Yes, Caldwell was there all right. It was as if a shadow had taken substance. Marcus stared at him for a moment. “It must be the light,” he decided. “There’s something funny about it.”
“We’ll have to hurry,” Caldwell urged. “There’s not much time left.”
Marcus was a little puzzled, but he was tired, and not inclined to think very much. “I’m not keeping you,” he said. “I suppose you’re getting hungry yourself now.”
“No, I’m not hungry yet,” Caldwell responded in a queer, far-away kind of voice. He seemed to make an effort, to pull himself, almost visibly, together. “That’s the road,” he pointed out. “You have to go over the top. Once you get over the top it’ll seem much quicker.” Marcus looked. The road wound on up into the hills like a pale grey tape. They went on again, plodding along side by side without speaking.
Soon they passed the last of the fields, and the stone walls bordering the road ceased. On either side of them were heather-covered slopes, broken here and there by patches of gravel, and grey outcrops of rock. There were a good many turf-cuttings too, reached by narrow tracks, some short, some long—winding away into the heather for a mile or more. Each of these tracks seemed to take something from the road, so that it became always rougher and poorer. From time to time they passed turf stacks, and where these were the road was covered with a thick black mould, and was soft underfoot. Elsewhere it was a browny-grey colour and in one or two places it had been mended with sods and loose stones thrown into the worst of the pot-holes.
The whole country was oozing with water and presently the road dipped down to a desolate-looking lake, where dark waves were lapping among the reeds and against the grey, stony shores. Near the centre of the lake was a little island with the dead stump of a tree, leaning out over the water.
After the lake the road rose once more, and Marcus thought that they were on the last upward slope. He was glad for he had a stitch. Very soon, however, he saw that he had been mistaken: there was still another stretch of hill before them. “What about resting for a little?” he suggested, breaking a silence that had lasted since they first came together outside the town. “Are you not a bit tired too?”
“No,” Caldwell answered in the same half-dreamy voice as before. “At least not that way. We’ll rest for a little if you like, but not for long. It’s not . . . .”
“Not safe,” Marcus could have sworn he was going to finish. His manner had changed since the morning. Now he seemed not younger than he could be, but older, far, far older. He was still a boy of course, but he didn’t speak like a boy any more, and he was no longer enjoying the adventure: he was anxious. Marcus became anxious too. It was wild, lonely country. During the troubles there had probably been murders here—here or hereabouts: perhaps even now it might be dangerous after dark. Was that why Caldwell’s manner had changed? Was that what he was thinking about? Marcus didn’t like to ask for fear of being accused of cowardice himself.
They sat down on the crumbling stone parapet of a bridge. Below them was a narrow stream running in a bed of smooth, grey rock. Neither of them spoke. Marcus was tired and hungry and Caldwell seemed troubled. He was fidgety too, and before long he jumped up again. “You’ve surely rested enough,” he said. “The sooner we get there, the sooner you’ll have something to eat—after that you’d better go straight to bed.”
“I don’t want to go to bed,” Marcus responded a little indignantly. “I’m not sleepy tired.” Caldwell at times had a very elderly way of speaking which Marcus resented. You’d have thought that it was he who was grown-up, and that Marcus was a child.
For the next half-mile or so they walked more quickly. Marcus was trying to set a pace that Caldwell would find too strenuous. But he couldn’t: besides he still had a stitch. It hurt him more and more. Surreptitiously he pressed his hand against his right side—and he tried holding his breath. Presently Caldwell noticed. “That’s no good,” he said. “Touch your toes. Do it three or four times.”
Marcus obeyed, not because he expected it to work, but because he was glad of any excuse to stop. Caldwell’s cure did work all the same. At any rate the stitch became a great deal less painful, though it didn’t disappear completely. “It’s quite a good thing,” he admitted rather grudgingly.
“You’ll be all right when we get over the top,” Caldwell told him. “We’re nearly there now.”
The last stretch before the crest was steeper than ever. The road was like the dried-up bed of a river and the cart track zigzagged back and forwards across it. Marcus was sick of looking at the ruts and the stones, and at the dark, gloomy heather which surrounded them.
Then they came to the top. He felt a fresh breeze against his forehead and saw a new view stretching out in front of him. To the right the ground still sloped upwards to a peak where there was a small cairn of loose stones. Straight before them was the sea, grey like everything else, but a luminous, pearly grey. Part of the coast-line was hidden from them by the hill, but on the left was a green, triangular plain, widening out towards the south, where a sea lough cut into it. Beyond the lough a range of mountains ran out into the sea, ending abruptly in a high cliff which dropped straight down to the water. At the head of the lough were more mountains.
Low, rambling walls divided the plain into hundreds of tiny fields. The cottages too were small—little patches of white in a grey and green landscape. A considerable distance away, near the entrance to the lough, was a larger building, like a barracks or a coastguard station: it had a slated roof and at one end of it was a martello tower.
During the last part of the ascent Marcus had felt too worn-out to care much about what was going to happen. Now, revived by the breeze, he began to enjoy the adventure again—at least a little. He felt more hungry than ever.
“If you’re in a hurry I don’t mind running a bit,” he told Caldwell, “—till we get to the bottom of the hill at any rate.”
Caldwell immediately agreed. He ran very lightly, very quietly, keeping always exactly abreast with Marcus. Marcus himself ran a little awkwardly, partly because he was tired, partly because he was naturally rather clumsy. His feet slipped and skidded on the bad surface and small loose stones went shooting and bounding down the hill ahead of him.
At first, by sudden spurts, he endeavoured to get slightly ahead, but Caldwell skimmed along, without any apparent effort, keeping his position exactly. This annoyed Marcus, and he ran more and more recklessly.
“You’ll fall,” Caldwell warned him; and indeed Marcus had already stumbled more than once.
Nevertheless he ignored the advice. “Fall yourself,” he retorted breathlessly, and with the words hardly out of his mouth he tripped, and shot headlong into the ditch.
He wasn’t hurt, he discovered, after the first shock, but he was very much shaken. He was lying in a little patch of grass and rushes: and for a moment or two he didn’t move. Cold water oozed through the knees of his trousers and the sleeves of his jacket. He scrambled up indignantly. “You might have helped me,” he complained. “You’d just let me lie there.” He tried to brush the turf-mould from his clothes, but it clung damply to the knees of his trousers and the elbows of his jacket.
“I’m sorry,” Caldwell said. “We were going too fast.”
At this conciliatory answer Marcus was suddenly ashamed of himself. Caldwell’s behaviour had irritated him all day, and ever since they left the railway station he had been conscious of his own resentment as a barrier between them. The adventure was turning out so differently from what he had looked forward to. Now he felt a sudden gush of friendliness and affection. He liked Caldwell in the way he wanted to like him: the relationship that had been there in the dream seemed to be re-establishing itself.
For a little they walked along quietly, very content with each other’s company: then, simultaneously, without either of
them having suggested it, they began to run once more. This time they ran more slowly and more carefully. Marcus remembered Saturday afternoons at school in the winter, when they had jogged along together just like this, coming back from a run in the twilight, with the relaxation of the week-end before them. He was still tired, but it was in a different way. Supper, and a fire, and bed seemed pleasantly near, and he expected a happy tomorrow.
For another mile or so they trotted along silently with the breeze in their faces. They were down on the level now, among the fields, and not far in front of them Marcus could see a cluster of cottages. They came to a fork in the road. “We go to the left,” Caldwell directed. “There’s another bit of uphill, but I don’t want you to be seen in the village.”
The road they took curved round the back of the village. They could see firelight in some of the cottage windows and from two of them shone the yellow glow of oil-lamps. Through a gap in the houses they saw the quay, a darker grey against the paleness of the water. There was a group of figures at the seaward end of the quay and Marcus could see the masts of three boats.
“They’re waiting for the tide,” Caldwell said. “They’ll be going out about midnight.”
They passed a Roman Catholic church and a graveyard: then a solid stone house painted yellow—the priest’s house, Caldwell said. After that the road sloped downhill again to rejoin the road through the village.
At the bottom of the hill the sea was hidden from them by a high demesne wall: on the other side of the road were small fields, and occasional narrow lanes, leading up to white-washed cottages.
When they had gone on for a little with the wall on their right, Marcus heard horse’s hooves on the road behind them. Presently he looked round and saw that they were being overtaken by a man driving an outside car. The man wore a paddy hat. As the car drew nearer Marcus turned to watch it more and more frequently. “Will he give us a lift?” he inquired hopefully.
Caldwell didn’t reply at once: he seemed to be considering. “All right,” he said at last. “I’m sure he will if you ask him, but you must do exactly as I tell you. I’ll run on a little. You wait for him. When he catches up say you’d like a lift to Mr. Burnaby’s. He won’t mind, and you can give him a bob when we get there. I’ll wait further along the road and hop up on the other side when you pass. Don’t take any notice, don’t even speak to me—just the same as before.”
He ran on and everything happened as he had arranged. “To Mr. Burnaby’s is it?” the driver inquired. “Sure it’s on my way. I’ll go through the demean and out the back gate.”
Marcus climbed into the seat on the opposite side to the driver and the horse started again of its own accord. A moment later they passed Caldwell, waiting in the shadow of a tree at the side of the road. Caldwell sprang up behind the driver, but so lightly, and quietly, and cleverly, that Marcus wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been on the look-out. The driver did not seem to see him at all.
They went on in silence, the car swaying from side to side on the uneven road. In spite of occasional bumps, and the fact that he had to hold on tight to avoid being thrown off, Marcus dropped into a pleasant, dreamy state. It was soothing going along like this in the summer twilight, watching the dim, old horse, and wondering a little how much of an effort he found it to pull them all on the soft, sandy road.
In the train, and at Portmallagh, and coming over the hill, he had felt that he was in a strange country: but it didn’t feel like that now. Everything was sleepily familiar and when they came to the top of a small rise, and began to go downhill again, it was more familiar still. He supposed he had been somewhere very like this before, though he couldn’t remember where. He remembered that a master at school had told them once that there was a scientific explanation for experiences like this—something about forgetting and remembering, and forgetting you had known before.
They came to a gateway in the wall, with tall, rusty, iron gates which looked as if they hadn’t been shut for years. They turned in, and away from the shadow of the wall, or because of the reflected light of the sea, it was not so dark. For the sea was in view again. It had turned to a deep, purplish grey and looked very smooth. The drive curved towards it, getting further and further from the wall. The wall grew more and more vague, gradually fading into the atmosphere, till at last it was hidden entirely by some intervening high ground.
The short, seaside turf on either side of the drive was covered with rabbits. Hundreds of them were nibbling the grass. As the outside car came towards them they hopped away a little from the drive, and a few, more nervous than the rest, darted back towards their burrows with thudding feet and white scuts flashing.
The shore was out of sight, but Marcus could hear the sound of waves breaking, softly, sleepily. . . . Then the drive dipped, and they came to the edge of a small, sandy bay. There were rocks at either end of it jutting out into deep water, and Marcus thought it would be a good place for bathing.
After that he must have dropped asleep for a few moments, for the next thing he knew was that the driver was shaking him. “Ye’d have fallen off if I hadn’t caught ye,” he said, “but I seen the way of it an’ got me han’ on ye. Ye’re wore out, but no matter—here ye are.”
Marcus opened his eyes, and recognized the large, whitewashed building he had seen from the hill-top. Though the sun had set a good while ago now there was still a faint, reflected pink in the sky and this, more faintly still, was reflected again in the white of the house. The tower was massive, a real piece of fortification, built from huge blocks of dressed stone. In front of the house the drive widened, but there was no sign of a garden—and the drive itself was neglected and almost without gravel. Everything was strangely familiar. His mind fumbled sleepily for the explanation, but it eluded him.
Caldwell had hopped down and was walking towards the front door. Marcus, with a sudden fear of being left behind, jumped down quickly too. He fumbled in his pockets and found a shilling. “Good night,” he said putting it into the driver’s hand.
The man thanked him, wished him “Good evenin’,” and flicking his horse with the whip, drove on. Caldwell was standing between Marcus and the door. With the house behind him, he looked very small—hardly noticeable, Marcus thought. It was strange. The house had a queer, blank look, and no one had come out to welcome them.
“Where do we go now?” he asked.
“We go in.”
Marcus gazed round slowly. He was stupid with sleepiness. Something was puzzling him and he couldn’t even make out what it was.
Caldwell had become very excited. He rushed to the closed door and stood before it. “Come on,” he shouted. “Push it open—you push it open.”
Marcus followed him slowly. “Why don’t you push it open yourself?” he demanded suspiciously. “Is there something funny about it?”
“No, no,” Caldwell answered. “Of course there’s not. Oh you’ll see in a minute. It’s just that I can’t, I can’t. Please do hurry. It’s been too long already, much too long—you don’t want to spoil it now, do you?”
All at once Marcus felt very sorry for him. He saw that the excitement was not a happy excitement. Caldwell seemed to be in a sort of agony.
Marcus ran to him and gave the door a push. It swung open and Caldwell darted through. “Come on, come on,” he cried.
Marcus followed, nervously and cautiously. Why was there no one about? Surely there were servants. Of course it was Saturday: perhaps they all went out together on Saturday nights—and Mr. Burnaby might be in his study.
They passed through a large, round porch, which was as big as a room in itself, into a huge hall with a high, vaulted roof. “Why, it’s like the chapel at school,” Marcus exclaimed.
Caldwell paid no attention. He had hurried away to the left and now stood at the foot of a short flight of broad, ston
e steps. At the top of the steps was a stone archway across which hung dark curtains of velvet. “Come on, for goodness sake,” Caldwell shouted, and leaping up the steps, he vanished through the archway without even seeming to stir the curtain.
The anxiety in his voice, more than the urgency of his words, made Marcus hurry. He ran towards the doorway, gathering in the gloom only the vaguest impression of the hall. The walls were white-washed like the outside of the house. The windows were high in the walls, and narrow. Close to the steps up which Caldwell had gone was one of the biggest fireplaces Marcus had ever seen.
Beyond the curtain was a stone-flagged landing, and on the right of this, the beginning of a spiral stone staircase. Caldwell was waiting a few stairs up, but as soon as Marcus appeared he ran on. On the outside the stairs were broad, though on the inside they narrowed away to nothing. The white-washed walls made the most of what light there was. Marcus could see enough not to stumble. Soon they came to another landing with several doors opening off it. Caldwell raced across this and up a further flight of stairs. Marcus followed, but Caldwell went on faster than before, and in a moment he was out of sight. Marcus kept on, pounding up and up, as fast as he could go.
He reached a third landing. It was empty. It was shaped like the second, but it led to no further stairs. There was a choice of three closed doors. Though he hadn’t quite seen him Marcus knew that Caldwell had gone through the door in the centre. He opened this door and went in also.
He found himself in a large room with a stone floor and big windows facing towards the West. It was still quite bright. The stone walls were bare and white-washed. There was rope matting on the floor, an oval table of some dark wood, a few wooden chairs, a few books. Marcus could see no sign of Caldwell, but he saw someone else.
The Burnaby Experiments Page 8