Back in the cottage, after we had made a good meal, my friend began to look among the books scattered in many of the rooms, picking them up and glancing inside.
‘What was your great-uncle’s book?’ he asked.
Rowena moved away from the window that looked out upon the mere. ‘Well, I have never found it. Michael Meade was his name, but there is no book here by him. Grandmother was always so sure he had written one but it was a long time ago and she was a bit vague about just what it was. Tales, she said once, poems another time, history another. I’m not so sure of it.’
The Connoisseur nodded and continued his close examination of the many tattered volumes in the house.
There were no lights that night.
***
On the next day, The Connoisseur again asked to be taken out upon the water, and this time took with him a long rod which he had cut down from a decaying tree by the bank. I thought he was going to try his hand at punting—though the boat seemed hardly suited for it—but instead, after Rowena had taken him out to the shallows toward the further bank, he plunged the pole repeatedly into the water, as if he were taking soundings. He kept doing this, clinging rather grimly to the gunwale, over and over at different points not far apart, so that I judged Rowena was becoming rather exasperated and may have nudged the boat on occasions when he was least sure-footed, presenting a picture of wobbling and steadying that was quite comical as I watched from the water’s edge. At length they returned, stopping again in the middle, when my friend once more lay full length and looked earnestly into the water. When they disembarked, Rowena remarked that if he was going to take that long again, she would have to charge him extra for the crossing.
That evening The Connoisseur browsed more assiduously in the books in the mere-house, and, since he would not tell us what he was up to, we followed suit, though I had no real notion of what we were looking for. But as the day dimmed, Rowena’s attention was drawn toward the lake once more, and I could not help but be diverted by this too. As blackness descended upon the surface of the water, she grew more intent still, and something of her restlessness was communicated to me, until at last she started up, quick and unexpected as a hare from its form, and pointed excitedly.
‘There! Look!’
I called for my friend and we all craned our stare out of the window which gave onto the mere. Dimly, faintly, across the other side, we could see a flickering tongue of amber. It is hard to judge distances in the dark, but I supposed it to have been close to that further bank, but high, above the height of a man. We made our way quietly outside, as if we might disturb the light, or perhaps as if we might attract its attention—I am not sure which. And my mind was sorting the evidence it was receiving in search of a reasonable explanation. But as we stood upon the marge of the mere and stared across, still more flares of yellow became visible, some seeming slightly larger, some to the left and some to the right of the first light we had seen. And they were not bright and vivid, but hazed, and blurred around the edges. They hovered for perhaps fifteen minutes, no longer, while we watched with wonder and some trepidation: but they never seemed to draw near this side of the lake and I could not say I felt we were threatened in any way. Then there came a time when the lights seemed to recede, singly, almost as if in a sequence, and move about the land beyond for a little while, before they were extinguished utterly.
We stared for some while longer after this, wordlessly, until it was clear the lights would come no more: and then we trooped back into the house and busied ourselves a bit with humdrum tasks around the kettle and the bread-board. Then, as we solaced ourselves with this repast, Rowena said, simply:
‘I am glad you have seen them too. Sorry to say it like that, but at least now I know it is not just me. But what do you think it is?’
The Connoisseur looked up from his plate of plain bread and, after a few more mouthfuls, set it down.
‘If I were craning for some accepted explanation, I should say ignis fatuus. After all, it is pretty marshy ground on the other side, and such lights have been seen over dank pools as well as bog, though seldom over still, clear water like your mere. And of course I disturbed the silt quite a bit this afternoon, so you could say that this released the vapours that give rise to the will o’ the wisp, as we now believe. So, that is what it could be.’
He paused, and drank some of the bitter tea, ruefully regretting (I rather suspected) that he had not brought with him the delicate Himalayan leaf he favoured. Then he rose and took up from a basket by the door, where they were kept, one of the willow-bark tokens used as tickets for the boat.
‘Yet I surmise,’ he began, fingering the wooden coin with its incised twist, ‘that what you have here is a very rare thing.’
‘The token?’ Rowena asked, puzzled.
‘No. In the mere. I may be wrong but I think you may have an unusual example of an English crannog, that is to say, a lake building made on an artificial islet, perhaps in the Late Bronze or Early Iron Age. There are hundreds of them in Scotland and Ireland, though mostly poorly chronicled; but hardly any down here. Like many there, it is quite submerged, though there are some possible residues just below the water: at least I thought I could see some debris. It would be of great interest in the archaeological field. You will have to decide whether to let them come and look at it.’
‘I have seen weathered and blurred pieces of shorn wood quite like this token at the little museum on Islay,’ he went on, reflectively, ‘where there are so many crannogs in places with such splendid names—Ardnave, Allallaidh, Bharradail, Corr, nan Deala, Dun Fhir Mhoir, Gorm, Laingeadail, Eilean Mhuirell, Staoisha. I went there once with the artist Kesteven, who has become quite a pilgrim to the Scottish islands: and I was struck by the simplicity of these carved pieces, and felt I could almost make out a repeated pattern in them, but it was hard to distinguish this from the work of the elements. It is an old, old symbol, your single scriven swirl, of course: but it set me thinking at once whether I might have seen it there.
‘But two other things set me thinking too. The first was the odd custom of paying a fare to go out to the middle of the mere. Why could this be? Well, surely, I reasoned, because once there was occasion only to go that far: there was a stopping-off point there. It might be some hundreds of years ago, for the ferry could be quite ancient, as crossings by water often are. What, then, could have been the particular point there to pause at? The second clue was in your description of the light hovering in zig-zags. For it was a trick of lake-dwellers to make a causeway from their islet to the shore, but slightly beneath the surface, so it would not be seen by any marauders. And in case attackers did discover it and set their foot upon it, they did not make it straight, as outsiders might suppose, but in darting angles, so that the attackers were likely to become confused and miss their footing and so plunge into the lake. Only those who knew could use it with sureness, just as those who know the way in marshland can outwit those who do not. Again, in my experiments this afternoon, which you must have thought so erratic, I think I have found signs of just such a causeway.’
There was a silence while we took all this in.
‘But the lights, then …’ Rowena began.
‘Ah, yes,’ The Connoisseur interjected. ‘Well, if we wish to hold hard to the natural explanation, we might suppose the fumes would be released from wherever the bed was most disturbed, where the waters rock against the rotting wood and other residue. Or—if we wish to be more fanciful—we might imagine we were seeing some dim place-memory of a torch-lit procession along the snaking way to the crannog.’
We considered this.
‘Why might they have done that?’ Rowena asked, her pale grey eyes gleaming with interest.
‘Well, as I understand it, we do not really know what these places of the lake were built for. Some were dwellings, certainly, others store-houses, some had a defensive purpose. But they think, too, that some had a religious usage. And if so—if here we have a sacred lake—then
I do wonder about the shapes you have seen in the mist; and I think we must wait for the mist to rise… .’
***
We stayed a few more days, while The Connoisseur read deeply in the books of the house: and we caught remote glimpses of the glowing forms after nightfall, though not as clear or for as long as before. And one more thing my friend asked us to do: to choose some small object of our own which we could spare, to take it with us onto the mere, and to let it go into the water, watching it intently as it fell. Rowena solemnly chose a polished agate hair-slide, I an Edwardian halfpenny that I carried about with me for no particular reason, and he a dented pewter scarf-ring. We went out to about the middle, and paused by the place where my friend supposed the crannog to have been. Then, one by one, we cast these modest treasures into the water. A heron, disturbed by our activity, flapped up in its ungainly way from the reeds at the edge and fled the scene, grey and silent-winged in its flight.
We woke to whiteness, a world all chalked over, and in a subdued mood we prepared to go out upon the mere. We stepped into the vessel, and Rowena loosed the rope and worked the oars with a quiet efficiency. Though all around us was invisibility, with nothing but the suspended moisture to see, she knew by long usage the route to take, and paused as always at the middle point. As we had agreed, she tried then to find that reverie which she sought before, when she drew out into the misty, silent pool for the keen pleasure of it, bringing the oars in and waiting intently, gazing out at the barely perceptible drifting of the vapour. The boat lay still upon the water and Rowena stared out into the mist, her fine, owl-winged hair brilliantly beaded by the mizzle and clinging to her serious face. There was a deep and utter silence save for the slightest murmuring of the waters of the mere. Then I saw her grey eyes widen and her flesh tauten, and I turned to see what she had seen.
Out from the pale veil there came towards us the shape of a woman, cloaked and hooded in a deeper whiteness but discernible in the outline, and I thought I could make out some of the lineaments of her face and, within her hood, a great white mane of hair. In some high-prowed, dark-sailed boat she floated toward us, gliding soundlessly, the waters about the vessel all undisturbed. Then the folds of her cloak fell back and her white, white arms emerged, and her hands began to claw in the air, the fingers reaching out, as it seemed, towards us. As she did so, other shapes began to form, many, many of them, so that my transfixed state seemed to see faces, beasts, wavering trees, glinting things and sudden clusters of darkness, all emanating from her pale hands as they worked rapidly in the mist, stretching and clutching as she floated ever closer.
I watched as she drew nearer, her silent, pale hands seeming to beckon and call, and I knew somewhere inside that these hands were making a summoning of some kind and that I should see what it was she summoned if I only kept my gaze upon her. I felt a great wave of trepidation, clammy as the mist, pass over me, and shivered, and was about to reach out myself towards the dark vessel and its white occupant, when I was lurched savagely back to my everyday senses. The Connoisseur shook me, whispering hoarsely, ‘Take an oar! Row!’
‘I can’t … ,’ I began, still morbidly staring at the apparition coming out of the mist, reaching for us, reaching with her white, eagerly-moving fingers.
‘Row!’ he demanded again, and in a daze, I mechanically pulled upon the wooden spar, glad to have the feel of something solid on my palms. We pulled away with all our energy, artlessly, making a little distance, but also at times working against each other, my friend gazing around to try to make out the shore. And all the while the white figure, the woman of the mists in her sombre craft, was reaching, reaching out: and around her a tumult of shapes swirled and squirmed. We might have gone round in circles for ever, had not a tilting of the boat brought a sluice of water in upon us and shocked Rowena too out of her trance, so that she took charge in a trice and hefted us back to the homeward shore. Drenched, thoroughly unnerved, both beguiled and benumbed by what we had seen, we got a great glow of fire going in the grate, and huddled around this, before we could say anything other to each other than ‘Did you see … ?’ or variants upon this refrain.
But at last we had subdued our tumult enough to think more clearly about what had come to us in the mist on the mere. And then The Connoisseur proffered his suppositions.
‘I would guess that your great-uncle did write a book, and that it was under a pseudonym. There are three copies of this little volume here,’—he held up a narrow silver-grey binding, and read from the spine, Haunters of the Waters by “Kelpie”. Now a man may have multiple copies of any book, of course, though usually in variant editions, whereas these are all the same. But he might very well indeed have several copies of his own book. This much I reasoned, though it is not conclusively true. However, after much sifting and examining of inscriptions, I have also turned up two books signed and dedicated by their authors, “To Kelpie”. One of these is from the esotericist Spence, the other from the Irish poet Aughart. And this seemed to me to suggest that he was indeed Kelpie, and known as such to certain friends. Now, as to what is inside Kelpie’s book, well your grandmother was right in all she said about it, for there is poetry, and there are some tales, and some essays, but all with one theme: the spirits and deities that our ancestors associated with rivers, streams, wells, water-falls, pools, and so on. The Washer at the Ford is here, you may be sure, and those goddesses of the Wharfe and the Ribble that are said even to this day to claim a tribute of lives. I should place your great-uncle toward the end of the Celtic Romantic Revival.’ The Connoisseur smiled and broke off, fingering the delicate little volume with affection.
‘Well, now, there are a few interesting essays in this book, for he was something of an antiquarian. He is trying to get at the nature of the deities that the Celts worshipped in the waters of these isles. He notices that their gods were often associated with the crafts—they are smiths, wheelwrights, metalworkers, harpers, healers. But the spirits of the rivers and the lakes, almost always female, what crafts did the water-goddesses work?—he asks, and leaves the question open, except to say, somewhat wryly, that the Washer at the Ford was no simple laundress, but a seer, a harbinger indeed.
‘And then, in another article, he looks at why our ancestors made so many offerings into the depths, often of quite precious things: swords and shields, brooches and vessels, torcs and bracelets. What was this for—propitiation, gratitude? We have nothing like, he says, the richness of gifts to the male deities. What would impel our people to give so much? Wonder or fear, he suggests. So then, he concludes, could it not be that the crafts of the goddesses were the hidden crafts and the secret crafts and the dark crafts, just as the gods were the patrons of the known and open crafts? It is an interesting theory: I should say it will not quite hold, but there is some kernel of truth in it.’
The Connoisseur paused and stared into the tongues of flame.
‘I do not know what ancient being we saw out there, nor why her fingers moved so. But mindful of Kelpie’s commentary, I did not think we should stay to find out.’
Rowena started up, and went to look out of the window onto the mere, where the early mists were beginning to clear, and stared out there for some time. Then she turned to us, and her pale grey eyes seemed filled with an inward lustre.
‘She is the Spinner of the Mists,’ she averred, miming the action with her hands. ‘It is our lives she weaves out there. That is why we leave her what is near to us, so that she does not forget us and still spins out the skeins of our existence. She is close to us always but it is when the mists come that we may most see her, for then her world and ours draw near. The ferry is not the only crossing here.’
The Connoisseur regarded her thoughtfully.
‘I have never heard that said before,’ he said, quietly.
‘It came to me,’ she replied, simply.
There was a silence.
‘Will you still stay here now, or would you like to come away?’ my friend enquired tentativel
y. She regarded him steadily.
‘Oh, I will stay,’ she responded, lightIy. ‘I am not only the ferry-boat captain now, but the keeper of a shrine, if what you say is true. If “Kelpie” could bide it here, I am certain I can. But I would welcome visits, of course: and I am not sure I shall go often upon the mere in the mists… .’
‘I wonder,’ said The Connoisseur, as we made our way home, ‘was it the broodings of her great-uncle that came upon us out of the mist, the strength of his imaginings still persisting? Or some force more ancient and more potent still?’ He paused. ‘I think when we go to the mere-house again, I shall take something more to offer for the crossing.’
The White Solander
One of the more curious of the objets that my friend The Connoisseur kept in his rooms was an old ebony cane with a handle in the form of a leopard’s head. The sleek, proud visage was finely carved to bring out all the baleful fierceness of the beast, with its stern muzzle and watchful eyes. Yet this was not the end of its interest, for this was but the outer casing for a fine blade, which could be drawn swiftly with a twist of the heraldic head. This dark swordstick was of Mauritanian origin and had its own story: but it also played its part in several other episodes in my friend’s career of encounters with the singular.
He told me of one of these when I visited him one evening and found him meditatively examining a photograph. Noticing my briefly raised eyebrows, he passed this over to me. It was of a young woman, fadingly conveyed in the blurred grey of old ashes, as she faced the shutter with a look of solemn determination. The Connoisseur gently set the print aside, sighed softly and drummed his fingers a little, before launching into the narrative which I try to recapture below.
The Collected Connoisseur Page 20