Free Agnes Owens by Agnes Owens

saw the loch looming through the trees. I reached the open space of the shore. I slowed down. The panic was over. The sun switched on again and a speedboat streaking along the horizon was reassuring. I sat on a bit of rock and looked over the water. Now I thought it was a pity there was no one to talk to. But it was even more of a pity I hadn’t brought a half-bottle of something to calm the nerves. Still, I wasn’t used to walking about islands and staring at lochs. I must concentrate on how great it all was. I looked hard at the loch for ten minutes until I had to admit that I was just fed up. I began to get a thirst and it wasn’t for water, so I started moving again.
    I followed the path deeper into the wood fighting through ferns which were as tall as myself. It was getting harder to follow the path and I was beginning to think I would never get out of this jungle when I emerged at last into a clear grassy bit where the trail led upwards again. I could be heading back to the jetty, the escape route to civilisation and the Clansman. Then I spied the top of a building on another path to the left. I thought I might as well investigate this while I was here.
    The building turned out to be merely a hut, neatly boarded up and of no earthly interest, but beyond that was the entrance to a graveyard. It was a very wee graveyard and very old. The gravestones were a dirty dark grey and standing at all angles. A perfect backgroundfor Dracula. I studied one big stone closely and could make out a fancy design with words written underneath, ‘Here Lies the Corpse of Jessie Buchanan’. On another there was a cheerful verse which I managed to decipher after peering at it for five minutes:
    Here Lies Tom,
    His Life was Squandered,
    His Days are Done,
    But Yours are Numbered.
    In the middle of all this creepiness was a wooden seat twisted and gnarled as a corpse itself. I could picture Tom of an evening coming out of his grave and sitting there peacefully with arms folded and legs crossed. So I sat down too. It was strange but I couldn’t hear any birds singing now. The only sound was my breathing and I tried to quieten this down a bit. I sat as still as the vision I had of old Tom because I didn’t think I could move even if I tried. I had the crazy feeling I was part of the seat. Then from the wood there was a crack as if someone or something had stood on a branch while he or it was watching me. I could bear it no longer. I wrenched myself off the seat and ran past the hut down the path then up over the top of the island like a mountain goat. I didn’t stop until I reached the jetty, just in time to be caught by the mailboat returning.
    Once I got my breath back I noticed everybody had loosened up since I last saw them. They gave me broad, forgiving smiles for leaving. I smiled back gratefully because at least they were human, if English. ‘I’ll take the High Road and you’ll take the Low,’ they sang to me with big winks. ‘An’ I’ll be in the pub afore ye,’ I rendered back as quick as a flash. This caused a laugh all round. The big fella still stood apart looking at me calmly as if he had planned it all. Anyway all this did not matter because the boat was chugging towards the mainland and the Clansman.
    *  *  *
    Beneath the plastic beams and cross swords of the Clansman I downed my beer in one gulp. In the bar there was only myself, the barman and a tweedy type in the corner, of no consequence. The barman wasn’t much cop either. Pointedly he wiped a spot of beer on the counter, spilled from my glass. ‘Lively,’ I thought. Then I became aware of a looming presence behind me. I turned to encounter the gentle blue eyes of the big fella.
    â€˜Could you tell me, pleaze,’ he asked in the exact English of the educated foreigner, ‘how I ask for some beer and spirits?’
    â€˜Sure. Ye jist say a hauf an’ a