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Title: John MacNab
Date of first publication: 1925
Author: John Buchan (1875-1940)
Date first posted: August 7 2012
Date last updated: August 7 2012
Faded Page eBook #20120813
This ebook was produced by: David T. Jones, Ross Cooling, Al Haines
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net
[Illustration: _Frontispiece_
MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE DOINGS OF JOHN
MACNAB.]
[Illustration: JOHN MACNAB
BY
JOHN BUCHAN
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LIMITED LONDON]
_First Printed July_ 1925
_Reprinted July_ 1925
_Reprinted July_ 1925
_Reprinted August_ 1925
_Reprinted August_ 1925
_Reprinted September_ 1925
_Reprinted February_ 1927
_Reprinted September_ 1927
_Made and Printed in Great Britain._
_Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
_Dedication_
TO
ROSALIND MAITLAND
_Contents_
PAGE
I. IN WHICH THREE GENTLEMEN CONFESS THEIR ENNUI 9
II. DESPERATE CHARACTERS IN COUNCIL 28
III. RECONNAISSANCE 46
IV. FISH BENJIE 70
V. THE ASSAULT ON GLENRADEN 91
VI. THE RETURN OF HARALD BLACKTOOTH 113
VII. THE OLD ETONIAN TRAMP 135
VIII. SIR ARCHIE IS INSTRUCTED IN THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 162
IX. SIR ARCHIE INSTRUCTS HIS COUNTRYMEN 183
X. IN WHICH CRIME IS ADDED TO CRIME 205
XI. HARIPOL–THE MAIN ATTACK 225
XII. HARIPOL–TRANSPORT 244
XIII. HARIPOL–AUXILIARY TROOPS 263
XIV. HARIPOL–WOUNDED AND MISSING 286
XV. HARIPOL–THE ARMISTICE 309
EPILOGUE 319
_I_ _In which Three Gentlemen Confess Their Ennui_
The great doctor stood on the hearth-rug looking down at his friend who
sprawled before him in an easy-chair. It was a hot day in early July,
and the windows were closed and the blinds half-down to keep out the
glare and the dust. The standing figure had bent shoulders, a massive
clean-shaven face, and a keen interrogatory air, and might have passed
his sixtieth birthday. He looked like a distinguished lawyer, who would
soon leave his practice for the Bench. But it was the man in the chair
who was the lawyer, a man who had left forty behind him, but was still
on the pleasant side of fifty.
“I tell you for the tenth time that there’s nothing the matter with
you.”
“And I tell you for the tenth time that I’m miserably ill.”
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “Then it’s a mind diseased, to which
I don’t propose to minister. What do you say is wrong?”
“Simply what my housekeeper calls a ‘no-how’ feeling.”
“It’s clearly nothing physical. Your heart and lungs are sound. Your
digestion’s as good as anybody’s can be in London in Midsummer. Your
nerves–well, I’ve tried all the stock tests, and they appear to be
normal.”
“Oh, my nerves are all right,” said the other wearily.
“Your brain seems good enough, except for this dismal obsession that you
are ill. I can find no earthly thing wrong, except that you’re stale. I
don’t say run-down, for that you’re not. You’re stale in mind. You want
a holiday.”
“I don’t. I may _need_ one, but I don’t _want_ it. That’s precisely the
trouble. I used to be a glutton for holidays, and spent my leisure
moments during term planning what I was going to do. Now there seems to
be nothing in the world I want to do–neither work nor play.”
“Try fishing. You used to be keen.”
“I’ve killed all the salmon I mean to kill. I never want to look the
ugly brutes in the face again.”
“Shooting?”
“Too easy and too dull.”
“A yacht.”
“Stop it, old fellow. Your catalogue of undesired delights only makes it
worse. I tell you that there’s nothing at this moment which has the
slightest charm for me. I’m bored with my work, and I can’t think of
anything else of any kind for which I would cross the street. I don’t
even want to go into the country and sleep. It’s been coming on for a
long time–I daresay it’s due somehow to the war–but when I was in
office I did not feel it so badly, for I was in a service and not my own
master. Now I’ve nothing to do except to earn an enormous income, which
I haven’t any need for. Work comes rolling in–I’ve got retainers for
nearly every solvent concern in this land–and all that happens is that
I want to strangle my clerk and a few eminent solicitors. I don’t care a
tinker’s curse for success, and what is worse, I’m just as apathetic
about the modest pleasures which used to enliven my life.”
“You may be more tired than you think.”
“I’m not tired at all.” The speaker rose from his chair, yawning, and
walked to the window to stare into the airless street. He did not look
tired, for his movements were vigorous, and, though his face had the
slight pallor of his profession, his eye was clear and steady. He turned
round suddenly.
“I tell you what I’ve got. It’s what the Middle Ages suffered from–I
read a book about it the other day–and it’s called _tædium vitæ_. It’s
a special kind of ennui. I can diagnose my ailment well enough, and
Shakespeare has the words for it. I’ve come to a pitch where I find
‘nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon.'”
“Then why do you come to me, if the trouble is not with your body?”
“Because you’re _you_. I should come to you just the same if you were a
vet., or a bone-setter, or a Christian Scientist. I want your advice,
not as a fashionable consultant, but as an old friend and a wise man.
It’s a state of affairs that can’t go on. What am I to do to get rid of
this infernal disillusionment? I can’t go through the rest of life
dragging my wing.”
The doctor was smiling.
“If you ask my professional advice,” he said, “I am bound to tell you
that medical science has no suggestion to offer. If you consult me as a
friend, I advise you to steal a horse in some part of the world where a
horse-thief is usually hanged.”
The other considered. “Pretty drastic prescription for a man who has
been a Law Officer of the Crown.”
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