by A. J. Cronin
Chapter Twelve
The wind, which blew fiercely in the west, blew still more furiously in the east. On the Sunday afternoon, when havoc ranged in Levenford and amongst the surrounding townships, still greater devastation roamed amongst the counties of the Eastern sea-board.
In Edinburgh, as Denis buffeted his way along Princes Street, the wind, tearing along the grey, weather-beaten thoroughfare, ballooned his coat about his ears and lifted him off his feet. He loved that wind; it made him feel strong to fight a passage against it. Hat in hand, his hair disordered, his lips parted, he cleaved his way along. The wind sang against his teeth like the song of a gigantic humming-top, and he sang too, or uttered spontaneous, inarticulate sounds, expressive of the virile exuberance that seethed within him. Of the few people in the street, most turned involuntarily to look at him, and muttered enviously, from blue, shivering lips: ‘My certies, he’s a hardy chiel, that one!’
It was quarter to four. Denis had made an early tea at McKinleys’ ‘Family and Commercial Temperance Hotel.’ They did things well there, no show, indeed, but a lavish abundance of good food, and he had eaten his way through a large trencher of sausages and white-pudding, cleared a plateful of oatcakes, and emptied the tea-pot in Ma McKinley’s own, private parlour. Old Mother McKinley would do anything for Denis – just the way he had with her, and with most people – and he always went there when in Edinburgh. She had, in parting, given him a thick packet of sandwiches to sustain his body until his late arrival in Dundee, and a large, smacking embrace to support his spirit until she saw him again. It was good to have friends like that, he thought warmly, as he felt the comforting wad of sandwiches buttoned against his side, whilst he strode out on his way to Granton, to take the ferryboat across, the Firth of Forth for Burntisland. His only grievance against the weather was his fear that it might prevent them running the ferry, but if there was no boat, he was, he told himself facetiously, feeling vigorous enough to swim across the firth.
Although it blew so hard, there was as yet no rain and, as it was only three miles to Granton, he disdained the usual conveyance to the ferry and decided to walk. It was fine to be alive! This wind intoxicated him; the feel of it upon his cheek made him want to live for ever. As he drove his feet hard upon the pavement he knew he would cover the distance easily under the hour at his disposal.
His reflections, as he strode along, were pleasant. Business was opening out beyond his expectations and to-morrow, in Dundee, he hoped to consolidate his position with Blain & Co. Young Mr Blain was the force in the firm; he liked him immensely, and he felt that if he could convince him, persuade him to deal with Findlay’s, the day would be won. He began to think out a smart, little speech to open his conversation on the morrow. He declaimed the address magnificently to the wind and to the empty streets as he walked along, enjoying himself immensely, emphasising his points by telling gesticulations, so that by the time Granton was reached he had riddled young Mr Blain with epigrams, bombarded him with technicalities, and reduced him to impotence by solid argument. Now, to his relief, he observed that the ferry bumped at her small pier with every indication of departure, and hastening his steps, he went on board the vessel. From the low deck of the boat the firth looked darker and more threatening than from the jetty, with white spume slapping over the crests of the slate-grey waves. The small boat rocked heavily, and the rope hawsers attached from the vessel to the squat bollards on the quay creaked and thumped, as the combined strain of wind and tide pulled upon them. Denis, however, was an excellent sailor and, unperturbed, he joined three other passengers who were gathered in the bow of the boat, looking gloomily across the firth, a disconsolate sense of danger binding them closer together.
‘I don’t like the look o’ it,’ said one.
‘Ay, it’s gey and threatenin’ like,’ said another.
‘I’m beginning to wish I had taken the wife’s advice and stayed at home,’ said the third, with a feeble attempt at jocularity.
Denis rallied them.
‘Do you think the captain would put out the boat if he wasn’t sure of getting over?’ he cried, heartily. ‘ It’s only five miles across – a mere nothing. Why, in twenty years we’ll be jumping across a ditch like this, or walking over on stilts.’
They looked at him doubtfully, but he laughed, joked, bantered them until they surrendered, and, in the space of five minutes, he had them enrolled under his banner. They accepted him as a leader, their fearful anticipation vanished; indeed, one of the group produced a small, flat bottle.
‘Will we have a wee drappie before we start?’ he asked, with a wink. It was the height of conviviality! The host partook first, then the two others sipped with the moderation of guests, but Denis refused.
‘I’m so full of sausage, I’m afraid to chance it,’ he replied, with a gesture of broad pantomime towards the unruly water, indicating that his sole desire in life was to retain the excellent meal he had just paid for. They laughed delightedly; the fact that this reckless, intrepid youth might be as ridiculously ill as he suggested, filled them with a returning sense of their own worth. And Denis encouraged them, adapting himself to the level of their society with verve, and telling stories with such spirit that they did not fully observe the departure, or the tossing in the firth. One grew greenish, and another swallowed queasily, but they would have died rather than disgrace themselves in the eyes of this young Hector now relating to them, in the climax of his fifth story, the brilliant repartee which the Irishman had made to the Englishman and the Scotsman, under circumstances of a particularly ludicrous and embarrassing character.
The few other passengers were less assured, and remained huddled together as the boat pitched about like a cockleshell in the stormy water. They clung to the stanchions, lay upon the deck, or were openly sick, whilst the spray-laden wind howled through the rigging, and the fierce, snapping waves burst over the low bulwarks, covering the deck with a sheet of water which flooded from side to side with each roll of the ship.
But at length they drew near Burntisland, passed out of the stormy water and, after considerable manoeuvring, made fast. The skipper of the little vessel came off the bridge, dripping in his oilskins.
‘I’m not sorry to be in,’ Denis heard him say. ‘I didna like it. It’s the worst crossing we’ve ever made.’
The passengers disembarked hastily, although some had suffered so acutely that they were obliged to be carried off the ship on to the jetty, and here the small band of heroes bade Denis farewell.
‘You’re not going any further, then?’ said Denis.
‘Na! Na!’ said the spokesman, looking up at the clouds, ‘we’re all Burntisland lads, praise be, and it’ll be a long time before we have another jaunt o’ this nature to Edinburgh. Hame looks guid enough to me after that blatter o’ sea.’
They shook hands with him solemnly, feeling that they would never forget him. ‘Man, he was a cure, yon fellow that cam’ ower the Forth i’ the storm,’ they would repeat to each other long afterwards. ‘He didna give a hang about anything.’
When they had left him, Denis made his way to the station. The train for Dundee, being run in conjunction with the Granton ferry, and due to depart at 5.27 p.m., was already waiting, and as it was now twenty minutes past five, he walked along the platform looking through the windows to secure an empty third-class compartment A larger number of people than might have been expected from the nature of the weather, were travelling, and he traversed the length of the train up to the engine without seeing a vacant carriage. At the engine, the guard stood talking to the driver and Denis, recognising in the former an acquaintance that he had made – with his usual facility – upon a previous journey, went up and accosted him.
‘And how’s Davie McBeath?’ he cried. The guard turned his head, and, after a moment’s hesitating scrutiny, his eye cleared.
‘It’s yourself, then, Mr Foyle,’ he replied cordially. ‘I couldna place ye for a minute.’
‘Sure there
’s not another like me out of Donegal,’ grinned Denis.
‘Do you get weather like this over there?’ asked McBeath. ‘Mitchell,’ he indicated the driver, ‘and me are just discussing the gale; we’re no’ so sure of the wind. It’s in a bad quarter.’
‘Will it push the old, puffing billy backwards?’ laughed Denis. Mitchell shook his head doubtfully.
‘It’s no’ just exactly that,’ he exclaimed, and his look spoke more than his words; then, turning to his mate in the cab he asked:
‘How is the gauge, John?’
The black face of the stoker looked up, his teeth showing whitely as he smiled.
‘You’ve enough steam to take ye to Aberdeen!’ he said. ‘Ay, and further than that if ye like.’
‘Dundee’ll be good enough for me, and for you, too, Johnnie Marshall,’ replied the other, dryly.
‘Will she stand it, think ye?’ enquired McBeath seriously, for the moment ignoring Denis.
‘I canna say,’ replied Mitchell cryptically, ‘ but we’re shair tae find out, ay, and soon enough.’
‘What’s all the mystery?’ asked Denis, looking from one to the other.
The grinning face of the stoker looked up from the open door of the furnace, whilst the reflection of the flames played across his dusky, shining face.
‘They’re a’ feared o’ a wee bittie o’ a brig,’ he guffawed, as he shovelled; ‘they dinna ken what steel and cement mean yet’.
‘Get awa’ wi’ ye, man,’ growled Mitchell angrily. ‘Ye’ve twa mile o’ it and that wind is blowin’ richt at it – ay, and hammerin’ like the picks o’ ten thousand devils.’ At his words a hush seemed to fall on the group, then with a start McBeath looked at his watch. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘whatever we think, the schedule says go, and go we must. Come away, Mr Foyle.’
‘What exactly is the trouble?’ asked Denis, as he walked up the platform with the guard. Davie McBeath glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, but he did not reply; instead, he changed the subject significantly, saying:
‘That’s a grand new ulster you’ve got.’
‘You like it.’
‘Ah! I do that! It’s a real cosy thing for a night like this, and real smart too.’
‘Is it smart enough for a wedding, Davie?’ asked Denis, nudging the other confidentially.
‘It is that!’ replied the guard unthinkingly; then he looked up, interestedly.
‘What! what! ye’re not thinkin’ o’ –’ Denis nodded his head.
‘I’m not thinking, man. I’m certain. Tuesday’s the day, and like enough I’ll wear this coat. Sure, it’s part of my trousseau!’
McBeath gazed at the other quizzically, then his dry features relaxed, and they both laughed heartily.
‘Weel! weel! you don’t say!’ cried Davie. ‘Man! you’re a caution! Ye’re moving ahead fast I’m sure I wish ye the best o’ everything – to you and the wee lass, whoever she may be. She’ll be braw, if I ken ye richtly. Come along, now. We canna put a bridegroom in with all these people in the thirds.’ He looked along his nose at Denis as he opened an empty first-class compartment ‘It wouldn’t be safe.’
‘Thanks, Davie,’ said Foyle, appreciatively. ‘You’re a good sort. I’ll send you a bit of the cake to sleep on.’ Then he added, more seriously: ‘See you later, at Dundee.’ The guard gave him a smile and a nod as he walked off, and a moment later the whistle blew, the flag waved, and the train moved out of the station.
Alone in his magnificence, Denis looked about him with satisfaction, and, reclining back upon the cushions, he raised his feet upon the opposite seat and fixed his eyes meditatively upon the ceiling. But slowly his gaze grew distant, and, piercing the low roof, reached far away. He was thinking of Mary.
He would, he reflected soberly, be married on Tuesday, not exactly in the manner he had hoped, nor in the fashion he had sometimes planned, but married none the less. The manner of the marriage did not matter, the fact remained that he would be no longer a bachelor, and already he began to feel older and more responsible. A comforting glow pervaded him as he considered the nobility of his action in accepting, so willingly, this responsibility. He repulsed the thought that he had ever wished to repudiate the consequences of his love. ‘No,’ he cried aloud, ‘I’m not the sort of skunk to let down a girl like Mary.’ He became aware vividly of her trust, her loveliness, her faith in him, thought of her at first tenderly, then with a faint anxiety; thinking of the storm, he hoped, for her sake, that it had not touched Levenford. Here, despite the happy tenor of his mind, he began to feel unaccountably depressed; the subdued happiness, which had succeeded his exuberance at the commencement of his journey, now turned slowly to an unaccountable melancholy. He tried to shake this off, fixing his mind on the roseate future that awaited Mary and himself in their cottage at Garshake, envisaging the wonderful career he would carve for himself, thinking of the holidays, the trips abroad they would later enjoy – but he could not dispel the shadow that had clouded his bright optimism. He began to be afraid for her, and to ask himself if he had been wise to postpone taking her from her home until so late.
It began now to rain, and the windows of his compartment became blurred with a dismal covering of wet and slush. The pounding wind flung great gobs of sleet against the sides of the train with a sound like the slash of a wet cloth, whilst the rain hissed upon the roof of the carriage like fierce streams from the nozzle of a gigantic hose. His depression deepened, and his mind filled with a more mournful misgiving, as, with a sad regret, he visioned the sweet, mysterious beauty of her body and thought how he had deflowered that beauty. At his violating touch a child had become a woman, who must have suffered bitterly by his act; her slender virginity had become bloated through him, and, in the effort of concealment alone, she must have endured misery; the intimate symmetry of her form appeared to him as something which he had destroyed, which she would never again regain. A sigh broke from him as, slowly, the train drew to a standstill at a wayside station. The train, which was not express, had already made several halts at intermediate stations without his having particularly observed them, but here, to his annoyance, the door of his compartment opened and an old countryman entered. He seated himself blandly in the opposite corner, steaming from the rain, whilst puddles of water ran off him on to the cushions and floor; emanating from him, and mingling with the steam, came the spirituous odour of a liquid more potent than rain-water. Denis stared at him, then remarked coldly: ‘This is a first-class compartment.’
The old fellow took a large red and white spotted handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose like a trumpet.
‘Deed it is,’ he said solemnly, affecting to look round the carriage. ‘I’m glad you told me. It’s a rale pleasure for me to travel in style; but the first-class that ye speak o’ doesna make muckle difference to me, for I havena got a ticket at all’; and he laughed uproariously, in a tipsy fashion.
Denis was so far below his normal humour that he failed to appreciate the situation. In the ordinary way he would have amused himself intensely with this unexpected travelling-companion, but now he could only gaze at him glumly.
‘Are you going far?’ he finally asked.
‘To Dundee – bonnie Dundee. The town ye ken – not the man. Na! Na! I’m not thinkin’ o’ the bonnets o’ bonnie Dundee – I mean the bonnie town o’ Dundee,’ the other replied, and having thus explained himself with a grave and scrupulous exactitude, he added, meaningly: ‘ I hadna time to get my ticket, though.’
Denis sat up. He would, he realised, have to endure this for the rest of the journey, and he resigned himself to it
‘What’s the weather like now?’ he asked. ‘You look wet!’
‘Wet! I’m wet outside and inside. But the one counteracts the other ye ken, and to a hardy shepherd like me wet clothes just means lettin’ them dry on ye. But mind ye, it is a most awful, soughin’ night all the same, I’m glad I’m not out on the hills.’
He nodded his head several
times, took a small, foul stump of clay pipe from his pocket, lit it, covered it with its metal caps, and, inverting it from the corner of his mouth, sucked noisily; when he had filled the carriage with smoke, he spat copiously upon the floor without removing the pipe from his mouth.
Denis looked at the other with compassionate disgust, and as he tried to picture this gross, bibulous old yokel as a young man, then wondered moodily if he himself might ever degenerate to such a crapulous old age, his melancholy grew more profound. Unconscious of the effect he had produced, the old shepherd continued: ‘Ah! It’s good-bye to the hills for me. That sounds kind o’ well, think ye no’? Ay! Good-bye to the hills. Man!’ – he laughed, slapping his thigh – ‘It’s like the name o’ a sang. Good-bye to the Hills. Weel, onyway, I’m going back to my native town, and you’ll never guess what for.’ He tittered vehemently, choking himself with smoke.
‘You’ve come into some money, perhaps?’ hazarded Denis.
‘Deed, no! The bit of money I’ve got is what I’ve saved by hard and honest work. Try again.’ As Denis remained silent he went on, garrulously.
‘Ay, you’d never think it, but the plain truth is that I’m going –’ He paused to wink prodigiously, then blurted out, ‘I’m goin’ to Dundee to get married.’ Observing with manifest enjoyment the effect he had produced, he meandered on –
‘I’m a hardy blade, although I’m not so souple as I was, and there’s a fine, sonsie woman waiting for me. She was a great friend of my first wife. Ay! I’m to wed early the morn’s mornin’. That’s the way I’m taking this train and breakin’ the Sabbath. I maun be in time, ye ken.’
As the other wandered on, Denis gazed at him with a curious repulsion, due, in the main, to the strange coincidence of his own circumstances. Here, then, was another bridegroom, linked to him in this narrow compartment by a bond of corresponding position. Did this disreputable veteran mirror the image of his contumely, or reflect to him a dolorous premonition of his future?
