Consequences Unforeseen

Dunnottar Castle - August 1957

Dunnottar Castle - August 1957

The small fishing boat came ashore on the sands beneath the castle almost exactly where Bill Douglas had first dragged his cousin Janice ashore. On this day the sea was a brilliant deep navy blue and as calm as an inland loch. Not a cloud in the sky and even the seagulls were quiet and drifting leisurely on the surface of the sea. This little beach disturbed so recently by Bill Douglas had since then become once more the secluded, protected and ancient secret of the mysterious Castle.

The boy had been champing at the bit to take his Uncle back there, and when Janice was picked up by an irate Aunt Jenny and Uncle Arthur, the boy wasted zero time in cajoling his tormentor back to the scene of the crime. For that is what the family called it in their anger over the incident.

He had told his Uncle NOTHING of his miraculous ascent to the Castle floor, and he had a wide grin on his face as he leapt overboard and waded up onto the beach.

“C’mon ye big slowcoach” he yelled back over his shoulder, and he continued plodding up the beach towards the big elliptical shaped rock at the base of the cliffs.

John dutifully jumped over the side, stumbled and drenched himself to the skin. Laughing out loud he looked up to retort and give the boy a dose of his own medicine. Problem was – there was no boy to be seen. He had simply vanished off the face of the Earth!

Now John, not one to feel fear very often, felt the first tingle of unease creep up his spine, for there was absolutely nowhere for the boy to be hiding, and unless he had sprouted wings indeed, there was no way for him to have simply vaporized.

Pragmatic and stoic by nature, there was nothing left for him to do but trudge up the beach and take a look at the damn big rock that stood there mocking him in its magnificence and majesty.

He crept towards it sure that the boy would leap out at him with a yell and a slap, but as he got closer, still there was no boy.

As he moved behind the offending obstacle – he had to suck his belly and chest in to squeeze behind the granite – he found nothing but solid cliff face to contemplate.

The unanticipated but somehow familiar double knife hand strikes to his kidneys once more took him completely by surprise and although he did not piss himself on this occasion, he was nonetheless given a fair old fright that his heart seemed to have come up through his throat and into his mouth!

Behind him, standing there with hands on his hips was the wee scoundrel laughing like Hell inside the rock so menacing and invulnerable from the other side.

As the boy grabbed him and his rapidly beating heart returned to normal he began to consider the enormity of what the boy had achieved those short few days ago.

Here was the most finely engineered doorway down into a stairwell going to God alone knew where and he watched as Bill turned and leapt downwards into the darkness shouting once again, C’mon ye old horse, git yer erse in motion and follow me.”

“Lead on McDuff” he mouthed into the abyss and he descended more cautiously than was normal for him into an amazing and incredible cavern beneath the sea.

No rocket scientist by any means, it was now obvious to him that the boy had stumbled upon the solution to a mystery that had haunted Dunnottar for centuries.

The massacre of the English garrison by William Wallace in 1297.

The “vanishing” of the Crown Jewels of Scotland together with the entire complement of castle dwellers at the time in the 16th Century.

These mysteries were now solved as he followed the boy and began to ascend an orderly staircase which surfaced through another wonderfully crafted floor tile right into the vestry of what once had been the Church.

Now his own hair was standing up on the back of his head for he had to wonder how in God’s name the boy had the presence of mind to find and take advantage of this unnatural phenomenon.

Bill Douglas’s words came back to him at that moment – “Its no dyin ah wis afraid o’ Uncle John. Ah wis afraid o’ no seein’ ye fur another thousand years.”

What other mysteries had this boy running through his veins and in his soul? Big John was not sure he wanted to know.

The boy looked up at him with those dark black eyes, smiling with them alone and he said “Ye owe me now ye ken, but ah’ll be letting ye aff” and he ran off before he got the inevitable kick up the backside.