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I would sing, too, of Wee Jaikie, who was having the red-letter hour of his
life. His fragile form moved like a lizard in places where no mortal could be
expected, and he varied his duties with impish assaults upon the persons of
such as came in his way. His whistle blew in a man's ear one second and the
next yards away. Sometimes he was moved to song, and unearthly fragments of
"Class-conscious we are" or "Proley Tarians, arise!" mingled with the din,
like the cry of seagulls in a storm. He saw a bright light flare up within the
House which warned him not to enter, but he got as far as the garden-room, in
whose dark corners he made havoc. Indeed he was almost too successful, for he
created panic where he went, and one or two fired blindly at the quarter where
he had last been heard. These shots were followed by frenzied prohibitions
from
Spidel and were not repeated. Presently he felt that aimless surge of men that
is the prelude to flight, and heard Dobson's great voice roaring in the hall.
Convinced that the crisis had come, he made his way outside, prepared to
harrass the rear of any retirement. Tears now flowed down his face, and he
could not have spoken for sobs, but he had never been so happy.
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But chiefly would I celebrate Thomas Yownie, for it was he who brought fear
into the heart of
Dobson. He had a voice of singular compass, and from the verandah he made it
echo round the House.
The efforts of Old Bill and Peter Paterson had been skilful indeed, but those
of Thomas Yownie were deadly. To some leader beyond he shouted news:
"Robison's just about finished wi' his lot, and then he'll get the boats." A
furious charge upset him, and for a moment he thought he had been discovered.
But it was only Dobson rushing to Leon, who was leading the men in the
doorway. Thomas fled to the far end of the verandah, and again lifted up his
voice. "All foreigners," he shouted, "except the man Dobson. Ay. Ay. Ye've got
Loudon? Well done!"
It must have been this last performance which broke Dobson's nerve and
convinced him that the one hope lay in a rapid retreat to the Garplefoot.
There was a tumbling of men in the doorway, a muttering of strange tongues,
and the vision of the innkeeper shouting to Leon and Spidel. For a second he
was seen in the faint reflection that the light in the hall cast as far as the
verandah, a wild figure urging the retreat with a pistol clapped to the head
of those who were too confused by the hurricane of events to grasp the
situation. Some of them dropped over the wall, but most huddled like sheep
through the door on the west side, a jumble of struggling, blasphemous
mortality. Thomas Yownie, staggered at the success of his tactics, yet kept
his head and did his utmost to confuse the retreat, and the triumphant shouts
and whistles of the other Die-Hards showed that they were not unmindful of
this final duty....
The verandah was empty, and he was just about to enter the House, when through
the west door came a figure, breathing hard and bent apparently on the same
errand. Thomas prepared for battle, determined that no straggler of the enemy
should now wrest from him victory, but, as the figure came into the faint glow
at the doorway, he recognized it as Heritage. And at the same moment he heard
something which made his tense nerves relax. Away on the right came sounds, a
thud of galloping horses on grass and the jingle of bridle reins and the
voices of men. It was the real thing at last. It is a sad commentary on his
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career, but now for the first time in his brief existence Thomas Yownie felt
charitably disposed towards the police.
The Poet, since we left him blaspheming on the roof of the Tower, had been
having a crowded hour of most inglorious life. He had started to descend at a
furious pace, and his first misadventure was that he stumbled and dropped
Dickson's pistol over the parapet. He tried to mark where it might have fallen
in the gloom below, and this lost him precious minutes. When he slithered
through the trap into the attic room, where he had tried to hold up the
attack, he discovered that it was full of smoke which sought in vain to escape
by the narrow window. Volumes of it were pouring up the stairs, and when he
attempted to descend he found himself choked and blinded. He rushed gasping to
the window, filled his lungs with fresh air, and tried again, but he got no
farther than the first turn, from which he could see through the cloud red
tongues of flame in the ground room. This was solemn indeed, so he sought
another way out. He got on the roof, for he remembered a chimney-stack,
cloaked with ivy, which was built straight from the ground, and he thought he
might climb down it.
He found the chimney and began the descent confidently, for he had once borne
a good reputation at the Montanvert and Cortina. At first all went well, for
stones stuck out at decent intervals like the rungs of a ladder, and roots of
ivy supplemented their deficiencies. But presently he came to a place where
the masonry had crumbled into a cave, and left a gap some twenty feet high.
Below it he could dimly see a thick mass of ivy which would enable him to
cover the further forty feet to the ground, but at that cave he stuck most
finally. All around the lime and stone had lapsed into debris, and he could
find no safe foothold. Worse still, the block on which he relied proved loose,
and only by a dangerous traverse did he avert disaster.
There he hung for a minute or two, with a cold void in his stomach. He had
always distrusted the handiwork of man as a place to scramble on, and now he
was planted in the dark on a decomposing wall, with an excellent chance of
breaking his neck, and with the most urgent need for haste. He could see the
windows of the House, and, since he was sheltered from the gale, he could hear
the faint sound of blows on woodwork. There was clearly the devil to pay
there, and yet here he was helplessly stuck....Setting his teeth, he started
to ascend again. Better the fire than this cold breakneck emptiness.
It took him the better part of half an hour to get back, and he passed through
many moments of acute fear. Footholds which had seemed secure enough in the
descent now proved impossible, and more than once he had his heart in his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]