The Gathering Night by Margaret Elphinstone Page B

Willow shoots, briars and brambles had grown into the path. I pushed them aside with my digging stick. I passed the narrow part of the island and climbed the little hill that’s almost a separate island. I went up beyond the trees.
    I sat looking at the glimmering waves. I gazed at the Open Sea until Near and Far had no meaning any more. The patterns of shifting light stopped being out of reach. They pushed against my eyes and forced their way inside me, rippling through my head so I was the sea too, in the sea, my smooth, striped body leaping joyfully through the waves as the light broke apart and showered down round me. I wasn’t afraid. I was laughing. Dolphin was laughing as he leaped through the waves with me. He was with me, and he said no, no, no , you don’t need to worry, no, life is good, and Kemen is a good man, and the evil spirit he brought with him is far away it will come it will come one day one Year oh yes it will come and you must be ready for it but not yet not yet. Not yet. Not yet.
    I found myself sitting on the hill where I was before. There were clouds above my head and the light had gone out of the sea. I could see rain coming towards me from the Evening Sun Sky. I stood up, shivering, and pulled my foxfur cloak round my shoulders, hugging myself tightly to get warm. But though my outer body was cold, inside my ribs I blazed with delight, and also with the comfort that Kemen was a good man. It was safe to accept him as our cousin. Whatever harmful spirit had followed him, it was still far off, and Kemen had brought nothing in his own person that could harm us.
    Amets said:
    No, don’t put any more wood on that fire. It’s getting late – look how high the Moon is above Gathering Loch. Alazne’s fast asleep, and those boys can hardly keep their eyes open. I haven’t much more to say. I can see Alaia wants to speak too, but then we’ll end this story for tonight.
    As soon as we met Sendoa and Kemen at White Beach Camp I was happy again. We started hunting the sea-birds at once. Kemen hadn’t done that kind of hunting before, but he was quick to learn. I explained to him how we leave the women to get puffins, because all they have to do is haul them out of their burrows. And a woman can get terns’ eggs, gulls’ eggs and duck eggs, just by walking over open ground. It’s easy for them to do that. But it’s a man’s job to catch birds and collect eggs from the cliffs. I walked along the coast with him and showed him our best bird-hunting places.
    â€˜You see? The guillemots and razorbills nest in the ledges all across the cliff. All we have to do is climb down there, and they’ll give themselves just as much as we want. Kittiwakes too: you’ll find a lot of gulls’ eggs as well as auks’. It’s all the same – they’re all just as good as each other. Then down below – just above the shags there, look, about a man’s length above high tide – see there, where the waves are breaking over Flat Skerry – that’s where the great auks nest. You’ve never seen one? We’ll soon show you! There’s enough meat in a great auk’s egg to keep a man going for a full day’s journey, even if he finds nothing else. They’re big birds – one great auk will stop the whole family complaining they’re hungry for the best part of half a day! Oh, we get good hunting, I can tell you, while the auks are here on White Beach Island!
    Kemen stood beside me on the cliff top, looking down at the places I showed him. All he said was, ‘We don’t have any cliffs like these in Lynx lands. We don’t hunt auks at all.’
    I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have no auk season.
    When we got back to Camp I showed Kemen how to make a snare from bark twine to catch auks. Kemen looped the twine to make a noose the way I showed him, and took his knife to trim the end.
    â€˜What