Читать книгу The Road to Nowhere - Maurice Walsh - Страница 18
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THERE was no moon, but the still summer night was not dark. High up in the sky the stars were faint and few, and the northern glow outlined, stark and black, the great humped hog-back of Garabhmore mountain. Out at mid-bay the little coracle seemed to float on a pale nothingness out of which the oar-tips created a faint shimmer of phosphorescence; and when Alistair, pulling smoothly, opened the head of the inlet, small twinkles and gleams rayed away from them over the pale surface towards the lighted windows that were scattered and strung on all the wide curve of hillside.
‘Quite a population up yonder,’ murmured Rogan Stuart, acrouch in the bow at Paddy Joe’s feet.
‘Good land all the way up Glounagrianaan,’ Paddy Joe murmured back. ‘Pull your left, son; the current is getting you.’
‘I feel it,’ grunted Alistair. ‘Watch out for the bridge.’
He buckled down to steady pulling, not for the head of the bay but quartering across towards the north shore. Rogan, peering forward, made out the black hulk of trees closing in on either hand; and presently, the high, faintly outlined arch of a bridge loomed overhead.
‘Nicely gauged,’ commended Paddy Joe’s whisper.
This was the Dunmore River coming down from Loch Aonach. The water gleamed roily as it went by, and the coracle went bucking forward under the jerk and kick of the oars. Above the bridge the current was easier, and Alistair, now rowing noiselessly, brought the boat close in to the wooded bank on his right.
Paddy Joe whispered in Rogan’s ear. ‘This is the enemy’s territory, and you are now without the pale of the law. But our little lady owes us one salmon at least.’
They slipped along outside low-growing water-willows and below trees that, here and there, trailed a branch in the current and made a low gurgle. In a few minutes they came to a squat building, the open-arched gable of which, jutting out into the water, showed it to be a boat-house.
Alistair swung the nose of the coracle to the shore on the downward side of the building, and Paddy Joe’s fingers scraped along a wooden wall. There they lay and listened. No breath of air moved in the warm dark; everything was remotely hushed, still, watching; the great black bulk of the trees seemed to know that they were there and seemed not to be concerned; the very highest and faintest star seemed to be looking down at them detachedly, with a strange aloofness that, yet, had something inimical in it.
‘Here’s where you get off, bold man,’ whispered Paddy Joe. Rogan lifted to his feet carefully, and the other’s hand steadied him while his voice went on whispering:
‘Keep to the front of the house—this side. The keeper and the kennels are at the back. If danger threatens give the plover’s call—as I told you—and slip back here as soon as you can. If we are here first we’ll give you the call. Ach! there’s nothing to fear really—but one never knows. Watch your feet, son! Give us an hour if you can.’
Rogan looked back and down from the bank, but the boat was already gone, and not even the creak of a thole-pin showed its direction. Feeling forward with his feet, guided by the wooden side of the boat-house, he worked round to the rear and found gravel acrunch under shoe-soles. This would be the path back into the grounds. He could not see a yard; down here below the trees the night was close about him and all the stars were hidden.
He paused there and listened in a stillness drawn out and fine as a wire, and waited until the tenseness relaxed and he became in tune with the mood of the dark. Alone there in the night, he yielded to the aloofness of it, became part of it, was no longer awed by its detached awareness. Slowly then he moved forward on the gravel, his progress a mere drifting on the stream of the dark. Now and then his left shoe grazed along the grass edging of the path. After a time the darkness seemed to retire, to thin out, and faint sheens and glimmers cut across and between the tree-trunks; and, quite suddenly, he came out between two thick clumps of shrubbery and found himself looking across a wide reach of lawn at the lighted front of the big house.
*****
A full hour later the coracle came drifting down at mid-stream, Paddy Joe leaning on the oars and Alistair perched on the high-cocked prow.
‘Our scout has given us good measure,’ whispered Alistair. ‘Hope he hasn’t lost himself—listen—listen! Is that your signal?’
‘And well whistled at that,’ said Paddy Joe, and dug in the oars.
Across the night, very part of the night, came the plaintive shaken call of the grey plover, beginning softly, lifting, pulsing, dying away—that call in a minor key that is of the true spirit of loneliness in the summer hills.
In less than two minutes the coracle scraped round the corner of the boat-house and Alistair’s hand steadied her against the wooden wall. He looked up at the bank. From his position low down the angle and eaves-edge of the boat-house were clearly outlined against the sky, and a dark figure leant against the corner, bent-over and peering down towards them. The only thought in Alistair’s mind was that this was Rogan Stuart; and his mouth was pursed to greet him, when a voice that was not Rogan’s startled him.
‘Who is down there? What boat is that?’
There was no mistaking that voice. It was Ambrose Trant’s.
A little thrill, not unpleasant, ran through Alistair, and he crouched back in the bow of the coracle, quiet as a mouse.
‘I see you—I know you.’ Trant was lying boldly as he bent and peered. ‘Poaching too! Come right up here—come on!’
Alistair grinned in the dark. If Paddy Joe and himself obeyed that urgent order, Ambrose Trant might experience a few busy and unhappy minutes. But these two were old hands and would not move till the right time.
‘Very well!’ warned Trant. ‘Let her rip. I’ll damn soon round you up.’
His figure disappeared, his feet crunched on the gravel; and then came a short explosive epithet and the thud of a heavy fall, followed immediately by a scramble and a squeal and another thud on the ground.
‘Ride him, cowboy!’ whispered Alistair. ‘Hang on, Paddy Joe!’ And he disappeared over the bank, leaving the coracle arock behind him.
‘Blast it!’ swore Paddy Joe.
II
Rogan Stuart, who had smothered in his time iron-tough, international out-halves, did justice to Ambrose Trant. He got him with a devastating low tackle, clumped him flat on his back, and locked him across the hips. But Trant was lithe as an eel and was by no means a physical weakling. Vindictively he kicked and squirmed, twisted to his knees, and got an arm round his opponent’s neck. And thereupon Rogan broke all holds by cleanly somersaulting him over his head. This time he did not seek to bottle him; instead he crouched back out of distance and waited. Man-handling was no part of the job in hand, and he hoped that Ambrose, with the wind knocked out of him, would cry enough or even scurry away for help. All that Rogan wanted was a chance to make the boat.
But Ambrose Trant was now fighting drunk and entirely without the better part of valour. He bounded to his feet, exploded an ugly oath, and charged blindly in the dark.
Rogan instinctively ducked under a swinging right, and the two bodies came together and fell. They rolled, they heaved, they scrabbled on the gravel. Twice Trant squealed as vindictively as a maddened weasel. The drink he had recently taken gave him, for a time, a really astonishing and explosive energy; but, for all that, after every roll and every tumble Rogan Stuart was invincibly on top.
And then the struggle ceased as suddenly as it had begun; as it will, when a drunk man is down to the dregs. Trant’s clutching hands went loose, and he flattened out limply on his back. His breath hoasted broken-windedly and his diaphragm heaved below Rogan’s smother.
Rogan rolled clear and to his feet at the same time. And a voice spoke softly in his ear. ‘Nice work, son! Let us be going.’ Alistair’s hand slipped inside his arm.
‘Will he be all right?’
‘Fine! As soon as he gets his wind back—watch out for rain. Come on!’
Paddy Joe had the boat handily waiting for them, and they slipped in over the bow.
‘H-s-s-sh!’ warned Paddy Joe, and they stilled to listen. There came to them from the pathway beyond the boat-house the sound of running feet—feet running lightly and quickly—feet running lightly as a woman’s....
With silent hand Paddy Joe levered the coracle backwards along the wall, gave one final push, and let the current take them. Twenty yards down, he dipped oars, brought the boat bow on, pulled softly until the bridge loomed behind, and then drove forward with all his might.
‘Not a word,’ he whispered over his shoulder. ‘Sound travels to-night.’
Rogan was getting his wind back. He sat up in the bow and looked around him. It was better out here in the open where one could see across the summer night. The great hog-back of Garabhmore stood out against the sky, and, in the blackness below, was hidden the big ugly house where ugly things were happening. Let it stay hidden there. He, at any rate, was finished with it and its ugliness.
Out beyond mid-bay Paddy Joe slowed down to a leisurely gait and blew deep breaths through his lips. ‘And that’s that, my children,’ he said in a low voice. ‘We are now circulating on our own affairs in a free country.’ He looked over his shoulder at them. ‘Where’s your hat, Rogan Stuart?’ he asked, and stopped rowing.
‘Here in my pocket,’ said Rogan. ‘Put it there when I cleared for action.’
‘Sound man! That hell of a hat would hang us all.’
‘I’ll get you into trouble yet. Didn’t keep a very good watch, did I? I never meant to tackle Trant, but he ran right on top of me.’
Alistair, acrouch at Rogan’s feet, chuckled happily.
‘You earned your slice of the fun, and you got it. I was hopping about outside the vortex and counted eleven flying-mares in as many seconds. Poor Amby will be gey sair the morn.’
‘Had you some fun yourselves?’
‘Some, about fits it,’ said Alistair without enthusiasm.
‘It does too,’ said Paddy Joe exultingly.
‘What in thunder could a fellow do against that current?’ Alistair wanted to know.
‘You see,’ explained Paddy Joe with satisfaction, ‘the poor mutt anchored me on the shore with one end of the net and then tried to make the haul up into the throat of the pool——’
‘Where the fish lie,’ pointed out Alistair.
‘Anyway, the weight of the net and the current was too much for him, and he finished up with a figure of eight and landed below me. Such a snarl——’
‘With a nice ten-pounder in the bottom loop.’ Alistair looked up at Rogan. ‘Did I see all the fun you had back there?’
‘You did,’ said Rogan, a little grimly. ‘The rest was not funny.’ He looked across the water into the darkness where the house was hidden. ‘There are ugly things going on in there,’ he said in his deep voice.
‘There is unhappiness in there, we know,’ said Paddy Joe.
‘And worse. Here are two problems for you. Why should father and son hold a drinking bout, with hell for a wind-up? And what makes a woman caoine—lament—to herself in the dark?’
‘Phew-w!’ whistled Alistair. ‘You saw a whale of a lot in one hour.’
‘More than I should—and none of my business.’
‘Why should father and son——?’ wondered Alistair.
‘Leave it,’ admonished Paddy Joe. ‘Leave it now! Here we are at our own quiet place.’
Above them the brown of the tent showed dimly on its flat, and behind it the great breast of Slievemaol, facing the northern glow, was a serene grey shimmer.
‘And now,’ said Paddy Joe, shipping his oars, ‘we will rest ourselves and drink one drink to wash all ugliness away.’
‘We drank all the beer.’
‘And who would drink beer in the dead hours? What we will drink is what has been drunk in these hills under the cover of darkness for a thousand years.’
