's the big man
+that keeps the public--Dobson, they ca' him. He's a Namerican, which
+looks bad.  And there's two-three tinklers campin' down in the Garple
+Dean.  They're in it, for Dobson was colloguin' wi' them a' mornin'.
+When I seen ye, I thought ye were more o' the gang, till I mindit that
+one o' ye was auld McCunn that has the shop in Mearns Street.  I seen
+that ye didna' like the look o' Lean, and I followed ye here, for I was
+thinkin' I needit help."
+
+Heritage plucked Dougal by the shoulder and lifted him to his feet.
+
+"For God's sake, boy," he cried, "tell us what you know!"
+
+"Will ye help?"
+
+"Of course, you little fool."
+
+"Then swear," said the ritualist.  From a grimy wallet he extracted a
+limp little volume which proved to be a damaged copy of a work entitled
+Sacred Songs and Solos.  "Here!  Take that in your right hand and put
+your left hand on my pole, and say after me.  'I swear no' to blab what
+is telled me in secret, and to be swift and sure in obeyin' orders,
+s'help me God!'  Syne kiss the bookie."
+
+Dickson at first refused, declaring that it was all havers, but
+Heritage's docility persuaded him to follow suit. The two were sworn.
+
+"Now," said Heritage.
+
+Dougal squatted again on the hearth-rug, and gathered the eyes of his
+audience.  He was enjoying himself.
+
+"This day," he said slowly, "I got inside the Hoose."
+
+"Stout fellow," said Heritage; "and what did you find there?"
+
+"I got inside that Hoose, but it wasn't once or twice I tried. I found
+a corner where I was out o' sight o' anybody unless they had come there
+seekin' me, and I sklimmed up a rone pipe, but a' the windies were
+lockit and I verra near broke my neck.  Syne I tried the roof, and a
+sore sklim I had, but when I got there there were no skylights.  At the
+end I got in by the coal-hole.  That's why ye're maybe thinkin' I'm no'
+very clean."
+
+Heritage's patience was nearly exhausted.
+
+"I don't want to hear how you got in.  What did you find, you little
+devil?"
+
+"Inside the Hoose," said Dougal slowly (and there was a melancholy
+sense of anti-climax in his voice, as of one who had hoped to speak of
+gold and jewels and armed men)--"inside that Hoose there's nothing but
+two women."
+
+Heritage sat down before him with a stern face.
+
+"Describe them," he commanded.
+
+"One o' them is dead auld, as auld as the wife here.  She didn't look
+to me very right in the head."
+
+"And the other?"
+
+"Oh, just a lassie."
+
+"What was she like?"
+
+Dougal seemed to be searching for adequate words.  "She is..." he
+began.  Then a popular song gave him inspiration.  "She's pure as the
+lully in the dell!"
+
+In no way discomposed by Heritage's fierce interrogatory air, he
+continued: "She's either foreign or English, for she couldn't
+understand what I said, and I could make nothing o' her clippit tongue.
+But I could see she had been greetin'.  She looked feared, yet kind o'
+determined.  I speired if I could do anything for her, and when she got
+my meaning she was terrible anxious to ken if I had seen a man--a big
+man, she said, wi' a yellow beard.  She didn't seem to ken his name, or
+else she wouldna' tell me.  The auld wife was mortal feared, and was
+aye speakin' in a foreign langwidge.  I seen at once that what
+frightened them was Lean and his friends, and I was just starting to
+speir about them when there came a sound like a man walkin' along the
+passage.  She was for hidin' me in behind a sofy, but I wasn't going to
+be trapped like that, so I got out by the other door and down the
+kitchen stairs and into the coal-hole.  Gosh, it was a near thing!"
+
+
+The boy was on his feet.  "I must be off to the camp to give out the
+orders for the morn.  I'm going back to that Hoose, for it's a fight
+atween the Gorbals Die-Hards and the scoondrels that are frightenin'
+thae women.  The question is, Are ye comin' with me?  Mind, ye've
+sworn. But if ye're no, I'm going mysel', though I'll no' deny I'd be
+glad o' company.  You anyway--" he added, nodding at Heritage. "Maybe
+auld McCunn wouldn't get through the coal-hole."
+
+"You're an impident laddie," said the outraged Dickson.  "It's no'
+likely we're coming with you.  Breaking into other folks' houses! It's
+a job for the police!"
+
+"Please yersel'," said the Chieftain, and looked at Heritage.
+
+"I'm on," said that gentleman.
+
+"Well, just you set out the morn as if ye were for a walk up the Garple
+glen.  I'll be on the road and I'll have orders for ye."
+
+Without more ado Dougal left by way of the back kitchen.  There was a
+brief denunciation from Mrs. Morran, then the outer door banged and he
+was gone.
+
+The Poet sat still with his head in his hands, while Dickson, acutely
+uneasy, prowled about the floor.  He had forgotten even to light his
+pipe.  "You'll not be thinking of heeding that ragamuffin boy," he
+ventured.
+
+"I'm certainly going to get into the House tomorrow," Heritage
+answered, "and if he can show me a way so much the better. He's a
+spirited youth.  Do you breed many like him in Glasgow?"
+
+"Plenty," said Dickson sourly.  "See here, Mr. Heritage.  You can't
+expect me to be going about burgling houses on the word of a blagyird
+laddie.  I'm a respectable man--aye been.  Besides, I'm here for a
+holiday, and I've no call to be mixing myself up in strangers' affairs."
+
+"You haven't.  Only you see, I think there's a friend of mine in that
+place, and anyhow there are women in trouble.  If you like, we'll say
+goodbye after breakfast, and you can continue as if you had never
+turned aside to this damned peninsula.  But I've got to stay."
+
+Dickson groaned.  What had become of his dream of idylls, his gentle
+bookish romance?  Vanished before a reality which smacked horribly of
+crude melodrama and possibly of sordid crime.  His gorge rose at the
+picture, but a thought troubled him.  Perhaps all romance in its hour
+of happening was rough and ugly like this, and only shone rosy in
+retrospect.  Was he being false to his deepest faith?
+
+"Let's have Mrs. Morran in," he ventured.  "She's a wise old body and
+I'd like to hear her opinion of this business.  We'll get common sense
+from her."
+
+"I don't object," said Heritage.  "But no amount of common sense will
+change my mind."
+
+Their hostess forestalled them by returning at that moment to the
+kitchen.
+
+"We want your advice, mistress," Dickson told her, and accordingly,
+like a barrister with a client, she seated herself carefully in the big
+easy chair, found and adjusted her spectacles, and waited with hands
+folded on her lap to hear the business.  Dickson narrated their
+pre-supper doings, and gave a sketch of Dougal's evidence. His
+exposition was cautious and colourless, and without conviction. He
+seemed to expect a robust incredulity in his hearer.
+
+Mrs. Morran listened with the gravity of one in church.  When Dickson
+finished she seemed to meditate.  "There's no blagyird trick that would
+surprise me in thae new folk.  What's that ye ca' them--Lean and
+Spittal?  Eppie Home threepit to me they were furriners, and these are
+no furrin names."
+
+"What I want to hear from you, Mrs. Morran," said Dickson impressively,
+"is whether you think there's anything in that boy's story?"
+
+"I think it's maist likely true.  He's a terrible impident callant, but
+he's no' a leear."
+
+"Then you think that a gang of ruffians have got two lone women shut up
+in that house for their own purposes?"
+
+"I wadna wonder."
+
+"But it's ridiculous!  This is a Christian and law-abiding country.
+What would the police say?"
+
+"They never troubled Dalquharter muckle.  There's no' a polisman nearer
+than Knockraw--yin Johnnie Trummle, and he's as useless as a frostit
+tattie."
+
+"The wiselike thing, as I think," said Dickson, "would be to turn the
+Procurator-Fiscal on to the job.  It's his business, no' ours."
+
+"Well, I wadna say but ye're richt,' said the lady.
+
+"What would you do if you were us?" Dickson's tone was subtly
+confidential.  "My friend here wants to get into the House the morn
+with that red-haired laddie to satisfy himself about the facts. I say
+no.  Let sleeping dogs lie, I say, and if you think the beasts are mad,
+report to the authorities.  What would you do yourself?"
+
+"If I were you," came the emphatic reply, "I would tak' the first train
+hame the morn, and when I got hame I wad bide there.  Ye're a dacent
+body, but ye're no' the kind to be traivellin' the roads."
+
+"And if you were me?' Heritage asked with his queer crooked smile.
+
+"If I was young and yauld like you I wad gang into the Hoose, and I
+wadna rest till I had riddled oot the truith and jyled every scoondrel
+about the place.  If ye dinna gang, 'faith I'll kilt my coats and gang
+mysel'.  I havena served the Kennedys for forty year no' to hae the
+honour o' the Hoose at my hert.... Ye've speired my advice, sirs, and
+ye've gotten it.  Now I maun clear awa' your supper."
+
+Dickson asked for a candle, and, as on the previous night, went
+abruptly to bed.  The oracle of prudence to which he had appealed had
+betrayed him and counselled folly.  But was it folly?  For him,
+assuredly, for Dickson McCunn, late of Mearns Street, Glasgow,
+wholesale and retail provision merchant, elder in the Guthrie Memorial
+Kirk, and fifty-five years of age.  Ay, that was the rub. He was
+getting old.  The woman had seen it and had advised him to go home.
+Yet the plea was curiously irksome, though it gave him the excuse he
+needed.  If you played at being young, you had to take up the
+obligations of youth, and he thought derisively of his boyish
+exhilaration of the past days.  Derisively, but also sadly. What had
+become of that innocent joviality he had dreamed of, that happy morning
+pilgrimage of Spring enlivened by tags from the poets?  His goddess had
+played him false.  Romance had put upon him too hard a trial.
+
+He lay long awake, torn between common sense and a desire to be loyal
+to some vague whimsical standard.  Heritage a yard distant appeared
+also to be sleepless, for the bed creaked with his turning. Dickson
+found himself envying one whose troubles, whatever they might be, were
+not those of a divided mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OF THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER
+
+
+Very early the next morning, while Mrs. Morran was still cooking
+breakfast, Dickson and Heritage might have been observed taking the air
+in the village street.  It was the Poet who had insisted upon this
+walk, and he had his own purpose.  They looked at the spires of smoke
+piercing the windless air, and studied the daffodils in the cottage
+gardens.  Dickson was glum, but Heritage seemed in high spirits. He
+varied his garrulity with spells of cheerful whistling.
+
+They strode along the road by the park wall till they reached the inn.
+There Heritage's music waxed peculiarly loud.  Presently from the yard,
+unshaven and looking as if he had slept in this clothes, came Dobson
+the innkeeper.
+
+"Good morning," said the poet.  "I hope the sickness in your house is
+on the mend?"
+
+"Thank ye, it's no worse," was the reply, but in the man's heavy face
+there was little civility.  His small grey eyes searched their faces.
+
+"We're just waiting for breakfast to get on the road again. I'm jolly
+glad we spent the night here.  We found quarters after all, you know."
+
+"So I see.  Whereabouts, may I ask?"
+
+"Mrs. Morran's.  We could always have got in there, but we didn't want
+to fuss an old lady, so we thought we'd try the inn first. She's my
+friend's aunt."
+
+At this amazing falsehood Dickson started, and the man observed his
+surprise.  The eyes were turned on him like a searchlight. They roused
+antagonism in his peaceful soul, and with that antagonism came an
+impulse to back up the Poet.  "Ay," he said, "she's my auntie Phemie,
+my mother's half-sister."
+
+The man turned on Heritage.
+
+"Where are ye for the day?"
+
+"Auchenlochan," said Dickson hastily.  He was still determined to shake
+the dust of Dalquharter from his feet.
+
+The innkeeper sensibly brightened.  "Well, ye'll have a fine walk. I
+must go in and see about my own breakfast.  Good day to ye, gentlemen."
+
+"That," said Heritage as they entered the village street again, "is the
+first step in camouflage, to put the enemy off his guard."
+
+"It was an abominable lie," said Dickson crossly.
+
+"Not at all.  It was a necessary and proper ruse de guerre. It
+explained why we spent the right here, and now Dobson and his friends
+can get about their day's work with an easy mind. Their suspicions are
+temporarily allayed, and that will make our job easier."
+
+"I'm not coming with you."
+
+"I never said you were.  By 'we' I refer to myself and the red-headed
+boy."
+
+"Mistress, you're my auntie," Dickson informed Mrs. Morran as she set
+the porridge on the table.  "This gentleman has just been telling the
+man at the inn that you're my Auntie Phemie."
+
+For a second their hostess looked bewildered.  Then the corners of her
+prim mouth moved upwards in a slow smile.
+
+"I see," she said.  "Weel, maybe it was weel done.  But if ye're my
+nevoy ye'll hae to keep up my credit, for we're a bauld and siccar lot."
+
+Half an hour later there was a furious dissension when Dickson
+attempted to pay for the night's entertainment.  Mrs. Morran would have
+none of it.  "Ye're no' awa' yet," she said tartly, and the matter was
+complicated by Heritage's refusal to take part in the debate.  He stood
+aside and grinned, till Dickson in despair returned his notecase to his
+pocket, murmuring darkly the "he would send it from Glasgow."
+
+The road to Auchenlochan left the main village street at right angles
+by the side of Mrs. Morran's cottage.  It was a better road than that
+by which they had come yesterday, for by it twice daily the postcart
+travelled to the post-town.  It ran on the edge of the moor and on the
+lip of the Garple glen, till it crossed that stream and, keeping near
+the coast, emerged after five miles into the cultivated flats of the
+Lochan valley.  The morning was fine, the keen air invited to high
+spirits, plovers piped entrancingly over the bent and linnets sang in
+the whins, there was a solid breakfast behind him, and the promise of a
+cheerful road till luncheon. The stage was set for good humour, but
+Dickson's heart, which should have been ascending with the larks, stuck
+leadenly in his boots. He was not even relieved at putting Dalquharter
+behind him. The atmosphere of that unhallowed place lay still on his
+soul. He hated it, but he hated himself more.  Here was one, who had
+hugged himself all his days as an adventurer waiting his chance,
+running away at the first challenge of adventure; a lover of Romance
+who fled from the earliest overture of his goddess.  He was ashamed and
+angry, but what else was there to do?  Burglary in the company of a
+queer poet and a queerer urchin?  It was unthinkable.
+
+Presently, as they tramped silently on, they came to the bridge beneath
+which the peaty waters of the Garple ran in porter-coloured pools and
+tawny cascades.  From a clump of elders on the other side Dougal
+emerged.  A barefoot boy, dressed in much the same parody of a Boy
+Scout's uniform, but with corduroy shorts instead of a kilt, stood
+before him at rigid attention.  Some command was issued, the child
+saluted, and trotted back past the travellers with never a look at
+them.  Discipline was strong among the Gorbals Die-Hards; no Chief of
+Staff ever conversed with his General under a stricter etiquette.
+
+Dougal received the travellers with the condescension of a regular
+towards civilians.
+
+"They're off their gawrd," he announced.  "Thomas Yownie has been
+shadowin' them since skreigh o' day, and he reports that Dobson and
+Lean followed ye till ye were out o' sight o' the houses, and syne Lean
+got a spy-glass and watched ye till the road turned in among the trees.
+That satisfied them, and they're both away back to their jobs.  Thomas
+Yownie's the fell yin.  Ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+Dougal extricated from his pouch the fag of a cigarette, lit it, and
+puffed meditatively.  "I did a reckonissince mysel' this morning. I was
+up at the Hoose afore it was light, and tried the door o' the
+coal-hole.  I doot they've gotten on our tracks, for it was
+lockit--aye, and wedged from the inside."
+
+Dickson brightened.  Was the insane venture off?
+
+"For a wee bit I was fair beat.  But I mindit that the lassie was
+allowed to walk in a kind o' a glass hoose on the side farthest away
+from the Garple.  That was where she was singin' yest'reen.  So I
+reckonissinced in that direction, and I fund a queer place." Sacred
+Songs and Solos was requisitioned, and on a page of it Dougal proceeded
+to make marks with the stump of a carpenter's pencil. "See here," he
+commanded.  "There's the glass place wi' a door into the Hoose.  That
+door maun be open or the lassie maun hae the key, for she comes there
+whenever she likes.  Now' at each end o' the place the doors are
+lockit, but the front that looks on the garden is open, wi' muckle
+posts and flower-pots.  The trouble is that that side there' maybe
+twenty feet o' a wall between the pawrapet and the ground.  It's an
+auld wall wi' cracks and holes in it, and it wouldn't be ill to sklim.
+That's why they let her gang there when she wants, for a lassie
+couldn't get away without breakin' her neck."
+
+"Could we climb it?" Heritage asked.
+
+The boy wrinkled his brows.  "I could manage it mysel'--I think--and
+maybe you.  I doubt if auld McCunn could get up.  Ye'd have to be
+mighty carefu' that nobody saw ye, for your hinder end, as ye were
+sklimmin', wad be a grand mark for a gun."
+
+"Lead on," said Heritage.  "We'll try the verandah."
+
+They both looked at Dickson, and Dickson, scarlet in the face, looked
+back at them.  He had suddenly found the thought of a solitary march to
+Auchenlochan intolerable.  Once again he was at the parting of the
+ways, and once more caprice determined his decision.  That the
+coal-hole was out of the question had worked a change in his views,
+Somehow it seemed to him less burglarious to enter by a verandah.  He
+felt very frightened but--for the moment--quite resolute.
+
+"I'm coming with you," he said.
+
+"Sportsman," said Heritage, and held out his hand.  "Well done, the
+auld yin," said the Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards.  Dickson's
+quaking heart experienced a momentary bound as he followed Heritage
+down the track into the Garple Dean.
+
+The track wound through a thick covert of hazels, now close to the
+rushing water, now high upon the bank so that clear sky showed through
+the fringes of the wood.  When they had gone a little way Dougal halted
+them.
+
+"It's a ticklish job," he whispered.  "There's the tinklers, mind,
+that's campin' in the Dean.  If they're still in their camp we can get
+by easy enough, but they're maybe wanderin' about the wud after
+rabbits.... Then we maun ford the water, for ye'll no' cross it lower
+down where it's deep.... Our road is on the Hoose side o' the Dean, and
+it's awfu' public if there's onybody on the other side, though it's hid
+well enough from folk up in the policies.... Ye maun do exactly what I
+tell ye.  When we get near danger I'll scout on ahead, and I daur ye to
+move a hair o' your heid till I give the word."
+
+Presently, when they were at the edge of the water, Dougal announced
+his intention of crossing.  Three boulders in the stream made a bridge
+for an active man, and Heritage hopped lightly over.  Not so Dickson,
+who stuck fast on the second stone, and would certainly have fallen in
+had not Dougal plunged into the current and steadied him with a grimy
+hand.  The leap was at last successfully taken, and the three scrambled
+up a rough scaur, all reddened with iron springs, till they struck a
+slender track running down the Dean on its northern side.  Here the
+undergrowth was very thick, and they had gone the better part of half a
+mile before the covert thinned sufficiently to show them the stream
+beneath.  Then Dougal halted them with a finger on his lips, and crept
+forward alone.
+
+He returned in three minutes.  "Coast's clear," he whispered.  "The
+tinklers are eatin' their breakfast.  They're late at their meat though
+they're up early seekin' it."
+
+Progress was now very slow and secret, and mainly on all fours. At one
+point Dougal nodded downward, and the other two saw on a patch of turf,
+where the Garple began to widen into its estuary, a group of figures
+round a small fire.  There were four of them, all men, and Dickson
+thought he had never seen such ruffianly-looking customers.  After that
+they moved high up the slope, in a shallow glade of a tributary burn,
+till they came out of the trees and found themselves looking seaward.
+
+On one side was the House, a hundred yards or so back from the edge,
+the roof showing above the precipitous scarp.  Half-way down the slope
+became easier, a jumble of boulders and boiler-plates, till it reached
+the waters of the small haven, which lay calm as a mill-pond in the
+windless forenoon.  The haven broadened out at its foot and revealed a
+segment of blue sea.  The opposite shore was flatter, and showed what
+looked like an old wharf and the ruins of buildings, behind which rose
+a bank clad with scrub and surmounted by some gnarled and wind-crooked
+firs.
+
+"There's dashed little cover here," said Heritage.
+
+"There's no muckle," Dougal assented.  "But they canna see us from the
+policies, and it's no' like there's anybody watchin' from the Hoose.
+The danger is somebody on the other side, but we'll have to risk it.
+Once among thae big stones we're safe.  Are ye ready?"
+
+Five minutes later Dickson found himself gasping in the lee of a
+boulder, while Dougal was making a cast forward.  The scout returned
+with a hopeful report.  "I think we're safe till we get into the
+policies.  There's a road that the auld folk made when ships used to
+come here.  Down there it's deeper than Clyde at the Broomielaw.  Has
+the auld yin got his wind yet?  There's no time to waste."
+
+Up that broken hillside they crawled, well in the cover of the tumbled
+stones, till they reached a low wall which was the boundary of the
+garden.  The House was now behind them on their right rear, and as they
+topped the crest they had a glimpse of an ancient dovecot and the ruins
+of the old Huntingtower on the short thymy turf which ran seaward to
+the cliffs.  Dougal led them along a sunk fence which divided the downs
+from the lawns behind the house, and, avoiding the stables, brought
+them by devious ways to a thicket of rhododendrons and broom.  On all
+fours they travelled the length of the place, and came to the edge
+where some forgotten gardeners had once tended a herbaceous border.
+The border was now rank and wild, and, lying flat under the shade of an
+azalea, and peering through the young spears of iris, Dickson and
+Heritage regarded the north-western facade of the house.
+
+The ground before them had been a sunken garden, from which a steep
+wall, once covered with creepers and rock plants, rose to a long
+verandah, which was pillared and open on that side; but at each end
+built up half-way and glazed for the rest.  There was a glass roof, and
+inside untended shrubs sprawled in broken plaster vases.
+
+"Ye maun bide here," said Dougal, "and no cheep above your breath.
+Afore we dare to try that wall, I maun ken where Lean and Spittal and
+Dobson are.  I'm off to spy the policies."  He glided out of sight
+behind a clump of pampas grass.
+
+For hours, so it seemed, Dickson was left to his own unpleasant
+reflections.  His body, prone on the moist earth, was fairly
+comfortable, but his mind was ill at ease.  The scramble up the
+hillside had convinced him that he was growing old, and there was no
+rebound in his soul to counter the conviction.  He felt listless,
+spiritless--an apathy with fright trembling somewhere at the back of
+it.  He regarded the verandah wall with foreboding. How on earth could
+he climb that?  And if he did there would be his exposed hinder-parts
+inviting a shot from some malevolent gentleman among the trees.  He
+reflected that he would give a large sum of money to be out of this
+preposterous adventure.
+
+Heritage's hand was stretched towards him, containing two of Mrs.
+Morran's jellied scones, of which the Poet had been wise enough to
+bring a supply in his pocket.  The food cheered him, for he was growing
+very hungry, and he began to take an interest in the scene before him
+instead of his own thoughts.  He observed every detail of the verandah.
+There was a door at one end, he noted, giving on a path which wound
+down to the sunk garden.  As he looked he heard a sound of steps and
+saw a man ascending this path.
+
+It was the lame man whom Dougal had called Spittal, the dweller in the
+South Lodge.  Seen at closer quarters he was an odd-looking being, lean
+as a heron, wry-necked, but amazingly quick on his feet. Had not Mrs.
+Morran said that he hobbled as fast as other folk ran? He kept his eyes
+on the ground and seemed to be talking to himself as he went, but he
+was alert enough, for the dropping of a twig from a dying magnolia
+transferred him in an instant into a figure of active vigilance.  No
+risks could be run with that watcher.  He took a key from his pocket,
+opened the garden door and entered the verandah. For a moment his
+shuffle sounded on its tiled floor, and then he entered the door
+admitting from the verandah to the House.  It was clearly unlocked, for
+there came no sound of a turning key.
+
+Dickson had finished the last crumbs of his scones before the man
+emerged again.  He seemed to be in a greater hurry than ever as he
+locked the garden door behind him and hobbled along the west front of
+the House till he was lost to sight.  After that the time passed
+slowly.  A pair of yellow wagtails arrived and played at hide-and-seek
+among the stuccoed pillars.  The little dry scratch of their claws was
+heard clearly in the still air.  Dickson had almost fallen asleep when
+a smothered exclamation from Heritage woke him to attention.  A girl
+had appeared in the verandah.
+
+Above the parapet he saw only her body from the waist up. She seemed to
+be clad in bright colours, for something red was round her shoulders
+and her hair was bound with an orange scarf. She was tall--that he
+could tell, tall and slim and very young. Her face was turned seaward,
+and she stood for a little scanning the broad channel, shading her eyes
+as if to search for something on the extreme horizon.  The air was very
+quiet and he thought that he could hear her sigh.  Then she turned and
+re-entered the House, while Heritage by his side began to curse under
+his breathe with a shocking fervour.
+
+
+One of Dickson's troubles had been that he did not believe Dougal's
+story, and the sight of the girl removed one doubt.  That bright exotic
+thing did not belong to the Cruives or to Scotland at all, and that she
+should be in the House removed the place from the conventional dwelling
+to which the laws against burglary applied.
+
+There was a rustle among the rhododendrons and the fiery face of Dougal
+appeared.  He lay between the other two, his chin on his hands, and
+grunted out his report.
+
+"After they had their dinner Dobson and Lean yokit a horse and went off
+to Auchenlochan.  I seen them pass the Garple brig, so that's two
+accounted for.  Has Spittal been round here?"
+
+"Half an hour ago," said Heritage, consulting a wrist watch.
+
+"It was him that keepit me waitin' so long.  But he's safe enough now,
+for five minutes syne he was splittin' firewood at the back door o' his
+hoose.... I've found a ladder, an auld yin in yon lot o' bushes.  It'll
+help wi' the wall.  There!  I've gotten my breath again and we can
+start."
+
+The ladder was fetched by Heritage and proved to be ancient and wanting
+many rungs, but sufficient in length.  The three stood silent for a
+moment, listening like stags, and then ran across the intervening lawn
+to the foot of the verandah wall. Dougal went up first, then Heritage,
+and lastly Dickson, stiff and giddy from his long lie under the bushes.
+Below the parapet the verandah floor was heaped with old garden litter,
+rotten matting, dead or derelict bulbs, fibre, withies, and strawberry
+nets.  It was Dougal's intention to pull up the ladder and hide it
+among the rubbish against the hour of departure.  But Dickson had
+barely put his foot on the parapet when there was a sound of steps
+within the House approaching the verandah door.
+
+The ladder was left alone.  Dougal's hand brought Dickson summarily to
+the floor, where he was fairly well concealed by a mess of matting.
+Unfortunately his head was in the vicinity of some upturned pot-plants,
+so that a cactus ticked his brow and a spike of aloe supported
+painfully the back of his neck.  Heritage was prone behind two old
+water-butts, and Dougal was in a hamper which had once contained seed
+potatoes.  The house door had panels of opaque glass, so the new-comer
+could not see the doings of the three till it was opened, and by that
+time all were in cover.
+
+The man--it was Spittal--walked rapidly along the verandah and out of
+the garden door.  He was talking to himself again, and Dickson, who had
+a glimpse of his face, thought he looked both evil and furious. Then
+came some anxious moments, for had the man glanced back when he was
+once outside, he must have seen the tell-tale ladder.  But he seemed
+immersed in his own reflections, for he hobbled steadily along the
+house front till he was lost to sight.
+
+"That'll be the end o' them the day," said Dougal, as he helped
+Heritage to pull up the ladder and stow it away.  "We've got the place
+to oursels, now.  Forward, men, forward."  He tried the handle of the
+House door and led the way in.
+
+A narrow paved passage took them into what had once been the garden
+room, where the lady of the house had arranged her flowers, and the
+tennis racquets and croquet mallets had been kept.  It was very dusty,
+and on the cobwebbed walls still hung a few soiled garden overalls. A
+door beyond opened into a huge murky hall, murky, for the windows were
+shuttered, and the only light came through things like port-holes far
+up in the wall.  Dougal, who seemed to know his way about, halted them.
+"Stop here till I scout a bit.  The women bide in a wee room through
+that muckle door."  Bare feet stole across the oak flooring, there was
+the sound of a door swinging on its hinges, and then silence and
+darkness.  Dickson put out a hand for companionship and clutched
+Heritage's; to his surprise it was cold and all a-tremble. They
+listened for voices, and thought they could detect a far-away sob.
+
+It was some minutes before Dougal returned.  "A bonny kettle o' fish,"
+he whispered.  "They're both greetin'.  We're just in time. Come on,
+the pair o' ye."
+
+Through a green baize door they entered a passage which led to the
+kitchen regions, and turned in at the first door on their right. From
+its situation Dickson calculated that the room lay on the seaward side
+of the House next to the verandah.  The light was bad, for the two
+windows were partially shuttered, but it had plainly been a
+smoking-room, for there were pipe-racks by the hearth, and on the walls
+a number of old school and college photographs, a couple of oars with
+emblazoned names, and a variety of stags' and roebucks' heads. There
+was no fire in the grate, but a small oil-stove burned inside the
+fender.  In a stiff-backed chair sat an elderly woman, who seemed to
+feel the cold, for she was muffled to the neck in a fur coat. Beside
+her, so that the late afternoon light caught her face and head, stood a
+girl.
+
+Dickson's first impression was of a tall child.  The pose, startled and
+wild and yet curiously stiff and self-conscious, was that of a child
+striving to remember a forgotten lesson.  One hand clutched a
+handkerchief, the other was closing and unclosing on a knob of the
+chair back.  She was staring at Dougal, who stood like a gnome in the
+centre of the floor.  "Here's the gentlemen I was tellin' ye about,"
+was his introduction, but her eyes did not move.
+
+Then Heritage stepped forward.  "We have met before, Mademoiselle," he
+said.  "Do you remember Easter in 1918--in the house in the Trinita dei
+Monte?"
+
+The girl looked at him.
+
+"I do not remember," she said slowly.
+
+"But I was the English officer who had the apartments on the floor
+below you.  I saw you every morning.  You spoke to me sometimes."
+
+"You are a soldier?" she asked, with a new note in her voice.
+
+"I was then--till the war finished."
+
+"And now?  Why have you come here?"
+
+"To offer you help if you need it.  If not, to ask your pardon and go
+away."
+
+The shrouded figure in the chair burst suddenly into rapid hysterical
+talk in some foreign tongue which Dickson suspected of being French.
+Heritage replied in the same language, and the girl joined in with
+sharp questions.  Then the Poet turned to Dickson.
+
+"This is my friend.  If you will trust us we will do our best to help
+you."
+
+The eyes rested on Dickson's face, and he realized that he was in the
+presence of something the like of which he had never met in his life
+before.  It was a loveliness greater than he had imagined was permitted
+by the Almighty to His creatures.  The little face was more square than
+oval, with a low broad brow and proud exquisite eyebrows. The eyes were
+of a colour which he could never decide on; afterwards he used to
+allege obscurely that they were the colour of everything in Spring.
+There was a delicate pallor in the cheeks, and the face bore signs of
+suffering and care, possibly even of hunger; but for all that there was
+youth there, eternal and triumphant!  Not youth such as he had known
+it, but youth with all history behind it, youth with centuries of
+command in its blood and the world's treasures of beauty and pride in
+its ancestry.  Strange, he thought, that a thing so fine should be so
+masterful.  He felt abashed in every inch of him.
+
+As the eyes rested on him their sorrowfulness seemed to be shot with
+humour.  A ghost of a smile lurked there, to which Dickson promptly
+responded.  He grinned and bowed.
+
+"Very pleased to meet you, Mem.  I'm Mr. McCunn from Glasgow."
+
+"You don't even know my name," she said.
+
+"We don't," said Heritage.
+
+"They call me Saskia.  This," nodding to the chair, "is my cousin
+Eugenie.... We are in very great trouble.  But why should I tell you? I
+do not know you.  You cannot help me."
+
+"We can try," said Heritage.  "Part of your trouble we know already
+through that boy.  You are imprisoned in this place by scoundrels. We
+are here to help you to get out.  We want to ask no questions--only to
+do what you bid us."
+
+"You are not strong enough," she said sadly.  "A young man--an old
+man--and a little boy.  There are many against us, and any moment there
+may be more."
+
+It was Dougal's turn to break in,  "There's Lean and Spittal and Dobson
+and four tinklers in the Dean--that's seven; but there's us three and
+five more Gorbals Die-hards--that's eight."
+
+There was something in the boy's truculent courage that cheered her.
+
+"I wonder," she said, and her eyes fell on each in turn.
+
+Dickson felt impelled to intervene.
+
+"I think this is a perfectly simple business.  Here's a lady shut up in
+this house against her will by a wheen blagyirds.  This is a free
+country and the law doesn't permit that.  My advice is for one of us to
+inform the police at Auchenlochan and get Dobson and his friends took
+up and the lady set free to do what she likes.  That is, if these folks
+are really molesting her, which is not yet quite clear to my mind."
+
+"Alas! It is not so simple as that," she said.  "I dare not invoke your
+English law, for perhaps in the eyes of that law I am a thief."
+
+"Deary me, that's a bad business," said the startled Dickson.
+
+The two women talked together in some strange tongue, and the elder
+appeared to be pleading and the younger objecting.  Then Saskia seemed
+to come to a decision.
+
+"I will tell you all," and she looked straight at Heritage.  "I do not
+think you would be cruel or false, for you have honourable faces....
+Listen, then.  I am a Russian, and for two years have been an exile. I
+will not now speak of my house, for it is no more, or how I escaped,
+for it is the common tale of all of us.  I have seen things more
+terrible than any dream and yet lived, but I have paid a price for such
+experience.  First I went to Italy where there were friends, and I
+wished only to have peace among kindly people.  About poverty I do not
+care, for, to us, who have lost all the great things, the want of bread
+is a little matter.  But peace was forbidden me, for I learned that we
+Russians had to win back our fatherland again, and that the weakest
+must work in that cause.  So I was set my task, and it was very
+hard.... There were others still hidden in Russia which must be brought
+to a safe place.  In that work I was ordered to share."
+
+She spoke in almost perfect English, with a certain foreign precision.
+Suddenly she changed to French, and talked rapidly to Heritage.
+
+"She has told me about her family," he said, turning to Dickson. "It is
+among the greatest in Russia, the very greatest after the throne."
+Dickson could only stare.
+
+"Our enemies soon discovered me," she went on.  "Oh, but they are very
+clever, these enemies, and they have all the criminals of the world to
+aid them.  Here you do not understand what they are. You good people in
+England think they are well-meaning dreamers who are forced into
+violence by the persecution of Western Europe. But you are wrong.  Some
+honest fools there are among them, but the power--the true power--lies
+with madmen and degenerates, and they have for allies the special devil
+that dwells in each country. That is why they cast their nets as wide
+as mankind."
+
+She shivered, and for a second her face wore a look which Dickson never
+forgot, the look of one who has looked over the edge of life into the
+outer dark.
+
+"There were certain jewels of great price which were about to be turned
+into guns and armies for our enemies.  These our people recovered, and
+the charge of them was laid on me.  Who would suspect, they said, a
+foolish girl?  But our enemies were very clever, and soon the hunt was
+cried against me.  They tried to rob me of them, but they failed, for I
+too had become clever.  Then they asked for the help of the law--first
+in Italy and then in France. Ah, it was subtly done.  Respectable
+bourgeois, who hated the Bolsheviki but had bought long ago the bonds
+of my country, desired to be repaid their debts out of the property of
+the Russian crown which might be found in the West.  But behind them
+were the Jews, and behind the Jews our unsleeping enemies.  Once I was
+enmeshed in the law I would be safe for them, and presently they would
+find the hiding-place of the treasure, and while the bourgeois were
+clamouring in the courts it would be safe in their pockets.  So I fled.
+For months I have been fleeing and hiding.  They have tried to kidnap
+me many times, and once they have tried to kill me, but I, too, have
+become clever--oh, so clever.  And I have learned not to fear."
+
+This simple recital affected Dickson's honest soul with the liveliest
+indignation.  "Sich doings!" he exclaimed, and he could not forbear
+from whispering to Heritage an extract from that gentleman's
+conversation the first night at Kirkmichael. "We needn't imitate all
+their methods, but they've got hold of the right end of the stick.
+They seek truth and reality."  The reply from the Poet was an angry
+shrug.
+
+"Why and how did you come here?" he asked.
+
+"I always meant to come to England, for I thought it the sanest place
+in a mad world.  Also it is a good country to hide in, for it is apart
+from Europe, and your police, as I thought, do not permit evil men to
+be their own law.  But especially I had a friend, a Scottish gentleman,
+whom I knew in the days when we Russians were still a nation.  I saw
+him again in Italy, and since he was kind and brave I told him some
+part of my troubles.  He was called Quentin Kennedy, and now he is
+dead.  He told me that in Scotland he had a lonely chateau, where I
+could hide secretly and safely, and against the day when I might be
+hard-pressed he gave me a letter to his steward, bidding him welcome me
+as a guest when I made application. At that time I did not think I
+would need such sanctuary, but a month ago the need became urgent, for
+the hunt in France was very close on me.  So I sent a message to the
+steward as Captain Kennedy told me."
+
+"What is his name?" Heritage asked.
+
+She spelt it, "Monsieur Loudon--L-O-U-D-O-N in the town of
+Auchenlochan."
+
+"The factor," said Dickson, "And what then?"
+
+"Some spy must have found me out.  I had a letter from this Loudon
+bidding me come to Auchenlochan.  There I found no steward to receive
+me, but another letter saying that that night a carriage would be in
+waiting to bring me here.  It was midnight when we arrived, and we were
+brought in by strange ways to this house, with no light but a single
+candle.  Here we were welcomed indeed, but by an enemy."
+
+"Which?" asked Heritage. "Dobson or Lean or Spittal?"
+
+"Dobson I do not know.  Leon was there.  He is no Russian, but a
+Belgian who was a valet in my father's service till he joined the
+Bolsheviki.  Next day the Lett Spidel came, and I knew that I was in
+very truth entrapped.  For of all our enemies he is, save one, the most
+subtle and unwearied."
+
+Her voice had trailed off into flat weariness.  Again Dickson was
+reminded of a child, for her arms hung limp by her side; and her slim
+figure in its odd clothes was curiously like that of a boy in a school
+blazer.  Another resemblance perplexed him.  She had a hint of
+Janet--about the mouth--Janet, that solemn little girl those twenty
+years in her grave.
+
+Heritage was wrinkling his brows.  "I don't think I quite understand.
+The jewels?  You have them with you?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"These men wanted to rob you.  Why didn't they do it between here and
+Auchenlochan?  You had no chance to hide them on the journey. Why did
+they let you come here where you were in a better position to baffle
+them?"
+
+She shook her head.  "I cannot explain--except, perhaps, that Spidel
+had not arrived that night, and Leon may have been waiting
+instructions."
+
+The other still looked dissatisfied.  "They are either clumsier
+villains than I take them to be, or there is something deeper in the
+business than we understand.  These jewels--are they here?"
+
+His tone was so sharp that she looked startled--almost suspicious. Then
+she saw that in his face which reassured her.  "I have them hidden
+here.  I have grown very skilful in hiding things."
+
+"Have they searched for them?"
+
+"The first day they demanded them of me.  I denied all knowledge. Then
+they ransacked this house--I think they ransack it daily, but I am too
+clever for them.  I am not allowed to go beyond the verandah, and when
+at first I disobeyed there was always one of them in wait to force me
+back with a pistol behind my head.  Every morning Leon brings us food
+for the day--good food, but not enough, so that Cousin Eugenie is
+always hungry, and each day he and Spidel question and threaten me.
+This afternoon Spidel has told me that their patience is at an end.  He
+has given me till tomorrow at noon to produce the jewels.  If not, he
+says I will die."
+
+"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed.
+
+"There will be no mercy for us," she said solemnly.  "He and his kind
+think as little of shedding blood as of spilling water.  But I do not
+think he will kill me.  I think I will kill him first, but after that I
+shall surely die.  As for Cousin Eugenie, I do not know."
+
+Her level matter-of-fact tone seemed to Dickson most shocking, for he
+could not treat it as mere melodrama.  It carried a horrid conviction.
+"We must get you out of this at once," he declared.
+
+"I cannot leave.  I will tell you why.  When I came to this country I
+appointed one to meet me here.  He is a kinsman who knows England well,
+for he fought in your army.  With him by my side I have no fear. It is
+altogether needful that I wait for him."
+
+"Then there is something more which you haven't told us?" Heritage
+asked.
+
+Was there the faintest shadow of a blush on her cheek?  "There is
+something more," she said.
+
+She spoke to Heritage in French, and Dickson caught the name "Alexis"
+and a word which sounded like "prance."  The Poet listened eagerly and
+nodded.  "I have heard of him," he said.
+
+"But have you not seen him?  A tall man with a yellow beard, who bears
+himself proudly.  Being of my mother's race he has eyes like mine."
+
+"That's the man she was askin' me about yesterday," said Dougal, who
+had squatted on the floor.
+
+Heritage shook his head.  "We only came here last night.  When did you
+expect Prince--your friend."
+
+"I hoped to find him here before me.  Oh, it is his not coming that
+terrifies me.  I must wait and hope.  But if he does not come in time
+another may come before him."
+
+"The ones already here are not all the enemies that threaten you?"
+
+"Indeed, no.  The worst has still to come, and till I know he is here I
+do not greatly fear Spidel or Leon.  They receive orders and do not
+give them."
+
+Heritage ran a perplexed hand through his hair.  The sunset which had
+been flaming for some time in the unshuttered panes was now passing
+into the dark.  The girl lit a lamp after first shuttering the rest of
+the windows.  As she turned up the wick the odd dusty room and its
+strange company were revealed more clearly, and Dickson saw with a
+shock how haggard was the beautiful face.  A great pity seized him and
+almost conquered his timidity.
+
+"It is very difficult to help you," Heritage was saying.  "You won't
+leave this place, and you won't claim the protection of the law. You
+are very independent, Mademoiselle, but it can't go on for ever. The
+man you fear may arrive at any moment.  At any moment, too, your
+treasure may by discovered."
+
+"It is that that weighs on me," she cried.  "The jewels!  They are my
+solemn trust, but they burden me terribly.  If I were only rid of them
+and knew them to be safe I should face the rest with a braver mind."
+
+"If you'll take my advice," said Dickson slowly, "you'll get them
+deposited in a bank and take a receipt for them.  A Scotch bank is no'
+in a hurry to surrender a deposit without it gets the proper authority."
+
+Heritage brought his hands together with a smack.  "That's an idea.
+Will you trust us to take these things and deposit them safely?"
+
+For a little she was silent and her eyes were fixed on each of the trio
+in turn.  "I will trust you," she said at last.  "I think you will not
+betray me."
+
+"By God, we won't!" said the Poet fervently.  "Dogson, it's up to you.
+You march off to Glasgow in double quick time and place the stuff in
+your own name in your own bank.  There's not a moment to lose. D'you
+hear?"
+
+"I will that." To his own surprise Dickson spoke without hesitation.
+Partly it was because of his merchant's sense of property, which made
+him hate the thought that miscreants should acquire that to which they
+had no title; but mainly it was the appeal in those haggard childish
+eyes.  "But I'm not going to be tramping the country in the night
+carrying a fortune and seeking for trains that aren't there.  I'll go
+the first thing in the morning."
+
+"Where are they?" Heritage asked.
+
+"That I do not tell.  But I will fetch them."
+
+She left the room, and presently returned with three odd little parcels
+wrapped in leather and tied with thongs of raw hide. She gave them to
+Heritage, who held them appraisingly in his hand and then passed them
+on to Dickson.
+
+"I do not ask about their contents.  We take them from you as they are,
+and, please God, when the moment comes they will be returned to you as
+you gave them.  You trust us, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"I trust you, for you are a soldier.  Oh, and I thank you from my
+heart, my friends."  She held out a hand to each, which caused Heritage
+to grow suddenly very red.
+
+"I will remain in the neighbourhood to await developments," he said.
+"We had better leave you now.  Dougal, lead on."
+
+Before going, he took the girl's hand again, and with a sudden movement
+bent and kissed it.  Dickson shook it heartily.  "Cheer up, Mem," he
+observed.  "There's a better time coming."  His last recollection of
+her eyes was of a soft mistiness not far from tears. His pouch and pipe
+had strange company jostling them in his pocket as he followed the
+others down the ladder into the night.
+
+Dougal insisted that they must return by the road of the morning. "We
+daren't go by the Laver, for that would bring us by the public-house.
+If the worst comes to the worst, and we fall in wi' any of the deevils,
+they must think ye've changed your mind and come back from
+Auchenlochan."
+
+The night smelt fresh and moist as if a break in the weather were
+imminent.  As they scrambled along the Garple Dean a pinprick of light
+below showed where the tinklers were busy by their fire. Dickson's
+spirits suffered a sharp fall and he began to marvel at his temerity.
+What in Heaven's name had he undertaken?  To carry very precious
+things, to which certainly he had no right, through the enemy to
+distant Glasgow.  How could he escape the notice of the watchers?  He
+was already suspect, and the sight of him back again in Dalquharter
+would double that suspicion.  He must brazen it out, but he distrusted
+his powers with such tell-tale stuff in his pockets.  They might murder
+him anywhere on the moor road or in an empty railway carriage.  An
+unpleasant memory of various novels he had read in which such things
+happened haunted his mind.... There was just one consolation.  This job
+over, he would be quit of the whole business.  And honourably quit,
+too, for he would have played a manly part in a most unpleasant affair.
+He could retire to the idyllic with the knowledge that he had not been
+wanting when Romance called.  Not a soul should ever hear of it, but he
+saw himself in the future tramping green roads or sitting by his winter
+fireside pleasantly retelling himself the tale.
+
+Before they came to the Garple bridge Dougal insisted that they should
+separate, remarking that "it would never do if we were seen thegither."
+Heritage was despatched by a short cut over fields to the left, which
+eventually, after one or two plunges into ditches, landed him safely in
+Mrs. Morran's back yard.  Dickson and Dougal crossed the bridge and
+tramped Dalquharter-wards by the highway. There was no sign of human
+life in that quiet place with owls hooting and rabbits rustling in the
+undergrowth.  Beyond the woods they came in sight of the light in the
+back kitchen, and both seemed to relax their watchfulness when it was
+most needed.  Dougal sniffed the air and looked seaward.
+
+"It's coming on to rain," he observed.  "There should be a muckle star
+there, and when you can't see it it means wet weather wi' this wind."
+
+"What star?" Dickson asked.
+
+"The one wi' the Irish-lukkin' name.  What's that they call it?
+O'Brien?"  And he pointed to where the constellation of the hunter
+should have been declining on the western horizon.
+
+There was a bend of the road behind them, and suddenly round it came a
+dogcart driven rapidly.  Dougal slipped like a weasel into a bush, and
+presently Dickson stood revealed in the glare of a lamp. The horse was
+pulled up sharply and the driver called out to him. He saw that it was
+Dobson the innkeeper with Leon beside him.
+
+"Who is it?" cried the voice.  "Oh, you! I thought ye were off the day?"
+
+Dickson rose nobly to the occasion.
+
+"I thought myself I was.  But I didn't think much of Auchenlochan, and
+I took a fancy to come back and spend the last night of my holiday with
+my Auntie.  I'm off to Glasgow first thing the morn's morn."
+
+"So!" said the voice.  "Queer thing I never saw ye on the Auchenlochan
+road, where ye can see three mile before ye."
+
+"I left early and took it easy along the shore."
+
+"Did ye so?  Well, good-sight to ye."
+
+Five minutes later Dickson walked into Mrs. Morran's kitchen, where
+Heritage was busy making up for a day of short provender.
+
+"I'm for Glasgow to-morrow, Auntie Phemie," he cried.  "I want you to
+loan me a wee trunk with a key, and steek the door and windows, for
+I've a lot to tell you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+HOW MR. McCUNN DEPARTED WITH RELIEF AND RETURNED WITH RESOLUTION
+
+
+At seven o'clock on the following morning the post-cart, summoned by an
+early message from Mrs. Morran, appeared outside the cottage. In it sat
+the ancient postman, whose real home was Auchenlochan, but who slept
+alternate nights in Dalquharter, and beside him Dobson the innkeeper.
+Dickson and his hostess stood at the garden-gate, the former with his
+pack on his back, and at his feet a small stout wooden box, of the kind
+in which cheeses are transported, garnished with an immense padlock.
+Heritage for obvious reasons did not appear; at the moment he was
+crouched on the floor of the loft watching the departure through a gap
+in the dimity curtains.
+
+The traveller, after making sure that Dobson was looking, furtively
+slipped the key of the trunk into his knapsack.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Auntie Phemie," he said.  "I'm sure you've been awful
+kind to me, and I don't know how to thank you for all you're sending."
+
+"Tuts, Dickson, my man, they're hungry folk about Glesca that'll be
+glad o' my scones and jeelie.  Tell Mirren I'm rale pleased wi' her
+man, and haste ye back soon."
+
+The trunk was deposited on the floor of the cart, and Dickson clambered
+into the back seat.  He was thankful that he had not to sit next to
+Dobson, for he had tell-tale stuff on his person.  The morning was wet,
+so he wore his waterproof, which concealed his odd tendency to
+stoutness about the middle.
+
+Mrs. Morran played her part well, with all the becoming gravity of an
+affectionate aunt, but as soon as the post-cart turned the bend of the
+road her demeanour changed.  She was torn with convulsions of silent
+laughter.  She retreated to the kitchen, sank into a chair, wrapped her
+face in her apron and rocked.  Heritage, descending, found her
+struggling to regain composure.  "D'ye ken his wife's name?" she
+gasped.  "I ca'ed her Mirren!  And maybe the body's no' mairried! Hech
+sirs!  Hech sirs!"
+
+Meanwhile Dickson was bumping along the moor-road on the back of the
+post-cart.  He had worked out a plan, just as he had been used
+aforetime to devise a deal in foodstuffs.  He had expected one of the
+watchers to turn up, and was rather relieved that it should be Dobson,
+whom he regarded as "the most natural beast" of the three. Somehow he
+did not think that he would be molested before he reached the station,
+since his enemies would still be undecided in their minds.  Probably
+they only wanted to make sure that he had really departed to forget all
+about him.  But if not, he had his plan ready.
+
+"Are you travelling to-day?" he asked the innkeeper.
+
+"Just as far as the station to see about some oil-cake I'm expectin'.
+What's in your wee kist?  Ye came here wi' nothing but the bag on your
+back."
+
+"Ay, the kist is no' mine.  It's my auntie's.  She's a kind body, and
+nothing would serve but she must pack a box for me to take back. Let me
+see.  There's a baking of scones; three pots of honey and one of
+rhubarb jam--she was aye famous for her rhubarb jam; a mutton ham,
+which you can't get for love or money in Glasgow; some home-made black
+puddings, and a wee skim-milk cheese.  I doubt I'll have to take a cab
+from the station."
+
+Dobson appeared satisfied, lit a short pipe, and relapsed into
+meditation.  The long uphill road, ever climbing to where far off
+showed the tiny whitewashed buildings which were the railway station,
+seemed interminable this morning.  The aged postman addressed strange
+objurgations to his aged horse and muttered reflections to himself, the
+innkeeper smoked, and Dickson stared back into the misty hollow where
+lay Dalquharter.  The south-west wind had brought up a screen of rain
+clouds and washed all the countryside in a soft wet grey.  But the eye
+could still travel a fair distance, and Dickson thought he had a
+glimpse of a figure on a bicycle leaving the village two miles back.
+He wondered who it could be.  Not Heritage, who had no bicycle.
+Perhaps some woman who was conspicuously late for the train.  Women
+were the chief cyclists nowadays in country places.
+
+Then he forgot about the bicycle and twisted his neck to watch the
+station. It was less than a mile off now, and they had no time to
+spare, for away to the south among the hummocks of the bog he saw the
+smoke of the train coming from Auchenlochan.  The postman also saw it
+and whipped up his beast into a clumsy canter.  Dickson, always nervous
+being late for trains, forced his eyes away and regarded again the road
+behind him.  Suddenly the cyclist had become quite plain--a little more
+than a mile behind--a man, and pedalling furiously in spite of the
+stiff ascent.  It could only be one person--Leon.  He must have
+discovered their visit to the House yesterday and be on the way to warn
+Dobson.  If he reached the station before the train, there would be no
+journey to Glasgow that day for one respectable citizen.
+
+Dickson was in a fever of impatience and fright.  He dared not abjure
+the postman to hurry, lest Dobson should turn his head and descry his
+colleague.  But that ancient man had begun to realize the shortness of
+time and was urging the cart along at a fair pace, since they were now
+on the flatter shelf of land which carried the railway.
+
+Dickson kept his eyes fixed on the bicycle and his teeth shut tight on
+his lower lip.  Now it was hidden by the last dip of hill; now it
+emerged into view not a quarter of a mile behind, and its rider gave
+vent to a shrill call.  Luckily the innkeeper did not hear, for at that
+moment with a jolt the cart pulled up at the station door, accompanied
+by the roar of the incoming train.
+
+Dickson whipped down from the back seat and seized the solitary porter.
+"Label the box for Glasgow and into the van with it,  Quick, man, and
+there'll be a shilling for you."  He had been doing some rapid thinking
+these last minutes and had made up his mind.  If Dobson and he were
+alone in a carriage he could not have the box there; that must be
+elsewhere, so that Dobson could not examine it if he were set on
+violence, somewhere in which it could still be a focus of suspicion and
+attract attention from his person,  He took his ticket, and rushed on
+to the platform, to find the porter and the box at the door of the
+guard's van.  Dobson was not there.  With the vigour of a fussy
+traveller he shouted directions to the guard to take good care of his
+luggage, hurled a shilling at the porter, and ran for a carriage. At
+that moment he became aware of Dobson hurrying through the entrance. He
+must have met Leon and heard news from him, for his face was red and
+his ugly brows darkening.
+
+The train was in motion.  "Here, you" Dobson's voice shouted. "Stop!  I
+want a word wi' ye."  Dickson plunged at a third-class carriage, for he
+saw faces behind the misty panes, and above all things then he feared
+an empty compartment.  He clambered on to the step, but the handle
+would not turn, and with a sharp pang of fear he felt the innkeeper's
+grip on his arm.  Then some Samaritan from within let down the window,
+opened the door, and pulled him up. He fell on a seat, and a second
+later Dobson staggered in beside him.
+
+Thank Heaven, the dirty little carriage was nearly full.  There were
+two herds, each with a dog and a long hazel crook, and an elderly woman
+who looked like a ploughman's wife out for a day's marketing. And there
+was one other whom Dickson recognized with peculiar joy--the bagman in
+the provision line of business whom he had met three days before at
+Kilchrist.
+
+The recognition was mutual.  "Mr. McCunn!" the bagman exclaimed. "My,
+but that was running it fine!  I hope you've had a pleasant holiday,
+sir?"
+
+"Very pleasant.  I've been spending two nights with friends down
+hereaways.  I've been very fortunate in the weather, for it has broke
+just when I'm leaving."
+
+Dickson sank back on the hard cushions.  It had been a near thing, but
+so far he had won.  He wished his heart did not beat so fast, and he
+hoped he did not betray his disorder in his face. Very deliberately he
+hunted for his pipe and filled it slowly. Then he turned to Dobson,  "I
+didn't know you were travelling the day. What about your oil-cake?"
+
+"I've changed my mind," was the gruff answer.
+
+"Was that you I heard crying on me when we were running for the train?"
+
+"Ay.  I thought ye had forgot about your kist."
+
+"No fear," said Dickson.  "I'm no' likely to forget my auntie's scones."
+
+He laughed pleasantly and then turned to the bagman.  Thereafter the
+compartment hummed with the technicalities of the grocery trade. He
+exerted himself to draw out his companion, to have him refer to the
+great firm of D. McCunn, so that the innkeeper might be ashamed of his
+suspicions.  What nonsense to imagine that a noted and wealthy Glasgow
+merchant--the bagman's tone was almost reverential--would concern
+himself with the affairs of a forgotten village and a tumble-down house!
+
+Presently the train drew up at Kirkmichael station.  The woman
+descended, and Dobson, after making sure that no one else meant to
+follow her example, also left the carriage.  A porter was shouting:
+"Fast train to Glasgow--Glasgow next stop."  Dickson watched the
+innkeeper shoulder his way through the crowd in the direction of the
+booking office.  "He's off to send a telegram," he decided. "There'll
+be trouble waiting for me at the other end."
+
+When the train moved on he found himself disinclined for further talk.
+He had suddenly become meditative, and curled up in a corner with his
+head hard against the window pane, watching the wet fields and
+glistening roads as they slipped past.  He had his plans made for his
+conduct at Glasgow, but, Lord! how he loathed the whole business! Last
+night he had had a kind of gusto in his desire to circumvent villainy;
+at Dalquharter station he had enjoyed a momentary sense of triumph; now
+he felt very small, lonely, and forlorn.  Only one thought far at the
+back of his mind cropped up now and then to give him comfort.  He was
+entering on the last lap.  Once get this detestable errand done and he
+would be a free man, free to go back to the kindly humdrum life from
+which he should never have strayed. Never again, he vowed, never again.
+Rather would he spend the rest of his days in hydropathics than come
+within the pale of such horrible adventures.  Romance, forsooth!  This
+was not the mild goddess he had sought, but an awful harpy who battened
+on the souls of men.
+
+He had some bad minutes as the train passed through the suburbs and
+along the grimy embankment by which the southern lines enter the city.
+But as it rumbled over the river bridge and slowed down before the
+terminus his vitality suddenly revived.  He was a business man, and
+there was now something for him to do.
+
+After a rapid farewell to the bagman, he found a porter and hustled his
+box out of the van in the direction of the left-luggage office. Spies,
+summoned by Dobson's telegram, were, he was convinced, watching his
+every movement, and he meant to see that they missed nothing. He
+received his ticket for the box, and slowly and ostentatiously stowed
+it away in his pack.  Swinging the said pack on his arm, he sauntered
+through the entrance hall to the row of waiting taxi-cabs, and selected
+the oldest and most doddering driver.  He deposited the pack inside on
+the seat, and then stood still as if struck with a sudden thought.
+
+"I breakfasted terrible early," he told the driver.  "I think I'll have
+a bite to eat.  Will you wait?"
+
+"Ay," said the man, who was reading a grubby sheet of newspaper. "I'll
+wait as long as ye like, for it's you that pays."
+
+Dickson left his pack in the cab and, oddly enough for a careful man,
+he did not shut the door.  He re-entered the station, strolled to the
+bookstall, and bought a Glasgow Herald.  His steps then tended to the
+refreshment-room, where he ordered a cup of coffee and two Bath buns,
+and seated himself at a small table.  There he was soon immersed in the
+financial news, and though he sipped his coffee he left the buns
+untasted.  He took out a penknife and cut various extracts from the
+Herald, bestowing them carefully in his pocket.  An observer would have
+seen an elderly gentleman absorbed in market quotations.
+
+After a quarter of an hour had been spent in this performance he
+happened to glance at the clock and rose with an exclamation. He
+bustled out to his taxi and found the driver still intent upon his
+reading.  "Here I am at last," he said cheerily, and had a foot on the
+step, when he stopped suddenly with a cry.  It was a cry of alarm, but
+also of satisfaction.
+
+"What's become of my pack?  I left it on the seat, and now it's gone!
+There's been a thief here."
+
+The driver, roused from his lethargy, protested in the name of his gods
+that no one had been near it.  "Ye took it into the station wi' ye," he
+urged.
+
+"I did nothing of the kind.  Just you wait here till I see the
+inspector.  A bonny watch YOU keep on a gentleman's things."
+
+But Dickson did not interview the railway authorities.  Instead he
+hurried to the left-luggage office.  "I deposited a small box here a
+short time ago.  I mind the number.  Is it here still?"
+
+The attendant glanced at the shelf.  "A wee deal box with iron bands.
+It was took out ten minutes syne.  A man brought the ticket and took it
+away on his shoulder."
+
+"Thank you.  There's been a mistake, but the blame's mine.  My man
+mistook my orders."
+
+Then he returned to the now nervous taxi-driver.  "I've taken it up
+with the station-master and he's putting the police on. You'll likely
+be wanted, so I gave him your number.  It's a fair disgrace that there
+should be so many thieves about this station. It's not the first time
+I've lost things.  Drive me to West George Street and look sharp."  And
+he slammed the door with the violence of an angry man.
+
+But his reflections were not violent, for he smiled to himself. "That
+was pretty neat.  They'll take some time to get the kist open, for I
+dropped the key out of the train after we left Kirkmichael. That gives
+me a fair start.  If I hadn't thought of that, they'd have found some
+way to grip me and ripe me long before I got to the Bank." He shuddered
+as he thought of the dangers he had escaped.  "As it is, they're off
+the track for half an hour at least, while they're rummaging among
+Auntie Phemie's scones."  At the thought he laughed heartily, and when
+he brought the taxi-cab to a standstill by rapping on the front window,
+he left it with a temper apparently restored. Obviously he had no
+grudge against the driver, who to his immense surprise was rewarded
+with ten shillings.
+
+Three minutes later Mr. McCunn might have been seen entering the head
+office of the Strathclyde Bank and inquiring for the manager. There was
+no hesitation about him now, for his foot was on his native heath.  The
+chief cashier received him with deference in spite of his unorthodox
+garb, for he was not the least honoured of the bank's customers.  As it
+chanced he had been talking about him that very morning to a gentleman
+from London.  "The strength of this city," he had said, tapping his
+eyeglasses on his knuckles, "does not lie in its dozen very rich men,
+but in the hundred or two homely folk who make no parade of wealth.
+Men like Dickson McCunn, for example, who live all their life in a
+semi-detached villa and die worth half a million."  And the Londoner
+had cordially assented.
+
+So Dickson was ushered promptly into an inner room, and was warmly
+greeted by Mr. Mackintosh, the patron of the Gorbals Die-Hards.
+
+"I must thank you for your generous donation, McCunn.  Those boys will
+get a little fresh air and quiet after the smoke and din of Glasgow. A
+little country peace to smooth out the creases in their poor little
+souls."
+
+"Maybe," said Dickson, with a vivid recollection of Dougal as he had
+last seen him.  Somehow he did not think that peace was likely to be
+the portion of that devoted band.  "But I've not come here to speak
+about that."
+
+He took off his waterproof; then his coat and waistcoat; and showed
+himself a strange figure with sundry bulges about the middle. The
+manager's eyes grew very round.  Presently these excrescences were
+revealed as linen bags sewn on to his shirt, and fitting into the
+hollow between ribs and hip.  With some difficulty he slit the bags and
+extracted three hide-bound packages.
+
+"See here, Mackintosh," he said solemnly.  "I hand you over these
+parcels, and you're to put them in the innermost corner of your strong
+room.  You needn't open them.  Just put them away as they are, and
+write me a receipt for them.  Write it now."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh obediently took pen in hand.
+
+"What'll I call them?" he asked.
+
+"Just the three leather parcels handed to you by Dickson McCunn, Esq.,
+naming the date."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh wrote.  He signed his name with his usual flourish and
+handed the slip to his client.
+
+"Now," said Dickson, "you'll put that receipt in the strong box where
+you keep my securities and you'll give it up to nobody but me in person
+and you'll surrender the parcels only on presentation of the receipt.
+D'you understand?"
+
+"Perfectly.  May I ask any questions?"
+
+"You'd better not if you don't want to hear lees.'
+
+"What's in the packages?"  Mr. Mackintosh weighed them in his hand.
+
+"That's asking," said Dickson.  "But I'll tell ye this much.  It's
+jools."
+
+"Your own?"
+
+"No, but I'm their trustee."
+
+"Valuable?"
+
+"I was hearing they were worth more than a million pounds."
+
+"God bless my soul," said the startled manager.  "I don't like this
+kind of business, McCunn."
+
+"No more do I.  But you'll do it to oblige an old friend and a good
+customer.  If you don't know much about the packages you know all about
+me.  Now, mind, I trust you."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh forced himself to a joke.  "Did you maybe steal them?"
+
+Dickson grinned.  "Just what I did.  And that being so, I want you to
+let me out by the back door."
+
+When he found himself in the street he felt the huge relief of a boy
+who had emerged with credit from the dentist's chair. Remembering that
+here would be no midday dinner for him at home, his first step was to
+feed heavily at a restaurant.  He had, so far as he could see,
+surmounted all his troubles, his one regret being that he had lost his
+pack, which contained among other things his Izaak Walton and his
+safety razor.  He bought another razor and a new Walton, and mounted an
+electric tram car en route for home.
+
+Very contented with himself he felt as the car swung across the Clyde
+bridge.  He had done well--but of that he did not want to think, for
+the whole beastly thing was over.  He was going to bury that memory, to
+be resurrected perhaps on a later day when the unpleasantness had been
+forgotten.  Heritage had his address, and knew where to come when it
+was time to claim the jewels.  As for the watchers, they must have
+ceased to suspect him, when they discovered the innocent contents of
+his knapsack and Mrs. Morran's box.  Home for him, and a luxurious tea
+by his own fireside; and then an evening with his books, for Heritage's
+nonsense had stimulated his literary fervour.  He would dip into his
+old favourites again to confirm his faith.  To-morrow he would go for a
+jaunt somewhere--perhaps down the Clyde, or to the South of England,
+which he had heard was a pleasant, thickly peopled country. No more
+lonely inns and deserted villages for him; henceforth he would make
+certain of comfort and peace.
+
+The rain had stopped, and, as the car moved down the dreary vista of
+Eglinton street, the sky opened into fields of blue and the April sun
+silvered the puddles.  It was in such place and under such weather that
+Dickson suffered an overwhelming experience.
+
+It is beyond my skill, being all unlearned in the game of
+psycho-analysis, to explain how this thing happened.  I concern myself
+only with facts. Suddenly the pretty veil of self-satisfaction was rent
+from top to bottom, and Dickson saw a figure of himself within, a smug
+leaden little figure which simpered and preened itself and was hollow
+as a rotten nut. And he hated it.
+
+The horrid truth burst on him that Heritage had been right. He only
+played with life.  That imbecile image was a mere spectator, content to
+applaud, but shrinking from the contact of reality. It had been all
+right as a provision merchant, but when it fancied itself capable of
+higher things it had deceived itself. Foolish little image with its
+brave dreams and its swelling words from Browning!  All make-believe of
+the feeblest.  He was a coward, running away at the first threat of
+danger.  It was as if he were watching a tall stranger with a wand
+pointing to the embarrassed phantom that was himself, and ruthlessly
+exposing its frailties! And yet the pitiless showman was himself
+too--himself as he wanted to be, cheerful, brave, resourceful,
+indomitable.
+
+Dickson suffered a spasm of mortal agony.  "Oh, I'm surely not so bad
+as all that," he groaned.  But the hurt was not only in his pride. He
+saw himself being forced to new decisions, and each alternative was of
+the blackest.  He fairly shivered with the horror of it. The car
+slipped past a suburban station from which passengers were
+emerging--comfortable black-coated men such as he had once been. He was
+bitterly angry with Providence for picking him out of the great crowd
+of sedentary folk for this sore ordeal.  "Why was I tethered to sich a
+conscience?" was his moan.  But there was that stern inquisitor with
+his pointer exploring his soul.  "You flatter yourself you have done
+your share," he was saying.  "You will make pretty stories about it to
+yourself, and some day you may tell your friends, modestly disclaiming
+any special credit.  But you will be a liar, for you know you are
+afraid.  You are running away when the work is scarcely begun, and
+leaving it to a few boys and a poet whom you had the impudence the
+other day to despise.  I think you are worse than a coward.  I think
+you are a cad."
+
+His fellow-passengers on the top of the car saw an absorbed middle-aged
+gentleman who seemed to have something the matter with his bronchial
+tubes. They could not guess at the tortured soul.  The decision was
+coming nearer, the alternatives loomed up dark and inevitable.  On one
+side was submission to ignominy, on the other a return to that place
+which he detested, and yet loathed himself for detesting.  "It seems
+I'm not likely to have much peace either way," he reflected dismally.
+
+How the conflict would have ended had it continued on these lines I
+cannot say.  The soul of Mr. McCunn was being assailed by moral and
+metaphysical adversaries with which he had not been trained to deal.
+But suddenly it leapt from negatives to positives.  He saw the face of
+the girl in the shuttered House, so fair and young and yet so haggard.
+It seemed to be appealing to him to rescue it from a great loneliness
+and fear.  Yes, he had been right, it had a strange look of his
+Janet--the wide-open eyes, the solemn mouth.  What was to become of
+that child if he failed her in her need?
+
+Now Dickson was a practical man, and this view of the case brought him
+into a world which he understood.  "It's fair ridiculous," he
+reflected. "Nobody there to take a grip of things.  Just a wheen
+Gorbals keelies and the lad Heritage.  Not a business man among the
+lot."
+
+The alternatives, which hove before him like two great banks of cloud,
+were altering their appearance.  One was becoming faint and tenuous;
+the other, solid as ever, was just a shade less black. He lifted his
+eyes and saw in the near distance the corner of the road which led to
+his home.  "I must decide before I reach that corner," he told himself.
+
+Then his mind became apathetic.  He began to whistle dismally through
+his teeth, watching the corner as it came nearer.  The car stopped with
+a jerk.  "I'll go back," he said aloud, clambering down the steps. The
+truth was he had decided five minutes before when he first saw Janet's
+face.
+
+He walked briskly to his house, entirely refusing to waste any more
+energy on reflection.  "This is a business proposition," he told
+himself, "and I'm going to handle it as sich."  Tibby was surprised to
+see him and offered him tea in vain.  "I'm just back for a few minutes.
+Let's see the letters."
+
+There was one from his wife.  She proposed to stay another week at the
+Neuk Hydropathic and suggested that he might join her and bring her
+home.  He sat down and wrote a long affectionate reply, declining, but
+expressing his delight that she was soon returning. "That's very likely
+the last time Mamma will hear from me," he reflected, but--oddly
+enough--without any great fluttering of the heart.
+
+Then he proceeded to be furiously busy.  He sent out Tibby to buy
+another knapsack and to order a cab and to cash a considerable cheque.
+In the knapsack he packed a fresh change of clothing and the new safety
+razor, but no books, for he was past the need of them. That done, he
+drove to his solicitors.
+
+"What like a firm are Glendonan and Speirs in Edinburgh?" he asked the
+senior partner.
+
+"Oh, very respectable.  Very respectable indeed.  Regular Edinburgh
+W.S. Lot.  Do a lot of factoring."
+
+"I want you to telephone through to them and inquire about a place in
+Carrick called Huntingtower, near the village of Dalquharter. I
+understand it's to let, and I'm thinking of taking a lease of it."
+
+The senior partner after some delay got through to Edinburgh, and was
+presently engaged in the feverish dialectic which the long-distance
+telephone involves.  "I want to speak to Mr. Glendonan himself.... Yes,
+yes, Mr. Caw of Paton and Linklater.... Good afternoon....
+Huntingtower.  Yes, in Carrick.  Not to let?  But I understand it's
+been in the market for some months.  You say you've an idea it has just
+been let.  But my client is positive that you're mistaken, unless the
+agreement was made this morning....  You'll inquire?  Ah, I see. The
+actual factoring is done by your local agent, Mr. James Loudon, in
+Auchenlochan.  You think my client had better get into touch with him
+at once.  Just wait a minute, please."
+
+He put his hand over the receiver.  "Usual Edinburgh way of doing
+business," he observed caustically.  "What do you want done?"
+
+"I'll run down and see this Loudon.  Tell Glendonan and Spiers to
+advise him to expect me, for I'll go this very day."
+
+Mr. Caw resumed his conversation.  "My client would like a telegram
+sent at once to Mr. Loudon introducing him.  He's Mr. Dickson McCunn of
+Mearns Street--the great provision merchant, you know.  Oh, yes! Good
+for any rent.  Refer if you like to the Strathclyde Bank, but you can
+take my word for it.  Thank you.  Then that's settled. Good-bye."
+
+Dickson's next visit was to a gunmaker who was a fellow-elder with him
+in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk.
+
+"I want a pistol and a lot of cartridges," he announced.  "I'm not
+caring what kind it is, so long as it is a good one and not too big."
+
+"For yourself?" the gunmaker asked.  "You must have a license, I doubt,
+and there's a lot of new regulations."
+
+"I can't wait on a license.  It's for a cousin of mine who's off to
+Mexico at once.  You've got to find some way of obliging an old friend,
+Mr. McNair."
+
+Mr. McNair scratched his head.  "I don't see how I can sell you one.
+But I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll lend you one.  It belongs to my
+nephew, Peter Tait, and has been lying in a drawer ever since he came
+back from the front.  He has no use for it now that he's a placed
+minister."
+
+So Dickson bestowed in the pockets of his water-proof a service
+revolver and fifty cartridges, and bade his cab take him to the shop in
+Mearns Street.  For a moment the sight of the familiar place struck a
+pang to his breast, but he choked down unavailing regrets. He ordered a
+great hamper of foodstuffs--the most delicate kind of tinned goods, two
+perfect hams, tongues, Strassburg pies, chocolate, cakes, biscuits,
+and, as a last thought, half a dozen bottles of old liqueur brandy.  It
+was to be carefully packed, addressed to Mrs. Morran, Dalquharter
+Station, and delivered in time for him to take down by the 7.33 train.
+Then he drove to the terminus and dined with something like a desperate
+peace in his heart.
+
+On this occasion he took a first-class ticket, for he wanted to be
+alone. As the lights began to be lit in the wayside stations and the
+clear April dusk darkened into night, his thoughts were sombre yet
+resigned. He opened the window and let the sharp air of the
+Renfrewshire uplands fill the carriage.  It was fine weather again
+after the rain, and a bright constellation--perhaps Dougal's friend
+O'Brien--hung in the western sky.  How happy he would have been a week
+ago had he been starting thus for a country holiday!  He could sniff
+the faint scent of moor-burn and ploughed earth which had always been
+his first reminder of Spring.  But he had been pitchforked out of that
+old happy world and could never enter it again.  Alas! for the roadside
+fire, the cosy inn, the Compleat Angler, the Chavender or Chub!
+
+And yet--and yet!  He had done the right thing, though the Lord alone
+knew how it would end.  He began to pluck courage from his very
+melancholy, and hope from his reflections upon the transitoriness of
+life.  He was austerely following Romance as he conceived it, and if
+that capricious lady had taken one dream from him she might yet reward
+him with a better.  Tags of poetry came into his head which seemed to
+favour this philosophy--particularly some lines of Browning on which he
+used to discourse to his Kirk Literary Society. Uncommon silly, he
+considered, these homilies of his must have been, mere twitterings of
+the unfledged.  But now he saw more in the lines, a deeper
+interpretation which he had earned the right to make.
+
+
+  "Oh world, where all things change and nought abides,
+  Oh life, the long mutation--is it so?
+  Is it with life as with the body's change?--
+  Where, e'en tho' better follow, good must pass."
+
+
+
+That was as far as he could get, though he cudgelled his memory to
+continue.  Moralizing thus, he became drowsy, and was almost asleep
+when the train drew up at the station of Kirkmichael.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SUNDRY DOINGS IN THE MIRK
+
+
+From Kirkmichael on the train stopped at every station, but no
+passenger seemed to leave or arrive at the little platforms white in
+the moon.  At Dalquharter the case of provisions was safely transferred
+to the porter with instructions to take charge of it till it was sent
+for.  During the next few minutes Dickson's mind began to work upon his
+problem with a certain briskness.  It was all nonsense that the law of
+Scotland could not be summoned to the defence. The jewels had been
+safely got rid of, and who was to dispute their possession?  Not Dobson
+and his crew, who had no sort of title, and were out for naked robbery.
+The girl had spoken of greater dangers from new enemies--kidnapping,
+perhaps.  Well, that was felony, and the police must be brought in.
+Probably if all were known the three watchers had criminal records,
+pages long, filed at Scotland Yard.  The man to deal with that side of
+the business was Loudon the factor, and to him he was bound in the
+first place. He had made a clear picture in his head of this Loudon--a
+derelict old country writer, formal, pedantic, lazy, anxious only to
+get an unprofitable business off his hands with the least possible
+trouble, never going near the place himself, and ably supported in his
+lethargy by conceited Edinburgh Writers to the Signet.  "Sich notions
+of business!" he murmured.  "I wonder that there's a single county
+family in Scotland no' in the bankruptcy court!"  It was his mission to
+wake up Mr. James Loudon.
+
+Arrived at Auchenlochan he went first to the Salutation Hotel, a
+pretentious place sacred to golfers.  There he engaged a bedroom for
+the night and, having certain scruples, paid for it in advance. He also
+had some sandwiches prepared which he stowed in his pack, and filled
+his flask with whisky.  "I'm going home to Glasgow by the first train
+in the to-morrow," he told the landlady, "and now I've got to see a
+friend.  I'll not be back till late."  He was assured that there would
+be no difficulty about his admittance at any hour, and directed how to
+find Mr. Loudon's dwelling.
+
+It was an old house fronting direct on the street, with a fanlight
+above the door and a neat brass plate bearing the legend "Mr. James
+Loudon, Writer."  A lane ran up one side leading apparently to a
+garden, for the moonlight showed the dusk of trees. In front was the
+main street of Auchenlochan, now deserted save for a single roysterer,
+and opposite stood the ancient town house, with arches where the
+country folk came at the spring and autumn hiring fairs.  Dickson rang
+the antiquated bell, and was presently admitted to a dark hall floored
+with oilcloth, where a single gas-jet showed that on one side was the
+business office and on the other the living-rooms.  Mr. Loudon was at
+supper, he was told, and he sent in his card.  Almost at once the door
+at the end on the left side was flung open and a large figure appeared
+flourishing a napkin.  "Come in, sir, come in," it cried. "I've just
+finished a bite of meat.  Very glad to see you. Here, Maggie, what
+d'you mean by keeping the gentleman standing in that outer darkness?"
+
+The room into which Dickson was ushered was small and bright, with a
+red paper on the walls, a fire burning, and a big oil lamp in the
+centre of a table.  Clearly Mr. Loudon had no wife, for it was a
+bachelor's den in every line of it.  A cloth was laid on a corner of
+the table, in which stood the remnants of a meal. Mr. Loudon seemed to
+have been about to make a brew of punch, for a kettle simmered by the
+fire, and lemons and sugar flanked a pot-bellied whisky decanter of the
+type that used to be known as a "mason's mell."
+
+The sight of the lawyer was a surprise to Dickson and dissipated his
+notions of an aged and lethargic incompetent.  Mr. Loudon was a
+strongly built man who could not be a year over fifty.  He had a ruddy
+face, clean shaven except for a grizzled moustache; his grizzled hair
+was thinning round the temples; but his skin was unwrinkled and his
+eyes had all the vigour of youth.  His tweed suit was well cut, and the
+buff waistcoat with flaps and pockets and the plain leather watchguard
+hinted at the sportsman, as did the half-dozen racing prints on the
+wall.  A pleasant high-coloured figure he made; his voice had the frank
+ring due to much use out of doors; and his expression had the singular
+candour which comes from grey eyes with large pupils and a narrow iris.
+
+"Sit down, Mr. McCunn.  Take the arm-chair by the fire.  I've had a
+wire from Glendonan and Speirs about you.  I was just going to have a
+glass of toddy--a grand thing for these uncertain April nights. You'll
+join me?  No?  Well, you'll smoke anyway.  There's cigars at your
+elbow.  Certainly, a pipe if you like.  This is Liberty Hall."
+
+Dickson found some difficulty in the part for which he had cast
+himself. He had expected to condescend upon an elderly inept and give
+him sharp instructions; instead he found himself faced with a jovial,
+virile figure which certainly did not suggest incompetence.  It has
+been mentioned already that he had always great difficulty in looking
+any one in the face, and this difficulty was intensified when he found
+himself confronted with bold and candid eyes.  He felt abashed and a
+little nervous.
+
+"I've come to see you about Huntingtower House," he began.
+
+"I know, so Glendonans informed me.  Well, I'm very glad to hear it.
+The place has been standing empty far too long, and that is worse for a
+new house than an old house.  There's not much money to spend on it
+either, unless we can make sure of a good tenant.  How did you hear
+about it?"
+
+"I was taking a bit holiday and I spent a night at Dalquharter with an
+old auntie of mine.  You must understand I've just retired from
+business, and I'm thinking of finding a country place.  I used to have
+the provision shop in Mearns Street--now the United Supply Stores,
+Limited.  You've maybe heard of it?"
+
+The other bowed and smiled.  "Who hasn't?  The name of Dickson McCunn
+is known far beyond the city of Glasgow."
+
+Dickson was not insensible of the flattery, and he continued with more
+freedom.  "I took a walk and got a glisk of the House, and I liked the
+look of it.  You see, I want a quiet bit a good long way from a town,
+and at the same time a house with all modern conveniences.  I suppose
+Huntingtower has that?"
+
+"When it was built fifteen years ago it was considered a model--six
+bathrooms, its own electric light plant, steam heating, and independent
+boiler for hot water, the whole bag of tricks.  I won't say but what
+some of these contrivances will want looking to, for the place has been
+some time empty, but there can be nothing very far wrong, and I can
+guarantee that the bones of the house are good."
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Dickson.  "I don't mind spending a
+little money myself if the place suits me.  But of that, of course, I'm
+not yet certain, for I've only had a glimpse of the outside. I wanted
+to get into the policies, but a man at the lodge wouldn't let me.
+They're a mighty uncivil lot down there."
+
+"I'm very sorry to hear that," said Mr. Loudon in a tone of concern.
+
+"Ay, and if I take the place I'll stipulate that you get rid of the
+lodgekeepers."
+
+"There won't be the slightest difficulty about that, for they are only
+weekly tenants.  But I'm vexed to hear they were uncivil. I was glad to
+get any tenant that offered, and they were well recommended to me."
+
+"They're foreigners."
+
+"One of them is--a Belgian refugee that Lady Morewood took an interest
+in.  But the other--Spittal, they call him--I thought he was Scotch."
+
+"He's not that.  And I don't like the innkeeper either.  I would want
+him shifted."
+
+Dr. Loudon laughed.  "I dare say Dobson is a rough diamond. There's
+worse folk in the world all the same, but I don't think he will want to
+stay.  He only went there to pass the time till he heard from his
+brother in Vancouver.  He's a roving spirit, and will be off overseas
+again."
+
+"That's all right!" said Dickson, who was beginning to have horrid
+suspicions that he might be on a wild-goose chase after all. "Well, the
+next thing is for me to see over the House."
+
+"Certainly.  I'd like to go with you myself.  What day would suit you?
+Let me see.  This is Friday.  What about this day week?"
+
+"I was thinking of to-morrow.  Since I'm down in these parts I may as
+well get the job done."
+
+Mr. Loudon looked puzzled.  "I quite see that.  But I don't think it's
+possible.  You see, I have to consult the owners and get their consent
+to a lease.  Of course they have the general purpose of letting,
+but--well, they're queer folk the Kennedys," and his face wore the
+half-embarrassed smile of an honest man preparing to make confidences.
+"When poor Mr. Quentin died, the place went to his two sisters in joint
+ownership.  A very bad arrangement, as you can imagine.  It isn't
+entailed, and I've always been pressing them to sell, but so far they
+won't hear of it.  They both married Englishmen, so it will take a day
+or two to get in touch with them. One, Mrs. Stukely, lives in
+Devonshire.  The other--Miss Katie that was--married Sir Frances
+Morewood, the general, and I hear that she's expected back in London
+next Monday from the Riviera.  I'll wire and write first thing
+to-morrow morning.  But you must give me a day or two."
+
+Dickson felt himself waking up.  His doubts about his own sanity were
+dissolving, for, as his mind reasoned, the factor was prepared to do
+anything he asked--but only after a week had gone.  What he was
+concerned with was the next few days.
+
+"All the same I would like to have a look at the place to-morrow, even
+if nothing comes of it."
+
+Mr. Loudon looked seriously perplexed.  "You will think me absurdly
+fussy, Mr. McCunn, but I must really beg of you to give up the idea.
+The Kennedys, as I have said, are--well, not exactly like other people,
+and I have the strictest orders not to let any one visit the house
+without their express leave.  It sounds a ridiculous rule, but I assure
+you it's as much as my job is worth to disregard it."
+
+"D'you mean to say not a soul is allowed inside the House?"
+
+"Not a soul."
+
+"Well, Mr. Loudon, I'm going to tell you a queer thing, which I think
+you ought to know.  When I was taking a walk the other night--your
+Belgian wouldn't let me into the policies, but I went down the
+glen--what's that they call it? the Garple Dean--I got round the back
+where the old ruin stands and I had a good look at the House. I tell
+you there was somebody in it."
+
+"It would be Spittal, who acts as caretaker."
+
+"It was not.  It was a woman.  I saw her on the verandah."
+
+The candid grey eyes were looking straight at Dickson, who managed to
+bring his own shy orbs to meet them.  He thought that he detected a
+shade of hesitation.  Then Mr. Loudon got up from his chair and stood
+on the hearthrug looking down at his visitor.  He laughed, with some
+embarrassment, but ever so pleasantly.
+
+"I really don't know what you will think of me, Mr. McCunn. Here are
+you, coming to do us all a kindness, and lease that infernal white
+elephant, and here have I been steadily hoaxing you for the last five
+minutes.  I humbly ask your pardon.  Set it down to the loyalty of an
+old family lawyer.  Now, I am going to tell you the truth and take you
+into our confidence, for I know we are safe with you.  The Kennedys
+are--always have been--just a wee bit queer.  Old inbred stock, you
+know.  They will produce somebody like poor Mr. Quentin, who was as
+sane as you or me, but as a rule in every generation there is one
+member of the family--or more--who is just a little bit---" and he
+tapped his forehead.  "Nothing violent, you understand, but just not
+quite 'wise and world-like,' as the old folk say.  Well, there's a
+certain old lady, an aunt of Mr. Quentin and his sisters, who has
+always been about tenpence in the shilling.  Usually she lives at
+Bournemouth, but one of her crazes is a passion for Huntingtower, and
+the Kennedys have always humoured her and had her to stay every spring.
+When the House was shut up that became impossible, but this year she
+took such a craving to come back, that Lady Morewood asked me to
+arrange it. It had to be kept very quiet, but the poor old thing is
+perfectly harmless, and just sits and knits with her maid and looks out
+of the seaward windows.  Now you see why I can't take you there
+to-morrow. I have to get rid of the old lady, who in any case was
+travelling south early next week.  Do you understand?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Dickson with some fervour.  He had learned exactly
+what he wanted.  The factor was telling him lies.  Now he knew where to
+place Mr. Loudon.
+
+He always looked back upon what followed as a very creditable piece of
+play-acting for a man who had small experience in that line.
+
+"Is the old lady a wee wizened body, with a black cap and something
+like a white cashmere shawl round her shoulders?"
+
+"You describe her exactly," Mr. Loudon replied eagerly.
+
+"That would explain the foreigners."
+
+"Of course.  We couldn't have natives who would make the thing the
+clash of the countryside."
+
+"Of course not.  But it must be a difficult job to keep a business like
+that quiet.  Any wandering policeman might start inquiries. And
+supposing the lady became violent?"
+
+"Oh, there's no fear of that.  Besides, I've a position in this
+country--Deputy Fiscal and so forth--and a friend of the Chief
+Constable. I think I may be trusted to do a little private explaining
+if the need arose."
+
+"I see," said Dickson.  He saw, indeed, a great deal which would give
+him food for furious thought.  "Well, I must possess my soul in
+patience.  Here's my Glasgow address, and I look to you to send me a
+telegram whenever you're ready for me.  I'm at the Salutation to-night,
+and go home to-morrow with the first train.  Wait a minute"--and he
+pulled out his watch--"there's a train stops at Auchenlochan at 10.17.
+I think I'll catch that.... Well Mr. Loudon, I'm very much obliged to
+you, and I'm glad to think that it'll no' be long till we renew our
+acquaintance."
+
+The factor accompanied him to the door, diffusing geniality. "Very
+pleased indeed to have met you.  A pleasant journey and a quick return."
+
+The street was still empty.  Into a corner of the arches opposite the
+moon was shining, and Dickson retired thither to consult his map of the
+neighbourhood.  He found what he wanted, and, as he lifted his eyes,
+caught sight of a man coming down the causeway. Promptly he retired
+into the shadow and watched the new-comer. There could be no mistake
+about the figure; the bulk, the walk, the carriage of the head marked
+it for Dobson.  The innkeeper went slowly past the factor's house; then
+halted and retraced his steps; then, making sure that the street was
+empty, turned into the side lane which led to the garden.
+
+This was what sailors call a cross-bearing, and strengthened Dickson's
+conviction.  He delayed no longer, but hurried down the side street by
+which the north road leaves the town.
+
+He had crossed the bridge of Lochan and was climbing the steep ascent
+which led to the heathy plateau separating that stream from the Garple
+before he had got his mind quite clear on the case. FIRST, Loudon was
+in the plot, whatever it was; responsible for the details of the girl's
+imprisonment, but not the main author. That must be the Unknown who was
+still to come, from whom Spidel took his orders.  Dobson was probably
+Loudon's special henchman, working directly under him.  SECONDLY, the
+immediate object had been the jewels, and they were happily safe in the
+vaults of the incorruptible Mackintosh. But, THIRD--and this only on
+Saskia's evidences--the worst danger to her began with the arrival of
+the Unknown.  What could that be? Probably, kidnapping.  He was
+prepared to believe anything of people like Bolsheviks.  And, FOURTH,
+this danger was due within the next day or two.  Loudon had been quite
+willing to let him into the house and to sack all the watchers within a
+week from that date. The natural and right thing was to summon the aid
+of the law, but, FIFTH, that would be a slow business with Loudon able
+to put spokes in the wheels and befog the authorities, and the mischief
+would be done before a single policeman showed his face in Dalquharter.
+Therefore, SIXTH, he and Heritage must hold the fort in the meantime,
+and he would send a wire to his lawyer, Mr. Caw, to get to work with
+the constabulary.  SEVENTH, he himself was probably free from suspicion
+in both Loudon's and Dobson's minds as a harmless fool. But that
+freedom would not survive his reappearance in Dalquharter. He could
+say, to be sure, that he had come back to see his auntie, but that
+would not satisfy the watchers, since, so far as they knew, he was the
+only man outside the gang who was aware that people were dwelling in
+the House.  They would not tolerate his presence in the neighbourhood.
+
+He formulated his conclusions as if it were an ordinary business deal,
+and rather to his surprise was not conscious of any fear.  As he pulled
+together the belt of his waterproof he felt the reassuring bulges in
+its pockets which were his pistol and cartridges.  He reflected that it
+must be very difficult to miss with a pistol if you fired it at, say,
+three yards, and if there was to be shooting that would be his range.
+Mr. McCunn had stumbled on the precious truth that the best way to be
+rid of quaking knees is to keep a busy mind.
+
+He crossed the ridge of the plateau and looked down on the Garple glen.
+There were the lights of Dalquharter--or rather a single light, for the
+inhabitants went early to bed.  His intention was to seek quarters with
+Mrs. Morran, when his eye caught a gleam in a hollow of the moor a
+little to the east.  He knew it for the camp-fire around which Dougal's
+warriors bivouacked.  The notion came to him to go there instead, and
+hear the news of the day before entering the cottage. So he crossed the
+bridge, skirted a plantation of firs, and scrambled through the broom
+and heather in what he took to be the right direction.
+
+The moon had gone down, and the quest was not easy.  Dickson had come
+to the conclusion that he was on the wrong road, when he was summoned
+by a voice which seemed to arise out of the ground.
+
+"Who goes there?"
+
+"What's that you say?"
+
+"Who goes there?"  The point of a pole was held firmly against his
+chest.
+
+"I'm Mr. McCunn, a friend of Dougal's."
+
+"Stand, friend." The shadow before him whistled and another shadow
+appeared.  "Report to the Chief that there's a man here, name o'
+McCunn, seekin' for him."
+
+Presently the messenger returned with Dougal and a cheap lantern which
+he flashed in Dickson's face.
+
+"Oh, it's you," said that leader, who had his jaw bound up as if he had
+the toothache.  "What are ye doing back here?"
+
+"To tell the truth, Dougal," was the answer, "I couldn't stay away. I
+was fair miserable when I thought of Mr. Heritage and you laddies left
+to yourselves.  My conscience simply wouldn't let me stop at home, so
+here I am."
+
+Dougal grunted, but clearly he approved, for from that moment he
+treated Dickson with a new respect.  Formerly when he had referred to
+him at all it had been as "auld McCunn."  Now it was "Mister McCunn."
+He was given rank as a worthy civilian ally.  The bivouac was a
+cheerful place in the wet night.  A great fire of pine roots and old
+paling posts hissed in the fine rain, and around it crouched several
+urchins busy making oatmeal cakes in the embers.  On one side a
+respectable lean-to had been constructed by nailing a plank to two
+fir-trees, running sloping poles thence to the ground, and thatching
+the whole with spruce branches and heather.  On the other side two
+small dilapidated home-made tents were pitched.  Dougal motioned his
+companion into the lean-to, where they had some privacy from the rest
+of the band.
+
+"Well, what's your news?"  Dickson asked.  He noticed that the
+Chieftain seemed to have been comprehensively in the wars, for apart
+from the bandage on his jaw, he had numerous small cuts on his brow,
+and a great rent in one of his shirt sleeves.  Also he appeared to be
+going lame, and when he spoke a new gap was revealed in his large teeth.
+
+"Things," said Dougal solemnly, "has come to a bonny cripus. This very
+night we've been in a battle."
+
+He spat fiercely, and the light of war burned in his eyes.
+
+"It was the tinklers from the Garple Dean.  They yokit on us about
+seven o'clock, just at the darkenin'.  First they tried to bounce us.
+We weren't wanted here, they said, so we'd better clear.  I telled them
+that it was them that wasn't wanted.  'Awa' to Finnick,' says I. 'D'ye
+think we take our orders from dirty ne'er-do-weels like you?' 'By God,'
+says they, 'we'll cut your lights out,' and then the battle started."
+
+"What happened?' Dickson asked excitedly.
+
+"They were four muckle men against six laddies, and they thought they
+had an easy job!  Little they kenned the Gorbals Die-Hards! I had been
+expectin' something of the kind, and had made my plans. They first
+tried to pu' down our tents and burn them.  I let them get within five
+yards, reservin' my fire.  The first volley--stones from our hands and
+our catties--halted them, and before they could recover three of us had
+got hold o' burnin' sticks frae the fire and were lammin' into them.
+We kinnled their claes, and they fell back swearin' and stampin' to get
+the fire out.  Then I gave the word and we were on them wi' our pales,
+usin' the points accordin' to instructions. My orders was to keep a
+good distance, for if they had grippit one o' us he'd ha' been done
+for.  They were roarin' mad by now, and twae had out their knives, but
+they couldn't do muckle, for it was gettin' dark, and they didn't ken
+the ground like us, and were aye trippin' and tumblin'. But they
+pressed us hard, and one o' them landed me an awful clype on the jaw.
+They were still aiming at our tents, and I saw that if they got near
+the fire again it would be the end o' us. So I blew my whistle for
+Thomas Yownie, who was in command o' the other half of us, with
+instructions to fall upon their rear. That brought Thomas up, and the
+tinklers had to face round about and fight a battle on two fronts.  We
+charged them and they broke, and the last seen o' them they were
+coolin' their burns in the Garple."
+
+"Well done, man.  Had you many casualties?"
+
+"We're a' a wee thing battered, but nothing to hurt.  I'm the worst,
+for one o' them had a grip o' me for about three seconds, and Gosh! he
+was fierce."
+
+"They're beaten off for the night, anyway?"
+
+"Ay, for the night.  But they'll come back, never fear.  That's why I
+said that things had come to a cripus."
+
+"What's the news from the House?"
+
+"A quiet day, and no word o' Lean or Dobson."
+
+Dickson nodded.  "They were hunting me."
+
+"Mr. Heritage has gone to bide in the Hoose.  They were watchin' the
+Garple Dean, so I took him round by the Laver foot and up the rocks.
+He's a souple yin, yon.  We fund a road up the rocks and got in by the
+verandy.  Did ye ken that the lassie had a pistol? Well, she has, and
+it seems that Mr. Heritage is a good shot wi' a pistol, so there's some
+hope thereaways.... Are the jools safe?"
+
+"Safe in the bank.  But the jools were not the main thing."
+
+Dougal nodded.  "So I was thinkin'.  The lassie wasn't muckle the
+easier for gettin' rid o' them.  I didn't just quite understand what
+she said to Mr. Heritage, for they were aye wanderin' into foreign
+langwidges, but it seems she's terrible feared o' somebody that may
+turn up any moment.  What's the reason I can't say.  She's maybe got a
+secret, or maybe it's just that she's ower bonny."
+
+"That's the trouble," said Dickson, and proceeded to recount his
+interview with the factor, to which Dougal gave close attention. "Now
+the way I read the thing is this.  There's a plot to kidnap that lady
+for some infernal purpose, and it depends on the arrival of some person
+or persons, and it's due to happen in the next day or two. If we try to
+work it through the police alone, they'll beat us, for Loudon will
+manage to hang the business up until it's too late. So we must take on
+the job ourselves.  We must stand a siege, Mr. Heritage and me and you
+laddies, and for that purpose we'd better all keep together.  It won't
+be extra easy to carry her off from all of us, and if they do manage it
+we'll stick to their heels....  Man, Dougal, isn't it a queer thing
+that whiles law-abiding folk have to make their own laws?...  So my
+plan is that the lot of us get into the House and form a garrison.  If
+you don't, the tinklers will come back and you'll no' beat them in the
+daylight."
+
+"I doubt no'," said Dougal.  "But what about our meat?"
+
+"We must lay in provisions.  We'll get what we can from Mrs. Morran,
+and I've left a big box of fancy things at Dalquharter station. Can you
+laddies manage to get it down here?"
+
+Dougal reflected.  "Ay, we can hire Mrs. Sempill's powny, the same that
+fetched our kit."
+
+"Well, that's your job to-morrow.  See, I'll write you a line to the
+station-master.  And will you undertake to get it some way into the
+House?"
+
+"There's just the one road open--by the rocks.  It'll have to be done.
+It CAN be done."
+
+"And I've another job.  I'm writing this telegram to a friend in
+Glasgow who will put a spoke in Mr. Loudon's wheel.  I want one of you
+to go to Kirkmichael to send it from the telegraph office there."
+
+Dougal placed the wire to Mr. Caw in his bosom.  "What about yourself?
+We want somebody outside to keep his eyes open.  It's bad strawtegy to
+cut off your communications."
+
+Dickson thought for a moment.  "I believe you're right.  I believe the
+best plan for me is to go back to Mrs. Morran's as soon as the old
+body's like to be awake.  You can always get at me there, for it's easy
+to slip into her back kitchen without anybody in the village seeing
+you.... Yes, I'll do that, and you'll come and report developments to
+me.  And now I'm for a bite and a pipe. It's hungry work travelling the
+country in the small hours."
+
+"I'm going to introjuice ye to the rest o' us," said Dougal. "Here,
+men!" he called, and four figures rose from the side of the fire.  As
+Dickson munched a sandwich he passed in review the whole company of the
+Gorbals Die-Hards, for the pickets were also brought in, two others
+taking their places.  There was Thomas Yownie, the Chief of Staff, with
+a wrist wound up in the handkerchief which he had borrowed from his
+neck.  There was a burly lad who wore trousers much too large for him,
+and who was known as Peer Pairson, a contraction presumably for Peter
+Paterson.  After him came a lean tall boy who answered to the name of
+Napoleon.  There was a midget of a child, desperately sooty in the face
+either from battle or from fire-tending, who was presented as Wee
+Jaikie.  Last came the picket who had held his pole at Dickson's chest,
+a sandy-haired warrior with a snub nose and the mouth and jaw of a
+pug-dog.  He was Old Bill, or, in Dougal's parlance, "Auld Bull."
+
+The Chieftain viewed his scarred following with a grim content. "That's
+a tough lot for ye, Mr. McCunn.  Used a' their days wi' sleepin' in
+coal-rees and dunnies and dodgin' the polis.  Ye'll no beat the Gorbals
+Die-Hards."
+
+"You're right, Dougal," said Dickson.  "There's just the six of you. If
+there were a dozen, I think this country would be needing some new kind
+of a government."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+HOW A MIDDLE-AGED CRUSADER ACCEPTED A CHALLENGE
+
+
+The first cocks had just begun to crow and clocks had not yet struck
+five when Dickson presented himself at Mrs. Morran's back door. That
+active woman had already been half an hour out of bed, and was drinking
+her morning cup of tea in the kitchen.  She received him with
+cordiality, nay, with relief.
+
+"Eh, sir, but I'm glad to see ye back.  Guid kens what's gaun on at the
+Hoose thae days.  Mr. Heritage left here yestreen, creepin' round by
+dyke-sides and berry-busses like a wheasel.  It's a mercy to get a
+responsible man in the place.  I aye had a notion ye wad come back,
+for, thinks I, nevoy Dickson is no the yin to desert folk in
+trouble.... Whaur's my wee kist?.... Lost, ye say.  That's a peety, for
+it's been my cheesebox thae thirty year."
+
+Dickson ascended to the loft, having announced his need of at least
+three hours' sleep.  As he rolled into bed his mind was curiously at
+ease. He felt equipped for any call that might be made on him.  That
+Mrs. Morran should welcome him back as a resource in need gave him a
+new assurance of manhood.
+
+He woke between nine and ten to the sound of rain lashing against the
+garret window.  As he picked his way out of the mazes of sleep and
+recovered the skein of his immediate past, he found to his disgust that
+he had lost his composure.  All the flock of fears, that had left him
+when on the top of the Glasgow tram-car he had made the great decision,
+had flown back again and settled like black crows on his spirit. He was
+running a horrible risk and all for a whim. What business had he to be
+mixing himself up in things he did not understand?  It might be a huge
+mistake, and then he would be a laughing stock; for a moment he
+repented his telegram to Mr. Caw.  Then he recanted that suspicion;
+there could be no mistake, except the fatal one that he had taken on a
+job too big for him.  He sat on the edge of the bed and shivered with
+his eyes on the grey drift of rain.  He would have felt more
+stout-hearted had the sun been shining.
+
+He shuffled to the window and looked out.  There in the village street
+was Dobson, and Dobson saw him.  That was a bad blunder, for his reason
+told him that he should have kept his presence in Dalquharter hid as
+long as possible.  There was a knock at the cottage door, and presently
+Mrs. Morran appeared.
+
+"It's the man frae the inn," she announced.  "He's wantin' a word wi'
+ye.  Speakin' verra ceevil, too."
+
+"Tell him to come up," said Dickson.  He might as well get the
+interview over.  Dobson had seen Loudon and must know of their
+conversation.  The sight of himself back again when he had pretended to
+be off to Glasgow would remove him effectually from the class of the
+unsuspected.  He wondered just what line Dobson would take.
+
+The innkeeper obtruded his bulk through the low door.  His face was
+wrinkled into a smile, which nevertheless left the small eyes ungenial.
+His voice had a loud vulgar cordiality.  Suddenly Dickson was conscious
+of a resemblance, a resemblance to somebody whom he had recently seen.
+It was Loudon.  There was the same thrusting of the chin forward, the
+same odd cheek-bones, the same unctuous heartiness of speech. The
+innkeeper, well washed and polished and dressed, would be no bad copy
+of the factor.  They must be near kin, perhaps brothers.
+
+"Good morning to you, Mr. McCunn.  Man, it's pitifu' weather, and just
+when the farmers are wanting a dry seed-bed.  What brings ye back here?
+Ye travel the country like a drover."
+
+"Oh, I'm a free man now and I took a fancy to this place. An idle body
+has nothing to do but please himself."
+
+"I hear ye're taking a lease of Huntingtower?"
+
+"Now who told you that?"
+
+"Just the clash of the place.  Is it true?"
+
+Dickson looked sly and a little annoyed.
+
+"I had maybe had half a thought of it, but I'll thank you not to repeat
+the story.  It's a big house for a plain man like me, and I haven't
+properly inspected it."
+
+"Oh, I'll keep mum, never fear.  But if ye've that sort of notion, I
+can understand you not being able to keep away from the place."
+
+"That's maybe the fact," Dickson admitted.
+
+"Well!  It's just on that point I want a word with you."  The innkeeper
+seated himself unbidden on the chair which held Dickson's modest
+raiment. He leaned forward and with a coarse forefinger tapped
+Dickson's pyjama-clad knees.  "I can't have ye wandering about the
+place. I'm very sorry, but I've got my orders from Mr. Loudon.  So if
+you think that by bidin' here you can see more of the House and the
+policies, ye're wrong, Mr. McCunn.  It can't be allowed, for we're no'
+ready for ye yet.  D'ye understand?  That's Mr. Loudon's orders....
+Now, would it not be a far better plan if ye went back to Glasgow and
+came back in a week's time?  I'm thinking of your own comfort, Mr.
+McCunn."
+
+Dickson was cogitating hard.  This man was clearly instructed to get
+rid of him at all costs for the next few days.  The neighbourhood had
+to be cleared for some black business.  The tinklers had been deputed
+to drive out the Gorbals Die-Hards, and as for Heritage they seemed to
+have lost track of him.  He, Dickson, was now the chief object of their
+care.  But what could Dobson do if he refused?  He dared not show his
+true hand.  Yet he might, if sufficiently irritated. It became
+Dickson's immediate object to get the innkeeper to reveal himself by
+rousing his temper.  He did not stop to consider the policy of this
+course; he imperatively wanted things cleared up and the issue made
+plain.
+
+"I'm sure I'm much obliged to you for thinking so much about my
+comfort," he said in a voice into which he hoped he had insinuated a
+sneer.  "But I'm bound to say you're awful suspicious folk about here.
+You needn't be feared for your old policies. There's plenty of nice
+walks about the roads, and I want to explore the sea-coast."
+
+The last words seemed to annoy the innkeeper.  "That's no' allowed
+either," he said.  "The shore's as private as the policies.... Well, I
+wish ye joy tramping the roads in the glaur."
+
+"It's a queer thing," said Dickson meditatively, "that you should keep
+a hotel and yet be set on discouraging people from visiting this
+neighbourhood.  I tell you what, I believe that hotel of yours is all
+sham.  You've some other business, you and these lodgekeepers, and in
+my opinion it's not a very creditable one."
+
+"What d'ye mean?" asked Dobson sharply.
+
+"Just what I say.  You must expect a body to be suspicious, if you
+treat him as you're treating me."  Loudon must have told this man the
+story with which he had been fobbed off about the half-witted Kennedy
+relative.  Would Dobson refer to that?
+
+The innkeeper had an ugly look on his face, but he controlled his
+temper with an effort.
+
+"There's no cause for suspicion," he said.  "As far as I'm concerned
+it's all honest and above-board."
+
+"It doesn't look like it.  It looks as if you were hiding something up
+in the House which you don't want me to see."
+
+Dobson jumped from his chair, his face pale with anger.  A man in
+pyjamas on a raw morning does not feel at this bravest, and Dickson
+quailed under the expectation of assault.  But even in his fright he
+realized that Loudon could not have told Dobson the tale of the
+half-witted lady. The last remark had cut clean through all camouflage
+and reached the quick.
+
+"What the hell d'ye mean?" he cried.  "Ye're a spy, are ye? Ye fat
+little fool, for two cents I'd wring your neck."
+
+Now it is an odd trait of certain mild people that a suspicion of
+threat, a hint of bullying, will rouse some unsuspected obstinacy deep
+down in their souls.  The insolence of the man's speech woke a quiet
+but efficient little devil in Dickson.
+
+"That's a bonny tone to adopt in addressing a gentleman.  If you've
+nothing to hide what way are you so touchy?  I can't be a spy unless
+there's something to spy on."
+
+The innkeeper pulled himself together.  He was apparently acting on
+instructions, and had not yet come to the end of them.  He made an
+attempt at a smile.
+
+"I'm sure I beg your pardon if I spoke too hot.  But it nettled me to
+hear ye say that.... I'll be quite frank with ye, Mr. McCunn, and,
+believe me, I'm speaking in your best interests.  I give ye my word
+there's nothing wrong up at the House.  I'm on the side of the law, and
+when I tell ye the whole story ye'll admit it.  But I can't tell it ye
+yet.... This is a wild, lonely bit, and very few folk bide in it. And
+these are wild times, when a lot of queer things happen that never get
+into the papers.  I tell ye it's for your own good to leave Dalquharter
+for the present.  More I can't say, but I ask ye to look at it as a
+sensible man.  Ye're one that's accustomed to a quiet life and no'
+meant for rough work.  Ye'll do no good if you stay, and, maybe, ye'll
+land yourself in bad trouble."
+
+"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed.  "What is it you're expecting? Sinn
+Fein?"
+
+The innkeeper nodded.  "Something like that."
+
+"Did you ever hear the like?  I never did think much of the Irish."
+
+"Then ye'll take my advice and go home?  Tell ye what, I'll drive ye to
+the station."
+
+Dickson got up from the bed, found his new safety-razor and began to
+strop it.  "No, I think I'll bide.  If you're right there'll be more to
+see than glaury roads."
+
+"I'm warning ye, fair and honest.  Ye... can't... be... allowed...
+to... stay... here!"
+
+"Well I never!" said Dickson.  "Is there any law in Scotland, think
+you, that forbids a man to stop a day or two with his auntie?"
+
+"Ye'll stay?"
+
+"Ay, I'll stay."
+
+"By God, we'll see about that."
+
+For a moment Dickson thought that he would be attacked, and he measured
+the distance that separated him from the peg whence hung his waterproof
+with the pistol in its pocket.  But the man restrained himself and
+moved to the door.  There he stood and cursed him with a violence and a
+venom which Dickson had not believed possible. The full hand was on the
+table now.
+
+"Ye wee pot-bellied, pig-heided Glasgow grocer" (I paraphrase), "would
+you set up to defy me?  I tell ye, I'll make ye rue the day ye were
+born." His parting words were a brilliant sketch of the maltreatment in
+store for the body of the defiant one.
+
+"Impident dog," said Dickson without heat.  He noted with pleasure that
+the innkeeper hit his head violently against the low lintel, and,
+missing a step, fell down the loft stairs into the kitchen, where Mrs.
+Morran's tongue could be heard speeding him trenchantly from the
+premises.
+
+Left to himself, Dickson dressed leisurely, and by and by went down to
+the kitchen and watched his hostess making broth. The fracas with
+Dobson had done him all the good in the world, for it had cleared the
+problem of dubieties and had put an edge on his temper.  But he
+realized that it made his continued stay in the cottage undesirable.
+He was now the focus of all suspicion, and the innkeeper would be as
+good as his word and try to drive him out of the place by force.
+Kidnapping, most likely, and that would be highly unpleasant, besides
+putting an end to his usefulness. Clearly he must join the others.  The
+soul of Dickson hungered at the moment for human companionship.  He
+felt that his courage would be sufficient for any team-work, but might
+waver again if he were left to play a lone hand.
+
+He lunched nobly off three plates of Mrs. Morran's kail--an early
+lunch, for that lady, having breakfasted at five, partook of the midday
+meal about eleven.  Then he explored her library, and settled himself
+by the fire with a volume of Covenanting tales, entitled GLEANINGS
+AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.  It was a most practical work for one in his
+position, for it told how various eminent saints of that era escaped
+the attention of Claverhouse's dragoons.  Dickson stored up in his
+memory several of the incidents in case they should come in handy.  He
+wondered if any of his forbears had been Covenanters; it comforted him
+to think that some old progenitor might have hunkered behind turf walls
+and been chased for his life in the heather. "Just like me," he
+reflected.  "But the dragoons weren't foreigners, and there was a kind
+of decency about Claverhouse too."
+
+About four o'clock Dougal presented himself in the back kitchen. He was
+an even wilder figure than usual, for his bare legs were mud to the
+knees, his kilt and shirt clung sopping to his body, and, having lost
+his hat, his wet hair was plastered over his eyes. Mrs. Morran said,
+not unkindly, that he looked "like a wull-cat glowerin' through a whin
+buss."
+
+"How are you, Dougal?" Dickson asked genially.  "Is the peace of nature
+smoothing out the creases in your poor little soul?"
+
+"What's that ye say?"
+
+"Oh, just what I heard a man say in Glasgow.  How have you got on?"
+
+"No' so bad.  Your telegram was sent this mornin'.  Auld Bill took it
+in to Kirkmichael.  That's the first thing.  Second, Thomas Yownie has
+took a party to get down the box from the station. He got Mrs.
+Sempills' powny, and he took the box ayont the Laver by the ford at the
+herd's hoose and got it on to the shore maybe a mile ayont Laverfoot.
+He managed to get the machine up as far as the water, but he could get
+no farther, for ye'll no' get a machine over the wee waterfa' just
+before the Laver ends in the sea. So he sent one o' the men back with
+it to Mrs. Sempill, and, since the box was ower heavy to carry, he
+opened it and took the stuff across in bits.  It's a' safe in the hole
+at the foot o' the Huntingtower rocks, and he reports that the rain has
+done it no harm. Thomas has made a good job of it.  Ye'll no' fickle
+Thomas Yownie."
+
+"And what about your camp on the moor?"
+
+"It was broke up afore daylight.  Some of our things we've got with us,
+but most is hid near at hand.  The tents are in the auld wife's
+hen-hoose." and he jerked his disreputable head in the direction of the
+back door.
+
+"Have the tinklers been back?"
+
+"Aye.  They turned up about ten o'clock, no doubt intendin' murder. I
+left Wee Jaikie to watch developments.  They fund him sittin' on a
+stone, greetin' sore.  When he saw them, he up and started to run, and
+they cried on him to stop, but he wouldn't listen.  Then they cried out
+where were the rest, and he telled them they were feared for their
+lives and had run away.  After that they offered to catch him, but
+ye'll no' catch Jaikie in a hurry.  When he had run round about them
+till they were wappit, he out wi' his catty and got one o' them on the
+lug.  Syne he made for the Laverfoot and reported."
+
+"Man, Dougal, you've managed fine.  Now I've something to tell you,"
+and Dickson recounted his interview with the innkeeper.  "I don't think
+it's safe for me to bide here, and if I did, I wouldn't be any use,
+hiding in cellars and such like, and not daring to stir a foot. I'm
+coming with you to the House.  Now tell me how to get there."
+
+Dougal agreed to this view.  "There's been nothing doing at the Hoose
+the day, but they're keepin' a close watch on the policies. The cripus
+may come any moment.  There's no doubt,  Mr. McCunn, that ye're in
+danger, for they'll serve you as the tinklers tried to serve us.
+Listen to me.  Ye'll walk up the station road, and take the second turn
+on your left, a wee grass road that'll bring ye to the ford at the
+herd's hoose.  Cross the Laver--there's a plank bridge--and take
+straight across the moor in the direction of the peakit hill they call
+Grey Carrick.  Ye'll come to a big burn, which ye must follow till ye
+get to the shore.  Then turn south, keepin' the water's edge till ye
+reach the Laver, where you'll find one o' us to show ye the rest of the
+road.... I must be off now, and I advise ye not to be slow of startin',
+for wi' this rain the water's risin' quick.  It's a mercy it's such
+coarse weather, for it spoils the veesibility."
+
+"Auntie Phemie," said Dickson a few minutes later, "will you oblige me
+by coming for a short walk?"
+
+"The man's daft," was the answer.
+
+"I'm not.  I'll explain if you'll listen.... You see," he concluded,
+"the dangerous bit for me is just the mile out of the village. They'll
+no' be so likely to try violence if there's somebody with me that could
+be a witness.  Besides, they'll maybe suspect less if they just see a
+decent body out for a breath of air with his auntie."
+
+Mrs. Morran said nothing, but retired, and returned presently equipped
+for the road.  She had indued her feet with goloshes and pinned up her
+skirts till they looked like some demented Paris mode. An ancient
+bonnet was tied under her chin with strings, and her equipment was
+completed by an exceedingly smart tortoise-shell-handled umbrella,
+which, she explained, had been a Christmas present from her son.
+
+"I'll convoy ye as far as the Laverfoot herd's," she announced. "The
+wife's a freend o' mine and will set me a bit on the road back. Ye
+needna fash for me.  I'm used to a' weathers."
+
+The rain had declined to a fine drizzle, but a tearing wind from the
+south-west scoured the land.  Beyond the shelter of the trees the moor
+was a battle-ground of gusts which swept the puddles into spindrift and
+gave to the stagnant bog-pools the appearance of running water.  The
+wind was behind the travellers, and Mrs. Morran, like a full-rigged
+ship, was hustled before it, so that Dickson, who had linked arms with
+her, was sometimes compelled to trot.
+
+"However will you get home, mistress?" he murmured anxiously.
+
+"Fine.  The wind will fa' at the darkenin'. This'll be a sair time for
+ships at sea."
+
+Not a soul was about, so they breasted the ascent of the station road
+and turned down the grassy bypath to the Laverfoot herd's. The herd's
+wife saw them from afar and was at the door to receive them.
+
+"Megsty!  Phemie Morran!" she shrilled.  "Wha wad ettle to see ye on a
+day like this?  John's awa' at Dumfries, buyin' tups. Come in, the
+baith o' ye.  The kettle's on the boil."
+
+"This is my nevoy Dickson," said Mrs. Morran.  "He's gaun to stretch
+his legs ayont the burn, and come back by the Ayr road.  But I'll be
+blithe to tak' my tea wi' ye, Elspeth.... Now, Dickson, I'll expect ye
+hame on the chap o' seeven."
+
+He crossed the rising stream on a swaying plank and struck into the
+moorland, as Dougal had ordered, keeping the bald top of Grey Carrick
+before him.  In that wild place with the tempest battling overhead he
+had no fear of human enemies.  Steadily he covered the ground, till he
+reached the west-flowing burn, that was to lead him to the shore.  He
+found it an entertaining companion, swirling into black pools, foaming
+over little falls, and lying in dark canal-like stretches in the flats.
+Presently it began to descend steeply in a narrow green gully, where
+the going was bad, and Dickson, weighted with pack and waterproof, had
+much ado to keep his feet on the sodden slopes.  Then, as he rounded a
+crook of hill, the ground fell away from his feet, the burn swept in a
+water-slide to the boulders of the shore, and the storm-tossed sea lay
+before him.
+
+It was now that he began to feel nervous.  Being on the coast again
+seemed to bring him inside his enemies' territory, and had not Dobson
+specifically forbidden the shore?  It was here that they might be
+looking for him.  He felt himself out of condition, very wet and very
+warm, but he attained a creditable pace, for he struck a road which had
+been used by manure-carts collecting seaweed.  There were faint marks
+on it, which he took to be the wheels of Dougal's "machine" carrying
+the provision-box.  Yes.  On a patch of gravel there was a double set
+of tracks, which showed how it had returned to Mrs. Sempill.  He was
+exposed to the full force of the wind, and the strenuousness of his
+bodily exertions kept his fears quiescent, till the cliffs on his left
+sunk suddenly and the valley of the Laver lay before him.
+
+A small figure rose from the shelter of a boulder, the warrior who bore
+the name of Old Bill.  He saluted gravely.
+
+"Ye're just in time.  The water has rose three inches since I've been
+here.  Ye'd better strip."
+
+Dickson removed his boots and socks.  "Breeks too," commanded the boy;
+"there's deep holes ayont thae stanes."
+
+Dickson obeyed, feeling very chilly, and rather improper. "Now follow
+me," said the guide.  The next moment he was stepping delicately on
+very sharp pebbles, holding on to the end of the scout's pole, while an
+icy stream ran to his knees.
+
+The Laver as it reaches the sea broadens out to the width of fifty or
+sixty yards and tumbles over little shelves of rock to meet the waves.
+Usually it is shallow, but now it was swollen to an average depth of a
+foot or more, and there were deeper pockets. Dickson made the passage
+slowly and miserably, sometimes crying out with pain as his toes struck
+a sharper flint, once or twice sitting down on a boulder to blow like a
+whale, once slipping on his knees and wetting the strange excrescence
+about his middle, which was his tucked-up waterproof.  But the crossing
+was at length achieved, and on a patch of sea-pinks he dried himself
+perfunctorily and hastily put on his garments.  Old Bill, who seemed to
+be regardless of wind or water, squatted beside him and whistled
+through his teeth.
+
+Above them hung the sheer cliffs of the Huntingtower cape, so sheer
+that a man below was completely hidden from any watcher on the top.
+Dickson's heart fell, for he did not profess to be a cragsman and had
+indeed a horror of precipitous places.  But as the two scrambled along
+the foot, they passed deep-cut gullies and fissures, most of them
+unclimbable, but offering something more hopeful than the face. At one
+of these Old Bill halted, and led the way up and over a chaos of fallen
+rock and loose sand.  The grey weather had brought on the dark
+prematurely, and in the half-light it seemed that this ravine was
+blocked by an unscalable nose of rock.  Here Old Bill whistled, and
+there was a reply from above.  Round the corner of the nose came Dougal.
+
+"Up here," he commanded.  "It was Mr. Heritage that fund this road."
+
+Dickson and his guide squeezed themselves between the nose and the
+cliff up a spout of stones, and found themselves in an upper storey of
+the gulley, very steep, but practicable even for one who was no
+cragsman.  This in turn ran out against a wall up which there led only
+a narrow chimney.  At the foot of this were two of the Die-Hards, and
+there were others above, for a rope hung down, by the aid of which a
+package was even now ascending.
+
+"That's the top," said Dougal, pointing to the rim of sky, "and that's
+the last o' the supplies."  Dickson noticed that he spoke in a whisper,
+and that all the movements of the Die-Hards were judicious and
+stealthy. "Now, it's your turn.  Take a good grip o' the rope, and
+ye'll find plenty holes for your feet.  It's no more than ten yards and
+ye're well held above."
+
+Dickson made the attempt and found it easier than he expected. The only
+trouble was his pack and waterproof, which had a tendency to catch on
+jags of rock.  A hand was reached out to him, he was pulled over the
+edge, and then pushed down on his face.  When he lifted his head Dougal
+and the others had joined him, and the whole company of the Die-Hards
+was assembled on a patch of grass which was concealed from the landward
+view by a thicket of hazels.  Another, whom he recognized as Heritage,
+was coiling up the rope.
+
+"We'd better get all the stuff into the old Tower for the present,"
+Heritage was saying.  "It's too risky to move it into the House now.
+We'll need the thickest darkness for that, after the moon is down.
+Quick, for the beastly thing will be rising soon, and before that we
+must all be indoors."
+
+Then he turned to Dickson and gripped his hand.  "You're a high class
+of sportsman, Dogson.  And I think you're just in time."
+
+"Are they due to-night?" Dickson asked in an excited whisper, faint
+against the wind.
+
+"I don't know about They.  But I've got a notion that some devilish
+queer things will happen before to-morrow morning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
+
+
+The old keep of Huntingtower stood some three hundred yards from the
+edge of the cliffs, a gnarled wood of hazels and oaks protecting it
+from the sea-winds.  It was still in fair preservation, having till
+twenty years before been an adjunct of the house of Dalquharter, and
+used as kitchen, buttery, and servants' quarters.  There had been
+residential wings attached, dating from the mid-eighteenth century, but
+these had been pulled down and used for the foundations of the new
+mansion.  Now it stood a lonely shell, its three storeys, each a single
+great room connected by a spiral stone staircase, being dedicated to
+lumber and the storage of produce.  But it was dry and intact, its
+massive oak doors defied any weapon short of artillery, its narrow
+unglazed windows would scarcely have admitted a cat--a place
+portentously strong, gloomy, but yet habitable.
+
+Dougal opened the main door with a massy key.  "The lassie fund it," he
+whispered to Dickson, "somewhere about the kitchen--and I guessed it
+was the key o' this castle.  I was thinkin' that if things got ower hot
+it would be a good plan to flit here.  Change our base, like." The
+Chieftain's occasional studies in war had trained his tongue to a
+military jargon.
+
+In the ground room lay a fine assortment of oddments, including old
+bedsteads and servants' furniture, and what looked like ancient
+discarded deerskin rugs.  Dust lay thick over everything, and they
+heard the scurry of rats.  A dismal place, indeed, but Dickson felt
+only its strangeness.  The comfort of being back again among allies had
+quickened his spirit to an adventurous mood.  The old lords of
+Huntingtower had once quarrelled and revelled and plotted here, and now
+here he was at the same game.  Present and past joined hands over the
+gulf of years.  The saga of Huntingtower was not ended.
+
+The Die-Hards had brought with them their scanty bedding, their
+lanterns and camp-kettles.  These and the provisions from Mearns Street
+were stowed away in a corner.
+
+"Now for the Hoose, men," said Dougal.  They stole over the downs to
+the shrubbery, and Dickson found himself almost in the same place as he
+had lain in three days before, watching a dusky lawn, while the wet
+earth soaked through his trouser knees and the drip from the azaleas
+trickled over his spine.  Two of the boys fetched the ladder and placed
+it against the verandah wall.  Heritage first, then Dickson, darted
+across the lawn and made the ascent.  The six scouts followed, and the
+ladder was pulled up and hidden among the verandah litter. For a second
+the whole eight stood still and listened.  There was no sound except
+the murmur of the now falling wind and the melancholy hooting of owls.
+The garrison had entered the Dark Tower.
+
+A council in whispers was held in the garden-room.
+
+"Nobody must show a light," Heritage observed.  "It mustn't be known
+that we're here.  Only the Princess will have a lamp.  Yes"--this in
+answer to Dickson--"she knows that we're coming--you too. We'll hunt
+for quarters later upstairs.  You scouts, you must picket every
+possible entrance.  The windows are safe, I think, for they are locked
+from the inside.  So is the main door.  But there's the verandah door,
+of which they have a key, and the back door beside the kitchen, and I'm
+not at all sure that there's not a way in by the boiler-house.  You
+understand.  We're holding his place against all comers.  We must
+barricade the danger points.  The headquarters of the garrison will be
+in the hall, where a scout must be always on duty.  You've all got
+whistles?  Well, if there's an attempt on the verandah door the picket
+will whistle once, if at the back door twice, if anywhere else three
+times, and it's everybody's duty, except the picket who whistles, to
+get back to the hall for orders."
+
+"That's so," assented Dougal.
+
+"If the enemy forces an entrance we must overpower him.  Any means you
+like.  Sticks or fists, and remember if it's a scrap in the dark to
+make for the man's throat.  I expect you little devils have eyes like
+cats.  The scoundrels must be kept away from the ladies at all costs.
+If the worst comes to the worst, the Princess has a revolver."
+
+"So have I," said Dickson.  "I got it in Glasgow."
+
+"The deuce you have!  Can you use it?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, you can hand it over to me, if you like.  But it oughtn't to
+come to shooting, if it's only the three of them.  The eight of us
+should be able to manage three and one of them lame.  If the others
+turn up--well, God help us all!  But we've got to make sure of one
+thing, that no one lays hands on the Princess so long as there's one of
+us left alive to hit out."
+
+"Ye needn't be feared for that," said Dougal.  There was no light in
+the room, but Dickson was certain that the morose face of the Chieftain
+was lit with unholy joy.
+
+"Then off with you.  Mr. McCunn and I will explain matters to the
+ladies."
+
+When they were alone, Heritage's voice took a different key. "We're in
+for it, Dogson, old man.  There's no doubt these three scoundrels
+expect reinforcements at any moment, and with them will be one who is
+the devil incarnate.  He's the only thing on earth that that brave girl
+fears.  It seems he is in love with her and has pestered her for years.
+She hated the sight of him, but he wouldn't take no, and being a
+powerful man--rich and well-born and all the rest of it--she had a
+desperate time.  I gather he was pretty high in favour with the old
+Court.  Then when the Bolsheviks started he went over to them, like
+plenty of other grandees, and now he's one of their chief brains--none
+of your callow revolutionaries, but a man of the world, a kind of
+genius, she says, who can hold his own anywhere.  She believes him to
+be in this country, and only waiting the right moment to turn up.  Oh,
+it sounds ridiculous, I know, in Britain in the twentieth century, but
+I learned in the war that civilization anywhere is a very thin crust.
+There are a hundred ways by which that kind of fellow could bamboozle
+all our law and police and spirit her away.  That's the kind of crowd
+we have to face."
+
+"Did she say what he was like in appearance?"
+
+"A face like an angel--a lost angel, she says."
+
+Dickson suddenly had an inspiration.
+
+"D'you mind the man you said was an Australian--at Kirkmichael? I
+thought myself he was a foreigner.  Well, he was asking for a place he
+called Darkwater, and there's no sich place in the countryside. I
+believe he meant Dalquharter.  I believe he's the man she's feared of."
+
+A gasped "By Jove!" came from the darkness.  "Dogson, you've hit it.
+That was five days ago, and he must have got on the right trail by this
+time.  He'll be here to-night.  That's why the three have been lying so
+quiet to-day.  Well, we'll go through with it, even if we haven't a
+dog's chance!  Only I'm sorry that you should be mixed up in such a
+hopeless business."
+
+"Why me more than you?"
+
+"Because it's all pure pride and joy for me to be here.  Good God, I
+wouldn't be elsewhere for worlds.  It's the great hour of my life. I
+would gladly die for her."
+
+"Tuts, that's no' the way to talk, man.  Time enough to speak about
+dying when there's no other way out.  I'm looking at this thing in a
+business way.  We'd better be seeing the ladies."
+
+They groped into the pitchy hall, somewhere in which a Die-Hard was on
+picket, and down the passage to the smoking-room.  Dickson blinked in
+the light of a very feeble lamp and Heritage saw that his hands were
+cumbered with packages.  He deposited them on a sofa and made a ducking
+bow.
+
+"I've come back, Mem, and glad to be back.  Your jools are in safe
+keeping, and not all the blagyirds in creation could get at them. I've
+come to tell you to cheer up--a stout heart to a stey brae, as the old
+folk say.  I'm handling this affair as a business proposition, so don't
+be feared, Mem.  If there are enemies seeking you, there's friends on
+the road too.... Now, you'll have had your dinner, but you'd maybe like
+a little dessert."
+
+He spread before them a huge box of chocolates, the best that Mearns
+Street could produce, a box of candied fruits, and another of salted
+almonds.  Then from his hideously overcrowded pockets he took another
+box, which he offered rather shyly.  "That's some powder for your
+complexion.  They tell me that ladies find it useful whiles."
+
+The girl's strained face watched him at first in mystification, and
+then broke slowly into a smile.  Youth came back into it, the smile
+changed to a laugh, a low rippling laugh like far-away bells. She took
+both his hands.
+
+"You are kind," she said, "you are kind and brave.  You are a de-ar."
+
+And then she kissed him.
+
+Now, as far as Dickson could remember, no one had ever kissed him
+except his wife.  The light touch of her lips on his forehead was like
+the pressing of an electric button which explodes some powerful charge
+and alters the face of a countryside.  He blushed scarlet; then he
+wanted to cry; then he wanted to sing.  An immense exhilaration seized
+him, and I am certain that if at that moment the serried ranks of
+Bolshevy had appeared in the doorway, Dickson would have hurled himself
+upon them with a joyful shout.
+
+Cousin Eugenie was earnestly eating chocolates, but Saskia had other
+business.
+
+"You will hold the house?" she asked.
+
+"Please God, yes," said Heritage.  "I look at it this way. The time is
+very near when your three gaolers expect the others, their masters.
+They have not troubled you in the past two days as they threatened,
+because it was not worth while.  But they won't want to let you out of
+their sight in the final hours, so they will almost certainly come here
+to be on the spot.  Our object is to keep them out and confuse their
+plans.  Somewhere in this neighbourhood, probably very near, is the man
+you fear most.  If we nonplus the three watchers, they'll have to
+revise their policy, and that means a delay, and every hour's delay is
+a gain.  Mr. McCunn has found out that the factor Loudon is in the
+plot, and he has purchase enough, it seems, to blanket for a time any
+appeal to the law.  But Mr. McCunn has taken steps to circumvent him,
+and in twenty-four hours we should have help here."
+
+"I do not want the help of your law," the girl interrupted. "It will
+entangle me.'
+
+"Not a bit of it," said Dickson cheerfully.  "You see, Mem, they've
+clean lost track of the jools, and nobody knows where they are but me.
+I'm a truthful man, but I'll lie like a packman if I'm asked questions.
+For the rest, it's a question of kidnapping, I understand, and that's a
+thing that's not to be allowed.  My advice is to go to our beds and get
+a little sleep while there's a chance of it. The Gorbals Die-Hards are
+grand watch-dogs."
+
+This view sounded so reasonable that it was at once acted upon. The
+ladies' chamber was next door to the smoking-room--what had been the
+old schoolroom.  Heritage arranged with Saskia that the lamp was to be
+kept burning low, and that on no account were they to move unless
+summoned by him.  Then he and Dickson made their way to the hall, where
+there was a faint glimmer from the moon in the upper unshuttered
+windows--enough to reveal the figure of Wee Jaikie on duty at the foot
+of the staircase.  They ascended to the second floor, where, in a large
+room above the hall, Heritage had bestowed his pack. He had managed to
+open a fold of the shutters, and there was sufficient light to see two
+big mahogany bedsteads without mattresses or bedclothes, and wardrobes
+and chests of drawers sheeted in holland. Outside the wind was rising
+again, but the rain had stopped. Angry watery clouds scurried across
+the heavens.
+
+Dickson made a pillow of his waterproof, stretched himself on one of
+the bedsteads, and, so quiet was his conscience and so weary his body
+from the buffetings of the past days, was almost instantly asleep. It
+seemed to him that he had scarcely closed his eyes when he was awakened
+by Dougal's hand pinching his shoulder.  He gathered that the moon was
+setting, for the room was pitchy dark.
+
+"The three o' them is approachin' the kitchen door," whispered the
+Chieftain.  "I seen them from a spy-hole I made out o' a ventilator."
+
+"Is it barricaded?" asked Heritage, who had apparently not been asleep.
+
+"Aye, but I've thought o' a far better plan.  Why should we keep them
+out?  They'll be safer inside.  Listen!  We might manage to get them in
+one at a time.  If they can't get in at the kitchen door, they'll send
+one o' them round to get in by another door and open to them.  That
+gives us a chance to get them separated, and lock them up.  There's
+walth o' closets and hidy-holes all over the place, each with good
+doors and good keys to them.  Supposin' we get the three o' them shut
+up--the others, when they come, will have nobody to guide them.  Of
+course some time or other the three will break out, but it may be ower
+late for them.  At present we're besieged and they're roamin' the
+country.  Would it no' be far better if they were the ones lockit up
+and we were goin' loose?"
+
+"Supposing they don't come in one at a time?"  Dickson objected.
+
+"We'll make them," said Dougal firmly.  "There's no time to waste. Are
+ye for it?"
+
+"Yes," said Heritage.  "Who's at the kitchen door?"
+
+"Peter Paterson.  I told him no' to whistle, but to wait on me.... Keep
+your boots off.  Ye're better in your stockin' feet.  Wait you in the
+hall and see ye're well hidden, for likely whoever comes in will have a
+lantern.  Just you keep quiet unless I give ye a cry. I've planned it
+a' out, and we're ready for them."
+
+Dougal disappeared, and Dickson and Heritage, with their boots tied
+round their necks by their laces, crept out to the upper landing. The
+hall was impenetrably dark, but full of voices, for the wind was
+talking in the ceiling beams, and murmuring through the long passages.
+The walls creaked and muttered and little bits of plaster fluttered
+down. The noise was an advantage for the game of hide-and-seek they
+proposed to play, but it made it hard to detect the enemy's approach.
+Dickson, in order to get properly wakened, adventured as far as the
+smoking-room.  It was black with night, but below the door of the
+adjacent room a faint line of light showed where the Princess's lamp
+was burning.  He advanced to the window, and heard distinctly a foot on
+the grovel path that led to the verandah.  This sent him back to the
+hall in search of Dougal, whom he encountered in the passage. That boy
+could certainly see in the dark, for he caught Dickson's wrist without
+hesitation.
+
+"We've got Spittal in the wine-cellar," he whispered triumphantly. "The
+kitchen door was barricaded, and when they tried it, it wouldn't open.
+'Bide here,' says Dobson to Spittal, 'and we'll go round by another
+door and come back and open to ye.'  So off they went, and by that time
+Peter Paterson and me had the barricade down.  As we expected, Spittal
+tries the key again and it opens quite easy.  He comes in and locks it
+behind him, and, Dobson having took away the lantern, he gropes his way
+very carefu' towards the kitchen.  There's a point where the
+wine-cellar door and the scullery door are aside each other. He should
+have taken the second, but I had it shut so he takes the first. Peter
+Paterson gave him a wee shove and he fell down the two-three steps into
+the cellar, and we turned the key on him.  Yon cellar has a grand door
+and no windies."
+
+"And Dobson and Leon are at the verandah door?  With a light?"
+
+"Thomas Yownie's on duty there.  Ye can trust him.  Ye'll no fickle
+Thomas Yownie."
+
+The next minutes were for Dickson a delirium of excitement not
+unpleasantly shot with flashes of doubt and fear.  As a child he had
+played hide-and-seek, and his memory had always cherished the delights
+of the game.  But how marvellous to play it thus in a great empty
+house, at dark of night, with the heaven filled with tempest, and with
+death or wounds as the stakes!
+
+He took refuge in a corner where a tapestry curtain and the side of a
+Dutch awmry gave him shelter, and from where he stood he could see the
+garden-room and the beginning of the tiled passage which led to the
+verandah door.  That is to say, he could have seen these things if
+there had been any light, which there was not.  He heard the soft
+flitting of bare feet, for a delicate sound is often audible in a din
+when a loud noise is obscured.  Then a gale of wind blew towards him,
+as from an open door, and far away gleamed the flickering light of a
+lantern.
+
+Suddenly the light disappeared and there was a clatter on the floor and
+a breaking of glass.  Either the wind or Thomas Yownie.
+
+The verandah door was shut, a match spluttered and the lantern was
+relit.  Dobson and Leon came into the hall, both clad in long
+mackintoshes which glistened from the weather.  Dobson halted and
+listened to the wind howling in the upper spaces.  He cursed it
+bitterly, looked at his watch, and then made an observation which woke
+the liveliest interest in Dickson lurking beside the awmry and Heritage
+ensconced in the shadow of a window-seat.
+
+"He's late.  He should have been here five minutes syne.  It would be a
+dirty road for his car."
+
+So the Unknown was coming that night.  The news made Dickson the more
+resolved to get the watchers under lock and key before reinforcements
+arrived, and so put grit in their wheels.  Then his party must
+escape--flee anywhere so long as it was far from Dalquharter.
+
+"You stop here," said Dobson, "I'll go down and let Spidel in. We want
+another lamp.  Get the one that the women use, and for God's sake get a
+move on."
+
+The sound of his feet died in the kitchen passage and then rung again
+on the stone stairs.  Dickson's ear of faith heard also the soft patter
+of naked feet as the Die-Hards preceded and followed him. He was
+delivering himself blind and bound into their hands.
+
+For a minute or two there was no sound but the wind, which had found a
+loose chimney cowl on the roof and screwed out of it an odd sound like
+the drone of a bagpipe.  Dickson, unable to remain any longer in one
+place, moved into the centre of the hall, believing that Leon had gone
+to the smoking-room.  It was a dangerous thing to do, for suddenly a
+match was lit a yard from him.  He had the sense to drop low, and so
+was out of the main glare of the light.  The man with the match
+apparently had no more, judging by his execrations. Dickson stood stock
+still, longing for the wind to fall so that he might hear the sound of
+the fellow's boots on the stone floor. He gathered that they were
+moving towards the smoking-room.
+
+"Heritage," he whispered as loud as he dared, bet there was no answer.
+
+Then suddenly a moving body collided with him.  He jumped a step back
+and then stood at attention.  "Is that you, Dobson?"  a voice asked.
+
+Now behold the occasional advantage of a nick-name.  Dickson thought he
+was being addressed as "Dogson" after the Poet's fashion.  Had he
+dreamed it was Leon he would not have replied, but fluttered off into
+the shadows, and so missed a piece of vital news.
+
+"Ay, it's me." he whispered.
+
+His voice and accent were Scotch, like Dobson's, and Leon suspected
+nothing.
+
+"I do not like this wind," he grumbled.  "The Captain's letter said at
+dawn, but there is no chance of the Danish brig making your little
+harbour in this weather.  She must lie off and land the men by boats.
+That I do not like.  It is too public."
+
+The news--tremendous news, for it told that the new-comers would come
+by sea, which had never before entered Dickson's head--so interested
+him that he stood dumb and ruminating.  The silence made the Belgian
+suspect; he put out a hand and felt a waterproofed arm which might have
+been Dobson's.  But the height of the shoulder proved that it was not
+the burly innkeeper.  There was an oath, a quick movement, and Dickson
+went down with a knee on his chest and two hands at his throat.
+
+"Heritage," he gasped.  "Help!"
+
+There was a sound of furniture scraped violently on the floor. A gurgle
+from Dickson served as a guide, and the Poet suddenly cascaded over the
+combatants.  He felt for a head, found Leon's and gripped the neck so
+savagely that the owner loosened his hold on Dickson.  The last-named
+found himself being buffeted violently by heavy-shod feet which seemed
+to be manoeuvring before an unseen enemy.  He rolled out of the road
+and encountered another pair of feet, this time unshod.  Then came the
+sound of a concussion, as if metal or wood had struck some part of a
+human frame, and then a stumble and fall.
+
+After that a good many things all seemed to happen at once. There was a
+sudden light, which showed Leon blinking with a short loaded
+life-preserver in his hand, and Heritage prone in front of him on the
+floor.  It also showed Dickson the figure of Dougal, and more than one
+Die-Hard in the background.  The light went out as suddenly as it had
+appeared.  There was a whistle and a hoarse "Come on, men," and then
+for two seconds there was a desperate silent combat.  It ended with
+Leon's head meeting the floor so violently that its possessor became
+oblivious of further proceedings. He was dragged into a cubby-hole,
+which had once been used for coats and rugs, and the door locked on
+him.  Then the light sprang forth again.  It revealed Dougal and five
+Die-Hards, somewhat the worse for wear; it revealed also Dickson
+squatted with outspread waterproof very like a sitting hen.
+
+"Where's Dobson?" he asked.
+
+"In the boiler-house," and for once Dougal's gravity had laughter in
+it. "Govey Dick! but yon was a fecht!  Me and Peter Paterson and Wee
+Jaikie started it, but it was the whole company afore the end. Are ye
+better, Jaikie?"
+
+"Ay, I'm better," said a pallid midget.
+
+"He kickit Jaikie in the stomach and Jaikie was seeck," Dougal
+explained. "That's the three accounted for.  I think mysel' that Dobson
+will be the first to get out, but he'll have his work letting out the
+others. Now, I'm for flittin' to the old Tower.  They'll no ken where
+we are for a long time, and anyway yon place will be far easier to
+defend. Without they kindle a fire and smoke us out, I don't see how
+they'll beat us.  Our provisions are a' there, and there's a grand well
+o' water inside.  Forbye there's the road down the rocks that'll keep
+our communications open.... But what's come to Mr. Heritage?"
+
+Dickson to his shame had forgotten all about his friend.  The Poet lay
+very quiet with his head on one side and his legs crooked limply. Blood
+trickled over his eyes from an ugly scar on his forehead. Dickson felt
+his heart and pulse and found them faint but regular. The man had got a
+swinging blow and might have a slight concussion; for the present he
+was unconscious.
+
+"All the more reason why we should flit," said Dougal.  "What d'ye say,
+Mr. McCunn?"
+
+"Flit, of course, but further than the old Tower.  What's the time?" He
+lifted Heritage's wrist and saw from his watch that it was half-past
+three.  "Mercy.  It's nearly morning.  Afore we put these blagyirds
+away, they were conversing, at least Leon and Dobson were. They said
+that they expected somebody every moment, but that the car would be
+late.  We've still got that Somebody to tackle. Then Leon spoke to me
+in the dark, thinking I was Dobson, and cursed the wind, saying it
+would keep the Danish brig from getting in at dawn as had been
+intended.  D'you see what that means? The worst of the lot, the ones
+the ladies are in terror of, are coming by sea.  Ay, and they can
+return by sea.  We thought that the attack would be by land, and that
+even if they succeeded we could hang on to their heels and follow them,
+till we got them stopped. But that's impossible!  If they come in from
+the water, they can go out by the water, and there'll never be more
+heard tell of the ladies or of you or me."
+
+Dougal's face was once again sunk in gloom.  "What's your plan, then?"
+
+"We must get the ladies away from here--away inland, far from the sea.
+The rest of us must stand a siege in the old Tower, so that the enemy
+will think we're all there.  Please God we'll hold out long enough for
+help to arrive.  But we mustn't hang about here.  There's the man
+Dobson mentioned--he may come any second, and we want to be away first.
+Get the ladder, Dougal.... Four of you take Mr. Heritage, and two come
+with me and carry the ladies' things.  It's no' raining, but the wind's
+enough to take the wings off a seagull."
+
+Dickson roused Saskia and her cousin, bidding them be ready in ten
+minutes.  Then with the help of the Die-Hards he proceeded to transport
+the necessary supplies--the stove, oil, dishes, clothes and wraps; more
+than one journey was needed of small boys, hidden under clouds of
+baggage.  When everything had gone he collected the keys, behind which,
+in various quarters of the house, three gaolers fumed impotently, and
+gave them to Wee Jaikie to dispose of in some secret nook.  Then he led
+the two ladies to the verandah, the elder cross and sleepy, the younger
+alert at the prospect of movement.
+
+"Tell me again," she said.  "You have locked all the three up, and they
+are now the imprisoned?"
+
+"Well, it was the boys that, properly speaking, did the locking up."
+
+"It is a great--how do you say?--a turning of the tables. Ah--what is
+that?"
+
+At the end of the verandah there was a clattering down of pots which
+could not be due to the wind, since the place was sheltered. There was
+as yet only the faintest hint of light, and black night still lurked in
+the crannies.  Followed another fall of pots, as from a clumsy
+intruder, and then a man appeared, clear against the glass door by
+which the path descended to the rock garden. It was the fourth man,
+whom the three prisoners had awaited. Dickson had no doubt at all about
+his identity.  He was that villain from whom all the others took their
+orders, the man whom the Princess shuddered at.  Before starting he had
+loaded his pistol. Now he tugged it from his waterproof pocket, pointed
+it at the other and fired.
+
+The man seemed to be hit, for he spun round and clapped a hand to his
+left arm.  Then he fled through the door, which he left open.
+
+Dickson was after him like a hound.  At the door he saw him running and
+raised his pistol for another shot.  Then he dropped it, for he saw
+something in the crouching, dodging figure which was familiar.
+
+"A mistake," he explained to Jaikie when he returned.  "But the shot
+wasn't wasted.  I've just had a good try at killing the factor!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY
+
+
+Five scouts' lanterns burned smokily in the ground room of the keep
+when Dickson ushered his charges through its cavernous door. The lights
+flickered in the gusts that swept after them and whistled through the
+slits of the windows, so that the place was full of monstrous shadows,
+and its accustomed odour of mould and disuse was changed to a salty
+freshness.  Upstairs on the first floor Thomas Yownie had deposited the
+ladies' baggage, and was busy making beds out of derelict iron
+bedsteads and the wraps brought from their room.  On the ground floor
+on a heap of litter covered by an old scout's blanket lay Heritage,
+with Dougal in attendance.
+
+The Chieftain had washed the blood from the Poet's brow, and the touch
+of cold water was bringing him back his senses.  Saskia with a cry flew
+to him, and waved off Dickson who had fetched one of the bottles of
+liqueur brandy.  She slipped a hand inside his shirt and felt the
+beating of his heart.  Then her slim fingers ran over his forehead.
+
+"A bad blow," she muttered, "but I do not think he is ill. There is no
+fracture.  When I nursed in the Alexander Hospital I learnt much about
+head wounds.  Do not give him cognac if you value his life."
+
+Heritage was talking now and with strange tongues.  Phrases like "lined
+Digesters" and "free sulphurous acid" came from his lips. He implored
+some one to tell him if "the first cook" was finished, and he upbraided
+some one else for "cooling off" too fast.
+
+The girl raised her head.  "But I fear he has become mad," she said.
+
+"Wheesht, Mem," said Dickson, who recognized the jargon. "He's a
+papermaker."
+
+Saskia sat down on the litter and lifted his head so that it rested on
+her breast.  Dougal at her bidding brought a certain case from her
+baggage, and with swift, capable hands she made a bandage and rubbed
+the wound with ointment before tying it up.  Then her fingers seemed to
+play about his temples and along his cheeks and neck. She was the
+professional nurse now, absorbed, sexless.  Heritage ceased to babble,
+his eyes shut and he was asleep.
+
+She remained where she was, so that the Poet, when a few minutes later
+he woke, found himself lying with his head in her lap. She spoke first,
+in an imperative tone: "You are well now. Your head does not ache.  You
+are strong again."
+
+"No.  Yes," he murmured.  Then more clearly: "Where am I? Oh, I
+remember, I caught a lick on the head.  What's become of the brutes?"
+
+Dickson, who had extracted food from the Mearns Street box and was
+pressing it on the others, replied through a mouthful of Biscuit:
+"We're in the old Tower.  The three are lockit up in the House. Are you
+feeling better, Mr. Heritage?"
+
+The Poet suddenly realized Saskia's position and the blood came to his
+pale face.  He got to his feet with an effort and held out a hand to
+the girl.  "I'm all right now, I think.  Only a little dicky on my
+legs.  A thousand thanks, Princess.  I've given you a lot of trouble."
+
+She smiled at him tenderly.  "You say that when you have risked your
+life for me."
+
+"There's no time to waste," the relentless Dougal broke in. "Comin'
+over here, I heard a shot.  What was it?"
+
+"It was me," said Dickson.  "I was shootin' at the factor."
+
+"Did ye hit him?"
+
+"I think so, but I'm sorry to say not badly.  When I last saw him he
+was running too quick for a sore hurt man.  When I fired I thought it
+was the other man--the one they were expecting."
+
+Dickson marvelled at himself, yet his speech was not bravado, but the
+honest expression of his mind.  He was keyed up to a mood in which he
+feared nothing very much, certainly not the laws of his country. If he
+fell in with the Unknown, he was entirely resolved, if his Maker
+permitted him, to do murder as being the simplest and justest solution.
+And if in the pursuit of this laudable intention he happened to wing
+lesser game it was no fault of his.
+
+"Well, it's a pity ye didn't get him," said Dougal, "him being what we
+ken him to be.... I'm for holding a council o' war, and considerin' the
+whole position.  So far we haven't done that badly. We've shifted our
+base without serious casualties.  We've got a far better position to
+hold, for there's too many ways into yon Hoose, and here there's just
+one.  Besides, we've fickled the enemy. They'll take some time to find
+out where we've gone.  But, mind you, we can't count on their staying
+long shut up.  Dobson's no safe in the boiler-house, for there's a
+skylight far up and he'll see it when the light comes and maybe before.
+So we'd better get our plans ready. A word with ye, Mr. McCunn," and he
+led Dickson aside.
+
+"D'ye ken what these blagyirds were up to?" he whispered fiercely in
+Dickson's ear.  "They were goin' to pushion the lassie.  How do I ken,
+says you?  Because Thomas Yownie heard Dobson say to Lean at the
+scullery door, 'Have ye got the dope?' he says, and Lean says, 'Aye.'
+Thomas mindit the word for he had heard about it at the Picters."
+
+Dickson exclaimed in horror.
+
+"What d'ye make o' that?  I'll tell ye.  They wanted to make sure of
+her, but they wouldn't have thought o' dope unless the men they
+expectit were due to arrive at any moment.  As I see it, we've to face
+a siege not by the three but by a dozen or more, and it'll no' be long
+till it starts.  Now, isn't it a mercy we're safe in here?"
+
+Dickson returned to the others with a grave face.
+
+"Where d'you think the new folk are coming from?" he asked.
+
+Heritage answered, "From Auchenlochan, I suppose?  Or perhaps down from
+the hills?"
+
+"You're wrong."  And he told of Leon's mistaken confidences to him in
+the darkness.  "They are coming from the sea, just like the old
+pirates."
+
+"The sea," Heritage repeated in a dazed voice.
+
+"Ay, the sea.  Think what that means.  If they had been coming by the
+roads, we could have kept track of them, even if they beat us, and some
+of these laddies could have stuck to them and followed them up till
+help came.  It can't be such an easy job to carry a young lady against
+her will along Scotch roads.  But the sea's a different matter.  If
+they've got a fast boat they could be out of the Firth and away beyond
+the law before we could wake up a single policeman.  Ay, and even if
+the Government took it up and warned all the ports and ships at sea,
+what's to hinder them to find a hidy-hole about Ireland--or Norway?  I
+tell you, it's a far more desperate business than I thought, and it'll
+no' do to wait on and trust that the Chief Constable will turn up afore
+the mischief's done."
+
+"The moral," said Heritage, "is that there can be no surrender. We've
+got to stick it out in this old place at all costs."
+
+"No," said Dickson emphatically.  "The moral is that we must shift the
+ladies.  We've got the chance while Dobson and his friends are locked
+up.  Let's get them as far away as we can from the sea.  They're far
+safer tramping the moors, and it's no' likely the new folk will dare to
+follow us."
+
+"But I cannot go."  Saskia, who had been listening intently, shook her
+head.  "I promised to wait here till my friend came. If I leave I shall
+never find him."
+
+"If you stay you certainly never will, for you'll be away with the
+ruffians.  Take a sensible view, Mem.  You'll be no good to your friend
+or your friend to you if before night you're rocking in a ship."
+
+The girl shook her head again, gently but decisively.  "It was our
+arrangement.  I cannot break it.  Besides, I am sure that he will come
+in time, for he has never failed---"
+
+There was a desperate finality about the quiet tones and the weary face
+with the shadow of a smile on it.
+
+Then Heritage spoke.  "I don't think your plan will quite do, Dogson.
+Supposing we all break for the hinterland and the Danish brig finds the
+birds flown, that won't end the trouble.  They will get on the
+Princess's trail, and the whole persecution will start again. I want to
+see things brought to a head here and now.  If we can stick it out here
+long enough, we may trap the whole push and rid the world of a pretty
+gang of miscreants.  Let them show their hand, and then, if the police
+are here by that time, we can jug the lot for piracy or something
+worse."
+
+"That's all right," said Dougal, "but we'd put up a better fight if we
+had the women off our mind.  I've aye read that when a castle was going
+to be besieged the first thing was to get rid of the civilians."
+
+"Sensible to the last, Dougal," said Dickson approvingly. "That's just
+what I'm saying.  I'm strong for a fight, but put the ladies in a safe
+bit first, for they're our weak point."
+
+"Do you think that if you were fighting my enemies I would consent to
+be absent?" came Saskia's reproachful question.
+
+"'Deed no, Mem," said Dickson heartily.  His martial spirit was with
+Heritage, but his prudence did not sleep, and he suddenly saw a way of
+placating both.  "Just you listen to what I propose. What do we amount
+to?  Mr. Heritage, six laddies, and myself--and I'm no more used to
+fighting than an old wife.  We've seven desperate villains against us,
+and afore night they may be seventy. We've a fine old castle here, but
+for defence we want more than stone walls--we want a garrison.  I tell
+you we must get help somewhere. Ay, but how, says you?  Well, coming
+here I noticed a gentleman's house away up ayont the railway and close
+to the hills.  The laird's maybe not at home, but there will be men
+there of some kind--gamekeepers and woodmen and such like.  My plan is
+to go there at once and ask for help. Now, it's useless me going alone,
+for nobody would listen to me. They'd tell me to go back to the shop or
+they'd think me demented. But with you, Mem, it would be a different
+matter.  They wouldn't disbelieve you.  So I want you to come with me,
+and to come at once, for God knows how soon our need will be sore.
+We'll leave your cousin with Mrs. Morran in the village, for bed's the
+place for her, and then you and me will be off on our business."
+
+The girl looked at Heritage, who nodded.  "It's the only way," he said.
+"Get every man jack you can raise, and if it's humanly possible get a
+gun or two.  I believe there's time enough, for I don't see the brig
+arriving in broad daylight."
+
+"D'you not?" Dickson asked rudely.  "Have you considered what day this
+is? It's the Sabbath, the best of days for an ill deed.  There's no
+kirk hereaways, and everybody in the parish will be sitting indoors by
+the fire."  He looked at his watch.  "In half an hour it'll be light.
+Haste you, Mem, and get ready.  Dougal, what's the weather?"
+
+The Chieftain swung open the door, and sniffed the air.  The wind had
+fallen for the time being, and the surge of the tides below the rocks
+rose like the clamour of a mob.  With the lull, mist and a thin drizzle
+had cloaked the world again.
+
+To Dickson's surprise Dougal seemed to be in good spirits. He began to
+sing to a hymn tune a strange ditty.
+
+
+"Class-conscious we are, and class-conscious wull be Till our fit's on
+the neck o' the Boorjoyzee."
+
+
+"What on earth are you singing?"  Dickson inquired.
+
+Dougal grinned.  "Wee Jaikie went to a Socialist Sunday School last
+winter because he heard they were for fechtin' battles. Ay, and they
+telled him he was to join a thing called an International, and Jaikie
+thought it was a fitba' club.  But when he fund out there was no magic
+lantern or swaree at Christmas he gie'd it the chuck. They learned him
+a heap o' queer songs.  That's one."
+
+"What does the last word mean?"
+
+"I don't ken.  Jaikie thought it was some kind of a draigon."
+
+"It's a daft-like thing anyway.... When's high water?"
+
+Dougal answered that to the best of his knowledge it fell between four
+and five in the afternoon.
+
+"Then that's when we may expect the foreign gentry if they think to
+bring their boat in to the Garplefoot.... Dougal, lad, I trust you to
+keep a most careful and prayerful watch.  You had better get the
+Die-Hards out of the Tower and all round the place afore Dobson and Co.
+get loose, or you'll no' get a chance later. Don't lose your mobility,
+as the sodgers say.  Mr. Heritage can hold the fort, but you laddies
+should be spread out like a screen."
+
+"That was my notion," said Dougal.  "I'll detail two Die-Hards--Thomas
+Yownie and Wee Jaikie--to keep in touch with ye and watch for you
+comin' back.  Thomas ye ken already; ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie.
+But don't be mistook about Wee Jaikie.  He's terrible fond of greetin',
+but it's no fright with him but excitement. It's just a habit he's
+gotten.  When ye see Jaikie begin to greet, you may be sure that
+Jaikie's gettin' dangerous."
+
+The door shut behind them and Dickson found himself with his two
+charges in a world dim with fog and rain and the still lingering
+darkness. The air was raw, and had the sour smell which comes from
+soaked earth and wet boughs when the leaves are not yet fledged.  Both
+the women were miserably equipped for such an expedition.  Cousin
+Eugenie trailed heavy furs, Saskia's only wrap was a bright-coloured
+shawl about her shoulders, and both wore thin foreign shoes.  Dickson
+insisted on stripping off his trusty waterproof and forcing it on the
+Princess, on whose slim body it hung very loose and very short.  The
+elder woman stumbled and whimpered and needed the constant support of
+his arm, walking like a townswoman from the knees.  But Saskia swung
+from the hips like a free woman, and Dickson had much ado to keep up
+with her. She seemed to delight in the bitter freshness of the dawn,
+inhaling deep breaths of it, and humming fragments of a tune.
+
+Guided by Thomas Yownie they took the road which Dickson and Heritage
+had travelled the first evening, through the shrubberies on the north
+side of the House and the side avenue beyond which the ground fell to
+the Laver glen.  On their right the House rose like a dark cloud, but
+Dickson had lost his terror of it.  There were three angry men inside
+it, he remembered: long let them stay there.  He marvelled at his mood,
+and also rejoiced, for his worst fear had always been that he might
+prove a coward.  Now he was puzzled to think how he could ever be
+frightened again, for his one object was to succeed, and in that
+absorption fear seemed to him merely a waste of time.  "It all comes of
+treating the thing as a business proposition," he told himself.
+
+But there was far more in his heart than this sober resolution. He was
+intoxicated with the resurgence of youth and felt a rapture of audacity
+which he never remembered in his decorous boyhood. "I haven't been
+doing badly for an old man," he reflected with glee. What, oh what had
+become of the pillar of commerce, the man who might have been a bailie
+had he sought municipal honours, the elder in the Guthrie Memorial
+Kirk, the instructor of literary young men? In the past three days he
+had levanted with jewels which had once been an Emperor's and certainly
+were not his; he had burglariously entered and made free of a strange
+house; he had played hide-and-seek at the risk of his neck and had
+wrestled in the dark with a foreign miscreant; he had shot at an
+eminent solicitor with intent to kill; and he was now engaged in
+tramping the world with a fairytale Princess. I blush to confess that
+of each of his doings he was unashamedly proud, and thirsted for many
+more in the same line.  "Gosh, but I'm seeing life," was his
+unregenerate conclusion.
+
+Without sight or sound of a human being, they descended to the Laver,
+climbed again by the cart track, and passed the deserted West Lodge and
+inn to the village.  It was almost full dawn when the three stood in
+Mrs. Morran's kitchen.
+
+"I've brought you two ladies, Auntie Phemie," said Dickson.
+
+They made an odd group in that cheerful place, where the new-lit fire
+was crackling in the big grate--the wet undignified form of Dickson,
+unshaven of cheek and chin and disreputable in garb; the shrouded
+figure of Cousin Eugenie, who had sunk into the arm-chair and closed
+her eyes; the slim girl, into whose face the weather had whipped a glow
+like blossom; and the hostess, with her petticoats kilted and an
+ancient mutch on her head.
+
+Mrs. Morran looked once at Saskia, and then did a thing which she had
+not done since her girlhood.  She curtseyed.
+
+"I'm proud to see ye here, Mem.  Off wi' your things, and I'll get ye
+dry claes,  Losh, ye're fair soppin'  And your shoon! Ye maun change
+your feet.... Dickson! Awa' up to the loft, and dinna you stir till I
+give ye a cry.  The leddies will change by the fire. And You,
+Mem"--this to Cousin Eugenie--"the place for you's your bed. I'll
+kinnle a fire ben the hoose in a jiffey.  And syne ye'll have
+breakfast--ye'll hae a cup o' tea wi' me now, for the kettle's just on
+the boil.  Awa' wi' ye. Dickson," and she stamped her foot.
+
+Dickson departed, and in the loft washed his face, and smoked a pipe on
+the edge of the bed, watching the mist eddying up the village street.
+From below rose the sounds of hospitable bustle, and when after some
+twenty minutes' vigil he descended, he found Saskia toasting stockinged
+toes by the fire in the great arm-chair, and Mrs. Morran setting the
+table.
+
+"Auntie Phemie, hearken to me.  We've taken on too big a job for two
+men and six laddies, and help we've got to get, and that this very
+morning.  D'you mind the big white house away up near the hills ayont
+the station and east of the Ayr road?  It looked like a gentleman's
+shooting lodge.  I was thinking of trying there.  Mercy!"
+
+The exclamation was wrung from him by his eyes settling on Saskia and
+noting her apparel.  Gone were her thin foreign clothes, and in their
+place she wore a heavy tweed skirt cut very short, and thick homespun
+stockings, which had been made for some one with larger feet than hers.
+A pair of the coarse low-heeled shoes which country folk wear in the
+farmyard stood warming by the hearth.  She still had her russet jumper,
+but round her neck hung a grey wool scarf, of the kind known as a
+"Comforter."  Amazingly pretty she looked in Dickson's eyes, but with a
+different kind of prettiness.  The sense of fragility had fled, and he
+saw how nobly built she was for all her exquisiteness. She looked like
+a queen, he thought, but a queen to go gipsying through the world with.
+
+"Ay, they're some o' Elspeth's things, rale guid furthy claes," said
+Mrs. Morran complacently.  "And the shoon are what she used to gang
+about the byres wi' when she was in the Castlewham dairy. The leddy was
+tellin' me she was for trampin' the hills, and thae things will keep
+her dry and warm.... I ken the hoose ye mean. They ca' it the Mains of
+Garple.  And I ken the man that bides in it. He's yin Sir Erchibald
+Roylance.  English, but his mither was a Dalziel. I'm no weel acquaint
+wi' his forbears, but I'm weel eneuch acquaint wi' Sir Erchie, and
+'better a guid coo than a coo o' a guid kind,' as my mither used to
+say.  He used to be an awfu' wild callont, a freend o' puir Maister
+Quentin, and up to ony deevilry. But they tell me he's a quieter lad
+since the war, as sair lamed by fa'in oot o' an airyplane."
+
+"Will he be at the Mains just now?" Dickson asked.
+
+"I wadna wonder.  He has a muckle place in England, but he aye used to
+come here in the back-end for the shootin' and in April for birds. He's
+clean daft about birds.  He'll be out a' day at the craig watchin'
+solans, or lyin' a' mornin' i' the moss lookin' at bog-blitters."
+
+"Will he help, think you?"
+
+"I'll wager he'll help.  Onyway it's your best chance, and better a wee
+bush than nae beild.  Now, sit in to your breakfast."
+
+It was a merry meal.  Mrs. Morran dispensed tea and gnomic wisdom.
+Saskia ate heartily, speaking little, but once or twice laying her hand
+softly on her hostess's gnarled fingers.  Dickson was in such spirits
+that he gobbled shamelessly, being both hungry and hurried, and he
+spoke of the still unconquered enemy with ease and disrespect, so that
+Mrs. Morran was moved to observe that there was "naething sae bauld as
+a blind mear."  But when in a sudden return of modesty he belittled his
+usefulness and talked sombrely of his mature years he was told that he
+"wad never be auld wi' sae muckle honesty." Indeed it was very clear
+that Mrs. Morran approved of her nephew. They did not linger over
+breakfast, for both were impatient to be on the road.  Mrs. Morran
+assisted Saskia to put on Elspeth's shoes. "'Even a young fit finds
+comfort in an auld bauchle,' as my mother, honest woman, used to say."
+Dickson's waterproof was restored to him, and for Saskia an old
+raincoat belonging to the son in South Africa was discovered, which
+fitted her better.  "Siccan weather," said the hostess, as she opened
+the door to let in a swirl of wind. "The deil's aye kind to his ain.
+Haste ye back, Mem, and be sure I'll tak' guid care o' your leddy
+cousin."
+
+The proper way to the Mains of Garple was either by the station and the
+Ayr road, or by the Auchenlochan highway, branching off half a mile
+beyond the Garple bridge.  But Dickson, who had been studying the map
+and fancied himself as a pathfinder, chose the direct route across the
+Long Muir as being at once shorter and more sequestered. With the dawn
+the wind had risen again, but it had shifted towards the north-west and
+was many degrees colder.  The mist was furling on the hills like sails,
+the rain had ceased, and out at sea the eye covered a mile or two of
+wild water.  The moor was drenching wet, and the peat bogs were
+brimming with inky pools, so that soon the travellers were soaked to
+the knees.  Dickson had no fear of pursuit, for he calculated that
+Dobson and his friends, even if they had got out, would be busy looking
+for the truants in the vicinity of the House and would presently be
+engaged with the old Tower.  But he realized, too, that speed on his
+errand was vital, for at any moment the Unknown might arrive from the
+sea.
+
+So he kept up a good pace, half-running, half-striding, till they had
+passed the railway, and he found himself gasping with a stitch in his
+side, and compelled to rest in the lee of what had once been a
+sheepfold.  Saskia amazed him.  She moved over the rough heather like a
+deer, and it was her hand that helped him across the deeper hags.
+Before such youth and vigour he felt clumsy and old.  She stood looking
+down at him as he recovered his breath, cool, unruffled, alert as
+Diana. His mind fled to Heritage, and it occurred to him suddenly that
+the Poet had set his affections very high.  Loyalty drove him to speak
+for his friend.
+
+"I've got the easy job," he said.  "Mr. Heritage will have the whole
+pack on him in that old Tower, and him with such a sore clout on his
+head.  I've left him my pistol.  He's a terrible brave man!"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Ay, and he's a poet too."
+
+"So?" she said.  "I did not know.  He is very young."
+
+"He's a man of very high ideels."
+
+She puzzled at the word, and then smiled.  "He is like many of our
+young men in Russia, the students--his mind is in a ferment and he does
+not know what he wants.  But he is brave."
+
+This seemed to Dickson's loyal soul but a chilly tribute.
+
+"I think he is in love with me," she continued.
+
+He looked up startled, and saw in her face that which gave him a view
+into a strange new world.  He had thought that women blushed when they
+talked of love, but he eyes were as grave and candid as a boy's. Here
+was one who had gone through waters so deep that she had lost the
+foibles of sex.  Love to her was only a word of ill omen, a threat on
+the lips of brutes, an extra battalion of peril in an army of
+perplexities.  He felt like some homely rustic who finds himself swept
+unwittingly into the moonlight hunt of Artemis and her maidens.
+
+"He is a romantic," she said.  "I have known so many like him."
+
+"He's no that," said Dickson shortly.  "Why he used to be aye laughing
+at me for being romantic.  He's one that's looking for truth and
+reality,  he says, and he's terrible down on the kind of poetry I like
+myself."
+
+She smiled.  "They all talk so.  But you, my friend Dickson" (she
+pronounced the name in two staccato syllables ever so prettily), "you
+are different.  Tell me about yourself."
+
+"I'm just what you see--a middle-aged retired grocer."
+
+"Grocer?" she queried.  "Ah, yes, epicier.  But you are a very
+remarkable epicier.  Mr. Heritage I understand, but you and those
+little boys--no.  I am sure of one thing--you are not a romantic. You
+are too humorous and--and--I think you are like Ulysses, for it would
+not be easy to defeat you."
+
+Her eyes were kind, nay affectionate, and Dickson experienced a
+preposterous rapture in his soul, followed by a sinking, as he realized
+how far the job was still from being completed.
+
+"We must be getting on, Mem," he said hastily, and the two plunged
+again into the heather.
+
+The Ayr road was crossed, and the fir wood around the Mains became
+visible, and presently the white gates of the entrance. A wind-blown
+spire of smoke beyond the trees proclaimed that the house was not
+untenanted.  As they entered the drive the Scots firs were tossing in
+the gale, which blew fiercely at this altitude, but, the dwelling
+itself being more in the hollow, the daffodil clumps on the lawn were
+but mildly fluttered.
+
+The door was opened by a one-armed butler who bore all the marks of the
+old regular soldier.  Dickson produced a card and asked to see his
+master on urgent business.  Sir Archibald was at home, he was told, and
+had just finished breakfast.  The two were led into a large bare
+chamber which had all the chill and mustiness of a bachelor's
+drawing-room.  The butler returned, and said Sir Archibald would see
+him.  "I'd better go myself first and prepare the way, Mem," Dickson
+whispered, and followed the man across the hall.
+
+He found himself ushered into a fair-sized room where a bright fire was
+burning.  On a table lay the remains of breakfast, and the odour of
+food mingled pleasantly with the scent of peat. The horns and heads of
+big game, foxes' masks, the model of a gigantic salmon, and several
+bookcases adorned the walls, and books and maps were mixed with
+decanters and cigar-boxes on the long sideboard.  After the wild out of
+doors the place seemed the very shrine of comfort.  A young man sat in
+an arm-chair by the fire with a leg on a stool; he was smoking a pipe,
+and reading the Field, and on another stool at his elbow was a pile of
+new novels. He was a pleasant brown-faced young man, with remarkably
+smooth hair and a roving humorous eye.
+
+"Come in, Mr. McCunn.  Very glad to see you.  If, as I take it, you're
+the grocer, you're a household name in these parts. I get all my
+supplies from you, and I've just been makin' inroads on one of your
+divine hams.  Now, what can I do for you?"
+
+"I'm very proud to hear what you say, Sir Archibald.  But I've not come
+on business.  I've come with the queerest story you ever heard in your
+life and I've come to ask your help."
+
+"Go ahead.  A good story is just what I want this vile mornin'."
+
+"I'm not here alone.  I've a lady with me."
+
+"God bless my soul!  A lady!"
+
+"Ay, a princess.  She's in the next room."
+
+The young man looked wildly at him and waved the book he had been
+reading.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. McCunn, but are you quite sober?  I beg your pardon. I
+see you are.  But you know, it isn't done.  Princesses don't as a rule
+come here after breakfast to pass the time of day. It's more absurd
+than this shocker I've been readin'."
+
+"All the same it's a fact.  She'll tell you the story herself, and
+you'll believe her quick enough.  But to prepare your mind I'll just
+give you a sketch of the events of the last few days."
+
+Before the sketch was concluded the young man had violently rung the
+bell. "Sime," he shouted to the servant, "clear away this mess and lay
+the table again.  Order more breakfast, all the breakfast you can get.
+Open the windows and get the tobacco smoke out of the air. Tidy up the
+place for there's a lady comin'.  Quick, you juggins!"
+
+He was on his feet now, and, with his arm in Dickson's, was heading for
+the door.
+
+"My sainted aunt!  And you topped off with pottin' at the factor. I've
+seen a few things in my day, but I'm blessed if I ever met a bird like
+you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+GRAVITY OUT OF BED
+
+
+It is probable that Sir Archibald Roylance did not altogether believe
+Dickson's tale; it may be that he considered him an agreeable romancer,
+or a little mad, or no more than a relief to the tedium of a wet Sunday
+morning.  But his incredulity did not survive one glance at Saskia as
+she stood in that bleak drawing-room among Victorian water-colours and
+faded chintzes.  The young man's boyishness deserted him.  He stopped
+short in his tracks, and made a profound and awkward bow.  "I am at
+your service, Mademoiselle," he said, amazed at himself.  The words
+seemed to have come out of a confused memory of plays and novels.
+
+She inclined her head--a little on one side, and looked towards Dickson.
+
+"Sir Archibald's going to do his best for us," said that squire of
+dames. "I was telling him that we had had our breakfast."
+
+"Let's get out of this sepulchre," said their host, who was recovering
+himself.  "There's a roasting fire in my den.  Of course you'll have
+something to eat--hot coffee, anyhow--I've trained my cook to make
+coffee like a Frenchwoman.  The housekeeper will take charge of you, if
+you want to tidy up, and you must excuse our ramshackle ways, please. I
+don't believe there's ever been a lady in this house before, you know."
+
+He led her to the smoking-room and ensconced her in the great chair by
+the fire.  Smilingly she refused a series of offers which ranged from a
+sheepskin mantle which he had got in the Pamirs and which he thought
+might fit her, to hot whisky and water as a specific against a chill.
+But she accepted a pair of slippers and deftly kicked off the brogues
+provided by Mrs. Morran.  Also, while Dickson started rapaciously on a
+second breakfast, she allowed him to pour her out a cup of coffee.
+
+"You are a soldier?" she asked.
+
+"Two years infantry--5th Battalion Lennox Highlanders, and then Flying
+Corps.  Top-hole time I had too till the day before the Armistice, when
+my luck gave out and I took a nasty toss. Consequently I'm not as fast
+on my legs now as I'd like to be."
+
+"You were a friend of Captain Kennedy?"
+
+"His oldest.  We were at the same private school, and he was at
+m'tutors, and we were never much separated till he went abroad to cram
+for the Diplomatic and I started east to shoot things."
+
+"Then I will tell you what I told Captain Kennedy."  Saskia, looking
+into the heart of the peats, began the story of which we have already
+heard a version, but she told it differently, for she was telling it to
+one who more or less belonged to her own world.  She mentioned names at
+which the other nodded.  She spoke of a certain Paul Abreskov. "I heard
+of him at Bokhara in 1912," said Sir Archie, and his face grew solemn.
+Sometimes she lapsed into French, and her hearer's brow wrinkled, but
+he appeared to follow.  When she had finished he drew a long breath.
+
+"My aunt!  What a time you've been through!  I've seen pluck in my day,
+but yours!  It's not thinkable.  D'you mind if I ask a question,
+Princess?  Bolshevism we know all about, and I admit Trotsky and his
+friends are a pretty effective push; but how on earth have they got a
+world-wide graft going in the time so that they can stretch their net
+to an out-of-the-way spot like this? It looks as if they had struck a
+Napoleon somewhere."
+
+"You do not understand," she said.  "I cannot make any one
+understand--except a Russian.  My country has been broken to pieces,
+and there is no law in it; therefore it is a nursery of crime.  So
+would England be, or France, if you had suffered the same misfortunes.
+My people are not wickeder than others, but for the moment they are
+sick and have no strength.  As for the government of the Bolsheviki it
+matters little, for it will pass.  Some parts of it may remain, but it
+is a government of the sick and fevered, and cannot endure in health.
+Lenin may be a good man--I do not think so, but I do not know--but if
+he were an archangel he could not alter things.  Russia is mortally
+sick and therefore all evil is unchained, and the criminals have no one
+to check them.  There is crime everywhere in the world, and the
+unfettered crime in Russia is so powerful that it stretches its hand to
+crime throughout the globe and there is a great mobilizing everywhere
+of wicked men.  Once you boasted that law was international and that
+the police in one land worked with the police of all others. To-day
+that is true about criminals.  After a war evil passions are loosed,
+and, since Russia is broken, in her they can make their
+headquarters.... It is not Bolshevism, the theory, you need fear, for
+that is a weak and dying thing.  It is crime, which to-day finds its
+seat in my country, but is not only Russian.  It has no fatherland. It
+is as old as human nature and as wide as the earth."
+
+"I see," said Sir Archie.  "Gad, here have I been vegetatin' and
+thinkin' that all excitement had gone out of life with the war, and
+sometimes even regrettin' that the beastly old thing was over, and all
+the while the world fairly hummin' with interest.  And Loudon too!"
+
+"I would like your candid opinion on yon factor, Sir Archibald," said
+Dickson.
+
+"I can't say I ever liked him, and I've once or twice had a row with
+him, for used to bring his pals to shoot over Dalquharter and he didn't
+quite play the game by me.  But I know dashed little about him, for
+I've been a lot away.  Bit hairy about the heels, of course.  A great
+figure at local race-meetin's, and used to toady old Carforth and the
+huntin' crowd.  He has a pretty big reputation as a sharp lawyer and
+some of the thick-headed lairds swear by him, but Quentin never could
+stick him.  It's quite likely he's been gettin' into Queer Street, for
+he was always speculatin' in horseflesh, and I fancy he plunged a bit
+on the Turf. But I can't think how he got mixed up in this show."
+
+"I'm positive Dobson's his brother."
+
+"And put this business in his way.  That would explain it all right....
+He must be runnin' for pretty big stakes, for that kind of lad don't
+dabble in crime for six-and-eightpence.... Now for the layout. You've
+got three men shut up in Dalquharter House, who by this time have
+probably escaped.  One of you--what's his name?--Heritage?--is in the
+old Tower, and you think that they think the Princess is still there
+and will sit round the place like terriers.  Sometime to-day the Danish
+brig wall arrive with reinforcements, and then there will be a hefty
+fight.  Well, the first thing to be done it to get rid of Loudon's
+stymie with the authorities.  Princess, I'm going to carry you off in
+my car to the Chief Constable.  The second thing is for you after that
+to stay on here.  It's a deadly place on a wet day, but it's safe
+enough."
+
+Saskia shook her head and Dickson spoke for her.
+
+"You'll no' get her to stop here.  I've done my best, but she's
+determined to be back at Dalquharter.  You see she's expecting a
+friend, and besides, if here's going to be a battle she'd like to be in
+it.  Is that so, Mem?"
+
+Sir Archie looked helplessly around him, and the sight of the girl's
+face convinced him that argument would be fruitless.  "Anyhow she must
+come with me to the Chief Constable.  Lethington's a slow bird on the
+wing, and I don't see myself convincin' him that he must get busy
+unless I can produce the Princess.  Even then it may be a tough job,
+for it's Sunday, and in these parts people go to sleep till Monday
+mornin'."
+
+"That's just what I'm trying to get at," said Dickson.  "By all means
+go to the Chief Constable, and tell him it's life or death. My lawyer
+in Glasgow, Mr. Caw, will have been stirring him up yesterday, and you
+two should complete the job... But what I'm feared is that he'll not be
+in time.  As you say, it's the Sabbath day, and the police are terrible
+slow.  Now any moment that brig may be here, and the trouble will
+start.  I'm wanting to save the Princess, but I'm wanting too to give
+these blagyirds the roughest handling they ever got in their lives.
+Therefore I say there's no time to lose. We're far ower few to put up a
+fight, and we want every man you've got about this place to hold the
+fort till the police come."
+
+Sir Archibald looked upon the earnest flushed face of Dickson with
+admiration.  "I'm blessed if you're not the most whole-hearted brigand
+I've ever struck."
+
+"I'm not.  I'm just a business man."
+
+"Do you realize that you're levying a private war and breaking every
+law of the land?"
+
+"Hoots!" said Dickson.  "I don't care a docken about the law. I'm for
+seeing this job through.  What force can you produce?"
+
+"Only cripples, I'm afraid.  There's Sime, my butler.  He was a
+Fusilier Jock and, as you saw, has lost an arm.  Then McGuffog the
+keeper is a good man, but he's still got a Turkish bullet in his thigh.
+The chauffeur, Carfrae, was in the Yeomanry, and lost half a foot; and
+there's myself, as lame as a duck.  The herds on the home farm are no
+good, for one's seventy and the other is in bed with jaundice. The
+Mains can produce four men, but they're rather a job lot."
+
+"They'll do fine," said Dickson heartily.  "All sodgers, and no doubt
+all good shots.  Have you plenty guns?"
+
+Sir Archie burst into uproarious laughter.  "Mr. McCunn, you're a man
+after my own heart.  I'm under your orders.  If I had a boy I'd put him
+into the provision trade, for it's the place to see fightin'. Yes,
+we've no end of guns.  I advise shot-guns, for they've more stoppin'
+power in a rush than a rifle, and I take it it's a rough-and-tumble
+we're lookin' for."
+
+"Right," said Dickson.  "I saw a bicycle in the hall.  I want you to
+lend it me, for I must be getting back.  You'll take the Princess and
+do the best you can with the Chief Constable."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then you'll load up your car with your folk, and come down the hill to
+Dalquharter.  There'll be a laddie, or maybe more than one, waiting for
+you on this side the village to give you instructions. Take your orders
+from them.  If it's a red-haired ruffian called Dougal you'll be wise
+to heed what he says, for he has a grand head for battles."
+
+Five minutes later Dickson was pursuing a quavering course like a snipe
+down the avenue.  He was a miserable performer on a bicycle. Not for
+twenty years had he bestridden one, and he did not understand such new
+devices as free-wheels and change of gears.  The mounting had been the
+worst part, and it had only been achieved by the help of a rockery.  He
+had begun by cutting into two flower-beds, and missing a birch tree by
+inches.  But he clung on desperately, well knowing that if he fell off
+it would be hard to remount, and at length he gained the avenue.  When
+he passed the lodge gates he was riding fairly straight, and when he
+turned off the Ayr highway to the side road that led to Dalquharter he
+was more or less master of his machine.
+
+He crossed the Garple by an ancient hunch-backed bridge, observing even
+in his absorption with the handle-bars that the stream was in roaring
+spate.  He wrestled up the further hill with aching calf-muscles, and
+got to the top just before his strength gave out. Then as the road
+turned seaward he had the slope with him, and enjoyed some respite.  It
+was no case for putting up his feet, for the gale was blowing hard on
+his right cheek, but the downward grade enabled him to keep his course
+with little exertion.  His anxiety to get back to the scene of action
+was for the moment appeased, since he knew he was making as good speed
+as the weather allowed, so he had leisure for thought.
+
+But the mind of this preposterous being was not on the business before
+him.  He dallied with irrelevant things--with the problems of youth and
+love.  He was beginning to be very nervous about Heritage, not as the
+solitary garrison of the old Tower, but as the lover of Saskia. That
+everybody should be in love with her appeared to him only proper, for
+he had never met her like, and assumed that it did not exist. The
+desire of the moth for the star seemed to him a reasonable thing, since
+hopeless loyalty and unrequited passion were the eternal stock-in-trade
+of romance.  He wished he were twenty-five himself to have the chance
+of indulging in such sentimentality for such a lady. But Heritage was
+not like him and would never be content with a romantic folly.... He
+had been in love with her for two years--a long time.  He spoke about
+wanting to die for her, which was a flight beyond Dickson himself.  "I
+doubt it will be what they call a 'grand passion,'" he reflected with
+reverence.  But it was hopeless; he saw quite clearly that it was
+hopeless.
+
+Why, he could not have explained, for Dickson's instincts were subtler
+than his intelligence.  He recognized that the two belonged to
+different circles of being, which nowhere intersected.  That mysterious
+lady, whose eyes had looked through life to the other side, was no mate
+for the Poet.  His faithful soul was agitated, for he had developed for
+Heritage a sincere affection.  It would break his heart, poor man.
+There was he holding the fort alone and cheering himself with
+delightful fancies about one remoter than the moon.  Dickson wanted
+happy endings, and here there was no hope of such.  He hated to admit
+that life could be crooked, but the optimist in him was now fairly
+dashed.
+
+Sir Archie might be the fortunate man, for of course he would soon be
+in love with her, if he were not so already.  Dickson like all his
+class had a profound regard for the country gentry. The business Scot
+does not usually revere wealth, though he may pursue it earnestly, nor
+does he specially admire rank in the common sense.  But for ancient
+race he has respect in his bones, though it may happen that in public
+he denies it, and the laird has for him a secular association with good
+family.... Sir Archie might do. He was young, good-looking, obviously
+gallant... But no!  He was not quite right either.  Just a trifle too
+light in weight, too boyish and callow.  The Princess must have youth,
+but it should be mighty youth, the youth of a Napoleon or a Caesar.  He
+reflected that the Great Montrose, for whom he had a special
+veneration, might have filled the bill. Or young Harry with his beaver
+up?  Or Claverhouse in the picture with the flush of temper on his
+cheek?
+
+The meditations of the match-making Dickson came to an abrupt end. He
+had been riding negligently, his head bent against the wind, and his
+eyes vaguely fixed on the wet hill-gravel of the road.  Of his
+immediate environs he was pretty well unconscious.  Suddenly he was
+aware of figures on each side of him who advanced menacingly.  Stung to
+activity he attempted to increase his pace, which was already good, for
+the road at this point descended steeply.  Then, before he could
+prevent it, a stick was thrust into his front wheel, and the next
+second he was describing a curve through the air.  His head took the
+ground, he felt a spasm of blinding pain, and then a sense of horrible
+suffocation before his wits left him.
+
+"Are ye sure it's the richt man, Ecky?" said a voice which he did not
+hear.
+
+"Sure.  It's the Glesca body Dobson telled us to look for yesterday.
+It's a pund note atween us for this job.  We'll tie him up in the wud
+till we've time to attend to him."
+
+"Is he bad?"
+
+"It doesna maitter," said the one called Ecky.  "He'll be deid onyway
+long afore the morn."
+
+
+Mrs. Morran all forenoon was in a state of un-Sabbatical disquiet.
+After she had seen Saskia and Dickson start she finished her
+housewifely duties, took Cousin Eugenie her breakfast, and made
+preparation for the midday dinner.  The invalid in the bed in the
+parlour was not a repaying subject.  Cousin Eugenie belonged to that
+type of elderly women who, having been spoiled in youth, find the rest
+of life fall far short of their expectations. Her voice had acquired a
+perpetual wail, and the corners of what had once been a pretty mouth
+drooped in an eternal peevishness. She found herself in a morass of
+misery and shabby discomfort, but had her days continued in an even
+tenor she would still have lamented.  "A dingy body," was Mrs. Morran's
+comment, but she laboured in kindness.  Unhappily they had no common
+language, and it was only by signs that the hostess could discover her
+wants and show her goodwill.  She fed her and bathed her face, saw to
+the fire and left her to sleep.  "I'm boilin' a hen to mak' broth for
+your denner, Mem.  Try and get a bit sleep now." The purport of the
+advice was clear, and Cousin Eugenie turned obediently on her pillow.
+
+It was Mrs. Morran's custom of a Sunday to spend the morning in devout
+meditation.  Some years before she had given up tramping the five miles
+to kirk, on the ground that having been a regular attendant for fifty
+years she had got all the good out of it that was probable. Instead she
+read slowly aloud to herself the sermon printed in a certain religious
+weekly which reached her every Saturday, and concluded with a chapter
+or two of the Bible.  But to-day something had gone wrong with her
+mind.  She could not follow the thread of the Reverend Doctor
+MacMichael's discourse.  She could not fix her attention on the
+wanderings and misdeeds of Israel as recorded in the Book of Exodus.
+She must always be getting up to look at the pot on the fire, or to
+open the back door and study the weather. For a little she fought
+against her unrest, and then she gave up the attempt at concentration.
+She took the big pot off the fire and allowed it to simmer, and
+presently she fetched her boots and umbrella, and kilted her
+petticoats.  "I'll be none the waur o' a breath o' caller air," she
+decided.
+
+The wind was blowing great guns but there was only the thinnest
+sprinkle of rain.  Sitting on the hen-house roof and munching a raw
+turnip was a figure which she recognized as the smallest of the
+Die-Hards.  Between bites he was singing dolefully to the tune of
+"Annie Laurie" one of the ditties of his quondam Sunday School:
+
+  "The Boorjoys' brays are bonnie,
+  Too-roo-ra-roo-raloo,
+  But the Workers of the World
+  Wull gar them a' look blue,
+  And droon them in the sea,
+  And--for bonnie Annie Laurie
+  I'll lay me down and dee."
+
+
+"Losh, laddie," she cried, "that's cauld food for the stomach. Come
+indoors about midday and I'll gie ye a plate o' broth!" The Die-Hard
+saluted and continued on the turnip.
+
+She took the Auchenlochan road across the Garple bridge, for that was
+the best road to the Mains, and by it Dickson and the others might be
+returning.  Her equanimity at all seasons was like a Turk's, and she
+would not have admitted that anything mortal had power to upset or
+excite her: nevertheless it was a fast-beating heart that she now bore
+beneath her Sunday jacket.  Great events, she felt, were on the eve of
+happening, and of them she was a part. Dickson's anxiety was hers, to
+bring things to a business-like conclusion. The honour of Huntingtower
+was at stake and of the old Kennedys. She was carrying out Mr.
+Quentin's commands, the dead boy who used to clamour for her treacle
+scones.  And there was more than duty in it, for youth was not dead in
+her old heart, and adventure had still power to quicken it.
+
+Mrs. Morran walked well, with the steady long paces of the Scots
+countrywoman.  She left the Auchenlochan road and took the side path
+along the tableland to the Mains.  But for the surge of the gale and
+the far-borne boom of the furious sea there was little noise; not a
+bird cried in the uneasy air.  With the wind behind her Mrs. Morran
+breasted the ascent till she had on her right the moorland running
+south to the Lochan valley and on her left Garple chafing in its deep
+forested gorges.  Her eyes were quick and she noted with interest a
+weasel creeping from a fern-clad cairn.  A little way on she passed an
+old ewe in difficulties and assisted it to rise.  "But for me, my
+wumman, ye'd hae been braxy ere nicht," she told it as it departed
+bleating. Then she realized that she had come a certain distance.
+"Losh, I maun be gettin' back or the hen will be spiled," she cried,
+and was on the verge of turning.
+
+But something caught her eye a hundred yards farther on the road. It
+was something which moved with the wind like a wounded bird, fluttering
+from the roadside to a puddle and then back to the rushes. She advanced
+to it, missed it, and caught it.
+
+It was an old dingy green felt hat, and she recognized it as Dickson's.
+
+Mrs. Morran's brain, after a second of confusion, worked fast and
+clearly. She examined the road and saw that a little way on the gravel
+had been violently agitated.  She detected several prints of hobnailed
+boots. There were prints, too, on a patch of peat on the south side
+behind a tall bank of sods.  "That's where they were hidin'," she
+concluded. Then she explored on the other side in a thicket of hazels
+and wild raspberries, and presently her perseverance was rewarded.  The
+scrub was all crushed and pressed as if several persons had been
+forcing a passage. In a hollow was a gleam of something white.  She
+moved towards it with a quaking heart, and was relieved to find that it
+was only a new and expensive bicycle with the front wheel badly buckled.
+
+Mrs. Morran delayed no longer.  If she had walked well on her out
+journey, she beat all records on the return.  Sometimes she would run
+till her breath failed; then she would slow down till anxiety once more
+quickened her pace.  To her joy, on the Dalquharter side of the Garple
+bridge she observed the figure of a Die-Hard.  Breathless, flushed,
+with her bonnet awry and her umbrella held like a scimitar, she seized
+on the boy.
+
+"Awfu' doin's!  They've grippit Maister McCunn up the Mains road just
+afore the second milestone and forenent the auld bucht.  I fund his
+hat, and a bicycle's lyin' broken in the wud.  Haste ye, man, and get
+the rest and awa' and seek him.  It'll be the tinklers frae the Dean.
+I'd gang misel' but my legs are ower auld.  Ah, laddie, dinna stop to
+speir questions.  They'll hae him murdered or awa' to sea.  And maybe
+the leddy was wi' him and they've got them baith.  Wae's me!  Wae's me!"
+
+The Die-Hard, who was Wee Jaikie, did not delay.  His eyes had filled
+with tears at her news, which we know to have been his habit. When Mrs.
+Morran, after indulging in a moment of barbaric keening, looked back
+the road she had come, she saw a small figure trotting up the hill like
+a terrier who has been left behind.  As he trotted he wept bitterly.
+Jaikie was getting dangerous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HOW MR. McCUNN COMMITTED AN ASSAULT UPON AN ALLY
+
+
+Dickson always maintained that his senses did not leave him for more
+than a second or two, but he admitted that he did not remember very
+clearly the events of the next few hours.  He was conscious of a bad
+pain above his eyes, and something wet trickling down his cheek. There
+was a perpetual sound of water in his ears and of men's voices. He
+found himself dropped roughly on the ground and forced to walk, and was
+aware that his legs were inclined to wobble.  Somebody had a grip on
+each arm, so that he could not defend his face from the brambles, and
+that worried him, for his whole head seemed one aching bruise and he
+dreaded anything touching it.  But all the time he did not open his
+mouth, for silence was the one duty that his muddled wits enforced.  He
+felt that he was not the master of his mind, and he dreaded what he
+might disclose if he began to babble.
+
+Presently there came a blank space of which he had no recollection at
+all. The movement had stopped, and he was allowed to sprawl on the
+ground. He thought that his head had got another whack from a bough,
+and that the pain put him into a stupor.  When he awoke he was alone.
+
+He discovered that he was strapped very tightly to a young Scotch fir.
+His arms were bent behind him and his wrists tied together with cords
+knotted at the back of the tree; his legs were shackled, and further
+cords fastened them to the bole.  Also there was a halter round the
+trunk and just under his chin, so that while he breathed freely enough,
+he could not move his head.  Before him was a tangle of bracken and
+scrub, and beyond that the gloom of dense pines; but as he could see
+only directly in front his prospect was strictly circumscribed.
+
+Very slowly he began to take his bearings.  The pain in his head was
+now dulled and quite bearable, and the flow of blood had stopped, for
+he felt the encrustation of it beginning on his cheeks. There was a
+tremendous noise all around him, and he traced this to the swaying of
+tree-tops in the gale.  But there was an undercurrent of deeper
+sound--water surely, water churning among rocks.  It was a stream--the
+Garple of course--and then he remembered where he was and what had
+happened.
+
+I do not wish to portray Dickson as a hero, for nothing would annoy him
+more; but I am bound to say that his first clear thought was not of his
+own danger.  It was intense exasperation at the miscarriage of his
+plans.  Long ago he should have been with Dougal arranging operations,
+giving him news of Sir Archie, finding out how Heritage was faring,
+deciding how to use the coming reinforcements. Instead he was trussed
+up in a wood, a prisoner of the enemy, and utterly useless to his side.
+He tugged at his bonds, and nearly throttled himself.  But they were of
+good tarry cord and did not give a fraction of an inch.  Tears of
+bitter rage filled his eyes and made furrows on his encrusted cheek.
+Idiot that he had been, he had wrecked everything!  What would Saskia
+and Dougal and Sir Archie do without a business man by their side?
+There would be a muddle, and the little party would walk into a trap.
+He saw it all very clearly. The men from the sea would overpower them,
+there would be murder done, and an easy capture of the Princess; and
+the police would turn up at long last to find an empty headland.
+
+He had also most comprehensively wrecked himself, and at the thought
+genuine panic seized him.  There was no earthly chance of escape, for
+he was tucked away in this infernal jungle till such time as his
+enemies had time to deal with him.  As to what that dealing would be
+like he had no doubts, for they knew that he had been their chief
+opponent. Those desperate ruffians would not scruple to put an end to
+him. His mind dwelt with horrible fascination upon throat-cutting, no
+doubt because of the presence of the cord below his chin. He had heard
+it was not a painful death; at any rate he remembered a clerk he had
+once had, a feeble, timid creature, who had twice attempted suicide
+that way.  Surely it could not be very bad, and it would soon be over.
+
+But another thought came to him.  They would carry him off in the ship
+and settle with him at their leisure.  No swift merciful death for him.
+He had read dreadful tales of the Bolsheviks' skill in torture, and now
+they all came back to him--stories of Chinese mercenaries, and men
+buried alive, and death by agonizing inches.  He felt suddenly very
+cold and sick, and hung in his bonds, for he had no strength in his
+limbs.  Then the pressure on this throat braced him, and also quickened
+his numb mind.  The liveliest terror ran like quicksilver through his
+veins.
+
+He endured some moments of this anguish, till after many despairing
+clutches at his wits he managed to attain a measure of self-control. He
+certainly wasn't going to allow himself to become mad. Death was death
+whatever form it took, and he had to face death as many better men had
+done before him.  He had often thought about it and wondered how he
+should behave if the thing came to him.  Respectably, he had hoped;
+heroically, he had sworn in his moments of confidence.  But he had
+never for an instant dreamed of this cold, lonely, dreadful business.
+Last Sunday, he remembered, he had basking in the afternoon sun in his
+little garden and reading about the end of Fergus MacIvor in WAVERLEY
+and thrilling to the romance of it; and Tibby had come out and summoned
+him in to tea.  Then he had rather wanted to be a Jacobite in the '45
+and in peril of his neck, and now Providence had taken him most
+terribly at his word.
+
+A week ago---!  He groaned at the remembrance of that sunny garden. In
+seven days he had found a new world and tried a new life, and had come
+now to the end of it.  He did not want to die, less now than ever with
+such wide horizons opening before him. But that was the worst of it, he
+reflected, for to have a great life great hazards must be taken, and
+there was always the risk of this sudden extinguisher.... Had he to
+choose again, far better the smooth sheltered bypath than this accursed
+romantic highway on to which he had blundered.... No, by Heaven, no!
+Confound it, if he had to choose he would do it all again.  Something
+stiff and indomitable in his soul was bracing him to a manlier humour.
+There was no one to see the figure strapped to the fir, but had there
+been a witness he would have noted that at this stage Dickson shut his
+teeth and that his troubled eyes looked very steadily before him.
+
+His business, he felt, was to keep from thinking, for if he thought at
+all there would be a flow of memories--of his wife, his home, his
+books, his friends--to unman him.  So he steeled himself to blankness,
+like a sleepless man imagining white sheep in a gate.... He noted a
+robin below the hazels, strutting impudently.  And there was a tit on a
+bracken frond, which made the thing sway like one of the see-saws he
+used to play with as a boy.  There was no wind in that undergrowth, and
+any movement must be due to bird or beast.  The tit flew off, and the
+oscillations of the bracken slowly died away.  Then they began again,
+but more violently, and Dickson could not see the bird that caused
+them. It must be something down at the roots of the covert, a rabbit,
+perhaps, or a fox, or a weasel.
+
+He watched for the first sign of the beast, and thought he caught a
+glimpse of tawny fur.  Yes, there it was--pale dirty yellow, a weasel
+clearly.  Then suddenly the patch grow larger, and to his amazement he
+looked at a human face--the face of a pallid small boy.
+
+A head disentangled itself, followed by thin shoulders, and then by a
+pair of very dirty bare legs.  The figure raised itself and looked
+sharply round to make certain that the coast was clear. Then it stood
+up and saluted, revealing the well-known lineaments of Wee Jaikie.
+
+At the sight Dickson knew that he was safe by that certainty of
+instinct which is independent of proof, like the man who prays for a
+sign and has his prayer answered.  He observed that the boy was quietly
+sobbing.  Jaikie surveyed the position for an instant with red-rimmed
+eyes and then unclasped a knife, feeling the edge of the blade on his
+thumb.  He darted behind the fir, and a second later Dickson's wrists
+were free.  Then he sawed at the legs, and cut the shackles which tied
+them together, and then--most circumspectly--assaulted the cord which
+bound Dickson's neck to the trunk.  There now remained only the two
+bonds which fastened the legs and the body to the tree.
+
+There was a sound in the wood different from the wind and stream.
+Jaikie listened like a startled hind.
+
+"They're comin' back," he gasped.  "Just you bide where ye are and let
+on ye're still tied up."
+
+He disappeared in the scrub as inconspicuously as a rat, while two of
+the tinklers came up the slope from the waterside. Dickson in a fever
+of impatience cursed Wee Jaikie for not cutting his remaining bonds so
+that he could at least have made a dash for freedom. And then he
+realized that the boy had been right.  Feeble and cramped as he was, he
+would have stood no chance in a race.
+
+One of the tinklers was the man called Ecky.  He had been running hard,
+and was mopping his brow.
+
+"Hob's seen the brig," he said.  "It's droppin' anchor ayont the
+Dookits whaur there's a bield frae the wund and deep water. They'll be
+landit in half an 'oor.  Awa' you up to the Hoose and tell Dobson, and
+me and Sim and Hob will meet the boats at the Garplefit."
+
+The other cast a glance towards Dickson.
+
+"What about him?" he asked.
+
+The two scrutinized their prisoner from a distance of a few paces.
+Dickson, well aware of his peril, held himself as stiff as if every
+bond had been in place.  The thought flashed on him that if he were too
+immobile they might think he was dying or dead, and come close to
+examine him.  If they only kept their distance, the dusk of the wood
+would prevent them detecting Jaikie's handiwork.
+
+"What'll you take to let me go?" he asked plaintively.
+
+"Naething that you could offer, my mannie," said Ecky.
+
+"I'll give you a five-pound note apiece."
+
+"Produce the siller," said the other.
+
+"It's in my pocket."
+
+"It's no' that.  We riped your pooches lang syne."
+
+"I'll take you to Glasgow with me and pay you there.  Honour bright."
+
+Ecky spat.  "D'ye think we're gowks?  Man, there's no siller ye could
+pay wad mak' it worth our while to lowse ye.  Bide quiet there and
+ye'll see some queer things ere nicht.  C'way, Davie."
+
+The two set off at a good pace down the stream, while Dickson's pulsing
+heart returned to its normal rhythm.  As the sound of their feet died
+away Wee Jaikie crawled out from cover, dry-eyed now and very
+business-like.  He slit the last thongs, and Dickson fell limply on his
+face.
+
+"Losh, laddie, I'm awful stiff," he groaned.  "Now, listen. Away all
+your pith to Dougal, and tell him that the brig's in and the men will
+be landing inside the hour.  Tell him I'm coming as fast as my legs
+will let me.  The Princess will likely be there already and Sir
+Archibald and his men, but if they're no', tell Dougal they're coming.
+Haste you, Jaikie.  And see here, I'll never forget what you've done
+for me the day.  You're a fine wee laddie!"
+
+The obedient Die-Hard disappeared, and Dickson painfully and
+laboriously set himself to climb the slope.  He decided that his
+quickest and safest route lay by the highroad, and he had also some
+hopes of recovering his bicycle.  On examining his body he seemed to
+have sustained no very great damage, except a painful cramping of legs
+and arms and a certain dizziness in the head.  His pockets had been
+thoroughly rifled, and he reflected with amusement that he, the
+well-to-do Mr. McCunn, did not possess at the moment a single copper.
+
+But his spirits were soaring, for somehow his escape had given him an
+assurance of ultimate success.  Providence had directly interfered on
+his behalf by the hand of Wee Jaikie, and that surely meant that it
+would see him through.  But his chief emotion was an ardour of
+impatience to get to the scene of action.  He must be at Dalquharter
+before the men from the sea; he must find Dougal and discover his
+dispositions.  Heritage would be on guard in the Tower, and in a very
+little the enemy would be round it.  It would be just like the Princess
+to try and enter there, but at all costs that must be hindered.  She
+and Sir Archie must not be cornered in stone walls, but must keep their
+communications open and fall on the enemy's flank.  Oh, if the police
+would only come it time, what a rounding up of miscreants that day
+would see!
+
+As the trees thinned on the brow of the slope and he saw the sky, he
+realized that the afternoon was far advanced.  It must be well on for
+five o'clock.  The wind still blew furiously, and the oaks on the
+fringes of the wood were whipped like saplings.  Ruefully he admitted
+that the gale would not defeat the enemy.  If the brig found a
+sheltered anchorage on the south side of the headland beyond the
+Garple, it would be easy enough for boats to make the Garple mouth,
+though it might be a difficult job to get out again.  The thought
+quickened his steps, and he came out of cover on to the public road
+without a prior reconnaissance.  Just in front of him stood a
+motor-bicycle.  Something had gone wrong with it for its owner was
+tinkering at it, on the side farthest from Dickson.  A wild hope seized
+him that this might be the vanguard of the police, and he went boldly
+towards it.  The owner, who was kneeling, raised his face at the sound
+of footsteps and Dickson looked into his eyes.
+
+He recognized them only too well.  They belonged to the man he had seen
+in the inn at Kirkmichael, the man whom Heritage had decided to be an
+Australian, but whom they now know to be their arch-enemy--the man
+called Paul who had persecuted the Princess for years and whom alone of
+all beings on earth she feared.  He had been expected before, but had
+arrived now in the nick of time while the brig was casting anchor.
+Saskia had said that he had a devil's brain, and Dickson, as he stared
+at him, saw a fiendish cleverness in his straight brows and a
+remorseless cruelty in his stiff jaw and his pale eyes.
+
+He achieved the bravest act of his life.  Shaky and dizzy as he was,
+with freedom newly opened to him and the mental torments of his
+captivity still an awful recollection, he did not hesitate. He saw
+before him the villain of the drama, the one man that stood between the
+Princess and peace of mind.  He regarded no consequences, gave no heed
+to his own fate, and thought only how to put his enemy out of action.
+There was a by spanner lying on the ground.  He seized it and with all
+his strength smote at the man's face.
+
+The motor-cyclist, kneeling and working hard at his machine, had raised
+his head at Dickson's approach and beheld a wild apparition--a short
+man in ragged tweeds, with a bloody brow and long smears of blood on
+his cheeks.  The next second he observed the threat of attack, and
+ducked his head so that the spanner only grazed his scalp. The
+motor-bicycle toppled over, its owner sprang to his feet, and found the
+short man, very pale and gasping, about to renew the assault. In such a
+crisis there was no time for inquiry, and the cyclist was well trained
+in self-defence.  He leaped the prostrate bicycle, and before his
+assailant could get in a blow brought his left fist into violent
+contact with his chin.  Dickson tottered a step or two and then
+subsided among the bracken.
+
+He did not lose his senses, but he had no more strength in him. He felt
+horribly ill, and struggled in vain to get up.  The cyclist, a gigantic
+figure, towered above him.  "Who the devil are you?" he was asking.
+"What do you mean by it?"
+
+Dickson had no breath for words, and knew that if he tried to speak he
+would be very sick.  He could only stare up like a dog at the angry
+eyes.  Angry beyond question they were, but surely not malevolent.
+Indeed, as they looked at the shameful figure on the ground, amusement
+filled them.  The face relaxed into a smile.
+
+"Who on earth are you?" the voice repeated.  And then into it came
+recognition.  "I've seen you before.  I believe you're the little man I
+saw last week at the Black Bull.  Be so good as to explain why you want
+to murder me."
+
+Explanation was beyond Dickson, but his conviction was being woefully
+shaken.  Saskia had said her enemy was a beautiful as a devil--he
+remembered the phrase, for he had thought it ridiculous. This man was
+magnificent, but there was nothing devilish in his lean grave face.
+
+"What's your name?" the voice was asking.
+
+"Tell me yours first," Dickson essayed to stutter between spasms of
+nausea.
+
+"My name is Alexander Nicholson," was the answer.
+
+"Then you're no' the man."  It was a cry of wrath and despair.
+
+"You're a very desperate little chap.  For whom had I the honour to be
+mistaken?"
+
+Dickson had now wriggled into a sitting position and had clasped his
+hands above his aching head.
+
+"I thought you were a Russian, name of Paul," he groaned.
+
+"Paul!  Paul who?"
+
+"Just Paul.  A Bolshevik and an awful bad lot."
+
+Dickson could not see the change which his words wrought in the other's
+face.  He found himself picked up in strong arms and carried to a
+bog-pool where his battered face was carefully washed, his throbbing
+brows laved, and a wet handkerchief bound over them. Then he was given
+brandy in the socket of a flask, which eased his nausea.  The cyclist
+ran his bicycle to the roadside, and found a seat for Dickson behind
+the turf-dyke of the old bucht.
+
+"Now you are going to tell me everything," he said.  "If the Paul who
+is your enemy is the Paul I think him, then we are allies."
+
+But Dickson did not need this assurance.  His mind had suddenly
+received a revelation.  The Princess had expected an enemy, but also a
+friend.  Might not this be the long-awaited friend, for whose sake she
+was rooted to Huntingtower with all its terrors?
+
+"Are you sure your name's no' Alexis?"  he asked.
+
+"In my own country I was called Alexis Nicolaevitch, for I am a
+Russian. But for some years I have made my home with your folk, and I
+call myself Alexander Nicholson, which is the English form.  Who told
+you about Alexis?
+
+"Give me your hand," said Dickson shamefacedly.  "Man, she's been
+looking for you for weeks.  You're terribly behind the fair."
+
+"She!" he cried.  "For God's sake, tell me what you mean."
+
+"Ay, she--the Princess.  But what are we havering here for? I tell you
+at this moment she's somewhere down about the old Tower, and there's
+boatloads of blagyirds landing from the sea.  Help me up, man, for I
+must be off.  The story will keep.  Losh, it's very near the darkening.
+If you're Alexis, you're just about in time for a battle."
+
+But Dickson on his feet was but a frail creature.  He was still
+deplorably giddy, and his legs showed an unpleasing tendency to
+crumple. "I'm fair done," he moaned.  "You see, I've been tied up all
+day to a tree and had two sore bashes on my head.  Get you on that
+bicycle and hurry on, and I'll hirple after you the best I can.  I'll
+direct you the road, and if you're lucky you'll find a Die-Hard about
+the village. Away with you, man, and never mind me."
+
+"We go together," said the other quietly.  "You can sit behind me and
+hang on to my waist.  Before you turned up I had pretty well got the
+thing in order."
+
+Dickson in a fever of impatience sat by while the Russian put the
+finishing touches to the machine, and as well as his anxiety allowed
+put him in possession of the main facts of the story. He told of how he
+and Heritage had come to Dalquharter, of the first meeting with Saskia,
+of the trip to Glasgow with the jewels, of the exposure of Loudon the
+factor, of last night's doings in the House, and of the journey that
+morning to the Mains of Garple.  He sketched the figures on the
+scene--Heritage and Sir Archie, Dobson and his gang, the Gorbals
+Die-Hards.  He told of the enemy's plans so far as he knew them.
+
+"Looked at from a business point of view," he said, "the situation's
+like this.  There's Heritage in the Tower, with Dobson, Leon, and
+Spidel sitting round him.  Somewhere about the place there's the
+Princess and Sir Archibald and three men with guns from the Mains.
+Dougal and his five laddies are running loose in the policies. And
+there's four tinklers and God knows how many foreign ruffians pushing
+up from the Garplefoot, and a brig lying waiting to carry off the
+ladies.  Likewise there's the police, somewhere on the road, though the
+dear kens when they'll turn up.  It's awful the incompetence of our
+Government, and the rates and taxes that high!... And there's you and
+me by this roadside, and me no more use than a tattie-bogle.... That's
+the situation, and the question is what's our plan to be?  We must keep
+the blagyirds in play till the police come, and at the same time we
+must keep the Princess out of danger.  That's why I'm wanting back, for
+they've sore need of  a business head.  Yon Sir Archibald's a fine
+fellow, but I doubt he'll be a bit rash, and the Princess is no' to
+hold or bind. Our first job is to find Dougal and get a grip of the
+facts."
+
+"I am going to the Princess," said the Russian.
+
+"Ay, that'll be best.  You'll be maybe able to manage her, for you'll
+be well acquaint."
+
+"She is my kinswoman.  She is also my affianced wife."
+
+"Keep us!" Dickson exclaimed, with a doleful thought of Heritage. "What
+ailed you then no' to look after her better?"
+
+"We have been long separated, because it was her will.  She had work to
+do and disappeared from me, though I searched all Europe for her. Then
+she sent me word, when the danger became extreme, and summoned me to
+her aid.  But she gave me poor directions, for she did not know her own
+plans very clearly.  She spoke of a place called Darkwater, and I have
+been hunting half Scotland for it.  It was only last night that I heard
+of Dalquharter and guessed that that might be the name. But I was far
+down in Galloway, and have ridden fifty miles today."
+
+"It's a queer thing, but I wouldn't take you for a Russian."
+
+Alexis finished his work and put away his tools.
+
+"For the present," he said, "I am an Englishman, till my country comes
+again to her senses.  Ten years ago I left Russia, for I was sick of
+the foolishness of my class and wanted a free life in a new world.  I
+went to Australia and made good as an engineer. I am a partner in a
+firm which is pretty well known even in Britain. When war broke out I
+returned to fight for my people, and when Russia fell out of the war, I
+joined the Australians in France and fought with them till the
+Armistice.  And now I have only one duty left, to save the Princess and
+take her with me to my new home till Russia is a nation once more."
+
+Dickson whistled joyfully.  "So Mr. Heritage was right.  He aye said
+you were an Australian.... And you're a business man!  That's grand
+hearing and puts my mind at rest.  You must take charge of the party at
+the House, for Sir Archibald's a daft young lad and Mr. Heritage is a
+poet.  I thought I would have to go myself, but I doubt I would just be
+a hindrance with my dwaibly legs.  I'd be better outside, watching for
+the police.... Are you ready, sir?"
+
+Dickson not without difficulty perched himself astride the luggage
+carrier, firmly grasping the rider round the middle. The machine
+started, but it was evidently in a bad way, for it made poor going till
+the descent towards the main Auchenlochan road. On the slope it warmed
+up and they crossed the Garple bridge at a fair pace.  There was to be
+no pleasant April twilight, for the stormy sky had already made dusk,
+and in a very little the dark would fall.  So sombre was the evening
+that Dickson did not notice a figure in the shadow of the roadside
+pines till it whistled shrilly on its fingers.  He cried on Alexis to
+stop, and, this being accomplished with some suddenness, fell off at
+Dougal's feet.
+
+"What's the news?" he demanded.
+
+Dougal glanced at Alexis and seemed to approve his looks.
+
+"Napoleon has just reported that three boatloads, making either
+twenty-three or twenty-four men--they were gey ill to count--has landed
+at Garplefit and is makin' their way to the auld Tower. The tinklers
+warned Dobson and soon it'll be a' bye wi' Heritage."
+
+"The Princess is not there?" was Dickson's anxious inquiry.
+
+"Na, na.  Heritage is there his lone.  They were for joinin' him, but I
+wouldn't let them.  She came wi' a man they call Sir Erchibald and
+three gamekeepers wi' guns.  I stoppit their cawr up the road and
+tell't them the lie o' the land.  Yon Sir Erchibald has poor notions o'
+strawtegy.  He was for bangin' into the auld Tower straight away and
+shootin' Dobson if he tried to stop them.  'Havers,' say I, 'let them
+break their teeth on the Tower, thinkin' the leddy's inside, and
+that'll give us time, for Heritage is no' the lad to surrender in a
+hurry.'"
+
+"Where are they now?"
+
+"In the Hoose o' Dalquharter, and a sore job I had gettin' them in.
+We've shifted our base again, without the enemy suspectin'."
+
+"Any word of the police?"
+
+"The polis!" and Dougal spat cynically.  "It seems they're a dour crop
+to shift.  Sir Erchibald was sayin' that him and the lassie had been to
+the Chief Constable, but the man was terrible auld and slow. They
+persuadit him, but he threepit that it would take a long time to
+collect his men and that there was no danger o' the brig landin' before
+night.  He's wrong there onyway, for they're landit."
+
+"Dougal," said Dickson, "you've heard the Princess speak of a friend
+she was expecting here called Alexis.  This is him. You can address him
+as Mr. Nicholson.  Just arrived in the nick of time.  You must get him
+into the House, for he's the best right to be beside the lady... Jaikie
+would tell you that I've been sore mishandled the day, and am no' very
+fit for a battle. But Mr. Nicholson's a business man and he'll do as
+well. You're keeping the Die-Hards outside, I hope?"
+
+"Ay.  Thomas Yownie's in charge, and Jaikie will be in and out with
+orders. They've instructions to watch for the polis, and keep an eye on
+the Garplefit.  It's a mortal long front to hold, but there's no other
+way.  I must be in the hoose mysel'.  Thomas Yownie's headquarters is
+the auld wife's hen-hoose."
+
+At that moment in a pause of the gale came the far-borne echo of a shot.
+
+"Pistol," said Alexis.
+
+"Heritage," said Dougal.  "Trade will be gettin' brisk with him. Start
+your machine and I'll hang on ahint.  We'll try the road by the West
+Lodge."
+
+Presently the pair disappeared in the dusk, the noise of the engine was
+swallowed up in the wild orchestra of the wind, and Dickson hobbled
+towards the village in a state of excitement which made him oblivious
+of his wounds.  That lonely pistol shot was, he felt, the bell to ring
+up the curtain on the last act of the play.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE COMING OF THE DANISH BRIG
+
+
+Mr. John Heritage, solitary in the old Tower, found much to occupy his
+mind.  His giddiness was passing, though the dregs of a headache
+remained, and his spirits rose with his responsibilities. At daybreak
+he breakfasted out of the Mearns Street provision box, and made tea in
+one of the Die-Hard's camp kettles.  Next he gave some attention to his
+toilet, necessary after the rough-and-tumble of the night.  He made
+shift to bathe in icy water from the Tower well, shaved, tidied up his
+clothes and found a clean shirt from his pack. He carefully brushed his
+hair, reminding himself that thus had the Spartans done before
+Thermopylae.  The neat and somewhat pallid young man that emerged from
+these rites then ascended to the first floor to reconnoitre the
+landscape from the narrow unglazed windows.
+
+If any one had told him a week ago that he would be in so strange a
+world he would have quarrelled violently with his informant. A week ago
+he was a cynical clear-sighted modern, a contemner of illusions, a
+swallower of formulas, a breaker of shams--one who had seen through the
+heroical and found it silly.  Romance and such-like toys were
+playthings for fatted middle-age, not for strenuous and cold-eyed
+youth.  But the truth was that now he was altogether spellbound by
+these toys.  To think that he was serving his lady was rapture-ecstasy,
+that for her he was single-handed venturing all. He rejoiced to be
+alone with his private fancies.  His one fear was that the part he had
+cast himself for might be needless, that the men from the sea would not
+come, or that reinforcements would arrive before he should be called
+upon.  He hoped alone to make a stand against thousands.  What the
+upshot might be he did not trouble to inquire.  Of course the Princess
+would be saved, but first he must glut his appetite for the heroic.
+
+He made a diary of events that day, just as he used to do at the front.
+At twenty minutes past eight he saw the first figure coming from the
+House. It was Spidel, who limped round the Tower, tried the door, and
+came to a halt below the window.  Heritage stuck out his head and
+wished him good morning, getting in reply an amazed stare.  The man was
+not disposed to talk, though Heritage made some interesting
+observations on the weather, but departed quicker than he came, in the
+direction of the West Lodge.
+
+Just before nine o'clock he returned with Dobson and Leon. They made a
+very complete reconnaissance of the Tower, and for a moment Heritage
+thought that they were about to try to force an entrance.  They tugged
+and hammered at the great oak door, which he had further strengthened
+by erecting behind it a pile of the heaviest lumber he could find in
+the place.  It was imperative that they should not get in, and he got
+Dickson's pistol ready with the firm intention of shooting them if
+necessary.  But they did nothing, except to hold a conference in the
+hazel clump a hundred yards to the north, when Dobson seemed to be
+laying down the law, and Leon spoke rapidly with a great fluttering of
+hands.  They were obviously puzzled by the sight of Heritage, whom they
+believed to have left the neighbourhood.  Then Dobson went off, leaving
+Leon and Spidel on guard, one at the edge of the shrubberies between
+the Tower and the House, the other on the side nearest the Laver glen.
+These were their posts, but they did sentry-go around the building, and
+passed so close to Heritage's window that he could have tossed a
+cigarette on their heads.
+
+It occurred to him that he ought to get busy with camouflage. They must
+be convinced that the Princess was in the place, for he wanted their
+whole mind to be devoted to the siege. He rummaged among the ladies'
+baggage, and extracted a skirt and a coloured scarf.  The latter he
+managed to flutter so that it could be seen at the window the next time
+one of the watchers came within sight.  He also fixed up the skirt so
+that the fringe of it could be seen, and, when Leon appeared below, he
+was in the shadow talking rapid French in a very fair imitation of the
+tones of Cousin Eugenie.  The ruse had its effect, for Leon promptly
+went off to tell Spidel, and when Dobson appeared he too was given the
+news.  This seemed to settle their plans, for all three remained on
+guard, Dobson nearest to the Tower, seated on an outcrop of rock with
+his mackintosh collar turned up, and his eyes usually on the misty sea.
+
+By this time it was eleven o'clock, and the next three hours passed
+slowly with Heritage.  He fell to picturing the fortunes of his
+friends. Dickson and the Princess should by this time be far inland,
+out of danger and in the way of finding succour.  He was confident that
+they would return, but he trusted not too soon, for he hoped for a run
+for his money as Horatius in the Gate.  After that he was a little torn
+in his mind.  He wanted the Princess to come back and to be somewhere
+near if there was a fight going, so that she might be a witness of his
+devotion.  But she must not herself run any risk, and he became anxious
+when he remembered her terrible sangfroid.  Dickson could no more
+restrain her than a child could hold a greyhound.... But of course it
+would never come to that.  The police would turn up long before the
+brig appeared--Dougal had thought that would not be till high tide,
+between four and five--and the only danger would be to the pirates. The
+three watchers would be put in the bag, and the men from the sea would
+walk into a neat trap.  This reflection seemed to take all the colour
+out of Heritage's prospect.  Peril and heroism were not to be his
+lot--only boredom.
+
+A little after twelve two of the tinklers appeared with some news which
+made Dobson laugh and pat them on the shoulder.  He seemed to be giving
+them directions, pointing seaward and southward.  He nodded to the
+Tower, where Heritage took the opportunity of again fluttering Saskia's
+scarf athwart the window.  The tinklers departed at a trot, and Dobson
+lit his pipe as if well pleased.  He had some trouble with it in the
+wind, which had risen to an uncanny violence.  Even the solid Tower
+rocked with it, and the sea was a waste of spindrift and low scurrying
+cloud.  Heritage discovered a new anxiety--this time about the
+possibility of the brig landing at all.  He wanted a complete bag, and
+it would be tragic if they got only the three seedy ruffians now
+circumambulating his fortress.
+
+About one o'clock he was greatly cheered by the sight of Dougal. At the
+moment Dobson was lunching off a hunk of bread and cheese directly
+between the Tower and the House, just short of the crest of the ridge
+on the other side of which lay the stables and the shrubberies; Leon
+was on the north side opposite the Tower door, and Spidel was at the
+south end near the edge of the Garple glen. Heritage, watching the
+ridge behind Dobson and the upper windows of the House which appeared
+over it, saw on the very crest something like a tuft of rusty bracken
+which he had not noticed before. Presently the tuft moved, and a hand
+shot up from it waving a rag of some sort.  Dobson at the moment was
+engaged with a bottle of porter, and Heritage could safely wave a hand
+in reply.  He could now make out clearly the red head of Dougal.
+
+The Chieftain, having located the three watchers, proceeded to give an
+exhibition of his prowess for the benefit of the lonely inmate of the
+Tower.  Using as cover a drift of bracken, he wormed his way down till
+he was not six yards from Dobson, and Heritage had the privilege of
+seeing his grinning countenance a very little way above the innkeeper's
+head.  Then he crawled back and reached the neighbourhood of Leon, who
+was sitting on a fallen Scotch fir. At that moment it occurred to the
+Belgian to visit Dobson. Heritage's breath stopped, but Dougal was
+ready, and froze into a motionless blur in the shadow of a hazel bush.
+Then he crawled very fast into the hollow where Leon had been sitting,
+seized something which looked like a bottle, and scrambled back to the
+ridge. At the top he waved the object, whatever it was, but Heritage
+could not reply, for Dobson happened to be looking towards the window.
+That was the last he saw of the Chieftain, but presently he realized
+what was the booty he had annexed.  It must be Leon's life-preserver,
+which the night before had broken Heritage's head.
+
+After that cheering episode boredom again set in.  He collected some
+food from the Mearns Street box, and indulged himself with a glass of
+liqueur brandy.  He was beginning to feel miserably cold, so he carried
+up some broken wood and made a fire on the immense hearth in the upper
+chamber.  Anxiety was clouding his mind again, for it was now two
+o'clock, and there was no sign of the reinforcements which Dickson and
+the Princess had gone to find.  The minutes passed, and soon it was
+three o'clock, and from the window he saw only the top of the gaunt
+shuttered House, now and then hidden by squalls of sleet, and Dobson
+squatted like an Eskimo, and trees dancing like a witch-wood in the
+gale.  All the vigour of the morning seemed to have gone out of his
+blood; he felt lonely and apprehensive and puzzled. He wished he had
+Dickson beside him, for that little man's cheerful voice and complacent
+triviality would be a comfort.... Also, he was abominably cold.  He put
+on his waterproof, and turned his attention to the fire.  It needed
+re-kindling, and he hunted in his pockets for paper, finding only the
+slim volume lettered WHORLS.
+
+I set it down as the most significant commentary on his state of mind.
+He regarded the book with intense disfavour, tore it in two, and used a
+handful of its fine deckle-edged leaves to get the fire going. They
+burned well, and presently the rest followed.  Well for Dickson's peace
+of soul that he was not a witness of such vandalism.
+
+A little warmer but in no way more cheerful, he resumed his watch near
+the window.  The day was getting darker, and promised an early dusk.
+His watch told him that it was after four, and still nothing had
+happened. Where on earth were Dickson and the Princess?  Where in the
+name of all that was holy were the police?  Any minute now the brig
+might arrive and land its men, and he would be left there as a
+burnt-offering to their wrath.  There must have been an infernal muddle
+somewhere.... Anyhow the Princess was out of the trouble, but where the
+Lord alone knew.... Perhaps the reinforcements were lying in wait for
+the boats at the Garplefoot.  That struck him as a likely explanation,
+and comforted him.  Very soon he might hear the sound of an engagement
+to the south, and the next thing would be Dobson and his crew in
+flight. He was determined to be in the show somehow and would be very
+close on their heels.  He felt a peculiar dislike to all three, but
+especially to Leon.  The Belgian's small baby features had for four
+days set him clenching his fists when he thought of them.
+
+The next thing he saw was one of the tinklers running hard towards the
+Tower.  He cried something to Dobson, which woke the latter to
+activity. The innkeeper shouted to Leon and Spidel, and the tinkler was
+excitedly questioned.  Dobson laughed and slapped his thigh. He gave
+orders to the others, and himself joined the tinkler and hurried off in
+the direction of the Garplefoot.  Something was happening there,
+something of ill omen, for the man's face and manner had been
+triumphant.  Were the boats landing?
+
+As Heritage puzzled over this event, another figure appeared on the
+scene.  It was a big man in knickerbockers and mackintosh, who came
+round the end of the House from the direction of the South Lodge.  At
+first he thought it was the advance-guard from his own side, the help
+which Dickson had gone to find, and he only restrained himself in time
+from shouting a welcome. But surely their supports would not advance so
+confidently in enemy country.  The man strode over the slopes as if
+looking for somebody; then he caught sight of Leon and waved to him to
+come. Leon must have known him, for he hastened to obey.
+
+The two were about thirty yards from Heritage's window.  Leon was
+telling some story volubly, pointing now to the Tower and now towards
+the sea.  The big man nodded as if satisfied.  Heritage noted that his
+right arm was tied up, and that the mackintosh sleeve was empty, and
+that brought him enlightenment.  It was Loudon the factor, whom Dickson
+had winged the night before.  The two of them passed out of view in the
+direction of Spidel.
+
+The sight awoke Heritage to the supreme unpleasantness of his position.
+He was utterly alone on the headland, and his allies had vanished into
+space, while the enemy plans, moving like clockwork, were approaching
+their consummation.  For a second he thought of leaving the Tower and
+hiding somewhere in the cliffs.  He dismissed the notion unwillingly,
+for he remembered the task that had been set him.  He was there to hold
+the fort to the last--to gain time, though he could not for the life of
+him see what use time was to be when all the strategy of his own side
+seemed to have miscarried.  Anyhow, the blackguards would be sold, for
+they would not find the Princess.  But he felt a horrid void in the pit
+of his stomach, and a looseness about his knees.
+
+The moments passed more quickly as he wrestled with his fears. The next
+he knew the empty space below his window was filling with figures.
+There was a great crowd of them, rough fellows with seamen's coats,
+still dripping as if they had had a wet landing.  Dobson was with them,
+but for the rest they were strange figures.
+
+Now that the expected had come at last Heritage's nerves grew calmer.
+He made out that the newcomers were trying the door, and he waited to
+hear it fall, for such a mob could soon force it.  But instead a voice
+called from beneath.
+
+"Will you please open to us?" it called.
+
+He stuck his head out and saw a little group with one man at the head
+of it, a young man clad in oilskins whose face was dim in the murky
+evening.  The voice was that of a gentleman.
+
+"I have orders to open to no one," Heritage replied.
+
+"Then I fear we must force an entrance," said the voice.
+
+"You can go to the devil," said Heritage.
+
+That defiance was the screw which his nerves needed.  His temper had
+risen, he had forgotten all about the Princess, he did not even
+remember his isolation.  His job was to make a fight for it. He ran up
+the staircase which led to the attics of the Tower, for he recollected
+that there was a window there which looked over the space before the
+door.  The place was ruinous, the floor filled with holes, and a part
+of the roof sagged down in a corner.  The stones around the window were
+loose and crumbling, and he managed to pull several out so that the
+slit was enlarged.  He found himself looking down on a crowd of men,
+who had lifted the fallen tree on which Leon had perched, and were
+about to use it as a battering ram.
+
+"The first fellow who comes within six yards of the door I shoot," he
+shouted.
+
+There was a white wave below as every face was turned to him. He ducked
+back his head in time as a bullet chipped the side of the window.
+
+But his position was a good one, for he had a hole in the broken wall
+through which he could see, and could shoot with his hand at the edge
+of the window while keeping his body in cover. The battering party
+resumed their task, and as the tree swung nearer, he fired at the
+foremost of them.  He missed, but the shot for a moment suspended
+operations.
+
+Again they came on, and again he fired.  This time he damaged somebody,
+for the trunk was dropped.
+
+A voice gave orders, a sharp authoritative voice.  The battering squad
+dissolved, and there was a general withdrawal out of the line of fire
+from the window.  Was it possible that he had intimidated them? He
+could hear the sound of voices, and then a single figure came into
+sight again, holding something in its hand.
+
+He did not fire for he recognized the futility of his efforts. The
+baseball swing of the figure below could not be mistaken. There was a
+roar beneath, and a flash of fire, as the bomb exploded on the door.
+Then came a rush of men, and the Tower had fallen. Heritage clambered
+through a hole in the roof and gained the topmost parapet.  He had
+still a pocketful of cartridges, and there in a coign of the old
+battlements he would prove an ugly customer to the pursuit.  Only one
+at a time could reach that siege perilous.... They would not take long
+to search the lower rooms, and then would be hot on the trail of the
+man who had fooled them. He had not a scrap of fear left or even of
+anger--only triumph at the thought of how properly those ruffians had
+been sold. "Like schoolboys they who unaware"--instead of two women
+they had found a man with a gun.  And the Princess was miles off and
+forever beyond their reach.  When they had settled with him they would
+no doubt burn the House down, but that would serve them little. From
+his airy pinnacle he could see the whole sea-front of Huntingtower, a
+blur in the dusk but for the ghostly eyes of its white-shuttered
+windows.
+
+Something was coming from it, running lightly over the lawns, lost for
+an instant in the trees, and then appearing clear on the crest of the
+ridge where some hours earlier Dougal had lain. With horror he saw that
+it was a girl.  She stood with the wind plucking at her skirts and
+hair, and she cried in a high, clear voice which pierced even the
+confusion of the gale.  What she cried he could not tell, for it was in
+a strange tongue....
+
+But it reached the besiegers.  There was a sudden silence in the din
+below him and then a confusion of shouting.  The men seemed to be
+pouring out of the gap which had been the doorway, and as he peered
+over the parapet first one and then another entered his area of vision.
+The girl on the ridge, as soon as she saw that she had attracted
+attention, turned and ran back, and after her up the slopes went the
+pursuit bunched like hounds on a good scent.
+
+Mr. John Heritage, swearing terribly, started to retrace his steps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
+
+
+The military historian must often make shift to write of battles with
+slender data, but he can pad out his deficiencies by learned parallels.
+If his were the talented pen describing this, the latest action fought
+on British soil against a foreign foe, he would no doubt be crippled by
+the absence of written orders and war diaries. But how eloquently he
+would descant on the resemblance between Dougal and Gouraud--how the
+plan of leaving the enemy to waste his strength upon a deserted
+position was that which on the 15th of July 1918 the French general had
+used with decisive effect in Champagne! But Dougal had never heard of
+Gouraud, and I cannot claim that, like the Happy Warrior, he
+
+           "through the heat of conflict kept the law
+  In calmness made, and saw what he foresaw."
+
+
+I have had the benefit of discussing the affair with him and his
+colleagues, but I should offend against historic truth if I represented
+the main action as anything but a scrimmage--a "soldiers' battle," the
+historian would say, a Malplaquet, an Albuera.
+
+Just after half-past three that afternoon the Commander-in-Chief was
+revealed in a very bad temper.  He had intercepted Sir Archie's car,
+and, since Leon was known to be fully occupied, had brought it in by
+the West Lodge, and hidden it behind a clump of laurels. There he had
+held a hoarse council of war.  He had cast an appraising eye over Sime
+the butler, Carfrae the chauffeur, and McGuffog the gamekeeper, and his
+brows had lightened when he beheld Sir Archie with an armful of guns
+and two big cartridge-magazines.  But they had darkened again at the
+first words of the leader of the reinforcements.
+
+"Now for the Tower," Sir Archie had observed cheerfully.  "We should be
+a match for the three watchers, my lad, and it's time that poor devil
+What's-his-name was relieved."
+
+"A bonny-like plan that would be," said Dougal.  "Man, ye would be
+walkin' into the very trap they want.  In an hour, or maybe two, the
+rest will turn up from the sea and they'd have ye tight by the neck.
+Na, na!  It's time we're wantin', and the longer they think we're a' in
+the auld Tower the better for us.  What news o' the polis?"
+
+He listened to Sir Archie's report with a gloomy face.
+
+"Not afore the darkenin'?  They'll be ower late--the polis are aye ower
+late.  It looks as if we had the job to do oursels. What's your notion?"
+
+"God knows," said the baronet, whose eyes were on Saskia.  "What's
+yours?"
+
+The deference conciliated Dougal.  "There's just the one plan that's
+worth a docken.  There's five o' us here, and there's plenty weapons.
+Besides there's five Die-Hards somewhere about, and though they've
+never tried it afore they can be trusted to loose off a gun. My advice
+is to hide at the Garplefoot and stop the boats landin'. We'd have the
+tinklers on our flank, no doubt, but I'm not muckle feared o' them.  It
+wouldn't be easy for the boats to get in wi' this tearin' wind and us
+firin' volleys from the shore."
+
+Sir Archie stared at him with admiration.  "You're a hearty young
+fire-eater.  But, Great Scott! we can't go pottin' at strangers before
+we find out their business.  This is a law-abidin' country, and we're
+not entitled to start shootin' except in self-defence. You can wash
+that plan out, for it ain't feasible."
+
+Dougal spat cynically.  "For all that it's the right strawtegy. Man, we
+might sink the lot, and then turn and settle wi' Dobson, and all afore
+the first polisman showed his neb.  It would be a grand performance.
+But I was feared ye wouldn't be for it.... Well, there's just the one
+other thing to do.  We must get inside the Hoose and put it in a state
+of defence.  Heritage has McCunn's pistol, and he'll keep them busy for
+a bit.  When they've finished wi' him and find the place is empty,
+they'll try the Hoose and we'll give them a warm reception.  That
+should keep us goin' till the polis arrive, unless they're comin' wi'
+the blind carrier."
+
+Sir Archie nodded.  "But why put ourselves in their power at all?
+They're at present barking up the wrong tree.  Let them bark up another
+wrong 'un.  Why shouldn't the House remain empty?  I take it we're here
+to protect the Princess.  Well, we'll have done that if they go off
+empty-handed."
+
+Dougal looked up to the heavens.  "I wish McCunn was here," he sighed.
+"Ay, we've got to protect the Princess, and there's just the one way to
+do it, and that's to put an end to this crowd o' blagyirds. If they
+gang empty-handed, they'll come again another day, either here or
+somewhere else, and it won't be long afore they get the lassie. But if
+we finish with them now she can sit down wi' an easy mind. That's why
+we've got to hang on to them till the polis comes. There's no way out
+o' this business but a battle."
+
+He found an ally.  "Dougal is right," said Saskia.  "If I am to have
+peace, by some way or other the fangs of my enemies must be drawn for
+ever."
+
+He swung round and addressed her formally.  "Mem, I'm askin' ye for the
+last time.  Will ye keep out of this business?  Will ye gang back and
+sit doun aside Mrs. Morran's fire and have your teas and wait till we
+come for ye.  Ye can do no good, and ye're puttin' yourself terrible in
+the enemy's power.  If we're beat and ye're no' there, they get very
+little satisfaction, but if they get you they get what they've come
+seekin'.  I tell ye straight--ye're an encumbrance."
+
+She laughed mischievously.  "I can shoot better than you," she said.
+
+He ignored the taunt.  "Will ye listen to sense and fall to the rear?"
+
+"I will not," she said.
+
+"Then gang your own gait.  I'm ower wise to argy-bargy wi' women. The
+Hoose be it!"
+
+It was a journey which sorely tried Dougal's temper.  The only way in
+was by the verandah, but the door at the west end had been locked, and
+the ladder had disappeared.  Now, of his party three were lame, one
+lacked an arm, and one was a girl; besides, there were the guns and
+cartridges to transport.  Moreover, at more than one point before the
+verandah was reached the route was commanded by a point on the ridge
+near the old Tower, and that had been Spidel's position when Dougal
+made his last reconnaissance.  It behoved to pass these points swiftly
+and unobtrusively, and his company was neither swift nor unobtrusive.
+McGuffog had a genius for tripping over obstacles, and Sir Archie was
+for ever proffering his aid to Saskia, who was in a position to give
+rather than to receive, being far the most active of the party. Once
+Dougal had to take the gamekeeper's head and force it down, a
+performance which would have led to an immediate assault but for Sir
+Archie's presence.  Nor did the latter escape.  "Will ye stop heedin'
+the lassie, and attend to your own job," the Chieftain growled. "Ye're
+makin' as much noise as a roadroller."
+
+Arrived at the foot of the verandah wall there remained the problem of
+the escalade.  Dougal clambered up like a squirrel by the help of
+cracks in the stones, and he could be heard trying the handle of the
+door into the House.  He was absent for about five minutes, and then
+his head peeped over the edge accompanied by the hooks of an iron
+ladder. "From the boiler-house," he informed them as they stood clear
+for the thing to drop.  It proved to be little more than half the
+height of the wall.
+
+Saskia ascended first, and had no difficulty in pulling herself over
+the parapet.  Then came the guns and ammunition, and then the one-armed
+Sime, who turned out to be an athlete.  But it was no easy matter
+getting up the last three.  Sir Archie anathematized his frailties.
+"Nice old crock to go tiger--shootin' with," he told the Princess. "But
+set me to something where my confounded leg don't get in the way, and
+I'm still pretty useful!"  Dougal, mopping his brow with the rag he
+called his handkerchief, observed sourly that he objected to going
+scouting with a herd of elephants.
+
+Once indoors his spirits rose.  The party from the Mains had brought
+several electric torches, and the one lamp was presently found and lit.
+"We can't count on the polis," Dougal announced, "and when the
+foreigners is finished wi' the Tower they'll come on here.  If no', we
+must make them. What is it the sodgers call it?  Forcin' a battle?  Now
+see here! There's the two roads into this place, the back door and the
+verandy, leavin' out the front door which is chained and lockit.
+They'll try those two roads first, and we must get them well barricaded
+in time.  But mind, if there's a good few o' them, it'll be an easy job
+to batter in the front door or the windies, so we maun be ready for
+that."
+
+He told off a fatigue party--the Princess, Sir Archie, and McGuffog--to
+help in moving furniture to the several doors.  Sime and Carfrae
+attended to the kitchen entrance, while he himself made a tour of the
+ground-floor windows.  For half an hour the empty house was loud with
+strange sounds.  McGuffog, who was a giant in strength, filled the
+passage at the verandah end with an assortment of furniture ranging
+from a grand piano to a vast mahogany sofa, while Saskia and Sir Archie
+pillaged the bedrooms and packed up the interstices with mattresses in
+lieu of sandbags.  Dougal on his turn saw fit to approve the work.
+
+"That'll fickle the blagyirds.  Down at the kitchen door we've got a
+mangle, five wash-tubs, and the best part of a ton o' coal. It's the
+windies I'm anxious about, for they're ower big to fill up. But I've
+gotten tubs of water below them and a lot o' wire-nettin' I fund in the
+cellar."
+
+Sir Archie morosely wiped his brow.  "I can't say I ever hated a job
+more," he told Saskia.  "It seems pretty cool to march into somebody
+else's house and make free with his furniture.  I hope to goodness our
+friends from the sea do turn up, or we'll look pretty foolish. Loudon
+will have a score against me he won't forget."
+
+"Ye're no' weakenin'?" asked Dougal fiercely.
+
+"Not a bit.  Only hopin' somebody hasn't made a mighty big mistake."
+
+"Ye needn't be feared for that.  Now you listen to your instructions.
+We're terrible few for such a big place, but we maun make up for
+shortness o' numbers by extra mobility.  The gemkeeper will keep the
+windy that looks on the verandy, and fell any man that gets through.
+You'll hold the verandy door, and the ither lame man--is't Carfrae ye
+call him?--will keep the back door.  I've telled the one-armed man, who
+has some kind of a head on him, that he maun keep on the move, watchin'
+to see if they try the front door or any o' the other windies. If they
+do, he takes his station there.  D'ye follow?"
+
+Sir Archie nodded gloomily.
+
+"What is my post?" Saskia asked.
+
+"I've appointed ye my Chief of Staff," was the answer.  "Ye see we've
+no reserves.  If this door's the dangerous bit, it maun be reinforced
+from elsewhere; and that'll want savage thinkin'. Ye'll have to be aye
+on the move, Mem, and keep me informed. If they break in at two bits,
+we're beat, and there'll be nothing for it but to retire to our last
+position.  Ye ken the room ayont the hall where they keep the coats.
+That's our last trench, and at the worst we fall back there and stick
+it out.  It has a strong door and a wee windy, so they'll no' be able
+to get in on our rear. We should be able to put up a good defence
+there, unless they fire the place over our heads.... Now, we'd better
+give out the guns."
+
+"We don't want any shootin' if we can avoid it," said Sir Archie, who
+found his distaste for Dougal growing, though he was under the spell of
+the one being there who knew precisely his own mind.
+
+"Just what I was goin' to say.  My instructions is, reserve your fire,
+and don't loose off till you have a man up against the end o' your
+barrel."
+
+"Good Lord, we'll get into a horrible row.  The whole thing may be a
+mistake, and we'll be had up for wholesale homicide. No man shall fire
+unless I give the word."
+
+The Commander-in-Chief looked at him darkly.  Some bitter retort was on
+his tongue, but he restrained himself.
+
+"It appears," he said, "that ye think I'm doin' all this for fun. I'll
+no' argy wi' ye.  There can be just the one general in a battle, but
+I'll give ye permission to say the word when to fire.... Macgreegor!"
+he muttered, a strange expletive only used in moments of deep emotion.
+"I'll wager ye'll be for sayin' the word afore I'd say it mysel'."
+
+He turned to the Princess.  "I hand over to you, till I am back, for I
+maun be off and see to the Die-Hards.  I wish I could bring them in
+here, but I daren't lose my communications.  I'll likely get in by the
+boiler-house skylight when I come back, but it might be as well to keep
+a road open here unless ye're actually attacked."
+
+Dougal clambered over the mattresses and the grand piano; a flicker of
+waning daylight appeared for a second as he squeezed through the door,
+and Sir Archie was left staring at the wrathful countenance of
+McGuffog. He laughed ruefully.
+
+"I've been in about forty battles, and here's that little devil rather
+worried about my pluck and talkin' to me like a corps commander to a
+newly joined second-lieutenant.  All the same he's a remarkable child,
+and we'd better behave as if we were in for a real shindy.  What do you
+think, Princess?"
+
+"I think we are in for what you call a shindy.  I am in command,
+remember. I order you to serve out the guns."
+
+This was done, a shot-gun and a hundred cartridges to each, while
+McGuffog, who was a marksman, was also given a sporting Mannlicher, and
+two other rifles, a .303 and a small-bore Holland, were kept in reserve
+in the hall.  Sir Archie, free from Dougal's compelling presence, gave
+the gamekeeper peremptory orders not to shoot till he was bidden, and
+Carfrae at the kitchen door was warned to the same effect.  The
+shuttered house, where the only light apart from the garden-room was
+the feeble spark of the electric torches, had the most disastrous
+effect upon his spirits.  The gale which roared in the chimney and
+eddied among the rafters of the hall seemed an infernal commotion in a
+tomb.
+
+"Let's go upstairs," he told Saskia; "there must be a view from the
+upper windows."
+
+"You can see the top of the old Tower, and part of the sea," she said.
+"I know it well, for it was my only amusement to look at it. On clear
+days, too, one could see high mountains far in the west." His
+depression seemed to have affected her, for she spoke listlessly,
+unlike the vivid creature who had led the way in.
+
+In a gaunt west-looking bedroom, the one in which Heritage and Dickson
+had camped the night before, they opened a fold of the shutters and
+looked out into a world of grey wrack and driving rain. The Tower roof
+showed mistily beyond the ridge of down, but its environs were not in
+their prospect.  The lower regions of the House had been gloomy enough,
+but this bleak place with its drab outlook struck a chill to Sir
+Archie's soul.  He dolefully lit a cigarette.
+
+"This is a pretty rotten show for you," he told her.  "It strikes me as
+a rather unpleasant brand of nightmare."
+
+"I have been living with nightmares for three years," she said wearily.
+
+He cast his eyes round the room.  "I think the Kennedys were mad to
+build this confounded barrack.  I've always disliked it, and old
+Quentin hadn't any use for it either.  Cold, cheerless, raw
+monstrosity! It hasn't been a very giddy place for you, Princess."
+
+"It has been my prison, when I hoped it would be a sanctuary.  But it
+may yet be my salvation."
+
+"I'm sure I hope so.  I say, you must be jolly hungry.  I don't suppose
+there's any chance of tea for you."
+
+She shook her head.  She was looking fixedly at the Tower, as if she
+expected something to appear there, and he followed her eyes.
+
+"Rum old shell, that.  Quentin used to keep all kinds of live stock
+there, and when we were boys it was our castle where we played at bein'
+robber chiefs.  It'll be dashed queer if the real thing should turn up
+this time.  I suppose McCunn's Poet is roostin' there all by his lone.
+Can't say I envy him his job."
+
+Suddenly she caught his arm.  "I see a man," she whispered. "There!  He
+is behind those far bushes.  There is his head again!"
+
+It was clearly a man, but he presently disappeared, for he had come
+round by the south end of the House, past the stables, and had now gone
+over the ridge.
+
+"The cut of his jib us uncommonly like Loudon, the factor. I thought
+McCunn had stretched him on a bed of pain.  Lord, if this thing should
+turn out a farce, I simply can't face Loudon.... I say, Princess, you
+don't suppose by any chance that McCunn's a little bit wrong in the
+head?"
+
+She turned her candid eyes on him.  "You are in a very doubting mood."
+
+"My feet are cold and I don't mind admittin' it.  Hanged if I know what
+it is, but I don't feel this show a bit real.  If it isn't, we're in a
+fair way to make howlin' idiots of ourselves, and get pretty well
+embroiled with the law.  It's all right for the red-haired boy, for he
+can take everything seriously, even play.  I could do the same thing
+myself when I was a kid.  I don't mind runnin' some kind of risk--I've
+had a few in my time--but this is so infernally outlandish, and I--I
+don't quite believe in it.  That is to say, I believe in it right
+enough when I look at you or listen to McCunn, but as soon as my eyes
+are off you I begin to doubt again.  I'm gettin' old and I've a stake
+in the country, and I daresay I'm gettin' a bit of a prig--anyway I
+don't want to make a jackass of myself.  Besides, there's this foul
+weather and this beastly house to ice my feet."
+
+He broke off with an exclamation, for on the grey cloud-bounded stage
+in which the roof of the Tower was the central feature, actors had
+appeared.  Dim hurrying shapes showed through the mist, dipping over
+the ridge, as if coming from the Garplefoot.
+
+She seized his arm and he saw that her listlessness was gone. Her eyes
+were shining.
+
+"It is they," she cried.  "The nightmare is real at last. Do you doubt
+now?"
+
+He could only stare, for these shapes arriving and vanishing like wisps
+of fog still seemed to him phantasmal.  The girl held his arm tightly
+clutched, and craned towards the window space.  He tried to open the
+frame, and succeeded in smashing the glass.  A swirl of wind drove
+inwards and blew a loose lock of Saskia's hair across his brow.
+
+"I wish Dougal were back," he muttered, and then came the crack of a
+shot.
+
+The pressure on his arm slackened, and a pale face was turned to him.
+"He is alone--Mr. Heritage.  He has no chance.  They will kill him like
+a dog."
+
+"They'll never get in," he assured her.  "Dougal said the place could
+hold out for hours."
+
+Another shot followed and presently a third.  She twined her hands and
+her eyes were wild.
+
+"We can't leave him to be killed," she gasped.
+
+"It's the only game.  We're playin' for time, remember. Besides, he
+won't be killed.  Great Scott!"
+
+As he spoke, a sudden explosion cleft the drone of the wind and a patch
+of gloom flashed into yellow light.
+
+"Bomb!" he cried.  "Lord, I might have thought of that."
+
+The girl had sprung back from the window.  "I cannot bear it. I will
+not see him murdered in sight of his friends.  I am going to show
+myself, and when they see me they will leave him.... No, you must stay
+here.  Presently they will be round this house. Don't be afraid for
+me--I am very quick of foot."
+
+"For God's sake, don't!  Here, Princess, stop," and he clutched at her
+skirt.  "Look here, I'll go."
+
+"You can't.  You have been wounded.  I am in command, you know. Keep
+the door open till I come back."
+
+He hobbled after her, but she easily eluded him.  She was smiling now,
+and blew a kiss to him.  "La, la, la," she trilled, as she ran down the
+stairs.  He heard her voice below, admonishing McGuffog. Then he pulled
+himself together and went back to the window. He had brought the little
+Holland with him, and he poked its barrel through the hole in the glass.
+
+"Curse my game leg," he said, almost cheerfully, for the situation was
+now becoming one with which he could cope.  "I ought to be able to hold
+up the pursuit a bit.  My aunt!  What a girl!"
+
+With the rifle cuddled to his shoulder he watched a slim figure come
+into sight on the lawn, running towards the ridge.  He reflected that
+she must have dropped from the high verandah wall.  That reminded him
+that something must be done to make the wall climbable for her return,
+so he went down to McGuffog, and the two squeezed through the
+barricaded door to the verandah.  The boilerhouse ladder was still in
+position, but it did not reach half the height, so McGuffog was adjured
+to stand by to help, and in the meantime to wait on duty by the wall.
+Then he hurried upstairs to his watch-tower.
+
+The girl was in sight, almost on the crest of the high ground. There
+she stood for a moment, one hand clutching at her errant hair, the
+other shielding her eyes from the sting of the rain.  He heard her cry,
+as Heritage had heard her, but since the wind was blowing towards him
+the sound came louder and fuller.  Again she cried, and then stood
+motionless with her hands above her head.  It was only for an instant,
+for the next he saw she had turned and was racing down the slope,
+jumping the little scrogs of hazel like a deer.  On the ridge appeared
+faces, and then over it swept a mob of men.
+
+She had a start of some fifty yards, and laboured to increase it,
+having doubtless the verandah wall in mind.  Sir Archie, sick with
+anxiety, nevertheless spared time to admire her prowess.  "Gad! she's a
+miler," he ejaculated.  "She'll do it.  I'm hanged if she don't do it."
+
+Against men in seamen's boots and heavy clothing she had a clear
+advantage. But two shook themselves loose from the pack and began to
+gain on her. At the main shrubbery they were not thirty yards behind,
+and in her passage through it her skirts must have delayed her, for
+when she emerged the pursuit had halved the distance.  He got the
+sights of the rifle on the first man, but the lawns sloped up towards
+the house, and to his consternation he found that the girl was in the
+line of fire. Madly he ran to the other window of the room, tore back
+the shutters, shivered the glass, and flung his rifle to his shoulder.
+The fellow was within three yards of her, but, thank God! he had now a
+clear field. He fired low and just ahead of him, and had the
+satisfaction to see him drop like a rabbit, shot in the leg.  His
+companion stumbled over him, and for a moment the girl was safe.
+
+But her speed was failing.  She passed out of sight on the verandah
+side of the house, and the rest of the pack had gained ominously over
+the easier ground of the lawn.  He thought for a moment of trying to
+stop them by his fire, but realized that if every shot told there would
+still be enough of them left to make sure of her capture. The only
+chance was at the verandah, and he went downstairs at a pace undreamed
+of since the days when he had two whole legs.
+
+McGuffog, Mannlicher in hand, was poking his neck over the wall. The
+pursuit had turned the corner and were about twenty yards off; the girl
+was at the foot of the ladder, breathless, drooping with fatigue. She
+tried to climb, limply and feebly, and very slowly, as if she were too
+giddy to see clear.  Above were two cripples, and at her back the van
+of the now triumphant pack.
+
+Sir Archie, game leg or no, was on the parapet preparing to drop down
+and hold off the pursuit were it only for seconds. But at that moment
+he was aware that the situation had changed.
+
+At the foot of the ladder a tall man seemed to have sprung out of the
+ground.  He caught the girl in his arms, climbed the ladder, and
+McGuffog's great hands reached down and seized her and swung her into
+safety.  Up the wall, by means of cracks and tufts, was shinning a
+small boy.
+
+The stranger coolly faced the pursuers, and at the sight of him they
+checked, those behind stumbling against those in front. He was speaking
+to them in a foreign tongue, and to Sir Archie's ear the words were
+like the crack of a lash.  The hesitation was only for a moment, for a
+voice among them cried out, and the whole pack gave tongue shrilly and
+surged on again.  But that instant of check had given the stranger his
+chance.  He was up the ladder, and, gripping the parapet, found rest
+for his feet in a fissure. Then he bent down, drew up the ladder,
+handed it to McGuffog, and with a mighty heave pulled himself over the
+top.
+
+He seemed to hope to defend the verandah, but the door at the west end
+was being assailed by a contingent of the enemy, and he saw that its
+thin woodwork was yielding.
+
+"Into the House," he cried, as he picked up the ladder and tossed it
+over the wall on the pack surging below.  He was only just in time, for
+the west door yielded.  In two steps he had followed McGuffog through
+the chink into the passage, and the concussion of the grand piano
+pushed hard against the verandah door from within coincided with the
+first battering on the said door from without.
+
+In the garden-room the feeble lamp showed a strange grouping. Saskia
+had sunk into a chair to get her breath, and seemed too dazed to be
+aware of her surroundings.  Dougal was manfully striving to appear at
+his ease, but his lip was quivering.
+
+"A near thing that time," he observed.  "It was the blame of that man's
+auld motor-bicycle."
+
+The stranger cast sharp eyes around the place and company.
+
+"An awkward corner, gentlemen," he said.  "How many are there of you?
+Four men and a boy?  And you have placed guards at all the entrances?"
+
+"They have bombs," Sir Archie reminded him.
+
+"No doubt.  But I do not think they will use them here--or their guns,
+unless there is no other way.  Their purpose is kidnapping, and they
+hope to do it secretly and slip off without leaving a trace. If they
+slaughter us, as they easily can, the cry will be out against them, and
+their vessel will be unpleasantly hunted. Half their purpose is already
+spoiled, for it's no longer secret.... They may break us by sheer
+weight, and I fancy the first shooting will be done by us.  It's the
+windows I'm afraid of."
+
+Some tone in his quiet voice reached the girl in the wicker chair. She
+looked up wildly, saw him, and with a cry of "Alesha" ran to his arms.
+There she hung, while his hand fondled her hair, like a mother with a
+scared child.  Sir Archie, watching the whole thing in some
+stupefaction, thought he had never in his days seen more nobly matched
+human creatures.
+
+"It is my friend," she cried triumphantly, "the friend whom I appointed
+to meet me here.  Oh, I did well to trust him. Now we need not fear
+anything."
+
+As if in ironical answer came a great crashing at the verandah door,
+and the twanging of chords cruelly mishandled.  The grand piano was
+suffering internally from the assaults of the boiler-house ladder.
+
+"Wull I gie them a shot?" was McGuffog's hoarse inquiry.
+
+"Action stations," Alexis ordered, for the command seemed to have
+shifted to him from Dougal.  "The windows are the danger. The boy will
+patrol the ground floor, and give us warning, and I and this man,"
+pointing to Sime, "will be ready at the threatened point. And, for
+God's sake, no shooting, unless I give the word.  If we take them on at
+that game we haven't a chance."
+
+He said something to Saskia in Russian and she smiled assent and went
+to Sir Archie's side.  "You and I must keep this door," she said.
+
+Sir Archie was never very clear afterwards about the events of the next
+hour.  The Princess was in the maddest spirits, as if the burden of
+three years had slipped from her and she was back in her first
+girlhood.  She sang as she carried more lumber to the pile--perhaps the
+song which had once entranced Heritage, but Sir Archie had no ear for
+music.  She mocked at the furious blows which rained at the other end,
+for the door had gone now, and in the windy gap could be seen a blur of
+dark faces.  Oddly enough, he found his own spirits mounting to meet
+hers.  It was real business at last, the qualms of the civilian had
+been forgotten, and there was rising in him that joy in a scrap which
+had once made him one of the most daring airmen on the Western Front.
+The only thing that worried him now was the coyness about shooting.
+What on earth were his rifles and shot-guns for unless to be used?  He
+had seen the enemy from the verandah wall, and a more ruffianly crew he
+had never dreamed of. They meant the uttermost business, and against
+such it was surely the duty of good citizens to wage whole-hearted war.
+
+The Princess was humming to herself a nursery rhyme.  "THE KING OF
+SPAIN'S DAUGHTER," she crooned, "CAME TO VISIT ME, AND ALL FOR THE
+SAKE----Oh, that poor piano!"  In her clear voice she cried something
+in Russian, and the wind carried a laugh from the verandah. At the
+sound of it she stopped.  "I had forgotten," she said. "Paul is there.
+I had forgotten."  After that she was very quiet, but she redoubled her
+labours at the barricade.
+
+To the man it seemed that the pressure from without was slackening. He
+called to McGuffog to ask about the garden-room window, and the reply
+was reassuring.  The gamekeeper was gloomily contemplating Dougal's
+tubs of water and wire-netting, as he might have contemplated a vermin
+trap.
+
+Sir Archie was growing acutely anxious--the anxiety of the defender of
+a straggling fortress which is vulnerable at a dozen points. It seemed
+to him that strange noises were coming from the rooms beyond the hall.
+Did the back door lie that way?  And was not there a smell of smoke in
+the air?  If they tried fire in such a gale the place would burn like
+matchwood.
+
+He left his post and in the hall found Dougal.
+
+"All quiet," the Chieftain reported.  "Far ower quiet.  I don't like
+it. The enemy's no' puttin' out his strength yet.  The Russian says a'
+the west windies are terrible dangerous.  Him and the chauffeur's doin'
+their best, but ye can't block thae muckle glass panes."
+
+He returned to the Princess, and found that the attack had indeed
+languished on that particular barricade.  The withers of the grand
+piano were left unwrung, and only a faint scuffling informed him that
+the verandah was not empty.  "They're gathering for an attack
+elsewhere," he told himself.  But what if that attack were a feint?  He
+and McGuffog must stick to their post, for in his belief the verandah
+door and the garden-room window were the easiest places where an entry
+in mass could be forced.  Suddenly Dougal's whistle blew, and with it
+came a most almighty crash somewhere towards the west side. With a
+shout of "Hold Tight, McGuffog," Sir Archie bolted into the hall, and,
+led by the sound, reached what had once been the ladies' bedroom. A
+strange sight met his eyes, for the whole framework of one window
+seemed to have been thrust inward, and in the gap Alexis was swinging a
+fender. Three of the enemy were in the room--one senseless on the
+floor, one in the grip of Sime, whose single hand was tightly clenched
+on his throat, and one engaged with Dougal in a corner.  The Die-Hard
+leader was sore pressed, and to his help Sir Archie went.  The fresh
+assault made the seaman duck his head, and Dougal seized the occasion
+to smite him hard with something which caused him to roll over.  It was
+Leon's life-preserver which he had annexed that afternoon.
+
+Alexis at the window seemed to have for a moment daunted the attack.
+"Bring that table," he cried, and the thing was jammed into the gap.
+"Now you"--this to Sime--"get the man from the back door to hold this
+place with his gun.  There's no attack there.  It's about time for
+shooting now, or we'll have them in our rear.  What in heaven is that?"
+
+It was McGuffog whose great bellow resounded down the corridor. Sir
+Archie turned and shuffled back, to be met by a distressing spectacle.
+The lamp, burning as peacefully as it might have burned on an old
+lady's tea-table, revealed the window of the garden-room driven bodily
+inward, shutters and all, and now forming an inclined bridge over
+Dougal's ineffectual tubs.  In front of it stood McGuffog, swinging his
+gun by the barrel and yelling curses, which, being mainly couched in
+the vernacular, were happily meaningless to Saskia.  She herself stood
+at the hall door, plucking at something hidden in her breast.  He saw
+that it was a little ivory-handled pistol.
+
+The enemy's feint had succeeded, for even as Sir Archie looked three
+men leaped into the room.  On the neck of one the butt of McGuffog's
+gun crashed, but two scrambled to their feet and made for the girl. Sir
+Archie met the first with his fist, a clean drive on the jaw, followed
+by a damaging hook with his left that put him out of action. The other
+hesitated for an instant and was lost, for McGuffog caught him by the
+waist from behind and sent him through the broken frame to join his
+comrades without.
+
+"Up the stairs," Dougal was shouting, for the little room beyond the
+hall was clearly impossible.  "Our flank's turned.  They're pourin'
+through the other windy."  Out of a corner of his eye Sir Archie caught
+sight of Alexis, with Sime and Carfrae in support, being slowly forced
+towards them along the corridor.  "Upstairs," he shouted. "Come on,
+McGuffog.  Lead on, Princess."  He dashed out the lamp, and the place
+was in darkness.
+
+With this retreat from the forward trench line ended the opening phase
+of the battle.  It was achieved in good order, and position was taken
+up on the first floor landing, dominating the main staircase and the
+passage that led to the back stairs.  At their back was a short
+corridor ending in a window which gave on the north side of the House
+above the verandah, and from which an active man might descend to the
+verandah roof.  It had been carefully reconnoitred beforehand by
+Dougal, and his were the dispositions.
+
+The odd thing was that the retreating force were in good heart. The
+three men from the Mains were warming to their work, and McGuffog wore
+an air of genial ferocity.  "Dashed fine position I call this," said
+Sir Archie.  Only Alexis was silent and preoccupied.  "We are still at
+their mercy," he said.  "Pray God your police come soon."  He forbade
+shooting yet awhile.  "The lady is our strong card," he said. "They
+won't use their guns while she is with us, but if it ever comes to
+shooting they can wipe us out in a couple of minutes. One of you watch
+that window, for Paul Abreskov is no fool."
+
+Their exhilaration was short-lived.  Below in the hall it was black
+darkness save for a greyness at the entrance of the verandah passage;
+but the defence was soon aware that the place was thick with men.
+Presently there came a scuffling from Carfrae's post towards the back
+stairs, and a cry as of some one choking.  And at the same moment a
+flare was lit below which brought the whole hall from floor to rafters
+into blinding light.
+
+It revealed a crowd of figures, some still in the hall and some
+half-way up the stairs, and it revealed, too, more figures at the end
+of the upper landing where Carfrae had been stationed. The shapes were
+motionless like mannequins in a shop window.
+
+"They've got us treed all right," Sir Archie groaned.  "What the devil
+are they waiting for?"
+
+"They wait for their leader," said Alexis.
+
+No one of the party will ever forget the ensuing minutes. After the
+hubbub of the barricades the ominous silence was like icy water,
+chilling and petrifying with an indefinable fear. There was no sound
+but the wind, but presently mingled with it came odd wild voices.
+
+"Hear to the whaups," McGuffog whispered.
+
+Sir Archie, who found the tension unbearable, sought relief in
+contradiction.  "You're an unscientific brute, McGuffog," he told his
+henchman.  "It's a disgrace that a gamekeeper should be such a rotten
+naturalist.  What would whaups be doin' on the shore at this time of
+year?"
+
+"A' the same, I could swear it's whaups, Sir Erchibald."
+
+Then Dougal broke in and his voice was excited.  It's no' whaups.
+That's our patrol signal.  Man, there's hope for us yet.  I believe
+it's the polis.'  His words were unheeded, for the figures below drew
+apart and a young man came through them.  His beautifully-shaped dark
+head was bare, and as he moved he unbuttoned his oilskins and showed
+the trim dark-blue garb of the yachtsman.  He walked confidently up the
+stairs, an odd elegant figure among his heavy companions.
+
+"Good afternoon, Alexis," he said in English.  "I think we may now
+regard this interesting episode as closed.  I take it that you
+surrender. Saskia, dear, you are coming with me on a little journey.
+Will you tell my men where to find your baggage?"
+
+The reply was in Russian.  Alexis' voice was as cool as the other's,
+and it seemed to wake him to anger.  He replied in a rapid torrent of
+words, and appealed to the men below, who shouted back. The flare was
+dying down, and shadows again hid most of the hall.
+
+Dougal crept up behind Sir Archie.  "Here, I think it's the polis.
+They're whistlin' outbye, and I hear folk cryin' to each other--no' the
+foreigners."
+
+Again Alexis spoke, and then Saskia joined in.  What she said rang
+sharp with contempt, and her fingers played with her little pistol.
+
+Suddenly before the young man could answer Dobson bustled toward him.
+The innkeeper was labouring under some strong emotion, for he seemed to
+be pleading and pointing urgently towards the door.
+
+"I tell ye it's the polis," whispered Dougal.  "They're nickit."
+
+There was a swaying in the crowd and anxious faces.  Men surged in,
+whispered, and went out, and a clamour arose which the leader stilled
+with a fierce gesture.
+
+"You there," he cried, looking up, "you English.  We mean you no ill,
+but I require you to hand over to me the lady and the Russian who is
+with her.  I give you a minute by my watch to decide.  If you refuse,
+my men are behind you and around you, and you go with me to be punished
+at my leisure."
+
+"I warn you," cried Sir Archie.  "We are armed, and will shoot down any
+one who dares to lay a hand on us."
+
+"You fool," came the answer.  "I can send you all to eternity before
+you touch a trigger."
+
+Leon was by his side now--Leon and Spidel, imploring him to do
+something which he angrily refused.  Outside there was a new clamour,
+faces showing at the door and then vanishing, and an anxious hum filled
+the hall.... Dobson appeared again and this time he was a figure of
+fury.
+
+"Are ye daft, man?" he cried.  "I tell ye the polis are closin' round
+us, and there's no' a moment to lose if we would get back to the boats.
+If ye'll no' think o' your own neck, I'm thinkin' o' mine. The whole
+things a bloody misfire.  Come on, lads, if ye're no besotted on
+destruction."
+
+Leon laid a hand on the leader's arm and was roughly shaken off. Spidel
+fared no better, and the little group on the upper landing saw the two
+shrug their shoulders and make for the door.  The hall was emptying
+fast and the watchers had gone from the back stairs. The young man's
+voice rose to a scream; he commanded, threatened, cursed; but panic was
+in the air and he had lost his mastery.
+
+"Quick," croaked Dougal, "now's the time for the counter-attack."
+
+But the figure on the stairs held them motionless.  They could not see
+his face, but by instinct they knew that it was distraught with fury
+and defeat.  The flare blazed up again as the flame caught a knot of
+fresh powder, and once more the place was bright with the uncanny
+light.... The hall was empty save for the pale man who was in the act
+of turning.
+
+He looked back.  "If I go now, I will return.  The world is not wide
+enough to hide you from me, Saskia."
+
+"You will never get her," said Alexis.
+
+A sudden devil flamed into his eyes, the devil of some ancestral
+savagery, which would destroy what is desired but unattainable. He
+swung round, his hand went to his pocket, something clacked, and his
+arm shot out like a baseball pitcher's.
+
+So intent was the gaze of the others on him, that they did not see a
+second figure ascending the stairs.  Just as Alexis flung himself
+before the Princess, the new-comer caught the young man's outstretched
+arm and wrenched something from his hand. The next second he had hurled
+it into a far corner where stood the great fireplace.  There was a
+blinding sheet of flame, a dull roar, and then billow upon billow of
+acrid smoke.  As it cleared they saw that the fine Italian
+chimneypiece, the pride of the builder of the House, was a mass of
+splinters, and that a great hole had been blown through the wall into
+what had been the dining-room.... A figure was sitting on the bottom
+step feeling its bruises. The last enemy had gone.
+
+When Mr. John Heritage raised his eyes he saw the Princess with a very
+pale face in the arms of a tall man whom he had never seen before. If
+he was surprised at the sight, he did not show it.  "Nasty little bomb
+that.  I remember we struck the brand first in July '18."
+
+"Are they rounded up?" Sir Archie asked.
+
+"They've bolted.  Whether they'll get away is another matter. I left
+half the mounted police a minute ago at the top of the West Lodge
+avenue.  The other lot went to the Garplefoot to cut off the boats."
+
+"Good Lord, man," Sir Archie cried, "the police have been here for the
+last ten minutes."
+
+"You're wrong.  They came with me."
+
+"Then what on earth---" began the astonished baronet.  He stopped
+short, for he suddenly got his answer.  Into the hall limped a boy.
+Never was there seen so ruinous a child.  He was dripping wet, his
+shirt was all but torn off his back, his bleeding nose was poorly
+staunched by a wisp of handkerchief, his breeches were in ribbons, and
+his poor bare legs looked as if they had been comprehensively kicked
+and scratched.  Limpingly he entered, yet with a kind of pride, like
+some small cock-sparrow who has lost most of his plumage but has
+vanquished his adversary.
+
+With a yell Dougal went down the stairs.  The boy saluted him, and they
+gravely shook hands.  It was the meeting of Wellington and Blucher.
+
+The Chieftain's voice shrilled in triumph, but there was a break in it.
+The glory was almost too great to be borne.
+
+"I kenned it," he cried.  "It was the Gorbals Die-Hards. There stands
+the man that done it.... Ye'll no' fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION
+
+
+We left Mr. McCunn, full of aches but desperately resolute in spirit,
+hobbling by the Auchenlochan road into the village of Dalquharter. His
+goal was Mrs. Morran's hen-house, which was Thomas Yownie's POSTE DE
+COMMANDEMENT.  The rain had come on again, and, though in other weather
+there would have been a slow twilight, already the shadow of night had
+the world in its grip.  The sea even from the high ground was
+invisible, and all to westward and windward was a ragged screen of dark
+cloud.  It was foul weather for foul deeds. Thomas Yownie was not in
+the hen-house, but in Mrs. Morran's kitchen, and with him were the
+pug-faced boy know as Old Bill, and the sturdy figure of Peter
+Paterson.  But the floor was held by the hostess. She still wore her
+big boots, her petticoats were still kilted, and round her venerable
+head in lieu of a bonnet was drawn a tartan shawl.
+
+"Eh, Dickson, but I'm blithe to see ye.  And puir man, ye've been sair
+mishandled.  This is the awfu'est Sabbath day that ever you and me pit
+in.  I hope it'll be forgiven us.... Whaur's the young leddy?"
+
+"Dougal was saying she was in the House with Sir Archibald and the men
+from the Mains."
+
+"Wae's me!" Mrs. Morran keened.  "And what kind o' place is yon for
+her? Thae laddies tell me there's boatfu's o' scoondrels landit at the
+Garplefit.  They'll try the auld Tower, but they'll no' wait there when
+they find it toom, and they'll be inside the Hoose in a jiffy and awa'
+wi' the puir lassie.  Sirs, it maunna be.  Ye're lippenin' to the
+polis, but in a' my days I never kenned the polis in time. We maun be
+up and daein' oorsels.  Oh, if I could get a haud o' that red-heided
+Dougal..."
+
+As she spoke there came on the wind the dull reverberation of an
+explosion.
+
+"Keep us, what's that?" she cried.
+
+"It's dinnymite," said Peter Paterson.
+
+"That's the end o' the auld Tower," observed Thomas Yownie in his
+quiet, even voice.  "And it's likely the end o' the man Heritage."
+
+"Lord peety us!" the old woman wailed. "And us standin' here like
+stookies and no' liftin' a hand.  Awa' wi ye, laddies, and dae
+something. Awa' you too, Dickson, or I'll tak' the road mysel'."
+
+"I've got orders," said the Chief of Staff, "no' to move till the
+sityation's clear.  Napoleon's up at the Tower and Jaikie's in the
+policies.  I maun wait on their reports."
+
+For a moment Mrs. Morran's attention was distracted by Dickson, who
+suddenly felt very faint and sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. "Man,
+ye're as white as a dish-clout," she exclaimed with compunction. "Ye're
+fair wore out, and ye'll have had nae meat sin' your breakfast. See,
+and I'll get ye a cup o' tea."
+
+She proved to be in the right, for as soon as Dickson had swallowed
+some mouthfuls of her strong scalding brew the colour came back to his
+cheeks, and he announced that he felt better.  "Ye'll fortify it wi' a
+dram," she told him, and produced a black bottle from her cupboard. "My
+father aye said that guid whisky and het tea keepit the doctor's gig
+oot o' the close."
+
+The back door opened and Napoleon entered, his thin shanks blue with
+cold. He saluted and made his report in a voice shrill with excitement.
+
+"The Tower has fallen.  They've blown in the big door, and the feck o'
+them's inside."
+
+"And Mr. Heritage?" was Dickson's anxious inquiry.
+
+"When I last saw him he was up at a windy, shootin'.  I think he's
+gotten on to the roof.  I wouldna wonder but the place is on fire."
+
+"Here, this is awful," Dickson groaned.  "We can't let Mr. Heritage be
+killed that way.  What strength is the enemy?"
+
+"I counted twenty-seven, and there's stragglers comin' up from the
+boats."
+
+"And there's me and you five laddies here, and Dougal and the others
+shut up in the House."
+
+He stopped in sheer despair.  It was a fix from which the most
+enlightened business mind showed no escape.  Prudence, inventiveness,
+were no longer in question; only some desperate course of violence.
+
+"We must create a diversion," he said.  "I'm for the Tower, and you
+laddies must come with me.  We'll maybe see a chance.  Oh, but I wish I
+had my wee pistol."
+
+"If ye're gaun there, Dickson, I'm comin' wi' ye," Mrs Morran announced.
+
+Her words revealed to Dickson the preposterousness of the whole
+situation, and for all his anxiety he laughed.  "Five laddies, a
+middle-aged man, and an auld wife," he cried.  "Dod, it's pretty
+hopeless.  It's like the thing in the Bible about the weak things of
+the world trying to confound the strong."
+
+"The Bible's whiles richt," Mrs. Morran answered drily.  "Come on, for
+there's no time to lose."
+
+The door opened again to admit the figure of Wee Jaikie.  There were no
+tears in his eyes, and his face was very white.
+
+"They're a' round the Hoose," he croaked.  "I was up a tree forenent
+the verandy and seen them.  The lassie ran oot and cried on them from
+the top o' the brae, and they a' turned and hunted her back. Gosh, but
+it was a near thing.  I seen the Captain sklimmin' the wall, and a
+muckle man took the lassie and flung her up the ladder. They got inside
+just in time and steekit the door, and now the whole pack is roarin'
+round the Hoose seekin' a road in.  They'll no' be long over the job,
+neither."
+
+"What about Mr. Heritage?"
+
+"They're no' heedin' about him any more.  The auld Tower's bleezin'."
+
+"Worse and worse," said Dickson.  "If the police don't come in the next
+ten minutes, they'll be away with the Princess.  They've beaten all
+Dougal's plans, and it's a straight fight with odds of six to one. It's
+not possible."
+
+Mrs. Morran for the first time seemed to lose hope.  "Eh, the puir
+lassie!" she wailed, and sinking on a chair covered her face with her
+shawl.
+
+"Laddies, can you no' think of a plan?" asked Dickson, his voice flat
+with despair.
+
+Then Thomas Yownie spoke.  So far he had been silent, but under his
+tangled thatch of hair his mind had been busy.  Jaikie's report seemed
+to bring him to a decision.
+
+"It's gey dark," he said,  "and it's gettin' darker."
+
+There was that in his voice which promised something, and Dickson
+listened.
+
+"The enemy's mostly foreigners, but Dobson's there and I think he's a
+kind of guide to them.  Dobson's feared of the polis, and if we can
+terrify Dobson he'll terrify the rest."
+
+"Ay, but where are the police?"
+
+"They're no' here yet, but they're comin'.  The fear o' them is aye in
+Dobson's mind.  If he thinks the polis has arrived, he'll put the wind
+up the lot.... WE maun be the polis."
+
+Dickson could only stare while the Chief of Staff unfolded his scheme.
+I do not know to whom the Muse of History will give the credit of the
+tactics of "Infiltration," whether to Ludendorff or von Hutier or some
+other proud captain of Germany, or to Foch, who revised and perfected
+them.  But I know that the same notion was at this moment of crisis
+conceived by Thomas Yownie, whom no parents acknowledged, who slept
+usually in a coal cellar, and who had picked up his education among
+Gorbals closes and along the wharves of Clyde.
+
+"It's gettin' dark," he said, "and the enemy are that busy tryin' to
+break into the Hoose that they'll no' be thinkin' o' their rear. The
+five o' us Die-Hards is grand at dodgin' and keepin' out of sight, and
+what hinders us to get in among them, so that they'll hear us but never
+see us.  We're used to the ways o' the polis, and can imitate them
+fine.  Forbye we've all got our whistles, which are the same as a
+bobbie's birl, and Old Bill and Peter are grand at copyin' a man's
+voice.  Since the Captain is shut up in the Hoose, the command falls to
+me, and that's my plan."
+
+With a piece of chalk he drew on the kitchen floor a rough sketch of
+the environs of Huntingtower.  Peter Paterson was to move from the
+shrubberies beyond the verandah, Napoleon from the stables, Old Bill
+from the Tower, while Wee Jaikie and Thomas himself were to advance as
+if from the Garplefoot, so that the enemy might fear for his
+communications.  "As soon as one o' ye gets into position he's to gie
+the patrol cry, and when each o' ye has heard five cries, he's to
+advance.  Begin birlin' and roarin' afore ye get among them, and keep
+it up till ye're at the Hoose wall.  If they've gotten inside, in ye go
+after them.  I trust each Die-Hard to use his judgment, and above all
+to keep out o' sight and no' let himsel' be grippit."
+
+The plan, like all great tactics, was simple, and no sooner was it
+expounded than it was put into action.  The Die-Hards faded out of the
+kitchen like fog-wreaths, and Dickson and Mrs. Morran were left looking
+at each other.  They did not look long.  The bare feet of Wee Jaikie
+had not crossed the threshold fifty seconds, before they were followed
+by Mrs. Morran's out-of-doors boots and Dickson's tackets.  Arm in arm
+the two hobbled down the back path behind the village which led to the
+South Lodge.  The gate was unlocked, for the warder was busy elsewhere,
+and they hastened up the avenue. Far off Dickson thought he saw shapes
+fleeting across the park, which he took to be the shock-troops of his
+own side, and he seemed to hear snatches of song.  Jaikie was giving
+tongue, and this was what he sang:
+
+  "Proley Tarians, arise!
+  Wave the Red Flag to the skies,
+  Heed no more the Fat Man's lees,
+  Stap them doun his throat!
+  Nocht to lose except our chains----"
+
+
+But he tripped over a rabbit wire and thereafter conserved his breath.
+
+The wind was so loud that no sound reached them from the House, which,
+blank and immense, now loomed before them.  Dickson's ears were alert
+for the noise of shots or the dull crash of bombs; hearing nothing, he
+feared the worst, and hurried Mrs. Morran at a pace which endangered
+her life.  He had no fear for himself, arguing that his foes were
+seeking higher game, and judging, too, that the main battle must be
+round the verandah at the other end.  The two passed the shrubbery
+where the road forked, one path running to the back door and one to the
+stables.  They took the latter and presently came out on the downs,
+with the ravine of the Garple on their left, the stables in front, and
+on the right the hollow of a formal garden running along the west side
+of the House.
+
+The gale was so fierce, now that they had no wind-break between them
+and the ocean, that Mrs. Morran could wrestle with it no longer, and
+found shelter in the lee of a clump of rhododendrons. Darkness had all
+but fallen, and the House was a black shadow against the dusky sky,
+while a confused greyness marked the sea. The old Tower showed a tooth
+of masonry; there was no glow from it, so the fire, which Jaikie had
+reported, must have died down. A whaup cried loudly, and very eerily:
+then another.
+
+The birds stirred up Mrs. Morran.  "That's the laddies' patrol." she
+gasped.  "Count the cries, Dickson."
+
+Another bird wailed, this time very near.  Then there was perhaps three
+minutes' silence till a fainter wheeple came from the direction of the
+Tower.  "Four," said Dickson, but he waited in vain on the fifth. He
+had not the acute hearing of the boys, and could not catch the faint
+echo of Peter Paterson's signal beyond the verandah.  The next he heard
+was a shrill whistle cutting into the wind, and then others in rapid
+succession from different quarters, and something which might have been
+the hoarse shouting of angry men.
+
+The Gorbals Die-Hards had gone into action.
+
+Dull prose is no medium to tell of that wild adventure.  The sober
+sequence of the military historian is out of place in recording deeds
+that knew not sequence or sobriety.  Were I a bard, I would cast this
+tale in excited verse, with a lilt which would catch the speed of the
+reality.  I would sing of Napoleon, not unworthy of his great namesake,
+who penetrated to the very window of the ladies' bedroom, where the
+framework had been driven in and men were pouring through; of how there
+he made such pandemonium with his whistle that men tumbled back and ran
+about blindly seeking for guidance; of how in the long run his
+pugnacity mastered him, so that he engaged in combat with an unknown
+figure and the two rolled into what had once been a fountain.  I would
+hymn Peter Paterson, who across tracts of darkness engaged Old Bill in
+a conversation which would have done no discredit to a Gallowgate
+policeman.  He pretended to be making reports and seeking orders.
+"We've gotten three o' the deevils, sir. What'll we dae wi' them?" he
+shouted; and back would come the reply in a slightly more genteel
+voice:  "Fall them to the rear. Tamson has charge of the prisoners."
+Or it would be: "They've gotten pistols, sir.  What's the orders?" and
+the answer would be: "Stick to your batons.  The guns are posted on the
+knowe, so we needn't hurry." And over all the din there would be a
+perpetual whistling and a yelling of "Hands up!"
+
+I would sing, too, of Wee Jaikie, who was having the red-letter hour of
+his life.  His fragile form moved like a lizard in places where no
+mortal could be expected, and he varied his duties with impish assaults
+upon the persons of such as came in his way. His whistle blew in a
+man's ear one second and the next yards away. Sometimes he was moved to
+song, and unearthly fragments of "Class-conscious we are" or "Proley
+Tarians, arise!" mingled with the din, like the cry of seagulls in a
+storm.  He saw a bright light flare up within the House which warned
+him not to enter, but he got as far as the garden-room, in whose dark
+corners he made havoc.  Indeed he was almost too successful, for he
+created panic where he went, and one or two fired blindly at the
+quarter where he had last been heard.  These shots were followed by
+frenzied prohibitions from Spidel and were not repeated. Presently he
+felt that aimless surge of men that is the prelude to flight, and heard
+Dobson's great voice roaring in the hall. Convinced that the crisis had
+come, he made his way outside, prepared to harrass the rear of any
+retirement.  Tears now flowed down his face, and he could not have
+spoken for sobs, but he had never been so happy.
+
+But chiefly would I celebrate Thomas Yownie, for it was he who brought
+fear into the heart of Dobson.  He had a voice of singular compass, and
+from the verandah he made it echo round the House. The efforts of Old
+Bill and Peter Paterson had been skilful indeed, but those of Thomas
+Yownie were deadly.  To some leader beyond he shouted news: "Robison's
+just about finished wi' his lot, and then he'll get the boats."  A
+furious charge upset him, and for a moment he thought he had been
+discovered.  But it was only Dobson rushing to Leon, who was leading
+the men in the doorway.  Thomas fled to the far end of the verandah,
+and again lifted up his voice. "All foreigners," he shouted, "except
+the man Dobson.  Ay.  Ay. Ye've got Loudon?  Well done!"
+
+It must have been this last performance which broke Dobson's nerve and
+convinced him that the one hope lay in a rapid retreat to the
+Garplefoot. There was a tumbling of men in the doorway, a muttering of
+strange tongues, and the vision of the innkeeper shouting to Leon and
+Spidel.  For a second he was seen in the faint reflection that the
+light in the hall cast as far as the verandah, a wild figure urging the
+retreat with a pistol clapped to the head of those who were too
+confused by the hurricane of events to grasp the situation.  Some of
+them dropped over the wall, but most huddled like sheep through the
+door on the west side, a jumble of struggling, blasphemous mortality.
+Thomas Yownie, staggered at the success of his tactics, yet kept his
+head and did his utmost to confuse the retreat, and the triumphant
+shouts and whistles of the other Die-Hards showed that they were not
+unmindful of this final duty....
+
+The verandah was empty, and he was just about to enter the House, when
+through the west door came a figure, breathing hard and bent apparently
+on the same errand.  Thomas prepared for battle, determined that no
+straggler of the enemy should now wrest from him victory, but, as the
+figure came into the faint glow at the doorway, he recognized it as
+Heritage.  And at the same moment he heard something which made his
+tense nerves relax.  Away on the right came sounds, a thud of galloping
+horses on grass and the jingle of bridle reins and the voices of men.
+It was the real thing at last. It is a sad commentary on his career,
+but now for the first time in his brief existence Thomas Yownie felt
+charitably disposed towards the police.
+
+
+
+The Poet, since we left him blaspheming on the roof of the Tower, had
+been having a crowded hour of most inglorious life.  He had started to
+descend at a furious pace, and his first misadventure was that he
+stumbled and dropped Dickson's pistol over the parapet. He tried to
+mark where it might have fallen in the gloom below, and this lost him
+precious minutes.  When he slithered through the trap into the attic
+room, where he had tried to hold up the attack, he discovered that it
+was full of smoke which sought in vain to escape by the narrow window.
+Volumes of it were pouring up the stairs, and when he attempted to
+descend he found himself choked and blinded. He rushed gasping to the
+window, filled his lungs with fresh air, and tried again, but he got no
+farther than the first turn, from which he could see through the cloud
+red tongues of flame in the ground room. This was solemn indeed, so he
+sought another way out.  He got on the roof, for he remembered a
+chimney-stack, cloaked with ivy, which was built straight from the
+ground, and he thought he might climb down it.
+
+He found the chimney and began the descent confidently, for he had once
+borne a good reputation at the Montanvert and Cortina. At first all
+went well, for stones stuck out at decent intervals like the rungs of a
+ladder, and roots of ivy supplemented their deficiencies. But presently
+he came to a place where the masonry had crumbled into a cave, and left
+a gap some twenty feet high.  Below it he could dimly see a thick mass
+of ivy which would enable him to cover the further forty feet to the
+ground, but at that cave he stuck most finally. All around the lime and
+stone had lapsed into debris, and he could find no safe foothold.
+Worse still, the block on which he relied proved loose, and only by a
+dangerous traverse did he avert disaster.
+
+There he hung for a minute or two, with a cold void in his stomach. He
+had always distrusted the handiwork of man as a place to scramble on,
+and now he was planted in the dark on a decomposing wall, with an
+excellent chance of breaking his neck, and with the most urgent need
+for haste.  He could see the windows of the House, and, since he was
+sheltered from the gale, he could hear the faint sound of blows on
+woodwork.  There was clearly the devil to pay there, and yet here he
+was helplessly stuck.... Setting his teeth, he started to ascend again.
+Better the fire than this cold breakneck emptiness.
+
+It took him the better part of half an hour to get back, and he passed
+through many moments of acute fear.  Footholds which had seemed secure
+enough in the descent now proved impossible, and more than once he had
+his heart in his mouth when a rotten ivy stump or a wedge of stone gave
+in his hands, and dropped dully into the pit of night, leaving him
+crazily spread-eagled.  When at last he reached the top he rolled on
+his back and felt very sick.  Then, as he realized his safety, his
+impatience revived.  At all costs he would force his way out though he
+should be grilled like a herring.
+
+The smoke was less thick in the attic, and with his handkerchief wet
+with the rain and bound across his mouth he made a dash for the ground
+room.  It was as hot as a furnace, for everything inflammable in it
+seemed to have caught fire, and the lumber glowed in piles of hot
+ashes.  But the floor and walls were stone, and only the blazing jambs
+of the door stood between him and the outer air. He had burned himself
+considerably as he stumbled downwards, and the pain drove him to a wild
+leap through the broken arch, where he miscalculated the distance,
+charred his shins, and brought down a red-hot fragment of the lintel on
+his head.  But the thing was done, and a minute later he was rolling
+like a dog in the wet bracken to cool his burns and put out various
+smouldering patches on his raiment.
+
+Then he started running for the House, but, confused by the darkness,
+he bore too much to the north, and came out in the side avenue from
+which he and Dickson had reconnoitred on the first evening. He saw on
+the right a glow in the verandah, which, as we know, was the reflection
+of the flare in the hall, and he heard a babble of voices.  But he
+heard something more, for away on his left was the sound which Thomas
+Yownie was soon to hear--the trampling of horses.  It was the police at
+last, and his task was to guide them at once to the critical point of
+action.... Three minutes later a figure like a scarecrow was
+admonishing a bewildered sergeant, while his hands plucked feverishly
+at a horse's bridle.
+
+
+
+It is time to return to Dickson in his clump of rhododendrons.
+Tragically aware of his impotence he listened to the tumult of the
+Die-Hards, hopeful when it was loud, despairing when there came a
+moment's lull, while Mrs. Morran like a Greek chorus drew loudly upon
+her store of proverbial philosophy and her memory of Scripture texts.
+Twice he tried to reconnoitre towards the scene of battle, but only
+blundered into sunken plots and pits in the Dutch garden.  Finally he
+squatted beside Mrs. Morran, lit his pipe, and took a firm hold on his
+patience.
+
+It was not tested for long.  Presently he was aware that a change had
+come over the scene--that the Die-Hards' whistles and shouts were being
+drowned in another sound, the cries of panicky men. Dobson's bellow was
+wafted to him.  "Auntie Phemie," he shouted, "the innkeeper's getting
+rattled.  Dod, I believe they're running." For at that moment twenty
+paces on his left the van of the retreat crashed through the creepers
+on the garden's edge and leaped the wall that separated it from the
+cliffs of the Garplefoot.
+
+The old woman was on her feet.
+
+"God be thankit, is't the polis?"
+
+"Maybe.  Maybe no'.  But they're running."
+
+Another bunch of men raced past, and he heard Dobson's voice.
+
+"I tell you, they're broke.  Listen, it's horses.  Ay, it's the police,
+but it was the Die-Hards that did the job.... Here!  They mustn't
+escape. Have the police had the sense to send men to the Garplefoot?"
+
+Mrs. Morran, a figure like an ancient prophetess, with her tartan shawl
+lashing in the gale, clutched him by the shoulder.
+
+"Doun to the waterside and stop them.  Ye'll no' be beat by wee
+laddies! On wi' ye and I'll follow!  There's gaun to be a juidgment on
+evil-doers this night."
+
+Dickson needed no urging.  His heart was hot within him, and the
+weariness and stiffness had gone from his limbs.  He, too, tumbled over
+the wall, and made for what he thought was the route by which he had
+originally ascended from the stream.  As he ran he made ridiculous
+efforts to cry like a whaup in the hope of summoning the Die-Hards.
+One, indeed, he found--Napoleon, who had suffered a grievous pounding
+in the fountain, and had only escaped by an eel-like agility which had
+aforetime served him in good stead with the law of his native city.
+Lucky for Dickson was the meeting, for he had forgotten the road and
+would certainly have broken his neck. Led by the Die-Hard he slid forty
+feet over screes and boiler-plates, with the gale plucking at him,
+found a path, lost it, and then tumbled down a raw bank of earth to the
+flat ground beside the harbour. During all this performance, he has
+told me, he had no thought of fear, nor any clear notion what he meant
+to do.  He just wanted to be in at the finish of the job.
+
+Through the narrow entrance the gale blew as through a funnel, and the
+usually placid waters of the harbour were a froth of angry waves. Two
+boats had been launched and were plunging furiously, and on one of them
+a lantern dipped and fell.  By its light he could see men holding a
+further boat by the shore.  There was no sign of the police; he
+reflected that probably they had become entangled in the Garple Dean.
+The third boat was waiting for some one.
+
+Dickson--a new Ajax by the ships--divined who this someone must be and
+realized his duty.  It was the leader, the arch-enemy, the man whose
+escape must at all costs be stopped.  Perhaps he had the Princess with
+him, thus snatching victory from apparent defeat. In any case he must
+be tackled, and a fierce anxiety gripped his heart.  "Aye finish a
+job," he told himself, and peered up into the darkness of the cliffs,
+wondering just how he should set about it, for except in the last few
+days he had never engaged in combat with a fellow-creature.
+
+"When he comes, you grip his legs," he told Napoleon, "and get him
+down. He'll have a pistol, and we're done if he's on his feet."
+
+There was a cry from the boats, a shout of guidance, and the light on
+the water was waved madly.  "They must have good eyesight," thought
+Dickson, for he could see nothing.  And then suddenly he was aware of
+steps in front of him, and a shape like a man rising out of the void at
+his left hand.
+
+In the darkness Napoleon missed his tackle, and the full shock came on
+Dickson.  He aimed at what he thought was the enemy's throat, found
+only an arm, and was shaken off as a mastiff might shake off a toy
+terrier.  He made another clutch, fell, and in falling caught his
+opponent's leg so that he brought him down.  The man was immensely
+agile, for he was up in a second and something hot and bright blew into
+Dickson's face.  The pistol bullet had passed through the collar of his
+faithful waterproof, slightly singeing his neck.  But it served its
+purpose, for Dickson paused, gasping, to consider where he had been
+hit, and before he could resume the chase the last boat had pushed off
+into deep water.
+
+To be shot at from close quarters is always irritating, and the novelty
+of the experience increased Dickson's natural wrath.  He fumed on the
+shore like a deerhound when the stag has taken to the sea.  So hot was
+his blood that he would have cheerfully assaulted the whole crew had
+they been within his reach.  Napoleon, who had been incapacitated for
+speed by having his stomach and bare shanks savagely trampled upon,
+joined him, and together they watched the bobbing black specks as they
+crawled out of the estuary into the grey spindrift which marked the
+harbour mouth.
+
+But as he looked the wrath died out of Dickson's soul.  For he saw that
+the boats had indeed sailed on a desperate venture, and that a pursuer
+was on their track more potent than his breathless middle-age. The tide
+was on the ebb, and the gale was driving the Atlantic breakers
+shoreward, and in the jaws of the entrance the two waters met in an
+unearthly turmoil.  Above the noise of the wind came the roar of the
+flooded Garple and the fret of the harbour, and far beyond all the
+crashing thunder of the conflict at the harbour mouth.  Even in the
+darkness, against the still faintly grey western sky, the spume could
+be seen rising like waterspouts.  But it was the ear rather than the
+eye which made certain presage of disaster.  No boat could face the
+challenge of that loud portal.
+
+As Dickson struggled against the wind and stared, his heart melted and
+a great awe fell upon him.  He may have wept; it is certain that he
+prayed.  "Poor souls, poor souls!" he repeated. "I doubt the last hour
+has been a poor preparation for eternity."
+
+
+The tide the next day brought the dead ashore.  Among them was a young
+man, different in dress and appearance from the rest--a young man with
+a noble head and a finely-cut classic face, which was not marred like
+the others from pounding among the Garple rocks.  His dark hair was
+washed back from his brow, and the mouth, which had been hard in life,
+was now relaxed in the strange innocence of death.
+
+Dickson gazed at the body and observed that there was a slight
+deformation between the shoulders.
+
+"Poor fellow," he said.  "That explains a lot.... As my father used to
+say, cripples have a right to be cankered."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+IN WHICH A PRINCESS LEAVES A DARK TOWER AND A PROVISION MERCHANT
+RETURNS TO HIS FAMILY
+
+
+The three days of storm ended in the night, and with the wild weather
+there departed from the Cruives something which had weighed on
+Dickson's spirits since he first saw the place.  Monday--only a week
+from the morning when he had conceived his plan of holiday--saw the
+return of the sun and the bland airs of spring.  Beyond the blue of the
+yet restless waters rose dim mountains tipped with snow, like some
+Mediterranean seascape.  Nesting birds were busy on the Laver banks and
+in the Huntingtower thickets; the village smoked peacefully to the
+clear skies; even the House looked cheerful if dishevelled.  The Garple
+Dean was a garden of swaying larches, linnets, and wild anemones.
+Assuredly, thought Dickson, there had come a mighty change in the
+countryside, and he meditated a future discourse to the Literary
+Society of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk on "Natural Beauty in Relation to
+the Mind of Man."
+
+It remains for the chronicler to gather up the loose ends of his tale.
+There was no newspaper story with bold headlines of this the most
+recent assault on the shores of Britain.  Alexis Nicholaevitch, once a
+Prince of Muscovy and now Mr. Alexander Nicholson of the rising firm of
+Sprot and Nicholson of Melbourne, had interest enough to prevent it.
+For it was clear that if Saskia was to be saved from persecution, her
+enemies must disappear without trace from the world, and no story be
+told of the wild venture which was their undoing.  The constabulary of
+Carrick and Scotland Yard were indisposed to ask questions, under a
+hint from their superiors, the more so as no serious damage had been
+done to the persons of His Majesty's lieges, and no lives had been lost
+except by the violence of Nature.  The Procurator-Fiscal investigated
+the case of the drowned men, and reported that so many foreign sailors,
+names and origins unknown, had perished in attempting to return to
+their ship at the Garplefoot.  The Danish brig had vanished into the
+mist of the northern seas.  But one signal calamity the
+Procurator-Fiscal had to record.  The body of Loudon the factor was
+found on the Monday morning below the cliffs, his neck broken by a
+fall. In the darkness and confusion he must have tried to escape in
+that direction, and he had chosen an impracticable road or had slipped
+on the edge.  It was returned as "death by misadventure," and the
+CARRICK HERALD and the AUCHENLOCHAN ADVERTISER excelled themselves in
+eulogy.  Mr. Loudon, they said, had been widely known in the south-west
+of Scotland as an able and trusted lawyer, an assiduous public servant,
+and not least as a good sportsman.  It was the last trait which had led
+to his death, for, in his enthusiasm for wild nature, he had been
+studying bird life on the cliffs of the Cruives during the storm, and
+had made that fatal slip which had deprived the shire of a wise
+counsellor and the best of good fellows.
+
+The tinklers of the Garplefoot took themselves off, and where they may
+now be pursuing their devious courses is unknown to the chronicler.
+Dobson, too, disappeared, for he was not among the dead from the boats.
+He knew the neighbourhood, and probably made his way to some port from
+which he took passage to one or other of those foreign lands which had
+formerly been honoured by his patronage.  Nor did all the Russians
+perish.  Three were found skulking next morning in the woods, starving
+and ignorant of any tongue but their own, and five more came ashore
+much battered but alive.  Alexis took charge of the eight survivors,
+and arranged to pay their passage to one of the British Dominions and
+to give them a start in a new life. They were broken creatures, with
+the dazed look of lost animals, and four of them had been peasants in
+Saskia's estates.  Alexis spoke to them in their own language.  "In my
+grandfather's time," he said, "you were serfs.  Then there came a
+change, and for some time you were free men.  Now you have slipped back
+into being slaves again--the worst of slaveries, for you have been the
+serfs of fools and scoundrels and the black passion of your own hearts.
+I give you a chance of becoming free men once more.  You have the task
+before you of working out your own salvation.  Go, and God be with you."
+
+
+
+Before we take leave of these companions of a single week I would
+present them to you again as they appeared on a certain sunny afternoon
+when the episode of Huntingtower was on the eve of closing. First we
+see Saskia and Alexis walking on the thymy sward of the cliff-top,
+looking out to the fretted blue of the sea. It is a fitting place for
+lovers--above all for lovers who have turned the page on a dark
+preface, and have before them still the long bright volume of life.
+The girl has her arm linked in the man's, but as they walk she breaks
+often away from him, to dart into copses, to gather flowers, or to peer
+over the brink where the gulls wheel and oyster-catchers pipe among the
+shingle. She is no more the tragic muse of the past week, but a
+laughing child again, full of snatches of song, her eyes bright with
+expectation. They talk of the new world which lies before them, and her
+voice is happy. Then her brows contract, and, as she flings herself
+down on a patch of young heather, her air is thoughtful.
+
+"I have been back among fairy tales," she says.  "I do not quite
+understand, Alesha.  Those gallant little boys!  They are youth, and
+youth is always full of strangeness.  Mr. Heritage!  He is youth, too,
+and poetry, perhaps, and a soldier's tradition.  I think I know him....
+But what about Dickson?  He is the PETIT BOURGEOIS, the EPICIER, the
+class which the world ridicules.  He is unbelievable. The others with
+good fortune I might find elsewhere--in Russia perhaps. But not
+Dickson."
+
+"No," is the answer.  "You will not find him in Russia.  He is what
+they call the middle-class, which we who were foolish used to laugh at.
+But he is the stuff which above all others makes a great people. He
+will endure when aristocracies crack and proletariats crumble. In our
+own land we have never known him, but till we create him our land will
+not be a nation."
+
+
+
+Half a mile away on the edge of the Laver glen Dickson and Heritage are
+together, Dickson placidly smoking on a tree-stump and Heritage walking
+excitedly about and cutting with his stick at the bracken. Sundry
+bandages and strips of sticking plaster still adorn the Poet, but his
+clothes have been tidied up by Mrs. Morran, and he has recovered
+something of his old precision of garb.  The eyes of both are fixed on
+the two figures on the cliff-top.  Dickson feels acutely uneasy. It is
+the first time that he has been alone with Heritage since the arrival
+of Alexis shivered the Poet's dream.  He looks to see a tragic grief;
+to his amazement he beholds something very like exultation.
+
+"The trouble with you, Dogson," says Heritage, "is that you're a bit of
+an anarchist.  All you false romantics are.  You don't see the
+extraordinary beauty of the conventions which time has consecrated. You
+always want novelty, you know, and the novel is usually the ugly and
+rarely the true.  I am for romance, but upon the old, noble classic
+line."
+
+Dickson is scarcely listening.  His eyes are on the distant lovers, and
+he longs to say something which will gently and graciously express his
+sympathy with his friend.
+
+"I'm afraid," he begins hesitatingly, "I'm afraid you've had a bad
+blow, Mr. Heritage.  You're taking it awful well, and I honour you for
+it."
+
+The Poet flings back his head.  "I am reconciled," he says. "After all
+'tis better to have loved and lost, you know. It has been a great
+experience and has shown me my own heart. I love her, I shall always
+love her, but I realize that she was never meant for me.  Thank God
+I've been able to serve her--that is all a moth can ask of a star.  I'm
+a better man for it, Dogson. She will be a glorious memory, and Lord!
+what poetry I shall write! I give her up joyfully, for she has found
+her mate.  'Let us not to the marriage of true minds admit
+impediments!'  The thing's too perfect to grieve about.... Look!  There
+is romance incarnate."
+
+He points to the figures now silhouetted against the further sea. "How
+does it go, Dogson?" he cries.  "'And on her lover's arm she
+leant'--what next?  You know the thing."
+
+Dickson assists and Heritage declaims:
+
+  "And on her lover's arm she leant,
+    And round her waist she felt it fold,
+  And far across the hills they went
+    In that new world which is the old:
+  Across the hills, and far away
+    Beyond their utmost purple rim,
+  And deep into the dying day
+    The happy princess followed him."
+
+
+He repeats the last two lines twice and draws a deep breath. "How
+right!" he cries.  "How absolutely right!  Lord!  It's astonishing how
+that old bird Tennyson got the goods!"
+
+
+
+After that Dickson leaves him and wanders among the thickets on the
+edge of the Huntingtower policies above the Laver glen. He feels
+childishly happy, wonderfully young, and at the same time
+supernaturally wise.  Sometimes he thinks the past week has been a
+dream, till he touches the sticking-plaster on his brow, and finds that
+his left thigh is still a mass of bruises and that his right leg is
+woefully stiff.  With that the past becomes very real again, and he
+sees the Garple Dean in that stormy afternoon, he wrestles again at
+midnight in the dark House, he stands with quaking heart by the boats
+to cut off the retreat.  He sees it all, but without terror in the
+recollection, rather with gusto and a modest pride.  "I've surely had a
+remarkable time," he tells himself, and then Romance, the goddess whom
+he has worshipped so long, marries that furious week with the idyllic.
+He is supremely content, for he knows that in his humble way he has not
+been found wanting. Once more for him the Chavender or Chub, and long
+dreams among summer hills.  His mind flies to the days ahead of him,
+when he will go wandering with his pack in many green places.  Happy
+days they will be, the prospect with which he has always charmed his
+mind. Yes, but they will be different from what he had fancied, for he
+is another man than the complacent little fellow who set out a week ago
+on his travels.  He has now assurance of himself, assurance of his
+faith. Romance, he sees, is one and indivisible....
+
+Below him by the edge of the stream he sees the encampment of the
+Gorbals Die-Hards.  He calls and waves a hand, and his signal is
+answered. It seems to be washing day, for some scanty and tattered
+raiment is drying on the sward.  The band is evidently in session, for
+it is sitting in a circle, deep in talk.
+
+As he looks at the ancient tents, the humble equipment, the ring of
+small shockheads, a great tenderness comes over him.  The Die-Hards are
+so tiny, so poor, so pitifully handicapped, and yet so bold in their
+meagreness.  Not one of them has had anything that might be called a
+chance.  Their few years have been spent in kennels and closes, always
+hungry and hunted, with none to care for them; their childish ears have
+been habituated to every coarseness, their small minds filled with the
+desperate shifts of living.... And yet, what a heavenly spark was in
+them!  He had always thought nobly of the soul; now he wants to get on
+his knees before the queer greatness of humanity.
+
+A figure disengages itself from the group, and Dougal makes his way up
+the hill towards him.  The Chieftain is not more reputable in garb than
+when we first saw him, nor is he more cheerful of countenance. He has
+one arm in a sling made out of his neckerchief, and his scraggy little
+throat rises bare from his voluminous shirt. All that can be said for
+him is that he is appreciably cleaner. He comes to a standstill and
+salutes with a special formality.
+
+"Dougal," says Dickson, "I've been thinking.  You're the grandest lot
+of wee laddies I ever heard tell of, and, forbye, you've saved my life.
+Now, I'm getting on in years, though you'll admit that I'm not that
+dead old, and I'm not a poor man, and I haven't chick or child to look
+after. None of you has ever had a proper chance or been right fed or
+educated or taken care of.  I've just the one thing to say to you.
+From now on you're my bairns, every one of you.  You're fine laddies,
+and I'm going to see that you turn into fine men.  There's the stuff in
+you to make Generals and Provosts--ay, and Prime Ministers, and Dod!
+it'll not be my blame if it doesn't get out."
+
+Dougal listens gravely and again salutes.
+
+"I've brought ye a message," he says.  "We've just had a meetin' and
+I've to report that ye've been unanimously eleckit Chief Die-Hard.
+We're a' hopin' ye'll accept."
+
+"I accept," Dickson replies.  "Proudly and gratefully I accept."
+
+
+
+The last scene is some days later, in a certain southern suburb of
+Glasgow. Ulysses has come back to Ithaca, and is sitting by his
+fireside, waiting for the return of Penelope from the Neuk Hydropathic.
+There is a chill in the air, so a fire is burning in the grate, but the
+laden tea-table is bright with the first blooms of lilac. Dickson, in a
+new suit with a flower in his buttonhole, looks none the worse for his
+travels, save that there is still sticking-plaster on his deeply
+sunburnt brow.  He waits impatiently with his eye on the black marble
+timepiece, and he fingers something in his pocket.
+
+Presently the sound of wheels is heard, and the pea-hen voice of Tibby
+announces the arrival of Penelope.  Dickson rushes to the door, and at
+the threshold welcomes his wife with a resounding kiss. He leads her
+into the parlour and settles her in her own chair.
+
+"My! but it's nice to be home again!" she says.  "And everything that
+comfortable.  I've had a fine time, but there's no place like your own
+fireside.  You're looking awful well, Dickson. But losh!  What have you
+been doing to your head?"
+
+"Just a small tumble.  It's very near mended already.  Ay, I've had a
+grand walking tour, but the weather was a wee bit thrawn. It's nice to
+see you back again, Mamma.  Now that I'm an idle man you and me must
+take a lot of jaunts together."
+
+She beams on him as she stays herself with Tibby's scones, and when the
+meal is ended, Dickson draws from his pocket a slim case. The jewels
+have been restored to Saskia, but this is one of her own which she has
+bestowed upon Dickson as a parting memento. He opens the case and
+reveals a necklet of emeralds, any one of which is worth half the
+street.
+
+"This is a present for you," he says bashfully.
+
+Mrs. McCunn's eyes open wide.  "You're far too kind," she gasps. "It
+must have cost an awful lot of money."
+
+"It didn't cost me that much," is the truthful answer.
+
+She fingers the trinket and then clasps it round her neck, where the
+green depths of the stones glow against the black satin of her bodice.
+Her eyes are moist as she looks at him.  "You've been a kind man to
+me," she says, and she kisses him as she has not done since Janet's
+death.
+
+She stands up and admires the necklet in the mirror.  Romance once
+more, thinks Dickson.  That which has graced the slim throats of
+princesses in far-away Courts now adorns an elderly matron in a
+semi-detached villa; the jewels of the wild Nausicaa have fallen to the
+housewife Penelope.
+
+Mrs. McCunn preens herself before the glass.  "I call it very genteel,"
+she says.  "Real stylish.  It might be worn by a queen."
+
+"I wouldn't say but it has," says Dickson.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Huntingtower, by John Buchan
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+The Project Gutenberg E-text of Huntingtower, by John Buchan
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Huntingtower, by John Buchan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Huntingtower
+
+Author: John Buchan
+
+Posting Date: May 19, 2009 [EBook #3782]
+Release Date: February, 2003
+First Posted: June 12, 2001
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUNTINGTOWER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Edward A. White, Robert F. Jaffe, and Kirsten
+Tozer. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+HUNTINGTOWER
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+BY
+</H3>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+JOHN BUCHAN
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+To  W. P. Ker.
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P>
+If the Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford has not
+forgotten the rock whence he was hewn, this simple story may give an
+hour of entertainment.  I offer it to you because I think you have met
+my friend Dickson McCunn, and I dare to hope that you may even in your
+many sojournings in the Westlands have encountered one or other of the
+Gorbals Die-Hards. If you share my kindly feeling for Dickson, you will
+be interested in some facts which I have lately ascertained about his
+ancestry.  In his veins there flows a portion of the redoubtable blood
+of the Nicol Jarvies.  When the Bailie, you remember, returned from his
+journey to Rob Roy beyond the Highland Line, he espoused his
+housekeeper Mattie, "an honest man's daughter and a near cousin o' the
+Laird o' Limmerfield."  The union was blessed with a son, who succeeded
+to the Bailie's business and in due course begat daughters, one of whom
+married a certain Ebenezer McCunn, of whom there is record in the
+archives of the Hammermen of Glasgow. Ebenezer's grandson, Peter by
+name, was Provost of Kirkintilloch, and his second son was the father
+of my hero by his marriage with Robina Dickson, oldest daughter of one
+Robert Dickson, a tenant-farmer in the Lennox.  So there are coloured
+threads in Mr. McCunn's pedigree, and, like the Bailie, he can count
+kin, should he wish, with Rob Roy himself through "the auld wife ayont
+the fire at Stuckavrallachan."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such as it is, I dedicate to you the story, and ask for no better
+verdict on it than that of that profound critic of life and literature,
+Mr. Huckleberry Finn, who observed of the Pilgrim's Progress that he
+"considered the statements interesting, but tough."
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+J.B.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+CONTENTS.
+</H2>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#prologue">Prologue</A>
+<BR>
+1. <A HREF="#chap01">How a Retired Provision Merchant felt the Impulse of Spring.</A>
+<BR>
+2. <A HREF="#chap02">Of Mr. John Heritage and the Difference in Points of View.</A>
+<BR>
+3. <A HREF="#chap03">How Childe Roland and Another came to the Dark tower.</A>
+<BR>
+4. <A HREF="#chap04">Dougal.</A>
+<BR>
+5. <A HREF="#chap05">Of the Princess in the Tower.</A>
+<BR>
+6. <A HREF="#chap06">How Mr. McCunn departed with Relief and returned with Resolution.</A>
+<BR>
+7. <A HREF="#chap07">Sundry Doings in the Mirk.</A>
+<BR>
+8. <A HREF="#chap08">How a Middle-aged Crusader accepted a Challenge.</A>
+<BR>
+9. <A HREF="#chap09">The First Battle of the Cruives.</A>
+<BR>
+10. <A HREF="#chap10">Deals with an Escape and a Journey.</A>
+<BR>
+11. <A HREF="#chap11">Gravity out of Bed.</A>
+<BR>
+12. <A HREF="#chap12">How Mr. McCunn committed an Assault upon an Ally.</A>
+<BR>
+13. <A HREF="#chap13">The Coming of the Danish Brig.</A>
+<BR>
+14. <A HREF="#chap14">The Second Battle of the Cruives.</A>
+<BR>
+15. <A HREF="#chap15">The Gorbals Die-Hards go into Action.</A>
+<BR>
+16. <A HREF="#chap16">In which a Princess leaves a Dark Tower and a Provision Merchant
+    returns to his Family.</A>
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+HUNTINGTOWER.
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<A NAME="prologue"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+PROLOGUE.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The girl came into the room with a darting movement like a swallow,
+looked round her with the same birdlike quickness, and then ran across
+the polished floor to where a young man sat on a sofa with one leg laid
+along it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have saved you this dance, Quentin," she said, pronouncing the name
+with a pretty staccato.  "You must be lonely not dancing, so I will sit
+with you.  What shall we talk about?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The young man did not answer at once, for his gaze was held by her
+face.  He had never dreamed that the gawky and rather plain little girl
+whom he had romped with long ago in Paris would grow into such a being.
+The clean delicate lines of her figure, the exquisite pure colouring of
+hair and skin, the charming young arrogance of the eyes&mdash;this was
+beauty, he reflected, a miracle, a revelation. Her virginal fineness
+and her dress, which was the tint of pale fire, gave her the air of a
+creature of ice and flame.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"About yourself, please, Saskia," he said.  "Are you happy now that you
+are a grown-up lady?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Happy!"  Her voice had a thrill in it like music, frosty music. "The
+days are far too short.  I grudge the hours when I must sleep. They say
+it is sad for me to make my debut in a time of war. But the world is
+very kind to me, and after all it is a victorious war for our Russia.
+And listen to me, Quentin.  To-morrow I am to be allowed to begin
+nursing at the Alexander Hospital.  What do you think of that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The time was January 1916, and the place a room in the great Nirski
+Palace.  No hint of war, no breath from the snowy streets, entered that
+curious chamber where Prince Peter Nirski kept some of the chief of his
+famous treasures.  It was notable for its lack of drapery and
+upholstering&mdash;only a sofa or two and a few fine rugs on the cedar
+floor.  The walls were of a green marble veined like malachite, the
+ceiling was of darker marble inlaid with white intaglios. Scattered
+everywhere were tables and cabinets laden with celadon china, and
+carved jade, and ivories, and shimmering Persian and Rhodian vessels.
+In all the room there was scarcely anything of metal and no touch of
+gilding or bright colour.  The light came from green alabaster censers,
+and the place swam in a cold green radiance like some cavern below the
+sea.  The air was warm and scented, and though it was very quiet there,
+a hum of voices and the strains of dance music drifted to it from the
+pillared corridor in which could be seen the glare of lights from the
+great ballroom beyond.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The young man had a thin face with lines of suffering round the mouth
+and eyes.  The warm room had given him a high colour, which increased
+his air of fragility.  He felt a little choked by the place, which
+seemed to him for both body and mind a hot-house, though he knew very
+well that the Nirski Palace on this gala evening was in no way typical
+of the land or its masters.  Only a week ago he had been eating black
+bread with its owner in a hut on the Volhynian front.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have become amazing, Saskia," he said.  "I won't pay my old
+playfellow compliments; besides, you must be tired of them.  I wish you
+happiness all the day long like a fairy-tale Princess.  But a crock
+like me can't do much to help you to it.  The service seems to be the
+wrong way round, for here you are wasting your time talking to me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She put her hand on his.  "Poor Quentin!  Is the leg very bad?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He laughed.  "O, no.  It's mending famously.  I'll be able to get about
+without a stick in another month, and then you've got to teach me all
+the new dances."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The jigging music of a two-step floated down the corridor.  It made the
+young man's brow contract, for it brought to him a vision of dead faces
+in the gloom of a November dusk.  He had once had a friend who used to
+whistle that air, and he had seen him die in the Hollebeke mud.  There
+was something macabre in the tune....  He was surely morbid this
+evening, for there seemed something macabre about the house, the room,
+the dancing, all Russia....  These last days he had suffered from a
+sense of calamity impending, of a dark curtain drawing down upon a
+splendid world.  They didn't agree with him at the Embassy, but he
+could not get rid of the notion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl saw his sudden abstraction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What are you thinking about?" she asked.  It had been her favourite
+question as a child.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was thinking that I rather wished you were still in Paris."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But why?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because I think you would be safer."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, what nonsense, Quentin dear!  Where should I be safe if not in my
+own Russia, where I have friends&mdash;oh, so many, and tribes and tribes of
+relations?  It is France and England that are unsafe with the German
+guns grumbling at their doors.... My complaint is that my life is too
+cosseted and padded.  I am too secure, and I do not want to be secure."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The young man lifted a heavy casket from a table at his elbow.  It was
+of dark green imperial jade, with a wonderfully carved lid.  He took
+off the lid and picked up three small oddments of ivory&mdash;a priest with
+a beard, a tiny soldier, and a draught-ox.  Putting the three in a
+triangle, he balanced the jade box on them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look, Saskia!  If you were living inside that box you would think it
+very secure.  You would note the thickness of the walls and the
+hardness of the stone, and you would dream away in a peaceful green
+dusk.  But all the time it would be held up by trifles&mdash;brittle
+trifles."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She shook her head.  "You do not understand.  You cannot understand. We
+are a very old and strong people with roots deep, deep in the earth."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Please God you are right," he said.  "But, Saskia, you know that if I
+can ever serve you, you have only to command me.  Now I can do no more
+for you than the mouse for the lion&mdash;at the beginning of the story. But
+the story had an end, you remember, and some day it may be in my power
+to help you.  Promise to send for me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl laughed merrily.  "The King of Spain's daughter," she quoted,
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  "Came to visit me,<BR>
+  And all for the love<BR>
+  Of my little nut-tree."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The other laughed also, as a young man in the uniform of the
+Preobrajenski Guards approached to claim the girl.  "Even a nut-tree
+may be a shelter in a storm," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course I promise, Quentin," she said.  "Au revoir.  Soon I will
+come and take you to supper, and we will talk of nothing but nut-trees."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He watched the two leave the room, her gown glowing like a tongue of
+fire in that shadowy archway.  Then he slowly rose to his feet, for he
+thought that for a little he would watch the dancing. Something moved
+beside him, and he turned in time to prevent the jade casket from
+crashing to the floor.  Two of the supports had slipped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He replaced the thing on its proper table and stood silent for a moment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The priest and the soldier gone, and only the beast of burden left. If
+I were inclined to be superstitious, I should call that a dashed bad
+omen."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER I
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+HOW A RETIRED PROVISION MERCHANT FELT THE IMPULSE OF SPRING
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Dickson McCunn completed the polishing of his smooth cheeks with
+the towel, glanced appreciatively at their reflection in the
+looking-glass, and then permitted his eyes to stray out of the window.
+In the little garden lilacs were budding, and there was a gold line of
+daffodils beside the tiny greenhouse.  Beyond the sooty wall a birch
+flaunted its new tassels, and the jackdaws were circling about the
+steeple of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk.  A blackbird whistled from a
+thorn-bush, and Mr. McCunn was inspired to follow its example. He began
+a tolerable version of "Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He felt singularly light-hearted, and the immediate cause was his
+safety razor.  A week ago he had bought the thing in a sudden fit of
+enterprise, and now he shaved in five minutes, where before he had
+taken twenty, and no longer confronted his fellows, at least one day in
+three, with a countenance ludicrously mottled by sticking-plaster.
+Calculation revealed to him the fact that in his fifty-five years,
+having begun to shave at eighteen, he had wasted three thousand three
+hundred and seventy hours&mdash;or one hundred and forty days&mdash;or between
+four and five months&mdash;by his neglect of this admirable invention.  Now
+he felt that he had stolen a march on Time.  He had fallen heir, thus
+late, to a fortune in unpurchasable leisure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He began to dress himself in the sombre clothes in which he had been
+accustomed for thirty-five years and more to go down to the shop in
+Mearns Street.  And then a thought came to him which made him discard
+the grey-striped trousers, sit down on the edge of his bed, and muse.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Since Saturday the shop was a thing of the past.  On Saturday at
+half-past eleven, to the accompaniment of a glass of dubious sherry, he
+had completed the arrangements by which the provision shop in Mearns
+Street, which had borne so long the legend of D. McCunn, together with
+the branches in Crossmyloof and the Shaws, became the property of a
+company, yclept the United Supply Stores, Limited. He had received in
+payment cash, debentures and preference shares, and his lawyers and his
+own acumen had acclaimed the bargain. But all the week-end he had been
+a little sad.  It was the end of so old a song, and he knew no other
+tune to sing.  He was comfortably off, healthy, free from any
+particular cares in life, but free too from any particular duties.
+"Will I be going to turn into a useless old man?" he asked himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But he had woke up this Monday to the sound of the blackbird, and the
+world, which had seemed rather empty twelve hours before, was now brisk
+and alluring.  His prowess in quick shaving assured him of his youth.
+"I'm no' that dead old," he observed, as he sat on the edge of he bed,
+to his reflection in the big looking-glass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was not an old face.  The sandy hair was a little thin on the top
+and a little grey at the temples, the figure was perhaps a little too
+full for youthful elegance, and an athlete would have censured the neck
+as too fleshy for perfect health.  But the cheeks were rosy, the skin
+clear, and the pale eyes singularly childlike. They were a little weak,
+those eyes, and had some difficulty in looking for long at the same
+object, so that Mr. McCunn did not stare people in the face, and had,
+in consequence, at one time in his career acquired a perfectly
+undeserved reputation for cunning. He shaved clean, and looked
+uncommonly like a wise, plump schoolboy. As he gazed at his simulacrum
+he stopped whistling "Roy's Wife" and let his countenance harden into a
+noble sternness.  Then he laughed, and observed in the language of his
+youth that there was "life in the auld dowg yet."  In that moment the
+soul of Mr. McCunn conceived the Great Plan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The first sign of it was that he swept all his business garments
+unceremoniously on to the floor.  The next that he rootled at the
+bottom of a deep drawer and extracted a most disreputable tweed suit.
+It had once been what I believe is called a Lovat mixture, but was now
+a nondescript sub-fusc, with bright patches of colour like moss on
+whinstone.  He regarded it lovingly, for it had been for twenty years
+his holiday wear, emerging annually for a hallowed month to be stained
+with salt and bleached with sun.  He put it on, and stood shrouded in
+an odour of camphor.  A pair of thick nailed boots and a flannel shirt
+and collar completed the equipment of the sportsman.  He had another
+long look at himself in the glass, and then descended whistling to
+breakfast.  This time the tune was "Macgregors' Gathering," and the
+sound of it stirred the grimy lips of a man outside who was delivering
+coals&mdash;himself a Macgregor&mdash;to follow suit.  Mr McCunn was a very
+fountain of music that morning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Tibby, the aged maid, had his newspaper and letters waiting by his
+plate, and a dish of ham and eggs frizzling near the fire.  He fell to
+ravenously but still musingly, and he had reached the stage of scones
+and jam before he glanced at his correspondence.  There was a letter
+from his wife now holidaying at the Neuk Hydropathic. She reported that
+her health was improving, and that she had met various people who had
+known somebody else whom she had once known herself.  Mr. McCunn read
+the dutiful pages and smiled. "Mamma's enjoying herself fine," he
+observed to the teapot. He knew that for his wife the earthly paradise
+was a hydropathic, where she put on her afternoon dress and every jewel
+she possessed when she rose in the morning, ate large meals of which
+the novelty atoned for the nastiness, and collected an immense casual
+acquaintance, with whom she discussed ailments, ministers, sudden
+deaths, and the intricate genealogies of her class.  For his part he
+rancorously hated hydropathics, having once spent a black week under
+the roof of one in his wife's company.  He detested the food, the
+Turkish baths (he had a passionate aversion to baring his body before
+strangers), the inability to find anything to do and the compulsion to
+endless small talk.  A thought flitted over his mind which he was too
+loyal to formulate.  Once he and his wife had had similar likings, but
+they had taken different roads since their child died.  Janet!  He saw
+again&mdash;he was never quite free from the sight&mdash;the solemn little
+white-frocked girl who had died long ago in the Spring.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It may have been the thought of the Neuk Hydropathic, or more likely
+the thin clean scent of the daffodils with which Tibby had decked the
+table, but long ere breakfast was finished the Great Plan had ceased to
+be an airy vision and become a sober well-masoned structure.  Mr.
+McCunn&mdash;I may confess it at the start&mdash;was an incurable romantic.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had had a humdrum life since the day when he had first entered his
+uncle's shop with the hope of some day succeeding that honest grocer;
+and his feet had never strayed a yard from his sober rut. But his mind,
+like the Dying Gladiator's, had been far away. As a boy he had voyaged
+among books, and they had given him a world where he could shape his
+career according to his whimsical fancy. Not that Mr. McCunn was what
+is known as a great reader. He read slowly and fastidiously, and sought
+in literature for one thing alone.  Sir Walter Scott had been his first
+guide, but he read the novels not for their insight into human
+character or for their historical pageantry, but because they gave him
+material wherewith to construct fantastic journeys.  It was the same
+with Dickens. A lit tavern, a stage-coach, post-horses, the clack of
+hoofs on a frosty road, went to his head like wine.  He was a Jacobite
+not because he had any views on Divine Right, but because he had always
+before his eyes a picture of a knot of adventurers in cloaks, new
+landed from France among the western heather.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On this select basis he had built up his small library&mdash;Defoe, Hakluyt,
+Hazlitt and the essayists, Boswell, some indifferent romances, and a
+shelf of spirited poetry.  His tastes became known, and he acquired a
+reputation for a scholarly habit.  He was president of the Literary
+Society of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, and read to its members a variety
+of papers full of a gusto which rarely became critical.  He had been
+three times chairman at Burns Anniversary dinners, and had delivered
+orations in eulogy of the national Bard; not because he greatly admired
+him&mdash;he thought him rather vulgar&mdash;but because he took Burns as an
+emblem of the un-Burns-like literature which he loved.  Mr. McCunn was
+no scholar and was sublimely unconscious of background.  He grew his
+flowers in his small garden-plot oblivious of their origin so long as
+they gave him the colour and scent he sought.  Scent, I say, for he
+appreciated more than the mere picturesque.  He had a passion for words
+and cadences, and would be haunted for weeks by a cunning phrase,
+savouring it as a connoisseur savours a vintage. Wherefore long ago,
+when he could ill afford it, he had purchased the Edinburgh Stevenson.
+They were the only large books on his shelves, for he had a liking for
+small volumes&mdash;things he could stuff into his pocket in that sudden
+journey which he loved to contemplate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Only he had never taken it.  The shop had tied him up for eleven months
+in the year, and the twelfth had always found him settled decorously
+with his wife in some seaside villa.  He had not fretted, for he was
+content with dreams.  He was always a little tired, too, when the
+holidays came, and his wife told him he was growing old. He consoled
+himself with tags from the more philosophic of his authors, but he
+scarcely needed consolation.  For he had large stores of modest
+contentment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But now something had happened.  A spring morning and a safety razor
+had convinced him that he was still young.  Since yesterday he was a
+man of a large leisure.  Providence had done for him what he would
+never have done for himself.  The rut in which he had travelled so long
+had given place to open country.  He repeated to himself one of the
+quotations with which he had been wont to stir the literary young men
+at the Guthrie Memorial Kirk:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  "What's a man's age?  He must hurry more, that's all;<BR>
+  Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold:<BR>
+  When we mind labour, then only, we're too old&mdash;<BR>
+  What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He would go journeying&mdash;who but he?&mdash;pleasantly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It sounds a trivial resolve, but it quickened Mr. McCunn to the depths
+of his being.  A holiday, and alone!  On foot, of course, for he must
+travel light.  He would buckle on a pack after the approved fashion.
+He had the very thing in a drawer upstairs, which he had bought some
+years ago at a sale.  That and a waterproof and a stick, and his outfit
+was complete.  A book, too, and, as he lit his first pipe, he
+considered what it should be.  Poetry, clearly, for it was the Spring,
+and besides poetry could be got in pleasantly small bulk.  He stood
+before his bookshelves trying to select a volume, rejecting one after
+another as inapposite.  Browning&mdash;Keats, Shelley&mdash;they seemed more
+suited for the hearth than for the roadside.  He did not want anything
+Scots, for he was of opinion that Spring came more richly in England
+and that English people had a better notion of it.  He was tempted by
+the Oxford Anthology, but was deterred by its thickness, for he did not
+possess the thin-paper edition.  Finally he selected Izaak Walton.  He
+had never fished in his life, but The Compleat Angler seemed to fit his
+mood. It was old and curious and learned and fragrant with the youth of
+things.  He remembered its falling cadences, its country songs and wise
+meditations.  Decidedly it was the right scrip for his pilgrimage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Characteristically he thought last of where he was to go.  Every bit of
+the world beyond his front door had its charms to the seeing eye. There
+seemed nothing common or unclean that fresh morning.  Even a walk among
+coal-pits had its attractions.... But since he had the right to choose,
+he lingered over it like an epicure.  Not the Highlands, for Spring
+came late among their sour mosses.  Some place where there were fields
+and woods and inns, somewhere, too, within call of the sea.  It must
+not be too remote, for he had no time to waste on train journeys; nor
+too near, for he wanted a countryside untainted. Presently he thought
+of Carrick.  A good green land, as he remembered it, with purposeful
+white roads and public-houses sacred to the memory of Burns; near the
+hills but yet lowland, and with a bright sea chafing on its shores.  He
+decided on Carrick, found a map, and planned his journey.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he routed out his knapsack, packed it with a modest change of
+raiment, and sent out Tibby to buy chocolate and tobacco and to cash a
+cheque at the Strathclyde Bank.  Till Tibby returned he occupied
+himself with delicious dreams.... He saw himself daily growing browner
+and leaner, swinging along broad highways or wandering in bypaths.  He
+pictured his seasons of ease, when he unslung his pack and smoked in
+some clump of lilacs by a burnside&mdash;he remembered a phrase of
+Stevenson's somewhat like that.  He would meet and talk with all sorts
+of folk; an exhilarating prospect, for Mr. McCunn loved his kind.
+There would be the evening hour before he reached his inn, when,
+pleasantly tired, he would top some ridge and see the welcoming lights
+of a little town.  There would be the lamp-lit after-supper time when
+he would read and reflect, and the start in the gay morning, when
+tobacco tastes sweetest and even fifty-five seems young.  It would be
+holiday of the purest, for no business now tugged at his coat-tails.
+He was beginning a new life, he told himself, when he could cultivate
+the seedling interests which had withered beneath the far-reaching
+shade of the shop.  Was ever a man more fortunate or more free?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Tibby was told that he was going off for a week or two.  No letters
+need be forwarded, for he would be constantly moving, but Mrs. McCunn
+at the Neuk Hydropathic would be kept informed of his whereabouts.
+Presently he stood on his doorstep, a stocky figure in ancient tweeds,
+with a bulging pack slung on his arm, and a stout hazel stick in his
+hand.  A passer-by would have remarked an elderly shopkeeper bent
+apparently on a day in the country, a common little man on a prosaic
+errand.  But the passer-by would have been wrong, for he could not see
+into the heart.  The plump citizen was the eternal pilgrim; he was
+Jason, Ulysses, Eric the Red, Albuquerque, Cortez&mdash;starting out to
+discover new worlds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before he left Mr. McCunn had given Tibby a letter to post. That
+morning he had received an epistle from a benevolent acquaintance, one
+Mackintosh, regarding a group of urchins who called themselves the
+"Gorbals Die-Hards."  Behind the premises in Mearns Street lay a tract
+of slums, full of mischievous boys, with whom his staff waged truceless
+war.  But lately there had started among them a kind of unauthorized
+and unofficial Boy Scouts, who, without uniform or badge or any kind of
+paraphernalia, followed the banner of Sir Robert Baden-Powell and
+subjected themselves to a rude discipline.  They were far too poor to
+join an orthodox troop, but they faithfully copied what they believed
+to be the practices of more fortunate boys.  Mr. McCunn had witnessed
+their pathetic parades, and had even passed the time of day with their
+leader, a red-haired savage called Dougal.  The philanthropic
+Mackintosh had taken an interest in the gang and now desired
+subscriptions to send them to camp in the country.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. McCunn, in his new exhilaration, felt that he could not deny to
+others what he proposed for himself.  His last act before leaving was
+to send Mackintosh ten pounds.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER II
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+OF MR. JOHN HERITAGE AND THE DIFFERENCE IN POINTS OF VIEW
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Dickson McCunn was never to forget the first stage in that pilgrimage.
+A little after midday he descended from a grimy third-class carriage at
+a little station whose name I have forgotten.  In the village nearby he
+purchased some new-baked buns and ginger biscuits, to which he was
+partial, and followed by the shouts of urchins, who admired his
+pack&mdash;"Look at the auld man gaun to the schule"&mdash;he emerged into open
+country.   The late April noon gleamed like a frosty morning, but the
+air, though tonic, was kind.  The road ran over sweeps of moorland
+where curlews wailed, and into lowland pastures dotted with very white,
+very vocal lambs.  The young grass had the warm fragrance of new milk.
+As he went he munched his buns, for he had resolved to have no
+plethoric midday meal, and presently he found the burnside nook of his
+fancy, and halted to smoke.  On a patch of turf close to a grey stone
+bridge he had out his Walton and read the chapter on "The Chavender or
+Chub."  The collocation of words delighted him and inspired him to
+verse.  "Lavender or Lub"&mdash;"Pavender or Pub"-"Gravender or Grub"&mdash;but
+the monosyllables proved too vulgar for poetry.  Regretfully he
+desisted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The rest of the road was as idyllic as the start.  He would tramp
+steadily for a mile or so and then saunter, leaning over bridges to
+watch the trout in the pools, admiring from a dry-stone dyke the
+unsteady gambols of new-born lambs, kicking up dust from strips of
+moor-burn on the heather.  Once by a fir-wood he was privileged to
+surprise three lunatic hares waltzing.  His cheeks glowed with the sun;
+he moved in an atmosphere of pastoral, serene and contented. When the
+shadows began to lengthen he arrived at the village of Cloncae, where
+he proposed to lie.  The inn looked dirty, but he found a decent widow,
+above whose door ran the legend in home-made lettering, "Mrs. brockie
+tea and Coffee," and who was willing to give him quarters.  There he
+supped handsomely off ham and eggs, and dipped into a work called
+Covenanting Worthies, which garnished a table decorated with
+sea-shells.  At half-past nine precisely he retired to bed and
+unhesitating sleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Next morning he awoke to a changed world.  The sky was grey and so low
+that his outlook was bounded by a cabbage garden, while a surly wind
+prophesied rain.  It was chilly, too, and he had his breakfast beside
+the kitchen fire.  Mrs. Brockie could not spare a capital letter for
+her surname on the signboard, but she exalted it in her talk.  He heard
+of a multitude of Brockies, ascendant, descendant, and collateral, who
+seemed to be in a fair way to inherit the earth. Dickson listened
+sympathetically, and lingered by the fire.  He felt stiff from
+yesterday's exercise, and the edge was off his spirit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The start was not quite what he had pictured.  His pack seemed heavier,
+his boots tighter, and his pipe drew badly.  The first miles were all
+uphill, with a wind tingling his ears, and no colours in the landscape
+but brown and grey.  Suddenly he awoke to the fact that he was dismal,
+and thrust the notion behind him.  He expanded his chest and drew in
+long draughts of air.  He told himself that this sharp weather was
+better than sunshine.  He remembered that all travellers in romances
+battled with mist and rain.  Presently his body recovered comfort and
+vigour, and his mind worked itself into cheerfulness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He overtook a party of tramps and fell into talk with them.  He had
+always had a fancy for the class, though he had never known anything
+nearer it than city beggars.  He pictured them as philosophic
+vagabonds, full of quaint turns of speech, unconscious Borrovians. With
+these samples his disillusionment was speedy.  The party was made up of
+a ferret-faced man with a red nose, a draggle-tailed woman, and a child
+in a crazy perambulator.  Their conversation was one-sided, for it
+immediately resolved itself into a whining chronicle of misfortunes and
+petitions for relief.  It cost him half a crown to be rid of them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The road was alive with tramps that day.  The next one did the
+accosting.  Hailing Mr. McCunn as "Guv'nor," he asked to be told the
+way to Manchester.  The objective seemed so enterprising that Dickson
+was impelled to ask questions, and heard, in what appeared to be in the
+accents of the Colonies, the tale of a career of unvarying calamity.
+There was nothing merry or philosophic about this adventurer.  Nay,
+there was something menacing.  He eyed his companion's waterproof
+covetously, and declared that he had had one like it which had been
+stolen from him the day before.  Had the place been lonely he might
+have contemplated highway robbery, but they were at the entrance to a
+village, and the sight of a public-house awoke his thirst.  Dickson
+parted with him at the cost of sixpence for a drink.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had no more company that morning except an aged stone-breaker whom
+he convoyed for half a mile.  The stone-breaker also was soured with
+the world.  He walked with a limp, which, he said, was due to an
+accident years before, when he had been run into by "ane of thae damned
+velocipeeds."  The word revived in Dickson memories of his youth, and
+he was prepared to be friendly.  But the ancient would have none of it.
+He inquired morosely what he was after, and, on being told remarked
+that he might have learned more sense. "It's a daft-like thing for an
+auld man like you to be traivellin' the roads.  Ye maun be ill-off for
+a job."  Questioned as to himself, he became, as the newspapers say,
+"reticent," and having reached his bing of stones, turned rudely to his
+duties.  "Awa' hame wi' ye," were his parting words.  "It's idle
+scoondrels like you that maks wark for honest folk like me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The morning was not a success, but the strong air had given Dickson
+such an appetite that he resolved to break his rule, and, on reaching
+the little town of Kilchrist, he sought luncheon at the chief hotel.
+There he found that which revived his spirits. A solitary bagman shared
+the meal, who revealed the fact that he was in the grocery line.  There
+followed a well-informed and most technical conversation.  He was drawn
+to speak of the United Supply Stores, Limited, of their prospects and
+of their predecessor, Mr. McCunn, whom he knew well by repute but had
+never met. "Yon's the clever one." he observed.  "I've always said
+there's no longer head in the city of Glasgow than McCunn.  An
+old-fashioned firm, but it has aye managed to keep up with the times.
+He's just retired, they tell me, and in my opinion it's a big loss to
+the provision trade...."  Dickson's heart glowed within him.  Here was
+Romance; to be praised incognito; to enter a casual inn and find that
+fame had preceded him.  He warmed to the bagman, insisted on giving him
+a liqueur and a cigar, and finally revealed himself. "I'm Dickson
+McCunn," he said, "taking a bit holiday.  If there's anything I can do
+for you when I get back, just let me know."  With mutual esteem they
+parted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had need of all his good spirits, for he emerged into an unrelenting
+drizzle.  The environs of Kilchrist are at the best unlovely, and in
+the wet they were as melancholy as a graveyard. But the encounter with
+the bagman had worked wonders with Dickson, and he strode lustily into
+the weather, his waterproof collar buttoned round his chin.  The road
+climbed to a bare moor, where lagoons had formed in the ruts, and the
+mist showed on each side only a yard or two of soaking heather.  Soon
+he was wet; presently every part of him&mdash;boots, body, and pack&mdash;was one
+vast sponge. The waterproof was not water-proof, and the rain
+penetrated to his most intimate garments.  Little he cared.  He felt
+lighter, younger, than on the idyllic previous day.  He enjoyed the
+buffets of the storm, and one wet mile succeeded another to the
+accompaniment of Dickson's shouts and laughter.  There was no one
+abroad that afternoon, so he could talk aloud to himself and repeat his
+favourite poems.  About five in the evening there presented himself at
+the Black Bull Inn at Kirkmichael a soaked, disreputable, but most
+cheerful traveller.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now the Black Bull at Kirkmichael is one of the few very good inns left
+in the world.  It is an old place and an hospitable, for it has been
+for generations a haunt of anglers, who above all other men understand
+comfort.  There are always bright fires there, and hot water, and old
+soft leather armchairs, and an aroma of good food and good tobacco, and
+giant trout in glass cases, and pictures of Captain Barclay of Urie
+walking to London and Mr. Ramsay of Barnton winning a horse-race, and
+the three-volume edition of the Waverley Novels with many volumes
+missing, and indeed all those things which an inn should have.  Also
+there used to be&mdash;there may still be&mdash;sound vintage claret in the
+cellars.  The Black Bull expects its guests to arrive in every stage of
+dishevelment, and Dickson was received by a cordial landlord, who
+offered dry garments as a matter of course.  The pack proved to have
+resisted the elements, and a suit of clothes and slippers were provided
+by the house. Dickson, after a glass of toddy, wallowed in a hot bath,
+which washed all the stiffness out of him.  He had a fire in his
+bedroom, beside which he wrote the opening passages of that diary he
+had vowed to keep, descanting lyrically upon the joys of ill weather.
+At seven o'clock, warm and satisfied in soul, and with his body clad in
+raiment several sizes too large for it, he descended to dinner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At one end of the long table in the dining-room sat a group of anglers.
+They looked jovial fellows, and Dickson would fain have joined them;
+but, having been fishing all day in the Lock o' the Threshes, they were
+talking their own talk, and he feared that his admiration for Izaak
+Walton did not qualify him to butt into the erudite discussions of
+fishermen.  The landlord seemed to think likewise, for he drew back a
+chair for him at the other end, where sat a young man absorbed in a
+book.  Dickson gave him good evening, and got an abstracted reply.  The
+young man supped the Black Bull's excellent broth with one hand, and
+with the other turned the pages of his volume. A glance convinced
+Dickson that the work was French, a literature which did not interest
+him.  He knew little of the tongue and suspected it of impropriety.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another guest entered and took the chair opposite the bookish young
+man.  He was also young&mdash;not more than thirty-three&mdash;and to Dickson's
+eye was the kind of person he would have liked to resemble. He was tall
+and free from any superfluous flesh; his face was lean, fine-drawn, and
+deeply sunburnt, so that the hair above showed oddly pale; the hands
+were brown and beautifully shaped, but the forearm revealed by the
+loose cuffs of his shirt was as brawny as a blacksmith's.  He had
+rather pale blue eyes, which seemed to have looked much at the sun, and
+a small moustache the colour of ripe hay. His voice was low and
+pleasant, and he pronounced his words precisely, like a foreigner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was very ready to talk, but in defiance of Dr. Johnson's warning,
+his talk was all questions.  He wanted to know everything about the
+neighbourhood&mdash;who lived in what houses, what were the distances
+between the towns, what harbours would admit what class of vessel.
+Smiling agreeably, he put Dickson through a catechism to which he knew
+none of the answers.  The landlord was called in, and proved more
+helpful.  But on one matter he was fairly at a loss. The catechist
+asked about a house called Darkwater, and was met with a shake of the
+head.  "I know no sic-like name in this countryside, sir," and the
+catechist looked disappointed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The literary young man said nothing, but ate trout abstractedly, one
+eye on his book.  The fish had been caught by the anglers in the Loch
+o' the Threshes, and phrases describing their capture floated from the
+other end of the table.  The young man had a second helping, and then
+refused the excellent hill mutton that followed, contenting himself
+with cheese.  Not so Dickson and the catechist. They ate everything
+that was set before them, topping up with a glass of port.  Then the
+latter, who had been talking illuminatingly about Spain, rose, bowed,
+and left the table, leaving Dickson, who liked to linger over his
+meals, to the society of the ichthyophagous student.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He nodded towards the book. "Interesting?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The young man shook his head and displayed the name on the cover.
+"Anatole France.  I used to be crazy about him, but now he seems rather
+a back number."  Then he glanced towards the just-vacated chair.
+"Australian," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How d'you know?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Can't mistake them.  There's nothing else so lean and fine produced on
+the globe to-day.  I was next door to them at Pozieres and saw them
+fight.  Lord!  Such men!  Now and then you had a freak, but most looked
+like Phoebus Apollo."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson gazed with a new respect at his neighbour, for he had not
+associated him with battle-fields.  During the war he had been a
+fervent patriot, but, though he had never heard a shot himself, so many
+of his friends' sons and nephews, not to mention cousins of his own,
+had seen service, that he had come to regard the experience as
+commonplace.  Lions in Africa and bandits in Mexico seemed to him novel
+and romantic things, but not trenches and airplanes which were the
+whole world's property.  But he could scarcely fit his neighbour into
+even his haziest picture of war.  The young man was tall and a little
+round-shouldered; he had short-sighted, rather prominent brown eyes,
+untidy black hair and dark eyebrows which came near to meeting.  He
+wore a knickerbocker suit of bluish-grey tweed, a pale blue shirt, a
+pale blue collar, and a dark blue tie&mdash;a symphony of colour which
+seemed too elaborately considered to be quite natural.  Dickson had set
+him down as an artist or a newspaper correspondent, objects to him of
+lively interest.  But now the classification must be reconsidered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So you were in the war," he said encouragingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Four blasted years," was the savage reply. "And I never want to hear
+the name of the beastly thing again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You said he was an Australian," said Dickson, casting back.  "But I
+thought Australians had a queer accent, like the English."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They've all kind of accents, but you can never mistake their voice.
+It's got the sun in it.  Canadians have got grinding ice in theirs, and
+Virginians have got butter.  So have the Irish.  In Britain there are
+no voices, only speaking-tubes.  It isn't safe to judge men by their
+accent only.  You yourself I take to be Scotch, but for all I know you
+may be a senator from Chicago or a Boer General."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm from Glasgow.  My name's Dickson McCunn."  He had a faint hope
+that the announcement might affect the other as it had affected the
+bagman at Kilchrist.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Golly, what a name!" exclaimed the young man rudely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson was nettled.  "It's very old Highland," he said.  "It means the
+son of a dog."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Which&mdash;Christian name or surname?"  Then the young man appeared to
+think he had gone too far, for he smiled pleasantly.  "And a very good
+name too.  Mine is prosaic by comparison.  They call me John Heritage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That," said Dickson, mollified, "is like a name out of a book. With
+that name by rights you should be a poet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gloom settled on the young man's countenance.  "It's a dashed sight too
+poetic.  It's like Edwin Arnold and Alfred Austin and Dante Gabriel
+Rossetti.  Great poets have vulgar monosyllables for names, like Keats.
+The new Shakespeare when he comes along will probably be called Grubb
+or Jubber, if he isn't Jones.  With a name like yours I might have a
+chance.  You should be the poet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm very fond of reading," said Dickson modestly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A slow smile crumpled Mr. Heritage's face.  "There's a fire in the
+smoking-room," he observed as he rose.  "We'd better bag the armchairs
+before these fishing louts take them."  Dickson followed obediently.
+This was the kind of chance acquaintance for whom he had hoped, and he
+was prepared to make the most of him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The fire burned bright in the little dusky smoking-room, lighted by one
+oil-lamp.  Mr. Heritage flung himself into a chair, stretched his long
+legs, and lit a pipe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You like reading?" he asked.  "What sort?  Any use for poetry?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Plenty," said Dickson.  "I've aye been fond of learning it up and
+repeating it to myself when I had nothing to do.  In church and waiting
+on trains, like.  It used to be Tennyson, but now it's more Browning.
+I can say a lot of Browning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The other screwed his face into an expression of disgust.  "I know the
+stuff. 'Damask cheeks and dewy sister eyelids.' Or else the Ercles
+vein&mdash;'God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world.' No good, Mr.
+McCunn.  All back numbers.  Poetry's not a thing of pretty round
+phrases or noisy invocations.  It's life itself, with the tang of the
+raw world in it&mdash;not a sweetmeat for middle-class women in parlours."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you a poet, Mr. Heritage?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Dogson, I'm a paper-maker."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was a new view to Mr. McCunn.  "I just once knew a paper-maker,"
+he observed reflectively, "They called him Tosh.  He drank a bit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I don't drink," said the other.  "I'm a paper-maker, but that's
+for my bread and butter.  Some day for my own sake I may be a poet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you published anything?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The eager admiration in Dickson's tone gratified Mr. Heritage. He drew
+from his pocket a slim book.  "My firstfruits," he said, rather shyly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson received it with reverence.  It was a small volume in grey
+paper boards with a white label on the back, and it was lettered:
+WHORLS-JOHN HERITAGE'S BOOK.  He turned the pages and read a little.
+"It's a nice wee book," he observed at length.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good God, if you call it nice, I must have failed pretty badly," was
+the irritated answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson read more deeply and was puzzled.  It seemed worse than the
+worst of Browning to understand.  He found one poem about a garden
+entitled "Revue."  "Crimson and resonant clangs the dawn," said the
+poet.  Then he went on to describe noonday:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  "Sunflowers, tall Grenadiers, ogle the roses' short-skirted ballet.<BR>
+  The fumes of dark sweet wine hidden in frail petals<BR>
+  Madden the drunkard bees."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This seemed to him an odd way to look at things, and he boggled over a
+phrase about an "epicene lily."  Then came evening: "The painted gauze
+of the stars flutters in a fold of twilight crape," sang Mr. Heritage;
+and again, "The moon's pale leprosy sloughs the fields."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson turned to other verses which apparently enshrined the writer's
+memory of the trenches.  They were largely compounded of oaths, and
+rather horrible, lingering lovingly over sights and smells which every
+one is aware of, but most people contrive to forget.  He did not like
+them.  Finally he skimmed a poem about a lady who turned into a bird.
+The evolution was described with intimate anatomical details which
+scared the honest reader.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He kept his eyes on the book, for he did not know what to say. The
+trick seemed to be to describe nature in metaphors mostly drawn from
+music-halls and haberdashers' shops, and, when at a loss, to fall to
+cursing.  He thought it frankly very bad, and he laboured to find words
+which would combine politeness and honesty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well?" said the poet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's a lot of fine things here, but&mdash;but the lines don't just seem
+to scan very well."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Heritage laughed.  "Now I can place you exactly.  You like the meek
+rhyme and the conventional epithet.  Well, I don't.  The world has
+passed beyond that prettiness.  You want the moon described as a
+Huntress or a gold disc or a flower&mdash;I say it's oftener like a beer
+barrel or a cheese.  You want a wealth of jolly words and real things
+ruled out as unfit for poetry.  I say there's nothing unfit for poetry.
+Nothing, Dogson!  Poetry's everywhere, and the real thing is commoner
+among drabs and pot-houses and rubbish-heaps than in your Sunday
+parlours.  The poet's business is to distil it out of rottenness, and
+show that it is all one spirit, the thing that keeps the stars in their
+place.... I wanted to call my book 'Drains,' for drains are sheer
+poetry carrying off the excess and discards of human life to make the
+fields green and the corn ripen. But the publishers kicked.  So I
+called it 'Whorls,' to express my view of the exquisite involution of
+all things.  Poetry is the fourth dimension of the soul.... Well, let's
+hear about your taste in prose."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. McCunn was much bewildered, and a little inclined to be cross. He
+disliked being called Dogson, which seemed to him an abuse of his
+etymological confidences.  But his habit of politeness held.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He explained rather haltingly his preferences in prose.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Heritage listened with wrinkled brows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're even deeper in the mud than I thought," he remarked. "You live
+in a world of painted laths and shadows.  All this passion for the
+picturesque! Trash, my dear man, like a schoolgirl's novelette heroes.
+You make up romances about gipsies and sailors, and the blackguards
+they call pioneers, but you know nothing about them.  If you did, you
+would find they had none of the gilt and gloss you imagine.  But the
+great things they have got in common with all humanity you ignore.
+It's like&mdash;it's like sentimentalising about a pancake because it looked
+like a buttercup, and all the while not knowing that it was good to
+eat."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that moment the Australian entered the room to get a light for his
+pipe.  He wore a motor-cyclist's overalls and appeared to be about to
+take the road.  He bade them good night, and it seemed to Dickson that
+his face, seen in the glow of the fire, was drawn and anxious, unlike
+that of the agreeable companion at dinner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There," said Mr. Heritage, nodding after the departing figure. "I dare
+say you have been telling yourself stories about that chap&mdash;life in the
+bush, stockriding and the rest of it. But probably he's a bank-clerk
+from Melbourne.... Your romanticism is one vast self-delusion, and it
+blinds your eye to the real thing. We have got to clear it out, and
+with it all the damnable humbug of the Kelt."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. McCunn, who spelt the word with a soft "C," was puzzled. "I thought
+a kelt was a kind of a no-weel fish," he interposed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the other, in the flood-tide of his argument, ignored the
+interruption.  "That's the value of the war," he went on. "It has burst
+up all the old conventions, and we've got to finish the destruction
+before we can build.  It is the same with literature and religion, and
+society and politics.  At them with the axe, say I. I have no use for
+priests and pedants.  I've no use for upper classes and middle classes.
+There's only one class that matters, the plain man, the workers, who
+live close to life."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The place for you," said Dickson dryly, "is in Russia among the
+Bolsheviks."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Heritage approved.  "They are doing a great work in their own
+fashion.  We needn't imitate all their methods&mdash;they're a trifle crude
+and have too many Jews among them&mdash;but they've got hold of the right
+end of the stick.  They seek truth and reality."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. McCunn was slowly being roused.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What brings you wandering hereaways?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Exercise," was the answer.  "I've been kept pretty closely tied up all
+winter.  And I want leisure and quiet to think over things."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, there's one subject you might turn your attention to. You'll
+have been educated like a gentleman?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nine wasted years&mdash;five at Harrow, four at Cambridge."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"See here, then.  You're daft about the working-class and have no use
+for any other.  But what in the name of goodness do you know about
+working-men?...  I come out of them myself, and have lived next door to
+them all my days.  Take them one way and another, they're a decent
+sort, good and bad like the rest of us.  But there's a wheen daft folk
+that would set them up as models&mdash;close to truth and reality, says you.
+It's sheer ignorance, for you're about as well acquaint with the
+working-man as with King Solomon.  You say I make up fine stories about
+tinklers and sailor-men because I know nothing about them.  That's
+maybe true.  But you're at the same job yourself. You ideelise the
+working man, you and your kind, because you're ignorant.  You say that
+he's seeking for truth, when he's only looking for a drink and a rise
+in wages.  You tell me he's near reality, but I tell you that his
+notion of reality is often just a short working day and looking on at a
+footba'-match on Saturday.... And when you run down what you call the
+middle-classes that do three-quarters of the world's work and keep the
+machine going and the working-man in a job, then I tell you you're
+talking havers.  Havers!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. McCunn, having delivered his defence of the bourgeoisie, rose
+abruptly and went to bed.  He felt jarred and irritated. His innocent
+little private domain had been badly trampled by this stray bull of a
+poet.  But as he lay in bed, before blowing out his candle, he had
+recourse to Walton, and found a passage on which, as on a pillow, he
+went peacefully to sleep:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"As I left this place, and entered into the next field, a second
+pleasure entertained me; 'twas a handsome milkmaid, that had not yet
+attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any fears of
+many things that will never be, as too many men too often do; but she
+cast away all care, and sang like a nightingale; her voice was good,
+and the ditty fitted for it; it was the smooth song that was made by
+Kit Marlow now at least fifty years ago.  And the milkmaid's mother
+sung an answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh in his
+younger days.  They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good; I
+think much better than the strong lines that are now in fashion in this
+critical age."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER III
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+HOW CHILDE ROLAND AND ANOTHER CAME TO THE DARK TOWER
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Dickson woke with a vague sense of irritation.  As his recollections
+took form they produced a very unpleasant picture of Mr. John Heritage.
+The poet had loosened all his placid idols, so that they shook and
+rattled in the niches where they had been erstwhile so secure. Mr.
+McCunn had a mind of a singular candour, and was prepared most honestly
+at all times to revise his views.  But by this iconoclast he had been
+only irritated and in no way convinced.  "Sich poetry!" he muttered to
+himself as he shivered in his bath (a daily cold tub instead of his
+customary hot one on Saturday night being part of the discipline of his
+holiday).  "And yon blethers about the working-man!" he ingeminated as
+he shaved.  He breakfasted alone, having outstripped even the
+fishermen, and as he ate he arrived at conclusions.  He had a great
+respect for youth, but a line must be drawn somewhere. "The man's a
+child," he decided, "and not like to grow up.  The way he's besotted on
+everything daftlike, if it's only new.  And he's no rightly young
+either&mdash;speaks like an auld dominie, whiles. And he's rather impident,"
+he concluded, with memories of "Dogson.".... He was very clear that he
+never wanted to see him again; that was the reason of his early
+breakfast.  Having clarified his mind by definitions, Dickson felt
+comforted.  He paid his bill, took an affectionate farewell of the
+landlord, and at 7.30 precisely stepped out into the gleaming morning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was such a day as only a Scots April can show.  The cobbled streets
+of Kirkmichael still shone with the night's rain, but the storm clouds
+had fled before a mild south wind, and the whole circumference of the
+sky was a delicate translucent blue. Homely breakfast smells came from
+the houses and delighted Mr. McCunn's nostrils; a squalling child was a
+pleasant reminder of an awakening world, the urban counterpart to the
+morning song of birds; even the sanitary cart seemed a picturesque
+vehicle. He bought his ration of buns and ginger biscuits at a baker's
+shop whence various ragamuffin boys were preparing to distribute the
+householders' bread, and took his way up the Gallows Hill to the Burgh
+Muir almost with regret at leaving so pleasant a habitation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A chronicle of ripe vintages must pass lightly over small beer. I will
+not dwell on his leisurely progress in the bright weather, or on his
+luncheon in a coppice of young firs, or on his thoughts which had
+returned to the idyllic.  I take up the narrative at about three
+o'clock in the afternoon, when he is revealed seated on a milestone
+examining his map.  For he had come, all unwitting, to a turning of the
+ways, and his choice is the cause of this veracious history.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The place was high up on a bare moor, which showed a white lodge among
+pines, a white cottage in a green nook by a burnside, and no other
+marks of human dwelling.  To his left, which was the east, the heather
+rose to a low ridge of hill, much scarred with peat-bogs, behind which
+appeared the blue shoulder of a considerable mountain. Before him the
+road was lost momentarily in the woods of a shooting-box, but
+reappeared at a great distance climbing a swell of upland which seemed
+to be the glacis of a jumble of bold summits.  There was a pass there,
+the map told him, which led into Galloway.  It was the road he had
+meant to follow, but as he sat on the milestone his purpose wavered.
+For there seemed greater attractions in the country which lay to the
+westward.  Mr. McCunn, be it remembered, was not in search of brown
+heath and shaggy wood; he wanted greenery and the Spring.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Westward there ran out a peninsula in the shape of an isosceles
+triangle, of which his present high-road was the base.  At a distance
+of a mile or so a railway ran parallel to the road, and he could see
+the smoke of a goods train waiting at a tiny station islanded in acres
+of bog.  Thence the moor swept down to meadows and scattered copses,
+above which hung a thin haze of smoke which betokened a village.
+Beyond it were further woodlands, not firs but old shady trees, and as
+they narrowed to a point the gleam of two tiny estuaries appeared on
+either side.  He could not see the final cape, but he saw the sea
+beyond it, flawed with catspaws, gold in the afternoon sun, and on it a
+small herring smack flopping listless sails.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Something in the view caught and held his fancy.  He conned his map,
+and made out the names.  The peninsula was called the Cruives&mdash;an old
+name apparently, for it was in antique lettering.  He vaguely
+remembered that "cruives" had something to do with fishing, doubtless
+in the two streams which flanked it.  One he had already crossed, the
+Laver, a clear tumbling water springing from green hills; the other,
+the Garple, descended from the rougher mountains to the south.  The
+hidden village bore the name of Dalquharter, and the uncouth syllables
+awoke some vague recollection in his mind. The great house in the trees
+beyond&mdash;it must be a great house, for the map showed large
+policies&mdash;was Huntingtower.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The last name fascinated and almost decided him.  He pictured an
+ancient keep by the sea, defended by converging rivers, which some old
+Comyn lord of Galloway had built to command the shore road, and from
+which he had sallied to hunt in his wild hills.... He liked the way the
+moor dropped down to green meadows, and the mystery of the dark woods
+beyond.  He wanted to explore the twin waters, and see how they entered
+that strange shimmering sea.  The odd names, the odd cul-de-sac of a
+peninsula, powerfully attracted him. Why should he not spend a night
+there, for the map showed clearly that Dalquharter had an inn?  He must
+decide promptly, for before him a side-road left the highway, and the
+signpost bore the legend, "Dalquharter and Huntingtower."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. McCunn, being a cautious and pious man, took the omens. He tossed a
+penny&mdash;heads go on, tails turn aside.  It fell tails.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He knew as soon as he had taken three steps down the side-road that he
+was doing something momentous, and the exhilaration of enterprise stole
+into his soul.  It occurred to him that this was the kind of landscape
+that he had always especially hankered after, and had made pictures of
+when he had a longing for the country on him&mdash;a wooded cape between
+streams, with meadows inland and then a long lift of heather. He had
+the same feeling of expectancy, of something most interesting and
+curious on the eve of happening, that he had had long ago when he
+waited on the curtain rising at his first play.  His spirits soared
+like the lark, and he took to singing.  If only the inn at Dalquharter
+were snug and empty, this was going to be a day in ten thousand. Thus
+mirthfully he swung down the rough grass-grown road, past the railway,
+till he came to a point where heath began to merge in pasture, and
+dry-stone walls split the moor into fields.  Suddenly his pace
+slackened and song died on his lips.  For, approaching from the right
+by a tributary path was the Poet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Heritage saw him afar off and waved a friendly hand.  In spite of
+his chagrin Dickson could not but confess that he had misjudged his
+critic.  Striding with long steps over the heather, his jacket open to
+the wind, his face a-glow and his capless head like a whin-bush for
+disorder, he cut a more wholesome figure than in the smoking-room the
+night before.  He seemed to be in a companionable mood, for he
+brandished his stick and shouted greetings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well met!" he cried; "I was hoping to fall in with you again. You must
+have thought me a pretty fair cub last night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I did that," was the dry answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I want to apologize.  God knows what made me treat you to a
+university-extension lecture.  I may not agree with you, but every
+man's entitled to his own views, and it was dashed poor form for me to
+start jawing you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. McCunn had no gift of nursing anger, and was very susceptible to
+apologies.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's all right," he murmured. "Don't mention it.  I'm wondering what
+brought you down here, for it's off the road."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Caprice.  Pure caprice.  I liked the look of this butt-end of nowhere."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Same here. I've aye thought there was something terrible nice about a
+wee cape with a village at the neck of it and a burn each side."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now that's interesting," said Mr. Heritage.  "You're obsessed by a
+particular type of landscape.  Ever read Freud?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, you've got an odd complex somewhere.  I wonder where the key
+lies. Cape&mdash;woods&mdash;two rivers&mdash;moor behind.  Ever been in love, Dogson?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. McCunn was startled.   "Love" was a word rarely mentioned in his
+circle except on death-beds,  "I've been a married man for thirty
+years," he said hurriedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That won't do.  It should have been a hopeless affair-the last sight
+of the lady on a spur of coast with water on three sides&mdash;that kind of
+thing, you know, or it might have happened to an ancestor.... But you
+don't look the kind of breed for hopeless attachments. More likely some
+scoundrelly old Dogson long ago found sanctuary in this sort of place.
+Do you dream about it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not exactly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I do.  The queer thing is that I've got the same prepossession
+as you.  As soon as I spotted this Cruives place on the map this
+morning, I saw it was what I was after.  When I came in sight of it I
+almost shouted.  I don't very often dream but when I do that's the
+place I frequent.  Odd, isn't it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. McCunn was deeply interested at this unexpected revelation of
+romance.  "Maybe it's being in love," he daringly observed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Poet demurred.  "No.  I'm not a connoisseur of obvious sentiment.
+That explanation might fit your case, but not mine.  I'm pretty certain
+there's something hideous at the back of MY complex&mdash;some grim old
+business tucked away back in the ages.  For though I'm attracted by the
+place, I'm frightened too!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There seemed no room for fear in the delicate landscape now opening
+before them.  In front, in groves of birch and rowan, smoked the first
+houses of a tiny village.  The road had become a green "loaning," on
+the ample margin of which cattle grazed.  The moorland still showed
+itself in spits of heather, and some distance off, where a rivulet ran
+in a hollow, there were signs of a fire and figures near it. These last
+Mr. Heritage regarded with disapproval.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Some infernal trippers!" he murmured.  "Or Boy Scouts. They desecrate
+everything.  Why can't the TUNICATUS POPELLUS keep away from a paradise
+like this!"  Dickson, a democrat who felt nothing incongruous in the
+presence of other holiday-makers, was meditating a sharp rejoinder,
+when Mr. Heritage's tone changed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ye gods!  What a village!" he cried, as they turned a corner. There
+were not more than a dozen whitewashed houses, all set in little
+gardens of wallflower and daffodil and early fruit blossom. A triangle
+of green filled the intervening space, and in it stood an ancient
+wooden pump.  There was no schoolhouse or kirk; not even a
+post-office&mdash;only a red box in a cottage side.  Beyond rose the high
+wall and the dark trees of the demesne, and to the right up a by-road
+which clung to the park edge stood a two-storeyed building which bore
+the legend "The Cruives Inn."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Poet became lyrical.  "At last!" he cried.  "The village of my
+dreams!  Not a sign of commerce!  No church or school or beastly
+recreation hall!  Nothing but these divine little cottages and an
+ancient pub!  Dogson, I warn you, I'm going to have the devil of a
+tea."  And he declaimed:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;           "Thou shalt hear a song<BR>
+  After a while which Gods may listen to;<BR>
+  But place the flask upon the board and wait<BR>
+  Until the stranger hath allayed his thirst,<BR>
+  For poets, grasshoppers, and nightingales<BR>
+  Sing cheerily but when the throat is moist."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Dickson, too, longed with sensual gusto for tea.  But, as they drew
+nearer, the inn lost its hospitable look.  The cobbles of the yard were
+weedy, as if rarely visited by traffic, a pane in a window was broken,
+and the blinds hung tattered.  The garden was a wilderness, and the
+doorstep had not been scoured for weeks.  But the place had a landlord,
+for he had seen them approach and was waiting at the door to meet them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was a big man in his shirt sleeves, wearing old riding breeches
+unbuttoned at the knees, and thick ploughman's boots.  He had no
+leggings, and his fleshy calves were imperfectly covered with woollen
+socks.  His face was large and pale, his neck bulged, and he had a
+gross unshaven jowl.  He was a type familiar to students of society;
+not the innkeeper, which is a thing consistent with good breeding and
+all the refinements; a type not unknown in the House of Lords,
+especially among recent creations, common enough in the House of
+Commons and the City of London, and by no means infrequent in the
+governing circles of Labour; the type known to the discerning as the
+Licensed Victualler.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His face was wrinkled in official smiles, and he gave the travellers a
+hearty good afternoon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Can we stop here for the night?" Dickson asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The landlord looked sharply at him, and then replied to Mr. Heritage.
+His expression passed from official bonhomie to official contrition.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Impossible, gentlemen.  Quite impossible.... Ye couldn't have come at
+a worse time.  I've only been here a fortnight myself, and we haven't
+got right shaken down yet.  Even then I might have made shift to do
+with ye, but the fact is we've illness in the house, and I'm fair at my
+wits' end.  It breaks my heart to turn gentlemen away and me that keen
+to get the business started.  But there it is!" He spat vigorously as
+if to emphasize the desperation of his quandary.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man was clearly Scots, but his native speech was overlaid with
+something alien, something which might have been acquired in America or
+in going down to the sea in ships.  He hitched his breeches, too, with
+a nautical air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is there nowhere else we can put up?"  Dickson asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not in this one-horse place.  Just a wheen auld wives that packed
+thegether they haven't room for an extra hen.  But it's grand weather,
+and it's not above seven miles to Auchenlochan.  Say the word and I'll
+yoke the horse and drive ye there."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you.  We prefer to walk,"  said Mr. Heritage.  Dickson would
+have tarried to inquire after the illness in the house, but his
+companion hurried him off.   Once he looked back, and saw the landlord
+still on the doorstep gazing after them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That fellow's a swine," said Mr. Heritage sourly.  "I wouldn't trust
+my neck in his pot-house.  Now, Dogson, I'm hanged if I'm going to
+leave this place.  We'll find a corner in the village somehow. Besides,
+I'm determined on tea."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The little street slept in the clear pure light of an early April
+evening.  Blue shadows lay on the white road, and a delicate aroma of
+cooking tantalized hungry nostrils.  The near meadows shone like pale
+gold against the dark lift of the moor.  A light wind had begun to blow
+from the west and carried the faintest tang of salt. The village at
+that hour was pure Paradise, and Dickson was of the Poet's opinion.  At
+all costs they must spend the night there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They selected a cottage whiter and neater than the others, which stood
+at a corner, where a narrow lane turned southward.  Its thatched roof
+had been lately repaired, and starched curtains of a dazzling whiteness
+decorated the small, closely-shut windows.  Likewise it had a green
+door and a polished brass knocker.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Tacitly the duty of envoy was entrusted to Mr. McCunn.  Leaving the
+other at the gate, he advanced up the little path lined with quartz
+stones, and politely but firmly dropped the brass knocker.  He must
+have been observed, for ere the noise had ceased the door opened, and
+an elderly woman stood before him.  She had a sharply-cut face, the
+rudiments of a beard, big spectacles on her nose, and an old-fashioned
+lace cap on her smooth white hair.  A little grim she looked at first
+sight, because of her thin lips and roman nose, but her mild curious
+eyes corrected the impression and gave the envoy confidence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good afternoon, mistress," he said, broadening his voice to something
+more rustical than his normal Glasgow speech.  "Me and my friend are
+paying our first visit here, and we're terrible taken up with the
+place.  We would like to bide the night, but the inn is no' taking
+folk.  Is there any chance, think you, of a bed here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll no tell ye a lee," said the woman.  "There's twae guid beds in
+the loft.  But I dinna tak' lodgers and I dinna want to be bothered wi'
+ye.  I'm an auld wumman and no' as stoot as I was.  Ye'd better try
+doun the street.  Eppie Home micht tak' ye."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson wore his most ingratiating smile.  "But, mistress, Eppie Home's
+house is no' yours.  We've taken a tremendous fancy to this bit. Can
+you no' manage to put up with us for the one night?  We're quiet
+auld-fashioned folk and we'll no' trouble you much.  Just our tea and
+maybe an egg to it, and a bowl of porridge in the morning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The woman seemed to relent.  "Whaur's your freend?" she asked, peering
+over her spectacles towards the garden gate.  The waiting Mr. Heritage,
+seeing he eyes moving in his direction, took off his cap with a brave
+gesture and advanced.  "Glorious weather, madam," he declared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"English," whispered Dickson to the woman, in explanation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She examined the Poet's neat clothes and Mr. McCunn's homely garments,
+and apparently found them reassuring.  "Come in," she said shortly.  "I
+see ye're wilfu' folk and I'll hae to dae my best for ye."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A quarter of an hour later the two travellers, having been introduced
+to two spotless beds in the loft, and having washed luxuriously at the
+pump in the back yard, were seated in Mrs. Morran's kitchen before a
+meal which fulfilled their wildest dreams. She had been baking that
+morning, so there were white scones and barley scones, and oaten
+farles, and russet pancakes.  There were three boiled eggs for each of
+them; there was a segment of an immense currant cake ("a present from
+my guid brither last Hogmanay"); there was skim milk cheese; there were
+several kinds of jam, and there was a pot of dark-gold heather honey.
+"Try hinny and aitcake," said their hostess.  "My man used to say he
+never fund onything as guid in a' his days."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently they heard her story.  Her name was Morran, and she had been
+a widow these ten years.  Of her family her son was in South Africa,
+one daughter a lady's-maid in London, and the other married to a
+schoolmaster in Kyle.  The son had been in France fighting, and had
+come safely through.  He had spent a month or two with her before his
+return, and, she feared, had found it dull.  "There's no' a man body in
+the place.  Naething but auld wives."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That was what the innkeeper had told them.  Mr. McCunn inquired
+concerning the inn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's new folk just came.  What's this they ca'
+them?&mdash;Robson&mdash;Dobson&mdash;aye, Dobson.  What far wad they no' tak' ye in?
+Does the man think he's a laird to refuse folk that gait?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He said he had illness in the house."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran meditated.  "Whae in the world can be lyin' there? The man
+bides his lane.  He got a lassie frae Auchenlochan to cook, but she and
+her box gaed off in the post-cairt yestreen.  I doot he tell't ye a
+lee, though it's no for me to juidge him.  I've never spoken a word to
+ane o' thae new folk."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson inquired about the "new folk."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They're a' now come in the last three weeks, and there's no' a man o'
+the auld stock left.  John Blackstocks at the Wast Lodge dee'd o'
+pneumony last back-end, and auld Simon Tappie at the Gairdens flitted
+to Maybole a year come Mairtinmas.  There's naebody at the Gairdens
+noo, but there's a man come to the Wast Lodge, a blackavised body wi' a
+face like bend-leather.  Tam Robison used to bide at the South Lodge,
+but Tam got killed about Mesopotamy, and his wife took the bairns to
+her guidsire up at the Garpleheid.  I seen the man that's in the South
+Lodge gaun up the street when I was finishin' my denner&mdash;a shilpit body
+and a lameter, but he hirples as fast as ither folk run.  He's no'
+bonny to look at..  I canna think what the factor's ettlin' at to let
+sic ill-faured chiels come about the toun."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Their hostess was rapidly rising in Dickson's esteem.  She sat very
+straight in her chair, eating with the careful gentility of a bird, and
+primming her thin lips after every mouthful of tea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wha bides in the Big House?" he asked.  "Huntingtower is the name,
+isn't it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When I was a lassie they ca'ed it Dalquharter Hoose, and Huntingtower
+was the auld rickle o' stanes at the sea-end. But naething wad serve
+the last laird's father but he maun change the name, for he was clean
+daft about what they ca' antickities. Ye speir whae bides in the Hoose?
+Naebody, since the young laird dee'd. It's standin' cauld and lanely
+and steikit, and it aince the cheeriest dwallin' in a' Carrick."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran's tone grew tragic.  "It's a queer warld wi'out the auld
+gentry. My faither and my guidsire and his faither afore him served the
+Kennedys, and my man Dauvit Morran was gemkeeper to them, and afore I
+mairried I was ane o' the table-maids.  They were kind folk, the
+Kennedys, and, like a' the rale gentry, maist mindfu' o' them that
+served them.  Sic merry nichts I've seen in the auld Hoose, at
+Hallowe'en and Hogmanay, and at the servants' balls and the waddin's o'
+the young leddies!  But the laird bode to waste his siller in stane and
+lime, and hadna that much to leave to his bairns. And now they're a'
+scattered or deid."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her grave face wore the tenderness which comes from affectionate
+reminiscence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There was never sic a laddie as young Maister Quentin.  No' a week
+gaed by but he was in here, cryin', 'Phemie Morran, I've come till my
+tea!'  Fine he likit my treacle scones, puir man.  There wasna ane in
+the countryside sae bauld a rider at the hunt, or sic a skeely fisher.
+And he was clever at his books tae, a graund scholar, they said, and
+ettlin' at bein' what they ca' a dipplemat, But that' a' bye wi'."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quentin Kennedy&mdash;the fellow in the Tins?"  Heritage asked.  "I saw him
+in Rome when he was with the Mission."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I dinna ken.  He was a brave sodger, but he wasna long fechtin' in
+France till he got a bullet in his breist.  Syne we heard tell o' him
+in far awa' bits like Russia; and syne cam' the end o' the war and we
+lookit to see him back, fishin' the waters and ridin' like Jehu as in
+the auld days.  But wae's me!  It wasna permitted. The next news we
+got, the puir laddie was deid o' influenzy and buried somewhere about
+France.  The wanchancy bullet maun have weakened his chest, nae doot.
+So that's the end o' the guid stock o' Kennedy o' Huntingtower, whae
+hae been great folk sin' the time o' Robert Bruce.  And noo the Hoose
+is shut up till the lawyers can get somebody sae far left to himsel' as
+to tak' it on lease, and in thae dear days it's no' just onybody that
+wants a muckle castle."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who are the lawyers?"  Dickson asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Glendonan and Speirs in Embro.  But they never look near the place,
+and Maister Loudon in Auchenlochan does the factorin'.  He's let the
+public an' filled the twae lodges, and he'll be thinkin' nae doot that
+he's done eneuch."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran had poured some hot water into the big slop-bowl, and had
+begun the operation known as "synding out" the cups.  It was a hint
+that the meal was over, and Dickson and Heritage rose from the table.
+Followed by an injunction to be back for supper "on the chap o' nine,"
+they strolled out into the evening.  Two hours of some sort of daylight
+remained, and the travellers had that impulse to activity which comes
+to all men who, after a day of exercise and emptiness, are stayed with
+a satisfying tea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You should be happy, Dogson," said the Poet.  "Here we have all the
+materials for your blessed romance&mdash;old mansion, extinct family,
+village deserted of men, and an innkeeper whom I suspect of being a
+villain.  I feel almost a convert to your nonsense myself. We'll have a
+look at the House."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They turned down the road which ran north by the park wall, past the
+inn, which looked more abandoned than ever, till they came to an
+entrance which was clearly the West Lodge.  It had once been a pretty,
+modish cottage, with a thatched roof and dormer windows, but now it was
+badly in need of repair.  A window-pane was broken and stuffed with a
+sack, the posts of the porch were giving inwards, and the thatch was
+crumbling under the attentions of a colony of starlings.  The great
+iron gates were rusty, and on the coat of arms above them the gilding
+was patchy and tarnished.  Apparently the gates were locked, and even
+the side wicket failed to open to Heritage's vigorous shaking.  Inside
+a weedy drive disappeared among ragged rhododendrons.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The noise brought a man to the lodge door.  He was a sturdy fellow in a
+suit of black clothes which had not been made for him. He might have
+been a butler EN DESHABILLE, but for the presence of a pair of field
+boots into which he had tucked the ends of his trousers. The curious
+thing about him was his face, which was decorated with features so tiny
+as to give the impression of a monstrous child. Each in itself was well
+enough formed, but eyes, nose, mouth, chin were of a smallness
+curiously out of proportion to the head and body. Such an anomaly might
+have been redeemed by the expression; good-humour would have invested
+it with an air of agreeable farce. But there was no friendliness in the
+man's face.  It was set like a judge's in a stony impassiveness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"May we walk up to the House?"  Heritage asked.  "We are here for a
+night and should like to have a look at it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man advanced a step.  He had either a bad cold, or a voice
+comparable in size to his features.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's no entrance here," he said huskily. "I have strict orders."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, come now," said Heritage.  "It can do nobody any harm if you let
+us in for half an hour."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man advanced another step.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You shall not come in.  Go away from here.  Go away, I tell you. It is
+private."  The words spoken by the small mouth in the small voice had a
+kind of childish ferocity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The travellers turned their back on him and continued their way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sich a curmudgeon!"  Dickson commented.  His face had flushed, for he
+was susceptible to rudeness.  "Did you notice?  That man's a foreigner."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's a brute," said Heritage.  "But I'm not going to be done in by
+that class of lad.  There can be no gates on the sea side, so we'll
+work round that way, for I won't sleep till I've seen the place."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently the trees grew thinner, and the road plunged through thickets
+of hazel till it came to a sudden stop in a field. There the cover
+ceased wholly, and below them lay the glen of the Laver.  Steep green
+banks descended to a stream which swept in coils of gold into the eye
+of the sunset.  A little farther down the channel broadened, the slopes
+fell back a little, and a tongue of glittering sea ran up to meet the
+hill waters.  The Laver is a gentle stream after it leaves its cradle
+heights, a stream of clear pools and long bright shallows, winding by
+moorland steadings and upland meadows; but in its last half-mile it
+goes mad, and imitates its childhood when it tumbled over granite
+shelves.  Down in that green place the crystal water gushed and
+frolicked as if determined on one hour of rapturous life before joining
+the sedater sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage flung himself on the turf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This is a good place!  Ye gods, what a good place!  Dogson, aren't you
+glad you came?  I think everything's bewitched to-night. That village
+is bewitched, and that old woman's tea.  Good white magic! And that
+foul innkeeper and that brigand at the gate.  Black magic! And now here
+is the home of all enchantment&mdash;'island valley of Avilion'&mdash;'waters
+that listen for lovers'&mdash;all the rest of it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson observed and marvelled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can't make you out, Mr. Heritage.  You were saying last night you
+were a great democrat, and yet you were objecting to yon laddies
+camping on the moor.  And you very near bit the neb off me when I said
+I liked Tennyson.  And now..."  Mr. McCunn's command of language was
+inadequate to describe the transformation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're a precise, pragmatical Scot," was the answer.  "Hang it, man,
+don't remind me that I'm inconsistent.  I've a poet's licence to play
+the fool, and if you don't understand me, I don't in the least
+understand myself.  All I know is that I'm feeling young and jolly, and
+that it's the Spring."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Heritage was assuredly in a strange mood.  He began to whistle with
+a far-away look in his eye.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you know what that is?" he asked suddenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson, who could not detect any tune, said "No."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's an aria from a Russian opera that came out just before the war.
+I've forgotten the name of the fellow who wrote it.  Jolly thing, isn't
+it?  I always remind myself of it when I'm in this mood, for it is
+linked with the greatest experience of my life.  You said, I think,
+that you had never been in love?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson replied in the native fashion.  "Have you?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have, and I am&mdash;been for two years.  I was down with my battalion on
+the Italian front early in 1918, and because I could speak the language
+they hoicked me out and sent me to Rome on a liaison job. It was Easter
+time and fine weather, and, being glad to get out of the trenches, I
+was pretty well pleased with myself and enjoying life.... In the place
+where I stayed there was a girl.  She was a Russian, a princess of a
+great family, but a refugee, and of course as poor as sin.... I
+remember how badly dressed she was among all the well-to-do Romans.
+But, my God, what a beauty!  There was never anything in the world like
+her....  She was little more than a child, and she used to sing that
+air in the morning as she went down the stairs.... They sent me back to
+the front before I had a chance of getting to know her, but she used to
+give me little timid good mornings, and her voice and eyes were like an
+angel's.... I'm over my head in love, but it's hopeless, quite
+hopeless.  I shall never see her again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm sure I'm honoured by your confidence," said Dickson reverently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Poet, who seemed to draw exhilaration from the memory of his
+sorrows, arose and fetched him a clout on the back.  "Don't talk of
+confidence, as if you were a reporter," he said.  "What about that
+House?  If we're to see it before the dark comes we'd better hustle."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The green slopes on their left, as they ran seaward, were clothed
+towards their summit with a tangle of broom and light scrub. The two
+forced their way through it, and found to their surprise that on this
+side there were no defences of the Huntingtower demesne. Along the
+crest ran a path which had once been gravelled and trimmed. Beyond,
+through a thicket of laurels and rhododendrons, they came on a long
+unkempt aisle of grass, which seemed to be one of those side avenues
+often found in connection with old Scots dwellings. Keeping along this
+they reached a grove of beech and holly through which showed a dim
+shape of masonry.  By a common impulse they moved stealthily, crouching
+in cover, till at the far side of the wood they found a sunk fence and
+looked over an acre or two of what had once been lawn and flower-beds
+to the front of the mansion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The outline of the building was clearly silhouetted against the glowing
+west, but since they were looking at the east face the detail was all
+in shadow.  But, dim as it was, the sight was enough to give Dickson
+the surprise of his life.  He had expected something old and baronial.
+But this was new, raw and new, not twenty years built. Some madness had
+prompted its creator to set up a replica of a Tudor house in a
+countryside where the thing was unheard of.  All the tricks were
+there&mdash;oriel windows, lozenged panes, high twisted chimney stacks; the
+very stone was red, as if to imitate the mellow brick of some ancient
+Kentish manor.  It was new, but it was also decaying. The creepers had
+fallen from the walls, the pilasters on the terrace were tumbling down,
+lichen and moss were on the doorsteps.  Shuttered, silent, abandoned,
+it stood like a harsh memento mori of human hopes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson had never before been affected by an inanimate thing with so
+strong a sense of disquiet.  He had pictured an old stone tower on a
+bright headland; he found instead this raw thing among trees. The
+decadence of the brand-new repels as something against nature, and this
+new thing was decadent.  But there was a mysterious life in it, for
+though not a chimney smoked, it seemed to enshrine a personality and to
+wear a sinister aura.  He felt a lively distaste, which was almost
+fear.  He wanted to get far away from it as fast as possible.  The sun,
+now sinking very low, sent up rays which kindled the crests of a group
+of firs to the left of the front door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had the absurd fancy that they were torches flaming before a bier.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was well that the two had moved quietly and kept in shadow.
+Footsteps fell on their ears, on the path which threaded the lawn just
+beyond the sunk-fence.  It was the keeper of the West Lodge and he
+carried something on his back, but both that and his face were
+indistinct in the half-light.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Other footsteps were heard, coming from the other side of the lawn. A
+man's shod feet rang on the stone of a flagged path, and from their
+irregular fall it was plain that he was lame.  The two men met near the
+door, and spoke together.  Then they separated, and moved one down each
+side of the house.  To the two watchers they had the air of a patrol,
+or of warders pacing the corridors of a prison.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's get out of this," said Dickson, and turned to go.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The air had the curious stillness which precedes the moment of sunset,
+when the birds of day have stopped their noises and the sounds of night
+have not begun.  But suddenly in the silence fell notes of music.  They
+seemed to come from the house, a voice singing softly but with great
+beauty and clearness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson halted in his steps.  The tune, whatever it was, was like a
+fresh wind to blow aside his depression.  The house no longer looked
+sepulchral. He saw that the two men had hurried back from their patrol,
+had met and exchanged some message, and made off again as if alarmed by
+the music. Then he noticed his companion....
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage was on one knee with his face rapt and listening. He got to
+his feet and appeared to be about to make for the House. Dickson caught
+him by the arm and dragged him into the bushes, and he followed
+unresistingly, like a man in a dream.  They ploughed through the
+thicket, recrossed the grass avenue, and scrambled down the hillside to
+the banks of the stream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then for the first time Dickson observed that his companion's face was
+very white, and that sweat stood on his temples.  Heritage lay down and
+lapped up water like a dog.  Then he turned a wild eye on the other.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am going back," he said.  "That is the voice of the girl I saw in
+Rome, and it is singing her song!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IV
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+DOUGAL
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Dickson.  "You're coming home to
+your supper.  It was to be on the chap of nine."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm going back to that place."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man was clearly demented and must be humoured.  "Well, you must
+wait till the morn's morning.  It's very near dark now, and those are
+two ugly customers wandering about yonder.  You'd better sleep the
+night on it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Heritage seemed to be persuaded.  He suffered himself to be led up
+the now dusky slopes to the gate where the road from the village ended.
+He walked listlessly like a man engaged in painful reflection.  Once
+only he broke the silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You heard the singing?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson was a very poor hand at a lie.  "I heard something," he
+admitted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You heard a girl's voice singing?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It sounded like that," was the admission.  "But I'm thinking it might
+have been a seagull."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're a fool," said the Poet rudely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The return was a melancholy business, compared to the bright speed of
+the outward journey.  Dickson's mind was a chaos of feelings, all of
+them unpleasant.  He had run up against something which he violently,
+blindly detested, and the trouble was that he could not tell why.  It
+was all perfectly absurd, for why on earth should an ugly house, some
+overgrown trees, and a couple of ill-favoured servants so malignly
+affect him?  Yet this was the fact; he had strayed out of Arcady into a
+sphere that filled him with revolt and a nameless fear.  Never in his
+experience had he felt like this, this foolish childish panic which
+took all the colour and zest out of life.  He tried to laugh at himself
+but failed.  Heritage, stumbling along by his side, effectually crushed
+his effort to discover humour in the situation.  Some exhalation from
+that infernal place had driven the Poet mad.  And then that voice
+singing! A seagull, he had said.  More like a nightingale, he
+reflected&mdash;a bird which in the flesh he had never met.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran had the lamp lit and a fire burning in her cheerful
+kitchen.  The sight of it somewhat restored Dickson's equanimity, and
+to his surprise he found that he had an appetite for supper. There was
+new milk, thick with cream, and most of the dainties which had appeared
+at tea, supplemented by a noble dish of shimmering "potted-head."  The
+hostess did not share their meal, being engaged in some duties in the
+little cubby-hole known as the back kitchen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage drank a glass of milk but would not touch food.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I called this place Paradise four hours ago," he said.  "So it is, but
+I fancy it is next door to Hell.  There is something devilish going on
+inside that park wall, and I mean to get to the bottom of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hoots!  Nonsense!"  Dickson replied with affected cheerfulness.
+"To-morrow you and me will take the road for Auchenlochan. We needn't
+trouble ourselves about an ugly old house and a wheen impident
+lodge-keepers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To-morrow I'm going to get inside the place.  Don't come unless you
+like, but it's no use arguing with me.  My mind is made up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage cleared a space on the table and spread out a section of a
+large-scale Ordnance map.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must clear my head about the topography, the same as if this were a
+battle-ground.  Look here, Dogson....  The road past the inn that we
+went by to-night runs north and south."  He tore a page from a
+note-book and proceeded to make a rough sketch....  "One end we know
+abuts on the Laver glen, and the other stops at the South Lodge. Inside
+the wall which follows the road is a long belt of plantation&mdash;mostly
+beeches and ash&mdash;then to the west a kind of park, and beyond that the
+lawns of the house.  Strips of plantation with avenues between follow
+the north and south sides of the park.  On the sea side of the House
+are the stables and what looks like a walled garden, and beyond them
+what seems to be open ground with an old dovecot marked, and the ruins
+of Huntingtower keep.  Beyond that there is more open ground, till you
+come to the cliffs of the cape. Have you got that?... It looks possible
+from the contouring to get on to the sea cliffs by following the Laver,
+for all that side is broken up into ravines.... But look at the other
+side&mdash;the Garple glen. It's evidently a deep-cut gully, and at the
+bottom it opens out into a little harbour.  There's deep water there,
+you observe.  Now the House on the south side&mdash;the Garple side&mdash;is
+built fairly close to the edge of the cliffs.  Is that all clear in
+your head?  We can't reconnoitre unless we've got a working notion of
+the lie of the land."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson was about to protest that he had no intention of reconnoitring,
+when a hubbub arose in the back kitchen. Mrs. Morran's voice was heard
+in shrill protest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ye ill laddie!  Eh&mdash;ye&mdash;ill&mdash;laddie! (crescendo)  Makin' a hash o' my
+back door wi' your dirty feet!  What are ye slinkin' roond here for,
+when I tell't ye this mornin' that I wad sell ye nae mair scones till
+ye paid for the last lot?  Ye're a wheen thievin' hungry callants, and
+if there were a polisman in the place I'd gie ye in chairge.... What's
+that ye say?  Ye're no' wantin' meat?  Ye want to speak to the
+gentlemen that's bidin' here?  Ye ken the auld ane, says you?  I
+believe it's a muckle lee, but there's the gentlemen to answer ye
+theirsels."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran, brandishing a dishclout dramatically, flung open the door,
+and with a vigorous push propelled into the kitchen a singular figure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a stunted boy, who from his face might have been fifteen years
+old, but had the stature of a child of twelve.  He had a thatch of
+fiery red hair above a pale freckled countenance. His nose was snub,
+his eyes a sulky grey-green, and his wide mouth disclosed large and
+damaged teeth.  But remarkable as was his visage, his clothing was
+still stranger.  On his head was the regulation Boy Scout hat, but it
+was several sizes too big, and was squashed down upon his immense red
+ears.  He wore a very ancient khaki shirt, which had once belonged to a
+full-grown soldier, and the spacious sleeves were rolled up at the
+shoulders and tied with string, revealing a pair of skinny arms.  Round
+his middle hung what was meant to be a kilt&mdash;a kilt of home
+manufacture, which may once have been a tablecloth, for its bold
+pattern suggested no known clan tartan.  He had a massive belt, in
+which was stuck a broken gully-knife, and round his neck was knotted
+the remnant of what had once been a silk bandanna.  His legs and feet
+were bare, blue, scratched, and very dirty, and this toes had the
+prehensile look common to monkeys and small boys who summer and winter
+go bootless. In his hand was a long ash-pole, new cut from some coppice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The apparition stood glum and lowering on the kitchen floor. As Dickson
+stared at it he recalled Mearns Street and the band of irregular Boy
+Scouts who paraded to the roll of tin cans. Before him stood Dougal,
+Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards. Suddenly he remembered the
+philanthropic Mackintosh, and his own subscription of ten pounds to the
+camp fund.  It pleased him to find the rascals here, for in the
+unpleasant affairs on the verge of which he felt himself they were a
+comforting reminder of the peace of home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm glad to see you, Dougal," he said pleasantly.  "How are you all
+getting on?"  And then, with a vague reminiscence of the Scouts'
+code&mdash;"Have you been minding to perform a good deed every day?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Chieftain's brow darkened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Good Deeds!'" he repeated bitterly.  "I tell ye I'm fair wore out wi'
+good deeds.  Yon man Mackintosh tell't me this was going to be a grand
+holiday.  Holiday!  Govey Dick!  It's been like a Setterday night in
+Main Street&mdash;a' fechtin', fechtin'."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No collocation of letters could reproduce Dougal's accent, and I will
+not attempt it.  There was a touch of Irish in it, a spice of
+music-hall patter, as well as the odd lilt of the Glasgow vernacular.
+He was strong in vowels, but the consonants, especially the letter "t,"
+were only aspirations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sit down and let's hear about things," said Dickson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy turned his head to the still open back door, where Mrs. Morran
+could be heard at her labours.  He stepped across and shut it. "I'm no'
+wantin' that auld wife to hear," he said.  Then he squatted down on the
+patchwork rug by the hearth, and warmed his blue-black shins. Looking
+into the glow of the fire, he observed, "I seen you two up by the Big
+Hoose the night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The devil you did," said Heritage, roused to a sudden attention. "And
+where were you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Seven feet from your head, up a tree.  It's my chief hidy-hole, and
+Gosh! I need one, for Lean's after me wi' a gun.  He had a shot at me
+two days syne."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson exclaimed, and Dougal with morose pride showed a rent in his
+kilt.  "If I had had on breeks, he'd ha' got me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who's Lean?" Heritage asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The man wi' the black coat.  The other&mdash;the lame one&mdash;they ca'
+Spittal."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How d'you know?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've listened to them crackin' thegither."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But what for did the man want to shoot at you?" asked the scandalized
+Dickson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What for?  Because they're frightened to death o' onybody going near
+their auld Hoose.  They're a pair of deevils, worse nor any Red Indian,
+but for a' that they're sweatin' wi' fright.  What for? says you.
+Because they're hiding a Secret.  I knew it as soon as I seen the man
+Lean's face.  I once seen the same kind o' scoondrel at the Picters.
+When he opened his mouth to swear, I kenned he was a foreigner, like
+the lads down at the Broomielaw.  That looked black, but I hadn't got
+at the worst of it.  Then he loosed off at me wi' his gun."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Were you not feared?" said Dickson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, I was feared.  But ye'll no' choke off the Gorbals Die-Hards wi' a
+gun.  We held a meetin' round the camp fire, and we resolved to get to
+the bottom o' the business.  Me bein' their Chief, it was my duty to
+make what they ca' a reckonissince, for that was the dangerous job.  So
+a' this day I've been going on my belly about thae policies.  I've
+found out some queer things."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage had risen and was staring down at the small squatting figure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What have you found out?  Quick.  Tell me at once."  His voice was
+sharp and excited.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bide a wee," said the unwinking Dougal.  "I'm no' going to let ye into
+this business till I ken that ye'll help.  It's a far bigger job than I
+thought.  There's more in it than Lean and Spittal. There's the big man
+that keeps the public&mdash;Dobson, they ca' him. He's a Namerican, which
+looks bad.  And there's two-three tinklers campin' down in the Garple
+Dean.  They're in it, for Dobson was colloguin' wi' them a' mornin'.
+When I seen ye, I thought ye were more o' the gang, till I mindit that
+one o' ye was auld McCunn that has the shop in Mearns Street.  I seen
+that ye didna' like the look o' Lean, and I followed ye here, for I was
+thinkin' I needit help."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage plucked Dougal by the shoulder and lifted him to his feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For God's sake, boy," he cried, "tell us what you know!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Will ye help?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, you little fool."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then swear," said the ritualist.  From a grimy wallet he extracted a
+limp little volume which proved to be a damaged copy of a work entitled
+Sacred Songs and Solos.  "Here!  Take that in your right hand and put
+your left hand on my pole, and say after me.  'I swear no' to blab what
+is telled me in secret, and to be swift and sure in obeyin' orders,
+s'help me God!'  Syne kiss the bookie."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson at first refused, declaring that it was all havers, but
+Heritage's docility persuaded him to follow suit. The two were sworn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now," said Heritage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal squatted again on the hearth-rug, and gathered the eyes of his
+audience.  He was enjoying himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This day," he said slowly, "I got inside the Hoose."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stout fellow," said Heritage; "and what did you find there?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I got inside that Hoose, but it wasn't once or twice I tried. I found
+a corner where I was out o' sight o' anybody unless they had come there
+seekin' me, and I sklimmed up a rone pipe, but a' the windies were
+lockit and I verra near broke my neck.  Syne I tried the roof, and a
+sore sklim I had, but when I got there there were no skylights.  At the
+end I got in by the coal-hole.  That's why ye're maybe thinkin' I'm no'
+very clean."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage's patience was nearly exhausted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't want to hear how you got in.  What did you find, you little
+devil?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Inside the Hoose," said Dougal slowly (and there was a melancholy
+sense of anti-climax in his voice, as of one who had hoped to speak of
+gold and jewels and armed men)&mdash;"inside that Hoose there's nothing but
+two women."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage sat down before him with a stern face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Describe them," he commanded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One o' them is dead auld, as auld as the wife here.  She didn't look
+to me very right in the head."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And the other?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, just a lassie."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What was she like?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal seemed to be searching for adequate words.  "She is..." he
+began.  Then a popular song gave him inspiration.  "She's pure as the
+lully in the dell!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In no way discomposed by Heritage's fierce interrogatory air, he
+continued: "She's either foreign or English, for she couldn't
+understand what I said, and I could make nothing o' her clippit tongue.
+But I could see she had been greetin'.  She looked feared, yet kind o'
+determined.  I speired if I could do anything for her, and when she got
+my meaning she was terrible anxious to ken if I had seen a man&mdash;a big
+man, she said, wi' a yellow beard.  She didn't seem to ken his name, or
+else she wouldna' tell me.  The auld wife was mortal feared, and was
+aye speakin' in a foreign langwidge.  I seen at once that what
+frightened them was Lean and his friends, and I was just starting to
+speir about them when there came a sound like a man walkin' along the
+passage.  She was for hidin' me in behind a sofy, but I wasn't going to
+be trapped like that, so I got out by the other door and down the
+kitchen stairs and into the coal-hole.  Gosh, it was a near thing!"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The boy was on his feet.  "I must be off to the camp to give out the
+orders for the morn.  I'm going back to that Hoose, for it's a fight
+atween the Gorbals Die-Hards and the scoondrels that are frightenin'
+thae women.  The question is, Are ye comin' with me?  Mind, ye've
+sworn. But if ye're no, I'm going mysel', though I'll no' deny I'd be
+glad o' company.  You anyway&mdash;" he added, nodding at Heritage. "Maybe
+auld McCunn wouldn't get through the coal-hole."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're an impident laddie," said the outraged Dickson.  "It's no'
+likely we're coming with you.  Breaking into other folks' houses! It's
+a job for the police!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Please yersel'," said the Chieftain, and looked at Heritage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm on," said that gentleman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, just you set out the morn as if ye were for a walk up the Garple
+glen.  I'll be on the road and I'll have orders for ye."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without more ado Dougal left by way of the back kitchen.  There was a
+brief denunciation from Mrs. Morran, then the outer door banged and he
+was gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Poet sat still with his head in his hands, while Dickson, acutely
+uneasy, prowled about the floor.  He had forgotten even to light his
+pipe.  "You'll not be thinking of heeding that ragamuffin boy," he
+ventured.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm certainly going to get into the House tomorrow," Heritage
+answered, "and if he can show me a way so much the better. He's a
+spirited youth.  Do you breed many like him in Glasgow?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Plenty," said Dickson sourly.  "See here, Mr. Heritage.  You can't
+expect me to be going about burgling houses on the word of a blagyird
+laddie.  I'm a respectable man&mdash;aye been.  Besides, I'm here for a
+holiday, and I've no call to be mixing myself up in strangers' affairs."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You haven't.  Only you see, I think there's a friend of mine in that
+place, and anyhow there are women in trouble.  If you like, we'll say
+goodbye after breakfast, and you can continue as if you had never
+turned aside to this damned peninsula.  But I've got to stay."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson groaned.  What had become of his dream of idylls, his gentle
+bookish romance?  Vanished before a reality which smacked horribly of
+crude melodrama and possibly of sordid crime.  His gorge rose at the
+picture, but a thought troubled him.  Perhaps all romance in its hour
+of happening was rough and ugly like this, and only shone rosy in
+retrospect.  Was he being false to his deepest faith?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's have Mrs. Morran in," he ventured.  "She's a wise old body and
+I'd like to hear her opinion of this business.  We'll get common sense
+from her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't object," said Heritage.  "But no amount of common sense will
+change my mind."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Their hostess forestalled them by returning at that moment to the
+kitchen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We want your advice, mistress," Dickson told her, and accordingly,
+like a barrister with a client, she seated herself carefully in the big
+easy chair, found and adjusted her spectacles, and waited with hands
+folded on her lap to hear the business.  Dickson narrated their
+pre-supper doings, and gave a sketch of Dougal's evidence. His
+exposition was cautious and colourless, and without conviction. He
+seemed to expect a robust incredulity in his hearer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran listened with the gravity of one in church.  When Dickson
+finished she seemed to meditate.  "There's no blagyird trick that would
+surprise me in thae new folk.  What's that ye ca' them&mdash;Lean and
+Spittal?  Eppie Home threepit to me they were furriners, and these are
+no furrin names."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What I want to hear from you, Mrs. Morran," said Dickson impressively,
+"is whether you think there's anything in that boy's story?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think it's maist likely true.  He's a terrible impident callant, but
+he's no' a leear."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then you think that a gang of ruffians have got two lone women shut up
+in that house for their own purposes?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wadna wonder."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But it's ridiculous!  This is a Christian and law-abiding country.
+What would the police say?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They never troubled Dalquharter muckle.  There's no' a polisman nearer
+than Knockraw&mdash;yin Johnnie Trummle, and he's as useless as a frostit
+tattie."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The wiselike thing, as I think," said Dickson, "would be to turn the
+Procurator-Fiscal on to the job.  It's his business, no' ours."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I wadna say but ye're richt,' said the lady.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What would you do if you were us?" Dickson's tone was subtly
+confidential.  "My friend here wants to get into the House the morn
+with that red-haired laddie to satisfy himself about the facts. I say
+no.  Let sleeping dogs lie, I say, and if you think the beasts are mad,
+report to the authorities.  What would you do yourself?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If I were you," came the emphatic reply, "I would tak' the first train
+hame the morn, and when I got hame I wad bide there.  Ye're a dacent
+body, but ye're no' the kind to be traivellin' the roads."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And if you were me?' Heritage asked with his queer crooked smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If I was young and yauld like you I wad gang into the Hoose, and I
+wadna rest till I had riddled oot the truith and jyled every scoondrel
+about the place.  If ye dinna gang, 'faith I'll kilt my coats and gang
+mysel'.  I havena served the Kennedys for forty year no' to hae the
+honour o' the Hoose at my hert.... Ye've speired my advice, sirs, and
+ye've gotten it.  Now I maun clear awa' your supper."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson asked for a candle, and, as on the previous night, went
+abruptly to bed.  The oracle of prudence to which he had appealed had
+betrayed him and counselled folly.  But was it folly?  For him,
+assuredly, for Dickson McCunn, late of Mearns Street, Glasgow,
+wholesale and retail provision merchant, elder in the Guthrie Memorial
+Kirk, and fifty-five years of age.  Ay, that was the rub. He was
+getting old.  The woman had seen it and had advised him to go home.
+Yet the plea was curiously irksome, though it gave him the excuse he
+needed.  If you played at being young, you had to take up the
+obligations of youth, and he thought derisively of his boyish
+exhilaration of the past days.  Derisively, but also sadly. What had
+become of that innocent joviality he had dreamed of, that happy morning
+pilgrimage of Spring enlivened by tags from the poets?  His goddess had
+played him false.  Romance had put upon him too hard a trial.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He lay long awake, torn between common sense and a desire to be loyal
+to some vague whimsical standard.  Heritage a yard distant appeared
+also to be sleepless, for the bed creaked with his turning. Dickson
+found himself envying one whose troubles, whatever they might be, were
+not those of a divided mind.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER V
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+OF THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Very early the next morning, while Mrs. Morran was still cooking
+breakfast, Dickson and Heritage might have been observed taking the air
+in the village street.  It was the Poet who had insisted upon this
+walk, and he had his own purpose.  They looked at the spires of smoke
+piercing the windless air, and studied the daffodils in the cottage
+gardens.  Dickson was glum, but Heritage seemed in high spirits. He
+varied his garrulity with spells of cheerful whistling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They strode along the road by the park wall till they reached the inn.
+There Heritage's music waxed peculiarly loud.  Presently from the yard,
+unshaven and looking as if he had slept in this clothes, came Dobson
+the innkeeper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good morning," said the poet.  "I hope the sickness in your house is
+on the mend?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank ye, it's no worse," was the reply, but in the man's heavy face
+there was little civility.  His small grey eyes searched their faces.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We're just waiting for breakfast to get on the road again. I'm jolly
+glad we spent the night here.  We found quarters after all, you know."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So I see.  Whereabouts, may I ask?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mrs. Morran's.  We could always have got in there, but we didn't want
+to fuss an old lady, so we thought we'd try the inn first. She's my
+friend's aunt."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this amazing falsehood Dickson started, and the man observed his
+surprise.  The eyes were turned on him like a searchlight. They roused
+antagonism in his peaceful soul, and with that antagonism came an
+impulse to back up the Poet.  "Ay," he said, "she's my auntie Phemie,
+my mother's half-sister."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man turned on Heritage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where are ye for the day?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Auchenlochan," said Dickson hastily.  He was still determined to shake
+the dust of Dalquharter from his feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The innkeeper sensibly brightened.  "Well, ye'll have a fine walk. I
+must go in and see about my own breakfast.  Good day to ye, gentlemen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That," said Heritage as they entered the village street again, "is the
+first step in camouflage, to put the enemy off his guard."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was an abominable lie," said Dickson crossly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not at all.  It was a necessary and proper ruse de guerre. It
+explained why we spent the right here, and now Dobson and his friends
+can get about their day's work with an easy mind. Their suspicions are
+temporarily allayed, and that will make our job easier."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not coming with you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I never said you were.  By 'we' I refer to myself and the red-headed
+boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mistress, you're my auntie," Dickson informed Mrs. Morran as she set
+the porridge on the table.  "This gentleman has just been telling the
+man at the inn that you're my Auntie Phemie."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a second their hostess looked bewildered.  Then the corners of her
+prim mouth moved upwards in a slow smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I see," she said.  "Weel, maybe it was weel done.  But if ye're my
+nevoy ye'll hae to keep up my credit, for we're a bauld and siccar lot."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Half an hour later there was a furious dissension when Dickson
+attempted to pay for the night's entertainment.  Mrs. Morran would have
+none of it.  "Ye're no' awa' yet," she said tartly, and the matter was
+complicated by Heritage's refusal to take part in the debate.  He stood
+aside and grinned, till Dickson in despair returned his notecase to his
+pocket, murmuring darkly the "he would send it from Glasgow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The road to Auchenlochan left the main village street at right angles
+by the side of Mrs. Morran's cottage.  It was a better road than that
+by which they had come yesterday, for by it twice daily the postcart
+travelled to the post-town.  It ran on the edge of the moor and on the
+lip of the Garple glen, till it crossed that stream and, keeping near
+the coast, emerged after five miles into the cultivated flats of the
+Lochan valley.  The morning was fine, the keen air invited to high
+spirits, plovers piped entrancingly over the bent and linnets sang in
+the whins, there was a solid breakfast behind him, and the promise of a
+cheerful road till luncheon. The stage was set for good humour, but
+Dickson's heart, which should have been ascending with the larks, stuck
+leadenly in his boots. He was not even relieved at putting Dalquharter
+behind him. The atmosphere of that unhallowed place lay still on his
+soul. He hated it, but he hated himself more.  Here was one, who had
+hugged himself all his days as an adventurer waiting his chance,
+running away at the first challenge of adventure; a lover of Romance
+who fled from the earliest overture of his goddess.  He was ashamed and
+angry, but what else was there to do?  Burglary in the company of a
+queer poet and a queerer urchin?  It was unthinkable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently, as they tramped silently on, they came to the bridge beneath
+which the peaty waters of the Garple ran in porter-coloured pools and
+tawny cascades.  From a clump of elders on the other side Dougal
+emerged.  A barefoot boy, dressed in much the same parody of a Boy
+Scout's uniform, but with corduroy shorts instead of a kilt, stood
+before him at rigid attention.  Some command was issued, the child
+saluted, and trotted back past the travellers with never a look at
+them.  Discipline was strong among the Gorbals Die-Hards; no Chief of
+Staff ever conversed with his General under a stricter etiquette.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal received the travellers with the condescension of a regular
+towards civilians.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They're off their gawrd," he announced.  "Thomas Yownie has been
+shadowin' them since skreigh o' day, and he reports that Dobson and
+Lean followed ye till ye were out o' sight o' the houses, and syne Lean
+got a spy-glass and watched ye till the road turned in among the trees.
+That satisfied them, and they're both away back to their jobs.  Thomas
+Yownie's the fell yin.  Ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal extricated from his pouch the fag of a cigarette, lit it, and
+puffed meditatively.  "I did a reckonissince mysel' this morning. I was
+up at the Hoose afore it was light, and tried the door o' the
+coal-hole.  I doot they've gotten on our tracks, for it was
+lockit&mdash;aye, and wedged from the inside."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson brightened.  Was the insane venture off?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For a wee bit I was fair beat.  But I mindit that the lassie was
+allowed to walk in a kind o' a glass hoose on the side farthest away
+from the Garple.  That was where she was singin' yest'reen.  So I
+reckonissinced in that direction, and I fund a queer place." Sacred
+Songs and Solos was requisitioned, and on a page of it Dougal proceeded
+to make marks with the stump of a carpenter's pencil. "See here," he
+commanded.  "There's the glass place wi' a door into the Hoose.  That
+door maun be open or the lassie maun hae the key, for she comes there
+whenever she likes.  Now' at each end o' the place the doors are
+lockit, but the front that looks on the garden is open, wi' muckle
+posts and flower-pots.  The trouble is that that side there' maybe
+twenty feet o' a wall between the pawrapet and the ground.  It's an
+auld wall wi' cracks and holes in it, and it wouldn't be ill to sklim.
+That's why they let her gang there when she wants, for a lassie
+couldn't get away without breakin' her neck."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Could we climb it?" Heritage asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy wrinkled his brows.  "I could manage it mysel'&mdash;I think&mdash;and
+maybe you.  I doubt if auld McCunn could get up.  Ye'd have to be
+mighty carefu' that nobody saw ye, for your hinder end, as ye were
+sklimmin', wad be a grand mark for a gun."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lead on," said Heritage.  "We'll try the verandah."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They both looked at Dickson, and Dickson, scarlet in the face, looked
+back at them.  He had suddenly found the thought of a solitary march to
+Auchenlochan intolerable.  Once again he was at the parting of the
+ways, and once more caprice determined his decision.  That the
+coal-hole was out of the question had worked a change in his views,
+Somehow it seemed to him less burglarious to enter by a verandah.  He
+felt very frightened but&mdash;for the moment&mdash;quite resolute.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm coming with you," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sportsman," said Heritage, and held out his hand.  "Well done, the
+auld yin," said the Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards.  Dickson's
+quaking heart experienced a momentary bound as he followed Heritage
+down the track into the Garple Dean.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The track wound through a thick covert of hazels, now close to the
+rushing water, now high upon the bank so that clear sky showed through
+the fringes of the wood.  When they had gone a little way Dougal halted
+them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's a ticklish job," he whispered.  "There's the tinklers, mind,
+that's campin' in the Dean.  If they're still in their camp we can get
+by easy enough, but they're maybe wanderin' about the wud after
+rabbits.... Then we maun ford the water, for ye'll no' cross it lower
+down where it's deep.... Our road is on the Hoose side o' the Dean, and
+it's awfu' public if there's onybody on the other side, though it's hid
+well enough from folk up in the policies.... Ye maun do exactly what I
+tell ye.  When we get near danger I'll scout on ahead, and I daur ye to
+move a hair o' your heid till I give the word."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently, when they were at the edge of the water, Dougal announced
+his intention of crossing.  Three boulders in the stream made a bridge
+for an active man, and Heritage hopped lightly over.  Not so Dickson,
+who stuck fast on the second stone, and would certainly have fallen in
+had not Dougal plunged into the current and steadied him with a grimy
+hand.  The leap was at last successfully taken, and the three scrambled
+up a rough scaur, all reddened with iron springs, till they struck a
+slender track running down the Dean on its northern side.  Here the
+undergrowth was very thick, and they had gone the better part of half a
+mile before the covert thinned sufficiently to show them the stream
+beneath.  Then Dougal halted them with a finger on his lips, and crept
+forward alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He returned in three minutes.  "Coast's clear," he whispered.  "The
+tinklers are eatin' their breakfast.  They're late at their meat though
+they're up early seekin' it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Progress was now very slow and secret, and mainly on all fours. At one
+point Dougal nodded downward, and the other two saw on a patch of turf,
+where the Garple began to widen into its estuary, a group of figures
+round a small fire.  There were four of them, all men, and Dickson
+thought he had never seen such ruffianly-looking customers.  After that
+they moved high up the slope, in a shallow glade of a tributary burn,
+till they came out of the trees and found themselves looking seaward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On one side was the House, a hundred yards or so back from the edge,
+the roof showing above the precipitous scarp.  Half-way down the slope
+became easier, a jumble of boulders and boiler-plates, till it reached
+the waters of the small haven, which lay calm as a mill-pond in the
+windless forenoon.  The haven broadened out at its foot and revealed a
+segment of blue sea.  The opposite shore was flatter, and showed what
+looked like an old wharf and the ruins of buildings, behind which rose
+a bank clad with scrub and surmounted by some gnarled and wind-crooked
+firs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's dashed little cover here," said Heritage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's no muckle," Dougal assented.  "But they canna see us from the
+policies, and it's no' like there's anybody watchin' from the Hoose.
+The danger is somebody on the other side, but we'll have to risk it.
+Once among thae big stones we're safe.  Are ye ready?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Five minutes later Dickson found himself gasping in the lee of a
+boulder, while Dougal was making a cast forward.  The scout returned
+with a hopeful report.  "I think we're safe till we get into the
+policies.  There's a road that the auld folk made when ships used to
+come here.  Down there it's deeper than Clyde at the Broomielaw.  Has
+the auld yin got his wind yet?  There's no time to waste."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Up that broken hillside they crawled, well in the cover of the tumbled
+stones, till they reached a low wall which was the boundary of the
+garden.  The House was now behind them on their right rear, and as they
+topped the crest they had a glimpse of an ancient dovecot and the ruins
+of the old Huntingtower on the short thymy turf which ran seaward to
+the cliffs.  Dougal led them along a sunk fence which divided the downs
+from the lawns behind the house, and, avoiding the stables, brought
+them by devious ways to a thicket of rhododendrons and broom.  On all
+fours they travelled the length of the place, and came to the edge
+where some forgotten gardeners had once tended a herbaceous border.
+The border was now rank and wild, and, lying flat under the shade of an
+azalea, and peering through the young spears of iris, Dickson and
+Heritage regarded the north-western facade of the house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The ground before them had been a sunken garden, from which a steep
+wall, once covered with creepers and rock plants, rose to a long
+verandah, which was pillared and open on that side; but at each end
+built up half-way and glazed for the rest.  There was a glass roof, and
+inside untended shrubs sprawled in broken plaster vases.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ye maun bide here," said Dougal, "and no cheep above your breath.
+Afore we dare to try that wall, I maun ken where Lean and Spittal and
+Dobson are.  I'm off to spy the policies."  He glided out of sight
+behind a clump of pampas grass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For hours, so it seemed, Dickson was left to his own unpleasant
+reflections.  His body, prone on the moist earth, was fairly
+comfortable, but his mind was ill at ease.  The scramble up the
+hillside had convinced him that he was growing old, and there was no
+rebound in his soul to counter the conviction.  He felt listless,
+spiritless&mdash;an apathy with fright trembling somewhere at the back of
+it.  He regarded the verandah wall with foreboding. How on earth could
+he climb that?  And if he did there would be his exposed hinder-parts
+inviting a shot from some malevolent gentleman among the trees.  He
+reflected that he would give a large sum of money to be out of this
+preposterous adventure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage's hand was stretched towards him, containing two of Mrs.
+Morran's jellied scones, of which the Poet had been wise enough to
+bring a supply in his pocket.  The food cheered him, for he was growing
+very hungry, and he began to take an interest in the scene before him
+instead of his own thoughts.  He observed every detail of the verandah.
+There was a door at one end, he noted, giving on a path which wound
+down to the sunk garden.  As he looked he heard a sound of steps and
+saw a man ascending this path.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was the lame man whom Dougal had called Spittal, the dweller in the
+South Lodge.  Seen at closer quarters he was an odd-looking being, lean
+as a heron, wry-necked, but amazingly quick on his feet. Had not Mrs.
+Morran said that he hobbled as fast as other folk ran? He kept his eyes
+on the ground and seemed to be talking to himself as he went, but he
+was alert enough, for the dropping of a twig from a dying magnolia
+transferred him in an instant into a figure of active vigilance.  No
+risks could be run with that watcher.  He took a key from his pocket,
+opened the garden door and entered the verandah. For a moment his
+shuffle sounded on its tiled floor, and then he entered the door
+admitting from the verandah to the House.  It was clearly unlocked, for
+there came no sound of a turning key.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson had finished the last crumbs of his scones before the man
+emerged again.  He seemed to be in a greater hurry than ever as he
+locked the garden door behind him and hobbled along the west front of
+the House till he was lost to sight.  After that the time passed
+slowly.  A pair of yellow wagtails arrived and played at hide-and-seek
+among the stuccoed pillars.  The little dry scratch of their claws was
+heard clearly in the still air.  Dickson had almost fallen asleep when
+a smothered exclamation from Heritage woke him to attention.  A girl
+had appeared in the verandah.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Above the parapet he saw only her body from the waist up. She seemed to
+be clad in bright colours, for something red was round her shoulders
+and her hair was bound with an orange scarf. She was tall&mdash;that he
+could tell, tall and slim and very young. Her face was turned seaward,
+and she stood for a little scanning the broad channel, shading her eyes
+as if to search for something on the extreme horizon.  The air was very
+quiet and he thought that he could hear her sigh.  Then she turned and
+re-entered the House, while Heritage by his side began to curse under
+his breathe with a shocking fervour.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+One of Dickson's troubles had been that he did not believe Dougal's
+story, and the sight of the girl removed one doubt.  That bright exotic
+thing did not belong to the Cruives or to Scotland at all, and that she
+should be in the House removed the place from the conventional dwelling
+to which the laws against burglary applied.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a rustle among the rhododendrons and the fiery face of Dougal
+appeared.  He lay between the other two, his chin on his hands, and
+grunted out his report.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"After they had their dinner Dobson and Lean yokit a horse and went off
+to Auchenlochan.  I seen them pass the Garple brig, so that's two
+accounted for.  Has Spittal been round here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Half an hour ago," said Heritage, consulting a wrist watch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was him that keepit me waitin' so long.  But he's safe enough now,
+for five minutes syne he was splittin' firewood at the back door o' his
+hoose.... I've found a ladder, an auld yin in yon lot o' bushes.  It'll
+help wi' the wall.  There!  I've gotten my breath again and we can
+start."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The ladder was fetched by Heritage and proved to be ancient and wanting
+many rungs, but sufficient in length.  The three stood silent for a
+moment, listening like stags, and then ran across the intervening lawn
+to the foot of the verandah wall. Dougal went up first, then Heritage,
+and lastly Dickson, stiff and giddy from his long lie under the bushes.
+Below the parapet the verandah floor was heaped with old garden litter,
+rotten matting, dead or derelict bulbs, fibre, withies, and strawberry
+nets.  It was Dougal's intention to pull up the ladder and hide it
+among the rubbish against the hour of departure.  But Dickson had
+barely put his foot on the parapet when there was a sound of steps
+within the House approaching the verandah door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The ladder was left alone.  Dougal's hand brought Dickson summarily to
+the floor, where he was fairly well concealed by a mess of matting.
+Unfortunately his head was in the vicinity of some upturned pot-plants,
+so that a cactus ticked his brow and a spike of aloe supported
+painfully the back of his neck.  Heritage was prone behind two old
+water-butts, and Dougal was in a hamper which had once contained seed
+potatoes.  The house door had panels of opaque glass, so the new-comer
+could not see the doings of the three till it was opened, and by that
+time all were in cover.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man&mdash;it was Spittal&mdash;walked rapidly along the verandah and out of
+the garden door.  He was talking to himself again, and Dickson, who had
+a glimpse of his face, thought he looked both evil and furious. Then
+came some anxious moments, for had the man glanced back when he was
+once outside, he must have seen the tell-tale ladder.  But he seemed
+immersed in his own reflections, for he hobbled steadily along the
+house front till he was lost to sight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That'll be the end o' them the day," said Dougal, as he helped
+Heritage to pull up the ladder and stow it away.  "We've got the place
+to oursels, now.  Forward, men, forward."  He tried the handle of the
+House door and led the way in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A narrow paved passage took them into what had once been the garden
+room, where the lady of the house had arranged her flowers, and the
+tennis racquets and croquet mallets had been kept.  It was very dusty,
+and on the cobwebbed walls still hung a few soiled garden overalls. A
+door beyond opened into a huge murky hall, murky, for the windows were
+shuttered, and the only light came through things like port-holes far
+up in the wall.  Dougal, who seemed to know his way about, halted them.
+"Stop here till I scout a bit.  The women bide in a wee room through
+that muckle door."  Bare feet stole across the oak flooring, there was
+the sound of a door swinging on its hinges, and then silence and
+darkness.  Dickson put out a hand for companionship and clutched
+Heritage's; to his surprise it was cold and all a-tremble. They
+listened for voices, and thought they could detect a far-away sob.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was some minutes before Dougal returned.  "A bonny kettle o' fish,"
+he whispered.  "They're both greetin'.  We're just in time. Come on,
+the pair o' ye."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Through a green baize door they entered a passage which led to the
+kitchen regions, and turned in at the first door on their right. From
+its situation Dickson calculated that the room lay on the seaward side
+of the House next to the verandah.  The light was bad, for the two
+windows were partially shuttered, but it had plainly been a
+smoking-room, for there were pipe-racks by the hearth, and on the walls
+a number of old school and college photographs, a couple of oars with
+emblazoned names, and a variety of stags' and roebucks' heads. There
+was no fire in the grate, but a small oil-stove burned inside the
+fender.  In a stiff-backed chair sat an elderly woman, who seemed to
+feel the cold, for she was muffled to the neck in a fur coat. Beside
+her, so that the late afternoon light caught her face and head, stood a
+girl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson's first impression was of a tall child.  The pose, startled and
+wild and yet curiously stiff and self-conscious, was that of a child
+striving to remember a forgotten lesson.  One hand clutched a
+handkerchief, the other was closing and unclosing on a knob of the
+chair back.  She was staring at Dougal, who stood like a gnome in the
+centre of the floor.  "Here's the gentlemen I was tellin' ye about,"
+was his introduction, but her eyes did not move.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Heritage stepped forward.  "We have met before, Mademoiselle," he
+said.  "Do you remember Easter in 1918&mdash;in the house in the Trinita dei
+Monte?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl looked at him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not remember," she said slowly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I was the English officer who had the apartments on the floor
+below you.  I saw you every morning.  You spoke to me sometimes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are a soldier?" she asked, with a new note in her voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was then&mdash;till the war finished."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And now?  Why have you come here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To offer you help if you need it.  If not, to ask your pardon and go
+away."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The shrouded figure in the chair burst suddenly into rapid hysterical
+talk in some foreign tongue which Dickson suspected of being French.
+Heritage replied in the same language, and the girl joined in with
+sharp questions.  Then the Poet turned to Dickson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This is my friend.  If you will trust us we will do our best to help
+you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The eyes rested on Dickson's face, and he realized that he was in the
+presence of something the like of which he had never met in his life
+before.  It was a loveliness greater than he had imagined was permitted
+by the Almighty to His creatures.  The little face was more square than
+oval, with a low broad brow and proud exquisite eyebrows. The eyes were
+of a colour which he could never decide on; afterwards he used to
+allege obscurely that they were the colour of everything in Spring.
+There was a delicate pallor in the cheeks, and the face bore signs of
+suffering and care, possibly even of hunger; but for all that there was
+youth there, eternal and triumphant!  Not youth such as he had known
+it, but youth with all history behind it, youth with centuries of
+command in its blood and the world's treasures of beauty and pride in
+its ancestry.  Strange, he thought, that a thing so fine should be so
+masterful.  He felt abashed in every inch of him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the eyes rested on him their sorrowfulness seemed to be shot with
+humour.  A ghost of a smile lurked there, to which Dickson promptly
+responded.  He grinned and bowed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Very pleased to meet you, Mem.  I'm Mr. McCunn from Glasgow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You don't even know my name," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We don't," said Heritage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They call me Saskia.  This," nodding to the chair, "is my cousin
+Eugenie.... We are in very great trouble.  But why should I tell you? I
+do not know you.  You cannot help me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We can try," said Heritage.  "Part of your trouble we know already
+through that boy.  You are imprisoned in this place by scoundrels. We
+are here to help you to get out.  We want to ask no questions&mdash;only to
+do what you bid us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are not strong enough," she said sadly.  "A young man&mdash;an old
+man&mdash;and a little boy.  There are many against us, and any moment there
+may be more."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was Dougal's turn to break in,  "There's Lean and Spittal and Dobson
+and four tinklers in the Dean&mdash;that's seven; but there's us three and
+five more Gorbals Die-hards&mdash;that's eight."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was something in the boy's truculent courage that cheered her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wonder," she said, and her eyes fell on each in turn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson felt impelled to intervene.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think this is a perfectly simple business.  Here's a lady shut up in
+this house against her will by a wheen blagyirds.  This is a free
+country and the law doesn't permit that.  My advice is for one of us to
+inform the police at Auchenlochan and get Dobson and his friends took
+up and the lady set free to do what she likes.  That is, if these folks
+are really molesting her, which is not yet quite clear to my mind."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Alas! It is not so simple as that," she said.  "I dare not invoke your
+English law, for perhaps in the eyes of that law I am a thief."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Deary me, that's a bad business," said the startled Dickson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The two women talked together in some strange tongue, and the elder
+appeared to be pleading and the younger objecting.  Then Saskia seemed
+to come to a decision.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will tell you all," and she looked straight at Heritage.  "I do not
+think you would be cruel or false, for you have honourable faces....
+Listen, then.  I am a Russian, and for two years have been an exile. I
+will not now speak of my house, for it is no more, or how I escaped,
+for it is the common tale of all of us.  I have seen things more
+terrible than any dream and yet lived, but I have paid a price for such
+experience.  First I went to Italy where there were friends, and I
+wished only to have peace among kindly people.  About poverty I do not
+care, for, to us, who have lost all the great things, the want of bread
+is a little matter.  But peace was forbidden me, for I learned that we
+Russians had to win back our fatherland again, and that the weakest
+must work in that cause.  So I was set my task, and it was very
+hard.... There were others still hidden in Russia which must be brought
+to a safe place.  In that work I was ordered to share."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She spoke in almost perfect English, with a certain foreign precision.
+Suddenly she changed to French, and talked rapidly to Heritage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She has told me about her family," he said, turning to Dickson. "It is
+among the greatest in Russia, the very greatest after the throne."
+Dickson could only stare.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Our enemies soon discovered me," she went on.  "Oh, but they are very
+clever, these enemies, and they have all the criminals of the world to
+aid them.  Here you do not understand what they are. You good people in
+England think they are well-meaning dreamers who are forced into
+violence by the persecution of Western Europe. But you are wrong.  Some
+honest fools there are among them, but the power&mdash;the true power&mdash;lies
+with madmen and degenerates, and they have for allies the special devil
+that dwells in each country. That is why they cast their nets as wide
+as mankind."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She shivered, and for a second her face wore a look which Dickson never
+forgot, the look of one who has looked over the edge of life into the
+outer dark.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There were certain jewels of great price which were about to be turned
+into guns and armies for our enemies.  These our people recovered, and
+the charge of them was laid on me.  Who would suspect, they said, a
+foolish girl?  But our enemies were very clever, and soon the hunt was
+cried against me.  They tried to rob me of them, but they failed, for I
+too had become clever.  Then they asked for the help of the law&mdash;first
+in Italy and then in France. Ah, it was subtly done.  Respectable
+bourgeois, who hated the Bolsheviki but had bought long ago the bonds
+of my country, desired to be repaid their debts out of the property of
+the Russian crown which might be found in the West.  But behind them
+were the Jews, and behind the Jews our unsleeping enemies.  Once I was
+enmeshed in the law I would be safe for them, and presently they would
+find the hiding-place of the treasure, and while the bourgeois were
+clamouring in the courts it would be safe in their pockets.  So I fled.
+For months I have been fleeing and hiding.  They have tried to kidnap
+me many times, and once they have tried to kill me, but I, too, have
+become clever&mdash;oh, so clever.  And I have learned not to fear."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This simple recital affected Dickson's honest soul with the liveliest
+indignation.  "Sich doings!" he exclaimed, and he could not forbear
+from whispering to Heritage an extract from that gentleman's
+conversation the first night at Kirkmichael. "We needn't imitate all
+their methods, but they've got hold of the right end of the stick.
+They seek truth and reality."  The reply from the Poet was an angry
+shrug.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why and how did you come here?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I always meant to come to England, for I thought it the sanest place
+in a mad world.  Also it is a good country to hide in, for it is apart
+from Europe, and your police, as I thought, do not permit evil men to
+be their own law.  But especially I had a friend, a Scottish gentleman,
+whom I knew in the days when we Russians were still a nation.  I saw
+him again in Italy, and since he was kind and brave I told him some
+part of my troubles.  He was called Quentin Kennedy, and now he is
+dead.  He told me that in Scotland he had a lonely chateau, where I
+could hide secretly and safely, and against the day when I might be
+hard-pressed he gave me a letter to his steward, bidding him welcome me
+as a guest when I made application. At that time I did not think I
+would need such sanctuary, but a month ago the need became urgent, for
+the hunt in France was very close on me.  So I sent a message to the
+steward as Captain Kennedy told me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is his name?" Heritage asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She spelt it, "Monsieur Loudon&mdash;L-O-U-D-O-N in the town of
+Auchenlochan."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The factor," said Dickson, "And what then?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Some spy must have found me out.  I had a letter from this Loudon
+bidding me come to Auchenlochan.  There I found no steward to receive
+me, but another letter saying that that night a carriage would be in
+waiting to bring me here.  It was midnight when we arrived, and we were
+brought in by strange ways to this house, with no light but a single
+candle.  Here we were welcomed indeed, but by an enemy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Which?" asked Heritage. "Dobson or Lean or Spittal?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dobson I do not know.  Leon was there.  He is no Russian, but a
+Belgian who was a valet in my father's service till he joined the
+Bolsheviki.  Next day the Lett Spidel came, and I knew that I was in
+very truth entrapped.  For of all our enemies he is, save one, the most
+subtle and unwearied."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her voice had trailed off into flat weariness.  Again Dickson was
+reminded of a child, for her arms hung limp by her side; and her slim
+figure in its odd clothes was curiously like that of a boy in a school
+blazer.  Another resemblance perplexed him.  She had a hint of
+Janet&mdash;about the mouth&mdash;Janet, that solemn little girl those twenty
+years in her grave.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage was wrinkling his brows.  "I don't think I quite understand.
+The jewels?  You have them with you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"These men wanted to rob you.  Why didn't they do it between here and
+Auchenlochan?  You had no chance to hide them on the journey. Why did
+they let you come here where you were in a better position to baffle
+them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She shook her head.  "I cannot explain&mdash;except, perhaps, that Spidel
+had not arrived that night, and Leon may have been waiting
+instructions."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The other still looked dissatisfied.  "They are either clumsier
+villains than I take them to be, or there is something deeper in the
+business than we understand.  These jewels&mdash;are they here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His tone was so sharp that she looked startled&mdash;almost suspicious. Then
+she saw that in his face which reassured her.  "I have them hidden
+here.  I have grown very skilful in hiding things."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have they searched for them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The first day they demanded them of me.  I denied all knowledge. Then
+they ransacked this house&mdash;I think they ransack it daily, but I am too
+clever for them.  I am not allowed to go beyond the verandah, and when
+at first I disobeyed there was always one of them in wait to force me
+back with a pistol behind my head.  Every morning Leon brings us food
+for the day&mdash;good food, but not enough, so that Cousin Eugenie is
+always hungry, and each day he and Spidel question and threaten me.
+This afternoon Spidel has told me that their patience is at an end.  He
+has given me till tomorrow at noon to produce the jewels.  If not, he
+says I will die."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There will be no mercy for us," she said solemnly.  "He and his kind
+think as little of shedding blood as of spilling water.  But I do not
+think he will kill me.  I think I will kill him first, but after that I
+shall surely die.  As for Cousin Eugenie, I do not know."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her level matter-of-fact tone seemed to Dickson most shocking, for he
+could not treat it as mere melodrama.  It carried a horrid conviction.
+"We must get you out of this at once," he declared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I cannot leave.  I will tell you why.  When I came to this country I
+appointed one to meet me here.  He is a kinsman who knows England well,
+for he fought in your army.  With him by my side I have no fear. It is
+altogether needful that I wait for him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then there is something more which you haven't told us?" Heritage
+asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Was there the faintest shadow of a blush on her cheek?  "There is
+something more," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She spoke to Heritage in French, and Dickson caught the name "Alexis"
+and a word which sounded like "prance."  The Poet listened eagerly and
+nodded.  "I have heard of him," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But have you not seen him?  A tall man with a yellow beard, who bears
+himself proudly.  Being of my mother's race he has eyes like mine."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's the man she was askin' me about yesterday," said Dougal, who
+had squatted on the floor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage shook his head.  "We only came here last night.  When did you
+expect Prince&mdash;your friend."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hoped to find him here before me.  Oh, it is his not coming that
+terrifies me.  I must wait and hope.  But if he does not come in time
+another may come before him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The ones already here are not all the enemies that threaten you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Indeed, no.  The worst has still to come, and till I know he is here I
+do not greatly fear Spidel or Leon.  They receive orders and do not
+give them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage ran a perplexed hand through his hair.  The sunset which had
+been flaming for some time in the unshuttered panes was now passing
+into the dark.  The girl lit a lamp after first shuttering the rest of
+the windows.  As she turned up the wick the odd dusty room and its
+strange company were revealed more clearly, and Dickson saw with a
+shock how haggard was the beautiful face.  A great pity seized him and
+almost conquered his timidity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is very difficult to help you," Heritage was saying.  "You won't
+leave this place, and you won't claim the protection of the law. You
+are very independent, Mademoiselle, but it can't go on for ever. The
+man you fear may arrive at any moment.  At any moment, too, your
+treasure may by discovered."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is that that weighs on me," she cried.  "The jewels!  They are my
+solemn trust, but they burden me terribly.  If I were only rid of them
+and knew them to be safe I should face the rest with a braver mind."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you'll take my advice," said Dickson slowly, "you'll get them
+deposited in a bank and take a receipt for them.  A Scotch bank is no'
+in a hurry to surrender a deposit without it gets the proper authority."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage brought his hands together with a smack.  "That's an idea.
+Will you trust us to take these things and deposit them safely?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a little she was silent and her eyes were fixed on each of the trio
+in turn.  "I will trust you," she said at last.  "I think you will not
+betray me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By God, we won't!" said the Poet fervently.  "Dogson, it's up to you.
+You march off to Glasgow in double quick time and place the stuff in
+your own name in your own bank.  There's not a moment to lose. D'you
+hear?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will that." To his own surprise Dickson spoke without hesitation.
+Partly it was because of his merchant's sense of property, which made
+him hate the thought that miscreants should acquire that to which they
+had no title; but mainly it was the appeal in those haggard childish
+eyes.  "But I'm not going to be tramping the country in the night
+carrying a fortune and seeking for trains that aren't there.  I'll go
+the first thing in the morning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where are they?" Heritage asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That I do not tell.  But I will fetch them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She left the room, and presently returned with three odd little parcels
+wrapped in leather and tied with thongs of raw hide. She gave them to
+Heritage, who held them appraisingly in his hand and then passed them
+on to Dickson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not ask about their contents.  We take them from you as they are,
+and, please God, when the moment comes they will be returned to you as
+you gave them.  You trust us, Mademoiselle?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I trust you, for you are a soldier.  Oh, and I thank you from my
+heart, my friends."  She held out a hand to each, which caused Heritage
+to grow suddenly very red.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will remain in the neighbourhood to await developments," he said.
+"We had better leave you now.  Dougal, lead on."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before going, he took the girl's hand again, and with a sudden movement
+bent and kissed it.  Dickson shook it heartily.  "Cheer up, Mem," he
+observed.  "There's a better time coming."  His last recollection of
+her eyes was of a soft mistiness not far from tears. His pouch and pipe
+had strange company jostling them in his pocket as he followed the
+others down the ladder into the night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal insisted that they must return by the road of the morning. "We
+daren't go by the Laver, for that would bring us by the public-house.
+If the worst comes to the worst, and we fall in wi' any of the deevils,
+they must think ye've changed your mind and come back from
+Auchenlochan."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The night smelt fresh and moist as if a break in the weather were
+imminent.  As they scrambled along the Garple Dean a pinprick of light
+below showed where the tinklers were busy by their fire. Dickson's
+spirits suffered a sharp fall and he began to marvel at his temerity.
+What in Heaven's name had he undertaken?  To carry very precious
+things, to which certainly he had no right, through the enemy to
+distant Glasgow.  How could he escape the notice of the watchers?  He
+was already suspect, and the sight of him back again in Dalquharter
+would double that suspicion.  He must brazen it out, but he distrusted
+his powers with such tell-tale stuff in his pockets.  They might murder
+him anywhere on the moor road or in an empty railway carriage.  An
+unpleasant memory of various novels he had read in which such things
+happened haunted his mind.... There was just one consolation.  This job
+over, he would be quit of the whole business.  And honourably quit,
+too, for he would have played a manly part in a most unpleasant affair.
+He could retire to the idyllic with the knowledge that he had not been
+wanting when Romance called.  Not a soul should ever hear of it, but he
+saw himself in the future tramping green roads or sitting by his winter
+fireside pleasantly retelling himself the tale.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before they came to the Garple bridge Dougal insisted that they should
+separate, remarking that "it would never do if we were seen thegither."
+Heritage was despatched by a short cut over fields to the left, which
+eventually, after one or two plunges into ditches, landed him safely in
+Mrs. Morran's back yard.  Dickson and Dougal crossed the bridge and
+tramped Dalquharter-wards by the highway. There was no sign of human
+life in that quiet place with owls hooting and rabbits rustling in the
+undergrowth.  Beyond the woods they came in sight of the light in the
+back kitchen, and both seemed to relax their watchfulness when it was
+most needed.  Dougal sniffed the air and looked seaward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's coming on to rain," he observed.  "There should be a muckle star
+there, and when you can't see it it means wet weather wi' this wind."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What star?" Dickson asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The one wi' the Irish-lukkin' name.  What's that they call it?
+O'Brien?"  And he pointed to where the constellation of the hunter
+should have been declining on the western horizon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a bend of the road behind them, and suddenly round it came a
+dogcart driven rapidly.  Dougal slipped like a weasel into a bush, and
+presently Dickson stood revealed in the glare of a lamp. The horse was
+pulled up sharply and the driver called out to him. He saw that it was
+Dobson the innkeeper with Leon beside him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who is it?" cried the voice.  "Oh, you! I thought ye were off the day?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson rose nobly to the occasion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I thought myself I was.  But I didn't think much of Auchenlochan, and
+I took a fancy to come back and spend the last night of my holiday with
+my Auntie.  I'm off to Glasgow first thing the morn's morn."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So!" said the voice.  "Queer thing I never saw ye on the Auchenlochan
+road, where ye can see three mile before ye."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I left early and took it easy along the shore."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did ye so?  Well, good-sight to ye."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Five minutes later Dickson walked into Mrs. Morran's kitchen, where
+Heritage was busy making up for a day of short provender.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm for Glasgow to-morrow, Auntie Phemie," he cried.  "I want you to
+loan me a wee trunk with a key, and steek the door and windows, for
+I've a lot to tell you."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VI
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+HOW MR. McCUNN DEPARTED WITH RELIEF<BR>AND RETURNED WITH RESOLUTION
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+At seven o'clock on the following morning the post-cart, summoned by an
+early message from Mrs. Morran, appeared outside the cottage. In it sat
+the ancient postman, whose real home was Auchenlochan, but who slept
+alternate nights in Dalquharter, and beside him Dobson the innkeeper.
+Dickson and his hostess stood at the garden-gate, the former with his
+pack on his back, and at his feet a small stout wooden box, of the kind
+in which cheeses are transported, garnished with an immense padlock.
+Heritage for obvious reasons did not appear; at the moment he was
+crouched on the floor of the loft watching the departure through a gap
+in the dimity curtains.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The traveller, after making sure that Dobson was looking, furtively
+slipped the key of the trunk into his knapsack.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, good-bye, Auntie Phemie," he said.  "I'm sure you've been awful
+kind to me, and I don't know how to thank you for all you're sending."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tuts, Dickson, my man, they're hungry folk about Glesca that'll be
+glad o' my scones and jeelie.  Tell Mirren I'm rale pleased wi' her
+man, and haste ye back soon."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The trunk was deposited on the floor of the cart, and Dickson clambered
+into the back seat.  He was thankful that he had not to sit next to
+Dobson, for he had tell-tale stuff on his person.  The morning was wet,
+so he wore his waterproof, which concealed his odd tendency to
+stoutness about the middle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran played her part well, with all the becoming gravity of an
+affectionate aunt, but as soon as the post-cart turned the bend of the
+road her demeanour changed.  She was torn with convulsions of silent
+laughter.  She retreated to the kitchen, sank into a chair, wrapped her
+face in her apron and rocked.  Heritage, descending, found her
+struggling to regain composure.  "D'ye ken his wife's name?" she
+gasped.  "I ca'ed her Mirren!  And maybe the body's no' mairried! Hech
+sirs!  Hech sirs!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile Dickson was bumping along the moor-road on the back of the
+post-cart.  He had worked out a plan, just as he had been used
+aforetime to devise a deal in foodstuffs.  He had expected one of the
+watchers to turn up, and was rather relieved that it should be Dobson,
+whom he regarded as "the most natural beast" of the three. Somehow he
+did not think that he would be molested before he reached the station,
+since his enemies would still be undecided in their minds.  Probably
+they only wanted to make sure that he had really departed to forget all
+about him.  But if not, he had his plan ready.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you travelling to-day?" he asked the innkeeper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just as far as the station to see about some oil-cake I'm expectin'.
+What's in your wee kist?  Ye came here wi' nothing but the bag on your
+back."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, the kist is no' mine.  It's my auntie's.  She's a kind body, and
+nothing would serve but she must pack a box for me to take back. Let me
+see.  There's a baking of scones; three pots of honey and one of
+rhubarb jam&mdash;she was aye famous for her rhubarb jam; a mutton ham,
+which you can't get for love or money in Glasgow; some home-made black
+puddings, and a wee skim-milk cheese.  I doubt I'll have to take a cab
+from the station."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dobson appeared satisfied, lit a short pipe, and relapsed into
+meditation.  The long uphill road, ever climbing to where far off
+showed the tiny whitewashed buildings which were the railway station,
+seemed interminable this morning.  The aged postman addressed strange
+objurgations to his aged horse and muttered reflections to himself, the
+innkeeper smoked, and Dickson stared back into the misty hollow where
+lay Dalquharter.  The south-west wind had brought up a screen of rain
+clouds and washed all the countryside in a soft wet grey.  But the eye
+could still travel a fair distance, and Dickson thought he had a
+glimpse of a figure on a bicycle leaving the village two miles back.
+He wondered who it could be.  Not Heritage, who had no bicycle.
+Perhaps some woman who was conspicuously late for the train.  Women
+were the chief cyclists nowadays in country places.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he forgot about the bicycle and twisted his neck to watch the
+station. It was less than a mile off now, and they had no time to
+spare, for away to the south among the hummocks of the bog he saw the
+smoke of the train coming from Auchenlochan.  The postman also saw it
+and whipped up his beast into a clumsy canter.  Dickson, always nervous
+being late for trains, forced his eyes away and regarded again the road
+behind him.  Suddenly the cyclist had become quite plain&mdash;a little more
+than a mile behind&mdash;a man, and pedalling furiously in spite of the
+stiff ascent.  It could only be one person&mdash;Leon.  He must have
+discovered their visit to the House yesterday and be on the way to warn
+Dobson.  If he reached the station before the train, there would be no
+journey to Glasgow that day for one respectable citizen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson was in a fever of impatience and fright.  He dared not abjure
+the postman to hurry, lest Dobson should turn his head and descry his
+colleague.  But that ancient man had begun to realize the shortness of
+time and was urging the cart along at a fair pace, since they were now
+on the flatter shelf of land which carried the railway.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson kept his eyes fixed on the bicycle and his teeth shut tight on
+his lower lip.  Now it was hidden by the last dip of hill; now it
+emerged into view not a quarter of a mile behind, and its rider gave
+vent to a shrill call.  Luckily the innkeeper did not hear, for at that
+moment with a jolt the cart pulled up at the station door, accompanied
+by the roar of the incoming train.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson whipped down from the back seat and seized the solitary porter.
+"Label the box for Glasgow and into the van with it,  Quick, man, and
+there'll be a shilling for you."  He had been doing some rapid thinking
+these last minutes and had made up his mind.  If Dobson and he were
+alone in a carriage he could not have the box there; that must be
+elsewhere, so that Dobson could not examine it if he were set on
+violence, somewhere in which it could still be a focus of suspicion and
+attract attention from his person,  He took his ticket, and rushed on
+to the platform, to find the porter and the box at the door of the
+guard's van.  Dobson was not there.  With the vigour of a fussy
+traveller he shouted directions to the guard to take good care of his
+luggage, hurled a shilling at the porter, and ran for a carriage. At
+that moment he became aware of Dobson hurrying through the entrance. He
+must have met Leon and heard news from him, for his face was red and
+his ugly brows darkening.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The train was in motion.  "Here, you" Dobson's voice shouted. "Stop!  I
+want a word wi' ye."  Dickson plunged at a third-class carriage, for he
+saw faces behind the misty panes, and above all things then he feared
+an empty compartment.  He clambered on to the step, but the handle
+would not turn, and with a sharp pang of fear he felt the innkeeper's
+grip on his arm.  Then some Samaritan from within let down the window,
+opened the door, and pulled him up. He fell on a seat, and a second
+later Dobson staggered in beside him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thank Heaven, the dirty little carriage was nearly full.  There were
+two herds, each with a dog and a long hazel crook, and an elderly woman
+who looked like a ploughman's wife out for a day's marketing. And there
+was one other whom Dickson recognized with peculiar joy&mdash;the bagman in
+the provision line of business whom he had met three days before at
+Kilchrist.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The recognition was mutual.  "Mr. McCunn!" the bagman exclaimed. "My,
+but that was running it fine!  I hope you've had a pleasant holiday,
+sir?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Very pleasant.  I've been spending two nights with friends down
+hereaways.  I've been very fortunate in the weather, for it has broke
+just when I'm leaving."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson sank back on the hard cushions.  It had been a near thing, but
+so far he had won.  He wished his heart did not beat so fast, and he
+hoped he did not betray his disorder in his face. Very deliberately he
+hunted for his pipe and filled it slowly. Then he turned to Dobson,  "I
+didn't know you were travelling the day. What about your oil-cake?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've changed my mind," was the gruff answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Was that you I heard crying on me when we were running for the train?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay.  I thought ye had forgot about your kist."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No fear," said Dickson.  "I'm no' likely to forget my auntie's scones."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He laughed pleasantly and then turned to the bagman.  Thereafter the
+compartment hummed with the technicalities of the grocery trade. He
+exerted himself to draw out his companion, to have him refer to the
+great firm of D. McCunn, so that the innkeeper might be ashamed of his
+suspicions.  What nonsense to imagine that a noted and wealthy Glasgow
+merchant&mdash;the bagman's tone was almost reverential&mdash;would concern
+himself with the affairs of a forgotten village and a tumble-down house!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently the train drew up at Kirkmichael station.  The woman
+descended, and Dobson, after making sure that no one else meant to
+follow her example, also left the carriage.  A porter was shouting:
+"Fast train to Glasgow&mdash;Glasgow next stop."  Dickson watched the
+innkeeper shoulder his way through the crowd in the direction of the
+booking office.  "He's off to send a telegram," he decided. "There'll
+be trouble waiting for me at the other end."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the train moved on he found himself disinclined for further talk.
+He had suddenly become meditative, and curled up in a corner with his
+head hard against the window pane, watching the wet fields and
+glistening roads as they slipped past.  He had his plans made for his
+conduct at Glasgow, but, Lord! how he loathed the whole business! Last
+night he had had a kind of gusto in his desire to circumvent villainy;
+at Dalquharter station he had enjoyed a momentary sense of triumph; now
+he felt very small, lonely, and forlorn.  Only one thought far at the
+back of his mind cropped up now and then to give him comfort.  He was
+entering on the last lap.  Once get this detestable errand done and he
+would be a free man, free to go back to the kindly humdrum life from
+which he should never have strayed. Never again, he vowed, never again.
+Rather would he spend the rest of his days in hydropathics than come
+within the pale of such horrible adventures.  Romance, forsooth!  This
+was not the mild goddess he had sought, but an awful harpy who battened
+on the souls of men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had some bad minutes as the train passed through the suburbs and
+along the grimy embankment by which the southern lines enter the city.
+But as it rumbled over the river bridge and slowed down before the
+terminus his vitality suddenly revived.  He was a business man, and
+there was now something for him to do.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After a rapid farewell to the bagman, he found a porter and hustled his
+box out of the van in the direction of the left-luggage office. Spies,
+summoned by Dobson's telegram, were, he was convinced, watching his
+every movement, and he meant to see that they missed nothing. He
+received his ticket for the box, and slowly and ostentatiously stowed
+it away in his pack.  Swinging the said pack on his arm, he sauntered
+through the entrance hall to the row of waiting taxi-cabs, and selected
+the oldest and most doddering driver.  He deposited the pack inside on
+the seat, and then stood still as if struck with a sudden thought.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I breakfasted terrible early," he told the driver.  "I think I'll have
+a bite to eat.  Will you wait?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay," said the man, who was reading a grubby sheet of newspaper. "I'll
+wait as long as ye like, for it's you that pays."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson left his pack in the cab and, oddly enough for a careful man,
+he did not shut the door.  He re-entered the station, strolled to the
+bookstall, and bought a Glasgow Herald.  His steps then tended to the
+refreshment-room, where he ordered a cup of coffee and two Bath buns,
+and seated himself at a small table.  There he was soon immersed in the
+financial news, and though he sipped his coffee he left the buns
+untasted.  He took out a penknife and cut various extracts from the
+Herald, bestowing them carefully in his pocket.  An observer would have
+seen an elderly gentleman absorbed in market quotations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After a quarter of an hour had been spent in this performance he
+happened to glance at the clock and rose with an exclamation. He
+bustled out to his taxi and found the driver still intent upon his
+reading.  "Here I am at last," he said cheerily, and had a foot on the
+step, when he stopped suddenly with a cry.  It was a cry of alarm, but
+also of satisfaction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's become of my pack?  I left it on the seat, and now it's gone!
+There's been a thief here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The driver, roused from his lethargy, protested in the name of his gods
+that no one had been near it.  "Ye took it into the station wi' ye," he
+urged.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I did nothing of the kind.  Just you wait here till I see the
+inspector.  A bonny watch YOU keep on a gentleman's things."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Dickson did not interview the railway authorities.  Instead he
+hurried to the left-luggage office.  "I deposited a small box here a
+short time ago.  I mind the number.  Is it here still?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The attendant glanced at the shelf.  "A wee deal box with iron bands.
+It was took out ten minutes syne.  A man brought the ticket and took it
+away on his shoulder."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you.  There's been a mistake, but the blame's mine.  My man
+mistook my orders."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he returned to the now nervous taxi-driver.  "I've taken it up
+with the station-master and he's putting the police on. You'll likely
+be wanted, so I gave him your number.  It's a fair disgrace that there
+should be so many thieves about this station. It's not the first time
+I've lost things.  Drive me to West George Street and look sharp."  And
+he slammed the door with the violence of an angry man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But his reflections were not violent, for he smiled to himself. "That
+was pretty neat.  They'll take some time to get the kist open, for I
+dropped the key out of the train after we left Kirkmichael. That gives
+me a fair start.  If I hadn't thought of that, they'd have found some
+way to grip me and ripe me long before I got to the Bank." He shuddered
+as he thought of the dangers he had escaped.  "As it is, they're off
+the track for half an hour at least, while they're rummaging among
+Auntie Phemie's scones."  At the thought he laughed heartily, and when
+he brought the taxi-cab to a standstill by rapping on the front window,
+he left it with a temper apparently restored. Obviously he had no
+grudge against the driver, who to his immense surprise was rewarded
+with ten shillings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Three minutes later Mr. McCunn might have been seen entering the head
+office of the Strathclyde Bank and inquiring for the manager. There was
+no hesitation about him now, for his foot was on his native heath.  The
+chief cashier received him with deference in spite of his unorthodox
+garb, for he was not the least honoured of the bank's customers.  As it
+chanced he had been talking about him that very morning to a gentleman
+from London.  "The strength of this city," he had said, tapping his
+eyeglasses on his knuckles, "does not lie in its dozen very rich men,
+but in the hundred or two homely folk who make no parade of wealth.
+Men like Dickson McCunn, for example, who live all their life in a
+semi-detached villa and die worth half a million."  And the Londoner
+had cordially assented.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Dickson was ushered promptly into an inner room, and was warmly
+greeted by Mr. Mackintosh, the patron of the Gorbals Die-Hards.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must thank you for your generous donation, McCunn.  Those boys will
+get a little fresh air and quiet after the smoke and din of Glasgow. A
+little country peace to smooth out the creases in their poor little
+souls."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Maybe," said Dickson, with a vivid recollection of Dougal as he had
+last seen him.  Somehow he did not think that peace was likely to be
+the portion of that devoted band.  "But I've not come here to speak
+about that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He took off his waterproof; then his coat and waistcoat; and showed
+himself a strange figure with sundry bulges about the middle. The
+manager's eyes grew very round.  Presently these excrescences were
+revealed as linen bags sewn on to his shirt, and fitting into the
+hollow between ribs and hip.  With some difficulty he slit the bags and
+extracted three hide-bound packages.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"See here, Mackintosh," he said solemnly.  "I hand you over these
+parcels, and you're to put them in the innermost corner of your strong
+room.  You needn't open them.  Just put them away as they are, and
+write me a receipt for them.  Write it now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Mackintosh obediently took pen in hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What'll I call them?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just the three leather parcels handed to you by Dickson McCunn, Esq.,
+naming the date."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Mackintosh wrote.  He signed his name with his usual flourish and
+handed the slip to his client.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now," said Dickson, "you'll put that receipt in the strong box where
+you keep my securities and you'll give it up to nobody but me in person
+and you'll surrender the parcels only on presentation of the receipt.
+D'you understand?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perfectly.  May I ask any questions?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'd better not if you don't want to hear lees.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's in the packages?"  Mr. Mackintosh weighed them in his hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's asking," said Dickson.  "But I'll tell ye this much.  It's
+jools."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your own?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, but I'm their trustee."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Valuable?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was hearing they were worth more than a million pounds."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"God bless my soul," said the startled manager.  "I don't like this
+kind of business, McCunn."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No more do I.  But you'll do it to oblige an old friend and a good
+customer.  If you don't know much about the packages you know all about
+me.  Now, mind, I trust you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Mackintosh forced himself to a joke.  "Did you maybe steal them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson grinned.  "Just what I did.  And that being so, I want you to
+let me out by the back door."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When he found himself in the street he felt the huge relief of a boy
+who had emerged with credit from the dentist's chair. Remembering that
+here would be no midday dinner for him at home, his first step was to
+feed heavily at a restaurant.  He had, so far as he could see,
+surmounted all his troubles, his one regret being that he had lost his
+pack, which contained among other things his Izaak Walton and his
+safety razor.  He bought another razor and a new Walton, and mounted an
+electric tram car en route for home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Very contented with himself he felt as the car swung across the Clyde
+bridge.  He had done well&mdash;but of that he did not want to think, for
+the whole beastly thing was over.  He was going to bury that memory, to
+be resurrected perhaps on a later day when the unpleasantness had been
+forgotten.  Heritage had his address, and knew where to come when it
+was time to claim the jewels.  As for the watchers, they must have
+ceased to suspect him, when they discovered the innocent contents of
+his knapsack and Mrs. Morran's box.  Home for him, and a luxurious tea
+by his own fireside; and then an evening with his books, for Heritage's
+nonsense had stimulated his literary fervour.  He would dip into his
+old favourites again to confirm his faith.  To-morrow he would go for a
+jaunt somewhere&mdash;perhaps down the Clyde, or to the South of England,
+which he had heard was a pleasant, thickly peopled country. No more
+lonely inns and deserted villages for him; henceforth he would make
+certain of comfort and peace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The rain had stopped, and, as the car moved down the dreary vista of
+Eglinton street, the sky opened into fields of blue and the April sun
+silvered the puddles.  It was in such place and under such weather that
+Dickson suffered an overwhelming experience.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is beyond my skill, being all unlearned in the game of
+psycho-analysis, to explain how this thing happened.  I concern myself
+only with facts. Suddenly the pretty veil of self-satisfaction was rent
+from top to bottom, and Dickson saw a figure of himself within, a smug
+leaden little figure which simpered and preened itself and was hollow
+as a rotten nut. And he hated it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The horrid truth burst on him that Heritage had been right. He only
+played with life.  That imbecile image was a mere spectator, content to
+applaud, but shrinking from the contact of reality. It had been all
+right as a provision merchant, but when it fancied itself capable of
+higher things it had deceived itself. Foolish little image with its
+brave dreams and its swelling words from Browning!  All make-believe of
+the feeblest.  He was a coward, running away at the first threat of
+danger.  It was as if he were watching a tall stranger with a wand
+pointing to the embarrassed phantom that was himself, and ruthlessly
+exposing its frailties! And yet the pitiless showman was himself
+too&mdash;himself as he wanted to be, cheerful, brave, resourceful,
+indomitable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson suffered a spasm of mortal agony.  "Oh, I'm surely not so bad
+as all that," he groaned.  But the hurt was not only in his pride. He
+saw himself being forced to new decisions, and each alternative was of
+the blackest.  He fairly shivered with the horror of it. The car
+slipped past a suburban station from which passengers were
+emerging&mdash;comfortable black-coated men such as he had once been. He was
+bitterly angry with Providence for picking him out of the great crowd
+of sedentary folk for this sore ordeal.  "Why was I tethered to sich a
+conscience?" was his moan.  But there was that stern inquisitor with
+his pointer exploring his soul.  "You flatter yourself you have done
+your share," he was saying.  "You will make pretty stories about it to
+yourself, and some day you may tell your friends, modestly disclaiming
+any special credit.  But you will be a liar, for you know you are
+afraid.  You are running away when the work is scarcely begun, and
+leaving it to a few boys and a poet whom you had the impudence the
+other day to despise.  I think you are worse than a coward.  I think
+you are a cad."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His fellow-passengers on the top of the car saw an absorbed middle-aged
+gentleman who seemed to have something the matter with his bronchial
+tubes. They could not guess at the tortured soul.  The decision was
+coming nearer, the alternatives loomed up dark and inevitable.  On one
+side was submission to ignominy, on the other a return to that place
+which he detested, and yet loathed himself for detesting.  "It seems
+I'm not likely to have much peace either way," he reflected dismally.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+How the conflict would have ended had it continued on these lines I
+cannot say.  The soul of Mr. McCunn was being assailed by moral and
+metaphysical adversaries with which he had not been trained to deal.
+But suddenly it leapt from negatives to positives.  He saw the face of
+the girl in the shuttered House, so fair and young and yet so haggard.
+It seemed to be appealing to him to rescue it from a great loneliness
+and fear.  Yes, he had been right, it had a strange look of his
+Janet&mdash;the wide-open eyes, the solemn mouth.  What was to become of
+that child if he failed her in her need?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now Dickson was a practical man, and this view of the case brought him
+into a world which he understood.  "It's fair ridiculous," he
+reflected. "Nobody there to take a grip of things.  Just a wheen
+Gorbals keelies and the lad Heritage.  Not a business man among the
+lot."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The alternatives, which hove before him like two great banks of cloud,
+were altering their appearance.  One was becoming faint and tenuous;
+the other, solid as ever, was just a shade less black. He lifted his
+eyes and saw in the near distance the corner of the road which led to
+his home.  "I must decide before I reach that corner," he told himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then his mind became apathetic.  He began to whistle dismally through
+his teeth, watching the corner as it came nearer.  The car stopped with
+a jerk.  "I'll go back," he said aloud, clambering down the steps. The
+truth was he had decided five minutes before when he first saw Janet's
+face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He walked briskly to his house, entirely refusing to waste any more
+energy on reflection.  "This is a business proposition," he told
+himself, "and I'm going to handle it as sich."  Tibby was surprised to
+see him and offered him tea in vain.  "I'm just back for a few minutes.
+Let's see the letters."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was one from his wife.  She proposed to stay another week at the
+Neuk Hydropathic and suggested that he might join her and bring her
+home.  He sat down and wrote a long affectionate reply, declining, but
+expressing his delight that she was soon returning. "That's very likely
+the last time Mamma will hear from me," he reflected, but&mdash;oddly
+enough&mdash;without any great fluttering of the heart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he proceeded to be furiously busy.  He sent out Tibby to buy
+another knapsack and to order a cab and to cash a considerable cheque.
+In the knapsack he packed a fresh change of clothing and the new safety
+razor, but no books, for he was past the need of them. That done, he
+drove to his solicitors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What like a firm are Glendonan and Speirs in Edinburgh?" he asked the
+senior partner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, very respectable.  Very respectable indeed.  Regular Edinburgh
+W.S. Lot.  Do a lot of factoring."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I want you to telephone through to them and inquire about a place in
+Carrick called Huntingtower, near the village of Dalquharter. I
+understand it's to let, and I'm thinking of taking a lease of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The senior partner after some delay got through to Edinburgh, and was
+presently engaged in the feverish dialectic which the long-distance
+telephone involves.  "I want to speak to Mr. Glendonan himself.... Yes,
+yes, Mr. Caw of Paton and Linklater.... Good afternoon....
+Huntingtower.  Yes, in Carrick.  Not to let?  But I understand it's
+been in the market for some months.  You say you've an idea it has just
+been let.  But my client is positive that you're mistaken, unless the
+agreement was made this morning....  You'll inquire?  Ah, I see. The
+actual factoring is done by your local agent, Mr. James Loudon, in
+Auchenlochan.  You think my client had better get into touch with him
+at once.  Just wait a minute, please."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He put his hand over the receiver.  "Usual Edinburgh way of doing
+business," he observed caustically.  "What do you want done?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll run down and see this Loudon.  Tell Glendonan and Spiers to
+advise him to expect me, for I'll go this very day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Caw resumed his conversation.  "My client would like a telegram
+sent at once to Mr. Loudon introducing him.  He's Mr. Dickson McCunn of
+Mearns Street&mdash;the great provision merchant, you know.  Oh, yes! Good
+for any rent.  Refer if you like to the Strathclyde Bank, but you can
+take my word for it.  Thank you.  Then that's settled. Good-bye."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson's next visit was to a gunmaker who was a fellow-elder with him
+in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I want a pistol and a lot of cartridges," he announced.  "I'm not
+caring what kind it is, so long as it is a good one and not too big."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For yourself?" the gunmaker asked.  "You must have a license, I doubt,
+and there's a lot of new regulations."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can't wait on a license.  It's for a cousin of mine who's off to
+Mexico at once.  You've got to find some way of obliging an old friend,
+Mr. McNair."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. McNair scratched his head.  "I don't see how I can sell you one.
+But I'll tell you what I'll do&mdash;I'll lend you one.  It belongs to my
+nephew, Peter Tait, and has been lying in a drawer ever since he came
+back from the front.  He has no use for it now that he's a placed
+minister."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Dickson bestowed in the pockets of his water-proof a service
+revolver and fifty cartridges, and bade his cab take him to the shop in
+Mearns Street.  For a moment the sight of the familiar place struck a
+pang to his breast, but he choked down unavailing regrets. He ordered a
+great hamper of foodstuffs&mdash;the most delicate kind of tinned goods, two
+perfect hams, tongues, Strassburg pies, chocolate, cakes, biscuits,
+and, as a last thought, half a dozen bottles of old liqueur brandy.  It
+was to be carefully packed, addressed to Mrs. Morran, Dalquharter
+Station, and delivered in time for him to take down by the 7.33 train.
+Then he drove to the terminus and dined with something like a desperate
+peace in his heart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On this occasion he took a first-class ticket, for he wanted to be
+alone. As the lights began to be lit in the wayside stations and the
+clear April dusk darkened into night, his thoughts were sombre yet
+resigned. He opened the window and let the sharp air of the
+Renfrewshire uplands fill the carriage.  It was fine weather again
+after the rain, and a bright constellation&mdash;perhaps Dougal's friend
+O'Brien&mdash;hung in the western sky.  How happy he would have been a week
+ago had he been starting thus for a country holiday!  He could sniff
+the faint scent of moor-burn and ploughed earth which had always been
+his first reminder of Spring.  But he had been pitchforked out of that
+old happy world and could never enter it again.  Alas! for the roadside
+fire, the cosy inn, the Compleat Angler, the Chavender or Chub!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And yet&mdash;and yet!  He had done the right thing, though the Lord alone
+knew how it would end.  He began to pluck courage from his very
+melancholy, and hope from his reflections upon the transitoriness of
+life.  He was austerely following Romance as he conceived it, and if
+that capricious lady had taken one dream from him she might yet reward
+him with a better.  Tags of poetry came into his head which seemed to
+favour this philosophy&mdash;particularly some lines of Browning on which he
+used to discourse to his Kirk Literary Society. Uncommon silly, he
+considered, these homilies of his must have been, mere twitterings of
+the unfledged.  But now he saw more in the lines, a deeper
+interpretation which he had earned the right to make.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  "Oh world, where all things change and nought abides,<BR>
+  Oh life, the long mutation&mdash;is it so?<BR>
+  Is it with life as with the body's change?&mdash;<BR>
+  Where, e'en tho' better follow, good must pass."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+That was as far as he could get, though he cudgelled his memory to
+continue.  Moralizing thus, he became drowsy, and was almost asleep
+when the train drew up at the station of Kirkmichael.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+SUNDRY DOINGS IN THE MIRK
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+From Kirkmichael on the train stopped at every station, but no
+passenger seemed to leave or arrive at the little platforms white in
+the moon.  At Dalquharter the case of provisions was safely transferred
+to the porter with instructions to take charge of it till it was sent
+for.  During the next few minutes Dickson's mind began to work upon his
+problem with a certain briskness.  It was all nonsense that the law of
+Scotland could not be summoned to the defence. The jewels had been
+safely got rid of, and who was to dispute their possession?  Not Dobson
+and his crew, who had no sort of title, and were out for naked robbery.
+The girl had spoken of greater dangers from new enemies&mdash;kidnapping,
+perhaps.  Well, that was felony, and the police must be brought in.
+Probably if all were known the three watchers had criminal records,
+pages long, filed at Scotland Yard.  The man to deal with that side of
+the business was Loudon the factor, and to him he was bound in the
+first place. He had made a clear picture in his head of this Loudon&mdash;a
+derelict old country writer, formal, pedantic, lazy, anxious only to
+get an unprofitable business off his hands with the least possible
+trouble, never going near the place himself, and ably supported in his
+lethargy by conceited Edinburgh Writers to the Signet.  "Sich notions
+of business!" he murmured.  "I wonder that there's a single county
+family in Scotland no' in the bankruptcy court!"  It was his mission to
+wake up Mr. James Loudon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Arrived at Auchenlochan he went first to the Salutation Hotel, a
+pretentious place sacred to golfers.  There he engaged a bedroom for
+the night and, having certain scruples, paid for it in advance. He also
+had some sandwiches prepared which he stowed in his pack, and filled
+his flask with whisky.  "I'm going home to Glasgow by the first train
+in the to-morrow," he told the landlady, "and now I've got to see a
+friend.  I'll not be back till late."  He was assured that there would
+be no difficulty about his admittance at any hour, and directed how to
+find Mr. Loudon's dwelling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was an old house fronting direct on the street, with a fanlight
+above the door and a neat brass plate bearing the legend "Mr. James
+Loudon, Writer."  A lane ran up one side leading apparently to a
+garden, for the moonlight showed the dusk of trees. In front was the
+main street of Auchenlochan, now deserted save for a single roysterer,
+and opposite stood the ancient town house, with arches where the
+country folk came at the spring and autumn hiring fairs.  Dickson rang
+the antiquated bell, and was presently admitted to a dark hall floored
+with oilcloth, where a single gas-jet showed that on one side was the
+business office and on the other the living-rooms.  Mr. Loudon was at
+supper, he was told, and he sent in his card.  Almost at once the door
+at the end on the left side was flung open and a large figure appeared
+flourishing a napkin.  "Come in, sir, come in," it cried. "I've just
+finished a bite of meat.  Very glad to see you. Here, Maggie, what
+d'you mean by keeping the gentleman standing in that outer darkness?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The room into which Dickson was ushered was small and bright, with a
+red paper on the walls, a fire burning, and a big oil lamp in the
+centre of a table.  Clearly Mr. Loudon had no wife, for it was a
+bachelor's den in every line of it.  A cloth was laid on a corner of
+the table, in which stood the remnants of a meal. Mr. Loudon seemed to
+have been about to make a brew of punch, for a kettle simmered by the
+fire, and lemons and sugar flanked a pot-bellied whisky decanter of the
+type that used to be known as a "mason's mell."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sight of the lawyer was a surprise to Dickson and dissipated his
+notions of an aged and lethargic incompetent.  Mr. Loudon was a
+strongly built man who could not be a year over fifty.  He had a ruddy
+face, clean shaven except for a grizzled moustache; his grizzled hair
+was thinning round the temples; but his skin was unwrinkled and his
+eyes had all the vigour of youth.  His tweed suit was well cut, and the
+buff waistcoat with flaps and pockets and the plain leather watchguard
+hinted at the sportsman, as did the half-dozen racing prints on the
+wall.  A pleasant high-coloured figure he made; his voice had the frank
+ring due to much use out of doors; and his expression had the singular
+candour which comes from grey eyes with large pupils and a narrow iris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sit down, Mr. McCunn.  Take the arm-chair by the fire.  I've had a
+wire from Glendonan and Speirs about you.  I was just going to have a
+glass of toddy&mdash;a grand thing for these uncertain April nights. You'll
+join me?  No?  Well, you'll smoke anyway.  There's cigars at your
+elbow.  Certainly, a pipe if you like.  This is Liberty Hall."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson found some difficulty in the part for which he had cast
+himself. He had expected to condescend upon an elderly inept and give
+him sharp instructions; instead he found himself faced with a jovial,
+virile figure which certainly did not suggest incompetence.  It has
+been mentioned already that he had always great difficulty in looking
+any one in the face, and this difficulty was intensified when he found
+himself confronted with bold and candid eyes.  He felt abashed and a
+little nervous.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've come to see you about Huntingtower House," he began.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know, so Glendonans informed me.  Well, I'm very glad to hear it.
+The place has been standing empty far too long, and that is worse for a
+new house than an old house.  There's not much money to spend on it
+either, unless we can make sure of a good tenant.  How did you hear
+about it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was taking a bit holiday and I spent a night at Dalquharter with an
+old auntie of mine.  You must understand I've just retired from
+business, and I'm thinking of finding a country place.  I used to have
+the provision shop in Mearns Street&mdash;now the United Supply Stores,
+Limited.  You've maybe heard of it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The other bowed and smiled.  "Who hasn't?  The name of Dickson McCunn
+is known far beyond the city of Glasgow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson was not insensible of the flattery, and he continued with more
+freedom.  "I took a walk and got a glisk of the House, and I liked the
+look of it.  You see, I want a quiet bit a good long way from a town,
+and at the same time a house with all modern conveniences.  I suppose
+Huntingtower has that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When it was built fifteen years ago it was considered a model&mdash;six
+bathrooms, its own electric light plant, steam heating, and independent
+boiler for hot water, the whole bag of tricks.  I won't say but what
+some of these contrivances will want looking to, for the place has been
+some time empty, but there can be nothing very far wrong, and I can
+guarantee that the bones of the house are good."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, that's all right," said Dickson.  "I don't mind spending a
+little money myself if the place suits me.  But of that, of course, I'm
+not yet certain, for I've only had a glimpse of the outside. I wanted
+to get into the policies, but a man at the lodge wouldn't let me.
+They're a mighty uncivil lot down there."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm very sorry to hear that," said Mr. Loudon in a tone of concern.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, and if I take the place I'll stipulate that you get rid of the
+lodgekeepers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There won't be the slightest difficulty about that, for they are only
+weekly tenants.  But I'm vexed to hear they were uncivil. I was glad to
+get any tenant that offered, and they were well recommended to me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They're foreigners."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One of them is&mdash;a Belgian refugee that Lady Morewood took an interest
+in.  But the other&mdash;Spittal, they call him&mdash;I thought he was Scotch."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's not that.  And I don't like the innkeeper either.  I would want
+him shifted."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dr. Loudon laughed.  "I dare say Dobson is a rough diamond. There's
+worse folk in the world all the same, but I don't think he will want to
+stay.  He only went there to pass the time till he heard from his
+brother in Vancouver.  He's a roving spirit, and will be off overseas
+again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's all right!" said Dickson, who was beginning to have horrid
+suspicions that he might be on a wild-goose chase after all. "Well, the
+next thing is for me to see over the House."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Certainly.  I'd like to go with you myself.  What day would suit you?
+Let me see.  This is Friday.  What about this day week?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was thinking of to-morrow.  Since I'm down in these parts I may as
+well get the job done."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Loudon looked puzzled.  "I quite see that.  But I don't think it's
+possible.  You see, I have to consult the owners and get their consent
+to a lease.  Of course they have the general purpose of letting,
+but&mdash;well, they're queer folk the Kennedys," and his face wore the
+half-embarrassed smile of an honest man preparing to make confidences.
+"When poor Mr. Quentin died, the place went to his two sisters in joint
+ownership.  A very bad arrangement, as you can imagine.  It isn't
+entailed, and I've always been pressing them to sell, but so far they
+won't hear of it.  They both married Englishmen, so it will take a day
+or two to get in touch with them. One, Mrs. Stukely, lives in
+Devonshire.  The other&mdash;Miss Katie that was&mdash;married Sir Frances
+Morewood, the general, and I hear that she's expected back in London
+next Monday from the Riviera.  I'll wire and write first thing
+to-morrow morning.  But you must give me a day or two."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson felt himself waking up.  His doubts about his own sanity were
+dissolving, for, as his mind reasoned, the factor was prepared to do
+anything he asked&mdash;but only after a week had gone.  What he was
+concerned with was the next few days.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All the same I would like to have a look at the place to-morrow, even
+if nothing comes of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Loudon looked seriously perplexed.  "You will think me absurdly
+fussy, Mr. McCunn, but I must really beg of you to give up the idea.
+The Kennedys, as I have said, are&mdash;well, not exactly like other people,
+and I have the strictest orders not to let any one visit the house
+without their express leave.  It sounds a ridiculous rule, but I assure
+you it's as much as my job is worth to disregard it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"D'you mean to say not a soul is allowed inside the House?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not a soul."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, Mr. Loudon, I'm going to tell you a queer thing, which I think
+you ought to know.  When I was taking a walk the other night&mdash;your
+Belgian wouldn't let me into the policies, but I went down the
+glen&mdash;what's that they call it? the Garple Dean&mdash;I got round the back
+where the old ruin stands and I had a good look at the House. I tell
+you there was somebody in it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It would be Spittal, who acts as caretaker."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was not.  It was a woman.  I saw her on the verandah."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The candid grey eyes were looking straight at Dickson, who managed to
+bring his own shy orbs to meet them.  He thought that he detected a
+shade of hesitation.  Then Mr. Loudon got up from his chair and stood
+on the hearthrug looking down at his visitor.  He laughed, with some
+embarrassment, but ever so pleasantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I really don't know what you will think of me, Mr. McCunn. Here are
+you, coming to do us all a kindness, and lease that infernal white
+elephant, and here have I been steadily hoaxing you for the last five
+minutes.  I humbly ask your pardon.  Set it down to the loyalty of an
+old family lawyer.  Now, I am going to tell you the truth and take you
+into our confidence, for I know we are safe with you.  The Kennedys
+are&mdash;always have been&mdash;just a wee bit queer.  Old inbred stock, you
+know.  They will produce somebody like poor Mr. Quentin, who was as
+sane as you or me, but as a rule in every generation there is one
+member of the family&mdash;or more&mdash;who is just a little bit&mdash;-" and he
+tapped his forehead.  "Nothing violent, you understand, but just not
+quite 'wise and world-like,' as the old folk say.  Well, there's a
+certain old lady, an aunt of Mr. Quentin and his sisters, who has
+always been about tenpence in the shilling.  Usually she lives at
+Bournemouth, but one of her crazes is a passion for Huntingtower, and
+the Kennedys have always humoured her and had her to stay every spring.
+When the House was shut up that became impossible, but this year she
+took such a craving to come back, that Lady Morewood asked me to
+arrange it. It had to be kept very quiet, but the poor old thing is
+perfectly harmless, and just sits and knits with her maid and looks out
+of the seaward windows.  Now you see why I can't take you there
+to-morrow. I have to get rid of the old lady, who in any case was
+travelling south early next week.  Do you understand?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perfectly," said Dickson with some fervour.  He had learned exactly
+what he wanted.  The factor was telling him lies.  Now he knew where to
+place Mr. Loudon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He always looked back upon what followed as a very creditable piece of
+play-acting for a man who had small experience in that line.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is the old lady a wee wizened body, with a black cap and something
+like a white cashmere shawl round her shoulders?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You describe her exactly," Mr. Loudon replied eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That would explain the foreigners."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course.  We couldn't have natives who would make the thing the
+clash of the countryside."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course not.  But it must be a difficult job to keep a business like
+that quiet.  Any wandering policeman might start inquiries. And
+supposing the lady became violent?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, there's no fear of that.  Besides, I've a position in this
+country&mdash;Deputy Fiscal and so forth&mdash;and a friend of the Chief
+Constable. I think I may be trusted to do a little private explaining
+if the need arose."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I see," said Dickson.  He saw, indeed, a great deal which would give
+him food for furious thought.  "Well, I must possess my soul in
+patience.  Here's my Glasgow address, and I look to you to send me a
+telegram whenever you're ready for me.  I'm at the Salutation to-night,
+and go home to-morrow with the first train.  Wait a minute"&mdash;and he
+pulled out his watch&mdash;"there's a train stops at Auchenlochan at 10.17.
+I think I'll catch that.... Well Mr. Loudon, I'm very much obliged to
+you, and I'm glad to think that it'll no' be long till we renew our
+acquaintance."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The factor accompanied him to the door, diffusing geniality. "Very
+pleased indeed to have met you.  A pleasant journey and a quick return."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The street was still empty.  Into a corner of the arches opposite the
+moon was shining, and Dickson retired thither to consult his map of the
+neighbourhood.  He found what he wanted, and, as he lifted his eyes,
+caught sight of a man coming down the causeway. Promptly he retired
+into the shadow and watched the new-comer. There could be no mistake
+about the figure; the bulk, the walk, the carriage of the head marked
+it for Dobson.  The innkeeper went slowly past the factor's house; then
+halted and retraced his steps; then, making sure that the street was
+empty, turned into the side lane which led to the garden.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was what sailors call a cross-bearing, and strengthened Dickson's
+conviction.  He delayed no longer, but hurried down the side street by
+which the north road leaves the town.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had crossed the bridge of Lochan and was climbing the steep ascent
+which led to the heathy plateau separating that stream from the Garple
+before he had got his mind quite clear on the case. FIRST, Loudon was
+in the plot, whatever it was; responsible for the details of the girl's
+imprisonment, but not the main author. That must be the Unknown who was
+still to come, from whom Spidel took his orders.  Dobson was probably
+Loudon's special henchman, working directly under him.  SECONDLY, the
+immediate object had been the jewels, and they were happily safe in the
+vaults of the incorruptible Mackintosh. But, THIRD&mdash;and this only on
+Saskia's evidences&mdash;the worst danger to her began with the arrival of
+the Unknown.  What could that be? Probably, kidnapping.  He was
+prepared to believe anything of people like Bolsheviks.  And, FOURTH,
+this danger was due within the next day or two.  Loudon had been quite
+willing to let him into the house and to sack all the watchers within a
+week from that date. The natural and right thing was to summon the aid
+of the law, but, FIFTH, that would be a slow business with Loudon able
+to put spokes in the wheels and befog the authorities, and the mischief
+would be done before a single policeman showed his face in Dalquharter.
+Therefore, SIXTH, he and Heritage must hold the fort in the meantime,
+and he would send a wire to his lawyer, Mr. Caw, to get to work with
+the constabulary.  SEVENTH, he himself was probably free from suspicion
+in both Loudon's and Dobson's minds as a harmless fool. But that
+freedom would not survive his reappearance in Dalquharter. He could
+say, to be sure, that he had come back to see his auntie, but that
+would not satisfy the watchers, since, so far as they knew, he was the
+only man outside the gang who was aware that people were dwelling in
+the House.  They would not tolerate his presence in the neighbourhood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He formulated his conclusions as if it were an ordinary business deal,
+and rather to his surprise was not conscious of any fear.  As he pulled
+together the belt of his waterproof he felt the reassuring bulges in
+its pockets which were his pistol and cartridges.  He reflected that it
+must be very difficult to miss with a pistol if you fired it at, say,
+three yards, and if there was to be shooting that would be his range.
+Mr. McCunn had stumbled on the precious truth that the best way to be
+rid of quaking knees is to keep a busy mind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He crossed the ridge of the plateau and looked down on the Garple glen.
+There were the lights of Dalquharter&mdash;or rather a single light, for the
+inhabitants went early to bed.  His intention was to seek quarters with
+Mrs. Morran, when his eye caught a gleam in a hollow of the moor a
+little to the east.  He knew it for the camp-fire around which Dougal's
+warriors bivouacked.  The notion came to him to go there instead, and
+hear the news of the day before entering the cottage. So he crossed the
+bridge, skirted a plantation of firs, and scrambled through the broom
+and heather in what he took to be the right direction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The moon had gone down, and the quest was not easy.  Dickson had come
+to the conclusion that he was on the wrong road, when he was summoned
+by a voice which seemed to arise out of the ground.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who goes there?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's that you say?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who goes there?"  The point of a pole was held firmly against his
+chest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm Mr. McCunn, a friend of Dougal's."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stand, friend." The shadow before him whistled and another shadow
+appeared.  "Report to the Chief that there's a man here, name o'
+McCunn, seekin' for him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently the messenger returned with Dougal and a cheap lantern which
+he flashed in Dickson's face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, it's you," said that leader, who had his jaw bound up as if he had
+the toothache.  "What are ye doing back here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To tell the truth, Dougal," was the answer, "I couldn't stay away. I
+was fair miserable when I thought of Mr. Heritage and you laddies left
+to yourselves.  My conscience simply wouldn't let me stop at home, so
+here I am."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal grunted, but clearly he approved, for from that moment he
+treated Dickson with a new respect.  Formerly when he had referred to
+him at all it had been as "auld McCunn."  Now it was "Mister McCunn."
+He was given rank as a worthy civilian ally.  The bivouac was a
+cheerful place in the wet night.  A great fire of pine roots and old
+paling posts hissed in the fine rain, and around it crouched several
+urchins busy making oatmeal cakes in the embers.  On one side a
+respectable lean-to had been constructed by nailing a plank to two
+fir-trees, running sloping poles thence to the ground, and thatching
+the whole with spruce branches and heather.  On the other side two
+small dilapidated home-made tents were pitched.  Dougal motioned his
+companion into the lean-to, where they had some privacy from the rest
+of the band.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, what's your news?"  Dickson asked.  He noticed that the
+Chieftain seemed to have been comprehensively in the wars, for apart
+from the bandage on his jaw, he had numerous small cuts on his brow,
+and a great rent in one of his shirt sleeves.  Also he appeared to be
+going lame, and when he spoke a new gap was revealed in his large teeth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Things," said Dougal solemnly, "has come to a bonny cripus. This very
+night we've been in a battle."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He spat fiercely, and the light of war burned in his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was the tinklers from the Garple Dean.  They yokit on us about
+seven o'clock, just at the darkenin'.  First they tried to bounce us.
+We weren't wanted here, they said, so we'd better clear.  I telled them
+that it was them that wasn't wanted.  'Awa' to Finnick,' says I. 'D'ye
+think we take our orders from dirty ne'er-do-weels like you?' 'By God,'
+says they, 'we'll cut your lights out,' and then the battle started."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What happened?' Dickson asked excitedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They were four muckle men against six laddies, and they thought they
+had an easy job!  Little they kenned the Gorbals Die-Hards! I had been
+expectin' something of the kind, and had made my plans. They first
+tried to pu' down our tents and burn them.  I let them get within five
+yards, reservin' my fire.  The first volley&mdash;stones from our hands and
+our catties&mdash;halted them, and before they could recover three of us had
+got hold o' burnin' sticks frae the fire and were lammin' into them.
+We kinnled their claes, and they fell back swearin' and stampin' to get
+the fire out.  Then I gave the word and we were on them wi' our pales,
+usin' the points accordin' to instructions. My orders was to keep a
+good distance, for if they had grippit one o' us he'd ha' been done
+for.  They were roarin' mad by now, and twae had out their knives, but
+they couldn't do muckle, for it was gettin' dark, and they didn't ken
+the ground like us, and were aye trippin' and tumblin'. But they
+pressed us hard, and one o' them landed me an awful clype on the jaw.
+They were still aiming at our tents, and I saw that if they got near
+the fire again it would be the end o' us. So I blew my whistle for
+Thomas Yownie, who was in command o' the other half of us, with
+instructions to fall upon their rear. That brought Thomas up, and the
+tinklers had to face round about and fight a battle on two fronts.  We
+charged them and they broke, and the last seen o' them they were
+coolin' their burns in the Garple."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well done, man.  Had you many casualties?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We're a' a wee thing battered, but nothing to hurt.  I'm the worst,
+for one o' them had a grip o' me for about three seconds, and Gosh! he
+was fierce."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They're beaten off for the night, anyway?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, for the night.  But they'll come back, never fear.  That's why I
+said that things had come to a cripus."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's the news from the House?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A quiet day, and no word o' Lean or Dobson."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson nodded.  "They were hunting me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Heritage has gone to bide in the Hoose.  They were watchin' the
+Garple Dean, so I took him round by the Laver foot and up the rocks.
+He's a souple yin, yon.  We fund a road up the rocks and got in by the
+verandy.  Did ye ken that the lassie had a pistol? Well, she has, and
+it seems that Mr. Heritage is a good shot wi' a pistol, so there's some
+hope thereaways.... Are the jools safe?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Safe in the bank.  But the jools were not the main thing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal nodded.  "So I was thinkin'.  The lassie wasn't muckle the
+easier for gettin' rid o' them.  I didn't just quite understand what
+she said to Mr. Heritage, for they were aye wanderin' into foreign
+langwidges, but it seems she's terrible feared o' somebody that may
+turn up any moment.  What's the reason I can't say.  She's maybe got a
+secret, or maybe it's just that she's ower bonny."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's the trouble," said Dickson, and proceeded to recount his
+interview with the factor, to which Dougal gave close attention. "Now
+the way I read the thing is this.  There's a plot to kidnap that lady
+for some infernal purpose, and it depends on the arrival of some person
+or persons, and it's due to happen in the next day or two. If we try to
+work it through the police alone, they'll beat us, for Loudon will
+manage to hang the business up until it's too late. So we must take on
+the job ourselves.  We must stand a siege, Mr. Heritage and me and you
+laddies, and for that purpose we'd better all keep together.  It won't
+be extra easy to carry her off from all of us, and if they do manage it
+we'll stick to their heels....  Man, Dougal, isn't it a queer thing
+that whiles law-abiding folk have to make their own laws?...  So my
+plan is that the lot of us get into the House and form a garrison.  If
+you don't, the tinklers will come back and you'll no' beat them in the
+daylight."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I doubt no'," said Dougal.  "But what about our meat?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must lay in provisions.  We'll get what we can from Mrs. Morran,
+and I've left a big box of fancy things at Dalquharter station. Can you
+laddies manage to get it down here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal reflected.  "Ay, we can hire Mrs. Sempill's powny, the same that
+fetched our kit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, that's your job to-morrow.  See, I'll write you a line to the
+station-master.  And will you undertake to get it some way into the
+House?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's just the one road open&mdash;by the rocks.  It'll have to be done.
+It CAN be done."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I've another job.  I'm writing this telegram to a friend in
+Glasgow who will put a spoke in Mr. Loudon's wheel.  I want one of you
+to go to Kirkmichael to send it from the telegraph office there."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal placed the wire to Mr. Caw in his bosom.  "What about yourself?
+We want somebody outside to keep his eyes open.  It's bad strawtegy to
+cut off your communications."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson thought for a moment.  "I believe you're right.  I believe the
+best plan for me is to go back to Mrs. Morran's as soon as the old
+body's like to be awake.  You can always get at me there, for it's easy
+to slip into her back kitchen without anybody in the village seeing
+you.... Yes, I'll do that, and you'll come and report developments to
+me.  And now I'm for a bite and a pipe. It's hungry work travelling the
+country in the small hours."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm going to introjuice ye to the rest o' us," said Dougal. "Here,
+men!" he called, and four figures rose from the side of the fire.  As
+Dickson munched a sandwich he passed in review the whole company of the
+Gorbals Die-Hards, for the pickets were also brought in, two others
+taking their places.  There was Thomas Yownie, the Chief of Staff, with
+a wrist wound up in the handkerchief which he had borrowed from his
+neck.  There was a burly lad who wore trousers much too large for him,
+and who was known as Peer Pairson, a contraction presumably for Peter
+Paterson.  After him came a lean tall boy who answered to the name of
+Napoleon.  There was a midget of a child, desperately sooty in the face
+either from battle or from fire-tending, who was presented as Wee
+Jaikie.  Last came the picket who had held his pole at Dickson's chest,
+a sandy-haired warrior with a snub nose and the mouth and jaw of a
+pug-dog.  He was Old Bill, or, in Dougal's parlance, "Auld Bull."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Chieftain viewed his scarred following with a grim content. "That's
+a tough lot for ye, Mr. McCunn.  Used a' their days wi' sleepin' in
+coal-rees and dunnies and dodgin' the polis.  Ye'll no beat the Gorbals
+Die-Hards."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're right, Dougal," said Dickson.  "There's just the six of you. If
+there were a dozen, I think this country would be needing some new kind
+of a government."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VIII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+HOW A MIDDLE-AGED CRUSADER ACCEPTED A CHALLENGE
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The first cocks had just begun to crow and clocks had not yet struck
+five when Dickson presented himself at Mrs. Morran's back door. That
+active woman had already been half an hour out of bed, and was drinking
+her morning cup of tea in the kitchen.  She received him with
+cordiality, nay, with relief.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eh, sir, but I'm glad to see ye back.  Guid kens what's gaun on at the
+Hoose thae days.  Mr. Heritage left here yestreen, creepin' round by
+dyke-sides and berry-busses like a wheasel.  It's a mercy to get a
+responsible man in the place.  I aye had a notion ye wad come back,
+for, thinks I, nevoy Dickson is no the yin to desert folk in
+trouble.... Whaur's my wee kist?.... Lost, ye say.  That's a peety, for
+it's been my cheesebox thae thirty year."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson ascended to the loft, having announced his need of at least
+three hours' sleep.  As he rolled into bed his mind was curiously at
+ease. He felt equipped for any call that might be made on him.  That
+Mrs. Morran should welcome him back as a resource in need gave him a
+new assurance of manhood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He woke between nine and ten to the sound of rain lashing against the
+garret window.  As he picked his way out of the mazes of sleep and
+recovered the skein of his immediate past, he found to his disgust that
+he had lost his composure.  All the flock of fears, that had left him
+when on the top of the Glasgow tram-car he had made the great decision,
+had flown back again and settled like black crows on his spirit. He was
+running a horrible risk and all for a whim. What business had he to be
+mixing himself up in things he did not understand?  It might be a huge
+mistake, and then he would be a laughing stock; for a moment he
+repented his telegram to Mr. Caw.  Then he recanted that suspicion;
+there could be no mistake, except the fatal one that he had taken on a
+job too big for him.  He sat on the edge of the bed and shivered with
+his eyes on the grey drift of rain.  He would have felt more
+stout-hearted had the sun been shining.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He shuffled to the window and looked out.  There in the village street
+was Dobson, and Dobson saw him.  That was a bad blunder, for his reason
+told him that he should have kept his presence in Dalquharter hid as
+long as possible.  There was a knock at the cottage door, and presently
+Mrs. Morran appeared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's the man frae the inn," she announced.  "He's wantin' a word wi'
+ye.  Speakin' verra ceevil, too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell him to come up," said Dickson.  He might as well get the
+interview over.  Dobson had seen Loudon and must know of their
+conversation.  The sight of himself back again when he had pretended to
+be off to Glasgow would remove him effectually from the class of the
+unsuspected.  He wondered just what line Dobson would take.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The innkeeper obtruded his bulk through the low door.  His face was
+wrinkled into a smile, which nevertheless left the small eyes ungenial.
+His voice had a loud vulgar cordiality.  Suddenly Dickson was conscious
+of a resemblance, a resemblance to somebody whom he had recently seen.
+It was Loudon.  There was the same thrusting of the chin forward, the
+same odd cheek-bones, the same unctuous heartiness of speech. The
+innkeeper, well washed and polished and dressed, would be no bad copy
+of the factor.  They must be near kin, perhaps brothers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good morning to you, Mr. McCunn.  Man, it's pitifu' weather, and just
+when the farmers are wanting a dry seed-bed.  What brings ye back here?
+Ye travel the country like a drover."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I'm a free man now and I took a fancy to this place. An idle body
+has nothing to do but please himself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hear ye're taking a lease of Huntingtower?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now who told you that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just the clash of the place.  Is it true?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson looked sly and a little annoyed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I had maybe had half a thought of it, but I'll thank you not to repeat
+the story.  It's a big house for a plain man like me, and I haven't
+properly inspected it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I'll keep mum, never fear.  But if ye've that sort of notion, I
+can understand you not being able to keep away from the place."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's maybe the fact," Dickson admitted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well!  It's just on that point I want a word with you."  The innkeeper
+seated himself unbidden on the chair which held Dickson's modest
+raiment. He leaned forward and with a coarse forefinger tapped
+Dickson's pyjama-clad knees.  "I can't have ye wandering about the
+place. I'm very sorry, but I've got my orders from Mr. Loudon.  So if
+you think that by bidin' here you can see more of the House and the
+policies, ye're wrong, Mr. McCunn.  It can't be allowed, for we're no'
+ready for ye yet.  D'ye understand?  That's Mr. Loudon's orders....
+Now, would it not be a far better plan if ye went back to Glasgow and
+came back in a week's time?  I'm thinking of your own comfort, Mr.
+McCunn."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson was cogitating hard.  This man was clearly instructed to get
+rid of him at all costs for the next few days.  The neighbourhood had
+to be cleared for some black business.  The tinklers had been deputed
+to drive out the Gorbals Die-Hards, and as for Heritage they seemed to
+have lost track of him.  He, Dickson, was now the chief object of their
+care.  But what could Dobson do if he refused?  He dared not show his
+true hand.  Yet he might, if sufficiently irritated. It became
+Dickson's immediate object to get the innkeeper to reveal himself by
+rousing his temper.  He did not stop to consider the policy of this
+course; he imperatively wanted things cleared up and the issue made
+plain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm sure I'm much obliged to you for thinking so much about my
+comfort," he said in a voice into which he hoped he had insinuated a
+sneer.  "But I'm bound to say you're awful suspicious folk about here.
+You needn't be feared for your old policies. There's plenty of nice
+walks about the roads, and I want to explore the sea-coast."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The last words seemed to annoy the innkeeper.  "That's no' allowed
+either," he said.  "The shore's as private as the policies.... Well, I
+wish ye joy tramping the roads in the glaur."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's a queer thing," said Dickson meditatively, "that you should keep
+a hotel and yet be set on discouraging people from visiting this
+neighbourhood.  I tell you what, I believe that hotel of yours is all
+sham.  You've some other business, you and these lodgekeepers, and in
+my opinion it's not a very creditable one."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What d'ye mean?" asked Dobson sharply.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just what I say.  You must expect a body to be suspicious, if you
+treat him as you're treating me."  Loudon must have told this man the
+story with which he had been fobbed off about the half-witted Kennedy
+relative.  Would Dobson refer to that?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The innkeeper had an ugly look on his face, but he controlled his
+temper with an effort.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's no cause for suspicion," he said.  "As far as I'm concerned
+it's all honest and above-board."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It doesn't look like it.  It looks as if you were hiding something up
+in the House which you don't want me to see."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dobson jumped from his chair, his face pale with anger.  A man in
+pyjamas on a raw morning does not feel at this bravest, and Dickson
+quailed under the expectation of assault.  But even in his fright he
+realized that Loudon could not have told Dobson the tale of the
+half-witted lady. The last remark had cut clean through all camouflage
+and reached the quick.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What the hell d'ye mean?" he cried.  "Ye're a spy, are ye? Ye fat
+little fool, for two cents I'd wring your neck."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now it is an odd trait of certain mild people that a suspicion of
+threat, a hint of bullying, will rouse some unsuspected obstinacy deep
+down in their souls.  The insolence of the man's speech woke a quiet
+but efficient little devil in Dickson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's a bonny tone to adopt in addressing a gentleman.  If you've
+nothing to hide what way are you so touchy?  I can't be a spy unless
+there's something to spy on."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The innkeeper pulled himself together.  He was apparently acting on
+instructions, and had not yet come to the end of them.  He made an
+attempt at a smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm sure I beg your pardon if I spoke too hot.  But it nettled me to
+hear ye say that.... I'll be quite frank with ye, Mr. McCunn, and,
+believe me, I'm speaking in your best interests.  I give ye my word
+there's nothing wrong up at the House.  I'm on the side of the law, and
+when I tell ye the whole story ye'll admit it.  But I can't tell it ye
+yet.... This is a wild, lonely bit, and very few folk bide in it. And
+these are wild times, when a lot of queer things happen that never get
+into the papers.  I tell ye it's for your own good to leave Dalquharter
+for the present.  More I can't say, but I ask ye to look at it as a
+sensible man.  Ye're one that's accustomed to a quiet life and no'
+meant for rough work.  Ye'll do no good if you stay, and, maybe, ye'll
+land yourself in bad trouble."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed.  "What is it you're expecting? Sinn
+Fein?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The innkeeper nodded.  "Something like that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you ever hear the like?  I never did think much of the Irish."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then ye'll take my advice and go home?  Tell ye what, I'll drive ye to
+the station."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson got up from the bed, found his new safety-razor and began to
+strop it.  "No, I think I'll bide.  If you're right there'll be more to
+see than glaury roads."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm warning ye, fair and honest.  Ye... can't... be... allowed...
+to... stay... here!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well I never!" said Dickson.  "Is there any law in Scotland, think
+you, that forbids a man to stop a day or two with his auntie?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ye'll stay?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, I'll stay."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By God, we'll see about that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a moment Dickson thought that he would be attacked, and he measured
+the distance that separated him from the peg whence hung his waterproof
+with the pistol in its pocket.  But the man restrained himself and
+moved to the door.  There he stood and cursed him with a violence and a
+venom which Dickson had not believed possible. The full hand was on the
+table now.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ye wee pot-bellied, pig-heided Glasgow grocer" (I paraphrase), "would
+you set up to defy me?  I tell ye, I'll make ye rue the day ye were
+born." His parting words were a brilliant sketch of the maltreatment in
+store for the body of the defiant one.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Impident dog," said Dickson without heat.  He noted with pleasure that
+the innkeeper hit his head violently against the low lintel, and,
+missing a step, fell down the loft stairs into the kitchen, where Mrs.
+Morran's tongue could be heard speeding him trenchantly from the
+premises.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Left to himself, Dickson dressed leisurely, and by and by went down to
+the kitchen and watched his hostess making broth. The fracas with
+Dobson had done him all the good in the world, for it had cleared the
+problem of dubieties and had put an edge on his temper.  But he
+realized that it made his continued stay in the cottage undesirable.
+He was now the focus of all suspicion, and the innkeeper would be as
+good as his word and try to drive him out of the place by force.
+Kidnapping, most likely, and that would be highly unpleasant, besides
+putting an end to his usefulness. Clearly he must join the others.  The
+soul of Dickson hungered at the moment for human companionship.  He
+felt that his courage would be sufficient for any team-work, but might
+waver again if he were left to play a lone hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He lunched nobly off three plates of Mrs. Morran's kail&mdash;an early
+lunch, for that lady, having breakfasted at five, partook of the midday
+meal about eleven.  Then he explored her library, and settled himself
+by the fire with a volume of Covenanting tales, entitled GLEANINGS
+AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.  It was a most practical work for one in his
+position, for it told how various eminent saints of that era escaped
+the attention of Claverhouse's dragoons.  Dickson stored up in his
+memory several of the incidents in case they should come in handy.  He
+wondered if any of his forbears had been Covenanters; it comforted him
+to think that some old progenitor might have hunkered behind turf walls
+and been chased for his life in the heather. "Just like me," he
+reflected.  "But the dragoons weren't foreigners, and there was a kind
+of decency about Claverhouse too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+About four o'clock Dougal presented himself in the back kitchen. He was
+an even wilder figure than usual, for his bare legs were mud to the
+knees, his kilt and shirt clung sopping to his body, and, having lost
+his hat, his wet hair was plastered over his eyes. Mrs. Morran said,
+not unkindly, that he looked "like a wull-cat glowerin' through a whin
+buss."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How are you, Dougal?" Dickson asked genially.  "Is the peace of nature
+smoothing out the creases in your poor little soul?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's that ye say?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, just what I heard a man say in Glasgow.  How have you got on?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No' so bad.  Your telegram was sent this mornin'.  Auld Bill took it
+in to Kirkmichael.  That's the first thing.  Second, Thomas Yownie has
+took a party to get down the box from the station. He got Mrs.
+Sempills' powny, and he took the box ayont the Laver by the ford at the
+herd's hoose and got it on to the shore maybe a mile ayont Laverfoot.
+He managed to get the machine up as far as the water, but he could get
+no farther, for ye'll no' get a machine over the wee waterfa' just
+before the Laver ends in the sea. So he sent one o' the men back with
+it to Mrs. Sempill, and, since the box was ower heavy to carry, he
+opened it and took the stuff across in bits.  It's a' safe in the hole
+at the foot o' the Huntingtower rocks, and he reports that the rain has
+done it no harm. Thomas has made a good job of it.  Ye'll no' fickle
+Thomas Yownie."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And what about your camp on the moor?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was broke up afore daylight.  Some of our things we've got with us,
+but most is hid near at hand.  The tents are in the auld wife's
+hen-hoose." and he jerked his disreputable head in the direction of the
+back door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have the tinklers been back?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aye.  They turned up about ten o'clock, no doubt intendin' murder. I
+left Wee Jaikie to watch developments.  They fund him sittin' on a
+stone, greetin' sore.  When he saw them, he up and started to run, and
+they cried on him to stop, but he wouldn't listen.  Then they cried out
+where were the rest, and he telled them they were feared for their
+lives and had run away.  After that they offered to catch him, but
+ye'll no' catch Jaikie in a hurry.  When he had run round about them
+till they were wappit, he out wi' his catty and got one o' them on the
+lug.  Syne he made for the Laverfoot and reported."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Man, Dougal, you've managed fine.  Now I've something to tell you,"
+and Dickson recounted his interview with the innkeeper.  "I don't think
+it's safe for me to bide here, and if I did, I wouldn't be any use,
+hiding in cellars and such like, and not daring to stir a foot. I'm
+coming with you to the House.  Now tell me how to get there."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal agreed to this view.  "There's been nothing doing at the Hoose
+the day, but they're keepin' a close watch on the policies. The cripus
+may come any moment.  There's no doubt,  Mr. McCunn, that ye're in
+danger, for they'll serve you as the tinklers tried to serve us.
+Listen to me.  Ye'll walk up the station road, and take the second turn
+on your left, a wee grass road that'll bring ye to the ford at the
+herd's hoose.  Cross the Laver&mdash;there's a plank bridge&mdash;and take
+straight across the moor in the direction of the peakit hill they call
+Grey Carrick.  Ye'll come to a big burn, which ye must follow till ye
+get to the shore.  Then turn south, keepin' the water's edge till ye
+reach the Laver, where you'll find one o' us to show ye the rest of the
+road.... I must be off now, and I advise ye not to be slow of startin',
+for wi' this rain the water's risin' quick.  It's a mercy it's such
+coarse weather, for it spoils the veesibility."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Auntie Phemie," said Dickson a few minutes later, "will you oblige me
+by coming for a short walk?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The man's daft," was the answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not.  I'll explain if you'll listen.... You see," he concluded,
+"the dangerous bit for me is just the mile out of the village. They'll
+no' be so likely to try violence if there's somebody with me that could
+be a witness.  Besides, they'll maybe suspect less if they just see a
+decent body out for a breath of air with his auntie."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran said nothing, but retired, and returned presently equipped
+for the road.  She had indued her feet with goloshes and pinned up her
+skirts till they looked like some demented Paris mode. An ancient
+bonnet was tied under her chin with strings, and her equipment was
+completed by an exceedingly smart tortoise-shell-handled umbrella,
+which, she explained, had been a Christmas present from her son.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll convoy ye as far as the Laverfoot herd's," she announced. "The
+wife's a freend o' mine and will set me a bit on the road back. Ye
+needna fash for me.  I'm used to a' weathers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The rain had declined to a fine drizzle, but a tearing wind from the
+south-west scoured the land.  Beyond the shelter of the trees the moor
+was a battle-ground of gusts which swept the puddles into spindrift and
+gave to the stagnant bog-pools the appearance of running water.  The
+wind was behind the travellers, and Mrs. Morran, like a full-rigged
+ship, was hustled before it, so that Dickson, who had linked arms with
+her, was sometimes compelled to trot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"However will you get home, mistress?" he murmured anxiously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fine.  The wind will fa' at the darkenin'. This'll be a sair time for
+ships at sea."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not a soul was about, so they breasted the ascent of the station road
+and turned down the grassy bypath to the Laverfoot herd's. The herd's
+wife saw them from afar and was at the door to receive them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Megsty!  Phemie Morran!" she shrilled.  "Wha wad ettle to see ye on a
+day like this?  John's awa' at Dumfries, buyin' tups. Come in, the
+baith o' ye.  The kettle's on the boil."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This is my nevoy Dickson," said Mrs. Morran.  "He's gaun to stretch
+his legs ayont the burn, and come back by the Ayr road.  But I'll be
+blithe to tak' my tea wi' ye, Elspeth.... Now, Dickson, I'll expect ye
+hame on the chap o' seeven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He crossed the rising stream on a swaying plank and struck into the
+moorland, as Dougal had ordered, keeping the bald top of Grey Carrick
+before him.  In that wild place with the tempest battling overhead he
+had no fear of human enemies.  Steadily he covered the ground, till he
+reached the west-flowing burn, that was to lead him to the shore.  He
+found it an entertaining companion, swirling into black pools, foaming
+over little falls, and lying in dark canal-like stretches in the flats.
+Presently it began to descend steeply in a narrow green gully, where
+the going was bad, and Dickson, weighted with pack and waterproof, had
+much ado to keep his feet on the sodden slopes.  Then, as he rounded a
+crook of hill, the ground fell away from his feet, the burn swept in a
+water-slide to the boulders of the shore, and the storm-tossed sea lay
+before him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was now that he began to feel nervous.  Being on the coast again
+seemed to bring him inside his enemies' territory, and had not Dobson
+specifically forbidden the shore?  It was here that they might be
+looking for him.  He felt himself out of condition, very wet and very
+warm, but he attained a creditable pace, for he struck a road which had
+been used by manure-carts collecting seaweed.  There were faint marks
+on it, which he took to be the wheels of Dougal's "machine" carrying
+the provision-box.  Yes.  On a patch of gravel there was a double set
+of tracks, which showed how it had returned to Mrs. Sempill.  He was
+exposed to the full force of the wind, and the strenuousness of his
+bodily exertions kept his fears quiescent, till the cliffs on his left
+sunk suddenly and the valley of the Laver lay before him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A small figure rose from the shelter of a boulder, the warrior who bore
+the name of Old Bill.  He saluted gravely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ye're just in time.  The water has rose three inches since I've been
+here.  Ye'd better strip."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson removed his boots and socks.  "Breeks too," commanded the boy;
+"there's deep holes ayont thae stanes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson obeyed, feeling very chilly, and rather improper. "Now follow
+me," said the guide.  The next moment he was stepping delicately on
+very sharp pebbles, holding on to the end of the scout's pole, while an
+icy stream ran to his knees.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Laver as it reaches the sea broadens out to the width of fifty or
+sixty yards and tumbles over little shelves of rock to meet the waves.
+Usually it is shallow, but now it was swollen to an average depth of a
+foot or more, and there were deeper pockets. Dickson made the passage
+slowly and miserably, sometimes crying out with pain as his toes struck
+a sharper flint, once or twice sitting down on a boulder to blow like a
+whale, once slipping on his knees and wetting the strange excrescence
+about his middle, which was his tucked-up waterproof.  But the crossing
+was at length achieved, and on a patch of sea-pinks he dried himself
+perfunctorily and hastily put on his garments.  Old Bill, who seemed to
+be regardless of wind or water, squatted beside him and whistled
+through his teeth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Above them hung the sheer cliffs of the Huntingtower cape, so sheer
+that a man below was completely hidden from any watcher on the top.
+Dickson's heart fell, for he did not profess to be a cragsman and had
+indeed a horror of precipitous places.  But as the two scrambled along
+the foot, they passed deep-cut gullies and fissures, most of them
+unclimbable, but offering something more hopeful than the face. At one
+of these Old Bill halted, and led the way up and over a chaos of fallen
+rock and loose sand.  The grey weather had brought on the dark
+prematurely, and in the half-light it seemed that this ravine was
+blocked by an unscalable nose of rock.  Here Old Bill whistled, and
+there was a reply from above.  Round the corner of the nose came Dougal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Up here," he commanded.  "It was Mr. Heritage that fund this road."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson and his guide squeezed themselves between the nose and the
+cliff up a spout of stones, and found themselves in an upper storey of
+the gulley, very steep, but practicable even for one who was no
+cragsman.  This in turn ran out against a wall up which there led only
+a narrow chimney.  At the foot of this were two of the Die-Hards, and
+there were others above, for a rope hung down, by the aid of which a
+package was even now ascending.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's the top," said Dougal, pointing to the rim of sky, "and that's
+the last o' the supplies."  Dickson noticed that he spoke in a whisper,
+and that all the movements of the Die-Hards were judicious and
+stealthy. "Now, it's your turn.  Take a good grip o' the rope, and
+ye'll find plenty holes for your feet.  It's no more than ten yards and
+ye're well held above."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson made the attempt and found it easier than he expected. The only
+trouble was his pack and waterproof, which had a tendency to catch on
+jags of rock.  A hand was reached out to him, he was pulled over the
+edge, and then pushed down on his face.  When he lifted his head Dougal
+and the others had joined him, and the whole company of the Die-Hards
+was assembled on a patch of grass which was concealed from the landward
+view by a thicket of hazels.  Another, whom he recognized as Heritage,
+was coiling up the rope.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We'd better get all the stuff into the old Tower for the present,"
+Heritage was saying.  "It's too risky to move it into the House now.
+We'll need the thickest darkness for that, after the moon is down.
+Quick, for the beastly thing will be rising soon, and before that we
+must all be indoors."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he turned to Dickson and gripped his hand.  "You're a high class
+of sportsman, Dogson.  And I think you're just in time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are they due to-night?" Dickson asked in an excited whisper, faint
+against the wind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know about They.  But I've got a notion that some devilish
+queer things will happen before to-morrow morning."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IX
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The old keep of Huntingtower stood some three hundred yards from the
+edge of the cliffs, a gnarled wood of hazels and oaks protecting it
+from the sea-winds.  It was still in fair preservation, having till
+twenty years before been an adjunct of the house of Dalquharter, and
+used as kitchen, buttery, and servants' quarters.  There had been
+residential wings attached, dating from the mid-eighteenth century, but
+these had been pulled down and used for the foundations of the new
+mansion.  Now it stood a lonely shell, its three storeys, each a single
+great room connected by a spiral stone staircase, being dedicated to
+lumber and the storage of produce.  But it was dry and intact, its
+massive oak doors defied any weapon short of artillery, its narrow
+unglazed windows would scarcely have admitted a cat&mdash;a place
+portentously strong, gloomy, but yet habitable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal opened the main door with a massy key.  "The lassie fund it," he
+whispered to Dickson, "somewhere about the kitchen&mdash;and I guessed it
+was the key o' this castle.  I was thinkin' that if things got ower hot
+it would be a good plan to flit here.  Change our base, like." The
+Chieftain's occasional studies in war had trained his tongue to a
+military jargon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the ground room lay a fine assortment of oddments, including old
+bedsteads and servants' furniture, and what looked like ancient
+discarded deerskin rugs.  Dust lay thick over everything, and they
+heard the scurry of rats.  A dismal place, indeed, but Dickson felt
+only its strangeness.  The comfort of being back again among allies had
+quickened his spirit to an adventurous mood.  The old lords of
+Huntingtower had once quarrelled and revelled and plotted here, and now
+here he was at the same game.  Present and past joined hands over the
+gulf of years.  The saga of Huntingtower was not ended.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Die-Hards had brought with them their scanty bedding, their
+lanterns and camp-kettles.  These and the provisions from Mearns Street
+were stowed away in a corner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now for the Hoose, men," said Dougal.  They stole over the downs to
+the shrubbery, and Dickson found himself almost in the same place as he
+had lain in three days before, watching a dusky lawn, while the wet
+earth soaked through his trouser knees and the drip from the azaleas
+trickled over his spine.  Two of the boys fetched the ladder and placed
+it against the verandah wall.  Heritage first, then Dickson, darted
+across the lawn and made the ascent.  The six scouts followed, and the
+ladder was pulled up and hidden among the verandah litter. For a second
+the whole eight stood still and listened.  There was no sound except
+the murmur of the now falling wind and the melancholy hooting of owls.
+The garrison had entered the Dark Tower.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A council in whispers was held in the garden-room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nobody must show a light," Heritage observed.  "It mustn't be known
+that we're here.  Only the Princess will have a lamp.  Yes"&mdash;this in
+answer to Dickson&mdash;"she knows that we're coming&mdash;you too. We'll hunt
+for quarters later upstairs.  You scouts, you must picket every
+possible entrance.  The windows are safe, I think, for they are locked
+from the inside.  So is the main door.  But there's the verandah door,
+of which they have a key, and the back door beside the kitchen, and I'm
+not at all sure that there's not a way in by the boiler-house.  You
+understand.  We're holding his place against all comers.  We must
+barricade the danger points.  The headquarters of the garrison will be
+in the hall, where a scout must be always on duty.  You've all got
+whistles?  Well, if there's an attempt on the verandah door the picket
+will whistle once, if at the back door twice, if anywhere else three
+times, and it's everybody's duty, except the picket who whistles, to
+get back to the hall for orders."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's so," assented Dougal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If the enemy forces an entrance we must overpower him.  Any means you
+like.  Sticks or fists, and remember if it's a scrap in the dark to
+make for the man's throat.  I expect you little devils have eyes like
+cats.  The scoundrels must be kept away from the ladies at all costs.
+If the worst comes to the worst, the Princess has a revolver."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So have I," said Dickson.  "I got it in Glasgow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The deuce you have!  Can you use it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, you can hand it over to me, if you like.  But it oughtn't to
+come to shooting, if it's only the three of them.  The eight of us
+should be able to manage three and one of them lame.  If the others
+turn up&mdash;well, God help us all!  But we've got to make sure of one
+thing, that no one lays hands on the Princess so long as there's one of
+us left alive to hit out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ye needn't be feared for that," said Dougal.  There was no light in
+the room, but Dickson was certain that the morose face of the Chieftain
+was lit with unholy joy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then off with you.  Mr. McCunn and I will explain matters to the
+ladies."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When they were alone, Heritage's voice took a different key. "We're in
+for it, Dogson, old man.  There's no doubt these three scoundrels
+expect reinforcements at any moment, and with them will be one who is
+the devil incarnate.  He's the only thing on earth that that brave girl
+fears.  It seems he is in love with her and has pestered her for years.
+She hated the sight of him, but he wouldn't take no, and being a
+powerful man&mdash;rich and well-born and all the rest of it&mdash;she had a
+desperate time.  I gather he was pretty high in favour with the old
+Court.  Then when the Bolsheviks started he went over to them, like
+plenty of other grandees, and now he's one of their chief brains&mdash;none
+of your callow revolutionaries, but a man of the world, a kind of
+genius, she says, who can hold his own anywhere.  She believes him to
+be in this country, and only waiting the right moment to turn up.  Oh,
+it sounds ridiculous, I know, in Britain in the twentieth century, but
+I learned in the war that civilization anywhere is a very thin crust.
+There are a hundred ways by which that kind of fellow could bamboozle
+all our law and police and spirit her away.  That's the kind of crowd
+we have to face."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did she say what he was like in appearance?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A face like an angel&mdash;a lost angel, she says."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson suddenly had an inspiration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"D'you mind the man you said was an Australian&mdash;at Kirkmichael? I
+thought myself he was a foreigner.  Well, he was asking for a place he
+called Darkwater, and there's no sich place in the countryside. I
+believe he meant Dalquharter.  I believe he's the man she's feared of."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A gasped "By Jove!" came from the darkness.  "Dogson, you've hit it.
+That was five days ago, and he must have got on the right trail by this
+time.  He'll be here to-night.  That's why the three have been lying so
+quiet to-day.  Well, we'll go through with it, even if we haven't a
+dog's chance!  Only I'm sorry that you should be mixed up in such a
+hopeless business."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why me more than you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because it's all pure pride and joy for me to be here.  Good God, I
+wouldn't be elsewhere for worlds.  It's the great hour of my life. I
+would gladly die for her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tuts, that's no' the way to talk, man.  Time enough to speak about
+dying when there's no other way out.  I'm looking at this thing in a
+business way.  We'd better be seeing the ladies."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They groped into the pitchy hall, somewhere in which a Die-Hard was on
+picket, and down the passage to the smoking-room.  Dickson blinked in
+the light of a very feeble lamp and Heritage saw that his hands were
+cumbered with packages.  He deposited them on a sofa and made a ducking
+bow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've come back, Mem, and glad to be back.  Your jools are in safe
+keeping, and not all the blagyirds in creation could get at them. I've
+come to tell you to cheer up&mdash;a stout heart to a stey brae, as the old
+folk say.  I'm handling this affair as a business proposition, so don't
+be feared, Mem.  If there are enemies seeking you, there's friends on
+the road too.... Now, you'll have had your dinner, but you'd maybe like
+a little dessert."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He spread before them a huge box of chocolates, the best that Mearns
+Street could produce, a box of candied fruits, and another of salted
+almonds.  Then from his hideously overcrowded pockets he took another
+box, which he offered rather shyly.  "That's some powder for your
+complexion.  They tell me that ladies find it useful whiles."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl's strained face watched him at first in mystification, and
+then broke slowly into a smile.  Youth came back into it, the smile
+changed to a laugh, a low rippling laugh like far-away bells. She took
+both his hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are kind," she said, "you are kind and brave.  You are a de-ar."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then she kissed him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, as far as Dickson could remember, no one had ever kissed him
+except his wife.  The light touch of her lips on his forehead was like
+the pressing of an electric button which explodes some powerful charge
+and alters the face of a countryside.  He blushed scarlet; then he
+wanted to cry; then he wanted to sing.  An immense exhilaration seized
+him, and I am certain that if at that moment the serried ranks of
+Bolshevy had appeared in the doorway, Dickson would have hurled himself
+upon them with a joyful shout.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Cousin Eugenie was earnestly eating chocolates, but Saskia had other
+business.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will hold the house?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Please God, yes," said Heritage.  "I look at it this way. The time is
+very near when your three gaolers expect the others, their masters.
+They have not troubled you in the past two days as they threatened,
+because it was not worth while.  But they won't want to let you out of
+their sight in the final hours, so they will almost certainly come here
+to be on the spot.  Our object is to keep them out and confuse their
+plans.  Somewhere in this neighbourhood, probably very near, is the man
+you fear most.  If we nonplus the three watchers, they'll have to
+revise their policy, and that means a delay, and every hour's delay is
+a gain.  Mr. McCunn has found out that the factor Loudon is in the
+plot, and he has purchase enough, it seems, to blanket for a time any
+appeal to the law.  But Mr. McCunn has taken steps to circumvent him,
+and in twenty-four hours we should have help here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not want the help of your law," the girl interrupted. "It will
+entangle me.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not a bit of it," said Dickson cheerfully.  "You see, Mem, they've
+clean lost track of the jools, and nobody knows where they are but me.
+I'm a truthful man, but I'll lie like a packman if I'm asked questions.
+For the rest, it's a question of kidnapping, I understand, and that's a
+thing that's not to be allowed.  My advice is to go to our beds and get
+a little sleep while there's a chance of it. The Gorbals Die-Hards are
+grand watch-dogs."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This view sounded so reasonable that it was at once acted upon. The
+ladies' chamber was next door to the smoking-room&mdash;what had been the
+old schoolroom.  Heritage arranged with Saskia that the lamp was to be
+kept burning low, and that on no account were they to move unless
+summoned by him.  Then he and Dickson made their way to the hall, where
+there was a faint glimmer from the moon in the upper unshuttered
+windows&mdash;enough to reveal the figure of Wee Jaikie on duty at the foot
+of the staircase.  They ascended to the second floor, where, in a large
+room above the hall, Heritage had bestowed his pack. He had managed to
+open a fold of the shutters, and there was sufficient light to see two
+big mahogany bedsteads without mattresses or bedclothes, and wardrobes
+and chests of drawers sheeted in holland. Outside the wind was rising
+again, but the rain had stopped. Angry watery clouds scurried across
+the heavens.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson made a pillow of his waterproof, stretched himself on one of
+the bedsteads, and, so quiet was his conscience and so weary his body
+from the buffetings of the past days, was almost instantly asleep. It
+seemed to him that he had scarcely closed his eyes when he was awakened
+by Dougal's hand pinching his shoulder.  He gathered that the moon was
+setting, for the room was pitchy dark.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The three o' them is approachin' the kitchen door," whispered the
+Chieftain.  "I seen them from a spy-hole I made out o' a ventilator."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it barricaded?" asked Heritage, who had apparently not been asleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aye, but I've thought o' a far better plan.  Why should we keep them
+out?  They'll be safer inside.  Listen!  We might manage to get them in
+one at a time.  If they can't get in at the kitchen door, they'll send
+one o' them round to get in by another door and open to them.  That
+gives us a chance to get them separated, and lock them up.  There's
+walth o' closets and hidy-holes all over the place, each with good
+doors and good keys to them.  Supposin' we get the three o' them shut
+up&mdash;the others, when they come, will have nobody to guide them.  Of
+course some time or other the three will break out, but it may be ower
+late for them.  At present we're besieged and they're roamin' the
+country.  Would it no' be far better if they were the ones lockit up
+and we were goin' loose?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Supposing they don't come in one at a time?"  Dickson objected.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We'll make them," said Dougal firmly.  "There's no time to waste. Are
+ye for it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Heritage.  "Who's at the kitchen door?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Peter Paterson.  I told him no' to whistle, but to wait on me.... Keep
+your boots off.  Ye're better in your stockin' feet.  Wait you in the
+hall and see ye're well hidden, for likely whoever comes in will have a
+lantern.  Just you keep quiet unless I give ye a cry. I've planned it
+a' out, and we're ready for them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal disappeared, and Dickson and Heritage, with their boots tied
+round their necks by their laces, crept out to the upper landing. The
+hall was impenetrably dark, but full of voices, for the wind was
+talking in the ceiling beams, and murmuring through the long passages.
+The walls creaked and muttered and little bits of plaster fluttered
+down. The noise was an advantage for the game of hide-and-seek they
+proposed to play, but it made it hard to detect the enemy's approach.
+Dickson, in order to get properly wakened, adventured as far as the
+smoking-room.  It was black with night, but below the door of the
+adjacent room a faint line of light showed where the Princess's lamp
+was burning.  He advanced to the window, and heard distinctly a foot on
+the grovel path that led to the verandah.  This sent him back to the
+hall in search of Dougal, whom he encountered in the passage. That boy
+could certainly see in the dark, for he caught Dickson's wrist without
+hesitation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We've got Spittal in the wine-cellar," he whispered triumphantly. "The
+kitchen door was barricaded, and when they tried it, it wouldn't open.
+'Bide here,' says Dobson to Spittal, 'and we'll go round by another
+door and come back and open to ye.'  So off they went, and by that time
+Peter Paterson and me had the barricade down.  As we expected, Spittal
+tries the key again and it opens quite easy.  He comes in and locks it
+behind him, and, Dobson having took away the lantern, he gropes his way
+very carefu' towards the kitchen.  There's a point where the
+wine-cellar door and the scullery door are aside each other. He should
+have taken the second, but I had it shut so he takes the first. Peter
+Paterson gave him a wee shove and he fell down the two-three steps into
+the cellar, and we turned the key on him.  Yon cellar has a grand door
+and no windies."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And Dobson and Leon are at the verandah door?  With a light?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thomas Yownie's on duty there.  Ye can trust him.  Ye'll no fickle
+Thomas Yownie."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next minutes were for Dickson a delirium of excitement not
+unpleasantly shot with flashes of doubt and fear.  As a child he had
+played hide-and-seek, and his memory had always cherished the delights
+of the game.  But how marvellous to play it thus in a great empty
+house, at dark of night, with the heaven filled with tempest, and with
+death or wounds as the stakes!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He took refuge in a corner where a tapestry curtain and the side of a
+Dutch awmry gave him shelter, and from where he stood he could see the
+garden-room and the beginning of the tiled passage which led to the
+verandah door.  That is to say, he could have seen these things if
+there had been any light, which there was not.  He heard the soft
+flitting of bare feet, for a delicate sound is often audible in a din
+when a loud noise is obscured.  Then a gale of wind blew towards him,
+as from an open door, and far away gleamed the flickering light of a
+lantern.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly the light disappeared and there was a clatter on the floor and
+a breaking of glass.  Either the wind or Thomas Yownie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The verandah door was shut, a match spluttered and the lantern was
+relit.  Dobson and Leon came into the hall, both clad in long
+mackintoshes which glistened from the weather.  Dobson halted and
+listened to the wind howling in the upper spaces.  He cursed it
+bitterly, looked at his watch, and then made an observation which woke
+the liveliest interest in Dickson lurking beside the awmry and Heritage
+ensconced in the shadow of a window-seat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's late.  He should have been here five minutes syne.  It would be a
+dirty road for his car."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So the Unknown was coming that night.  The news made Dickson the more
+resolved to get the watchers under lock and key before reinforcements
+arrived, and so put grit in their wheels.  Then his party must
+escape&mdash;flee anywhere so long as it was far from Dalquharter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You stop here," said Dobson, "I'll go down and let Spidel in. We want
+another lamp.  Get the one that the women use, and for God's sake get a
+move on."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sound of his feet died in the kitchen passage and then rung again
+on the stone stairs.  Dickson's ear of faith heard also the soft patter
+of naked feet as the Die-Hards preceded and followed him. He was
+delivering himself blind and bound into their hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a minute or two there was no sound but the wind, which had found a
+loose chimney cowl on the roof and screwed out of it an odd sound like
+the drone of a bagpipe.  Dickson, unable to remain any longer in one
+place, moved into the centre of the hall, believing that Leon had gone
+to the smoking-room.  It was a dangerous thing to do, for suddenly a
+match was lit a yard from him.  He had the sense to drop low, and so
+was out of the main glare of the light.  The man with the match
+apparently had no more, judging by his execrations. Dickson stood stock
+still, longing for the wind to fall so that he might hear the sound of
+the fellow's boots on the stone floor. He gathered that they were
+moving towards the smoking-room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Heritage," he whispered as loud as he dared, bet there was no answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then suddenly a moving body collided with him.  He jumped a step back
+and then stood at attention.  "Is that you, Dobson?"  a voice asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now behold the occasional advantage of a nick-name.  Dickson thought he
+was being addressed as "Dogson" after the Poet's fashion.  Had he
+dreamed it was Leon he would not have replied, but fluttered off into
+the shadows, and so missed a piece of vital news.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, it's me." he whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His voice and accent were Scotch, like Dobson's, and Leon suspected
+nothing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not like this wind," he grumbled.  "The Captain's letter said at
+dawn, but there is no chance of the Danish brig making your little
+harbour in this weather.  She must lie off and land the men by boats.
+That I do not like.  It is too public."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The news&mdash;tremendous news, for it told that the new-comers would come
+by sea, which had never before entered Dickson's head&mdash;so interested
+him that he stood dumb and ruminating.  The silence made the Belgian
+suspect; he put out a hand and felt a waterproofed arm which might have
+been Dobson's.  But the height of the shoulder proved that it was not
+the burly innkeeper.  There was an oath, a quick movement, and Dickson
+went down with a knee on his chest and two hands at his throat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Heritage," he gasped.  "Help!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a sound of furniture scraped violently on the floor. A gurgle
+from Dickson served as a guide, and the Poet suddenly cascaded over the
+combatants.  He felt for a head, found Leon's and gripped the neck so
+savagely that the owner loosened his hold on Dickson.  The last-named
+found himself being buffeted violently by heavy-shod feet which seemed
+to be manoeuvring before an unseen enemy.  He rolled out of the road
+and encountered another pair of feet, this time unshod.  Then came the
+sound of a concussion, as if metal or wood had struck some part of a
+human frame, and then a stumble and fall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After that a good many things all seemed to happen at once. There was a
+sudden light, which showed Leon blinking with a short loaded
+life-preserver in his hand, and Heritage prone in front of him on the
+floor.  It also showed Dickson the figure of Dougal, and more than one
+Die-Hard in the background.  The light went out as suddenly as it had
+appeared.  There was a whistle and a hoarse "Come on, men," and then
+for two seconds there was a desperate silent combat.  It ended with
+Leon's head meeting the floor so violently that its possessor became
+oblivious of further proceedings. He was dragged into a cubby-hole,
+which had once been used for coats and rugs, and the door locked on
+him.  Then the light sprang forth again.  It revealed Dougal and five
+Die-Hards, somewhat the worse for wear; it revealed also Dickson
+squatted with outspread waterproof very like a sitting hen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where's Dobson?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In the boiler-house," and for once Dougal's gravity had laughter in
+it. "Govey Dick! but yon was a fecht!  Me and Peter Paterson and Wee
+Jaikie started it, but it was the whole company afore the end. Are ye
+better, Jaikie?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, I'm better," said a pallid midget.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He kickit Jaikie in the stomach and Jaikie was seeck," Dougal
+explained. "That's the three accounted for.  I think mysel' that Dobson
+will be the first to get out, but he'll have his work letting out the
+others. Now, I'm for flittin' to the old Tower.  They'll no ken where
+we are for a long time, and anyway yon place will be far easier to
+defend. Without they kindle a fire and smoke us out, I don't see how
+they'll beat us.  Our provisions are a' there, and there's a grand well
+o' water inside.  Forbye there's the road down the rocks that'll keep
+our communications open.... But what's come to Mr. Heritage?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson to his shame had forgotten all about his friend.  The Poet lay
+very quiet with his head on one side and his legs crooked limply. Blood
+trickled over his eyes from an ugly scar on his forehead. Dickson felt
+his heart and pulse and found them faint but regular. The man had got a
+swinging blow and might have a slight concussion; for the present he
+was unconscious.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All the more reason why we should flit," said Dougal.  "What d'ye say,
+Mr. McCunn?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Flit, of course, but further than the old Tower.  What's the time?" He
+lifted Heritage's wrist and saw from his watch that it was half-past
+three.  "Mercy.  It's nearly morning.  Afore we put these blagyirds
+away, they were conversing, at least Leon and Dobson were. They said
+that they expected somebody every moment, but that the car would be
+late.  We've still got that Somebody to tackle. Then Leon spoke to me
+in the dark, thinking I was Dobson, and cursed the wind, saying it
+would keep the Danish brig from getting in at dawn as had been
+intended.  D'you see what that means? The worst of the lot, the ones
+the ladies are in terror of, are coming by sea.  Ay, and they can
+return by sea.  We thought that the attack would be by land, and that
+even if they succeeded we could hang on to their heels and follow them,
+till we got them stopped. But that's impossible!  If they come in from
+the water, they can go out by the water, and there'll never be more
+heard tell of the ladies or of you or me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal's face was once again sunk in gloom.  "What's your plan, then?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must get the ladies away from here&mdash;away inland, far from the sea.
+The rest of us must stand a siege in the old Tower, so that the enemy
+will think we're all there.  Please God we'll hold out long enough for
+help to arrive.  But we mustn't hang about here.  There's the man
+Dobson mentioned&mdash;he may come any second, and we want to be away first.
+Get the ladder, Dougal.... Four of you take Mr. Heritage, and two come
+with me and carry the ladies' things.  It's no' raining, but the wind's
+enough to take the wings off a seagull."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson roused Saskia and her cousin, bidding them be ready in ten
+minutes.  Then with the help of the Die-Hards he proceeded to transport
+the necessary supplies&mdash;the stove, oil, dishes, clothes and wraps; more
+than one journey was needed of small boys, hidden under clouds of
+baggage.  When everything had gone he collected the keys, behind which,
+in various quarters of the house, three gaolers fumed impotently, and
+gave them to Wee Jaikie to dispose of in some secret nook.  Then he led
+the two ladies to the verandah, the elder cross and sleepy, the younger
+alert at the prospect of movement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell me again," she said.  "You have locked all the three up, and they
+are now the imprisoned?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, it was the boys that, properly speaking, did the locking up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is a great&mdash;how do you say?&mdash;a turning of the tables. Ah&mdash;what is
+that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the end of the verandah there was a clattering down of pots which
+could not be due to the wind, since the place was sheltered. There was
+as yet only the faintest hint of light, and black night still lurked in
+the crannies.  Followed another fall of pots, as from a clumsy
+intruder, and then a man appeared, clear against the glass door by
+which the path descended to the rock garden. It was the fourth man,
+whom the three prisoners had awaited. Dickson had no doubt at all about
+his identity.  He was that villain from whom all the others took their
+orders, the man whom the Princess shuddered at.  Before starting he had
+loaded his pistol. Now he tugged it from his waterproof pocket, pointed
+it at the other and fired.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man seemed to be hit, for he spun round and clapped a hand to his
+left arm.  Then he fled through the door, which he left open.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson was after him like a hound.  At the door he saw him running and
+raised his pistol for another shot.  Then he dropped it, for he saw
+something in the crouching, dodging figure which was familiar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A mistake," he explained to Jaikie when he returned.  "But the shot
+wasn't wasted.  I've just had a good try at killing the factor!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER X
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Five scouts' lanterns burned smokily in the ground room of the keep
+when Dickson ushered his charges through its cavernous door. The lights
+flickered in the gusts that swept after them and whistled through the
+slits of the windows, so that the place was full of monstrous shadows,
+and its accustomed odour of mould and disuse was changed to a salty
+freshness.  Upstairs on the first floor Thomas Yownie had deposited the
+ladies' baggage, and was busy making beds out of derelict iron
+bedsteads and the wraps brought from their room.  On the ground floor
+on a heap of litter covered by an old scout's blanket lay Heritage,
+with Dougal in attendance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Chieftain had washed the blood from the Poet's brow, and the touch
+of cold water was bringing him back his senses.  Saskia with a cry flew
+to him, and waved off Dickson who had fetched one of the bottles of
+liqueur brandy.  She slipped a hand inside his shirt and felt the
+beating of his heart.  Then her slim fingers ran over his forehead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A bad blow," she muttered, "but I do not think he is ill. There is no
+fracture.  When I nursed in the Alexander Hospital I learnt much about
+head wounds.  Do not give him cognac if you value his life."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage was talking now and with strange tongues.  Phrases like "lined
+Digesters" and "free sulphurous acid" came from his lips. He implored
+some one to tell him if "the first cook" was finished, and he upbraided
+some one else for "cooling off" too fast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl raised her head.  "But I fear he has become mad," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wheesht, Mem," said Dickson, who recognized the jargon. "He's a
+papermaker."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Saskia sat down on the litter and lifted his head so that it rested on
+her breast.  Dougal at her bidding brought a certain case from her
+baggage, and with swift, capable hands she made a bandage and rubbed
+the wound with ointment before tying it up.  Then her fingers seemed to
+play about his temples and along his cheeks and neck. She was the
+professional nurse now, absorbed, sexless.  Heritage ceased to babble,
+his eyes shut and he was asleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She remained where she was, so that the Poet, when a few minutes later
+he woke, found himself lying with his head in her lap. She spoke first,
+in an imperative tone: "You are well now. Your head does not ache.  You
+are strong again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No.  Yes," he murmured.  Then more clearly: "Where am I? Oh, I
+remember, I caught a lick on the head.  What's become of the brutes?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson, who had extracted food from the Mearns Street box and was
+pressing it on the others, replied through a mouthful of Biscuit:
+"We're in the old Tower.  The three are lockit up in the House. Are you
+feeling better, Mr. Heritage?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Poet suddenly realized Saskia's position and the blood came to his
+pale face.  He got to his feet with an effort and held out a hand to
+the girl.  "I'm all right now, I think.  Only a little dicky on my
+legs.  A thousand thanks, Princess.  I've given you a lot of trouble."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She smiled at him tenderly.  "You say that when you have risked your
+life for me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's no time to waste," the relentless Dougal broke in. "Comin'
+over here, I heard a shot.  What was it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was me," said Dickson.  "I was shootin' at the factor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did ye hit him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think so, but I'm sorry to say not badly.  When I last saw him he
+was running too quick for a sore hurt man.  When I fired I thought it
+was the other man&mdash;the one they were expecting."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson marvelled at himself, yet his speech was not bravado, but the
+honest expression of his mind.  He was keyed up to a mood in which he
+feared nothing very much, certainly not the laws of his country. If he
+fell in with the Unknown, he was entirely resolved, if his Maker
+permitted him, to do murder as being the simplest and justest solution.
+And if in the pursuit of this laudable intention he happened to wing
+lesser game it was no fault of his.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, it's a pity ye didn't get him," said Dougal, "him being what we
+ken him to be.... I'm for holding a council o' war, and considerin' the
+whole position.  So far we haven't done that badly. We've shifted our
+base without serious casualties.  We've got a far better position to
+hold, for there's too many ways into yon Hoose, and here there's just
+one.  Besides, we've fickled the enemy. They'll take some time to find
+out where we've gone.  But, mind you, we can't count on their staying
+long shut up.  Dobson's no safe in the boiler-house, for there's a
+skylight far up and he'll see it when the light comes and maybe before.
+So we'd better get our plans ready. A word with ye, Mr. McCunn," and he
+led Dickson aside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"D'ye ken what these blagyirds were up to?" he whispered fiercely in
+Dickson's ear.  "They were goin' to pushion the lassie.  How do I ken,
+says you?  Because Thomas Yownie heard Dobson say to Lean at the
+scullery door, 'Have ye got the dope?' he says, and Lean says, 'Aye.'
+Thomas mindit the word for he had heard about it at the Picters."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson exclaimed in horror.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What d'ye make o' that?  I'll tell ye.  They wanted to make sure of
+her, but they wouldn't have thought o' dope unless the men they
+expectit were due to arrive at any moment.  As I see it, we've to face
+a siege not by the three but by a dozen or more, and it'll no' be long
+till it starts.  Now, isn't it a mercy we're safe in here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson returned to the others with a grave face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where d'you think the new folk are coming from?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heritage answered, "From Auchenlochan, I suppose?  Or perhaps down from
+the hills?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're wrong."  And he told of Leon's mistaken confidences to him in
+the darkness.  "They are coming from the sea, just like the old
+pirates."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The sea," Heritage repeated in a dazed voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, the sea.  Think what that means.  If they had been coming by the
+roads, we could have kept track of them, even if they beat us, and some
+of these laddies could have stuck to them and followed them up till
+help came.  It can't be such an easy job to carry a young lady against
+her will along Scotch roads.  But the sea's a different matter.  If
+they've got a fast boat they could be out of the Firth and away beyond
+the law before we could wake up a single policeman.  Ay, and even if
+the Government took it up and warned all the ports and ships at sea,
+what's to hinder them to find a hidy-hole about Ireland&mdash;or Norway?  I
+tell you, it's a far more desperate business than I thought, and it'll
+no' do to wait on and trust that the Chief Constable will turn up afore
+the mischief's done."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The moral," said Heritage, "is that there can be no surrender. We've
+got to stick it out in this old place at all costs."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," said Dickson emphatically.  "The moral is that we must shift the
+ladies.  We've got the chance while Dobson and his friends are locked
+up.  Let's get them as far away as we can from the sea.  They're far
+safer tramping the moors, and it's no' likely the new folk will dare to
+follow us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I cannot go."  Saskia, who had been listening intently, shook her
+head.  "I promised to wait here till my friend came. If I leave I shall
+never find him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you stay you certainly never will, for you'll be away with the
+ruffians.  Take a sensible view, Mem.  You'll be no good to your friend
+or your friend to you if before night you're rocking in a ship."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl shook her head again, gently but decisively.  "It was our
+arrangement.  I cannot break it.  Besides, I am sure that he will come
+in time, for he has never failed&mdash;-"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a desperate finality about the quiet tones and the weary face
+with the shadow of a smile on it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Heritage spoke.  "I don't think your plan will quite do, Dogson.
+Supposing we all break for the hinterland and the Danish brig finds the
+birds flown, that won't end the trouble.  They will get on the
+Princess's trail, and the whole persecution will start again. I want to
+see things brought to a head here and now.  If we can stick it out here
+long enough, we may trap the whole push and rid the world of a pretty
+gang of miscreants.  Let them show their hand, and then, if the police
+are here by that time, we can jug the lot for piracy or something
+worse."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's all right," said Dougal, "but we'd put up a better fight if we
+had the women off our mind.  I've aye read that when a castle was going
+to be besieged the first thing was to get rid of the civilians."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sensible to the last, Dougal," said Dickson approvingly. "That's just
+what I'm saying.  I'm strong for a fight, but put the ladies in a safe
+bit first, for they're our weak point."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you think that if you were fighting my enemies I would consent to
+be absent?" came Saskia's reproachful question.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Deed no, Mem," said Dickson heartily.  His martial spirit was with
+Heritage, but his prudence did not sleep, and he suddenly saw a way of
+placating both.  "Just you listen to what I propose. What do we amount
+to?  Mr. Heritage, six laddies, and myself&mdash;and I'm no more used to
+fighting than an old wife.  We've seven desperate villains against us,
+and afore night they may be seventy. We've a fine old castle here, but
+for defence we want more than stone walls&mdash;we want a garrison.  I tell
+you we must get help somewhere. Ay, but how, says you?  Well, coming
+here I noticed a gentleman's house away up ayont the railway and close
+to the hills.  The laird's maybe not at home, but there will be men
+there of some kind&mdash;gamekeepers and woodmen and such like.  My plan is
+to go there at once and ask for help. Now, it's useless me going alone,
+for nobody would listen to me. They'd tell me to go back to the shop or
+they'd think me demented. But with you, Mem, it would be a different
+matter.  They wouldn't disbelieve you.  So I want you to come with me,
+and to come at once, for God knows how soon our need will be sore.
+We'll leave your cousin with Mrs. Morran in the village, for bed's the
+place for her, and then you and me will be off on our business."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl looked at Heritage, who nodded.  "It's the only way," he said.
+"Get every man jack you can raise, and if it's humanly possible get a
+gun or two.  I believe there's time enough, for I don't see the brig
+arriving in broad daylight."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"D'you not?" Dickson asked rudely.  "Have you considered what day this
+is? It's the Sabbath, the best of days for an ill deed.  There's no
+kirk hereaways, and everybody in the parish will be sitting indoors by
+the fire."  He looked at his watch.  "In half an hour it'll be light.
+Haste you, Mem, and get ready.  Dougal, what's the weather?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Chieftain swung open the door, and sniffed the air.  The wind had
+fallen for the time being, and the surge of the tides below the rocks
+rose like the clamour of a mob.  With the lull, mist and a thin drizzle
+had cloaked the world again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To Dickson's surprise Dougal seemed to be in good spirits. He began to
+sing to a hymn tune a strange ditty.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"Class-conscious we are, and class-conscious wull be Till our fit's on
+the neck o' the Boorjoyzee."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"What on earth are you singing?"  Dickson inquired.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal grinned.  "Wee Jaikie went to a Socialist Sunday School last
+winter because he heard they were for fechtin' battles. Ay, and they
+telled him he was to join a thing called an International, and Jaikie
+thought it was a fitba' club.  But when he fund out there was no magic
+lantern or swaree at Christmas he gie'd it the chuck. They learned him
+a heap o' queer songs.  That's one."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What does the last word mean?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't ken.  Jaikie thought it was some kind of a draigon."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's a daft-like thing anyway.... When's high water?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal answered that to the best of his knowledge it fell between four
+and five in the afternoon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then that's when we may expect the foreign gentry if they think to
+bring their boat in to the Garplefoot.... Dougal, lad, I trust you to
+keep a most careful and prayerful watch.  You had better get the
+Die-Hards out of the Tower and all round the place afore Dobson and Co.
+get loose, or you'll no' get a chance later. Don't lose your mobility,
+as the sodgers say.  Mr. Heritage can hold the fort, but you laddies
+should be spread out like a screen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That was my notion," said Dougal.  "I'll detail two Die-Hards&mdash;Thomas
+Yownie and Wee Jaikie&mdash;to keep in touch with ye and watch for you
+comin' back.  Thomas ye ken already; ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie.
+But don't be mistook about Wee Jaikie.  He's terrible fond of greetin',
+but it's no fright with him but excitement. It's just a habit he's
+gotten.  When ye see Jaikie begin to greet, you may be sure that
+Jaikie's gettin' dangerous."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The door shut behind them and Dickson found himself with his two
+charges in a world dim with fog and rain and the still lingering
+darkness. The air was raw, and had the sour smell which comes from
+soaked earth and wet boughs when the leaves are not yet fledged.  Both
+the women were miserably equipped for such an expedition.  Cousin
+Eugenie trailed heavy furs, Saskia's only wrap was a bright-coloured
+shawl about her shoulders, and both wore thin foreign shoes.  Dickson
+insisted on stripping off his trusty waterproof and forcing it on the
+Princess, on whose slim body it hung very loose and very short.  The
+elder woman stumbled and whimpered and needed the constant support of
+his arm, walking like a townswoman from the knees.  But Saskia swung
+from the hips like a free woman, and Dickson had much ado to keep up
+with her. She seemed to delight in the bitter freshness of the dawn,
+inhaling deep breaths of it, and humming fragments of a tune.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Guided by Thomas Yownie they took the road which Dickson and Heritage
+had travelled the first evening, through the shrubberies on the north
+side of the House and the side avenue beyond which the ground fell to
+the Laver glen.  On their right the House rose like a dark cloud, but
+Dickson had lost his terror of it.  There were three angry men inside
+it, he remembered: long let them stay there.  He marvelled at his mood,
+and also rejoiced, for his worst fear had always been that he might
+prove a coward.  Now he was puzzled to think how he could ever be
+frightened again, for his one object was to succeed, and in that
+absorption fear seemed to him merely a waste of time.  "It all comes of
+treating the thing as a business proposition," he told himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But there was far more in his heart than this sober resolution. He was
+intoxicated with the resurgence of youth and felt a rapture of audacity
+which he never remembered in his decorous boyhood. "I haven't been
+doing badly for an old man," he reflected with glee. What, oh what had
+become of the pillar of commerce, the man who might have been a bailie
+had he sought municipal honours, the elder in the Guthrie Memorial
+Kirk, the instructor of literary young men? In the past three days he
+had levanted with jewels which had once been an Emperor's and certainly
+were not his; he had burglariously entered and made free of a strange
+house; he had played hide-and-seek at the risk of his neck and had
+wrestled in the dark with a foreign miscreant; he had shot at an
+eminent solicitor with intent to kill; and he was now engaged in
+tramping the world with a fairytale Princess. I blush to confess that
+of each of his doings he was unashamedly proud, and thirsted for many
+more in the same line.  "Gosh, but I'm seeing life," was his
+unregenerate conclusion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without sight or sound of a human being, they descended to the Laver,
+climbed again by the cart track, and passed the deserted West Lodge and
+inn to the village.  It was almost full dawn when the three stood in
+Mrs. Morran's kitchen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've brought you two ladies, Auntie Phemie," said Dickson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They made an odd group in that cheerful place, where the new-lit fire
+was crackling in the big grate&mdash;the wet undignified form of Dickson,
+unshaven of cheek and chin and disreputable in garb; the shrouded
+figure of Cousin Eugenie, who had sunk into the arm-chair and closed
+her eyes; the slim girl, into whose face the weather had whipped a glow
+like blossom; and the hostess, with her petticoats kilted and an
+ancient mutch on her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran looked once at Saskia, and then did a thing which she had
+not done since her girlhood.  She curtseyed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm proud to see ye here, Mem.  Off wi' your things, and I'll get ye
+dry claes,  Losh, ye're fair soppin'  And your shoon! Ye maun change
+your feet.... Dickson! Awa' up to the loft, and dinna you stir till I
+give ye a cry.  The leddies will change by the fire. And You,
+Mem"&mdash;this to Cousin Eugenie&mdash;"the place for you's your bed. I'll
+kinnle a fire ben the hoose in a jiffey.  And syne ye'll have
+breakfast&mdash;ye'll hae a cup o' tea wi' me now, for the kettle's just on
+the boil.  Awa' wi' ye. Dickson," and she stamped her foot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson departed, and in the loft washed his face, and smoked a pipe on
+the edge of the bed, watching the mist eddying up the village street.
+From below rose the sounds of hospitable bustle, and when after some
+twenty minutes' vigil he descended, he found Saskia toasting stockinged
+toes by the fire in the great arm-chair, and Mrs. Morran setting the
+table.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Auntie Phemie, hearken to me.  We've taken on too big a job for two
+men and six laddies, and help we've got to get, and that this very
+morning.  D'you mind the big white house away up near the hills ayont
+the station and east of the Ayr road?  It looked like a gentleman's
+shooting lodge.  I was thinking of trying there.  Mercy!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The exclamation was wrung from him by his eyes settling on Saskia and
+noting her apparel.  Gone were her thin foreign clothes, and in their
+place she wore a heavy tweed skirt cut very short, and thick homespun
+stockings, which had been made for some one with larger feet than hers.
+A pair of the coarse low-heeled shoes which country folk wear in the
+farmyard stood warming by the hearth.  She still had her russet jumper,
+but round her neck hung a grey wool scarf, of the kind known as a
+"Comforter."  Amazingly pretty she looked in Dickson's eyes, but with a
+different kind of prettiness.  The sense of fragility had fled, and he
+saw how nobly built she was for all her exquisiteness. She looked like
+a queen, he thought, but a queen to go gipsying through the world with.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, they're some o' Elspeth's things, rale guid furthy claes," said
+Mrs. Morran complacently.  "And the shoon are what she used to gang
+about the byres wi' when she was in the Castlewham dairy. The leddy was
+tellin' me she was for trampin' the hills, and thae things will keep
+her dry and warm.... I ken the hoose ye mean. They ca' it the Mains of
+Garple.  And I ken the man that bides in it. He's yin Sir Erchibald
+Roylance.  English, but his mither was a Dalziel. I'm no weel acquaint
+wi' his forbears, but I'm weel eneuch acquaint wi' Sir Erchie, and
+'better a guid coo than a coo o' a guid kind,' as my mither used to
+say.  He used to be an awfu' wild callont, a freend o' puir Maister
+Quentin, and up to ony deevilry. But they tell me he's a quieter lad
+since the war, as sair lamed by fa'in oot o' an airyplane."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Will he be at the Mains just now?" Dickson asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wadna wonder.  He has a muckle place in England, but he aye used to
+come here in the back-end for the shootin' and in April for birds. He's
+clean daft about birds.  He'll be out a' day at the craig watchin'
+solans, or lyin' a' mornin' i' the moss lookin' at bog-blitters."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Will he help, think you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll wager he'll help.  Onyway it's your best chance, and better a wee
+bush than nae beild.  Now, sit in to your breakfast."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a merry meal.  Mrs. Morran dispensed tea and gnomic wisdom.
+Saskia ate heartily, speaking little, but once or twice laying her hand
+softly on her hostess's gnarled fingers.  Dickson was in such spirits
+that he gobbled shamelessly, being both hungry and hurried, and he
+spoke of the still unconquered enemy with ease and disrespect, so that
+Mrs. Morran was moved to observe that there was "naething sae bauld as
+a blind mear."  But when in a sudden return of modesty he belittled his
+usefulness and talked sombrely of his mature years he was told that he
+"wad never be auld wi' sae muckle honesty." Indeed it was very clear
+that Mrs. Morran approved of her nephew. They did not linger over
+breakfast, for both were impatient to be on the road.  Mrs. Morran
+assisted Saskia to put on Elspeth's shoes. "'Even a young fit finds
+comfort in an auld bauchle,' as my mother, honest woman, used to say."
+Dickson's waterproof was restored to him, and for Saskia an old
+raincoat belonging to the son in South Africa was discovered, which
+fitted her better.  "Siccan weather," said the hostess, as she opened
+the door to let in a swirl of wind. "The deil's aye kind to his ain.
+Haste ye back, Mem, and be sure I'll tak' guid care o' your leddy
+cousin."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The proper way to the Mains of Garple was either by the station and the
+Ayr road, or by the Auchenlochan highway, branching off half a mile
+beyond the Garple bridge.  But Dickson, who had been studying the map
+and fancied himself as a pathfinder, chose the direct route across the
+Long Muir as being at once shorter and more sequestered. With the dawn
+the wind had risen again, but it had shifted towards the north-west and
+was many degrees colder.  The mist was furling on the hills like sails,
+the rain had ceased, and out at sea the eye covered a mile or two of
+wild water.  The moor was drenching wet, and the peat bogs were
+brimming with inky pools, so that soon the travellers were soaked to
+the knees.  Dickson had no fear of pursuit, for he calculated that
+Dobson and his friends, even if they had got out, would be busy looking
+for the truants in the vicinity of the House and would presently be
+engaged with the old Tower.  But he realized, too, that speed on his
+errand was vital, for at any moment the Unknown might arrive from the
+sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So he kept up a good pace, half-running, half-striding, till they had
+passed the railway, and he found himself gasping with a stitch in his
+side, and compelled to rest in the lee of what had once been a
+sheepfold.  Saskia amazed him.  She moved over the rough heather like a
+deer, and it was her hand that helped him across the deeper hags.
+Before such youth and vigour he felt clumsy and old.  She stood looking
+down at him as he recovered his breath, cool, unruffled, alert as
+Diana. His mind fled to Heritage, and it occurred to him suddenly that
+the Poet had set his affections very high.  Loyalty drove him to speak
+for his friend.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've got the easy job," he said.  "Mr. Heritage will have the whole
+pack on him in that old Tower, and him with such a sore clout on his
+head.  I've left him my pistol.  He's a terrible brave man!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She smiled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, and he's a poet too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So?" she said.  "I did not know.  He is very young."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's a man of very high ideels."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She puzzled at the word, and then smiled.  "He is like many of our
+young men in Russia, the students&mdash;his mind is in a ferment and he does
+not know what he wants.  But he is brave."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This seemed to Dickson's loyal soul but a chilly tribute.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think he is in love with me," she continued.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He looked up startled, and saw in her face that which gave him a view
+into a strange new world.  He had thought that women blushed when they
+talked of love, but he eyes were as grave and candid as a boy's. Here
+was one who had gone through waters so deep that she had lost the
+foibles of sex.  Love to her was only a word of ill omen, a threat on
+the lips of brutes, an extra battalion of peril in an army of
+perplexities.  He felt like some homely rustic who finds himself swept
+unwittingly into the moonlight hunt of Artemis and her maidens.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is a romantic," she said.  "I have known so many like him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's no that," said Dickson shortly.  "Why he used to be aye laughing
+at me for being romantic.  He's one that's looking for truth and
+reality,  he says, and he's terrible down on the kind of poetry I like
+myself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She smiled.  "They all talk so.  But you, my friend Dickson" (she
+pronounced the name in two staccato syllables ever so prettily), "you
+are different.  Tell me about yourself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm just what you see&mdash;a middle-aged retired grocer."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Grocer?" she queried.  "Ah, yes, epicier.  But you are a very
+remarkable epicier.  Mr. Heritage I understand, but you and those
+little boys&mdash;no.  I am sure of one thing&mdash;you are not a romantic. You
+are too humorous and&mdash;and&mdash;I think you are like Ulysses, for it would
+not be easy to defeat you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her eyes were kind, nay affectionate, and Dickson experienced a
+preposterous rapture in his soul, followed by a sinking, as he realized
+how far the job was still from being completed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must be getting on, Mem," he said hastily, and the two plunged
+again into the heather.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Ayr road was crossed, and the fir wood around the Mains became
+visible, and presently the white gates of the entrance. A wind-blown
+spire of smoke beyond the trees proclaimed that the house was not
+untenanted.  As they entered the drive the Scots firs were tossing in
+the gale, which blew fiercely at this altitude, but, the dwelling
+itself being more in the hollow, the daffodil clumps on the lawn were
+but mildly fluttered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The door was opened by a one-armed butler who bore all the marks of the
+old regular soldier.  Dickson produced a card and asked to see his
+master on urgent business.  Sir Archibald was at home, he was told, and
+had just finished breakfast.  The two were led into a large bare
+chamber which had all the chill and mustiness of a bachelor's
+drawing-room.  The butler returned, and said Sir Archibald would see
+him.  "I'd better go myself first and prepare the way, Mem," Dickson
+whispered, and followed the man across the hall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He found himself ushered into a fair-sized room where a bright fire was
+burning.  On a table lay the remains of breakfast, and the odour of
+food mingled pleasantly with the scent of peat. The horns and heads of
+big game, foxes' masks, the model of a gigantic salmon, and several
+bookcases adorned the walls, and books and maps were mixed with
+decanters and cigar-boxes on the long sideboard.  After the wild out of
+doors the place seemed the very shrine of comfort.  A young man sat in
+an arm-chair by the fire with a leg on a stool; he was smoking a pipe,
+and reading the Field, and on another stool at his elbow was a pile of
+new novels. He was a pleasant brown-faced young man, with remarkably
+smooth hair and a roving humorous eye.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come in, Mr. McCunn.  Very glad to see you.  If, as I take it, you're
+the grocer, you're a household name in these parts. I get all my
+supplies from you, and I've just been makin' inroads on one of your
+divine hams.  Now, what can I do for you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm very proud to hear what you say, Sir Archibald.  But I've not come
+on business.  I've come with the queerest story you ever heard in your
+life and I've come to ask your help."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go ahead.  A good story is just what I want this vile mornin'."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not here alone.  I've a lady with me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"God bless my soul!  A lady!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, a princess.  She's in the next room."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The young man looked wildly at him and waved the book he had been
+reading.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Excuse me, Mr. McCunn, but are you quite sober?  I beg your pardon. I
+see you are.  But you know, it isn't done.  Princesses don't as a rule
+come here after breakfast to pass the time of day. It's more absurd
+than this shocker I've been readin'."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All the same it's a fact.  She'll tell you the story herself, and
+you'll believe her quick enough.  But to prepare your mind I'll just
+give you a sketch of the events of the last few days."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before the sketch was concluded the young man had violently rung the
+bell. "Sime," he shouted to the servant, "clear away this mess and lay
+the table again.  Order more breakfast, all the breakfast you can get.
+Open the windows and get the tobacco smoke out of the air. Tidy up the
+place for there's a lady comin'.  Quick, you juggins!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was on his feet now, and, with his arm in Dickson's, was heading for
+the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My sainted aunt!  And you topped off with pottin' at the factor. I've
+seen a few things in my day, but I'm blessed if I ever met a bird like
+you!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XI
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+GRAVITY OUT OF BED
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It is probable that Sir Archibald Roylance did not altogether believe
+Dickson's tale; it may be that he considered him an agreeable romancer,
+or a little mad, or no more than a relief to the tedium of a wet Sunday
+morning.  But his incredulity did not survive one glance at Saskia as
+she stood in that bleak drawing-room among Victorian water-colours and
+faded chintzes.  The young man's boyishness deserted him.  He stopped
+short in his tracks, and made a profound and awkward bow.  "I am at
+your service, Mademoiselle," he said, amazed at himself.  The words
+seemed to have come out of a confused memory of plays and novels.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She inclined her head&mdash;a little on one side, and looked towards Dickson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sir Archibald's going to do his best for us," said that squire of
+dames. "I was telling him that we had had our breakfast."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's get out of this sepulchre," said their host, who was recovering
+himself.  "There's a roasting fire in my den.  Of course you'll have
+something to eat&mdash;hot coffee, anyhow&mdash;I've trained my cook to make
+coffee like a Frenchwoman.  The housekeeper will take charge of you, if
+you want to tidy up, and you must excuse our ramshackle ways, please. I
+don't believe there's ever been a lady in this house before, you know."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He led her to the smoking-room and ensconced her in the great chair by
+the fire.  Smilingly she refused a series of offers which ranged from a
+sheepskin mantle which he had got in the Pamirs and which he thought
+might fit her, to hot whisky and water as a specific against a chill.
+But she accepted a pair of slippers and deftly kicked off the brogues
+provided by Mrs. Morran.  Also, while Dickson started rapaciously on a
+second breakfast, she allowed him to pour her out a cup of coffee.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are a soldier?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Two years infantry&mdash;5th Battalion Lennox Highlanders, and then Flying
+Corps.  Top-hole time I had too till the day before the Armistice, when
+my luck gave out and I took a nasty toss. Consequently I'm not as fast
+on my legs now as I'd like to be."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You were a friend of Captain Kennedy?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"His oldest.  We were at the same private school, and he was at
+m'tutors, and we were never much separated till he went abroad to cram
+for the Diplomatic and I started east to shoot things."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then I will tell you what I told Captain Kennedy."  Saskia, looking
+into the heart of the peats, began the story of which we have already
+heard a version, but she told it differently, for she was telling it to
+one who more or less belonged to her own world.  She mentioned names at
+which the other nodded.  She spoke of a certain Paul Abreskov. "I heard
+of him at Bokhara in 1912," said Sir Archie, and his face grew solemn.
+Sometimes she lapsed into French, and her hearer's brow wrinkled, but
+he appeared to follow.  When she had finished he drew a long breath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My aunt!  What a time you've been through!  I've seen pluck in my day,
+but yours!  It's not thinkable.  D'you mind if I ask a question,
+Princess?  Bolshevism we know all about, and I admit Trotsky and his
+friends are a pretty effective push; but how on earth have they got a
+world-wide graft going in the time so that they can stretch their net
+to an out-of-the-way spot like this? It looks as if they had struck a
+Napoleon somewhere."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You do not understand," she said.  "I cannot make any one
+understand&mdash;except a Russian.  My country has been broken to pieces,
+and there is no law in it; therefore it is a nursery of crime.  So
+would England be, or France, if you had suffered the same misfortunes.
+My people are not wickeder than others, but for the moment they are
+sick and have no strength.  As for the government of the Bolsheviki it
+matters little, for it will pass.  Some parts of it may remain, but it
+is a government of the sick and fevered, and cannot endure in health.
+Lenin may be a good man&mdash;I do not think so, but I do not know&mdash;but if
+he were an archangel he could not alter things.  Russia is mortally
+sick and therefore all evil is unchained, and the criminals have no one
+to check them.  There is crime everywhere in the world, and the
+unfettered crime in Russia is so powerful that it stretches its hand to
+crime throughout the globe and there is a great mobilizing everywhere
+of wicked men.  Once you boasted that law was international and that
+the police in one land worked with the police of all others. To-day
+that is true about criminals.  After a war evil passions are loosed,
+and, since Russia is broken, in her they can make their
+headquarters.... It is not Bolshevism, the theory, you need fear, for
+that is a weak and dying thing.  It is crime, which to-day finds its
+seat in my country, but is not only Russian.  It has no fatherland. It
+is as old as human nature and as wide as the earth."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I see," said Sir Archie.  "Gad, here have I been vegetatin' and
+thinkin' that all excitement had gone out of life with the war, and
+sometimes even regrettin' that the beastly old thing was over, and all
+the while the world fairly hummin' with interest.  And Loudon too!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would like your candid opinion on yon factor, Sir Archibald," said
+Dickson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can't say I ever liked him, and I've once or twice had a row with
+him, for used to bring his pals to shoot over Dalquharter and he didn't
+quite play the game by me.  But I know dashed little about him, for
+I've been a lot away.  Bit hairy about the heels, of course.  A great
+figure at local race-meetin's, and used to toady old Carforth and the
+huntin' crowd.  He has a pretty big reputation as a sharp lawyer and
+some of the thick-headed lairds swear by him, but Quentin never could
+stick him.  It's quite likely he's been gettin' into Queer Street, for
+he was always speculatin' in horseflesh, and I fancy he plunged a bit
+on the Turf. But I can't think how he got mixed up in this show."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm positive Dobson's his brother."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And put this business in his way.  That would explain it all right....
+He must be runnin' for pretty big stakes, for that kind of lad don't
+dabble in crime for six-and-eightpence.... Now for the layout. You've
+got three men shut up in Dalquharter House, who by this time have
+probably escaped.  One of you&mdash;what's his name?&mdash;Heritage?&mdash;is in the
+old Tower, and you think that they think the Princess is still there
+and will sit round the place like terriers.  Sometime to-day the Danish
+brig wall arrive with reinforcements, and then there will be a hefty
+fight.  Well, the first thing to be done it to get rid of Loudon's
+stymie with the authorities.  Princess, I'm going to carry you off in
+my car to the Chief Constable.  The second thing is for you after that
+to stay on here.  It's a deadly place on a wet day, but it's safe
+enough."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Saskia shook her head and Dickson spoke for her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'll no' get her to stop here.  I've done my best, but she's
+determined to be back at Dalquharter.  You see she's expecting a
+friend, and besides, if here's going to be a battle she'd like to be in
+it.  Is that so, Mem?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Archie looked helplessly around him, and the sight of the girl's
+face convinced him that argument would be fruitless.  "Anyhow she must
+come with me to the Chief Constable.  Lethington's a slow bird on the
+wing, and I don't see myself convincin' him that he must get busy
+unless I can produce the Princess.  Even then it may be a tough job,
+for it's Sunday, and in these parts people go to sleep till Monday
+mornin'."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's just what I'm trying to get at," said Dickson.  "By all means
+go to the Chief Constable, and tell him it's life or death. My lawyer
+in Glasgow, Mr. Caw, will have been stirring him up yesterday, and you
+two should complete the job... But what I'm feared is that he'll not be
+in time.  As you say, it's the Sabbath day, and the police are terrible
+slow.  Now any moment that brig may be here, and the trouble will
+start.  I'm wanting to save the Princess, but I'm wanting too to give
+these blagyirds the roughest handling they ever got in their lives.
+Therefore I say there's no time to lose. We're far ower few to put up a
+fight, and we want every man you've got about this place to hold the
+fort till the police come."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Archibald looked upon the earnest flushed face of Dickson with
+admiration.  "I'm blessed if you're not the most whole-hearted brigand
+I've ever struck."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not.  I'm just a business man."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you realize that you're levying a private war and breaking every
+law of the land?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hoots!" said Dickson.  "I don't care a docken about the law. I'm for
+seeing this job through.  What force can you produce?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Only cripples, I'm afraid.  There's Sime, my butler.  He was a
+Fusilier Jock and, as you saw, has lost an arm.  Then McGuffog the
+keeper is a good man, but he's still got a Turkish bullet in his thigh.
+The chauffeur, Carfrae, was in the Yeomanry, and lost half a foot; and
+there's myself, as lame as a duck.  The herds on the home farm are no
+good, for one's seventy and the other is in bed with jaundice. The
+Mains can produce four men, but they're rather a job lot."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They'll do fine," said Dickson heartily.  "All sodgers, and no doubt
+all good shots.  Have you plenty guns?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Archie burst into uproarious laughter.  "Mr. McCunn, you're a man
+after my own heart.  I'm under your orders.  If I had a boy I'd put him
+into the provision trade, for it's the place to see fightin'. Yes,
+we've no end of guns.  I advise shot-guns, for they've more stoppin'
+power in a rush than a rifle, and I take it it's a rough-and-tumble
+we're lookin' for."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Right," said Dickson.  "I saw a bicycle in the hall.  I want you to
+lend it me, for I must be getting back.  You'll take the Princess and
+do the best you can with the Chief Constable."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And then?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then you'll load up your car with your folk, and come down the hill to
+Dalquharter.  There'll be a laddie, or maybe more than one, waiting for
+you on this side the village to give you instructions. Take your orders
+from them.  If it's a red-haired ruffian called Dougal you'll be wise
+to heed what he says, for he has a grand head for battles."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Five minutes later Dickson was pursuing a quavering course like a snipe
+down the avenue.  He was a miserable performer on a bicycle. Not for
+twenty years had he bestridden one, and he did not understand such new
+devices as free-wheels and change of gears.  The mounting had been the
+worst part, and it had only been achieved by the help of a rockery.  He
+had begun by cutting into two flower-beds, and missing a birch tree by
+inches.  But he clung on desperately, well knowing that if he fell off
+it would be hard to remount, and at length he gained the avenue.  When
+he passed the lodge gates he was riding fairly straight, and when he
+turned off the Ayr highway to the side road that led to Dalquharter he
+was more or less master of his machine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He crossed the Garple by an ancient hunch-backed bridge, observing even
+in his absorption with the handle-bars that the stream was in roaring
+spate.  He wrestled up the further hill with aching calf-muscles, and
+got to the top just before his strength gave out. Then as the road
+turned seaward he had the slope with him, and enjoyed some respite.  It
+was no case for putting up his feet, for the gale was blowing hard on
+his right cheek, but the downward grade enabled him to keep his course
+with little exertion.  His anxiety to get back to the scene of action
+was for the moment appeased, since he knew he was making as good speed
+as the weather allowed, so he had leisure for thought.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the mind of this preposterous being was not on the business before
+him.  He dallied with irrelevant things&mdash;with the problems of youth and
+love.  He was beginning to be very nervous about Heritage, not as the
+solitary garrison of the old Tower, but as the lover of Saskia. That
+everybody should be in love with her appeared to him only proper, for
+he had never met her like, and assumed that it did not exist. The
+desire of the moth for the star seemed to him a reasonable thing, since
+hopeless loyalty and unrequited passion were the eternal stock-in-trade
+of romance.  He wished he were twenty-five himself to have the chance
+of indulging in such sentimentality for such a lady. But Heritage was
+not like him and would never be content with a romantic folly.... He
+had been in love with her for two years&mdash;a long time.  He spoke about
+wanting to die for her, which was a flight beyond Dickson himself.  "I
+doubt it will be what they call a 'grand passion,'" he reflected with
+reverence.  But it was hopeless; he saw quite clearly that it was
+hopeless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Why, he could not have explained, for Dickson's instincts were subtler
+than his intelligence.  He recognized that the two belonged to
+different circles of being, which nowhere intersected.  That mysterious
+lady, whose eyes had looked through life to the other side, was no mate
+for the Poet.  His faithful soul was agitated, for he had developed for
+Heritage a sincere affection.  It would break his heart, poor man.
+There was he holding the fort alone and cheering himself with
+delightful fancies about one remoter than the moon.  Dickson wanted
+happy endings, and here there was no hope of such.  He hated to admit
+that life could be crooked, but the optimist in him was now fairly
+dashed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Archie might be the fortunate man, for of course he would soon be
+in love with her, if he were not so already.  Dickson like all his
+class had a profound regard for the country gentry. The business Scot
+does not usually revere wealth, though he may pursue it earnestly, nor
+does he specially admire rank in the common sense.  But for ancient
+race he has respect in his bones, though it may happen that in public
+he denies it, and the laird has for him a secular association with good
+family.... Sir Archie might do. He was young, good-looking, obviously
+gallant... But no!  He was not quite right either.  Just a trifle too
+light in weight, too boyish and callow.  The Princess must have youth,
+but it should be mighty youth, the youth of a Napoleon or a Caesar.  He
+reflected that the Great Montrose, for whom he had a special
+veneration, might have filled the bill. Or young Harry with his beaver
+up?  Or Claverhouse in the picture with the flush of temper on his
+cheek?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The meditations of the match-making Dickson came to an abrupt end. He
+had been riding negligently, his head bent against the wind, and his
+eyes vaguely fixed on the wet hill-gravel of the road.  Of his
+immediate environs he was pretty well unconscious.  Suddenly he was
+aware of figures on each side of him who advanced menacingly.  Stung to
+activity he attempted to increase his pace, which was already good, for
+the road at this point descended steeply.  Then, before he could
+prevent it, a stick was thrust into his front wheel, and the next
+second he was describing a curve through the air.  His head took the
+ground, he felt a spasm of blinding pain, and then a sense of horrible
+suffocation before his wits left him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are ye sure it's the richt man, Ecky?" said a voice which he did not
+hear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sure.  It's the Glesca body Dobson telled us to look for yesterday.
+It's a pund note atween us for this job.  We'll tie him up in the wud
+till we've time to attend to him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is he bad?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It doesna maitter," said the one called Ecky.  "He'll be deid onyway
+long afore the morn."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran all forenoon was in a state of un-Sabbatical disquiet.
+After she had seen Saskia and Dickson start she finished her
+housewifely duties, took Cousin Eugenie her breakfast, and made
+preparation for the midday dinner.  The invalid in the bed in the
+parlour was not a repaying subject.  Cousin Eugenie belonged to that
+type of elderly women who, having been spoiled in youth, find the rest
+of life fall far short of their expectations. Her voice had acquired a
+perpetual wail, and the corners of what had once been a pretty mouth
+drooped in an eternal peevishness. She found herself in a morass of
+misery and shabby discomfort, but had her days continued in an even
+tenor she would still have lamented.  "A dingy body," was Mrs. Morran's
+comment, but she laboured in kindness.  Unhappily they had no common
+language, and it was only by signs that the hostess could discover her
+wants and show her goodwill.  She fed her and bathed her face, saw to
+the fire and left her to sleep.  "I'm boilin' a hen to mak' broth for
+your denner, Mem.  Try and get a bit sleep now." The purport of the
+advice was clear, and Cousin Eugenie turned obediently on her pillow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was Mrs. Morran's custom of a Sunday to spend the morning in devout
+meditation.  Some years before she had given up tramping the five miles
+to kirk, on the ground that having been a regular attendant for fifty
+years she had got all the good out of it that was probable. Instead she
+read slowly aloud to herself the sermon printed in a certain religious
+weekly which reached her every Saturday, and concluded with a chapter
+or two of the Bible.  But to-day something had gone wrong with her
+mind.  She could not follow the thread of the Reverend Doctor
+MacMichael's discourse.  She could not fix her attention on the
+wanderings and misdeeds of Israel as recorded in the Book of Exodus.
+She must always be getting up to look at the pot on the fire, or to
+open the back door and study the weather. For a little she fought
+against her unrest, and then she gave up the attempt at concentration.
+She took the big pot off the fire and allowed it to simmer, and
+presently she fetched her boots and umbrella, and kilted her
+petticoats.  "I'll be none the waur o' a breath o' caller air," she
+decided.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wind was blowing great guns but there was only the thinnest
+sprinkle of rain.  Sitting on the hen-house roof and munching a raw
+turnip was a figure which she recognized as the smallest of the
+Die-Hards.  Between bites he was singing dolefully to the tune of
+"Annie Laurie" one of the ditties of his quondam Sunday School:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  "The Boorjoys' brays are bonnie,<BR>
+  Too-roo-ra-roo-raloo,<BR>
+  But the Workers of the World<BR>
+  Wull gar them a' look blue,<BR>
+  And droon them in the sea,<BR>
+  And&mdash;for bonnie Annie Laurie<BR>
+  I'll lay me down and dee."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"Losh, laddie," she cried, "that's cauld food for the stomach. Come
+indoors about midday and I'll gie ye a plate o' broth!" The Die-Hard
+saluted and continued on the turnip.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She took the Auchenlochan road across the Garple bridge, for that was
+the best road to the Mains, and by it Dickson and the others might be
+returning.  Her equanimity at all seasons was like a Turk's, and she
+would not have admitted that anything mortal had power to upset or
+excite her: nevertheless it was a fast-beating heart that she now bore
+beneath her Sunday jacket.  Great events, she felt, were on the eve of
+happening, and of them she was a part. Dickson's anxiety was hers, to
+bring things to a business-like conclusion. The honour of Huntingtower
+was at stake and of the old Kennedys. She was carrying out Mr.
+Quentin's commands, the dead boy who used to clamour for her treacle
+scones.  And there was more than duty in it, for youth was not dead in
+her old heart, and adventure had still power to quicken it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran walked well, with the steady long paces of the Scots
+countrywoman.  She left the Auchenlochan road and took the side path
+along the tableland to the Mains.  But for the surge of the gale and
+the far-borne boom of the furious sea there was little noise; not a
+bird cried in the uneasy air.  With the wind behind her Mrs. Morran
+breasted the ascent till she had on her right the moorland running
+south to the Lochan valley and on her left Garple chafing in its deep
+forested gorges.  Her eyes were quick and she noted with interest a
+weasel creeping from a fern-clad cairn.  A little way on she passed an
+old ewe in difficulties and assisted it to rise.  "But for me, my
+wumman, ye'd hae been braxy ere nicht," she told it as it departed
+bleating. Then she realized that she had come a certain distance.
+"Losh, I maun be gettin' back or the hen will be spiled," she cried,
+and was on the verge of turning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But something caught her eye a hundred yards farther on the road. It
+was something which moved with the wind like a wounded bird, fluttering
+from the roadside to a puddle and then back to the rushes. She advanced
+to it, missed it, and caught it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was an old dingy green felt hat, and she recognized it as Dickson's.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran's brain, after a second of confusion, worked fast and
+clearly. She examined the road and saw that a little way on the gravel
+had been violently agitated.  She detected several prints of hobnailed
+boots. There were prints, too, on a patch of peat on the south side
+behind a tall bank of sods.  "That's where they were hidin'," she
+concluded. Then she explored on the other side in a thicket of hazels
+and wild raspberries, and presently her perseverance was rewarded.  The
+scrub was all crushed and pressed as if several persons had been
+forcing a passage. In a hollow was a gleam of something white.  She
+moved towards it with a quaking heart, and was relieved to find that it
+was only a new and expensive bicycle with the front wheel badly buckled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran delayed no longer.  If she had walked well on her out
+journey, she beat all records on the return.  Sometimes she would run
+till her breath failed; then she would slow down till anxiety once more
+quickened her pace.  To her joy, on the Dalquharter side of the Garple
+bridge she observed the figure of a Die-Hard.  Breathless, flushed,
+with her bonnet awry and her umbrella held like a scimitar, she seized
+on the boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Awfu' doin's!  They've grippit Maister McCunn up the Mains road just
+afore the second milestone and forenent the auld bucht.  I fund his
+hat, and a bicycle's lyin' broken in the wud.  Haste ye, man, and get
+the rest and awa' and seek him.  It'll be the tinklers frae the Dean.
+I'd gang misel' but my legs are ower auld.  Ah, laddie, dinna stop to
+speir questions.  They'll hae him murdered or awa' to sea.  And maybe
+the leddy was wi' him and they've got them baith.  Wae's me!  Wae's me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Die-Hard, who was Wee Jaikie, did not delay.  His eyes had filled
+with tears at her news, which we know to have been his habit. When Mrs.
+Morran, after indulging in a moment of barbaric keening, looked back
+the road she had come, she saw a small figure trotting up the hill like
+a terrier who has been left behind.  As he trotted he wept bitterly.
+Jaikie was getting dangerous.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap12"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+HOW MR. McCUNN COMMITTED AN ASSAULT UPON AN ALLY
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Dickson always maintained that his senses did not leave him for more
+than a second or two, but he admitted that he did not remember very
+clearly the events of the next few hours.  He was conscious of a bad
+pain above his eyes, and something wet trickling down his cheek. There
+was a perpetual sound of water in his ears and of men's voices. He
+found himself dropped roughly on the ground and forced to walk, and was
+aware that his legs were inclined to wobble.  Somebody had a grip on
+each arm, so that he could not defend his face from the brambles, and
+that worried him, for his whole head seemed one aching bruise and he
+dreaded anything touching it.  But all the time he did not open his
+mouth, for silence was the one duty that his muddled wits enforced.  He
+felt that he was not the master of his mind, and he dreaded what he
+might disclose if he began to babble.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently there came a blank space of which he had no recollection at
+all. The movement had stopped, and he was allowed to sprawl on the
+ground. He thought that his head had got another whack from a bough,
+and that the pain put him into a stupor.  When he awoke he was alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He discovered that he was strapped very tightly to a young Scotch fir.
+His arms were bent behind him and his wrists tied together with cords
+knotted at the back of the tree; his legs were shackled, and further
+cords fastened them to the bole.  Also there was a halter round the
+trunk and just under his chin, so that while he breathed freely enough,
+he could not move his head.  Before him was a tangle of bracken and
+scrub, and beyond that the gloom of dense pines; but as he could see
+only directly in front his prospect was strictly circumscribed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Very slowly he began to take his bearings.  The pain in his head was
+now dulled and quite bearable, and the flow of blood had stopped, for
+he felt the encrustation of it beginning on his cheeks. There was a
+tremendous noise all around him, and he traced this to the swaying of
+tree-tops in the gale.  But there was an undercurrent of deeper
+sound&mdash;water surely, water churning among rocks.  It was a stream&mdash;the
+Garple of course&mdash;and then he remembered where he was and what had
+happened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I do not wish to portray Dickson as a hero, for nothing would annoy him
+more; but I am bound to say that his first clear thought was not of his
+own danger.  It was intense exasperation at the miscarriage of his
+plans.  Long ago he should have been with Dougal arranging operations,
+giving him news of Sir Archie, finding out how Heritage was faring,
+deciding how to use the coming reinforcements. Instead he was trussed
+up in a wood, a prisoner of the enemy, and utterly useless to his side.
+He tugged at his bonds, and nearly throttled himself.  But they were of
+good tarry cord and did not give a fraction of an inch.  Tears of
+bitter rage filled his eyes and made furrows on his encrusted cheek.
+Idiot that he had been, he had wrecked everything!  What would Saskia
+and Dougal and Sir Archie do without a business man by their side?
+There would be a muddle, and the little party would walk into a trap.
+He saw it all very clearly. The men from the sea would overpower them,
+there would be murder done, and an easy capture of the Princess; and
+the police would turn up at long last to find an empty headland.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had also most comprehensively wrecked himself, and at the thought
+genuine panic seized him.  There was no earthly chance of escape, for
+he was tucked away in this infernal jungle till such time as his
+enemies had time to deal with him.  As to what that dealing would be
+like he had no doubts, for they knew that he had been their chief
+opponent. Those desperate ruffians would not scruple to put an end to
+him. His mind dwelt with horrible fascination upon throat-cutting, no
+doubt because of the presence of the cord below his chin. He had heard
+it was not a painful death; at any rate he remembered a clerk he had
+once had, a feeble, timid creature, who had twice attempted suicide
+that way.  Surely it could not be very bad, and it would soon be over.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But another thought came to him.  They would carry him off in the ship
+and settle with him at their leisure.  No swift merciful death for him.
+He had read dreadful tales of the Bolsheviks' skill in torture, and now
+they all came back to him&mdash;stories of Chinese mercenaries, and men
+buried alive, and death by agonizing inches.  He felt suddenly very
+cold and sick, and hung in his bonds, for he had no strength in his
+limbs.  Then the pressure on this throat braced him, and also quickened
+his numb mind.  The liveliest terror ran like quicksilver through his
+veins.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He endured some moments of this anguish, till after many despairing
+clutches at his wits he managed to attain a measure of self-control. He
+certainly wasn't going to allow himself to become mad. Death was death
+whatever form it took, and he had to face death as many better men had
+done before him.  He had often thought about it and wondered how he
+should behave if the thing came to him.  Respectably, he had hoped;
+heroically, he had sworn in his moments of confidence.  But he had
+never for an instant dreamed of this cold, lonely, dreadful business.
+Last Sunday, he remembered, he had basking in the afternoon sun in his
+little garden and reading about the end of Fergus MacIvor in WAVERLEY
+and thrilling to the romance of it; and Tibby had come out and summoned
+him in to tea.  Then he had rather wanted to be a Jacobite in the '45
+and in peril of his neck, and now Providence had taken him most
+terribly at his word.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A week ago&mdash;-!  He groaned at the remembrance of that sunny garden. In
+seven days he had found a new world and tried a new life, and had come
+now to the end of it.  He did not want to die, less now than ever with
+such wide horizons opening before him. But that was the worst of it, he
+reflected, for to have a great life great hazards must be taken, and
+there was always the risk of this sudden extinguisher.... Had he to
+choose again, far better the smooth sheltered bypath than this accursed
+romantic highway on to which he had blundered.... No, by Heaven, no!
+Confound it, if he had to choose he would do it all again.  Something
+stiff and indomitable in his soul was bracing him to a manlier humour.
+There was no one to see the figure strapped to the fir, but had there
+been a witness he would have noted that at this stage Dickson shut his
+teeth and that his troubled eyes looked very steadily before him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His business, he felt, was to keep from thinking, for if he thought at
+all there would be a flow of memories&mdash;of his wife, his home, his
+books, his friends&mdash;to unman him.  So he steeled himself to blankness,
+like a sleepless man imagining white sheep in a gate.... He noted a
+robin below the hazels, strutting impudently.  And there was a tit on a
+bracken frond, which made the thing sway like one of the see-saws he
+used to play with as a boy.  There was no wind in that undergrowth, and
+any movement must be due to bird or beast.  The tit flew off, and the
+oscillations of the bracken slowly died away.  Then they began again,
+but more violently, and Dickson could not see the bird that caused
+them. It must be something down at the roots of the covert, a rabbit,
+perhaps, or a fox, or a weasel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He watched for the first sign of the beast, and thought he caught a
+glimpse of tawny fur.  Yes, there it was&mdash;pale dirty yellow, a weasel
+clearly.  Then suddenly the patch grow larger, and to his amazement he
+looked at a human face&mdash;the face of a pallid small boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A head disentangled itself, followed by thin shoulders, and then by a
+pair of very dirty bare legs.  The figure raised itself and looked
+sharply round to make certain that the coast was clear. Then it stood
+up and saluted, revealing the well-known lineaments of Wee Jaikie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the sight Dickson knew that he was safe by that certainty of
+instinct which is independent of proof, like the man who prays for a
+sign and has his prayer answered.  He observed that the boy was quietly
+sobbing.  Jaikie surveyed the position for an instant with red-rimmed
+eyes and then unclasped a knife, feeling the edge of the blade on his
+thumb.  He darted behind the fir, and a second later Dickson's wrists
+were free.  Then he sawed at the legs, and cut the shackles which tied
+them together, and then&mdash;most circumspectly&mdash;assaulted the cord which
+bound Dickson's neck to the trunk.  There now remained only the two
+bonds which fastened the legs and the body to the tree.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a sound in the wood different from the wind and stream.
+Jaikie listened like a startled hind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They're comin' back," he gasped.  "Just you bide where ye are and let
+on ye're still tied up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He disappeared in the scrub as inconspicuously as a rat, while two of
+the tinklers came up the slope from the waterside. Dickson in a fever
+of impatience cursed Wee Jaikie for not cutting his remaining bonds so
+that he could at least have made a dash for freedom. And then he
+realized that the boy had been right.  Feeble and cramped as he was, he
+would have stood no chance in a race.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One of the tinklers was the man called Ecky.  He had been running hard,
+and was mopping his brow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hob's seen the brig," he said.  "It's droppin' anchor ayont the
+Dookits whaur there's a bield frae the wund and deep water. They'll be
+landit in half an 'oor.  Awa' you up to the Hoose and tell Dobson, and
+me and Sim and Hob will meet the boats at the Garplefit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The other cast a glance towards Dickson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What about him?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The two scrutinized their prisoner from a distance of a few paces.
+Dickson, well aware of his peril, held himself as stiff as if every
+bond had been in place.  The thought flashed on him that if he were too
+immobile they might think he was dying or dead, and come close to
+examine him.  If they only kept their distance, the dusk of the wood
+would prevent them detecting Jaikie's handiwork.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What'll you take to let me go?" he asked plaintively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Naething that you could offer, my mannie," said Ecky.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll give you a five-pound note apiece."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Produce the siller," said the other.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's in my pocket."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's no' that.  We riped your pooches lang syne."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll take you to Glasgow with me and pay you there.  Honour bright."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Ecky spat.  "D'ye think we're gowks?  Man, there's no siller ye could
+pay wad mak' it worth our while to lowse ye.  Bide quiet there and
+ye'll see some queer things ere nicht.  C'way, Davie."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The two set off at a good pace down the stream, while Dickson's pulsing
+heart returned to its normal rhythm.  As the sound of their feet died
+away Wee Jaikie crawled out from cover, dry-eyed now and very
+business-like.  He slit the last thongs, and Dickson fell limply on his
+face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Losh, laddie, I'm awful stiff," he groaned.  "Now, listen. Away all
+your pith to Dougal, and tell him that the brig's in and the men will
+be landing inside the hour.  Tell him I'm coming as fast as my legs
+will let me.  The Princess will likely be there already and Sir
+Archibald and his men, but if they're no', tell Dougal they're coming.
+Haste you, Jaikie.  And see here, I'll never forget what you've done
+for me the day.  You're a fine wee laddie!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The obedient Die-Hard disappeared, and Dickson painfully and
+laboriously set himself to climb the slope.  He decided that his
+quickest and safest route lay by the highroad, and he had also some
+hopes of recovering his bicycle.  On examining his body he seemed to
+have sustained no very great damage, except a painful cramping of legs
+and arms and a certain dizziness in the head.  His pockets had been
+thoroughly rifled, and he reflected with amusement that he, the
+well-to-do Mr. McCunn, did not possess at the moment a single copper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But his spirits were soaring, for somehow his escape had given him an
+assurance of ultimate success.  Providence had directly interfered on
+his behalf by the hand of Wee Jaikie, and that surely meant that it
+would see him through.  But his chief emotion was an ardour of
+impatience to get to the scene of action.  He must be at Dalquharter
+before the men from the sea; he must find Dougal and discover his
+dispositions.  Heritage would be on guard in the Tower, and in a very
+little the enemy would be round it.  It would be just like the Princess
+to try and enter there, but at all costs that must be hindered.  She
+and Sir Archie must not be cornered in stone walls, but must keep their
+communications open and fall on the enemy's flank.  Oh, if the police
+would only come it time, what a rounding up of miscreants that day
+would see!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the trees thinned on the brow of the slope and he saw the sky, he
+realized that the afternoon was far advanced.  It must be well on for
+five o'clock.  The wind still blew furiously, and the oaks on the
+fringes of the wood were whipped like saplings.  Ruefully he admitted
+that the gale would not defeat the enemy.  If the brig found a
+sheltered anchorage on the south side of the headland beyond the
+Garple, it would be easy enough for boats to make the Garple mouth,
+though it might be a difficult job to get out again.  The thought
+quickened his steps, and he came out of cover on to the public road
+without a prior reconnaissance.  Just in front of him stood a
+motor-bicycle.  Something had gone wrong with it for its owner was
+tinkering at it, on the side farthest from Dickson.  A wild hope seized
+him that this might be the vanguard of the police, and he went boldly
+towards it.  The owner, who was kneeling, raised his face at the sound
+of footsteps and Dickson looked into his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He recognized them only too well.  They belonged to the man he had seen
+in the inn at Kirkmichael, the man whom Heritage had decided to be an
+Australian, but whom they now know to be their arch-enemy&mdash;the man
+called Paul who had persecuted the Princess for years and whom alone of
+all beings on earth she feared.  He had been expected before, but had
+arrived now in the nick of time while the brig was casting anchor.
+Saskia had said that he had a devil's brain, and Dickson, as he stared
+at him, saw a fiendish cleverness in his straight brows and a
+remorseless cruelty in his stiff jaw and his pale eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He achieved the bravest act of his life.  Shaky and dizzy as he was,
+with freedom newly opened to him and the mental torments of his
+captivity still an awful recollection, he did not hesitate. He saw
+before him the villain of the drama, the one man that stood between the
+Princess and peace of mind.  He regarded no consequences, gave no heed
+to his own fate, and thought only how to put his enemy out of action.
+There was a by spanner lying on the ground.  He seized it and with all
+his strength smote at the man's face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The motor-cyclist, kneeling and working hard at his machine, had raised
+his head at Dickson's approach and beheld a wild apparition&mdash;a short
+man in ragged tweeds, with a bloody brow and long smears of blood on
+his cheeks.  The next second he observed the threat of attack, and
+ducked his head so that the spanner only grazed his scalp. The
+motor-bicycle toppled over, its owner sprang to his feet, and found the
+short man, very pale and gasping, about to renew the assault. In such a
+crisis there was no time for inquiry, and the cyclist was well trained
+in self-defence.  He leaped the prostrate bicycle, and before his
+assailant could get in a blow brought his left fist into violent
+contact with his chin.  Dickson tottered a step or two and then
+subsided among the bracken.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He did not lose his senses, but he had no more strength in him. He felt
+horribly ill, and struggled in vain to get up.  The cyclist, a gigantic
+figure, towered above him.  "Who the devil are you?" he was asking.
+"What do you mean by it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson had no breath for words, and knew that if he tried to speak he
+would be very sick.  He could only stare up like a dog at the angry
+eyes.  Angry beyond question they were, but surely not malevolent.
+Indeed, as they looked at the shameful figure on the ground, amusement
+filled them.  The face relaxed into a smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who on earth are you?" the voice repeated.  And then into it came
+recognition.  "I've seen you before.  I believe you're the little man I
+saw last week at the Black Bull.  Be so good as to explain why you want
+to murder me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Explanation was beyond Dickson, but his conviction was being woefully
+shaken.  Saskia had said her enemy was a beautiful as a devil&mdash;he
+remembered the phrase, for he had thought it ridiculous. This man was
+magnificent, but there was nothing devilish in his lean grave face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's your name?" the voice was asking.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell me yours first," Dickson essayed to stutter between spasms of
+nausea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My name is Alexander Nicholson," was the answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then you're no' the man."  It was a cry of wrath and despair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're a very desperate little chap.  For whom had I the honour to be
+mistaken?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson had now wriggled into a sitting position and had clasped his
+hands above his aching head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I thought you were a Russian, name of Paul," he groaned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Paul!  Paul who?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just Paul.  A Bolshevik and an awful bad lot."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson could not see the change which his words wrought in the other's
+face.  He found himself picked up in strong arms and carried to a
+bog-pool where his battered face was carefully washed, his throbbing
+brows laved, and a wet handkerchief bound over them. Then he was given
+brandy in the socket of a flask, which eased his nausea.  The cyclist
+ran his bicycle to the roadside, and found a seat for Dickson behind
+the turf-dyke of the old bucht.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now you are going to tell me everything," he said.  "If the Paul who
+is your enemy is the Paul I think him, then we are allies."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Dickson did not need this assurance.  His mind had suddenly
+received a revelation.  The Princess had expected an enemy, but also a
+friend.  Might not this be the long-awaited friend, for whose sake she
+was rooted to Huntingtower with all its terrors?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you sure your name's no' Alexis?"  he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In my own country I was called Alexis Nicolaevitch, for I am a
+Russian. But for some years I have made my home with your folk, and I
+call myself Alexander Nicholson, which is the English form.  Who told
+you about Alexis?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Give me your hand," said Dickson shamefacedly.  "Man, she's been
+looking for you for weeks.  You're terribly behind the fair."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She!" he cried.  "For God's sake, tell me what you mean."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, she&mdash;the Princess.  But what are we havering here for? I tell you
+at this moment she's somewhere down about the old Tower, and there's
+boatloads of blagyirds landing from the sea.  Help me up, man, for I
+must be off.  The story will keep.  Losh, it's very near the darkening.
+If you're Alexis, you're just about in time for a battle."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Dickson on his feet was but a frail creature.  He was still
+deplorably giddy, and his legs showed an unpleasing tendency to
+crumple. "I'm fair done," he moaned.  "You see, I've been tied up all
+day to a tree and had two sore bashes on my head.  Get you on that
+bicycle and hurry on, and I'll hirple after you the best I can.  I'll
+direct you the road, and if you're lucky you'll find a Die-Hard about
+the village. Away with you, man, and never mind me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We go together," said the other quietly.  "You can sit behind me and
+hang on to my waist.  Before you turned up I had pretty well got the
+thing in order."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson in a fever of impatience sat by while the Russian put the
+finishing touches to the machine, and as well as his anxiety allowed
+put him in possession of the main facts of the story. He told of how he
+and Heritage had come to Dalquharter, of the first meeting with Saskia,
+of the trip to Glasgow with the jewels, of the exposure of Loudon the
+factor, of last night's doings in the House, and of the journey that
+morning to the Mains of Garple.  He sketched the figures on the
+scene&mdash;Heritage and Sir Archie, Dobson and his gang, the Gorbals
+Die-Hards.  He told of the enemy's plans so far as he knew them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Looked at from a business point of view," he said, "the situation's
+like this.  There's Heritage in the Tower, with Dobson, Leon, and
+Spidel sitting round him.  Somewhere about the place there's the
+Princess and Sir Archibald and three men with guns from the Mains.
+Dougal and his five laddies are running loose in the policies. And
+there's four tinklers and God knows how many foreign ruffians pushing
+up from the Garplefoot, and a brig lying waiting to carry off the
+ladies.  Likewise there's the police, somewhere on the road, though the
+dear kens when they'll turn up.  It's awful the incompetence of our
+Government, and the rates and taxes that high!... And there's you and
+me by this roadside, and me no more use than a tattie-bogle.... That's
+the situation, and the question is what's our plan to be?  We must keep
+the blagyirds in play till the police come, and at the same time we
+must keep the Princess out of danger.  That's why I'm wanting back, for
+they've sore need of  a business head.  Yon Sir Archibald's a fine
+fellow, but I doubt he'll be a bit rash, and the Princess is no' to
+hold or bind. Our first job is to find Dougal and get a grip of the
+facts."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am going to the Princess," said the Russian.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, that'll be best.  You'll be maybe able to manage her, for you'll
+be well acquaint."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She is my kinswoman.  She is also my affianced wife."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Keep us!" Dickson exclaimed, with a doleful thought of Heritage. "What
+ailed you then no' to look after her better?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We have been long separated, because it was her will.  She had work to
+do and disappeared from me, though I searched all Europe for her. Then
+she sent me word, when the danger became extreme, and summoned me to
+her aid.  But she gave me poor directions, for she did not know her own
+plans very clearly.  She spoke of a place called Darkwater, and I have
+been hunting half Scotland for it.  It was only last night that I heard
+of Dalquharter and guessed that that might be the name. But I was far
+down in Galloway, and have ridden fifty miles today."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's a queer thing, but I wouldn't take you for a Russian."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Alexis finished his work and put away his tools.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For the present," he said, "I am an Englishman, till my country comes
+again to her senses.  Ten years ago I left Russia, for I was sick of
+the foolishness of my class and wanted a free life in a new world.  I
+went to Australia and made good as an engineer. I am a partner in a
+firm which is pretty well known even in Britain. When war broke out I
+returned to fight for my people, and when Russia fell out of the war, I
+joined the Australians in France and fought with them till the
+Armistice.  And now I have only one duty left, to save the Princess and
+take her with me to my new home till Russia is a nation once more."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson whistled joyfully.  "So Mr. Heritage was right.  He aye said
+you were an Australian.... And you're a business man!  That's grand
+hearing and puts my mind at rest.  You must take charge of the party at
+the House, for Sir Archibald's a daft young lad and Mr. Heritage is a
+poet.  I thought I would have to go myself, but I doubt I would just be
+a hindrance with my dwaibly legs.  I'd be better outside, watching for
+the police.... Are you ready, sir?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson not without difficulty perched himself astride the luggage
+carrier, firmly grasping the rider round the middle. The machine
+started, but it was evidently in a bad way, for it made poor going till
+the descent towards the main Auchenlochan road. On the slope it warmed
+up and they crossed the Garple bridge at a fair pace.  There was to be
+no pleasant April twilight, for the stormy sky had already made dusk,
+and in a very little the dark would fall.  So sombre was the evening
+that Dickson did not notice a figure in the shadow of the roadside
+pines till it whistled shrilly on its fingers.  He cried on Alexis to
+stop, and, this being accomplished with some suddenness, fell off at
+Dougal's feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's the news?" he demanded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal glanced at Alexis and seemed to approve his looks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Napoleon has just reported that three boatloads, making either
+twenty-three or twenty-four men&mdash;they were gey ill to count&mdash;has landed
+at Garplefit and is makin' their way to the auld Tower. The tinklers
+warned Dobson and soon it'll be a' bye wi' Heritage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Princess is not there?" was Dickson's anxious inquiry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Na, na.  Heritage is there his lone.  They were for joinin' him, but I
+wouldn't let them.  She came wi' a man they call Sir Erchibald and
+three gamekeepers wi' guns.  I stoppit their cawr up the road and
+tell't them the lie o' the land.  Yon Sir Erchibald has poor notions o'
+strawtegy.  He was for bangin' into the auld Tower straight away and
+shootin' Dobson if he tried to stop them.  'Havers,' say I, 'let them
+break their teeth on the Tower, thinkin' the leddy's inside, and
+that'll give us time, for Heritage is no' the lad to surrender in a
+hurry.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where are they now?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In the Hoose o' Dalquharter, and a sore job I had gettin' them in.
+We've shifted our base again, without the enemy suspectin'."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Any word of the police?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The polis!" and Dougal spat cynically.  "It seems they're a dour crop
+to shift.  Sir Erchibald was sayin' that him and the lassie had been to
+the Chief Constable, but the man was terrible auld and slow. They
+persuadit him, but he threepit that it would take a long time to
+collect his men and that there was no danger o' the brig landin' before
+night.  He's wrong there onyway, for they're landit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dougal," said Dickson, "you've heard the Princess speak of a friend
+she was expecting here called Alexis.  This is him. You can address him
+as Mr. Nicholson.  Just arrived in the nick of time.  You must get him
+into the House, for he's the best right to be beside the lady... Jaikie
+would tell you that I've been sore mishandled the day, and am no' very
+fit for a battle. But Mr. Nicholson's a business man and he'll do as
+well. You're keeping the Die-Hards outside, I hope?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay.  Thomas Yownie's in charge, and Jaikie will be in and out with
+orders. They've instructions to watch for the polis, and keep an eye on
+the Garplefit.  It's a mortal long front to hold, but there's no other
+way.  I must be in the hoose mysel'.  Thomas Yownie's headquarters is
+the auld wife's hen-hoose."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that moment in a pause of the gale came the far-borne echo of a shot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pistol," said Alexis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Heritage," said Dougal.  "Trade will be gettin' brisk with him. Start
+your machine and I'll hang on ahint.  We'll try the road by the West
+Lodge."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently the pair disappeared in the dusk, the noise of the engine was
+swallowed up in the wild orchestra of the wind, and Dickson hobbled
+towards the village in a state of excitement which made him oblivious
+of his wounds.  That lonely pistol shot was, he felt, the bell to ring
+up the curtain on the last act of the play.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap13"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE COMING OF THE DANISH BRIG
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Mr. John Heritage, solitary in the old Tower, found much to occupy his
+mind.  His giddiness was passing, though the dregs of a headache
+remained, and his spirits rose with his responsibilities. At daybreak
+he breakfasted out of the Mearns Street provision box, and made tea in
+one of the Die-Hard's camp kettles.  Next he gave some attention to his
+toilet, necessary after the rough-and-tumble of the night.  He made
+shift to bathe in icy water from the Tower well, shaved, tidied up his
+clothes and found a clean shirt from his pack. He carefully brushed his
+hair, reminding himself that thus had the Spartans done before
+Thermopylae.  The neat and somewhat pallid young man that emerged from
+these rites then ascended to the first floor to reconnoitre the
+landscape from the narrow unglazed windows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If any one had told him a week ago that he would be in so strange a
+world he would have quarrelled violently with his informant. A week ago
+he was a cynical clear-sighted modern, a contemner of illusions, a
+swallower of formulas, a breaker of shams&mdash;one who had seen through the
+heroical and found it silly.  Romance and such-like toys were
+playthings for fatted middle-age, not for strenuous and cold-eyed
+youth.  But the truth was that now he was altogether spellbound by
+these toys.  To think that he was serving his lady was rapture-ecstasy,
+that for her he was single-handed venturing all. He rejoiced to be
+alone with his private fancies.  His one fear was that the part he had
+cast himself for might be needless, that the men from the sea would not
+come, or that reinforcements would arrive before he should be called
+upon.  He hoped alone to make a stand against thousands.  What the
+upshot might be he did not trouble to inquire.  Of course the Princess
+would be saved, but first he must glut his appetite for the heroic.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He made a diary of events that day, just as he used to do at the front.
+At twenty minutes past eight he saw the first figure coming from the
+House. It was Spidel, who limped round the Tower, tried the door, and
+came to a halt below the window.  Heritage stuck out his head and
+wished him good morning, getting in reply an amazed stare.  The man was
+not disposed to talk, though Heritage made some interesting
+observations on the weather, but departed quicker than he came, in the
+direction of the West Lodge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Just before nine o'clock he returned with Dobson and Leon. They made a
+very complete reconnaissance of the Tower, and for a moment Heritage
+thought that they were about to try to force an entrance.  They tugged
+and hammered at the great oak door, which he had further strengthened
+by erecting behind it a pile of the heaviest lumber he could find in
+the place.  It was imperative that they should not get in, and he got
+Dickson's pistol ready with the firm intention of shooting them if
+necessary.  But they did nothing, except to hold a conference in the
+hazel clump a hundred yards to the north, when Dobson seemed to be
+laying down the law, and Leon spoke rapidly with a great fluttering of
+hands.  They were obviously puzzled by the sight of Heritage, whom they
+believed to have left the neighbourhood.  Then Dobson went off, leaving
+Leon and Spidel on guard, one at the edge of the shrubberies between
+the Tower and the House, the other on the side nearest the Laver glen.
+These were their posts, but they did sentry-go around the building, and
+passed so close to Heritage's window that he could have tossed a
+cigarette on their heads.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It occurred to him that he ought to get busy with camouflage. They must
+be convinced that the Princess was in the place, for he wanted their
+whole mind to be devoted to the siege. He rummaged among the ladies'
+baggage, and extracted a skirt and a coloured scarf.  The latter he
+managed to flutter so that it could be seen at the window the next time
+one of the watchers came within sight.  He also fixed up the skirt so
+that the fringe of it could be seen, and, when Leon appeared below, he
+was in the shadow talking rapid French in a very fair imitation of the
+tones of Cousin Eugenie.  The ruse had its effect, for Leon promptly
+went off to tell Spidel, and when Dobson appeared he too was given the
+news.  This seemed to settle their plans, for all three remained on
+guard, Dobson nearest to the Tower, seated on an outcrop of rock with
+his mackintosh collar turned up, and his eyes usually on the misty sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By this time it was eleven o'clock, and the next three hours passed
+slowly with Heritage.  He fell to picturing the fortunes of his
+friends. Dickson and the Princess should by this time be far inland,
+out of danger and in the way of finding succour.  He was confident that
+they would return, but he trusted not too soon, for he hoped for a run
+for his money as Horatius in the Gate.  After that he was a little torn
+in his mind.  He wanted the Princess to come back and to be somewhere
+near if there was a fight going, so that she might be a witness of his
+devotion.  But she must not herself run any risk, and he became anxious
+when he remembered her terrible sangfroid.  Dickson could no more
+restrain her than a child could hold a greyhound.... But of course it
+would never come to that.  The police would turn up long before the
+brig appeared&mdash;Dougal had thought that would not be till high tide,
+between four and five&mdash;and the only danger would be to the pirates. The
+three watchers would be put in the bag, and the men from the sea would
+walk into a neat trap.  This reflection seemed to take all the colour
+out of Heritage's prospect.  Peril and heroism were not to be his
+lot&mdash;only boredom.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A little after twelve two of the tinklers appeared with some news which
+made Dobson laugh and pat them on the shoulder.  He seemed to be giving
+them directions, pointing seaward and southward.  He nodded to the
+Tower, where Heritage took the opportunity of again fluttering Saskia's
+scarf athwart the window.  The tinklers departed at a trot, and Dobson
+lit his pipe as if well pleased.  He had some trouble with it in the
+wind, which had risen to an uncanny violence.  Even the solid Tower
+rocked with it, and the sea was a waste of spindrift and low scurrying
+cloud.  Heritage discovered a new anxiety&mdash;this time about the
+possibility of the brig landing at all.  He wanted a complete bag, and
+it would be tragic if they got only the three seedy ruffians now
+circumambulating his fortress.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+About one o'clock he was greatly cheered by the sight of Dougal. At the
+moment Dobson was lunching off a hunk of bread and cheese directly
+between the Tower and the House, just short of the crest of the ridge
+on the other side of which lay the stables and the shrubberies; Leon
+was on the north side opposite the Tower door, and Spidel was at the
+south end near the edge of the Garple glen. Heritage, watching the
+ridge behind Dobson and the upper windows of the House which appeared
+over it, saw on the very crest something like a tuft of rusty bracken
+which he had not noticed before. Presently the tuft moved, and a hand
+shot up from it waving a rag of some sort.  Dobson at the moment was
+engaged with a bottle of porter, and Heritage could safely wave a hand
+in reply.  He could now make out clearly the red head of Dougal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Chieftain, having located the three watchers, proceeded to give an
+exhibition of his prowess for the benefit of the lonely inmate of the
+Tower.  Using as cover a drift of bracken, he wormed his way down till
+he was not six yards from Dobson, and Heritage had the privilege of
+seeing his grinning countenance a very little way above the innkeeper's
+head.  Then he crawled back and reached the neighbourhood of Leon, who
+was sitting on a fallen Scotch fir. At that moment it occurred to the
+Belgian to visit Dobson. Heritage's breath stopped, but Dougal was
+ready, and froze into a motionless blur in the shadow of a hazel bush.
+Then he crawled very fast into the hollow where Leon had been sitting,
+seized something which looked like a bottle, and scrambled back to the
+ridge. At the top he waved the object, whatever it was, but Heritage
+could not reply, for Dobson happened to be looking towards the window.
+That was the last he saw of the Chieftain, but presently he realized
+what was the booty he had annexed.  It must be Leon's life-preserver,
+which the night before had broken Heritage's head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After that cheering episode boredom again set in.  He collected some
+food from the Mearns Street box, and indulged himself with a glass of
+liqueur brandy.  He was beginning to feel miserably cold, so he carried
+up some broken wood and made a fire on the immense hearth in the upper
+chamber.  Anxiety was clouding his mind again, for it was now two
+o'clock, and there was no sign of the reinforcements which Dickson and
+the Princess had gone to find.  The minutes passed, and soon it was
+three o'clock, and from the window he saw only the top of the gaunt
+shuttered House, now and then hidden by squalls of sleet, and Dobson
+squatted like an Eskimo, and trees dancing like a witch-wood in the
+gale.  All the vigour of the morning seemed to have gone out of his
+blood; he felt lonely and apprehensive and puzzled. He wished he had
+Dickson beside him, for that little man's cheerful voice and complacent
+triviality would be a comfort.... Also, he was abominably cold.  He put
+on his waterproof, and turned his attention to the fire.  It needed
+re-kindling, and he hunted in his pockets for paper, finding only the
+slim volume lettered WHORLS.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I set it down as the most significant commentary on his state of mind.
+He regarded the book with intense disfavour, tore it in two, and used a
+handful of its fine deckle-edged leaves to get the fire going. They
+burned well, and presently the rest followed.  Well for Dickson's peace
+of soul that he was not a witness of such vandalism.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A little warmer but in no way more cheerful, he resumed his watch near
+the window.  The day was getting darker, and promised an early dusk.
+His watch told him that it was after four, and still nothing had
+happened. Where on earth were Dickson and the Princess?  Where in the
+name of all that was holy were the police?  Any minute now the brig
+might arrive and land its men, and he would be left there as a
+burnt-offering to their wrath.  There must have been an infernal muddle
+somewhere.... Anyhow the Princess was out of the trouble, but where the
+Lord alone knew.... Perhaps the reinforcements were lying in wait for
+the boats at the Garplefoot.  That struck him as a likely explanation,
+and comforted him.  Very soon he might hear the sound of an engagement
+to the south, and the next thing would be Dobson and his crew in
+flight. He was determined to be in the show somehow and would be very
+close on their heels.  He felt a peculiar dislike to all three, but
+especially to Leon.  The Belgian's small baby features had for four
+days set him clenching his fists when he thought of them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next thing he saw was one of the tinklers running hard towards the
+Tower.  He cried something to Dobson, which woke the latter to
+activity. The innkeeper shouted to Leon and Spidel, and the tinkler was
+excitedly questioned.  Dobson laughed and slapped his thigh. He gave
+orders to the others, and himself joined the tinkler and hurried off in
+the direction of the Garplefoot.  Something was happening there,
+something of ill omen, for the man's face and manner had been
+triumphant.  Were the boats landing?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As Heritage puzzled over this event, another figure appeared on the
+scene.  It was a big man in knickerbockers and mackintosh, who came
+round the end of the House from the direction of the South Lodge.  At
+first he thought it was the advance-guard from his own side, the help
+which Dickson had gone to find, and he only restrained himself in time
+from shouting a welcome. But surely their supports would not advance so
+confidently in enemy country.  The man strode over the slopes as if
+looking for somebody; then he caught sight of Leon and waved to him to
+come. Leon must have known him, for he hastened to obey.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The two were about thirty yards from Heritage's window.  Leon was
+telling some story volubly, pointing now to the Tower and now towards
+the sea.  The big man nodded as if satisfied.  Heritage noted that his
+right arm was tied up, and that the mackintosh sleeve was empty, and
+that brought him enlightenment.  It was Loudon the factor, whom Dickson
+had winged the night before.  The two of them passed out of view in the
+direction of Spidel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sight awoke Heritage to the supreme unpleasantness of his position.
+He was utterly alone on the headland, and his allies had vanished into
+space, while the enemy plans, moving like clockwork, were approaching
+their consummation.  For a second he thought of leaving the Tower and
+hiding somewhere in the cliffs.  He dismissed the notion unwillingly,
+for he remembered the task that had been set him.  He was there to hold
+the fort to the last&mdash;to gain time, though he could not for the life of
+him see what use time was to be when all the strategy of his own side
+seemed to have miscarried.  Anyhow, the blackguards would be sold, for
+they would not find the Princess.  But he felt a horrid void in the pit
+of his stomach, and a looseness about his knees.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The moments passed more quickly as he wrestled with his fears. The next
+he knew the empty space below his window was filling with figures.
+There was a great crowd of them, rough fellows with seamen's coats,
+still dripping as if they had had a wet landing.  Dobson was with them,
+but for the rest they were strange figures.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now that the expected had come at last Heritage's nerves grew calmer.
+He made out that the newcomers were trying the door, and he waited to
+hear it fall, for such a mob could soon force it.  But instead a voice
+called from beneath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Will you please open to us?" it called.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stuck his head out and saw a little group with one man at the head
+of it, a young man clad in oilskins whose face was dim in the murky
+evening.  The voice was that of a gentleman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have orders to open to no one," Heritage replied.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then I fear we must force an entrance," said the voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You can go to the devil," said Heritage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That defiance was the screw which his nerves needed.  His temper had
+risen, he had forgotten all about the Princess, he did not even
+remember his isolation.  His job was to make a fight for it. He ran up
+the staircase which led to the attics of the Tower, for he recollected
+that there was a window there which looked over the space before the
+door.  The place was ruinous, the floor filled with holes, and a part
+of the roof sagged down in a corner.  The stones around the window were
+loose and crumbling, and he managed to pull several out so that the
+slit was enlarged.  He found himself looking down on a crowd of men,
+who had lifted the fallen tree on which Leon had perched, and were
+about to use it as a battering ram.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The first fellow who comes within six yards of the door I shoot," he
+shouted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a white wave below as every face was turned to him. He ducked
+back his head in time as a bullet chipped the side of the window.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But his position was a good one, for he had a hole in the broken wall
+through which he could see, and could shoot with his hand at the edge
+of the window while keeping his body in cover. The battering party
+resumed their task, and as the tree swung nearer, he fired at the
+foremost of them.  He missed, but the shot for a moment suspended
+operations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again they came on, and again he fired.  This time he damaged somebody,
+for the trunk was dropped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A voice gave orders, a sharp authoritative voice.  The battering squad
+dissolved, and there was a general withdrawal out of the line of fire
+from the window.  Was it possible that he had intimidated them? He
+could hear the sound of voices, and then a single figure came into
+sight again, holding something in its hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He did not fire for he recognized the futility of his efforts. The
+baseball swing of the figure below could not be mistaken. There was a
+roar beneath, and a flash of fire, as the bomb exploded on the door.
+Then came a rush of men, and the Tower had fallen. Heritage clambered
+through a hole in the roof and gained the topmost parapet.  He had
+still a pocketful of cartridges, and there in a coign of the old
+battlements he would prove an ugly customer to the pursuit.  Only one
+at a time could reach that siege perilous.... They would not take long
+to search the lower rooms, and then would be hot on the trail of the
+man who had fooled them. He had not a scrap of fear left or even of
+anger&mdash;only triumph at the thought of how properly those ruffians had
+been sold. "Like schoolboys they who unaware"&mdash;instead of two women
+they had found a man with a gun.  And the Princess was miles off and
+forever beyond their reach.  When they had settled with him they would
+no doubt burn the House down, but that would serve them little. From
+his airy pinnacle he could see the whole sea-front of Huntingtower, a
+blur in the dusk but for the ghostly eyes of its white-shuttered
+windows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Something was coming from it, running lightly over the lawns, lost for
+an instant in the trees, and then appearing clear on the crest of the
+ridge where some hours earlier Dougal had lain. With horror he saw that
+it was a girl.  She stood with the wind plucking at her skirts and
+hair, and she cried in a high, clear voice which pierced even the
+confusion of the gale.  What she cried he could not tell, for it was in
+a strange tongue....
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But it reached the besiegers.  There was a sudden silence in the din
+below him and then a confusion of shouting.  The men seemed to be
+pouring out of the gap which had been the doorway, and as he peered
+over the parapet first one and then another entered his area of vision.
+The girl on the ridge, as soon as she saw that she had attracted
+attention, turned and ran back, and after her up the slopes went the
+pursuit bunched like hounds on a good scent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. John Heritage, swearing terribly, started to retrace his steps.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap14"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIV
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The military historian must often make shift to write of battles with
+slender data, but he can pad out his deficiencies by learned parallels.
+If his were the talented pen describing this, the latest action fought
+on British soil against a foreign foe, he would no doubt be crippled by
+the absence of written orders and war diaries. But how eloquently he
+would descant on the resemblance between Dougal and Gouraud&mdash;how the
+plan of leaving the enemy to waste his strength upon a deserted
+position was that which on the 15th of July 1918 the French general had
+used with decisive effect in Champagne! But Dougal had never heard of
+Gouraud, and I cannot claim that, like the Happy Warrior, he
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;         "through the heat of conflict kept the law<BR>
+  In calmness made, and saw what he foresaw."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+I have had the benefit of discussing the affair with him and his
+colleagues, but I should offend against historic truth if I represented
+the main action as anything but a scrimmage&mdash;a "soldiers' battle," the
+historian would say, a Malplaquet, an Albuera.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Just after half-past three that afternoon the Commander-in-Chief was
+revealed in a very bad temper.  He had intercepted Sir Archie's car,
+and, since Leon was known to be fully occupied, had brought it in by
+the West Lodge, and hidden it behind a clump of laurels. There he had
+held a hoarse council of war.  He had cast an appraising eye over Sime
+the butler, Carfrae the chauffeur, and McGuffog the gamekeeper, and his
+brows had lightened when he beheld Sir Archie with an armful of guns
+and two big cartridge-magazines.  But they had darkened again at the
+first words of the leader of the reinforcements.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now for the Tower," Sir Archie had observed cheerfully.  "We should be
+a match for the three watchers, my lad, and it's time that poor devil
+What's-his-name was relieved."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A bonny-like plan that would be," said Dougal.  "Man, ye would be
+walkin' into the very trap they want.  In an hour, or maybe two, the
+rest will turn up from the sea and they'd have ye tight by the neck.
+Na, na!  It's time we're wantin', and the longer they think we're a' in
+the auld Tower the better for us.  What news o' the polis?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He listened to Sir Archie's report with a gloomy face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not afore the darkenin'?  They'll be ower late&mdash;the polis are aye ower
+late.  It looks as if we had the job to do oursels. What's your notion?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"God knows," said the baronet, whose eyes were on Saskia.  "What's
+yours?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The deference conciliated Dougal.  "There's just the one plan that's
+worth a docken.  There's five o' us here, and there's plenty weapons.
+Besides there's five Die-Hards somewhere about, and though they've
+never tried it afore they can be trusted to loose off a gun. My advice
+is to hide at the Garplefoot and stop the boats landin'. We'd have the
+tinklers on our flank, no doubt, but I'm not muckle feared o' them.  It
+wouldn't be easy for the boats to get in wi' this tearin' wind and us
+firin' volleys from the shore."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Archie stared at him with admiration.  "You're a hearty young
+fire-eater.  But, Great Scott! we can't go pottin' at strangers before
+we find out their business.  This is a law-abidin' country, and we're
+not entitled to start shootin' except in self-defence. You can wash
+that plan out, for it ain't feasible."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal spat cynically.  "For all that it's the right strawtegy. Man, we
+might sink the lot, and then turn and settle wi' Dobson, and all afore
+the first polisman showed his neb.  It would be a grand performance.
+But I was feared ye wouldn't be for it.... Well, there's just the one
+other thing to do.  We must get inside the Hoose and put it in a state
+of defence.  Heritage has McCunn's pistol, and he'll keep them busy for
+a bit.  When they've finished wi' him and find the place is empty,
+they'll try the Hoose and we'll give them a warm reception.  That
+should keep us goin' till the polis arrive, unless they're comin' wi'
+the blind carrier."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Archie nodded.  "But why put ourselves in their power at all?
+They're at present barking up the wrong tree.  Let them bark up another
+wrong 'un.  Why shouldn't the House remain empty?  I take it we're here
+to protect the Princess.  Well, we'll have done that if they go off
+empty-handed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal looked up to the heavens.  "I wish McCunn was here," he sighed.
+"Ay, we've got to protect the Princess, and there's just the one way to
+do it, and that's to put an end to this crowd o' blagyirds. If they
+gang empty-handed, they'll come again another day, either here or
+somewhere else, and it won't be long afore they get the lassie. But if
+we finish with them now she can sit down wi' an easy mind. That's why
+we've got to hang on to them till the polis comes. There's no way out
+o' this business but a battle."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He found an ally.  "Dougal is right," said Saskia.  "If I am to have
+peace, by some way or other the fangs of my enemies must be drawn for
+ever."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He swung round and addressed her formally.  "Mem, I'm askin' ye for the
+last time.  Will ye keep out of this business?  Will ye gang back and
+sit doun aside Mrs. Morran's fire and have your teas and wait till we
+come for ye.  Ye can do no good, and ye're puttin' yourself terrible in
+the enemy's power.  If we're beat and ye're no' there, they get very
+little satisfaction, but if they get you they get what they've come
+seekin'.  I tell ye straight&mdash;ye're an encumbrance."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She laughed mischievously.  "I can shoot better than you," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He ignored the taunt.  "Will ye listen to sense and fall to the rear?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will not," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then gang your own gait.  I'm ower wise to argy-bargy wi' women. The
+Hoose be it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a journey which sorely tried Dougal's temper.  The only way in
+was by the verandah, but the door at the west end had been locked, and
+the ladder had disappeared.  Now, of his party three were lame, one
+lacked an arm, and one was a girl; besides, there were the guns and
+cartridges to transport.  Moreover, at more than one point before the
+verandah was reached the route was commanded by a point on the ridge
+near the old Tower, and that had been Spidel's position when Dougal
+made his last reconnaissance.  It behoved to pass these points swiftly
+and unobtrusively, and his company was neither swift nor unobtrusive.
+McGuffog had a genius for tripping over obstacles, and Sir Archie was
+for ever proffering his aid to Saskia, who was in a position to give
+rather than to receive, being far the most active of the party. Once
+Dougal had to take the gamekeeper's head and force it down, a
+performance which would have led to an immediate assault but for Sir
+Archie's presence.  Nor did the latter escape.  "Will ye stop heedin'
+the lassie, and attend to your own job," the Chieftain growled. "Ye're
+makin' as much noise as a roadroller."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Arrived at the foot of the verandah wall there remained the problem of
+the escalade.  Dougal clambered up like a squirrel by the help of
+cracks in the stones, and he could be heard trying the handle of the
+door into the House.  He was absent for about five minutes, and then
+his head peeped over the edge accompanied by the hooks of an iron
+ladder. "From the boiler-house," he informed them as they stood clear
+for the thing to drop.  It proved to be little more than half the
+height of the wall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Saskia ascended first, and had no difficulty in pulling herself over
+the parapet.  Then came the guns and ammunition, and then the one-armed
+Sime, who turned out to be an athlete.  But it was no easy matter
+getting up the last three.  Sir Archie anathematized his frailties.
+"Nice old crock to go tiger&mdash;shootin' with," he told the Princess. "But
+set me to something where my confounded leg don't get in the way, and
+I'm still pretty useful!"  Dougal, mopping his brow with the rag he
+called his handkerchief, observed sourly that he objected to going
+scouting with a herd of elephants.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Once indoors his spirits rose.  The party from the Mains had brought
+several electric torches, and the one lamp was presently found and lit.
+"We can't count on the polis," Dougal announced, "and when the
+foreigners is finished wi' the Tower they'll come on here.  If no', we
+must make them. What is it the sodgers call it?  Forcin' a battle?  Now
+see here! There's the two roads into this place, the back door and the
+verandy, leavin' out the front door which is chained and lockit.
+They'll try those two roads first, and we must get them well barricaded
+in time.  But mind, if there's a good few o' them, it'll be an easy job
+to batter in the front door or the windies, so we maun be ready for
+that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He told off a fatigue party&mdash;the Princess, Sir Archie, and McGuffog&mdash;to
+help in moving furniture to the several doors.  Sime and Carfrae
+attended to the kitchen entrance, while he himself made a tour of the
+ground-floor windows.  For half an hour the empty house was loud with
+strange sounds.  McGuffog, who was a giant in strength, filled the
+passage at the verandah end with an assortment of furniture ranging
+from a grand piano to a vast mahogany sofa, while Saskia and Sir Archie
+pillaged the bedrooms and packed up the interstices with mattresses in
+lieu of sandbags.  Dougal on his turn saw fit to approve the work.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That'll fickle the blagyirds.  Down at the kitchen door we've got a
+mangle, five wash-tubs, and the best part of a ton o' coal. It's the
+windies I'm anxious about, for they're ower big to fill up. But I've
+gotten tubs of water below them and a lot o' wire-nettin' I fund in the
+cellar."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Archie morosely wiped his brow.  "I can't say I ever hated a job
+more," he told Saskia.  "It seems pretty cool to march into somebody
+else's house and make free with his furniture.  I hope to goodness our
+friends from the sea do turn up, or we'll look pretty foolish. Loudon
+will have a score against me he won't forget."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ye're no' weakenin'?" asked Dougal fiercely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not a bit.  Only hopin' somebody hasn't made a mighty big mistake."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ye needn't be feared for that.  Now you listen to your instructions.
+We're terrible few for such a big place, but we maun make up for
+shortness o' numbers by extra mobility.  The gemkeeper will keep the
+windy that looks on the verandy, and fell any man that gets through.
+You'll hold the verandy door, and the ither lame man&mdash;is't Carfrae ye
+call him?&mdash;will keep the back door.  I've telled the one-armed man, who
+has some kind of a head on him, that he maun keep on the move, watchin'
+to see if they try the front door or any o' the other windies. If they
+do, he takes his station there.  D'ye follow?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Archie nodded gloomily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is my post?" Saskia asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've appointed ye my Chief of Staff," was the answer.  "Ye see we've
+no reserves.  If this door's the dangerous bit, it maun be reinforced
+from elsewhere; and that'll want savage thinkin'. Ye'll have to be aye
+on the move, Mem, and keep me informed. If they break in at two bits,
+we're beat, and there'll be nothing for it but to retire to our last
+position.  Ye ken the room ayont the hall where they keep the coats.
+That's our last trench, and at the worst we fall back there and stick
+it out.  It has a strong door and a wee windy, so they'll no' be able
+to get in on our rear. We should be able to put up a good defence
+there, unless they fire the place over our heads.... Now, we'd better
+give out the guns."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We don't want any shootin' if we can avoid it," said Sir Archie, who
+found his distaste for Dougal growing, though he was under the spell of
+the one being there who knew precisely his own mind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just what I was goin' to say.  My instructions is, reserve your fire,
+and don't loose off till you have a man up against the end o' your
+barrel."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good Lord, we'll get into a horrible row.  The whole thing may be a
+mistake, and we'll be had up for wholesale homicide. No man shall fire
+unless I give the word."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Commander-in-Chief looked at him darkly.  Some bitter retort was on
+his tongue, but he restrained himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It appears," he said, "that ye think I'm doin' all this for fun. I'll
+no' argy wi' ye.  There can be just the one general in a battle, but
+I'll give ye permission to say the word when to fire.... Macgreegor!"
+he muttered, a strange expletive only used in moments of deep emotion.
+"I'll wager ye'll be for sayin' the word afore I'd say it mysel'."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned to the Princess.  "I hand over to you, till I am back, for I
+maun be off and see to the Die-Hards.  I wish I could bring them in
+here, but I daren't lose my communications.  I'll likely get in by the
+boiler-house skylight when I come back, but it might be as well to keep
+a road open here unless ye're actually attacked."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal clambered over the mattresses and the grand piano; a flicker of
+waning daylight appeared for a second as he squeezed through the door,
+and Sir Archie was left staring at the wrathful countenance of
+McGuffog. He laughed ruefully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've been in about forty battles, and here's that little devil rather
+worried about my pluck and talkin' to me like a corps commander to a
+newly joined second-lieutenant.  All the same he's a remarkable child,
+and we'd better behave as if we were in for a real shindy.  What do you
+think, Princess?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think we are in for what you call a shindy.  I am in command,
+remember. I order you to serve out the guns."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was done, a shot-gun and a hundred cartridges to each, while
+McGuffog, who was a marksman, was also given a sporting Mannlicher, and
+two other rifles, a .303 and a small-bore Holland, were kept in reserve
+in the hall.  Sir Archie, free from Dougal's compelling presence, gave
+the gamekeeper peremptory orders not to shoot till he was bidden, and
+Carfrae at the kitchen door was warned to the same effect.  The
+shuttered house, where the only light apart from the garden-room was
+the feeble spark of the electric torches, had the most disastrous
+effect upon his spirits.  The gale which roared in the chimney and
+eddied among the rafters of the hall seemed an infernal commotion in a
+tomb.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's go upstairs," he told Saskia; "there must be a view from the
+upper windows."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You can see the top of the old Tower, and part of the sea," she said.
+"I know it well, for it was my only amusement to look at it. On clear
+days, too, one could see high mountains far in the west." His
+depression seemed to have affected her, for she spoke listlessly,
+unlike the vivid creature who had led the way in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a gaunt west-looking bedroom, the one in which Heritage and Dickson
+had camped the night before, they opened a fold of the shutters and
+looked out into a world of grey wrack and driving rain. The Tower roof
+showed mistily beyond the ridge of down, but its environs were not in
+their prospect.  The lower regions of the House had been gloomy enough,
+but this bleak place with its drab outlook struck a chill to Sir
+Archie's soul.  He dolefully lit a cigarette.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This is a pretty rotten show for you," he told her.  "It strikes me as
+a rather unpleasant brand of nightmare."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have been living with nightmares for three years," she said wearily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He cast his eyes round the room.  "I think the Kennedys were mad to
+build this confounded barrack.  I've always disliked it, and old
+Quentin hadn't any use for it either.  Cold, cheerless, raw
+monstrosity! It hasn't been a very giddy place for you, Princess."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It has been my prison, when I hoped it would be a sanctuary.  But it
+may yet be my salvation."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm sure I hope so.  I say, you must be jolly hungry.  I don't suppose
+there's any chance of tea for you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She shook her head.  She was looking fixedly at the Tower, as if she
+expected something to appear there, and he followed her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Rum old shell, that.  Quentin used to keep all kinds of live stock
+there, and when we were boys it was our castle where we played at bein'
+robber chiefs.  It'll be dashed queer if the real thing should turn up
+this time.  I suppose McCunn's Poet is roostin' there all by his lone.
+Can't say I envy him his job."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly she caught his arm.  "I see a man," she whispered. "There!  He
+is behind those far bushes.  There is his head again!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was clearly a man, but he presently disappeared, for he had come
+round by the south end of the House, past the stables, and had now gone
+over the ridge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The cut of his jib us uncommonly like Loudon, the factor. I thought
+McCunn had stretched him on a bed of pain.  Lord, if this thing should
+turn out a farce, I simply can't face Loudon.... I say, Princess, you
+don't suppose by any chance that McCunn's a little bit wrong in the
+head?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She turned her candid eyes on him.  "You are in a very doubting mood."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My feet are cold and I don't mind admittin' it.  Hanged if I know what
+it is, but I don't feel this show a bit real.  If it isn't, we're in a
+fair way to make howlin' idiots of ourselves, and get pretty well
+embroiled with the law.  It's all right for the red-haired boy, for he
+can take everything seriously, even play.  I could do the same thing
+myself when I was a kid.  I don't mind runnin' some kind of risk&mdash;I've
+had a few in my time&mdash;but this is so infernally outlandish, and I&mdash;I
+don't quite believe in it.  That is to say, I believe in it right
+enough when I look at you or listen to McCunn, but as soon as my eyes
+are off you I begin to doubt again.  I'm gettin' old and I've a stake
+in the country, and I daresay I'm gettin' a bit of a prig&mdash;anyway I
+don't want to make a jackass of myself.  Besides, there's this foul
+weather and this beastly house to ice my feet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He broke off with an exclamation, for on the grey cloud-bounded stage
+in which the roof of the Tower was the central feature, actors had
+appeared.  Dim hurrying shapes showed through the mist, dipping over
+the ridge, as if coming from the Garplefoot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She seized his arm and he saw that her listlessness was gone. Her eyes
+were shining.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is they," she cried.  "The nightmare is real at last. Do you doubt
+now?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He could only stare, for these shapes arriving and vanishing like wisps
+of fog still seemed to him phantasmal.  The girl held his arm tightly
+clutched, and craned towards the window space.  He tried to open the
+frame, and succeeded in smashing the glass.  A swirl of wind drove
+inwards and blew a loose lock of Saskia's hair across his brow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wish Dougal were back," he muttered, and then came the crack of a
+shot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The pressure on his arm slackened, and a pale face was turned to him.
+"He is alone&mdash;Mr. Heritage.  He has no chance.  They will kill him like
+a dog."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They'll never get in," he assured her.  "Dougal said the place could
+hold out for hours."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another shot followed and presently a third.  She twined her hands and
+her eyes were wild.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We can't leave him to be killed," she gasped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's the only game.  We're playin' for time, remember. Besides, he
+won't be killed.  Great Scott!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As he spoke, a sudden explosion cleft the drone of the wind and a patch
+of gloom flashed into yellow light.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bomb!" he cried.  "Lord, I might have thought of that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl had sprung back from the window.  "I cannot bear it. I will
+not see him murdered in sight of his friends.  I am going to show
+myself, and when they see me they will leave him.... No, you must stay
+here.  Presently they will be round this house. Don't be afraid for
+me&mdash;I am very quick of foot."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For God's sake, don't!  Here, Princess, stop," and he clutched at her
+skirt.  "Look here, I'll go."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You can't.  You have been wounded.  I am in command, you know. Keep
+the door open till I come back."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He hobbled after her, but she easily eluded him.  She was smiling now,
+and blew a kiss to him.  "La, la, la," she trilled, as she ran down the
+stairs.  He heard her voice below, admonishing McGuffog. Then he pulled
+himself together and went back to the window. He had brought the little
+Holland with him, and he poked its barrel through the hole in the glass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Curse my game leg," he said, almost cheerfully, for the situation was
+now becoming one with which he could cope.  "I ought to be able to hold
+up the pursuit a bit.  My aunt!  What a girl!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With the rifle cuddled to his shoulder he watched a slim figure come
+into sight on the lawn, running towards the ridge.  He reflected that
+she must have dropped from the high verandah wall.  That reminded him
+that something must be done to make the wall climbable for her return,
+so he went down to McGuffog, and the two squeezed through the
+barricaded door to the verandah.  The boilerhouse ladder was still in
+position, but it did not reach half the height, so McGuffog was adjured
+to stand by to help, and in the meantime to wait on duty by the wall.
+Then he hurried upstairs to his watch-tower.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl was in sight, almost on the crest of the high ground. There
+she stood for a moment, one hand clutching at her errant hair, the
+other shielding her eyes from the sting of the rain.  He heard her cry,
+as Heritage had heard her, but since the wind was blowing towards him
+the sound came louder and fuller.  Again she cried, and then stood
+motionless with her hands above her head.  It was only for an instant,
+for the next he saw she had turned and was racing down the slope,
+jumping the little scrogs of hazel like a deer.  On the ridge appeared
+faces, and then over it swept a mob of men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She had a start of some fifty yards, and laboured to increase it,
+having doubtless the verandah wall in mind.  Sir Archie, sick with
+anxiety, nevertheless spared time to admire her prowess.  "Gad! she's a
+miler," he ejaculated.  "She'll do it.  I'm hanged if she don't do it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Against men in seamen's boots and heavy clothing she had a clear
+advantage. But two shook themselves loose from the pack and began to
+gain on her. At the main shrubbery they were not thirty yards behind,
+and in her passage through it her skirts must have delayed her, for
+when she emerged the pursuit had halved the distance.  He got the
+sights of the rifle on the first man, but the lawns sloped up towards
+the house, and to his consternation he found that the girl was in the
+line of fire. Madly he ran to the other window of the room, tore back
+the shutters, shivered the glass, and flung his rifle to his shoulder.
+The fellow was within three yards of her, but, thank God! he had now a
+clear field. He fired low and just ahead of him, and had the
+satisfaction to see him drop like a rabbit, shot in the leg.  His
+companion stumbled over him, and for a moment the girl was safe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But her speed was failing.  She passed out of sight on the verandah
+side of the house, and the rest of the pack had gained ominously over
+the easier ground of the lawn.  He thought for a moment of trying to
+stop them by his fire, but realized that if every shot told there would
+still be enough of them left to make sure of her capture. The only
+chance was at the verandah, and he went downstairs at a pace undreamed
+of since the days when he had two whole legs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+McGuffog, Mannlicher in hand, was poking his neck over the wall. The
+pursuit had turned the corner and were about twenty yards off; the girl
+was at the foot of the ladder, breathless, drooping with fatigue. She
+tried to climb, limply and feebly, and very slowly, as if she were too
+giddy to see clear.  Above were two cripples, and at her back the van
+of the now triumphant pack.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Archie, game leg or no, was on the parapet preparing to drop down
+and hold off the pursuit were it only for seconds. But at that moment
+he was aware that the situation had changed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the foot of the ladder a tall man seemed to have sprung out of the
+ground.  He caught the girl in his arms, climbed the ladder, and
+McGuffog's great hands reached down and seized her and swung her into
+safety.  Up the wall, by means of cracks and tufts, was shinning a
+small boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The stranger coolly faced the pursuers, and at the sight of him they
+checked, those behind stumbling against those in front. He was speaking
+to them in a foreign tongue, and to Sir Archie's ear the words were
+like the crack of a lash.  The hesitation was only for a moment, for a
+voice among them cried out, and the whole pack gave tongue shrilly and
+surged on again.  But that instant of check had given the stranger his
+chance.  He was up the ladder, and, gripping the parapet, found rest
+for his feet in a fissure. Then he bent down, drew up the ladder,
+handed it to McGuffog, and with a mighty heave pulled himself over the
+top.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He seemed to hope to defend the verandah, but the door at the west end
+was being assailed by a contingent of the enemy, and he saw that its
+thin woodwork was yielding.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Into the House," he cried, as he picked up the ladder and tossed it
+over the wall on the pack surging below.  He was only just in time, for
+the west door yielded.  In two steps he had followed McGuffog through
+the chink into the passage, and the concussion of the grand piano
+pushed hard against the verandah door from within coincided with the
+first battering on the said door from without.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the garden-room the feeble lamp showed a strange grouping. Saskia
+had sunk into a chair to get her breath, and seemed too dazed to be
+aware of her surroundings.  Dougal was manfully striving to appear at
+his ease, but his lip was quivering.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A near thing that time," he observed.  "It was the blame of that man's
+auld motor-bicycle."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The stranger cast sharp eyes around the place and company.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"An awkward corner, gentlemen," he said.  "How many are there of you?
+Four men and a boy?  And you have placed guards at all the entrances?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They have bombs," Sir Archie reminded him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No doubt.  But I do not think they will use them here&mdash;or their guns,
+unless there is no other way.  Their purpose is kidnapping, and they
+hope to do it secretly and slip off without leaving a trace. If they
+slaughter us, as they easily can, the cry will be out against them, and
+their vessel will be unpleasantly hunted. Half their purpose is already
+spoiled, for it's no longer secret.... They may break us by sheer
+weight, and I fancy the first shooting will be done by us.  It's the
+windows I'm afraid of."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Some tone in his quiet voice reached the girl in the wicker chair. She
+looked up wildly, saw him, and with a cry of "Alesha" ran to his arms.
+There she hung, while his hand fondled her hair, like a mother with a
+scared child.  Sir Archie, watching the whole thing in some
+stupefaction, thought he had never in his days seen more nobly matched
+human creatures.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is my friend," she cried triumphantly, "the friend whom I appointed
+to meet me here.  Oh, I did well to trust him. Now we need not fear
+anything."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As if in ironical answer came a great crashing at the verandah door,
+and the twanging of chords cruelly mishandled.  The grand piano was
+suffering internally from the assaults of the boiler-house ladder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wull I gie them a shot?" was McGuffog's hoarse inquiry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Action stations," Alexis ordered, for the command seemed to have
+shifted to him from Dougal.  "The windows are the danger. The boy will
+patrol the ground floor, and give us warning, and I and this man,"
+pointing to Sime, "will be ready at the threatened point. And, for
+God's sake, no shooting, unless I give the word.  If we take them on at
+that game we haven't a chance."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He said something to Saskia in Russian and she smiled assent and went
+to Sir Archie's side.  "You and I must keep this door," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Archie was never very clear afterwards about the events of the next
+hour.  The Princess was in the maddest spirits, as if the burden of
+three years had slipped from her and she was back in her first
+girlhood.  She sang as she carried more lumber to the pile&mdash;perhaps the
+song which had once entranced Heritage, but Sir Archie had no ear for
+music.  She mocked at the furious blows which rained at the other end,
+for the door had gone now, and in the windy gap could be seen a blur of
+dark faces.  Oddly enough, he found his own spirits mounting to meet
+hers.  It was real business at last, the qualms of the civilian had
+been forgotten, and there was rising in him that joy in a scrap which
+had once made him one of the most daring airmen on the Western Front.
+The only thing that worried him now was the coyness about shooting.
+What on earth were his rifles and shot-guns for unless to be used?  He
+had seen the enemy from the verandah wall, and a more ruffianly crew he
+had never dreamed of. They meant the uttermost business, and against
+such it was surely the duty of good citizens to wage whole-hearted war.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Princess was humming to herself a nursery rhyme.  "THE KING OF
+SPAIN'S DAUGHTER," she crooned, "CAME TO VISIT ME, AND ALL FOR THE
+SAKE&mdash;&mdash;Oh, that poor piano!"  In her clear voice she cried something
+in Russian, and the wind carried a laugh from the verandah. At the
+sound of it she stopped.  "I had forgotten," she said. "Paul is there.
+I had forgotten."  After that she was very quiet, but she redoubled her
+labours at the barricade.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To the man it seemed that the pressure from without was slackening. He
+called to McGuffog to ask about the garden-room window, and the reply
+was reassuring.  The gamekeeper was gloomily contemplating Dougal's
+tubs of water and wire-netting, as he might have contemplated a vermin
+trap.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Archie was growing acutely anxious&mdash;the anxiety of the defender of
+a straggling fortress which is vulnerable at a dozen points. It seemed
+to him that strange noises were coming from the rooms beyond the hall.
+Did the back door lie that way?  And was not there a smell of smoke in
+the air?  If they tried fire in such a gale the place would burn like
+matchwood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He left his post and in the hall found Dougal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All quiet," the Chieftain reported.  "Far ower quiet.  I don't like
+it. The enemy's no' puttin' out his strength yet.  The Russian says a'
+the west windies are terrible dangerous.  Him and the chauffeur's doin'
+their best, but ye can't block thae muckle glass panes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He returned to the Princess, and found that the attack had indeed
+languished on that particular barricade.  The withers of the grand
+piano were left unwrung, and only a faint scuffling informed him that
+the verandah was not empty.  "They're gathering for an attack
+elsewhere," he told himself.  But what if that attack were a feint?  He
+and McGuffog must stick to their post, for in his belief the verandah
+door and the garden-room window were the easiest places where an entry
+in mass could be forced.  Suddenly Dougal's whistle blew, and with it
+came a most almighty crash somewhere towards the west side. With a
+shout of "Hold Tight, McGuffog," Sir Archie bolted into the hall, and,
+led by the sound, reached what had once been the ladies' bedroom. A
+strange sight met his eyes, for the whole framework of one window
+seemed to have been thrust inward, and in the gap Alexis was swinging a
+fender. Three of the enemy were in the room&mdash;one senseless on the
+floor, one in the grip of Sime, whose single hand was tightly clenched
+on his throat, and one engaged with Dougal in a corner.  The Die-Hard
+leader was sore pressed, and to his help Sir Archie went.  The fresh
+assault made the seaman duck his head, and Dougal seized the occasion
+to smite him hard with something which caused him to roll over.  It was
+Leon's life-preserver which he had annexed that afternoon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Alexis at the window seemed to have for a moment daunted the attack.
+"Bring that table," he cried, and the thing was jammed into the gap.
+"Now you"&mdash;this to Sime&mdash;"get the man from the back door to hold this
+place with his gun.  There's no attack there.  It's about time for
+shooting now, or we'll have them in our rear.  What in heaven is that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was McGuffog whose great bellow resounded down the corridor. Sir
+Archie turned and shuffled back, to be met by a distressing spectacle.
+The lamp, burning as peacefully as it might have burned on an old
+lady's tea-table, revealed the window of the garden-room driven bodily
+inward, shutters and all, and now forming an inclined bridge over
+Dougal's ineffectual tubs.  In front of it stood McGuffog, swinging his
+gun by the barrel and yelling curses, which, being mainly couched in
+the vernacular, were happily meaningless to Saskia.  She herself stood
+at the hall door, plucking at something hidden in her breast.  He saw
+that it was a little ivory-handled pistol.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The enemy's feint had succeeded, for even as Sir Archie looked three
+men leaped into the room.  On the neck of one the butt of McGuffog's
+gun crashed, but two scrambled to their feet and made for the girl. Sir
+Archie met the first with his fist, a clean drive on the jaw, followed
+by a damaging hook with his left that put him out of action. The other
+hesitated for an instant and was lost, for McGuffog caught him by the
+waist from behind and sent him through the broken frame to join his
+comrades without.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Up the stairs," Dougal was shouting, for the little room beyond the
+hall was clearly impossible.  "Our flank's turned.  They're pourin'
+through the other windy."  Out of a corner of his eye Sir Archie caught
+sight of Alexis, with Sime and Carfrae in support, being slowly forced
+towards them along the corridor.  "Upstairs," he shouted. "Come on,
+McGuffog.  Lead on, Princess."  He dashed out the lamp, and the place
+was in darkness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With this retreat from the forward trench line ended the opening phase
+of the battle.  It was achieved in good order, and position was taken
+up on the first floor landing, dominating the main staircase and the
+passage that led to the back stairs.  At their back was a short
+corridor ending in a window which gave on the north side of the House
+above the verandah, and from which an active man might descend to the
+verandah roof.  It had been carefully reconnoitred beforehand by
+Dougal, and his were the dispositions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The odd thing was that the retreating force were in good heart. The
+three men from the Mains were warming to their work, and McGuffog wore
+an air of genial ferocity.  "Dashed fine position I call this," said
+Sir Archie.  Only Alexis was silent and preoccupied.  "We are still at
+their mercy," he said.  "Pray God your police come soon."  He forbade
+shooting yet awhile.  "The lady is our strong card," he said. "They
+won't use their guns while she is with us, but if it ever comes to
+shooting they can wipe us out in a couple of minutes. One of you watch
+that window, for Paul Abreskov is no fool."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Their exhilaration was short-lived.  Below in the hall it was black
+darkness save for a greyness at the entrance of the verandah passage;
+but the defence was soon aware that the place was thick with men.
+Presently there came a scuffling from Carfrae's post towards the back
+stairs, and a cry as of some one choking.  And at the same moment a
+flare was lit below which brought the whole hall from floor to rafters
+into blinding light.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It revealed a crowd of figures, some still in the hall and some
+half-way up the stairs, and it revealed, too, more figures at the end
+of the upper landing where Carfrae had been stationed. The shapes were
+motionless like mannequins in a shop window.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They've got us treed all right," Sir Archie groaned.  "What the devil
+are they waiting for?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They wait for their leader," said Alexis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No one of the party will ever forget the ensuing minutes. After the
+hubbub of the barricades the ominous silence was like icy water,
+chilling and petrifying with an indefinable fear. There was no sound
+but the wind, but presently mingled with it came odd wild voices.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hear to the whaups," McGuffog whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Archie, who found the tension unbearable, sought relief in
+contradiction.  "You're an unscientific brute, McGuffog," he told his
+henchman.  "It's a disgrace that a gamekeeper should be such a rotten
+naturalist.  What would whaups be doin' on the shore at this time of
+year?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A' the same, I could swear it's whaups, Sir Erchibald."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Dougal broke in and his voice was excited.  It's no' whaups.
+That's our patrol signal.  Man, there's hope for us yet.  I believe
+it's the polis.'  His words were unheeded, for the figures below drew
+apart and a young man came through them.  His beautifully-shaped dark
+head was bare, and as he moved he unbuttoned his oilskins and showed
+the trim dark-blue garb of the yachtsman.  He walked confidently up the
+stairs, an odd elegant figure among his heavy companions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good afternoon, Alexis," he said in English.  "I think we may now
+regard this interesting episode as closed.  I take it that you
+surrender. Saskia, dear, you are coming with me on a little journey.
+Will you tell my men where to find your baggage?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The reply was in Russian.  Alexis' voice was as cool as the other's,
+and it seemed to wake him to anger.  He replied in a rapid torrent of
+words, and appealed to the men below, who shouted back. The flare was
+dying down, and shadows again hid most of the hall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal crept up behind Sir Archie.  "Here, I think it's the polis.
+They're whistlin' outbye, and I hear folk cryin' to each other&mdash;no' the
+foreigners."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again Alexis spoke, and then Saskia joined in.  What she said rang
+sharp with contempt, and her fingers played with her little pistol.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly before the young man could answer Dobson bustled toward him.
+The innkeeper was labouring under some strong emotion, for he seemed to
+be pleading and pointing urgently towards the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I tell ye it's the polis," whispered Dougal.  "They're nickit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a swaying in the crowd and anxious faces.  Men surged in,
+whispered, and went out, and a clamour arose which the leader stilled
+with a fierce gesture.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You there," he cried, looking up, "you English.  We mean you no ill,
+but I require you to hand over to me the lady and the Russian who is
+with her.  I give you a minute by my watch to decide.  If you refuse,
+my men are behind you and around you, and you go with me to be punished
+at my leisure."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I warn you," cried Sir Archie.  "We are armed, and will shoot down any
+one who dares to lay a hand on us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You fool," came the answer.  "I can send you all to eternity before
+you touch a trigger."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leon was by his side now&mdash;Leon and Spidel, imploring him to do
+something which he angrily refused.  Outside there was a new clamour,
+faces showing at the door and then vanishing, and an anxious hum filled
+the hall.... Dobson appeared again and this time he was a figure of
+fury.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are ye daft, man?" he cried.  "I tell ye the polis are closin' round
+us, and there's no' a moment to lose if we would get back to the boats.
+If ye'll no' think o' your own neck, I'm thinkin' o' mine. The whole
+things a bloody misfire.  Come on, lads, if ye're no besotted on
+destruction."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leon laid a hand on the leader's arm and was roughly shaken off. Spidel
+fared no better, and the little group on the upper landing saw the two
+shrug their shoulders and make for the door.  The hall was emptying
+fast and the watchers had gone from the back stairs. The young man's
+voice rose to a scream; he commanded, threatened, cursed; but panic was
+in the air and he had lost his mastery.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quick," croaked Dougal, "now's the time for the counter-attack."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the figure on the stairs held them motionless.  They could not see
+his face, but by instinct they knew that it was distraught with fury
+and defeat.  The flare blazed up again as the flame caught a knot of
+fresh powder, and once more the place was bright with the uncanny
+light.... The hall was empty save for the pale man who was in the act
+of turning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He looked back.  "If I go now, I will return.  The world is not wide
+enough to hide you from me, Saskia."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will never get her," said Alexis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A sudden devil flamed into his eyes, the devil of some ancestral
+savagery, which would destroy what is desired but unattainable. He
+swung round, his hand went to his pocket, something clacked, and his
+arm shot out like a baseball pitcher's.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So intent was the gaze of the others on him, that they did not see a
+second figure ascending the stairs.  Just as Alexis flung himself
+before the Princess, the new-comer caught the young man's outstretched
+arm and wrenched something from his hand. The next second he had hurled
+it into a far corner where stood the great fireplace.  There was a
+blinding sheet of flame, a dull roar, and then billow upon billow of
+acrid smoke.  As it cleared they saw that the fine Italian
+chimneypiece, the pride of the builder of the House, was a mass of
+splinters, and that a great hole had been blown through the wall into
+what had been the dining-room.... A figure was sitting on the bottom
+step feeling its bruises. The last enemy had gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Mr. John Heritage raised his eyes he saw the Princess with a very
+pale face in the arms of a tall man whom he had never seen before. If
+he was surprised at the sight, he did not show it.  "Nasty little bomb
+that.  I remember we struck the brand first in July '18."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are they rounded up?" Sir Archie asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They've bolted.  Whether they'll get away is another matter. I left
+half the mounted police a minute ago at the top of the West Lodge
+avenue.  The other lot went to the Garplefoot to cut off the boats."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good Lord, man," Sir Archie cried, "the police have been here for the
+last ten minutes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're wrong.  They came with me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then what on earth&mdash;-" began the astonished baronet.  He stopped
+short, for he suddenly got his answer.  Into the hall limped a boy.
+Never was there seen so ruinous a child.  He was dripping wet, his
+shirt was all but torn off his back, his bleeding nose was poorly
+staunched by a wisp of handkerchief, his breeches were in ribbons, and
+his poor bare legs looked as if they had been comprehensively kicked
+and scratched.  Limpingly he entered, yet with a kind of pride, like
+some small cock-sparrow who has lost most of his plumage but has
+vanquished his adversary.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With a yell Dougal went down the stairs.  The boy saluted him, and they
+gravely shook hands.  It was the meeting of Wellington and Blucher.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Chieftain's voice shrilled in triumph, but there was a break in it.
+The glory was almost too great to be borne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I kenned it," he cried.  "It was the Gorbals Die-Hards. There stands
+the man that done it.... Ye'll no' fickle Thomas Yownie."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap15"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XV
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+We left Mr. McCunn, full of aches but desperately resolute in spirit,
+hobbling by the Auchenlochan road into the village of Dalquharter. His
+goal was Mrs. Morran's hen-house, which was Thomas Yownie's POSTE DE
+COMMANDEMENT.  The rain had come on again, and, though in other weather
+there would have been a slow twilight, already the shadow of night had
+the world in its grip.  The sea even from the high ground was
+invisible, and all to westward and windward was a ragged screen of dark
+cloud.  It was foul weather for foul deeds. Thomas Yownie was not in
+the hen-house, but in Mrs. Morran's kitchen, and with him were the
+pug-faced boy know as Old Bill, and the sturdy figure of Peter
+Paterson.  But the floor was held by the hostess. She still wore her
+big boots, her petticoats were still kilted, and round her venerable
+head in lieu of a bonnet was drawn a tartan shawl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eh, Dickson, but I'm blithe to see ye.  And puir man, ye've been sair
+mishandled.  This is the awfu'est Sabbath day that ever you and me pit
+in.  I hope it'll be forgiven us.... Whaur's the young leddy?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dougal was saying she was in the House with Sir Archibald and the men
+from the Mains."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wae's me!" Mrs. Morran keened.  "And what kind o' place is yon for
+her? Thae laddies tell me there's boatfu's o' scoondrels landit at the
+Garplefit.  They'll try the auld Tower, but they'll no' wait there when
+they find it toom, and they'll be inside the Hoose in a jiffy and awa'
+wi' the puir lassie.  Sirs, it maunna be.  Ye're lippenin' to the
+polis, but in a' my days I never kenned the polis in time. We maun be
+up and daein' oorsels.  Oh, if I could get a haud o' that red-heided
+Dougal..."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As she spoke there came on the wind the dull reverberation of an
+explosion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Keep us, what's that?" she cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's dinnymite," said Peter Paterson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's the end o' the auld Tower," observed Thomas Yownie in his
+quiet, even voice.  "And it's likely the end o' the man Heritage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lord peety us!" the old woman wailed. "And us standin' here like
+stookies and no' liftin' a hand.  Awa' wi ye, laddies, and dae
+something. Awa' you too, Dickson, or I'll tak' the road mysel'."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've got orders," said the Chief of Staff, "no' to move till the
+sityation's clear.  Napoleon's up at the Tower and Jaikie's in the
+policies.  I maun wait on their reports."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a moment Mrs. Morran's attention was distracted by Dickson, who
+suddenly felt very faint and sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. "Man,
+ye're as white as a dish-clout," she exclaimed with compunction. "Ye're
+fair wore out, and ye'll have had nae meat sin' your breakfast. See,
+and I'll get ye a cup o' tea."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She proved to be in the right, for as soon as Dickson had swallowed
+some mouthfuls of her strong scalding brew the colour came back to his
+cheeks, and he announced that he felt better.  "Ye'll fortify it wi' a
+dram," she told him, and produced a black bottle from her cupboard. "My
+father aye said that guid whisky and het tea keepit the doctor's gig
+oot o' the close."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The back door opened and Napoleon entered, his thin shanks blue with
+cold. He saluted and made his report in a voice shrill with excitement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Tower has fallen.  They've blown in the big door, and the feck o'
+them's inside."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And Mr. Heritage?" was Dickson's anxious inquiry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When I last saw him he was up at a windy, shootin'.  I think he's
+gotten on to the roof.  I wouldna wonder but the place is on fire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here, this is awful," Dickson groaned.  "We can't let Mr. Heritage be
+killed that way.  What strength is the enemy?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I counted twenty-seven, and there's stragglers comin' up from the
+boats."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And there's me and you five laddies here, and Dougal and the others
+shut up in the House."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stopped in sheer despair.  It was a fix from which the most
+enlightened business mind showed no escape.  Prudence, inventiveness,
+were no longer in question; only some desperate course of violence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must create a diversion," he said.  "I'm for the Tower, and you
+laddies must come with me.  We'll maybe see a chance.  Oh, but I wish I
+had my wee pistol."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If ye're gaun there, Dickson, I'm comin' wi' ye," Mrs Morran announced.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her words revealed to Dickson the preposterousness of the whole
+situation, and for all his anxiety he laughed.  "Five laddies, a
+middle-aged man, and an auld wife," he cried.  "Dod, it's pretty
+hopeless.  It's like the thing in the Bible about the weak things of
+the world trying to confound the strong."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Bible's whiles richt," Mrs. Morran answered drily.  "Come on, for
+there's no time to lose."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The door opened again to admit the figure of Wee Jaikie.  There were no
+tears in his eyes, and his face was very white.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They're a' round the Hoose," he croaked.  "I was up a tree forenent
+the verandy and seen them.  The lassie ran oot and cried on them from
+the top o' the brae, and they a' turned and hunted her back. Gosh, but
+it was a near thing.  I seen the Captain sklimmin' the wall, and a
+muckle man took the lassie and flung her up the ladder. They got inside
+just in time and steekit the door, and now the whole pack is roarin'
+round the Hoose seekin' a road in.  They'll no' be long over the job,
+neither."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What about Mr. Heritage?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They're no' heedin' about him any more.  The auld Tower's bleezin'."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Worse and worse," said Dickson.  "If the police don't come in the next
+ten minutes, they'll be away with the Princess.  They've beaten all
+Dougal's plans, and it's a straight fight with odds of six to one. It's
+not possible."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran for the first time seemed to lose hope.  "Eh, the puir
+lassie!" she wailed, and sinking on a chair covered her face with her
+shawl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Laddies, can you no' think of a plan?" asked Dickson, his voice flat
+with despair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Thomas Yownie spoke.  So far he had been silent, but under his
+tangled thatch of hair his mind had been busy.  Jaikie's report seemed
+to bring him to a decision.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's gey dark," he said,  "and it's gettin' darker."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was that in his voice which promised something, and Dickson
+listened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The enemy's mostly foreigners, but Dobson's there and I think he's a
+kind of guide to them.  Dobson's feared of the polis, and if we can
+terrify Dobson he'll terrify the rest."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, but where are the police?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They're no' here yet, but they're comin'.  The fear o' them is aye in
+Dobson's mind.  If he thinks the polis has arrived, he'll put the wind
+up the lot.... WE maun be the polis."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson could only stare while the Chief of Staff unfolded his scheme.
+I do not know to whom the Muse of History will give the credit of the
+tactics of "Infiltration," whether to Ludendorff or von Hutier or some
+other proud captain of Germany, or to Foch, who revised and perfected
+them.  But I know that the same notion was at this moment of crisis
+conceived by Thomas Yownie, whom no parents acknowledged, who slept
+usually in a coal cellar, and who had picked up his education among
+Gorbals closes and along the wharves of Clyde.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's gettin' dark," he said, "and the enemy are that busy tryin' to
+break into the Hoose that they'll no' be thinkin' o' their rear. The
+five o' us Die-Hards is grand at dodgin' and keepin' out of sight, and
+what hinders us to get in among them, so that they'll hear us but never
+see us.  We're used to the ways o' the polis, and can imitate them
+fine.  Forbye we've all got our whistles, which are the same as a
+bobbie's birl, and Old Bill and Peter are grand at copyin' a man's
+voice.  Since the Captain is shut up in the Hoose, the command falls to
+me, and that's my plan."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With a piece of chalk he drew on the kitchen floor a rough sketch of
+the environs of Huntingtower.  Peter Paterson was to move from the
+shrubberies beyond the verandah, Napoleon from the stables, Old Bill
+from the Tower, while Wee Jaikie and Thomas himself were to advance as
+if from the Garplefoot, so that the enemy might fear for his
+communications.  "As soon as one o' ye gets into position he's to gie
+the patrol cry, and when each o' ye has heard five cries, he's to
+advance.  Begin birlin' and roarin' afore ye get among them, and keep
+it up till ye're at the Hoose wall.  If they've gotten inside, in ye go
+after them.  I trust each Die-Hard to use his judgment, and above all
+to keep out o' sight and no' let himsel' be grippit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The plan, like all great tactics, was simple, and no sooner was it
+expounded than it was put into action.  The Die-Hards faded out of the
+kitchen like fog-wreaths, and Dickson and Mrs. Morran were left looking
+at each other.  They did not look long.  The bare feet of Wee Jaikie
+had not crossed the threshold fifty seconds, before they were followed
+by Mrs. Morran's out-of-doors boots and Dickson's tackets.  Arm in arm
+the two hobbled down the back path behind the village which led to the
+South Lodge.  The gate was unlocked, for the warder was busy elsewhere,
+and they hastened up the avenue. Far off Dickson thought he saw shapes
+fleeting across the park, which he took to be the shock-troops of his
+own side, and he seemed to hear snatches of song.  Jaikie was giving
+tongue, and this was what he sang:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  "Proley Tarians, arise!<BR>
+  Wave the Red Flag to the skies,<BR>
+  Heed no more the Fat Man's lees,<BR>
+  Stap them doun his throat!<BR>
+  Nocht to lose except our chains&mdash;&mdash;"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+But he tripped over a rabbit wire and thereafter conserved his breath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wind was so loud that no sound reached them from the House, which,
+blank and immense, now loomed before them.  Dickson's ears were alert
+for the noise of shots or the dull crash of bombs; hearing nothing, he
+feared the worst, and hurried Mrs. Morran at a pace which endangered
+her life.  He had no fear for himself, arguing that his foes were
+seeking higher game, and judging, too, that the main battle must be
+round the verandah at the other end.  The two passed the shrubbery
+where the road forked, one path running to the back door and one to the
+stables.  They took the latter and presently came out on the downs,
+with the ravine of the Garple on their left, the stables in front, and
+on the right the hollow of a formal garden running along the west side
+of the House.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The gale was so fierce, now that they had no wind-break between them
+and the ocean, that Mrs. Morran could wrestle with it no longer, and
+found shelter in the lee of a clump of rhododendrons. Darkness had all
+but fallen, and the House was a black shadow against the dusky sky,
+while a confused greyness marked the sea. The old Tower showed a tooth
+of masonry; there was no glow from it, so the fire, which Jaikie had
+reported, must have died down. A whaup cried loudly, and very eerily:
+then another.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The birds stirred up Mrs. Morran.  "That's the laddies' patrol." she
+gasped.  "Count the cries, Dickson."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another bird wailed, this time very near.  Then there was perhaps three
+minutes' silence till a fainter wheeple came from the direction of the
+Tower.  "Four," said Dickson, but he waited in vain on the fifth. He
+had not the acute hearing of the boys, and could not catch the faint
+echo of Peter Paterson's signal beyond the verandah.  The next he heard
+was a shrill whistle cutting into the wind, and then others in rapid
+succession from different quarters, and something which might have been
+the hoarse shouting of angry men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Gorbals Die-Hards had gone into action.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dull prose is no medium to tell of that wild adventure.  The sober
+sequence of the military historian is out of place in recording deeds
+that knew not sequence or sobriety.  Were I a bard, I would cast this
+tale in excited verse, with a lilt which would catch the speed of the
+reality.  I would sing of Napoleon, not unworthy of his great namesake,
+who penetrated to the very window of the ladies' bedroom, where the
+framework had been driven in and men were pouring through; of how there
+he made such pandemonium with his whistle that men tumbled back and ran
+about blindly seeking for guidance; of how in the long run his
+pugnacity mastered him, so that he engaged in combat with an unknown
+figure and the two rolled into what had once been a fountain.  I would
+hymn Peter Paterson, who across tracts of darkness engaged Old Bill in
+a conversation which would have done no discredit to a Gallowgate
+policeman.  He pretended to be making reports and seeking orders.
+"We've gotten three o' the deevils, sir. What'll we dae wi' them?" he
+shouted; and back would come the reply in a slightly more genteel
+voice:  "Fall them to the rear. Tamson has charge of the prisoners."
+Or it would be: "They've gotten pistols, sir.  What's the orders?" and
+the answer would be: "Stick to your batons.  The guns are posted on the
+knowe, so we needn't hurry." And over all the din there would be a
+perpetual whistling and a yelling of "Hands up!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I would sing, too, of Wee Jaikie, who was having the red-letter hour of
+his life.  His fragile form moved like a lizard in places where no
+mortal could be expected, and he varied his duties with impish assaults
+upon the persons of such as came in his way. His whistle blew in a
+man's ear one second and the next yards away. Sometimes he was moved to
+song, and unearthly fragments of "Class-conscious we are" or "Proley
+Tarians, arise!" mingled with the din, like the cry of seagulls in a
+storm.  He saw a bright light flare up within the House which warned
+him not to enter, but he got as far as the garden-room, in whose dark
+corners he made havoc.  Indeed he was almost too successful, for he
+created panic where he went, and one or two fired blindly at the
+quarter where he had last been heard.  These shots were followed by
+frenzied prohibitions from Spidel and were not repeated. Presently he
+felt that aimless surge of men that is the prelude to flight, and heard
+Dobson's great voice roaring in the hall. Convinced that the crisis had
+come, he made his way outside, prepared to harrass the rear of any
+retirement.  Tears now flowed down his face, and he could not have
+spoken for sobs, but he had never been so happy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But chiefly would I celebrate Thomas Yownie, for it was he who brought
+fear into the heart of Dobson.  He had a voice of singular compass, and
+from the verandah he made it echo round the House. The efforts of Old
+Bill and Peter Paterson had been skilful indeed, but those of Thomas
+Yownie were deadly.  To some leader beyond he shouted news: "Robison's
+just about finished wi' his lot, and then he'll get the boats."  A
+furious charge upset him, and for a moment he thought he had been
+discovered.  But it was only Dobson rushing to Leon, who was leading
+the men in the doorway.  Thomas fled to the far end of the verandah,
+and again lifted up his voice. "All foreigners," he shouted, "except
+the man Dobson.  Ay.  Ay. Ye've got Loudon?  Well done!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It must have been this last performance which broke Dobson's nerve and
+convinced him that the one hope lay in a rapid retreat to the
+Garplefoot. There was a tumbling of men in the doorway, a muttering of
+strange tongues, and the vision of the innkeeper shouting to Leon and
+Spidel.  For a second he was seen in the faint reflection that the
+light in the hall cast as far as the verandah, a wild figure urging the
+retreat with a pistol clapped to the head of those who were too
+confused by the hurricane of events to grasp the situation.  Some of
+them dropped over the wall, but most huddled like sheep through the
+door on the west side, a jumble of struggling, blasphemous mortality.
+Thomas Yownie, staggered at the success of his tactics, yet kept his
+head and did his utmost to confuse the retreat, and the triumphant
+shouts and whistles of the other Die-Hards showed that they were not
+unmindful of this final duty....
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The verandah was empty, and he was just about to enter the House, when
+through the west door came a figure, breathing hard and bent apparently
+on the same errand.  Thomas prepared for battle, determined that no
+straggler of the enemy should now wrest from him victory, but, as the
+figure came into the faint glow at the doorway, he recognized it as
+Heritage.  And at the same moment he heard something which made his
+tense nerves relax.  Away on the right came sounds, a thud of galloping
+horses on grass and the jingle of bridle reins and the voices of men.
+It was the real thing at last. It is a sad commentary on his career,
+but now for the first time in his brief existence Thomas Yownie felt
+charitably disposed towards the police.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The Poet, since we left him blaspheming on the roof of the Tower, had
+been having a crowded hour of most inglorious life.  He had started to
+descend at a furious pace, and his first misadventure was that he
+stumbled and dropped Dickson's pistol over the parapet. He tried to
+mark where it might have fallen in the gloom below, and this lost him
+precious minutes.  When he slithered through the trap into the attic
+room, where he had tried to hold up the attack, he discovered that it
+was full of smoke which sought in vain to escape by the narrow window.
+Volumes of it were pouring up the stairs, and when he attempted to
+descend he found himself choked and blinded. He rushed gasping to the
+window, filled his lungs with fresh air, and tried again, but he got no
+farther than the first turn, from which he could see through the cloud
+red tongues of flame in the ground room. This was solemn indeed, so he
+sought another way out.  He got on the roof, for he remembered a
+chimney-stack, cloaked with ivy, which was built straight from the
+ground, and he thought he might climb down it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He found the chimney and began the descent confidently, for he had once
+borne a good reputation at the Montanvert and Cortina. At first all
+went well, for stones stuck out at decent intervals like the rungs of a
+ladder, and roots of ivy supplemented their deficiencies. But presently
+he came to a place where the masonry had crumbled into a cave, and left
+a gap some twenty feet high.  Below it he could dimly see a thick mass
+of ivy which would enable him to cover the further forty feet to the
+ground, but at that cave he stuck most finally. All around the lime and
+stone had lapsed into debris, and he could find no safe foothold.
+Worse still, the block on which he relied proved loose, and only by a
+dangerous traverse did he avert disaster.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There he hung for a minute or two, with a cold void in his stomach. He
+had always distrusted the handiwork of man as a place to scramble on,
+and now he was planted in the dark on a decomposing wall, with an
+excellent chance of breaking his neck, and with the most urgent need
+for haste.  He could see the windows of the House, and, since he was
+sheltered from the gale, he could hear the faint sound of blows on
+woodwork.  There was clearly the devil to pay there, and yet here he
+was helplessly stuck.... Setting his teeth, he started to ascend again.
+Better the fire than this cold breakneck emptiness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It took him the better part of half an hour to get back, and he passed
+through many moments of acute fear.  Footholds which had seemed secure
+enough in the descent now proved impossible, and more than once he had
+his heart in his mouth when a rotten ivy stump or a wedge of stone gave
+in his hands, and dropped dully into the pit of night, leaving him
+crazily spread-eagled.  When at last he reached the top he rolled on
+his back and felt very sick.  Then, as he realized his safety, his
+impatience revived.  At all costs he would force his way out though he
+should be grilled like a herring.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The smoke was less thick in the attic, and with his handkerchief wet
+with the rain and bound across his mouth he made a dash for the ground
+room.  It was as hot as a furnace, for everything inflammable in it
+seemed to have caught fire, and the lumber glowed in piles of hot
+ashes.  But the floor and walls were stone, and only the blazing jambs
+of the door stood between him and the outer air. He had burned himself
+considerably as he stumbled downwards, and the pain drove him to a wild
+leap through the broken arch, where he miscalculated the distance,
+charred his shins, and brought down a red-hot fragment of the lintel on
+his head.  But the thing was done, and a minute later he was rolling
+like a dog in the wet bracken to cool his burns and put out various
+smouldering patches on his raiment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he started running for the House, but, confused by the darkness,
+he bore too much to the north, and came out in the side avenue from
+which he and Dickson had reconnoitred on the first evening. He saw on
+the right a glow in the verandah, which, as we know, was the reflection
+of the flare in the hall, and he heard a babble of voices.  But he
+heard something more, for away on his left was the sound which Thomas
+Yownie was soon to hear&mdash;the trampling of horses.  It was the police at
+last, and his task was to guide them at once to the critical point of
+action.... Three minutes later a figure like a scarecrow was
+admonishing a bewildered sergeant, while his hands plucked feverishly
+at a horse's bridle.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+It is time to return to Dickson in his clump of rhododendrons.
+Tragically aware of his impotence he listened to the tumult of the
+Die-Hards, hopeful when it was loud, despairing when there came a
+moment's lull, while Mrs. Morran like a Greek chorus drew loudly upon
+her store of proverbial philosophy and her memory of Scripture texts.
+Twice he tried to reconnoitre towards the scene of battle, but only
+blundered into sunken plots and pits in the Dutch garden.  Finally he
+squatted beside Mrs. Morran, lit his pipe, and took a firm hold on his
+patience.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was not tested for long.  Presently he was aware that a change had
+come over the scene&mdash;that the Die-Hards' whistles and shouts were being
+drowned in another sound, the cries of panicky men. Dobson's bellow was
+wafted to him.  "Auntie Phemie," he shouted, "the innkeeper's getting
+rattled.  Dod, I believe they're running." For at that moment twenty
+paces on his left the van of the retreat crashed through the creepers
+on the garden's edge and leaped the wall that separated it from the
+cliffs of the Garplefoot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The old woman was on her feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"God be thankit, is't the polis?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Maybe.  Maybe no'.  But they're running."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another bunch of men raced past, and he heard Dobson's voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I tell you, they're broke.  Listen, it's horses.  Ay, it's the police,
+but it was the Die-Hards that did the job.... Here!  They mustn't
+escape. Have the police had the sense to send men to the Garplefoot?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Morran, a figure like an ancient prophetess, with her tartan shawl
+lashing in the gale, clutched him by the shoulder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Doun to the waterside and stop them.  Ye'll no' be beat by wee
+laddies! On wi' ye and I'll follow!  There's gaun to be a juidgment on
+evil-doers this night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson needed no urging.  His heart was hot within him, and the
+weariness and stiffness had gone from his limbs.  He, too, tumbled over
+the wall, and made for what he thought was the route by which he had
+originally ascended from the stream.  As he ran he made ridiculous
+efforts to cry like a whaup in the hope of summoning the Die-Hards.
+One, indeed, he found&mdash;Napoleon, who had suffered a grievous pounding
+in the fountain, and had only escaped by an eel-like agility which had
+aforetime served him in good stead with the law of his native city.
+Lucky for Dickson was the meeting, for he had forgotten the road and
+would certainly have broken his neck. Led by the Die-Hard he slid forty
+feet over screes and boiler-plates, with the gale plucking at him,
+found a path, lost it, and then tumbled down a raw bank of earth to the
+flat ground beside the harbour. During all this performance, he has
+told me, he had no thought of fear, nor any clear notion what he meant
+to do.  He just wanted to be in at the finish of the job.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Through the narrow entrance the gale blew as through a funnel, and the
+usually placid waters of the harbour were a froth of angry waves. Two
+boats had been launched and were plunging furiously, and on one of them
+a lantern dipped and fell.  By its light he could see men holding a
+further boat by the shore.  There was no sign of the police; he
+reflected that probably they had become entangled in the Garple Dean.
+The third boat was waiting for some one.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson&mdash;a new Ajax by the ships&mdash;divined who this someone must be and
+realized his duty.  It was the leader, the arch-enemy, the man whose
+escape must at all costs be stopped.  Perhaps he had the Princess with
+him, thus snatching victory from apparent defeat. In any case he must
+be tackled, and a fierce anxiety gripped his heart.  "Aye finish a
+job," he told himself, and peered up into the darkness of the cliffs,
+wondering just how he should set about it, for except in the last few
+days he had never engaged in combat with a fellow-creature.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When he comes, you grip his legs," he told Napoleon, "and get him
+down. He'll have a pistol, and we're done if he's on his feet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a cry from the boats, a shout of guidance, and the light on
+the water was waved madly.  "They must have good eyesight," thought
+Dickson, for he could see nothing.  And then suddenly he was aware of
+steps in front of him, and a shape like a man rising out of the void at
+his left hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the darkness Napoleon missed his tackle, and the full shock came on
+Dickson.  He aimed at what he thought was the enemy's throat, found
+only an arm, and was shaken off as a mastiff might shake off a toy
+terrier.  He made another clutch, fell, and in falling caught his
+opponent's leg so that he brought him down.  The man was immensely
+agile, for he was up in a second and something hot and bright blew into
+Dickson's face.  The pistol bullet had passed through the collar of his
+faithful waterproof, slightly singeing his neck.  But it served its
+purpose, for Dickson paused, gasping, to consider where he had been
+hit, and before he could resume the chase the last boat had pushed off
+into deep water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To be shot at from close quarters is always irritating, and the novelty
+of the experience increased Dickson's natural wrath.  He fumed on the
+shore like a deerhound when the stag has taken to the sea.  So hot was
+his blood that he would have cheerfully assaulted the whole crew had
+they been within his reach.  Napoleon, who had been incapacitated for
+speed by having his stomach and bare shanks savagely trampled upon,
+joined him, and together they watched the bobbing black specks as they
+crawled out of the estuary into the grey spindrift which marked the
+harbour mouth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But as he looked the wrath died out of Dickson's soul.  For he saw that
+the boats had indeed sailed on a desperate venture, and that a pursuer
+was on their track more potent than his breathless middle-age. The tide
+was on the ebb, and the gale was driving the Atlantic breakers
+shoreward, and in the jaws of the entrance the two waters met in an
+unearthly turmoil.  Above the noise of the wind came the roar of the
+flooded Garple and the fret of the harbour, and far beyond all the
+crashing thunder of the conflict at the harbour mouth.  Even in the
+darkness, against the still faintly grey western sky, the spume could
+be seen rising like waterspouts.  But it was the ear rather than the
+eye which made certain presage of disaster.  No boat could face the
+challenge of that loud portal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As Dickson struggled against the wind and stared, his heart melted and
+a great awe fell upon him.  He may have wept; it is certain that he
+prayed.  "Poor souls, poor souls!" he repeated. "I doubt the last hour
+has been a poor preparation for eternity."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The tide the next day brought the dead ashore.  Among them was a young
+man, different in dress and appearance from the rest&mdash;a young man with
+a noble head and a finely-cut classic face, which was not marred like
+the others from pounding among the Garple rocks.  His dark hair was
+washed back from his brow, and the mouth, which had been hard in life,
+was now relaxed in the strange innocence of death.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson gazed at the body and observed that there was a slight
+deformation between the shoulders.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poor fellow," he said.  "That explains a lot.... As my father used to
+say, cripples have a right to be cankered."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap16"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVI
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+IN WHICH A PRINCESS LEAVES A DARK TOWER AND <BR>
+A PROVISION MERCHANT RETURNS TO HIS FAMILY
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The three days of storm ended in the night, and with the wild weather
+there departed from the Cruives something which had weighed on
+Dickson's spirits since he first saw the place.  Monday&mdash;only a week
+from the morning when he had conceived his plan of holiday&mdash;saw the
+return of the sun and the bland airs of spring.  Beyond the blue of the
+yet restless waters rose dim mountains tipped with snow, like some
+Mediterranean seascape.  Nesting birds were busy on the Laver banks and
+in the Huntingtower thickets; the village smoked peacefully to the
+clear skies; even the House looked cheerful if dishevelled.  The Garple
+Dean was a garden of swaying larches, linnets, and wild anemones.
+Assuredly, thought Dickson, there had come a mighty change in the
+countryside, and he meditated a future discourse to the Literary
+Society of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk on "Natural Beauty in Relation to
+the Mind of Man."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It remains for the chronicler to gather up the loose ends of his tale.
+There was no newspaper story with bold headlines of this the most
+recent assault on the shores of Britain.  Alexis Nicholaevitch, once a
+Prince of Muscovy and now Mr. Alexander Nicholson of the rising firm of
+Sprot and Nicholson of Melbourne, had interest enough to prevent it.
+For it was clear that if Saskia was to be saved from persecution, her
+enemies must disappear without trace from the world, and no story be
+told of the wild venture which was their undoing.  The constabulary of
+Carrick and Scotland Yard were indisposed to ask questions, under a
+hint from their superiors, the more so as no serious damage had been
+done to the persons of His Majesty's lieges, and no lives had been lost
+except by the violence of Nature.  The Procurator-Fiscal investigated
+the case of the drowned men, and reported that so many foreign sailors,
+names and origins unknown, had perished in attempting to return to
+their ship at the Garplefoot.  The Danish brig had vanished into the
+mist of the northern seas.  But one signal calamity the
+Procurator-Fiscal had to record.  The body of Loudon the factor was
+found on the Monday morning below the cliffs, his neck broken by a
+fall. In the darkness and confusion he must have tried to escape in
+that direction, and he had chosen an impracticable road or had slipped
+on the edge.  It was returned as "death by misadventure," and the
+CARRICK HERALD and the AUCHENLOCHAN ADVERTISER excelled themselves in
+eulogy.  Mr. Loudon, they said, had been widely known in the south-west
+of Scotland as an able and trusted lawyer, an assiduous public servant,
+and not least as a good sportsman.  It was the last trait which had led
+to his death, for, in his enthusiasm for wild nature, he had been
+studying bird life on the cliffs of the Cruives during the storm, and
+had made that fatal slip which had deprived the shire of a wise
+counsellor and the best of good fellows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The tinklers of the Garplefoot took themselves off, and where they may
+now be pursuing their devious courses is unknown to the chronicler.
+Dobson, too, disappeared, for he was not among the dead from the boats.
+He knew the neighbourhood, and probably made his way to some port from
+which he took passage to one or other of those foreign lands which had
+formerly been honoured by his patronage.  Nor did all the Russians
+perish.  Three were found skulking next morning in the woods, starving
+and ignorant of any tongue but their own, and five more came ashore
+much battered but alive.  Alexis took charge of the eight survivors,
+and arranged to pay their passage to one of the British Dominions and
+to give them a start in a new life. They were broken creatures, with
+the dazed look of lost animals, and four of them had been peasants in
+Saskia's estates.  Alexis spoke to them in their own language.  "In my
+grandfather's time," he said, "you were serfs.  Then there came a
+change, and for some time you were free men.  Now you have slipped back
+into being slaves again&mdash;the worst of slaveries, for you have been the
+serfs of fools and scoundrels and the black passion of your own hearts.
+I give you a chance of becoming free men once more.  You have the task
+before you of working out your own salvation.  Go, and God be with you."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Before we take leave of these companions of a single week I would
+present them to you again as they appeared on a certain sunny afternoon
+when the episode of Huntingtower was on the eve of closing. First we
+see Saskia and Alexis walking on the thymy sward of the cliff-top,
+looking out to the fretted blue of the sea. It is a fitting place for
+lovers&mdash;above all for lovers who have turned the page on a dark
+preface, and have before them still the long bright volume of life.
+The girl has her arm linked in the man's, but as they walk she breaks
+often away from him, to dart into copses, to gather flowers, or to peer
+over the brink where the gulls wheel and oyster-catchers pipe among the
+shingle. She is no more the tragic muse of the past week, but a
+laughing child again, full of snatches of song, her eyes bright with
+expectation. They talk of the new world which lies before them, and her
+voice is happy. Then her brows contract, and, as she flings herself
+down on a patch of young heather, her air is thoughtful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have been back among fairy tales," she says.  "I do not quite
+understand, Alesha.  Those gallant little boys!  They are youth, and
+youth is always full of strangeness.  Mr. Heritage!  He is youth, too,
+and poetry, perhaps, and a soldier's tradition.  I think I know him....
+But what about Dickson?  He is the PETIT BOURGEOIS, the EPICIER, the
+class which the world ridicules.  He is unbelievable. The others with
+good fortune I might find elsewhere&mdash;in Russia perhaps. But not
+Dickson."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," is the answer.  "You will not find him in Russia.  He is what
+they call the middle-class, which we who were foolish used to laugh at.
+But he is the stuff which above all others makes a great people. He
+will endure when aristocracies crack and proletariats crumble. In our
+own land we have never known him, but till we create him our land will
+not be a nation."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Half a mile away on the edge of the Laver glen Dickson and Heritage are
+together, Dickson placidly smoking on a tree-stump and Heritage walking
+excitedly about and cutting with his stick at the bracken. Sundry
+bandages and strips of sticking plaster still adorn the Poet, but his
+clothes have been tidied up by Mrs. Morran, and he has recovered
+something of his old precision of garb.  The eyes of both are fixed on
+the two figures on the cliff-top.  Dickson feels acutely uneasy. It is
+the first time that he has been alone with Heritage since the arrival
+of Alexis shivered the Poet's dream.  He looks to see a tragic grief;
+to his amazement he beholds something very like exultation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The trouble with you, Dogson," says Heritage, "is that you're a bit of
+an anarchist.  All you false romantics are.  You don't see the
+extraordinary beauty of the conventions which time has consecrated. You
+always want novelty, you know, and the novel is usually the ugly and
+rarely the true.  I am for romance, but upon the old, noble classic
+line."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson is scarcely listening.  His eyes are on the distant lovers, and
+he longs to say something which will gently and graciously express his
+sympathy with his friend.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm afraid," he begins hesitatingly, "I'm afraid you've had a bad
+blow, Mr. Heritage.  You're taking it awful well, and I honour you for
+it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Poet flings back his head.  "I am reconciled," he says. "After all
+'tis better to have loved and lost, you know. It has been a great
+experience and has shown me my own heart. I love her, I shall always
+love her, but I realize that she was never meant for me.  Thank God
+I've been able to serve her&mdash;that is all a moth can ask of a star.  I'm
+a better man for it, Dogson. She will be a glorious memory, and Lord!
+what poetry I shall write! I give her up joyfully, for she has found
+her mate.  'Let us not to the marriage of true minds admit
+impediments!'  The thing's too perfect to grieve about.... Look!  There
+is romance incarnate."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He points to the figures now silhouetted against the further sea. "How
+does it go, Dogson?" he cries.  "'And on her lover's arm she
+leant'&mdash;what next?  You know the thing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dickson assists and Heritage declaims:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  "And on her lover's arm she leant,<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  And round her waist she felt it fold,<BR>
+  And far across the hills they went<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  In that new world which is the old:<BR>
+  Across the hills, and far away<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  Beyond their utmost purple rim,<BR>
+  And deep into the dying day<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  The happy princess followed him."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+He repeats the last two lines twice and draws a deep breath. "How
+right!" he cries.  "How absolutely right!  Lord!  It's astonishing how
+that old bird Tennyson got the goods!"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+After that Dickson leaves him and wanders among the thickets on the
+edge of the Huntingtower policies above the Laver glen. He feels
+childishly happy, wonderfully young, and at the same time
+supernaturally wise.  Sometimes he thinks the past week has been a
+dream, till he touches the sticking-plaster on his brow, and finds that
+his left thigh is still a mass of bruises and that his right leg is
+woefully stiff.  With that the past becomes very real again, and he
+sees the Garple Dean in that stormy afternoon, he wrestles again at
+midnight in the dark House, he stands with quaking heart by the boats
+to cut off the retreat.  He sees it all, but without terror in the
+recollection, rather with gusto and a modest pride.  "I've surely had a
+remarkable time," he tells himself, and then Romance, the goddess whom
+he has worshipped so long, marries that furious week with the idyllic.
+He is supremely content, for he knows that in his humble way he has not
+been found wanting. Once more for him the Chavender or Chub, and long
+dreams among summer hills.  His mind flies to the days ahead of him,
+when he will go wandering with his pack in many green places.  Happy
+days they will be, the prospect with which he has always charmed his
+mind. Yes, but they will be different from what he had fancied, for he
+is another man than the complacent little fellow who set out a week ago
+on his travels.  He has now assurance of himself, assurance of his
+faith. Romance, he sees, is one and indivisible....
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Below him by the edge of the stream he sees the encampment of the
+Gorbals Die-Hards.  He calls and waves a hand, and his signal is
+answered. It seems to be washing day, for some scanty and tattered
+raiment is drying on the sward.  The band is evidently in session, for
+it is sitting in a circle, deep in talk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As he looks at the ancient tents, the humble equipment, the ring of
+small shockheads, a great tenderness comes over him.  The Die-Hards are
+so tiny, so poor, so pitifully handicapped, and yet so bold in their
+meagreness.  Not one of them has had anything that might be called a
+chance.  Their few years have been spent in kennels and closes, always
+hungry and hunted, with none to care for them; their childish ears have
+been habituated to every coarseness, their small minds filled with the
+desperate shifts of living.... And yet, what a heavenly spark was in
+them!  He had always thought nobly of the soul; now he wants to get on
+his knees before the queer greatness of humanity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A figure disengages itself from the group, and Dougal makes his way up
+the hill towards him.  The Chieftain is not more reputable in garb than
+when we first saw him, nor is he more cheerful of countenance. He has
+one arm in a sling made out of his neckerchief, and his scraggy little
+throat rises bare from his voluminous shirt. All that can be said for
+him is that he is appreciably cleaner. He comes to a standstill and
+salutes with a special formality.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dougal," says Dickson, "I've been thinking.  You're the grandest lot
+of wee laddies I ever heard tell of, and, forbye, you've saved my life.
+Now, I'm getting on in years, though you'll admit that I'm not that
+dead old, and I'm not a poor man, and I haven't chick or child to look
+after. None of you has ever had a proper chance or been right fed or
+educated or taken care of.  I've just the one thing to say to you.
+From now on you're my bairns, every one of you.  You're fine laddies,
+and I'm going to see that you turn into fine men.  There's the stuff in
+you to make Generals and Provosts&mdash;ay, and Prime Ministers, and Dod!
+it'll not be my blame if it doesn't get out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dougal listens gravely and again salutes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've brought ye a message," he says.  "We've just had a meetin' and
+I've to report that ye've been unanimously eleckit Chief Die-Hard.
+We're a' hopin' ye'll accept."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I accept," Dickson replies.  "Proudly and gratefully I accept."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The last scene is some days later, in a certain southern suburb of
+Glasgow. Ulysses has come back to Ithaca, and is sitting by his
+fireside, waiting for the return of Penelope from the Neuk Hydropathic.
+There is a chill in the air, so a fire is burning in the grate, but the
+laden tea-table is bright with the first blooms of lilac. Dickson, in a
+new suit with a flower in his buttonhole, looks none the worse for his
+travels, save that there is still sticking-plaster on his deeply
+sunburnt brow.  He waits impatiently with his eye on the black marble
+timepiece, and he fingers something in his pocket.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently the sound of wheels is heard, and the pea-hen voice of Tibby
+announces the arrival of Penelope.  Dickson rushes to the door, and at
+the threshold welcomes his wife with a resounding kiss. He leads her
+into the parlour and settles her in her own chair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My! but it's nice to be home again!" she says.  "And everything that
+comfortable.  I've had a fine time, but there's no place like your own
+fireside.  You're looking awful well, Dickson. But losh!  What have you
+been doing to your head?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just a small tumble.  It's very near mended already.  Ay, I've had a
+grand walking tour, but the weather was a wee bit thrawn. It's nice to
+see you back again, Mamma.  Now that I'm an idle man you and me must
+take a lot of jaunts together."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She beams on him as she stays herself with Tibby's scones, and when the
+meal is ended, Dickson draws from his pocket a slim case. The jewels
+have been restored to Saskia, but this is one of her own which she has
+bestowed upon Dickson as a parting memento. He opens the case and
+reveals a necklet of emeralds, any one of which is worth half the
+street.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This is a present for you," he says bashfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. McCunn's eyes open wide.  "You're far too kind," she gasps. "It
+must have cost an awful lot of money."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It didn't cost me that much," is the truthful answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She fingers the trinket and then clasps it round her neck, where the
+green depths of the stones glow against the black satin of her bodice.
+Her eyes are moist as she looks at him.  "You've been a kind man to
+me," she says, and she kisses him as she has not done since Janet's
+death.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She stands up and admires the necklet in the mirror.  Romance once
+more, thinks Dickson.  That which has graced the slim throats of
+princesses in far-away Courts now adorns an elderly matron in a
+semi-detached villa; the jewels of the wild Nausicaa have fallen to the
+housewife Penelope.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. McCunn preens herself before the glass.  "I call it very genteel,"
+she says.  "Real stylish.  It might be worn by a queen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wouldn't say but it has," says Dickson.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Huntingtower, by John Buchan
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Huntingtower
+by John Buchan
+(#7 in our series by John Buchan)
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+
+
+HUNTINGTOWER
+
+BY JOHN BUCHAN
+
+
+
+To W. P. Ker.
+
+If the Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford has not 
+forgotten the rock whence he was hewn, this simple story may give an 
+hour of entertainment.  I offer it to you because I think you have 
+met my friend Dickson McCunn, and I dare to hope that you may even 
+in your many sojournings in the Westlands have encountered one or 
+other of the Gorbals Die-Hards. If you share my kindly feeling for 
+Dickson, you will be interested in some facts which I have lately 
+ascertained about his ancestry.  In his veins there flows a portion 
+of the redoubtable blood of the Nicol Jarvies.  When the Bailie, 
+you remember, returned from his journey to Rob Roy beyond the 
+Highland Line, he espoused his housekeeper Mattie, "an honest man's 
+daughter and a near cousin o' the Laird o' Limmerfield."  The union 
+was blessed with a son, who succeeded to the Bailie's business and 
+in due course begat daughters, one of whom married a certain 
+Ebenezer McCunn, of whom there is record in the archives of the 
+Hammermen of Glasgow. Ebenezer's grandson, Peter by name, 
+was Provost of Kirkintilloch, and his second son was the father of 
+my hero by his marriage with Robina Dickson, oldest daughter of one 
+Robert Dickson, a tenant-farmer in the Lennox.  So there are 
+coloured threads in Mr. McCunn's pedigree, and, like the Bailie, 
+he can count kin, should he wish, with Rob Roy himself through 
+"the auld wife ayont the fire at Stuckavrallachan."
+
+Such as it is, I dedicate to you the story, and ask for no better 
+verdict on it than that of that profound critic of life and 
+literature, Mr. Huckleberry Finn, who observed of the Pilgrim's 
+Progress that he "considered the statements interesting, but tough." 
+				J.B.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+Prologue
+
+
+1. How a Retired Provision Merchant felt the Impulse of Spring.
+
+2. Of Mr. John Heritage and the Difference in Points of View.
+
+3. How Childe Roland and Another came to the Dark tower.
+
+4. Dougal.
+
+5. Of the Princess in the Tower.
+
+6. How Mr. McCunn departed with Relief and returned with Resolution.
+
+7. Sundry Doings in the Mirk.
+
+8. How a Middle-aged Crusader accepted a Challenge.
+
+9. The First Battle of the Cruives.
+
+10. Deals with an Escape and a Journey.
+
+11. Gravity out of Bed.
+
+12. How Mr. McCunn committed an Assault upon an Ally.
+
+13. The Coming of the Danish Brig.
+
+14. The Second Battle of the Cruives.
+
+15. The Gorbals Die-Hards go into Action.
+
+16. In which a Princess leaves a Dark Tower and a Provision Merchant
+ returns to his Family.
+
+
+
+HUNTINGTOWER.
+
+PROLOGUE.
+
+The girl came into the room with a darting movement like a swallow, 
+looked round her with the same birdlike quickness, and then ran 
+across the polished floor to where a young man sat on a sofa with 
+one leg laid along it.
+
+"I have saved you this dance, Quentin," she said, pronouncing the 
+name with a pretty staccato.  "You must be lonely not dancing, so I 
+will sit with you.  What shall we talk about?"
+
+The young man did not answer at once, for his gaze was held by her 
+face.  He had never dreamed that the gawky and rather plain little 
+girl whom he had romped with long ago in Paris would grow into such 
+a being.  The clean delicate lines of her figure, the exquisite pure 
+colouring of hair and skin, the charming young arrogance of the 
+eyes--this was beauty, he reflected, a miracle, a revelation.  
+Her virginal fineness and her dress, which was the tint of pale 
+fire, gave her the air of a creature of ice and flame.
+
+"About yourself, please, Saskia," he said.  "Are you happy now that 
+you are a grown-up lady?"
+
+"Happy!"  Her voice had a thrill in it like music, frosty music.  
+"The days are far too short.  I grudge the hours when I must sleep.  
+They say it is sad for me to make my debut in a time of war.  
+But the world is very kind to me, and after all it is a victorious 
+war for our Russia.  And listen to me, Quentin.  To-morrow I am to 
+be allowed to begin nursing at the Alexander Hospital.  What do you 
+think of that?"
+
+The time was January 1916, and the place a room in the great 
+Nirski Palace.  No hint of war, no breath from the snowy streets, 
+entered that curious chamber where Prince Peter Nirski kept some of 
+the chief of his famous treasures.  It was notable for its lack of 
+drapery and upholstering -- only a sofa or two and a few fine rugs 
+on the cedar floor.  The walls were of a green marble veined like 
+malachite, the ceiling was of darker marble inlaid with white intaglios.  
+Scattered everywhere were tables and cabinets laden with celadon 
+china, and carved jade, and ivories, and shimmering Persian and 
+Rhodian vessels.  In all the room there was scarcely anything of 
+metal and no touch of gilding or bright colour.  The light came 
+from green alabaster censers, and the place swam in a cold green 
+radiance like some cavern below the sea.  The air was warm and scented, 
+and though it was very quiet there, a hum of voices and the strains 
+of dance music drifted to it from the pillared corridor in which 
+could be seen the glare of lights from the great ballroom beyond.
+
+The young man had a thin face with lines of suffering round the 
+mouth and eyes.  The warm room had given him a high colour, which 
+increased his air of fragility.  He felt a little choked by the 
+place, which seemed to him for both body and mind a hot-house, 
+though he knew very well that the Nirski Palace on this gala evening 
+was in no way typical of the land or its masters.  Only a week ago 
+he had been eating black bread with its owner in a hut on the 
+Volhynian front.
+
+"You have become amazing, Saskia," he said.  "I won't pay my old 
+playfellow compliments; besides, you must be tired of them.  I wish 
+you happiness all the day long like a fairy-tale Princess.  But a 
+crock like me can't do much to help you to it.  The service seems to 
+be the wrong way round, for here you are wasting your time talking 
+to me."
+
+She put her hand on his.  "Poor Quentin!  Is the leg very bad?"
+
+He laughed.  "O, no.  It's mending famously.  I'll be able to get 
+about without a stick in another month, and then you've got to teach 
+me all the new dances."
+
+The jigging music of a two-step floated down the corridor.  It made 
+the young man's brow contract, for it brought to him a vision of 
+dead faces in the gloom of a November dusk.  He had once had a 
+friend who used to whistle that air, and he had seen him die in the 
+Hollebeke mud.  There was something macabre in the tune....  He was 
+surely morbid this evening, for there seemed something macabre about 
+the house, the room, the dancing, all Russia....  These last days he 
+had suffered from a sense of calamity impending, of a dark curtain 
+drawing down upon a splendid world.  They didn't agree with him at 
+the Embassy, but he could not get rid of the notion.
+
+The girl saw his sudden abstraction.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" she asked.  It had been her favourite 
+question as a child.
+
+"I was thinking that I rather wished you were still in Paris."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because I think you would be safer."
+
+"Oh, what nonsense, Quentin dear!  Where should I be safe if not in 
+my own Russia, where I have friends--oh, so many, and tribes and 
+tribes of relations?  It is France and England that are unsafe with 
+the German guns grumbling at their doors....My complaint is that my 
+life is too cosseted and padded.  I am too secure, and I do not want 
+to be secure."
+
+The young man lifted a heavy casket from a table at his elbow.  It 
+was of dark green imperial jade, with a wonderfully carved lid.  He 
+took off the lid and picked up three small oddments of ivory--a 
+priest with a beard, a tiny soldier, and a draught-ox.  Putting the 
+three in a triangle, he balanced the jade box on them.
+
+"Look, Saskia!  If you were living inside that box you would think 
+it very secure.  You would note the thickness of the walls and the 
+hardness of the stone, and you would dream away in a peaceful green 
+dusk.  But all the time it would be held up by trifles--brittle 
+trifles."
+
+She shook her head.  "You do not understand.  You cannot understand.  
+We are a very old and strong people with roots deep, deep in the earth."
+
+"Please God you are right," he said.  "But, Saskia, you know that if 
+I can ever serve you, you have only to command me.  Now I can do no 
+more for you than the mouse for the lion--at the beginning of the story.  
+But the story had an end, you remember, and some day it may be in my 
+power to help you.  Promise to send for me."
+
+The girl laughed merrily.  "The King of Spain's daughter," she quoted,
+
+"Came to visit me,
+And all for the love
+Of my little nut-tree."
+
+The other laughed also, as a young man in the uniform of the 
+Preobrajenski Guards approached to claim the girl.  "Even a nut-tree 
+may be a shelter in a storm," he said.
+
+"Of course I promise, Quentin," she said.  "Au revoir.  Soon I will 
+come and take you to supper, and we will talk of nothing but nut-trees."
+
+He watched the two leave the room, her gown glowing like a tongue of 
+fire in that shadowy archway.  Then he slowly rose to his feet, 
+for he thought that for a little he would watch the dancing.  
+Something moved beside him, and he turned in time to prevent the jade 
+casket from crashing to the floor.  Two of the supports had slipped.
+
+He replaced the thing on its proper table and stood silent for a moment.
+
+"The priest and the soldier gone, and only the beast of burden left.  
+If I were inclined to be superstitious, I should call that a dashed bad 
+omen."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+
+HOW A RETIRED PROVISION MERCHANT FELT THE IMPULSE OF SPRING
+
+
+Mr. Dickson McCunn completed the polishing of his smooth cheeks with 
+the towel, glanced appreciatively at their reflection in the 
+looking-glass, and then permitted his eyes to stray out of the window.  
+In the little garden lilacs were budding, and there was a gold line 
+of daffodils beside the tiny greenhouse.  Beyond the sooty wall a 
+birch flaunted its new tassels, and the jackdaws were circling about 
+the steeple of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk.  A blackbird whistled from 
+a thorn-bush, and Mr. McCunn was inspired to follow its example.  
+He began a tolerable version of "Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch."
+
+He felt singularly light-hearted, and the immediate cause was his 
+safety razor.  A week ago he had bought the thing in a sudden fit 
+of enterprise, and now he shaved in five minutes, where before he 
+had taken twenty, and no longer confronted his fellows, at least one 
+day in three, with a countenance ludicrously mottled by sticking-plaster.  
+Calculation revealed to him the fact that in his fifty-five years, 
+having begun to shave at eighteen, he had wasted three thousand three 
+hundred and seventy hours--or one hundred and forty days--or between four 
+and five months--by his neglect of this admirable invention.  Now he 
+felt that he had stolen a march on Time.  He had fallen heir, thus late, 
+to a fortune in unpurchasable leisure.
+
+He began to dress himself in the sombre clothes in which he had been 
+accustomed for thirty-five years and more to go down to the shop in 
+Mearns Street.  And then a thought came to him which made him 
+discard the grey-striped trousers, sit down on the edge of his bed, 
+and muse.
+
+Since Saturday the shop was a thing of the past.  On Saturday at 
+half-past eleven, to the accompaniment of a glass of dubious sherry, 
+he had completed the arrangements by which the provision shop in 
+Mearns Street, which had borne so long the legend of D. McCunn, 
+together with the branches in Crossmyloof and the Shaws, became the 
+property of a company, yclept the United Supply Stores, Limited.  
+He had received in payment cash, debentures and preference shares, 
+and his lawyers and his own acumen had acclaimed the bargain.  
+But all the week-end he had been a little sad.  It was the end of so 
+old a song, and he knew no other tune to sing.  He was comfortably 
+off, healthy, free from any particular cares in life, but free too 
+from any particular duties.  "Will I be going to turn into a useless 
+old man?" he asked himself.
+
+But he had woke up this Monday to the sound of the blackbird, and 
+the world, which had seemed rather empty twelve hours before, was 
+now brisk and alluring.  His prowess in quick shaving assured him 
+of his youth.  "I'm no' that dead old," he observed, as he sat on 
+the edge of he bed, to his reflection in the big looking-glass.
+
+It was not an old face.  The sandy hair was a little thin on the top 
+and a little grey at the temples, the figure was perhaps a little 
+too full for youthful elegance, and an athlete would have censured 
+the neck as too fleshy for perfect health.  But the cheeks were 
+rosy, the skin clear, and the pale eyes singularly childlike.  
+They were a little weak, those eyes, and had some difficulty in 
+looking for long at the same object, so that Mr McCunn did not stare 
+people in the face, and had, in consequence, at one time in his 
+career acquired a perfectly undeserved reputation for cunning.  
+He shaved clean, and looked uncommonly like a wise, plump schoolboy.  
+As he gazed at his simulacrum he stopped whistling "Roy's Wife" and 
+let his countenance harden into a noble sternness.  Then he laughed, 
+and observed in the language of his youth that there was "life in 
+the auld dowg yet."  In that moment the soul of Mr. McCunn conceived 
+the Great Plan.
+
+The first sign of it was that he swept all his business garments 
+unceremoniously on to the floor.  The next that he rootled at the 
+bottom of a deep drawer and extracted a most disreputable tweed suit.  
+It had once been what I believe is called a Lovat mixture, but was 
+now a nondescript sub-fusc, with bright patches of colour like 
+moss on whinstone.  He regarded it lovingly, for it had been for 
+twenty years his holiday wear, emerging annually for a hallowed month 
+to be stained with salt and bleached with sun.  He put it on, 
+and stood shrouded in an odour of camphor.  A pair of thick nailed 
+boots and a flannel shirt and collar completed the equipment of 
+the sportsman.  He had another long look at himself in the glass, 
+and then descended whistling to breakfast.  This time the tune was 
+"Macgregors' Gathering," and the sound of it stirred the grimy lips 
+of a man outside who was delivering coals--himself a Macgregor--to 
+follow suit.  Mr McCunn was a very fountain of music that morning.
+
+Tibby, the aged maid, had his newspaper and letters waiting by his 
+plate, and a dish of ham and eggs frizzling near the fire.  He fell 
+to ravenously but still musingly, and he had reached the stage of 
+scones and jam before he glanced at his correspondence.  There was a 
+letter from his wife now holidaying at the Neuk Hydropathic.  
+She reported that her health was improving, and that she had met 
+various people who had known somebody else whom she had once 
+known herself.  Mr. McCunn read the dutiful pages and smiled.  
+"Mamma's enjoying herself fine," he observed to the teapot.  
+He knew that for his wife the earthly paradise was a hydropathic, 
+where she put on her afternoon dress and every jewel she possessed 
+when she rose in the morning, ate large meals of which the novelty 
+atoned for the nastiness, and collected an immense casual 
+acquaintance, with whom she discussed ailments, ministers, sudden 
+deaths, and the intricate genealogies of her class.  For his part he 
+rancorously hated hydropathics, having once spent a black week under 
+the roof of one in his wife's company.  He detested the food, the 
+Turkish baths (he had a passionate aversion to baring his body 
+before strangers), the inability to find anything to do and the 
+compulsion to endless small talk.  A thought flitted over his mind 
+which he was too loyal to formulate.  Once he and his wife had had 
+similar likings, but they had taken different roads since their 
+child died.  Janet!  He saw again--he was never quite free from 
+the sight--the solemn little white-frocked girl who had died long 
+ago in the Spring.
+
+It may have been the thought of the Neuk Hydropathic, or more likely 
+the thin clean scent of the daffodils with which Tibby had decked 
+the table, but long ere breakfast was finished the Great Plan had 
+ceased to be an airy vision and become a sober well-masoned 
+structure.  Mr. McCunn--I may confess it at the start--was an 
+incurable romantic.
+
+He had had a humdrum life since the day when he had first entered 
+his uncle's shop with the hope of some day succeeding that honest 
+grocer; and his feet had never strayed a yard from his sober rut.  
+But his mind, like the Dying Gladiator's, had been far away.  
+As a boy he had voyaged among books, and they had given him a world 
+where he could shape his career according to his whimsical fancy.  
+Not that Mr. McCunn was what is known as a great reader.  
+He read slowly and fastidiously, and sought in literature for one 
+thing alone.  Sir Walter Scott had been his first guide, but he read 
+the novels not for their insight into human character or for their 
+historical pageantry, but because they gave him material wherewith 
+to construct fantastic journeys.  It was the same with Dickens.  
+A lit tavern, a stage-coach, post-horses, the clack of hoofs on a 
+frosty road, went to his head like wine.  He was a Jacobite not 
+because he had any views on Divine Right, but because he had always 
+before his eyes a picture of a knot of adventurers in cloaks, new 
+landed from France among the western heather.
+
+On this select basis he had built up his small library--Defoe, 
+Hakluyt, Hazlitt and the essayists, Boswell, some indifferent 
+romances, and a shelf of spirited poetry.  His tastes became known, 
+and he acquired a reputation for a scholarly habit.  He was 
+president of the Literary Society of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, and 
+read to its members a variety of papers full of a gusto which rarely 
+became critical.  He had been three times chairman at Burns 
+Anniversary dinners, and had delivered orations in eulogy of the 
+national Bard; not because he greatly admired him--he thought him 
+rather vulgar--but because he took Burns as an emblem of the 
+un-Burns-like literature which he loved.  Mr. McCunn was no scholar 
+and was sublimely unconscious of background.  He grew his flowers in 
+his small garden-plot oblivious of their origin so long as they gave 
+him the colour and scent he sought.  Scent, I say, for he 
+appreciated more than the mere picturesque.  He had a passion for 
+words and cadences, and would be haunted for weeks by a cunning 
+phrase, savouring it as a connoisseur savours a vintage.  
+Wherefore long ago, when he could ill afford it, he had purchased 
+the Edinburgh Stevenson.  They were the only large books on his 
+shelves, for he had a liking for small volumes--things he could 
+stuff into his pocket in that sudden journey which he loved to 
+contemplate.
+
+Only he had never taken it.  The shop had tied him up for eleven 
+months in the year, and the twelfth had always found him settled 
+decorously with his wife in some seaside villa.  He had not fretted, 
+for he was content with dreams.  He was always a little tired, too, 
+when the holidays came, and his wife told him he was growing old.  
+He consoled himself with tags from the more philosophic of his 
+authors, but he scarcely needed consolation.  For he had large 
+stores of modest contentment.
+
+But now something had happened.  A spring morning and a safety razor 
+had convinced him that he was still young.  Since yesterday he was a 
+man of a large leisure.  Providence had done for him what he would 
+never have done for himself.  The rut in which he had travelled so 
+long had given place to open country.  He repeated to himself one of 
+the quotations with which he had been wont to stir the literary 
+young men at the Guthrie Memorial Kirk:
+
+"What's a man's age?  He must hurry more, that's all;
+Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold:
+When we mind labour, then only, we're too old--
+What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?
+
+He would go journeying--who but he?--pleasantly.
+
+It sounds a trivial resolve, but it quickened Mr. McCunn to the 
+depths of his being.  A holiday, and alone!  On foot, of course, 
+for he must travel light.  He would buckle on a pack after the 
+approved fashion.  He had the very thing in a drawer upstairs, which 
+he had bought some years ago at a sale.  That and a waterproof and a 
+stick, and his outfit was complete.  A book, too, and, as he lit his 
+first pipe, he considered what it should be.  Poetry, clearly, for 
+it was the Spring, and besides poetry could be got in pleasantly 
+small bulk.  He stood before his bookshelves trying to select a 
+volume, rejecting one after another as inapposite.  Browning--Keats, 
+Shelley--they seemed more suited for the hearth than for the 
+roadside.  He did not want anything Scots, for he was of opinion 
+that Spring came more richly in England and that English people had 
+a better notion of it.  He was tempted by the Oxford Anthology, 
+but was deterred by its thickness, for he did not possess the 
+thin-paper edition.  Finally he selected Izaak Walton.  He had never 
+fished in his life, but The Compleat Angler seemed to fit his mood.  
+It was old and curious and learned and fragrant with the youth 
+of things.  He remembered its falling cadences. its country songs and 
+wise meditations.  Decidedly it was the right scrip for his pilgrimage.
+
+Characteristically he thought last of where he was to go.  Every bit 
+of the world beyond his front door had its charms to the seeing eye.  
+There seemed nothing common or unclean that fresh morning.  Even a 
+walk among coal-pits had its attractions....But since he had the 
+right to choose, he lingered over it like an epicure.  Not the 
+Highlands, for Spring came late among their sour mosses.  Some place 
+where there were fields and woods and inns, somewhere, too, within 
+call of the sea.  It must not be too remote, for he had no time to waste 
+on train journeys; nor too near, for he wanted a countryside untainted.  
+Presently he thought of Carrick.  A good green land, as he remembered 
+it, with purposeful white roads and public-houses sacred to the memory 
+of Burns; near the hills but yet lowland, and with a bright sea 
+chafing on its shores.  He decided on Carrick, found a map, and 
+planned his journey.
+
+Then he routed out his knapsack, packed it with a modest change of 
+raiment, and sent out Tibby to buy chocolate and tobacco and to cash 
+a cheque at the Strathclyde Bank.  Till Tibby returned he occupied 
+himself with delicious dreams....He saw himself daily growing 
+browner and leaner, swinging along broad highways or wandering in 
+bypaths.  He pictured his seasons of ease, when he unslung his pack 
+and smoked in some clump of lilacs by a burnside--he remembered a 
+phrase of Stevenson's somewhat like that.  He would meet and talk 
+with all sorts of folk; an exhilarating prospect, for Mr. McCunn 
+loved his kind.  There would be the evening hour before he reached 
+his inn, when, pleasantly tired, he would top some ridge and see the 
+welcoming lights of a little town.  There would be the lamp-lit 
+after-supper time when he would read and reflect, and the start in 
+the gay morning, when tobacco tastes sweetest and even fifty-five 
+seems young.  It would be holiday of the purest, for no business now 
+tugged at his coat-tails.  He was beginning a new life, he told 
+himself, when he could cultivate the seedling interests which had 
+withered beneath the far-reaching shade of the shop.  Was ever a man 
+more fortunate or more free?
+
+Tibby was told that he was going off for a week or two.  No letters 
+need be forwarded, for he would be constantly moving, but Mrs. 
+McCunn at the Neuk Hydropathic would be kept informed of his whereabouts.
+Presently he stood on his doorstep, a stocky figure in ancient 
+tweeds, with a bulging pack slung on his arm, and a stout hazel 
+stick in his hand.  A passer-by would have remarked an elderly 
+shopkeeper bent apparently on a day in the country, a common little 
+man on a prosaic errand.  But the passer-by would have been wrong, 
+for he could not see into the heart.  The plump citizen was the 
+eternal pilgrim; he was Jason, Ulysses, Eric the Red, Albuquerque, 
+Cortez--starting out to discover new worlds.
+
+Before he left Mr. McCunn had given Tibby a letter to post.  
+That morning he had received an epistle from a benevolent 
+acquaintance, one Mackintosh, regarding a group of urchins who 
+called themselves the "Gorbals Die-Hards."  Behind the premises in 
+Mearns Street lay a tract of slums, full of mischievous boys, with 
+whom his staff waged truceless war.  But lately there had started 
+among them a kind of unauthorized and unofficial Boy Scouts, who, 
+without uniform or badge or any kind of paraphernalia, followed the 
+banner of Sir Robert Baden-Powell and subjected themselves to a 
+rude discipline.  They were far too poor to join an orthodox troop, 
+but they faithfully copied what they believed to be the practices of 
+more fortunate boys.  Mr. McCunn had witnessed their pathetic parades, 
+and had even passed the time of day with their leader, a red-haired savage 
+called Dougal.  The philanthropic Mackintosh had taken an interest 
+in the gang and now desired subscriptions to send them to camp 
+in the country.
+
+Mr. McCunn, in his new exhilaration, felt that he could not deny to 
+others what he proposed for himself.  His last act before leaving 
+was to send Mackintosh ten pounds.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+OF MR. JOHN HERITAGE AND THE DIFFERENCE IN POINTS OF VIEW
+
+
+Dickson McCunn was never to forget the first stage in that pilgrimage.  
+A little after midday he descended from a grimy third-class carriage 
+at a little station whose name I have forgotten.  In the village 
+nearby he purchased some new-baked buns and ginger biscuits, to which 
+he was partial, and followed by the shouts of urchins, who admired his 
+pack--"Look at the auld man gaun to the schule"--he emerged into 
+open country.  The late April noon gleamed like a frosty morning, 
+but the air, though tonic, was kind.  The road ran over sweeps of 
+moorland where curlews wailed, and into lowland pastures dotted with 
+very white, very vocal lambs.  The young grass had the warm fragrance 
+of new milk.  As he went he munched his buns, for he had resolved 
+to have no plethoric midday meal, and presently he found the burnside 
+nook of his fancy, and halted to smoke.  On a patch of turf close 
+to a grey stone bridge he had out his Walton and read the chapter 
+on "The Chavender or Chub."  The collocation of words delighted him 
+and inspired him to verse.  "Lavender or Lub"--"Pavender or Pub"-
+"Gravender or Grub"--but the monosyllables proved too vulgar for 
+poetry.  Regretfully he desisted. 
+
+The rest of the road was as idyllic as the start.  He would tramp 
+steadily for a mile or so and then saunter, leaning over bridges 
+to watch the trout in the pools, admiring from a dry-stone dyke the 
+unsteady gambols of new-born lambs, kicking up dust from strips of 
+moor-burn on the heather.  Once by a fir-wood he was privileged to 
+surprise three lunatic hares waltzing.  His cheeks glowed with the 
+sun; he moved in an atmosphere of pastoral, serene and contented.  
+When the shadows began to lengthen he arrived at the village of 
+Cloncae, where he proposed to lie.  The inn looked dirty, but he 
+found a decent widow, above whose door ran the legend in home-made 
+lettering, "Mrs. brockie tea and Coffee," and who was willing to 
+give him quarters.  There he supped handsomely off ham and eggs, 
+and dipped into a work called Covenanting Worthies, which garnished 
+a table decorated with sea-shells.  At half-past nine precisely he 
+retired to bed and unhesitating sleep. 
+
+Next morning he awoke to a changed world.  The sky was grey and so 
+low that his outlook was bounded by a cabbage garden, while a surly 
+wind prophesied rain.  It was chilly, too, and he had his breakfast 
+beside the kitchen fire.  Mrs. Brockie could not spare a capital 
+letter for her surname on the signboard, but she exalted it in 
+her talk.  He heard of a multitude of Brockies, ascendant, descendant, 
+and collateral, who seemed to be in a fair way to inherit the earth.  
+Dickson listened sympathetically, and lingered by the fire.  He felt 
+stiff from yesterday's exercise, and the edge was off his spirit.
+
+The start was not quite what he had pictured.  His pack seemed 
+heavier, his boots tighter, and his pipe drew badly.  The first 
+miles were all uphill, with a wind tingling his ears, and no colours 
+in the landscape but brown and grey.  Suddenly he awoke to the fact 
+that he was dismal, and thrust the notion behind him.  He expanded 
+his chest and drew in long draughts of air.  He told himself that 
+this sharp weather was better than sunshine.  He remembered that all 
+travellers in romances battled with mist and rain.  Presently his 
+body recovered comfort and vigour, and his mind worked itself into 
+cheerfulness.
+
+He overtook a party of tramps and fell into talk with them.  He had 
+always had a fancy for the class, though he had never known anything 
+nearer it than city beggars.  He pictured them as philosophic 
+vagabonds, full of quaint turns of speech, unconscious Borrovians.  
+With these samples his disillusionment was speedy.  The party was 
+made up of a ferret-faced man with a red nose, a draggle-tailed 
+woman, and a child in a crazy perambulator.  Their conversation was 
+one-sided, for it immediately resolved itself into a whining 
+chronicle of misfortunes and petitions for relief.  It cost him half 
+a crown to be rid of them.
+
+The road was alive with tramps that day.  The next one did 
+the accosting.  Hailing Mr. McCunn as "Guv'nor," he asked to be told 
+the way to Manchester.  The objective seemed so enterprising that 
+Dickson was impelled to ask questions, and heard, in what appeared 
+to be in the accents of the Colonies, the tale of a career of 
+unvarying calamity.  There was nothing merry or philosophic about 
+this adventurer.  Nay, there was something menacing.  He eyed his 
+companion's waterproof covetously, and declared that he had had one 
+like it which had been stolen from him the day before.  Had the 
+place been lonely he might have contemplated highway robbery, 
+but they were at the entrance to a village, and the sight of a 
+public-house awoke his thirst.  Dickson parted with him at the cost 
+of sixpence for a drink.
+
+He had no more company that morning except an aged stone-breaker 
+whom he convoyed for half a mile.  The stone-breaker also was soured 
+with the world.  He walked with a limp, which, he said, was due to 
+an accident years before, when he had been run into by "ane of thae 
+damned velocipeeds."  The word revived in Dickson memories of his 
+youth, and he was prepared to be friendly.  But the ancient would 
+have none of it.  He inquired morosely what he was after, and, on 
+being told remarked that he might have learned more sense.  
+"It's a daft-like thing for an auld man like you to be traivellin' 
+the roads.  Ye maun be ill-off for a job."  Questioned as to 
+himself, he became, as the newspapers say, "reticent," and having 
+reached his bing of stones, turned rudely to his duties.  "Awa' hame 
+wi' ye," were his parting words.  "It's idle scoondrels like you 
+that maks wark for honest folk like me."
+
+The morning was not a success, but the strong air had given Dickson 
+such an appetite that he resolved to break his rule, and, on 
+reaching the little town of Kilchrist, he sought luncheon at the 
+chief hotel.  There he found that which revived his spirits.  
+A solitary bagman shared the meal, who revealed the fact that he was 
+in the grocery line.  There followed a well-informed and most 
+technical conversation.  He was drawn to speak of the United Supply 
+Stores, Limited, of their prospects and of their predecessor, 
+Mr. McCunn, whom he knew well by repute but had never met.  
+"Yon's the clever one." he observed.  "I've always said there's no 
+longer head in the city of Glasgow than McCunn.  An old-fashioned 
+firm, but it has aye managed to keep up with the times.  He's just 
+retired, they tell me, and in my opinion it's a big loss to the 
+provision trade...."  Dickson's heart glowed within him.  Here was 
+Romance; to be praised incognito; to enter a casual inn and find 
+that fame had preceded him.  He warmed to the bagman, insisted on 
+giving him a liqueur and a cigar, and finally revealed himself.  
+"I'm Dickson McCunn," he said, "taking a bit holiday.  If there's 
+anything I can do for you when I get back, just let me know."  With 
+mutual esteem they parted.  
+
+He had need of all his good spirits, for he emerged into an 
+unrelenting drizzle.  The environs of Kilchrist are at the best 
+unlovely, and in the wet they were as melancholy as a graveyard.  
+But the encounter with the bagman had worked wonders with Dickson, 
+and he strode lustily into the weather, his waterproof collar 
+buttoned round his chin.  The road climbed to a bare moor, where 
+lagoons had formed in the ruts, and the mist showed on each side 
+only a yard or two of soaking heather.  Soon he was wet; presently 
+every part of him--boots, body, and pack--was one vast sponge.  
+The waterproof was not water-proof, and the rain penetrated to his 
+most intimate garments.  Little he cared.  He felt lighter, younger, 
+than on the idyllic previous day.  He enjoyed the buffets of the 
+storm, and one wet mile succeeded another to the accompaniment of 
+Dickson's shouts and laughter.  There was no one abroad that 
+afternoon, so he could talk aloud to himself and repeat his 
+favourite poems.  About five in the evening there presented himself 
+at the Black Bull Inn at Kirkmichael a soaked, disreputable, but 
+most cheerful traveller.
+
+Now the Black Bull at Kirkmichael is one of the few very good inns 
+left in the world.  It is an old place and an hospitable, for it has 
+been for generations a haunt of anglers, who above all other men 
+understand comfort.  There are always bright fires there, and 
+hot water, and old soft leather armchairs, and an aroma of good food 
+and good tobacco, and giant trout in glass cases, and pictures of 
+Captain Barclay of Urie walking to London and Mr. Ramsay of Barnton 
+winning a horse-race, and the three-volume edition of the Waverley 
+Novels with many volumes missing, and indeed all those things which 
+an inn should have.  Also there used to be--there may still be-
+sound vintage claret in the cellars.  The Black Bull expects its 
+guests to arrive in every stage of dishevelment, and Dickson was 
+received by a cordial landlord, who offered dry garments as a matter 
+of course.  The pack proved to have resisted the elements, 
+and a suit of clothes and slippers were provided by the house.  
+Dickson, after a glass of toddy, wallowed in a hot bath, which 
+washed all the stiffness out of him.  He had a fire in his bedroom, 
+beside which he wrote the opening passages of that diary he had 
+vowed to keep, descanting lyrically upon the joys of ill weather.  
+At seven o'clock, warm and satisfied in soul, and with his body clad 
+in raiment several sizes too large for it, he descended to dinner.
+
+At one end of the long table in the dining-room sat a group of anglers.  
+They looked jovial fellows, and Dickson would fain have joined them; 
+but, having been fishing all day in the Lock o' the Threshes, 
+they were talking their own talk, and he feared that his admiration 
+for Izaak Walton did not qualify him to butt into the erudite 
+discussions of fishermen.  The landlord seemed to think likewise, 
+for he drew back a chair for him at the other end, where sat a young 
+man absorbed in a book.  Dickson gave him good evening, and got an 
+abstracted reply.  The young man supped the Black Bull's excellent 
+broth with one hand, and with the other turned the pages of his volume.  
+A glance convinced Dickson that the work was French, a literature which 
+did not interest him.  He knew little of the tongue and suspected it of 
+impropriety.
+
+Another guest entered and took the chair opposite the bookish 
+young man.  He was also young--not more than thirty-three--and to 
+Dickson's eye was the kind of person he would have liked to resemble.  
+He was tall and free from any superfluous flesh; his face was lean, 
+fine-drawn, and deeply sunburnt, so that the hair above showed oddly 
+pale; the hands were brown and beautifully shaped, but the forearm 
+revealed by the loose cuffs of his shirt was as brawny as a 
+blacksmith's.  He had rather pale blue eyes, which seemed to have 
+looked much at the sun, and a small moustache the colour of ripe hay.  
+His voice was low and pleasant, and he pronounced his words precisely, 
+like a foreigner.
+
+He was very ready to talk, but in defiance of Dr. Johnson's warning, 
+his talk was all questions.  He wanted to know everything about the 
+neighbourhood--who lived in what houses, what were the distances 
+between the towns, what harbours would admit what class of vessel. 
+Smiling agreeably, he put Dickson through a catechism to which he 
+knew none of the answers.  The landlord was called in, and proved 
+more helpful.  But on one matter he was fairly at a loss.  
+The catechist asked about a house called Darkwater, and was met 
+with a shake of the head.  "I know no sic-like name in this 
+countryside, sir," and the catechist looked disappointed.
+
+The literary young man said nothing, but ate trout abstractedly, 
+one eye on his book.  The fish had been caught by the anglers 
+in the Loch o' the Threshes, and phrases describing their capture 
+floated from the other end of the table.  The young man had a second 
+helping, and then refused the excellent hill mutton that followed, 
+contenting himself with cheese,  Not so Dickson and the catechist.  
+They ate everything that was set before them, topping up with a 
+glass of port.  Then the latter, who had been talking illuminatingly 
+about Spain, rose, bowed, and left the table, leaving Dickson, 
+who liked to linger over his meals, to the society of the 
+ichthyophagous student.
+
+He nodded towards the book.  "Interesting?" he asked.
+
+The young man shook his head and displayed the name on the cover.  
+"Anatole France.  I used to be crazy about him, but now he seems 
+rather a back number."  Then he glanced towards the just-vacated 
+chair. "Australian," he said.
+
+"How d'you know?"
+
+"Can't mistake them.  There's nothing else so lean and fine produced 
+on the globe to-day.  I was next door to them at Pozieres and saw 
+them fight.  Lord!  Such men!  Now and then you had a freak, but 
+most looked like Phoebus Apollo."
+
+Dickson gazed with a new respect at his neighbour, for he had not 
+associated him with battle-fields.  During the war he had been a 
+fervent patriot, but, though he had never heard a shot himself, 
+so many of his friends' sons and nephews, not to mention cousins of 
+his own, had seen service, that he had come to regard the experience 
+as commonplace.  Lions in Africa and bandits in Mexico seemed to him 
+novel and romantic things, but not trenches and airplanes which were 
+the whole world's property.  But he could scarcely fit his neighbour 
+into even his haziest picture of war.  The young man was tall and a 
+little round-shouldered; he had short-sighted, rather prominent 
+brown eyes, untidy black hair and dark eyebrows which came near 
+to meeting.  He wore a knickerbocker suit of bluish-grey tweed, 
+a pale blue shirt, a pale blue collar, and a dark blue tie--a 
+symphony of colour which seemed too elaborately considered to be 
+quite natural.  Dickson had set him down as an artist or a newspaper 
+correspondent, objects to him of lively interest.  But now the 
+classification must be reconsidered. 
+
+"So you were in the war," he said encouragingly.
+
+"Four blasted years," was the savage reply. "And I never want to 
+hear the name of the beastly thing again."
+
+"You said he was an Australian," said Dickson, casting back.  "But I 
+thought Australians had a queer accent, like the English."
+
+"They've all kind of accents, but you can never mistake their voice.  
+It's got the sun in it.  Canadians have got grinding ice in theirs, 
+and Virginians have got butter.  So have the Irish.  In Britain 
+there are no voices, only speaking-tubes.  It isn't safe to judge 
+men by their accent only.  You yourself I take to be Scotch, but for 
+all I know you may be a senator from Chicago or a Boer General."
+
+"I'm from Glasgow.  My name's Dickson McCunn."  He had a faint hope 
+that the announcement might affect the other as it had affected the 
+bagman at Kilchrist.
+
+"Golly, what a name!" exclaimed the young man rudely.
+
+Dickson was nettled.  "It's very old Highland," he said.  "It means 
+the son of a dog."
+
+"Which--Christian name or surname?"  Then the young man appeared to 
+think he had gone too far, for he smiled pleasantly.  "And a very 
+good name too.  Mine is prosaic by comparison.  They call me 
+John Heritage."
+
+"That," said Dickson, mollified, "is like a name out of a book.  
+With that name by rights you should be a poet."
+
+Gloom settled on the young man's countenance.  "It's a dashed sight 
+too poetic.  It's like Edwin Arnold and Alfred Austin and Dante 
+Gabriel Rossetti.  Great poets have vulgar monosyllables for names, 
+like Keats.  The new Shakespeare when he comes along will probably 
+be called Grubb or Jubber, if he isn't Jones.  With a name like 
+yours I might have a chance.  You should be the poet.  
+
+"I'm very fond of reading," said Dickson modestly.
+
+A slow smile crumpled Mr. Heritage's face.  "There's a fire in the 
+smoking-room," he observed as he rose.  "We'd better bag the 
+armchairs before these fishing louts take them."  Dickson 
+followed obediently.  This was the kind of chance acquaintance for 
+whom he had hoped, and he was prepared to make the most of him.
+
+The fire burned bright it the little dusky smoking-room, lighted by 
+one oil-lamp.  Mr. Heritage flung himself into a chair, stretched 
+his long legs, and lit a pipe.
+
+"You like reading?" he asked.  "What sort?  Any use for poetry?"
+
+"Plenty," said Dickson.  "I've aye been fond of learning it up and 
+repeating it to myself when I had nothing to do.  In church and 
+waiting on trains, like.  It used to be Tennyson, but now it's 
+more Browning.  I can say a lot of Browning."
+
+The other screwed his face into an expression of disgust.  "I know 
+the stuff. "Damask cheeks and dewy sister eyelids.' Or else the 
+Ercles vein--'God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world.'  
+No good, Mr. McCunn.  All back numbers.  Poetry's not a thing of 
+pretty round phrases or noisy invocations.  It's life itself, with 
+the tang of the raw world in it--not a sweetmeat for middle-class 
+women in parlours."
+
+"Are you a poet, Mr. Heritage?"
+
+"No, Dogson, I'm a paper-maker."
+
+This was a new view to Mr. McCunn.  'I just once knew a paper-maker," 
+he observed reflectively, "They called him Tosh.  He drank a bit."
+
+"Well, I don't drink," said the other.  "I'm a paper-maker, but 
+that's for my bread and butter.  Some day for my own sake I may 
+be a poet."
+
+"Have you published anything?"
+
+The eager admiration in Dickson's tone gratified Mr. Heritage.  
+He drew from his pocket a slim book.  "My firstfruits," he said, 
+rather shyly.
+
+Dickson received it with reverence.  It was a small volume in grey 
+paper boards with a white label on the back, and it was lettered:  
+WHORLS-JOHN HERITAGE'S BOOK.  He turned the pages and read a little.  
+"It's a nice wee book, he observed at length.
+
+"Good God, if you call it nice, I must have failed pretty badly," 
+was the irritated answer.
+
+Dickson read more deeply and was puzzled.  It seemed worse than the 
+worst of Browning to understand.  He found one poem about a garden 
+entitled "Revue."  "Crimson and resonant clangs the dawn," said the 
+poet.  Then he went on to describe noonday:
+
+
+"Sunflowers, tall Grenadiers, ogle the roses' short-skirted ballet.
+The fumes of dark sweet wine hidden in frail petals
+Madden the drunkard bees."
+
+This seemed to him an odd way to look at things, and he boggled over 
+a phrase about an "epicene lily."  Then came evening: 
+"The painted gauze of the stars flutters in a fold of twilight 
+crape," sang Mr. Heritage; and again, "The moon's pale leprosy 
+sloughs the fields."
+
+Dickson turned to other verses which apparently enshrined the 
+writer's memory of the trenches.  They were largely compounded 
+of oaths, and rather horrible, lingering lovingly over sights 
+and smells which every one is aware of, but most people contrive 
+to forget.  He did not like them.  Finally he skimmed a poem about a 
+lady who turned into a bird.  The evolution was described with 
+intimate anatomical details which scared the honest reader.
+
+He kept his eyes on the book, for he did not know what to say.  
+The trick seemed to be to describe nature in metaphors mostly drawn 
+from music-halls and haberdashers' shops, and, when at a loss, 
+to fall to cursing.  He thought it frankly very bad, and he laboured 
+to find words which would combine politeness and honesty.
+
+"Well?" said the poet.
+
+"There's a lot of fine things here, but--but the lines don't just 
+seem to scan very well."
+
+Mr. Heritage laughed.  "Now I can place you exactly.  You like the 
+meek rhyme and the conventional epithet.  Well, I don't.  The world 
+has passed beyond that prettiness.  You want the moon described as a 
+Huntress or a gold disc or a flower--I say it's oftener like a beer 
+barrel or a cheese.  You want a wealth of jolly words and real 
+things ruled out as unfit for poetry.  I say there's nothing unfit 
+for poetry.  Nothing, Dogson!  Poetry's everywhere, and the real 
+thing is commoner among drabs and pot-houses and rubbish-heaps than 
+in your Sunday parlours.  The poet's business is to distil it out of 
+rottenness, and show that it is all one spirit, the thing that keeps 
+the stars in their place....I wanted to call my book Drains, 
+for drains are sheer poetry carrying off the excess and discards 
+of human life to make the fields green and the corn ripen.  
+But the publishers kicked.  So I called it Whorls, to express my 
+view of the exquisite involution of all things.  Poetry is the 
+fourth dimension of the soul....Well, let's hear about your 
+taste in prose."
+
+Mr. McCunn was much bewildered, and a little inclined to be cross.  
+He disliked being called Dogson, which seemed to him an abuse of his 
+etymological confidences.  But his habit of politeness held.
+
+He explained rather haltingly his preferences in prose.  
+
+Mr. Heritage listened with wrinkled brows.
+
+"You're even deeper in the mud than I thought," he remarked.  
+"You live in a world of painted laths and shadows.  All this passion 
+for the picturesque! Trash, my dear man, like a schoolgirl's 
+novelette heroes.  You make up romances about gipsies and sailors, 
+and the blackguards they call pioneers, but you know nothing 
+about them.  If you did, you would find they had none of the gilt 
+and gloss you imagine.  But the great things they have got in common 
+with all humanity you ignore.  It's like--it's like sentimentalising 
+about a pancake because it looked like a buttercup, and all the 
+while not knowing that it was good to eat."
+
+At that moment the Australian entered the room to get a light for 
+his pipe.  He wore a motor-cyclist's overalls and appeared to be 
+about to take the road.  He bade them good night, and it seemed to 
+Dickson that his face, seen in the glow of the fire, was drawn and 
+anxious, unlike that of the agreeable companion at dinner.
+
+"There," said Mr. Heritage, nodding after the departing figure.  
+"I dare say you have been telling yourself stories about that 
+chap--life in the bush, stockriding and the rest of it.  
+But probably he's a bank-clerk from Melbourne....Your romanticism is 
+one vast self-delusion, and it blinds your eye to the real thing.  
+We have got to clear it out, and with it all the damnable humbug of 
+the Kelt."
+
+Mr. McCunn, who spelt the word with a soft "C," was puzzled.  
+"I thought a kelt was a kind of a no-weel fish," he interposed.
+
+But the other, in the flood-tide of his argument, ignored 
+the interruption.  "That's the value of the war," he went on.  
+"It has burst up all the old conventions, and we've got to finish 
+the destruction before we can build.  It is the same with literature 
+and religion, and society and politics.  At them with the axe, say I.  
+I have no use for priests and pedants.  I've no use for upper classes 
+and middle classes.  There's only one class that matters, the plain 
+man, the workers, who live close to life."
+
+"The place for you," said Dickson dryly, "is in Russia among 
+the Bolsheviks."
+
+Mr. Heritage approved.  "They are doing a great work in their 
+own fashion.  We needn't imitate all their methods--they're a trifle 
+crude and have too many Jews among them--but they've got hold of the 
+right end of the stick.  They seek truth and reality."
+
+Mr. McCunn was slowly being roused.
+
+"What brings you wandering hereaways?" he asked.
+
+"Exercise," was the answer.  "I've been kept pretty closely tied up 
+all winter.  And I want leisure and quiet to think over things."
+
+"Well, there's one subject you might turn your attention to.  
+You'll have been educated like a gentleman?"
+
+"Nine wasted years--five at Harrow, four at Cambridge."
+
+"See here, then.  You're daft about the working-class and have no 
+use for any other.  But what in the name of goodness do you know 
+about working-men?...I come out of them myself, and have lived next 
+door to them all my days.  Take them one way and another, they're a 
+decent sort, good and bad like the rest of us.  But there's a wheen 
+daft folk that would set them up as models--close to truth and 
+reality, says you.  It's sheer ignorance, for you're about as well 
+acquaint with the working-man as with King Solomon.  You say I make 
+up fine stories about tinklers and sailor-men because I know nothing 
+about them.  That's maybe true.  But you're at the same job yourself.  
+You ideelise the working man, you and your kind, because 
+you're ignorant.  You say that he's seeking for truth, when he's only 
+looking for a drink and a rise in wages.  You tell me he's near 
+reality, but I tell you that his notion of reality is often just a 
+short working day and looking on at a footba'-match on Saturday... 
+..And when you run down what you call the middle-classes that do 
+three-quarters of the world's work and keep the machine going and the 
+working-man in a job, then I tell you you're talking havers.  Havers!"
+
+Mr. McCunn, having delivered his defence of the bourgeoisie, rose 
+abruptly and went to bed.  He felt jarred and irritated.  
+His innocent little private domain had been badly trampled by this 
+stray bull of a poet.  But as he lay in bed, before blowing out 
+his candle. he had recourse to Walton, and found a passage on which, 
+as on a pillow, he went peacefully to sleep:
+
+
+"As I left this place, and entered into the next field, a second 
+pleasure entertained me; 'twas a handsome milkmaid, that had not yet 
+attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any fears 
+of many things that will never be, as too many men too often do; 
+but she cast away all care, and sang like a nightingale; her voice 
+was good, and the ditty fitted for it; it was the smooth song that 
+was made by KIT MARLOW now at least fifty years ago.  And the 
+milkmaid's mother sung an answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter 
+Raleigh in his younger days.  They were old-fashioned poetry, but 
+choicely good; I think much better than the strong lines that are 
+now in fashion in this critical age."
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HOW CHILDE ROLAND AND ANOTHER CAME TO THE DARK TOWER.
+
+Dickson woke with a vague sense of irritation.  As his recollections 
+took form they produced a very unpleasant picture of Mr. John Heritage.  
+The poet had loosened all his placid idols, so that they shook and 
+rattled in the niches where they had been erstwhile so secure.  
+Mr. McCunn had a mind of a singular candour, and was prepared most 
+honestly at all times to revise his views.  But by this iconoclast 
+he had been only irritated and in no way convinced.  "Sich poetry!" 
+he muttered to himself as he shivered in his bath (a daily cold tub 
+instead of his customary hot one on Saturday night being part of the 
+discipline of his holiday).  "And yon blethers about the working-man!" 
+he ingeminated as he shaved.  He breakfasted alone, having outstripped 
+even the fishermen, and as he ate he arrived at conclusions.  He had 
+a great respect for youth, but a line must be drawn somewhere.  
+"The man's a child," he decided, "and not like to grow up.  The way 
+he's besotted on everything daftlike, if it's only new.  And he's 
+no rightly young either--speaks like an auld dominie, whiles.  
+And he's rather impident," he concluded, with memories of "Dogson.".. 
+..He was very clear that he never wanted to see him again; that was  
+the reason of his early breakfast.  Having clarified his mind by 
+definitions, Dickson felt comforted.  He paid his bill, took an 
+affectionate farewell of the landlord, and at 7.30 precisely stepped 
+out into the gleaming morning. 
+
+It was such a day as only a Scots April can show.  The cobbled 
+streets of Kirkmichael still shone with the night's rain, 
+but the storm clouds had fled before a mild south wind, and the 
+whole circumference of the sky was a delicate translucent blue.  
+Homely breakfast smells came from the houses and delighted 
+Mr. McCunn's nostrils; a squalling child was a pleasant reminder 
+of an awakening world, the urban counterpart to the morning song 
+of birds; even the sanitary cart seemed a picturesque vehicle.  
+He bought his ration of buns and ginger biscuits at a baker's shop 
+whence various ragamuffin boys were preparing to distribute the 
+householders' bread, and took his way up the Gallows Hill to the 
+Burgh Muir almost with regret at leaving so pleasant a habitation.
+
+A chronicle of ripe vintages must pass lightly over small beer.  
+I will not dwell on his leisurely progress in the bright weather, 
+or on his luncheon in a coppice of young firs, or on his thoughts 
+which had returned to the idyllic.  I take up the narrative at about 
+three o'clock in the afternoon, when he is revealed seated on a milestone 
+examining his map.  For he had come, all unwitting, to a turning of the 
+ways, and his choice is the cause of this veracious history.
+
+The place was high up on a bare moor, which showed a white lodge 
+among pines, a white cottage in a green nook by a burnside, and no 
+other marks of human dwelling.  To his left, which was the east, 
+the heather rose to a low ridge of hill, much scarred with peat-bogs, 
+behind which appeared the blue shoulder of a considerable mountain.  
+Before him the road was lost momentarily in the woods of a shooting-box, 
+but reappeared at a great distance climbing a swell of upland which 
+seemed to be the glacis of a jumble of bold summits.  There was a 
+pass there, the map told him, which led into Galloway.  It was the 
+road he had meant to follow, but as he sat on the milestone his 
+purpose wavered.  For there seemed greater attractions in the country 
+which lay to the westward.  Mr. McCunn, be it remembered, was not in 
+search of brown heath and shaggy wood; he wanted greenery and the Spring.
+
+Westward there ran out a peninsula in the shape of an isosceles 
+triangle, of which his present high-road was the base.  At a 
+distance of a mile or so a railway ran parallel to the road, and he 
+could see the smoke of a goods train waiting at a tiny station 
+islanded in acres of bog.  Thence the moor swept down to meadows and 
+scattered copses, above which hung a thin haze of smoke which 
+betokened a village.  Beyond it were further woodlands, not firs but 
+old shady trees, and as they narrowed to a point the gleam of two 
+tiny estuaries appeared on either side.  He could not see the final 
+cape, but he saw the sea beyond it, flawed with catspaws, gold 
+in the afternoon sun, and on it a small herring smack flopping 
+listless sails.
+
+Something in the view caught and held his fancy.  He conned his map, 
+and made out the names.  The peninsula was called the Cruives--an 
+old name apparently, for it was in antique lettering.  He vaguely 
+remembered that "cruives" had something to do with fishing, 
+doubtless in the two streams which flanked it.  One he had already 
+crossed, the Laver, a clear tumbling water springing from green 
+hills; the other, the Garple, descended from the rougher mountains 
+to the south.  The hidden village bore the name of Dalquharter, and 
+the uncouth syllables awoke some vague recollection in his mind.  
+The great house in the trees beyond--it must be a great house, for 
+the map showed large policies--was Huntingtower.  
+
+The last name fascinated and almost decided him.  He pictured an 
+ancient keep by the sea, defended by converging rivers, which some 
+old Comyn lord of Galloway had built to command the shore road, 
+and from which he had sallied to hunt in his wild hills....He liked 
+the way the moor dropped down to green meadows, and the mystery of 
+the dark woods beyond.  He wanted to explore the twin waters, 
+and see how they entered that strange shimmering sea.  The odd names, 
+the odd cul-de-sac of a peninsula, powerfully attracted him.  
+Why should he not spend a night there, for the map showed clearly 
+that Dalquharter had an inn?  He must decide promptly, for before him 
+a side-road left the highway, and the signpost bore the legend, 
+"Dalquharter and Huntingtower."
+
+Mr. McCunn, being a cautious and pious man, took the omens.  
+He tossed a penny--heads go on, tails turn aside.  It fell tails.
+
+He knew as soon as he had taken three steps down the side-road that 
+he was doing something momentous, and the exhilaration of enterprise 
+stole into his soul.  It occurred to him that this was the kind of 
+landscape that he had always especially hankered after, and had made 
+pictures of when he had a longing for the country on him--a wooded 
+cape between streams, with meadows inland and then a long lift of heather.  
+He had the same feeling of expectancy, of something most interesting 
+and curious on the eve of happening, that he had had long ago when he 
+waited on the curtain rising at his first play.  His spirits soared 
+like the lark, and he took to singing.  If only the inn at Dalquharter 
+were snug and empty, this was going to be a day in ten thousand.  
+Thus mirthfully he swung down the rough grass-grown road, past the 
+railway, till he came to a point where heath began to merge in pasture, 
+and dry-stone walls split the moor into fields.  Suddenly his pace 
+slackened and song died on his lips.  For, approaching from the right 
+by a tributary path was the Poet.
+
+Mr. Heritage saw him afar off and waved a friendly hand.  In spite 
+of his chagrin Dickson could not but confess that he had misjudged 
+his critic.  Striding with long steps over the heather, his jacket 
+open to the wind, his face a-glow and his capless head like a whin-bush 
+for disorder, he cut a more wholesome figure than in the smoking-room 
+the night before.  He seemed to be in a companionable mood, for he 
+brandished his stick and shouted greetings.
+
+"Well met!" he cried; "I was hoping to fall in with you again.  
+You must have thought me a pretty fair cub last night."
+
+"I did that," was the dry answer.
+
+"Well, I want to apologize.  God knows what made me treat you to a 
+university-extension lecture.  I may not agree with you, but every 
+man's entitled to his own views, and it was dashed poor form for me 
+to start jawing you."
+
+Mr. McCunn had no gift of nursing anger, and was very susceptible 
+to apologies.
+
+"That's all right," he murmured. "Don't mention it.  I'm wondering 
+what brought you down here, for it's off the road."
+
+"Caprice.  Pure caprice.  I liked the look of this butt-end of nowhere."
+
+"Same here. I've aye thought there was something terrible nice about 
+a wee cape with a village at the neck of it and a burn each side."
+
+"Now that's interesting," said Mr. Heritage.  "You're obsessed by a 
+particular type of landscape.  Ever read Freud?"
+
+Dickson shook his head.
+
+"Well, you've got an odd complex somewhere.  I wonder where the key lies.  
+Cape--woods--two rivers--moor behind.  Ever been in love, Dogson?"
+
+Mr. McCunn was startled.  "Love" was a word rarely mentioned in his 
+circle except on death-beds,  "I've been a married man for thirty 
+years," he said hurriedly.
+
+"That won't do.  It should have been a hopeless affair-the last 
+sight of the lady on a spur of coast with water on three sides--that 
+kind of thing, you know, or it might have happened to an ancestor.. 
+..But you don't look the kind of breed for hopeless attachments.  
+More likely some scoundrelly old Dogson long ago found sanctuary in 
+this sort of place.  Do you dream about it?"
+
+"Not exactly."
+
+"Well, I do.  The queer thing is that I've got the same 
+prepossession as you.  As soon as I spotted this Cruives place on 
+the map this morning, I saw it was what I was after.  When I came in 
+sight of it I almost shouted.  I don't very often dream but when I 
+do that's the place I frequent.  Odd, isn't it?"
+
+Mr. McCunn was deeply interested at this unexpected revelation of 
+romance.  "Maybe it's being in love," he daringly observed.
+
+The Poet demurred.  "No.  I'm not a connoisseur of obvious sentiment.  
+That explanation might fit your case, but not mine.  I'm pretty 
+certain there's something hideous at the back of MY complex--some grim 
+old business tucked away back in the ages.  For though I'm attracted by 
+the place, I'm frightened too!"
+
+There seemed no room for fear in the delicate landscape now opening 
+before them.  In front, in groves of birch and rowan, smoked the first 
+houses of a tiny village.  The road had become a green "loaning," on 
+the ample margin of which cattle grazed.  The moorland still showed 
+itself in spits of heather, and some distance off, where a rivulet 
+ran in a hollow, there were signs of a fire and figures near it.  
+These last Mr. Heritage regarded with disapproval.
+
+"Some infernal trippers!" he murmured.  "Or Boy Scouts.  
+They desecrate everything.  Why can't the TUNICATUS POPELLUS keep 
+away from a paradise like this!"  Dickson, a democrat who felt 
+nothing incongruous in the presence of other holiday-makers, was 
+meditating a sharp rejoinder, when Mr. Heritage's tone changed.
+
+"Ye gods!  What a village!" he cried, as they turned a corner.  
+There were not more than a dozen whitewashed houses, all set in 
+little gardens of wallflower and daffodil and early fruit blossom.  
+A triangle of green filled the intervening space, and in it stood an 
+ancient wooden pump.  There was no schoolhouse or kirk; not even a 
+post-office--only a red box in a cottage side.  Beyond rose the high 
+wall and the dark trees of the demesne, and to the right up a by-road 
+which clung to the park edge stood a two-storeyed building which bore 
+the legend "The Cruives Inn."
+
+The Poet became lyrical.  "At last!" he cried.  "The village of my 
+dreams!  Not a sign of commerce!  No church or school or beastly 
+recreation hall!  Nothing but these divine little cottages and an 
+ancient pub!  Dogson, I warn you, I'm going to have the devil of a 
+tea."  And he declaimed:
+
+
+             "Thou shalt hear a song
+After a while which Gods may listen to;
+But place the flask upon the board and wait
+Until the stranger hath allayed his thirst,
+For poets, grasshoppers, and nightingales
+Sing cheerily but when the throat is moist."
+
+
+Dickson, too, longed with sensual gusto for tea.  But, as they drew 
+nearer, the inn lost its hospitable look.  The cobbles of the yard 
+were weedy, as if rarely visited by traffic, a pane in a window was 
+broken, and the blinds hung tattered.  The garden was a wilderness, 
+and the doorstep had not been scoured for weeks.  But the place had 
+a landlord, for he had seen them approach and was waiting at the 
+door to meet them.
+
+He was a big man in his shirt sleeves, wearing old riding breeches 
+unbuttoned at the knees, and thick ploughman's boots.  He had no 
+leggings, and his fleshy calves were imperfectly covered with 
+woollen socks.  His face was large and pale, his neck bulged, and he 
+had a gross unshaven jowl.  He was a type familiar to students of 
+society; not the innkeeper, which is a thing consistent with good 
+breeding and all the refinements; a type not unknown in the House of 
+Lords, especially among recent creations, common enough in the House 
+of Commons and the City of London, and by no means infrequent in the 
+governing circles of Labour; the type known to the discerning as the 
+Licensed Victualler.
+
+His face was wrinkled in official smiles, and he gave the travellers 
+a hearty good afternoon.
+
+"Can we stop here for the night?" Dickson asked. 
+
+The landlord looked sharply at him, and then replied to Mr. Heritage.  
+His expression passed from official bonhomie to official contrition.
+
+"Impossible, gentlemen.  Quite impossible....Ye couldn't have come 
+at a worse time.  I've only been here a fortnight myself, and we 
+haven't got right shaken down yet.  Even then I might have made 
+shift to do with ye, but the fact is we've illness in the house, 
+and I'm fair at my wits' end.  It breaks my heart to turn gentlemen 
+away and me that keen to get the business started.  But there it is!"  
+He spat vigorously as if to emphasize the desperation of his quandary.
+
+The man was clearly Scots, but his native speech was overlaid with 
+something alien, something which might have been acquired in America 
+or in going down to the sea in ships.  He hitched his breeches, too, 
+with a nautical air.
+
+"Is there nowhere else we can put up?"  Dickson asked.
+
+"Not in this one-horse place.  Just a wheen auld wives that packed 
+thegether they haven't room for an extra hen.  But it's grand 
+weather, and it's not above seven miles to Auchenlochan.  Say the 
+word and I'll yoke the horse and drive ye there."
+
+"Thank you.  We prefer to walk,"  said Mr. Heritage.  Dickson would 
+have tarried to inquire after the illness in the house, but his 
+companion hurried him off.  Once he looked back, and saw the 
+landlord still on the doorstep gazing after them.
+
+"That fellow's a swine," said Mr. Heritage sourly.  "I wouldn't 
+trust my neck in his pot-house.  Now, Dogson, I'm hanged if I'm 
+going to leave this place.  We'll find a corner in the village somehow.  
+Besides, I'm determined on tea."
+
+The little street slept in the clear pure light of an early 
+April evening.  Blue shadows lay on the white road, and a delicate 
+aroma of cooking tantalized hungry nostrils.  The near meadows shone 
+like pale gold against the dark lift of the moor.  A light wind had 
+begun to blow from the west and carried the faintest tang of salt.  
+The village at that hour was pure Paradise, and Dickson was of the 
+Poet's opinion.  At all costs they must spend the night there.
+
+They selected a cottage whiter and neater than the others, which stood 
+at a corner, where a narrow lane turned southward.  Its thatched roof 
+had been lately repaired, and starched curtains of a dazzling whiteness 
+decorated the small, closely-shut windows.  Likewise it had a green 
+door and a polished brass knocker.
+
+Tacitly the duty of envoy was entrusted to Mr. McCunn.  Leaving the 
+other at the gate, he advanced up the little path lined with quartz 
+stones, and politely but firmly dropped the brass knocker.  He must 
+have been observed, for ere the noise had ceased the door opened, 
+and an elderly woman stood before him.  She had a sharply-cut face, 
+the rudiments of a beard, big spectacles on her nose, and an 
+old-fashioned lace cap on her smooth white hair.  A little grim she 
+looked at first sight, because of her thin lips and roman nose, 
+but her mild curious eyes corrected the impression and gave the 
+envoy confidence. 
+
+"Good afternoon, mistress," he said, broadening his voice to 
+something more rustical than his normal Glasgow speech.  "Me and my 
+friend are paying our first visit here, and we're terrible taken up 
+with the place.  We would like to bide the night, but the inn is no' 
+taking folk.  Is there any chance, think you, of a bed here?"
+
+"I'll no tell ye a lee," said the woman.  "There's twae guid beds in 
+the loft.  But I dinna tak' lodgers and I dinna want to be bothered 
+wi' ye.  I'm an auld wumman and no' as stoot as I was.  Ye'd better 
+try doun the street.  Eppie Home micht tak' ye."
+
+Dickson wore his most ingratiating smile.  "But, mistress, Eppie Home's 
+house is no' yours.  We've taken a tremendous fancy to this bit.  
+Can you no' manage to put up with us for the one night?  We're quiet 
+auld-fashioned folk and we'll no' trouble you much.  Just our tea and 
+maybe an egg to it, and a bowl of porridge in the morning."
+
+The woman seemed to relent.  "Whaur's your freend?" she asked, 
+peering over her spectacles towards the garden gate.  The waiting 
+Mr. Heritage, seeing he eyes moving in his direction, took off his 
+cap with a brave gesture and advanced.  "Glorious weather, madam," 
+he declared.
+
+"English," whispered Dickson to the woman, in explanation.
+
+She examined the Poet's neat clothes and Mr. McCunn's homely 
+garments, and apparently found them reassuring.  "Come in," she said 
+shortly.  "I see ye're wilfu' folk and I'll hae to dae my best for ye."
+
+A quarter of an hour later the two travellers, having been 
+introduced to two spotless beds in the loft, and having washed 
+luxuriously at the pump in the back yard, were seated in Mrs. 
+Morran's kitchen before a meal which fulfilled their wildest dreams.  
+She had been baking that morning, so there were white scones and 
+barley scones, and oaten farles, and russet pancakes.  There were 
+three boiled eggs for each of them ; there was a segment of an 
+immense currant cake ("a present from my guid brither last Hogmanay"); 
+there was skim milk cheese; there were several kinds of jam, and there 
+was a pot of dark-gold heather honey.  "Try hinny and aitcake," said 
+their hostess.  "My man used to say he never fund onything as guid in 
+a' his days."
+
+Presently they heard her story.  Her name was Morran, and she had 
+been a widow these ten years.  Of her family her son was in South Africa, 
+one daughter a lady's-maid in London, and the other married to a 
+schoolmaster in Kyle.  The son had been in France fighting, and had 
+come safely through.  He had spent a month or two with her before 
+his return, and, she feared, had found it dull.  "There's no' a man 
+body in the place.  Naething but auld wives."
+
+That was what the innkeeper had told them.  Mr. McCunn inquired 
+concerning the inn.
+
+"There's new folk just came.  What's this they ca' them?--Robson-
+Dobson--aye, Dobson.  What far wad they no' tak' ye in?  Does the 
+man think he's a laird to refuse folk that gait?"
+
+"He said he had illness in the house."
+
+Mrs. Morran meditated.  "Whae in the world can be lyin' there?  
+The man bides his lane.  He got a lassie frae Auchenlochan to cook, 
+but she and her box gaed off in the post-cairt yestreen.  I doot he 
+tell't ye a lee, though it's no for me to juidge him.  I've never 
+spoken a word to ane o' thae new folk."
+
+Dickson inquired about the "new folk."
+
+"They're a' now come in the last three weeks, and there's no' a man 
+o' the auld stock left.  John Blackstocks at the Wast Lodge dee'd o' 
+pneumony last back-end, and auld Simon Tappie at the Gairdens 
+flitted to Maybole a year come Mairtinmas.  There's naebody at the 
+Gairdens noo, but there's a man come to the Wast Lodge, a blackavised 
+Body wi' a face like bend-leather.  Tam Robison used to bide at the 
+South Lodge, but Tam got killed about Mesopotamy, and his wife took 
+the bairns to her guidsire up at the Garpleheid.  I seen the man 
+that's in the South Lodge gaun up the street when I was finishin' 
+my denner--a shilpit body and a lameter, but he hirples as fast as 
+ither folk run.  He's no' bonny to look at..  I canna think what 
+the factor's ettlin' at to let sic ill-faured chiels come about 
+the toun."
+
+Their hostess was rapidly rising in Dickson's esteem.  She sat very 
+straight in her chair, eating with the careful gentility of a bird, 
+and primming her thin lips after every mouthful of tea.
+
+"Wha bides in the Big House?" he asked.  "Huntingtower is the name, 
+isn't it?"
+
+"When I was a lassie they ca'ed it Dalquharter Hoose, and 
+Huntingtower was the auld rickle o' stanes at the sea-end.  
+But naething wad serve the last laird's father but he maun change 
+the name, for he was clean daft about what they ca' antickities.  
+Ye speir whae bides in the Hoose?  Naebody, since the young laird dee'd.  
+It's standin' cauld and lanely and steikit, and it aince the cheeriest 
+dwallin' in a' Carrick."
+
+Mrs. Morran's tone grew tragic.  "It's a queer warld wi'out the 
+auld gentry. My faither and my guidsire and his faither afore him 
+served the Kennedys, and my man Dauvit Morran was gemkeeper to them, 
+and afore I mairried I was ane o' the table-maids.  They were kind 
+folk, the Kennedys, and, like a' the rale gentry, maist mindfu' o' 
+them that served them.  Sic merry nichts I've seen in the auld 
+Hoose, at Hallowe'en and hogmanay, and at the servants' balls and 
+the waddin's o' the young leddies!  But the laird bode to waste his 
+siller in stane and lime, and hadna that much to leave to his bairns.  
+And now they're a' scattered or deid."
+
+Her grave face wore the tenderness which comes from affectionate 
+reminiscence. 
+
+"There was never sic a laddie as young Maister Quentin.  No' a week 
+gaed by but he was in here, cryin', 'Phemie Morran, I've come till 
+my tea!'  Fine he likit my treacle scones, puir man.  There wasna 
+ane in the countryside sae bauld a rider at the hunt, or sic a 
+skeely fisher.  And he was clever at his books tae, a graund 
+scholar, they said, and ettlin' at bein' what they ca' a dipplemat,  
+But that' a' bye wi'."
+
+"Quentin Kennedy--the fellow in the Tins?"  Heritage asked.  "I saw 
+him in Rome when he was with the Mission."
+
+"I dinna ken.  He was a brave sodger, but he wasna long fechtin' in 
+France till he got a bullet in his breist.  Syne we heard tell o' 
+him in far awa' bits like Russia; and syne cam' the end o' the war 
+and we lookit to see him back, fishin' the waters and ridin' like 
+Jehu as in the auld days.  But wae's me!  It wasna permitted.  
+The next news we got, the puir laddie was deid o' influenzy and 
+buried somewhere about France.  The wanchancy bullet maun have 
+weakened his chest, nae doot.  So that's the end o' the guid stock 
+o' Kennedy o' Huntingtower, whae hae been great folk sin' the time 
+o' Robert Bruce.  And noo the Hoose is shut up till the lawyers can 
+get somebody sae far left to himsel' as to tak' it on lease, and in 
+thae dear days it's no' just onybody that wants a muckle castle."
+
+"Who are the lawyers?"  Dickson asked.
+
+"Glendonan and Speirs in Embro.  But they never look near the place, 
+and Maister Loudon in Auchenlochan does the factorin'.  He's let 
+the public an' filled the twae lodges, and he'll be thinkin' nae 
+doot that he's done eneuch."
+
+Mrs. Morran had poured some hot water into the big slop-bowl, and 
+had begun the operation known as "synding out" the cups.  It was a 
+hint that the meal was over, and Dickson and Heritage rose from the 
+table.  Followed by an injunction to be back for supper "on the chap 
+o' nine," they strolled out into the evening.  Two hours of some 
+sort of daylight remained, and the travellers had that impulse to 
+activity which comes to all men who, after a day of exercise and 
+emptiness, are stayed with a satisfying tea.  
+
+"You should be happy, Dogson," said the Poet.  "Here we have all the 
+materials for your blessed romance--old mansion, extinct family, 
+village deserted of men, and an innkeeper whom I suspect of being 
+a villain.  I feel almost a convert to your nonsense myself.  
+We'll have a look at the House."
+
+They turned down the road which ran north by the park wall, past 
+the inn, which looked more abandoned than ever, till they came to an 
+entrance which was clearly the West Lodge.  It had once been a 
+pretty, modish cottage, with a thatched roof and dormer windows, 
+but now it was badly in need of repair.  A window-pane was broken 
+and stuffed with a sack, the posts of the porch were giving inwards, 
+and the thatch was crumbling under the attentions of a colony of 
+starlings.  The great iron gates were rusty, and on the coat of 
+arms above them the gilding was patchy and tarnished.  Apparently the 
+gates were locked, and even the side wicket failed to open to 
+Heritage's vigorous shaking.  Inside a weedy drive disappeared among 
+ragged rhododendrons
+
+The noise brought a man to the lodge door.  He was a sturdy fellow 
+in a suit of black clothes which had not been made for him.  
+He might have been a butler EN DESHABILLE, but for the presence of a 
+pair of field boots into which he had tucked the ends of his trousers.  
+The curious thing about him was his face, which was decorated with 
+features so tiny as to give the impression of a monstrous child.  
+Each in itself was well enough formed, but eyes, nose, mouth, chin 
+were of a smallness curiously out of proportion to the head and body.  
+Such an anomaly might have been redeemed by the expression; 
+good-humour would have invested it with an air of agreeable farce.  
+But there was no friendliness in the man's face.  It was set like a 
+judge's in a stony impassiveness.
+
+"May we walk up to the House?"  Heritage asked.  "We are here for a 
+night and should like to have a look at it."
+
+The man advanced a step.  He had either a bad cold, or a voice 
+comparable in size to his features.
+
+"There's no entrance here," he said huskily. "I have strict orders."
+
+"Oh, come now, " said Heritage.  "It can do nobody any harm if you 
+let us in for half an hour."
+
+The man advanced another step.
+
+"You shall not come in.  Go away from here.  Go away, I tell you.  
+It is private."  The words spoken by the small mouth in the small 
+voice had a kind of childish ferocity.
+
+The travellers turned their back on him and continued their way.
+
+"Sich a curmudgeon!"  Dickson commented.  His face had flushed, 
+for he was susceptible to rudeness.  "Did you notice?  That 
+man's a foreigner."
+
+"He's a brute," said Heritage.  "But I'm not going to be done in by 
+that class of lad.  There can be no gates on the sea side, so we'll 
+work round that way, for I won't sleep till I've seen the place."
+
+Presently the trees grew thinner, and the road plunged through 
+thickets of hazel till it came to a sudden stop in a field.  
+There the cover ceased wholly, and below them lay the glen of 
+the Laver.  Steep green banks descended to a stream which swept in 
+coils of gold into the eye of the sunset.  A little farther down the 
+channel broadened, the slopes fell back a little, and a tongue of 
+glittering sea ran up to meet the hill waters.  The Laver is a 
+gentle stream after it leaves its cradle heights, a stream of clear 
+pools and long bright shallows, winding by moorland steadings and 
+upland meadows; but in its last half-mile it goes mad, and imitates 
+its childhood when it tumbled over granite shelves.  Down in that 
+green place the crystal water gushed and frolicked as if determined 
+on one hour of rapturous life before joining the sedater sea.
+
+Heritage flung himself on the turf.
+
+"This is a good place!  Ye gods, what a good place!  Dogson, aren't 
+you glad you came?  I think everything's bewitched to-night.  
+That village is bewitched, and that old woman's tea.  Good white magic!  
+And that foul innkeeper and that brigand at the gate.  Black magic!  
+And now here is the home of all enchantment--'island valley of 
+Avilion'--'waters that listen for lovers'--all the rest of it!"
+
+Dickson observed and marvelled.
+
+"I can't make you out, Mr. Heritage.  You were saying last night you 
+were a great democrat, and yet you were objecting to yon laddies 
+camping on the moor.  And you very near bit the neb off me when I 
+said I liked Tennyson.  And now..."  Mr. McCunn's command of 
+language was inadequate to describe the transformation. 
+
+"You're a precise, pragmatical Scot," was the answer.  "Hang it, 
+man, don't remind me that I'm inconsistent.  I've a poet's licence 
+to play the fool, and if you don't understand me, I don't in the 
+least understand myself.  All I know is that I'm feeling young and 
+jolly, and that it's the Spring."
+
+Mr. Heritage was assuredly in a strange mood.  He began to whistle 
+with a far-away look in his eye.
+
+"Do you know what that is?" he asked suddenly.
+
+Dickson, who could not detect any tune, said "No."
+
+"It's an aria from a Russian opera that came out just before the war.  
+I've forgotten the name of the fellow who wrote it.  Jolly thing, 
+isn't it?  I always remind myself of it when I'm in this mood, for 
+it is linked with the greatest experience of my life.  You said, I 
+think, that you had never been in love?"
+
+Dickson replied in the native fashion.  "Have you?" he asked.
+
+"I have, and I am--been for two years.  I was down with my battalion 
+on the Italian front early in 1918, and because I could speak the 
+language they hoicked me out and sent me to Rome on a liaison job.  
+It was Easter time and fine weather, and, being glad to get out of 
+the trenches, I was pretty well pleased with myself and enjoying 
+life....In the place where I stayed there was a girl.  She was a 
+Russian, a princess of a great family, but a refugee, and of course 
+as poor as sin....I remember how badly dressed she was among all the 
+well-to-do Romans.  But, my God, what a beauty!  There was never 
+anything in the world like her.... She was little more than a child, 
+and she used to sing that air in the morning as she went down the 
+stairs....They sent me back to the front before I had a chance of 
+getting to know her, but she used to give me little timid good 
+mornings, and her voice and eyes were like an angel's....I'm over my 
+head in love, but it's hopeless, quite hopeless.  I shall never see 
+her again."
+
+"I'm sure I'm honoured by your confidence," said Dickson reverently.
+
+The Poet, who seemed to draw exhilaration from the memory of his 
+sorrows, arose and fetched him a clout on the back.  "Don't talk of 
+confidence, as if you were a reporter," he said.  "What about that 
+House?  If we're to see it before the dark comes we'd better hustle."
+
+The green slopes on their left, as they ran seaward, were clothed 
+towards their summit with a tangle of broom and light scrub.  
+The two forced their way through it, and found to their surprise 
+that on this side there were no defences of the Huntingtower demesne.  
+Along the crest ran a path which had once been gravelled and trimmed.  
+Beyond, through a thicket of laurels and rhododendrons, they came on a 
+long unkempt aisle of grass, which seemed to be one of those side 
+avenues often found in connection with old Scots dwellings.  
+Keeping along this they reached a grove of beech and holly through 
+which showed a dim shape of masonry.  By a common impulse they moved 
+stealthily, crouching in cover, till at the far side of the wood they 
+found a sunk fence and looked over an acre or two of what had once been 
+lawn and flower-beds to the front of the mansion.
+
+The outline of the building was clearly silhouetted against the 
+glowing west, but since they were looking at the east face the 
+detail was all in shadow.  But, dim as it was, the sight was enough 
+to give Dickson the surprise of his life.  He had expected something 
+old and baronial.  But this was new, raw and new, not twenty years built.  
+Some madness had prompted its creator to set up a replica of a 
+Tudor house in a countryside where the thing was unheard of.  All the 
+tricks were there--oriel windows, lozenged panes, high twisted chimney 
+stacks; the very stone was red, as if to imitate the mellow brick of 
+some ancient Kentish manor.  It was new, but it was also decaying.  
+The creepers had fallen from the walls, the pilasters on the terrace were 
+tumbling down, lichen and moss were on the doorsteps.  Shuttered, silent, 
+abandoned, it stood like a harsh memento mori of human hopes.
+
+Dickson had never before been affected by an inanimate thing with so 
+strong a sense of disquiet.  He had pictured an old stone tower on a 
+bright headland; he found instead this raw thing among trees.
+The decadence of the brand-new repels as something against nature, 
+and this new thing was decadent.  But there was a mysterious life in 
+it, for though not a chimney smoked, it seemed to enshrine a 
+personality and to wear a sinister aura.  He felt a lively distaste, 
+which was almost fear.  He wanted to get far away from it as fast 
+as possible.  The sun, now sinking very low, sent up rays which 
+kindled the crests of a group of firs to the left of the front door.  
+
+He had the absurd fancy that they were torches flaming before a bier.
+
+It was well that the two had moved quietly and kept in shadow.  
+Footsteps fell on their ears, on the path which threaded the lawn 
+just beyond the sunk-fence.  It was the keeper of the West Lodge and 
+he carried something on his back, but both that and his face were 
+indistinct in the half-light.
+
+Other footsteps were heard, coming from the other side of the lawn.  
+A man's shod feet rang on the stone of a flagged path, and from 
+their irregular fall it was plain that he was lame.  The two men met 
+near the door, and spoke together.  Then they separated, and moved 
+one down each side of the house.  To the two watchers they had the 
+air of a patrol, or of warders pacing the corridors of a prison.
+
+"Let's get out of this," said Dickson, and turned to go.
+
+The air had the curious stillness which precedes the moment of 
+sunset, when the birds of day have stopped their noises and the 
+sounds of night have not begun.  But suddenly in the silence fell 
+notes of music.  They seemed to come from the house, a voice singing 
+softly but with great beauty and clearness.
+
+Dickson halted in his steps.  The tune, whatever it was, was like a fresh 
+wind to blow aside his depression.  The house no longer looked sepulchral.  
+He saw that the two men had hurried back from their patrol, had met and 
+exchanged some message, and made off again as if alarmed by the music.  
+Then he noticed his companion....
+
+Heritage was on one knee with his face rapt and listening.  
+He got to his feet and appeared to be about to make for the House.  
+Dickson caught him by the arm and dragged him into the bushes, and 
+he followed unresistingly, like a man in a dream.  They ploughed 
+through the thicket, recrossed the grass avenue, and scrambled down 
+the hillside to the banks of the stream.
+
+Then for the first time Dickson observed that his companion's face 
+was very white, and that sweat stood on his temples.  Heritage lay 
+down and lapped up water like a dog.  Then he turned a wild eye on 
+the other.
+
+"I am going back," he said.  "That is the voice of the girl I saw in 
+Rome, and it is singing her song!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+DOUGAL
+
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Dickson.  "You're coming home 
+to your supper.  It was to be on the chap of nine."
+
+"I'm going back to that place."
+
+The man was clearly demented and must be humoured.  "Well, you must 
+wait till the morn's morning.  It's very near dark now, and those 
+are two ugly customers wandering about yonder.  You'd better sleep 
+the night on it."
+
+Mr. Heritage seemed to be persuaded.  He suffered himself to be 
+led up the now dusky slopes to the gate where the road from 
+the village ended.  He walked listlessly like a man engaged in 
+painful reflection.  Once only he broke the silence.
+
+"You heard the singing?" he asked.
+
+Dickson was a very poor hand at a lie.  "I heard something," 
+he admitted.
+
+"You heard a girl's voice singing?"
+
+"It sounded like that," was the admission.  "But I'm thinking it 
+might have been a seagull."
+
+"You're a fool," said the Poet rudely.
+
+The return was a melancholy business, compared to the bright speed 
+of the outward journey.  Dickson's mind was a chaos of feelings, 
+all of them unpleasant.  He had run up against something which he 
+violently, blindly detested, and the trouble was that he could 
+not tell why.  It was all perfectly absurd, for why on earth should 
+an ugly house, some overgrown trees, and a couple of ill-favoured 
+servants so malignly affect him?  Yet this was the fact ; he had 
+strayed out of Arcady into a sphere that filled him with revolt and 
+a nameless fear.  Never in his experience had he felt like this, 
+this foolish childish panic which took all the colour and zest 
+out of life.  He tried to laugh at himself but failed.  Heritage, 
+stumbling along by his side, effectually crushed his effort to 
+discover humour in the situation.  Some exhalation from that 
+infernal place had driven the Poet mad.  And then that voice singing!  
+A seagull, he had said.  More like a nightingale, he reflected--a bird 
+which in the flesh he had never met.
+
+Mrs. Morran had the lamp lit and a fire burning in her cheerful 
+kitchen.  The sight of it somewhat restored Dickson's equanimity, 
+and to his surprise he found that he had an appetite for supper.  
+There was new milk, thick with cream, and most of the dainties 
+which had appeared at tea, supplemented by a noble dish of 
+shimmering "potted-head."  The hostess did not share their meal,  
+being engaged in some duties in the little cubby-hole known as 
+the back kitchen.
+
+Heritage drank a glass of milk but would not touch food.
+
+"I called this place Paradise four hours ago," he said.  "So it is, 
+but I fancy it is next door to Hell.  There is something devilish 
+going on inside that park wall, and I mean to get to the bottom of it."
+
+"Hoots!  Nonsense!"  Dickson replied with affected cheerfulness.  
+"To-morrow you and me will take the road for Auchenlochan.  
+We needn't trouble ourselves about an ugly old house and a 
+wheen impident lodge-keepers."
+
+"To-morrow I'm going to get inside the place.  Don't come unless you 
+like, but it's no use arguing with me.  My mind is made up."
+
+Heritage cleared a space on the table and spread out a section of a 
+large-scale Ordnance map.
+
+"I must clear my head about the topography, the same as if this were 
+a battle-ground.  Look here, Dogson....The road past the inn that 
+we went by to-night runs north and south."  He tore a page from a 
+note-book and proceeded to make a rough sketch...."One end we know 
+abuts on the Laver glen, and the other stops at the South Lodge.  
+Inside the wall which follows the road is a long belt of plantation-
+-mostly beeches and ash--then to the west a kind of park, and beyond 
+that the lawns of the house.  Strips of plantation with avenues 
+between follow the north and south sides of the park.  On the sea 
+side of the House are the stables and what looks like a walled 
+garden, and beyond them what seems to be open ground with an old 
+dovecot marked, and the ruins of Huntingtower keep.  Beyond that 
+there is more open ground, till you come to the cliffs of the cape.  
+Have you got that?...It looks possible from the contouring to get 
+on to the sea cliffs by following the Laver, for all that side is 
+broken up into ravines....But look at the other side--the Garple glen.  
+It's evidently a deep-cut gully, and at the bottom it opens out into 
+a little harbour.  There's deep water there, you observe.  Now the 
+House on the south side--the Garple side--is built fairly close to 
+the edge of the cliffs.  Is that all clear in your head?  We can't 
+reconnoitre unless we've got a working notion of the lie of the land."
+
+Dickson was about to protest that he had no intention of 
+reconnoitring, when a hubbub arose in the back kitchen.  
+Mrs. Morran's voice was heard in shrill protest.
+
+"Ye ill laddie!  Eh--ye--ill--laddie! (crescendo)  Makin' a hash o' 
+my back door wi' your dirty feet!  What are ye slinkin' roond here 
+for, when I tell't ye this mornin' that I wad sell ye nae mair 
+scones till ye paid for the last lot?  Ye're a wheen thievin' hungry 
+callants, and if there were a polisman in the place I'd gie ye 
+in chairge....What's that ye say?  Ye're no' wantin' meat?  Ye want 
+to speak to the gentlemen that's bidin' here?  Ye ken the auld ane, 
+says you?  I believe it's a muckle lee, but there's the gentlemen to 
+answer ye theirsels."
+
+Mrs. Morran, brandishing a dishclout dramatically, flung open 
+the door, and with a vigorous push propelled into the kitchen a 
+singular figure. 
+
+It was a stunted boy, who from his face might have been fifteen 
+years old, but had the stature of a child of twelve.  He had a 
+thatch of fiery red hair above a pale freckled countenance.  
+His nose was snub, his eyes a sulky grey-green, and his wide mouth 
+disclosed large and damaged teeth.  But remarkable as was his 
+visage, his clothing was still stranger.  On his head was the 
+regulation Boy Scout hat, but it was several sizes too big, and was 
+squashed down upon his immense red ears.  He wore a very ancient 
+khaki shirt, which had once belonged to a full-grown soldier, and 
+the spacious sleeves were rolled up at the shoulders and tied with 
+string, revealing a pair of skinny arms.  Round his middle hung 
+what was meant to be a kilt--a kilt of home manufacture, which may 
+once have been a tablecloth, for its bold pattern suggested no known 
+clan tartan.  He had a massive belt, in which was stuck a broken 
+gully-knife, and round his neck was knotted the remnant of what had 
+once been a silk bandanna.  His legs and feet were bare, blue, 
+scratched, and very dirty, and this toes had the prehensile look 
+common to monkeys and small boys who summer and winter go bootless.  
+In his hand was a long ash-pole, new cut from some coppice.
+
+The apparition stood glum and lowering on the kitchen floor.  
+As Dickson stared at it he recalled Mearns Street and the band of 
+irregular Boy Scouts who paraded to the roll of tin cans.  
+Before him stood Dougal, Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards.  
+Suddenly he remembered the philanthropic Mackintosh, and his own 
+subscription of ten pounds to the camp fund.  It pleased him to find 
+the rascals here, for in the unpleasant affairs on the verge of 
+which he felt himself they were a comforting reminder of the 
+peace of home.
+
+"I'm glad to see you, Dougal," he said pleasantly.  "How are you 
+all getting on?"  And then, with a vague reminiscence of the Scouts' 
+code--"Have you been minding to perform a good deed every day?"
+
+The Chieftain's brow darkened.
+
+"'Good Deeds!'" he repeated bitterly.  "I tell ye I'm fair wore out 
+wi' good deeds.  Yon man Mackintosh tell't me this was going to be 
+a grand holiday.  Holiday!  Govey Dick!  It's been like a Setterday 
+night in Main Street--a' fechtin', fechtin'."
+
+No collocation of letters could reproduce Dougal's accent, and I 
+will not attempt it.  There was a touch of Irish in it, a spice of 
+music-hall patter, as well as the odd lilt of the Glasgow vernacular.  
+He was strong in vowels, but the consonants, especially the letter 
+"t," were only aspirations.
+
+"Sit down and let's hear about things," said Dickson.
+
+The boy turned his head to the still open back door, where Mrs. 
+Morran could be heard at her labours.  He stepped across and shut it.  
+"I'm no' wantin' that auld wife to hear," he said.  Then he squatted 
+down on the patchwork rug by the hearth, and warmed his blue-black shins.  
+Looking into the glow of the fire, he observed, "I seen you two up by 
+the Big Hoose the night."
+
+"The devil you did," said Heritage, roused to a sudden attention.  
+"And where were you?"
+
+"Seven feet from your head, up a tree.  It's my chief hidy-hole, and 
+Gosh! I need one, for Lean's after me wi' a gun.  He had a shot at 
+me two days syne."
+
+Dickson exclaimed, and Dougal with morose pride showed a rent in 
+his kilt.  "If I had had on breeks, he'd ha' got me."
+
+"Who's Lean?" Heritage asked.
+
+"The man wi' the black coat.  The other--the lame one--they ca' Spittal."
+
+"How d'you know?"
+
+"I've listened to them crackin' thegither."
+
+"But what for did the man want to shoot at you?" asked the 
+scandalized Dickson.
+
+"What for?  Because they're frightened to death o' onybody going 
+near their auld Hoose.  They're a pair of deevils, worse nor any Red 
+Indian, but for a' that they're sweatin' wi' fright.  What for? says you.  
+Because they're hiding a Secret.  I knew it as soon as I seen the man 
+Lean's face.  I once seen the same kind o' scoondrel at the Picters.  
+When he opened his mouth to swear, I kenned he was a foreigner, like 
+the lads down at the Broomielaw.  That looked black, but I hadn't got 
+at the worst of it.  Then he loosed off at me wi' his gun."
+
+"Were you not feared?" said Dickson.
+
+"Ay, I was feared.  But ye'll no' choke off the Gorbals Die-Hards 
+wi' a gun.  We held a meetin' round the camp fire, and we resolved 
+to get to the bottom o' the business.  Me bein' their Chief, it was 
+my duty to make what they ca' a reckonissince, for that was the 
+dangerous job.  So a' this day I've been going on my belly about 
+thae policies.  I've found out some queer things."
+
+Heritage had risen and was staring down at the small squatting figure.
+
+"What have you found out?  Quick.  Tell me at once."  His voice was 
+sharp and excited.
+
+"Bide a wee," said the unwinking Dougal.  "I'm no' going to let ye 
+into this business till I ken that ye'll help.  It's a far bigger 
+job than I thought.  There's more in it than Lean and Spittal.  
+There's the big man that keeps the public--Dobson, they ca' him.  
+He's a Namerican, which looks bad.  And there's two-three tinklers 
+campin' down in the Garple Dean.  They're in it, for Dobson was 
+colloguin' wi' them a' mornin'.  When I seen ye, I thought ye were 
+more o' the gang, till I mindit that one o' ye was auld McCunn that 
+has the shop in Mearns Street.  I seen that ye didna' like the look 
+o' Lean, and I followed ye here, for I was thinkin' I needit help."
+
+Heritage plucked Dougal by the shoulder and lifted him to his feet.
+
+"For God's sake, boy," he cried, "tell us what you know!"
+
+"Will ye help?"
+
+"Of course, you little fool."
+
+"Then swear," said the ritualist.  From a grimy wallet he extracted 
+a limp little volume which proved to be a damaged copy of a work 
+entitled Sacred Songs and Solos.  "Here!  Take that in your right 
+hand and put your left hand on my pole, and say after me.  'I swear 
+no' to blab what is telled me in secret, and to be swift and sure in 
+obeyin' orders, s'help me God!'  Syne kiss the bookie."
+
+Dickson at first refused, declaring that it was all havers, 
+but Heritage's docility persuaded him to follow suit.  
+The two were sworn.
+
+"Now," said Heritage.
+
+Dougal squatted again on the hearth-rug, and gathered the eyes of 
+his audience.  He was enjoying himself.
+
+"This day," he said slowly, "I got inside the Hoose."
+
+"Stout fellow," said Heritage ; "and what did you find there?"
+
+"I got inside that Hoose, but it wasn't once or twice I tried.  
+I found a corner where I was out o' sight o' anybody unless they had 
+come there seekin' me, and I sklimmed up a rone pipe, but a' the 
+windies were lockit and I verra near broke my neck.  Syne I tried 
+the roof, and a sore sklim I had, but when I got there there were 
+no skylights.  At the end I got in by the coal-hole.  That's why 
+ye're maybe thinkin' I'm no' very clean."
+
+Heritage's patience was nearly exhausted.
+
+"I don't want to hear how you got in.  What did you find, 
+you little devil?"
+
+"Inside the Hoose," said Dougal slowly (and there was a melancholy 
+sense of anti-climax in his voice, as of one who had hoped to speak 
+of gold and jewels and armed men)--"inside that Hoose there's 
+nothing but two women."
+
+Heritage sat down before him with a stern face.
+
+"Describe them," he commanded.
+
+"One o' them is dead auld, as auld as the wife here.  She didn't 
+look to me very right in the head."
+
+"And the other?"
+
+"Oh, just a lassie."
+
+"What was she like?"
+
+Dougal seemed to be searching for adequate words.  "She is..." 
+he began.  Then a popular song gave him inspiration.  "She's pure as 
+the lully in the dell!"
+
+In no way discomposed by Heritage's fierce interrogatory air, 
+he continued: "She's either foreign or English, for she couldn't 
+understand what I said, and I could make nothing o' her clippit tongue.  
+But I could see she had been greetin'.  She looked feared, yet 
+kind o' determined.  I speired if I could do anything for her, and when 
+she got my meaning she was terrible anxious to ken if I had seen a man-
+-a big man, she said, wi' a yellow beard.  She didn't seem to ken his 
+name, or else she wouldna' tell me.  The auld wife was mortal feared, 
+and was aye speakin' in a foreign langwidge.  I seen at once that 
+what frightened them was Lean and his friends, and I was just starting 
+to speir about them when there came a sound like a man walkin' along 
+the passage.  She was for hidin' me in behind a sofy, but I wasn't 
+going to be trapped like that, so I got out by the other door and down 
+the kitchen stairs and into the coal-hole.  Gosh, it was a near thing!"
+
+
+The boy was on his feet.  "I must be off to the camp to give out the 
+orders for the morn.  I'm going back to that Hoose, for it's a fight 
+atween the Gorbals Die-Hards and the scoondrels that are frightenin' 
+thae women.  The question is, Are ye comin' with me?  Mind, ye've sworn.  
+But if ye're no, I'm going mysel', though I'll no' deny I'd be 
+glad o' company.  You anyway--" he added, nodding at Heritage.  
+"Maybe auld McCunn wouldn't get through the coal-hole."
+
+"You're an impident laddie,' said the outraged Dickson.  "It's no' 
+likely we're coming with you.  Breaking into other folks' houses!  
+It's a job for the police!"
+
+"Please yersel'," said the Chieftain, and looked at Heritage.
+
+"I'm on," said that gentleman.
+
+"Well, just you set out the morn as if ye were for a walk up 
+the Garple glen.  I'll be on the road and I'll have orders for ye."
+
+Without more ado Dougal left by way of the back kitchen.  There was 
+a brief denunciation from Mrs. Morran, then the outer door banged 
+and he was gone.
+
+The Poet sat still with his head in his hands, while Dickson, 
+acutely uneasy, prowled about the floor.  He had forgotten even to 
+light his pipe.  "You'll not be thinking of heeding that ragamuffin 
+boy," he ventured.
+
+"I'm certainly going to get into the House tomorrow," Heritage 
+answered, "and if he can show me a way so much the better.  
+He's a spirited youth.  Do you breed many like him in Glasgow?"
+
+"Plenty," said Dickson sourly.  "See here, Mr. Heritage.  You can't 
+expect me to be going about burgling houses on the word of a 
+blagyird laddie.  I'm a respectable man--aye been.  Besides, I'm 
+here for a holiday, and I've no call to be mixing myself up in 
+strangers' affairs."
+
+"You haven't.  Only you see, I think there's a friend of mine in 
+that place, and anyhow there are women in trouble.  If you like, 
+we'll say goodbye after breakfast, and you can continue as if you 
+had never turned aside to this damned peninsula.  But I've got 
+to stay."
+
+Dickson groaned.  What had become of his dream of idylls, his gentle 
+bookish romance?  Vanished before a reality which smacked horribly 
+of crude melodrama and possibly of sordid crime.  His gorge rose at 
+the picture, but a thought troubled him.  Perhaps all romance in its 
+hour of happening was rough and ugly like this, and only shone rosy 
+in retrospect.  Was he being false to his deepest faith?
+
+"Let's have Mrs. Morran in," he ventured.  "She's a wise old body 
+and I'd like to hear her opinion of this business.  We'll get common 
+sense from her."
+
+"I don't object," said Heritage.  "But no amount of common sense 
+will change my mind."
+
+Their hostess forestalled them by returning at that moment 
+to the kitchen. 
+
+"We want your advice, mistress," Dickson told her, and accordingly, 
+like a barrister with a client, she seated herself carefully in the 
+big easy chair, found and adjusted her spectacles, and waited with 
+hands folded on her lap to hear the business.  Dickson narrated 
+their pre-supper doings, and gave a sketch of Dougal's evidence.  
+His exposition was cautious and colourless, and without conviction.  
+He seemed to expect a robust incredulity in his hearer.
+
+Mrs. Morran listened with the gravity of one in church.  When Dickson 
+finished she seemed to meditate.  "There's no blagyird trick that 
+would surprise me in thae new folk.  What's that ye ca' them-
+-Lean and Spittal?  Eppie Home threepit to me they were furriners, 
+and these are no furrin names."
+
+"What I want to hear from you, Mrs. Morran,' said Dickson impressively, 
+"is whether you think there's anything in that boy's story?"
+
+"I think it's maist likely true.  He's a terrible impident callant, 
+but he's no' a leear."
+
+"Then you think that a gang of ruffians have got two lone women shut 
+up in that house for their own purposes?"
+
+"I wadna wonder."
+
+"But it's ridiculous!  This is a Christian and law-abiding country.  
+What would the police say?"
+
+"They never troubled Dalquharter muckle.  There's no' a polisman 
+nearer than Knockraw--yin Johnnie Trummle, and he's as useless as a 
+frostit tattie."
+
+"The wiselike thing, as I think," said Dickson, "would be to turn 
+the Procurator-Fiscal on to the job.  It's his business, no' ours."
+
+"Well, I wadna say but ye're richt,' said the lady.
+
+"What would you do if you were us?" Dickson's tone was subtly 
+confidential.  "My friend here wants to get into the House the 
+morn with that red-haired laddie to satisfy himself about the facts.  
+I say no.  Let sleeping dogs lie, I say, and if you think the beasts 
+are mad, report to the authorities.  What would you do yourself?"
+
+"If I were you," came the emphatic reply, "I would tak' the first 
+train hame the morn, and when I got hame I wad bide there.  Ye're a 
+dacent body, but ye're no' the kind to be traivellin' the roads."
+
+"And if you were me?' Heritage asked with his queer crooked smile.
+
+"If I was young and yauld like you I wad gang into the Hoose, and I 
+wadna rest till I had riddled oot the truith and jyled every 
+scoondrel about the place.  If ye dinna gang, 'faith I'll kilt my 
+coats and gang mysel'.  I havena served the Kennedys for forty year 
+no' to hae the honour o' the Hoose at my hert....Ye've speired my 
+advice, sirs, and ye've gotten it.  Now I maun clear awa' your supper."
+
+Dickson asked for a candle, and, as on the previous night, went 
+abruptly to bed.  The oracle of prudence to which he had appealed 
+had betrayed him and counselled folly.  But was it folly?  For him, 
+assuredly, for Dickson McCunn, late of Mearns Street, Glasgow, 
+wholesale and retail provision merchant, elder in the Guthrie 
+Memorial Kirk, and fifty-five years of age.  Ay, that was the rub.  
+He was getting old.  The woman had seen it and had advised him to 
+go home.  Yet the plea was curiously irksome, though it gave him 
+the excuse he needed.  If you played at being young, you had to 
+take up the obligations of youth, and he thought derisively of his 
+boyish exhilaration of the past days.  Derisively, but also sadly.  
+What had become of that innocent joviality he had dreamed of, 
+that happy morning pilgrimage of Spring enlivened by tags from 
+the poets?  His goddess had played him false.  Romance had put upon 
+him too hard a trial. 
+
+He lay long awake, torn between common sense and a desire to be 
+loyal to some vague whimsical standard.  Heritage a yard distant 
+appeared also to be sleepless, for the bed creaked with his turning.  
+Dickson found himself envying one whose troubles, whatever they 
+might be, were not those of a divided mind.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+OF THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER
+
+
+Very early the next morning, while Mrs. Morran was still cooking 
+breakfast, Dickson and Heritage might have been observed taking the 
+air in the village street.  It was the Poet who had insisted upon 
+this walk, and he had his own purpose.  They looked at the spires of 
+smoke piercing the windless air, and studied the daffodils in the 
+cottage gardens.  Dickson was glum, but Heritage seemed in high spirits.  
+He varied his garrulity with spells of cheerful whistling.
+
+They strode along the road by the park wall till they reached the inn.  
+There Heritage's music waxed peculiarly loud.  Presently from the yard, 
+unshaven and looking as if he had slept in this clothes, came Dobson 
+the innkeeper.
+
+"Good morning," said the poet.  "I hope the sickness in your house 
+is on the mend?"
+
+"Thank ye, it's no worse," was the reply, but in the man's heavy 
+face there was little civility.  His small grey eyes searched 
+their faces.
+
+"We're just waiting for breakfast to get on the road again.  
+I'm jolly glad we spent the night here.  We found quarters 
+after all, you know."
+
+"So I see.  Whereabouts, may I ask?"
+
+"Mrs. Morran's.  We could always have got in there, but we didn't 
+want to fuss an old lady, so we thought we'd try the inn first.  
+She's my friend's aunt."
+
+At this amazing falsehood Dickson started, and the man observed 
+his surprise.  The eyes were turned on him like a searchlight.  
+They roused antagonism in his peaceful soul, and with that 
+antagonism came an impulse to back up the Poet.  "Ay," he said, 
+"she's my auntie Phemie, my mother's half-sister."
+
+The man turned on Heritage.
+
+"Where are ye for the day?"
+
+"Auchenlochan," said Dickson hastily.  He was still determined to 
+shake the dust of Dalquharter from his feet.
+
+The innkeeper sensibly brightened.  "Well, ye'll have a fine walk.  
+I must go in and see about my own breakfast.  Good day to ye, gentlemen."
+
+"That," said Heritage as they entered the village street again, 
+"is the first step in camouflage, to put the enemy off his guard."
+
+"It was an abominable lie," said Dickson crossly.
+
+"Not at all.  It was a necessary and proper ruse de guerre.  
+It explained why we spent the right here, and now Dobson and 
+his friends can get about their day's work with an easy mind.  
+Their suspicions are temporarily allayed, and that will make 
+our job easier."
+
+"I'm not coming with you."
+
+"I never said you were.  By 'we' I refer to myself and the 
+red-headed boy."
+
+"Mistress, you're my auntie," Dickson informed Mrs. Morran as she 
+set the porridge on the table.  "This gentleman has just been 
+telling the man at the inn that you're my Auntie Phemie."
+
+For a second their hostess looked bewildered.  Then the corners of 
+her prim mouth moved upwards in a slow smile.
+
+"I see," she said.  "Weel, maybe it was weel done.  But if ye're my 
+nevoy ye'll hae to keep up my credit, for we're a bauld and siccar lot."
+
+Half an hour later there was a furious dissension when Dickson 
+attempted to pay for the night's entertainment.  Mrs. Morran would 
+have none of it.  "Ye're no' awa' yet," she said tartly, and 
+the matter was complicated by Heritage's refusal to take part 
+in the debate.  He stood aside and grinned, till Dickson in despair 
+returned his notecase to his pocket, murmuring darkly the "he would 
+send it from Glasgow."
+
+The road to Auchenlochan left the main village street at right 
+angles by the side of Mrs. Morran's cottage.  It was a better road 
+than that by which they had come yesterday, for by it twice daily 
+the postcart travelled to the post-town.  It ran on the edge of the 
+moor and on the lip of the Garple glen, till it crossed that stream 
+and, keeping near the coast, emerged after five miles into the 
+cultivated flats of the Lochan valley.  The morning was fine, 
+the keen air invited to high spirits, plovers piped entrancingly 
+over the bent and linnets sang in the whins, there was a solid 
+breakfast behind him, and the promise of a cheerful road till luncheon.  
+The stage was set for good humour, but Dickson's heart, which should 
+have been ascending with the larks, stuck leadenly in his boots.  
+He was not even relieved at putting Dalquharter behind him.  
+The atmosphere of that unhallowed place lay still on his soul.  
+He hated it, but he hated himself more.  Here was one, who had hugged 
+himself all his days as an adventurer waiting his chance, running away 
+at the first challenge of adventure; a lover of Romance who fled from 
+the earliest overture of his goddess.  He was ashamed and angry, but 
+what else was there to do?  Burglary in the company of a queer poet and 
+a queerer urchin?  It was unthinkable.
+
+Presently, as they tramped silently on, they came to the bridge 
+beneath which the peaty waters of the Garple ran in porter-coloured 
+pools and tawny cascades.  From a clump of elders on the other side 
+Dougal emerged.  A barefoot boy, dressed in much the same parody of 
+a Boy Scout's uniform, but with corduroy shorts instead of a kilt, 
+stood before him at rigid attention.  Some command was issued, the 
+child saluted, and trotted back past the travellers with never a 
+look at them.  Discipline was strong among the Gorbals Die-Hards;
+no Chief of Staff ever conversed with his General under a 
+stricter etiquette.
+
+Dougal received the travellers with the condescension of a regular 
+towards civilians.
+
+"They're off their gawrd," he announced.  Thomas Yownie has been 
+shadowin' them since skreigh o' day, and he reports that Dobson and 
+Lean followed ye till ye were out o' sight o' the houses, and syne 
+Lean got a spy-glass and watched ye till the road turned in among 
+the trees.  That satisfied them, and they're both away back to their 
+jobs.  Thomas Yownie's the fell yin.  Ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+Dougal extricated from his pouch the fag of a cigarette, lit it, and 
+puffed meditatively.  "I did a reckonissince mysel' this morning.  
+I was up at the Hoose afore it was light, and tried the door o' 
+the coal-hole.  I doot they've gotten on our tracks, for it was 
+lockit--aye, and wedged from the inside."
+
+Dickson brightened.  Was the insane venture off?
+
+"For a wee bit I was fair beat.  But I mindit that the lassie was 
+allowed to walk in a kind o' a glass hoose on the side farthest away 
+from the Garple.  That was where she was singin' yest'reen.  So I 
+reckonissinced in that direction, and I fund a queer place."  
+Sacred Songs and Solos was requisitioned, and on a page of it Dougal 
+proceeded to make marks with the stump of a carpenter's pencil. 
+"See here," he commanded.  "There's the glass place wi' a door into 
+the Hoose.  That door maun be open or the lassie maun hae the key, 
+for she comes there whenever she likes.  Now' at each end o' the 
+place the doors are lockit, but the front that looks on the garden 
+is open, wi' muckle posts and flower-pots.  The trouble is that 
+that side there' maybe twenty feet o' a wall between the pawrapet 
+and the ground.  It's an auld wall wi' cracks and holes in it, and 
+it wouldn't be ill to sklim.  That's why they let her gang there when 
+she wants, for a lassie couldn't get away without breakin' her neck."
+
+"Could we climb it?" Heritage asked.
+
+The boy wrinkled his brows.  "I could manage it mysel'--I think--and 
+maybe you.  I doubt if auld McCunn could get up.  Ye'd have to be 
+mighty carefu' that nobody saw ye, for your hinder end, as ye were 
+sklimmin', wad be a grand mark for a gun."
+
+"Lead on," said Heritage.  "We'll try the verandah."
+
+They both looked at Dickson, and Dickson, scarlet in the face, 
+looked back at them.  He had suddenly found the thought of a 
+solitary march to Auchenlochan intolerable.  Once again he was 
+at the parting of the ways, and once more caprice determined 
+his decision.  That the coal-hole was out of the question had worked 
+a change in his views,  Somehow it seemed to him less burglarious to 
+enter by a verandah.  He felt very frightened but--for the moment-
+quite resolute.
+
+"I'm coming with you," he said.
+
+"Sportsman," said Heritage, and held out his hand.  "Well done, the 
+auld yin," said the Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards.  Dickson's 
+quaking heart experienced a momentary bound as he followed Heritage 
+down the track into the Garple Dean.
+
+The track wound through a thick covert of hazels, now close to the 
+rushing water, now high upon the bank so that clear sky showed 
+through the fringes of the wood.  When they had gone a little way 
+Dougal halted them.
+
+"It's a ticklish job," he whispered.  "There's the tinklers, mind, 
+that's campin' in the Dean.  If they're still in their camp we can 
+get by easy enough, but they're maybe wanderin' about the wud after 
+rabbits....Then we maun ford the water, for ye'll no' cross it lower 
+down where it's deep....Our road is on the Hoose side o' the Dean, 
+and it's awfu' public if there's onybody on the other side, though 
+it's hid well enough from folk up in the policies....Ye maun do 
+exactly what I tell ye.  When we get near danger I'll scout on 
+ahead, and I daur ye to move a hair o' your heid till I give the word."
+
+Presently, when they were at the edge of the water, Dougal announced 
+his intention of crossing.  Three boulders in the stream made a 
+bridge for an active man, and Heritage hopped lightly over.  Not so 
+Dickson, who stuck fast on the second stone, and would certainly 
+have fallen in had not Dougal plunged into the current and steadied 
+him with a grimy hand.  The leap was at last successfully taken, and 
+the three scrambled up a rough scaur, all reddened with iron 
+springs, till they struck a slender track running down the Dean on 
+its northern side.  Here the undergrowth was very thick, and they 
+had gone the better part of half a mile before the covert thinned 
+sufficiently to show them the stream beneath.  Then Dougal halted 
+them with a finger on his lips, and crept forward alone.
+
+He returned in three minutes.  "Coast's clear," he whispered.  "The 
+tinklers are eatin' their breakfast.  They're late at their meat 
+though they're up early seekin' it."
+
+Progress was now very slow and secret, and mainly on all fours.  
+At one point Dougal nodded downward, and the other two saw on a 
+patch of turf, where the Garple began to widen into its estuary, a 
+group of figures round a small fire.  There were four of them, all 
+men, and Dickson thought he had never seen such ruffianly-looking 
+customers.  After that they moved high up the slope, in a shallow 
+glade of a tributary burn, till they came out of the trees and found 
+themselves looking seaward.
+
+On one side was the House, a hundred yards or so back from the edge, 
+the roof showing above the precipitous scarp.  Half-way down the 
+slope became easier, a jumble of boulders and boiler-plates, till it 
+reached the waters of the small haven, which lay calm as a mill-pond 
+in the windless forenoon.  The haven broadened out at its foot and 
+revealed a segment of blue sea.  The opposite shore was flatter, 
+and showed what looked like an old wharf and the ruins of buildings, 
+behind which rose a bank clad with scrub and surmounted by some 
+gnarled and wind-crooked firs.
+
+"There's dashed little cover here," said Heritage.
+
+"There's no muckle," Dougal assented.  "But they canna see us from the 
+policies, and it's no' like there's anybody watchin' from the Hoose.  
+The danger is somebody on the other side, but we'll have to risk it.  
+Once among thae big stones we're safe.  Are ye ready?"
+
+Five minutes later Dickson found himself gasping in the lee of 
+a boulder, while Dougal was making a cast forward.  The scout 
+returned with a hopeful report.  "I think we're safe till we get 
+into the policies.  There's a road that the auld folk made when 
+ships used to come here.  Down there it's deeper than Clyde at the 
+Broomielaw.  Has the auld yin got his wind yet?  There's no 
+time to waste."
+
+Up that broken hillside they crawled, well in the cover of the 
+tumbled stones, till they reached a low wall which was the boundary 
+of the garden.  The House was now behind them on their right rear, 
+and as they topped the crest they had a glimpse of an ancient 
+dovecot and the ruins of the old Huntingtower on the short thymy 
+turf which ran seaward to the cliffs.  Dougal led them along a sunk 
+fence which divided the downs from the lawns behind the house, and, 
+avoiding the stables, brought them by devious ways to a thicket of 
+rhododendrons and broom.  On all fours they travelled the length of 
+the place, and came to the edge where some forgotten gardeners had 
+once tended a herbaceous border.  The border was now rank and wild, 
+and, lying flat under the shade of an azalea, and peering through 
+the young spears of iris, Dickson and Heritage regarded the 
+north-western facade of the house.
+
+The ground before them had been a sunken garden, from which a 
+steep wall, once covered with creepers and rock plants, rose to a 
+long verandah, which was pillared and open on that side ; but at 
+each end built up half-way and glazed for the rest.  There was a 
+glass roof, and inside untended shrubs sprawled in broken 
+plaster vases.
+
+"Ye maun bide here," said Dougal, "and no cheep above your breath.  
+Afore we dare to try that wall, I maun ken where Lean and Spittal 
+and Dobson are.  I'm off to spy the policies.'  He glided out of 
+sight behind a clump of pampas grass.
+
+For hours, so it seemed, Dickson was left to his own unpleasant 
+reflections.  His body, prone on the moist earth, was fairly 
+comfortable, but his mind was ill at ease.  The scramble up the 
+hillside had convinced him that he was growing old, and there was no 
+rebound in his soul to counter the conviction.  He felt listless, 
+spiritless--an apathy with fright trembling somewhere at the 
+back of it.  He regarded the verandah wall with foreboding.  
+How on earth could he climb that?  And if he did there would be his 
+exposed hinder-parts inviting a shot from some malevolent gentleman 
+among the trees.  He reflected that he would give a large sum of 
+money to be out of this preposterous adventure.
+
+Heritage's hand was stretched towards him, containing two of Mrs. 
+Morran's jellied scones, of which the Poet had been wise enough to 
+bring a supply in his pocket.  The food cheered him, for he was 
+growing very hungry, and he began to take an interest in the scene 
+before him instead of his own thoughts.  He observed every detail 
+of the verandah.  There was a door at one end, he noted, giving on 
+a path which wound down to the sunk garden.  As he looked he heard 
+a sound of steps and saw a man ascending this path.
+
+It was the lame man whom Dougal had called Spittal, the dweller in 
+the South Lodge.  Seen at closer quarters he was an odd-looking 
+being, lean as a heron, wry-necked, but amazingly quick on his feet.  
+Had not Mrs. Morran said that he hobbled as fast as other folk ran?  
+He kept his eyes on the ground and seemed to be talking to himself 
+as he went, but he was alert enough, for the dropping of a twig from 
+a dying magnolia transferred him in an instant into a figure of 
+active vigilance.  No risks could be run with that watcher.  He took 
+a key from his pocket, opened the garden door and entered the verandah.  
+For a moment his shuffle sounded on its tiled floor, and then he 
+entered the door admitting from the verandah to the House.  It was 
+clearly unlocked, for there came no sound of a turning key.
+
+Dickson had finished the last crumbs of his scones before the man 
+emerged again.  He seemed to be in a greater hurry than ever as he 
+locked the garden door behind him and hobbled along the west front 
+of the House till he was lost to sight.  After that the time 
+passed slowly.  A pair of yellow wagtails arrived and played at 
+hide-and-seek among the stuccoed pillars.  The little dry scratch of 
+their claws was heard clearly in the still air.  Dickson had almost 
+fallen asleep when a smothered exclamation from Heritage woke him to 
+attention.  A girl had appeared in the verandah.
+
+Above the parapet he saw only her body from the waist up.  
+She seemed to be clad in bright colours, for something red was 
+round her shoulders and her hair was bound with an orange scarf.  
+She was tall--that he could tell, tall and slim and very young.  
+Her face was turned seaward, and she stood for a little scanning the 
+broad channel, shading her eyes as if to search for something on the 
+extreme horizon.  The air was very quiet and he thought that he 
+could hear her sigh.  Then she turned and re-entered the House, 
+while Heritage by his side began to curse under his breathe with a 
+shocking fervour.
+
+
+One of Dickson's troubles had been that he did not believe Dougal's 
+story, and the sight of the girl removed one doubt.  That bright 
+exotic thing did not belong to the Cruives or to Scotland at all, 
+and that she should be in the House removed the place from the 
+conventional dwelling to which the laws against burglary applied.
+
+There was a rustle among the rhododendrons and the fiery face of 
+Dougal appeared.  He lay between the other two, his chin on his 
+hands, and grunted out his report.
+
+"After they had their dinner Dobson and Lean yokit a horse and went 
+off to Auchenlochan.  I seen them pass the Garple brig, so that's 
+two accounted for.  Has Spittal been round here?"
+
+"Half an hour ago," said Heritage, consulting a wrist watch.
+
+"It was him that keepit me waitin' so long.  But he's safe enough 
+now, for five minutes syne he was splittin' firewood at the back 
+door o' his hoose....I've found a ladder, an auld yin in yon 
+lot o' bushes.  It'll help wi' the wall.  There!  I've gotten my 
+breath again and we can start."
+
+The ladder was fetched by Heritage and proved to be ancient and 
+wanting many rungs, but sufficient in length.  The three stood 
+silent for a moment, listening like stags, and then ran across the 
+intervening lawn to the foot of the verandah wall. Dougal went up 
+first, then Heritage, and lastly Dickson, stiff and giddy from his 
+long lie under the bushes.  Below the parapet the verandah floor was 
+heaped with old garden litter, rotten matting, dead or derelict 
+bulbs, fibre, withies, and strawberry nets.  It was Dougal's 
+intention to pull up the ladder and hide it among the rubbish 
+against the hour of departure.  But Dickson had barely put his foot 
+on the parapet when there was a sound of steps within the House 
+approaching the verandah door.
+
+The ladder was left alone.  Dougal's hand brought Dickson summarily 
+to the floor, where he was fairly well concealed by a mess of matting.  
+Unfortunately his head was in the vicinity of some upturned pot-plants, 
+so that a cactus ticked his brow and a spike of aloe supported 
+painfully the back of his neck.  Heritage was prone behind two 
+old water-butts, and Dougal was in a hamper which had once contained 
+seed potatoes.  The house door had panels of opaque glass, so the 
+new-comer could not see the doings of the three till it was opened, 
+and by that time all were in cover.
+
+The man--it was Spittal--walked rapidly along the verandah and out 
+of the garden door.  He was talking to himself again, and Dickson, 
+who had a glimpse of his face, thought he looked both evil and furious.  
+Then came some anxious moments, for had the man glanced back when he 
+was once outside, he must have seen the tell-tale ladder.  But he 
+seemed immersed in his own reflections, for he hobbled steadily along 
+the house front till he was lost to sight.
+
+"That'll be the end o' them the day," said Dougal, as he helped 
+Heritage to pull up the ladder and stow it away.  "We've got the 
+place to oursels, now.  Forward, men, forward."  He tried the handle 
+of the House door and led the way in.
+
+A narrow paved passage took them into what had once been the garden 
+room, where the lady of the house had arranged her flowers, and the 
+tennis racquets and croquet mallets had been kept.  It was very dusty, 
+and on the cobwebbed walls still hung a few soiled garden overalls.  
+A door beyond opened into a huge murky hall, murky, for the windows 
+were shuttered, and the only light came through things like port-holes 
+far up in the wall.  Dougal, who seemed to know his way about, 
+halted them.  "Stop here till I scout a bit.  The women bide in a 
+wee room through that muckle door.'  Bare feet stole across the oak 
+flooring, there was the sound of a door swinging on its hinges, and 
+then silence and darkness.  Dickson put out a hand for companionship 
+and clutched Heritage's; to his surprise it was cold and all a-tremble.
+They listened for voices, and thought they could detect a far-away sob.
+
+It was some minutes before Dougal returned.  "A bonny kettle o' 
+fish," he whispered.  "They're both greetin'.  We're just in time.  
+Come on, the pair o' ye."
+
+Through a green baize door they entered a passage which led to the 
+kitchen regions, and turned in at the first door on their right.  
+From its situation Dickson calculated that the room lay on the 
+seaward side of the House next to the verandah.  The light was bad, 
+for the two windows were partially shuttered, but it had plainly 
+been a smoking-room, for there were pipe-racks by the hearth, and on 
+the walls a number of old school and college photographs, a couple of 
+oars with emblazoned names, and a variety of stags' and roebucks' heads.  
+There was no fire in the grate, but a small oil-stove burned inside 
+the fender.  In a stiff-backed chair sat an elderly woman, who seemed 
+to feel the cold, for she was muffled to the neck in a fur coat.  
+Beside her, so that the late afternoon light caught her face and head, 
+stood a girl.
+
+Dickson's first impression was of a tall child.  The pose, startled 
+and wild and yet curiously stiff and self-conscious, was that of a 
+child striving to remember a forgotten lesson.  One hand clutched a 
+handkerchief, the other was closing and unclosing on a knob of the 
+chair back.  She was staring at Dougal, who stood like a gnome in 
+the centre of the floor.  "Here's the gentlemen I was tellin' ye 
+about," was his introduction, but her eyes did not move.
+
+Then Heritage stepped forward.  "We have met before, Mademoiselle," 
+he said.  "Do you remember Easter in 1918--in the house in the 
+Trinita dei Monte?"
+
+The girl looked at him.
+
+"I do not remember,' she said slowly.
+
+"But I was the English officer who had the apartments on the floor 
+below you.  I saw you every morning.  You spoke to me sometimes."
+
+"You are a soldier?" she asked, with a new note in her voice.
+
+"I was then--till the war finished.'
+
+"And now?  Why have you come here?"
+
+"To offer you help if you need it.  If not, to ask your pardon 
+and go away."
+
+The shrouded figure in the chair burst suddenly into rapid 
+hysterical talk in some foreign tongue which Dickson suspected 
+of being French.  Heritage replied in the same language, and 
+the girl joined in with sharp questions.  Then the Poet turned 
+to Dickson.
+
+"This is my friend.  If you will trust us we will do our best 
+to help you."
+
+The eyes rested on Dickson's face, and he realized that he was in 
+the presence of something the like of which he had never met in his 
+life before.  It was a loveliness greater than he had imagined was 
+permitted by the Almighty to His creatures.  The little face was more 
+square than oval, with a low broad brow and proud exquisite eyebrows.  
+The eyes were of a colour which he could never decide on; afterwards
+he used to allege obscurely that they were the colour of everything 
+in Spring.  There was a delicate pallor in the cheeks, and the face 
+bore signs of suffering and care, possibly even of hunger; but for 
+all that there was youth there, eternal and triumphant!  Not youth such 
+as he had known it, but youth with all history behind it, youth with 
+centuries of command in its blood and the world's treasures of beauty 
+and pride in its ancestry.  Strange, he thought, that a thing so fine 
+should be so masterful.  He felt abashed in every inch of him. 
+
+As the eyes rested on him their sorrowfulness seemed to be shot 
+with humour.  A ghost of a smile lurked there, to which Dickson 
+promptly responded.  He grinned and bowed.
+
+"Very pleased to meet you, Mem.  I'm Mr. McCunn from Glasgow."
+
+"You don't even know my name," she said.
+
+"We don't," said Heritage.
+
+"They call me Saskia.  This," nodding to the chair, "is my cousin 
+Eugenie....We are in very great trouble.  But why should I tell you? 
+I do not know you.  You cannot help me."
+
+"We can try," said Heritage.  "Part of your trouble we know already 
+through that boy.  You are imprisoned in this place by scoundrels.  
+We are here to help you to get out.  We want to ask no questions-
+-only to do what you bid us."
+
+"You are not strong enough," she said sadly.  "A young man--an old 
+man--and a little boy.  There are many against us, and any moment 
+there may be more."
+
+It was Dougal's turn to break in,  "There's Lean and Spittal and 
+Dobson and four tinklers in the Dean--that's seven ; but there's us 
+three and five more Gorbals Die-hards--that's eight."
+
+There was something in the boy's truculent courage that cheered her.
+"I wonder," she said, and her eyes fell on each in turn.
+
+Dickson felt impelled to intervene.
+
+"I think this is a perfectly simple business.  Here's a lady shut up 
+in this house against her will by a wheen blagyirds.  This is a free 
+country and the law doesn't permit that.  My advice if for one of us 
+to inform the police at Auchenlochan and get Dobson and his friends 
+took up and the lady set free to do what she likes.  That is, if 
+these folks are really molesting her, which is not yet quite clear 
+to my mind."
+
+"Alas! It is not so simple as that," she said.  "I dare not invoke 
+your English law, for perhaps in the eyes of that law I am a thief."
+
+"Deary me, that's a bad business," said the startled Dickson.
+
+The two women talked together in some strange tongue, and the elder 
+appeared to be pleading and the younger objecting.  Then Saskia 
+seemed to come to a decision.
+
+"I will tell you all," and she looked straight at Heritage.  "I do 
+not think you would be cruel or false, for you have honourable faces.. 
+..Listen, then.  I am a Russian, and for two years have been an exile.  
+I will not now speak of my house, for it is no more, or how I escaped, 
+for it is the common tale of all of us.  I have seen things more 
+terrible than any dream and yet lived, but I have paid a price for 
+such experience.  First I went to Italy where there were friends, and 
+I wished only to have peace among kindly people.  About poverty I do 
+not care, for, to us, who have lost all the great things, the want of 
+bread is a little matter.  But peace was forbidden me, for I learned 
+that we Russians had to win back our fatherland again, and that the 
+weakest must work in that cause.  So I was set my task, and it was 
+very hard....There were others still hidden in Russia which must be 
+brought to a safe place.  In that work I was ordered to share."
+
+She spoke in almost perfect English, with a certain foreign precision.  
+Suddenly she changed to French, and talked rapidly to Heritage.
+
+"She has told me about her family," he said, turning to Dickson.  
+"It is among the greatest in Russia, the very greatest after the throne."  
+Dickson could only stare.
+
+"Our enemies soon discovered me," she went on.  "Oh, but they are 
+very clever, these enemies, and they have all the criminals of the 
+world to aid them.  Here you do not understand what they are.  
+You good people in England think they are well-meaning dreamers who 
+are forced into violence by the persecution of Western Europe.  
+But you are wrong.  Some honest fools there are among them, but the 
+power--the true power--lies with madmen and degenerates, and they 
+have for allies the special devil that dwells in each country.  
+That is why they cast their nets as wide as mankind."
+
+She shivered, and for a second her face wore a look which Dickson 
+never forgot, the look of one who has looked over the edge of life 
+into the outer dark.
+
+"There were certain jewels of great price which were about to be 
+turned into guns and armies for our enemies.  These our people 
+recovered, and the charge of them was laid on me.  Who would 
+suspect, they said, a foolish girl?  But our enemies were very 
+clever, and soon the hunt was cried against me.  They tried to rob 
+me of them, but they failed, for I too had become clever.  Then they 
+asked for the help of the law--first in Italy and then in France.  
+Ah, it was subtly done.  Respectable bourgeois, who hated the 
+Bolsheviki but had bought long ago the bonds of my country, desired 
+to be repaid their debts out of the property of the Russian crown 
+which might be found in the West.  But behind them were the Jews, 
+and behind the Jews our unsleeping enemies.  Once I was enmeshed in 
+the law I would be safe for them, and presently they would find the 
+hiding-place of the treasure, and while the bourgeois were clamouring 
+in the courts it would be safe in their pockets.  So I fled.  
+For months I have been fleeing and hiding.  They have tried to kidnap 
+me many times, and once they have tried to kill me, but I, too, have 
+become clever--oh, so clever.  And I have learned not to fear."
+
+This simple recital affected Dickson's honest soul with the 
+liveliest indignation.  "Sich doings!" he exclaimed, and he could 
+not forbear from whispering to Heritage an extract from that 
+gentleman's conversation the first night at Kirkmichael.  
+"We needn't imitate all their methods, but they've got hold of the 
+right end of the stick.  They seek truth and reality.'  The reply 
+from the Poet was an angry shrug.
+
+"Why and how did you come here?" he asked.
+
+"I always meant to come to England, for I thought it the sanest 
+place in a mad world.  Also it is a good country to hide in, for it 
+is apart from Europe, and your police, as I thought, do not permit 
+evil men to be their own law.  But especially I had a friend, a 
+Scottish gentleman, whom I knew in the days when we Russians were 
+still a nation.  I saw him again in Italy, and since he was kind and 
+brave I told him some part of my troubles.  He was called Quentin 
+Kennedy, and now he is dead.  He told me that in Scotland he had a 
+lonely chateau, where I could hide secretly and safely, and against 
+the day when I might be hard-pressed he gave me a letter to his 
+steward, bidding him welcome me as a guest when I made application.  
+At that time I did not think I would need such sanctuary, but a 
+month ago the need became urgent, for the hunt in France was very 
+close on me.  So I sent a message to the steward as Captain Kennedy 
+told me."
+
+"What is his name?" Heritage asked.
+
+She spelt it, "Monsieur Loudon--L-O-U-D-O-N in the town of Auchenlochan."
+
+"The factor," said Dickson, "And what then?"
+
+"Some spy must have found me out.  I had a letter from this Loudon 
+bidding me come to Auchenlochan.  There I found no steward to 
+receive me, but another letter saying that that night a carriage 
+would be in waiting to bring me here.  It was midnight when we 
+arrived, and we were brought in by strange ways to this house, with 
+no light but a single candle.  Here we were welcomed indeed, but 
+by an enemy."
+
+"Which?" asked Heritage. "Dobson or Lean or Spittal?"
+
+"Dobson I do not know.  Leon was there.  He is no Russian, but 
+a Belgian who was a valet in my father's service till he joined 
+the Bolsheviki.  Next day the Lett Spidel came, and I knew that I 
+was in very truth entrapped.  For of all our enemies he is, save 
+one, the most subtle and unwearied."
+
+Her voice had trailed off into flat weariness.  Again Dickson was 
+reminded of a child, for her arms hung limp by her side; and her 
+slim figure in its odd clothes was curiously like that of a boy in a 
+school blazer.  Another resemblance perplexed him.  She had a hint 
+of Janet--about the mouth--Janet, that solemn little girl those 
+twenty years in her grave.
+
+Heritage was wrinkling his brows.  "I don't think I quite understand.  
+The jewels?  You have them with you?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"These men wanted to rob you.  Why didn't they do it between here 
+and Auchenlochan?  You had no chance to hide them on the journey.  
+Why did they let you come here where you were in a better position 
+to baffle them?"
+
+She shook her head.  "I cannot explain--except, perhaps, that 
+Spidel had not arrived that night, and Leon may have been 
+waiting instructions."
+
+The other still looked dissatisfied.  "They are either clumsier 
+villains than I take them to be, or there is something deeper in the 
+business than we understand.  These jewels--are they here?"
+
+His tone was so sharp that she looked startled--almost suspicious.  
+Then she saw that in his face which reassured her.  "I have them 
+hidden here.  I have grown very skilful in hiding things."
+
+"Have they searched for them?"
+
+"The first day they demanded them of me.  I denied all knowledge.  
+Then they ransacked this house--I think they ransack it daily, but I 
+am too clever for them.  I am not allowed to go beyond the verandah, 
+and when at first I disobeyed there was always one of them in wait to 
+force me back with a pistol behind my head.  Every morning Leon 
+brings us food for the day--good food, but not enough, so that 
+Cousin Eugenie is always hungry, and each day he and Spidel question 
+and threaten me.  This afternoon Spidel has told me that their 
+patience is at an end.  He has given me till tomorrow at noon to 
+produce the jewels.  If not, he says I will die."
+
+"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed.
+
+"There will be no mercy for us," she said solemnly.  "He and his 
+kind think as little of shedding blood as of spilling water.  But I 
+do not think he will kill me.  I think I will kill him first, 
+but after that I shall surely die.  As for Cousin Eugenie, 
+I do not know."
+
+Her level matter-of-fact tone seemed to Dickson most shocking, for 
+he could not treat it as mere melodrama.  It carried a horrid 
+conviction.  "We must get you out of this at once," he declared.
+
+"I cannot leave.  I will tell you why.  When I came to this country 
+I appointed one to meet me here.  He is a kinsman who knows England 
+well, for he fought in your army.  With him by my side I have no fear.  
+It is altogether needful that I wait for him."
+
+"Then there is something more which you haven't told us?" 
+Heritage asked.
+
+Was there the faintest shadow of a blush on her cheek?  "There is 
+something more," she said.
+
+She spoke to Heritage in French, and Dickson caught the name 
+"Alexis" and a word which sounded like "prance."  The Poet listened 
+eagerly and nodded.  "I have heard of him," he said.
+
+"But have you not seen him?  A tall man with a yellow beard, 
+who bears himself proudly.  Being of my mother's race he has 
+eyes like mine."
+
+"That's the man she was askin' me about yesterday," said Dougal, 
+who had squatted on the floor.
+
+Heritage shook his head.  "We only came here last night.  When did 
+you expect Prince--your friend."
+
+"I hoped to find him here before me.  Oh, it is his not coming that 
+terrifies me.  I must wait and hope.  But if he does not come in 
+time another may come before him."
+
+"The ones already here are not all the enemies that threaten you?"
+
+"Indeed, no.  The worst has still to come, and till I know he is 
+here I do not greatly fear Spidel or Leon.  They receive orders and 
+do not give them."
+
+Heritage ran a perplexed hand through his hair.  The sunset which 
+had been flaming for some time in the unshuttered panes was now 
+passing into the dark.  The girl lit a lamp after first shuttering 
+the rest of the windows.  As she turned up the wick the odd dusty 
+room and its strange company were revealed more clearly, and Dickson 
+saw with a shock how haggard was the beautiful face.  A great pity 
+seized him and almost conquered his timidity.
+
+"It is very difficult to help you," Heritage was saying.  "You won't 
+leave this place, and you won't claim the protection of the law.  
+You are very independent, Mademoiselle, but it can't go on for ever.  
+The man you fear may arrive at any moment.  At any moment, too, your 
+treasure may by discovered."
+
+"It is that that weighs on me," she cried.  "The jewels!  They are 
+my solemn trust, but they burden me terribly.  If I were only rid 
+of them and knew them to be safe I should face the rest with a 
+braver mind."
+
+"If you'll take my advice," said Dickson slowly, "you'll get them 
+deposited in a bank and take a receipt for them.  A Scotch bank 
+is no' in a hurry to surrender a deposit without it gets the 
+proper authority."
+
+Heritage brought his hands together with a smack.  "That's an idea.  
+Will you trust us to take these things and deposit them safely?"
+
+For a little she was silent and her eyes were fixed on each of the 
+trio in turn.  "I will trust you," she said at last.  "I think you 
+will not betray me."
+
+"By God, we won't!" said the Poet fervently.  "Dogson, it's up to you.  
+You march off to Glasgow in double quick time and place the stuff in 
+your own name in your own bank.  There's not a moment to lose.  
+D'you hear?"
+
+"I will that," To his own surprise Dickson spoke without hesitation.  
+Partly it was because of his merchant's sense of property, which 
+made him hate the thought that miscreants should acquire that to 
+which they had no title ; but mainly it was the appeal in those 
+haggard childish eyes.  "But I'm not going to be tramping the 
+country in the night carrying a fortune and seeking for trains that 
+aren't there.  I'll go the first thing in the morning."
+
+"Where are they?" Heritage asked. 
+
+"That I do not tell.  But I will fetch them."
+
+She left the room, and presently returned with three odd little 
+parcels wrapped in leather and tied with thongs of raw hide.  
+She gave them to Heritage, who held them appraisingly in his hand 
+and then passed them on to Dickson.
+
+"I do not ask about their contents.  We take them from you as they 
+are, and, please God, when the moment comes they will be returned to 
+you as you gave them.  You trust us, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"I trust you, for you are a soldier.  Oh, and I thank you from my 
+heart, my friends"  She held out a hand to each, which caused 
+Heritage to grow suddenly very red.
+
+"I will remain in the neighbourhood to await developments," he said.  
+"We had better leave you now.  Dougal, lead on."
+
+Before going, he took the girl's hand again, and with a sudden 
+movement bent and kissed it.  Dickson shook it heartily.  "Cheer up, 
+Mem," he observed.  "There's a better time coming.'  His last 
+recollection of her eyes was of a soft mistiness not far from tears.  
+His pouch and pipe had strange company jostling them in his pocket 
+as he followed the others down the ladder into the night.
+
+Dougal insisted that they must return by the road of the morning.  
+"We daren't go by the Laver, for that would bring us by the 
+public-house.  If the worst comes to the worst, and we fall in wi' 
+any of the deevils, they must think ye've changed your mind and come 
+back from Auchenlochan."
+
+The night smelt fresh and moist as if a break in the weather 
+were imminent.  As they scrambled along the Garple Dean a pinprick 
+of light below showed where the tinklers were busy by their fire. 
+Dickson's spirits suffered a sharp fall and he began to marvel at 
+his temerity.  What in Heaven's name had he undertaken?  To carry 
+very precious things, to which certainly he had no right, through 
+the enemy to distant Glasgow.  How could he escape the notice of 
+the watchers?  He was already suspect, and the sight of him back 
+again in Dalquharter would double that suspicion.  He must brazen 
+it out, but he distrusted his powers with such tell-tale stuff 
+in his pockets.  They might murder him anywhere on the moor road 
+or in an empty railway carriage.  An unpleasant memory of various 
+novels he had read in which such things happened haunted his mind.. 
+..There was just one consolation.  This job over, he would be quit 
+of the whole business.  And honourably quit, too, for he would have 
+played a manly part in a most unpleasant affair.  He could retire to 
+the idyllic with the knowledge that he had not been wanting when 
+Romance called.  Not a soul should ever hear of it, but he saw 
+himself in the future tramping green roads or sitting by his winter 
+fireside pleasantly retelling himself the tale.
+
+Before they came to the Garple bridge Dougal insisted that they 
+should separate, remarking that "it would never do if we were seen 
+thegither."  Heritage was despatched by a short cut over fields to 
+the left, which eventually, after one or two plunges into ditches, 
+landed him safely in Mrs. Morran's back yard.  Dickson and Dougal 
+crossed the bridge and tramped Dalquharter-wards by the highway.  
+There was no sign of human life in that quiet place with owls 
+hooting and rabbits rustling in the undergrowth.  Beyond the woods 
+they came in sight of the light in the back kitchen, and both seemed 
+to relax their watchfulness when it was most needed.  Dougal sniffed 
+the air and looked seaward. 
+
+"It's coming on to rain," he observed.  "There should be a muckle 
+star there, and when you can't see it it means wet weather wi' 
+this wind."
+
+"What star?" Dickson asked.
+
+"The one wi' the Irish-lukkin' name.  What's that they call it? 
+O'Brien?"  And he pointed to where the constellation of the hunter 
+should have been declining on the western horizon.
+
+There was a bend of the road behind them, and suddenly round it came 
+a dogcart driven rapidly.  Dougal slipped like a weasel into a bush, 
+and presently Dickson stood revealed in the glare of a lamp.  
+The horse was pulled up sharply and the driver called out to him.  
+He saw that it was Dobson the innkeeper with Leon beside him.
+
+"Who is it?" cried the voice.  "Oh, you! I thought ye were off the day?"
+
+Dickson rose nobly to the occasion.
+
+"I thought myself I was.  But I didn't think much of Auchenlochan, 
+and I took a fancy to come back and spend the last night of my 
+holiday with my Auntie.  I'm off to Glasgow first thing the morn's morn."
+
+"So!" said the voice.  "Queer thing I never saw ye on the 
+Auchenlochan road, where ye can see three mile before ye."
+
+"I left early and took it easy along the shore.'
+
+"Did ye so?  Well, good-sight to ye."
+
+Five minutes later Dickson walked into Mrs. Morran's kitchen, 
+where Heritage was busy making up for a day of short provender.
+
+"I'm for Glasgow to-morrow, Auntie Phemie," he cried.  "I want you 
+to loan me a wee trunk with a key, and steek the door and windows, 
+for I've a lot to tell you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+HOW MR. McCUNN DEPARTED WITH RELIEF AND RETURNED WITH RESOLUTION
+
+
+At seven o'clock on the following morning the post-cart, summoned by 
+an early message from Mrs. Morran, appeared outside the cottage.  
+In it sat the ancient postman, whose real home was Auchenlochan, 
+but who slept alternate nights in Dalquharter, and beside him Dobson 
+the innkeeper.  Dickson and his hostess stood at the garden-gate, 
+the former with his pack on his back, and at his feet a small stout 
+wooden box, of the kind in which cheeses are transported, garnished 
+with an immense padlock.  Heritage for obvious reasons did not appear; 
+at the moment he was crouched on the floor of the loft watching the 
+departure through a gap in the dimity curtains.
+
+The traveller, after making sure that Dobson was looking, furtively 
+slipped the key of the trunk into his knapsack.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Auntie Phemie," he said.  "I'm sure you've been 
+awful kind to me, and I don't know how to thank you for all 
+you're sending."
+
+"Tuts, Dickson, my man, they're hungry folk about Glesca that'll be 
+glad o' my scones and jeelie.  Tell Mirren I'm rale pleased wi' her 
+man, and haste ye back soon.
+
+The trunk was deposited on the floor of the cart, and Dickson 
+clambered into the back seat.  He was thankful that he had not to sit 
+next to Dobson, for he had tell-tale stuff on his person.  The morning 
+was wet, so he wore his waterproof, which concealed his odd tendency to 
+stoutness about the middle.
+
+Mrs. Morran played her part well, with all the becoming gravity of an 
+affectionate aunt, but as soon as the post-cart turned the bend of 
+the road her demeanour changed.  She was torn with convulsions of 
+silent laughter.  She retreated to the kitchen, sank into a chair, 
+wrapped her face in her apron and rocked.  Heritage, descending, 
+found her struggling to regain composure.  "D'ye ken his wife's name?" 
+she gasped.  "I ca'ed her Mirren!  And maybe the body's no' mairried!  
+Hech sirs!  Hech sirs!"
+
+Meanwhile Dickson was bumping along the moor-road on the back of 
+the post-cart.  He had worked out a plan, just as he had been used 
+aforetime to devise a deal in foodstuffs.  He had expected one of 
+the watchers to turn up, and was rather relieved that it should be 
+Dobson, whom he regarded as "the most natural beast" of the three.  
+Somehow he did not think that he would be molested before he 
+reached the station, since his enemies would still be undecided 
+in their minds.  Probably they only wanted to make sure that he had 
+really departed to forget all about him.  But if not, he had 
+his plan ready.
+
+"Are you travelling to-day?" he asked the innkeeper.
+
+"Just as far as the station to see about some oil-cake I'm expectin'.  
+What's in your wee kist?  Ye came here wi' nothing but the bag on 
+your back."
+
+"Ay, the kist is no' mine.  It's my auntie's.  She's a kind body, 
+and nothing would serve but she must pack a box for me to take back.  
+Let me see.  There's a baking of scones; three pots of honey and one 
+of rhubarb jam--she was aye famous for her rhubarb jam; a mutton ham, 
+which you can't get for love or money in Glasgow; some home-made 
+black puddings, and a wee skim-milk cheese.  I doubt I'll have to 
+take a cab from the station."
+
+Dobson appeared satisfied, lit a short pipe, and relapsed 
+into meditation.  The long uphill road, ever climbing to where far 
+off showed the tiny whitewashed buildings which were the railway 
+station, seemed interminable this morning.  The aged postman 
+addressed strange objurgations to his aged horse and muttered 
+reflections to himself, the innkeeper smoked, and Dickson stared back 
+into the misty hollow where lay Dalquharter.  The south-west wind had 
+brought up a screen of rain clouds and washed all the countryside in 
+a soft wet grey.  But the eye could still travel a fair distance, and 
+Dickson thought he had a glimpse of a figure on a bicycle leaving the 
+village two miles back.  He wondered who it could be.  Not Heritage, 
+who had no bicycle.  Perhaps some woman who was conspicuously late for 
+the train.  Women were the chief cyclists nowadays in country places.
+
+Then he forgot about the bicycle and twisted his neck to watch the station.  
+It was less than a mile off now, and they had no time to spare, for away 
+to the south among the hummocks of the bog he saw the smoke of the train 
+coming from Auchenlochan.  The postman also saw it and whipped up his 
+beast into a clumsy canter.  Dickson, always nervous being late for trains, 
+forced his eyes away and regarded again the road behind him.  Suddenly the 
+cyclist had become quite plain--a little more than a mile behind--a man, 
+and pedalling furiously in spite of the stiff ascent.  It could only be 
+one person--Leon.  He must have discovered their visit to the House 
+yesterday and be on the way to warn Dobson.  If he reached the station 
+before the train, there would be no journey to Glasgow that day for 
+one respectable citizen.
+
+Dickson was in a fever of impatience and fright.  He dared not abjure 
+the postman to hurry, lest Dobson should turn his head and descry his 
+colleague.  But that ancient man had begun to realize the shortness 
+of time and was urging the cart along at a fair pace, since they were 
+now on the flatter shelf of land which carried the railway.
+
+Dickson kept his eyes fixed on the bicycle and his teeth shut tight 
+on his lower lip.  Now it was hidden by the last dip of hill; now it 
+emerged into view not a quarter of a mile behind, and its rider gave 
+vent to a shrill call.  Luckily the innkeeper did not hear, for at 
+that moment with a jolt the cart pulled up at the station door, 
+accompanied by the roar of the incoming train.
+
+Dickson whipped down from the back seat and seized the solitary porter.  
+"Label the box for Glasgow and into the van with it,  Quick, man, 
+and there'll be a shilling for you."  He had been doing some rapid 
+thinking these last minutes and had made up his mind.  If Dobson and 
+he were alone in a carriage he could not have the box there; that 
+must be elsewhere, so that Dobson could not examine it if he were set 
+on violence, somewhere in which it could still be a focus of suspicion 
+and attract attention from his person,  He took his ticket, and rushed 
+on to the platform, to find the porter and the box at the door of 
+the guard's van.  Dobson was not there.  With the vigour of a fussy 
+traveller he shouted directions to the guard to take good care of 
+his luggage, hurled a shilling at the porter, and ran for a carriage.  
+At that moment he became aware of Dobson hurrying through the entrance.  
+He must have met Leon and heard news from him, for his face was red and 
+his ugly brows darkening.
+
+The train was in motion.  "Here, you" Dobson's voice shouted.  
+"Stop!  I want a word wi' ye."  Dickson plunged at a third-class 
+carriage, for he saw faces behind the misty panes, and above all 
+things then he feared an empty compartment.  He clambered on to 
+the step, but the handle would not turn, and with a sharp pang of 
+fear he felt the innkeeper's grip on his arm.  Then some Samaritan 
+from within let down the window, opened the door, and pulled him up.  
+He fell on a seat, and a second later Dobson staggered in beside him.
+
+Thank Heaven, the dirty little carriage was nearly full.  There were 
+two herds, each with a dog and a long hazel crook, and an elderly 
+woman who looked like a ploughman's wife out for a day's marketing.  
+And there was one other whom Dickson recognized with peculiar joy--
+the bagman in the provision line of business whom he had met three 
+days before at Kilchrist.
+
+The recognition was mutual.  "Mr. McCunn!" the bagman exclaimed.  
+"My, but that was running it fine!  I hope you've had a pleasant 
+holiday, sir?"
+
+"Very pleasant.  I've been spending two nights with friends 
+down hereaways.  I've been very fortunate in the weather, for 
+it has broke just when I'm leaving."
+
+Dickson sank back on the hard cushions.  It had been a near thing, 
+but so far he had won.  He wished his heart did not beat so 
+fast, and he hoped he did not betray his disorder in his face.  
+Very deliberately he hunted for his pipe and filled it slowly.  
+Then he turned to Dobson,  "I didn't know you were travelling the day.  
+What about your oil-cake?"
+
+"I've changed my mind," was the gruff answer.
+
+"Was that you I heard crying on me when we were running for the train?"
+
+"Ay.  I thought ye had forgot about your kist."
+
+"No fear," said Dickson.  "I'm no' likely to forget my auntie's scones."
+
+He laughed pleasantly and then turned to the bagman.  Thereafter the 
+compartment hummed with the technicalities of the grocery trade.  
+He exerted himself to draw out his companion, to have him refer to 
+the great firm of D. McCunn, so that the innkeeper might be ashamed 
+of his suspicions.  What nonsense to imagine that a noted and wealthy 
+Glasgow merchant--the bagman's tone was almost reverential--would 
+concern himself with the affairs of a forgotten village and a 
+tumble-down house!
+
+Presently the train drew up at Kirkmichael station.  The woman 
+descended, and Dobson, after making sure that no one else meant 
+to follow her example, also left the carriage.  A porter was shouting: 
+"Fast train to Glasgow--Glasgow next stop."  Dickson watched the 
+innkeeper shoulder his way through the crowd in the direction of the 
+booking office.  "He's off to send a telegram," he decided.  
+"There'll be trouble waiting for me at the other end."
+
+When the train moved on he found himself disinclined for further talk.  
+He had suddenly become meditative, and curled up in a corner with his 
+head hard against the window pane, watching the wet fields and 
+glistening roads as they slipped past.  He had his plans made for his 
+conduct at Glasgow, but, Lord! how he loathed the whole business!  
+Last night he had had a kind of gusto in his desire to circumvent 
+villainy; at Dalquharter station he had enjoyed a momentary sense 
+of triumph; now he felt very small, lonely, and forlorn.  Only one 
+thought far at the back of his mind cropped up now and then to give 
+him comfort.  He was entering on the last lap.  Once get this 
+detestable errand done and he would be a free man, free to go back 
+to the kindly humdrum life from which he should never have strayed.  
+Never again, he vowed, never again.  Rather would he spend the rest 
+of his days in hydropathics than come within the pale of such 
+horrible adventures.  Romance, forsooth!  This was not the mild goddess 
+he had sought, but an awful harpy who battened on the souls of men.
+
+He had some bad minutes as the train passed through the suburbs and 
+along the grimy embankment by which the southern lines enter the city.  
+But as it rumbled over the river bridge and slowed down before the 
+terminus his vitality suddenly revived.  He was a business man, 
+and there was now something for him to do.
+
+After a rapid farewell to the bagman, he found a porter and hustled 
+his box out of the van in the direction of the left-luggage office.  
+Spies, summoned by Dobson's telegram, were, he was convinced, watching 
+his every movement, and he meant to see that they missed nothing.  
+He received his ticket for the box, and slowly and ostentatiously 
+stowed it away in his pack.  Swinging the said pack on his arm, he 
+sauntered through the entrance hall to the row of waiting taxi-cabs, 
+and selected the oldest and most doddering driver.  He deposited 
+the pack inside on the seat, and then stood still as if struck 
+with a sudden thought.
+
+"I breakfasted terrible early," he told the driver.  "I think I'll 
+have a bite to eat.  Will you wait?"
+
+"Ay," said the man, who was reading a grubby sheet of newspaper.  
+"I'll wait as long as ye like, for it's you that pays."
+
+Dickson left his pack in the cab and, oddly enough for a careful man, 
+he did not shut the door.  He re-entered the station, strolled to the 
+bookstall, and bought a Glasgow Herald.  His steps then tended to the 
+refreshment-room, where he ordered a cup of coffee and two Bath buns, 
+and seated himself at a small table.  There he was soon immersed 
+in the financial news, and though he sipped his coffee he left 
+the buns untasted.  He took out a penknife and cut various extracts 
+from the Herald, bestowing them carefully in his pocket.  An observer 
+would have seen an elderly gentleman absorbed in market quotations.  
+
+After a quarter of an hour had been spent in this performance 
+he happened to glance at the clock and rose with an exclamation.  
+He bustled out to his taxi and found the driver still intent 
+upon his reading.  "Here I am at last," he said cheerily, and had 
+a foot on the step, when he stopped suddenly with a cry.  It was 
+a cry of alarm, but also of satisfaction.
+
+"What's become of my pack?  I left it on the seat, and now it's gone!  
+There's been a thief here."
+
+The driver, roused from his lethargy, protested in the name of 
+his gods that no one had been near it.  "Ye took it into the station 
+wi' ye," he urged.
+
+"I did nothing of the kind.  Just you wait here till I see 
+the inspector.  A bonny watch YOU keep on a gentleman's things."
+
+But Dickson did not interview the railway authorities.  Instead he 
+hurried to the left-luggage office.  "I deposited a small box here a 
+short time ago.  I mind the number.  Is it here still?"
+
+The attendant glanced at the shelf.  "A wee deal box with iron bands.  
+It was took out ten minutes syne.  A man brought the ticket and took 
+it away on his shoulder."
+
+"Thank you.  There's been a mistake, but the blame's mine.  My man 
+mistook my orders."
+
+Then he returned to the now nervous taxi-driver.  "I've taken it 
+up with the station-master and he's putting the police on.  
+You'll likely be wanted, so I gave him your number.  It's a fair 
+disgrace that there should be so many thieves about this station.  
+It's not the first time I've lost things.  Drive me to West George 
+Street and look sharp."  And he slammed the door with the violence 
+of an angry man.
+
+But his reflections were not violent, for he smiled to himself.  
+"That was pretty neat.  They'll take some time to get the kist open, 
+for I dropped the key out of the train after we left Kirkmichael.  
+That gives me a fair start.  If I hadn't thought of that, they'd have 
+found some way to grip me and ripe me long before I got to the Bank."  
+He shuddered as he thought of the dangers he had escaped.  "As it is, 
+they're off the track for half an hour at least, while they're 
+rummaging among Auntie Phemie's scones."  At the thought he laughed 
+heartily, and when he brought the taxi-cab to a standstill by rapping 
+on the front window, he left it with a temper apparently restored.  
+Obviously he had no grudge against the driver, who to his immense 
+surprise was rewarded with ten shillings.
+
+Three minutes later Mr. McCunn might have been seen entering the 
+head office of the Strathclyde Bank and inquiring for the manager.  
+There was no hesitation about him now, for his foot was on his 
+native heath.  The chief cashier received him with deference in 
+spite of his unorthodox garb, for he was not the least honoured of 
+the bank's customers.  As it chanced he had been talking about him 
+that very morning to a gentleman from London.  "The strength of this 
+city," he had said, tapping his eyeglasses on his knuckles, "does not 
+lie in its dozen very rich men, but in the hundred or two homely folk 
+who make no parade of wealth.  Men like Dickson McCunn, for example, 
+who live all their life in a semi-detached villa and die worth half 
+a million."  And the Londoner had cordially assented.
+
+So Dickson was ushered promptly into an inner room, and was warmly 
+greeted by Mr. Mackintosh, the patron of the Gorbals Die-Hards.
+
+"I must thank you for your generous donation, McCunn.  Those boys will 
+get a little fresh air and quiet after the smoke and din of Glasgow.  
+A little country peace to smooth out the creases in their poor 
+little souls."
+
+"Maybe," said Dickson, with a vivid recollection of Dougal as he 
+had last seen him.  Somehow he did not think that peace was likely 
+to be the portion of that devoted band.  "But I've not come here to 
+speak about that."
+
+He took off his waterproof; then his coat and waistcoat; and showed 
+himself a strange figure with sundry bulges about the middle.  
+The manager's eyes grew very round.  Presently these excrescences 
+were revealed as linen bags sewn on to his shirt, and fitting into 
+the hollow between ribs and hip.  With some difficulty he slit the 
+bags and extracted three hide-bound packages.
+
+"See here, Mackintosh," he said solemnly.  "I hand you over these 
+parcels, and you're to put them in the innermost corner of your 
+strong room.  You needn't open them.  Just put them away as they are, 
+and write me a receipt for them.  Write it now."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh obediently took pen in hand.
+
+"What'll I call them?" he asked.
+
+"Just the three leather parcels handed to you by Dickson McCunn, 
+Esq., naming the date."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh wrote.  He signed his name with his usual flourish 
+and handed the slip to his client.
+
+"Now," said Dickson, "you'll put that receipt in the strong box 
+where you keep my securities and you'll give it up to nobody but 
+me in person and you'll surrender the parcels only on presentation 
+of the receipt.  D'you understand?"
+
+"Perfectly.  May I ask any questions?"
+
+"You'd better not if you don't want to hear lees.'
+
+"What's in the packages?"  Mr. Mackintosh weighed them in his hand.
+
+"That's asking," said Dickson.  "But I'll tell ye this much.  It's jools."
+
+"Your own?"
+
+"No, but I'm their trustee."
+
+"Valuable?"
+
+"I was hearing they were worth more than a million pounds."
+
+"God bless my soul.' said the startled manager.  "I don't like this 
+kind of business, McCunn."
+
+"No more do I.  But you'll do it to oblige an old friend and a 
+good customer.  If you don't know much about the packages you 
+know all about me.  Now, mind, I trust you."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh forced himself to a joke.  "Did you maybe steal them?"
+
+Dickson grinned.  "Just what I did.  And that being so, I want you 
+to let me out by the back door."
+
+When he found himself in the street he felt the huge relief of 
+a boy who had emerged with credit from the dentist's chair.  
+Remembering that here would be no midday dinner for him at home, 
+his first step was to feed heavily at a restaurant.  He had, so far 
+as he could see, surmounted all his troubles, his one regret being 
+that he had lost his pack, which contained among other things his 
+Izaak Walton and his safety razor.  He bought another razor and a new 
+Walton, and mounted an electric tram car en route for home.
+
+Very contented with himself he felt as the car swung across the 
+Clyde bridge.  He had done well--but of that he did not want to think, 
+for the whole beastly thing was over.  He was going to bury that memory, 
+to be resurrected perhaps on a later day when the unpleasantness had 
+been forgotten.  Heritage had his address, and knew where to come when 
+it was time to claim the jewels.  As for the watchers, they must have 
+ceased to suspect him, when they discovered the innocent contents of 
+his knapsack and Mrs. Morran's box.  Home for him, and a luxurious tea 
+by his own fireside; and then an evening with his books, for Heritage's 
+nonsense had stimulated his literary fervour.  He would dip into his 
+old favourites again to confirm his faith.  To-morrow he would go 
+for a jaunt somewhere--perhaps down the Clyde, or to the South of 
+England, which he had heard was a pleasant, thickly peopled country.  
+No more lonely inns and deserted villages for him; henceforth he 
+would make certain of comfort and peace.
+
+The rain had stopped, and, as the car moved down the dreary vista of 
+Eglinton street, the sky opened into fields of blue and the April sun 
+silvered the puddles.  It was in such place and under such weather 
+that Dickson suffered an overwhelming experience.
+
+It is beyond my skill, being all unlearned in the game of psycho-analysis, 
+to explain how this thing happened.  I concern myself only with facts.  
+Suddenly the pretty veil of self-satisfaction was rent from top to bottom, 
+and Dickson saw a figure of himself within, a smug leaden little figure 
+which simpered and preened itself and was hollow as a rotten nut.  
+And he hated it.
+
+The horrid truth burst on him that Heritage had been right.  
+He only played with life.  That imbecile image was a mere spectator, 
+content to applaud, but shrinking from the contact of reality.  
+It had been all right as a provision merchant, but when it 
+fancied itself capable of higher things it had deceived itself.  
+Foolish little image with its brave dreams and its swelling words 
+from Browning!  All make-believe of the feeblest.  He was a coward, 
+running away at the first threat of danger.  It was as if he were 
+watching a tall stranger with a wand pointing to the embarrassed 
+phantom that was himself, and ruthlessly exposing its frailties!  
+And yet the pitiless showman was himself too--himself as he wanted to be, 
+cheerful, brave, resourceful, indomitable.
+
+Dickson suffered a spasm of mortal agony.  "Oh, I'm surely not so bad 
+as all that," he groaned.  But the hurt was not only in his pride.  
+He saw himself being forced to new decisions, and each alternative 
+was of the blackest.  He fairly shivered with the horror of it.  
+The car slipped past a suburban station from which passengers were 
+emerging--comfortable black-coated men such as he had once been.  
+He was bitterly angry with Providence for picking him out of the 
+great crowd of sedentary folk for this sore ordeal.  "Why was I 
+tethered to sich a conscience?" was his moan.  But there was that 
+stern inquisitor with his pointer exploring his soul.  "You flatter 
+yourself you have done your share," he was saying.  "You will make 
+pretty stories about it to yourself, and some day you may tell your 
+friends, modestly disclaiming any special credit.  But you will be 
+a liar, for you know you are afraid.  You are running away when the 
+work is scarcely begun, and leaving it to a few boys and a poet whom 
+you had the impudence the other day to despise.  I think you are 
+worse than a coward.  I think you are a cad."
+
+His fellow-passengers on the top of the car saw an absorbed middle-aged 
+gentleman who seemed to have something the matter with his bronchial tubes.  
+They could not guess at the tortured soul.  The decision was coming nearer, 
+the alternatives loomed up dark and inevitable.  On one side was submission 
+to ignominy, on the other a return to that place which he detested, and yet 
+loathed himself for detesting.  "It seems I'm not likely to have much peace 
+either way," he reflected dismally.
+
+How the conflict would have ended had it continued on these lines 
+I cannot say.  The soul of Mr. McCunn was being assailed by moral and 
+metaphysical adversaries with which he had not been trained to deal.  
+But suddenly it leapt from negatives to positives.  He saw the face 
+of the girl in the shuttered House, so fair and young and yet so haggard.  
+It seemed to be appealing to him to rescue it from a great loneliness 
+and fear.  Yes, he had been right, it had a strange look of his Janet--
+the wide-open eyes, the solemn mouth.  What was to become of that child 
+if he failed her in her need?
+
+Now Dickson was a practical man, and this view of the case brought him 
+into a world which he understood.  "It's fair ridiculous," he reflected.  
+"Nobody there to take a grip of things.  Just a wheen Gorbals keelies 
+and the lad Heritage.  Not a business man among the lot."
+
+The alternatives, which hove before him like two great banks of 
+cloud, were altering their appearance.  One was becoming faint and 
+tenuous; the other, solid as ever, was just a shade less black.  
+He lifted his eyes and saw in the near distance the corner of the 
+road which led to his home.  "I must decide before I reach that corner," 
+he told himself.
+
+Then his mind became apathetic.  He began to whistle dismally through 
+his teeth, watching the corner as it came nearer.  The car stopped 
+with a jerk.  "I'll go back," he said aloud, clambering down the steps.  
+The truth was he had decided five minutes before when he first saw 
+Janet's face.
+
+He walked briskly to his house, entirely refusing to waste any more 
+energy on reflection.  "This is a business proposition," he told 
+himself, "and I'm going to handle it as sich"  Tibby was surprised 
+to see him and offered him tea in vain.  "I'm just back for 
+a few minutes.  Let's see the letters."
+
+There was one from his wife.  She proposed to stay another week at 
+the Neuk Hydropathic and suggested that he might join her and bring 
+her home.  He sat down and wrote a long affectionate reply, 
+declining, but expressing his delight that she was soon returning.  
+"That's very likely the last time Mamma will hear from me," 
+he reflected, but--oddly enough--without any great fluttering 
+of the heart.
+
+Then he proceeded to be furiously busy.  He sent out Tibby to buy 
+another knapsack and to order a cab and to cash a considerable cheque.  
+In the knapsack he packed a fresh change of clothing and the new 
+safety razor, but no books, for he was past the need of them.  
+That done, he drove to his solicitors.
+
+"What like a firm are Glendonan and Speirs in Edinburgh?" he asked 
+the senior partner.
+
+"Oh, very respectable.  Very respectable indeed.  Regular Edinburgh 
+W.S. Lot.  Do a lot of factoring."
+
+"I want you to telephone through to them and inquire about a place 
+in Carrick called Huntingtower, near the village of Dalquharter.  
+I understand it's to let, and I'm thinking of taking a lease of it."
+
+The senior partner after some delay got through to Edinburgh, and was 
+presently engaged in the feverish dialectic which the long-distance 
+telephone involves.  "I want to speak to Mr. Glendonan himself..
+..Yes, yes, Mr. Caw of Paton and Linklater....Good afternoon. 
+..Huntingtower.  Yes, in Carrick.  Not to let?  But I understand it's 
+been in the market for some months.  You say you've an idea it has 
+just been let.  But my client is positive that you're mistaken, unless 
+the agreement was made this morning....You'll inquire?  Ah, I see.  
+The actual factoring is done by your local agent, Mr. James Loudon, 
+in Auchenlochan.  You think my client had better get into touch with 
+him at once.  Just wait a minute, please."
+
+He put his hand over the receiver.  "Usual Edinburgh way of doing 
+business," he observed caustically.  "What do you want done?"
+
+"I'll run down and see this Loudon.  Tell Glendonan and Spiers to 
+advise him to expect me, for I'll go this very day."
+
+Mr. Caw resumed his conversation.  "My client would like a telegram 
+sent at once to Mr. Loudon introducing him.  He's Mr. Dickson McCunn 
+of Mearns Street--the great provision merchant, you know.  Oh, yes!  
+Good for any rent.  Refer if you like to the Strathclyde Bank, 
+but you can take my word for it.  Thank you.  Then that's settled.  
+Good-bye."
+
+Dickson's next visit was to a gunmaker who was a fellow-elder with 
+him in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk.
+
+"I want a pistol and a lot of cartridges," he announced.  "I'm not 
+caring what kind it is, so long as it is a good one and not too big."
+
+"For yourself?" the gunmaker asked.  "You must have a license, 
+I doubt, and there's a lot of new regulations."
+
+"I can't wait on a license.  It's for a cousin of mine who's 
+off to Mexico at once.  You've got to find some way of obliging 
+an old friend, Mr. McNair."
+
+Mr. McNair scratched his head.  "I don't see how I can sell you one.  
+But I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll lend you one.  It belongs to my 
+nephew, Peter Tait, and has been lying in a drawer ever since he 
+came back from the front.  He has no use for it now that he's 
+a placed minister."
+
+So Dickson bestowed in the pockets of his water-proof a service 
+revolver and fifty cartridges, and bade his cab take him to the shop 
+in Mearns Street.  For a moment the sight of the familiar place 
+struck a pang to his breast, but he choked down unavailing regrets.  
+He ordered a great hamper of foodstuffs--the most delicate kind of 
+tinned goods, two perfect hams, tongues, Strassburg pies, chocolate, 
+cakes, biscuits, and, as a last thought, half a dozen bottles of 
+old liqueur brandy.  It was to be carefully packed, addressed to 
+Mrs. Morran, Dalquharter Station, and delivered in time for him to 
+take down by the 7.33 train.  Then he drove to the terminus and 
+dined with something like a desperate peace in his heart.
+
+On this occasion he took a first-class ticket, for he wanted to be alone.  
+As the lights began to be lit in the wayside stations and the clear 
+April dusk darkened into night, his thoughts were sombre yet resigned.  
+He opened the window and let the sharp air of the Renfrewshire uplands 
+fill the carriage.  It was fine weather again after the rain, and a 
+bright constellation--perhaps Dougal's friend O'Brien- hung in the 
+western sky.  How happy he would have been a week ago had he been 
+starting thus for a country holiday!  He could sniff the faint scent 
+of moor-burn and ploughed earth which had always been his first reminder 
+of Spring.  But he had been pitchforked out of that old happy world and 
+could never enter it again.  Alas! for the roadside fire, the cosy inn, 
+the Compleat Angler, the Chavender or Chub!
+
+And yet--and yet!  He had done the right thing, though the Lord 
+alone knew how it would end.  He began to pluck courage from his 
+very melancholy, and hope from his reflections upon the transitoriness 
+of life.  He was austerely following Romance as he conceived it, and 
+if that capricious lady had taken one dream from him she might yet 
+reward him with a better.  Tags of poetry came into his head which 
+seemed to favour this philosophy--particularly some lines of 
+Browning on which he used to discourse to his Kirk Literary Society.  
+Uncommon silly, he considered, these homilies of his must have been, 
+mere twitterings of the unfledged.  But now he saw more in the lines, 
+a deeper interpretation which he had earned the right to make.
+
+
+"Oh world, where all things change and nought abides,
+Oh life, the long mutation--is it so?
+Is it with life as with the body's change?--
+Where, e'en tho' better follow, good must pass."
+
+
+
+That was as far as he could get, though he cudgelled his memory 
+to continue.  Moralizing thus, he became drowsy, and was almost 
+asleep when the train drew up at the station of Kirkmichael.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+
+SUNDRY DOINGS IN THE MIRK
+
+
+From Kirkmichael on the train stopped at every station, but 
+no passenger seemed to leave or arrive at the little platforms 
+white in the moon.  At Dalquharter the case of provisions was safely 
+transferred to the porter with instructions to take charge of it till 
+it was sent for.  During the next new minutes Dickson's mind began to 
+work upon his problem with a certain briskness.  It was all nonsense 
+that the law of Scotland could not be summoned to the defence.  
+The jewels had been safely got rid of, and who was to dispute 
+their possession?  Not Dobson and his crew, who had no sort of title, 
+and were out for naked robbery.  The girl had spoken of greater 
+dangers from new enemies--kidnapping, perhaps.  Well, that was 
+felony, and the police must be brought in.  Probably if all were 
+known the three watchers had criminal records, pages long, filed 
+at Scotland Yard.  The man to deal with that side of the business 
+was Loudon the factor, and to him he was bound in the first place.  
+He had made a clear picture in his head of this Loudon--a derelict 
+old country writer, formal, pedantic, lazy, anxious only to get an 
+unprofitable business off his hands with the least possible trouble, 
+never going near the place himself, and ably supported in his lethargy 
+by conceited Edinburgh Writers to the Signet.  "Sich notions of 
+business!" he murmured.  "I wonder that there's a single county family 
+in Scotland no' in the bankruptcy court!"  It was his mission to 
+wake up Mr. James Loudon.
+
+Arrived at Auchenlochan he went first to the Salutation Hotel, 
+a pretentious place sacred to golfers.  There he engaged a bedroom 
+for the night and, having certain scruples, paid for it in advance.  
+He also had some sandwiches prepared which he stowed in his pack, 
+and filled his flask with whisky.  "I'm going home to Glasgow by the 
+first train in the to-morrow," he told the landlady," and now I've got 
+to see a friend.  I'll not be back till late."  He was assured that 
+there would be no difficulty about his admittance at any hour, 
+and directed how to find Mr. Loudon's dwelling.
+
+It was an old house fronting direct on the street, with a 
+fanlight above the door and a neat brass plate bearing the legend 
+"Mr. James Loudon, Writer."  A lane ran up one side leading 
+apparently to a garden, for the moonlight showed the dusk of trees.  
+In front was the main street of Auchenlochan, now deserted save for 
+a single roysterer, and opposite stood the ancient town house, 
+with arches where the country folk came at the spring and autumn 
+hiring fairs.  Dickson rang the antiquated bell, and was presently 
+admitted to a dark hall floored with oilcloth, where a single 
+gas-jet showed that on one side was the business office and on 
+the other the living-rooms.  Mr. Loudon was at supper, he was told, 
+and he sent in his card.  Almost at once the door at the end 
+on the left side was flung open and a large figure appeared 
+flourishing a napkin.  "Come in, sir, come in," it cried.  
+"I've just finished a bite of meat.  Very glad to see you.  
+Here, Maggie, what d'you mean by keeping the gentleman standing 
+in that outer darkness?"
+
+The room into which Dickson was ushered was small and bright, 
+with a red paper on the walls, a fire burning, and a big oil lamp 
+in the centre of a table.  Clearly Mr. Loudon had no wife, for it 
+was a bachelor's den in every line of it.  A cloth was laid on 
+a corner of the table, in which stood the remnants of a meal.  
+Mr. Loudon seemed to have been about to make a brew of punch, 
+for a kettle simmered by the fire, and lemons and sugar flanked 
+a pot-bellied whisky decanter of the type that used to be known as 
+a "mason's mell."
+
+The sight of the lawyer was a surprise to Dickson and dissipated his 
+notions of an aged and lethargic incompetent.  Mr. Loudon was a 
+strongly built man who could not be a year over fifty.  He had 
+a ruddy face, clean shaven except for a grizzled moustache; 
+his grizzled hair was thinning round the temples; but his skin was 
+unwrinkled and his eyes had all the vigour of youth.  His tweed suit 
+was well cut, and the buff waistcoat with flaps and pockets and 
+the plain leather watchguard hinted at the sportsman, as did the 
+half-dozen racing prints on the wall.  A pleasant high-coloured 
+figure he made; his voice had the frank ring due to much use 
+out of doors; and his expression had the singular candour which 
+comes from grey eyes with large pupils and a narrow iris.
+
+"Sit down, Mr. McCunn.  Take the arm-chair by the fire.  I've had 
+a wire from Glendonan and Speirs about you.  I was just going to 
+have a glass of toddy--a grand thing for these uncertain April nights.  
+You'll join me?  No?  Well, you'll smoke anyway.  There's cigars at 
+your elbow.  Certainly, a pipe if you like.  This is Liberty Hall."
+
+Dickson found some difficulty in the part for which he had cast himself.  
+He had expected to condescend upon an elderly inept and give him 
+sharp instructions; instead he found himself faced with a jovial, 
+virile figure which certainly did not suggest incompetence.  It has 
+been mentioned already that he had always great difficulty in looking 
+any one in the face, and this difficulty was intensified when he 
+found himself confronted with bold and candid eyes.  He felt abashed 
+and a little nervous.
+
+"I've come to see you about Huntingtower House," he began.
+
+"I know, so Glendonans informed me.  Well, I'm very glad to hear it.  
+The place has been standing empty far too long, and that is worse for 
+a new house than an old house.  There's not much money to spend on it 
+either, unless we can make sure of a good tenant.  How did you hear 
+about it?"
+
+"I was taking a bit holiday and I spent a night at Dalquharter with 
+an old auntie of mine.  You must understand I've just retired from 
+business, and I'm thinking of finding a country place.  I used to 
+have the provision shop in Mearns Street--now the United Supply Stores, 
+Limited.  You've maybe heard of it?"
+
+The other bowed and smiled.  "Who hasn't?  The name of Dickson McCunn 
+is known far beyond the city of Glasgow."
+
+Dickson was not insensible of the flattery, and he continued with 
+more freedom.  "I took a walk and got a glisk of the House, and I liked 
+the look of it.  You see, I want a quiet bit a good long way from a town, 
+and at the same time a house with all modern conveniences.  I suppose 
+Huntingtower has that?"
+
+"When it was built fifteen years ago it was considered a model--six 
+bathrooms, its own electric light plant, steam heating, and independent 
+boiler for hot water, the whole bag of tricks.  I won't say but what 
+some of these contrivances will want looking to, for the place has been 
+some time empty, but there can be nothing very far wrong, and I can 
+guarantee that the bones of the house are good."
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Dickson.  "I don't mind spending a 
+little money myself if the place suits me.  But of that, of course, 
+I'm not yet certain, for I've only had a glimpse of the outside.  
+I wanted to get into the policies, but a man at the lodge 
+wouldn't let me.  They're a mighty uncivil lot down there."
+
+"I'm very sorry to hear that," said Mr. Loudon in a tone of concern.
+
+"Ay, and if I take the place I'll stipulate that you get rid 
+of the lodgekeepers."
+
+"There won't be the slightest difficulty about that, for they are 
+only weekly tenants.  But I'm vexed to hear they were uncivil.  
+I was glad to get any tenant that offered, and they were well 
+recommended to me."
+
+"They're foreigners."
+
+"One of them is--a Belgian refugee that Lady Morewood took 
+an interest in.  But the other--Spittal, they call him--I thought 
+he was Scotch."
+
+"He's not that.  And I don't like the innkeeper either.  I would 
+want him shifted."
+
+Dr. Loudon laughed.  "I dare say Dobson is a rough diamond.  
+There's worse folk in the world all the same, but I don't think 
+he will want to stay.  He only went there to pass the time till 
+he heard from his brother in Vancouver.  He's a roving spirit, 
+and will be off overseas again."
+
+"That's all right!" said Dickson, who was beginning to have horrid 
+suspicions that he might be on a wild-goose chase after all.  
+"Well, the next thing is for me to see over the House."
+
+"Certainly.  I'd like to go with you myself.  What day would 
+suit you?  Let me see.  This is Friday.  What about this day week?"
+
+I was thinking of to-morrow.  Since I'm down in these parts I may as 
+well get the job done."
+
+Mr. Loudon looked puzzled.  "I quite see that.  But I don't think 
+it's possible.  You see, I have to consult the owners and get their 
+consent to a lease.  Of course they have the general purpose of 
+letting, but--well, they're queer folk the Kennedys," and his 
+face wore the half-embarrassed smile of an honest man preparing 
+to make confidences.  "When poor Mr. Quentin died, the place went 
+to his two sisters in joint ownership.  A very bad arrangement, 
+as you can imagine.  It isn't entailed, and I've always been pressing 
+them to sell, but so far they won't hear of it.  They both married 
+Englishmen, so it will take a day or two to get in touch with them.  
+One, Mrs. Stukely, lives in Devonshire.  The other--Miss Katie that 
+was--married Sir Frances Morewood, the general, and I hear that she's 
+expected back in London next Monday from the Riviera.  I'll wire 
+and write first thing to-morrow morning.  But you must give me 
+a day or two."
+
+Dickson felt himself waking up.  His doubts about his own sanity 
+were dissolving, for, as his mind reasoned, the factor was prepared 
+to do anything he asked--but only after a week had gone.  What he was 
+concerned with was the next few days.  
+
+"All the same I would like to have a look at the place to-morrow, 
+even if nothing comes of it."
+
+Mr. Loudon looked seriously perplexed.  "You will think me absurdly 
+fussy, Mr. McCunn, but I must really beg of you to give up the idea.  
+The Kennedys, as I have said, are--well, not exactly like other 
+people, and I have the strictest orders not to let any one visit the 
+house without their express leave.  It sounds a ridiculous rule, 
+but I assure you it's as much as my job is worth to disregard it."
+
+"D'you mean to say not a soul is allowed inside the House?"
+
+"Not a soul."
+
+"Well, Mr. Loudon, I'm going to tell you a queer thing, which I 
+think you ought to know.  When I was taking a walk the other night--
+your Belgian wouldn't let me into the policies, but I went down 
+the glen--what's that they call it? the Garple Dean--I got round the 
+back where the old ruin stands and I had a good look at the House.  
+I tell you there was somebody in it."
+
+"It would be Spittal, who acts as caretaker."
+
+"It was not.  It was a woman.  I saw her on the verandah."
+
+The candid grey eyes were looking straight at Dickson, who managed to 
+bring his own shy orbs to meet them.  He thought that he detected a 
+shade of hesitation.  Then Mr. Loudon got up from his chair and stood 
+on the hearthrug looking down at his visitor.  He laughed, with some 
+embarrassment, but ever so pleasantly.
+
+"I really don't know what you will think of me, Mr. McCunn.  
+Here are you, coming to do us all a kindness, and lease that 
+infernal white elephant, and here have I been steadily hoaxing you 
+for the last five minutes.  I humbly ask your pardon.  Set it down to 
+the loyalty of an old family lawyer.  Now, I am going to tell you 
+the truth and take you into our confidence, for I know we are 
+safe with you.  The Kennedys are--always have been--just a wee 
+bit queer.  Old inbred stock, you know.  They will produce somebody 
+like poor Mr. Quentin, who was as sane as you or me, but as a 
+rule in every generation there is one member of the family--
+or more--who is just a little bit---" and he tapped his forehead.  
+"Nothing violent, you understand, but just not quite 'wise and 
+world-like.' as the old folk say.  Well, there's a certain old lady, 
+an aunt of Mr. Quentin and his sisters, who has always been about 
+tenpence in the shilling.  Usually she lives at Bournemouth, but one 
+of her crazes is a passion for Huntingtower, and the Kennedys have 
+always humoured her and had her to stay every spring.  When the House 
+was shut up that became impossible, but this year she took such a 
+craving to come back, that Lady Morewood asked me to arrange it.  
+It had to be kept very quiet, but the poor old thing is perfectly 
+harmless, and just sits and knits with her maid and looks out of the 
+seaward windows.  Now you see why I can't take you there to-morrow.  
+I have to get rid of the old lady, who in any case was travelling 
+south early next week.  Do you understand?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Dickson with some fervour.  He had learned exactly 
+what he wanted.  The factor was telling him lies.  Now he knew 
+where to place Mr. Loudon.
+
+He always looked back upon what followed as a very creditable piece 
+of play-acting for a man who had small experience in that line.
+
+"Is the old lady a wee wizened body, with a black cap and something 
+like a white cashmere shawl round her shoulders?"
+
+"You describe her exactly," Mr. Loudon replied eagerly.
+
+"That would explain the foreigners."
+
+"Of course.  We couldn't have natives who would make the thing 
+the clash of the countryside."
+
+"Of course not.  But it must be a difficult job to keep a business 
+like that quiet.  Any wandering policeman might start inquiries.  
+And supposing the lady became violent?"
+
+"Oh, there's no fear of that.  Besides, I've a position in this 
+country--Deputy Fiscal and so forth--and a friend of the Chief Constable.  
+I think I may be trusted to do a little private explaining if 
+the need arose."
+
+"I see," said Dickson.  He saw, indeed, a great deal which would 
+give him food for furious thought.  "Well, I must possess my soul 
+in patience.  Here's my Glasgow address, and I look to you to send me 
+a telegram whenever you're ready for me.  I'm at the Salutation to-night, 
+and go home to-morrow with the first train.  Wait a minute"--and he 
+pulled out his watch--"there's a train stops at Auchenlochan at 10.17.  
+I think I'll catch that....Well Mr. Loudon, I'm very much obliged to you, 
+and I'm glad to think that it'll no' be long till we renew 
+our acquaintance."
+
+The factor accompanied him to the door, diffusing geniality.  
+"Very pleased indeed to have met you.  A pleasant journey and 
+a quick return."
+
+The street was still empty.  Into a corner of the arches opposite 
+the moon was shining, and Dickson retired thither to consult his 
+map of the neighbourhood.  He found what he wanted, and, as he 
+lifted his eyes, caught sight of a man coming down the causeway.  
+Promptly he retired into the shadow and watched the new-comer.  
+There could be no mistake about the figure; the bulk, the walk, 
+the carriage of the head marked it for Dobson.  The innkeeper went 
+slowly past the factor's house; then halted and retraced his steps; 
+then, making sure that the street was empty, turned into the side 
+lane which led to the garden.
+
+This was what sailors call a cross-bearing, and strengthened 
+Dickson's conviction.  He delayed no longer, but hurried down 
+the side street by which the north road leaves the town.
+
+He had crossed the bridge of Lochan and was climbing the steep 
+ascent which led to the heathy plateau separating that stream 
+from the Garple before he had got his mind quite clear on the case.  
+FIRST, Loudon was in the plot, whatever it was; responsible for 
+the details of the girl's imprisonment, but not the main author.  
+That must be the Unknown who was still to come, from whom Spidel took his 
+orders.  Dobson was probably Loudon's special henchman, working directly 
+under him.  SECONDLY, the immediate object had been the jewels, and they 
+were happily safe in the vaults of the incorruptible Mackintosh.  
+But, THIRD--and this only on Saskia's evidences--the worst danger to 
+her began with the arrival of the Unknown.  What could that be?  
+Probably, kidnapping.  He was prepared to believe anything of people 
+like Bolsheviks.  And, FOURTH, this danger was due within the next 
+day or two.  Loudon had been quite willing to let him into the 
+house and to sack all the watchers within a week from that date.  
+The natural and right thing was to summon the aid of the law, but, 
+FIFTH, that would be a slow business with Loudon able to put spokes 
+in the wheels and befog the authorities, and the mischief would be 
+done before a single policeman showed his face in Dalquharter.  
+Therefore, SIXTH, he and Heritage must hold the fort in the meantime, 
+and he would send a wire to his lawyer, Mr. Caw, to get to work 
+with the constabulary.  SEVENTH, he himself was probably free from 
+suspicion in both Loudon's and Dobson's minds as a harmless fool.  
+But that freedom would not survive his reappearance in Dalquharter.  
+He could say, to be sure, that he had come back to see his auntie, 
+but that would not satisfy the watchers, since, so far as they knew, 
+he was the only man outside the gang who was aware that people 
+were dwelling in the House.  They would not tolerate his presence 
+in the neighbourhood.
+
+He formulated his conclusions as if it were an ordinary business deal, 
+and rather to his surprise was not conscious of any fear.  As he pulled 
+together the belt of his waterproof he felt the reassuring bulges in 
+its pockets which were his pistol and cartridges.  He reflected that 
+it must be very difficult to miss with a pistol if you fired it at, say, 
+three yards, and if there was to be shooting that would be his range.  
+Mr. McCunn had stumbled on the precious truth that the best way to be 
+rid of quaking knees is to keep a busy mind.
+
+He crossed the ridge of the plateau and looked down on the Garple glen.  
+There were the lights of Dalquharter--or rather a single light, for 
+the inhabitants went early to bed.  His intention was to seek quarters 
+with Mrs. Morran, when his eye caught a gleam in a hollow of the moor 
+a little to the east.  He knew it for the camp-fire around which 
+Dougal's warriors bivouacked.  The notion came to him to go there 
+instead, and hear the news of the day before entering the cottage.  
+So he crossed the bridge, skirted a plantation of firs, and scrambled 
+through the broom and heather in what he took to be the right direction.
+
+The moon had gone down, and the quest was not easy.  Dickson had come 
+to the conclusion that he was on the wrong road, when he was summoned 
+by a voice which seemed to arise out of the ground.
+
+"Who goes there?"
+
+"What's that you say?"
+
+"Who goes there?"  The point of a pale was held firmly against his chest.
+
+"I'm Mr. McCunn, a friend of Dougal's."
+
+"Stand, friend." The shadow before him whistled and another 
+shadow appeared.  "Report to the Chief that there's a man here, 
+name o' McCunn, seekin' for him."
+
+Presently the messenger returned with Dougal and a cheap lantern 
+which he flashed in Dickson's face.
+
+"Oh, it's you," said that leader, who had his jaw bound up as if he 
+had the toothache.  "What are ye doing back here?"
+
+"To tell the truth, Dougal," was the answer, "I couldn't stay away.  
+I was fair miserable when I thought of Mr. Heritage and you laddies 
+left to yourselves.  My conscience simply wouldn't let me stop at home, 
+so here I am."
+
+Dougal grunted, but clearly he approved, for from that moment he 
+treated Dickson with a new respect.  Formerly when he had referred to 
+him at all it had been as "auld McCunn."  Now it was "Mister McCunn."  
+He was given rank as a worthy civilian ally.  The bivouac was a 
+cheerful place in the wet night.  A great fire of pine roots and old 
+paling posts hissed in the fine rain, and around it crouched several 
+urchins busy making oatmeal cakes in the embers.  On one side a 
+respectable lean-to had been constructed by nailing a plank to two 
+fir-trees, running sloping poles thence to the ground, and thatching 
+the whole with spruce branches and heather.  On the other side two 
+small dilapidated home-made tents were pitched.  Dougal motioned his 
+companion into the lean-to, where they had some privacy from the 
+rest of the band.
+
+"Well, What's your news?"  Dickson asked.  He noticed that the 
+Chieftain seemed to have been comprehensively in the wars, for apart 
+from the bandage on his jaw, he had numerous small cuts on his brow, 
+and a great rent in one of his shirt sleeves.  Also he appeared 
+to be going lame, and when he spoke a new gap was revealed in 
+his large teeth.
+
+"Things," said Dougal solemnly, "has come to a bonny cripus.  
+This very night we've been in a battle."
+
+He spat fiercely, and the light of war burned in his eyes.
+
+"It was the tinklers from the Garple Dean.  They yokit on us about 
+seven o'clock, just at the darkenin'.  First they tried to bounce us.  
+We weren't wanted here, they said, so we'd better clear.  I telled 
+them that it was them that wasn't wanted.  'Awa' to Finnick,' says I.  
+'D'ye think we take our orders from dirty ne'er-do-weels like you?'  
+'By God,' says they, 'we'll cut your lights out,' and then the 
+battle started."
+
+"What happened?' Dickson asked excitedly.
+
+"They were four muckle men against six laddies, and they thought 
+they had an easy job!  Little they kenned the Gorbals Die-Hards!  
+I had been expectin' something of the kind, and had made my plans.  
+They first tried to pu' down our tents and burn them.  I let them get 
+within five yards, reservin' my fire.  The first volley--stones from 
+our hands and our catties--halted them, and before they could recover 
+three of us had got hold o' burnin' sticks frae the fire and were 
+lammin' into them.  We kinnled their claes, and they fell back 
+swearin' and stampin' to get the fire out.  Then I gave the word and we 
+were on them wi' our pales, usin' the points accordin' to instructions.  
+My orders was to keep a good distance, for if they had grippit one o' us 
+he'd ha' been done for.  They were roarin' mad by now, and twae had out 
+their knives, but they couldn't do muckle, for it was gettin' dark, and 
+they didn't ken the ground like us, and were aye trippin' and tumblin'.  
+But they pressed us hard, and one o' them landed me an awful clype 
+on the jaw.  They were still aiming at our tents, and I saw that 
+if they got near the fire again it would be the end o' us.  
+So I blew my whistle for Thomas Yownie, who was in command o' 
+the other half of us, with instructions to fall upon their rear.  
+That brought Thomas up, and the tinklers had to face round about and 
+fight a battle on two fronts.  We charged them and they broke, and the 
+last seen o' them they were coolin' their burns in the Garple."
+
+"Well done, man.  Had you many casualties?"
+
+"We're a' a wee thing battered, but nothing to hurt.  I'm the worst, 
+for one o' them had a grip o' me for about three seconds, and Gosh! 
+he was fierce."
+
+"They're beaten off for the night, anyway?"
+
+"Ay, for the night.  But they'll come back, never fear.  That's why 
+I said that things had come to a cripus."
+
+"What's the news from the House?"
+
+"A quiet day, and no word o' Lean or Dobson."
+
+Dickson nodded.  "They were hunting me."
+
+"Mr. Heritage has gone to bide in the Hoose.  They were watchin' the 
+Garple Dean, so I took him round by the Laver foot and up the rocks.  
+He's a souple yin, yon.  We fund a road up the rocks and got 
+in by the verandy.  Did ye ken that the lassie had a pistol?  
+Well, she has, and it seems that Mr. Heritage is a good shot wi' 
+a pistol, so there's some hope thereaways....Are the jools safe?"
+
+"Safe in the bank.  But the jools were not the main thing."
+
+Dougal nodded.  "So I was thinkin'.  The lassie wasn't muckle the 
+easier for gettin' rid o' them.  I didn't just quite understand what 
+she said to Mr. Heritage, for they were aye wanderin' into foreign 
+langwidges, but it seems she's terrible feared o' somebody that may 
+turn up any moment.  What's the reason I can't say.  She's maybe got 
+a secret, or maybe it's just that she's ower bonny."
+
+"That's the trouble," said Dickson, and proceeded to recount his 
+interview with the factor, to which Dougal gave close attention.  
+"Now the way I read the thing is this.  There's a plot to kidnap that 
+lady for some infernal purpose, and it depends on the arrival of some 
+person of persons, and it's due to happen in the next day or two.  
+If we try to work it through the police alone, they'll beat us, 
+for Loudon will manage to hang the business up until it's too late.  
+So we must take on the job ourselves.  We must stand a siege, 
+Mr. Heritage and me and you laddies, and for that purpose we'd 
+better all keep together.  It won't be extra easy to carry her off 
+from all of us, and if they do manage it we'll stick to their 
+heels....Man, Dougal, isn't it a queer thing that whiles law-abiding 
+folk have to make their own laws?....So my plan is that the lot of us 
+get into the House and form a garrison.  If you don't, the tinklers 
+will come back and you'll no' beat them in the daylight."
+
+"I doubt no'," said Dougal.  "But what about our meat?"
+
+"We must lay in provisions.  We'll get what we can from Mrs. Morran, 
+and I've left a big box of fancy things at Dalquharter station.  
+Can you laddies manage to get it down here?"
+
+Dougal reflected.  "Ay, we can hire Mrs. Sempill's powny, the same 
+that fetched our kit."
+
+"Well, that's your job to-morrow.  See, I'll write you a line to 
+the station-master.  And will you undertake to get it some way 
+into the House?"
+
+"There's just the one road open--by the rocks.  It'll have to be done.  
+It CAN be done."
+
+"And I've another job.  I'm writing this telegram to a friend in Glasgow 
+who will put a spoke in Mr. Loudon's wheel.  I want one of you to go to 
+Kirkmichael to send it from the telegraph office there."
+
+Dougal placed the wire to Mr. Caw in his bosom.  "What about yourself?  
+We want somebody outside to keep his eyes open.  It's bad strawtegy to 
+cut off your communications."
+
+Dickson thought for a moment.  "I believe you're right.  I believe 
+the best plan for me is to go back to Mrs. Morran's as soon as the 
+old body's like to be awake.  You can always get at me there, 
+for it's easy to slip into her back kitchen without anybody in 
+the village seeing you....Yes, I'll do that, and you'll come and 
+report developments to me.  And now I'm for a bite and a pipe.  
+It's hungry work travelling the country in the small hours."
+
+"I'm going to introjuice ye to the rest o' us," said Dougal.  
+"Here, men!" he called, and four figures rose from the side 
+of the fire.  As Dickson munched a sandwich he passed in review 
+the whole company of the Gorbals Die-Hards, for the pickets were also 
+brought in, two others taking their places.  There was Thomas Yownie, 
+the chief of Staff, with a wrist wound up in the handkerchief which 
+he had borrowed from his neck.  There was a burly lad who wore 
+trousers much too large for him, and who was known as Peer Pairson, 
+a contraction presumably for Peter Paterson.  After him came a lean 
+tall boy who answered to the name of Napoleon.  There was a midget of 
+a child, desperately sooty in the face either from battle or from 
+fire-tending, who was presented as Wee Jaikie.  Last came the picket 
+who had held his pole at Dickson's chest, a sandy-haired warrior with 
+a snub nose and the mouth and jaw of a pug-dog.  He was Old Bill, or, 
+in Dougal's parlance," Auld Bull."
+
+The Chieftain viewed his scarred following with a grim content.  
+"That's a tough lot for ye, Mr. McCunn.  Used a' their days wi' 
+sleepin' in coal-rees and dunnies and dodgin' the polis.  Ye'll no 
+beat the Gorbals Die-Hards."
+
+"You're right, Dougal," said Dickson.  "There's just the six of you.  
+If there were a dozen, I think this country would be needing some 
+new kind of a government."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+HOW A MIDDLE-AGED CRUSADER ACCEPTED A CHALLENGE
+
+
+The first cocks had just begun to crow and clocks had not yet 
+struck five when Dickson presented himself at Mrs. Morran's back door.  
+That active woman had already been half an hour out of bed, and was 
+drinking her morning cup of tea in the kitchen.  She received him 
+with cordiality, nay, with relief.
+
+"Eh, sir, but I'm glad to see ye back.  Guid kens what's gaun on at 
+the Hoose thae days.  Mr. Heritage left here yestreen, creepin' round 
+by dyke-sides and berry-busses like a wheasel.  It's a mercy to get 
+a responsible man in the place.  I aye had a notion ye wad come back, 
+for, thinks I, nevoy Dickson is no the yin to desert folk in trouble..
+..Whaur's my wee kist?....Lost, ye say.  That's a peety, for it's 
+been my cheesebox thae thirty year."
+
+Dickson ascended to the loft, having announced his need of at least three 
+hours' sleep.  As he rolled into bed his mind was curiously at ease.  
+He felt equipped for any call that might be made on him.  That Mrs. Morran 
+should welcome him back as a resource in need gave him a new assurance 
+of manhood.
+
+He woke between nine and ten to the sound of rain lashing against 
+the garret window.  As he picked his way out of the mazes of sleep 
+and recovered the skein of his immediate past, he found to his disgust 
+that he had lost his composure.  All the flock of fears, that had left 
+him when on the top of the Glasgow tram-car he had made the great decision, 
+had flown back again and settled like black crows on his spirit.  
+He was running a horrible risk and all for a whim. What business had 
+he to be mixing himself up in things he did not understand?  It might 
+be a huge mistake, and then he would be a laughing stock; for a moment 
+he repented his telegram to Mr. Caw.  Then he recanted that suspicion; 
+there could be no mistake, except the fatal one that he had taken on 
+a job too big for him.  He sat on the edge of the bed and shivered 
+with his eyes on the grey drift of rain.  He would have felt more 
+stout-hearted had the sun been shining.
+
+He shuffled to the window and looked out.  There in the village street 
+was Dobson, and Dobson saw him.  That was a bad blunder, for his reason 
+told him that he should have kept his presence in Dalquharter hid 
+as long as possible.  There was a knock at the cottage door, and 
+presently Mrs. Morran appeared.
+
+"It's the man frae the inn," she announced.  "He's wantin' a 
+word wi' ye.  Speakin' verra ceevil, too."
+
+"Tell him to come up," said Dickson.  He might as well get 
+the interview over.  Dobson had seen Loudon and must know 
+of their conversation.  The sight of himself back again when 
+he had pretended to be off to Glasgow would remove him effectually 
+from the class of the unsuspected.  He wondered just what line 
+Dobson would take.
+
+The innkeeper obtruded his bulk through the low door.  His face was 
+wrinkled into a smile, which nevertheless left the small eyes ungenial.  
+His voice had a loud vulgar cordiality.  Suddenly Dickson was conscious 
+of a resemblance, a resemblance to somebody whom he had recently seen.  
+It was Loudon.  There was the same thrusting of the chin forward, 
+the same odd cheek-bones, the same unctuous heartiness of speech.  
+The innkeeper, well washed and polished and dressed, would be no bad 
+copy of the factor.  They must be near kin, perhaps brothers.
+
+"Good morning to you, Mr. McCunn.  Man, it's pitifu' weather, 
+and just when the farmers are wanting a dry seed-bed.  What brings 
+ye back here?  Ye travel the country like a drover."
+
+"Oh, I'm a free man now and I took a fancy to this place.  
+An idle body has nothing to do but please himself."
+
+"I hear ye're taking a lease of Huntingtower?"
+
+"Now who told you that?"
+
+"Just the clash of the place.  Is it true?"
+
+Dickson looked sly and a little annoyed.
+
+"I had maybe had half a thought of it, but I'll thank you not to 
+repeat the story.  It's a big house for a plain man like me, and 
+I haven't properly inspected it."
+
+"Oh, I'll keep mum, never fear.  But if ye've that sort of notion, 
+I can understand you not being able to keep away from the place."
+
+"That's maybe the fact," Dickson admitted.
+
+"Well!  It's just on that point I want a word with you."  The innkeeper 
+seated himself unbidden on the chair which held Dickson's modest raiment.  
+He leaned forward and with a coarse forefinger tapped Dickson's 
+pyjama-clad knees.  "I can't have ye wandering about the place.  
+I'm very sorry, but I've got my orders from Mr. Loudon.  So if you 
+think that by bidin' here you can see more of the House and the 
+policies, ye're wrong, Mr. McCunn.  It can't be allowed, for we're no' 
+ready for ye yet.  D'ye understand?  That's Mr. Loudon's orders..
+..Now, would it not be a far better plan if ye went back to Glasgow and 
+came back in a week's time?  I'm thinking of your own comfort, Mr. McCunn."
+
+Dickson was cogitating hard.  This man was clearly instructed to get 
+rid of him at all costs for the next few days.  The neighbourhood had 
+to be cleared for some black business.  The tinklers had been deputed 
+to drive out the Gorbals Die-Hards, and as for Heritage they seemed 
+to have lost track of him.  He, Dickson, was now the chief object 
+of their care.  But what could Dobson do if he refused?  He dared 
+not show his true hand.  Yet he might, if sufficiently irritated.  
+It became Dickson's immediate object to get the innkeeper to reveal 
+himself by rousing his temper.  He did not stop to consider the 
+policy of this course; he imperatively wanted things cleared up and 
+the issue made plain.
+
+"I'm sure I'm much obliged to you for thinking so much about 
+my comfort," he said in a voice into which he hoped he had 
+insinuated a sneer.  "But I'm bound to say you're awful suspicious 
+folk about here.  You needn't be feared for your old policies.  
+There's plenty of nice walks about the roads, and I want to 
+explore the sea-coast."
+
+The last words seemed to annoy the innkeeper.  "That's no' allowed 
+either," he said.  "The shore's as private as the policies..
+..Well, I wish ye joy tramping the roads in the glaur."
+
+"It's a queer thing," said Dickson meditatively, "that you should 
+keep a hotel and yet be set on discouraging people from visiting 
+this neighbourhood.  I tell you what, I believe that hotel of 
+yours is all sham.  You've some other business, you and these 
+lodgekeepers, and in my opinion it's not a very creditable one."
+
+"What d'ye mean?" asked Dobson sharply.
+
+"Just what I say.  You must expect a body to be suspicious, 
+if you treat him as you're treating me."  Loudon must have told 
+this man the story with which he had been fobbed off about the 
+half-witted Kennedy relative.  Would Dobson refer to that?
+
+The innkeeper had an ugly look on his face, but he controlled his 
+temper with an effort.
+
+"There's no cause for suspicion," he said.  "As far as I'm concerned 
+it's all honest and above-board."
+
+"It doesn't look like it.  It looks as if you were hiding something up 
+in the House which you don't want me to see."
+
+Dobson jumped from his chair. his face pale with anger.  A man in pyjamas 
+on a raw morning does not feel at this bravest, and Dickson quailed 
+under the expectation of assault.  But even in his fright he realized 
+that Loudon could not have told Dobson the tale of the half-witted lady.  
+The last remark had cut clean through all camouflage and reached the quick.
+
+"What the hell d'ye mean?" he cried.  "Ye're a spy, are ye?  
+Ye fat little fool, for two cents I'd wring your neck."
+
+Now it is an odd trait of certain mild people that a suspicion of 
+threat, a hint of bullying, will rouse some unsuspected obstinacy 
+deep down in their souls.  The insolence of the man's speech woke a 
+quiet but efficient little devil in Dickson.
+
+"That's a bonny tone to adopt in addressing a gentleman.  If you've 
+nothing to hide what way are you so touchy?  I can't be a spy unless 
+there's something to spy on."
+
+The innkeeper pulled himself together.  He was apparently acting on 
+instructions, and had not yet come to the end of them.  He made an 
+attempt at a smile.
+
+"I'm sure I beg your pardon if I spoke too hot.  But it nettled me to 
+hear ye say that....I'll be quite frank with ye, Mr. McCunn, and, 
+believe me, I'm speaking in your best interests.  I give ye my word 
+there's nothing wrong up at the House.  I'm on the side of the law, 
+and when I tell ye the whole story ye'll admit it.  But I can't tell 
+it ye yet....This is a wild, lonely bit, and very few folk bide in it.  
+And these are wild times, when a lot of queer things happen that never 
+get into the papers.  I tell ye it's for your own good to leave 
+Dalquharter for the present.  More I can't say, but I ask ye to look 
+at it as a sensible man.  Ye're one that's accustomed to a quiet life 
+and no' meant for rough work.  Ye'll do no good if you stay, and, maybe, 
+ye'll land yourself in bad trouble."
+
+"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed.  "What is it you're expecting?  
+Sinn Fein?"
+
+The innkeeper nodded.  "Something like that."
+
+"Did you ever hear the like?  I never did think much of the Irish."
+
+"Then ye'll take my advice and go home?  Tell ye what, I'll drive 
+ye to the station."
+
+Dickson got up from the bed, found his new safety-razor and began 
+to strop it.  "No, I think I'll bide.  If you're right there'll be 
+more to see than glaury roads."
+
+"I'm warning ye, fair and honest.  Ye...can't...be...allowed.
+..to...stay...here!"
+
+"Well I never!" said Dickson.  "Is there any law in Scotland, 
+think you, that forbids a man to stop a day or two with his auntie?"
+
+"Ye'll stay?"
+
+"Ay, I'll stay."
+
+"By God, we'll see about that."
+
+For a moment Dickson thought that he would be attacked, and he 
+measured the distance that separated him from the peg whence hung 
+his waterproof with the pistol in its pocket.  But the man restrained 
+himself and moved to the door.  There he stood and cursed him with a 
+violence and a venom which Dickson had not believed possible.  
+The full hand was on the table now.
+
+"Ye wee pot-bellied, pig-heided Glasgow grocer" (I paraphrase), "would 
+you set up to defy me?  I tell ye, I'll make ye rue the day ye were born."  
+His parting words were a brilliant sketch of the maltreatment in store 
+for the body of the defiant one.
+
+"Impident dog," said Dickson without heat.  He noted with pleasure 
+that the innkeeper hit his head violently against the low lintel, 
+and, missing a step, fell down the loft stairs into the kitchen, 
+where Mrs. Morran's tongue could be heard speeding him trenchantly 
+from the premises.
+
+Left to himself, Dickson dressed leisurely, and by and by went 
+down to the kitchen and watched his hostess making broth.  
+The fracas with Dobson had done him all the good in the world, 
+for it had cleared the problem of dubieties and had put an edge 
+on his temper.  But he realized that it made his continued stay in 
+the cottage undesirable.  He was now the focus of all suspicion, 
+and the innkeeper would be as good as his word and try to drive him 
+out of the place by force.  Kidnapping, most likely, and that would 
+be highly unpleasant, besides putting an end to his usefulness.  
+Clearly he must join the others.  The soul of Dickson hungered at 
+the moment for human companionship.  He felt that his courage would 
+be sufficient for any team-work, but might waver again if he were 
+left to play a lone hand.
+
+He lunched nobly off three plates of Mrs. Morran's kail--an early lunch, 
+for that lady, having breakfasted at five, partook of the midday 
+meal about eleven.  Then he explored her library, and settled 
+himself by the fire with a volume of Covenanting tales, entitled 
+GLEANINGS AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.  It was a most practical work for one 
+in his position, for it told how various eminent saints of that era 
+escaped the attention of Claverhouse's dragoons.  Dickson stored up 
+in his memory several of the incidents in case they should come 
+in handy.  He wondered if any of his forbears had been Covenanters; 
+it comforted him to think that some old progenitor might have 
+hunkered behind turf walls and been chased for his life in the heather.  
+"Just like me," he reflected.  "But the dragoons weren't foreigners, 
+and there was a kind of decency about Claverhouse too."
+
+About four o'clock Dougal presented himself in the back kitchen.  
+He was an even wilder figure than usual, for his bare legs were mud 
+to the knees, his kilt and shirt clung sopping to his body, and, 
+having lost his hat, his wet hair was plastered over his eyes.  
+Mrs. Morran said, not unkindly, that he looked "like a wull-cat 
+glowerin' through a whin buss."
+
+"How are you, Dougal?" Dickson asked genially.  "Is the peace of 
+nature smoothing out the creases in your poor little soul?"
+
+"What's that ye say?"
+
+"Oh, just what I heard a man say in Glasgow.  How have you got on?"
+
+"No' so bad.  Your telegram was sent this mornin'.  Auld Bill 
+took it in to Kirkmichael.  That's the first thing.  Second, 
+Thomas Yownie has took a party to get down the box from the station.  
+He got Mrs. Sempills' powny, and he took the box ayont the Laver by 
+the ford at the herd's hoose and got it on to the shore maybe a 
+mile ayont Laverfoot.  He managed to get the machine up as far 
+as the water, but he could get no farther, for ye'll no' get a 
+machine over the wee waterfa' just before the Laver ends in the sea.  
+So he sent one o' the men back with it to Mrs. Sempill, and, since 
+the box was ower heavy to carry, he opened it and took the stuff 
+across in bits.  It's a' safe in the hole at the foot o' the 
+Huntingtower rocks, and he reports that the rain has done it no harm.  
+Thomas has made a good job of it.  Ye'll no' fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+"And what about your camp on the moor?"
+
+"It was broke up afore daylight.  Some of our things we've got with us, 
+but most is hid near at hand.  The tents are in the auld wife's hen-hoose." 
+and he jerked his disreputable head in the direction of the back door.
+
+"Have the tinklers been back?"
+
+"Aye.  They turned up about ten o'clock, no doubt intendin' murder.  
+I left Wee Jaikie to watch developments.  They fund him sittin' on a 
+stone, greetin' sore.  When he saw them, he up and started to run, 
+and they cried on him to stop, but he wouldn't listen.  Then they 
+cried out where were the rest, and he telled them they were feared 
+for their lives and had run away.  After that they offered to catch 
+him, but ye'll no' catch Jaikie in a hurry.  When he had run round 
+about them till they were wappit, he out wi' his catty and got one 
+o' them on the lug.  Syne he made for the Laverfoot and reported."
+
+"Man, Dougal, you've managed fine.  Now I've something to tell you," 
+and Dickson recounted his interview with the innkeeper.  "I don't think 
+it's safe for me to bide here, and if I did, I wouldn't be any use, 
+hiding in cellars and such like, and not daring to stir a foot.  
+I'm coming with you to the House.  Now tell me how to get there."
+
+Dougal agreed to this view.  "There's been nothing doing at the 
+Hoose the day, but they're keepin' a close watch on the policies.  
+The cripus may come any moment.  There's no doubt,  Mr. McCunn, 
+that ye're in danger, for they'll serve you as the tinklers tried 
+to serve us.  Listen to me.  Ye'll walk up the station road, 
+and take the second turn on your left, a wee grass road that'll 
+bring ye to the ford at the herd's hoose.  Cross the Laver--there's 
+a plank bridge--and take straight across the moor in the direction of 
+the peakit hill they call Grey Carrick.  Ye'll come to a big burn, 
+which ye must follow till ye get to the shore.  Then turn south, 
+keepin' the water's edge till ye reach the Laver, where you'll find 
+one o' us to show ye the rest of the road....I must be off now, 
+and I advise ye not to be slow of startin', for wi' this rain 
+the water's risin' quick.  It's a mercy it's such coarse weather, 
+for it spoils the veesibility."
+
+"Auntie Phemie," said Dickson a few minutes later, "will you oblige 
+me by coming for a short walk?"
+
+"The man's daft," was the answer.
+
+"I'm not.  I'll explain if you'll listen....You see," he concluded, 
+"the dangerous bit for me is just the mile out of the village.  
+They'll no' be so likely to try violence if there's somebody with me 
+that could be a witness.  Besides, they'll maybe suspect less if they 
+just see a decent body out for a breath of air with his auntie."
+
+Mrs. Morran said nothing, but retired, and returned presently 
+equipped for the road.  She had indued her feet with goloshes and 
+pinned up her skirts till they looked like some demented Paris mode.  
+An ancient bonnet was tied under her chin with strings, and her 
+equipment was completed by an exceedingly smart tortoise-shell-
+handled umbrella, which, she explained, had been a Christmas 
+present from her son.
+
+"I'll convoy ye as far as the Laverfoot herd's," she announced.  
+"The wife's a freend o' mine and will set me a bit on the road back.  
+Ye needna fash for me.  I'm used to a' weathers."
+
+The rain had declined to a fine drizzle, but a tearing wind from 
+the south-west scoured the land.  Beyond the shelter of the trees 
+the moor was a battle-ground of gusts which swept the puddles into 
+spindrift and gave to the stagnant bog-pools the appearance of 
+running water.  The wind was behind the travellers, and Mrs. Morran, 
+like a full-rigged ship, was hustled before it, so that Dickson, 
+who had linked arms with her, was sometimes compelled to trot.
+
+"However will you get home, mistress?" he murmured anxiously.
+
+"Fine.  The wind will fa' at the darkenin'. This'll be a sair time 
+for ships at sea."
+
+Not a soul was about, so they breasted the ascent of the station road 
+and turned down the grassy bypath to the Laverfoot herd's.  
+The herd's wife saw them from afar and was at the door to receive them.
+
+"Megsty!  Phemie Morran!" she shrilled.  "Wha wad ettle to see 
+ye on a day like this?  John's awa' at Dumfries, buyin' tups.  
+Come in, the baith o' ye.  The kettle's on the boil."
+
+"This is my nevoy Dickson," said Mrs. Morran.  "He's gaun to stretch his 
+legs ayont the burn, and come back by the Ayr road.  But I'll be blithe 
+to tak' my tea wi' ye, Elspeth....Now, Dickson, I'll expect ye hame on 
+the chap o' seeven."
+
+He crossed the rising stream on a swaying plank and struck into 
+the moorland, as Dougal had ordered, keeping the bald top of 
+Grey Carrick before him.  In that wild place with the tempest battling 
+overhead he had no fear of human enemies.  Steadily he covered the 
+ground, till he reached the west-flowing burn, that was to lead him 
+to the shore.  He found it an entertaining companion, swirling into 
+black pools, foaming over little falls, and lying in dark canal-like 
+stretches in the flats.  Presently it began to descend steeply 
+in a narrow green gully, where the going was bad, and Dickson, 
+weighted with pack and waterproof, had much ado to keep his feet 
+on the sodden slopes.  Then, as he rounded a crook of hill, the ground 
+fell away from his feet, the burn swept in a water-slide to the 
+boulders of the shore, and the storm-tossed sea lay before him.
+
+It was now that he began to feel nervous.  Being on the coast again 
+seemed to bring him inside his enemies' territory, and had not Dobson 
+specifically forbidden the shore?  It was here that they might be 
+looking for him.  He felt himself out of condition, very wet and 
+very warm, but he attained a creditable pace, for he struck a road 
+which had been used by manure-carts collecting seaweed.  There were 
+faint marks on it, which he took to be the wheels of Dougal's 
+"machine" carrying the provision-box.  Yes.  On a patch of gravel 
+there was a double set of tracks, which showed how it had returned 
+to Mrs. Sempill.  He was exposed to the full force of the wind, 
+and the strenuousness of his bodily exertions kept his fears quiescent, 
+till the cliffs on his left sunk suddenly and the valley of the Laver 
+lay before him.
+
+A small figure rose from the shelter of a boulder, the warrior who 
+bore the name of Old Bill.  He saluted gravely.
+
+"Ye're just in time.  The water has rose three inches since 
+I've been here.  Ye'd better strip."
+
+Dickson removed his boots and socks.  "Breeks too," commanded 
+the boy; "there's deep holes ayont thae stanes."
+
+Dickson obeyed, feeling very chilly, and rather improper.  
+"Now follow me," said the guide.  The next moment he was stepping 
+delicately on very sharp pebbles, holding on to the end of the 
+scout's pole, while an icy stream ran to his knees.
+
+The Laver as it reaches the sea broadens out to the width of 
+fifty or sixty yards and tumbles over little shelves of rock to 
+meet the waves.  Usually it is shallow, but now it was swollen to 
+an average depth of a foot or more, and there were deeper pockets.  
+Dickson made the passage slowly and miserably, sometimes crying out 
+with pain as his toes struck a sharper flint, once or twice sitting 
+down on a boulder to blow like a whale, once slipping on his knees 
+and wetting the strange excrescence about his middle, which was his 
+tucked-up waterproof.  But the crossing was at length achieved, 
+and on a patch of sea-pinks he dried himself perfunctorily and hastily 
+put on his garments.  Old Bill, who seemed to be regardless of wind 
+or water, squatted beside him and whistled through his teeth.
+
+Above them hung the sheer cliffs of the Huntingtower cape, so sheer 
+that a man below was completely hidden from any watcher on the top.  
+Dickson's heart fell, for he did not profess to be a cragsman and had 
+indeed a horror of precipitous places.  But as the two scrambled 
+along the foot, they passed deep-cut gullies and fissures, most of 
+them unclimbable, but offering something more hopeful than the face.  
+At one of these Old Bill halted, and led the way up and over a chaos 
+of fallen rock and loose sand.  The grey weather had brought on the 
+dark prematurely, and in the half-light it seemed that this ravine 
+was blocked by an unscalable nose of rock.  Here Old Bill whistled, 
+and there was a reply from above.  Round the corner of the nose 
+came Dougal.
+
+"Up here," he commanded.  "It was Mr. Heritage that fund this road."
+
+Dickson and his guide squeezed themselves between the nose and 
+the cliff up a spout of stones, and found themselves in an upper 
+storey of the gulley, very steep, but practicable even for one 
+who was no cragsman.  This in turn ran out against a wall up which 
+there led only a narrow chimney.  At the foot of this were two of 
+the Die-Hards, and there were others above, for a rope hung down, 
+by the aid of which a package was even now ascending.
+
+"That's the top," said Dougal, pointing to the rim of sky, "and that's 
+the last o' the supplies."  Dickson noticed that he spoke in a whisper, 
+and that all the movements of the Die-Hards were judicious and stealthy.  
+"Now, it's your turn.  Take a good grip o' the rope, and ye'll find 
+plenty holes for your feet.  It's no more than ten yards and ye're 
+well held above."
+
+Dickson made the attempt and found it easier than he expected.  
+The only trouble was his pack and waterproof, which had a tendency 
+to catch on jags of rock.  A hand was reached out to him, he was pulled 
+over the edge, and then pushed down on his face.  When he lifted his 
+head Dougal and the others had joined him, and the whole company of the 
+Die-Hards was assembled on a patch of grass which was concealed from the 
+landward view by a thicket of hazels.  Another, whom he recognized as 
+Heritage, was coiling up the rope.
+
+"We'd better get all the stuff into the old Tower for the present," 
+Heritage was saying.  "It's too risky to move it into the House now.  
+We'll need the thickest darkness for that, after the moon is down.  
+Quick, for the beastly thing will be rising soon, and before that 
+we must all be indoors."
+
+Then he turned to Dickson and gripped his hand.  "You're a high 
+class of sportsman, Dogson.  And I think you're just in time."
+
+"Are they due to-night?" Dickson asked in an excited whisper, 
+faint against the wind.
+
+"I don't know about They.  But I've got a notion that some 
+devilish queer things will happen before to-morrow morning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
+
+
+The old keep of Huntingtower stood some three hundred yards from the 
+edge of the cliffs, a gnarled wood of hazels and oaks protecting it 
+from the sea-winds.  It was still in fair preservation, having till 
+twenty years before been an adjunct of the house of Dalquharter, and 
+used as kitchen, buttery, and servants' quarters.  There had been 
+residential wings attached, dating from the mid-eighteenth century, 
+but these had been pulled down and used for the foundations of 
+the new mansion.  Now it stood a lonely shell, its three storeys, 
+each a single great room connected by a spiral stone staircase, 
+being dedicated to lumber and the storage of produce.  But it was dry 
+and intact, its massive oak doors defied any weapon short of 
+artillery, its narrow unglazed windows would scarcely have admitted a 
+cat--a place portentously strong, gloomy, but yet habitable.
+
+Dougal opened the main door with a massy key.  "The lassie fund it," 
+he whispered to Dickson, "somewhere about the kitchen--and I guessed 
+it was the key o' this castle.  I was thinkin' that if things got 
+ower hot it would be a good plan to flit here.  Change our base, like."  
+The Chieftain's occasional studies in war had trained his tongue 
+to a military jargon.
+
+In the ground room lay a fine assortment of oddments, including 
+old bedsteads and servants' furniture, and what looked like ancient 
+discarded deerskin rugs.  Dust lay thick over everything, and they 
+heard the scurry of rats.  A dismal place, indeed, but Dickson felt 
+only its strangeness.  The comfort of being back again among allies 
+had quickened his spirit to an adventurous mood.  The old lords of 
+Huntingtower had once quarrelled and revelled and plotted here, and 
+now here he was at the same game.  Present and past joined hands over 
+the gulf of years.  The saga of Huntingtower was not ended.
+
+The Die-Hards had brought with them their scanty bedding, their 
+lanterns and camp-kettles.  These and the provisions from Mearns 
+Street were stowed away in a corner.
+
+"Now for the Hoose, men," said Dougal.  They stole over the downs 
+to the shrubbery, and Dickson found himself almost in the same place 
+as he had lain in three days before, watching a dusky lawn, while 
+the wet earth soaked through his trouser knees and the drip from the 
+azaleas trickled over his spine.  Two of the boys fetched the ladder 
+and placed it against the verandah wall.  Heritage first, then Dickson, 
+darted across the lawn and made the ascent.  The six scouts followed, 
+and the ladder was pulled up and hidden among the verandah litter.  
+For a second the whole eight stood still and listened.  There was no 
+sound except the murmur of the now falling wind and the melancholy 
+hooting of owls.  The garrison had entered the Dark Tower.
+
+A council in whispers was held in the garden-room.
+
+"Nobody must show a light," Heritage observed.  "It mustn't be 
+known that we're here.  Only the Princess will have a lamp.  Yes"--
+this in answer to Dickson--"she knows that we're coming--you too.  
+We'll hunt for quarters later upstairs.  You scouts, you must picket 
+every possible entrance.  The windows are safe, I think, for they 
+are locked from the inside.  So is the main door.  But there's the 
+verandah door, of which they have a key, and the back door beside 
+the kitchen, and I'm not at all sure that there's not a way in 
+by the boiler-house.  You understand.  We're holding his place against 
+all comers.  We must barricade the danger points.  The headquarters 
+of the garrison will be in the hall, where a scout must be always 
+on duty.  You've all got whistles?  Well, if there's an attempt on the 
+verandah door the picket will whistle once, if at the back door twice, 
+if anywhere else three times, and it's everybody's duty, except 
+the picket who whistles, to get back to the hall for orders."
+
+"That's so," assented Dougal.
+
+"If the enemy forces an entrance we must overpower him.  Any means 
+you like.  Sticks or fists, and remember if it's a scrap in the 
+dark to make for the man's throat.  I expect you little devils have 
+eyes like cats.  The scoundrels must be kept away from the ladies 
+at all costs.  If the worst comes to the worst, the Princess 
+has a revolver."
+
+"So have I," said Dickson.  "I got it in Glasgow."
+
+"The deuce you have!  Can you use it?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, you can hand it over to me, if you like.  But it oughtn't to 
+come to shooting, if it's only the three of them.  The eight of us 
+should be able to manage three and one of them lame.  If the others 
+turn up--well, God help us all!  But we've got to make sure of one 
+thing, that no one lays hands on the Princess so long as there's one 
+of us left alive to hit out."
+
+"Ye needn't be feared for that," said Dougal.  There was no light 
+in the room, but Dickson was certain that the morose face of the 
+Chieftain was lit with unholy joy.
+
+"Then off with you.  Mr. McCunn and I will explain matters to the ladies."
+
+When they were alone, Heritage's voice took a different key.  
+"We're in for it, Dogson, old man.  There's no doubt these three 
+scoundrels expect reinforcements at any moment, and with them 
+will be one who is the devil incarnate.  He's the only thing on earth 
+that that brave girl fears.  It seems he is in love with her and 
+has pestered her for years.  She hated the sight of him, but he 
+wouldn't take no, and being a powerful man--rich and well-born and 
+all the rest of it--she had a desperate time.  I gather he was pretty 
+high in favour with the old Court.  Then when the Bolsheviks started 
+he went over to them, like plenty of other grandees, and now he's 
+one of their chief brains--none of your callow revolutionaries, 
+but a man of the world, a kind of genius, she says, who can hold 
+his own anywhere.  She believes him to be in this country, and 
+only waiting the right moment to turn up.  Oh, it sounds ridiculous, 
+I know, in Britain in the twentieth century, but I learned in the war 
+that civilization anywhere is a very thin crust.  There are a hundred 
+ways by which that kind of fellow could bamboozle all our law and 
+police and spirit her away.  That's the kind of crowd we have to face."
+
+"Did she say what he was like in appearance?"
+
+"A face like an angel--a lost angel, she says."
+
+Dickson suddenly had an inspiration.
+
+"D'you mind the man you said was an Australian--at Kirkmichael?  
+I thought myself he was a foreigner.  Well, he was asking for a 
+place he called Darkwater, and there's no sich place in the countryside.  
+I believe he meant Dalquharter.  I believe he's the man she's feared of."
+
+A gasped "By Jove!" came from the darkness.  "Dogson, you've hit it.  
+That was five days ago, and he must have got on the right trail 
+by this time.  He'll be here to-night.  That's why the three have 
+been lying so quiet to-day.  Well, we'll go through with it, even if 
+we haven't a dog's chance!  Only I'm sorry that you should be mixed 
+up in such a hopeless business."
+
+"Why me more than you?"
+
+"Because it's all pure pride and joy for me to be here.  Good God,  
+I wouldn't be elsewhere for worlds.  It's the great hour of my life.  
+I would gladly die for her."
+
+"Tuts, that's no' the way to talk, man.  Time enough to speak about 
+dying when there's no other way out.  I'm looking at this thing 
+in a business way.  We'd better be seeing the ladies."
+
+They groped into the pitchy hall, somewhere in which a Die-Hard was 
+on picket, and down the passage to the smoking-room.  Dickson blinked 
+in the light of a very feeble lamp and Heritage saw that his hands 
+were cumbered with packages.  He deposited them on a sofa and made a 
+ducking bow.
+
+"I've come back, Mem, and glad to be back.  Your jools are in safe 
+keeping, and not all the blagyirds in creation could get at them.  
+I've come to tell you to cheer up--a stout heart to a stey brae, 
+as the old folk say.  I'm handling this affair as a business 
+proposition, so don't be feared, Mem.  If there are enemies seeking 
+you, there's friends on the road too....Now, you'll have had your 
+dinner, but you'd maybe like a little dessert."
+
+He spread before them a huge box of chocolates, the best that 
+Mearns Street could produce, a box of candied fruits, and another 
+of salted almonds.  Then from his hideously overcrowded pockets he 
+took another box, which he offered rather shyly.  "That's some powder 
+for your complexion.  They tell me that ladies find it useful whiles."
+
+The girl's strained face watched him at first in mystification, and 
+then broke slowly into a smile.  Youth came back into it, the smile 
+changed to a laugh, a low rippling laugh like far-away bells.  
+She took both his hands.
+
+"You are kind,' she said, "you are kind and brave.  You are a de-ar."
+
+And then she kissed him.
+
+Now, as far as Dickson could remember, no one had ever kissed him 
+except his wife.  The light touch of her lips on his forehead was 
+like the pressing of an electric button which explodes some powerful 
+charge and alters the face of a countryside.  He blushed scarlet; 
+then he wanted to cry; then he wanted to sing.  An immense exhilaration 
+seized him, and I am certain that if at that moment the serried ranks 
+of Bolshevy had appeared in the doorway, Dickson would have hurled 
+himself upon them with a joyful shout.
+
+Cousin Eugenie was earnestly eating chocolates, but Saskia 
+had other business.
+
+"You will hold the house?" she asked.
+
+"Please God, yes," said Heritage.  "I look at it this way.  
+The time is very near when your three gaolers expect the others, 
+their masters.  They have not troubled you in the past two days as 
+they threatened, because it was not worth while.  But they won't want 
+to let you out of their sight in the final hours, so they will almost 
+certainly come here to be on the spot.  Our object is to keep them 
+out and confuse their plans.  Somewhere in this neighbourhood, 
+probably very near, is the man you fear most.  If we nonplus the 
+three watchers, they'll have to revise their policy, and that means 
+a delay, and every hour's delay is a gain.  Mr. McCunn has found out 
+that the factor Loudon is in the plot, and he has purchase enough, 
+it seems, to blanket for a time any appeal to the law.  But Mr. McCunn 
+has taken steps to circumvent him, and in twenty-four hours we should 
+have help here."
+
+"I do not want the help of your law," the girl interrupted.  
+"It will entangle me.'
+
+"Not a bit of it," said Dickson cheerfully.  "You see, Mem, 
+they've clean lost track of the jools, and nobody knows where 
+they are but me.  I'm a truthful man, but I'll lie like a packman 
+if I'm asked questions.  For the rest, it's a question of kidnapping, 
+I understand, and that's a thing that's not to be allowed.  My advice 
+is to go to our beds and get a little sleep while there's a chance of it.  
+The Gorbals Die-Hards are grand watch-dogs."
+
+This view sounded so reasonable that it was at once acted upon.  
+The ladies' chamber was next door to the smoking-room--what had been 
+the old schoolroom.  Heritage arranged with Saskia that the lamp was 
+to be kept burning low, and that on no account were they to move 
+unless summoned by him.  Then he and Dickson made their way to the 
+hall, where there was a faint glimmer from the moon in the upper 
+unshuttered windows--enough to reveal the figure of Wee Jaikie on 
+duty at the foot of the staircase.  They ascended to the second floor, 
+where, in a large room above the hall, Heritage had bestowed his pack.  
+He had managed to open a fold of the shutters, and there was sufficient 
+light to see two big mahogany bedsteads without mattresses or 
+bedclothes, and wardrobes and chests of drawers sheeted in holland.  
+Outside the wind was rising again, but the rain had stopped.  
+Angry watery clouds scurried across the heavens.
+
+Dickson made a pillow of his waterproof, stretched himself on one of 
+the bedsteads, and, so quiet was his conscience and so weary his body 
+from the buffetings of the past days, was almost instantly asleep.  
+It seemed to him that he had scarcely closed his eyes when he was 
+awakened by Dougal's hand pinching his shoulder.  He gathered that 
+the moon was setting, for the room was pitchy dark.
+
+"The three o' them is approachin' the kitchen door," whispered 
+the Chieftain.  "I seen them from a spy-hole I made out o' a ventilator."
+
+"Is it barricaded?" asked Heritage, who had apparently not been asleep.
+
+"Aye, but I've thought o' a far better plan.  Why should we 
+keep them out?  They'll be safer inside.  Listen!  We might manage 
+to get them in one at a time.  If they can't get in at the kitchen 
+door, they'll send one o' them round to get in by another door and 
+open to them.  That gives us a chance to get them separated, and 
+lock them up.  There's walth o' closets and hidy-holes all over the 
+place, each with good doors and good keys to them.  Supposin' we get 
+the three o' them shut up--the others, when they come, will have 
+nobody to guide them.  Of course some time or other the three will 
+break out, but it may be ower late for them.  At present we're 
+besieged and they're roamin' the country.  Would it no' be far 
+better if they were the ones lockit up and we were goin' loose?"
+
+"Supposing they don't come in one at a time?"  Dickson objected.
+
+"We'll make them," said Dougal firmly.  "There's no time to waste.  
+Are ye for it?"
+
+"Yes," said Heritage.  "Who's at the kitchen door?"
+
+"Peter Paterson.  I told him no' to whistle, but to wait on me..
+..Keep your boots off.  Ye're better in your stockin' feet.  Wait you 
+in the hall and see ye're well hidden, for likely whoever comes in 
+will have a lantern.  Just you keep quiet unless I give ye a cry.  
+I've planned it a' out, and we're ready for them."
+
+Dougal disappeared, and Dickson and Heritage, with their boots tied 
+round their necks by their laces, crept out to the upper landing.  
+The hall was impenetrably dark, but full of voices, for the wind was 
+talking in the ceiling beams, and murmuring through the long passages.  
+The walls creaked and muttered and little bits of plaster fluttered down.  
+The noise was an advantage for the game of hide-and-seek they 
+proposed to play, but it made it hard to detect the enemy's approach.  
+Dickson, in order to get properly wakened, adventured as far 
+as the smoking-room.  It was black with night, but below the door of 
+the adjacent room a faint line of light showed where the Princess's 
+lamp was burning.  He advanced to the window, and heard distinctly a 
+foot on the grovel path that led to the verandah.  This sent him back 
+to the hall in search of Dougal, whom he encountered in the passage.  
+That boy could certainly see in the dark, for he caught Dickson's 
+wrist without hesitation.  
+
+"We've got Spittal in the wine-cellar," he whispered triumphantly.  
+"The kitchen door was barricaded, and when they tried it, it wouldn't open.  
+'Bide here,' says Dobson to Spittal, 'and we'll go round by another door 
+and come back and open to ye.'  So off they wet, and by that time 
+Peter Paterson and me had the barricade down.  As we expected, 
+Spittal tries the key again and it opens quite easy.  He comes in 
+and locks it behind him, and, Dobson having took away the lantern, 
+he gropes his way very carefu' towards the kitchen.  There's a point 
+where the wine-cellar door and the scullery door are aside each other.  
+He should have taken the second, but I had it shut so he takes the first.  
+Peter Paterson gave him a wee shove and he fell down the two-three 
+steps into the cellar, and we turned the key on him.  Yon cellar has a 
+grand door and no windies."
+
+"And Dobson and Leon are at the verandah door?  With a light?"
+
+"Thomas Yownie's on duty there.  Ye can trust him.  Ye'll no 
+fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+The next minutes were for Dickson a delirium of excitement not 
+unpleasantly shot with flashes of doubt and fear.  As a child he 
+had played hide-and-seek, and his memory had always cherished the 
+delights of the game.  But how marvellous to play it thus in a great 
+empty house, at dark of night, with the heaven filled with tempest, 
+and with death or wounds as the stakes!
+
+He took refuge in a corner where a tapestry curtain and the side of 
+a Dutch awmry gave him shelter, and from where he stood he could see 
+the garden-room and the beginning of the tiled passage which led to 
+the verandah door.  That is to say, he could have seen these things 
+if there had been any light, which there was not.  He heard the 
+soft flitting of bare feet, for a delicate sound is often audible 
+in a din when a loud noise is obscured.  Then a gale of wind 
+blew towards him, as from an open door, and far away gleamed the 
+flickering light of a lantern.
+
+Suddenly the light disappeared and there was a clatter on the floor 
+and a breaking of glass.  Either the wind or Thomas Yownie.
+
+The verandah door was shut, a match spluttered and the lantern 
+was relit.  Dobson and Leon came into the hall, both clad in long 
+mackintoshes which glistened from the weather.  Dobson halted and 
+listened to the wind howling in the upper spaces.  He cursed it 
+bitterly, looked at his watch, and then made an observation which 
+woke the liveliest interest in Dickson lurking beside the awmry and 
+Heritage ensconced in the shadow of a window-seat.
+
+"He's late.  He should have been here five minutes syne.  It would be 
+a dirty road for his car."
+
+So the Unknown was coming that night.  The news made Dickson the more 
+resolved to get the watchers under lock and key before reinforcements 
+arrived, and so put grit in their wheels.  Then his party must 
+escape--flee anywhere so long as it was far from Dalquharter.
+
+"You stop here," said Dobson, "I'll go down and let Spidel in.  
+We want another lamp.  Get the one that the women use, and for 
+God's sake get a move on."
+
+The sound of his feet died in the kitchen passage and then rung 
+again on the stone stairs.  Dickson's ear of faith heard also the 
+soft patter of naked feet as the Die-Hards preceded and followed him.  
+He was delivering himself blind and bound into their hands.
+
+For a minute or two there was no sound but the wind, which had found 
+a loose chimney cowl on the roof and screwed out of it an odd sound 
+like the drone of a bagpipe.  Dickson, unable to remain any longer in 
+one place, moved into the centre of the hall, believing that Leon had 
+gone to the smoking-room.  It was a dangerous thing to do, for 
+suddenly a match was lit a yard from him.  He had the sense to 
+drop low, and so was out of the main glare of the light.  The man 
+with the match apparently had no more, judging by his execrations.  
+Dickson stood stock still, longing for the wind to fall so that he 
+might hear the sound of the fellow's boots on the stone floor.  
+He gathered that they were moving towards the smoking-room.
+
+"Heritage," he whispered as loud as he dared, bet there was no answer.
+
+Then suddenly a moving body collided with him.  He jumped a step back 
+and then stood at attention.  "Is that you, Dobson?"  a voice asked.
+
+Now behold the occasional advantage of a nick-name.  Dickson thought 
+he was being addressed as "Dogson" after the Poet's fashion.  Had he 
+dreamed it was Leon he would not have replied, but fluttered off 
+into the shadows, and so missed a piece of vital news.
+
+"Ay, it's me." he whispered.
+
+His voice and accent were Scotch, like Dobson's, and Leon 
+suspected nothing.
+
+"I do not like this wind," he grumbled.  "The Captain's letter said 
+at dawn, but there is no chance of the Danish brig making your little 
+harbour in this weather.  She must lie off and land the men by boats.  
+That I do not like.  It is too public."
+
+The news--tremendous news, for it told that the new-comers would come 
+by sea, which had never before entered Dickson's head--so interested 
+him that he stood dumb and ruminating.  The silence made the Belgian 
+suspect; he put out a hand and felt a waterproofed arm which might 
+have been Dobson's.  But the height of the shoulder proved that it was 
+not the burly innkeeper.  There was an oath, a quick movement, and 
+Dickson went down with a knee on his chest and two hands at his throat.
+
+"Heritage," he gasped.  "Help!"
+
+There was a sound of furniture scraped violently on the floor.  
+A gurgle from Dickson served as a guide, and the Poet suddenly 
+cascaded over the combatants.  He felt for a head, found Leon's 
+and gripped the neck so savagely that the owner loosened his 
+hold on Dickson.  The last-named found himself being buffeted 
+violently by heavy-shod feet which seemed to be manoeuvring before 
+an unseen enemy.  He rolled out of the road and encountered another 
+pair of feet, this time unshod.  Then came the sound of a concussion, 
+as if metal or wood had struck some part of a human frame, and then 
+a stumble and fall.
+
+After that a good many things all seemed to happen at once.  
+There was a sudden light, which showed Leon blinking with a short 
+loaded life-preserver in his hand, and Heritage prone in front of 
+him on the floor.  It also showed Dickson the figure of Dougal, 
+and more than one Die-Hard in the background.  The light went out 
+as suddenly as it had appeared.  There was a whistle and a hoarse 
+"Come on, men," and then for two seconds there was a desperate 
+silent combat.  It ended with Leon's head meeting the floor so 
+violently that its possessor became oblivious of further proceedings.  
+He was dragged into a cubby-hole, which had once been used for 
+coats and rugs, and the door locked on him.  Then the light sprang 
+forth again.  It revealed Dougal and five Die-Hards, somewhat the 
+worse for wear; it revealed also Dickson squatted with outspread 
+waterproof very like a sitting hen.
+
+"Where's Dobson?" he asked.
+
+"In the boiler-house," and for once Dougal's gravity had laughter in it.  
+"Govey Dick! but yon was a fecht!  Me and Peter Paterson and 
+Wee Jaikie started it, but it was the whole company afore the end.  
+Are ye better, Jaikie?"
+
+"Ay, I'm better," said a pallid midget.
+
+"He kickit Jaikie in the stomach and Jaikie was seeck," Dougal explained.  
+"That's the three accounted for.  I think mysel' that Dobson will be 
+the first to get out, but he'll have his work letting out the others.  
+Now, I'm for flittin' to the old Tower.  They'll no ken where we are 
+for a long time, and anyway yon place will be far easier to defend.  
+Without they kindle a fire and smoke us out, I don't see how 
+they'll beat us.  Our provisions are a' there, and there's a grand 
+well o' water inside.  Forbye there's the road down the rocks that'll 
+keep our communications open....But what's come to Mr. Heritage?"
+
+Dickson to his shame had forgotten all about his friend.  The Poet lay 
+very quiet with his head on one side and his legs crooked limply.  
+Blood trickled over his eyes from an ugly scar on his forehead.  
+Dickson felt his heart and pulse and found them faint but regular.  
+The man had got a swinging blow and might have a slight concussion;  
+for the present he was unconscious.
+
+"All the more reason why we should flit," said Dougal.  "What d'ye 
+say, Mr. McCunn?"
+
+"Flit, of course, but further than the old Tower.  What's the time?"  
+He lifted Heritage's wrist and saw from his watch that it was 
+half-past three.  "Mercy"  It's nearly morning.  Afore we put these 
+blagyirds away, they were conversing, at least Leon and Dobson were.  
+They said that they expected somebody every moment, but that the 
+car would be late.  We've still got that Somebody to tackle.  
+Then Leon spoke to me in the dark, thinking I was Dobson, and 
+cursed the wind, saying it would keep the Danish brig from getting 
+in at dawn as had been intended.  D'you see what that means?  
+The worst of the lot, the ones the ladies are in terror of, 
+are coming by sea.  Ay, and they can return by sea.  We thought that 
+the attack would be by land, and that even if they succeeded we could 
+hang on to their heels and follow them, till we got them stopped.  
+But that's impossible!  If they come in from the water, they can 
+go out by the water, and there'll never be more heard tell of 
+the ladies or of you or me."
+
+Dougal's face was once again sunk in gloom.  "What's your plan, then?"
+
+"We must get the ladies away from here--away inland, far from the sea.  
+The rest of us must stand a siege in the old Tower, so that the enemy 
+will think we're all there.  Please God we'll hold out long enough for 
+help to arrive.  But we mustn't hang about here.  There's the man 
+Dobson mentioned--he may come any second, and we want to be away first.  
+Get the ladder, Dougal....Four of you take Mr. Heritage, and two come 
+with me and carry the ladies' things.  It's no' raining, but the 
+wind's enough to take the wings off a seagull."
+
+Dickson roused Saskia and her cousin, bidding them be ready in 
+ten minutes.  Then with the help of the Die-Hards he proceeded 
+to transport the necessary supplies--the stove, oil, dishes, 
+clothes and wraps; more than one journey was needed of small boys, 
+hidden under clouds of baggage.  When everything had gone he 
+collected the keys, behind which, in various quarters of the house, 
+three gaolers fumed impotently, and gave them to Wee Jaikie to 
+dispose of in some secret nook.  Then he led the two ladies to the 
+verandah, the elder cross and sleepy, the younger alert at the 
+prospect of movement.
+
+"Tell me again," she said.  "You have locked all the three up, 
+and they are now the imprisoned?"
+
+"Well, it was the boys that, properly speaking, did the locking up."
+
+"It is a great--how do you say?--a turning of the tables.  
+Ah--what is that?"
+
+At the end of the verandah there was a clattering down of pots 
+which could not be due to the wind, since the place was sheltered.  
+There was as yet only the faintest hint of light, and black night 
+still lurked in the crannies.  Followed another fall of pots, 
+as from a clumsy intruder, and then a man appeared, clear against 
+the glass door by which the path descended to the rock garden.  
+It was the fourth man, whom the three prisoners had awaited.  
+Dickson had no doubt at all about his identity.  He was that villain 
+from whom all the others took their orders, the man whom the 
+Princess shuddered at.  Before starting he had loaded his pistol.  
+Now he tugged it from his waterproof pocket, pointed it at the 
+other and fired.
+
+The man seemed to be hit, for he spun round and clapped a hand to 
+his left arm.  Then he fled through the door, which he left open.
+
+Dickson was after him like a hound.  At the door he saw him running 
+and raised his pistol for another shot.  Then he dropped it, for he 
+saw something in the crouching, dodging figure which was familiar.
+
+"A mistake," he explained to Jaikie when he returned.  "But the shot 
+wasn't wasted.  I've just had a good try at killing the factor!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY
+
+
+Five scouts' lanterns burned smokily in the ground room of the 
+keep when Dickson ushered his charges through its cavernous door.  
+The lights flickered in the gusts that swept after them and whistled 
+through the slits of the windows, so that the place was full 
+of monstrous shadows, and its accustomed odour of mould and disuse 
+was changed to a salty freshness.  Upstairs on the first floor 
+Thomas Yownie had deposited the ladies' baggage, and was busy 
+making beds out of derelict iron bedsteads and the wraps brought 
+from their room.  On the ground floor on a heap of litter covered 
+by an old scout's blanket lay Heritage, with Dougal in attendance.
+
+The Chieftain had washed the blood from the Poet's brow, and the 
+touch of cold water was bringing him back his senses.  Saskia with a 
+cry flew to him, and waved off Dickson who had fetched one of 
+the bottles of liqueur brandy.  She slipped a hand inside his shirt 
+and felt the beating of his heart.  Then her slim fingers ran 
+over his forehead.
+
+"A bad blow," she muttered, "but I do not think he is ill.  
+There is no fracture.  When I nursed in the Alexander Hospital 
+I learnt much about head wounds.  Do not give him cognac if you 
+value his life."
+
+Heritage was talking now and with strange tongues.  Phrases like 
+"lined Digesters" and "free sulphurous acid" came from his lips.  
+He implored some one to tell him if "the first cook" was finished, 
+and he upbraided some one else for "cooling off" too fast.
+
+The girl raised her head.  "But I fear he has become mad," she said.
+
+"Wheesht, Mem," said Dickson, who recognized the jargon.  
+"He's a papermaker."
+
+Saskia sat down on the litter and lifted his head so that it rested 
+on her breast.  Dougal at her bidding brought a certain case from 
+her baggage, and with swift, capable hands she made a bandage and 
+rubbed the wound with ointment before tying it up.  Then her fingers 
+seemed to play about his temples and along his cheeks and neck.  
+She was the professional nurse now, absorbed, sexless.  Heritage ceased 
+to babble, his eyes shut and he was asleep.
+
+She remained where she was, so that the Poet, when a few minutes 
+later he woke, found himself lying with his head in her lap.  
+She spoke first, in an imperative tone: "You are well now.  
+Your head does not ache.  You are strong again."
+
+"No.  Yes," he murmured.  Then more clearly; "Where am I?  
+Oh, I remember, I caught a lick on the head.  What's become 
+of the brutes?"
+
+Dickson, who had extracted food from the Mearns Street box and was 
+pressing it on the others, replied through a mouthful of Biscuit: 
+"We're in the old Tower.  The three are lockit up in the House.  
+Are you feeling better, Mr. Heritage?"
+
+The Poet suddenly realized Saskia's position and the blood came 
+to his pale face.  He got to his feet with an effort and held 
+out a hand to the girl.  "I'm all right now, I think.  Only a little 
+dicky on my legs.  A thousand thanks, Princess.  I've given you 
+a lot of trouble."
+
+She smiled at him tenderly.  "You say that when you have risked 
+your life for me."
+
+"There's no time to waste," the relentless Dougal broke in.  
+"Comin' over here, I heard a shot.  What was it?"
+
+"It was me," said Dickson.  "I was shootin' at the factor."
+
+"Did ye hit him?"
+
+"I think so, but I'm sorry to say not badly.  When I last saw him 
+he was running too quick for a sore hurt man.  When I fired I thought 
+it was the other man--the one they were expecting."
+
+Dickson marvelled at himself, yet his speech was not bravado, but the 
+honest expression of his mind.  He was keyed up to a mood in which he 
+feared nothing very much, certainly not the laws of his country.  
+If he fell in with the Unknown, he was entirely resolved, if 
+his Maker permitted him, to do murder as being the simplest 
+and justest solution.  And if in the pursuit of this laudable 
+intention he happened to wing lesser game it was no fault of his.
+
+"Well, it's a pity ye didn't get him," said Dougal, "him being 
+what we ken him to be....I'm for holding a council o' war, and 
+considerin' the whole position.  So far we haven't done that badly.  
+We've shifted our base without serious casualties.  We've got a far 
+better position to hold, for there's too many ways into yon Hoose, 
+and here there's just one.  Besides, we've fickled the enemy.  
+They'll take some time to find out where we've gone.  But, mind you, 
+we can't count on their staying long shut up.  Dobson's no safe in 
+the boiler-house, for there's a skylight far up and he'll see it when 
+the light comes and maybe before.  So we'd better get our plans ready.  
+A word with ye, Mr. McCunn," and he led Dickson aside.
+
+"D'ye ken what these blagyirds were up to?" he whispered fiercely 
+in Dickson's ear.  "They were goin' to pushion the lassie.  How do I 
+ken, says you?  Because Thomas Yownie heard Dobson say to Lean at the 
+scullery door, 'Have ye got the dope?' he says, and Lean says, 'Aye.' 
+Thomas mindit the word for he had heard about it at the Picters."
+
+Dickson exclaimed in horror.
+
+"What d'ye make o' that?"  I'll tell ye.  They wanted to make sure 
+of her, but they wouldn't have thought o' dope unless the men they 
+expectit were due to arrive at any moment.  As I see it, we've to 
+face a siege not by the three but by a dozen or more, and it'll no' 
+be long till it starts.  Now, isn't it a mercy we're safe in here?"
+
+Dickson returned to the others with a grave face.
+
+"Where d'you think the new folk are coming from?" he asked.
+
+Heritage answered, "From Auchenlochan, I suppose?  Or perhaps 
+down from the hills?"
+
+"You're wrong."  And he told of Leon's mistaken confidences to him in 
+the darkness.  "They are coming from the sea, just like the old pirates."
+
+"The sea," Heritage repeated in a dazed voice.
+
+"Ay, the sea.  Think what that means.  If they had been coming by 
+the roads, we could have kept track of them, even if they beat us, 
+and some of these laddies could have stuck to them and followed 
+them up till help came.  It can't be such an easy job to carry a 
+young lady against her will along Scotch roads.  But the sea's 
+a different matter.  If they've got a fast boat they could be 
+out of the Firth and away beyond the law before we could wake up 
+a single policeman.  Ay, and even if the Government took it up and 
+warned all the ports and ships at sea, what's to hinder them to find 
+a hidy-hole about Ireland--or Norway?  I tell you, it's a far more 
+desperate business than I thought, and it'll no' do to wait on and 
+trust that the Chief Constable will turn up afore the mischief's done.'
+
+"The moral," said Heritage, "is that there can be no surrender.  
+We've got to stick it out in this old place at all costs."
+
+"No," said Dickson emphatically.  "The moral is that we must 
+shift the ladies.  We've got the chance while Dobson and his 
+friends are locked up.  Let's get them as far away as we can 
+from the sea.  They're far safer tramping the moors, and it's 
+no' likely the new folk will dare to follow us."
+
+"But I cannot go."  Saskia, who had been listening intently, 
+shook her head.  "I promised to wait here till my friend came.  
+If I leave I shall never find him."
+
+"If you stay you certainly never will, for you'll be away 
+with the ruffians.  Take a sensible view, Mem.  You'll be no 
+good to your friend or your friend to you if before night you're 
+rocking in a ship."
+
+The girl shook her head again, gently but decisively.  "It was 
+our arrangement.  I cannot break it.  Besides, I am sure that 
+he will come in time, for he has never failed---"
+
+There was a desperate finality about the quiet tones and the 
+weary face with the shadow of a smile on it.
+
+Then Heritage spoke.  "I don't think your plan will quite do, Dogson.  
+Supposing we all break for the hinterland and the Danish brig finds 
+the birds flown, that won't end the trouble.  They will get on 
+the Princess's trail, and the whole persecution will start again.  
+I want to see things brought to a head here and now.  If we can 
+stick it out here long enough, we may trap the whole push and rid 
+the world of a pretty gang of miscreants.  Let them show their hand, 
+and then, if the police are here by that time, we can jug the lot for 
+piracy or something worse."
+
+"That's all right," said Dougal, "but we'd put up a better fight if 
+we had the women off our mind.  I've aye read that when a castle was 
+going to be besieged the first thing was to get rid of the civilians."
+
+"Sensible to the last, Dougal," said Dickson approvingly.  
+"That's just what I'm saying.  I'm strong for a fight, but put 
+the ladies in a safe bit first, for they're our weak point."
+
+"Do you think that if you were fighting my enemies I would consent 
+to be absent?" came Saskia's reproachful question.
+
+"'Deed no, Mem," said Dickson heartily.  His martial spirit was 
+with Heritage, but his prudence did not sleep, and he suddenly 
+saw a way of placating both.  "Just you listen to what I propose.  
+What do we amount to?  Mr. Heritage, six laddies, and myself--and 
+I'm no more used to fighting than an old wife.  We've seven 
+desperate villains against us, and afore night they may be seventy.  
+We've a fine old castle here, but for defence we want more than stone 
+walls--we want a garrison.  I tell you we must get help somewhere.  
+Ay, but how, says you?  Well, coming here I noticed a gentleman's house 
+away up ayont the railway and close to the hills.  The laird's maybe not 
+at home, but there will be men there of some kind--gamekeepers and 
+woodmen and such like.  My plan is to go there at once and ask for help.  
+Now, it's useless me going alone, for nobody would listen to me.  
+They'd tell me to go back to the shop or they'd think me demented.  
+But with you, Mem, it would be a different matter.  They wouldn't 
+disbelieve you.  So I want you to come with me, and to come at once, 
+for God knows how soon our need will be sore.  We'll leave your 
+cousin with Mrs. Morran in the village, for bed's the place for her, 
+and then you and me will be off on our business."
+
+The girl looked at Heritage, who nodded.  "It's the only way," he said.  
+"Get every man jack you can raise, and if it's humanly possible get 
+a gun or two.  I believe there's time enough, for I don't see the 
+brig arriving in broad daylight."
+
+"D'you not?" Dickson asked rudely.  "Have you considered what day this is?  
+It's the Sabbath, the best of days for an ill deed.  There's no kirk 
+hereaways, and everybody in the parish will be sitting indoors 
+by the fire."  He looked at his watch.  "In half an hour it'll be light.  
+Haste you, Mem, and get ready.  Dougal, what's the weather?"
+
+The Chieftain swung open the door, and sniffed the air.  The wind had 
+fallen for the time being, and the surge of the tides below the rocks 
+rose like the clamour of a mob.  With the lull, mist and a thin 
+drizzle had cloaked the world again.
+
+To Dickson's surprise Dougal seemed to be in good spirits.  
+He began to sing to a hymn tune a strange ditty.
+
+
+"Class-conscious we are, and class-conscious wull be
+Till our fit's on the neck o' the Boorjoyzee."
+
+
+"What on earth are you singing?"  Dickson inquired.
+
+Dougal grinned.  "Wee Jaikie went to a Socialist Sunday School 
+last winter because he heard they were for fechtin' battles.  
+Ay, and they telled him he was to join a thing called an International, 
+and Jaikie thought it was a fitba' club.  But when he fund out there 
+was no magic lantern or swaree at Christmas he gie'd it the chuck.  
+They learned him a heap o' queer songs.  That's one."
+
+"What does the last word mean?"
+
+"I don't ken.  Jaikie thought it was some kind of a draigon."
+
+"It's a daft-like thing anyway....When's high water?"
+
+Dougal answered that to the best of his knowledge it fell between 
+four and five in the afternoon.
+
+"Then that's when we may expect the foreign gentry if they think 
+to bring their boat in to the Garplefoot.....Dougal, lad, I trust 
+you to keep a most careful and prayerful watch.  You had better 
+get the Die-Hards out of the Tower and all round the place afore 
+Dobson and Co. get loose, or you'll no' get a chance later.  
+Don't lose your mobility, as the sodgers say.  Mr. Heritage can hold 
+the fort, but you laddies should be spread out like a screen."
+
+"That was my notion," said Dougal.  "I'll detail two Die-Hards--
+Thomas Yownie and Wee Jaikie--to keep in touch with ye and watch 
+for you comin' back.  Thomas ye ken already; ye'll no fickle 
+Thomas Yownie.  But don't be mistook about Wee Jaikie.  He's terrible 
+fond of greetin', but it's no fright with him but excitement.  
+It's just a habit he's gotten.  When ye see Jaikie begin to greet, 
+you may be sure that Jaikie's gettin' dangerous."
+
+The door shut behind them and Dickson found himself with his two charges 
+in a world dim with fog and rain and the still lingering darkness.  
+The air was raw, and had the sour smell which comes from soaked earth 
+and wet boughs when the leaves are not yet fledged.  Both the women 
+were miserably equipped for such an expedition.  Cousin Eugenie trailed 
+heavy furs, Saskia's only wrap was a bright-coloured shawl about her 
+shoulders, and both wore thin foreign shoes.  Dickson insisted on 
+stripping off his trusty waterproof and forcing it on the Princess, 
+on whose slim body it hung very loose and very short.  The elder woman 
+stumbled and whimpered and needed the constant support of his arm, 
+walking like a townswoman from the knees.  But Saskia swung from the 
+hips like a free woman, and Dickson had much ado to keep up with her.  
+She seemed to delight in the bitter freshness of the dawn, inhaling 
+deep breaths of it, and humming fragments of a tune.
+
+Guided by Thomas Yownie they took the road which Dickson and Heritage 
+had travelled the first evening, through the shrubberies on the north 
+side of the House and the side avenue beyond which the ground fell to 
+the Laver glen.  On their right the House rose like a dark cloud, but 
+Dickson had lost his terror of it.  There were three angry men inside 
+it, he remembered: long let them stay there.  He marvelled at his 
+mood, and also rejoiced, for his worst fear had always been that he 
+might prove a coward.  Now he was puzzled to think how he could ever 
+be frightened again, for his one object was to succeed, and in that 
+absorption fear seemed to him merely a waste of time.  "It all comes 
+of treating the thing as a business proposition," he told himself.
+
+But there was far more in his heart than this sober resolution.  
+He was intoxicated with the resurgence of youth and felt a rapture 
+of audacity which he never remembered in his decorous boyhood.  
+"I haven't been doing badly for an old man," he reflected with glee.  
+What, oh what had become of the pillar of commerce, the man who 
+might have been a bailie had he sought municipal honours, the elder 
+in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, the instructor of literary young men?  
+In the past three days he had levanted with jewels which had once 
+been an Emperor's and certainly were not his; he had burglariously 
+entered and made free of a strange house; he had played hide-and-seek 
+at the risk of his neck and had wrestled in the dark with a foreign 
+miscreant; he had shot at an eminent solicitor with intent to kill; 
+and he was now engaged in tramping the world with a fairytale Princess.  
+I blush to confess that of each of his doings he was unashamedly proud, 
+and thirsted for many more in the same line.  "Gosh, but I'm seeing life," 
+was his unregenerate conclusion.
+
+Without sight or sound of a human being, they descended to the Laver, 
+climbed again by the cart track, and passed the deserted West Lodge 
+and inn to the village.  It was almost full dawn when the three 
+stood in Mrs. Morran's kitchen.
+
+"I've brought you two ladies, Auntie Phemie," said Dickson.
+
+They made an odd group in that cheerful place, where the new-lit fire 
+was crackling in the big grate--the wet undignified form of Dickson, 
+unshaven of cheek and chin and disreputable in garb; the shrouded 
+figure of Cousin Eugenie, who had sunk into the arm-chair and closed 
+her eyes; the slim girl, into whose face the weather had whipped a 
+glow like blossom; and the hostess, with her petticoats kilted and 
+an ancient mutch on her head.
+
+Mrs. Morran looked once at Saskia, and then did a thing which she 
+had not done since her girlhood.  She curtseyed.
+
+"I'm proud to see ye here, Mem.  Off wi' your things, and I'll 
+get ye dry claes,  Losh, ye're fair soppin'  And your shoon!  
+Ye maun change your feet....Dickson! Awa' up to the loft, and dinna 
+you stir till I give ye a cry.  The leddies will change by the fire.  
+And You, Mem"--this to Cousin Eugenie--"the place for you's your bed.  
+I'll kinnle a fire ben the hoose in a jiffey.  And syne ye'll 
+have breakfast--ye'll hae a cup o' tea wi' me now, for the kettle's 
+just on the boil.  Awa' wi' ye. Dickson," and she stamped her foot.
+
+Dickson departed, and in the loft washed his face, and smoked a pipe on 
+the edge of the bed, watching the mist eddying up the village street.  
+From below rose the sounds of hospitable bustle, and when after 
+some twenty minutes' vigil he descended, he found Saskia toasting 
+stockinged toes by the fire in the great arm-chair, and Mrs. Morran 
+setting the table.
+
+"Auntie Phemie, hearken to me.  We've taken on too big a job for 
+two men and six laddies, and help we've got to get, and that 
+this very morning.  D'you mind the big white house away up near 
+the hills ayont the station and east of the Ayr road?  It looked like 
+a gentleman's shooting lodge.  I was thinking of trying there.  Mercy!"
+
+The exclamation was wrung from him by his eyes settling on Saskia 
+and noting her apparel.  Gone were her thin foreign clothes, and in 
+their place she wore a heavy tweed skirt cut very short, and thick 
+homespun stockings, which had been made for some one with larger 
+feet than hers.  A pair of the coarse low-heeled shoes which country 
+folk wear in the farmyard stood warming by the hearth.  She still had 
+her russet jumper, but round her neck hung a grey wool scarf, of the kind 
+known as a "Comforter."  Amazingly pretty she looked in Dickson's eyes, 
+but with a different kind of prettiness.  The sense of fragility had fled, 
+and he saw how nobly built she was for all her exquisiteness.  
+She looked like a queen, he thought, but a queen to go gipsying 
+through the world with.
+
+"Ay, they're some o' Elspeth's things, rale guid furthy claes,"  
+said Mrs. Morran complacently.  "And the shoon are what she used 
+to gang about the byres wi' when she was in the Castlewham dairy.  
+The leddy was tellin' me she was for trampin' the hills, and thae 
+things will keep her dry and warm....I ken the hoose ye mean.  
+They ca' it the Mains of Garple.  And I ken the man that bides in it.  
+He's yin Sir Erchibald Roylance.  English, but his mither was a Dalziel.  
+I'm no weel acquaint wi' his forbears, but I'm weel eneuch acquaint 
+wi' Sir Erchie, and 'better a guid coo that a coo o' a guid kind," 
+as my mither used to say.  He used to be an awfu' wild callont, 
+a freend o' puir Maister Quentin, and up to ony deevilry.  
+But they tell me he's a quieter lad since the war, as sair 
+lamed by fa'in oot o' an airyplane."
+
+"Will he be at the Mains just now?" Dickson asked.
+
+"I wadna wonder.  He has a muckle place in England, but he aye used to 
+come here in the back-end for the shootin' and in April for birds.  
+He's clean daft about birds.  He'll be out a' day at the craig watchin' 
+solans, or lyin' a' mornin' i' the moss lookin' at bog-blitters."
+
+"Will he help, think you?"
+
+"I'll wager he'll help.  Onyway it's your best chance, and better 
+a wee bush than nae beild.  Now, sit in to your breakfast."
+
+It was a merry meal.  Mrs. Morran dispensed tea and gnomic wisdom.  
+Saskia ate heartily, speaking little, but once or twice laying her 
+hand softly on her hostess's gnarled fingers.  Dickson was in such 
+spirits that he gobbled shamelessly, being both hungry and hurried, 
+and he spoke of the still unconquered enemy with ease and disrespect, 
+so that Mrs. Morran was moved to observe that there was "naething 
+sae bauld as a blind mear."  But when in a sudden return of modesty 
+he belittled his usefulness and talked sombrely of his mature years 
+he was told that he "wad never be auld wi' sae muckle honesty."  
+Indeed it was very clear that Mrs. Morran approved of her nephew.  
+They did not linger over breakfast, for both were impatient to be 
+on the road.  Mrs. Morran assisted Saskia to put on Elspeth's shoes. 
+"'Even a young fit finds comfort in an auld bauchle,' as my mother, 
+honest woman, used to say."  Dickson's waterproof was restored to him, 
+and for Saskia an old raincoat belonging to the son in South Africa 
+was discovered, which fitted her better.  "Siccan weather," said 
+the hostess, as she opened the door to let in a swirl of wind.  
+"The deil's aye kind to his ain.  Haste ye back, Mem, and be sure 
+I'll tak' guid care o' your leddy cousin."
+
+The proper way to the Mains of Garple was either by the station and 
+the Ayr road, or by the Auchenlochan highway, branching off half a 
+mile beyond the Garple bridge.  But Dickson, who had been studying 
+the map and fancied himself as a pathfinder, chose the direct route 
+across the Long Muir as being at once shorter and more sequestered.  
+With the dawn the wind had risen again, but it had shifted towards 
+the north-west and was many degrees colder.  The mist was furling on 
+the hills like sails, the rain had ceased, and out at sea the eye 
+covered a mile or two of wild water.  The moor was drenching wet, 
+and the peat bogs were brimming with inky pools, so that soon the 
+travellers were soaked to the knees.  Dickson had no fear of pursuit, 
+for he calculated that Dobson and his friends, even if they had got out, 
+would be busy looking for the truants in the vicinity of the House and 
+would presently be engaged with the old Tower.  But he realized, too, 
+that speed on his errand was vital, for at any moment the Unknown 
+might arrive from the sea.
+
+So he kept up a good pace, half-running, half-striding, till they 
+had passed the railway, and he found himself gasping with a stitch 
+in his side, and compelled to rest in the lee of what had once 
+been a sheepfold.  Saskia amazed him.  She moved over the rough heather 
+like a deer, and it was her hand that helped him across the deeper hags.  
+Before such youth and vigour he felt clumsy and old.  She stood looking 
+down at him as he recovered his breath, cool, unruffled, alert as Diana.  
+His mind fled to Heritage, and it occurred to him suddenly that 
+the Poet had set his affections very high.  Loyalty drove him 
+to speak for his friend.
+
+"I've got the easy job," he said.  "Mr. Heritage will have the 
+whole pack on him in that old Tower, and him with such a sore clout 
+on his head.  I've left him my pistol.  He's a terrible brave man!"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Ay, and he's a poet too."
+
+"So?" she said.  "I did not know.  He is very young."
+
+"He's a man of very high ideels."
+
+She puzzled at the word, and then smiled.  "He is like many of 
+our young men in Russia, the students--his mind is in a ferment 
+and he does not know what he wants.  But he is brave."
+
+This seemed to Dickson's loyal soul but a chilly tribute.
+
+"I think he is in love with me," she continued.
+
+He looked up startled, and saw in her face that which gave him a view 
+into a strange new world.  He had thought that women blushed when 
+they talked of love, but he eyes were as grave and candid as a boy's.  
+Here was one who had gone through waters so deep that she had 
+lost the foibles of sex.  Love to her was only a word of ill omen, 
+a threat on the lips of brutes, an extra battalion of peril in 
+an army of perplexities.  He felt like some homely rustic who 
+finds himself swept unwittingly into the moonlight hunt of 
+Artemis and her maidens.
+
+"He is a romantic," she said.  "I have known so many like him."
+
+"He's no that," said Dickson shortly.  "Why he used to be aye 
+laughing at me for being romantic.  He's one that's looking for 
+truth and reality,  he says, and he's terrible down on the kind of 
+poetry I like myself.
+
+She smiled.  "They all talk so.  But you, my friend Dickson" 
+(she pronounced the name in two staccato syllables ever so prettily), 
+"you are different.  Tell me about yourself."
+
+"I'm just what you see--a middle-aged retired grocer."
+
+"Grocer?" she queried.  "Ah, yes, epicier.  But you are a very 
+remarkable epicier.  Mr. Heritage I understand, but you and those 
+little boys--no.  I am sure of one thing--you are not a romantic.  
+You are too humorous and--and--I think you are like Ulysses, 
+for it would not be easy to defeat you."
+
+Her eyes were kind, nay affectionate, and Dickson experienced a 
+preposterous rapture in his soul, followed by a sinking, as he 
+realized how far the job was still from being completed.
+
+"We must be getting on, Mem," he said hastily, and the two plunged 
+again into the heather.
+
+The Ayr road was crossed, and the fir wood around the Mains 
+became visible, and presently the white gates of the entrance.  
+A wind-blown spire of smoke beyond the trees proclaimed that the 
+house was not untenanted.  As they entered the drive the Scots firs 
+were tossing in the gale, which blew fiercely at this altitude, but, 
+the dwelling itself being more in the hollow, the daffodil clumps on 
+the lawn were but mildly fluttered.
+
+The door was opened by a one-armed butler who bore all the marks 
+of the old regular soldier.  Dickson produced a card and asked to 
+see his master on urgent business.  Sir Archibald was at home, 
+he was told, and had just finished breakfast.  The two were led 
+into a large bare chamber which had all the chill and mustiness of a 
+bachelor's drawing-room.  The butler returned, and said Sir Archibald 
+would see him.  "I'd better go myself first and prepare the way, Mem," 
+Dickson whispered, and followed the man across the hall.
+
+He found himself ushered into a fair-sized room where a bright 
+fire was burning.  On a table lay the remains of breakfast, 
+and the odour of food mingled pleasantly with the scent of peat.  
+The horns and heads of big game, foxes' masks, the model of a 
+gigantic salmon, and several bookcases adorned the walls, 
+and books and maps were mixed with decanters and cigar-boxes on 
+the long sideboard.  After the wild out of doors the place seemed 
+the very shrine of comfort.  A young man sat in an arm-chair by the 
+fire with a leg on a stool; he was smoking a pipe, and reading the 
+Field, and on another stool at his elbow was a pile of new novels.  
+He was a pleasant brown-faced young man, with remarkably smooth 
+hair and a roving humorous eye.
+
+"Come in, Mr. McCunn.  Very glad to see you.  If, as I take it, 
+you're the grocer, you're a household name in these parts.  
+I get all my supplies from you, and I've just been makin' inroads 
+on one of your divine hams.  Now, what can I do for you?"
+
+"I'm very proud to hear what you say, Sir Archibald.  But I've not 
+come on business.  I've come with the queerest story you ever heard 
+in your life and I've come to ask your help."
+
+"Go ahead.  A good story is just what I want this vile mornin'."
+
+"I'm not here alone.  I've a lady with me."
+
+"God bless my soul!  A lady!"
+
+"Ay, a princess.  She's in the next room."
+
+The young man looked wildly at him and waved the book he had been reading.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. McCunn, but are you quite sober?  I beg your pardon.  
+I see you are.  But you know, it isn't done.  Princesses don't 
+as a rule come here after breakfast to pass the time of day.  
+It's more absurd than this shocker I've been readin'."
+
+"All the same it's a fact.  She'll tell you the story herself, 
+and you'll believe her quick enough.  But to prepare your mind 
+I'll just give you a sketch of the events of the last few days."
+
+Before the sketch was concluded the young man had violently rung the bell.  
+"Sime," he shouted to the servant, "clear away this mess and lay 
+the table again.  Order more breakfast, all the breakfast you can get.  
+Open the windows and get the tobacco smoke out of the air.  
+Tidy up the place for there's a lady comin'.  Quick, you juggins!"
+
+He was on his feet now, and, with his arm in Dickson's, was heading 
+for the door.
+
+"My sainted aunt!  And you topped off with pottin' at the factor.  
+I've seen a few things in my day, but I'm blessed if I ever met 
+a bird like you!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+
+GRAVITY OUT OF BED 
+
+
+
+It is probable that Sir Archibald Roylance did not altogether 
+believe Dickson's tale; it may be that he considered him an agreeable 
+romancer, or a little mad, or no more than a relief to the tedium of 
+a wet Sunday morning.  But his incredulity did not survive one 
+glance at Saskia as she stood in that bleak drawing-room among 
+Victorian water-colours and faded chintzes.  The young man's 
+boyishness deserted him.  He stopped short in his tracks, and made 
+a profound and awkward bow.  "I am at your service, Mademoiselle," 
+he said, amazed at himself.  The words seemed to have come out of 
+a confused memory of plays and novels.
+
+She inclined her head--a little on one side, and looked towards Dickson.
+
+"Sir Archibald's going to do his best for us," said that squire of dames.  
+"I was telling him that we had had our breakfast."
+
+"Let's get out of this sepulchre," said their host, who was 
+recovering himself.  "There's a roasting fire in my den.  Of course 
+you'll have something to eat--hot coffee, anyhow--I've trained my cook to 
+make coffee like a Frenchwoman.  The housekeeper will take charge of you, 
+if you want to tidy up, and you must excuse our ramshackle ways, please.  
+I don't believe there's ever been a lady in this house before, you know."
+
+He led her to the smoking-room and ensconced her in the great 
+chair by the fire.  Smilingly she refused a series of offers which 
+ranged from a sheepskin mantle which he had got in the Pamirs and 
+which he thought might fit her, to hot whisky and water as a specific 
+against a chill.  But she accepted a pair of slippers and deftly 
+kicked off the brogues provided by Mrs. Morran.  Also, while Dickson 
+started rapaciously on a second breakfast, she allowed him to pour 
+her out a cup of coffee.
+
+"You are a soldier?" she asked.
+
+"Two years infantry--5th Battalion Lennox Highlanders, and then 
+Flying Corps.  Top-hole time I had too till the day before 
+the Armistice, when my luck gave out and I took a nasty toss.  
+Consequently I'm not as fast on my legs now as I'd like to be."
+
+"You were a friend of Captain Kennedy?"
+
+"His oldest.  We were at the same private school, and he was at 
+m'tutors, and we were never much separated till he went abroad to 
+cram for the Diplomatic and I started east to shoot things."
+
+"Then I will tell you what I told Captain Kennedy."  Saskia, looking 
+into the heart of the peats, began the story of which we have already 
+heard a version, but she told it differently, for she was telling it 
+to one who more or less belonged to her own world.  She mentioned names 
+at which the other nodded.  She spoke of a certain Paul Abreskov.  
+"I heard of him at Bokhara in 1912," said Sir Archie, and his 
+face grew solemn.  Sometimes she lapsed into French, and her hearer's 
+brow wrinkled, but he appeared to follow.  When she had finished 
+he drew a long breath.
+
+"My aunt!  What a time you've been through!  I've seen pluck in 
+my day, but yours!  It's not thinkable.  D'you mind if I ask 
+a question, Princess?  Bolshevism we know all about, and I admit 
+Trotsky and his friends are a pretty effective push; but how on 
+earth have they got a world-wide graft going in the time so that 
+they can stretch their net to an out-of-the-way spot like this?  
+It looks as if they had struck a Napoleon somewhere."
+
+"You do not understand," she said.  "I cannot make any one understand-
+-except a Russian.  My country has been broken to pieces, and there 
+is no law in it; therefore it is a nursery of crime.  So would 
+England be, or France, if you had suffered the same misfortunes.  
+My people are not wickeder than others, but for the moment they are 
+sick and have no strength.  As for the government of the Bolsheviki 
+it matters little, for it will pass.  Some parts of it may remain, 
+but it is a government of the sick and fevered, and cannot endure 
+in health.  Lenin may be a good man--I do not think so, but I do not know-
+-but if he were an archangel he could not alter things.  Russia is 
+mortally sick and therefore all evil is unchained, and the criminals 
+have no one to check them.  There is crime everywhere in the world, 
+and the unfettered crime in Russia is so powerful that it stretches 
+its hand to crime throughout the globe and there is a great mobilizing 
+everywhere of wicked men.  Once you boasted that law was international 
+and that the police in one land worked with the police of all others.  
+To-day that is true about criminals.  After a war evil passions 
+are loosed, and, since Russia is broken, in her they can make 
+their headquarters....It is not Bolshevism, the theory, you need fear, 
+for that is a weak and dying thing.  It is crime, which to-day finds its 
+seat in my country, but is not only Russian.  It has no fatherland.  
+It is as old as human nature and as wide as the earth."
+
+"I see," said Sir Archie.  "Gad, here have I been vegetatin' and 
+thinkin' that all excitement had gone out of life with the war, 
+and sometimes even regrettin' that the beastly old thing was over, 
+and all the while the world fairly hummin' with interest.  And Loudon too!"
+
+"I would like your candid opinion on yon factor, Sir Archibald," 
+said Dickson.
+
+"I can't say I ever liked him, and I've once or twice had a row 
+with him, for used to bring his pals to shoot over Dalquharter 
+and he didn't quite play the game by me.  But I know dashed 
+little about him, for I've been a lot away.  Bit hairy about the 
+heels, of course.  A great figure at local race-meetin's, and used to 
+toady old Carforth and the huntin' crowd.  He has a pretty big 
+reputation as a sharp lawyer and some of the thick-headed lairds 
+swear by him, but Quentin never could stick him.  It's quite likely 
+he's been gettin' into Queer Street, for he was always speculatin' 
+in horseflesh, and I fancy he plunged a bit on the Turf.  
+But I can't think how he got mixed up in this show."
+
+"I'm positive Dobson's his brother."
+
+"And put this business in his way.  That would explain it all right..
+..He must be runnin' for pretty big stakes, for that kind of lad 
+don't dabble in crime for six-and-eightpence....Now for the layout.  
+You've got three men shut up in Dalquharter House, who by this time 
+have probably escaped.  One of you--what's his name?--Heritage?--is 
+in the old Tower, and you think that they think the Princess is still 
+there and will sit round the place like terriers.  Sometime to-day 
+the Danish brig wall arrive with reinforcements, and then there will 
+be a hefty fight.  Well, the first thing to be done it to get rid of 
+Loudon's stymie with the authorities.  Princess, I'm going to carry 
+you off in my car to the Chief Constable.  The second thing is for 
+you after that to stay on here.  It's a deadly place on a wet day, 
+but it's safe enough."
+
+Saskia shook her head and Dickson spoke for her.
+
+"You'll no' get her to stop here.  I've done my best, but she's 
+determined to be back at Dalquharter.  You see she's expecting 
+a friend, and besides, if here's going to be a battle she'd like 
+to be in it.  Is that so, Mem?"
+
+Sir Archie looked helplessly around him, and the sight of the girl's 
+face convinced him that argument would be fruitless.  "Anyhow she 
+must come with me to the Chief Constable.  Lethington's a slow bird 
+on the wing, and I don't see myself convincin' him that he must get 
+busy unless I can produce the Princess.  Even then it may be a tough 
+job, for it's Sunday, and in these parts people go to sleep till 
+Monday mornin'."
+
+"That's just what I'm trying to get at,' said Dickson.  "By all 
+means go to the Chief Constable, and tell him it's life or death.  
+My lawyer in Glasgow, Mr. Caw, will have been stirring him up 
+yesterday, and you two should complete the job...But what I'm feared 
+is that he'll not be in time.  As you say, it's the Sabbath day, 
+and the police are terrible slow.  Now any moment that brig may be 
+here, and the trouble will start.  I'm wanting to save the Princess, 
+but I'm wanting too to give these blagyirds the roughest handling 
+they ever got in their lives.  Therefore I say there's no time to lose.  
+We're far ower few to put up a fight, and we want every man you've 
+got about this place to hold the fort till the police come."
+
+Sir Archibald looked upon the earnest flushed face of Dickson 
+with admiration.  "I'm blessed if you're not the most whole-hearted 
+brigand I've ever struck."
+
+"I'm not.  I'm just a business man."
+
+"Do you realize that you're levying a private war and breaking 
+every law of the land?"
+
+"Hoots!" said Dickson.  "I don't care a docken about the law.  
+I'm for seeing this job through.  What force can you produce?"
+
+"Only cripples, I'm afraid.  There's Sime, my butler.  He was a 
+Fusilier Jock and, as you saw, has lost an arm.  Then McGuffog the 
+keeper is a good man, but he's still got a Turkish bullet in his thigh.  
+The chauffeur, Carfrae, was in the Yeomanry, and lost half a foot; 
+and there's myself, as lame as a duck.  The herds on the home farm 
+are no good, for one's seventy and the other is in bed with jaundice.  
+The Mains can produce four men, but they're rather a job lot."
+
+"They'll do fine,' said Dickson heartily.  "All sodgers, and no 
+doubt all good shots.  Have you plenty guns?"
+
+Sir Archie burst into uproarious laughter.  "Mr. McCunn, you're a man 
+after my own heart.  I'm under your orders.  If I had a boy I'd put 
+him into the provision trade, for it's the place to see fightin'.  
+Yes, we've no end of guns.  I advise shot-guns, for they've more 
+stoppin' power in a rush than a rifle, and I take it it's a 
+rough-and-tumble we're lookin' for."
+
+"Right," said Dickson.  "I saw a bicycle in the hall.  I want you to 
+lend it me, for I must be getting back.  You'll take the Princess 
+and do the best you can with the Chief Constable."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then you'll load up your car with your folk, and come down the 
+hill to Dalquharter.  There'll be a laddie, or maybe more than one 
+waiting for you on this side the village to give you instructions.  
+Take your orders from them.  If it's a red-haired ruffian called 
+Dougal you'll be wise to heed what he says, for he has a grand 
+head for battles."
+
+Five minutes later Dickson was pursuing a quavering course like a 
+snipe down the avenue.  He was a miserable performer on a bicycle.  
+Not for twenty years had he bestridden one, and he did not understand 
+such new devices as free-wheels and change of gears.  The mounting 
+had been the worst part, and it had only been achieved by the help 
+of a rockery.  He had begun by cutting into two flower-beds, and 
+missing a birch tree by inches.  But he clung on desperately, well 
+knowing that if he fell off it would be hard to remount, and at 
+length he gained the avenue.  When he passed the lodge gates he 
+was riding fairly straight, and when he turned off the Ayr highway 
+to the side road that led to Dalquharter he was more or less master 
+of his machine.
+
+He crossed the Garple by an ancient hunch-backed bridge, observing 
+even in his absorption with the handle-bars that the stream was 
+in roaring spate.  He wrestled up the further hill with aching 
+calf-muscles, and got to the top just before his strength gave out.  
+Then as the road turned seaward he had the slope with him, and 
+enjoyed some respite.  It was no case for putting up his feet, for 
+the gale was blowing hard on his right cheek, but the downward grade 
+enabled him to keep his course with little exertion.  His anxiety 
+to get back to the scene of action was for the moment appeased, 
+since he knew he was making as good speed as the weather allowed, 
+so he had leisure for thought.
+
+But the mind of this preposterous being was not on the business 
+before him.  He dallied with irrelevant things--with the problems 
+of youth and love.  He was beginning to be very nervous about Heritage, 
+not as the solitary garrison of the old Tower, but as the lover of Saskia.  
+That everybody should be in love with her appeared to him only proper, 
+for he had never met her like, and assumed that it did not exist.  
+The desire of the moth for the star seemed to him a reasonable thing, 
+since hopeless loyalty and unrequited passion were the eternal 
+stock-in-trade of romance.  He wished he were twenty-five himself to 
+have the chance of indulging in such sentimentality for such a lady.  
+But Heritage was not like him and would never be content with a 
+romantic folly....He had been in love with her for two years--a 
+long time.  He spoke about wanting to die for her, which was a flight 
+beyond Dickson himself.  "I doubt it will be what they call a 
+'grand passion,' he reflected with reverence.  But it was hopeless; 
+he saw quite clearly that it was hopeless.
+
+Why, he could not have explained, for Dickson's instincts were subtler 
+than his intelligence.  He recognized that the two belonged to different 
+circles of being, which nowhere intersected.  That mysterious lady, 
+whose eyes had looked through life to the other side, was no mate 
+for the Poet.  His faithful soul was agitated, for he had developed 
+for Heritage a sincere affection.  It would break his heart, poor man.  
+There was he holding the fort alone and cheering himself with delightful 
+fancies about one remoter than the moon.  Dickson wanted happy endings, 
+and here there was no hope of such.  He hated to admit that life could 
+be crooked, but the optimist in him was now fairly dashed.
+
+Sir Archie might be the fortunate man, for of course he would 
+soon be in love with her, if he were not so already.  Dickson like 
+all his class had a profound regard for the country gentry.  
+The business Scot does not usually revere wealth, though he may 
+pursue it earnestly, nor does he specially admire rank in 
+the common sense.  But for ancient race he has respect in his bones, 
+though it may happen that in public he denies it, and the laird has 
+for him a secular association with good family....Sir Archie might do.  
+He was young, good-looking, obviously gallant...But no!  He was not 
+quite right either.  Just a trifle too light in weight, too boyish 
+and callow..The Princess must have youth, but it should be mighty youth, 
+the youth of a Napoleon or a Caesar.  He reflected that the Great Montrose, 
+for whom he had a special veneration, might have filled the bill.  
+Or young Harry with his beaver up?  Or Claverhouse in the picture 
+with the flush of temper on his cheek?
+
+The meditations of the match-making Dickson came to an abrupt end.  
+He had been riding negligently, his head bent against the wind, and his 
+eyes vaguely fixed on the wet hill-gravel of the road.  Of his immediate 
+environs he was pretty well unconscious.  Suddenly he was aware of 
+figures on each side of him who advanced menacingly.  Stung to 
+activity he attempted to increase his pace, which was already good, 
+for the road at this point descended steeply.  Then, before he could 
+prevent it, a stick was thrust into his front wheel, and the next 
+second he was describing a curve through the air.  His head took the 
+ground, he felt a spasm of blinding pain, and then a sense of 
+horrible suffocation before his wits left him.
+
+"Are ye sure it's the richt man, Ecky?" said a voice which he did not hear.
+
+"Sure.  It's the Glesca body Dobson telled us to look for yesterday.  
+It's a pund note atween us for this job.  We'll tie him up in the wud 
+till we've time to attend to him."
+
+"Is he bad?"
+
+"It doesna maitter," said the one called Ecky.  "He'll be deid onyway 
+long afore the morn."
+
+
+Mrs. Morran all forenoon was in a state of un-Sabbatical disquiet.  
+After she had seen Saskia and Dickson start she finished her 
+housewifely duties, took Cousin Eugenie her breakfast, and made 
+preparation for the midday dinner.  The invalid in the bed in the 
+parlour was not a repaying subject.  Cousin Eugenie belonged 
+to that type of elderly women who, having been spoiled in youth, 
+find the rest of life fall far short of their expectations.  
+Her voice had acquired a perpetual wail, and the corners of what 
+had once been a pretty mouth drooped in an eternal peevishness.  
+She found herself in a morass of misery and shabby discomfort, 
+but had her days continued in an even tenor she would still 
+have lamented.  "A dingy body," was Mrs. Morran's comment, 
+but she laboured in kindness.  Unhappily they had no common 
+language, and it was only by signs that the hostess could discover 
+her wants and show her goodwill.  She fed her and bathed her face, 
+saw to the fire and left her to sleep.  "I'm boilin' a hen to mak' 
+broth for your denner, Mem.  Try and get a bit sleep now."  
+The purport of the advice was clear, and Cousin Eugenie turned 
+obediently on her pillow.
+
+It was Mrs. Morran's custom of a Sunday to spend the morning in 
+devout meditation.  Some years before she had given up tramping the 
+five miles to kirk, on the ground that having been a regular attendant 
+for fifty years she had got all the good out of it that was probable.  
+Instead she read slowly aloud to herself the sermon printed in a 
+certain religious weekly which reached her every Saturday, and 
+concluded with a chapter or two of the Bible.  But to-day something 
+had gone wrong with her mind.  She could not follow the thread of the 
+Reverend Doctor MacMichael's discourse.  She could not fix her 
+attention on the wanderings and misdeeds of Israel as recorded in 
+the Book of Exodus.  She must always be getting up to look at the 
+pot on the fire, or to open the back door and study the weather.  
+For a little she fought against her unrest, and then she gave up 
+the attempt at concentration.  She took the big pot off the fire and 
+allowed it to simmer, and presently she fetched her boots and umbrella, 
+and kilted her petticoats.  "I'll be none the waur o' a breath o' 
+caller air," she decided.
+
+The wind was blowing great guns but there was only the thinnest 
+sprinkle of rain.  Sitting on the hen-house roof and munching a raw 
+turnip was a figure which she recognized as the smallest of the Die-
+Hards.  Between bites he was singing dolefully to the tune of "Annie 
+Laurie" one of the ditties of his quondam Sunday School:
+
+
+"The Boorjoys' brays are bonnie,
+Too-roo-ra-roo-raloo,
+But the Workers of the World
+Wull gar them a' look blue,
+And droon them in the sea,
+And--for bonnie Annie Laurie
+I'll lay me down and dee."
+
+
+"Losh, laddie," she cried, "that's cauld food for the stomach.  
+Come indoors about midday and I'll gie ye a plate o' broth!"  
+The Die-Hard saluted and continued on the turnip.
+
+She took the Auchenlochan road across the Garple bridge, for that 
+was the best road to the Mains, and by it Dickson and the others 
+might be returning.  Her equanimity at all seasons was like a Turk's, 
+and she would not have admitted that anything mortal had power to 
+upset or excite her: nevertheless it was a fast-beating heart 
+that she now bore beneath her Sunday jacket.  Great events, 
+she felt, were on the eve of happening, and of them she was a part.  
+Dickson's anxiety was hers, to bring things to a business-like conclusion.  
+The honour of Huntingtower was at stake and of the old Kennedys.  
+She was carrying out Mr. Quentin's commands, the dead boy who used 
+to clamour for her treacle scones.  And there was more than duty in it, 
+for youth was not dead in her old heart, and adventure had still 
+power to quicken it.
+
+Mrs. Morran walked well, with the steady long paces of the 
+Scots countrywoman.  She left the Auchenlochan road and took 
+the side path along the tableland to the Mains.  But for the 
+surge of the gale and the far-borne boom of the furious sea there 
+was little noise; not a bird cried in the uneasy air.  With the wind 
+behind her Mrs. Morran breasted the ascent till she had on her 
+right the moorland running south to the Lochan valley and on 
+her left Garple chafing in its deep forested gorges.  Her eyes 
+were quick and she noted with interest a weasel creeping from a 
+fern-clad cairn.  A little way on she passed an old ewe in 
+difficulties and assisted it to rise.  "But for me, my wumman, 
+ye'd hae been braxy ere nicht," she told it as it departed bleating.  
+Then she realized that she had come a certain distance.  "Losh, I maun 
+be gettin' back or the hen will be spiled," she cried, and was on 
+the verge of turning.
+
+But something caught her eye a hundred yards farther on the road.  
+It was something which moved with the wind like a wounded bird, 
+fluttering from the roadside to a puddle and then back to the rushes.  
+She advanced to it, missed it, and caught it.
+
+It was an old dingy green felt hat, and she recognized it as Dickson's.
+
+Mrs. Morran's brain, after a second of confusion, worked fast and clearly.  
+She examined the road and saw that a little way on the gravel had 
+been violently agitated.  She detected several prints of hobnailed boots.  
+There were prints, too, on a patch of peat on the south side behind 
+a tall bank of sods.  "That's where they were hidin'," she concluded.  
+Then she explored on the other side in a thicket of hazels and wild 
+raspberries, and presently her perseverance was rewarded.  The scrub was 
+all crushed and pressed as if several persons had been forcing a passage.  
+In a hollow was a gleam of something white.  She moved towards it 
+with a quaking heart, and was relieved to find that it was only a 
+new and expensive bicycle with the front wheel badly buckled.
+
+Mrs. Morran delayed no longer.  If she had walked well on her out journey, 
+she beat all records on the return.  Sometimes she would run till her 
+breath failed; then she would slow down till anxiety once more quickened 
+her pace.  To her joy, on the Dalquharter side of the Garple bridge she 
+observed the figure of a Die-Hard.  Breathless, flushed, with her bonnet 
+awry and her umbrella held like a scimitar, she seized on the boy.
+
+"Awfu' doin's!  They've grippit Maister McCunn up the Mains road just 
+afore the second milestone and forenent the auld bucht.  I fund his hat, 
+and a bicycle's lyin' broken in the wud.  Haste ye, man, and get the 
+rest and awa' and seek him.  It'll be the tinklers frae the Dean.  
+I'd gang misel' but my legs are ower auld.  Ah, laddie, dinna stop 
+to speir questions.  They'll hae him murdered or awa' to sea.  And maybe 
+the leddy was wi' him and they've got them baith.  Wae's me!  Wae's me!"
+
+The Die-Hard, who was Wee Jaikie, did not delay.  His eyes had 
+filled with tears at her news, which we know to have been his habit.  
+When Mrs. Morran, after indulging in a moment of barbaric keening, 
+looked back the road she had come, she saw a small figure trotting up 
+the hill like a terrier who has been left behind.  As he trotted he 
+wept bitterly.  Jaikie was getting dangerous.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+HOW MR. McCUNN COMMITTED AN ASSAULT UPON AN ALLY
+
+
+Dickson always maintained that his senses did not leave him for more 
+than a second or two, but he admitted that he did not remember very 
+clearly the events of the next few hours.  He was conscious of a bad 
+pain above his eyes, and something wet trickling down his cheek.  
+There was a perpetual sound of water in his ears and of men's voices.  
+He found himself dropped roughly on the ground and forced to walk, 
+and was aware that his legs were inclined to wobble.  Somebody had a 
+grip on each arm, so that he could not defend his face from the 
+brambles, and that worried him, for his whole head seemed one aching 
+bruise and he dreaded anything touching it.  But all the time he 
+did not open his mouth, for silence was the one duty that his 
+muddled wits enforced.  He felt that he was not the master of his 
+mind, and he dreaded what he might disclose if he began to babble.
+
+Presently there came a blank space of which he had no recollection at all.  
+The movement had stopped, and he was allowed to sprawl on the ground.  
+He thought that his head had got another whack from a bough, 
+and that the pain put him into a stupor.  When he awoke he was alone.
+
+He discovered that he was strapped very tightly to a young Scotch fir.  
+His arms were bent behind him and his wrists tied together with cords 
+knotted at the back of the tree; his legs were shackled, and further 
+cords fastened them to the bole.  Also there was a halter round the 
+trunk and just under his chin, so that while he breathed freely enough, 
+he could not move his head.  Before him was a tangle of bracken and 
+scrub, and beyond that the gloom of dense pines; but as he could see 
+only directly in front his prospect was strictly circumscribed.
+
+Very slowly he began to take his bearings.  The pain in his head was 
+now dulled and quite bearable, and the flow of blood had stopped, 
+for he felt the encrustation of it beginning on his cheeks.  
+There was a tremendous noise all around him, and he traced 
+this to the swaying of tree-tops in the gale.  But there was 
+an undercurrent of deeper sound--water surely, water churning 
+among rocks.  It was a stream--the Garple of course--and then he 
+remembered where he was and what had happened.
+
+I do not wish to portray Dickson as a hero, for nothing would 
+annoy him more; but I am bound to say that his first clear thought 
+was not of his own danger.  It was intense exasperation at the 
+miscarriage of his plans.  Long ago he should have been with Dougal 
+arranging operations, giving him news of Sir Archie, finding out how 
+Heritage was faring, deciding how to use the coming reinforcements.  
+Instead he was trussed up in a wood, a prisoner of the enemy, and 
+utterly useless to his side.  He tugged at his bonds, and nearly 
+throttled himself.  But they were of good tarry cord and did not give 
+a fraction of an inch.  Tears of bitter rage filled his eyes and made 
+furrows on his encrusted cheek.  Idiot that he had been, he had 
+wrecked everything!  What would Saskia and Dougal and Sir Archie do 
+without a business man by their side?  There would be a muddle, and 
+the little party would walk into a trap.  He saw it all very clearly.  
+The men from the sea would overpower them, there would be murder done, 
+and an easy capture of the Princess; and the police would turn up at 
+long last to find an empty headland.
+
+He had also most comprehensively wrecked himself, and at the thought 
+genuine panic seized him.  There was no earthly chance of escape, 
+for he was tucked away in this infernal jungle till such time as his 
+enemies had time to deal with him.  As to what that dealing would be like 
+he had no doubts, for they knew that he had been their chief opponent.  
+Those desperate ruffians would not scruple to put an end to him.  
+His mind dwelt with horrible fascination upon throat-cutting, 
+no doubt because of the presence of the cord below his chin.  
+He had heard it was not a painful death; at any rate he remembered 
+a clerk he had once had, a feeble, timid creature, who had twice 
+attempted suicide that way.  Surely it could not be very bad, 
+and it would soon be over.
+
+But another thought came to him.  They would carry him off in the ship 
+and settle with him at their leisure.  No swift merciful death for him.  
+He had read dreadful tales of the Bolsheviks' skill in torture, 
+and now they all came back to him--stories of Chinese mercenaries, 
+and men buried alive, and death by agonizing inches.  He felt suddenly 
+very cold and sick, and hung in his bonds, for he had no strength 
+in his limbs.  Then the pressure on this throat braced him, and also 
+quickened his numb mind.  The liveliest terror ran like quicksilver 
+through his veins.
+
+He endured some moments of this anguish, till after many despairing 
+clutches at his wits he managed to attain a measure of self-control.  
+He certainly wasn't going to allow himself to become mad. Death was 
+death whatever form it took, and he had to face death as many better 
+men had done before him.  He had often thought about it and wondered 
+how he should behave if the thing came to him.  Respectably, he had hoped; 
+heroically, he had sworn in his moments of confidence.  But he had 
+never for an instant dreamed of this cold, lonely, dreadful business.  
+Last Sunday, he remembered, he had basking in the afternoon sun in 
+his little garden and reading about the end of Fergus MacIvor in 
+WAVERLEY and thrilling to the romance of it; and Tibby had come out 
+and summoned him in to tea.  Then he had rather wanted to be a 
+Jacobite in the '45 and in peril of his neck, and now Providence 
+had taken him most terribly at his word.
+
+A week ago---!  He groaned at the remembrance of that sunny garden.  
+In seven days he had found a new world and tried a new life, 
+and had come now to the end of it.  He did not want to die, 
+less now than ever with such wide horizons opening before him.  
+But that was the worst of it, he reflected, for to have a great 
+life great hazards must be taken, and there was always the risk of 
+this sudden extinguisher....Had he to choose again, far better the 
+smooth sheltered bypath than this accursed romantic highway on to 
+which he had blundered....No, by Heaven, no!  Confound it, if 
+he had to choose he would do it all again.  Something stiff and 
+indomitable in his soul was bracing him to a manlier humour.  
+There was no one to see the figure strapped to the fir, but had there 
+been a witness he would have noted that at this stage Dickson shut 
+his teeth and that his troubled eyes looked very steadily before him.
+
+His business, he felt, was to keep from thinking, for if he thought 
+at all there would be a flow of memories--of his wife, his home, 
+his books, his friends--to unman him.  So he steeled himself to blankness, 
+like a sleepless man imagining white sheep in a gate....He noted a robin 
+below the hazels, strutting impudently.  And there was a tit on a bracken 
+frond, which made the thing sway like one of the see-saws he used to 
+play with as a boy.  There was no wind in that undergrowth, and any 
+movement must be due to bird or beast.  The tit flew off, and the 
+oscillations of the bracken slowly died away.  Then they began again, 
+but more violently, and Dickson could not see the bird that caused them.  
+It must be something down at the roots of the covert, a rabbit, perhaps, 
+or a fox, or a weasel.
+
+He watched for the first sign of the beast, and thought he caught 
+a glimpse of tawny fur.  Yes, there it was--pale dirty yellow, 
+a weasel clearly.  Then suddenly the patch grow larger, and to his 
+amazement he looked at a human face--the face of a pallid small boy.
+
+A head disentangled itself, followed by thin shoulders, and then 
+by a pair of very dirty bare legs.  The figure raised itself and 
+looked sharply round to make certain that the coast was clear.  
+Then it stood up and saluted, revealing the well-known lineaments 
+of Wee Jaikie.
+
+At the sight Dickson knew that he was safe by that certainty of 
+instinct which is independent of proof, like the man who prays for 
+a sign and has his prayer answered.  He observed that the boy was 
+quietly sobbing.  Jaikie surveyed the position for an instant with 
+red-rimmed eyes and then unclasped a knife, feeling the edge of the 
+blade on his thumb.  He darted behind the fir, and a second later 
+Dickson's wrists were free.  Then he sawed at the legs, and cut the 
+shackles which tied them together, and then--most circumspectly--
+assaulted the cord which bound Dickson's neck to the trunk.  
+There now remained only the two bonds which fastened the legs 
+and the body to the tree.
+
+There was a sound in the wood different from the wind and stream.  
+Jaikie listened like a startled hind.
+
+"They're comin' back," he gasped.  "Just you bide where ye are and 
+let on ye're still tied up."
+
+He disappeared in the scrub as inconspicuously as a rat, while 
+two of the tinklers came up the slope from the waterside.  
+Dickson in a fever of impatience cursed Wee Jaikie for not cutting his 
+remaining bonds so that he could at least have made a dash for freedom.  
+And then he realized that the boy had been right.  Feeble and cramped 
+as he was, he would have stood no chance in a race.
+
+One of the tinklers was the man called Ecky.  He had been running 
+hard, and was mopping his brow.
+
+"Hob's seen the brig," he said.  "It's droppin' anchor ayont 
+the Dookits whaur there's a bield frae the wund and deep water.  
+They'll be landit in half an 'oor.  Awa' you up to the Hoose and tell 
+Dobson, and me and Sim and Hob will meet the boats at the Garplefit."
+
+The other cast a glance towards Dickson.
+
+"What about him?" he asked.
+
+The two scrutinized their prisoner from a distance of a few paces.  
+Dickson, well aware of his peril, held himself as stiff as if 
+every bond had been in place.  The thought flashed on him that 
+if he were too immobile they might think he was dying or dead, 
+and come close to examine him.  If they only kept their distance, the 
+dusk of the wood would prevent them detecting Jaikie's handiwork.
+
+"What'll you take to let me go?" he asked plaintively.
+
+"Naething that you could offer, my mannie," said Ecky.
+
+"I'll give you a five-pound note apiece."
+
+"Produce the siller," said the other.
+
+"It's in my pocket."
+
+"It's no' that.  We riped your pooches lang syne."
+
+"I'll take you to Glasgow with me and pay you there.  Honour bright."
+
+Ecky spat.  "D'ye think we're gowks?  Man, there's no siller ye 
+could pay wad mak' it worth our while to lowse ye.  Bide quiet 
+there and ye'll see some queer things ere nicht.  C'way, Davie."
+
+The two set off at a good pace down the stream, while Dickson's 
+pulsing heart returned to its normal rhythm.  As the sound of 
+their feet died away Wee Jaikie crawled out from cover, dry-eyed now 
+and very business-like.  He slit the last thongs, and Dickson fell 
+limply on his face.
+
+"Losh, laddie, I'm awful stiff," he groaned.  "Now, listen.  
+Away all your pith to Dougal, and tell him that the brig's in and 
+the men will be landing inside the hour.  Tell him I'm coming as 
+fast as my legs will let me.  The Princess will likely be there 
+already and Sir Archibald and his men, but if they're no', tell 
+Dougal they're coming.  Haste you, Jaikie.  And see here, I'll never 
+forget what you've done for me the day.  You're a fine wee laddie!"
+
+The obedient Die-Hard disappeared, and Dickson painfully and 
+laboriously set himself to climb the slope.  He decided that his 
+quickest and safest route lay by the highroad, and he had also some 
+hopes of recovering his bicycle.  On examining his body he seemed to 
+have sustained no very great damage, except a painful cramping of 
+legs and arms and a certain dizziness in the head.  His pockets had 
+been thoroughly rifled, and he reflected with amusement that he, the 
+well-to-do Mr. McCunn, did not possess at the moment a single copper.
+
+But his spirits were soaring, for somehow his escape had given him 
+an assurance of ultimate success.  Providence had directly interfered 
+on his behalf by the hand of Wee Jaikie, and that surely meant 
+that it would see him through.  But his chief emotion was an 
+ardour of impatience to get to the scene of action.  He must be at 
+Dalquharter before the men from the sea; he must find Dougal and 
+discover his dispositions.  Heritage would be on guard in the Tower, 
+and in a very little the enemy would be round it.  It would be just 
+like the Princess to try and enter there, but at all costs that 
+must be hindered.  She and Sir Archie must not be cornered in 
+stone walls, but must keep their communications open and fall 
+on the enemy's flank.  Oh, if the police would only come it time, 
+what a rounding up of miscreants that day would see!
+
+As the trees thinned on the brow of the slope and he saw the sky, 
+he realized that the afternoon was far advanced.  It must be well on 
+for five o'clock.  The wind still blew furiously, and the oaks on the 
+fringes of the wood were whipped like saplings.  Ruefully he admitted 
+that the gale would not defeat the enemy.  If the brig found a 
+sheltered anchorage on the south side of the headland beyond the 
+Garple, it would be easy enough for boats to make the Garple mouth, 
+though it might be a difficult job to get out again.  The thought 
+quickened his steps, and he came out of cover on to the public 
+road without a prior reconnaissance.  Just in front of him stood 
+a motor-bicycle.  Something had gone wrong with it for its owner 
+was tinkering at it, on the side farthest from Dickson.  A wild hope 
+seized him that this might be the vanguard of the police, and he went 
+boldly towards it.  The owner, who was kneeling, raised his face at 
+the sound of footsteps and Dickson looked into his eyes.
+
+He recognized them only too well.  They belonged to the man he had 
+seen in the inn at Kirkmichael, the man whom Heritage had decided to 
+be an Australian, but whom they now know to be their arch-enemy--the 
+man called Paul who had persecuted the Princess for years and whom 
+alone of all beings on earth she feared.  He had been expected before, 
+but had arrived now in the nick of time while the brig was casting anchor.  
+Saskia had said that he had a devil's brain, and Dickson, as he stared 
+at him, saw a fiendish cleverness in his straight brows and a 
+remorseless cruelty in his stiff jaw and his pale eyes.
+
+He achieved the bravest act of his life.  Shaky and dizzy as he was, 
+with freedom newly opened to him and the mental torments of his 
+captivity still an awful recollection, he did not hesitate.  
+He saw before him the villain of the drama, the one man that 
+stood between the Princess and peace of mind.  He regarded 
+no consequences, gave no heed to his own fate, and thought 
+only how to put his enemy out of action.  There was a by spanner 
+lying on the ground.  He seized it and with all his strength 
+smote at the man's face.
+
+The motor-cyclist, kneeling and working hard at his machine, 
+had raised his head at Dickson's approach and beheld a wild apparition-
+-a short man in ragged tweeds, with a bloody brow and long smears of 
+blood on his cheeks.  The next second he observed the threat of attack, 
+and ducked his head so that the spanner only grazed his scalp.  
+The motor-bicycle toppled over, its owner sprang to his feet, and found 
+the short man, very pale and gasping, about to renew the assault.  
+In such a crisis there was no time for inquiry, and the cyclist was 
+well trained in self-defence.  He leaped the prostrate bicycle, 
+and before his assailant could get in a blow brought his left fist 
+into violent contact with his chin.  Dickson tottered a step or two 
+and then subsided among the bracken.
+
+He did not lose his senses, but he had no more strength in him.  
+He felt horribly ill, and struggled in vain to get up.  The cyclist, 
+a gigantic figure, towered above him.  "Who the devil are you?"  
+he was asking.  "What do you mean by it?"
+
+Dickson had no breath for words, and knew that if he tried to 
+speak he would be very sick.  He could only stare up like a dog 
+at the angry eyes.  Angry beyond question they were, but surely 
+not malevolent.  Indeed, as they looked at the shameful figure on 
+the ground, amusement filled them.  The face relaxed into a smile.
+
+"Who on earth are you?" the voice repeated.  And then into it 
+came recognition.  "I've seen you before.  I believe you're the 
+little man I saw last week at the Black Bull.  Be so good as to 
+explain why you want to murder me."
+
+Explanation was beyond Dickson, but his conviction was being 
+woefully shaken.  Saskia had said her enemy was a beautiful as 
+a devil--he remembered the phrase, for he had thought it ridiculous.  
+This man was magnificent, but there was nothing devilish in his 
+lean grave face.
+
+"What's your name?" the voice was asking.
+
+"Tell me yours first," Dickson essayed to stutter between spasms of nausea.
+
+"My name is Alexander Nicholson," was the answer.
+
+"Then you're no' the man."  It was a cry of wrath and despair.
+
+"You're a very desperate little chap.  For whom had I the honour 
+to be mistaken?"
+
+Dickson had now wriggled into a sitting position and had clasped 
+his hands above his aching head.
+
+"I thought you were a Russian, name of Paul," he groaned.
+
+"Paul!  Paul who?"
+
+"Just Paul.  A Bolshevik and an awful bad lot."
+
+Dickson could not see the change which his words wrought in 
+the other's face.  He found himself picked up in strong arms and 
+carried to a bog-pool where his battered face was carefully washed, 
+his throbbing brows laved, and a wet handkerchief bound over them.  
+Then he was given brandy in the socket of a flask, which eased 
+his nausea.  The cyclist ran his bicycle to the roadside, and 
+found a seat for Dickson behind the turf-dyke of the old bucht.
+
+"Now you are going to tell me everything," he said.  "If the Paul 
+who is your enemy is the Paul I think him, then we are allies."
+
+But Dickson did not need this assurance.  His mind had suddenly 
+received a revelation.  The Princess had expected an enemy, 
+but also a friend.  Might not this be the long-awaited friend, 
+for whose sake she was rooted to Huntingtower with all its terrors?
+
+"Are you sure your name's no' Alexis?"  he asked. 
+
+"In my own country I was called Alexis Nicolaevitch, for I am a Russian.  
+But for some years I have made my home with your folk, and I call myself 
+Alexander Nicholson, which is the English form.  Who told you about Alexis?
+
+"Give me your hand," said Dickson shamefacedly.  "Man, she's been 
+looking for you for weeks.  You're terribly behind the fair."
+
+"She!" he cried.  "For God's sake, tell me what you mean."
+
+"Ay, she--the Princess.  But what are we havering here for?  
+I tell you at this moment she's somewhere down about the old Tower, 
+and there's boatloads of blagyirds landing from the sea.  Help me up, 
+man, for I must be off.  The story will keep.  Losh, it's very near 
+the darkening.  If you're Alexis, you're just about in time for a battle."
+
+But Dickson on his feet was but a frail creature.  He was still 
+deplorably giddy, and his legs showed an unpleasing tendency to crumple.  
+"I'm fair done," he moaned.  "You see, I've been tied up all day to a 
+tree and had two sore bashes on my head.  Get you on that bicycle and 
+hurry on, and I'll hirple after you the best I can.  I'll direct you 
+the road, and if you're lucky you'll find a Die-Hard about the village.  
+Away with you, man, and never mind me."
+
+"We go together," said the other quietly.  "You can sit behind me 
+and hang on to my waist.  Before you turned up I had pretty well 
+got the thing in order."
+
+Dickson in a fever of impatience sat by while the Russian put 
+the finishing touches to the machine, and as well as his anxiety 
+allowed put him in possession of the main facts of the story.  
+He told of how he and Heritage had come to Dalquharter, of the first 
+meeting with Saskia, of the trip to Glasgow with the jewels, of the 
+exposure of Loudon the factor, of last night's doings in the House, 
+and of the journey that morning to the Mains of Garple.  He sketched the 
+figures on the scene--Heritage and Sir Archie, Dobson and his gang, the 
+Gorbals Die-Hards.  He told of the enemy's plans so far as he knew them.
+
+"Looked at from a business point of view," he said, "the situation's 
+like this.  There's Heritage in the Tower, with Dobson, Leon, and 
+Spidel sitting round him.  Somewhere about the place there's the 
+Princess and Sir Archibald and three men with guns from the Mains.  
+Dougal and his five laddies are running loose in the policies.  
+And there's four tinklers and God knows how many foreign ruffians 
+pushing up from the Garplefoot, and a brig lying waiting to carry 
+off the ladies.  Likewise there's the police, somewhere on the road, 
+though the dear kens when they'll turn up.  It's awful the 
+incompetence of our Government, and the rates and taxes that high!..
+.And there's you and me by this roadside, and me no more use 
+than a tattie-bogle....That's the situation, and the question is 
+what's our plan to be?  We must keep the blagyirds in play till 
+the police come, and at the same time we must keep the Princess 
+out of danger.  That's why I'm wanting back, for they've sore need 
+of  a business head.  Yon Sir Archibald's a fine fellow, but I 
+doubt he'll be a bit rash, and the Princess is no' to hold or bind.  
+Our first job is to find Dougal and get a grip of the facts."
+
+"I am going to the Princess," said the Russian.
+
+"Ay, that'll be best.  You'll be maybe able to manage her, 
+for you'll be well acquaint."
+
+"She is my kinswoman.  She is also my affianced wife."
+
+"Keep us!" Dickson exclaimed, with a doleful thought of Heritage.  
+"What ailed you then no' to look after her better?"
+
+"We have been long separated, because it was her will.  She had work 
+to do and disappeared from me, though I searched all Europe for her.  
+Then she sent me word, when the danger became extreme, and summoned 
+me to her aid.  But she gave me poor directions, for she did not know 
+her own plans very clearly.  She spoke of a place called Darkwater, 
+and I have been hunting half Scotland for it.  It was only last night 
+that I heard of Dalquharter and guessed that that might be the name.  
+But I was far down in Galloway, and have ridden fifty miles today."
+
+"It's a queer thing, but I wouldn't take you for a Russian."
+
+Alexis finished his work and put away his tools.
+
+"For the present," he said, "I am an Englishman, till my country 
+comes again to her senses.  Ten years ago I left Russia, for I 
+was sick of the foolishness of my class and wanted a free life 
+in a new world.  I went to Australia and made good as an engineer.  
+I am a partner in a firm which is pretty well known even in Britain.  
+When war broke out I returned to fight for my people, and when Russia 
+fell out of the war, I joined the Australians in France and fought 
+with them till the Armistice.  And now I have only one duty left, 
+to save the Princess and take her with me to my new home till Russia 
+is a nation once more."
+
+Dickson whistled joyfully.  "So Mr. Heritage was right.  He aye said 
+you were an Australian....And you're a business man!  That's grand 
+hearing and puts my mind at rest.  You must take charge of the party 
+at the House, for Sir Archibald's a daft young lad and Mr. Heritage 
+is a poet.  I thought I would have to go myself, but I doubt I would 
+just be a hindrance with my dwaibly legs.  I'd be better outside, 
+watching for the police....Are you ready, sir?"
+
+Dickson not without difficulty perched himself astride the 
+luggage carrier, firmly grasping the rider round the middle.  
+The machine started, but it was evidently in a bad way, for it made 
+poor going till the descent towards the main Auchenlochan road.  
+On the slope it warmed up and they crossed the Garple bridge at 
+a fair pace.  There was to be no pleasant April twilight, for 
+the stormy sky had already made dusk, and in a very little 
+the dark would fall.  So sombre was the evening that Dickson 
+did not notice a figure in the shadow of the roadside pines 
+till it whistled shrilly on its fingers.  He cried on Alexis 
+to stop, and, this being accomplished with some suddenness, 
+fell off at Dougal's feet.
+
+"What's the news?" he demanded.
+
+Dougal glanced at Alexis and seemed to approve his looks.
+
+"Napoleon has just reported that three boatloads, making either 
+twenty-three or twenty-four men--they were gey ill to count--has 
+landed at Garplefit and is makin' their way to the auld Tower.  
+The tinklers warned Dobson and soon it'll be a' bye wi' Heritage."
+
+"The Princess is not there?" was Dickson's anxious inquiry.
+
+"Na, na.  Heritage is there his lone.  They were for joinin' him, 
+but I wouldn't let them.  She came wi' a man they call Sir Erchibald 
+and three gamekeepers wi' guns.  I stoppit their cawr up the road and 
+tell't them the lie o' the land.  Yon Sir Erchibald has poor notions 
+o' strawtegy.  He was for bangin' into the auld Tower straight away 
+and shootin' Dobson if he tried to stop them.  'Havers,' say I,
+'let them break their teeth on the Tower, thinkin' the leddy's 
+inside, and that'll give us time, for Heritage is no' the lad to 
+surrender in a hurry.'"
+
+"Where are they now?"
+
+"In the Hoose o' Dalquharter, and a sore job I had gettin' them in.  
+We've shifted our base again, without the enemy suspectin'."
+
+"Any word of the police?"
+
+"The polis!" and Dougal spat cynically.  "It seems they're a dour 
+crop to shift.  Sir Erchibald was sayin' that him and the lassie had 
+been to the Chief Constable, but the man was terrible auld and slow.  
+They persuadit him, but he threepit that it would take a long time 
+to collect his men and that there was no danger o' the brig landin' 
+before night.  He's wrong there onyway, for they're landit."
+
+"Dougal," said Dickson, "you've heard the Princess speak of 
+a friend she was expecting here called Alexis.  This is him.  
+You can address him as Mr. Nicholson.  Just arrived in the 
+nick of time.  You must get him into the House, for he's the 
+best right to be beside the lady...Jaikie would tell you that I've 
+been sore mishandled the day, and am no' very fit for a battle.  
+But Mr. Nicholson's a business man and he'll do as well.  
+You're keeping the Die-Hards outside, I hope?"
+
+"Ay.  Thomas Yownie's in charge, and Jaikie will be in and out with orders.  
+They've instructions to watch for the polis, and keep an eye on 
+the Garplefit.  It's a mortal long front to hold, but there's no 
+other way.  I must be in the hoose mysel'  Thomas Yownie's 
+headquarters is the auld wife's hen-hoose."
+
+At that moment in a pause of the gale came the far-borne echo of a shot.
+
+"Pistol," said Alexis.
+
+"Heritage," said Dougal.  "Trade will be gettin' brisk with him.  
+Start your machine and I'll hang on ahint.  We'll try the road by 
+the West Lodge.
+
+Presently the pair disappeared in the dusk, the noise of the engine 
+was swallowed up in the wild orchestra of the wind, and Dickson 
+hobbled towards the village in a state of excitement which made him 
+oblivious of his wounds.  That lonely pistol shot was, he felt, 
+the bell to ring up the curtain on the last act of the play.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+THE COMING OF THE DANISH BRIG
+
+
+Mr. John Heritage, solitary in the old Tower, found much to 
+occupy his mind.  His giddiness was passing, though the dregs 
+of a headache remained, and his spirits rose with his responsibilities.  
+At daybreak he breakfasted out of the Mearns Street provision box, 
+and made tea in one of the Die-Hard's camp kettles.  Next he gave 
+some attention to his toilet, necessary after the rough-and-tumble 
+of the night.  He made shift to bathe in icy water from the Tower well, 
+shaved, tidied up his clothes and found a clean shirt from his pack.  
+He carefully brushed his hair, reminding himself that thus had the 
+Spartans done before Thermopylae.  The neat and somewhat pallid young 
+man that emerged from these rites then ascended to the first floor 
+to reconnoitre the landscape from the narrow unglazed windows.
+
+If any one had told him a week ago that he would be in so strange 
+a world he would have quarrelled violently with his informant.  
+A week ago he was a cynical clear-sighted modern, a contemner of 
+illusions, a swallower of formulas, a breaker of shams--one who had 
+seen through the heroical and found it silly.  Romance and such-like 
+toys were playthings for fatted middle-age, not for strenuous and 
+cold-eyed youth.  But the truth was that now he was altogether 
+spellbound by these toys.  To think that he was serving his lady was 
+rapture-ecstasy, that for her he was single-handed venturing all.  
+He rejoiced to be alone with his private fancies.  His one fear was 
+that the part he had cast himself for might be needless, that the 
+men from the sea would not come, or that reinforcements would 
+arrive before he should be called upon.  He hoped alone to make 
+a stand against thousands.  What the upshot might be he did not 
+trouble to inquire.  Of course the Princess would be saved, 
+but first he must glut his appetite for the heroic.
+
+He made a diary of events that day, just as he used to do at the front.  
+At twenty minutes past eight he saw the first figure coming from the House.  
+It was Spidel, who limped round the Tower, tried the door, and came to 
+a halt below the window.  Heritage stuck out his head and wished him 
+good morning, getting in reply an amazed stare.  The man was not disposed 
+to talk, though Heritage made some interesting observations on the weather, 
+but departed quicker than he came, in the direction of the West Lodge.
+
+Just before nine o'clock he returned with Dobson and Leon.  
+They made a very complete reconnaissance of the Tower, and 
+for a moment Heritage thought that they were about to try to 
+force an entrance.  They tugged and hammered at the great oak door, 
+which he had further strengthened by erecting  behind it a pile of 
+the heaviest lumber he could find in the place.  It was imperative 
+that they should not get in, and he got Dickson's pistol ready with the 
+firm intention of shooting them if necessary.  But they did nothing, 
+except to hold a conference in the hazel clump a hundred yards to the 
+north, when Dobson seemed to be laying down the law, and Leon spoke 
+rapidly with a great fluttering of hands.  They were obviously 
+puzzled by the sight of Heritage, whom they believed to have 
+left the neighbourhood.  Then Dobson went off, leaving Leon and 
+Spidel on guard, one at the edge of the shrubberies between the 
+Tower and the House, the other on the side nearest the Laver glen.  
+These were their posts, but they did sentry-go around the building, 
+and passed so close to Heritage's window that he could have tossed a 
+cigarette on their heads.
+
+It occurred to him that he ought to get busy with camouflage.  
+They must be convinced that the Princess was in the place, 
+for he wanted their whole mind to be devoted to the siege.  
+He rummaged among the ladies' baggage, and extracted a skirt 
+and a coloured scarf.  The latter he managed to flutter so that 
+it could be seen at the window the next time one of the watchers 
+came within sight.  He also fixed up the skirt so that the fringe of 
+it could be seen, and, when Leon appeared below, he was in the 
+shadow talking rapid French in a very fair imitation of the tones 
+of Cousin Eugenie.  The ruse had its effect, for Leon promptly 
+went off to tell Spidel, and when Dobson appeared he too was 
+given the news.  This seemed to settle their plans, for all three 
+remained on guard, Dobson nearest to the Tower, seated on an 
+outcrop of rock with his mackintosh collar turned up, and his 
+eyes usually on the misty sea.
+
+By this time it was eleven o'clock, and the next three hours passed 
+slowly with Heritage.  He fell to picturing the fortunes of his friends.  
+Dickson and the Princess should by this time be far inland, out of danger 
+and in the way of finding succour.  He was confident that they would 
+return, but he trusted not too soon, for he hoped for a run for his 
+money as Horatius in the Gate.  After that he was a little torn in 
+his mind.  He wanted the Princess to come back and to be somewhere 
+near if there was a fight going, so that she might be a witness of 
+his devotion.  But she must not herself run any risk, and he became 
+anxious when he remembered her terrible sangfroid.  Dickson could no 
+more restrain her than a child could hold a greyhound....But of course 
+it would never come to that.  The police would turn up long before 
+the brig appeared--Dougal had thought that would not be till high tide, 
+between four and five--and the only danger would be to the pirates.  
+The three watchers would be put in the bag, and the men from the sea 
+would walk into a neat trap.  This reflection seemed to take all the 
+colour out of Heritage's prospect.  Peril and heroism were not to be 
+his lot--only boredom.
+
+A little after twelve two of the tinklers appeared with some news 
+which made Dobson laugh and pat them on the shoulder.  He seemed to 
+be giving them directions, pointing seaward and southward.  He nodded 
+to the Tower, where Heritage took the opportunity of again fluttering 
+Saskia's scarf athwart the window.  The tinklers departed at a trot, 
+and Dobson lit his pipe as if well pleased.  He had some trouble with 
+it in the wind, which had risen to an uncanny violence.  Even the solid 
+Tower rocked with it, and the sea was a waste of spindrift and low 
+scurrying cloud.  Heritage discovered a new anxiety--this time about 
+the possibility of the brig landing at all.  He wanted a complete bag, 
+and it would be tragic if they got only the three seedy ruffians now 
+circumambulating his fortress.
+
+About one o'clock he was greatly cheered by the sight of Dougal.  
+At the moment Dobson was lunching off a hunk of bread and cheese 
+directly between the Tower and the House, just short of the crest 
+of the ridge on the other side of which lay the stables and the 
+shrubberies; Leon was on the north side opposite the Tower door, 
+and Spidel was at the south end near the edge of the Garple glen.  
+Heritage, watching the ridge behind Dobson and the upper windows of 
+the House which appeared over it, saw on the very crest something 
+like a tuft of rusty bracken which he had not noticed before.  
+Presently the tuft moved, and a hand shot up from it waving a rag 
+of some sort.  Dobson at the moment was engaged with a bottle of 
+porter, and Heritage could safely wave a hand in reply.  He could now 
+make out clearly the red head of Dougal.
+
+The Chieftain, having located the three watchers, proceeded to give 
+an exhibition of his prowess for the benefit of the lonely inmate 
+of the Tower.  Using as cover a drift of bracken, he wormed his way 
+down till he was not six yards from Dobson, and Heritage had the 
+privilege of seeing his grinning countenance a very little way 
+above the innkeeper's head.  Then he crawled back and reached the 
+neighbourhood of Leon, who was sitting on a fallen Scotch fir.  
+At that moment it occurred to the Belgian to visit Dobson.  
+Heritage's breath stopped, but Dougal was ready, and froze into 
+a motionless blur in the shadow of a hazel bush.  Then he crawled 
+very fast into the hollow where Leon had been sitting, seized 
+something which looked like a bottle, and scrambled back to the ridge.  
+At the top he waved the object, whatever it was, but Heritage could 
+not reply, for Dobson happened to be looking towards the window.  
+That was the last he saw of the Chieftain, but presently he realized 
+what was the booty he had annexed.  It must be Leon's life-preserver, 
+which the night before had broken Heritage's head.
+
+After that cheering episode boredom again set in.  He collected some 
+food from the Mearns Street box, and indulged himself with a glass 
+of liqueur brandy.  He was beginning to feel miserably cold, so he 
+carried up some broken wood and made a fire on the immense hearth 
+in the upper chamber.  Anxiety was clouding his mind again, for it 
+was now two o'clock, and there was no sign of the reinforcements 
+which Dickson and the Princess had gone to find.  The minutes passed, 
+and soon it was three o'clock, and from the window he saw only the 
+top of the gaunt shuttered House, now and then hidden by squalls of 
+sleet, and Dobson squatted like an Eskimo, and trees dancing like a 
+witch-wood in the gale.  All the vigour of the morning seemed to have 
+gone out of his blood; he felt lonely and apprehensive and puzzled.  
+He wished he had Dickson beside him, for that little man's cheerful 
+voice and complacent triviality would be a comfort....Also, he was 
+abominably cold.  He put on his waterproof, and turned his attention 
+to the fire.  It needed re-kindling, and he hunted in his pockets for 
+paper, finding only the slim volume lettered WHORLS.
+
+I set it down as the most significant commentary on his state of mind.  
+He regarded the book with intense disfavour, tore it in two, and used 
+a handful of its fine deckle-edged leaves to get the fire going.  
+They burned well, and presently the rest followed.  Well for Dickson's 
+peace of soul that he was not a witness of such vandalism.
+
+A little warmer but in no way more cheerful, he resumed his watch near 
+the window.  The day was getting darker, and promised an early dusk.  
+His watch told him that it was after four, and still nothing had happened.  
+Where on earth were Dickson and the Princess?  Where in the name of 
+all that was holy were the police?  Any minute now the brig might 
+arrive and land its men, and he would be left there as a burnt-offering 
+to their wrath.  There must have been an infernal muddle somewhere..
+..Anyhow the Princess was out of the trouble, but where the Lord 
+alone knew....Perhaps the reinforcements were lying in wait for the 
+boats at the Garplefoot.  That struck him as a likely explanation, 
+and comforted him.  Very soon he might hear the sound of an engagement 
+to the south, and the next thing would be Dobson and his crew in flight.  
+He was determined to be in the show somehow and would be very close 
+on their heels.  He felt a peculiar dislike to all three, but 
+especially to Leon.  The Belgian's small baby features had for 
+four days set him clenching his fists when he thought of them.
+
+The next thing he saw was one of the tinklers running hard towards the 
+Tower.  He cried something to Dobson, which woke the latter to activity.  
+The innkeeper shouted to Leon and Spidel, and the tinkler was 
+excitedly questioned.  Dobson laughed and slapped his thigh.  
+He gave orders to the others, and himself joined the tinkler and 
+hurried off in the direction of the Garplefoot.  Something was 
+happening there, something of ill omen, for the man's face and 
+manner had been triumphant.  Were the boats landing?
+
+As Heritage puzzled over this event, another figure appeared on the scene.  
+It was a big man in knickerbockers and mackintosh, who came round the end 
+of the House from the direction of the South Lodge.  At first he thought 
+it was the advance-guard from his own side, the help which Dickson 
+had gone to find, and he only restrained himself in time from 
+shouting a welcome.  But surely their supports would not advance so 
+confidently in enemy country.  The man strode over the slopes as if 
+looking for somebody; then he caught sight of Leon and waved 
+to him to come.  Leon must have known him, for he hastened to obey.
+
+The two were about thirty yards from Heritage's window.  Leon was 
+telling some story volubly, pointing now to the Tower and now 
+towards the sea.  The big man nodded as if satisfied.  Heritage noted 
+that his right arm was tied up, and that the mackintosh sleeve was 
+empty, and that brought him enlightenment.  It was Loudon the factor, 
+whom Dickson had winged the night before.  The two of them passed out 
+of view in the direction of Spidel.
+
+The sight awoke Heritage to the supreme unpleasantness of his position.  
+He was utterly alone on the headland, and his allies had vanished into 
+space, while the enemy plans, moving like clockwork, were approaching 
+their consummation.  For a second he thought of leaving the Tower and 
+hiding somewhere in the cliffs.  He dismissed the notion unwillingly, 
+for he remembered the task that had been set him.  He was there to hold 
+the fort to the last--to gain time, though he could not for the life of 
+him see what use time was to be when all the strategy of his own side 
+seemed to have miscarried.  Anyhow, the blackguards would be sold, 
+for they would not find the Princess.  But he felt a horrid void 
+in the pit of his stomach, and a looseness about his knees.
+
+The moments passed more quickly as he wrestled with his fears.  
+The next he knew the empty space below his window was filling with figures.  
+There was a great crowd of them, rough fellows with seamen's coats, 
+still dripping as if they had had a wet landing.  Dobson was with them, 
+but for the rest they were strange figures.
+
+Now that the expected had come at last Heritage's nerves grew calmer.  
+He made out that the newcomers were trying the door, and he waited to 
+hear it fall, for such a mob could soon force it.  But instead a 
+voice called from beneath.
+
+"Will you please open to us?" it called.
+
+He stuck his head out and saw a little group with one man at the 
+head of it, a young man clad in oilskins whose face was dim in 
+the murky evening.  The voice was that of a gentleman.
+
+"I have orders to open to no one," Heritage replied.
+
+"Then I fear we must force an entrance," said the voice.
+
+"You can go to the devil," said Heritage.
+
+That defiance was the screw which his nerves needed.  His temper had 
+risen, he had forgotten all about the Princess, he did not even 
+remember his isolation.  His job was to make a fight for it.  
+He ran up the staircase which led to the attics of the Tower, for he 
+recollected that there was a window there which looked over the space 
+before the door.  The place was ruinous, the floor filled with holes, 
+and a part of the roof sagged down in a corner.  The stones around 
+the window were loose and crumbling, and he managed to pull several 
+out so that the slit was enlarged.  He found himself looking down 
+on a crowd of men, who had lifted the fallen tree on which Leon 
+had perched, and were about to use it as a battering ram.
+
+"The first fellow who comes within six yards of the door I shoot," 
+he shouted.
+
+There was a white wave below as every face was turned to him.  
+He ducked back his head in time as a bullet chipped the side 
+of the window.
+
+But his position was a good one, for he had a hole in the broken 
+wall through which he could see, and could shoot with his hand 
+at the edge of the window while keeping his body in cover.  
+The battering party resumed their task, and as the tree swung nearer, 
+he fired at the foremost of them.  He missed, but the shot for a 
+moment suspended operations.
+
+Again they came on, and again he fired.  This time he damaged somebody, 
+for the trunk was dropped.
+
+A voice gave orders, a sharp authoritative voice.  The battering squad 
+dissolved, and there was a general withdrawal out of the line of fire 
+from the window.  Was it possible that he had intimidated them?  
+He could hear the sound of voices, and then a single figure came 
+into sight again, holding something in its hand.
+
+He did not fire for he recognized the futility of his efforts.  
+The baseball swing of the figure below could not be mistaken.  
+There was a roar beneath, and a flash of fire, as the bomb exploded 
+on the door.  Then came a rush of men, and the Tower had fallen.  
+Heritage clambered through a hole in the roof and gained the 
+topmost parapet.  He had still a pocketful of cartridges, and 
+there in a coign of the old battlements he would prove an ugly 
+customer to the pursuit.  Only one at a time could reach that 
+siege perilous....They would not take long to search the lower rooms, 
+and then would be hot on the trail of the man who had fooled them.  
+He had not a scrap of fear left or even of anger--only triumph 
+at the thought of how properly those ruffians had been sold.  
+"Like schoolboys they who unaware"--instead of two women they had 
+found a man with a gun.  And the Princess was miles off and forever 
+beyond their reach.  When they had settled with him they would 
+no doubt burn the House down, but that would serve them little.  
+From his airy pinnacle he could see the whole sea-front of 
+Huntingtower, a blur in the dusk but for the ghostly eyes of its 
+white-shuttered windows.
+
+Something was coming from it, running lightly over the lawns, 
+lost for an instant in the trees, and then appearing clear on 
+the crest of the ridge where some hours earlier Dougal had lain.  
+With horror he saw that it was a girl.  She stood with the wind 
+plucking at her skirts and hair, and she cried in a high, clear voice 
+which pierced even the confusion of the gale.  What she cried he 
+could not tell, for it was in a strange tongue....
+
+But it reached the besiegers.  There was a sudden silence in the 
+din below him and then a confusion of shouting.  The men seemed 
+to be pouring out of the gap which had been the doorway, and as 
+he peered over the parapet first one and then another entered his 
+area of vision.  The girl on the ridge, as soon as she saw that she 
+had attracted attention, turned and ran back, and after her up the 
+slopes went the pursuit bunched like hounds on a good scent.
+
+Mr. John Heritage, swearing terribly, started to retrace his steps.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
+
+
+The military historian must often make shift to write of battles with 
+slender data, but he can pad out his deficiencies by learned parallels.  
+If his were the talented pen describing this, the latest action 
+fought on British soil against a foreign foe, he would no doubt 
+be crippled by the absence of written orders and war diaries.  
+But how eloquently he would descant on the resemblance between 
+Dougal and Gouraud--how the plan of leaving the enemy to waste his 
+strength upon a deserted position was that which on the 15th of July 
+1918 the French general had used with decisive effect in Champagne!  
+But Dougal had never heard of Gouraud, and I cannot claim that, 
+like the Happy Warrior, he
+
+           "through the heat of conflict kept the law
+In calmness made, and saw what he foresaw."
+
+
+I have had the benefit of discussing the affair with him and his 
+colleagues, but I should offend against historic truth if I 
+represented the main action as anything but a scrimmage--a "soldiers' 
+battle," the historian would say, a Malplaquet, an Albuera.
+
+Just after half-past three that afternoon the Commander-in-Chief 
+was revealed in a very bad temper.  He had intercepted Sir Archie's 
+car, and, since Leon was known to be fully occupied, had brought 
+it in by the West Lodge, and hidden it behind a clump of laurels.  
+There he had held a hoarse council of war.  He had cast an appraising 
+eye over Sime the butler, Carfrae the chauffeur, and McGuffog the 
+gamekeeper, and his brows had lightened when he beheld Sir Archie 
+with an armful of guns and two big cartridge-magazines.  But they had 
+darkened again at the first words of the leader of the reinforcements.
+
+"Now for the Tower,' Sir Archie had observed cheerfully.  "We should be 
+a match for the three watchers, my lad, and it's time that poor devil 
+What's-his-name was relieved."
+
+"A bonny-like plan that would be," said Dougal.  "Man, ye would be 
+walkin' into the very trap they want.  In an hour, or maybe two, the 
+rest will turn up from the sea and they'd have ye tight by the neck.  
+Na, na!  It's time we're wantin', and the longer they think we're a' 
+in the auld Tower the better for us.  What news o' the polis?"
+
+He listened to Sir Archie's report with a gloomy face.
+
+"Not afore the darkening'?  They'll be ower late--the polis are 
+aye ower late.  It looks as if we had the job to do oursels.  
+What's your notion?"
+
+"God knows," said the baronet, whose eyes were on Saskia.  "What's yours?"
+
+The deference conciliated Dougal.  "There's just the one plan that's 
+worth a docken.  There's five o' us here, and there's plenty weapons.  
+Besides there's five Die-Hards somewhere about, and though they've 
+never tried it afore they can be trusted to loose off a gun.  
+My advice is to hide at the Garplefoot and stop the boats landin'.  
+We'd have the tinklers on our flank, no doubt, but I'm not muckle 
+feared o' them.  It wouldn't be easy for the boats to get in wi' 
+this tearin' wind and us firin' volleys from the shore."
+
+Sir Archie stared at him with admiration.  "You're a hearty 
+young fire-eater.  But, Great Scott! we can't go pottin' at strangers 
+before we find out their business.  This is a law-abidin' country, 
+and we're not entitled to start shootin' except in self-defence.  
+You can wash that plan out, for it ain't feasible."
+
+Dougal spat cynically.  "For all that it's the right strawtegy.  
+Man, we might sink the lot, and then turn and settle wi' Dobson, 
+and all afore the first polisman showed his neb.  It would be 
+a grand performance.  But I was feared ye wouldn't be for it....Well, 
+there's just the one other thing to do.  We must get inside the Hoose 
+and put it in a state of defence.  Heritage has McCunn's pistol, and 
+he'll keep them busy for a bit.  When they've finished wi' him and 
+find the place is empty, they'll try the Hoose and we'll give them 
+a warm reception.  That should keep us goin' till the polis arrive, 
+unless they're comin' wi' the blind carrier."
+
+Sir Archie nodded.  "But why put ourselves in their power at all?  
+They're at present barking up the wrong tree.  Let them bark up 
+another wrong 'un.  Why shouldn't the House remain empty?  I take it 
+we're here to protect the Princess.  Well, we'll have done that if 
+they go off empty-handed."
+
+Dougal looked up to the heavens.  "I wish McCunn was here," he sighed.  
+"Ay, we've got to protect the Princess, and there's just the one 
+way to do it, and that's to put an end to this crowd o' blagyirds.  
+If they gang empty-handed, they'll come again another day, either here 
+or somewhere else, and it won't be long afore they get the lassie.  
+But if we finish with them now she can sit down wi' an easy mind.  
+That's why we've got to hang on to them till the polis comes.  
+There's no way out o' this business but a battle."
+
+He found an ally.  "Dougal is right," said Saskia.  "If I am to 
+have peace, by some way or other the fangs of my enemies must 
+be drawn for ever."
+
+He swung round and addressed her formally.  "Mem, I'm askin' ye 
+for the last time.  Will ye keep out of this business?  Will ye gang 
+back and sit doun aside Mrs. Morran's fire and have your teas and wait 
+till we come for ye.  Ye can do no good, and ye're puttin' yourself 
+terrible in the enemy's power.  If we're beat and ye're no' there, 
+they get very little satisfaction, but if they get you they get what 
+they've come seekin'.  I tell ye straight--ye're an encumbrance."
+
+She laughed mischievously.  "I can shoot better than you," she said.
+
+He ignored the taunt.  "Will ye listen to sense and fall to the rear?"
+
+"I will not," she said.
+
+"Then gang your own gait.  I'm ower wise to argy-bargy wi' women.  
+The Hoose be it!"
+
+It was a journey which sorely tried Dougal's temper.  The only way in 
+was by the verandah, but the door at the west end had been locked, 
+and the ladder had disappeared.  Now, of his party three were lame, 
+one lacked an arm, and one was a girl; besides, there were the guns 
+and cartridges to transport.  Moreover, at more than one point before 
+the verandah was reached the route was commanded by a point on the 
+ridge near the old Tower, and that had been Spidel's position when Dougal 
+made his last reconnaissance.  It behoved to pass these points swiftly 
+and unobtrusively, and his company was neither swift nor unobtrusive.  
+McGuffog had a genius for tripping over obstacles, and Sir Archie was 
+for ever proffering his aid to Saskia, who was in a position to give 
+rather than to receive, being far the most active of the party.  
+Once Dougal had to take the gamekeeper's head and force it down, 
+a performance which would have led to an immediate assault but for 
+Sir Archie's presence.  Nor did the latter escape.  "Will ye stop 
+heedin' the lassie, and attend to your own job," the Chieftain growled.  
+"Ye're makin' as much noise as a roadroller."
+
+Arrived at the foot of the verandah wall there remained the problem 
+of the escalade.  Dougal clambered up like a squirrel by the help of 
+cracks in the stones, and he could be heard trying the handle of the 
+door into the House.  He was absent for about five minutes, and then his 
+head peeped over the edge accompanied by the hooks of an iron ladder.  
+"From the boiler-house," he informed them as they stood clear for the thing 
+to drop.  It proved to be little more than half the height of the wall.
+
+Saskia ascended first, and had no difficulty in pulling herself 
+over the parapet.  Then came the guns and ammunition, and then the 
+one-armed Sime, who turned out to be an athlete.  But it was no easy 
+matter getting up the last three.  Sir Archie anathematized his frailties.  
+"Nice old crock to go tiger--shootin' with," he told the Princess.  
+"But set me to something where my confounded leg don't get in the way, 
+and I'm still pretty useful!"  Dougal, mopping his brow with the rag 
+he called his handkerchief, observed sourly that he objected to going 
+scouting with a herd of elephants.
+
+Once indoors his spirits rose.  The party from the Mains had brought 
+several electric torches, and the one lamp was presently found and lit.  
+"We can't count on the polis," Dougal announced, "and when the foreigners 
+is finished wi' the Tower they'll come on here.  If no', we must make them.  
+What is it the sodgers call it?  Forcin' a battle?  Now see here!  
+There's the two roads into this place, the back door and the verandy, 
+leavin' out the front door which is chained and lockit.  They'll try those 
+two roads first, and we must get them well barricaded in time.  But mind, 
+if there's a good few o' them, it'll be an easy job to batter in the front 
+door or the windies, so we maun be ready for that."
+
+He told off a fatigue party--the Princess, Sir Archie, and McGuffog-
+-to help in moving furniture to the several doors.  Sime and Carfrae 
+attended to the kitchen entrance, while he himself made a tour of 
+the ground-floor windows.  For half an hour the empty house was loud 
+with strange sounds.  McGuffog, who was a giant in strength, filled 
+the passage at the verandah end with an assortment of furniture 
+ranging from a grand piano to a vast mahogany sofa, while Saskia and 
+Sir Archie pillaged the bedrooms and packed up the interstices with 
+mattresses in lieu of sandbags.  Dougal on his turn saw fit to 
+approve the work.
+
+"That'll fickle the blagyirds.  Down at the kitchen door we've 
+got a mangle, five wash-tubs, and the best part of a ton o' coal.  
+It's the windies I'm anxious about, for they're ower big to fill up.  
+But I've gotten tubs of water below them and a lot o' wire-nettin' I 
+fund in the cellar."
+
+Sir Archie morosely wiped his brow.  "I can't say I ever hated a job 
+more," he told Saskia.  "It seems pretty cool to march into somebody 
+else's house and make free with his furniture.  I hope to goodness 
+our friends from the sea do turn up, or we'll look pretty foolish.  
+Loudon will have a score against me he won't forget.
+
+"Ye're no' weakenin'?" asked Dougal fiercely.
+
+"Not a bit.  Only hopin' somebody hasn't made a mighty big mistake."
+
+"Ye needn't be feared for that.  Now you listen to your instructions.  
+We're terrible few for such a big place, but we maun make up for 
+shortness o' numbers by extra mobility.  The gemkeeper will keep the 
+windy that looks on the verandy, and fell any man that gets through.  
+You'll hold the verandy door, and the ither lame man--is't Carfrae ye 
+call him?--will keep the back door.  I've telled the one-armed man, 
+who has some kind of a head on him, that he maun keep on the move, 
+watchin' to see if they try the front door or any o' the other windies.  
+If they do, he takes his station there.  D'ye follow?"
+
+Sir Archie nodded gloomily.
+
+"What is my post?" Saskia asked.
+
+"I've appointed ye my Chief of Staff," was the answer.  "Ye see 
+we've no reserves.  If this door's the dangerous bit, it maun be 
+reinforced from elsewhere; and that'll want savage thinkin'.  
+Ye'll have to be aye on the move, Mem, and keep me informed.  
+If they break in at two bits, we're beat, and there'll be nothing 
+for it but to retire to our last position.  Ye ken the room ayont 
+the hall where they keep the coats.  That's our last trench, and at 
+the worst we fall back there and stick it out.  It has a strong door 
+and a wee windy, so they'll no' be able to get in on our rear.  
+We should be able to put up a good defence there, unless they fire 
+the place over our heads....Now, we'd better give out the guns."
+
+"We don't want any shootin' if we can avoid it," said Sir Archie, 
+who found his distaste for Dougal growing, though he was under the 
+spell of the one being there who knew precisely his own mind.
+
+"Just what I was goin' to say.  My instructions is, reserve your 
+fire, and don't loose off till you have a man up against the 
+end o' your barrel."
+
+"Good Lord, we'll get into a horrible row.  The whole thing may 
+be a mistake, and we'll be had up for wholesale homicide.  
+No man shall fire unless I give the word."
+
+The Commander-in-Chief looked at him darkly.  Some bitter retort was 
+on his tongue, but he restrained himself.
+
+"It appears," he said, "that ye think I'm doin' all this for fun.  
+I'll no' argy wi' ye.  There can be just the one general in a battle, 
+but I'll give ye permission to say the word when to fire....Macgreegor!" 
+he muttered, a strange expletive only used in moments of deep emotion.  
+"I'll wager ye'll be for sayin' the word afore I'd say it mysel'."
+
+He turned to the Princess.  "I hand over to you, till I am back, 
+for I maun be off and see to the Die-Hards.  I wish I could bring 
+them in here, but I daren't lose my communications.  I'll likely get 
+in by the boiler-house skylight when I come back, but it might be as 
+well to keep a road open here unless ye're actually attacked."
+
+Dougal clambered over the mattresses and the grand piano; a flicker of 
+waning daylight appeared for a second as he squeezed through the door, 
+and Sir Archie was left staring at the wrathful countenance of McGuffog.  
+He laughed ruefully.
+
+"I've been in about forty battles, and here's that little devil 
+rather worried about my pluck and talkin' to me like a corps 
+commander to a newly joined second-lieutenant.  All the same 
+he's a remarkable child, and we'd better behave as if we were 
+in for a real shindy.  What do you think, Princess?"
+
+"I think we are in for what you call a shindy.  I am in command, remember.  
+I order you to serve out the guns."
+
+This was done, a shot-gun and a hundred cartridges to each, 
+while McGuffog, who was a marksman, was also given a sporting 
+Mannlicher, and two other rifles, a .303 and a small-bore Holland, 
+were kept in reserve in the hall.  Sir Archie, free from Dougal's 
+compelling presence, gave the gamekeeper peremptory orders not to 
+shoot till he was bidden, and Carfrae at the kitchen door was warned 
+to the same effect.  The shuttered house, where the only light apart 
+from the garden-room was the feeble spark of the electric torches, 
+had the most disastrous effect upon his spirits.  The gale which 
+roared in the chimney and eddied among the rafters of the hall 
+seemed an infernal commotion in a tomb.
+
+"Let's go upstairs," he told Saskia; "there must be a view from 
+the upper windows."
+
+"You can see the top of the old Tower, and part of the sea," she said.  
+"I know it well, for it was my only amusement to look at it.  
+On clear days, too, one could see high mountains far in the west."  
+His depression seemed to have affected her, for she spoke listlessly, 
+unlike the vivid creature who had led the way in.
+
+In a gaunt west-looking bedroom, the one in which Heritage and 
+Dickson had camped the night before, they opened a fold of the 
+shutters and looked out into a world of grey wrack and driving rain.  
+The Tower roof showed mistily beyond the ridge of down, but its 
+environs were not in their prospect.  The lower regions of the House 
+had been gloomy enough, but this bleak place with its drab outlook 
+struck a chill to Sir Archie's soul.  He dolefully lit a cigarette.
+
+"This is a pretty rotten show for you," he told her.  "It strikes me 
+as a rather unpleasant brand of nightmare."
+
+"I have been living with nightmares for three years," she said wearily.
+
+He cast his eyes round the room.  "I think the Kennedys were mad to 
+build this confounded barrack.  I've always disliked it, and old Quentin 
+hadn't any use for it either.  Cold, cheerless, raw monstrosity!  
+It hasn't been a very giddy place for you, Princess."
+
+"It has been my prison, when I hoped it would be a sanctuary.  But it 
+may yet be my salvation."
+
+"I'm sure I hope so.  I say, you must be jolly hungry.  I don't suppose 
+there's any chance of tea for you."
+
+She shook her head.  She was looking fixedly at the Tower, as if she 
+expected something to appear there, and he followed her eyes.
+
+"Rum old shell, that.  Quentin used to keep all kinds of live 
+stock there, and when we were boys it was our castle where we 
+played at bein' robber chiefs.  It'll be dashed queer if the real 
+thing should turn up this time.  I suppose McCunn's Poet is roostin' 
+there all by his lone.  Can't say I envy him his job."
+
+Suddenly she caught his arm.  "I see a man," she whispered.  
+"There!  He is behind those far bushes.  There is his head again!"
+
+It was clearly a man, but he presently disappeared, for he had come 
+round by the south end of the House, past the stables, and had now 
+gone over the ridge.
+
+"The cut of his jib us uncommonly like Loudon, the factor.  
+I thought McCunn had stretched him on a bed of pain.  Lord, if this 
+thing should turn out a farce, I simply can't face Loudon....I say, 
+Princess, you don't suppose by any chance that McCunn's a little bit 
+wrong in the head?"
+
+She turned her candid eyes on him.  "You are in a very doubting mood."
+
+"My feet are cold and I don't mind admittin' it.  Hanged if I 
+know what it is, but I don't feel this show a bit real.  If it isn't, 
+we're in a fair way to make howlin' idiots of ourselves, and get 
+pretty well embroiled with the law.  It's all right for the red-haired 
+boy, for he can take everything seriously, even play.  I could do the 
+same thing myself when I was a kid.  I don't mind runnin' some kind of 
+risk--I've had a few in my time--but this is so infernally outlandish, 
+and I--I don't quite believe in it.  That is to say, I believe in it 
+right enough when I look at you or listen to McCunn, but as soon as my 
+eyes are off you I begin to doubt again.  I'm gettin' old and I've a 
+stake in the country, and I daresay I'm gettin' a bit of a prig--anyway 
+I don't want to make a jackass of myself.  Besides, there's this foul 
+weather and this beastly house to ice my feet."
+
+He broke off with an exclamation, for on the grey cloud-bounded 
+stage in which the roof of the Tower was the central feature, 
+actors had appeared.  Dim hurrying shapes showed through the mist, 
+dipping over the ridge, as if coming from the Garplefoot.
+
+She seized his arm and he saw that her listlessness was gone.  
+Her eyes were shining.
+
+"It is they," she cried.  "The nightmare is real at last.  
+Do you doubt now?"
+
+He could only stare, for these shapes arriving and vanishing like 
+wisps of fog still seemed to him phantasmal.  The girl held his arm 
+tightly clutched, and craned towards the window space.  He tried to 
+open the frame, and succeeded in smashing the glass.  A swirl of wind 
+drove inwards and blew a loose lock of Saskia's hair across his brow.
+
+"I wish Dougal were back," he muttered, and then came the crack of a shot.
+	
+The pressure on his arm slackened, and a pale face was turned to him.  
+"He is alone--Mr. Heritage.  He has no chance.  They will kill him 
+like a dog."
+
+"They'll never get in," he assured her.  "Dougal said the place could 
+hold out for hours."
+
+Another shot followed and presently a third.  She twined her hands 
+and her eyes were wild.
+
+"We can't leave him to be killed," she gasped.
+
+"It's the only game.  We're playin' for time, remember. Besides, he won't 
+be killed.  Great Scott!"
+
+As he spoke, a sudden explosion cleft the drone of the wind and a 
+patch of gloom flashed into yellow light.
+
+"Bomb!" he cried.  "Lord, I might have thought of that."
+
+The girl had sprung back from the window.  "I cannot bear it.  
+I will not see him murdered in sight of his friends.  I am going to 
+show myself, and when they see me they will leave him....No, you 
+must stay here.  Presently they will be round this house.  
+Don't be afraid for me--I am very quick of foot."
+
+"For God's sake, don't!  Here, Princess, stop," and he clutched 
+at her skirt.  "Look here, I'll go."
+
+"You can't.  You have been wounded.  I am in command, you know. 
+Keep the door open till I come back."
+
+He hobbled after her, but she easily eluded him.  She was smiling 
+now, and blew a kiss to him.  "La, la, la," she trilled, as she ran 
+down the stairs.  He heard her voice below, admonishing McGuffog.  
+Then he pulled himself together and went back to the window.  
+He had brought the little Holland with him, and he poked its 
+barrel through the hole in the glass.
+
+"Curse my game leg," he said, almost cheerfully, for the situation 
+was now becoming one with which he could cope.  "I ought to be able 
+to hold up the pursuit a bit.  My aunt!  What a girl!"
+
+With the rifle cuddled to his shoulder he watched a slim figure come 
+into sight on the lawn, running towards the ridge.  He reflected that 
+she must have dropped from the high verandah wall.  That reminded him 
+that something must be done to make the wall climbable for her return, 
+so he went down to McGuffog, and the two squeezed through the barricaded 
+door to the verandah.  The boilerhouse ladder was still in position, 
+but it did not reach half the height, so McGuffog was adjured to 
+stand by to help, and in the meantime to wait on duty by the wall.  
+Then he hurried upstairs to his watch-tower.
+
+The girl was in sight, almost on the crest of the high ground.  
+There she stood for a moment, one hand clutching at her errant hair, 
+the other shielding her eyes from the sting of the rain.  He heard 
+her cry, as Heritage had heard her, but since the wind was blowing 
+towards him the sound came louder and fuller.  Again she cried, and 
+then stood motionless with her hands above her head.  It was only for 
+an instant, for the next he saw she had turned and was racing down 
+the slope, jumping the little scrogs of hazel like a deer.  On the 
+ridge appeared faces, and then over it swept a mob of men.
+
+She had a start of some fifty yards, and laboured to increase it, 
+having doubtless the verandah wall in mind.  Sir Archie, sick with anxiety, 
+nevertheless spared time to admire her prowess.  "Gad! she's a miler," 
+he ejaculated.  "She'll do it.  I'm hanged if she don't do it."
+
+Against men in seamen's boots and heavy clothing she had a clear advantage.  
+But two shook themselves loose from the pack and began to gain on her.  
+At the main shrubbery they were not thirty yards behind, and in her 
+passage through it her skirts must have delayed her, for when she 
+emerged the pursuit had halved the distance.  He got the sights of the 
+rifle on the first man, but the lawns sloped up towards the house, and 
+to his consternation he found that the girl was in the line of fire.  
+Madly he ran to the other window of the room, tore back the shutters, 
+shivered the glass, and flung his rifle to his shoulder.  The fellow was 
+within three yards of her, but, thank God! he had now a clear field.  
+He fired low and just ahead of him, and had the satisfaction to see him 
+drop like a rabbit, shot in the leg.  His companion stumbled over him, 
+and for a moment the girl was safe.
+
+But her speed was failing.  She passed out of sight on the verandah 
+side of the house, and the rest of the pack had gained ominously over 
+the easier ground of the lawn.  He thought for a moment of trying to 
+stop them by his fire, but realized that if every shot told there 
+would still be enough of them left to make sure of her capture.  
+The only chance was at the verandah, and he went downstairs at a 
+pace undreamed of since the days when he had two whole legs.
+
+McGuffog, Mannlicher in hand, was poking his neck over the wall.  
+The pursuit had turned the corner and were about twenty yards off; 
+the girl was at the foot of the ladder, breathless, drooping with fatigue.  
+She tried to climb, limply and feebly, and very slowly, as if she 
+were too giddy to see clear.  Above were two cripples, and at 
+her back the van of the now triumphant pack.
+
+Sir Archie, game leg or no, was on the parapet preparing to 
+drop down and hold off the pursuit were it only for seconds.  
+But at that moment he was aware that the situation had changed.
+
+At the foot of the ladder a tall man seemed to have sprung out 
+of the ground.  He caught the girl in his arms, climbed the ladder, 
+and McGuffog's great hands reached down and seized her and swung 
+her into safety.  Up the wall, by means of cracks and tufts, was 
+shinning a small boy.
+
+The stranger coolly faced the pursuers, and at the sight of him 
+they checked, those behind stumbling against those in front.  
+He was speaking to them in a foreign tongue, and to Sir Archie's 
+ear the words were like the crack of a lash.  The hesitation was 
+only for a moment, for a voice among them cried out, and the whole 
+pack gave tongue shrilly and surged on again.  But that instant 
+of check had given the stranger his chance.  He was up the ladder, 
+and, gripping the parapet, found rest for his feet in a fissure.  
+Then he bent down, drew up the ladder, handed it to McGuffog, 
+and with a mighty heave pulled himself over the top.
+
+He seemed to hope to defend the verandah, but the door at the west 
+end was being assailed by a contingent of the enemy, and he saw that 
+its thin woodwork was yielding.
+
+"Into the House," he cried, as he picked up the ladder and tossed it 
+over the wall on the pack surging below.  He was only just in time, 
+for the west door yielded.  In two steps he had followed McGuffog 
+through the chink into the passage, and the concussion of the grand 
+piano pushed hard against the verandah door from within coincided 
+with the first battering on the said door from without.
+
+In the garden-room the feeble lamp showed a strange grouping.  
+Saskia had sunk into a chair to get her breath, and seemed too 
+dazed to be aware of her surroundings.  Dougal was manfully 
+striving to appear at his ease, but his lip was quivering.
+
+"A near thing that time," he observed.  "It was the blame of 
+that man's auld motor-bicycle."
+
+The stranger cast sharp eyes around the place and company.
+
+"An awkward corner, gentlemen," he said.  "How many are there of you?  
+Four men and a boy?  And you have placed guards at all the entrances?"
+
+"They have bombs," Sir Archie reminded him.
+
+"No doubt.  But I do not think they will use them here--or their guns, 
+unless there is no other way.  Their purpose is kidnapping, and 
+they hope to do it secretly and slip off without leaving a trace.  
+If they slaughter us, as they easily can, the cry will be out 
+against them, and their vessel will be unpleasantly hunted.  
+Half their purpose is already spoiled, for it no longer secret..
+..They may break us by sheer weight, and I fancy the first shooting 
+will be done by us.  It's the windows I'm afraid of."
+
+Some tone in his quiet voice reached the girl in the wicker chair.  
+She looked up wildly, saw him, and with a cry of "Alesha" ran to his arms.  
+There she hung, while his hand fondled her hair, like a mother with 
+a scared child.  Sir Archie, watching the whole thing in some stupefaction, 
+thought he had never in his days seen more nobly matched human creatures.
+
+"It is my friend," she cried triumphantly, "the friend whom 
+I appointed to meet me here.  Oh, I did well to trust him.  
+Now we need not fear anything."
+
+As if in ironical answer came a great crashing at the verandah door, 
+and the twanging of chords cruelly mishandled.  The grand piano was 
+suffering internally from the assaults of the boiler-house ladder.
+
+"Wull I gie them a shot?" was McGuffog's hoarse inquiry.
+
+"Action stations," Alexis ordered, for the command seemed to 
+have shifted to him from Dougal.  "The windows are the danger.  
+The boy will patrol the ground floor, and give us warning, and I and 
+this man," pointing to Sime, "will be ready at the threatened point.  
+And, for God's sake, no shooting, unless I give the word.  If we take 
+them on at that game we haven't a chance."
+
+He said something to Saskia in Russian and she smiled assent and went 
+to Sir Archie's side.  "You and I must keep this door," she said.
+
+Sir Archie was never very clear afterwards about the events of 
+the next hour.  The Princess was in the maddest spirits, as if the 
+burden of three years had slipped from her and she was back in her 
+first girlhood.  She sang as she carried more lumber to the pile--
+perhaps the song which had once entranced Heritage, but Sir Archie 
+had no ear for music.  She mocked at the furious blows which rained 
+at the other end, for the door had gone now, and in the windy gap 
+could be seen a blur of dark faces.  Oddly enough, he found his own 
+spirits mounting to meet hers.  It was real business at last, the 
+qualms of the civilian had been forgotten, and there was rising in 
+him that joy in a scrap which had once made him one of the most 
+daring airmen on the Western Front.  The only thing that worried him 
+now was the coyness about shooting.  What on earth were his rifles 
+and shot-guns for unless to be used?  He had seen the enemy from the 
+verandah wall, and a more ruffianly crew he had never dreamed of.  
+They meant the uttermost business, and against such it was surely 
+the duty of good citizens to wage whole-hearted war.
+
+The Princess was humming to herself a nursery rhyme.  "THE KING 
+OF SPAIN'S DAUGHTER," she crooned, "CAME TO VISIT ME, AND ALL 
+FOR THE SAKE----Oh, that poor piano!"  In her clear voice she cried 
+something in Russian, and the wind carried a laugh from the verandah.  
+At the sound of it she stopped.  "I had forgotten," she said.  
+"Paul is there.  I had forgotten."  After that she was very quiet, 
+but she redoubled her labours at the barricade.
+
+To the man it seemed that the pressure from without was slackening.  
+He called to McGuffog to ask about the garden-room window, and the 
+reply was reassuring.  The gamekeeper was gloomily contemplating 
+Dougal's tubs of water and wire-netting, as he might have 
+contemplated a vermin trap.
+
+Sir Archie was growing acutely anxious--the anxiety of the defender 
+of a straggling fortress which is vulnerable at a dozen points.  
+It seemed to him that strange noises were coming from the rooms 
+beyond the hall.  Did the back door lie that way?  And was not there 
+a smell of smoke in the air?  If they tried fire in such a gale the 
+place would burn like matchwood.
+
+He left his post and in the hall found Dougal.
+
+"All quiet," the Chieftain reported.  "Far ower quiet.  I don't like it.  
+The enemy's no' puttin' out his strength yet.  The Russian says a' the 
+west windies are terrible dangerous.  Him and the chauffeur's doin' 
+their best, but ye can't block thae muckle glass panes."
+
+He returned to the Princess, and found that the attack had indeed 
+languished on that particular barricade.  The withers of the grand 
+piano were left unwrung, and only a faint scuffling informed him that 
+the verandah was not empty.  "They're gathering for an attack elsewhere," 
+he told himself.  But what if that attack were a feint?  He and McGuffog 
+must stick to their post, for in his belief the verandah door and 
+the garden-room window were the easiest places where an entry in 
+mass could be forced.  Suddenly Dougal's whistle blew, and with 
+it came a most almighty crash somewhere towards the west side.  
+With a shout of "Hold Tight, McGuffog," Sir Archie bolted into the hall, 
+and, led by the sound, reached what had once been the ladies' bedroom.  
+A strange sight met his eyes, for the whole framework of one window seemed 
+to have been thrust inward, and in the gap Alexis was swinging a fender.  
+Three of the enemy were in the room--one senseless on the floor, one 
+in the grip of Sime, whose single hand was tightly clenched on his throat, 
+and one engaged with Dougal in a corner.  The Die-Hard leader was sore 
+pressed, and to his help Sir Archie went.  The fresh assault made the 
+seaman duck his head, and Dougal seized the occasion to smite him 
+hard with something which caused him to roll over.  It was Leon's 
+life-preserver which he had annexed that afternoon.
+
+Alexis at the window seemed to have for a moment daunted the attack.  
+"Bring that table," he cried, and the thing was jammed into the gap.  
+"Now you"--this to Sime--"get the man from the back door to hold this 
+place with his gun.  There's no attack there.  It's about time for 
+shooting now, or we'll have them in our rear.  What in heaven is that?"
+
+It was McGuffog whose great bellow resounded down the corridor.  
+Sir Archie turned and shuffled back, to be met by a distressing spectacle.  
+The lamp, burning as peacefully as it might have burned on an old lady's 
+tea-table, revealed the window of the garden-room driven bodily inward, 
+shutters and all, and now forming an inclined bridge over Dougal's 
+ineffectual tubs.  In front of it stood McGuffog, swinging his gun by the 
+barrel and yelling curses, which, being mainly couched in the vernacular, 
+were happily meaningless to Saskia.  She herself stood at the hall door, 
+plucking at something hidden in her breast.  He saw that it was a 
+little ivory-handled pistol.
+
+The enemy's feint had succeeded, for even as Sir Archie looked three 
+men leaped into the room.  On the neck of one the butt of McGuffog's 
+gun crashed, but two scrambled to their feet and made for the girl.  
+Sir Archie met the first with his fist, a clean drive on the jaw, 
+followed by a damaging hook with his left that put him out of action.  
+The other hesitated for an instant and was lost, for McGuffog caught 
+him by the waist from behind and sent him through the broken frame to 
+join his comrades without.
+
+"Up the stairs," Dougal was shouting, for the little room beyond the 
+hall was clearly impossible.  "Our flank's turned.  They're pourin' 
+through the other windy."  Out of a corner of his eye Sir Archie 
+caught sight of Alexis, with Sime and Carfrae in support, being slowly 
+forced towards them along the corridor.  "Upstairs," he shouted.  
+"Come on, McGuffog.  Lead on, Princess."  He dashed out the lamp, 
+and the place was in darkness.
+
+With this retreat from the forward trench line ended the opening 
+phase of the battle.  It was achieved in good order, and position 
+was taken up on the first floor landing, dominating the main staircase 
+and the passage that led to the back stairs.  At their back was a short 
+corridor ending in a window which gave on the north side of the House 
+above the verandah, and from which an active man might descend to 
+the verandah roof.  It had been carefully reconnoitred beforehand 
+by Dougal, and his were the dispositions.
+
+The odd thing was that the retreating force were in good heart.  
+The three men from the Mains were warming to their work, and McGuffog 
+wore an air of genial ferocity.  "Dashed fine position I call this," 
+said Sir Archie.  Only Alexis was silent and preoccupied.  "We are still 
+at their mercy," he said.  "Pray God your police come soon."  He forbade 
+shooting yet awhile.  "The lady is our strong card," he said.  
+"They won't use their guns while she is with us, but if it ever 
+comes to shooting they can wipe us out in a couple of minutes.  
+One of you watch that window, for Paul Abreskov is no fool."
+
+Their exhilaration was short-lived.  Below in the hall it was black 
+darkness save for a greyness at the entrance of the verandah passage; 
+but the defence was soon aware that the place was thick with men.  
+Presently there came a scuffling from Carfrae's post towards the back 
+stairs, and a cry as of some one choking.  And at the same moment a 
+flare was lit below which brought the whole hall from floor to 
+rafters into blinding light.
+
+It revealed a crowd of figures, some still in the hall and some 
+half-way up the stairs, and it revealed, too, more figures at 
+the end of the upper landing where Carfrae had been stationed.  
+The shapes were motionless like mannequins in a shop window.
+
+"They've got us treed all right," Sir Archie groaned.  "What the 
+devil are they waiting for?"
+
+"They wait for their leader," said Alexis.
+
+No one of the party will ever forget the ensuing minutes.  
+After the hubbub of the barricades the ominous silence was like 
+icy water, chilling and petrifying with an indefinable fear.  
+There was no sound but the wind, but presently mingled with 
+it came odd wild voices. 
+
+"Hear to the whaups," McGuffog whispered.
+
+Sir Archie, who found the tension unbearable, sought relief 
+in contradiction.  "You're an unscientific brute, McGuffog," 
+he told his henchman.  "It's a disgrace that a gamekeeper should 
+be such a rotten naturalist.  What would whaups be doin' on the 
+shore at this time of year?"
+
+"A' the same, I could swear it's whaups, Sir Erchibald."
+
+Then Dougal broke in and his voice was excited.  It's no' whaups.  
+That's our patrol signal.  Man, there's hope for us yet.  I believe 
+it's the polis.'  His words were unheeded, for the figures below drew 
+apart and a young man came through them.  His beautifully-shaped dark 
+head was bare, and as he moved he unbuttoned his oilskins and showed 
+the trim dark-blue garb of the yachtsman.  He walked confidently up 
+the stairs, an odd elegant figure among his heavy companions.
+
+"Good afternoon, Alexis," he said in English.  " I think we may now 
+regard this interesting episode as closed.  I take it that you surrender.  
+Saskia, dear, you are coming with me on a little journey.  Will you tell
+ my men where to find your baggage?"
+
+The reply was in Russian.  Alexis' voice was as cool as the other's, 
+and it seemed to wake him to anger.  He replied in a rapid torrent 
+of words, and appealed to the men below, who shouted back.  
+The flare was dying down, and shadows again hid most of the hall.
+
+Dougal crept up behind Sir Archie.  "Here, I think it's the polis.  
+They're whistlin' outbye, and I hear folk cryin' to each other--no' 
+the foreigners."
+
+Again Alexis spoke, and then Saskia joined in.  What she said rang 
+sharp with contempt, and her fingers played with her little pistol.
+
+Suddenly before the young man could answer Dobson bustled toward him.  
+The innkeeper was labouring under some strong emotion, for he seemed 
+to be pleading and pointing urgently towards the door.
+
+"I tell ye it's the polis," whispered Dougal.  "They're nickit."
+
+There was a swaying in the crowd and anxious faces.  Men surged in, 
+whispered, and went out, and a clamour arose which the leader 
+stilled with a fierce gesture.
+
+"You there," he cried, looking up, "you English.  We mean you no ill, 
+but I require you to hand over to me the lady and the Russian who is 
+with her.  I give you a minute by my watch to decide.  If you refuse, 
+my men are behind you and around you, and you go with me to be punished 
+at my leisure."
+
+"I warn you," cried Sir Archie.  "We are armed, and will shoot down 
+any one who dares to lay a hand on us."
+
+"You fool," came the answer.  "I can send you all to eternity before 
+you touch a trigger."
+
+Leon was by his side now--Leon and Spidel, imploring him to do 
+something which he angrily refused.  Outside there was a new clamour, 
+faces showing at the door and then vanishing, and an anxious hum 
+filled the hall....Dobson appeared again and this time he was a 
+figure of fury.
+
+"Are ye daft, man?" he cried.  "I tell ye the polis are closin' round 
+us, and there's no' a moment to lose if we would get back to the boats.  
+If ye'll no' think o' your own neck, I'm thinkin' o' mine.  
+The whole things a bloody misfire.  Come on, lads, if ye're no 
+besotted on destruction.
+
+Leon laid a hand on the leader's arm and was roughly shaken off.  
+Spidel fared no better, and the little group on the upper landing saw 
+the two shrug their shoulders and make for the door.  The hall was 
+emptying fast and the watchers had gone from the back stairs.  
+The young man's voice rose to a scream; he commanded, threatened, 
+cursed; but panic was in the air and he had lost his mastery.
+
+"Quick," croaked Dougal, "now's the time for the counter-attack."
+
+But the figure on the stairs held them motionless.  They could not 
+see his face, but by instinct they knew that it was distraught with 
+fury and defeat.  The flare blazed up again as the flame caught a 
+knot of fresh powder, and once more the place was bright with the 
+uncanny light....The hall was empty save for the pale man who was in 
+the act of turning.
+
+He looked back.  "If I go now, I will return.  The world is not wide 
+enough to hide you from me, Saskia."
+
+"You will never get her," said Alexis.
+
+A sudden devil flamed into his eyes, the devil of some ancestral 
+savagery, which would destroy what is desired but unattainable.  
+He swung round, his hand went to his pocket, something clacked, 
+and his arm shot out like a baseball pitcher's.
+
+So intent was the gaze of the others on him, that they did not 
+see a second figure ascending the stairs.  Just as Alexis 
+flung himself before the Princess, the new-comer caught the young 
+man's outstretched arm and wrenched something from his hand.  
+The next second he had hurled it into a far corner where stood the 
+great fireplace.  There was a blinding sheet of flame, a dull roar, 
+and then billow upon billow of acrid smoke.  As it cleared they 
+saw that the fine Italian chimneypiece, the pride of the builder 
+of the House, was a mass of splinters, and that a great hole 
+had been blown through the wall into what had been the dining-
+room....A figure was sitting on the bottom step feeling its bruises.  
+The last enemy had gone.
+
+When Mr. John Heritage raised his eyes he saw the Princess with a very 
+pale face in the arms of a tall man whom he had never seen before.  
+If he was surprised at the sight, he did not show it.  "Nasty little 
+bomb that.  I remember we struck the brand first in July '18."
+
+"Are they rounded up?" Sir Archie asked.
+
+"They've bolted.  Whether they'll get away is another matter.  
+I left half the mounted police a minute ago at the top of the 
+West Lodge avenue.  The other lot went to the Garplefoot to 
+cut off the boats."
+
+"Good Lord, man," Sir Archie cried, "the police have been here 
+for the last ten minutes."
+
+"You're wrong.  They came with me."
+
+"Then what on earth---" began the astonished baronet.  He stopped short, 
+for he suddenly got his answer.  Into the hall limped a boy.  Never was 
+there seen so ruinous a child.  He was dripping wet, his shirt was 
+all but torn off his back, his bleeding nose was poorly staunched 
+by a wisp of handkerchief, his breeches were in ribbons, and his 
+poor bare legs looked as if they had been comprehensively kicked 
+and scratched.  Limpingly he entered, yet with a kind of pride, 
+like some small cock-sparrow who has lost most of his plumage but 
+has vanquished his adversary.
+
+With a yell Dougal went down the stairs.  The boy saluted him, and 
+they gravely shook hands.  It was the meeting of Wellington and Blucher.
+
+The Chieftain's voice shrilled in triumph, but there was a break in it.  
+The glory was almost too great to be borne.
+
+"I kenned it," he cried.  "It was the Gorbals Die-Hards.  
+There stands the man that done it....Ye'll no' fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION
+
+
+We left Mr. McCunn, full of aches but desperately resolute in spirit, 
+hobbling by the Auchenlochan road into the village of Dalquharter.  
+His goal was Mrs. Morran's hen-house, which was Thomas Yownie's 
+POSTE DE COMMANDEMENT.  The rain had come on again, and, though in 
+other weather there would have been a slow twilight, already the 
+shadow of night had the world in its grip.  The sea even from the 
+high ground was invisible, and all to westward and windward was a 
+ragged screen of dark cloud.  It was foul weather for foul deeds.  
+Thomas Yownie was not in the hen-house, but in Mrs. Morran's kitchen, 
+and with him were the pug-faced boy know as Old Bill, and the sturdy 
+figure of Peter Paterson.  But the floor was held by the hostess.  
+She still wore her big boots, her petticoats were still kilted, and 
+round her venerable head in lieu of a bonnet was drawn a tartan shawl.
+
+"Eh, Dickson, but I'm blithe to see ye.  And puir man, ye've been 
+sair mishandled.  This is the awfu'est Sabbath day that ever you and 
+me pit in.  I hope it'll be forgiven us....Whaur's the young leddy?"
+
+"Dougal was saying she was in the House with Sir Archibald and 
+the men from the Mains."
+
+"Wae's me!" Mrs. Morran keened.  "And what kind o' place is yon for her?  
+Thae laddies tell me there's boatfu's o' scoondrels landit at 
+the Garplefit.  They'll try the auld Tower, but they'll no' wait 
+there when they find it toom, and they'll be inside the Hoose in a 
+jiffy and awa' wi' the puir lassie.  Sirs, it maunna be.  Ye're lippenin' 
+to the polis, but in a' my days I never kenned the polis in time.  
+We maun be up and daein' oorsels.  Oh, if I could get a haud o' 
+that red-heided Dougal..."
+
+As she spoke there came on the wind the dull reverberation of an explosion.
+
+"Keep us, what's that?" she cried.
+
+"It's dinnymite," said Peter Paterson.
+
+"That's the end o' the auld Tower," observed Thomas Yownie in his 
+quiet, even voice.  "And it's likely the end o' the man Heritage."
+
+"Lord peety us!" the old woman wailed. "And us standin' here like 
+stookies and no' liftin' a hand.  Awa' wi ye, laddies, and dae something.  
+Awa' you too, Dickson, or I'll tak' the road mysel'."
+
+"I've got orders," said the Chief of Staff, "no' to move till 
+the sityation's clear.  Napoleon's up at the Tower and Jaikie's 
+in the policies.  I maun wait on their reports."
+
+For a moment Mrs. Morran's attention was distracted by Dickson, 
+who suddenly felt very faint and sat down heavily on a kitchen chair.  
+"Man, ye're as white as a dish-clout," she exclaimed with compunction.  
+"Ye're fair wore out, and ye'll have had nae meat sin' your breakfast.  
+See, and I'll get ye a cup o' tea."
+
+She proved to be in the right, for as soon as Dickson had swallowed 
+some mouthfuls of her strong scalding brew the colour came back to 
+his cheeks, and he announced that he felt better.  "Ye'll fortify it 
+wi' a dram," she told him, and produced a black bottle from her cupboard.  
+"My father aye said that guid whisky and het tea keepit the doctor's 
+gig oot o' the close."
+
+The back door opened and Napoleon entered, his thin shanks blue with cold.  
+He saluted and made his report in a voice shrill with excitement.
+
+"The Tower has fallen.  They've blown in the big door, and the feck 
+o' them's inside."
+
+"And Mr. Heritage?" was Dickson's anxious inquiry.
+
+"When I last saw him he was up at a windy, shootin'.  I think he's 
+gotten on to the roof.  I wouldna wonder but the place is on fire."
+
+"Here, this is awful," Dickson groaned.  "We can't let Mr. Heritage 
+be killed that way.  What strength is the enemy?"
+
+"I counted twenty-seven, and there's stragglers comin' up from the boats."
+
+"And there's me and you five laddies here, and Dougal and the others 
+shut up in the House."
+
+He stopped in sheer despair.  It was a fix from which the most 
+enlightened business mind showed no escape.  Prudence, inventiveness, 
+were no longer in question; only some desperate course of violence.
+
+"We must create a diversion," he said.  "I'm for the Tower, and you 
+laddies must come with me.  We'll maybe see a chance.  Oh, but I wish 
+I had my wee pistol."
+
+"If ye're gaun there, Dickson, I'm comin' wi' ye," Mrs Morran announced.
+
+Her words revealed to Dickson the preposterousness of the whole situation, 
+and for all his anxiety he laughed.  "Five laddies, a middle-aged man, 
+and an auld wife," he cried.  "Dod, it's pretty hopeless.  It's like 
+the thing in the Bible about the weak things of the world trying to 
+confound the strong."
+
+"The Bible's whiles richt," Mrs. Morran answered drily.  "Come on, 
+for there's no time to lose."
+
+The door opened again to admit the figure of Wee Jaikie.  There were 
+no tears in his eyes, and his face was very white.
+
+"They're a' round the Hoose," he croaked.  "I was up a tree forenent 
+the verandy and seen them.  The lassie ran oot and cried on them 
+from the top o' the brae, and they a' turned and hunted her back.  
+Gosh, but it was a near thing.  I seen the Captain sklimmin' the 
+wall, and a muckle man took the lassie and flung her up the ladder.  
+They got inside just in time and steekit the door, and now the whole 
+pack is roarin' round the Hoose seekin' a road in.  They'll no' be 
+long over the job, neither."
+
+"What about Mr. Heritage?"
+
+"They're no' heedin' about him any more.  The auld Tower's bleezin'."
+
+"Worse and worse," said Dickson.  "If the police don't come in the 
+next ten minutes, they'll be away with the Princess.  They've beaten 
+all Dougal's plans, and it's a straight fight with odds of six to one.  
+It's not possible."
+
+Mrs. Morran for the first time seemed to lose hope.  "Eh, the puir lassie!" 
+she wailed, and sinking on a chair covered her face with her shawl.
+
+"Laddies, can you no' think of a plan?" asked Dickson, his voice flat 
+with despair.
+
+Then Thomas Yownie spoke.  So far he had been silent, but under his 
+tangled thatch of hair his mind had been busy.  Jaikie's report seemed 
+to bring him to a decision.
+
+"It's gey dark," he said,  "and it's gettin' darker."
+
+There was that in his voice which promised something, and Dickson listened.
+
+"The enemy's mostly foreigners, but Dobson's there and I think 
+he's a kind of guide to them.  Dobson's feared of the polis, 
+and if we can terrify Dobson he'll terrify the rest."
+
+"Ay, but where are the police?"
+
+"They're no' here yet, but they're comin'.  The fear o' them is aye 
+in Dobson's mind.  If he thinks the polis has arrived, he'll put the 
+wind up the lot....WE maun be the polis."
+
+Dickson could only stare while the Chief of Staff unfolded his scheme.  
+I do not know to whom the Muse of History will give the credit 
+of the tactics of "Infiltration," whether to Ludendorff or von Hutier 
+or some other proud captain of Germany, or to Foch, who revised and 
+perfected them.  But I know that the same notion was at this moment of 
+crisis conceived by Thomas Yownie, whom no parents acknowledged, who 
+slept usually in a coal cellar, and who had picked up his education 
+among Gorbals closes and along the wharves of Clyde.
+
+"It's gettin' dark," he said, "and the enemy are that busy tryin' 
+to break into the Hoose that they'll no' be thinkin' o' their rear.  
+The five o' us Die-Hards is grand at dodgin' and keepin' out of 
+sight, and what hinders us to get in among them, so that they'll hear 
+us but never see us.  We're used to the ways o' the polis, and can 
+imitate them fine.  Forbye we've all got our whistles, which are the 
+same as a bobbie's birl, and Old Bill and Peter are grand at copyin' 
+a man's voice.  Since the Captain is shut up in the Hoose, the 
+command falls to me, and that's my plan."
+
+With a piece of chalk he drew on the kitchen floor a rough sketch 
+of the environs of Huntingtower.  Peter Paterson was to move from 
+the shrubberies beyond the verandah, Napoleon from the stables, 
+Old Bill from the Tower, while Wee Jaikie and Thomas himself 
+were to advance as if from the Garplefoot, so that the enemy might 
+fear for his communications.  "As soon as one o' ye gets into position 
+he's to gie the patrol cry, and when each o' ye has heard five cries, 
+he's to advance.  Begin birlin' and roarin' afore ye get among them, 
+and keep it up till ye're at the Hoose wall.  If they've gotten inside, 
+in ye go after them.  I trust each Die-Hard to use his judgment, 
+and above all to keep out o' sight and no' let himsel' be grippit."
+
+The plan, like all great tactics, was simple, and no sooner was it 
+expounded than it was put into action.  The Die-Hards faded out of 
+the kitchen like fog-wreaths, and Dickson and Mrs. Morran were left 
+looking at each other.  They did not look long.  The bare feet of 
+Wee Jaikie had not crossed the threshold fifty seconds, before 
+they were followed by Mrs. Morran's out-of-doors boots and 
+Dickson's tackets.  Arm in arm the two hobbled down the back path 
+behind the village which led to the South Lodge.  The gate was unlocked, 
+for the warder was busy elsewhere, and they hastened up the avenue.  
+Far off Dickson thought he saw shapes fleeting across the park, which he 
+took to be the shock-troops of his own side, and he seemed to hear 
+snatches of song.  Jaikie was giving tongue, and this was what he sang:
+
+
+
+"Proley Tarians, arise!
+Wave the Red Flag to the skies,
+Heed no more the Fat Man's lees,
+Stap them doun his throat!
+Nocht to lose except our chains----"
+
+
+
+But he tripped over a rabbit wire and thereafter conserved his breath.
+
+The wind was so loud that no sound reached them from the House, 
+which, blank and immense, now loomed before them.  Dickson's ears 
+were alert for the noise of shots or the dull crash of bombs; hearing 
+nothing, he feared the worst, and hurried Mrs. Morran at a pace which 
+endangered her life.  He had no fear for himself, arguing that his 
+foes were seeking higher game, and judging, too, that the main battle 
+must be round the verandah at the other end.  The two passed the 
+shrubbery where the road forked, one path running to the back door 
+and one to the stables.  They took the latter and presently came out 
+on the downs, with the ravine of the Garple on their left, the 
+stables in front, and on the right the hollow of a formal garden 
+running along the west side of the House.
+
+The gale was so fierce, now that they had no wind-break between them 
+and the ocean, that Mrs. Morran could wrestle with it no longer, 
+and found shelter in the lee of a clump of rhododendrons.  
+Darkness had all but fallen, and the House was a black shadow 
+against the dusky sky, while a confused greyness marked the sea.  
+The old Tower showed a tooth of masonry; there was no glow from it, 
+so the fire, which Jaikie had reported, must have died down.  
+A whaup cried loudly, and very eerily: then another.
+
+The birds stirred up Mrs. Morran.  "That's the laddies' patrol." 
+she gasped.  "Count the cries, Dickson."
+
+Another bird wailed, this time very near.  Then there was perhaps 
+three minutes' silence till a fainter wheeple came from the direction 
+of the Tower.  "Four," said Dickson, but he waited in vain on the fifth.  
+He had not the acute hearing of the boys, and could not catch the faint 
+echo of Peter Paterson's signal beyond the verandah.  The next he heard 
+was a shrill whistle cutting into the wind, and then others in rapid 
+succession from different quarters, and something which might have been 
+the hoarse shouting of angry men.
+
+The Gorbals Die-Hards had gone into action.
+
+Dull prose is no medium to tell of that wild adventure.  The sober 
+sequence of the military historian is out of place in recording 
+deeds that knew not sequence or sobriety.  Were I a bard, I would 
+cast this tale in excited verse, with a lilt which would catch the 
+speed of the reality.  I would sing of Napoleon, not unworthy of 
+his great namesake, who penetrated to the very window of the 
+ladies' bedroom, where the framework had been driven in and men 
+were pouring through; of how there he made such pandemonium with 
+his whistle that men tumbled back and ran about blindly seeking 
+for guidance; of how in the long run his pugnacity mastered him, 
+so that he engaged in combat with an unknown figure and the 
+two rolled into what had once been a fountain.  I would hymn 
+Peter Paterson, who across tracts of darkness engaged Old Bill 
+in a conversation which would have done no discredit to a 
+Gallowgate policeman.  He pretended to be making reports and 
+seeking orders.  "We've gotten three o' the deevils, sir.  
+What'll we dae wi' them?" he shouted; and back would come the 
+reply in a slightly more genteel voice:  "Fall them to the rear.  
+Tamson has charge of the prisoners."  Or it would be: "They've gotten 
+pistols, sir.  What's the orders?" and the answer would be: "Stick to 
+your batons.  The guns are posted on the knowe, so we needn't hurry."  
+And over all the din there would be a perpetual whistling and a 
+yelling of "Hands up!"
+
+I would sing, too, of Wee Jaikie, who was having the red-letter 
+hour of his life.  His fragile form moved like a lizard in places 
+where no mortal could be expected, and he varied his duties with 
+impish assaults upon the persons of such as came in his way.  
+His whistle blew in a man's ear one second and the next yards away.  
+Sometimes he was moved to song, and unearthly fragments of 
+"Class-conscious we are" or "Proley Tarians, arise!" mingled 
+with the din, like the cry of seagulls in a storm.  He saw a bright 
+light flare up within the House which warned him not to enter, 
+but he got as far as the garden-room, in whose dark corners 
+he made havoc.  Indeed he was almost too successful, for he 
+created panic where he went, and one or two fired blindly at 
+the quarter where he had last been heard.  These shots were followed 
+by frenzied prohibitions from Spidel and were not repeated.  
+Presently he felt that aimless surge of men that is the prelude to 
+flight, and heard Dobson's great voice roaring in the hall.  
+Convinced that the crisis had come, he made his way outside, 
+prepared to harrass the rear of any retirement.  Tears now flowed 
+down his face, and he could not have spoken for sobs, but he had 
+never been so happy.
+
+But chiefly would I celebrate Thomas Yownie, for it was he who 
+brought fear into the heart of Dobson.  He had a voice of singular 
+compass, and from the verandah he made it echo round the House.  
+The efforts of Old Bill and Peter Paterson had been skilful indeed, 
+but those of Thomas Yownie were deadly.  To some leader beyond he 
+shouted news: "Robison's just about finished wi' his lot, and then 
+he'll get the boats."  A furious charge upset him, and for a moment 
+he thought he had been discovered.  But it was only Dobson rushing 
+to Leon, who was leading the men in the doorway.  Thomas fled to 
+the far end of the verandah, and again lifted up his voice.  
+"All foreigners," he shouted, "except the man Dobson.  Ay.  Ay.  
+Ye've got Loudon?  Well done!"
+
+It must have been this last performance which broke Dobson's nerve and 
+convinced him that the one hope lay in a rapid retreat to the Garplefoot.  
+There was a tumbling of men in the doorway, a muttering of strange tongues, 
+and the vision of the innkeeper shouting to Leon and Spidel.  For a second 
+he was seen in the faint reflection that the light in the hall cast as 
+far as the verandah, a wild figure urging the retreat with a pistol 
+clapped to the head of those who were too confused by the hurricane 
+of events to grasp the situation.  Some of them dropped over the wall, 
+but most huddled like sheep through the door on the west side, 
+a jumble of struggling, blasphemous mortality.  Thomas Yownie, 
+staggered at the success of his tactics, yet kept his head and did 
+his utmost to confuse the retreat, and the triumphant shouts and 
+whistles of the other Die-Hards showed that they were not unmindful 
+of this final duty....
+
+The verandah was empty, and he was just about to enter the House, 
+when through the west door came a figure, breathing hard and 
+bent apparently on the same errand.  Thomas prepared for battle, 
+determined that no straggler of the enemy should now wrest from him 
+victory, but, as the figure came into the faint glow at the doorway, 
+he recognized it as Heritage.  And at the same moment he heard 
+something which made his tense nerves relax.  Away on the right 
+came sounds, a thud of galloping horses on grass and the jingle of 
+bridle reins and the voices of men.  It was the real thing at last.  
+It is a sad commentary on his career, but now for the first time 
+in his brief existence Thomas Yownie felt charitably disposed 
+towards the police.
+
+
+
+
+The Poet, since we left him blaspheming on the roof of the Tower, 
+had been having a crowded hour of most inglorious life.  He had 
+started to descend at a furious pace, and his first misadventure was 
+that he stumbled and dropped Dickson's pistol over the parapet.  
+He tried to mark where it might have fallen in the gloom below, 
+and this lost him precious minutes.  When he slithered through the 
+trap into the attic room, where he had tried to hold up the attack, 
+he discovered that it was full of smoke which sought in vain to 
+escape by the narrow window.  Volumes of it were pouring up the stairs, 
+and when he attempted to descend he found himself choked and blinded.  
+He rushed gasping to the window, filled his lungs with fresh air, 
+and tried again, but he got no farther than the first turn, from which 
+he could see through the cloud red tongues of flame in the ground room.  
+This was solemn indeed, so he sought another way out.  He got on the 
+roof, for he remembered a chimney-stack, cloaked with ivy, which was 
+built straight from the ground, and he thought he might climb down it.
+
+He found the chimney and began the descent confidently, for he 
+had once borne a good reputation at the Montanvert and Cortina.  
+At first all went well, for stones stuck out at decent intervals like 
+the rungs of a ladder, and roots of ivy supplemented their deficiencies.  
+But presently he came to a place where the masonry had crumbled into a 
+cave, and left a gap some twenty feet high.  Below it he could dimly 
+see a thick mass of ivy which would enable him to cover the further 
+forty feet to the ground, but at that cave he stuck most finally.  
+All around the lime and stone had lapsed into debris, and he could 
+find no safe foothold.  Worse still, the block on which he relied 
+proved loose, and only by a dangerous traverse did he avert disaster.
+
+There he hung for a minute or two, with a cold void in his stomach.  
+He had always distrusted the handiwork of man as a place to scramble 
+on, and now he was planted in the dark on a decomposing wall, with 
+an excellent chance of breaking his neck, and with the most urgent 
+need for haste.  He could see the windows of the House, and, since 
+he was sheltered from the gale, he could hear the faint sound of 
+blows on woodwork.  There was clearly the devil to pay there, and yet 
+here he was helplessly stuck....Setting his teeth, he started to 
+ascend again.  Better the fire than this cold breakneck emptiness.
+
+It took him the better part of half an hour to get back, and he 
+passed through many moments of acute fear.  Footholds which had 
+seemed secure enough in the descent now proved impossible, and more 
+than once he had his heart in his mouth when a rotten ivy stump or a 
+wedge of stone gave in his hands, and dropped dully into the pit of 
+night, leaving him crazily spread-eagled.  When at last he reached 
+the top he rolled on his back and felt very sick.  Then, as he 
+realized his safety, his impatience revived.  At all costs he would 
+force his way out though he should be grilled like a herring.
+
+The smoke was less thick in the attic, and with his handkerchief 
+wet with the rain and bound across his mouth he made a dash for 
+the ground room.  It was as hot as a furnace, for everything 
+inflammable in it seemed to have caught fire, and the lumber glowed 
+in piles of hot ashes.  But the floor and walls were stone, and only 
+the blazing jambs of the door stood between him and the outer air.  
+He had burned himself considerably as he stumbled downwards, and the 
+pain drove him to a wild leap through the broken arch, where he 
+miscalculated the distance, charred his shins, and brought down a 
+red-hot fragment of the lintel on his head.  But the thing was done, 
+and a minute later he was rolling like a dog in the wet bracken to 
+cool his burns and put out various smouldering patches on his raiment.
+
+Then he started running for the House, but, confused by the darkness, 
+he bore too much to the north, and came out in the side avenue 
+from which he and Dickson had reconnoitred on the first evening.  
+He saw on the right a glow in the verandah, which, as we know, 
+was the reflection of the flare in the hall, and he heard a 
+babble of voices.  But he heard something more, for away on 
+his left was the sound which Thomas Yownie was soon to hear--the 
+trampling of horses.  It was the police at last, and his task was to 
+guide them at once to the critical point of action....Three minutes 
+later a figure like a scarecrow was admonishing a bewildered 
+sergeant, while his hands plucked feverishly at a horse's bridle.
+
+
+
+It is time to return to Dickson in his clump of rhododendrons.  
+Tragically aware of his impotence he listened to the tumult of 
+the Die-Hards, hopeful when it was loud, despairing when there 
+came a moment's lull, while Mrs. Morran like a Greek chorus 
+drew loudly upon her store of proverbial philosophy and her 
+memory of Scripture texts.  Twice he tried to reconnoitre towards 
+the scene of battle, but only blundered into sunken plots and 
+pits in the Dutch garden.  Finally he squatted beside Hrs. Morran, 
+lit his pipe, and took a firm hold on his patience.
+
+It was not tested for long.  Presently he was aware that a change 
+had come over the scene--that the Die-Hards' whistles and shouts 
+were being drowned in another sound, the cries of panicky men.  
+Dobson's bellow was wafted to him.  "Auntie Phemie," he shouted, 
+"the innkeeper's getting rattled.  Dod, I believe they're running."  
+For at that moment twenty paces on his left the van of the retreat 
+crashed through the creepers on the garden's edge and leaped the 
+wall that separated it from the cliffs of the Garplefoot.
+
+The old woman was on her feet.
+
+"God be thankit, is't the polis?"
+
+"Maybe.  Maybe no'.  But they're running."
+
+Another bunch of men raced past, and he heard Dobson's voice.
+
+"I tell you, they're broke.  Listen, it's horses.  Ay, it's the police, 
+but it was the Die-Hards that did the job....Here!  They mustn't escape.  
+Have the police had the sense to send men to the Garplefoot?"
+
+Mrs. Morran, a figure like an ancient prophetess, with her tartan 
+shawl lashing in the gale, clutched him by the shoulder.
+
+"Doun to the waterside and stop them.  Ye'll no' be beat by wee laddies!  
+On wi' ye and I'll follow!  There's gaun to be a juidgment on evil-doers 
+this night."
+
+Dickson needed no urging.  His heart was hot within him, and the 
+weariness and stiffness had gone from his limbs.  He, too, tumbled 
+over the wall, and made for what he thought was the route by which 
+he had originally ascended from the stream.  As he ran he made 
+ridiculous efforts to cry like a whaup in the hope of summoning 
+the Die-Hards.  One, indeed, he found--Napoleon, who had suffered 
+a grievous pounding in the fountain, and had only escaped by an 
+eel-like agility which had aforetime served him in good stead with 
+the law of his native city.  Lucky for Dickson was the meeting, for 
+he had forgotten the road and would certainly have broken his neck.  
+Led by the Die-Hard he slid forty feet over screes and boiler-plates, 
+with the gale plucking at him, found a path, lost it, and then tumbled 
+down a raw bank of earth to the flat ground beside the harbour.  
+During all this performance, he has told me, he had no thought of 
+fear, nor any clear notion what he meant to do.  He just wanted to 
+be in at the finish of the job.
+
+Through the narrow entrance the gale blew as through a funnel, and 
+the usually placid waters of the harbour were a froth of angry waves.  
+Two boats had been launched and were plunging furiously, and on one 
+of them a lantern dipped and fell.  By its light he could see men 
+holding a further boat by the shore.  There was no sign of the police; 
+he reflected that probably they had become entangled in the Garple Dean.  
+The third boat was waiting for some one.
+
+Dickson--a new Ajax by the ships--divined who this someone must be 
+and realized his duty.  It was the leader, the arch-enemy, the man 
+whose escape must at all costs be stopped.  Perhaps he had the 
+Princess with him, thus snatching victory from apparent defeat.  
+In any case he must be tackled, and a fierce anxiety gripped 
+his heart.  "Aye finish a job," he told himself, and peered up 
+into the darkness of the cliffs, wondering just how he should set 
+about it, for except in the last few days he had never engaged in 
+combat with a fellow-creature.
+
+"When he comes, you grip his legs," he told Napoleon, "and get him down.  
+He'll have a pistol, and we're done if he's on his feet."
+
+There was a cry from the boats, a shout of guidance, and the light on 
+the water was waved madly.  "They must have good eyesight," thought 
+Dickson, for he could see nothing.  And then suddenly he was aware of 
+steps in front of him, and a shape like a man rising out of the void 
+at his left hand.
+
+In the darkness Napoleon missed his tackle, and the full shock 
+came on Dickson.  He aimed at what he thought was the enemy's throat, 
+found only an arm, and was shaken off as a mastiff might shake off 
+a toy terrier.  He made another clutch, fell, and in falling caught 
+his opponent's leg so that he brought him down.  The man was 
+immensely agile, for he was up in a second and something hot and 
+bright blew into Dickson's face.  The pistol bullet had passed 
+through the collar of his faithful waterproof, slightly singeing 
+his neck.  But it served its purpose, for Dickson paused, gasping, 
+to consider where he had been hit, and before he could resume the 
+chase the last boat had pushed off into deep water.
+
+To be shot at from close quarters is always irritating, and the novelty 
+of the experience increased Dickson's natural wrath.  He fumed on the 
+shore like a deerhound when the stag has taken to the sea.  So hot was 
+his blood that he would have cheerfully assaulted the whole crew had 
+they been within his reach.  Napoleon, who had been incapacitated for 
+speed by having his stomach and bare shanks savagely trampled upon, 
+joined him, and together they watched the bobbing black specks as 
+they crawled out of the estuary into the grey spindrift which marked 
+the harbour mouth.
+
+But as he looked the wrath died out of Dickson's soul.  For he saw 
+that the boats had indeed sailed on a desperate venture, and that a 
+pursuer was on their track more potent than his breathless middle-age.  
+The tide was on the ebb, and the gale was driving the Atlantic breakers 
+shoreward, and in the jaws of the entrance the two waters met in an 
+unearthly turmoil.  Above the noise of the wind came the roar of the 
+flooded Garple and the fret of the harbour, and far beyond all the 
+crashing thunder of the conflict at the harbour mouth.  Even in the 
+darkness, against the still faintly grey western sky, the spume could 
+be seen rising like waterspouts.  But it was the ear rather than the 
+eye which made certain presage of disaster.  No boat could face the 
+challenge of that loud portal.
+
+As Dickson struggled against the wind and stared, his heart 
+melted and a great awe fell upon him.  He may have wept; it is 
+certain that he prayed.  "Poor souls, poor souls! he repeated.  
+"I doubt the last hour has been a poor preparation for eternity."
+
+
+The tide the next day brought the dead ashore.  Among them was a young 
+man, different in dress and appearance from the rest--a young man with 
+a noble head and a finely-cut classic face, which was not marred like 
+the others from pounding among the Garple rocks.  His dark hair was 
+washed back from his brow, and the mouth, which had been hard in life, 
+was now relaxed in the strange innocence of death.
+
+Dickson gazed at the body and observed that there was a slight 
+deformation between the shoulders.
+
+"Poor fellow," he said.  "That explains a lot....As my father used to say, 
+cripples have a right to be cankered."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+IN WHICH A PRINCESS LEAVES A DARK TOWER AND A PROVISION MERCHANT 
+RETURNS TO HIS FAMILY
+
+
+
+The three days of storm ended in the night, and with the wild weather 
+there departed from the Cruives something which had weighed on 
+Dickson's spirits since he first saw the place.  Monday--only a week 
+from the morning when he had conceived his plan of holiday--saw the 
+return of the sun and the bland airs of spring.  Beyond the blue 
+of the yet restless waters rose dim mountains tipped with snow, 
+like some Mediterranean seascape.  Nesting birds were busy on 
+the Laver banks and in the Huntingtower thickets; the village smoked 
+peacefully to the clear skies; even the House looked cheerful 
+if dishevelled.  The Garple Dean was a garden of swaying larches, 
+linnets, and wild anemones.  Assuredly, thought Dickson, there had 
+come a mighty change in the countryside, and he meditated a future 
+discourse to the Literary Society of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk on 
+"Natural Beauty in Relation to the Mind of Man."
+
+
+It remains for the chronicler to gather up the loose ends of his tale.  
+There was no newspaper story with bold headlines of this the most recent 
+assault on the shores of Britain.  Alexis Nicholaevitch, once 
+a Prince of Muscovy and now Mr. Alexander Nicholson of the rising firm 
+of Sprot and Nicholson of Melbourne, had interest enough to prevent it.  
+For it was clear that if Saskia was to be saved from persecution, 
+her enemies must disappear without trace from the world, and no story 
+be told of the wild venture which was their undoing.  The constabulary 
+of Carrick and Scotland Yard were indisposed to ask questions, 
+under a hint from their superiors, the more so as no serious damage 
+had been done to the persons of His Majesty's lieges, and no lives 
+had been lost except by the violence of Nature.  The Procurator-Fiscal 
+investigated the case of the drowned men, and reported that so many 
+foreign sailors, names and origins unknown, had perished in attempting 
+to return to their ship at the Garplefoot.  The Danish brig had 
+vanished into the mist of the northern seas.  But one signal calamity 
+the Procurator-Fiscal had to record.  The body of Loudon the factor was 
+found on the Monday morning below the cliffs, his neck broken by a fall.  
+In the darkness and confusion he must have tried to escape in that 
+direction, and he had chosen an impracticable road or had slipped 
+on the edge.  It was returned as "death by misadventure," and the 
+CARRICK HERALD and the AUCHENLOCHAN ADVERTISER excelled themselves 
+in eulogy.  Mr. Loudon, they said, had been widely known in the 
+south-west of Scotland as an able and trusted lawyer, an assiduous 
+public servant, and not least as a good sportsman.  It was the last 
+trait which had led to his death, for, in his enthusiasm for wild 
+nature, he had been studying bird life on the cliffs of the Cruives 
+during the storm, and had made that fatal slip which had deprived 
+the shire of a wise counsellor and the best of good fellows.
+
+The tinklers of the Garplefoot took themselves off, and where they may 
+now be pursuing their devious courses is unknown to the chronicler.  
+Dobson, too, disappeared, for he was not among the dead from the boats.  
+He knew the neighbourhood, and probably made his way to some port 
+from which he took passage to one or other of those foreign lands 
+which had formerly been honoured by his patronage.  Nor did all the 
+Russians perish.  Three were found skulking next morning in the 
+woods, starving and ignorant of any tongue but their own, and five 
+more came ashore much battered but alive.  Alexis took charge 
+of the eight survivors, and arranged to pay their passage to one 
+of the British Dominions and to give them a start in a new life.  
+They were broken creatures, with the dazed look of lost animals, 
+and four of them had been peasants in Saskia's estates.  Alexis spoke 
+to them in their own language.  "In my grandfather's time," he said, 
+"you were serfs.  Then there came a change, and for some time 
+you were free men.  Now you have slipped back into being slaves 
+again--the worst of slaveries, for you have been the serfs of fools 
+and scoundrels and the black passion of your own hearts.  I give you 
+a chance of becoming free men once more.  You have the task before 
+you of working out your own salvation.  Go, and God be with you."
+
+
+
+Before we take leave of these companions of a single week I would 
+present them to you again as they appeared on a certain sunny 
+afternoon when the episode of Huntingtower was on the eve of closing.  
+First we see Saskia and Alexis walking on the thymy sward of 
+the cliff-top, looking out to the fretted blue of the sea.  
+It is a fitting place for lovers--above all for lovers who have 
+turned the page on a dark preface, and have before them still 
+the long bright volume of life.  The girl has her arm linked 
+in the man's, but as they walk she breaks often away from him, 
+to dart into copses, to gather flowers, or to peer over the brink 
+where the gulls wheel and oyster-catchers pipe among the shingle.  
+She is no more the tragic muse of the past week, but a laughing child 
+again, full of snatches of song, her eyes bright with expectation.  
+They talk of the new world which lies before them, and her voice is happy.  
+Then her brows contract, and, as she flings herself down on 
+a patch of young heather, her air is thoughtful.
+
+"I have been back among fairy tales," she says.  "I do not quite 
+understand, Alesha.  Those gallant little boys!  They are youth, 
+and youth is always full of strangeness.  Mr. Heritage!  He is youth, 
+too, and poetry, perhaps, and a soldier's tradition.  I think I know 
+him....But what about Dickson?  He is the PETIT BOURGEOIS, 
+the EPICIER, the class which the world ridicules.  He is unbelievable.  
+The others with good fortune I might find elsewhere--in Russia perhaps.  
+But not Dickson."
+
+"No," is the answer.  "You will not find him in Russia.  He is what 
+they call the middle-class, which we who were foolish used to laugh at.  
+But he is the stuff which above all others makes a great people.  
+He will endure when aristocracies crack and proletariats crumble.  
+In our own land we have never known him, but till we create him 
+our land will not be a nation."
+
+
+
+
+Half a mile away on the edge of the Laver glen Dickson and Heritage 
+are together, Dickson placidly smoking on a tree-stump and Heritage 
+walking excitedly about and cutting with his stick at the bracken.  
+Sundry bandages and strips of sticking plaster still adorn the Poet, 
+but his clothes have been tidied up by Mrs. Morran, and he has 
+recovered something of his old precision of garb.  The eyes of both are 
+fixed on the two figures on the cliff-top.  Dickson feels acutely uneasy.  
+It is the first time that he has been alone with Heritage since the 
+arrival of Alexis shivered the Poet's dream.  He looks to see a 
+tragic grief; to his amazement he beholds something very like exultation.
+
+"The trouble with you, Dogson," says Heritage, "is that you're a bit 
+of an anarchist.  All you false romantics are.  You don't see the 
+extraordinary beauty of the conventions which time has consecrated.  
+You always want novelty, you know, and the novel is usually the ugly and 
+rarely the true.  I am for romance, but upon the old, noble classic line."
+
+Dickson is scarcely listening.  His eyes are on the distant lovers, 
+and he longs to say something which will gently and graciously 
+express his sympathy with his friend.
+
+"I'm afraid," he begins hesitatingly, "I'm afraid you've had a bad blow, 
+Mr. Heritage.  You're taking it awful well, and I honour you for it."
+
+The Poet flings back his head.  "I am reconciled," he says.  
+"After all ''tis better to have loved an lost," you know.  
+It has been a great experience and has shown me my own heart.  
+I love her, I shall always love her, but I realize that she was 
+never meant for me.  Thank God I've been able to serve her--that is all 
+a moth can ask of a star.  I'm a better man for it, Dogson.  
+She will be a glorious memory, and Lord! what poetry I shall write!  
+I give her up joyfully, for she has found her mate.  'Let us not 
+to the marriage of true minds admit impediments!'  The thing's too 
+perfect to grieve about....Look!  There is romance incarnate."
+
+He points to the figures now silhouetted against the further sea.  
+"How does it go, Dogson?" he cries.  "'And on her lover's arm she leant'
+--what next?  You know the thing."
+
+Dickson assists and Heritage declaims:
+
+
+"And on her lover's arm she leant,
+  And round her waist she felt it fold,
+And far across the hills they went
+  In that new world which is the old:
+Across the hills, and far away
+  Beyond their utmost purple rim,
+And deep into the dying day
+  The happy princess followed him."
+
+
+He repeats the last two lines twice and draws a deep breath.  
+"How right!" he cries.  "How absolutely right!  Lord!  It's astonishing 
+how that old bird Tennyson got the goods!"
+
+
+
+
+After that Dickson leaves him and wanders among the thickets 
+on the edge of the Huntingtower policies above the Laver glen.  
+He feels childishly happy, wonderfully young, and at the same 
+time supernaturally wise.  Sometimes he thinks the past week has 
+been a dream, till he touches the sticking-plaster on his brow, 
+and finds that his left thigh is still a mass of bruises and that 
+his right leg is woefully stiff.  With that the past becomes very 
+real again, and he sees the Garple Dean in that stormy afternoon, 
+he wrestles again at midnight in the dark House, he stands with 
+quaking heart by the boats to cut off the retreat.  He sees it all, 
+but without terror in the recollection, rather with gusto and a 
+modest pride.  "I've surely had a remarkable time," he tells himself, 
+and then Romance, the goddess whom he has worshipped so long, 
+marries that furious week with the idyllic.  He is supremely content, 
+for he knows that in his humble way he has not been found wanting.  
+Once more for him the Chavender or Chub, and long dreams among 
+summer hills.  His mind flies to the days ahead of him, when 
+he will go wandering with his pack in many green places.  Happy days 
+they will be, the prospect with which he has always charmed his mind.  
+Yes, but they will be different from what he had fancied, for he is 
+another man than the complacent little fellow who set out a week ago 
+on his travels.  He has now assurance of himself, assurance of his faith.  
+Romance, he sees, is one and indivisible....
+
+Below him by the edge of the stream he sees the encampment of the 
+Gorbals Die-Hards.  He calls and waves a hand, and his signal is answered.  
+It seems to be washing day, for some scanty and tattered raiment 
+is drying on the sward.  The band is evidently in session, for it is 
+sitting in a circle, deep in talk.
+
+As he looks at the ancient tents, the humble equipment, the ring of 
+small shockheads, a great tenderness comes over him.  The Die-Hards 
+are so tiny, so poor, so pitifully handicapped, and yet so bold 
+in their meagreness.  Not one of them has had anything that might 
+be called a chance.  Their few years have been spent in kennels 
+and closes, always hungry and hunted, with none to care for them; 
+their childish ears have been habituated to every coarseness, 
+their small minds filled with the desperate shifts of living..
+..And yet, what a heavenly spark was in them!  He had always 
+thought nobly of the soul; now he wants to get on his knees 
+before the queer greatness of humanity.
+
+A figure disengages itself from the group, and Dougal makes his way 
+up the hill towards him.  The Chieftain is not mere reputable in garb 
+than when we first saw him, nor is he more cheerful of countenance.  
+He has one arm in a sling made out of his neckerchief, and his 
+scraggy little throat rises bare from his voluminous shirt.  
+All that can be said for him is that he is appreciably cleaner.  
+He comes to a standstill and salutes with a special formality.
+
+"Dougal," says Dickson, "I've been thinking.  You're the grandest lot of 
+wee laddies I ever heard tell of, and, forbye, you've saved my life.  
+Now, I'm getting on in years, though you'll admit that I'm not that dead 
+old, and I'm not a poor man, and I haven't chick or child to look after.  
+None of you has ever had a proper chance or been right fed or educated 
+or taken care of.  I've just the one thing to say to you.  From now on 
+you're my bairns, every one of you.  You're fine laddies, and I'm 
+going to see that you turn into fine men.  There's the stuff in you 
+to make Generals and Provosts--ay, and Prime Ministers, and Dod! it'll 
+not be my blame if it doesn't get out."
+
+Dougal listens gravely and again salutes.
+
+"I've brought ye a message," he says.  "We've just had a meetin' and 
+I've to report that ye've been unanimously eleckit Chief Die-Hard.  
+We're a' hopin' ye'll accept."
+
+"I accept," Dickson replies.  "Proudly and gratefully I accept."
+
+
+
+
+The last scene is some days later, in a certain southern suburb of Glasgow.  
+Ulysses has come back to Ithaca, and is sitting by his fireside, 
+waiting for the return of Penelope from the Neuk Hydropathic.  
+There is a chill in the air, so a fire is burning in the grate, 
+but the laden tea-table is bright with the first blooms of lilac.  
+Dickson, in a new suit with a flower in his buttonhole, looks none 
+the worse for his travels, save that there is still sticking-plaster 
+on his deeply sunburnt brow.  He waits impatiently with his eye 
+on the black marble timepiece, and he fingers something in his pocket.
+
+Presently the sound of wheels is heard, and the pea-hen voice of 
+Tibby announces the arrival of Penelope.  Dickson rushes to the door, 
+and at the threshold welcomes his wife with a resounding kiss.  
+He leads her into the parlour and settles her in her own chair.
+
+"My! but it's nice to be home again!" she says.  "And everything 
+that comfortable.  I've had a fine time, but there's no place 
+like your own fireside.  You're looking awful well, Dickson.  
+But losh!  What have you been doing to your head?"
+
+"Just a small tumble.  It's very near mended already.  Ay, I've had 
+a grand walking tour, but the weather was a wee bit thrawn.  
+It's nice to see you back again, Mamma.  Now that I'm an idle man 
+you and me must take a lot of jaunts together."
+
+She beams on him as she stays herself with Tibby's scones, and when 
+the meal is ended, Dickson draws from his pocket a slim case.  
+The jewels have been restored to Saskia, but this is one of her 
+own which she has bestowed upon Dickson as a parting memento.  
+He opens the case and reveals a necklet of emeralds, any one 
+of which is worth half the street.
+
+"This is a present for you," he says bashfully.
+
+Mrs. McCunn's eyes open wide.  "You're far too kind," she gasps.  
+"It must have cost an awful lot of money."
+
+"It didn't cost me that much," is the truthful answer.
+
+She fingers the trinket and then clasps it round her neck, where the 
+green depths of the stones glow against the black satin of her bodice.  
+Her eyes are moist as she looks at him.  "You've been a kind man to me," 
+she says, and she kisses him as she has not done since Janet's death.
+
+She stands up and admires the necklet in the mirror,  Romance once more, 
+thinks Dickson.  That which has graced the slim throats of princesses in 
+far-away Courts now adorns an elderly matron in a semi-detached villa; 
+the jewels of the wild Nausicaa have fallen to the housewife Penelope.
+
+Mrs. McCunn preens herself before the glass.  "I call it very genteel," 
+she says.  "Real stylish.  It might be worn by a queen."
+
+"I wouldn't say but it has," says Dickson. 
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Huntingtower
+by John Buchan
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Huntingtower, by John Buchan
+#1 in our series by John Buchan.
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+Title: Huntingtower.
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+Author: John Buchan.
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+Release Date: February, 2003  [Etext #3782]
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+This etext was produced by Edward White and proofed by
+Robert F. Jaffe and Kirsten Tozer.
+
+
+
+HUNTINGTOWER
+
+BY JOHN BUCHAN
+
+
+
+To   W. P. Ker.
+
+If the Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford has not
+forgotten the rock whence he was hewn, this simple story may give an
+hour of entertainment.  I offer it to you because I think you have
+met my friend Dickson McCunn, and I dare to hope that you may even
+in your many sojournings in the Westlands have encountered one or
+other of the Gorbals Die-Hards. If you share my kindly feeling for
+Dickson, you will be interested in some facts which I have lately
+ascertained about his ancestry.  In his veins there flows a portion
+of the redoubtable blood of the Nicol Jarvies.  When the Bailie,
+you remember, returned from his journey to Rob Roy beyond the
+Highland Line, he espoused his housekeeper Mattie, "an honest man's
+daughter and a near cousin o' the Laird o' Limmerfield."  The union
+was blessed with a son, who succeeded to the Bailie's business and
+in due course begat daughters, one of whom married a certain
+Ebenezer McCunn, of whom there is record in the archives of the
+Hammermen of Glasgow. Ebenezer's grandson, Peter by name,
+was Provost of Kirkintilloch, and his second son was the father of
+my hero by his marriage with Robina Dickson, oldest daughter of one
+Robert Dickson, a tenant-farmer in the Lennox.  So there are
+coloured threads in Mr. McCunn's pedigree, and, like the Bailie,
+he can count kin, should he wish, with Rob Roy himself through
+"the auld wife ayont the fire at Stuckavrallachan."
+
+Such as it is, I dedicate to you the story, and ask for no better
+verdict on it than that of that profound critic of life and
+literature, Mr. Huckleberry Finn, who observed of the Pilgrim's
+Progress that he "considered the statements interesting, but tough."
+				J.B.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+Prologue
+
+
+1. How a Retired Provision Merchant felt the Impulse of Spring.
+
+2. Of Mr. John Heritage and the Difference in Points of View.
+
+3. How Childe Roland and Another came to the Dark tower.
+
+4. Dougal.
+
+5. Of the Princess in the Tower.
+
+6. How Mr. McCunn departed with Relief and returned with Resolution.
+
+7. Sundry Doings in the Mirk.
+
+8. How a Middle-aged Crusader accepted a Challenge.
+
+9. The First Battle of the Cruives.
+
+10. Deals with an Escape and a Journey.
+
+11. Gravity out of Bed.
+
+12. How Mr. McCunn committed an Assault upon an Ally.
+
+13. The Coming of the Danish Brig.
+
+14. The Second Battle of the Cruives.
+
+15. The Gorbals Die-Hards go into Action.
+
+16. In which a Princess leaves a Dark Tower and a Provision Merchant
+ returns to his Family.
+
+
+
+HUNTINGTOWER.
+
+PROLOGUE.
+
+The girl came into the room with a darting movement like a swallow,
+looked round her with the same birdlike quickness, and then ran
+across the polished floor to where a young man sat on a sofa with
+one leg laid along it.
+
+"I have saved you this dance, Quentin," she said, pronouncing the
+name with a pretty staccato.  "You must be lonely not dancing, so I
+will sit with you.  What shall we talk about?"
+
+The young man did not answer at once, for his gaze was held by her
+face.  He had never dreamed that the gawky and rather plain little
+girl whom he had romped with long ago in Paris would grow into such
+a being.  The clean delicate lines of her figure, the exquisite pure
+colouring of hair and skin, the charming young arrogance of the
+eyes--this was beauty, he reflected, a miracle, a revelation.
+Her virginal fineness and her dress, which was the tint of pale
+fire, gave her the air of a creature of ice and flame.
+
+"About yourself, please, Saskia," he said.  "Are you happy now that
+you are a grown-up lady?"
+
+"Happy!"  Her voice had a thrill in it like music, frosty music.
+"The days are far too short.  I grudge the hours when I must sleep.
+They say it is sad for me to make my debut in a time of war.
+But the world is very kind to me, and after all it is a victorious
+war for our Russia.  And listen to me, Quentin.  To-morrow I am to
+be allowed to begin nursing at the Alexander Hospital.  What do you
+think of that?"
+
+The time was January 1916, and the place a room in the great
+Nirski Palace.  No hint of war, no breath from the snowy streets,
+entered that curious chamber where Prince Peter Nirski kept some of
+the chief of his famous treasures.  It was notable for its lack of
+drapery and upholstering--only a sofa or two and a few fine rugs
+on the cedar floor.  The walls were of a green marble veined like
+malachite, the ceiling was of darker marble inlaid with white intaglios.
+Scattered everywhere were tables and cabinets laden with celadon
+china, and carved jade, and ivories, and shimmering Persian and
+Rhodian vessels.  In all the room there was scarcely anything of
+metal and no touch of gilding or bright colour.  The light came
+from green alabaster censers, and the place swam in a cold green
+radiance like some cavern below the sea.  The air was warm and scented,
+and though it was very quiet there, a hum of voices and the strains
+of dance music drifted to it from the pillared corridor in which
+could be seen the glare of lights from the great ballroom beyond.
+
+The young man had a thin face with lines of suffering round the
+mouth and eyes.  The warm room had given him a high colour, which
+increased his air of fragility.  He felt a little choked by the
+place, which seemed to him for both body and mind a hot-house,
+though he knew very well that the Nirski Palace on this gala evening
+was in no way typical of the land or its masters.  Only a week ago
+he had been eating black bread with its owner in a hut on the
+Volhynian front.
+
+"You have become amazing, Saskia," he said.  "I won't pay my old
+playfellow compliments; besides, you must be tired of them.  I wish
+you happiness all the day long like a fairy-tale Princess.  But a
+crock like me can't do much to help you to it.  The service seems to
+be the wrong way round, for here you are wasting your time talking
+to me."
+
+She put her hand on his.  "Poor Quentin!  Is the leg very bad?"
+
+He laughed.  "O, no.  It's mending famously.  I'll be able to get
+about without a stick in another month, and then you've got to teach
+me all the new dances."
+
+The jigging music of a two-step floated down the corridor.  It made
+the young man's brow contract, for it brought to him a vision of
+dead faces in the gloom of a November dusk.  He had once had a
+friend who used to whistle that air, and he had seen him die in the
+Hollebeke mud.  There was something macabre in the tune....  He was
+surely morbid this evening, for there seemed something macabre about
+the house, the room, the dancing, all Russia....  These last days he
+had suffered from a sense of calamity impending, of a dark curtain
+drawing down upon a splendid world.  They didn't agree with him at
+the Embassy, but he could not get rid of the notion.
+
+The girl saw his sudden abstraction.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" she asked.  It had been her favourite
+question as a child.
+
+"I was thinking that I rather wished you were still in Paris."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because I think you would be safer."
+
+"Oh, what nonsense, Quentin dear!  Where should I be safe if not in
+my own Russia, where I have friends--oh, so many, and tribes and
+tribes of relations?  It is France and England that are unsafe with
+the German guns grumbling at their doors....My complaint is that my
+life is too cosseted and padded.  I am too secure, and I do not want
+to be secure."
+
+The young man lifted a heavy casket from a table at his elbow.  It
+was of dark green imperial jade, with a wonderfully carved lid.  He
+took off the lid and picked up three small oddments of ivory--a
+priest with a beard, a tiny soldier, and a draught-ox.  Putting the
+three in a triangle, he balanced the jade box on them.
+
+"Look, Saskia!  If you were living inside that box you would think
+it very secure.  You would note the thickness of the walls and the
+hardness of the stone, and you would dream away in a peaceful green
+dusk.  But all the time it would be held up by trifles--brittle
+trifles."
+
+She shook her head.  "You do not understand.  You cannot understand.
+We are a very old and strong people with roots deep, deep in the earth."
+
+"Please God you are right," he said.  "But, Saskia, you know that if
+I can ever serve you, you have only to command me.  Now I can do no
+more for you than the mouse for the lion--at the beginning of the story.
+But the story had an end, you remember, and some day it may be in my
+power to help you.  Promise to send for me."
+
+The girl laughed merrily.  "The King of Spain's daughter," she quoted,
+
+"Came to visit me,
+And all for the love
+Of my little nut-tree."
+
+The other laughed also, as a young man in the uniform of the
+Preobrajenski Guards approached to claim the girl.  "Even a nut-tree
+may be a shelter in a storm," he said.
+
+"Of course I promise, Quentin," she said.  "Au revoir.  Soon I will
+come and take you to supper, and we will talk of nothing but nut-trees."
+
+He watched the two leave the room, her gown glowing like a tongue of
+fire in that shadowy archway.  Then he slowly rose to his feet,
+for he thought that for a little he would watch the dancing.
+Something moved beside him, and he turned in time to prevent the jade
+casket from crashing to the floor.  Two of the supports had slipped.
+
+He replaced the thing on its proper table and stood silent for a moment.
+
+"The priest and the soldier gone, and only the beast of burden left.
+If I were inclined to be superstitious, I should call that a dashed bad
+omen."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+
+HOW A RETIRED PROVISION MERCHANT FELT THE IMPULSE OF SPRING
+
+
+Mr. Dickson McCunn completed the polishing of his smooth cheeks with
+the towel, glanced appreciatively at their reflection in the
+looking-glass, and then permitted his eyes to stray out of the window.
+In the little garden lilacs were budding, and there was a gold line
+of daffodils beside the tiny greenhouse.  Beyond the sooty wall a
+birch flaunted its new tassels, and the jackdaws were circling about
+the steeple of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk.  A blackbird whistled from
+a thorn-bush, and Mr. McCunn was inspired to follow its example.
+He began a tolerable version of "Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch."
+
+He felt singularly light-hearted, and the immediate cause was his
+safety razor.  A week ago he had bought the thing in a sudden fit
+of enterprise, and now he shaved in five minutes, where before he
+had taken twenty, and no longer confronted his fellows, at least one
+day in three, with a countenance ludicrously mottled by sticking-plaster.
+Calculation revealed to him the fact that in his fifty-five years,
+having begun to shave at eighteen, he had wasted three thousand three
+hundred and seventy hours--or one hundred and forty days--or between four
+and five months--by his neglect of this admirable invention.  Now he
+felt that he had stolen a march on Time.  He had fallen heir, thus late,
+to a fortune in unpurchasable leisure.
+
+He began to dress himself in the sombre clothes in which he had been
+accustomed for thirty-five years and more to go down to the shop in
+Mearns Street.  And then a thought came to him which made him
+discard the grey-striped trousers, sit down on the edge of his bed,
+and muse.
+
+Since Saturday the shop was a thing of the past.  On Saturday at
+half-past eleven, to the accompaniment of a glass of dubious sherry,
+he had completed the arrangements by which the provision shop in
+Mearns Street, which had borne so long the legend of D. McCunn,
+together with the branches in Crossmyloof and the Shaws, became the
+property of a company, yclept the United Supply Stores, Limited.
+He had received in payment cash, debentures and preference shares,
+and his lawyers and his own acumen had acclaimed the bargain.
+But all the week-end he had been a little sad.  It was the end of so
+old a song, and he knew no other tune to sing.  He was comfortably
+off, healthy, free from any particular cares in life, but free too
+from any particular duties.  "Will I be going to turn into a useless
+old man?" he asked himself.
+
+But he had woke up this Monday to the sound of the blackbird, and
+the world, which had seemed rather empty twelve hours before, was
+now brisk and alluring.  His prowess in quick shaving assured him
+of his youth.  "I'm no' that dead old," he observed, as he sat on
+the edge of he bed, to his reflection in the big looking-glass.
+
+It was not an old face.  The sandy hair was a little thin on the top
+and a little grey at the temples, the figure was perhaps a little
+too full for youthful elegance, and an athlete would have censured
+the neck as too fleshy for perfect health.  But the cheeks were
+rosy, the skin clear, and the pale eyes singularly childlike.
+They were a little weak, those eyes, and had some difficulty in
+looking for long at the same object, so that Mr. McCunn did not stare
+people in the face, and had, in consequence, at one time in his
+career acquired a perfectly undeserved reputation for cunning.
+He shaved clean, and looked uncommonly like a wise, plump schoolboy.
+As he gazed at his simulacrum he stopped whistling "Roy's Wife" and
+let his countenance harden into a noble sternness.  Then he laughed,
+and observed in the language of his youth that there was "life in
+the auld dowg yet."  In that moment the soul of Mr. McCunn conceived
+the Great Plan.
+
+The first sign of it was that he swept all his business garments
+unceremoniously on to the floor.  The next that he rootled at the
+bottom of a deep drawer and extracted a most disreputable tweed suit.
+It had once been what I believe is called a Lovat mixture, but was
+now a nondescript sub-fusc, with bright patches of colour like
+moss on whinstone.  He regarded it lovingly, for it had been for
+twenty years his holiday wear, emerging annually for a hallowed month
+to be stained with salt and bleached with sun.  He put it on,
+and stood shrouded in an odour of camphor.  A pair of thick nailed
+boots and a flannel shirt and collar completed the equipment of
+the sportsman.  He had another long look at himself in the glass,
+and then descended whistling to breakfast.  This time the tune was
+"Macgregors' Gathering," and the sound of it stirred the grimy lips
+of a man outside who was delivering coals--himself a Macgregor--to
+follow suit.  Mr McCunn was a very fountain of music that morning.
+
+Tibby, the aged maid, had his newspaper and letters waiting by his
+plate, and a dish of ham and eggs frizzling near the fire.  He fell
+to ravenously but still musingly, and he had reached the stage of
+scones and jam before he glanced at his correspondence.  There was a
+letter from his wife now holidaying at the Neuk Hydropathic.
+She reported that her health was improving, and that she had met
+various people who had known somebody else whom she had once
+known herself.  Mr. McCunn read the dutiful pages and smiled.
+"Mamma's enjoying herself fine," he observed to the teapot.
+He knew that for his wife the earthly paradise was a hydropathic,
+where she put on her afternoon dress and every jewel she possessed
+when she rose in the morning, ate large meals of which the novelty
+atoned for the nastiness, and collected an immense casual
+acquaintance, with whom she discussed ailments, ministers, sudden
+deaths, and the intricate genealogies of her class.  For his part he
+rancorously hated hydropathics, having once spent a black week under
+the roof of one in his wife's company.  He detested the food, the
+Turkish baths (he had a passionate aversion to baring his body
+before strangers), the inability to find anything to do and the
+compulsion to endless small talk.  A thought flitted over his mind
+which he was too loyal to formulate.  Once he and his wife had had
+similar likings, but they had taken different roads since their
+child died.  Janet!  He saw again--he was never quite free from
+the sight--the solemn little white-frocked girl who had died long
+ago in the Spring.
+
+It may have been the thought of the Neuk Hydropathic, or more likely
+the thin clean scent of the daffodils with which Tibby had decked
+the table, but long ere breakfast was finished the Great Plan had
+ceased to be an airy vision and become a sober well-masoned
+structure.  Mr. McCunn--I may confess it at the start--was an
+incurable romantic.
+
+He had had a humdrum life since the day when he had first entered
+his uncle's shop with the hope of some day succeeding that honest
+grocer; and his feet had never strayed a yard from his sober rut.
+But his mind, like the Dying Gladiator's, had been far away.
+As a boy he had voyaged among books, and they had given him a world
+where he could shape his career according to his whimsical fancy.
+Not that Mr. McCunn was what is known as a great reader.
+He read slowly and fastidiously, and sought in literature for one
+thing alone.  Sir Walter Scott had been his first guide, but he read
+the novels not for their insight into human character or for their
+historical pageantry, but because they gave him material wherewith
+to construct fantastic journeys.  It was the same with Dickens.
+A lit tavern, a stage-coach, post-horses, the clack of hoofs on a
+frosty road, went to his head like wine.  He was a Jacobite not
+because he had any views on Divine Right, but because he had always
+before his eyes a picture of a knot of adventurers in cloaks, new
+landed from France among the western heather.
+
+On this select basis he had built up his small library--Defoe,
+Hakluyt, Hazlitt and the essayists, Boswell, some indifferent
+romances, and a shelf of spirited poetry.  His tastes became known,
+and he acquired a reputation for a scholarly habit.  He was
+president of the Literary Society of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, and
+read to its members a variety of papers full of a gusto which rarely
+became critical.  He had been three times chairman at Burns
+Anniversary dinners, and had delivered orations in eulogy of the
+national Bard; not because he greatly admired him--he thought him
+rather vulgar--but because he took Burns as an emblem of the
+un-Burns-like literature which he loved.  Mr. McCunn was no scholar
+and was sublimely unconscious of background.  He grew his flowers in
+his small garden-plot oblivious of their origin so long as they gave
+him the colour and scent he sought.  Scent, I say, for he
+appreciated more than the mere picturesque.  He had a passion for
+words and cadences, and would be haunted for weeks by a cunning
+phrase, savouring it as a connoisseur savours a vintage.
+Wherefore long ago, when he could ill afford it, he had purchased
+the Edinburgh Stevenson.  They were the only large books on his
+shelves, for he had a liking for small volumes--things he could
+stuff into his pocket in that sudden journey which he loved to
+contemplate.
+
+Only he had never taken it.  The shop had tied him up for eleven
+months in the year, and the twelfth had always found him settled
+decorously with his wife in some seaside villa.  He had not fretted,
+for he was content with dreams.  He was always a little tired, too,
+when the holidays came, and his wife told him he was growing old.
+He consoled himself with tags from the more philosophic of his
+authors, but he scarcely needed consolation.  For he had large
+stores of modest contentment.
+
+But now something had happened.  A spring morning and a safety razor
+had convinced him that he was still young.  Since yesterday he was a
+man of a large leisure.  Providence had done for him what he would
+never have done for himself.  The rut in which he had travelled so
+long had given place to open country.  He repeated to himself one of
+the quotations with which he had been wont to stir the literary
+young men at the Guthrie Memorial Kirk:
+
+"What's a man's age?  He must hurry more, that's all;
+Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold:
+When we mind labour, then only, we're too old--
+What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?
+
+He would go journeying--who but he?--pleasantly."
+
+It sounds a trivial resolve, but it quickened Mr. McCunn to the
+depths of his being.  A holiday, and alone!  On foot, of course,
+for he must travel light.  He would buckle on a pack after the
+approved fashion.  He had the very thing in a drawer upstairs, which
+he had bought some years ago at a sale.  That and a waterproof and a
+stick, and his outfit was complete.  A book, too, and, as he lit his
+first pipe, he considered what it should be.  Poetry, clearly, for
+it was the Spring, and besides poetry could be got in pleasantly
+small bulk.  He stood before his bookshelves trying to select a
+volume, rejecting one after another as inapposite.  Browning--Keats,
+Shelley--they seemed more suited for the hearth than for the
+roadside.  He did not want anything Scots, for he was of opinion
+that Spring came more richly in England and that English people had
+a better notion of it.  He was tempted by the Oxford Anthology,
+but was deterred by its thickness, for he did not possess the
+thin-paper edition.  Finally he selected Izaak Walton.  He had never
+fished in his life, but The Compleat Angler seemed to fit his mood.
+It was old and curious and learned and fragrant with the youth
+of things.  He remembered its falling cadences, its country songs and
+wise meditations.  Decidedly it was the right scrip for his pilgrimage.
+
+Characteristically he thought last of where he was to go.  Every bit
+of the world beyond his front door had its charms to the seeing eye.
+There seemed nothing common or unclean that fresh morning.  Even a
+walk among coal-pits had its attractions....But since he had the
+right to choose, he lingered over it like an epicure.  Not the
+Highlands, for Spring came late among their sour mosses.  Some place
+where there were fields and woods and inns, somewhere, too, within
+call of the sea.  It must not be too remote, for he had no time to waste
+on train journeys; nor too near, for he wanted a countryside untainted.
+Presently he thought of Carrick.  A good green land, as he remembered
+it, with purposeful white roads and public-houses sacred to the memory
+of Burns; near the hills but yet lowland, and with a bright sea
+chafing on its shores.  He decided on Carrick, found a map, and
+planned his journey.
+
+Then he routed out his knapsack, packed it with a modest change of
+raiment, and sent out Tibby to buy chocolate and tobacco and to cash
+a cheque at the Strathclyde Bank.  Till Tibby returned he occupied
+himself with delicious dreams....He saw himself daily growing
+browner and leaner, swinging along broad highways or wandering in
+bypaths.  He pictured his seasons of ease, when he unslung his pack
+and smoked in some clump of lilacs by a burnside--he remembered a
+phrase of Stevenson's somewhat like that.  He would meet and talk
+with all sorts of folk; an exhilarating prospect, for Mr. McCunn
+loved his kind.  There would be the evening hour before he reached
+his inn, when, pleasantly tired, he would top some ridge and see the
+welcoming lights of a little town.  There would be the lamp-lit
+after-supper time when he would read and reflect, and the start in
+the gay morning, when tobacco tastes sweetest and even fifty-five
+seems young.  It would be holiday of the purest, for no business now
+tugged at his coat-tails.  He was beginning a new life, he told
+himself, when he could cultivate the seedling interests which had
+withered beneath the far-reaching shade of the shop.  Was ever a man
+more fortunate or more free?
+
+Tibby was told that he was going off for a week or two.  No letters
+need be forwarded, for he would be constantly moving, but Mrs.
+McCunn at the Neuk Hydropathic would be kept informed of his whereabouts.
+Presently he stood on his doorstep, a stocky figure in ancient
+tweeds, with a bulging pack slung on his arm, and a stout hazel
+stick in his hand.  A passer-by would have remarked an elderly
+shopkeeper bent apparently on a day in the country, a common little
+man on a prosaic errand.  But the passer-by would have been wrong,
+for he could not see into the heart.  The plump citizen was the
+eternal pilgrim; he was Jason, Ulysses, Eric the Red, Albuquerque,
+Cortez--starting out to discover new worlds.
+
+Before he left Mr. McCunn had given Tibby a letter to post.
+That morning he had received an epistle from a benevolent
+acquaintance, one Mackintosh, regarding a group of urchins who
+called themselves the "Gorbals Die-Hards."  Behind the premises in
+Mearns Street lay a tract of slums, full of mischievous boys, with
+whom his staff waged truceless war.  But lately there had started
+among them a kind of unauthorized and unofficial Boy Scouts, who,
+without uniform or badge or any kind of paraphernalia, followed the
+banner of Sir Robert Baden-Powell and subjected themselves to a
+rude discipline.  They were far too poor to join an orthodox troop,
+but they faithfully copied what they believed to be the practices of
+more fortunate boys.  Mr. McCunn had witnessed their pathetic parades,
+and had even passed the time of day with their leader, a red-haired savage
+called Dougal.  The philanthropic Mackintosh had taken an interest
+in the gang and now desired subscriptions to send them to camp
+in the country.
+
+Mr. McCunn, in his new exhilaration, felt that he could not deny to
+others what he proposed for himself.  His last act before leaving
+was to send Mackintosh ten pounds.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+OF MR. JOHN HERITAGE AND THE DIFFERENCE IN POINTS OF VIEW
+
+
+Dickson McCunn was never to forget the first stage in that pilgrimage.
+A little after midday he descended from a grimy third-class carriage
+at a little station whose name I have forgotten.  In the village
+nearby he purchased some new-baked buns and ginger biscuits, to which
+he was partial, and followed by the shouts of urchins, who admired his
+pack--"Look at the auld man gaun to the schule"--he emerged into
+open country.   The late April noon gleamed like a frosty morning,
+but the air, though tonic, was kind.  The road ran over sweeps of
+moorland where curlews wailed, and into lowland pastures dotted with
+very white, very vocal lambs.  The young grass had the warm fragrance
+of new milk.  As he went he munched his buns, for he had resolved
+to have no plethoric midday meal, and presently he found the burnside
+nook of his fancy, and halted to smoke.  On a patch of turf close
+to a grey stone bridge he had out his Walton and read the chapter
+on "The Chavender or Chub."  The collocation of words delighted him
+and inspired him to verse.  "Lavender or Lub"--"Pavender or Pub"-
+"Gravender or Grub"--but the monosyllables proved too vulgar for
+poetry.  Regretfully he desisted.
+
+The rest of the road was as idyllic as the start.  He would tramp
+steadily for a mile or so and then saunter, leaning over bridges
+to watch the trout in the pools, admiring from a dry-stone dyke the
+unsteady gambols of new-born lambs, kicking up dust from strips of
+moor-burn on the heather.  Once by a fir-wood he was privileged to
+surprise three lunatic hares waltzing.  His cheeks glowed with the
+sun; he moved in an atmosphere of pastoral, serene and contented.
+When the shadows began to lengthen he arrived at the village of
+Cloncae, where he proposed to lie.  The inn looked dirty, but he
+found a decent widow, above whose door ran the legend in home-made
+lettering, "Mrs. brockie tea and Coffee," and who was willing to
+give him quarters.  There he supped handsomely off ham and eggs,
+and dipped into a work called Covenanting Worthies, which garnished
+a table decorated with sea-shells.  At half-past nine precisely he
+retired to bed and unhesitating sleep.
+
+Next morning he awoke to a changed world.  The sky was grey and so
+low that his outlook was bounded by a cabbage garden, while a surly
+wind prophesied rain.  It was chilly, too, and he had his breakfast
+beside the kitchen fire.  Mrs. Brockie could not spare a capital
+letter for her surname on the signboard, but she exalted it in
+her talk.  He heard of a multitude of Brockies, ascendant, descendant,
+and collateral, who seemed to be in a fair way to inherit the earth.
+Dickson listened sympathetically, and lingered by the fire.  He felt
+stiff from yesterday's exercise, and the edge was off his spirit.
+
+The start was not quite what he had pictured.  His pack seemed
+heavier, his boots tighter, and his pipe drew badly.  The first
+miles were all uphill, with a wind tingling his ears, and no colours
+in the landscape but brown and grey.  Suddenly he awoke to the fact
+that he was dismal, and thrust the notion behind him.  He expanded
+his chest and drew in long draughts of air.  He told himself that
+this sharp weather was better than sunshine.  He remembered that all
+travellers in romances battled with mist and rain.  Presently his
+body recovered comfort and vigour, and his mind worked itself into
+cheerfulness.
+
+He overtook a party of tramps and fell into talk with them.  He had
+always had a fancy for the class, though he had never known anything
+nearer it than city beggars.  He pictured them as philosophic
+vagabonds, full of quaint turns of speech, unconscious Borrovians.
+With these samples his disillusionment was speedy.  The party was
+made up of a ferret-faced man with a red nose, a draggle-tailed
+woman, and a child in a crazy perambulator.  Their conversation was
+one-sided, for it immediately resolved itself into a whining
+chronicle of misfortunes and petitions for relief.  It cost him half
+a crown to be rid of them.
+
+The road was alive with tramps that day.  The next one did
+the accosting.  Hailing Mr. McCunn as "Guv'nor," he asked to be told
+the way to Manchester.  The objective seemed so enterprising that
+Dickson was impelled to ask questions, and heard, in what appeared
+to be in the accents of the Colonies, the tale of a career of
+unvarying calamity.  There was nothing merry or philosophic about
+this adventurer.  Nay, there was something menacing.  He eyed his
+companion's waterproof covetously, and declared that he had had one
+like it which had been stolen from him the day before.  Had the
+place been lonely he might have contemplated highway robbery,
+but they were at the entrance to a village, and the sight of a
+public-house awoke his thirst.  Dickson parted with him at the cost
+of sixpence for a drink.
+
+He had no more company that morning except an aged stone-breaker
+whom he convoyed for half a mile.  The stone-breaker also was soured
+with the world.  He walked with a limp, which, he said, was due to
+an accident years before, when he had been run into by "ane of thae
+damned velocipeeds."  The word revived in Dickson memories of his
+youth, and he was prepared to be friendly.  But the ancient would
+have none of it.  He inquired morosely what he was after, and, on
+being told remarked that he might have learned more sense.
+"It's a daft-like thing for an auld man like you to be traivellin'
+the roads.  Ye maun be ill-off for a job."  Questioned as to
+himself, he became, as the newspapers say, "reticent," and having
+reached his bing of stones, turned rudely to his duties.  "Awa' hame
+wi' ye," were his parting words.  "It's idle scoondrels like you
+that maks wark for honest folk like me."
+
+The morning was not a success, but the strong air had given Dickson
+such an appetite that he resolved to break his rule, and, on
+reaching the little town of Kilchrist, he sought luncheon at the
+chief hotel.  There he found that which revived his spirits.
+A solitary bagman shared the meal, who revealed the fact that he was
+in the grocery line.  There followed a well-informed and most
+technical conversation.  He was drawn to speak of the United Supply
+Stores, Limited, of their prospects and of their predecessor,
+Mr. McCunn, whom he knew well by repute but had never met.
+"Yon's the clever one." he observed.  "I've always said there's no
+longer head in the city of Glasgow than McCunn.  An old-fashioned
+firm, but it has aye managed to keep up with the times.  He's just
+retired, they tell me, and in my opinion it's a big loss to the
+provision trade...."  Dickson's heart glowed within him.  Here was
+Romance; to be praised incognito; to enter a casual inn and find
+that fame had preceded him.  He warmed to the bagman, insisted on
+giving him a liqueur and a cigar, and finally revealed himself.
+"I'm Dickson McCunn," he said, "taking a bit holiday.  If there's
+anything I can do for you when I get back, just let me know."  With
+mutual esteem they parted.
+
+He had need of all his good spirits, for he emerged into an
+unrelenting drizzle.  The environs of Kilchrist are at the best
+unlovely, and in the wet they were as melancholy as a graveyard.
+But the encounter with the bagman had worked wonders with Dickson,
+and he strode lustily into the weather, his waterproof collar
+buttoned round his chin.  The road climbed to a bare moor, where
+lagoons had formed in the ruts, and the mist showed on each side
+only a yard or two of soaking heather.  Soon he was wet; presently
+every part of him--boots, body, and pack--was one vast sponge.
+The waterproof was not water-proof, and the rain penetrated to his
+most intimate garments.  Little he cared.  He felt lighter, younger,
+than on the idyllic previous day.  He enjoyed the buffets of the
+storm, and one wet mile succeeded another to the accompaniment of
+Dickson's shouts and laughter.  There was no one abroad that
+afternoon, so he could talk aloud to himself and repeat his
+favourite poems.  About five in the evening there presented himself
+at the Black Bull Inn at Kirkmichael a soaked, disreputable, but
+most cheerful traveller.
+
+Now the Black Bull at Kirkmichael is one of the few very good inns
+left in the world.  It is an old place and an hospitable, for it has
+been for generations a haunt of anglers, who above all other men
+understand comfort.  There are always bright fires there, and
+hot water, and old soft leather armchairs, and an aroma of good food
+and good tobacco, and giant trout in glass cases, and pictures of
+Captain Barclay of Urie walking to London and Mr. Ramsay of Barnton
+winning a horse-race, and the three-volume edition of the Waverley
+Novels with many volumes missing, and indeed all those things which
+an inn should have.  Also there used to be--there may still be-
+sound vintage claret in the cellars.  The Black Bull expects its
+guests to arrive in every stage of dishevelment, and Dickson was
+received by a cordial landlord, who offered dry garments as a matter
+of course.  The pack proved to have resisted the elements,
+and a suit of clothes and slippers were provided by the house.
+Dickson, after a glass of toddy, wallowed in a hot bath, which
+washed all the stiffness out of him.  He had a fire in his bedroom,
+beside which he wrote the opening passages of that diary he had
+vowed to keep, descanting lyrically upon the joys of ill weather.
+At seven o'clock, warm and satisfied in soul, and with his body clad
+in raiment several sizes too large for it, he descended to dinner.
+
+At one end of the long table in the dining-room sat a group of anglers.
+They looked jovial fellows, and Dickson would fain have joined them;
+but, having been fishing all day in the Lock o' the Threshes,
+they were talking their own talk, and he feared that his admiration
+for Izaak Walton did not qualify him to butt into the erudite
+discussions of fishermen.  The landlord seemed to think likewise,
+for he drew back a chair for him at the other end, where sat a young
+man absorbed in a book.  Dickson gave him good evening, and got an
+abstracted reply.  The young man supped the Black Bull's excellent
+broth with one hand, and with the other turned the pages of his volume.
+A glance convinced Dickson that the work was French, a literature which
+did not interest him.  He knew little of the tongue and suspected it of
+impropriety.
+
+Another guest entered and took the chair opposite the bookish
+young man.  He was also young--not more than thirty-three--and to
+Dickson's eye was the kind of person he would have liked to resemble.
+He was tall and free from any superfluous flesh; his face was lean,
+fine-drawn, and deeply sunburnt, so that the hair above showed oddly
+pale; the hands were brown and beautifully shaped, but the forearm
+revealed by the loose cuffs of his shirt was as brawny as a
+blacksmith's.  He had rather pale blue eyes, which seemed to have
+looked much at the sun, and a small moustache the colour of ripe hay.
+His voice was low and pleasant, and he pronounced his words precisely,
+like a foreigner.
+
+He was very ready to talk, but in defiance of Dr. Johnson's warning,
+his talk was all questions.  He wanted to know everything about the
+neighbourhood--who lived in what houses, what were the distances
+between the towns, what harbours would admit what class of vessel.
+Smiling agreeably, he put Dickson through a catechism to which he
+knew none of the answers.  The landlord was called in, and proved
+more helpful.  But on one matter he was fairly at a loss.
+The catechist asked about a house called Darkwater, and was met
+with a shake of the head.  "I know no sic-like name in this
+countryside, sir," and the catechist looked disappointed.
+
+The literary young man said nothing, but ate trout abstractedly,
+one eye on his book.  The fish had been caught by the anglers
+in the Loch o' the Threshes, and phrases describing their capture
+floated from the other end of the table.  The young man had a second
+helping, and then refused the excellent hill mutton that followed,
+contenting himself with cheese.  Not so Dickson and the catechist.
+They ate everything that was set before them, topping up with a
+glass of port.  Then the latter, who had been talking illuminatingly
+about Spain, rose, bowed, and left the table, leaving Dickson,
+who liked to linger over his meals, to the society of the
+ichthyophagous student.
+
+He nodded towards the book. "Interesting?" he asked.
+
+The young man shook his head and displayed the name on the cover.
+"Anatole France.  I used to be crazy about him, but now he seems
+rather a back number."  Then he glanced towards the just-vacated
+chair. "Australian," he said.
+
+"How d'you know?"
+
+"Can't mistake them.  There's nothing else so lean and fine produced
+on the globe to-day.  I was next door to them at Pozieres and saw
+them fight.  Lord!  Such men!  Now and then you had a freak, but
+most looked like Phoebus Apollo."
+
+Dickson gazed with a new respect at his neighbour, for he had not
+associated him with battle-fields.  During the war he had been a
+fervent patriot, but, though he had never heard a shot himself,
+so many of his friends' sons and nephews, not to mention cousins of
+his own, had seen service, that he had come to regard the experience
+as commonplace.  Lions in Africa and bandits in Mexico seemed to him
+novel and romantic things, but not trenches and airplanes which were
+the whole world's property.  But he could scarcely fit his neighbour
+into even his haziest picture of war.  The young man was tall and a
+little round-shouldered; he had short-sighted, rather prominent
+brown eyes, untidy black hair and dark eyebrows which came near
+to meeting.  He wore a knickerbocker suit of bluish-grey tweed,
+a pale blue shirt, a pale blue collar, and a dark blue tie--a
+symphony of colour which seemed too elaborately considered to be
+quite natural.  Dickson had set him down as an artist or a newspaper
+correspondent, objects to him of lively interest.  But now the
+classification must be reconsidered.
+
+"So you were in the war," he said encouragingly.
+
+"Four blasted years," was the savage reply. "And I never want to
+hear the name of the beastly thing again."
+
+"You said he was an Australian," said Dickson, casting back.  "But I
+thought Australians had a queer accent, like the English."
+
+"They've all kind of accents, but you can never mistake their voice.
+It's got the sun in it.  Canadians have got grinding ice in theirs,
+and Virginians have got butter.  So have the Irish.  In Britain
+there are no voices, only speaking-tubes.  It isn't safe to judge
+men by their accent only.  You yourself I take to be Scotch, but for
+all I know you may be a senator from Chicago or a Boer General."
+
+"I'm from Glasgow.  My name's Dickson McCunn."  He had a faint hope
+that the announcement might affect the other as it had affected the
+bagman at Kilchrist.
+
+"Golly, what a name!" exclaimed the young man rudely.
+
+Dickson was nettled.  "It's very old Highland," he said.  "It means
+the son of a dog."
+
+"Which--Christian name or surname?"  Then the young man appeared to
+think he had gone too far, for he smiled pleasantly.  "And a very
+good name too.  Mine is prosaic by comparison.  They call me
+John Heritage."
+
+"That," said Dickson, mollified, "is like a name out of a book.
+With that name by rights you should be a poet."
+
+Gloom settled on the young man's countenance.  "It's a dashed sight
+too poetic.  It's like Edwin Arnold and Alfred Austin and Dante
+Gabriel Rossetti.  Great poets have vulgar monosyllables for names,
+like Keats.  The new Shakespeare when he comes along will probably
+be called Grubb or Jubber, if he isn't Jones.  With a name like
+yours I might have a chance.  You should be the poet."
+
+"I'm very fond of reading," said Dickson modestly.
+
+A slow smile crumpled Mr. Heritage's face.  "There's a fire in the
+smoking-room," he observed as he rose.  "We'd better bag the
+armchairs before these fishing louts take them."  Dickson
+followed obediently.  This was the kind of chance acquaintance for
+whom he had hoped, and he was prepared to make the most of him.
+
+The fire burned bright in the little dusky smoking-room, lighted by
+one oil-lamp.  Mr. Heritage flung himself into a chair, stretched
+his long legs, and lit a pipe.
+
+"You like reading?" he asked.  "What sort?  Any use for poetry?"
+
+"Plenty," said Dickson.  "I've aye been fond of learning it up and
+repeating it to myself when I had nothing to do.  In church and
+waiting on trains, like.  It used to be Tennyson, but now it's
+more Browning.  I can say a lot of Browning."
+
+The other screwed his face into an expression of disgust.  "I know
+the stuff. 'Damask cheeks and dewy sister eyelids.' Or else the
+Ercles vein--'God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world.'
+No good, Mr. McCunn.  All back numbers.  Poetry's not a thing of
+pretty round phrases or noisy invocations.  It's life itself, with
+the tang of the raw world in it--not a sweetmeat for middle-class
+women in parlours."
+
+"Are you a poet, Mr. Heritage?"
+
+"No, Dogson, I'm a paper-maker."
+
+This was a new view to Mr. McCunn.  "I just once knew a paper-maker,"
+he observed reflectively, "They called him Tosh.  He drank a bit."
+
+"Well, I don't drink," said the other.  "I'm a paper-maker, but
+that's for my bread and butter.  Some day for my own sake I may
+be a poet."
+
+"Have you published anything?"
+
+The eager admiration in Dickson's tone gratified Mr. Heritage.
+He drew from his pocket a slim book.  "My firstfruits," he said,
+rather shyly.
+
+Dickson received it with reverence.  It was a small volume in grey
+paper boards with a white label on the back, and it was lettered:
+WHORLS-JOHN HERITAGE'S BOOK.  He turned the pages and read a little.
+"It's a nice wee book," he observed at length.
+
+"Good God, if you call it nice, I must have failed pretty badly,"
+was the irritated answer.
+
+Dickson read more deeply and was puzzled.  It seemed worse than the
+worst of Browning to understand.  He found one poem about a garden
+entitled "Revue."  "Crimson and resonant clangs the dawn," said the
+poet.  Then he went on to describe noonday:
+
+"Sunflowers, tall Grenadiers, ogle the roses' short-skirted ballet.
+The fumes of dark sweet wine hidden in frail petals
+Madden the drunkard bees."
+
+This seemed to him an odd way to look at things, and he boggled over
+a phrase about an "epicene lily."  Then came evening: "The painted
+gauze of the stars flutters in a fold of twilight crape," sang
+Mr. Heritage; and again, "The moon's pale leprosy sloughs the fields."
+
+Dickson turned to other verses which apparently enshrined the
+writer's memory of the trenches.  They were largely compounded
+of oaths, and rather horrible, lingering lovingly over sights
+and smells which every one is aware of, but most people contrive
+to forget.  He did not like them.  Finally he skimmed a poem about a
+lady who turned into a bird.  The evolution was described with
+intimate anatomical details which scared the honest reader.
+
+He kept his eyes on the book, for he did not know what to say.
+The trick seemed to be to describe nature in metaphors mostly drawn
+from music-halls and haberdashers' shops, and, when at a loss,
+to fall to cursing.  He thought it frankly very bad, and he laboured
+to find words which would combine politeness and honesty.
+
+"Well?" said the poet.
+
+"There's a lot of fine things here, but--but the lines don't just
+seem to scan very well."
+
+Mr. Heritage laughed.  "Now I can place you exactly.  You like the
+meek rhyme and the conventional epithet.  Well, I don't.  The world
+has passed beyond that prettiness.  You want the moon described as a
+Huntress or a gold disc or a flower--I say it's oftener like a beer
+barrel or a cheese.  You want a wealth of jolly words and real
+things ruled out as unfit for poetry.  I say there's nothing unfit
+for poetry.  Nothing, Dogson!  Poetry's everywhere, and the real
+thing is commoner among drabs and pot-houses and rubbish-heaps than
+in your Sunday parlours.  The poet's business is to distil it out of
+rottenness, and show that it is all one spirit, the thing that keeps
+the stars in their place....I wanted to call my book 'Drains,'
+for drains are sheer poetry carrying off the excess and discards
+of human life to make the fields green and the corn ripen.
+But the publishers kicked.  So I called it 'Whorls,' to express my
+view of the exquisite involution of all things.  Poetry is the
+fourth dimension of the soul....Well, let's hear about your
+taste in prose."
+
+Mr. McCunn was much bewildered, and a little inclined to be cross.
+He disliked being called Dogson, which seemed to him an abuse of his
+etymological confidences.  But his habit of politeness held.
+
+He explained rather haltingly his preferences in prose.
+
+Mr. Heritage listened with wrinkled brows.
+
+"You're even deeper in the mud than I thought," he remarked.
+"You live in a world of painted laths and shadows.  All this passion
+for the picturesque! Trash, my dear man, like a schoolgirl's
+novelette heroes.  You make up romances about gipsies and sailors,
+and the blackguards they call pioneers, but you know nothing
+about them.  If you did, you would find they had none of the gilt
+and gloss you imagine.  But the great things they have got in common
+with all humanity you ignore.  It's like--it's like sentimentalising
+about a pancake because it looked like a buttercup, and all the
+while not knowing that it was good to eat."
+
+At that moment the Australian entered the room to get a light for
+his pipe.  He wore a motor-cyclist's overalls and appeared to be
+about to take the road.  He bade them good night, and it seemed to
+Dickson that his face, seen in the glow of the fire, was drawn and
+anxious, unlike that of the agreeable companion at dinner.
+
+"There," said Mr. Heritage, nodding after the departing figure.
+"I dare say you have been telling yourself stories about that
+chap--life in the bush, stockriding and the rest of it.
+But probably he's a bank-clerk from Melbourne....Your romanticism is
+one vast self-delusion, and it blinds your eye to the real thing.
+We have got to clear it out, and with it all the damnable humbug of
+the Kelt."
+
+Mr. McCunn, who spelt the word with a soft "C," was puzzled.
+"I thought a kelt was a kind of a no-weel fish," he interposed.
+
+But the other, in the flood-tide of his argument, ignored
+the interruption.  "That's the value of the war," he went on.
+"It has burst up all the old conventions, and we've got to finish
+the destruction before we can build.  It is the same with literature
+and religion, and society and politics.  At them with the axe, say I.
+I have no use for priests and pedants.  I've no use for upper classes
+and middle classes.  There's only one class that matters, the plain
+man, the workers, who live close to life."
+
+"The place for you," said Dickson dryly, "is in Russia among
+the Bolsheviks."
+
+Mr. Heritage approved.  "They are doing a great work in their
+own fashion.  We needn't imitate all their methods--they're a trifle
+crude and have too many Jews among them--but they've got hold of the
+right end of the stick.  They seek truth and reality."
+
+Mr. McCunn was slowly being roused.
+
+"What brings you wandering hereaways?" he asked.
+
+"Exercise," was the answer.  "I've been kept pretty closely tied up
+all winter.  And I want leisure and quiet to think over things."
+
+"Well, there's one subject you might turn your attention to.
+You'll have been educated like a gentleman?"
+
+"Nine wasted years--five at Harrow, four at Cambridge."
+
+"See here, then.  You're daft about the working-class and have no
+use for any other.  But what in the name of goodness do you know
+about working-men?...  I come out of them myself, and have lived next
+door to them all my days.  Take them one way and another, they're a
+decent sort, good and bad like the rest of us.  But there's a wheen
+daft folk that would set them up as models--close to truth and
+reality, says you.  It's sheer ignorance, for you're about as well
+acquaint with the working-man as with King Solomon.  You say I make
+up fine stories about tinklers and sailor-men because I know nothing
+about them.  That's maybe true.  But you're at the same job yourself.
+You ideelise the working man, you and your kind, because
+you're ignorant.  You say that he's seeking for truth, when he's only
+looking for a drink and a rise in wages.  You tell me he's near
+reality, but I tell you that his notion of reality is often just a
+short working day and looking on at a footba'-match on Saturday....
+And when you run down what you call the middle-classes that do
+three-quarters of the world's work and keep the machine going and the
+working-man in a job, then I tell you you're talking havers.  Havers!"
+
+Mr. McCunn, having delivered his defence of the bourgeoisie, rose
+abruptly and went to bed.  He felt jarred and irritated.
+His innocent little private domain had been badly trampled by this
+stray bull of a poet.  But as he lay in bed, before blowing out
+his candle, he had recourse to Walton, and found a passage on which,
+as on a pillow, he went peacefully to sleep:
+
+
+"As I left this place, and entered into the next field, a second
+pleasure entertained me; 'twas a handsome milkmaid, that had not yet
+attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any fears
+of many things that will never be, as too many men too often do;
+but she cast away all care, and sang like a nightingale; her voice
+was good, and the ditty fitted for it; it was the smooth song that
+was made by Kit Marlow now at least fifty years ago.  And the
+milkmaid's mother sung an answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter
+Raleigh in his younger days.  They were old-fashioned poetry, but
+choicely good; I think much better than the strong lines that are
+now in fashion in this critical age."
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HOW CHILDE ROLAND AND ANOTHER CAME TO THE DARK TOWER
+
+Dickson woke with a vague sense of irritation.  As his recollections
+took form they produced a very unpleasant picture of Mr. John Heritage.
+The poet had loosened all his placid idols, so that they shook and
+rattled in the niches where they had been erstwhile so secure.
+Mr. McCunn had a mind of a singular candour, and was prepared most
+honestly at all times to revise his views.  But by this iconoclast
+he had been only irritated and in no way convinced.  "Sich poetry!"
+he muttered to himself as he shivered in his bath (a daily cold tub
+instead of his customary hot one on Saturday night being part of the
+discipline of his holiday).  "And yon blethers about the working-man!"
+he ingeminated as he shaved.  He breakfasted alone, having outstripped
+even the fishermen, and as he ate he arrived at conclusions.  He had
+a great respect for youth, but a line must be drawn somewhere.
+"The man's a child," he decided, "and not like to grow up.  The way
+he's besotted on everything daftlike, if it's only new.  And he's
+no rightly young either--speaks like an auld dominie, whiles.
+And he's rather impident," he concluded, with memories of "Dogson."....
+He was very clear that he never wanted to see him again; that was
+the reason of his early breakfast.  Having clarified his mind by
+definitions, Dickson felt comforted.  He paid his bill, took an
+affectionate farewell of the landlord, and at 7.30 precisely stepped
+out into the gleaming morning.
+
+It was such a day as only a Scots April can show.  The cobbled
+streets of Kirkmichael still shone with the night's rain,
+but the storm clouds had fled before a mild south wind, and the
+whole circumference of the sky was a delicate translucent blue.
+Homely breakfast smells came from the houses and delighted
+Mr. McCunn's nostrils; a squalling child was a pleasant reminder
+of an awakening world, the urban counterpart to the morning song
+of birds; even the sanitary cart seemed a picturesque vehicle.
+He bought his ration of buns and ginger biscuits at a baker's shop
+whence various ragamuffin boys were preparing to distribute the
+householders' bread, and took his way up the Gallows Hill to the
+Burgh Muir almost with regret at leaving so pleasant a habitation.
+
+A chronicle of ripe vintages must pass lightly over small beer.
+I will not dwell on his leisurely progress in the bright weather,
+or on his luncheon in a coppice of young firs, or on his thoughts
+which had returned to the idyllic.  I take up the narrative at about
+three o'clock in the afternoon, when he is revealed seated on a milestone
+examining his map.  For he had come, all unwitting, to a turning of the
+ways, and his choice is the cause of this veracious history.
+
+The place was high up on a bare moor, which showed a white lodge
+among pines, a white cottage in a green nook by a burnside, and no
+other marks of human dwelling.  To his left, which was the east,
+the heather rose to a low ridge of hill, much scarred with peat-bogs,
+behind which appeared the blue shoulder of a considerable mountain.
+Before him the road was lost momentarily in the woods of a shooting-box,
+but reappeared at a great distance climbing a swell of upland which
+seemed to be the glacis of a jumble of bold summits.  There was a
+pass there, the map told him, which led into Galloway.  It was the
+road he had meant to follow, but as he sat on the milestone his
+purpose wavered.  For there seemed greater attractions in the country
+which lay to the westward.  Mr. McCunn, be it remembered, was not in
+search of brown heath and shaggy wood; he wanted greenery and the Spring.
+
+Westward there ran out a peninsula in the shape of an isosceles
+triangle, of which his present high-road was the base.  At a
+distance of a mile or so a railway ran parallel to the road, and he
+could see the smoke of a goods train waiting at a tiny station
+islanded in acres of bog.  Thence the moor swept down to meadows and
+scattered copses, above which hung a thin haze of smoke which
+betokened a village.  Beyond it were further woodlands, not firs but
+old shady trees, and as they narrowed to a point the gleam of two
+tiny estuaries appeared on either side.  He could not see the final
+cape, but he saw the sea beyond it, flawed with catspaws, gold
+in the afternoon sun, and on it a small herring smack flopping
+listless sails.
+
+Something in the view caught and held his fancy.  He conned his map,
+and made out the names.  The peninsula was called the Cruives--an
+old name apparently, for it was in antique lettering.  He vaguely
+remembered that "cruives" had something to do with fishing,
+doubtless in the two streams which flanked it.  One he had already
+crossed, the Laver, a clear tumbling water springing from green
+hills; the other, the Garple, descended from the rougher mountains
+to the south.  The hidden village bore the name of Dalquharter, and
+the uncouth syllables awoke some vague recollection in his mind.
+The great house in the trees beyond--it must be a great house, for
+the map showed large policies--was Huntingtower.
+
+The last name fascinated and almost decided him.  He pictured an
+ancient keep by the sea, defended by converging rivers, which some
+old Comyn lord of Galloway had built to command the shore road,
+and from which he had sallied to hunt in his wild hills....He liked
+the way the moor dropped down to green meadows, and the mystery of
+the dark woods beyond.  He wanted to explore the twin waters,
+and see how they entered that strange shimmering sea.  The odd names,
+the odd cul-de-sac of a peninsula, powerfully attracted him.
+Why should he not spend a night there, for the map showed clearly
+that Dalquharter had an inn?  He must decide promptly, for before him
+a side-road left the highway, and the signpost bore the legend,
+"Dalquharter and Huntingtower."
+
+Mr. McCunn, being a cautious and pious man, took the omens.
+He tossed a penny--heads go on, tails turn aside.  It fell tails.
+
+He knew as soon as he had taken three steps down the side-road that
+he was doing something momentous, and the exhilaration of enterprise
+stole into his soul.  It occurred to him that this was the kind of
+landscape that he had always especially hankered after, and had made
+pictures of when he had a longing for the country on him--a wooded
+cape between streams, with meadows inland and then a long lift of heather.
+He had the same feeling of expectancy, of something most interesting
+and curious on the eve of happening, that he had had long ago when he
+waited on the curtain rising at his first play.  His spirits soared
+like the lark, and he took to singing.  If only the inn at Dalquharter
+were snug and empty, this was going to be a day in ten thousand.
+Thus mirthfully he swung down the rough grass-grown road, past the
+railway, till he came to a point where heath began to merge in pasture,
+and dry-stone walls split the moor into fields.  Suddenly his pace
+slackened and song died on his lips.  For, approaching from the right
+by a tributary path was the Poet.
+
+Mr. Heritage saw him afar off and waved a friendly hand.  In spite
+of his chagrin Dickson could not but confess that he had misjudged
+his critic.  Striding with long steps over the heather, his jacket
+open to the wind, his face a-glow and his capless head like a whin-bush
+for disorder, he cut a more wholesome figure than in the smoking-room
+the night before.  He seemed to be in a companionable mood, for he
+brandished his stick and shouted greetings.
+
+"Well met!" he cried; "I was hoping to fall in with you again.
+You must have thought me a pretty fair cub last night."
+
+"I did that," was the dry answer.
+
+"Well, I want to apologize.  God knows what made me treat you to a
+university-extension lecture.  I may not agree with you, but every
+man's entitled to his own views, and it was dashed poor form for me
+to start jawing you."
+
+Mr. McCunn had no gift of nursing anger, and was very susceptible
+to apologies.
+
+"That's all right," he murmured. "Don't mention it.  I'm wondering
+what brought you down here, for it's off the road."
+
+"Caprice.  Pure caprice.  I liked the look of this butt-end of nowhere."
+
+"Same here. I've aye thought there was something terrible nice about
+a wee cape with a village at the neck of it and a burn each side."
+
+"Now that's interesting," said Mr. Heritage.  "You're obsessed by a
+particular type of landscape.  Ever read Freud?"
+
+Dickson shook his head.
+
+"Well, you've got an odd complex somewhere.  I wonder where the key lies.
+Cape--woods--two rivers--moor behind.  Ever been in love, Dogson?"
+
+Mr. McCunn was startled.   "Love" was a word rarely mentioned in his
+circle except on death-beds,  "I've been a married man for thirty
+years," he said hurriedly.
+
+"That won't do.  It should have been a hopeless affair-the last
+sight of the lady on a spur of coast with water on three sides--that
+kind of thing, you know, or it might have happened to an ancestor....
+But you don't look the kind of breed for hopeless attachments.
+More likely some scoundrelly old Dogson long ago found sanctuary in
+this sort of place.  Do you dream about it?"
+
+"Not exactly."
+
+"Well, I do.  The queer thing is that I've got the same
+prepossession as you.  As soon as I spotted this Cruives place on
+the map this morning, I saw it was what I was after.  When I came in
+sight of it I almost shouted.  I don't very often dream but when I
+do that's the place I frequent.  Odd, isn't it?"
+
+Mr. McCunn was deeply interested at this unexpected revelation of
+romance.  "Maybe it's being in love," he daringly observed.
+
+The Poet demurred.  "No.  I'm not a connoisseur of obvious sentiment.
+That explanation might fit your case, but not mine.  I'm pretty
+certain there's something hideous at the back of MY complex--some grim
+old business tucked away back in the ages.  For though I'm attracted by
+the place, I'm frightened too!"
+
+There seemed no room for fear in the delicate landscape now opening
+before them.  In front, in groves of birch and rowan, smoked the first
+houses of a tiny village.  The road had become a green "loaning," on
+the ample margin of which cattle grazed.  The moorland still showed
+itself in spits of heather, and some distance off, where a rivulet
+ran in a hollow, there were signs of a fire and figures near it.
+These last Mr. Heritage regarded with disapproval.
+
+"Some infernal trippers!" he murmured.  "Or Boy Scouts.
+They desecrate everything.  Why can't the TUNICATUS POPELLUS keep
+away from a paradise like this!"  Dickson, a democrat who felt
+nothing incongruous in the presence of other holiday-makers, was
+meditating a sharp rejoinder, when Mr. Heritage's tone changed.
+
+"Ye gods!  What a village!" he cried, as they turned a corner.
+There were not more than a dozen whitewashed houses, all set in
+little gardens of wallflower and daffodil and early fruit blossom.
+A triangle of green filled the intervening space, and in it stood an
+ancient wooden pump.  There was no schoolhouse or kirk; not even a
+post-office--only a red box in a cottage side.  Beyond rose the high
+wall and the dark trees of the demesne, and to the right up a by-road
+which clung to the park edge stood a two-storeyed building which bore
+the legend "The Cruives Inn."
+
+The Poet became lyrical.  "At last!" he cried.  "The village of my
+dreams!  Not a sign of commerce!  No church or school or beastly
+recreation hall!  Nothing but these divine little cottages and an
+ancient pub!  Dogson, I warn you, I'm going to have the devil of a
+tea."  And he declaimed:
+
+
+             "Thou shalt hear a song
+After a while which Gods may listen to;
+But place the flask upon the board and wait
+Until the stranger hath allayed his thirst,
+For poets, grasshoppers, and nightingales
+Sing cheerily but when the throat is moist."
+
+Dickson, too, longed with sensual gusto for tea.  But, as they drew
+nearer, the inn lost its hospitable look.  The cobbles of the yard
+were weedy, as if rarely visited by traffic, a pane in a window was
+broken, and the blinds hung tattered.  The garden was a wilderness,
+and the doorstep had not been scoured for weeks.  But the place had
+a landlord, for he had seen them approach and was waiting at the
+door to meet them.
+
+He was a big man in his shirt sleeves, wearing old riding breeches
+unbuttoned at the knees, and thick ploughman's boots.  He had no
+leggings, and his fleshy calves were imperfectly covered with
+woollen socks.  His face was large and pale, his neck bulged, and he
+had a gross unshaven jowl.  He was a type familiar to students of
+society; not the innkeeper, which is a thing consistent with good
+breeding and all the refinements; a type not unknown in the House of
+Lords, especially among recent creations, common enough in the House
+of Commons and the City of London, and by no means infrequent in the
+governing circles of Labour; the type known to the discerning as the
+Licensed Victualler.
+
+His face was wrinkled in official smiles, and he gave the travellers
+a hearty good afternoon.
+
+"Can we stop here for the night?" Dickson asked.
+
+The landlord looked sharply at him, and then replied to Mr. Heritage.
+His expression passed from official bonhomie to official contrition.
+
+"Impossible, gentlemen.  Quite impossible....Ye couldn't have come
+at a worse time.  I've only been here a fortnight myself, and we
+haven't got right shaken down yet.  Even then I might have made
+shift to do with ye, but the fact is we've illness in the house,
+and I'm fair at my wits' end.  It breaks my heart to turn gentlemen
+away and me that keen to get the business started.  But there it is!"
+He spat vigorously as if to emphasize the desperation of his quandary.
+
+The man was clearly Scots, but his native speech was overlaid with
+something alien, something which might have been acquired in America
+or in going down to the sea in ships.  He hitched his breeches, too,
+with a nautical air.
+
+"Is there nowhere else we can put up?"  Dickson asked.
+
+"Not in this one-horse place.  Just a wheen auld wives that packed
+thegether they haven't room for an extra hen.  But it's grand
+weather, and it's not above seven miles to Auchenlochan.  Say the
+word and I'll yoke the horse and drive ye there."
+
+"Thank you.  We prefer to walk,"  said Mr. Heritage.  Dickson would
+have tarried to inquire after the illness in the house, but his
+companion hurried him off.   Once he looked back, and saw the
+landlord still on the doorstep gazing after them.
+
+"That fellow's a swine," said Mr. Heritage sourly.  "I wouldn't
+trust my neck in his pot-house.  Now, Dogson, I'm hanged if I'm
+going to leave this place.  We'll find a corner in the village somehow.
+Besides, I'm determined on tea."
+
+The little street slept in the clear pure light of an early
+April evening.  Blue shadows lay on the white road, and a delicate
+aroma of cooking tantalized hungry nostrils.  The near meadows shone
+like pale gold against the dark lift of the moor.  A light wind had
+begun to blow from the west and carried the faintest tang of salt.
+The village at that hour was pure Paradise, and Dickson was of the
+Poet's opinion.  At all costs they must spend the night there.
+
+They selected a cottage whiter and neater than the others, which stood
+at a corner, where a narrow lane turned southward.  Its thatched roof
+had been lately repaired, and starched curtains of a dazzling whiteness
+decorated the small, closely-shut windows.  Likewise it had a green
+door and a polished brass knocker.
+
+Tacitly the duty of envoy was entrusted to Mr. McCunn.  Leaving the
+other at the gate, he advanced up the little path lined with quartz
+stones, and politely but firmly dropped the brass knocker.  He must
+have been observed, for ere the noise had ceased the door opened,
+and an elderly woman stood before him.  She had a sharply-cut face,
+the rudiments of a beard, big spectacles on her nose, and an
+old-fashioned lace cap on her smooth white hair.  A little grim she
+looked at first sight, because of her thin lips and roman nose,
+but her mild curious eyes corrected the impression and gave the
+envoy confidence.
+
+"Good afternoon, mistress," he said, broadening his voice to
+something more rustical than his normal Glasgow speech.  "Me and my
+friend are paying our first visit here, and we're terrible taken up
+with the place.  We would like to bide the night, but the inn is no'
+taking folk.  Is there any chance, think you, of a bed here?"
+
+"I'll no tell ye a lee," said the woman.  "There's twae guid beds in
+the loft.  But I dinna tak' lodgers and I dinna want to be bothered
+wi' ye.  I'm an auld wumman and no' as stoot as I was.  Ye'd better
+try doun the street.  Eppie Home micht tak' ye."
+
+Dickson wore his most ingratiating smile.  "But, mistress, Eppie Home's
+house is no' yours.  We've taken a tremendous fancy to this bit.
+Can you no' manage to put up with us for the one night?  We're quiet
+auld-fashioned folk and we'll no' trouble you much.  Just our tea and
+maybe an egg to it, and a bowl of porridge in the morning."
+
+The woman seemed to relent.  "Whaur's your freend?" she asked,
+peering over her spectacles towards the garden gate.  The waiting
+Mr. Heritage, seeing he eyes moving in his direction, took off his
+cap with a brave gesture and advanced.  "Glorious weather, madam,"
+he declared.
+
+"English," whispered Dickson to the woman, in explanation.
+
+She examined the Poet's neat clothes and Mr. McCunn's homely
+garments, and apparently found them reassuring.  "Come in," she said
+shortly.  "I see ye're wilfu' folk and I'll hae to dae my best for ye."
+
+A quarter of an hour later the two travellers, having been
+introduced to two spotless beds in the loft, and having washed
+luxuriously at the pump in the back yard, were seated in Mrs.
+Morran's kitchen before a meal which fulfilled their wildest dreams.
+She had been baking that morning, so there were white scones and
+barley scones, and oaten farles, and russet pancakes.  There were
+three boiled eggs for each of them; there was a segment of an
+immense currant cake ("a present from my guid brither last Hogmanay");
+there was skim milk cheese; there were several kinds of jam, and there
+was a pot of dark-gold heather honey.  "Try hinny and aitcake," said
+their hostess.  "My man used to say he never fund onything as guid in
+a' his days."
+
+Presently they heard her story.  Her name was Morran, and she had
+been a widow these ten years.  Of her family her son was in South Africa,
+one daughter a lady's-maid in London, and the other married to a
+schoolmaster in Kyle.  The son had been in France fighting, and had
+come safely through.  He had spent a month or two with her before
+his return, and, she feared, had found it dull.  "There's no' a man
+body in the place.  Naething but auld wives."
+
+That was what the innkeeper had told them.  Mr. McCunn inquired
+concerning the inn.
+
+"There's new folk just came.  What's this they ca' them?--Robson-
+Dobson--aye, Dobson.  What far wad they no' tak' ye in?  Does the
+man think he's a laird to refuse folk that gait?"
+
+"He said he had illness in the house."
+
+Mrs. Morran meditated.  "Whae in the world can be lyin' there?
+The man bides his lane.  He got a lassie frae Auchenlochan to cook,
+but she and her box gaed off in the post-cairt yestreen.  I doot he
+tell't ye a lee, though it's no for me to juidge him.  I've never
+spoken a word to ane o' thae new folk."
+
+Dickson inquired about the "new folk."
+
+"They're a' now come in the last three weeks, and there's no' a man
+o' the auld stock left.  John Blackstocks at the Wast Lodge dee'd o'
+pneumony last back-end, and auld Simon Tappie at the Gairdens
+flitted to Maybole a year come Mairtinmas.  There's naebody at the
+Gairdens noo, but there's a man come to the Wast Lodge, a blackavised
+body wi' a face like bend-leather.  Tam Robison used to bide at the
+South Lodge, but Tam got killed about Mesopotamy, and his wife took
+the bairns to her guidsire up at the Garpleheid.  I seen the man
+that's in the South Lodge gaun up the street when I was finishin'
+my denner--a shilpit body and a lameter, but he hirples as fast as
+ither folk run.  He's no' bonny to look at..  I canna think what
+the factor's ettlin' at to let sic ill-faured chiels come about
+the toun."
+
+Their hostess was rapidly rising in Dickson's esteem.  She sat very
+straight in her chair, eating with the careful gentility of a bird,
+and primming her thin lips after every mouthful of tea.
+
+"Wha bides in the Big House?" he asked.  "Huntingtower is the name,
+isn't it?"
+
+"When I was a lassie they ca'ed it Dalquharter Hoose, and
+Huntingtower was the auld rickle o' stanes at the sea-end.
+But naething wad serve the last laird's father but he maun change
+the name, for he was clean daft about what they ca' antickities.
+Ye speir whae bides in the Hoose?  Naebody, since the young laird dee'd.
+It's standin' cauld and lanely and steikit, and it aince the cheeriest
+dwallin' in a' Carrick."
+
+Mrs. Morran's tone grew tragic.  "It's a queer warld wi'out the
+auld gentry. My faither and my guidsire and his faither afore him
+served the Kennedys, and my man Dauvit Morran was gemkeeper to them,
+and afore I mairried I was ane o' the table-maids.  They were kind
+folk, the Kennedys, and, like a' the rale gentry, maist mindfu' o'
+them that served them.  Sic merry nichts I've seen in the auld
+Hoose, at Hallowe'en and Hogmanay, and at the servants' balls and
+the waddin's o' the young leddies!  But the laird bode to waste his
+siller in stane and lime, and hadna that much to leave to his bairns.
+And now they're a' scattered or deid."
+
+Her grave face wore the tenderness which comes from affectionate
+reminiscence.
+
+"There was never sic a laddie as young Maister Quentin.  No' a week
+gaed by but he was in here, cryin', 'Phemie Morran, I've come till
+my tea!'  Fine he likit my treacle scones, puir man.  There wasna
+ane in the countryside sae bauld a rider at the hunt, or sic a
+skeely fisher.  And he was clever at his books tae, a graund
+scholar, they said, and ettlin' at bein' what they ca' a dipplemat,
+But that' a' bye wi'."
+
+"Quentin Kennedy--the fellow in the Tins?"  Heritage asked.  "I saw
+him in Rome when he was with the Mission."
+
+"I dinna ken.  He was a brave sodger, but he wasna long fechtin' in
+France till he got a bullet in his breist.  Syne we heard tell o'
+him in far awa' bits like Russia; and syne cam' the end o' the war
+and we lookit to see him back, fishin' the waters and ridin' like
+Jehu as in the auld days.  But wae's me!  It wasna permitted.
+The next news we got, the puir laddie was deid o' influenzy and
+buried somewhere about France.  The wanchancy bullet maun have
+weakened his chest, nae doot.  So that's the end o' the guid stock
+o' Kennedy o' Huntingtower, whae hae been great folk sin' the time
+o' Robert Bruce.  And noo the Hoose is shut up till the lawyers can
+get somebody sae far left to himsel' as to tak' it on lease, and in
+thae dear days it's no' just onybody that wants a muckle castle."
+
+"Who are the lawyers?"  Dickson asked.
+
+"Glendonan and Speirs in Embro.  But they never look near the place,
+and Maister Loudon in Auchenlochan does the factorin'.  He's let
+the public an' filled the twae lodges, and he'll be thinkin' nae
+doot that he's done eneuch."
+
+Mrs. Morran had poured some hot water into the big slop-bowl, and
+had begun the operation known as "synding out" the cups.  It was a
+hint that the meal was over, and Dickson and Heritage rose from the
+table.  Followed by an injunction to be back for supper "on the chap
+o' nine," they strolled out into the evening.  Two hours of some
+sort of daylight remained, and the travellers had that impulse to
+activity which comes to all men who, after a day of exercise and
+emptiness, are stayed with a satisfying tea.
+
+"You should be happy, Dogson," said the Poet.  "Here we have all the
+materials for your blessed romance--old mansion, extinct family,
+village deserted of men, and an innkeeper whom I suspect of being
+a villain.  I feel almost a convert to your nonsense myself.
+We'll have a look at the House."
+
+They turned down the road which ran north by the park wall, past
+the inn, which looked more abandoned than ever, till they came to an
+entrance which was clearly the West Lodge.  It had once been a
+pretty, modish cottage, with a thatched roof and dormer windows,
+but now it was badly in need of repair.  A window-pane was broken
+and stuffed with a sack, the posts of the porch were giving inwards,
+and the thatch was crumbling under the attentions of a colony of
+starlings.  The great iron gates were rusty, and on the coat of
+arms above them the gilding was patchy and tarnished.  Apparently the
+gates were locked, and even the side wicket failed to open to
+Heritage's vigorous shaking.  Inside a weedy drive disappeared among
+ragged rhododendrons.
+
+The noise brought a man to the lodge door.  He was a sturdy fellow
+in a suit of black clothes which had not been made for him.
+He might have been a butler EN DESHABILLE, but for the presence of a
+pair of field boots into which he had tucked the ends of his trousers.
+The curious thing about him was his face, which was decorated with
+features so tiny as to give the impression of a monstrous child.
+Each in itself was well enough formed, but eyes, nose, mouth, chin
+were of a smallness curiously out of proportion to the head and body.
+Such an anomaly might have been redeemed by the expression;
+good-humour would have invested it with an air of agreeable farce.
+But there was no friendliness in the man's face.  It was set like a
+judge's in a stony impassiveness.
+
+"May we walk up to the House?"  Heritage asked.  "We are here for a
+night and should like to have a look at it."
+
+The man advanced a step.  He had either a bad cold, or a voice
+comparable in size to his features.
+
+"There's no entrance here," he said huskily. "I have strict orders."
+
+"Oh, come now," said Heritage.  "It can do nobody any harm if you
+let us in for half an hour."
+
+The man advanced another step.
+
+"You shall not come in.  Go away from here.  Go away, I tell you.
+It is private."  The words spoken by the small mouth in the small
+voice had a kind of childish ferocity.
+
+The travellers turned their back on him and continued their way.
+
+"Sich a curmudgeon!"  Dickson commented.  His face had flushed,
+for he was susceptible to rudeness.  "Did you notice?  That
+man's a foreigner."
+
+"He's a brute," said Heritage.  "But I'm not going to be done in by
+that class of lad.  There can be no gates on the sea side, so we'll
+work round that way, for I won't sleep till I've seen the place."
+
+Presently the trees grew thinner, and the road plunged through
+thickets of hazel till it came to a sudden stop in a field.
+There the cover ceased wholly, and below them lay the glen of
+the Laver.  Steep green banks descended to a stream which swept in
+coils of gold into the eye of the sunset.  A little farther down the
+channel broadened, the slopes fell back a little, and a tongue of
+glittering sea ran up to meet the hill waters.  The Laver is a
+gentle stream after it leaves its cradle heights, a stream of clear
+pools and long bright shallows, winding by moorland steadings and
+upland meadows; but in its last half-mile it goes mad, and imitates
+its childhood when it tumbled over granite shelves.  Down in that
+green place the crystal water gushed and frolicked as if determined
+on one hour of rapturous life before joining the sedater sea.
+
+Heritage flung himself on the turf.
+
+"This is a good place!  Ye gods, what a good place!  Dogson, aren't
+you glad you came?  I think everything's bewitched to-night.
+That village is bewitched, and that old woman's tea.  Good white magic!
+And that foul innkeeper and that brigand at the gate.  Black magic!
+And now here is the home of all enchantment--'island valley of
+Avilion'--'waters that listen for lovers'--all the rest of it!"
+
+Dickson observed and marvelled.
+
+"I can't make you out, Mr. Heritage.  You were saying last night you
+were a great democrat, and yet you were objecting to yon laddies
+camping on the moor.  And you very near bit the neb off me when I
+said I liked Tennyson.  And now..."  Mr. McCunn's command of
+language was inadequate to describe the transformation.
+
+"You're a precise, pragmatical Scot," was the answer.  "Hang it,
+man, don't remind me that I'm inconsistent.  I've a poet's licence
+to play the fool, and if you don't understand me, I don't in the
+least understand myself.  All I know is that I'm feeling young and
+jolly, and that it's the Spring."
+
+Mr. Heritage was assuredly in a strange mood.  He began to whistle
+with a far-away look in his eye.
+
+"Do you know what that is?" he asked suddenly.
+
+Dickson, who could not detect any tune, said "No."
+
+"It's an aria from a Russian opera that came out just before the war.
+I've forgotten the name of the fellow who wrote it.  Jolly thing,
+isn't it?  I always remind myself of it when I'm in this mood, for
+it is linked with the greatest experience of my life.  You said, I
+think, that you had never been in love?"
+
+Dickson replied in the native fashion.  "Have you?" he asked.
+
+"I have, and I am--been for two years.  I was down with my battalion
+on the Italian front early in 1918, and because I could speak the
+language they hoicked me out and sent me to Rome on a liaison job.
+It was Easter time and fine weather, and, being glad to get out of
+the trenches, I was pretty well pleased with myself and enjoying
+life....In the place where I stayed there was a girl.  She was a
+Russian, a princess of a great family, but a refugee, and of course
+as poor as sin....I remember how badly dressed she was among all the
+well-to-do Romans.  But, my God, what a beauty!  There was never
+anything in the world like her.... She was little more than a child,
+and she used to sing that air in the morning as she went down the
+stairs....They sent me back to the front before I had a chance of
+getting to know her, but she used to give me little timid good
+mornings, and her voice and eyes were like an angel's....I'm over my
+head in love, but it's hopeless, quite hopeless.  I shall never see
+her again."
+
+"I'm sure I'm honoured by your confidence," said Dickson reverently.
+
+The Poet, who seemed to draw exhilaration from the memory of his
+sorrows, arose and fetched him a clout on the back.  "Don't talk of
+confidence, as if you were a reporter," he said.  "What about that
+House?  If we're to see it before the dark comes we'd better hustle."
+
+The green slopes on their left, as they ran seaward, were clothed
+towards their summit with a tangle of broom and light scrub.
+The two forced their way through it, and found to their surprise
+that on this side there were no defences of the Huntingtower demesne.
+Along the crest ran a path which had once been gravelled and trimmed.
+Beyond, through a thicket of laurels and rhododendrons, they came on a
+long unkempt aisle of grass, which seemed to be one of those side
+avenues often found in connection with old Scots dwellings.
+Keeping along this they reached a grove of beech and holly through
+which showed a dim shape of masonry.  By a common impulse they moved
+stealthily, crouching in cover, till at the far side of the wood they
+found a sunk fence and looked over an acre or two of what had once been
+lawn and flower-beds to the front of the mansion.
+
+The outline of the building was clearly silhouetted against the
+glowing west, but since they were looking at the east face the
+detail was all in shadow.  But, dim as it was, the sight was enough
+to give Dickson the surprise of his life.  He had expected something
+old and baronial.  But this was new, raw and new, not twenty years built.
+Some madness had prompted its creator to set up a replica of a
+Tudor house in a countryside where the thing was unheard of.  All the
+tricks were there--oriel windows, lozenged panes, high twisted chimney
+stacks; the very stone was red, as if to imitate the mellow brick of
+some ancient Kentish manor.  It was new, but it was also decaying.
+The creepers had fallen from the walls, the pilasters on the terrace were
+tumbling down, lichen and moss were on the doorsteps.  Shuttered, silent,
+abandoned, it stood like a harsh memento mori of human hopes.
+
+Dickson had never before been affected by an inanimate thing with so
+strong a sense of disquiet.  He had pictured an old stone tower on a
+bright headland; he found instead this raw thing among trees.
+The decadence of the brand-new repels as something against nature,
+and this new thing was decadent.  But there was a mysterious life in
+it, for though not a chimney smoked, it seemed to enshrine a
+personality and to wear a sinister aura.  He felt a lively distaste,
+which was almost fear.  He wanted to get far away from it as fast
+as possible.  The sun, now sinking very low, sent up rays which
+kindled the crests of a group of firs to the left of the front door.
+
+He had the absurd fancy that they were torches flaming before a bier.
+
+It was well that the two had moved quietly and kept in shadow.
+Footsteps fell on their ears, on the path which threaded the lawn
+just beyond the sunk-fence.  It was the keeper of the West Lodge and
+he carried something on his back, but both that and his face were
+indistinct in the half-light.
+
+Other footsteps were heard, coming from the other side of the lawn.
+A man's shod feet rang on the stone of a flagged path, and from
+their irregular fall it was plain that he was lame.  The two men met
+near the door, and spoke together.  Then they separated, and moved
+one down each side of the house.  To the two watchers they had the
+air of a patrol, or of warders pacing the corridors of a prison.
+
+"Let's get out of this," said Dickson, and turned to go.
+
+The air had the curious stillness which precedes the moment of
+sunset, when the birds of day have stopped their noises and the
+sounds of night have not begun.  But suddenly in the silence fell
+notes of music.  They seemed to come from the house, a voice singing
+softly but with great beauty and clearness.
+
+Dickson halted in his steps.  The tune, whatever it was, was like a fresh
+wind to blow aside his depression.  The house no longer looked sepulchral.
+He saw that the two men had hurried back from their patrol, had met and
+exchanged some message, and made off again as if alarmed by the music.
+Then he noticed his companion....
+
+Heritage was on one knee with his face rapt and listening.
+He got to his feet and appeared to be about to make for the House.
+Dickson caught him by the arm and dragged him into the bushes, and
+he followed unresistingly, like a man in a dream.  They ploughed
+through the thicket, recrossed the grass avenue, and scrambled down
+the hillside to the banks of the stream.
+
+Then for the first time Dickson observed that his companion's face
+was very white, and that sweat stood on his temples.  Heritage lay
+down and lapped up water like a dog.  Then he turned a wild eye on
+the other.
+
+"I am going back," he said.  "That is the voice of the girl I saw in
+Rome, and it is singing her song!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+DOUGAL
+
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Dickson.  "You're coming home
+to your supper.  It was to be on the chap of nine."
+
+"I'm going back to that place."
+
+The man was clearly demented and must be humoured.  "Well, you must
+wait till the morn's morning.  It's very near dark now, and those
+are two ugly customers wandering about yonder.  You'd better sleep
+the night on it."
+
+Mr. Heritage seemed to be persuaded.  He suffered himself to be
+led up the now dusky slopes to the gate where the road from
+the village ended.  He walked listlessly like a man engaged in
+painful reflection.  Once only he broke the silence.
+
+"You heard the singing?" he asked.
+
+Dickson was a very poor hand at a lie.  "I heard something,"
+he admitted.
+
+"You heard a girl's voice singing?"
+
+"It sounded like that," was the admission.  "But I'm thinking it
+might have been a seagull."
+
+"You're a fool," said the Poet rudely.
+
+The return was a melancholy business, compared to the bright speed
+of the outward journey.  Dickson's mind was a chaos of feelings,
+all of them unpleasant.  He had run up against something which he
+violently, blindly detested, and the trouble was that he could
+not tell why.  It was all perfectly absurd, for why on earth should
+an ugly house, some overgrown trees, and a couple of ill-favoured
+servants so malignly affect him?  Yet this was the fact; he had
+strayed out of Arcady into a sphere that filled him with revolt and
+a nameless fear.  Never in his experience had he felt like this,
+this foolish childish panic which took all the colour and zest
+out of life.  He tried to laugh at himself but failed.  Heritage,
+stumbling along by his side, effectually crushed his effort to
+discover humour in the situation.  Some exhalation from that
+infernal place had driven the Poet mad.  And then that voice singing!
+A seagull, he had said.  More like a nightingale, he reflected--a bird
+which in the flesh he had never met.
+
+Mrs. Morran had the lamp lit and a fire burning in her cheerful
+kitchen.  The sight of it somewhat restored Dickson's equanimity,
+and to his surprise he found that he had an appetite for supper.
+There was new milk, thick with cream, and most of the dainties
+which had appeared at tea, supplemented by a noble dish of
+shimmering "potted-head."  The hostess did not share their meal,
+being engaged in some duties in the little cubby-hole known as
+the back kitchen.
+
+Heritage drank a glass of milk but would not touch food.
+
+"I called this place Paradise four hours ago," he said.  "So it is,
+but I fancy it is next door to Hell.  There is something devilish
+going on inside that park wall, and I mean to get to the bottom of it."
+
+"Hoots!  Nonsense!"  Dickson replied with affected cheerfulness.
+"To-morrow you and me will take the road for Auchenlochan.
+We needn't trouble ourselves about an ugly old house and a
+wheen impident lodge-keepers."
+
+"To-morrow I'm going to get inside the place.  Don't come unless you
+like, but it's no use arguing with me.  My mind is made up."
+
+Heritage cleared a space on the table and spread out a section of a
+large-scale Ordnance map.
+
+"I must clear my head about the topography, the same as if this were
+a battle-ground.  Look here, Dogson....  The road past the inn that
+we went by to-night runs north and south."  He tore a page from a
+note-book and proceeded to make a rough sketch....  "One end we know
+abuts on the Laver glen, and the other stops at the South Lodge.
+Inside the wall which follows the road is a long belt of plantation-
+-mostly beeches and ash--then to the west a kind of park, and beyond
+that the lawns of the house.  Strips of plantation with avenues
+between follow the north and south sides of the park.  On the sea
+side of the House are the stables and what looks like a walled
+garden, and beyond them what seems to be open ground with an old
+dovecot marked, and the ruins of Huntingtower keep.  Beyond that
+there is more open ground, till you come to the cliffs of the cape.
+Have you got that?...It looks possible from the contouring to get
+on to the sea cliffs by following the Laver, for all that side is
+broken up into ravines....But look at the other side--the Garple glen.
+It's evidently a deep-cut gully, and at the bottom it opens out into
+a little harbour.  There's deep water there, you observe.  Now the
+House on the south side--the Garple side--is built fairly close to
+the edge of the cliffs.  Is that all clear in your head?  We can't
+reconnoitre unless we've got a working notion of the lie of the land."
+
+Dickson was about to protest that he had no intention of
+reconnoitring, when a hubbub arose in the back kitchen.
+Mrs. Morran's voice was heard in shrill protest.
+
+"Ye ill laddie!  Eh--ye--ill--laddie! (crescendo)  Makin' a hash o'
+my back door wi' your dirty feet!  What are ye slinkin' roond here
+for, when I tell't ye this mornin' that I wad sell ye nae mair
+scones till ye paid for the last lot?  Ye're a wheen thievin' hungry
+callants, and if there were a polisman in the place I'd gie ye
+in chairge....What's that ye say?  Ye're no' wantin' meat?  Ye want
+to speak to the gentlemen that's bidin' here?  Ye ken the auld ane,
+says you?  I believe it's a muckle lee, but there's the gentlemen to
+answer ye theirsels."
+
+Mrs. Morran, brandishing a dishclout dramatically, flung open
+the door, and with a vigorous push propelled into the kitchen a
+singular figure.
+
+It was a stunted boy, who from his face might have been fifteen
+years old, but had the stature of a child of twelve.  He had a
+thatch of fiery red hair above a pale freckled countenance.
+His nose was snub, his eyes a sulky grey-green, and his wide mouth
+disclosed large and damaged teeth.  But remarkable as was his
+visage, his clothing was still stranger.  On his head was the
+regulation Boy Scout hat, but it was several sizes too big, and was
+squashed down upon his immense red ears.  He wore a very ancient
+khaki shirt, which had once belonged to a full-grown soldier, and
+the spacious sleeves were rolled up at the shoulders and tied with
+string, revealing a pair of skinny arms.  Round his middle hung
+what was meant to be a kilt--a kilt of home manufacture, which may
+once have been a tablecloth, for its bold pattern suggested no known
+clan tartan.  He had a massive belt, in which was stuck a broken
+gully-knife, and round his neck was knotted the remnant of what had
+once been a silk bandanna.  His legs and feet were bare, blue,
+scratched, and very dirty, and this toes had the prehensile look
+common to monkeys and small boys who summer and winter go bootless.
+In his hand was a long ash-pole, new cut from some coppice.
+
+The apparition stood glum and lowering on the kitchen floor.
+As Dickson stared at it he recalled Mearns Street and the band of
+irregular Boy Scouts who paraded to the roll of tin cans.
+Before him stood Dougal, Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards.
+Suddenly he remembered the philanthropic Mackintosh, and his own
+subscription of ten pounds to the camp fund.  It pleased him to find
+the rascals here, for in the unpleasant affairs on the verge of
+which he felt himself they were a comforting reminder of the
+peace of home.
+
+"I'm glad to see you, Dougal," he said pleasantly.  "How are you
+all getting on?"  And then, with a vague reminiscence of the Scouts'
+code--"Have you been minding to perform a good deed every day?"
+
+The Chieftain's brow darkened.
+
+"'Good Deeds!'" he repeated bitterly.  "I tell ye I'm fair wore out
+wi' good deeds.  Yon man Mackintosh tell't me this was going to be
+a grand holiday.  Holiday!  Govey Dick!  It's been like a Setterday
+night in Main Street--a' fechtin', fechtin'."
+
+No collocation of letters could reproduce Dougal's accent, and I
+will not attempt it.  There was a touch of Irish in it, a spice of
+music-hall patter, as well as the odd lilt of the Glasgow vernacular.
+He was strong in vowels, but the consonants, especially the letter
+"t," were only aspirations.
+
+"Sit down and let's hear about things," said Dickson.
+
+The boy turned his head to the still open back door, where Mrs.
+Morran could be heard at her labours.  He stepped across and shut it.
+"I'm no' wantin' that auld wife to hear," he said.  Then he squatted
+down on the patchwork rug by the hearth, and warmed his blue-black shins.
+Looking into the glow of the fire, he observed, "I seen you two up by
+the Big Hoose the night."
+
+"The devil you did," said Heritage, roused to a sudden attention.
+"And where were you?"
+
+"Seven feet from your head, up a tree.  It's my chief hidy-hole, and
+Gosh! I need one, for Lean's after me wi' a gun.  He had a shot at
+me two days syne."
+
+Dickson exclaimed, and Dougal with morose pride showed a rent in
+his kilt.  "If I had had on breeks, he'd ha' got me."
+
+"Who's Lean?" Heritage asked.
+
+"The man wi' the black coat.  The other--the lame one--they ca' Spittal."
+
+"How d'you know?"
+
+"I've listened to them crackin' thegither."
+
+"But what for did the man want to shoot at you?" asked the
+scandalized Dickson.
+
+"What for?  Because they're frightened to death o' onybody going
+near their auld Hoose.  They're a pair of deevils, worse nor any Red
+Indian, but for a' that they're sweatin' wi' fright.  What for? says you.
+Because they're hiding a Secret.  I knew it as soon as I seen the man
+Lean's face.  I once seen the same kind o' scoondrel at the Picters.
+When he opened his mouth to swear, I kenned he was a foreigner, like
+the lads down at the Broomielaw.  That looked black, but I hadn't got
+at the worst of it.  Then he loosed off at me wi' his gun."
+
+"Were you not feared?" said Dickson.
+
+"Ay, I was feared.  But ye'll no' choke off the Gorbals Die-Hards
+wi' a gun.  We held a meetin' round the camp fire, and we resolved
+to get to the bottom o' the business.  Me bein' their Chief, it was
+my duty to make what they ca' a reckonissince, for that was the
+dangerous job.  So a' this day I've been going on my belly about
+thae policies.  I've found out some queer things."
+
+Heritage had risen and was staring down at the small squatting figure.
+
+"What have you found out?  Quick.  Tell me at once."  His voice was
+sharp and excited.
+
+"Bide a wee," said the unwinking Dougal.  "I'm no' going to let ye
+into this business till I ken that ye'll help.  It's a far bigger
+job than I thought.  There's more in it than Lean and Spittal.
+There's the big man that keeps the public--Dobson, they ca' him.
+He's a Namerican, which looks bad.  And there's two-three tinklers
+campin' down in the Garple Dean.  They're in it, for Dobson was
+colloguin' wi' them a' mornin'.  When I seen ye, I thought ye were
+more o' the gang, till I mindit that one o' ye was auld McCunn that
+has the shop in Mearns Street.  I seen that ye didna' like the look
+o' Lean, and I followed ye here, for I was thinkin' I needit help."
+
+Heritage plucked Dougal by the shoulder and lifted him to his feet.
+
+"For God's sake, boy," he cried, "tell us what you know!"
+
+"Will ye help?"
+
+"Of course, you little fool."
+
+"Then swear," said the ritualist.  From a grimy wallet he extracted
+a limp little volume which proved to be a damaged copy of a work
+entitled Sacred Songs and Solos.  "Here!  Take that in your right
+hand and put your left hand on my pole, and say after me.  'I swear
+no' to blab what is telled me in secret, and to be swift and sure in
+obeyin' orders, s'help me God!'  Syne kiss the bookie."
+
+Dickson at first refused, declaring that it was all havers,
+but Heritage's docility persuaded him to follow suit.
+The two were sworn.
+
+"Now," said Heritage.
+
+Dougal squatted again on the hearth-rug, and gathered the eyes of
+his audience.  He was enjoying himself.
+
+"This day," he said slowly, "I got inside the Hoose."
+
+"Stout fellow," said Heritage; "and what did you find there?"
+
+"I got inside that Hoose, but it wasn't once or twice I tried.
+I found a corner where I was out o' sight o' anybody unless they had
+come there seekin' me, and I sklimmed up a rone pipe, but a' the
+windies were lockit and I verra near broke my neck.  Syne I tried
+the roof, and a sore sklim I had, but when I got there there were
+no skylights.  At the end I got in by the coal-hole.  That's why
+ye're maybe thinkin' I'm no' very clean."
+
+Heritage's patience was nearly exhausted.
+
+"I don't want to hear how you got in.  What did you find,
+you little devil?"
+
+"Inside the Hoose," said Dougal slowly (and there was a melancholy
+sense of anti-climax in his voice, as of one who had hoped to speak
+of gold and jewels and armed men)--"inside that Hoose there's
+nothing but two women."
+
+Heritage sat down before him with a stern face.
+
+"Describe them," he commanded.
+
+"One o' them is dead auld, as auld as the wife here.  She didn't
+look to me very right in the head."
+
+"And the other?"
+
+"Oh, just a lassie."
+
+"What was she like?"
+
+Dougal seemed to be searching for adequate words.  "She is..."
+he began.  Then a popular song gave him inspiration.  "She's pure as
+the lully in the dell!"
+
+In no way discomposed by Heritage's fierce interrogatory air,
+he continued: "She's either foreign or English, for she couldn't
+understand what I said, and I could make nothing o' her clippit tongue.
+But I could see she had been greetin'.  She looked feared, yet
+kind o' determined.  I speired if I could do anything for her, and when
+she got my meaning she was terrible anxious to ken if I had seen a man-
+-a big man, she said, wi' a yellow beard.  She didn't seem to ken his
+name, or else she wouldna' tell me.  The auld wife was mortal feared,
+and was aye speakin' in a foreign langwidge.  I seen at once that
+what frightened them was Lean and his friends, and I was just starting
+to speir about them when there came a sound like a man walkin' along
+the passage.  She was for hidin' me in behind a sofy, but I wasn't
+going to be trapped like that, so I got out by the other door and down
+the kitchen stairs and into the coal-hole.  Gosh, it was a near thing!"
+
+
+The boy was on his feet.  "I must be off to the camp to give out the
+orders for the morn.  I'm going back to that Hoose, for it's a fight
+atween the Gorbals Die-Hards and the scoondrels that are frightenin'
+thae women.  The question is, Are ye comin' with me?  Mind, ye've sworn.
+But if ye're no, I'm going mysel', though I'll no' deny I'd be
+glad o' company.  You anyway--" he added, nodding at Heritage.
+"Maybe auld McCunn wouldn't get through the coal-hole."
+
+"You're an impident laddie,' said the outraged Dickson.  "It's no'
+likely we're coming with you.  Breaking into other folks' houses!
+It's a job for the police!"
+
+"Please yersel'," said the Chieftain, and looked at Heritage.
+
+"I'm on," said that gentleman.
+
+"Well, just you set out the morn as if ye were for a walk up
+the Garple glen.  I'll be on the road and I'll have orders for ye."
+
+Without more ado Dougal left by way of the back kitchen.  There was
+a brief denunciation from Mrs. Morran, then the outer door banged
+and he was gone.
+
+The Poet sat still with his head in his hands, while Dickson,
+acutely uneasy, prowled about the floor.  He had forgotten even to
+light his pipe.  "You'll not be thinking of heeding that ragamuffin
+boy," he ventured.
+
+"I'm certainly going to get into the House tomorrow," Heritage
+answered, "and if he can show me a way so much the better.
+He's a spirited youth.  Do you breed many like him in Glasgow?"
+
+"Plenty," said Dickson sourly.  "See here, Mr. Heritage.  You can't
+expect me to be going about burgling houses on the word of a
+blagyird laddie.  I'm a respectable man--aye been.  Besides, I'm
+here for a holiday, and I've no call to be mixing myself up in
+strangers' affairs."
+
+"You haven't.  Only you see, I think there's a friend of mine in
+that place, and anyhow there are women in trouble.  If you like,
+we'll say goodbye after breakfast, and you can continue as if you
+had never turned aside to this damned peninsula.  But I've got
+to stay."
+
+Dickson groaned.  What had become of his dream of idylls, his gentle
+bookish romance?  Vanished before a reality which smacked horribly
+of crude melodrama and possibly of sordid crime.  His gorge rose at
+the picture, but a thought troubled him.  Perhaps all romance in its
+hour of happening was rough and ugly like this, and only shone rosy
+in retrospect.  Was he being false to his deepest faith?
+
+"Let's have Mrs. Morran in," he ventured.  "She's a wise old body
+and I'd like to hear her opinion of this business.  We'll get common
+sense from her."
+
+"I don't object," said Heritage.  "But no amount of common sense
+will change my mind."
+
+Their hostess forestalled them by returning at that moment
+to the kitchen.
+
+"We want your advice, mistress," Dickson told her, and accordingly,
+like a barrister with a client, she seated herself carefully in the
+big easy chair, found and adjusted her spectacles, and waited with
+hands folded on her lap to hear the business.  Dickson narrated
+their pre-supper doings, and gave a sketch of Dougal's evidence.
+His exposition was cautious and colourless, and without conviction.
+He seemed to expect a robust incredulity in his hearer.
+
+Mrs. Morran listened with the gravity of one in church.  When Dickson
+finished she seemed to meditate.  "There's no blagyird trick that
+would surprise me in thae new folk.  What's that ye ca' them-
+-Lean and Spittal?  Eppie Home threepit to me they were furriners,
+and these are no furrin names."
+
+"What I want to hear from you, Mrs. Morran,' said Dickson impressively,
+"is whether you think there's anything in that boy's story?"
+
+"I think it's maist likely true.  He's a terrible impident callant,
+but he's no' a leear."
+
+"Then you think that a gang of ruffians have got two lone women shut
+up in that house for their own purposes?"
+
+"I wadna wonder."
+
+"But it's ridiculous!  This is a Christian and law-abiding country.
+What would the police say?"
+
+"They never troubled Dalquharter muckle.  There's no' a polisman
+nearer than Knockraw--yin Johnnie Trummle, and he's as useless as a
+frostit tattie."
+
+"The wiselike thing, as I think," said Dickson, "would be to turn
+the Procurator-Fiscal on to the job.  It's his business, no' ours."
+
+"Well, I wadna say but ye're richt,' said the lady.
+
+"What would you do if you were us?" Dickson's tone was subtly
+confidential.  "My friend here wants to get into the House the
+morn with that red-haired laddie to satisfy himself about the facts.
+I say no.  Let sleeping dogs lie, I say, and if you think the beasts
+are mad, report to the authorities.  What would you do yourself?"
+
+"If I were you," came the emphatic reply, "I would tak' the first
+train hame the morn, and when I got hame I wad bide there.  Ye're a
+dacent body, but ye're no' the kind to be traivellin' the roads."
+
+"And if you were me?' Heritage asked with his queer crooked smile.
+
+"If I was young and yauld like you I wad gang into the Hoose, and I
+wadna rest till I had riddled oot the truith and jyled every
+scoondrel about the place.  If ye dinna gang, 'faith I'll kilt my
+coats and gang mysel'.  I havena served the Kennedys for forty year
+no' to hae the honour o' the Hoose at my hert....Ye've speired my
+advice, sirs, and ye've gotten it.  Now I maun clear awa' your supper."
+
+Dickson asked for a candle, and, as on the previous night, went
+abruptly to bed.  The oracle of prudence to which he had appealed
+had betrayed him and counselled folly.  But was it folly?  For him,
+assuredly, for Dickson McCunn, late of Mearns Street, Glasgow,
+wholesale and retail provision merchant, elder in the Guthrie
+Memorial Kirk, and fifty-five years of age.  Ay, that was the rub.
+He was getting old.  The woman had seen it and had advised him to
+go home.  Yet the plea was curiously irksome, though it gave him
+the excuse he needed.  If you played at being young, you had to
+take up the obligations of youth, and he thought derisively of his
+boyish exhilaration of the past days.  Derisively, but also sadly.
+What had become of that innocent joviality he had dreamed of,
+that happy morning pilgrimage of Spring enlivened by tags from
+the poets?  His goddess had played him false.  Romance had put upon
+him too hard a trial.
+
+He lay long awake, torn between common sense and a desire to be
+loyal to some vague whimsical standard.  Heritage a yard distant
+appeared also to be sleepless, for the bed creaked with his turning.
+Dickson found himself envying one whose troubles, whatever they
+might be, were not those of a divided mind.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+OF THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER
+
+
+Very early the next morning, while Mrs. Morran was still cooking
+breakfast, Dickson and Heritage might have been observed taking the
+air in the village street.  It was the Poet who had insisted upon
+this walk, and he had his own purpose.  They looked at the spires of
+smoke piercing the windless air, and studied the daffodils in the
+cottage gardens.  Dickson was glum, but Heritage seemed in high spirits.
+He varied his garrulity with spells of cheerful whistling.
+
+They strode along the road by the park wall till they reached the inn.
+There Heritage's music waxed peculiarly loud.  Presently from the yard,
+unshaven and looking as if he had slept in this clothes, came Dobson
+the innkeeper.
+
+"Good morning," said the poet.  "I hope the sickness in your house
+is on the mend?"
+
+"Thank ye, it's no worse," was the reply, but in the man's heavy
+face there was little civility.  His small grey eyes searched
+their faces.
+
+"We're just waiting for breakfast to get on the road again.
+I'm jolly glad we spent the night here.  We found quarters
+after all, you know."
+
+"So I see.  Whereabouts, may I ask?"
+
+"Mrs. Morran's.  We could always have got in there, but we didn't
+want to fuss an old lady, so we thought we'd try the inn first.
+She's my friend's aunt."
+
+At this amazing falsehood Dickson started, and the man observed
+his surprise.  The eyes were turned on him like a searchlight.
+They roused antagonism in his peaceful soul, and with that
+antagonism came an impulse to back up the Poet.  "Ay," he said,
+"she's my auntie Phemie, my mother's half-sister."
+
+The man turned on Heritage.
+
+"Where are ye for the day?"
+
+"Auchenlochan," said Dickson hastily.  He was still determined to
+shake the dust of Dalquharter from his feet.
+
+The innkeeper sensibly brightened.  "Well, ye'll have a fine walk.
+I must go in and see about my own breakfast.  Good day to ye, gentlemen."
+
+"That," said Heritage as they entered the village street again,
+"is the first step in camouflage, to put the enemy off his guard."
+
+"It was an abominable lie," said Dickson crossly.
+
+"Not at all.  It was a necessary and proper ruse de guerre.
+It explained why we spent the right here, and now Dobson and
+his friends can get about their day's work with an easy mind.
+Their suspicions are temporarily allayed, and that will make
+our job easier."
+
+"I'm not coming with you."
+
+"I never said you were.  By 'we' I refer to myself and the
+red-headed boy."
+
+"Mistress, you're my auntie," Dickson informed Mrs. Morran as she
+set the porridge on the table.  "This gentleman has just been
+telling the man at the inn that you're my Auntie Phemie."
+
+For a second their hostess looked bewildered.  Then the corners of
+her prim mouth moved upwards in a slow smile.
+
+"I see," she said.  "Weel, maybe it was weel done.  But if ye're my
+nevoy ye'll hae to keep up my credit, for we're a bauld and siccar lot."
+
+Half an hour later there was a furious dissension when Dickson
+attempted to pay for the night's entertainment.  Mrs. Morran would
+have none of it.  "Ye're no' awa' yet," she said tartly, and
+the matter was complicated by Heritage's refusal to take part
+in the debate.  He stood aside and grinned, till Dickson in despair
+returned his notecase to his pocket, murmuring darkly the "he would
+send it from Glasgow."
+
+The road to Auchenlochan left the main village street at right
+angles by the side of Mrs. Morran's cottage.  It was a better road
+than that by which they had come yesterday, for by it twice daily
+the postcart travelled to the post-town.  It ran on the edge of the
+moor and on the lip of the Garple glen, till it crossed that stream
+and, keeping near the coast, emerged after five miles into the
+cultivated flats of the Lochan valley.  The morning was fine,
+the keen air invited to high spirits, plovers piped entrancingly
+over the bent and linnets sang in the whins, there was a solid
+breakfast behind him, and the promise of a cheerful road till luncheon.
+The stage was set for good humour, but Dickson's heart, which should
+have been ascending with the larks, stuck leadenly in his boots.
+He was not even relieved at putting Dalquharter behind him.
+The atmosphere of that unhallowed place lay still on his soul.
+He hated it, but he hated himself more.  Here was one, who had hugged
+himself all his days as an adventurer waiting his chance, running away
+at the first challenge of adventure; a lover of Romance who fled from
+the earliest overture of his goddess.  He was ashamed and angry, but
+what else was there to do?  Burglary in the company of a queer poet and
+a queerer urchin?  It was unthinkable.
+
+Presently, as they tramped silently on, they came to the bridge
+beneath which the peaty waters of the Garple ran in porter-coloured
+pools and tawny cascades.  From a clump of elders on the other side
+Dougal emerged.  A barefoot boy, dressed in much the same parody of
+a Boy Scout's uniform, but with corduroy shorts instead of a kilt,
+stood before him at rigid attention.  Some command was issued, the
+child saluted, and trotted back past the travellers with never a
+look at them.  Discipline was strong among the Gorbals Die-Hards;
+no Chief of Staff ever conversed with his General under a
+stricter etiquette.
+
+Dougal received the travellers with the condescension of a regular
+towards civilians.
+
+"They're off their gawrd," he announced.  Thomas Yownie has been
+shadowin' them since skreigh o' day, and he reports that Dobson and
+Lean followed ye till ye were out o' sight o' the houses, and syne
+Lean got a spy-glass and watched ye till the road turned in among
+the trees.  That satisfied them, and they're both away back to their
+jobs.  Thomas Yownie's the fell yin.  Ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+Dougal extricated from his pouch the fag of a cigarette, lit it, and
+puffed meditatively.  "I did a reckonissince mysel' this morning.
+I was up at the Hoose afore it was light, and tried the door o'
+the coal-hole.  I doot they've gotten on our tracks, for it was
+lockit--aye, and wedged from the inside."
+
+Dickson brightened.  Was the insane venture off?
+
+"For a wee bit I was fair beat.  But I mindit that the lassie was
+allowed to walk in a kind o' a glass hoose on the side farthest away
+from the Garple.  That was where she was singin' yest'reen.  So I
+reckonissinced in that direction, and I fund a queer place."
+Sacred Songs and Solos was requisitioned, and on a page of it Dougal
+proceeded to make marks with the stump of a carpenter's pencil.
+"See here," he commanded.  "There's the glass place wi' a door into
+the Hoose.  That door maun be open or the lassie maun hae the key,
+for she comes there whenever she likes.  Now' at each end o' the
+place the doors are lockit, but the front that looks on the garden
+is open, wi' muckle posts and flower-pots.  The trouble is that
+that side there' maybe twenty feet o' a wall between the pawrapet
+and the ground.  It's an auld wall wi' cracks and holes in it, and
+it wouldn't be ill to sklim.  That's why they let her gang there when
+she wants, for a lassie couldn't get away without breakin' her neck."
+
+"Could we climb it?" Heritage asked.
+
+The boy wrinkled his brows.  "I could manage it mysel'--I think--and
+maybe you.  I doubt if auld McCunn could get up.  Ye'd have to be
+mighty carefu' that nobody saw ye, for your hinder end, as ye were
+sklimmin', wad be a grand mark for a gun."
+
+"Lead on," said Heritage.  "We'll try the verandah."
+
+They both looked at Dickson, and Dickson, scarlet in the face,
+looked back at them.  He had suddenly found the thought of a
+solitary march to Auchenlochan intolerable.  Once again he was
+at the parting of the ways, and once more caprice determined
+his decision.  That the coal-hole was out of the question had worked
+a change in his views,  Somehow it seemed to him less burglarious to
+enter by a verandah.  He felt very frightened but--for the moment-
+quite resolute.
+
+"I'm coming with you," he said.
+
+"Sportsman," said Heritage, and held out his hand.  "Well done, the
+auld yin," said the Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards.  Dickson's
+quaking heart experienced a momentary bound as he followed Heritage
+down the track into the Garple Dean.
+
+The track wound through a thick covert of hazels, now close to the
+rushing water, now high upon the bank so that clear sky showed
+through the fringes of the wood.  When they had gone a little way
+Dougal halted them.
+
+"It's a ticklish job," he whispered.  "There's the tinklers, mind,
+that's campin' in the Dean.  If they're still in their camp we can
+get by easy enough, but they're maybe wanderin' about the wud after
+rabbits....Then we maun ford the water, for ye'll no' cross it lower
+down where it's deep....Our road is on the Hoose side o' the Dean,
+and it's awfu' public if there's onybody on the other side, though
+it's hid well enough from folk up in the policies....Ye maun do
+exactly what I tell ye.  When we get near danger I'll scout on
+ahead, and I daur ye to move a hair o' your heid till I give the word."
+
+Presently, when they were at the edge of the water, Dougal announced
+his intention of crossing.  Three boulders in the stream made a
+bridge for an active man, and Heritage hopped lightly over.  Not so
+Dickson, who stuck fast on the second stone, and would certainly
+have fallen in had not Dougal plunged into the current and steadied
+him with a grimy hand.  The leap was at last successfully taken, and
+the three scrambled up a rough scaur, all reddened with iron
+springs, till they struck a slender track running down the Dean on
+its northern side.  Here the undergrowth was very thick, and they
+had gone the better part of half a mile before the covert thinned
+sufficiently to show them the stream beneath.  Then Dougal halted
+them with a finger on his lips, and crept forward alone.
+
+He returned in three minutes.  "Coast's clear," he whispered.  "The
+tinklers are eatin' their breakfast.  They're late at their meat
+though they're up early seekin' it."
+
+Progress was now very slow and secret, and mainly on all fours.
+At one point Dougal nodded downward, and the other two saw on a
+patch of turf, where the Garple began to widen into its estuary, a
+group of figures round a small fire.  There were four of them, all
+men, and Dickson thought he had never seen such ruffianly-looking
+customers.  After that they moved high up the slope, in a shallow
+glade of a tributary burn, till they came out of the trees and found
+themselves looking seaward.
+
+On one side was the House, a hundred yards or so back from the edge,
+the roof showing above the precipitous scarp.  Half-way down the
+slope became easier, a jumble of boulders and boiler-plates, till it
+reached the waters of the small haven, which lay calm as a mill-pond
+in the windless forenoon.  The haven broadened out at its foot and
+revealed a segment of blue sea.  The opposite shore was flatter,
+and showed what looked like an old wharf and the ruins of buildings,
+behind which rose a bank clad with scrub and surmounted by some
+gnarled and wind-crooked firs.
+
+"There's dashed little cover here," said Heritage.
+
+"There's no muckle," Dougal assented.  "But they canna see us from the
+policies, and it's no' like there's anybody watchin' from the Hoose.
+The danger is somebody on the other side, but we'll have to risk it.
+Once among thae big stones we're safe.  Are ye ready?"
+
+Five minutes later Dickson found himself gasping in the lee of
+a boulder, while Dougal was making a cast forward.  The scout
+returned with a hopeful report.  "I think we're safe till we get
+into the policies.  There's a road that the auld folk made when
+ships used to come here.  Down there it's deeper than Clyde at the
+Broomielaw.  Has the auld yin got his wind yet?  There's no
+time to waste."
+
+Up that broken hillside they crawled, well in the cover of the
+tumbled stones, till they reached a low wall which was the boundary
+of the garden.  The House was now behind them on their right rear,
+and as they topped the crest they had a glimpse of an ancient
+dovecot and the ruins of the old Huntingtower on the short thymy
+turf which ran seaward to the cliffs.  Dougal led them along a sunk
+fence which divided the downs from the lawns behind the house, and,
+avoiding the stables, brought them by devious ways to a thicket of
+rhododendrons and broom.  On all fours they travelled the length of
+the place, and came to the edge where some forgotten gardeners had
+once tended a herbaceous border.  The border was now rank and wild,
+and, lying flat under the shade of an azalea, and peering through
+the young spears of iris, Dickson and Heritage regarded the
+north-western facade of the house.
+
+The ground before them had been a sunken garden, from which a
+steep wall, once covered with creepers and rock plants, rose to a
+long verandah, which was pillared and open on that side; but at
+each end built up half-way and glazed for the rest.  There was a
+glass roof, and inside untended shrubs sprawled in broken
+plaster vases.
+
+"Ye maun bide here," said Dougal, "and no cheep above your breath.
+Afore we dare to try that wall, I maun ken where Lean and Spittal
+and Dobson are.  I'm off to spy the policies.'  He glided out of
+sight behind a clump of pampas grass.
+
+For hours, so it seemed, Dickson was left to his own unpleasant
+reflections.  His body, prone on the moist earth, was fairly
+comfortable, but his mind was ill at ease.  The scramble up the
+hillside had convinced him that he was growing old, and there was no
+rebound in his soul to counter the conviction.  He felt listless,
+spiritless--an apathy with fright trembling somewhere at the
+back of it.  He regarded the verandah wall with foreboding.
+How on earth could he climb that?  And if he did there would be his
+exposed hinder-parts inviting a shot from some malevolent gentleman
+among the trees.  He reflected that he would give a large sum of
+money to be out of this preposterous adventure.
+
+Heritage's hand was stretched towards him, containing two of Mrs.
+Morran's jellied scones, of which the Poet had been wise enough to
+bring a supply in his pocket.  The food cheered him, for he was
+growing very hungry, and he began to take an interest in the scene
+before him instead of his own thoughts.  He observed every detail
+of the verandah.  There was a door at one end, he noted, giving on
+a path which wound down to the sunk garden.  As he looked he heard
+a sound of steps and saw a man ascending this path.
+
+It was the lame man whom Dougal had called Spittal, the dweller in
+the South Lodge.  Seen at closer quarters he was an odd-looking
+being, lean as a heron, wry-necked, but amazingly quick on his feet.
+Had not Mrs. Morran said that he hobbled as fast as other folk ran?
+He kept his eyes on the ground and seemed to be talking to himself
+as he went, but he was alert enough, for the dropping of a twig from
+a dying magnolia transferred him in an instant into a figure of
+active vigilance.  No risks could be run with that watcher.  He took
+a key from his pocket, opened the garden door and entered the verandah.
+For a moment his shuffle sounded on its tiled floor, and then he
+entered the door admitting from the verandah to the House.  It was
+clearly unlocked, for there came no sound of a turning key.
+
+Dickson had finished the last crumbs of his scones before the man
+emerged again.  He seemed to be in a greater hurry than ever as he
+locked the garden door behind him and hobbled along the west front
+of the House till he was lost to sight.  After that the time
+passed slowly.  A pair of yellow wagtails arrived and played at
+hide-and-seek among the stuccoed pillars.  The little dry scratch of
+their claws was heard clearly in the still air.  Dickson had almost
+fallen asleep when a smothered exclamation from Heritage woke him to
+attention.  A girl had appeared in the verandah.
+
+Above the parapet he saw only her body from the waist up.
+She seemed to be clad in bright colours, for something red was
+round her shoulders and her hair was bound with an orange scarf.
+She was tall--that he could tell, tall and slim and very young.
+Her face was turned seaward, and she stood for a little scanning the
+broad channel, shading her eyes as if to search for something on the
+extreme horizon.  The air was very quiet and he thought that he
+could hear her sigh.  Then she turned and re-entered the House,
+while Heritage by his side began to curse under his breathe with a
+shocking fervour.
+
+
+One of Dickson's troubles had been that he did not believe Dougal's
+story, and the sight of the girl removed one doubt.  That bright
+exotic thing did not belong to the Cruives or to Scotland at all,
+and that she should be in the House removed the place from the
+conventional dwelling to which the laws against burglary applied.
+
+There was a rustle among the rhododendrons and the fiery face of
+Dougal appeared.  He lay between the other two, his chin on his
+hands, and grunted out his report.
+
+"After they had their dinner Dobson and Lean yokit a horse and went
+off to Auchenlochan.  I seen them pass the Garple brig, so that's
+two accounted for.  Has Spittal been round here?"
+
+"Half an hour ago," said Heritage, consulting a wrist watch.
+
+"It was him that keepit me waitin' so long.  But he's safe enough
+now, for five minutes syne he was splittin' firewood at the back
+door o' his hoose....I've found a ladder, an auld yin in yon
+lot o' bushes.  It'll help wi' the wall.  There!  I've gotten my
+breath again and we can start."
+
+The ladder was fetched by Heritage and proved to be ancient and
+wanting many rungs, but sufficient in length.  The three stood
+silent for a moment, listening like stags, and then ran across the
+intervening lawn to the foot of the verandah wall. Dougal went up
+first, then Heritage, and lastly Dickson, stiff and giddy from his
+long lie under the bushes.  Below the parapet the verandah floor was
+heaped with old garden litter, rotten matting, dead or derelict
+bulbs, fibre, withies, and strawberry nets.  It was Dougal's
+intention to pull up the ladder and hide it among the rubbish
+against the hour of departure.  But Dickson had barely put his foot
+on the parapet when there was a sound of steps within the House
+approaching the verandah door.
+
+The ladder was left alone.  Dougal's hand brought Dickson summarily
+to the floor, where he was fairly well concealed by a mess of matting.
+Unfortunately his head was in the vicinity of some upturned pot-plants,
+so that a cactus ticked his brow and a spike of aloe supported
+painfully the back of his neck.  Heritage was prone behind two
+old water-butts, and Dougal was in a hamper which had once contained
+seed potatoes.  The house door had panels of opaque glass, so the
+new-comer could not see the doings of the three till it was opened,
+and by that time all were in cover.
+
+The man--it was Spittal--walked rapidly along the verandah and out
+of the garden door.  He was talking to himself again, and Dickson,
+who had a glimpse of his face, thought he looked both evil and furious.
+Then came some anxious moments, for had the man glanced back when he
+was once outside, he must have seen the tell-tale ladder.  But he
+seemed immersed in his own reflections, for he hobbled steadily along
+the house front till he was lost to sight.
+
+"That'll be the end o' them the day," said Dougal, as he helped
+Heritage to pull up the ladder and stow it away.  "We've got the
+place to oursels, now.  Forward, men, forward."  He tried the handle
+of the House door and led the way in.
+
+A narrow paved passage took them into what had once been the garden
+room, where the lady of the house had arranged her flowers, and the
+tennis racquets and croquet mallets had been kept.  It was very dusty,
+and on the cobwebbed walls still hung a few soiled garden overalls.
+A door beyond opened into a huge murky hall, murky, for the windows
+were shuttered, and the only light came through things like port-holes
+far up in the wall.  Dougal, who seemed to know his way about,
+halted them.  "Stop here till I scout a bit.  The women bide in a
+wee room through that muckle door."  Bare feet stole across the oak
+flooring, there was the sound of a door swinging on its hinges, and
+then silence and darkness.  Dickson put out a hand for companionship
+and clutched Heritage's; to his surprise it was cold and all a-tremble.
+They listened for voices, and thought they could detect a far-away sob.
+
+It was some minutes before Dougal returned.  "A bonny kettle o'
+fish," he whispered.  "They're both greetin'.  We're just in time.
+Come on, the pair o' ye."
+
+Through a green baize door they entered a passage which led to the
+kitchen regions, and turned in at the first door on their right.
+From its situation Dickson calculated that the room lay on the
+seaward side of the House next to the verandah.  The light was bad,
+for the two windows were partially shuttered, but it had plainly
+been a smoking-room, for there were pipe-racks by the hearth, and on
+the walls a number of old school and college photographs, a couple of
+oars with emblazoned names, and a variety of stags' and roebucks' heads.
+There was no fire in the grate, but a small oil-stove burned inside
+the fender.  In a stiff-backed chair sat an elderly woman, who seemed
+to feel the cold, for she was muffled to the neck in a fur coat.
+Beside her, so that the late afternoon light caught her face and head,
+stood a girl.
+
+Dickson's first impression was of a tall child.  The pose, startled
+and wild and yet curiously stiff and self-conscious, was that of a
+child striving to remember a forgotten lesson.  One hand clutched a
+handkerchief, the other was closing and unclosing on a knob of the
+chair back.  She was staring at Dougal, who stood like a gnome in
+the centre of the floor.  "Here's the gentlemen I was tellin' ye
+about," was his introduction, but her eyes did not move.
+
+Then Heritage stepped forward.  "We have met before, Mademoiselle,"
+he said.  "Do you remember Easter in 1918--in the house in the
+Trinita dei Monte?"
+
+The girl looked at him.
+
+"I do not remember," she said slowly.
+
+"But I was the English officer who had the apartments on the floor
+below you.  I saw you every morning.  You spoke to me sometimes."
+
+"You are a soldier?" she asked, with a new note in her voice.
+
+"I was then--till the war finished."
+
+"And now?  Why have you come here?"
+
+"To offer you help if you need it.  If not, to ask your pardon
+and go away."
+
+The shrouded figure in the chair burst suddenly into rapid
+hysterical talk in some foreign tongue which Dickson suspected
+of being French.  Heritage replied in the same language, and
+the girl joined in with sharp questions.  Then the Poet turned
+to Dickson.
+
+"This is my friend.  If you will trust us we will do our best
+to help you."
+
+The eyes rested on Dickson's face, and he realized that he was in
+the presence of something the like of which he had never met in his
+life before.  It was a loveliness greater than he had imagined was
+permitted by the Almighty to His creatures.  The little face was more
+square than oval, with a low broad brow and proud exquisite eyebrows.
+The eyes were of a colour which he could never decide on; afterwards
+he used to allege obscurely that they were the colour of everything
+in Spring.  There was a delicate pallor in the cheeks, and the face
+bore signs of suffering and care, possibly even of hunger; but for
+all that there was youth there, eternal and triumphant!  Not youth such
+as he had known it, but youth with all history behind it, youth with
+centuries of command in its blood and the world's treasures of beauty
+and pride in its ancestry.  Strange, he thought, that a thing so fine
+should be so masterful.  He felt abashed in every inch of him.
+
+As the eyes rested on him their sorrowfulness seemed to be shot
+with humour.  A ghost of a smile lurked there, to which Dickson
+promptly responded.  He grinned and bowed.
+
+"Very pleased to meet you, Mem.  I'm Mr. McCunn from Glasgow."
+
+"You don't even know my name," she said.
+
+"We don't," said Heritage.
+
+"They call me Saskia.  This," nodding to the chair, "is my cousin
+Eugenie....We are in very great trouble.  But why should I tell you?
+I do not know you.  You cannot help me."
+
+"We can try," said Heritage.  "Part of your trouble we know already
+through that boy.  You are imprisoned in this place by scoundrels.
+We are here to help you to get out.  We want to ask no questions-
+-only to do what you bid us."
+
+"You are not strong enough," she said sadly.  "A young man--an old
+man--and a little boy.  There are many against us, and any moment
+there may be more."
+
+It was Dougal's turn to break in,  "There's Lean and Spittal and
+Dobson and four tinklers in the Dean--that's seven; but there's us
+three and five more Gorbals Die-hards--that's eight."
+
+There was something in the boy's truculent courage that cheered her.
+
+"I wonder," she said, and her eyes fell on each in turn.
+
+Dickson felt impelled to intervene.
+
+"I think this is a perfectly simple business.  Here's a lady shut up
+in this house against her will by a wheen blagyirds.  This is a free
+country and the law doesn't permit that.  My advice is for one of us
+to inform the police at Auchenlochan and get Dobson and his friends
+took up and the lady set free to do what she likes.  That is, if
+these folks are really molesting her, which is not yet quite clear
+to my mind."
+
+"Alas! It is not so simple as that," she said.  "I dare not invoke
+your English law, for perhaps in the eyes of that law I am a thief."
+
+"Deary me, that's a bad business," said the startled Dickson.
+
+The two women talked together in some strange tongue, and the elder
+appeared to be pleading and the younger objecting.  Then Saskia
+seemed to come to a decision.
+
+"I will tell you all," and she looked straight at Heritage.  "I do
+not think you would be cruel or false, for you have honourable faces..
+..Listen, then.  I am a Russian, and for two years have been an exile.
+I will not now speak of my house, for it is no more, or how I escaped,
+for it is the common tale of all of us.  I have seen things more
+terrible than any dream and yet lived, but I have paid a price for
+such experience.  First I went to Italy where there were friends, and
+I wished only to have peace among kindly people.  About poverty I do
+not care, for, to us, who have lost all the great things, the want of
+bread is a little matter.  But peace was forbidden me, for I learned
+that we Russians had to win back our fatherland again, and that the
+weakest must work in that cause.  So I was set my task, and it was
+very hard....There were others still hidden in Russia which must be
+brought to a safe place.  In that work I was ordered to share."
+
+She spoke in almost perfect English, with a certain foreign precision.
+Suddenly she changed to French, and talked rapidly to Heritage.
+
+"She has told me about her family," he said, turning to Dickson.
+"It is among the greatest in Russia, the very greatest after the throne."
+Dickson could only stare.
+
+"Our enemies soon discovered me," she went on.  "Oh, but they are
+very clever, these enemies, and they have all the criminals of the
+world to aid them.  Here you do not understand what they are.
+You good people in England think they are well-meaning dreamers who
+are forced into violence by the persecution of Western Europe.
+But you are wrong.  Some honest fools there are among them, but the
+power--the true power--lies with madmen and degenerates, and they
+have for allies the special devil that dwells in each country.
+That is why they cast their nets as wide as mankind."
+
+She shivered, and for a second her face wore a look which Dickson
+never forgot, the look of one who has looked over the edge of life
+into the outer dark.
+
+"There were certain jewels of great price which were about to be
+turned into guns and armies for our enemies.  These our people
+recovered, and the charge of them was laid on me.  Who would
+suspect, they said, a foolish girl?  But our enemies were very
+clever, and soon the hunt was cried against me.  They tried to rob
+me of them, but they failed, for I too had become clever.  Then they
+asked for the help of the law--first in Italy and then in France.
+Ah, it was subtly done.  Respectable bourgeois, who hated the
+Bolsheviki but had bought long ago the bonds of my country, desired
+to be repaid their debts out of the property of the Russian crown
+which might be found in the West.  But behind them were the Jews,
+and behind the Jews our unsleeping enemies.  Once I was enmeshed in
+the law I would be safe for them, and presently they would find the
+hiding-place of the treasure, and while the bourgeois were clamouring
+in the courts it would be safe in their pockets.  So I fled.
+For months I have been fleeing and hiding.  They have tried to kidnap
+me many times, and once they have tried to kill me, but I, too, have
+become clever--oh, so clever.  And I have learned not to fear."
+
+This simple recital affected Dickson's honest soul with the
+liveliest indignation.  "Sich doings!" he exclaimed, and he could
+not forbear from whispering to Heritage an extract from that
+gentleman's conversation the first night at Kirkmichael.
+"We needn't imitate all their methods, but they've got hold of the
+right end of the stick.  They seek truth and reality."  The reply
+from the Poet was an angry shrug.
+
+"Why and how did you come here?" he asked.
+
+"I always meant to come to England, for I thought it the sanest
+place in a mad world.  Also it is a good country to hide in, for it
+is apart from Europe, and your police, as I thought, do not permit
+evil men to be their own law.  But especially I had a friend, a
+Scottish gentleman, whom I knew in the days when we Russians were
+still a nation.  I saw him again in Italy, and since he was kind and
+brave I told him some part of my troubles.  He was called Quentin
+Kennedy, and now he is dead.  He told me that in Scotland he had a
+lonely chateau, where I could hide secretly and safely, and against
+the day when I might be hard-pressed he gave me a letter to his
+steward, bidding him welcome me as a guest when I made application.
+At that time I did not think I would need such sanctuary, but a
+month ago the need became urgent, for the hunt in France was very
+close on me.  So I sent a message to the steward as Captain Kennedy
+told me."
+
+"What is his name?" Heritage asked.
+
+She spelt it, "Monsieur Loudon--L-O-U-D-O-N in the town of Auchenlochan."
+
+"The factor," said Dickson, "And what then?"
+
+"Some spy must have found me out.  I had a letter from this Loudon
+bidding me come to Auchenlochan.  There I found no steward to
+receive me, but another letter saying that that night a carriage
+would be in waiting to bring me here.  It was midnight when we
+arrived, and we were brought in by strange ways to this house, with
+no light but a single candle.  Here we were welcomed indeed, but
+by an enemy."
+
+"Which?" asked Heritage. "Dobson or Lean or Spittal?"
+
+"Dobson I do not know.  Leon was there.  He is no Russian, but
+a Belgian who was a valet in my father's service till he joined
+the Bolsheviki.  Next day the Lett Spidel came, and I knew that I
+was in very truth entrapped.  For of all our enemies he is, save
+one, the most subtle and unwearied."
+
+Her voice had trailed off into flat weariness.  Again Dickson was
+reminded of a child, for her arms hung limp by her side; and her
+slim figure in its odd clothes was curiously like that of a boy in a
+school blazer.  Another resemblance perplexed him.  She had a hint
+of Janet--about the mouth--Janet, that solemn little girl those
+twenty years in her grave.
+
+Heritage was wrinkling his brows.  "I don't think I quite understand.
+The jewels?  You have them with you?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"These men wanted to rob you.  Why didn't they do it between here
+and Auchenlochan?  You had no chance to hide them on the journey.
+Why did they let you come here where you were in a better position
+to baffle them?"
+
+She shook her head.  "I cannot explain--except, perhaps, that
+Spidel had not arrived that night, and Leon may have been
+waiting instructions."
+
+The other still looked dissatisfied.  "They are either clumsier
+villains than I take them to be, or there is something deeper in the
+business than we understand.  These jewels--are they here?"
+
+His tone was so sharp that she looked startled--almost suspicious.
+Then she saw that in his face which reassured her.  "I have them
+hidden here.  I have grown very skilful in hiding things."
+
+"Have they searched for them?"
+
+"The first day they demanded them of me.  I denied all knowledge.
+Then they ransacked this house--I think they ransack it daily, but I
+am too clever for them.  I am not allowed to go beyond the verandah,
+and when at first I disobeyed there was always one of them in wait to
+force me back with a pistol behind my head.  Every morning Leon
+brings us food for the day--good food, but not enough, so that
+Cousin Eugenie is always hungry, and each day he and Spidel question
+and threaten me.  This afternoon Spidel has told me that their
+patience is at an end.  He has given me till tomorrow at noon to
+produce the jewels.  If not, he says I will die."
+
+"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed.
+
+"There will be no mercy for us," she said solemnly.  "He and his
+kind think as little of shedding blood as of spilling water.  But I
+do not think he will kill me.  I think I will kill him first,
+but after that I shall surely die.  As for Cousin Eugenie,
+I do not know."
+
+Her level matter-of-fact tone seemed to Dickson most shocking, for
+he could not treat it as mere melodrama.  It carried a horrid
+conviction.  "We must get you out of this at once," he declared.
+
+"I cannot leave.  I will tell you why.  When I came to this country
+I appointed one to meet me here.  He is a kinsman who knows England
+well, for he fought in your army.  With him by my side I have no fear.
+It is altogether needful that I wait for him."
+
+"Then there is something more which you haven't told us?"
+Heritage asked.
+
+Was there the faintest shadow of a blush on her cheek?  "There is
+something more," she said.
+
+She spoke to Heritage in French, and Dickson caught the name
+"Alexis" and a word which sounded like "prance."  The Poet listened
+eagerly and nodded.  "I have heard of him," he said.
+
+"But have you not seen him?  A tall man with a yellow beard,
+who bears himself proudly.  Being of my mother's race he has
+eyes like mine."
+
+"That's the man she was askin' me about yesterday," said Dougal,
+who had squatted on the floor.
+
+Heritage shook his head.  "We only came here last night.  When did
+you expect Prince--your friend."
+
+"I hoped to find him here before me.  Oh, it is his not coming that
+terrifies me.  I must wait and hope.  But if he does not come in
+time another may come before him."
+
+"The ones already here are not all the enemies that threaten you?"
+
+"Indeed, no.  The worst has still to come, and till I know he is
+here I do not greatly fear Spidel or Leon.  They receive orders and
+do not give them."
+
+Heritage ran a perplexed hand through his hair.  The sunset which
+had been flaming for some time in the unshuttered panes was now
+passing into the dark.  The girl lit a lamp after first shuttering
+the rest of the windows.  As she turned up the wick the odd dusty
+room and its strange company were revealed more clearly, and Dickson
+saw with a shock how haggard was the beautiful face.  A great pity
+seized him and almost conquered his timidity.
+
+"It is very difficult to help you," Heritage was saying.  "You won't
+leave this place, and you won't claim the protection of the law.
+You are very independent, Mademoiselle, but it can't go on for ever.
+The man you fear may arrive at any moment.  At any moment, too, your
+treasure may by discovered."
+
+"It is that that weighs on me," she cried.  "The jewels!  They are
+my solemn trust, but they burden me terribly.  If I were only rid
+of them and knew them to be safe I should face the rest with a
+braver mind."
+
+"If you'll take my advice," said Dickson slowly, "you'll get them
+deposited in a bank and take a receipt for them.  A Scotch bank
+is no' in a hurry to surrender a deposit without it gets the
+proper authority."
+
+Heritage brought his hands together with a smack.  "That's an idea.
+Will you trust us to take these things and deposit them safely?"
+
+For a little she was silent and her eyes were fixed on each of the
+trio in turn.  "I will trust you," she said at last.  "I think you
+will not betray me."
+
+"By God, we won't!" said the Poet fervently.  "Dogson, it's up to you.
+You march off to Glasgow in double quick time and place the stuff in
+your own name in your own bank.  There's not a moment to lose.
+D'you hear?"
+
+"I will that." To his own surprise Dickson spoke without hesitation.
+Partly it was because of his merchant's sense of property, which
+made him hate the thought that miscreants should acquire that to
+which they had no title; but mainly it was the appeal in those
+haggard childish eyes.  "But I'm not going to be tramping the
+country in the night carrying a fortune and seeking for trains that
+aren't there.  I'll go the first thing in the morning."
+
+"Where are they?" Heritage asked.
+
+"That I do not tell.  But I will fetch them."
+
+She left the room, and presently returned with three odd little
+parcels wrapped in leather and tied with thongs of raw hide.
+She gave them to Heritage, who held them appraisingly in his hand
+and then passed them on to Dickson.
+
+"I do not ask about their contents.  We take them from you as they
+are, and, please God, when the moment comes they will be returned to
+you as you gave them.  You trust us, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"I trust you, for you are a soldier.  Oh, and I thank you from my
+heart, my friends."  She held out a hand to each, which caused
+Heritage to grow suddenly very red.
+
+"I will remain in the neighbourhood to await developments," he said.
+"We had better leave you now.  Dougal, lead on."
+
+Before going, he took the girl's hand again, and with a sudden
+movement bent and kissed it.  Dickson shook it heartily.  "Cheer up,
+Mem," he observed.  "There's a better time coming."  His last
+recollection of her eyes was of a soft mistiness not far from tears.
+His pouch and pipe had strange company jostling them in his pocket
+as he followed the others down the ladder into the night.
+
+Dougal insisted that they must return by the road of the morning.
+"We daren't go by the Laver, for that would bring us by the
+public-house.  If the worst comes to the worst, and we fall in wi'
+any of the deevils, they must think ye've changed your mind and come
+back from Auchenlochan."
+
+The night smelt fresh and moist as if a break in the weather
+were imminent.  As they scrambled along the Garple Dean a pinprick
+of light below showed where the tinklers were busy by their fire.
+Dickson's spirits suffered a sharp fall and he began to marvel at
+his temerity.  What in Heaven's name had he undertaken?  To carry
+very precious things, to which certainly he had no right, through
+the enemy to distant Glasgow.  How could he escape the notice of
+the watchers?  He was already suspect, and the sight of him back
+again in Dalquharter would double that suspicion.  He must brazen
+it out, but he distrusted his powers with such tell-tale stuff
+in his pockets.  They might murder him anywhere on the moor road
+or in an empty railway carriage.  An unpleasant memory of various
+novels he had read in which such things happened haunted his mind....
+There was just one consolation.  This job over, he would be quit
+of the whole business.  And honourably quit, too, for he would have
+played a manly part in a most unpleasant affair.  He could retire to
+the idyllic with the knowledge that he had not been wanting when
+Romance called.  Not a soul should ever hear of it, but he saw
+himself in the future tramping green roads or sitting by his winter
+fireside pleasantly retelling himself the tale.
+
+Before they came to the Garple bridge Dougal insisted that they
+should separate, remarking that "it would never do if we were seen
+thegither."  Heritage was despatched by a short cut over fields to
+the left, which eventually, after one or two plunges into ditches,
+landed him safely in Mrs. Morran's back yard.  Dickson and Dougal
+crossed the bridge and tramped Dalquharter-wards by the highway.
+There was no sign of human life in that quiet place with owls
+hooting and rabbits rustling in the undergrowth.  Beyond the woods
+they came in sight of the light in the back kitchen, and both seemed
+to relax their watchfulness when it was most needed.  Dougal sniffed
+the air and looked seaward.
+
+"It's coming on to rain," he observed.  "There should be a muckle
+star there, and when you can't see it it means wet weather wi'
+this wind."
+
+"What star?" Dickson asked.
+
+"The one wi' the Irish-lukkin' name.  What's that they call it?
+O'Brien?"  And he pointed to where the constellation of the hunter
+should have been declining on the western horizon.
+
+There was a bend of the road behind them, and suddenly round it came
+a dogcart driven rapidly.  Dougal slipped like a weasel into a bush,
+and presently Dickson stood revealed in the glare of a lamp.
+The horse was pulled up sharply and the driver called out to him.
+He saw that it was Dobson the innkeeper with Leon beside him.
+
+"Who is it?" cried the voice.  "Oh, you! I thought ye were off the day?"
+
+Dickson rose nobly to the occasion.
+
+"I thought myself I was.  But I didn't think much of Auchenlochan,
+and I took a fancy to come back and spend the last night of my
+holiday with my Auntie.  I'm off to Glasgow first thing the morn's morn."
+
+"So!" said the voice.  "Queer thing I never saw ye on the
+Auchenlochan road, where ye can see three mile before ye."
+
+"I left early and took it easy along the shore."
+
+"Did ye so?  Well, good-sight to ye."
+
+Five minutes later Dickson walked into Mrs. Morran's kitchen,
+where Heritage was busy making up for a day of short provender.
+
+"I'm for Glasgow to-morrow, Auntie Phemie," he cried.  "I want you
+to loan me a wee trunk with a key, and steek the door and windows,
+for I've a lot to tell you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+HOW MR. McCUNN DEPARTED WITH RELIEF AND RETURNED WITH RESOLUTION
+
+
+At seven o'clock on the following morning the post-cart, summoned by
+an early message from Mrs. Morran, appeared outside the cottage.
+In it sat the ancient postman, whose real home was Auchenlochan,
+but who slept alternate nights in Dalquharter, and beside him Dobson
+the innkeeper.  Dickson and his hostess stood at the garden-gate,
+the former with his pack on his back, and at his feet a small stout
+wooden box, of the kind in which cheeses are transported, garnished
+with an immense padlock.  Heritage for obvious reasons did not appear;
+at the moment he was crouched on the floor of the loft watching the
+departure through a gap in the dimity curtains.
+
+The traveller, after making sure that Dobson was looking, furtively
+slipped the key of the trunk into his knapsack.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Auntie Phemie," he said.  "I'm sure you've been
+awful kind to me, and I don't know how to thank you for all
+you're sending."
+
+"Tuts, Dickson, my man, they're hungry folk about Glesca that'll be
+glad o' my scones and jeelie.  Tell Mirren I'm rale pleased wi' her
+man, and haste ye back soon."
+
+The trunk was deposited on the floor of the cart, and Dickson
+clambered into the back seat.  He was thankful that he had not to sit
+next to Dobson, for he had tell-tale stuff on his person.  The morning
+was wet, so he wore his waterproof, which concealed his odd tendency to
+stoutness about the middle.
+
+Mrs. Morran played her part well, with all the becoming gravity of an
+affectionate aunt, but as soon as the post-cart turned the bend of
+the road her demeanour changed.  She was torn with convulsions of
+silent laughter.  She retreated to the kitchen, sank into a chair,
+wrapped her face in her apron and rocked.  Heritage, descending,
+found her struggling to regain composure.  "D'ye ken his wife's name?"
+she gasped.  "I ca'ed her Mirren!  And maybe the body's no' mairried!
+Hech sirs!  Hech sirs!"
+
+Meanwhile Dickson was bumping along the moor-road on the back of
+the post-cart.  He had worked out a plan, just as he had been used
+aforetime to devise a deal in foodstuffs.  He had expected one of
+the watchers to turn up, and was rather relieved that it should be
+Dobson, whom he regarded as "the most natural beast" of the three.
+Somehow he did not think that he would be molested before he
+reached the station, since his enemies would still be undecided
+in their minds.  Probably they only wanted to make sure that he had
+really departed to forget all about him.  But if not, he had
+his plan ready.
+
+"Are you travelling to-day?" he asked the innkeeper.
+
+"Just as far as the station to see about some oil-cake I'm expectin'.
+What's in your wee kist?  Ye came here wi' nothing but the bag on
+your back."
+
+"Ay, the kist is no' mine.  It's my auntie's.  She's a kind body,
+and nothing would serve but she must pack a box for me to take back.
+Let me see.  There's a baking of scones; three pots of honey and one
+of rhubarb jam--she was aye famous for her rhubarb jam; a mutton ham,
+which you can't get for love or money in Glasgow; some home-made
+black puddings, and a wee skim-milk cheese.  I doubt I'll have to
+take a cab from the station."
+
+Dobson appeared satisfied, lit a short pipe, and relapsed
+into meditation.  The long uphill road, ever climbing to where far
+off showed the tiny whitewashed buildings which were the railway
+station, seemed interminable this morning.  The aged postman
+addressed strange objurgations to his aged horse and muttered
+reflections to himself, the innkeeper smoked, and Dickson stared back
+into the misty hollow where lay Dalquharter.  The south-west wind had
+brought up a screen of rain clouds and washed all the countryside in
+a soft wet grey.  But the eye could still travel a fair distance, and
+Dickson thought he had a glimpse of a figure on a bicycle leaving the
+village two miles back.  He wondered who it could be.  Not Heritage,
+who had no bicycle.  Perhaps some woman who was conspicuously late for
+the train.  Women were the chief cyclists nowadays in country places.
+
+Then he forgot about the bicycle and twisted his neck to watch the station.
+It was less than a mile off now, and they had no time to spare, for away
+to the south among the hummocks of the bog he saw the smoke of the train
+coming from Auchenlochan.  The postman also saw it and whipped up his
+beast into a clumsy canter.  Dickson, always nervous being late for trains,
+forced his eyes away and regarded again the road behind him.  Suddenly the
+cyclist had become quite plain--a little more than a mile behind--a man,
+and pedalling furiously in spite of the stiff ascent.  It could only be
+one person--Leon.  He must have discovered their visit to the House
+yesterday and be on the way to warn Dobson.  If he reached the station
+before the train, there would be no journey to Glasgow that day for
+one respectable citizen.
+
+Dickson was in a fever of impatience and fright.  He dared not abjure
+the postman to hurry, lest Dobson should turn his head and descry his
+colleague.  But that ancient man had begun to realize the shortness
+of time and was urging the cart along at a fair pace, since they were
+now on the flatter shelf of land which carried the railway.
+
+Dickson kept his eyes fixed on the bicycle and his teeth shut tight
+on his lower lip.  Now it was hidden by the last dip of hill; now it
+emerged into view not a quarter of a mile behind, and its rider gave
+vent to a shrill call.  Luckily the innkeeper did not hear, for at
+that moment with a jolt the cart pulled up at the station door,
+accompanied by the roar of the incoming train.
+
+Dickson whipped down from the back seat and seized the solitary porter.
+"Label the box for Glasgow and into the van with it,  Quick, man,
+and there'll be a shilling for you."  He had been doing some rapid
+thinking these last minutes and had made up his mind.  If Dobson and
+he were alone in a carriage he could not have the box there; that
+must be elsewhere, so that Dobson could not examine it if he were set
+on violence, somewhere in which it could still be a focus of suspicion
+and attract attention from his person,  He took his ticket, and rushed
+on to the platform, to find the porter and the box at the door of
+the guard's van.  Dobson was not there.  With the vigour of a fussy
+traveller he shouted directions to the guard to take good care of
+his luggage, hurled a shilling at the porter, and ran for a carriage.
+At that moment he became aware of Dobson hurrying through the entrance.
+He must have met Leon and heard news from him, for his face was red and
+his ugly brows darkening.
+
+The train was in motion.  "Here, you" Dobson's voice shouted.
+"Stop!  I want a word wi' ye."  Dickson plunged at a third-class
+carriage, for he saw faces behind the misty panes, and above all
+things then he feared an empty compartment.  He clambered on to
+the step, but the handle would not turn, and with a sharp pang of
+fear he felt the innkeeper's grip on his arm.  Then some Samaritan
+from within let down the window, opened the door, and pulled him up.
+He fell on a seat, and a second later Dobson staggered in beside him.
+
+Thank Heaven, the dirty little carriage was nearly full.  There were
+two herds, each with a dog and a long hazel crook, and an elderly
+woman who looked like a ploughman's wife out for a day's marketing.
+And there was one other whom Dickson recognized with peculiar joy--
+the bagman in the provision line of business whom he had met three
+days before at Kilchrist.
+
+The recognition was mutual.  "Mr. McCunn!" the bagman exclaimed.
+"My, but that was running it fine!  I hope you've had a pleasant
+holiday, sir?"
+
+"Very pleasant.  I've been spending two nights with friends
+down hereaways.  I've been very fortunate in the weather, for
+it has broke just when I'm leaving."
+
+Dickson sank back on the hard cushions.  It had been a near thing,
+but so far he had won.  He wished his heart did not beat so
+fast, and he hoped he did not betray his disorder in his face.
+Very deliberately he hunted for his pipe and filled it slowly.
+Then he turned to Dobson,  "I didn't know you were travelling the day.
+What about your oil-cake?"
+
+"I've changed my mind," was the gruff answer.
+
+"Was that you I heard crying on me when we were running for the train?"
+
+"Ay.  I thought ye had forgot about your kist."
+
+"No fear," said Dickson.  "I'm no' likely to forget my auntie's scones."
+
+He laughed pleasantly and then turned to the bagman.  Thereafter the
+compartment hummed with the technicalities of the grocery trade.
+He exerted himself to draw out his companion, to have him refer to
+the great firm of D. McCunn, so that the innkeeper might be ashamed
+of his suspicions.  What nonsense to imagine that a noted and wealthy
+Glasgow merchant--the bagman's tone was almost reverential--would
+concern himself with the affairs of a forgotten village and a
+tumble-down house!
+
+Presently the train drew up at Kirkmichael station.  The woman
+descended, and Dobson, after making sure that no one else meant
+to follow her example, also left the carriage.  A porter was shouting:
+"Fast train to Glasgow--Glasgow next stop."  Dickson watched the
+innkeeper shoulder his way through the crowd in the direction of the
+booking office.  "He's off to send a telegram," he decided.
+"There'll be trouble waiting for me at the other end."
+
+When the train moved on he found himself disinclined for further talk.
+He had suddenly become meditative, and curled up in a corner with his
+head hard against the window pane, watching the wet fields and
+glistening roads as they slipped past.  He had his plans made for his
+conduct at Glasgow, but, Lord! how he loathed the whole business!
+Last night he had had a kind of gusto in his desire to circumvent
+villainy; at Dalquharter station he had enjoyed a momentary sense
+of triumph; now he felt very small, lonely, and forlorn.  Only one
+thought far at the back of his mind cropped up now and then to give
+him comfort.  He was entering on the last lap.  Once get this
+detestable errand done and he would be a free man, free to go back
+to the kindly humdrum life from which he should never have strayed.
+Never again, he vowed, never again.  Rather would he spend the rest
+of his days in hydropathics than come within the pale of such
+horrible adventures.  Romance, forsooth!  This was not the mild goddess
+he had sought, but an awful harpy who battened on the souls of men.
+
+He had some bad minutes as the train passed through the suburbs and
+along the grimy embankment by which the southern lines enter the city.
+But as it rumbled over the river bridge and slowed down before the
+terminus his vitality suddenly revived.  He was a business man,
+and there was now something for him to do.
+
+After a rapid farewell to the bagman, he found a porter and hustled
+his box out of the van in the direction of the left-luggage office.
+Spies, summoned by Dobson's telegram, were, he was convinced, watching
+his every movement, and he meant to see that they missed nothing.
+He received his ticket for the box, and slowly and ostentatiously
+stowed it away in his pack.  Swinging the said pack on his arm, he
+sauntered through the entrance hall to the row of waiting taxi-cabs,
+and selected the oldest and most doddering driver.  He deposited
+the pack inside on the seat, and then stood still as if struck
+with a sudden thought.
+
+"I breakfasted terrible early," he told the driver.  "I think I'll
+have a bite to eat.  Will you wait?"
+
+"Ay," said the man, who was reading a grubby sheet of newspaper.
+"I'll wait as long as ye like, for it's you that pays."
+
+Dickson left his pack in the cab and, oddly enough for a careful man,
+he did not shut the door.  He re-entered the station, strolled to the
+bookstall, and bought a Glasgow Herald.  His steps then tended to the
+refreshment-room, where he ordered a cup of coffee and two Bath buns,
+and seated himself at a small table.  There he was soon immersed
+in the financial news, and though he sipped his coffee he left
+the buns untasted.  He took out a penknife and cut various extracts
+from the Herald, bestowing them carefully in his pocket.  An observer
+would have seen an elderly gentleman absorbed in market quotations.
+
+After a quarter of an hour had been spent in this performance
+he happened to glance at the clock and rose with an exclamation.
+He bustled out to his taxi and found the driver still intent
+upon his reading.  "Here I am at last," he said cheerily, and had
+a foot on the step, when he stopped suddenly with a cry.  It was
+a cry of alarm, but also of satisfaction.
+
+"What's become of my pack?  I left it on the seat, and now it's gone!
+There's been a thief here."
+
+The driver, roused from his lethargy, protested in the name of
+his gods that no one had been near it.  "Ye took it into the station
+wi' ye," he urged.
+
+"I did nothing of the kind.  Just you wait here till I see
+the inspector.  A bonny watch YOU keep on a gentleman's things."
+
+But Dickson did not interview the railway authorities.  Instead he
+hurried to the left-luggage office.  "I deposited a small box here a
+short time ago.  I mind the number.  Is it here still?"
+
+The attendant glanced at the shelf.  "A wee deal box with iron bands.
+It was took out ten minutes syne.  A man brought the ticket and took
+it away on his shoulder."
+
+"Thank you.  There's been a mistake, but the blame's mine.  My man
+mistook my orders."
+
+Then he returned to the now nervous taxi-driver.  "I've taken it
+up with the station-master and he's putting the police on.
+You'll likely be wanted, so I gave him your number.  It's a fair
+disgrace that there should be so many thieves about this station.
+It's not the first time I've lost things.  Drive me to West George
+Street and look sharp."  And he slammed the door with the violence
+of an angry man.
+
+But his reflections were not violent, for he smiled to himself.
+"That was pretty neat.  They'll take some time to get the kist open,
+for I dropped the key out of the train after we left Kirkmichael.
+That gives me a fair start.  If I hadn't thought of that, they'd have
+found some way to grip me and ripe me long before I got to the Bank."
+He shuddered as he thought of the dangers he had escaped.  "As it is,
+they're off the track for half an hour at least, while they're
+rummaging among Auntie Phemie's scones."  At the thought he laughed
+heartily, and when he brought the taxi-cab to a standstill by rapping
+on the front window, he left it with a temper apparently restored.
+Obviously he had no grudge against the driver, who to his immense
+surprise was rewarded with ten shillings.
+
+Three minutes later Mr. McCunn might have been seen entering the
+head office of the Strathclyde Bank and inquiring for the manager.
+There was no hesitation about him now, for his foot was on his
+native heath.  The chief cashier received him with deference in
+spite of his unorthodox garb, for he was not the least honoured of
+the bank's customers.  As it chanced he had been talking about him
+that very morning to a gentleman from London.  "The strength of this
+city," he had said, tapping his eyeglasses on his knuckles, "does not
+lie in its dozen very rich men, but in the hundred or two homely folk
+who make no parade of wealth.  Men like Dickson McCunn, for example,
+who live all their life in a semi-detached villa and die worth half
+a million."  And the Londoner had cordially assented.
+
+So Dickson was ushered promptly into an inner room, and was warmly
+greeted by Mr. Mackintosh, the patron of the Gorbals Die-Hards.
+
+"I must thank you for your generous donation, McCunn.  Those boys will
+get a little fresh air and quiet after the smoke and din of Glasgow.
+A little country peace to smooth out the creases in their poor
+little souls."
+
+"Maybe," said Dickson, with a vivid recollection of Dougal as he
+had last seen him.  Somehow he did not think that peace was likely
+to be the portion of that devoted band.  "But I've not come here to
+speak about that."
+
+He took off his waterproof; then his coat and waistcoat; and showed
+himself a strange figure with sundry bulges about the middle.
+The manager's eyes grew very round.  Presently these excrescences
+were revealed as linen bags sewn on to his shirt, and fitting into
+the hollow between ribs and hip.  With some difficulty he slit the
+bags and extracted three hide-bound packages.
+
+"See here, Mackintosh," he said solemnly.  "I hand you over these
+parcels, and you're to put them in the innermost corner of your
+strong room.  You needn't open them.  Just put them away as they are,
+and write me a receipt for them.  Write it now."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh obediently took pen in hand.
+
+"What'll I call them?" he asked.
+
+"Just the three leather parcels handed to you by Dickson McCunn,
+Esq., naming the date."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh wrote.  He signed his name with his usual flourish
+and handed the slip to his client.
+
+"Now," said Dickson, "you'll put that receipt in the strong box
+where you keep my securities and you'll give it up to nobody but
+me in person and you'll surrender the parcels only on presentation
+of the receipt.  D'you understand?"
+
+"Perfectly.  May I ask any questions?"
+
+"You'd better not if you don't want to hear lees.'
+
+"What's in the packages?"  Mr. Mackintosh weighed them in his hand.
+
+"That's asking," said Dickson.  "But I'll tell ye this much.  It's jools."
+
+"Your own?"
+
+"No, but I'm their trustee."
+
+"Valuable?"
+
+"I was hearing they were worth more than a million pounds."
+
+"God bless my soul," said the startled manager.  "I don't like this
+kind of business, McCunn."
+
+"No more do I.  But you'll do it to oblige an old friend and a
+good customer.  If you don't know much about the packages you
+know all about me.  Now, mind, I trust you."
+
+Mr. Mackintosh forced himself to a joke.  "Did you maybe steal them?"
+
+Dickson grinned.  "Just what I did.  And that being so, I want you
+to let me out by the back door."
+
+When he found himself in the street he felt the huge relief of
+a boy who had emerged with credit from the dentist's chair.
+Remembering that here would be no midday dinner for him at home,
+his first step was to feed heavily at a restaurant.  He had, so far
+as he could see, surmounted all his troubles, his one regret being
+that he had lost his pack, which contained among other things his
+Izaak Walton and his safety razor.  He bought another razor and a new
+Walton, and mounted an electric tram car en route for home.
+
+Very contented with himself he felt as the car swung across the
+Clyde bridge.  He had done well--but of that he did not want to think,
+for the whole beastly thing was over.  He was going to bury that memory,
+to be resurrected perhaps on a later day when the unpleasantness had
+been forgotten.  Heritage had his address, and knew where to come when
+it was time to claim the jewels.  As for the watchers, they must have
+ceased to suspect him, when they discovered the innocent contents of
+his knapsack and Mrs. Morran's box.  Home for him, and a luxurious tea
+by his own fireside; and then an evening with his books, for Heritage's
+nonsense had stimulated his literary fervour.  He would dip into his
+old favourites again to confirm his faith.  To-morrow he would go
+for a jaunt somewhere--perhaps down the Clyde, or to the South of
+England, which he had heard was a pleasant, thickly peopled country.
+No more lonely inns and deserted villages for him; henceforth he
+would make certain of comfort and peace.
+
+The rain had stopped, and, as the car moved down the dreary vista of
+Eglinton street, the sky opened into fields of blue and the April sun
+silvered the puddles.  It was in such place and under such weather
+that Dickson suffered an overwhelming experience.
+
+It is beyond my skill, being all unlearned in the game of psycho-analysis,
+to explain how this thing happened.  I concern myself only with facts.
+Suddenly the pretty veil of self-satisfaction was rent from top to bottom,
+and Dickson saw a figure of himself within, a smug leaden little figure
+which simpered and preened itself and was hollow as a rotten nut.
+And he hated it.
+
+The horrid truth burst on him that Heritage had been right.
+He only played with life.  That imbecile image was a mere spectator,
+content to applaud, but shrinking from the contact of reality.
+It had been all right as a provision merchant, but when it
+fancied itself capable of higher things it had deceived itself.
+Foolish little image with its brave dreams and its swelling words
+from Browning!  All make-believe of the feeblest.  He was a coward,
+running away at the first threat of danger.  It was as if he were
+watching a tall stranger with a wand pointing to the embarrassed
+phantom that was himself, and ruthlessly exposing its frailties!
+And yet the pitiless showman was himself too--himself as he wanted to be,
+cheerful, brave, resourceful, indomitable.
+
+Dickson suffered a spasm of mortal agony.  "Oh, I'm surely not so bad
+as all that," he groaned.  But the hurt was not only in his pride.
+He saw himself being forced to new decisions, and each alternative
+was of the blackest.  He fairly shivered with the horror of it.
+The car slipped past a suburban station from which passengers were
+emerging--comfortable black-coated men such as he had once been.
+He was bitterly angry with Providence for picking him out of the
+great crowd of sedentary folk for this sore ordeal.  "Why was I
+tethered to sich a conscience?" was his moan.  But there was that
+stern inquisitor with his pointer exploring his soul.  "You flatter
+yourself you have done your share," he was saying.  "You will make
+pretty stories about it to yourself, and some day you may tell your
+friends, modestly disclaiming any special credit.  But you will be
+a liar, for you know you are afraid.  You are running away when the
+work is scarcely begun, and leaving it to a few boys and a poet whom
+you had the impudence the other day to despise.  I think you are
+worse than a coward.  I think you are a cad."
+
+His fellow-passengers on the top of the car saw an absorbed middle-aged
+gentleman who seemed to have something the matter with his bronchial tubes.
+They could not guess at the tortured soul.  The decision was coming nearer,
+the alternatives loomed up dark and inevitable.  On one side was submission
+to ignominy, on the other a return to that place which he detested, and yet
+loathed himself for detesting.  "It seems I'm not likely to have much peace
+either way," he reflected dismally.
+
+How the conflict would have ended had it continued on these lines
+I cannot say.  The soul of Mr. McCunn was being assailed by moral and
+metaphysical adversaries with which he had not been trained to deal.
+But suddenly it leapt from negatives to positives.  He saw the face
+of the girl in the shuttered House, so fair and young and yet so haggard.
+It seemed to be appealing to him to rescue it from a great loneliness
+and fear.  Yes, he had been right, it had a strange look of his Janet--
+the wide-open eyes, the solemn mouth.  What was to become of that child
+if he failed her in her need?
+
+Now Dickson was a practical man, and this view of the case brought him
+into a world which he understood.  "It's fair ridiculous," he reflected.
+"Nobody there to take a grip of things.  Just a wheen Gorbals keelies
+and the lad Heritage.  Not a business man among the lot."
+
+The alternatives, which hove before him like two great banks of
+cloud, were altering their appearance.  One was becoming faint and
+tenuous; the other, solid as ever, was just a shade less black.
+He lifted his eyes and saw in the near distance the corner of the
+road which led to his home.  "I must decide before I reach that corner,"
+he told himself.
+
+Then his mind became apathetic.  He began to whistle dismally through
+his teeth, watching the corner as it came nearer.  The car stopped
+with a jerk.  "I'll go back," he said aloud, clambering down the steps.
+The truth was he had decided five minutes before when he first saw
+Janet's face.
+
+He walked briskly to his house, entirely refusing to waste any more
+energy on reflection.  "This is a business proposition," he told
+himself, "and I'm going to handle it as sich."  Tibby was surprised
+to see him and offered him tea in vain.  "I'm just back for
+a few minutes.  Let's see the letters."
+
+There was one from his wife.  She proposed to stay another week at
+the Neuk Hydropathic and suggested that he might join her and bring
+her home.  He sat down and wrote a long affectionate reply,
+declining, but expressing his delight that she was soon returning.
+"That's very likely the last time Mamma will hear from me,"
+he reflected, but--oddly enough--without any great fluttering
+of the heart.
+
+Then he proceeded to be furiously busy.  He sent out Tibby to buy
+another knapsack and to order a cab and to cash a considerable cheque.
+In the knapsack he packed a fresh change of clothing and the new
+safety razor, but no books, for he was past the need of them.
+That done, he drove to his solicitors.
+
+"What like a firm are Glendonan and Speirs in Edinburgh?" he asked
+the senior partner.
+
+"Oh, very respectable.  Very respectable indeed.  Regular Edinburgh
+W.S. Lot.  Do a lot of factoring."
+
+"I want you to telephone through to them and inquire about a place
+in Carrick called Huntingtower, near the village of Dalquharter.
+I understand it's to let, and I'm thinking of taking a lease of it."
+
+The senior partner after some delay got through to Edinburgh, and was
+presently engaged in the feverish dialectic which the long-distance
+telephone involves.  "I want to speak to Mr. Glendonan himself....
+Yes, yes, Mr. Caw of Paton and Linklater....Good afternoon....
+Huntingtower.  Yes, in Carrick.  Not to let?  But I understand it's
+been in the market for some months.  You say you've an idea it has
+just been let.  But my client is positive that you're mistaken, unless
+the agreement was made this morning....  You'll inquire?  Ah, I see.
+The actual factoring is done by your local agent, Mr. James Loudon,
+in Auchenlochan.  You think my client had better get into touch with
+him at once.  Just wait a minute, please."
+
+He put his hand over the receiver.  "Usual Edinburgh way of doing
+business," he observed caustically.  "What do you want done?"
+
+"I'll run down and see this Loudon.  Tell Glendonan and Spiers to
+advise him to expect me, for I'll go this very day."
+
+Mr. Caw resumed his conversation.  "My client would like a telegram
+sent at once to Mr. Loudon introducing him.  He's Mr. Dickson McCunn
+of Mearns Street--the great provision merchant, you know.  Oh, yes!
+Good for any rent.  Refer if you like to the Strathclyde Bank,
+but you can take my word for it.  Thank you.  Then that's settled.
+Good-bye."
+
+Dickson's next visit was to a gunmaker who was a fellow-elder with
+him in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk.
+
+"I want a pistol and a lot of cartridges," he announced.  "I'm not
+caring what kind it is, so long as it is a good one and not too big."
+
+"For yourself?" the gunmaker asked.  "You must have a license,
+I doubt, and there's a lot of new regulations."
+
+"I can't wait on a license.  It's for a cousin of mine who's
+off to Mexico at once.  You've got to find some way of obliging
+an old friend, Mr. McNair."
+
+Mr. McNair scratched his head.  "I don't see how I can sell you one.
+But I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll lend you one.  It belongs to my
+nephew, Peter Tait, and has been lying in a drawer ever since he
+came back from the front.  He has no use for it now that he's
+a placed minister."
+
+So Dickson bestowed in the pockets of his water-proof a service
+revolver and fifty cartridges, and bade his cab take him to the shop
+in Mearns Street.  For a moment the sight of the familiar place
+struck a pang to his breast, but he choked down unavailing regrets.
+He ordered a great hamper of foodstuffs--the most delicate kind of
+tinned goods, two perfect hams, tongues, Strassburg pies, chocolate,
+cakes, biscuits, and, as a last thought, half a dozen bottles of
+old liqueur brandy.  It was to be carefully packed, addressed to
+Mrs. Morran, Dalquharter Station, and delivered in time for him to
+take down by the 7.33 train.  Then he drove to the terminus and
+dined with something like a desperate peace in his heart.
+
+On this occasion he took a first-class ticket, for he wanted to be alone.
+As the lights began to be lit in the wayside stations and the clear
+April dusk darkened into night, his thoughts were sombre yet resigned.
+He opened the window and let the sharp air of the Renfrewshire uplands
+fill the carriage.  It was fine weather again after the rain, and a
+bright constellation--perhaps Dougal's friend O'Brien--hung in the
+western sky.  How happy he would have been a week ago had he been
+starting thus for a country holiday!  He could sniff the faint scent
+of moor-burn and ploughed earth which had always been his first reminder
+of Spring.  But he had been pitchforked out of that old happy world and
+could never enter it again.  Alas! for the roadside fire, the cosy inn,
+the Compleat Angler, the Chavender or Chub!
+
+And yet--and yet!  He had done the right thing, though the Lord
+alone knew how it would end.  He began to pluck courage from his
+very melancholy, and hope from his reflections upon the transitoriness
+of life.  He was austerely following Romance as he conceived it, and
+if that capricious lady had taken one dream from him she might yet
+reward him with a better.  Tags of poetry came into his head which
+seemed to favour this philosophy--particularly some lines of
+Browning on which he used to discourse to his Kirk Literary Society.
+Uncommon silly, he considered, these homilies of his must have been,
+mere twitterings of the unfledged.  But now he saw more in the lines,
+a deeper interpretation which he had earned the right to make.
+
+
+"Oh world, where all things change and nought abides,
+Oh life, the long mutation--is it so?
+Is it with life as with the body's change?--
+Where, e'en tho' better follow, good must pass."
+
+
+
+That was as far as he could get, though he cudgelled his memory
+to continue.  Moralizing thus, he became drowsy, and was almost
+asleep when the train drew up at the station of Kirkmichael.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+
+SUNDRY DOINGS IN THE MIRK
+
+
+From Kirkmichael on the train stopped at every station, but
+no passenger seemed to leave or arrive at the little platforms
+white in the moon.  At Dalquharter the case of provisions was safely
+transferred to the porter with instructions to take charge of it till
+it was sent for.  During the next few minutes Dickson's mind began to
+work upon his problem with a certain briskness.  It was all nonsense
+that the law of Scotland could not be summoned to the defence.
+The jewels had been safely got rid of, and who was to dispute
+their possession?  Not Dobson and his crew, who had no sort of title,
+and were out for naked robbery.  The girl had spoken of greater
+dangers from new enemies--kidnapping, perhaps.  Well, that was
+felony, and the police must be brought in.  Probably if all were
+known the three watchers had criminal records, pages long, filed
+at Scotland Yard.  The man to deal with that side of the business
+was Loudon the factor, and to him he was bound in the first place.
+He had made a clear picture in his head of this Loudon--a derelict
+old country writer, formal, pedantic, lazy, anxious only to get an
+unprofitable business off his hands with the least possible trouble,
+never going near the place himself, and ably supported in his lethargy
+by conceited Edinburgh Writers to the Signet.  "Sich notions of
+business!" he murmured.  "I wonder that there's a single county family
+in Scotland no' in the bankruptcy court!"  It was his mission to
+wake up Mr. James Loudon.
+
+Arrived at Auchenlochan he went first to the Salutation Hotel,
+a pretentious place sacred to golfers.  There he engaged a bedroom
+for the night and, having certain scruples, paid for it in advance.
+He also had some sandwiches prepared which he stowed in his pack,
+and filled his flask with whisky.  "I'm going home to Glasgow by the
+first train in the to-morrow," he told the landlady, "and now I've got
+to see a friend.  I'll not be back till late."  He was assured that
+there would be no difficulty about his admittance at any hour,
+and directed how to find Mr. Loudon's dwelling.
+
+It was an old house fronting direct on the street, with a
+fanlight above the door and a neat brass plate bearing the legend
+"Mr. James Loudon, Writer."  A lane ran up one side leading
+apparently to a garden, for the moonlight showed the dusk of trees.
+In front was the main street of Auchenlochan, now deserted save for
+a single roysterer, and opposite stood the ancient town house,
+with arches where the country folk came at the spring and autumn
+hiring fairs.  Dickson rang the antiquated bell, and was presently
+admitted to a dark hall floored with oilcloth, where a single
+gas-jet showed that on one side was the business office and on
+the other the living-rooms.  Mr. Loudon was at supper, he was told,
+and he sent in his card.  Almost at once the door at the end
+on the left side was flung open and a large figure appeared
+flourishing a napkin.  "Come in, sir, come in," it cried.
+"I've just finished a bite of meat.  Very glad to see you.
+Here, Maggie, what d'you mean by keeping the gentleman standing
+in that outer darkness?"
+
+The room into which Dickson was ushered was small and bright,
+with a red paper on the walls, a fire burning, and a big oil lamp
+in the centre of a table.  Clearly Mr. Loudon had no wife, for it
+was a bachelor's den in every line of it.  A cloth was laid on
+a corner of the table, in which stood the remnants of a meal.
+Mr. Loudon seemed to have been about to make a brew of punch,
+for a kettle simmered by the fire, and lemons and sugar flanked
+a pot-bellied whisky decanter of the type that used to be known as
+a "mason's mell."
+
+The sight of the lawyer was a surprise to Dickson and dissipated his
+notions of an aged and lethargic incompetent.  Mr. Loudon was a
+strongly built man who could not be a year over fifty.  He had
+a ruddy face, clean shaven except for a grizzled moustache;
+his grizzled hair was thinning round the temples; but his skin was
+unwrinkled and his eyes had all the vigour of youth.  His tweed suit
+was well cut, and the buff waistcoat with flaps and pockets and
+the plain leather watchguard hinted at the sportsman, as did the
+half-dozen racing prints on the wall.  A pleasant high-coloured
+figure he made; his voice had the frank ring due to much use
+out of doors; and his expression had the singular candour which
+comes from grey eyes with large pupils and a narrow iris.
+
+"Sit down, Mr. McCunn.  Take the arm-chair by the fire.  I've had
+a wire from Glendonan and Speirs about you.  I was just going to
+have a glass of toddy--a grand thing for these uncertain April nights.
+You'll join me?  No?  Well, you'll smoke anyway.  There's cigars at
+your elbow.  Certainly, a pipe if you like.  This is Liberty Hall."
+
+Dickson found some difficulty in the part for which he had cast himself.
+He had expected to condescend upon an elderly inept and give him
+sharp instructions; instead he found himself faced with a jovial,
+virile figure which certainly did not suggest incompetence.  It has
+been mentioned already that he had always great difficulty in looking
+any one in the face, and this difficulty was intensified when he
+found himself confronted with bold and candid eyes.  He felt abashed
+and a little nervous.
+
+"I've come to see you about Huntingtower House," he began.
+
+"I know, so Glendonans informed me.  Well, I'm very glad to hear it.
+The place has been standing empty far too long, and that is worse for
+a new house than an old house.  There's not much money to spend on it
+either, unless we can make sure of a good tenant.  How did you hear
+about it?"
+
+"I was taking a bit holiday and I spent a night at Dalquharter with
+an old auntie of mine.  You must understand I've just retired from
+business, and I'm thinking of finding a country place.  I used to
+have the provision shop in Mearns Street--now the United Supply Stores,
+Limited.  You've maybe heard of it?"
+
+The other bowed and smiled.  "Who hasn't?  The name of Dickson McCunn
+is known far beyond the city of Glasgow."
+
+Dickson was not insensible of the flattery, and he continued with
+more freedom.  "I took a walk and got a glisk of the House, and I liked
+the look of it.  You see, I want a quiet bit a good long way from a town,
+and at the same time a house with all modern conveniences.  I suppose
+Huntingtower has that?"
+
+"When it was built fifteen years ago it was considered a model--six
+bathrooms, its own electric light plant, steam heating, and independent
+boiler for hot water, the whole bag of tricks.  I won't say but what
+some of these contrivances will want looking to, for the place has been
+some time empty, but there can be nothing very far wrong, and I can
+guarantee that the bones of the house are good."
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Dickson.  "I don't mind spending a
+little money myself if the place suits me.  But of that, of course,
+I'm not yet certain, for I've only had a glimpse of the outside.
+I wanted to get into the policies, but a man at the lodge
+wouldn't let me.  They're a mighty uncivil lot down there."
+
+"I'm very sorry to hear that," said Mr. Loudon in a tone of concern.
+
+"Ay, and if I take the place I'll stipulate that you get rid
+of the lodgekeepers."
+
+"There won't be the slightest difficulty about that, for they are
+only weekly tenants.  But I'm vexed to hear they were uncivil.
+I was glad to get any tenant that offered, and they were well
+recommended to me."
+
+"They're foreigners."
+
+"One of them is--a Belgian refugee that Lady Morewood took
+an interest in.  But the other--Spittal, they call him--I thought
+he was Scotch."
+
+"He's not that.  And I don't like the innkeeper either.  I would
+want him shifted."
+
+Dr. Loudon laughed.  "I dare say Dobson is a rough diamond.
+There's worse folk in the world all the same, but I don't think
+he will want to stay.  He only went there to pass the time till
+he heard from his brother in Vancouver.  He's a roving spirit,
+and will be off overseas again."
+
+"That's all right!" said Dickson, who was beginning to have horrid
+suspicions that he might be on a wild-goose chase after all.
+"Well, the next thing is for me to see over the House."
+
+"Certainly.  I'd like to go with you myself.  What day would
+suit you?  Let me see.  This is Friday.  What about this day week?"
+
+"I was thinking of to-morrow.  Since I'm down in these parts I may as
+well get the job done."
+
+Mr. Loudon looked puzzled.  "I quite see that.  But I don't think
+it's possible.  You see, I have to consult the owners and get their
+consent to a lease.  Of course they have the general purpose of
+letting, but--well, they're queer folk the Kennedys," and his
+face wore the half-embarrassed smile of an honest man preparing
+to make confidences.  "When poor Mr. Quentin died, the place went
+to his two sisters in joint ownership.  A very bad arrangement,
+as you can imagine.  It isn't entailed, and I've always been pressing
+them to sell, but so far they won't hear of it.  They both married
+Englishmen, so it will take a day or two to get in touch with them.
+One, Mrs. Stukely, lives in Devonshire.  The other--Miss Katie that
+was--married Sir Frances Morewood, the general, and I hear that she's
+expected back in London next Monday from the Riviera.  I'll wire
+and write first thing to-morrow morning.  But you must give me
+a day or two."
+
+Dickson felt himself waking up.  His doubts about his own sanity
+were dissolving, for, as his mind reasoned, the factor was prepared
+to do anything he asked--but only after a week had gone.  What he was
+concerned with was the next few days.
+
+"All the same I would like to have a look at the place to-morrow,
+even if nothing comes of it."
+
+Mr. Loudon looked seriously perplexed.  "You will think me absurdly
+fussy, Mr. McCunn, but I must really beg of you to give up the idea.
+The Kennedys, as I have said, are--well, not exactly like other
+people, and I have the strictest orders not to let any one visit the
+house without their express leave.  It sounds a ridiculous rule,
+but I assure you it's as much as my job is worth to disregard it."
+
+"D'you mean to say not a soul is allowed inside the House?"
+
+"Not a soul."
+
+"Well, Mr. Loudon, I'm going to tell you a queer thing, which I
+think you ought to know.  When I was taking a walk the other night--
+your Belgian wouldn't let me into the policies, but I went down
+the glen--what's that they call it? the Garple Dean--I got round the
+back where the old ruin stands and I had a good look at the House.
+I tell you there was somebody in it."
+
+"It would be Spittal, who acts as caretaker."
+
+"It was not.  It was a woman.  I saw her on the verandah."
+
+The candid grey eyes were looking straight at Dickson, who managed to
+bring his own shy orbs to meet them.  He thought that he detected a
+shade of hesitation.  Then Mr. Loudon got up from his chair and stood
+on the hearthrug looking down at his visitor.  He laughed, with some
+embarrassment, but ever so pleasantly.
+
+"I really don't know what you will think of me, Mr. McCunn.
+Here are you, coming to do us all a kindness, and lease that
+infernal white elephant, and here have I been steadily hoaxing you
+for the last five minutes.  I humbly ask your pardon.  Set it down to
+the loyalty of an old family lawyer.  Now, I am going to tell you
+the truth and take you into our confidence, for I know we are
+safe with you.  The Kennedys are--always have been--just a wee
+bit queer.  Old inbred stock, you know.  They will produce somebody
+like poor Mr. Quentin, who was as sane as you or me, but as a
+rule in every generation there is one member of the family--
+or more--who is just a little bit---" and he tapped his forehead.
+"Nothing violent, you understand, but just not quite 'wise and
+world-like,' as the old folk say.  Well, there's a certain old lady,
+an aunt of Mr. Quentin and his sisters, who has always been about
+tenpence in the shilling.  Usually she lives at Bournemouth, but one
+of her crazes is a passion for Huntingtower, and the Kennedys have
+always humoured her and had her to stay every spring.  When the House
+was shut up that became impossible, but this year she took such a
+craving to come back, that Lady Morewood asked me to arrange it.
+It had to be kept very quiet, but the poor old thing is perfectly
+harmless, and just sits and knits with her maid and looks out of the
+seaward windows.  Now you see why I can't take you there to-morrow.
+I have to get rid of the old lady, who in any case was travelling
+south early next week.  Do you understand?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Dickson with some fervour.  He had learned exactly
+what he wanted.  The factor was telling him lies.  Now he knew
+where to place Mr. Loudon.
+
+He always looked back upon what followed as a very creditable piece
+of play-acting for a man who had small experience in that line.
+
+"Is the old lady a wee wizened body, with a black cap and something
+like a white cashmere shawl round her shoulders?"
+
+"You describe her exactly," Mr. Loudon replied eagerly.
+
+"That would explain the foreigners."
+
+"Of course.  We couldn't have natives who would make the thing
+the clash of the countryside."
+
+"Of course not.  But it must be a difficult job to keep a business
+like that quiet.  Any wandering policeman might start inquiries.
+And supposing the lady became violent?"
+
+"Oh, there's no fear of that.  Besides, I've a position in this
+country--Deputy Fiscal and so forth--and a friend of the Chief Constable.
+I think I may be trusted to do a little private explaining if
+the need arose."
+
+"I see," said Dickson.  He saw, indeed, a great deal which would
+give him food for furious thought.  "Well, I must possess my soul
+in patience.  Here's my Glasgow address, and I look to you to send me
+a telegram whenever you're ready for me.  I'm at the Salutation to-night,
+and go home to-morrow with the first train.  Wait a minute"--and he
+pulled out his watch--"there's a train stops at Auchenlochan at 10.17.
+I think I'll catch that....Well Mr. Loudon, I'm very much obliged to you,
+and I'm glad to think that it'll no' be long till we renew
+our acquaintance."
+
+The factor accompanied him to the door, diffusing geniality.
+"Very pleased indeed to have met you.  A pleasant journey and
+a quick return."
+
+The street was still empty.  Into a corner of the arches opposite
+the moon was shining, and Dickson retired thither to consult his
+map of the neighbourhood.  He found what he wanted, and, as he
+lifted his eyes, caught sight of a man coming down the causeway.
+Promptly he retired into the shadow and watched the new-comer.
+There could be no mistake about the figure; the bulk, the walk,
+the carriage of the head marked it for Dobson.  The innkeeper went
+slowly past the factor's house; then halted and retraced his steps;
+then, making sure that the street was empty, turned into the side
+lane which led to the garden.
+
+This was what sailors call a cross-bearing, and strengthened
+Dickson's conviction.  He delayed no longer, but hurried down
+the side street by which the north road leaves the town.
+
+He had crossed the bridge of Lochan and was climbing the steep
+ascent which led to the heathy plateau separating that stream
+from the Garple before he had got his mind quite clear on the case.
+FIRST, Loudon was in the plot, whatever it was; responsible for
+the details of the girl's imprisonment, but not the main author.
+That must be the Unknown who was still to come, from whom Spidel took his
+orders.  Dobson was probably Loudon's special henchman, working directly
+under him.  SECONDLY, the immediate object had been the jewels, and they
+were happily safe in the vaults of the incorruptible Mackintosh.
+But, THIRD--and this only on Saskia's evidences--the worst danger to
+her began with the arrival of the Unknown.  What could that be?
+Probably, kidnapping.  He was prepared to believe anything of people
+like Bolsheviks.  And, FOURTH, this danger was due within the next
+day or two.  Loudon had been quite willing to let him into the
+house and to sack all the watchers within a week from that date.
+The natural and right thing was to summon the aid of the law, but,
+FIFTH, that would be a slow business with Loudon able to put spokes
+in the wheels and befog the authorities, and the mischief would be
+done before a single policeman showed his face in Dalquharter.
+Therefore, SIXTH, he and Heritage must hold the fort in the meantime,
+and he would send a wire to his lawyer, Mr. Caw, to get to work
+with the constabulary.  SEVENTH, he himself was probably free from
+suspicion in both Loudon's and Dobson's minds as a harmless fool.
+But that freedom would not survive his reappearance in Dalquharter.
+He could say, to be sure, that he had come back to see his auntie,
+but that would not satisfy the watchers, since, so far as they knew,
+he was the only man outside the gang who was aware that people
+were dwelling in the House.  They would not tolerate his presence
+in the neighbourhood.
+
+He formulated his conclusions as if it were an ordinary business deal,
+and rather to his surprise was not conscious of any fear.  As he pulled
+together the belt of his waterproof he felt the reassuring bulges in
+its pockets which were his pistol and cartridges.  He reflected that
+it must be very difficult to miss with a pistol if you fired it at, say,
+three yards, and if there was to be shooting that would be his range.
+Mr. McCunn had stumbled on the precious truth that the best way to be
+rid of quaking knees is to keep a busy mind.
+
+He crossed the ridge of the plateau and looked down on the Garple glen.
+There were the lights of Dalquharter--or rather a single light, for
+the inhabitants went early to bed.  His intention was to seek quarters
+with Mrs. Morran, when his eye caught a gleam in a hollow of the moor
+a little to the east.  He knew it for the camp-fire around which
+Dougal's warriors bivouacked.  The notion came to him to go there
+instead, and hear the news of the day before entering the cottage.
+So he crossed the bridge, skirted a plantation of firs, and scrambled
+through the broom and heather in what he took to be the right direction.
+
+The moon had gone down, and the quest was not easy.  Dickson had come
+to the conclusion that he was on the wrong road, when he was summoned
+by a voice which seemed to arise out of the ground.
+
+"Who goes there?"
+
+"What's that you say?"
+
+"Who goes there?"  The point of a pole was held firmly against his chest.
+
+"I'm Mr. McCunn, a friend of Dougal's."
+
+"Stand, friend." The shadow before him whistled and another
+shadow appeared.  "Report to the Chief that there's a man here,
+name o' McCunn, seekin' for him."
+
+Presently the messenger returned with Dougal and a cheap lantern
+which he flashed in Dickson's face.
+
+"Oh, it's you," said that leader, who had his jaw bound up as if he
+had the toothache.  "What are ye doing back here?"
+
+"To tell the truth, Dougal," was the answer, "I couldn't stay away.
+I was fair miserable when I thought of Mr. Heritage and you laddies
+left to yourselves.  My conscience simply wouldn't let me stop at home,
+so here I am."
+
+Dougal grunted, but clearly he approved, for from that moment he
+treated Dickson with a new respect.  Formerly when he had referred to
+him at all it had been as "auld McCunn."  Now it was "Mister McCunn."
+He was given rank as a worthy civilian ally.  The bivouac was a
+cheerful place in the wet night.  A great fire of pine roots and old
+paling posts hissed in the fine rain, and around it crouched several
+urchins busy making oatmeal cakes in the embers.  On one side a
+respectable lean-to had been constructed by nailing a plank to two
+fir-trees, running sloping poles thence to the ground, and thatching
+the whole with spruce branches and heather.  On the other side two
+small dilapidated home-made tents were pitched.  Dougal motioned his
+companion into the lean-to, where they had some privacy from the
+rest of the band.
+
+"Well, what's your news?"  Dickson asked.  He noticed that the
+Chieftain seemed to have been comprehensively in the wars, for apart
+from the bandage on his jaw, he had numerous small cuts on his brow,
+and a great rent in one of his shirt sleeves.  Also he appeared
+to be going lame, and when he spoke a new gap was revealed in
+his large teeth.
+
+"Things," said Dougal solemnly, "has come to a bonny cripus.
+This very night we've been in a battle."
+
+He spat fiercely, and the light of war burned in his eyes.
+
+"It was the tinklers from the Garple Dean.  They yokit on us about
+seven o'clock, just at the darkenin'.  First they tried to bounce us.
+We weren't wanted here, they said, so we'd better clear.  I telled
+them that it was them that wasn't wanted.  'Awa' to Finnick,' says I.
+'D'ye think we take our orders from dirty ne'er-do-weels like you?'
+'By God,' says they, 'we'll cut your lights out,' and then the
+battle started."
+
+"What happened?' Dickson asked excitedly.
+
+"They were four muckle men against six laddies, and they thought
+they had an easy job!  Little they kenned the Gorbals Die-Hards!
+I had been expectin' something of the kind, and had made my plans.
+They first tried to pu' down our tents and burn them.  I let them get
+within five yards, reservin' my fire.  The first volley--stones from
+our hands and our catties--halted them, and before they could recover
+three of us had got hold o' burnin' sticks frae the fire and were
+lammin' into them.  We kinnled their claes, and they fell back
+swearin' and stampin' to get the fire out.  Then I gave the word and we
+were on them wi' our pales, usin' the points accordin' to instructions.
+My orders was to keep a good distance, for if they had grippit one o' us
+he'd ha' been done for.  They were roarin' mad by now, and twae had out
+their knives, but they couldn't do muckle, for it was gettin' dark, and
+they didn't ken the ground like us, and were aye trippin' and tumblin'.
+But they pressed us hard, and one o' them landed me an awful clype
+on the jaw.  They were still aiming at our tents, and I saw that
+if they got near the fire again it would be the end o' us.
+So I blew my whistle for Thomas Yownie, who was in command o'
+the other half of us, with instructions to fall upon their rear.
+That brought Thomas up, and the tinklers had to face round about and
+fight a battle on two fronts.  We charged them and they broke, and the
+last seen o' them they were coolin' their burns in the Garple."
+
+"Well done, man.  Had you many casualties?"
+
+"We're a' a wee thing battered, but nothing to hurt.  I'm the worst,
+for one o' them had a grip o' me for about three seconds, and Gosh!
+he was fierce."
+
+"They're beaten off for the night, anyway?"
+
+"Ay, for the night.  But they'll come back, never fear.  That's why
+I said that things had come to a cripus."
+
+"What's the news from the House?"
+
+"A quiet day, and no word o' Lean or Dobson."
+
+Dickson nodded.  "They were hunting me."
+
+"Mr. Heritage has gone to bide in the Hoose.  They were watchin' the
+Garple Dean, so I took him round by the Laver foot and up the rocks.
+He's a souple yin, yon.  We fund a road up the rocks and got
+in by the verandy.  Did ye ken that the lassie had a pistol?
+Well, she has, and it seems that Mr. Heritage is a good shot wi'
+a pistol, so there's some hope thereaways....Are the jools safe?"
+
+"Safe in the bank.  But the jools were not the main thing."
+
+Dougal nodded.  "So I was thinkin'.  The lassie wasn't muckle the
+easier for gettin' rid o' them.  I didn't just quite understand what
+she said to Mr. Heritage, for they were aye wanderin' into foreign
+langwidges, but it seems she's terrible feared o' somebody that may
+turn up any moment.  What's the reason I can't say.  She's maybe got
+a secret, or maybe it's just that she's ower bonny."
+
+"That's the trouble," said Dickson, and proceeded to recount his
+interview with the factor, to which Dougal gave close attention.
+"Now the way I read the thing is this.  There's a plot to kidnap that
+lady for some infernal purpose, and it depends on the arrival of some
+person or persons, and it's due to happen in the next day or two.
+If we try to work it through the police alone, they'll beat us,
+for Loudon will manage to hang the business up until it's too late.
+So we must take on the job ourselves.  We must stand a siege,
+Mr. Heritage and me and you laddies, and for that purpose we'd
+better all keep together.  It won't be extra easy to carry her off
+from all of us, and if they do manage it we'll stick to their
+heels....  Man, Dougal, isn't it a queer thing that whiles law-abiding
+folk have to make their own laws?...  So my plan is that the lot of us
+get into the House and form a garrison.  If you don't, the tinklers
+will come back and you'll no' beat them in the daylight."
+
+"I doubt no'," said Dougal.  "But what about our meat?"
+
+"We must lay in provisions.  We'll get what we can from Mrs. Morran,
+and I've left a big box of fancy things at Dalquharter station.
+Can you laddies manage to get it down here?"
+
+Dougal reflected.  "Ay, we can hire Mrs. Sempill's powny, the same
+that fetched our kit."
+
+"Well, that's your job to-morrow.  See, I'll write you a line to
+the station-master.  And will you undertake to get it some way
+into the House?"
+
+"There's just the one road open--by the rocks.  It'll have to be done.
+It CAN be done."
+
+"And I've another job.  I'm writing this telegram to a friend in Glasgow
+who will put a spoke in Mr. Loudon's wheel.  I want one of you to go to
+Kirkmichael to send it from the telegraph office there."
+
+Dougal placed the wire to Mr. Caw in his bosom.  "What about yourself?
+We want somebody outside to keep his eyes open.  It's bad strawtegy to
+cut off your communications."
+
+Dickson thought for a moment.  "I believe you're right.  I believe
+the best plan for me is to go back to Mrs. Morran's as soon as the
+old body's like to be awake.  You can always get at me there,
+for it's easy to slip into her back kitchen without anybody in
+the village seeing you....Yes, I'll do that, and you'll come and
+report developments to me.  And now I'm for a bite and a pipe.
+It's hungry work travelling the country in the small hours."
+
+"I'm going to introjuice ye to the rest o' us," said Dougal.
+"Here, men!" he called, and four figures rose from the side
+of the fire.  As Dickson munched a sandwich he passed in review
+the whole company of the Gorbals Die-Hards, for the pickets were also
+brought in, two others taking their places.  There was Thomas Yownie,
+the Chief of Staff, with a wrist wound up in the handkerchief which
+he had borrowed from his neck.  There was a burly lad who wore
+trousers much too large for him, and who was known as Peer Pairson,
+a contraction presumably for Peter Paterson.  After him came a lean
+tall boy who answered to the name of Napoleon.  There was a midget of
+a child, desperately sooty in the face either from battle or from
+fire-tending, who was presented as Wee Jaikie.  Last came the picket
+who had held his pole at Dickson's chest, a sandy-haired warrior with
+a snub nose and the mouth and jaw of a pug-dog.  He was Old Bill, or,
+in Dougal's parlance, "Auld Bull."
+
+The Chieftain viewed his scarred following with a grim content.
+"That's a tough lot for ye, Mr. McCunn.  Used a' their days wi'
+sleepin' in coal-rees and dunnies and dodgin' the polis.  Ye'll no
+beat the Gorbals Die-Hards."
+
+"You're right, Dougal," said Dickson.  "There's just the six of you.
+If there were a dozen, I think this country would be needing some
+new kind of a government."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+HOW A MIDDLE-AGED CRUSADER ACCEPTED A CHALLENGE
+
+
+The first cocks had just begun to crow and clocks had not yet
+struck five when Dickson presented himself at Mrs. Morran's back door.
+That active woman had already been half an hour out of bed, and was
+drinking her morning cup of tea in the kitchen.  She received him
+with cordiality, nay, with relief.
+
+"Eh, sir, but I'm glad to see ye back.  Guid kens what's gaun on at
+the Hoose thae days.  Mr. Heritage left here yestreen, creepin' round
+by dyke-sides and berry-busses like a wheasel.  It's a mercy to get
+a responsible man in the place.  I aye had a notion ye wad come back,
+for, thinks I, nevoy Dickson is no the yin to desert folk in trouble....
+Whaur's my wee kist?....Lost, ye say.  That's a peety, for it's
+been my cheesebox thae thirty year."
+
+Dickson ascended to the loft, having announced his need of at least three
+hours' sleep.  As he rolled into bed his mind was curiously at ease.
+He felt equipped for any call that might be made on him.  That Mrs. Morran
+should welcome him back as a resource in need gave him a new assurance
+of manhood.
+
+He woke between nine and ten to the sound of rain lashing against
+the garret window.  As he picked his way out of the mazes of sleep
+and recovered the skein of his immediate past, he found to his disgust
+that he had lost his composure.  All the flock of fears, that had left
+him when on the top of the Glasgow tram-car he had made the great decision,
+had flown back again and settled like black crows on his spirit.
+He was running a horrible risk and all for a whim. What business had
+he to be mixing himself up in things he did not understand?  It might
+be a huge mistake, and then he would be a laughing stock; for a moment
+he repented his telegram to Mr. Caw.  Then he recanted that suspicion;
+there could be no mistake, except the fatal one that he had taken on
+a job too big for him.  He sat on the edge of the bed and shivered
+with his eyes on the grey drift of rain.  He would have felt more
+stout-hearted had the sun been shining.
+
+He shuffled to the window and looked out.  There in the village street
+was Dobson, and Dobson saw him.  That was a bad blunder, for his reason
+told him that he should have kept his presence in Dalquharter hid
+as long as possible.  There was a knock at the cottage door, and
+presently Mrs. Morran appeared.
+
+"It's the man frae the inn," she announced.  "He's wantin' a
+word wi' ye.  Speakin' verra ceevil, too."
+
+"Tell him to come up," said Dickson.  He might as well get
+the interview over.  Dobson had seen Loudon and must know
+of their conversation.  The sight of himself back again when
+he had pretended to be off to Glasgow would remove him effectually
+from the class of the unsuspected.  He wondered just what line
+Dobson would take.
+
+The innkeeper obtruded his bulk through the low door.  His face was
+wrinkled into a smile, which nevertheless left the small eyes ungenial.
+His voice had a loud vulgar cordiality.  Suddenly Dickson was conscious
+of a resemblance, a resemblance to somebody whom he had recently seen.
+It was Loudon.  There was the same thrusting of the chin forward,
+the same odd cheek-bones, the same unctuous heartiness of speech.
+The innkeeper, well washed and polished and dressed, would be no bad
+copy of the factor.  They must be near kin, perhaps brothers.
+
+"Good morning to you, Mr. McCunn.  Man, it's pitifu' weather,
+and just when the farmers are wanting a dry seed-bed.  What brings
+ye back here?  Ye travel the country like a drover."
+
+"Oh, I'm a free man now and I took a fancy to this place.
+An idle body has nothing to do but please himself."
+
+"I hear ye're taking a lease of Huntingtower?"
+
+"Now who told you that?"
+
+"Just the clash of the place.  Is it true?"
+
+Dickson looked sly and a little annoyed.
+
+"I had maybe had half a thought of it, but I'll thank you not to
+repeat the story.  It's a big house for a plain man like me, and
+I haven't properly inspected it."
+
+"Oh, I'll keep mum, never fear.  But if ye've that sort of notion,
+I can understand you not being able to keep away from the place."
+
+"That's maybe the fact," Dickson admitted.
+
+"Well!  It's just on that point I want a word with you."  The innkeeper
+seated himself unbidden on the chair which held Dickson's modest raiment.
+He leaned forward and with a coarse forefinger tapped Dickson's
+pyjama-clad knees.  "I can't have ye wandering about the place.
+I'm very sorry, but I've got my orders from Mr. Loudon.  So if you
+think that by bidin' here you can see more of the House and the
+policies, ye're wrong, Mr. McCunn.  It can't be allowed, for we're no'
+ready for ye yet.  D'ye understand?  That's Mr. Loudon's orders..
+..Now, would it not be a far better plan if ye went back to Glasgow and
+came back in a week's time?  I'm thinking of your own comfort, Mr. McCunn."
+
+Dickson was cogitating hard.  This man was clearly instructed to get
+rid of him at all costs for the next few days.  The neighbourhood had
+to be cleared for some black business.  The tinklers had been deputed
+to drive out the Gorbals Die-Hards, and as for Heritage they seemed
+to have lost track of him.  He, Dickson, was now the chief object
+of their care.  But what could Dobson do if he refused?  He dared
+not show his true hand.  Yet he might, if sufficiently irritated.
+It became Dickson's immediate object to get the innkeeper to reveal
+himself by rousing his temper.  He did not stop to consider the
+policy of this course; he imperatively wanted things cleared up and
+the issue made plain.
+
+"I'm sure I'm much obliged to you for thinking so much about
+my comfort," he said in a voice into which he hoped he had
+insinuated a sneer.  "But I'm bound to say you're awful suspicious
+folk about here.  You needn't be feared for your old policies.
+There's plenty of nice walks about the roads, and I want to
+explore the sea-coast."
+
+The last words seemed to annoy the innkeeper.  "That's no' allowed
+either," he said.  "The shore's as private as the policies..
+..Well, I wish ye joy tramping the roads in the glaur."
+
+"It's a queer thing," said Dickson meditatively, "that you should
+keep a hotel and yet be set on discouraging people from visiting
+this neighbourhood.  I tell you what, I believe that hotel of
+yours is all sham.  You've some other business, you and these
+lodgekeepers, and in my opinion it's not a very creditable one."
+
+"What d'ye mean?" asked Dobson sharply.
+
+"Just what I say.  You must expect a body to be suspicious,
+if you treat him as you're treating me."  Loudon must have told
+this man the story with which he had been fobbed off about the
+half-witted Kennedy relative.  Would Dobson refer to that?
+
+The innkeeper had an ugly look on his face, but he controlled his
+temper with an effort.
+
+"There's no cause for suspicion," he said.  "As far as I'm concerned
+it's all honest and above-board."
+
+"It doesn't look like it.  It looks as if you were hiding something up
+in the House which you don't want me to see."
+
+Dobson jumped from his chair. his face pale with anger.  A man in pyjamas
+on a raw morning does not feel at this bravest, and Dickson quailed
+under the expectation of assault.  But even in his fright he realized
+that Loudon could not have told Dobson the tale of the half-witted lady.
+The last remark had cut clean through all camouflage and reached the quick.
+
+"What the hell d'ye mean?" he cried.  "Ye're a spy, are ye?
+Ye fat little fool, for two cents I'd wring your neck."
+
+Now it is an odd trait of certain mild people that a suspicion of
+threat, a hint of bullying, will rouse some unsuspected obstinacy
+deep down in their souls.  The insolence of the man's speech woke a
+quiet but efficient little devil in Dickson.
+
+"That's a bonny tone to adopt in addressing a gentleman.  If you've
+nothing to hide what way are you so touchy?  I can't be a spy unless
+there's something to spy on."
+
+The innkeeper pulled himself together.  He was apparently acting on
+instructions, and had not yet come to the end of them.  He made an
+attempt at a smile.
+
+"I'm sure I beg your pardon if I spoke too hot.  But it nettled me to
+hear ye say that....I'll be quite frank with ye, Mr. McCunn, and,
+believe me, I'm speaking in your best interests.  I give ye my word
+there's nothing wrong up at the House.  I'm on the side of the law,
+and when I tell ye the whole story ye'll admit it.  But I can't tell
+it ye yet....This is a wild, lonely bit, and very few folk bide in it.
+And these are wild times, when a lot of queer things happen that never
+get into the papers.  I tell ye it's for your own good to leave
+Dalquharter for the present.  More I can't say, but I ask ye to look
+at it as a sensible man.  Ye're one that's accustomed to a quiet life
+and no' meant for rough work.  Ye'll do no good if you stay, and, maybe,
+ye'll land yourself in bad trouble."
+
+"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed.  "What is it you're expecting?
+Sinn Fein?"
+
+The innkeeper nodded.  "Something like that."
+
+"Did you ever hear the like?  I never did think much of the Irish."
+
+"Then ye'll take my advice and go home?  Tell ye what, I'll drive
+ye to the station."
+
+Dickson got up from the bed, found his new safety-razor and began
+to strop it.  "No, I think I'll bide.  If you're right there'll be
+more to see than glaury roads."
+
+"I'm warning ye, fair and honest.  Ye...can't...be...allowed.
+..to...stay...here!"
+
+"Well I never!" said Dickson.  "Is there any law in Scotland,
+think you, that forbids a man to stop a day or two with his auntie?"
+
+"Ye'll stay?"
+
+"Ay, I'll stay."
+
+"By God, we'll see about that."
+
+For a moment Dickson thought that he would be attacked, and he
+measured the distance that separated him from the peg whence hung
+his waterproof with the pistol in its pocket.  But the man restrained
+himself and moved to the door.  There he stood and cursed him with a
+violence and a venom which Dickson had not believed possible.
+The full hand was on the table now.
+
+"Ye wee pot-bellied, pig-heided Glasgow grocer" (I paraphrase), "would
+you set up to defy me?  I tell ye, I'll make ye rue the day ye were born."
+His parting words were a brilliant sketch of the maltreatment in store
+for the body of the defiant one.
+
+"Impident dog," said Dickson without heat.  He noted with pleasure
+that the innkeeper hit his head violently against the low lintel,
+and, missing a step, fell down the loft stairs into the kitchen,
+where Mrs. Morran's tongue could be heard speeding him trenchantly
+from the premises.
+
+Left to himself, Dickson dressed leisurely, and by and by went
+down to the kitchen and watched his hostess making broth.
+The fracas with Dobson had done him all the good in the world,
+for it had cleared the problem of dubieties and had put an edge
+on his temper.  But he realized that it made his continued stay in
+the cottage undesirable.  He was now the focus of all suspicion,
+and the innkeeper would be as good as his word and try to drive him
+out of the place by force.  Kidnapping, most likely, and that would
+be highly unpleasant, besides putting an end to his usefulness.
+Clearly he must join the others.  The soul of Dickson hungered at
+the moment for human companionship.  He felt that his courage would
+be sufficient for any team-work, but might waver again if he were
+left to play a lone hand.
+
+He lunched nobly off three plates of Mrs. Morran's kail--an early lunch,
+for that lady, having breakfasted at five, partook of the midday
+meal about eleven.  Then he explored her library, and settled
+himself by the fire with a volume of Covenanting tales, entitled
+GLEANINGS AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.  It was a most practical work for one
+in his position, for it told how various eminent saints of that era
+escaped the attention of Claverhouse's dragoons.  Dickson stored up
+in his memory several of the incidents in case they should come
+in handy.  He wondered if any of his forbears had been Covenanters;
+it comforted him to think that some old progenitor might have
+hunkered behind turf walls and been chased for his life in the heather.
+"Just like me," he reflected.  "But the dragoons weren't foreigners,
+and there was a kind of decency about Claverhouse too."
+
+About four o'clock Dougal presented himself in the back kitchen.
+He was an even wilder figure than usual, for his bare legs were mud
+to the knees, his kilt and shirt clung sopping to his body, and,
+having lost his hat, his wet hair was plastered over his eyes.
+Mrs. Morran said, not unkindly, that he looked "like a wull-cat
+glowerin' through a whin buss."
+
+"How are you, Dougal?" Dickson asked genially.  "Is the peace of
+nature smoothing out the creases in your poor little soul?"
+
+"What's that ye say?"
+
+"Oh, just what I heard a man say in Glasgow.  How have you got on?"
+
+"No' so bad.  Your telegram was sent this mornin'.  Auld Bill
+took it in to Kirkmichael.  That's the first thing.  Second,
+Thomas Yownie has took a party to get down the box from the station.
+He got Mrs. Sempills' powny, and he took the box ayont the Laver by
+the ford at the herd's hoose and got it on to the shore maybe a
+mile ayont Laverfoot.  He managed to get the machine up as far
+as the water, but he could get no farther, for ye'll no' get a
+machine over the wee waterfa' just before the Laver ends in the sea.
+So he sent one o' the men back with it to Mrs. Sempill, and, since
+the box was ower heavy to carry, he opened it and took the stuff
+across in bits.  It's a' safe in the hole at the foot o' the
+Huntingtower rocks, and he reports that the rain has done it no harm.
+Thomas has made a good job of it.  Ye'll no' fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+"And what about your camp on the moor?"
+
+"It was broke up afore daylight.  Some of our things we've got with us,
+but most is hid near at hand.  The tents are in the auld wife's hen-hoose."
+and he jerked his disreputable head in the direction of the back door.
+
+"Have the tinklers been back?"
+
+"Aye.  They turned up about ten o'clock, no doubt intendin' murder.
+I left Wee Jaikie to watch developments.  They fund him sittin' on a
+stone, greetin' sore.  When he saw them, he up and started to run,
+and they cried on him to stop, but he wouldn't listen.  Then they
+cried out where were the rest, and he telled them they were feared
+for their lives and had run away.  After that they offered to catch
+him, but ye'll no' catch Jaikie in a hurry.  When he had run round
+about them till they were wappit, he out wi' his catty and got one
+o' them on the lug.  Syne he made for the Laverfoot and reported."
+
+"Man, Dougal, you've managed fine.  Now I've something to tell you,"
+and Dickson recounted his interview with the innkeeper.  "I don't think
+it's safe for me to bide here, and if I did, I wouldn't be any use,
+hiding in cellars and such like, and not daring to stir a foot.
+I'm coming with you to the House.  Now tell me how to get there."
+
+Dougal agreed to this view.  "There's been nothing doing at the
+Hoose the day, but they're keepin' a close watch on the policies.
+The cripus may come any moment.  There's no doubt,  Mr. McCunn,
+that ye're in danger, for they'll serve you as the tinklers tried
+to serve us.  Listen to me.  Ye'll walk up the station road,
+and take the second turn on your left, a wee grass road that'll
+bring ye to the ford at the herd's hoose.  Cross the Laver--there's
+a plank bridge--and take straight across the moor in the direction of
+the peakit hill they call Grey Carrick.  Ye'll come to a big burn,
+which ye must follow till ye get to the shore.  Then turn south,
+keepin' the water's edge till ye reach the Laver, where you'll find
+one o' us to show ye the rest of the road....I must be off now,
+and I advise ye not to be slow of startin', for wi' this rain
+the water's risin' quick.  It's a mercy it's such coarse weather,
+for it spoils the veesibility."
+
+"Auntie Phemie," said Dickson a few minutes later, "will you oblige
+me by coming for a short walk?"
+
+"The man's daft," was the answer.
+
+"I'm not.  I'll explain if you'll listen....You see," he concluded,
+"the dangerous bit for me is just the mile out of the village.
+They'll no' be so likely to try violence if there's somebody with me
+that could be a witness.  Besides, they'll maybe suspect less if they
+just see a decent body out for a breath of air with his auntie."
+
+Mrs. Morran said nothing, but retired, and returned presently
+equipped for the road.  She had indued her feet with goloshes and
+pinned up her skirts till they looked like some demented Paris mode.
+An ancient bonnet was tied under her chin with strings, and her
+equipment was completed by an exceedingly smart tortoise-shell-
+handled umbrella, which, she explained, had been a Christmas
+present from her son.
+
+"I'll convoy ye as far as the Laverfoot herd's," she announced.
+"The wife's a freend o' mine and will set me a bit on the road back.
+Ye needna fash for me.  I'm used to a' weathers."
+
+The rain had declined to a fine drizzle, but a tearing wind from
+the south-west scoured the land.  Beyond the shelter of the trees
+the moor was a battle-ground of gusts which swept the puddles into
+spindrift and gave to the stagnant bog-pools the appearance of
+running water.  The wind was behind the travellers, and Mrs. Morran,
+like a full-rigged ship, was hustled before it, so that Dickson,
+who had linked arms with her, was sometimes compelled to trot.
+
+"However will you get home, mistress?" he murmured anxiously.
+
+"Fine.  The wind will fa' at the darkenin'. This'll be a sair time
+for ships at sea."
+
+Not a soul was about, so they breasted the ascent of the station road
+and turned down the grassy bypath to the Laverfoot herd's.
+The herd's wife saw them from afar and was at the door to receive them.
+
+"Megsty!  Phemie Morran!" she shrilled.  "Wha wad ettle to see
+ye on a day like this?  John's awa' at Dumfries, buyin' tups.
+Come in, the baith o' ye.  The kettle's on the boil."
+
+"This is my nevoy Dickson," said Mrs. Morran.  "He's gaun to stretch his
+legs ayont the burn, and come back by the Ayr road.  But I'll be blithe
+to tak' my tea wi' ye, Elspeth....Now, Dickson, I'll expect ye hame on
+the chap o' seeven."
+
+He crossed the rising stream on a swaying plank and struck into
+the moorland, as Dougal had ordered, keeping the bald top of
+Grey Carrick before him.  In that wild place with the tempest battling
+overhead he had no fear of human enemies.  Steadily he covered the
+ground, till he reached the west-flowing burn, that was to lead him
+to the shore.  He found it an entertaining companion, swirling into
+black pools, foaming over little falls, and lying in dark canal-like
+stretches in the flats.  Presently it began to descend steeply
+in a narrow green gully, where the going was bad, and Dickson,
+weighted with pack and waterproof, had much ado to keep his feet
+on the sodden slopes.  Then, as he rounded a crook of hill, the ground
+fell away from his feet, the burn swept in a water-slide to the
+boulders of the shore, and the storm-tossed sea lay before him.
+
+It was now that he began to feel nervous.  Being on the coast again
+seemed to bring him inside his enemies' territory, and had not Dobson
+specifically forbidden the shore?  It was here that they might be
+looking for him.  He felt himself out of condition, very wet and
+very warm, but he attained a creditable pace, for he struck a road
+which had been used by manure-carts collecting seaweed.  There were
+faint marks on it, which he took to be the wheels of Dougal's
+"machine" carrying the provision-box.  Yes.  On a patch of gravel
+there was a double set of tracks, which showed how it had returned
+to Mrs. Sempill.  He was exposed to the full force of the wind,
+and the strenuousness of his bodily exertions kept his fears quiescent,
+till the cliffs on his left sunk suddenly and the valley of the Laver
+lay before him.
+
+A small figure rose from the shelter of a boulder, the warrior who
+bore the name of Old Bill.  He saluted gravely.
+
+"Ye're just in time.  The water has rose three inches since
+I've been here.  Ye'd better strip."
+
+Dickson removed his boots and socks.  "Breeks too," commanded
+the boy; "there's deep holes ayont thae stanes."
+
+Dickson obeyed, feeling very chilly, and rather improper.
+"Now follow me," said the guide.  The next moment he was stepping
+delicately on very sharp pebbles, holding on to the end of the
+scout's pole, while an icy stream ran to his knees.
+
+The Laver as it reaches the sea broadens out to the width of
+fifty or sixty yards and tumbles over little shelves of rock to
+meet the waves.  Usually it is shallow, but now it was swollen to
+an average depth of a foot or more, and there were deeper pockets.
+Dickson made the passage slowly and miserably, sometimes crying out
+with pain as his toes struck a sharper flint, once or twice sitting
+down on a boulder to blow like a whale, once slipping on his knees
+and wetting the strange excrescence about his middle, which was his
+tucked-up waterproof.  But the crossing was at length achieved,
+and on a patch of sea-pinks he dried himself perfunctorily and hastily
+put on his garments.  Old Bill, who seemed to be regardless of wind
+or water, squatted beside him and whistled through his teeth.
+
+Above them hung the sheer cliffs of the Huntingtower cape, so sheer
+that a man below was completely hidden from any watcher on the top.
+Dickson's heart fell, for he did not profess to be a cragsman and had
+indeed a horror of precipitous places.  But as the two scrambled
+along the foot, they passed deep-cut gullies and fissures, most of
+them unclimbable, but offering something more hopeful than the face.
+At one of these Old Bill halted, and led the way up and over a chaos
+of fallen rock and loose sand.  The grey weather had brought on the
+dark prematurely, and in the half-light it seemed that this ravine
+was blocked by an unscalable nose of rock.  Here Old Bill whistled,
+and there was a reply from above.  Round the corner of the nose
+came Dougal.
+
+"Up here," he commanded.  "It was Mr. Heritage that fund this road."
+
+Dickson and his guide squeezed themselves between the nose and
+the cliff up a spout of stones, and found themselves in an upper
+storey of the gulley, very steep, but practicable even for one
+who was no cragsman.  This in turn ran out against a wall up which
+there led only a narrow chimney.  At the foot of this were two of
+the Die-Hards, and there were others above, for a rope hung down,
+by the aid of which a package was even now ascending.
+
+"That's the top," said Dougal, pointing to the rim of sky, "and that's
+the last o' the supplies."  Dickson noticed that he spoke in a whisper,
+and that all the movements of the Die-Hards were judicious and stealthy.
+"Now, it's your turn.  Take a good grip o' the rope, and ye'll find
+plenty holes for your feet.  It's no more than ten yards and ye're
+well held above."
+
+Dickson made the attempt and found it easier than he expected.
+The only trouble was his pack and waterproof, which had a tendency
+to catch on jags of rock.  A hand was reached out to him, he was pulled
+over the edge, and then pushed down on his face.  When he lifted his
+head Dougal and the others had joined him, and the whole company of the
+Die-Hards was assembled on a patch of grass which was concealed from the
+landward view by a thicket of hazels.  Another, whom he recognized as
+Heritage, was coiling up the rope.
+
+"We'd better get all the stuff into the old Tower for the present,"
+Heritage was saying.  "It's too risky to move it into the House now.
+We'll need the thickest darkness for that, after the moon is down.
+Quick, for the beastly thing will be rising soon, and before that
+we must all be indoors."
+
+Then he turned to Dickson and gripped his hand.  "You're a high
+class of sportsman, Dogson.  And I think you're just in time."
+
+"Are they due to-night?" Dickson asked in an excited whisper,
+faint against the wind.
+
+"I don't know about They.  But I've got a notion that some
+devilish queer things will happen before to-morrow morning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
+
+
+The old keep of Huntingtower stood some three hundred yards from the
+edge of the cliffs, a gnarled wood of hazels and oaks protecting it
+from the sea-winds.  It was still in fair preservation, having till
+twenty years before been an adjunct of the house of Dalquharter, and
+used as kitchen, buttery, and servants' quarters.  There had been
+residential wings attached, dating from the mid-eighteenth century,
+but these had been pulled down and used for the foundations of
+the new mansion.  Now it stood a lonely shell, its three storeys,
+each a single great room connected by a spiral stone staircase,
+being dedicated to lumber and the storage of produce.  But it was dry
+and intact, its massive oak doors defied any weapon short of
+artillery, its narrow unglazed windows would scarcely have admitted a
+cat--a place portentously strong, gloomy, but yet habitable.
+
+Dougal opened the main door with a massy key.  "The lassie fund it,"
+he whispered to Dickson, "somewhere about the kitchen--and I guessed
+it was the key o' this castle.  I was thinkin' that if things got
+ower hot it would be a good plan to flit here.  Change our base, like."
+The Chieftain's occasional studies in war had trained his tongue
+to a military jargon.
+
+In the ground room lay a fine assortment of oddments, including
+old bedsteads and servants' furniture, and what looked like ancient
+discarded deerskin rugs.  Dust lay thick over everything, and they
+heard the scurry of rats.  A dismal place, indeed, but Dickson felt
+only its strangeness.  The comfort of being back again among allies
+had quickened his spirit to an adventurous mood.  The old lords of
+Huntingtower had once quarrelled and revelled and plotted here, and
+now here he was at the same game.  Present and past joined hands over
+the gulf of years.  The saga of Huntingtower was not ended.
+
+The Die-Hards had brought with them their scanty bedding, their
+lanterns and camp-kettles.  These and the provisions from Mearns
+Street were stowed away in a corner.
+
+"Now for the Hoose, men," said Dougal.  They stole over the downs
+to the shrubbery, and Dickson found himself almost in the same place
+as he had lain in three days before, watching a dusky lawn, while
+the wet earth soaked through his trouser knees and the drip from the
+azaleas trickled over his spine.  Two of the boys fetched the ladder
+and placed it against the verandah wall.  Heritage first, then Dickson,
+darted across the lawn and made the ascent.  The six scouts followed,
+and the ladder was pulled up and hidden among the verandah litter.
+For a second the whole eight stood still and listened.  There was no
+sound except the murmur of the now falling wind and the melancholy
+hooting of owls.  The garrison had entered the Dark Tower.
+
+A council in whispers was held in the garden-room.
+
+"Nobody must show a light," Heritage observed.  "It mustn't be
+known that we're here.  Only the Princess will have a lamp.  Yes"--
+this in answer to Dickson--"she knows that we're coming--you too.
+We'll hunt for quarters later upstairs.  You scouts, you must picket
+every possible entrance.  The windows are safe, I think, for they
+are locked from the inside.  So is the main door.  But there's the
+verandah door, of which they have a key, and the back door beside
+the kitchen, and I'm not at all sure that there's not a way in
+by the boiler-house.  You understand.  We're holding his place against
+all comers.  We must barricade the danger points.  The headquarters
+of the garrison will be in the hall, where a scout must be always
+on duty.  You've all got whistles?  Well, if there's an attempt on the
+verandah door the picket will whistle once, if at the back door twice,
+if anywhere else three times, and it's everybody's duty, except
+the picket who whistles, to get back to the hall for orders."
+
+"That's so," assented Dougal.
+
+"If the enemy forces an entrance we must overpower him.  Any means
+you like.  Sticks or fists, and remember if it's a scrap in the
+dark to make for the man's throat.  I expect you little devils have
+eyes like cats.  The scoundrels must be kept away from the ladies
+at all costs.  If the worst comes to the worst, the Princess
+has a revolver."
+
+"So have I," said Dickson.  "I got it in Glasgow."
+
+"The deuce you have!  Can you use it?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, you can hand it over to me, if you like.  But it oughtn't to
+come to shooting, if it's only the three of them.  The eight of us
+should be able to manage three and one of them lame.  If the others
+turn up--well, God help us all!  But we've got to make sure of one
+thing, that no one lays hands on the Princess so long as there's one
+of us left alive to hit out."
+
+"Ye needn't be feared for that," said Dougal.  There was no light
+in the room, but Dickson was certain that the morose face of the
+Chieftain was lit with unholy joy.
+
+"Then off with you.  Mr. McCunn and I will explain matters to the ladies."
+
+When they were alone, Heritage's voice took a different key.
+"We're in for it, Dogson, old man.  There's no doubt these three
+scoundrels expect reinforcements at any moment, and with them
+will be one who is the devil incarnate.  He's the only thing on earth
+that that brave girl fears.  It seems he is in love with her and
+has pestered her for years.  She hated the sight of him, but he
+wouldn't take no, and being a powerful man--rich and well-born and
+all the rest of it--she had a desperate time.  I gather he was pretty
+high in favour with the old Court.  Then when the Bolsheviks started
+he went over to them, like plenty of other grandees, and now he's
+one of their chief brains--none of your callow revolutionaries,
+but a man of the world, a kind of genius, she says, who can hold
+his own anywhere.  She believes him to be in this country, and
+only waiting the right moment to turn up.  Oh, it sounds ridiculous,
+I know, in Britain in the twentieth century, but I learned in the war
+that civilization anywhere is a very thin crust.  There are a hundred
+ways by which that kind of fellow could bamboozle all our law and
+police and spirit her away.  That's the kind of crowd we have to face."
+
+"Did she say what he was like in appearance?"
+
+"A face like an angel--a lost angel, she says."
+
+Dickson suddenly had an inspiration.
+
+"D'you mind the man you said was an Australian--at Kirkmichael?
+I thought myself he was a foreigner.  Well, he was asking for a
+place he called Darkwater, and there's no sich place in the countryside.
+I believe he meant Dalquharter.  I believe he's the man she's feared of."
+
+A gasped "By Jove!" came from the darkness.  "Dogson, you've hit it.
+That was five days ago, and he must have got on the right trail
+by this time.  He'll be here to-night.  That's why the three have
+been lying so quiet to-day.  Well, we'll go through with it, even if
+we haven't a dog's chance!  Only I'm sorry that you should be mixed
+up in such a hopeless business."
+
+"Why me more than you?"
+
+"Because it's all pure pride and joy for me to be here.  Good God,
+I wouldn't be elsewhere for worlds.  It's the great hour of my life.
+I would gladly die for her."
+
+"Tuts, that's no' the way to talk, man.  Time enough to speak about
+dying when there's no other way out.  I'm looking at this thing
+in a business way.  We'd better be seeing the ladies."
+
+They groped into the pitchy hall, somewhere in which a Die-Hard was
+on picket, and down the passage to the smoking-room.  Dickson blinked
+in the light of a very feeble lamp and Heritage saw that his hands
+were cumbered with packages.  He deposited them on a sofa and made a
+ducking bow.
+
+"I've come back, Mem, and glad to be back.  Your jools are in safe
+keeping, and not all the blagyirds in creation could get at them.
+I've come to tell you to cheer up--a stout heart to a stey brae,
+as the old folk say.  I'm handling this affair as a business
+proposition, so don't be feared, Mem.  If there are enemies seeking
+you, there's friends on the road too....Now, you'll have had your
+dinner, but you'd maybe like a little dessert."
+
+He spread before them a huge box of chocolates, the best that
+Mearns Street could produce, a box of candied fruits, and another
+of salted almonds.  Then from his hideously overcrowded pockets he
+took another box, which he offered rather shyly.  "That's some powder
+for your complexion.  They tell me that ladies find it useful whiles."
+
+The girl's strained face watched him at first in mystification, and
+then broke slowly into a smile.  Youth came back into it, the smile
+changed to a laugh, a low rippling laugh like far-away bells.
+She took both his hands.
+
+"You are kind,' she said, "you are kind and brave.  You are a de-ar."
+
+And then she kissed him.
+
+Now, as far as Dickson could remember, no one had ever kissed him
+except his wife.  The light touch of her lips on his forehead was
+like the pressing of an electric button which explodes some powerful
+charge and alters the face of a countryside.  He blushed scarlet;
+then he wanted to cry; then he wanted to sing.  An immense exhilaration
+seized him, and I am certain that if at that moment the serried ranks
+of Bolshevy had appeared in the doorway, Dickson would have hurled
+himself upon them with a joyful shout.
+
+Cousin Eugenie was earnestly eating chocolates, but Saskia
+had other business.
+
+"You will hold the house?" she asked.
+
+"Please God, yes," said Heritage.  "I look at it this way.
+The time is very near when your three gaolers expect the others,
+their masters.  They have not troubled you in the past two days as
+they threatened, because it was not worth while.  But they won't want
+to let you out of their sight in the final hours, so they will almost
+certainly come here to be on the spot.  Our object is to keep them
+out and confuse their plans.  Somewhere in this neighbourhood,
+probably very near, is the man you fear most.  If we nonplus the
+three watchers, they'll have to revise their policy, and that means
+a delay, and every hour's delay is a gain.  Mr. McCunn has found out
+that the factor Loudon is in the plot, and he has purchase enough,
+it seems, to blanket for a time any appeal to the law.  But Mr. McCunn
+has taken steps to circumvent him, and in twenty-four hours we should
+have help here."
+
+"I do not want the help of your law," the girl interrupted.
+"It will entangle me.'
+
+"Not a bit of it," said Dickson cheerfully.  "You see, Mem,
+they've clean lost track of the jools, and nobody knows where
+they are but me.  I'm a truthful man, but I'll lie like a packman
+if I'm asked questions.  For the rest, it's a question of kidnapping,
+I understand, and that's a thing that's not to be allowed.  My advice
+is to go to our beds and get a little sleep while there's a chance of it.
+The Gorbals Die-Hards are grand watch-dogs."
+
+This view sounded so reasonable that it was at once acted upon.
+The ladies' chamber was next door to the smoking-room--what had been
+the old schoolroom.  Heritage arranged with Saskia that the lamp was
+to be kept burning low, and that on no account were they to move
+unless summoned by him.  Then he and Dickson made their way to the
+hall, where there was a faint glimmer from the moon in the upper
+unshuttered windows--enough to reveal the figure of Wee Jaikie on
+duty at the foot of the staircase.  They ascended to the second floor,
+where, in a large room above the hall, Heritage had bestowed his pack.
+He had managed to open a fold of the shutters, and there was sufficient
+light to see two big mahogany bedsteads without mattresses or
+bedclothes, and wardrobes and chests of drawers sheeted in holland.
+Outside the wind was rising again, but the rain had stopped.
+Angry watery clouds scurried across the heavens.
+
+Dickson made a pillow of his waterproof, stretched himself on one of
+the bedsteads, and, so quiet was his conscience and so weary his body
+from the buffetings of the past days, was almost instantly asleep.
+It seemed to him that he had scarcely closed his eyes when he was
+awakened by Dougal's hand pinching his shoulder.  He gathered that
+the moon was setting, for the room was pitchy dark.
+
+"The three o' them is approachin' the kitchen door," whispered
+the Chieftain.  "I seen them from a spy-hole I made out o' a ventilator."
+
+"Is it barricaded?" asked Heritage, who had apparently not been asleep.
+
+"Aye, but I've thought o' a far better plan.  Why should we
+keep them out?  They'll be safer inside.  Listen!  We might manage
+to get them in one at a time.  If they can't get in at the kitchen
+door, they'll send one o' them round to get in by another door and
+open to them.  That gives us a chance to get them separated, and
+lock them up.  There's walth o' closets and hidy-holes all over the
+place, each with good doors and good keys to them.  Supposin' we get
+the three o' them shut up--the others, when they come, will have
+nobody to guide them.  Of course some time or other the three will
+break out, but it may be ower late for them.  At present we're
+besieged and they're roamin' the country.  Would it no' be far
+better if they were the ones lockit up and we were goin' loose?"
+
+"Supposing they don't come in one at a time?"  Dickson objected.
+
+"We'll make them," said Dougal firmly.  "There's no time to waste.
+Are ye for it?"
+
+"Yes," said Heritage.  "Who's at the kitchen door?"
+
+"Peter Paterson.  I told him no' to whistle, but to wait on me..
+..Keep your boots off.  Ye're better in your stockin' feet.  Wait you
+in the hall and see ye're well hidden, for likely whoever comes in
+will have a lantern.  Just you keep quiet unless I give ye a cry.
+I've planned it a' out, and we're ready for them."
+
+Dougal disappeared, and Dickson and Heritage, with their boots tied
+round their necks by their laces, crept out to the upper landing.
+The hall was impenetrably dark, but full of voices, for the wind was
+talking in the ceiling beams, and murmuring through the long passages.
+The walls creaked and muttered and little bits of plaster fluttered down.
+The noise was an advantage for the game of hide-and-seek they
+proposed to play, but it made it hard to detect the enemy's approach.
+Dickson, in order to get properly wakened, adventured as far
+as the smoking-room.  It was black with night, but below the door of
+the adjacent room a faint line of light showed where the Princess's
+lamp was burning.  He advanced to the window, and heard distinctly a
+foot on the grovel path that led to the verandah.  This sent him back
+to the hall in search of Dougal, whom he encountered in the passage.
+That boy could certainly see in the dark, for he caught Dickson's
+wrist without hesitation.
+
+"We've got Spittal in the wine-cellar," he whispered triumphantly.
+"The kitchen door was barricaded, and when they tried it, it wouldn't open.
+'Bide here,' says Dobson to Spittal, 'and we'll go round by another door
+and come back and open to ye.'  So off they went, and by that time
+Peter Paterson and me had the barricade down.  As we expected,
+Spittal tries the key again and it opens quite easy.  He comes in
+and locks it behind him, and, Dobson having took away the lantern,
+he gropes his way very carefu' towards the kitchen.  There's a point
+where the wine-cellar door and the scullery door are aside each other.
+He should have taken the second, but I had it shut so he takes the first.
+Peter Paterson gave him a wee shove and he fell down the two-three
+steps into the cellar, and we turned the key on him.  Yon cellar has a
+grand door and no windies."
+
+"And Dobson and Leon are at the verandah door?  With a light?"
+
+"Thomas Yownie's on duty there.  Ye can trust him.  Ye'll no
+fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+The next minutes were for Dickson a delirium of excitement not
+unpleasantly shot with flashes of doubt and fear.  As a child he
+had played hide-and-seek, and his memory had always cherished the
+delights of the game.  But how marvellous to play it thus in a great
+empty house, at dark of night, with the heaven filled with tempest,
+and with death or wounds as the stakes!
+
+He took refuge in a corner where a tapestry curtain and the side of
+a Dutch awmry gave him shelter, and from where he stood he could see
+the garden-room and the beginning of the tiled passage which led to
+the verandah door.  That is to say, he could have seen these things
+if there had been any light, which there was not.  He heard the
+soft flitting of bare feet, for a delicate sound is often audible
+in a din when a loud noise is obscured.  Then a gale of wind
+blew towards him, as from an open door, and far away gleamed the
+flickering light of a lantern.
+
+Suddenly the light disappeared and there was a clatter on the floor
+and a breaking of glass.  Either the wind or Thomas Yownie.
+
+The verandah door was shut, a match spluttered and the lantern
+was relit.  Dobson and Leon came into the hall, both clad in long
+mackintoshes which glistened from the weather.  Dobson halted and
+listened to the wind howling in the upper spaces.  He cursed it
+bitterly, looked at his watch, and then made an observation which
+woke the liveliest interest in Dickson lurking beside the awmry and
+Heritage ensconced in the shadow of a window-seat.
+
+"He's late.  He should have been here five minutes syne.  It would be
+a dirty road for his car."
+
+So the Unknown was coming that night.  The news made Dickson the more
+resolved to get the watchers under lock and key before reinforcements
+arrived, and so put grit in their wheels.  Then his party must
+escape--flee anywhere so long as it was far from Dalquharter.
+
+"You stop here," said Dobson, "I'll go down and let Spidel in.
+We want another lamp.  Get the one that the women use, and for
+God's sake get a move on."
+
+The sound of his feet died in the kitchen passage and then rung
+again on the stone stairs.  Dickson's ear of faith heard also the
+soft patter of naked feet as the Die-Hards preceded and followed him.
+He was delivering himself blind and bound into their hands.
+
+For a minute or two there was no sound but the wind, which had found
+a loose chimney cowl on the roof and screwed out of it an odd sound
+like the drone of a bagpipe.  Dickson, unable to remain any longer in
+one place, moved into the centre of the hall, believing that Leon had
+gone to the smoking-room.  It was a dangerous thing to do, for
+suddenly a match was lit a yard from him.  He had the sense to
+drop low, and so was out of the main glare of the light.  The man
+with the match apparently had no more, judging by his execrations.
+Dickson stood stock still, longing for the wind to fall so that he
+might hear the sound of the fellow's boots on the stone floor.
+He gathered that they were moving towards the smoking-room.
+
+"Heritage," he whispered as loud as he dared, bet there was no answer.
+
+Then suddenly a moving body collided with him.  He jumped a step back
+and then stood at attention.  "Is that you, Dobson?"  a voice asked.
+
+Now behold the occasional advantage of a nick-name.  Dickson thought
+he was being addressed as "Dogson" after the Poet's fashion.  Had he
+dreamed it was Leon he would not have replied, but fluttered off
+into the shadows, and so missed a piece of vital news.
+
+"Ay, it's me." he whispered.
+
+His voice and accent were Scotch, like Dobson's, and Leon
+suspected nothing.
+
+"I do not like this wind," he grumbled.  "The Captain's letter said
+at dawn, but there is no chance of the Danish brig making your little
+harbour in this weather.  She must lie off and land the men by boats.
+That I do not like.  It is too public."
+
+The news--tremendous news, for it told that the new-comers would come
+by sea, which had never before entered Dickson's head--so interested
+him that he stood dumb and ruminating.  The silence made the Belgian
+suspect; he put out a hand and felt a waterproofed arm which might
+have been Dobson's.  But the height of the shoulder proved that it was
+not the burly innkeeper.  There was an oath, a quick movement, and
+Dickson went down with a knee on his chest and two hands at his throat.
+
+"Heritage," he gasped.  "Help!"
+
+There was a sound of furniture scraped violently on the floor.
+A gurgle from Dickson served as a guide, and the Poet suddenly
+cascaded over the combatants.  He felt for a head, found Leon's
+and gripped the neck so savagely that the owner loosened his
+hold on Dickson.  The last-named found himself being buffeted
+violently by heavy-shod feet which seemed to be manoeuvring before
+an unseen enemy.  He rolled out of the road and encountered another
+pair of feet, this time unshod.  Then came the sound of a concussion,
+as if metal or wood had struck some part of a human frame, and then
+a stumble and fall.
+
+After that a good many things all seemed to happen at once.
+There was a sudden light, which showed Leon blinking with a short
+loaded life-preserver in his hand, and Heritage prone in front of
+him on the floor.  It also showed Dickson the figure of Dougal,
+and more than one Die-Hard in the background.  The light went out
+as suddenly as it had appeared.  There was a whistle and a hoarse
+"Come on, men," and then for two seconds there was a desperate
+silent combat.  It ended with Leon's head meeting the floor so
+violently that its possessor became oblivious of further proceedings.
+He was dragged into a cubby-hole, which had once been used for
+coats and rugs, and the door locked on him.  Then the light sprang
+forth again.  It revealed Dougal and five Die-Hards, somewhat the
+worse for wear; it revealed also Dickson squatted with outspread
+waterproof very like a sitting hen.
+
+"Where's Dobson?" he asked.
+
+"In the boiler-house," and for once Dougal's gravity had laughter in it.
+"Govey Dick! but yon was a fecht!  Me and Peter Paterson and
+Wee Jaikie started it, but it was the whole company afore the end.
+Are ye better, Jaikie?"
+
+"Ay, I'm better," said a pallid midget.
+
+"He kickit Jaikie in the stomach and Jaikie was seeck," Dougal explained.
+"That's the three accounted for.  I think mysel' that Dobson will be
+the first to get out, but he'll have his work letting out the others.
+Now, I'm for flittin' to the old Tower.  They'll no ken where we are
+for a long time, and anyway yon place will be far easier to defend.
+Without they kindle a fire and smoke us out, I don't see how
+they'll beat us.  Our provisions are a' there, and there's a grand
+well o' water inside.  Forbye there's the road down the rocks that'll
+keep our communications open....But what's come to Mr. Heritage?"
+
+Dickson to his shame had forgotten all about his friend.  The Poet lay
+very quiet with his head on one side and his legs crooked limply.
+Blood trickled over his eyes from an ugly scar on his forehead.
+Dickson felt his heart and pulse and found them faint but regular.
+The man had got a swinging blow and might have a slight concussion;
+for the present he was unconscious.
+
+"All the more reason why we should flit," said Dougal.  "What d'ye
+say, Mr. McCunn?"
+
+"Flit, of course, but further than the old Tower.  What's the time?"
+He lifted Heritage's wrist and saw from his watch that it was
+half-past three.  "Mercy.  It's nearly morning.  Afore we put these
+blagyirds away, they were conversing, at least Leon and Dobson were.
+They said that they expected somebody every moment, but that the
+car would be late.  We've still got that Somebody to tackle.
+Then Leon spoke to me in the dark, thinking I was Dobson, and
+cursed the wind, saying it would keep the Danish brig from getting
+in at dawn as had been intended.  D'you see what that means?
+The worst of the lot, the ones the ladies are in terror of,
+are coming by sea.  Ay, and they can return by sea.  We thought that
+the attack would be by land, and that even if they succeeded we could
+hang on to their heels and follow them, till we got them stopped.
+But that's impossible!  If they come in from the water, they can
+go out by the water, and there'll never be more heard tell of
+the ladies or of you or me."
+
+Dougal's face was once again sunk in gloom.  "What's your plan, then?"
+
+"We must get the ladies away from here--away inland, far from the sea.
+The rest of us must stand a siege in the old Tower, so that the enemy
+will think we're all there.  Please God we'll hold out long enough for
+help to arrive.  But we mustn't hang about here.  There's the man
+Dobson mentioned--he may come any second, and we want to be away first.
+Get the ladder, Dougal....Four of you take Mr. Heritage, and two come
+with me and carry the ladies' things.  It's no' raining, but the
+wind's enough to take the wings off a seagull."
+
+Dickson roused Saskia and her cousin, bidding them be ready in
+ten minutes.  Then with the help of the Die-Hards he proceeded
+to transport the necessary supplies--the stove, oil, dishes,
+clothes and wraps; more than one journey was needed of small boys,
+hidden under clouds of baggage.  When everything had gone he
+collected the keys, behind which, in various quarters of the house,
+three gaolers fumed impotently, and gave them to Wee Jaikie to
+dispose of in some secret nook.  Then he led the two ladies to the
+verandah, the elder cross and sleepy, the younger alert at the
+prospect of movement.
+
+"Tell me again," she said.  "You have locked all the three up,
+and they are now the imprisoned?"
+
+"Well, it was the boys that, properly speaking, did the locking up."
+
+"It is a great--how do you say?--a turning of the tables.
+Ah--what is that?"
+
+At the end of the verandah there was a clattering down of pots
+which could not be due to the wind, since the place was sheltered.
+There was as yet only the faintest hint of light, and black night
+still lurked in the crannies.  Followed another fall of pots,
+as from a clumsy intruder, and then a man appeared, clear against
+the glass door by which the path descended to the rock garden.
+It was the fourth man, whom the three prisoners had awaited.
+Dickson had no doubt at all about his identity.  He was that villain
+from whom all the others took their orders, the man whom the
+Princess shuddered at.  Before starting he had loaded his pistol.
+Now he tugged it from his waterproof pocket, pointed it at the
+other and fired.
+
+The man seemed to be hit, for he spun round and clapped a hand to
+his left arm.  Then he fled through the door, which he left open.
+
+Dickson was after him like a hound.  At the door he saw him running
+and raised his pistol for another shot.  Then he dropped it, for he
+saw something in the crouching, dodging figure which was familiar.
+
+"A mistake," he explained to Jaikie when he returned.  "But the shot
+wasn't wasted.  I've just had a good try at killing the factor!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY
+
+
+Five scouts' lanterns burned smokily in the ground room of the
+keep when Dickson ushered his charges through its cavernous door.
+The lights flickered in the gusts that swept after them and whistled
+through the slits of the windows, so that the place was full
+of monstrous shadows, and its accustomed odour of mould and disuse
+was changed to a salty freshness.  Upstairs on the first floor
+Thomas Yownie had deposited the ladies' baggage, and was busy
+making beds out of derelict iron bedsteads and the wraps brought
+from their room.  On the ground floor on a heap of litter covered
+by an old scout's blanket lay Heritage, with Dougal in attendance.
+
+The Chieftain had washed the blood from the Poet's brow, and the
+touch of cold water was bringing him back his senses.  Saskia with a
+cry flew to him, and waved off Dickson who had fetched one of
+the bottles of liqueur brandy.  She slipped a hand inside his shirt
+and felt the beating of his heart.  Then her slim fingers ran
+over his forehead.
+
+"A bad blow," she muttered, "but I do not think he is ill.
+There is no fracture.  When I nursed in the Alexander Hospital
+I learnt much about head wounds.  Do not give him cognac if you
+value his life."
+
+Heritage was talking now and with strange tongues.  Phrases like
+"lined Digesters" and "free sulphurous acid" came from his lips.
+He implored some one to tell him if "the first cook" was finished,
+and he upbraided some one else for "cooling off" too fast.
+
+The girl raised her head.  "But I fear he has become mad," she said.
+
+"Wheesht, Mem," said Dickson, who recognized the jargon.
+"He's a papermaker."
+
+Saskia sat down on the litter and lifted his head so that it rested
+on her breast.  Dougal at her bidding brought a certain case from
+her baggage, and with swift, capable hands she made a bandage and
+rubbed the wound with ointment before tying it up.  Then her fingers
+seemed to play about his temples and along his cheeks and neck.
+She was the professional nurse now, absorbed, sexless.  Heritage ceased
+to babble, his eyes shut and he was asleep.
+
+She remained where she was, so that the Poet, when a few minutes
+later he woke, found himself lying with his head in her lap.
+She spoke first, in an imperative tone: "You are well now.
+Your head does not ache.  You are strong again."
+
+"No.  Yes," he murmured.  Then more clearly: "Where am I?
+Oh, I remember, I caught a lick on the head.  What's become
+of the brutes?"
+
+Dickson, who had extracted food from the Mearns Street box and was
+pressing it on the others, replied through a mouthful of Biscuit:
+"We're in the old Tower.  The three are lockit up in the House.
+Are you feeling better, Mr. Heritage?"
+
+The Poet suddenly realized Saskia's position and the blood came
+to his pale face.  He got to his feet with an effort and held
+out a hand to the girl.  "I'm all right now, I think.  Only a little
+dicky on my legs.  A thousand thanks, Princess.  I've given you
+a lot of trouble."
+
+She smiled at him tenderly.  "You say that when you have risked
+your life for me."
+
+"There's no time to waste," the relentless Dougal broke in.
+"Comin' over here, I heard a shot.  What was it?"
+
+"It was me," said Dickson.  "I was shootin' at the factor."
+
+"Did ye hit him?"
+
+"I think so, but I'm sorry to say not badly.  When I last saw him
+he was running too quick for a sore hurt man.  When I fired I thought
+it was the other man--the one they were expecting."
+
+Dickson marvelled at himself, yet his speech was not bravado, but the
+honest expression of his mind.  He was keyed up to a mood in which he
+feared nothing very much, certainly not the laws of his country.
+If he fell in with the Unknown, he was entirely resolved, if
+his Maker permitted him, to do murder as being the simplest
+and justest solution.  And if in the pursuit of this laudable
+intention he happened to wing lesser game it was no fault of his.
+
+"Well, it's a pity ye didn't get him," said Dougal, "him being
+what we ken him to be....I'm for holding a council o' war, and
+considerin' the whole position.  So far we haven't done that badly.
+We've shifted our base without serious casualties.  We've got a far
+better position to hold, for there's too many ways into yon Hoose,
+and here there's just one.  Besides, we've fickled the enemy.
+They'll take some time to find out where we've gone.  But, mind you,
+we can't count on their staying long shut up.  Dobson's no safe in
+the boiler-house, for there's a skylight far up and he'll see it when
+the light comes and maybe before.  So we'd better get our plans ready.
+A word with ye, Mr. McCunn," and he led Dickson aside.
+
+"D'ye ken what these blagyirds were up to?" he whispered fiercely
+in Dickson's ear.  "They were goin' to pushion the lassie.  How do I
+ken, says you?  Because Thomas Yownie heard Dobson say to Lean at the
+scullery door, 'Have ye got the dope?' he says, and Lean says, 'Aye.'
+Thomas mindit the word for he had heard about it at the Picters."
+
+Dickson exclaimed in horror.
+
+"What d'ye make o' that?  I'll tell ye.  They wanted to make sure
+of her, but they wouldn't have thought o' dope unless the men they
+expectit were due to arrive at any moment.  As I see it, we've to
+face a siege not by the three but by a dozen or more, and it'll no'
+be long till it starts.  Now, isn't it a mercy we're safe in here?"
+
+Dickson returned to the others with a grave face.
+
+"Where d'you think the new folk are coming from?" he asked.
+
+Heritage answered, "From Auchenlochan, I suppose?  Or perhaps
+down from the hills?"
+
+"You're wrong."  And he told of Leon's mistaken confidences to him in
+the darkness.  "They are coming from the sea, just like the old pirates."
+
+"The sea," Heritage repeated in a dazed voice.
+
+"Ay, the sea.  Think what that means.  If they had been coming by
+the roads, we could have kept track of them, even if they beat us,
+and some of these laddies could have stuck to them and followed
+them up till help came.  It can't be such an easy job to carry a
+young lady against her will along Scotch roads.  But the sea's
+a different matter.  If they've got a fast boat they could be
+out of the Firth and away beyond the law before we could wake up
+a single policeman.  Ay, and even if the Government took it up and
+warned all the ports and ships at sea, what's to hinder them to find
+a hidy-hole about Ireland--or Norway?  I tell you, it's a far more
+desperate business than I thought, and it'll no' do to wait on and
+trust that the Chief Constable will turn up afore the mischief's done."
+
+"The moral," said Heritage, "is that there can be no surrender.
+We've got to stick it out in this old place at all costs."
+
+"No," said Dickson emphatically.  "The moral is that we must
+shift the ladies.  We've got the chance while Dobson and his
+friends are locked up.  Let's get them as far away as we can
+from the sea.  They're far safer tramping the moors, and it's
+no' likely the new folk will dare to follow us."
+
+"But I cannot go."  Saskia, who had been listening intently,
+shook her head.  "I promised to wait here till my friend came.
+If I leave I shall never find him."
+
+"If you stay you certainly never will, for you'll be away
+with the ruffians.  Take a sensible view, Mem.  You'll be no
+good to your friend or your friend to you if before night you're
+rocking in a ship."
+
+The girl shook her head again, gently but decisively.  "It was
+our arrangement.  I cannot break it.  Besides, I am sure that
+he will come in time, for he has never failed---"
+
+There was a desperate finality about the quiet tones and the
+weary face with the shadow of a smile on it.
+
+Then Heritage spoke.  "I don't think your plan will quite do, Dogson.
+Supposing we all break for the hinterland and the Danish brig finds
+the birds flown, that won't end the trouble.  They will get on
+the Princess's trail, and the whole persecution will start again.
+I want to see things brought to a head here and now.  If we can
+stick it out here long enough, we may trap the whole push and rid
+the world of a pretty gang of miscreants.  Let them show their hand,
+and then, if the police are here by that time, we can jug the lot for
+piracy or something worse."
+
+"That's all right," said Dougal, "but we'd put up a better fight if
+we had the women off our mind.  I've aye read that when a castle was
+going to be besieged the first thing was to get rid of the civilians."
+
+"Sensible to the last, Dougal," said Dickson approvingly.
+"That's just what I'm saying.  I'm strong for a fight, but put
+the ladies in a safe bit first, for they're our weak point."
+
+"Do you think that if you were fighting my enemies I would consent
+to be absent?" came Saskia's reproachful question.
+
+"'Deed no, Mem," said Dickson heartily.  His martial spirit was
+with Heritage, but his prudence did not sleep, and he suddenly
+saw a way of placating both.  "Just you listen to what I propose.
+What do we amount to?  Mr. Heritage, six laddies, and myself--and
+I'm no more used to fighting than an old wife.  We've seven
+desperate villains against us, and afore night they may be seventy.
+We've a fine old castle here, but for defence we want more than stone
+walls--we want a garrison.  I tell you we must get help somewhere.
+Ay, but how, says you?  Well, coming here I noticed a gentleman's house
+away up ayont the railway and close to the hills.  The laird's maybe not
+at home, but there will be men there of some kind--gamekeepers and
+woodmen and such like.  My plan is to go there at once and ask for help.
+Now, it's useless me going alone, for nobody would listen to me.
+They'd tell me to go back to the shop or they'd think me demented.
+But with you, Mem, it would be a different matter.  They wouldn't
+disbelieve you.  So I want you to come with me, and to come at once,
+for God knows how soon our need will be sore.  We'll leave your
+cousin with Mrs. Morran in the village, for bed's the place for her,
+and then you and me will be off on our business."
+
+The girl looked at Heritage, who nodded.  "It's the only way," he said.
+"Get every man jack you can raise, and if it's humanly possible get
+a gun or two.  I believe there's time enough, for I don't see the
+brig arriving in broad daylight."
+
+"D'you not?" Dickson asked rudely.  "Have you considered what day this is?
+It's the Sabbath, the best of days for an ill deed.  There's no kirk
+hereaways, and everybody in the parish will be sitting indoors
+by the fire."  He looked at his watch.  "In half an hour it'll be light.
+Haste you, Mem, and get ready.  Dougal, what's the weather?"
+
+The Chieftain swung open the door, and sniffed the air.  The wind had
+fallen for the time being, and the surge of the tides below the rocks
+rose like the clamour of a mob.  With the lull, mist and a thin
+drizzle had cloaked the world again.
+
+To Dickson's surprise Dougal seemed to be in good spirits.
+He began to sing to a hymn tune a strange ditty.
+
+
+"Class-conscious we are, and class-conscious wull be
+Till our fit's on the neck o' the Boorjoyzee."
+
+
+"What on earth are you singing?"  Dickson inquired.
+
+Dougal grinned.  "Wee Jaikie went to a Socialist Sunday School
+last winter because he heard they were for fechtin' battles.
+Ay, and they telled him he was to join a thing called an International,
+and Jaikie thought it was a fitba' club.  But when he fund out there
+was no magic lantern or swaree at Christmas he gie'd it the chuck.
+They learned him a heap o' queer songs.  That's one."
+
+"What does the last word mean?"
+
+"I don't ken.  Jaikie thought it was some kind of a draigon."
+
+"It's a daft-like thing anyway....When's high water?"
+
+Dougal answered that to the best of his knowledge it fell between
+four and five in the afternoon.
+
+"Then that's when we may expect the foreign gentry if they think
+to bring their boat in to the Garplefoot.....Dougal, lad, I trust
+you to keep a most careful and prayerful watch.  You had better
+get the Die-Hards out of the Tower and all round the place afore
+Dobson and Co. get loose, or you'll no' get a chance later.
+Don't lose your mobility, as the sodgers say.  Mr. Heritage can hold
+the fort, but you laddies should be spread out like a screen."
+
+"That was my notion," said Dougal.  "I'll detail two Die-Hards--
+Thomas Yownie and Wee Jaikie--to keep in touch with ye and watch
+for you comin' back.  Thomas ye ken already; ye'll no fickle
+Thomas Yownie.  But don't be mistook about Wee Jaikie.  He's terrible
+fond of greetin', but it's no fright with him but excitement.
+It's just a habit he's gotten.  When ye see Jaikie begin to greet,
+you may be sure that Jaikie's gettin' dangerous."
+
+The door shut behind them and Dickson found himself with his two charges
+in a world dim with fog and rain and the still lingering darkness.
+The air was raw, and had the sour smell which comes from soaked earth
+and wet boughs when the leaves are not yet fledged.  Both the women
+were miserably equipped for such an expedition.  Cousin Eugenie trailed
+heavy furs, Saskia's only wrap was a bright-coloured shawl about her
+shoulders, and both wore thin foreign shoes.  Dickson insisted on
+stripping off his trusty waterproof and forcing it on the Princess,
+on whose slim body it hung very loose and very short.  The elder woman
+stumbled and whimpered and needed the constant support of his arm,
+walking like a townswoman from the knees.  But Saskia swung from the
+hips like a free woman, and Dickson had much ado to keep up with her.
+She seemed to delight in the bitter freshness of the dawn, inhaling
+deep breaths of it, and humming fragments of a tune.
+
+Guided by Thomas Yownie they took the road which Dickson and Heritage
+had travelled the first evening, through the shrubberies on the north
+side of the House and the side avenue beyond which the ground fell to
+the Laver glen.  On their right the House rose like a dark cloud, but
+Dickson had lost his terror of it.  There were three angry men inside
+it, he remembered: long let them stay there.  He marvelled at his
+mood, and also rejoiced, for his worst fear had always been that he
+might prove a coward.  Now he was puzzled to think how he could ever
+be frightened again, for his one object was to succeed, and in that
+absorption fear seemed to him merely a waste of time.  "It all comes
+of treating the thing as a business proposition," he told himself.
+
+But there was far more in his heart than this sober resolution.
+He was intoxicated with the resurgence of youth and felt a rapture
+of audacity which he never remembered in his decorous boyhood.
+"I haven't been doing badly for an old man," he reflected with glee.
+What, oh what had become of the pillar of commerce, the man who
+might have been a bailie had he sought municipal honours, the elder
+in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, the instructor of literary young men?
+In the past three days he had levanted with jewels which had once
+been an Emperor's and certainly were not his; he had burglariously
+entered and made free of a strange house; he had played hide-and-seek
+at the risk of his neck and had wrestled in the dark with a foreign
+miscreant; he had shot at an eminent solicitor with intent to kill;
+and he was now engaged in tramping the world with a fairytale Princess.
+I blush to confess that of each of his doings he was unashamedly proud,
+and thirsted for many more in the same line.  "Gosh, but I'm seeing life,"
+was his unregenerate conclusion.
+
+Without sight or sound of a human being, they descended to the Laver,
+climbed again by the cart track, and passed the deserted West Lodge
+and inn to the village.  It was almost full dawn when the three
+stood in Mrs. Morran's kitchen.
+
+"I've brought you two ladies, Auntie Phemie," said Dickson.
+
+They made an odd group in that cheerful place, where the new-lit fire
+was crackling in the big grate--the wet undignified form of Dickson,
+unshaven of cheek and chin and disreputable in garb; the shrouded
+figure of Cousin Eugenie, who had sunk into the arm-chair and closed
+her eyes; the slim girl, into whose face the weather had whipped a
+glow like blossom; and the hostess, with her petticoats kilted and
+an ancient mutch on her head.
+
+Mrs. Morran looked once at Saskia, and then did a thing which she
+had not done since her girlhood.  She curtseyed.
+
+"I'm proud to see ye here, Mem.  Off wi' your things, and I'll
+get ye dry claes,  Losh, ye're fair soppin'  And your shoon!
+Ye maun change your feet....Dickson! Awa' up to the loft, and dinna
+you stir till I give ye a cry.  The leddies will change by the fire.
+And You, Mem"--this to Cousin Eugenie--"the place for you's your bed.
+I'll kinnle a fire ben the hoose in a jiffey.  And syne ye'll
+have breakfast--ye'll hae a cup o' tea wi' me now, for the kettle's
+just on the boil.  Awa' wi' ye. Dickson," and she stamped her foot.
+
+Dickson departed, and in the loft washed his face, and smoked a pipe on
+the edge of the bed, watching the mist eddying up the village street.
+From below rose the sounds of hospitable bustle, and when after
+some twenty minutes' vigil he descended, he found Saskia toasting
+stockinged toes by the fire in the great arm-chair, and Mrs. Morran
+setting the table.
+
+"Auntie Phemie, hearken to me.  We've taken on too big a job for
+two men and six laddies, and help we've got to get, and that
+this very morning.  D'you mind the big white house away up near
+the hills ayont the station and east of the Ayr road?  It looked like
+a gentleman's shooting lodge.  I was thinking of trying there.  Mercy!"
+
+The exclamation was wrung from him by his eyes settling on Saskia
+and noting her apparel.  Gone were her thin foreign clothes, and in
+their place she wore a heavy tweed skirt cut very short, and thick
+homespun stockings, which had been made for some one with larger
+feet than hers.  A pair of the coarse low-heeled shoes which country
+folk wear in the farmyard stood warming by the hearth.  She still had
+her russet jumper, but round her neck hung a grey wool scarf, of the kind
+known as a "Comforter."  Amazingly pretty she looked in Dickson's eyes,
+but with a different kind of prettiness.  The sense of fragility had fled,
+and he saw how nobly built she was for all her exquisiteness.
+She looked like a queen, he thought, but a queen to go gipsying
+through the world with.
+
+"Ay, they're some o' Elspeth's things, rale guid furthy claes,"
+said Mrs. Morran complacently.  "And the shoon are what she used
+to gang about the byres wi' when she was in the Castlewham dairy.
+The leddy was tellin' me she was for trampin' the hills, and thae
+things will keep her dry and warm....I ken the hoose ye mean.
+They ca' it the Mains of Garple.  And I ken the man that bides in it.
+He's yin Sir Erchibald Roylance.  English, but his mither was a Dalziel.
+I'm no weel acquaint wi' his forbears, but I'm weel eneuch acquaint
+wi' Sir Erchie, and 'better a guid coo than a coo o' a guid kind,'
+as my mither used to say.  He used to be an awfu' wild callont,
+a freend o' puir Maister Quentin, and up to ony deevilry.
+But they tell me he's a quieter lad since the war, as sair
+lamed by fa'in oot o' an airyplane."
+
+"Will he be at the Mains just now?" Dickson asked.
+
+"I wadna wonder.  He has a muckle place in England, but he aye used to
+come here in the back-end for the shootin' and in April for birds.
+He's clean daft about birds.  He'll be out a' day at the craig watchin'
+solans, or lyin' a' mornin' i' the moss lookin' at bog-blitters."
+
+"Will he help, think you?"
+
+"I'll wager he'll help.  Onyway it's your best chance, and better
+a wee bush than nae beild.  Now, sit in to your breakfast."
+
+It was a merry meal.  Mrs. Morran dispensed tea and gnomic wisdom.
+Saskia ate heartily, speaking little, but once or twice laying her
+hand softly on her hostess's gnarled fingers.  Dickson was in such
+spirits that he gobbled shamelessly, being both hungry and hurried,
+and he spoke of the still unconquered enemy with ease and disrespect,
+so that Mrs. Morran was moved to observe that there was "naething
+sae bauld as a blind mear."  But when in a sudden return of modesty
+he belittled his usefulness and talked sombrely of his mature years
+he was told that he "wad never be auld wi' sae muckle honesty."
+Indeed it was very clear that Mrs. Morran approved of her nephew.
+They did not linger over breakfast, for both were impatient to be
+on the road.  Mrs. Morran assisted Saskia to put on Elspeth's shoes.
+"'Even a young fit finds comfort in an auld bauchle,' as my mother,
+honest woman, used to say."  Dickson's waterproof was restored to him,
+and for Saskia an old raincoat belonging to the son in South Africa
+was discovered, which fitted her better.  "Siccan weather," said
+the hostess, as she opened the door to let in a swirl of wind.
+"The deil's aye kind to his ain.  Haste ye back, Mem, and be sure
+I'll tak' guid care o' your leddy cousin."
+
+The proper way to the Mains of Garple was either by the station and
+the Ayr road, or by the Auchenlochan highway, branching off half a
+mile beyond the Garple bridge.  But Dickson, who had been studying
+the map and fancied himself as a pathfinder, chose the direct route
+across the Long Muir as being at once shorter and more sequestered.
+With the dawn the wind had risen again, but it had shifted towards
+the north-west and was many degrees colder.  The mist was furling on
+the hills like sails, the rain had ceased, and out at sea the eye
+covered a mile or two of wild water.  The moor was drenching wet,
+and the peat bogs were brimming with inky pools, so that soon the
+travellers were soaked to the knees.  Dickson had no fear of pursuit,
+for he calculated that Dobson and his friends, even if they had got out,
+would be busy looking for the truants in the vicinity of the House and
+would presently be engaged with the old Tower.  But he realized, too,
+that speed on his errand was vital, for at any moment the Unknown
+might arrive from the sea.
+
+So he kept up a good pace, half-running, half-striding, till they
+had passed the railway, and he found himself gasping with a stitch
+in his side, and compelled to rest in the lee of what had once
+been a sheepfold.  Saskia amazed him.  She moved over the rough heather
+like a deer, and it was her hand that helped him across the deeper hags.
+Before such youth and vigour he felt clumsy and old.  She stood looking
+down at him as he recovered his breath, cool, unruffled, alert as Diana.
+His mind fled to Heritage, and it occurred to him suddenly that
+the Poet had set his affections very high.  Loyalty drove him
+to speak for his friend.
+
+"I've got the easy job," he said.  "Mr. Heritage will have the
+whole pack on him in that old Tower, and him with such a sore clout
+on his head.  I've left him my pistol.  He's a terrible brave man!"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Ay, and he's a poet too."
+
+"So?" she said.  "I did not know.  He is very young."
+
+"He's a man of very high ideels."
+
+She puzzled at the word, and then smiled.  "He is like many of
+our young men in Russia, the students--his mind is in a ferment
+and he does not know what he wants.  But he is brave."
+
+This seemed to Dickson's loyal soul but a chilly tribute.
+
+"I think he is in love with me," she continued.
+
+He looked up startled, and saw in her face that which gave him a view
+into a strange new world.  He had thought that women blushed when
+they talked of love, but he eyes were as grave and candid as a boy's.
+Here was one who had gone through waters so deep that she had
+lost the foibles of sex.  Love to her was only a word of ill omen,
+a threat on the lips of brutes, an extra battalion of peril in
+an army of perplexities.  He felt like some homely rustic who
+finds himself swept unwittingly into the moonlight hunt of
+Artemis and her maidens.
+
+"He is a romantic," she said.  "I have known so many like him."
+
+"He's no that," said Dickson shortly.  "Why he used to be aye
+laughing at me for being romantic.  He's one that's looking for
+truth and reality,  he says, and he's terrible down on the kind of
+poetry I like myself."
+
+She smiled.  "They all talk so.  But you, my friend Dickson"
+(she pronounced the name in two staccato syllables ever so prettily),
+"you are different.  Tell me about yourself."
+
+"I'm just what you see--a middle-aged retired grocer."
+
+"Grocer?" she queried.  "Ah, yes, epicier.  But you are a very
+remarkable epicier.  Mr. Heritage I understand, but you and those
+little boys--no.  I am sure of one thing--you are not a romantic.
+You are too humorous and--and--I think you are like Ulysses,
+for it would not be easy to defeat you."
+
+Her eyes were kind, nay affectionate, and Dickson experienced a
+preposterous rapture in his soul, followed by a sinking, as he
+realized how far the job was still from being completed.
+
+"We must be getting on, Mem," he said hastily, and the two plunged
+again into the heather.
+
+The Ayr road was crossed, and the fir wood around the Mains
+became visible, and presently the white gates of the entrance.
+A wind-blown spire of smoke beyond the trees proclaimed that the
+house was not untenanted.  As they entered the drive the Scots firs
+were tossing in the gale, which blew fiercely at this altitude, but,
+the dwelling itself being more in the hollow, the daffodil clumps on
+the lawn were but mildly fluttered.
+
+The door was opened by a one-armed butler who bore all the marks
+of the old regular soldier.  Dickson produced a card and asked to
+see his master on urgent business.  Sir Archibald was at home,
+he was told, and had just finished breakfast.  The two were led
+into a large bare chamber which had all the chill and mustiness of a
+bachelor's drawing-room.  The butler returned, and said Sir Archibald
+would see him.  "I'd better go myself first and prepare the way, Mem,"
+Dickson whispered, and followed the man across the hall.
+
+He found himself ushered into a fair-sized room where a bright
+fire was burning.  On a table lay the remains of breakfast,
+and the odour of food mingled pleasantly with the scent of peat.
+The horns and heads of big game, foxes' masks, the model of a
+gigantic salmon, and several bookcases adorned the walls,
+and books and maps were mixed with decanters and cigar-boxes on
+the long sideboard.  After the wild out of doors the place seemed
+the very shrine of comfort.  A young man sat in an arm-chair by the
+fire with a leg on a stool; he was smoking a pipe, and reading the
+Field, and on another stool at his elbow was a pile of new novels.
+He was a pleasant brown-faced young man, with remarkably smooth
+hair and a roving humorous eye.
+
+"Come in, Mr. McCunn.  Very glad to see you.  If, as I take it,
+you're the grocer, you're a household name in these parts.
+I get all my supplies from you, and I've just been makin' inroads
+on one of your divine hams.  Now, what can I do for you?"
+
+"I'm very proud to hear what you say, Sir Archibald.  But I've not
+come on business.  I've come with the queerest story you ever heard
+in your life and I've come to ask your help."
+
+"Go ahead.  A good story is just what I want this vile mornin'."
+
+"I'm not here alone.  I've a lady with me."
+
+"God bless my soul!  A lady!"
+
+"Ay, a princess.  She's in the next room."
+
+The young man looked wildly at him and waved the book he had been reading.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. McCunn, but are you quite sober?  I beg your pardon.
+I see you are.  But you know, it isn't done.  Princesses don't
+as a rule come here after breakfast to pass the time of day.
+It's more absurd than this shocker I've been readin'."
+
+"All the same it's a fact.  She'll tell you the story herself,
+and you'll believe her quick enough.  But to prepare your mind
+I'll just give you a sketch of the events of the last few days."
+
+Before the sketch was concluded the young man had violently rung the bell.
+"Sime," he shouted to the servant, "clear away this mess and lay
+the table again.  Order more breakfast, all the breakfast you can get.
+Open the windows and get the tobacco smoke out of the air.
+Tidy up the place for there's a lady comin'.  Quick, you juggins!"
+
+He was on his feet now, and, with his arm in Dickson's, was heading
+for the door.
+
+"My sainted aunt!  And you topped off with pottin' at the factor.
+I've seen a few things in my day, but I'm blessed if I ever met
+a bird like you!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+
+GRAVITY OUT OF BED
+
+
+
+It is probable that Sir Archibald Roylance did not altogether
+believe Dickson's tale; it may be that he considered him an agreeable
+romancer, or a little mad, or no more than a relief to the tedium of
+a wet Sunday morning.  But his incredulity did not survive one
+glance at Saskia as she stood in that bleak drawing-room among
+Victorian water-colours and faded chintzes.  The young man's
+boyishness deserted him.  He stopped short in his tracks, and made
+a profound and awkward bow.  "I am at your service, Mademoiselle,"
+he said, amazed at himself.  The words seemed to have come out of
+a confused memory of plays and novels.
+
+She inclined her head--a little on one side, and looked towards Dickson.
+
+"Sir Archibald's going to do his best for us," said that squire of dames.
+"I was telling him that we had had our breakfast."
+
+"Let's get out of this sepulchre," said their host, who was
+recovering himself.  "There's a roasting fire in my den.  Of course
+you'll have something to eat--hot coffee, anyhow--I've trained my cook to
+make coffee like a Frenchwoman.  The housekeeper will take charge of you,
+if you want to tidy up, and you must excuse our ramshackle ways, please.
+I don't believe there's ever been a lady in this house before, you know."
+
+He led her to the smoking-room and ensconced her in the great
+chair by the fire.  Smilingly she refused a series of offers which
+ranged from a sheepskin mantle which he had got in the Pamirs and
+which he thought might fit her, to hot whisky and water as a specific
+against a chill.  But she accepted a pair of slippers and deftly
+kicked off the brogues provided by Mrs. Morran.  Also, while Dickson
+started rapaciously on a second breakfast, she allowed him to pour
+her out a cup of coffee.
+
+"You are a soldier?" she asked.
+
+"Two years infantry--5th Battalion Lennox Highlanders, and then
+Flying Corps.  Top-hole time I had too till the day before
+the Armistice, when my luck gave out and I took a nasty toss.
+Consequently I'm not as fast on my legs now as I'd like to be."
+
+"You were a friend of Captain Kennedy?"
+
+"His oldest.  We were at the same private school, and he was at
+m'tutors, and we were never much separated till he went abroad to
+cram for the Diplomatic and I started east to shoot things."
+
+"Then I will tell you what I told Captain Kennedy."  Saskia, looking
+into the heart of the peats, began the story of which we have already
+heard a version, but she told it differently, for she was telling it
+to one who more or less belonged to her own world.  She mentioned names
+at which the other nodded.  She spoke of a certain Paul Abreskov.
+"I heard of him at Bokhara in 1912," said Sir Archie, and his
+face grew solemn.  Sometimes she lapsed into French, and her hearer's
+brow wrinkled, but he appeared to follow.  When she had finished
+he drew a long breath.
+
+"My aunt!  What a time you've been through!  I've seen pluck in
+my day, but yours!  It's not thinkable.  D'you mind if I ask
+a question, Princess?  Bolshevism we know all about, and I admit
+Trotsky and his friends are a pretty effective push; but how on
+earth have they got a world-wide graft going in the time so that
+they can stretch their net to an out-of-the-way spot like this?
+It looks as if they had struck a Napoleon somewhere."
+
+"You do not understand," she said.  "I cannot make any one understand-
+-except a Russian.  My country has been broken to pieces, and there
+is no law in it; therefore it is a nursery of crime.  So would
+England be, or France, if you had suffered the same misfortunes.
+My people are not wickeder than others, but for the moment they are
+sick and have no strength.  As for the government of the Bolsheviki
+it matters little, for it will pass.  Some parts of it may remain,
+but it is a government of the sick and fevered, and cannot endure
+in health.  Lenin may be a good man--I do not think so, but I do not know-
+-but if he were an archangel he could not alter things.  Russia is
+mortally sick and therefore all evil is unchained, and the criminals
+have no one to check them.  There is crime everywhere in the world,
+and the unfettered crime in Russia is so powerful that it stretches
+its hand to crime throughout the globe and there is a great mobilizing
+everywhere of wicked men.  Once you boasted that law was international
+and that the police in one land worked with the police of all others.
+To-day that is true about criminals.  After a war evil passions
+are loosed, and, since Russia is broken, in her they can make
+their headquarters....It is not Bolshevism, the theory, you need fear,
+for that is a weak and dying thing.  It is crime, which to-day finds its
+seat in my country, but is not only Russian.  It has no fatherland.
+It is as old as human nature and as wide as the earth."
+
+"I see," said Sir Archie.  "Gad, here have I been vegetatin' and
+thinkin' that all excitement had gone out of life with the war,
+and sometimes even regrettin' that the beastly old thing was over,
+and all the while the world fairly hummin' with interest.  And Loudon too!"
+
+"I would like your candid opinion on yon factor, Sir Archibald,"
+said Dickson.
+
+"I can't say I ever liked him, and I've once or twice had a row
+with him, for used to bring his pals to shoot over Dalquharter
+and he didn't quite play the game by me.  But I know dashed
+little about him, for I've been a lot away.  Bit hairy about the
+heels, of course.  A great figure at local race-meetin's, and used to
+toady old Carforth and the huntin' crowd.  He has a pretty big
+reputation as a sharp lawyer and some of the thick-headed lairds
+swear by him, but Quentin never could stick him.  It's quite likely
+he's been gettin' into Queer Street, for he was always speculatin'
+in horseflesh, and I fancy he plunged a bit on the Turf.
+But I can't think how he got mixed up in this show."
+
+"I'm positive Dobson's his brother."
+
+"And put this business in his way.  That would explain it all right....
+He must be runnin' for pretty big stakes, for that kind of lad
+don't dabble in crime for six-and-eightpence....Now for the layout.
+You've got three men shut up in Dalquharter House, who by this time
+have probably escaped.  One of you--what's his name?--Heritage?--is
+in the old Tower, and you think that they think the Princess is still
+there and will sit round the place like terriers.  Sometime to-day
+the Danish brig wall arrive with reinforcements, and then there will
+be a hefty fight.  Well, the first thing to be done it to get rid of
+Loudon's stymie with the authorities.  Princess, I'm going to carry
+you off in my car to the Chief Constable.  The second thing is for
+you after that to stay on here.  It's a deadly place on a wet day,
+but it's safe enough."
+
+Saskia shook her head and Dickson spoke for her.
+
+"You'll no' get her to stop here.  I've done my best, but she's
+determined to be back at Dalquharter.  You see she's expecting
+a friend, and besides, if here's going to be a battle she'd like
+to be in it.  Is that so, Mem?"
+
+Sir Archie looked helplessly around him, and the sight of the girl's
+face convinced him that argument would be fruitless.  "Anyhow she
+must come with me to the Chief Constable.  Lethington's a slow bird
+on the wing, and I don't see myself convincin' him that he must get
+busy unless I can produce the Princess.  Even then it may be a tough
+job, for it's Sunday, and in these parts people go to sleep till
+Monday mornin'."
+
+"That's just what I'm trying to get at," said Dickson.  "By all
+means go to the Chief Constable, and tell him it's life or death.
+My lawyer in Glasgow, Mr. Caw, will have been stirring him up
+yesterday, and you two should complete the job...But what I'm feared
+is that he'll not be in time.  As you say, it's the Sabbath day,
+and the police are terrible slow.  Now any moment that brig may be
+here, and the trouble will start.  I'm wanting to save the Princess,
+but I'm wanting too to give these blagyirds the roughest handling
+they ever got in their lives.  Therefore I say there's no time to lose.
+We're far ower few to put up a fight, and we want every man you've
+got about this place to hold the fort till the police come."
+
+Sir Archibald looked upon the earnest flushed face of Dickson
+with admiration.  "I'm blessed if you're not the most whole-hearted
+brigand I've ever struck."
+
+"I'm not.  I'm just a business man."
+
+"Do you realize that you're levying a private war and breaking
+every law of the land?"
+
+"Hoots!" said Dickson.  "I don't care a docken about the law.
+I'm for seeing this job through.  What force can you produce?"
+
+"Only cripples, I'm afraid.  There's Sime, my butler.  He was a
+Fusilier Jock and, as you saw, has lost an arm.  Then McGuffog the
+keeper is a good man, but he's still got a Turkish bullet in his thigh.
+The chauffeur, Carfrae, was in the Yeomanry, and lost half a foot;
+and there's myself, as lame as a duck.  The herds on the home farm
+are no good, for one's seventy and the other is in bed with jaundice.
+The Mains can produce four men, but they're rather a job lot."
+
+"They'll do fine," said Dickson heartily.  "All sodgers, and no
+doubt all good shots.  Have you plenty guns?"
+
+Sir Archie burst into uproarious laughter.  "Mr. McCunn, you're a man
+after my own heart.  I'm under your orders.  If I had a boy I'd put
+him into the provision trade, for it's the place to see fightin'.
+Yes, we've no end of guns.  I advise shot-guns, for they've more
+stoppin' power in a rush than a rifle, and I take it it's a
+rough-and-tumble we're lookin' for."
+
+"Right," said Dickson.  "I saw a bicycle in the hall.  I want you to
+lend it me, for I must be getting back.  You'll take the Princess
+and do the best you can with the Chief Constable."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then you'll load up your car with your folk, and come down the
+hill to Dalquharter.  There'll be a laddie, or maybe more than one,
+waiting for you on this side the village to give you instructions.
+Take your orders from them.  If it's a red-haired ruffian called
+Dougal you'll be wise to heed what he says, for he has a grand
+head for battles."
+
+Five minutes later Dickson was pursuing a quavering course like a
+snipe down the avenue.  He was a miserable performer on a bicycle.
+Not for twenty years had he bestridden one, and he did not understand
+such new devices as free-wheels and change of gears.  The mounting
+had been the worst part, and it had only been achieved by the help
+of a rockery.  He had begun by cutting into two flower-beds, and
+missing a birch tree by inches.  But he clung on desperately, well
+knowing that if he fell off it would be hard to remount, and at
+length he gained the avenue.  When he passed the lodge gates he
+was riding fairly straight, and when he turned off the Ayr highway
+to the side road that led to Dalquharter he was more or less master
+of his machine.
+
+He crossed the Garple by an ancient hunch-backed bridge, observing
+even in his absorption with the handle-bars that the stream was
+in roaring spate.  He wrestled up the further hill with aching
+calf-muscles, and got to the top just before his strength gave out.
+Then as the road turned seaward he had the slope with him, and
+enjoyed some respite.  It was no case for putting up his feet, for
+the gale was blowing hard on his right cheek, but the downward grade
+enabled him to keep his course with little exertion.  His anxiety
+to get back to the scene of action was for the moment appeased,
+since he knew he was making as good speed as the weather allowed,
+so he had leisure for thought.
+
+But the mind of this preposterous being was not on the business
+before him.  He dallied with irrelevant things--with the problems
+of youth and love.  He was beginning to be very nervous about Heritage,
+not as the solitary garrison of the old Tower, but as the lover of Saskia.
+That everybody should be in love with her appeared to him only proper,
+for he had never met her like, and assumed that it did not exist.
+The desire of the moth for the star seemed to him a reasonable thing,
+since hopeless loyalty and unrequited passion were the eternal
+stock-in-trade of romance.  He wished he were twenty-five himself to
+have the chance of indulging in such sentimentality for such a lady.
+But Heritage was not like him and would never be content with a
+romantic folly....He had been in love with her for two years--a
+long time.  He spoke about wanting to die for her, which was a flight
+beyond Dickson himself.  "I doubt it will be what they call a
+'grand passion,'" he reflected with reverence.  But it was hopeless;
+he saw quite clearly that it was hopeless.
+
+Why, he could not have explained, for Dickson's instincts were subtler
+than his intelligence.  He recognized that the two belonged to different
+circles of being, which nowhere intersected.  That mysterious lady,
+whose eyes had looked through life to the other side, was no mate
+for the Poet.  His faithful soul was agitated, for he had developed
+for Heritage a sincere affection.  It would break his heart, poor man.
+There was he holding the fort alone and cheering himself with delightful
+fancies about one remoter than the moon.  Dickson wanted happy endings,
+and here there was no hope of such.  He hated to admit that life could
+be crooked, but the optimist in him was now fairly dashed.
+
+Sir Archie might be the fortunate man, for of course he would
+soon be in love with her, if he were not so already.  Dickson like
+all his class had a profound regard for the country gentry.
+The business Scot does not usually revere wealth, though he may
+pursue it earnestly, nor does he specially admire rank in
+the common sense.  But for ancient race he has respect in his bones,
+though it may happen that in public he denies it, and the laird has
+for him a secular association with good family....Sir Archie might do.
+He was young, good-looking, obviously gallant...But no!  He was not
+quite right either.  Just a trifle too light in weight, too boyish
+and callow.  The Princess must have youth, but it should be mighty youth,
+the youth of a Napoleon or a Caesar.  He reflected that the Great Montrose,
+for whom he had a special veneration, might have filled the bill.
+Or young Harry with his beaver up?  Or Claverhouse in the picture
+with the flush of temper on his cheek?
+
+The meditations of the match-making Dickson came to an abrupt end.
+He had been riding negligently, his head bent against the wind, and his
+eyes vaguely fixed on the wet hill-gravel of the road.  Of his immediate
+environs he was pretty well unconscious.  Suddenly he was aware of
+figures on each side of him who advanced menacingly.  Stung to
+activity he attempted to increase his pace, which was already good,
+for the road at this point descended steeply.  Then, before he could
+prevent it, a stick was thrust into his front wheel, and the next
+second he was describing a curve through the air.  His head took the
+ground, he felt a spasm of blinding pain, and then a sense of
+horrible suffocation before his wits left him.
+
+"Are ye sure it's the richt man, Ecky?" said a voice which he did not hear.
+
+"Sure.  It's the Glesca body Dobson telled us to look for yesterday.
+It's a pund note atween us for this job.  We'll tie him up in the wud
+till we've time to attend to him."
+
+"Is he bad?"
+
+"It doesna maitter," said the one called Ecky.  "He'll be deid onyway
+long afore the morn."
+
+
+Mrs. Morran all forenoon was in a state of un-Sabbatical disquiet.
+After she had seen Saskia and Dickson start she finished her
+housewifely duties, took Cousin Eugenie her breakfast, and made
+preparation for the midday dinner.  The invalid in the bed in the
+parlour was not a repaying subject.  Cousin Eugenie belonged
+to that type of elderly women who, having been spoiled in youth,
+find the rest of life fall far short of their expectations.
+Her voice had acquired a perpetual wail, and the corners of what
+had once been a pretty mouth drooped in an eternal peevishness.
+She found herself in a morass of misery and shabby discomfort,
+but had her days continued in an even tenor she would still
+have lamented.  "A dingy body," was Mrs. Morran's comment,
+but she laboured in kindness.  Unhappily they had no common
+language, and it was only by signs that the hostess could discover
+her wants and show her goodwill.  She fed her and bathed her face,
+saw to the fire and left her to sleep.  "I'm boilin' a hen to mak'
+broth for your denner, Mem.  Try and get a bit sleep now."
+The purport of the advice was clear, and Cousin Eugenie turned
+obediently on her pillow.
+
+It was Mrs. Morran's custom of a Sunday to spend the morning in
+devout meditation.  Some years before she had given up tramping the
+five miles to kirk, on the ground that having been a regular attendant
+for fifty years she had got all the good out of it that was probable.
+Instead she read slowly aloud to herself the sermon printed in a
+certain religious weekly which reached her every Saturday, and
+concluded with a chapter or two of the Bible.  But to-day something
+had gone wrong with her mind.  She could not follow the thread of the
+Reverend Doctor MacMichael's discourse.  She could not fix her
+attention on the wanderings and misdeeds of Israel as recorded in
+the Book of Exodus.  She must always be getting up to look at the
+pot on the fire, or to open the back door and study the weather.
+For a little she fought against her unrest, and then she gave up
+the attempt at concentration.  She took the big pot off the fire and
+allowed it to simmer, and presently she fetched her boots and umbrella,
+and kilted her petticoats.  "I'll be none the waur o' a breath o'
+caller air," she decided.
+
+The wind was blowing great guns but there was only the thinnest
+sprinkle of rain.  Sitting on the hen-house roof and munching a raw
+turnip was a figure which she recognized as the smallest of the Die-
+Hards.  Between bites he was singing dolefully to the tune of "Annie
+Laurie" one of the ditties of his quondam Sunday School:
+
+
+"The Boorjoys' brays are bonnie,
+Too-roo-ra-roo-raloo,
+But the Workers of the World
+Wull gar them a' look blue,
+And droon them in the sea,
+And--for bonnie Annie Laurie
+I'll lay me down and dee."
+
+
+"Losh, laddie," she cried, "that's cauld food for the stomach.
+Come indoors about midday and I'll gie ye a plate o' broth!"
+The Die-Hard saluted and continued on the turnip.
+
+She took the Auchenlochan road across the Garple bridge, for that
+was the best road to the Mains, and by it Dickson and the others
+might be returning.  Her equanimity at all seasons was like a Turk's,
+and she would not have admitted that anything mortal had power to
+upset or excite her: nevertheless it was a fast-beating heart
+that she now bore beneath her Sunday jacket.  Great events,
+she felt, were on the eve of happening, and of them she was a part.
+Dickson's anxiety was hers, to bring things to a business-like conclusion.
+The honour of Huntingtower was at stake and of the old Kennedys.
+She was carrying out Mr. Quentin's commands, the dead boy who used
+to clamour for her treacle scones.  And there was more than duty in it,
+for youth was not dead in her old heart, and adventure had still
+power to quicken it.
+
+Mrs. Morran walked well, with the steady long paces of the
+Scots countrywoman.  She left the Auchenlochan road and took
+the side path along the tableland to the Mains.  But for the
+surge of the gale and the far-borne boom of the furious sea there
+was little noise; not a bird cried in the uneasy air.  With the wind
+behind her Mrs. Morran breasted the ascent till she had on her
+right the moorland running south to the Lochan valley and on
+her left Garple chafing in its deep forested gorges.  Her eyes
+were quick and she noted with interest a weasel creeping from a
+fern-clad cairn.  A little way on she passed an old ewe in
+difficulties and assisted it to rise.  "But for me, my wumman,
+ye'd hae been braxy ere nicht," she told it as it departed bleating.
+Then she realized that she had come a certain distance.  "Losh, I maun
+be gettin' back or the hen will be spiled," she cried, and was on
+the verge of turning.
+
+But something caught her eye a hundred yards farther on the road.
+It was something which moved with the wind like a wounded bird,
+fluttering from the roadside to a puddle and then back to the rushes.
+She advanced to it, missed it, and caught it.
+
+It was an old dingy green felt hat, and she recognized it as Dickson's.
+
+Mrs. Morran's brain, after a second of confusion, worked fast and clearly.
+She examined the road and saw that a little way on the gravel had
+been violently agitated.  She detected several prints of hobnailed boots.
+There were prints, too, on a patch of peat on the south side behind
+a tall bank of sods.  "That's where they were hidin'," she concluded.
+Then she explored on the other side in a thicket of hazels and wild
+raspberries, and presently her perseverance was rewarded.  The scrub was
+all crushed and pressed as if several persons had been forcing a passage.
+In a hollow was a gleam of something white.  She moved towards it
+with a quaking heart, and was relieved to find that it was only a
+new and expensive bicycle with the front wheel badly buckled.
+
+Mrs. Morran delayed no longer.  If she had walked well on her out journey,
+she beat all records on the return.  Sometimes she would run till her
+breath failed; then she would slow down till anxiety once more quickened
+her pace.  To her joy, on the Dalquharter side of the Garple bridge she
+observed the figure of a Die-Hard.  Breathless, flushed, with her bonnet
+awry and her umbrella held like a scimitar, she seized on the boy.
+
+"Awfu' doin's!  They've grippit Maister McCunn up the Mains road just
+afore the second milestone and forenent the auld bucht.  I fund his hat,
+and a bicycle's lyin' broken in the wud.  Haste ye, man, and get the
+rest and awa' and seek him.  It'll be the tinklers frae the Dean.
+I'd gang misel' but my legs are ower auld.  Ah, laddie, dinna stop
+to speir questions.  They'll hae him murdered or awa' to sea.  And maybe
+the leddy was wi' him and they've got them baith.  Wae's me!  Wae's me!"
+
+The Die-Hard, who was Wee Jaikie, did not delay.  His eyes had
+filled with tears at her news, which we know to have been his habit.
+When Mrs. Morran, after indulging in a moment of barbaric keening,
+looked back the road she had come, she saw a small figure trotting up
+the hill like a terrier who has been left behind.  As he trotted he
+wept bitterly.  Jaikie was getting dangerous.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+HOW MR. McCUNN COMMITTED AN ASSAULT UPON AN ALLY
+
+
+Dickson always maintained that his senses did not leave him for more
+than a second or two, but he admitted that he did not remember very
+clearly the events of the next few hours.  He was conscious of a bad
+pain above his eyes, and something wet trickling down his cheek.
+There was a perpetual sound of water in his ears and of men's voices.
+He found himself dropped roughly on the ground and forced to walk,
+and was aware that his legs were inclined to wobble.  Somebody had a
+grip on each arm, so that he could not defend his face from the
+brambles, and that worried him, for his whole head seemed one aching
+bruise and he dreaded anything touching it.  But all the time he
+did not open his mouth, for silence was the one duty that his
+muddled wits enforced.  He felt that he was not the master of his
+mind, and he dreaded what he might disclose if he began to babble.
+
+Presently there came a blank space of which he had no recollection at all.
+The movement had stopped, and he was allowed to sprawl on the ground.
+He thought that his head had got another whack from a bough,
+and that the pain put him into a stupor.  When he awoke he was alone.
+
+He discovered that he was strapped very tightly to a young Scotch fir.
+His arms were bent behind him and his wrists tied together with cords
+knotted at the back of the tree; his legs were shackled, and further
+cords fastened them to the bole.  Also there was a halter round the
+trunk and just under his chin, so that while he breathed freely enough,
+he could not move his head.  Before him was a tangle of bracken and
+scrub, and beyond that the gloom of dense pines; but as he could see
+only directly in front his prospect was strictly circumscribed.
+
+Very slowly he began to take his bearings.  The pain in his head was
+now dulled and quite bearable, and the flow of blood had stopped,
+for he felt the encrustation of it beginning on his cheeks.
+There was a tremendous noise all around him, and he traced
+this to the swaying of tree-tops in the gale.  But there was
+an undercurrent of deeper sound--water surely, water churning
+among rocks.  It was a stream--the Garple of course--and then he
+remembered where he was and what had happened.
+
+I do not wish to portray Dickson as a hero, for nothing would
+annoy him more; but I am bound to say that his first clear thought
+was not of his own danger.  It was intense exasperation at the
+miscarriage of his plans.  Long ago he should have been with Dougal
+arranging operations, giving him news of Sir Archie, finding out how
+Heritage was faring, deciding how to use the coming reinforcements.
+Instead he was trussed up in a wood, a prisoner of the enemy, and
+utterly useless to his side.  He tugged at his bonds, and nearly
+throttled himself.  But they were of good tarry cord and did not give
+a fraction of an inch.  Tears of bitter rage filled his eyes and made
+furrows on his encrusted cheek.  Idiot that he had been, he had
+wrecked everything!  What would Saskia and Dougal and Sir Archie do
+without a business man by their side?  There would be a muddle, and
+the little party would walk into a trap.  He saw it all very clearly.
+The men from the sea would overpower them, there would be murder done,
+and an easy capture of the Princess; and the police would turn up at
+long last to find an empty headland.
+
+He had also most comprehensively wrecked himself, and at the thought
+genuine panic seized him.  There was no earthly chance of escape,
+for he was tucked away in this infernal jungle till such time as his
+enemies had time to deal with him.  As to what that dealing would be like
+he had no doubts, for they knew that he had been their chief opponent.
+Those desperate ruffians would not scruple to put an end to him.
+His mind dwelt with horrible fascination upon throat-cutting,
+no doubt because of the presence of the cord below his chin.
+He had heard it was not a painful death; at any rate he remembered
+a clerk he had once had, a feeble, timid creature, who had twice
+attempted suicide that way.  Surely it could not be very bad,
+and it would soon be over.
+
+But another thought came to him.  They would carry him off in the ship
+and settle with him at their leisure.  No swift merciful death for him.
+He had read dreadful tales of the Bolsheviks' skill in torture,
+and now they all came back to him--stories of Chinese mercenaries,
+and men buried alive, and death by agonizing inches.  He felt suddenly
+very cold and sick, and hung in his bonds, for he had no strength
+in his limbs.  Then the pressure on this throat braced him, and also
+quickened his numb mind.  The liveliest terror ran like quicksilver
+through his veins.
+
+He endured some moments of this anguish, till after many despairing
+clutches at his wits he managed to attain a measure of self-control.
+He certainly wasn't going to allow himself to become mad. Death was
+death whatever form it took, and he had to face death as many better
+men had done before him.  He had often thought about it and wondered
+how he should behave if the thing came to him.  Respectably, he had hoped;
+heroically, he had sworn in his moments of confidence.  But he had
+never for an instant dreamed of this cold, lonely, dreadful business.
+Last Sunday, he remembered, he had basking in the afternoon sun in
+his little garden and reading about the end of Fergus MacIvor in
+WAVERLEY and thrilling to the romance of it; and Tibby had come out
+and summoned him in to tea.  Then he had rather wanted to be a
+Jacobite in the '45 and in peril of his neck, and now Providence
+had taken him most terribly at his word.
+
+A week ago---!  He groaned at the remembrance of that sunny garden.
+In seven days he had found a new world and tried a new life,
+and had come now to the end of it.  He did not want to die,
+less now than ever with such wide horizons opening before him.
+But that was the worst of it, he reflected, for to have a great
+life great hazards must be taken, and there was always the risk of
+this sudden extinguisher....Had he to choose again, far better the
+smooth sheltered bypath than this accursed romantic highway on to
+which he had blundered....No, by Heaven, no!  Confound it, if
+he had to choose he would do it all again.  Something stiff and
+indomitable in his soul was bracing him to a manlier humour.
+There was no one to see the figure strapped to the fir, but had there
+been a witness he would have noted that at this stage Dickson shut
+his teeth and that his troubled eyes looked very steadily before him.
+
+His business, he felt, was to keep from thinking, for if he thought
+at all there would be a flow of memories--of his wife, his home,
+his books, his friends--to unman him.  So he steeled himself to blankness,
+like a sleepless man imagining white sheep in a gate....He noted a robin
+below the hazels, strutting impudently.  And there was a tit on a bracken
+frond, which made the thing sway like one of the see-saws he used to
+play with as a boy.  There was no wind in that undergrowth, and any
+movement must be due to bird or beast.  The tit flew off, and the
+oscillations of the bracken slowly died away.  Then they began again,
+but more violently, and Dickson could not see the bird that caused them.
+It must be something down at the roots of the covert, a rabbit, perhaps,
+or a fox, or a weasel.
+
+He watched for the first sign of the beast, and thought he caught
+a glimpse of tawny fur.  Yes, there it was--pale dirty yellow,
+a weasel clearly.  Then suddenly the patch grow larger, and to his
+amazement he looked at a human face--the face of a pallid small boy.
+
+A head disentangled itself, followed by thin shoulders, and then
+by a pair of very dirty bare legs.  The figure raised itself and
+looked sharply round to make certain that the coast was clear.
+Then it stood up and saluted, revealing the well-known lineaments
+of Wee Jaikie.
+
+At the sight Dickson knew that he was safe by that certainty of
+instinct which is independent of proof, like the man who prays for
+a sign and has his prayer answered.  He observed that the boy was
+quietly sobbing.  Jaikie surveyed the position for an instant with
+red-rimmed eyes and then unclasped a knife, feeling the edge of the
+blade on his thumb.  He darted behind the fir, and a second later
+Dickson's wrists were free.  Then he sawed at the legs, and cut the
+shackles which tied them together, and then--most circumspectly--
+assaulted the cord which bound Dickson's neck to the trunk.
+There now remained only the two bonds which fastened the legs
+and the body to the tree.
+
+There was a sound in the wood different from the wind and stream.
+Jaikie listened like a startled hind.
+
+"They're comin' back," he gasped.  "Just you bide where ye are and
+let on ye're still tied up."
+
+He disappeared in the scrub as inconspicuously as a rat, while
+two of the tinklers came up the slope from the waterside.
+Dickson in a fever of impatience cursed Wee Jaikie for not cutting his
+remaining bonds so that he could at least have made a dash for freedom.
+And then he realized that the boy had been right.  Feeble and cramped
+as he was, he would have stood no chance in a race.
+
+One of the tinklers was the man called Ecky.  He had been running
+hard, and was mopping his brow.
+
+"Hob's seen the brig," he said.  "It's droppin' anchor ayont
+the Dookits whaur there's a bield frae the wund and deep water.
+They'll be landit in half an 'oor.  Awa' you up to the Hoose and tell
+Dobson, and me and Sim and Hob will meet the boats at the Garplefit."
+
+The other cast a glance towards Dickson.
+
+"What about him?" he asked.
+
+The two scrutinized their prisoner from a distance of a few paces.
+Dickson, well aware of his peril, held himself as stiff as if
+every bond had been in place.  The thought flashed on him that
+if he were too immobile they might think he was dying or dead,
+and come close to examine him.  If they only kept their distance, the
+dusk of the wood would prevent them detecting Jaikie's handiwork.
+
+"What'll you take to let me go?" he asked plaintively.
+
+"Naething that you could offer, my mannie," said Ecky.
+
+"I'll give you a five-pound note apiece."
+
+"Produce the siller," said the other.
+
+"It's in my pocket."
+
+"It's no' that.  We riped your pooches lang syne."
+
+"I'll take you to Glasgow with me and pay you there.  Honour bright."
+
+Ecky spat.  "D'ye think we're gowks?  Man, there's no siller ye
+could pay wad mak' it worth our while to lowse ye.  Bide quiet
+there and ye'll see some queer things ere nicht.  C'way, Davie."
+
+The two set off at a good pace down the stream, while Dickson's
+pulsing heart returned to its normal rhythm.  As the sound of
+their feet died away Wee Jaikie crawled out from cover, dry-eyed now
+and very business-like.  He slit the last thongs, and Dickson fell
+limply on his face.
+
+"Losh, laddie, I'm awful stiff," he groaned.  "Now, listen.
+Away all your pith to Dougal, and tell him that the brig's in and
+the men will be landing inside the hour.  Tell him I'm coming as
+fast as my legs will let me.  The Princess will likely be there
+already and Sir Archibald and his men, but if they're no', tell
+Dougal they're coming.  Haste you, Jaikie.  And see here, I'll never
+forget what you've done for me the day.  You're a fine wee laddie!"
+
+The obedient Die-Hard disappeared, and Dickson painfully and
+laboriously set himself to climb the slope.  He decided that his
+quickest and safest route lay by the highroad, and he had also some
+hopes of recovering his bicycle.  On examining his body he seemed to
+have sustained no very great damage, except a painful cramping of
+legs and arms and a certain dizziness in the head.  His pockets had
+been thoroughly rifled, and he reflected with amusement that he, the
+well-to-do Mr. McCunn, did not possess at the moment a single copper.
+
+But his spirits were soaring, for somehow his escape had given him
+an assurance of ultimate success.  Providence had directly interfered
+on his behalf by the hand of Wee Jaikie, and that surely meant
+that it would see him through.  But his chief emotion was an
+ardour of impatience to get to the scene of action.  He must be at
+Dalquharter before the men from the sea; he must find Dougal and
+discover his dispositions.  Heritage would be on guard in the Tower,
+and in a very little the enemy would be round it.  It would be just
+like the Princess to try and enter there, but at all costs that
+must be hindered.  She and Sir Archie must not be cornered in
+stone walls, but must keep their communications open and fall
+on the enemy's flank.  Oh, if the police would only come it time,
+what a rounding up of miscreants that day would see!
+
+As the trees thinned on the brow of the slope and he saw the sky,
+he realized that the afternoon was far advanced.  It must be well on
+for five o'clock.  The wind still blew furiously, and the oaks on the
+fringes of the wood were whipped like saplings.  Ruefully he admitted
+that the gale would not defeat the enemy.  If the brig found a
+sheltered anchorage on the south side of the headland beyond the
+Garple, it would be easy enough for boats to make the Garple mouth,
+though it might be a difficult job to get out again.  The thought
+quickened his steps, and he came out of cover on to the public
+road without a prior reconnaissance.  Just in front of him stood
+a motor-bicycle.  Something had gone wrong with it for its owner
+was tinkering at it, on the side farthest from Dickson.  A wild hope
+seized him that this might be the vanguard of the police, and he went
+boldly towards it.  The owner, who was kneeling, raised his face at
+the sound of footsteps and Dickson looked into his eyes.
+
+He recognized them only too well.  They belonged to the man he had
+seen in the inn at Kirkmichael, the man whom Heritage had decided to
+be an Australian, but whom they now know to be their arch-enemy--the
+man called Paul who had persecuted the Princess for years and whom
+alone of all beings on earth she feared.  He had been expected before,
+but had arrived now in the nick of time while the brig was casting anchor.
+Saskia had said that he had a devil's brain, and Dickson, as he stared
+at him, saw a fiendish cleverness in his straight brows and a
+remorseless cruelty in his stiff jaw and his pale eyes.
+
+He achieved the bravest act of his life.  Shaky and dizzy as he was,
+with freedom newly opened to him and the mental torments of his
+captivity still an awful recollection, he did not hesitate.
+He saw before him the villain of the drama, the one man that
+stood between the Princess and peace of mind.  He regarded
+no consequences, gave no heed to his own fate, and thought
+only how to put his enemy out of action.  There was a by spanner
+lying on the ground.  He seized it and with all his strength
+smote at the man's face.
+
+The motor-cyclist, kneeling and working hard at his machine,
+had raised his head at Dickson's approach and beheld a wild apparition-
+-a short man in ragged tweeds, with a bloody brow and long smears of
+blood on his cheeks.  The next second he observed the threat of attack,
+and ducked his head so that the spanner only grazed his scalp.
+The motor-bicycle toppled over, its owner sprang to his feet, and found
+the short man, very pale and gasping, about to renew the assault.
+In such a crisis there was no time for inquiry, and the cyclist was
+well trained in self-defence.  He leaped the prostrate bicycle,
+and before his assailant could get in a blow brought his left fist
+into violent contact with his chin.  Dickson tottered a step or two
+and then subsided among the bracken.
+
+He did not lose his senses, but he had no more strength in him.
+He felt horribly ill, and struggled in vain to get up.  The cyclist,
+a gigantic figure, towered above him.  "Who the devil are you?"
+he was asking.  "What do you mean by it?"
+
+Dickson had no breath for words, and knew that if he tried to
+speak he would be very sick.  He could only stare up like a dog
+at the angry eyes.  Angry beyond question they were, but surely
+not malevolent.  Indeed, as they looked at the shameful figure on
+the ground, amusement filled them.  The face relaxed into a smile.
+
+"Who on earth are you?" the voice repeated.  And then into it
+came recognition.  "I've seen you before.  I believe you're the
+little man I saw last week at the Black Bull.  Be so good as to
+explain why you want to murder me."
+
+Explanation was beyond Dickson, but his conviction was being
+woefully shaken.  Saskia had said her enemy was a beautiful as
+a devil--he remembered the phrase, for he had thought it ridiculous.
+This man was magnificent, but there was nothing devilish in his
+lean grave face.
+
+"What's your name?" the voice was asking.
+
+"Tell me yours first," Dickson essayed to stutter between spasms of nausea.
+
+"My name is Alexander Nicholson," was the answer.
+
+"Then you're no' the man."  It was a cry of wrath and despair.
+
+"You're a very desperate little chap.  For whom had I the honour
+to be mistaken?"
+
+Dickson had now wriggled into a sitting position and had clasped
+his hands above his aching head.
+
+"I thought you were a Russian, name of Paul," he groaned.
+
+"Paul!  Paul who?"
+
+"Just Paul.  A Bolshevik and an awful bad lot."
+
+Dickson could not see the change which his words wrought in
+the other's face.  He found himself picked up in strong arms and
+carried to a bog-pool where his battered face was carefully washed,
+his throbbing brows laved, and a wet handkerchief bound over them.
+Then he was given brandy in the socket of a flask, which eased
+his nausea.  The cyclist ran his bicycle to the roadside, and
+found a seat for Dickson behind the turf-dyke of the old bucht.
+
+"Now you are going to tell me everything," he said.  "If the Paul
+who is your enemy is the Paul I think him, then we are allies."
+
+But Dickson did not need this assurance.  His mind had suddenly
+received a revelation.  The Princess had expected an enemy,
+but also a friend.  Might not this be the long-awaited friend,
+for whose sake she was rooted to Huntingtower with all its terrors?
+
+"Are you sure your name's no' Alexis?"  he asked.
+
+"In my own country I was called Alexis Nicolaevitch, for I am a Russian.
+But for some years I have made my home with your folk, and I call myself
+Alexander Nicholson, which is the English form.  Who told you about Alexis?
+
+"Give me your hand," said Dickson shamefacedly.  "Man, she's been
+looking for you for weeks.  You're terribly behind the fair."
+
+"She!" he cried.  "For God's sake, tell me what you mean."
+
+"Ay, she--the Princess.  But what are we havering here for?
+I tell you at this moment she's somewhere down about the old Tower,
+and there's boatloads of blagyirds landing from the sea.  Help me up,
+man, for I must be off.  The story will keep.  Losh, it's very near
+the darkening.  If you're Alexis, you're just about in time for a battle."
+
+But Dickson on his feet was but a frail creature.  He was still
+deplorably giddy, and his legs showed an unpleasing tendency to crumple.
+"I'm fair done," he moaned.  "You see, I've been tied up all day to a
+tree and had two sore bashes on my head.  Get you on that bicycle and
+hurry on, and I'll hirple after you the best I can.  I'll direct you
+the road, and if you're lucky you'll find a Die-Hard about the village.
+Away with you, man, and never mind me."
+
+"We go together," said the other quietly.  "You can sit behind me
+and hang on to my waist.  Before you turned up I had pretty well
+got the thing in order."
+
+Dickson in a fever of impatience sat by while the Russian put
+the finishing touches to the machine, and as well as his anxiety
+allowed put him in possession of the main facts of the story.
+He told of how he and Heritage had come to Dalquharter, of the first
+meeting with Saskia, of the trip to Glasgow with the jewels, of the
+exposure of Loudon the factor, of last night's doings in the House,
+and of the journey that morning to the Mains of Garple.  He sketched the
+figures on the scene--Heritage and Sir Archie, Dobson and his gang, the
+Gorbals Die-Hards.  He told of the enemy's plans so far as he knew them.
+
+"Looked at from a business point of view," he said, "the situation's
+like this.  There's Heritage in the Tower, with Dobson, Leon, and
+Spidel sitting round him.  Somewhere about the place there's the
+Princess and Sir Archibald and three men with guns from the Mains.
+Dougal and his five laddies are running loose in the policies.
+And there's four tinklers and God knows how many foreign ruffians
+pushing up from the Garplefoot, and a brig lying waiting to carry
+off the ladies.  Likewise there's the police, somewhere on the road,
+though the dear kens when they'll turn up.  It's awful the
+incompetence of our Government, and the rates and taxes that high!...
+And there's you and me by this roadside, and me no more use
+than a tattie-bogle....That's the situation, and the question is
+what's our plan to be?  We must keep the blagyirds in play till
+the police come, and at the same time we must keep the Princess
+out of danger.  That's why I'm wanting back, for they've sore need
+of  a business head.  Yon Sir Archibald's a fine fellow, but I
+doubt he'll be a bit rash, and the Princess is no' to hold or bind.
+Our first job is to find Dougal and get a grip of the facts."
+
+"I am going to the Princess," said the Russian.
+
+"Ay, that'll be best.  You'll be maybe able to manage her,
+for you'll be well acquaint."
+
+"She is my kinswoman.  She is also my affianced wife."
+
+"Keep us!" Dickson exclaimed, with a doleful thought of Heritage.
+"What ailed you then no' to look after her better?"
+
+"We have been long separated, because it was her will.  She had work
+to do and disappeared from me, though I searched all Europe for her.
+Then she sent me word, when the danger became extreme, and summoned
+me to her aid.  But she gave me poor directions, for she did not know
+her own plans very clearly.  She spoke of a place called Darkwater,
+and I have been hunting half Scotland for it.  It was only last night
+that I heard of Dalquharter and guessed that that might be the name.
+But I was far down in Galloway, and have ridden fifty miles today."
+
+"It's a queer thing, but I wouldn't take you for a Russian."
+
+Alexis finished his work and put away his tools.
+
+"For the present," he said, "I am an Englishman, till my country
+comes again to her senses.  Ten years ago I left Russia, for I
+was sick of the foolishness of my class and wanted a free life
+in a new world.  I went to Australia and made good as an engineer.
+I am a partner in a firm which is pretty well known even in Britain.
+When war broke out I returned to fight for my people, and when Russia
+fell out of the war, I joined the Australians in France and fought
+with them till the Armistice.  And now I have only one duty left,
+to save the Princess and take her with me to my new home till Russia
+is a nation once more."
+
+Dickson whistled joyfully.  "So Mr. Heritage was right.  He aye said
+you were an Australian....And you're a business man!  That's grand
+hearing and puts my mind at rest.  You must take charge of the party
+at the House, for Sir Archibald's a daft young lad and Mr. Heritage
+is a poet.  I thought I would have to go myself, but I doubt I would
+just be a hindrance with my dwaibly legs.  I'd be better outside,
+watching for the police....Are you ready, sir?"
+
+Dickson not without difficulty perched himself astride the
+luggage carrier, firmly grasping the rider round the middle.
+The machine started, but it was evidently in a bad way, for it made
+poor going till the descent towards the main Auchenlochan road.
+On the slope it warmed up and they crossed the Garple bridge at
+a fair pace.  There was to be no pleasant April twilight, for
+the stormy sky had already made dusk, and in a very little
+the dark would fall.  So sombre was the evening that Dickson
+did not notice a figure in the shadow of the roadside pines
+till it whistled shrilly on its fingers.  He cried on Alexis
+to stop, and, this being accomplished with some suddenness,
+fell off at Dougal's feet.
+
+"What's the news?" he demanded.
+
+Dougal glanced at Alexis and seemed to approve his looks.
+
+"Napoleon has just reported that three boatloads, making either
+twenty-three or twenty-four men--they were gey ill to count--has
+landed at Garplefit and is makin' their way to the auld Tower.
+The tinklers warned Dobson and soon it'll be a' bye wi' Heritage."
+
+"The Princess is not there?" was Dickson's anxious inquiry.
+
+"Na, na.  Heritage is there his lone.  They were for joinin' him,
+but I wouldn't let them.  She came wi' a man they call Sir Erchibald
+and three gamekeepers wi' guns.  I stoppit their cawr up the road and
+tell't them the lie o' the land.  Yon Sir Erchibald has poor notions
+o' strawtegy.  He was for bangin' into the auld Tower straight away
+and shootin' Dobson if he tried to stop them.  'Havers,' say I,
+'let them break their teeth on the Tower, thinkin' the leddy's
+inside, and that'll give us time, for Heritage is no' the lad to
+surrender in a hurry.'"
+
+"Where are they now?"
+
+"In the Hoose o' Dalquharter, and a sore job I had gettin' them in.
+We've shifted our base again, without the enemy suspectin'."
+
+"Any word of the police?"
+
+"The polis!" and Dougal spat cynically.  "It seems they're a dour
+crop to shift.  Sir Erchibald was sayin' that him and the lassie had
+been to the Chief Constable, but the man was terrible auld and slow.
+They persuadit him, but he threepit that it would take a long time
+to collect his men and that there was no danger o' the brig landin'
+before night.  He's wrong there onyway, for they're landit."
+
+"Dougal," said Dickson, "you've heard the Princess speak of
+a friend she was expecting here called Alexis.  This is him.
+You can address him as Mr. Nicholson.  Just arrived in the
+nick of time.  You must get him into the House, for he's the
+best right to be beside the lady...Jaikie would tell you that I've
+been sore mishandled the day, and am no' very fit for a battle.
+But Mr. Nicholson's a business man and he'll do as well.
+You're keeping the Die-Hards outside, I hope?"
+
+"Ay.  Thomas Yownie's in charge, and Jaikie will be in and out with orders.
+They've instructions to watch for the polis, and keep an eye on
+the Garplefit.  It's a mortal long front to hold, but there's no
+other way.  I must be in the hoose mysel'.  Thomas Yownie's
+headquarters is the auld wife's hen-hoose."
+
+At that moment in a pause of the gale came the far-borne echo of a shot.
+
+"Pistol," said Alexis.
+
+"Heritage," said Dougal.  "Trade will be gettin' brisk with him.
+Start your machine and I'll hang on ahint.  We'll try the road by
+the West Lodge."
+
+Presently the pair disappeared in the dusk, the noise of the engine
+was swallowed up in the wild orchestra of the wind, and Dickson
+hobbled towards the village in a state of excitement which made him
+oblivious of his wounds.  That lonely pistol shot was, he felt,
+the bell to ring up the curtain on the last act of the play.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+THE COMING OF THE DANISH BRIG
+
+
+Mr. John Heritage, solitary in the old Tower, found much to
+occupy his mind.  His giddiness was passing, though the dregs
+of a headache remained, and his spirits rose with his responsibilities.
+At daybreak he breakfasted out of the Mearns Street provision box,
+and made tea in one of the Die-Hard's camp kettles.  Next he gave
+some attention to his toilet, necessary after the rough-and-tumble
+of the night.  He made shift to bathe in icy water from the Tower well,
+shaved, tidied up his clothes and found a clean shirt from his pack.
+He carefully brushed his hair, reminding himself that thus had the
+Spartans done before Thermopylae.  The neat and somewhat pallid young
+man that emerged from these rites then ascended to the first floor
+to reconnoitre the landscape from the narrow unglazed windows.
+
+If any one had told him a week ago that he would be in so strange
+a world he would have quarrelled violently with his informant.
+A week ago he was a cynical clear-sighted modern, a contemner of
+illusions, a swallower of formulas, a breaker of shams--one who had
+seen through the heroical and found it silly.  Romance and such-like
+toys were playthings for fatted middle-age, not for strenuous and
+cold-eyed youth.  But the truth was that now he was altogether
+spellbound by these toys.  To think that he was serving his lady was
+rapture-ecstasy, that for her he was single-handed venturing all.
+He rejoiced to be alone with his private fancies.  His one fear was
+that the part he had cast himself for might be needless, that the
+men from the sea would not come, or that reinforcements would
+arrive before he should be called upon.  He hoped alone to make
+a stand against thousands.  What the upshot might be he did not
+trouble to inquire.  Of course the Princess would be saved,
+but first he must glut his appetite for the heroic.
+
+He made a diary of events that day, just as he used to do at the front.
+At twenty minutes past eight he saw the first figure coming from the House.
+It was Spidel, who limped round the Tower, tried the door, and came to
+a halt below the window.  Heritage stuck out his head and wished him
+good morning, getting in reply an amazed stare.  The man was not disposed
+to talk, though Heritage made some interesting observations on the weather,
+but departed quicker than he came, in the direction of the West Lodge.
+
+Just before nine o'clock he returned with Dobson and Leon.
+They made a very complete reconnaissance of the Tower, and
+for a moment Heritage thought that they were about to try to
+force an entrance.  They tugged and hammered at the great oak door,
+which he had further strengthened by erecting behind it a pile of
+the heaviest lumber he could find in the place.  It was imperative
+that they should not get in, and he got Dickson's pistol ready with the
+firm intention of shooting them if necessary.  But they did nothing,
+except to hold a conference in the hazel clump a hundred yards to the
+north, when Dobson seemed to be laying down the law, and Leon spoke
+rapidly with a great fluttering of hands.  They were obviously
+puzzled by the sight of Heritage, whom they believed to have
+left the neighbourhood.  Then Dobson went off, leaving Leon and
+Spidel on guard, one at the edge of the shrubberies between the
+Tower and the House, the other on the side nearest the Laver glen.
+These were their posts, but they did sentry-go around the building,
+and passed so close to Heritage's window that he could have tossed a
+cigarette on their heads.
+
+It occurred to him that he ought to get busy with camouflage.
+They must be convinced that the Princess was in the place,
+for he wanted their whole mind to be devoted to the siege.
+He rummaged among the ladies' baggage, and extracted a skirt
+and a coloured scarf.  The latter he managed to flutter so that
+it could be seen at the window the next time one of the watchers
+came within sight.  He also fixed up the skirt so that the fringe of
+it could be seen, and, when Leon appeared below, he was in the
+shadow talking rapid French in a very fair imitation of the tones
+of Cousin Eugenie.  The ruse had its effect, for Leon promptly
+went off to tell Spidel, and when Dobson appeared he too was
+given the news.  This seemed to settle their plans, for all three
+remained on guard, Dobson nearest to the Tower, seated on an
+outcrop of rock with his mackintosh collar turned up, and his
+eyes usually on the misty sea.
+
+By this time it was eleven o'clock, and the next three hours passed
+slowly with Heritage.  He fell to picturing the fortunes of his friends.
+Dickson and the Princess should by this time be far inland, out of danger
+and in the way of finding succour.  He was confident that they would
+return, but he trusted not too soon, for he hoped for a run for his
+money as Horatius in the Gate.  After that he was a little torn in
+his mind.  He wanted the Princess to come back and to be somewhere
+near if there was a fight going, so that she might be a witness of
+his devotion.  But she must not herself run any risk, and he became
+anxious when he remembered her terrible sangfroid.  Dickson could no
+more restrain her than a child could hold a greyhound....But of course
+it would never come to that.  The police would turn up long before
+the brig appeared--Dougal had thought that would not be till high tide,
+between four and five--and the only danger would be to the pirates.
+The three watchers would be put in the bag, and the men from the sea
+would walk into a neat trap.  This reflection seemed to take all the
+colour out of Heritage's prospect.  Peril and heroism were not to be
+his lot--only boredom.
+
+A little after twelve two of the tinklers appeared with some news
+which made Dobson laugh and pat them on the shoulder.  He seemed to
+be giving them directions, pointing seaward and southward.  He nodded
+to the Tower, where Heritage took the opportunity of again fluttering
+Saskia's scarf athwart the window.  The tinklers departed at a trot,
+and Dobson lit his pipe as if well pleased.  He had some trouble with
+it in the wind, which had risen to an uncanny violence.  Even the solid
+Tower rocked with it, and the sea was a waste of spindrift and low
+scurrying cloud.  Heritage discovered a new anxiety--this time about
+the possibility of the brig landing at all.  He wanted a complete bag,
+and it would be tragic if they got only the three seedy ruffians now
+circumambulating his fortress.
+
+About one o'clock he was greatly cheered by the sight of Dougal.
+At the moment Dobson was lunching off a hunk of bread and cheese
+directly between the Tower and the House, just short of the crest
+of the ridge on the other side of which lay the stables and the
+shrubberies; Leon was on the north side opposite the Tower door,
+and Spidel was at the south end near the edge of the Garple glen.
+Heritage, watching the ridge behind Dobson and the upper windows of
+the House which appeared over it, saw on the very crest something
+like a tuft of rusty bracken which he had not noticed before.
+Presently the tuft moved, and a hand shot up from it waving a rag
+of some sort.  Dobson at the moment was engaged with a bottle of
+porter, and Heritage could safely wave a hand in reply.  He could now
+make out clearly the red head of Dougal.
+
+The Chieftain, having located the three watchers, proceeded to give
+an exhibition of his prowess for the benefit of the lonely inmate
+of the Tower.  Using as cover a drift of bracken, he wormed his way
+down till he was not six yards from Dobson, and Heritage had the
+privilege of seeing his grinning countenance a very little way
+above the innkeeper's head.  Then he crawled back and reached the
+neighbourhood of Leon, who was sitting on a fallen Scotch fir.
+At that moment it occurred to the Belgian to visit Dobson.
+Heritage's breath stopped, but Dougal was ready, and froze into
+a motionless blur in the shadow of a hazel bush.  Then he crawled
+very fast into the hollow where Leon had been sitting, seized
+something which looked like a bottle, and scrambled back to the ridge.
+At the top he waved the object, whatever it was, but Heritage could
+not reply, for Dobson happened to be looking towards the window.
+That was the last he saw of the Chieftain, but presently he realized
+what was the booty he had annexed.  It must be Leon's life-preserver,
+which the night before had broken Heritage's head.
+
+After that cheering episode boredom again set in.  He collected some
+food from the Mearns Street box, and indulged himself with a glass
+of liqueur brandy.  He was beginning to feel miserably cold, so he
+carried up some broken wood and made a fire on the immense hearth
+in the upper chamber.  Anxiety was clouding his mind again, for it
+was now two o'clock, and there was no sign of the reinforcements
+which Dickson and the Princess had gone to find.  The minutes passed,
+and soon it was three o'clock, and from the window he saw only the
+top of the gaunt shuttered House, now and then hidden by squalls of
+sleet, and Dobson squatted like an Eskimo, and trees dancing like a
+witch-wood in the gale.  All the vigour of the morning seemed to have
+gone out of his blood; he felt lonely and apprehensive and puzzled.
+He wished he had Dickson beside him, for that little man's cheerful
+voice and complacent triviality would be a comfort....Also, he was
+abominably cold.  He put on his waterproof, and turned his attention
+to the fire.  It needed re-kindling, and he hunted in his pockets for
+paper, finding only the slim volume lettered WHORLS.
+
+I set it down as the most significant commentary on his state of mind.
+He regarded the book with intense disfavour, tore it in two, and used
+a handful of its fine deckle-edged leaves to get the fire going.
+They burned well, and presently the rest followed.  Well for Dickson's
+peace of soul that he was not a witness of such vandalism.
+
+A little warmer but in no way more cheerful, he resumed his watch near
+the window.  The day was getting darker, and promised an early dusk.
+His watch told him that it was after four, and still nothing had happened.
+Where on earth were Dickson and the Princess?  Where in the name of
+all that was holy were the police?  Any minute now the brig might
+arrive and land its men, and he would be left there as a burnt-offering
+to their wrath.  There must have been an infernal muddle somewhere....
+Anyhow the Princess was out of the trouble, but where the Lord
+alone knew....Perhaps the reinforcements were lying in wait for the
+boats at the Garplefoot.  That struck him as a likely explanation,
+and comforted him.  Very soon he might hear the sound of an engagement
+to the south, and the next thing would be Dobson and his crew in flight.
+He was determined to be in the show somehow and would be very close
+on their heels.  He felt a peculiar dislike to all three, but
+especially to Leon.  The Belgian's small baby features had for
+four days set him clenching his fists when he thought of them.
+
+The next thing he saw was one of the tinklers running hard towards the
+Tower.  He cried something to Dobson, which woke the latter to activity.
+The innkeeper shouted to Leon and Spidel, and the tinkler was
+excitedly questioned.  Dobson laughed and slapped his thigh.
+He gave orders to the others, and himself joined the tinkler and
+hurried off in the direction of the Garplefoot.  Something was
+happening there, something of ill omen, for the man's face and
+manner had been triumphant.  Were the boats landing?
+
+As Heritage puzzled over this event, another figure appeared
+on the scene.  It was a big man in knickerbockers and mackintosh,
+who came round the end of the House from the direction of
+the South Lodge.  At first he thought it was the advance-guard
+from his own side, the help which Dickson had gone to find,
+and he only restrained himself in time from shouting a welcome.
+But surely their supports would not advance so confidently in
+enemy country.  The man strode over the slopes as if looking for
+somebody; then he caught sight of Leon and waved to him to come.
+Leon must have known him, for he hastened to obey.
+
+The two were about thirty yards from Heritage's window.  Leon was
+telling some story volubly, pointing now to the Tower and now
+towards the sea.  The big man nodded as if satisfied.  Heritage noted
+that his right arm was tied up, and that the mackintosh sleeve was
+empty, and that brought him enlightenment.  It was Loudon the factor,
+whom Dickson had winged the night before.  The two of them passed out
+of view in the direction of Spidel.
+
+The sight awoke Heritage to the supreme unpleasantness of his position.
+He was utterly alone on the headland, and his allies had vanished into
+space, while the enemy plans, moving like clockwork, were approaching
+their consummation.  For a second he thought of leaving the Tower and
+hiding somewhere in the cliffs.  He dismissed the notion unwillingly,
+for he remembered the task that had been set him.  He was there to hold
+the fort to the last--to gain time, though he could not for the life of
+him see what use time was to be when all the strategy of his own side
+seemed to have miscarried.  Anyhow, the blackguards would be sold,
+for they would not find the Princess.  But he felt a horrid void
+in the pit of his stomach, and a looseness about his knees.
+
+The moments passed more quickly as he wrestled with his fears.
+The next he knew the empty space below his window was filling with figures.
+There was a great crowd of them, rough fellows with seamen's coats,
+still dripping as if they had had a wet landing.  Dobson was with them,
+but for the rest they were strange figures.
+
+Now that the expected had come at last Heritage's nerves grew calmer.
+He made out that the newcomers were trying the door, and he waited to
+hear it fall, for such a mob could soon force it.  But instead a
+voice called from beneath.
+
+"Will you please open to us?" it called.
+
+He stuck his head out and saw a little group with one man at the
+head of it, a young man clad in oilskins whose face was dim in
+the murky evening.  The voice was that of a gentleman.
+
+"I have orders to open to no one," Heritage replied.
+
+"Then I fear we must force an entrance," said the voice.
+
+"You can go to the devil," said Heritage.
+
+That defiance was the screw which his nerves needed.  His temper had
+risen, he had forgotten all about the Princess, he did not even
+remember his isolation.  His job was to make a fight for it.
+He ran up the staircase which led to the attics of the Tower, for he
+recollected that there was a window there which looked over the space
+before the door.  The place was ruinous, the floor filled with holes,
+and a part of the roof sagged down in a corner.  The stones around
+the window were loose and crumbling, and he managed to pull several
+out so that the slit was enlarged.  He found himself looking down
+on a crowd of men, who had lifted the fallen tree on which Leon
+had perched, and were about to use it as a battering ram.
+
+"The first fellow who comes within six yards of the door I shoot,"
+he shouted.
+
+There was a white wave below as every face was turned to him.
+He ducked back his head in time as a bullet chipped the side
+of the window.
+
+But his position was a good one, for he had a hole in the broken
+wall through which he could see, and could shoot with his hand
+at the edge of the window while keeping his body in cover.
+The battering party resumed their task, and as the tree swung nearer,
+he fired at the foremost of them.  He missed, but the shot for a
+moment suspended operations.
+
+Again they came on, and again he fired.  This time he damaged somebody,
+for the trunk was dropped.
+
+A voice gave orders, a sharp authoritative voice.  The battering squad
+dissolved, and there was a general withdrawal out of the line of fire
+from the window.  Was it possible that he had intimidated them?
+He could hear the sound of voices, and then a single figure came
+into sight again, holding something in its hand.
+
+He did not fire for he recognized the futility of his efforts.
+The baseball swing of the figure below could not be mistaken.
+There was a roar beneath, and a flash of fire, as the bomb exploded
+on the door.  Then came a rush of men, and the Tower had fallen.
+Heritage clambered through a hole in the roof and gained the
+topmost parapet.  He had still a pocketful of cartridges, and
+there in a coign of the old battlements he would prove an ugly
+customer to the pursuit.  Only one at a time could reach that
+siege perilous....They would not take long to search the lower rooms,
+and then would be hot on the trail of the man who had fooled them.
+He had not a scrap of fear left or even of anger--only triumph
+at the thought of how properly those ruffians had been sold.
+"Like schoolboys they who unaware"--instead of two women they had
+found a man with a gun.  And the Princess was miles off and forever
+beyond their reach.  When they had settled with him they would
+no doubt burn the House down, but that would serve them little.
+From his airy pinnacle he could see the whole sea-front of
+Huntingtower, a blur in the dusk but for the ghostly eyes of its
+white-shuttered windows.
+
+Something was coming from it, running lightly over the lawns,
+lost for an instant in the trees, and then appearing clear on
+the crest of the ridge where some hours earlier Dougal had lain.
+With horror he saw that it was a girl.  She stood with the wind
+plucking at her skirts and hair, and she cried in a high, clear voice
+which pierced even the confusion of the gale.  What she cried he
+could not tell, for it was in a strange tongue....
+
+But it reached the besiegers.  There was a sudden silence in the
+din below him and then a confusion of shouting.  The men seemed
+to be pouring out of the gap which had been the doorway, and as
+he peered over the parapet first one and then another entered his
+area of vision.  The girl on the ridge, as soon as she saw that she
+had attracted attention, turned and ran back, and after her up the
+slopes went the pursuit bunched like hounds on a good scent.
+
+Mr. John Heritage, swearing terribly, started to retrace his steps.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
+
+
+The military historian must often make shift to write of battles with
+slender data, but he can pad out his deficiencies by learned parallels.
+If his were the talented pen describing this, the latest action
+fought on British soil against a foreign foe, he would no doubt
+be crippled by the absence of written orders and war diaries.
+But how eloquently he would descant on the resemblance between
+Dougal and Gouraud--how the plan of leaving the enemy to waste his
+strength upon a deserted position was that which on the 15th of July
+1918 the French general had used with decisive effect in Champagne!
+But Dougal had never heard of Gouraud, and I cannot claim that,
+like the Happy Warrior, he
+
+           "through the heat of conflict kept the law
+In calmness made, and saw what he foresaw."
+
+
+I have had the benefit of discussing the affair with him and his
+colleagues, but I should offend against historic truth if I
+represented the main action as anything but a scrimmage--a "soldiers'
+battle," the historian would say, a Malplaquet, an Albuera.
+
+Just after half-past three that afternoon the Commander-in-Chief
+was revealed in a very bad temper.  He had intercepted Sir Archie's
+car, and, since Leon was known to be fully occupied, had brought
+it in by the West Lodge, and hidden it behind a clump of laurels.
+There he had held a hoarse council of war.  He had cast an appraising
+eye over Sime the butler, Carfrae the chauffeur, and McGuffog the
+gamekeeper, and his brows had lightened when he beheld Sir Archie
+with an armful of guns and two big cartridge-magazines.  But they had
+darkened again at the first words of the leader of the reinforcements.
+
+"Now for the Tower,' Sir Archie had observed cheerfully.  "We should be
+a match for the three watchers, my lad, and it's time that poor devil
+What's-his-name was relieved."
+
+"A bonny-like plan that would be," said Dougal.  "Man, ye would be
+walkin' into the very trap they want.  In an hour, or maybe two, the
+rest will turn up from the sea and they'd have ye tight by the neck.
+Na, na!  It's time we're wantin', and the longer they think we're a'
+in the auld Tower the better for us.  What news o' the polis?"
+
+He listened to Sir Archie's report with a gloomy face.
+
+"Not afore the darkenin'?  They'll be ower late--the polis are
+aye ower late.  It looks as if we had the job to do oursels.
+What's your notion?"
+
+"God knows," said the baronet, whose eyes were on Saskia.  "What's yours?"
+
+The deference conciliated Dougal.  "There's just the one plan that's
+worth a docken.  There's five o' us here, and there's plenty weapons.
+Besides there's five Die-Hards somewhere about, and though they've
+never tried it afore they can be trusted to loose off a gun.
+My advice is to hide at the Garplefoot and stop the boats landin'.
+We'd have the tinklers on our flank, no doubt, but I'm not muckle
+feared o' them.  It wouldn't be easy for the boats to get in wi'
+this tearin' wind and us firin' volleys from the shore."
+
+Sir Archie stared at him with admiration.  "You're a hearty
+young fire-eater.  But, Great Scott! we can't go pottin' at strangers
+before we find out their business.  This is a law-abidin' country,
+and we're not entitled to start shootin' except in self-defence.
+You can wash that plan out, for it ain't feasible."
+
+Dougal spat cynically.  "For all that it's the right strawtegy.
+Man, we might sink the lot, and then turn and settle wi' Dobson,
+and all afore the first polisman showed his neb.  It would be
+a grand performance.  But I was feared ye wouldn't be for it....Well,
+there's just the one other thing to do.  We must get inside the Hoose
+and put it in a state of defence.  Heritage has McCunn's pistol, and
+he'll keep them busy for a bit.  When they've finished wi' him and
+find the place is empty, they'll try the Hoose and we'll give them
+a warm reception.  That should keep us goin' till the polis arrive,
+unless they're comin' wi' the blind carrier."
+
+Sir Archie nodded.  "But why put ourselves in their power at all?
+They're at present barking up the wrong tree.  Let them bark up
+another wrong 'un.  Why shouldn't the House remain empty?  I take it
+we're here to protect the Princess.  Well, we'll have done that if
+they go off empty-handed."
+
+Dougal looked up to the heavens.  "I wish McCunn was here," he sighed.
+"Ay, we've got to protect the Princess, and there's just the one
+way to do it, and that's to put an end to this crowd o' blagyirds.
+If they gang empty-handed, they'll come again another day, either here
+or somewhere else, and it won't be long afore they get the lassie.
+But if we finish with them now she can sit down wi' an easy mind.
+That's why we've got to hang on to them till the polis comes.
+There's no way out o' this business but a battle."
+
+He found an ally.  "Dougal is right," said Saskia.  "If I am to
+have peace, by some way or other the fangs of my enemies must
+be drawn for ever."
+
+He swung round and addressed her formally.  "Mem, I'm askin' ye
+for the last time.  Will ye keep out of this business?  Will ye gang
+back and sit doun aside Mrs. Morran's fire and have your teas and wait
+till we come for ye.  Ye can do no good, and ye're puttin' yourself
+terrible in the enemy's power.  If we're beat and ye're no' there,
+they get very little satisfaction, but if they get you they get what
+they've come seekin'.  I tell ye straight--ye're an encumbrance."
+
+She laughed mischievously.  "I can shoot better than you," she said.
+
+He ignored the taunt.  "Will ye listen to sense and fall to the rear?"
+
+"I will not," she said.
+
+"Then gang your own gait.  I'm ower wise to argy-bargy wi' women.
+The Hoose be it!"
+
+It was a journey which sorely tried Dougal's temper.  The only way in
+was by the verandah, but the door at the west end had been locked,
+and the ladder had disappeared.  Now, of his party three were lame,
+one lacked an arm, and one was a girl; besides, there were the guns
+and cartridges to transport.  Moreover, at more than one point before
+the verandah was reached the route was commanded by a point on the
+ridge near the old Tower, and that had been Spidel's position when Dougal
+made his last reconnaissance.  It behoved to pass these points swiftly
+and unobtrusively, and his company was neither swift nor unobtrusive.
+McGuffog had a genius for tripping over obstacles, and Sir Archie was
+for ever proffering his aid to Saskia, who was in a position to give
+rather than to receive, being far the most active of the party.
+Once Dougal had to take the gamekeeper's head and force it down,
+a performance which would have led to an immediate assault but for
+Sir Archie's presence.  Nor did the latter escape.  "Will ye stop
+heedin' the lassie, and attend to your own job," the Chieftain growled.
+"Ye're makin' as much noise as a roadroller."
+
+Arrived at the foot of the verandah wall there remained the problem
+of the escalade.  Dougal clambered up like a squirrel by the help of
+cracks in the stones, and he could be heard trying the handle of the
+door into the House.  He was absent for about five minutes, and then his
+head peeped over the edge accompanied by the hooks of an iron ladder.
+"From the boiler-house," he informed them as they stood clear for the thing
+to drop.  It proved to be little more than half the height of the wall.
+
+Saskia ascended first, and had no difficulty in pulling herself
+over the parapet.  Then came the guns and ammunition, and then the
+one-armed Sime, who turned out to be an athlete.  But it was no easy
+matter getting up the last three.  Sir Archie anathematized his frailties.
+"Nice old crock to go tiger--shootin' with," he told the Princess.
+"But set me to something where my confounded leg don't get in the way,
+and I'm still pretty useful!"  Dougal, mopping his brow with the rag
+he called his handkerchief, observed sourly that he objected to going
+scouting with a herd of elephants.
+
+Once indoors his spirits rose.  The party from the Mains had brought
+several electric torches, and the one lamp was presently found and lit.
+"We can't count on the polis," Dougal announced, "and when the foreigners
+is finished wi' the Tower they'll come on here.  If no', we must make them.
+What is it the sodgers call it?  Forcin' a battle?  Now see here!
+There's the two roads into this place, the back door and the verandy,
+leavin' out the front door which is chained and lockit.  They'll try those
+two roads first, and we must get them well barricaded in time.  But mind,
+if there's a good few o' them, it'll be an easy job to batter in the front
+door or the windies, so we maun be ready for that."
+
+He told off a fatigue party--the Princess, Sir Archie, and McGuffog-
+-to help in moving furniture to the several doors.  Sime and Carfrae
+attended to the kitchen entrance, while he himself made a tour of
+the ground-floor windows.  For half an hour the empty house was loud
+with strange sounds.  McGuffog, who was a giant in strength, filled
+the passage at the verandah end with an assortment of furniture
+ranging from a grand piano to a vast mahogany sofa, while Saskia and
+Sir Archie pillaged the bedrooms and packed up the interstices with
+mattresses in lieu of sandbags.  Dougal on his turn saw fit to
+approve the work.
+
+"That'll fickle the blagyirds.  Down at the kitchen door we've
+got a mangle, five wash-tubs, and the best part of a ton o' coal.
+It's the windies I'm anxious about, for they're ower big to fill up.
+But I've gotten tubs of water below them and a lot o' wire-nettin' I
+fund in the cellar."
+
+Sir Archie morosely wiped his brow.  "I can't say I ever hated a job
+more," he told Saskia.  "It seems pretty cool to march into somebody
+else's house and make free with his furniture.  I hope to goodness
+our friends from the sea do turn up, or we'll look pretty foolish.
+Loudon will have a score against me he won't forget."
+
+"Ye're no' weakenin'?" asked Dougal fiercely.
+
+"Not a bit.  Only hopin' somebody hasn't made a mighty big mistake."
+
+"Ye needn't be feared for that.  Now you listen to your instructions.
+We're terrible few for such a big place, but we maun make up for
+shortness o' numbers by extra mobility.  The gemkeeper will keep the
+windy that looks on the verandy, and fell any man that gets through.
+You'll hold the verandy door, and the ither lame man--is't Carfrae ye
+call him?--will keep the back door.  I've telled the one-armed man,
+who has some kind of a head on him, that he maun keep on the move,
+watchin' to see if they try the front door or any o' the other windies.
+If they do, he takes his station there.  D'ye follow?"
+
+Sir Archie nodded gloomily.
+
+"What is my post?" Saskia asked.
+
+"I've appointed ye my Chief of Staff," was the answer.  "Ye see
+we've no reserves.  If this door's the dangerous bit, it maun be
+reinforced from elsewhere; and that'll want savage thinkin'.
+Ye'll have to be aye on the move, Mem, and keep me informed.
+If they break in at two bits, we're beat, and there'll be nothing
+for it but to retire to our last position.  Ye ken the room ayont
+the hall where they keep the coats.  That's our last trench, and at
+the worst we fall back there and stick it out.  It has a strong door
+and a wee windy, so they'll no' be able to get in on our rear.
+We should be able to put up a good defence there, unless they fire
+the place over our heads....Now, we'd better give out the guns."
+
+"We don't want any shootin' if we can avoid it," said Sir Archie,
+who found his distaste for Dougal growing, though he was under the
+spell of the one being there who knew precisely his own mind.
+
+"Just what I was goin' to say.  My instructions is, reserve your
+fire, and don't loose off till you have a man up against the
+end o' your barrel."
+
+"Good Lord, we'll get into a horrible row.  The whole thing may
+be a mistake, and we'll be had up for wholesale homicide.
+No man shall fire unless I give the word."
+
+The Commander-in-Chief looked at him darkly.  Some bitter retort was
+on his tongue, but he restrained himself.
+
+"It appears," he said, "that ye think I'm doin' all this for fun.
+I'll no' argy wi' ye.  There can be just the one general in a battle,
+but I'll give ye permission to say the word when to fire....Macgreegor!"
+he muttered, a strange expletive only used in moments of deep emotion.
+"I'll wager ye'll be for sayin' the word afore I'd say it mysel'."
+
+He turned to the Princess.  "I hand over to you, till I am back,
+for I maun be off and see to the Die-Hards.  I wish I could bring
+them in here, but I daren't lose my communications.  I'll likely get
+in by the boiler-house skylight when I come back, but it might be as
+well to keep a road open here unless ye're actually attacked."
+
+Dougal clambered over the mattresses and the grand piano; a flicker of
+waning daylight appeared for a second as he squeezed through the door,
+and Sir Archie was left staring at the wrathful countenance of McGuffog.
+He laughed ruefully.
+
+"I've been in about forty battles, and here's that little devil
+rather worried about my pluck and talkin' to me like a corps
+commander to a newly joined second-lieutenant.  All the same
+he's a remarkable child, and we'd better behave as if we were
+in for a real shindy.  What do you think, Princess?"
+
+"I think we are in for what you call a shindy.  I am in command, remember.
+I order you to serve out the guns."
+
+This was done, a shot-gun and a hundred cartridges to each,
+while McGuffog, who was a marksman, was also given a sporting
+Mannlicher, and two other rifles, a .303 and a small-bore Holland,
+were kept in reserve in the hall.  Sir Archie, free from Dougal's
+compelling presence, gave the gamekeeper peremptory orders not to
+shoot till he was bidden, and Carfrae at the kitchen door was warned
+to the same effect.  The shuttered house, where the only light apart
+from the garden-room was the feeble spark of the electric torches,
+had the most disastrous effect upon his spirits.  The gale which
+roared in the chimney and eddied among the rafters of the hall
+seemed an infernal commotion in a tomb.
+
+"Let's go upstairs," he told Saskia; "there must be a view from
+the upper windows."
+
+"You can see the top of the old Tower, and part of the sea," she said.
+"I know it well, for it was my only amusement to look at it.
+On clear days, too, one could see high mountains far in the west."
+His depression seemed to have affected her, for she spoke listlessly,
+unlike the vivid creature who had led the way in.
+
+In a gaunt west-looking bedroom, the one in which Heritage and
+Dickson had camped the night before, they opened a fold of the
+shutters and looked out into a world of grey wrack and driving rain.
+The Tower roof showed mistily beyond the ridge of down, but its
+environs were not in their prospect.  The lower regions of the House
+had been gloomy enough, but this bleak place with its drab outlook
+struck a chill to Sir Archie's soul.  He dolefully lit a cigarette.
+
+"This is a pretty rotten show for you," he told her.  "It strikes me
+as a rather unpleasant brand of nightmare."
+
+"I have been living with nightmares for three years," she said wearily.
+
+He cast his eyes round the room.  "I think the Kennedys were mad to
+build this confounded barrack.  I've always disliked it, and old Quentin
+hadn't any use for it either.  Cold, cheerless, raw monstrosity!
+It hasn't been a very giddy place for you, Princess."
+
+"It has been my prison, when I hoped it would be a sanctuary.  But it
+may yet be my salvation."
+
+"I'm sure I hope so.  I say, you must be jolly hungry.  I don't suppose
+there's any chance of tea for you."
+
+She shook her head.  She was looking fixedly at the Tower, as if she
+expected something to appear there, and he followed her eyes.
+
+"Rum old shell, that.  Quentin used to keep all kinds of live
+stock there, and when we were boys it was our castle where we
+played at bein' robber chiefs.  It'll be dashed queer if the real
+thing should turn up this time.  I suppose McCunn's Poet is roostin'
+there all by his lone.  Can't say I envy him his job."
+
+Suddenly she caught his arm.  "I see a man," she whispered.
+"There!  He is behind those far bushes.  There is his head again!"
+
+It was clearly a man, but he presently disappeared, for he had come
+round by the south end of the House, past the stables, and had now
+gone over the ridge.
+
+"The cut of his jib us uncommonly like Loudon, the factor.
+I thought McCunn had stretched him on a bed of pain.  Lord, if this
+thing should turn out a farce, I simply can't face Loudon....I say,
+Princess, you don't suppose by any chance that McCunn's a little bit
+wrong in the head?"
+
+She turned her candid eyes on him.  "You are in a very doubting mood."
+
+"My feet are cold and I don't mind admittin' it.  Hanged if I
+know what it is, but I don't feel this show a bit real.  If it isn't,
+we're in a fair way to make howlin' idiots of ourselves, and get
+pretty well embroiled with the law.  It's all right for the red-haired
+boy, for he can take everything seriously, even play.  I could do the
+same thing myself when I was a kid.  I don't mind runnin' some kind of
+risk--I've had a few in my time--but this is so infernally outlandish,
+and I--I don't quite believe in it.  That is to say, I believe in it
+right enough when I look at you or listen to McCunn, but as soon as my
+eyes are off you I begin to doubt again.  I'm gettin' old and I've a
+stake in the country, and I daresay I'm gettin' a bit of a prig--anyway
+I don't want to make a jackass of myself.  Besides, there's this foul
+weather and this beastly house to ice my feet."
+
+He broke off with an exclamation, for on the grey cloud-bounded
+stage in which the roof of the Tower was the central feature,
+actors had appeared.  Dim hurrying shapes showed through the mist,
+dipping over the ridge, as if coming from the Garplefoot.
+
+She seized his arm and he saw that her listlessness was gone.
+Her eyes were shining.
+
+"It is they," she cried.  "The nightmare is real at last.
+Do you doubt now?"
+
+He could only stare, for these shapes arriving and vanishing like
+wisps of fog still seemed to him phantasmal.  The girl held his arm
+tightly clutched, and craned towards the window space.  He tried to
+open the frame, and succeeded in smashing the glass.  A swirl of wind
+drove inwards and blew a loose lock of Saskia's hair across his brow.
+
+"I wish Dougal were back," he muttered, and then came the crack of a shot.
+
+The pressure on his arm slackened, and a pale face was turned to him.
+"He is alone--Mr. Heritage.  He has no chance.  They will kill him
+like a dog."
+
+"They'll never get in," he assured her.  "Dougal said the place could
+hold out for hours."
+
+Another shot followed and presently a third.  She twined her hands
+and her eyes were wild.
+
+"We can't leave him to be killed," she gasped.
+
+"It's the only game.  We're playin' for time, remember. Besides, he won't
+be killed.  Great Scott!"
+
+As he spoke, a sudden explosion cleft the drone of the wind and a
+patch of gloom flashed into yellow light.
+
+"Bomb!" he cried.  "Lord, I might have thought of that."
+
+The girl had sprung back from the window.  "I cannot bear it.
+I will not see him murdered in sight of his friends.  I am going to
+show myself, and when they see me they will leave him....No, you
+must stay here.  Presently they will be round this house.
+Don't be afraid for me--I am very quick of foot."
+
+"For God's sake, don't!  Here, Princess, stop," and he clutched
+at her skirt.  "Look here, I'll go."
+
+"You can't.  You have been wounded.  I am in command, you know.
+Keep the door open till I come back."
+
+He hobbled after her, but she easily eluded him.  She was smiling
+now, and blew a kiss to him.  "La, la, la," she trilled, as she ran
+down the stairs.  He heard her voice below, admonishing McGuffog.
+Then he pulled himself together and went back to the window.
+He had brought the little Holland with him, and he poked its
+barrel through the hole in the glass.
+
+"Curse my game leg," he said, almost cheerfully, for the situation
+was now becoming one with which he could cope.  "I ought to be able
+to hold up the pursuit a bit.  My aunt!  What a girl!"
+
+With the rifle cuddled to his shoulder he watched a slim figure come
+into sight on the lawn, running towards the ridge.  He reflected that
+she must have dropped from the high verandah wall.  That reminded him
+that something must be done to make the wall climbable for her return,
+so he went down to McGuffog, and the two squeezed through the barricaded
+door to the verandah.  The boilerhouse ladder was still in position,
+but it did not reach half the height, so McGuffog was adjured to
+stand by to help, and in the meantime to wait on duty by the wall.
+Then he hurried upstairs to his watch-tower.
+
+The girl was in sight, almost on the crest of the high ground.
+There she stood for a moment, one hand clutching at her errant hair,
+the other shielding her eyes from the sting of the rain.  He heard
+her cry, as Heritage had heard her, but since the wind was blowing
+towards him the sound came louder and fuller.  Again she cried, and
+then stood motionless with her hands above her head.  It was only for
+an instant, for the next he saw she had turned and was racing down
+the slope, jumping the little scrogs of hazel like a deer.  On the
+ridge appeared faces, and then over it swept a mob of men.
+
+She had a start of some fifty yards, and laboured to increase it,
+having doubtless the verandah wall in mind.  Sir Archie, sick with anxiety,
+nevertheless spared time to admire her prowess.  "Gad! she's a miler,"
+he ejaculated.  "She'll do it.  I'm hanged if she don't do it."
+
+Against men in seamen's boots and heavy clothing she had a clear advantage.
+But two shook themselves loose from the pack and began to gain on her.
+At the main shrubbery they were not thirty yards behind, and in her
+passage through it her skirts must have delayed her, for when she
+emerged the pursuit had halved the distance.  He got the sights of the
+rifle on the first man, but the lawns sloped up towards the house, and
+to his consternation he found that the girl was in the line of fire.
+Madly he ran to the other window of the room, tore back the shutters,
+shivered the glass, and flung his rifle to his shoulder.  The fellow was
+within three yards of her, but, thank God! he had now a clear field.
+He fired low and just ahead of him, and had the satisfaction to see him
+drop like a rabbit, shot in the leg.  His companion stumbled over him,
+and for a moment the girl was safe.
+
+But her speed was failing.  She passed out of sight on the verandah
+side of the house, and the rest of the pack had gained ominously over
+the easier ground of the lawn.  He thought for a moment of trying to
+stop them by his fire, but realized that if every shot told there
+would still be enough of them left to make sure of her capture.
+The only chance was at the verandah, and he went downstairs at a
+pace undreamed of since the days when he had two whole legs.
+
+McGuffog, Mannlicher in hand, was poking his neck over the wall.
+The pursuit had turned the corner and were about twenty yards off;
+the girl was at the foot of the ladder, breathless, drooping with fatigue.
+She tried to climb, limply and feebly, and very slowly, as if she
+were too giddy to see clear.  Above were two cripples, and at
+her back the van of the now triumphant pack.
+
+Sir Archie, game leg or no, was on the parapet preparing to
+drop down and hold off the pursuit were it only for seconds.
+But at that moment he was aware that the situation had changed.
+
+At the foot of the ladder a tall man seemed to have sprung out
+of the ground.  He caught the girl in his arms, climbed the ladder,
+and McGuffog's great hands reached down and seized her and swung
+her into safety.  Up the wall, by means of cracks and tufts, was
+shinning a small boy.
+
+The stranger coolly faced the pursuers, and at the sight of him
+they checked, those behind stumbling against those in front.
+He was speaking to them in a foreign tongue, and to Sir Archie's
+ear the words were like the crack of a lash.  The hesitation was
+only for a moment, for a voice among them cried out, and the whole
+pack gave tongue shrilly and surged on again.  But that instant
+of check had given the stranger his chance.  He was up the ladder,
+and, gripping the parapet, found rest for his feet in a fissure.
+Then he bent down, drew up the ladder, handed it to McGuffog,
+and with a mighty heave pulled himself over the top.
+
+He seemed to hope to defend the verandah, but the door at the west
+end was being assailed by a contingent of the enemy, and he saw that
+its thin woodwork was yielding.
+
+"Into the House," he cried, as he picked up the ladder and tossed it
+over the wall on the pack surging below.  He was only just in time,
+for the west door yielded.  In two steps he had followed McGuffog
+through the chink into the passage, and the concussion of the grand
+piano pushed hard against the verandah door from within coincided
+with the first battering on the said door from without.
+
+In the garden-room the feeble lamp showed a strange grouping.
+Saskia had sunk into a chair to get her breath, and seemed too
+dazed to be aware of her surroundings.  Dougal was manfully
+striving to appear at his ease, but his lip was quivering.
+
+"A near thing that time," he observed.  "It was the blame of
+that man's auld motor-bicycle."
+
+The stranger cast sharp eyes around the place and company.
+
+"An awkward corner, gentlemen," he said.  "How many are there of you?
+Four men and a boy?  And you have placed guards at all the entrances?"
+
+"They have bombs," Sir Archie reminded him.
+
+"No doubt.  But I do not think they will use them here--or their guns,
+unless there is no other way.  Their purpose is kidnapping, and
+they hope to do it secretly and slip off without leaving a trace.
+If they slaughter us, as they easily can, the cry will be out
+against them, and their vessel will be unpleasantly hunted.
+Half their purpose is already spoiled, for it's no longer secret....
+They may break us by sheer weight, and I fancy the first shooting
+will be done by us.  It's the windows I'm afraid of."
+
+Some tone in his quiet voice reached the girl in the wicker chair.
+She looked up wildly, saw him, and with a cry of "Alesha" ran to his arms.
+There she hung, while his hand fondled her hair, like a mother with
+a scared child.  Sir Archie, watching the whole thing in some stupefaction,
+thought he had never in his days seen more nobly matched human creatures.
+
+"It is my friend," she cried triumphantly, "the friend whom
+I appointed to meet me here.  Oh, I did well to trust him.
+Now we need not fear anything."
+
+As if in ironical answer came a great crashing at the verandah door,
+and the twanging of chords cruelly mishandled.  The grand piano was
+suffering internally from the assaults of the boiler-house ladder.
+
+"Wull I gie them a shot?" was McGuffog's hoarse inquiry.
+
+"Action stations," Alexis ordered, for the command seemed to
+have shifted to him from Dougal.  "The windows are the danger.
+The boy will patrol the ground floor, and give us warning, and I and
+this man," pointing to Sime, "will be ready at the threatened point.
+And, for God's sake, no shooting, unless I give the word.  If we take
+them on at that game we haven't a chance."
+
+He said something to Saskia in Russian and she smiled assent and went
+to Sir Archie's side.  "You and I must keep this door," she said.
+
+Sir Archie was never very clear afterwards about the events of
+the next hour.  The Princess was in the maddest spirits, as if the
+burden of three years had slipped from her and she was back in her
+first girlhood.  She sang as she carried more lumber to the pile--
+perhaps the song which had once entranced Heritage, but Sir Archie
+had no ear for music.  She mocked at the furious blows which rained
+at the other end, for the door had gone now, and in the windy gap
+could be seen a blur of dark faces.  Oddly enough, he found his own
+spirits mounting to meet hers.  It was real business at last, the
+qualms of the civilian had been forgotten, and there was rising in
+him that joy in a scrap which had once made him one of the most
+daring airmen on the Western Front.  The only thing that worried him
+now was the coyness about shooting.  What on earth were his rifles
+and shot-guns for unless to be used?  He had seen the enemy from the
+verandah wall, and a more ruffianly crew he had never dreamed of.
+They meant the uttermost business, and against such it was surely
+the duty of good citizens to wage whole-hearted war.
+
+The Princess was humming to herself a nursery rhyme.  "THE KING
+OF SPAIN'S DAUGHTER," she crooned, "CAME TO VISIT ME, AND ALL
+FOR THE SAKE----Oh, that poor piano!"  In her clear voice she cried
+something in Russian, and the wind carried a laugh from the verandah.
+At the sound of it she stopped.  "I had forgotten," she said.
+"Paul is there.  I had forgotten."  After that she was very quiet,
+but she redoubled her labours at the barricade.
+
+To the man it seemed that the pressure from without was slackening.
+He called to McGuffog to ask about the garden-room window, and the
+reply was reassuring.  The gamekeeper was gloomily contemplating
+Dougal's tubs of water and wire-netting, as he might have
+contemplated a vermin trap.
+
+Sir Archie was growing acutely anxious--the anxiety of the defender
+of a straggling fortress which is vulnerable at a dozen points.
+It seemed to him that strange noises were coming from the rooms
+beyond the hall.  Did the back door lie that way?  And was not there
+a smell of smoke in the air?  If they tried fire in such a gale the
+place would burn like matchwood.
+
+He left his post and in the hall found Dougal.
+
+"All quiet," the Chieftain reported.  "Far ower quiet.  I don't like it.
+The enemy's no' puttin' out his strength yet.  The Russian says a' the
+west windies are terrible dangerous.  Him and the chauffeur's doin'
+their best, but ye can't block thae muckle glass panes."
+
+He returned to the Princess, and found that the attack had indeed
+languished on that particular barricade.  The withers of the grand
+piano were left unwrung, and only a faint scuffling informed him that
+the verandah was not empty.  "They're gathering for an attack elsewhere,"
+he told himself.  But what if that attack were a feint?  He and McGuffog
+must stick to their post, for in his belief the verandah door and
+the garden-room window were the easiest places where an entry in
+mass could be forced.  Suddenly Dougal's whistle blew, and with
+it came a most almighty crash somewhere towards the west side.
+With a shout of "Hold Tight, McGuffog," Sir Archie bolted into the hall,
+and, led by the sound, reached what had once been the ladies' bedroom.
+A strange sight met his eyes, for the whole framework of one window seemed
+to have been thrust inward, and in the gap Alexis was swinging a fender.
+Three of the enemy were in the room--one senseless on the floor, one
+in the grip of Sime, whose single hand was tightly clenched on his throat,
+and one engaged with Dougal in a corner.  The Die-Hard leader was sore
+pressed, and to his help Sir Archie went.  The fresh assault made the
+seaman duck his head, and Dougal seized the occasion to smite him
+hard with something which caused him to roll over.  It was Leon's
+life-preserver which he had annexed that afternoon.
+
+Alexis at the window seemed to have for a moment daunted the attack.
+"Bring that table," he cried, and the thing was jammed into the gap.
+"Now you"--this to Sime--"get the man from the back door to hold this
+place with his gun.  There's no attack there.  It's about time for
+shooting now, or we'll have them in our rear.  What in heaven is that?"
+
+It was McGuffog whose great bellow resounded down the corridor.
+Sir Archie turned and shuffled back, to be met by a distressing spectacle.
+The lamp, burning as peacefully as it might have burned on an old lady's
+tea-table, revealed the window of the garden-room driven bodily inward,
+shutters and all, and now forming an inclined bridge over Dougal's
+ineffectual tubs.  In front of it stood McGuffog, swinging his gun by the
+barrel and yelling curses, which, being mainly couched in the vernacular,
+were happily meaningless to Saskia.  She herself stood at the hall door,
+plucking at something hidden in her breast.  He saw that it was a
+little ivory-handled pistol.
+
+The enemy's feint had succeeded, for even as Sir Archie looked three
+men leaped into the room.  On the neck of one the butt of McGuffog's
+gun crashed, but two scrambled to their feet and made for the girl.
+Sir Archie met the first with his fist, a clean drive on the jaw,
+followed by a damaging hook with his left that put him out of action.
+The other hesitated for an instant and was lost, for McGuffog caught
+him by the waist from behind and sent him through the broken frame to
+join his comrades without.
+
+"Up the stairs," Dougal was shouting, for the little room beyond the
+hall was clearly impossible.  "Our flank's turned.  They're pourin'
+through the other windy."  Out of a corner of his eye Sir Archie
+caught sight of Alexis, with Sime and Carfrae in support, being slowly
+forced towards them along the corridor.  "Upstairs," he shouted.
+"Come on, McGuffog.  Lead on, Princess."  He dashed out the lamp,
+and the place was in darkness.
+
+With this retreat from the forward trench line ended the opening
+phase of the battle.  It was achieved in good order, and position
+was taken up on the first floor landing, dominating the main staircase
+and the passage that led to the back stairs.  At their back was a short
+corridor ending in a window which gave on the north side of the House
+above the verandah, and from which an active man might descend to
+the verandah roof.  It had been carefully reconnoitred beforehand
+by Dougal, and his were the dispositions.
+
+The odd thing was that the retreating force were in good heart.
+The three men from the Mains were warming to their work, and McGuffog
+wore an air of genial ferocity.  "Dashed fine position I call this,"
+said Sir Archie.  Only Alexis was silent and preoccupied.  "We are still
+at their mercy," he said.  "Pray God your police come soon."  He forbade
+shooting yet awhile.  "The lady is our strong card," he said.
+"They won't use their guns while she is with us, but if it ever
+comes to shooting they can wipe us out in a couple of minutes.
+One of you watch that window, for Paul Abreskov is no fool."
+
+Their exhilaration was short-lived.  Below in the hall it was black
+darkness save for a greyness at the entrance of the verandah passage;
+but the defence was soon aware that the place was thick with men.
+Presently there came a scuffling from Carfrae's post towards the back
+stairs, and a cry as of some one choking.  And at the same moment a
+flare was lit below which brought the whole hall from floor to
+rafters into blinding light.
+
+It revealed a crowd of figures, some still in the hall and some
+half-way up the stairs, and it revealed, too, more figures at
+the end of the upper landing where Carfrae had been stationed.
+The shapes were motionless like mannequins in a shop window.
+
+"They've got us treed all right," Sir Archie groaned.  "What the
+devil are they waiting for?"
+
+"They wait for their leader," said Alexis.
+
+No one of the party will ever forget the ensuing minutes.
+After the hubbub of the barricades the ominous silence was like
+icy water, chilling and petrifying with an indefinable fear.
+There was no sound but the wind, but presently mingled with
+it came odd wild voices.
+
+"Hear to the whaups," McGuffog whispered.
+
+Sir Archie, who found the tension unbearable, sought relief
+in contradiction.  "You're an unscientific brute, McGuffog,"
+he told his henchman.  "It's a disgrace that a gamekeeper should
+be such a rotten naturalist.  What would whaups be doin' on the
+shore at this time of year?"
+
+"A' the same, I could swear it's whaups, Sir Erchibald."
+
+Then Dougal broke in and his voice was excited.  It's no' whaups.
+That's our patrol signal.  Man, there's hope for us yet.  I believe
+it's the polis.'  His words were unheeded, for the figures below drew
+apart and a young man came through them.  His beautifully-shaped dark
+head was bare, and as he moved he unbuttoned his oilskins and showed
+the trim dark-blue garb of the yachtsman.  He walked confidently up
+the stairs, an odd elegant figure among his heavy companions.
+
+"Good afternoon, Alexis," he said in English.  "I think we may now
+regard this interesting episode as closed.  I take it that you surrender.
+Saskia, dear, you are coming with me on a little journey.  Will you tell
+ my men where to find your baggage?"
+
+The reply was in Russian.  Alexis' voice was as cool as the other's,
+and it seemed to wake him to anger.  He replied in a rapid torrent
+of words, and appealed to the men below, who shouted back.
+The flare was dying down, and shadows again hid most of the hall.
+
+Dougal crept up behind Sir Archie.  "Here, I think it's the polis.
+They're whistlin' outbye, and I hear folk cryin' to each other--no'
+the foreigners."
+
+Again Alexis spoke, and then Saskia joined in.  What she said rang
+sharp with contempt, and her fingers played with her little pistol.
+
+Suddenly before the young man could answer Dobson bustled toward him.
+The innkeeper was labouring under some strong emotion, for he seemed
+to be pleading and pointing urgently towards the door.
+
+"I tell ye it's the polis," whispered Dougal.  "They're nickit."
+
+There was a swaying in the crowd and anxious faces.  Men surged in,
+whispered, and went out, and a clamour arose which the leader
+stilled with a fierce gesture.
+
+"You there," he cried, looking up, "you English.  We mean you no ill,
+but I require you to hand over to me the lady and the Russian who is
+with her.  I give you a minute by my watch to decide.  If you refuse,
+my men are behind you and around you, and you go with me to be punished
+at my leisure."
+
+"I warn you," cried Sir Archie.  "We are armed, and will shoot down
+any one who dares to lay a hand on us."
+
+"You fool," came the answer.  "I can send you all to eternity before
+you touch a trigger."
+
+Leon was by his side now--Leon and Spidel, imploring him to do
+something which he angrily refused.  Outside there was a new clamour,
+faces showing at the door and then vanishing, and an anxious hum
+filled the hall....Dobson appeared again and this time he was a
+figure of fury.
+
+"Are ye daft, man?" he cried.  "I tell ye the polis are closin' round
+us, and there's no' a moment to lose if we would get back to the boats.
+If ye'll no' think o' your own neck, I'm thinkin' o' mine.
+The whole things a bloody misfire.  Come on, lads, if ye're no
+besotted on destruction."
+
+Leon laid a hand on the leader's arm and was roughly shaken off.
+Spidel fared no better, and the little group on the upper landing saw
+the two shrug their shoulders and make for the door.  The hall was
+emptying fast and the watchers had gone from the back stairs.
+The young man's voice rose to a scream; he commanded, threatened,
+cursed; but panic was in the air and he had lost his mastery.
+
+"Quick," croaked Dougal, "now's the time for the counter-attack."
+
+But the figure on the stairs held them motionless.  They could not
+see his face, but by instinct they knew that it was distraught with
+fury and defeat.  The flare blazed up again as the flame caught a
+knot of fresh powder, and once more the place was bright with the
+uncanny light....The hall was empty save for the pale man who was in
+the act of turning.
+
+He looked back.  "If I go now, I will return.  The world is not wide
+enough to hide you from me, Saskia."
+
+"You will never get her," said Alexis.
+
+A sudden devil flamed into his eyes, the devil of some ancestral
+savagery, which would destroy what is desired but unattainable.
+He swung round, his hand went to his pocket, something clacked,
+and his arm shot out like a baseball pitcher's.
+
+So intent was the gaze of the others on him, that they did not
+see a second figure ascending the stairs.  Just as Alexis
+flung himself before the Princess, the new-comer caught the young
+man's outstretched arm and wrenched something from his hand.
+The next second he had hurled it into a far corner where stood the
+great fireplace.  There was a blinding sheet of flame, a dull roar,
+and then billow upon billow of acrid smoke.  As it cleared they
+saw that the fine Italian chimneypiece, the pride of the builder
+of the House, was a mass of splinters, and that a great hole
+had been blown through the wall into what had been the dining-
+room....A figure was sitting on the bottom step feeling its bruises.
+The last enemy had gone.
+
+When Mr. John Heritage raised his eyes he saw the Princess with a very
+pale face in the arms of a tall man whom he had never seen before.
+If he was surprised at the sight, he did not show it.  "Nasty little
+bomb that.  I remember we struck the brand first in July '18."
+
+"Are they rounded up?" Sir Archie asked.
+
+"They've bolted.  Whether they'll get away is another matter.
+I left half the mounted police a minute ago at the top of the
+West Lodge avenue.  The other lot went to the Garplefoot to
+cut off the boats."
+
+"Good Lord, man," Sir Archie cried, "the police have been here
+for the last ten minutes."
+
+"You're wrong.  They came with me."
+
+"Then what on earth---" began the astonished baronet.  He stopped short,
+for he suddenly got his answer.  Into the hall limped a boy.  Never was
+there seen so ruinous a child.  He was dripping wet, his shirt was
+all but torn off his back, his bleeding nose was poorly staunched
+by a wisp of handkerchief, his breeches were in ribbons, and his
+poor bare legs looked as if they had been comprehensively kicked
+and scratched.  Limpingly he entered, yet with a kind of pride,
+like some small cock-sparrow who has lost most of his plumage but
+has vanquished his adversary.
+
+With a yell Dougal went down the stairs.  The boy saluted him, and
+they gravely shook hands.  It was the meeting of Wellington and Blucher.
+
+The Chieftain's voice shrilled in triumph, but there was a break in it.
+The glory was almost too great to be borne.
+
+"I kenned it," he cried.  "It was the Gorbals Die-Hards.
+There stands the man that done it....Ye'll no' fickle Thomas Yownie."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION
+
+
+We left Mr. McCunn, full of aches but desperately resolute in spirit,
+hobbling by the Auchenlochan road into the village of Dalquharter.
+His goal was Mrs. Morran's hen-house, which was Thomas Yownie's
+POSTE DE COMMANDEMENT.  The rain had come on again, and, though in
+other weather there would have been a slow twilight, already the
+shadow of night had the world in its grip.  The sea even from the
+high ground was invisible, and all to westward and windward was a
+ragged screen of dark cloud.  It was foul weather for foul deeds.
+Thomas Yownie was not in the hen-house, but in Mrs. Morran's kitchen,
+and with him were the pug-faced boy know as Old Bill, and the sturdy
+figure of Peter Paterson.  But the floor was held by the hostess.
+She still wore her big boots, her petticoats were still kilted, and
+round her venerable head in lieu of a bonnet was drawn a tartan shawl.
+
+"Eh, Dickson, but I'm blithe to see ye.  And puir man, ye've been
+sair mishandled.  This is the awfu'est Sabbath day that ever you and
+me pit in.  I hope it'll be forgiven us....Whaur's the young leddy?"
+
+"Dougal was saying she was in the House with Sir Archibald and
+the men from the Mains."
+
+"Wae's me!" Mrs. Morran keened.  "And what kind o' place is yon for her?
+Thae laddies tell me there's boatfu's o' scoondrels landit at
+the Garplefit.  They'll try the auld Tower, but they'll no' wait
+there when they find it toom, and they'll be inside the Hoose in a
+jiffy and awa' wi' the puir lassie.  Sirs, it maunna be.  Ye're lippenin'
+to the polis, but in a' my days I never kenned the polis in time.
+We maun be up and daein' oorsels.  Oh, if I could get a haud o'
+that red-heided Dougal..."
+
+As she spoke there came on the wind the dull reverberation of an explosion.
+
+"Keep us, what's that?" she cried.
+
+"It's dinnymite," said Peter Paterson.
+
+"That's the end o' the auld Tower," observed Thomas Yownie in his
+quiet, even voice.  "And it's likely the end o' the man Heritage."
+
+"Lord peety us!" the old woman wailed. "And us standin' here like
+stookies and no' liftin' a hand.  Awa' wi ye, laddies, and dae something.
+Awa' you too, Dickson, or I'll tak' the road mysel'."
+
+"I've got orders," said the Chief of Staff, "no' to move till
+the sityation's clear.  Napoleon's up at the Tower and Jaikie's
+in the policies.  I maun wait on their reports."
+
+For a moment Mrs. Morran's attention was distracted by Dickson,
+who suddenly felt very faint and sat down heavily on a kitchen chair.
+"Man, ye're as white as a dish-clout," she exclaimed with compunction.
+"Ye're fair wore out, and ye'll have had nae meat sin' your breakfast.
+See, and I'll get ye a cup o' tea."
+
+She proved to be in the right, for as soon as Dickson had swallowed
+some mouthfuls of her strong scalding brew the colour came back to
+his cheeks, and he announced that he felt better.  "Ye'll fortify it
+wi' a dram," she told him, and produced a black bottle from her cupboard.
+"My father aye said that guid whisky and het tea keepit the doctor's
+gig oot o' the close."
+
+The back door opened and Napoleon entered, his thin shanks blue with cold.
+He saluted and made his report in a voice shrill with excitement.
+
+"The Tower has fallen.  They've blown in the big door, and the feck
+o' them's inside."
+
+"And Mr. Heritage?" was Dickson's anxious inquiry.
+
+"When I last saw him he was up at a windy, shootin'.  I think he's
+gotten on to the roof.  I wouldna wonder but the place is on fire."
+
+"Here, this is awful," Dickson groaned.  "We can't let Mr. Heritage
+be killed that way.  What strength is the enemy?"
+
+"I counted twenty-seven, and there's stragglers comin' up from the boats."
+
+"And there's me and you five laddies here, and Dougal and the others
+shut up in the House."
+
+He stopped in sheer despair.  It was a fix from which the most
+enlightened business mind showed no escape.  Prudence, inventiveness,
+were no longer in question; only some desperate course of violence.
+
+"We must create a diversion," he said.  "I'm for the Tower, and you
+laddies must come with me.  We'll maybe see a chance.  Oh, but I wish
+I had my wee pistol."
+
+"If ye're gaun there, Dickson, I'm comin' wi' ye," Mrs Morran announced.
+
+Her words revealed to Dickson the preposterousness of the whole situation,
+and for all his anxiety he laughed.  "Five laddies, a middle-aged man,
+and an auld wife," he cried.  "Dod, it's pretty hopeless.  It's like
+the thing in the Bible about the weak things of the world trying to
+confound the strong."
+
+"The Bible's whiles richt," Mrs. Morran answered drily.  "Come on,
+for there's no time to lose."
+
+The door opened again to admit the figure of Wee Jaikie.  There were
+no tears in his eyes, and his face was very white.
+
+"They're a' round the Hoose," he croaked.  "I was up a tree forenent
+the verandy and seen them.  The lassie ran oot and cried on them
+from the top o' the brae, and they a' turned and hunted her back.
+Gosh, but it was a near thing.  I seen the Captain sklimmin' the
+wall, and a muckle man took the lassie and flung her up the ladder.
+They got inside just in time and steekit the door, and now the whole
+pack is roarin' round the Hoose seekin' a road in.  They'll no' be
+long over the job, neither."
+
+"What about Mr. Heritage?"
+
+"They're no' heedin' about him any more.  The auld Tower's bleezin'."
+
+"Worse and worse," said Dickson.  "If the police don't come in the
+next ten minutes, they'll be away with the Princess.  They've beaten
+all Dougal's plans, and it's a straight fight with odds of six to one.
+It's not possible."
+
+Mrs. Morran for the first time seemed to lose hope.  "Eh, the puir lassie!"
+she wailed, and sinking on a chair covered her face with her shawl.
+
+"Laddies, can you no' think of a plan?" asked Dickson, his voice flat
+with despair.
+
+Then Thomas Yownie spoke.  So far he had been silent, but under his
+tangled thatch of hair his mind had been busy.  Jaikie's report seemed
+to bring him to a decision.
+
+"It's gey dark," he said,  "and it's gettin' darker."
+
+There was that in his voice which promised something, and Dickson listened.
+
+"The enemy's mostly foreigners, but Dobson's there and I think
+he's a kind of guide to them.  Dobson's feared of the polis,
+and if we can terrify Dobson he'll terrify the rest."
+
+"Ay, but where are the police?"
+
+"They're no' here yet, but they're comin'.  The fear o' them is aye
+in Dobson's mind.  If he thinks the polis has arrived, he'll put the
+wind up the lot....WE maun be the polis."
+
+Dickson could only stare while the Chief of Staff unfolded his scheme.
+I do not know to whom the Muse of History will give the credit
+of the tactics of "Infiltration," whether to Ludendorff or von Hutier
+or some other proud captain of Germany, or to Foch, who revised and
+perfected them.  But I know that the same notion was at this moment of
+crisis conceived by Thomas Yownie, whom no parents acknowledged, who
+slept usually in a coal cellar, and who had picked up his education
+among Gorbals closes and along the wharves of Clyde.
+
+"It's gettin' dark," he said, "and the enemy are that busy tryin'
+to break into the Hoose that they'll no' be thinkin' o' their rear.
+The five o' us Die-Hards is grand at dodgin' and keepin' out of
+sight, and what hinders us to get in among them, so that they'll hear
+us but never see us.  We're used to the ways o' the polis, and can
+imitate them fine.  Forbye we've all got our whistles, which are the
+same as a bobbie's birl, and Old Bill and Peter are grand at copyin'
+a man's voice.  Since the Captain is shut up in the Hoose, the
+command falls to me, and that's my plan."
+
+With a piece of chalk he drew on the kitchen floor a rough sketch
+of the environs of Huntingtower.  Peter Paterson was to move from
+the shrubberies beyond the verandah, Napoleon from the stables,
+Old Bill from the Tower, while Wee Jaikie and Thomas himself
+were to advance as if from the Garplefoot, so that the enemy might
+fear for his communications.  "As soon as one o' ye gets into position
+he's to gie the patrol cry, and when each o' ye has heard five cries,
+he's to advance.  Begin birlin' and roarin' afore ye get among them,
+and keep it up till ye're at the Hoose wall.  If they've gotten inside,
+in ye go after them.  I trust each Die-Hard to use his judgment,
+and above all to keep out o' sight and no' let himsel' be grippit."
+
+The plan, like all great tactics, was simple, and no sooner was it
+expounded than it was put into action.  The Die-Hards faded out of
+the kitchen like fog-wreaths, and Dickson and Mrs. Morran were left
+looking at each other.  They did not look long.  The bare feet of
+Wee Jaikie had not crossed the threshold fifty seconds, before
+they were followed by Mrs. Morran's out-of-doors boots and
+Dickson's tackets.  Arm in arm the two hobbled down the back path
+behind the village which led to the South Lodge.  The gate was unlocked,
+for the warder was busy elsewhere, and they hastened up the avenue.
+Far off Dickson thought he saw shapes fleeting across the park, which he
+took to be the shock-troops of his own side, and he seemed to hear
+snatches of song.  Jaikie was giving tongue, and this was what he sang:
+
+
+
+"Proley Tarians, arise!
+Wave the Red Flag to the skies,
+Heed no more the Fat Man's lees,
+Stap them doun his throat!
+Nocht to lose except our chains----"
+
+
+
+But he tripped over a rabbit wire and thereafter conserved his breath.
+
+The wind was so loud that no sound reached them from the House,
+which, blank and immense, now loomed before them.  Dickson's ears
+were alert for the noise of shots or the dull crash of bombs; hearing
+nothing, he feared the worst, and hurried Mrs. Morran at a pace which
+endangered her life.  He had no fear for himself, arguing that his
+foes were seeking higher game, and judging, too, that the main battle
+must be round the verandah at the other end.  The two passed the
+shrubbery where the road forked, one path running to the back door
+and one to the stables.  They took the latter and presently came out
+on the downs, with the ravine of the Garple on their left, the
+stables in front, and on the right the hollow of a formal garden
+running along the west side of the House.
+
+The gale was so fierce, now that they had no wind-break between them
+and the ocean, that Mrs. Morran could wrestle with it no longer,
+and found shelter in the lee of a clump of rhododendrons.
+Darkness had all but fallen, and the House was a black shadow
+against the dusky sky, while a confused greyness marked the sea.
+The old Tower showed a tooth of masonry; there was no glow from it,
+so the fire, which Jaikie had reported, must have died down.
+A whaup cried loudly, and very eerily: then another.
+
+The birds stirred up Mrs. Morran.  "That's the laddies' patrol."
+she gasped.  "Count the cries, Dickson."
+
+Another bird wailed, this time very near.  Then there was perhaps
+three minutes' silence till a fainter wheeple came from the direction
+of the Tower.  "Four," said Dickson, but he waited in vain on the fifth.
+He had not the acute hearing of the boys, and could not catch the faint
+echo of Peter Paterson's signal beyond the verandah.  The next he heard
+was a shrill whistle cutting into the wind, and then others in rapid
+succession from different quarters, and something which might have been
+the hoarse shouting of angry men.
+
+The Gorbals Die-Hards had gone into action.
+
+Dull prose is no medium to tell of that wild adventure.  The sober
+sequence of the military historian is out of place in recording
+deeds that knew not sequence or sobriety.  Were I a bard, I would
+cast this tale in excited verse, with a lilt which would catch the
+speed of the reality.  I would sing of Napoleon, not unworthy of
+his great namesake, who penetrated to the very window of the
+ladies' bedroom, where the framework had been driven in and men
+were pouring through; of how there he made such pandemonium with
+his whistle that men tumbled back and ran about blindly seeking
+for guidance; of how in the long run his pugnacity mastered him,
+so that he engaged in combat with an unknown figure and the
+two rolled into what had once been a fountain.  I would hymn
+Peter Paterson, who across tracts of darkness engaged Old Bill
+in a conversation which would have done no discredit to a
+Gallowgate policeman.  He pretended to be making reports and
+seeking orders.  "We've gotten three o' the deevils, sir.
+What'll we dae wi' them?" he shouted; and back would come the
+reply in a slightly more genteel voice:  "Fall them to the rear.
+Tamson has charge of the prisoners."  Or it would be: "They've gotten
+pistols, sir.  What's the orders?" and the answer would be: "Stick to
+your batons.  The guns are posted on the knowe, so we needn't hurry."
+And over all the din there would be a perpetual whistling and a
+yelling of "Hands up!"
+
+I would sing, too, of Wee Jaikie, who was having the red-letter
+hour of his life.  His fragile form moved like a lizard in places
+where no mortal could be expected, and he varied his duties with
+impish assaults upon the persons of such as came in his way.
+His whistle blew in a man's ear one second and the next yards away.
+Sometimes he was moved to song, and unearthly fragments of
+"Class-conscious we are" or "Proley Tarians, arise!" mingled
+with the din, like the cry of seagulls in a storm.  He saw a bright
+light flare up within the House which warned him not to enter,
+but he got as far as the garden-room, in whose dark corners
+he made havoc.  Indeed he was almost too successful, for he
+created panic where he went, and one or two fired blindly at
+the quarter where he had last been heard.  These shots were followed
+by frenzied prohibitions from Spidel and were not repeated.
+Presently he felt that aimless surge of men that is the prelude to
+flight, and heard Dobson's great voice roaring in the hall.
+Convinced that the crisis had come, he made his way outside,
+prepared to harrass the rear of any retirement.  Tears now flowed
+down his face, and he could not have spoken for sobs, but he had
+never been so happy.
+
+But chiefly would I celebrate Thomas Yownie, for it was he who
+brought fear into the heart of Dobson.  He had a voice of singular
+compass, and from the verandah he made it echo round the House.
+The efforts of Old Bill and Peter Paterson had been skilful indeed,
+but those of Thomas Yownie were deadly.  To some leader beyond he
+shouted news: "Robison's just about finished wi' his lot, and then
+he'll get the boats."  A furious charge upset him, and for a moment
+he thought he had been discovered.  But it was only Dobson rushing
+to Leon, who was leading the men in the doorway.  Thomas fled to
+the far end of the verandah, and again lifted up his voice.
+"All foreigners," he shouted, "except the man Dobson.  Ay.  Ay.
+Ye've got Loudon?  Well done!"
+
+It must have been this last performance which broke Dobson's nerve and
+convinced him that the one hope lay in a rapid retreat to the Garplefoot.
+There was a tumbling of men in the doorway, a muttering of strange tongues,
+and the vision of the innkeeper shouting to Leon and Spidel.  For a second
+he was seen in the faint reflection that the light in the hall cast as
+far as the verandah, a wild figure urging the retreat with a pistol
+clapped to the head of those who were too confused by the hurricane
+of events to grasp the situation.  Some of them dropped over the wall,
+but most huddled like sheep through the door on the west side,
+a jumble of struggling, blasphemous mortality.  Thomas Yownie,
+staggered at the success of his tactics, yet kept his head and did
+his utmost to confuse the retreat, and the triumphant shouts and
+whistles of the other Die-Hards showed that they were not unmindful
+of this final duty....
+
+The verandah was empty, and he was just about to enter the House,
+when through the west door came a figure, breathing hard and
+bent apparently on the same errand.  Thomas prepared for battle,
+determined that no straggler of the enemy should now wrest from him
+victory, but, as the figure came into the faint glow at the doorway,
+he recognized it as Heritage.  And at the same moment he heard
+something which made his tense nerves relax.  Away on the right
+came sounds, a thud of galloping horses on grass and the jingle of
+bridle reins and the voices of men.  It was the real thing at last.
+It is a sad commentary on his career, but now for the first time
+in his brief existence Thomas Yownie felt charitably disposed
+towards the police.
+
+
+
+
+The Poet, since we left him blaspheming on the roof of the Tower,
+had been having a crowded hour of most inglorious life.  He had
+started to descend at a furious pace, and his first misadventure was
+that he stumbled and dropped Dickson's pistol over the parapet.
+He tried to mark where it might have fallen in the gloom below,
+and this lost him precious minutes.  When he slithered through the
+trap into the attic room, where he had tried to hold up the attack,
+he discovered that it was full of smoke which sought in vain to
+escape by the narrow window.  Volumes of it were pouring up the stairs,
+and when he attempted to descend he found himself choked and blinded.
+He rushed gasping to the window, filled his lungs with fresh air,
+and tried again, but he got no farther than the first turn, from which
+he could see through the cloud red tongues of flame in the ground room.
+This was solemn indeed, so he sought another way out.  He got on the
+roof, for he remembered a chimney-stack, cloaked with ivy, which was
+built straight from the ground, and he thought he might climb down it.
+
+He found the chimney and began the descent confidently, for he
+had once borne a good reputation at the Montanvert and Cortina.
+At first all went well, for stones stuck out at decent intervals like
+the rungs of a ladder, and roots of ivy supplemented their deficiencies.
+But presently he came to a place where the masonry had crumbled into a
+cave, and left a gap some twenty feet high.  Below it he could dimly
+see a thick mass of ivy which would enable him to cover the further
+forty feet to the ground, but at that cave he stuck most finally.
+All around the lime and stone had lapsed into debris, and he could
+find no safe foothold.  Worse still, the block on which he relied
+proved loose, and only by a dangerous traverse did he avert disaster.
+
+There he hung for a minute or two, with a cold void in his stomach.
+He had always distrusted the handiwork of man as a place to scramble
+on, and now he was planted in the dark on a decomposing wall, with
+an excellent chance of breaking his neck, and with the most urgent
+need for haste.  He could see the windows of the House, and, since
+he was sheltered from the gale, he could hear the faint sound of
+blows on woodwork.  There was clearly the devil to pay there, and yet
+here he was helplessly stuck....Setting his teeth, he started to
+ascend again.  Better the fire than this cold breakneck emptiness.
+
+It took him the better part of half an hour to get back, and he
+passed through many moments of acute fear.  Footholds which had
+seemed secure enough in the descent now proved impossible, and more
+than once he had his heart in his mouth when a rotten ivy stump or a
+wedge of stone gave in his hands, and dropped dully into the pit of
+night, leaving him crazily spread-eagled.  When at last he reached
+the top he rolled on his back and felt very sick.  Then, as he
+realized his safety, his impatience revived.  At all costs he would
+force his way out though he should be grilled like a herring.
+
+The smoke was less thick in the attic, and with his handkerchief
+wet with the rain and bound across his mouth he made a dash for
+the ground room.  It was as hot as a furnace, for everything
+inflammable in it seemed to have caught fire, and the lumber glowed
+in piles of hot ashes.  But the floor and walls were stone, and only
+the blazing jambs of the door stood between him and the outer air.
+He had burned himself considerably as he stumbled downwards, and the
+pain drove him to a wild leap through the broken arch, where he
+miscalculated the distance, charred his shins, and brought down a
+red-hot fragment of the lintel on his head.  But the thing was done,
+and a minute later he was rolling like a dog in the wet bracken to
+cool his burns and put out various smouldering patches on his raiment.
+
+Then he started running for the House, but, confused by the darkness,
+he bore too much to the north, and came out in the side avenue
+from which he and Dickson had reconnoitred on the first evening.
+He saw on the right a glow in the verandah, which, as we know,
+was the reflection of the flare in the hall, and he heard a
+babble of voices.  But he heard something more, for away on
+his left was the sound which Thomas Yownie was soon to hear--the
+trampling of horses.  It was the police at last, and his task was to
+guide them at once to the critical point of action....Three minutes
+later a figure like a scarecrow was admonishing a bewildered
+sergeant, while his hands plucked feverishly at a horse's bridle.
+
+
+
+It is time to return to Dickson in his clump of rhododendrons.
+Tragically aware of his impotence he listened to the tumult of
+the Die-Hards, hopeful when it was loud, despairing when there
+came a moment's lull, while Mrs. Morran like a Greek chorus
+drew loudly upon her store of proverbial philosophy and her
+memory of Scripture texts.  Twice he tried to reconnoitre towards
+the scene of battle, but only blundered into sunken plots and
+pits in the Dutch garden.  Finally he squatted beside Hrs. Morran,
+lit his pipe, and took a firm hold on his patience.
+
+It was not tested for long.  Presently he was aware that a change
+had come over the scene--that the Die-Hards' whistles and shouts
+were being drowned in another sound, the cries of panicky men.
+Dobson's bellow was wafted to him.  "Auntie Phemie," he shouted,
+"the innkeeper's getting rattled.  Dod, I believe they're running."
+For at that moment twenty paces on his left the van of the retreat
+crashed through the creepers on the garden's edge and leaped the
+wall that separated it from the cliffs of the Garplefoot.
+
+The old woman was on her feet.
+
+"God be thankit, is't the polis?"
+
+"Maybe.  Maybe no'.  But they're running."
+
+Another bunch of men raced past, and he heard Dobson's voice.
+
+"I tell you, they're broke.  Listen, it's horses.  Ay, it's the police,
+but it was the Die-Hards that did the job....Here!  They mustn't escape.
+Have the police had the sense to send men to the Garplefoot?"
+
+Mrs. Morran, a figure like an ancient prophetess, with her tartan
+shawl lashing in the gale, clutched him by the shoulder.
+
+"Doun to the waterside and stop them.  Ye'll no' be beat by wee laddies!
+On wi' ye and I'll follow!  There's gaun to be a juidgment on evil-doers
+this night."
+
+Dickson needed no urging.  His heart was hot within him, and the
+weariness and stiffness had gone from his limbs.  He, too, tumbled
+over the wall, and made for what he thought was the route by which
+he had originally ascended from the stream.  As he ran he made
+ridiculous efforts to cry like a whaup in the hope of summoning
+the Die-Hards.  One, indeed, he found--Napoleon, who had suffered
+a grievous pounding in the fountain, and had only escaped by an
+eel-like agility which had aforetime served him in good stead with
+the law of his native city.  Lucky for Dickson was the meeting, for
+he had forgotten the road and would certainly have broken his neck.
+Led by the Die-Hard he slid forty feet over screes and boiler-plates,
+with the gale plucking at him, found a path, lost it, and then tumbled
+down a raw bank of earth to the flat ground beside the harbour.
+During all this performance, he has told me, he had no thought of
+fear, nor any clear notion what he meant to do.  He just wanted to
+be in at the finish of the job.
+
+Through the narrow entrance the gale blew as through a funnel, and
+the usually placid waters of the harbour were a froth of angry waves.
+Two boats had been launched and were plunging furiously, and on one
+of them a lantern dipped and fell.  By its light he could see men
+holding a further boat by the shore.  There was no sign of the police;
+he reflected that probably they had become entangled in the Garple Dean.
+The third boat was waiting for some one.
+
+Dickson--a new Ajax by the ships--divined who this someone must be
+and realized his duty.  It was the leader, the arch-enemy, the man
+whose escape must at all costs be stopped.  Perhaps he had the
+Princess with him, thus snatching victory from apparent defeat.
+In any case he must be tackled, and a fierce anxiety gripped
+his heart.  "Aye finish a job," he told himself, and peered up
+into the darkness of the cliffs, wondering just how he should set
+about it, for except in the last few days he had never engaged in
+combat with a fellow-creature.
+
+"When he comes, you grip his legs," he told Napoleon, "and get him down.
+He'll have a pistol, and we're done if he's on his feet."
+
+There was a cry from the boats, a shout of guidance, and the light on
+the water was waved madly.  "They must have good eyesight," thought
+Dickson, for he could see nothing.  And then suddenly he was aware of
+steps in front of him, and a shape like a man rising out of the void
+at his left hand.
+
+In the darkness Napoleon missed his tackle, and the full shock
+came on Dickson.  He aimed at what he thought was the enemy's throat,
+found only an arm, and was shaken off as a mastiff might shake off
+a toy terrier.  He made another clutch, fell, and in falling caught
+his opponent's leg so that he brought him down.  The man was
+immensely agile, for he was up in a second and something hot and
+bright blew into Dickson's face.  The pistol bullet had passed
+through the collar of his faithful waterproof, slightly singeing
+his neck.  But it served its purpose, for Dickson paused, gasping,
+to consider where he had been hit, and before he could resume the
+chase the last boat had pushed off into deep water.
+
+To be shot at from close quarters is always irritating, and the novelty
+of the experience increased Dickson's natural wrath.  He fumed on the
+shore like a deerhound when the stag has taken to the sea.  So hot was
+his blood that he would have cheerfully assaulted the whole crew had
+they been within his reach.  Napoleon, who had been incapacitated for
+speed by having his stomach and bare shanks savagely trampled upon,
+joined him, and together they watched the bobbing black specks as
+they crawled out of the estuary into the grey spindrift which marked
+the harbour mouth.
+
+But as he looked the wrath died out of Dickson's soul.  For he saw
+that the boats had indeed sailed on a desperate venture, and that a
+pursuer was on their track more potent than his breathless middle-age.
+The tide was on the ebb, and the gale was driving the Atlantic breakers
+shoreward, and in the jaws of the entrance the two waters met in an
+unearthly turmoil.  Above the noise of the wind came the roar of the
+flooded Garple and the fret of the harbour, and far beyond all the
+crashing thunder of the conflict at the harbour mouth.  Even in the
+darkness, against the still faintly grey western sky, the spume could
+be seen rising like waterspouts.  But it was the ear rather than the
+eye which made certain presage of disaster.  No boat could face the
+challenge of that loud portal.
+
+As Dickson struggled against the wind and stared, his heart
+melted and a great awe fell upon him.  He may have wept; it is
+certain that he prayed.  "Poor souls, poor souls!" he repeated.
+"I doubt the last hour has been a poor preparation for eternity."
+
+
+The tide the next day brought the dead ashore.  Among them was a young
+man, different in dress and appearance from the rest--a young man with
+a noble head and a finely-cut classic face, which was not marred like
+the others from pounding among the Garple rocks.  His dark hair was
+washed back from his brow, and the mouth, which had been hard in life,
+was now relaxed in the strange innocence of death.
+
+Dickson gazed at the body and observed that there was a slight
+deformation between the shoulders.
+
+"Poor fellow," he said.  "That explains a lot....As my father used to say,
+cripples have a right to be cankered."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+IN WHICH A PRINCESS LEAVES A DARK TOWER AND A PROVISION MERCHANT
+RETURNS TO HIS FAMILY
+
+
+
+The three days of storm ended in the night, and with the wild weather
+there departed from the Cruives something which had weighed on
+Dickson's spirits since he first saw the place.  Monday--only a week
+from the morning when he had conceived his plan of holiday--saw the
+return of the sun and the bland airs of spring.  Beyond the blue
+of the yet restless waters rose dim mountains tipped with snow,
+like some Mediterranean seascape.  Nesting birds were busy on
+the Laver banks and in the Huntingtower thickets; the village smoked
+peacefully to the clear skies; even the House looked cheerful
+if dishevelled.  The Garple Dean was a garden of swaying larches,
+linnets, and wild anemones.  Assuredly, thought Dickson, there had
+come a mighty change in the countryside, and he meditated a future
+discourse to the Literary Society of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk on
+"Natural Beauty in Relation to the Mind of Man."
+
+It remains for the chronicler to gather up the loose ends of his tale.
+There was no newspaper story with bold headlines of this the most recent
+assault on the shores of Britain.  Alexis Nicholaevitch, once
+a Prince of Muscovy and now Mr. Alexander Nicholson of the rising firm
+of Sprot and Nicholson of Melbourne, had interest enough to prevent it.
+For it was clear that if Saskia was to be saved from persecution,
+her enemies must disappear without trace from the world, and no story
+be told of the wild venture which was their undoing.  The constabulary
+of Carrick and Scotland Yard were indisposed to ask questions,
+under a hint from their superiors, the more so as no serious damage
+had been done to the persons of His Majesty's lieges, and no lives
+had been lost except by the violence of Nature.  The Procurator-Fiscal
+investigated the case of the drowned men, and reported that so many
+foreign sailors, names and origins unknown, had perished in attempting
+to return to their ship at the Garplefoot.  The Danish brig had
+vanished into the mist of the northern seas.  But one signal calamity
+the Procurator-Fiscal had to record.  The body of Loudon the factor was
+found on the Monday morning below the cliffs, his neck broken by a fall.
+In the darkness and confusion he must have tried to escape in that
+direction, and he had chosen an impracticable road or had slipped
+on the edge.  It was returned as "death by misadventure," and the
+CARRICK HERALD and the AUCHENLOCHAN ADVERTISER excelled themselves
+in eulogy.  Mr. Loudon, they said, had been widely known in the
+south-west of Scotland as an able and trusted lawyer, an assiduous
+public servant, and not least as a good sportsman.  It was the last
+trait which had led to his death, for, in his enthusiasm for wild
+nature, he had been studying bird life on the cliffs of the Cruives
+during the storm, and had made that fatal slip which had deprived
+the shire of a wise counsellor and the best of good fellows.
+
+The tinklers of the Garplefoot took themselves off, and where they may
+now be pursuing their devious courses is unknown to the chronicler.
+Dobson, too, disappeared, for he was not among the dead from the boats.
+He knew the neighbourhood, and probably made his way to some port
+from which he took passage to one or other of those foreign lands
+which had formerly been honoured by his patronage.  Nor did all the
+Russians perish.  Three were found skulking next morning in the
+woods, starving and ignorant of any tongue but their own, and five
+more came ashore much battered but alive.  Alexis took charge
+of the eight survivors, and arranged to pay their passage to one
+of the British Dominions and to give them a start in a new life.
+They were broken creatures, with the dazed look of lost animals,
+and four of them had been peasants in Saskia's estates.  Alexis spoke
+to them in their own language.  "In my grandfather's time," he said,
+"you were serfs.  Then there came a change, and for some time
+you were free men.  Now you have slipped back into being slaves
+again--the worst of slaveries, for you have been the serfs of fools
+and scoundrels and the black passion of your own hearts.  I give you
+a chance of becoming free men once more.  You have the task before
+you of working out your own salvation.  Go, and God be with you."
+
+
+
+Before we take leave of these companions of a single week I would
+present them to you again as they appeared on a certain sunny
+afternoon when the episode of Huntingtower was on the eve of closing.
+First we see Saskia and Alexis walking on the thymy sward of
+the cliff-top, looking out to the fretted blue of the sea.
+It is a fitting place for lovers--above all for lovers who have
+turned the page on a dark preface, and have before them still
+the long bright volume of life.  The girl has her arm linked
+in the man's, but as they walk she breaks often away from him,
+to dart into copses, to gather flowers, or to peer over the brink
+where the gulls wheel and oyster-catchers pipe among the shingle.
+She is no more the tragic muse of the past week, but a laughing child
+again, full of snatches of song, her eyes bright with expectation.
+They talk of the new world which lies before them, and her voice is happy.
+Then her brows contract, and, as she flings herself down on
+a patch of young heather, her air is thoughtful.
+
+"I have been back among fairy tales," she says.  "I do not quite
+understand, Alesha.  Those gallant little boys!  They are youth,
+and youth is always full of strangeness.  Mr. Heritage!  He is youth,
+too, and poetry, perhaps, and a soldier's tradition.  I think I know
+him....But what about Dickson?  He is the PETIT BOURGEOIS,
+the EPICIER, the class which the world ridicules.  He is unbelievable.
+The others with good fortune I might find elsewhere--in Russia perhaps.
+But not Dickson."
+
+"No," is the answer.  "You will not find him in Russia.  He is what
+they call the middle-class, which we who were foolish used to laugh at.
+But he is the stuff which above all others makes a great people.
+He will endure when aristocracies crack and proletariats crumble.
+In our own land we have never known him, but till we create him
+our land will not be a nation."
+
+
+
+
+Half a mile away on the edge of the Laver glen Dickson and Heritage
+are together, Dickson placidly smoking on a tree-stump and Heritage
+walking excitedly about and cutting with his stick at the bracken.
+Sundry bandages and strips of sticking plaster still adorn the Poet,
+but his clothes have been tidied up by Mrs. Morran, and he has
+recovered something of his old precision of garb.  The eyes of both are
+fixed on the two figures on the cliff-top.  Dickson feels acutely uneasy.
+It is the first time that he has been alone with Heritage since the
+arrival of Alexis shivered the Poet's dream.  He looks to see a
+tragic grief; to his amazement he beholds something very like exultation.
+
+"The trouble with you, Dogson," says Heritage, "is that you're a bit
+of an anarchist.  All you false romantics are.  You don't see the
+extraordinary beauty of the conventions which time has consecrated.
+You always want novelty, you know, and the novel is usually the ugly and
+rarely the true.  I am for romance, but upon the old, noble classic line."
+
+Dickson is scarcely listening.  His eyes are on the distant lovers,
+and he longs to say something which will gently and graciously
+express his sympathy with his friend.
+
+"I'm afraid," he begins hesitatingly, "I'm afraid you've had a bad blow,
+Mr. Heritage.  You're taking it awful well, and I honour you for it."
+
+The Poet flings back his head.  "I am reconciled," he says.
+"After all 'tis better to have loved and lost,' you know.
+It has been a great experience and has shown me my own heart.
+I love her, I shall always love her, but I realize that she was
+never meant for me.  Thank God I've been able to serve her--that is all
+a moth can ask of a star.  I'm a better man for it, Dogson.
+She will be a glorious memory, and Lord! what poetry I shall write!
+I give her up joyfully, for she has found her mate.  'Let us not
+to the marriage of true minds admit impediments!'  The thing's too
+perfect to grieve about....Look!  There is romance incarnate."
+
+He points to the figures now silhouetted against the further sea.
+"How does it go, Dogson?" he cries.  "'And on her lover's arm she leant'
+--what next?  You know the thing."
+
+Dickson assists and Heritage declaims:
+
+
+
+"And on her lover's arm she leant,
+  And round her waist she felt it fold,
+And far across the hills they went
+  In that new world which is the old:
+Across the hills, and far away
+  Beyond their utmost purple rim,
+And deep into the dying day
+  The happy princess followed him."
+
+
+He repeats the last two lines twice and draws a deep breath.
+"How right!" he cries.  "How absolutely right!  Lord!  It's astonishing
+how that old bird Tennyson got the goods!"
+
+
+
+
+After that Dickson leaves him and wanders among the thickets
+on the edge of the Huntingtower policies above the Laver glen.
+He feels childishly happy, wonderfully young, and at the same
+time supernaturally wise.  Sometimes he thinks the past week has
+been a dream, till he touches the sticking-plaster on his brow,
+and finds that his left thigh is still a mass of bruises and that
+his right leg is woefully stiff.  With that the past becomes very
+real again, and he sees the Garple Dean in that stormy afternoon,
+he wrestles again at midnight in the dark House, he stands with
+quaking heart by the boats to cut off the retreat.  He sees it all,
+but without terror in the recollection, rather with gusto and a
+modest pride.  "I've surely had a remarkable time," he tells himself,
+and then Romance, the goddess whom he has worshipped so long,
+marries that furious week with the idyllic.  He is supremely content,
+for he knows that in his humble way he has not been found wanting.
+Once more for him the Chavender or Chub, and long dreams among
+summer hills.  His mind flies to the days ahead of him, when
+he will go wandering with his pack in many green places.  Happy days
+they will be, the prospect with which he has always charmed his mind.
+Yes, but they will be different from what he had fancied, for he is
+another man than the complacent little fellow who set out a week ago
+on his travels.  He has now assurance of himself, assurance of his faith.
+Romance, he sees, is one and indivisible....
+
+Below him by the edge of the stream he sees the encampment of the
+Gorbals Die-Hards.  He calls and waves a hand, and his signal is answered.
+It seems to be washing day, for some scanty and tattered raiment
+is drying on the sward.  The band is evidently in session, for it is
+sitting in a circle, deep in talk.
+
+As he looks at the ancient tents, the humble equipment, the ring of
+small shockheads, a great tenderness comes over him.  The Die-Hards
+are so tiny, so poor, so pitifully handicapped, and yet so bold
+in their meagreness.  Not one of them has had anything that might
+be called a chance.  Their few years have been spent in kennels
+and closes, always hungry and hunted, with none to care for them;
+their childish ears have been habituated to every coarseness,
+their small minds filled with the desperate shifts of living..
+..And yet, what a heavenly spark was in them!  He had always
+thought nobly of the soul; now he wants to get on his knees
+before the queer greatness of humanity.
+
+A figure disengages itself from the group, and Dougal makes his way
+up the hill towards him.  The Chieftain is not more reputable in garb
+than when we first saw him, nor is he more cheerful of countenance.
+He has one arm in a sling made out of his neckerchief, and his
+scraggy little throat rises bare from his voluminous shirt.
+All that can be said for him is that he is appreciably cleaner.
+He comes to a standstill and salutes with a special formality.
+
+"Dougal," says Dickson, "I've been thinking.  You're the grandest lot of
+wee laddies I ever heard tell of, and, forbye, you've saved my life.
+Now, I'm getting on in years, though you'll admit that I'm not that dead
+old, and I'm not a poor man, and I haven't chick or child to look after.
+None of you has ever had a proper chance or been right fed or educated
+or taken care of.  I've just the one thing to say to you.  From now on
+you're my bairns, every one of you.  You're fine laddies, and I'm
+going to see that you turn into fine men.  There's the stuff in you
+to make Generals and Provosts--ay, and Prime Ministers, and Dod! it'll
+not be my blame if it doesn't get out."
+
+Dougal listens gravely and again salutes.
+
+"I've brought ye a message," he says.  "We've just had a meetin' and
+I've to report that ye've been unanimously eleckit Chief Die-Hard.
+We're a' hopin' ye'll accept."
+
+"I accept," Dickson replies.  "Proudly and gratefully I accept."
+
+
+
+
+The last scene is some days later, in a certain southern suburb of Glasgow.
+Ulysses has come back to Ithaca, and is sitting by his fireside,
+waiting for the return of Penelope from the Neuk Hydropathic.
+There is a chill in the air, so a fire is burning in the grate,
+but the laden tea-table is bright with the first blooms of lilac.
+Dickson, in a new suit with a flower in his buttonhole, looks none
+the worse for his travels, save that there is still sticking-plaster
+on his deeply sunburnt brow.  He waits impatiently with his eye
+on the black marble timepiece, and he fingers something in his pocket.
+
+Presently the sound of wheels is heard, and the pea-hen voice of
+Tibby announces the arrival of Penelope.  Dickson rushes to the door,
+and at the threshold welcomes his wife with a resounding kiss.
+He leads her into the parlour and settles her in her own chair.
+
+"My! but it's nice to be home again!" she says.  "And everything
+that comfortable.  I've had a fine time, but there's no place
+like your own fireside.  You're looking awful well, Dickson.
+But losh!  What have you been doing to your head?"
+
+"Just a small tumble.  It's very near mended already.  Ay, I've had
+a grand walking tour, but the weather was a wee bit thrawn.
+It's nice to see you back again, Mamma.  Now that I'm an idle man
+you and me must take a lot of jaunts together."
+
+She beams on him as she stays herself with Tibby's scones, and when
+the meal is ended, Dickson draws from his pocket a slim case.
+The jewels have been restored to Saskia, but this is one of her
+own which she has bestowed upon Dickson as a parting memento.
+He opens the case and reveals a necklet of emeralds, any one
+of which is worth half the street.
+
+"This is a present for you," he says bashfully.
+
+Mrs. McCunn's eyes open wide.  "You're far too kind," she gasps.
+"It must have cost an awful lot of money."
+
+"It didn't cost me that much," is the truthful answer.
+
+She fingers the trinket and then clasps it round her neck, where the
+green depths of the stones glow against the black satin of her bodice.
+Her eyes are moist as she looks at him.  "You've been a kind man to me,"
+she says, and she kisses him as she has not done since Janet's death.
+
+She stands up and admires the necklet in the mirror.  Romance once more,
+thinks Dickson.  That which has graced the slim throats of princesses in
+far-away Courts now adorns an elderly matron in a semi-detached villa;
+the jewels of the wild Nausicaa have fallen to the housewife Penelope.
+
+Mrs. McCunn preens herself before the glass.  "I call it very genteel,"
+she says.  "Real stylish.  It might be worn by a queen."
+
+"I wouldn't say but it has," says Dickson.
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Huntingtower by John Buchan.
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