The Marquis of Lossie

CHAPTER LVII: THE SHORE

It was two days after the longest day of the year, when there is no night in those regions, only a long twilight, in which many dream and do not know it. There had been a week of variable weather, with sudden changes of wind to east and north, and round again by south to west, and then there had been a calm for several days.

But now the little wind there was blew from the northeast; and the fervour of June was rendered more delicious by the films of flavouring cold that floated through the mass of heat. All Portlossie more and less, the Seaton especially, was in a state of excitement, for its little neighbour, Scaurnose, was more excited still. There the man most threatened, and with greatest injustice, was the only one calm amongst the men, and amongst the women his wife was the only one that was calmer than he. Blue Peter was resolved to abide the stroke of wrong, and not resist the powers that were, believing them in some true sense, which he found it hard to understand when he thought of the factor as the individual instance, ordained of God. He had a dim perception too that it was better that one, that one he, should suffer, than that order should be destroyed and law defied. Suffering, he might still in patience possess his soul, and all be well with him; but what would become of the country if everyone wronged were to take the law into his own hands? Thousands more would be wronged by the lawless in a week than by unjust powers in a year. But the young men were determined to pursue their plan of resistance, and those of the older and soberer who saw the uselessness of it, gave themselves little trouble to change the minds of the rest.

Peter, although he knew they were not for peace, neither inquired what their purpose might be, nor allowed any conjecture or suspicion concerning it to influence him in his preparations for departure. Not that he had found a new home. Indeed he had not heartily set about searching for one; in part because, unconsciously to himself he was buoyed up by the hope he read so clear in the face of his more trusting wife – that Malcolm would come to deliver them. His plan was to leave her and his children with certain friends at Port Gordon; he would not hear of going to the Partans to bring them into trouble. He would himself set out immediately after for the Lewis fishing.

Few had gone to the Hebrides that year from Scaurnose or Portlossie. The magnitude of the events that were about to take place, yet more the excitement and interest they occasioned, kept the most of the men at home – to content themselves with fishing the waters of the Moray Frith. And they had notable success. But what was success with such a tyrant over them as the factor, threatening to harry their nests, and turn the sea birds and their young out of their heritage of rock and sand and shingle? They could not keep house on the waves, any more than the gulls! Those who still held their religious assemblies in the cave called the Baillies' Barn, met often, read and sang the comminatory psalms more than any others, and prayed much against the wiles and force of their enemies both temporal and spiritual; while Mr Crathie went every Sunday to Church, grew redder in the nose, and hotter in the temper.

Miss Horn was growing more and more uncomfortable concerning events, and dissatisfied with Malcolm. She had not for some time heard from him, and here was his most important duty unattended to – she would not yet say neglected – the well being of his tenantry, namely, left in the hands of an unsympathetic, self important underling, who was fast losing all the good sense he had once possessed! Was the life and history of all these brave fishermen and their wives and children to be postponed to the pampered feelings of one girl, and that because she was what she had no right to be, his half sister forsooth? said Miss Horn to herself – that bosom friend to whom some people, and those not the worst, say oftener what they do not mean than what they do. She had written to him within the last month a very hot letter indeed, which had afforded no end of amusement to Mrs Catanach, as she sat in his old lodging over the curiosity shop, but, I need hardly say, had not reached Malcolm: and now there was but one night, and the best of all the fisher families would have nowhere to lie down! Miss Horn, with Joseph Mair, thought she did well to be angry with Malcolm.

The blind piper had been very restless all day. Questioned again and again by Meg Partan as to what was amiss with him, he had always returned her odd and evasive answers. Every few minutes he got up – even from cleaning her lamp – to go to the shore. He had but to cross the threshold, and take a few steps through the close, to reach the road that ran along the sea front of the village: on the one side were the cottages, scattered and huddled, on the other the shore and ocean wide outstretched. He would walk straight across this road until he felt the sand under his feet; there stand for a few moments facing the sea, and, with nostrils distended, breathing deep breaths of the air from the northeast; then turn and walk back to Meg Partan's kitchen, to resume his ministration of light. These his sallies were so frequent, and his absences so short, that a more serene temper than hers might have been fretted by them. But there was something about his look and behaviour that, while it perplexed, restrained her; and instead of breaking out upon him, she eyed him curiously.

She had found that it would not do to stare at him. The instant she began to do so, he began to fidget, and turned his back to her. It had made her lose her temper for a moment, and declare aloud as her conviction that he was after all an impostor, and saw as well as any of them.

"She has told you so, Mistress Partan, one hundred thousand times," replied Duncan with an odd smile: "and perhaps she will pe see a little petter as any of you, no matter."

Thereupon she murmured to herself "The cratur 'ill be seein' something!" and with mingled awe and curiosity sought to lay restraint upon her unwelcome observation of him.

Thus it went on the whole day, and as the evening approached, he grew still more excited. The sun went down, and the twilight began; and, as the twilight deepened, still his excitement grew.

Straightway it seemed as if the whole Seaton had come to share in it. Men and women were all out of doors; and, late as it was when the sun set, to judge by the number of red legs and feet that trotted in and out with a little shadowy flash, with a dull patter pat on earthen floor and hard road, and a scratching and hustling among the pebbles, there could not have been one older than a baby in bed; while of the babies even not a few were awake in their mothers' arms, and out with them on the sea front.

The men, with their hands in their trouser pockets, were lazily smoking pigtail, in short clay pipes with tin covers fastened to the stems by little chains, and some of the women, in short blue petticoats and worsted stockings, doing the same.

Some stood in their doors, talking with neighbours standing in their doors; but these were mostly the elder women: the younger ones – all but Lizzy Findlay – were out in the road. One man half leaned, half sat on the window sill of Duncan's former abode, and round him were two or three more, and some women, talking about Scaurnose, and the factor, and what the lads would do tomorrow; while the hush of the sea on the pebbles mingled with their talk, like an unknown tongue of the infinite – never articulating, only suggesting – uttering in song and not in speech – dealing not with thoughts, but with feelings and foretastes. No one listened: what to them was the Infinite with Scaurnose in the near distance! It was now almost as dark as it would be throughout the night if it kept as clear.

Once more there was Duncan, standing as if looking out to sea, and shading his brows with his hand as if to protect his eyes from the glare of the sun, and enable his sight!

"There's the auld piper again!" said one of the group, a young woman. "He's unco fule like to be stan'in that gait (way), makin' as gien he cudna weel see for the sun in 's e'en."

"Haud ye yer tongue, lass," rejoined an elderly woman beside her. "There's mair things nor ye ken, as the Beuk says. There's een 'at can see an' een 'at canna, an' een 'at can see twise ower, an' een 'at can see steikit what nane can see open."

"Ta poat! ta poat of my chief!" cried the seer. "She is coming like a tream of ta night, put one tat will not tepart with ta morning."

He spoke as one suppressing a wild joy.

"Wha'll that be, lucky deddy (grandfather)?" inquired, in a respectful voice, the woman who had last spoken, while those within hearing hushed each other and stood in silence. And all the time the ghost of the day was creeping round from west to east to put on its resurrection body, and rise new born. It gleamed faint like a cold ashy fire in the north.

"And who will it pe than her own son, Mistress Reekie?" answered the piper, calling her by her husband's nickname, as was usual, but, as was his sole wont, prefixing the title of respect, where custom would have employed but her Christian name.

"Who'll should it pe put her own Malcolm?" he went on. "I see his poat come round ta Tead Head. She flits over the water like a pale ghost over Morven. But it's ta young and ta strong she is pringing home to Tuncan. 0 m'anam, beannuich!"

Involuntarily all eyes turned towards the point called the Death's Head, which bounded the bay on the east.

"It's ower dark to see onything," said the man on the window sill. "There's a bit haar (fog) come up."

"Yes," said Duncan, "it'll pe too tark for you who haf cot no eyes only to speak of. Put your'll wait a few, and you'll pe seeing as well as herself. Och, her poy! her poy! 0 m'anam! Ta Lort pe praised! and she'll tie in peace, for he'll pe only ta one half of him a Cam'ell, and he'll pe safed at last, as sure as there's a heafen to co to and a hell to co from. For ta half tat's not a Cam'ell must pe ta strong half and it will trag ta other half into heafen – where it will not pe ta welcome, howefer."

As if to get rid of the unpleasant thought that his Malcolm could not enter heaven without taking half a Campbell with him, he turned from the sea and hurried into the house – but only to catch up his pipes and hasten out again, filling the bag as he went. Arrived once more on the verge of the sand, he stood again facing the northeast, and began to blow a pibroch loud and clear.

Meantime the Partan had joined the same group, and they were talking in a low tone about the piper's claim to the second sight, for, although all were more or less inclined to put faith in Duncan, there was here no such unquestioning belief in the marvel as would have been found on the west coast in every glen from the Mull of Cantyre to Loch Eribol – when suddenly Meg Partan, almost the only one hitherto remaining in the house, appeared rushing from the close.

"Hech, sirs!" she cried, addressing the Seaton in general, "gien the auld man be i' the richt,"

"She'll pe aal in ta right, Mistress Partan, and tat you'll pe seeing," said Duncan, who, hearing her first cry, had stopped his drone, and played softly, listening.

But Meg went on without heeding him any more than was implied in the repetition of her exordium.

"Gien the auld man be i' the richt, it'll be the marchioness hersel' 'at's h'ard o' the ill duin's o' her factor, an's comin' to see efter her fowk! An' it'll be Ma'colm's duin', an' that'll be seen. But the bonny laad winna ken the state o' the herbour, an' he'll be makin' for the moo' o't, an' he'll jist rin 's bonny boatie agrun' 'atween the twa piers, an' that'll no be a richt hame comin' for the leddy o' the lan', an' what's mair, Ma'colm 'ill get the wyte (blame) o' 't, an' that'll be seen. Sae ye maun some o' ye to the pier-heid, an' luik oot to gie 'im warnin'."

Her own husband was the first to start, proud of the foresight of his wife.

"Haith, Meg !" he cried, "ye're maist as guid at the lang sicht as the piper himsel'!"

Several followed him, and as they ran, Meg cried after them, giving her orders as if she had been vice admiral of the red, in a voice shrill enough to pierce the worst gale that ever blew on northern shore.

"Ye'll jist tell the bonnie laad to haud wast a bit an' rin her ashore, an' we'll a' be there an' hae her as dry's Noah's ark in a jiffie. Tell her leddyship we'll cairry the boat, an' her intil't, to the tap o' the Boar's Tail, gien she'll gie's her orders. – Winna we, laads?"

"We can but try!" said one. "– But the Fisky 'ill be waur to get a grip o' nor Nancy here," he added, turning suddenly upon the plumpest girl in the place, who stood next to him. She foiled him however of the kiss he had thought to snatch, and turned the laugh from herself upon him, so cleverly avoiding his clutch that he staggered into the road, and nearly fell upon his nose.

By the time the Partan and his companions reached the pier head, something was dawning in the vague of sea and sky that might be a sloop and standing for the harbour. Thereupon the Partan and Jamie Ladle jumped into a small boat and pulled out. Dubs, who had come from Scaurnose on the business of the conjuration, had stepped into the stern, not to steer but to show a white ensign – somebody's Sunday shirt he had gathered, as they ran, from a furze bush, where it hung to dry, between the Seaton and the harbour.

"Hoots! ye'll affront the marchioness," objected the Partan.

"Man, i' the gloamin' she'll no ken 't frae buntin'," said Dubs, and at once displayed it, holding it by the two sleeves.

The wind had now fallen to the softest breath, and the little vessel came on slowly. The men rowed hard, shouting, and waving their flag, and soon heard a hail which none of them could mistake for other than Malcolm's. In a few minutes they were on board, greeting their old friend with jubilation, but talking in a subdued tone, for they perceived by Malcolm's that the cutter bore their lady.

Briefly the Partan communicated the state of the harbour, and recommended porting his helm, and running the Fisky ashore about opposite the brass swivel.

"A' the men an' women i' the Seaton," he said, "'ill be there to haul her up."

Malcolm took the helm, gave his orders, and steered further westward. By this time the people on shore had caught sight of the cutter. They saw her come stealing out of the thin dark like a thought half thought, and go gliding along the shore like a sea ghost over the dusky water, faint, uncertain, noiseless, glimmering. It could be no other than the Fisky! Both their lady and their friend Malcolm must be on board, they were certain, for how could the one of them come without the other? and doubtless the marchioness, whom they all remembered as a good humoured handsome young lady, never shy of speaking to anybody, had come to deliver them from the hateful red nosed ogre, her factor! Out at once they all set along the shore to greet her arrival, each running regardless of the rest, so that from the Seaton to the middle of the Boar's Tail there was a long, straggling broken string of hurrying fisher folk, men and women, old and young, followed by all the current children, tapering to one or two toddlers, who felt themselves neglected and wept their way along. The piper, too asthmatic to run, but not too asthmatic to walk and play his bagpipes, delighting the heart of Malcolm, who could not mistake the style, believed he brought up the rear, but was wrong; for the very last came Mrs Findlay and Lizzy, carrying between them their little deal kitchen table, for her ladyship to step out of the boat upon, and Lizzy's child fast asleep on the top of it.

The foremost ran and ran until they saw that the Psyche had chosen her couch, and was turning her head to the shore, when they stopped and stood ready with greased planks and ropes to draw her up.