Donald sighed; he continued: “I saw the man was dangerous to MacAslan, but just how dangerous I did not know. I saw that the man must not be allowed to leave Ardfalloch until I knew more. I said to him, ‘I must think about all this, Mister Middleton.’ ‘You are not backing out of it, Donald?’ he said quickly. ‘No, I am not backing out of it,’ I told him. ‘But there is much to arrange. I must have a little time to think.’ ‘You must think quickly, then,’ he said, ‘for I am going away tomorrow, to London, to see my lawyer about the case. Look here, Donald,’ he said, ‘I will give you ten pounds if you will come—as well as all your expenses—and another ten if you will say what I tell you to say about where you found MacAslan and Mrs. Medworth when you went to fetch them from the island.’ ‘That is a lot of money to me, Mister Middleton,’ I said. ‘But I have told you already where I found them.’ He laughed and said I had better think again. When I saw that he was bribing me to lie about MacAslan my anger rose, so that it was hard to keep myself from striking him as he stood. But I remembered that he was MacAslan’s enemy before he was mine, and I knew that, before I could do anything, I must see MacAslan. So I stilled my anger and I said to him, ‘I will come and see you to-night, at MacTaggart’s, and we can arrange it all comfortably.’ He was content with that—the more so because it had started to rain, and it was not at all to Mister Middleton’s liking to stand and talk in the rain. He said he would expect me at the inn that evening, and went away. So then I went on to see MacAslan, and he was out.”
“You waited for MacAslan,” Morag encouraged him.
“I waited for him in the little room, and, while I waited, I thought about it all, and one moment it seemed to me that the man was very bad and very dangerous, and the next moment it seemed that I had made much out of little, and that the man could do no harm to MacAslan since MacAslan had done no wrong. It seemed to me that all the talk of judge and law-court was childish talk and meant nothing, and that the man was talking to relieve his anger and no more. But, when MacAslan came, I saw that it was not so. I saw that the man’s talk of how he could harm MacAslan was true.”
“MacAslan told you—”
“There was trouble on him,” Donald said, without heeding the interruption. “There was great trouble on MacAslan that day. He would tell me nothing, for he was bound with a promise, but there was no need for him to be telling me. He told me without knowing that he was telling me, for I held the key to his secret in my hand. So when he spoke of the old days when a man was free to follow his nature I knew what he meant, and when he spoke of the desire that was on him to kill his enemy I knew who it was that was his enemy. But I held my peace, for I felt that it was better that MacAslan should think he was talking to the air.
“I was watching him as he talked, and I could see, by the blackness of his face, that it would be an ill day for Mister Middleton if he should meet MacAslan. It seemed to me that no promise would hold MacAslan’s hand.”
“I have never seen MacAslan in wrath!” Morag exclaimed.
“It does not happen often, nor for small things,” Donald told her. “MacAslan is a man who keeps his anger for the big things and does not fritter it away on trifles as some men do. MacAslan’s anger is like a storm. I was afraid.”
“Afraid!” echoed Morag incredulously.
“I was afraid that MacAslan would kill his enemy,” Donald explained patiently, “and he was in no mood to be cautious. He was in no mood to plan the thing securely, or to be secret in his planning. There was such anger in MacAslan that he would not count the cost if his enemy were before him—I could see that. Over and over again MacAslan said, ‘I am bound, Donald’; but I did not think that the bonds would hold him. There was only one thing to do—only one—I knew that I must kill the man myself.
“In a way I was glad when I saw my path clear, for the man was bad altogether. He was MacAslan’s enemy and mine. There were plenty of reasons why the man should die, but the chief reason was that as long as he was alive MacAslan would be in danger. I knew that I must kill him, and I knew that I must do it before he left the glen, for, once he had gone away, it would be a hundred times more difficult. At first I could not think how I could do the thing—I would have liked to fight the man, for he was as big as I am, and strong, and it would have been a good fight. And I felt I would like to put my two hands round his throat and squeeze the life out of him—for I, too, was angry, though my anger was cold and deadly, and not hot like MacAslan’s anger—but then I saw that I could not fight the man, for it would be too dangerous. It was not for my own satisfaction I was to kill the man, but for MacAslan’s safety, and therefore I could take no risk. I must think of a sure way. I left MacAslan and walked into the village, and all the time I was thinking and thinking of how I could do the thing, and do it secretly.
“Mister Middleton was in the bar, and he called to me to have a drink, but I could not drink with the man when it was in my heart to kill him, so I said I had no time, and signed to him that I wanted to speak to him privately. We went upstairs to his bedroom and sat down on two chairs, and he looked at me and said, ‘Well, Donald, is it all right?’ and I said, ‘It is all right, Mister Middleton, I will come to London when you say.’ ‘That’s splendid,’ he said. ‘I’ll write and tell you when to come, and send you the money. You won’t regret it,’ he said. All this time I was hardly daring to look at the man in case he should see what was in my mind—and the hatred that was in me—and I was wondering and wondering how I could do the thing that I must do—”
“How did you do it, Donald?”
“Can you not be waiting for me to tell you, woman!” he asked her, smiling at her impatience. “I am telling you from the very beginning, so that, when I have finished, there will be no more to tell, for it is not a good thing to be speaking of.”
He looked round the small cosy room and lowered his voice. “And then suddenly I saw how I could do it,” he continued. “It was an easy way, and a secret way, and there would be no danger in it at all. I said to him, ‘Och, it is a pity you are going away to-morrow, for we have never been out after the duck,’ and I asked if he would not be liking a shot at the duck in the morning before he left. He thought for a minute, and then he laughed, and said it would be good sport, but he was leaving Balnafin by the eight-o’clock train. And, at that, I saw my plan, and how it could be done, and it was a very good plan,” said Donald complacently. “So then I said to him, ‘The early morning is the best time for the duck—this is how to do it, Mister Middleton. You will order the taxi to call at the inn for your things, and to meet you at the bridge at seven o’clock, and I will call for you at the inn at four o’clock in the morning, and we will go up to the duck-bog together, and you will shoot a couple of brace of Mister Hetherington Smith’s duck to take south with you in the train.’ He was laughing to himself. ‘It will be good sport,’ he said again. ‘You are a rogue, Donald, but I like you. You will be expecting a big tip for the morning’s work, I suppose.’ ‘I will be leaving that to yourself, Mister Middleton,’ I said politely.
“I left him then, for I had some arrangements of my own to be making. And in the morning I called for him at four o’clock as we had arranged. We walked up to the bog together. He had his gun, and a bag over his shoulder. He gave me the bag to carry. ‘That is for the duck,’ he said, smiling. ‘It is a poacher’s bag, that.’ ‘Och, it is not the first time I have been carrying a poacher’s bag,’ I said. ‘No,’ said Mister Middleton, ‘and it won’t be the last, eh?’ I was listening very carefully to all he was saying, and taking note of the way he walked—”
“And why were you doing that, Donald?” Morag enquired.
“You will be seeing why, in a little,” replied Donald. “It was very misty and dark just at first, and once or twice he said, ‘We won’t see any duck this morning, Donald. I would have been better in my bed’; but I told him it would soon clear and it would be just right for him, and, sure enough, in a little while the sun came through the mist, and
the mist began to clear, so that you could see quite a long way. When we were coming near the bog, I stopped and said to him, ‘You will have to take off that coat, Mister Middleton, for the duck will be seeing you a mile away.’ ‘Is it as loud as all that?’ he said, laughing. He took off his coat—you will be remembering the coat with the big checks, Morag—and he took off his hat and his blue muffler and put them beside a bush. He had his gun under his arm. We went on together.
“When we got to the bog I said to him, ‘You will be needing big shot for the duck, Mister Middleton.’ ‘I have sixes,’ he said. ‘That is no good at all,’ I said to him. ‘It is fours you are needing.’ I had a bag of cartridges on my shoulder. He gave me the gun, and I loaded it with the big shot. He had gone on ahead of me, and I put the gun to my shoulder to shoot him. . . . And then, somehow, I could not do it—my gorge rose at the thought, for the man was so unsuspecting. I said softly, ‘Mister Middleton,’ and he turned and looked at me. ‘I am going to kill you, Mister Middleton,’ I said. For a moment he did not believe that I would do it. He thought it was a joke I was having with him, and then his face changed, for he saw that I was in earnest—and he turned and ran from me.”
Donald paused for a moment and drew his hand across his brow. He was surprised to find that his hand was wet. The telling of the tale had brought it all back to him—the stress and the strain, and the fear that he might make a mistake, and so ruin them all.
“Go on, Donald,” Morag urged.
“He ran from me,” Donald continued. “It was strange, that.”
“You had the gun,” said Morag sensibly.
“I had the gun,” Donald agreed. “But, even so, it was strange. A man’s instinct is to go for his enemy, and I had thought from his speech that this man was brave—even reckless. I had listened to his stories at MacTaggart’s, and in all his stories he was brave. He had tackled armed men and knocked them out with a blow—it was in America—but he ran from me. I had expected him to leap at me, and to try to wrest the gun from my hands—I was prepared for that—but, when he turned and ran, I was not prepared. All in a moment I saw that I had done wrong to speak to the man and tell him of my intention. I had been thinking of my own feelings, and I had allowed my scruples to endanger my plan. MacAslan’s safety was at stake. If the man escaped we were all ruined—I saw that. It was all clear in my mind. I saw that he must not escape what-ever happened. If it had been necessary to kill him before, it was a hundred times more necessary now. All in a moment I saw this, it was all quite clear in my mind. He was running along the edge of the bog by now, and I was running after him. I gained on him, for I knew the ground, and then I raised the gun and shot him. He fell without a sound.”
“Oh, Donald, it was dreadful,” Morag whispered.
“It was dreadful,” Donald agreed; “but there was no other way at all. I had to do it, Morag—it was for MacAslan, and it was the only thing. And you must remember he was bad—altogether bad—and very dangerous. You must remember that, Morag.”
“Tell me what happened next.”
“There was duck in the bog,” Donald said, visualising the scene. “They rose up in the air when they heard the shot and flew away squawking, and after that it was very still. I knew there was no time to waste, for I had wasted time already. I had much to do—there was no time to waste.
“I took a spade I had hidden in that place the night before and I dug a hole. The ground was very soft, and soon there was water in the hole. I put him in the hole, and I covered him up, and I put back the turf I had cut, and I stamped on it, and then I strewed some leaves about the place. There was hardly a mark to be seen when I had finished. Then I took the check coat and put it over my own coat—he was broad in the shoulders, that one—and I put on the hat and the blue muffler, and I took a little piece of tow I had brought with me, and stuck it on my lip, and I went down to the bridge.
“Very soon Rory came along with the taxi. I spoke to him sharply in English, saying, ‘You are late, damn you. Get a move on or I shall miss my train.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ he said meekly. I got in, laughing to myself. Rory drove on quickly. Presently we got to Balnafin. I went into the station, and called loudly for a porter to fetch my luggage. I took a ticket to Glasgow. There were several people waiting on the platform for the train—”
“Och, it was very dangerous!” cried Morag. “Were you not afraid they would know it was not Mister Middleton?”
“I was not afraid,” Donald replied simply. “Nobody at Balnafin was knowing the man well. They were knowing the coat and the hat and they were not bothering about who was inside them. It was Mister Middleton they were expecting to see and so it was him they were seeing. And then, too, it was early in the morning. In the morning people are dull, and they are busy with their own affairs—there was little danger in it, Morag. I bought a paper at the bookstall and read it, and I walked up and down the platform with small steps. The train was late in coming, but, at last, it came. They brought the luggage on a truck and put it in the van. The station-master was there—he was wanting a tip—he was fussing round the luggage, and then he came and opened the door of the carriage for me. I said to him, ‘Thank you, my man,’ and I gave him two and sixpence. The porter came and said the luggage was all in the van—I gave him a shilling. There was nobody else travelling first class, and I knew they would not forget me in a hurry, and that was what I was wanting.
“When the train started I took off the check coat and the hat and the blue muffler and the little moustache. I rolled them up together, and put them in the poacher’s bag. I had my own cap in my pocket. When the train stopped at Dalnahuilish I got out at the other side of the carriage—the side away from the platform—and hid behind a truck until the train had gone. Then I walked back to Ardfalloch across the moors, and I threw the bag into the middle of a tarn.
“Mister Hetherington Smith was shooting the south moors that day. I met them coming up from the first drive. ‘Where have you been, MacNeil?’ he said to me. ‘I have been making up the butts,’ I told him. ‘Some of them are needing a little patching after the rain.’ I showed him a butt that I had been patching the night before and he said, ‘That is a good piece of work—you must have been out early getting this done.’ You see, Morag, it is all quite safe.”
“It was well done,” Morag said slowly. “It was very clever of you, Donald, indeed it was.”
Donald was pleased, but he would not admit it. “Och, I am not wanting praise,” he said. “It is enough that I have rid MacAslan of his enemy.”
“They will be very happy, I am thinking,” said Morag, nodding thoughtfully.
“I am thinking the same,” agreed Donald, reaching for his pipe.
THE END
About The Author
Born in Edinburgh in 1892, Dorothy Emily Stevenson came from a distinguished Scottish family, her father being David Alan Stevenson, the lighthouse engineer, first cousin to Robert Louis Stevenson.
In 1916 she married Major James Reid Peploe (nephew to the artist Samuel Peploe). After the First World War they lived near Glasgow and brought up two sons and a daughter. Dorothy wrote her first novel in the 1920’s, and by the 1930’s was a prolific bestseller, ultimately selling more than seven million books in her career. Among her many bestselling novels was the series featuring the popular “Mrs. Tim”, the wife of a British Army officer. The author often returned to Scotland and Scottish themes in her romantic, witty and well-observed novels.
During the Second World War Dorothy Stevenson moved with her husband to Moffat in Scotland. It was here that most of her subsequent works were written. D.E. Stevenson died in Moffat in 1973.
Fiction by D.E. Stevenson
Published by Dean Street Press
Mrs. Tim Carries On (1941)
Mrs. Tim Gets a Job (1947)
Mrs. Tim Flies Home (1952)
Smouldering Fire (1935)*
Spring Magic (1942)
Other Titles
Jean Erskine’s Secret (wr
itten c. 1917, first published 2013)
Peter West (1923)
Emily Dennistoun (written c. 1920s, first published 2011)
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment (1932)*
Golden Days (1934)*
Miss Buncle’s Book (1934)
Divorced from Reality (1935, aka Miss Dean’s Dilemma, aka The Young Clementina)
Miss Buncle Married (1936)
The Empty World (1936, aka A World in Spell)
The Story of Rosabelle Shaw (1937)
The Fair Miss Fortune (written c. 1938, first published 2011)
The Baker’s Daughter (1938, aka Miss Bun the Baker’s Daughter)
Green Money (1939, aka The Green Money)
Rochester’s Wife (1940)
The English Air (1940)
Crooked Adam (1942)
Celia’s House (1943)
The Two Mrs Abbotts (1943)
Listening Valley (1944)
The Four Graces (1946)
Kate Hardy (1947)
Young Mrs Savage (1948)
Vittoria Cottage (1949)
Music in the Hills (1950)
Winter and Rough Weather (1951, aka Shoulder the Sky)
Five Windows (1953)
Charlotte Fairlie (1954, aka The Enchanted Isle, aka Blow the Wind Southerly)
Amberwell (1955)
Summerhills (1956)
The Tall Stranger (1957)
Anna and Her Daughters (1958)
Still Glides the Stream (1959)
The Musgraves (1960)
Bel Lamington (1961)
Fletcher’s End (1962)
The Blue Sapphire (1963)
Katherine Wentworth (1964)
Smouldering Fire Page 33