John Buchan - John Burnet of Barns - A Romance

I found the stranger looking up at me, as I sat my horse, with a glance half-quizzical and half-deprecatory. The water ran down his odd clothes and formed in pools in the bare places of the ground. He shivered in the cold wind, and removed little fragments of ice from his coat. Then he spoke.

"Ye'll be the Laird o' Barns settin' oot on your traivels?"

"Good Lord! What do you know of my business?" I asked, and, as I looked at him, I knew that I had seen the face before. Of a sudden he lifted his arm to rub his eyebrows, and the motion brought back to me at once a vision of excited players and a dry, parched land, and a man perplexedly seeking to convince them of something; and I remembered him for the man who had brought the news to Peebles of the rising of Tweed.

"I know you," I said. "You are the man who came down with news of the great flood. But what do you here?"

"Bide a wee and I'll tell ye. Ye'll mind that ye tellt me if ever I was in need o' onything, to come your way. Weel, I've been up Tweed, and doun Tweed, and ower the hills, and up the hills, till there's nae mair places left for me to gang. So I heard o' your gaun ower the seas, and I took it into my heid that I wad like to gang tae. So here I am, at your service."

The fellow's boldness all but took my breath away. "What, in Heaven's name, would I take you with me for?" I asked. "I doubt we would suit each other ill."

"Na, na, you and me wad gree fine. I've heard tell o' ye, Laird, though ye've heard little o' me, and by a' accoonts we're just made for each ither."

Now if any other one had spoken to me in this tone I should have made short work of him; but I was pleased with this man's conduct in the affair just past, and, besides, I felt I owed something to my promise.

"But," said I, "going to Holland is not like going to Peebles fair, and who is to pay your passage, man?"

"Oh," said he, "I maun e'en be your body-servant, so to speak."

"I have little need of a body-servant. I am used to shifting for myself. But to speak to the purpose, what use could you be to me?"

"What use?" the man repeated. "Eh, sir, ye ken little o' Nicol Plenderleith to talk that gait. A' the folk o' Brochtoun and Tweedsmuir, and awa' ower by Clyde Water ken that there's no his match for rinnin' and speelin' and shootin' wi' the musket; I'll find my way oot o' a hole when a' body else 'ill bide in't. But fie on me to be blawin' my ain trumpet at siccan a speed. But tak me wi' ye, and if I'm no a' I say, ye can cry me for a gowk at the Cross o' Peebles."

Now I know not what possessed me, who am usually of a sober, prudent nature, to listen to this man; but something in his brown, eager face held me captive, and his powerful make filled me with admiration. He was honest and kindly; I had had good evidence of both; and his bravery was beyond doubting. I thought how such a man might be of use to me in a foreign land, both as company and protection. I had taken a liking to the fellow, and, with our family, such likings go for much. Nevertheless, I was almost surprised at myself when I said:

"I like the look of you, Nicol Plenderleith, and am half-minded to take you with me as my servant."

"I thank ye kindly, Laird. I kenned ye wad dae't. I cam to meet ye here wi' my best claes for that very reason."

"You rascal," I cried, half laughing at his confidence, and half angry at his audacity. "I've a good mind to leave you behind after all. You talk as if you were master of all the countryside. But come along; we will see if the landlord has not a more decent suit of clothes for your back if you are going into my service. I will have no coughing, catarrhy fellows about me."

"Hech," muttered my attendant, following, "ye micht as weel expect a heron to get the cauld frae wadin' in the water, as Nicol Plenderleith. Howbeit, your will be done, sir."

From the landlord at the inn I bought a suit of homespun clothes which, by good fortune, fitted Nicol; and left his soaked garments as part payment. Clad decently, he looked a great, stalwart man, though somewhat bent in the back, and with a strange craning forward of the neck, acquired, I think, from much wandering among hills. I hired a horse to take him to Edinburgh, and the two of us rode out of the yard, followed by the parting courtesies of the host.

Of our journey to Edinburgh, I have little else to tell. We came to the town in the afternoon, and went through the streets to the port of Leith, after leaving our horses at the place arranged for. I was grieved to part from Maisie, for I had ridden her from boyhood, and she had come to know my ways wondrous well. We found a vessel to sail the next morn for Rotterdam, and bargained with the captain for our passage. When all had been settled, and we had looked our fill upon the harbour and the craft, and felt the salt of the sea on our lips, we betook ourselves to an inn, The Three Herrings , which fronted the quay, and there abode for the night.

We were aboard on the next morning by a little after daybreak, for the captain had forewarned me, the night before, that he purposed to catch the morning tide. To one inland-bred, the harbour of Leith was a sight to whet the curiosity, There were vessels of all kinds and sizes, little fishing smacks with brown, home-made sails, from Fife or the Lothian coast towns, great sea-going ships, many with strange, foreign names on their sides, and full of a great bustle of lading and unlading. There was such a concourse of men, too, as made the place like a continuous horse-fair. Half a dozen different tongues jabbered in my ear, of which I knew not one word, save of the French, which I could make a fair shape to speak, having learned it from Tam Todd, along with much else of good and bad. There were men in red cowls like Ayrshire weavers, and men in fur hats from the North, and dark-skinned fellows, too, from the Indies, and all this motley crew would be running up and down jabbering and shrilling like a pack of hounds. And every now and then across the uproar would come the deep voice of a Scots skipper, swearing and hectoring as if the world and all that is in it were his peculiar possession.

But when we had cleared the Roads of Leith and were making fair way down the firth, with a good north-westerly breeze behind us, then there was a sight worth the seeing. For behind lay Leith, with its black masts and tall houses, and at the back again, Edinburgh, with its castle looming up grim and solemn, and further still, the Pentlands, ridged like a saw, running far to the westward. In front I marked the low shore of Fife, with the twin Lomonds, which you can see by climbing Caerdon, or Dollar Law, or any one of the high Tweedside hills. The channel was as blue as a summer sky, with a wintry clearness and a swell which was scarce great enough to break into billows. The Kern, for so the vessel was called, had all her sail set, and bounded gallantly on her way. It was a cheerful sight, what with the sails filling to the wind, and men passing hither and thither at work with the cordage, and the running seas keeping pace with the vessel. The morning fires were being lit in the little villages of Fife, and I could see the smoke curling upwards in a haze from every bay and neuk.

But soon the firth was behind us, and we passed between the Bass rock and the May, out into the open sea. This I scarcely found so much to my liking. I was inland-bred, and somewhat delicate in my senses, so, soon I came to loathe the odour of fish and cookery and sea-water, which was everywhere in the vessel. Then the breeze increased to a stiff wind, and the Kern leaped and rocked among great rolling billows. At first the movement was almost pleasing, being like the motion of a horse's gallop in a smooth field. And this leads me to think that if a boat were but small enough, so as to be more proportionate to the body of man, the rocking of it would be as pleasing as the rise and fall of a horse's stride. But in a great, cumbrous ship, where man is but a little creature, it soon grows wearisome. We stood well out to sea, so I could but mark the bolder features of the land. Even these I soon lost sight of, for the whole earth and air began to dance wofully before my eyes. I felt a dreadful sinking, and a cold sweat began to break on my brow. I had heard of the sea-sickness, but I could not believe that it was this. This was something ten times worse, some deadly plague which Heaven had sent to stay me on my wanderings.