I could hear no noise of cattle or horses. If they were not in the steading they should be in the meadows. I gazed every way and saw no beast. I heard nothing but the wind and the river and my tumultuous blood. I reached a fence. Walking alongside it with one hand on the top wire to guide me, I came to a gateway. An iron gate was lying flat on the ground, torn from its hinges. I stepped across it, marking its place lest I required to retreat hastily. I entered the courtyard. The doors of the steading were open. The doorways yawned black in the wall. I went cautiously from one door to another. Some of the doors were gone, others had broken panels and their locks were torn out. The place had the aspect of desolation. I was afraid to strike a match or go inside the byres and stables. It occurred to me again that I had not heard a dog barking. I ventured as far as the kennels. Their iron doors were open, their occupants mute, or gone. I crept back until I came to a cottar house. Its door was shut, but I could see it was not properly closed. It leaned from inside against its frame, without hinges or lock. The window-panes were broken in every window, the garden like our own trampled with many feet; I found potato shaws scattered on the ground amongst a litter of broken glass and charred clothes and broken dishes. A fire had been lighted in a corner of the garden. I found hinges amongst its embers. Bits of painted wood lay half-burnt around. As I went out of that garden a breath of abominable air met me, a stench of decaying flesh such as I had often felt when I passed near the rotting maggot-infested carcass of a deer on the hill in midsummer. The smell came the more abominably upon the night’s sweet air; I felt my gorge rising, I ran with my hand to my mouth until I was near the river. A mouthful of bile spewed itself into my hand against the strength of my clenched jaws.

The sky was lightening in the east. I hurried to be gone before day surprised me in strange country. I carried the stag’s haunches out of the wood and as far as I was able to bring them into the hills. I hid them securely to await my return. The sun came up to lighten my way home obliterating the fears of night. Terry had a fire burning.

‘I thought you’d never come,’ she said. ‘What have you in the bag, Hugh? You didn’t get a stag after all. You’re all blood! Your face is all blood! Hugh! where were you?’

I spilled the bag’s contents on the floor.