He will be waiting for the right man, said Rorie.
Mary met me on the beach, and led me up the brae and into the house of Aros. Outside and inside there were many changes. The garden was fenced with the same wood that I had noted in the boat; there were chairs in the kitchen covered with strange brocade; curtains of brocade hung from the window; a clock stood silent on the dresser; a lamp of brass was swinging from the roof; the table was set for dinner with the finest of linen and silver; and all these new riches were displayed in the plain old kitchen that I knew so well, with the high-backed settle, and the stools, and the closet bed for Rorie; with the wide chimney the sun shone into, and the clear-smouldering peats; with the pipes on the mantelshelf and the three-cornered spittoons, filled with sea-shells instead of sand, on the floor; with the bare stone walls and the bare wooden floor, and the three patchwork rugs that were of yore its sole adornment poor mans patchwork, the like of it unknown in cities, woven with homespun, and Sunday black, and sea-cloth polished on the bench of rowing. The room, like the house, had been a sort of wonder in that country-side, it was so neat and habitable; and to see it now, shamed by these incongruous additions, filled me with indignation and a kind of anger. In view of the errand I had come upon to Aros, the feeling was baseless and unjust; but it burned high, at the first moment, in my heart.
Mary, girl, said I, this is the place I had learned to call my home, and I do not know it.
It is my home by nature, not by the learning, she replied; the place I was born and the place Im like to die in; and I neither like these changes, nor the way they came, nor that which came with them. I would have liked better, under Gods pleasure, they had gone down into the sea, and the Merry Men were dancing on them now.
Mary was always serious; it was perhaps the only trait that she shared with her father; but the tone with which she uttered these words was even graver than of custom.
Ay, said I, I feared it came by wreck, and thats by death; yet when my father died, I took his goods without remorse.
Your father died a clean strae death, as the folk say, said Mary.
True, I returned; and a wreck is like a judgment. What was she called?
They cad her the Christ-Anna, said a voice behind me; and, turning round, I saw my uncle standing in the doorway.
He was a sour, small, bilious man, with a long face and very dark eyes; fifty-six years old, sound and active in body, and with an air somewhat between that of a shepherd and that of a man following the sea. He never laughed, that I heard; read long at the Bible; prayed much, like the Cameronians he had been brought up among; and indeed, in many ways, used to remind me of one of the hill-preachers in the killing times before the Revolution. But he never got much comfort, nor even, as I used to think, much guidance, by his piety. He had his black fits when he was afraid of hell; but he had led a rough life, to which he would look back with envy, and was still a rough, cold, gloomy man.
As he came in at the door out of the sunlight, with his bonnet on his head and a pipe hanging in his button-hole, he seemed, like Rorie, to have grown older and paler, the lines were deeplier ploughed upon his face, and the whites of his eyes were yellow, like old stained ivory, or the bones of the dead.
Ay he repeated, dwelling upon the first part of the word, the Christ-Anna. Its an awfu name.
I made him my salutations, and complimented him upon his look of health; for I feared he had perhaps been ill.
Im in the body, he replied, ungraciously enough; aye in the body and the sins of the body, like yoursel. Denner, he said abruptly to Mary, and then ran on to me: Theyre grand braws, thir that we hae gotten, are they no? Yons a bonny knock 2, but itll no gang; and the naperys by ordnar. Bonny, bairnly braws; its for the like o them folk sells the peace of God that passeth understanding; its for the like o them, an maybe no even sae muckle worth, folk daunton God to His face and burn in muckle hell; and its for that reason the Scripture cas them, as I read the passage, the accursed thing. Mary, ye girzie, he interrupted himself to cry with some asperity, what for hae ye no put out the twa candlesticks?
Why should we need them at high noon? she asked.
But my uncle was not to be turned from his idea. Well bruik 3 them while we may, he said; and so two massive candlesticks of wrought silver were added to the table equipage, already so unsuited to that rough sea-side farm.
She cam ashore Februar 10, about ten at nicht, he went on to me. There was nae wind, and a sair run o sea; and she was in the sook o the Roost, as I jaloose. We had seen her a day, Rorie and me, beating to the wind. She wasnae a handy craft, Im thinking, that Christ-Anna; for she would neither steer nor stey wi them. A sair day they had of it; their hands was never aff the sheets, and it perishin cauld ower cauld to snaw; and aye they would get a bit nip o wind, and awa again, to pit the empy hope into them. Eh, man! but they had a sair day for the last ot! He would have had a prood, prood heart that won ashore upon the back o that.
And were all lost? I cried. God held them!
Wheesht! he said sternly. Nane shall pray for the deid on my hearth-stane.
I disclaimed a Popish sense for my ejaculation; and he seemed to accept my disclaimer with unusual facility, and ran on once more upon what had evidently become a favourite subject.
We fand her in Sandag Bay, Rorie an me, and a thae braws in the inside of her. Theres a kittle bit, ye see, about Sandag; whiles the sook rins strong for the Merry Men; an whiles again, when the tides makin hard an ye can hear the Roost blawin at the far-end of Aros, there comes a back-spang of current straucht into Sandag Bay. Weel, theres the thing that got the grip on the Christ-Anna. She but to have come in ram-stam an stern forrit; for the bows of her are aften under, and the back-side of her is clear at hie-water o neaps. But, man! the dunt that she cam doon wi when she struck! Lord save us a! but its an unco life to be a sailor a cauld, wanchancy life. Monys the gliff I got mysel in the great deep; and why the Lord should hae made yon unco water is mair than ever I could win to understand. He made the vales and the pastures, the bonny green yaird, the halesome, canty land
And now they shout and sing to Thee,
For Thou hast made them glad,
as the Psalms say in the metrical version. No that I would preen my faith to that clink neither; but its bonny, and easier to mind. Who go to sea in ships, they haet again
And in
Great waters trading be,
Within the deep these men Gods works
And His great wonders see.
Weel, its easy sayin sae. Maybe Dauvit wasnae very weel acquant wi the sea. But, troth, if it wasnae prentit in the Bible, I wad whiles be tempit to think it wasnae the Lord, but the muckle, black deil that made the sea. Theres naething good comes oot ot but the fish; an the spentacle o God riding on the tempest, to be shure, whilk would be what Dauvit was likely ettling at. But, man, they were sair wonders that God showed to the Christ-Anna wonders, do I ca them? Judgments, rather: judgments in the mirk nicht among the draygons o the deep. And their souls to think o that their souls, man, maybe no prepared! The sea a muckle yett to hell!