The Silver Bough

by Neil M. Gunn

  “It’s more nor you or me will have, Fachie,” said Davie Munro, his gnarled hands on his stick.

  “Indeed that’s true. And we don’t grudge it to him. So long as there’s something in man, if I may take it upon me to use the words of our Lord, that would do it unto the least of us, there’s hope for us all.”

  “Indeed and I back you there. It’s a brave show for Clachar whateverway. And the laird here himself, too. Boy, boy!”

  “A fine thing to see. It is that. And a fine day for it.”

  “And the minister spoke ably. He has the understanding in him and he says it to a turn. You can rely on the Reverend Mr Mackenzie. When he used the words ‘our simple fellow clansman’, I thought it was nobly said.”

  “Yes, there was something behind the words that should travel high,” said Fachie, a glimmer of beatitude in his eye.

  “We’re all the one clan at the end of the day.”

  “Fellow clansmen—ay, even to the Munros,” said Fachie.

  Davie laughed. “The widow’s dram has gone to your head, boy.”

  “It was where Himself meant it to go,” said Fachie. “Where she got it I wonder; though I’m thinking it will be Mr Grant, for a nicer, gentleman you couldn’t meet, and able. Man, I’ll tell you a thing he told me no later than yesterday and it will astonish you, clever as you may think yourself.”

  “Let us hear it, and we’ll see.”

  “It’s about the bones of animals that were eaten and that they’ll be finding in old prehistoric places like the cairn over there. In the case of the cattle, he was saying, it’s mostly the bones of young beasts, calves. He took over one bone to show me. And right enough it was a calf’s leg. Now how would you explain them eating the young?”

  “How long ago would that be?” asked Davie to gain time.

  “Thousands of years ago; ay, thousands of years before the birth of our Lord; and it’s his own words.”

  “Boy, are you telling me there was people in it here then?”

  “There was. But you’re not answering my question. Why was it the young beasts they killed?”

  “They would know no better likely, for it is ignorant they must have been,” answered Davie.

  “We’ll leave ignorance to where it may belong. Well then: they killed the young beasts for just the same reason as you and me must sell them—because there wasn’t the winter feed for them!”

  “No!” said Davie.

  “Oh but yo,” said Fachie. “For there was no buying and selling then, no markets to send young beasts to. So, being wise, they just ate them.”

  “They would have to indeed,” Davie agreed, and laughed in pleasant wonderment.

  Thus they continued to discuss happily the unchanging problems of man’s estate as the procession wound its way to the churchyard.

  When the undertaker, a heavy whispering man, with thin grey hair and his bowler in his hand, came and breathed confidentially, “You’ll take a cord, Mr Grant?” Mr Grant hesitated, strangely confounded on the edge of the mysteries. “It was Mrs Mackenzie’s own wish but only if it should be agreeable to you.” He found himself whispering his reply and following the undertaker to the inner ring. This had a markedly solemnising and uplifting effect upon him, as though a concealed sense of guilt were being freed by some hidden agency. He could see he was the only stranger who had a cord. The feeling of taking part in an immemorial rite grew strongly upon him and he was aware, deep in the heart of man, of a profound brotherly ordering and responsibility. This was good, and he knew it instantly as more ancient than the Neolithic cairn. Hitherto he had fancied that one could conceive of prehistoric man only imaginatively. Now he knew better. As the pressure came on the brown cord, he lowered away with care and knew the mutual burden of mortality. The plate on the coffin, declaring that Andie was “aged 29 years”, went down into the long cist. The undertaker’s assistant pulled up the supporting bands. The cords dropped.

  He found himself turning away, slowly, with the other men, when the brown earth was falling quietly. Now he was talking to two of them. There was no haste. Incuriously he saw Martin’s car drive away. The Colonel, Scott and Blair were standing beyond the gate. He didn’t mind. Men should stand occasionally, just stand, and talk together humbly and let time go over them. Some of the young squad from the camp were wandering around, reading the tombstones. Armstrong must have said something, for three came round him like fowls round a titbit. Their humour was decorously concealed and Grant found himself smiling. The lads were moving on when one of them stopped and pointed: “A rainbow.” There had been rain during the night and an occasional narrow white curtain still passed away to the north. Sun and shadow, massive cloud-banks white as snow, with a tendency to group towards the north and show a dark under-belly.

  “That’s where the crock of gold is buried,” said Armstrong.

  “Where?” asked Jim.

  “Under the rainbow.”

  “Go on!” said Jim.

  “It’s a fact. That’s the Gaelic legend. The crock of gold lies buried under the foot of the rainbow. How masterly! And now how apt!”

  They laughed in soft wonder, staring at the coloured arc.

  “Which foot?” asked Jim. A young elbow nudged him and he turned round.

  “The left foot,” said Grant, who had paused on the path to greet Davie Munro; then he went slowly on in Davie’s company, smiling, and finding time, as he spoke and listened, to wonder exactly which foot it was.

  Colonel Mackintosh invited him to a late lunch, but, after thanking him, he said, “They are expecting me at home.”

  The Colonel’s eyes twinkled. “They have taken you into the inner chamber.”

  Grant smiled.

  “I think it was a great gesture,” declared Scott. “And dammit I confess I was glad.”

  “I was pleased myself,”’ said Grant simply, and Blair, who had been about to say something, thought better of it and only laughed lightly.

  He drove home in the hotel car with Davie and Fachie, and had some interesting and even merry conversation.

  Mrs Cameron greeted him at the door. “You must be starving! Go in, now, and I’ll just bring your dinner.”

  Between the broth and the chicken, she said, “It was a beautiful funeral; the largest I have seen since the old laird himself was put to his rest from Clachar House.”

  “Yes, it was a very nice funeral,” he agreed.

  “And such beautiful flowers! Mrs Mackenzie felt the honour of it and it did her heart good. Indeed it did my own the same.”

  He was astonished to find that he was not uncomfortable before such expression of sentiment, that he did not fear even more of it. On the contrary, he was at ease and lifted up into that quieter air where responsible men met and buried their dead. This feeling of freedom was remarkable, as though he had been blessed. “I am glad to hear it,” he said.

  “And did you—did Mr MacGrowther, the undertaker—did he say anything?”

  “He asked me to take a cord. So we saw Andie to his long home. And I confess, Mrs Cameron, that I appreciated the honour.”

  “God bless you,” she said. “Now everyone can rest at peace. Dear me, your food is getting cold,” and out she bustled.

  He liked cold boiled chicken. He smiled, and now a faint irony came into the smile. He remembered Martin and his remark about the two large wreaths. The fellow had been right.

  As he was stirring the cup of tea which Mrs Cameron brought in, he conveyed something of his underlying thought.

  “Ah well, poor woman,” she answered sensibly, “there was the other side to it too. So long as she was alive she might manage to look after him. But the picture of him some day, when herself was no more, being taken to an asylum——” She shook her head. “Many thoughts lie in a mother’s heart, and because Andie may not have been all in it, did not make it easier for her, indeed it made it the harder in a way.”

  He nodded, saying nothing.

  “And lately, too, she was
sore troubled about him, for it would have broken her heart if he had to be lifted and her still alive. Then you took him back, and though she was afraid and it was against her will, yet she saw him being happy with the young men, and she saw, too, that they grew fond of him, scholars all of them, and Colonel Mackintosh would be strict like a father, and she liked that best of all. And there was that big gentleman, Mr Scott, and him standing on his head.” All at once the tears came and she went out.

  But in a little while she was back with the teapot itself, wondering if he would like another cup, and he told her there was nothing he would like better. “The house is very quiet today surely,” he added. “Where has the music gone?”

  “Och, out and away and the Silver Bough with her, herself and her mother. Take it she would, and there was no denying her, for she has found a new way of it now.”

  “A new way?”

  “That she has! And bonny it is, too, I must say. She sort of tips the Bough up, and the notes run down one on top of the other as fast as they can go, so there’s a tumble of them on you, yet each as clear as clear can be. You would think they were laughing, and indeed you laugh yourself. He was a clever man who made yon.”

  He laughed with pleasure. “I must hear that.”

  “You will! And more than that. Though where she got this new notion just goodness knows. Someone must have been talking of the White Shore. I can’t remember myself talking of it, though och! you’ll say a thing and not notice it, but a child will notice it. Anyway, it must have a strange sound for her, like a place in a magic story, and I’m fancying she thinks that if she tips up the Bough, away off somewhere, it will be like the young man shaking the golden apples before the king and she will find herself on the White Shore.”

  He was lost for a few moments as she gathered the dishes.

  “Where did they go?” he asked.

  She seemed to hesitate. “Maybe they went the way of the little shore, though I wouldn’t be sure.”

  He looked up at her sideways. “They could hardly go as far as the White Shore?”

  “No,” she said. But her good spirits seemed to have faded. Her hands grew busier and she did not look at him.

  “You’re not worried about them, are you?” he asked lightly.

  “No,” she said, about to lift the tray away. But again she hesitated and he saw that she needed someone to speak to.

  “What is it?”

  “Och, it’s nothing to trouble you with, Mr Grant. Only, Anna—I just don’t know what’s happening to her. I just don’t know at all. I overheard her tell the vanman that she could not go to Kinlochoscar yesterday. It wasn’t like her, but I never let on I heard. She’s troubled, I’m thinking.”

  “You had better tell me,” he said.

  “It was the other day,” she said, “the day after poor Andie was killed. She was tired because she had been up most of the night, as you know, so she went out in the afternoon with the little one, who was anything but tired, and it seems they went as far as the little shore, for Sheena can think of no other place, and since she gathered the shells with yourself there, it has fair gone to her head.” She paused. “It’s difficult for me to get the rights of it, for Anna herself would never have said a word about it, and didn’t say much at the best, only the little one couldn’t tell me enough. What seems to have happened is this. Anna fell asleep and Sheena went to the little strand to gather shells. Mr Martin then came up in his boat and saw Sheena all alone. Sheena saw the boat. I asked her if she was frightened when she saw the boat and she said no. For she had been in the boat, as you know.”

  “She liked it,” he said thoughtfully.

  “So he must have come in and grounded the boat. Anyway, Anna suddenly awoke and saw that Sheena was missing and she got up and ran over the little rise of ground—and there was Mr Martin and Sheena by the edge of the tide, and he was sitting on a rock and Sheena was showing him her shells. How long they had been there together there’s no way of knowing surely, for the child does not know time, but it must have been a little while.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Anna says nothing happened. But I can see she was terribly upset at having been caught asleep and the little one alone by the tide. I asked her didn’t she tell him that she had been up all night but she said no. So they came away, and that was all, she said.”

  He was silent.

  “I think she might at least have told him or said something,” declared Mrs Cameron.

  “She’s not that kind.”

  “Don’t I know it! But that will get her nowhere ever. As I’ve told her before now. You can’t just stand dumb and life going by you.”

  “I’m not even sure of that—in this case.”

  “Oh I don’t know,” she said, distress now in her voice, “but it showed me one thing at last, and it is that she’s eating her heart out. It’s terrible, and her so young.”

  He nodded, and when she had gone out, he went up to his bedroom and changed into his old knickerbocker suit.

  It seemed to him that the bedroom was extraordinarily quiet, full of peace. Emotion was a heady food! I’ll go out for a walk, he thought, and lie on the earth in a quiet place. You’ll go to the little shore, he said; he was sitting on his bed, fully clothed, and with a smile looked at the mat, for it was as though the “influence” had spoken in him. Amused, he went and opened the door of the dark room, saw the black cloth hanging from the skylight, and on the floor the narrow box caught in a musty sun-warmth that came against his face. He closed the door. The “influence” was so obviously nothing more than his own unconscious promptings! But he might as well go out.

  Chapter Forty One

  Aware of some obscure internal argument about the direction his feet were taking, he really paid little attention to it. Old Fachie was sitting at his gable corner, a cloud of smoke rising like incense from his head. Comfortably fed after a very enjoyable funeral, he would be indulging in reminiscence and reflection, wondering with solemn appreciation how and why he had been spared so long. “Many’s the change I have seen in Clachar in my time,” he would begin, but Grant’s footsteps did not deviate, though he acknowledged the ancient’s salute with the full length of his own right arm.

  He had enjoyed the funeral himself. There had been a wonderful sense of balance about it somewhere. An integrating influence. Social or communal primarily, no doubt, but personal in actual effect. To abide sentiment solidly on your two feet made you feel wonderfully competent, and wise. The people who sneered, who ran away to protect their skinned sensibilities, missed something, something much larger than their own egos. That was perfectly clear and extended the scope of the world, allowing things to happen under time and chance with a certain naturalness.

  Though how rarely they happened as each individual wished them to! And clearly they couldn’t, or the over-all balance would be lost. For the whole had this balance, which was extra to the sum of its parts. Having arrived at this conclusion from living experience, he paused to look back and take a breath. The cottages, the little fields, the winding stream, the road—and on the road two figures, a man and a woman. The woman was Mrs Cameron beyond doubt. She would be getting all the news of the funeral in detail. God bless her! he thought, and laughed softly. His eyes roved over the slopes and the ridges and came to the cairn. Curious humans were moving around it like ants round their anthill, but two of the labour squad would be on guard by direct order of the Colonel, who did not believe, he had said, in skulls as souvenirs. For a little while his eyes rested on Clachar House, then he continued up the slope.

  No, things did not happen to romantic order. In that sense, nothing had “come right”. Andie had been killed and the crock of gold had been buried under the rainbow. Not actually under the rainbow, but near enough to give immortal sense to Keats and the figures on his Grecian Urn:

  Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

  Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

  Bo
ld Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

  Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;

  She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss . . . .

  The crock of gold seemed to have brought Keats to life in him after many years! And it would not help much now to be jealous of the rainbow! After all, a crock of gold under the rainbow would be only an urn in a museum. Even irony had its over-all balance. The poets needed a myth to feed on. It was their secreted honey. Keats took over from the archaeologist.

  And his brave hope that he might be able to show some connection between the crock of gold and the lady in the box in his bedroom! . . . She had been asleep today, quietly. Or had she turned over in her sleep and smiled—and set his feet walking?

  How fantastic a being was man in his secret recesses! There was nothing mad enough for him secretly to conceive—even Anna as a housekeeper and Sheena getting piano lessons! A faint squirm touched him now. He had been suppressing in himself the cry that Anna had given over the body of Martin on the storm-driven foreshore. He nodded, and went on.

  Nothing had certainty in it to anyone . . . except to Sheena playing her Silver Bough. Quite literally, that was the fact. He saw it with such absolute clarity that he laughed again. And presumably here was the “influence” that had been directing his footsteps!

  Heady stuff, this sentiment! He had not got quite used to it yet. The funeral had helped; and afterwards, with Mrs Cameron . . . she had really deep down been quite cross with Anna for not knowing how to handle a man! He laughed for the third time, and then his thoughts fell from him, for he was coming over the ridge and he should see in a moment if the two of them were on the little shore.

  It took full five seconds for his wits to gather enough sense to make him lie down. Martin was leaning against the stem of his boat which he had grounded on the shingle by the dark skerry. Fleeing the funeral concourse to the fishing grounds, he had presumably been attracted once more by the same figure on the strand. Grant saw the Silver Bough glisten in the sun. She was showing it to him. It flashed as she tipped it up. Anna was standing at a little distance, quite still.