A Lodge in the Wilderness by John Buchan

Author:John Buchan [Buchan, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: epubBooks Classics
Published: 2015-05-28T04:00:00+00:00

Look, now, for you will see the colours wiped clean out of the world as the sun dips."

It happened as he said, for it seemed as if a great curtain were suddenly let down upon the landscape. The light and colour ran out of the foreground. Soon the waters were dull grey, though the forests still burned. Then the forests were quenched, though the highest trees had gold crowns and the far ridge of hills. These faded in turn, and in a grey world the yacht came to her moorings in the little bay of Entoro. The dinghies were lowered and the company went ashore.

They were met on the beach by the whole population of the place, led by a tall oldish man with grey whiskers, whom Carey introduced as the Reverend Alexander Macdowall, in charge of the Scotch Mission. He led them to a low, white, barrack–like building, which was an appendage to the mission–house, and which Carey used as a lodge on the occasion of his visits. It was found to be severely but comfortably furnished, and the yacht's servants having brought up plate and linen and some of the minor comforts of civilisation, the company were soon installed in quarters which might be regarded as luxurious in any tropical town. The mosquito–nets and the absence of fireplaces spoke of a climate very different to Musuru: but the night, as it chanced, was not unduly warm. Save for the humming of insects and that faint musty smell which is inseparable from houses on which for most of the year the sun beats hotly, the dinner, cooked by the yacht's servants, might have been served in some old–fashioned Scotch shooting–box.

To the meal came Mr Macdowall, splendidly habited in an antique suit of broadcloth. His weathered face, his sharp and kindly blue eyes set in a maze of wrinkles, and his spare, straight figure made up a picture which took the eye as something clean–cut and virile. His manner had the spacious ease which the wilds give to those who are not enslaved by them. He called Carey "Francis," and adopted the company at once into the circle of his friendship.

"I come from your own countryside, Lord Appin," he said, in answer to a question; "I have not been back for ten years, and I question if I could return. I have made my own place here, and I could not endure interference very readily again. I daresay at home I should even be falling out with the police. Besides, there's no need to go back. I have no near relations, and the thing I most cared for in Scotland was the fishing. But I can get that here now, and I'm quite content."

"What was the place like when you came?" Hugh asked.

"A den of cut–throats," said the missionary. "Tribe warring against tribe, the land raided by Arab slave–dealers, and no man knowing when he woke in the morning if he should see another. I lived through three massacres of Christians and half–a–dozen native wars, and by–and–by the place settled down.

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