Beautiful Just! by Lillian Beckwith Page A

reconnoitre, I was not visible, they would simply go back into the house to continue drinking tea and gossiping until I made my presence felt. After another half hour of waiting I began to grow impatient. The purpose of my journey had after all been for me to collect my chickens and naturally I wanted to ensure that I did eventually reach the farmer’s house before it was time to start on the homeward journey. Apart from blowing the horn which would not only have been a breach of Highland courtesy but would have been a blasphemy in such surroundings I wondered how I could attract the attention of my companions without going to the house and so risk having to stay for a ‘strupak’. I suddenly recalled Hector’s method of attracting my attention when he was too shy to come near the house such as when I had guests staying with me. He simply used to take off his cap and fling it at the hens, scattering them in panic. The resulting cacophony would bring me hurrying to the door prepared to do battle with a maurauding dog or a flock of thieving hoody crows and usually I would be just in time to see Hector adjusting his hat on his head with all the aplomb of just having raised it in salutation while he stared at the hens with well simulated surprise. I never divulged that I was aware of the strategy but since it proved unfailingly effective I resolved to try it now. I was not wearing any sort of head covering but there was a small cushion in the car which I always used to support my back when driving and thinking it would make an excellent substitute I resolved to throw that. At the precise instant the cushion left my hand I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye the old man appearing round the gable end of the cottage. He was followed by Erchy, Hector and Morag and their varying expressions as they caught me in the act of hurling the cushion imprinted themselves on my memory. Erchy looked plainly startled. Hector contrived to look exaggeratedly indifferent and Morag and the old man stared at me with that strangely hunted look which, had they been devout papists, would have been accompanied by the precaution of crossing themselves. To make things worse the sudden appearance of the old man had caused me to misjudge my aim and though the hens scattered and squawked with an embarrassing clamour alas! my cushion landed in a battered tin bath half full of sludgy water. I knew how inexplicably crazy my action must have looked and found myself shaking with inward laughter as I hastily retrieved the cushion. I knew too that at least in front of the old man I must restrain my mirth and sensing that it was wiser to proffer no excuse for my conduct I merely smiled fatuously. Morag spoke in Gaelic and the old man’s expression changed to one of happy understanding.
    Erchy soured his mouth to disguise a smile and Hector gazed with serious concentration at the smoking chimney of the cottage. I guessed she had given her own highly individual explanation of my action and wondered what it might be.

Bait!
    â€˜Now, are we ready to carry on,’ I said after successfully resisting the old man’s pressing invitation to take a strupak.
    â€˜Aye,’ Erchy nodded. Morag got into the car and promptly took on to her lap a stone firkin jar which, I heard her promising the old man, she would leave at the post office to be filled with paraffin ready for the postman to bring out next time he came with mail. Erchy got in cherishing a twelve-bore hammer shotgun which looked to me as if it might have done duty at Waterloo, and Hector had clutched in his hand a ‘tsing’ which, after a few puzzled glances, I thought I identified as the speaking tube from an old Rolls-Royce. The articles Hector succeeded in disinterring from old byres never ceased to astonish me. When I took my seat behind the wheel I regretted having even thought of throwing my cushion at the hens for despite its brief immersion it was far too damp now to use