Ghost Walk

by Alanna Knight

  She made that sound like an agreeable prospect and I was almost tempted to ask her if she knew Danny. However, at that moment, a young girl with the appearance of a serving maid poked her head out and enquired anxiously about the state of the oven.

  I left them to their domestic crisis. The sunny landscape beckoned and I decided to wander off and make the further acquaintance of these Eildon Hills. Another piece of legend, their mysterious depths and caverns were attributed as a peaceful sleeping place for King Arthur and his knights.

  I had to admit that the king and his noble lords had a very busy time back yonder in the Dark Ages, they certainly covered a lot of ground across Britain from Cornwall to Scotland. In a time when travel was no easy matter apparently he and his knights had had as many resting-places as beds royal queens were alleged to have slept in.

  Eventually I climbed a path overlooking the village, little more than a sheep track which led up the hill. With the warm sunshine across my shoulders and an abundance of birdsong and shady trees, after wandering another mile, I came to a fence and, across a field, looked down on a large squat mansion nestling in a picturesque glen sheltered by the hills.

  It was not an imposing building for a noble residence, lacking the fashionable Balmorality that would have immediately rated it as a castle.

  Gates and a long drive between trees hinted at local aristocracy. A busy scene with a great deal of activity in the grounds, servants scurrying back and forth in front of the house. On sweeping lawns, awnings hinted at an important event about to take place. A family wedding or yet another manifestation of the Queen’s Jubilee celebration, perhaps.

  I was enjoying the scene. It would make a great drawing from this angle. I took out my sketchbook, balanced it against a post. Then I almost jumped out of my skin.

  A growl at my side and a sheepdog bounded towards me. This was no Thane. There was nothing of my mysterious gentle deerhound in the bared yellow teeth and the snarl that menaced me.

  Where was his owner? Even as I tried placating words like ‘good dog’ and wondered how I was going to convince this brute and get out of his way in one piece, a man materialised from over the ridge.

  He had the look of a gamekeeper and demanded: ‘What do you think you’re doing here, miss? This is private property.’

  Relieved at the presence of a human being, I apologised and pointed to my sketchbook. ‘I didn’t realise. I came over the stile –’

  His angry glare was quite unbending for a moment, then he began looking me up and down with a rather unpleasant leer that registered a change in his approach. As I turned away, pretending to ignore that hot look, he repeated: ‘This is private property.’

  I was truly scared now, aware of my danger in this isolated spot. Quite defenceless, miles from any help, faced with a fierce dog who continued to growl at me and a fierce man licking his lips in a very unpleasant manner.

  He came towards me, held out his hand. I backed away.

  ‘Come on,’ he said impatiently, ‘what’s that you’ve been drawing? I want to see it.’

  ‘I haven’t started yet,’ I stammered, pointing to the house. ‘It’s – it’s a rather lovely view.’

  The man stared over my shoulder and said: ‘His lordship doesna like strangers on his property and he doesna care for artists either, unless he has given them permission.’

  ‘Indeed.’ I was feeling braver now, eyeing the dog who continued to regard me fiercely but had settled down at the man’s side, obediently awaiting his next command. ‘And how does one get permission?’

  His glance suggested a dog considering a very tempting bone. ‘Not from me, if that’s what you’re thinking. You take that up with the estate office in the village. See them about it.’

  I felt that my immediate danger had now evaporated and as I prepared to leave the scene with as much speed as dignity would allow, curiosity overcame me.

  ‘Everyone seems very busy at the moment. Are they preparing for the Jubilee celebrations?’

  An angry look. A growl his dog might have envied. ‘None of your business, miss. Just you keep away – keep out of trouble, if you know what’s good for you,’ he snarled and the dog leapt to its feet at this change of mood to add a warning bark of its own.

  I needed no more persuasion. I left without another word, my thoughts regarding his lordship of a very uncharitable nature. What supreme arrogance not to allow anyone to draw a distant view of his home.

  But curiosity remained undefeated, one of my particular failings, and I resolved to find out all about that pompous gentleman and his grim gamekeeper from Jack’s father.

  Making my way back down the hill, with every hedgerow full of the anxious twittering of nestlings, I opened the sketchbook in a determined effort to capture an ancient tree by a picturesque gate.

  Above my head a chorus of corbies lent raucous accompaniment to the occasional bellowing of a cow or the baa-ing of a distant sheep in distress, while below in the world of humans, a horserider clattered along the road. A distant rumble of wheels and a hay cart moved lazily aside to allow access to a rather grand carriage, which I suspected came from the direction of the stately home.

  Perhaps this was the carriage I had glimpsed at the railway station, returning the young nun to her life in the cloisters. But as always while drawing, I was completely absorbed, the rest of the world abandoned as I lost myself in the task before me.

  At last a church clock’s chime echoed up from the village.

  I had been absent two hours. Father McQuinn should be back by now. Gathering my pencils and book, ten minutes later I was outside his house. There was no response, no one in the church either.

  I would try again later but I was frustrated as my sense of urgency suggested that I should get this matter settled before Jack arrived. I did not imagine him taking kindly just before our wedding to anything that remotely involved my former life, my long and happy marriage to Danny McQuinn.

  The farmhouse too was empty. Everyone was busy out of doors at this time of day and a note on the table told me to make myself at home. Bread, cheese and milk in the larder.

  I wasn’t hungry and in my bedroom I moved a comfortable chair to the window with its splendid view of the undulating Borders landscape and took out the book I had been reading on the train.

  I was quite addicted to the new fashion of daring mystery stories by lady authors. Especially as none of them had the remotest idea of what murder was like, of what was involved. Such a messy untidy business in real life, these literary ladies with their genteel female detectives would have wilted away in horror at meeting bloody death head-on at first hand.

  I think I dozed for a while and hearing footsteps on the path below the window, I hurried downstairs to see Jack’s father carrying an injured sheep across his shoulders.

  At my commiseration he said: ‘Found her way up the hill there, far from the rest of the herd. Fallen on her back, poor beast, and couldn’t get up. Poor craiter’s lain there for days.’

  ‘Will she recover?’ I asked although she looked near death to me.

  ‘Nay, lass. Bad lambing, too old ye ken, and then a broken leg.’ He sighed. ‘Just brought her back to get my gun,’ he said, walking over to a rack above the fireplace.

  ‘Your gun?’ I echoed, realising what he had in mind.

  ‘Aye, lass. We’ve known this craiter a long time. Jess fed her as an orphan lamb. I couldna leave her out there, a mile away, in pain –’

  A clatter of churns approaching announced Jack’s mother who had been milking the cow.

  ‘What’s this, Andrew? Another for your hospital.’

  ‘Too far gone,’ was the sad reply as he went out with the gun and his sickly burden.

  I was intrigued by the conversation. ‘You have an animal hospital?’ I asked.

  Mrs Macmerry laughed scornfully. ‘We havena, but it’s no’ from lack of trying. The man’s daft about animals and folk come from miles around to have him cure their sick beasts. He c
ertainly has a way with them, healing hands they’d call it if they were treating folk but his gift doesna extend to God’s created human beings.’

  This was a new dimension to Jack’s father and having already decided that I liked him very much, one that raised him further in my estimation.

  ‘He would have liked Jack to go to the university to be a doctor but no, the lad had a mind of his own, he didna care for the sight of blood.’

  I found this somewhat ironic. The father who saved animal lives and the son who set about pursuing those who destroyed human lives.

  That I wasn’t hungry was hardly surprising and declining the offer of soup on the pretext of further acquaintance with the village, I set off once again for the Catholic church.

  Nearby a group of women were gathered, one of them Mrs Ward whom I had met earlier. She recognised me. With my hand on the church door, I lost my nerve.

  It would be all around the village like wildfire. ‘Did ye see that? Ken where she was going? Dinna tell me that the lass who is to marry Jack Macmerry is an RC!’

  I couldn’t quite face that imagined Greek chorus and fled in the opposite direction. There, by a stroke of luck, the priest’s housekeeper was emerging from the post office with a basket over her arm.

  When I greeted her, she stopped, looked a little puzzled and then smiled at me apologetically.

  ‘You were wanting to see the Father? He’s been delayed. It often happens.’ And then with a curious expression, ‘You’re a visitor here?’

  It was a great chance. Telling her that I was related to Father McQuinn by marriage, I had to repeat that several times as she listened with the intense watchfulness that indicated deafness. At last I was hearing what I most wanted to know. She had met Danny.

  ‘Aye, long ago, when I was a lass. Only the once, he was on a case with an inspector –’

  That would be Pappa, I thought.

  ‘– and he looked in for a chat.’ Pausing a moment, she added: ‘I heard that he had gone to America.’

  At this stage I had no desire to embark on the sad story of my widowhood and merely asked if Father McQuinn still heard from him.

  ‘Letters, you mean.’ She frowned. ‘There might have been some – yes, I think there were –’

  And there our conversation ended as a farm cart laden with produce rolled along the street. Presumably this was what all the women were waiting for and the housekeeper stared anxiously in its direction.

  ‘Come and have a cup of tea with me. I’m usually at home in the afternoons, and if you want to be sure of seeing the Father, after mass at eight o’clock is the best time –’

  Her eyes fixed on the group of women round the cart, I asked, ‘If you could remember when Father McQuinn last heard from Danny –’

  But she didn’t hear me. She was turning away, I touched her arm and she stared at me blankly.

  ‘It’s very important,’ I said, repeating it.

  She nodded briefly, a puzzled look. ‘You can ask him yourself, when you see him later on.’

  And with that I had to be satisfied as I made my way in the direction of the Abbey, a magnificent scene worthy of my sketchbook.

  As I walked among the ruins, I thought I was alone.

  I was wrong. A shadowy figure lurked, then, as if anxious not to be seen, ducked out of sight.

  A moment’s unease. Was I being stalked? How absurd! I was certainly mistaken. With a shrug, I took out my sketchbook.

  Chapter Seven

  I had little idea of how long I had been drawing the Abbey ruins before I became aware that I was certainly being watched, my movements carefully followed.

  Awareness might have come earlier except that, after firmly dismissing my overactive imagination, I had seemed to have the place to myself; alone with the lavishly decorated masonry far above my head, shreds of broken arches and empty windows imploring the heavens for those long lost days of grandeur.

  A post near the entrance held a short history, that the original building had been founded during the reorganisation of the Scottish Church in 1126 by King David the First. Intended for the Cistercian church which, while dedicated to poverty, contrived as did the great abbeys of the period to create unprecedented wealth. The truth of this lay in the tiny hamlets and villages which had sprung up alongside.

  The original abbey was a place of worship but after its destruction by the English army following the Scots raid over the Border in 1385, rebuilding was in stark contrast to its former simplicity and the new edifice’s ornamentation marked it out as one of the most opulent Border monasteries.

  Now only the village of Eildon remained, a cluster of houses arising from a systematic pillaging of the Abbey’s scattered stones. There was something here for the philosopher in all this, I thought, choosing a broken cloister wall as the vantage point for a sketch of the ruined chancel.

  Engrossed in my task, the silence was shattered by a bird rising screeching into the sky. I looked up and saw the faint outline of a watching figure high up, gazing down.

  A tall man. The light behind him made identification uncertain.

  But there was something in that stance – something familiar.

  ‘Jack!’

  Had he come back unexpectedly and guessing where I’d be, was trying to surprise me?

  Jack? No, that wasn’t Jack’s style at all.

  Shading my eyes, I looked upwards. He immediately stepped back.

  Definitely not Jack.

  I went on drawing, curious but not in the least alarmed – not yet.

  A few moments later, conscious again of distant eyes intent upon me, I looked up knowing that he was back once more.

  This time I waved, called a greeting. Immediately he ducked out of sight. And that furtive gesture was enough to scare me. I no longer felt safe sitting alone in this vast ruin.

  There was worse to come. As I made my way towards the entrance, I passed the spiral stair which led to the ruined gallery and heard stealthy footsteps descending.

  A braver woman would have stayed until the mysterious watcher appeared. But aware of the isolation and now certain that I was being stalked I hesitated no longer.

  I took flight and did not stop until the gate clanged shut behind me. Only then did I pause to look back.

  The abbey grounds were deserted and whoever was on that spiral staircase had not appeared across the lawns.

  I am not nervous by nature, nerves of steel had been forged by the constant everyday dangers of a pioneering life, but there was something sneaky and furtive about this encounter that touched a raw edge of nightmare.

  Conscious that my heart was beating fast, I was overjoyed to be hailed by Jack’s father in the pony cart.

  He was taking the younger of his two collies, Rex, ‘to a farmer up-by’ he said, indicating the area I had explored earlier. There was a fine bitch to be served. Did I fancy coming with him?

  Saying that I thought animals made their own arrangements about such matters, as I jumped aboard, he said,

  ‘Valuable breeding bitch, great pedigree, had some wee trouble with her innards, while back. But I’ve managed to put it right, a few of the right herbs and a bit of nursing. Aye, she’ll have plenty litters yet awhile. This’ll be Rex’s first siring – officially,’ he added proudly.

  Asked what I had been doing I told him I had explored the abbey and, listening to a full account of its history far outpacing the small notice I had read, I decided against mentioning my sinister watcher.

  In fact, the further we travelled from the ruined abbey, the sillier it sounded, the product of an overwrought imagination. And what was more important, we had now reached a part of the track where his lordship’s mansion was faintly visible.

  To my question he said: ‘Verneys have lived there for 200 years. From Ireland originally, they stayed loyal to the Stuarts. Loads of money, staunch Catholics – bit of a thorn in the side in a Church of Scotland area but they keep themselves to themselves.’

  I said I cou
ld imagine that it might cause problems, having a local laird who is of a different persuasion.

  He nodded. ‘Particularly when this laird also has connections with our Royalty by marriage. It doesn’t make good news to local folk either that a goddaughter of the Queen is about to become a nun.’

  That must be the nun I had travelled with from Edinburgh.

  He went on: ‘I have always tried to keep out of local politics, especially where religion is concerned. His lordship lets me run my sheep on his land and so I say live and let live.’

  And with a ‘whoa’ to the pony-cart, ‘Well, lass, what do you think of the view from here?’

  It was magnificent. We were so high that it felt almost like being a bird staring over the undulating landscape of the Border counties, right down to Northumberland and north to Midlothian. Far below us, a great moving tide of sheep.

  To my question he answered proudly, ‘Aye, they are ours. I suppose all sheep look alike to you, but this herd are different from the general rule. Our border Cheviots with their white faces and Roman noses take their names from these hills. The early Celts who settled in this area got the sheep as well and the Roman noses are thought be a throwback to sheep from the East, first domesticated by folk from the Mediterranean and brought north west through Europe.’

  I said I promised never again to dismiss every sheep I encountered as a rather dull dumb creature, interesting from my viewpoint only for its wool.

  He laughed. ‘Lass, no other creature has made anything like the same contribution to the prosperity of our land as sheep, although we know little for certain of the ancestry of the various breeds. Monastic establishments of the Cheviot area, like our Abbey back there, had their own flocks in the century with sheep runs over most of the area which evolved with traces of the Blackface from the Pennine hills.’

  Pausing to urge on the ponycart down a twisting farm track, a mile further on and our destination loomed into view. Andrew said:

  ‘I’ll only be a wee minute, lass,’ and I watched Rex trot smartly ahead towards the farmhouse, occasionally pausing to sniff the air, ready and eager for what was expected of him.