Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry

by Rosalie K. Fry

  Secret of the

  Ron Mor Skerry

  Written and illustrated by

  Rosalie K. Fry

  THE NEW YORK REVIEW CHILDREN’S COLLECTION

  New York

  THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

  435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  www.nyrb.com

  Copyright © 1957, 1959, 1985 by Rosalie K. Fry

  All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Fry, Rosalie K., author, illustrator.

  Title: Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry / by Rosalie K. Fry.

  Other titles: Child of the Western Isles Description: New York : New York Review Books, [2017] | Series: New York Review Books Children’s Collection | “Published in England under the title: Child of the Western Isles.” | Summary: Ten-year-old Fiona, whose return to the island of Ron Mor to search for her missing brother, brings a legend to life.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016059784| ISBN 9781681371665 (hardback) | ISBN 9781681371672 (epub)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Lost children—Fiction. | Seals (Animals)—Fiction. | Selkies—Fiction. | Islands—Fiction. | Scotland—Fiction. | Mystery and detective stories. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Legends, Myths, Fables / General. | JUVENILE FICTION / Family / Siblings. | JUVENILE FICTION / Nature & the Natural World / General (see also headings under Animals).

  Classification: LCC PZ7.F924 Ch 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016059784

  ISBN 978-1-68137-167-2

  v1.0

  Cover design by Louise Fili, Ltd.

  For a complete list of titles, visit www.nyrb.com or write to:

  Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright and More Information

  Dedication

  SECRET OF THE RON MOR SKERRY

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Biographical Notes

  To Marjory Edelston

  Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry

  Chapter 1

  WHITE-CAPPED waves scudded before the wind, tumbling over one another in their hurry to fling themselves on a little steamer heading out from the coast of Scotland toward the Western Isles. But she was a stout little ship, accustomed to these wild seas, and as each wave struck her she shook herself like a terrier, tossing the spray back over her decks as she rose to meet the next.

  The passengers huddled below, sheltering from the wind and the flying spray. All, that is, except one. A child stood alone in the bow like a little figurehead. She was slight and small for a ten-year-old, with eyes as gray as the restless waves and red-gold hair that streamed on the wind like a flame. From the top button of her old brown coat fluttered a battered label on which was her name—Fiona McConville—and the island address to which she was traveling. And yet she was not quite alone after all, for several gulls drifted about her, easily keeping abreast of the ship as they glided along on the wind. Their out-spread wings were motionless but their watchful eyes missed nothing, and when a sudden wave tossed its spray into the air, they swept up out of reach with a twist of their wings, then glided along as before.

  Out there in the bow of the plunging ship, the child felt herself in a world of her own with the gulls and the leaping waves. She was startled when a strange voice spoke behind her. She spun around and saw a young sailor making his way toward her along the slippery deck.

  “Well, you’re a queer kid—aren’t you cold?” he asked with a grin.

  Fiona shook her head and laughed as the wind swept through her hair.

  “All the same,” he went on more seriously, “I’m surprised your mum lets you stay out here on your own on a day like this.”

  Fiona hastily slipped the telltale label out of sight inside her coat; she was sure he would send her below if he guessed she was traveling alone, and that was the last thing she wanted. One of the gulls gave a laughing cry when it saw what she was doing, but fortunately the sailor noticed nothing.

  “D’you live in the Isles?” he asked her next. “Or are you going out there for a holiday?”

  “Well, I used to live there,” she explained. “I was born on one of the Isles, you see. But we left four years ago, when I was six, and went away to live in a city.”

  “And did you like the city?” he inquired.

  She shook her head decidedly.

  “It was horrid,” she said. “All gray and dirty, with people, people everywhere. I kept getting ill—not really ill but just not well, you know, and when I didn’t get better the doctor said sea air was what I needed.”

  “Well, you’re certainly getting your fill of sea air today!” He laughed as another wave hit the little ship, sprinkling them with spray. “And which was the island where you used to live?”

  “Ron Mor was its name,” said Fiona.

  “Ron Mor!” he exclaimed on such a queer, sharp note of surprise that she asked curiously, “Why, is there something special about that island?”

  “Well . . .,” he began a little hesitantly. “There are tales, you know. . . strange tales . . .”

  “What sort of tales?” urged Fiona, drawing closer.

  “Well, you see, the island is quite deserted nowadays, has been ever since it was evacuated four years ago. The empty cottages are crumbling into ruins and nobody goes there anymore except the gulls and the great gray seals. And yet they do say. . .”

  “What do they say?” breathed Fiona, her gray eyes very wide.

  “Well, they say that fishermen passing after dark have seen lights in those cottage windows and caught the tang of a driftwood fire, when the wind is off the shore. And there are other, stranger stories . . .but there, maybe it’s only talk, and I must get back to my work.” He turned on his heel and was gone before she could ask him more, only pausing once to call back over his shoulder, “Now, mind you hold on tight! We don’t want you getting swept overboard, ’twould break your poor mum’s heart, after she’s brought you all this way to get well.”

  Fiona stood looking thoughtfully into the waves. She had no mother and she felt sure that nobody’s heart would really break if she were swept away. Her father and grown-up brothers and sisters were kind enough in their way, but they were out all day at the factory, and she couldn’t help remembering how cheerfully they had all agreed when the doctor suggested sending her back to the islands, since city life didn’t suit her.

  Her thoughts now turned to her grandparents, with whom she was going to live. Grandfather was quiet and kindly, always busy about his boat and fishing gear, and Granny—ah, Granny had always been a very special person, Fiona remembered, small and brisk as a jenny wren, and yet one of those people you had to obey. But somehow that gave you a comfortable, safe sort of feeling. Even the animals seemed to feel it, for there was often one of the neighbors’ dogs or an injured bird in a box beside Granny’s fire, while the island children ran in and out of her kitchen all day long. Fiona remembered the cozy room and wished that were where she was going now, but the old people had left Ron Mor with everyone else and moved to a new home on one of the larger islands, a place she didn’t know.

  And now for the hundredth time she wondered if perhaps somewhere among the islands she would find her little lost brother, Jamie. He had been such a beautiful baby, sitting up in his wooden cradle, gazing at her with great dark eyes so very unlike her own. She remembered
the day when he learned to walk, and how she had claimed him then as her own special playmate, teaching him all the games she knew and inventing new ones for his amusement. She smiled at the thought of the parties they gave on the kitchen floor with a tea set made of shells collected from the beach.

  Then with a sigh she thought of the terrible day when they had all deserted the island. She remembered the blue of the morning sea and the crying of gulls on the wind, while across the bay on the skerry, the great gray seals lifted their heads and moaned as though sorry to see the islanders go.

  On that day a trawler had arrived from the mainland as soon as it began to get light, and as the island had no jetty, the boat had anchored in the bay, her rippled reflection reaching across the water. All day long the islanders rowed to and fro with their cattle and household goods, poor, frightened cows secured with ropes, and clucking hens in boxes. By evening everything was stowed in the trawler and the cottages stood empty and forlorn along the shore. Then the men rowed in for the last time to fetch their wives and families waiting on the beach. There were so many young McConvilles that there wasn’t room for them all in their father’s little boat.

  “Never mind,” he said. “Jamie’s all right in his cradle. He can stay here on the shore and I’ll come back for him when I’ve put the rest of you on board.”

  Fiona remembered how she had cried out then with a sudden, strange fear in her heart, “Oh, let me stay with Jamie!”

  But they had told her not to be silly and hustled her into the boat. She remembered being lifted aboard the trawler and standing there with the others to watch her father pull back toward the island, where the wooden cradle stood alone on the deserted beach.

  After that, everything had happened so quickly that she could never recall it clearly. Her father had almost reached the shore when a crowd of gulls flapped up from the water, swooping and screaming around his boat until he could scarcely be seen beneath their beating wings. In the same instant a sudden wave rose out of the sea and swept up the beach in a swirl of foam, surrounding the cradle and drawing it out from the shore. Her father beat off the gulls as best he could and pulled frantically on his oars; but, although there was little wind, the cradle-boat was swept out to sea faster than he could follow. He was recalled by a blast from the trawler’s siren.

  “Don’t worry!” shouted the skipper. “We’ll soon overtake him.” The trawler’s engines spluttered to life as the crew hoisted her father aboard and secured his boat astern. But, although the skipper ordered full steam ahead, the cradle-boat moved faster, growing smaller and ever smaller in the distance until finally it vanished into the glow of the sunset beyond the Isles.

  From that day Jamie’s name was never mentioned and no one would answer Fiona’s questions. There was some strange mystery about him, of that she was sure. And yet in her heart she was certain that he was somewhere about the islands still. Perhaps . . . perhaps she would be the one to find him.

  But now her thoughts were interrupted by the sight of a sleek head bobbing among the waves. For a moment she thought it was a dog, until she remembered the seals from the Ron Mor Skerry, who used to swim and play around the shores of her island home. Only this great fellow was larger than any seal she remembered. He was obviously enjoying himself enormously, sweeping up to the crests of the high-flung waves, then over the tops with the wind-tossed spray and down the other side. Presently a great wave swept him toward the ship, and as he was lifted to the level of the deck he turned and saw Fiona. For one long moment he stared at her with strange dark eyes, then with a quick turn he dived out of sight among the waves and did not reappear.

  Before she had time to be disappointed Fiona saw something else—they were nearing the first of the islands! It was only a very little one, but she stood on tiptoe to see what she could of the low shore as it slid by beyond the waves. A squat white lighthouse stood at one end enclosed by a whitewashed wall, and a few sheep dotted the grassy slopes above the rocky coastline.

  Soon the ship headed into a sheltered sound with islands on every side, a large one with farms and villages, a school and little church, and small ones where no more than a croft or two could be seen between the fields. All about the islands there were scattered groups of rocks and seaweed-covered skerries.

  The sea was very much calmer here and the little ship threaded her way quietly through the islands. Soon the sun came out, turning the sea from gray to hazy blue. One by one the passengers appeared on deck and most of them stood leaning on the rail by the time they sailed into the harbor of the largest of the islands. It was so very large that it hardly seemed like an island at all to Fiona, and she stifled a sigh as she remembered Ron Mor, which was cozy and small and all that an island should be.

  A little group of islanders stood waiting on the quay. Fiona looked at them anxiously, wondering if her grandparents were among them and how they would recognize one another after four long years. She need not have worried. As she stepped off the gangway a little old man in a fisherman’s jersey came forward and she saw at once that her grandfather had not changed at all.

  “Och, Fiona child, it sure is grand to see you back in the Isles!” He beamed, seizing her hands in his. “Come away home to your granny now. She stayed to wet the tea.”

  He hoisted her suitcase onto his shoulder and, taking her hand in his, led her toward the little town that huddled behind the harbor.

  “How did you know which was me?” Fiona asked.

  Grandfather laughed.

  “Ah, child, I’d know that hair a mile away! All we McConvilles have red hair, whether it be bright red or golden red or sandy.”

  “Except for Jamie,” murmured Fiona. “He was the only dark one, wasn’t he?”

  For a moment the old man made no reply and she wondered if he had heard, until suddenly he pulled up short and looked down at her and she saw that his face had grown unexpectedly sad.

  “Best not mention Jamie’s name to your granny,” he said gently. “ ’Twould only upset her. She was terrible found of that wee laddie.” Then, pointing ahead down the narrow street, he added, “And there she is herself, waiting to welcome you back to the Isles!”

  Chapter 2

  GRANNY WAS standing in the doorway watching for them, shading her eyes with her hand against the sun. She was even smaller than Fiona remembered, and prettier too, with soft white hair and rosy cheeks and eyes as blue as the sea on a summer morning.

  “Ah, Fiona, Fiona!” she cried happily, running out to welcome her. “This is the nicest thing that has happened to us since the day we left Ron Mor! But come away in to your tea, you must be starved.” And, taking Fiona’s hand, she led her into a small, dark kitchen, where tea was ready for three. When Fiona saw all the good things spread out, she realized how hungry she was. There were eggs and oatcakes, scones and pancakes, a plate of fresh farm butter and a dish of homemade apple jelly. A fat brown teapot sat on the hob and a kettle steamed over the fire.

  Fiona found she was too hungry to do much talking,and her grandfather ate in silence, helping himself methodically from every plate in turn. Granny on the other hand kept up a constant chatter, pressing food on the other two, asking them what they would like to eat next and if everything was to their liking, and bobbing up and down all the while to fill their cups and attend to the fire.

  At last Grandfather sat back with a satisfied sigh and reached for his pipe. Fiona’s eyes turned to the view beyond the little window.

  “Which is Ron Mor Island?” she asked. “Can we see it from here?”

  “Aye, that we can,” said her grandfather. “It’s one of the little ones way out there to the west. Come over to the window now while I show ye. Now, d’you see a white lighthouse over there on a long, flat island?”

  Fiona nodded.

  “And beyond, to the right, a great dark island of hills?” Fiona nodded again.

  “Well, now, d’you see a small little bit of an island lying between the two?”

  “You mea
n that very green little one with a patch of sunlight sweeping across it now?” cried Fiona eagerly.

  “Aye, that’s the one,” he answered, “the bonniest of them all.” He turned away from the window with a sigh.

  “And nobody lives there anymore,” mused Fiona.

  “Only the seals,” said Grandfather.

  “Oh, the seals—I remember them!” cried Fiona. “They used to swim into the bay and lie on the rocks in the sun.”

  “They did,” said Grandfather, “and they still do. Which is just as it should be, for Ron Mor is our name for a seal in these parts. That’s where the island got its name in the first place.”

  “Oh, why did we ever have to leave it?” asked Fiona, looking longingly across at the little green isle way out in the shining sea.

  “Ah, why indeed?” mourned Granny. “Why, even me poor cow didn’t want to leave—she never gives half the milk since we took her away from the island, and wasn’t she the wise one wanting to stay! Och! It’s there we should be ourselves this very minute!” She turned away to poke the fire, but not before Fiona had seen tears come to her eyes.

  “But why did we have to go at all?” she asked again, turning to her grandfather.

  “Oh, well, times have changed, and it had to be, I suppose,” he answered slowly. “Anyhow, there were those who said it had to be. It was the young chaps for the most part, your dad and others like him, growing dissatisfied with the old ways and wanting more for themselves and their children.”

  “But what did they want?” asked Fiona, puzzled.

  “The rush and the noise of the cities, seemingly,” replied the old man. “But where in a city would you be learning the way of the wind when the tide is on the turn, I’d like to know? Well, anyhow, the end of it was that, after months of talk and arguing, plans were made to evacuate the island.”

  “But why did you and Granny have to go with the rest if you wanted to stay?” persisted Fiona.