“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 tomorrow 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 today. 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 tomorrow 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 folklore 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 hillside, 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.
