Stone of Destiny by Ian Hamilton

Author:Ian Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Birlinn
Published: 2011-01-28T10:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Twenty-four hours earlier we could have called the whole thing off and gone home to live with nothing worse than our private shame at our failure. Up until then, all that had driven us on had been the desire to serve; the same desire which had made me volunteer for the armed forces of the crown as a schoolboy in time of war. Now we had gone further and assumed a responsibility, and once assumed, responsibilities can never quite be shaken off. What we had done had passed from the private to the public, and we had to see the business through to the end. The temptation to run for home was a very real one, and I would never blame anyone who has the sense to run away from anything. I bolt whenever I decently can, but the Stone had to be moved, so we did not bolt. We had to put the Stone somewhere it would never be found. That was our plain duty.

As we drove south, our resolution solidified. We would pick up the Stone and hide it as quickly as possible, since we still feared that the police were looking for the car. We were fortunate to find our way without too much difficulty, and were thus able to dispose of a secret fear that we both held. It would have been irony indeed if we had been unable to locate the hiding place. However, before long we came downhill to the roadhouse, which was alive with Christmas parties. We left it behind us and drove on into the frost and cold, feeling not a bit envious, and, indeed, insufferably smug, because we were living while the party-goers were acting out a charade of festivity because the calendar told them to. When we came to our side road, we slowed down because the lights of a car shone brightly behind us. We wanted no witnesses. When the car passed we pulled up the road and switched our lights off.

It was a frosty night with only a slight threat of mist in the air. The sky was hazy with the lights of 8 million people, and the nearer darkness was more intense by comparison. We prepared the car for the Stone and climbed over the fence with the fear for noise which darkness brings. People whisper at night.

The Stone was exactly where we had left it, and we set about manoeuvring it up the slope to the waiting car. The first tug on it almost broke our hearts. It seemed part of Mother Earth, yet we had moved it before and we could move it again. The grass was slippery, and that did not make the job any easier. At one point the Stone slipped from our hands and tobogganed back down the slope. We could have cried with vexation, and I lay down for a moment forgetful of the cold and wet, tired beyond understanding. Then we attacked it again and somehow got it up over the brow of the hill, down the slope and into the car.

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