Dickson McCunn - Complete 'Gorbals Die-hards' Series. Buchan John

it’s no’ just onybody that wants a muckle castle.”

      “Who are the lawyers?” Dickson asked.

      “Glendonan and Speirs in Embro. But they never look near the place, and Maister Loudon in Auchenlochan does the factorin’. He’s let the public an’ filled the twae lodges, and he’ll be thinkin’ nae doot that he’s done eneuch.”

      Mrs. Morran had poured some hot water into the big slop-bowl, and had begun the operation known as “synding out” the cups. It was a hint that the meal was over, and Dickson and Heritage rose from the table. Followed by an injunction to be back for supper “on the chap o’ nine,” they strolled out into the evening. Two hours of some sort of daylight remained, and the travellers had that impulse to activity which comes to all men who, after a day of exercise and emptiness, are stayed with a satisfying tea.

      “You should be happy, Dogson,” said the Poet. “Here we have all the materials for your blessed romance—old mansion, extinct family, village deserted of men, and an innkeeper whom I suspect of being a villain. I feel almost a convert to your nonsense myself. We’ll have a look at the House.”

      They turned down the road which ran north by the park wall, past the inn, which looked more abandoned than ever, till they came to an entrance which was clearly the West Lodge. It had once been a pretty, modish cottage, with a thatched roof and dormer windows, but now it was badly in need of repair. A window-pane was broken and stuffed with a sack, the posts of the porch were giving inwards, and the thatch was crumbling under the attentions of a colony of starlings. The great iron gates were rusty, and on the coat of arms above them the gilding was patchy and tarnished. Apparently the gates were locked, and even the side wicket failed to open to Heritage’s vigorous shaking. Inside a weedy drive disappeared among ragged rhododendrons.

      The noise brought a man to the lodge door. He was a sturdy fellow in a suit of black clothes which had not been made for him. He might have been a butler en deshabillé, but for the presence of a pair of field boots into which he had tucked the ends of his trousers. The curious thing about him was his face, which was decorated with features so tiny as to give the impression of a monstrous child. Each in itself was well enough formed, but eyes, nose, mouth, chin were of a smallness curiously out of proportion to the head and body. Such an anomaly might have been redeemed by the expression; good-humour would have invested it with an air of agreeable farce. But there was no friendliness in the man’s face. It was set like a judge’s in a stony impassiveness.

      “May we walk up to the House?” Heritage asked. “We are here for a night and should like to have a look at it.”

      The man advanced a step. He had either a bad cold, or a voice comparable in size to his features.

      “There’s no entrance here,” he said huskily. “I have strict orders.”

      “Oh, come now,” said Heritage. “It can do nobody any harm if you let us in for half an hour.”

      The man advanced another step.

      “You shall not come in. Go away from here. Go away, I tell you. It is private.” The words spoken by the small mouth in the small voice had a kind of childish ferocity.

      The travellers turned their back on him and continued their way.

      “Sich a curmudgeon!” Dickson commented. His face had flushed, for he was susceptible to rudeness. “Did you notice? That man’s a foreigner.”

      “He’s a brute,” said Heritage. “But I’m not going to be done in by that class of lad. There can be no gates on the sea side, so we’ll work round that way, for I won’t sleep till I’ve seen the place.”

      Presently the trees grew thinner, and the road plunged through thickets of hazel till it came to a sudden stop in a field. There the cover ceased wholly, and below them lay the glen of the Laver. Steep green banks descended to a stream which swept in coils of gold into the eye of the sunset. A little farther down the channel broadened, the slopes fell back a little, and a tongue of glittering sea ran up to meet the hill waters. The Laver is a gentle stream after it leaves its cradle heights, a stream of clear pools and long bright shallows, winding by moorland steadings and upland meadows; but in its last half-mile it goes mad, and imitates its childhood when it tumbled over granite shelves. Down in that green place the crystal water gushed and frolicked as if determined on one hour of rapturous life before joining the sedater sea.

      Heritage flung himself on the turf.

      “This is a good place! Ye gods, what a good place! Dogson, aren’t you glad you came? I think everything’s bewitched to-night. That village is bewitched, and that old woman’s tea. Good white magic! And that foul innkeeper and that brigand at the gate. Black magic! And now here is the home of all enchantment—’island valley of Avilion’—’waters that listen for lovers’—all the rest of it!”

      Dickson observed and marvelled.

      “I can’t make you out, Mr. Heritage. You were saying last night you were a great democrat, and yet you were objecting to yon laddies camping on the moor. And you very near bit the neb off me when I said I liked Tennyson. And now… ” Mr. McCunn’s command of language was inadequate to describe the transformation.

      “You’re a precise, pragmatical Scot,” was the answer. “Hang it, man, don’t remind me that I’m inconsistent. I’ve a poet’s licence to play the fool, and if you don’t understand me, I don’t in the least understand myself. All I know is that I’m feeling young and jolly, and that it’s the Spring.”

      Mr. Heritage was assuredly in a strange mood. He began to whistle with a far-away look in his eye.

      “Do you know what that is?” he asked suddenly.

      Dickson, who could not detect any tune, said “No.”

      “It’s an aria from a Russian opera that came out just before the war. I’ve forgotten the name of the fellow who wrote it. Jolly thing, isn’t it? I always remind myself of it when I’m in this mood, for it is linked with the greatest experience of my life. You said, I think, that you had never been in love?”

      Dickson replied in the native fashion. “Have you?” he asked.

      “I have, and I am—been for two years. I was down with my battalion on the Italian front early in 1918, and because I could speak the language they hoicked me out and sent me to Rome on a liaison job. It was Easter time and fine weather, and, being glad to get out of the trenches, I was pretty well pleased with myself and enjoying life. In the place where I stayed there was a girl. She was a Russian, a princess of a great family, but a refugee, and of course as poor as sin. I remember how badly dressed she was among all the well-to-do Romans. But, my God, what a beauty! There was never anything in the world like her. She was little more than a child, and she used to sing that air in the morning as she went down the stairs. They sent me back to the front before I had a chance of getting to know her, but she used to give me little timid good mornings, and her voice and eyes were like an angel’s. I’m over my head in love, but it’s hopeless, quite hopeless. I shall never see her again.”

      “I’m sure I’m honoured by your confidence,” said Dickson reverently.

      The Poet, who seemed to draw exhilaration from the memory of his sorrows, arose and fetched him a clout on the back. “Don’t talk of confidence, as if you were a reporter,” he said. “What about that House? If we’re to see it before the dark comes we’d better hustle.”

      The green slopes on their left, as they ran seaward, were clothed towards their summit with a tangle of broom and light scrub. The two forced their way through it, and found to their surprise that on this side there were no defences of the Huntingtower demesne. Along the crest ran a path which had once been gravelled and trimmed. Beyond, through a thicket of laurels and rhododendrons, they came on a long unkempt aisle of grass, which seemed to be one of those side avenues often found in connection with old Scots dwellings. Keeping along this they reached a grove of beech and holly through which showed a dim shape of masonry. By a common impulse they moved stealthily, crouching in cover, till