THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE
"Man," said the Student, "is a weird creature. He dimly remembers that
he began his evolution, not as a pair, but as a horde; and to the
horde he still seeks, forming huge crowds during his working days, and
on his holidays merely transferring the same crowds in their totality
to some other place, accompanied by a great deal of purposeless noise.
Apart from his crowd he apparently feels chilly, and without noise
unhappy. Nothing is more striking to the reflective mind than the
abdication of civilization in the face of meaningless noises."
"Daddy," said Fiona, "I want your advice on the matter of treasure
hunting. For if two go together, they don't make a crowd, and they
needn't make a noise."
"Quote correctly," said the Student. "What Homer said was, that if you
and I went to look for a treasure, I, being a mere man, would find it
at once by logical processes of induction and deduction, while you,
being a superior woman, were losing yourself in the quicksands of the
intuitive short cut."
"Sir," said the girl, "your word is law to me. Therefore deduce."
"Persiflage," said the Student, "is not to be encouraged in young
children. Remember that if you were to force me to do so I might come
with you, and then I should see exactly how you bungled the thing."
"But that's what I want you to do, daddy," said Fiona.
"I don't," said the Student. "Though treasure hunting is quite an
ancient and respectable amusement. For treasure, some have descended
the crater of Popocatapetl; some have dived at Tobermory; some have
dug in Kensington Gardens. Alexander found a treasure at Persepolis,
and Essex lost another in Cadiz harbor. The treasure of the Incas lies
hid in a Peruvian ravine, known but to two Indians at a time; the
plunder which Alaric took from Rome is still beneath the river which
he diverted to guard it. No one has ever found the hoard of Captain
Kidd, or the gold carried in the Venetian galleon which sailed with
the Armada and went on the rocks in this loch. The pursuit of treasure
is, therefore, no doubt, for the young, a legitimate pastime."
"Daddy," said Fiona, "did one of the Armada ships really go ashore
here?"
"Yes, my dear," said the Student. "She was a great Venetian, called
after the Madonna of the Holy Cross, and she carried the doubloons
contributed by the Church."
"That's not the treasure the old man meant," said the girl.
"It is not," said the Student. "We know all about the Venetian ship.
The crew were mostly knocked on the head, but the captain brought the
doubloons ashore and hid them. He himself was saved by my ancestor for
the time being, to whom he gave a map showing the place in the cave in
which the treasure was hidden. He never came back for it. So far,
everything proceeded on approved lines. Unhappily, my ancestor was a
careless sort of person, and gambled the plan away. We never heard any
more of it. It is, however, a family tradition that there was nothing
on the plan to identify the cave; and as this coast, and the islands
in the loch, are honeycombed with caves, it would be of little use if
we had it. No one knows whereabouts the galleon went ashore. On calm
nights her officers may be seen swimming round the cliffs, keeping
guard still over their holy gold. Angus MacEachan saw one once, and
tried to speak to him; but he turned into a seal, and just looked at
Angus with large patient eyes; and Angus' boat was wrecked the week
after."
"And did you never search for the gold, daddy?" asked Fiona.
"Never, my dear," he said. "In the first place, it would mean a minute
examination of some 170 caves. In the second place, half of the caves
are not mine. In the third place, it is not the kind of treasure I
want. In the fourth place, I haven't time. In the fifth place, I am
morally certain it is not there now. In the sixth place, the
Government would claim it as treasure-trove. And in the seventh and
last place, I never thought about it till you asked me."
"I'm not getting any further with _my_ treasure hunting, daddy," said
Fiona. "Let's go out together and start."
"My dear," said the Student, "it's your search, not mine. It's no use
my trying to come with you. And I have a fancy that it won't begin
like that."
"Can you tell me how to begin then, daddy?" she asked.
"I suppose by taking no notice of it," he said. "It was to begin
itself, wasn't it? And I have an uncomfortable suspicion that you hunt
this kind of treasure by turning round and going the other way. So I
think you'd better run out and find the Urchin, and I'll get back to
my inscriptions."
The Urchin was Fiona's principal ally; a troublesome ally, owing to
his propensity for throwing stones. She found him now on the shore,
steadily bombarding a shore lark, that would move a little way out of
range and then sit down again, affording a splendid target. Luckily
the enthusiasm of the persecutor in pursuit was well matched by the
inaccuracy of his aim.
"Urchin," she called out, "if you hurt that bird the Little People
will take you; I thought I'd knocked that into you all right, even if
you _are_ English and slow in the uptake."
"All right," said the Urchin with a grin. "We conquered you, anyway."
"As a matter of fact," said the girl, "it was we who annexed you. If
your people were as bad shots as you, Urchin, it must have been quite
easy. You can't hit a bird sitting."
"Can't I?" said the Urchin. "You watch." Another fling, and horrors!
the shore lark rolled over, twittering helplessly and miserably.
Fiona was across the rocks like a young goat; and when the Urchin,
contrite but defiant, arrived, she had the wounded bird in her hands
and was holding it to her breast, feeling gently for its hurt. It lay
quite still, panting, and watching her with quick bright eyes.
"Broken wing," she said. "I believe it will mend. Urchin, you are a
mere beast. You'd better go home; I don't want ever to see you again."
The Urchin turned scarlet.
"That's just like a girl," he said. "First you tell me I can't hit the
old bird, which is the same thing as telling me to hit it; and then
when I do hit it you turn round on me and call names; and all the time
you're just as bad as I am." And the Urchin turned and stalked off,
an heroic figure with the mien of a Marcus Curtius about to save his
country by leaping into the gulf. Unhappily there was a real gulf, and
the boy, head in air, rolled neatly into it, and emerged from between
two rocks, dripping and no longer heroic, rubbing a torn stocking and
a scraped shin.
It was too much for Fiona's gravity.
"Urchin," she called, "come back here, _quick_." And as the unhappy
Urchin stood in doubt, hither and thither dividing the swift mind, she
slid over the rocks and caught him. "My fault," she said, "and I'm
sorry all the way through. Now I'll mend you first, and then we must
mend the bird."
"And then what'll we do?" said the boy. "Let's do something harmless
for a bit, hunt for shells or shrimps or . . ."
"Treasure," suggested Fiona, rather shyly. And by the time they had
reached the house, and she had repaired the Urchin, and disposed the
wounded bird as comfortably as possible, the boy had been put in
possession of the essential facts of the case.
"Mar-vellous," was the Urchin's comment. "Now, don't you see, Fiona?
you can have your treasure when we find it, and I'll have the Spanish
treasure when we find it, and there we both are. I want lots and lots
and lots of those doubloons."
"What for?" said Fiona.
"Gun," said the Urchin. "Donald Ruadh has an old gun which he would
sell me for two pounds. He says one barrel shoots all right sometimes.
And I would use the rest of the doubloons to buy cartridges, and then
I could kill curlews."
"You little wretch," said the girl. "You won't kill my curlews while
I'm about. And anyhow your old gun would probably blow you up first.
And anyhow you haven't got the doubloons yet. And they're not yours if
you do find them."
"Whose would they be?" asked the Urchin.
"I suppose my father's," said Fiona. "But it depends on which cave
they were in."
"Come on, then," said the boy. "I'm going to ask him for them."
The Student took the interruption good-humoredly.
"I am in the second century," he said. "Doubloons have not yet been
coined. As to these doubloons, I am quite sure they are not there,
wherever 'there' may be; but if they are there, I have no objection to
the Urchin fighting the Government for them. Urchin, would you like a
deed?"
And, to the delight of the Urchin, the Student proceeded to make out a
document, which called on all men to know that the said Student
thereby assigned to the said Urchin all the estate, right, title, and
interest, if any, of the said Student in and to a certain treasure of
doubloons or other coins once carried in the galleon called _Our Lady
of the Holy Cross_ were the same a little more or less ("all good
deeds get that in somewhere," said the Student) to hold to the said
Urchin and his heirs ("but I don't suppose the heirs will see much of
it") to the intent that he might become a wiser and a better Urchin
and not interrupt the said Student any more when he wanted to work.
This being done, the Student signed his name at the end, made a
beautiful blot of hot red sealing wax and put his signet ring on it,
and made Fiona sign her name as witness ("which is probably not
legal," he explained cheerfully); then he handed over the deed to the
rejoicing Urchin, with the remark that it was quite as good as many
lawyers' deeds, and drove the pair of them out of the bookroom.
"Good," said the Urchin. "Now I've a treasure just the same as you."
"If we find them," said Fiona.
"Well, let's go and start hunting for them at any rate," said the boy.
"Pardon me," said the shore lark, "if I interrupt; but you might be
the better of a few hints."
Fiona dropped on her knees and took the little bird in her hands
again.
"So you can talk," she said. "That's jolly. You've a first-rate chance
of returning good for evil, and making us feel worms."
"Don't talk of worms," said the shore lark, "you have entirely omitted
to provide me with any. Send him to get some, and I'll tell you
something. He can't understand what I'm saying, anyhow."
"Urchin," said the girl, "he's asking for worms. Go and get him some."
"One would think you and he could talk to each other," said the boy.
"Silly, I call it, going on like that. I suppose that's what girls
do."
"Urchin," said Fiona, "when you and I have a row, what happens?"
"_You_ happen," said the Urchin. "You've three years' pull; 'tisn't
fair; just like a girl, to go and have three years' pull of a chap."
"Stop grousing," said the girl, "and get me the worms, there's a dear
little boy."
The Urchin flung the nearest book at her, missed as usual, and, having
thus made his honor white, departed, declaring in simpler language
that the love of worms was the root of all evil.
"I can't tell you much," said the shore lark, "but one sometimes picks
up things, hopping about, and I heard you say treasure. If you mean
the Venetian ship, don't start without consulting the finner. He is
very old, and I believe that he knows everything that happens in this
loch."
"I don't really mean that," said Fiona. "That's half a jest. I mean my
own search, the search for the treasure of the Isle of Mist."
"We have all heard of it," said the shore lark, "and we all know that
you cannot find it by looking for it. All I can tell you is this: the
curlews have a tradition that the last man who found it went up a
hill. That is what they tell each other when they call in the spring;
and I believe they know."
"They are like the spirits of the hills themselves," said Fiona.
"Tell me why it is I can understand you."
"I have no idea," said the shore lark. "I am only a little bird, and I
don't know very much. I chanced speaking to you because I wanted
worms."
The girl slipped across into the bookroom.
"Daddy," she said, "come back out of the second century, and tell me
why I can understand the shore lark."
The Student looked up with a patient smile in far-away eyes.
"It isn't time to come back yet," he said. "And I have not fully
grasped your meaning. You appear to refer to some conversation with
some bird. There are precedents, of course. For instance, the
philosopher Empedocles, having been a bird himself in a former life,
remembered their speech; he ended by leaping into AEtna. Siegfried
also, having bathed in the blood of Fafnir, followed the voice of a
bird of the wood; he ended by losing his love and his life. There was
once a sailor who took the advice of a parrot, and was hanged. Birds
are light-minded, as the poet Aristophanes discovered; and it would
seem that little good comes of talking to them."
"My shore lark is a darling," said Fiona. "And I don't intend to be
hanged."
"That," said the Student, "is as Providence pleases. One never knows,
as my poor ancestor said when he fell into a bear-trap and found the
bear there before him."
"O daddy," said the girl, "did he really? And what happened?"
"This ancestor of mine," said the Student, "was a very strong man. If
he had not been, someone else would have killed him first, and he
would not have been my ancestor; the other man would have been someone
else's ancestor, so to speak. Being a very strong man, he naturally
killed the bear. He must have, or he would not have lived to be my
ancestor. In those days everyone lived in caves, and he lived in a
cave too; and he always killed the other man, sometimes fairly,
sometimes, I regret to say, otherwise. He courted my ancestress by
knocking her down from behind with the blunt end of a stone ax, a
method which I do not defend; but when her senses returned she told
him he had acted like a man, and they became a most devoted couple.
This was partly due, no doubt, to the fact that he never saw the
meaning of the things she said; she took good care that he shouldn't,
for though slow of wit he was handy with his ax. Their life I think
must have been very happy till one day he found a red stone which he
could heat and shape with his ax, and he hammered out that copper
bracelet you're wearing; and then came the deluge, for metal meant
magic then, as you know. Next day my ancestress found him conversing
with the local vulture; within a week he was giving exhibitions in the
other caves with the vulture's assistance; in a month he had become
the tribal god; and about two years after, owing to the persistent
failure of some of his magic to come off, he was, for a brief moment,
the tribal banquet. Now you know what comes of talking to shore
larks."
"Daddy," she said, "you can't know if that's true or not, can you?"
"It may not all be what _you_ call true," said the Student, "but it's
true in quite a lot of ways. It's true psychologically, and
anthropologically, and palaeethnologically; and that does to start
with. And I certainly _had_ ancestors. And there _is_ a bracelet. And
you _were_ talking strange words about a shore lark. And you must
really take care, my dear daughter; for you _ought_ now to become a
tribal priestess, and be hurled from a high place into the sea the
first season that the herring fail."