by Neil M. Gunn
Don laughed. “Come away up with me and get your fairing,” he said forcefully.
“Thank you,” said Catrine, “but I can’t leave just now.”
“Rob will stand by,” said Don. “He never was a hand for the girls any more than Roddie here!” His large body was full of pleasantness and good nature. He was out for the day.
“Off you go!” said Kirsty to Catrine peremptorily. “I have a few things to ask this young man.”
Finn soon realized that hitherto he had stood on the outskirts of the market. He was now in a tremendous press of people and to save him from getting crushed Roddie hoisted him on to his shoulder. At once he beheld the long line of stalls going away up the slope, each laden with things he had never seen before in his life. Fat women behind the stalls were shouting their wares, and now and then shouting to one another or to men digging more things out of boxes behind. There were great piles of ginger-bread and glittering ornaments of silver and gold in every size and shape; red gooseberries and green gooseberries and nuts in little hills; oranges and apples; sweets and toffees of every colour and description. Near by, a man standing on a box was shouting at the top of his voice. He had come specially to present to the people the greatest bargains the world had ever seen. Into a beautiful case, satin-lined, containing three knives and three forks made of solid silver and ivory, he, before their living eyes, with thumb and finger, placed a golden sovereign; then he snapped the case shut and offered the lot for fifteen shillings—a fraction of the cost of the cutlery alone. Would no one make him an offer? Even ten shillings? … “Ladies and gentlemen, I have been offered five shillings! Five shillings!! Is it for the empty case alone, sir? What’s that? … I gather, ladies and gentlemen, that this gentleman, who is contemplating the blessed state of matrimony …” There was a roar of laughter at this lucky shot.
Everyone was smiling or laughing. Don held up to Finn a flat cake of ginger-bread. “Now,” asked his mother, “what do you say for that?” “Thank you,” said Finn. He did not like to eat it at once, but when they weren’t looking he tried a mouthful. It was soft and melted into a clammy mess that was unbelievably good. Don gave Catrine a bag of sweets. Then Roddie asked her what she would have. All the young men seemed to be buying fairings for the young women. One girl had a bag like a pillow-slip. They all had bags, except Catrine. The girls laughed a tremendous amount, and the young men made jokes and took jokes against themselves with good nature and swaggering gestures. Finn saw a mound of trumpets, each striped in blue and red, exactly like the one the boy had blown at the horse. He could not take his eyes off them. There were many other kinds of toys, too, but they were nothing to the trumpets. Roddie lowered him to the ground, the better to get at his reserve money, and so Finn got a closer view of the trumpets. The woman behind the stall seemed to know that he would like a trumpet, though he had never told her. He got very embarrassed. “Here you are,” she cried, “and good luck with it, my little gentleman!” She held one out to him. He backed away, against Roddie’s legs. Roddie took the trumpet from the woman and handed it to Finn. Finn stared at the trumpet and slowly put out his hand. “Oh, my word!” exclaimed his mother. “What have you to say to Roddie for that?” But Finn had nothing to say. He remained dumb. “Leave him alone,” said Roddie. Catrine looked at Finn and on the point of pressing him to remember his manners, remained silent. Finn changed the ginger-bread from his right to his left hand and the trumpet from left to right. He could hold things better with his right hand. But he had not the courage to raise the trumpet to his mouth.
Presently, however, when he saw the others had forgotten him, he put the trumpet to his lips and said, “Zoo!” But it did not sound as it had done with the boy. More firmly he called “Zooo!” into it. Still it remained dead. There was something wrong with his trumpet! It was broken! It would not sound! His distress became acute. Roddie was kneeling beside him. “Blow into it, like this—phooo! … No, no, don’t make a sound, just blow.” Finn blew, and the trumpet sounded loud and high, clearing a path for itself over the world.
There were two more incidents of that day that were to remain in his memory. One stall consisted of an inclined table on which were spaced out attractive articles of every kind. Each article was surrounded by a circular wall with a hole an inch wide at the top. After paying a penny, you were permitted to pull back a handle at the low right-hand corner and let it go with a bang, whereupon a marble shot up to the top of the table, and returned, bouncing from one enclosure to another. If you were very lucky, the marble entered one of the little holes or gates, and then you were presented with what was inside the enclosure. Roddie insisted on Finn’s having a shot. “Pull it back yet—back yet—now!” Finn let go. Off on its wild career went the marble. Then down—down—it was going in!—no—down—down … nothing. In these few seconds Finn lived such a long time, that the marble fell back into the bottom of an exhausted world. “Have another shot,” said Roddie. Finn felt all weak with the terrible excitement, and if he got nothing again he would hardly be able to bear it. His face deeply flushed, his eyes glittering, he let go the knob. But he had not pulled so hard this time and the marble barely reached the top. He could have cried to have the shot over again, but the marble, describing a gentle curve, hit against the edge of a little gate at its first contact, knocked against the other edge, wobbled, and fell in. “Hurrah!” cheered Roddie. And Finn was handed a lovely brooch, with a large glittering gem in the middle of it.
Roddie and Finn came to a tall mast surrounded by a crowd of men. Roddie heaved Finn on to his shoulder. “For strong men only! Ring the bell and get your money back!” shouted a crow of a man with a club foot and wisps of lank hair; whereupon he caught up a great hammer, its wooden head bound with iron, and, swinging it full circle, hit a knob which sent an iron pointer travelling hurriedly up the mast to tinkle a bell at the top. Strong men, who could have broken the showman on a knee, tried to ring that bell and failed. Twice Don got it a couple of inches from the top. “Very hard luck, sir! Very hard cheese indeed!” cried the sympathetic showman. Whenever he said “hard cheese” the crowd laughed. “Break the mast, Don,” cried Roddie. Don, who had already been in Mr. Hendry’s refreshment booth, looked around until he found Roddie’s head. He smiled. “Come on, Roddie, and ring this dam’ thing, or I’ll never get home.” “No, no!” said Roddie, laughing. But the crowd now had caught sight of him. “Come on, skipper!” They would not leave him alone. They made way for him. “Don’t let the crew down!” cried a greybeard. Roddie lowered Finn to the ground and left him on the inside of the ring. As he lifted the hammer, he said humorously, “It’s all in the turn of the wrist!” Finn felt his heart swelling in a terrible anxiety. Roddie looked up the whole length of the mast. “She’d carry a good sail, boys!” Before anyone could laugh, the hammer had swung round in a flash; the pointer shot up with invisible speed to a ring and clatter at the top as if the bell had burst. In the momentary silence of the crowd, Finn’s body quivered, “Come on, Don,” said Roddie, with quiet but commanding humour. Don obeyed. Roddie whispered something in his ear. Down came the hammer swiftly; up shot the pointer and the bell just tinkled.
Don was delighted and insisted on hauling Roddie round to Hendry’s booth. “Wait till I put Finn back to his mother.” “Is this the little Cattach?” asked Don with a friendly smile to Finn. He put his hand in his pocket and offered him three pennies, but Finn was too shy to take them. “And he’s got a little pocket in his doublet, too!” Don put the pennies in the pocket. “Now,” he said, “you’ll come and drink a glass of ginger-ale.” “But we can’t take him into the booth,” Roddie objected. “Let the boy be,” said Don. “His country was kind to us.” Without more ado, he led the way.
Roddie smiled. After a dram, Don’s good nature got very persistent. There was no sign of Catrine anyway, and there would be no drunkenness in the booth yet, though some of the dogs outside were beginning to snarl, and when the dogs fought, their owners, if they had a dr
op too much, fought also.
The jostling, swaying crowd inside the canvassed enclosure, open to the sky, frightened little Finn, and Don lifted him on his right arm. This was the one real day in the year (though there was also a spring market) when quiet, law-abiding men of the countryside permitted themselves some licence. Bargains were struck, palms spat upon, hands shaken, and final agreement sealed over a dram of “special”. With good money in the pocket and the heart open, a friend was a friend, and if he hadn’t been seen since the last market, there was a lot to be said. There were many friends. The world was full of friends. “Hullo, is that you, Robert, my hero? God bless me and how’s your old father? …” Finn was deafened with the voices. He had never seen men like this, easy and confidential, swaying to one another, here with solemn confidential faces nodding sadly over a tale of family grief, there with shoulder-slapping mirth. Mr. Hendry’s voice barked out its commands. Dave shouted to a servitor, but failed to attract the overwhelmed lad’s attention. “Blow a blast on your trumpet, Finn,” urged Don. Finn did not like to blow, but at last he let off a splendid blast. Everyone looked at them. “A ginger-ale and two specials!” shouted Don. Mr. Hendry recognized them. “Ha, you!” he cried. And then a man, who knew Finn, saw him. “Is that my little Finn I see?” He was a brown-bearded, broad-shouldered man, with a face happier than any boy’s. He waved to Finn with an exaggerated prim womanish gesture that made heavy men lean back. “Peep-bo!” he cried. At last they had to stop him, and a voice yelled, “Wull, you’re drunk!”
Wull was up near the serving counter and he looked down the booth upon figures standing and figures sitting on the long wooden trestles, swaying lightly, his eyes lost in a benign, silent mirth.
“Boys,” he said to them softly, in so confidential a tone that everyone listened, “boys—I’m full as the Baltic.” As a noted smuggler, Wull was enjoying the perverse happiness of drinking whisky that had paid duty.
……
Catrine was waiting for them when they came out. Her smile was a little awkward as she tried to dissemble her concern. “I was frightened you had got lost,” she said, looking reproachfully at Finn.
“Why would he get lost?” asked Don. “Surely the poor fellow can have a drink with the rest. Eh, Finn? Are you going home with your mother or are you sticking by Roddie and me?”
“Come, Firm,” said Catrine.
Finn hesitated. Roddie and Don laughed. “That’s the boy!” said Don. “Away home, woman of the house, and leave the young man to enjoy himself. The fun hasn’t started yet.”
“Come, Finn,” said Catrine firmly. She took his hand.
“Finn, Finn, my boy,” said Don, shaking his head, “that’s what they do to you.”
“Have you sold?” asked Roddie.
“Yes, I’m glad to say,” replied Catrine. “And at a good price.”
“Kirsty will be pleased!”
“Yes.” Catrine nodded. She was somehow a little constrained now and looked extremely attractive. Her eyes in the sun were not dark, they were nut-brown, a fathomless brown, shot through with light. Her mouth made any other woman’s prim and pale. “Thank you very much,” she said, flushing a trifle as she felt the men’s eyes, “and particularly for looking after Finn.”
“Really going?” asked Roddie.
“Yes, oh yes. I must”
“My young man—and where have you been? Drinking, I hear?” It was Kirsty, her face portentously solemn. Finn backed away. Don picked him up. “What have you to say for yourself?” she demanded, and poked him in the stomach.
Now Finn’s stomach, what with ginger-bread, gooseberries, toffee, and a large bottle of very fizzy ginger-ale, was tight as a drum, and when Kirsty poked it there came through his mouth a prolonged, an incredible eructation. Even Kirsty laughed, nodding her head like a witch.
*
That night Finn had a thousand things to tell and more questions to ask about the strange world he had seen, once his mother and himself were alone and Kirsty in bed. In minute detail he described how Roddie had rung the bell.
“He must be awfully strong, Mama?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think he’s the strongest man in the world?”
“I couldn’t say. Perhaps he is. Do you like Roddie?”
“Yes,” said Finn. “And when I’m big I’ll go to sea, too, and be a skipper.”
“Mama does not want you to go to sea. You must never go to sea. Do you hear? Never.”
“Why?” He was astonished at her vehemence.
“Because I don’t want you to. Because people who go to sea get drowned. The sea is an angry cruel place. You must promise me never to go to sea.”
“Will Roddie get drowned?”
“I hope not. Will you promise never to go to sea?”
“Can’t I sail the little boat Don gave me?”
“We’ll see. But not yet.”
“I want to sail the little boat,” said Finn moodily.
“Haven’t you your trumpet? Isn’t that enough for you?”
“I want also,” said Finn, “to sail the little boat.”
“We won’t talk any more about it just now. Go to sleep.” Catrine left him.
Finn knew the pool in the burn on which he was going to sail his little boat. The boat was painted red and had a mast with a piece of cotton tacked on to it. The boat was longer than his foot. Don told him how to put it in a pool and push it off. Then the wind would come and hit the sail and the boat would go away, away, sailing to the other side. He could take his trumpet down with him, and when he pushed the boat off he could blow on his trumpet and cry, “There she goes! Look out, everyone!” Then he would cross the river and meet her when she arrived. It was such a long time to the morning. If Mama would not give him the boat it would be awful. If he promised to be very, very good she might give it to him. He had given her the brooch. He had said, “Mama, you’ll have a fairing from me”, just as the men said it to the women at the market. He had felt a little shy about it, so had done it as casually as possible. His mother had looked at him, as if she could not believe her eyes. “Oh, Finn,” she had said. “Oh, Finn, how lovely!” And then she had snatched him up and smothered her face against him. Her face got all flushed and her eyes glistened. Anyone would think he had given her his trumpet. The trumpet had a little handle, by which you could lift it smartly to your mouth and drop it down again. Once or twice he thought his mother was going to lift him and kiss him at the market and before Roddie. He would have been desperately ashamed. But she hadn’t done it. He had kept the brooch until they were on the way home. He must watch that she never got the chance to do it before boys and men like Roddie. Roddie was the greatest man in the world. If he said he would be very, very good perhaps she would let him sail the boat in the morning. She was sitting so very quiet before the fire with her back to him. She would be thinking of the market, too, of all the strange and wonderful and lovely things in the world. What a great and happy place the world was! But you had to be big and grown-up before you could do just what you liked.
“Mama?”
His mother did not answer. She was crouched over the fire, her shoulders drawn down.
“Mama?”
But she did not turn round; she did not speak. He sat up and stared at her. The world rocked in anguish. “Mama!” he cried. “Why are you weeping?”
CHAPTER VIII
THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH
“How can we trace the way of the spirit, how can we tell in what manner it was united with this clod of earth? No man can trace and no man can tell. It is enough that He who formed it did also unite or marry it to the body. For nothing is more clear than that the body which is carnal could not of itself create the spirit which is of God. What an astonishing mystery it is thus to see heaven and earth married together in the one person, to see such a noble and divine guest take up its habitation within the mean walls of flesh and blood. But as the mean walls of flesh and blood shall in corruption return to the
earth, so shall the divine spirit, which was created a rational spirit, conscious of good and evil, so shall it appear before the Creator of the spirits of all flesh, before the dread Arbiter and final judge. Woe unto each one of us on that day. Woe unto you in whom the spirit all the days of your lives has been polluted by the raging flesh….”
Mildly in this fashion did the catechist, Sandy Ware, pause to expound his reading in Genesis (Chapter ii, verse 7), before proceeding in more direct terms to indict the carnal self-seeking of the day. Little Finn, standing by his mother’s knee, kept his round, dark eyes on the mouth which opened and shut between the hair of the upper lip and the thick, square-cut forest on the chin.
In wide, Highland parishes, it was not easy for the minister of the parish church—the only church—to keep in close contact with the individuals of his flock, and so a god-fearing man, of some scriptural accomplishment, was appointed here and there to instruct the people in doctrinal truth as it is expounded and made finally clear in the one hundred and seven Questions and Answers agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster and called the Shorter Cathechism.
Normally the catechist went from house to house, but sometimes many were gathered together in one house for the convenience of the catechist, particularly if he were as well known as Sandy Ware and his services demanded in places far from his own district. For Sandy was not only a catechist, not only an expounder of doctrinal subtleties, but also, on occasion, a preacher of fluency and force. Roddie, who was now sitting with elbows on knees and the flat of his hands supporting his cheeks, had heard him in Helmsdale preaching to the fishermen. He had also been to Wick, pulling the drunken brands from the burning. Sandy and men like him had for some time been raising their voices against the constitution and spiritual inadequacy and backsliding of the Established Church itself, calling for its disestablishment, its dissociation from the worldly forces that govern it, calling for its reform and the uprising of the pure evangelical spirit.