Chapter IX. The First Battle of the Cruives

Huntingtower

by John Buchan

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!"