The Silver Darlings (25 page)

“That’s grand!” said Finn.

After some talk in the gloom of the kitchen, Roddie lit the rush wick and opened the door of the middle room so that his mother could hear the Bible being read and her husband’s prayer. He prayed for all those in illness and affliction and asked God in His gracious forbearance to lighten the darkness of the heart’s evil and of the plague that had come upon the land. Surely, if God would listen to anyone, he would listen to a grave man like Roddie’s father, thought Finn, quietened by the evening’s devotions.

In the kitchen there was the same kind of boxed-in bed, with scalloped valance along the edges and short curtains in front, as was in Finn’s own house, and when he learned that Roddie and he were to sleep there together, Finn had the feeling that at last he had entered the company of men.

After a time Roddie said, “I think you may as well turn in. You must be pretty tired. I’ll wait for a bit because some of the crew are coming over to discuss a little business.”

“All right,” agreed Finn at once, adding, “the fresh air does make you a bit sleepy.”

“That’s right. You go to sleep,” said Roddie.

But Finn was not in the least sleepy, and he had referred to the fresh air merely to relieve Roddie who, he felt, would naturally rather have him out of the way when
discussing
private business affairs. He turned his back to the kitchen and tried genuinely to go to sleep, but his mind
was clear and active as an overflowing well. There was, too, a fine sensation of clarity in all he saw from his mother’s face to the white-caped figure on the top of the knoll.
Somewhere
between dreaming and waking there was a world that came or went by the flick of an eyelid. Nothing at all to be afraid of, any more than of a real dream in the
daylight
. And one laughed at the most horrid dream in the
daylight
. But this in-between dream was clear as light…. His mind wandered back to Dale. How frightened they had been of the plague!—far more frightened than people like Roddie and himself who were on the spot. If he told Donnie of the figure he had seen on the top of the knoll, Donnie wouldn’t go near the place alone for ten pounds! Things were like that. Odd, when one came to think of it. The great thing was not to be afraid. Whatever took place, folk must think of him like that—as he had always thought of Roddie. The only thing he had ever seen in the daylight that had given him a queer, terrible feeling was the flames going up from David’s house. Angry, blood-red tongues of flame shooting up above the black rolling smoke. You almost had the awful feeling that the bodies of David and Ina were being burned there, though they were both in their graves….

All at once he felt Roddie standing by the bedside, but went on breathing as evenly as he could. Softly Roddie drew the curtains and retired to the fire, leaving Finn so acutely awake that it was an effort to go on breathing. The flickering firelight began to die down and Finn heard soft strokings in the ash. Why on earth was Roddie smooring the fire if he was expecting company? His curiosity
quickened
beyond control, turned his head and shoulders and slowly his whole body without the least sound. Through the narrow slit where the curtains did not quite meet, he saw Roddie on his knees before the fire, not smooring it, but putting it out, extinguishing it, slowly, methodically, ember by red ember. Finn could only stare in astonishment, beyond thought, for no fire was ever put out from one
year’s end to the other. And with good reason, for the only way to light it again would be by first getting a spark from steel and flint to smoulder in burnt cotton and then … but Finn knew this would be so long and laborious a process … Roddie, his body getting darker and darker as the fire
disappeared
, looked like one performing some dreadful,
unimaginable
rite … like one slowly and deliberately
murdering
fire.

Fear now touched Finn, and when the last red ember was smothered and Roddie was taken up into the darkness itself, he heard the beating of his own heart and was held in panic lest it betray his wakefulness.

After a long time Roddie moved towards the door, paused twice as if listening to the sleeping house, and then very quietly went outside.

The night that stretched outside, stretched to—his mother. Finn’s mind now was lost, was imprisoned by the boxed bed, was being smothered like the fire. He put out a hand and separated the curtains—and heard low voices in the night. Then a shuffle of footsteps; and the bodies of men filed into the kitchen.

They spoke in whispers, but he distinguished their voices. Henry and Callum and Rob. All the crew. Clearly they had taken something in with them, for Rob’s whisper asked, “Where’s yours? Ay, now then. Whatever we do we must keep it going. Now!” There came a soft hissing sound, as of one log of wood being rubbed on another. This went on for a long time without a word being spoken. Then Rob’s voice again: “Get your hands on it, Henry. Change!” And for a little time the tempo of the scraping sound increased. Finn was up on one elbow now, and through the widened chink he had left between the curtains could discern the deeper darknesses of the grouped bodies. They were breathing heavily.

That Rob was master of this mysterious midnight
ceremony
did not astonish Finn. His old Granny had been a queer one, and many of the more knowing had held her to
be a witch. Rob, with his solemn dry earnestness had as many stories about balls of fire, and brownies drinking milk, and other queer happenings as would fill a book. He cut his peats or built a turf dyke when the moon was on the wane so that they would dry into firmness. He lived with his mother and sister, and followed Roddie.

“Must be damp,” Callum muttered.

“Hsh! Be quiet!” whispered Rob. “Keep going.”

Except for the soft sawing, there was no sound for a long time; then suddenly upon the darkness there was a spark of fire, so clear and white and momentary that Finn might have doubted his senses, if Rob’s voice had not called in low triumph: “She’s coming!”

At that the rhythm of the scraping increased.

More sparks, obscured by moving dark bodies, and then—flame. A little tongue of flame, dancing flame, whiter than the new moon. Finn could see the congested faces in those new-born wisps of fire, fire paler and brighter than ever he had seen before, dancing in glee like sprites.

The brightness and whiteness seemed a pure miracle and struck the men themselves indeed with awe. All of them, that is, except Rob, who was always matter-of-fact and soon had the gay tongues leaping up inside a ring of
close-standing
black peat. Then he hitched the iron pot to the crook.

“It beats everything!” said Henry. “From the rubbing of two sticks!”

“You need two things,” said Rob practically, “before you can get a third.”

They smiled in a benign humour. 

“I certainly never saw a birth so pure and innocent before,” murmured Callum.

They were in the wonder of mirth beyond laughter. Finn saw the flames dancing on their faces.

“That’s the whole thing,” Rob nodded. “Fire must be put out and created afresh or it, too, grows old and full of
trouble and sin. Did you notice how dark-red, like blood, was the fire over David Sutherland’s house?”

Roddie broke the silence by saying, “My mother’s father used to do it every year. Then they would make two fires outside and drive the cattle between them.”

They all, it seemed, knew something of the same kind, as they sat round the hearth waiting for the kettle to boil. But Rob knew most. He made them listen to the new flames in order to catch the quickness of the flap and the happy eagerness. His dark hair was cut short all over except for the fringe on his brow. When he lifted his eyebrows and looked sideways and downward, as in thought, then
something
special was coming!

Finn listened with the greatest interest to all they had to say, and felt happy at sight of the new fire. The old and unclean had been destroyed. In the new flame was new life.

Finn liked the expression on Callum’s face, too. Callum was twenty-five, with a broad, fair face over broad
shoulders
. Willing and quick, he had plainly put all his force into the rubbing of the wood; and now wonder sat in his eyes ready for any turn of thought.

Often there was a satiric self-possession in Henry’s dark glance, but now it was a gentle, friendly humour. He was three years older than Callum. Roddie was quiet, with the considering smile playing over his face. He was plainly the skipper, who did not subdue the others but, by his very presence, brought out the best that was in them. Their pleasant manhood so touched Finn’s body that he became aware of the crick in his supporting arm and noiselessly lay back.

Presently there was a stir in the kitchen and Finn heard Roddie’s voice, “Health to you, Callum. Health to you, Henry.” A smile on his face, he was whisking a few drops of water on them from the black pot: “Health to you, Rob”. “And health to yourself,” responded Rob, dipping his fingers in the pot and sprinkling Roddie. Roddie carried the pot in his left hand and when he had put health on the
hearth-stone of the house, he approached the bed. Finn closed his eyes tight and when the blessing fell upon him, continued to breathe on. “He’s tired after the long tramp,” murmured Roddie. Finn had a strong desire to stir and yawn and so appear to awake, for the need to be one of them was powerfully upon him, while at the same time he wanted to deny the silly notion that a day on his feet made him tired. But all this was suppressed in the instinct for harmony.

He heard them leave the house and pass down to the byre. The beasts would be sained, too. Finn wondered that the old folk had not heard the goings-on. What would have happened if Roddie’s father had come in?

But here they were, back again. They stood whispering together for a little while, then Rob, Henry, and Callum, in turn took a flaming peat from the fire and quickly left the house. Each would keep his peat alight in the wind of the night until he reached home, where a fireless hearth would be waiting.

Roddie stood still for a long time looking down into the fire, then carefully he smoored the live embers in the ash and the kitchen went dark. Presently he slipped quietly under the clothes so as not to disturb Finn.

In the morning, Roddie had hardly got the fire going when his mother hirpled in on a stick. She was a
medium-sized
woman, and welcomed Finn in a lively, friendly
manner
. Off went Finn for water to the well, and when he came back she had the hearth swept and the peats standing round in willing company. He got a quick glimpse of her pleasure in the fire, and for a moment wondered if she knew what had happened in the night. Roddie had said that her father … Perhaps Roddie and herself had conspired …

It was a bright-blowing morning, and Finn felt happy as they went down by the wood. This time Roddie did not leave him to his mother, and voices as they crossed the water in the burn were companionable. If Kirsty was no better, she couldn’t be said to be worse. Finn felt embarrassed 
in his mother’s company with Roddie present, but when she had gone he turned and waved to her.

The water in the burn was almost quite clear again after the recent spate, and as they walked by the pools, Roddie’s eyes concentrated in the steely way that turned their blue to grey-green. All at once he stood still without a word, then took out his snuff-box and offered it to Finn. “Do you see him?” he asked. “Yes,” said Finn, taking a pinch. As Roddie moved on again he slowly cast his eyes around the braes and along the horizons. Finn did the same. “He’s a big fellow,” whispered Finn. “About eighteen pounds,” replied Roddie. “Clean run on the last of the spate. We’ll get him to-night, you and me.” The thrill in Finn’s heart was a sweet pain. This was the new life, the life of men. His bright eyes rested on the House of Peace. All at once the place was very old inside him, older than peat-smoke, grey and still in the bright morning. “Do you mean in the dark?” he asked Roddie. “Yes,” answered Roddie. “He’ll lie there now in the fallen water.” Then he smiled. “You wonder how it can be done in the dark? Eh?” He was
teasing
Finn now. “What I really want,” he added, “is to send a big slab of the fish to Kirsty. I don’t like this loss of her appetite. And I know she has a relish for it.” “For
salmon
?” “Seamen,” said Roddie, “never care to mention that fish by name.” “Why?” “Why do we do many a thing?” asked Roddie.

A strange world indeed, older than the House of Peace, old as the legendary salmon of knowledge that lay in the pool under the hazel nuts of wisdom, and perhaps older than that, with more mysterious things in it than the mind dreamt of. And how rich the thought of that invisible
complexity
was on a sunny, wind-bright morning! Everything, even the grey stones, with a hidden life! … Not that he completely believed it, but still …!

It was the first time that he had ever visited the seashore with a feeling of complete freedom, and despite his quiet movements he was highly exhilarated. No boats had been
out the previous night for there had been an ugly swell, and there was still a heavy sea running. The boats had been drawn up, the gutting stations were deserted, and
fishermen
were attending to nets and gear and doing odd jobs about their craft.

Finn was particularly interested in Roddie’s new boat, the
Seafoam.
She was five feet longer than the old
Morning
Star.
Rob had stuck to Roddie, and Henry and Callum had come in with a full share of nets. Daun had taken over the
Morning
Star
,
which was still seaworthy, for Roddie had looked after her well; and Don, the other former member of the crew, had gone into partnership in a new boat with his brother David, now dead, and a first cousin.

Finn looked at the name
Seafoam
,
in white against black, under the blue of her gunnel, and could see that this was the largest and finest of all the Dunster fleet. She had, too, some special features, such as sockets for two masts, and a pump. The column of the pump rose into the middle of a thick after-thwart, which had runways for the water to either side. “You have to pour in some water first,” Roddie explained, “and then when you start working this handle up and down, she’ll suck out every drop until nothing is left but froth.”