by Neil M. Gunn
“Never mind him,” said Henry quickly to Roddie. “He’s all mouth.”
“All what did you say?” asked Big Angus.
“You mind your own business,” said Henry, “and we’ll mind ours.”
“Hoh-ho!” said Angus.
“Now, Angus, that’s enough!” called Donald George.
Roddie had never moved. His eyes were glass, his cheek-bones smooth. His concentration was so intense that it drew Big Angus fatally. There was a moment’s intense silence. Big Angus straightened his shoulders, like a man freeing and gathering himself, and said with automatic derision, “I was only asking him how he missed the Butt.”
Roddie’s movement was so swift, the smashing blow to the face so instantaneous, that Big Angus was being swayed back on to his feet by the men he had fallen against, before anyone quite realized what had happened.
“Get out of here!” yelled Donald George, fairly dancing.
No-one paid any attention to him. Big Angus, blood on his face, came towards Roddie, his fingers curved, his shoulders bunching. But Roddie did not wait for him; he swept in and lashed out a right and left to the face; then followed up so impetuously that Big Angus, supported by the crush behind, grabbed at him blindly. In this lock, Roddie staggered back to clear himself, steadied, then slowly, his throat swelling, lifted Big Angus clean off his feet and smashed him to the floor, where he lay squirming, like a man in a death-throe.
“Here, by God!” began one of Big Angus’s three companions, but Roddie was on him in an instant and the smash of the blow could have been heard down the street.
Roddie had broken loose. Swaying on the outer edges of his feet, fists clenched, he let out a challenging roar. But no-one was interfering with him now. “I’ll sail you round your bloody Butt!” yelled Roddie. “Come on!”
No-one, that is, but Donald George, who had a long experience of the moment when, with a few drinks, a client in the pride of his manhood has an urge to sweep the seven seas. He ducked under the flap of the counter.
“Get out of here!” he barked into Roddie’s face.
Roddie looked at him for a moment as at something utterly unexpected and strange. Donald George thrust out a compelling hand. Swift as a cat Roddie stepped sideways, caught Donald George by neck-band and trousers-seat, and swung him off his feet, swung him full round, and let go. He passed clean over the counter and crashed into his own bottles and casks. There was a roar of breaking glass and a flood of released whisky.
And at that moment, with the whole company paralysed, it came upon Finn to approach Roddie.
The actuating motive may have been a desire to help Roddie, to get him away in time. Standing before him, he said, “Come on, Roddie. Let’s get away now.” Roddie’s left arm was still outstretched, the back of the open hand towards Finn’s face. Through the foot that separated it from that face, Roddie brought it with such explosive force, that the resounding slap almost lifted Finn off his feet. Seumas caught him as he fell backwards; but in a red instant Finn had torn free, carried in that instant beyond all reason, in a stormy madness that cared nothing for defeat or death. For some obscure reason, Roddie did not hit him as he came in, when indeed he might have killed him. Though Finn, for that matter came very swiftly, and did in fact hit Roddie a glancing blow on the cheek. Roddie caught him, crushed him, lifted him up. Finn wriggled and yelled, his voice half-cracked, in a demented rage, clawing madly at Roddie, hitting him where he could. Whether Roddie would have smashed Finn against floor or wall and with what result was never to be known, for Callum leapt clean in on Roddie, and Henry, coming at him behind, slipped an arm round his throat. At that moment, Big Angus gripped Roddie’s ankle. Roddie’s blind heel shot backwards and hit him in the jaw. He rolled over in a bellow of agony. Roddie thrust Finn down on top of Callum and tore himself free.
“Roddie, boy,” said Rob, “you b-b-better stop.”
Roddie glared at him, as if he did not know him, and, turning on the men in the pub, let out his challenging berserk roar.
“Don’t be a bloody fool,” said Callum to Finn, holding him by the throat at arm’s length, “or I’ll bash you.”
Finn’s voice was broken, and he was shouting through his insane anger like a tortured child. And though he broke free, Callum, helped by Seumas, bunched him to the door, and finally together they shoved him bodily out.
Seamen were now coming running to the pub.
“Come on!” snapped Callum and, with the help of Seumas, walked Finn along the street. “Now clear out, for God’s sake!”
He waited until Finn had gone some little distance before turning back to the inn.
Seumas had him by the left arm, but Finn went quietly enough, head up, his quick breathing broken by panting gulps.
The slow-curving row of houses along the south bay seemed never to end. Seumas was talking quickly and lightly to Finn, and smiling, so that those who looked at Finn’s face might be deceived. Once or twice he pointed to a boat drawn up on the black foreshore below the grounds of Stornoway Lodge, as an excuse to avert their faces.
When they were on the country road, heading south, Finn stopped and sat down. He started trembling and, turning over on his face, gripped the heath with his fists. From him came not sobs but dry hacking convulsive sounds. Suddenly he shot up: “I’m going back!” Seumas put an arm round his neck. Finn tried to tear free, but Seumas held him, muttering common-sense gently. “Ssh, be quiet. Here’s somebody coming.” In time he got Finn quietened.
Finn sat in the ditch staring before him, his eyes bright as in fever. Seumas, with the pleasant lightness of comradeship, more soothing in voice and manner than any woman, told Finn that he was coming home with him to Luirbost for the night. At last Finn said, “Well, I’ll be getting back,” as if he had not heard a word.
So Seumas put all his reasons forward again, and added, “You can’t go back there wherever you go. You’ll only start it all over again. And you don’t want to do that?”
“I must go.”
“You think you’re running away. You want to know what’s happened.” Seumas looked at him, wondering whether Finn could now stand what he wanted to say, and then he said it: “You’re only thinking of yourself.”
Finn’s face hardened. Seumas laughed lightly. “Be sensible, Finn. You can’t pack into that lodging-room now, five of you. Nothing more will happen. It’s only a fight. There’s hardly a Saturday night in the season but Big Angus is in a row of some sort. Well, he got his gruel tonight. And he deserved it. So leave them alone. Besides,” he added shrewdly, “it was clear that Callum didn’t want you. It was Callum who told you to clear out. If they don’t want you, why force yourself on them?”
There was a long pause. “All right,” said Finn.
“We’ll have a snuff,” said Seumas, “and then we’ll take the road. It’s a fine night for it.”
He was a friendly, lovable fellow, this Seumas, and his voice so full of light common-sense that he broke down Finn’s reserve by asking, “After all, Finn, how did you miss the Butt?”
So after a vague smile Finn started talking and told of the thick weather and the storm.
Seumas listened with deep interest, drawing him out. And in time they got to the Seven Hunters.
“You didn’t climb Eilean Mor?” Seumas stopped on the road and looked at Finn closely, the subtle complimenting friendly manner fallen from him.
“I climbed that rock anyway.”
“But isn’t there a sheer face? Harris men go out there in the season for a load of birds and mutton. But they take a ladder for that bit, and they’re about the greatest rock climbers in the world.”
“Yes,” said Finn, “a ladder there would save time.”
“What did you find on top?” asked Seumas as they walked on again.
When Finn had described the little house, Seumas nodded, convinced at last. “Yes, that’s the ruins of the chapel. Long, long ago, a holy man lived there. They called him Saint Flannan. That’s w
hy they’re known, too, as the Flannan Isles.”
“Did he?” said Finn. “I wonder what he was like?”
Seumas looked at him. “No-one knows now. Why?”
Finn half smiled. “I had the sort of feeling that I was expecting him.”
“Had you?” remarked Seumas, also smiling, but with a reserved critical look in his eye. As Finn glanced at him, he continued: “An old man from Uig, named Ceit Morison, once told me that he used to go there as a young man. They used to do some queer things on landing. You know how we turn a boat round with the sun: never the other way.”
“Yes,” said Finn.
“Well, when they got up on top, the leader first of all would say, ‘Now, boys, there’s to be no relieving of nature here.’”
Wonder came back to Finn’s face in a solemn grin. “It wouldn’t do, I suppose, after they had got so far safely,” he said.
“They didn’t want to offend the rock that had been kind enough to take their feet. And it’s natural enough.”
“That’s so,” Finn agreed.
“Then they would strip off their upper clothes and put them on a stone before the Chapel. Did you notice a stone?”
“I did.”
“They got down on their knees and, saying a prayer, went forward that way to the chapel. Then they went round the chapel sunwise saying a second prayer. And then they said a third prayer by the little door. They did that in the morning, and also in the evening when they had finished killing the birds on the rocks.”
“Did they?”
“Yes. Old Ceit said to me that some of them would pray there better in a day than they would pray at home in a year. He said you could feel it was a holy place. Did you feel that?”
“I don’t know,” replied Finn, thoughtfully. “I felt as if someone invisible had just left and was maybe coming back. I felt he was an old quiet man. I was a little afraid and yet not afraid. But I have had that feeling at a place at home. What else did they do?”
“You know how we mention certain things at sea by other names? Well, they had queer names like that, too. In fact many of the Lewis seamen have them here. You call water by the name ‘burn’, and a rock is ‘hard’, the shore is ‘the cave’, sour is called ‘sharp’, you mustn’t say a thing is slippery but ‘soft’—oh, and a great lot more.”
In this way, as they journeyed together, by loch and peat bank, Finn grew calm in himself. But it was a grey calm, thin in texture like the feeling he had awaiting the invisible man, like the politeness that greets a stranger though death sits in the heart.
The night was on them before they turned along the quiet waters of Loch Luirbost, but in it was a dim greyness from the dead day. A sheep coughed, its face ghost-white. Grey, the gable-end of a cottage; and the front of the cottage, like a grey face. Black the peat stack, black the bare peaty soil, grey-green the grass. Stillness everywhere and silence—except for the eternal sea-bird that cried along the shore, drawing the eyes out over the shimmering water.
Seumas had already told Finn about the religious revival in the district and so had prepared him. It was the new evangelicalism rising against privilege and moderatism in the church, and here it had taken an acute revivalist form. Finn believed he had only to imagine Sandy Ware in control.
There was, however, an extraordinary quietism in the scene and the hour that had a new faintly apprehensive effect upon Finn; so much so that for a minute he wondered if he could still retreat. He did not want to lose the core of himself, even if it was a core of misery. Better to be by oneself, lost in the night, in the bog, than to be invaded. Better to gnaw the core of misery to black nothingness and be done with it, than to carry it, shielded over, into an alien night-world where the cottages had faces like masks.
But Seumas was going on confidently, with his light springy stride, and presently led Finn up off the path to a cottage door, which he opened without knocking, crying at the same time, “Are you in?”
Stooping, Finn followed him, and saw a man of about forty get up from a stool by the fire, shadow flickering over his welcoming face.
“What’s kept you at all?” he asked pleasantly, after he had shaken hands with Finn. “Was it the inn?” When Seumas said it wasn’t, he laughed: “I can smell the black balls on your breath!”
“Would you like one?” asked Seumas, producing a small paper bag of sweets.
“Thank you, thank you. Sit down.”
“But aren’t you going to the meeting?” asked Seumas.
“Och, well, what do you think? Sit down anyway. I said I would wait for you.”
They sat down and Alan asked them all sorts of questions about the week’s doings in Stornoway, until at last Seumas said, “I think we’d better be going.”
“Ach, you’re fine! What’s all the hurry?”
“I should have been home before now,” said Seumas. “They’ll be wondering.”
“Ach, all your folk will be at the meeting. My own sisters are there long ago. Take your time.”
Finn could see that Alan, for some reason, did not care much about going to the meeting. He had a practical cheerful manner and was full of questions to Finn about Caithness and the way things were going there.
This went on for a long time in a curious mood of gathering tension, in a timeless carelessness slowly being drawn taut, until at last, with a laugh, Alan said all right they might as well go.
As Finn passed over the doorstep, the other two hung behind, and he heard Seumas whispering to Alan.
“Surely, surely,” answered Alan loudly, and they came out. He was of average height, with strong bone, and a deliberate walk. From the cut of his shoulders, he would be tough.
They walked about half a mile and came to a thatched house unusually long for this part of the world. Hovering figures melted away into the darkness as they approached it. A little distance from the door, Alan hesitated, and looked at the sky as if wondering about the weather. But Seumas went on and they followed him. “Go in yourself first,” Alan whispered intolerantly to Seumas.
Finn had heard the raised voice of the evangelist long before he followed Seumas across the threshold, nor did the voice cease as they unobtrusively joined the group in a deep circle round the peat fire. Room was quietly found for them on the inner circle, but Alan shook his head, implying they were fine where they were, they could stand, and he looked at the preacher as if his interest were entirely taken up. There was a slight shuffling movement and the deal plank by their knees emptied sufficiently to permit them to sit down.
To Finn’s astonishment the preacher was not an old man; it was doubtful if he was forty. He had a high brow, with bare temples, and fine dark hair. His skin was pale, almost sallow, but his eyes burned in a black fire from under bony pronounced eyebrows. They had an extraordinary power of concentration, and as Finn stared and listened he found his mind emptying—and reforming far away, as it seemed, in a place where the figures and moods of the preacher came to a compelling life of their own.
He was very tired. The walk for a time had seemed to freshen him, but he had toiled hard and slept very little that week: an hour or two during the day between the spreading and lifting of the nets and again an uneasy hour or two at sea. He had not had his clothes off since last Sunday, and this was Saturday night. On top of all that had come the dreadful struggle in the inn.
For a little while, his exhaustion induced in him a feeling of soft dreamy luxuriousness. This preacher was as expert in his biblical evocations as Sandy Ware, created as intricate a pattern, as rich an involvement, while his intention progressed clearly towards enlightenment, fulfilment, on a tide of emotion that seemed as profound, as inevitable, as a tide in the sea.
Finn began to feel himself sinking. The need for sleep became an agony. The figures that the evangelist evoked grew blurred, wavered, until nothing was seen but the evangelist’s eyes. Far places and figures grew dark and mythical. A wild face raised to heaven, clasped hands, a knife, sacrifice, sacrifice. Angels ascen
ding and descending.
I must keep awake, Finn thought. I must not disgrace myself. He drew a blind over his open eyes and wandered desperately in the hinterland of his own mind, stinging himself awake. This was bitter agony and he wanted to groan and fall over in a dead heap.
Slowly, however, these obscurities of the flesh thinned and he felt easier, and was very glad of this, even if he now experienced the curious sensation of not being quite himself, and at the same time of being more than himself.
He was glad and cunning about it, because he did not want to lose the bodily relief of this state. If he could hang on to it, he would be all right.
But soon the need for such assurance did not even trouble his mind. He was fully awake and followed the evocations of the preacher with clarity and comprehension. He had a deep-sounding voice, as if his chest were resonant. It was the finest, most sounding voice Finn had ever heard, and those rhythms, which flow in Gaelic like the waves of the ocean, or the sigh of the wind, were flawless and inexorable.
This was the case even in his devious attack on the Established Church and its carnal-minded ministers (after reference to the birth-bedroom in Bethlehem’s inn over against “this Babel tower”): “When Christ comes to build a house for himself in the soul of man, his first work is, by his word and spirit, to pull down all towers and turrets of man’s imaginations and open a door on his heart and a window in his understanding—open his grave that his dead devils may get a resurrection in his heart, mind, memory, and in all the faculties of his soul and body; make his heaven a hell to him, his strength his weakness, his faith his delusion, his light darkness, his sun blood, his moon sackcloth; turn what were once the heavenly meditations in his thoughts into a hell of corruption, and his reformed heart into a cage of all abominations; his spiritual mind, once a library of divinity within himself, now becomes the mail packet to the devil’s emissaries; his summer joy is now his winter grief, and he cannot mourn, pray, or sigh, under his sad case, all blasted with the north wind as he is and grown over in his old days with young follies and lusts. Where is this poor man’s minister now? Where is the anointed of the church who will lead him at that dread hour through the valley of the shadow?…”