The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 12

• Предыдущая
• 12/177
• Следующая

her head.

"Why don't you ask Prof Dixon? He is often one of the guns at Quenton

Park. Great chum of Quenton-Harper."

It was ten days before Prof Dixon was ready for her. She borrowed her

mother's Land Rover and drove to Leeds. The Prof folded her in a bear

hug and then took her through to his office for tea.

It was nostalgic of her days as a student to be back in the cluttered

room filled with books and papers and ancient artefacts. Royan told him

about Duraid's murder, and Dixon was shocked and distressed, but she

quickly changed the subject to the slides that she had prepared for the

lecture. He was fascinated by'everything she had to show him.

It was almost time for her to leave before she had an opportunity to

broach the subject of the Quenton Park museum, but he responded

immediately.

"I am amazed that you never visited it while you were a student here.

It's a very impressive collection. The family has been at it for over a

hundred years. As a matter of fact, I am shooting on the estate next

Thursday. I'll have a word with Nicholas. However, the poor chap isn't

up to much at the moment. Last year he suffered a terrible "personal

tragedy. Lost his wife and two little girls in a motor accident on the

MU He shook his head. "Awful business. Nicholas was driving. I think he

blames himself' He walked her out to the Land Rover.

"So we will see you on the twenty-third," he told Royan as they parted.

"I expect that you will have an audience of at least a hundred, and I

have even had a reporter from the Yorkshire Post on to me. They have

heard about your lectures and they want to do an interview with you.

jolly good publicity for the department. You'll do it, of course. Could

you come a couple of hours early to speak to them?"

"Actually I will probably see you before the twenty-third," she told

him. "Mummy and her dog are picking up at Quenton Park on Thursday, and

she has got me a job as a beater for the day."

"I'll keep an eye open for you," he promised, and waved to her as she

pulled away in a cloud of exhaust smoke.

The wind was searing cold out of the north.

The clouds tumbled over each other, heavy 6- and blue and grey, so close

to earth that they brushed the crests of the hills as they hurried ahead

of the gale.

Royan wore three layers of clothing under the old green Barbour jacket

that Georgina had lent her, but still she shivered as they came up over

the brow of the hills in the line of beaters. Her blood had thinned in

the heat of the Nile valley. Two pairs of fisherman's socks were not

enough to save her toes from turning numb.

For this drive, the last of the day, the head keeper had moved Georgina

from her usual position behind the line of guns, where she and Magic

were expected to pick up the crippled birds that came through to them,

into the line of beaters.

Keeping the best for last, they were beating the High Larches. The

keeper needed every man and woman he could get into the line to bring in

the pheasant from the huge piece of ground on top of the hills and to

push them off the brow, out over the valley where the guns waited at

their pegs far below.

It seemed to Royan a supreme piece of illogical behaviour to rear and

nurture the pheasants from chicks I and then, when they were mature, go

to such lengths to make them as difficult to shoot as the keeper could

devise.

However, Georgina had explained to her that the higher and harder to hit

the birds passed over the guns, the more pleased the Sportsmen were, and

the more they were willing to pay for the privilege of firing at them.

"You cannot believe what they will pay for a day's shooting,, Georgina

had told her. "Today will bring in almost 14,000 to the estate. They

will shoot twenty days this season. Work that out and you will see that

the shoot is a major part of the estate's income. Quite apart from the

fun of working the dogs and beating, it gives a lot of us local people a

very useful bit of extra money."

At this stage of the day, Royan was not too certain just how much fun

there was to he had from the job of beating. The walking was difficult

in the thick brambles, and Royan had slipped more than once. There was

mud on her knees and elbows. The ditch ahead of her was half filled with

water and there was a thin skin of ice across the surface. She

approached it gingerly, using her walking-stick to balance herself. She

was tired, for there had already been five drives, all as onerous as

this one. She glanced across at her mother and marvelled at how she

seemed to be enjoying this torture. Georgina strode along happily,

controlling Magic with her whistle and hand signals.

She grinned at Royan now, "Last lap, over." love.  early Royan was

humiliated that her distress had-been so obvious, and she used her stick

to help her vault the muddy ditch. However, she miscalculated the width

and fell short of the far bank. She landed knee-deep in the frozen water

and it poured in over the top of her Wellington boots.

Georgina laughed at her and offered her the end of her Own stick to pull

her out of the glutinous mud. Royan could not hold up the line by

stopping to empty her flooded boots, so she went on, squelching loudly

with each pace.

"Steady on the left! the order from the head keeper was relayed over the

walkie-talkie radio, and the line halted obediently.

The art and skill of the keeper was to flush the birds from the tangled

undergrowth, not in one massed covey, but in a steady trickle that would

pass over the waiting guns in singles and pairs, giving them the chance,

after they had fired two barrels, to take their second gun from the

loader and be ready for the next bird to appear in the sky high above

them. The size of the keeper's tip and his reputation depended on the

way he "showed' the birds to the waiting guns.

During this respite Royan was able to regain her breath, and to look

around her. Through a break in the branches that gave the drive its

name, she could see down into the valley.

There was an open meadow at the foot of the hills, the expanse of smooth

green grass broken up by patches of dirty grey snow from the previous

week's fall. Down this meadow the keeper had set a line of numbered

pegs. At the beginning of the day's sport the guns had drawn lots to

decide the peg number from which each of them would shoot.

Now each man stood "at his allotted peg, with his loader holding his

second gun ready behind him, ready to pass it over when the first gun

was empty. They were all looking up expectantly to the high ground from

which the pheasant would appear.

"Which is Sir Nicholas?" Royan called to her mother, and Georgina

pointed to the far end of the line of guns.

"The tall one," she said, and at that moment the keeper's voice on the

radio ordered, "Gently on the left.

Start tapping again." Obediently the beaters tapped their sticks. There

was no shouting or hallooing in this delicate and strictly controlled

operation.

"Forward slowly. Halt to the flush of birds."

A step at a time the line moved ahead, and in the brambles and bracken

in front of her Royan could hear the stealthy scuffle of a number of

pheasants moving forward, reluctant to take to the air until they were

• Предыдущая
• 12/177
• Следующая