16

Barbara called me on the morning of the harvest festival and I was enormously cheered up to hear the sound of her voice.

Kitty's death had hung over me like a pall of heavy cloud and the last couple of nights had been less than good. I had woken up from dark and frightening dreams every night. My writing had gone right out of the window.

'Hi Barbara,' I said, trying to stifle a yawn, and still muggy and shaky from lack of proper sleep. 'What time is it?'

'Oh, I hope I didn't wake you up. It's past ten o'clock.'

'No. Yes, well you did. But I should be up by now anyway,' I told her.

'I just thought you'd want to come to the festival with us today. It's been years since I've been to one and I thought Paddy would love it.'

'So would I. I was going to ask the two of you anyway,' I said. 'She'll stuff her face and be sick all over the place, but every kid has to go through it every summer anyway.'

'You better believe it,' Barbara said. I could hear the start of a laugh in her voice. What a nice way to be woken up from bad dreams.

'Right, I'll come up and collect you, if you like, and we can stroll down. About three?'

'Why not make it for lunch?'

'Sounds even better. I haven't tasted woman's cooking for months.'

'Well mine isn't that great, but I can rustle up a salad.'

'Cheat.'

'Suit yourself, greedy guts. Come up at one.'

I told her I'd be there. The day took on a slightly brighter aspect, and for once I managed to slip out from under that cloud.

This was one harvest festival I was going to really try to enjoy.

On the way up to Upper Arden, I dropped in at Jimmy Allison's place and found him looking better than he had the other day in the cemetery. He was planning, he said, to drop in at the Chandler with Donald and old Duncan Bennett for a few light refreshments before the festivities.

'Just to get in the mood,' he said. 'It's become a tradition, don't you know?'

'Yes, every night, I reckon,' I said.

'Well, when you get to our age, you take what fun you can get whenever you can. Anyway, it's good to be up and about again. That was a bugger of a bug.'

Jimmy paused for a bit, lost in thought, then he seemed to jerk back to the present. 'Anyway, did you read that stuff I put in the box?'

'I did.'

He looked at me, checking to see if I was bull-shitting him. 'I did, honest. From start to finish,' I said, and he nodded conceding that I might have.

'It's a remarkable history. Tell me, Jimmy. Have you ever heard of a Cu Saeng?'

'Cu Saeng? The beast?'

'Yes, that's the one.'

'Of course. It's an old legend.'

'Where does it come from?'

'Who can say? But it's common to both the Irish and the Scots sagas, which show they go back to the same origin sometime in the past.'

'Do you know what it is?' I asked.

'Sure. It's the spirit of madness. It lives under the ground, or the underworld, take your pick. Probably the god of darkness symbol. Anyway, it's supposed to drive anybody who sees it as mad as a hatter, or turn them into stone. Like the Gorgon, I imagine. Why do you ask?'

'I'll tell you in a minute. Go on,' I urged. 'What else do you know?'

'Well, it's supposed to be the spirit that haunts lonely places, waiting for the unwary. Comes from under the ground, or caves to drag people down into the dark.' He stopped to light his pipe, sucking in the flame that dipped down towards the bowl with every pull, and blowing out a plume of blue. 'Now tell me why you're asking.'

'Kitty MacBeth told me it was a Cu Saeng that caused the Bad Summers.'

Jimmy Allison's eyes flicked up from where they had zeroed in on the glowing bowl of his pipe, and fixed me with a hard stare. He stared so long that the match he was holding burned right up to his fingers, and it was only the heat as the flame scorched his thumb that made him jerk away, dropping the blackened match on to the floor. He jammed his thumb into his mouth alongside the stem of his pipe and sucked on both.

'She told you what?' he asked, his face serious.

'She said that the Cu Saeng awoke every now and again to ravage the place,' I said, and I must confess I felt a little bit foolish, no matter how much I had thought about it over the past week or so, and what conclusions I had reluctantly arrived at.

'And how would that happen?' Jimmy asked.

'She said that sometime in the past, the people here had brought something to life - into the earth, she said - to help them stave off some sort of invasion. But once it had done the job they couldn't send it back again, so they trapped it in the rock and put up walls around it. It's all written on that stone down at Kitty's shack.'

'What rock?'

'Ardmhor.'

'And the walls? What were they?'

'Water and stone, and wood. That's the hawthorn hedge. She said she had to keep re-planting it whenever one of the hawthorns died or got broken. Oh, and there was another wall of bone where they buried men with their heads cut off, just like .... '

'Just like the ones Arthur found,' Jimmy said, very quietly. There was a strange, half-puzzled, half-knowing look on his face.

'Well, what do you think of that?' I said.

'I don't know what to think. Seems a bit far-fetched to me, but I'll tell you, I can't gainsay it. I've seen too many far-fetched things in my time to say yea or nay. I know that the Bad Summer happens every once in a while, and some of them are worse than others. I've never heard of any explanation of them before, except to call it a curse or a bane. Like recurrent bad luck. Real bad luck.'

He stopped off a frown of concentration pulling his brows down over his eyes.

'Could such a thing be true?' I asked.

'Who can say? It's a new one on me. I mean I've gone over all the old records, probably more than anybody has. But I've never heard or read of anybody saying why these things happen. Only that they do, and they pray to God that they don't ever happen again. What about you? What do you think?'

'Well, I've got to confess that I'm beginning to believe that something's wrong. And Kitty shocked me with some of the things she knew about me. She knew she was dying and there was something else. She said that I had something to do with stopping it.'

'Stopping what?'

'The Bad Summers. She said that I almost stopped it before, and that this time I would have to finish the job. The only thing is that I haven't a clue what she meant. I wouldn't know where to begin.'

Jimmy looked very thoughtful as I left. He hadn't said one way or another what he thought of the things I'd told him except to say that it might not matter what had caused the bad times in the past.

'I think she was right about it coming again,' he said. 'And so soon. It's been only twenty years, near as dammit, since the last string of troubles, but I can feel it in my bones again. Who knows, maybe she was right. Maybe it would be better if she was. Anything that can be conjured up should be conjured right back again. That's a lot better than waiting for the curse to strike again and not being able to do a damned thing about it.'

I told Jimmy I'd better get a move on to Barbara's place, and he told me to go on up, dropping the opinion, with a grin, that he thought she was a fine looking woman and just my type. It was as close to a nudge-nudge, wink-wink as he'd ever get, but I got the message that he would give his blessing to any advances I might make on that front.

He saw me to the garden gate, still pulling hard on the big briar pipe, and told me he'd see me in the beer tent later on in the afternoon. Just as I was leaving, he thanked me for reading his stuff.

'Do your think there's a book in it?' he asked. 'Can you use it?'

'Yes and no. There is a book in it. But it's your book. You've done all the work on it and it reads well. There's no need for me to write your book, you lazy old bugger.'

'Less of your cheek, young toe-rag,' Jimmy said, all the time beaming with pleasure that his protege, the one he'd encouraged all the time to get out there and write, had been the one to praise his own work.

'Anyway, I won't have the time. I don't have the gift.'

'Prove me wrong, then. I'll give all the stuff back to you, and you can send it off to a publisher. I gave give you a few names. I bet a case of Glenlivet they snap it up.'

He said he'd think about it and I told him to do more than that. Just as I was leaving, he said it would make a better tale if there really was such a thing as Cu Saeng.

'I didn't think you'd believe it,' I said.

'Oh, I don't say that. You've sort of sprung it on me. I'll toss it around a bit and think it over. What I think doesn't really matter anyway,' he said. 'There's not a damn thing I could do about it.'

As it transpired, there wasn't. But there was something I was supposed to do about it, so I'd been told, except I didn't have the foggiest idea of what, or how, or where, or when.

I had decided, even before my talk with Jimmy, that I would just wait, and watch and see what happened.

One thing was certain, if it turned out to be a whole load of hogwash, nobody was going to be more delighted than me. Then I could get out from under the raincloud and get on with my life, get on with my work and sleep well at nights.

Both Barbara and Paddy met me on the steps at their front door as I climbed down from the jeep, both of them sparkling with excitement. It showed more on Paddy, who had got to the jumping up and down stage.

'She's been driving me crazy since she got up this morning,' Barbara said. 'It's as if she was high on something.'

'And you can't remember being just the same? Shame on you. The mother hen's got a convenient memory.'

'Oh, go on with you,' she said, giving me a light punch on the shoulder. 'I was never as bad as that.'

'Worse, if my memory's right. But don't worry about it. We were all like that.'

'Well, I must say, I've been looking forward to some light relief,' Barbara said. By this time we were at the top of the steps and Paddy was running around my ankles like a frisky pup.

Barbara planted one on my cheek and then I had to bend down for the same treatment from her daughter. When she gave me the required peck, I didn't let her spin away, but instead took her by the waist and swung her up to sit on my hip. I grabbed her free hand and spun her round.

'Can I have the pleasure of this dance, miss?'

'Yessir!' she cried, laughing right in my ear.

'And you're next,' I called to Barbara, looking past her daughter's bouncing pony tail. Barbara did what would have been an elegant curtsey except for the fact that she was wearing a pair of slimline Levis and a halter top under which things were moving in that kind of way that takes your mind of dancing altogether.

She caught my eye and I would have blushed but for the wink she flashed at me, and that overcast feeling suddenly went slip-slidin' away.

Barbara shooed both of us into the kitchen where she'd made a big tossed salad with pepper and celery in a wooden bowl, along with boiled eggs in mayonnaise and a ham cut so thinly you could see through it. I ate more than I should have, but I suddenly found I had an appetite and Barbara didn't seem displeased to see me demolishing it. In between stuffing her mouth with eggs and ham Paddy kept up the usual excited barrage of questions about what would happen at the festival. Her idea was the American dream.

Would Mickey and Donald be there? Did they have majorettes? Would there be pop-corn and candy?

I said there would be something like that, but different. Better, I said. Yes, there would be a band, and a parade and lots of things to do. Paddy still couldn't picture exactly what was going to happen. I think in her mind it was a cross between a rodeo and a fairground, but in any case she knew it was going to be fun and she was getting herself right into the mood for having plenty of it.

After lunch Barbara sent Paddy out to play in the garden while we sat in the living room watching from the bay window over the expanse of lawn that rolled away towards the vegetable garden and the trees beyond.

'She plays in our tree,' Barbara said, 'She told me only yesterday she'd found people's names carved on the bark, and wanted to know whose they were.'

'What did you say?'

'I told her that they were ours. Yours and mine and Colin's, and she said "Golly, they're ancient",'

'They are ancient. From another age. 'Do you remember . . . ?' I said, just at the same time as Barbara said the same thing. I broke off and she laughed and insisted that I go on first.

'All right,' I said. 'Do you remember the day we had the picnic? Down by the stream?'

Barbara frowned a little, obviously trying to picture it, failed and shook her head.

'It was the day the three of us found the .... '

'Mushrooms! Yes. I do remember. And we smoked some concoction that Colin made up. Yes I remember that.'

'I had this dream about a man with a spear, and he stuck it into the ground.'

'Oh yes,' Barbara said. 'You were so convinced it was for real that you started to dig and Colin got really pissed off.'

'Yes he was a bit, but it was true, don't you remember'? I dug and

Colin helped and .... '

'And you found something. I can't remember what it was. A stone or something?'

'Yes. A stone spear-head, just like the one I saw in the dream.'

'I remember now. And the lady in the dream gave me gold flowers for round my neck. Oh, I remember I was so disappointed when I found they were gone. It was like gold, so beautiful.

'Colin dreamed of a black knight with a sword,' I said.

'Did he?' Barbara asked in a small voice, she was still miles away in her memory. Years away, remembering the woman who had given her flowers in her dream on the bank of Strowan's Water.

'I found the stone.'

'What stone?'

'The one I dug up.'

'Really? The same one?'

'I think so.'

'Our treasure! Do you remember? That's what we called it. The buried treasure. You said it was a magic stone that gave us special power, didn't you?'

'No that was Colin's idea. He was always the imaginative one.'

'Poor soul,' she said with compassion. 'He was, wasn't he?'

I remembered something else just as Barbara said that, and I reached into the inside pocket of my light nylon jacket.

'Look at this,' I said, and pulled out the slender golden torc that Kitty MacBeth had bequeathed to me.

'Oh,' Barbara said, evoking yet another memory. 'It's beautiful.'

I reached out to give it to her and she took it. Our fingers brushed lightly, and I felt that delicious little sparkle, the vibes I would have called it in my teen years.

'Is it gold?'

'I don't know, but I'd bet it is.'

'Oh, it's the loveliest thing.'

'You like it?'

'Like it? It's exquisite,' she said, holding up the torc to the light so that the sun sparkled off the golden orbs that finished off the arcs.

'I'd like you to have it,' I said, surprising myself. I hadn't put the torc in my pocket for any reason that I could figure out, and I hadn't intended to come here and give it to Barbara, but all of a sudden, I just did it as if I'd been pushed from behind.

'No, I couldn't Nick,' Barbara said, shaking her head, with her eyes still fixed on the gilded glint. 'It's far too expensive.'

'Well, actually, it's probably never been valued. It was given to me by somebody who doesn't need it any more, so I don't think she'd mind if you had it. No, I don't think she'd mind at all.'

What was it Kitty had said? 'The one-and-onlies?' and she had laughed. 'That was more true than you could have known.'

No, with a brief flash of certainty, I knew that Kitty MacBeth would not mind at all.

'I don't know what to say Nick. It's so gorgeous, I really shouldn't take it.'

Just then Paddy came into the room and leaned over her mother's knee. Her eyes had caught the flashing light from the torc.

She stared at it, with wide, unblinking eyes, as if the reflections had snagged her hypnotically.

'That's pretty,' she said, dreamily. 'Is this a present from Nick? Can I see it?' She reached out a small hand and clasped the circlet and Barbara just let it go. I thought Paddy was going to put it on her head, but she just stared at it, entranced. Then, in one easy movement, she put it up to her neck, pulled apart the two golden balls and slipped it on.

It sat there, gleaming bright.

'Can I have it, Nick?' The question was more like a command.

Not like a little girl's appeal for a plaything. The torc sat perfectly on her neck.

'Paddy, that's not very nice,' Barbara said.

'Can I have it, Nick. It's for me, isn't it?' Paddy said, as if she hadn't heard her mother speak. The sunlight caught off the gold on her neck, beaming it back into my eyes, and for the briefest instant I saw rings of golden light, spiralling outwards on water.

For a slender moment of time I heard the buzzing of summer insects and the clattering of deer-hooves on rock. I smelt the pungent sap of pine.

Then my mind switched to the more recent past, and the words in Kitty MacBeth's letter. Take the torc. It protects.

And for some reason, it just seemed right that Paddy should have it. I don't know now, and didn't know then, what made me think that, but I just nodded my head.

'Yes. It is yours. If your mother says so.'

Barbara scolded me gently for falling for Paddy's plea, but she didn't object.

Later she said: 'It's strange. When Paddy put it around her neck, I suddenly thought of golden flowers.'

The festival was just winding up to full swing when we got down to the field at Duncan Bennett's smallholding. The whole town was there, Upper Arden folk rubbing shoulders with the people of the Milligs, and the Westbay crowd rubbing shoulders with everybody.

Barbara had changed Paddy into a summer frock, which probably wasn't practical and caused a mother-and-daughter feud that died down as quickly as it flared, and the little girl bore the indignity with relatively good grace.

I parked the jeep in the only free slot in the supermarket car-park, and we strolled along the main street towards the sound of the brass band that was belting out an enthusiastic but tuneless jazz number. Barbara was stunning in a white cotton dress and sling-back sandals, and she'd put her hair up in a neat French roll that showed off the clean arch of her neck and did amazing things to my hormones.

She cleaked her arm through mine and Paddy grabbed my hand, swinging it to and fro to match her bouncing step.

The marquee was blue and white, jammed in a corner against the hedge and in the opposing corner, furthest from the main road, the beer tent was a square box of green canvas that seemed to be bulging at the sides. I knew that in there it would be hot and smoky and jostling with bodies and swimming with beer. Ideal for the Arden men on festival day. I thought a beer would go down just fine on a warm afternoon.

Along the edge of the hedgerow, there were stalls with cakes and sweets, home-made jams and butter shortcake. There were little cuddly toys in profusion, baskets and pottery, all for various charities.

When we arrived, the grass was already trampled flat under Arden's feet.

Paddy saw the slide and swings that some of the townsmen had put up under the trees the night before. She slipped her hand out of mine and was off like a rabbit, with a quick wave of her hand.

'She was probably right about wearing her jeans,' I said.

'Don't you start.' Barbara said. 'I had a bad enough time with her.'

I held my hand up in surrender. We strolled into the marquee that was bustling with the women of the WRI and the Round Table and what have you.

The trestle tables were creaking under the weight of the home baking and garden produce, fruit wines and preserves.

Contest was in full swing and, when Barbara met one or two matrons who insisted that she get a guided tour, there was nothing for it but a quick dodge through the flap. With almost one bound I was free of all that.

I headed for the beer tent by way of the playground, where Paddy was in a crowd of squealing and laughing youngsters who zoomed down the slide or soared on the swings. There was a muddy mark on the back of her dress, I noted with some small satisfaction. Most of the other kids were in jeans.

In the beer tent it took my eyes a moment or two to adjust to the gloom and the fumes. It was sweltering in the green half-light that filtered through the canvas, and there was that convivial hubbub of male voices, shouted orders and laughter. This was man's country.

Jimmy Allison and the major with Duncan Bennett and a few of the older guys were sitting in a circle on upturned aluminium beer kegs. I beat my way through the fug and crowded bodies to join them and somebody poured me a lager that was so cold it froze my throat deliciously at the first swallow.

'You'll be wanting a whisky, I fancy,' Donald said, producing his trusty hip-flask from the pocket of his tweed jacket that must have been killing him with the heat.

'No, beer's fine for me.'

Jimmy didn't pass up the opportunity and Donald poured him a fair measure before charging his own glass.

'Slainte,' the islander said, raising his whisky, and we all said cheers and good health.

Jimmy's hands were not so twisted with the arthritis, I noticed, and I thought the summer warmth must be doing him good. I made a mental promise to bully him into seeing a specialist before the winter set in and made them useless. He was in a mellow mood, as indeed we all were. Some more mellow, I'll grant you, than the others who hadn't been drinking since the beer tent flaps opened at noon, but that's the way of it at the festival. Outside, the band screeched enthusiastically and nobody minded nor cared whether it was off-key or out of step.

Behind our group, World War Three, as they were affectionately known in the Chandler, Brigadier Watson and two of his forces friends who apparently joined him every summer for a yachting holiday were arguing in loud, plummy tones, adding their military wah-wah-wah to the conversation. They were drinking pints of dark beer and smoking cigars and having a jolly good time, their old war-horse faces getting rosier as they went.

Most of the farmers from the surrounding area were in the tent, with their caps shoved back on their heads and sticks with worn, knobby handles tucked under their armpits. Along the side, in the shadow where the pegs held the canvas down to the grass, their border collies waited, panting, sides heaving.

At one of the tables, a crowd of young lads were taking turns at arm wrestling, rocking the little trestle back and forth with their effort. Beer cans hissed open, and big John Hollinger, who had run the bar every year as far as I can remember, roared out with robust bonhomie to all and sundry, the sweat beading his brow and his customary bar cloth slung round his neck.

'Right, who's next?' he would bellow. 'No, not you Bert, you're third. Willie? Three pints, right. No, no whisky. You bring your own,' and so it went on.

Somebody choked on his beer in mid laugh and somebody else slapped his back. Somebody stumbled and stood on one of the dog's feet and jumped back when it yelped with a high-pitched squeal of pain and surprise, and the owner cautioned him to watch the bloody dog. One of the arm wrestlers fell down when his elbow slipped in a slick of ale and the whole tent laughed. Everybody was getting juiced up for a real good time.

I stayed for another beer, sitting in that mixed company, just taking in the conversations that were going on all around. Donald challenged me to a clay pigeon shoot. Another of the barrel-sitters professed that if his wife didn't win a prize in the home-baking section then it wasn't worth his while going home tonight. A crony said it would be nothing short of a miracle if he was sober enough to get home tonight, and again everybody laughed.

Once outside I was garrotted by the sunlight, jerking back as I emerged from the gloom into the bright. The field was a riot of noise and colour. From outside, along the main street, I could hear the honking of horns that heralded the arrival of the parade, and as I walked toward the marquee, the big trailer did a wide swing to negotiate the gate and scraped through.

On the back, the harvest queen was done up like a dish of fish, with a bright yellow cloak and a long dress to match.

She had the corn-crown, woven by one of the townswomen from stalks and ears into a delicate, dainty headpiece, and behind her, slightly to the right, dressed in a jacket and a hat made of cornstalks, was the reaper-king, a tall, fair-haired teenager, with his shiny, curved scythe.

All the corn maidens were pretty as a picture in their colourful dresses, and the whole pageant was finished off with dollies and animals, roosters and intricate shapes made of straw. Everybody cheered as the leading trailer made a circuit of the field and then came to a stop in the centre.

Following the leader came a horse-drawn flatloader pulled by two immense Clydesdales, great plodding beasts that were tricked up to a glossy shine, their burnished harnesses gleaming and jangling. Their heads bobbed up and down majestically with every step, showing off their pleated manes. The flatloader was piled high with the harvest gifts, stalks of corn and barley, tied together in the traditional hour-glass shape.

There were barrels of apples and early pears, mounds of potatoes that were so white they must have been dug up that morning. There was a forest of rhubarb from the smallholdings and pots of honey from Duncan Bennett's apiary and the other hives around Arden. There were round, soft cheeses and gallons of buttermilk, but most of all there was the bread. Big humped loaves with golden-brown cracked crusts, square loaves and crescents, cottage loaves salted with flour. You could smell them in the eddying breeze, warm and sweet and mouth watering.

The produce float pulled up behind the pageant and everybody cheered again. In the front trailer, the harvest queen and her escort and their crowd of pretty little backers stepped down for their royal parade around the field, waving and smiling at the applauding crowd.

By this time, I had found Barbara, and Paddy had come running with all the other kids as soon as the horns of the pageant had beckoned. We had a good position at the centre of the field where the queen would give out the bounty of the harvest. I'd been there once when the poor girl had been bowled back in the rush of eager children and had ended up on her backside stuck.

Paddy couldn't see what was going on, so I lifted her on to my shoulders. Barbara gave my arm a brief hug that said thanks, and I got another of those little warm glows you get at such times.

Just when the queen had arrived back at the middle of the field, there was another wave of horn-honking, and the deep growl of an engine.

The crowds parted and up the line came Father Gerry on his Honda, resplendent in his shiny hard-top and black gear. He zoomed past the cheering crowd and hit the ramp at the back of the pageant trailer at such a rate that, when he got up to the loader level, the bike actually leapt into the air, its front wheel spinning.

He stopped dead centre, and with a flick of a thumb he killed the engine. He turned to face the crowd. Great entrance, I thought, watching him standing there, his arms raised high, willing the crowd to silence.

It obeyed him. A hush swept over the farmers and their wives and all the kids.

And in the silence, Paddy, from her vantage point above my head pealed out: 'Look mommy, it's Darth Vader!'

Everybody heard it, even Gerry, who was unlacing his helmet, and a wave of laughter swept through the crowd. It made a mess of Gerry's entrance, but nobody cared. Beside me, Barbara was having a quiet fit of hysterics.

Gerry got the lid off and beamed a big smile down at her.

'Don't I wish, young lady,' he told her, and everybody laughed again.

He was still smiling widely when he lifted his hands up again for silence.

'Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, everybody,' he called. 'Once again, it's our own harvest festival and we're all here to have a good time.'

He paused and looked around.

'But first, let's remember why we're here. To say thanks for the summer, and to say thanks for everything that's grown so well to let us have a festival today.

'So, boys and girls,' he said in his strong, clear voice, 'let's join hands and say thank you.'

Above me, I could hear Paddy clap her hands together, following Gerry's exaggerated gesture of encouragement. Beside me, I noticed a few other children doing the same.

'Dear God, we thank you for making things grow, for making all the nice food we like to eat. We thank you for making the sun shine on our harvest festival and for giving us this wonderful day. Amen.'

'Amen!' piped up shrill voices and adult tones all around.

'Now let's all have some fun!' Gerry yelled, and everybody cheered.

'Who is that'?' Barbara asked.

'My friend, the hot-shot priest,' I told her. 'Father Gerry O'Connor.'

'He's delicious,' she said. 'What a waste.'

'Sorry kid, he's spoken for,' I said, gesturing skywards with my eyes.

She laughed and hugged my arm again, leaning in towards me so that I could feel the softness and warmth of her body.

Paddy asked to be let down and I swung over my head, spinning her so she landed on her feet.

'Can I go and play, now?' she asked, squinting up against the sun. Barbara told her to run along and be careful. As Paddy turned, her mother noticed the muddy patch on her skirt and was about to say something but Paddy slipped through the crowds and was gone.

'Oh, I forgot to tell you,' she said, still holding on to my arm, 'I've got an interview at the Western Infirmary on Monday.'

I told her I was delighted, and asked if she wanted me to drive her up to Glasgow.

'No, I've borrowed my father's car. He doesn't really use it much. I've got used to the fact that the wheel's on the wrong side.'

'Best of luck,' I said. 'I hope you get it.'

'Thanks, me too. I need to be working at something now that Paddy's going to school. I don't want to be cooped up in the house all day.'

I said something phoney and masculine like they'd be crazy not to hire her, but she just smiled and took it as a compliment.

'I wonder if you could do me a favour, though,' she said. 'My father had arranged to go down to London to meet some friends this weekend, so .... '

'So you want me to babysit?'

'Well, yes. If you don't mind.'

'Not at all. I'll come up and pick her up and take her out somewhere, if you like.'

'That would be nice. Really.'

'No problem. She's a great kid. I'll be having a good time,' I said sincerely. Paddy was one of those kids you just took to, although I suppose her strong resemblance to her mother was more than just an added bonus.

'I'll take her along Strowan's Well, and see if the gang hut is still there,' I said, on impulse.

'She'd love that. But don't you tell her about the things we used to do. I want her to grow up to be a lady.'

'Didn't seem to do you any harm,' I said.

Back in the centre of the field, the harvest queen was handing out goodies to the children who surrounded her. Everybody got their little round loaf, and a piece of cake.

Close to the beer tent, the barbecue was warming up nicely. The trench had been filled with coals and over the red heat there was a whole pig turning on a spit that was spun by a brawny young fellow with a painful-looking sunburn. Beside it slowly rolled what looked close to a full side of beef, and there were about two dozen capons going crisp and sizzling over a long hot trench that had been dug parallel to the main fire.

I left Barbara in mid-afternoon to have another vital pint of lager in the tent where I found everybody at that mellow stage of good fellowship and bonhomie. A pint was thrust into my hands and this one was a heaven-sent stream that slaked the back of my throat like a blessing.

Suitably refreshed, I strolled out to find Barbara. I was passing the big square tent when something caught my eye in the narrow space between it and the canvas of the hoopla stall. There was a crowd of men fooling about in the shade there, drinking out of bottles. I was about to pass on by when a flash of white on black drew my attention, and I did a double-take.

There was Colin Blackwood, in amongst the crowd, which immediately struck me as being strange, and just as I looked saw that he was being pushed about by a circle of men.

I started up the narrow canvas alley and saw that Colin was drunk as a lord. He could hardly stand on his feet, and the circle of guys were shoving him about, from one to the other. The poor guy looked sick and drunk and terrified, and he didn't seem to know where he was.

'Look at him,' one of the men said. 'He's as drunk as a skunk.'

'Here, Badger,' another one said, and Colin was shoved across the circle. The man pushed at him and Colin staggered backwards and fell in a heap. Everybody laughed.

Colin tried to get up and one of them stuck out the toe of his boot and sent him sprawling into the grass. Just as he had got to a kneeling position, on all fours, he was suddenly sick, and a gout of vomit splashed out and spattered over one of the men's shoes.

'Fuck sake,' the young lout said, jumping back. 'He's puked all over my boots.'

Somebody laughed and the man told him to shut the fuck up.

'Stupid bastard,' he grunted and swung one of his soiled boots forward and got Colin right under the ribs. He let out a whoosh of air that was mingled with a sharp yelp of pain and rolled sideways.

'You can have it back again, fucking idiot,' the man said. It was one of the toughs who'd ganged up on Colin before, that night I'd been floored by a half-brick. Billy Ruine, the mean little gang leader, was there too, smirking on the other side of the circle.

I couldn't hold back any longer.

'What the fuck do you bastards think you're doing?'

I came out from between the tents. All the heads turned.

'Oho, here comes the fuckin' hero,' Billy Ruine sneered. 'You better fuck off before you get it too.'

I was almost speechless with rage.

'You cretins. Look at you. Bloody animals.' They'd obviously got Colin tanked up on their cheap booze.

'Who the fuck do you think you're talking to, big mouth?' Billy Ruine said. 'What you want to do, take the whole lot of us on? Eh, that what you want?'

He stuck his chin out and made a come-on gesture with both of his hands. His team of hoods spread out beside him, their faces flushed with drink, dark with violence. Behind him I could hear Colin snuffling his misery.

'Come on then, wise guy, let's be havin' you.'

I could feel my hands shaking with that burst of adrenalin you get with confrontation.

But I braced my feet and prepared to hit out at the first one that moved. There was no way I could run away from this one, but I was too mad to care. I'd take a few casualties with me.

Billy Ruine took a step forward, with that sly, arrogant look on his face.

'Well, well now,' Donald said, from close by. 'This is a fine wee party we have going on here, do we not?'

Billy Ruine turned and saw Donald standing off to the side. 'Now, is it a private party, I'm wondering,' Donald said in his mild, slow way, 'or can anybody join in?'

'Fuck off, old timer,' Billy said, and one of his troops giggled. 'This is nothing to do with you.'

'Well, if you put one hand on him, then I'll have to make it something to do with me, now,' Donald said. There was no hint of anger or menace in his voice.

Billy turned away from him. 'Ignore that old fool,' he said and ran towards me, swinging his boot up to catch me in the groin. I jumped back and Billy's foot missed. I grabbed it and pulled hard. He went down, but he twisted and came back up again like a cat and swung a roundhouse that clipped would have hurt if I hadn't blocked it.

That was the last swing he got in. An arm lashed out and caught him right on the chin. I turned, surprised, and saw that it was not Donald who had thrown the blow. Monsignor Cronin had his sleeves rolled up. There was a bellow of pain from one of the others. Donald stepped forward, spun and his foot came up in a tight arc and connected with one lout's temple. He went down like a sack.

Donald continued the movement and turned like a ballet dancer and his hands moved like pistons. Smack, smack right and left, and two of the hoods doubled over. The monsignor swept past me and stepped over Billy Ruine who was lying still on the fallen leaves. He caught one of the guys and spun him around on his heels with a blow to the solar plexus, and grabbed another and head-butted him straight on the nose, like a bar-room brawler.

But there was nothing of the streetfighter in the fluid grace with which the two men cut a swathe through the line-up.

It was over in seconds. The two remaining men turned and ran. The rest of them writhed and moaned on the ground under the trees.

Monsignor Cronin rubbed his hands together. He was breathing lightly, and his solemn face looked as placid as ever.

'Silly boys,' he said, shaking his head. He turned to me and raised his finger to his lips: 'Shhh. Not a word to a soul.' I was too surprised to do anything but nod.

Donald helped Colin to his feet and dusted him down. His nose was running and tears had streaked his face. He looked very unsteady.

'Bloody animals,' Donald said. 'That's what they are. Come on, laddie, let's get you away from here.'

We helped Colin into the beer tent and sat him on the grass beside the barrels where he snuffled a bit before falling asleep, lying sprawled and ungainly beside the patient dogs.

'He'll be all right once he sleeps it off,' Jimmy Allison said after I'd told him what happened, or some of it. 'It's a damned shame, picking on that poor soul. You would think they had better things to do with their time.'

'Och, they're no better than pigs,' Donald said loudly and vehemently. 'Animals is what they are, and no mistake. It does them good to get a taste of their own medicine. I'm thinking we were a bit soft on them.'

Donald was still in a fury over what Billy Ruine and his boys had done to Colin. I must say I was enraged as well, but I was still very grateful to Donald - and to the monsignor - for their timely assistance. Grateful and, frankly, amazed. Those two men, well past their prime, had made mincemeat of those young toughs with such ease that if I hadn't seen it I wouldn't have believed it.

If it hadn't been for them, no matter how many casualties I'd have taken, I would have been one of them.

My pulse had slowed by the time they started carving up the barbecue. Tommy Muir, the local butcher, and his son, both big and beefy men, set about with a marvellous deftness.

The beer tent emptied, giving John Hollinger a break, and I saw him strolling off with a plate of beef and pork and potatoes that would have done a bear proud. He was a bear of a man anyway, so it made little difference.

Barbara and Paddy joined Jimmy and Donald and a few others with myself in the shade of a weeping ash, and we had our own banquet, washed down with some white wine and more beer.

I was on my fourth beer of the day - and that was just enough for me - washing down the gargantuan meal, when Duncan Bennett remembered he hadn't got his free harvest loaf. I couldn't have eaten another morsel, but Duncan wandered off to get his fair share, saying he hadn't missed his loaf in all the years and that, he said, was a whole lot of bread. Barbara told Paddy if she ate another thing she'd be sick, and that's just the way I felt too.

She and I sat back against the tree, enjoying the lethargy of a big meal on a hot day. All around the field, families and couples and groups of friends were doing the same thing. It was the festival's equivalent of half time. Paddy fell asleep, and I almost dozed off too, while the murmur of conversation and laughter washed over me.

Later on, when it was beginning to get dark, they lit the huge bonfire with the straw man lashed to the centre pole. The last job of the harvest queen was to put her crown on the straw man's head, then they lit the fire and he was gone in minutes - his and her hour of glory gone in one burst of flame.

Everybody applauded. Father Gerry had got in a spectacular array of fireworks that lit up the night and we watched as Donald passed round his miraculous flask.

Paddy fell asleep, and I took her and Barbara home. It had been a good day.

But, it was the last good day of that summer.