John Buchan
Dickson McCunn - Complete 'Gorbals Die-hards' Series
The 'Gorbals Die-hards' Series: Huntingtower + Castle Gay + The House of the Four Winds (Mystery & Espionage Classics)
Published by
Books
- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -
2017 OK Publishing
ISBN 978-80-7583-344-0
Table of Contents
HUNTINGTOWER
CHAPTER 1. HOW A RETIRED PROVISION MERCHANT FELT THE IMPULSE OF SPRING
CHAPTER 2. OF MR. JOHN HERITAGE AND THE DIFFERENCE IN POINTS OF VIEW
CHAPTER 3. HOW CHILDE ROLAND AND ANOTHER CAME TO THE DARK TOWER
CHAPTER 5. OF THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER
CHAPTER 6. HOW MR. MCCUNN DEPARTED WITH RELIEF AND RETURNED WITH RESOLUTION
CHAPTER 7. SUNDRY DOINGS IN THE MIRK
CHAPTER 8. HOW A MIDDLE-AGED CRUSADER ACCEPTED A CHALLENGE
CHAPTER 9. THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
CHAPTER 10. DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY
CHAPTER 11. GRAVITY OUT OF BED
CHAPTER 12. HOW MR. MCCUNN COMMITTED AN ASSAULT UPON AN ALLY
CHAPTER 13. THE COMING OF THE DANISH BRIG
CHAPTER 14. THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES
CHAPTER 15. THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION
CHAPTER 16. IN WHICH A PRINCESS LEAVES A DARK TOWER AND A PROVISION MERCHANT RETURNS TO HIS FAMILY
DEDICATION
To W. P. Ker
If the Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford has not forgotten the rock whence he was hewn, this simple story may give an hour of entertainment. I offer it to you because I think you have met my friend Dickson McCunn, and I dare to hope that you may even in your many sojournings in the Westlands have encountered one or other of the Gorbals Die-Hards. If you share my kindly feeling for Dickson, you will be interested in some facts which I have lately ascertained about his ancestry. In his veins there flows a portion of the redoubtable blood of the Nicol Jarvies. When the Bailie, you remember, returned from his journey to Rob Roy beyond the Highland Line, he espoused his housekeeper Mattie, “an honest man’s daughter and a near cousin o’ the Laird o’ Limmerfield.” The union was blessed with a son, who succeeded to the Bailie’s business and in due course begat daughters, one of whom married a certain Ebenezer McCunn, of whom there is record in the archives of the Hammermen of Glasgow. Ebenezer’s grandson, Peter by name, was Provost of Kirkintilloch, and his second son was the father of my hero by his marriage with Robina Dickson, oldest daughter of one Robert Dickson, a tenant-farmer in the Lennox. So there are coloured threads in Mr. McCunn’s pedigree, and, like the Bailie, he can count kin, should he wish, with Rob Roy himself through “the auld wife ayont the fire at Stuckavrallachan.”
Such as it is, I dedicate to you the story, and ask for no better verdict on it than that of that profound critic of life and literature, Mr. Huckleberry Finn, who observed of the Pilgrim’s Progress that he “considered the statements interesting, but tough.” J.B.
PROLOGUE
The girl came into the room with a darting movement like a swallow, looked round her with the same birdlike quickness, and then ran across the polished floor to where a young man sat on a sofa with one leg laid along it.
“I have saved you this dance, Quentin,” she said, pronouncing the name with a pretty staccato. “You must be lonely not dancing, so I will sit with you. What shall we talk about?”
The young man did not answer at once, for his gaze was held by her face. He had never dreamed that the gawky and rather plain little girl whom he had romped with long ago in Paris would grow into such a being. The clean delicate lines of her figure, the exquisite pure colouring of hair and skin, the charming young arrogance of the eyes—this was beauty, he reflected, a miracle, a revelation. Her virginal fineness and her dress, which was the tint of pale fire, gave her the air of a creature of ice and flame.
“About yourself, please, Saskia,” he said. “Are you happy now that you are a grown-up lady?”
“Happy!” Her voice had a thrill in it like music, frosty music. “The days are far too short. I grudge the hours when I must sleep. They say it is sad for me to make my debut in a time of war. But the world is very kind to me, and after all it is a victorious war for our Russia. And listen to me, Quentin. Tomorrow I am