The House by the Loch
There was a snapping fire in the chimney. I was cold through andI was glad to stand close beside it on the stone hearth. Mygreatcoat had kept out the rain, but it had not kept out thechill of the West Highland night. I shivered before the fire, myhands held out to the flame.It was a long, low room. There was an ancient guncase on oneside, but the racks were empty except for a service pistolhanging by its trigger-guard from the hook. There were someshelves of books on the other side. But the conspicuous thing inthe room was an image of Buddha in a glass box on themantelpiece.It was about four inches high, cast in silver and, I thought, ofimmense age.I had to wait for my uncle to come in. But I had enough to thinkabout. Every event connected with this visit seemed to touch onsome mystery. There was his strange letter to me in reply to mynote that I was in England and coming up to Scotland. Surely noman ever wrote a queerer letter to a nephew coming on a visit tohim.It dwelt on the length of the journey and the remoteness of theplace. I was to be discouraged in every sentence. I was tocarry his affectionate regards to the family in America and saythat he was in health.It stood out plainly that I was not wanted.This was strange in itself, but it was not the strangest thingabout this letter. The strangest thing was a word written in ashaky cramped hand on the back of the sheet: the letters huddledtogether: "Come!"I would have believed my uncle justified in his note. It was along journey. I had great difficulty to find anyone to take meout from the railway station. There were idle men enough, butthey shook their heads when I named the house. Finally, for adouble wage, I got an old gillie with a cart to bring me as faron the way as the highroad ran. But he would not turn into theunkept road that led over the moor to the house. I could neitherbribe nor persuade him. There was no alternative but to set outthrough the mist with my bag on my shoulder.Night was coming on. The moor was a vast wilderness of gorse.The house loomed at the foot of it and beyond the loch that madea sort of estuary for the open sea. Nor was this the only thing.I got the impression as I tramped along that I was not alone onthe moor. I don't know out of what evidences the impression wasbuilt up. I felt that someone was in the gorse beyond the road.The house was closed up like a sleeping eye when I got before it.It was a big, old, rambling stone house with a tangle of vineshalf torn away by the winds: I hammered on the door and finallyan aged man-servant holding a candle high above his head let mein.This was the manner of my coming to Saint Conan's Landing.I had some supper of cold meat brought in by this aged servant.He was a shrunken derelict of a human figure. He was disturbedat my arrival and ill at ease. But I thought there was reliefand welcome in his expression. The master would be in directly;he would light a fire in the drawing-room and prepare abedchamber for me.One would hardly find outside of England such faithful creaturesclinging to the fortunes of descending men. He was at the end oflife and in some fearful perplexity, but one felt there wassomething stanch and sound in him.I had no doubt that there, under my eye, was the hand that hadadded the cramped word to my uncle's letter.I stood now before the fire in the long, low room. The flamesand a tall candle at either end of the mantelpiece lit it up. Iwas looking at the Buddha in the glass box. I could not imaginea thing more out of note. Surely of all corners of the worldthis wild moor of the West Highlands was the least suited to anOriental cult. The elements seemed under no control of Nature.The land was windswept, and the sea came crying into the loch.I suppose it was the mood of my queer experiences that set me atthis speculation.One would expect to find some evidences of India in my uncle'shouse. He had been a long time in Asia, on the fringes of theEnglish service. Toward the end he had been the Resident at thecourt of an obscure Rajah in one of the Northwest Provinces. Itwas on the edge of the Empire where it touches the little-knownMongolian states south of the Gobi.The Home Office was only intermittently in touch with him. Butsomething, never explained, finally drew its attention and he wasput out of India. No one knew anything about it; "permitted toretire," was the text of the brief official notice.And he had retired to the most remote place he could find in theBritish islands. There was no other house on that corner of thecoast. The man was as alone as he would have been in the Gobi.If he had planned to be alone one would have believed he hadsucceeded in that intention. And yet from the moment I got downfrom the gillie's cart I seemed drawn under a persistingsurveillance. I felt now that some one was looking at me. Iturned quickly. There was a door at the end of the room openingonto a bit of garden facing the sea. A man stood, now, justinside this door, his hand on the latch. His head and shoulderswere stooped as though he had been there some moments, as thoughhe had let himself noiselessly in, and remained there watching mebefore the fire.But if so, he was prepared against my turning. He snapped thelatch and came down the room to where I stood.He was a big stoop-shouldered Englishman with a pale, pasty facebeginning to sag at the jowls. There was a queer immobilityabout the features as though the man were always in some fear.His eyes were a pale tallow color and seemed too small for theirimmense sockets. One could see that the man had been agentleman. I write it in the past, because at the moment I feltit as in the past. I felt that something had dispossessed him."This will be Robin," he said. "My dear fellow, it was fine ofyou to travel all this way to see me."He had a nervous cold hand with hardly any pressure in the graspof it. His thin black hair was brushed across the top of hisbald head, and the distended, apprehensive expression on his facedid not change.He made me sit down by the fire and asked me about the family inAmerica. But there was, I thought, no real interest in thisinterrogation until he came to a reflective comment."I should like to go to America," he said; "there must be greatwastes of country where one would be out of the world."The sincerity of this expression stood out in the trivial talk.It indicated something that disturbed the man. He was asisolated as he could get in England, but that was not enough.He sat for a moment silent, the fingers of his nervous handmoving on his knee. When he glanced up, with a sudden jerk ofhis head, he caught me looking at the little image of Buddha inits glass box on the mantelpiece.Was this longing for solitude the influence of this mysteriousreligion?Remote, lonely isolation was a cult of Buddha. The devotees ofthat cult sought the waste places of the earth for theirmeditations. To be out of the world, in its physical contact,was a prime postulate in the practice of this creed."Ah, Robin," he cried, as though he were in a jovial mood andcareless of the subject, "do you have a hobby?"I answered that I had not felt the need of one. The inquiry wasa surprise and I could think of nothing better to reply with."Then, my boy," he went on, "what will you do when you are old?One must have something to occupy the mind."He got up and turned the glass box a little on the mantelpiece."This is a very rare image," he said; "one does not find thisimage anywhere in India. It came from Tibet. The expression andthe pose of the figure differ from the conventional Buddha. Youmight not see that, but to any one familiar with this religionthese differences are marked. This is a monastery image, and youwill see that it is cast, not graven."He beckoned me to come closer, and I rose and stood beside him.He went on as with a lecture:"The reason given by the natives why this image is not found inSouthern Asia is that it cannot be cast anywhere but in theTibetan monasteries. A certain ritual at the time of casting isnecessary to produce a perfect figure. This ritual is a secretof the Khan monasteries. Castings of this form of image madewithout the ritual are always defective; so I was told in India."He moved the glass box a little closer to the edge of themantelpiece."Naturally," he went on, "I considered this story, to be a merepiece of religious pretension. It amused me to make someexperiments, and to my surprise the castings were alwaysdefective. I brought the image to England."He shrugged his shoulders as with a careless gesture."In my idle time here I tried it again. And incredibly theresult was always the same; some portion of the figure showed aflaw. My interest in the thing was permanently aroused. Icontinued to experiment."He laughed in a queer high cackle."And presently I found myself desperately astride a hobby. I gotall the Babbitt metal that I could buy up in England and put inthe days and not a few of the nights in trying to cast a perfectfigure of this confounded Buddha. But I have never been able todo it."He opened a drawer of the gun-case and brought over to the firehalf a dozen castings of the Buddha in various sizes.Not one among the number was perfect. Some portion of the figurewas in every case wanting. A hand would be missing, a portion ofa shoulder, a bit of the squat body or there would be a flawwhere the running metal had not filled the mold."I'm hanged," he cried, "if the beggars are not right about it.The thing can't be done! I've tried it in all sorts ofdimensions. You will see some of the big figures in the garden.I've used a ton of metal and every sort of mold."Then he flung his hand out toward the bookcase."I've studied the art of molding in soft metal. I have all thebooks on it, and I've turned the boathouse into a sort of shop.I've spent a hundred pounds - and I can't do it!"He paused, his big face relaxed."The country thinks I'm mad, working with such outlandishdeviltry. But, curse the thing, I have set out to do it and I amnot going to throw it up."And suddenly with an unexpected heat he damned the Buddha,shaking his clenched hand before the box."Your pardon, Robin," he cried, the moment after. "But thething's ridiculous, you know. The ritual story would be sheerrubbish. The beggars could not affect a metal casting with aform of words."I have tried to set down here precisely what my uncle said. Itwas the last talk I ever had with the man in this world, and itprofoundly impressed me. He was in fear, and his jovial mannerwas a ghastly pretence. I left him sitting by the fire drinkingneat whisky from a tumbler.The old man-servant took me up to my room. It was a big room ina wing of the house looking out on the garden and the sea. I sawthat it had been cleaned and made ready against my coming;clearly the old man expected me.He put the candle on the table and laid back the covers of thebed. And suddenly I determined to have the matter out with him."Andrew," I said, "why did you add that significant word to myuncle's letter?"He turned sharply with a little whimpering cry."The master, sir!" he said, and then he stopped as thoughuncertain in what manner to go on. He made a hopeless sort ofgesture with his extended hands."I thought your coming might interrupt the thing . . . . You areof his family and would be silent.""What threatens my uncle?" I cried, "What is the thing?"He hesitated, his eyes moving about the floor."Oh, sir," he said, "the master is in some wicked ,and dangerousbusiness. You heard his talk, sir; that would not be the talk ofa man at peace . . . . He has strange visitors, sir, and theplace is watched. I cannot tell you any more than that, exceptthat something is going to happen and I am shaken with the fearof it."I looked out through the musty curtains before I went to bed.But the whole world was dark, packed down in the thick mist.Once, in the direction of the open sea, I thought I saw theflicker of a light.I was tired and I slept profoundly, but somewhere in the sleep Isaw my uncle and a priest of Tibet gibbering over a ladle ofmolten silver.It was nearly midday when I awoke. The whole world had changedas under some enchantment; there was brilliant sun and afreshstimulating air with the salt breath of the sea in it. OldAndrew gave me some breakfast and a message.His manner like everything else seemed to have undergone sometransformation. He was silent and, I thought, evasive. Herepeated the message without comment, as though he had committedit to memory from an unfamiliar language:"The master directed me to say that he must make a journey toOban. It is urgent business and will not be laid over.""When does my uncle return," I said.The old man shifted his weight from one foot to the other; helooked out through the open window onto the strip of meadowextending into the loch. Finally he replied"The master did not name the hour of his return."I did not press the interrogation. I felt that there wassomething here that the old man was keeping back; but I had animpression of equal force that he ought to be allowed the run ofhis discretion with it. Besides, the brilliant morning had sweptout my sinister impressions.I got my cap and stick from the rack by the door and went out.The house was within a hundred paces of the loch, in a place ofwild beauty on a bit of moor, yellow with gorse, extending fromthe great barren mountains behind it right down into the water.Immense banners of mist lay along the tops of these mountainpeaks, and streams of water like skeins of silk marked the deepgorges in dazzling whiteness.The loch was a crooked finger of the sea hooked into the land.It was clear as glass in the bright morning. The open sea wasdirectly beyond the crook of the finger, barred out by a nest ofneedlepointed rocks. On this morning, with the sea motionless,they stood up like the teeth of a harrow, but in heavy weather Iimagined that the waves covered them. To the eye they were notthe height of a man above the level water; they glistened in thebrilliant sun like a sheaf of black pikes.This was Saint Conan's Landing, and it occurred to me that if theholy man came in rough weather from the Irish coast he required,in truth, all the perspicacity of a saint to get his boat inwithout having it impaled on these devil's needles.There was no garden to speak of about the house. It was grown uplike the moor. Two or three images of Buddhas stood about in it;one of them was quite large - three feet in height I should sayat a guess. They were on rough stone pedestals. I examined themcarefully. They were all defective; the large one had an immenseflaw in the shoulder. The gorse nearly covered them; the unkepthedge let the moor in and there were no longer any paths, exceptone running to the boathouse.I did not follow the path. But I looked down at the boathousewith some interest. This was the building that my uncle hadturned into a sort of foundry for his weird experiments. Therewas a big lock on the door and a coal-blacked chimney standingabove the roof.It was afternoon. The whole coast about me was like anundiscovered country. I hardly knew in what direction to set outon my exploration. I stood in the path digging my stick into thegravel and undecided. Finally I determined to cross the bit ofmoor to the high ground overlooking the loch. It was the slopingbase of one of the great peaks and purple with heather. Itlooked the best point for a full sweep of the sea and the coast.I jumped the hedge and set out across the moor to the highground.There was no path through the gorse, but when I reached theheather where the foot of the mountain peak descended into theloch there was a sort of newly broken trail. The heather washigh and dense and I followed the trail onto the high groundoverlooking the sweep of the coast.The loch was dappled with sun. The air was like wine. Themountains above the moor and the heather were colored like anOriental carpet. I was full of the joy of life and swung into animmense stride, when suddenly a voice stopped me."My lad," it said, "which one of the Ten Commandments is it themost dangerous to break?"Before me, at the end of the trail, seated on the ground, was abig Highlander. He was knitting a woolen stocking and hisneedles were clicking like an instrument. I was taken off myfeet, but I tried to meet him on his ground."Well," I answered, "I suppose it would be the one againstmurder, the sixth.""You suppose wrong," he replied. "It will be the first. You willread in the Book how Jehovah set aside the sixth. Aye, my lad,He ordered it broken when it pleased Him. But did you ever readthat He set aside the first or that any man escaped who brokeit?"He spoke with the deep rich burr of his race and with a structureof speech that I cannot reproduce here."Did you observe," he added, "the graven images that your unclehas set up? . . . Where is the man the noo?""He is gone to Oban," I said.He sprang up and thrust the stocking and needles into hissporran."To Oban!" He stood a moment in some deep reflection. "Therewill be ships out of Oban." Then he put another question to me:"What did auld Andrew say about it?""That my uncle was gone to Oban," I answered, "and had set notime for his return."He looked at me queerly for a moment, towering above me in thedeep heather."Do you think, my lad, that your uncle could be setting out forheathen parts to learn the witch words for his hell business inthe boathouse?"The suggestion startled me. The thing was not beyond allpossibility.But I felt that I had come to the end of this examination. I wasnot going to be questioned further like a small boy overtaken onthe road I had answered a good many questions and I determined toask one."Who are you?" I said. "And what have you got to do with myuncle's affairs?"He cocked his eye at me, looking down as one looks down at achild."The first of your questions," he said, "you will find out if youcan, and the second you cannot find out if you will." And he wasgone, striding past me in the deep heather."I have some business with your uncle, of a pressing nature," hecalled back. "I will just take a look through Oban, the nightand the morn's morn."I was utterly at sea about the big Highlander. He might be afriend or an enemy of my uncle. But clearly he knew all aboutthe man and the mysterious experiment in which he was engaged.He was keeping the place well within his eye; that was alsoevident. From his seat in the heather the whole place was spreadout below him.And his queer speech fitted with old Andrew's fear. Surely theBuddha was a heathen image and my uncle had set it up. The sternScotch conscience would be outraged and see the Decalogueviolated in its injunctions. This would explain the dread withwhich my uncle's house was regarded and the reason I could findno man to help me on the way to it. But it would not explain myuncle's apprehension.But my adventure on this afternoon did not end with the bigHighlander. I found out something more.I returned along the edge of the loch and approached theboathouse from the waterside.Here the path passed directly along the whole wall of thebuilding. The path was padded with damp sod, and as it happenedI made no sound on it. It was late afternoon, the shadows werebeginning to extend, there was no wind and the whole world wasintensely quiet. Midway of the wall I stopped to listen.The house was not empty. There was some one in it. I could hearhim moving about.It was of no use to try to look in through the wall; every jointand crack of the stones was plastered. I went on.Old Andrew was about setting me some supper. He came over andstood a moment by the window looking at the shadows on the loch.And I tried to take him unaware with a sudden question:"Has my uncle returned from Oban?"But I had no profit of the venture."The master," he said, "is where he went this morning."The strange elements in this affair seemed on the point ofconverging upon some common center. The thing was in the air.Old Andrew voiced it when he went out with his candle."Ah, sir," he said, "it was the fool work of an old man to bringyou into this affair. The master will have his way and he mustmeet what waits for him at the end of it."I saw how he hoped that my visit might interrupt some plan thatmy uncle was about to put into effect, but realized that it wasuseless.Clearly my uncle had not left the place; he had been at work allday in the boathouse. The journey was to account to me for hisdisappearance. I had passed the lie along to the queer sentinelthat sat watching in the heather and I wondered whether I hadsent a friend or an enemy into Oban on an empty mission, andwhether I had fouled or forwarded my uncle's enterprise.I put out the candle and sat down by the window to keep watch,for the boathouse, the loch and the open sea were under the sweepof it. But, alas, Nature overreaches our resolves when we areyoung. It was far into the night when I awoke.A wind was coming up and I think it was the rattle of the windowthat aroused me. There was no moon, but under the open stars theworld was filled with a thin, ghostly light, and the scene belowthe window was blurred a little like an impalpable picture.A low-masted sailing ship lay in the open sea; there was a boatat the edge of the loch, and human figures were coming out of theboathouse with burdens which they were loading into the boat.Almost immediately the boat, manned with rowers, turned about andsilently traversed the crook of the loch on its way to the ship.But certain of the human figures remained. They continuedbetween the boathouse and the beach.And I realized that I had opened my eyes on the loading of aship. The boat was taking off a cargo."Something stored in the boathouse was being transferred to thehold of the sailing ship. The scene was inconceivably unreal.There was no sound but the intermittent puffs of the wind, andthe figures were like phantoms in a sort of lighted mist.Directly as I looked two figures came out of the boathouse andalong the path to the drawing-room door under my window. I tookoff my shoes and crept carefully out of the room and down thestairway. The door from the hall into the long, low room wasajar. I stood behind it, and looked in through the crack.My uncle was burning letters and papers in the fireplace with acandle, and in the chair beyond him sat the strangest humancreature that I had ever seen in the world.He was a big Oriental with a sodden, brutal face fixed as by somesorcery into an expression of eternal calm. He wore the uniformof an English skipper. It was dirty and sea-stained as thoughpicked up at some sailor's auction. He was speaking to my uncleand his careful precise sentences in the English tongue, comingfrom the creature, seemed thereby to take on added menace."Is it wise, Sahib," he said, "to leave any man behind us in thishouse?""We can do nothing else," replied my uncle.The Oriental continued with the same carefully selected words:"Easily we can do something else, Sahib," he said, "with a bar ofpig securely lashed to the ankles, the sea would receive them.""No, no," replied my uncle, busy with his letters and the candle.The big Oriental did not move."Reflect, Sahib," he went on. "We are entering an immense peril.The thing that will be hunting us has innumerable agencieseverywhere in its service. If it shall discover that we havefalsified its symbols, it will search the earth for us. And whatare we, Sahib, against this thing? It does not die, nor wax old,nor grow weary.""The lad knows nothing," replied my uncle, "and old Andrew willkeep silent.""Without trouble, Sahib," the creature continued, "I can put theyoung one beyond all knowledge and the old one beyond all speech.Is it permitted?"My uncle got up from the fireplace, for he had finished with hiswork."No," he said, "let there be an end of it."He turned about, and under the glimmer of the candle I could seethat the man had changed; his big pale face was grim with somedetermined purpose, and there was about him the courage and theauthority of one who, after long wavering, at last hazards adesperate venture. He broke the-glass box and put the Buddhainto his pocket."It is good silver," he said, "and it has served its purpose."The Oriental got softly onto his feet like a great toy of cottonwood. His face remained in its expression of equanimity, and headded no further word of gesture to his argument.My uncle held the door open for him to pass out, and after thathe extinguished the candle and followed, closing the doornoiselessly behind him.The thing was like a scene acted in a playhouse. But itaccomplished what the playhouse fails in. It put the fear ofdeath into one who watched it. To me in the dark hall, lookingthrough the crack of the door, the placid Oriental in his Englishuniform, and with his precise words like an Oxford don, wassurely the most devilish agency that ever urged the murder ofinnocent men on an accomplice.The wind was continuing to rise and the mist now covered the lochand the open sea. It was of no use to stand before the window,for the world was blotted out. I was cold and I lay down on thebed and wrapped the covers around me. It seemed only a momentlater when old Andrew's hand was on me, and his thin voice cryingin the room."Will you sleep, sir, and God's creatures going to their death!"He ran, whimpering in his thin old voice, down the stair, and Ifollowed him out of the house into the garden.It was midmorning. A man was standing before the door, his handsbehind him, looking out at the sea. In his long trousers andbowler hat I did not at once recognize him for the Highlander ofmy yesterday's adventure.The coast was in the tail of a storm. The wind boomed, as thoughpuffed by a bellows, driving in gusts of mist.The ship I had seen in the night was hanging in the sea justbeyond the crook of the loch. It fluttered like a snared bird.One could see the crew trying every device of sail and tacking,but with all their desperate ingenuities the ship merely hungthere shivering like a stricken creature.It was a fearful thing to look at. Now the mist coveredeverything and then for a moment the wind swept it out, and allthe time, the silent, deadly struggle went on between the trappedship and the sea running in among the needles of the loch. Idon't think any of us spoke except the Highlander once in commentto himself."It's Ram Chad's tramp . . . . So that's the craft the man wasdepending on!"Then the mist shut down. When it lifted, the doom of the shipwas written. It was moving slowly into the deadly maw of theloch.Again the mist shut down and, when again the wind swept it out,the ship had vanished.There was the open sea and the long swells and the murderouscurrent boiling around the sharp points of the needles; but therewas no ship nor any human soul of the crew. Old Andrew screamedlike a woman at the sight."The ship!" he cried. "Where is the ship and the master?"The thing was so swift and awful that I spoke myself."My God!" I said. "How quickly the thing they feared destroyedthem!"The big Highlander came over where I stood. The burr of hisspeech and its sacred imagery were gone with his change of dress."No," he said, "they escaped the thing they feared . . . . Whatdo you think it was?""I don't know," I answered. "The creature in the English uniformsaid that it did not die, nor wad old, nor grow weary.""Ram Chad was right," replied the Highlander. "The Britishgovernment neither dies, ages, nor tires out. Do you realizewhat your uncle was doing here?""Molding images of Buddha," I said."Molding Indian rupees," he retorted."The Buddha business was a blind . . . . I'm Sir Henry Marquis,Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard .. . . We got track of him in India."Then he added:"There's a hundred thousand sterling in false coin at the, bottomof the loch yonder!"
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