The Key of the Chest (20 page)

‘I often do wonder if your dog ever does catch anything?' He flashed his look at Flora. Her colour was rising. He turned to the doctor and speculated, in exaggerated language, what might be done about registering on a photographic plate the obviously extreme amount of emotion exhibited by Fraoch's tail when the head was well and truly into a burrow crawling with primeval scent.

They all laughed.

‘You must let me have a shot at it some day. Will you?'

‘Yes – of course—' Flora stuttered. She was embarrassed before his direct, engaging look.

‘Don't see quite how you are going to manage that,' said the doctor with dry thoughtfulness, ‘the emotion being expressed by the movement rather than by the tail.'

But Michael was not to be led away from Flora, to whom he at once turned. ‘You see,' he said, ‘that's what he always tries to do tome – in spite of the fact that he knows perfectly well my whole aim is to suggest dynamic movement in the static pose. You see what I mean?'

Flora laughed, and the sound of it, because she was embarrassed, was rounded and deep in her throat. Michael's eye swept over her features, then he turned swiftly to the doctor, waiting, with the laugh leashed in his face.

This kind of talk went on for a little while until it became clear to the doctor that the moment had arrived when something must be done, and he was not going to leave Michael in charge.

All at once Flora said, ‘You will excuse me, but I must get home.' She turned to look for Fraoch, who at that moment shot across the road farther up. She smiled to the doctor, ‘Good-bye,' and was passing on her slight bow to
Michael, when he said, ‘I'm going that way. Do you mind—?'

The doctor waddled his machine off.

As he drew it back on its stand by the side of his home he looked and saw two figures standing on the crest of the slope. Even at that distance there was no doubt it was Michael and Flora.

Presently his mother came to the back door. ‘What's keeping you, David?'

He bent down and began to tinker with the carburettor. ‘I'll be in a minute,' he replied without looking at her.

‘Hurry, then. Your food is more than ready. You can see about that again.'

He did not answer and she withdrew.

Her voice had suddenly irritated him. He felt the blood flooding his temples as he stooped.

‘I would have been down with the fish earlier,' explained Betsy to Smeorach, ‘but I looked in to see Sarah in the post office and she kept me until she could lock the door.'

‘That's right, blame me,' said Sarah.

When Angus and George dropped in, Smeorach's eyes lit up. His house was used for many things, and the present occasion was not among the least of them.

As the gaiety grew, the girls, all alive, baited the young men up to the danger point. When that point was reached and physical violence threatened, their art of balance was extremely complicated, being only just enough. Then Betsy, in passing, flicked cold water from her fingers down Angus's neck.

She had gone over the score now. Angus got up, and she dodged him, and yelled that she would throw the lamp at him, but he was on the old male warpath. She saw it in his eye. She danced nimbly round Smeorach, calling for his protection.

‘Fair is fair,' said Smeorach, ‘and you brought it on yourself.'

She fled and Angus caught her in the dark passage. There was much commotion and door-rattling and a voice lifted from outside: ‘What's wrong?'

Betsy came swiftly back into the room, face flushed and hair not so tidy as it had been. ‘That big fool!' she said, but softly.

‘One minute!' cried Angus in the passage-way. Then the door was opened.

‘Lord, boy, what's gone wrong?' It was William's voice.

‘It's the door,' said Angus, a big-boned, normally slow-witted young man. ‘The bar must have fallen down. I was trying to open it for you.'

‘He's coming on!' murmured Smeorach and laughed softly.

Betsy tried not to look pleased at this compliment to Angus and was deftly putting her hair right, when William entered and looked at her.

‘Ho! ho!' said William. ‘So that's the way the wind blows?'

‘The wind,' answered Betsy promptly, ‘bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound thereof but cannot tell whither it cometh or whither it goeth.'

George tilted himself so far back in his pleasure that he had to grab Sarah's shoulder, but Betsy was quick, and collapse and its spectacle were avoided.

‘I would have expected you to keep better order in your house at your time of life, Smeorach.'

‘There has always been order in my house, William, and there has always been life. There has also been time. You are right, as usual.'

‘Boy, you don't grow any older,' said William, drowning Smeorach's thrust in a sudden admiration for the old man.

They were all laughing, pleased with the way William let the better thing uppermost. Besides, the four younger folk had used the occasion to seat themselves in a certain order and they were prepared to laugh at little.

Presently there was a rattle at the door. A couple of men came in. They were no sooner settled than Norman entered, followed by the two boys, Hamish and Norrie.

In the uplift of voices, Hamish whispered to George.

‘Am I hearing you were caught at Loch Geal again, Hamish?' cried Smeorach.

‘I wasn't going to Loch Geal,' mumbled Hamish.

‘What's all this?' inquired Norman.

‘Can none of you leave a boy alone?' demanded Sarah.

‘Surely it was nothing against him. I only heard myself that he was playing with the Red Indians,' said Smeorach.

‘Where were you?' inquired Norman, who was always the last to hear of Hamish's doings.

In the end, Hamish, who had to establish his innocence, told his story.

It appeared that he and Norrie had hurried off immediately
school was over ‘in order just to see' the two hares that big John-the-roadman had said he had seen quite close to the main road in the grey of the morning. He said that they had a strange yellowish colour on them and made off into the Ros in a way that caused him to wonder what they were indeed.

But though the two boys went on and went on, never a sign of the hares did they see, until at last they were near at Loch Geal itself –‘though we weren't going there'.

They were moving very carefully now, for the sun had set, and all at once they came on a wee house built of divots. They knew it hadn't been there before and this made them think, and they couldn't think who could have built it, and there was no sign of the hares, though they looked around carefully, so they thought it was time to go home.

‘It was indeed,' agreed Smeorach.

‘But I thought I would just have one look round the corner.'

‘Was this at Loch Geal itself?' asked William, as if talking to a man of his own years.

‘It was,' said Hamish at once. ‘Just at the outlet yonder. So I went on as quietly as I could go. And Norrie came behind me. And then – I saw a tuft of heather and it moved. So I thought it might be one of the hares. So I didn't know what to do. So I threw the stone at it. And it rose up. And it was a man.'

Smeorach leaned back in astonishment.

‘And then a great lot of ducks got up and they quacked and quacked and flew away. And there was the man and he had heather tied all round his bonnet and standing up, like – like a Redskin.'

All eyes were on Hamish.

‘It was,' said Hamish, ‘Mr. Sandeman from the Lodge. And he roared at us – and began coming – so we – we ran off. That was all it was,' concluded Hamish, hardly glancing at Norman.

‘Did he catch you?' asked George.

‘No,' answered Hamish, ‘he just came only a little way.'

‘Did your stone hit him?' asked Angus.

‘It only just scliffed him.'

Angus laughed.

‘What did he roar at you?' asked William.

Hamish, after a side glance at his Uncle Norman, hung his head.

‘Perhaps it wasn't very nice,' said Betsy, ‘and the boy has more sense than most of you.'

‘Never mind the women, Hamish. Out with it!'

‘I'll leave it to himself,' said Norman.

‘He roared: “What the—” and he used a bad word “are you doing here?”' concluded Hamish.

The boy's reticence was a relish. And the picture of a grown man with heather in his bonnet hunting ducks for no more than a photograph was an odd marvel to men who were hunters in the blood. The whole affair had the delight of a half-mad fairy story. They grew droll about it from all angles.

‘Whenever Hamish goes on the Ros it seems to rise up at him!'

‘If he's not careful it will be another case for the police one of these days,' said Norman.

‘Nonsense! Nonsense!'

‘That's not what he was saying to me just now,' said George.

‘Not saying what about what?' asked William.

At once they were all waiting, looking at George.

‘What he told me when he came in,' said George. The silence deepened. ‘He told me,' continued George, ‘that Dougald MacIan is at this moment in Kenneth Grant's shop.'

‘Is he?' said Smeorach, his voice a whistle as he looked at Hamish.

‘He is,' said Hamish.

Heads were lifted in the instinctive motion of listening.

‘I hope he doesn't buy the entire shop and leave us nothing,' said William on a note of concern.

Laughter broke out again in small searching chuckles. The strangled seaman and the minister hit in the face on a Sabbath morning were beginning to inhabit that nocturnal land into which ran yellow hares, guarded by a wealthy landlord from the South with heather in his bonnet, a skein
of quacking duck, and a wan loch face in the failing light.

And in front of it all – money; money as the thing with which to play, the magic fact, the worker of miracles at sheep sales, the real witch's broom, the solid cash.

Even the girls could not keep out of the verbal fun, the fantastic idiotic humour. ‘I hear the doctor,' said Sarah with an innocent air, ‘told old Catriona to look after her chest – and she wondered.'

But Smeorach did not care much for this talk, though it was, too, a great temptation to him, for with the dreadful perversity in things it is only at such a moment that the clever saying comes naturally from nowhere.

‘Be quiet, my heroes.'

The humour began to wither, the delicious fun was wilting in the cold wind that blows off dead flesh and crime. The moor was going black and hag-holed.

Dougald MacIan stumped through Betsy's mind, his bag on his back, and his bag held more than groceries. She gave a small shudder and got up and put peat on the fire.

They all noticed her shudder and to some faces it brought a wry smile.

‘Feeling it a bit cold, Betsy?' asked William.

‘Ach, be quiet,' said Betsy, no longer in a mood to play. There was a resentful note in her voice, as if she suddenly hated Dougald and all he stood for.

Everyone understood. As she swept back the ash with more spirit than care, one or two laughed.

Then they heard the footsteps coming and at once there was dead quiet. Heavy footsteps, pounding the ground, passing the window, and now at the door.

No one spoke. No one moved. The door rattled harshly and the slither of the bag against the jambs was heard. Smeorach got up and went forward.

‘Well,' he cried, in his high welcoming voice, ‘if it isn't Dougald MacIan himself! Come away in, man! Come away! I'm glad to see you.'

‘It's a full house, Dougald,' said William in a loud pleasant voice. They were making way for him. The face, the beard, the small quick eyes that shot back the light, the humped shoulders under the swollen bag.

‘Huh!' He came forward to the chair he was always given by the right-hand side of the fire. Those behind him glanced at one another swiftly. The bag hit the floor in a soft squashing shudder and the black collie with the white star looked up at Betsy, sensitive, hardly daring to expect anything.

‘Down!' At that growl from his master the collie slid in behind the bag and lay down. Betsy saw the green glisten of the eyes in the shadow, and her heart contracted in a silent cry. She turned her back on the fire and found a seat with others on the form by the wall.

‘Ay, man,' cried Smeorach, full of welcoming action, ‘and how are things with yourself, Dougald?'

‘All right,' answered Dougald.

Smeorach sat down, his eyes bright, his whiskers restless. ‘Good for you! I haven't seen Charlie for some time. But I hear there are a few lobsters on the travel just now. And isn't that good, too? Betsy here just came in with a fine blockie for me. Indeed what I'm saying is true, and if it's true it's no lie – I would rather have a bit of fresh fish than all your meat any day.'

‘Huh!' said Dougald, and his eyes now shot swiftly about the company.

‘And that was the way in our fathers' time, too,' continued Smeorach, his voice catching the story-teller's mood. ‘Fish every day of the week and maybe meat on the Sabbath – and maybe not – and we never missed it. Wasn't that the way, Murdo?'

‘It was,' said Murdo.

‘Yes, and I have seen it, all along the coast, from everywhere the small boats would be going out and bringing in the cod and the ling. And what a splitting there was then, and a drying! I have seen it you couldn't step on all the Claddach but you would be stepping on the spelded fish.'

‘I can almost remember that myself,' said William, ‘and I haven't got your whiskers yet.'

There was a movement, a daring murmur.

‘There's nothing wrong with my whiskers,' answered Smeorach.‘And when you have earned your own as honourably there will be time for you to talk. But no,
you must go scraping away at that razor of yours, William, thinking you will make more of yourself than you are. But I'm telling you when razors were as scarce as cheap shop boots, we had the boats, and the young men, and the fish, and there was life in the place, and great warmth in that life, William, great warmth and friendliness, and not like what it is now, when the one or two of you that's left will be dropping in to see an old man for the poor fun of trying to pull his whiskers. What do you say yourself, Dougald?'

‘Huh!' said Dougald.

Smeorach nodded in courteous acknowledgment.

‘The trouble is nowadays,' said William, ‘that the young women will hardly look at a fellow with a whisker on him.'

‘Ho! ho! ho!' laughed Smeorach with jutting beard. ‘So that's your trouble! Well! well! Who would have thought it!' His head drooped and waggled and the beard brushed his chest.

Soft laughter and smiling wary faces.

‘Oh, it's easy to laugh,' retorted William. ‘But if you take a handsome fellow like George, there, or Angus, and supposing, just for the sake of argument, that two girls, like, say—'

‘Never mind your likes and supposings,' interrupted Smeorach. ‘All I'll say is that when the whiskers were in it, the girls did not find them overmuch in the way. You can take that from me, William.'

‘God bless me! Has a man of your years no shame in him at all?'

‘No, William. None. And if you can say the same when you have the same number of years, you'll be lucky. But why would we be listening to him?' said Smeorach, turning to his guest. Then he turned to Betsy. ‘Will you put the kettle on, Betsy, like a good girl, for it's a long walk Dougald has before him.'

‘No tea for me,' said Dougald. ‘I'm just going.'

‘Hits, man!' replied Smeorach. ‘You'll need something to warm you up. It's a good night. What's your hurry?'

‘I'm going,' mumbled Dougald, looking about the floor for his bag.

‘You'll not go out of this house without something!'

‘Another time,' mumbled Dougald. ‘I have things to do.'

Betsy hung the kettle on the crook. Dougald got up.

‘Surely you're not really going?' cried Smeorach. ‘Man, I'm vexed at that, for I haven't got half your news out of you yet. It's been a good year for the crofters. No wonder they're speaking well of your good work. Things weren't so easy in my young days!'