Mr. Standfast
Kyle, and him and me are great correspondents. He was writing about
something in the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ and I think I’ll send him a
telegram in answer.”
“A letter would be cheaper,” she said.
“Ay, but I’m on holiday and I’ve no time for writing.”
She gave me a form, and I wrote:
_Ochterlony. Post Office, Kyle.—Demas will be at his mine within the
week. Strive with him, lest I faint by the way._
“Ye’re unco lavish wi’ the words, sir,” was her only comment.
We parted with regret, and there was nearly a row when I tried to pay
for the tea. I was bidden remember her to one David Tudhole, farmer in
Nether Mirecleuch, the next time I passed by Wamphray.
The village was as quiet when I left it as when I had entered. I took
my way up the hill with an easier mind, for I had got off the telegram,
and I hoped I had covered my tracks. My friend the postmistress would,
if questioned, be unlikely to recognise any South African suspect in
the frank and homely traveller who had spoken with her of Annandale and
the _Pilgrim’s Progress_.
The soft mulberry gloaming of the west coast was beginning to fall on
the hills. I hoped to put in a dozen miles before dark to the next
village on the map, where I might find quarters. But ere I had gone far
I heard the sound of a motor behind me, and a car slipped past bearing
three men. The driver favoured me with a sharp glance, and clapped on
the brakes. I noted that the two men in the tonneau were carrying
sporting rifles.
“Hi, you, sir,” he cried. “Come here.” The two rifle-bearers—solemn
gillies—brought their weapons to attention.
“By God,” he said, “it’s the man. What’s your name? Keep him covered,
Angus.”
The gillies duly covered me, and I did not like the look of their
wavering barrels. They were obviously as surprised as myself.
I had about half a second to make my plans. I advanced with a very
stiff air, and asked him what the devil he meant. No Lowland Scots for
me now. My tone was that of an adjutant of a Guards’ battalion.
My inquisitor was a tall man in an ulster, with a green felt hat on his
small head. He had a lean, well-bred face, and very choleric blue eyes.
I set him down as a soldier, retired, Highland regiment or cavalry, old
style.
He produced a telegraph form, like the policeman.
“Middle height—strongly built—grey tweeds—brown hat—speaks with a
colonial accent—much sunburnt. What’s your name, sir?”
I did not reply in a colonial accent, but with the _hauteur_ of the
British officer when stopped by a French sentry. I asked him again what
the devil he had to do with my business. This made him angry and he
began to stammer.
“I’ll teach you what I have to do with it. I’m a deputy-lieutenant of
this county, and I have Admiralty instructions to watch the coast. Damn
it, sir, I’ve a wire here from the Chief Constable describing you.
You’re Brand, a very dangerous fellow, and we want to know what the
devil you’re doing here.”
As I looked at his wrathful eye and lean head, which could not have
held much brains, I saw that I must change my tone. If I irritated him
he would get nasty and refuse to listen and hang me up for hours. So my
voice became respectful.
“I beg your pardon, sir, but I’ve not been accustomed to be pulled up
suddenly, and asked for my credentials. My name is Blaikie, Captain
Robert Blaikie, of the Scots Fusiliers. I’m home on three weeks’ leave,
to get a little peace after Hooge. We were only hauled out five days
ago.” I hoped my old friend in the shell-shock hospital at Isham would
pardon my borrowing his identity.
The man looked puzzled. “How the devil am I to be satisfied about that?
Have you any papers to prove it?”
“Why, no. I don’t carry passports about with me on a walking tour. But
you can wire to the depot, or to my London address.”
He pulled at his yellow moustache. “I’m hanged if I know what to do. I
want to get home for dinner. I tell you what, sir, I’ll take you on
with me and put you up for the night. My boy’s at home, convalescing,
and if he says you’re _pukka_ I’ll ask your pardon and give you a
dashed good bottle of port. I’ll trust him and I warn you he’s a keen
hand.”
There was nothing to do but consent, and I got in beside him with an
uneasy conscience. Supposing the son knew the real Blaikie! I asked the
name of the boy’s battalion, and was told the 10th Seaforths. That
wasn’t pleasant hearing, for they had been brigaded with us on the
Somme. But Colonel Broadbury—for he told me his name—volunteered
another piece of news which set my mind at rest. The boy was not yet
twenty, and had only been out seven months. At Arras he had got a bit
of shrapnel in his thigh, which had played the deuce with the sciatic
nerve, and he was still on crutches.
We spun over ridges of moorland, always keeping northward, and brought
up at a pleasant white-washed house close to the sea. Colonel Broadbury
ushered me into a hall where a small fire of peats was burning, and on
a couch beside it lay a slim, pale-faced young man. He had dropped his
policeman’s manner, and behaved like a gentleman. “Ted,” he said, “I’ve
brought a friend home for the night. I went out to look for a suspect
and found a British officer. This is Captain Blaikie, of the Scots
Fusiliers.”
The boy looked at me pleasantly. “I’m very glad to meet you, sir.
You’ll excuse me not getting up, but I’ve got a game leg.” He was the
copy of his father in features, but dark and sallow where the other was
blond. He had just the same narrow head, and stubborn mouth, and
honest, quick-tempered eyes. It is the type that makes dashing
regimental officers, and earns V.C.s, and gets done in wholesale. I was
never that kind. I belonged to the school of the cunning cowards.
In the half-hour before dinner the last wisp of suspicion fled from my
host’s mind. For Ted Broadbury and I were immediately deep in “shop”. I
had met most of his senior officers, and I knew all about their doings
at Arras, for his brigade had been across the river on my left. We
fought the great fight over again, and yarned about technicalities and
slanged the Staff in the way young officers have, the father throwing
in questions that showed how mighty proud he was of his son. I had a
bath before dinner, and as he led me to the bathroom he apologised very
handsomely for his bad manners. “Your coming’s been a godsend for Ted.
He was moping a bit in this place. And, though I say it that shouldn’t,
he’s a dashed good boy.”
I had my promised bottle of port, and after dinner I took on the father
at billiards. Then we settled in the smoking-room, and I laid myself
out to entertain the pair. The result was that they would have me stay
a week, but I spoke of the shortness of my leave, and said I must get
on to the railway and then back to Fort William for my luggage.
So I spent that night between clean sheets, and ate a Christian
breakfast, and was given my host’s car to set me a bit on the road. I
dismissed it after half a dozen miles, and, following the map, struck
over the hills to the west. About midday I topped a ridge, and beheld
the Sound of Sleat shining beneath me. There were other things in the
landscape. In the valley on the right a long goods train was crawling
on the Mallaig railway. And across the strip of sea, like some fortress
of the old gods, rose the dark bastions and turrets of the hills of
Skye.
CHAPTER VI
The Skirts of the Coolin
Obviously I must keep away from the railway. If the police were after
me in Morvern, that line would be warned, for it was a barrier I must
cross if I were to go farther north. I observed from the map that it
turned up the coast, and concluded that the place for me to make for
was the shore south of that turn, where Heaven might send me some luck
in the boat line. For I was pretty certain that every porter and
station-master on that tin-pot outfit was anxious to make better
acquaintance with my humble self.
I lunched off the sandwiches the Broadburys had given me, and in the
bright afternoon made my way down the hill, crossed at the foot of a
small fresh-water lochan, and pursued the issuing stream through
midge-infested woods of hazels to its junction with the sea. It was
rough going, but very pleasant, and I fell into the same mood of idle
contentment that I had enjoyed the previous morning. I never met a
soul. Sometimes a roe deer broke out of the covert, or an old blackcock
startled me with his scolding. The place was bright with heather, still
in its first bloom, and smelt better than the myrrh of Arabia. It was a
blessed glen, and I was as happy as a king, till I began to feel the
coming of hunger, and reflected that the Lord alone knew when I might
get a meal. I had still some chocolate and biscuits, but I wanted
something substantial.
The distance was greater than I thought, and it was already twilight
when I reached the coast. The shore was open and desolate—great banks
of pebbles to which straggled alders and hazels from the hillside
scrub. But as I marched northward and turned a little point of land I
saw before me in a crook of the bay a smoking cottage. And, plodding
along by the water’s edge, was the bent figure of a man, laden with
nets and lobster pots. Also, beached on the shingle was a boat.
I quickened my pace and overtook the fisherman. He was an old man with
a ragged grey beard, and his rig was seaman’s boots and a much-darned
blue jersey. He was deaf, and did not hear me when I hailed him. When
he caught sight of me he never stopped, though he very solemnly
returned my good evening. I fell into step with him, and in his silent
company reached the cottage.
He halted before the door and unslung his burdens. The place was a
two-roomed building with a roof of thatch, and the walls all grown over
with a yellow-flowered creeper. When he had straightened his back, he
looked seaward and at the sky, as if to prospect the weather. Then he
turned on me his gentle, absorbed eyes. “It will haf been a fine day,
sir. Wass you seeking the road to anywhere?”
“I was seeking a night’s lodging,” I said. “I’ve had a long tramp on
the hills, and I’d be glad of a chance of not going farther.”
“We will haf no accommodation for a gentleman,” he said gravely.
“I can sleep on the floor, if you can give me a blanket and a bite of
supper.”
“Indeed you will not,” and he smiled slowly. “But I will ask the wife.
Mary, come here!”
An old woman appeared in answer to his call, a woman whose face was so
old that she seemed like his mother. In highland places one sex ages
quicker than the other.
“This gentleman would like to bide the night. I wass telling him that
we had a poor small house, but he says he will not be minding it.”
She looked at me with the timid politeness that you find only in
outland places.
“We can do our best, indeed, sir. The gentleman can have Colin’s bed in
the loft, but he will haf to be doing with plain food. Supper is ready
if you will come in now.”
I had a scrub with a piece of yellow soap at an adjacent pool in the
burn and then entered a kitchen blue with peat-reek. We had a meal of
boiled fish, oatcakes and skim-milk cheese, with cups of strong tea to
wash it down. The old folk had the manners of princes. They pressed
food on me, and asked me no questions, till for very decency’s sake I
had to put up a story and give some account of myself.
I found they had a son in the Argylls and a young boy in the Navy. But
they seemed disinclined to talk of them or of the war. By a mere
accident I hit on the old man’s absorbing interest. He was passionate
about the land. He had taken part in long-forgotten agitations, and had
suffered eviction in some ancient landlords’ quarrel farther north.
Presently he was pouring out to me all the woes of the crofter—woes