Читать книгу Land Of The Leal - James Barke - Страница 10

Ned MacWhirrie of Craigdaroch was a power among the farmers of Kirkmaiden. Ned would have been a power almost anywhere for he was cunning beyond the average and was utterly without conscience, though not without humour. He was avaricious, greedy, and drove a harder bargain than any other man in the Rhinns. But if he had the art of acquiring wealth he had also the art of enjoying life – after his own fashion.

His pleasures were simple: whisky and women. Yet perhaps his keenest pleasures were his love for a mettlesome horse.

At the age of forty, Craigdaroch was the father of ten legitimate and twenty-three illegitimate children. At least he acknowledged to this number: there may have been more: certainly there were more to come.

Although a leading elder in the Auld Kirk, Mr. MacWhirrie was not above feeling proud of the fruitfulness of his fornications. As an elder, he was particularly severe to fornicators and to women who bore illegitimate children to men other than himself. It was seldom that he had children to women who were not in his employment. He owned Craigdaroch farm and was the tenant of High Melton farm. Of his twenty milkmaids – or milkers as the less picturesque term of the day had it – eight were unmarried and averaged three children each to him. An odd one lived with her parents but most of them had cot-houses of their own. He saw that they did not actually starve; for the older of the children provided him with cheap necessary labour. As long as their mothers had enough meal and milk there was no pressing necessity to pay them even the low wages that prevailed. Virtually, when a girl bore children to him, she became his chattel slave.

No one, least of all the parish minister, questioned the morality of Craigdaroch. If he employed women who had illegimate children, what of it? Most farmers did. And as their spiritual welfare was in a leading elder’s hands (as well as their secular welfare) no doubt Mr. MacWhirrie duly catechised them. Strong as the hold and authority of the church was upon the agricultural labourer it was by no means as strong on the wealthy and powerful farmer.

Already in the prime of his life, Craigdaroch was a power in the parish and held the promise of progressing with the years.

With it all, he took life calmly. He found it good. He had no wish to spoil its goodness by unduly worrying about it. Every Friday he went to Drummore market and every Friday he returned home drunk. There were other days and nights in the week he might be drunk. But he was discreet about them. On market days he was royally and publicly drunk as befitted his status. Here again his actions did not in any way conflict with his religious authority. He was a leading and responsible elder. But he was also a farmer of consequence. He did not get drunk as an elder but as a farmer. Every one took care to note the difference – if they were subtle enough to recognise one.

Physically, Ned MacWhirrie was in complete contrast to his grieve. He was a small bandy-legged ferret of a man. His face was sharp and pinched: his eyes grey and shifty. He trimmed his beard to a neat point. He was careful of his appearance and, for a Galloway farmer, was always trim and trig. His brown leggings were always highly polished when he set off on his morning rounds. His step was brisk and lively and his speech incisive, though he could drawl as broad as any when in the humour.

He was more than usually trig and trim as he set out to bargain for his lime. Word had been brought to him late the previous afternoon that the lime boat had been successfully beached in Craigdaroch Bay. The news had been welcome. His practised weather-sense warned him of an imminent storm. With a storm in the offing he would be able to drive a fine bargain. The morning found him in a splendid humour for the task.

He decided to take his grieve with him. The encounter promised possibilities too tempting to be wasted between himself and the ship’s master. Moreover he had to impress his grieve with his own special qualities. There were points concerning farm management of which he considered Tom Gibson unenlightened and inexperienced.

There was a sough of rain in the wind as the farmer and his grieve set off across the fields to the bay. It was a late October morning and the ploughing on the stubble fields was well advanced. But already the fresh green lustre was off the pasture fields and a greyish tinge was creeping in.

‘There’s a bit of draining needing to be done, Tom.’

‘There is, Mr. MacWhirrie, gin we had the back of the barley field broken.’

‘Yes: you’ll see to it then?’

‘You can depend on me, Mr. MacWhirrie.’

Craigdaroch knew well that he could: but it would never do to let his grieve know that.

‘There’s some coping on the dykes there, Tom—’

‘The moment I’ve a man to spare, Mr. MacWhirrie: it’s no’ a job you could lippen to anybody.’

‘Maybe you’d best see to it yourself, Tom?’

‘I was thinking that way.’

‘An hour as you can spare it, Tom: that’s how to get through a job like that.’

Craigdaroch was in grand form, working himself up sally by sally. He never spoke harshly to his grieve. He bullied him by subtle flattery. Well he knew there wasn’t a farmer who wouldn’t give another couple of pounds a year and an extra bag of meal to have Tom Gibson. Craigdaroch sometimes marvelled that his grieve didn’t seem to realise this. But then the only quality that MacWhirrie really admired in a man was cunning. It was by cunning, by the use of the brain, that a man rose above his fellowmen and in the end dominated them. But Craigdaroch would never have tolerated a cunning grieve.

And so they passed over Craigdaroch fields and down to Craigdaroch Bay where the lime boat with its cargo was beached. As they neared the bay they met the master of the ship who, anxious about the weather and the avoidance of unnecessay delay, was himself making for Craigdaroch.

The skipper knew MacWhirrie of old and, though he did not relish the encounter, was most polite and deferential to him. And yet the salutations were barely over when his impatience got the upper hand of him.

‘You’ll be sending your carts down right away, Mr. MacWhirrie?’

Craigdaroch’s eyes twinkled.

‘You’re fully fast, captain.’

‘But the tide, Mr. MacWhirrie—’

‘Time and tide wait for no man, captain.’

‘A true word; but—’

‘We’re no’ needing much in the way of lime the year, Tom?’

The grieve was puzzled.

‘No … We’d need twa-three ton—’

‘Twa-three ton?’

‘Just that, skipper: we’re no’ desperate, you know. It was never my fashion to starve the land hereabouts – it could go a year without much odds.’

‘But your order, Mr MacWhirrie?’

‘What order are you speaking about, skipper?’

‘Mr. Symington said you would be taking a full cargo anyway—’

‘Did he now?’

‘That’s the words, Mr. MacWhirrie. Dammit, man I didn’t beach ninety tons on a mere speculation.’

‘Don’t get the bit atween your teeth, skipper. Craigdaroch’s well kenned as a man of his word. I’m afraid Mr. Symington’s been presuming here. I told him the position when he came round in June. I told him I hadn’t my mind made up as to my requirements and the bargain we struck then, captain, was that he would send down a load and I would please myself as to the quantity I took up. That was the bargain, skipper, and if Mr. Symington didn’t explain that to you it’s hardly my fault.’

‘But—’

‘Howsomenever, skipper, seeing you’re here. I’ll no’ see you stuck. We’ll take twenty tons off you at the bargain price.’

‘But— Twenty tons! But dammit, Mr. MacWhirrie – begging your pardon – I’ll never get off the beach with it if that’s all you’re for taking.’

‘Of course, skipper, I’m nae mariner. I’ve a big enough fight back and forward here without the necessity of solving your problems.’

‘Ah, but Mr. MacWhirrie, sir: twenty tons is clean out o’ the question. I’ve ninety tons in the hold if I’ve a ton. Look at the way she’s settled down. A neep tide wouldn’t float me off.’

‘N’aye … Well, had I the accommodation, captain, and, mair importantly, had I the money to lay out on such a stock, I wouldn’t see you waiting for a tide to float you off. But prices havena been what they should the year, skipper, and I just havena the money to spare.’

‘But lime’s an investment, Mr. MacWhirrie, and although I’ve my orders regarding the price, I think you’ll agree it’s a cheap price – it’ll never be cheaper.’

‘Maybe you’re right, captain – I wouldna say but maybe you are. But it’ll need to be a lot cheaper before I could afford to put it on my land. But we’re wasting time, captain. I’ll send the carts down for that twenty ton. You’ll manage after dinner, Tom?’

‘Just as you say, Mr. MacWhirrie.’

‘For Godsake, Mr. MacWhirrie! I’ll need to empty the hold before dark comes on. There might be a storm before night – we’re lost if that happens.’

The master was desperate. He was holding his anger down by a mighty effort of self-control. He knew Craigdaroch. It mattered little to him whether The Dolphin had her ribs cracked in with a storm.

The truth was Craigdaroch didn’t care. Indeed such a spectacle would have amused him greatly. Both the owner, Symington, and the skipper were at his mercy – and he wanted the lime for next to nothing.

A sour distaste for the whole mean bargaining turned in the stomach of the grieve. He had no admiration for the part Craigdaroch was playing. He stood rigid and somewhat withdrawn and fixed his eyes on the grey heaving of the sea. There was a storm brewing – and the Lord help The Dolphin when it broke.

Craigdaroch took a turn up the beach. He had as highly developed weather sense as the skipper or his grieve. There was just the chance that the storm would break before the cargo could be unloaded and he would lose his opportunity of buying well below the market price. At the same time it would never do to appear anxious or the skipper would hold to his price.

Still, Craigdaroch was a man who had taken many a risk and his judicious and cautious gambling had never failed him before. He turned his step briskly towards the cart-track leading from the beach.

‘Mr. MacWhirrie?’

Craigdaroch never halted his step and his grieve, making long strides, followed him.

For a moment the skipper hesitated. His greatest desire was to choke the life out of the farmer. But for a wife and large family he would have satisfied it. He had tremendous responsibilities and he had shares in The Dolphin. He would lose his commission on the cargo. But better that than losing all.

The skipper made a desperate run after the farmer.

‘Mr. MacWhirrie … name your price.’

MacWhirrie named it without a tremor.

A contorted look passed over the skipper’s face and the grieve shifted uneasily and kicked his foot into the soft earth of the wheel-rut.

The skipper held out his hand. Craigdaroch took it, a thin cruel smile on his lips. The bargain was sealed.

‘I’ll send the carts down right away, skipper. You can have your dram now or after.’

‘After will be early enough,’ replied the skipper and turned away.

‘You see now, Tom,’ said Craigdaroch, on their way back to the farm, ‘you see how a profitable bit bargain can be driven when a man can keep his wits about him. I’ll have saved £10–£15 on the deal.’

Tom Gibson nodded. He did not trust himself to speak for his palate was bitter. He saw nothing to admire about Craigdaroch’s conduct. His sympathy was all with the skipper. But he too, like the skipper, had a wife and family: and Craigdaroch was his master. Nevertheless, after the lapse of a decent interval he allowed himself a remark.

‘Just the same, Mr. MacWhirrie, we’d better hurry the unloading or I’m afraid …’

‘Aye …’

‘There’s a storm coming up, Mr. MacWhirrie.’

‘You noticed that, eh?’

The grieve did not reply.

‘Aye … you see things too, Tom. I misdoubt but you would be thinking more of the skipper’s problems than mine, Tom?’

‘Mr. MacWhirrie well knows—’

‘Don’t fash yourself, Tom. Your feelings are a credit to you. But I’ve to make the money to pay the wages – and the rent and taxes. And I’ve allowed for a fair profit in my price. Put your fears at rest: they’ll no die of starvation.’

‘That’s just hardly fair, Mr. MacWhirrie. There’s no’ a better farmer in the Rhinns than yourself-or a more just. Your interests have aye been mine.’

‘Man, can ye no’ take a bit banter in the spirit it’s given. Don’t forget I’d be a puir louse if I hadn’t my feelings for that puir devil of a skipper. But feelings don’t put salt in the kail, Tom. That’s something you must never forget.’

Craigdaroch’s manner hardened as he entered the courtyard.

‘You’ll see the men yoked smartly after dinner, Tom? And I’m depending on you to see that you get the cargo home safe.’

‘Mr. MacWhirrie can lippen on me.’

Craigdaroch nodded and turned towards the farmhouse.

Tom Gibson was in a black temper when he sat down to his dinner of potatoes and braxy. He chewed the rotten mutton with a savage stubbornness. Jean, his eldest daughter, sat cowed at the table for she Knew as well as her mother when he was angry.

Mrs. Gibson said nothing. He would speak in his own good time or not at all.

It had been the grieve’s intention not to speak but towards the end of the meal he took a large drink of sour milk. He had dulled the edge of his hunger and the displeasure was wearing off. His ear timed itself to the sough of the wind. He looked directly at his wife.

‘There’s a storm in it, Aggie?’

‘There is, Tom … is it the lime boat?’

‘Aye …’

‘You’ll want your oilskin?’

‘Maybe.’

And he thought to himself that a man can’t do heavy work in an oilskin.

‘You’d be as well with a good fire for me coming hame.’

‘Are you to be working on the lime yourself, Tom? Can the men no’ see to that?’

His look silenced her. He reached for his pipe and filled it with a careless deliberation.

The child cried in the cradle. Mrs. Gibson undid the buttons of her dress and bared a scraggy breast that surprisingly held milk. Jean began to clear up the table …

Andy Frame, the boy, had a touch of the devil in him. Nothing depressed him, though there was much that might have depressed him. He was a hard enough worker but the joy of life was strong in him. He had a great fondness for the lassies and a great fondness for dance music. Tom Gibson solemnly prophesied that he would come to a bad end and that the lassies that had anything to do with him would come to a worse. But for the most part the lassies were willing enough to take that risk with Andy.

The boy was the life of Craigdaroch. An uncle had given him a melodeon and instructed him in the art of playing. Andy had taken to the playing as naturally as he had taken to the lassies. He could play reels and jigs and strathspeys with anybody in the Rhinns.

As his playing disturbed the many younger children in his father’s rackle of a house and as his father hated the sound of music at any time Andy’s favourite place for a tune was on the iron corn bin in the stable. He gobbled his dinner and was back in the stable with twenty minutes to spare for The Haymakers’ Jig or Strip the Willow.

He had paid little attention to the grieve’s instructions. To hell: he was always sharp at dinner time. Time enough to worry about work when it was yoking time.

Behind the merry notes there was a pleasant huskiness. The instrument was an ancient one and in need of repair.

The Willow was being stripped in fine style when Tom Gibson turned the corner of the stable. The notes, assisted by the rising wind, danced across the dung midden, gathering a fitting fragrance before they played upon the senses of Ned MacWhirrie, enjoying a pipe at his own fireside. The music blended well with his mood – a pleasant, harmonious exhalation, a fitting background to his wandering thoughts.

But they jarred on Tom Gibson. There was licence, there was defiance about them. Music was the essence of frivolity. Music did not blend with bare fields and incessant toil.

He kicked open the stable door and the notes were at his ears like a hive of wasps. The men put their pipes in their waistcoat pockets and slid off the bin. Andy thought he would finish his tune.

‘Stop that damned infernal noise, will ye?’

Andy’s fingers slackened on the keys. The grieve’s vehemence struck him like a blow. A pathetically discordant death-rattle sounded in the throat of the tune.

Ned MacWhirrie’s foot kept on beating. The tune echoed down the open corridors of his mind. Imperceptibly the doors closed on his mind. His teeth slackened and the pipe slid to the floor. His head sank over on his chest.

The iron shoes of the horses clattered on the stone paving round the stable door and a moment later were silent on the soft earthen court.

A few minutes later, in the first sudden squall of rain, eight carts jolted and juddered their way towards Craigdaroch Bay.

It was a race against time and tide. A race against the remorseless forces of nature. Water and wind cared nothing for the commands of Ned MacWhirrie of Craigdaroch. It was the energy of the grieve and the skipper against the incoming tide, the rising wind, the driving rain and the early oncoming darkness.

Both men knew what was demanded of them: they worked in brutal harmony. They did not spare their men: least of all did they spare themselves.

It was a bleak grey scene overcharged with tragedy. The headlands to right and left, Dumbreddan Point and Lagganmore, were hidden in sea-spume and driving rain. Sky and sea merged across the bay, obscure and indeterminate. The long waves surging on the shoulders of the incoming tide tore and rasped for a hold on the long shelving gravel beach.

Not a sea bird was to be seen or heard. Occasionally the cry of a whaup uncoiled itself with a melancholy despair.

At five o’clock, having given strict instructions to Jean, Agnes Gibson threw fresh peats on the fire and went out to the milking, making the door fast from the outside. The wind had risen to a storm and the rain was torrential.

Agnes Gibson hunched her narrow shoulders against the storm and ran towards the byre. She had watched the carts labouring into the court as long as there had been light and then as the light failed she had listened to the sound of the lumbering carts in an endeavour to estimate how the unloading of The Dolphin was proceeding. She was filled with forebodings of disaster that not even the activity of milking could dismiss.

Agnes Gibson was not a talkative woman: she had little time for gossiping. And she had the married woman’s dislike of the unmarried mother – or rather of the mother who continued to remain unmarried. She had little talk, therefore, for the majority of the milkers though she was always civil to them and they in turn reciprocated the civility with a respect that was not lacking in cunning: for they never knew the day they would require her services. In her errands of mercy and healing Agnes made no moral distinction although she may have been more sympathetic to the ‘deserving’ cases than the ‘undeserving’ ones. Moreover, as the grieve’s wife she could not allow herself the same degree of familiarity as the ploughmen’s wives.

Craigdaroch always appeared in the byre at milking time morning and night. Milk was his most important produce. He liked to keep a sharp eye on the milkers. He recognised how important it was to get every drop of milk from the cow. His theory, which he dunned into the heads of the milkers, was: it’s the last drop that pays. But Craigdaroch also knew that the health of the herd depended on good milking and he left nothing to chance.

He strode up and down the narrow passage between the stalls like a captain on a bridge. He was fully conscious that he was in command – and the milkers were equally conscious he was in command. They kept their cheeks or their foreheads to the cow’s flank and plied their fingers as ably as they knew. There were fifty cows down each side of the big byre: and ten milkers. It was a good milker who could milk her cow in six minutes. Craigdaroch did not allow more than ten.

But to-night he was worried about the lime cargo. As he paced up and down the byre, his hands deep in the cross pockets of his whipcord breeches, his ear was cocked to the storm. At intervals a powerful gust of wind would tear round the byre and the swinging oil lamps would flicker and dim.

And then his ear would catch the sound of a cart and he would pause in his step – that was another load home. They would manage if they kept to it. Ah, Tom Gibson was a splendid brute of a man: he would tear the muscles of his bones but he would get that cargo home. Aye: the like of Tom Gibson was not to be had for the picking up.

He stopped before Mrs. Gibson whose milking was quiet and efficient.

‘It’s a wild night, Mrs. Gibson.’

‘It is that, Mr. MacWhirrie.’

‘Aye…’

He always felt uneasy with Mrs. Gibson. The woman’s respect for him was formal. He sensed this. She did not respect him: she did not look up to him. It was he who respected her. But his politeness was also formal. He prided himself that he was above the more petty vanities of his fellow-farmers who might have adopted a gruff or even brutal indifference to her. No: Ned MacWhirrie could afford to be polite: he was strong enough, firmly enough entrenched, to be above the petty irrelevance of intercourse.

Or so MacWhirrie thought. But there was a coolly calculated menance behind his manners and methods. He would never check a man for idling. He would give the man a look and pass on as if he did not employ him. And if he caught the same man in a similar offence he would still say nothing but he would mention the fact to his grieve or his dairyman or to his field ganger. But it was seldom he caught a man at the same offence twice in succession. His silence and his cold look was more effective than hectoring abuse would have been. The men would have understood and even appreciated a swearing. But they could not bear the menace of his silence. They were not long in sensing, if they were new to him, that that silence was cold and utterly merciless.

When he heard the sound of a second cart, Craigdaroch strode out of the byre, taking his hands from his pockets in order to button his oilskin. The routine of farming palled on him sometimes. This was the reason for his drinking and his interest in women. This was the reason for his mettlesome mare. And in getting home the lime cargo there was much more than the satisfaction of achieving a plan and the saving of a few pounds. There was adventure in it: there was activity and drama in it: something into which he might throw his restless energy. He had a feeling that the time was ripe for his intervention.

He stepped briskly into the barn where the lime was being unloaded.

‘Well, Johnston?’

‘It’s a sair trachle, Mr. MacWhirrie.’

‘How many tons have you here?’

‘Full fifty.’

‘What?’

‘Aye: it’ll no’ be the nicht she’ll be unloaded, Mr. MacWhirrie. The tide’s coming in fast. An’ there’s hardly light to see what you’re about.’

Craigdaroch said nothing. He looked at the horse in the shafts. A thick steam was rising from it. He looked at Johnston, his second ploughman. Johnston was showing signs of exhaustion. He could easily lose a mare on a job like this and his men wouldn’t be worth much in the morning. He sucked his greying moustache downwards with his lip. Call the job off and let the rest of the cargo go to hell? He wouldn’t be losing much. And his men would say: Aye, Craigdaroch thought he’d got his lime for nothing but the storm was over many for him. Well, he hadn’t seen the storm that was over many for him yet. Things were just ripe for him to take charge of the helm. He would have a word with MacAtear the dairyman and then get down to the shore.

Jean Gibson was the eldest of the family: she was coming five. After her came James and Mary: after them Robert, who was eighteen months old and still in the cradle. He was a heavy child and had not yet begun to walk.

Jean had the duty of watching them when her mother was at the milking. Her main task was to keep the children back from the fire. But the fire was the main attraction for them and Jean had to be constantly on guard. She had to keep rocking the cradle at intervals, Robert being a fretful child who could only be effectively disciplined by his mother. He had the child’s sense to know when that discipline was withdrawn.

Jean was a bonnie child. Her cheeks were round and apple red: her body plump and strong. Her eyes were large and black as sloes and gave to her child’s face a remarkable depth of beauty. And if she had her father’s quickness of temper she had also her mother’s sensitiveness.

Like most of the children of her age, she was experienced beyond what a later generation was to know as normal. She could wash and dress the children: she could wash dishes and set the table – though all the setting it required was harmless enough. And she could scrub potatoes. In the meagre economy that had to be practised, the wastefulness of peeling could not be tolerated.

Her mother, though she did not encourage her in the sin of idleness, did not impose on her innocent years. Most of the tasks she did impose on her were for her good – serving as a training that would stand her in good stead in later years.

Sometimes Agnes Gibson looked on her eldest child with her bright impetuous ways and sighed. She knew that soon enough her body would be racked with the toil of the hard insatiable fields: that the day would come when she would have to surrender her body to the will of a man and the marriage bed: that the day would come when she would have to put on the harness of life from which she would only be released by death.

God had imposed a hard lot upon womankind: a lot which had few recompenses and which they had to suffer in silence. Knowing this, she saved her child unnecessary toil and hardship.

Agnes Gibson had not yet become brutalised by the brutalities of her existence and she was to fight against brutalising tendencies even to her death-bed. And she was a Protestant even as many Roman Catholic mothers were Protestant – in their deepest nature. Her God was to all external purposes the God of Abraham and of Isaac, but in her heart she was a mother and a woman who realised deeply, if not clearly, that the God of her church was a male God and that for guidance in her daily work she had to trust to her own intuition and experience.

But for all this she was in thrall to many of the more dominant ideas and ideals of her day. When she came back from the milking she prepared a flask of gruel, spread an oatcake with butter, and sent Jean off to the shore to give it to her father. He would be wet and the gruel would help to warm him: the oatcake would appease his hunger.

Jean neither whimpered nor asked questions: she was already disciplined enough for that. Nor was the three-quarters of a mile walk to the shore beyond her. She knew the track well and there would be carts coming and going.

Her mother wrapped her up against the storm, buttoning her into a heavy cloth coat she had made down for her. The coat was buttoned over the flask which, in turn, was wrapped in a small woollen shawl that the warmth of the hot gruel might be the longer retained.

She knew it was a mid night into which she was sending the child. But the errand was one of necessity. She opened the door, patted the child gently on the shoulder and bade her hurry back.

Even at the end of her days that were to be long and arduous, Jean remembered that night. Never had a night been so black: never would a night be so black again. The wind was steadily rising to gale force. But for the moment the rain had abated. The wind was in her face and she was bent over on it so that when there came a sudden lull she stumbled forward almost losing her balance. Strangely enough she was not afraid. Fear was to come later in life when her world was to become populated with irrational, if traditional, terrors. There was a cart a short distance ahead and occasionally she would catch a glimpse of the storm lantern swinging in the ploughman’s free hand as he led his horse by the head.

But if she knew no fear; if she knew nothing as yet of witches and warlocks, of ghosts and wraiths; if she knew little of Auld Nick himself; yet the strange cry that was in the heart of the wind’s sough brought a chillness to her blood. No farm lights showed in the darkness. All the farms lay behind her and Craigdaroch farm stretched from Dum-reddan Point to Lagganmore.

There came to her ears a sound that caused her step to falter. It was a low dull sound filled with menace and evil. It came and went for it was the sound of boulders gurgling in the throat of the tide as it cleaved and tore and rasped for a hold on the long boulder-strewn shelving beach: it was the sound of the long waves pounding, pounding, incessantly pounding …

As she approached nearer to the beach the sound grew to a dull thunder over which only the sharper cries of the wind could be heard. She struggled over a rise of ground and then she felt the stinging salt spray on her cheeks while the wind tore at her as if to prevent her coming nearer.

She struggled on and there below her she saw the swinging lights of The Dolphin and heard the cries of the men.

Craigdaroch was directing operations. But by now no one was heeding his commands. The men were sullen and exhausted: numb to their marrows. Only the terrific driving force of the grieve kept them from giving in.

It was a mad and eerie scene. The rising tide was now breaking round The Dolphin: very soon it would be impossible to work beside her. They all knew this. The men hoped that the tide would save them further labour. But the skipper and Craigdaroch hoped differently. The skipper saw that there would be little chance of getting his boat out to sea. His only hope lay in lightening her sufficiently to enable him to beach her higher up. Not that this would solve his difficulties entirely. But if he managed to do so he might save The Dolphin from having her sides staved in by the full force of the waves. His men also saw the necessity for this though not with the same urgency.

As for Craigdaroch, he had set his mind on a project and he was not going to be deviated from it. The cargo would have to be unloaded no matter what the cost. No elements, natural or unnatural, were going to be allowed to stand in his way. The experience would be invaluable to his men and provide the parish with something to talk about for many a long day.

‘Tell Tom Gibson I want him,’ he called to a man.

The grieve came striding out of the water wet to the knees. He wiped the sweat and rain from his brow with his forearm. He was soaking: his shirt and trousers clung damply to his skin.

‘Are you near through with it, Tom?’

‘I think we’ll manage, Mr. MacWhirrie. But we’ll not need to lose any time.’

‘How many tons are there yet?’

‘Fully ten.’

‘Aye … You’ll just need to manage, Tom. I don’t think your men are putting their backs into the work the way they might.’

‘It’s sair work, Mr. MacWhirrie: and it’s sair on the horse. We’ll need to lighten the loads or we’ll be losing a cart.’

‘Don’t take your carts so far down: get them to carry the bags a bit further: a man’s easier got nor a horse.’

‘Just as you say, Mr. MacWhirrie … but they’re twa hundredweight bags and fully more, what with the rain.’

‘A man that can’t lift a twa hundredweight bag is no’ worth his wages on Craigdaroch: he can go at the term. That’s all, Tom.’

Tom Gibson had turned and was going back towards The Dolphin (Craigdaroch had no desire, as yet, to get his feet wet) when Jean came running out of the shadows with the flask of gruel. He was quite startled by the appearance of the child at such a juncture.

‘My mother sent me down with some gruel for you, father.’

A sudden wave of tenderness came over the grieve as he beheld his child standing there in the storm, the wind blowing the hair from under her close fitting hat.

‘But, wean dear, this is a terrible night for you to be out.’

He unwrapped the shawl from the flask and felt its warmth. At almost any other time he would have dismissed the offer as an insult to his manhood. But he was now shivering as a result of his talk with Craigdaroch. He uncorked the flask and put it to his head. The warm gruel was refreshing. He handed the empty flask back to his daughter.

‘Tell your mother I won’t be long now, and you get back with Jock Paterson in the next cart.’

And then, feeling he had idled enough time, he plunged forward to the side of The Dolphin, where Jock Paterson was struggling with his horse. The waves were now breaking around The Dolphin and the cart was slipping into the gravel while the horse was becoming restless.

The grieve roared at the men.

‘Get you backs into the wheels. Come on there, Andy, damn you…’

And suiting action to words, he flung his whole weight on to the spokes of the wheel while Jock Paterson roared and cursed at his horse. Suddenly a wheel caught on a rock and the cart turned sideways as it lurched forward, throwing Andy, the boy, off his balance.

Andy picked himself out of the shallow water, bruised and shaken, for the wheel had passed within an inch of his head. But no one bothered about him.

The next cart was attempting to back into position when Craigdaroch halted it.

The grieve took a bag on his back and ran with it to the cart. The bag was heavy and he was conscious of its weight: but it did not tax his strength. Though it was all the man in the cart could do to drag it into position.

Sam MacDowell took the next bag but a wave caught him above the knees and he fell face forward with the bag on top of him.

It took all Tom Gibson’s strength to remove the bag and raise the stunned carter out of the water.

The men were now in a bitter mood: they felt angry and rebellious. But the grieve’s threat of dismissal at the term checked them.

It fell to the grieve to carry the sacks. It was a task that called for his utmost reserve of energy. But gradually he felt himself tiring, became conscious of a definite weakening in his muscles. The Dolphin had swung her bow round with the rising tide, so that the grieve was no longer in danger from the direct force of the incoming waves. But the tide was now waist high and the biting coldness of it penetrated to his marrow.

It was a brutal scene. And when a swaying beam of light from The Dolphin crossed Craigdaroch’s face it appeared cruel and devilish.

And Craigdaroch was enjoying the scene. Now he felt his presence dominated the scene, that if his spirit did not ride the natural elements yet it most surely dominated the human elements. He was keenly aware that rebellion simmered in the hearts of his men: he knew that at this moment they hated him with a deep slow-burning hatred. But that hatred never once broke out in the sudden flame of action. And he felt it was his presence and his presence alone that prevented this. Actually so warmed was he by the inward lust of his power that he was oblivious to the personal discomfort of the storm.

There was a peculiar look of concentration about his eyes which were narrowed and hard. His brow was knit and wrinkled and the fringe of his moustache was sucked down by his lower lip – a trick of his whenever he was angry or his thoughts were concentrated.

The skipper of The Dolphin was deeply anxious about his ship. He saw now that there was little chance of beaching her further inshore – he would never be able to hold her bow to the storm: most likely she would keel over on her side, fill up and lie at the mercy of the waves. Already she was as good as lost. But he was not the man to give in without a fight – and at least the lime must be got out of the hold before she shipped water.

The crest of a wave lashed across the deck and sprayed the men in the hold. The skipper threw himself forward.

‘Let the bags go: let them go into the sea. Sclanders – pack my things: then see about the crew’s belongings. We’ll maybe need to abandon her.’

Sclanders hurried away. The skipper leaned over the stanchions.

‘Stand clear there below. Do you hear, Gibson? Stand clear if you don’t want your neck broken – we’re throwing the bags overboard.’

Two bags struck the sea beside the grieve. He dropped his arms in a resigned gesture. Craigdaroch glowered at him as he stepped out of the sea.

‘We can do no more, Mr. MacWhirrie. They’re couping the bags overboard.’

‘You told him that was a breach of contract?’

‘I did not, Mr. MacWhirrie: I’ve done my best and I can do no more.’

‘N’aye …’

‘I suppose the men can go home now, Mr. MacWhirrie?’

‘They can go to hell.’

‘Whatever you say, Mr. MacWhirrie – but they’ve had a hard day. I’ll better go and see that the horses are dried down rightly: we don’t want any trouble wi’ the weed.’

‘N’aye: you’re no’ staying to see The Dolphin broken up? There’ll be some good firewood here in the morning.’

‘It’ll be a damned shame, Mr. MacWhirrie, for he’s a decent man that skipper.’

Craigdaroch laughed.

‘N’aye … he’ll have good cause to mind Craigdaroch – if he’s the sense to abandon her in time. On you go, Tom, and see to they horses. I’ll stand by here.’

Tom Gibson turned and picked up his jacket and vest. Pity and anger fought for the dominance of his emotions. His pity went out to the skipper of The Dolphin: his anger mounted against Craigdaroch. Because of his feelings he was anxious to escape from the scene. Only on the way home did he become conscious of the bitterness of the wind.

Craigdaroch remained. The scene fascinated him. The destruction of another’s property always gave him intense satisfaction. He would gallop for miles to a stackyard blaze and gaze spellbound till the fire either burned itself out or was got under control. But his fondest hope was not to be realised: the end was not spectacular. Indeed for him the end came as a bitter anti-climax.

The skipper and the crew abandoned The Dolphin. They stood on the beach, withdrawn from Craigdaroch, watching silently every movement of the ship.

As the skipper anticipated, The Dolphin as she began to float was battered broadside on to the shore. The tide rose. The ship filled with water. The waves pounded and broke on her side and then the last swaying light on the yard-arm was dowsed.

Dimly they could distinguish the hull of The Dolphin and the waves, now mountainous, breaking over her.

The mate held a small storm lamp in his hand. Craigdaroch stepped into the dim circle of its light. The evening’s entertainment was over.

‘Well, skipper: you’ll no’ sail her again. Aye: it’s a great pity. But come away up to the house and I’ll see about a drink and a bite of supper.’

The skipper turned towards him, speaking slowly and deliberately.

‘The only charity I’ll ask from you, MacWhirrie, is a shed to shelter me and my men for the night.’

Craigdaroch laughed.

‘Aye, aye. But there’s nae harm in having some toddy and a bite first.’

And chuckling quietly to himself, he led the way up from the shore.