Winter Tales

by George Mackay Brown, George Mackay Brown

Genres: General Fiction; Literary Fiction; Short Stories; Fall & winter reads

Synopsis

This collection celebrates winter and its festivals, light and darkness. It includes the tales of Lieutenant William Bligh at the port of Hamnavoe, an Edinburgh man rediscovering his roots in Shetland, Baltic-men shipwrecked on the Orkney coast, and Norse warriors setting out for the Holy Land. Through these stories George Mackay Brown explores the effects of new ways of thinking and working on the ancient patterns and traditions of Orkney life.

Release date: March 27, 2014

Publisher: John Murray

Print pages: 224

Sample

I CAN STILL see him, coming home from the peat-hill in his cart long after the other farmers had taken their peats home by tractor or lorry. He did have a tractor, but most of the time it rusted in the shed. His horse Sammy was the last horse on the island. It worked for him, and he was kind and patient with it, for as long as the creature had strength to plough or cart. Once it began to fail, he would not tolerate suggestions that it ought to be shot. Sammy had been his friend and fellow earth-worker for twenty years and more. He tended it with great gentleness till the last breath was out of its once-powerful body. Then he dug a deep grave for Sammy. A few of the neighbours came to help with the burial. They saw the old man’s mouth moving while the first clods were being kicked and shovelled in; and they thought it sounded like a prayer or a piece of a psalm.

He took them back to the croft house and poured out a bottle of whisky for the buriers (you could hardly call them mourners).

He was a man who lived entirely in the past. He disliked all the fruits of progress that his fellow-islanders were beginning to splurge in: motor cars, wireless sets, gramophones, bakehouse bread, Edinburgh beer.

One morning the good-wives in every farm and croft turned a tap, and out gushed sparkling water, for the first time. What an improvement that was! The old man went on taking his two pails to the well on the side of Wilderfea.

‘Now, Thomas, look here,’ said the minister one day when he was visiting, ‘this won’t do at all! Your life would be very much easier if you marched with the times. Can’t you see that? What’s wrong with a wireless set? Next time I’m at the Presbytery meeting in Kirkwall I’ll get you one cheap, for a few pounds – I know a place. How fine it is to hear the news, and the weather forecast, and Scottish dance music … And that hearth over there, and the iron chain for hanging your pots and kettle on – man, Thomas, the women here are never done praising their stoves – what a change it’s made in their lives … If you had running water, too, what a lot cleaner you could get your shirts, and your bed-clothes and everything.’

There was silence for a while on each side of the hearth. The old man seemed to be considering the minister’s advice. He said, after a while, that the worst thing that had happened in the kirk in his time was when they started singing man-made hymns in place of the psalms of David. Could the minister not raise that matter at the next Presbytery meeting in Kirkwall?

The minister rose, and pressed the old rough rheumaticky hand, and went away with a sigh.

As soon as he was gone, the crofter lit his pipe and looked under the bed for a bottle of ale.

The next thing to go down under the march of progress was the tilley lamp. They had hissed and glared on every farm dresser for twenty winters and more. In a month or two, electricity was to come to the island. The electricians from the town had a busy time of it, wiring every house for the great switch-on. The wives bought cookers, irons, radios, toasters, fan-heaters, fires. (A few even went so far as to enquire about refrigerators.)

That spring the old man fell ill, with influenza or some other infection. He had been failing slowly, of course, for years. With great reluctance he accepted the kindly offer of Josh Heddle to plough out his field with the tractor. (It was as though a machine would somehow desecrate his acres.) And one day in late summer, when the old man was slowly recovering from his illness – but still not able to smoke his pipe – Josh stood in the door and said he had just finished cutting the old man’s harvest; and it was a good crop. The old man thanked Josh. Then he reached up to a tea-caddy on the mantelpiece and opened it and took out a roll of notes and gave Josh five pounds. (That was where he kept his wealth – he didn’t trust banks.)

Then, a week later, he had a relapse. ‘This is the end of him,’ said the islanders. ‘Poor old Thomas.’ They carried him down to the pier on a stretcher and shipped him to the hospital in Kirkwall. While he was away, the minister and a few others decided that, if he was ever to come back, the old man could not go on living in the same conditions of hardship. ‘We will do nothing rash,’ said the minister. ‘We will not overwhelm him all at once with the benefits of science. But it’s time that old paraffin lamp was done away with – impossible to read by it – dangerous too, if he was to knock it over. Thomas – if he comes home – will come home to a bright electric bulb in the ceiling …’

Thomas did come home, after a month, at the start of winter. He had fought off the illness – some of the dark power of the earth, hoarded slowly over many generations, was still in him. He thanked the islanders for all their kindness to him. He thanked them for the pear-shaped opaque thing hanging from his ceiling. So that was what electric light was like? John Heddle switched it on – the interior of Biggingdale had never been so bright …

That evening, when the minister went along to see how the old man was after his journey, he found him reading The Pilgrim’s Progress by the dim light of the paraffin lamp. He was very pleased to see the minister. He said that was a very handy thing, the electric light. He could see by it to fill his old lamp, and trim the wick, and light it with a wisp of straw from the fire.

Bligh of the Bounty had a young Orkney midshipman, George Stewart, who took no active part in the mutiny but returned to Tahiti on the Bounty with the mutineers, to his native ‘wife’ by whom he had a daughter, Peggy.

Midshipman Stewart surrendered to the Pandora and was drowned when that ship foundered on the Great Barrier Reef, on the voyage back to Britain.

Bligh says of Stewart in his account of the mutiny that he ‘was of creditable parents in the Orkneys, at which place, on the return of the Resolution from the South Seas in 1780, we received so many civilities, that in consideration of these alone I should gladly have taken him with me …’

A ship’s carpenter with an Orkney name, Peter Linklater, accompanied Bligh on the launch that was set adrift from the Bounty and reached Timor after a piece of superb navigation.

George Stewart became the hero of Byron’s poem The Island.

This story is about the first meeting of Bligh and Stewart, at a house in Hamnavoe.

ON THE RETURN of HMS Resolution from the South Seas expedition – during which Captain Cook was killed – the ship anchored in the harbour of Hamnavoe in Orkney, under the command of Lieutenant William Bligh, to take aboard fresh water at Login’s Well.

Two Hamnavoe merchants, Mr Spence and Mr Stewart, allowed themselves to be rowed out to the ship. They were civilly received by two of the officers, who opened a bottle of claret and drank with them. The young officers regretted that Lieutenant Bligh was not available that morning; he had much book-work to do at his desk.

The Hamnavoe merchants said they were well aware of their temerity in interrupting the work of such a great and important vessel. They commiserated with the officers, after the second glass of claret, upon the untoward death in a savage distant place of the great Captain Cook.

Mr Stewart, endeavouring to conceal his uncouth northern accent by the use of acceptable English, said that he would esteem it a high honour indeed if the captain of this fine ship, along with the officers, would accept an invitation to dine with him on the following evening, at his unworthy house. ‘There it stands, all in its own green yard on the side of that steep hill. It would indeed be the greatest honour to him and to all his house …’

Mr Spence smiled too, and nodded, and put down his glass. His house was down at the waterfront, and had fish smells.

The young officers offered to broach another bottle – were refused, with smiles and uplifted palms – they had their businesses to attend to, the Hamnavoe merchants, stores and workers to be overseen.

But the officers agreed to acquaint Mr Bligh with the invitation, and no doubt the gentlemen would be hearing from Mr Bligh before sundown.

With smiles and courtesies, the local big-wigs were seen down to their waiting dinghy, and rowed to the stone jetty at Ness, by Tomison the boatman, who had a filthy clay pipe sticking upside down out of his beard.

All this was closely observed from houses and piers and taverns – windows that overlooked the harbour and the great furled visitant: and uncomplimentary remarks were made by this old sailor and that concerning the fawners and creepers who would not so much as deign to speak to the likes of them, who had as much honest salt in their blood and bones as those pressed dockside men who laboured on the king’s ship.

‘Oh,’ said Lieutenant William Bligh to one of those duty officers, ‘I’ll go ashore. I’ll go to the man’s house. Stewart? Mr Stewart – I’ll visit him. That is the house there, on the steep side of the bay? Take a letter to Mr Stewart. I’ll write a letter. Where’s that boy Brisco? It will be a pleasure to look through a window and see green fields. Do you reckon he keeps a good larder, this Mr Stewart? Oh, no matter, but a side of fresh mutton … James, here you are. James Brisco, I want you to write a letter for me. I am tired of pens and ink-horns and papers, James. Sit well in at the desk, man. Are you ready? Well, this. Good writing now, James. No blots, no foolish flourishes. Charge the quill. “Lieutenant William Bligh of HMS Resolution presents his compliments to Mr Stewart of the White House in …” What is the name of this wretched village, James? Hamnavoe. One of those damned foreign-sounding names, Irish or Danish – spell it how you will. Do you think this Stewart might chance to have a fair pretty daughter, James? It may be. Therefore, James, in hope that you may prove a gallant gentleman to Miss Stewart, you will accompany me to this dinner at the White House. Spruce yourself, James, powder your wig, brush your lapels. Now, where were we? … “in Hamnavoe, and will be pleased to avail himself of Mr Stewart’s hospitable invitation to dinner tomorrow evening at 7 o’clock, together with Mr James Brisco, mid-shipman” … I think that will do. No need to sign the thing. I am tired of writing my name. I wonder if the man expects an invitation in return, on board Resolution? It does not necessarily follow. Much depends on the beauty or otherwise of Miss Stewart, eh, James, if you had a say in the matter … It could be, James, that there are several Miss Stewarts, five or six. How foolish of Jarvis not to enquire after Mr Stewart’s family, as to their number and sex. The man is invincibly ignorant. There may have to be a supper on Resolution. There may be. I cannot promise.’

‘Sir.’

‘Yes?’

‘The men request shore leave, within limits.’

‘What? Certainly. When have I ever denied them? In companies of twelve, six hours ashore, beginning at noon. A responsible seaman in charge of each party. I want no drunkenness, no fighting, no disrespect to the local women. Or I shall know the reason. They will answer for it, James.’

‘Sir.’

‘Tell Mr Andrews to keep a shrewd eye open. If there should be a boatyard or a carpenter’s shop. What Resolution badly needs is a good carpenter. I swear the woodwork is all warped and wormeaten since Kelly died, may the waves wash kindly over him, the poor man. It was a joy to watch Kelly with saw and plane. He sickened on us. Tahiti. A jaundice. If there should be a good carpenter in that wretched village, and he willing. Let the bosun look about him too.’

‘A dozen men, sir, and six hours’ leave.’

‘Yes, James Brisco, and they are to have a shilling each. No, there is no need to seal the letter. Well, yes, perhaps. The Misses Stewart will be the more impressed, looking at a red seal. You fool, James, you’ll burn your fingers!’

Lieutenant Bligh and Midshipman Brisco dined at the White House more agreeably than they had expected. There was baked trout, lamb chops, and a great roasted haunch of beef. And also – what they had not expected – a bowl of fruits: oranges, French apples, and Jamaican bananas.

‘Many vessels sought anchorage here, sir, in the westerly gale last weekend, I assure you, sir, from all latitudes,’ said Mr Stewart.

Lieutenant Bligh drank only water. James Brisco tasted with relish every glass that was set before him: sherry, the burgundy and hock, the glowing rich port, and (having dabbed the last of the grease from his lips) the local whisky. Bligh sought the midshipman’s eye more than once: to no avail. James’s eye was cast down demurely, on glass or plate, or set smilingly on the face of Mrs Stewart, or teasingly into the blushing starry-eyed face of Miss Stewart.

Alas, Elizabeth Stewart was aged only twelve. There was another Miss Stewart, well over sixty, a sister of the host. ‘A sensible good woman,’ said Bligh afterwards.

There was a young man, the son of the house, called George, who sat and said nothing, or mumbled this and that of small consequence, much to his father’s displeasure. ‘Don’t mumble, man. Speak clear and true. When you go to sea, you’ll have to shout into gales. Is that not so, Mr Bligh?’

So, the son of the house was to be a sailor: in command, at last, of one of his father’s ships, no doubt. They had not been long in the house till they were acquainted with the fact that Mr Stewart together with other Orkney gentlemen had three ships that traded with Scandinavia, and into the Baltic.

Mr Bligh said that indeed a good strong voice was an asset on the bridge of a ship.

‘It is just that George is going through an awkward stage,’ said the aunt. ‘I’m sure, when he was a boy, he had as clear and merry a voice as was to be heard. With the first sharpening of the razor come confusions and hesitancies. I have no fears for George. He will make as good as sailor as ever stood between sun and sea. Pour yourself a little of that burgundy, boy. It’ll make you bold.’

George looked as if he wished himself a thousand miles away, in some Pacific isle, perhaps.

Yet his ordeal was not over. They would speak about him still. He swallowed a mouthful of roast beef, only half chewed.

‘And yet,’ said Mr Stewart gravely, ‘that is not the kind of sailor I would wish the boy to be. I would wish him to be of service to his country, sir. An honourable career untouched by trade, the sweat of copper and silver, the kind of career such as you yourself follow, sir, and young Mr Brisco. This is the kind of sailor I would wish George to be.’

‘He has good skill in navigation,’ said Miss Stewart. ‘The old sailors say so, and they don’t praise easily.’

‘Yes,’ said James Brisco to Elizabeth, ‘and I am going to carry you on board ship this very night, will-you nill-you, and you are to sail with us as far as Virginia and New Holland. Orkney you shall not see until seven years are come and gone.’

Elizabeth stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth and half choked with mirth. She threw herself back in her chair with a wild gust of merriment, until a cold glance from her father sobered her a little. But not for long.

‘It is certain,’ said Mr Brisco. ‘I do assure you.’

Elizabeth pushed aside her plate – she had eaten no more than a bird – and put her head down on the table and her whole body shook.

‘It must be so,’ said the midshipman gravely. ‘Perhaps Brazil, too.’

So, thought Bligh, our host grows ashamed of the modest ladder near whose top rung he now stands. This is becoming common everywhere. Sweat of silver, indeed! As if only an inferior sort of man were required for trade and commerce. Ah, what might not Mr Stewart have become – in his own opinion – had he had the opportunity to immerse himself in his youth in the classics! He would have been as good a gentleman as any, he. The whole of society operates on this yearning towards a higher excellence for oneself and one’s family and, in the case of these merchants, for one’s class – even here, among these barren uttermost isles.

Society is a machine of large cogs and small cogs. It must be liberally lubricated with the oil of yearning-for-betterment. I am as good a man as he, given the opportunity. That is the attitude of so many of those new merchants, both wealthy and those operating still just above the level of the poverty they had risen from but lately (like this Stewart) and liable at any time – should their ships and cargoes come to grief and wreckage – to sink back into the original hunger and dirt. And, unspoken naturally, Had my George had Mr Brisco’s advantages, he might prove the better midshipman … It might come to this, that certain privileged ground might have to be yielded to those who sweated gold and silver, by the ancient landed families. The better sort, a careful selection of them, might have to be admitted to political power, into society and the universities and His Majesty’s armed services: the upper echelons of the ‘gold-sweaters’. But would the process stop there? Below Mr Stewart and the merchants and petty traders, and such worthy craftsmen as shipwrights and ostlers and scriveners, were the teeming masses of the toilers, hewers of wood and drawers of water, the undisciplined hordes of agricultural workers and industrial workers. If they were to discover discontents with their honest lowly estates, and find men to organise their dark dangerous energies, what might happen then in society? Pooh, he was letting himself drift a little on the tide of his idle fancies! Such forces could be safely contained, so truly and firmly established was the structure of the state. History showed a few revolts and mutinies from the inarticulate masses, but the smoulderings had been quickly stamped out. A few adjustments of the machine, now and then, obedient to . . .