by Neil M. Gunn
The grey of the hill road was quite discernible now. They walked on without difficulty, though the darkness hid their faces. Helen asked about Alick’s playing.
“It was not the playing so much as the fellow himself. You know how straight he stands, how easily, with his full chest. Well, he was sitting, upright—exactly like a kind of Buddha. Nothing religious, I mean, but that full-bodied simple ease. The violin seemed small. There was never any expression on his face. And he played away, his drink beside him. The tone was not strong, but I should say it was very pure and penetrating. He played Highland dance music. They listened to him for a bit. Then Angus got up and did a pas seul, some sort of sword dance affair. They nudged one another. They gave a shout, “Hooch!” Their faces shone with merriment, with a glittering innocence. One or two were getting slightly the worse for wear. They conducted with their arms, did dances in the air with their hands, letting out a yell now and then. Legs were pulled, by way of encouragement. I found myself laughing silently, when suddenly Alick stopped playing, laid down the violin, and left the room.
“I thought it was high time that I beat it. Yet—I stayed. Alick came out and we met. Perhaps he was astonished to see me. I couldn’t tell. I explained how I had heard the bagpipes and remembered my debt, but had felt loath about intruding. He was silent, then asked me in that aloof way if I cared to have a drink. I said that I realised how unwise it had been of me to come, lest my presence be misunderstood, and suggested he should come back with me a little way before others came out. We moved down, and now I began to feel that awful urge again to ask him that old question about his vision. I stopped him. I spoke to him simply and candidly. I told him of the talk at Screesval and of how even scientists were beginning to believe that a man who had second sight was merely a normal man with an extra power of vision. I told him about the Dean’s philosophy. I wanted to make the whole thing seem natural. Then I told him of Colonel Brown’s belief that mathematically interference in some degree might be possible. So, if I could be certain of the person who was ‘visioned’, I might be able to interfere. Could he tell me finally and definitely if it was Mr. Smith? He kept silent. There was obviously a terrific reluctance upon him, and I think—I am not sure—that he hated me at that moment. I could not say any more. The mere thought of words became a horror. I wished to God I had never spoken. Yet, I waited, and at last he said, ‘I think it was. The others were in the way.’ ‘They were carrying the shrouded body in their arms?’ I asked as if I were seeing it. ‘Yes,’ he said. He stood quite still. I wanted to thank him, to shake his hand. I could do nothing. George shattered the night with his horn. I turned away and left him. I was in sheer misery, and sat down not a great distance from you until I felt more normal.”
“What an extraordinary experience!”
They walked on in silence.
“You make me feel uncomfortable. I wish Geoffrey was home,” she added more firmly.
“I wish he was in London.”
“There is nothing we can do?”
“I have thought of that, too. I am trying to be sensible about it. All this may be nonsense. It may be nonsense, despite age-old experience and the East and Colonel Brown’s mathematics and all that. But it may not, for reasons entirely different from what man has ever imagined. If I could conjure up a way of getting Geoffrey back to London at once, I’d do it. Let me say that I am as uneasy as that. Why take any chances—even with superstition—blast it!”
“I know,” said Helen.
“And then there is this other rotten side to it, too, that by some silly process of auto-suggestion we may force on the very issue we want to avoid. We couldn’t do that if Geoffrey were reasonable. But he isn’t and won’t be. On the contrary, he is unfriendly, antagonistic, about this, and you get the perfectly awful feeling that he himself will force the whole issue to an unavoidable end. As if even this business of autosuggestion was also part of foreseen destiny. That’s why I don’t quite feel that anything desperate has happened to-day. Angus will save him to-day. As Alick did the other night. We shall all save him. If Geoffrey gets killed, I mean, it will be by defying a stalker, by defying the normal sound practice of the forest. And that is possible. Very.”
“I have that terrible feeling too. That they will bring him home, and tell the story of how he attempted something he shouldn’t have.”
“Well, look here, we can do no more. I’m utterly sick of it. I feel for your mother, too. To blazes with him, anyway! Let us forget. Our own minutes are being lost discussing him.”
“And yet, in some strange way,” said Helen, hesitantly, “with all this talk and feeling and premonition, life has quickened. What lies below the surface comes out—and sees the colours.”
“I know,” said Harry.
They walked for some way in silence, and the excitement of their personal encounter, that had died down, arose again.
“What are you thinking about?” Helen asked.
“Would you like me to be honest?”
“Yes.”
“I have been talking all this about Geoffrey but it is not the real thing in my mind. It is all a sort of unreal vision, a vision of external grotesque things that don’t matter finally; for behind them—behind them—I see your head bowed before the Dean. I haven’t let myself think of that. I haven’t honestly, Helen. I can’t be flippant about it. Oh God, I don’t know, Helen. I daren’t let myself think. But it was all—it was the whole living truth. For better or for worse, it was the whole living truth for me. And lord, here’s the end of the grey road. The truth has petered out!” He tried to laugh. His voice was very nervous. “There’s only the path now. What’ll we do?”
“We have our coats on. Shall we sit down? You must be tired after your day on the hill.”
He groped about, and found a seat with a sloping back. Her voice was cool as burn water. His hands shook.
“Did I give myself away before the Dean?” she asked, as she seated herself, drawing her coat over her knees.
“You did.”
“In what way?”
He was silent. “I don’t know,” he said.
“He spoke so well, didn’t he?” she remembered. “He understood in a way that I never thought was possible. How could he know? Was he once in love—in that way? He must have been, I suppose. And yet—oh I don’t know—it was something in his eyes, so deep. It was a kindness, a loving kindness. You think his eyes are sad, but they’re not really. Not for themselves. But for us. He is like one of the mystics he tried to describe. I have been thinking a lot about it. I was thinking over it in bed and wished I could have talked to you. You see, he is like one who has attained that simple serene state of mind, in which there is that harmony he spoke of, like silent music. He could stay there and be happy for ever, whatever happened. But he must come back, because of all the tragedy there is in the world. Don’t misunderstand me, Harry, but I got an impression of all the needless tragedy of the world in his eyes. It is awfully difficult for me to get words for this. And I could never have got one, if it hadn’t been that he had spoken in the way he did about love. He showed me my own mind. Love seemed the loveliest thing in the world. Not seemed—ah, I knew it was the loveliest thing.”
He was silent.
She gave an uncertain chuckle. “Go on, say I am enchanting you!”
“You are not enchanting me. You are merely making me a bit frightened.”
“Harry,” she said, excitement catching her breath, “do you not understand that I am making a song? Harry, Harry, don’t you know that where delight is the heart sings? Don’t you understand that love is delight? Harry, I was talking, talking—because because—oh, Harry!” and she turned swiftly and threw her arms round his neck.
Her embrace was fierce.
He knew a lot more about this girl Helen before they at last remembered that they had to go back to Corbreac Lodge.
“It must be very late,” she said, as they strode along.
He did not speak, taki
ng the night on his brows.
For it was a remarkable thing how this girl Helen had changed. She was a new person entirely, a changeling. Remarkable metamorphosis when a fellow tried to think about it. He had known her so well, had known her so long, that the old Helen was like a sister, a dear companion. This one—this one…he couldn’t think at all, taking the horizons of the night on his forehead as a ship takes the horizons of the ocean.
She caught his hand, she pulled, they ran until they were out of breath. That helped him a bit, but not very much. Every cell of his body, every cell of the night, was filled with wild honey. He could not taste it properly. He was inarticulate. He stopped.
She was very strong, her lithe body was wary and quick. She broke and ran. He caught her.
“Harry!” she said solemnly.
“What now?”
She kissed him and laughed.
Until at long last they saw the lights of the Lodge, and lights behind it, and manifestly strange ongoings. They paused, wondering.
“Shall we go on or not?” he asked in a deep reluctance.
She looked back along the road they had come, slowly turned her head and looked up into his face. She did not speak.… Then she took his hand without a word and in silence they went down to the place where Geoffrey had arrived, and Angus, and Lachlan with the pony bearing the body of King Brude, the greatest trophy ever brought home to Corbreac.
By the time they reached the larder, Geoffrey and the others had gone in, but Maclean was still there with a lantern, and Alick, and Angus, and one or two of the pony-men and gillies.
Harry met Angus as he was turning away and complimented him, asking about the stalk.
“It was in the High Corrie that Mr. Smith got him,” said Angus. After that he answered yes or no.
Harry greeted Alick, who, after waiting a silent moment, followed Angus.
Maclean himself was not much more communicative, as he held up the lantern.
The dead eyes of King Brude caught light from the lantern. The antlers arched in beauty, high points blown inward. Harry stared at the magnificent head, for in the shadows it had an uncanny stillness, a growing power. He found himself deeply affected, touched with wonder and some primordial sensation of fear. He said something to Maclean and turned to speak to Helen, to find that she was awaiting him near the house. Before he reached her, she went round the corner towards the front door, and, in the hall, he saw her ankles disappearing upstairs.
At once he went into the sitting-room and up to Geoffrey with outstretched hand. “Hah-ha! You have brought the King home! My congratulations.”
“Excuse me not getting up,” said Geoffrey, accepting Harry’s hand. “But it was a long pull.” He smiled. “Thanks.”
He was enthroned on his epic, a perpetual grin on his face, a readiness to laugh. He could see the humorous side of everything now. He even confessed to the first stag that he should have stalked. His description of the rock climb, with his side “giving me gyp”, was quite dramatic and unspoilt by reference to Angus’s helping hand.
“I don’t think you should have tackled that, Geoffrey,” said Sir John quietly. “In your condition, I do not think you should have risked it.”
“Had I known it was as bad as it was, I shouldn’t,” said Geoffrey. “But we are only wise after the event.”
“Wise or dead!” said George.
Geoffrey laughed. He had seen the touch of doubt in their faces, of secret fear. He was scoring over Harry all along the line. Harry with his second sight of solemn death, and Geoffrey, like an intellectual acrobat, giving solemn death the slip! It was good fun in more ways than one.
He was fussed over and packed off to bed by the women.
“I think all this hero-worship positively smells,” said George.
“Never mind, old man,” replied Geoffrey. “You did pretty well yourself yesterday—enough to make some of ’em think! Eh what?” And he winked to George and laughed, as he went out at the door, bent a little over the pain in his side.
Soon it was bedtime for all. Maclean had prophesied rain from the lack of colour in the sky. The weather forecast from the wireless backed him up. Was the spell of good weather at an end, the exhilarating autumn weather?
As Sir John was brushing his hair, Lady Marway remarked, “I think you should say a word to Geoffrey about taking risks. I was really worried until he got back. I think he should show a little more consideration.”
“I did try to warn him.”
“I think also the way he went after King Brude—after all, it’s your forest, and I think you should have had as good a chance as Geoffrey.”
“I don’t mind, my dear, not really.”
“That’s why I mind.”
“You’re merely a little upset. It’s all right. Geoffrey has had his way. And if the weather breaks, it will break for days. It always does after such a good spell. There may not be much more hill for Geoffrey.”
She said no more. He stooped down, tall and clean, kissed her good night, and put out the light.
Geoffrey was extremely tired. He stretched himself between the cool sheets on the flat of his back, closed his eyes, and smiled in the dark. He had had a triumphant day. There was nothing a man could not do, once he gave his mind to it. A certain type of man, with a trained mind. A superstition had been growing that no one would ever shoot King Brude. He had exploded that superstition—as he would explode others! Good fun exploding superstitions! A wholesome and necessary duty besides. He called on sleep. It came before the smile faded from his face.
Harry did not call on sleep, did not want to lose consciousness.
Neither did Helen.
Joyce always went to sleep very quickly, like a child whose nervous energy was all used up, unless she had overdone things, when sleeplessness made her acutely miserable.
George was just popping off—held back a little by thought of Geoffrey’s triumph. He could not help liking that wink Geoffrey had given him; singling him out, as it were. He admired Geoffrey’s assurance. Strong character. Wouldn’t mind if he himself could act with that definiteness.…
Helen was so wide awake that she could hardly think of one thing at a time. Her mind was so wide open, so sensitive, that it was aware of nothing, as a listening ear is aware of silence. Suggestions of emotions drifted through, but she settled on none of them, drew none of them into her thought or into her arms. This was an exquisite game that played itself. Her happiness was so great that she was afraid of it. She got out of bed, and went to the window, cautiously pulled up the blind, and looked out.… The pale night, the stillness; dear God, the beauty of the quiet night in this quiet remote world…
Fra bank to bank, fra wood to wood I rin
Ourhailit by my feeble phantasie.…
Harry had no trouble with his mind, for it was in a perpetual astonishment. He was making the supreme discovery that a state of delight is a state that cannot be communicated, and yet, when you have it, is more certain than all else in the world of appearances. All the horrors of the world were seen at a remote distance, the challengings and boastings and desperations of pigmies in a lower world of partial darkness. The Dean’s pity was for them, Christ’s divine pity, the mystic’s pity.…
But his astonishment was really far more cunning than that. For its centre was Helen’s art of love, that unforeseen, indescribable play of her instincts, grace of her arms and hands, and quick living mouth. He could hardly believe it yet, because in some way it implied he was worthy of it, and his bones and opaque flesh and ordinary mind couldn’t quite accept that. Not altogether. Yet what could come out of delight, but acts of delight, when one thought of it? And the more exquisite the delight in the mind, the more exquisite the acts.… Memory of the acts began to get the better of him. If he got up and slipped outside and round to her window?… If they were caught, what did it matter? That night they had been for ever betrothed.…
Mairi was in deep sleep, for she had worked hard all day, and worked
hard every day. Yet the last night or two she had been restless. She did not require to talk much. The sight of Alick walking, a glimpse of his face, told her more than words could. She had tried to fight against a creeping sense of fatality, of something dreadful about to happen, of a horror that could almost be smelt, but to-night she had given in. What would be had to be. Ina slept also. They tried, if possible, to get to sleep before Cook produced her peculiar short grunt of a snore. It now came through the thin wall like mechanically timed explosions. Cook was a strong-minded woman. That evening she had given Maclean his orders about getting a salmon for the third night hence, when Screesval was coming to dine.
Maclean had not answered her. He had been in a queer dour mood, due to the killing of King Brude by Geoffrey. He had not looked at Angus, who had felt the hostility.
Alick and Angus had gone away together, and Angus had told Alick the whole story of the day’s stalk with an extreme bitterness, right down to Geoffrey’s regret that he had not his pocket book on him to pay the bribe of two pounds. “Thank God he hadn’t. The rifle—the rifle was in my hands.” He grew silent, remembering how murder had sat in his head. He added: “I feel like a bloody Judas.”
