Chapter III. How Childe Roland and Another Came to the Dark Tower

Huntingtower

by John Buchan

Dickson woke with a vague sense of irritation. As his
recollections took form they produced a very unpleasant picture of
Mr. John Heritage. The poet had loosened all his placid idols, so
that they shook and rattled in the niches where they had been
erstwhile so secure. Mr. McCunn had a mind of a singular candour,
and was prepared most honestly at all times to revise his views.
But by this iconoclast he had been only irritated and in no way
convinced. "Sich poetry!" he muttered to himself as he shivered in
his bath (a daily cold tub instead of his customary hot one on
Saturday night being part of the discipline of his holiday). "And
yon blethers about the working-man!" he ingeminated as he shaved.
He breakfasted alone, having outstripped even the fishermen, and as
he ate he arrived at conclusions. He had a great respect for youth,
but a line must be drawn somewhere. "The man's a child," he decided,
"and not like to grow up. The way he's besotted on everything
daftlike, if it's only new. And he's no rightly young
either--speaks like an auld dominie, whiles. And he's rather
impident," he concluded, with memories of "Dogson.".... He was very
clear that he never wanted to see him again; that was the reason of
his early breakfast. Having clarified his mind by definitions,
Dickson felt comforted. He paid his bill, took an affectionate
farewell of the landlord, and at 7.30 precisely stepped out into the
gleaming morning.

It was such a day as only a Scots April can show. The cobbled
streets of Kirkmichael still shone with the night's rain, but the
storm clouds had fled before a mild south wind, and the whole
circumference of the sky was a delicate translucent blue. Homely
breakfast smells came from the houses and delighted Mr. McCunn's
nostrils; a squalling child was a pleasant reminder of an awakening
world, the urban counterpart to the morning song of birds; even the
sanitary cart seemed a picturesque vehicle. He bought his ration of
buns and ginger biscuits at a baker's shop whence various ragamuffin
boys were preparing to distribute the householders' bread, and took
his way up the Gallows Hill to the Burgh Muir almost with regret at
leaving so pleasant a habitation.

A chronicle of ripe vintages must pass lightly over small
beer. I will not dwell on his leisurely progress in the bright
weather, or on his luncheon in a coppice of young firs, or on his
thoughts which had returned to the idyllic. I take up the narrative
at about three o'clock in the afternoon, when he is revealed seated
on a milestone examining his map. For he had come, all unwitting,
to a turning of the ways, and his choice is the cause of this
veracious history.

The place was high up on a bare moor, which showed a white
lodge among pines, a white cottage in a green nook by a burnside,
and no other marks of human dwelling. To his left, which was the
east, the heather rose to a low ridge of hill, much scarred with
peat-bogs, behind which appeared the blue shoulder of a considerable
mountain. Before him the road was lost momentarily in the woods of a
shooting-box, but reappeared at a great distance climbing a swell of
upland which seemed to be the glacis of a jumble of bold summits.
There was a pass there, the map told him, which led into Galloway.
It was the road he had meant to follow, but as he sat on the
milestone his purpose wavered. For there seemed greater attractions
in the country which lay to the westward. Mr. McCunn, be it
remembered, was not in search of brown heath and shaggy wood; he
wanted greenery and the Spring.

Westward there ran out a peninsula in the shape of an
isosceles triangle, of which his present high-road was the base. At
a distance of a mile or so a railway ran parallel to the road, and
he could see the smoke of a goods train waiting at a tiny station
islanded in acres of bog. Thence the moor swept down to meadows and
scattered copses, above which hung a thin haze of smoke which
betokened a village. Beyond it were further woodlands, not firs but
old shady trees, and as they narrowed to a point the gleam of two
tiny estuaries appeared on either side. He could not see the final
cape, but he saw the sea beyond it, flawed with catspaws, gold in
the afternoon sun, and on it a small herring smack flopping listless
sails.

Something in the view caught and held his fancy. He conned
his map, and made out the names. The peninsula was called the
Cruives--an old name apparently, for it was in antique lettering.
He vaguely remembered that "cruives" had something to do with
fishing, doubtless in the two streams which flanked it. One he had
already crossed, the Laver, a clear tumbling water springing from
green hills; the other, the Garple, descended from the rougher
mountains to the south. The hidden village bore the name of
Dalquharter, and the uncouth syllables awoke some vague recollection
in his mind. The great house in the trees beyond--it must be a great
house, for the map showed large policies--was Huntingtower.

The last name fascinated and almost decided him. He pictured
an ancient keep by the sea, defended by converging rivers, which
some old Comyn lord of Galloway had built to command the shore road,
and from which he had sallied to hunt in his wild hills....He liked
the way the moor dropped down to green meadows, and the mystery of
the dark woods beyond. He wanted to explore the twin waters, and
see how they entered that strange shimmering sea. The odd names,
the odd cul-de-sac of a peninsula, powerfully attracted him. Why
should he not spend a night there, for the map showed clearly that
Dalquharter had an inn? He must decide promptly, for before him a
side-road left the highway, and the signpost bore the legend,
"Dalquharter and Huntingtower."

Mr. McCunn, being a cautious and pious man, took the omens.
He tossed a penny--heads go on, tails turn aside. It fell tails.

He knew as soon as he had taken three steps down the side-road
that he was doing something momentous, and the exhilaration of
enterprise stole into his soul. It occurred to him that this was
the kind of landscape that he had always especially hankered after,
and had made pictures of when he had a longing for the country on
him--a wooded cape between streams, with meadows inland and then a
long lift of heather. He had the same feeling of expectancy, of
something most interesting and curious on the eve of happening, that
he had had long ago when he waited on the curtain rising at his
first play. His spirits soared like the lark, and he took to
singing. If only the inn at Dalquharter were snug and empty, this
was going to be a day in ten thousand. Thus mirthfully he swung down
the rough grass-grown road, past the railway, till he came to a
point where heath began to merge in pasture, and dry-stone walls
split the moor into fields. Suddenly his pace slackened and song
died on his lips. For, approaching from the right by a tributary
path was the Poet.

Mr. Heritage saw him afar off and waved a friendly hand. In
spite of his chagrin Dickson could not but confess that he had
misjudged his critic. Striding with long steps over the heather,
his jacket open to the wind, his face a-glow and his capless head
like a whin-bush for disorder, he cut a more wholesome figure than
in the smoking-room the night before. He seemed to be in a
companionable mood, for he brandished his stick and shouted
greetings.

"Well met!" he cried; "I was hoping to fall in with you again.
You must have thought me a pretty fair cub last night."

"I did that," was the dry answer.

"Well, I want to apologize. God knows what made me treat you
to a university-extension lecture. I may not agree with you, but
every man's entitled to his own views, and it was dashed poor form
for me to start jawing you."

Mr. McCunn had no gift of nursing anger, and was very
susceptible to apologies.

"That's all right," he murmured. "Don't mention it. I'm
wondering what brought you down here, for it's off the road."

"Caprice. Pure caprice. I liked the look of this butt-end of
nowhere."

"Same here. I've aye thought there was something terrible nice
about a wee cape with a village at the neck of it and a burn each
side."

"Now that's interesting," said Mr. Heritage. "You're obsessed
by a particular type of landscape. Ever read Freud?"

Dickson shook his head.

"Well, you've got an odd complex somewhere. I wonder where
the key lies. Cape--woods--two rivers--moor behind. Ever been in
love, Dogson?"

Mr. McCunn was startled. "Love" was a word rarely mentioned
in his circle except on death-beds, "I've been a married man for
thirty years," he said hurriedly.

"That won't do. It should have been a hopeless affair-the
last sight of the lady on a spur of coast with water on three
sides--that kind of thing, you know, or it might have happened to an
ancestor.... But you don't look the kind of breed for hopeless
attachments. More likely some scoundrelly old Dogson long ago found
sanctuary in this sort of place. Do you dream about it?"

"Not exactly."

"Well, I do. The queer thing is that I've got the same
prepossession as you. As soon as I spotted this Cruives place on
the map this morning, I saw it was what I was after. When I came in
sight of it I almost shouted. I don't very often dream but when I
do that's the place I frequent. Odd, isn't it?"

Mr. McCunn was deeply interested at this unexpected revelation
of romance. "Maybe it's being in love," he daringly observed.

The Poet demurred. "No. I'm not a connoisseur of obvious
sentiment. That explanation might fit your case, but not mine. I'm
pretty certain there's something hideous at the back of my
complex--some grim old business tucked away back in the ages. For
though I'm attracted by the place, I'm frightened too!"

There seemed no room for fear in the delicate landscape now
opening before them. In front, in groves of birch and rowan, smoked
the first houses of a tiny village. The road had become a green
"loaning," on the ample margin of which cattle grazed. The moorland
still showed itself in spits of heather, and some distance off,
where a rivulet ran in a hollow, there were signs of a fire and
figures near it. These last Mr. Heritage regarded with
disapproval.

"Some infernal trippers!" he murmured. "Or Boy Scouts. They
desecrate everything. Why can't the Tunicatus popellus keep away
from a paradise like this!" Dickson, a democrat who felt nothing
incongruous in the presence of other holiday-makers, was meditating
a sharp rejoinder, when Mr. Heritage's tone changed.

"Ye gods! What a village!" he cried, as they turned a corner.
There were not more than a dozen whitewashed houses, all set in
little gardens of wallflower and daffodil and early fruit blossom. A
triangle of green filled the intervening space, and in it stood an
ancient wooden pump. There was no schoolhouse or kirk; not even a
post-office--only a red box in a cottage side. Beyond rose the high
wall and the dark trees of the demesne, and to the right up a by-road
which clung to the park edge stood a two-storeyed building which
bore the legend "The Cruives Inn."

The Poet became lyrical. "At last!" he cried. "The village
of my dreams! Not a sign of commerce! No church or school or
beastly recreation hall! Nothing but these divine little cottages
and an ancient pub! Dogson, I warn you, I'm going to have the devil
of a tea." And he declaimed:

"Thou shalt hear a song After a while which
Gods may listen to; But place the flask upon the board and wait
Until the stranger hath allayed his thirst, For poets, grasshoppers,
and nightingales Sing cheerily but when the throat is moist."
Dickson, too, longed with sensual gusto for tea. But, as they drew
nearer, the inn lost its hospitable look. The cobbles of the yard
were weedy, as if rarely visited by traffic, a pane in a window was
broken, and the blinds hung tattered. The garden was a wilderness,
and the doorstep had not been scoured for weeks. But the place had
a landlord, for he had seen them approach and was waiting at the
door to meet them.

He was a big man in his shirt sleeves, wearing old riding
breeches unbuttoned at the knees, and thick ploughman's boots. He
had no leggings, and his fleshy calves were imperfectly covered with
woollen socks. His face was large and pale, his neck bulged, and he
had a gross unshaven jowl. He was a type familiar to students of
society; not the innkeeper, which is a thing consistent with good
breeding and all the refinements; a type not unknown in the House of
Lords, especially among recent creations, common enough in the House
of Commons and the City of London, and by no means infrequent in the
governing circles of Labour; the type known to the discerning as the
Licensed Victualler.

His face was wrinkled in official smiles, and he gave the
travellers a hearty good afternoon.

"Can we stop here for the night?" Dickson asked.

The landlord looked sharply at him, and then replied to Mr.
Heritage. His expression passed from official bonhomie to official
contrition.

"Impossible, gentlemen. Quite impossible....Ye couldn't have
come at a worse time. I've only been here a fortnight myself, and
we haven't got right shaken down yet. Even then I might have made
shift to do with ye, but the fact is we've illness in the house, and
I'm fair at my wits' end. It breaks my heart to turn gentlemen away
and me that keen to get the business started. But there it is!" He
spat vigorously as if to emphasize the desperation of his
quandary.

The man was clearly Scots, but his native speech was overlaid
with something alien, something which might have been acquired in
America or in going down to the sea in ships. He hitched his
breeches, too, with a nautical air.

"Is there nowhere else we can put up?" Dickson asked.

"Not in this one-horse place. Just a wheen auld wives that
packed thegether they haven't room for an extra hen. But it's grand
weather, and it's not above seven miles to Auchenlochan. Say the
word and I'll yoke the horse and drive ye there."

"Thank you. We prefer to walk," said Mr. Heritage. Dickson
would have tarried to inquire after the illness in the house, but
his companion hurried him off. Once he looked back, and saw the
landlord still on the doorstep gazing after them.

"That fellow's a swine," said Mr. Heritage sourly. "I
wouldn't trust my neck in his pot-house. Now, Dogson, I'm hanged if
I'm going to leave this place. We'll find a corner in the village
somehow. Besides, I'm determined on tea."

The little street slept in the clear pure light of an early
April evening. Blue shadows lay on the white road, and a delicate
aroma of cooking tantalized hungry nostrils. The near meadows shone
like pale gold against the dark lift of the moor. A light wind had
begun to blow from the west and carried the faintest tang of salt.
The village at that hour was pure Paradise, and Dickson was of the
Poet's opinion. At all costs they must spend the night there.

They selected a cottage whiter and neater than the others,
which stood at a corner, where a narrow lane turned southward. Its
thatched roof had been lately repaired, and starched curtains of a
dazzling whiteness decorated the small, closely-shut windows.
Likewise it had a green door and a polished brass knocker.

Tacitly the duty of envoy was entrusted to Mr. McCunn.
Leaving the other at the gate, he advanced up the little path lined
with quartz stones, and politely but firmly dropped the brass
knocker. He must have been observed, for ere the noise had ceased
the door opened, and an elderly woman stood before him. She had a
sharply-cut face, the rudiments of a beard, big spectacles on her
nose, and an old-fashioned lace cap on her smooth white hair. A
little grim she looked at first sight, because of her thin lips and
roman nose, but her mild curious eyes corrected the impression and
gave the envoy confidence.

"Good afternoon, mistress," he said, broadening his voice to
something more rustical than his normal Glasgow speech. "Me and my
friend are paying our first visit here, and we're terrible taken up
with the place. We would like to bide the night, but the inn is no'
taking folk. Is there any chance, think you, of a bed here?"

"I'll no tell ye a lee," said the woman. "There's twae guid
beds in the loft. But I dinna tak' lodgers and I dinna want to be
bothered wi' ye. I'm an auld wumman and no' as stoot as I was.
Ye'd better try doun the street. Eppie Home micht tak' ye."

Dickson wore his most ingratiating smile. "But, mistress,
Eppie Home's house is no' yours. We've taken a tremendous fancy to
this bit. Can you no' manage to put up with us for the one night?
We're quiet auld-fashioned folk and we'll no' trouble you much.
Just our tea and maybe an egg to it, and a bowl of porridge in the
morning."

The woman seemed to relent. "Whaur's your freend?" she asked,
peering over her spectacles towards the garden gate. The waiting
Mr. Heritage, seeing he eyes moving in his direction, took off his
cap with a brave gesture and advanced. "Glorious weather, madam,"
he declared.

"English," whispered Dickson to the woman, in explanation.

She examined the Poet's neat clothes and Mr. McCunn's homely
garments, and apparently found them reassuring. "Come in," she said
shortly. "I see ye're wilfu' folk and I'll hae to dae my best for
ye."

A quarter of an hour later the two travellers, having been
introduced to two spotless beds in the loft, and having washed
luxuriously at the pump in the back yard, were seated in Mrs.
Morran's kitchen before a meal which fulfilled their wildest dreams.
She had been baking that morning, so there were white scones and
barley scones, and oaten farles, and russet pancakes. There were
three boiled eggs for each of them; there was a segment of an
immense currant cake ("a present from my guid brither last
Hogmanay"); there was skim milk cheese; there were several kinds of
jam, and there was a pot of dark-gold heather honey. "Try hinny and
aitcake," said their hostess. "My man used to say he never fund
onything as guid in a' his days."

Presently they heard her story. Her name was Morran, and she
had been a widow these ten years. Of her family her son was in
South Africa, one daughter a lady's-maid in London, and the other
married to a schoolmaster in Kyle. The son had been in France
fighting, and had come safely through. He had spent a month or two
with her before his return, and, she feared, had found it dull.
"There's no' a man body in the place. Naething but auld wives."

That was what the innkeeper had told them. Mr. McCunn
inquired concerning the inn.

"There's new folk just came. What's this they ca'
them?--Robson- Dobson--aye, Dobson. What far wad they no' tak' ye
in? Does the man think he's a laird to refuse folk that gait?"

"He said he had illness in the house."

Mrs. Morran meditated. "Whae in the world can be lyin' there?
The man bides his lane. He got a lassie frae Auchenlochan to cook,
but she and her box gaed off in the post-cairt yestreen. I doot he
tell't ye a lee, though it's no for me to juidge him. I've never
spoken a word to ane o' thae new folk."

Dickson inquired about the "new folk."

"They're a' now come in the last three weeks, and there's no'
a man o' the auld stock left. John Blackstocks at the Wast Lodge
dee'd o' pneumony last back-end, and auld Simon Tappie at the
Gairdens flitted to Maybole a year come Mairtinmas. There's naebody
at the Gairdens noo, but there's a man come to the Wast Lodge, a
blackavised body wi' a face like bend-leather. Tam Robison used to
bide at the South Lodge, but Tam got killed about Mesopotamy, and
his wife took the bairns to her guidsire up at the Garpleheid. I
seen the man that's in the South Lodge gaun up the street when I was
finishin' my denner--a shilpit body and a lameter, but he hirples as
fast as ither folk run. He's no' bonny to look at.. I canna think
what the factor's ettlin' at to let sic ill-faured chiels come about
the toun."

Their hostess was rapidly rising in Dickson's esteem. She sat
very straight in her chair, eating with the careful gentility of a
bird, and primming her thin lips after every mouthful of tea.

"Wha bides in the Big House?" he asked. "Huntingtower is the
name, isn't it?"

"When I was a lassie they ca'ed it Dalquharter Hoose, and
Huntingtower was the auld rickle o' stanes at the sea-end. But
naething wad serve the last laird's father but he maun change the
name, for he was clean daft about what they ca' antickities. Ye
speir whae bides in the Hoose? Naebody, since the young laird dee'd.
It's standin' cauld and lanely and steikit, and it aince the
cheeriest dwallin' in a' Carrick."

Mrs. Morran's tone grew tragic. "It's a queer warld wi'out
the auld gentry. My faither and my guidsire and his faither afore
him served the Kennedys, and my man Dauvit Morran was gemkeeper to
them, and afore I mairried I was ane o' the table-maids. They were
kind folk, the Kennedys, and, like a' the rale gentry, maist mindfu'
o' them that served them. Sic merry nichts I've seen in the auld
Hoose, at Hallowe'en and Hogmanay, and at the servants' balls and
the waddin's o' the young leddies! But the laird bode to waste his
siller in stane and lime, and hadna that much to leave to his bairns.
And now they're a' scattered or deid."

Her grave face wore the tenderness which comes from
affectionate reminiscence.

"There was never sic a laddie as young Maister Quentin. No' a
week gaed by but he was in here, cryin', 'Phemie Morran, I've come
till my tea!' Fine he likit my treacle scones, puir man. There
wasna ane in the countryside sae bauld a rider at the hunt, or sic a
skeely fisher. And he was clever at his books tae, a graund
scholar, they said, and ettlin' at bein' what they ca' a dipplemat,
But that' a' bye wi'."

"Quentin Kennedy--the fellow in the Tins?" Heritage asked.
"I saw him in Rome when he was with the Mission."

"I dinna ken. He was a brave sodger, but he wasna long
fechtin' in France till he got a bullet in his breist. Syne we
heard tell o' him in far awa' bits like Russia; and syne cam' the
end o' the war and we lookit to see him back, fishin' the waters and
ridin' like Jehu as in the auld days. But wae's me! It wasna
permitted. The next news we got, the puir laddie was deid o'
influenzy and buried somewhere about France. The wanchancy bullet
maun have weakened his chest, nae doot. So that's the end o' the
guid stock o' Kennedy o' Huntingtower, whae hae been great folk sin'
the time o' Robert Bruce. And noo the Hoose is shut up till the
lawyers can get somebody sae far left to himsel' as to tak' it on
lease, and in thae dear days it's no' just onybody that wants a
muckle castle."

"Who are the lawyers?" Dickson asked.

"Glendonan and Speirs in Embro. But they never look near the
place, and Maister Loudon in Auchenlochan does the factorin'. He's
let the public an' filled the twae lodges, and he'll be thinkin' nae
doot that he's done eneuch."

Mrs. Morran had poured some hot water into the big slop-bowl,
and had begun the operation known as "synding out" the cups. It was
a hint that the meal was over, and Dickson and Heritage rose from
the table. Followed by an injunction to be back for supper "on the
chap o' nine," they strolled out into the evening. Two hours of
some sort of daylight remained, and the travellers had that impulse
to activity which comes to all men who, after a day of exercise and
emptiness, are stayed with a satisfying tea.

"You should be happy, Dogson," said the Poet. "Here we have
all the materials for your blessed romance--old mansion, extinct
family, village deserted of men, and an innkeeper whom I suspect of
being a villain. I feel almost a convert to your nonsense myself.
We'll have a look at the House."

They turned down the road which ran north by the park wall,
past the inn, which looked more abandoned than ever, till they came
to an entrance which was clearly the West Lodge. It had once been a
pretty, modish cottage, with a thatched roof and dormer windows,
but now it was badly in need of repair. A window-pane was broken
and stuffed with a sack, the posts of the porch were giving inwards,
and the thatch was crumbling under the attentions of a colony of
starlings. The great iron gates were rusty, and on the coat of arms
above them the gilding was patchy and tarnished. Apparently the
gates were locked, and even the side wicket failed to open to
Heritage's vigorous shaking. Inside a weedy drive disappeared among
ragged rhododendrons.

The noise brought a man to the lodge door. He was a sturdy
fellow in a suit of black clothes which had not been made for him.
He might have been a butler en deshabille, but for the presence of a
pair of field boots into which he had tucked the ends of his
trousers. The curious thing about him was his face, which was
decorated with features so tiny as to give the impression of a
monstrous child. Each in itself was well enough formed, but eyes,
nose, mouth, chin were of a smallness curiously out of proportion to
the head and body. Such an anomaly might have been redeemed by the
expression; good-humour would have invested it with an air of
agreeable farce. But there was no friendliness in the man's face.
It was set like a judge's in a stony impassiveness.

"May we walk up to the House?" Heritage asked. "We are here
for a night and should like to have a look at it."

The man advanced a step. He had either a bad cold, or a voice
comparable in size to his features.

"There's no entrance here," he said huskily. "I have strict
orders."

"Oh, come now," said Heritage. "It can do nobody any harm if
you let us in for half an hour."

The man advanced another step.

"You shall not come in. Go away from here. Go away, I tell
you. It is private." The words spoken by the small mouth in the
small voice had a kind of childish ferocity.

The travellers turned their back on him and continued their
way.

"Sich a curmudgeon!" Dickson commented. His face had
flushed, for he was susceptible to rudeness. "Did you notice? That
man's a foreigner."

"He's a brute," said Heritage. "But I'm not going to be done
in by that class of lad. There can be no gates on the sea side, so
we'll work round that way, for I won't sleep till I've seen the
place."

Presently the trees grew thinner, and the road plunged through
thickets of hazel till it came to a sudden stop in a field. There
the cover ceased wholly, and below them lay the glen of the Laver.
Steep green banks descended to a stream which swept in coils of gold
into the eye of the sunset. A little farther down the channel
broadened, the slopes fell back a little, and a tongue of glittering
sea ran up to meet the hill waters. The Laver is a gentle stream
after it leaves its cradle heights, a stream of clear pools and long
bright shallows, winding by moorland steadings and upland meadows;
but in its last half-mile it goes mad, and imitates its childhood
when it tumbled over granite shelves. Down in that green place the
crystal water gushed and frolicked as if determined on one hour of
rapturous life before joining the sedater sea.

Heritage flung himself on the turf.

"This is a good place! Ye gods, what a good place! Dogson,
aren't you glad you came? I think everything's bewitched to-night.
That village is bewitched, and that old woman's tea. Good white
magic! And that foul innkeeper and that brigand at the gate. Black
magic! And now here is the home of all enchantment--'island valley
of Avilion'--'waters that listen for lovers'--all the rest of
it!"

Dickson observed and marvelled.

"I can't make you out, Mr. Heritage. You were saying last
night you were a great democrat, and yet you were objecting to yon
laddies camping on the moor. And you very near bit the neb off me
when I said I liked Tennyson. And now..." Mr. McCunn's command of
language was inadequate to describe the transformation.

"You're a precise, pragmatical Scot," was the answer. "Hang
it, man, don't remind me that I'm inconsistent. I've a poet's
licence to play the fool, and if you don't understand me, I don't in
the least understand myself. All I know is that I'm feeling young
and jolly, and that it's the Spring."

Mr. Heritage was assuredly in a strange mood. He began to
whistle with a far-away look in his eye.

"Do you know what that is?" he asked suddenly.

Dickson, who could not detect any tune, said "No."

"It's an aria from a Russian opera that came out just before
the war. I've forgotten the name of the fellow who wrote it. Jolly
thing, isn't it? I always remind myself of it when I'm in this
mood, for it is linked with the greatest experience of my life. You
said, I think, that you had never been in love?"

Dickson replied in the native fashion. "Have you?" he
asked.

"I have, and I am--been for two years. I was down with my
battalion on the Italian front early in 1918, and because I could
speak the language they hoicked me out and sent me to Rome on a
liaison job. It was Easter time and fine weather, and, being glad to
get out of the trenches, I was pretty well pleased with myself and
enjoying life....In the place where I stayed there was a girl. She
was a Russian, a princess of a great family, but a refugee, and of
course as poor as sin....I remember how badly dressed she was among
all the well-to-do Romans. But, my God, what a beauty! There was
never anything in the world like her.... She was little more than a
child, and she used to sing that air in the morning as she went down
the stairs....They sent me back to the front before I had a chance
of getting to know her, but she used to give me little timid good
mornings, and her voice and eyes were like an angel's....I'm over my
head in love, but it's hopeless, quite hopeless. I shall never see
her again."

"I'm sure I'm honoured by your confidence," said Dickson
reverently.

The Poet, who seemed to draw exhilaration from the memory of
his sorrows, arose and fetched him a clout on the back. "Don't talk
of confidence, as if you were a reporter," he said. "What about
that House? If we're to see it before the dark comes we'd better
hustle."

The green slopes on their left, as they ran seaward, were
clothed towards their summit with a tangle of broom and light scrub.
The two forced their way through it, and found to their surprise
that on this side there were no defences of the Huntingtower demesne.
Along the crest ran a path which had once been gravelled and
trimmed. Beyond, through a thicket of laurels and rhododendrons,
they came on a long unkempt aisle of grass, which seemed to be one
of those side avenues often found in connection with old Scots
dwellings. Keeping along this they reached a grove of beech and
holly through which showed a dim shape of masonry. By a common
impulse they moved stealthily, crouching in cover, till at the far
side of the wood they found a sunk fence and looked over an acre or
two of what had once been lawn and flower-beds to the front of the
mansion.

The outline of the building was clearly silhouetted against
the glowing west, but since they were looking at the east face the
detail was all in shadow. But, dim as it was, the sight was enough
to give Dickson the surprise of his life. He had expected something
old and baronial. But this was new, raw and new, not twenty years
built. Some madness had prompted its creator to set up a replica of
a Tudor house in a countryside where the thing was unheard of. All
the tricks were there--oriel windows, lozenged panes, high twisted
chimney stacks; the very stone was red, as if to imitate the mellow
brick of some ancient Kentish manor. It was new, but it was also
decaying. The creepers had fallen from the walls, the pilasters on
the terrace were tumbling down, lichen and moss were on the
doorsteps. Shuttered, silent, abandoned, it stood like a harsh
memento mori of human hopes.

Dickson had never before been affected by an inanimate thing
with so strong a sense of disquiet. He had pictured an old stone
tower on a bright headland; he found instead this raw thing among
trees. The decadence of the brand-new repels as something against
nature, and this new thing was decadent. But there was a mysterious
life in it, for though not a chimney smoked, it seemed to enshrine a
personality and to wear a sinister aura. He felt a lively distaste,
which was almost fear. He wanted to get far away from it as fast
as possible. The sun, now sinking very low, sent up rays which
kindled the crests of a group of firs to the left of the front
door.

He had the absurd fancy that they were torches flaming before
a bier.

It was well that the two had moved quietly and kept in shadow.
Footsteps fell on their ears, on the path which threaded the lawn
just beyond the sunk-fence. It was the keeper of the West Lodge and
he carried something on his back, but both that and his face were
indistinct in the half-light.

Other footsteps were heard, coming from the other side of the
lawn. A man's shod feet rang on the stone of a flagged path, and
from their irregular fall it was plain that he was lame. The two
men met near the door, and spoke together. Then they separated, and
moved one down each side of the house. To the two watchers they had
the air of a patrol, or of warders pacing the corridors of a
prison.

"Let's get out of this," said Dickson, and turned to go.

The air had the curious stillness which precedes the moment of
sunset, when the birds of day have stopped their noises and the
sounds 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!"