Castle Gay - MVK World

there was no sign of life in the lodge. He rang again and yet again, making
the night hideous, while Dougal hammered at the massive ironwork
of the gate.
"They're all dead or drunk," the latter said. "I'm positive there's folk in
the lodge. I saw a bit of a light in the upper window. What for will they
not open?"
Jaikie had abandoned the bell and was peering through the ironwork.
"Dougal," he whispered excitedly, "look here. This gate is not meant to
open. Look what's behind it. It's a barricade. There's two big logs
jammed between the posts. The thing would keep a Tank out. Whoever
is in there is terrified of something."
"There's somebody in the lodge watching us. I'm certain of that. What
do they mean by behaving as if they were besieged? I don't like it, Jaikie.
There's something here we don't understand—and Craw doesn't understand.
How can they expect to defend as big a space as a park? Any active
man could get over the wall."
"Maybe they want to keep out motors… . Well, we needn't waste time
here. That letter has got to be delivered, and there's more roads than the
main road."
"Is there another entrance?"
"Yes. This is the main one, but there's a second lodge a mile beyond
Starr—that's the village—on the Knockraw road. But we needn't worry
about that. We can leave our bicycles, and get into the park at the Callowa
bridge."
They remounted and resumed their course along the highway. One or
two cottages were passed, which showed no sign of life, since the folk of
these parts rise early and go early to bed. But in an open space a light
was visible from a larger house on the slope to the right. Then came a
descent and the noise of a rapid stream.
The bicycles were shoved under a hawthorn bush, and Jaikie
clambered on to the extreme edge of the bridge parapet.
"We can do it," he reported. "A hand traverse for a yard or two and
then a ten-foot drop. There's bracken below, so it will be soft falling."
Five minutes later the two were emerging from a bracken covert on to
the lawn-like turf which fringed the Callowa. The moon was now well
up in the sky, and they could see before them the famous wild park of
Castle Gay. The guide-books relate that in it are both red deer and
fallow-deer, and in one part a few of the ancient Caledonian wild cattle.
But these denizens must have been asleep, for as Jaikie and Dougal followed
the river they saw nothing but an occasional rabbit and a belated
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