The Merry Men, and Other Tales and Fables Read online

  CHAPTER IV. THE GALE.

  I found my uncle at the gable end, watching the signs of the weather,with a pipe in his fingers.

  'Uncle,' said I, 'there were men ashore at Sandag Bay--'

  I had no time to go further; indeed, I not only forgot my words, but evenmy weariness, so strange was the effect on Uncle Gordon. He dropped hispipe and fell back against the end of the house with his jaw fallen, hiseyes staring, and his long face as white as paper. We must have lookedat one another silently for a quarter of a minute, before he made answerin this extraordinary fashion: 'Had he a hair kep on?'

  I knew as well as if I had been there that the man who now lay buried atSandag had worn a hairy cap, and that he had come ashore alive. For thefirst and only time I lost toleration for the man who was my benefactorand the father of the woman I hoped to call my wife.

  'These were living men,' said I, 'perhaps Jacobites, perhaps the French,perhaps pirates, perhaps adventurers come here to seek the Spanishtreasure ship; but, whatever they may be, dangerous at least to yourdaughter and my cousin. As for your own guilty terrors, man, the deadsleeps well where you have laid him. I stood this morning by his grave;he will not wake before the trump of doom.'

  My kinsman looked upon me, blinking, while I spoke; then he fixed hiseyes for a little on the ground, and pulled his fingers foolishly; but itwas plain that he was past the power of speech.

  'Come,' said I. 'You must think for others. You must come up the hillwith me, and see this ship.'

  He obeyed without a word or a look, following slowly after my impatientstrides. The spring seemed to have gone out of his body, and hescrambled heavily up and down the rocks, instead of leaping, as he waswont, from one to another. Nor could I, for all my cries, induce him tomake better haste. Only once he replied to me complainingly, and likeone in bodily pain: 'Ay, ay, man, I'm coming.' Long before we hadreached the top, I had no other thought for him but pity. If the crimehad been monstrous the punishment was in proportion.

  At last we emerged above the sky-line of the hill, and could see aroundus. All was black and stormy to the eye; the last gleam of sun hadvanished; a wind had sprung up, not yet high, but gusty and unsteady tothe point; the rain, on the other hand, had ceased. Short as was theinterval, the sea already ran vastly higher than when I had stood therelast; already it had begun to break over some of the outward reefs, andalready it moaned aloud in the sea-caves of Aros. I looked, at first, invain for the schooner.

  'There she is,' I said at last. But her new position, and the course shewas now lying, puzzled me. 'They cannot mean to beat to sea,' I cried.

  'That's what they mean,' said my uncle, with something like joy; and justthen the schooner went about and stood upon another tack, which put thequestion beyond the reach of doubt. These strangers, seeing a gale onhand, had thought first of sea-room. With the wind that threatened, inthese reef-sown waters and contending against so violent a stream oftide, their course was certain death.

  'Good God!' said I, 'they are all lost.'

  'Ay,' returned my uncle, 'a'--a' lost. They hadnae a chance but to rinfor Kyle Dona. The gate they're gaun the noo, they couldnae win throughan the muckle deil were there to pilot them. Eh, man,' he continued,touching me on the sleeve, 'it's a braw nicht for a shipwreck! Twa in aetwalmonth! Eh, but the Merry Men'll dance bonny!'

  I looked at him, and it was then that I began to fancy him no longer inhis right mind. He was peering up to me, as if for sympathy, a timid joyin his eyes. All that had passed between us was already forgotten in theprospect of this fresh disaster.

  'If it were not too late,' I cried with indignation, 'I would take thecoble and go out to warn them.'

  'Na, na,' he protested, 'ye maunnae interfere; ye maunnae meddle wi' thelike o' that. It's His'--doffing his bonnet--'His wull. And, eh, man!but it's a braw nicht for't!'

  Something like fear began to creep into my soul and, reminding him that Ihad not yet dined, I proposed we should return to the house. But no;nothing would tear him from his place of outlook.

  'I maun see the hail thing, man, Cherlie,' he explained--and then as theschooner went about a second time, 'Eh, but they han'le her bonny!' hecried. 'The _Christ-Anna_ was naething to this.'

  Already the men on board the schooner must have begun to realise somepart, but not yet the twentieth, of the dangers that environed theirdoomed ship. At every lull of the capricious wind they must have seenhow fast the current swept them back. Each tack was made shorter, asthey saw how little it prevailed. Every moment the rising swell began toboom and foam upon another sunken reef; and ever and again a breakerwould fall in sounding ruin under the very bows of her, and the brownreef and streaming tangle appear in the hollow of the wave. I tell you,they had to stand to their tackle: there was no idle men aboard thatship, God knows. It was upon the progress of a scene so horrible to anyhuman-hearted man that my misguided uncle now pored and gloated like aconnoisseur. As I turned to go down the hill, he was lying on his bellyon the summit, with his hands stretched forth and clutching in theheather. He seemed rejuvenated, mind and body.

  When I got back to the house already dismally affected, I was still moresadly downcast at the sight of Mary. She had her sleeves rolled up overher strong arms, and was quietly making bread. I got a bannock from thedresser and sat down to eat it in silence.

  'Are ye wearied, lad?' she asked after a while.

  'I am not so much wearied, Mary,' I replied, getting on my feet, 'as I amweary of delay, and perhaps of Aros too. You know me well enough tojudge me fairly, say what I like. Well, Mary, you may be sure of this:you had better be anywhere but here.'

  'I'll be sure of one thing,' she returned: 'I'll be where my duty is.'

  'You forget, you have a duty to yourself,' I said.

  'Ay, man?' she replied, pounding at the dough; 'will you have found thatin the Bible, now?'

  'Mary,' I said solemnly, 'you must not laugh at me just now. God knows Iam in no heart for laughing. If we could get your father with us, itwould be best; but with him or without him, I want you far away fromhere, my girl; for your own sake, and for mine, ay, and for your father'stoo, I want you far--far away from here. I came with other thoughts; Icame here as a man comes home; now it is all changed, and I have nodesire nor hope but to flee--for that's the word--flee, like a bird outof the fowler's snare, from this accursed island.'

  She had stopped her work by this time.

  'And do you think, now,' said she, 'do you think, now, I have neithereyes nor ears? Do ye think I havenae broken my heart to have these braws(as he calls them, God forgive him!) thrown into the sea? Do ye think Ihave lived with him, day in, day out, and not seen what you saw in anhour or two? No,' she said, 'I know there's wrong in it; what wrong, Ineither know nor want to know. There was never an ill thing made betterby meddling, that I could hear of. But, my lad, you must never ask me toleave my father. While the breath is in his body, I'll be with him. Andhe's not long for here, either: that I can tell you, Charlie--he's notlong for here. The mark is on his brow; and better so--maybe better so.'

  I was a while silent, not knowing what to say; and when I roused my headat last to speak, she got before me.

  'Charlie,' she said, 'what's right for me, neednae be right for you.There's sin upon this house and trouble; you are a stranger; take yourthings upon your back and go your ways to better places and to betterfolk, and if you were ever minded to come back, though it were twentyyears syne, you would find me aye waiting.'

  'Mary Ellen,' I said, 'I asked you to be my wife, and you said as good asyes. That's done for good. Wherever you are, I am; as I shall answer tomy God.'

  As I said the words, the wind suddenly burst out raving, and then seemedto stand still and shudder round the house of Aros. It was the firstsquall, or prologue, of the coming tempest, and as we started and lookedabout us, we found that a gloom, like the approach of evening, hadsettled round the house.

  'God pity all poor folks
at sea!' she said. 'We'll see no more of myfather till the morrow's morning.'

  And then she told me, as we sat by the fire and hearkened to the risinggusts, of how this change had fallen upon my uncle. All last winter hehad been dark and fitful in his mind. Whenever the Roost ran high, or,as Mary said, whenever the Merry Men were dancing, he would lie out forhours together on the Head, if it were at night, or on the top of Aros byday, watching the tumult of the sea, and sweeping the horizon for a sail.After February the tenth, when the wealth-bringing wreck was cast ashoreat Sandag, he had been at first unnaturally gay, and his excitement hadnever fallen in degree, but only changed in kind from dark to darker. Heneglected his work, and kept Rorie idle. They two would speak togetherby the hour at the gable end, in guarded tones and with an air of secrecyand almost of guilt; and if she questioned either, as at first shesometimes did, her inquiries were put aside with confusion. Since Roriehad first remarked the fish that hung about the ferry, his master hadnever set foot but once upon the mainland of the Ross. That once--it wasin the height of the springs--he had passed dryshod while the tide wasout; but, having lingered overlong on the far side, found himself cut offfrom Aros by the returning waters. It was with a shriek of agony that hehad leaped across the gut, and he had reached home thereafter in a fever-fit of fear. A fear of the sea, a constant haunting thought of the sea,appeared in his talk and devotions, and even in his looks when he wassilent.

  Rorie alone came in to supper; but a little later my uncle appeared, tooka bottle under his arm, put some bread in his pocket, and set forth againto his outlook, followed this time by Rorie. I heard that the schoonerwas losing ground, but the crew were still fighting every inch withhopeless ingenuity and course; and the news filled my mind withblackness.

  A little after sundown the full fury of the gale broke forth, such a galeas I have never seen in summer, nor, seeing how swiftly it had come, evenin winter. Mary and I sat in silence, the house quaking overhead, thetempest howling without, the fire between us sputtering with raindrops.Our thoughts were far away with the poor fellows on the schooner, or mynot less unhappy uncle, houseless on the promontory; and yet ever andagain we were startled back to ourselves, when the wind would rise andstrike the gable like a solid body, or suddenly fall and draw away, sothat the fire leaped into flame and our hearts bounded in our sides. Nowthe storm in its might would seize and shake the four corners of theroof, roaring like Leviathan in anger. Anon, in a lull, cold eddies oftempest moved shudderingly in the room, lifting the hair upon our headsand passing between us as we sat. And again the wind would break forthin a chorus of melancholy sounds, hooting low in the chimney, wailingwith flutelike softness round the house.

  It was perhaps eight o'clock when Rorie came in and pulled memysteriously to the door. My uncle, it appeared, had frightened even hisconstant comrade; and Rorie, uneasy at his extravagance, prayed me tocome out and share the watch. I hastened to do as I was asked; the morereadily as, what with fear and horror, and the electrical tension of thenight, I was myself restless and disposed for action. I told Mary to beunder no alarm, for I should be a safeguard on her father; and wrappingmyself warmly in a plaid, I followed Rorie into the open air.

  The night, though we were so little past midsummer, was as dark asJanuary. Intervals of a groping twilight alternated with spells of utterblackness; and it was impossible to trace the reason of these changes inthe flying horror of the sky. The wind blew the breath out of a man'snostrils; all heaven seemed to thunder overhead like one huge sail; andwhen there fell a momentary lull on Aros, we could hear the gustsdismally sweeping in the distance. Over all the lowlands of the Ross,the wind must have blown as fierce as on the open sea; and God only knowsthe uproar that was raging around the head of Ben Kyaw. Sheets ofmingled spray and rain were driven in our faces. All round the isle ofAros the surf, with an incessant, hammering thunder, beat upon the reefsand beaches. Now louder in one place, now lower in another, like thecombinations of orchestral music, the constant mass of sound was hardlyvaried for a moment. And loud above all this hurly-burly I could hearthe changeful voices of the Roost and the intermittent roaring of theMerry Men. At that hour, there flashed into my mind the reason of thename that they were called. For the noise of them seemed almostmirthful, as it out-topped the other noises of the night; or if notmirthful, yet instinct with a portentous joviality. Nay, and it seemedeven human. As when savage men have drunk away their reason, and,discarding speech, bawl together in their madness by the hour; so, to myears, these deadly breakers shouted by Aros in the night.

  Arm in arm, and staggering against the wind, Rorie and I won every yardof ground with conscious effort. We slipped on the wet sod, we felltogether sprawling on the rocks. Bruised, drenched, beaten, andbreathless, it must have taken us near half an hour to get from the housedown to the Head that overlooks the Roost. There, it seemed, was myuncle's favourite observatory. Right in the face of it, where the cliffis highest and most sheer, a hump of earth, like a parapet, makes a placeof shelter from the common winds, where a man may sit in quiet and seethe tide and the mad billows contending at his feet. As he might lookdown from the window of a house upon some street disturbance, so, fromthis post, he looks down upon the tumbling of the Merry Men. On such anight, of course, he peers upon a world of blackness, where the waterswheel and boil, where the waves joust together with the noise of anexplosion, and the foam towers and vanishes in the twinkling of an eye.Never before had I seen the Merry Men thus violent. The fury, height,and transiency of their spoutings was a thing to be seen and notrecounted. High over our heads on the cliff rose their white columns inthe darkness; and the same instant, like phantoms, they were gone.Sometimes three at a time would thus aspire and vanish; sometimes a gusttook them, and the spray would fall about us, heavy as a wave. And yetthe spectacle was rather maddening in its levity than impressive by itsforce. Thought was beaten down by the confounding uproar--a gleefulvacancy possessed the brains of men, a state akin to madness; and I foundmyself at times following the dance of the Merry Men as it were a tuneupon a jigging instrument.

  I first caught sight of my uncle when we were still some yards away inone of the flying glimpses of twilight that chequered the pitch darknessof the night. He was standing up behind the parapet, his head thrownback and the bottle to his mouth. As he put it down, he saw andrecognised us with a toss of one hand fleeringly above his head.

  'Has he been drinking?' shouted I to Rorie.

  'He will aye be drunk when the wind blaws,' returned Rorie in the samehigh key, and it was all that I could do to hear him.

  'Then--was he so--in February?' I inquired.

  Rorie's 'Ay' was a cause of joy to me. The murder, then, had not sprungin cold blood from calculation; it was an act of madness no more to becondemned than to be pardoned. My uncle was a dangerous madman, if youwill, but he was not cruel and base as I had feared. Yet what a scenefor a carouse, what an incredible vice, was this that the poor man hadchosen! I have always thought drunkenness a wild and almost fearfulpleasure, rather demoniacal than human; but drunkenness, out here in theroaring blackness, on the edge of a cliff above that hell of waters, theman's head spinning like the Roost, his foot tottering on the edge ofdeath, his ear watching for the signs of ship-wreck, surely that, if itwere credible in any one, was morally impossible in a man like my uncle,whose mind was set upon a damnatory creed and haunted by the darkestsuperstitions. Yet so it was; and, as we reached the bight of shelterand could breathe again, I saw the man's eyes shining in the night withan unholy glimmer.

  'Eh, Charlie, man, it's grand!' he cried. 'See to them!' he continued,dragging me to the edge of the abyss from whence arose that deafeningclamour and those clouds of spray; 'see to them dancin', man! Is that nowicked?'

  He pronounced the word with gusto, and I thought it suited with thescene.

  'They're yowlin' for thon schooner,' he went on, his thin, insane voiceclearly audible in the shelter of the bank, 'an' she's comin' ay
e nearer,aye nearer, aye nearer an' nearer an' nearer; an' they ken't, the folkkens it, they ken wool it's by wi' them. Charlie, lad, they're a' drunkin yon schooner, a' dozened wi' drink. They were a' drunk in the _Christ-Anna_, at the hinder end. There's nane could droon at sea wantin' thebrandy. Hoot awa, what do you ken?' with a sudden blast of anger. 'Itell ye, it cannae be; they droon withoot it. Ha'e,' holding out thebottle, 'tak' a sowp.'

  I was about to refuse, but Rorie touched me as if in warning; and indeedI had already thought better of the movement. I took the bottle,therefore, and not only drank freely myself, but contrived to spill evenmore as I was doing so. It was pure spirit, and almost strangled me toswallow. My kinsman did not observe the loss, but, once more throwingback his head, drained the remainder to the dregs. Then, with a loudlaugh, he cast the bottle forth among the Merry Men, who seemed to leapup, shouting to receive it.

  'Ha'e, bairns!' he cried, 'there's your han'sel. Ye'll get bonnier northat, or morning.'

  Suddenly, out in the black night before us, and not two hundred yardsaway, we heard, at a moment when the wind was silent, the clear note of ahuman voice. Instantly the wind swept howling down upon the Head, andthe Roost bellowed, and churned, and danced with a new fury. But we hadheard the sound, and we knew, with agony, that this was the doomed shipnow close on ruin, and that what we had heard was the voice of her masterissuing his last command. Crouching together on the edge, we waited,straining every sense, for the inevitable end. It was long, however, andto us it seemed like ages, ere the schooner suddenly appeared for onebrief instant, relieved against a tower of glimmering foam. I still seeher reefed mainsail flapping loose, as the boom fell heavily across thedeck; I still see the black outline of the hull, and still think I candistinguish the figure of a man stretched upon the tiller. Yet the wholesight we had of her passed swifter than lightning; the very wave thatdisclosed her fell burying her for ever; the mingled cry of many voicesat the point of death rose and was quenched in the roaring of the MerryMen. And with that the tragedy was at an end. The strong ship, with allher gear, and the lamp perhaps still burning in the cabin, the lives ofso many men, precious surely to others, dear, at least, as heaven tothemselves, had all, in that one moment, gone down into the surgingwaters. They were gone like a dream. And the wind still ran andshouted, and the senseless waters in the Roost still leaped and tumbledas before.

  How long we lay there together, we three, speechless and motionless, ismore than I can tell, but it must have been for long. At length, one byone, and almost mechanically, we crawled back into the shelter of thebank. As I lay against the parapet, wholly wretched and not entirelymaster of my mind, I could hear my kinsman maundering to himself in analtered and melancholy mood. Now he would repeat to himself with maudliniteration, 'Sic a fecht as they had--sic a sair fecht as they had, puirlads, puir lads!' and anon he would bewail that 'a' the gear was asgude's tint,' because the ship had gone down among the Merry Men insteadof stranding on the shore; and throughout, the name--the_Christ-Anna_--would come and go in his divagations, pronounced withshuddering awe. The storm all this time was rapidly abating. In half anhour the wind had fallen to a breeze, and the change was accompanied orcaused by a heavy, cold, and plumping rain. I must then have fallenasleep, and when I came to myself, drenched, stiff, and unrefreshed, dayhad already broken, grey, wet, discomfortable day; the wind blew in faintand shifting capfuls, the tide was out, the Roost was at its lowest, andonly the strong beating surf round all the coasts of Aros remained towitness of the furies of the night.