John Buchan

Salute to Adventurers John Buchan

The storm died away in the night, and I awoke to a clear, rain-washed world and the chillof an autumn morn. I was as stiff and sore as if I had been whipped, my clothes weresodden and heavy, and not till I had washed my face and hands in the burn and stretchedmy legs up the hill-side did I feel restored to something of my ordinary briskness. The encampment looked weird indeed as seen in the cruel light of day. The women werecooking oatmeal on iron girdles, but the fire burned smokily, and the cake I got was nobetter than dough. They were a disjaskit lot, with tousled hair and pinched faces, in whichshone hungry eyes. Most were barefoot, and all but two-three were ancient beldames whoshould have been at home in the chimney corner. I noticed one decent-looking youngwoman, who had the air of a farm servant; and two were well-fed country wives who hadprobably left a brood of children to mourn them. The men were little better. One had thesallow look of a weaver, another was a hind with a big, foolish face, and there was a slip of alad who might once have been a student of divinity. But each had a daftness in the eye andsomething weak and unwholesome in the visage, so that they were an offence to the fresh, gusty moorland. All but Muckle John himself. He came out of his tent and prayed till the hill-sides echoed. Itwas a tangle of bedlamite ravings, with long screeds from the Scriptures intermixed likecurrants in a bag-pudding. But there was power in the creature, in the strange lift of hisvoice, in his grim jowl, and in the fire of his sombre eyes. The others I pitied, but him Ihated and feared. On him and his kind were to be blamed all the madness of the land, whichhad sent my father overseas and desolated our dwelling. So long as crazy prophetspreached brimstone and fire, so long would rough-shod soldiers and cunning lawyersprofit by their folly; and often I prayed in those days that the two evils might devour eachother