We Met Our Cousins, page 2
The train began to stop and John said in despairing tones, “Oh gosh, we’re there,” and we got our things together. John let down the window and the mist and a strong smell of the sea came into the carriage. Then the train drew up and we got out on a very wet platform.
Kinlochroid is a very little station. There is only a single line going through it. It is also a very neat station. There is one bench, painted white, and flower borders outlined with white stones from the seashore, and one very old tin advertisement of the Pickwick, the Owl and the Waverley Pen. If you want the train to stop there, you have to tell it.
John said sniffily, “What a small station!” and a voice behind us said, “Are you for Roid House?” We turned round and saw two children. They were barefooted and were dressed in blue jerseys and grey flannel shorts with holes in them.
We thought they were village children, who had come to see the train. I said, “Yes. I expect some one has come to meet us.”
The boy, who was the tallest, said, “If you are John and Tony we have come to meet you. I am Angus and this is my sister, Morag.”
We were rather surprised, but after a bit we said, “Hullo.”
Angus said, “Thank you for the Christmas cards you sent us.”
John said, “Not at all. We were made to send them,” and then Angus said, “Come along. The men will bring your luggage.”
We went out of the station and along a road, which hadn’t any hedges—just heather on each side, which stretched up to hills where the mist was whirling. It had begun to rain again and my chip straw hat dripped and my white shoes and socks were soaking. I broke the silence by saying, “How much farther is it?”
“Nine miles by the road,” said Morag, who was padding along with her hands in her pockets.
“Gosh,” said John.
“Do we walk all the way?” I asked anxiously.
“Good gracious, no,” said Morag, and John said, “How do we go then? I thought your grandfather disapproved of motor-cars.”
Angus said with dignity, “The MacAlister has other means of transport, more fitting to a Highland gentleman.”
We didn’t know then that the professor was the head of the Clan MacAlister and was a chieftain like Locheil and Clanranald and the ones who fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie, and that it was proper to call him the MacAlister. We laughed and Angus went red and said, “What are you laughing at?”
John said, “It sounded funny.”
“I see no joke,” said Angus, getting redder.
“The Scots never do see a joke,” said John. “Uncle Gerald said so.”
I must say, I think that was rather tactless of him. Angus is bigger than he is and we were down by the loch now, and there was no wall or anything but only steep and slippery rocks between us and the water. But we didn’t know then how quickly a Highland gentleman avenges an insult, and we were quite surprised when Angus said, “You lie in your throat. But for the laws of hospitality, the dark waters of Loch Roid should close above your head for ever.”
Morag, who had left the road and was skipping over the rocks, said, “Have mercy on them, Chieftain. They are only silly Sassenachs in chip straw hats.”
I was furious. I was trying to think of something to say and so was John, I expect, when we saw a huge rowing boat, with two boatmen in it, lying in a little creek among the rocks.
“Oh, do we go in a boat?” said John, forgetting the unpleasantness.
“Yes,” said Angus. “Roid House is only five miles by the water.”
He led the way over the rocks. One of the boatmen came forward to help me, but I hate being helped—it is like Robin—and I wouldn’t take his hand. Of course my silly shoes slipped on the seaweed and I sat down very hard and nearly shot into the water. Morag laughed and said, “You’ll have to learn to go barefoot, like we do.”
“We aren’t allowed to go barefoot except on sands,” I said. “It’s very dangerous. If you cut your foot and hadn’t any iodine handy, you might get blood poisoning.”
Morag stared at me. “Good gracious,” she said, “You are a grandmother.”
“I’m not,” I said.
“You are,” said Morag.
“Well,” I said rashly, “I would sooner be a grandmother than a silly Scots person.”
At that moment the two boatmen, who had been at the station, arrived with our luggage. I must say I felt relieved, as the dark waters of Loch Roid were looking very cold and dismal and I certainly didn’t want them to close over my head for ever. The men put our suitcases into the boat and then all four of them sat down and grasped their oars. They were all dressed alike in dark blue jerseys and trousers and tam-o’-shanters with scarlet knobs on them and they talked to each other in Gaelic. I had to own to myself that this certainly was a more fitting means of transport for a Highland gentleman than a dull old motor-car.
Though I was still rather cross about being called a grandmother, I did enjoy being rowed down the loch by the boatmen. It had stopped raining and the loch was really quite exciting; there were islands in it and seals, and a brown baby seal swam right up near the boat and looked at us. The boatmen sang as they rowed and Angus and Morag took it in turns to steer. John kept on asking if he could steer, but they always said, “No, thank you.”
The loch was rather winding, and suddenly we came round a headland, and there was the sea and the distant islands all spread out before us. The sun was shining and the sea was blue, and the far-off islands were blue, and the near ones were purple with heather. After the rain and the mist it all looked very coloured and I must say I should have liked it if it hadn’t been for our beastly cousins.
Morag was steering. She pointed and said, “There’s the house,” and we saw an extremely large grey house with trees behind it but only a very green field between it and a long sandy beach, which stretched down to seaweedy rocks and boulders.
John said, “It doesn’t look very ancestral.”
Angus said, “It isn’t very old. The old house was burnt down by the Clan MacTavish.”
“Why?” asked John.
“We have a blood feud,” said Angus, “with the Clan MacTavish. In warfare it is always necessary to place a Cameron between a MacTavish and a MacAlister.”
I was rather impressed, but John said, “How silly.”
“It seems silly to you because you are a feckless Sassenach,” said Angus despisingly. Really it was beginning to look as if we couldn’t speak to our cousins without quarrelling.
We had now arrived at a pier made out of boulders, and we got out of the boat and this time I did let the boatmen help me, and we walked up a winding path at the side of the field and, at the front door of the house, the stern professor was waiting for us. He had a deerhound with him and, after we had said polite things, he told us that her name was Flora, and that she had been called after Flora Macdonald.
John who likes history, said, “Oh, I know! The person who helped the Young Pretender to escape,” and there was a sort of growl from the cousins. Of course, we learned afterwards that you must not talk about the ‘Young Pretender’ in Scotland because he was the rightful king and all their ancestors were killed fighting for him or hung, drawn and quartered afterwards, and though English people do not bother about what happened two hundred years ago, Highlanders do.
Well, we changed our wet clothes and then we had lunch. It was mutton chops, stewed fruit and rice pudding, and I may as well tell you now that we always had that for lunch at Roid, only sometimes it wasn’t chops but another piece of the mutton; as there were no shops you had to eat what could grow in the garden and live on the moors. Of course, the rice didn’t grow there, but it came with flour and soap and things in a steamer from Glasgow twice a year.
After lunch our cousins took us to see things. Hamish came. He was two years younger than Robin but much more grown-up; he rode on a donkey instead of holding Nanny’s hand. Hugheena, who looked after him, led the donkey. She was quite young and didn’t tell us what to do. The donkey’s name was Solomon. He was old and very obliging.
We went up the avenue to the farm buildings, which were called “The Square,” and of course we went first to the stable. It was rather a tumble-down stable, not at all like Mr. Catchpole’s, which is very smart and bright. There were four thickset ponies in it, two greys, a piebald and a black. They had long manes and forelocks and fetlocks and they looked nice but slow. We were told that the greys were called Seagull and Swallow; the piebald was Lizzie Lindsay and the black, Bonnie Dundee.
We talked to them, and then John said to Angus, “Where are your ponies?”
“What do you mean?” said Angus. “These are ours.”
“Good gracious,” said John. “I thought these were the cart-horses for the farm.”
“You don’t know much about ponies, then,” said Angus. “Haven’t you ever seen a Highland pony before?”
“No, I haven’t,” said John. “Mr. Catchpole’s ponies aren’t a bit like these. They’ve all got thoroughbred or Arab blood in them. They can go.”
“I know the sort,” said Angus. “Bred to look smart and eat oats and dash about and fall over their own noses.”
“They don’t fall over their noses,” said John indignantly.
“Not in the flat English fields, I dare say,” said Angus. “But they would if you took them over the moor.”
“I don’t want to ride on moors,” said John sniffily.
“We thought of riding this afternoon,” said Morag. “Seagull and Swallow are our special ones and we caught up Dundee and Lizzie for you. But if you don’t want to ride, you needn’t.”
“We’re not dressed for riding,” I said.
“Gosh! Can’t you ride without being dressed for it?” said Angus.
“I don’t want to ride cart-horses,” said John.
He only said that because he was annoyed with Angus. Of course we would sooner ride cart-horses, or mules, or cows even, than not ride at all. My heart sank. I saw that we were getting to the fatal stage when you can’t do something you are longing to, because of what you’ve said in a rage and don’t really mean.
“All right,” said Angus. “Then you’d better amuse yourselves. We’re going to ride.”
He began to get down a very old saddle and bridle. John said to me, “Oh, well, come on.” I was talking to Bonnie Dundee and he was looking for pockets in my silly best coat that hasn’t any. I did want to ride him, but blood is thicker than water, so I had to go.
“Let’s go down to the shore,” said John as we left the stable. Angus heard and called after us, “I hope you’ll enjoy yourselves making nice little sand pies.”
“Aren’t they beastly?” said John as we walked down the avenue.
I said, “Yes, but we did insult their ponies.”
“Rotten cart-horses,” said John.
We went down to the beach. The tide was coming in and the rocks and boulders, that we might have played islands on, were covered up, so there wasn’t much to do. After a bit, we went and looked at the boathouse by the bouldery pier.
It was a large boathouse and it smelled of varnish and ropes and oilskins. St. Mungo, the boat which we had come in, was there, and a heavy tubby boat called Zebedee. Then there was a light boat called Cormorant. John said, “I say, let’s take this one out and row to one of the islands and explore.”
We can both row. Uncle Gerald taught us on the Serpentine.
“Should we be allowed?” I said doubtfully.
“Angus and Morag are,” said John. “Don’t you remember they said at lunch that they’d been given a boat of their own because the others were too heavy for them to row? If they can, why can’t we? I bet we row better than they do.”
I said, “All right,” and we each took one side of Cormorant and we lugged her down to the water. Just by the boathouse the beach was rather pebbly, but it did not occur to either of us that you must not drag boats over stones.
We shoved Cormorant into the water and got into her off the pier. The waves were quite small but they were bobbly and it felt quite different from the Serpentine.
Well, we rowed towards the biggest of the islands. It was a very exciting-looking one, rocky at the bottom and heathery at the top, and a strip of shingle joined it to another island, which was rocky and heathery too. We heard afterwards that it was called Eilean Darag, which is Gaelic for Oak Island, and that it was nearly a mile from the pier, but it didn’t look so far.
We rowed and rowed. Not having Uncle Gerald to steer us, we went rather zigzag and John, who is a year and a half older than me, kept pulling the boat round. He said it was my fault for being so feeble, and I got rather cross and my arms ached and I must say I wished I was riding Bonnie Dundee over the moor. But it is no use arguing with boys, so I rowed on.
At last we got to the island. There was a creek in the rocks and we rowed in there and found an iron ring, which was evidently meant for tying up boats, so we tied up Cormorant with a bowline on a bight, and got out and scrambled up the rocks. We saw at once that it was a lovely island to explore.
There were crowds of seabirds on it. Some of them were sitting on eggs and some had tiny fluffy babies. They all looked more or less alike to us but afterwards we learned what lots of different kinds there were. I will not tell you about them, however, as nothing is more boring than being made to take an interest in birds.
Then there were caves and at the back of the island there were creeks and splits in the rocks, where the waves made the most lovely gurglings and booms and the spray simply leaped up and showered over the rocks. We got too near once, and the spray showered over me and my best coat got soaked. I was glad that Nanny wasn’t there to say how expensive it had been.
We stayed at the back of the island for a good long time and then we went down to the strip of shingle and over to the other part. The rocks and the sea were even more fierce there; it wasn’t very far from the farthest point of the rocks to the long purple headland, which made the other side of the loch, and we could see that the tide was running in very fast; it whirled and looked as if it was boiling round the rocks. We found the skeleton of a sheep on that part of the island and then we went back to the strip of shingle and found the outsides of sea urchins and lots of shells. Suddenly John said that he was hungry and that perhaps it was tea-time.
That made me look towards the house and I got quite a surprise. If you are children who live in the country and are allowed to do things by yourselves, I expect you will think that we were very stupid when I tell you that, while we were exploring the island, we had not kept an eye on the weather or on the time. But you must remember that we had always lived in London and had Aunt Pamela or Nanny with us to say, “There’s going to be a thunderstorm,” or “We must turn back now.” Actually, my surprise wasn’t about the time but it was about the weather. While we were exploring and not noticing, the sky and the sea had gone grey and the wind had risen, and it was high tide and the loch looked very full of water and the water was very rough, so rough that there were lots of “white horses,” not only out to sea but inside the island, between us and the shore. I said to John, “Look how rough it’s got,” and he said, “Gosh, so it has. We’d better go back to tea.”
We climbed over the rocks to the creek where we had left Cormorant. John was in front and he was saying that he hoped I wasn’t going to row as feebly as I had done on the way out, when suddenly he stopped and said, “Gosh!”
“What’s the matter?” I said.
He said nothing but stood and stared. I climbed up to him and then I saw.
The waves had been dashing Cormorant against the rocks and she was stove in all down one side. We had tied her up nice (so we had thought) and tight, and of course that had been quite the wrong thing to do, because the tide had risen and, as her bow was tied down, it was under water now, and the oars had floated away, and we could see them bobbing gaily along, among the white horses, towards the shore. Of course we know now that you mustn’t tie boats to rocks, but we had seen them tied to rafts on the Serpentine and neither of us had thought about the waves bashing her against the rocks or about the tide.
I said, “Gosh!”
“Gosh!” said John. “There will be a row.”
“If we live to tell the tale,” I added.
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” said John. “Of course, we can’t get back now.” He looked rather relieved and really at that moment it seemed much less dreadful to die of starvation on the island than to go back to the stern professor and our despising cousins and tell them what idiots we had been.
We stood and looked at Cormorant for a bit and wondered how much it would cost to have her mended, and then we began to think what you do when you are shipwrecked on a desert island. The first thing, of course, is to light a fire to attract attention, but neither of us had any matches. I suggested rubbing sticks together, so we went up to the heathery part of the island and collected some fairly dry bracken and heather, and then we tried the sticks. We rubbed them together for ages, but nothing happened, and I think we were both rather relieved, because we were still thinking of the row there would be, and we weren’t really keen about attracting attention. We gave up the sticks and went to find a cave to sleep in and we found a lovely one in a little cliff of grey rock among the heather. Then we went to collect bracken to lie on. It was rather damp but when we tried our beds we found that it was awfully comfortable. We lay on our comfortable beds for a bit and talked about whether it was worse to die of thirst or hunger. John said hunger and I said thirst, and we remembered a story we had read about people adrift in a boat, who went mad with thirst and plunged into the shark-infested water; and then we remembered a story about people who were so hungry that they ate each other. When we remembered that, John got up and said, “Look here, we must do something about attracting attention.”
