by Neil M. Gunn
“It means so much to me,” he said. He told them how wonderful a hoard this was, how unique in the history of their country’s antiquities. Usually in his voice there was a laugh or energy of some sort, but now he spoke simply and Mrs Cameron glanced compassionately at him as she would at a woman who had been bereaved of her dearest on earth. The heart so moved in her that the first spout of water from the kettle missed the teapot.
“There’s nothing like a wee bit of oatcake and butter for putting the heart in you,” she said, buttering half a bannock.
And the tea refreshed him, brought him still more to himself.
“Only closed her eyes for a minute or two!” Mrs Cameron scoffed brightly. “I have closed my own for half a minute and found it half an hour. Haven’t we all? But she’s anxious, poor woman, for her son. He’s all she has, when all is said. And he’s as fond of bonny bright things as a bairn. Do you think he will be able to keep away from them? Not him! Did ever you know a bairn that could?”
He gave an involuntary shiver and felt his knees.
“It’s not wet you are?” asked Mrs Cameron.
‘No,” he answered lightly. “I just came through the burn.”
“Dear me! It’s to your bed you’ll go this minute. I’ll fill a bottle.” She had come halfway to feel his legs before she stopped herself, for his grey face worried her.
But he said he wasn’t going to his bed; in fact he was going back to the cairn. Dismayed, almost angry, she did her best to persuade him against this exceeding folly, but he answered that he had remembered something, and she saw that he had a hidden will as tough as wire.
“In that case,” she said, “you’ll change yourself first, and Anna will go with you. I’m not going to have sick folk in my house.”
On the way, he said to Anna, “I’m sorry to trouble you, but I could hardly let your grandmother come!”
Anna answered that she didn’t mind at all and walked beside him down to the footbridge. Her companionship, her nearness, so moved him that he suddenly wanted to take her arm or her hand. The deep dusk of the middle night had lightened under the moon. “What I’m afraid of,” he said, curbing his desire, “is that someone might go into the cairn and take things. If you helped me to block up the entrance after I came out—do you mind?”
“No,” she answered, “it’s a pleasure.” Her restraint was soft as the moonlight.
“You’re a dear girl,” he said impulsively, and added practically, in a sincere voice, “If there’s ever anything I can do for you at any time, you ask me. And for your grandmother too.”
“Thank you,” she said, with a quiet embarrassment that moved him more than ever.
“I’ll tell you what’s really worrying me,” he explained. “When I was making for Andie’s home I met a man and told him I was looking for Andie and why. If he spread the news . . . . It was silly of me, but at the time I could only think of getting hold of Andie.”
“Do you know who he was?”
“I know I’ve met him. He’s a local fellow. But where?”
“What was he like?”
He did his best to describe him. She did not answer.
“That conveys nothing to you?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
Then in a flash it came to him, and in his astonishment he stopped just short of the cairn. “I remember! The first day I came here . . . he was driving Mr Martin’s car.”
She was silent.
“You know him, of course?”
“Yes.”
“Now look, if you could possibly see him first thing in the morning and tell him for heaven’s sake not to mention what I told him, I should be very grateful to you. Would you do that?”
But she hesitated. “We’ll let him know,” she murmured.
He stood still, looking at her. She plainly did not mean to speak to the fellow herself. Something of disquiet touched him and strengthened him.
“Thank you,” he said soberly and led the way to the passage.
“You’re sure you don’t mind waiting here for me alone? I’ll only be a few minutes.”
She said she didn’t mind and he went into the cairn.
Chapter Seventeen
As he crawled along the passage, he was aware that the cairn was coming alive. This did not worry him; he simply knew it happened. Nothing could irritate him more nowadays than talk about time, time as the fourth dimension “and all that sort of stuff”. When he was intolerant he was inclined to be very intolerant, even perverse. For the truth was that time had become something other to him than a symbol in a mathematical equation. He even believed that an intuition was different in kind from anything logical or mathematical. Fundamentally it was an experience, and if the other fellow hadn’t had the experience how on earth could he discuss it? It was a blind presumption on his part, literally blind. What on earth do you know about ghosts if you have never seen one? If you haven’t experienced the psychic density of a place that was, over a long period of time, a centre of tremendous human emotions, what can you have to say about it that isn’t irrelevant? With such questions he had pursued his opponents even through their laughter. When he knew what he knew, he had a remarkable tenacity about it.
Moreover his physical experiences of the whole evening had now and then released his mind in a light and unusual way. This lightness could even stand away from the thickness in his head, from the clogged brain, with an effect of clarity that heightened apprehension. In the electric beam the angry skull was now not quite so bare. But he didn’t care much for the fellow. A warrior could be great-hearted. This guardsman hadn’t been; though no doubt he had been loyal enough. All the same he was a fellow mortal who had done his job, so he nodded to him, friendly enough, and passed on into the east chamber.
The hole in the wall gaped with a false suggestion of rape. It should never have been built in. But there had been strong on-goings here. These severed heads had never been set in that row by pious hands . . . . Severed—could it be possible? he wondered.
His expression pursed as he stood in vision, nodding now and then very slightly. There had never been any doubt in his mind but that the urn was an “intrusion”, possibly from the age of Gaelic myth and heroic legend. The intruder had found the passage into the long-covered tomb, and, for reasons which were not unimaginable, had concealed it here. In troubled times in all countries, people used holy places, places of worship, for hiding their treasure. In this last war an altar in a Balkan church had been used by the underground movement for storing dynamite . . . . Two or three levels of thought turned in his mind with a delicate jugglery, their planes tilting over in a visionary light, in a subtle game of fearful delay; then he walked to the spot where he had stood when he had withdrawn the ornaments from the urn, cast his light on the floor, among the stones, paused, stooped, and came slowly erect with the gold lunula in his hand.
It was real! The whole experience had been real! Weakness flushed his head and he sat down unable for a little time to get enough breath into his lungs. In Mrs Cameron’s kitchen, while he had been telling them his story, he remembered the ornament which had fallen from his hands when he had tried to grasp the dangling bracelet. This was it.
His weakness suffused him with an insidious sleep. His eyes closed and faintly he heard voices, clear voices but distant, coming down far corridors. At once he lifted his head, listened, put the necklace into a poacher’s pocket, and started for the passage.
“Who was speaking?” he asked.
She stood against the moonlit world with an extraordinary authenticity, a drawing together of all meaning into her still body. “Mr Martin,” she said.
“Where is he?”
“He’s gone home.”
“What was he doing here?”
“He was just passing.” Her voice was simple and remote; it was cool and fatal; but he knew that any instant she might break down.
“What were you talking about?”
She did not answer.
> “Did you tell him I was in the cairn?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing.”
“Did you tell him about the treasure?”
“No. I told him you had forgotten something.”
He stood, hardly aware of his questions, wondering if he would rush after Martin. But in another moment he saw such urgency as meaningless. Then the relationship which he had imagined between Anna and Martin came full upon him.
“I found what I was looking for,” he said quietly.
“That’s fine,” she answered in her polite friendly way.
“Yes,” he said. “This is it. It’s pure gold.”
As she tilted it in her hands the moonlight spilled off it.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “What was it for?”
“For putting round your neck. Wait.”
He took it from her. She was wearing a green woollen jumper open at the throat. He caught the lunula by the horns, lifted it towards her throat, and paused as she involuntarily swayed back a little.
“Perhaps I had better not stretch it,” he said, “until we see if it’s quite whole.”
She was silent, but he knew that her recent moment of stress had passed.
“And now we’ll have to fill in the opening.”
She helped him with an intelligent eagerness, handing down stones until the entrance was completely blocked. She had a pliant strong body, and her hair fell about her face and was tossed back.
“That should about do. Thank you, Anna.” As he got up out of the passage he staggered and she caught his arm. “So strange a night, I feel a bit dizzy,” he excused himself, smiling. As they were getting clear of the stones, he saw that she was watchful of him. A deep generosity towards her moved him in a light incorporeal way. The odd thing about this condition was that it appreciated essences, the unspoken word, the quality behind the act. What was undying in her was known to him. He patted her shoulder gently. “I’m all right,” he said in a light laughing voice. “And now for home.”
He rested once, stretching himself on his back and closing his eyes. Anna sat beside him. But he could not find utter peace because he wanted to ask her some questions. Also he wanted to go to sleep. If she spoke to him frankly, he would tell her the way. He felt full of a wisdom as old as the cairn. But he could do nothing. You never can do anything at such a moment except be there, he thought. I must stop wandering, he decided, or I’ll go away altogether. He sat up and felt faint.
“You go home, Anna, and I’ll just wait here a little while.” He hung his head.
“Don’t hurry,” she said to him. “It will pass.”
They seemed remarkable words to him, full of so profound a knowledge that the faintness began to ebb. He lifted his face.
She put her arm under his to help him up.
“One minute . . . . Tell me, is it growing lighter or am I imagining things?”
“The dawn is coming,” she said.
“Is it?” It seemed such extraordinary news that he looked about him in wonder. Then she helped him up.
Mrs Cameron was waiting for them. There was bustle and concern and he was soon in his bed. But he couldn’t sleep. The thoughts he had been choking back came out in hideous guise. No recent illness, no holiday feeling, could ever excuse his appalling rashness and ineptitude. He had almost behaved like an amateur. What his fellow archaeologists would think—dear God! The loss of a find of such historical significance in such a way! He writhed in mental anguish . . . . But in time, when bleakness came, he got control. There was only one thing to do now: carry on with coolness and cunning. Whatever happened he would keep a calm sough and be damned to them all! This final fighting thought exhausted him completely and he fell asleep.
Chapter Eighteen
Awaking to the strong daylight he looked for his watch on the chair by his bed. There was no watch and his head ached. A child’s voice laughed distantly and abruptly stopped. His watch was still ticking when he pulled it out of his waistcoat pocket. Five past ten! He began to dress hurriedly. As he went round the corner of the house towards the byre, he saw Sheena by the peat-stack on his right. Her back was to him and she was speaking to her home-made doll. “Shshsh,” she was saying mysteriously, “you mustn’t waken Mr Grant.”
This simple innocence lightened his misery and on the way back from the byre he spoke to her. Her round-eyed solemnity, with the shy hands up towards her mouth, moved him to a smile and he remembered the letter to his craftsman friend about the Silver Bough. Mrs Cameron met him at the doorstep. He wished her good morning and said he was very late.
“I thought I would let you sleep on,” she answered, scanning his face.
“It’s all right,” he replied with a forced smile, “but I would rather you had knocked me at the right time.”
“I’m sorry, Mr Grant, but you needed your sleep.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he muttered going into his sitting room, his head suddenly throbbing with annoyance. He felt anxious and wretched.
Anna brought him his porridge.
“Did you manage to send word to Mr Martin’s chauffeur?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she answered, and added, “Grandmother went to see Mrs Mackenzie this morning. She told her you might be late.”
“Oh, did she? My head is a bit thick. No news, I suppose?” He looked at her.
“Grandmother will tell you herself.”
But Mrs Cameron hadn’t much to tell, though she warmly conveyed the impression that Mrs Mackenzie and herself were his cunning and confident allies. Hope stirred in him, and after Anna had produced a small bottle of aspirin, he set out with his camera and gear.
As he approached the cairn and saw the two figures, their queer forlornness only made him clamp his teeth. How was it that he always got into impossible arguments and idiotic situations? Physical weakness turned his forehead cold. He greeted them, smiling obscurely, then turned abruptly on Foolish Andie and demanded, “Where did you hide it?”
Andie’s mouth opened wider, then he became excited and as he rocked on his feet his arms opened and shut like wings, the hands slapping the thighs. “Hug—goo—ha—ha . . . .”
“But you do know! Dammit, where did you put it?” His voice rose shrilly, but at the end of the argument he was no further forward. The cunning look in the small eyes and the fat creased smile—heaven alone knew whether they meant anything or not. He did not question Mrs Mackenzie, who all the time stood silent, for he felt angry and a little ashamed. This was not how he had meant to behave and his stomach sank as he felt he had merely increased the primitive cunning and fear.
Andie removed the stones with ardour, and Grant set about the business of taking photographs of the interior by flashlight. But it was difficult working alone, and his nerves soon got ragged. There was an unusual stillness in the chambers, too; not that everything was without life, but that something had receded, leaving behind a sinister aspect.
He had had a similar experience before when excavating a Roman villa; but now it was not a premonition of a brutal act; it was the presence of the annihilation after the act. It would not strike him; it would drain him through death to the negation of stone; and even then he would not be the stone, he would be the darkness.
He became aware of himself counting and recounting the bones, sitting on the floor by his electric handlamp. He stirred, got up, and muttered. After all, he was an archaeologist and this was essential work in the endless process of man’s knowledge of himself and his creation of culture. Why be so upset? For the chances were almost certain that they would find the hoard. It only needed time—and for such a hoard he could wait for months, for years. Andie would go for it as certainly as a child would go for her doll.
Then he stood for an appalled moment listening to the dark whisper, the dark whisper that the hoard didn’t matter. He could hardly breathe. He wanted to turn and vanish. But you know it doesn’t matter.
He cast about
him. He said aloud, “It is quite clear that in the chamber area the earth had been skinned to the rock. There is an inch or two of fine soil, probably from pulverised rock edges and pockets of earth left in cracks . . . . “
The echoes of his voice sounded lunatic; his brain throbbed through the cushion woven by the aspirin. Since his arrival he had been only once touched by this kind of fear; it was when Martin had asked him to stay after dinner. He suddenly saw Martin’s face as it was then, and its aspect was this aspect. Why not? he said to himself with a stirring of wrath, a movement of his body to repel. Isn’t the fellow Neolithic?
He went on with his work; but in a few minutes a whisper suggested: You’d better make a rough count in each chamber lest you are never allowed to finish this job properly; record the main things; hurry up. This suddenly seemed sound advice, and with a conscious sense of proportion he proceeded to act on it.
By lunch time he was all in and knew it. When he saw three hikers or tourists appear on the crest behind, he watched them for a moment or two with sharpened eyebrows, then suddenly ordered the closing of the passage. He was munching his sandwich again by the time they drew near. A mop-haired young woman with her hands in the pockets of her very short shorts, a solemn-faced young man with spectacles and a slung camera, and a handsome dark-haired fellow with a frank engaging manner who passed the time of day. The girl’s eyes travelled from Andie’s face to his mother’s and then on to Grant’s with the air of not believing it.
“Are you doing some excavating here, sir?” asked the dark fellow.
“Yes,” replied Grant shortly.
“Any luck at all in the way of finds?”
“Luck is not the idea,” he answered coldly, giving the fellow his shoulder.
“Sorry if we intrude,” came the response at once in friendliest apology. “My friend had the notion that he would like a photo of this old pile. We hope you don’t mind?”
“I do mind,” Grant said sharply, glancing at him.
