The Silver Darlings Page 7

  “We’ll be taking the Books at once,” said Kirsty before he could speak. “The bairn is tired after the long journey.” The peats that stood on edge she shoved closer together, and at once bright flames sprang up, lighting the dying day in the kitchen. The old man took the Gaelic bible and, stooping a little towards the fire said, “We will read in the twenty-third chapter of the Book of Psalms.” He knew it by heart.

  At once Catrine lowered her head and in her lap her small hands clenched.

  The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketb me to lie down in green pastures: be leadetb me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: be leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil….

  Catrine could listen no more. It was a cruel irony that had made the old man choose this chapter to read, for it was the last that Tormad and herself had read together, the night before he had gone to sea.

  There had been something very intimate in this reading of a chapter of the Bible after they had got married. They had been shy about it at first, smiling like embarrassed children who were playing at the game of being responsible and grown-up, Tormad clearing his throat and being solemn, while she sat upright and still, like the mother of a family of sons. Tormad hadn’t read very loud, as if folk outside might hear, yet had kept his voice steady and had even raised it a bit towards the end. What a lovely experience it had been, warm with the very breath of their love, bringing them together in the ways and traditions of their folk, shyly establishing them in manhood and womanhood, encircling them about with strength and assurance. They thought of the words he read with a certain wonder, as belonging to remote places and remote times, and they hardly dared think of God at all, putting between them and Him the dark veil, with a little fear, a natural humility, thus reserving for themselves the brightness of their human lives, its moments of love and mirth and rapture, this side the veil.

  But there was one chapter that all the children knew, and, in its metrical form, a verse or two of it were often recited by them as their private prayer before jumping into bed; for it was familiar in its cadence and full of pleasantness, A curious thing about it, too, was that the words were always drowned in memory except those picturing the green pastures and the still waters. But they remained, shining and green-cool, like a memory of a summer day, spent perhaps up the glen, where no houses are, at a distance from home.

  And on that last night, with the childhood cadence in his voice, Tormad had read of the green pastures and the still waters.

  Old David and Kirsty got to their knees, and Catrine, following them, buried her face in her palms. She did not hear one word of his prayer, her mind and body blinded, and when they were shuffling to their feet, she had to keep to her knees. They looked at her and turned away, saying no word, and in a few seconds she got up.

  At once Kirsty spoke loudly to her father. “Now you’ll away to bed. It’s late it is.”

  “Very good,” he said mildly, and turned to Catrine. There was that steady look for a moment, his eyes clear open and yet faintly veiled, almost as if he were looking at her from a distance with the unearthly calm and consideration there might be in the eyes of God.

  “Good night, Catrine,” he said. “I hope you will sleep well.”

  “Good night,” she answered him.

  “Good night, my poor girl.” His voice, gentle and full of profound pity, went with him as he walked away.

  In a little while they had done all they had to do before preparing for bed. Kirsty lifted the big peats off the fire and smothered their burning edges in the ash-hole beneath.

  Deep gloom invaded the room with the smooring of the fire, and in its partial covering Catrine sat very still.

  “Aren’t you getting ready?” Kirsty asked.

  “Yes,” Catrine answered, and with slow movements of her limbs, as if her clothes were very heavy, she began to undress.

  CHAPTER IV

  THE FIRST HUNT FOR THE SILVER DARLINGS

  Some two years before the seizure by the press-gang, while Tormad, like many other young men along these northern coasts, was scheming to get a boat of his own, for he was strongly in love with Catrine and wanted to marry her, Roddie Sinclair had become the youngest skipper in Dunster. It was the year that marked the true beginning of the herring industry, a memorable year in the history of that land and of its sea fisheries. To Roddie, his elevation came unexpectedly enough one blustery April forenoon as he called at the inn with a string of white fish for sale.

  The inn-keeper, emerging from the bar door, all but ran into him. He was a short man with a burly body and sharp dark-blue eyes that looked small in his fat face. At any time his manner was energetic and business-like; now, as he gazed at Roddie, his eyes seemed to grow even smaller.

  “Come in,” he said abruptly, ignoring Roddie’s reference to the string of fish, and, turning on his heel, led the way into the empty bar. Roddie followed, his wonder growing as Mr. Hendry lifted the flap at one end of the rough deal counter. Roddie now hesitated, but Hendry jerked his head sideways and onward, “Come on,” lowered the flap as Roddie passed and, going through a door into a narrow darkened passage, shouted, “Johan!” His wife, a tall buxom woman, appeared, and before she could greet Roddie, Mr. Hendry swept the fish to the kitchen with a jerk of his head. “I want to speak to you,” he said to Roddie, and ushered him into his small private room.

  Roddie had never had such honour paid to him before, and would politely have forborne looking about the small dim chamber with its little cobwebbed window, had not the inn-keeper turned his back upon him in order to take from a recess in the wall a bottle with a dark label bearing in large white scrpt the word “Special”. Roddie knew now that the news or business was of some importance, for Hendry acted thus only on very particular occasions, and was, in consequence, referred to among the folk themselves as Special.

  “Sit down,” he said impatiently but not inhospitably, as he poured some of the liquor into a coarse tumbler. “You had a dirty morning.”

  Roddie sat down on a narrow form against the inner wall, accepted the glass with a word of thanks, adding, “It was dirty enough.”

  “Any of the other boats out?”

  “No,” said Roddie. “It didn’t look very good, but I thought it would take off.”

  “And it took off?”

  “A bit. Once we got beyond the shore swell it wasn’t so bad.”

  Mr. Hendry nodded emphatically. “I was in Wick yesterday. I have good news for you.”

  “Have they got hold of him?”

  “Who?”

  “Bonaparte,” said Roddie, for Special’s suppressed excitement seemed to imply little less. But Waterloo was still some weeks ahead and Hendry gave a laugh. “They’ll get him, too,” he said. “But I have got more important news. By God, and it is! Do you know what the Parliament is going to do? It’s going to raise the bounty to four shillings a barrel!” He almost shouted the words.

  “Four shillings,” repeated Roddie in a small voice.

  “Yes, four shillings. It’s not law yet. But it will be—and in time for the coming season.”

  “That should help things on,” said Roddie.

  “Help things on!” Hendry gave his abrupt impatient laugh. “By God, boy, don’t you see what’s going to happen? Don’t you see that the sea in front of our doors is going to be a gold-mine? That we are now at the beginning of what will mean fortunes for those who know how to take advantage of it? The news is running along the coasts like wild-fire. The Wick curers can hardly contain themselves. They’re going to dump salt here, in Lybster, in Helmsdale—ay, and in Whaligoe and Sarclet and every little creek that can beach a boat. And the same on the south side, from Fraserburgh to Cromarty.”

  “There will be a lot of boats at it in that case,” said Roddie with his diffident smile.

  Hendry looked at him. Then he sat down. “Listen to me,” he said. “In
the past, the sea has meant little or nothing to us here. A few small boats at the white-fishing, a few cod and ling split and dried. Plenty of cold, dangerous work and damn little for it beyond a mouthful of food. Then came the Fishery Officer and a bounty of two shillings for every barrel of herring cured on shore. You know what followed on that?

  Roddie nodded.

  “Fellows with little knowledge of curing and less knowledge of markets thought they could come in and make money quick, sure of the two shillings. Many of the fishermen did not get enough to pay for the two or three nets they bought. It hardly touched us here at all. But, by God, my boy, it’s going to touch us now.”

  Roddie did not speak. He was subdued by Special’s enthusiasm and this man-to-man talk in the inner sanctum.

  Mr Hendry leaned heavily on the little table in front of him and drummed it with the fingers of his right hand. “And if it’s going to touch us,” he said, craning towards Roddie, “why in the name of Providence shouldn’t men like you and myself benefit, the men of the place?”

  “I hope we will, Mr. Hendry.”

  “Hope is no use, my boy. Not hope or faith, but works. Works, my boy, as Sandy Ware would say. What’s the damned use of your little boats with two or three nets—even for those of you who can buy them? You don’t want to make a pound or two—you want to make a hundred pounds!”

  Roddie looked at his glass with a slightly embarrassed expression.

  Then the inn-keeper, in a strong but quietened voice, broke the silence dramatically. “I have made up my mind to set up this year myself as a curer in Dunster.”

  Roddie looked at him. Hendry held his eyes. “I may not offer so much a cran as some curers who may come from Wick or elsewhere, but what I offer I’ll pay. Will you fish for me?”

  “Yes,” said Roddie.

  Hendry nodded twice. “I have been watching you,” he said. “You are a real seaman and the best of the young men. I want eight of the best local boats to fish for me. I am prepared to pay seven shillings and sixpence a cran for every cran landed at my station—whether I myself sell the herring or not. What do you think of that?”

  “It’s a big offer,” said Roddie with a restless movement. He was beginning to feel excited.

  “However, that’s not what I specially wanted you here for. What’s the size of your boat?”

  “Thirteen feet keel, but she’s not all mine.”

  Mr. Hendry did not take his eyes off Roddie. “Have you any money?”

  “Well,” said Roddie, looking away, “it’s maybe not very much.”

  Hendry nodded, appearing to appreciate this reticence. “How would you like,” he asked, “to skipper a boat of twenty-feet keel?”

  Through the silence Roddie brought his eyes to the innkeeper’s face. The faint diffident smile remained, but the eyes themselves narrowed like a cat’s, with a penetrating greeny-blue glint in them. Then they looked away. “You’re making fun of me now,” he said pleasantly, but with a slight gulp.

  “Yesterday I bought the boat—and the nets—and the gear,” said Hendry. “She is lying in Wick, all ready to be taken up.”

  “Is she?” remarked Roddie smoothly.

  “She is. She’s not new, but I had her gone over by a friend who’s a boat-builder. He said she rings like a bell.”

  “She should be sound in that case,” observed Roddie.

  “She has a mast and sail.”

  Roddie remained silent, not looking at Special.

  “She is yours to skipper. Yours. You can choose your own crew and go and fetch her. Are you prepared to do that?” asked Hendry, who had not removed his eyes from Roddie’s face.

  Roddie looked out of the small window for a moment, and then said, “I am.”

  Hendry nodded. “That’s the sort of answer I like. No shilly-shally and waste of time. Now for terms. There are two ways of making our bargain, and the first is this: I’ll hold the ownership of boat and gear and take half your earnings; the other half you’ll divide between the crew and yourself, keeping, of course, a bigger share for yourself, because you’ll not only be, skipper but responsible to me for the boat. How does that strike you?”

  “That’s very generous,” said Roddie. There was silence for a moment. “If I lost her,” he added, “you would have to give me a few years to pay—that’s the only thing.”

  “If you lost her,” said Mr. Hendry, “you would not have to pay anything. I’m the owner.”

  Roddie’s mouth closed and the spittle slid down his throat. His fingers began turning the glass round and round. “That would be too much.” His face was warm.

  “The second course is this,” said Mr. Hendry. “I’ll make over the boat to you now at exactly the same price as I paid for her. You’ll be her sole owner and you’ll owe me the money. That money will be the first charge on the boat and will have to be paid before you or your crew draw anything. When it’s paid, the boat is yours—and you’ll owe me no more.”

  Mr. Hendry saw a momentary quiver in Roddie’s throat. He turned away and, taking a glass from the cupboard poured himself a small dram.

  “Well?”

  “I don’t know,” murmured Roddie.

  “Say what’s in your mind, man.”

  “I would like to own her,” said Roddie in a small voice.

  “I thought you would. That’s the spirit. Watch your dram.”

  Roddie had forgotten the glass, which was tilting perilously at his knee. He lifted it and flushed, turned it slowly round, then raising his head, said simply, “I have seven pounds of my own. I’ll take them down and give them to you to-night.”

  Mr. Hendry looked at him. “Very well,” he said, “if you want to. But I won’t take the seven: I’ll take six.”

  For an hour thereafter Mr. Hendry eased himself of his bottled-up enthusiasm for the rising wealth of the herring fishings. He wanted to see the place going ahead, he said. He wanted to see life and money about, money pouring into the place like a river. “We’re behindhand, man. We’re dead. You’re the coming generation. I’ve been watching you. It’s for you to lead. I’m giving you the chance. I can do no more.”

  “I’ll do my best,” murmured Roddie, his eyes glittering.

  He walked up the riverside in a half-dream. So overcome was he that he went into the privacy of a birch wood and sat down. His clothes were wet and the day cold, but the shiver in his flesh felt warm. The dram of whisky had gone a little to his head, for his stomach had long been empty. In the core of his excitement was a remorseless strength, and it now consciously took the form of an intense loyalty to Special Folk said that Special was a hard business-man, with only one craving in mind and body—for money. Yet he had offered the boat to Roddie on the most generous terms, taking every risk. If he had hung on to the ownership and the half share, he might in the end make far more money than he had paid for the boat and still have her. Now he had handed her over, and if things went wrong might never get his money back—and in any case, would get no more. Lord, it was fine of him! The skipper-owner of by far the biggest boat in Dunster—at twenty-three!

  Roddie could not move out of the wood until he had got some of his habitual calm back. Never in his life had he been so stirred. Fantasies of great shots of herring, that would not merely pay for boat and gear but, above everything, that would justify Special’s trust in him, took the place of thought. And in the utmost fantasy there was a characteristic underlying force, a fighting grimness, a narrowing of the eyes.

  In his inner room, Mr. Hendry continued with his own thoughts. He was satisfied with the way the interview had turned out. For he had not merely been taking a chance with Roddie. His was the long view, covering not only the workings of one boat, but seasons of fishing fleets far into the future. You have to have a bait or net before you can catch anything! Hendry was in his early forties, when worldly ambition is strong.

  He could not figure with pencil and paper; indeed as far as writing was concerned all he had laboriously learned was to si
gn his own name after a fashion; but his head seemed all the clearer for that. A cran of herring was slightly more than a barrel. When he had got his four shillings bounty for the barrel, the cran would cost him actually about three shillings, or, say, four shillings, after gutting and packing. To that he added the cost of salt and barrels, including coopers’ wages, commission to the foreign merchant, the cost of a young reliable clerk. The foreman and clerk he wanted were both in Wick and he knew he could get them. The foreman was at present a journeyman cooper, named George Bremner, who would jump at the chance of a foreman’s job. George was as keen on coopering as Roddie was on fishing. Mr. Hendry had gone over and over every working and financial detail with his first cousin, who had recently set up as a curer in Wick, including the notice that had to be given to the Fishery Officer covering the few thousand bushels of salt to be stored at Dunster for the coming season.

  But though Mr. Hendry might thus appear by nature to incline towards speculation, actually there was nothing he feared more than a blind risk. Accordingly, he had concentrated particularly on the selling side of the business, and here he had got in touch with a commission merchant for the Baltic. There were two ways one could sell abroad: either through a commission merchant at an agreed price or by direct shipment at a price that on a flooded market might be less but on a scarce market might be very much more. There had never been any doubt or hesitation in the inn-keeper: it was the commission merchant for him every time! The profit might be limited—so long as it was certain. His mind being thus clear, he had been early on the scene, and had accepted a price up to eight hundred barrels, which was a large smack’s cargo.

  Now with the four-shilling bounty and the price per cran to which Roddie had agreed, he could not for the life of him see a smaller profit than ten shillings a barrel, and it might well be a shilling or two more. But èven at ten shillings on 800 barrels his profit would be ₤400.

  All that remained to be done was to fill the 800 barrels.