The Secret Vanguard by Michael Innes

Author:Michael Innes [Innes, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781842327531
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 1939-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter XIV. Johnny Cope

the old man rose as Sheila ran towards him; he rose and held out the topmost of the pile of books. “Poems,” he cried. “The poems of a Moray loon.” He held the book higher in a trembling hand. “A fiddler’s philosophy. One shilling.”

In less than a minute the pursuing truck would be in the station, and the words were fantastic and remote enough. Nevertheless Sheila stopped as if conjured: it was like a sudden immemorial spell, Employed to halt and coax amid a bustle of trains and travellers, the voice was vibrant with the skill of the minstrel in arresting the mere violent tumult of the hour: Barons, écoutez-moi, et cessez vos querelles…. The spell lasted a second only, but it drove her to speech. “I’m hunted by men coming down the line/’ she said rapidly. “They mustn’t get me. How big is the village—will there be help there?”

There was an instant’s silence. The blind fiddler’s head and hands moved irresolutely. It was as if he were feeling his way through some impalpable barrier. He spoke in a new voice.

“Is it the redcoats?” he asked. “Is it the redcoats that are out and after you, lassie?”

“It’s Germans, fiddler—German spies.”

His head moved again. “Aye,” he said, “the redcoats and they of Hanover.”

The man was crazed. Sheila turned to run on, but as she did so his hand closed fiercely on her arm. “Redcoats and Hessians,” he said: “they may go beating wi’ their drums and fifes up an’ doon the Royal Mile, but they’ve sma’ skill on the heather, Dinna gang to the clachan, lassie’ keep to the braes.” He swung her round with a strength that added to the impression of something preternatural in his character; his other hand, wavering and still holding the book, went out before him. “Or gang lounlie through the wood.” His face took on a look of simple cunning. “Haud to the wood, lassie, and when they come speiring I’ll gie them merry-hyne.”

She broke away, only half-comprehending his words. But her glance had followed his extended arm, and she saw that to the right of the road the country fell through clumps and skirts of pine-trees to pine-woods of considerable extent in a shallow valley below. “Gang lounlie through the wood.” Go softly through. A better course perhaps than to seek shelter with a few old wives in the cottages ahead. And too far ahead—whereas the outskirts of the wood she could gain. Sheila ran out of the station yard and made for the nearest clump of trees. It would have been useful if she could have asked the old man where they were. But at present life was a matter of split seconds. And as she ran she felt that it had been this for a very long time. She was tiring.

But the skirts of the wood received her. She swung round a line of trees and caught a last glimpse of the station. She could see the roof of

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