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  Second Sight

  Second Sight

  Neil M. Gunn

  Published by

  Whittles Publishing

  Dunbeath Mill

  Dunbeath,

  Caithness, KW6 6EG,

  Scotland, UK

  www.whittlespublishing.com

  Foreword © 2002 Dairmid Gunn

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,

  in any form or by any means, electronic,

  mechanical, recording or otherwise

  without prior permission of the publishers.

  The publisher acknowledges subsidy from the Scottish Arts Council towards the publication of this volume.

  ISBN 978-1-84995-071-8

  FOREWORD

  The writing career of Neil Gunn, one of Scotland’s greatest and most imaginative authors of the 20th century, spanned thirty years,ending in 1956 with the publication of his so-called ‘spiritual autobiography’, The Atom of Delight.

  The early years of his writing saw his strong association with a Scottish movement in creative writing, which came to be known as the Scottish Renaissance. For him the main significance in the movement lay in the belief that Scotland possessed a national identity of its own, distinct from that of England, and had something to offer the world in terms of its historical and cultural experience. Gunn’s own experience was firmly rooted in the Highlands of Scotland, an area where the vestiges of an ancient Celtic culture were still to be found. His sympathies lay with his own people and their way of life and he was at his most persuasive and strongest as an author when writing about them in the context of both the present and the past. Such books as Morning Tide and Highland River bear witness to this. Through a thoughtful awareness of his own origins, he was able to identify certain values and beliefs that had relevance to contemporary life.

  It seems, therefore, like a departure from the normal when he writes a novel set in a shooting lodge, where the main protagonists are a group of people from England, whose visit to the Highlands centres round the excitement of the hunt in a remote deer forest. Is this novel, Second Sight, written in 1940, really such a ‘departure’ for Gunn?

  With such a setting and such characters, the reader can be excused for thinking that Gunn has abandoned his concern for the Highlands in favour of a deer forest thriller on the lines of John Buchan’s John McNab. The ingredients are certainly there; a shooting lodge party of wealthy English people, a team of Highland stalkers, a legendary stag to be hunted and a background of glen and corrie, shrouded from time to time by impenetrable mist. It is the title Second Sight that hints that this is no ordinary deer forest thriller. This psychic gift, or curse, is a phenomenon that is closely associated with the culture and history of the Highlands. This ability on the part of some people to foresee events introduces in the novel an extra dimension that dominates the plot and influences the ambience in which this exciting story takes place.

  The principal character, Harry Kingsley, is a sympathetic stranger to the Highlands; through mixing with the local community in an easy and pleasant manner, he becomes aware of some of the intricacies of Celtic attitudes and culture. He also becomes aware that one of the stalkers possesses the so-called ‘second sight’ and has foreseen an incident of immediate relevance to the occupants of the lodge. This local prophesy colours all actions and conversations within the story, either directly or indirectly.

  Kingsley’s positive and sensitive approach to the local people is counterbalanced by that of one of his companions at the lodge. Geoffrey Smith, who dislikes and distrusts the local community, despises any belief for which there is no rational explanation. The clash between Kingsley’s tolerant and enquiring attitude and Smith’s intellectual arrogance provides an important motif for this novel of suspense, or ‘inverted thriller’.

  A derivative of Smith’s contempt for belief in ‘second sight’ is an obsession to kill the much vaunted stag, King Brude. Smith’s hunt is tinged with a desire to prove that his rational approach to life is superior to that of a culture impregnated with superstition and ignorance. His approach is gloomily negative. In contrast, Kingsley’s approach is more in accordance with the wonder of a landscape of moor and hill, magically transformed from time to time by sunshine and mist. He also has the advantage of being in love with laird’s daughter, Helen Marway. She too can transform the landscape. ‘For here was Helen Marway, in the bright sun, running with the invisible deer, running beyond men, in the light.’

  Landscape is always important to Gunn and is the backdrop to most of his novels. In Second Sight it virtually assumes the role of one of the protagonists. The atmosphere enveloping the land—be it light and shadow, swift transitions from light to half light, mist, rain, tones and flowing lines—contributes to the dramatic essence of the novel. All the characters are aware of it in one way or another, but Harry Kingsley, in particular, is affected by it. ‘The cone of Benuain was islanded before them to the north-west, and mountain tops and long skerries floated on that white sea as far as the eye could travel. A feeling of the marvel of the first creation came upon Harry in an atmosphere not productive or hectic, but timeless and still. A creation not being created but creating itself from within.’

  The theme of second sight is continually present throughout the novel; after setting the scene for the development of the plot, it lingers on in various guises and is particularly evident in the deeper conversations among the inhabitants of the lodge and their friends. It stimulates a clash between spiritual and material values and brings to mind T. S. Eliot’s concern over the emotional and spiritual sterility of Western man in his great poem, The Waste Land, popular in the 1920s, the period in which the novel Second Sight is set. Despite its Highland setting and the exquisite descriptions of that most beautiful part of Scotland, Second Sight is not the most ‘Highland’ of Gunn’s many novels in terms of writing from the ‘inside’ or ‘within’; it gives, however, a Highland landscape a symbolic significance and sets the perceptive reader off on a hunt for renewed vision.

  DAIRMID GUNN

  Chapter One

  With the lighting of the lamps came a slight uneasiness into the sitting-room of Corbreac Lodge. Upon the hollows and passes of the deer forest, darkness would be settling down, and though there was no need for anxiety, still there was always that odd chance of an accident, of the unforeseen.

  There was, of course, a far greater chance that Harry Kingsley had been led over the hills and far away by the elusive King Brude, whose “wind-blown” antlers were becoming a legend of the forest. Disturbed by an involuntary vision of Harry’s triumph, Geoffrey Smith got up and moved restlessly towards the bookcase. As it was not a vision he wanted to believe in, he tried to ease the stress of the moment by making a jocular reference to Harry’s usual luck.

  Sir John Marway, a tall lean man, with a head of strong dark-grey hair, stood with his back to the fire, smiling at the cannibal trout (12 lb.2 oz.) in the glass case over the door into the hall, for his daughter, Helen, had promptly dropped her book on the couch and accused Geoffrey of being jealous.

  “Well, obviously!” replied Geoffrey. “Wouldn’t you be?”

  “And to confess it, too!”

  “How often have I warned you”, said Geoffrey, “of the importance of keeping at least the mind clean?”

  Helen’s bright hazel eyes opened wide. “But what can you know about the mind? You may know about green germs on little glass slides—but the mind?”

  “Ah, ze mind! ze mind! What a thing it is!”

  “And what a thing it isn’t!” said Helen, who was twenty-one.

  Geoffrey had a hard, loud, but real laugh, for he was a practical
fellow, who could enjoy a practical joke when not directed against himself. Thirty-four years of age, he was tall and straight in build, with a square fair head, light-blue eyes, and the set figure some men have at forty.

  Lady Marway, busy over her work-basket, let the talk go on, for she knew the value of a chance interesting discussion or game sufficiently well, in so remote a spot, not to interrupt it unless she had to. She was a sensible, gracious woman, with hair that would presently be quite white. Many years of her life had been spent in India, where her husband had followed his profession of civil engineer with such admirable purpose and sympathetic understanding of the native mind that he was still consulted on engineering projects in the East.

  Suddenly Marjory Warrington, the fifth person in the room, hushed them to silence. Geoffrey looked at her. He had of late unconsciously developed the habit of looking at her. She was taller and eight years older than Helen, very fair and with a mild expression that suited a figure which, though generous, did not suggest stoutness. Distantly related to Lady Marway, she had not a little of her quiet poise and efficiency.

  Voices outside,the rattle of the gun-room door, and footsteps coming in. Then Harry’s voice: “Never mind the rifle. Wait till I get you a drink.” Followed by the voice of the stalker: “No thank you, sir. I’m all right.” And Harry’s swift: “Wait a minute.” The door from the gun-room opened and Harry appeared.

  His dark hair and eyebrows emphasised the pallor on his face. The pallor might have suggested exhaustion, were it not for the glitter of life, almost excitement, in his eyes. There was ability in the sensitively cut features, and at the moment—perhaps because of something boyish in the suppressed excitement—his slim figure hardly looked its twenty-eight years.

  “Frightfully sorry,” he said to Lady Marway. “We had a tough passage, and there was the usual accident to the flask!” He smiled with a quick humour and turned to the drink cabinet that stood against the back wall near the window, for the Lodge was of modest dimensions and the service in keeping. When he had half-filled a tumbler with neat whisky he went to the door he had left open, saying, “Here you are!” and then, as he raised his eyes, cried sharply, “Alick, wait!” They heard the outside door of the gun-room being shut.

  “Gone! the silly fellow!” Harry came back, closing the door, his face netted with concern. To cover up the concern, he looked humorously at the size of the whisky. “This will do me for the rest of the night, sir.”

  “What happened, Harry?” Lady Marway asked.

  “Angus thought he saw you after King Brude,” said Sir John expectantly.

  “Yes.” Harry smiled. “I say, that Alick is an extremely intelligent fellow. Quiet, but effective. Quiet humour, too. It grows on you. I don’t think I have ever enjoyed a day so much. I’ll never forget it.” And murmuring “Thank you” to his host and hostess, he drank to them.

  “So I presume we must congratulate you?” said Geoffrey.

  “How noble of you, Geoffrey! Only your voice is just a little bit lacking in enthusiasm.”

  “I think I can honestly say that I almost do not grudge King Brude to you,” and Sir John prepared to shake hands.

  “How splendid of you, sir! But alas! I must decline the honour. He still lives.”

  “Not wounded?” Sir John’s concern was sharp.

  “No. But he might have been. That’s where Alick comes in. After climbing to the east corrie on Benuain, we got about two hundred and fifty yards from him. Alick slid the rifle into the heather in front of me. ‘Our only chance,’ he whispered. And then, as I was getting my elbows fixed, he added, ‘Do you think you can do it?’ It meant: Unless you are sure, don’t. And I wasn’t sure.”

  “So you didn’t? How noble of you!” exclaimed Marjory.

  And Sir John, with a touch of mock ceremony, shook his hand. “Now I do congratulate you.”

  “So you didn’t feel equal to it?” said Geoffrey drily.

  “For one thing, I hadn’t the heart to disappoint you, Geoffrey. And for another, while I was still swithering—with my heart going like a clock that has dropped its pendulum—you know the feeling? Alick said: ‘The light is beginning to fail’!”

  “How dramatic!” said Helen.

  “And was it?” Geoffrey asked.

  “How nasty!” said Marjory.

  Geoffrey laughed heartily, for he could not help feeling relieved that Harry had not got King Brude.

  “He’s a good stalker, Alick,” said Sir John thoughtfully.

  “So you had no luck to-day?” Lady Marway got up.

  “Not a single shot.”

  “I thought you said it was the best day ever you had.” She stood smiling.

  “In a way it was. I really can’t tell you how much I enjoyed it. I don’t know what it was about it. The stalking was excellent, exciting. Real artist’s work. But also—somehow—I got in touch with—the environment. You will think it absurd, but I got in touch in a way that I never did before. Direct touch. See it, feel it, smell it.”

  “Commune with it?” suggested Geoffrey.

  “Pretty nearly,” said Harry, frankly. “In fact it became so real, so natural, it was as if——”

  He hesitated, and Helen, who had been following him with fascinated interest, said, “As if scales had come off your eyes.”

  Geoffrey let out a roar of laughter and turned away.

  But Harry, looking at Helen, was not affected by the interruption. “Precisely.” He nodded. “I found I could focus directly and the naturalness of everything was enchanting. I know it sounds nonsense. I can’t really explain it.”

  “Didn’t you also feel like that the day you were fishing with Alick?” Marjory asked Helen. “I’m afraid the child has had a small crush on him ever since,” she explained.

  “I have not,” replied Helen promptly; then, imitating Marjory’s cool, amused manner, “in any case, not to any marked degree.”

  “I don’t want to hurry you, Harry,” said Lady Marway, “but, as you know, dinner is already——”

  “I know. I’m frightfully sorry. I’ll rush.”

  “Well, for our sake, don’t get enchanted in your bath!” called Geoffrey.

  Harry turned and looked at him “Five minutes in your sane, scientific company, Geoffrey, and all enchantment vanishes—poof! Had a good day?”

  “Oh, so-so. Eleven-pointer. Seventeen stone, clean. And the best balance of a head and spread yet. And a ninepointer, over fifteen. That was all.”

  “You glutton! And you, sir?”

  “We followed a nice beast,” said Sir John, “until he lay down. But we couldn’t get near enough. And then they were disturbed.”

  “By Geoffrey?”

  At which point Marjory, who had been watching Harry all along with the closest interest, said to her hostess: “Do you know, Aunt Evelyn, I am quite certain Harry has something on his mind. In addition to enchantment.”

  “Aren’t the others back yet?” Harry asked Lady Marway, ignoring Marjory.

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” repeated Lady Marway, looking at him. “Well, if the loch wasn’t up to much, they were both going on to Dingwall. Joyce wants to see some tweeds.”

  “And see what Greta Garbo looks like in a little country picture-house. She thinks she will look different. Do you?” asked Helen.

  “She might, you know,” Harry replied. “Things can look different.”

  “Why do you ask?” Lady Marway was still looking at him.

  “Oh, nothing.” Harry smiled. “Only, George was doing a flat fifty over the wooden bridge at Clachvor. I got him with the glass.”

  “But that’s his normal pace,” said Helen.

  “Oh, of course.”

  “Come on!” said Marjory. “No side-tracking. Out with it!”

  “With what? I’m off!”

  “Frightened to pull the trigger—for the second time!” Geoffrey gave his short, sharp laugh.

  “No—not exa
ctly frightened,”replied Harry, pausing reluctantly. “And yet——” he gave a chuckle at himself—“there is something. It was so extraordinary. And coming on top of such a day. Perhaps it is no more than that I can hardly resist having one at the scientific mind, personified in Geoffrey.” He looked at Lady Marway. “Perverse of me, isn’t it?”

  “What was it, Harry?” When Helen’s face grew interested, her eyes shone with light. A vivid, virgin face, very alive.

  Geoffrey was now delighted at Harry’s reluctance. “Don’t be shy! We all love the romantic.”

  “He doesn’t want to tell us now!” cried Marjory.

  “And now you have made us all curious,” smiled his hostess.

  “Oh, look here, this is absurd. I apologise. I shan’t be two shakes.” Harry turned for the door.

  “Coward!” called Geoffrey.

  As Harry grasped the knob he appeared to get a shock, as if he had been stung. His head came round slowly. “The knob turned in my hand!” They saw his mind lost in fear. Then swiftly he turned the knob and flung the door open. And faced round again. “No-one!”

  It was so well done—for he was good at these little entertaining surprises—that for the moment he held them. Then Geoffrey laughed. “So it was spooks, was it?”

  “You must tell us now,” said Helen. “You must.”