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 Cæsar. 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 Eugènie her breakfast, and made preparation for the
midday dinner. The invalid in the bed in the parlour was not a repaying
subject. Cousin Eugènie 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
Eugènie 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.