A History Maker Read Online Free PDF Page B

hero.”
    â€œI’m moody — a Hamlet type — good for sudden sprints and useless in the long run. I’ll go now.”
    â€œAye, a ride will help ye relax. Arrange one for me.”

    Wat went down to the lawn, showed the larger of the little aunts his bandaged palms and said politely, “Lend me your hands Auntie Jean, these arenae much use.”
    She jumped happily up and trotted beside him through an orchard with beehives under the trees. They entered a stable with a backdoor onto the common on the far side of the deer fence and went through it, collecting saddle, bridle, sugar lumps and whistle from the tackroom. On the common several horses grazed within sight of a water trough.
    â€œI need an experienced old pony,” said Wat,
    â€œSophia will do.”
    He blew three notes on the whistle. A sedate dapple grey with long mane and tail moved nearer without ceasing to crop grass.
    â€œI know where you’re going! I know where you’re going!” shouted Auntie Jean excitedly. Wat threw the saddle onto the pony, offered it sugar and held the head while Jean’s strong little hands slipped on the bridle and tightened buckles on that and the girths. Wat inspected the buckles, set foot in stirrup, thrust most of himself over the pony’s back and with some groaning arrived upright in the saddle.
    â€œI’ll lead you!” shouted Jean skipping about,
    â€œI’ll lead you to all the randy aunties of Craig Douglas!”
    â€œYou willnae,” said Wat, “Give me those.”
    With a pout of annoyance she handed up the reins. He gripped them clumsily with his thumbs and said, “You don’t know where I’mgoing, Jean. Clap her and goodbye.”
    Jean turned the pony to face east and downhill and clapped her rump. Sophia, liking her rider, set off briskly although he turned her uphill and north.
    Â Â Â 
    By easy slopes he headed for Hawkshaw Rig but later turned right into a glen between that and Wardlaw, then crossed a fast-flowing burn and descended into woods behind Craig Douglas house, hoping to enter the grounds unseen. He failed. The backdoor in the deer fence banged open as he neared and four boys ran out, jostling for priority in helping him dismount and stable Sophia.
    â€œIf Jean clyped on me she’s a sleekit wee bitch,” he told them. They said nothing. Leaving the stable for the garden he saw all the Craig Douglas children and adolescents standing to left and right of the path, staring. Even babies in the arms of older sisters were gazing at him in silent wonder. He paused and said, “When I last came here you were a lot noisier.” Nobody spoke.
    â€œHave you no tale for me Annie?” he asked a tall girl with a humorous cast of features. She said faintly, “We’re glad you’ve no come back like our uncles, Wat.”
    He shrugged, went on to the house and founda mother waiting on the veranda. A week before she had been pleasantly plump; now there were dark hollows under her cheekbones and red-rimmed eyes. He said gruffly, “You look twenty years older, Mirren.”
    She said coldly, “You’re the same as ever. Have you come to see your pals?”
    He thought for a moment. The outer walls of the house and most of the inner ones were transparent just now. Only the dark-walled infirmary and the room of the woman he wanted to see allowed no glimpse of their interior. He sighed and nodded.
    Â Â Â 
    And followed the mother inside and across floors where only young women looked straight at him. Grannies, matrons and even a girl suckling an infant ignored him or looked away: this disturbed him far more than the silence of the youngsters outside. He was brought into the infirmary where five big translucent boxes lay, each containing what seemed pink fog with a complicated shadow inside. The mother pressed a stud. The infirmary darkened but the shadows became the well-lit bodies of young,