Complete Works of Bram Stoker (52 page)

‘What does he mean?’

‘He means,’ said the old man in a low, strained voice, ‘that for me an’ him, an’ to warn us she cam oot last nicht in the storm in a wee bit boat, an’ that she is no’ to her hame!’ and he groaned. Willy was smitten with horror. This, then, was Maggie’s high and desperate purpose when she left him. He knew now the meaning of those despairing words, and the darkness of the grave seemed to close over his soul. He moaned out to the old man: ‘She did not tell me she was going. I never knew it. O my God!’ The old man, with the protective instinct of the old to the young, laid his hand on his shoulder, as he said to him in a broken voice:

‘A ken it, lad! A ken it weel! She tell’t me sae hersel! The sin is a’ wi’ me, though you, puir lad, must e’en bear yer share o’ the pain!’ The commander said quietly to the lieutenant:

‘Looks queer, don’t it  —  the coastguard and the smuggler whispering?’

‘All right,’ came the answer, ‘I know Barrow; he is as true as steel, but he’s engaged to the old man’s daughter. But I gather there’s something queer going on this morning about her. I’ll find out. Barrow,’ he added, calling Willy to him, ‘what is it about MacWhirter’s daughter?’

‘I don’t know for certain, sir; but I fear she was out at sea last night.’

‘At sea,’ broke in the commander; ‘at sea last night  —  how?’

‘She was in a bit fishin’-boat,’ broke in MacWhirter. ‘Neighbours, hae ony o’ ye seen her this mornin’? ‘Twas ma son Andra’s boat, that he keeps i’ the Downans!’  —  another name for the Watter’s Mou’. A sad silence that left the angry roar of the waves as they broke on the rocks and on the long strand in full possession was the only reply.

‘Is the boat back in the Watter’s Mou’?’ asked the lieutenant sharply.

‘No,’ said a fisherman. ‘A cam up jist noo past the Barley Mill, an’ there’s nae boat there.’

‘Then God help her, an’ God forgie me,’ said MacWhirter, tearing off his cap and holding up his hands, ‘for A’ve killed her  —  her that sae loved her auld father, that she went oot alane in a bit boat i’ the storm i’ the nicht to save him frae the consequence o’ his sin.’ Willy Barrow groaned, and the lieutenant turned to him: ‘Heart, man, heart! God won’t let a brave girl like that be lost. That’s the lass for a sailor’s wife. ‘Twill be all right  —  you’ll be proud of her yet!’

But Sailor Willy only groaned despite the approval of his conscience; his words of last night came back to him. ‘Ye’re no fit wife for me!’ Now the commander spoke out to MacWhirter:

‘When did you see her last?’

‘Aboot twa o’clock i’ the mornin’.’

‘Where?’

‘Aboot twenty miles off the Scaurs.’

‘How did she come to leave you?’

‘She pulled the boat that she cam in alongside the coble, an’ got in by hersel  —  the last I saw o’ her she had hoisted her sail an’ was running nor’west. . . . But A’ll see her nae mair  —  a’s ower wi’ the puir, brave lass  —  an’ wi’ me, tae, that killed her  —  a’s ower the noo  —  a’s ower!’ and he covered his face with his hands and sobbed. The commander said kindly enough, but with a stern gravity that there was no mistaking:

‘Do I take it rightly that the girl went out in the storm to warn you?’

‘Ay! Puir lass  —  ’twas an ill day that made me put sic a task on her  —  God forgie me!’ and there and then he told them all of her gallant deed.

The commander turned to the lieutenant, and spoke in the quick, resolute, masterful accents of habitual command:

‘I shall leave you the bluejackets to help  —  send your men all out, and scour every nook and inlet from Kirkton to Boddam. Out with all the lifeboats on the coast! And you, men!’ he turned to the crowd, ‘turn out, all of you, to help! Show that there’s some man’s blood in you, to atone if you can for the wrong that sent this young girl out in a storm to save her father from you and your like!’ Here he turned again to the lieutenant, ‘Keep a sharp eye on that man  —  Mendoza, and all his belongings. We’ll attend to him later on: I’ll be back before night.’

‘Where are you off to, Commander?’

‘I’m going to scour the sea in the track of the storm where that gallant lass went last night. A brave girl that dared what she did for her father’s sake is not to be lost without an effort; and, by God, she shan’t lack it whilst I hold Her Majesty’s command! Boatswain, signal the cutter full steam up  —  no, you! We mustn’t lose time, and the boatswain comes with me. To your oars, men!’

The seamen gave a quick, sharp ‘Hurrah!’ as they sprang to their places, whilst the man of the shore party to whom the order had been given climbed the sea-wall and telegraphed the needful orders; the crowd seemed to catch the enthusiasm of the moment, and scattered right and left to make search along the shore. In a few seconds the revenue boat was tossing on the waves outside the harbour, the men laying to their work as they drove her along, their bending oars keeping time to the swaying body of the commander, who had himself taken the tiller. The lieutenant said to Willy with thoughtful kindness:

‘Where would you like to work on the search? Choose which part you will!’ Willy instinctively touched his cap as he answered sadly:

‘I should like to watch here, sir, if I may. She would make straight for the Watter’s Mou’!’

CHAPTER V

The search for the missing girl was begun vigorously, and carried on thoroughly and with untiring energy. The Port Erroll lifeboat was got out and proceeded up coast, and a telegram was sent to Kirkton to get out the lifeboat there, and follow up the shore to Port Erroll. From either place a body of men with ropes followed on shore keeping pace with the boat’s progress. In the meantime the men of each village and hamlet all along the shore of Buchan from Kirkton to Boddam began a systematic exploration of all the openings on the coast. Of course there were some places where no search could at present be made. The Bullers, for instance, was well justifying its name with the wild turmoil of waters that fretted and churned between its rocky walls, and the neighbourhood of the Twa Een was like a seething caidron. At Dunbuy, a great sheet of foam, perpetually renewed by the rush and recoil of the waves among the rocks, lay like a great white blanket over the inlet, and effectually hid any flotsam or jetsam that might have been driven thither. But on the high cliffs around these places, on every coign of vantage, sat women and children, who kept keen watch for aught that might develop. Every now and again a shrill cry would bring a rush to the place and eager eyes would follow the pointing hand of the watcher who had seen some floating matter; but in every case a few seconds and a little dispersing of the shrouding foam put an end to expectation. Throughout that day the ardour of the searchers never abated. Morning had come rosy and smiling over the waste of heaving waters, and the sun rose and rose till its noonday rays beat down oppressively. But Willy Barrow never ceased from his lonely vigil on the cliff. At dinner-time a good-hearted woman brought him some food, and in kindly sympathy sat by him in silence, whilst he ate it. At first it seemed to him that to eat at all was some sort of wrong to Maggie, and he felt that to attempt it would choke him. But after a few mouthfuls the human need in him responded to the occasion, and he realised how much he wanted food. The kindly neighbour then tried to cheer him with a few words of hope, and a many words of Maggie’s worth, and left him, if not cheered, at least sustained for what he had to endure.

All day long his glass ranged the sea in endless, ever-baffled hope. He saw the revenue boat strike away at first towards Girdleness, and then turn and go out to where Maggie had left the
Sea Gull;
and then under full steam churn her way north-west through the fretted seas. Now and again he saw boats, far and near, pass on their way; and as they went through that wide belt of sea where Maggie’s body might be drifting with the wreckage of her boat, his heart leaped and fell again under stress of hope and despair. The tide fell lower and ever lower, till the waves piling into the estuary roared among the rocks that paved the Watter’s Mou’.
Again and again he peered down from every rocky point in fear of seeing amid the turmoil  —  what, he feared to think. There was ever before his eyes the figure of the woman he loved, spread out rising and falling with the heaving waves, her long hair tossing wide and making an aureole round the upturned white face. Turn where he would, in sea or land, or in the white clouds of the summer sky, that image was ever before him, as though it had in some way burned into his iris.

Late in the afternoon, as he stood beside the crane, where he had met Maggie the night before, he saw Neil coming towards him, and instinctively moved from the place, for he felt that he would not like to meet on that spot, for ever to be hallowed in his mind, Maggie’s brother with hatred in his heart. So he moved slowly to meet him, and when he had got close to the flagstaff waited till he should come up, and swept once again the wide horizon with his glass  —  in vain. Neil, too, had begun to slow his steps as he drew nearer. Slower and slower he came, and at last stood close to the man whom in the morning he had spoken to with hatred and murder in his heart.

All the morning Neil had worked with a restless, feverish activity, which was the wonder of all. He had not stayed with the searching party with whom he had set out; their exhaustive method was too slow for him, and he soon distanced them, and alone scoured the whole coast as far as Murdoch Head. Then in almost complete despair, for his mind was satisfied that Maggie’s body had never reached that part of the shore, he had retraced his steps almost at a run, and, skirting the sands of Cruden Bay, on whose wide expanse the breakers still rolled heavily and roared loudly, he glanced among the jagged rocks that lay around Whinnyfold and stretched under the water away to the Scaurs. Then he came back again, and the sense of desolation complete upon him moved his passionate heart to sympathy and pity. It is when the soul within us feels the narrow environments of our selfishness that she really begins to spread her wings.

Neil walked over the sandhills along Cruden Bay like a man in a dream. With a sailor’s habit he watched the sea, and now and again had his attention attracted by the drifting masses of seaweed torn from its rocky bed by the storm. In such tossing black masses he sometimes thought that Maggie’s body might lie, but his instinct of the sea was too true to be long deceived. And then he began to take himself to task. Hitherto he had been too blindly passionate to be able to think of anything but his own trouble; but now, despite what he could do, the woe-stricken face of Sailor Willy would rise before his inner eye like the embodiment or the wraith of a troubled conscience. When once this train of argument had been started, the remorseless logic which is the mechanism of the spirit of conscience went on its way unerringly. Well he knew it was the ill-doing of which he had a share, and not the duty that Willy owed, that took his sister out alone on the stormy sea. He knew from her own lips that Willy had neither sent her nor even knew of her going, and the habit of fair play which belonged to his life began to exert an influence. The first sign of his change of mind was the tear which welled up in his eye and rolled down his cheek. ‘Poor Maggie! Poor Willy!’ he murmured to himself, half unconsciously, ‘A’ll gang to him an’ tak it a’ back!’ With this impulse on him he quickened his steps, and never paused till he saw Willy Barrow before him, spy-glass to eye, searching the sea for any sign of his lost love. Then his fears, and the awkwardness which a man feels at such a moment, no matter how poignant may be the grief which underlies it, began to trip him up. When he stood beside Willy Barrow, he said, with what bravery he could:

‘I tak it a’ back, Sailor Willy! Ye werena to blame! It was oor daein’! Will ye forgie me?’ Willy turned and impulsively grasped the hand extended to him. In the midst of his overwhelming pain this was some little gleam of sunshine. He had himself just sufficient remorse to make the assurance of his innocence by another grateful. He knew well that if he had chosen to sacrifice his duty Maggie would never have gone out to sea, and though it did not even occur to him to repent of doing his duty, the mere temptation  —  the mere struggle against it, made a sort of foothold where flying remorse might for a moment rest. When the eyes of the two men met, Willy felt a new duty rise within his. He had always loved Neil, who was younger than himself, and was Maggie’s brother, and he could not but see the look of anguish in the eyes that were so like Maggie’s. He saw there something which in one way transcended his own pain, and made him glad that he had not on his soul the guilt of treachery to his duty. Not for the wide world would he have gazed into Maggie’s eyes with such a look as that in his own. And yet  —  and yet  —  there came back to him with an overpowering flood of anguish the thought that, though the darkness had mercifully hidden it, Maggie’s face, after she had tempted him, had had in it something of the same expression. It is a part of the penalty of being human that we cannot forbid the coming of thoughts, but it is a glory of humanity that we can wrestle with them and overcome them. Quick on the harrowing memory of Maggie’s shame came the thought of Maggie’s heroic self-devotion: her true spirit had found a way out of shame and difficulty, and the tribute of the lieutenant, ‘That’s the lass for a sailor’s wife!’ seemed to ring in Willy’s ears. As far as death was concerned, Willy Barrow did not fear it for himself, and how could he feel the fear for another. Such semblance of fear as had been in his distress was based on the selfishness which is a part of man’s love, and in this wild hour of pain and distress became a thing of naught. All this reasoning, all this sequence of emotions, passed in a few seconds, and, as it seemed to him all at once, Willy Barrow broke out crying with the abandon which marks strong men when spiritual pain breaks down the barriers of their pride. Men of Willy’s class seldom give way to their emotions. The prose of life is too continuous to allow of any habit of prolonged emotional indulgence; the pendulum swings back from fact to fact and things go on as before. So it was with Sailor Willy. His spasmodic grief was quick as well as fierce, like an April shower; and in a few seconds he had regained his calm. But the break, though but momentary, had relieved his pent-up feelings, and his heart beat more calmly for it. Then some of the love which he had for Maggie went out to her brother, and as he saw that the pain in his face did not lessen, a great pity over-came him and he tried to comfort Neil.