Donald and Morag walked home together; it was still snowing gently, and the ground was crisp under their feet, lightly powdered with pure sugary flakes. Far away in the forest a stag was bellowing. They could hear also the sound of the pipes, of Alec and Calum playing a welcome to MacAslan—the sound grew fainter as they went through the trees.
Morag put her hand on Donald’s arm, it was a strong safe arm, and she needed its support and the comforting feel of it. She said, “My heart was sad for her, Donald.”
“Mine also,” Donald replied in his deep voice. “He was a fine man—the old Chief—and he held her soul in his hand. She had lost everything when he was gone from her.”
“She had her son,” Morag said. “Was her son so little to her, Donald?”
Donald did not reply to that; it was always a strange thing to him that her son meant so little to Mistress MacAslan, but he would not criticise her. She was one of the family he revered, and was therefore above criticism.
After a moment’s silence Morag added shyly, “Would you be liking a son, Donald?”
“Morag!” he exclaimed, stopping and looking down at her with shining eyes.
“It is true,” she told him, nodding her head. “A son—or maybe a little daughter. You would not be grieved if it were to be a little daughter, Donald?”
“It is a wonderful thing,” he said gravely, tenderly. “It is what I have been wanting this long while—and you, too, have been wanting it. Och, Morag, it is a wonderful thing!”
They went on together, hand in hand, full of happiness at the consummation of their hopes, full of thoughts and fears and rosy dreams of the future.
After they had walked on for a little in silence, Morag said softly, “Will you be telling me now what happened to Mister Middleton?”
Donald’s face changed. “Can you not be leaving that?” he asked her. “I have told you that I do not want to speak of it. It is not a good thing to speak of—it is not a good thing for you to be thinking of things like that.”
“I cannot help it,” she said rather sadly. “I have tried, but I cannot help it. The thing is a trouble to me. If I knew what had happened I could put it away and not be thinking of it all the time. It has been a trouble in my heart since the day that MacAslan came to the cottage and called for me. I am afraid.”
“Na biodh eagal ort!” Donald exclaimed. “Why are you afraid, Morag?”
“I am afraid in case there is trouble in it—trouble for you.”
Donald sighed. He said, “Why should you be thinking I know any more about Mister Middleton than other people?”
Morag did not answer that, but her grip on his hand tightened.
“What do you know about it, Morag?” he asked.
“I know that you killed him,” she said softly.
“And is that not enough for you to be knowing?”
“It is too much—or not enough,” Morag said. “The thing is a trouble in my heart all the time—a trouble and a fear.”
“A fear?” he questioned. “What are you afraid of, then?”
“I am afraid that they may find his body,” she whispered.
“They will not find his body,” said Donald simply.
They said no more until they had reached the cottage. Donald went round, closing the doors and snibbing the windows; Morag made up the dying fire, and pulled Donald’s chair in front of it. She knew that he would tell her now, and she was half afraid to hear the story, but she felt she must know what had happened. She must know that Donald was safe, that he had left nothing undone that could trap him. She shivered a little with the fear and the excitement of it all.
Donald came in and sat down in the chair; she drew the creepy stool to his knees, and sat upon it, leaning against him and looking up into his face.
“I did not mean to be telling you,” he said softly. “I do not know how you are knowing anything about it, Morag.”
“It is because I know you,” she told him.
There was a little silence, the fire was burning up now, the pine branches crackling, the room was full of warm red light.
He said at last, “I will tell you, then—from the beginning. I will tell you how it happened. I met him in the woods, he was coming away from MacAslan’s wee house and he was angry. I could see he was an angry man by the gait of him, and by the way he drove at the grasses with his stick, as though they were his enemies and he would kill them all. He has been quarrelling with MacAslan, I thought, and MacAslan has got the best of it or he would not be so angry; but MacAslan has made an enemy. He was almost on the top of me before he saw me—so full was he of his angry thoughts; but when he saw me he stopped and said in his English voice, ‘Hullo, Donald, you are the very man I wanted to see!’—‘Good afternoon to you, Mister Middleton,’ I said. He began speaking to me then, sounding me about the way I was feeling towards MacAslan, sounding me very cautiously to see what I would be saying. ‘Och!’ I said to him, ‘MacAslan is a hard master—he is a proud, overbearing man, MacAslan is.’ ‘Proud, is he?’ said Mister Middleton, with a nasty look on his face. ‘Proud, is he? I’ll soon humble his pride. I’m going to drag him through the mud, Donald. He won’t like that, will he?’ ‘No, indeed, Mister Middleton,’ I said, laughing. ‘It would be a fine thing to be seeing MacAslan in the mud.’ He looked at me very hard at that. ‘But I thought you were so devoted to your laird,’ he said in a sneering voice. ‘I am living on his ground,’ I said. ‘I am his slave—or little better. He is a hard master,’ and then I pretended that I had suddenly become afraid, and I said, ‘But you will not be speaking of this, Mister Middleton, or you will be getting me into trouble. I do not want trouble with MacAslan,’ I told him. ‘MacAslan is a hard man.’ ‘I will keep your secret,’ he said, smiling in a nasty way. ‘Your secret is safe with me,’ he said. We talked a little more, and then he told me that he was wanting me to go to London, and go into the law-court, and tell the judge about the morning that I went to the island—the morning after the storm—and fetched MacAslan and Mistress Medworth. I would get money for it, he said, and all my expenses, and we would have a good time in London together. ‘Och, and that would be fine!’ I said. ‘It is very quiet here. It would be fine to see London—so it would.’ ‘Then you will come,’ he said. ‘That’s great. I will have some pretty girls ready for you, Donald. I will write and tell you when you are wanted and send you the money.’”
“Och, but he was wicked!” Morag exclaimed.
“He was very wicked,” agreed Donald gravely. “So then I made out that I was frightened, and I said to him, ‘But what will I be saying to the judge, Mister Middleton?’ ‘I’ll tell you what to say,’ he said, laughing. ‘Don’t worry about that. All I want is for you to tell how MacAslan and Mrs. Medworth spent the night on the island together, and how you went for them in the morning. By the by, where were they when you went for them?’ ‘They were waiting on the rocks,’ I told him. ‘That is a pity,’ he said. ‘But it is good enough with the other evidence as well,’ I told him that I did not understand, and he said that Mistress Medworth was his wife, and that she had divorced him, and that his name was Medworth and not Middleton at all. ‘But you can keep that to yourself,’ he said to me. I could not make head nor tail of the thing, and I could not understand why, if Mistress Medworth had divorced him, she was not free from him—”
“I do not understand either,” Morag murmured.
“It is difficult,” Donald said. “It is very difficult to understand, but it did not really matter whether I understood that part of it or not. I understood very well that he was MacAslan’s enemy and would do him harm. There was no doubt in my mind about that. If you had seen his face when he was speaking of MacAslan—Och, he was dangerous—dangerous and bad.”
“How could he have hurt MacAslan?” Morag questioned. “MacAslan had done no wrong—-”
“And that I do not know either,” replied Donald. “A man like that has ways of doing harm. He was deep and sly and there was no truth in him, nor any scruples. But that was a thing I had to know, and the only way I could be knowing was to see MacAslan himself.”
“You saw MacAslan and spoke to him about the man!” Morag exclaimed. “Then MacAslan knew—”
“MacAslan knew nothing of it.”
“Then how—”
“If you would be letting me tell the story in my own way—”
“I will be quiet,” Morag promised.
Donald was silent for a moment, arranging his thoughts. He found the story more difficult to tell than he had expected. The thing had been done with haste and urgency, in a sort of cold rage that had left his brain very clear to plan the details of his self-appointed task. But, looking back, it was not so clear. He could see his own actions, but he could not see how his mind had worked.
Donald sighed; he continued: “I saw the man was dangerous to MacAslan, but just how dangerous I did not know. I saw that the man must not be allowed to leave Ardfalloch until I knew more. I said to him, ‘I must think about all this, Mister Middleton.’ ‘You are not backing out of it, Donald?’ he said quickly. ‘No, I am not backing out of it,’ I told him. ‘But there is much to arrange. I must have a little time to think.’ ‘You must think quickly, then,’ he said, ‘for I am going away tomorrow, to London, to see my lawyer about the case. Look here, Donald,’ he said, ‘I will give you ten pounds if you will come—as well as all your expenses—and another ten if you will say what I tell you to say about where you found MacAslan and Mrs. Medworth when you went to fetch them from the island.’ ‘That is a lot of money to me, Mister Middleton,’ I said. ‘But I have told you already where I found them.’ He laughed and said I had better think again. When I saw that he was bribing me to lie about MacAslan my anger rose, so that it was hard to keep myself from striking him as he stood. But I remembered that he was MacAslan’s enemy before he was mine, and I knew that, before I could do anything, I must see MacAslan. So I stilled my anger and I said to him, ‘I will come and see you to-night, at MacTaggart’s, and we can arrange it all comfortably.’ He was content with that—the more so because it had started to rain, and it was not at all to Mister Middleton’s liking to stand and talk in the rain. He said he would expect me at the inn that evening, and went away. So then I went on to see MacAslan, and he was out.”
“You waited for MacAslan,” Morag encouraged him.
“I waited for him in the little room, and, while I waited, I thought about it all, and one moment it seemed to me that the man was very bad and very dangerous, and the next moment it seemed that I had made much out of little, and that the man could do no harm to MacAslan since MacAslan had done no wrong. It seemed to me that all the talk of judge and law-court was childish talk and meant nothing, and that the man was talking to relieve his anger and no more. But, when MacAslan came, I saw that it was not so. I saw that the man’s talk of how he could harm MacAslan was true.”
“MacAslan told you—”
“There was trouble on him,” Donald said, without heeding the interruption. “There was great trouble on MacAslan that day. He would tell me nothing, for he was bound with a promise, but there was no need for him to be telling me. He told me without knowing that he was telling me, for I held the key to his secret in my hand. So when he spoke of the old days when a man was free to follow his nature I knew what he meant, and when he spoke of the desire that was on him to kill his enemy I knew who it was that was his enemy. But I held my peace, for I felt that it was better that MacAslan should think he was talking to the air.
“I was watching him as he talked, and I could see, by the blackness of his face, that it would be an ill day for Mister Middleton if he should meet MacAslan. It seemed to me that no promise would hold MacAslan’s hand.”
“I have never seen MacAslan in wrath!” Morag exclaimed.
“It does not happen often, nor for small things,” Donald told her. “MacAslan is a man who keeps his anger for the big things and does not fritter it away on trifles as some men do. MacAslan’s anger is like a storm. I was afraid.”
“Afraid!” echoed Morag incredulously.
“I was afraid that MacAslan would kill his enemy,” Donald explained patiently, “and he was in no mood to be cautious. He was in no mood to plan the thing securely, or to be secret in his planning. There was such anger in MacAslan that he would not count the cost if his enemy were before him—I could see that. Over and over again MacAslan said, ‘I am bound, Donald’; but I did not think that the bonds would hold him. There was only one thing to do—only one—I knew that I must kill the man myself.
“In a way I was glad when I saw my path clear, for the man was bad altogether. He was MacAslan’s enemy and mine. There were plenty of reasons why the man should die, but the chief reason was that as long as he was alive MacAslan would be in danger. I knew that I must kill him, and I knew that I must do it before he left the glen, for, once he had gone away, it would be a hundred times more difficult. At first I could not think how I could do the thing—I would have liked to fight the man, for he was as big as I am, and strong, and it would have been a good fight. And I felt I would like to put my two hands round his throat and squeeze the life out of him—for I, too, was angry, though my anger was cold and deadly, and not hot like MacAslan’s anger—but then I saw that I could not fight the man, for it would be too dangerous. It was not for my own satisfaction I was to kill the man, but for MacAslan’s safety, and therefore I could take no risk. I must think of a sure way. I left MacAslan and walked into the village, and all the time I was thinking and thinking of how I could do the thing, and do it secretly.
“Mister Middleton was in the bar, and he called to me to have a drink, but I could not drink with the man when it was in my heart to kill him, so I said I had no time, and signed to him that I wanted to speak to him privately. We went upstairs to his bedroom and sat down on two chairs, and he looked at me and said, ‘Well, Donald, is it all right?’ and I said, ‘It is all right, Mister Middleton, I will come to London when you say.’ ‘That’s splendid,’ he said. ‘I’ll write and tell you when to come, and send you the money. You won’t regret it,’ he said. All this time I was hardly daring to look at the man in case he should see what was in my mind—and the hatred that was in me—and I was wondering and wondering how I could do the thing that I must do—”
“How did you do it, Donald?”
“Can you not be waiting for me to tell you, woman!” he asked her, smiling at her impatience. “I am telling you from the very beginning, so that, when I have finished, there will be no more to tell, for it is not a good thing to be speaking of.”
He looked round the small cosy room and lowered his voice. “And then suddenly I saw how I could do it,” he continued. “It was an easy way, and a secret way, and there would be no danger in it at all. I said to him, ‘Och, it is a pity you are going away to-morrow, for we have never been out after the duck,’ and I asked if he would not be liking a shot at the duck in the morning before he left. He thought for a minute, and then he laughed, and said it would be good sport, but he was leaving Balnafin by the eight-o’clock train. And, at that, I saw my plan, and how it could be done, and it was a very good plan,” said Donald complacently. “So then I said to him, ‘The early morning is the best time for the duck—this is how to do it, Mister Middleton. You will order the taxi to call at the inn for your things, and to meet you at the bridge at seven o’clock, and I will call for you at the inn at four o’clock in the morning, and we will go up to the duck-bog together, and you will shoot a couple of brace of Mister Hetherington Smith’s duck to take south with you in the train.’ He was laughing to himself. ‘It will be good sport,’ he said again. ‘You are a rogue, Donald, but I like you. You will be expecting a big tip for the morning’s work, I suppose.’ ‘I will be leaving that to yourself, Mister Middleton,’ I said politely.
“I left him then, for I had some arrangements of my own to be making. And in the morning I called for him at four o’clock as we had arranged. We walked up to the bog together. He had his gun, and a bag over his shoulder. He gave me the bag to carry. ‘That is for the duck,’ he said, smiling. ‘It is a poacher’s bag, that.’ ‘Och, it is not the first time I have been carrying a poacher’s bag,’ I said. ‘No,’ said Mister Middleton, ‘and it won’t be the last, eh?’ I was listening very carefully to all he was saying, and taking note of the way he walked—”
“And why were you doing that, Donald?” Morag enquired.
“You will be seeing why, in a little,” replied Donald. “It was very misty and dark just at first, and once or twice he said, ‘We won’t see any duck this morning, Donald. I would have been better in my bed’; but I told him it would soon clear and it would be just right for him, and, sure enough, in a little while the sun came through the mist, and the mist began to clear, so that you could see quite a long way. When we were coming near the bog, I stopped and said to him, ‘You will have to take off that coat, Mister Middleton, for the duck will be seeing you a mile away.’ ‘Is it as loud as all that?’ he said, laughing. He took off his coat—you will be remembering the coat with the big checks, Morag—and he took off his hat and his blue muffler and put them beside a bush. He had his gun under his arm. We went on together.
“When we got to the bog I said to him, ‘You will be needing big shot for the duck, Mister Middleton.’ ‘I have sixes,’ he said. ‘That is no good at all,’ I said to him. ‘It is fours you are needing.’ I had a bag of cartridges on my shoulder. He gave me the gun, and I loaded it with the big shot. He had gone on ahead of me, and I put the gun to my shoulder to shoot him. . . . And then, somehow, I could not do it—my gorge rose at the thought, for the man was so unsuspecting. I said softly, ‘Mister Middleton,’ and he turned and looked at me. ‘I am going to kill you, Mister Middleton,’ I said. For a moment he did not believe that I would do it. He thought it was a joke I was having with him, and then his face changed, for he saw that I was in earnest—and he turned and ran from me.”
Donald paused for a moment and drew his hand across his brow. He was surprised to find that his hand was wet. The telling of the tale had brought it all back to him—the stress and the strain, and the fear that he might make a mistake, and so ruin them all.
“Go on, Donald,” Morag urged.
“He ran from me,” Donald continued. “It was strange, that.”
“You had the gun,” said Morag sensibly.
“I had the gun,” Donald agreed. “But, even so, it was strange. A man’s instinct is to go for his enemy, and I had thought from his speech that this man was brave—even reckless. I had listened to his stories at MacTaggart’s, and in all his stories he was brave. He had tackled armed men and knocked them out with a blow—it was in America—but he ran from me. I had expected him to leap at me, and to try to wrest the gun from my hands—I was prepared for that—but, when he turned and ran, I was not prepared. All in a moment I saw that I had done wrong to speak to the man and tell him of my intention. I had been thinking of my own feelings, and I had allowed my scruples to endanger my plan. MacAslan’s safety was at stake. If the man escaped we were all ruined—I saw that. It was all clear in my mind. I saw that he must not escape what-ever happened. If it had been necessary to kill him before, it was a hundred times more necessary now. All in a moment I saw this, it was all quite clear in my mind. He was running along the edge of the bog by now, and I was running after him. I gained on him, for I knew the ground, and then I raised the gun and shot him. He fell without a sound.”
“Oh, Donald, it was dreadful,” Morag whispered.
“It was dreadful,” Donald agreed; “but there was no other way at all. I had to do it, Morag—it was for MacAslan, and it was the only thing. And you must remember he was bad—altogether bad—and very dangerous. You must remember that, Morag.”
“Tell me what happened next.”
“There was duck in the bog,” Donald said, visualising the scene. “They rose up in the air when they heard the shot and flew away squawking, and after that it was very still. I knew there was no time to waste, for I had wasted time already. I had much to do—there was no time to waste.
“I took a spade I had hidden in that place the night before and I dug a hole. The ground was very soft, and soon there was water in the hole. I put him in the hole, and I covered him up, and I put back the turf I had cut, and I stamped on it, and then I strewed some leaves about the place. There was hardly a mark to be seen when I had finished. Then I took the check coat and put it over my own coat—he was broad in the shoulders, that one—and I put on the hat and the blue muffler, and I took a little piece of tow I had brought with me, and stuck it on my lip, and I went down to the bridge.
“Very soon Rory came along with the taxi. I spoke to him sharply in English, saying, ‘You are late, damn you. Get a move on or I shall miss my train.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ he said meekly. I got in, laughing to myself. Rory drove on quickly. Presently we got to Balnafin. I went into the station, and called loudly for a porter to fetch my luggage. I took a ticket to Glasgow. There were several people waiting on the platform for the train—”
“Och, it was very dangerous!” cried Morag. “Were you not afraid they would know it was not Mister Middleton?”
“I was not afraid,” Donald replied simply. “Nobody at Balnafin was knowing the man well. They were knowing the coat and the hat and they were not bothering about who was inside them. It was Mister Middleton they were expecting to see and so it was him they were seeing. And then, too, it was early in the morning. In the morning people are dull, and they are busy with their own affairs—there was little danger in it, Morag. I bought a paper at the bookstall and read it, and I walked up and down the platform with small steps. The train was late in coming, but, at last, it came. They brought the luggage on a truck and put it in the van. The station-master was there—he was wanting a tip—he was fussing round the luggage, and then he came and opened the door of the carriage for me. I said to him, ‘Thank you, my man,’ and I gave him two and sixpence. The porter came and said the luggage was all in the van—I gave him a shilling. There was nobody else travelling first class, and I knew they would not forget me in a hurry, and that was what I was wanting.
“When the train started I took off the check coat and the hat and the blue muffler and the little moustache. I rolled them up together, and put them in the poacher’s bag. I had my own cap in my pocket. When the train stopped at Dalnahuilish I got out at the other side of the carriage—the side away from the platform—and hid behind a truck until the train had gone. Then I walked back to Ardfalloch across the moors, and I threw the bag into the middle of a tarn.
“Mister Hetherington Smith was shooting the south moors that day. I met them coming up from the first drive. ‘Where have you been, MacNeil?’ he said to me. ‘I have been making up the butts,’ I told him. ‘Some of them are needing a little patching after the rain.’ I showed him a butt that I had been patching the night before and he said, ‘That is a good piece of work—you must have been out early getting this done.’ You see, Morag, it is all quite safe.”
“It was well done,” Morag said slowly. “It was very clever of you, Donald, indeed it was.”
Donald was pleased, but he would not admit it. “Och, I am not wanting praise,” he said. “It is enough that I have rid MacAslan of his enemy.”
“They will be very happy, I am thinking,” said Morag, nodding thoughtfully.
“I am thinking the same,” agreed Donald, reaching for his pipe.
THE END