The Hill of the Red Fox

by Allan Campbell McLean

I followed him into the kitchen, deriding myself for being so foolish as to think I could confide in him. If treasure were hidden at the Hill of the Red Fox, the last man to inform would be Murdo Beaton of the long face and the shifty eyes.

  The kitchen table had been moved against the bench, and I joined Mairi on the bench. She did not look at me, but sat with her hands in her lap, her head down. The old woman sat at the end of the table, and I noticed for the first time how her fingers were swollen and twisted with rheumatism.

  Murdo Beaton took his place at the head of the table, and took off his cap. He ran both his hands through his wispy red hair, cleared his throat, and said a long grace in Gaelic.

  I glanced furtively at Mairi. Her head was bowed and her eyes tightly closed. The cailleach’s eyes were open, and I could hear her mumbling the words of the grace to herself. Murdo Beaton had his forehead bowed on his clasped hands, and he spoke slowly and with great deliberation.

  He had finished the grace, and sat back in his chair and cleared his throat, before Mairi opened her eyes and took up her spoon.

  How I enjoyed that first breakfast in Achmore. I was hungry after the tramp across the moor in the keen morning air, and not even the shock of the discovery of the Hill of the Red Fox could blunt my appetite.

  We had bowls of brose with fresh cream, and newly-baked girdle scones with home-made butter, and cups of strong, sweet tea. I was too hungry to notice the lack of conversation, and it was such an honest hunger that conversation would have interfered with the serious business of eating.

  Murdo Beaton ate rapidly, stuffing spoonful after spoonful of brose into his mouth without pause. The spoon had no sooner reached his mouth than it was dipping down again to the bowl, and his mouth moved forward to meet it on its upward journey. He finished first, and leaned back, gazing at the ceiling, picking idly at his teeth with a matchstick.

  When we had all finished, he clasped his hands and bent forward again, and delivered another long grace. I noticed that he had snatched up his cap and left the room before Mairi opened her eyes.

  She looked at his empty chair, and stood up and started to gather the empty dishes. When she reached across for my bowl, she said softly, “Don’t be letting him know you went for the cows with me.”

  She saw my eyes on the old woman, and added, “The cailleach’s deaf.”

  I nodded, and she went on gathering the dishes as if nothing had passed between us.

  Murdo Beaton was milking the big black cow when I went outside. I lay down on the grass in the hot sun, watching him.

  He was crouched down on his heels, holding a small tin pail under the cow’s udder with his left hand. His right hand worked steadily at one teat at a time, and the milk spurted into the pail, rising in a creamy froth. When the pail was full he tipped it into a bucket by his side and went on milking.

  When he had milked both cows, he called to Mairi, and she came running out carrying two old pails. He tipped a quantity of milk into each one of them, and she went off towards the byre.

  I got up to follow her, and he said sharply, “Let her be, I want no fooling with the calves.” He saw the hot flush spreading over my cheeks, and added, in a more reasonable tone, “If it is work you are after, bide a while. You can help with the peats.”

  I lay down again on the grass, my hands behind my head. Murdo Beaton waited until Mairi had reappeared with the empty pails, and he said something to her in Gaelic, as she went into the house.

  I watched him go into the byre and presently he came out again with a calf, jumping and bucking wildly on its tethering rope. He drove the tethering stake into the ground with his heel, and the calf rushed madly round and round, kicking its hind legs up in the air. He brought out the other calf and tethered it, and it made the same mad rush. I was afraid it would break its neck when it suddenly reached the end of its tether and was slewed round by the taut rope and jerked off its feet.

  Murdo Beaton whistled the dog, Caileag, and she sprang up from the open cottage door and raced down the croft to where the cows had wandered. Snapping and barking around their heels, she worked them up to the house. I watched man and dog and beasts go through the gate to the common grazing, thinking what a peaceful picture they made. When I looked at the calves again they had stopped their wild racing and were grazing placidly.

  Without being really aware of it, my eyes kept swinging round to the Hill of the Red Fox. The white wisp of cloud had vanished, and the black peak was clearly defined against the clear blue of the sky. I thought for a moment of writing to my mother, and telling her everything that had happened, but I could hear Aunt Evelyn saying, “Stuff and nonsense! Mysterious messages in trains, indeed! Haven’t I always told you the child reads too many books?”

  No, there was no help to be expected from that quarter, I told myself. I was sure Mairi would help me, but what could she do? And if I told Mairi there was always a danger that her father would get to hear of it.

  I picked a handful of daisies from the grass and started stripping the white petals. How did the man with the scar know that I would be sure to see the Hill of the Red Fox? I was certain I had never seen him until that fateful moment at Corpach when he darted into the compartment. I went over in my mind everything that had happened from the time he had opened the door.

  He had stood for a moment, wiping the sweat from his face, before crossing the carriage and standing over me. I remembered how he had glanced at my suitcase, and tucked the address label under the case so that it was hidden from view. The address label! Why hadn’t I thought of it before. The man with the scar had seen the address label on my case and known that I was travelling to Achmore.

  It seemed simple enough looking back on it, but his mind must have worked at lightning speed to have comprehended the significance of my address and hidden it from his pursuer in the space of a few seconds. I felt a certain admiration for the man with the scar, no matter what he had done. What cool courage and resource he had shown, for all the agitation betrayed by his clenching hands.

  I remembered how he had written in his diary after the train left Glenfinnan. He must have known there was a tunnel on the line, and decided to pass me a message under cover of darkness. I recalled how he had stepped into the corridor as soon as the train drew out of the tunnel. I could see now that he had drawn his pursuer away from the carriage in case I betrayed the fact that he had communicated with me.

  But I was still no nearer a solution to the message. HUNT AT THE HILL OF THE RED FOX. Hunt for what? Once again I looked at the black, jutting peak above the dark hollow. What could be hidden on that remote hill? I determined to find out if any ships had been wrecked off the coast during the war. Perhaps a cargo of bullion had been hidden on the hill. But I could not understand what MI5 had got to do with it, unless it could be the registration number of a ship.

  When Murdo Beaton came back he was leading a brown mare. He harnessed her to the cart that was standing outside the byre, its long shafts sticking high in the air, and tossed a large creel into the cart. Then he called to Mairi, and she ran out of the house to join him. He took hold of the bridle and urged the horse down the croft.

  I felt a stab of disappointment, thinking he had forgotten me, but he called back, “Well, boy, if it is work you are after you had best be moving.”

  I scrambled to my feet and ran down the croft, trotting along beside the big wooden wheels of the cart.

  We worked at the long, straight peat cutting I had first seen on my way to Achmore. The dry peats were stacked in small heaps, and Mairi and I filled sacks from these heaps. Murdo Beaton filled the big creel, working alongside us. When the creel was full we held it for him, balanced on the edge of the peat face, and he dropped down to the bottom of the cutting and took the weight of the creel on his back. There was a strong rope threaded through the back of the creel with the two ends hanging loose. He caught up these ends and drew them tight across his chest, bracing himself to take the full weight of the loaded creel. Then he woul
d start forward across the uneven turfs at the bottom of the bog, plodding doggedly on until he reached the fence at the foot of the croft.

  Mairi and I followed him, carrying our sacks. The mare was tethered to a fencing stob, and we scrambled over the fence and loaded the peats into the cart.

  When the cart was full we followed it up the brae to the cottage, and the peats were dumped at the end of the house. Mairi said she and the cailleach would make a stack when all the peats had been shifted from the bog.

  We worked without a pause all afternoon, and my shirt stuck to my back with sweat. My back started to ache and the muscles stiffened in the backs of my legs. My hands became raw and tender from handling hundreds of dry, rough peats, and every time I emptied my sack into the cart a cloud of fine peat dust was wafted into my eyes, making them smart and sting.

  I could never have carried on had it not been for Mairi. For all her slight body, she was far stronger than I, and she worked unceasingly. Except for her hair clinging damply to her forehead, and her flushed face, she showed no signs of tiring. I gritted my teeth and urged my aching body to further efforts. If a girl could stand up to the work, I could not lie down and admit defeat.

  Not that Murdo Beaton spared himself. For every small sack carried by us he shifted two great creels of peat, and I realized the strength there must be in that long, gangling body. He never took off his fisherman’s jersey, or even his denim jacket, but the sweat trickled steadily down his face through the black of the peat dust.

  From where we worked, I could see all the crofts of Achmore spread out on the hillside. The men were busy hoeing the potatoes, and what had once been patches of uniform green merged into a clean pattern. I could see the straight green lines of the shaws with the black earth between as each man cleaned his potato patch.

  Once, when I looked up, I saw that the men had left their work and had gathered in a small group. They were looking down at us, and talking together.

  Murdo Beaton straightened up and wiped the sweat from his brow with a grimy hand. His face hardened when he saw the little group on the hillside.

  “There’s the men of Achmore for you,” he said bitterly. “Blethering away like a lot of old sweetie-wives, and grumbling when honest, hardworking folk do better than themselves.”

  He bent to his work with redoubled energy, and I saw the spreading stain of sweat across the back of his jacket and under the armpits. I tried in vain to brush the midges from my face, and stooped wearily to my task.

  In the early evening, after we had unloaded the cart, we went into the cottage for a strupag of bread and cheese and scones and tea.

  When Murdo Beaton rose to lead the way to the door, he said, “If you are tired, boy, you can stay where you are.”

  “No, I’m fine,” I said, seeing Mairi springing lightly to her feet, and I forced my unwilling legs to carry me out to the croft.

  The sun was lost behind a haze, but the closeness in the air was worse than the fiercest heat of the sun. The bog seemed to be swarming with midges. They were in my hair, around my face and neck, biting my legs, and the more I slapped and scratched and waved, the worse they became. They were almost unbearable. I would stoop to gather an armful of peats, only to drop them again so that I could free my hands to scrub furiously at my face and neck in an effort to stop the terrible itching. By the time I had stooped again for the peats the itching was as bad as ever.

  I thought with each sack I filled that this one must surely be the last I can will my weary body to carry, and each time we climbed the brae to the house I rested more heavily on the back of the cart. Somehow or other, I carried on, but in the end I was picking up peats without being conscious of the movement of my body.

  When we unloaded the cart for the last time, and Murdo Beaton said, “That is enough for one day. It is time we were taking potatoes,” I could have flung myself down on the cool grass and lain there until sleep came.

  He led the horse down to the byre, and Mairi thrust a towel and soap into my hands, and said quickly, “Take a wash in the tub; it will be good for you.”

  At the end of the house a spring gushed out of the limestone rock into a tub below. The water was carried away by a side drain into the main drain running down the croft.

  I took off my shirt and vest and washed the sweat and dust off my face and body. When I had dried myself I walked stiffly into the kitchen and sat down to dinner.

  After soup, there was meat and potatoes. The potatoes were piled high in an enormous dish in the centre of the table, and we helped ourselves. Mindful of my uncertainty of the previous night, I watched Murdo Beaton hold up one on a fork, and peel it deftly with quick strokes of his knife, before I followed suit.

  When the long grace was over, I excused myself and went to my room. I was going to write to my mother, and I thought I would undress first and get into bed. I can remember pulling back the blankets and swinging stiffly into bed, but no more.

  I must have been asleep before my head touched the pillow.

  Chapter 9

  My limbs were stiff and sore when I awoke the next morning. I thought I would never be able to stoop to lift a peat from the ground, but the stiffness soon passed. After I had filled the first two sacks, I was surprised to find that I was working more swiftly than before and carrying the loaded sack with greater ease.

  The sun blazed down from the same cloudless sky, and it was a relief each time the cart was loaded and we followed it up the brae, away from the heat of the bog to the cooler air of the hillside.

  By late afternoon, we had cleared over half the peats from the bog, and the cailleach started laying out peats to make a foundation for the stack.

  Mairi and I were filling our sacks from the same heap, and Murdo Beaton was working a little way in front of us, when I first noticed the men coming down the brae from the crofts at Achmore. There were six of them, and they walked in a straight line, bunched closely together.

  Mairi went on filling her sack until she noticed that I had stopped. She glanced up and saw the marching men, and her eyes went to her father’s bent back but he never even looked up.

  The men crossed the fence at the bottom of the crofts and made their way over the bog towards us. Murdo Beaton straightened up, and I knew he had seen them, but he went on filling his creel with peats.

  Neither Mairi nor I moved, and the six men carried on past Murdo Beaton without a word. He went on working, and they stopped in front of Mairi and me.

  The man in the centre of the group stepped forward, his hand outstretched. He was a short, stocky man, and I took him to be the oldest of the five for his hair was white and he had a bushy white moustache. His face was ruddy and smiling, and he looked at me from keen blue eyes beneath eyebrows as white as his hair.

  “Ceud mile failte agus slainte mhath, Alasdair,” he cried, shaking my hand vigorously. Before I could speak he went on, “There you have it in the old tongue, my boy.” And he repeated solemnly in English, “A hundred thousand welcomes and good health, Alasdair.”

  “Why, thank you,” I stammered.

  He made a sound like tut-tut, spitting it out between clenched teeth.

  “There is always a welcome at our firesides for the son of Alasdair Dubh, an duine bochd. I am Hector MacLeod and these are the men of Achmore come to welcome you home. We waited for you to come to us but if the mountain will not come to Mahomet, then Mahomet must go to the mountain.” He laughed hugely, and urged his companions forward.

  One by one, they shook me firmly by the hand.

  Calum Stewart, a big, shy man with a bright red face. Lachlan MacLeod, dark and lean, with a grip like steel. Donald Alec MacDonald, another big man with piercing grey eyes. Iain Ban MacDonald, the tallest of them all, his cap perched on top of a mop of fair hair. Roderick MacPherson, a small dark man with twinkling eyes, who said, “Don’t be after thinking the bodach is the only one with the Gaelic, Alasdair. Failte do’n duthaich. Welcome to the country, boy.”

  They stood ar
ound me, smiling and joking, and teasing Mairi in the Gaelic judging from her blushes and giggles.

  All the time, Murdo Beaton went on working steadily, never looking up.

  It was only when Hector MacLeod turned to him, and said, “Murdo Ruadh, the peats can go to pot for a day. We must make a ceilidh with Alasdair Beag,” that he straightened up.

  His small, pale eyes flickered over the group, lighting on me for a second and then moving away again.

  “You are welcome to take the boy,” he said in a flat, expressionless voice. “It is his own doing that he is working at all. But myself is for lifting these peats, and lift them I will.”

  I did not want to leave Mairi to carry on unaided, and I protested that I must finish the work, but they pooh-poohed the idea.

  Hector MacLeod seized my arm in his.

  “Man alive,” he cried, “what would your father be saying if we did not make a ceilidh this day?” and they marched me off across the bog, not heeding my protests.

  We were clambering over the fence, when Hector MacLeod said, “And how do you like this place, eh?”

  I saw his shrewd blue eyes on my face.

  “Fine,” I said.

  He laughed and slapped his thigh, and turned to Calum Stewart who was on my other side.

  “The boy is a Cameron, right enough,” he declared. “I mind the day we took Alasdair Dubh to Glasgow. He was only twelve at the time and we took him on the trams and the buses and fed him ice-cream and took him out at night to see the lights of the city. When we got back home we took him to his father, and his father asked him what he thought of the big city. Well I mind the day. We sat round in a circle waiting for him to speak about the wonders of the city. And all he said was ‘Fine.’”

  He laughed again, and Calum Stewart smiled a friendly smile.

  We made straight for the house on the croft adjoining my own. It was a big stone house with a slated roof.

  Hector MacLeod led the way into the kitchen, shouting “Peigi! Morag!”