CHAPTER IV: PHEMY MAIR
With eyes that stared as if they and not her ears were the organs
of hearing, this talk was heard by a child of about ten years of
age, who sat in the bottom of the ruined boat, like a pearl in a
decaying oyster shell, one hand arrested in the act of dabbling in
a green pool, the other on its way to her lips with a mouthful of
the seaweed called dulse. She was the daughter of Joseph Mair just
mentioned--a fisherman who had been to sea in a man of war (in
consequence of which his to-name or nickname was Blue Peter), where
having been found capable, he was employed as carpenter's mate,
and came to be very handy with his tools: having saved a little
money by serving in another man's boat, he was now building one
for himself.
He was a dark complexioned, foreign looking man, with gold rings in
his ears, which he said enabled him to look through the wind "ohn
his een watered." Unlike most of his fellows, he was a sober and
indeed thoughtful man, ready to listen to the voice of reason from
any quarter; they were, in general, men of hardihood and courage,
encountering as a mere matter of course such perilous weather as
the fishers on a great part of our coasts would have declined to
meet, and during the fishing season were diligent in their calling,
and made a good deal of money; but when the weather was such that
they could not go to sea, when their nets were in order, and nothing
special requiring to be done, they would have bouts of hard drinking,
and spend a great portion of what ought to have been their provision
for the winter.
Their women were in general coarse in manners and rude in speech;
often of great strength and courage, and of strongly marked
character. They were almost invariably the daughters of fishermen,
for a wife taken from among the rural population would have been
all but useless in regard of the peculiar duties required of her.
If these were less dangerous than those of their husbands, they
were quite as laborious, and less interesting. The most severe
consisted in carrying the fish into the country for sale, in
a huge creel or basket, which when full was sometimes more than a
man could lift to place on the woman's back. With this burden, kept
in its place by a band across her chest, she would walk as many as
twenty miles, arriving at some inland town early in the forenoon,
in time to dispose of her fish for the requirements of the day. I
may add that, although her eldest child was probably born within a
few weeks after her marriage, infidelity was almost unknown amongst
them.
In some respects, although in none of its good qualities, Mrs. Mair
was an exception from her class. Her mother had been the daughter
of a small farmer, and she had well to do relations in an inland
parish; but how much these facts were concerned in the result it
would be hard to say: certainly she was one of those elect whom
Nature sends into the world for the softening and elevation of her
other children. She was still slight and graceful, with a clear
complexion, and the prettiest teeth possible; the former two at
least of which advantages she must have lost long before, had it
not been that, while her husband's prudence had rendered hard work
less imperative, he had a singular care over her good looks; and
that a rough, honest, elder sister of his lived with them, whom it
would have been no kindness to keep from the hardest work, seeing
it was only through such that she could have found a sufficiency
of healthy interest in life. While Janet Mair carried the creel,
Annie only assisted in making the nets, and in cleaning and drying
the fish, of which they cured considerable quantities; these, with
her household and maternal duties, afforded her ample occupation.
Their children were well trained, and being of necessity, from the
narrowness of their house accommodation, a great deal with their
parents, heard enough to make them think after their faculty.
The mad laird was, as I have said, a visitor at their house oftener
than anywhere else. On such occasions he slept in a garret accessible
by a ladder from the ground floor, which consisted only of a kitchen
and a closet. Little Phemy Mair was therefore familiar with his
appearance, his ways, and his speech; and she was a favourite with
him, although hitherto his shyness had been sufficient to prevent
any approach to intimacy with even a child of ten.
When the poor fellow had got some little distance beyond the
boats, he stopped and withdrew his hands from his ears: in rushed
the sound of the sea, the louder that the caverns of his brain had
been so long closed to its entrance. With a moan of dismay he once
more pressed his palms against them, and thus deafened, shouted
with a voice of agony into the noise of the rising tide: "I dinna
ken whaur I come frae!" after which cry, wrung from the grief of
human ignorance, he once more took to his heels, though with far
less swiftness than before, and fled stumbling and scrambling over
the rocks.
Scarcely had he vanished from view of the boats, when Phemy scrambled
out of her big mussell shell. Its upheaved side being toward the
boat at which her father was at work, she escaped unperceived, and
so ran along the base of the promontory, where the rough way was
perhaps easier to the feet of a child content to take smaller steps
and climb or descend by the help of more insignificant inequalities.
She came within sight of the laird just as he turned into the mouth
of a well known cave and vanished.
Phemy was one of those rare and blessed natures which have endless
courage because they have no distrust, and she ran straight into
the cave after him, without even first stopping to look in.
It was not a very interesting cave to look into. The strata of
which it was composed, upheaved almost to the perpendicular, shaped
an opening like the half of a Gothic arch divided vertically and
leaning over a little to one side, which opening rose to the full
height of the cave, and seemed to lay bare every corner of it to
a single glance. In length it was only about four or five times
its width. The floor was smooth and dry, consisting of hard rock.
The walls and roof were jagged with projections and shadowed with
recesses, but there was little to rouse any frightful fancies.
When Phemy entered, the laird was nowhere to be seen. But she went
straight to the back of the cave, to its farthest visible point.
There she rounded a projection and began an ascent which only
familiarity with rocky ways could have enabled such a child to
accomplish. At the top she passed through another opening, and by
a longer and more gently sloping descent reached the floor of a
second cave, as level and nearly as smooth as a table. On her left
hand, what light managed to creep through the tortuous entrance was
caught and reflected in a dull glimmer from the undefined surface
of a well of fresh water which lay in a sort of basin in the rock:
on a bedded stone beside it sat the laird, with his head in his
hands, his elbows on his knees, and his hump upheaved above his
head, like Mount Sinai over the head of Christian in the Pilgrim's
Progress.
As his hands were still pressed on his ears, he heard nothing of
Phemy's approach, and she stood for a while staring at him in the
vague glimmer, apparently with no anxiety as to what was to come
next.
Weary at length--for the forlorn man continued movelessly sunk
in his own thoughts, or what he had for such--the eyes of the
child began to wander about the darkness, to which they had already
got so far accustomed as to make the most of the scanty light.
Presently she fancied she saw something glitter, away in the
darkness--two things: they must be eyes!--the eyes of an otter
or of a polecat, in which creatures the caves along the shore
abounded. Seized with sudden fright, she ran to the laird and laid
her hand on his shoulder, crying,
"Leuk, laird, leuk!"
He started to his feet and gazed bewildered at the child, rubbing
his eyes once and again. She stood between the well and the entrance,
so that all the light there was, gathered upon her pale face.
"Whaur do ye come frae?" he cried.
"I cam frae the auld boat," she answered.
"What do ye want wi' me?"
"Naething, sir; I only cam to see hoo ye was gettin' on. I wadna
hae disturbit ye, sir, but I saw the twa een o' a wullcat, or sic
like, glowerin' awa yonner i' the mirk, an' they fleyt me 'at I
grippit ye."
"Weel, weel; sit ye doon, bairnie," said the mad laird in a soothing
voice; "the wullcat sanna touch ye. Ye're no fleyt at me, are ye?"
"Na!" answered the child. "What for sud I be fleyt at you, sir?
I'm Phemy Mair."
"Eh, bairnie! it's you, is't?" he returned in tones of satisfaction,
for he had not hitherto recognised her. "Sit ye doon, sit ye doon,
an' we'll see about it a'."
Phemy obeyed, and seated herself on the nearest projection.
The laird placed himself beside her, and once more buried his face,
but not his ears, in his hands. Nothing entered them, however, but
the sound of the rising tide, for Phemy sat by him in the faintly
glimmering dusk, as without fear felt, so without word spoken.
The evening crept on, and the night came down, but all the effect
of the growing darkness was that the child drew gradually nearer
to her uncouth companion, until at length her hand stole into his,
her head sank upon his shoulder, his arm went round her to hold
her safe, and thus she fell fast asleep. After a while, the laird
gently roused her and took her home, on their way warning her,
in strange yet to her comprehensible utterance, to say nothing of
where she had found him, for if she exposed his place of refuge,
wicked people would take him, and he should never see her again.
