Second Sight (23 page)
Authors: Neil M. Gunn
Geoffrey's eyes gleamed. “I am tempted,” he said. He gave a small reflective chuckle to himself. “It might be fun.”
“I doubt really if we should take any more notice of it,” said Marjory hesitantly.
“Why not?” asked George. “Should I like to see it going up in a shower of sparks!”
“What a game!” cried Joyce, and laughed so loudly that Lady Marway turned round.
“Hush!” said Mr. Blair, with exaggerated secrecy. His party nodded. Mum was the word! The air of conspiracy made Mr. Blair very jolly, and when the maids brought in tea trolleys, he had everyone seated again, except Colonel Brown, Harry, and Helen, who seemed to be quite lost in their debate.
Into the involuntary silence came Harry's voice: “But what of the Seer's prophecies that have not been fulfilled? I can see that the mere fact that they have been recorded shows that people in the Highlands knew of them and even wrote them down. But I mean it's so fantastic to expect they ever will happen nowââ”
“Precisely,” said Colonel Brown. “So far as I know here's a point about them that's never been made before. Remembering that in the fourth-dimensional worldâthe world, we assume, of second sightâit's as easy to step back into the past as forward into the future, then we may conclude that among the Brahan Seer's visions some in fact referred to the past, though the Seer himself might not know that, and, therefore, be perfectly honest in placing them in the future. For example, he said that boats would one day tie up to a certain rock in Strathpeffer. From lack of knowledge, it simply could not have occurred to him that, as is obvious to us now, the valley between Dingwall and Strathpeffer was once upon a time under water and that boats in all probability have tied up to the said rock in time past. That may be a dubious case. But take.⦔
Mr. Blair tiptoed to a desk, picked up an old cow-bell, and rang it furiously. Three solemn, startled faces turned round, and then, for a few seconds, there was the gayest laughter.
On the way to their cars, when cordial greetings had been spoken, Geoffrey said to Marjory, “What a show!”
“I think he's a dear old man, the Dean,” she replied.
“Of course! But heavens, that old philosophic style! At this time of day! Isn't it remarkable that a man of such obvious intelligence should deliberately let it get fogged in that way? Fogged, moth-eaten. And he went onâheavens, didn't he go on!”
“Hsh!” said Marjory, as Sir John and Lady Marway joined them and they all got seated.
“David seems tired a bit,” said Lady Marway quietly to her husband. “He has somehow the airâI don't know what it isâof being world-weary at the back of all his simple, kind ways.”
“Yes,” said Sir John. “I think the real trouble is that he feels the conditions of the world to-day, feels it is due to the triumph of the material over the spiritual. Really feels it.” The car started off. “It's an odd thing, but you'd notice that he never mentioned religion. It's as profound in him as that. Somehow, I felt what he was getting at. Iâfelt it.”
“I did, too.”
“I always liked him,” said Sir John.
In the second car, Harry said to Helen, as they got seated, “Enjoyed the evening?”
“Yes,” said Helen.
There was silence until Joyce, having recovered her scarf, rushed up and slammed the door, whereupon George observed, “I think the way you've been getting off with mine host was obvious enough positively to be offensive.”
Joyce laughed. “I say, isn't he a dear old funny old thing! Whatever does he do with himself normally?”
“Breeds parrots, I should say,” said George.
“George! And after the amount of his food
and
drink you contrived to stow away!”
“I withdraw. Do you know what I was trying to do that time I choked?”
“No.”
“I was trying to catch the wine as it slipped down. It was so smooth, hanged if I could. I wonder where that sort of stuff is grown. Whoops!”
The mist had grown thicker, but presently they climbed out of it into a cloudless night of moonlight and shadows, a night of such serene starry loveliness that, as each car entered it, silence fell on its occupants.
“So lovely,” said Marjory on an undertone.
Geoffrey glanced at her, and then fixed himself comfortably into his corner where he could see her without appearing to look at her. Now that he thought of it, she had been very silent to-night. Her fairness in the shadowed moonlight had a quality of gossamer that made him stare at it as at an illusion of beauty. He saw the dark places of her eyes, wondered if they were looking at him, suddenly felt they were, and experienced a sensation of constriction about his chest and throat.
Harry stared out of his window. Helen glanced at him and knew that he was not thinking of her.
Joyce adventured upon the
Barcarolle
ânight of stars and night of loveâhumming it thoughtfully, and sighed.
George sobbed softly and sadly.
They came down into banks of fog again, and then suddenly across the night came strange elusive sounds.
“Stop!” said Harry.
George drew up and as Harry lowered his window they heard remote, muffled, eddying music coming from the hills on their left.
“Isn't it weird?” Joyce caught her breath.
They listened.
“Whatever can be doing it?” Joyce wondered.
“Barrie and Mary Rose and her keening,” said George in deep sadness. “They will not have been finding their island yet.” But there was no real mockery in his tone.
“Would you mind waiting for me for five minutes? I promise not to be more than ten at the outside,” said Harry.
There was astonished silence in the dark car. George switched on the roof light and turned to look at him.
“You don't mind, do you?” Harry smiled to the girls.
They didn't mind, of course, but exactly what was the big idea?
“Here,” called George, “don't be mad!”
The door slammed. Harry passed through the spot light. His body grew into a phantasmal shape, grey as the night, then vanished in a moment. George switched on the full headlights and was blinded by a white wall. He swore mildly, but with expression. They listened. No soundâexcept the eddying music, that wasn't music, but a weird crying out of the heart of the hills, a sad crying, a high insistent note, that doubled and trebled upon itself, fell and rose, eddied away altogether, to come again more insistent than ever.
“Whatever do you think has gone wrong with him?” Joyce asked Helen.
“I don't know,” said Helen.
“Oh God, what is it?” cried Joyce.
“Someone playing bagpipes on the hill,” said Helen.
“Bagpipes!” said Joyce. She laughed harshly, then instantly was silent.
“I never did understand the things before,” said George. “This is obviously their locale.”
“I should say so!” said Joyce. “Turns the stomach all queer.”
“Lord God,” said George, “it
is
like something yearning!”
“What was it that yearned in pain?” asked Joyce.
“A god,” said Helen.
Joyce laughed.
“I know,” said George, “I know what it is. It's a pibrok.”
“A what?” asked Joyce.
“A pibrok,” said George. “A lament.”
“A lament? Whatever for?”
“Don't ask me,” said George. “They get a gold medal for playing it at the Northern Meetings.”
“A gold medal!” echoed Joyce, and went off into high laughter. George joined her.
“Though I must say I don't quite see the joke,” said George.
“Neither do I,” said Joyce.
So they laughed again and felt better.
Into the silence came the insistent playing, deceitful in its movement as the cry of a golden plover, near and far, the moor and the hill, passing over the topsâ¦coming out of the bog, the bowels of the mountain.
“Heavens, I wish it would stop! Where on earth could Harry have gone?” Joyce asked impatiently.
“He'll be back within ten minutes if he said he would,” Helen suggested.
And at that the music ceased.
Joyce applauded “And thank you very much for stopping.”
At the end of what seemed much more than ten minutes, George looked at his clock. Ten clear minutes later, Harry had not yet appeared. This was getting a bit too much! With all due respect to Harry, this was going beyond the limit!
An argument arose between George, who wanted to sound the horn, and Helen who didn't.
“He's lost,” said George.
“He's probably turning round in circles,” said Joyce. “Press it hard.”
George blew a prolonged blast.
“What's that?” whispered Joyce. Then she collapsed backwards with a groan. The hill music had started again.
“We're lost. We're damned. This bloody spot is haunted,” George intoned.
“Ohâshutâup!” cried Joyce. She turned to Helen. “You don't really believe in ghosts, do you, Helen?”
“I do feel one or two moving around,” said Helen. “I am beginning to have the awful sensation of being fourth-dimensional.”
“Oh God!” groaned Joyce. “You make me crawl with them.” Quite involuntarily she brushed her shoulders, and, diving for the wheel, pressed the horn-button.
A seven-foot, ghostly representation of Harry wavered on the edge of the mist and disappeared. The door handle shook. “I'm very sorry,” said Harry, entering by the head and slamming the door after him. “I couldn't get away.”
“Where on earth were you?” Joyce demanded.
“Corr Inn is just up there,” Harry explained. “I had a small debt to pay the landlord for beer. Have I been more than ten minutes?”
George and Joyce turned on him and rent him with their tongues into small pieces. The process lasted the six miles to Corbreac, where they found the first car getting ready to come and look for them.
Harry explained how he had come to owe the landlord a debt, decided he might as well pay it, and take the opportunity of enjoying bagpipes on the hills at night. He was sorry the others had not heard the excellent entertainment. Very sorry if his thoughtlessness had upset anybody.
But clearly none of them wanted to discuss it, though a gleam did come into Geoffrey's eye. Joyce yawned, looking exhausted.
“Are you aware it's midnight?” Lady Marway asked.
“Yes, high time we were in bed,” her husband agreed. “I'll see to the doors.”
Within a few minutes the room was in darkness.
When Sir John had undressed and washed and was getting ready to go through the ritual of brushing his hair, Lady Marway, from her bed, looking at him, said quietly:
“Do you remember, to-night, when David had finished talking, you said to him that the spirit of the East, with its power of seeing and knowing, would have been quite incomprehensible to you, were it not for one personal experience? I somehow can't get it out of my head. I've been racking my memory. What was it, Jack?”
He looked at himself in the mirror for a moment, and then shrugged slightly. “I'd rather not say.”
“I'm sorry. I did not meanââ”
“Now, now,” said Sir John. “That understanding tone did always make me tell.”
“No, please. I merely felt it because I thought that I had forgotten. If I did not know, then I don't mind.”
“But you did know. At least I always thought you knew.”
“Jack!”
“Well,” he said, taking a brush in each hand and proceeding calmly to deal with his tough, dark-grey hair, “the experience was simply my being in love with you.”
“I doubt really if we should take any more notice of it,” said Marjory hesitantly.
“Why not?” asked George. “Should I like to see it going up in a shower of sparks!”
“What a game!” cried Joyce, and laughed so loudly that Lady Marway turned round.
“Hush!” said Mr. Blair, with exaggerated secrecy. His party nodded. Mum was the word! The air of conspiracy made Mr. Blair very jolly, and when the maids brought in tea trolleys, he had everyone seated again, except Colonel Brown, Harry, and Helen, who seemed to be quite lost in their debate.
Into the involuntary silence came Harry's voice: “But what of the Seer's prophecies that have not been fulfilled? I can see that the mere fact that they have been recorded shows that people in the Highlands knew of them and even wrote them down. But I mean it's so fantastic to expect they ever will happen nowââ”
“Precisely,” said Colonel Brown. “So far as I know here's a point about them that's never been made before. Remembering that in the fourth-dimensional worldâthe world, we assume, of second sightâit's as easy to step back into the past as forward into the future, then we may conclude that among the Brahan Seer's visions some in fact referred to the past, though the Seer himself might not know that, and, therefore, be perfectly honest in placing them in the future. For example, he said that boats would one day tie up to a certain rock in Strathpeffer. From lack of knowledge, it simply could not have occurred to him that, as is obvious to us now, the valley between Dingwall and Strathpeffer was once upon a time under water and that boats in all probability have tied up to the said rock in time past. That may be a dubious case. But take.⦔
Mr. Blair tiptoed to a desk, picked up an old cow-bell, and rang it furiously. Three solemn, startled faces turned round, and then, for a few seconds, there was the gayest laughter.
On the way to their cars, when cordial greetings had been spoken, Geoffrey said to Marjory, “What a show!”
“I think he's a dear old man, the Dean,” she replied.
“Of course! But heavens, that old philosophic style! At this time of day! Isn't it remarkable that a man of such obvious intelligence should deliberately let it get fogged in that way? Fogged, moth-eaten. And he went onâheavens, didn't he go on!”
“Hsh!” said Marjory, as Sir John and Lady Marway joined them and they all got seated.
“David seems tired a bit,” said Lady Marway quietly to her husband. “He has somehow the airâI don't know what it isâof being world-weary at the back of all his simple, kind ways.”
“Yes,” said Sir John. “I think the real trouble is that he feels the conditions of the world to-day, feels it is due to the triumph of the material over the spiritual. Really feels it.” The car started off. “It's an odd thing, but you'd notice that he never mentioned religion. It's as profound in him as that. Somehow, I felt what he was getting at. Iâfelt it.”
“I did, too.”
“I always liked him,” said Sir John.
In the second car, Harry said to Helen, as they got seated, “Enjoyed the evening?”
“Yes,” said Helen.
There was silence until Joyce, having recovered her scarf, rushed up and slammed the door, whereupon George observed, “I think the way you've been getting off with mine host was obvious enough positively to be offensive.”
Joyce laughed. “I say, isn't he a dear old funny old thing! Whatever does he do with himself normally?”
“Breeds parrots, I should say,” said George.
“George! And after the amount of his food
and
drink you contrived to stow away!”
“I withdraw. Do you know what I was trying to do that time I choked?”
“No.”
“I was trying to catch the wine as it slipped down. It was so smooth, hanged if I could. I wonder where that sort of stuff is grown. Whoops!”
The mist had grown thicker, but presently they climbed out of it into a cloudless night of moonlight and shadows, a night of such serene starry loveliness that, as each car entered it, silence fell on its occupants.
“So lovely,” said Marjory on an undertone.
Geoffrey glanced at her, and then fixed himself comfortably into his corner where he could see her without appearing to look at her. Now that he thought of it, she had been very silent to-night. Her fairness in the shadowed moonlight had a quality of gossamer that made him stare at it as at an illusion of beauty. He saw the dark places of her eyes, wondered if they were looking at him, suddenly felt they were, and experienced a sensation of constriction about his chest and throat.
Harry stared out of his window. Helen glanced at him and knew that he was not thinking of her.
Joyce adventured upon the
Barcarolle
ânight of stars and night of loveâhumming it thoughtfully, and sighed.
George sobbed softly and sadly.
They came down into banks of fog again, and then suddenly across the night came strange elusive sounds.
“Stop!” said Harry.
George drew up and as Harry lowered his window they heard remote, muffled, eddying music coming from the hills on their left.
“Isn't it weird?” Joyce caught her breath.
They listened.
“Whatever can be doing it?” Joyce wondered.
“Barrie and Mary Rose and her keening,” said George in deep sadness. “They will not have been finding their island yet.” But there was no real mockery in his tone.
“Would you mind waiting for me for five minutes? I promise not to be more than ten at the outside,” said Harry.
There was astonished silence in the dark car. George switched on the roof light and turned to look at him.
“You don't mind, do you?” Harry smiled to the girls.
They didn't mind, of course, but exactly what was the big idea?
“Here,” called George, “don't be mad!”
The door slammed. Harry passed through the spot light. His body grew into a phantasmal shape, grey as the night, then vanished in a moment. George switched on the full headlights and was blinded by a white wall. He swore mildly, but with expression. They listened. No soundâexcept the eddying music, that wasn't music, but a weird crying out of the heart of the hills, a sad crying, a high insistent note, that doubled and trebled upon itself, fell and rose, eddied away altogether, to come again more insistent than ever.
“Whatever do you think has gone wrong with him?” Joyce asked Helen.
“I don't know,” said Helen.
“Oh God, what is it?” cried Joyce.
“Someone playing bagpipes on the hill,” said Helen.
“Bagpipes!” said Joyce. She laughed harshly, then instantly was silent.
“I never did understand the things before,” said George. “This is obviously their locale.”
“I should say so!” said Joyce. “Turns the stomach all queer.”
“Lord God,” said George, “it
is
like something yearning!”
“What was it that yearned in pain?” asked Joyce.
“A god,” said Helen.
Joyce laughed.
“I know,” said George, “I know what it is. It's a pibrok.”
“A what?” asked Joyce.
“A pibrok,” said George. “A lament.”
“A lament? Whatever for?”
“Don't ask me,” said George. “They get a gold medal for playing it at the Northern Meetings.”
“A gold medal!” echoed Joyce, and went off into high laughter. George joined her.
“Though I must say I don't quite see the joke,” said George.
“Neither do I,” said Joyce.
So they laughed again and felt better.
Into the silence came the insistent playing, deceitful in its movement as the cry of a golden plover, near and far, the moor and the hill, passing over the topsâ¦coming out of the bog, the bowels of the mountain.
“Heavens, I wish it would stop! Where on earth could Harry have gone?” Joyce asked impatiently.
“He'll be back within ten minutes if he said he would,” Helen suggested.
And at that the music ceased.
Joyce applauded “And thank you very much for stopping.”
At the end of what seemed much more than ten minutes, George looked at his clock. Ten clear minutes later, Harry had not yet appeared. This was getting a bit too much! With all due respect to Harry, this was going beyond the limit!
An argument arose between George, who wanted to sound the horn, and Helen who didn't.
“He's lost,” said George.
“He's probably turning round in circles,” said Joyce. “Press it hard.”
George blew a prolonged blast.
“What's that?” whispered Joyce. Then she collapsed backwards with a groan. The hill music had started again.
“We're lost. We're damned. This bloody spot is haunted,” George intoned.
“Ohâshutâup!” cried Joyce. She turned to Helen. “You don't really believe in ghosts, do you, Helen?”
“I do feel one or two moving around,” said Helen. “I am beginning to have the awful sensation of being fourth-dimensional.”
“Oh God!” groaned Joyce. “You make me crawl with them.” Quite involuntarily she brushed her shoulders, and, diving for the wheel, pressed the horn-button.
A seven-foot, ghostly representation of Harry wavered on the edge of the mist and disappeared. The door handle shook. “I'm very sorry,” said Harry, entering by the head and slamming the door after him. “I couldn't get away.”
“Where on earth were you?” Joyce demanded.
“Corr Inn is just up there,” Harry explained. “I had a small debt to pay the landlord for beer. Have I been more than ten minutes?”
George and Joyce turned on him and rent him with their tongues into small pieces. The process lasted the six miles to Corbreac, where they found the first car getting ready to come and look for them.
Harry explained how he had come to owe the landlord a debt, decided he might as well pay it, and take the opportunity of enjoying bagpipes on the hills at night. He was sorry the others had not heard the excellent entertainment. Very sorry if his thoughtlessness had upset anybody.
But clearly none of them wanted to discuss it, though a gleam did come into Geoffrey's eye. Joyce yawned, looking exhausted.
“Are you aware it's midnight?” Lady Marway asked.
“Yes, high time we were in bed,” her husband agreed. “I'll see to the doors.”
Within a few minutes the room was in darkness.
When Sir John had undressed and washed and was getting ready to go through the ritual of brushing his hair, Lady Marway, from her bed, looking at him, said quietly:
“Do you remember, to-night, when David had finished talking, you said to him that the spirit of the East, with its power of seeing and knowing, would have been quite incomprehensible to you, were it not for one personal experience? I somehow can't get it out of my head. I've been racking my memory. What was it, Jack?”
He looked at himself in the mirror for a moment, and then shrugged slightly. “I'd rather not say.”
“I'm sorry. I did not meanââ”
“Now, now,” said Sir John. “That understanding tone did always make me tell.”
“No, please. I merely felt it because I thought that I had forgotten. If I did not know, then I don't mind.”
“But you did know. At least I always thought you knew.”
“Jack!”
“Well,” he said, taking a brush in each hand and proceeding calmly to deal with his tough, dark-grey hair, “the experience was simply my being in love with you.”
Chapter Ten
S
ir John raised his eyebrows as he saw Geoffrey emerge from the gun-room door ready for the hill. Harry and George showed an equal surprise. Maclean was the first to say good morning.
“Really feeling fit for it?” asked Sir John.
“Yes,” said Geoffrey. “Not quite free and easy but exercise should oil the parts.”
“I'm glad,” said George handsomely, for he would now have to stand down.
“Quite sure?” asked Geoffrey.
Harry offered George his beat and so did Sir John, but George assured them that he had yesterday set so high a standard that he was relieved, for their sakes, not to have to repeat it.
When the beats were gone over and the wind discussed, Sir John asked Geoffrey what he thought was the easiest one for him.
“Benuain, if I may have my choice.”
Sir John regarded him with frank astonishment. “Butâthe climbing?”
Geoffrey shrugged. He would manage all right.
The pony had been sent on. The car would take him round by the public road to within a mile or two. The wind was just right for the west approach.⦠He would have a bite of breakfast.
George, seeing Joyce come round the corner of the house, went towards her, signalling silence with his face. “Geoff!” he muttered. Then aloud, “Would you care to come with us, while I drive Geoffrey round?” And he marched her off to the garage.
When, at the end of the drive, Geoffrey and Angus got out and good wishes had been offered, Joyce said to George, “Isn't he determined to get something?”
“Something!” said George. “He's going to get King Brude or bust. He was merely in a funk lest Harry or I got him. Odd chap, Geoffrey, in many ways. Fighter and all that; keen and jealous as a schoolboy. Angus will have to watch his step to-day! See, there's the pony coming.” George had to go on half a mile before he could turn his car. On the way back they saw Geoffrey's large figure astride the small beast and stopped the car to chuckle.
“Wonder what's in his mind?” asked Joyce.
“Death,” said George.
Which was wonderfully near the truth, for at that moment Geoffrey called to Angus and spoke to him, saying that this was not a day for any mistake to be made; if King Brude was on Benuain, then King Brude must die. What was the plan? And as Angus went over the ground, from one spy point to the next, Geoffrey cross-questioned him. There was no laughter in his face. It was grey and grim. There was none in Angus's face, which showed signs of last night's wastage at Corr Inn.
“He may not be there at all,” said Angus.
“No doubt. But he is more likely to be there than anywhere else in the forest, isn't he?”
“Yes,” said Angus.
“You know that the heights of Benuain are his usual ground; that in this weather he'll never be lower down?”
“It's not likely,” said Angus.
“Well, what do you mean?”
“I mean that he may not be in the forest at all.”
“He may not. He may be in the damned moon, but it's not likely. Unless, of course, he has second sight.” He laughed. “He may move in four dimensions.” He felt cheered a bit, for he was not in good physical form. “Know anything about the fourth dimension?”
Angus appeared not to hear.
“There's a legend that a lot of you fellows know Latin and Greek. Ever heard of that?”
Angus remained silent.
“Don't you understand a joke?” Then on a more friendly tone, “Why make the idiotic suggestion that he may not be up there? To cheer me up?”
“It wasn't an idiotic suggestion,” said Angus. “The rut is on. Last year I know that King Brude had his hinds in Glenan Forest. He was nearly shot there by Lord Starnes in the first week of October. He'll go there this year again.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that's the way a stag like him behaves. He goes back to the same place for his hinds.”
Geoffrey rode on, trying not to think of Lord Starnes, trying to banish the appalling vision of that plutocratic gentleman shooting King Brude, shooting the stag that was his, Geoffrey Smith's, and no one else's on earth. His eyes gleamed vindictively, his mouth closed.
The first climb was not too difficult, and with a fair wind against them, no great precautions had to be taken. Geoffrey rested occasionally, rubbing a spot in his right side each time. His kneecap, too, felt the strain and had a deceitful tendency to go numb. But he refused to let Angus go on alone, and after an hour's hard work they came to their first vantage point, where broken ground made spying easy.
It was not a corrie but a valley through the hills, a high broad pass, and it lay in the forenoon sunlight very still and silent. Geoffrey got his excitement, however, not from so immaterial a thing as a sense of beauty, but from the reality of red deer that his naked eyes picked out here and there. The sight of them flushed all his flesh, banished pain and tiredness. Not three hundred yards away, some hinds were feeding up wind. A stag, too; a nine pointer, and a heavy beast; and one or two more stags, youngsters, on the outskirts. Feeding quietly, moving forward a step or two, cropping the tender shoots, unsuspiciously, with quiet grace. Occasionally a head lifted and took the air with such extreme sensitiveness that it stopped one's breath. Then his eyes picked out quite a small herd on the opposite side that he had completely missed. The place was alive with them! Positively swarming! He gulped and looked at Angus spying so concentratedly, slowly, and felt impatient to get the telescope for himself.
“Anything doing?” he whispered.
Angus paid no attention until he had finished; then he very slowly slid back.
“There's one really fine beast over there,” he said.
“With that lot of hinds?”
“Yes.” Angus was slightly excited. The hunt did this to him, tended to make him forget personal vanities and insults, for coming up the hill he had vowed that he was not going to do much for this particular sort of gentleman if he could help it. And he knew the ways by which a cunning stalker can invisibly defeat the consummation of an impeccable stalk.
“Is it King Brude?”
“No,” said Angus. “King Brude is not there. I don't know this beast. An imperialâthirteen points.”
“An imperial!” Geoffrey got hold of the telescope and picked up the stag. He spied for a long time. Then he slid back and nodded. “Cupped antlers.”
“Double cups.”
Geoffrey stirred restlessly. Angus said nothing, aware of the internal struggle. Geoffrey began to question him on the chances of this stalk. Angus explained how it was impossible to get at him where he was, but how in course of time, the hinds should reach a certain spot, where approach would be feasible. They would feed on. They might lie downâalmost certainly would. It meant a wide detour to come in on them because of the nature of the high ground on the other side. But it should be possible. They might have to give their day to it.
“You think we'd get him?”
“There's a good chance.”
The talk went on for some time, covering all possibilities of the disturbance of these deer, of other deer, all the endless tactics and strategy of the forest.
“What do you think?” Geoffrey asked.
“There is no doubt that that is the stalk we should do.”
And there was just no doubt about it. A bellow came up from the pass. Geoffrey got the spy-glass trained again. The imperial was chasing away a young stag that had dared come too near the hinds. While he was engaged on this task, another young fellow amorously adventured his presence on the other side of the hinds. The imperial, turning back, saw him, and, with a short bellow, charged. The young six-pointer was properly nimble, however. The old sultan was giving definition to his harem! A heavy, dark-skinned beast, with what would surely be the outstanding head of the season.
Geoffrey snapped shut the telescope. “If we find nothing in the higher corries, we might get him in the evening. We'll go on.” His face was slightly congested. Angus said nothing, but about his eyes came an expression of dry sarcasm. Stags had not yet developed the obliging habit of waiting for anyone.
They had to descend again, and work round below the level of the pass on the west side, where the ground sloped steeply. Twice they were troubled by deer, and had to do one long wriggle up a scree that Geoffrey found very tiring. Angus was insistent that they take no chances of disturbing deer higher up. Geoffrey saw the point, but more than once deemed Angus's care excessive. He knew quite well that Angus could take it out of him if he liked. And he was troubled by the consciousness that he should, as a sportsman, have gone for the imperial. There were other rifles in the forest; others who must take similar chances when they came their way.
Angus went on and waited for him, went on and waited, tireless, brown, tough as heather, his large mouth open often and wet, his eyes dark blue and gleaming.
Geoffrey followed grimly, pausing now and then, but never for long. For an hour they did not speak.
“That's the spot,” said Angus pointing upward to the edge of a hollow against the sky. “From that knob, that lump, we'll see into the corrie. If you like, I could go up alone and see if he's in it. If he's not, then there's nothing for it but Coireard, and you would be saved the climb here.”
Geoffrey stood gazing up. “I'll go with you,” he said.
He doesn't trust me! Angus thought. He smiled to himself, with a leftward twist of his mouth. For he knew it was not altogether distrust. It was the man's keenness also, a keenness that surmounted bodily infirmity, that would surmount anything short of utter prostration. And Angus understood that and liked it. He could trust no one. He must be there himself!
All right, let the devil climb for it!
“Here, not so damned quick!” cried Geoffrey in a fierce half-whisper.
“Sorry,” muttered Angus, waiting.
“Blast it, can't you see I'm not quite fit?”
Angus saw nothing for a moment but a blinding anger. It passed, leaving the usual moody trace, which also tended to fade out as they finally spied into the corrie, and their voices, in husky whispers, discussed the prospect. There were no less than two heads which any sportsman might be proud of; one in particular with a fine spread and long tines, including both baysâan extremely attractive, an unusual, head, the beast himself being, unlike the imperial, of a deep golden colour. He was far out on the off side. It would again be a longish stalk, but a better chance than in the case of the imperial. Geoffrey snapped shut the glass.
“Come on!” he said. “The High Corrie.”
Angus laughed inwardly. He didn't care a tinker's curse now whether the fellow got a stag or not!
The pony-man in the distance was keeping abreast of them. He was an old hand, inured to the hill, but attached to his ancient patch of a croft. It was long past lunch-time.
“We'll see into the High Corrie first,” said Geoffrey.
Angus signalled. Not that it mattered whether Lachlan saw him or not. That wise old gillie would have his own “piece” at his own time!
The going now became heavy and complicated. The telescope was often in use. And once they had to go through the whole art of a difficult stalk to get above some beasts that, disturbed too soon, might easily head for the High Corrie and raise the alarm. As they were on the lee side of Benuain, the wind was occasionally fluky. The deer, apprehending no danger from above, more particularly as the wind came down from the heights, were naturally on the alert to danger approaching from below and up wind. Geoffrey and Angus had to keep high, and often projecting rock faces called for careful and exhausting movements, while what should have been fairly easy going on smooth, if steep, slopes, provided the most anxious moments of all from lack of cover. Once, when they seemed completely caught out, Angus proved his skill by rousing some stragglers in the way to a point just beyond curiosity. The deer looked, and looked, and finally, becoming suspicious, moved off along the side of the hill, while Angus made Geoffrey continue to lie low. Not that any compulsion was needed, for Geoffrey was aware within himself that his strength was going.
But he made no complaint, and when at long last he drew up beside Angus, amongst great boulders on a shoulder below the weathered peak of Benuain, he lay flat on his stomach, his brow on his wrists. Drawing out the cylinders of his telescope, Angus heard the heavy laboured breathing. But he had reached Coireard, the High Corrie!
Angus pulled himself forward a yard or two and inspected the corrie. It was a wide corrie but not very extensive. His astonishment was complete when he saw that, except for one immature stag on the off side, it was empty. There was no need to put the glass on it. Automatically he lifted the telescope to his eye and searched the far shoulder. Completely deserted. He had a look at the young stag. One of the antlers was undergrown and had a deformed twist. The brute had got injured some time and was keeping by himself.
“Well?” came the harsh whisper.
Angus had forgotten his gentleman. He now slid back and shook his head. “Nothing.”
Geoffrey's eyes pierced into him as if accusing him of some malign trick. It was a brutal fleshy attack. But Angus understood that it really came from the inner places of defeat and desperation, and was automatic and ugly, but not really personal.
“Look for yourself,” said Angus, and handed him the glass. “There's just one small stag.”
After Geoffrey had spied for a long time, he was about to get up, when Angus stopped him. “Let me have one more look, please.”
“What's the damned good of looking?” asked Geoffrey in his normal voice.
Angus, his brows drawn, instantly hushed him to silence and, ignoring his expression, picked up the young stag again. The thought that this young stag might be a toady attendant on the great had occurred to him, not an unusual relationship amongst deer. Yard by careful yard around the young stag, he searched out the ground. Just beyond the stag there were some shallow folds in the ground and tufts of old rank heather, though for the most part the real heather belt was now below them. Growing out of one of these tufts were what looked like the bare branches of a stunted shrub. He concentrated on them: two branches that curved in towards each other, the two final long spikes of each branch “blown” towards the other two. The span, the grace, the Highland arch. O god of Benuain! The glass shook the vision out of focus.
S
ir John raised his eyebrows as he saw Geoffrey emerge from the gun-room door ready for the hill. Harry and George showed an equal surprise. Maclean was the first to say good morning.
“Really feeling fit for it?” asked Sir John.
“Yes,” said Geoffrey. “Not quite free and easy but exercise should oil the parts.”
“I'm glad,” said George handsomely, for he would now have to stand down.
“Quite sure?” asked Geoffrey.
Harry offered George his beat and so did Sir John, but George assured them that he had yesterday set so high a standard that he was relieved, for their sakes, not to have to repeat it.
When the beats were gone over and the wind discussed, Sir John asked Geoffrey what he thought was the easiest one for him.
“Benuain, if I may have my choice.”
Sir John regarded him with frank astonishment. “Butâthe climbing?”
Geoffrey shrugged. He would manage all right.
The pony had been sent on. The car would take him round by the public road to within a mile or two. The wind was just right for the west approach.⦠He would have a bite of breakfast.
George, seeing Joyce come round the corner of the house, went towards her, signalling silence with his face. “Geoff!” he muttered. Then aloud, “Would you care to come with us, while I drive Geoffrey round?” And he marched her off to the garage.
When, at the end of the drive, Geoffrey and Angus got out and good wishes had been offered, Joyce said to George, “Isn't he determined to get something?”
“Something!” said George. “He's going to get King Brude or bust. He was merely in a funk lest Harry or I got him. Odd chap, Geoffrey, in many ways. Fighter and all that; keen and jealous as a schoolboy. Angus will have to watch his step to-day! See, there's the pony coming.” George had to go on half a mile before he could turn his car. On the way back they saw Geoffrey's large figure astride the small beast and stopped the car to chuckle.
“Wonder what's in his mind?” asked Joyce.
“Death,” said George.
Which was wonderfully near the truth, for at that moment Geoffrey called to Angus and spoke to him, saying that this was not a day for any mistake to be made; if King Brude was on Benuain, then King Brude must die. What was the plan? And as Angus went over the ground, from one spy point to the next, Geoffrey cross-questioned him. There was no laughter in his face. It was grey and grim. There was none in Angus's face, which showed signs of last night's wastage at Corr Inn.
“He may not be there at all,” said Angus.
“No doubt. But he is more likely to be there than anywhere else in the forest, isn't he?”
“Yes,” said Angus.
“You know that the heights of Benuain are his usual ground; that in this weather he'll never be lower down?”
“It's not likely,” said Angus.
“Well, what do you mean?”
“I mean that he may not be in the forest at all.”
“He may not. He may be in the damned moon, but it's not likely. Unless, of course, he has second sight.” He laughed. “He may move in four dimensions.” He felt cheered a bit, for he was not in good physical form. “Know anything about the fourth dimension?”
Angus appeared not to hear.
“There's a legend that a lot of you fellows know Latin and Greek. Ever heard of that?”
Angus remained silent.
“Don't you understand a joke?” Then on a more friendly tone, “Why make the idiotic suggestion that he may not be up there? To cheer me up?”
“It wasn't an idiotic suggestion,” said Angus. “The rut is on. Last year I know that King Brude had his hinds in Glenan Forest. He was nearly shot there by Lord Starnes in the first week of October. He'll go there this year again.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that's the way a stag like him behaves. He goes back to the same place for his hinds.”
Geoffrey rode on, trying not to think of Lord Starnes, trying to banish the appalling vision of that plutocratic gentleman shooting King Brude, shooting the stag that was his, Geoffrey Smith's, and no one else's on earth. His eyes gleamed vindictively, his mouth closed.
The first climb was not too difficult, and with a fair wind against them, no great precautions had to be taken. Geoffrey rested occasionally, rubbing a spot in his right side each time. His kneecap, too, felt the strain and had a deceitful tendency to go numb. But he refused to let Angus go on alone, and after an hour's hard work they came to their first vantage point, where broken ground made spying easy.
It was not a corrie but a valley through the hills, a high broad pass, and it lay in the forenoon sunlight very still and silent. Geoffrey got his excitement, however, not from so immaterial a thing as a sense of beauty, but from the reality of red deer that his naked eyes picked out here and there. The sight of them flushed all his flesh, banished pain and tiredness. Not three hundred yards away, some hinds were feeding up wind. A stag, too; a nine pointer, and a heavy beast; and one or two more stags, youngsters, on the outskirts. Feeding quietly, moving forward a step or two, cropping the tender shoots, unsuspiciously, with quiet grace. Occasionally a head lifted and took the air with such extreme sensitiveness that it stopped one's breath. Then his eyes picked out quite a small herd on the opposite side that he had completely missed. The place was alive with them! Positively swarming! He gulped and looked at Angus spying so concentratedly, slowly, and felt impatient to get the telescope for himself.
“Anything doing?” he whispered.
Angus paid no attention until he had finished; then he very slowly slid back.
“There's one really fine beast over there,” he said.
“With that lot of hinds?”
“Yes.” Angus was slightly excited. The hunt did this to him, tended to make him forget personal vanities and insults, for coming up the hill he had vowed that he was not going to do much for this particular sort of gentleman if he could help it. And he knew the ways by which a cunning stalker can invisibly defeat the consummation of an impeccable stalk.
“Is it King Brude?”
“No,” said Angus. “King Brude is not there. I don't know this beast. An imperialâthirteen points.”
“An imperial!” Geoffrey got hold of the telescope and picked up the stag. He spied for a long time. Then he slid back and nodded. “Cupped antlers.”
“Double cups.”
Geoffrey stirred restlessly. Angus said nothing, aware of the internal struggle. Geoffrey began to question him on the chances of this stalk. Angus explained how it was impossible to get at him where he was, but how in course of time, the hinds should reach a certain spot, where approach would be feasible. They would feed on. They might lie downâalmost certainly would. It meant a wide detour to come in on them because of the nature of the high ground on the other side. But it should be possible. They might have to give their day to it.
“You think we'd get him?”
“There's a good chance.”
The talk went on for some time, covering all possibilities of the disturbance of these deer, of other deer, all the endless tactics and strategy of the forest.
“What do you think?” Geoffrey asked.
“There is no doubt that that is the stalk we should do.”
And there was just no doubt about it. A bellow came up from the pass. Geoffrey got the spy-glass trained again. The imperial was chasing away a young stag that had dared come too near the hinds. While he was engaged on this task, another young fellow amorously adventured his presence on the other side of the hinds. The imperial, turning back, saw him, and, with a short bellow, charged. The young six-pointer was properly nimble, however. The old sultan was giving definition to his harem! A heavy, dark-skinned beast, with what would surely be the outstanding head of the season.
Geoffrey snapped shut the telescope. “If we find nothing in the higher corries, we might get him in the evening. We'll go on.” His face was slightly congested. Angus said nothing, but about his eyes came an expression of dry sarcasm. Stags had not yet developed the obliging habit of waiting for anyone.
They had to descend again, and work round below the level of the pass on the west side, where the ground sloped steeply. Twice they were troubled by deer, and had to do one long wriggle up a scree that Geoffrey found very tiring. Angus was insistent that they take no chances of disturbing deer higher up. Geoffrey saw the point, but more than once deemed Angus's care excessive. He knew quite well that Angus could take it out of him if he liked. And he was troubled by the consciousness that he should, as a sportsman, have gone for the imperial. There were other rifles in the forest; others who must take similar chances when they came their way.
Angus went on and waited for him, went on and waited, tireless, brown, tough as heather, his large mouth open often and wet, his eyes dark blue and gleaming.
Geoffrey followed grimly, pausing now and then, but never for long. For an hour they did not speak.
“That's the spot,” said Angus pointing upward to the edge of a hollow against the sky. “From that knob, that lump, we'll see into the corrie. If you like, I could go up alone and see if he's in it. If he's not, then there's nothing for it but Coireard, and you would be saved the climb here.”
Geoffrey stood gazing up. “I'll go with you,” he said.
He doesn't trust me! Angus thought. He smiled to himself, with a leftward twist of his mouth. For he knew it was not altogether distrust. It was the man's keenness also, a keenness that surmounted bodily infirmity, that would surmount anything short of utter prostration. And Angus understood that and liked it. He could trust no one. He must be there himself!
All right, let the devil climb for it!
“Here, not so damned quick!” cried Geoffrey in a fierce half-whisper.
“Sorry,” muttered Angus, waiting.
“Blast it, can't you see I'm not quite fit?”
Angus saw nothing for a moment but a blinding anger. It passed, leaving the usual moody trace, which also tended to fade out as they finally spied into the corrie, and their voices, in husky whispers, discussed the prospect. There were no less than two heads which any sportsman might be proud of; one in particular with a fine spread and long tines, including both baysâan extremely attractive, an unusual, head, the beast himself being, unlike the imperial, of a deep golden colour. He was far out on the off side. It would again be a longish stalk, but a better chance than in the case of the imperial. Geoffrey snapped shut the glass.
“Come on!” he said. “The High Corrie.”
Angus laughed inwardly. He didn't care a tinker's curse now whether the fellow got a stag or not!
The pony-man in the distance was keeping abreast of them. He was an old hand, inured to the hill, but attached to his ancient patch of a croft. It was long past lunch-time.
“We'll see into the High Corrie first,” said Geoffrey.
Angus signalled. Not that it mattered whether Lachlan saw him or not. That wise old gillie would have his own “piece” at his own time!
The going now became heavy and complicated. The telescope was often in use. And once they had to go through the whole art of a difficult stalk to get above some beasts that, disturbed too soon, might easily head for the High Corrie and raise the alarm. As they were on the lee side of Benuain, the wind was occasionally fluky. The deer, apprehending no danger from above, more particularly as the wind came down from the heights, were naturally on the alert to danger approaching from below and up wind. Geoffrey and Angus had to keep high, and often projecting rock faces called for careful and exhausting movements, while what should have been fairly easy going on smooth, if steep, slopes, provided the most anxious moments of all from lack of cover. Once, when they seemed completely caught out, Angus proved his skill by rousing some stragglers in the way to a point just beyond curiosity. The deer looked, and looked, and finally, becoming suspicious, moved off along the side of the hill, while Angus made Geoffrey continue to lie low. Not that any compulsion was needed, for Geoffrey was aware within himself that his strength was going.
But he made no complaint, and when at long last he drew up beside Angus, amongst great boulders on a shoulder below the weathered peak of Benuain, he lay flat on his stomach, his brow on his wrists. Drawing out the cylinders of his telescope, Angus heard the heavy laboured breathing. But he had reached Coireard, the High Corrie!
Angus pulled himself forward a yard or two and inspected the corrie. It was a wide corrie but not very extensive. His astonishment was complete when he saw that, except for one immature stag on the off side, it was empty. There was no need to put the glass on it. Automatically he lifted the telescope to his eye and searched the far shoulder. Completely deserted. He had a look at the young stag. One of the antlers was undergrown and had a deformed twist. The brute had got injured some time and was keeping by himself.
“Well?” came the harsh whisper.
Angus had forgotten his gentleman. He now slid back and shook his head. “Nothing.”
Geoffrey's eyes pierced into him as if accusing him of some malign trick. It was a brutal fleshy attack. But Angus understood that it really came from the inner places of defeat and desperation, and was automatic and ugly, but not really personal.
“Look for yourself,” said Angus, and handed him the glass. “There's just one small stag.”
After Geoffrey had spied for a long time, he was about to get up, when Angus stopped him. “Let me have one more look, please.”
“What's the damned good of looking?” asked Geoffrey in his normal voice.
Angus, his brows drawn, instantly hushed him to silence and, ignoring his expression, picked up the young stag again. The thought that this young stag might be a toady attendant on the great had occurred to him, not an unusual relationship amongst deer. Yard by careful yard around the young stag, he searched out the ground. Just beyond the stag there were some shallow folds in the ground and tufts of old rank heather, though for the most part the real heather belt was now below them. Growing out of one of these tufts were what looked like the bare branches of a stunted shrub. He concentrated on them: two branches that curved in towards each other, the two final long spikes of each branch “blown” towards the other two. The span, the grace, the Highland arch. O god of Benuain! The glass shook the vision out of focus.
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