Free Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg

sticking to their feet and ankles. George, who was quite taken by the scene, thought that he had never seen such a picturesque sight in his life. He glanced at the girls again and almost at once looked away. He was much troubled by a sudden physical discomfort, and although he tried to convince himself that he was superior to such baseness he was forced to button his coat to cover up his shame.
    Dick, who had been so eager to point out the girls to his brother, had suddenly coloured and could not concentrate enough on a feather he was twirling between his fingers. George stretched his back with a somewhat tortured look on his face and cleared his throat: ‘Right,’ he said failing to affirm himself. ‘Right, Dick, perhaps we should get going?’ His gaze swivelled back towards the girls and he could not resist commenting: ‘Have you ever seen such fine legs, Dick?’ Dick’s voice sounded thick and distant. ‘Legs?’ he echoed. ‘Oh yes, legs, of course. No I hadn’t noticed, but you are right, they are certainly most excellent specimens of their kind.’ At that moment the two brothers were saved from their exposed shortcomings and further awkwardness by the minister, who called out to them to join him.
    â€˜Rhoderick MacLeod has offered to show us his house.’ The minister did not seem too keen on the prospect of the visit himself. ‘I suggest you leave your good coats outside,’ he added.
    MacLeod was a stout man in his early fifties with dirty blond hair sticking out under a cap of coarse tweed. Although the day was turning out quite warm, he wore a muffler of soiled red cotton wound, roll upon roll, around his neck.
    MacLeod vanished into a nearby hut and MacKenzie stooped to follow him. Dick had already taken off his coat and thrown it on the straw roof of the dwelling. George turned to face the wall as he unbuttoned his coat and removed it as primly as if he had been quite naked underneath. He could feel the girls still watching his back and he stooped quickly to enter the doorway. Just inside the door he faced a dark passageway which led through the thickness of the wall, a passage so low that he had to get down on his hands and knees and crawl as through a tunnel. He was immediately revolted as he put his hand in what seemed to be the putrefied remains of a bird. He heard a cry of appalled warning from Dick who had come across something equally disgusting further inside. George tried to hold his breath against the stink but ended up gulping in the air that he had tried to avoid. The passage ended in the byre, the narrow diameter of which could only just be made out in the faint light. All the manure had not yet been cleared out, and George felt his boots sink into the dung as he waded blindly towards the low tallan which separated the byre from the living area. Dick grabbed hold of his brother’s waistcoat and helped him across the low passage wall. At last George could straighten up. The room in which he found himself was close and airless. A lamp was burning fulmar oil in a corner, and a turf fire was flickering in the fire pit in the middle of the floor. MacLeod grinned proudly as he indicated his few possessions: a couple of tin plates, a wooden chest and a large coil of horsehair rope which hung on the wall. There was no window but for a narrow chimney-gap at one end where the straw thatch met the massive wall. The smoke had impregnated the walls and ceiling, and every now and again a drop of soot fell from the thatch, which still held some humidity from the last rainstorm. Dick was aghast ­– ‘Does an entire family live here? Where do they sleep?’ The minister turned to MacLeod and exchanged a few sentences in Gaelic. ‘Rhoderick says that his first wife died of the strangers’ cold last year, but he is happily remarried to Effie Morrison and they are expecting. His daughter from the first marriage, Kirsty, who is thirteen