much? What’s with the convent?’
‘I never
said
I was going into a convent. I said I was going where there weren’t any
men.’’
‘And where’s that?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of an island called Braesay?’
But there she was wrong. ‘I have. It’s one of the most beautiful islands in the Hebrides. But you can’t get on to it. It belongs to a crusty old —’
‘My father,’ said Kirstie. ‘He doesn’t like people all that much.’
I was silent, thinking of Braesay with its grey seals, its white-fringed foreshore, its fabled, bird-hung cliffs…
‘My father’s getting old and I’m the only child. I wanted to learn about agriculture so that I could go on running it after he couldn’t. There’s an old shepherd, a couple of crofters on the North Shore… You can’t just sell up and turn people out.’
‘Look,’ I lied, ‘this diploma’s just a load of rubbish. All you have to do is marry some nice, competent man and —’
‘But I’ve tried and tried! You’ve no idea how I’ve carried on. And I almost had Vernon Hartleypool. He didn’t exactly send me, but he was absolutely fantastic about oat smut and rape seed and things. He even knew about digested
sludge
. And then he turned me down because of his
appendix
?
‘His appendix?’
‘Well, on Braesay we have to put up flares for a doctor and his appendix grumbles.’
She sighed and a despairing silence fell. After a while her hand, without exactly creeping into mine, somehow indicated that it was
there
. I picked it up, turned it over, passed my thumb to and fro along her wrist. It was not as if I didn’t see what that worm had been on about, it was that I didn’t
want
to.
‘What do you do up there, say, when the seal population builds up and begins to interfere with the fishing?’
Her green and yellow eyes lit up.
‘Well, I put the pups in a boat and the mothers swim after us and we take them away to another island.’
‘I thought it might be something like that,’ I said heavily. ‘I just thought it might.’
Six weeks later at the beginning of the spring term, we received notice that our Charter had come through. Peckham was triumphant, but like all men who have battled through and won, he found that victory brought problems.
There was, for example, the sudden, curious decimation of his staff. Davies, who was twenty-six, said he felt he was getting too old for experimental work and left to join his brother on a hill farm in Wales. Blackwater accepted an offer from a firm of strawberry growers, and it was generally understood that I had been called away to do Nature Conservancy work in the Hebrides.
But in a way it was Sir Henry’s letter that disconcerted Peckham most. Sir Henry found himself compelled to decline the flattering offer to be Torcastle’s first Chancellor. He had, he said, long harboured a great desire to retire from the world and end his days in prayer and meditation, but had forced himself to remain at his post in order to foster those values — respect for life, conservation of the environment and so on – without which mankind was doomed to perish. A recent encounter with one of Peckham’s own students, however, had shown him how completely the youth of today could be trusted to carry on just these ideals. He was accordingly leaving to join the ashram of Shri Ramananda in Jaipur and wished the new university every success.
‘Must have been Vernon Hartleypool, I suppose,’ said Peckham, puzzled. ‘He had quite a long chat with him, I know.’
But it is of Pringle that I think, always, when I remember my last days at Torcastle. Pringle the survivor, crouched over his tank, shielding something with his hand.
‘I want you to understand, James,’ he is saying, ‘that this is a
happy
beetroot. A very happy beetroot indeed!’
A Rose in Amazonia
She had not expected it to be so beautiful.
In Vienna, in her luxurious villa in Schonbrunn, she had read about the
‘I never
said
I was going into a convent. I said I was going where there weren’t any
men.’’
‘And where’s that?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of an island called Braesay?’
But there she was wrong. ‘I have. It’s one of the most beautiful islands in the Hebrides. But you can’t get on to it. It belongs to a crusty old —’
‘My father,’ said Kirstie. ‘He doesn’t like people all that much.’
I was silent, thinking of Braesay with its grey seals, its white-fringed foreshore, its fabled, bird-hung cliffs…
‘My father’s getting old and I’m the only child. I wanted to learn about agriculture so that I could go on running it after he couldn’t. There’s an old shepherd, a couple of crofters on the North Shore… You can’t just sell up and turn people out.’
‘Look,’ I lied, ‘this diploma’s just a load of rubbish. All you have to do is marry some nice, competent man and —’
‘But I’ve tried and tried! You’ve no idea how I’ve carried on. And I almost had Vernon Hartleypool. He didn’t exactly send me, but he was absolutely fantastic about oat smut and rape seed and things. He even knew about digested
sludge
. And then he turned me down because of his
appendix
?
‘His appendix?’
‘Well, on Braesay we have to put up flares for a doctor and his appendix grumbles.’
She sighed and a despairing silence fell. After a while her hand, without exactly creeping into mine, somehow indicated that it was
there
. I picked it up, turned it over, passed my thumb to and fro along her wrist. It was not as if I didn’t see what that worm had been on about, it was that I didn’t
want
to.
‘What do you do up there, say, when the seal population builds up and begins to interfere with the fishing?’
Her green and yellow eyes lit up.
‘Well, I put the pups in a boat and the mothers swim after us and we take them away to another island.’
‘I thought it might be something like that,’ I said heavily. ‘I just thought it might.’
Six weeks later at the beginning of the spring term, we received notice that our Charter had come through. Peckham was triumphant, but like all men who have battled through and won, he found that victory brought problems.
There was, for example, the sudden, curious decimation of his staff. Davies, who was twenty-six, said he felt he was getting too old for experimental work and left to join his brother on a hill farm in Wales. Blackwater accepted an offer from a firm of strawberry growers, and it was generally understood that I had been called away to do Nature Conservancy work in the Hebrides.
But in a way it was Sir Henry’s letter that disconcerted Peckham most. Sir Henry found himself compelled to decline the flattering offer to be Torcastle’s first Chancellor. He had, he said, long harboured a great desire to retire from the world and end his days in prayer and meditation, but had forced himself to remain at his post in order to foster those values — respect for life, conservation of the environment and so on – without which mankind was doomed to perish. A recent encounter with one of Peckham’s own students, however, had shown him how completely the youth of today could be trusted to carry on just these ideals. He was accordingly leaving to join the ashram of Shri Ramananda in Jaipur and wished the new university every success.
‘Must have been Vernon Hartleypool, I suppose,’ said Peckham, puzzled. ‘He had quite a long chat with him, I know.’
But it is of Pringle that I think, always, when I remember my last days at Torcastle. Pringle the survivor, crouched over his tank, shielding something with his hand.
‘I want you to understand, James,’ he is saying, ‘that this is a
happy
beetroot. A very happy beetroot indeed!’
A Rose in Amazonia
She had not expected it to be so beautiful.
In Vienna, in her luxurious villa in Schonbrunn, she had read about the
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