be the boatman, will it?’
‘Ay, he supplies the Ellan Bride light. They use him for the Calf as well sometimes.’ Archie stared out past a row of thatched hovels to the empty sea. ‘Five mouths to feed on eighteen pounds a year,’ he added unexpectedly. ‘Our lightkeepers get forty-five pounds a year. Did you know the Duke cut their wages by nine pounds when the proper lightkeeper drowned?’
‘I’m no as surprised as I might be,’ said Ben.
‘No, and they don’t love the Duke much hereabouts.’
‘That was what did for poor Drew, sir. The Duke of Atholl being Scots. Once they found out we were Scots they started saying things in their own language. You could tell it wasna compliments exactly. They dinna love the Scots, for sure. The Duke wasna Drew’s fault, and that’s a fact.’
‘Enough, Mr Groat! I don’t want to hear another word about Scott!’ When Young Archibald put on his Edinburgh English voice it was useless to say another word. Ben sighed to himself. ‘No more about Scott! Is that understood?’
‘Understood, sir.’ Ben hesitated for a moment, as they strolled past the last cottages and on to the green above an open shingle beach. Ben bent to fasten the hobble. ‘There you go, boy. Make the most of it while you can.’ He straightened up, patted the horse on the rump as it hobbled away, and said casually, as he draped the leading rope over his arm, ‘Seems it’s a bit complicated, about this light on Ellan Bride? No just a matter of the Commissioners taking over from the private owner and building a new light, like I thought?’
‘I wonder if this is the Port St Mary Road?’ Archie sighed. ‘No, Ben, it’s not that simple. I wish we could just get on with the job and be done with it. It’s like this, so far as Mr Stevenson explained it to me. Up until three years ago the whole Island – the whole of the Isle of Man, that is – belonged to the Duke of Atholl –’
‘I thought he was just the Governor?’
‘Before he was Governor he owned the whole place. The Crown bought him out, and made him Governor – a sort of Prince Regent if you like, but no so fat. But they’re still arguing about what was sold to the Crown and what wasn’t. The Duke kept the Ellan Bride light, anyway. It was a private light, and when the Duke sold all his lands on the Isle of Man, he didn’t sell the light on Ellan Bride. The lawyers are still arguing about whether he sold the island the lighthouse stands on, along with all the other lands in his manor.’
‘But what about the Calf lights? He sold the ground for those all right.’
‘And a hell of a bargain he drove, too! Mr Stevenson showed me the letters. Sir William Rae kept writing from the Commissioners – half the time the Duke didn’t even bother to answer.’ Archie was getting really indignant now. ‘And then he wanted to charge a ridiculous rent for the ground: fifty pounds a year for ten acres of gravel! Well, he didna get it, and the lights got built in spite of him. And this with wrecks off this coast awmaist every year! He couldna have done it under Scots law, Ben.’
‘No a very public-spirited gentleman, seemingly. No wonder they don’t like the Scots much around here.’
‘It gets worse, Ben. For a hundred years the Atholls were favouring Scots here – everything from gentlemen’s appointments down to the very house servants. And the auld Duke put a Scots family on Ellan Bride when he first built the light there.’
‘Ay well. But at least he built a light. That was something.’
‘For profit, Ben, profit! I’m telling ye, these private gentlemen – so-called – are just in it for what they can make! They dinna care about the lights, or the shipping, or the wrecks, or the good o the country. The Atholls have probably made half a million out of this damn light, over the fifty years it’s been there. We only got the light on Ellan Bride at last when the old Duke died. And d’ye ken what we paid for it – just last year this was – £130,000! What’s more, the Commissioners dinna tak ony extra dues from the Manx lights at all. No a penny. If a ship’s paid its dues for the Scottish lights, that covers the Manx lights too.’
‘Ay well, even if the old Duke had got the price he wanted he couldna have taken it with him. And the light itself isna much good, I’m thinking, if we’re about to build a new one.’
‘Och, to be fair, the light was good in its time. But it’s been there fifty year. It’s obsolete.’
Ben strolled along, deep in thought, adapting his stride to Archie’s, then asked presently, ‘So why have you got to see this other fellow this morning? That’s nothing to do with the new Duke, surely? He doesna come into it any more?’
‘Och, there’s politics on this damn Island as well. The new Lieutenant Governor – that’s Colonel Smelt – wrote to the Commissioners to say that the harbour dues ought to be coming back to the Isle of Man. They feel sore here because their taxes all get spent in London, and nothing comes back to the Island. That seems to be the gist of it.’
‘There’s others who could say the same as that.’
Archie wasn’t listening. ‘Anyway, no one’s taking extra harbour dues from Ellan Bride now it comes under the Commissioners. Don’t ask me, Ben. Mr Stevenson said I was to steer clear o all that. My job – and I’m no relishing it overmuch – is to meet this Water Bailiff and just keep repeating that I don’t know, I’m just the surveyor. But I’m to keep him informed, and tell him my conclusions when we’ve done the work. I just have to keep the waters smooth, Ben, and no say anything.’
Then I’m surprised Mr Stevenson picked you for the job. Naturally Ben didn’t speak that thought aloud, but merely said, ‘So who’s the Water Bailiff, sir? Is it no the Governor you should be talking to?’
‘No, thank God. I’ve been told to liaise with the Water Bailiff, and keep him fully informed of all developments. They have their own sort of Parliament here, Mr Stevenson said – and the Water Bailiff is part of that.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Ben equably. He had to admit, hard though it was for Drew, that it was going to be much easier without him. Drew and Young Archibald brought out the very worst in each other. When it was just himself and Archie, Archie seemed to relax. Their backgrounds were not so very different after all. When Archie forgot that he had become an Edinburgh surveyor, Ben noticed that he lapsed into the accents of his early years. Today Young Archibald had been harder to handle. It was always the case when he was nervous. Probably he’d been worrying about today’s interview ever since they left Edinburgh. That was why he’d been so prickly. Drew would never understand that, any more than Archie would understand how Drew had got into that fight. And what Drew could never see was that Archie was good at his job. When he was roused you could see that he cared about it passionately. Too much, perhaps. He wanted more than Mr Stevenson was prepared to give. Maybe Robert Stevenson knew that, and maybe he didn’t. It was no business of Ben’s, and it was quite certain that no one would ever ask Ben what he thought about it.
CHAPTER 7
AS THE TIDE EBBED THE CREGGYNS SLOWLY GREW. WHEN IT was as calm as this, at high tide there were only empty circles rippling outwards to show that the Creggyns were there at all. Once Creggyn Doo had revealed all its shining shelves of seaweed, you knew that Finn’s yawl could come alongside the landing rock at Gob y Vaatey. It was too soon yet. The seaweed on the Creggyns rose and fell gently with the waves, gleaming like the hair of an underwater giant. Maybe the golden weed was the thick curls of the sea king who stirred his cauldron at the bottom of the sea and made the
