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!
I observed, as my uncle spoke, that his voice was unnaturally moved and his manner unwontedly demonstrative. He leaned forward at these last words, for example, and touched me on the knee with his spread fingers, looking up into my face with a certain pallor, and I could see that his eyes shone with a deep-seated fire, and that the lines about his mouth were drawn and tremulous.
Even the entrance of Rorie, and the beginning of our meal, did not detach him from his train of thought beyond a moment. He condescended, indeed, to ask me some questions as to my success at college, but I thought it was with half his mind; and even in his extempore grace, which was, as usual, long and wandering, I could find the trace of his preoccupation, praying, as he did, that God would remember in mercy fower puir, feckless, fiddling, sinful creatures here by their lee-lane beside the great and dowie waters.
Soon there came an interchange of speeches between him and Rorie.
Was it there? asked my uncle.
Ou, ay! said Rorie.
I observed that they both spoke in a manner of aside, and with some show of embarrassment, and that Mary herself appeared to colour, and looked down on her plate. Partly to show my knowledge, and so relieve the party from an awkward strain, partly because I was curious, I pursued the subject.
You mean the fish? I asked.
Whatten fish? cried my uncle. Fish, quo he! Fish! Your een are fu o fatness, man; your heid dozened wi carnal leir. Fish! its a bogle!
He spoke with great vehemence, as though angry; and perhaps I was not very willing to be put down so shortly, for young men are disputatious. At least I remember I retorted hotly, crying out upon childish superstitions.
And ye come frae the College! sneered Uncle Gordon. Gude kens what they learn folk there; its no muckle service onyway. Do ye think, man, that theres naething in a yon saut wilderness o a world oot wast there, wi the sea grasses growin, an the sea beasts fechtin, an the sun glintin down into it, day by day? Na; the seas like the land, but fearsomer. If theres folk ashore, theres folk in the sea deid they may be, but theyre folk whatever; and as for deils, theres nane thats like the sea deils. Theres no sae muckle harm in the land deils, when as said and done. Lang syne, when I was a callant in the south country, I mind there was an auld, bald bogle in the Peewie Moss. I got a glisk o him mysel, sittin on his hunkers in a hag, as grays a tombstane. An, troth, he was a fearsome-like taed. But he steered naebody. Nae doobt, if ane that was a reprobate, ane the Lord hated, had gane by there wi his sin still upon his stamach, nae doobt the creature would hae lowped upo the likes o him. But theres deils in the deep sea would yoke on a communicant! Eh, sirs, if ye had gane doon wi the puir lads in the Christ-Anna, ye would ken by now the mercy o the seas. If ye had sailed it for as lang as me, ye would hate the thocht of it as I do. If ye had but used the een God gave ye, ye would hae learned the wickedness o that fause, saut, cauld, bullering creature, and of a thats in it by the Lords permission: labsters an partans, an sic like, howking in the deid; muckle, gutsy, blawing whales; an fish the hale clan o them cauld-wamed, blind-eed uncanny ferlies. O, sirs, he cried, the horror the horror o the sea!
We were all somewhat staggered by this outburst; and the speaker himself, after that last hoarse apostrophe, appeared to sink gloomily into his own thoughts. But Rorie, who was greedy of superstitious lore, recalled him to the subject by a question.
You will not ever have seen a teevil of the sea? he asked.
No clearly, replied the other. I misdoobt if a mere man could see ane clearly and conteenue in the body. I hae sailed wi a lad they cad him Sandy Gabart; he saw ane, shure eneueh, an shure eneueh it was the end of him. We were seeven days oot frae the Clyde a sair wark we had had gaun north wi seeds an braws an things for the Macleod. We had got in ower near under the Cutchullns, an had just gane about by soa, an were off on a lang tack, we thocht would maybe hauld as fars Copnahow. I mind the nicht weel; a mune smoored wi mist; a fine gaun breeze upon the water, but no steedy; an what nane o us likit to hear anither wund gurlin owerheid, amang thae fearsome, auld stane craigs o the Cutchullns. Weel, Sandy was forrit wi the jib sheet; we couldnae see him for the mainsl, that had just begude to draw, when a at ance he gied a skirl. I luffed for my life, for I thocht we were ower near Soa; but na, it wasnae that, it was puir Sandy Gabarts deid skreigh, or near hand, for he was deid in half an hour. At he could tell was that a sea deil, or sea bogle, or sea spenster, or sic-like, had clum up by the bowsprit, an gien him ae cauld, uncanny look. An, or the life was oot o Sandys body, we kent weel what the thing betokened, and why the wund gurled in the taps o the Cutchullns; for doon it cam a wund do I ca it! it was the wund o the Lords anger an a that nicht we foucht like men dementit, and the niest that we kenned we were ashore in Loch Uskevagh, an the cocks were crawin in Benbecula.
It will have been a merman, Rorie said.
A merman! screamed my uncle with immeasurable scorn. Auld wives clavers! Theres nae sic things as mermen.
But what was the creature like? I asked.
What like was it? Gude forbid that we suld ken what like it was! It had a kind of a heid upon it man could say nae mair.
Then Rorie, smarting under the affront, told several tales of mermen, mermaids, and sea-horses that had come ashore upon the islands and attacked the crews of boats upon the sea; and my uncle, in spite of his incredulity, listened with uneasy interest.
Aweel, aweel, he said, it may be sae; I may be wrang; but I find nae word o mermen in the Scriptures.
And you will find nae word of Aros Roost, maybe, objected Rorie, and his argument appeared to carry weight.
When dinner was over, my uncle carried me forth with him to a bank behind the house. It was a very hot and quiet afternoon; scarce a ripple anywhere upon the sea, nor any voice but the familiar voice of sheep and gulls; and perhaps in consequence of this repose in nature, my kinsman showed himself more rational and tranquil than before. He spoke evenly and almost cheerfully of my career, with every now and then a reference to the lost ship or the treasures it had brought to Aros. For my part, I listened to him in a sort of trance, gazing with all my heart on that remembered scene, and drinking gladly the sea-air and the smoke of peats that had been lit by Mary.
Perhaps an hour had passed when my uncle, who had all the while been covertly gazing on the surface of the little bay, rose to his feet and bade me follow his example. Now I should say that the great run of tide at the south-west end of Aros exercises a perturbing influence round all the coast. In Sandag Bay, to the south, a strong current runs at certain periods of the flood and ebb respectively; but in this northern bay Aros Bay, as it is called where the house stands and on which my uncle was now gazing, the only sign of disturbance is towards the end of the ebb, and even then it is too slight to be remarkable. When there is any swell, nothing can be seen at all; but when it is calm, as it often is, there appear certain strange, undecipherable marks sea-runes, as we may name them on the glassy surface of the bay. The like is common in a thousand places on the coast; and many a boy must have amused himself as I did, seeking to read in them some reference to himself or those he loved. It was to these marks that my uncle now directed my attention, struggling, as he did so, with an evident reluctance.