Heir Presumptive

by Henry Wade

  “I will that. Will ye tell Mr. Shand the Captain hopes to send him a haunch tomorrow or next day. I missed him about the station just now.”

  “He’s away to Fort William to see the guidwife in the ’Firmary, puir body.”

  “That’ll be bad, Jock”, declared Donald with a shake of the head. “She’d no go in for a trifle.”

  The porter shook his head and glanced up at the sky.

  “It’s moving round”, he said. “Ye’d best be off, Donald.”

  Already a slight stir was visible in the hitherto still water of the harbour. Donald cranked a handle and the engine burst into stuttering life. As it moved gracefully forward Eustace slipped on his mackintosh; there might be a little spray if the boat went fast, no point in getting wet.

  “There’s an oilskin under the seat, sir”, said Donald, nodding to the stern where Eustace sat.

  “Oh, this is quite all right, thanks”, said Eustace confidently.

  “She’ll maybe take in some water presently”, said Donald, but made no further attempt to persuade Eustace into the thick black oilskin, though he put one on himself. During the hour and a half that followed Eustace learnt some elementary lessons about the west coast of Scotland. He learnt that a headland apparently within a stone’s throw is usually a mile or more away; he learnt that a launch, apparently rushing so swiftly through the water, takes six or seven minutes to cover that mile; that the next headland, after a further half hour, is just as far away as it was before and that few headlands are less than five miles apart, and that there is always another round the corner, and then another. He learnt that what seemed to him an imperceptible change of wind could work a mill-pond up into a respectable roll in a few minutes, and a tossing, white-capped ocean in half an hour; that a small open launch can be hurled up and down, from side to side, like an eggshell and not go down; that a man’s stomach that turns queer at a slight roll in a steamer can stand anything in an open launch; that the Scotch are an imperturbable and silent race; that landing from a small boat on to a narrow stone jetty in a sea is a ticklish job. He learnt these and several things about himself that surprised him; he was a very frightened man and at the same time a very brave one. He was glad, God, how glad, to get his foot on dry, firm land.

  He was greeted by Blanche Hendel who, clad in tweed skirt and jumper, came down to the jetty to give him a hand.

  “David’s on the hill”, she said. “Have you had an awful doing, Eustace? It did come up suddenly.”

  The lodge lay within a stone’s throw of the sea, sheltered from the south-westerly gales by a headland which formed a small natural harbour. Behind rose a thick belt of fir-wood and above and beyond that the heather and grass-clad slopes of the mounting hills. The lodge itself was a small stone building, severely simple, with a little cluster of corrugated iron outhouses. The accommodation, as Eustace presently learnt, consisted of two living rooms, a large gunroom, four best bedrooms, one bathroom, two servants’ bedrooms, and various offices. The staff comprised one man-servant and two maids, with Donald, the boatman, lending a hand with shoes and lamps, as well as acting as supernumerary ghilly on occasions. The man-servant, Harding, and Donald slept in one of the outhouses. In addition there was a stalker, McShail, whose house was high up the glen, in the heart of the forest, and a young ghilly, Ian Cameron, who lived in the tiny village whose scattered houses bordered the shore of the little bay.

  Eustace was astonished at what seemed to him the meanness of the whole affair. He had expected, if not actually a ‘Scottish baronial’ castle, at least a substantial stone house, with plenty of bathrooms, a full staff, and considerable comfort. For a rich man like David to live in such squalor, even for a month or two, seemed to him incomprehensible. His opinion of the ex-Guardsman sank considerably, with a compensating rise in his own self-confidence.

  The sun had come out again and Blanche suggested ‘lunch outside’, which Eustace found to consist of pickings from a cold sideboard, eaten on a hard bench just above the shore. Blanche, who as the wife of the eldest son must have been accustomed to even higher standards of living than David, seemed to take it all as quite natural and even appeared to enjoy it. She talked to Eustace of the forest, the fishing, the stalker; told him that David had killed ‘a narrow six-pointer for the larder’ yesterday and was taking Joan Hope-Fording out for her first stalk to-day. Blanche herself had not yet had a stalk and was not sure that she wanted to kill a stag, though she was doing some rifle shooting and had accompanied the others on the hill the previous day.

  “I couldn’t manage two days running”, she said with a laugh. “It’s frightfully hard work. Joan’s as hard as nails; she hasn’t turned a hair. I wonder what you’ll think of her, Eustace; she’s very good-looking and very nice, I think; rather too masculine for my old-fashioned ideas perhaps, but I think David likes that.”

  Eustace wondered whether this remark had any special significance, but before he could pursue the subject Blanche had changed it.

  “David wants you to try the rifle you’re going to use”, she said. “I’ll take you along to the range. Then we’ll take the dogs for a run and after tea we might try for a trout, or a mackerel if the sea’s gone down enough.”

  The ‘rifle range’ was the foreshore, the target a large brown stag crudely painted on a rock. Eustace soon found that shooting under these conditions was a very different thing to hitting a black bull’s-eye on a white ground in a sheltered gallery. Even at a bare hundred yards the brown stag had an uncanny way of fading into its background when looked at over the sights of the rifle; even with Blanche’s advice to ‘follow up the foreleg till you see brown’ he found it very difficult to be sure that he was on the heart and not the large expanse of belly behind it. A rock was digging into his stomach, one elbow would not fix itself on the uneven ground, grass in front of him, blowing in the wind, distracted his eye. To his bitter disappointment he found that in ten shots only two bullets had ‘killed’—straight through heart or liver, two had grazed the belly below the heart, one the spine above it, one had gone clean over the top, while four were well back in ‘the guts’.

  “David doesn’t like those”, said Blanche; “he can’t bear wounding stags. Those four shots will all mean that the stag dies, but it would probably go a long way first and suffer horribly. That’s why I’m not sure that I want to try. Let’s go on practising.”

  A pot of paint was produced from behind the target rock, the starred white splotches painted out, and the practice went on for an hour or more, to the annoyance of the wheeling seagulls and the frenzied excitement of the spaniels, who had escaped from their kennels and had to be forcibly restrained from ‘retrieving’ the victim of every shot. Blanche shot steadily and well, with an occasional wild shot that missed the target altogether and once even the rock; Eustace’s shooting improved as he grew more accustomed to the conditions, so that in his next ten shots only two were slightly off the line. He became absolutely absorbed and could hardly tear himself away for the walk, but even this hateful pastime was changed to a pleasure by taking a glass and learning to use it. Naturally so early in the season most of the deer were on the high ground, which was hidden from them by the foothills, but they did manage to pick up one lot of hinds on the low ground; it was fascinating to see the tiny brown objects emerging into the definite forms of living animals as his glass settled on them and his eye steadied and grew accustomed to the focus.

  At six o’clock the stalking party returned, Miss Hope-Fording on a pony, David Hendel walking beside her. At some distance behind followed a second pony led by the ghilly, Ian, and bearing the body of a stag, while the rear was brought up by the stalker, old McShail, smoking a charred pipe and carrying the rifle in its cover reversed over his shoulder. David was wearing an old tweed jacket, patched knickerbockers of a different suit, and a dilapidated cap of yet a third neutral colour. His shirt was open and the ends of his coat sleeves turned up. Joan Hope-Fording was also in knickerbockers, but of a newer
, smarter appearance. She was a tall, handsome girl, with auburn hair, brown eyes and flashing white teeth. Her voice was loud and confident; she had killed her first stag, a nice ten-pointer of about fifteen stone—and naturally had a good deal to say about it. She took very little notice of Eustace, who was not attracted by her. David greeted him pleasantly enough, though without any obvious enthusiasm. He too seemed chiefly occupied with the prowess of his Diana.

  After dinner, which consisted of mackerel, venison, and cheese, the women retired to the sitting-room and David, pushing the port towards Eustace, began to expand. To the latter’s intense surprise, the old Coldstreamer was evidently intensely proud of his forest. He had been, he said, infernally lucky to get it when old Rodstein had crashed in the Wall Street slump; it was only a thirty stag forest, but the feed was good, there were magnificent corries, a permanent herd of its own, and in a westerly or northwesterly wind the cream of the bigger inland forests drew up into it. He did his own stalking as a rule, old McShail was really a watcher; he could only put out one rifle at a time, save at the end of the season when the deer came down on to the low ground, or in certain winds when it was possible for a second rifle to work the far side from the sea. The house was just right and there were no neighbours to bother one. He hoped Eustace would enjoy himself.

  All this was not said in a breath; in fact it lasted Eustace through three glasses of port, at the end of which time he was seeing the place in a different light from that of his first impressions and was beginning to wonder whether he would ever be able to persuade Jill to face such discomfort if . . .

  David’s slow, drawling voice went on, but Eustace was hardly listening to it now. His thoughts had turned to his own affairs and in his new-found confidence he wondered that only a few hours ago he should have felt such depression and doubt. A forest of his own! He would improve the house, of course, and have a proper staff, but it looked like being grand fun!

  Chapter Nine

  Death of a Stag

  WHY well-to-do people have beds in their shooting lodges which are so hard and lumpy that the scullery-maids and pantry-boys would not be asked to sleep on them at home is a mystery beyond comprehension; so at least it seemed to Eustace Hendel as he tossed and turned throughout a troubled night. It was with no great eagerness that he equipped himself for the hill on the following morning, but it was at least with relief that he heard that the two women were going to spend the day sea-fishing. That would at least give him the chance of discovering whether the conditions he needed for his plan were likely to arise or not. David’s remark about ‘doing his own stalking’ had filled him with optimism, but it remained to be seen what became of McShail and Ian when the stalk began.

  At 9 a.m. Ian appeared with the two ponies, on which David and Eustace mounted. McShail would be at his house, away up the glen, whence he would have spied a great part of the ground. They had not gone far when Eustace felt he would give anything to get off and walk; he had never before encountered a deer-saddle and its broad, hard span was torture to his unaccustomed legs. However, David was jogging stolidly on ahead, the covered rifle across the saddle in front of him, while Ian strode along a few hundred yards in the rear; better bear the pain. The pony path followed the line of the River Ellich up the glen, almost due east towards the towering pinnacle of Sgurr na Gaillich; on their left, to the north, rose Beinn Fhan, close behind the house, a comparative pigmy of 2,300 feet; further on came Beinn Rhoinn (2,900) merging its eastern shoulder into the lower slopes of Sgurr na Gaillich (3,300). South of the glen lay the long even ridge of Beinn Meall-Dubh, its highest, eastern end 2,500 feet.2

  After riding some four miles at the slow, exhausting jog of the deer-ponies the party reached the stalker’s house, which lay at the junction of the Ellich with a lesser stream running down from the northern ridge of hills. Old James McShail was reclining in the heather, his back propped against a hummock, his stick erect before him, steadying the hand that held his spy-glass at stretch. He was looking up towards Beinn Meall-Dubh. As David slipped off his pony he rose to his feet and touched his cap.

  “Morning, Jim. This is Mr. Eustace Hendel.”

  Again the old man touched his cap. Uncertain about the etiquette of the occasion, Eustace touched his. David sank down in the heather beside his stalker, casting a quick eye over the rolling clouds above him.

  “Just south of east?” he asked.

  “About that. I’m thinking she’ll shift more into the sun.”

  David nodded and relapsed into silence, his glass slowly sweeping the northern slopes of Beinn Meall-Dubh. Although he knew perfectly well that McShail’s glass had been over every inch of the ground he asked no question. After seven or eight minutes he lowered his glass.

  “One small lot of stags below the crest at this end. A single stag about half a mile further on; not shootable, I should say. Several lots of hinds all the way along, lower down.”

  “Ay, and a big lot of stags on the near shoulder of the Sgurr”, said McShail.

  David raised his glass again.

  “This side of the screes?”

  “Ay, just below the patch of sunlight.”

  “I’ve got them. Same lot that we saw in Coire Dobhar yesterday, I should think. Pity to disturb them unless we can help it. In this wind they might go over the march. We’ll have a closer look at these fellows on the Beinn.”

  He pushed his glass back into its case and rose to his feet. Eustace followed suit; he had diligently swept the ground with his borrowed glass and had seen not one single beast, stag or hind. Leaving Ian with the ponies the little party left the path and, moving southwards, were soon beginning to climb. David went in front, his long slow strides seeming to skim the ground without effort; then came Eustace, trying to follow suit but quickly dropping to a shorter step; in the rear McShail, the rifle, still in its cover, tucked under his arm. Each man carried a long stick and his glass slung over one shoulder, Eustace in addition carried a rolled mackintosh, also slung. For half an hour they climbed steadily, Eustace panting and pouring with sweat, but sticking manfully to David’s heels; his waistcoat was unbuttoned, tie discarded, cap in his pocket, sleeves rolled up, and he was just feeling that human lungs could bear no more when David slipped down behind a large rock and again pulled out his glass and pushed it round the edge. For a minute he spied, then pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

  “See ’em, Eustace?” he asked.

  “Er . . . not yet.”

  David extended his stick towards a patch of bright grass on the hill-side about half a mile away; there seemed to be a few lumps of brown rock on it. Eustace put up his glass and immediately there leapt into his view a group of stags seeming so close that he could have thrown a stone at them. Instinctively he dropped his voice.

  “Grand”, he said. “Are they . . . are they shootable?”

  David nodded.

  “Two are. That’s a nice ten-pointer, Jim; good spread. Young stag, isn’t he?”

  “Ay, I’d say so.”

  “Better leave him then; may be Royal next year. The light beast would be better dead; narrow head, six or seven pointer.”

  “Seven”, murmured McShail. “Ugly brute.”

  David closed his glass.

  “Got your wind, Eustace?”

  “I think so.”

  The breathlessness that he was experiencing was probably excitement.

  “Come on, then. Stay here, Jim, will you?”

  Eustace’s heart gave a quick throb. So they were going on alone. Would there be . . . ? But McShail’s glass was still out; he would be watching them.

  Taking the rifle from McShail, David drew it from its cover, loaded it with five rounds, and thrust it loosely back into the cover again. Dropping back down the hill for a bit he then turned up again and was soon on the flat, bare top. As they came over the crest a burst of icy wind caught them, seeming to blow straight through their heated bodies. Eustace hurriedly buttoned waistcoat and coat and put on his cap.


  “Quiet as you can”, murmured David. “Keep clear of the loose stones and for God’s sake don’t tap them with your stick.”

  With quiet deliberation he moved along the top. The wind was in their right eyes and Eustace found his beginning to water. After going about five hundred yards David edged towards the northern crest and again pushed his glass round a rock. After half a minute he beckoned Eustace up beside him.

  “Have a good look at him”, he whispered. “That light brute. You can’t mistake him, but don’t let’s have any bloomer.”

  Eustace put his eye to David’s glass. The stags were only about three hundred yards away now and about a hundred feet below the crest. Through the glass every hair on their coats stood out clear. Eustace’s heart was pounding against his ribs; all thought of his sinister objective had gone out of his mind!

  “I daren’t go any further along the top,” whispered David; “they might get our wind. We must get in from here.”

  From here? Did that mean shoot from here? Without the glass the stags looked horribly small. But apparently it did not.

  “Leave your glass and stick and that coat,” whispered David, discarding his own stick. “We shall be in view most of the way. Keep behind me, your nose against my shoes; keep absolutely flat; pull yourself along with your arms. If I stop, stop. Only move when I move.”

  He slid forward over the edge and Eustace followed suit, feeling naked and exposed to the hostile eyes of the deer. But David slid quietly along, downhill and to the right. It was easier going than Eustace expected; no doubt the ‘down hill’ accounted for that. But they seemed to go on for ever . . . crash! Eustace’s nose banged against the hobnailed soles of David’s shoes; the stalker had stopped. Smothering a cry of pain, Eustace lay still, trying to quiet his heavy breathing. After what seemed like an age, but was probably not more than five minutes, the shoes moved forward again; then the ground rose slightly and David, leaning round, beckoned Eustace to come up beside him; they were out of sight. A tiny ridge was before them, covered with a few small boulders. David put his mouth to Eustace’s ear.