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

penny—heads go on, tails turn aside. It fell tails.

      He knew as soon as he had taken three steps down the side-road that he was doing something momentous, and the exhilaration of enterprise stole into his soul. It occurred to him that this was the kind of landscape that he had always especially hankered after, and had made pictures of when he had a longing for the country on him—a wooded cape between streams, with meadows inland and then a long lift of heather. He had the same feeling of expectancy, of something most interesting and curious on the eve of happening, that he had had long ago when he waited on the curtain rising at his first play. His spirits soared like the lark, and he took to singing. If only the inn at Dalquharter were snug and empty, this was going to be a day in ten thousand. Thus mirthfully he swung down the rough grass-grown road, past the railway, till he came to a point where heath began to merge in pasture, and dry-stone walls split the moor into fields. Suddenly his pace slackened and song died on his lips. For, approaching from the right by a tributary path was the Poet.

      Mr. Heritage saw him afar off and waved a friendly hand. In spite of his chagrin Dickson could not but confess that he had misjudged his critic. Striding with long steps over the heather, his jacket open to the wind, his face a-glow and his capless head like a whin-bush for disorder, he cut a more wholesome figure than in the smoking-room the night before. He seemed to be in a companionable mood, for he brandished his stick and shouted greetings.

      “Well met!” he cried; “I was hoping to fall in with you again. You must have thought me a pretty fair cub last night.”

      “I did that,” was the dry answer.

      “Well, I want to apologize. God knows what made me treat you to a university-extension lecture. I may not agree with you, but every man’s entitled to his own views, and it was dashed poor form for me to start jawing you.”

      Mr. McCunn had no gift of nursing anger, and was very susceptible to apologies.

      “That’s all right,” he murmured. “Don’t mention it. I’m wondering what brought you down here, for it’s off the road.”

      “Caprice. Pure caprice. I liked the look of this butt-end of nowhere.”

      “Same here. I’ve aye thought there was something terrible nice about a wee cape with a village at the neck of it and a burn each side.”

      “Now that’s interesting,” said Mr. Heritage. “You’re obsessed by a particular type of landscape. Ever read Freud?”

      Dickson shook his head.

      “Well, you’ve got an odd complex somewhere. I wonder where the key lies. Cape—woods—two rivers—moor behind. Ever been in love, Dogson?”

      Mr. McCunn was startled. “Love” was a word rarely mentioned in his circle except on death-beds, “I’ve been a married man for thirty years,” he said hurriedly.

      “That won’t do. It should have been a hopeless affair-the last sight of the lady on a spur of coast with water on three sides—that kind of thing, you know, or it might have happened to an ancestor. But you don’t look the kind of breed for hopeless attachments. More likely some scoundrelly old Dogson long ago found sanctuary in this sort of place. Do you dream about it?”

      “Not exactly.”

      “Well, I do. The queer thing is that I’ve got the same prepossession as you. As soon as I spotted this Cruives place on the map this morning, I saw it was what I was after. When I came in sight of it I almost shouted. I don’t very often dream but when I do that’s the place I frequent. Odd, isn’t it?”

      Mr. McCunn was deeply interested at this unexpected revelation of romance. “Maybe it’s being in love,” he daringly observed.

      The Poet demurred. “No. I’m not a connoisseur of obvious sentiment. That explanation might fit your case, but not mine. I’m pretty certain there’s something hideous at the back of MY complex—some grim old business tucked away back in the ages. For though I’m attracted by the place, I’m frightened too!”

      There seemed no room for fear in the delicate landscape now opening before them. In front, in groves of birch and rowan, smoked the first houses of a tiny village. The road had become a green “loaning,” on the ample margin of which cattle grazed. The moorland still showed itself in spits of heather, and some distance off, where a rivulet ran in a hollow, there were signs of a fire and figures near it. These last Mr. Heritage regarded with disapproval.

      “Some infernal trippers!” he murmured. “Or Boy Scouts. They desecrate everything. Why can’t the tunicatus popellus keep away from a paradise like this!” Dickson, a democrat who felt nothing incongruous in the presence of other holiday-makers, was meditating a sharp rejoinder, when Mr. Heritage’s tone changed.

      “Ye gods! What a village!” he cried, as they turned a corner. There were not more than a dozen whitewashed houses, all set in little gardens of wallflower and daffodil and early fruit blossom. A triangle of green filled the intervening space, and in it stood an ancient wooden pump. There was no schoolhouse or kirk; not even a post-office—only a red box in a cottage side. Beyond rose the high wall and the dark trees of the demesne, and to the right up a by-road which clung to the park edge stood a two-storeyed building which bore the legend “The Cruives Inn.”

      The Poet became lyrical. “At last!” he cried. “The village of my dreams! Not a sign of commerce! No church or school or beastly recreation hall! Nothing but these divine little cottages and an ancient pub! Dogson, I warn you, I’m going to have the devil of a tea.” And he declaimed:

      “Thou shalt hear a song After a while which Gods may listen to; But place the flask upon the board and wait Until the stranger hath allayed his thirst, For poets, grasshoppers, and nightingales Sing cheerily but when the throat is moist.”

      Dickson, too, longed with sensual gusto for tea. But, as they drew nearer, the inn lost its hospitable look. The cobbles of the yard were weedy, as if rarely visited by traffic, a pane in a window was broken, and the blinds hung tattered. The garden was a wilderness, and the doorstep had not been scoured for weeks. But the place had a landlord, for he had seen them approach and was waiting at the door to meet them.

      He was a big man in his shirt sleeves, wearing old riding breeches unbuttoned at the knees, and thick ploughman’s boots. He had no leggings, and his fleshy calves were imperfectly covered with woollen socks. His face was large and pale, his neck bulged, and he had a gross unshaven jowl. He was a type familiar to students of society; not the innkeeper, which is a thing consistent with good breeding and all the refinements; a type not unknown in the House of Lords, especially among recent creations, common enough in the House of Commons and the City of London, and by no means infrequent in the governing circles of Labour; the type known to the discerning as the Licensed Victualler.

      His face was wrinkled in official smiles, and he gave the travellers a hearty good afternoon.

      “Can we stop here for the night?” Dickson asked.

      The landlord looked sharply at him, and then replied to Mr. Heritage. His expression passed from official bonhomie to official contrition.

      “Impossible, gentlemen. Quite impossible. Ye couldn’t have come at a worse time. I’ve only been here a fortnight myself, and we haven’t got right shaken down yet. Even then I might have made shift to do with ye, but the fact is we’ve illness in the house, and I’m fair at my wits’ end. It breaks my heart to turn gentlemen away and me that keen to get the business started. But there it is!” He spat vigorously as if to emphasize the desperation of his quandary.

      The man was clearly Scots, but his native speech was overlaid with something alien, something which might have been acquired in America or in going down to the sea in ships. He hitched his breeches, too, with a nautical air.

      “Is there nowhere else we can put up?” Dickson asked.

      “Not in this one-horse place. Just a wheen auld wives that packed thegither they haven’t room for an extra hen. But it’s grand weather, and it’s not above seven miles to Auchenlochan. Say the