Huntingtower Part 31

"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."

d.i.c.kson 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 d.i.c.kson 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 ma.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e. 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.

d.i.c.kson--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 s.n.a.t.c.hing 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 d.i.c.kson, 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 d.i.c.kson. 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 d.i.c.kson's face. The pistol bullet had pa.s.sed through the collar of his faithful waterproof, slightly singeing his neck. But it served its purpose, for d.i.c.kson 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 d.i.c.kson's natural wrath. He fumed on the sh.o.r.e like a deerhound when the stag has taken to the sea. So hot was his blood that he would have cheerfully a.s.saulted 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 d.i.c.kson'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 sh.o.r.eward, 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 d.i.c.kson 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 ash.o.r.e. Among them was a young man, different in dress and appearance from the rest--a young man with a n.o.ble head and a finely-cut cla.s.sic 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.

d.i.c.kson 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 d.i.c.kson'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. a.s.suredly, thought d.i.c.kson, 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 a.s.sault on the sh.o.r.es 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 a.s.siduous 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 pa.s.sage 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 ash.o.r.e much battered but alive. Alexis took charge of the eight survivors, and arranged to pay their pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sion 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 G.o.d 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 s.n.a.t.c.hes 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 d.i.c.kson? He is the _pet.i.t bourgeois_, the _epicier_, the cla.s.s which the world ridicules. He is unbelievable. The others with good fortune I might find elsewhere--in Russia perhaps. But not d.i.c.kson."

"No," is the answer. "You will not find him in Russia. He is what we call the middle-cla.s.s, 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 d.i.c.kson and Heritage are together, d.i.c.kson 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. d.i.c.kson 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, n.o.ble cla.s.sic lines."

d.i.c.kson 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 G.o.d 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."

d.i.c.kson a.s.sists 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 d.i.c.kson 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 ma.s.s 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 G.o.ddess 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 a.s.surance of himself, a.s.surance 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 coa.r.s.eness, their small minds filled with the desperate shifts of living.... And yet, what a heavenly spark was in them! He had always thought n.o.bly 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 d.i.c.kson, "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'