The Merry Men | Page 8

uneasy interest.
'Aweel, aweel,' he said, 'it may be sae; I may be wrang; but I find nae
word o' mermen in the Scriptures.'
'And you will find nae word of Aros Roost, maybe,' objected Rorie, and
his argument appeared to carry weight.
When dinner was over, my uncle carried me forth with him to a bank
behind the house. It was a very hot and quiet afternoon; scarce a ripple
anywhere upon the sea, nor any voice but the familiar voice of sheep

and gulls; and perhaps in consequence of this repose in nature, my
kinsman showed himself more rational and tranquil than before. He
spoke evenly and almost cheerfully of my career, with every now and
then a reference to the lost ship or the treasures it had brought to Aros.
For my part, I listened to him in a sort of trance, gazing with all my
heart on that remembered scene, and drinking gladly the sea-air and the
smoke of peats that had been lit by Mary.
Perhaps an hour had passed when my uncle, who had all the while been
covertly gazing on the surface of the little bay, rose to his feet and bade
me follow his example. Now I should say that the great run of tide at
the south-west end of Aros exercises a perturbing influence round all
the coast. In Sandag Bay, to the south, a strong current runs at certain
periods of the flood and ebb respectively; but in this northern bay -
Aros Bay, as it is called - where the house stands and on which my
uncle was now gazing, the only sign of disturbance is towards the end
of the ebb, and even then it is too slight to be remarkable. When there
is any swell, nothing can be seen at all; but when it is calm, as it often
is, there appear certain strange, undecipherable marks - sea-runes, as
we may name them - on the glassy surface of the bay. The like is
common in a thousand places on the coast; and many a boy must have
amused himself as I did, seeking to read in them some reference to
himself or those he loved. It was to these marks that my uncle now
directed my attention, struggling, as he did so, with an evident
reluctance.
'Do ye see yon scart upo' the water?' he inquired; 'yon ane wast the gray
stane? Ay? Weel, it'll no be like a letter, wull it?'
'Certainly it is,' I replied. 'I have often remarked it. It is like a C.'
He heaved a sigh as if heavily disappointed with my answer, and then
added below his breath: 'Ay, for the CHRIST-ANNA.'
'I used to suppose, sir, it was for myself,' said I; 'for my name is
Charles.'
'And so ye saw't afore?', he ran on, not heeding my remark. 'Weel, weel,

but that's unco strange. Maybe, it's been there waitin', as a man wad say,
through a' the weary ages. Man, but that's awfu'.' And then, breaking
off: 'Ye'll no see anither, will ye?' he asked.
'Yes,' said I. 'I see another very plainly, near the Ross side, where the
road comes down - an M.'
'An M,' he repeated very low; and then, again after another pause: 'An'
what wad ye make o' that?' he inquired.
'I had always thought it to mean Mary, sir,' I answered, growing
somewhat red, convinced as I was in my own mind that I was on the
threshold of a decisive explanation.
But we were each following his own train of thought to the exclusion
of the other's. My uncle once more paid no attention to my words; only
hung his head and held his peace; and I might have been led to fancy
that he had not heard me, if his next speech had not contained a kind of
echo from my own.
'I would say naething o' thae clavers to Mary,' he observed, and began
to walk forward.
There is a belt of turf along the side of Aros Bay, where walking is easy;
and it was along this that I silently followed my silent kinsman. I was
perhaps a little disappointed at having lost so good an opportunity to
declare my love; but I was at the same time far more deeply exercised
at the change that had befallen my uncle. He was never an ordinary,
never, in the strict sense, an amiable, man; but there was nothing in
even the worst that I had known of him before, to prepare me for so
strange a transformation. It was impossible to close the eyes against
one fact; that he had, as the saying goes, something on his mind; and as
I mentally ran over the different words which might be represented