Highland Fling (11 page)

There was a short silence, broken by Albert, who said:

‘How beautiful, and what a touching story! We must tell it to Walter; he will be so much interested and might, I feel, write one of his charming poems round it. I think the ballad quite the finest I have ever heard.’

‘I think so, too,’ said Mr Buggins, who had rarely known such an appreciative audience and was greatly enjoying himself. ‘To the student of mediaeval Scottish history it is, of course,
extremely illuminating, being so full of allusions to old customs, many of which survived until quite recently.’

‘Were there many allusions of that sort?’ asked Albert. ‘They escaped me.’

‘Yes, of course, because you are not conversant with the history of those times. But take, for instance, the line: “And his philabeg cam’ to the knee.” This is very significant when you know, as I do, that only three clans in all Scotland wore their philabeg to the knee – that is, covering the knee: the McBanes, the Duffs of Ogle and the McFeas. Their reasons for doing so open up many aspects of clan history. The McBanes wore it to the knee in memory of Thane Angus McBane, who, when hiding from the English soldiery in some bracken was given away by the shine of his knees; his subsequent brutal treatment and shameful death will, of course, be well known to you.’

‘Of course,’ murmured Albert, not wishing to appear too ignorant. ‘This is all so fascinating,’ he added. ‘Why did the two other tribes wear it to the knee?’

‘The Duffs of Ogle because they used a very curious type of long bow which could only be drawn kneeling. (You will often have heard the expression: “To Duff down,” meaning “to kneel”.) This gave great numbers of them a sort of housemaid’s knee, so one of the Thanes gave an order that their philabegs must be made long enough for them to kneel on. The McFeas, of course, have always worn it very long on account of the old saw:

Am I boring you?’

‘On the contrary,’ said Albert, ‘I am very deeply interested. I have so often wondered what the origin of “to Duff down” could be and now I know. Do tell us some more.’

‘You may remember,’ continued Mr Buggins, ‘that one verse of the Lady Muscatel’s ballad begins:

‘ 
“They gave me your heid, Ronnie, wropped oop i’ sae.”

‘This, of course, sounds rather peculiar –
sae
, you know, is
silk –
until you remember that only a man who had killed with his own hand in fair battle over forty warriors was entitled to have “his heid wropped oop i’ sae” after his death. It was an honour that was very eagerly sought by all the clansmen and it must have consoled the Lady Muscatel in her great sorrow that she was able “to wrop her beloved’s heid oop i’ sae”. There is a very curious legend connected with this custom.

‘A young laird of Tomintoul died, they say of poison, in his bed, having only killed in his lifetime some thirty-nine warriors. His widow was distracted with grief and, although about to become a mother, she cut off his right hand, clasped it round a dirk and went herself into the thick of the fight. When she had slain one man with her husband’s hand, she was able to go home and “wrop his heid oop i’ sae”. The Tomintouls to this day have as their family crest a severed hand with a dirk in memory of Brave Meg, as she was called. Those were strangely savage days, I often think.’

‘Tell us some more,’ said Jane.

‘Let me see: what else can I remember? Oh, yes. The Lady Muscatel goes on to say: “I buried him ’neath yonder saugh.” Up to comparatively recent times any man who had been killed by his father-in-law’s clansmen was buried beneath a
saugh
(willow tree). There are some parts of Scotland where it would be impossible to find a saugh for miles that had not a grassy mound before it, telling a bloody tale. Tradition says that Ronnie’s body was later exhumed and laid beside those of his wife and child in the chapel. “I sat on a creepy.” A creepy was a wooden stool, often three-legged, on which women would sit to greet (or bewail) the loss of a loved one killed in the fight.’

‘But was the fight always going on?’ asked Albert.

‘Very, very constantly. The wild clansmen were generally engaged in deadly feuds, which were often continued over many generations and were treated almost as a religion.’

‘What,’ asked Jane, ‘is a “parritch o’ kail”?’

‘I am glad you mentioned that. A
parritch o’ kail
is a curious and very intoxicating drink made of cabbage and oatmeal. Perhaps her mother hoped that the Lady Muscatel would drown her sorrows in it. Dear me!’ he said, gathering up his painting materials, ‘how I must have bored you.’

‘My dear sir,’ cried Albert, ‘
tout au contraire!
I’m entranced. But tell us one thing before you go. Have you ever seen the Lady Muscatel’s ghost?’

‘Alas! I have not; but Craigdalloch says that as a child he saw her constantly, sometimes looking out of the window’ (he pointed to a little window in the tower) – ‘but more often walking in the great corridor which leads to her apartment. He has told me that she wears a grey wimple snood (you remember that she refers to a
snood
in the ballad), and carries in one hand a sort of parcel – the “heid,” no doubt, “wropped oop i’ sae”. She is supposed to walk when the moon is full.’

The rasping voice of Lady Prague suddenly broke in upon them, causing Albert and Mr Buggins to leap to their feet.

‘Who is supposed to walk when the moon is full?’

Mr Buggins told her the story rather shortly.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘and I suppose you believe that sort of balderdash. Tosh – bosh and nonsense! Personally, I shall believe in ghosts when I have seen one, and not before. Surely you must have noticed by now that everyone knows somebody else who has seen a ghost, but they’ve never seen one themselves.’

‘But Craig has seen the Lady Muscatel.’

‘Craig! Silly old man, he’d see anything. I expect it was really a housemaid, if you ask me.’

She blew her nose and went towards the castle.

‘Such a golden nature,’ said Albert pensively. ‘One would hardly credit her with second sight, but still one never knows: the most unlikely people see ghosts – sometimes.’

That night Lady Prague took her bath, as she always did, before going to bed. She lay in the water for some time without washing very much; then dried herself briskly and put on a linen nightdress trimmed with crochet-lace, a pair of quilted slippers and a Chinese kimono with storks and fir-trees embroidered all over it. Thus attired, with her hair screwed into a small lump on the top of her head, and a towel and a pair of combinations over one arm, she sallied forth into the great corridor. As she did so she noticed that the lights, by some mistake, had all been put out; but she was easily able to see her way because a curtain at the other end of the corridor was drawn back and a great shaft of moonlight fell through the window on to the carpet.

Lady Prague shuffled along until she had nearly reached her bedroom door, when suddenly she stood still, rooted to the ground with terror. A female form, immensely tall and unnatural-looking, had stepped into the shaft of moonlight. In its hand was a sort of round parcel which it held out towards the paralysed peeress; then, emitting a soft but terrifying wail, vanished into the shadows. The sound of this wail seemed to unloosen Lady Prague’s own tongue, and shriek upon piercing shriek resounded through the house.

Bedroom doors on every side now flew open and startled guests rushed out to the assistance of the fainting baroness. Albert, one of the first to be on the spot, quickly helped the poor lady to a chair, where she sat and rocked herself to and fro, moaning and sobbing in a distracted manner.

‘What is the matter, Lady Prague?’ said Albert sharply. ‘Come, come, now, you must try and pull yourself together: you are hysterical, you know. What is it? Are you ill?’

‘Oh, oh! oh!’ said Lady Prague in a sort of moaning sing-song. ‘I saw her! I saw her! I saw her!’

‘Whom did you see?’

‘Oh! oh! oh! I saw her!… Lady Muscatel! She was over by that window.… Oh! oh! oh!’

‘Fetch some water, Jane dear, will you?’ said Albert. ‘Now, Lady Prague, you are quite safe, you know, with us.’

‘Let her talk about it,’ said Mr Buggins in an undertone, ‘it will do her good. How I envy you, Lady Prague: it has been the dream of my life to see someone from another world and, of all people, Muscatel. How did she look?’

‘Oh! oh! oh!… Dreadful!… All in grey, with a wimple snood.…’

‘Nonsense!’ said Albert, but nobody heard him.

‘And she was holding a sort of parcel.… Oh! oh! oh!’

‘The heid, no doubt, “wropped oop i’ sae”.
How
I do envy you! She didn’t speak, I suppose?’

‘Oh! oh! oh!… Yes, she did. She did: “Ronnie! Ronnie! mine ane Ronnie!” ’

‘Oh, you old liar!’ said Albert, under his breath.

Jane, on her way back with a glass of water, nearly tripped up over something outside Albert’s bedroom. It proved on investigation to be a large bath sponge wrapped up in a silk handkerchief. Suspicions that she had already entertained as to the true identity of the Lady Muscatel now crystallized into certainty. She put the sponge into Albert’s bed; then, controlling her laughter, she rejoined the others and gave the water to Lady Prague, who drank it gratefully. She appeared to be partially restored and was describing her experience in some detail, looking searchingly at Albert as she did so.

‘The worst part,’ she said, ‘of the whole thing was the creature’s face, which I saw quite plainly in the moonlight. It was not so much mad as foolish and idiotic. Really, I assure you, the stupidest face I ever saw.’

‘She has guessed,’ thought Jane.

‘Come, Lady Prague,’ said Albert, ‘not as bad as all that surely; not idiotic?’

‘Perhaps
wanting
, more than idiotic, and hideous beyond belief.’

Later, when they were all returning to their rooms, and peace had descended upon the house, Jane said to Albert:

‘You know, my dear, she scored in the end.’

‘I’m afraid,’ he replied, ‘that she did.’

‘Suddenly, just in time, I realized that he was a filthy Hun, so of course I turned my back on him and refused to shake hands. I think he noticed; anyway, I hope so. I hope he felt his position.’

General Murgatroyd looked round triumphantly. It was the end of dinner. The women had left the dining-room, and the general who had been shooting that day with the son of an old friend who had taken a neighbouring moor, was telling his experiences.

‘Quite right, Murgatroyd. That’s the way to treat ’em – the swine! Now, if only we had blockaded them from the very first he wouldn’t have been alive today, with any luck.’

The admiral swilled off his seventh glass of port.

‘Never shake hands with niggers, Catholics or Germans if I can help it,’ continued the general.

Walter, knowing that Albert was an ardent pacifist and foreseeing some trouble, tried to change the conversation by asking him how his work had progressed that day; but the latter, whose face was burning, took no notice of him. Leaning towards General Murgatroyd he said in a level voice:

‘Is this the way you always behave when you meet an ex-enemy, even under the roof of a mutual friend?’

‘Of course – the filthy swine!’ shouted the general. ‘And so would you, young man, if you’d been through the last war. I think it’s the most shocking thing – the way some of you young people have quite forgotten what your elders suffered in those four years.’

‘We haven’t exactly forgotten it,’ said Albert; ‘but it was never anything to do with us. It was your war and I hope you enjoyed it, that’s all,’ he added, losing all control over himself. ‘You made it, as you are trying, by disgusting rudeness to citizens of a great and friendly nation, to make another one, trying your very hardest, too, on your own admission. But let me tell you that even when you have succeeded, even when you have brought another war upon us, it won’t be any good. None of my generation will go and fight. We don’t care for wars, you see. We have other things to think about.’

‘Albert,
please
!’ said Walter, ‘don’t let’s talk about this any more,’ he begged; but no one paid any attention to him.

Great veins stood out on the general’s forehead.

‘Do you mean that you would sit still and do nothing to prevent your country being invaded, governed, by a lot of filthy foreigners?’

‘Really, General, I cannot feel that it would necessarily harm the country. Many of us hope in time to see, under one government, the United States of Europe, which was Napoleon’s dream. The Germans are a people of undoubted culture and known for their exceptional efficiency. I daresay we should be no worse off under their administration than we are at present. If it is on sentimental grounds that you object to it, remember that for over a hundred years of undoubted prosperity England was ruled over by German – even German-speaking sovereigns.’

The general tried to speak, but Albert continued ruthlessly:

‘People of your class notoriously enjoy wars and fighting. This is only natural. You have been educated to that end. Your very recreations consist entirely in killing things, and it is clearly more exciting to kill men than rabbits or foxes. But in future you will do well to avoid stirring up the great civilized nations against each other. That’s all.’