The Silver Darlings

by Neil M. Gunn

  “Come on,” said Angus and moved off.

  Catrine’s eyes went back to the deserted cottage and out to sea. She stood very still for a time, and then for a little while longer, though her sight was blurred, until she had conquered her emotion. Isebeal saw the white teeth bite on the trembling lip as the head turned away, and she followed her sister quietly as her shadow. As if he knew what was happening, Angus never looked back but kept straight on though at a slackened pace.

  Nor did he glance at Catrine when he allowed them to overtake him.

  “It’s going to be a fine day,” said Catrine in a clear, light voice.

  The tone heartened him and he said it had every appearance of being a fine day, “We can go back home now!” and he glanced sharply at Isebeal.

  “Ach, never mind her,” said Catrine. “She can come a little way and then you can both go back.”

  “There was no need for her to come,” he remarked. “She won’t be able to walk it.”

  “Don’t be foolish, Angus. There’s no need for either of you to come far with me.”

  “And what would mother say when I went back?”

  “How far are you coming?” she asked.

  “Most of the way,” he answered.

  She stopped. “You’ll do no such thing,” she said firmly. “You’ll come one mile, and then you’ll both go back.”

  This was more like the Catrine who had ordered him about many a time. “We’ll see,” he said, but in an easier tone.

  He left the road, taking the short cut that went down into a wide gully. Catrine smiled to Isebeal, took her hand, and followed him.

  It was steep going up the opposite slopes and more than once Catrine had to stop for a minute to ease the hammering of her heart. She felt weak and a little light-headed, with a small trembling in her flesh at the unaccustomed exercise; but her heart felt lighter than it had done for many a day, as if the sun were brighter here and the air cooler and more friendly. Sometimes Angus was well ahead of them.

  When they were going down into the great ravine Catrine asked Angus if they hadn’t come far enough.

  “I’m going to see you over the Ord at the very least,” he said, and went plunging down. The Ord had a reputation as a place for robbers in the old days.

  They all rested by the little burn at the foot of the ravine, and Angus, with a vague smile, asked them how they were getting on. “Fine. Aren’t we, Isebeal?” “Yes,” answered Isebeal, glancing at her brother.

  “You’re a little monkey,” he said.

  At-that she smiled shyly to Catrine. Angus got down and took a long drink out of the burn. His hair was much darker than the girls’, and his eyes, in marked contrast to Catrine’s brown ones, were a greeny blue with a sharp light in them under strong but finely-cut eyebrows. “When you’re ready we’ll go,” he said.

  After a long climb they came out on top of that world of ravines near the edge of a high precipice. The sea was below them, its great floor rising slowly. Far as the eye could stretch northward the coast line was a wall of rock, ending hazily in a remote headland.

  “This is the Ord of Caithness,” said Angus, “and that’s the Caithness coast.”

  A coast of precipices and wings and perilous depths. A coast of hard rock and sea. She turned her head to the heather moors that rose slowly inland, with the mountains behind. The mountains and the moors and the warm sun on them, brown and soft and playful. She kept towards the inside of the road, the cliffs and the sea like down-rushing dizzying wings in her breast.

  When the road had left the cliffs and was wandering inland a little, she stopped. “Now you have come far enough,” she said. “I’ll manage fine.”

  Angus began to protest, but she paid no attention to him and, taking Isebeal in her arms, kissed her. Isebeal did not cling to her, for she knew the moment had come, and so kept her face as stiff as she could.

  “Good-bye, Angus.”

  “This is nonsense,” he said in an impatient voice.

  But she took the bundle from him, though he was not for giving it up, and shook his dead hand. This seemed to annoy him still more, and saying he would see her as far as Langwell, anyway, he strode on. She caught him at once and held him. For all her strong effort at restraint, Isebeal began to cry. “You’ll go back now,” said Catrine firmly. “I will not,” replied Angus, looking past her, his brows drawn. “Don’t be foolish, Angus,” said Catrine sensibly. “Good-bye. Good-bye, Isebeal. Good-bye.” And Catrine, holding the cloth bundle by its knot, backed from them a yard or two and then turned and walked away At a little distance she swung half round, and waved to them cheerfully. Angus was still standing and looked as if he might come striding after her, so she hurried on.

  When she looked back again, they had turned and were going homeward. A little time afterwards, when she looked back, she saw them against the sky, and though they were now much smaller in size, she could see that Angus had Isabeal by the hand. She remained quite still, staring at the two clear-cut figures. As if her thought had overtaken them, they stopped. She felt Angus’s keen hill eyes searching for her. She could not wave or make any sign. His arm went up and then little Isebeal’s. She answered and turned away and went stumbling on stupidly, her sight dimmed.

  All her body felt stupid, and her mind, and the only feeling she had was a dumb bitterness.

  In the course of time, wearied, she came to a well near the roadside. In these great primeval moors, there was no human habitation, and as she stood for a moment looking around, the desolation touched her with a strange feeling that was not quite fear, as if the brown were the brown of some fox-beast that would not harm her but still was invisibly there. Yet, like the fox, she was a little hidden away herself from all she had been before, and in this lonely weariness she lay down in the heather. From being wide awake she passed in a moment into a sound sleep.

  The sky was now a milky blue and the sun warm. The tiny buds on the heather were pink-tipped. The water trickled from the well through a tongue of green grass, and a wild flower here and there drooped suddenly under the weight of a noisy bumble-bee excited by the honey scent that was already stealing over the heath. As she slept, her lips came slightly apart, showing the tips of her teeth. Though her mouth lost its shape a little, it remained generous, the lips rich, delicate and blood-suffused. Near her ear, the skin was pale and fragile as from a long illness, but even here sleep brought a breath-soft warmth. Her hair was fair, of that even fairness that would not draw a second glance. Her nose was not cut finely like her mother’s, neither were her eyebrows, yet now in rest they smoothed down the family chiselling to a simple mould, and in the clearness of her brow was a quality like light. As she slept, her features, fine in the bone, recalled an innocence and smallness of early girlhood.

  Her sleep was troubled by a dream in which hundreds of horses’ hooves came thundering down upon her, wild black horses of the Apocalypse, and, opening suddenly, her eyes blazed and the innocence was consumed.

  When she saw the stage-coach come rolling down the slight incline, with its four horses crunching the gravel under their galloping hooves, she flattened again like a wild thing, fearful of being seen, and only when it was well past did she lift her head and gaze after it until it disappeared. The carriage road and the stage-coach, newly introduced to these northern wilds, signified to such as Catrine the traffic and pomp of the great world, its ruthless power and speed, its cities and its wealth.

  As she sat up and gazed around, the desolate moor came about her in a friendly way. She looked at her right foot and picked a piece of heather from between two toes. Then lifting her bundle, she continued on her way, keeping to the grassy verge of the road that was soft to her feet. Her jacket and skirt were a homespun tweed, crotal-brown in colour, and the cloth she put round her head was green, but now she carried this cloth on top of her brown bundle, for she liked her hair to be free under the sun.

  In time she came to a small burn, and feeling somewhat weak from hunger
and the exhaustion of many days, she sat down and from her bundle drew out two round bere bannocks stuck solidly together with butter. As she ate, a lightness of happiness blew in upon her mind. Living in Dale had become like a nightmare. And here, at least, was a sunny new world in which she was free, in which she was alone, in which she was glad to be alone—until the thought of her solitude actually touched her. Then, for a little time, she wept freely, even turning over into the heather and gripping it.

  But the tears were doing her good, and deep in her mind she knew it, for they were a weakness she would have to get over, but meantime they were an indulgence—and—anyway, life had been hard to her.

  Self-pity, however, had not got very far when she felt that the world outside had grown ominously still. Slowly she lifted her head and saw the legs of a man standing beside her. Without raising her eyes farther, her heart in her mouth, she reached for her bundle and, knotting its corners, got up.

  As she did so a pleasant voice asked her if there was anything wrong. He was a lusty shepherd of over thirty, with a weathered face, blue eyes, dark brown hair, a crook in his hand and two dogs at his heel.

  She did not understand his English, for he spoke in a southern dialect, but she could see that his intention was to be companionable.

  A paralysing shyness came over her. After a first glance she looked away and, saying the only words of English she could remember, “No, thank you,” moved on.

  He walked by her side, offering to carry her bundle, his voice laughing and adventurous. But when he put a hand on her bundle, she started away and, as he followed, swung round and faced him.

  “Ye needna be feared o’ me,” he suggested, with searching merry eyes, inviting eyes.

  “Leave me alone,” she said precisely and walked on again.

  He laughed, not at all deterred. “Ah, come on,” he said, “be friendly. Ye’re a lang way frae nowhere an’ I’ll see ye there.” He talked on in a wheedling chuckling voice, close by her side. She paid no attention to him. He asked her where she was going, where she had come from, and other questions, but she did not reply. “Ye’re a dour ane,” he said, “and ye sae bonnie. I’m no’ gaen to eat ye.”

  She stopped again and faced him. Her quickened expression and blazing eyes made her very attractive. Behind his laughing face she saw excitement concentrate in a green glint, a seeking light. He swallowed and chuckled.

  Her terror heightened her angry expression. “Please to leave me,” she said sharply.

  “Please to leave me!” His mimicry was meant to compliment her, teasingly. “Now, be sensible——”

  “Leave me!” The words were a scream and a lash, and they steadied him. She would fight madly.

  “Wha’s touchin’ ye?” His smile grew sardonic. “I was only offering to help.”

  She turned abruptly and walked on, head up. He followed, and for a moment she felt blind physical forces balancing behind her. Then he stopped, cried some words she did not understand, and gave vent to his laughter. Something wet touched her bare calf and she leapt, squawking with such terror that the sniffing collie sprang back.

  The shepherd whistled his dog and gave her a wave and a last laugh.

  She strode on, forcing her knees to their work, trying not to be sick.

  There was a long slow slope she had to climb before she could get out of his sight, and she called to her spirit. Half-turning her head at a little distance she saw him out of the corner of her eye coming slowly on. Her fear and horror of him increased. Her breath went in and out in short panting gasps. If she had had the energy she would have lost her head and broken into a wild run; but now it was as much as she could do to keep going, and once or twice as in nightmare she felt her body falling down and screaming like a trapped hare. There was a piercing whistle, and a wild “No! no!” answered in her mind. Into view on her left shot one of the collies and a long way out began rounding up some sheep. He was still coming. Her breath now was sobbing, but her brows were still strong and her eyes had a trace of the intolerance that so often characterized Angus’s. By this last remnant of primeval anger her legs were kept going, and when at last she mounted the low crest and saw on the slopes, rising to the horizon beyond a deep glen, the outlines of cottages, she was so heartened that, out of sight of the shepherd now, she broke into a run. Almost at once she pitched by the shoulder, but she was soon up again, walking and running, caring no more what wild sobbing noises she made.

  She was a long way on before she saw the shepherd on the crest behind, against the sky. At once, she walked with decorum. Like an ominous watchman, he remained there darkly on the crest, so that she hardly saw the deep-wooded valley below her.

  But when it was clear to her that he was not pursuing her any more, and a dip in the ground hid him finally from her sight, she paused and, her weakness drowning her in a warm flush, fell backward against the heather. Her eyes closed and she breathed open-mouthed, as in a stertorous sleep.

  It was a lovely deep glen, with two valleys, each containing its river, coming to a point far below her at a short distance from the sea. The other river was hidden by high rising ground, broad-browed, that lay between the valleys, but this one wound its way by cultivated fields and green pastures up into the hills. When, haunted still by the fear of the man behind her, she sat up and her eyes rested on a large house it suddenly came to her that this must be Langwell.

  How often she had heard of it, how often Kirsty Mackay had told her the history of each member of that family from which Mr. Sage, the grand old minister of Kildonan, had taken his second wife. This, then, was the house. If she would go there, mentioning Kildonan and Kirsty’s name, she would surely be welcomed by someone. And how avid Kirsty herself would be for news! She should go, she told herself. But somehow she could not go. She felt shy; and then—they would ask all about her, and … The afternoon was wearing on and she had a long way to go yet.

  So she passed Langwell House, crossed both rivers, and climbed the steep mile-long hill with a slow weary mind. But when she came to the cottages of the folk, each on its little croft, and a man or woman by the road called a greeting, she grew heartened, and presently asked an elderly woman if it was far to Dunster.

  “It’s far enough and you walking,” answered the woman, looking at her shrewdly. “But the road will take you there. Have you come far?”

  “I have come from Helmsdale,” answered Catrine.

  “Have you indeed?” said the woman, with proper astonishment. So she took Catrine into her cottage and made her sit by the fire, though it was a warm day, and gave her a bowl of milk and a scone thick with butter and new cream cheese. Then she proceeded to question her politely but firmly.

  Catrine gave her parents’ names, the part of Kildonan they had been cleared out of, the number of her brothers and sisters, the size of their new home in Dale, and other and more particular information, and received in return as much as she gave, complete with commentary and judgement and an eye to see that the guest was eating properly. But Catrine did not tell her of Tormad and what had happened to him. “I am on a visit,” she said, “to a friend of my mother who lives in Dunster, and it’s time I was on my way.” “A friend of your mother? Well, now! And she’s living in Dunster? How many have come from the terrible evictions in the glens of Sutherland to this coast and it bare enough. Let me see now: she’ll be Widow Sutherland likely?” “No,” said Catrine, “she’s Kirsty Mackay and she’s a far-out relation of her who was housekeeper to Mr. Sage in the manse of Kildonan before he married again.” “Kirsty Mackay, you’re telling me? Kirsty Mackay?” and raising her eyes to a corner of the ceiling she drummed her knee as if it were her memory. A few more questions left her still baffled, however, muttering, “Kirsty Mackay? Kirsty Mackay?—no, it beats me. But,” and she brought her eyes down, “if you step up with me the length of my good-sister’s, she’ll know surely, for her man, who is my own brother, is at the sea and is in Dunster often enough.” Catrine politely declined this invit
ation on the plea that she was late as it was and would no doubt readily find out where Kirsty lived when she reached Dunster itself. The woman at last told her how she would know Dunster, and blessed her, and hoped she would find her friends in good health when she arrived.

  As Catrine walked away, a smile came into her eyes, for the inquisitive elderly woman is always a source of amusement to the young. This intimate knowledge warmed her pleasantly and she now felt in better heart than at any time during that day.

  From the road the ground sloped gently down to the top of the cliff wall, and as she wandered on past the cottages, each of them standing back a little from the road, she wondered if they had always been here and decided that very likely they had not, for folk of her kindred liked living in sheltered glens, on inland slopes, not on the windy tops of cliffs. Probably more than one of them had come from her own country, for it was years now since the first clearance.

  Thus occupied with odd thoughts, and accepting and giving occasional greeting, she came in time to the brow of a broad valley, with a river running through it and little birch woods on the slopes of grassy braes. It was a gentler valley than any she knew in her own country and everywhere she looked it seemed a different shade of green. Nowhere did the slopes tower into mountains, and only when she turned her face inland did she see the familiar eternal dark brown of the moors heaving to long smooth lines against a remote sky. There were croft houses behind her and on the wide slopes beyond the valley that rose so slowly to a distant horizon, but her eye followed the river, whose course was a mass of boulders, for the stream was small, until it ran into the sea where the cliffs had vanished, leaving a stony beach curving round a fairly wide bay. But on each side of that bay the cliffs started again, though she could only see the cliff to her left hand, and it had the abrupt shape of a headland with feet always in deep water.

  The shoulder of a green brae shut out the greater part of the foreshore in front of the curving beach, but Catrine saw boats in the river mouth, the coming and going of men, dark patches of nets spread to dry, a great pile of light-coloured barrels and, in a quickening of fear, she began to wonder where Kirsty stayed, hoping with a sudden passionate hope that it was not near that busy cold-green drowning sea.