Scenes and legends of the north of Scotland

by Hugh Miller

There seemed something magical in the communication—something that awakened all the sympathies of the poor bereaved woman; and she felt she could forgive him every unkindness.

“Waes me!” she exclaimed, “it was in such a night as this, an’ scarcely sae wild, that my Ernest perished.”

The old man groaned and wrung his hands.

In one of the pauses of the hurricane there was a gun heard from the sea, and shortly after a second. “Some puir vessel in distress,” said the widow, “but, alas! where can succour come frae in sae terrible a night? There is help only in Ane! Waes me! would we no better light up a blaze on the floor, an’, dearest Helen, draw off the cover frae the window? My puir Ernest has told me that my light has aften showed him his bearings frae the deadly bed o’ Dunskaith. That last gun,” for a third was now heard booming over the mingled roar of the sea and the wind, “cam frae the very rock edge. Waes me! maun they perish, an’ sae near?” Helen hastily lighted a bundle of mire-fir, that threw up its red sputtering blaze half-way to the roof, and dropping the covering, continued to wave it opposite the window. Guns were still heard at measured intervals, but apparently from a safer offing; and the last, as it sounded faintly against the wind, came evidently from the interior of the bay.

“She has escaped,” said the old man; “it’s a feeble hand that canna do good when the heart is willing;—but what has mine been doing a’ life lang?” He looked at the widow and shuddered.

Towards morning the wind fell, and the moon in her last quarter rose red and glaring out of the Firth, lighting the melancholy roll of the waves, and the broad white belt of surf that skirted the shore. The old fisherman left the cottage, and sauntered along the beach. It was heaped with huge wreaths of kelp and tangle, uprooted by the storm, and in the hollow of the rocky bay lay the scattered fragments of a boat. Eachen stooped to pick up a piece of the wreck, in the fearful expectation of finding some known mark by which to recognise it; when the light fell full on the swollen face of a corpse, that seemed staring at him from out a wreath of sea-weed. It was that of his eldest son; and the body of the younger, fearfully gashed and mangled by the rocks, lay a few yards further to the east.

The morning was as pleasant as the night had been boisterous; and, except that the distant hills were covered with snow, and that a heavy swell continued to roll in from the sea, there remained scarce any trace of the recent tempest. Every hollow of the neighbouring hill had its little runnel, formed by the rains of the previous night, that now splashed and glistened to the sun. The bushes round the cottage were well-nigh divested of their leaves; but their red berries—hips and haws, and the juicy fruit of the honeysuckle—gleamed cheerfully to the light, and a warm steam of vapour, like that of a May morning, rose from the roof and the little mossy platform in front. But the scene seemed to have something more than merely its beauty to recommend it to a young man, drawn apparently to the spot, with many others, by the fate of the two unfortunate fishermen, and who now stood gazing on the rocks, and the hill, and the cottage, as a lover on the features of his mistress. The bodies had been carried to an old storehouse, which may still be seen, a short mile to the west; and the crowds that, during the early part of the morning, had been perambulating the beach, gazing at the wreck, and discussing the various probabilities of the accident, had gradually dispersed. But this solitary individual, whom no one knew, remained behind. He was a tall and somewhat swarthy, though very handsome man, of about seven-and-twenty, with a slight scar on the left cheek; and his dress, which was plain and neat, was distinguished from that of the common seaman by three narrow strips of gold lace on the upper part of one of the sleeves. He had twice stepped towards the cottage door, and twice drawn back, as if influenced by some unaccountable feeling—timidity, perhaps, or bashfulness; and yet the bearing of the man gave little indication of either. But at length, as if he had gathered heart, he raised the latch and went in.

The widow, who had had many visitors that morning, seemed to be scarcely aware of his entrance; she was sitting on a low seat beside the fire, her face covered with her hands, while the tremulous rocking motion of her body showed that she was still brooding over the distresses of the previous night. Her companion, who, without undressing, had thrown herself across the bed, was fast asleep. The stranger seated himself beside the fire, which seemed dying amid its ashes, and, turning sedulously from the light of the window, laid his hand gently on the widow’s shoulder. She started and looked up.

“I have strange news for you,” he said. “You have long mourned for your husband and your son; but though the old man has been dead for years, your son Ernest is still alive, and is now in the harbour of Cromarty. He is lieutenant of the vessel whose guns you must have heard during the night.”

The poor woman seemed to have lost all power of reply.