She stood up, without becoming much taller, and came close to the hedge. ‘Yon’s gey bonny dogs you hae there,’ she said. Although her speech was broad her voice was pure and she had a ready grin. Despite her goblinlike appearance, I found myself inclined to like her. Pru evidently agreed, because she reappeared at the woman’s side bearing one of the rabbits that we had collected and delivered the limp body into her hands. The old woman accepted it without any sign of squeamishness. When she held it out to me I said, ‘Keep it, if you’d like it.’
She smiled with the warmth that redeemed her face. ‘I’d like it fine,’ she said. ‘Rabbit flesh is hailsome meat. I’m Elsie Dundee,’ she added.
‘John Cunningham.’
‘I ken that,’ she said. ‘You’re the dog man.’
I bade her a slightly cool farewell. I dislike being addressed as Captain but I once threatened to sue a journalist who referred to me as a dog man.
All went well until we were almost back at the car and ready to leave, when the youngest dog put up a cock pheasant which rocketed, gaudy in the sunshine, only to hit an overhead wire in a puff of bronze feathers and come spiralling down with a broken wing, just over the boundary. Burn, the oldest dog, brought it to me for the coup de grâce.
Even so early in the season, the game dealers were giving only the price of a pint of beer for a pheasant and this would soon be reduced to less than half. All the same, I was in no doubt that I must deliver the bird to Alec with an apology. One can feel totally alone in the countryside; but break a single rule and an observer will pop out of every bush. I turned the car and picked my way between the potholes back towards Lincraigs Farmhouse.
*
In the farmyard the tractor was muttering to itself like a bad-tempered old man, but at the farmhouse door Alec Hatton was talking to a visitor. As I stopped the car at the mouth of the yard they both looked round and I saw that the visitor was Dougal Webb, dressed for once not in his elegant casuals but in dusty jeans and a sweater. A few more quick words were exchanged before Dougal turned away. He gave us a cheerful nod as he went by. He vanished into a dip leading down through a field of set-aside land towards Ardrossie.
Alec Hatton followed more slowly. He was around forty, lightly built though I knew that he was very strong. I got out of the car to meet him, holding out the pheasant. ‘You’d better take this,’ I said.
He smiled to Daffy who was still in the car, then looked at me in surprise for several seconds. His weather-beaten face was as thin as his body and seemed have melted slightly so that his lower lip, his nose and even his eyelids seemed to droop despondently. He took the pheasant out of my hands and felt for the wing-tag. ‘You mistook it for a flying rabbit?’ he suggested.
‘He flew into the overhead wires,’ I explained.
He shook his head. ‘I bet one of your dogs pegged it.’
This was almost fighting talk. For a trained dog to pick up an unpricked bird which was sitting tight would be an eliminating fault in a field trial and very close to being a cardinal sin. But I kept my temper. I had only lived in the area for seven or eight years, and it was quite customary for the native Fifer to needle one who would still be counted a stranger, just to test his reaction. ‘You’d better pluck it for yourself,’ I said patiently. ‘You’ll find a broken wing. And I wrung his neck. That’s all. No shot. Do you want a dozen rabbits?’
My reply passed the test. He smiled suddenly, dissipating the apparent gloom of his features, and thrust the pheasant back at me. ‘You keep it,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it’s a Marksmuir bird, one of last year’s from the tag. Yon mannie Cove might buy your rabbits.’
We both looked towards Ardrossie. The Lincraigs buildings were set on the edge of a rise overlooking the other farm. Below us, Dougal Webb had reached the boundary fence. I saw him put one hand on a fence post and vault nimbly over the barbed wire before unhesitatingly hopping the overhung ditch between two hawthorn trees. He seemed to be familiar with his way across. We could see over the corrugated roofs of the new buildings in their anodized, pastel colours to the sturdy old farm buildings. As we watched, Quentin Cove came out of the factory buildings and looked towards us, shading his eyes.
‘I’ll keep them,’ I said. ‘There’s no point selling them cheap to him and then buying them back in his dogfood at three times the price. And I’ll bet he’s got plenty of rabbits on Ardrossie.’
Alec nodded. ‘That’s for sure,’ he said. ‘He’d likely be glad of a hand with them.’
‘You’d think so,’ I said. ‘But he told young Dougal to tell me that he’d taken money for the rough shooting, so he couldn’t in fairness give away permissions. Who would the shooting tenant be?’
Alec pushed back his cap and scratched a balding scalp. ‘Dashed if I know. I’ve never seen a soul with a gun. Nor heard a shot since the last time you were over the ground a month or two back, except for Mr Cove hisself training his dogs. Are you and the lassie coming in for a fly cup?’
‘We’ll do that,’ I said. Mrs Hatton’s baking was the best for miles around, rivalled only by that of her two daughters. Also, you never know when some oddment of farming gossip may come in useful, if only as a topic of conversation.
The farmhouse kitchen was filled with delicious smells. There were fresh scones on the table and raspberry jam, and big mugs of tea. It was a comfortable haven after the crispness and activity of the morning.
Mrs Hatton was unashamedly stout. The two daughters were strapping girls who would probably go the same way as their mother in time. Alec Hatton had no employees but ran the farm with their help and making use of outside contractors. The girls were much in demand socially. Dorothy, the elder girl, we learned was engaged to be married to the son of a big farmer near Leslie. Her younger sister, Emily, was frankly envious. I hoped for Hannah’s sake that Dougal Webb’s visits to Lincraigs were business rather than pleasure. And yet, perhaps a jilting would not be the worst that could come to her. She was young enough to recover. We, on the other hand, might never find another such kennel-maid.
The topic of Dorothy’s leaving the nest and its repercussions on the farm lasted until we were almost ready to leave. Then Daffy, who, with her own husband safely in the bag, had been listening with only half an ear, asked Alec, ‘Do you see Mr Cove often, training his spaniels?’
‘Most days, for an hour or so in the morn and again after his dinner. You can’t help but see him,’ Alec explained. ‘If he’s in a hurry, he just takes them onto the bittie rough ground at the end of the big barn. It’s right under our noses, as you might say.’
‘You said that you heard shots when he was training them.’
‘That’s right. He uses the gun, but I’ve seen him more often with the dummy thrower.’
‘Have you seen him working with Mim? That’s the brindled young bitch he got from us. But she’d look grey at a distance,’ Daffy explained carefully.
Alec looked blank. His interest in dogs only extended as far as working collies and the dogs of his syndicate members. His daughters were the spaniel fanciers. Dorothy had a spaniel of Three Oaks breeding.
‘I’ve seen her,’ Dorothy said.
‘Is she all right?’ Daffy asked. ‘Did she look happy and fit?’
‘For all you can tell at a quarter-mile,’ said Dorothy. ‘She seemed to have plenty of energy.’
‘Has he been complaining about gun-shyness?’
Alec laughed while eating cake and almost choked. ‘We never discuss dogs with him these days. Not after the matter he made of it when Dorothy’s dog covered one of his bitches.’
We got up to leave, but we were not to drive off straight away. Somebody had removed all four valves from the tyres of my car. Alec was very apologetic although the whole family had been in the kitchen with us when the deed was done. He set off immediately in his own car to obtain a set of valves from the nearest service station and then fetched a compressor from his tractor shed to re-inflate the tyres. We agreed that it must have been the
work of small boys, with whom the area was over-provided.
*
Soon after that, life began to gather pace again.
Ash was entered in a novice stake for the Saturday. I was determined, as usual, to send him out with all his lessons fresh in his little mind. Familiarity with the ‘real thing’ is essential to a working dog’s upbringing, but Ash was not short of experience picking-up. Conversely, to take him out on a solo expedition into the field would have been to risk a blank and wasted day. With a little ingenuity, all the basic lessons could be reinforced in the comfortably familiar atmosphere of home.
The snow had thawed, to be replaced by dull and sometimes drizzly weather. I had long before covered several dummies with pheasant skins. On the Friday morning, I fetched them out of the bag of fresh pheasant feathers in which, so that the scent would remain familiar, they were stored. In another field of set-aside land behind the house I set up several spring-operated devices of my own making which could toss a dummy, after the manner of a Roman ballista, in a reasonable mimicry of a rocketing pheasant. I fetched my gun, a blank adapter, some blank cartridges, Isobel and Henry, on the way out passing Dougal Webb who was making eyes at Hannah.
We spent a useful hour in the set-aside land. Isobel worked Ash to and fro, keeping him always under control. From time to time I would send up a dummy from one or another of my devices, Henry would fire a blank cartridge and the dummy would fall in the cover. When we were sure that Ash was steady and as closely in tune with his job as he ever would be, we knocked off before boredom could set in and undo the good work.
The trial was to be in Ayrshire. Isobel, chauffeured by Daffy, would have to set off that afternoon and make an overnight stay so, instead of going back to his kennel, Ash went into a travelling box in the back of my car.
The kitchen, containing both the range and the central-heating boiler, tends to overheat, so the back door often stands ajar. We found Dougal still leaning against the jamb in an attitude of calculated negligence, aiming flirtatious remarks at Hannah who, to do her justice, was concentrating on the preparation of a meal for the latest litter of pups. Dougal could seem almost dapper in his carefully chosen ‘smart’ gear, but today he was still in his dusty working clothes and looked almost ungainly.
Dougal, it seemed, was not so fixated on concupiscence as to forget other manly pursuits. He glanced round and stiffened like a pointer. ‘Nice gun,’ he said. ‘May I look?’ I was carrying one of my dummy traps in one hand. He took my Dickson Round Action from under my other arm without waiting for my permission, dropped the barrels and looked through at the daylight outside. The gesture proved nothing except that he knew how to operate the top-lever. With the blank cartridge adapters in place he could have seen very little. But he inspected the sparse engraving and tried the gun to his shoulder several times.
Hannah, noticeably piqued, was making little noises to attract his attention but was ignored in the face of more macho attractions. ‘Very nice indeed,’ Dougal said, closing and handing back the gun. ‘I bet that cost you a bob or two.’
I was too disgusted by what I considered to be his bad manners to feel like recounting the story of how I had come by the gun. It was, in fact, very valuable and I was still slightly ashamed of the bargain which had been almost forced on me. I jumped at the excuse provided by Henry’s arrival with two more of my dummy traps and turned away to unlock the door which led to my workshop.
Dougal returned his attention to Hannah.
*
Daffy and Isobel got away after lunch. We received the usual phone call to confirm their safe arrival and that Ash had travelled well and taken his dinner.
And after that, nothing. On the next day, Daffy would invariably have phoned to report on success or failure and the probable time of their return, but we waited through Saturday afternoon and into the evening.
Henry, who had been left behind to attend to one or two of his own business affairs, had spent some of the day helping us with the chores. He was becoming openly anxious, the deep lines of ageing in his face filled with darker shadows. ‘Somebody would have let us know if there’d been an accident, surely,’ he said.
‘Of course they would,’ I said stoutly. But it was only too easy to visualize the car wrecked, the dog dead or loose on the motorway and Isobel and Daffy injured and not wanting to worry us until we could be given definitive news. Pessimism feeds on ignorance. The effort of trying to think of something else only emphasized our worrying.
Henry ate with us and we spent a miserable evening together. Even Sam was fretful and rebellious but went to bed at last. Just before midnight, two hours or more after we would have expected them back, we heard the sound of a car in the drive.
Hannah was first outside into the cold night but I was close on her heels, flicking on the outside lights as I passed the switch. The car was ours. It looked travel-stained but undamaged. As far as I could see, there was nothing wrong with Ash. Daffy got out of the car, stiff from the long drive and looking fed up but all in one piece. Isobel followed. She looked sorry for herself but there were no bandages.
Beth spoke first. ‘What’s wrong? Why didn’t you phone?’
‘Didn’t want to worry you.’ I wondered how much worry is caused by the wish not to cause worry. ‘And too difficult to explain on the phone. We’ll tell you inside,’ Daffy said, shivering. She was wearing a quilted anorak, so I put her coldness down to nerves.
We moved towards the house. Hannah fetched Ash out of the car. ‘Have you eaten?’ Beth asked, putting first things first.
‘We had a snack at a Little Chef,’ Isobel said. ‘Nothing filling. I could handle a bowl of soup.’
‘And Ash?’ Hannah asked quickly.
‘Of course he’s had his dinner,’ Daffy said indignantly. ‘We wouldn’t forget that.’
Instead of taking Ash back to his kennel as the house rules dictated, Hannah brought him into the kitchen with us. She put on the kettle. ‘But what happened?’ she demanded, adding, ‘Soup coming up. Who’d like a bacon sandwich?’
Between relief and the cold, it seemed that hunger was as powerful as curiosity. We all wanted bacon sandwiches. While Beth and Hannah bustled about and the rest of us took seats at the big table, Henry demanded again to be told what disasters had befallen.
There was something more important on my mind. ‘Did we win?’ I asked.
‘It’s all part and parcel,’ Isobel said thickly.
I looked at Daffy.
‘Did we hell!’ Daffy said. ‘Mrs Kitts was great and Ash worked his little backside off. Late on, he put up a hen pheasant that the other dog had gone past and then retrieved it from water. I could see that the judges were pleased. At that point I was sure it was in the bag but – would you believe? – we were pushed into second place by Mr Cove with Mim.’
There were gasps round the table. ‘Never!’ I said.
‘It’s true,’ Isobel said, nodding. ‘And well deserved.’
‘I’m afraid it was,’ Daffy confirmed. ‘She was perfection. And not a trace of being gun-shy. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.’ She looked at me reproachfully. There could be no doubt that I had fallen from my pedestal. ‘And then, to cap it all, I got breathalysed.’
‘Did you pass? But you must have been all right or they wouldn’t have let you drive home,’ Beth said.
‘I was slightly over on the breathalyser,’ Daffy said, ‘so I insisted on a blood test. That’s where the time went. But my blood was all right. It’s been quite a day.’
‘You were lucky,’ Beth said severely. ‘I thought you knew better than to drink when you’re driving Isobel around.’
Daffy managed to look indignant, puzzled and innocent, all at the same time. ‘But I didn’t,’ she protested. ‘That’s what’s so maddening. I thought I’d only had two soft drinks. Somebody must have spiked them.’
‘Well, I just don’t understand it,’ I said. ‘I don’t mean the drinks. You probably picked up one that was meant fo
r somebody else. But Mim’s only about nine months old. And even if Quentin Cove has a cure for gun-shyness – which I don’t believe – he couldn’t possibly have done it in the time.’
‘You’re quite right,’ Daffy said, ‘except that she was there and handling beautifully, hunting like a dream, and one of the guns took a rabbit with a shot just over her head – a damned sight closer than was safe, if you ask me – and she never even blinked. If only I’d known . . .’ She heaved a sigh that nearly blew the plates off the table.
‘It doesn’t follow that you’d have been able to work the same miracle,’ Henry said gently. ‘Quentin Cove has years more experience than you do and now that the business is running itself he has the time to apply that experience patiently. I take it that she was responding normally to the whistle?’
‘Perfectly,’ Daffy said. ‘He hadn’t plugged up her ears with wax, if that’s what you’re thinking. After the awards were given out I went over to say hello to both of them, but Mr Cove popped Mim into that Shogun of his before I got there. He said that he didn’t want her to remember other times. He thought that we might remind her of her fear of guns. I didn’t want to stand around in a bitter wind and argue about it so I just congratulated him and came away.
‘Then, when we got away, we called at the first hotel we came to.’
‘My fault,’ Isobel said. ‘I felt the need of a little comfort.’
We all nodded. Isobel always needed a drink in the let-down after a competition. She was still breathing a faint aroma of brandy into the smell of frying bacon.
‘I was thirsty too,’ Daffy said. ‘Anyway, Mr Cove came in, almost on our heels. He was very nice and quite apologetic. He said that he felt he’d been rude when we spoke earlier and he insisted on buying us both drinks. I left mine on the bar while I went to the Ladies, so you could be right,’ she told me. ‘The place was crowded. Perhaps someone mistook it for somebody else’s and spiked it, or else I swapped glasses by mistake. I was feeling all right, but Mrs Kitts had got over her disappointment—’
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