THE MYSTERY OF THE SEA
I do not remember what woke me. I have a vague idea that it was a voice,
but whether outside the house or within myself I know not.
It was eleven o'clock by my watch when I left the Kilmarnock Arms and
took my way across the sandhills, heading for the Hawklaw which stood
out boldly in the brilliant moonlight. I followed the devious sheep
track amongst the dunes covered with wet bent-grass, every now and again
stumbling amongst the rabbit burrows which in those days honeycombed the
sandhills of Cruden Bay. At last I came to the Hawklaw, and, climbing
the steep terraced edge near the sea, sat on the top to breathe myself
after the climb.
The scene was one of exquisite beauty. Its natural loveliness was
enhanced by the softness of the full yellow moonlight which seemed to
flood the heavens and the earth alike. To the south-east the bleak
promontory of Whinnyfold stood out stark and black as velvet and the
rocks of the Skares were like black dots in the quivering sea of gold. I
arose and went on my way. The tide was far out and as I stumbled along
the rude path above the waste of boulders I had a feeling that I should
be late. I hurried on, crossed the little rill which usually only
trickled down beside the fishers' zigzag path at the back of Whinnyfold
but which was now a rushing stream--again the noise of falling water,
the voice of the Lammas floods--and took the cart track which ran hard
by the cliff down to the point which looked direct upon the Skares.
When I reached the very edge of the cliff, where the long sea-grass
and the deep clover felt underfoot like a luxurious carpet, I was not
surprised to see Gormala seated, looking out seawards. The broad track
of the moon lay right across the outmost rock of the Skares and falling
across some of the jagged rocks, which seemed like fangs rising from
the deep water as the heave of the waveless sea fell back and the white
water streamed down, came up to where we stood and seemed to bathe both
the Seer-woman and myself in light. There was no current anywhere, but
only the silent rise and fall of the water in the everlasting movement
of the sea. When she heard me behind her Gormala turned round, and the
patient calmness of her face disappeared. She rose quickly, and as she
did so pointed to a small boat which sailing up from the south was now
drawing opposite to us and appeared to be making a course as close to
shore as possible, just clearing the outer bulwark of the Skares.
"Look!" she said, "Lauchlane Macleod comes by his lanes. The rocks are
around him, and his doom is at hand!"
There did not appear any danger in such a course; the wind was gentle,
the tide was at the still moment between ebb and flow, and the
smoothness of the water beyond the rock seemed to mark its great depth.
All at once the boat seemed to stand still,--we were too far off to hear
a sound even on such a still night. The mast bent forward and broke
short off, the sails hung limp in the water with the peak of the lug
sail sticking up in a great triangle, like the fin of a mammoth shark. A
few seconds after, a dark speck moved on the water which became agitated
around it; it was evident that a swimmer was making for the land. I
would have gone to help him had it been of use; but it was not, the
outer rock was half a mile away. Indeed, though I knew it was no use,
I was yet about to swim to meet him when Gormala's voice behind me
arrested me:
"Do ye no see that gin ye meet him amid yon rocks, ye can, when the tide
begins to race, be no help to any. If he can win through, ye may help
him if ye bide here." The advice was good and I stayed my feet. The
swimmer evidently knew the danger, for he hurried frantically to win
some point of safety before the tide should turn. But the rocks of the
Skares are deadly steep; they rise from the water sheer everywhere,
and to climb them from the sea is a hopeless task. Once and again the
swimmer tried to find a chink or cranny where he could climb; but each
time he tried to raise himself he fell back into the water. Moreover I
could see that he was wounded, for his left hand hung idle. He seemed to
realise the hopelessness of the task, and turning, made desperately for
the part where we stood. He was now within the most dangerous spot in
the whole region of the Skares. The water is of great depth everywhere
and the needlepoints of rocks rise almost to the very surface. It is
only when the waves are rough at low water that they can be seen at all,
when the dip of the waves leaves them bare; but from the surface in
calm weather they cannot be seen as the swirl of the tide around them
is invisible. Here, too, the tide, rounding the point and having the
current broken by the masses of the great rock, rolls with inconceivable
rapidity. I had too often watched from the headland where my home was to
be the set of the tide not to know the danger. I shouted as loudly as I
could, but for some reason he did not hear me. The moments ere the tide
should turn seemed like ages; and yet it was with a sudden shock that I
heard the gurgle of moving water followed by the lap, lap, lap, getting
quicker each second. Somewhere inland a clock struck twelve.
The tide had turned and was beginning to flow.
In a few seconds the swimmer felt its effects, though he did not seem to
notice them. Then he was swept towards the north. All at once there was
a muffled cry which seemed to reach slowly to where we stood, and the
swimmer rolled over for an instant. It was only too apparent what had
happened; he had struck his arm against one of the sunken rocks and
injured it. Then he commenced a mad struggle for life, swimming without
either arm in that deadly current which grew faster and faster every
moment. He was breathless, and now and again his head dipped; but he
kept on valiantly. At last in one of these dips, borne by the momentum
of his own strength and the force of the current, he struck his head
against another of the sunken rocks. For an instant he raised it, and I
could see it run red in the glare of the moonlight.
Then he sank; from the height where I stood I could see the body roll
over and over in the fierce current which made for the outmost point to
the north-east of the promontory. I ran over as fast as I could, Gormala
following. When I came to the rock, which here shelved, I plunged in and
after a few strokes met by chance the body as it rolled upward. With a
desperate effort I brought it to land.
The struggle to lift the body from the water and to bear it up the rock
exhausted me, so that when I reached the top of the cliff I had to pause
for a few seconds to breathe hard. Since the poor fellow's struggle for
life had begun I had never for an instant given the prophecy a thought.
But now, all at once, as I looked past the figure, lying limp before me
with the poor arms twisted unnaturally and the head turned--away past
the moonlit sea and the great, golden orb whose track was wrinkled over
the racing tide, the full force of it burst upon me, and I felt a sort
of spiritual transformation. The air seemed full of fluttering wings;
sea and land alike teemed with life that I had not hitherto dreamed
of. I fell in a sort of spiritual trance. But the open eyes were upon
me; I feared the man was dead, but Briton-like I would not accept
the conviction without effort. So I raised the body to my shoulders,
determined to make with what speed I could for Whinnyfold where fire and
willing hands could aid in restoration. As I laid the limp body across
my shoulders, holding the two hands in my right hand to steady the
burden whilst with the left I drew some of the clothing tight, I caught
Gormala's eye. She had not helped me in any possible way, though more
than once in distress I had called to her. So now I said angrily:
"Get away woman! You should be ashamed of yourself never to help at
such a time," and I took my way unaided. I did not heed at the time
her answer, spoken with a certain measure of deprecation, though it
afterwards came back to me:
"Am I to wark against the Fates when They have spoken! The Dead are dead
indeed when the Voice has whispered in their ears!"
Now, as I passed along with the hands of the dead man in mine--the true
shell of a man whose spirit could be but little space away whilst the
still blood in the veins was yet warm--a strange thing began to happen.
The spirits of earth and sea and air seemed to take shape to me, and all
the myriad sounds of the night to have a sentient cause of utterance. As
I panted and struggled on, my physical effort warring equally with the
new spiritual experience so that nothing remained except sentience and
memory, I could see Gormala walking abreast me with even steps. Her eyes
glared balefully with a fierce disappointment; never once did she remit
the vigilant, keen look which seemed to pierce into my very soul.
For a short space of time there was something of antagonism to her; but
this died away imperceptibly, and I neither cared nor thought about her,
except when my attention would be called to her. I was becoming wrapped
in the realisation of the mightier forces around me.
Just where the laneway from the cliff joins Whinnyfold there is a steep
zigzag path running down to the stony beach far below where the fishers
keep their boats and which is protected from almost the wildest seas by
the great black rock--the Caudman,--which fills the middle of the little
bay, leaving deep channels on either hand. When I was come to this spot,
suddenly all the sounds of the night seemed to cease. The very air grew
still so that the grasses did not move or rustle, and the waters of the
swirling tide ceased to run in grim silence on their course. Even to
that inner sense, which was so new to me that the change in everything
to which it was susceptible became at once noticeable, all things stood
still. It was as though the spirits of earth and air and water were
holding their breath for some rare portent. Indeed I noticed as my eye
ranged the surface of the sea, that the moon track was for the time no
longer rippled, but lay in a broad glistening band.
The only living thing in all the wide world was, it seemed to me, the
figure of Gormala as, with lowering eyes and suspended breath, she stood
watching me with uncompromising, persistent sternness.
Then my own heart seemed to stand still, to be a part of the grim
silence of the waiting forces of the world. I was not frightened; I was
not even amazed. All seemed so thoroughly in keeping with the prevailing
influence of the time that I did not feel even a moment of surprise.
Up the steep path came a silent procession of ghostly figures, so misty
of outline that through the grey green of their phantom being the rocks
and moonlit sea were apparent, and even the velvet blackness of the
shadows of the rocks did not lose their gloom. And yet each figure was
defined so accurately that every feature, every particle of dress or
accoutrement could be discerned. Even the sparkle of their eyes in that
grim waste of ghostly grey was like the lambent flashes of phosphoric
light in the foam of moving water cleft by a swift prow. There was no
need for me to judge by the historical sequence of their attire, or by
any inference of hearing; I knew in my heart that these were the ghosts
of the dead who had been drowned in the waters of the Cruden Skares.
Indeed the moments of their passing--and they were many for the line was
of sickening length--became to me a lesson of the long flight of time.
At the first were skin-clad savages with long, wild hair matted; then
others with rude, primitive clothing. And so on in historic order men,
aye, and here and there a woman, too, of many lands, whose garments were
of varied cut and substance. Red-haired Vikings and black-haired Celts
and Phoenicians, fair-haired Saxons and swarthy Moors in flowing robes.
At first the figures, chiefly of the barbarians, were not many; but as
the sad procession passed along I could see how each later year had
brought its ever-growing tale of loss and disaster, and added more and
faster to the grim harvest of the sea. A vast number of the phantoms had
passed when there came along a great group which at once attracted my
attention. They were all swarthy, and bore themselves proudly under
their cuirasses and coats of mail, or their garb as fighting men of
the sea. Spaniards they were, I knew from their dress, and of three
centuries back. For an instant my heart leapt; these were men of the
great Armada, come up from the wreck of some lost galleon or patache to
visit once again the glimpses of the Moon. They were of lordly mien,
with large aquiline features and haughty eyes. As they passed, one of
them turned and looked at me. As his eyes lit on me, I saw spring into
them, as though he were quick, dread, and hate, and fear.
Hitherto I had been impressed, awed, by the indifference of the passing
ghosts. They had looked nowhere, but with steady, silent, even tread had
passed on their way. But when this one looked at me it was a glance from
the spirit world which chilled me to the very soul.
But he too passed on. I stood at the head of the winding path, having
the dead man still on my shoulders and looking with sinking heart at the
sad array of the victims of the Cruden Skares. I noticed that most who
came now were seamen, with here and there a group of shoresmen and a few
women amongst them. The fishermen were many, and without exception wore
great sea boots. And so with what patience I could I waited for the end.
At length it came in the shape of a dim figure of great stature, and
both of whose arms hung limp. The blood from a gash on his forehead had
streamed on to his golden beard, and the golden eyes looked far away.
With a shudder I saw that this was the ghost of the man whose body, now
less warm, lay upon my shoulders; and so I knew that Lauchlane Macleod
was dead. I was relieved when I saw that he did not even look at me;
though as I moved on, following the procession, he walked beside me with
equal steps, stopping and moving as I stopped and moved.
The silence of death was upon the little hamlet of Whinnyfold. There was
not a sign of life; not a dog barked as the grim procession had moved up
the steep path or now filed across the running stream and moved along
the footpath toward Cruden. Gormala with eager eyes kept watching
me; and as the minutes wore on I began to resume my double action of
thought, for I could see in her face that she was trying to reason out
from my own expression something of what I was looking at. As we moved
along she now began to make suggestions to me in a fierce whisper,
evidently hoping that she might learn something from my acquiescence in,
or negation of, her thought. Through that ghostly silence her living
voice cut with the harshness of a corncrake.
"Shearing the silence of the night with ragged edge."
Perhaps it was for the best; looking back now on that awful experience,
I know that no man can say what his mind may suffer in the aftertime who
walks alone with the Dead. That I was strung to some amazing pitch was
manifested by the fact that I did not seem to feel the great weight
which lay upon my shoulders. I have naturally vast strength and the
athletic training of my youth had developed it highly. But the weight of
an ordinary man is much to hold or carry for even a short time, and the
body which I bore was almost that of a giant.
The path across the neck of land which makes the Skares a promontory is
flat, with here and there a deep cleft like a miniature ravine where the
water from the upland rushes in flood time down to the sea. All these
rills were now running strong, but I could hear no sound of murmuring
water, no splash as the streams leapt over the edge of the cliff on the
rocks below in whitening spray. The ghostly procession did not pause at
any of these streams, but moved on impassively to the farther side where
the path trends down to the sands of Cruden Bay. Gormala stood a moment
watching my eyes as they swept the long line passing the angle so that I
could see them all at once. That she guessed something was evident from
her speech:
"They are many; his eyes range wide!" I started, and she knew that she
had guessed aright. This one guess seemed to supply her with illimitable
data; she evidently knew something of the spirit world, though she could
not see into its mysteries. Her next words brought enlightenment to me:
"They are human spirits; they follow the path that the feet o' men hae
made!"
It was so. The procession did not float over the surface of field or
sand, but took its painful way down the zigzag of the cliff and over the
rocky path through the great boulders of the foreshore. When the head of
it reached the sand, it passed along the summit of the ridge, just as
every Sunday night the fishermen of Whinnyfold and Collieston did in
returning to their herring boats at Peterhead.
The tramp across the sands was long and dreary. Often as I had taken
that walk in rain or storm, with the wind almost sweeping me off my feet
whilst the sand drift from the bent-covered hills almost cut my cheeks
and ears, I had never felt the way to be so long or so hard to travel.
Though I did not realise it at the time, the dead man's weight was
beginning to tell sorely upon me. Across the Bay I could see the few
lights in the village of Port Erroll that were to be seen at such a
time of night; and far over the water came the cold grey light which is
the sign of the waning of the night rather than of the coming of the
morning.
When we came to the Hawklaw, the head of the procession turned inward
through the sandhills. Gormala, watching my eyes, saw it and an
extraordinary change came over her. For an instant she was as if
stricken, and stood stock still. Then she raised her hands in wonder,
and said in an awed whisper:
"The Holy Well! They gang to St. Olaf's well! The Lammas floods will aye
serve them weel."
With an instinct of curiosity strong upon me I hurried on so as to head
the procession. As I moved along the rough path amongst the sandhills I
felt the weight of the burden on my shoulders grow heavier and heavier,
so that my feet dragged as do the feet of one in a night-mare. As I
moved on, I looked round instinctively and saw that the shade of
Lauchlane Macleod no longer kept pace with me, but retained its place in
the procession. Gormala's evil eye was once more upon me, but with her
diabolical cunning she guessed the secret of my looking round. She moved
along, not with me but at the rate she had been going as though she
liked or expected to remain in juxtaposition to the shade of the dead
man; some purpose of her own was to be fulfilled.
As I pressed on, the shades around me seemed to grow dimmer and dimmer
still; till at the last I could see little more than a film or haze.
When I came to St. Olaf's well--then merely a rough pool at the base of
the high land that stretches back from the Hawklaw--the ghostly mist was
beginning to fade into the water. I stood hard by, and the weight upon
my shoulders became dreadful. I could hardly stand; I determined,
however, to hold on as long as I could and see what would happen. The
dead man, too, was becoming colder! I did not know whether the dimming
of the shadows was from this cause, or because the spirit of the man was
farther away. It was possibly both, for as the silent, sad procession
came on I could see more distinctly. When the wraith of the Spaniard
turned and looked at me, he seemed once more to look with living eyes
from a living soul. Then there was a dreary wait whilst the rest
came along and passed in awesome stillness down into the well and
disappeared. The weight upon my shoulders now became momentarily more
intolerable. At last I could bear it no longer, and half bending I
allowed the body to slip to the ground, I only holding the hands to
steady the descent. Gormala was now opposite to me, and seeing what
I had done leaped towards me with a loud cry. For one dim moment the
wraith of the dead man stood above its earthly shell; and then I saw the
ghostly vision no more.
At that instant, just as Gormala was about to touch the dead body, there
was a loud hiss and murmur of waters. The whole pool burst up in a great
fountain, scattering sand and water around for a wide space. I rushed
back; Gormala did the same.
Then the waters receded again, and when I looked, the corpse of
Lauchlane Macleod was gone. It was swallowed up in the Holy Well.
Overcome with physical weariness and strange horror of the scene I sank
down on the wet sand. The scene whirled round me.... I remember no
more.