strip him bare.”
‘“Hold hard,” said he, “don’t let us spoil our good fellowship by incivilities. And, mind you, I took you to witness to begin with that you sat down of your own accord.”
‘“So you did,” said I, and could say no more.
‘“Come, come,” he says, “don’t take it so bad. You may keep all your gear and yet part from here in safety. You’ve but to sign your name, which is no hard task to a college-bred man, and go on living as you live just now to the end. And let me tell you, Mr Duncan Stewart, that you should take it as a great obligement that I am willing to take your bit soul instead of fifty sheep. There’s no many would value it so high.”
‘“Maybe no, maybe no,” I said sadly, “but it’s all I have. D’ye no see that if I gave it up, there would be no chance left of mending? And I’m sure I do not want your company to all eternity.”
‘“Faith, that’s uncivil,” he says; “I was just about to say that we had had a very pleasant evening.”
‘I sat back in my chair very down-hearted. I must leave this place as poor as a kirk-mouse, and begin again with little but the clothes on my back. I was strongly tempted to sign the bit paper thing and have done with it all, but somehow I could not bring myself to do it. So at last I says to him: “Well, I’ve made up my mind. I’ll give you my sheep, sorry though I be to lose them, and I hope I may never come near this place again as long as I live.”
‘“On the contrary,” he said, “I hope often to have the pleasure of your company. And seeing that you’ve paid well for your lodging, I hope you’ll make the best of it. Don’t be sparing on the drink.”
‘I looked hard at him for a second. “You’ve an ill name, and an ill trade, but you’re no a bad sort yoursel, and, do you ken, I like you.”
‘“I’m much obliged to you for the character,” says he, “and I’ll take your hand on’t.”
‘So I filled up my glass and we set to, and such an evening I never mind of. We never got fou, but just in a fine good temper and very entertaining. The stories we telled and the jokes we cracked are still a kind of memory with me, though I could not come over one of them. And then, when I got sleepy, I was shown to the brawest bedroom, all hung with pictures and looking-glasses, and with bedclothes of the finest linen and a coverlet of silk. I bade Mr S. good-night, and my head was scarce on the pillow ere I was sound asleep.
‘When I awoke the sun was just newly risen, and the frost of a September morning was on my clothes. I was lying among green braes with nothing near me but crying whaups and heathery hills, and my two dogs running round about and howling as they were mad.’
When Buchan was ennobled in 1935 he considered as a tide Lord Manorwater, the name he gives one of the characters in this story about the clash between a Tory farmer and his Radical ploughman. The story, included in Grey Weather (1899), appeared in Chambers Magazine in May 1896 and the following month in the Boston magazine, The Living Age. In the magazine versions the town at the centre of the events was called Marchthorn but in the book was changed to Gledsmuir, a name Buchan used in a number of subsequent stories.
The farmer of Clachlands was a Tory, stern and unbending. It was the tradition of his family, from his grandfather, who had been land-steward to Lord Manorwater, down to his father, who had once seconded a vote of confidence in the sitting member. Such traditions, he felt, were not to be lightly despised; things might change, empires might wax and wane, but his obligation continued; a sort of perverted noblesse oblige was the farmer’s watchword in life; and by dint of much energy and bad language, he lived up to it.
As fate would have it, the Clachlands ploughman was a Radical of Radicals. He had imbibed his opinions early in life from a speaker on the green of Gledsmuir, and ever since, by the help of a weekly penny paper and an odd volume of Gladstone’s speeches, had continued his education. Such opinions in a conservative countryside carry with them a reputation for either abnormal cleverness or abnormal folly. The fact that he was a keen fisher, a famed singer of songs, and the best judge of horses in the place, caused the verdict of his neighbours to incline to the former, and he passed for something of an oracle among his fellows. The blacksmith, who was the critic of the neighbourhood, summed up his character in a few words. ‘Him,’ said he, in a tone of mingled dislike and admiration, ‘him! He would sweer white was black the morn, and dod! he would prove it tae.’
It so happened in the early summer, when the land was green and the trout plashed in the river, that Her Majesty’s Government saw fit to appeal to an intelligent country. Among a people whose politics fight hard with their religion for a monopoly of their interests, feeling ran high and brotherly kindness departed. Houses were divided against themselves. Men formerly of no consideration found themselves suddenly important, and discovered that their intellects and conscience, which they had hitherto valued at little, were things of serious interest to their betters. The lurid light of publicity was shed upon the lives of the rival candidates; men formerly accounted worthy and respectable were proved no better than whited sepulchres; and each man was filled with a morbid concern for his fellow’s character and beliefs.
The farmer of Clachlands called a meeting of his labourers in the great dusty barn, which had been the scene of many similar gatherings. His speech on the occasion was rigorous and to the point. ‘Ye are a’ my men,’ he said, ‘an’ I’ll see that ye vote richt. Y’re uneddi-cated folk, and ken naething aboot the matter, sae ye just tak’ my word for’t, that the Tories are in the richt and vote accordingly. I’ve been a guid maister to ye, and it’s shurely better to pleesure me, than a wheen leein’ scoondrels whae tramp the country with leather bags and printit trash.’
Then arose from the back the ploughman, strong in his convictions. ‘Listen to me, you men,’ says he; ‘just vote as ye think best. The maister’s a guid maister, as he says, but he’s nocht to dae wi’ your votin’. It’s what they ca’ inteemedation to interfere wi’ onybody in this matter. So mind that, an’ vote for the workin’-man an’ his richts.’
Then ensued a war of violent words.
‘Is this a meetin’ in my barn, or a pennywaddin?’
‘Ca’t what ye please. I canna let ye mislead the men.’
‘Whae talks about misleadin’? Is’t misleadin’ to lead them richt?’
‘The question,’ said the ploughman solemnly, ‘is what you ca’ richt.’
William Laverhope, if ye werena a guid plooman, ye wad gang post-haste oot o’ here the morn.’
‘I carena what ye say. I’ll stand up for the richts o’ thae men.’
‘Men!’ – this with deep scorn. ‘I could mak’ better men than thae wi’ a stick oot o’ the plantin’.’
‘Ay, ye say that noo, an’ the morn ye’ll be ca’in’ ilka yin o’ them Mister, a’ for their votes.’
The farmer left in dignified disgust, vanquished but still dangerous; the ploughman in triumph mingled with despair. For he knew that his fellow-labourers cared not
