by Neil M. Gunn
He looked at the braes, saw where they angled into the hollow of the burn towards his right, with its bushes and its tumbling hillocks, with its sheep paths to the moor and the moor stream and the mountains that lay beyond the last visible crest.
It was a chilly evening and already there was a faint darkening in the air. The sodden ground was drying and ploughing was at hand. The world looked solid and drab. All at once he heard bird-singing. It was a sound he did not hear consciously very often, any more than he heard the lowing of cattle or the whinnying of the horse. And even now he hardly listened, as if the notes were trivial and meaningless. But suddenly something came out of the land, out of the air, some cool shiver of spring like an immemorial essence, an elusive scent, and it ran through his flesh and into his blood. It was enlivening, touched with hope and promise, and for a moment it set him whole within himself in an access of fine courage. But when he turned into the barn he was beset by a new and sad despair, and he stood staring out of the little back window, hardly hearkening for that fugitive beauty which had touched him from so far away, from so near.
When his mother’s voice called, he went towards the house not nearly so much on edge as he had been before, in a dumb mood that could bear much, and he felt relieved at this and glanced about him and heard a thrush on the bourtree bush by the cabbage plot behind the house.
His father was in bed and his mother was dishing out a stew, the stream rising about her bent figure with a strong appetising smell of onions.
‘Sit down,’ she said at once; ‘it’s better for you hot in this weather.’
The father said grace and they began eating. The mother got up, attended to a pot, and sat down. It was the usual sort of movement and little was spoken. But often a meal was partaken of in silence, except for a remark about the food itself.
His father tonight was more distant than ever, and now and then there was a sighing as of deep thought and a far weariness. Tom felt it like an unspoken condemnation. Never once did he look at his father’s face. The presence of the father was strong in the house, so strong that had Tom not got this dumb quiet mood from somewhere, he might have been irked beyond endurance.
The father said grace after meat with an austere unction. It was a silent calling-to-witness of that which had come to pass under his roof.
Tom got up. His mother turned to him. ‘You haven’t to go out tonight, have you?’
‘Yes,’ answered Tom. ‘I have some things to do for Jimmy Macdonald’s new house.’ He spoke quietly, indifferently.
‘Well, see and be finished as soon as you can,’ she said.
Tom did not answer. He hesitated for one moment. Now was the time to say that he thought of putting up a wooden place – he needn’t call it a shop – at the end of the house if it was all the same to them. But somehow he could not command himself, could not control the feeling that immediately started beating up. He glanced at his father’s face. That settled it. He took his cap off the peg behind the door and walked slowly out.
Bitterness assailed him sharply as he faced the gloom of the night. His father had been deliberately using his illness to dominate the house and them. In a cunning austere way he had been play-acting. He hadn’t been so bad as he silently made out. He had impressed Sandy. That stagger, as he had turned away …
Tom felt ashamed. Even he himself had been weak in the flesh then, his muscles jumpy, and he hadn’t a bad heart. Too great an excitement, an over-concentrated moment of emotion, and his father would drop dead. That was certain. His father knew it.
Tom could not work in the barn and, dreading lest some of the lads appear, he left the barn and made for the hillside. The hollow where Janet and himself met he avoided on his left, climbing steadily for the moor.
Presently a scent touched his nostrils like that scent of spring under the singing birds. It had the same elusive character but now it seemed more real. As he came out on the moor he saw a long low wall of red flame in the distance, strange and beautiful against the darkness. Heather-burning. The gamekeepers of the Castle were burning the moor, on the slope beyond the stream towards the mountains. The fire must have got out of control, but now the wind, even up here, had fallen and he could see small dark figures like demons beating down the flames with their long birch switches.
It was a necromantic sight and he was held by it completely. The flames were a living red against the dark mountains. He could see them leap in tongues and tatters and vanish magically in the air. The crackling of their fierce joy was removed by distance, as his own boyhood was removed, leaving the wonder and the vivid glow, like a memory of times long past.
His boyhood called to him, and boyhood beyond boyhood, from far mornings, from still twilights, with their scent about him, this scent, keen on the air and in the nostrils.
He stood gazing towards the fire unable to tear himself away. He would have liked to join the men and the lads in the fierce tumult of their switching and their cries. He would have hit and hit the swerving beast as it chewed up the thin bones of the heather in a crackling roar, hit and directed it with man’s cunning towards the drowning stream and the sweet tired darkness of the end.
But solitariness was upon him and, as his skin shivered after the warmth of the climb, he started back the way he had come. Every now and then, he turned his head over his shoulder, and at last on the brow of the moor he paused for a long time. The fire glowed now like a jewel on the throat of the night, beautiful to look at, holding his eyes in a mood that was beyond all understanding, joyous and yet strangely sad.
What curious quality was this, calling him back to the hollows and the streams, to the lonely moor and the mountains? And why ‘back’?
That night he had a disturbing dream. As he thudded with the pick he was aware of the effect the sounds had on his father, precisely as if he suffered them himself. He was in a moment somehow present with his father and mother in the kitchen as the thudding went on. And his father knew that the sounds meant the digging of his grave, and he heard them as a condemned man might hear the hammering that set up the gallows beyond his prison wall. No power now could stop the thudding. It went on remorselessly in soft deadly impacts. Nothing more could be done. They had to accept – and wait.
The dream was disconnected, for now his father was dead. His body was naked and the mother, sitting on a kitchen chair, held it in her extended arms, one arm under the knees and the other round the shoulders so that the head fell slightly back and the body slumped naturally to her lap. The naked body was white and smooth, and with the white beard on the ashen face, the eyebrows gaunt and jutting above the sunken closed eyes, the mouth slightly open in a remote solemnity, the whole figure looked like a Christ grown old.
The following day he left the pick and shovel lying by the hole which he had started to dig and busied himself with many things, for the spring season of ploughing and sowing was at hand. Whatever happened, he realised now that he would have to put down the crops. He could not leave the burden of finding ways and means on his mother. Besides, that evening he was taking the clock up to Flora’s home – his wedding present to Jimmy and herself. Quite a few would be there and it should be a good evening. He had told Janet he was going and she had said Flora had specially invited her and she would certainly go if she could. She would go, of course, with Tina Sinclair.
As he took his supper before setting out, there was no sign of any satisfaction or hidden triumph in his father over the cessation of the digging. There was indeed about the old man an air of extreme weariness. Something genuine and as it were withered in this forsaken weariness touched Tom, but his own life was too near him to let it penetrate far.
Nor did his mother ask him where he was going, as though she sensed that any words of hers would not help but only irritate the father and perhaps stir him out of his weakness to say in a cold, rejecting voice: ‘Let him go.’
All the same, outside, in the darkness, on the road, the gaiety of escape assailed him. His body felt li
ght and fall of energy, and the clock would astonish them.
There was a whole lot of girls in, with a fair number of fellows and more coming. Everyone was laughing, and now and then a girl let out a yelp. Flora met Tom at the door, for she rushed forward to greet each newcomer, and there she was taking him into ‘the room’ where the presents were laid out. They heard her say ‘O Tom!’ in the proper breathless way. But she did not add ‘That’s too kind of you’ or other phrase of the sort. So they went on talking in the kitchen, but in a moment came her quick feet and her flushed face, and she said, ‘Jimmy, this is Tom.’
Out Jimmy went awkwardly as much as to say, What have I got to do with it? and the girls laughed. Jimmy and Tom were special friends and the present therefore would likely have some particular character on Jimmy’s account.
Jimmy’s brown face flushed with surprise and pleasure when he saw the clock. Tom, on his knees by the table, was fixing the pendulum and looked up at Jimmy with a quizzical smile. ‘I promised I would give you a clock,’ he said.
‘This is too much, boy,’ said Jimmy slowly.
‘Nothing could be too much for either of you,’ answered Tom lightly.
‘O Tom, that’s lovely of you,’ said Flora in a trembling happy voice.
Tom got up and shook hands with both of them. This somehow came also as a surprise. ‘I wish you the best of luck,’ said Tom, his face merry, ‘and may your good times never stop.’
Flora was an impulsive girl, big-boned, dark, and kindness or generosity invaded her face in a spate. Now she gripped her own hands and swayed, smiling warmly, shyly overcome. She hardly knew what to do about it. No more did Jimmy. Tom laughed, bunching together the wrappings. ‘Where will I put this?’ he asked.
‘Oh anywhere,’ said Flora, taking it from him and crushing it still more.
‘Well, let us go through,’ said Tom, ‘lest they come in.’
But Flora could not help saying to her mother that Tom had brought a lovely clock. In no time everyone was having a look at it. It was over two feet in height and the glass front had a beautiful painting of a country scene. Not a Highland scene, more like a real English scene, with tall green reeds, not rushes but broad reeds that turned over at the top in a delicate refined way, and with the smooth water of a quiet river, if not a lake, held to a stillness that time would never change. And when you looked carefully there were other interesting features: two big ducks and four little ones, for example, and a tree, and a dark cavern. Hanging dead centre, over the water, and between the reeds was the round brass pendulum, with a brighter glitter than that of gold.
‘Ay, ay,’ said slack-mouthed Dan, his droll humour now held in wonder. He was fifty and modest girls were always a trifle afraid of what he would say next. But now he was examining the clock with the keen eyes of a neat-handed man, nodding in tribute.
‘It’s a fine thing,’ he said, ‘to have a wealthy friend from the south.’
‘What was the good of being in the trade,’ said Tom, ‘unless a fellow could get a clock like that for nothing?’
There was a laugh and Tom, glancing round, saw Janet. A sheer living freshness about her struck him like a sudden light. She seemed to him at that moment to be apart from the others, reserved and distinguished, yet with her eyes crinkling with humour as if she were taking everything in and might all at once laugh outright. Usually she wore coloured homespun tweeds in soft greens or blues or browns like the other girls. Now her skirt was black and her blouse snow white. Her face was fresh as if it had been washed in spring water, its contours full and firm, with the top teeth showing in the smile that was about to break. Yet in an instant he saw nothing but her eyes, and they looked at him, and from them something came towards him, and stilled in a recognition that only he could see, and withdrew, and she turned her head away and laughed with the others.
‘Does it go?’ asked Dan.
‘Yes,’ said Tom. ‘But I think we should leave it to Flora to start it up.’
‘There’s no hurry,’ said Dan. ‘Do you see the little ducks? Now I wonder what the mannie who painted them meant when he put them in?’ he asked in wondering innocence.
But that was enough of Dan and one or two of the girls pushed him aside. Dan saw a strained look on Jimmy’s face and he winked to some of the lads. But this was no place for practical fun, so back they went into the kitchen.
There were songs and stories and Dan, who suddenly had an inspiration as to the meaning of the baby ducks, was physically set upon by three young women and shown no mercy. Dan had good sense and put up no fight. But the girls were in great form and soon nothing would reduce their energies but a set dance on the kitchen floor. Inside an hour the evening was made, unison was complete, and nothing that was said or done could go wrong.
Tom had an extraordinary liberation of spirit that night. Janet seemed to have been revealed to him in a new and thrilling way. Flora’s mother spoke to him specially, and Flora’s father, a large, ungainly, neighbourly man, had a few words for him about nothing in particular. He did not need to look at Janet. Her brightness was behind his eyes, was everywhere. He could feel that the folk liked him, were attracted by the seemingly careless but actually intense happiness that made him dance, and double up with laughter, and promise anything.
‘I’ll see you down the way,’ said George Macrae, a tall handsome young man, assistant to Fraser, the general merchant, and not unaware of his own importance among the crofting lads. The evening had come to an end at last and George had spoken as it were negligently to Janet. Tom’s whole being stood still as if the living muscle of his heart had been gripped. An immense time seemed to pass before Tina said simply, ‘We’re waiting for Tom.’
‘I’m here,’ said Tom cheerily, pulling on his cap as he bobbed up against them in the dark.
‘Come on then,’ cried George, in his boisterous managing way, and he must have caught Janet by the arm for in no time he had swung her ahead.
But she turned round, ‘Are you coming?’ and waited for Tom and Tina. She took Tina’s arm. ‘I enjoyed tonight. Wasn’t it good?’ She laughed in her abrupt way, and stopped dramatically. She sounded very happy, inwardly excited.
All four kept together, chattering readily and at random. Tom was between the girls and George on the outside next Janet. Tom caught Janet’s hand as their arms swung together. Her fingers spoke to him in secrecy and withdrew. Then their hands hit in passing and Janet was full of gaiety. Tina mocked and challenged George over something. George in his somewhat heavy large way said that if she wasn’t careful he would throw her over the hedge. ‘I would like to see you try it!’ challenged Tina, who had a game spirit in her small but sturdy body. ‘You talk a lot,’ she added. George’s manhood felt it had to go to the attack and Tom, gripping Janet’s arm, slipped ahead. Tina was obviously holding her own and fighting well, but Janet could not go quickly in the dark. She stumbled, as she did on the hillside behind her home, and Tom swept her against the blackthorn hedge. ‘Hsh! they won’t see us here.’ He kissed her and she responded and for a moment the night shook its stars about them. He pressed her into the hedge, shielding the white of her face, and there in stillness they stood, while the other two went past arguing and bickering.
‘Janet!’ he said, as if he had found her at last.
‘Tom!’ she whispered.
After a little time they stepped onto the rough cart track, for this was a divine game and they could not let the others escape entirely.
‘Janet, where are you?’ called Tina.
‘Hush!’ whispered Tom.
But Janet called: ‘We’re here!’ And as they drew near: ‘How cool of you to walk past us!’
George was nettled and not in the best of humours, and when he felt that Tom and Janet were hanging just behind in order to enjoy this game, he walked on with Tina. They all kept together, however, and when the main road was reached, Janet took Tina’s arm.
‘I do hate coming down that road in the dark,’ Janet dec
lared.
‘You fairly showed it,’ George retorted.
They all laughed so heartily that George was mollified by this acceptance of his wit.
Tom got no further words with her alone, but that did not matter, for in the very way she said good-night was all the conspiracy of their next meeting.
As he hung about his home, reluctant to go in, late as it was, he somehow could not get over the sheer marvel of Janet and the relationship between them. It was like something that could not be true, that could not really have happened to a fellow like him in this life. That first glimpse of her up in Flora’s …
His nostrils caught the warm interior paraffin-lamp smell, and as he noiselessly closed the door his father cleared his throat in a deliberate portentous cough. Tom’s face puckered up and, treading softly, he entered his own room and lit a candle.
Then he sat on his bed, his eyes gleaming through the puckered expression on his face. That dry forbidding cough of communication! Ay, ay! The vision of the white body like the dead Christ came through his mind from his dream. But it could not touch him. Nothing could touch him. He would talk to his father tomorrow. Sitting there, he began to dream about Janet.
CHAPTER NINE
Next morning the wind was blowing on a bright day. Tom’s heart was affected by it and all his body, as though spring were coming beyond the mountains and the wind had rushed on eddying everywhere to tell the news.
His happiness induced a generous and forgiving mood in him, and when his father appeared in the early afternoon Tom, working by the barn door, felt the moment for speech had arrived. Slowly his father advanced, upright, as usual without the aid of any stick. But he did not pass by the barn door and Tom could not go to meet him. Refusing to be put off by this indifference on his father’s part, Tom presently created a natural opportunity, and with his shoulder to his father said in a quiet even voice, ‘The barn is getting a bit full up.’
