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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
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WE meant it for high frolic, but it became something very different. The Sea Mew lay off a baronial castle on the wildest part of the Scotch coast and a fancy dress ball had been arranged in the hall to which the yacht's guests were invited. The arrangement was that the visitors, to save time, in full costume, should be put ashore at sundown by the yacht, on a small rock island crowned by the ruins of an ancient church locally supposed to be haunted, and thence fetched by boats from the mainland.
It was a simple scheme in the rough, but in detail, it went woefully astray. The preliminaries were joyful. For days the cabins of the ship were turned into milliners' shops, with costumes and stuffs sent from the nearest large town, mediaeval history was talked at every meal, and ladies all over pins and tucks, flitted from cabin to cabin; devils, with tweed golf-coats above their satanic black, wandered about corridors, and cowled monks drank whisky and soda-water in the steward's room.
Then the fateful day came, all was agog with excitement. "Why not land on the island, send our own boats back and have tea there," said The Fair Maid of Perth, "we shall be a picturesque crowd, and I long to pick some heather."
This was agreed to and late on a still autumn afternoon, arranged in fantastic fashion, some fifteen of us, men and women, as motley a crowd as ever scrambled down the side of a ship, embarked and pushed off for the island whose ruin-crowned ridge lay low on a lavender sea half way between yacht and shore. Far away to the northward the lonely Scottish hills were darkening to purple as the sun drew westward behind them, homing flights of gulls croaked far overhead, and in the south-east a cotton wool pall of mist was slowly encroaching on the silent sea.
"What do you think of the weather?" said King Henry VIII, taking a cigar from his mouth to address the man pulling stroke oar.
The sailor looked over his shoulder for a minute, then answered, "There don't seem no particular harm in it, sir, glass high; moon full to-night; looks to me more like light air and, maybe, mist for some days."
"Well, we will have our tea and get ashore in good time. I should not like to be out all night in this costume," said Maid Marian, drawing her white flannel tennis wrap tighter over her Lincoln green. "What a long way off the yacht is already."
Indeed it was a longer pull than we landsmen had expected—a good two miles—, but at last the heather-clad island overshadowed our bow, the tumbled walls and loop-holed turrets of the old chapel, were black against the western glow, and presently the boats were run ashore in a sandy cove. King Hal gallantly carrying Evangeline ashore in his arms, and one of our four highly effective behorned demons doing the like office by Juliet, his long tail, which he had forgotten to coil up, dragging behind him as he went.
The steward brought up tea-things, making a spread inside the chapel walls which we laughed at for its superabundance of fare, more like preparation for a school treat than refreshment for those going on to a banquet in an hour or two. But "it is easier to take back what you do not want than to fetch what you have not got," wisely said our provider, and though we smiled at the moment, we lived to bless him for his prodigality.
We were as cheerful a party as ever made merry on the brink of disaster, and when the boats, shoving off, had melted into the haze gathering seaward, we played rounders or strolled about our little dominion, while Evangeline and a couple of monks built a fire of driftwood and boiled the kettle, as happy as happy could be. It was not much of a territory, twenty or thirty acres of rock and ling, with a spring of fresh water in a rushy patch besides some clumps of stunted birch and alder, the only living things upon it a few rabbits and a Robinson Crusoe goat of morose disposition, but it provided enough exercise to give us a gallant appetite for tea, presently announced from the ruins.
We sat round that meal a queer mediaeval party as the sun sank behind the mainland, the mist in a soft veil creeping up our seaward beaches, chatting and telling tales. Some of these were about the spot we were on. It seemed to have been an unhallowed place in the past, and one of our demons, sitting on a cracked tombstone, eating buttered scones and laughingly stirring his tea with the point of his tail, told us stories which made us quite uncomfortable even in the day-light. Presently a member of the Stock Exchange, for the moment masquerading as Sophocles, in flowing Greek garments, his bald head crowned with a fillet of bay leaves, said he would go and look for the boats. He came back in twenty minutes to report nothing in sight, and mist rapid hiding the mainland. Another messenger later on brought a like report. We were getting bored. Conversation lagged, the grey mist now round us like a curtain, sunlight dying from the turrets above, the wash of the tide, the cry of sea birds melancholy in our little world. "Where are the boats?" said Queen Elizabeth to Juliet. "I hope you told them to be punctual when you wrote to the Castle?"
"I wrote to the Castle!" exclaimed Juliet, in surprise, "why it was you we agreed between us should send the note—I never wrote—"
"You didn't write?" gasped the red-haired queen, upsetting the kettle in her agitation over a demon, "I thought you had written, so I did not write myself. Then neither of us wrote; no one knows where we are; we are ship-wrecked, marooned, there will be no boats," and she sank in a limp heap into the arms of Faust, who chanced to be standing by her.
"THIS is more than a joke," said Sophocles, drawing the senior devil aside a few minutes later. "We may try to make light of it, but the more I think the less I like it. On board the yacht they believe we are safe ashore for an indefinite time, while at the Castle they will take it for granted we have been frightened by this infernal fog and are staying on board."
Whereon the demon, his long tweed coat buttoned over his wicked livery, groaning asked: "Can't we communicate with either?
"Impossible. We have no boats; it would be suicide to attempt a swim with the tides running as they do; no signal fire we could make would be seen through the haze; we are trapped heaven knows for how long."
"Food?"
"Precious little, none at all if the steward had not been such a prodigal. Apparently the lot of us have got to live on tea and jam tarts till we are rescued."
"A chilly outlook."
"Yes; especially for one coming from where you do," quoth the philosopher sarcastically; "the best thing we can do," he added, "is to hold a council, store what food we have, and then make our beds; there is not the remotest chance that we shall be rescued to-night at all events."
That council sat till a late hour round the fire amongst those ancient tomb-stones and there was some wringing of hands, a few tears amongst the women and wild suggestions for notifying our plight from the more imaginative. But about midnight we got sleepy. The men fetched in extra wood or heather for firing, their shadows gigantic and grotesque on the flushed screen of mist as they came or went; then we dozed off, chins on knees, as pathetic a circle of damp motley as could well be conceived.
NEXT morning we were up early, hungry and stiff, and wandered a while through fog to see if anything had happened during darkness. But the autumn haze still lay tight and close, a calm grey sea lapping on the beaches below, not another sound in the world, our prison doors were closed tight on us.
Then we gathered again, replenished the blaze, and examined provision stores. They consisted of a tin of wafer biscuits, two pounds of tea, 28 jam tarts, one bottle of whiskey, a large cold tongue, one cake of soap, two boxes of cigars, and the remains of several seed-cakes, this for a party of 15 for an unknown period.
A supervisor of stores was appointed as we breakfasted on a slice of tongue, a jam tart apiece, with hot tea for which latter we duly blessed the absent steward.
We spent the day collecting heather for the camp fire besides a pile of wood for a signal blaze when the fog should lift. We dined on seed-cake and cold water with a very little whiskey in it and began to feel rather empty. There was nothing to do, nothing to look at, all our thoughts turning with primitive simplicity on the question of food. Even the jam tarts were going at an alarming rate, nor was there anything to follow them.
The only incident of that long day was supplied by the junior devil. He came in at tea-time to say he had been looking at the wild rabbits. "He would not mind a slice of rabbit pie for supper." The company smiled gloomily for every one thought no chance existed of capturing those nimble little beasts. But the cheerful youth in black, who was a midshipman in everyday life, had an idea. He went round examining our finery with curious interest, finally stopping before the philosopher and eyeing his laurel chaplet intently.
"Mr. Sophocles," he said, "give me that wreath, and I think I can promise something for supper better than the pastry-cook's shop Evangeline is brooding over so seriously.'
"If you get supper out of that," said the Greek, tossing it to him, "it is you who ought to wear it, not I."
The midshipman unpicked the wreath, and found, as he expected, the metal leaves were bound on with lengths of brass wire. Those he very cleverly twisted into running nooses, to each of which was attached a yard of string unwound from an old rope found on the beech. A few bits of split willow twig to support the nooses, and he was provided with all accessories an expert poacher could devise. The snares were set in the rabbits' main thoroughfares; we drove the heather towards them, capturing four out of about twenty put up. They were cleaned, roasted on wood spits, for we had no saucepans, and with a biscuit apiece, made quite the best meal since our adventure began.
When it was over, some of us sat about the fire, talking of our chances of rescue; others lay down on the heather couches, finding them deeply comfortable. King Henry and Juliet, who had a mutual understanding, slipped out for a stroll. Imagine the red flames in the ruined chapel gleaming on the motley of the strangest company that ever sat beside a blaze; the churchyard outside faintly lit by the ghostly radiance of a full moon above the haze covering sea and shore; not a sound on earth or sky save the distant lap of waves, then a woman's shriek from the graveyard cut through the night like a knife and filled every corner of the chapel with its terror.
We were on our feet in an instant, tumbling through the ruined doorway. There was King Hal, large and picturesque, with the Roman lady sobbing on his jewelled breast, while a few yards from them a demon sheepishly picked up a pack of cards scattered on the dewy heather.
"It is all right," explained His Majesty, disengaging Juliet from his arm, "but we came suddenly on that chap playing patience on a tombstone by himself. We had forgotten where we were, and it was a bit of a shock for Miss Smith."
"Oh," gasped the lady, "it was so horribly realistic—his tail like a black snake on the stone; the cards between his legs; the moonlight on his horns—I could not help screaming."
"And this, my dear," said Queen Elizabeth, "comes of wandering about at unholy hours with strange young men. You had better come into bed at once."
THE next day was but a repetition of the previous one, overshadowed by the solemn fact our provision were dwindling to nothing, while the cruel mist which shut us in as tight as prison walls, showed no signs of lifting. We got two rabbits in the nooses, and our invaluable midshipman with string from the old rope, horse-hair from the shoulder padding of the king's doublet, and hooks ingeniously made from thorns of a stunted hawthorn bush, added half-a-dozen small fish to our store. Otherwise we were as dull, dank, and hungry as could be.
We went to bed early, and at midnight missed salvation by a horrible mischance. Satan, who slept nearest the door with his infernal companions, happened to wake at that hour, and looking out, saw that the mist had slightly thinned. Nor was that all. On the sandy beach a quarter of a mile away, a boat was drawn up, whence three strange men, obviously sailors, were sauntering up to the spring to get fresh water. With a startling shout, he roused his companions, who tossed off the coats under which they were sleeping, and, in the full wickedness of their livery, joined him as he rushed yelling towards the visitors.
Think of their feelings! The place was known to be haunted, and here, at midnight, in the ghostly shine of the moon, unearthly beings were suddenly let loose upon them. Down went pail and pitchers. They fled for their lives, with Satan and all the rest of us, newly-sprung from our beds, shouting wildly on their heels; they leapt into their boat, pushed off, and by the time we got to the strand, were disappearing into the haze. The discord of cries we set up as our chance of rescue faded must have confirmed their worst fears.
"Stop that ghastly noise!" said the King, his hands on his ears. "Altogether cry 'Hullo!' with me, like a Christian community." But we were not trained to chorus. "Hell, hell, hell, oh!" we wailed in a discord of men and women's voices infinitely pitiful and grotesque. The splash of distant oars seemed to redouble in energy as the quivering wail reached them; then the sound slowly died away altogether, and we sat down and wept.
MATTERS became really serious the next day. for here were fifteen grown men and women on an island with nothing left between them and starvation save a little tea, a cake of soap, and three cigars. Our hunting and fishing energies during the morning were unrewarded, and after luncheon (very thin rabbit-bone soup and weak tea), Sophocles declared we must either capture and kill the goat previously mentioned, or do something still more unpleasant, and he glanced ominously round the company to see who was still the plumpest-looking and most juicy.
We went for the goat. In three strenuous hours we had encircled him on a steep hillock. He gazed at our ridiculous company for a while, then instinctively recognizing the philosopher as the author of the campaign, charged him with might and main, and over and over down the hillside went the two in a wild confusion of legs and horns. The beast won. We cornered him again at sundown on a sandy peninsula, and just when our hopes were at the highest, he plunged into the sea, struck out for the mainland, and was never seen again.
AND that is nearly the end of the story. We had a few boiled whelks for supper, with more very weak tea, crouching round the fire afterwards in gloomy silence. At nine o'clock, we were sitting, chins on knees, too hungry and miserable to talk, thinking of the wicked forms said to haunt the ruins, when Rowena, chancing to glance at the doorway, gave a suppressed cry of alarm and pointed with a trembling finger.
There, to our fearful amazement, stood the motionless figures of two gentlemen, in full evening dress, regarding us with pale astonishment. Wicked were the things which had been done in that place, cruel the deeds those ancient stones wotted of, but never in the wildest legends had we heard them associated with white shirt fronts and swallow-tailed coats. We gazed at the apparitions with staring eyes, they gazed at us no less horrified for a while, then both turned to fly as the sailors had done before them.
But it chanced the senior devil had been lying down near the door. Roused by Rowena's cry as the apparitions turned, he stretched out a hand and caught the elder by the ankle. Down went the apparition; there was a brief struggle; some muttered exclamations of alarm, and almost before we could get to our feet the demon was sitting triumphantly on the white shirt front waving his arms and calling out; "I have got one this time, we will have a good roast to-morrow, or may I never wear black again."
We pulled him off and helped the stranger up. "Who on earth are you?" we cried, and getting his wits together with creditable speed and rearranging his white tie, the stranger answered, "I'm a guest at the Castle on shore. Some fishermen came there this evening and told us an extraordinary tale of spirits they had seen on this island. As I happen to be a Professor of a Scottish University and President of a local branch of the Society of Psychical Research I borrowed our host's motor-launch and came here at once. May I ask in return if you are beings of this world or of another, as appears more probable?"
"A boat! Beds! Supper! Baths!" we cried in the excess of our delight, dancing wildly round the Professor in the red firelight. A dozen of us at once assured him of our actual substance that we were marooned guests of the Castle, very dirty, and very, very hungry. Five minutes later, we were scrambling into the launch. "The biggest haul of spirits the Society had ever made," as the Professor proudly said, and an hour afterwards washed, dressed, and re-habilitated, were telling our wonderful story to a laughing crowd of fellow mortals at supper.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.