The Thirty-Nine Steps
valley, and that one look set me lacing up my boots in mad haste.
For there were men below, not more than a quarter of a mile off, spaced
out on the hillside like a fan, and beating the heather. Marmie had not
been slow in looking for his revenge.
I crawled out of my shelf into the cover of a boulder, and from it
gained a shallow trench which slanted up the mountain face. This led me
presently into the narrow gully of a burn, by way of which I scrambled
to the top of the ridge. From there I looked back, and saw that I was
still undiscovered. My pursuers were patiently quartering the hillside
and moving upwards.
Keeping behind the skyline I ran for maybe half a mile, till I judged I
was above the uppermost end of the glen. Then I showed myself, and was
instantly noted by one of the flankers, who passed the word to the
others. I heard cries coming up from below, and saw that the line of
search had changed its direction. I pretended to retreat over the
skyline, but instead went back the way I had come, and in twenty
minutes was behind the ridge overlooking my sleeping place. From that
viewpoint I had the satisfaction of seeing the pursuit streaming up the
hill at the top of the glen on a hopelessly false scent.
I had before me a choice of routes, and I chose a ridge which made an
angle with the one I was on, and so would soon put a deep glen between
me and my enemies. The exercise had warmed my blood, and I was
beginning to enjoy myself amazingly. As I went I breakfasted on the
dusty remnants of the ginger biscuits.
I knew very little about the country, and I hadn’t a notion what I was
going to do. I trusted to the strength of my legs, but I was well aware
that those behind me would be familiar with the lie of the land, and
that my ignorance would be a heavy handicap. I saw in front of me a sea
of hills, rising very high towards the south, but northwards breaking
down into broad ridges which separated wide and shallow dales. The
ridge I had chosen seemed to sink after a mile or two to a moor which
lay like a pocket in the uplands. That seemed as good a direction to
take as any other.
My stratagem had given me a fair start—call it twenty minutes—and I had
the width of a glen behind me before I saw the first heads of the
pursuers. The police had evidently called in local talent to their aid,
and the men I could see had the appearance of herds or gamekeepers.
They hallooed at the sight of me, and I waved my hand. Two dived into
the glen and began to climb my ridge, while the others kept their own
side of the hill. I felt as if I were taking part in a schoolboy game
of hare and hounds.
But very soon it began to seem less of a game. Those fellows behind
were hefty men on their native heath. Looking back I saw that only
three were following direct, and I guessed that the others had fetched
a circuit to cut me off. My lack of local knowledge might very well be
my undoing, and I resolved to get out of this tangle of glens to the
pocket of moor I had seen from the tops. I must so increase my distance
as to get clear away from them, and I believed I could do this if I
could find the right ground for it. If there had been cover I would
have tried a bit of stalking, but on these bare slopes you could see a
fly a mile off. My hope must be in the length of my legs and the
soundness of my wind, but I needed easier ground for that, for I was
not bred a mountaineer. How I longed for a good Afrikander pony!
I put on a great spurt and got off my ridge and down into the moor
before any figures appeared on the skyline behind me. I crossed a burn,
and came out on a highroad which made a pass between two glens. All in
front of me was a big field of heather sloping up to a crest which was
crowned with an odd feather of trees. In the dyke by the roadside was a
gate, from which a grass-grown track led over the first wave of the
moor.
I jumped the dyke and followed it, and after a few hundred yards—as
soon as it was out of sight of the highway—the grass stopped and it
became a very respectable road, which was evidently kept with some
care. Clearly it ran to a house, and I began to think of doing the
same. Hitherto my luck had held, and it might be that my best chance
would be found in this remote dwelling. Anyhow there were trees there,
and that meant cover.
I did not follow the road, but the burnside which flanked it on the
right, where the bracken grew deep and the high banks made a tolerable
screen. It was well I did so, for no sooner had I gained the hollow
than, looking back, I saw the pursuit topping the ridge from which I
had descended.
After that I did not look back; I had no time. I ran up the burnside,
crawling over the open places, and for a large part wading in the
shallow stream. I found a deserted cottage with a row of phantom
peat-stacks and an overgrown garden. Then I was among young hay, and
very soon had come to the edge of a plantation of wind-blown firs. From
there I saw the chimneys of the house smoking a few hundred yards to my
left. I forsook the burnside, crossed another dyke, and almost before I
knew was on a rough lawn. A glance back told me that I was well out of
sight of the pursuit, which had not yet passed the first lift of the
moor.
The lawn was a very rough place, cut with a scythe instead of a mower,
and planted with beds of scrubby rhododendrons. A brace of black-game,
which are not usually garden birds, rose at my approach. The house
before me was the ordinary moorland farm, with a more pretentious
whitewashed wing added. Attached to this wing was a glass veranda, and
through the glass I saw the face of an elderly gentleman meekly
watching me.
I stalked over the border of coarse hill gravel and entered the open
veranda door. Within was a pleasant room, glass on one side, and on the
other a mass of books. More books showed in an inner room. On the
floor, instead of tables, stood cases such as you see in a museum,
filled with coins and queer stone implements.
There was a knee-hole desk in the middle, and seated at it, with some
papers and open volumes before him, was the benevolent old gentleman.
His face was round and shiny, like Mr Pickwick’s, big glasses were
stuck on the end of his nose, and the top of his head was as bright and
bare as a glass bottle. He never moved when I entered, but raised his
placid eyebrows and waited on me to speak.
It was not an easy job, with about five minutes to spare, to tell a
stranger who I was and what I wanted, and to win his aid. I did not
attempt it. There was something about the eye of the man before me,
something so keen and knowledgeable, that I could not find a word. I
simply stared at him and stuttered.
“You seem in a hurry, my friend,” he said slowly.
I nodded towards the window. It gave a prospect across the moor through
a gap in the plantation, and revealed certain figures half a mile off
straggling through the heather.
“Ah, I see,” he said, and took up a pair of field-glasses through which
he patiently scrutinized the figures.
“A fugitive from justice, eh? Well, we’ll go into the matter at our
leisure. Meantime I object to my privacy being broken in upon by the
clumsy rural policeman. Go into my study, and you will see two doors
facing you. Take the one on the left and close it behind you. You will
be perfectly safe.”
And this extraordinary man took up his pen again.
I did as I was bid, and found myself in a little dark chamber which
smelt of chemicals, and was lit only by a tiny window high up in the
wall. The door had swung behind me with a click like the door of a
safe. Once again I had found an unexpected sanctuary.
All the same I was not comfortable. There was something about the old
gentleman which puzzled and rather terrified me. He had been too easy
and ready, almost as if he had expected me. And his eyes had been
horribly intelligent.
No sound came to me in that dark place. For all I knew the police might
be searching the house, and if they did they would want to know what
was behind this door. I tried to possess my soul in patience, and to
forget how hungry I was.
Then I took a more cheerful view. The old gentleman could scarcely
refuse me a meal, and I fell to reconstructing my breakfast. Bacon and
eggs would content me, but I wanted the better part of a flitch of
bacon and half a hundred eggs. And then, while my mouth was watering in
anticipation, there was a click and the door stood open.
I emerged into the sunlight to find the master of the house sitting in
a deep armchair in the room he called his study, and regarding me with
curious eyes.
“Have they gone?” I asked.
“They have gone. I convinced them that you had crossed the hill. I do
not choose that the police should come between me and one whom I am
delighted to honour. This is a lucky morning for you, Mr Richard
Hannay.”
As he spoke his eyelids seemed to tremble and to fall a little over his
keen grey eyes. In a flash the phrase of Scudder’s came back to me,
when he had described the man he most dreaded in the world. He had said
that he “could hood his eyes like a hawk”. Then I saw that I had walked
straight into the enemy’s headquarters.
My first impulse was to throttle the old ruffian and make for the open
air. He seemed to anticipate my intention, for he smiled gently, and
nodded to the door behind me. I turned, and saw two men-servants who
had me covered with pistols.
He knew my name, but he had never seen me before. And as the reflection
darted across my mind I saw a slender chance.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said roughly. “And who are you calling
Richard Hannay? My name’s Ainslie.”
“So?” he said, still smiling. “But of course you have others. We won’t
quarrel about a name.”
I was pulling myself together now, and I reflected that my garb,
lacking coat and waistcoat and collar, would at any rate not betray me.
I put on my surliest face and shrugged my shoulders.
“I suppose you’re going to give me up after all, and I call it a damned
dirty trick. My God, I wish I had never seen that cursed motor-car!
Here’s the money and be damned to you,” and I flung four sovereigns on
the table.
He opened his eyes a little. “Oh no, I shall not give you up. My
friends and I will have a little private settlement with you, that is
all. You know a little too much, Mr Hannay. You are a clever actor, but
not quite clever enough.”
He spoke with assurance, but I could see the dawning of a doubt in his
mind.
“Oh, for God’s sake stop jawing,” I cried. “Everything’s against me. I
haven’t had a bit of luck since I came on shore at Leith. What’s the
harm in a poor devil with an empty stomach picking up some money he
finds in a bust-up motor-car? That’s all I done, and for that I’ve been
chivvied for two days by those blasted bobbies over those blasted
hills. I tell you I’m fair sick of it. You can do what you like, old
boy! Ned Ainslie’s got no fight left in him.”
I could see that the doubt was gaining.
“Will you oblige me with the story of your recent doings?” he asked.
“I can’t, guv’nor,” I said in a real beggar’s whine. “I’ve not had a
bite to eat for two days. Give me a mouthful of food, and then you’ll
hear God’s truth.”
I must have showed my hunger in my face, for he signalled to one of the
men in the doorway. A bit of cold pie was brought and a glass of beer,
and I wolfed them down like a pig—or rather, like Ned Ainslie, for I
was keeping up my character. In the middle of my meal he spoke suddenly
to me in German, but I turned on him a face as blank as a stone wall.
Then I told him my story—how I had come off an Archangel ship at Leith
a week ago, and was making my way overland to my brother at Wigtown. I
had run short of cash—I hinted vaguely at a spree—and I was pretty well