‘I call that poaching on the grand scale,’ observed Palliser-Yeates.
‘Wasn’t it? Most of the fellows he wrote to accepted his challenge and told him to come and do his damnedest. Little Avington, I remember, turned on every man and boy about the place for three nights to watch the forest. Jim usually worked at night, you see. One or two curmudgeons talked of the police and prosecutin’ him, but public opinion was against them – too dashed unsportin’.’
‘Did he always get his stag?’ Leithen asked.
‘In-var-i-ably, and got it off the ground and delivered it to the owner, for that was the rule of the game. Sometimes he had a precious near squeak, and Avington, who was going off his head at the time, tried to pot him – shot a gillie in the leg too. But Jim always won out. I should think he was the best shikari God ever made.’
‘Is that true, Archie?’ Lamancha’s voice had a magisterial tone.
‘True – as – true. I know all about it, for Wattie Lithgow, who was Jim’s man, is with me now. He and his wife keep house for me at Crask. Jim never took but the one man with him, and that was Wattie, and he made him just about as cunning an old dodger as himself.’
Leithen yawned. ‘What sort of a place is Crask?’ he inquired.
‘Tiny little place. No fishin’ except some hill lochs and only rough shootin’. I take it for the birds. Most marvellous nestin’ ground in Britain barrin’ some of the Outer Islands. I don’t know why it should be, but it is. Something to do with the Gulf Stream, maybe. Anyhow, I’ve got the greenshank breedin’ regularly and the red-throated diver, and half a dozen rare duck. It’s a marvellous stoppin’ place in spring too, for birds goin’ north.’
‘Are you much there?’
‘Generally in April, and always from the middle of August till the middle of October. You see, it’s about the only place I know where you can do exactly as you like. The house is stuck away up on a long slope of moor, and you see the road for a mile from the windows, so you’ve plently of time to take to the hills if anybody comes to worry you. I roost there with old Sime, my butler, and the two Lithgows, and put up a pal now and then who likes the life. It’s the jolliest bit of the year for me.’
‘Have you any neighbours?’
‘Heaps, but they don’t trouble me much. Crask’s the earth-enware pot among the brazen vessels – mighty hard to get to and nothing to see when you get there. So the brazen vessels keep to themselves.’
Lamancha went to a shelf of books above a writing-table and returned with an atlas. ‘Who are your brazen vessels?’ he asked.
‘Well, my brassiest is old Claybody at Haripol – that’s four miles off across the hill.’
‘Bit of a swine, isn’t he?’ said Leithen.
‘Oh, no. He’s rather a good old bird himself. Don’t care so much for his family. Then there’s Glenraden t’other side of the Larrig’ – he indicated a point on the map which Lamancha was studying – ‘with a real old Highland grandee living in it – Alastair Raden – commanded the Scots Guards, I believe, in the year One. Family as old as the Flood and very poor, but just manage to hang on. He’s the last Raden that will live there, but that doesn’t matter so much as he has no son – only a brace of daughters. Then, of course, there’s the show place, Strathlarrig – horrible great house as large as a factory, but wonderful fine salmon-fishin’. Some Americans have got it this year – Boston or Philadelphia, I don’t remember which – very rich and said to be rather high-brow. There’s a son, I believe.’
Lamancha closed the atlas.
‘Do you know any of these people, Archie?’ he asked.
‘Only the Claybodys – very slightly. I stayed with them in Suffolk for a covert shoot two years ago. The Radens have been to call on me, but I was out. The Bandicotts – that’s the Americans – are new this year.’
‘Is the sport good?’
‘The very best. Haripol is about the steepest and most sportin’ forest in the Highlands, and Glenraden is nearly as good. There’s no forest at Strathlarrig, but, as I’ve told you, amazin’ good salmon fishin’. For a west coast river, I should put the Larrig only second to the Laxford.’
Lamancha consulted the atlas again and appeared to ponder. Then he lifted his head, and his long face, which had a certain heaviness and sullenness in repose, was now lit by a smile which made it handsomer and younger.
‘Could you have me at Crask this autumn?’ he asked. ‘My wife has to go to Aix for a cure and I have no plans after the House rises.’
‘I should jolly well think so,’ cried Archie. ‘There’s heaps of room in the old house, and I promise you I’ll make you comfortable. Look here, you fellows! Why shouldn’t all three of you come? I can get in a couple of extra maids from Inverlarrig.’
‘Excellent idea,’ said Lamancha. ‘But you mustn’t bother about the maids. I’ll bring my own man, and we’ll have a male establishment, except for Mrs Lithgow … By the way, I suppose you can count on Mrs Lithgow?’
‘How do you mean, “count”?’ asked Archie, rather puzzled. Then a difficulty struck him. ‘But wouldn’t you be bored? I can’t show you much in the way of sport, and you’re not naturalists like me. It’s a quiet life, you know.’
‘I shouldn’t be bored,’ said Lamancha, ‘I should take steps to prevent it.’
Leithen and Palliser-Yeates seemed to divine his intention, for they simultaneously exclaimed. – ‘It isn’t fair to excite Archie, Charles,’ the latter said. ‘You know that you’ll never do it.’
‘I intend to have a try. Hang it, John, it’s the specific we were talking about – devilish difficult, devilish unpleasant, and calculated to make a man long for a dull life. Of course you two fellows will join me.’
‘What on earth are you talkin’ about?’ said the mystified Archie. ‘Join what?’
‘We’re proposing to quarter ourselves on you, my lad, and take a leaf out of Jim Tarras’s book.’
Sir Archie first stared, then he laughed nervously, then he called upon his gods, then he laughed freely and long. ‘Do you really mean it? What an almighty rag! … But hold on a moment. It will be rather awkward for me to take a hand. You see I’ve just been adopted as prospective candidate for that part of the country.’
‘So much the better. If you’re found out – which you won’t be – you’ll get the poaching vote solid, and a good deal more. Most men at heart are poachers.’
Archie shook a doubting head. ‘I don’t know about that. They’re an awfully respectable lot up there, and all those dashed stalkers and keepers and gillies are a sort of trade-union. The scallywags are a hopeless minority. If I get sent to quod—’
‘You won’t get sent to quod. At the worst it will be a fine, and you can pay that. What’s the extreme penalty for this kind of offence, Ned?’
‘I don’t know,’ Leithen answered. ‘I’m not an authority on Scots law. But Archie’s perfectly right. We can’t go making a public exhibition of ourselves like this. We’re too old to be listening to the chimes at midnight.’
‘Now, look here.’ Lamancha had shaken off his glumness and was as tense and eager as a schoolboy. ‘Didn’t your doctor advise you to steal a horse? Well, this is a long sight easier than horse-stealing. It’s admitted that