The Silver Darlings

by Neil M. Gunn

  What happy hours, what moments of delight—sheer delight that sometimes frightened her and brought a momentary shadow across the sun; from the feel of Finn’s body, the sound of his merry laugh. There was that moment in the hiding game when, half-terrified at last lest she had disappeared altogether from the world, he would suddenly come on her behind a bush—followed by the swift meeting, her arms round him, her face burrowing with bubbling sounds into his breast, and laughter shaking from him like notes from a tumbled musio-box.

  The tired hour when she took him on her lap and sang the old lullaby, so old that it must have made itself out of the heart of a mother in the beginning of time, and so new that it was Catrine’s own heart in its deepest fondness—carrying them both away, together, close together, until she had to stop singing and bring them to a warm huddle in the lap of the living moment.

  Occasionally she would look around, near and far, to make sure that sensible folk were not watching. For often she felt as young as Finn himself and would suddenly clap her hand over her mouth to smother the yelp of laughter. If she possessed nothing in the world but Finn, she had enough, enough, for ah! Finn was her own, her very own.

  And all that lovely time was ending. For next summer Finn would be old enough to do the herding himself, old enough to have his own ploys, to sail little boats and logs, to dam tiny shallows and guddle yellow trout, too old for a daisy-chain, too restless and grown-up for her lap. But—she would understand. With the point of the poker she slowly drew the ashes over the small, scattered embers that glowed like red jewels. She would try——

  Finn screamed. She dropped the poker and dashed to him. He kept on screaming as he clung to her wildly. “My legs!” She bared his legs, soothing him: “My little calf! My sweetheart! It’s only a dream.” He muttered something about a wall; but already the dream had gone, and gulping and half-sobbing, he was sinking down into sleep. In a minute he was quiet again.

  On what dangerous journey had he been all alone? She stood still in the darkness for a moment, but the night was more silent than her wondering mind.

  *

  In the morning, however, Finn suddenly remembered his dream. It was the first dream he ever had remembered and its clearness so astonished him that he looked around to make sure he could escape unseen. This was fairly easy if one moved away, bit by bit, interested in this or that, as if one weren’t going anywhere. Once round the corner of the house, he ran. Down where the burns joined, there was a drystone dyke taller than himself. He had climbed it once, but the stones on the top were shaky and he had got a fright. If one of the stones fell on you it would kill you! Well, he had seen this wall in his dream, but it was a much bigger wall, though it was the same wall, too. Now there was something about this wall that had always seemed to threaten him, to dare him and yet to threaten him, with a queer sort of expression on its face formed by the curious shapes of the holes between the stones. The wall had to be tumbled down for it was a bad wall. “Go forward and sound the trumpet!” cried a great man behind him, who was Moses, though he looked like Sandy Ware. There were many people behind, as Finn went forward. The trumpet hung from the branch of a tree, as Finn had sometimes hung his own trumpet, but this was a much bigger trumpet than Finn’s, and not straight but curved like one of the great horns on a Highland cow. Both the wall and the trumpet grew bigger as he drew near. But he took the mouthpiece in his lips and blew all the breath that was in him. The trumpet roared like a bull, and at that one or two of the stones on top started to shake; then the wall began to sway; he turned and ran as the wall fell, but the stones came after him, leaping over the grass, and he stumbled, and the stones leaped on to his legs….

  When he reached the drystone dyke, he was not altogether surprised to find it still standing. It was standing there exactly as it had always done, the same grey stones with the holes between.

  He gazed round about him as at nothing in particular. He looked up at the sky, but without lifting his head much. He tried to whistle carelessly. Suddenly he ran off home.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE SEASHORE

  “I can feel him,” said Finn, “I can just touch him,” his mouth open and his face flushed. He withdrew his arm from the hole in the cairn and quickly removed a few more surface stones. Oscar, the young collie, whimpered, but Donnie told him to shut up. In went Finn’s arm again. Donnie watched Finn’s eye and so knew what was happening. There was a scrabbling sound as Finn pulled out the rabbit by the hind legs. “Get down!” roared Donnie to Oscar, kicking him off with his knee. The rabbit squealed as Finn held him up and hit him smartly behind the ears with the edge of his open hand. He hit him several times, and then once or twice more to make sure. It was a young but full-grown rabbit. “Boy, he’s fat! Feel that,” said Finn. Donnie felt the broad back and nodded. They were connoisseurs of trout and salmon and game, not merely because their spoils were few and therefore precious, but also because they had to hunt with extreme wariness, lest gamekeeper or ground officer or other minion of the laird come upon them. For the smallest offence against the rights of “the estate”, a whole family might summarily be evicted from their croft and the holding be let at an increased rent to one of the many applicants for land and a home in these growing days.

  Finn was thirteen and Donnie one year older. Donnie had called on his friend Finn to try to inveigle him to go to the shore. It was a fine, sunny morning in early August, and the boats would be coming in. Finn had said that of course he couldn’t go because he was herding and there was no-one at home but his Granny. So he had driven the beasts down the brae to the lowest part of the holding—a place they liked because the grass was green and succulent. Finn did not let them go there normally: he kept it in reserve for those special occasions when he wanted to absent himself for an hour or so. He then had accompanied Donnie as far as the House of Peace and was standing talking to him, heavy with disappointment at not being able to go to the shore, when Oscar had suddenly started a rabbit. The rabbit had come straight for them, as its burrow was in the brae at their backs, had seen them and doubled—and finally slipped into this occasional refuge of the cairn.

  Finn’s blood was now up. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll go to Granny and tell her you and me are going after rabbits at your place and I’ll be sure to bring one home.”

  They discussed this at some length, and Donnie was left to secrete the rabbit in the hole from which it had been drawn and to block up the hole with stones, while Finn ran swiftly back with Oscar at his heels. He drove the cattle up the brae and behind the house.

  He was never sure of Kirsty. She could be extremely strict and harsh, and yet might suddenly agree on something you thought utterly hopeless and even wrong.

  She was washing potatoes by stirring them with a stick in the big iron pot as he went in. She looked up at him with her shrewd eyes and witch-like face and barked: “Well, what is it?”

  “I was wondering,” he said, mildly, “if I could get off for an hour or so. Donnie is wanting me up at his place.”

  “Oh, indeed! And what is Donnie wanting you for?”

  “There are one or two rabbits,” he said, “eating the corn on them, and Donnie says he knows how he would get them if I went with him at once.”

  “And why at once?”

  “Because the dog bolted a rabbit into a cairn, and the two of us working on a cairn could pull rabbits out.”

  “And what about me and all the work to do myself while you’re off pulling other people’s rabbits out?”

  “I’m sure of getting one rabbit home with me. That’s certain.” Finn spoke in a moody embarrassed voice, not looking at his Granny.

  “And what if anyone sees you?”

  “No-one will see me,” said Finn.

  “It would be just as well,” said his Granny. She stirred the potatoes. “They’re eating the corn, are they?”

  “Yes.”

  “No rabbits should be allowed to eat corn,” said Kirsty, “You can go—b
ut don’t be long.”

  “All right,” replied Finn. “The cattle are behind the house.” He strolled slowly out, but when he got to the lower gable-end, he took to his heels—and immediately pulled up to drive Oscar home. Oscar’s tail disappeared, while his eyes in their desperate pleading all but wept. Finn was merciless, growling and hissing.

  Donnie saw him coming, and fell in. They threw snatches of merry talk as they ran. “It was the rabbit eating your corn did it,” cried Finn.

  “Well, that was no lie,” cried Donnie.

  “No, but it was lucky!” cried Finn.

  They both stopped to have the laugh out, then ran on again.

  The seal the sea! the boats coming in!

  The lightness and brightness of the sea, and boats, and fishing, and fun!

  But when they came in sight of the stir on the long flat green before the beach, Finn pulled up. Pointing to the shelter of the river-bank; he said, “I’ll go round this way. You have a look to see where my mother is working and come and tell me on the edge of the sea.”

  “Right you are,” said Donnie, and off he set. The boats had been in some time, for curers liked to have their herring in salt at the earliest possible moment after being caught, and Mr. Hendry was full of more than the usual business ardour in this and other respects. The animation of the scene excited Donnie. Fishermen were already spreading their nets on the outskirts of the gutting stations, one net overlapping another, so that each drift was a long, rectangular darkness upon the green grass of river flat or sloping brae. He watched the barefooted men walking smartly in a line, for he knew who they were or where they came from. “Was there a good fishing to-day?” he asked one man, coming up with a net on his shoulders. “Only fair,” said the man. But there seemed to be an enormous number of herring in the wooden gutting boxes, which were bigger than the floor of a room, with sloping sides that the women could bend over. And there they were, bending over all sides, rows of women, their heads bobbing up and down as they stooped, caught a herring, gutted it, and flung it into a basket, bobbed again, gutted, and flung, their hands working so quickly that you couldn’t see exactly what the blade of the knife did. The old women worked like lightning, but the young women were glad to straighten their backs when a basket was full, and were on the look-out for a joke at any time. And here was George, the foreman, of important and sometimes stentorian voice, whisking salt from his scoop with expert gesture. Donnie backed away and went along the stations, looking for Finn’s mother. It was difficult to know the women with their wrapped heads and odd garments unless you could see the individual features.

  “Hullo, Donnie! Does your mother know you’re out?”

  “Yes,” said Donnie, and then blushed at having been caught so easily. There was a laugh and he backed away again. Then he saw Shiela; and, in another moment, Catrine, dumping her shallow, empty basket on the herring. A big enough pile there to keep her going for some time, he decided. Shiela saw him and waved a bandaged, bloody hand gaily, but before Catrine could spot him he went away hurriedly.

  “He seemed to be looking for someone,” said Shiela to Catrine.

  “Did he?”

  “When he saw you he ran.”

  “No?” She paused, then had to look at the gutted herring in her hand to see whether it was full or spent.

  But by this time Donnie was on the beach where all the boats were drawn nose up. And he had a great bit of luck, for as he passed the Morning Star, that had come in late, he paused to watch big Maria taking a creel of herring along the gang-plank. It very rarely happened, but still there was always the chance of a slip. And slip Maria did, clean as a whistle. The creel, keeping to the gangway, came hard against the side of the boat and so most of its contents were saved, but Maria hadn’t time to lift her skirts, though she lifted them as she waded out, exposing a breadth of flank that she thought men might be better employed than laugh at.

  Donnie was bursting with delight and listened to all the sallies with attentive ear.

  This slight misadventure ran along the boats and up over the beach to the gutting stations like a warm wind, and when Maria appeared with her creel, which had been filled up, George looked her over with his quick professional eye. “What have you been doing to yourself, Maria? You’re very wet.”

  “I didn’t do it to myself,” said Maria,

  Some of the women had to stop gutting because their hands grew feckless in laughter.

  Maria was a large, straight-backed, heavy woman of a slow tread. She was used to the creel, like all the women of the crofts, and bore it on her back with the same ease, whether loaded with manure, peats, fish, or any other material. Croft and sea were still so allied—and would be for many years—that the older women brought the customs of the land to the boat, and on occasion even carried their men on their backs, wading through the water to the gunnel to save them from getting wet before they adventured on the cold sea. Not that there were very many women of Maria’s heroic proportions in Dunster, and for the most part the men—especially the younger crews—did their own carrying, but still the fishing was based on the household, and where the men were there the womenfolk were gathered, giving life its extra warmth and excitement. Whether paid in fish or pennies, Maria reckoned she did as well as any of the gutters.

  Donnie found Finn talking to Roddie. “Only three crans,” Roddie was saying, the folded net balanced lightly on his shoulder. “Does your mother know you’re here?”

  “No,” said Finn.” Mind, don’t tell her.”

  “All right.” Roddie smiled to this fast-growing lad who, though slim, had little awkwardness in his movements. “You’ll find the handline in the stern of the boat.”

  Though the sterns of the boats were in the water, for the tide was flowing, the slight wash of the sea on the beach made it a poor place for fishing except for those useless finger-length fish they called “sellags”. Finn knew a much better place, where the water was deep beyond a sloping skerry, with a capital sandy bottom for flukes. With the handline and two herring, picked from among the ballast stones, Finn and Donnie slipped away to the skerry.

  They had a moment of terrible excitement when, squatting on the rock, they saw a dark-mottled flat fish about a foot long approach one of the two baits. “Don’t move,” whispered Finn intensely, for it was Donnie’s “chance” of the line. The water was of a perfect transparency. The flat fish came right up to the white bait, put its nose to it, and the bait disappeared. At once Donnie jerked and pulled and had him. He hauled rapidly and was on the point of heaving the fish out of the water when the second hook caught in a cleft of the rock.

  “Watch, or you’ll break the line!” cried Finn.

  “I’ll lose him!” cried Donnie.

  “Let him go!” yelled Finn. “Let him go!”

  But Donnie couldn’t bring himself to let the fish go. Finn snatched the line from his hands and slackened it. At once the flounder went nose down to the bottom, naturally drawing the hook from the crevice as it did so. “Now,” said Finn, handing the line back, “haul away—but canny!”

  Donnie hauled, and up the sloping, barnacled rock came the flapping flounder. This was the real fish of the deep sea, such as the winter small boats caught far off the land. Thrilled with wonder and excitement, they touched the skin with their finger-tips.

  “It’s your chance,” said Donnie, in no way hurt because Finn had snatched the line from him.

  “You see,” explained Finn, “Roddie gave the line to me, and it would be an awful thing if we broke it.”

  “Yes, but I wouldn’t have broken it. I thought it might just come out of the crack itself.”

  “I know,” said Finn, nodding generously. He took a piece of flesh from the herring’s back, trimmed it with his nails, and neatly hid the hook in it; then, getting to his feet, he stepped warily down to the edge of the water where it lapped on the rock and threw both baits as far out as he could.

  “That was a good throw,” said Donnie.
r />   “It’ll do,” said Finn.

  They squatted and waited, seeing all sorts of interesting things, from tiny crabs to little reddish fish that they assured each other were the young of the cod; coming out of and going into the narrow forests of coloured seaweed that grew around the foot of the rocks. Tall fronds of the tangle, leaves of dulse, bushes of long, swaying streamers that moved in the pulse of the sea like eels.

  “Isn’t it fine here?” said Finn.

  “It’s great,” said Donnie.

  “And the other boys are fishing off the boats,” said Finn.

  “For sellags!” said Donnie.

  The sarcasm was rich and throaty. A reddish rock cod over a foot long came sailing round the corner of a submerged ledge. Their breathing stopped. He sailed over their baits, straight to the ledge they sat on, nosed the weed, passed still farther in, then turned and began to go out. But as he now approached the baits, well above them, obviously not seeing them, Finn gave a gentle pull, so that the baits not only moved but even rose an inch or so. This movement was observed by the wanderer and he went down to investigate. He kept his nose quite a time in front of one bait as if he were sniffing it delicately. He opened his mouth and the bait shot in. Finn tugged—and successfully landed this new variety of prize.

  They forgot about time, crofts, cows, and humanity.

  The climax came when it was Finn’s chance. As the baits lay on the sandy bottom, there emerged from the outer forest an eel of such length that fear struck them straight to the heart. It was longer than themselves and its sinuous progress was terrifying to behold. It moved like the father of all serpents. They had involuntarily exclaimed on indrawn breaths, and now Donnie said, “Don’t!” He meant: Don’t let him take the bait. And Finn knew he shouldn’t. Yet he could not draw the line away, held at once by a fearful curiosity and an instinctive need to pit his courage against the desperate moment. The eel saw the bait, undulated down to it and promptly sucked it in. Finn pulled—and the eel, writhing into a knot, held. Finn pulled till the line bit into his hand, but could not raise the whirling eel. “Watch he doesn’t pull you in!” shouted Donnie. And in truth Finn had all he could do to hold against the eel. Indeed the eel snatched some line from him. “He’s going to break the line!” he cried.