Читать книгу Light - Margaret Elphinstone - Страница 10

CHAPTER 4

‘FOR CHRISSAKE, BEN, IS YOUNG ARCHIBALD NO GOIN TAE get me oot o here?’

Benjamin Groat shifted his feet uncomfortably, but he kept his face close to the barred grille in the door down to the dungeons. Ben was a big, gangling fellow, and he had to stoop to look through. The dungeon stank of excrement and foetid bodies. His gorge rose. At least he was on the right side of the door, standing in a chilly stone alley that led inwards from the old moat of Castle Rushen. The formidable keep, which was the main part of the prison, rose like a grey cliff behind him. It was surrounded by a great curtain wall, making the old moat into an enclosed prison yard. Ben couldn’t meet Drew’s eyes. He’d come here to help him if he could, but the plain fact was there was nothing he could do.

‘He didna say so, Drew. That doesna mean he winna.’

‘Bastard! Poxy whore’s son! The bastard!’ Drew Scott shook the bars of the grille, but the dungeon door was too solid to budge an inch.

A harsh voice came from the darkness below him. ‘Stow that racket! And get out of the bloody light.’

Drew ground his teeth. ‘Pack o bloody Manxmen. Give themsels airs. Think they own the bloody place. Dinnae want to be locked up with common felons! Common felon! That’s whit the bastard called me … I’d knock his bloody brains oot but!’

‘Ay well.’ Ben sighed. He glanced swiftly down at Drew’s face. ‘Don’t do onything, Drew, however much they rile you. You’ve no been charged yet, even. Turnkey telt me this was just the holding cell. It’s no like they’ve put ye in the main prison bit. But if there’s any more trouble now …’

‘’Tweren’t nothing! You saw, Ben! The cully spat in my face! An I floored him. What of it? What kind a man wouldnae, if a cull spits in his face and calls him another thievin Scotchman? I never got called a thief. Never! I’ve no stolen aught!’

‘That wasna what he said. Another of Atholl’s thieving Scotchmen was what he said. He wasna saying you had your hand in another man’s pocket. He meant the late Duke.’

‘Dukes arena anythin to do wi me! Just as well. Young Archibald’s more’n enough. For Chrissake, Ben, you mean he’ll do naught? He’s no goin to get me oot o here?’

‘Well … what I mean is … he will, Drew. He must. What would Mr Stevenson say, supposing Young Archibald left you be?’

‘Mr Stevenson isnae here though, is he? There isnae naebody here but Mr Stuck-up Lick-yer-arse Fidget-face. And when did he ever give a damn? He’d let me swing an no lift a finger to save me, so he would. I tell you, Ben’ – Drew’s voice grew shrill, and Ben drew back involuntarily – ‘he’ll let these bastards hang me, an no give the snap of his fingers for’t, so he will.’

‘Who said onything about hanging, Drew? Your man’s no deid nor like to be. They threw a bucket of water ower him and he came roon soon enough.’

Drew put his face close to the bars and whispered, so Ben had to come right up to the grille to hear him, ducking his head and putting his ear close to the metal. The stench from inside was appalling. ‘Man in there says they transported a fellow who knocked oot a man just the same as what I did. Tavern fight. Just the same. Transported, Ben! Convict ships! They do a lot o that here. That’s what they’ll do to me if Young Archibald doesnae go bail for me. Christ, man, I got tae get oot o here. Where is the bastard?’

‘Young Archibald? He’s away to see a fellow,’ said Ben, not meeting Drew’s eyes. ‘Water Bailiff, he said. About the new light. Legal stuff. But Drew, they kinna transport you. They kinna! You’ve no done notheen hardly. Few days in here, that’s what it’ll be, just. Few days, couple o weeks maybe. That’s all.’

‘All! That’ll lose me ma joab! Ben, I got to come wi you. I got my joab to do. You cannae go oot there wi’oot me. Whit’ll ye dae wi but one chainman? Whit’ll ye dae? He’s got to get me oot but!’

Ben dropped his eyes. There were a few limpet shells among the refuse on the ground, and he clumsily ground them under his boot. ‘Well … thing is, Drew … Young Archibald told me to see about hiring another man. Just for this job, like. Just if you couldna mak it this time roond.’

‘Bastard!’ Drew spat furiously, and Ben flinched. ‘He’ll bloody leave me here to rot! Throw me oot like yesterday’s bones! He’ll report me and lose me ma joab, so he will! He isnae even goin tae see the magistrate, you mean? You mean he isnae goin tae dae naught for me, Ben?’

Ben looked down at his feet. ‘He’s in a hurry, Drew. Waste of time, see, having to deal with this Water Bailiff. He wants to get off as soon as possible to this Port St Mary, and find this boatman. You know how he hates politics. He wants to get on with the job. He doesna want to lose another day.’

‘The devil! Doesnae want to lose a day! An me like to lose ma life! There’s no justice in it, Ben. The man’s a murderer. He’ll have ma blood oan his hands, sure as if he’d knifed me hissel. He’s killt me, Ben!’ Drew’s voice grew shrill.

‘Stow your noise, blast you!’ The voice from inside the dungeon was as hoarse as a dying crow.

‘That’s no fair,’ said Ben reasonably. ‘It’s no a hanging matter, I telt ye that. It wis just a brawl. And it was you that floored the cully. No one else. Young Archibald wasna in the tavern even. It’s notheen to do with him really.’

‘Christ, Ben—’

‘You there!’ The turnkey’s voice sounded from the gatehouse up above. ‘Five minutes, I said. That’s ten minutes gone! You’ll be losing me my place, with your ingoings and outgoings. Out you come there!’

‘Outgoings is right,’ muttered Ben. ‘I got to go, Drew. I’ll speak to Young Archibald, though. I swear I will. Don’t give in to the doldrums, mate. I’ll—’

‘Get the hell out of there, I say!’ The turnkey’s boots clattered on the stone steps. ‘Get the hell out or I’ll charge you double!’

‘I’m coming!’ Ben leant towards the grille and whispered. ‘Keep your hairt up, Drew. They kinna hang ye. They won’t even keep you in here more’n a day or two, not if I can stop it. Here’ – he reached into the pocket of his frieze jacket, and pulled out a greasy packet – ‘It’s bread and pickled onion. Fresh fae the baker. I thought you might be glad o it.’

Drew seized the bread, and thrust it into the bosom of his jacket. ‘Ay well, thanks for that. And Ben …’

‘Ay?’

‘Would you have a bawbee about you? I dinnae get no grub in here withoot. I paid ma last sixpence and what did I get? Bloody stewed limpets. Limpets! Beggars’ broth! He cannae leave me in here, Ben. You tell him …’

‘You come on out o’ that!’

Ben fumbled in his purse and drew out a shilling. After a moment’s hesitation he passed it through the bars. Drew snatched at it, and feverishly pocketed the coin. ‘Don’t let them bloody debtors see! Thanks, Ben. True blue, that’s you. But that Young …’

‘I got to go, Drew.’

‘Find oot!’ Drew shouted after him, as Ben followed the turnkey away. Drew clung desperately to the bars. ‘Find oot what they’ll do! And tell Young Archibald … Ben, you’ll come back, right?’

‘Ay, I’ll do that …’

‘Like hell you will,’ snarled the turnkey, grabbing Ben’s arm and dragging him away. ‘Out, you! And be thankful I wasn’t taking another shilling. Five minutes indeed. I’ve a mind to be reporting you to—’

‘Stow it,’ said Ben. ‘You got your shilling. I doubt you’ll be reporting that. I’m off.’

As soon as he was outside the great gates Ben drew a deep breath of clean air, and stood up straight, blinking. He tended to slouch, which perhaps came from stooping down to get on a level with his fellows. For Ben was known to be good company, though steady with it. He’d drink with the others, but no one had ever seen him the worse for it, and it was reckoned to be impossible to provoke him to argument, let alone fight. He had an ugly freckled face, wiry reddish hair, and mild blue eyes. His father had been employed by Robert Stevenson as a stonemason at Pentland Skerries, and stayed with the firm thereafter. He was killed falling from the temporary bridge on the Bell Rock, just a week before the lighthouse was completed. That had happened two months before Ben’s birth. The widow took her new-born infant home to Orkney. A small pension was forthcoming, supposedly anonymous, but Benjamin was aware very early on of the identity of his patron. Mr Stevenson had also offered John Groat’s orphan an apprenticeship, to commence when he was fourteen. So Benjamin sailed for Edinburgh within a week of his fourteenth birthday, and was promptly directed to the Survey of Sutherland as ’prentice under the assistant chainman. What his mother thought about it no one knew; probably not even Benjamin had any idea. As for Benjamin himself, even those who worked with him closely knew rather less about him than that. He was a quiet fellow, and got on with folk, and Mr Stevenson thought very highly of him.

The sun hadn’t reached into the hollow of the Castle Rushen moat. Out on the harbour quay the day was already bright. Ben shuddered, and walked round the castle, past a stone-breakers’ yard, and on to the harbour quay at the front of the castle. Who’d have thought such an imposing building could house such stinking misery inside? Just like people really, thought Ben, and grinned to himself. He’d done his best, but it was good to be out of that place. Being a peaceable fellow himself, he’d had little enough to do with jails, thank the Lord.

The castle faced straight onto the harbour. The tide was coming in fast over flat slabs of rock and seaweed. A couple of herring smacks were moored at the Castle Quay, with the sea running in around their exposed keels. A schooner was unloading coal, and townsfolk with baskets and barrows were queuing up to buy, their boisterous banter drowning out the screams of the gulls. Further upriver a gaggle of farmyard ducks foraged in the exposed seaweed. Compared with Douglas harbour, where they’d berthed yesterday, with its fine new pier and good lighthouse, this place was a backwater – literally, one might say.

Ben wandered along the quay, and crossed a stone bridge over the river that flowed into the harbour. An old fellow was leaning on the bridge smoking a long clay pipe, watching the tide flooding in over the exposed mudflats.

‘Morning,’ said Ben cheerfully, stopping beside him.

‘And a good morning to you.’ The old man removed his pipe, and looked Ben over sideways. ‘You’ll be a stranger in these parts, then?’

‘Ay.’

‘English?’

‘Not I!’

‘Scotch?’

‘No that either!’

‘You’re not sounding like an Irishman. Welsh?’

‘No. Orkney,’ said Ben, leaning on the rail beside his questioner. ‘But I’ve been away fae home a long time. You’ll ken this place pretty well, then?’

‘I’m living here all my days.’

‘Tell me, then – when we came last night, it was just gone high tide. It falls a good way, then?’

The old man looked at him sideways. ‘More’n twenty feet just now. At low tide you’ll not hardly be seeing a pint of water in the harbour, barring the river. Three-and-a-half hours after high tide the whole harbour’ll be dry again.’

‘That must make the fishing difficult.’

The old man sucked on his pipe deliberately; he seemed to be staring out to sea, but he was watching Ben out of the corner of his eye. Evidently he decided it was worth being communicative. ‘Aye well, it’s dangerous awful in the bay outside. But once your boat’s in she’s as snug as can be, as you’re seeing indeed, here in the duck pond – that’s the name we’re putting on it here. When the herring are coming in, you see, the smacks are mooring off Derbyhaven mostly, and that’s where they’re beaching them in the winter.’

‘Derbyhaven?’

‘You are a stranger and no mistake!’ The old man looked him over, but didn’t ask any direct questions. Instead he jerked his pipe in an easterly direction. ‘Over that way, a mile or two. That’s Derbyhaven.’

‘And there’s a better harbour there?’

‘Harbour?’ the fellow repeated scornfully. ‘Bless your heart, there’s no harbour there at all. But you’d never be mooring in Castletown Bay, not when there’s a westerly in. So it’ll be the fishing that brings you here, no doubt?’

‘No.’ Ben leaned his elbows on the rail, and deliberately grew confidential. It was worth getting alongside the locals, though he was wary of the old fellow’s sidelong glances. So far everything he’d said seemed true enough. ‘I’m in the surveying business,’ said Ben. ‘Chainman. I work for the company that built the lighthouses on the Calf here. That’d be what? … ten, twelve year ago now?’

‘So that’s it, is it? Surveying? Is that making a map, like? There’s a map of Castletown already, so they’re telling, but I’m never seeing it.’

The air of benighted ignorance seemed genuine enough, but Ben wasn’t at all sure. ‘Ay well, we’re no working in Castletown. Like I say, you had our company here before, building the lights on the Calf. Lot of wrecks here before that,’ remarked Ben casually, ‘or so they say.’

‘And plenty of wrecks since too! I’m not holding with all these lights everywhere. It sets folk thinking the coast is safe, and that’s not so. Never was, never will be. There were wrecks before the lights – one or two wrecks along this coast every year, year in, year out – and wrecks just the same ever since. Listen, young fellow … but three months since there was a smack lost in Castletown Bay. Coming from Liverpool, she was. Smashed to pieces on the rocks out there in a storm, barely a mile from this harbour. Just out yonder, not a mile from where we’re standing. Them lights on the Calf aren’t stopping that sort of thing, now, are they?’

‘No, but a light at that headland I saw across the bay might help.’

‘Langness? And what would be the use of that? It’s too low. A bit of spray on a wild night – a patch of fog – no, that would do no good at all. There’s the Herring Tower there, anyway. What more would you be wanting? And how about the Atalanta was wrecked at Port St Mary last year? Now she was from Derbyhaven – John Watterson, he had knowledge of these waters – but that wasn’t helping her, was it? And you won’t never see them lights on the Calf near Port St Mary. And the Atalanta wasn’t the only one at Port St Mary last year – there was that sloop from Scotland too. They were getting the cargo off – pig-iron, that’s what it was – but the ship, she was finished. No, you can’t tell me them lights have changed nothing.’

‘I’ve kent places in Scotland where they’ve set up lights and barely had a wreck since.’

‘Ah well now, you would have done, wouldn’t you? That’s how you’ll be knowing all about what we’re needing here. Well, well, isn’t that fortunate now, that you’re coming here to the Island to be putting us all right?’

‘It’s a busy route, then, along your coast here?’ asked Ben innocently.

‘Bless your soul, it’s the busiest route in the Manx Sea. But a week or two now, and you’ll be having them all here for the fishing. They’ll be out west of the Island right now, but when the herring will be coming round the coast, the boats’ll be following. Once the Cornishmen are coming along, that’s when the season is really starting. And not just the fishing. Now it’s all them steamers, going away to Liverpool, Whitehaven, Belfast, the Lord knows where … Oh yes, we don’t do so bad, for poor ones who aren’t knowing nothing at all. Not like you educated gentlemen from Edinburgh, of course.’

‘I telt you: I’m fae Orkney. We don’t have any steamer routes there yet. But we – me and my master – we came on the steamer from Glasgow yesterday.’

‘Well, you won’t get me onto one of them things. Blow up, like as not, and what will you be doing when the engine stops working? No sails, no oars. It’s not nathural.’

‘And no wrecks either. Or no so many. A steamer can get itself off a lee shore where a sailing ship wouldna have a hope.’

‘Well, you’re wrong there, young fellow. Weren’t you hearing how the George was wrecked in Douglas Bay just last year? At least, they were getting her off in the end, but it wasn’t steam that was the saving of her.’

Ben knew all about the George. He’d been told the whole story by a fellow he’d met on the Mona’s Isle. He let the old man tell it again, but he was listening to the accent more than the words. The fellows in the tavern last night had been speaking their own language. That was really what had got Drew into a fight. Ben guessed they’d been talking pretty freely about the two strangers in their midst; certainly they had very obviously seemed to regard Drew and Ben as a source of amusement. Ben had tried to make out what they were saying – he’d listened to enough Gaelic when they were working at Cape Wrath to have a smattering – but he couldn’t make out this Manx language. It didn’t bother Ben what they might be saying, anyway, but it had bothered Drew all right.

Lot of nonsense this old fellow was talking, anyway, but it was useful to know what folk were saying. Ben was used to prejudice against the lights. There was always a reason for it, and this Island had been a lawless country in the past by all accounts. There was no telling but what this chap knew a thing or two more than he’d say about wrecks. And there’d been some pretty fierce smuggling here by all accounts, but that was years ago, not since the war probably. The old fellow would mind all of that – probably he’d learned to sweet-talk the excise officers just the same way he was talking to Ben now. Anyway, it was just typical of these old fishermen, saying the lights had brought no benefit. You couldn’t convince anyone who chose not to listen. You couldn’t ever prove how it would have been without the lights, once they were there, and how the wrecks did get less, if you took into account that the shipping was growing and growing every year that passed.

It was true about the steamships though. They hardly ever got into difficulties the way the sailing ships did, because they could get themselves off the coast whatever airt the wind was in. Look at how they’d rounded the Mull yesterday morning in the Mona’s Isle. With almost no wind at all they’d made about eight knots ever since they’d left the Clyde. They’d never have done that in a brig. It was a shame in a way. There was something about a brig, about the feel of the sea under the keel, and the sound of the wind and the tide, that you just didn’t get on the Mona’s Isle with her engines clattering away and her paddle wheels turning. Young as he was, Ben had been bred to a different world. No wonder these old fellows took it hard.

‘You ken these waters pretty well,’ he remarked, as the old man relapsed into silence and pulled at his pipe. ‘You’ll ken Ellan Bride? The island beyond the Calf?’

The old man took his pipe out of his mouth and deliberately spat into the river. ‘Oh ay. Ellan Bride … it’s surely not to Ellan Bride you’re for going, young fellow? You’re never going there? It’s a dangerous journey, dangerous awful. More’n half a league south of the Calf itself, right out at sea. You’re surely never wanting to go out there!’

‘Ay. That’s where we’ll be working.’

‘You will? There’s a light at them there already, you know that? Been a light at them these fifty years. Fifty years and over it, even, or so they say. But you’ll be knowing all about that?’

‘I ken about the private light, ay. We’re going to replace it. Build a new one.’

‘Is that right? You’ll be coming here to build us a new light on Ellan Bride? Well, well, you’re coming along to do us all a favour. And you’ll be bringing more Scotchmen over with you, and putting them on Ellan Bride, God help them? Well, well, whatever would we be doing without fellows like you coming along?’

‘You don’t think a new light’s a good idea?’

The old fellow shifted his gaze from Ben’s face, and seemed to deliberately change the subject. ‘You’re seeing that castle there?’ He jerked his pipe towards the grey bulk of Castle Rushen above the quay.

‘I could hardly miss it.’ Ben decided not to mention his acquaintance with the jail. ‘What of it?’

‘Well, maybe I’ll be telling you something about that castle. See the big it is?’

‘I certainly do.’

‘Well, I’ll be telling you a story about that. That castle is old’ – the old man’s voice sank to a dramatic whisper ‘– older than the memory of man.’

‘Then who built it?’

‘That’s what I’m telling you. Themselves it was, was building it, and I’ll tell you, Themselves is keeping their rooms in it that no man can be entering. There’s rooms in that castle no man is knowing of. There’s folk gone in, now and then, over the years – young fellows, and a taste of Dutch courage taken at them – you’ll know what that is? But never a one was ever coming back. And then a fellow was going in, but he took a skein of packthread, to be marking the way, like, and he was going in. Down and down he was going, down the long passages in the pitch dark, league after league …’

‘A very big castle,’ muttered Ben, under his breath.

‘… until at last he was seeing just a flicker – just the smallest little flicker – of a glimmering of light. And that seemed to him the best thing he ever did see. So he was going on and on, right away up to the light, and he was looking in on the window. And inside that window he was seeing the buggane – it’s the truth I’m telling you now, mind – seeing the buggane, and he lying asleep on a great stone table, laying his head on a book he was, and gripping a great sword in his hand, and breathing hard in his sleep. So the young fellow was running for it, away from the light and back along all the weary way, following his packthread, and out into the light of day at last. And so he was the one who was living to tell the tale.’

The old man was looking at him again through half-closed eyelids, apparently gauging the effect of his tale. Ben didn’t like that look. He was fairly sure he was being made game of, but when he met the other’s eyes, the old man broke into the blandest of smiles.

‘Is that right?’ said Ben cautiously. ‘And what’s that got to do with Ellan Bride?’

‘Ay well, that’d be another story. But if it’s my advice you’re seeking, young fellow – and I daresay you’re not, for without doubt there’s more learning at yourself in a few years of life than at myself in all of threescore and ten, you with your Scotch education and all – but if asking you were, I’d say keep you away from that island, young fellow. Don’t you be going near Ellan Bride!’

‘There’s an island where I come from,’ said Ben, watching him closely, ‘that’s supposed to disappear on midsummer nights. So they say. My Auld Daa lived in sight of that island, and never once did it shift from its moorings, and you could see it any old time you liked, except when the mist was down.’

‘Ah, but you weren’t on that island, young fellow. Now were you? That’s the thing. You might be seeing Ellan Bride any day of the year, but this time of year particular – May-time – you wouldn’t want to be going too near the place then.’

‘Well, that’s a shame,’ said Ben cheerfully. ‘In fact it’s a remarkable coincidence, since it’s May-time now, and Ellan Bride is exactly where we’re going to be.’

Ay well, so much for that, thought Ben, as he strolled along the other quay a few minutes later. The day’s work was well under way. Warehouse doors stood wide open: he could see right into the chandler’s and the ropeworks next to it. There was another schooner unloading blocks of sugar, each one carefully wrapped in sacking. Ben skirted the dockers and their carts, and crossed a wooden bridge back to the townward quay. And so much for Young Archibald telling him to sound out another chainman. If the old man he’d just spoken to was right, it seemed unlikely that they’d get anyone from Castletown willing to take on the job. Maybe they’d have better luck in Port St Mary. The boatman would surely have some ideas. Ben would have to explain to Archie that it would be better to wait until they got over there. Young Archibald always wanted everything sorted out yesterday; he never seemed to learn that the further you got from Edinburgh, the less life was going to be like that.

At the end of the quay a muddy lane led past a row of thatched cabins that faced onto the bay. There was a strong smell of woodsmoke, muck, rotting seaweed and drying fish. Barefoot children and prowling dogs tumbled in the glaur. Ben came out onto a shingle beach with one or two rowing boats drawn up close to the cottages. By this time he’d collected a little group of children who followed him curiously. He addressed the biggest girl: ‘Will I get back to the market square this way?’

She shook her head uncomprehendingly, but now he could see the back of the big new church towering over the huddled cottages. The bell was ringing as he passed the school, and a noisy gaggle of latecomers pushed past him to the open door. Just as well, maybe, that he couldn’t comprehend what they were calling as he passed. In no time at all Ben was back in the square with its fine town houses and the George facing the back walls of Castle Rushen. But it was quiet no longer. Even though there was no market today the fish-sellers had set out their wares on the slabs, and some brisk bargaining was under way. A group of red-coated officers on horseback clattered over the cobbles, narrowly missing a couple of girls bowling an iron hoop. Ben strolled across the square, enjoying the warmth of the sun. The morning was in full swing; it was time to find Young Archibald.