There was silence.
‘Come out, you daft loon,’ ordered Ned from the doorway.
The silence continued, but Gil had the feeling of someone keeping silence rather than that of an empty space. Behind him Tam swallowed, and said quietly, ‘Could it be a trap, maister?’
‘No, it’s no trap,’ said Gil, and moved to the door in his turn. ‘Euan Beag, are you within? Might I have a word?’ Inside the barn, straw rustled. ‘I was told you might know something.’
The straw rustled again.
‘They’ll be pointing their big knives at him, and cutting his good ropes,’ said a quavering voice. It sounded very old.
‘No, for I’ll not allow it,’ said Gil.
It took a little more coaxing, and Ned and Donal had to be persuaded to move away from the barn door, before the owner of the voice would come out from the shadows. When he finally emerged, he hardly seemed human, a crouching figure with crooked limbs and big hands, his neck twisted so that his face turned sideways and up. He was clad in a filthy shirt and doublet, yellowish-white hair hung round the back of his head, clumps of darker beard sprouted along his jaw and a brown hen was perched comfortably on his shoulder. His eyes were large, dark and very lovely. Advancing crabwise across the packed earth floor, a hank of heather rope dragging behind him, he said in that cracked, quavering voice:
‘Who wants Euan Beag, then? What is it you would be asking him?’
Gil, aware of Tam beside him making the horns against the Evil Eye, raised his round felt bonnet to the extraordinary figure and said, ‘Good day to you, Euan Beag. How are you?’
A smile spread over the tilted face, exposing three yellow teeth and a quantity of gum.
‘Good day to you, maister. Euan’s well, and yoursel?’
‘I’m well, thanks,’ returned Gil. Was this conversation really happening? ‘Might I have a word?’ he asked again, and wished he had a pomander, or one of Lady Stewart’s pots of burning herbs. The creature had probably never been washed since he was pulled out of the well.
‘Aye, but no a long one,’ said Euan warily. ‘He’s got things he needs to get done. The ropes is all to be checked, and the barn swept and the stackyard make ready, afore the hairst comes hame, and all’s for Euan to do.’
‘And right well you’ll do it, I can be sure,’ said Gil. ‘I’ll not keep you long, I hope. Someone was telling me you’d mind when David Drummond vanished away.’
‘David Drummond,’ said the twisted man thoughtfully, scraping with bare, powerful toes at the dusty ground. The hen stretched out her head, tilting it to peer down at the movement.
‘Wee Davie from Dalriach,’ prompted Donal. Euan turned to bring the young man into his view. ‘Thirty year since, it was.’
‘Aye, it was,’ agreed Euan. He turned to face Gil again. ‘Aye, Euan can mind o’t.’ He waited, apparently for the next question. Gil, resisting the urge to twist his own neck so that his head was tilted like the one before him, said:
‘Can you tell me about it? What do you mind?’
‘Why, he was lifted up.’ Euan waved his free hand in the air, describing an airy flight. The hen scrabbled with her yellow feet, finding her balance. ‘They lifted him from the path, wi ropes.’
‘Wi ropes?’ repeated Ned. Euan gave Gil a sly smile full of purple gums, and nodded.
‘Aye, wi ropes. Many ropes, and made o hemp, better than Euan’s. That’s how he would ken them for the Good Neighbours, you ken.’
‘You saw them?’ Gil asked, startled. ‘What happened?’
The creature nodded again, a strange movement of his head on the wry neck, parallel to the ground.
‘That’s right, maister, Euan saw them. It was a great party o folk on fine horsies, as fine as your big horsie there, and they lifted wee Davie Drummond wi their ropes, and bore him away,’ again the airy gesture with the free hand, ‘and Euan fell down wi fright and never saw Davie again. Billy grat for him,’ he confided. ‘And Euan grat and all.’
‘Where was this?’ Gil asked. Euan turned to look up the glen, where small trees bent over the burn’s rocky descent.
‘Yonder,’ he said. ‘Euan was gathering heather for rope, you ken, maister, and he seen it all.’
‘Euan makes the ropes for the whole of Drumyre,’ supplied Donal, ‘and further afield and all, don’t you, Euan.’
‘On the open hillside,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘What like were the people?’
‘Oh, fair folk, fair folk. Dressed as fine as fine, in silk-satin-velvet, all bright colours, all in green, all wi their bonnie ropes, and the bodach in a red doublet in their midst. Euan never saw them.’
Now was that complete nonsense, or was there a grain of truth? Gil wondered.
‘And what way did they carry him off?’
Another sly smile.
‘Och, is the maister saying he believes Euan?’
‘I do,’ said Gil. At least, he prevaricated, I believe he thought he saw something strange, probably involving ropes.
The bent figure before him struck its grimy hands together and said joyfully, ‘It’s a many year since anyone was believing Euan! Och, he’ll be lighting a candle for the gentleman, so he will! Away south they took him, in a great whirl and noise, maister.’
‘South,’ repeated Gil, glancing at the sky. ‘Not westwards? Not up to the pass?’
‘South, they were going, maister,’ Euan reiterated. ‘And he was coming back from the south when he came home. Just last month, that would be, maister, and he’s in his own place over the hill now.’
‘How would you ken what way he came, you daft body?’ demanded Ned, from where he stood by the corner of the barn. ‘He cam down Glenbuckie, no Strathyre.’
Euan turned his misshapen back on the man, and gave Gil a significant look.
‘He was in Strathyre afore he was in Glenbuckie, for Euan seen him.’
‘You saw him come back?’ said Gil. ‘When was that?’
‘Euan was watching when they set him down,’ Euan agreed in his creaking voice.
‘Tell me about that,’ said Gil, trying to conceal amazement. ‘What did you see?’
‘Och, little to tell. A great whirling and sound of horses, like the first time, and they set him down on the track yonder,’ he waved a hand southward, ‘and then they were off and left him standing there. There was no ropes, not a single one. But Euan saw the bodach, aye,’ he added, ‘all in his red velvet again.’
‘What way did the horses come?’ Gil asked.
‘There’s a track up this side o the loch,’ said Ned.
‘Why would those ones be using a track?’ objected Donal.
‘Euan never saw,’ said Euan sulkily. ‘Just they were there, and set the laddie down, and bade him Godspeed and gie’s your scrip, and send word if you want us, and then they went away. They went south,’ he added, turning again in order to glower at Donal.
Gil held his breath, setting this story against his own speculations.
‘Did you speak to David?’ he asked gently. Euan turned back to consider him.
‘Aye,’ he said after a moment. ‘Euan was speaking to the laddie.’
‘What did you say to him?’ Gil prompted, and got another display of the purple gums.
‘Euan said, Billy’s no here, he couldny wait.’
‘Daft,’ muttered Tam at Gil’s elbow.
‘And what did David say to that?’ Gil asked.
Careful questioning got him the substance of the exchange. David Drummond had known Euan, had addressed him by his name, and then said that thirty years was a long time for Billy to wait and enquired if his friend was well. Euan had given him the news of Drumyre and its folk, which Gil suspected would have taken some time, and then David, asking if the way over the pass was still fit to use, had extracted himself with what was obviously tact and charm and set off up the side of the burn. Euan seemed in no doubt that he had been speaking to Billy Murray’s friend.
‘How easy is the way over to Glenbuckie?’ Gil asked. ‘Could I find it?’
Euan emitted a wheezing noise which seemed to be a laugh.