A Stranger Came Ashore

by Mollie Hunter

  It was astonishingly heavy, he found, for such a young creature. And even more astonishing was the heat that came from its damp little body. Holding it, thought Robbie, was like holding a little furnace against his chest.

  The black nails on the underside of the pup’s flippers caught his attention, and he put one finger against them to see what it would do. Immediately it bent its flipper so that it could grip the finger with these nails, and there was such strength in the grip that Robbie realised there was no way of breaking it except by laying the pup down. Unwillingly, he did so, and then saw the reason for the power of the pup’s grip as it bent its flippers again and used the nails to pull itself rapidly away over the shingle.

  The other pups on the beach were all awake, their heads turning towards him, their bright, brown-button eyes staring. Robbie approached them one by one, stopping gently, going down on one knee beside them; but the pups would have none of him. They hissed, showing rows of sharp white teeth as the first pup had done. Even the pup he had lifted was unfriendly, now that it was wide awake and could sense the alarm of the others; and resigning himself to this at last, Robbie walked back to the boat.

  But still, he told himself, he had done what be had set out to do. He had discovered at last what a selkie felt like, and so he had learned something that even Old Da had never been able to teach him – quite apart from which, it had been fun to hold the pup!

  Feeling greatly pleased with himself as he came to this conclusion, Robbie considered what he could do next, and wondered if he should head for one of the big geos where he knew there was a nursery of over fifty pups. He could take the boat into the geo, he thought, and from a safe distance there he could watch the three bull selkies that roared challenges to one another as they guarded the beach. And he could count the pups, to see if any more had been born since his last visit!

  This last thought decided him on what he wanted to do, and bending strongly to the oars, he headed for the big geo.

  It was not far away. Twenty minutes of rowing like this brought him to the entrance channel, and with careful strokes, he backed the boat through this narrow passage. In the wider water beyond, he turned the boat; then, gently feathering as Old Da had taught him, he sat staring at every detail in the scene around him.

  The water lapping the boat was deep and green, the colour of melted emeralds. The high cliff walls of the geo were wet black, streaked with dull green veins of serpentine. The upward slope of the shingle beach at the geo’s inner end was backed by a great jumble of larger stones; and above this jumble, the empty mouth of a cave yawned, huge and black.

  On the beach itself, three bull seals reared up, bellowing at one another. And everywhere around the great, greyish-black forms of the bulls, right from the mouth of the cave down to the edge of the emerald water, was a mass of cow seals and their pups.

  The sight of the boat had already sent these cow seals heading for the water; and soon, as Robbie rowed closer inshore, they were gliding all around him. He had other things on his mind at that moment, however, and paying no attention to the graceful forms of the cow seals, he prepared for his count of the pups.

  He would have to stand up in the boat to make this count, he decided; otherwise, he would not get a clear view of the pups that lay among the big boulders at the back of the beach. But standing up in the boat need not unbalance it, of course – not if he used the trick he had learned along with all the other boys of Black Ness playing around with boats in the shallows of the voe.

  Carefully slipping one of his oars on this decision, Robbie slid the other one over the stern of the boat. Then, rising to his feet and holding this second oar almost upright against the stern, he made quick, gentle little movements that sent the boat sculling steadily along the line of the shore.

  The three bull seals roared again, as if in astonishment at this sight. The pups kept up a shrill mewing for their vanished mothers; and, rearing chest-high out of the water, the cow seals themselves began to make the sort of noise that cow seals do make at this particular time of the year.

  Robbie quite forgot to count then, for this noise from the cow seals was a high, sweet one that sounded like human voices sliding up a scale and echoing eerily between the steep walls of the geo. Also, it was something he had never heard before, in spite of all the times he had watched seals, and he was quite entranced by it. Maybe, he thought, it was this that Old Da had been thinking about when he told that long-ago story about selkie singing …

  Then suddenly at the back of his mind, he found a different sort of memory stirring. He had heard this noise before, he realised. It was the singing sound he had heard from his father’s fiddle on Finn Learson’s first night on the island!

  The boat began to rock under him as his mind wandered further down this track, and he sculled fast to try to bring it back to an even keel. It swung in a half-circle, bringing him round to face the cliff at the inner end of the geo; but where the line of the clifftop had been bare a moment before, there was now a man standing. With a jerk of surprise, Robbie recognised the man as Finn Learson, and it was this startled movement that finally cost him his balance.

  The boat rocked wildly, snatching the oar from his grasp, and he pitched overboard. The emerald water closed over him. The boat was spun away by the force of his splashing plunge, and he surfaced with his mouth open on a yell, for the water was very deep and he could not swim so much as a single stroke.

  A shout from the clifftop answered his yell, but Robbie was struggling too madly to hear this. Water sang in his ear. Water blurred his vision, so that black cliff and grey sky and emerald water became nothing but colours jumbling in a confused mass around him. Yet still he managed to gulp enough air to keep from choking; for the fact of the matter is that even a person in Robbie’s position can stay afloat like this for a good minute before he goes right under.

  No one had ever told him this, however, and so the terror of drowning was like a frenzy on him. Moreover, he was too blinded by water to see Finn Learson starting down towards him, and leaping swift as a cat from ledge to ledge on the cliff face.

  Half-way down the cliff Finn Learson paused, balanced for a blink of an eye on his perch, then dived; and Robbie’s first hint of rescue was the splash and surging backwash of this dive. A second later he felt a hand catch hold of his hair. An arm closed round him, pinning his threshing hands to his sides. A voice breathed in his ear.

  “Easy, now, easy!”

  The arm holding him kept his head clear of the water. Robbie drew a great breath of blessed air, and realised that Finn Learson was swimming strongly with him to the boat still drifting a few yards away.

  A hand came out over his head, reaching to grasp the boat’s gunwale, and Finn Learson prepared to swing him inboard. The arm holding him shifted position, and he realised something else. There was warmth like a furnace heat in the body pressed against his own, and the hand gripping him had fingertips that probed like steel into his flesh.

  A quick heave sent him tumbling over the gunwale, and he landed in the bottom of the boat with a clear, sharp memory of the only other time he had ever been held in such a grip, or felt a body so warm. It was that same afternoon, when he had picked up the young selkie – yet how could that be? How could there be selkie warmth in a man’s body, and selkie strength in a man’s hands?

  Robbie’s mind began to race, suddenly remembering his Old Da’s tales about selkies that took human shape and the Great Selkie that tempted golden-haired girls into his kingdom under the sea. In a flash then, he had the answer to both his questions, and the reason for everything that had ever puzzled him about Finn Learson.

  The “dream” of selkie music that had proved to be something he really had heard; the stare that had held Tam captive, the gold, the dancing, the magic escape from the Press Gang, the vision of Elspeth dead in bridal white – and above all, the smile, the secret little smile – he understood now the meaning of all these things. He knew now why Old Da had warned it was
Elspeth who was in danger!

  Finn Learson’s hand appeared over the gunwale of the boat. The fingers that looked human and felt as hard as a selkie’s nails, tightened their grip; and a terror as sharp as the terror of drowning shot through Robbie; for there was one thing more he could guess at, now that the meaning of all these other things had become clear.

  Finn Learson had not rescued him out of kindness, any more than the saving of the sixareen’s crew had sprung from that reason. It was only a cunning desire to stand well with his parents that had prompted both actions – which meant he had only to give the slightest hint of his own thoughts now to find that his life would be worth less than an instant’s purchase!

  Finn Learson heaved himself inboard. Then, with all the friendliness of recent weeks gone from his voice, he asked, “And what were you doi ng in this geo, anyway?”

  “Counting selkie pups,” Robbie answered shakily. “The same as I used to do every year with Old Da.”

  Finn Learson gave him a long, suspicious look. “You’re sure that was all you were doing?” he demanded; and for a moment, Robbie found himself feeling more puzzled than afraid.

  “Of course I’m sure,” said he. “What other reason could I have for being here?”

  Finn Learson did not answer this. He took up the single oar left in the boat, and began paddling with it to reach the other oar adrift in the geo; and as he reached out for it, Robbie decided on the sort of remark he knew would be expected from him at that moment.

  “I would have drowned if you had not been here,” he said awkwardly, “and I owe you thanks for that.”

  “You were lucky,” Finn Learson told him. “I just happened to notice you heading for this geo and kept you in sight from the clifftop. I had the feeling you might get into trouble here, and that was why I was ready for it when you did.”

  The drifting oar came within his grasp, and drawing it inboard, he added harshly, “And so keep out of this geo in future, do you hear? It’s high time you learned to leave deep waters to those who can swim in them.”

  That could have been meant as advice, thought Robbie; but said in that harsh voice, it sounded more like a warning – or even a threat! Moreover, why had Finn Learson sounded so suspicious of his presence in the geo in the first place?

  Crouched in the bottom of the boat, Robbie watched Finn Learson beginning to row, and the nearer the boat drew towards home, the more clearly he saw that he would have to tell someone the truth about him. Yet who was there to tell? Certainly not his own Mam and Da, for they would never believe it was the truth – not now that Finn Learson had put them even deeper in his debt with this latest rescue.

  Which meant it would have to be Nicol Anderson, Robbie decided eventually. Nicol had everything to gain by believing the truth, after all, and nothing whatever to lose. It would be worthwhile at least trying to make Nicol believe him!

  10. Nicol

  For two days after the rescue in the geo, Robbie waited for his chance to speak alone with Nicol Anderson.

  “I need a word with you, Nicol,” said he, the moment he found this chance. “A private word about Finn Learson and Elspeth.”

  “That’s none of your business,” Nicol told him sharply. “But if you must talk about it, talk to your Mam and Da. I don’t want to hear what you have to say.”

  “But you’ve got to,” Robbie insisted. “My Mam and Da thought the world of him even before he saved me from drowning, and now that’s happened, they’ll not hear a word against him. I’m sure of that, and so what use is it to try talking to them?”

  “Then try holding your tongue for a change,” Nicol retorted. “You should think shame, anyway, for even wanting to speak against a man who has just saved your life.”

  “If he had guessed what I was thinking about him,” said Robbie miserably, “he would have tipped me back into the water and left me to drown in good earnest. That’s something else I know for sure.”

  “Robbie Henderson!” Nicol exclaimed. “That’s a terrible thing to say about anybody!”

  “I know it is,” Robbie admitted, “but I’ve got a good reason for saying it about Finn Learson. It came to me suddenly when he was shoving me back into the boat, and I’m certain I know the truth now.”

  “The truth about what?” Nicol demanded. “You’re talking in riddles, boy.”

  “Then I’ll begin at the beginning,” Robbie told him. “Do you remember the night he came ashore, Nicol – the night of the storm that wrecked the Bergen?”

  “Of course,” Nicol nodded. “But what’s that got to do with it?”

  “Just this,” Robbie answered. “He came ashore looking like a survivor of that wreck, and so everybody took it for granted that he was. But he never claimed to be a survivor. He never spoke about the Bergen as my ship. Whenever he mentioned it, he called it ‘the’ ship.”

  “And what’s that but a slip of the tongue?” Nicol asked. “He’s a Norwegian, isn’t he? At least, the ship was Norwegian, and you can tell from the way he speaks that he’s some sort of foreigner. And anyway, if he didn’t come from the ship, where could he have come from?”

  “I’ll get to that in a minute,” said Robbie. “But have you noticed, Nicol, that little smile he sometimes gives – as if he was enjoying some secret sort of joke?”

  “Well – now you mention it, I suppose I have,” Nicol admitted. “But, Robbie –”

  “Wait!” Robbie interrupted. “Let me tell you about his first night in our house, Nicol. We had trouble with Tam barking and growling then; but late that night he stared into Tam’s eyes, and the creature was frightened of him. It was after we were all in bed that this happened, but I saw it because I was awakened by Finn Learson playing on my Da’s fiddle.”

  “Playing what?” Nicol asked curiously. “And why would he do that?’

  “I can’t tell you why,” Robbie admitted, “but I do know what he played. It was selkie music – the kind of singing sound that selkies make in the geos at this time of the year – and it was all so strange that I thought afterwards it must have been a dream. Then, just before I fell overboard a couple of days ago, I heard the selkies making the same music and I knew that it hadn’t been a dream at all.”

  Nicol stared at this. Then he glanced around to make sure there was no one else within earshot, but it was down at the voe that this conversation took place and there was no one but himself and Robbie there.

  “You’re talking very strangely now,” he remarked. “And I’m not sure I should let you say any more –”

  “Yes you must,” Robbie interrupted again. “There’s the gold coin he gave us, Nicol. Old Da backed me up when I said it must have come from a sunken treasure ship, and Finn Learson never denied that was the case. He just said it was something he had picked up on his travels.”

  “And so it would be,” Nicol argued. “That’s what your Da thought it was, anyway – he told me so himself.”

  “Aye, but Finn Learson never said when or where he had picked it up,” Robbie pointed out, “and I think I know the answer to that now. A selkie could dive deep enough to reach a sunken treasure ship, and when Finn Learson pulled me out of the geo, he felt like a selkie.”

  Nicol stared again, then he smiled and said, “Oh aye, Robbie. And what other clues do you have to the ‘truth’ about Finn Learson?”

  “Things my Old Da told me, just before he died,” said Robbie, trying hard not to notice Nicol’s smile. “He didn’t trust Finn Learson, and he told me not to trust him. He said it had all happened before – that there was another man who had come ashore like Finn Learson. And he said that Elspeth was the one in danger.”

  Nicol’s smile vanished at these words. “She’s in danger of marrying him, if that’s what you mean,” said he sourly. “I don’t need you to tell me that.”

  “But that is the danger!” Robbie cried. “I know it is, from – well, from other things my Old Da told me.”

  “What do you mean by ‘other things?’” Nicol dem
anded. “What sort of things?”

  “Well,” said Robbie carefully, “it was when I was only a wee boy and he told me about the Great Selkie that rules in the deepest ocean. He has a palace of crystal there, Old Da said, and this palace is roofed with the hair of girls he has tempted into his kingdom and drowned there when they want to go back to their own kind – girls with golden hair, like Elspeth’s.”

  Nicol heaved a great sigh of impatience at this point. “But that’s only a story,” he pointed out. “I heard it myself when I was a wee boy, but even then I didn’t believe it was true.”

  “Neither did I at the time,” Robbie admitted. “At least, I wasn’t sure about it. But there was something else Old Da told me. He said that selkies love to dance – and you know how true that is of Finn Learson! Moreover, they come ashore to dance, Old Da said; and when that happens, they cast off their skins and take the shape of men. Then he sang to me about the Great Selkie – a bit of an old song that said, “I am a man upon the land, a selkie in the sea …” And that’s what Finn Learson is Nicol. That’s why Old Da warned me against him – because he had guessed that Finn Learson is the Great Selkie!”

  “Oh, rubbish!” shouted Nicol, his patience breaking at last, and Robbie backed away in dismay at the anger in his voice.

  “But I told you,” he protested. “Finn Learson felt like a selkie. I know, because I picked up a young selkie that same day, and held it close. And there’s another thing, Nicol. The omens on the day of Old Da’s funeral – the footprint and the raven. They said Elspeth would die, but Finn Learson told her, ‘You will live to wed the man of your choice, and you will be rich when you wed.’ That didn’t make sense at the time –”

  “It still doesn’t,” Nicol interrupted, but Robbie cried, “It does, it does! Finn Learson is rich – he must be, if he is the Great Selkie, for he can get gold any time he wants. But if Elspeth agrees to wed him, he will carry her off to his kingdom under the sea. And then, to us at least, she will be dead!”