He hurried out of the kirkyard and through the door of the walled kitchen garden. His heart was beating and the sight of a gardener, a healthy-looking, upstanding young man who was coming out of a tool-shed, was of infinite comfort to him. Here was a human being, young and stirring like himself, a normal creature, and his presence brought him back into the everyday, reasonable world which had receded from him in the last few minutes. As they passed each other he stopped.
‘I say,’ he began.
The other touched his cap.
‘Look here,’ said Bob, rather breathlessly, ‘there’s something so odd in the kirkyard – there!’
He threw out his arm towards the place where the gable of the ruin showed above the garden wall.
The gardener stared at him, astonished.
‘What like is it?’ he asked, setting down the basket he carried.
‘It’s – a person,’ said Bob.
Visions of accidents, poachers, trespassers, swept across the gardener’s practical mind. He moved forward quickly, and a chill ran over Bob again at the thought of going back into the kirkyard. But the human personality beside him put a different aspect on everything and he was immediately ashamed of his childishness.
They went out of the garden together and made their way among the stones to Annie Cargill’s grave. At the head they paused and Bob went softly round the trees to the gap at its foot, the other following; and here he stopped in blank astonishment.
The place was empty
He turned to the gardener, speechless, feeling like a fool.
‘It’s gone!’ he exclaimed at last.
The other pushed back his cap and stood looking at him with a half smile.
‘I suppose you think I’m mad,’ said Bob, throwing out his hands, ‘but I tell you it was there – not a minute ago – just before I met you!’
‘But wha was it?’ said the gardener.
‘That’s what I want to know!’ cried Bob. ‘It was a woman – an old, old woman – I am certain it was a woman. It was there, sitting huddled up in front of the stone.’
‘There’s no auld body comes in hereabouts that a can mind of.’
‘It looked mad – extraordinary,’ continued Bob, ‘not like anyone I’ve ever seen.’
‘Well, it’s awa now, anyhow,’ said the gardener.
‘But who was Annie Cargill?’ burst out Bob. ‘There’s something strange about this place – I know there is! An old man I met here told me so – but I knew it myself. He said other people besides me don’t like the look of those trees and that chained-in place. He couldn’t have been lying – why should he tell me that?’
His companion seemed as non-communicative as the man with the rake, but Bob felt that he would be put off no longer. It was too annoying; also he had a passionate desire to justify himself, to force some admission that he was not altogether childish in his excitement.
‘Well, maybe a’ve heard tell o’ things,’ said the other cautiously; ‘a’ll not say that a havena’. But a’ve been here just twa year – it’s fowk aulder nor me that ye should speir at.’
‘But who was Annie Cargill?’ cried Bob again. ‘That’s what I want to know! The old man said she was “a lassie”.’
‘She was a lassie, and she wasna very weel used, they say. There was them that made owre muckle o’ her, that set her up aboon her place. She was just a gipsy lassie.’
‘A gipsy?’
‘Well, a dinna ken the rights o’t, but they say she was left to dee her lane, some way aboot the loan yonder.’
‘And who left her to die?’
A look came over the gardener’s face that made Bob think of the closing of a door.
‘A canna just mind about that,’ he replied. ‘A ken nae mair nor what a’m telling ye. An’ they buried her in here.’
‘Was she pretty?’ asked Bob.
‘Aye was she,’ said the other. ‘But she’ll no be bonnie now,’ he added grimly. ‘She’s been lyin’ here owre lang.’
‘And the trees? Who planted the trees?’
‘Well, they were plantit to hide the stane,’ said the gardener. ‘It’s an ugly thing and ye can see it frae the windows o’ the house.’
‘But they don’t hide it,’ rejoined Bob; ‘you can see it quite well, even across the den.’
‘Aye, but there’s twa trees wantin’ at the fit o’t. They were plantit, but the wind wadna let them stand. They got them in three times, they say, but the wind was aye owre muckle for them.’
‘There’s no mark of them now.’
‘Na. They wadna stand, ye see, and the roots was howkit out. It’s forty year syne that they did that.’
‘Well, it’s an extraordinary place,’ said Bob, as they turned to go, ‘and it’s a more extraordinary creature that I saw in there. Come outside and let us look if we can find any trace of her.’
They walked through the wood, then ran down to the den, they searched about in the neighbouring byroad and in the fields. No one was to be seen and the gathering dusk soon sent the gardener to lock the garden doors. He was anxious to get back to his tea. Bob bade him good night and they parted.
When the dinner-bell brought Bob downstairs that evening, Lyall, the butler, was waiting for him in the hall. He was to dine alone, it seemed, for his godfather was not going to leave his room. He had got a chill at the cattle-fair, said the butler, for he had refused to take his greatcoat with him, although it had been put in the dogcart. He had thrown it out angrily – so Bob gathered – and the butler had been angry too. He was grim to-night and wore the tense and self-righteous face of one who is justified of his words. Bob ate in silence and then betook himself to the smoking-room with the setter and installed himself with a book.
It was ten o’clock when Lyall came in and asked him to go up to Lindsay’s room; he had been having great trouble with his master, and, though from the old servant’s customary manner Bob believed himself to hold a mean place in his estimation, it was evident that he wished for his support now.
‘Hadn’t you better send for the doctor?’ he asked as they went out together.
The other snorted.
‘A doctor?’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ve done my best, but it’s neither you nor me that can make him see a doctor! There’s no doctor been in this house since I cam’ to it, and that’s twenty-five years syne.’
Lindsay was lying in his solid fourposter with his angry eyes fixed on the door; he looked desperately ill and as Bob approached he sat up.
‘What are you doing here?’ he cried. ‘Who told you to come up?’
The butler went quietly out. He had no mind for another scene.
‘I came to see how you were, sir,’ said Bob. ‘I am sorry you are not well.’
‘Now look here!’ said Lindsay, ‘let me have none of your nonsense here. That damned old fool outside has been telling me I ought to send for a doctor. I’ll have none of that! If you have come to say the same thing, out you go, and be quick about it too. I’ll see no doctors, I tell you! I’m not going to have one near me. I hate the whole lot! A set of…’