The Short Stories of John Buchan (Complete Collection) - Buchan John

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eyes by chance to the other window, he saw a sash in fragments and the marks of a sudden leap. With a wild horror he realised that the dog was gone.

      He rushed to the hill-road, but the place was vacant of life. Then with a desperate surmise he ran to the path which led to the highway. At first he saw nothing, so unsettled was his vision; then something grew upon his sight,—a black object moving swiftly amid the white dust.

      There was but one course for him. He summoned his strength for a hopeless effort, and set off down the long dazzling roadway in mad pursuit. By this path his cousins were coming; even now the brute might be on them, and in one moment of horror he saw the lady to whom he was devoted the prey of this nameless thing of dread. At this point he lost all control of his nerves; tears of weakness and terror ran over his face; but still he ran as fast as his failing strength suffered—faster, for an overmastering fear put a false speed into his limbs and a deceptive ease in his breast. He cried aloud that the beast might turn on him, for he felt that in any case his duration was but a thing of seconds. But he cried in vain, for the thing heeded him not but vanished into the wood, as he rounded the turn of hill.

      Half-way down the descent is a place shaded with thick trees, cool, green, and mossy, a hermitage from the fiercest sun. The grass is like a shorn lawn, and a little stream tinkles in a bed of grey stones. Into this cold dell the man passed from the glare without, and the shock refreshed him. This, as it chanced, was his salvation. He increased his speed, still crying hoarsely the animal’s name. When he came once more into the white dust the brute was not fifty yards from him, and as he yelled more desperately, it stopped, turned, saw him, and rushed back to the attack.

      He fell on his knees from extreme weakness, and waited with his gun quivering at shoulder. Now it raked the high heavens, now it was pointed to the distant hills. His hand shook like a child’s, and in his blindness he crushed the stock almost against his throat. Up the highway meantime came those ravening jaws, nearer and ever nearer. Like a flash the whole picture of the future lay before him,—himself torn and dying, the wild thing leaving him and keeping its old course till it met his friends, and then—more horror and death. And all hung on two cartridges and his uncertain aim.

      His nervousness made him draw the trigger when the brute was still many yards away. The shot went clear over its head to spend itself in the empty air. In desperation he nuzzled the stock below his chin, holding it tight till he was all but choked, and waited blindly. The thing loomed up before him in proportions almost gigantic; it seemed to leap to and fro, and blot out the summer heavens. He knew he was crazy; he knew, too, that life was in the balance, and that a random aim would mean a short passage to another world. Two glaring eyes shone out of the black mass, the centre, as it were, of its revolutions. With all his strength he drew the point to them and fired. Suddenly the fire seemed to go out, and the twin lights were darkened.

      When the party of pretty young women in summer raiment came up the path a minute later, they saw something dark in the mid-road, and on coming nearer found that it was their cousin. But he presented a strange appearance, for in place of the elegant, bronzed young man they knew, they found a broken-down creature with a bleeding throat and a ghastly face, sitting clutching a gun and weeping hysterically beside a hideous, eyeless dog with a shattered jaw which lay dead on the ground.

      Such is the tale of Mr. John Anthony Dean and his doings on that afternoon of summer. Yet it must be told—and for human nature’s sake I regret it—that his sudden flash into the heroic worked no appreciable difference on his ways. He fled the hill country that very month, and during the next winter published a book of very minor poetry (dedicated to his cousin, Miss Phyllis), which contained an execrable rondeau on his adventure, with the refrain—“From Canine Jaws,” wherein the author likened the dog to Cerberus, himself to “strong Amphitryon’s son,” and wound up with grateful thanksgiving to the “Muse” for his rescue. As I said before, it is not my business to apologise for Mr. Dean; but it is my privilege to note this proof of the heroic inconsistency of man.

      THE OASIS IN THE SNOW

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      This tale was told to me by the shepherd of Callowa, when I sheltered once in his house against an April snowstorm—for he who would fish Gled in spring must fear neither wind nor weather. The shepherd was a man of great height, with the slow, swinging gait, the bent carriage, the honest eyes, and the weather-tanned face which are the marks of his class. He talked little, for life is too lonely or too serious in these uplands for idle conversation; but when once his tongue was loosened, under the influence of friendship or drink, he could speak as I have heard few men ever talk, for his mind was a storehouse of forty years’ experience, the harvest of an eye shrewd and observant. This story he told me as we sat by the fire, and looked forth every now and then drearily on the weather.

      They crack about snaw-storms nowadays, and ken naucht about them. Maybe there’s a wee pickle driftin’ and a road blockit, and there’s a great cry about the terrible storm. But, lord, if they had kenned o’ the storms I’ve kenned o’ they would speak a wee thing mair serious and respectfu’. And bodies come here i’ the simmer and gang daft about the bonny green hills, as they ca’ them, and think life here sae quate and peacefu’, as if the folk here had nocht to dae but daunder roond their hills and follow their wark as trig and easy as if they were i’ the holms o’ Clyde and no i’ the muirs o’ Gled. But they dinna ken, and weel for them, how cauld and hungry and cruel are the hills, how easy a man gangs to his death i’ thae braw glens, how the wind stings i’ the morn and the frost bites at nicht, o’ the bogs and sklidders and dreich hillsides, where there’s life neither for man nor beast.

      Weel, about this story, it was yince in a Februar’ mony year syne that it a’ happened, when I was younger and lichter on my feet and mair gleg i’ the seein’.

      Ye mind Doctor Crichton—he’s deid thae ten ‘ear, but he was a braw doctor in his time. He could cure when anither was helpless, and the man didna leeve whae wad ride further on less errand.

      Now the doctor was terrible keen on fishin’ and shootin’ and a’ manner o’ sport. I’ve heard him say that there were three things he likit weel abune ithers. Yin was the back o’ a guid horse, anither a guid water and a clear wast wind, and the third a snawy day and a shot at the white hares. He had been crakin’ on me for mony a day to gang wi’ him, but I was thrang that ‘ear wi’ cairtin’ up hay for the sheep frae lower doon the glens and couldna dae’t. But this day I had trystit to gang wi’ him, for there had been a hard frost a’ the week, and the hares on the hills wad be in graund fettle. Ye ken the way o’ the thing. Yae man keeps yae side o’ the hill and the ither the ither, and the beasts gang atween them, back and forrit. Whiles ye ‘ll see them pop round the back o’ a dyke and aff again afore ye can get a shot. It’s no easy wark, for the skins o’ the craturs are ill to tell frae the snawy grund, and a man taks to hae a gleg ee afore he can pick them oot, and a quick hand ere he can shoot. But the doctor was rale skilfu’ at it and verra proud, so we set aff brisk-like wi’ our guns.

      It was snawin’ lichtly when we startit, and ere we had gone far it begood to snaw mair. And the air was terrible keen, and cut like a scythe-blade. We were weel wrappit up and walkit a’ our pith, but our fingers were soon like to come off, and it was nane sae easy to handle the gun. We tried the Wildshaw Hichts first, and got nane there, though we beat up and doon, and were near smoored wi’ snaw i’ the gullies. I didna half like the look o’ things, for it wasna canny that there should be nae hares, and, forbye, the air was gettin’ like a rusty saw to the face. But the doctor wad hear naething o’ turnin’ back, for he had plenty o’ speerit, had the man, and said if we didna get hares on yae hill we wad get them on the ither.

      At that time ye ‘ll mind that I had twae dowgs, baith guid but verra contrar’ in natur’. There was yin ca’ed Tweed, a fine, canty sort o’ beast, very freendly to the bairns, and gien to followin’ me to kirk and things o’ that sort. But he was nae guid for the shootin’, for he was mortal feared at the sound o’ a gun, and wad rin hame as he were shot. The ither I ca’ed Voltaire, because

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