On the fourth day of March, in the year 1867, being at that time in
my five-and-twentieth year, I wrote down the following words in my
note-book--the result of much mental perturbation and conflict:--
“The solar system, amidst a countless number of other systems as large
as itself, rolls ever silently through space in the direction of the
constellation of Hercules. The great spheres of which it is composed
spin and spin through the eternal void ceaselessly and noiselessly. Of
these one of the smallest and most insignificant is that conglomeration
of solid and of liquid particles which we have named the earth. It
whirls onwards now as it has done before my birth, and will do after my
death--a revolving mystery, coming none know whence, and going none know
whither. Upon the outer crust of this moving mass crawl many mites,
of whom I, John M‘Vittie, am one, helpless, impotent, being dragged
aimlessly through space. Yet such is the state of things amongst us that
the little energy and glimmering of reason which I possess is entirely
taken up with the labours which are necessary in order to procure
certain metallic disks, wherewith I may purchase the chemical elements
necessary to build up my ever-wasting tissues, and keep a roof over me
to shelter me from the inclemency of the weather. I thus have no thought
to expend upon the vital questions which surround me on every side.
Yet, miserable entity as I am, I can still at times feel some degree of
happiness, and am even--save the mark!--puffed up occasionally with a
sense of my own importance.”
These words, as I have said, I wrote down in my note-book, and they
reflected accurately the thoughts which I found rooted far down in my
soul, ever present and unaffected by the passing emotions of the hour.
At last, however, came a time when my uncle, M‘Vittie of Glencairn,
died--the same who was at one time chairman of committees of the House
of Commons. He divided his great wealth among his many nephews, and I
found myself with sufficient to provide amply for my wants during the
remainder of my life, and became at the same time owner of a bleak tract
of land upon the coast of Caithness, which I think the old man must have
bestowed upon me in derision, for it was sandy and valueless, and he had
ever a grim sense of humour. Up to this time I had been an attorney in
a midland town in England. Now I saw that I could put my thoughts into
effect, and, leaving all petty and sordid aims, could elevate my mind
by the study of the secrets of nature. My departure from my English home
was somewhat accelerated by the fact that I had nearly slain a man in
a quarrel, for my temper was fiery, and I was apt to forget my own
strength when enraged. There was no legal action taken in the matter,
but the papers yelped at me, and folk looked askance when I met them.
It ended by my cursing them and their vile, smoke-polluted town, and
hurrying to my northern possession, where I might at last find peace and
an opportunity for solitary study and contemplation. I borrowed from
my capital before I went, and so was able to take with me a choice
collection of the most modern philosophical instruments and books,
together with chemicals and such other things as I might need in my
retirement.
The land which I had inherited was a narrow strip, consisting mostly of
sand, and extending for rather over two miles round the coast of Mansie
Bay, in Caithness. Upon this strip there had been a rambling, grey-stone
building--when erected or wherefore none could tell me--and this I had
repaired, so that it made a dwelling quite good enough for one of my
simple tastes. One room was my laboratory, another my sitting-room, and
in a third, just under the sloping roof, I slung the hammock in which
I always slept. There were three other rooms, but I left them vacant,
except one which was given over to the old crone who kept house for me.
Save the Youngs and the M‘Leods, who were fisher-folk living round at
the other side of Fergus Ness, there were no other people for many miles
in each direction. In front of the house was the great bay, behind it
were two long barren hills, capped by other loftier ones beyond. There
was a glen between the hills, and when the wind was from the land it
used to sweep down this with a melancholy sough and whisper among the
branches of the fir-trees beneath my attic window.
I dislike my fellow-mortals. Justice compels me to add that they appear
for the most part to dislike me. I hate their little crawling ways,
their conventionalities, their deceits, their narrow rights and wrongs.
They take offence at my brusque outspokenness, my disregard for their
social laws, my impatience of all constraint. Among my books and my
drugs in my lonely den at Mansie I could let the great drove of
the human race pass onwards with their politics and inventions and
tittle-tattle, and I remained behind stagnant and happy. Not stagnant
either, for I was working in my own little groove, and making progress.
I have reason to believe that Dalton’s atomic theory is founded upon
error, and I know that mercury is not an element.
During the day I was busy with my distillations and analyses. Often I
forgot my meals, and when old Madge summoned me to my tea I found my
dinner lying untouched upon the table. At night I read Bacon, Descartes,
Spinoza, Kant--all those who have pried into what is unknowable.
They are all fruitless and empty, barren of result, but prodigal of
polysyllables, reminding me of men who, while digging for gold, have
turned up many worms, and then exhibit them exultantly as being what
they sought. At times a restless spirit would come upon me, and I would
walk thirty and forty miles without rest or breaking fast. On these
occasions, when I used to stalk through the country villages, gaunt,
unshaven, and dishevelled, the mothers would rush into the road and
drag their children indoors, and the rustics would swarm out of their
pot-houses to gaze at me. I believe that I was known far and wide as the
“mad laird o’ Mansie.” It was rarely, however, that I made these raids
into the country, for I usually took my exercise upon my own beach,
where I soothed my spirit with strong black tobacco, and made the ocean
my friend and my confidant.
What companion is there like the great restless, throbbing sea? What
human mood is there which it does not match and sympathise with? There
are none so gay but that they may feel gayer when they listen to its
merry turmoil, and see the long green surges racing in, with the glint
of the sunbeams in their sparkling crests. But when the grey waves toss
their heads in anger, and the wind screams above them, goading them on
to madder and more tumultuous efforts, then the darkest-minded of men
feels that there is a melancholy principle in Nature which is as gloomy
as his own thoughts. When it was calm in the Bay of Mansie the surface
would be as clear and bright as a sheet of silver, broken only at one
spot some little way from the shore, where a long black line projected
out of the water looking like the jagged back of some sleeping monster.
This was the top of the dangerous ridge of rocks known to the fishermen
as the “ragged reef o’ Mansie.” When the wind blew from the east the
waves would break upon it like thunder, and the spray would be tossed
far over my house and up to the hills behind. The bay itself was a bold
and noble one, but too much exposed to the northern and eastern gales,
and too much dreaded for its reef, to be much used by mariners. There
was something of romance about this lonely spot. I have lain in my boat
upon a calm day, and peering over the edge I have seen far down the
flickering, ghostly forms of great fish--fish, as it seemed to me, such
as naturalist never knew, and which my imagination transformed into the
genii of that desolate bay. Once, as I stood by the brink of the waters
upon a quiet night, a great cry, as of a woman in hopeless grief, rose
from the bosom of the deep, and swelled out upon the still air, now
sinking and now rising, for a space of thirty seconds. This I heard with
my own ears.
In this strange spot, with the eternal hills behind me and the eternal
sea in front, I worked and brooded for more than two years unpestered
by my fellow men. By degrees I had trained my old servant into habits of
silence, so that she now rarely opened her lips, though I doubt not that
when twice a year she visited her relations in Wick, her tongue during
those few days made up for its enforced rest. I had come almost to
forget that I was a member of the human family, and to live entirely
with the dead whose books I pored over, when a sudden incident occurred
which threw all my thoughts into a new channel.
Three rough days in June had been succeeded by one calm and peaceful
one. There was not a breath of air that evening. The sun sank down in
the west behind a line of purple clouds, and the smooth surface of the
bay was gashed with scarlet streaks. Along the beach the pools left by
the tide showed up like gouts of blood against the yellow sand, as if
some wounded giant had toilfully passed that way, and had left these
red traces of his grievous hurt behind him. As the darkness closed
in, certain ragged clouds which had lain low on the eastern horizon
coalesced and formed a great irregular cumulus. The glass was still low,
and I knew that there was mischief brewing. About nine o’clock a
dull moaning sound came up from the sea, as from a creature who, much
harassed, learns that the hour of suffering has come round again. At ten
a sharp breeze sprang up from the eastward. At eleven it had increased
to a gale, and by midnight the most furious storm was raging which I
ever remember upon that weather-beaten coast.
As I went to bed the shingle and seaweed were pattering up against my
attic window, and the wind was screaming as though every gust were a
lost soul. By that time the sounds of the tempest had become a lullaby
to me. I knew that the grey walls of the old house would buffet it out,
and for what occurred in the world outside I had small concern. Old
Madge was usually as callous to such things as I was myself. It was
a surprise to me when, about three in the morning, I was awoke by the
sound of a great knocking at my door and excited cries in the wheezy
voice of my house-keeper. I sprang out of my hammock, and roughly
demanded of her what was the matter.
“Eh, maister, maister!” she screamed in her hateful dialect. “Come doun,
mun; come doun! There’s a muckle ship gaun ashore on the reef, and the
puir folks are a’ yammerin’ and ca’in’ for help--and I doobt they’ll a’
be drooned. Oh, Maister M‘Vittie, come doun!”
“Hold your tongue, you hag!” I shouted back in a passion. “What is it to
you whether they are drowned or not? Get back to your bed and leave me
alone.” I turned in again and drew the blankets over me. “Those men out
there,” I said to myself, “have already gone through half the horrors of
death. If they be saved they will but have to go through the same once
more in the space of a few brief years. It is best therefore that they
should pass away now, since they have suffered that anticipation which
is more than the pain of dissolution.” With this thought in my mind I
endeavoured to compose myself to sleep once more, for that philosophy
which had taught me to consider death as a small and trivial incident
in man’s eternal and everchanging career, had also broken me of much
curiosity concerning worldly matters. On this occasion I found, however,
that the old leaven still fermented strongly in my soul. I tossed from
side to side for some minutes endeavouring to beat down the impulses of
the moment by the rules of conduct which I had framed during months of
thought. Then I heard a dull roar amid the wild shriek of the gale,
and I knew that it was the sound of a signal-gun. Driven by an
uncontrollable impulse, I rose, dressed, and having lit my pipe, walked
out on to the beach.
It was pitch dark when I came outside, and the wind blew with such
violence that I had to put my shoulder against it and push my way along
the shingle. My face pringled and smarted with the sting of the gravel
which was blown against it, and the red ashes of my pipe streamed away
behind me, dancing fantastically through the darkness. I went down to
where the great waves were thundering in, and shading my eyes with
my hands to keep off the salt spray, I peered out to sea. I could
distinguish nothing, and yet it seemed to me that shouts and great
inarticulate cries were borne to me by the blasts. Suddenly as I gazed I
made out the glint of a light, and then the whole bay and the beach were
lit up in a moment by a vivid blue glare. They were burning a coloured
signal-light on board of the vessel. There she lay on her beam ends
right in the centre of the jagged reef, hurled over to such an
angle that I could see all the planking of her deck. She was a large
two-masted schooner, of foreign rig, and lay perhaps a hundred and
eighty or two hundred yards from the shore. Every spar and rope and
writhing piece of cordage showed up hard and clear under the livid
light which sputtered and flickered from the highest portion of the
forecastle. Beyond the doomed ship out of the great darkness came the
long rolling lines of black waves, never ending, never tiring, with
a petulant tuft of foam here and there upon their crests. Each as it
reached the broad circle of unnatural light appeared to gather strength
and volume, and to hurry on more impetuously until, with a roar and
a jarring crash, it sprang upon its victim. Clinging to the weather
shrouds I could distinctly see some ten or twelve frightened seamen,
who, when their light revealed my presence, turned their white faces
towards me and waved their hands imploringly. I felt my gorge rise
against these poor cowering worms. Why should they presume to shirk the
narrow pathway along which all that is great and noble among mankind has
travelled? There was one there who interested me more than they. He was
a tall man, who stood apart from the others, balancing himself upon the
swaying wreck as though he disdained to cling to rope or bulwark.
His hands were clasped behind his back and his head was sunk upon his
breast, but even in that despondent attitude there was a litheness
and decision in his pose and in every motion which marked him as a man
little likely to yield to despair. Indeed, I could see by his occasional
rapid glances up and down and all around him that he was weighing every
chance of safety, but though he often gazed across the raging surf to
where he could see my dark figure upon the beach, his self-respect or
some other reason forbade him from imploring my help in any way. He
stood, dark, silent, and inscrutable, looking down on the black sea, and
waiting for whatever fortune Fate might send him.
It seemed to me that that problem would very soon be settled. As I
looked, an enormous billow, topping all the others, and coming after
them, like a driver following a flock, swept over the vessel. Her
foremast snapped short off, and the men who clung to the shrouds were
brushed away like a swarm of flies. With a rending, riving sound the
ship began to split in two, where the sharp back of the Mansie reef was
sawing into her keel. The solitary man upon the forecastle ran rapidly
across the deck and seized hold of a white bundle which I had already
observed but failed to make out. As he lifted it up the light fell upon
it, and I saw that the object was a woman, with a spar lashed across her
body and under her arms in such a way that her head should always rise
above water. He bore her tenderly to the side and seemed to speak for a
minute or so to her, as though explaining the impossibility of remaining
upon the ship. Her answer was a singular one. I saw her deliberately
raise her hand and strike him across the face with it. He appeared to
be silenced for a moment or so by this, but he addressed her again,
directing her, as far as I could gather from his motions, how she should
behave when in the water. She shrank away from him, but he caught her in
his arms. He stooped over her for a moment and seemed to press his lips
against her forehead. Then a great wave came welling up against the side
of the breaking vessel, and leaning over he placed her upon the summit
of it as gently as a child might be committed to its cradle. I saw her
white dress flickering among the foam on the crest of the dark billow,
and then the light sank gradually lower, and the riven ship and its
lonely occupant were hidden from my eyes.
As I watched those things my manhood overcame my philosophy, and I felt
a frantic impulse to be up and doing. I threw my cynicism to one side as
a garment which I might don again at leisure, and I rushed wildly to my
boat and my sculls. She was a leaky tub, but what then? Was I, who had
cast many a wistful, doubtful glance at my opium bottle, to begin now to
weigh chances and to cavil at danger. I dragged her down to the sea with
the strength of a maniac and sprang in. For a moment or two it was a
question whether she could live among the boiling surge, but a dozen
frantic strokes took me through it, half full of water but still afloat.
I was out on the unbroken waves now, at one time climbing, climbing
up the broad black breast of one, then sinking down, down on the other
side, until looking up I could see the gleam of the foam all around me
against the dark heavens. Far behind me I could hear the wild wailings
of old Madge, who, seeing me start, thought no doubt that my madness had
come to a climax. As I rowed I peered over my shoulder, until at last on
the belly of a great wave which was sweeping towards me I distinguished
the vague white outline of the woman. Stooping over, I seized her as she
swept by me, and with an effort lifted her, all sodden with water, into
the boat. There was no need to row back, for the next billow carried us
in and threw us upon the beach. I dragged the boat out of danger, and
then lifting up the woman I carried her to the house, followed by my
housekeeper, loud with congratulation and praise.
Now that I had done this thing a reaction set in upon me. I felt that
my burden lived, for I heard the faint beat of her heart as I pressed
my ear against her side in carrying her. Knowing this, I threw her down
beside the fire which Madge had lit, with as little sympathy as though
she had been a bundle of fagots. I never glanced at her to see if she
were fair or no. For many years I had cared little for the face of a
woman. As I lay in my hammock upstairs, however, I heard the old woman
as she chafed the warmth back into her, crooning a chorus of, “Eh, the
puir lassie! Eh, the bonnie lassie!” from which I gathered that this
piece of jetsam was both young and comely.
The morning after the gale was peaceful and sunny. As I walked along the
long sweep of sand I could hear the panting of the sea. It was heaving
and swirling about the reef, but along the shore it rippled in gently
enough. There was no sign of the schooner, nor was there any wreckage
upon the beach, which did not surprise me, as I knew there was a great
undertow in those waters. A couple of broad-winged gulls were hovering
and skimming over the scene of the shipwreck, as though many strange
things were visible to them beneath the waves. At times I could hear
their raucous voices as they spoke to one another of what they saw.
When I came back from my walk the woman was waiting at the door for me.
I began to wish when I saw her that I had never saved her, for here was
an end of my privacy. She was very young--at the most nineteen, with a
pale somewhat refined face, yellow hair, merry blue eyes, and shining
teeth. Her beauty was of an ethereal type. She looked so white and light
and fragile that she might have been the spirit of that storm-foam from
out of which I plucked her. She had wreathed some of Madge’s garments
round her in a way which was quaint and not unbecoming. As I strode
heavily up the pathway, she put out her hands with a pretty child-like
gesture, and ran down towards me, meaning, as I surmise, to thank me for
having saved her, but I put her aside with a wave of my hand and passed
her. At this she seemed somewhat hurt, and the tears sprang into
her eyes, but she followed me into the sitting-room and watched me
wistfully. “What country do you come from?” I asked her suddenly.
She smiled when I spoke, but shook her head.
“Francais?” I asked. “Deutsch?” “Espagnol?”--each time she shook her
head, and then she rippled off into a long statement in some tongue of
which I could not understand one word.
After breakfast was over, however, I got a clue to her nationality.
Passing along the beach once more, I saw that in a cleft of the ridge a
piece of wood had been jammed. I rowed out to it in my boat, and brought
it ashore. It was part of the sternpost of a boat, and on it, or rather
on the piece of wood attached to it, was the word “Archangel,” painted
in strange, quaint lettering.
“So,” I thought, as I paddled slowly back, “this pale damsel is a
Russian. A fit subject for the White Czar and a proper dweller on
the shores of the White Sea!” It seemed to me strange that one of her
apparent refinement should perform so long a journey in so frail
a craft. When I came back into the house, I pronounced the word
“Archangel” several times in different intonations, but she did not
appear to recognise it.
I shut myself up in the laboratory all the morning, continuing a
research which I was making upon the nature of the allotropic forms of
carbon and of sulphur. When I came out at mid-day for some food she was
sitting by the table with a needle and thread, mending some rents in her
clothes, which were now dry. I resented her continued presence, but I
could not turn her out on the beach to shift for herself. Presently she
presented a new phase of her character. Pointing to herself and then
to the scene of the shipwreck, she held up one finger, by which I
understood her to be asking whether she was the only one saved. I nodded
my head to indicate that she was. On this she sprang out of the chair
with a cry of great joy, and holding the garment which she was mending
over her head, and swaying it from side to side with the motion of her
body, she danced as lightly as a feather all round the room, and then
out through the open door into the sunshine. As she whirled round
she sang in a plaintive shrill voice some uncouth barbarous chant,
expressive of exultation. I called out to her, “Come in, you young
fiend, come in and be silent!” but she went on with her dance. Then she
suddenly ran towards me, and catching my hand before I could pluck
it away, she kissed it. While we were at dinner she spied one of my
pencils, and taking it up she wrote the two words “Sophie Ramusine” upon
a piece of paper, and then pointed to herself as a sign that that was
her name. She handed the pencil to me, evidently expecting that I would
be equally communicative, but I put it in my pocket as a sign that I
wished to hold no intercourse with her.
Every moment of my life now I regretted the unguarded precipitancy with
which I had saved this woman. What was it to me whether she had lived
or died? I was no young, hot-headed youth to do such things. It was bad
enough to be compelled to have Madge in the house, but she was old
and ugly, and could be ignored. This one was young and lively, and so
fashioned as to divert attention from graver things. Where could I send
her, and what could I do with her? If I sent information to Wick it
would mean that officials and others would come to me and pry, and peep,
and chatter--a hateful thought. It was better to endure her presence
than that.
I soon found that there were fresh troubles in store for me. There is no
place safe from the swarming, restless race of which I am a member. In
the evening, when the sun was dipping down behind the hills, casting
them into dark shadow, but gilding the sands and casting a great glory
over the sea, I went, as is my custom, for a stroll along the beach.
Sometimes on these occasions I took my book with me. I did so on this
night, and stretching myself upon a sand-dune I composed myself to read.
As I lay there I suddenly became aware of a shadow which interposed
itself between the sun and myself. Looking round, I saw to my great
surprise a very tall, powerful man, who was standing a few yards off,
and who, instead of looking at me, was ignoring my existence completely,
and was gazing over my head with a stern set face at the bay and the
black line of the Mansie reef. His complexion was dark, with black hair,
and short, curling beard, a hawk-like nose, and golden earrings in his
ears--the general effect being wild and somewhat noble. He wore a
faded velveteen jacket, a red-flannel shirt, and high sea boots, coming
half-way up his thighs. I recognised him at a glance as being the same
man who had been left on the wreck the night before.
“Hullo!” I said, in an aggrieved voice. “You got ashore all right,
then?”
“Yes,” he answered, in good English. “It was no doing of mine. The waves
threw me up. I wish to God I had been allowed to drown!”
There was a slight foreign lisp in his accent which was rather pleasing.
“Two good fishermen, who live round yonder point, pulled me out and
cared for me; yet I could not honestly thank them for it.”
“Ho! ho!” thought I, “here is a man of my own kidney. Why do you wish to
be drowned?” I asked.
“Because,” he cried, throwing out his long arms with a passionate,
despairing gesture, “there--there in that blue smiling bay, lies my
soul, my treasure--everything that I loved and lived for.”
“Well, well,” I said. “People are ruined every day, but there’s no use
making a fuss about it. Let me inform you that this ground on which
you walk is my ground, and that the sooner you take yourself off it the
better pleased I shall be. One of you is quite trouble enough.”
“One of us?” he gasped.
“Yes--if you could take her off with you I should be still more
grateful.”
He gazed at me for a moment as if hardly able to realise what I said,
and then with a wild cry he ran away from me with prodigious speed and
raced along the sands towards my house. Never before or since have
I seen a human being run so fast. I followed as rapidly as I could,
furious at this threatened invasion, but long before I reached the house
he had disappeared through the open door. I heard a great scream
from the inside, and as I came nearer the sound of a man’s bass voice
speaking rapidly and loudly. When I looked in the girl, Sophie Ramusine,
was crouching in a corner, cowering away, with fear and loathing
expressed on her averted face and in every line of her shrinking form.
The other, with his dark eyes flashing, and his outstretched hands
quivering with emotion, was pouring forth a torrent of passionate
pleading words. He made a step forward to her as I entered, but she
writhed still further away, and uttered a sharp cry like that of a
rabbit when the weasel has him by the throat.
“Here!” I said, pulling him back from her. “This is a pretty to-do!
What do you mean? Do you think this is a wayside inn or place of public
accommodation?”
“Oh, sir,” he said, “excuse me. This woman is my wife, and I feared that
she was drowned. You have brought me back to life.”
“Who are you?” I asked roughly.
“I am a man from Archangel,” he said simply; “a Russian man.”
“What is your name?”
“Ourganeff.”
“Ourganeff!--and hers is Sophie Ramusine. She is no wife of yours. She
has no ring.”
“We are man and wife in the sight of Heaven,” he said solemnly, looking
upwards. “We are bound by higher laws than those of earth.” As he spoke
the girl slipped behind me and caught me by the other hand, pressing it
as though beseeching my protection. “Give me up my wife, sir,” he went
on. “Let me take her away from here.”
“Look here, you--whatever your name is,” I said sternly; “I don’t want
this wench here. I wish I had never seen her. If she died it would be
no grief to me. But as to handing her over to you, when it is clear she
fears and hates you, I won’t do it. So now just clear your great body
out of this, and leave me to my books. I hope I may never look upon your
face again.”
“You won’t give her up to me?” he said hoarsely.
“I’ll see you damned first!” I answered.
“Suppose I take her,” he cried, his dark face growing darker.
All my tigerish blood flushed up in a moment. I picked up a billet of
wood from beside the fireplace. “Go,” I said, in a low voice; “go quick,
or I may do you an injury.” He looked at me irresolutely for a moment,
and then he left the house. He came back again in a moment, however, and
stood in the doorway looking in at us.
“Have a heed what you do,” he said. “The woman is mine, and I shall have
her. When it comes to blows, a Russian is as good a man as a Scotchman.”
“We shall see that,” I cried, springing forward, but he was already
gone, and I could see his tall form moving away through the gathering
darkness.
For a month or more after this things went smoothly with us. I never
spoke to the Russian girl, nor did she ever address me. Sometimes when
I was at work in my laboratory she would slip inside the door and sit
silently there watching me with her great eyes. At first this intrusion
annoyed me, but by degrees, finding that she made no attempt to distract
my attention, I suffered her to remain. Encouraged by this concession,
she gradually came to move the stool on which she sat nearer and nearer
to my table, until after gaining a little every day during some weeks,
she at last worked her way right up to me, and used to perch herself
beside me whenever I worked. In this position she used, still without
ever obtruding her presence in any way, to make herself very useful
by holding my pens, test-tubes, or bottles, and handing me whatever I
wanted, with never-failing sagacity. By ignoring the fact of her being
a human being, and looking upon her as a useful automatic machine,
I accustomed myself to her presence so far as to miss her on the few
occasions when she was not at her post. I have a habit of talking aloud
to myself at times when I work, so as to fix my results better in my
mind. The girl must have had a surprising memory for sounds, for she
could always repeat the words which I let fall in this way, without, of
course, understanding in the least what they meant. I have often been
amused at hearing her discharge a volley of chemical equations and
algebraic symbols at old Madge, and then burst into a ringing laugh when
the crone would shake her head, under the impression, no doubt, that she
was being addressed in Russian.
She never went more than a few yards from the house, and indeed never
put her foot over the threshold without looking carefully out of each
window in order to be sure that there was nobody about. By this I
knew that she suspected that her fellow-countryman was still in the
neighbourhood, and feared that he might attempt to carry her off. She
did something else which was significant. I had an old revolver with
some cartridges, which had been thrown away among the rubbish. She found
this one day, and at once proceeded to clean it and oil it. She hung
it up near the door, with the cartridges in a little bag beside it, and
whenever I went for a walk, she would take it down and insist upon my
carrying it with me. In my absence she would always bolt the door.
Apart from her apprehensions she seemed fairly happy, busying herself
in helping Madge when she was not attending upon me. She was wonderfully
nimble-fingered and natty in all domestic duties.
It was not long before I discovered that her suspicions were well
founded, and that this man from Archangel was still lurking in the
vicinity. Being restless one night I rose and peered out of the window.
The weather was somewhat cloudy, and I could barely make out the line
of the sea, and the loom of my boat upon the beach. As I gazed, however,
and my eyes became accustomed to the obscurity, I became aware that
there was some other dark blur upon the sands, and that in front of
my very door, where certainly there had been nothing of the sort the
preceding night. As I stood at my diamond-paned lattice still peering
and peeping to make out what this might be, a great bank of clouds
rolled slowly away from the face of the moon, and a flood of cold, clear
light was poured down upon the silent bay and the long sweep of its
desolate shores. Then I saw what this was which haunted my doorstep. It
was he, the Russian. He squatted there like a gigantic toad, with his
legs doubled under him in strange Mongolian fashion, and his eyes fixed
apparently upon the window of the room in which the young girl and the
housekeeper slept. The light fell upon his upturned face, and I saw
once more the hawk-like grace of his countenance, with the single
deeply-indented line of care upon his brow, and the protruding beard
which marks the passionate nature. My first impulse was to shoot him
as a trespasser, but, as I gazed, my resentment changed into pity and
contempt. “Poor fool,” I said to myself, “is it then possible that you,
whom I have seen looking open-eyed at present death, should have your
whole thoughts and ambition centred upon this wretched slip of a girl--a
girl, too, who flies from you and hates you. Most women would love
you--were it but for that dark face and great handsome body of
yours--and yet you must needs hanker after the one in a thousand who
will have no traffic with you.” As I returned to my bed I chuckled much
to myself over this thought. I knew that my bars were strong and my
bolts thick. It mattered little to me whether this strange man spent his
night at my door or a hundred leagues off, so long as he was gone by the
morning. As I expected, when I rose and went out there was no sign of
him, nor had he left any trace of his midnight vigil.
It was not long, however, before I saw him again. I had been out for a
row one morning, for my head was aching, partly from prolonged stooping,
and partly from the effects of a noxious drug which I had inhaled the
night before. I pulled along the coast some miles, and then, feeling
thirsty, I landed at a place where I knew that a fresh water stream
trickled down into the sea. This rivulet passed through my land, but the
mouth of it, where I found myself that day, was beyond my boundary line.
I felt somewhat taken aback when rising from the stream at which I had
slaked my thirst I found myself face to face with the Russian. I was
as much a trespasser now as he was, and I could see at a glance that he
knew it.
“I wish to speak a few words to you,” he said gravely.
“Hurry up, then!” I answered, glancing at my watch. “I have no time to
listen to chatter.”
“Chatter!” he repeated angrily. “Ah, but there. You Scotch people are
strange men. Your face is hard and your words rough, but so are those
of the good fishermen with whom I stay, yet I find that beneath it all
there lie kind honest natures. No doubt you are kind and good, too, in
spite of your roughness.”
“In the name of the devil,” I said, “say your say, and go your way.
I am weary of the sight of you.”
“Can I not soften you in any way?” he cried. “Ah, see--see here”--he
produced a small Grecian cross from inside his velvet jacket. “Look at
this. Our religions may differ in form, but at least we have some common
thoughts and feelings when we see this emblem.”
“I am not so sure of that,” I answered.
He looked at me thoughtfully.
“You are a very strange man,” he said at last. “I cannot understand you.
You still stand between me and Sophie. It is a dangerous position to
take, sir. Oh, believe me, before it is too late. If you did but know
what I have done to gain that woman--how I have risked my body, how
I have lost my soul! You are a small obstacle to some which I have
surmounted--you, whom a rip with a knife, or a blow from a stone, would
put out of my way for ever. But God preserve me from that,” he cried
wildly. “I am deep--too deep--already. Anything rather than that.”
“You would do better to go back to your country,” I said, “than to skulk
about these sand-hills and disturb my leisure. When I have proof that
you have gone away I shall hand this woman over to the protection of the
Russian Consul at Edinburgh. Until then, I shall guard her myself, and
not you, nor any Muscovite that ever breathed, shall take her from me.”
“And what is your object in keeping me from Sophie?” he asked. “Do you
imagine that I would injure her? Why, man, I would give my life freely
to save her from the slightest harm. Why do you do this thing?”
“I do it because it is my good pleasure to act so,” I answered. “I give
no man reasons for my conduct.”
“Look here!” he cried, suddenly blazing into fury, and advancing towards
me with his shaggy mane bristling and his brown hands clenched. “If I
thought you had one dishonest thought towards this girl--if for a moment
I had reason to believe that you had any base motive for detaining
her--as sure as there is a God in Heaven I should drag the heart out of
your bosom with my hands.” The very idea seemed to have put the man in
a frenzy, for his face was all distorted and his hands opened and shut
convulsively. I thought that he was about to spring at my throat.
“Stand off,” I said, putting my hand on my pistol. “If you lay a finger
on me I shall kill you.”
He put his hand into his pocket, and for a moment I thought he was about
to produce a weapon too, but instead of that he whipped out a cigarette
and lit it, breathing the smoke rapidly into his lungs.
No doubt he had found by experience that this was the most effectual way
of curbing his passions.
“I told you,” he said in a quieter voice, “that my name is
Ourganeff--Alexis Ourganeff. I am a Finn by birth, but I have spent my
life in every part of the world. I was one who could never be still, nor
settle down to a quiet existence. After I came to own my own ship there
is hardly a port from Archangel to Australia which I have not entered.
I was rough and wild and free, but there was one at home, sir, who was
prim and white-handed and soft-tongued, skilful in little fancies and
conceits which women love. This youth by his wiles and tricks stole from
me the love of the girl whom I had ever marked as my own, and who up to
that time had seemed in some sort inclined to return my passion. I had
been on a voyage to Hammerfest for ivory, and coming back unexpectedly
I learned that my pride and treasure was to be married to this
soft-skinned boy, and that the party had actually gone to the church.
In such moments, sir, something gives way in my head, and I hardly know
what I do. I landed with a boat’s crew--all men who had sailed with me
for years, and who were as true as steel. We went up to the church. They
were standing, she and he, before the priest, but the thing had not been
done. I dashed between them and caught her round the waist. My men beat
back the frightened bridegroom and the lookers on. We bore her down to
the boat and aboard our vessel, and then getting up anchor we sailed
away across the White Sea until the spires of Archangel sank down behind
the horizon. She had my cabin, my room, every comfort. I slept among
the men in the forecastle. I hoped that in time her aversion to me
would wear away, and that she would consent to marry me in England or
in France. For days and days we sailed. We saw the North Cape die away
behind us, and we skirted the grey Norwegian coast, but still, in spite
of every attention, she would not forgive me for tearing her from that
pale-faced lover of hers. Then came this cursed storm which shattered
both my ship and my hopes, and has deprived me even of the sight of the
woman for whom I have risked so much. Perhaps she may learn to love me
yet. You, sir,” he said wistfully, “look like one who has seen much of
the world. Do you not think that she may come to forget this man and to
love me?”
“I am tired of your story,” I said, turning away. “For my part, I think
you are a great fool. If you imagine that this love of yours will pass
away you had best amuse yourself as best you can until it does. If, on
the other hand, it is a fixed thing, you cannot do better than cut your
throat, for that is the shortest way out of it. I have no more time to
waste on the matter.” With this I hurried away and walked down to the
boat. I never looked round, but I heard the dull sound of his feet upon
the sands as he followed me.
“I have told you the beginning of my story,” he said, “and you shall
know the end some day. You would do well to let the girl go.”
I never answered him, but pushed the boat off. When I had rowed some
distance out I looked back and saw his tall figure upon the yellow
sand as he stood gazing thoughtfully after me. When I looked again some
minutes later he had disappeared.
For a long time after this my life was as regular and as monotonous as
it had been before the shipwreck. At times I hoped that the man from
Archangel had gone away altogether, but certain footsteps which I saw
upon the sand, and more particularly a little pile of cigarette ash
which I found one day behind a hillock from which a view of the house
might be obtained, warned me that, though invisible, he was still in
the vicinity. My relations with the Russian girl remained the same as
before. Old Madge had been somewhat jealous of her presence at first,
and seemed to fear that what little authority she had would be taken
away from her. By degrees, however, as she came to realise my utter
indifference, she became reconciled to the situation, and, as I have
said before, profited by it, as our visitor performed much of the
domestic work.
And now I am coming near the end of this narrative of mine, which I have
written a great deal more for my own amusement than for that of any one
else. The termination of the strange episode in which these two Russians
had played a part was as wild and as sudden as the commencement. The
events of one single night freed me from all my troubles, and left me
once more alone with my books and my studies, as I had been before their
intrusion. Let me endeavour to describe how this came about.
I had had a long day of heavy and wearying work, so that in the evening
I determined upon taking a long walk. When I emerged from the house
my attention was attracted by the appearance of the sea. It lay like a
sheet of glass, so that never a ripple disturbed its surface. Yet
the air was filled with that indescribable moaning sound which I have
alluded to before--a sound as though the spirits of all those who lay
beneath those treacherous waters were sending a sad warning of coming
troubles to their brethren in the flesh. The fishermen’s wives along
that coast know the eerie sound, and look anxiously across the waters
for the brown sails making for the land. When I heard it I stepped back
into the house and looked at the glass. It was down below 29 degrees.
Then I knew that a wild night was coming upon us.
Underneath the hills where I walked that evening it was dull and chill,
but their summits were rosy-red, and the sea was brightened by the
sinking sun. There were no clouds of importance in the sky, yet the
dull groaning of the sea grew louder and stronger. I saw, far to the
eastward, a brig beating up for Wick, with a reef in her topsails. It
was evident that her captain had read the signs of nature as I had done.
Behind her a long, lurid haze lay low upon the water, concealing the
horizon. “I had better push on,” I thought to myself, “or the wind may
rise before I can get back.”
I suppose I must have been at least half a mile from the house when I
suddenly stopped and listened breathlessly. My ears were so accustomed
to the noises of nature, the sighing of the breeze and the sob of the
waves, that any other sound made itself heard at a great distance.
I waited, listening with all my ears. Yes, there it was again--a
long-drawn, shrill cry of despair, ringing over the sands and echoed
back from the hills behind me--a piteous appeal for aid. It came from
the direction of my house. I turned and ran back homewards at the top
of my speed, ploughing through the sand, racing over the shingle. In my
mind there was a great dim perception of what had occurred.
About a quarter of a mile from the house there is a high sand-hill, from
which the whole country round is visible. When I reached the top of this
I paused for a moment. There was the old grey building--there the boat.
Everything seemed to be as I had left it. Even as I gazed, however, the
shrill scream was repeated, louder than before, and the next moment a
tall figure emerged from my door, the figure of the Russian sailor. Over
his shoulder was the white form of the young girl, and even in his haste
he seemed to bear her tenderly and with gentle reverence. I could hear
her wild cries and see her desperate struggles to break away from him.
Behind the couple came my old housekeeper, staunch and true, as the aged
dog, who can no longer bite, still snarls with toothless gums at the
intruder. She staggered feebly along at the heels of the ravisher,
waving her long, thin arms, and hurling, no doubt, volleys of Scotch
curses and imprecations at his head. I saw at a glance that he was
making for the boat. A sudden hope sprang up in my soul that I might be
in time to intercept him. I ran for the beach at the top of my speed. As
I ran I slipped a cartridge into my revolver. This I determined should
be the last of these invasions.
I was too late. By the time I reached the water’s edge he was a hundred
yards away, making the boat spring with every stroke of his powerful
arms. I uttered a wild cry of impotent anger, and stamped up and down
the sands like a maniac. He turned and saw me. Rising from his seat
he made me a graceful bow, and waved his hand to me. It was not a
triumphant or a derisive gesture. Even my furious and distempered mind
recognised it as being a solemn and courteous leave-taking. Then he
settled down to his oars once more, and the little skiff shot away out
over the bay. The sun had gone down now, leaving a single dull, red
streak upon the water, which stretched away until it blended with the
purple haze on the horizon. Gradually the skiff grew smaller and smaller
as it sped across this lurid band, until the shades of night gathered
round it and it became a mere blur upon the lonely sea. Then this vague
loom died away also and darkness settled over it--a darkness which
should never more be raised.
And why did I pace the solitary shore, hot and wrathful as a wolf whose
whelp has been torn from it? Was it that I loved this Muscovite girl?
No--a thousand times no. I am not one who, for the sake of a white skin
or a blue eye, would belie my own life, and change the whole tenor of my
thoughts and existence. My heart was untouched. But my pride--ah, there
I had been cruelly wounded.
To think that I had been unable to afford protection to the helpless
one who craved it of me, and who relied on me! It was that which made my
heart sick and sent the blood buzzing through my ears.
That night a great wind rose up from the sea, and the wild waves
shrieked upon the shore as though they would tear it back with them into
the ocean. The turmoil and the uproar were congenial to my vexed spirit.
All night I wandered up and down, wet with spray and rain, watching the
gleam of the white breakers and listening to the outcry of the storm.
My heart was bitter against the Russian. I joined my feeble pipe to the
screaming of the gale. “If he would but come back again!” I cried with
clenched hands; “if he would but come back!”
He came back. When the grey light of morning spread over the eastern
sky, and lit up the great waste of yellow, tossing waters, with the
brown clouds drifting swiftly over them, then I saw him once again. A
few hundred yards off along the sand there lay a long dark object,
cast up by the fury of the waves. It was my boat, much shattered and
splintered. A little further on, a vague, shapeless something was
washing to and fro in the shallow water, all mixed with shingle and with
seaweed. I saw at a glance that it was the Russian, face downwards and
dead. I rushed into the water and dragged him up on to the beach. It was
only when I turned him over that I discovered that she was beneath him,
his dead arms encircling her, his mangled body still intervening between
her and the fury of the storm. It seemed that the fierce German Sea
might beat the life from him, but with all its strength it was unable to
tear this one-idea’d man from the woman whom he loved. There were signs
which led me to believe that during that awful night the woman’s fickle
mind had come at last to learn the worth of the true heart and strong
arm which struggled for her and guarded her so tenderly. Why else should
her little head be nestling so lovingly on his broad breast, while her
yellow hair entwined itself with his flowing beard? Why too should there
be that bright smile of ineffable happiness and triumph, which death
itself had not had power to banish from his dusky face? I fancy that
death had been brighter to him than life had ever been.
Madge and I buried them there on the shores of the desolate northern
sea. They lie in one grave deep down beneath the yellow sand. Strange
things may happen in the world around them. Empires may rise and may
fall, dynasties may perish, great wars may come and go, but, heedless
of it all, those two shall embrace each other for ever and aye, in
their lonely shrine by the side of the sounding ocean. I sometimes have
thought that their spirits flit like shadowy sea-mews over the wild
waters of the bay. No cross or symbol marks their resting-place, but old
Madge puts wild flowers upon it at times, and when I pass on my daily
walk and see the fresh blossoms scattered over the sand, I think of the
strange couple who came from afar, and broke for a little space the dull
tenor of my sombre life.