Huntingtower by John Buchan

On Kindle via Project Gutenberg

It takes courage for a writer of adventure stories to make a retired grocer the hero of a tale of derring do and when his main allies are a troop of scruffy boys from the Gorbals it would appear that he has made his task impossible.   However, John Buchan takes on such a task and pulls it off with aplomb.

Dickson MacCumm has sold his grocers shops in Glasgow to a larger company and, as his wife is away at a therapeutic spa, decides to go on a walking holiday.   With his head full of dreams of romance and adventure from his extensive reading of Scott, Stevenson and the romantic poets such as Browning and Tennyson he sets off and by chance meets John Heritage an aspiring poet.   Together they walk to the village of Dalquharter where they become involved in the rescue from Bolshevik agents of a Russian princess who was entrusted with a fortune in jewels by the Tsar.   Assisted by the Gorbals Diehards, as the gang of young ruffians is known, they manage to defeat the villains without straining credulity beyond bearing.

Despite it's age, it was published in 1922, I found Huntingtower an entertaining read for a fine summers day which is a tribute to the talent of this excellent writer.