Signs of being watched and followed increased until he emerged from the woods above Thirlstane burn where the watchers and followers stopped trying to keep out of sight. He went down the gully with children of every age between eight and fifteen scrambling and leaping and dodging along the slopes on each side. The smallest rode ponies, two or three to a back. A surprising number were girls and the whole crowd was too big to be local — several must have come over from Eskdale or farther. Obviously something he did not know had made him interesting yet untouchable; only a huge, communal, fascinated shyness explained the movements of this company which covered the slopes beside him yet stayed out of talking range. His killing of the Northumbrian who held the standard had likely been condemned as a war crime so that Ettrick was now a shamed and beaten clan. Did these children hate or sympathize with him? They probably did not know themselves; they were waiting to learn how he would be received at the Warrior house. Wat feared nobody in the Warrior house, he dreaded nothing but the ill opinion of the women. Determined to learn the worst he sat upright and rode forward with a bold front unlike his usual brooding slouch.
A line of water as pale as the sky appeared above trees below; it was the head of Saint Mary’s Loch and the Warrior house flag wagged against it. With various shouts the children raced downhill away from him and in less than five minutes he was alone again. If Sophia had not been a tired old pony he would have raced ahead of them; instead he paused, tempted by a track which ran sideways to Bowerhope where he was sure of a private welcome from a couple of sisters. Then a gleaming globe spun up from behind a blaeberry clump and hung before his face saying, “What is your reaction to the news from Geneva, Major Dryhope?”
He shut his eyes, clapped the pony’s flanks with his heels and was carried straight downhill. He heard another voice, soft and female, say, “By all means treat the public eye with contempt Major Dryhope, but you must have something to say against Geneva’s condemnation of your father and clan.”
With an effort he kept his face immobile and eyes shut for at least three minutes. When he opened them the globe had vanished.
The Warrior house was built over the short river flowing into Saint Mary’s Loch from Loch of the Lowes. Four steep glass-fronted gables, a central pyramidal skylight, a hexagonal tower faceted with mirrors made it look like a futuristic village in a 1930s Hollywood movie or a postmodern art gallery designed sixty years later. This archaic appearance was enhanced by an absence of powerplant. Wat saw that the plain before the eastern gable was covered by a standing horde of children too young to be cadets, and adolescents of both sexes, and older men on horseback from houses normally indifferent to warrior business. A greybeard and three younger men from the musical house of Henderland were conspicuous by the instruments they held. The horsemen and pony riders stood right and left of the path to the entrance. As Sophia ambled down it Wat had a dream-like sense of having done this before, then remembered his walk from the stable through the children of Craig Douglas. Passing a group of boys with Annie in it he noticed many of the Craig Douglas children were here too. She was staring open-mouthed with hand half raised as if wanting yet fearing to catch his attention. He nodded absent-mindedly to her for he was trying to understand the mood of this dense crowd gazing at him with no obvious sign of anger or pleasure. Then a shrill voice from behind (and it sounded like Annie’s) cried,
“Hooray for Wattie Dryhope!” and the whole crowd began roaring, howling, yelling that too. Through the roar he heard powerful drones followed by vivid squeals. The Henderlands were piping. Their tune swelled up and overwhelmed the welter of cheering and it was the tune of a song everyone had known since childhood. In less than a minute the crowd was singing —
“March, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale,
Why my lads dinna ye march
forward in order?
March, march, Eskdale and Liddesdale,
All the Blue Bonnets are over the Border!”
— so they liked him. Tears of relief streamed down his face though he kept it rigid. He also noticed, without pleasure, public eyes spinning over the heads of the crowd. Recovering most of the assurance he had lost since rolling off the cliff he began to notice something unpleasant in this unanimous bellowing of what had once seemed a nostalgic old marching song —
“Come from the hills
where your hirsels are grazing,
Come from the glen
of the buck and the roe;
Come to the crag where
the beacon is blazing,
Come with the buckler,
the lance and the bow!”
He reacted by scowling while Sophia, also disliking the noise, broke into a clumsy little gallop which brought him to the porch. Here Boys’ Brigade captains, one of them Wat’s twelve-year-old brother Sandy, swarmed round him grinning like lunatics and jabbering something in which standard was the only distinct word. He yelled, “Give Sophia a feed ye gowks — let Sandy get me a whisky,” and leapt down and rushed inside.
Within the door he was stopped by a group of veterans: men over forty whose thick beards and moustaches did not hide their scars. Each shook his hand in turn, looking him straight in the eye and giving a firm little nod which struck him as more farcical than the communal roaring outside. Behind the veterans every cadet in Ettrick between eleven and fourteen years seemed crowded into the eastern lobby, grinning or open-mouthed or trying to look as grim as he felt himself. On the stair to the officers’ mess the house servants stood like servants in the mansion of a Victorian duke assembled to welcome the young laird home. They were ranked behind the major domo, a stately giant with whiskers bushier than the fiercest veteran’s. He said, “Master Wattie, I hope at last I may persuade you to a dram?”
“Thanks Jenny. I have asked Sandy for one.”
“Master Sandy will receive it from my hands.” The major domo led Wat upstairs processionally with Sandy beside him and the veterans in the rear. Martial discipline ensured a decent silence among them but did not lessen the deafening bellow outside which still made sense to those who knew the words —
“England shall many a day