John MacNab by John Buchan Page B

the peregrine who lived above the Grey Beallach drifted down into the glens to look for breakfast: hinds and calves moved up from the hazel shaws to the high fresh pastures: the tiny rustling noises of night disappeared in that hush which precedes the awakening of life: and then came the flood of morning gold from behind the dim eastern mountains, and in an instant the earth had wheeled into a new day. A thin spire of smoke rose from Mrs Macpherson’s chimney, and presently the three wardens of the marches arrived for breakfast. They reported that the forest was still unviolated, that no alien foot had yet entered its sacred confines. Herd-boys, the offspring of Alan and James Fraser, had taken up their post at key-points, so that if a human being was seen on the glacis of the fort the fact would at once be reported to the garrison.
    â€˜I’m thinkin’ he’ll no come to-day,’ said Macpherson after his third cup of tea. ‘It will be the morn. The day he will be tryin’ to confuse our minds, and that will no be a difficult job wi’ you, Alan, my son.’
    â€˜He’ll come in the da-ark,’ said Alan crossly.
    â€˜And how would he be gettin’ a beast in the dark? The Laird was sayin’ that this man John Macnab was a gra-and sportsman. He will not be shootin’ at any little staggie, but takin’ a sizeable beast, and it’s not a howlet could be tellin’ a calf from a stag in these da-ark nights. Na, he will not shoot in the night, but he might be travellin’ in the night and gettin’ his shot in the early mornin’.’
    â€˜What for,’ Alan asked, ‘should he not be havin’ his shot in the gloamin’ and gettin’ the beast off the ground in the da-ark?’
    â€˜Because we will be watchin’ all hours of the day. Ye heard what the Laird said, Alan Macdonald, and you, James Fraser. This John Macnab is not to shoot a Glenraden beast at all, at all, but if he shoots one he is not to move it one foot. If it comes to fightin’, you are young lads and must break the head of him. But the Laird said for God’s sake you was to have no guns, but to fight like honest folk with your fists, and maybe a wee bit stick. The Laird was sayin’ the law was on our side, except for shootin’ . . . Now, James Fraser, you will take the outer marches the day, and keep an eye on the peat-roads from Inverlarrig, and you, Alan, will watch Carnbeg, and I will be takin’ the woods myself. The Laird was sayin’ that it would be Carnmore the man Macnab would be tryin’, most likely at skreigh of day the morn, and he would be hidin’ the beast, if he got one, in some hag, and waitin’ till the da-ark to shift him. So the morn we will all be on Carnmore, and I can tell you the Laird has the ground planned out so that a snipe would not be movin’ without us seein’ him.’
    The early morning broadened into day, and the glen slept in the windless heat of late August. Janet Raden, sauntering down from the Castle towards the river about eleven o’clock, thought that she had never seen the place so sabbatically peaceful. To her unquiet soul the calm seemed unnatural, like a thick cloak covering some feverish activity. All the household were abroad since breakfast – her father on a preliminary reconnaissance of Carnmore, Agatha and Mr Junius Bandicort on a circuit of Carnbeg, while the gillies and their youthful allies sat perched with telescopes on eyries surveying every approach to the forest. The plans seemed perfect, but the dread of John Macnab, that dark conspirator, would not be exorcised. It was she who had devised the campaign, based on her reading of the enemy’s mind; but had she fathomed it, she asked herself? Might he not even now be preparing some master-stroke which would crumble their crude defences? Horrible stories which she had read of impersonation and the shifts of desperate