The Key of the Chest (23 page)

They heard another torn cry.

And then – out there – coming up towards them – coming along the path – a figure… two figures, two dark bodies, and a woman's voice gave a small cry, and a man's voice was low and quick, and they were together, darkly striding, and the sound of their footsteps was on the earth, and they passed on, passed away into that region from which the solitary figure had come.

A louder cry went through the night, a pursuing cry.

And inland, a cry here… a cry there… faint and torn, like the cry of spirits wandering and for ever lost.

And all cries were hunting them, and everything was coming upon them.

Nearer now, a striding figure, a vast staggering-onward figure, the figure of the pursuing cry, and it followed those that had gone before, and was lost.

Hamish dragged his body from the bank and inland he saw a yellow eye, and it stared at him and went out.

He crouched down beside Norrie and did not speak.

All at once, the near night was shattered by a great hallooing cry, and following that cry at a breath's distance: ‘Ha-a-amish!'

Hamish's flesh ran soft upon the bone. It was his Uncle Norman.

Norrie came back to life. He started crying out, weakly
and urgently. Hamish followed his staggering body.

Norman heard, and saw, and came striding to them. ‘Thank God!' And his voice was thick and fervent. On his knees, he took the boys in his arms. ‘Are you all right?' His breath was warm and the strength of all the world was in his arms and body. He had no bitter word for them, but only kindness and strong fondness. For the first time that night, tears burst from Hamish's eyes.

‘You were lost, were you?'

‘Ye-es,' said Hamish.

‘And you were hiding there? That was the wise thing to do. I knew you had sense in you. I told them that. For to keep going in the black dark – that's fatal. Are you terribly cold? Come, Norrie, I'll rub you a bit—'

Hamish gave a cry. Another figure was upon them.

Norman turned his head. ‘Is that you, Doctor?'

‘Yes.'

‘I've got them!'

‘Good!' said the doctor. ‘Are they all right?' He was stooping beside them.

‘Fine.'

‘Did you see anyone passing?' asked the doctor.

‘Passing?' repeated Norman, held by the doctor's voice. ‘No.'

‘Didn't you?' The doctor was at once wrapped in his own thought.

‘Why?' asked Norman.

‘Did you see anyone?' the doctor suddenly asked the boys.

‘Yes,' said Hamish. ‘A man and a woman went that way. Then another man.'

‘My God!' said the doctor.

‘What is it, Doctor?' asked Norman.

‘Charlie and Flora. A smash-up. The minister is after them.'

‘Here, Doctor!' cried Norman. ‘Wait!'

The doctor called back: ‘There's no time.' Then he was gone.

Norman took a second or two. ‘Come with me, boys.' They started off after the doctor. Presently he stopped,
turned towards the moor and let out three cries. An answering ‘Ay! Ay!' came from far away. A yellow eye showed. Another eye came on a skyline. The moor passed on the cries. Norman got to his knees and took Norrie on his back.

Hamish, whose hand drew strength from Norman's firm grasp, ventured, ‘Where are you going?'

‘To Dougald's cottage,' answered Norman.

Presently they emerged on the flat western tip of the Ros, and there the wind blew powerfully, and Hamish changed to Norman's lee side.

They came to the cottage, and Norman went round it to the front door, Norrie still on his back and Hamish at his hand.

At the door, Norman stopped and quietly lowered Norrie to the ground, and then he listened. The door was open. Norman shoved his head round the post. ‘Anyone in?' There was no answer. The lamp was burning.

A cry came from the rocks.

Norman turned swiftly. The boys followed him.

‘Stop there!' ordered Norman, who had forgotten them.

They stopped, as if his voice had hit them, and then he disappeared over the cliff.

The dark-grey of the sky had thinned, its heaviness now being ominously driven under the risen moon. Norman went down the steep zig-zag clean-footed as a seaman on a tilting deck, and the shingle crunched as he jumped. He strode past the minister and Dougald to where the doctor on the water's edge was yelling.

‘What is it?' he demanded.

The doctor swung round. His voice lashed high and sharp.

‘They're gone – in the boat!'

Norman's skin ran cold. In a great voice he yelled imperiously, ‘Charlie!' He saw the movement of the boat, coming black from a skerry. ‘Charlie!' The throat was lacerated by that cry. The boat passed away and the channel was empty.

Norman turned round. The looming figure of the minister was there. A vast wrath engulfed Norman. There was
something in Charlie which he had always loved. And if Charlie hadn't been madly driven he wouldn't have so gone to his doom, taking the woman with him. The full storm, to which the night had been working up, sent its smashing volley, whizzing through the teeth of the skerries and lashing their faces with its spindrift.

‘God forgive you,' roared Norman above the roar of the sea, ‘for driving them to their deaths!' Blinded by his wrath, he turned to the cliff, his heart crying on within him, crying to those in the grip of that sea, and crying helplessly.

The sensational news ran along that coast through the grey of the morning and the thunder of the sea. Kenneth Grant haunted his post office, rapping out telegraphic messages to white-faced Sarah and drawing the words from her one by one as they came in.

There had been one wild hope – in which none of the seamen could believe – that Charlie's boat might have made the sheltered harbour of Glaspool in the deep inlet of Loch Savach twenty miles to the south'ard. It was the first hope to be definitely dispelled. For most men it was also the last.

For Charlie was no fool. Charlie did not just go wildly into the sea. If he could have made Glaspool, he would have had plenty of time on his hands to dispose of his boat and, with Flora, catch the early morning bus for the south train. That had been undoubtedly his wild plan, and he had made the seaman's instant decision, cut adrift and taken the fight in freedom upon himself.

He would never have crept in upon some lonely beach, even had that been possible. Not Charlie. It was his own boat and he would have sold her openly and gone. His defiance, his action, was final, with all a seaman's last impatience for the landsman's temporizings and fears. Fate had come upon him and he had instantly, instinctively, taken to his own boat and headed for the open.

In the group of men standing in the lee of Kenneth Grant's shop waiting for news, such thoughts slipped, sometimes halfspoken, from one or other mind to many.

‘He took his chance,' said William. ‘He thought he could do it.'

‘No,' said Norman slowly. ‘He did not think.'

‘It's easy for us to think that now.'

‘Charlie is a good seaman,' said Norman. ‘None better. He knew there was no earthly chance of the weather taking off.'

‘He might have done it – had it got no worse.'

‘I doubt it. I was there, at Sgeir. It was hitting the skerries in solid lumps then. We know a November storm. We all knew here it was coming upon us fast. Charlie knew.'

‘Do you mean he was?…' William did not like to use a disparaging word even in argument.

‘No,' answered Norman. ‘He was driven. And in the wild moment he went his way. And he took his woman with him.'

‘So would you or me,' said William, his voice rising.

Norman stared far, saying nothing.

The wind had its thin persistent howl, packed with fury. A sheet of loosened zinc rattled somewhere behind the shop like a piece of artillery. An elderly woman, going from one gable-end to another, was blown from her course, her black clothes flattening against her body like a loose sail against a mast, before she turned, leaning over, and slowly staggered to shelter. She nearly fell as the wind suddenly left her, and in that islanded moment a remote smile touched watching faces, for Kittag was quick with her tongue when men in their lordly way looked upon feminine struggle.

Angus, whose wit was heavy and slow, turned his rawboned reddish face – and the smile died.

They all turned their heads and beheld the minister, one hand holding on his black felt hat, coming along the road. He was leaning forward, and sometimes he staggered and sometimes he stood. Upon each face came a narrowing look and younger eyes glanced to right and left for a way of escape. But no one moved, for the moment had its own inescapable dignity.

As the minister drew near, all eyes left him and stared seaward, a blindness in their expression. Far as eye could reach, the sea was a smother of white-caps, of breaking grey-green water, a tumultuous onrushing stream, blown and tossed, in which no boat of that coast could live for ten minutes.

As the minister hove into the shelter beside them, the older men turned their faces to him, calm and level.

He was panting and the struggle had drained all colour out of his skin as if the heart, over-taxed, had drawn the blood inward.

‘Any word?'

‘No, Minister,' answered Norman with solemn calm. ‘There is no word.'

The minister swayed, as though the wind had left him dizzy.

Just then Kenneth came out of the post office door. As he saw the minister, his whole expression steadied and sank inward.

‘Any news?' asked the minister quietly, in a fatal friendliness.

Kenneth glanced away. ‘No, there's no news so far.'

The minister kept looking at him, his eyes hot and hungry.

‘If I get any, I'll tell you at once,' added Kenneth. ‘They're searching now – all down the coast.'

Silence held them.

‘How long do you think the storm will last?' asked the minister.

Automatically the seamen's faces looked at the sky. No one spoke. Then William said, ‘It may take another day or so to blow itself out.'

There was silence again and they felt the dread question coming. Then it came: ‘Do you think there's any hope, men?'

At last Norman turned his face and looked levelly at the minister. ‘It's too early to say yet. Charlie was a good seaman. It's a long coast.'

The minister searched Norman's face, but he might as well have searched the face of the sea.

‘So be it,' he said, and he bowed perceptibly, and turned and walked away from them. Whenever the wind got him, it threw him forward. He came about to fight it, rolled, and pitched on his side like a drunk man.

They ran to him and helped him up. The palms of his hands had got the gravel in breaking his fall and were bleeding.

‘Come up to the house,' invited Kenneth, handing him his hat.

‘I'm all right,' said the minister. ‘Thank you.' His calm was like the calm of one in a fatal sleep.

‘Come away!' urged William. ‘Come up to Kenneth's.'

The minister looked at William, then his eyes went into distance. Their voices had been lifted against the wind. Now a tearing gust got them. ‘I'm going home,' said the minister, but they only saw his lips move.

No one dared lay hands on him. Lying back against the wind, he went on.

‘Follow him,' said Norman to Angus.

Angus and George followed the minister at a distance. Opposite Smeorach's the minister gripped the low stone wall, leaning over it like one about to be sick. The wind blew his hat away. George raced after it. Angus went up to the minister.

‘Come on in to Smeorach's,' said Angus awkwardly but strongly.

The minister turned his head slowly and looked at Angus.

The skin was livid. The eyes burning. The hair blew on his head. Angus could not think what to do, so he did not think, but took the minister by the arm, as he would an ordinary man, and said in a rough inviting way, ‘Come on!'

The minister went with him, weakened by that human grip. Smeorach saw them pass the window.

‘Minister!' cried Smeorach. ‘Come in! Come in!'

Angus pulled the door shut and went back to the road, in time to catch a glimpse of George disappearing over the crest after the flying hat.

Angus, opening his mouth, let the wind choke his laughter. This relieved him.

George's head reappeared and Angus waited for him. George did not think much of Angus's heavy humour. ‘Here – put it on you!' he cried.

But Angus would not take the hat. Neither of them wanted to go to Smeorach's. At last George, aware that eyes were watching them from sheltered house-walls, went with the hat. He knocked on the door – a thing he never did – lifted the latch, and went in.

The minister was flat on his back on the floor, face white as death and eyes shut.

‘Run,' called Smeorach in his piping voice, ‘to Kenneth's for a drop of spirits.'

George shouted his news to Angus and together they swept into the gale.

When George returned with a half-bottle of whisky, he caught a glimpse of the minister sitting in the chair to the right of the fire. ‘I think he'll be all right now,' whispered Smeorach at the door.

‘He could not be in better hands,' said Norman, when George bore back the news.

As the forenoon wore on, the men drifted away.

As the day sank into night, every house on that coastline for fifty miles had its own construction of the story. Nothing else was discussed. It lived with them. It was present, not like their own bodies, but in a movement of figures charged with destiny, and before it their apprehension was humbled and judgment was a presumption to which their brows dare not lift. Ears of young children hearkened to the wind and to the roar of the sea. Here and there men returned with the darkening, weary and wordless after their empty search along cliff and shore. Doors were shut fast, the old thick walls contained them, and outside the night streamed and rocked.

Through Sarah's bright, dark-eyed face the spirit shone like a bird arrested in flight. Betsy was still as a pool in which the reflections are clear and deep.

‘Who would ever have thought it?' asked Sarah of Betsy and the night.

‘Perhaps they were going together for a long time,' said Betsy to Sarah and to the silence that wondered and wandered under the night.

‘They must have been.'

‘Meeting on the moor at night.'

The night swept over them, its vast edge like a screaming scythe-blade.

‘She couldn't have been afraid,' said Sarah.

‘She might.'

‘Yes, she might,' agreed Sarah.

Their argument brought them closer.

‘The years in Edinburgh. All that time. And when he was away. They never forgot.'

‘What are you girls doing through there in the cold? Come away in!'

‘We're coming, Mother,' cried Betsy.

‘Which window was it she got out of?' asked Betsy, as if her mother had never called from the kitchen.

‘One near the front door. She must have come down the stairs and then went out the window, so that no one would hear. The minister must have heard something. He went to her bed and it was empty. Then he found her dressing gown by the window. But I couldn't catch all they were saying. Kenneth is against the minister. And the minister followed her and came on them. Wasn't it awful?'

Their minds tried to picture love betrayed in the night.

‘Did they… what happened?' asked Betsy.

‘High words. High wild words. Charlie challenged him. They are two big strong men. Flora came between them and turned to her father, and cried “Father! Father!” And she was there between them. It was dark and wild, and no one now will maybe ever know all that was said. But it had come at last and there was no going back. It had to be one way or the other now.'

‘And she went with Charlie.'

‘Yes,' said Sarah.

‘Flora!' cried Betsy softly and listened to the far night of the world into which Flora had gone with her lover Charlie, and as she listened a great wave raced in thunder along the strand. Warm tears began to trickle down her cold face.

Sarah became similarly affected.

Up in Sarah's little post office, the shop closed and all lights extinguished save for the candle on the counter beside them, Kenneth Grant and the policeman were talking.

‘But I wasn't against you,' said the policeman.‘I had to do my duty. I had to find out if Dougald could have had the money on his own. I am satisfied from the little I could drag out of him and from yourself, that he could. That ends it.'

‘Hell, it's ended all right,' said Kenneth.

‘I didn't want—'

‘Oh, I know,' muttered Kenneth, turning his shoulder impatiently and lifting the bottle. ‘Here!'

The policeman let Kenneth pour more whisky into his glass, but his expression was reserved and hurt.

Kenneth said, the glass tilted in his hand, ‘Look here, Ranald, I know how you feel. You know how I feel. In your place I'd have done the same. We're all human. We've all got to live. But damn it all, man, it's the loss, the terrible loss. What's the use of us living in this dead hole if we're not going ahead? Charlie – Charlie had intelligence. The fellow liked the sea. He had ideas. He had seen the world. I have ideas, too. Norman is steady as a rock. William has salt in him. The young fellows would take a lead – if there's money in it. Money! Damn, didn't they take their sheep money? Wouldn't they take their lobster money and their fish money? Wouldn't they take the money I could save them on carriage? They don't know how to go about it. But I know. And I wouldn't be doing it only for their good like some bloody charity. I'd be doing it for my own good. And your good. And everyone's bloody good. And now Charlie is snuffed out like that – hell, like that!' He drank.

The policeman drank.

‘I liked Charlie,' said Kenneth in a quiet voice, staring at the floor.

There was a scrambling at the door.

‘Who's there?' called Kenneth.

‘It's me, Peter MacInnes.'

As Kenneth unlocked the door and pulled it open, Peter came in carrying a dead lantern. ‘I saw your light,' he said.

Kenneth at once made Peter sit down. ‘Where have you been? Here, take a dram.'

‘Wait,' gasped Peter, ‘till I get my breath.' He breathed heavily for a little while, then said,‘I was at the manse.'

‘The manse! On a night like this!' Kenneth looked shrewdly at him.

‘One or two of us had to go.'

Kenneth had forgotten that Peter was an elder of the church. He often forgot, because Peter had some fun in him, and was wise, and possessed little of the heavy
solemnity which Kenneth hated and so often derided in suitable company.

‘Is the minister all right?' asked Kenneth.

‘Yes.'

‘In that case, you can take your dram.' Peter contemplated the glass for a moment, then glanced at Kenneth. ‘Slainte!' He emptied the glass and shuddered a little over the neat spirit. ‘Ha-a-a! that will do me good,' he said slowly. He looked at the policeman.‘I hope this will be no more trouble for you, Ranald?'

‘No. Why would it? There's nothing wrong,' answered the policeman earnestly.