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The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales
THE GREAT SHADOW AND OTHER NAPOLEONIC TALES
A. CONAN DOYLE
CONTENTS
THE GREAT SHADOW
I. THE NIGHT OF THE BEACONS
II. COUSIN EDIE OF EYEMOUTH
III. THE SHADOW ON THE WATERS
IV. THE CHOOSING OF JIM
V. THE MAN FROM THE SEA
VI. A WANDERING EAGLE
VII. THE SHADOW ON THE LAND
VIII. THE COMING OF THE CUTTER
IX. THE DOINGS AT WEST INCH
X. THE RETURN OF THE SHADOW
XI. THE GATHERING OF THE NATIONS
XII. THE SHADOW ON THE LAND
XIII. THE END OF THE STORM
XIV. THE TALLY OF DEATH
XV. THE END OF IT
THE CRIME OF THE BRIGADIER
THE "SLAPPING SAL"
THE GREAT SHADOW.
CHAPTER I.
THE NIGHT OF THE BEACONS.
It is strange to me, Jock Calder of West Inch, to feel that though
now, in the very centre of the nineteenth century, I am but
five-and-fifty years of age, and though it is only once in a week
perhaps that my wife can pluck out a little grey bristle from over my
ear, yet I have lived in a time when the thoughts and the ways of men
were as different as though it were another planet from this. For
when I walk in my fields I can see, down Berwick way, the little
fluffs of white smoke which tell me of this strange new hundred-legged
beast, with coals for food and a thousand men in its belly, for ever
crawling over the border. On a shiny day I can see the glint of the
brass work as it takes the curve near Corriemuir; and then, as I look
out to sea, there is the same beast again, or a dozen of them maybe,
leaving a trail of black in the air and of white in the water, and
swimming in the face of the wind as easily as a salmon up the Tweed.
Such a sight as that would have struck my good old father speechless
with wrath as well as surprise; for he was so stricken with the fear
of offending the Creator that he was chary of contradicting Nature,
and always held the new thing to be nearly akin to the blasphemous.
As long as God made the horse, and a man down Birmingham way the
engine, my good old dad would have stuck by the saddle and the spurs.
But he would have been still more surprised had he seen the peace and
kindliness which reigns now in the hearts of men, and the talk in the
papers and at the meetings that there is to be no more war--save, of
course, with blacks and such like. For when he died we had been
fighting with scarce a break, save only during two short years, for
very nearly a quarter of a century. Think of it, you who live so
quietly and peacefully now! Babies who were born in the war grew to
be bearded men with babies of their own, and still the war continued.
Those who had served and fought in their stalwart prime grew stiff and
bent, and yet the ships and the armies were struggling. It was no
wonder that folk came at last to look upon it as the natural state,
and thought how queer it must seem to be at peace. During that long
time we fought the Dutch, we fought the Danes, we fought the Spanish,
we fought the Turks, we fought the Americans, we fought the
Monte-Videans, until it seemed that in this universal struggle no race
was too near of kin, or too far away, to be drawn into the quarrel.
But most of all it was the French whom we fought, and the man whom of
all others we loathed and feared and admired was the great Captain who
ruled them.
It was very well to draw pictures of him, and sing songs about him,
and make as though he were an impostor; but I can tell you that the
fear of that man hung like a black shadow over all Europe, and that
there was a time when the glint of a fire at night upon the coast
would set every woman upon her knees and every man gripping for his
musket. He had always won: that was the terror of it. The Fates
seemed to be behind him. And now we knew that he lay upon the
northern coast with a hundred and fifty thousand veterans, and the
boats for their passage. But it is an old story, how a third of the
grown folk of our country took up arms, and how our little one-eyed,
one-armed man crushed their fleet. There was still to be a land of
free thinking and free speaking in Europe.
There was a great beacon ready on the hill by Tweedmouth, built up of
logs and tar-barrels; and I can well remember how, night after night,
I strained my eyes to see if it were ablaze. I was only eight at the
time, but it is an age when one takes a grief to heart, and I felt as
though the fate of the country hung in some fashion upon me and my
vigilance. And then one night as I looked I suddenly saw a little
flicker on the beacon hill--a single red tongue of flame in the
darkness. I remember how I rubbed my eyes, and pinched myself, and
rapped my knuckles against the stone window-sill, to make sure that I
was indeed awake. And then the flame shot higher, and I saw the red
quivering line upon the water between; and I dashed into the kitchen,
screeching to my father that the French had crossed and the Tweedmouth
light was aflame. He had been talking to Mr. Mitchell, the law
student from Edinburgh; and I can see him now as he knocked his pipe
out at the side of the fire, and looked at me from over the top of his
horn spectacles.
"Are you sure, Jock?" says he.
"Sure as death!" I gasped.
He reached out his hand for the Bible upon the table, and opened it
upon his knee as though he meant to read to us; but he shut it again
in silence, and hurried out. We went too, the law student and I, and
followed him down to the gate which opens out upon the highway. From
there we could see the red light of the big beacon, and the glimmer of
a smaller one to the north of us at Ayton. My mother came down with
two plaids to keep the chill from us, and we all stood there until
morning, speaking little to each other, and that little in a whisper.
The road had more folk on it than ever passed along it at night
before; for many of the yeomen up our way had enrolled themselves in
the Berwick volunteer regiments, and were riding now as fast as hoof
could carry them for the muster. Some had a stirrup cup or two before
parting, and I cannot forget one who tore past on a huge white horse,
brandishing a great rusty sword in the moonlight. They shouted to us
as they passed that the North Berwick Law fire was blazing, and that
it was thought that the alarm had come from Edinburgh Castle. There
were a few who galloped the other way, couriers for Edinburgh, and the
laird's son, and Master Clayton, the deputy sheriff, and such like.
And among others there was one a fine built, heavy man on a roan
horse, who pulled up at our gate and asked some question about the
road. He took off his hat to ease himself, and I saw that he had a
kindly long-drawn face, and a great high brow that shot away up into
tufts of sandy hair.
"I doubt it's a false alarm," said he. "Maybe I'd ha' done well to
bide where I was; but now I've come so far, I'll break my fast with
the regiment."
He clapped spurs to his horse, and away he went down the brae.
"I ken him weel," said our student, nodding after him. "He's a lawyer
in Edinburgh, and a braw hand at the stringin' of verses. Wattie
Scott is his name."
None of us had heard of it then; but it was not long before it was the
best known name in Scotland, and many a time we thought of how he
speered his way of us on the night of the terror.
But early in the morning we had our minds set at ease. It was grey
and cold, and my mother had gone up to the house to make a pot of tea
for us, when there came a gig down the road with Dr. Horscroft of
Ayton in it and his son Jim. The collar of the doctor's brown coat
came over his ears, and he looked in a deadly black humour; for Jim,
who was but fifteen years of age, had trooped off to Berwick at the
first alarm with his father's new fowling piece. All night his dad
had chased him, and now there he was, a prisoner, with the barrel of
the stolen gun sticking out from behind the seat. He looked as sulky
as his father, with his hands thrust into his side-pockets, his brows
drawn down, and his lower lip thrusting out.
"It's all a lie!" shouted the doctor as he passed. "There has been no
landing, and all the fools in Scotland have been gadding about the
roads for nothing."
His son Jim snarled something up at him on this, and his father struck
him a blow with his clenched fist on the side of his head, which sent
the boy's chin forward upon his breast as though he had been stunned.
My father shook his head, for he had a liking for Jim; but we all
walked up to the house again, nodding and blinking, and hardly able to
keep our eyes open now that we knew that all was safe, but with a
thrill of joy at our hearts such as I have only matched once or twice
in my lifetime.
Now all this has little enough to do with what I took my pen up to
tell about; but when a man has a good memory and little skill, he
cannot draw one thought from his mind without a dozen others trailing
out behind it. And yet, now that I come to think of it, this had
something to do with it after all; for Jim Horscroft had so deadly a
quarrel with his father, that he was packed off to the Berwick
Academy, and as my father had long wished me to go there, he took
advantage of this chance to send me also.
But before I say a word about this school, I shall go back to where I
should have begun, and give you a hint as to who I am; for it may be
that these words of mine may be read by some folk beyond the border
country who never heard of the Calders of West Inch.
It has a brave sound, West Inch, but it is not a fine estate with a
braw house upon it, but only a great hard-bitten, wind-swept sheep
run, fringing off into links along the sea-shore, where a frugal man
might with hard work just pay his rent and have butter instead of
treacle on Sundays. In the centre there is a grey-stoned slate-roofed
house with a byre behind it, and "1703" scrawled in stonework over the
lintel of the door. There for more than a hundred years our folk have
lived, until, for all their poverty, they came to take a good place
among the people; for in the country parts the old yeoman is often
better thought of than the new laird.
There was one queer thing about the house of West Inch. It has been
reckoned by engineers and other knowing folk that the boundary line
between the two countries ran right through the middle of it,
splitting our second-best bedroom into an English half and a Scotch
half. Now the cot in which I always slept was so placed that my head
was to the north of the line and my feet to the south of it. My
friends say that if I had chanced to lie the other way my hair might
not have been so sandy, nor my mind of so solemn a cast. This I know,
that more than once in my life, when my Scotch head could see no way
out of a danger, my good thick English legs have come to my help, and
carried me clear away. But at school I never heard the end of this,
for they would call me "Half-and-half" and "The Great Britain," and
sometimes "Union Jack." When there was a battle between the Scotch and
English boys, one side would kick my shins and the other cuff my ears,
and then they would both stop and laugh as though it were something
funny.
At first I was very miserable at the Berwick Academy. Birtwhistle was
the first master, and Adams the second, and I had no love for either
of them. I was shy and backward by nature, and slow at making a
friend either among masters or boys. It was nine miles as the crow
flies, and eleven and a half by road, from Berwick to West Inch, and
my heart grew heavy at the weary distance that separated me from my
mother; for, mark you, a lad of that age pretends that he has no need
of his mother's caresses, but ah, how sad he is when he is taken at
his word! At last I could stand it no longer, and I determined to run
away from the school and make my way home as fast as I might. At the
very last moment, however, I had the good fortune to win the praise
and admiration of every one, from the headmaster downwards, and to
find my school life made very pleasant and easy to me. And all this
came of my falling by accident out of a second-floor window.
This was how it happened. One evening I had been kicked by Ned
Barton, who was the bully of the school; and this injury coming on the
top of all my other grievances, caused my little cup to overflow. I
vowed that night, as I buried my tear-stained face beneath the
blankets, that the next morning would either find me at West Inch or
well on the way to it. Our dormitory was on the second floor, but I
was a famous climber, and had a fine head for heights. I used to think
little, young as I was, of swinging myself with a rope round my thigh
off the West Inch gable, and that stood three-and-fifty feet above the
ground. There was not much fear then but that I could make my way out
of Birtwhistle's dormitory. I waited a weary while until the coughing
and tossing had died away, and there was no sound of wakefulness from
the long line of wooden cots; then I very softly rose, slipped on my
clothes, took my shoes in my hand, and walked tiptoe to the window. I
opened the casement and looked out. Underneath me lay the garden, and
close by my hand was the stout branch of a pear tree. An active lad
could ask no better ladder. Once in the garden I had but a five-foot
wall to get over, and then there was nothing but distance between me
and home. I took a firm grip of a branch with one hand, placed my
knee upon another one, and was about to swing myself out of the
window, when in a moment I was as silent and as still as though I had
been turned to stone.
There was a face looking at me from over the coping of the wall. A
chill of fear struck to my heart at its whiteness and its stillness.
The moon shimmered upon it, and the eyeballs moved slowly from side to
side, though I was hid from them behind the screen of the pear tree.
Then in a jerky fashion this white face ascended, until the neck,
shoulders, waist, and knees of a man became visible. He sat himself
down on the top of the wall, and with a great heave he pulled up after
him a boy about my own size, who caught his breath from time to time
as though to choke down a sob. The man gave him a shake, with a few
rough whispered words, and then the two dropped together down into the
garden. I was still standing balanced with one foot upon the bough and
one upon the casement, not daring to budge for fear of attracting
their attention, for I could hear them moving stealthily about in the
long shadow of the house. Suddenly, from immediately beneath my feet,
I heard a low grating noise and the sharp tinkle of falling glass.
"That's done it," said the man's eager whisper. "There is room for
you."
"But the edge is all jagged!" cried the other in a weak quaver.
The fellow burst out into an oath that made my skin pringle.
"In with you, you cub," he snarled, "or--"
I could not see what he did, but there was a short, quick gasp of
pain.
"I'll go! I'll go!" cried the little lad.
But I heard no more, for my head suddenly swam, my heel shot off the
branch, I gave a dreadful yell, and came down, with my ninety-five
pounds of weight, right upon the bent back of the burglar. If you ask
me, I can only say that to this day I am not quite certain whether it
was an accident or whether I designed it. It may be that while I was
thinking of doing it Chance settled the matter for me. The fellow was
stooping with his head forward thrusting the boy through a tiny
window, when I came down upon him just where the neck joins the spine.
He gave a kind of whistling cry, dropped upon his face, and rolled
three times over, drumming on the grass with his heels. His little
companion flashed off in the moonlight, and was over the wall in a
trice. As for me, I sat yelling at the pitch of my lungs and nursing
one of my legs, which felt as if a red-hot ring were welded round it.
It was not long, as may be imagined, before the whole household, from
the headmaster to the stable boy, were out in the garden with lamps
and lanterns. The matter was soon cleared: the man carried off upon a
shutter, and I borne in much state and solemnity to a special bedroom,
where the small bone of my leg was set by Surgeon Purdie, the younger
of the two brothers of that name. As to the robber, it was found that
his legs were palsied, and the doctors were of two minds as to whether
he would recover the use of them or no; but the Law never gave them a
chance of settling the matter, for he was hanged after Carlisle
assizes, some six weeks later. It was proved that he was the most
desperate rogue in the North of England, for he had done three murders
at the least, and there were charges enough against him upon the sheet
to have hanged him ten times over.
Well now, I could not pass over my boyhood without telling you about
this, which was the most important thing that happened to me. But I
will go off upon no more side tracks; for when I think of all that is
coming, I can see very well that I shall have more than enough to do
before I have finished. For when a man has only his own little
private tale to tell, it often takes him all his time; but when he
gets mixed up in such great matters as I shall have to speak about,
then it is hard on him, if he has not been brought up to it, to get it
all set down to his liking. But my memory is as good as ever, thank
God, and I shall try to get it all straight before I finish.
It was this business of the burglar that first made a friendship
between Jim Horscroft, the doctor's son, and me. He was cock boy of
the school from the day he came; for within the hour he had thrown
Barton, who had been cock before him, right through the big blackboard
in the class-room. Jim always ran to muscle and bone, and even then
he was square and tall, short of speech and long in the arm, much
given to lounging with his broad back against walls, and his hands
deep in his breeches pockets. I can even recall that he had a trick
of keeping a straw in the corner of his mouth, just where he used
afterwards to hold his pipe. Jim was always the same for good and for
bad since first I knew him.
Heavens, how we all looked up to him! We were but young savages, and
had a savage's respect for power. There was Tom Carndale of Appleby,
who could write alcaics as well as mere pentameters and hexameters,
yet nobody would give a snap for Tom; and there was Willie Earnshaw,
who had every date, from the killing of Abel, on the tip of his
tongue, so that the masters themselves would turn to him if they were
in doubt, yet he was but a narrow-chested lad, over long for his
breadth; and what did his dates help him when Jack Simons of the lower
third chivied him down the passage with the buckle end of a strap?
But you didn't do things like that with Jim Horscroft. What tales we
used to whisper about his strength! How he put his fist through the
oak-panel of the game-room door; how, when Long Merridew was carrying
the ball, he caught up Merridew, ball and all, and ran swiftly past
every opponent to the goal. It did not seem fit to us that such a one
as he should trouble his head about spondees and dactyls, or care to
know who signed the Magna Charta. When he said in open class that
King Alfred was the man, we little boys all felt that very likely it
was so, and that perhaps Jim knew more about it than the man who wrote
the book.
Well, it was this business of the burglar that drew his attention to
me; for he patted me on my head, and said that I was a spunky little
devil, which blew me out with pride for a week on end. For two years
we were close friends, for all the gap that the years had made
between us, and though in passion or in want of thought he did many a
thing that galled me, yet I loved him like a brother, and wept as much
as would have filled an ink bottle when at last he went off to
Edinburgh to study his father's profession. Five years after that did
I tide at Birtwhistle's, and when I left had become cock myself, for I
was wiry and as tough as whalebone, though I never ran to weight and
sinew like my great predecessor. It was in Jubilee Year that I left
Birtwhistle's, and then for three years I stayed at home learning the
ways of the cattle; but still the ships and the armies were wrestling,
and still the great shadow of Bonaparte lay across the country. How
could I guess that I too should have a hand in lifting that shadow for
ever from our people?