The Merry Men, and Other Tales and Fables Read online

  CHAPTER V. A MAN OUT OF THE SEA.

  Rorie set out for the house in search of warmth and breakfast; but myuncle was bent upon examining the shores of Aros, and I felt it a part ofduty to accompany him throughout. He was now docile and quiet, buttremulous and weak in mind and body; and it was with the eagerness of achild that he pursued his exploration. He climbed far down upon therocks; on the beaches, he pursued the retreating breakers. The merestbroken plank or rag of cordage was a treasure in his eyes to be securedat the peril of his life. To see him, with weak and stumbling footsteps,expose himself to the pursuit of the surf, or the snares and pitfalls ofthe weedy rock, kept me in a perpetual terror. My arm was ready tosupport him, my hand clutched him by the skirt, I helped him to draw hispitiful discoveries beyond the reach of the returning wave; a nurseaccompanying a child of seven would have had no different experience.

  Yet, weakened as he was by the reaction from his madness of the nightbefore, the passions that smouldered in his nature were those of a strongman. His terror of the sea, although conquered for the moment, was stillundiminished; had the sea been a lake of living flames, he could not haveshrunk more panically from its touch; and once, when his foot slipped andhe plunged to the midleg into a pool of water, the shriek that came upout of his soul was like the cry of death. He sat still for a while,panting like a dog, after that; but his desire for the spoils ofshipwreck triumphed once more over his fears; once more he tottered amongthe curded foam; once more he crawled upon the rocks among the burstingbubbles; once more his whole heart seemed to be set on driftwood, fit, ifit was fit for anything, to throw upon the fire. Pleased as he was withwhat he found, he still incessantly grumbled at his ill-fortune.

  'Aros,' he said, 'is no a place for wrecks ava'--no ava'. A' the yearsI've dwalt here, this ane maks the second; and the best o' the gear cleantint!'

  'Uncle,' said I, for we were now on a stretch of open sand, where therewas nothing to divert his mind, 'I saw you last night, as I never thoughtto see you--you were drunk.'

  'Na, na,' he said, 'no as bad as that. I had been drinking, though. Andto tell ye the God's truth, it's a thing I cannae mend. There's naesoberer man than me in my ordnar; but when I hear the wind blaw in mylug, it's my belief that I gang gyte.'

  'You are a religious man,' I replied, 'and this is sin'.

  'Ou,' he returned, 'if it wasnae sin, I dinnae ken that I would carefor't. Ye see, man, it's defiance. There's a sair spang o' the auld sino' the warld in you sea; it's an unchristian business at the best o't;an' whiles when it gets up, an' the wind skreights--the wind an' her area kind of sib, I'm thinkin'--an' thae Merry Men, the daft callants,blawin' and lauchin', and puir souls in the deid thraws warstlin' theleelang nicht wi' their bit ships--weel, it comes ower me like a glamour.I'm a deil, I ken't. But I think naething o' the puir sailor lads; I'mwi' the sea, I'm just like ane o' her ain Merry Men.'

  I thought I should touch him in a joint of his harness. I turned metowards the sea; the surf was running gaily, wave after wave, with theirmanes blowing behind them, riding one after another up the beach,towering, curving, falling one upon another on the trampled sand.Without, the salt air, the scared gulls, the widespread army of the sea-chargers, neighing to each other, as they gathered together to theassault of Aros; and close before us, that line on the flat sands that,with all their number and their fury, they might never pass.

  'Thus far shalt thou go,' said I, 'and no farther.' And then I quoted assolemnly as I was able a verse that I had often before fitted to thechorus of the breakers:--

  But yet the Lord that is on high, Is more of might by far, Than noise of many waters is, As great sea billows are.

  'Ay,' said my kinsinan, 'at the hinder end, the Lord will triumph; Idinnae misdoobt that. But here on earth, even silly men-folk daur Him toHis face. It is nae wise; I am nae sayin' that it's wise; but it's thepride of the eye, and it's the lust o' life, an' it's the wale o'pleesures.'

  I said no more, for we had now begun to cross a neck of land that laybetween us and Sandag; and I withheld my last appeal to the man's betterreason till we should stand upon the spot associated with his crime. Nordid he pursue the subject; but he walked beside me with a firmer step.The call that I had made upon his mind acted like a stimulant, and Icould see that he had forgotten his search for worthless jetsam, in aprofound, gloomy, and yet stirring train of thought. In three or fourminutes we had topped the brae and begun to go down upon Sandag. Thewreck had been roughly handled by the sea; the stem had been spun roundand dragged a little lower down; and perhaps the stern had been forced alittle higher, for the two parts now lay entirely separate on the beach.When we came to the grave I stopped, uncovered my head in the thick rain,and, looking my kinsman in the face, addressed him.

  'A man,' said I, 'was in God's providence suffered to escape from mortaldangers; he was poor, he was naked, he was wet, he was weary, he was astranger; he had every claim upon the bowels of your compassion; it maybe that he was the salt of the earth, holy, helpful, and kind; it may behe was a man laden with iniquities to whom death was the beginning oftorment. I ask you in the sight of heaven: Gordon Darnaway, where is theman for whom Christ died?'

  He started visibly at the last words; but there came no answer, and hisface expressed no feeling but a vague alarm.

  'You were my father's brother,' I continued; 'You, have taught me tocount your house as if it were my father's house; and we are both sinfulmen walking before the Lord among the sins and dangers of this life. Itis by our evil that God leads us into good; we sin, I dare not say by Histemptation, but I must say with His consent; and to any but the brutishman his sins are the beginning of wisdom. God has warned you by thiscrime; He warns you still by the bloody grave between our feet; and ifthere shall follow no repentance, no improvement, no return to Him, whatcan we look for but the following of some memorable judgment?'

  Even as I spoke the words, the eyes of my uncle wandered from my face. Achange fell upon his looks that cannot be described; his features seemedto dwindle in size, the colour faded from his cheeks, one hand rosewaveringly and pointed over my shoulder into the distance, and the oft-repeated name fell once more from his lips: 'The _Christ-Anna_!'

  I turned; and if I was not appalled to the same degree, as I returnthanks to Heaven that I had not the cause, I was still startled by thesight that met my eyes. The form of a man stood upright on the cabin-hutch of the wrecked ship; his back was towards us; he appeared to bescanning the offing with shaded eyes, and his figure was relieved to itsfull height, which was plainly very great, against the sea and sky. Ihave said a thousand times that I am not superstitious; but at thatmoment, with my mind running upon death and sin, the unexplainedappearance of a stranger on that sea-girt, solitary island filled me witha surprise that bordered close on terror. It seemed scarce possible thatany human soul should have come ashore alive in such a sea as had ratedlast night along the coasts of Aros; and the only vessel within miles hadgone down before our eyes among the Merry Men. I was assailed withdoubts that made suspense unbearable, and, to put the matter to the touchat once, stepped forward and hailed the figure like a ship.

  He turned about, and I thought he started to behold us. At this mycourage instantly revived, and I called and signed to him to draw near,and he, on his part, dropped immediately to the sands, and began slowlyto approach, with many stops and hesitations. At each repeated mark ofthe man's uneasiness I grew the more confident myself; and I advancedanother step, encouraging him as I did so with my head and hand. It wasplain the castaway had heard indifferent accounts of our islandhospitality; and indeed, about this time, the people farther north had asorry reputation.

  'Why,' I said, 'the man is black!'

  And just at that moment, in a voice that I could scarce have recognised,my kinsman began swearing and praying in a mingled stream. I looked athim; he had fallen on his knees, his face was agonised; at each step ofthe castaway's the pitch of his voice rose, the volubil
ity of hisutterance and the fervour of his language redoubled. I call it prayer,for it was addressed to God; but surely no such ranting incongruitieswere ever before addressed to the Creator by a creature: surely if prayercan be a sin, this mad harangue was sinful. I ran to my kinsman, Iseized him by the shoulders, I dragged him to his feet.

  'Silence, man,' said I, 'respect your God in words, if not in action.Here, on the very scene of your transgressions, He sends you an occasionof atonement. Forward and embrace it; welcome like a father yon creaturewho comes trembling to your mercy.'

  With that, I tried to force him towards the black; but he felled me tothe ground, burst from my grasp, leaving the shoulder of his jacket, andfled up the hillside towards the top of Aros like a deer. I staggered tomy feet again, bruised and somewhat stunned; the negro had paused insurprise, perhaps in terror, some halfway between me and the wreck; myuncle was already far away, bounding from rock to rock; and I thus foundmyself torn for a time between two duties. But I judged, and I prayHeaven that I judged rightly, in favour of the poor wretch upon thesands; his misfortune was at least not plainly of his own creation; itwas one, besides, that I could certainly relieve; and I had begun by thattime to regard my uncle as an incurable and dismal lunatic. I advancedaccordingly towards the black, who now awaited my approach with foldedarms, like one prepared for either destiny. As I came nearer, he reachedforth his hand with a great gesture, such as I had seen from the pulpit,and spoke to me in something of a pulpit voice, but not a word wascomprehensible. I tried him first in English, then in Gaelic, both invain; so that it was clear we must rely upon the tongue of looks andgestures. Thereupon I signed to him to follow me, which he did readilyand with a grave obeisance like a fallen king; all the while there hadcome no shade of alteration in his face, neither of anxiety while he wasstill waiting, nor of relief now that he was reassured; if he were aslave, as I supposed, I could not but judge he must have fallen from somehigh place in his own country, and fallen as he was, I could not butadmire his bearing. As we passed the grave, I paused and raised my handsand eyes to heaven in token of respect and sorrow for the dead; and he,as if in answer, bowed low and spread his hands abroad; it was a strangemotion, but done like a thing of common custom; and I supposed it wasceremonial in the land from which he came. At the same time he pointedto my uncle, whom we could just see perched upon a knoll, and touched hishead to indicate that he was mad.

  We took the long way round the shore, for I feared to excite my uncle ifwe struck across the island; and as we walked, I had time enough tomature the little dramatic exhibition by which I hoped to satisfy mydoubts. Accordingly, pausing on a rock, I proceeded to imitate beforethe negro the action of the man whom I had seen the day before takingbearings with the compass at Sandag. He understood me at once, and,taking the imitation out of my hands, showed me where the boat was,pointed out seaward as if to indicate the position of the schooner, andthen down along the edge of the rock with the words 'Espirito Santo,'strangely pronounced, but clear enough for recognition. I had thus beenright in my conjecture; the pretended historical inquiry had been but acloak for treasure-hunting; the man who had played on Dr. Robertson wasthe same as the foreigner who visited Grisapol in spring, and now, withmany others, lay dead under the Roost of Aros: there had their greedbrought them, there should their bones be tossed for evermore. In themeantime the black continued his imitation of the scene, now looking upskyward as though watching the approach of the storm now, in thecharacter of a seaman, waving the rest to come aboard; now as an officer,running along the rock and entering the boat; and anon bending overimaginary oars with the air of a hurried boatman; but all with the samesolemnity of manner, so that I was never even moved to smile. Lastly, heindicated to me, by a pantomime not to be described in words, how hehimself had gone up to examine the stranded wreck, and, to his grief andindignation, had been deserted by his comrades; and thereupon folded hisarms once more, and stooped his head, like one accepting fate.

  The mystery of his presence being thus solved for me, I explained to himby means of a sketch the fate of the vessel and of all aboard her. Heshowed no surprise nor sorrow, and, with a sudden lifting of his openhand, seemed to dismiss his former friends or masters (whichever they hadbeen) into God's pleasure. Respect came upon me and grew stronger, themore I observed him; I saw he had a powerful mind and a sober and severecharacter, such as I loved to commune with; and before we reached thehouse of Aros I had almost forgotten, and wholly forgiven him, hisuncanny colour.

  To Mary I told all that had passed without suppression, though I own myheart failed me; but I did wrong to doubt her sense of justice.

  'You did the right,' she said. 'God's will be done.' And she set outmeat for us at once.

  As soon as I was satisfied, I bade Rorie keep an eye upon the castaway,who was still eating, and set forth again myself to find my uncle. I hadnot gone far before I saw him sitting in the same place, upon the verytopmost knoll, and seemingly in the same attitude as when I had lastobserved him. From that point, as I have said, the most of Aros and theneighbouring Ross would be spread below him like a map; and it was plainthat he kept a bright look-out in all directions, for my head hadscarcely risen above the summit of the first ascent before he had leapedto his feet and turned as if to face me. I hailed him at once, as wellas I was able, in the same tones and words as I had often used before,when I had come to summon him to dinner. He made not so much as amovement in reply. I passed on a little farther, and again tried parley,with the same result. But when I began a second time to advance, hisinsane fears blazed up again, and still in dead silence, but withincredible speed, he began to flee from before me along the rocky summitof the hill. An hour before, he had been dead weary, and I had beencomparatively active. But now his strength was recruited by the fervourof insanity, and it would have been vain for me to dream of pursuit. Nay,the very attempt, I thought, might have inflamed his terrors, and thusincreased the miseries of our position. And I had nothing left but toturn homeward and make my sad report to Mary.

  She heard it, as she had heard the first, with a concerned composure,and, bidding me lie down and take that rest of which I stood so much inneed, set forth herself in quest of her misguided father. At that age itwould have been a strange thing that put me from either meat or sleep; Islept long and deep; and it was already long past noon before I awoke andcame downstairs into the kitchen. Mary, Rorie, and the black castawaywere seated about the fire in silence; and I could see that Mary had beenweeping. There was cause enough, as I soon learned, for tears. Firstshe, and then Rorie, had been forth to seek my uncle; each in turn hadfound him perched upon the hill-top, and from each in turn he hadsilently and swiftly fled. Rorie had tried to chase him, but in vain;madness lent a new vigour to his bounds; he sprang from rock to rock overthe widest gullies; he scoured like the wind along the hill-tops; hedoubled and twisted like a hare before the dogs; and Rorie at length gavein; and the last that he saw, my uncle was seated as before upon thecrest of Aros. Even during the hottest excitement of the chase, evenwhen the fleet-footed servant had come, for a moment, very near tocapture him, the poor lunatic had uttered not a sound. He fled, and hewas silent, like a beast; and this silence had terrified his pursuer.

  There was something heart-breaking in the situation. How to capture themadman, how to feed him in the meanwhile, and what to do with him when hewas captured, were the three difficulties that we had to solve.

  'The black,' said I, 'is the cause of this attack. It may even be hispresence in the house that keeps my uncle on the hill. We have done thefair thing; he has been fed and warmed under this roof; now I proposethat Rorie put him across the bay in the coble, and take him through theRoss as far as Grisapol.'

  In this proposal Mary heartily concurred; and bidding the black followus, we all three descended to the pier. Certainly, Heaven's will wasdeclared against Gordon Darnaway; a thing had happened, never paralleledbefore in Aros; during the storm, the coble had broken loose, a
nd,striking on the rough splinters of the pier, now lay in four feet ofwater with one side stove in. Three days of work at least would berequired to make her float. But I was not to be beaten. I led the wholeparty round to where the gut was narrowest, swam to the other side, andcalled to the black to follow me. He signed, with the same clearness andquiet as before, that he knew not the art; and there was truth apparentin his signals, it would have occurred to none of us to doubt his truth;and that hope being over, we must all go back even as we came to thehouse of Aros, the negro walking in our midst without embarrassment.

  All we could do that day was to make one more attempt to communicate withthe unhappy madman. Again he was visible on his perch; again he fled insilence. But food and a great cloak were at least left for his comfort;the rain, besides, had cleared away, and the night promised to be evenwarm. We might compose ourselves, we thought, until the morrow; rest wasthe chief requisite, that we might be strengthened for unusual exertions;and as none cared to talk, we separated at an early hour.

  I lay long awake, planning a campaign for the morrow. I was to place theblack on the side of Sandag, whence he should head my uncle towards thehouse; Rorie in the west, I on the east, were to complete the cordon, asbest we might. It seemed to me, the more I recalled the configuration ofthe island, that it should be possible, though hard, to force him downupon the low ground along Aros Bay; and once there, even with thestrength of his madness, ultimate escape was hardly to be feared. It wason his terror of the black that I relied; for I made sure, however hemight run, it would not be in the direction of the man whom he supposedto have returned from the dead, and thus one point of the compass atleast would be secure.

  When at length I fell asleep, it was to be awakened shortly after by adream of wrecks, black men, and submarine adventure; and I found myselfso shaken and fevered that I arose, descended the stair, and stepped outbefore the house. Within, Rorie and the black were asleep together inthe kitchen; outside was a wonderful clear night of stars, with here andthere a cloud still hanging, last stragglers of the tempest. It was nearthe top of the flood, and the Merry Men were roaring in the windlessquiet of the night. Never, not even in the height of the tempest, had Iheard their song with greater awe. Now, when the winds were gatheredhome, when the deep was dandling itself back into its summer slumber, andwhen the stars rained their gentle light over land and sea, the voice ofthese tide-breakers was still raised for havoc. They seemed, indeed, tobe a part of the world's evil and the tragic side of life. Nor weretheir meaningless vociferations the only sounds that broke the silence ofthe night. For I could hear, now shrill and thrilling and now almostdrowned, the note of a human voice that accompanied the uproar of theRoost. I knew it for my kinsman's; and a great fear fell upon me ofGod's judgments, and the evil in the world. I went back again into thedarkness of the house as into a place of shelter, and lay long upon mybed, pondering these mysteries.

  It was late when I again woke, and I leaped into my clothes and hurriedto the kitchen. No one was there; Rorie and the black had bothstealthily departed long before; and my heart stood still at thediscovery. I could rely on Rorie's heart, but I placed no trust in hisdiscretion. If he had thus set out without a word, he was plainly bentupon some service to my uncle. But what service could he hope to rendereven alone, far less in the company of the man in whom my uncle found hisfears incarnated? Even if I were not already too late to prevent somedeadly mischief, it was plain I must delay no longer. With the thought Iwas out of the house; and often as I have run on the rough sides of Aros,I never ran as I did that fatal morning. I do not believe I put twelveminutes to the whole ascent.

  My uncle was gone from his perch. The basket had indeed been torn openand the meat scattered on the turf; but, as we found afterwards, nomouthful had been tasted; and there was not another trace of humanexistence in that wide field of view. Day had already filled the clearheavens; the sun already lighted in a rosy bloom upon the crest of BenKyaw; but all below me the rude knolls of Aros and the shield of sea laysteeped in the clear darkling twilight of the dawn.

  'Rorie!' I cried; and again 'Rorie!' My voice died in the silence, butthere came no answer back. If there were indeed an enterprise afoot tocatch my uncle, it was plainly not in fleetness of foot, but in dexterityof stalking, that the hunters placed their trust. I ran on farther,keeping the higher spurs, and looking right and left, nor did I pauseagain till I was on the mount above Sandag. I could see the wreck, theuncovered belt of sand, the waves idly beating, the long ledge of rocks,and on either hand the tumbled knolls, boulders, and gullies of theisland. But still no human thing.

  At a stride the sunshine fell on Aros, and the shadows and colours leapedinto being. Not half a moment later, below me to the west, sheep beganto scatter as in a panic. There came a cry. I saw my uncle running. Isaw the black jump up in hot pursuit; and before I had time tounderstand, Rorie also had appeared, calling directions in Gaelic as to adog herding sheep.

  I took to my heels to interfere, and perhaps I had done better to havewaited where I was, for I was the means of cutting off the madman's lastescape. There was nothing before him from that moment but the grave, thewreck, and the sea in Sandag Bay. And yet Heaven knows that what I didwas for the best.

  My uncle Gordon saw in what direction, horrible to him, the chase wasdriving him. He doubled, darting to the right and left; but high as thefever ran in his veins, the black was still the swifter. Turn where hewould, he was still forestalled, still driven toward the scene of hiscrime. Suddenly he began to shriek aloud, so that the coast re-echoed;and now both I and Rorie were calling on the black to stop. But all wasvain, for it was written otherwise. The pursuer still ran, the chasestill sped before him screaming; they avoided the grave, and skimmedclose past the timbers of the wreck; in a breath they had cleared thesand; and still my kinsman did not pause, but dashed straight into thesurf; and the black, now almost within reach, still followed swiftlybehind him. Rorie and I both stopped, for the thing was now beyond thehands of men, and these were the decrees of God that came to pass beforeour eyes. There was never a sharper ending. On that steep beach theywere beyond their depth at a bound; neither could swim; the black roseonce for a moment with a throttling cry; but the current had them, racingseaward; and if ever they came up again, which God alone can tell, itwould be ten minutes after, at the far end of Aros Roost, where theseabirds hover fishing.