by Neil M. Gunn
“I don’t quite follow,” said Sir John.
“Doesn’t the same fellow who sends the boy up the rope—or someone like him—also put a seed in a pot of earth? You see the seed buried in the pot. You see it come sprouting through the earth. You see it growing into a small tree. You see the fruit forming—before your very eyes—and all in a few minutes. Then he plucks off an orange or a mango or whatever it is and presents it to you. And behold! it is a real fruit. And you eat it.”
Sir John smiled. “I see.”
“Yes, but you say: a manifestation of the supernatural—something outside natural law,” remarked Harry. “What you should say, I think, is—something outside natural law as we know it.”
“Well, certainly; that’s obvious!”
“But it makes a difference.”
“How?”
“By its implication that there may be laws which we do not know.”
Geoffrey gave a half-impatient shrug. “Oh—yes—of course!”
“Assuming”, said Harry, “a law which we do not know——”
“Excuse me,” said Sir John, and he walked out of the room.
They looked after him.
“Dammit,” said Harry, “I hope there’s nothing wrong.”
“Good God!” said Geoffrey.
“Think we’re going soft?”
“Think? You can see it.”
“Of course it does not get really bad until you can smell it.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Merely half-suggesting that you might blow your nose hard.”
“And the idea?”
Harry smiled. “That you might get some of the more positive noises out of your head.”
Geoffrey gave a short laugh. “Where there is a touch of humour there is still hope. Uh—you were going to assume something, weren’t you?”
“Nothing much. The rather vague assumption that some of us may not know everything.”
“So I gathered—vaguely.”
“Uhm.”
Geoffrey turned on him. “Hang it, if you have anything to say, why not say it? Why this—this creation—of—intangible nonsense?”
“You know quite well what I have to say,” Harry replied reasonably. “It is simply that there may be in existence a relationship of time and space which we do not normally apprehend. An exceptional mind at an exceptional moment may apprehend it—quite involuntarily—in what we call vision or second sight. Do you say that is impossible?”
“It is not impossible to say that the moon is made of green cheese. Because of our astronomical and physical knowledge, however, I deny it, confidently.”
“That’s merely flippant. That’s the worst of you fellows, you hate your old methods and convictions being upset. In that respect, your orthodox scientist is just like your orthodox religious leader or art academician—he has no time for the new. Even in a common-good, solid thing like medicine—become unorthodox, introduce chloroform, or anything really new and helpful, and the head witch-doctors are after you. In short you are in the mind not to believe beforehand.”
“The usual twaddle. There may have been instances, as in the case of a stuff like chloroform, where——”
“There were. And one instance is always sufficient—scientifically. It could happen again.”
“You do not know what you are saying, or anyway, you cannot know what scientific method means.”
“You’re sliding again, aren’t you? Scientific method—yes. But destructive disbelief, before you have applied the method—no.”
“But, heavens!” exclaimed Geoffrey, “don’t you see I have been applying the method, trying, in your particular case, to discover any tangible basis in fact—without the slightest success?”
“Do you mean you doubt the happening I related?”
“Not at all. Your version of the happening I accept. But you yourself have no facts. You were merely told.”
“Lord, are you trying to tell me that the fellow acted all that? With no aim, no object, obviously hating it?”
“I am not saying he acted it. Though even that could be possible.”
“Oh!” Harry turned away impatiently.
“Wait,” said Geoffrey. “I’ll even suggest a reason. Assuming he is a sinister type, preparing, let us say, to do someone in. The little piece of acting by the roadside prepares you, and such as you, to expect death, death in unusual circumstances, even violent death—as ‘natural’.”
Harry regarded him sarcastically. “If you were going to murder someone, I take it you would rehearse the murder publicly beforehand?”
”Geoffrey tried to cover his anger with a more biting sarcasm. “Whatever I might do, I certainly wouldn’t be fool enough to say I saw something which wasn’t there; not to mention that I saw a happening before it happened, which wasn’t there!”
“Ah, but you’re an acute fellow.”
Geoffrey’s look concentrated; then he shrugged. “I’d rather be an acute fellow than a fool.”
Harry did not answer, and Geoffrey went on in lighter, but no less taunting, tones, “So you think someone is going to get killed here?”
“It is possible that someone may die.”
Geoffrey laughed. “Of course! Almost certain, I should say!”
“In this house—within two weeks.”
“Oh?” Geoffrey concentrated again.
“And that the odds are in favour of its being you or me.”
There was silence for quite a little while.
“Good God!” gasped Geoffrey. “You don’t mean to say you believe that?”
But Harry had heard footsteps. “Hsh! Shut up!” he said quickly.
Helen came in, followed by Marjory and her mother, declaiming, “Dramatic entry of missing body!”
Geoffrey laughed. “Thank goodness! A certain young man here was almost out of his wits.”
“Things are coming to a pretty pass”, declared Helen, “when a child can’t lie down to twiddle its thumbs without the whole family attending the cradle.”
Sir John came in, with folded newspapers under his arm. “A paper, anyone?”
Harry took one. “Ah pictures! Here you are, Marjory!”
“How clairvoyant of you, Harry!” and she graciously accepted the Bulletin.
Geoffrey got hold of the Manchester Guardian, while Sir John settled down to wipe his glasses, light a fresh cigar, and go through The Times.
Harry, with a smile for Helen, drew some papers from a long envelope. He was an engineering architect in a business allied to Sir John’s.
Lady Marway got in touch with her work-basket again. She was a very neat needlewoman and found a close concentration on exact stitching soothing and restful. She had done some quite useful tapestry work in her time, though at the moment her concern was to arrest a ladder in her daughter’s stocking.
Helen collected the coffee cups and rang. The room was so pleasantly and softly bright that she looked at both lamps to make sure the mantles were all right. The bracket one, an older type, was inclined, particularly on a windy night, to burn up and blacken its mantle and fill the room with soot. But now it was behaving excellently. In fact, the whole room was behaving excellently; because, as she realised, it was behaving normally.
She got hold of her book again. It was one of those sixpenny novels, which travellers nowadays are inclined to buy at railway stations instead of the old, popular magazines. She had long meant to read this book because it dealt with the English countryside in that slow, wise way which has so often been a characteristic of the best writers of her race and which she loved (once she had made the effort to get into its mood). Sometimes she had the uneasy feeling that this was not being modern. So she tried to make up for it by reading the most advanced modern stuff at other times. But now she was on holiday.
As she settled down in a corner of the couch, she looked around at the heads that had so recently been disturbed by Alick’s experience of the occult. That uncanny Highland irruption m
ight never have been, so decorously did it appear to have been smoothed away. She could almost find a small place in her heart for regret—now that the tumult was over! Her eyes rested on Harry’s dark head, and remained there unconsciously.
Until, outside the gun-room door, quite distinctly, she heard a small sound. It struck right on her heart. The rattle of the gun-room door followed. Marjory showed she heard it, then Harry. Footsteps in the gun-room now—slow—uncertain. Lady Marway frankly lifted her head. Each one in the room grew extremely still and silent. There was the soft thud of something falling, and a high-pitched smothered exclamation. But the footsteps drew nearer—slowly—and, after what seemed a very long time, there were fingers against the door, finger-nails scratching the door. They saw the knob rattle and turn. The door opened—and Joyce appeared, blinking in the light.
“Pitch black in there. Ooh!” She was a geranium-lipped, blonde young woman of the world and rubbed her elbow.
“Where’s George?” asked Lady Marway.
“Putting the car away. Why? Anything wrong?” She stared from one set of eyes to another.
“No, no!” said Lady Marway quickly.
“Pff!” said Joyce. “Gosh! Talk about a battery of eyes! You make me feel like a disembowelled spirit.”
Geoffrey laughed. And Marjory. Laughter became infectious. Sir John joined in.
Joyce looked at them. “I suppose you put out the light on purpose? You are a bunch of toughs.”
They laughed on, heartily.
Chapter Three
The following morning Sir John, Geoffrey, and Harry were up early, according to plan. George Marway, Sir John’s nephew, was not a natural hunter of wild game, his inclinations running rather towards racing engines and racing skis, so he lay abed, to breakfast later with the ladies and, in due course, act as their chauffeur.
When Sir John left the breakfast table and went out to consult with Maclean, the head gamekeeper and his own personal stalker, he found that grey-bearded tough-fibred man of sixty with a concerned expression. Alick had not turned up. “It is unlike him to be late,” said Maclean.
Both men stood silent for a little, in a way characteristic of them. “Do you think he’ll come?” asked Sir John, without any impatience.
“I’m hoping so,” said Maclean. “It’s not like him to sleep in. Angus has gone over to see if he can see him. He shouldn’t be long.”
Geoffrey and Harry came out and joined them. Sir John explained the position and then asked Maclean what his plans were. So they all looked at the sky, and saw the slow carry of the clouds over its blue field, and nodded as Maclean mentioned this hill and that corrie and the next pass. This was part of the game that the two younger men enjoyed, particularly Geoffrey, whose eyes grew so animated and lively that sometimes he could not help outrunning Maclean and describing conditions in a certain place before the wise old hunter had arrived at it. “That’s so,” Maclean would say, and then Geoffrey would nod quickly, delighted.
It was characteristic of Geoffrey that his eye and his intelligence should be on the hunt, with a hope already growing in him that he would be given a certain stalk (even expressing his hope in such a remark as, “That should be good to-day”), while Harry was moved more by the general feeling that here was a new morning, with sky and wind and moor and pass and mountain forming a realm into which he was about to adventure for a whole long day. He usually stood on the edge of it, a faint smile on his face, not made any less pleasant in its expression by a cunning consciousness of what was moving in Geoffrey’s mind. The rivalry, the eagerness, in Geoffrey distilled its own sort of humour—for those who understood and appreciated it, and could ask themselves what would sport be, anyhow, without those keen qualities in some form or other.
But this morning Harry was not listening very well, and smiling not at all. And when he saw Angus, Geoffrey’s stalker, appear round the corner of the garage, alone, his look concentrated upon him as if to search out his mind before he spoke.
Angus was sandy-haired and freckled, with a generous mouth, a loose-jointed body, and shy manners. Geoffrey and he got on very well together, for on the hill each was as keen as the other (to be keener being impossible) and Angus would cheerfully have endured through day and night and any privations so long as the hunt was on. He stayed with his mother, and in the garden of their cottage he grew a heavy crop of weeds.
He now faced Maclean solemnly and said, “There’s no sign of him.”
“Were you at the house?”
“Yes. He was out very early in the morning.”
“What’s keeping him, do you think?” Maclean’s tone was sharp.
“I couldn’t say,” replied Angus.
“Oh, never mind,” said Harry. “He’ll turn up all right. You go ahead. And whenever Alick comes along, we’ll follow to our own stalk.”
“Well, it’s whatever you say,” Maclean answered. “But I am annoyed with him. If I had known—I might have made other arrangements.”
“He may turn up,” said Sir John. “If you care to wait?”
“Certainly,” said Harry. “Please carry on. Do.” He smiled good-naturedly, his manner urgent, and so persuaded Sir John.
“In that case, perhaps,” Maclean suggested, addressing Sir John, “Mr. Smith could take the Rock Corrie beat. It should be good to-day. You and I perhaps could take the car round, and go in over the flows for the west side of Benuain. That would leave the Home Beat for Mr. Kingsley, so that if Alick does turn up late they wouldn’t have so far to go.”
Geoffrey was smiling. The wind where it was, he had the stalk he wanted. And it had been his turn for the Home Beat. Lunches, rifles, ammunition were got together and a move was made towards the garage.
“Hard luck on you,” said Geoffrey, as Harry walked along with him. “But if you will let your stalker dabble in the occult!” He bravely restrained his laugh.
“What do you think has happened to him?” Harry asked.
“Happened? I should say he went and got blind drunk.”
“Why?”
“On the basis that any excuse is good enough for a man constituted like him—to put it nicely.”
“Still feeling a bit sore?”
“Me sore?” Geoffrey’s astonishment broke on a laugh. “Now in the light of this bright morning, weren’t you—to put it very mildly—a bit fantastic last night? Own up, now!”
“I wonder,” said Harry.
“That’s right. You keep on wondering!”
The cocksure, complacent element in Geoffrey’s manner irritated Harry, though he was used to it, but now they had overtaken Sir John.
When they had gone, Harry turned back to the house, quite certain of two things: that Alick would not turn up and that Angus knew more than he had said. I shouldn’t mind laying a bet that he didn’t even go to Alick’s home! he thought. Though all there might be in that thought, he couldn’t fathom.
But it made him very uneasy. The loss of the day’s stalking he did not mind—even if Alick might have had a little consideration for him! And then his conscience was suddenly struck: What if Alick had found out that his ghastly experience had become a whole night’s debating topic in the Lodge? Damn that! said Harry, experiencing a hot sting of vexation and shame.
He didn’t want to engage in talk with any of the others at the moment, and they should be appearing soon. Helen was often up before all of them. But perhaps she hadn’t slept too well last night! Would he chance ringing for Mairi? He rang.
She appeared and when he had greeted her he asked:
“You haven’t any idea why Alick didn’t turn up this morning, I suppose?”
“No, sir.”
“You didn’t happen to see him last night—afterwards?”
“No, sir.”
“You have no idea—where he could have gone?”
“No, sir.”
He gave her a moment. “What do you think has happened to him?”
“I couldn’t say, sir.”
She was pale and strained, but cool.
“Excuse me asking you,” he exclaimed, with his quick friendly smile, “but I feel worried a bit. It’s all right.”
She hesitated for about two seconds, then turned and went out.
They are a communicative people! he thought, picking up a walking-stick by the gun-room door. He would scout around a bit and give himself time to think it over.
Corbreac Lodge faced slightly west of south, and from its front door the brown gravel road, after a preliminary curve, ran fairly straight and only slightly downhill, before it dipped out of sight and, about three-quarters of a mile away, merged in the main east to west highway, which was narrow enough to require poles at intervals to mark “passing places”. This prospect of moor and distant peak in front of the house was extensive, and on suitable evenings provided some exquisite light effects.
Harry looked along its farthest prospect now and thought of Helen.
More than once in the last four years, Helen, when alone at the hour of sunset, had had to turn away into the house and up to her room. Not the beauty, not the loneliness, not the stillness…she did not know what it was affected her so strongly, and never quite let herself find out. He remembered, not what she had said, but the look in her eyes.