Nicol said nothing for a few moments. He just looked at Robbie as if he were really seeing him for the first time and didn’t quite know what to make of him. Robbie took his silence for an encouraging sign however, and so he added, “There’s just one last thing, Nicol. Selkies are the sea wanderers of the world – you know that! And just think of all the travelling Finn Learson has done. Think of the way he took the chance of going to the haaf, so that he could be out there in the deep water again. Doesn’t that help to prove I’m right?”
Nicol shook his head, “I could point you a dozen men on this island as far travelled as Finn Learson,” he remarked; and in desperation then, Robbie cried, “But you’ve got to believe me, all the same, Nicol. You’ve got to see how everything fits – the way Finn Learson fooled us all into taking it for granted he had come from the wreck, the gold, the dancing, the selkie warmth I felt from him, the way he is courting Elspeth now – they all add up to the same thing. He’s not a man at all – that’s the trick he’s played on us, and that’s the secret behind his smile. He’s the Great Selkie come ashore in the shape of a man!”
“If you believe that,” Nicol declared, “you’ll believe anything! That’s my opinion, Robbie; my honest opinion. And it’s my opinion, too, that it’s high time you stopped making up such fanciful tales.”
“And what abut the selkie music I heard in the geo?” Robbie asked. “I didn’t make that up, and it was the music Finn Learson played on his first night here. Then there’s the dancing and the magical way he seemed to get Tam into his power. I didn’t make them up either.”
“Och, be reasonable,” Nicol protested. “You said yourself you had dreamed the bit about Finn Learson playing the selkie music and getting some sort of hold over Tam.”
“But I didn’t dream it after all!” Robbie exclaimed. “I said that too, Nicol, and that’s the whole point. Besides, the power he put out on Tam wasn’t his only piece of magic. It was magic he used too, to save everyone from the Press Gang. I know, because I saw it; and there was no ordinary man could have drawn them on the way he did.”
“Oh, wasn’t there?” Nicol snapped. “And how do you know what any of us could have done if we’d been given the chance?”
With great dismay then, Robbie saw how he had blundered, and quickly tried to get free of his own trap.
“I didn’t mean to insult you, Nicol,” he began, but Nicol was too annoyed now to let him continue.
“I told you at the beginning that this was none of your business,” he said curtly, “and I should have had the sense to stick to that, instead of standing here listening to all this nonsense about the Great Selkie. And now I’ll tell you one last thing, Robbie. It’s a case of ‘may the best man win’ between Finn Learson and myself, and I’ll have the whole island laughing at me if I let a boy of your age bring such nonsense into it. And so don’t you dare to say a word to Elspeth of all this, or I’ll give you a hiding that will make you wish you had never been born!”
He meant that too, thought Robbie, looking up at Nicol’s flushed and furious face; and was all the more impressed by it because Nicol was usually so easy-going, and so friendly with him.
“All right, I won’t tell her,” he promised, but he looked so forlorn as he said this, that Nicol relented a bit.
“Och, come on,” said he. “I’ve been a bit rough with you, I know; but it’s for your own good, Robbie. And later on, maybe, you’ll thank me for not letting you make a fool of yourself, as well as of me!”
Robbie looked him straight in the eye. “I’m not the fool around here,” he retorted; and turned away, feeling miserable enough at the way things had turned out, but still determined not to let it be the end of the matter.
11. Elspeth
All the rest of that day Robbie tried to think of a way to get round the promise Nicol had forced out of him, but by the time evening came he was no nearer an answer to this problem. Then he and Elspeth were sent off together to bring the cows in from the hill; and, for all he knew he would have to be very cautious about it, he could not help putting a question or two to her.
“There’s something I want to ask you,” he began these questions. “I want to know if you’ve made up your mind yet which one you will marry – Nicol, or Finn Learson.”
“I’m not going to tell you that,” said Elspeth, looking annoyed. “It’s none of your business!”
“Yes, it is,” Robbie insisted. “I know a lot of things that make it my business.”
“Do you indeed?” Elspeth teased. “Well, I know things, too – things Finn Learson himself has told me.”
This was something that made Robbie stop dead in his tracks. “What sort of things?” he asked fearfully. And smiling at the tone of his voice, Elspeth answered, “Well, to start with, he is not just the common sailor man he seems to be. He travels just for the adventure of it, and he is a great man in his own country.”
“And when did he tell you that?” asked Robbie. “Was it on the day of Old Da’s funeral?”
Elspeth shook her head, refusing to answer this, but Robbie persisted, “And I suppose that was when he started asking you to marry him?”
“Yes, it was,” Elspeth admitted then. “But how did you guess that?”
“Because it makes sense of what he said to you that day,” Robbie told her. “If he is rich, and you married him, then you would be rich too.”
“Yes, I would,” said Elspeth defiantly. “And why shouldn’t I marry a rich man if I want to?”
Robbie thought of the Elspeth he had glimpsed, lying all white and silver like a girl dressed for her bridal, and yet looking like Elspeth already dead.
“But have you said yet that you will marry him?” he pressed. “Have you, Elspeth?”
Elspeth began to smile. “I told him I would think about it,” said she, “and I am still thinking.”
“And what about Nicol?” Robbie demanded. “What chance has he with you?”
Elspeth stopped smiling then. She looked instead as if she would cry at any moment, and at last she said miserably, “I don’t know. I used to think I loved Nicol, and now I just don’t know what I feel about him.”
“Do you love Finn Learson?” asked Robbie, trembling for fear of what he might hear next, but Elspeth shied away from this question.
“He’s very handsome,” said she. “He has manners like a prince. He has great charm too, and he says that he loves me.”
“That’s no answer,” Robbie told her. “Do you love him?”
The tears started in good earnest to Elspeth’s eyes. “I don’t know that either,” she confessed. “It was all just a good game at first, pretending not to know which one I preferred. But every time Finn Learson looks at me now, I feel weak. I can’t look away from him, and then I want to marry him. But I still don’t know whether that’s because I love him.”
“It’s because he has managed to get some sort of a hold over you,” Robbie retorted. “Just like he managed to get a hold over Tam, the first night he was here.”
“What nonsense are you talking now?” Elspeth demanded. “Tam has nothing to do with all this! And anyway, I have to think of the future, haven’t I?” With temper beginning to spark through her tears, she started to drive the cows again. “If I marry Nicol,” she said, “I’ll drive cows every night of my life.” Then, with the stick in her hand pointing down the hill to their own house, she added, “And that will be the kind of house I’ll have – a but and ben with a thatched roof! But if I marry Finn Learson, I’ll be a lady with servants, and live in a great house like a palace, with walls of crystal and a golden roof –”
“You great fool!” interrupted Robbie, bawling at her, for this was more than he could stand now. “That’s the Great Selkie’s palace you’re talking about. And it has a golden roof, all right – as you’ll prove to your cost!”
Too late then, he remembered the promise he had given Nicol; and while Elspeth stared in astonishment at this outburst, he took to his heels and left h
er to bring the cows home by herself. Not a word would he say to her afterwards, either, when she questioned him on what it had all meant, and he spent the next few days hoping she would not ask Nicol about it.
Fortunately for him, however, Elspeth was too proud to ask Nicol anything about Finn Learson; and as for Nicol himself, the way he was behaving now certainly did not invite anyone to talk to him. He glowered and gloomed about the place to such an extent, in fact, that everyone began to remark on the change in him, and after a few days of this, he came straight out with what was in his mind.
“I’m not going to be kept dangling like this all winter,” he told Elspeth in front of the whole family. “If you won’t marry me, I’m going off to ship aboard an ocean-going vessel; and once that’s done you’ll never see me again. And so, what do you say? Is it to be me, or is it to be Finn Learson?
Every eye turned to Elspeth. Robbie waited on tenterhooks for her answer. Nicol stared at her, looking grim and unusually pale. Finn Learson sat without any expression at all on his face. Peter and Janet were simply embarrassed, for they were very fond of Nicol and knew he would make a good son-in-law. On the other hand, Finn Learson had won so much of their favour that they could not help feeling it would be a happy arrangement to have him for a son-in-law. Besides which, of course, they still felt very much in his debt over one thing and another.
For a long minute, nobody spoke, and then Janet said quietly, “Nicol’s right, Elspeth. It’s not right to keep him dangling while you make up your mind.”
“At least tell them when you’ll decide,” Peter urged. “Put some sort of date to it, so that we’ll all know where we are.”
Elspeth had flushed when Nicol spoke, then she had gone pale; but when Peter said this, her colour came back to normal.
“Very well,” said she, “that’s what I’ll do. I’ll set a date to my decision, and I’ll marry the man I choose on that date.”
“Make it soon,” Nicol said grimly; and looking much more sure of herself now, Elspeth named the date she had in mind. Finn Learson was puzzled by this, however, for the date she had chosen is called Up Helly Aa in Shetland, which was a name he could not be expected to understand.
“What’s the meaning of that?” he asked suspiciously, and Peter explained, “It’s the last of the twenty-four days holiday we keep at Christmas – or Yule, as it’s called with us – and Up Helly Aa is the festival that ends these holidays.”
“It’s a good day to choose, too,” added Janet, looking anxious to keep the peace, “for we’ll all be celebrating then, anyway, and everyone will be in the mood to drink a health to the lucky man.”
“Well?” Elspeth asked, looking at Nicol. “Do you agree to that?”
“I haven’t much choice,” said he ungraciously, at which Elspeth frowned, and turned to ask Finn Learson the same question.
“I agree,” he answered her, and Robbie’s heart sank to see how he smiled as he spoke, and held Elspeth’s gaze with his own.
Instead of making Robbie give up hope, however, this situation made him even more determined to find some way of defeating Finn Learson. There had to be something he could try, he kept telling himself. There had to be someone who would believe what he believed; and gradually, out of all this, an idea came to him.
Every morning after that as he walked to school, Robbie carried this idea with him, for the person he had in mind to help him with it was the schoolmaster of Black Ness. Every day, however, he still came home with nothing done about his idea – although no one could really blame him for this – for, to say the least of it, this schoolmaster was an unusual sort of person.
To begin with, he had the nickname of Yarl Corbie, for that is the nickname the raven has in Shetland, and he looked like nothing so much as a huge raven.
His nose was big and beaky. His skin was swarthy. His eyes glittered in a sharp and knowing way. He was tall, but very thin and stooped, and he dressed always in black. Besides which, he always wore a tattered, black, schoolmaster’s gown that flapped from his shoulders like a raven’s wings. And like the raven, he was solitary in his habits.
There was yet another reason, however, for his nickname of Yarl Corbie. Long ago, it was said, in the days when this schoolmaster was still only an unchristened child, he had been fed on broth made from the bodies of two ravens. This, it was also said, had gifted him with all the powers of a wizard; and it was this, of course, which had given Robbie his idea.
Yet here was the snag to it all. Robbie was deadly afraid of Yarl Corbie; for Robbie, it had to be remembered, was twelve years old at that time, which was certainly not old enough for him to have lost his fear of wizards. It has to be remembered too, that Robbie was Shetland born and bred; which meant that deep, deep down in his blood and in his bones there lived the Shetlander’s ancient fear of the raven and its croaking cry of death. Also, it was still dark during the time of his walk to school on these winter mornings, and trows have power in the dark; with the result that his imagination had plenty to work on before he even set foot in the schoolroom.
Day after day, therefore, the same thing happened to him. He set out for school carrying the peat every scholar was supposed to bring each day for the schoolroom fire. In his pocket was the stub of a candle he needed to light his lessons, and in his mind floated the splendid idea of calling on Yarl Corbie’s wizard powers to help him. Yet still, by the time he reached school each day, all the splendour of his idea had fled; for, by this time also, his fear of the trow-haunted dark had convinced him he would never be able to conquer his equal fear of Yarl Corbie.
As soon as he entered the classroom, he was even more sure of this; for there, as usual, sat Yarl Corbie hunched at his desk with his gown drooping like black wings from his bony shoulders. There was his dark and beaky face, seeming all bones and hollows in the candlelight. There was the glittering eye with its knowing stare. And there as usual in his own heart, was the choking dread that he knew would keep him dumb until the day was over and it was too late to ask what he had meant to ask of Yarl Corbie.
So the days before Christmas raced past for Robbie; and each day, it seemed to him, was a wasted one. Then, a week before Christmas came the start of the twenty-four days holiday time. Yarl Corbie announced the break-up of school, and Robbie knew he would have to speak that day, or lose his last chance of saving Elspeth.
The determined streak in him suddenly got the upper hand of his fear, and while all the other boys raced outside yelling for joy of the holidays, he moved slowly towards the schoolmaster’s desk.
12. Yarl Corbie
The sharp and knowing eye of Yarl Corbie came to rest on Robbie, and nervously he said, “It’s about Finn Learson, the stranger that came ashore the night the Bergen was wrecked. I know something about him – something that makes him a danger to my folks.”
“Indeed?” Yarl Corbie remarked. “And why mention this to me?”
“Because nobody else will believe me,” said Robbie, holding hard to his courage. “But you might – and then you might help me.”
Yarl Corbie stared so hard at this that Robbie flushed scarlet. “What kind of help would you want from me?” he enquired.
“The kind that – that folks say you can give,” Robbie stammered, then wished the words unspoken again because Yarl Corbie had smiled to hear them, and his smile was not a pleasant one.
Be careful, it warned, and there was warning too in Yarl Corbie’s voice as he said,
“We will talk of that once you have said what you have to say.”
Robbie took a deep breath. The worst Yarl Corbie could do would be to laugh at his story, he reminded himself. Then quickly, before he could change his mind on this, he blurted out, “Finn Learson is the Great Selkie.”
Not a flicker of surprise crossed Yarl Corbie’s face. “I know that,” he said so calmly that Robbie could hardly grasp that he had heard aright.
“So you believe me?” he asked stupidly, and Yarl Corbie gave a patient sigh.
“Of course,” he answered. “It happens that I know a lot more about the Great Selkie than you do. But I should still like to hear how you guessed about him.”
Robbie felt his heart give a great bound of excitement. “I noticed things about him,” he began, and raced straight on with the rest of his story.
Yarl Corbie listened in dead silence, his beaky face intent, his sharp eyes never leaving Robbie’s face. He sat quite still too, and even after Robbie had finished speaking, it was only his eyes that shifted position. The sight of him like this began to make Robbie feel even more nervous than he had been at first and finally he could stand it no longer.
“How did you know that Finn Learson is the Great Selkie?” he dared to ask.
The sharp and knowing gaze flashed back to himself. “Because he told me,” Yarl Corbie answered. “He told everyone when he gave his name as Finn Learson – although I was the only one with the wit to see that!”
“I still don’t see it,” Robbie confessed; and grimly, Yarl Corbie told him, “You will in a moment. Say his name aloud – say it slowly.”
Robbie hesitated, feeling even more puzzled by this command. Then obediently he recited the name, Finn Learson, dragging out the sound as if each part of it was a separate word.
“Exactly!” Yarl Corbie exclaimed. “Finn, Lear’s son – that is the proper sound of the name, for the Great Selkie is the son of the sea-god, Lear. As for ‘Finn,’ that is simply an old word for ‘magician.’ And so there you have the full measure of the bold way that name told everyone exactly who he is – the Magician, who is also Lear’s son, the Great Selkie.”
Robbie felt a chill in the very marrow of his bones. “The Magician …” he thought, and once again in his mind’s eye, he saw Finn Learson melting like a shadow from the Press Gang’s hands, skimming the ground like a creature flying. Then further back still his mind went, to the “dream” of Finn Learson staring Tam into frightened silence.
A Stranger Came Ashore Page 7
