The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan Read Free Book Online Page B

deep-cut glen
     of a stream. Then came a bit of thick wood where I slackened speed.
    Suddenly on my left I heard the hoot of another car, and realized to my horror that
     I was almost up on a couple of gate-posts through which a private road debouched on
     the highway. My horn gave an agonized roar, but it was too late. I clapped on my brakes,
     but my impetus was too great, and there before me a car was sliding athwart my course.
     In a second there would have been the deuce of a wreck. I did the only thing possible,
     and ran slap into the hedge on the right, trusting to find something soft beyond.
    But there I was mistaken. My car slithered through the hedge like butter, and then
     gave a sickening plunge forward. I saw what was coming, leapt on the seat and would
     have jumped out. But a branch of hawthorn got me in the chest, lifted me up and held
     me, while a ton or two of expensive metal slipped below me, bucked and pitched, and
     then dropped with an almighty smash fifty feet to the bed of the stream.
    Slowly that thorn let me go. I subsided first on the hedge, and then very gently on
     a bower of nettles. As I scrambled to my feet a hand took me by the arm, and a sympathetic
     and badly scared voice asked me if I were hurt.
    I found myself looking at a tall young man in goggles and a leather ulster, who kept
     on blessing his soul and whinnying apologies. For myself, once I got my wind back,
     I was rather glad than otherwise. This was one way of getting rid of the car.
    ‘My blame, Sir,’ I answered him. ‘It’s lucky that I did not add homicide to my follies.
     That’s the end of my Scotch motor tour, but it might have been the end of my life.’
    He plucked out a watch and studied it. ‘You’re the right sort of fellow,’ he said.
     ‘I can spare a quarter of an hour, and my house is two minutes off. I’ll see you clothed
     and fed and snug in bed. Where’s your kit, by the way? Is it in the burn along with
     the car?’
    ‘It’s in my pocket,’ I said, brandishing a toothbrush. ‘I’m a Colonial and travel
     light.’
    ‘A Colonial,’ he cried. ‘By Gad, you’re the very man I’ve been praying for. Are you
     by any blessed chance a Free Trader?’
    ‘I am,’ said I, without the foggiest notion of what he meant.
    He patted my shoulder and hurried me into his car. Three minutes later we drew up
     before a comfortable-looking shooting box set among pine-trees, and he ushered me
     indoors. He took me first to a bedroom and flung half a dozen of his suits before
     me, for my own had been pretty well reduced to rags. I selected a loose blue serge,
     which differed most conspicuously from my former garments, and borrowed a linen collar.
     Then he haled me to the dining-room, where the remnants of a meal stood on the table,
     and announced that I had just five minutes to feed. ‘You can take a snack in your
     pocket, and we’ll have supper when we get back. I’ve got to be at the Masonic Hall
     at eight o’clock, or my agent will comb my hair.’
    I had a cup of coffee and some cold ham, while he yarned away on the hearth-rug.
    ‘You find me in the deuce of a mess, Mr—by-the-by, you haven’t told me your name.
     Twisdon? Any relation of old Tommy Twisdon of the Sixtieth? No? Well, you see I’m
     Liberal Candidate for this part of the world, and I had a meeting on tonight at Brattleburn—that’s
     my chief town, and an infernal Tory stronghold. I had got the Colonial ex-Premier
     fellow, Crumpleton, coming to speak for me tonight, and had the thing tremendously
     billed and the whole place ground-baited. This afternoon I had a wire from the ruffian
     saying he had got influenza at Blackpool, and here am I left to do the whole thing
     myself. I had meant to speak for ten minutes and must now go on for forty, and, though
     I’ve been racking my brains for three hours to think of something, I simply cannot
     last the course. Now you’ve got to be a good chap and help me. You’re a Free