Second Sight (15 page)
Authors: Neil M. Gunn
At once Helen left the trees and went towards the Lodge. This had to be told at once to someone, and the only one was Harry. Otherwise there would be talk, alarm, heaven knew whatâas if the whole Lodge were waiting for just some such happening.
She assumed a casual air as she entered at the front door. She went into the sitting-room. Only her mother and father and Marjory were there. Humming, and with a smile for Marjory, she picked up a book and went outâand upstairs. On the landing, she paused. Could Harry be in his bedroom? Listening all ears, she heard nothing, and went along to her own room. She must find Harry and find him alone. She did not care to go to his bedroom, not of course that it mattered a hoot, for she must find him. She looked through her window and listened.
Her heart was beating too strongly. If she went to his bedroom, she might not be able to speak. Besides, she would have to knock.â¦
A door! She went tip-toe out at her own and saw Harry as he reached the landing. She beckoned him. He stood for a moment, then came towards her. Without a word, she ushered him into her bedroom, and closed the door with such care that it took her a few seconds.
As she turned round, he gazed at her hot, confused expression.
“IâI have something to tell you I don't want the othersââ” She listened. Then she told him what she had seen.
He whistled softly, looking past her, for he had seen the beat in her throat.
“There's nothing in it, is there?” she whispered.
“No. I shouldn't think so. No.” He was trying to collect his wits. It couldn't be that they were secreting a rifle to poach? Obviously not in the daylight. Besides, these fellows never poachedâno point in itâand would not from such a centre anyhow. Nothing like that. No.
Helen caught his wrist. The steps came softly along the carpet and into Marjory's room. They smiled to each other in a strained way, then listened without breathing. Marjory's door closed again, and, outside their own door, Marjory paused and said, “Helen?” Helen's grip tightened in the tense silence. Marjory went away.
Helen dropped his wrist, and filled her lungs slowly, and wet her lips. She looked pale, a trifle giddy.
“I didn't want her to know,” she said. “She'sâI think she's very fond of Geoffrey.”
Harry looked at her, his own lungs swelling up.
“Is she?” he muttered.
She nodded, not looking at him. “Now you can go,” she said and, opening the door, held on to the knob.
“ButâHelenââ”
“Go now,” she said. “Please.”
He breathed heavily, and shrugged, “Oh, all right,” and went, forgetting to tread discreetly.
She threw herself on her bed, feeling quite exhausted, and slightly sick.
But the relief of being alone was sweet, oh it was sweet and precious. She felt she could easily go to sleep. But then she had had very little sleep last night. Few of them had had sleep. The whole place was getting a little overwrought. For a few seconds, perhaps minutes, she did lose hold of everything, but very soon she was on her feet again, looking out of the window, fixing her hair, powdering her nose, feeling obscurely happy.
If she met Marjory going downstairs, she could say she had been in the bathroom? A faint humour came into her eyes, as she took the stairs with a cautious carelessness. Out by the front door, and to the right, so as not to pass the sittingroom window. And now it was Harry's turn to beckonâfrom the fir plantation.
She went with such outward appearance of aimlessness that Harry's smile to her as she arrived was a pleasant tribute. He was quite cool now and friendly. She smiled back, widening her eyes frankly in the inquiring expression of younger days.
“Come here!”
She came quite close to him.
“When I left you,” he began, in an amused whisper, “I went down and into the gun-room. An idea had struck me. I looked along the rack for Geoffrey's rifle. It wasn't there.”
Her expression opened uncertainly. “You meanâit's Geoffrey's rifle?”
He nodded. “Must have been left on the hill. When Angus didn't come back with George's party, I thought it was because he was frightened of what Geoffrey might say to him. Angus never mentioned the rifle to meâor to anyone. But all the time he knew! So you must have seen him coming backâright from the head of the forest.”
“I say!”
He nodded. “That was all that was in it.”
“Oh!” Colour came to her face.
He chuckled softly.
“But how was I to know? It lookedâso desperateââ”
“Quite.” He was teasing her in the old way and she felt like giving him a punch in the ribs, but couldn't.
“Go on,” he said.
She looked away, with that brilliant glancing expression in her eyesâand put out a hand. He followed her eyes and saw Alick coming down the stone stairs from the loft alone. At the corner of the garage he stood still, and then Angus came down the stairs and walked past him in the direction of the gun-room. They could see only in snatches between the tree trunks, but Angus became clearer as he approached the house, and they observed that the rifle was upright against his off side. Alick began to walk towards the fir wood as Angus disappearedâand reappeared in half a minute without the rifle.
Harry lifted his forefinger, a glimmer of humour in his eyes. “Hsh!” Angus came towards the wood, following Alick. Harry looked about him, caught Helen by the elbow, sidestepped very softly behind an up-rooted pine, and drew her close.
“Shouldn't like Alick to think we had seen them.”
She nodded, full of the conspiracy. He kept hold of her elbow, the better to make them both listen.
“That's that!” came Angus's voice, clear in its relief. “Man, wasn't I lucky to find it!” He laughed.
Alick said something they didn't quite catch. But the voices were approaching, and Harry's expression showed apprehension. The two men came to a standstill, secure in the shelter of the plantation, less than a dozen yards away.
Angus was full of the merriment of relief⦓the cover was on the rifle, so I laid it against the peat bank behind us and said to him quite distinctly, âI'll leave the rifle here.' There just is no doubt he knew it was there.⦠But what's the good of talking? He's that damned thrawn and cocksure. If I had lost the rifle, it was the boot without the option!” He laughed and presently was asking Alick how on earth he had found Mr. Smith.
“I began thinking the thing out. When you lost him, I suppose you whistled?”
“Yes,” said Angus.
“After you whistled, you listened. And when you heard nothing, you went on again.”
“Yes.”
“Supposing he heard your whistleâwell, he couldn't whistle back. He doesn't know how to put his fingers in his mouth and whistle. All he could do was shout. And in his rage, he would have shouted so hard the first once or twice that he would have hurt his throat without making much in the way of a carrying sound. After thatâit would have been little more than a croakâthat fifty yards of mist would have smothered.”
“Iâsee. Butââ”
“You would have been a peewit, crying in the mist, leading him onâuntil even your whistle faded out, with no direction in it, or the wrong direction. Leading him on, almost certainly to his death.”
“You mean I should have stood?”
“Yes. Whistling from the one spotâuntil time made you certain he was not hearing. And if you had done that at onceââ”
“What a fool I was! Lord alive, what a fool! Of course! I see it now!”â¦
They could hear Angus's feet trampling the pine needles.
“To give him his due, you gave him little chance,” said Alick.
“I know.” Angus groaned and laughed and swore at himself. “Go on! For heaven's sake, go on and let me forget it!”
“So I saw him setting out after your whistleâthe whistle that always went away from him. Would he be angry? Would he follow on blindly, cursing you? Butâyour whistle would have given him a certain direction. That was something. I tried to see the thing happening. I followed him in my mind.⦠Our forest is simple enough in its lay-out. You started off from here and came soâand soâuntil you left the burn that drops into the main glen there, then climbed up to the shoulder here⦔ Alick was obviously plotting the route. “Very good. He starts off after your whistle. He at last gets a grip of this burn. He is certain that it is going to take him into one of the home glens. He follows itâuntil he comes here. Then he falls over.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Not he! It's a nasty toss. He decides to lie. There are boulders and tufts of long heather, as you know. Well, he lies. Time passes. He gets very cold. Right to the marrow. He gets afraidâafraid, let us say, of pneumonia. Have you ever listened to a burn in the darkness? The queer sudden belches of sound. Moans and groans.”
“Often! Lord, yes! I thought no one had heard it but myself.”
“But surely you have heard old hill men talk of the âhill voices', the voices that no one has ever been able to explain. You hear them coming up, passing you, and going away, quite distinctlyâespecially in mist.”
“Yes,” said Angus. “I have heard them myself.”
“Well, supposing
he
heard them? The burn beside him goes tumbling past boulders, and thenâsheer overâfar below him. He decides to climb up again. Madness, of course. Madness for anyone to move in a darkness like that, except perhaps ourselves, who know that the lay-out of our forest is very simple. Except for some corries and all the west side of Benuain, we have no sheer rocks or precipices much. However, there are some nasty corries, and one of them is just there. He climbs up. He comes on and on. Very slowly. Hands and knees, like an animal, cursing occasionally to drown the noisesâuntil at last he comes round the shoulder of Coirecheathaich, under the impression of course that he is giving a wide berth to the falls of the burn, for he has a confused picture of the main glen in his mind. But he has been keeping too far up. He's afraid of another fall. And he's in pain. Well, in time he hits the small stream in the foot of the corrie. Now as you know, if he had gone up the stream, he would have come right out over the top, quite smooth and clean, then downhill anyway he liked until at last he would fetch the path by the Corr. Nothing but soft bog holes and muck to trouble him. He could have rolled down half the way. But he's not going to do that. Why? Because he has found a stream and a stream now must flow homewards. Sound reasoningâwhich the short-cut that the stream takes over the cliff wall at the foot of the corrie does not affect, of course.”
Angus laughed.
“So I decided,” said Alick, his unhurried voice quiet and dry as when he began, “to head him off. I took the long shepherd's crook and had to fumble often enough. But there's no danger on the Corr route. The only difficulty was in getting into the corrie. I was lost once completely, I thought. However, it turned out I wasn't. I took up my position some little way back from the cliff and beside the burn.”
“And he came?”
“In time, yes. If I hadn't been expecting him, God knows I would have been frightened enough. I don't blame him for the sounds that came from him now and then. And to have come so far, he had real guts. He had to keep going, to fight things back, keep them off. The thought of death rode him.”
Harry and Helen glanced at each other.
“You meanâhe wasââ”
“He was frightened, anyway, and all jumpy, and angryâregular bad mix-up. When he was so near that I heard the gasps of his breath, I thought it was time to say something. So I addressed him quietly by name.”
“Lord almighty!” said Angus.
“He let out a squawk. Perhaps I should have shouted to him earlier. I don't know. If I had, he might have turned and made off. If it had been your voice, it would not have been so bad. Any voice but mine. I had to touch himâto show him I was real. He gave a yell and let out. He hit me thereâin the neckâand all but knocked me out. I sagged, like a shot stag. But I gripped him before he got much farther. âDon't be a bloody fool!' I yelled at him. I was very angry and had him on his back before it dawned on him that I was there in the flesh. So he came round to common sense. But it was not pleasant for a little while after that.”
A wild chuckle came out of Angus.
“I knew it couldn't be far from the dawn. So I made him lie down. He did not speak for a long time. Then he asked if you were home. Then he cursed youâand was silent. Out of him I felt an awful hatred coming towards me. To tell the truth, I did not care for him much myself. I began to feel I could throw him over the cliff. So I went a little bit from him and lay on my back. The dawn came in and I made no move. Neither did he. After that, both of us may have dozed off a bitâor got into that state, you know, where you're cold and miserable and think you're awake all the time, but maybe you're not. Anyway, the time came when we started. We hardly spoke. He was very stiff and could hardly walk. We got over the off side of the corrie. I saw it would be easier for him to slide on his bottom down the very steep slope beyond the rocks into the main glen, than tackle the climb and the soft ground down to the Corr. And once he was on the track, I could leave him to get on with it. He was in no hurry, I tell you! We never spokeânot even when the mist rolled away and you whistled.”
“He must know you saved him from certain death?”
“I doubt it.”
“But if you hadn't been there and he had gone on, he would have gone over the lip with the long heather, head first, and could never have saved himself. Never, absolutely.”
“And you would have been to blame!”
“Ay,” said Angus, soberly. “You saved me that, I know.”
She assumed a casual air as she entered at the front door. She went into the sitting-room. Only her mother and father and Marjory were there. Humming, and with a smile for Marjory, she picked up a book and went outâand upstairs. On the landing, she paused. Could Harry be in his bedroom? Listening all ears, she heard nothing, and went along to her own room. She must find Harry and find him alone. She did not care to go to his bedroom, not of course that it mattered a hoot, for she must find him. She looked through her window and listened.
Her heart was beating too strongly. If she went to his bedroom, she might not be able to speak. Besides, she would have to knock.â¦
A door! She went tip-toe out at her own and saw Harry as he reached the landing. She beckoned him. He stood for a moment, then came towards her. Without a word, she ushered him into her bedroom, and closed the door with such care that it took her a few seconds.
As she turned round, he gazed at her hot, confused expression.
“IâI have something to tell you I don't want the othersââ” She listened. Then she told him what she had seen.
He whistled softly, looking past her, for he had seen the beat in her throat.
“There's nothing in it, is there?” she whispered.
“No. I shouldn't think so. No.” He was trying to collect his wits. It couldn't be that they were secreting a rifle to poach? Obviously not in the daylight. Besides, these fellows never poachedâno point in itâand would not from such a centre anyhow. Nothing like that. No.
Helen caught his wrist. The steps came softly along the carpet and into Marjory's room. They smiled to each other in a strained way, then listened without breathing. Marjory's door closed again, and, outside their own door, Marjory paused and said, “Helen?” Helen's grip tightened in the tense silence. Marjory went away.
Helen dropped his wrist, and filled her lungs slowly, and wet her lips. She looked pale, a trifle giddy.
“I didn't want her to know,” she said. “She'sâI think she's very fond of Geoffrey.”
Harry looked at her, his own lungs swelling up.
“Is she?” he muttered.
She nodded, not looking at him. “Now you can go,” she said and, opening the door, held on to the knob.
“ButâHelenââ”
“Go now,” she said. “Please.”
He breathed heavily, and shrugged, “Oh, all right,” and went, forgetting to tread discreetly.
She threw herself on her bed, feeling quite exhausted, and slightly sick.
But the relief of being alone was sweet, oh it was sweet and precious. She felt she could easily go to sleep. But then she had had very little sleep last night. Few of them had had sleep. The whole place was getting a little overwrought. For a few seconds, perhaps minutes, she did lose hold of everything, but very soon she was on her feet again, looking out of the window, fixing her hair, powdering her nose, feeling obscurely happy.
If she met Marjory going downstairs, she could say she had been in the bathroom? A faint humour came into her eyes, as she took the stairs with a cautious carelessness. Out by the front door, and to the right, so as not to pass the sittingroom window. And now it was Harry's turn to beckonâfrom the fir plantation.
She went with such outward appearance of aimlessness that Harry's smile to her as she arrived was a pleasant tribute. He was quite cool now and friendly. She smiled back, widening her eyes frankly in the inquiring expression of younger days.
“Come here!”
She came quite close to him.
“When I left you,” he began, in an amused whisper, “I went down and into the gun-room. An idea had struck me. I looked along the rack for Geoffrey's rifle. It wasn't there.”
Her expression opened uncertainly. “You meanâit's Geoffrey's rifle?”
He nodded. “Must have been left on the hill. When Angus didn't come back with George's party, I thought it was because he was frightened of what Geoffrey might say to him. Angus never mentioned the rifle to meâor to anyone. But all the time he knew! So you must have seen him coming backâright from the head of the forest.”
“I say!”
He nodded. “That was all that was in it.”
“Oh!” Colour came to her face.
He chuckled softly.
“But how was I to know? It lookedâso desperateââ”
“Quite.” He was teasing her in the old way and she felt like giving him a punch in the ribs, but couldn't.
“Go on,” he said.
She looked away, with that brilliant glancing expression in her eyesâand put out a hand. He followed her eyes and saw Alick coming down the stone stairs from the loft alone. At the corner of the garage he stood still, and then Angus came down the stairs and walked past him in the direction of the gun-room. They could see only in snatches between the tree trunks, but Angus became clearer as he approached the house, and they observed that the rifle was upright against his off side. Alick began to walk towards the fir wood as Angus disappearedâand reappeared in half a minute without the rifle.
Harry lifted his forefinger, a glimmer of humour in his eyes. “Hsh!” Angus came towards the wood, following Alick. Harry looked about him, caught Helen by the elbow, sidestepped very softly behind an up-rooted pine, and drew her close.
“Shouldn't like Alick to think we had seen them.”
She nodded, full of the conspiracy. He kept hold of her elbow, the better to make them both listen.
“That's that!” came Angus's voice, clear in its relief. “Man, wasn't I lucky to find it!” He laughed.
Alick said something they didn't quite catch. But the voices were approaching, and Harry's expression showed apprehension. The two men came to a standstill, secure in the shelter of the plantation, less than a dozen yards away.
Angus was full of the merriment of relief⦓the cover was on the rifle, so I laid it against the peat bank behind us and said to him quite distinctly, âI'll leave the rifle here.' There just is no doubt he knew it was there.⦠But what's the good of talking? He's that damned thrawn and cocksure. If I had lost the rifle, it was the boot without the option!” He laughed and presently was asking Alick how on earth he had found Mr. Smith.
“I began thinking the thing out. When you lost him, I suppose you whistled?”
“Yes,” said Angus.
“After you whistled, you listened. And when you heard nothing, you went on again.”
“Yes.”
“Supposing he heard your whistleâwell, he couldn't whistle back. He doesn't know how to put his fingers in his mouth and whistle. All he could do was shout. And in his rage, he would have shouted so hard the first once or twice that he would have hurt his throat without making much in the way of a carrying sound. After thatâit would have been little more than a croakâthat fifty yards of mist would have smothered.”
“Iâsee. Butââ”
“You would have been a peewit, crying in the mist, leading him onâuntil even your whistle faded out, with no direction in it, or the wrong direction. Leading him on, almost certainly to his death.”
“You mean I should have stood?”
“Yes. Whistling from the one spotâuntil time made you certain he was not hearing. And if you had done that at onceââ”
“What a fool I was! Lord alive, what a fool! Of course! I see it now!”â¦
They could hear Angus's feet trampling the pine needles.
“To give him his due, you gave him little chance,” said Alick.
“I know.” Angus groaned and laughed and swore at himself. “Go on! For heaven's sake, go on and let me forget it!”
“So I saw him setting out after your whistleâthe whistle that always went away from him. Would he be angry? Would he follow on blindly, cursing you? Butâyour whistle would have given him a certain direction. That was something. I tried to see the thing happening. I followed him in my mind.⦠Our forest is simple enough in its lay-out. You started off from here and came soâand soâuntil you left the burn that drops into the main glen there, then climbed up to the shoulder here⦔ Alick was obviously plotting the route. “Very good. He starts off after your whistle. He at last gets a grip of this burn. He is certain that it is going to take him into one of the home glens. He follows itâuntil he comes here. Then he falls over.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Not he! It's a nasty toss. He decides to lie. There are boulders and tufts of long heather, as you know. Well, he lies. Time passes. He gets very cold. Right to the marrow. He gets afraidâafraid, let us say, of pneumonia. Have you ever listened to a burn in the darkness? The queer sudden belches of sound. Moans and groans.”
“Often! Lord, yes! I thought no one had heard it but myself.”
“But surely you have heard old hill men talk of the âhill voices', the voices that no one has ever been able to explain. You hear them coming up, passing you, and going away, quite distinctlyâespecially in mist.”
“Yes,” said Angus. “I have heard them myself.”
“Well, supposing
he
heard them? The burn beside him goes tumbling past boulders, and thenâsheer overâfar below him. He decides to climb up again. Madness, of course. Madness for anyone to move in a darkness like that, except perhaps ourselves, who know that the lay-out of our forest is very simple. Except for some corries and all the west side of Benuain, we have no sheer rocks or precipices much. However, there are some nasty corries, and one of them is just there. He climbs up. He comes on and on. Very slowly. Hands and knees, like an animal, cursing occasionally to drown the noisesâuntil at last he comes round the shoulder of Coirecheathaich, under the impression of course that he is giving a wide berth to the falls of the burn, for he has a confused picture of the main glen in his mind. But he has been keeping too far up. He's afraid of another fall. And he's in pain. Well, in time he hits the small stream in the foot of the corrie. Now as you know, if he had gone up the stream, he would have come right out over the top, quite smooth and clean, then downhill anyway he liked until at last he would fetch the path by the Corr. Nothing but soft bog holes and muck to trouble him. He could have rolled down half the way. But he's not going to do that. Why? Because he has found a stream and a stream now must flow homewards. Sound reasoningâwhich the short-cut that the stream takes over the cliff wall at the foot of the corrie does not affect, of course.”
Angus laughed.
“So I decided,” said Alick, his unhurried voice quiet and dry as when he began, “to head him off. I took the long shepherd's crook and had to fumble often enough. But there's no danger on the Corr route. The only difficulty was in getting into the corrie. I was lost once completely, I thought. However, it turned out I wasn't. I took up my position some little way back from the cliff and beside the burn.”
“And he came?”
“In time, yes. If I hadn't been expecting him, God knows I would have been frightened enough. I don't blame him for the sounds that came from him now and then. And to have come so far, he had real guts. He had to keep going, to fight things back, keep them off. The thought of death rode him.”
Harry and Helen glanced at each other.
“You meanâhe wasââ”
“He was frightened, anyway, and all jumpy, and angryâregular bad mix-up. When he was so near that I heard the gasps of his breath, I thought it was time to say something. So I addressed him quietly by name.”
“Lord almighty!” said Angus.
“He let out a squawk. Perhaps I should have shouted to him earlier. I don't know. If I had, he might have turned and made off. If it had been your voice, it would not have been so bad. Any voice but mine. I had to touch himâto show him I was real. He gave a yell and let out. He hit me thereâin the neckâand all but knocked me out. I sagged, like a shot stag. But I gripped him before he got much farther. âDon't be a bloody fool!' I yelled at him. I was very angry and had him on his back before it dawned on him that I was there in the flesh. So he came round to common sense. But it was not pleasant for a little while after that.”
A wild chuckle came out of Angus.
“I knew it couldn't be far from the dawn. So I made him lie down. He did not speak for a long time. Then he asked if you were home. Then he cursed youâand was silent. Out of him I felt an awful hatred coming towards me. To tell the truth, I did not care for him much myself. I began to feel I could throw him over the cliff. So I went a little bit from him and lay on my back. The dawn came in and I made no move. Neither did he. After that, both of us may have dozed off a bitâor got into that state, you know, where you're cold and miserable and think you're awake all the time, but maybe you're not. Anyway, the time came when we started. We hardly spoke. He was very stiff and could hardly walk. We got over the off side of the corrie. I saw it would be easier for him to slide on his bottom down the very steep slope beyond the rocks into the main glen, than tackle the climb and the soft ground down to the Corr. And once he was on the track, I could leave him to get on with it. He was in no hurry, I tell you! We never spokeânot even when the mist rolled away and you whistled.”
“He must know you saved him from certain death?”
“I doubt it.”
“But if you hadn't been there and he had gone on, he would have gone over the lip with the long heather, head first, and could never have saved himself. Never, absolutely.”
“And you would have been to blame!”
“Ay,” said Angus, soberly. “You saved me that, I know.”
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