The Silver Darlings (64 page)

The melody was not much in itself, but it did contrive a persistent, hypnotic effect. And Finn was able to give it full value, because of a quickening deep in his personality, and a nervous radiance above. The last two lines of each verse were repeated:

The following evening the wind died away, and though the sky remained overcast, Henry smelt a warmth from the brimming tide, “The turn has come,” he said. The words were hardly out of his mouth when lads who had been fishing at the far point came running with the magic cry: “Herring!”

Willing backs got under the
White Heather.
She took the water and, followed by a few ancient small craft, headed for the sea under her slow, heavy sweeps. At first the crew had been doubtful of the news because one of the lads had said it was as if big drops of rain were falling in a shower, and that looked like mackerel, but soon all doubt was put aside. “They’re here, boys,” said Callum, and excitement ran along their veins in fire, the excitement that never staled in all the years of a man’s life.

There was a motion in the sea, a darkened sky, and the daylight was going. Perfect fishing weather. “We’ll shoot only half the drift,” said Henry, “till we see.”

As they lay to the nets, Finn asked, “Did you feel that?” It was a fitful soft air out of the south. They all nodded.

“If only we could do it!” exclaimed Callum.

“Be quiet, will you?” said Rob, who was against all expressions of luck and hope—as a temptation to the
perverse
ones who might overhear. For though nothing had been said, they all knew why Henry had shot only half the drift and what a southerly breeze would mean. With twenty crans, the boat would not be so deep, but that a following wind might see her in Stornoway before
tomorrow
was dead.

If there wasn’t much light when they began to haul, it was enough for Rob to speak like a father to his children: “Come, my little dancers; come, my silver darlings—steady, now—up!—that’s you!” His voice was very
matter
-of-fact. “Are they any size, Rob?” shouted Callum, winking at Finn wildly from habit. “They’ll pass,” replied Rob. “Yes, they’ll pass. In fact, I have never seen
anything
like them. Not on this coast.” “They’re what we
have heard about but seldom seen, eh?” “You mind what you’re doing,” answered Rob. They were drenched with excitement and sweat.

About twenty-five crans, reckoned Henry. The two sails were hoisted and the four oars began to pull away.

“I’ll tell you what you’re thinking, Rob?” cried Callum.

“Is that so?” replied Rob.

“You’re thinking it’s the great pity to be leaving all that fish in the sea.”

“The sea will keep them.”

“Till we come again,” said Finn.

As the world lightened the wind strengthened. “Take a snooze when you can,” said Henry. “We have a long day before us.”

“And maybe a few blisters,” smiled Callum, settling himself.

But sleep was far from Finn. The good weather was cleaning the sky and the land had colour and the stillness that never failed to move him. It was the stillness of sleep, not sleep as one knew it on land, but sleep as a magic arrestment, observed from a boat sailing by islands and
inlets
in the thin clear light of early morning. The gulls were white with this sleep.

Finn closed his eyes, so that Henry might think he was sleeping.

The antique features of the singing girl came before him, and presently he experienced again the feeling that had been roused in him about his mother, but with the bodily detachment of the light before sunrise. He was fond of her, would ever have for her a natural affection, but he saw her now as a woman under the spell of her own destiny. And that somehow was eternally right, like the movement of a figure through the mesh of fate in one of Hector’s old stories, or like a swan on the Irish sea in the legend by Finn-son-of-Angus. And this brought to him, beyond
understanding
, a cool aloof relief.

This was the way in which he had seen Roddie, once when he was at the tiller, upright as if carven, during the storm in the Western Ocean, and again in the moment on the cliff-head, when eternity had put its circle about them, and he had known the ultimate companionship of men, had seen the gentleness, profounder than any crying of the heart, at the core of male strength.

Finn experienced this far more surely than could ever be thought out or expressed in words. Perhaps here was the education that came from no schooling, came from the old stories by men like Hector and Black John and Finn-son-
of-Angus
, none of whom could either read or write. And the girl, not teaching, but singing the experience of the race of women in tradition’s own voice.

It was enough, anyway, for Finn, even in its symbols, like the swan, as though nothing profound is ever finally and materially clear, but only glimpsed in its symbols; and as certainty stirs delight, delight obscures the symbols, leaving behind the sweetness of delight, as a flower leaves its fragrance.

Opening his eyes, he saw the islands in the Sound of Harris, Presently, getting up, he said to Henry: “I can’t sleep. You go and have a couple of hours. Come on!” He refused to be put off, and at last Henry took Finn’s place and in no time was as fast asleep as Rob and Callum.

Finn now felt completely happy. The sleeping men left him in loneliness to his secret waking thoughts. He kept the stem, the lifting racing stem, on the farthest headland he could see.

As the sun rose, the wind freshened. He was young, and the dark face of Una that had so long and so often haunted his thought came to him with the exhilarating rush of the boat and the glittering lights of the sea. She was fated, like a woman in a story. And if so, he thought … and let the thought rush from him. He could not conquer or hold that thought.

He generally kept it from him, banished it away, and if
it came in on him unawares, or was suddenly gnawing out of sight, he could always give it the heel of his temper.

He had said to himself the night before he left that it might look a bit odd if he did not call and see how her brother Duncan was. The real reason for calling was, of course, that it would provide an excellent excuse for
meeting
her in her own home and showing her that she meant nothing to him, less than nothing.

The visit had been a trifle embarrassing all the same, because he quite forgot the part he had played on the cliff and they hadn’t. There was a meal prepared for a hero, and Una had been rather quiet and pale. Finn himself had talked as if his nerves were full of fun and ignored Una
completely
. But at the first chance he had got up, pleading the preparations he had to make that night. The mother shook hands with him warmly. Then Una held out her hand and looked at him and, damn him, if his hand, by an
unspeakable
treachery all its own, hadn’t sort of half-squeezed it. Duncan and his father both accompanied him to the edge of the wood, but he had no memory afterwards of what they had said. He had been extremely angry with his hand. It was the sort of idiotic treachery, the silly trifling little thing, the infernal weakness, of which he was entirely made up. He was a born weakling: that was the whole trouble. Only in the whirling of the wood for the neid-fire did he work the fury out of himself, and remember Una’s pale, strange look.

What the true cause of that look was he did not know, but like the memory of a person under sorrow, it quietened him.

It quietened him still—and made him wonder. Anyway, he thought, if it meant that she was remembering he had helped to save her brother’s life, well, she had had plenty of time to let her memory cool!

The stem of the boat went leaping and plunging over the sparkling sea, and Finn put from him the thought that would not go away and the resolution that had been made
without being made. But he had become adept at doing this as far as Una was concerned. High time it was stopped, and, O God, he was going to stop it! Leaning forward, with a smiling, reckless gleam in his eyes, he touched the iron end of the boat-hook. But his body had the last laugh at him, for it was quivering and by no means so bold and certain as Finn might care to make out.

Life (according to Mr. Gordon, the schoolmaster) was full of many entrances and exits, but if so, the entrance into Stornoway between four and five o’clock that afternoon took them by surprise—and they had been prepared to make a fair show. Rumour had it that the
White Heather
had gone down off the Shiants with all hands. A crofter had seen her one moment and not seen her the next. Certainly she had made no known anchorage as far south as Tarbert Harris. And if she had, the weather had not been so bad but that she could have struggled home the day before.

The fishermen were getting ready for sea when word went round that the
White
Heather
was in sight. The word sped up into the town, into shops and private houses, where folk were glad of a bit of excitement at any time, and down they came, crowding the pier.

“It’s the whole of Stornoway,” murmured Callum, and at that their faces took on the cast of indifference. But there were some boys on the outmost edge of the long crowd and, not being trained in reticence, what should they do but let out a cheer when the
White
Heather
came abreast of them. The cheer ran along the wall like quick flame. Not a face but was smiling or laughing. And then, on top of all, the incredible news that the
White
Heather
had arrived with a shot of herring!

Here was Bain, elbowing folk out of his way, lord of the town. He wanted to hold converse with seamen, real seamen.

And there were the four men, quietly and normally
bringing their boat to the landing berth, with the remote cold air of the sea about them.

“Welcome back!” shouted Bain.

Henry lifted up his thin, dark face and smiled. “I hope,” he asked,” that we are not too late for you?”

“Late? You’ll never be too late for me!” shouted Bain. Then he let out a roar to his foreman to gather the gutting crews. Anyone would think he was putting the sea off his bows.

Henry now looked satisfied, as if this was all that had been worrying him—as indeed it was.

“You have thirty cran?” cried Bain.

“Barely,” said Henry in the slow sea voice. “But they are good herring—the best I have seen here.”

“Where were you shot?”

“We shot last night off North Uist.”

North Uist! A deep murmur ran along the mouths of the fishermen.

The skipper of the
Sulaire
asked, “Where were you in the gale?”

A smile of humour softened Henry’s features. “Running before it,” he said, “under bare poles.”

“By God!” said Bain.

Then he shouted the crew to come up and have a dram. But Henry said he would like to get the herring out first, and have an hour or two’s drying on the nets.

“You have the whole evening for that,” shouted Bain.

“Not if we’re going to sea to-night,” said Henry.

Bain’s mouth opened, but no word came through,

Finn was in great feather now, and the dark girl, Catrine, was as busy as a wren.

“Do you think she was missing me?” he asked.

“I think she was,” said Catrine, nervously merry.

“You fairly fancy yourself,” said the fair one with a toss of her head.

Finn laughed and retreated with the creel.

For in these questions, and others like them, Finn and the dark girl Catrine spoke indirectly to each other, and this was a delightful game.