Salute to Adventurers

by John Buchan

THE FORD OF THE RAPIDAN.

'Twas the same high summer weather through which I had ridden a fortnight ago with a dull heart on my way to the duel. Now Grey rode by my side, and my spirits were as light as a bird's. I had forgotten the grim part of the enterprise, the fate that might await me, the horrors we should certainly witness. I thought only of the joys of movement into new lands with tried companions. These last months I had borne a pretty heavy weight of cares. Now that was past. My dispositions completed, the thing was in the hands of God, and I was free to go my own road. Mocking-birds and thrushes cried in the thickets, squirrels flirted across the path, and now and then a shy deer fled before us. There come moments to every man when he is thankful to be alive, and every breath drawn is a delight; so at that hour I praised my Maker for His good earth, and for sparing me to rejoice in it.

Grey had met me with a certain shyness; but as the sun rose and the land grew bright he, too, lost his constraint, and fell into the same happy mood. Soon we were smiling at each other in the frankest comradeship, we two who but the other day had carried ourselves like game-cocks. He had forgotten his fine manners and his mincing London voice, and we spoke of the outland country of which he knew nothing, and of the hunting of game of which he knew much, exchanging our different knowledges, and willing to learn from each other. Long ere we had reached York Ferry I had found that there was much in common between the Scots trader and the Virginian cavalier, and the chief thing we shared was youth.

Mine, to be sure, was more in the heart, while Grey wore his open and fearless. He plucked the summer flowers and set them in his hat. He was full of catches and glees, so that he waked the echoes in the forest glades. Soon I, too, fell to singing in my tuneless voice, and I answered his "My lodging is on the cold ground" with some Scots ballad or a song of Davie Lindsay. I remember how sweetly he sang Colonel Lovelace's ode to Lucasta, writ when going to the wars:—

"True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield."

"Yet this inconstancy is such
As thou too shalt adore:
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more."

I wondered if that were my case—if I rode out for honour, and not for the pure pleasure of the riding. And I marvelled more to see the two of us, both lovers of one lady and eager rivals, burying for the nonce our feuds, and with the same hope serving the same cause.

We slept the night at Aird's store, and early the next morning found Ringan. A new Ringan indeed, as unlike the buccaneer I knew as he was unlike the Quaker. He was now the gentleman of Breadalbane, dressed for the part with all the care of an exquisite. He rode a noble roan, in his Spanish belt were stuck silver-hafted pistols, and a long sword swung at his side. When I presented Grey to him, he became at once the cavalier, as precise in his speech and polite in his deportment as any Whitehall courtier. They talked high and disposedly of genteel matters, and you would have thought that that red-haired pirate had lived his life among proud lords and high-heeled ladies. That is ever the way of the Highlander. He alters like a clear pool to every mood of the sky, so that the shallow observer might forget how deep the waters are.

Presently, when we had ridden into the chestnut forests of the Mattaponey, he began to forget his part. Grey, it appeared, was a student of campaigns, and he and Ringan were deep in a discussion of Conde's battles, in which both showed surprising knowledge. But the glory of the weather and of the woodlands, new as they were to a seafarer, set his thoughts wandering, and he fell to tales of his past which consorted ill with his former decorum. There was a madcap zest in his speech, something so merry and wild, that Grey, who had fallen back into his Tidewater manners, became once more the careless boy. We stopped to eat in a glade by a slow stream, and from his saddle-bags Ringan brought out strange delicacies. There were sugared fruits from the Main, and orange sirop from Jamaica, and a kind of sweet punch made by the Hispaniola Indians. As we ate and drank he would gossip about the ways of the world; and though he never mentioned his own doings, there was such an air of mastery about him as made him seem the centre figure of his tales, I could see that Grey was mightily captivated, and all afternoon he plied him with questions, and laughed joyously at his answers. As we camped that night, while Grey was minding his horse Ringan spoke of him to me.

"I like the lad, Andrew. He has the makings of a very proper gentleman, and he has the sense to be young. What I complain of in you is that you're desperate old. I wonder whiles if you ever were a laddie. For me, though I'm ten years the elder of the pair of you, I've no more years than your friend, and I'm a century younger than you. That's the Highland way. There's that in our blood that keeps our eyes young though we may be bent double. With us the heart is aye leaping till Death grips us. To my mind it's a lovable character that I fain would cherish. If I couldn't sing on a spring morning or say a hearty grace over a good dinner I'd be content to be put away in a graveyard."