Flight of the Grey Goose Read online

  ‘And what would you buy Samuel?’ asked Laura.

  The Laird turned to Smiler. ‘What would I buy you, Samuel M.?’

  Embarrassed for the moment, Smiler said, ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Then you should do,’ said Laura. ‘You’re old enough to begin thinking about the future. What about –’ she grinned ‘– since you’re so taken with cooking and housework – a hotel?’

  ‘I don’t want nothing to do with any hotel, thank you. I want to be outside with animals and things. Perhaps, well … perhaps I’d like to be a farmer, or someone like –’

  ‘Like what?’ asked the Laird.

  ‘Well, like a vet. So I could look after animals like you do, sir. Only I’m not very good at learning. And I’d have to get exams and go to University and all that.’

  ‘University – that’s a waste of time,’ said Laura. ‘All they do there is grow long hair and beards and want everything put on a plate before them. You should hear my father about it.’

  ‘Take no heed of Mistress Laura,’ said the Laird. ‘If you want to do a thing you can find ways. Maybe sometime –’ he glanced at Laura slyly ‘– when we’re not plagued with womenfolk – we’ll have a chat about it.’

  ‘Well, that’s aye put me in my place,’ said Laura. ‘However, while you’re waiting to decide your future, you can help me carry these things back to the kitchen and we’ll make the Laird some coffee.’

  Much later, after they had sat with the Laird having his coffee on the terrace and the birds had gone off to their roosts and purple and grey shadows had claimed the face of the loch and the night sky had turned to a wash of silver light with the stars studding it like gems, Smiler took his candlestick off the main hall table and went up to bed.

  At the top of the stairs he held the candle up to throw light on the portraits of Sir Alec Elphinstone and his wife. Sir Alec he had studied before. He was the man holding a sword and buckler. But Lady Elphinstone Smiler had never properly looked at. She was sitting on a red velvet chair in the main hall. Behind her, through the open terrace door, could be seen the sun sparkle on the loch and the distant outline of the Hen and Chickens and the far hills. She wore a tall, white wig with elaborate ringlets falling to her bare shoulders. Her long dress was of grey silk with ruchings of blue ribbons at the neck, sleeves and skirt-hem. One of her hands rested on the head of a black greyhound. On her fingers were three rings set with great sparkling stones which Smiler imagined must be diamonds. About her throat and looping over her bosom was a long necklace of green stones which Smiler guessed could be emeralds. On the fingers of her other hand which grasped a tall, elaborately mounted shepherd’s crook, were more rings. But the most splendid of all the jewellery she wore was on a black velvet band that ran across her high forehead and was caught back under her wig. It was shaped in an eight-pointed star. The centre of the star was an oval stone of a bluish colour, shot with purple and green fire, and each ray of the star was studded with diamonds and pearls. The whole thing, even in the dim candlelight, blazed in a great burst of rippling colours.

  Gosh! thought Smiler. Just fancy what all that lot would have been worth! A fortune. And, although he could understand why the long dead Sir Alec had felt he wanted to go off and support his Prince, he couldn’t help feeling, too, that it was a shame that the Laird didn’t have the jewels now. Fighting and battles and putting people back on their thrones was important of course in those days. But today … well, the Laird could have done more good with the money they would fetch. Just fancy, if there were sea ospreys nesting on the Hen right now, coming down, wings up-folded, legs and talons thrust out to take the trout from the loch for their young.

  From behind him, where she had come silently up the stairs, Laura said, making him jump, ‘ How much longer are you going to stand there mooning at her?’

  Smiler, recovering from his surprise, said, ‘I was really lookin’ at the jewels. But she’s very … well, beautiful, isn’t she?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Laura judiciously, ‘she is. Though she’d have had trouble doing the cooking and housework in that wig and fancy dress.’

  Used now to Laura’s sharp comments, Smiler grinned and said, ‘Anyway, I bet you’d like to dress up like that if you could.’

  ‘Perhaps I would if I was going to a fancy dress ball.’

  As they climbed the stairways and threaded the stone corridors to their rooms, Smiler asked, ‘Is the Laird so very badly off?’

  ‘Aye, by his lights he is, and that’s what counts. But he’s no so poor as any farmer or fisherman. Did you really mean that about wanting to be a vet?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Smiler. ‘I suppose so – but I got a lot to do first before I can think about it.’

  Laura paused at the door of her room. ‘Like what?’ she asked.

  ‘Well … things.’

  ‘You’ve told the Laird about these … things?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you can’t tell me?’

  ‘Perhaps … some time.’

  ‘I’d like you to, some time. Good night, Sammy,’ She gave him a smile and went into her room.

  Laura stayed the next day and night and then went back. The Laird and Smiler were on their own again. For Smiler the days went by like a dream. He worked hard, looking after the animals and clearing up the castle rooms as best he could. Even so, he found that he had a lot of spare time on his hands. By now he knew every bird and beast about the place and they all knew him. Wherever he went or worked there was always one or another of them with him as well as Bacon. But there were two animals which had taken a particular liking to him. One was Laggy who, by now, was growing fat with good and regular food. The greylag would waddle alongside of him, wing still bandaged to its side. In the evenings when he went out in the boat to fish it would swim behind. When he hooked a trout some of the excitement of the catch seemed to pass to it and it would raise its long neck skywards and cry gag-gag-gag as though applauding the catch. The other animal was the otter, Dobby. From the Laird Smiler knew now that the otter was so called from the Gaelic word for otter – Dobhran. Laggy would never follow Smiler beyond the limits of the small bay, but Dobby did not mind how far they went.

  On the still evenings, when there was only the occasional breath of a breeze, Smiler liked to let the boat drift down the far side of the island towards the spot where the big salmon had its lie. There had been no rain for weeks now. The level of the loch was dropping fast and the water, though it always held a faint umber stain of peat, was as clear as glass. Smiler would hang over the side of the boat and drift right over the big fish’s lie and the salmon would not move until the following shadow of the boat, cast by the westering sun, touched it. Then it would move off slowly. But sometimes it would see Dobby swimming underwater first. Then, with a great sweep of its noble tail, it would be gone leaving a puff of stirred-up sand and gravel rising like a small cloud from its lie. Dobby, Smiler noticed, liked this side of the island, where the water went down deep from the steep cliffs. It was a good place for trout and finnoch. Dobby would roll over lazily on the water and then go under and soon be out of sight. Sometimes he would be underwater for so long that Smiler would become anxious about him, but eventually the otter would surface with his catch and then lie on his back in the water and eat it or swim to a favourite rock at the foot of the cliff and eat there. Once or twice, however, he was down so long that Smiler was sure something had happened to him. On the second occasion he rowed back to the castle jetty almost in a panic to tell the Laird about it. But, as he got out of the boat, Dobby surfaced at the steps and came ashore.

  Although he only rowed over twice to the far south shore of the loch, Smiler knew from the talks he had had with the Laird a great deal about the wild life over there, and sometimes the Laird would get out his maps and show Smiler the maze of lochs, burns and hills that stretched away southwards from the loch.

  The days and weeks passed and August was running out. The purple of the heat
her was fading a little and when Smiler walked through it little clouds of pollen rose from it. Up on the hills the roe-deer and red-deer calves were growing fast. Soon it would be autumn and the red-deer would start their rutting, the echoes of the calling stags roaring and rolling through the tops. And soon, Smiler told himself, it would be October and he would be off to meet his father. When the moment came he knew he would be sad to go.

  One evening after they had had their supper, the Laird rose to his feet and said, ‘ Samuel M., we’ve both got a job to do before Mistress Laura comes up on Friday. I’ll show you yours – which is not difficult. Though mine may not be possible unless we get some rain or a good stiff breeze on the water. Come with me.’

  He led the way to the foot of the great oak stairway. The big bottom post was decorated on top with a carved lion holding a shield between its forepaws. Puzzled, Smiler followed him.

  ‘Take the beast’s head,’ said the Laird, ‘and give it a good twist clockwise.’

  Smiler did as he was told. As the head turned he noticed that the carved collar about its neck hid the moving joint. There was a faint click and, lower down the big post, one of the small decorated panels flipped open on a spring. Behind the panel was a narrow cavity with a heavy, old-fashioned key in it.

  The Laird took it out and shut the panel door. As he did so the lion’s head turned back to its original position.

  ‘Gosh, that’s very dodgy, isn’t it, sir?’ said Smiler.

  ‘Dodgy, my lad, is the word,’ said the Laird. ‘And dodgy in my ancestors’ day they had to be. This castle is full of hiding places. Hiding places for men and women in trouble and for money and the good Lord knows what. This is the key of the antiquated safe in my study.’

  ‘Do you always keep the key there, sir?’

  ‘No, Samuel M., I do not. It would not be prudent in a good Scot. I hide it where my fancy takes me.’

  The Laird led Smiler into his crowded little study where an old-fashioned safe sat on the floor in a corner. It was a big safe, taller than Smiler. The Laird opened the safe and from it he drew out four bundles wrapped in green baize cloth.

  He put the bundles on the table and unwrapped them. Smiler’s eyes grew round with surprise. There was a pair of eight-branched silver candlesticks, two wide shallow silver bowls, their rims decorated with a running relief of birds and animals and their centres engraved with the arms of the Elphinstone family and two sets of condiment dishes. Reclining mermaids held the salt dishes and there were two leaping salmon with large perforations in their heads through which to shake rough ground pepper. The most magnificent of all was a long, narrow dish, which was supported at each corner by royally antlered red-deer stags rising up on their hind feet. All the silver was dull and tarnished, but the beauty of it made Smiler catch his breath.

  As he set it out the Laird explained that the silver was all that was left of the Elphinstone treasure and that it had been a gift from Charles the First to one of his ancestors.

  ‘Crikeys, sir,’ said Smiler. ‘It must be worth an awful lot of money.’

  ‘A fair bit, Samuel M. A fair bit, laddie. And many’s the time I’ve thought of selling it. But it canna be done. ’Twas the personal gift of a king. Also, there’s a saying that if it ever leaves the castle for good then the last of the Elphinstones goes with it. Personally, being a rational man, I doubt it, but like a good Elphinstone –’ his bright blue eyes twinkled and he scratched at his beard ‘– I’m in no mind to take any chances. Anyway, there’s your job. You have the key and you know where it lives and it has to be cleaned by this weekend. Aye, lad, it must shine so bright that your eyes will blink to see it. With this drought going and the loch like a sheet of glass you’ve got the easier job.’

  ‘What is your job, sir?’

  ‘To fill the big dish there, lad. What good is it without a royal fish to grace it?’

  ‘You mean a salmon, sir?’

  The Laird gave Smiler a mock serious look and said, ‘Samuel M., learn one thing fast. When a good Scot or a good fisherman talks of a fish, only one thing is meant. A salmon. And for this occasion there never has been a fish lacking.’

  ‘But what is the occasion, sir?’

  ‘Can ye not guess? The silver, the fish, Mistress Laura coming on Friday and the rest of her family and a few others on the Saturday. A real ceilidh – and one that happens only once a year.’

  ‘I know,’ said Smiler quickly, ‘ it’s your birthday, sir.’

  ‘Aye, it is, Samuel M.’

  Before he could stop himself Smiler said, ‘And will you be very old, sir?’

  The Laird grinned and then said, ‘Old enough to want to do better, lad, and young enough to keep on trying – which makes me somewhere between one and one hundred. Now then, I’m away on my own to try for a fish before the light goes.’

  But when the Laird came back as the last light went he brought no salmon. The next morning, when his round of work was finished, Smiler took one of the silver candelabra into the kitchen and sat in the sunshine at the window and began his polishing. The cat and her kittens were on the long seat beside him. Bacon was curled up in a patch of sun on the floor and Midas was lying full stretch across the open doorway. The small yellow-brown bird which Smiler had first seen perching on the Laird’s sporran came and sat on the window ledge. Smiler knew now that it was a siskin which had suffered from a bad infection that the Laird had cured.

  Smiler polished and polished as though his life depended on it. Because he liked the Laird so much he wanted the silver for this birthday to be brighter than it had ever been before. Also, as he worked, he considered the problem of money. He was a practical, straightforward thinker and he liked to have a problem to work on. He knew by now all the things the Laird would like to do on his estates and also for the animals and birds which he treated. If he were the Laird and wanted all that … well, he wondered what he would do about the silver? It was nice to have, of course – and it was a present from a king. But, gosh – it would sell for enough money to do some of the things. Still, it was a kind of family thing. Like the big silver watch his father always carried. That had belonged to his father’s greatgrandfather and, although it had long stopped going, he knew nothing would ever make his father part with it – and there had been hard times in the past when even a few pounds would have helped. It was a kind of good luck thing. And so was the silver, too. And you didn’t sell your good luck.

  When they were having their lunch on the terrace, the sun beating down on the still loch, making the Hen and Chickens dance gently in a heat haze across the water, he asked the Laird:

  ‘You wouldn’t ever sell the silver, sir, I know. But then – why did you say you would sell the jewels if you had them?’

  ‘A good question, lad. A gift is one thing. But a handful of jewels bought by the family out of its wealth in the past – they’re just possessions. And as a family’s fortunes go up and down, so they buy or sell. Some of my land I’ve sold to put the money to good use on the estate. And the jewels I’d sell for the same reason. They came from and belong to the Elphinstones and every head of the house has a right to make his own decision about them. But it is also an idle question, lad. The jewels have long ago departed. The big question now is – when am I going to get a fish?’

  That afternoon the Laird and Smiler took Laggy into the surgery. The Laird had decided that the wing had had long enough to set. The bandages were cut away and the splints removed. Laggy squatted docilely in Smiler’s hands while this was done. The Laird examined the wing, his long, capable fingers probing and pressing carefully.

  ‘As good as new,’ he said. ‘He’ll be flying within the week. But first he’s got a lot of preening and oiling of the wing to do before he’ll feel like taking to the air.’

  Smiler carried Laggy outside and set him down. For a while the gander just stood still, unused to the freedom of its left wing. Then it gave itself a little shake and followed Smiler down to the water’s edge. Smiler watc
hed it paddle out into the shallows. Floating in the slow current drift Laggy began to preen and sort the long primaries and the secondaries of its left wing flight-feathers. It gave Smiler a good feeling to watch the gander. After all, if it hadn’t been for himself and Bacon the greylag wouldn’t have been sitting on the water as right as rain again. That was a good thing to see. Probably that’s what a vet was nearly always feeling. Feeling good because he had put some animal right. He sighed suddenly. Blimey, it was still a long way to October, and then there would be everything to be sorted out by his Dad, and then … How could he ever get to be a vet? He’d have to go back to school, or something, again. And all that studying! And, anyway, his father wouldn’t be able to afford things like college and so on. He grinned to himself suddenly – not even selling great-grandfather’s ropey old silver watch would help!

  During the next three days the Laird fished early morning and late evening for his birthday fish without any success. All day the sun was a brazen orb in a cloudless sky, and the loch was a great sheet of tinted glass with only now and then the breath mark of a feeble, fast-dying zephyr to flaw it. From time to time during the day Smiler would see the Laird straighten up from whatever work he was doing, raise his eyes to the sky and say, ‘Oh Lord – if it’s no great inconvenience to you, please send a roistering south-westerly with rain in it!’ But the good Lord showed no signs of being willing to oblige.