by Neil M. Gunn
They all gazed around, but what they saw was the land, and with a little cry of surprise Torquil pointed to the ridge of a hill going far inland, over the valley of Kildonan. They knew it like the back of a hand, and their minds filled with pictures, with memories of boyhood and familiar scenes This was the time of year when they would be away from home at the summer shielings with the cattle, the happiest time in all the year, living in turf bothies, with the young girls there and many of the old. “Hand me up that line, Ian,” said Tormad, who had the limpets at his feet.
From the basket he took four limpets and gouged out their flesh with his thumb. The tackle consisted of a short cross-spar of slim hazel with the line tied to the middle of it and a hook on a short horse-hair snood dangling from each end. To the end of the line, which hung a foot or more below the middle of the spar, was tied a heavy sinker. Upon each hook Tormad fixed two limpets, the hard, leathery surfaces to the inside. “That’s the way it’s done,” he explained, and dropped hooks and sinker overboard. They had half a dozen herring with them which might have been better bait, but the Golspie man had been used to mussels and limpets, and Tormad had taken a fancy to the limpets.
As yard after yard of line was unwound from the fork-shaped hazel stick, they had a new way of realizing the sea’s depth. “It’s got no bottom to it, I do believe,” said Tormad humorously. Still the line went out; and out. “It’s not feeling so heavy, I think,” said Tormad, as if listening through his fingers. Clearly he was in doubt. He looked at the amount still wound on the stick, and let out more, and then more. Down went the line, coil after coil, and they were beginning to believe that maybe the sea had, in fact, no bottom, when suddenly the pull ceased and the line went slack. “I’ve got it!” cried Tormad, heaving a breath. They were all relieved, and Tormad went on cheerfully to demonstrate how one must lift the sinker a yard or more off the bottom and then work the line up and down, waiting all the time for the feel of the bite.
They watched him until his mouth fell open. “I think I’ve got something.” He gulped, then pulled—but the line refused to come. It came a little way and then pulled back. “It feels like a whale,” he said, his eyes round, his head cocked. “O God, it’s something heavy indeed!” Excitement got hold of them all strongly. What if it was a whale?
The forked stick was very nearly jerked out of Tormad’s hands. He had to let out more line quickly. Then a little more. Leviathan was moving away from under them!
Their hearts went across them. The boat rose on the heave of the sea. Now that they were clear of the land, a gentle wind darkened the surface of the waters. A small ripple suddenly slapped the clinched planking like a hand slapping a face. The sound startled them. Ronnie looked at the sea. “We’re drifting,” he said. “The oars, boys—quick!” cried Tormad. “Quick, or all the line will be out!” Ronnie and Ian each shoved an oar out, and Ronnie pulled the bow round so smartly towards the wind that Tormad, on his feet, lurched and fell sideways, clutching at the line, which all at once went slack in his hands. On his knees he began hauling in rapidly. The line came to a clean end. Sinker and hooks and cross-spar were gone.
Tormad stared at the frayed end against his palm. No one spoke. Tormad stared at the sea. It came under the boat in a slow heave and passed on.
“When one place is no good, you try another,” he said quietly. “Let us go farther out.”
Ian and Ronnie swung the oars. Torquil was looking a bit grey. He had been underfed for a long time, but the blue of his eyes held an intolerant green.
“I wonder were you stuck in the bottom?” Ronnie asked.
“Himself knows,” said Tormad.
When they stopped, they did not know quite what to do, for they were frightened now to use the second line. There was no sign of gulls about to signify herring. Nothing but this heaving immensity, treacherous and deep as death. That time he had fallen, Tormad remembered the joke against him in Helmsdale: “Between her two skins of tar, she’s rotten.” The old Golspie man was supposed to have fooled them—to his humorous credit, because a boat is there to be examined before it is bought. But Tormad had been shy of asking a Helmsdale man to go with him, not merely because of the long distance in the short busy season but also because he could hardly appear as a real fisherman with only the one old net. So the idea he had put about was that they were going to try for white-fish with the hand-line—to begin with, anyway. Accordingly and naturally they had come to sea before the other boats, which would not put out from the harbour for two or three hours yet, as nets were never shot until the evening. There was also the instinctive desire to keep to themselves until they knew enough not to be laughed at, for the folk from the glens were sensitive and had their own hidden pride.
And now the first hand-line was gone.
“We’re drifting,” said Tormad, who had been staring at the land. Then he noticed Torquil on his knees in the bow, his back to them, his head down.
“What’s wrong with you, Torquil?”
“Nothing!” snapped Torquil.
Ronnie looked over his shoulder, “Feeling sick?” he asked gently.
Torquil’s body gave a convulsive spasm. He retched, but there was nothing in his stomach. “What’s this?” asked Ian, who was next to him, putting his hand on his shoulder.
“Shut up!” said Torquil. He had tied a single hook to the end of the broken line, and a foot or so above the hook had knotted the line about one of the slim stones that were to be used for sinking the net. “Give me the bait!”
His fingers shook as he handled the hook, and the smell and look of the pulpy yellow bait made him retch again. But he baited the hook as Tormad had done and dropped it over the side.
They watched him, fascinated, until Ronnie noticed the increasing slant on the line and put out his oar. Already experience was teaching them that they must “hold up” a boat against the wind-drift. Ian and Ronnie pulled gently as if to make no noise, for they now had a premonition that something strange was going to happen.
As Torquil worked the line up and down they waited. It was the odd thing always that did happen! Then Torquil’s grey face quickened and his eyes flashed. Swiftly he began hauling in the line. In his haste, his hands and arms got meshed in the coils. The rowers forgot their oars. Tormad’s lips came apart.
When Torquil stopped hauling, as if something had hit him, they craned over the edge of the boat and saw a great grey back that frightened them. “Stand away!” screamed Torquil, and catching the line low down he heaved. The hook and line parted company as a huge cod fell thrashing on the bottom boards. Tormad lunged at it as if it were a dangerous beast and tried to throttle it. Finally, he lifted it in his arms and bashed its head against the edge of Ronnie’s seat. From the stretched-out, dead, but still quivering fish, they lifted their eyes and looked at one another.
“Torquil, my hero,” said Tormad softly. He began laughing huskily. They all began to laugh. They swayed and hit one another great friendly thumps.
“We’ll do it yet, boys!” said Ronnie.
They would do it. They would do it, by the sign beneath them. The great slippery belly of the sign made them rock with laughter.
But Torquil had now discovered his hook was gone. When they found it inside the cod’s mouth they could hardly retrieve it for the weakness that mirth had put in their fingers.
But now Tormad was busy with the second line. When, after a shout and much fierce hauling, he produced a single little whiting, he could do no more than nod at the dangling fish with helpless good humour.
They got going in earnest. Whether they caught anything in the net or not, here was enough success already to justify a first venture. And presently when a good-sized haddock appeared, and shortly after that a flat fish with beautiful red spots, and then—of all things—a crab, the excitement in that fourteen-foot boat rose very high. But Ronnie failed to land the crab. Just as he was swinging it into the boat, it let go its hold of the bait, fell on the flat of its back on the narrow
gunnel, balanced for an instant and tumbled back into the sea. Tormad dived to the shoulder after it, badly rocking the boat, but fortunately for him did no more than touch one of the great claws as it sank beyond reach. Then he caught his oar just as it was slipping from between the pins. What next? They were all laughing and Torquil’s sickness seemed completely cured. Their eyes were bright and very quick. They cautioned one another not to take liberties with the boat, but whenever two hands began hauling rapidly, four heads tried to see what was coming up. Each passed a line on after a short spell of fishing. Tormad had a dramatic moment when he struck what he felt was a heavy fish. He swore by Donan’s Seat that it was a monster, the biggest yet. His hooks came up as they had gone down, the baits whole. “I don’t care what you say,” declared Tormad, “that fish was three bushels if he was an ounce.” “Do you think perhaps it may have been the bottom?” asked Ian. “No, nor your own bottom,” said Tormad shortly. “Bottom indeed! Didn’t I feel the jag-jag of his mouth to each side? Man, do you think I don’t know the difference between the bottom and a fish’s mouth?” “No, it’s not the bottom,” said Ronnie. “How do you know?” asked Ian. “Because,” said Ronnie, “the bottom here is hard and clean. I let my sinker lie for a little while on it. That’s how I got the crab. Pull just a little more strongly—just a very little. We don’t want to drift off this spot.”
By the time they saw the boats coming out from the harbour mouth they didn’t mind who would inspect their catch. It was a fine evening, with the wind, from the land, inclined to fall. They watched the small fleet with an increase of excitement and a certain self-consciousness, expecting them to pass close by and in a friendly way call a few sarcastic greetings. “We’ll just answer, off-hand, ‘Oh, about a cran or two.’ Like that,” said Tormad. “Leave it to me.”
But the herring boats did not come near them. They watched the oars rising and falling like the legs of great beetles as the small fleet headed south. They were all open boats, one or two of the largest some twenty feet in length. The use of sail on this northern coast was as yet little understood and on this fair evening not one was to be seen.
Tormad began wondering if he had come to the wrong place. They discussed this. “We’re doing fine here,” said Ronnie. “And it’s as well we should have the first night by ourselves.” They all agreed with this in their hearts, but Tormad said he wasn’t so sure. He didn’t see why they shouldn’t go where anyone else went. Success had given a fillip to his adventurous mood. Tormad could be put up or down, and when he was up he could be very high. But in the end he smiled. “Ach well, it’s fine here, boys, by ourselves and we’re doing grand.” Often enough the herring boats caught little or nothing. Perhaps they themselves in this spot might be lucky. It would be a joke if theirs would be the only boat to go into Helmsdale with herring in the morning! They laughed. They had made up their minds to distribute all the white fish they caught among their own folk as a first offering to good luck, and now Ian began to mimic old Morag’s astonishment when he went up and presented her with the cod. He did it very well, hanging to high-pitched vowels and flapping his hands. Life was good, too!
“They’re shooting their nets now,” said Tormad. Some two miles to the south the boats were scattered over the sea. Blue shadows came down the hills. Tormad blew up his big buoy until his eyes disappeared. He had got it from the man in Golspie, and though its skin crackled with age it seemed tight enough. He could hardly blow up the second one for laughing, because it was the bag of an old set of pipes to which they had danced many a time as boys. It had a legendary history, for the old piper, its owner, had been a wild enough lad in his day. When he was driven from his home, he cursed the landlord-woman (who had inherited all that land), her sassenach husband, her factors, in tongues of fire. Then he had broken his pipes, tearing them apart. It had been an impressive, a terrifying scene, and shortly after it he had died.
Well, here was the bag, and perhaps it marked not an end but a beginning! They had had a little superstitious fear about using it. But they couldn’t afford to buy another buoy, and, anyway, they argued, if it brought them luck it would be a revenge over the powers that be. The dead piper wouldn’t be disappointed at that!
The net was made of hemp and, being old, was coarse and stiff, but quite strong. The large buoy, tied to the outer end by a fathom of rope, was first slung overboard; then as Ronnie and Torquil let out the net, with its back-rope and corks, Tormad slipped a flat stone into each noose as it came along on the foot-rope, Ian meantime keeping the boat going ahead for the wind had all but dropped. It took them a long time, for Tormad would insist on hauling at the part of the net already in the sea to make sure that it was going down as straight as a fence. He got wet from hand to neck doing this, without being aware of it. At last he dropped the piper’s bag upon the sea with his blessing, adding, “Now play you the tune of your life, my hero, and let himself smile on us from the green glens of Paradise.” Ian rowed away the three fathoms of rope—all they had—by which they would swing to the net as to an anchor. Tormad made fast. The oars were shipped. And now it was food.
Everything was going better than they had expected. They could easily make hand-line tackle—so long as they had the line. They talked away, full of hope, as they munched their dark-brown bere scones and drank their milk. When they had finished eating, they started at the lines again, and there was a short spell in the half-light when they caught large-sized haddock as quickly as they could haul them in. Then everything went very quiet and the darkness came down—or as much darkness as they would have on that northern summer night. They were tired now, for they hadn’t had much sleep the last two nights, what with going to Golspie and bringing the boat back along the shore and the excitement of the whole strange venture. They would stretch themselves out between the timbers as best they could. This they did, and above them they saw the stars, and under them they felt the sea rise and fall.
“Does it never go quiet at all?” asked Ian.
“Never,” said Tormad.
“A strange thing, that,” said Ronnie. “Never.”
Their voices grew quiet and full of wonder and a warm friendliness. They told one another all the queer things they ever heard about the sea. After a time Ronnie murmured, “I think Torquil has fallen asleep.” Torquil muttered vaguely. They all closed their eyes. It seemed to them that they never really fell asleep, though their thoughts were like dreams going their own way. Every now and again one of them stirred; but for long spells they breathed heavily. The stars were gone, when Ronnie opened his eyes wide, looked about him and sat up. It was chilly and the surface of the water dark in an air of wind, but to the north-east, beyond the distant rim of the sea, was the white light of morning. And then, out from Berriedale Head, he saw a ship with a light, like a small star, over her. The star disappeared as he gazed. He wakened Tormad with his hand.
They all sat up, with little shudders of cold, and looked at the ship. Canvas was now breaking out both behind and in front of her high mast. “She’ll be a merchant ship,” said Tormad, and turned to see what the herring boats were doing. He was surprised to find that already they were beginning to leave the ground. They couldn’t have much herring, surely. Then his face opened in dismay. “The piper’s bag is gone!” he cried. There was no sign of the corks. He stumbled aft and caught the swing-rope. They leaned over the sides. As Tormad hauled strongly, the piper’s bag appeared, bobbing and breaking the surface. And then their eyes widened and their breath stopped. Tormad began appealing softly to the God of their fathers. Then his voice cleared and rose. “It’s herring, boys! Herring! Herring!” The net was so full of herring that it had pulled the floats under the surface, all except the end buoy, which was half submerged.
They forgot all about the ship; they forgot everything, except the herrings, the lithe silver fish, the swift flashing ones, hundreds and thousands of them, the silver darlings. No moment like this had ever come to them in their lives. They were drunk with the
excitement and staggered freely about the boat. Tormad took to shouting orders. The wind had changed and, growing steady, was throwing them a little on the net. “Keep her off,” shouted Tormad. “Take the oars, Ian. The foot-rope, Ronnie.” Tormad was now pulling on the back-rope with all his strength, but could only lift the net inch by inch. But already herring were tumbling into the boat, for Torquil was nimble and Ronnie persuasive. “Take it easy,” said Ronnie, seeing the congestion in Tormad’s neck. “Take it easy, or the whole net may tear away. We’ve plenty of time, boys.” “Don’t be losing them,” grunted Tormad, his heel against the stern post. “Take them all. Alie the piper is watching us.” They laughed at that. The piper had done his part, full to overflowing. It was always the way he had done things whatever. No half-measures with Alie.
“The ship is coming this way,” said Ian.
“Let her come,” said Tormad, not even turning his head.
But Ronnie looked over his shoulder. His face brightened. “She’ll be a big schooner come to take the barrels of herring away maybe.”
“Of course,” said Tormad. “What else would she be?” And the vague fear that had touched them at first sight of the ship almost vanished.
“Perhaps she’ll offer to buy our herrings,” suggested Torquil.
“She might easily do that,” Tormad grunted out, the sweat now running. “But if she does—she’ll pay—the full price.”
