My Father Sleeps (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “I say,” he said, “I’ve lost my clothes and things. You wouldn’t know anything about it?”

  “I would that,” replied the boy. “I am after follying the men that have them, and I will be taking you to that place where they have them hid.”

  “Do you know the chaps?”

  “I am not knowing who they are, but I am thinking they are not over-anxious to meet folks. They have a look of hiding themselves away. They will be the men that have Mrs. MacShuffie’s wee croft at the top of the cliff. I have follied them most over the island.”

  “I don’t know them. The trouble is, I ought to be on my way back. And what are you doing here, anyway? We left you at Ballachulish.”

  “My mother’s sister is living in the clachan by Stenscholl.” He pointed southward of where they were standing. “I was along by here when I was seeing a man. He was walking in the wee burn, and another with him. But the first one walked on ahead and the other was hiding in the heather. The first one had a long stick and he reached from the lochan for your clothes and hooked them away. Then he was putting them under his arm and running, and the other got up like an old bull, and I can show you the way they took beyond the burn, and where they were hiding the clothes and the way they were cursing. I was hearing at my father’s that ye were for Uig. I follied ye all day.”

  “Come on,” said Brian, spurred by the lust for battle. “Tell me about it afterwards. We’ll lose these fellows if we don’t get a move on now.”

  “Not too fast,” said Macquarrie. “We should go carefully, I am thinking. I would not be wishing to have them murder us.”

  “Murder us?” said Brian, staring. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Man, never mind what I am meaning. But be keeping down the head of you, and be trusting me to know these parts much better than you can be knowing them. I have stayed with my mother’s sister, times, before. I could be showing you where the kelpie keeps, and . . .”

  “Oh, all right. Go ahead.”

  The boys crept forward, following the course of the rill. Around them rolled the treeless moors of the island. Before them rose the hills which Brian would need to cross to get back home. To his relief, the trail followed by young Macquarrie soon joined what, from memory of the map, he believed to be his homeward track. They climbed a steep cliff, skirted a small clachan, passed some scattered crofts, and then began to ascend a gradual inclination by a rough path which bordered a deep drop to a valley.

  “How far ahead do you think they are?” asked Brian.

  “I do not know that. This is the road they were follying.”

  The road, on to which they diverged at a wide angle at the end of twenty minutes’ hard walking, ran across fairly high ground between hills. Attempting to keep up with his stocky companion, Brian began to realize how very tired he was. The swim in the bay had been refreshing, but had left him, after the long tramp which had lasted from early morning until the middle of the afternoon, with slack and weary muscles, and a languorous body which did not approve of further strenuous exercise.

  He had little hope or expectation that he and Macquarrie would catch up with the thieves, and his one desire now was to get home. Mist was in the dips and hollows of the hills, and, with the declining sun, the temperature had dropped. His bathing trunks were not yet dry, and although the rate at which the boys were making progress kept him warm, he was aware of a clinging coldness about his loins which was not at all comfortable.

  The road was met occasionally by sheep paths, and suddenly Macquarrie plunged into one of these. To Brian it seemed to be off the direct route, a narrow track of an ancient hill-pass which had been in existence long before the making of the roads.

  The pass chosen led by the side of a hill-loch, deep and dark. About it rose the cliffs of the hill, and the whole effect was gloomy with grandeur and uncomfortable with the approach of evening. Brian was not, in some ways, a particularly imaginative lad, and he was not usually unduly influenced by his surroundings; but he felt first a vague and then an acute sense of depression amounting almost to fear, in the face of the loneliness of nature and the almost complete wiping-out of colour in favour of stark, uncompromising line. Even the heather looked dead in the fading light, and the rowans which grew here and there on the cliff-sides gave the effect of men changed suddenly into trees at the approach of a human being. He was thankful for the sturdy companionship of Macquarrie, who strained onward like a hound following a scent.

  On a cairn whose age was unknown, the boys leaned to rest. Brian’s thin, strong shanks were aching with weariness, his feet felt as though they would drop from the ends of his legs, and, his food all devoured long since, he was very hungry—as hungry as, probably, only a boy can be.

  “I say,” said he to his companion, “I’m frightfully hungry. Is it much further, do you think?”

  By way of answer, Macquarrie took hold of his arm and pointed forward and downward at the hill-slope. Below them, in a tiny corrie, could be seen two men. Macquarrie, who had deer-stalker’s eyes, whispered excitedly:

  “They are the ones that have your clothes. Yon big man, him that has the stick, he was taking them. Didn’t I see him?”

  This news and the sight of the men caused Brian to forget his hunger, cold, and tiredness in an instant. The two lads sank behind a small boulder which sufficiently hid their bodies, and took stock of the men and the situation. Now that the thieves were at hand, Brian could not see for the moment what was best to be done. It would be madness to leap down upon the men and demand his property. Even with Macquarrie as eyewitness to the stealing, he was not, he felt, in a position to accuse the men of having taken his clothes, nor could he decide, now that he saw the robbers, what could have induced them to seize such paltry spoil as a pair of well-worn shorts and a shirt neither handsome nor new. There was his map, but it was the ordinary Ordnance map on a scale of a mile to an inch, such as could be purchased in any large town, and he could not believe that it was the object of their pilferings. In fact, for a minute or two, he was more inclined to suspect his companion of having played a trick on him than the men of having his garments and map in their possession.

  “Are you sure they’re the chaps?” he asked softly. Macquarrie turned candid blue-grey eyes upon him and answered emphatically:

  “Aye. That’s them that have them.”

  “Then how do we get them back?” To adventure his almost naked body within easy reach of a thick long stick seemed scarcely the ripest strategy.

  “We’ll folly them,” said Macquarrie, beginning to crawl down the slope. There followed a deer-stalking enterprise of the most exciting kind. There being nothing of particular value by this time in his rucksack, Brian discarded it. Macquarrie had taken off his sweater of blue yarn and had given it to his grateful comrade, revealing himself in a dark grey flannel shirt. He very soon dropped to the ground. Brian, greatly comforted by the prickly warmth of the guernsey which covered him half-way to the knees, followed the example of his agile companion, and soon both boys were in close hiding to windward of the men and in a position to overhear their conversation.

  The evening was now drawing in. The wind, which had been rising since the boys had left the coast, blew strongly enough to keep the mist at bay except in the sheltered hollows. The men, who wore homespun suits and were bareheaded, seemed to be feeling the cold, for one drew the collar of his coat close round his throat and the other, buttoning his jacket, loudly cursed the wind.

  “Time he showed up,” said the first. Brian thought that they were referring to him, and wondered whether he had fallen into a trap, but it was soon clear that some other was meant, for the second man, with a grunt, said that he supposed “his load would hold him up a bit, as you couldn’t dot and carry one with any sense up these hills.”

  Secure in the knowledge that the strong wind was blowing from the direction of the men towards himself, so that his voice would not easily be heard, Macquarrie murmured to Brian:

  “You’l
l be minding the dream of the man of the Midianites?”

  As this question was double-Dutch to a lad brought up according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, Brian merely looked bewildered. His companion picked up a small sharp piece of rock and lobbed it with swift skill so that it fell exactly between the men. Although it did not produce quite the debacle feared by the man of Midian—possibly because it had not started life as a cake of barley bread—the sudden appearance of the stone had a marked effect. Both men leapt back, and then gazed up at the hairpin bend of the road. Seeing nothing which could account for the flight of the stone, they then gazed at one another, and the one who had anticipated that their lame companion could not follow the hill-road without difficulty, swore crudely and then added, “This must be him. What’s his game? He’s a funny devil, he is!”

  As he said the last word, another stone, flicked with apparent negligence but deadly aim by Macquarrie, caught him on the tip of his ear. He gave a grunting squeal of agony, and, turning, began to climb a small bluff up on to the road. Macquarrie put his hand on the back of Brian’s head, and pushed his face into the heather. Acting on the hint, Brian kept low. He lost sight of the man, who was now on the road, but he could hear him calling down to his companion that he could see nobody and was going as far as the bend. At this Macquarrie touched Brian and began to worm his way along a narrow track in the heather.

  Brian followed, as quietly and unobtrusively as he could; but found himself hopelessly outclassed by the Highland boy, who travelled like a snake among the heather and made not a rustle. Swiftly he descended a long slope in a longer slant, and worked round to the side of the man who was left alone. Beside the man was a small Gladstone bag. From behind the man’s left shoulder, Macquarrie raised his hand to signal Brian to stop. Brian went to ground at once, the harsh stalks of the heather pricking his bare shins. His face was almost buried, but gradually he raised his head to see what Macquarrie was doing. He saw the lad stretch out a long arm and begin drawing the bag towards him.

  In amusement and excitement, Brian watched, keeping a thought all the time for the man on the road, who, at any instant, might return. The bag seemed to glide towards Macquarrie. In a moment it had disappeared. Brian, still obedient, lay where he was and waited. In a short time, from higher up the hill, a stone fell about six yards in front of the man. The man started forward towards it, and Macquarrie, coming up behind Brian, muttered:

  “I have it! Now to get you away before they are finding it gone.”

  He put the Gladstone bag beside Brian, and glided off again. Very soon he was back. The second man had begun to scramble up the bluff towards his comrade.

  “Now,” muttered Macquarrie. “After me, and I’ll set you upon your road. Be moving fast.”

  Brian followed his guide. They took a slant back to pick up the rucksack, which Macquarrie refused to leave behind, and then made a long cast over the rough and heathery hill beyond the point on the road to which the first man had climbed.

  “Now,” said Macquarrie, “be seeing whether your clothes are in the bag.” Brian, now sticky with sweat, opened the bag, whose fasteners snapped with a loud clicking sound which made him certain the men would hear it, and discovered his shirt and shorts. He pulled off Alan’s sweater, put his clothes on over his trunks, slipped his feet from his shoes and put on his new-found socks, put the shoes on again, tightened the laces, and handed over sweater and bag.

  “I will be seeing they have their bag,” said Macquarrie. “Then I must be away. I will be missed, and they searching the hills for me.”

  “Well, look here, thanks most awfully,” Brian began; but the Highland boy cut him short.

  “They’re back, and are after finding out the wee bag is gone,” he muttered. “I will be making them think the each uisge is after eating it. Keep you straight on up the road, and you’ll be coming into Uig in time for your supper.”

  The next moment he was gone, having tossed out the map which was still in the bottom of the bag. Brian picked it up, pushed it into the rucksack which they had retrieved from the hillside, and, hearing the men’s angry voices close at hand, slipped rapidly away in the direction which Macquarrie indicated; but, not being confident in the powers of his companion to tease the men without getting himself into danger, and preferring to stay and take a share in the fun, he lay in the heather and listened. The last thing he wanted was to be out after dark on the hills, but he would not be outdone by any boy of his age, and particularly not by one who had come so sturdily to his rescue.

  Macquarrie wriggled back to where he lay.

  “They are missing the sight of the wee bag,” he muttered, amused. “Why would you not be going on your way?”

  “Rather stay here,” murmured Brian. “Can’t make out why they wanted my clothes. Can you?”

  “I cannot. Maybe we will find out.” He writhed away again. Brian, realizing that on a bare hillside he would find no better cover than where he was, and having no idea of what Macquarrie was proposing to do, lay still, and kept his ears alert for sounds.

  For a quarter of an hour he lay there. He heard nothing of the men or of his companion. Then there were oaths and shouts, and the next moment Macquarrie was back at his side.

  “Run for it, man,” he said earnestly. “I’ve pitched their wee bag down the hill, and they are like hares after it. Let you be getting away home. I’ll be seeing you the morn’s morn in Uig.”

  He rose, looked about him, and then set off at a trot in the direction from which he had come. Brian needed no further counsel. He, too, rose to his feet. He could see the men as they made laborious progress, now, on the steep side of the hill. He took the opposite direction from that in which Macquarrie had disappeared, and also broke into a trot. The track was rough but not treacherous, and he made quite good going as, dropping at times into a walk, navigating hairpin bends and sudden risings and dips in the path, picking up his heels again when he could, and rejoicing in the recapture of his property and the warmth and security of his clothes, he tried to beat the approaching darkness in the race for home.

  He saw no more of the men, but, as he hastened, forcing his weary muscles to strenuous efforts, he could not keep his mind from dwelling upon his small but mysterious adventure. No explanation of their conduct occurred to him, and he obtained none until he left the hill-road from Stenscholl and rejoined the narrow road from Uig which he had followed on his outward trip. The explanation, when he had it, was obscure enough to cause him the wildest surmises; in fact, from his point of view, it was not, at first, an explanation at all, but a deepening of the mystery.

  There was a car drawn up at the roadside. It was dark by this time, and all he could see was the rear light marking its width. He skirted the car, and suddenly a torch was flashed in his face. He started back, but was gripped from behind and pinioned. He was a lithe and sturdy youngster, and, although the men had taken him by surprise, he put up a plucky fight before they had him gagged and tied and had flung him on to the back seat of the car.

  It was only two hours later that the news came to Ian, lying on a wall-bed in the room in which the fish-scented son of the house was asleep on a mattress in the corner, that a man and a boy were below and would like to see him.

  These tidings were brought by a night-shirted Mr. MacIver whose red beard and bright blue eyes betrayed his Norse ancestry, but whose speech and thought were pure Gaelic. English he spoke as a foreign language, not fluently but with a dignified correctness and great charm.

  “There are Mr. MacIain and his nephew Alan Macquarrie will be below to be having speech with you. Very sorry I am you should be troubled and you in your warm bed. Is it your pleasure I shall be asking them to wait upon you, yes?”

  “Sure,” said Ian, getting up at once and pulling on trousers and a coat. “Lead the way. I hope no one is taken ill at Mr. MacDonald’s?”

  “Indeed, I am thinking not,” said Mr. MacIver, watching with great interest whilst Ian tightened th
e straps at the sides of his grey flannel trousers. “For, had it been someone was sick at Mr. MacDonald’s house, it would be he would be seeking you out.”

  He led the way to the family living-room and introduced Mr. MacIain. Accompanying his uncle was the young Macquarrie who had followed Brian to the beach and had helped him recover his clothes.

  “There will be no time to lose,” said Mr. MacIain, a tall, grave man with an ascetic but gentle face. “My sister’s son is after telling me you have a young lad in your party was out on the hills to-day.”

  “My cousin, Brian Lestrange, a boy of thirteen.”

  “Well, well!” He turned to his nephew. “Tell your story, laddie, tell your story. You’re certain it is the truth, now?”

  “Aye,” said Macquarrie sturdily. He then told of the adventure the two boys had had together, and then added to it the fact that, fast as he had returned to his aunt’s house that evening, the two men had chased him all the way, and, he had believed at first, had intended to catch him. He would have outdistanced them easily but for a nail that worked up out of his shoe. He had gone barefoot for a time, and, even so, would have outdistanced the men, but for a sharp stone which crippled him for a time and slowed him down.

  It was apparent, however, that the men were not thinking of him, for they passed him just at the end of the hill-road and went to the croft of a man called James Spean and, from behind his turf-heap, drove a car on to the road. They had taken the northerly road which Brian had travelled in the morning, only they had travelled it in the opposite direction, and it occurred to the quick-witted boy that they might be going to cut Brian off at Uig and punish him for the dance they had been led and the loss of the stolen property.

  “And but for the laddie to have been telling me about the death of a man on Rannoch, I would not have been listening to him, but I minded me that he has never been a bad laddie and the other laddie might have been in some trouble from them. Well, even then I might have been doing nothing about it at all, but I had stepped out on to the road, as is my habit before I go to my bed, when I was seeing a car going by, and it travelling southward towards Portree, and so fast, at that, I could not be seeing the number. Then it came to me that there had been murder done near Loch Rannoch, and it came to me that the laddie was speaking the truth, and I was thinking I should maybe be stepping across the hill and acquainting you with what he is after saying.”