A Stranger Came Ashore

It was a while ago, in the days when they used to tell stories about creatures called the Selkie Folk.

A stranger came ashore to an island at that time – a man who gave his name as Finn Learson – and there was a mystery about him which had to do with these selkie creatures. Or so some people say, anyway; but to be exact about all this, you must first of all know that the Selkie Folk are the seals that live in the waters around the Shetland Islands. Also, the Shetlands themselves lie in the stormy seas to the north of Britain, and it was on a night of very fierce storm that it all began.

It so happened, then, that a ship named the
Bergen
was wrecked on one of the islands in this storm, and the shipwreck was near a place called Black Ness – which was not so much a place, really, as a scatter of houses on hilly ground overlooking the sea. Also, there was a certain Robbie Henderson living in Black Ness at that time – a lad of twelve years old, according to all accounts – and he was the person most concerned in the mystery of this stranger, Finn Learson.

There were four other members of the Henderson family, however, apart from Robbie himself – his parents, Peter and Janet Henderson, his sister Elspeth, and his grandfather, Old Da Henderson. There was also the family’s sheepdog, Tam; and as the storm grew wilder and wilder that night, this dog became very uneasy.

The whole family could hear how the storm was raging, of course, for their house stood close to the head of a long bay
cutting into the rocky coast of the island – the kind of bay that Shetlanders call a “voe” – and so the thundering noise of the waves was very near. Even so, Old Da Henderson had the feeling that it was not just the storm that bothered Tam, for Old Da was pretty old and his head was simply full of the superstitions of those days. He listened, therefore: he waited, and he watched. And at last he noticed something which seemed to him the true cause of Tam’s uneasiness.

“Look there!” said he, suddenly pointing to the fire of peats burning on the hearth.

The fire had been a good one, but now the peats at either side of it were burning down and crumbling into a fine white ash. A moment later there was only one of them left burning – the peat that stood upright at the centre of the fire – and pointing again, Old Da went on, “There! Do you see the way that peat has been left standing all by itself? That means a stranger will come here tonight!”

Peter Henderson cocked an ear to the noise of the wind howling over the thatch of the roof, and with a doubtful face on him he asked, “What stranger could come to Black Ness
this
night?”

Old Da also turned an ear to the sound of the storm. “Well may you wonder about that,” he said meaningly; and suddenly they all understood what he was thinking.

“A shipwreck in the voe!” Peter exclaimed, and was about to reach quickly for his jacket when there was a great thump, as if something heavy had fallen against the door of the house. The sound brought the whole family to its feet; and on that very instant the door burst wide open and a man came half-staggering, half-falling into the room.

Rain and wind swept in with him, raising a whirling cloud of peat ash from the fire. Peter rushed to the door, and threw all his burly weight on it to close it again. Robbie’s mother and sister cried out, and clutched at one another. Robbie gripped hold of
Tam, to stop him making a lunge at the stranger; and the stranger himself dropped to his knees on the floor, like a man completely exhausted.

As well he might be, the whole family realised when the struggle with the door was won and they had a chance to look properly at him. He had come straight out of the sea, it seemed, for he was streaming with water and he wore nothing except a pair of trousers held up by the kind of broad canvas moneybelt that sailor men use. Moreover, there were strands of green seaweed plastered wetly to the skin of his bare back, and the hair that hung down from his drooping head was streaked with this same green weed.

“Poor fellow – oh, the poor fellow!” exclaimed Janet Henderson, gazing pitifully down on this, and then rushed to get a blanket to throw over him. Elspeth ran to fetch him a cup of hot tea. Robbie held grimly on to Tam, who was still snarling away at the crouching form; and Peter said in an awed voice, “Well, you were right, Old Da. There’s your stranger!”

“Aye, and you guessed rightly who it would be,” Old Da returned. “This fellow is off a wreck. Just look at him – he must be!”

“No doubt of it,” Peter agreed. Then, as Old Da moved to put fresh peats on the fire, he bent to touch the stranger’s shoulder. “Who are you, lad?” he asked gently. “And where’s your ship?”

The man began rising to his feet, looking about him in a dazed sort of way. He was young, they saw then, a tall and
powerfully-built
young man. Also, he was very handsome, with large and very dark-brown eyes. His hair was dark too – almost black, in fact; and, for all he was so young, it had streaks of a silvery-grey colour across it.

“Who are you?” Peter asked again, but still taking care to make the question a gentle one; and slowly, in a deep, pleasant voice that had a foreign sort of sound to it, the young man answered, “I call myself Finn – Finn Learson.”

Tam began to snarl more fiercely than ever at that moment,
and Robbie had to drag him even further away from the stranger. Janet came with the blanket to drape over his shoulders. Elspeth pressed the cup of tea into his hand. He smiled his thanks for all this, showing white and very even teeth that made him look more handsome than ever; and Peter asked once more, “And your ship, lad? What about that? We’ll get a boat out to her if we can, depend on it, for we are mostly seafaring men ourselves here.”

Finn Learson sipped his tea, and then nodded in the direction of the voe. “The ship lies wrecked on the rocks down there,” he said quietly. “But there is nothing you can do for her crew, for they are dead men now, all of them – swept away and drowned in the storm.”

There was a little shocked silence at this. Then Old Da murmured, “God rest their souls.”

“Amen,” the whole family responded; but by this time they had all noticed the foreign sound to Finn Learson’s voice, and after another silence, Peter asked, “Where was the ship from, then?”

“Ask that later,” Janet put in firmly. “And meanwhile, it’s time you got this young fellow into dry clothes.”

‘That sounds like sense,” Peter admitted; and told Finn Learson, “Come with me, and I’ll let you have some of mine.”

Off he went with this, into the room next door where all the family slept; for this was the way Shetland houses were built in those days, with only a living room called the but end, and a sleeping room called the ben end. Finn Learson followed Peter into the ben end, and Old Da decided, “And I’ll take a look towards the voe, just in case it’s possible to see the wreck from here.”

“I’ll come with you,” offered Robbie, who was dying with curiosity about the wreck by this time.

The moment the two of them were outside the door, however, Robbie wished he had kept quiet; for the storm was on them, then, like a thousand wet, wild hands slapping from all directions. Moreover, for all there was only a short slope down to the voe, the night lay so black against their eyes that they could see nothing
there except great fountains of spray bursting white against the darkness.

“It’s no use!” Old Da shouted. “Wherever she is, a sea like that means the wreck is foundered by this time anyway!”

They turned back into the house, their breath quite torn away by the storm; and as they struggled together to close the door, Old Da gasped, “As for that Finn Learson, it’s a miracle
he
managed to get ashore, for it would take the Selkie Folk themselves to stay alive in such a sea!”

“You’re mad, the pair of you, going out into that storm,” scolded Janet as they came shivering back to the fire. Then she turned to look at Finn Learson coming out of the ben room, dressed now in some of Peter’s clothes, with his dark hair neatly combed and a pair of homemade sealskin shoes on his bare feet.

“That’s better!” said she, and began bustling about to get everyone seated around the fire again.

Tam was still grumbling and growling, however, and so he had to be banished from the circle; but once that was done, Janet had peace to name the various members of the family to Finn Learson. Politely he nodded to each in turn, but it was still on Elspeth Henderson that his great dark eyes came finally to rest – not that this surprised anyone, of course, since Elspeth had a fresh complexion and long, sandy-gold hair that made her just about the bonniest girl in the islands.

Elspeth was a bit shy of admiring looks, all the same, for she was only seventeen at that time. Besides which, she already had a young man of her own; and so, to spare her blushes under the stranger’s gaze, Peter began quickly, “Well, you’re seemingly none the worse of your experience, my lad; and if you’re ready to tell us, we’re ready now to hear all about it.”

Finn Learson gave a little shrug. “There is not much to tell,” be remarked. “The ship was called the
Bergen
, and she was
stoutly-enough
built; but once she was caught in that north-west drift off
the voe, there was no doubt she would drive on to the rocks there. And after that, there was no hope for her.”

“The
Bergen
…” Peter echoed. “That sounds to me like a Norwegian name.”

“There is a port in Norway called
Bergen
,” Finn Learson agreed; and Peter went on, “I suppose that accounts for the foreign sound to your voice, then. You’ll be Norwegian yourself, are you?”

Finn Learson did not answer this in so many words, but he smiled in a way that seemed to mean this was indeed the case. And so, taking it for granted that he had guessed correctly, Peter remarked, “All the same, you speak good English for a foreigner. I must say that for you! “

“Indeed he does,” Janet agreed; but Finn Learson shook his head at this, and said modestly, “I cannot take any credit for that. I have always been a great traveller, after all, and so I have had the chance to hear many languages. “

“Well, you’ve had maybe the hardest voyage of your life this time,” Old Da remarked, “for it beats me how
you
managed to get ashore when all the rest of the crew were drowned.”

“They drowned because all the lifeboats were smashed and none of them could swim,” Finn Learson explained. “But I have always been a strong swimmer – very strong. Moreover, I could see the light shining from your house, and so I knew I was not far from shore.”

The thought of Old Da’s remark about the Selkie Folk flashed across Robbie’s mind, and he could not resist chiming in at this point, “You were lucky, all the same!”

“Yes,” Finn Learson agreed, and smiled a little. “Very lucky.”

Now Robbie Henderson had what you might call a very noticing sort of mind, and there was something about this smile that struck him as being rather odd. The conversation was still going on, however; and so – even although this something had made him feel a bit uncomfortable – he had no time to think why this should have been so.