The Silver Darlings (16 page)

Presently, however, when he saw the others had
forgotten
him, he put the trumpet to his lips and said, “Zoo!” But it did not sound as it had done with the boy. More firmly he called “Zooo!” into it. Still it remained dead. There was something wrong with his trumpet! It was broken! It would not sound! His distress became acute. Roddie was kneeling beside him. “Blow into it, like this—phooo! … No, no, don’t make a sound, just blow.” Finn blew, and the trumpet sounded loud and high, clearing a path for itself over the world.

There were two more incidents of that day that were to remain in his memory. One stall consisted of an inclined table on which were spaced out attractive articles of every kind. Each article was surrounded by a circular wall with a
hole an inch wide at the top. After paying a penny, you were permitted to pull back a handle at the low right-hand corner and let it go with a bang, whereupon a marble shot up to the top of the table, and returned, bouncing from one enclosure to another. If you were very lucky, the marble entered one of the little holes or gates, and then you were presented with what was inside the enclosure. Roddie
insisted
on Finn’s having a shot. “Pull it back yet—back yet—now!” Finn let go. Off on its wild career went the marble. Then down—down—it was going in!—no—down—down … nothing. In these few seconds Finn lived such a long time, that the marble fell back into the bottom of an exhausted world. “Have another shot,” said Roddie. Finn felt all weak with the terrible excitement, and if he got nothing again he would hardly be able to bear it. His face deeply flushed, his eyes glittering, he let go the knob. But he had not pulled so hard this time and the marble barely reached the top. He could have cried to have the shot over again, but the marble, describing a gentle curve, hit against the edge of a little gate at its first contact, knocked against the other edge, wobbled, and fell in. “Hurrah!” cheered Roddie. And Finn was handed a lovely brooch, with a large glittering gem in the middle of it.

Roddie and Finn came to a tall mast surrounded by a crowd of men. Roddie heaved Finn on to his shoulder. “For strong men only! Ring the bell and get your money back!” shouted a crow of a man with a club foot and wisps of lank hair; whereupon he caught up a great hammer, its wooden head bound with iron, and, swinging it full circle, hit a knob which sent an iron pointer travelling hurriedly up the mast to tinkle a bell at the top. Strong men, who could have broken the showman on a knee, tried to ring that bell and failed. Twice Don got it a couple of inches from the top. “Very hard luck, sir! Very hard cheese indeed!” cried the sympathetic showman. Whenever he said “hard cheese” the crowd laughed. “Break the mast, Don,” cried Roddie. Don, who had already been in Mr. Hendry’s refreshment
booth, looked around until he found Roddie’s head. He smiled. “Come on, Roddie, and ring this dam’ thing, or I’ll never get home.” “No, no!” said Roddie, laughing. But the crowd now had caught sight of him. “Come on, skipper!” They would not leave him alone. They made way for him. “Don’t let the crew down!” cried a
greybeard
. Roddie lowered Finn to the ground and left him on the inside of the ring. As he lifted the hammer, he said humorously, “It’s all in the turn of the wrist!” Finn felt his heart swelling in a terrible anxiety. Roddie looked up the whole length of the mast. “She’d carry a good sail, boys!” Before anyone could laugh, the hammer had swung round in a flash; the pointer shot up with invisible speed to a ring and clatter at the top as if the bell had burst. In the momentary silence of the crowd, Finn’s body quivered, “Come on, Don,” said Roddie, with quiet but commanding humour. Don obeyed. Roddie whispered something in his ear. Down came the hammer swiftly; up shot the pointer and the bell just tinkled.

Don was delighted and insisted on hauling Roddie round to Hendry’s booth. “Wait till I put Finn back to his mother.” “Is this the little Cattach?” asked Don with a friendly smile to Finn. He put his hand in his pocket and offered him three pennies, but Finn was too shy to take them. “And he’s got a little pocket in his doublet, too!” Don put the pennies in the pocket. “Now,” he said, “you’ll come and drink a glass of ginger-ale.” “But we can’t take him into the booth,” Roddie objected. “Let the boy be,” said Don. “His country was kind to us.” Without more ado, he led the way.

Roddie smiled. After a dram, Don’s good nature got very persistent. There was no sign of Catrine anyway, and there would be no drunkenness in the booth yet, though some of the dogs outside were beginning to snarl, and when the dogs fought, their owners, if they had a drop too much, fought also.

The jostling, swaying crowd inside the canvassed
enclosure
,
open to the sky, frightened little Finn, and Don lifted him on his right arm. This was the one real day in the year (though there was also a spring market) when quiet, law-abiding men of the countryside permitted themselves some licence. Bargains were struck, palms spat upon, hands shaken, and final agreement sealed over a dram of “special”. With good money in the pocket and the heart open, a friend was a friend, and if he hadn’t been seen since the last market, there was a lot to be said. There were many friends. The world was full of friends. “Hullo, is that you, Robert, my hero? God bless me and how’s your old father? …” Finn was deafened with the voices. He had never seen men like this, easy and confidential, swaying to one another, here with solemn confidential faces nodding sadly over a tale of family grief, there with
shoulder-slapping
mirth. Mr. Hendry’s voice barked out its
commands
. Dave shouted to a servitor, but failed to attract the overwhelmed lad’s attention. “Blow a blast on your
trumpet
, Finn,” urged Don. Finn did not like to blow, but at last he let off a splendid blast. Everyone looked at them. “A ginger-ale and two specials!” shouted Don. Mr. Hendry recognized them. “Ha, you!” he cried. And then a man, who knew Finn, saw him. “Is that my little Finn I see?” He was a brown-bearded, broad-shouldered man, with a face happier than any boy’s. He waved to Finn with an exaggerated prim womanish gesture that made heavy men lean back. “Peep-bo!” he cried. At last they had to stop him, and a voice yelled, “Wull, you’re drunk!”

Wull was up near the serving counter and he looked down the booth upon figures standing and figures sitting on the long wooden trestles, swaying lightly, his eyes lost in a benign, silent mirth.

“Boys,” he said to them softly, in so confidential a tone that everyone listened, “boys—I’m full as the Baltic.” As a noted smuggler, Wull was enjoying the perverse
happiness
of drinking whisky that had paid duty.

……

Catrine was waiting for them when they came out. Her smile was a little awkward as she tried to dissemble her concern. “I was frightened you had got lost,” she said, looking reproachfully at Finn.

“Why would he get lost?” asked Don. “Surely the poor fellow can have a drink with the rest. Eh, Finn? Are you going home with your mother or are you sticking by Roddie and me?”

“Come, Firm,” said Catrine.

Finn hesitated. Roddie and Don laughed. “That’s the boy!” said Don. “Away home, woman of the house, and leave the young man to enjoy himself. The fun hasn’t started yet.”

“Come, Finn,” said Catrine firmly. She took his hand.

“Finn, Finn, my boy,” said Don, shaking his head, “that’s what they do to you.”

“Have you sold?” asked Roddie.

“Yes, I’m glad to say,” replied Catrine. “And at a good price.”

“Kirsty will be pleased!”

“Yes.” Catrine nodded. She was somehow a little
constrained
now and looked extremely attractive. Her eyes in the sun were not dark, they were nut-brown, a fathomless brown, shot through with light. Her mouth made any other woman’s prim and pale. “Thank you very much,” she said, flushing a trifle as she felt the men’s eyes, “and
particularly
for looking after Finn.”

“Really going?” asked Roddie.

“Yes, oh yes. I must”

“My young man—and where have you been? Drinking, I hear?” It was Kirsty, her face portentously solemn. Finn backed away. Don picked him up. “What have you to say for yourself?” she demanded, and poked him in the stomach.

Now Finn’s stomach, what with ginger-bread,
gooseberries
, toffee, and a large bottle of very fizzy ginger-ale, was tight as a drum, and when Kirsty poked it there came
through his mouth a prolonged, an incredible eructation. Even Kirsty laughed, nodding her head like a witch.

That night Finn had a thousand things to tell and more questions to ask about the strange world he had seen, once his mother and himself were alone and Kirsty in bed. In minute detail he described how Roddie had rung the bell.

“He must be awfully strong, Mama?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think he’s the strongest man in the world?”

“I couldn’t say. Perhaps he is. Do you like Roddie?”

“Yes,” said Finn. “And when I’m big I’ll go to sea, too, and be a skipper.”

“Mama does not want you to go to sea. You must never go to sea. Do you hear? Never.”

“Why?” He was astonished at her vehemence.

“Because I don’t want you to. Because people who go to sea get drowned. The sea is an angry cruel place. You must promise me never to go to sea.”

“Will Roddie get drowned?”

“I hope not. Will you promise never to go to sea?”

“Can’t I sail the little boat Don gave me?”

“We’ll see. But not yet.”

“I want to sail the little boat,” said Finn moodily.

“Haven’t you your trumpet? Isn’t that enough for you?”

“I want also,” said Finn, “to sail the little boat.”

“We won’t talk any more about it just now. Go to sleep.” Catrine left him.

Finn knew the pool in the burn on which he was going to sail his little boat. The boat was painted red and had a mast with a piece of cotton tacked on to it. The boat was longer than his foot. Don told him how to put it in a pool and push it off. Then the wind would come and hit the sail and the boat would go away, away, sailing to the other side. He could take his trumpet down with him, and when he pushed the boat off he could blow on his trumpet and cry, “There she goes! Look out, everyone!” Then he would
cross the river and meet her when she arrived. It was such a long time to the morning. If Mama would not give him the boat it would be awful. If he promised to be very, very good she might give it to him. He had given her the brooch. He had said, “Mama, you’ll have a fairing from me”, just as the men said it to the women at the market. He had felt a little shy about it, so had done it as casually as possible. His mother had looked at him, as if she could not believe her eyes. “Oh, Finn,” she had said. “Oh, Finn, how lovely!” And then she had snatched him up and smothered her face against him. Her face got all flushed and her eyes glistened. Anyone would think he had given her his trumpet. The trumpet had a little handle, by which you could lift it smartly to your mouth and drop it down again. Once or twice he thought his mother was going to lift him and kiss him at the market and before Roddie. He would have been desperately ashamed. But she hadn’t done it. He had kept the brooch until they were on the way home. He must watch that she never got the chance to do it before boys and men like Roddie. Roddie was the greatest man in the world. If he said he would be very, very good perhaps she would let him sail the boat in the morning. She was sitting so very quiet before the fire with her back to him. She would be thinking of the market, too, of all the strange and wonderful and lovely things in the world. What a great and happy place the world was! But you had to be big and grown-up before you could do just what you liked.

“Mama?”

His mother did not answer. She was crouched over the fire, her shoulders drawn down.

“Mama?”

But she did not turn round; she did not speak. He sat up and stared at her. The world rocked in anguish. “Mama!” he cried. “Why are you weeping?”

CHAPTER VIII

THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH

“
H
ow can we trace the way of the spirit, how can we tell in what manner it was united with this clod of earth? No man can trace and no man can tell. It is enough that He who formed it did also unite or marry it to the body. For nothing is more clear than that the body which is carnal could not of itself create the spirit which is of God. What an astonishing mystery it is thus to see heaven and earth married together in the one person, to see such a noble and divine guest take up its habitation within the mean walls of flesh and blood. But as the mean walls of flesh and blood shall in corruption return to the earth, so shall the divine spirit, which was created a rational spirit, conscious of good and evil, so shall it appear before the Creator of the spirits of all flesh, before the dread Arbiter and final judge. Woe unto each one of us on that day. Woe unto you in whom the spirit all the days of your lives has been polluted by the raging flesh….”

Mildly in this fashion did the catechist, Sandy Ware, pause to expound his reading in Genesis (Chapter ii, verse 7), before proceeding in more direct terms to indict the carnal self-seeking of the day. Little Finn, standing by his mother’s knee, kept his round, dark eyes on the mouth which opened and shut between the hair of the upper lip and the thick, square-cut forest on the chin.

In wide, Highland parishes, it was not easy for the minister of the parish church—the only church—to keep in close contact with the individuals of his flock, and so a
god-fearing
man, of some scriptural accomplishment, was
appointed
here and there to instruct the people in doctrinal truth as it is expounded and made finally clear in the one hundred and seven Questions and Answers agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster and called the Shorter Cathechism.

Normally the catechist went from house to house, but sometimes many were gathered together in one house for the convenience of the catechist, particularly if he were as well known as Sandy Ware and his services demanded in places far from his own district. For Sandy was not only a catechist, not only an expounder of doctrinal subtleties, but also, on occasion, a preacher of fluency and force. Roddie, who was now sitting with elbows on knees and the flat of his hands supporting his cheeks, had heard him in
Helmsdale
preaching to the fishermen. He had also been to Wick, pulling the drunken brands from the burning. Sandy and men like him had for some time been raising their voices against the constitution and spiritual inadequacy and
backsliding
of the Established Church itself, calling for its
disestablishment
, its dissociation from the worldly forces that govern it, calling for its reform and the uprising of the pure evangelical spirit.

Nearly thirty persons were gathered in Widow Grant’s house. It sometimes astonished Finn that though Widow Grant was very holy, she could yet speak to him in an ordinary voice, and sometimes even smile. She now sat with lowered head staring at the winking peat. All those present were slightly tense or excited, because they
wondered
how they would come out of the ordeal of “the Questions”. And it was a relief when at last Sandy had cleared the ground for the main engagement and, casting his eyes around, let them rest on Finn, the youngest.

“I wonder,” he said, “if this young man could tell me: W
HAT IS THE
C
HIEF
E
ND OF
M
AN
?”

Finn replied: “
Man
’
s
chief
end
is
to
glorify
God
and
to
enjoy
him
for
ever
.”

“Very good,” said Mr. Ware, his whiskers breaking against his chest as he nodded. Then he looked
thoughtfully
at Finn for a moment, for he remembered how as a little boy he himself had repeated for years the two words
chief
end
as one meaningless word. “Now could you tell me the meaning of the words
chief
end
?”

“It means,” said Finn, “the chief thing that man has got to do.”

“A little Daniel!” declared Mr. Ware.

Kirsty raised her chin a couple of inches and her closed lips moved out and in, combatively and with satisfaction.

“W
HAT RULE HATH
G
OD GIVEN TO DIRECT US HOW WE
MAY GLORIFY AND ENJOY
H
IM
?” Mr. Ware asked her.

“
The
word
of
God
,
which
is
contained
in
the
Scriptures
of
the
Old
and
New
Testaments
,
is
the
only
rule
to
direct
us
how
we
may
glorify
and
enjoy
him
,”
replied Kirsty, evenly.

“W
HAT DO THE
S
CRIPTURES
P
RINCIPALLY TEACH
?” asked the catechist, going round with the sun.

“
The
Scriptures
principally
teach
what
man
is
to
believe
concerning
God
,
and
what
duty
God
requires
of
man
,”
replied Shiela, Roddie’s sister.

“W
HAT IS
G
OD
?”

“
God
,”
answered Roddie, “
is
a
Spirit
,
infinite
,
eternal
,
and
unchangeable
,
in
his
being
,
wisdom
,
power
,
holiness
,
jus
tice
,
goodness
,
and
truth
.”

Through the number of persons in the Godhead, the decrees of God, his work of creation and his creation of man, his providence, up to sin, its definition, and man’s fall, all was plain sailing. The first stumbling occurred with Robert Duncan, who was thirteen years old and one of a family often. “W
HEREIN
,” asked Mr. Ware, “
CONSISTS
THE SINFULNESS OF THAT ESTATE WHEREINTO MAN FELL
?”

“
All
mankind
by
their
fall
——”

“No, no,” interrupted Mr. Ware, “that describes the misery of the estate whereinto man fell. First we must have a definition of
the
sinfulness
of the estate itself.

“Oh, yes,” said Robert, so quickly that a faint smile
showed here and there. “
The
sinfulness
of
that
estate
where
into
man
fell
,
consists
in
the
guilt
of
Adam
’
s
first
sin
,
the
want
of
original
righteousness
,
and
the
corruption
of
his
whole
nature
,
which
is
commonly
called
Original
Sin:
together
with
all
actual
transgressions
which
proceed
from
it
.”

“That’s better,” said Mr. Ware, “but perhaps you will learn to repeat it a little more slowly, so that we may all have time to apprehend the meaning of the words.” He stroked his beard, “Now …”

As he went deeper into the mysteries there were momentary hesitations here and there, but the first real break came with Simple Sanny, who was in his thirties, with a brown hairy face and small acute eyes.

“W
HAT IS ADOPTION
?” Mr. Ware asked him.

Sanny opened his mouth thoughtfully and scratched his chin. “I know the
justification
one better,” he said.

“We have just had W
HAT IS
J
USTIFICATION
?” remarked the catechist.

“Oh ay,” said Sanny, “so we had.” His quick eye turned upon a faint noise suspiciously like young laughter at Mr. Ware’s back. Encouraged by this, Sanny said, “I’ll give you the first commandment instead—if that will suit you.”

“We are some way from the commandments yet,”
replied
the catechist, with some severity, “and we do not bargain in these matters as we do over a stirk at a drunken market. A very drunken market, from what I have heard.”

Sanny glanced up out of the corner of his eye. Was the catechist getting at him? For Sanny’s simplicity and malice were an irresistible attraction to merry-making boys and men; and, in truth, at the fair he had been so well treated that he had slept the night in a ditch near the Market Hill.

“Ay, it was all that, from what I have heard myself,” he now replied with an air of simple and sad innocence.

Some clearing of male throats and a choked nasal sound from a boy did not ease Mr. Ware’s severity. But it
encouraged
Sanny still more. “Ay,” he said, shaking his head and sucking in his breath, “ay, there was one man there
and he told me what adoption was, and it’s his words that will not go out of my head, but I know fine they are not the right words. He could not mislead me there,” said Sanny. “No fear.”

“Silence!” cried Mr. Ware.

“He didn’t use bad words, if that’s what you mean,” muttered Sanny, hurt now. “He only said: ‘Adoption is jail without the option’!”

“Silence, you blasphemer!”

Sanny had gone too far and knew it. Everyone knew it. Mr. Ware’s eyes were sunken a little in his head and they now glowed. He stood like a prophet who might well call down doom upon them, the everlasting wrath. Before his denunciations, Sanny curled in upon himself like a whipped collie. But Mr. Ware could, on a breath, almost find excuse for him, for this poor, witless man who to gratify the hunger of a cunning vanity would try for a blasphemous jest in God’s temple itself, because of the ever-growing carnality and sin of those amongst whom he moved, those who should show him a far other example. The more wrought upon Mr. Ware became the richer and more powerful grew his language, lifting him at last to the cry: “Asses’ heads or doves’ dung was not Israel’s meat when the lepers were sounding the trumpet. Lord, hasten the day of sounding the trumpet with the lepers, of battering Jericho’s towering walls with Joshua’s rams’ horns. When will the worm Jacob thresh the mountains? When will the anointed stripling David come from the wilderness to the slaughter of the Philistine that is Israel’s terrification? When will Moses come down from the Mount and see how our Aarons have made the people naked? Lord, hasten the day when our idolizing mirth will be turned to a repenting grief.”

Little Finn gazed on the figure of Sandy Ware with awe. The uplifted head with the out-thrust beard, the hands raised a little like tentative supplicating wings, the deep, rolling fluency of the voice, the up-curling eddies of blue
smoke, the gloom of the rafters, the watching faces, the bowed heads, and passing in the midst the ritual, awful figures of Joshua and Moses and David, with the walls of Jericho tumbling down at the sounding horn on the plains of Israel.

A quietness came on the company and Mr. Ware
resumed
his catechizing, drawing forth the benefits which in this life do flow from justification, adoption, and
sanctification
, from belief in Christ and the resurrection, working on through obedience and the moral law to the meaning of the commandments, and so to a recital of the ten
commandments
themselves, together with amplifying statements of what is required in each and forbidden, so that their
meaning
be completely apprehended. To Wull fell the answer:
The
third
commandment
is
,
Thou
shalt
not
take
the
name
of
the
Lord
thy
God
in
vain;
for
the
Lord
will
not
hold
him
guiltless
that
taketh
his
name
in
vain;
and to Catrine:
The
seventh
com
mandment
is
,
Thou
shalt
not
commit
adultery.
But it was when the commandments were left behind, onward in that rarer air of
repentance
unto
life
and sacrament as an
effectual
means
of
salvation
,
that the young and many of the old stumbled. Even Roddie got lost among the six petitions, for here there was no word in the Question to suggest the beginning of the Answer. Catrine hesitated once, but
quickly
picked herself up. Kirsty never hesitated. In the same even, indifferent voice, she repeated the conjoint wisdom of the Westminster divines as something she had long been familiar with, and did not require anyone in particular to challenge her on the matter now.