A Stranger Came Ashore (8 page)

Robbie needed no second telling to get off home. He was out the door and away like a shot from a bow, and every step of the way home he was telling himself he would never have the courage to be alone in a boat with Yarl Corbie at midnight. In spite of that, however, he was still powerfully attracted by the thought of finding the Great Selkie’s skin, and it was this attraction which finally stiffened his nerve that night.

Long after everyone else was asleep, he was still lying
wide-eyed
in his box of darkness. His ears were alert for the chimes of the grandfather clock in the but end, and on the first stroke of midnight, he slid open the door panel of his bed. Silently he stepped out on to the cold floor. Silently he bundled into his clothes, and crept barefoot into the but end.

With his shoes still in his hand, he stole past the door that led through to the barn where Finn Learson lay sleeping. Carefully he eased up the latch of the front door, slipped outside, and latched it as carefully behind him.

Above him, the sky was black with the deep, velvety blackness of northern skies in winter. A million stars had burned holes of frosty silver in the velvet black. Frost licked like silver fire over the grass underfoot. Robbie shivered as he bent to put on his shoes; but a frosty night meant there would be little wind, even at sea, and he was glad of that. Running fast and lightly, he headed for the beach, and saw the tall stooped figure of Yarl Corbie waiting for him.

The schoolmaster was standing beside the Hendersons’ little boat, and without a word as Robbie arrived beside him, he gave
a hand to push it out. The two of them clambered aboard, and Robbie bent to the oars. Yarl Corbie sat opposite him, hunched up into the tail-coat he wore now instead of his black gown, and he spoke only once before they reached the geo.

“Did you tell anyone?”

“No one,” Robbie answered, thankful he could speak truthfully.

They reached the narrow entrance passage to the geo – too narrow to allow even a reflection of starlight from the water. Robbie backed the boat in, feeling mortally afraid of what just
might
happen in the darkness of this roofless tunnel; but they came out into the wider
water
beyond, with Yarl Corbie sitting as silent and motionless as before.

The boat touched the shingle, and he shipped the oars, then leapt ashore. Yarl Corbie came clumsily after him, and they pulled the boat up on to the beach.

“Up there – right at the back of the rocks,” whispered Robbie, pointing to where the cave lay; and reaching inside his coat, Yarl Corbie brought out a piece of candle and a tinderbox.

“We’ll need these,” he remarked, then motioned Robbie on.

Robbie had forgotten it would be quite dark inside the cave, and this reminder was enough to make him determined he would not be the first to enter it. He clambered on over the rocks, hearing Yarl Corbie following close behind, and at the mouth of the cave he turned to say nervously,

“We’d better light the candle now.”

A sound that might have been a chuckle came from Yarl Corbie. “Afraid of the dark, are you?” he jeered, and the next instant Robbie felt a large hand grasping him by the scruff of the neck and forcing him forward into the cave.

Darkness stole his eyesight, smothered him, ate him up. He cried out, gaspingly, then tore himself free of Yarl Corbie’s grip and backed until he hit the wall of the cave. A laugh echoed hollow in his ears. The laugh was followed by the sound of Yarl Corbie striking the flint of his tinderbox.

A spark leaped golden through the darkness. The little red flare of the tinder came next. Then at last, as Yarl Corbie lit the candle from the flare, there was a small, but growing pool of real light. The beaky dark face of Yarl Corbie loomed into the light, his eyes searching out the cowering figure of Robbie.

“You did that just to frighten me!” Robbie accused him shakily, and Yarl Corbie smiled the smile that was not pleasant to see.

“That’s right,” he answered. “There’s nothing like a taste of fear to remind you of what could happen if you break the promise you made me!”

The light flickered for a moment as he raised the candle high. He waited till the flame steadied, then turning slowly about, he let its light spread through the cave.

The sealskin was there, lying spread right out to cover a wide rock shelf a few feet from the floor of the cave. The fur of it was the colour of Finn Learson’s hair – dark, almost black, streaked with silvery grey – and it shone so richly that it seemed to turn the whole pool of candlelight into gleaming black and glittering silver.

Yarl Corbie and Robbie stood staring at it, both of them struck quite dumb at the sight. The empty sockets of the head on the selkie skin stared back at them, and after a few moments of this, Robbie found he could no longer face the eeriness of that empty stare. He turned his head away, and the movement broke the spell of silence in the cave.

“Well, there it is,” Yarl Corbie said triumphantly. “The Great Selkie’s skin. And we two are the only two in the world who have ever seen it like this!”

Robbie nodded, and asked nervously, “And what do we do now?”

“You take this,” said Yarl Corbie, handing him the candle.

Then, much to Robbie’s horror, he reached up and pulled the skin down from the shelf as casually as he would have pulled a blanket off a bed. “And I take this!” he added, as the skin came tumbling off the shelf.

Bundling the great pile of it into his arms, he was about to turn
away from the shelf, but Robbie’s eye had caught a sudden glimpse of something else there.

“Look!” he exclaimed, pointing to the back of the shelf, and Yarl Corbie looked where he pointed.

There was a gleam of gold there, a gleam from a scatter of golden coins that had lain hidden under the skin.

“Fetch one down and let me have a look at it,” Yarl Corbie commanded.

Gingerly Robbie stretched a hand out to one of the coins, and one glance as he passed it to Yarl Corbie was enough to tell him it was the same as the gold coin winking on the mantelpiece at home.

“So you were right all along the line,” Yarl Corbie remarked, turning the coin curiously over between his fingers. “And to think how bold he was all along the line too, with all the hints he gave you of the truth behind it!”

“… something I picked up on my travels … take the gold, for it may still cost more than you think to have me here … A keepsake of me when I have gone back to my own country … remember it did not seem half as bright to me as the gold of your daughter’s hair …”

The hints Yarl Corbie had mentioned raced through Robbie’s mind again, and he wondered how long it had taken Old Da to make sense of these. Not long, he realised, remembering the hard look Old Da had given on the day he asked Finn Learson.

“And what do you think I should tell Robbie about selkies?”

Yarl Corbie tossed the coin back among its fellows. “We’ll have to leave them here,” he said grimly, “for even one of them taken ashore could trace this night’s doing back to us. And so weep no tears for lost riches, my lad!”

Robbie took a resentful glance at him. “You’ll not catch
me
shedding tears for selkie gold,” he declared. “And there’s no need for you to tell me we could buy nothing but trouble with it. I knew that as soon as I guessed we would find it here.”

“Well, well,” said Yarl Corbie, staring at this look and the tone
of voice that went with it. “You’re quite a spirited lad after all, it seems. But considering how much is going to depend on you on Up Helly Aa, that’s just as well – isn’t it?”

Turning on his heel then, he marched out of the cave carrying the skin, and Robbie followed him down to the boat wondering what this last remark had meant. Once started on the return journey, too, he felt his curiosity about it growing sharper with every stroke of the oars; but when at last he did venture a question on it, Yarl Corbie told him curtly, “It’s too soon to talk about that. But this much I can tell you. Before we part tonight, I’ll give you some of the instructions you’ll need to carry out your part on Up Helly Aa. Tomorrow – once you’re sure you haven’t been missed from home this past hour or so – I’ll give you the rest of these instructions. And meanwhile, the important thing for us is to find some other hiding-place for the selkie skin.”

“That’s true,” agreed Robbie, his thoughts flashing to other caves he had seen in other geos. “But where
can
we hide it?”

“Nowhere at sea,” said Yarl Corbie, as if guessing these thoughts, “because that is the first place Finn Learson would search for it. Nowhere on land, because that is the second place he would search. We will hide it in a place that belongs neither to the sea nor to the land, a place that is open to every eye, but secret from all; a place which Finn Learson may enter as a man, yet which he cannot leave again except as the Great Selkie.”

Robbie stopped rowing to peer at the hunched figure opposite him. “There’s no such place,” he said wonderingly. “How can there be?”

Yarl Corbie made no answer to this, and after Robbie began rowing again, he continued to sit in silence. The boat grounded at last on the home beach. Together they drew it on to the shingle. Then, still without another word spoken between them, Yarl Corbie took Robbie to the place where he meant to hide the skin.

Robbie was up late the next morning, what with all the hours of sleep the business of the sealskin had cost him. Breakfast was over by the time he showed face in the but end, but nobody said a word in question of this – which made it certain, he decided, that he had not been missed from his bed the previous night.

Quietly he helped himself to oatcakes and butter. Then, still fighting sleep, he sat munching his late breakfast and trying to remember everything about the instructions Yarl Corbie had given him on their way home from hiding the sealskin.

All the rest of the family, meanwhile, sat around talking and taking their ease on the first day of the holidays, with all of them having turns at telling Finn Learson what these would be like.

“It’s a great time of year, and no mistake,” Peter remarked; and Janet agreed, “Aye, you’ll have your fill of dancing these holidays, Finn Learson, for the whole of Yule night is one big celebration, and it’s the same at New Year and Up Helly Aa.”

“Besides which,” Peter added, “you’ll see something to surprise you at the end of it all, for Up Helly Aa is also the night when all the young men go from house to house dressed up in a sort of disguise, with white handkerchiefs tied like masks over their faces.”

“What’s the reason for that?” Finn Learson asked, but Peter could not give any proper answer to this question.

“It’s just a custom,” he said vaguely. “‘Guising,’ they call it, and the young fellows that dress up are the ‘guisers.’”

Robbie came awake with a jerk then, for it was this very custom
of guising, as it happened, which was at the heart of Yarl Corbie’s instructions. Moreover, he realised, Finn Learson was clearly interested in it.

“And how do these guisers dress up?” he was asking. “What do they wear?”

“Petticoats!” Peter answered, laughing. “Long petticoats made of straw, with tall, pointed hats of straw, white shirts, and everything all covered with bunches of coloured ribbons. That’s how daft they look – and it’s a daft name they have, too, for the one that leads all this foolery. The Skuddler, they call him, and you never
saw
such a wild dance as he commands from all the other guisers!”

“It sounds like an old custom to me; a very old custom,” Finn Learson remarked: and immediately, the warning note in Robbie’s mind sounded louder than ever. Quickly he rose and made for the door, but he was not to get away so easily as all that.

“Aye, I’m sure I’ve heard Old Da say as much,” Peter was agreeing. “But it’s Robbie you would need to ask about such things, for he was always the one that took in everything Old Da said about them.”

Robbie had the door open by this time, but Peter’s words had brought every eye to him, and so he still had to answer.

“I don’t know any more than my Da,” he mumbled to Finn Learson. Then out he dashed before the guilty flush on his face could betray that this was a lie; for fine he could remember Old Da talking to him of the Skuddler and his men. Fine he could remember Old Da saying there was an ancient magic behind their guising, and explaining the meaning of his magic to him.

Even so, he excused the lie to himself, he dared not disobey any of Yarl Corbie’s instructions. And the very first of these had been that Finn Learson must not be allowed to guess the least thing about the magic or its meaning! Running quickly, Robbie made good his escape from the house. The next of Yarl Corbie’s instructions went through his mind as he ran, and straightaway
he headed off in search of Nicol Anderson. Nor did he waste a moment in coming to the point with Nicol, once he had managed to track him down that morning.

“There’s a favour I want to ask of you, Nicol,” he began. “If it comes to a fight between you and Finn Learson at Up Helly Aa, I want you to promise me the fight will take place above high-water mark.”

Nicol stared at this. “I’ll not let Elspeth go without a fight,” said he. “That’s one thing I
can
promise you. But what has high-water mark to do with it?”

“Everything,” Robbie told him. “Finn Learson is a creature of the sea, and so all his power comes from the sea. But all that lies above high-water mark belongs to the land, and so that is where you will be the stronger of the two.”

“So that’s it!” Nicol exclaimed. “You’re still on about this nonsense of the Great Selkie!”

“Yes, I am,” Robbie told him defiantly. “But I’m not asking any more for you to believe it. I just want you to do this as a favour for me. And there can’t be any harm in that, surely?”

“No, I don’t suppose there is,” Nicol agreed. “It’s just daft, that’s all. But still, if it means so much to you – all right, Robbie. I’ll fight him above high-water mark.”

Robbie gave a sigh of relief. “Then there’s just one more thing I want to ask,” said he. “It’s about the Skuddler, Nicol; and what I want to know is this. Which of you fellows will play the part at this year’s
Up Helly Aa
?”

“That’s a stupid question, isn’t it?” Nicol demanded. “You know we always keep that a secret among ourselves.”

“Of course I do,” Robbie admitted. “But there’s another favour I want of you.”

Quickly then, but choosing his words so that Nicol could not guess who had prompted them, he went on to ask what Yarl Corbie had told him to ask. Nicol’s face grew more and more puzzled as
he listened, but at the end of it, he said, “I suppose I could manage that – provided all the other fellows agree, of course.”

“Will you fix it with them, then!” Robbie pressed. “Will you, Nicol?”

Nicol frowned. “Why should I?” he asked. “You haven’t given me any reason for it, have you?”

“No,” Robbie admitted. “But I don’t want Elspeth to choose Finn Learson any more than you do, and I know this will give you the power to save her.”

“You’ll have to do better than that,” Nicol remarked, “for that just doesn’t make sense to me.”

“It does to me,” Robbie told him swiftly. “My Old Da explained everything about the guising to me, and so I know it makes sense.”

“Your Old Da,” said Nicol, “was a storyteller! And so how could you tell whether he was speaking the truth about that, or whether it was just something he had made up?”

Robbie thought of Yarl Corbie talking to him as they walked home from hiding the sealskin. There was an easy answer to Nicol’s question, he realised.
Because Yarl Corbie told me it was the truth
. Nicol would have to believe him then, for no one could doubt Yarl Corbie’s knowledge of such matters. But then, also, what would become of his own promise to keep silent about Yarl Corbie?

“Old Da wasn’t making up any story about the guising,” he said at last. “I know I’m right in that, although I can’t tell you how I do know. And if you do as I ask, Nicol, I
know
it will give you power against Finn Learson.”

Nicol stared at him. “You really do believe all that nonsense about the Great Selkie,” he said. “You’re convinced of it, aren’t you, Robbie?”

“You know I am,” said Robbie, biting his lip. “And I really do believe Elspeth is in danger from him, which makes it very hard when you won’t even take a chance on doing something to save her.”

Nicol hesitated, seemingly quite impressed by these last words, and Robbie rushed in to take advantage of this hesitation.

“Please!” he begged. “For old times sake, Nicol.”

Nicol suddenly made up his mind. “All right,” he agreed, and even managed a smile on the words. “If that’s what it really takes to put your mind at ease, I’ll fix it with the other fellows – for old times sake, Robbie!”

Once more, Robbie sighed in relief. “Fine, man! Fine!” he exclaimed. “And don’t forget what I said about high-water mark. Keep above that mark on Up Helly Aa,
and be sure you keep Elspeth above it, too.”

Nicol smiled again, as if the whole idea had really begun to amuse him now that he had given in to it at last. His smile broadened until his face was like the big laughing sun it used to be before Finn Learson came into his life; and clapping Robbie on the shoulder, he remarked, “I’ll say this for you, Robbie Henderson. I never met a lad with such a determined streak in him as you have! Besides which, even your Old Da never had such a wild imagination as yours!”

Robbie laughed, thinking he did not care what anyone said of him now that he had got Nicol to fall in with Yarl Corbie’s plan.

“We’ll see who’s right about all this when Up Helly Aa comes!” he retorted, and took his leave of Nicol feeling he could hardly wait for this to happen.

It was not towards home he turned, however, but towards the schoolhouse; and he went roundabout, so that no one would realise he was headed there. Cautiously he knocked on the door of Yarl Corbie’s own but-and-ben, and when the door was opened to him, he slipped in as quiet as a shadow.

“Did anyone see you come here?” Yarl Corbie shot at him.

Robbie shook his head, “I came round the back of the hill,” he explained. “And it doesn’t seem as if I was missed from home last night, either.”

“Good!” Yarl Corbie told him. “And what about Nicol Anderson?”

“I’ve spoken to him,” Robbie answered triumphantly, “and he’s promised to do what you want on Up Helly Aa.”

“But you didn’t let him guess that
I
was behind the idea, did you?” Yarl Corbie asked.

“No,” Robbie told him. “I put it to Nicol exactly the way you said I should.”

Yarl Corbie rubbed his hands and went back to sit in his chair by the fire. “That’s fine!” he declared. “That means nobody can possibly guess I’m mixed up in this, and so now I can really plan. Come here, boy!”