by Bram Stoker
‘I tak it a’ back, Sailor Willy! Ye werena to blame! It was oor daein’! Will ye forgie me?’ Willy turned and impulsively grasped the hand extended to him. In the midst of his overwhelming pain this was some little gleam of sunshine. He had himself just sufficient remorse to make the assurance of his innocence by another grateful. He knew well that if he had chosen to sacrifice his duty Maggie would never have gone out to sea, and though it did not even occur to him to repent of doing his duty, the mere temptation — the mere struggle against it, made a sort of foothold where flying remorse might for a moment rest. When the eyes of the two men met, Willy felt a new duty rise within his. He had always loved Neil, who was younger than himself, and was Maggie’s brother, and he could not but see the look of anguish in the eyes that were so like Maggie’s. He saw there something which in one way transcended his own pain, and made him glad that he had not on his soul the guilt of treachery to his duty. Not for the wide world would he have gazed into Maggie’s eyes with such a look as that in his own. And yet — and yet — there came back to him with an overpowering flood of anguish the thought that, though the darkness had mercifully hidden it, Maggie’s face, after she had tempted him, had had in it something of the same expression. It is a part of the penalty of being human that we cannot forbid the coming of thoughts, but it is a glory of humanity that we can wrestle with them and overcome them. Quick on the harrowing memory of Maggie’s shame came the thought of Maggie’s heroic self-devotion: her true spirit had found a way out of shame and difficulty, and the tribute of the lieutenant, ‘That’s the lass for a sailor’s wife!’ seemed to ring in Willy’s ears. As far as death was concerned, Willy Barrow did not fear it for himself, and how could he feel the fear for another. Such semblance of fear as had been in his distress was based on the selfishness which is a part of man’s love, and in this wild hour of pain and distress became a thing of naught. All this reasoning, all this sequence of emotions, passed in a few seconds, and, as it seemed to him all at once, Willy Barrow broke out crying with the abandon which marks strong men when spiritual pain breaks down the barriers of their pride. Men of Willy’s class seldom give way to their emotions. The prose of life is too continuous to allow of any habit of prolonged emotional indulgence; the pendulum swings back from fact to fact and things go on as before. So it was with Sailor Willy. His spasmodic grief was quick as well as fierce, like an April shower; and in a few seconds he had regained his calm. But the break, though but momentary, had relieved his pent-up feelings, and his heart beat more calmly for it. Then some of the love which he had for Maggie went out to her brother, and as he saw that the pain in his face did not lessen, a great pity over-came him and he tried to comfort Neil.
‘Don’t grieve, man. Don’t grieve. I know well you’d give your heart’s blood for Maggie’ — he faltered as he spoke her name, but with a great gulp went on bravely: ‘There’s your father — her father, we must try and comfort him. Maggie,’ here he lifted his cap reverently, ‘is with God! We, you and I, and all, must so bear ourselves that she shall not have died in vain.’ To Sailor Willy’s tear-blurred eyes, as he looked upward, it seemed as if the great white gull which perched as he spoke on the yard of the flagstaff over his head was in some way an embodiment of the spirit of the lost girl, and, like the lightning phantasmagoria of a dream, there flitted across his mind many an old legend and eerie belief gained among the wolds and barrows of his Yorkshire home.
There was not much more to be said between the men, for they understood each other, and men of their class are not prone to speak more than is required. They walked northwards, and for a long time they stood together on the edge of the cliff, now and again gazing seawards, and ever and anon to where below their feet the falling tide was fretting and churning amongst the boulders at the entrance of the Watter’s Mou’.
Neil was unconsciously watching his companion’s face and following his thoughts, and presently said, as though in answer to something that had gone before: ‘Then ye think she’ll drift in here, if onywhere?’ Willy started as though he had been struck, for there seemed a positive brutality in the way of putting his own secret belief. He faced Neil quickly, but there was nothing in his face of any brutal thought. On the contrary, the lines of his face were so softened that all his likeness to his sister stood out so markedly as to make the heart of her lover ache with a fresh pang — a new sense, not of loss, but of what he had lost. Neil was surprised at the manner of his look, and his mind working back gave him the clue. All at once he broke out:
‘O Willy mon, we’ll never see her again! Never! never! till the sea gies up its dead; what can we dae, mon? what can we dae? what can we dae?’
Again there was a new wrench to Sailor Willy’s heart. Here were almost Maggie’s very words of the night before, spoken in the same despairing tone, in the same spot, and by one who was not only her well-beloved brother, but who was, as he stood in this abandonment of his grief, almost her living image. However, he did not know what to say, and he could do nothing but only bear in stolid patient misery the woes that came upon him. He did all that could be done — nothing — but stood in silent sympathy and waited for the storm in the remorseful young man’s soul to pass. After a few minutes Neil recovered somewhat, and, pulling himself together, said to Willy with what bravery he could:
‘A’ll gang look after father. A’ve left him ower lang as’t is!’ The purpose of Maggie’s death was beginning to bear fruit already.
He went across the field straight towards where his father’s cottage stood under the brow of the slope towards the Water of Cruden. Sailor Willy watched him go with sadness, for anything that had been close to Maggie was dear to him, and Neil’s presence had been in some degree an alleviation of his pain.
During the hours that followed he had one gleam of pleasure — something that moved him strangely in the midst of his pain. Early in the morning the news of Maggie’s loss had been taken to the Castle, and all its household had turned out to aid vigorously in the search. In his talk with the lieutenant and his men, and from the frequent conversation of the villagers, the Earl had gathered pretty well the whole truth of what had occurred. Maggie had been a favourite with the ladies of the Castle, and it was as much on her account as his own that the Mastership of the Harbour had been settled prospectively on MacWhirter. That this arrangement was to be upset since the man had turned smuggler was taken for granted by all, and already rumour and surmise were busy in selecting a successor to the promise. The Earl listened but said nothing. Later on in the day, however, he strolled up the cliff where Willy paced on guard, and spoke with him. He had a sincere regard and liking for the fine young fellow, and when he saw his silent misery his heart went out to him. He tried to comfort him with hopes, but, finding that there was no response in Willy’s mind, confined himself to praise of Maggie. Willy listened eagerly as he spoke of her devotion, her bravery, her noble spirit, that took her out on such a mission; and the words fell like drops of balm on the seared heart of her lover. But the bitterness of his loss was too much that he should be altogether patient, and he said presently:
‘And all in vain! All in vain! she lost, and her father ruined, his character gone as well as all his means of livelihood — and all in vain! God might be juster than to let such a death as hers be in vain!’
‘No, not in vain!’ he answered solemnly, ‘such a deed as hers is never wrought in vain. God sees and hears, and His hand is strong and sure. Many a man in Buchan for many a year to come will lead an honester life for what she has done; and many a woman will try to learn her lesson in patience and self-devotion. God does not in vain put such thoughts into the minds of His people, or into their hearts the noble bravery to carry them out.’
Sailor Willy groaned. ‘Don’t think me ungrateful, my lord,’ he said, ‘for your kind words — but I’m half wild with trouble, and my heart is sore. Maybe it is as you say — and yet — and yet the poor lass went out to save her father and here he is, ruined in means, in charact
er, in prospects — for who will employ him now just when he most wants it. Everything is gone — and she gone too that could have helped and comforted him!’
As he spoke there shot through the mind of his comforter a thought followed by a purpose not unworthy of that ancestor, whose heroism and self-devotion won an earldom with an ox-yoke as its crest, and the circuit of a hawk’s flight as its dower. There was a new tone in the Earl’s voice as he spoke:
‘You mean about the harbour-mastership! Don’t let that distress you, my poor lad. MacWhirter has lapsed a bit, but he has always borne an excellent character, and from all I hear he was sorely tempted. And, after all, he hasn’t done — at least completed — any offence. Ah!’ and here he spoke solemnly, ‘poor Maggie’s warning did come in time. Her work was not in vain, though God help us all! she and those that loved her paid a heavy price for it. But even if MacWhirter had committed the offence, and it lay in my power, I should try to prove that her noble devotion was not without its purpose — or its reward. It is true that I might not altogether trust MacWhirter until, at least, such time as by good service he had re-established his character. But I would and shall trust the father of Maggie MacWhirter, that gave her life for him; and well I know that there isn’t an honest man or woman in Buchan that won’t say the same. He shall be the harbour-master if he will. We shall find in time that he has reared again the love and respect of all men. That will be Maggie’s monument; and a noble one too in the eyes of God and of men!’
He grasped Willy’s hand in his own strong one, and the hearts of both men, the gentle and the simple, went out each to the other, and became bound together as men’s hearts do when touched with flame of any kind.
When he was alone Willy felt somehow more easy in his mind. The bitterest spirit of all his woe — the futility of Maggie’s sacrifice — was gone, exorcised by the hopeful words and kind act of the Earl, and the resilience of his manhood began to act.
And now there came another distraction to his thoughts — an ominous weather change. It had grown colder as the day went on, but now the heat began to be oppressive, and there was a deadly stillness in the air; it was manifest that another storm was at hand. The sacrifice of the night had not fully appeased the storm-gods. Somewhere up in that Northern Unknown, where the Fates weave their web of destiny, a tempest was brewing which would soon boil over. Darker and darker grew the sky, and more still and silent and oppressive grew the air, till the cry of a sea-bird or the beating of the waves upon the rocks came as distinct and separate things, as though having no counterpart in the active world. Towards sunset the very electricity of the air made all animate nature so nervous that men and women could not sit quiet, but moved restlessly. Susceptible women longed to scream out and vent their feelings, as did the cattle in the meadows with their clamorous lowing, or the birds wheeling restlessly aloft with articulate cries. Willy Barrow stuck steadfastly to his post. He had some feeling — some presentiment, that there would soon be a happening — what, he knew not; but, as all his thoughts were of Maggie, it must surely be of her. It might have been that the thunderous disturbance wrought on a system overtaxed almost beyond human endurance, for it was two whole nights since he had slept. Or it may have been that the recoil from despair was acting on his strong nature in the way that drives men at times to desperate deeds, when they rush into the thick of battle, and, fighting, die. Or it may simply have been that the seaman in him spoke through all the ways and offices of instinct and habit, and that with the foreknowledge of coming stress woke the power that was to combat with it. For great natures of the fighting kind move with their surroundings, and the spirit of the sailor grew with the storm pressure whose might he should have to brave.
Down came the storm in one wild, frenzied burst. All at once the waters seemed to rise, throwing great sheets of foam from the summit of the lifting waves. The wind whistled high and low, and screamed as it swept through the rigging of the flagstaff. Flashes of lightning and rolling thunderclaps seemed to come together, so swift their succession. The rain fell in torrents, so that within a few moments the whole earth seemed one filmy sheet, shining in the lightning flashes that rent the black clouds, and burn and nil and runlet roared with rushing water. All through the hamlet men and women, even the hardiest, fled to shelter — all save the one who paced the rocks above the Watter’s Mou’, peering as he had done for many an hour down into the depths below him in the pauses of his seaward glance. Something seemed to tell him that Maggie was coming closer to him. He could feel her presence in the air and the sea; and the memory of that long, passionate kiss, which had made her his, came back, not as a vivid recollection, but as something of the living present. To and fro he paced between the flagstaff and the edge of the rocks; but each turn he kept further and further from the flagstaff, as though some fatal fascination was holding him to the Watter’s Mou’. He saw the great waves come into the cove tumbling and roaring, dipping deep under the lee of the Ship’s Starn in wide patches of black, which in the dark silence of their onward sweep stood out in strong contrast to the white turmoil of the churning waters under his feet. Every now and again a wave greater than all its fellows — what fishermen call the ‘sailor’s waves — would ride in with all the majesty of resistless power, shutting out for a moment the jagged whiteness of the submerged rocks, and sweeping up the cove as though the bringer of some royal message from the sea.
As one of these great waves rushed in, Willy’s heart beat loudly, and for a second he looked around as though for some voice, from whence he knew not, which was calling to him. Then he looked down and saw, far below him, tossed high upon the summit of the wave, a mass that in the gloom of the evening and the storm looked like a tangle of wreckage — spar and sail and rope — twirling in the rushing water round a dead woman, whose white face was set in an aureole of floating hair. Without a word, but with the bound of a panther, Willy Barrow sprang out on the projecting point of rock, and plunged down into the rushing wave whence he could meet that precious wreckage and grasp it tight.
Down in the village the men were talking in groups as the chance of the storm had driven them to shelter. In the rocket-house opposite the Salmon Fisher’s store had gathered a big cluster, and they were talking eagerly of all that had gone by. Presently one of them said:
‘Men, oughtn’t some o’ us to gang abeen the rocks and bide a wee wi’ Sailor Willy? The puir lad is nigh daft wi’ his loss, an ‘a wee bit companionship wouldna be bad for him.’ To which a sturdy youth answered as he stepped out:
‘A’ll go bide wi’ him. It must be main lonely for him in the guard-house the nicht. An’ when he’s relieved, as A hear he is to be, by Michael Watson ower frae Whinnyfold, A’ll gang wi’ him or tak him hame wi’ me. Mither’ll be recht glad to thole for him!’ and drawing his oilskin closer round his neck he went out in the storm. As he walked up the path to the cliff the storm seemed to fade away — the clouds broke, and through the wet mist came gleams of fading twilight; and when he looked eastwards from the cliff the angry sea was all that was of storm, for in the sky was every promise of fine weather to come. He went straight to the guard-house and tried to open the door, but it was locked; then he went to the side and looked in. There was just sufficient light to see that the place was empty. So he went along the cliff looking for Willy. It was now light enough to see all round, for the blackness of the sky overhead had passed, the heavy clouds being swept away by the driving wind; but nowhere could he see any trace of the man he sought. He went all along the cliff up the Watter’s Mou’, till, following the downward trend of the rock, and plashing a way through the marsh — now like a quagmire, so saturated was it with the heavy rainfall — he came to the shallows opposite the Barley Mill. Here he met a man from The Bullers, who had come along by the Castle, and him he asked if he had seen Willy Barrow on his way. The decidedly negative answer ‘A’ve seen nane. It’s nae a night for ony to be oot that can bide wi’in!’ made him think that all might not be well with Sailor
Willy, and so he went back again on his search, peering into every hole and cranny as he went. At the flagstaff he met some of his companions, who, since the storm had passed, had come to look for weather signs and to see what the sudden tempest might have brought about. When they heard that there was no sign of the coastguard they separated, searching for him, and shouting lest he might have fallen anywhere and could hear their voices.
All that night they searched, for each minute made it more apparent that all was not well with him; but they found no sign. The waves still beat into the Watter’s Mou’ with violence, for though the storm had passed the sea was a wide-stretching mass of angry waters, and curling white crowned every wave. But with the outgoing tide the rocky bed of the cove broke up the waves, and they roared sullenly as they washed up the estuary.
In the grey of the morning a fisher-boy rushed up to a knot of men who were clustered round the guard-house and called to them:
‘There’s somethin’ wollopin’ aboot i’ the shallows be the Barley Mill! Come an’ get it oot! It looks like some ane!’ So there was a rush made to the place. When they got to the islands of sea-grass the ebbing tide had done its work, and stranded the ‘something’ which had rolled amid the shallows.
There, on the very spot whence the boat had set sail on its warning errand, lay its wreckage, and tangled in it the body of the noble girl who had steered it — her brown hair floating wide and twined round the neck of Sailor Willy, who held her tight in his dead arms.
