LITMIR.BIZ

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going to look the basest kind of poaching tramp. I’ve selected my costume from the combined wardrobes of this household, and I can tell you it’s pretty dingy. Mrs Lithgow is at present engaged in clouting the oldest pair of Wattie’s breeks for me…My only chance is to be a regular ragamuffin and the worst I need fear then is a rough handling from the gillies. Bandicott, I take it, is not the sort of fellow to want to prosecute. If I’m caught—which is fairly certain—I’ll probably get a drubbing and spend the night in a cellar and be given my breakfast next morning and kicked out. It’s a different matter for you, Charles, with the legally minded Claybody.”

      “What odds are you offerin’?” Sir Archie asked. “John backed himself and I took a tenner off him. What about an even fiver?”

      “I’ll give you three to one in five-pound notes that I win,” said Leithen grimly. “But that’s pride, not conviction.”

      “Done with you, my lad,” said Sir Archie, and departed to write an acceptance of the invitation to dinner.

      Fish Benjie remained behind, and it was clear that he had something to communicate. He caught Lamancha’s eye, who gave him the opening he sought by asking what was the news from Strathlarrig. Benjie had the instinct of the ballad-maker, and would begin his longer discourses with an epic flourish of the “Late at e’en drinkin’ the wine” style.

      “It was at fower o’clock this mornin’ they started,” he announced, “and they’re still comin’.”

      “Coming? Who?” Leithen asked.

      “Jornalists. The place is crawlin’ wi’ them. I seen six on bicycles and five in cawrs and twa in the Inverlarrig dowg-cairt. They’re a wantin’ to see auld Bandicott, but auld Bandicott will no see them. Mactavish stops them at the lodge, and speirs what they want, and they gie him cairds wi’ their names prentit, and he sends them up to the hoose, but he’ll no let them enter. Syne the message comes back that the maister will see them the day after the morn, but till then naebody maun put a fit inside the gates.”

      “What happened then?” Leithen asked with acute interest.

      “It hasna happened—it’s still happenin’! I never in my life heard sic a lot o’ sweer words. Says ane, ‘Does the auld dotterel think he can defy the British Press? We’ll mak his life no worth leevin’.’ Says another, ‘I’ve come a’ the gait frae London and I’ll no budge till I’ve seen the banes o’ that Viking!’ One or twa went back to Inverlarrig, but the feck o’ them just scattered like paitricks. They clamb the wall, and they waded up the water, and they got in by the top o’ the linns. In half an hour there was half a dizzen o’ them inside the Strathlarrig policies. Man”—here he fixed his glowing eye on Leithen—“if ye had been on the Lang Whang this mornin’ ye could have killed a fish and naebody the wiser.”

      “Good Lord! Are they there still?”

      “Na. They were huntit oot. Every man aboot the place was huntin’ them, and Angus was roarin’ like a bull. The young Laird thocht they were Bolshies and cam doun wi’ a gun. Syne the auld man appeared and spoke them fair and telled them he was terribly sorry, but he couldna see them for twa days, and if they contentit themselves that lang he would hae them a’ to their denner and show them everything. After that they gaed awa’, but there’s aye mair arrivin’ and I’m expectin’ mair riots. They’re forritsome lads, thae jornalists, and a dour crop to shift. But they’re kind folk, and gie’d me a shillin’ a-piece for advisin’ them.”

      “What did you advise?”

      “I advised them to gang doun to Glenraden,” said Benjie with a goblin smile. “I said they should gang and howk in the Piper’s Ring and they would maybe find mair treasure. Twa-three o’ them got spades and picks and startit off. I’m thinkin’ Macpherson will be after them wi’ a whup.”

      Leithen’s brows were puckered in thought. “It looks as if my bet with Archie wasn’t so crazy after all. This invasion is bound to confuse Bandicott’s plans. And you say it’s still going on? The gillies will be weary men before night.”

      “They will that,” Benjie assented. “And there’s no a man o’ them can rin worth a docken, except Jimsie. Thae jornalists was far soopler.”

      “More power the Press. Benjie, back you go and keep an eye on Strathlarrig, and stir up the journalists to a sense of their rights. Report here this afternoon at four, for we should be on the move by six, and I’ve a lot to say to you.”

      In the course of the morning Leithen went for a walk among the scaurs and dingles of Crask Hill. He followed a footpath which took him down the channel of a tiny burn and led to a little mantelpiece of a meadow from which Wattie Lithgow drew a modest supply of bog-hay. His mind was so filled with his coming adventure that he walked with his head bent and at a turn of the path nearly collided with a man.

      Murmuring a gruff “Fine day,” he would have passed on, when he became aware that the stranger had halted. Then, to his consternation, he heard his name uttered, and had perforce to turn. He saw a young man, in knickerbockers and heavy nailed boots, who smiled diffidently as if uncertain whether he would be recognized.

      “Sir Edward Leithen, isn’t it?” he said. “I once had the pleasure of meeting you, sir, when you lunched with the Lobby journalists. I was then on the Lobby staff of the Monitor. My name is Crossby.”

      “Of course, of course. I remember perfectly. Let’s sit down, Mr Crossby, unless you’re in a hurry. Where are you bound for?”

      “Simply stretching my legs. I was climbing rocks at Sligachan when my paper wired me to come on here. The press seem to have gone mad about this Viking’s tomb—think they’ve got hold of a second Tutankhamen. So I get a fisherman to take me and my bicycle over to the mainland and pedalled the rest of the road. I thought I had a graft with old Bandicott, for I used to write for his paper—The New York Bulletin, you know—but it appears there’s nothing doing. Odd business, for you don’t often find Americans shy of the Press. But I think I’ve found out the reason, and that makes a good enough story in itself. Perhaps you’ve heard it?”

      “No,” said Leithen, “but I’d like to, if you don’t mind. I’m not a journalist, so I won’t give you away. Let’s have it.”

      He stole a glance at his companion, and saw a pleasant, shrewd, boyish face, with the hard sunburnt skin of one in the prime of physical condition. Like many others of his type, Leithen liked journalists as much as he disliked men of letters—the former had had their corners smoothed by a rough life, and lacked the vanity and spiritual pride of the latter. Also he had acquired from experience a profound belief in the honour of the profession, for at various times in his public career he had put his reputation into their hands and they had not failed him. It was his maxim that if you tried to bamboozle them they were out for your blood, but that if you trusted them they would see you through.

      “Let’s hear it, Mr Crossby,” he repeated. “I’m deeply interested.”

      “Well, it’s a preposterous tale, but the natives seem to believe it. They say that some fellow, who calls himself John Macnab, has dared the magnates in these parts to prevent his killing a stag or a salmon in their preserves. He had laid down pretty stiff conditions for himself, for he has to get his beast off their ground and hand it back to them. They say he has undertaken to pay 500 pounds to any charity the owner names if he succeeds and 1000 pounds if he fails—so he must have money to burn, and it appears that he has already paid the 500 pounds. He started on Glenraden, and the old Highland chief there had every man and boy for three days watching the forest. Then on the third day, when everybody was on the mountain-tops, in sails John Macnab and kills a stag under the house windows. He reckoned on the American’s dynamite shots in his search for the Viking to hide his shot. And he would have got away with it too, if one of the young ladies hadn’t appeared on the scene and cried “Desist!” So what does this bandit do but off with his hat, makes his best bow, and says ‘Madame, your servant,’ and vanishes, leaving the chief richer by a thousand pounds. It’s

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