Brothers & Sisters - John & Anna Buchan Edition (Collection of Their Greatest Works). Buchan John

of night have not begun. But suddenly in the silence fell notes of music. They seemed to come from the house, a voice singing softly but with great beauty and clearness.

      Dickson halted in his steps. The tune, whatever it was, was like a fresh wind to blow aside his depression. The house no longer looked sepulchral. He saw that the two men had hurried back from their patrol, had met and exchanged some message, and made off again as if alarmed by the music. Then he noticed his companion…

      Heritage was on one knee with his face rapt and listening. He got to his feet and appeared to be about to make for the House. Dickson caught him by the arm and dragged him into the bushes, and he followed unresistingly, like a man in a dream. They ploughed through the thicket, recrossed the grass avenue, and scrambled down the hillside to the banks of the stream.

      Then for the first time Dickson observed that his companion’s face was very white, and that sweat stood on his temples. Heritage lay down and lapped up water like a dog. Then he turned a wild eye on the other.

      “I am going back,” he said. “That is the voice of the girl I saw in Rome, and it is singing her song!”

      CHAPTER 4

       DOUGAL

       Table of Contents

      “You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Dickson. “You’re coming home to your supper. It was to be on the chap of nine.”

      “I’m going back to that place.”

      The man was clearly demented and must be humoured. “Well, you must wait till the morn’s morning. It’s very near dark now, and those are two ugly customers wandering about yonder. You’d better sleep the night on it.”

      Mr. Heritage seemed to be persuaded. He suffered himself to be led up the now dusky slopes to the gate where the road from the village ended. He walked listlessly like a man engaged in painful reflection. Once only he broke the silence.

      “You heard the singing?” he asked.

      Dickson was a very poor hand at a lie. “I heard something,” he admitted.

      “You heard a girl’s voice singing?”

      “It sounded like that,” was the admission. “But I’m thinking it might have been a seagull.”

      “You’re a fool,” said the Poet rudely.

      The return was a melancholy business, compared to the bright speed of the outward journey. Dickson’s mind was a chaos of feelings, all of them unpleasant. He had run up against something which he violently, blindly detested, and the trouble was that he could not tell why. It was all perfectly absurd, for why on earth should an ugly house, some overgrown trees, and a couple of ill-favoured servants so malignly affect him? Yet this was the fact; he had strayed out of Arcady into a sphere that filled him with revolt and a nameless fear. Never in his experience had he felt like this, this foolish childish panic which took all the colour and zest out of life. He tried to laugh at himself but failed. Heritage, stumbling along by his side, effectually crushed his effort to discover humour in the situation. Some exhalation from that infernal place had driven the Poet mad. And then that voice singing! A seagull, he had said. More like a nightingale, he reflected—a bird which in the flesh he had never met.

      Mrs. Morran had the lamp lit and a fire burning in her cheerful kitchen. The sight of it somewhat restored Dickson’s equanimity, and to his surprise he found that he had an appetite for supper. There was new milk, thick with cream, and most of the dainties which had appeared at tea, supplemented by a noble dish of shimmering “potted-head.” The hostess did not share their meal, being engaged in some duties in the little cubby-hole known as the back kitchen.

      Heritage drank a glass of milk but would not touch food.

      “I called this place Paradise four hours ago,” he said. “So it is, but I fancy it is next door to Hell. There is something devilish going on inside that park wall, and I mean to get to the bottom of it.”

      “Hoots! Nonsense!” Dickson replied with affected cheerfulness. “To-morrow you and me will take the road for Auchenlochan. We needn’t trouble ourselves about an ugly old house and a wheen impident lodge-keepers.”

      “To-morrow I’m going to get inside the place. Don’t come unless you like, but it’s no use arguing with me. My mind is made up.”

      Heritage cleared a space on the table and spread out a section of a large-scale Ordnance map.

      “I must clear my head about the topography, the same as if this were a battle-ground. Look here, Dogson, the road past the inn that we went by to-night runs north and south.” He tore a page from a note-book and proceeded to make a rough sketch. “One end we know abuts on the Laver glen, and the other stops at the South Lodge. Inside the wall which follows the road is a long belt of plantation—mostly beeches and ash—then to the west a kind of park, and beyond that the lawns of the house. Strips of plantation with avenues between follow the north and south sides of the park. On the sea side of the House are the stables and what looks like a walled garden, and beyond them what seems to be open ground with an old dovecot marked, and the ruins of Huntingtower keep. Beyond that there is more open ground, till you come to the cliffs of the cape. Have you got that? It looks possible from the contouring to get on to the sea cliffs by following the Laver, for all that side is broken up into ravines. But look at the other side—the Garple glen. It’s evidently a deep-cut gully, and at the bottom it opens out into a little harbour. There’s deep water there, you observe. Now the House on the south side—the Garple side—is built fairly close to the edge of the cliffs. Is that all clear in your head? We can’t reconnoitre unless we’ve got a working notion of the lie of the land.”

      Dickson was about to protest that he had no intention of reconnoitring, when a hubbub arose in the back kitchen. Mrs. Morran’s voice was heard in shrill protest.

      “Ye ill laddie! Eh—ye—ill—laddie! (crescendo) Makin’ a hash o’ my back door wi’ your dirty feet! What are ye slinkin’ roond here for, when I tell’t ye this mornin’ that I wad sell ye nae mair scones till ye paid for the last lot? Ye’re a wheen thievin’ hungry callants, and if there were a polisman in the place I’d gie ye in chairge. What’s that ye say? Ye’re no’ wantin’ meat? Ye want to speak to the gentlemen that’s bidin’ here? Ye ken the auld ane, says you? I believe it’s a muckle lee, but there’s the gentlemen to answer ye theirsels.”

      Mrs. Morran, brandishing a dish-clout dramatically, flung open the door, and with a vigorous push propelled into the kitchen a singular figure.

      It was a stunted boy, who from his face might have been fifteen years old, but had the stature of a child of twelve. He had a thatch of fiery red hair above a pale freckled countenance. His nose was snub, his eyes a sulky grey-green, and his wide mouth disclosed large and damaged teeth. But remarkable as was his visage, his clothing was still stranger. On his head was the regulation Boy Scout hat, but it was several sizes too big, and was squashed down upon his immense red ears. He wore a very ancient khaki shirt, which had once belonged to a full-grown soldier, and the spacious sleeves were rolled up at the shoulders and tied with string, revealing a pair of skinny arms. Round his middle hung what was meant to be a kilt—a kilt of home manufacture, which may once have been a tablecloth, for its bold pattern suggested no known clan tartan. He had a massive belt, in which was stuck a broken gully-knife, and round his neck was knotted the remnant of what had once been a silk bandanna. His legs and feet were bare, blue, scratched, and very dirty, and this toes had the prehensile look common to monkeys and small boys who summer and winter go bootless. In his hand was a long ash-pole, new cut from some coppice.

      The apparition stood glum and lowering on the kitchen floor. As Dickson stared at it he recalled Mearns Street and the band of irregular Boy Scouts who paraded to the roll of tin cans. Before him stood Dougal, Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards. Suddenly he remembered the philanthropic Mackintosh, and his own subscription of ten pounds to the camp fund. It pleased