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Title: The House of the Four Winds (1935)Author: John Buchan* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *eBook No.: 0301441.txtEdition: 1Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: Latin-1(ISO-8859-1)--8 bitDate first posted: November 2003Date most recently updated: November 2003This eBook was produced by: Don Lainson dlainson@sympatico.caProject Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editionswhich are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright noticeis included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particularpaper edition.Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check thecopyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing thisfile.This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the termsof the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online athttp://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html---------------------------------------------------------------------------A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBookTitle: The House of the Four Winds (1935)Author: John BuchanThe earlier doings of some of the personages in this tale will befound recorded in Huntingtower and Castle Gay.J. B.CONTENTSPROLOGUEI. THE MAN WITH THE ELEPHANTII. THE HOUSE OF THE FOUR WINDSIII. DIVERSIONS OF A MARIONETTEIV. DIFFICULTIES OF A REVOLUTIONARY
 
V. SURPRISING ENERGY OF A CONVALESCENTVI. ARRIVALS AT AN INNVII. "SI VIEILLESSE POUVAIT"VIII. SPLENDIDE MENDAXIX. NIGHT IN THE WOODSX. AURUNCULEIAXI. THE BLOOD-RED ROOKXII. THE STREET OF THE WHITE PEACOCKXIII. THE MARCH ON MELINAENVOIPROLOGUEGreat events, says the philosophic historian, spring only fromgreat causes, though the immediate occasion may be small; but Ithink his law must have exceptions. Of the not inconsiderableevents which I am about to chronicle, the occasion was trivial, andI find it hard to detect the majestic agency behind them. Whatworld-force, for example, ordained that Mr Dickson McCunn shouldslip into the Tod's Hole in his little salmon-river on a bleaknight in April; and, without changing his clothes, shouldthereafter make a tour of inspection of his young lambs? Hisaction was the proximate cause of this tale, but I can see noprofounder explanation of it than the inherent perversity of man.The performance had immediate consequences for Mr McCunn. He awokenext morning with a stiff neck, an aching left shoulder, and a painin the small of his back--he who never in his life before had had atouch of rheumatism. A vigorous rubbing with embrocation failed torelieve him, and, since he was accustomed to robust health, hefound it intolerable to hobble about with a thing like a toothachein several parts of his body. Dr Murdoch was sent for fromAuchenlochan, and for a fortnight Mr McCunn had to endure mustardplasters and mustard baths, to swallow various medicines, and tosubmit to a rigorous diet. The pains declined, but he foundhimself to his disgust in a low state of general health, easilytired, liable to sudden cramps, and with a poor appetite for hismeals. After three weeks of this condition he lost his temper.Summer was beginning, and he reflected that, being now sixty-threeyears of age, he had only a limited number of summers left to him.His gorge rose at the thought of dragging his wing through thecoming delectable months--long-lighted June, the hot July noonswith the corncrakes busy in the hay, the days on August hills, redwith heather and musical with bees. He curbed his distaste for
 
medical science, and departed to Edinburgh to consult a specialist.That specialist gave him a purifying time. He tested his blood andhis blood pressure, kneaded every part of his frame, and for thebetter part of a week kept him under observation. At the end heprofessed himself clear in the general but perplexed in theparticular."You've never been ill in your life?" he said. "Well, that is justyour trouble. You're an uncommonly strong man--heart, lungs,circulation, digestion, all in first-class order. But it stands toreason that you must have secreted poisons in your body, and youhave never got them out. The best prescription for a fit old ageis a bad illness in middle life, or, better still, a majoroperation. It drains off some of the middle-age humours. Well,you haven't had that luck, so you've been a powder magazine withsome nasty explosives waiting for the spark. Your tom-foolescapade in the Stinchar provided the spark, and here you are--ahealthy man mysteriously gone sick. You've got to be prettycareful, Mr McCunn. It depends on how you behave in the next fewmonths whether you will be able to fish for salmon on youreightieth birthday, or be doddering round with two sticks and ashawl on your seventieth."Mr McCunn was scared, penitent and utterly docile. He professedhimself ready for the extremest measures, including the drawing ofevery tooth in his head.The specialist smiled. "I don't recommend anything so drastic.What you want first of all is an exact diagnosis. I can assessyour general condition, but I can't put my finger on the precisemischief. That needs a technique which we haven't developedsufficiently in this country. Next, you must have treatment, buttreatment is a comparatively simple affair if you first get theright diagnosis. So I am going to send you to Germany."Mr McCunn wailed. Banishment from his beloved Blaweary was abitter pill."Yes, to Germany. To quite a pretty place called Rosensee, inSaxon Switzerland. There's a kurhaus there run by a man calledChristoph. You never heard his name, of course--few people have--but he is a therapeutic genius of the first order. You can take myword for that. I've known him again and again pull people out oftheir graves. His main subject is nerves, but he is good foreverything that is difficult and mysterious, for in my opinion heis the greatest diagnoser in the world. . . . By the way, you livein Carrick? Well, I sent one of your neighbours to Rosensee lastyear--Sir Archibald Roylance--he was having trouble with a damagedleg--and now he walks nearly as well as you and me. It seems therewas a misplaced sinew which everybody else had overlooked. . . .Dr Christoph will see you three times a day, stare at you like anowl, ask you a thousand questions and make no comment for at leasta fortnight. Then he will deliver judgment, and you may take itthat it will be right. After that the treatment is a simplematter. In a week or two you will be got up in green shorts and aTyrolese hat and an alpenstock and a rope round your middle,climbing the little rocks of those parts. . . . Yes, I think I can
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