he looked round wondering, as the sleeper in a strange bed so often wonders, where he could possibly be, though its grey square was almost blocked out by a figure before it. Lindsay had got out of bed and was standing, just as he stood when his godson first entered Pitriven, colossal and still, against the pane.
Bob struck a match quickly and Lindsay turned as the candle-flame rose up.
‘Put it out!’ he said fiercely. ‘I tell you, put it out! Do you want the whole parish to see in?’
‘Come back,’ begged Bob, ‘for heaven’s sake go back into your bed – why, you will perish with cold standing there.’
He was on his feet and half-way to the window.
‘Do you hear me?’ roared Lindsay. ‘Put out that damned candle!’
Bob obeyed and then went and laid his hand on Lindsay’s sleeve. Though the old man was not cold his teeth were chattering.
He shook him off.
‘Look at that,’ he said, pointing into the night outside.
‘Go to bed, sir – please go to bed,’ said Bob again.
‘But look!’ cried Lindsay, taking him by the shoulder.
The young man strained his eyes. The windows looked straight across the cleft of the den towards the spot where the kirk stood high upon the farther bank. The indication of a dark mass was just visible, like a pyramid thrusting into the sky, which Bob knew must be the crowded yews round Annie Cargill’s grave.
‘Do you see the light?’ asked Lindsay.
‘Where?’ said Bob, peering out, ‘I can’t see anything.’
‘Are you blind, boy?’ cried Lindsay – ‘it’s there by the foot of the trees, and she’s there too! She’s old now – old – old. Not like she was then!’
Bob turned colder. The young gardener’s words came back to him. ‘She’s no bonnie noo,’ he had said, ‘she’s been lyin’ there owre lang.’ It had seemed to him a grim speech, but its suggestion then had been of mere physical horror. His godfather’s words conveyed a spiritual one.
‘By the trees,’ he said. ‘Which trees?’
‘Good God, can’t you see it, you young fool?
There’s a little dim light – at the foot – in the gap.’
Bob was silent. He knew exactly which place Lindsay meant.
‘It’s there!’ cried the other again – ‘beside her – round her!’
He seemed to be terribly excited, and Bob, who felt the burning fever of the hand gripping his shoulder, longed to get him back between his sheets. He was quite certain that he was delirious.
‘Yes, I see it now,’ he said, lying, but hoping to quiet him, ‘perhaps it is a bit of glass or a shining stone.’
He knew how senseless his words were, but they were the first that came into his head.
‘The stone’s in there,’ said Lindsay, ‘in among the trees. But they won’t hide it – they won’t hide her!’
‘I know,’ said Bob; ‘come, sir, you must rest.’
‘Rest? I can’t rest. She knows that. She has known it for years. Ah, she’s old now, you see, and bitter. Older – every year older—’
Bob tried to draw him away. To his surprise the other made no resistance. Lindsay lay down and he covered him carefully. He put on a coat that was hanging in the room and sat down by the bed; he wondered dismally if this miserable night would ever end. It was past one o’clock and he resolved that he would send for a doctor the moment the house was stirring. He dared not leave Lindsay and he dared not ring the bell for Lyall, lest he should upset him further. In about half an hour he rose and crept into his shakedown to sleep, for the old man was quiet.
All the rest of his days Bob wondered what would have happened if he had kept awake. How far might he have seen into the mysteries of those fringes of spiritual life that surround humanity, and how far listened to the echoes that come floating in broken notes from the hidden conflict of good and evil?
A faint light was breaking outside when consciousness came to him with the knowledge that he was half frozen. His limbs were aching from the way in which he had huddled himself together. A strong draught was sweeping into the room and when he lit the candle he found that the door was wide open. He leaped up and shut it, and then went softly to see whether Lindsay slept.
The bedclothes were thrown back and the bed was empty.
He dressed hurriedly and ran out into the passage. Lindsay’s clothes, which had been lying on a chair at the foot of the fourposter, had disappeared with their owner. When he reached the hall the air blew strong against his face, for the front door stood wide and a chill wind that was rising with morning was heaving the boughs outside. No wonder that he had shivered on the floor. On the inner side of the smoking-room door the setter was whining and snuffling. He turned the handle and looked in, vainly hoping that he might find Lindsay, and the dog rushed out past him, through the house door and into the December morning, with his nose on the ground. He watched him as he shot away towards the den of Pitriven, and followed, running.
A wooden gate led to the bridge that spanned the den, and here the setter paused, crying, till Bob came up with him. As the gate swung behind them the dog rushed on before, up the flight of steps that ascended to the kitchen garden.
Bob knew quite well where he and his dumb comrade were going, and his heart sank with each step that took them nearer to their goal. But he was a courageous youth, in spite of his spiritual misgivings, and it would have been impossible to him to leave anyone in the lurch. Nevertheless, he remembered, with instinctive thankfulness, that the outer door of the garden would be locked and that he must rouse the gardener in the bothy if he wished to get through it.
The bothy was built against the outer side of the wall, but one of its windows looked in over the beds and raspberry canes. He took a handful of earth and flung it against the pane. The window was thrown up and the face of the young man he had met that afternoon looked out, dim in the widening daylight.
‘It’s Colonel Lindsay!’ shouted Bob, ‘he is ill – he is somewhere there! Come down quick for God’s sake, and bring the key of the door, for we must find him!’
He pointed to the kirkyard, and as he did so he noticed that the dog had not followed him across the garden. He could hear him barking among the gravestones. As he waited for the gardener, Bob remembered, what he had forgotten before, that there was a short cut to the place through a thicket. The trail the setter followed must have turned off there.
The head above disappeared. The gardener was half dressed, for he was rising to go to his hothouse fires. He was inclined to think that Bob Davidson was wrong in the head, but he came down with the key in his hand.
They took the same way that they had taken in the afternoon, and passed through the kirkyard gate into a world of shadows and stones. The great black mass above Annie Cargill’s head was a landmark in the indefinite greys.
The two young men approached and it seemed to
