by John Buchan
That was what the innkeeper had told them. Mr. McCunn inquired concerning the inn.
“There’s new folk just came. What’s this they ca’ them? — Robson — Dobson — aye, Dobson. What far wad they no’ tak’ ye in? Does the man think he’s a laird to refuse folk that gait?”
“He said he had illness in the house.”
Mrs. Morran meditated. “Whae in the world can be lyin’ there? The man bides his lane. He got a lassie frae Auchenlochan to cook, but she and her box gaed off in the post-cairt yestreen. I doot he tell’t ye a lee, though it’s no for me to juidge him. I’ve never spoken a word to ane o’ thae new folk.”
Dickson inquired about the “new folk.”
“They’re a’ now come in the last three weeks, and there’s no’ a man o’ the auld stock left. John Blackstocks at the Wast Lodge dee’d o’ pneumony last back-end, and auld Simon Tappie at the Gairdens flitted to Maybole a year come Mairtinmas. There’s naebody at the Gairdens noo, but there’s a man come to the Wast Lodge, a blackavised body wi’ a face like bend-leather. Tam Robison used to bide at the South Lodge, but Tam got killed about Mesopotamy, and his wife took the bairns to her guidsire up at the Garpleheid. I seen the man that’s in the South Lodge gaun up the street when I was finishin’ my denner — a shilpit body and a lameter, but he hirples as fast as ither folk run. He’s no’ bonny to look at.. I canna think what the factor’s ettlin’ at to let sic ill-faured chiels come about the toun.”
Their hostess was rapidly rising in Dickson’s esteem. She sat very straight in her chair, eating with the careful gentility of a bird, and primming her thin lips after every mouthful of tea.
“Wha bides in the Big House?” he asked. “Huntingtower is the name, isn’t it?”
“When I was a lassie they ca’ed it Dalquharter Hoose, and Huntingtower was the auld rickle o’ stanes at the sea-end. But naething wad serve the last laird’s father but he maun change the name, for he was clean daft about what they ca’ antickities. Ye speir whae bides in the Hoose? Naebody, since the young laird dee’d. It’s standin’ cauld and lanely and steikit, and it aince the cheeriest dwallin’ in a’ Carrick.”
Mrs. Morran’s tone grew tragic. “It’s a queer warld wi’out the auld gentry. My faither and my guidsire and his faither afore him served the Kennedys, and my man Dauvit Morran was gemkeeper to them, and afore I mairried I was ane o’ the table-maids. They were kind folk, the Kennedys, and, like a’ the rale gentry, maist mindfu’ o’ them that served them. Sic merry nichts I’ve seen in the auld Hoose, at Hallowe’en and Hogmanay, and at the servants’ balls and the waddin’s o’ the young leddies! But the laird bode to waste his siller in stane and lime, and hadna that much to leave to his bairns. And now they’re a’ scattered or deid.”
Her grave face wore the tenderness which comes from affectionate reminiscence.
“There was never sic a laddie as young Maister Quentin. No’ a week gaed by but he was in here, cryin’, ‘Phemie Morran, I’ve come till my tea!’ Fine he likit my treacle scones, puir man. There wasna ane in the countryside sae bauld a rider at the hunt, or sic a skeely fisher. And he was clever at his books tae, a graund scholar, they said, and ettlin’ at bein’ what they ca’ a dipplemat, But that’ a’ bye wi’.”
“Quentin Kennedy — the fellow in the Tins?” Heritage asked. “I saw him in Rome when he was with the Mission.”
“I dinna ken. He was a brave sodger, but he wasna long fechtin’ in France till he got a bullet in his breist. Syne we heard tell o’ him in far awa’ bits like Russia; and syne cam’ the end o’ the war and we lookit to see him back, fishin’ the waters and ridin’ like Jehu as in the auld days. But wae’s me! It wasna permitted. The next news we got, the puir laddie was deid o’ influenzy and buried somewhere about France. The wanchancy bullet maun have weakened his chest, nae doot. So that’s the end o’ the guid stock o’ Kennedy o’ Huntingtower, whae hae been great folk sin’ the time o’ Robert Bruce. And noo the Hoose is shut up till the lawyers can get somebody sae far left to himsel’ as to tak’ it on lease, and in thae dear days it’s no’ just onybody that wants a muckle castle.”
“Who are the lawyers?” Dickson asked.
“Glendonan and Speirs in Embro. But they never look near the place, and Maister Loudon in Auchenlochan does the factorin’. He’s let the public an’ filled the twae lodges, and he’ll be thinkin’ nae doot that he’s done eneuch.”
Mrs. Morran had poured some hot water into the big slop-bowl, and had begun the operation known as “synding out” the cups. It was a hint that the meal was over, and Dickson and Heritage rose from the table. Followed by an injunction to be back for supper “on the chap o’ nine,” they strolled out into the evening. Two hours of some sort of daylight remained, and the travellers had that impulse to activity which comes to all men who, after a day of exercise and emptiness, are stayed with a satisfying tea.
“You should be happy, Dogson,” said the Poet. “Here we have all the materials for your blessed romance — old mansion, extinct family, village deserted of men, and an innkeeper whom I suspect of being a villain. I feel almost a convert to your nonsense myself. We’ll have a look at the House.”
They turned down the road which ran north by the park wall, past the inn, which looked more abandoned than ever, till they came to an entrance which was clearly the West Lodge. It had once been a pretty, modish cottage, with a thatched roof and dormer windows, but now it was badly in need of repair. A window-pane was broken and stuffed with a sack, the posts of the porch were giving inwards, and the thatch was crumbling under the attentions of a colony of starlings. The great iron gates were rusty, and on the coat of arms above them the gilding was patchy and tarnished. Apparently the gates were locked, and even the side wicket failed to open to Heritage’s vigorous shaking. Inside a weedy drive disappeared among ragged rhododendrons.
The noise brought a man to the lodge door. He was a sturdy fellow in a suit of black clothes which had not been made for him. He might have been a butler en deshabillé, but for the presence of a pair of field boots into which he had tucked the ends of his trousers. The curious thing about him was his face, which was decorated with features so tiny as to give the impression of a monstrous child. Each in itself was well enough formed, but eyes, nose, mouth, chin were of a smallness curiously out of proportion to the head and body. Such an anomaly might have been redeemed by the expression; good-humour would have invested it with an air of agreeable farce. But there was no friendliness in the man’s face. It was set like a judge’s in a stony impassiveness.
“May we walk up to the House?” Heritage asked. “We are here for a night and should like to have a look at it.”
The man advanced a step. He had either a bad cold, or a voice comparable in size to his features.
“There’s no entrance here,” he said huskily. “I have strict orders.”
“Oh, come now,” said Heritage. “It can do nobody any harm if you let us in for half an hour.”
The man advanced another step.
“You shall not come in. Go away from here. Go away, I tell you. It is private.” The words spoken by the small mouth in the small voice had a kind of childish ferocity.
The travellers turned their back on him and continued their way.
“Sich a curmudgeon!” Dickson commented. His face had flushed, for he was susceptible to rudeness. “Did you notice? That man’s a foreigner.”
“He’s a brute,” said Heritage. “But I’m not going to be done in by that class of lad. There can be no gates on the sea side, so we’ll work round that way, for I won’t sleep till I’ve seen the place.”
Presently the trees grew thinner, and the road plunged through thickets of hazel till it came to a sudden stop in a field. There the cover ceased wholly, and below them lay the glen of the Laver. Steep green banks descended to a stream which swept in coils of gold into the eye of the sunset. A little farther down the channel broadened, the slopes fell back a little, and a tongue of glitteri
ng sea ran up to meet the hill waters. The Laver is a gentle stream after it leaves its cradle heights, a stream of clear pools and long bright shallows, winding by moorland steadings and upland meadows; but in its last half-mile it goes mad, and imitates its childhood when it tumbled over granite shelves. Down in that green place the crystal water gushed and frolicked as if determined on one hour of rapturous life before joining the sedater sea.
Heritage flung himself on the turf.
“This is a good place! Ye gods, what a good place! Dogson, aren’t you glad you came? I think everything’s bewitched to-night. That village is bewitched, and that old woman’s tea. Good white magic! And that foul innkeeper and that brigand at the gate. Black magic! And now here is the home of all enchantment—’island valley of Avilion’—’waters that listen for lovers’ — all the rest of it!”
Dickson observed and marvelled.
“I can’t make you out, Mr. Heritage. You were saying last night you were a great democrat, and yet you were objecting to yon laddies camping on the moor. And you very near bit the neb off me when I said I liked Tennyson. And now... “ Mr. McCunn’s command of language was inadequate to describe the transformation.
“You’re a precise, pragmatical Scot,” was the answer. “Hang it, man, don’t remind me that I’m inconsistent. I’ve a poet’s licence to play the fool, and if you don’t understand me, I don’t in the least understand myself. All I know is that I’m feeling young and jolly, and that it’s the Spring.”
Mr. Heritage was assuredly in a strange mood. He began to whistle with a far-away look in his eye.
“Do you know what that is?” he asked suddenly.
Dickson, who could not detect any tune, said “No.”
“It’s an aria from a Russian opera that came out just before the war. I’ve forgotten the name of the fellow who wrote it. Jolly thing, isn’t it? I always remind myself of it when I’m in this mood, for it is linked with the greatest experience of my life. You said, I think, that you had never been in love?”
Dickson replied in the native fashion. “Have you?” he asked.
“I have, and I am — been for two years. I was down with my battalion on the Italian front early in 1918, and because I could speak the language they hoicked me out and sent me to Rome on a liaison job. It was Easter time and fine weather, and, being glad to get out of the trenches, I was pretty well pleased with myself and enjoying life. In the place where I stayed there was a girl. She was a Russian, a princess of a great family, but a refugee, and of course as poor as sin. I remember how badly dressed she was among all the well-to-do Romans. But, my God, what a beauty! There was never anything in the world like her. She was little more than a child, and she used to sing that air in the morning as she went down the stairs. They sent me back to the front before I had a chance of getting to know her, but she used to give me little timid good mornings, and her voice and eyes were like an angel’s. I’m over my head in love, but it’s hopeless, quite hopeless. I shall never see her again.”
“I’m sure I’m honoured by your confidence,” said Dickson reverently.
The Poet, who seemed to draw exhilaration from the memory of his sorrows, arose and fetched him a clout on the back. “Don’t talk of confidence, as if you were a reporter,” he said. “What about that House? If we’re to see it before the dark comes we’d better hustle.”
The green slopes on their left, as they ran seaward, were clothed towards their summit with a tangle of broom and light scrub. The two forced their way through it, and found to their surprise that on this side there were no defences of the Huntingtower demesne. Along the crest ran a path which had once been gravelled and trimmed. Beyond, through a thicket of laurels and rhododendrons, they came on a long unkempt aisle of grass, which seemed to be one of those side avenues often found in connection with old Scots dwellings. Keeping along this they reached a grove of beech and holly through which showed a dim shape of masonry. By a common impulse they moved stealthily, crouching in cover, till at the far side of the wood they found a sunk fence and looked over an acre or two of what had once been lawn and flower-beds to the front of the mansion.
The outline of the building was clearly silhouetted against the glowing west, but since they were looking at the east face the detail was all in shadow. But, dim as it was, the sight was enough to give Dickson the surprise of his life. He had expected something old and baronial. But this was new, raw and new, not twenty years built. Some madness had prompted its creator to set up a replica of a Tudor house in a countryside where the thing was unheard of. All the tricks were there — oriel windows, lozenged panes, high twisted chimney stacks; the very stone was red, as if to imitate the mellow brick of some ancient Kentish manor. It was new, but it was also decaying. The creepers had fallen from the walls, the pilasters on the terrace were tumbling down, lichen and moss were on the doorsteps. Shuttered, silent, abandoned, it stood like a harsh memento mori of human hopes.
Dickson had never before been affected by an inanimate thing with so strong a sense of disquiet. He had pictured an old stone tower on a bright headland; he found instead this raw thing among trees. The decadence of the brand-new repels as something against nature, and this new thing was decadent. But there was a mysterious life in it, for though not a chimney smoked, it seemed to enshrine a personality and to wear a sinister aura. He felt a lively distaste, which was almost fear. He wanted to get far away from it as fast as possible. The sun, now sinking very low, sent up rays which kindled the crests of a group of firs to the left of the front door.
He had the absurd fancy that they were torches flaming before a bier.
It was well that the two had moved quietly and kept in shadow. Footsteps fell on their ears, on the path which threaded the lawn just beyond the sunk-fence. It was the keeper of the West Lodge and he carried something on his back, but both that and his face were indistinct in the half-light.
Other footsteps were heard, coming from the other side of the lawn. A man’s shod feet rang on the stone of a flagged path, and from their irregular fall it was plain that he was lame. The two men met near the door, and spoke together. Then they separated, and moved one down each side of the house. To the two watchers they had the air of a patrol, or of warders pacing the corridors of a prison.
“Let’s get out of this,” said Dickson, and turned to go.
The air had the curious stillness which precedes the moment of sunset, when the birds of day have stopped their noises and the sounds of night have not begun. But suddenly in the silence fell notes of music. They seemed to come from the house, a voice singing softly but with great beauty and clearness.
Dickson halted in his steps. The tune, whatever it was, was like a fresh wind to blow aside his depression. The house no longer looked sepulchral. He saw that the two men had hurried back from their patrol, had met and exchanged some message, and made off again as if alarmed by the music. Then he noticed his companion...
Heritage was on one knee with his face rapt and listening. He got to his feet and appeared to be about to make for the House. Dickson caught him by the arm and dragged him into the bushes, and he followed unresistingly, like a man in a dream. They ploughed through the thicket, recrossed the grass avenue, and scrambled down the hillside to the banks of the stream.
Then for the first time Dickson observed that his companion’s face was very white, and that sweat stood on his temples. Heritage lay down and lapped up water like a dog. Then he turned a wild eye on the other.
“I am going back,” he said. “That is the voice of the girl I saw in Rome, and it is singing her song!”
CHAPTER 4. DOUGAL
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Dickson. “You’re coming home to your supper. It was to be on the chap of nine.”
“I’m going back to that place.”
The man was clearly demented and must be humoured. “Well, you must wait till the morn’s morning. It’s very near dark now, and those are two ugly customers wandering about yonder. Y
ou’d better sleep the night on it.”
Mr. Heritage seemed to be persuaded. He suffered himself to be led up the now dusky slopes to the gate where the road from the village ended. He walked listlessly like a man engaged in painful reflection. Once only he broke the silence.
“You heard the singing?” he asked.
Dickson was a very poor hand at a lie. “I heard something,” he admitted.
“You heard a girl’s voice singing?”
“It sounded like that,” was the admission. “But I’m thinking it might have been a seagull.”
“You’re a fool,” said the Poet rudely.
The return was a melancholy business, compared to the bright speed of the outward journey. Dickson’s mind was a chaos of feelings, all of them unpleasant. He had run up against something which he violently, blindly detested, and the trouble was that he could not tell why. It was all perfectly absurd, for why on earth should an ugly house, some overgrown trees, and a couple of ill-favoured servants so malignly affect him? Yet this was the fact; he had strayed out of Arcady into a sphere that filled him with revolt and a nameless fear. Never in his experience had he felt like this, this foolish childish panic which took all the colour and zest out of life. He tried to laugh at himself but failed. Heritage, stumbling along by his side, effectually crushed his effort to discover humour in the situation. Some exhalation from that infernal place had driven the Poet mad. And then that voice singing! A seagull, he had said. More like a nightingale, he reflected — a bird which in the flesh he had never met.
Mrs. Morran had the lamp lit and a fire burning in her cheerful kitchen. The sight of it somewhat restored Dickson’s equanimity, and to his surprise he found that he had an appetite for supper. There was new milk, thick with cream, and most of the dainties which had appeared at tea, supplemented by a noble dish of shimmering “potted-head.” The hostess did not share their meal, being engaged in some duties in the little cubby-hole known as the back kitchen.