Prester John | Page 3

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PRESTER JOHN
JOHN BUCHAN

TO
LIONEL PHILLIPS
Time, they say, must the best of us capture, And travel and battle and
gems and gold No more can kindle the ancient rapture, For even the
youngest of hearts grows old. But in you, I think, the boy is not over;
So take this medley of ways and wars As the gift of a friend and a
fellow-lover Of the fairest country under the stars.
J. B.

CONTENTS
i. The Man on the Kirkcaple Shore ii. Furth! Fortune! iii.
Blaauwildebeestefontein iv. My Journey to the Winter-Veld v. Mr
Wardlaw Has a Premonition vi. The Drums Beat at Sunset vii. Captain
Arcoll Tells a Tale viii. I Fall in Again with the Reverend John Laputa
ix. The Store at Umvelos' x. I Go Treasure-Hunting xi. The Cave of the
Rooirand xii. Captain Arcoll Sends a Message xiii. The Drift of the
Letaba xiv. I Carry the Collar of Prester John xv. Morning in the Berg
xvi. Inanda's Kraal xvii. A Deal and Its Consequences xviii. How a
Man May Sometimes Put His Trust in a Horse xix. Arcoll's
Shepherding xx. My Last Sight of the Reverend John Laputa xxi. I
Climb the Crags a Second Time xxii. A Great Peril and a Great
Salvation xxiii. My Uncle's Gift Is Many Times Multiplied
CHAPTER I
THE MAN ON THE KIRKCAPLE SHORE
I mind as if it were yesterday my first sight of the man. Little I knew at
the time how big the moment was with destiny, or how often that face
seen in the fitful moonlight would haunt my sleep and disturb my
waking hours. But I mind yet the cold grue of terror I got from it, a
terror which was surely more than the due of a few truant lads breaking
the Sabbath with their play.
The town of Kirkcaple, of which and its adjacent parish of Portincross
my father was the minister, lies on a hillside above the little bay of
Caple, and looks squarely out on the North Sea. Round the horns of
land which enclose the bay the coast shows on either side a battlement
of stark red cliffs through which a burn or two makes a pass to the
water's edge. The bay itself is ringed with fine clean sands, where we
lads of the burgh school loved to bathe in the warm weather. But on
long holidays the sport was to go farther afield among the cliffs; for
there there were many deep caves and pools, where podleys might be
caught with the line, and hid treasures sought for at the expense of the
skin of the knees and the buttons of the trousers. Many a long Saturday

I have passed in a crinkle of the cliffs, having lit a fire of driftwood,
and made believe that I was a smuggler or a Jacobite new landed from
France. There was a band of us in Kirkcaple, lads of my own age,
including Archie Leslie, the son of my father's session-clerk, and Tam
Dyke, the provost's nephew. We were sealed to silence by the blood
oath, and we bore each the name of some historic pirate or sailorman. I
was Paul Jones, Tam was Captain Kidd, and Archie, need I say it, was
Morgan himself. Our tryst was a cave where a little water called the
Dyve Burn had cut its way through the cliffs to the sea. There we
forgathered in the summer evenings and of a Saturday afternoon in
winter, and told mighty tales of our prowess and flattered our silly
hearts. But the sober truth is that our deeds were of the humblest, and a
dozen of fish or a handful of apples was all our booty, and our greatest
exploit a fight with the roughs at the Dyve tan-work.
My father's spring Communion fell on the last Sabbath of April, and on
the particular Sabbath of which I speak the weather was