…
He followed the edge of the water, splashing into pools, stumbling against boulders and slipping on sea-weed: he dare not lift his gaze from the water. He staggered on for almost a mile till the heughs came down to the sea. But he could never be certain of what he saw. The object seemed to sink and reappear with a maddening irregularity.
He climbed on to the cliff face. But now he could distinguish nothing. His eyes grew weary and he sat down. The tide was on the turn. A chill breeze was blowing but he did not heed it. He was frozen and numb from the inside.
The sea advanced on long sleek-backed waves that broke on the rocks with an oily silence.
Maybe it was better that the sea should be his father’s grave. There was something pitiful and yet passionless about the finality of it. He doubted now if the body would ever come ashore: with the fast out-flowing tide it must have been washed out to sea.
He fell asleep where he sat, turning over into a hollow of the ground. His strength was exhausted: his emotions drained. Above his sleeping body, already stiffening with the chill of the morning, the sun broke over the Galloway hills and shimmered and shivered on the morning tide. There was a cold austerity about the dawn. Low mists lying on the brow of the heights above Cairn Ryan – and the mists seemed reluctant to leave their resting-place. But as the dawn broke life stirred and solitary gulls screamed harshly along the combing lip of the water’s edge.
It was William MacGeoch of Cortorfin who found him sleeping in the hollow of the heughs. Cortorfin was deeply moved. He swore to himself he would do something for the boy if it were the last thing he ever did.
God! there was no doubt. Life was more nor hard. Cortorfin raised his eyes and scanned the sea.
Andrew Ramsay and his sons might be washed ashore. But he had his doubts … Better if he never came in – for the boy’s sake. A corpse washed in by the sea and blown up like a harvest frog wasn’t the bonniest of sights. The laddie wouldn’t like to remember his father like that. Better to be washed out, carried out to sea and never found … Aye … but a dirty cauld bitch o ‘a death – drowning. A dirty cauld bitch o’ a death. But then death was a cauld bitch at the best of times. She would lay her hand on his brow – yet! The time was wearing near … And what was the meaning of life at the hinder-end? God alone knew: he’d be damned if he did. It wasn’t so long ago since he was a laddie running about wi’ Andra Ramsay. Yesterday-like … just yesterday … Money didn’t matter when you thought it out. It helped: no doubt about that. But it couldn’t keep the breath in you. That was one thing it couldn’t do, even if the barns were filled to the balks with golden sovereigns …
Cortorfin ruminated on the purpose of life and the signficance of death as he had ruminated many a time. But it was all mystery and darkness – there was no illumination: there was no answer to the riddle. A queer way it was for man and beast to be made and then to come into the world – damned queer – and not what anybody in their senses would call dignified. But there it was … and then death came and you were struck down – both man and beast. And the beast knew when death was coming – the beast knew even better than man …
Maybe when all was said and done God did know His own business best. Maybe there was a purpose and significance in everything that was beyond the understanding of man. Certainly it was beyond his. Andra Ramsay had been a decent God-fearing man. Maybe he did take a dram whiles – but what was the odds in that? He’d had a sore life. Nothing much of kindness or the world’s gear: and a bitch of a wife. But he had never done anybody in Kirkcolm an ill-turn where he could do them a good turn. And now …? It was hard to understand and harder to thole – but tholed it would need to be.
He turned his back on the sea and roused David Ramsay.
He would take him home and give him a drop of spirits and get the wife to make him a good hot gruel. He might have done more for Andra Ramsay when he was living – but he wouldn’t break faith with him now that he was dead. He would stand by the boy as he had promised.
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