When I got astride the wall and
peered into the well-like darkness at our feet, and heard the grim
rustling of the wind through the giant pines ahead of me, I would have
given all I possessed to have found myself snug and warm in bed; but
Alec was of a different 'kidney'--he had come prepared for excitement,
and he meant to have it. For some seconds, we both waited on the wall
in breathless silence, and then Alec, with a reckless disregard of
what might be in store for him, gently let himself drop, and I,
fearing more, if anything, than the present danger, to be for ever
after branded as a coward if I held back, timidly followed suit. By a
great stroke of luck we alighted in safety on a soft carpeting of
moss. Not a word was spoken, but, falling on hands and knees, and
guiding ourselves by means of a dark lantern Alec had bought
second-hand from the village blacksmith, we crept on all-fours along a
tiny bramble-covered path, that after innumerable windings eventually
brought us into a broad glade shut in on all sides by lofty trees. Alec prospected the spot first of all to see no keepers were about,
and we then crawled into it, and, approaching the nearest burrows, set
to work at once with our ferrets. Three rabbits were captured in this
fashion, and we were eagerly anticipating the taking of more, when a
sensation of icy coldness suddenly stole over us, and, on looking
round, we perceived, to our utmost consternation, a very tall keeper
standing only a few yards away from us. For once in a way, Alec was
nonplussed, and a deathly silence ensued. It was too dark for us to
see the figure of the keeper very distinctly, and we could only
distinguish a gleaming white face set on a very slight and
perpendicular frame, and a round, glittering something that puzzled us
both exceedingly. Then, a feeling that, perhaps, it was not a keeper
gradually stole over me, and in a paroxysm of ungovernable terror I
caught hold of Alec, who was trembling from head to foot as if he had
the ague. The figure remained absolutely still for about a minute,
during which time neither Alec nor I could move a muscle, and then,
turning round with an abrupt movement, came towards us. "Half-dead with fright, but only too thankful to find that we had now
regained the use of our limbs, we left our spoil and ran for our lives
in the direction of the wall. "We dared not look back, but we knew the figure followed us, for we
heard its footsteps close at our heels; and never to my dying day
shall I forget the sound--rat-tat, tat, rat-tat, tat--for all the
world like the beat of a muffled drum. "How we ever managed to reach the wall I could never tell, but as we
scrambled over it, regardless of man-traps and bruises, and plunged
into the heather on the other side, we heard the weird footsteps
receding in the direction of the castle, and, ere we had reached home,
the rat-tat, tat, rat-tat, tat, had completely died away. "We told no one a word of what had happened, and a few days after,
simultaneously with the death of one of the Airlies, we learned, for
the first time, the story of the Phantom Drummer. "I have little doubt," Mr. Porter added, in conclusion, "that the
figure we took to be a keeper was the prophetic Drummer, for I can
assure you there was no possibility of hoaxers, especially in such
ill-omened guise, anywhere near the Cortachy estate." Poor old Mr. Porter! He did not long survive our _rencontre_. When I
next visited the hotel, some months later, I was genuinely grieved to
hear of his decease. His story had greatly fascinated me, for I love
the solitude of the pines, and have myself from time to time witnessed
many remarkable occult phenomena under the shadow of their lofty
summits. One night, during this second visit of mine to the hotel, the
mood to ramble came upon me, and, unable to resist the seductive
thought of a midnight stroll across the bracken-covered hills, I
borrowed a latchkey, and, armed with a flask of whisky and a thick
stick, plunged into the moonlit night. The keen, heather-scented air
acted like a tonic--I felt younger and stronger than I had felt for
years, and I congratulated myself that my friends would hardly know me
if they saw me now, as I swung along with the resuscitated stride of
twenty years ago. The landscape for miles around stood out with
startling clearness in the moonshine, and I stopped every now and then
to drink in the beauties of the glittering mountain-ranges and silent,
glimmering tarns. Not a soul was about, and I found myself, as I loved
to be, the only human element in the midst of nature. Every now and
then a dark patch fluttered across the shining road, and with a weird
and plaintive cry, a night bird dashed abruptly from hedge to hedge,
and seemingly melted into nothingness. I quitted the main road on the
brow of a low hill, and embarked upon a wild expanse of moor, lavishly
covered with bracken and white heather, intermingled with which were
the silvery surfaces of many a pool of water. For some seconds I stood
still, lost in contemplating the scenery,--its utter abandonment and
grand sense of isolation; and inhaling at the same time long and deep
draughts of the delicious moorland air, unmistakably impregnated now
with breaths of ozone. My eyes wandering to the horizon, I detected,
on the very margin of the moorland, a dense clump of trees, which I
instantly associated with the spinney in my old friend Mr. Porter's
story, and, determining that the renowned spinney should be my goal, I
at once aimed for it, vigorously striking out along the path which I
thought would be most likely to lead to it. Half an hour's brisk
walking brought me to my destination, and I found myself standing
opposite a granite wall which my imagination had no difficulty in
identifying with the wall so well described by Mr. Porter. Removing
the briars and gorse prickles which left little of my stockings whole,
I went up to the wall, and, measuring it with my body, found it was a
good foot taller than I. This would mean rather more climbing than I
had bargained for. But the pines--the grim silence of their slender
frames and gently swaying summits--fascinated me. They spoke of
possibilities few could see or appreciate as I could; possibilities of
a sylvan phantasmagoria enhanced by the soft and mystic radiance of
the moon. An owl hooted, and the rustling of brushwood told me of the
near proximity of some fur-coated burrower in the ground. High above
this animal life, remoter even than the tops of my beloved trees or
the mountain-ranges, etched on the dark firmament, shone multitudinous
stars, even the rings round Saturn being plainly discernible. From the
Milky Way my eyes at length wandered to the pines, and a puff of air
laden with the odour of their resin and decaying brushwood decided me. I took a few preliminary sips of whisky, stretched my rusty limbs,
and, placing one foot in a jagged crevice of the wall, swarmed
painfully up. How slow and how hazardous was the process!