It was even as I thought: the post-cart was
just striking the high-road below, going away from the house and back to
the village, without having left our letters. I went back to the dining-room. Everything apparently was going wrong
this morning: the bread was stale, the milk was not fresh, and the bell
was rung for Buxton. Quite so: neither milkman nor baker had called. From the point of view of folk-lore this was admirable. “There’s another cock-and-bull story called ‘taboo,’” I said. “It means
that nobody will supply you with anything.”

“My dear fellow, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” said Jim,
helping himself to marmalade. I laughed. “You are irritated,” I said, “because you are beginning to be afraid
that there is something in it.”

“Yes, that’s quite true,” he said. “But who could have supposed there
was anything in it? Ah, dash it! there _can’t_ be. A hare is a hare.”

“Except when it is your first cousin,” said I. “Then I shall go out and shoot first cousins by myself,” he said. That, I am glad to say, in the light of what followed, we dissuaded him
from doing, and instead he went off with Madge down the burn. And I, I
may confess, occupied myself the whole morning, ensconced in a thick
piece of scrub on the edge of the steep brae above Achnaleish, in
watching through a field-glass what went on there. One could see as from
a balloon almost: the street with its houses was spread like a map
below. First, then, there was a funeral--the funeral, I suppose, of the mother
of Maclaren, attended, I should say, by the whole village. But after
that there was no dispersal of the folk to their work: it was as if it
was the Sabbath; they hung about the street talking. Now one group would
break up, but it would only go to swell another, and no one went either
to his house or to the fields. Then, shortly before lunch, another idea
occurred to me, and I ran down the hill-side, appearing suddenly in the
street, to put it to the test. Sandie was there, but he turned his back
square on me, as did everybody else, and as I approached any group talk
fell dead. But a certain movement seemed to be going on; where they
stood and talked before, they now moved and were silent. Soon I saw what
that meant. None would remain in the street with me: every man was going
to his house. The end house of the street was clearly the “heavenly shop” we had been
told of yesterday. The door was open and a small child was looking round
it as I approached, for my plan was to go in, order something, and try
to get into conversation. But, while I was still a yard or two off, I
saw through the glass of the door a man inside come quickly up and pull
the child roughly away, banging the door and locking it. I knocked and
rang, but there was no response: only from inside came the crying of the
child. The street which had been so busy and populous was now completely empty;
it might have been the street of some long-deserted place, but that thin
smoke curled here and there above the houses. It was as silent, too, as
the grave, but, for all that, I knew it was watching. From every house,
I felt sure, I was being watched by eyes of mistrust and hate, yet no
sign of living being could I see. There was to me something rather eerie
about this: to know one is watched by invisible eyes is never, I
suppose, quite a comfortable sensation; to know that those eyes are all
hostile does not increase the sense of security. So I just climbed back
up the hill-side again, and from my thicket above the brae again I
peered down. Once more the street was full. Now, all this made me uneasy: the taboo had been started, and--since not
a soul had been near us since Sandie gave the word, whatever it was,
that morning--was in excellent working order. Then what was the purport
of these meetings and colloquies? What else threatened? The afternoon
told me. It was about two o’clock when these meetings finally broke up, and at
once the whole village left the street for the hill-sides, much as if
they were all returning to work. The only odd thing indeed was that no
one remained behind: women and children alike went out, all in little
parties of two and three. Some of these I watched rather idly, for I had
formed the hasty conclusion that they were all going back to their usual
employments, and saw that here a woman and girl were cutting dead
bracken and heather. That was reasonable enough, and I turned my glass
on others. Group after group I examined; all were doing the same thing,
cutting fuel ... fuel. Then vaguely, with a sense of impossibility, a thought flashed across
me; again it flashed, more vividly. This time I left my hiding-place
with considerable alacrity and went to find Jim down by the burn. I told
him exactly what I had seen and what I believed it meant, and I fancy
that his belief in the possibility of folk-lore entering the domain of
practical life was very considerably quickened. In any case, it was not
a quarter of an hour afterwards that the chauffeur and I were going,
precisely as fast as the Napier was able, along the road to Lairg. We
had not told the women what my conjecture was, because we believed that,
making the dispositions we were making, there was no cause for
alarm-sounding. One private signal only existed between Jim within the
house that night and me outside. If my conjecture proved to be correct,
he was to place a light in the window of my room, which I should see
returning after dark from Lairg. My ostensible reason for going was to
get some local fishing-flies. As we flowed--there is no other word for the movement of these big cars
but that--over the road to Lairg, I ran over everything in my mind. I
felt no doubt whatever that all the brushwood and kindling I had seen
being gathered in was to be piled after nightfall round our walls and
set on fire. This certainly would not be done till after dark; indeed,
we both felt sure that it would not be done till it was supposed that we
were all abed. It remained to see whether the police at Lairg agreed
with my conjecture, and it was to ascertain this that I was now flowing
there. I told my story to the chief constable as soon as I got there, omitting
nothing and, I think, exaggerating nothing. His face got graver and
graver as I proceeded. “Yes, sir, you did right to come,” he said. “The folk at Achnaleish are
the dourest and the most savage in all Scotland. You’ll have to give up
this hare-hunting, though, whatever,” he added. He rang up his telephone. “I’ll get five men,” he said, “and I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”

Our plan of campaign was simple. We were to leave the car well out of
sight of Achnaleish, and--supposing the signal was in my window--steal
up from all sides to command the house from every direction. It would
not be difficult to make our way unseen through the plantations that ran
up close to the house, and hidden at their margins we could see whether
the brushwood and heather was piled up round the lodge.