The Silver Darlings (11 page)

This faint panic might in an instant turn to wild fear; but the instant never came, not quite. And the chequered sunlight was everywhere, full of an aromatic warmth, through which the notes of the little birds fell unafraid.

All the same, when at last he saw he was getting near the top, he went on without stopping once, and would have been very tired had he not emerged and gazed down and around upon the whole world.

He saw more houses than ever he had seen before, and one house—one house—seemed familiar and yet strangely small, and he could never have been certain it was his own home if he hadn’t seen black Jean and red Bel, the two milch cows, tethered beyond the house in the rough grass towards the burn. They were small also. Like a discoverer, he was proud and excited, and then had a great longing for the home he could see.

But no one was about the house, neither his mother nor Granny Kirsty, and it looked indeed a dead and deserted house. It terrified him the way it lay. His breast became a conflict of many emotions.

But whatever it was deep down that had possession of him now, he turned and walked away. And he went a little blindly, in great sadness, in pity for himself, and with a terrible longing for his mother that yet had in it something alien and withdrawn.

At that moment he saw the white butterfly, the lovely thing that had lured him from his home.

Like the gay fool it was, it flitted and poised, with the airiest inconsequence, until it settled on a green leaf and flattened its wings. When little Finn sat down, the
up-curled
edge of the leaf hid the butterfly from his view. On hands and knees he went slowly towards the leaf through the coarse old grass. He did not raise his head or rush the last yard. He had had his lesson more than once. From the grass he slowly lifted his right hand to the neàr edge of the leaf and then pounced, bringing the leaf and himself
headlong
into the grass, but with a wild fluttering under his palm, a mad flickering and tickling. He did not let go. He crushed, he crushed, and felt the butterfly break. Instantly he drew back his hand. His palm was covered with silvery dust. On the broken leaf the butterfly lay dead.

He wiped his palm against his breast and looked around. Guilt was glittering in his eyes and congested in his face. He got up and went away, slowly at first, but then with steps that broke into a run. When he fell he gave a squawk, got up at once, and with a backward glance ran on. When he was out of sight of the spot he stopped. He had killed the butterfly. A smile struggled to come into his face; his eyes kept glancing brilliantly. He performed small acts of bravado, stamping down a bracken, kicking the grass. His mind was in a mounting tumult. He trod on his familiar prickly leaf and the tumult broke. Curled up in the grass, he wept and sobbed wildly, drenchingly, until he was
completely
exhausted.

No-one came to him. He was all alone in the world. As he went slowly on, he saw a house up the slope to his left. He bore away, and when the collie dog barked from the gable-end he crouched under an overhanging bank peering round now and then at the dog. A woman came out and asked the collie what it was barking at, as if she were expecting someone. “You old fool,” she said to the collie, and went away. The dog sniffed the corner of the low wall in front of the house, scraped the ground, and growled; then turned after the woman.

Some time after that he found himself on a small green field, with a hill in front and immense ruined walls running down from it. For the first time his loneliness came upon him in a great fear. He was so little that he could not run away and stood exposed in the centre of all the light in the world. As he tried to walk out of that field he felt great weights on his knees, but he got out of it, away from the walls, and round the corner of the hill. Here were high rocks with massive boulders at their feet shutting off the upland on his left hand. In front, a rolling field was
cultivated
. He thought first of going down one of the rigs, but he held to the base of the hill on his right, for there were no walls on this side, until he saw the river. His tiredness was now so heavy upon him that he began to whimper at sight of the river and could not go any farther. The
whimpering
filled all his mind so that he had not to think any more of what was going to happen to him. He lay down on his right side, pulled his knees up, and hid his face with his arms and hands, whimpering as into his mother’s bosom in the moment before sleep overtakes. The earth’s bosom was warm with the sun and soon little Finn was sound asleep.

The sun woke him in its own time, and after a first bodily stirring his eyes opened and he remained dead still. Then his eyes roamed in slow wonder, widened with fear. For one terrible moment he was lost in the abyss of
Nowhere
, in a nightmare of sunlight and strange appearances. Vividly intense, it yet passed in an instant, and the world of memory stood in its place.

He got to his feet and saw a man down by the river. For several seconds he could not move because he knew it was Roddie, and Roddie had stopped.

Finn turned to go back along the base of the hill. Roddie called, “Is that you, Finn?”

Finn did not answer, but kept on steadily. “Here, Finn!” Finn did not turn round, and when he knew that Roddie was coming after him he began to run.

Roddie very soon overtook him, but whenever he caught
him Firm began to struggle violently, saying, “Let me go! Let me go!”

“But Finn, Finn, my little hero, where is it you’re going?”

“Let me be!” and he twisted so fiercely that Roddie had to let him down lest he rupture himself.

Crouched at Roddie’s feet, face to the grass, he refused to answer any questions.

“Well, I don’t think that’s a nice way to treat a fellow,” said Roddie, sitting down beside him. “Anyway, aren’t you coming back home?”

“No.”

“Oh,” said Roddie, “I didn’t know you were going away. But you haven’t got anything with you. You can’t go away without taking your packet of bread and milk, A man must do that or he can’t go at all. I’m going off to
Helmsdale
to-morrow morning and I’m going home now for my packet of bread and milk. You wouldn’t like to go to Helmsdale, would you? That’s a long way off, if you like; over the sea, beyond the mountains, across the Ord. I have been getting my boat ready. You can see the spots of tar on my hands, if you look. Look!”

Finn turned his face just far enough to see the splotches of tar on Roddie’s fingers and palms.

Shortly after that Finn was walking with his hand in Roddie’s. Roddie had promised to take him in his boat, saying Finn would be a great help to him, especially if he was a little older.

But when they came to the place where the two burns met and Finn realized he was drawing near home, he hung back upon Roddie’s hand. Roddie talked persuasively, but Finn tugged strongly.

“Look!” said Roddie. “Look! there’s ‘God’s fool’ watching you.”

Finn saw the butterfly and stared. His body went all stiff.

“Did you never see one before?” asked Roddie. “There’s
often one or two of them about here. If you come with me——”

“No!” screamed Finn. “No!”

Roddie, squatting, put his hands round him, but Finn, losing his head in his violence, beat Roddie in the face, screaming wildly.

“Tut, tut, tut,” said Roddie, throwing back his face, “what a fighter you are! Surely you are not frightened of a little thing like God’s fool. God’s fool would never hurt anyone.”

“No,” screamed Finn, “not God’s fool, it’s—it’s grey fool.” And he stamped the ground and again blindly
attacked
Roddie.

Roddie wondered for a moment, for though the real name of the butterfly was God’s fool (
amadan-De
),
and though it was also called grey fool (
amadan-leitb
),
still the distinction should merely have interested little Finn, and certainly not have produced this frenzy. Then his eyes were arrested, and he said to Finn, “Hsh, here’s someone
coming
.”

But the thought of anyone’s coming only made Finn worse, and he screamed louder than ever, refusing even to look, for an intimacy in the hush of Roddie’s voice
communicated
the awful fear that the person coming was his mother.

Catrine stopped, her hand to her heart in the
characteristic
gesture, then she came running. She never looked at Roddie, her deep-brown eyes round and wild, her face pale, as if she had been a long time with ghosts. She snatched up little Finn, one arm under his damp kilt and one round his shoulders, pressing him against her breast. He struggled, but his struggles had no meaning, no outlet. “My darling, my own one,” she murmured passionately, and put about him in no time such a smothering atmosphere of love and endearment, that his struggles grew tired, and even his weeping fell away into snorts and hiccoughs. But he could hardly afford to give up this tremulous weeping even if he
had been able (which indeed he wasn’t), because all else was lost to him except the knowledge that his mother should have been angry and spanked him, and instead here she was loving him. But at any moment she might
remember
and change. To be spanked before Roddie was now a terror beyond all others. Thus his position was very
complicated
and pitiful, and its sad desperation broke in his throat.

Roddie looked on with his detached smile, thoughtfully, until Catrine suddenly faced him and asked, “Where did you find him?”

“Oh, we were just down the road a bit,” he said, nodding backwards with his head. “Can’t Finn and I have a walk together if we like?”

But she was far beyond humour. “Surely,” she gasped, “you hadn’t him at the shore?”

“Not quite, perhaps. But, you see, Finn and I have arranged to sail together, so, you see——” He stopped, before her expression of horror and fear.

“You wouldn’t dare!” she gulped, her breathing
beginning
to come rapidly again.

“Well, all right. I sort of promised, because—well, never mind.” He smoothed a splotch of dry tar with the ball of a thumb, regarding it with his head slightly tilted.

“Where was he?”

He met her eyes. “As a matter of fact, I found him taking a rest in the House of Peace.”

She stared at him until she saw that what he said was true. Then a swift change came over her face, softening it in a wild glancing way, and immediately she turned and walked hurriedly off, though even in that moment he had seen the glisten of reaction.

Yet Catrine did not break down, did not even weep, though the tears ran down her face, and wen she got into a hidden nook she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand before sitting and taking Finn on her lap. Her shoulder shook two moss-yellow bees out of a purple foxglove, but
she hardly heard them. She gave Finn a little secret hug against her breast, and then, lowering her head, said softly, “Tell Mama where you went?”

He would not answer, but buried his face where it had been a moment before. However, in a short time she got him to mutter: “I was chasing God’s fool.”

“What’s that? Who said God’s fool?”

“Roddie. It’s not God’s fool, is it? It’s grey fool? Isn’t it, Mama?” His voice broke, threatening hysteric sobs again.

“Yes, yes. It’s grey fool. Roddie had no right to say God’s fool. That’s an old name—and it’s a sin to use God’s name. It’s grey fool, as Mama told you.”

Feeling comforted, he said, “I saw a little one, a little blue one. It was—it was—lovely. Did—did you ever see a blue one?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“In the strath of Kildonan.”

“Was that when you were a little girl?”

“Yes.”

“Long ago?”

“Long, long ago.”

His eyes opened thoughtfully, in silence.

“Did you chase the butterfly?” she asked.

He moved with confusion and muttered, “Yes.”

“Was it chasing the butterfly that took you away from home?”

He picked at the bodice of her dress. “Yes.”

“Tell Mama,” she whispered.

He tried to raise his eyes but failed. Then he said, “I killed the butterfly,” and smothered his sobbing mouth against her.

Though Catrine might have killed many butterflies to save him a scratch, she found herself without words. She caressed his back, and stared over his head at the
intermingling
of terrors and meanings in life, hidden, but there.
Her lips trembled. The meanings had started to take her son away from her. Already the terrible knowledge of good and evil was in him. He had killed the butterfly.

Coming up in the late evening of the same day from the sea, Roddie decided to call on Catrine. He would hardly have called at such an hour had he not taken some drink.

But the crew had visited the inn for final instructions and farewell, and Mr. Hendry, in his enthusiasm over opening a station in Helmsdale, had taken the inevitable bottle of “special” from its recess.

It was, in truth, a memorable occasion for Dunster
because
now for the first time a local boat was leaving its shores to fish from a distant port.

These last few years the prosperity of Dunster had
greatly
increased. There was hardly a household that did not directly or indirectly make a few pounds out of the summer fishing; and these few pounds, in a simple economy, put the household beyond fear of want. There was an enlivening increase in activity and warmth and life. Out of assurance and hope the natural gaiety and passions of the folk
expanded
.

Roddie had done particularly well—though, for that matter, no better than the three members of his crew. The debt on the boat had been paid off and, if he liked, he could at any moment now buy out the other three shares. Not that he ever thought of doing such a thing. But he saw that the boat was kept ship-shape and in first-class trim and that each member of the crew was responsible for his own nets. Already he was dreaming of a larger boat, for there were three now in Dunster as big as his own.

He had not been anxious to go to Helmsdale, for he knew the home grounds well, and knew in particular when it was no longer possible to make the river-mouth in a heavy sea. The season before last, five boats had been smashed and many nets lost in a sudden storm, and when all hope for the
Morning
Star
had gone news came that Roddie had
sailed her into Cromarty in the wake of a Buckie boat, with every net intact.