“They all said we were too old to bide on our own,” said Grandfather wearily. “They shouted and fussed, then they got to work on your grandmother there, told her ’twould be too much for me, if you please, to row across once in a while to the next island for provisions— such rubbish! But there it is, they persuaded her in the end and that settled it, for once your granny gets worrying over someone there’s no holding her, as you’ll find out. Anyway, we just had to leave with the others in the end, and a wretched day that was! But it’s my belief we’d be there yet if Rory had been older at the time.”
“Ah, Rory!” murmured Granny.
“Who’s Rory?” asked Fiona.
“Don’t you remember your cousin Rory? Your Uncle Donald’s laddie? Ah well, here he is now to speak for himself!” cried Granny, running with outstretched hands to welcome a tall boy who appeared in the doorway.
He must have been about sixteen, and when Fiona saw his freckled face and sandy hair she suddenly remembered the silent boy who spent all his time with the fishermen, learning to handle their heavy boats and begging them to tell him again and again the strange old tales and legends that linger about the islands to this day. He greeted her now with a friendly smile as Granny drew him toward the table.
“Sit you down and have some tea,” she said, unhooking a cup from the dresser.
“So you’ve come back to the Isles again,” said Rory. “Are you pleased?”
“Oh yes, terrifically.” Fiona smiled.
“We’re all pleased,” said Granny, refilling the teapot to the brim. “And it’s time the child had some good island
air by the look of her. Here, have another oatcake, lovey, while Rory has his tea.”
“Where do you live now?” asked Fiona, turning a little shyly to this very big cousin of hers.
“Just down the road beyond the shop,” he answered, helping himself to a pancake.
“And I’m sure you eat as many teas in my kitchen as ever you do in your mother’s,” Granny said, smiling.
“Aye, and it’s Grandfather’s boat I’m in most days,” said Rory. “And why wouldn’t I be when it’s Grandfather knows the best fish in the sea swim round about Ron Mor Isle, while the biggest lobsters lie under the Ron Mor Skerry.”
“Do you love Ron Mor Island too?” asked Fiona.
“Rather!” said Rory. “It’s the best isle in the Western Sea—and it won’t be long before I’m living there again!”
“Living there?” echoed Fiona in astonishment. “How can you when everyone’s gone?”
“Easy,” replied Rory calmly. “I’ll just go back when I’m a man—it won’t be the first time someone’s resettled on a deserted island.”
“And I’d go with you, lad, if Gran and I were younger,” said Grandfather with a sigh. “Indeed,” he added, lowering his voice and glancing at Granny’s back, “I’d go with you tomorrow if I could persuade your granny.”
Granny continued to poke the fire and it was impossible to guess from her back whether she had heard or not.
“I’d go too!” declared Fiona, turning to the window to look again at the island. “But it’s disappeared—it’s gone—what’s happened?” she gasped.
Grandfather looked out the window and chuckled.
“It’s only a little squall of rain sweeping across the islands,” he explained. “I’ve seen it lying above like a cloud on the hills all day, just waiting for a wind to blow it out over the sea.”
As he spoke a flurry of rain was dashed against the window and a sudden wind moaned in the chimney, blowing a cloud of smoke into the room.
“Mercy, just look at the time!” exclaimed Granny suddenly. “You must away to your bed, Fiona child.”
“Oh, but, Granny,” she pleaded, “I’m not a bit tired.”
But Granny merely said, “You’ve had a very long journey today and there are plenty of tomorrows to come.”
“Anyway, the island is there in sight again,” remarked Grandfather, pointing out the window. “And what’s more, it’s returned with a bit of a rainbow over it, I see—and the end resting right on the island! They say you’ll find a crock of gold under the end of a rainbow, you know!”
“I’m looking for something more than gold,” said Fiona softly. “Maybe that’s where I’ll find him, out there under the rainbow. I wish . . . oh I wish . . .” But she knew it was no use asking to go to Ron Mor tonight.
Rory was staring out the window too, and now he murmured, half to himself, “’Tis a wonderful clear evening now the rain’s blown over. ’Twouldn’t surprise me to see the light out there tonight.”
“Whisht, lad, don’t be filling the child’s head with things that may not be!” exclaimed Granny hastily, as she guided Fiona toward the stairs.
Long after she was supposed to be asleep Fiona sat up in bed gazing out the window. The sea was the delicate green of a wild duck’s egg and the sky was apricot, while the islands faded from green to gray as the sun went down behind them. And just as she settled down to sleep she fancied she was a prick of light like a glowworm’s lamp wink out from Ron Mor Isle.
Chapter 3
FIONA SLEPT late next morning, only waking when the sun was already well up in the sky. She ran down and found Granny alone in the kitchen.
“Ah, there you are, deary, have a good night?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer went on, “Sit you down to your breakfast now. I have it ready here.”
“Have you had yours?” asked Fiona, seeing the table set only for one.
“Yes, indeed, and your grandfather too, a couple of hours ago.” The old lady smiled. “Not but what I’ll have another cup with you now.” And she drew up a second chair to the table.
When breakfast was finished Fiona prepared to help with washing dishes but Granny wouldn’t hear of it.
“No, no, you get out in this blessed sun,” she insisted. “Time enough to help with the jobs indoors when you’ve lost that washed-out city look. I tell you what, though, I’ll give you a canful of tea from the pot and a couple of scones to take to your grandfather. You’ll find him below, in the creek. Here you are now, the milk’s in that bottle and I’ve put in a mug for you as well.”
Behind the kitchen a lean-to scullery opened on to a patch of wasteland where some washing flapped on a sagging line and a couple of hens poked around a heap of lobster creels.
“There you are,” said Granny. “Just follow that track, it will lead you straight to the creek.”
Fiona followed the path to the edge of the cliffs and there lay the creek below her. She was surprised to see a fire down there blazing in a rough stone fireplace built among the rocks. Her grandfather was bending over it, stirring something that bubbled in a bucket over the flames. Behind him a boat lay bottom up on the stones. As she watched, he scooped some oily black liquid out of the bucket and began working it into the seams of the boat with a flat-bladed tool. She scrambled down the rough cliff path and hurried across to the fire to see what was going on.
“Aha!” said Grandfather, looking up from his work with a smile. “I was just wishing I’d someone to give me a hand. I’m caulking this old boat of mine to stop her leaking and it would be a grand help if you’d keep stirring the pitch in that bucket over the fire.”
“I did hope you’d let me do that!” said Fiona, and she grasped the stick and began to stir. She decided that nothing could be much pleasanter than the smell of the bubbling pitch and the smooth, thick feel of it as she stirred it around and around. She felt like some magician mixing a magic brew.
Grandfather worked in silence, and as Fiona mastered the knack of stirring steadily she was able to turn her attention to the peaceful scene about her. The creek was small and rocky and littered below the cliff with piles of bleached white driftwood cast up by the high spring tides. At the seaward edge of the creek where the water sucked and gurgled among the rocks, long strands of golden seaweed streamed on the outflowing tide—tangle they called it here in the Isles, she remembere
d. Near at hand a herring gull picked her way daintily over the rocks, followed by a brown-mottled youngster who cried incessantly on a wheezing note of complaint.
Presently Grandfather threw down his tool and straightened his back.
“Didn’t I see you with a can of tea?” he asked.
“Yes, here it is,” said Fiona. “Only it’s got rather cold, I’m afraid.”
“We’ll soon cure that,” he replied, and, lifting the bucket off the fire, he stood the can full of tea in its place.
“There now, that won’t be long,” he said, and after stirring the fire with a long stick he sat down on a rock to wait. This seemed to Fiona a good opportunity for a talk.
“Grandfather,” she began, settling down beside him, “d’you know what happened to Jamie—I mean after he sailed away into the sunset that day we left Ron Mor?”
The old man looked at her sadly and shook his head.
“Ah, my dear,” he answered, “that’s just what nobody really knows. . .and yet. . .”
“And yet what?” urged Fiona. “They never would tell me anything at home.”
“No, they wouldn’t, I suppose,” he mused. “Your dad was never one for the old tales, or the old ways either— right from the start he was keener than any to leave the island. But there one can’t entirely blame him, I suppose. ’Twasn’t easy for him when your mother died and left him with all you children. Jamie was only a baby still and yourself not very much older. Poor fellow, I suppose it was natural enough he should want to be off and away. The rest of us were uneasy, though, but your dad was always headstrong, and foolish too, so he paid no heed to our warnings.”
“Warnings?” questioned Fiona. “What did he need to be warned about?”
The old man looked at her curiously.
“Don’t you even know about the Ron Mor Skerry, then?” he asked.
Fiona shook her head.
“Ah, well then, I will tell you,” he said, and, taking his pipe out of his mouth, he cupped the warm bowl in his hands and began.
“It all started long ago when the cottages on Ron Mor were newly built, five or six there must have been then, right down on the shore of the only bay on the island, and a family living in each. They were fisherfolk for the most part, living on what they could get from the sea and the scanty crops they managed to raise on the thin soil of the island. Their life was hard, but not too hard for them to take an interest in one another’s affairs. So it was odd that nobody ever discovered for certain where young Ian McConville really found his wife.
“Everyone saw him row out in his boat alone with the lobster creels, and everyone saw him come home again with the strange girl in the stern. And strange she was by all accounts, with great dark eyes and wild black hair blowing about her face—it was easy to see that she never came from the islands. But when they asked Ian where he had found her, he merely replied that she came from the Ron Mor Skerry. Now that, of course, was nonsense, for the Ron Mor Skerry is only a rock off the end of Ron Mor Island. Nobody ever goes there at all except the old gray seals, and even they must leave when the tide is high, for then great waves wash over the rocks and the skerry is submerged.
“Well, of course there was much shaking of heads when Ian married the dark-eyed stranger. She was quite unlike the island women and some of her ways were so strange. Why, she’d go out on the rocks when the tide was low to talk to the seabirds and seals! Then back she would come with her hands full of shellfish and unknown seaweeds, which she’d simmer over a driftwood fire in a manner all her own. And wherever she went on the island the seals were always watching her from the sea while the seabirds wheeled about her, calling her in a language she seemed to understand, for often she’d call out a reply that would set them laughing the way gulls do.”
“I think she sounds nice,” observed Fiona.
“Aye, maybe,” agreed Grandfather. “Anyway, the islanders had to admit that she made Ian an excellent wife, while their children were the bonniest on the island. When their first baby was born she asked Ian to make it a cradle.
“ ‘And it must be made from the timber of a ship that has sailed the seas,’ she insisted.
“That was a simple matter, for the only wood on the island was wreckage washed in from the sea and there was plenty of that.
“ ‘It will need no rockers,’ she told him next. ‘It will rock on the waves of the sea.’
“That seemed a very odd thing to say, but Ian listened to every word and made it just as she wished. And when it was finished it was the queerest-looking thing you ever saw, carved all over with shells and fish and seaweed, and as to its shape—well, it really looked more like a boat than a cradle and that’s a fact. The islanders shook their heads when they saw it.
“But there was worse to follow, for what did the young mother do but carry the cradle down to the shore and set it afloat on the sea, moored by a rope to a great stone on the beach! And there, whenever the day was calm—and even times when it wasn’t—the baby rocked on the water with the ripple of waves on the cradle’s side for lullaby.”
“Oh!” breathed Fiona dreamily. “How wonderful that sounds!”
At this moment there was a splutter and hiss as the tea boiled in the blackened can, splashing over onto the fire. Grandfather scrambled to his feet and lifted the can off the flames. He poured half the tea into an enamel mug, which he handed to Fiona.
“There you are,” he said. “I’ll use this.” And he took a long drink from the can.
Fiona’s tea was too hot to touch, so she held the mug in her two hands, waiting impatiently for her grandfather to finish his drink and go on with the story. At last he put down the can and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“That was grand,” he remarked, nodding his head appreciatively.
“And now will you tell me the rest of the story, please?” begged Fiona. “You got to the place about the cradle.”
“Ah, yes,” said Grandfather. “But, hey! What’s wrong? Your tea too hot? Like a drop more milk to cool it?” And he reached for the bottle.
“Oh, no thank you, it’s lovely!” cried Fiona hastily, and she gulped down a scalding mouthful. It was so hot that it made her eyes water, but anything, anything was better than delaying the story again.
Grandfather went on.
“Well, that old cradle became a kind of family heir-loom, passing on from one generation to the next, all down the years, every McConville baby sleeping in it in turn. I slept in it myself and so did you.”
“Did I really?” exclaimed Fiona, thrilled to feel that she herself was a part of this strange story.
“And there was something else that passed down through the family too,” continued Grandfather, “for although most McConvilles have red hair like yourself and Rory, a child would be born from time to time with the wild black hair and strange dark eyes of Ian McConville’s wife. And when this happened the islanders would remark, ‘Ah, another child of the Ron Mor Skerry!’
“Now, there was always something about those dark ones, you could tell it right from the first. ’Twas as though they belonged to the sea in some mysterious way. As soon as they learned to crawl, they’d make for the water and there they’d teach themselves to swim before they could even walk, and from that day, their childhood would be spent in the sea or on it all day long and never away from the sound of it day or night.
“And when they grew up the sea cast its spell on them still. Some of them became sailors and spent their lives afloat, but most of them stayed right here in the Isles, nor did they need to look farther for a living, since those dark ones could catch more fish in a day than the rest of us catch in a week. ’Twas some strange power in them, seemingly. And so it went on all down the years. Every time one of those dark ones was born he’d turn to the sea in the same way and spend all his life within reach of it, and ’tweren’t no manner of use to try and change him. So it’s no wonder the rest of us were uneasy when your dad made plans to take you all to the city—
for, you see, your little brother Jamie was a child of the Ron Mor Skerry!”
“Oh!” gasped Fiona. “I never knew! And they tried to take him away from the sea! Why, oh, why did they try?”
“Ah, that’s just it,” the old man mused. “Why did they try in spite of all our warnings?”
“But where is he now?” urged Fiona. “The sea kept its hold on him and wouldn’t allow him to go, so it surely must have kept him somewhere safe—do you know where he is, Grandfather?”
The old man shook his head.
“But you think he’s safe?” she insisted. “And somewhere about the islands still?”
For a moment the old man hesitated, and then at last he said slowly, almost reluctantly, as though scarcely believing what he said, “Well, there are those who claim to have seen him from time to time, sailing the seas in that old cradle-boat of his.”
“Where—oh, where? Have you seen him yourself?” cried Fiona, jumping to her feet in her excitement.
“No, I’ve never set eyes on him myself, but I know those who have—or say they have—fishermen for the most part, returning home in the half light from outlying fishing grounds.”
“And what is he like?” whispered Fiona, sinking down again. She was trembling now with excitement.
“They say he’s grown into a fine little lad, sitting up in the stern of the cradle like a fisherman in his boat. But the strangest part of it all is the way he sails that little craft through the tide rips and currents that race between the islands—and he with never an oar or a scrap of a sail to help himself. But maybe it’s the creatures that guide him through, for they say that whenever he’s seen there’s always a group of those old gray seals swimming around in the sea and a crowd of seagulls wheeling overhead.
“But should the fisherman try to get near him—och! It’s then the excitement begins, for the gulls swoop around them, screeching, until they are quite bewildered, and by the time they come to their senses the cradle-boat is far away, heading out to sea.”
Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry Page 2