CHAPTER III
AN ANCIENT RUNE
On the next day I rode on my bicycle to Peterhead, and walked on thepier. It was a bright clear day, and a fresh northern breeze wasblowing. The fishing boats were ready to start at the turn of the tide;and as I came up the first of them began to pass out through the harbourmouth. Their movement was beautiful to see; at first slowly, and thengetting faster as the sails were hoisted, till at last they sweptthrough the narrow entrance, scuppers under, righting themselves as theyswung before the wind in the open sea. Now and again a belated smacksmancame hurrying along to catch his boat before she should leave the pier.
The eastern pier of Peterhead is guarded by a massive wall of granite,built in several steps or tiers, which breaks the fury of the gale. Whena northern storm is on, it is a wild spot; the waves dash over it inwalls of solid green topped with mountainous masses of foam and spray.But at present, with the July sun beating down, it was a vantage postfrom which to see the whole harbour and the sea without. I climbed upand sat on the top, looking on admiringly, and lazily smoked in quietenjoyment. Presently I noticed some one very like Gormala come hurryingalong the pier, and now and again crouching behind one of the mooringposts. I said nothing but kept an eye on her, for I supposed that shewas at her usual game of watching some one.
Soon a tall man strode leisurely along, and from every movement of thewoman I could see that he was the subject of her watching. He came nearwhere I sat, and stood there with that calm unconcerned patience whichis a characteristic of the fisherman.
He was a fine-looking fellow, well over six feet high, with a tangledmass of thick red-yellow hair and curly, bushy beard. He had lustrous,far-seeing golden-brown eyes, and massive, finely-cut features. Hispilot-cloth trousers spangled all over with silver herring scales, weretucked into great, bucket-boots. He wore a heavy blue jersey and a capof weazel skin. I had been thinking of the decline of the herring fromthe action of the trawlers in certain waters, and fancied this would bea good opportunity to get a local opinion. Before long I strolled overand joined this son of the Vikings. He gave it, and it was a decidedone, uncompromisingly against the trawlers and the laws which allowedthem to do their nefarious work. He spoke in a sort of old-fashioned,biblical language which was moderate and devoid of epithets, but fullof apposite illustration. When he had pointed out that certain fishinggrounds, formerly most prolific of result to the fishers, were nowabsolutely worthless he ended his argument:
"And, sure, good master, it stands to rayson. Suppose you be a farmer,and when you have prepared your land and manured it, you sow your seedand plough the ridges and make it all safe from wind and devastatin'storm. If, when the green corn be shootin' frae the airth, you take yourharrow and drag it ath'art the springin' seed, where be then the promiseof your golden grain?"
For a moment or two the beauty of his voice, the deep, resonant,earnestness of his tone and the magnificent, simple purity of the mantook me away from the scene. He seemed as though I had looked himthrough and through, and had found him to be throughout of goldenworth. Possibly it was the imagery of his own speech and the colourwhich his eyes and hair and cap suggested, but he seemed to me for aninstant as a small figure projected against a background of rollingupland clothed in ripe grain. Round his feet were massed the folds ofa great white sheet whose edges faded into air. In a moment the imagepassed, and he stood before me in his full stature.
I almost gasped, for just behind him, where she had silently come,stood Gormala, gazing not at the fisherman but at me, with eyes thatpositively blazed with a sort of baleful eagerness. She was lookingstraight into my eyes; I knew it when I caught the look of hers.
The fisherman went on talking. I did not, however, hear what he wassaying, for again some mysterious change had come over our surroundings.The blue sea had over it the mystery of the darkness of the night; thehigh noon sun had lost its fiery vigour and shone with the pale yellowsplendour of a full moon. All around me, before and on either hand, wasa waste of waters; the very air and earth seemed filmed with movingwater, and the sound of falling waters was in my ears. Again, the goldenfisherman was before me for an instant, not as a moving speck but infull size now he lay prone; limp and lifeless, with waxen cold cheeks,in the eloquent inaction of death. The white sheet--I could see now thatit was a shroud--was around him up to his heart. I seemed to feelGormala's eyes burning into my brain as I looked. All at once everythingseemed to resume its proper proportion, and I was listening calmly tothe holding forth of the Viking.
I turned instinctively and looked at Gormala. For an instant her eyesseemed to blaze triumphantly; then she pulled the little shawl which shewore closer round her shoulders and, with a gesture full of modesty anddeference turned away. She climbed up the ridges of the harbour wall andsat looking across as at the sea beyond, now studded with a myriad ofbrown sails.
A little later the stolid indifference as to time slipped all at oncefrom the fisherman. He was instinct with life and action, and with atouch of his cap and a "Farewell good Master!" stood poised on the veryedge of the pier ready to spring on a trim, weather-beaten smack whichcame rushing along almost grazing the rough stone work. It made ourhearts jump as he sprang on board and taking the tiller from the handof the steersman turned the boat's head to the open sea. As she rushedout through the harbour mouth we heard behind us the voice of an oldfisherman who had hobbled up to us:
"He'll do that once too often! Lauchlane Macleod is like all these menfrom Uist and the rest of the Out Islanders. They don't care 'naughtabout naught.'"
Lauchlane Macleod! The very man of whom Gormala had prophesied! The verymention of his name seemed to turn me cold.
After lunch at the hotel I played golf on the links till evening drewnear. Then I got on my bicycle to return home. I had laboured slowly upthe long hill to the Stirling quarry when I saw Gormala sitting on theroadside on a great boulder of red granite. She was evidently lookingout for me, for when I came near she rose up and deliberately stood inthe roadway in my path. I jumped off my wheel and asked her point blankwhat she wanted with me so much that she stopped me on the road.
Gormala was naturally an impressive figure, but at present she lookedweird and almost unearthly. Her tall, gaunt form lit by the afterglow ina soft mysterious light was projected against the grey of the darkeningsea, whose sombreness was emphasised by the brilliant emerald green ofthe sward which fell from where we stood to the jagged cliff-line.
The loneliness of the spot was profound. From where we stood not a housewas to be seen, and the darkening sea was desert of sails. It seemed asif we two were the only living things in nature's vast expanse. To meit was a little awesome. Gormala's first mysterious greeting when I hadseen the mourning for the child, and her persistent following of me eversince, had begun to get on my nerves. She had become a sort of enforcedcondition to me, and whether she was present in the flesh or not, theexpectation or the apprehension of her coming--I hardly knew which itwas--kept my thoughts perpetually interested in her. Now, her weird,statuesque attitude and the scene around us finished my intellectualsubjugation. The weather had changed to an almost inconceivable degree.The bright clear sky of the morning had become darkly mysterious, andthe wind had died away to an ominous calm. Nature seemed altogethersentient, and willing to speak directly to a man in my own receptivemood. The Seer-woman evidently knew this, for she gave fully a minute ofsilence for the natural charm to work before she spoke. Then in a solemnwarning voice she said:
"Time is flying by us; Lammas-tide is nigh." The words impressed me, whyI know not; for though I had heard of Lammas-tide I had not the smallestidea of what was meant by it. Gormala was certainly quick with hereyes--she had that gypsy quality in remarkable degree--and she seemed toread my face like an open book. There was a suppressed impatience in hermanner, as of one who must stop in the midst of some important matter toexplain to a child whose aid is immediately necessary:
"Ye no ken why? Is it that ye dinna heed o' Lammas-tide, or that y
e noken o' the prophecy of the Mystery of the Sea and the treasures thatlie hid therein." I felt more than ever abashed, and that I should haveknown long ago those things of which the gaunt woman spoke, toweringabove me as I leaned on my wheel. She went on:
"An' ye no ken, then listen and learn!" and she spoke the following runein a strange, staccato cadence which seemed to suit our surroundingsand to sink into my heart and memory so deep that to forget would beimpossible:
"To win the Mystery o' the Sea, "An' learn the secrets that there be, "Gather in one these weirds three:
"A gowden moon on a flowin' tide, "And Lammas floods for the spell to bide; "And a gowden mon wi' death for his bride."
There was a long pause of silence between us, and I felt very strangely.The sea before me took odd, indefinite shape. It seemed as though it wasof crystal clearness, and that from where I gazed I could see all itsmysteries. That is, I could see so as to know there were mysteries,though what they were individually I could not even dream. The past andthe present and the future seemed to be mingled in one wild, chaotic,whirling dream, from the mass of which thoughts and ideas seemed now andagain to fly out unexpectedly on all sides as do sparks from hot ironunder the hammer. Within my heart grew vague indefinite yearnings,aspirations, possibilities. There came a sense of power so paramountthat instinctively I drew myself up to my full height and becameconscious of the physical vigour within me. As I did so I looked aroundand seemed to wake from a dream.
Naught around me but the drifting clouds, the silent darkening land andthe brooding sea. Gormala was nowhere to be seen.