The Goose Girl and Other Stories by Eric Linklater Page A

my intuition. No one, that is, has found an alternative explanation for the presence, beside Elizabeth’s linen frock, of a pair of sealskin trousers.
    I remember also my physical distress at the discovery. My breath, for several minutes I think, came into and went out of my lungs like the hot wind of a dust-storm in the desert. It parched my mouth and grated in my throat. It was, I recall, quite a torment to breathe. But I had to, of course.
    Nor did I lose control of myself in spite of the agony, both mental and physical, that I was suffering. I didn’t lose control till they beganto mock me. Yes, they did, I assure you of that. I heard his voice quite clearly, and honesty compels me to admit that it was singularly sweet and the tune was the most haunting I have ever heard. They were about forty yards away, two seals swimming together, and the evening light was so clear and taut that his voice might have been the vibration of an invisible bow across its coloured bands. He was singing the song that Elizabeth and I had discovered in an album of Scottish music in the little fishing-hotel where we had been living:
    I am a Man upon the land,
    I am a Selkie in the sea,
    And when I’m far from any strand
    I am at home on Sule Skerry!
    But his purpose, you see, was mockery. They were happy, together in the vast simplicity of the ocean, and I, abandoned to the terror of life alone, life among human beings, was lost and full of panic. It was then I began to scream. I could hear myself screaming, it was quite horrible. But I couldn’t stop. I had to go on screaming ....

Joy As It Flies
    She Has Given beauty a new category, he thought, for she appears to be edible. She is the word made fruit, rather than flesh, and with sugar and cream she would be delicious. Her neck would taste like an English apple, a pippin or nonpareil, and her arms, still faintly sunburnt from the mountain snow, of greengages.
    â€˜How old are you?’ he asked.
    â€˜Nearly nineteen,’ she answered, ‘and I’m very mature for my age. We had lectures on all sort of things at Lausanne. Really up-to-date lectures on genetics, and Cocteau, and the ballet, and—oh, everything!’
    â€˜And what’s your opinion of Cocteau?’
    â€˜Well, I don’t think the lecture on him was a very good one—what are you laughing at?’
    â€˜I’m sorry.’
    â€˜I never pretended to know
much
about him, did I? But I do know who he is, and what he is, and that’s something.’
    â€˜It’s a great deal.’
    â€˜Then you shouldn’t have laughed at me.’
    â€˜You make me feel light-hearted: that’s the trouble.’
    â€˜You mustn’t be light-hearted about the match, or everybody will be furious. A Rugby International is very serious.’
    They stood idly, in a moving throng of people, in the cold sunlight of March in Edinburgh. If they should step over the sharply drawn line between light and shadow, into the shadow of the tall stand, the darker air would be as cold as January. But the several thousands of people, hearty and red of cheek, who were streaming into the ground to see a match between England and Scotland, thought their northern climate could not be bettered. They brought their own warmth, a genial excitement, a general euphory that made men’s voices ring louder and more kindly than usual and girls look vivid and pretty though they were not.
    Latimer, when he woke that morning after a night in the train, had had no expectation of watching Rugby football. His mind had lately been occupied by a domestic issue of the greatest importance, and he had come unwillingly to Edinburgh on business that could notbe postponed or delegated. For nearly two hours he had argued stubbornly with an elderly and cantankerous Writer to the Signet who, having got his way with most of the disputed clauses, became suddenly jovial, insisted on taking Latimer home with him to a