who had stifled and sweltered in Chelsea, flying through the cool and
invigorating winds of the North. The road was in admirable condition,
and I should not wonder if for the second time Jim’s big Napier went not
noticeably below the legal limit. The servants had gone straight up,
starting the same day as we, while we had got out at Perth, motored to
Inverness, and were now, on the second day, nearing our goal. Never
have I seen so depopulated a road. I do not suppose there was a man to a
mile of it.
We had left Lairg about five that afternoon, expecting to arrive at
Achnaleish by eight, but one disaster after another overtook us. Now it
was the engine, and now a tyre that delayed us, till finally we stopped
some eight miles short of our destination, to light up, for with evening
had come a huge wrack of cloud out of the West, so that we were cheated
of the clear post-sunset twilight of the North. Then on again, till,
with a little dancing of the car over a bridge, Jim said:
“That’s the bridge of our salmon river; so look out for the turning up
to the lodge. It is to the right, and only a narrow track. You can send
her along, Sefton,” he called to the chauffeur; “we shan’t meet a soul.”
I was sitting in front, finding the speed and the darkness
extraordinarily exhilarating. A bright circle of light was cast by our
lamps, fading into darkness in front, while at the sides, cut off by the
casing of the lamps, the transition into blackness was sharp and sudden.
Every now and then, across this circle of illumination some wild thing
would pass: now a bird, with hurried flutter of wings when it saw the
speed of the luminous monster, would just save itself from being knocked
over; now a rabbit feeding by the side of the road would dash onto it
and then bounce back again; but more frequently it would be a hare that
sprang up from its feeding and raced in front of us. They seemed dazed
and scared by the light, unable to wheel into the darkness again, until
time and again I thought we must run over one, so narrowly, in giving a
sort of desperate sideways leap, did it miss our wheels. Then it seemed
that one started up almost from under us, and I saw, to my surprise, it
was enormous in size, and in colour apparently quite black. For some
hundred yards it raced in front of us, fascinated by the bright light
pursuing it, then, like the rest, it dashed for the darkness. But it was
too late, and with a horrid jolt we ran over it. At once Sefton slowed
down and stopped, for Jim’s rule is to go back always and make sure that
any poor run-over is dead. So, when we stopped, the chauffeur jumped
down and ran back.
“What was it?” Jim asked me, as we waited.
“A hare.”
Sefton came running back.
“Yes, sir, quite dead,” he said. “I picked it up, sir.”
“What for?”
“Thought you might like to see it, sir. It’s the biggest hare I ever
see, and it’s quite black.”
It was immediately after this that we came to the track up to the house,
and in a few minutes we were within doors. There we found that if
“shooting-lodge” was a term unsuitable, so also was “farmhouse,” so
roomy, excellently proportioned, and well furnished was our dwelling,
while the contentment that beamed from Buxton’s face was sufficient
testimonial for the offices. In the hall, too, with its big open
fireplace, were a couple of big solemn bookcases, full of serious works,
such as some educated minister might have left, and, coming down dressed
for dinner before the others, I dipped into the shelves. Then--something
must long have been vaguely simmering in my brain, for I pounced on the
book as soon as I saw it--I came upon Elwes’s “Folklore of the North
West Highlands,” and looked out “Hare” in the index. Then I read:
“Nor is it only witches that are believed to have the power of changing
themselves into animals.... Men and women on whom no suspicion of the
sort lies are thought to be able to do this, and to don the bodies of
certain animals, notably hares.... Such, according to local
superstition, are easily distinguishable by their size and colour, which
approaches jet black.”
I was up and out early next morning, prey to the vivid desire that
attacks many folk in new places--namely, to look on the fresh country
and the new horizons--and, on going out, certainly the surprise was
great. For I had imagined an utterly lonely and solitary habitation;
instead, scarce half a mile away, down the steep brae-side at the top of
which stood our commodious farm-house, ran a typically Scotch village
street, the hamlet no doubt of Achnaleish. So steep was this hill-side
that the village was really remote; if it was half a mile away in
crow-flying measurement, it must have been a couple of hundred yards
below us. But its existence was the odd thing to me: there were some
four dozen houses, at the least, while we had not seen half that number
since leaving Lairg. A mile away, perhaps, lay the shining shield of the
western sea; to the other side, away from the village, I had no
difficulty in recognising the river and the loch. The house, in fact,
was set on a hog’s back; from all sides it must needs be climbed to.
But, as is the custom of the Scots, no house, however small, should be
without its due brightness of flowers, and the walls of this were purple
with clematis and orange with tropæolum. It all looked very placid and
serene and home-like.
I continued my tour of exploration, and came back rather late for
breakfast. A slight check in the day’s arrangements had occurred, for
the head keeper, Maclaren, had not come up, and the second, Sandie Ross,
reported that the reason for this had been the sudden death of his
mother the evening before. She was not known to be ill, but just as she
was going to bed she had thrown up her arms, screamed suddenly as if
with fright, and was found to be dead. Sandie, who repeated this news to
me after breakfast, was just a slow, polite Scotchman, rather shy,
rather awkward. Just as he finished--we were standing about outside the
back-door--there came up from the stables the smart, very
English-looking Sefton. In one hand he carried the black hare.
He touched his hat to me as he went in.
“Just to show it to Mr Armytage, sir,” he said. “She’s as black as a
boot.”
He turned into the door, but not before Sandie Ross had seen what he
carried, and the slow, polite Scotchman was instantly turned into some
furtive, frightened-looking man.
“And where might it be that you found that, sir?” he asked.
Now, the black-hare superstition had already begun to intrigue me.
“Why does that interest you?” I asked.
The slow Scotch look was resumed with an effort.
“It’ll no interest me,” he said. “I just asked. There are unco many
black hares in Achnaleish.”
Then his curiosity got the better of him.
“She’d have been nigh to where the road passes by and on to Achnaleish?”
he asked.
“The hare? Yes, we found her on the road there.”
Sandie turned away.
“She aye sat there,” he said.
There were a number of little plantations climbing up the steep
hill-side from Achnaleish to the moor above, and we had a pleasant slack
sort of morning shooting there, walking through and round them with a
nondescript tribe of beaters, among whom the serious Buxton figured. We
had fair enough sport, but of the hares which Jim had seen in such
profusion none that morning came to the gun, till at last, just before
lunch, there came out of the apex of one of these plantations, some
thirty yards from where Jim was standing, a very large, dark-coloured
hare. For one moment I saw him hesitate--for he holds the correct view
about long or doubtful shots at hares--then he put up his gun to fire.
Sandie, who had walked round outside, after giving the beaters their
instructions, was at this moment close to him, and with incredible
quickness rushed upon him and with his stick struck up the barrels of
the gun before he could fire.
“Black hare!” he cried. “Ye’d shoot a black hare? There’s no shooting of
hares at all in Achnaleish, and mark that.”
Never have I seen so sudden and extraordinary a change in a man’s face:
it was as if he had just prevented some blackguard of the street from
murdering his wife.
“An’ the sickness about an’ all,” he added indignantly. “When the puir
folk escape from their peching fevered bodies an hour or two, to the
caller muirs.”
Then he seemed to recover himself.
“I ask your pardon, sir,” he said to Jim. “I was upset with ane thing
an’ anither, an’ the black hare ye found deid last night--eh, I’m
blatherin’ again. But there’s no a hare shot on Achnaleish, that’s
sure.”
Jim was still looking in mere speechless astonishment at Sandie when I
came up. And, though shooting is dear to me, so too is folk-lore.
“But we’ve taken the shooting of Achnaleish, Sandie,” I said. “There was
nothing there about not shooting hares.”
Sandie suddenly boiled up again for a minute.
“An’ mebbe there was nothing there about shooting the bairns and the
weemen!” he cried.
I looked round, and saw that by now the beaters had all come through the
wood: of them Buxton and Jim’s valet, who was also among them, stood
apart: all the rest were standing round us two with gleaming eyes and
open mouths, hanging on the debate, and forced, so I imagined, from
their imperfect knowledge of English to attend closely in order to catch
the drift of what went on. Every now and then a murmur of Gaelic passed
between them, and this somehow I found peculiarly disconcerting.
“But what have the hares to do with the children or women of
Achnaleish?” I asked.
There was no reply to this beyond the reiterated sentence: “There’s na
shooting of hares in Achnaleish whatever,” and then Sandie turned to
Jim.
“That’s the end of the bit wood, sir,” he said. “We’ve been a’ roound.”
Certainly the beat had been very satisfactory. A roe had fallen to Jim
(one ought also to have fallen to me, but remained, if not standing, at
any rate running away). We had a dozen of black-game, four pigeons, six
brace of grouse (these were, of course, but outliers, as we had not gone
on to the moor proper at all), some thirty rabbits, and four couple of
woodcock. This, it must be understood, was just from the fringe of
plantations about the house, but this was all we meant to do to-day,
making only a morning of it, since our ladies had expressly desired
first lessons in the art of angling in the afternoon, so that they too
could be busy. Excellently too had Sandie worked the beat, leaving us
now, after going, as he said, all round, a couple of hundred yards only
from the house, at a few minutes to two.
So, after a little private signalling from Jim to me, he spoke to
Sandie, dropping the hare-question altogether.
“Well, the beat has gone excellently,” he said, “and this afternoon
we’ll be fishing. Please settle with the beaters every evening, and tell
me what you have paid out. Good morning to you all.”
We walked back to the house, but the moment we had turned a hum of
confabulation began behind us, and, looking back, I saw Sandie and all
the beaters in close whispering conclave. Then Jim spoke.
“More in your line than mine,” he said; “I prefer shooting a hare to
routing out some cock-and-bull story as to why I shouldn’t. What does it
all mean?”
I mentioned what I had found in Elwes last night.
“Then do they think it was we who killed the old lady on the road, and
that I was going to kill somebody else this morning?” he asked. “How
does one know that they won’t say that rabbits are their aunts, and
woodcock their uncles, and grouse their children? I never heard such
rot, and to-morrow we’ll have a hare drive. Blow the grouse! We’ll
settle this hare-question first.”
Jim by this time was in the frame of mind typical of the English when
their rights are threatened. He had the shooting of Achnaleish, on which
were hares, sir, hares. And if he chose to shoot hares, neither papal
bull nor royal charter could stop him.
“Then there’ll be a row,” said I, and Jim sniffed scornfully.
At lunch Sandie’s remark about the “sickness,” which I had forgotten
till that moment, was explained.
“Fancy that horrible influenza getting here,” said Madge. “Mabel and I
went down to the village this morning, and, oh, Ted, you can get all
sorts of things, from mackintoshes to peppermints, at the most heavenly
shop, and there was a child there looking awfully ill and feverish. So
we inquired: it was the ‘sickness’--that was all they knew. But, from
what the woman said, it’s clearly influenza. Sudden fever, and all the
rest of it.”
“Bad type?” I asked.
“Yes; there have been several deaths already among the old people from
pneumonia following it.”
Now, I hope that as an Englishman I too have a notion of my rights, and
attempt anyhow to enforce them, as a general rule, if they are wantonly
threatened. But if a mad bull wishes to prevent my going across a
certain field, I do not insist on my rights, but go round instead, since
I see no reasonable hope of convincing the bull that according to the
constitution of my country I may walk in this field unmolested. And that
afternoon, as Madge and I drifted about the loch, while I was not
employed in disentangling her flies from each other or her hair or my
coat, I pondered over our position with regard to the hares and men of
Achnaleish, and thought that the question of the bull and the field
represented our standpoint pretty accurately. Jim _had_ the shooting of
Achnaleish, and that undoubtedly included the right to shoot hares: so
too he might have the right to walk over a field in which was a mad
bull. But it seemed to me not more futile to argue with the bull than to
hope to convince these folk of Achnaleish that the hares were--as was
assuredly the case--only hares, and not the embodiments of their
friends and relations. For that, beyond all doubt, was their belief, and
it would take, not half an hour’s talk, but perhaps a couple of
generations of education to kill that belief, or even to reduce it to
the level of a superstition. At present it was no superstition--the
terror and incredulous horror on Sandie’s face when Jim raised his gun
to fire at the hare told me that--it was a belief as sober and
commonplace as our own belief that the hares were not incarnations of
living folk in Achnaleish. Also, virulent influenza was raging in the
place, and Jim proposed to have a hare-drive to-morrow! What would
happen?
That evening Jim raved about it in the smoking-room.
“But, good gracious, man, what can they _do_?” he cried. “What’s the use
of an old gaffer from Achnaleish saying I’ve shot his grand-daughter
and, when he is asked to produce the corpse, telling the jury that we’ve
eaten it, but that he has got the skin as evidence? What skin? A
hare-skin! Oh, folk-lore is all very well in its way, a nice subject for
discussion when topics are scarce, but don’t tell me it can enter into
practical life. What can they do?”
“They can shoot us,” I remarked.
“The canny, God-fearing Scotchmen shoot us for shooting hares?” he
asked.
“Well, it’s a possibility. However, I don’t think you’ll have much of a
hare-drive in any case.”
“Why not?”
“Because you won’t get a single native beater, and you won’t get a
keeper to come either. You’ll have to go with Buxton and your man.”
“Then I’ll discharge Sandie,” snapped Jim.
“That would be a pity: he knows his work.”
Jim got up.
“Well, his work to-morrow will be to drive hares for you and me,” said
Jim. “Or do you funk?”
“I funk,” I replied.
The scene next morning was extremely short. Jim and I went out before
breakfast, and found Sandie at the back door, silent and respectful. In
the yard were a dozen young Highlanders, who had beaten for us the day
before.
“Morning, Sandie,” said Jim shortly. “We’ll drive hares to-day. We ought
to get a lot in those narrow gorges up above. Get a dozen beaters more,
can you?”
“There will be na hare-drive here,” said Sandie quietly.
“I have given you your orders,” said Jim.
Sandie turned to the group of beaters outside and spoke half a dozen
words in Gaelic. Next moment the yard was empty, and they were all
running down the hillside towards Achnaleish. One stood on the skyline a
moment, waving his arms, making some signal, as I supposed, to the
village below. Then Sandie turned again.
“An’ whaur are your beaters, sir?” he asked.
For the moment I was afraid Jim was going to strike him. But he
controlled himself.
“You are discharged,” he said.
The hare-drive, therefore, since there were neither beaters nor
keeper--Maclaren, the head-keeper, having been given this “day-off” to
bury his mother--was clearly out of the question, and Jim, still
blustering rather, but a good bit taken aback at the sudden disciplined
defection of the beaters, was in betting humour that they would all
return by to-morrow morning. Meanwhile the post which should have
arrived before now had not come, though Mabel from her bedroom window
had seen the post-cart on its way up the drive a quarter of an hour ago.
At that a sudden idea struck me, and I ran to the edge of the hog’s back
on which the house was set. It was even as I thought: the post-cart was
just striking the high-road below, going away from the house and back to
the village, without having left our letters.
I went back to the dining-room. Everything apparently was going wrong
this morning: the bread was stale, the milk was not fresh, and the bell
was rung for Buxton. Quite so: neither milkman nor baker had called.
From the point of view of folk-lore this was admirable.
“There’s another cock-and-bull story called ‘taboo,’” I said. “It means
that nobody will supply you with anything.”
“My dear fellow, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” said Jim,
helping himself to marmalade.
I laughed.
“You are irritated,” I said, “because you are beginning to be afraid
that there is something in it.”
“Yes, that’s quite true,” he said. “But who could have supposed there
was anything in it? Ah, dash it! there _can’t_ be. A hare is a hare.”
“Except when it is your first cousin,” said I.
“Then I shall go out and shoot first cousins by myself,” he said.
That, I am glad to say, in the light of what followed, we dissuaded him
from doing, and instead he went off with Madge down the burn. And I, I
may confess, occupied myself the whole morning, ensconced in a thick
piece of scrub on the edge of the steep brae above Achnaleish, in
watching through a field-glass what went on there. One could see as from
a balloon almost: the street with its houses was spread like a map
below.
First, then, there was a funeral--the funeral, I suppose, of the mother
of Maclaren, attended, I should say, by the whole village. But after
that there was no dispersal of the folk to their work: it was as if it
was the Sabbath; they hung about the street talking. Now one group would
break up, but it would only go to swell another, and no one went either
to his house or to the fields. Then, shortly before lunch, another idea
occurred to me, and I ran down the hill-side, appearing suddenly in the
street, to put it to the test. Sandie was there, but he turned his back
square on me, as did everybody else, and as I approached any group talk
fell dead. But a certain movement seemed to be going on; where they
stood and talked before, they now moved and were silent. Soon I saw what
that meant. None would remain in the street with me: every man was going
to his house.
The end house of the street was clearly the “heavenly shop” we had been
told of yesterday. The door was open and a small child was looking round
it as I approached, for my plan was to go in, order something, and try
to get into conversation. But, while I was still a yard or two off, I
saw through the glass of the door a man inside come quickly up and pull
the child roughly away, banging the door and locking it. I knocked and
rang, but there was no response: only from inside came the crying of the
child.
The street which had been so busy and populous was now completely empty;
it might have been the street of some long-deserted place, but that thin
smoke curled here and there above the houses. It was as silent, too, as
the grave, but, for all that, I knew it was watching. From every house,
I felt sure, I was being watched by eyes of mistrust and hate, yet no
sign of living being could I see. There was to me something rather eerie
about this: to know one is watched by invisible eyes is never, I
suppose, quite a comfortable sensation; to know that those eyes are all
hostile does not increase the sense of security. So I just climbed back
up the hill-side again, and from my thicket above the brae again I
peered down. Once more the street was full.
Now, all this made me uneasy: the taboo had been started, and--since not
a soul had been near us since Sandie gave the word, whatever it was,
that morning--was in excellent working order. Then what was the purport
of these meetings and colloquies? What else threatened? The afternoon
told me.
It was about two o’clock when these meetings finally broke up, and at
once the whole village left the street for the hill-sides, much as if
they were all returning to work. The only odd thing indeed was that no
one remained behind: women and children alike went out, all in little
parties of two and three. Some of these I watched rather idly, for I had
formed the hasty conclusion that they were all going back to their usual
employments, and saw that here a woman and girl were cutting dead
bracken and heather. That was reasonable enough, and I turned my glass
on others. Group after group I examined; all were doing the same thing,
cutting fuel ... fuel.
Then vaguely, with a sense of impossibility, a thought flashed across
me; again it flashed, more vividly. This time I left my hiding-place
with considerable alacrity and went to find Jim down by the burn. I told
him exactly what I had seen and what I believed it meant, and I fancy
that his belief in the possibility of folk-lore entering the domain of
practical life was very considerably quickened. In any case, it was not
a quarter of an hour afterwards that the chauffeur and I were going,
precisely as fast as the Napier was able, along the road to Lairg. We
had not told the women what my conjecture was, because we believed that,
making the dispositions we were making, there was no cause for
alarm-sounding. One private signal only existed between Jim within the
house that night and me outside. If my conjecture proved to be correct,
he was to place a light in the window of my room, which I should see
returning after dark from Lairg. My ostensible reason for going was to
get some local fishing-flies.
As we flowed--there is no other word for the movement of these big cars
but that--over the road to Lairg, I ran over everything in my mind. I
felt no doubt whatever that all the brushwood and kindling I had seen
being gathered in was to be piled after nightfall round our walls and
set on fire. This certainly would not be done till after dark; indeed,
we both felt sure that it would not be done till it was supposed that we
were all abed. It remained to see whether the police at Lairg agreed
with my conjecture, and it was to ascertain this that I was now flowing
there.
I told my story to the chief constable as soon as I got there, omitting
nothing and, I think, exaggerating nothing. His face got graver and
graver as I proceeded.
“Yes, sir, you did right to come,” he said. “The folk at Achnaleish are
the dourest and the most savage in all Scotland. You’ll have to give up
this hare-hunting, though, whatever,” he added.
He rang up his telephone.
“I’ll get five men,” he said, “and I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”
Our plan of campaign was simple. We were to leave the car well out of
sight of Achnaleish, and--supposing the signal was in my window--steal
up from all sides to command the house from every direction. It would
not be difficult to make our way unseen through the plantations that ran
up close to the house, and hidden at their margins we could see whether
the brushwood and heather was piled up round the lodge. There we should
wait to see if anybody attempted to fire it. That somebody, whenever he
showed his light, would be instantly covered by a rifle and challenged.
It was about ten when we dismounted and stalked our way up to the house.
The light burned in my window; all else was quiet. Personally, I was
unarmed, and so, when I had planted the men in places of advantageous
concealment round the house, my work was over. Then I returned to
Sergeant Duncan, the chief constable, at the corner of the hedge by the
garden, and waited.