The tiny boat rocked gently as he moved back to his seat and a few silvery ripples spread outwards. They died away and everything was still, quiet, peaceful. Iain was part of the stillness, his restlessness was within; it was too deep a feeling to be alleviated by movement. His stillness was akin to the stillness of the loch and the forests which surrounded the loch—a surface stillness hiding restlessness, hiding stealthy movement. There were stoats in the woods and wild-cats, and owls that flew noiselessly upon their bloody business, of which a little heap of fur or feathers upon the soft carpet of the woods was the only trace to be seen when morning came. . . .
Iain’s mind moved this way and that, backwards and forwards like the uneasy pacings of a caged animal, his body was still as a statue, forgotten, abandoned, divorced from his spirit. . . .
Suddenly his body came to life, he threw up his head and listened. There was a faint “chug-chug” in the distance—faint and intermittent as the trees caught the sound and held it—and presently he saw the glimmer of a light over towards Balnafin, and a small shabby motor-launch came crawling across the loch like a water-beetle. Iain did not move, even when the launch turned out of its course to approach him. He waited quietly until the launch was within a few yards and the engine had stopped.
The launch rocked on the water and the small lamp sent an unsteady glimmer upon its leaden surface.
“Good evening, Donald,” he said at last.
“Good evening to you, MacAslan,” was the soft reply. “An d’fhuair sibh iasg?”
“No fish, Donald.”
The two boats rocked gently on the water which had been disturbed by the launch. It was darker now, only a pale primrose glow remained in the sky, fading into violet towards the meridian. The man called Donald peered anxiously through the gloom at the occupant of the little boat. When you have known a man since childhood, have grown up with him, shoulder to shoulder; when you have spent long days with him on loch and river, have followed him over moor and mountain, and crawled beside him on your belly through heather and bog, you know a man well, you know a man inside and out. And if you know a man inside out, it is not difficult to tell when something is wrong. These were Donald’s thoughts as he peered through the gloom. He hesitated a few moments with that innate delicacy of feeling which marks his race, and at last he said:
“I was thinking you might like the evening paper, MacAslan. It wass Miss Finlay came back from Glasgow by the train and she gave it to me . . .”
Iain smiled in the darkness. He had no desire to see a Glasgow evening paper, but he would not say so. He was too mindful of Donald’s feelings to refuse the gift. He knew that Donald had sensed his discomfort and had offered the paper as a soothing balm, and as a soothing balm it must be accepted. The paper, tied in the middle with a piece of tarred twine, flew through the air and landed in the coble at Iain’s feet. He picked it up and smoothed it out carefully. It had come a long journey. It was queer, when you thought about it, how far the paper had come—it had been printed in Glasgow at noon, sold to Margaret in the street, had accompanied her in the train all the way to Balnafin, had been given by her to Donald, and now by Donald to himself. How far it had flown! And the other papers that had been printed with it—where had they flown? . . . So Margaret Finlay had come back from America! He wondered whether, if he had known she was back, he would have hesitated longer this afternoon. Would he have waited and talked it over with Margaret and her father before doing what he had done? But this was futile—he had done the thing now and he could not draw back.
Donald’s great hands were cupped skilfully about a match, for there was a slight breeze wandering upon the loch—a breeze as fitful as a lost soul—gusts of flame and smoked poured from Donald’s pipe as the tobacco caught, and the red glare illuminated his strong, rugged features.
“So Miss Finlay is back!” Iain said slowly.
“She is back,” said Donald. “Mr. Finlay is coming back to-morrow. I wass to tell MacAslan they will be expecting him at Cluan.”
“Ah!”
There was a little silence. The water lapped gently against the sides of the boat. Donald wondered if it was any use to wait. Did MacAslan want him or did he not? Sometimes when people were troubled they liked to be alone . . . Donald had been up at five that morning and had done his day’s work before going to Balnafin with the eggs. He had met some friends at the inn and had had a few drinks—not many, for Donald was a temperate man, but just a few friendly drinks—he had done some shopping for Morag, visited the station to see the arrival of the train (a social occasion this, at Balnafin), had done some business with a man he knew, business connected with rabbit wire for his little garden, and had come back all the way down the loch in his old launch. It was near midnight now and Donald was used to early hours—he was tired, and Morag would be waiting. All this counted for naught if MacAslan wanted him, but did MacAslan want him? He glanced again at the still figure in the little boat. Only the outline of the figure was visible in the darkness—a hunched outline. MacAslan has forgotten me, said Donald to himself, his soul is not here any longer. It was strange, this withdrawal of MacAslan’s spirit, strange and yet familiar. It had happened before—yes—a hundred times when they were together, but Donald had not lost his awe of the phenomenon, had not overcome the feeling of strangeness, almost dread, with which it filled him. Sometimes it happened when they were sitting together by a damped fire, lighted by the side of the river to keep the midges at bay while they ate their sandwiches; sometimes when they were walking in the heather or resting on a rock after a hard climb; sometimes when they were rowing on the loch. MacAslan would be there one moment, and, the next moment, gone, only the outer shell of him remaining. Donald respected this withdrawal, it was a part of MacAslan, one of the things that made MacAslan different from other men. He never attempted to recall MacAslan’s spirit when it voyaged like this, he merely waited in silence until the spirit of MacAslan returned from whatever strange land it had visited. . . .
But, to-night, he would not wait—he leaned forward to start his engine.
“Donald!”
The stretched-out hand was arrested in mid-air.
“Donald I’ve done—I’ve done something rather serious to-day. Already I am regretting it but there was no other way—I want you to help me, Donald.”
MacAslan was speaking in the Gaelic now, and Donald was glad. It was their custom to speak to each other in both languages—sometimes in English and sometimes in Gaelic. MacAslan chose, and Donald followed. For ordinary everyday affairs connected with the estate MacAslan used English; but when they spoke together heart to heart of the things that mattered, or when MacAslan was happy and at peace with the world, or unhappy and in need of sympathy, it was always the Gaelic. Donald was glad when he heard the Gaelic from MacAslan’s lips and was at liberty to speak in return. He felt nearer to MacAslan then; he could let his heart speak.
To-night his heart sang when he heard MacAslan’s words, not only for the usual reason, but also because MacAslan had asked for his help. It was foolishness, of course, MacAslan had no need to ask. Did MacAslan doubt him that he should ask his help? Did he not know that Donald would lay down his life in the service of MacAslan? What could this thing be—this thing that MacAslan had done and already regretted? If it were that he had killed a man, Donald would hide him until the danger was past but no, it would not be that.
“And who else would help you, MacAslan?” he said quietly.
“People must not know—not yet. It must be known later but I do not want a lot of talk—I must get away from here before it is known—and yet how can I leave Ardfalloch?”
It was a killing, then, Donald thought. “I will hide you,” he said; “Morag and I. They will not find you. There is a place I know—a deep cave amongst the heather. There is no need for MacAslan to be leaving his own land—”
He was startled by a low chuckle from the other boat. “Oh, Donald—and if it were for murder I was wanted, you would
hide me, and I should be safe.”
“That is true indeed.”
“But it is not murder, Donald.”
“What is it, then?”
“I have let Ardfalloch for the season.”
There was silence for a few moments, and then the voice continued in a low tone full of bitterness. “You think it worse than murder, Donald? A betrayal of Ardfalloch—but what was I to do? I have tried to think of other ways. I went to Balnafin this morning and I saw Mr. Simpson. He had a letter from a London gentleman who wanted to rent the MacLaggans’ place at Athnabeg, and the place was taken already. ‘Offer him Ardfalloch for three months,’ said Mr. Simpson. ‘You need the money.’ I told him I did not want to let Ardfalloch. ‘You will sell a farm then,’ he told me. ‘Something you must do, MacAslan.’ He showed me figures in a book, Donald, and I saw, then, that it was true. Something must be done. Figures are strange things,” continued the voice in the darkness thoughtfully. “Columns of figures—and when they are added up—”
Donald was silent, he was not listening now, he was too overwhelmed. His thoughts were chaotic—MacAslan was in trouble, but it was no trouble that he could help. He could be of no assistance at all. Money! In his own life he knew what it was to lack money, to pinch and scrape and make do with uncomfortable substitutes for the necessities of life, but that MacAslan should lack money was incredible, unthinkable—it was all wrong, thought Donald dazedly. If Ben Falloch had moved he would have been less surprised, less helpless. Ardfalloch to be let—let to strangers! A London gentleman fishing on MacAslan’s water, shooting MacAslan’s birds—and his deer!
Other big landowners had done it, of course—Donald knew that. Only this afternoon there had been talk at the inn about Athnabeg and the people who had taken it for the season. It was a London gentleman who had taken Athnabeg—Lord Somebody—Donald could not remember the name, he had not paid much attention to the name. The same people had come last year, and MacFarlane—the head-keeper—had told Donald about the way these people had carried on at the Big House. Well, let them—Donald had thought—that is what is to be expected if a place is let to strangers. Yes, other places were let, but Ardfalloch was different from other places, just as MacAslan was different from other landowners. MacLaggan was a new-comer, a mere upstart compared with MacAslan, whose line stretched back into the dim prehistoric past. Worse than murder, MacAslan had said. That was a joke, of course. It was not worse than murder—and yet in a way it was more worrying. There was precedence for murder in Ardfalloch glen. . . . (It was not called murder in those days. If a man were killed in the heat of anger, or in cold and reasoned necessity, it was a killing . . .) but for letting there was no precedence—letting was a new thing. Donald would have been less shocked at murder, less surprised at all events, less helpless. He would have known what to do—that cave in the deep heather at the back of the old bothy at Ballochgorm—Donald had discovered it himself one day when they were shooting on the south moor. He had discovered it by falling into it, and, at once, he had seen its possibilities an admirable retreat for a man who should have need to disappear for a week or two and wanted a roof above his head and a dry floor beneath him. Donald was almost sorry that there would be no need to hide MacAslan in the cave at Ballochgorm. In this thing, he was helpless, he could not help MacAslan. And then, suddenly, he remembered that MacAslan had asked for his help, and he was filled with pride that it was to him that MacAslan had come—to him and no other. But how could he help. If I could but see through it! he thought, for the thing was like a mist about his brain.
“Are you listening, Donald?”
“I was not,” he owned humbly. “I was thinking.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking of many things, MacAslan. One of the things I was thinking was this—the London gentleman—you will have given him the forest and the moor—”
“Yes, I have given it all.”
The forest too—and the moor! “If it were the only way—” Donald said in a low voice.
“Would I have done it otherwise?”
Donald was silent. There was another way that MacAslan might have taken—he knew that, all the glen knew it. Not a creature in Ardfalloch but knew that MacAslan might have Miss Margaret Finlay for the asking—and all her money too. And Miss Margaret was a nice lady—“Tha i cho math’s a tha i cho breagha”—(She is as good as she is pretty) they would say in the village when they spoke of her, and was that not high praise? She had lived amongst them all her life; she was almost one of themselves; almost good enough for MacAslan. But, if MacAslan said there was no other way, it was not for Donald to question his decision, not for Donald to make any suggestion.
“It was the only way,” Iain repeated. “There was nothing else to be done—yet, even so, I am regretting it—wondering what I shall do, wondering how I am to tell my mother—”
There was silence on that word. An owl cried eerily from the small rocky island where the old castle of the MacAslans was crumbling into ruins.
“That is almost the worst, Donald,” the low voice continued. It was easy to talk like this in the darkness—you could say things that you could never have said in the light of day. Already Iain had told more—much more—than he had intended. Donald’s dark bulk in the motor-launch was an easy thing to talk to. “It is almost the worst, Donald. Will it kill her?”
“It will not kill her,” replied Donald with convincing readiness. “There is a strength about her—”
“She must go to Edinburgh,” Iain said. “She will be near my uncle and aunt, and Janet shall go with her.”
“And what will you do, MacAslan?”
Iain flung out his hand with a movement that set the boat rocking. “I shall remain,” he said firmly. “I have said to myself a dozen times that I must leave the glen, but I know I cannot. I cannot leave the glen, Donald—”
“There is no need for that—we will think of a way—”
“I have thought of a way. I shall stay in the old cottage down by the loch.”
Donald drew in his breath quickly—MacAslan in the old cottage, and strangers in the Big House! He said quietly, “The roof is not sound-it is a damp cold place—”
“Have the roof patched,” Iain told him. “But go about it quietly. Nobody must know—”
“If I could be telling Morag,” Donald said slowly. “She is handy-she could be helping with one thing and another—”
Iain laughed lightly. “Oh, Morag!” he said, “You must tell Morag, of course. I will not burden you with a secret to keep from Morag.”
“You are before her and above her,” Donald replied. He, too, was finding the darkness a safe curtain for speech—and it is easier for the thoughts of the heart to find expression in the Gaelic tongue. “You come first, MacAslan.”
“I am fortunate,” said Iain in a low voice, and then he added in a different tone. “It is the question of ghillies that is troubling me, Donald. We do not want a strange keeper here, one who would not care for the forest—and the moor.”
“God forbid!”
“If you would stay—if you would do it, Donald—and look after other things for me.”
There was a little silence, and then out of the darkness the voice came—“I will do it for you, MacAslan.”
Buy Smouldering Fire now from Amazon.com
Buy Smouldering Fire now from Amazon.co.uk
A Furrowed Middlebrow Book
FM25
Published by Dean Street Press 2019
Copyright © 1952 D.E. Stevenson
Introduction copyright © 2019 Alexander McCall Smith
All Rights Reserved
The right of D.E. Stevenson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her estate in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 1952 by William Collins
Cover by DSP
ISBN 978 1 912574 58 2
www.deanstreetpress.co.uk
&nb
sp; Table of Contents
Title Page/About the Book
Contents
Introduction by Alexander McCall Smith
Part I – Flying Above the Clouds
Part II – Quiet Days at The Small House
Part III – The Serpent in the Garden
Part IV – Busy Days at The Small House
Part V – The Wind Changes
About The Author
Works by D.E. Stevenson
Furrowed Middlebrow
SMOULDERING FIRE – Title Page
SMOULDERING FIRE – Chapter I
Copyright
Mrs. Tim Flies Home Page 26