The Silver Darlings (52 page)

But there was no fear of the spirit taking wings. It was held to the earth by a heavy enlargement of the stomach. Finn had to eat here and he had to eat there until he said to a cousin of his, “As sure as death, if I eat any more I’ll burst.” So they crossed into Helmsdale where there were greetings and talk and more food than ever. Finn went over the harbour, looking at the boats, agreeing that Helmsdale was far better equipped as a curing station than Dunster,
and saying solemnly, “How is it, then, that Dunster so outstripped Helmsdale? It can only be the one thing.” “What’s that?” “The quality of the men,” said Finn. But his Uncle Norman and a few other fishermen did not let him off with that. Then someone mentioned Stornoway, and they turned on Finn in a body, eager to listen to him. But he had no sooner begun than Isebeal appeared,
declaring
that she could not wait any longer, and carried Finn off, for she was dying to hear about Catrine who was her life’s heroine.

Within half an hour, however, the men began to file into Isebeal’s kitchen until it was packed, and then Norman said, “You’ll begin at the beginning, Finn.” The ceilidh was set and Finn began.

It took him two hours to describe the trip, for he was listened to by experts both in boat-sailing and story-telling, who let him off with nothing. “We left on the Tuesday morning. It was a good morning, clear and bright, with a fine breeze off the land; so we put both sails up and set
our course on Clyth Head.” “How was the tide?” asked
Norman
. So Finn described the state of the tide, explaining how necessary it is to get the first of the ebb through the Pentland Firth if you hope to get through at all. “In fact, when we got there——” But Norman pulled him up. “We’ll come to that,” he said. In this way, any
self-consciousness
that Finn might have, talking before so many people, was taken from him and he entered into the telling of the whole story as if it were happening before his eyes, which indeed it was. When the wind died away and they got on to the oars, feeling now they would never make the Pentland in time, Finn communicated the anxiety that came over them in a vivid manner by introducing bits of talk
between
Rob and Callum. He interrupted his story to
describe
Rob and Callum, and this light relief in the tension of the race for the tide was greatly appreciated. They laughed. They repeated the sarcastic or witty saying. In fact, Finn himself found that something which had not appeared very
comical at the time seemed now the very essence of the comical. Then back to the oars, straining at the oars. Would they make it? “It did not seem like it,” said Finn. Their eyes were on him. An old man, who had been a drover in the days before the clearances, sat with his chin on the crook of his stick, his eyes burning under hooded brows. Boys were grouped spellbound on the floor. He had not yet started his story and they were frightened he would hurry.

It took him a long time to get through the Pentland, and indeed to satisfy men like Norman he drew a chart of the passage with his finger on the floor. The swiftness of the tide like a mighty river, the ripps and boils. “The boat goes from you,” said Finn, “as your heels go from you on a bit of ice.” They shook their heads. The wonder of the world was without end. The Wells of Swinna and the need to throw a chest overboard enthralled not only the young. “Get your chest ready, Rob,” said Callum. “Take your own chest,” said Rob; “there will be more food for his belly in it, if I know you.”

The night in Loch Eriboll, the fun of the milk-hunt, the departure, the Cape, the Minch, the short strong waves, the mist. “We were lost,” said Finn.

The night of storm and the great long seas.

He laid Henry’s and Roddie’s theories of where they might be before the seamen around him. “You see how difficult it was?” he asked with an eager smile. “No land, nothing but these tremendous seas coming at you like the hills of Kildonan, with great straths between. In the
darkness
of that night there were many times when I thought she was away with it.” “She had a great seaman at her helm,” said Norman. “That’s true,” agreed Finn. “Roddie was great. He sat there like one of the Vikings of old, never moving, only his eyes watching, hour after hour, through the dark of the night and the long hours of next day.” They saw him and were deeply moved by the ring in Finn’s voice.

This was one of the old stories, going from wonder to
wonder, for now a ship appeared on these lonely wastes, and Finn said the sight of her frightened him a little. His voice grew modest, with a smile in it, but most of them had known Tormad well and they liked this reticence in his son. They were greatly relieved to find she was a friendly
cod-smack
and lingered over the vision of her ploughing into the Western Ocean. “The Shetlanders are daring seamen.” “They are known for it.” They nodded their heads.

“So we thanked them, and Roddie, watching his chance, put her about in the running seas, and we bore off, and at that the whole crew lined the deck and gave us a loud cheer.”

His listeners shifted restlessly. “You deserved it,” said Norman; “I’ll say that.” “You did indeed.” “Yes, yes.” They took a moment or two to settle, for they were moved strongly. But Finn had them laughing at the way they now decided to celebrate in drinks the emergence from their troubles, quoting Callum and Rob to suit his purpose. “It’s a terrible thing, thirst,” said Finn. And he smiled,
describing
the way it attacks a man. And then—then they saw land. “Callum fairly revived at that!”

He would! He would indeed! And it was not before time!

And so Finn brought them, not to land, but to a place of dark fantastic rock, and anchored them there.

Never before had Finn known the power of the
storyteller
. The smashing seas, the screaming birds, the black rock-faces, and the terrible thirst that had come upon them. Someone would have to try to climb the rock. “For we saw that by the morning it might be too late.”

The rock-face, the mystery of the little house, and—the water. The rock-ledges, the birds, and his astonishment at the bite that nearly put him over the cliff. They laughed in relief at that. And then his problem over getting the eggs and bottles down the rock. “I was completely stuck,” said Finn, “and I was anxious, too. I didn’t know what to do. I hated to be beaten. And they were not the sort of things you could throw down!”

This was a story and more than a story, and when at long last Finn brought them to the
Sulaire
and the silver
darlings
, that last surprise of all had their eyes shining in
wonder
and satisfaction.

The night was now far advanced, but the listeners were only settling down, for Norman and the fishermen wanted to hear what happened in Stornoway and to ask a hundred questions. But Isebeal said no, Finn would have to go, for Granny would be sitting up for him.

“Be quiet, woman,” said her husband. “The night is young.” Who bothered with time, anyway? “Sit down, Finn boy.”

“No, I’ll have to be going,” said Finn. “I’d better be going.”

“Nonsense. Never mind that woman. She would have to be putting her word in.”

“Finn will come back to-morrow night,” said Isebeal, “and he can stay till all hours then.”

“No, I must go home to-morrow,” replied Finn.

“Nonsense,” said Isebeal. “You know you haven’t to go.”

“I said I would.”

“You didn’t. You said you might. And your mother said to you that if you didn’t come she wouldn’t be expecting you.”

“How did you know?” asked Finn. And they all laughed.

Out in the dark, beyond the door, the drover put a finger on Finn’s breast. “You gave me a vision—of the youth of Finn MacCoul himself.” And finger and man withdrew into the night.

The next morning Ronnie called for Finn. “I was sorry I missed you last night,” he said. Finn liked his quiet manner, and thin, distinguished face. Close-cut grey hair over the ears, a red scar below the bone of the right cheek, and grey eyes that seemed washed. He had a very slight stoop of the shoulders and his body was thin. All in a
moment Finn felt that this man had something not to tell him but to give him. It was a curious feeling, and made him at once eager and shy.

When Ronnie suggested that they might take a long walk up the strath of Kildonan, unless Finn had something special to do, Finn answered readily that he had nothing to do and would be glad to go. So they set off, and when Ronnie said, “Your father was my greatest friend,” Finn was strangely moved, as if the unknown and the half-known in time and the world were coming upon him.

“This was our world,” said Ronnie, and as they walked along he described scenes from the early life of Tormad and Catrine and himself, the world before the clearances, in its pastoral ways. His voice was even and pleasant; and when he described the harrowing and brutal scene of their
eviction
, it was not vindictive; as though brutality were the common-place in life, out of which the poor man gathered a few joys like odd jewels—if he was lucky. And Ronnie had had the luck of his youth. There was something spent in Ronnie, like a spent wave, but he had come up clean.

Finn sailed the seas with Ronnie, and names like “The Indies” had an enchantment for him. The exploits of the
Seafoam
were little enough now! Finn would have been ashamed to talk about them before this man. There was a strange dividing in his mind, and he moved in its two worlds—the world Kirsty had talked about, with its lairds and captains and foreign adventures, the very same that this man Ronnie, his father’s friend, had sailed through, and the world of home with the simple common people who were known to him and stirred in human warmth.

The far world seemed bright and full of great adventure; the land of home awkward and dull-minded, without
knowledge
.

“There are a great many things in the world we don’t know about here at home,” said Finn.

“That’s true,” agreed Ronnie. “But I wouldn’t say you’d gain much by knowing about them.”

“I wonder?” murmured Finn, sceptically.

“Looking back on it now,” said Ronnie, “I can say that there was more wonder in one year of my young life here than in all the years I spent on the high seas and in foreign places.”

“But you have been to those places,” said Finn.

Ronnie smiled. “It’s a delusion, Finn,” he answered quietly. “It may be pleasant to see new things, but they pass before the eyes. Your own nature remains. Human nature does not change—except often for the worse. There were days of such tedium that they were a horror in the mind. Men craved for anything, for fights, for drink, for death, anything to break the horror that discipline kept rigid. There were only the two ways out: brutality and foul language, and they went together. They were a great relief. They were like a vomit that cleared you. They were helpful many a time.”

“Were they?”

“For a while I had the name of being the greatest swearer on board. I have seen
an angry Englishman look at me in wonder and say ‘
Holy
Jesus!
’
and laugh.

Ronnie’s mind, opening in this unexpected way, kept Finn silent but anxious to hear more.

“For it’s an odd thing,” said Ronnie, “that in our own language we have no swearing of that kind. So in English a swear to us hardly seems to be a swear at all, you sort of know what it means, but it’s funny, too. It’s new. A new sound. That’s about all. I have seen English sailors laugh at swears in Spanish in the same way. The worst fight ever I saw was between a Devon man and a Frenchman. There was a devil of a fellow in our crew, whose whole aim in life was to cause trouble. A ‘practical joker’ they called him. Well, he got hold of a simple Devon man, a nice fellow, and dared him to repeat two French words on shore to a French sailor. The knife was out before you could wink. What a night that was! There were fifteen casualties. It kept us going for two months.”

“It must have been exciting often.”

“It had to be,” said Ronnie. “Even when one or two of our own fellows got clapped in irons and we muttered to ourselves and swore and threatened mutiny—that was
relief
, too. A month of it; a year of it; year after year after year. It’s a long time—when your heart’s not in it.”

“I suppose so. Were there fine fellows among them, too?”

“Oh, yes. One or two of the world’s best. But you see, the fellows who would be your friends would be the fellows whose hearts were not in the business either. So you would talk of your homes and the old life. There were nights often enough when the strath of Kildonan ran through my mind like the glen of Paradise.”

“Did it?”

“It did.”

Out of the silence Finn asked, “What was the worst thing?”

“There were many things,” said Ronnie, “but the worst was the thing that was always with us or in the offing. I have taken part in it myself. I could be as good at it as at the swearing. And often it did me good. But too often it left a sickness in the heart, a bitterness of gall in the stomach. It was that awful, bloody thing, brutality. Jesus, I hated it. I never got used to it.”

Finn was silent.

“They can talk about religion, Finn, and the sins of the flesh, and the Ten Commandments, and good and evil, but there is only one sin and one evil, and its name is brutality. I wear its badge. Look!” And, taking off his bonnet, he showed Finn a little silver clasp in his skull. “Some day I may tell you the story about it, but not now. It does me good to touch it sometimes, and to remember how I got it. The children like to see it.” He smiled drily.

They went miles up the strath, talking of many things, for Ronnie would point to this or that and tell Finn
something
about it. Finn, too, remembered some of his mother’s stories.

“Your mother was a beautiful young girl. She was so full of life,” said Ronnie. He talked simply and frankly about her, not concealing his admiration, until Finn felt slightly embarrassed. “But I had no chance with her, when your father was about!”

“Hadn’t you?” Finn tried to smile.