‘We’ll walk back across the fields,’ I told my cousin, ‘l’m pretty sure of the way, and the moon’s so splendid it’s a shame not to make the most of it. And former boy-scouts like me don’t get lost.’

Jane looked surprised. ‘It’s two miles from here,’ she warned. ‘Her eyes scanned the pub for the tall young soldier who had been my civil partner for two years. ‘What does Ewan think?’

‘It was his idea,’ I replied. Ewan, ever thoughtful, was returning our empty glasses to the bar ‘to help the staff get off home.’

Charles returned to the table. ‘Ewan and Mark are going to walk back,’ Jane told him.

‘Splendid,’ smiled her husband, ‘It’s just the night for it. Don’t wake us when you come in.’

They rose to go. ‘We’ll leave the door unlocked,’ Jane called over her shoulder as Charles made for the car-park. ‘If you do get lost, just head for the cemetery. No-one could possibly miss that.’

The old Masonic cemetery marked the start of the lane to Charles and Jane’s cottage. On a large flat mound, circled by a ditch and ha-ha, its tall pines and huge, elaborate monuments made it a landmark in the gently rolling landscape lower Teviotdale. Some maintained you could even see it from over the Scots border from England, twelve miles to the south. The next highest point was the cottage itself, only slightly less elevated, and half a mile north across a shallow valley.

Our way there meant crossing a few fields to a back road, thence to the crossroads, and bridge over a disused railway line. From there it was but a hundred or so yards along the old Roman track to the cottage lane. We had several times walked the route in daylight, and were excited at the prospect of the familiar land in the unfamiliar splendour of that full-moonlit night.

The turf rolled like snow before us as, arms round each other’s shoulders, we threaded the hummocks. On either hand, hedgerows like grey walls reared from ribbons of dense black shadow. Trees were still silver fountains. Overhead, the full moon hung in a sky bleached of stars by its radiance.

At the road, I was first to the stile, Ewan lingering behind. ‘Hey, we’ve got company!’ he said with a little laugh.

On a knoll behind us, a cow was standing. In the moonlight we could see her great sad eyes gazing at us with gentle, infinite longing. Behind her stood her little calf, stock still as if petrified.

Ewan made a move towards them but I held his arm. ’Cows can be funny when they’ve got calves” I warned, surprised at his boldness. For all his army machismo, Ewan had never quite lost the town-dweller’s nervousness about large farm animals.

‘Let’s get on to the road then,’ he conceded, clambering over the stile. We glanced back to the field but the cow and calf-had moved out of sight over the knowe. Ewan reached for my hand as we strolled down the lane. Bleached and unreal, the countryside rippled and rolled around us. Day-imprisoned scents poured freely into the night air, and heat trapped in a tall ash tree's bell of foliage bathed us as we passed. The alternate warmth and freshness was exhilarating.

At the crossroads: Ewan sprinted ahead to the signpost. ‘Melrose,’ he announced. ‘I learnt a poem about that place at school. I can remember it:

‘If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,’
‘Go visit it by the pale moonlight;’

I finished the quote for him.

 'For the gay beams of lightsome day’
‘Gild but to flout the ruins grey.’

‘There’s a ruin grey.’  Ewan ran his fingers down my spine to my backside, and pointed with his other hand to a small barn at the far edge of a field. ‘Fancy exploring it?'

We ran over the sward to the barn. Ewan broke free as we approached and dashed ahead. His voice emerged from the blackness within. ‘It’s empty.’

‘What on earth did you expect’ I began, but Ewan cut in with a chuckle ‘Mark, we’ve been followed.’

I joined him in the doorway. The interior was pitch dark, but for a narrow moonbeam falling like a spotlight through a slit high on a gable wall.

It fell on the cow and calf. They stood one behind the other as we had first seen them. The light framed the animals’ heads like a halo, painting silver discs on the shiny surfaces of their eyes, so near in colour to the sky itself.

‘However did they get here?’ Ewan asked.

‘They must have followed us behind the hedge,’ I replied.

‘They were very quiet,’ said Ewan, ‘I didn’t hear a thing.’ I moved towards the animals, but it was Ewan’s turn to urge caution. ‘Don’t disturb them.’ I turned back. The moonbeam now showed empty straw, the cow and calf having withdrawn to the surrounding darkness. As we walked over the field Ewan said, ‘I think they’re Red Polls. I’m sure they’re Red Polls.’

'Moonlight does funny things with colour,' I said, 'But they certainly looked that way.'

'Of course, they could be Lincoln Reds,' went on Ewan, anxious to show a newly acquired knowledge of country matters, 'or Devons or Sussexes or any other red breed of cow.'

I laughed. 'Well we're not in Devon, or Sussex, or Lincolnshire, and there's no such thing as a Teviotdale cow, so I suppose by your logic that must make them Red Polls.'

'Probably,' said Ewan, 'they don't teach you about cattle in the army.'

By now we had reached the old railway cutting, tucked between parallel rows of rank hawthorn. A wraith of mist hung over it, turned luminous and shimmering in the moon's rays.

'The railway's closed, isn't it?' Ewan remarked as we neared the footbridge.

'Oh yes, in 1969,' I said, 'and the track's lifted.'

Ewan perched on the parapet, legs splayed in front of him, and glanced downward over his shoulder. 'Come here!' he ordered. I sauntered over and stood between his thighs, He crossed his ankles behind my heels and wrapped his arms firmly round my waist. 'Look down there Mr Clever-Clogs and tell me what you see.'

'Eh?' I followed his gaze. Below us, twin lines of rail curved, gleaming, through the cutting.

'I was sure it was lifted,' I puzzled, scratching my head, 'It's certainly lifted at Hawick; they've even demolished the viaduct and put a sports centre where the station used to be.'

'Well they've left this bit,' said Ewan cheerfully. 'So much for the local knowledge you never stop bragging about'.

I gazed in confused silence at the shining rails. 'These look used,' I said, half thinking aloud, trying to recall if a preservation society had been formed to rebuild the line. If so, they had got an act together with untypical speed.

Ewan stuck a kiss on my moustache, freed me, and rose to his feet. Something beyond the parapet opposite seemed to catch his eye. He crossed and leaned over. 'Look!’, he exclaimed, 'Our friends are down there – on the track.'

And there the cow and calf stood astride the rails, calf behind its mother as before. They seemed not to have noticed us, but gazed fixedly along the line. 'Do you think we should move them?' Ewan asked, 'They might get run over. Oi!' he shouted, 'Shift, you daft brutes!' Both cow and calf stayed motionless.

‘Right! I’m going to throw a stone and make them move,‘ he declared. ‘No,’ I said, trying to restrain him, but he would not be dissuaded. Together we scoured the path for stones, returning with a handful of pebbles. But the animals had made their usual stealthy retreat.

‘Drat,’ I growled, hurling my stones on to the track, where they landed with a surprisingly soft thud. But Ewan shrugged, saying ‘At least they’re safe.’

In the near distance we could see the slate roof of Charles and Jane’s cottage shining as if floodlit. To our left, the great pines in the Masonic cemetery reared skywards like upraised hands, as if one joyous moment of an ecstatic dance had been frozen in leaf and bark. I put my arm round Ewan’s waist, he responded with his round mine. Slowly we strolled the honeysuckle-rank Roman lane. On its banks, dense spires of foxgloves nodded like nightcaps over a honeyed froth of meadowsweet, whose perfume intoxicated us with its power and splendour.

At the dip by the burn we paused. Ewan moved behind to press against me, gently kissing my neck, the roughness of his bristles giving me a pleasing frisson, and. I slid my hand back to caress the hardening mound in his jeans. Far in the wood’s depths a faint rhythmic clink echoed, the beat of the hydraulic ram pumping water up to the house. ‘It’s the wood’s heartbeat,’ whispered Ewan, ‘It shows the wood is alive.’

Unhurried we ambled up the home stretch to the darkened cottage, pausing at the gate to savour for the last time the moonlit panorama we were leaving.

The countryside stretched white beneath a cloudless black sky. Stars shone at the horizon, but elsewhere were eclipsed by the dazzling moon. Sleeping livestock lay like toy farmyard animals, each trailing moon-shadow across the blanched sward. Down the lane, the Masonic cemetery rose like a sacrificial plinth, its pines and monuments sharp against the backdrop of stars.

The cow and calf stood there. They seemed to gaze straight at us, across the fields and wood and burn. Crowned with the shining moon, girt by Taurus and other shimmering stars, they held state in awesome majesty – zodiac beasts, transfigured, resplendent.

‘Aren’t they magnificent?,’ murmured Ewan, pressing my hand.

'How on earth did they get up there?' I mused, 'That ha-ha's like a sheer cliff face.'

'I hadn't realised cows were so big,' Ewan whispered, 'You know how huge these stones are and she's the same size.'

'Maybe it's a trick of the light' I said. Ewan made as if to reply, but then it started. First a soft moo-ing, then the high call of the calf, then a stronger lowing that swelled to a great bellowing roar. It rolled to us across the valley, it resounded over the fields and woods to the sky's farthest corners. It rang like thunder on the wizard-cloven Eildons and distant Cheviot tops, counterpointed by the calf's shrill keening. Surely it would wake the whole region if not the dead themselves, but nothing stirred – no light appeared in farm or cottage, no window was flung open to the din, no door unhasped to admit the commotion.

At last it subsided, and the beasts stood silent again. We watched for a few minutes longer then, still hand in hand, turned to go inside. I slipped open the unlocked door, and we crept into the stone-flagged kitchen. A dim fire slumbered in the range; a kettle on the hob blended its soft song with the great clock's slow ticks. Quietly, we climbed the stairs and undressed in the moonlight flooding through the skylight. Love came, and sleep followed quickly, like smoke drifting softly down from a fairy train.

Charles had gone out when we rose, but Jane was about and bade us await breakfast, refusing all offers of help.

'How was your trip back?' Deftly she turned the bacon using, I noticed with amusement, an old-fashioned fish-slice. 'You must have been very late – we never heard you.'

'We took our time, it was wonderful in the moonlight.' Ewan said, 'Even I felt romantic, and that's not really my style.'

'I didn't know there was still a railway in that cutting,' I said, 'Surely they took that up years ago?'

'That's right – there isn't and they did,' Jane broke another egg into the sizzling skillet, 'It's been gone – oh – coming up twenty-five or thirty years now. The farmers use it as a cart-track – it saves taking implements on busy roads. But it's very waterlogged, and gets all boggy and rutted.'

Ewan glanced at me. 'But there was a railway there,' he said, 'We both saw it.'

Jane laughed. 'How much did you two have to drink last night?'

'Ewan's right,' I said, 'There was a railway line, we both saw it, and we were not drunk.'

'I expect you saw water shining in the cart-ruts and thought they were rails,' Jane said, 'That's all I can think of. But the railway was gone when we moved here eleven years ago.'

I thought of the soft thud of the stones I'd thrown from the bridge, and wondered. But Ewan was telling Jane about the mysterious cow.

'What do you think of this Jane? We were followed back last night.'

'Followed,' she echoed, alarmed, 'You mean somebody followed you here from the pub?'

'Not somebody. A cow and her calf. They kept appearing every place we went. In the field, in that ruined barn, on the old railway track. We left them up at the cemetery. What a bellowing racket they made – it's a wonder they didn't wake you.'

'Ewan's sure they were Red Polls,' I put in, 'Livestock expert as he thinks he is!'

'Red Polls?' Jane stood frowning, fish-slice in hand. 'I doubt if you'll find a single Red Poll in the whole of Scotland – they're a very rare breed nowadays. The last farmer hereabouts to keep the was old Mr Masterson up at Whinshiel, and that must be all of thirty-five years ago. I know because I've heard Charles's parents talking about him. He was a keen amateur archaeologist – in fact it was him who discovered the Roman altar on the mound where the cemetery is. Apparently there used to be a shrine there, and the soldiers worshipped a bull god and celebrated manly love – sounds more your scene than mine I think. Folks used to laugh and say it must have affected him, the way he loved his cattle; absolutely doted on the brutes. He used to joke that when he was gone, his beasts would come and mourn at his grave, just like Greyfriars Bobby.'

Jane laughed, and put down her fish-slice. 'Once, one of his best breeding cows and her prize bull calf strayed on to the railway and were killed by a train. People say that hastened the old man's death; certainly he died very soon afterwards. He was a Mason, you now, so they buried him up the road. In fact he was the last person to be buried there. The bairns round here scare each other, saying you can sometimes see hoof-prints round his grave.' She smiled. ' But och! You know what nonsense bairns talk!'

Copyright © James Scott 1989 and 2008

[Jim Scott] [A Boy A Book A Story] [Darkness] [Pat from Lancashire] [The Quaker Oats Man] [A Matter of Conscience] [Picnic] [Incident at a Railway Station] [Cauld Comfort Kail] [Moral Uplift] [The Soldier] [Madonna] [Hero of the Revolution] [The Messenger] [Tramlines] [Innocents] [Unlucky Dip]