The Cone Gatherers (7 page)

The drive was nearly over. Only a hundred or so yards away were the waiting guns. Frightened by the noises approaching them from the rear, and apprehensive of the human silence ahead, the five roe deer were halted, their heads high in nervous alertness. When Calum saw them, his cry was of delight and friendship, and then of terrified warning as the dogs too, and Duror, caught sight of them and rushed in pursuit. Silently, with marvellous grace and agility over such rough ground, the deer flew for the doom ahead. Their white behinds were like moving glints of sunlight; without them their tawny hides might not have been seen in the autumnal wood.

Calum no longer was one of the beaters; he too was a deer hunted by remorseless men. Moaning and gasping, he fled after them, with no hope of saving them from slaughter but with the impulse to share it with them. He could not, however, be so swift or sure of foot. He fell and rose again; he avoided one tree only to collide with another close to it; and all the time he felt, as the deer must have, the indifference of all nature; of the trees, of tall withered stalks of willow herb, of the patches of blue sky, of bushes, of piles of cut scrubwood, of birds lurking in branches, and of the sunlight: presences which might have been expected to help or at least sympathise.

The dogs barked fiercely. Duror fired his gun in warning to those waiting in the ride. Neil, seeing his brother rush into the danger, roared to him to come back. All the beaters, except Charlie far in the rear, joined in the commotion; the wood resounded with their exultant shouts. Realising this must be the finish or kill, Graham,
recuperating on the road, hopped back over the fence into the wood and bellowed loudest of all.

As Duror bawled to his dogs to stop lest they interfere with the shooting, and as the deer hesitated before making the dash across the ride, Calum was quite close to them as, silent, desperate, and heroic, they sprang forward to die or escape. When the guns banged he did not, as Neil had vehemently warned him to do, fall flat on the ground and put his fingers in his ears. Instead, with wails of lament, he dashed on at demented speed and shot out onto the broad green ride to hear a deer screaming and see it, wounded in the breast and forelegs, scrabbling about on its hindquarters. Captain Forgan was feverishly reloading his gun to fire again. Calum saw no one else, not even the lady or Mr Tulloch, who was standing by himself about twenty yards away.

Screaming in sympathy, heedless of the danger of being shot, Calum flung himself upon the deer, clasped it round the neck, and tried to comfort it. Terrified more than ever, it dragged him about with it in its mortal agony. Its blood came off onto his face and hands.

While Captain Forgan, young Roderick, and Lady Runcie-Campbell stood petrified by this sight, Duror followed by his dogs came leaping out of the wood. He seemed to be laughing in some kind of berserk joy. There was a knife in his hand. His mistress shouted to him: what it was she did not know herself, and he never heard. Rushing upon the stricken deer and the frantic hunchback, he threw the latter off with furious force, and then, seizing the former's head with one hand cut its throat savagely with the other. Blood spouted. Lady Runcie-Campbell closed her eyes. Captain Forgan shook his head slightly in some kind of denial. Roderick screamed at Duror. Tulloch had gone running over to Calum.

The deer was dead, but Duror did not rise triumphant; he crouched beside it, on his knees, as if he was mourning over it. His hands were red with blood; in one of them he still held the knife.

There were more gunshots and shouts further down the ride.

It was Tulloch who hurried to Duror to verify or disprove the suspicion that had paralysed the others.

He disproved it. Duror was neither dead nor hurt.

Duror muttered something, too much of a mumble to be understood. His eyes were shut. Tulloch bent down to sniff; but he was wrong, there was no smell of whisky, only of the deer's sweat and blood. All the same, he thought, Duror had the appearance of a drunk man, unshaven, slack-mouthed, mumbling, rather glaikit.

Lady Runcie-Campbell came forward, with involuntary grimaces of distaste. She avoided looking at the hunchback, seated now against the bole of a tree, sobbing like a child, his face smeared with blood.

‘Has he hurt himself?' she asked of Tulloch.

‘I don't think so, my lady. He seems to have collapsed.'

Graham came panting down the ride.

His mistress turned round and saw him.

‘Oh, Graham,' she said, ‘please be so good as to drag this beast away.'

Graham glanced at deer and keeper. Which beast, your ladyship? he wanted to ask. Instead, he caught the deer by a hind leg and pulled it along the grass, leaving a trail of blood.

She turned back to Duror, now leaning against Tulloch.

‘Have we nothing to wipe his face with?' she murmured peevishly.

Her brother was first to offer his handkerchief. With it Tulloch dabbed off the blood.

Duror opened his eyes.

‘Peggy?' he asked. ‘What's happened to Peggy?'

They all exchanged puzzled glances.

‘There's nothing happened to your wife, Duror,' said Lady Runcie-Campbell. ‘You seem to have fainted.'

Slowly he understood. His face worked painfully. She thought he looked at least twenty years older than he was. He saw the deer with its throat gashed; he made no sign of recognition, until he caught sight of his hands. From them he looked to where the hunchback was being attended to by his brother.

Duror seemed possessed by a fury to rise up and
attack the hunchback. Tulloch and the Captain had to restrain him. They thought he was blaming the hunchback for having turned the drive into this horrid fiasco.

Lady Runcie-Campbell glanced towards the little cone-gatherer with aversion.

‘I never thought a deer shoot could be made appear so dreadfully sordid,' she murmured.

She noticed Tulloch glancing at her with a frown.

The rest of the guns came up the ride, announcing with cheerful regret that they had fired but missed. Old Adamson cried that he thought he had winged one but he couldn't be sure. Their cheerfulness died when they saw Duror sitting on the ground. They thought there had been an accident.

Lady Runcie-Campbell felt annoyed: the situation was so grotesque that anything, even decent pity or pardonable amazement, would add to the sordidness. She felt that her own hands and face were all blood. Roderick too was in the thick of this defilement.

‘Duror took an ill turn,' she explained sharply. ‘I think, Duror,' she said, turning to him, ‘the quicker we get you home the better. You'll have to stay in bed for a day or two, and of course you must see a doctor.'

Duror got to his feet, pushing off Tulloch's hand.

‘I'm all right, my lady,' he said.

Again he threw a glance of hatred at the little cone-gatherer. It seemed to them he was still blaming the hunchback for what had happened. They did not know that there by the dead deer he understood for the first time why he hated the hunchback so profoundly and yet was so fascinated by him. For many years his life had been stunted, misshapen, obscene, and hideous; and this misbegotten creature was its personification. Had the face been savage, brutal, ugly, in keeping with the body, there could have been no identification with his own case: then the creature would have been merely itself, as a toad was or a dragonfly larva, horrible but natural; but the face was mild, peaceful, and beautiful.

He knew too his wife was not dead, killed by thrushes' beaks or hunting knife. The misery, so miraculously shed
that afternoon by the lilypond, sprang on him again, savage and over-powering as a tiger.

‘Never mind, Duror,' said his mistress. ‘I quite understand how you feel. The drive has been spoiled, and I agree with you as to the culprit.'

Again she noticed Tulloch glancing at her.

‘But that's a different matter from your health,' she went on haughtily. ‘You'll have to look after it, you know.'

‘I'll live till I'm eighty, my lady,' he said, in an agony of bitterness.

She was taken aback.

‘Well, I'm sure we all hope so,' she said at last.

Duror turned to the Captain.

‘I'm sorry your drive was spoiled, sir,' he said.

Forgan laughed with nervous good nature. ‘Don't worry about that, Duror,' he replied. But it was obvious he would worry about it himself.

His sister noticed. ‘I feel pretty displeased about it,' she said. ‘I must admit that. You, Duror, really ought to look after yourself more carefully. As for' – she again glanced towards the cone-gatherers – ‘certain others, I think the sooner we see the last of them the better. Times are grim enough, heaven knows, without putting up with what's avoidable.'

On Tulloch's long thin bony face appeared a dour huff. She would not argue with him, she decided; if he made himself troublesome, she would go over his head to the District Officer, a man of education, breeding, and discernment.

Duror had turned aside to get on with his job. He ordered Graham to tie the deer by its legs to a long pole brought for the purpose, and carry it down the road to the house.

Graham was incensed. He had wished the beast no harm. He had not even seen it killed. He wouldn't get as much as an ounce of it to eat, and wouldn't eat it anyway if he did get it. Yet here he was being burdened with it all the way to the house, a distance of more than a mile.

‘A pole's got two ends,' he observed. ‘Am I to take them both?'

Duror looked round. He saw Betty and Harry.

‘The boy and the girl can take turn about with the other end,' he said.

‘Who,' asked Graham, ‘is going to take turn about with my end? Me and Erchie Graham, is that it?'

Duror looked scornfully from him to the deer.

‘It's a small beast,' he said. ‘I could carry it under my oxter.'

Do it then, said Graham's face; his voice, more discreet, muttered: ‘Are you forgetting that I'm above the age when most men are either buried or pensioned off? Anyway,' he added, looking up and down the ride, ‘where's Charlie?'

Charlie hadn't yet come out of the wood.

Adamson his master had gone up the ride with Lady Runcie-Campbell and her party.

‘Maybe we ought to go and look for him?' suggested Graham.

‘Do that if you like,' said Duror, ‘so long as you carry the deer back afterwards.'

Then the gamekeeper turned and went up the ride.

Graham put his thumb to his nose and twiddled his fingers after him.

Meanwhile Tulloch had been talking to his cone-gatherers.

‘When they asked you to take part in the drive, Neil,' he asked, ‘did you explain about Calum?'

‘I did, Mr Tulloch.'

‘And yet they still persisted that he should go?'

‘Aye.'

‘Was it the keeper came to you?'

Neil nodded.

‘He seems to have a spite against you. Is there any reason for it?' He saw from Neil's face there was some such reason. ‘You'd better tell me, Neil, and be quick about it. I want to speak to the lady about this business. She blames Calum for spoiling the deer hunt.'

‘I ken that, and it's not fair.'

‘No, it isn't fair, Neil, and I'll tell her so. But first tell me why the keeper's got this grudge against you.'

Bitterly Neil divulged about the rabbits released from the snares.

‘How long had they been in the snares?' asked Tulloch quickly.

‘A whole night and a day. Maybe longer. It was cruelty.'

‘Well,' said Tulloch slowly, ‘I suppose the man's short-handed these days. In peacetime he'll have somebody to help him. But it's still against humanity to leave creatures to starve or choke themselves to death. You're sure that's all he's got against you?'

‘I'd swear it on my mother's grave.'

Tulloch's voice softened. ‘All right, Neil,' he murmured. ‘Don't worry. Whatever the upshot of this, I'll see you two don't suffer.'

‘There are men above you, Mr Tulloch. She might appeal to them. She might get you into trouble if you cross her. We wouldn't want that. You've been good to us, and forby you've got a wife and children to think of.'

Tulloch smiled bleakly towards that wife and children. These were hostages which had already thwarted him in his desire to champion his underlings against his superiors. Though he loved them he loved justice too.

‘It'll turn out all right,' he said. ‘There's nothing to be afraid of. You see, Neil, I think she's genuine. She'll not penalise anybody unfairly.'

Neil shook his head; he did not have so much trust in her. She was wealthy and powerful, they were poor and weak: why should she trouble to be fair to them?

‘Just you wait here a few minutes,' said Tulloch. ‘I'll come back and let you know how I get on.' He turned to Calum. ‘Are you feeling all right now, Calum?'

‘Yes,' whispered the hunchback.

Tulloch laid his hand on the deformed back.

‘It wasn't your fault, Calum,' he said. ‘I saw it all with my own eyes. You weren't to blame.'

‘He was,' muttered Neil. ‘Why didn't he do what I told him? Why didn't he just drop on his face and stay there?'

Again Tulloch gazed away with that peculiar bleak smile.

‘It's not for us, Neil,' he said, ‘to say that it's a mistake to break your heart over an injured and dying creature, even if that creature's only a deer. I'll have to hurry though, or I'll miss her. I'll not be long.'

He turned and ran up the ride, while behind him Neil continued to nag at Calum, and Graham, Betty, and Harry called in the wood for Charlie. Tied to the pole, the deer lay bleeding on the grass.

When Tulloch arrived at the big shooting-brake, Lady Runcie-Campbell was about to climb into the driver's seat. Her brother and Roderick were already in the car. Duror stood by the gate, ready to shut it when the car had passed through; his dogs sat beside him.