SCENE FOUR

The Same. The following morning. Bright sunshine. JEAN, in a spectacular dressing-gown, and MRS McCRIMMON have just sat down to breakfast. MORAG has just brought in a cover and coffee.

JEAN: Good morning, Morag.

MORAG: Good morning, Miss Jean. It’s fresh herrings and bread-crumbs, Miss Jean.

JEAN: Isn’t that splendid! There’s nothing I’d like better. Did you sleep well last night, Morag?

MORAG: Yes, Miss Jean. I slept like a top all night, thank you very much. Coffee, Mrs McCrimmon.

MRS McCRIMMON: Thank you, Morag.

(MORAG goes)

For what we are about to receive, the Lord make us truly thankful.

JEAN: Uncle Mac isn’t down yet?

MRS McCRIMMON: No. He had a disturbed night, your uncle. I wanted him to have his breakfast in bed, but he’s coming down. It’s a beautiful day.

JEAN: How do you mean a disturbed night?

MRS McCRIMMON: Oh, well. He has the indigestion whiles. And it’s an awful thing for not letting you sleep very well. That’s a beautiful dressing-gown you’re wearing. Have I seen it before?

JEAN: No, Auntie. Didn’t Uncle Mac sleep, then?

MRS McCRIMMON: It is very nice. But, mind you, it is hardly what we are used to up in these outlandish parts. I don’t say your Uncle will make a remark. He may and he may not. But he may not think it just quite the thing for breakfast. Mind, I’m not saying. But even on my honeymoon I always dressed for breakfast. It was just the way we had. Not that it’s important.

JEAN: I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep too well either.

MRS McCRIMMON: Did you not, now? You shouldn’t have got up. We’d have brought you your breakfast. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?

JEAN: Oh, yes. Fine now. But it was a most peculiar night.

MRS McCRIMMON: Was it so? You would be dreaming, maybe. I never pay any attention to such things. Will you be well enough to come down to the village with me today?

JEAN: No. Yes. I think so. Have the two soldiers gone?

MRS McCRIMMON: Ah, yes. They have to be out for their runnings and their jumpings. They have breakfast up at the guns, poor souls. Nice lads, too. We are very lucky, whatever. Mrs McLean up by Offerance, she got some gey funny ones. But these are nice quiet lads.

JEAN: Aunt Marget… how did you sleep last night?

MRS McCRIMMON: Oh, very well, I thank you. But nothing puts me up or down, from the moment I put my head on the pillow.

JEAN: I was wondering. I… You… I had an eerie dream last night, Aunt Marget.

MRS McCRIMMON: Had you, dear? It was a wild night. It is a strange place up here in Larach, but, och, you get used to it. It might be something you ate.

JEAN: That’s what I said to Morag. I mean…

MRS McCRIMMON: I hope you won’t be putting daft ideas into that lassie’s head. It’s full enough of daftness already.

JEAN: All right, Aunt Marget, I won’t. Oh, good morning, Uncle Mac.

(McCRIMMON enters. He is very solemn)

McCRIMMON: Good morning, Jean.

(He sits down)

Heavenly Father, we thank thee for all these mercies. Sanctify them to our use. Amen. Well, that’s a fine day.

MRS McCRIMMON: Yes. Isn’t it a beautiful day?

McCRIMMON: It’s not often you’ll see Larach all over smiles the like of this, Jean. It’s a great compliment to our visitor. It can be a wild place, Larach.

MRS McCRIMMON: Indeed, that is so. I hope you don’t object to the herring. There wasn’t a single egg this morning. I don’t know what came over the hens. It would be the storm, maybe.

McCRIMMON: Aye, yes. The storm.

MRS McCRIMMON: And now you two will have to excuse me. We’re a wee thing late, and I have to check over the linen for the washing before I go down for the messages.

McCRIMMON: Certainly, my dear. Certainly.

(MRS McCRIMMON goes out. She turns at the door and makes mysterious signs to JEAN from behind her husband’s back. He is not on any account to be worried. JEAN nods)

McCRIMMON: A man is a very curious thing.

JEAN: Yes, isn’t he?

McCRIMMON: Dear me, I did not think that I would behave like that at this time of day. It is a lesson to me.

JEAN: Oh, it was nothing, Uncle Mac. Nothing, really, at all.

McCRIMMON: Nothing? That one who should be an example to the flock should give way to strong drink like a beast?

JEAN: Beasts don’t give way to strong drink. Besides, it wasn’t your fault.

McCRIMMON: A bottle of whisky! Mind you, it is not everybody who could drink a bottle of whisky and go up to bed as straight as a die. Pre-war whisky too.

JEAN: But you didn’t…

McCRIMMON: I must have. It was full on the Lord’s morning, because I happened to notice. Forbye it is not the first time, the Lord forgive me. But, Lord helping me, it will be the last. It comes on me about every five years. But never like this time.

JEAN: How? What happened?

McCRIMMON: That’s the queer thing. I don’t know. I had a whirling vision that I was disputing with Beelzebub himself in this very room and racing over the moor with a knife in my hand. And then I found myself leaning against the mantelpiece finishing off the bottle with the two lads tidying up the room. I aye throw the furniture about a wee. Or I did when I was that way.

JEAN: It was a strange dream.

McCRIMMON: Never have I had a dream so real. I could see Beelzebub as plain as could be — in that chair and then uttering blasphemies in my ears as if he were in the pulpit — in my gown and bands. I mind every word I thought he said.

JEAN: (breathlessly) What did he say?

McCRIMMON: I thought you and Marget and the lads were here too. He was telling you all to stamp the ancient Law into dust and revolt against the Armies of the Lord.

(He laughs)

Very plausible and persuasive he was, too. I had an answer for him, but he never heard it. I was that angered I struck him with my dirk and threw him into the Firth. It wasn’t a bad answer, but I had a better.

JEAN: What was your answer? I mean, what would it have been?

McCRIMMON: (ignoring her question) It was my own mind speaking. We’ve got the queer, dark corners in our mind and strange beasts in them that come out ranging in the night. A sophisticated black beast yon. I never knew of him. I wonder, now, did I kill him? If I did it was worth it all. Mind you, there were points where he nearly had me.

(He has been thinking aloud, but he becomes again aware of JEAN and turns to her)

Of course, this was all a dream or a delirium, I canna right say which. But you learn things in these states. It’s a kind of a twisted inspiration. I learned one thing.

JEAN: What was that?

McCRIMMON: That mankind turns to Almighty God as a nettle turns to the sun. And if the nettle had a fine, argufying brain in it and a spacious command of words, it could do little better and maybe a good deal worse. We’ve a thing called Faith in us, Jean, and we’ve no more command over it than we have over our lungs. Mind you, we can develop our lungs and we can develop our Faith. Maybe, I’ve neglected that a bit. I was over proud of my head. But in the middle of all the talk it rose up within me and told me to strike the Devil dead… in my delirium, mind you. But it was awful like the real thing. A lesson to me.

(MRS McCRIMMON re-enters, ushering in CULLY and COHEN. CULLY wears a brand-new Lance-Bombardier’s stripe. COHEN carries a postbag. He lays it down near the door)

MRS McCRIMMON: Isn’t this a nice surprise? Come in, boys, and have a cup of tea.

COHEN: Look at him. Lance-Bombadier Cully, Non- Commissioned Officer in charge of his Majesty’s Mails and the same old Gunner Cohen, Lance Bombardier’s stooge to same.

JEAN: Oh, congratulations, Cully.

CULLY: Thanks very much.

COHEN: We thought we’d pop in. No good getting a dog’s leg if you don’t give the skirts a treat.

CULLY: How are you, Mr McCrimmon?

McCRIMMON: I am well, I thank you. Indeed, remarkably well. And you?

CULLY: I couldn’t sleep. Look here, Mr McCrimmon, it’s no use pretending and telling lies. It’s not fair to you. It’s not fair to any of us. You weren’t drunk last night.

MRS McCRIMMON: Oh dear me, what a thing to say! As if the Minister would be!

McCRIMMON: (rising) What do you mean?

CULLY: Something happened last night that I don’t understand, and we’ve got to thrash it out somehow.

McCRIMMON: Do you mean that the — the — the — experience I had last night was shared by the whole of you?

(McCRIMMON sits down again in great perturbation of mind. MRS McCRIMMON goes to him to soothe him. JEAN sits rigid)

MRS McCRIMMON: Now, now, now, now. The best thing is to forget all about it.

COHEN: I told you that, Cully. You can’t do any good.

CULLY: No, we’ve got to get it straight. There must be an explanation. We can’t leave things that way. Look, Mr McCrimmon, do you know anything about Mass Hypnotism? I know they don’t think there’s much in it, but you know about the Indian Rope Trick, don’t you? And the old necromancers who thought they were raising the Devil, they did induce a sort of suggestible state. I mean they sat down and deliberately hypnotised themselves with their spells and magic circles. I mean, what do you think?… Of course, you and Mrs McCrimmon weren’t here at the beginning of the seance, but it’s the only explanation that seems to me natural.

JEAN: You mean there was really nobody here?

CULLY: Yes. There must be a natural explanation. I know the other one’s wrong.

JEAN: What other one?

McCRIMMON: That I killed a man. I did not kill a man. How I know, I do not know, but I know it. I did not kill a man.

MRS McCRIMMON: Of course you didn’t, now.

CULLY: I’m sure you didn’t. It’s mass suggestion. Nothing happened. Look at the room. There are no signs of anything happening in this room.

McCRIMMON: It is a peaceful room. Everything is natural. Everything obeys the Laws of Nature. It is the sign of a… let me see… it is the sign of a supernatural event that everything obeys the laws of Nature except one thing. No doubt you are right.

JEAN: (suddenly screaming) The umbrella!! It’s Bolfry’s.

(All look towards the umbrella on the hearth. There is a tense pause. Then the umbrella gets up and walks by itself out of the room)

MRS McCRIMMON: Well, now, isn’t that the queer like thing? And with all this havering, I was forgetting about your cups of tea. It isn’t long infused, or have you time to wait for some fresh?

(The OTHERS are too astonished to react to this. MRS McCRIMMON pours hot water into the teapot and pours out cups. She talks all the time. COHEN and CULLY, in a trance-like state, take their cups)

Well, well, it seems you had a kind of a tuilzie with the De’il, after all. You’re not the first good and godly man who did the like of that. Maybe you didn’t kill him, but I’m sure you’d give him a sore dunt. And you’re none the worse yourself.

It’s a funny thing we should be surprised at seeing the Devil and him raging through the skies and blotting out the sun at this very hour. We’re all such a nice kind of lot that we’ve forgotten there’s any such person. Poor soul, him roaring away like a raging lion and nobody paying any attention to him with their fine plans to make us all the happy ones.

Will you be having another cup of tea, dear, now? You’re looking quite white and peely-wally, and no wonder, dear me.

McCRIMMON: I have nowhere seen such great Faith, no, not in Israel.

MRS McCRIMMON: Drink you your tea.

Och, well, dear me, a walking umbrella’s nothing to the queer things that happen in the Bible. Whirling fiery wheels and all these big beasts with the three heads and horns. It’s very lucky we are that it was no worse. Drink up your tea.

(McCRIMMON smiles and takes her hand)