Hatter's Castle

by Арчибальд Джозеф Кронин

  The few other passengers were less assured and remained huddled together as the boat pitched about like a cockleshell in the stormy water. They clung to the stanchions, lay upon the deck, or were openly sick, whilst the spray-laden wind howled through the rigging, and the fierce, snapping waves burst over the low bulwarks, covering the deck with a sheet of water which flooded from side to side with each roll of the ship.

  But at length they drew near Burntisland, passed out of the stormy water and, after considerable manoeuvring, made fast. The skipper of the little vessel came of! the bridge, dripping in his oilskins.

  "I'm not sorry to be in," Denis heard him say. "I didna like it. It's the worst crossing we've ever made."

  The passengers disembarked hastily, although some had suffered so acutely that they were obliged to be carried off the ship on to the jetty, and here the small band of heroes bade Denis farewell.

  "You're not going any further, then?" said Denis.

  "Na! Na!" said the spokesman, looking up at the clouds. "We're all Burntisland lads, praise be, and it'll be a long time before we have another jaunt o' this nature to Edinburgh. Hame looks guid enough to me after that blatter o' sea."

  They shook hands with him, solemnly, feeling that they would never forget him. "Man, he was a cure, yon fellow that cam' ower the Forth i' the storm," they would repeat to each other long afterwards. "He didna give a hang about anything."

  When they had left him, Denis made his way to the station. The train for Dundee, being run in conjunction with the Granton ferry, and due to depart at 5.27 P.M., was already waiting, and as it was now twenty minutes past five, he walked along the platform, looking through the windows to secure an empty third-class compartment. A larger- number of people than might have been expected from the nature of the weather, were travelling, and he traversed the length of the train up to the engine without seeing a vacant carriage. At the engine, the guard stood talking to the driver and Denis, recognising in the former an acquaintance that he had made with his usual facility upon a previous journey, went up and accosted him.

  "And how's Davie McBeath?" he cried. The guard turned his head, and, after a moment's hesitating scrutiny, his eye cleared.

  "It's yourself, then, Mr. Foyle," he replied cordially. "I couldna place ye for a minute."

  "Sure there's not another like me out of Donegal," grinned Denis.

  "Do you get weather like this over there?" asked McBeath. "Mitchell," he indicated the driver, "and me are just discussing the gale; we're no so sure of the wind. It's in a bad quarter."

  "Will it push the old, puffing billy backwards?" laughed Denis. Mitchell shook his head doubtfully.

  "It's no' just exactly that," he exclaimed, and his look spoke more than his words; then, turning to his mate in the cab he asked:

  "How is the gauge, John?"

  The black face of the stoker looked up, his teeth showing whitely as he smiled.

  "You've enough steam to take ye to Aberdeen!" he said. "Ay, and further than that, if ye like."

  "Dundee'll be good enough for me, and for you too, Johnnie Marshall," replied the other dryly.

  "Will she stand it, think ye?" enquired McBeath seriously, for the moment ignoring Denis.

  "I canna say," replied Mitchell cryptically, "but we're shair tae find out, ay, and soon enough."

  "What's all the mystery?" asked Denis, looking from one to the other.

  The grinning face of the stoker looked up from the open door of the furnace, whilst the reflection of the flames played across his dusky, shining face.

  "They're a' feared o' a wee bittie o' a brig," he guffawed, as he shovelled; "they dinna ken what steel and cement mean yet."

  "Get awa' ye, man," growled Mitchell angrily. "Ye've twa mile o' it and that wind is blowin' richt at it ay and hammerin' like the picks o' ten thousand devils." At his words a hush seemed to fall on the group, then with a start McBeath looked at his watch.

  "Well," he said, "whatever we think, the schedule says go, and go we must. Come away, Mr. Foyle."

  "What exactly is the trouble?" asked Denis, as he walked up the platform with the guard. Davie McBeath glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, but he did not reply; instead, he changed the subject significantly, saying:

  "That's a grand new ulster you've got."

  "You like it."

  "Ah! I do that! It's a real cosy thing for a night like this, and real smart too."

  "Is it smart enough for a wedding, Da vie?" asked Denis, nudging the other confidentially.

  "It is that!" replied the guard unthinkingly; then he looked up interestedly.

  "What! What! Ye're not thinkin' o' " Denis nodded his head.

  "I'm not thinking, man. I'm certain. Tuesday's the day, and like enough I'll wear this coat. Sure, it's part of my trousseau!"

  McBeath gazed at the other quizzically, then his dry features relaxed, and they both laughed heartily.

  "Weel! Weel! You don't say!" cried Da vie. "Man! You're a caution! Ye're moving ahead fast. For sure I wish ye the best o' everything to you and the wee lass, whoever she may be. She'll be braw, if I ken ye richtly. Come along, now. We canna put a bridegroom in with all these people in the thirds." He looked along his nose at Denis as he opened an empty first-class compartment. "It wouldn't be

  safe."

  "Thanks, Davie," said Foyle appreciatively. "You're a good sort. I'll send you a bit of the cake to sleep on." Then he added, more seriously, "See you later, at Dundee." The guard gave him a smile and a nod as he walked off, and a moment later the whistle blew, the flag waved, and the train moved out of the station.

  Alone in his magnificence, Denis looked about him with satisfaction, and, leaning back upon the cushions, he raised his feet upon the opposite seat and fixed his eyes meditatively upon the ceiling. But slowly his gaze grew distant, and, piercing the low roof, reached far away. He was thinking of Mary.

  He would, he reflected soberly, be married on Tuesday, not exactly in the manner he had hoped, nor in the fashion he had sometimes planned, but married none the less. The manner of the marriage did not matter, the fact remained that he would be no longer a bachelor, and already he began to feel older and more responsible.

  A comforting glow pervaded him as he considered the nobility of his action in accepting, so willingly, this responsibility. He repulsed the thought that he had ever wished to repudiate the consequences of his love. "No," he cried aloud, "I'm not the sort of skunk to let down a girl like Mary." He became aware vividly of her trust, her loveliness, her faith in him, thought of her at first tenderly, then with a faint anxiety; thinking of the storm, he hoped, for her sake, that it had not touched Levenford. Here, despite the happy tenor of his mind, he began to feel unaccountably depressed; the subdued happiness which had succeeded his exuberance at the commencement of his journey now turned slowly to an unaccountable melancholy. He tried to shake this off, fixing his mind on the roseate future that awaited Mary and himself in their cottage at Garshake, envisaging the wonderful career he would carve for himself, thinking of the holidays, the trips abroad they would later enjoy but he could not dispel the shadow that had clouded his bright optimism. He began to be afraid for her and to ask himself if he had been wise to postpone taking her from her home until so late.

  It began now to rain, and the windows of his compartment became blurred with a dismal covering of wet and slush. The pounding wind flung great gobs of sleet against the sides of the train with a sound like the slash of a wet cloth, whilst the rain hissed upon the roof of the carriage like fierce streams from the nozzle of a gigantic hose.

  His depression deepened and his mind filled with a more mournful misgiving, as, with a sad regret, he visioned the sweet, mysterious beauty of her body and thought how he had deflowered that beauty.

  At his violating touch a child had become a woman, who must have suffered bitterly by his act; her slender virginity had become bloated through him, and, in the effort of concealment alone, she must have endured misery; t
he intimate symmetry of her form appeared to him as something which he had destroyed, which she would never again regain. A sigh broke from him as, slowly, the train drew to a standstill at a wayside station. The train, which was not express, had already made several halts at intermediate stations without his having particularly observed them, but here, to his annoyance, the door of his compartment opened and an old countryman entered. He seated himself blandly in the opposite corner, steaming from the rain, whilst puddles of water ran off him on to the cushions and floor; emanating from him, and mingling with the steam, came the spirituous odour of a liquid more potent than rain-water. Denis stared at him, then remarked coldly, "This is a first-class compartment."

  The old fellow took a large red-and-white spotted handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose like a trumpet.

  " 'Deed it is," he said solemnly, affecting to look around the carriage. "I'm glad you told me. It's a rale pleasure for me to travel in style; but the first-class that ye speak o' doesna make muckle difference to me, for I havena got a ticket at all;" and he laughed uproariously, in a tipsy fashion.

  Denis was so far below his normal humour that he failed to appreciate the situation. In the ordinary way he would have amused himself intensely with this unexpected travelling companion, but now he could only gaze at him glumly.

  "Are you going far?" he finally asked.

  "To Dundee bonnie Dundee. The town ye ken not the man. Na! Na! I'm not thinkin' o' the bonnets o' bonnie Dundee I mean the bonnie town o' Dundee," the other replied, and having thus explained himself with a grave and scrupulous exactitude, he added, meaningly, "I hadna time to get my ticket, though."

  Denis sat up. He would, he realised, have to endure this for the rest of the journey and he resigned himself to it.

  "What's the weather like now?" he asked. "You look wet!"

  "Wet! I'm wet outside and inside. But the one counteracts the other, ye ken, and to a hardy shepherd like me wet clothes just means lettin' them dry on ye. But mind ye, it is a most awful, soughin 1 night, all the same, I'm glad I'm not out on the hills."

  He nodded his head several times, took a small, foul stump of clay pipe from his pocket, lit it, covered it with its metal cap, and, inverting it from the corner of his mouth, sucked noisily; when he had filled the carriage with smoke, he spat copiously upon the floor without removing the pipe from his mouth.

  Denis looked at the other with compassionate disgust, and as he tried to picture this gross, bibulous old yokel as a young man, wondered moodily if he himself might ever degenerate to such a crapulous old age, and his melancholy grew more profound. Unconscious of the effect he had produced, the old shepherd continued,

  "Ay! It's good-bye to the hills for me. That sounds kind o' well, think ye no'? Ay! Good-bye to the hills. Man!" he laughed, slapping his thigh "It's like the name o' a sang. Good-bye to the Hills. Weel, onyway, I'm going back to my native town, and you'll never guess what for." He tittered vehemently, choking himself with smoke.

  "You've come into some money, perhaps?" hazarded Denis.

  " 'Deed, no! The bit of money I've got is what I've saved by hard and honest work. Try again." As Denis remained silent he went on garrulously.

  "Ay! you'd never think it, but the plain truth is that I'm going " He paused to wink prodigiously, then blurted out, "I'm goin' to Dundee to get married." Observing with manifest enjoyment the effect he had produced, he meandered on

  "I'm a hardy blade, although I'm not so souple as I was, and there's a fine, sonsie woman waiting for me. She was a great friend of my first wife. Ay! I'm to wed early the morn's mornin'. That's the way I'm takin' this train and breakin' the Sabbath. I maun be in time, ye ken."

  As the other wandered on, Denis gazed at him with a curious repulsion, due, in the main, to the strange coincidence of his own circumstances. Here, then, was another bridegroom, linked to him in this narrow compartment by a bond of corresponding position. Did this disreputable veteran mirror the image of his contumely, or reflect to him a dolorous premonition of his future?

  In dismay Denis asked himself if he were not as contemptible in the eyes of his own kind as this grey-beard was in his. A tide of self-depreciation and condemnation rushed over him as he began to review the manner of his life. An unusual humility startled him by the rapidity and force of its onset, and in this despair he remained, subdued and silent, until the train clattered into the station of St. Fort. Here his companion rose and got out of the compartment, remarking, as he did so. "We've a good way to go yet. I'll just get out and see if I canna get haud o' something to keep out the cauld. Just a wee dram to warm the inside o' the stammack." In a moment, however, he came back, to say reassuringly, "I'll be back! I'm not away, mind ye. I wouldna leave ye like that. I'll be back to keep ye company till we get to Dundee." Then he tramped off.

  Dennis looked at his watch and saw that it was five minutes past seven. The train was up to time, yet, as he put his head out of the window, he found that the strength of the wind had increased beyond endurance. Passengers getting out of the open doors were bowled along the platform, and the heavy train, as it stood stationary, seemed to rock upon its wheels. Surrounding McBeath he saw a wind-beaten group clamouring:

  "Is it safe for us to gang on, guard?"

  "What a wind it is! Will the train stand it?"

  "Will it keep on the line?"

  "Lord save us, what a night this is! What about the bridge? Oh! I wish we were a' hame!"

  He thought his friend the guard looked perturbed and irritable, but although McBeath did indeed feel anxious, with the charge of a hundred people upon his mind, he maintained in his replies the even and imperturbable calm of officialdom.

  "Safe as the Bank of Scotland, Ma'am."

  "Wind forsooth! Tuts, it's only a bit breezie, man. Think shame o' yourself."

  "Ay, it'll haud the line and ye'll be hame wi' your lassock in an hour, ma fine wumman!" Denis heard him repeat placidly, composedly, impenetrably. His calmness seemed to reassure them completely, and at his comforting words the people scattered and entered their compartments.

  At length the all clear was given and the train again began to move. As it did so Denis observed the figure of his travelling companion staggering against the wind in an effort to attain the rear-most carriage, but in his anxiety and haste, the old shepherd slipped and fell prostrate upon the platform. The train drew away from him, he was irrevocably left behind and, as they moved out of the station, Denis caught a last glimpse, under the gusty flicker of the station lamp, of the perplexed, discomfited face, filled with almost ludicrous desolation. As he sat in his corner, while the train approached the southern edge of the Tay Bridge, Denis reflected with a sombre humour that the other would assuredly be late for his nuptials in the morning. Perhaps it was a lesson meant for him. Yes, he must profit by this strange, unpleasant coincidence. He would not fail Mary on Tuesday!

  The train moved on and, at thirteen minutes past seven, it reached the beginning of the bridge. At this point, before entering upon the single line of rails over the bridge, it slowed down opposite the signal cabin, to allow the baton to be passed. Without this exchange it was not permitted to proceed, and, still filled by a sense of misgiving, Denis again lowered his window and looked out, to observe that everything was correct. The force of the gale almost decapitated him but, in the red glare cast by the engine, he discerned, stretching dimly into the distance, the massive girders of the bridge, like the colossal skeleton of an enormous reptile, but of steel, strong and adamantine. Then, all at once, he saw the signalman descend the steps from his box with consummate care, clutching the rail tightly with one hand.

  He surrendered the baton to the stoker, and, when he had accomplished this, he climbed back into his cabin with the utmost difficulty, fighting the wind and being assisted up the last few steps by the hand of a friend held out to him from within.

  And now the train moved off again and entered the bridge. Denis raised his window and sank back in his seat comp
osedly, but, as he was carried past the signal box, he received the fleeting impression of two pale, terrified faces looking at him from out of it, like ghostly countenances brushing past him in the blackness.

  The violence of the gale was now unbounded. The wind hurled the rain against the sides of the train with the noise of a thousand anvils and the wet snow again came slobbering upoa the window panes, blotting out all vision. The train rocked upon the rails with a drunken, swaying oscillation, and although it proceeded slowly, cautiously, it seemed, from the fury and rush of the storm, to dash headlong upon its course. Thus, as it advanced, with the blackness, the noise of the wheels, the tearing rush of the wind, and the crashing of the waves upon the pier of the bridge below, there was developed the sensation of reckless, headlong acceleration.

  As Denis sat alone in the silent, cabined space of his compartment, tossed this way and that by the jactation, he felt suddenly that the grinding wheels of the train spoke to him. As they raced upon the line he heard them rasp out, with a heavy, despairing refrain: "God help us! God help us! God help us!"

  Amidst the blare of the storm this slow, melancholy dirge beat itself into Denis' brain. The certain sense of some terrible disaster began to oppress him. Strangely, he feared, not for himself, but for Mary. Frightful visions flashed through the dark field of his imagination. He saw her, in a white shroud, with sad, imploring eyes, with dank, streaming hair, with bleeding feet and hands. Fantastic shapes oppressed her which made her shrink into the obliterating darkness.

  Again he saw her grimacing, simpering palely like a sorry statue of the Madonna and holding by the hand the weazened figure of a child. He shouted in horror. In a panic of distress he jumped to his feet. He desired to get to her. He wanted to open the door, to jump out of this confining box which enclosed him like a sepulchre. He would have given, instantly, everything he possessed to get out of the train. But he could not.