COMMODORE NORAH

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 290, 14 September 1940, Page 7

COMMODORE NORAH

& By ANGUS MacVICAR.

:: (Copyright). |

ft Stirring Story of the Sea. &

CHAPTER XIV. NORAH IS TROUBLED. Apart altogether from the prophecy. Norah was troubled. For weeks now, with Hector’s aid, she had been persuading herself that she hated David McGregor and that she would stick at nothing to bring about his downfall. With the determination. of her race she had not, for a moment, slackened in her effort to show her detestation, and to accomplish her purpose of hurting and humiliating him; and yet now, with the moon glinting in at the window and making peculiar patterns on the coverlet of her bed, she could not, though she tried hard to dc so, usmmon up that feeling of enmity which had once sustained her in moments of doubt.

when I ask her to take me with her sometimes.” “You’re a wise guy,” approved David. “It’s as well to do us your sister says.” “She’s awful funny these days,’ vouchsafed Archie.

“Funny? In what way?” “She’s different somehow. Not nearly so bossy and sure of herself. And not nearly so lovey-dovey with Mr *Menteith. She gives him it good and hard sometimes when she’s cross.” David’s black eyebrows went up, but he said nothing. Norah’s domestic affairs were no business of his. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help being amused at liis small companion’s prattle. “I think she’s frightened him away,” continued Archie. “She’s- kind ol weepy one time and bad tempered tlie next. Don’t think the fellow could stand it, and ho said he was going away to Glasgow for a few days. He went off yesterday.” David laughed and handed the boy a corner of the tarry net he was repairing. . “How about fixing that ring, Archie?” ho suggested, and together theybecame silently absorbed in their tasks.

.She could only picture David as a big man sorely beset by misfortune, his blue eyes dull with unexpressed anxiety, his very attitude a symptom of his desire for womanly comfort in the struggle he had to face.. He was plucky. He could shake Hector’s hand warmly, on two occasions, at the sports. He could smile sardonically and defy her. when confronted by financial disaster engineered by herself. Then her thoughts switched to consider her future as Hector Menteith’s wife. She had imagined that such a life would appeal to her, with its smart sophistication, its constant, flashy excitement, the new experiences and people it would allow her to discover. But now, after ever six months ol' struggle in Invercon, the prospect did not seem so 1 pleasant. Something seemed to have changed in her durino; those nights she had spent at sea. with her men battling against the wild weather. She felt that this was her real life—the lifei of a fisherman’s lady—that which her forebears had lived for many generations and into which she could .enter wholeheartedly. The life that Hector offered her would be interesting for a time, but would it enable her to pull her weight as a woman and as a worker for the common good? And then into her mind there crept the idea of what marriage to Hectqi' would entail—evenings together in a garish flat from Invercon, liis possessive attitude, his caresses which would no longer be those oj a pleading, patient lover—as she realized these things, she shivered. Her hand want up to smooth, back the hair from her hot forehead, and her engagement ring bruised the fine, skin on her temple, “I —I don’t know what to d 0.,” she whispered and tried to pray.

On the following day, lioweyer, a memory of this conversation was to return to David. He came face to face with Archie late in the evening, for it was a Saturday and no skiffs had gone to sea. It was clear at once that something was worrying the boy. Suddenly Archie blurted out: “I’ve never told anybody about this, but I saw Mr Menteith to-day and lie’s supposed to be in Glasgow.” “What d’you mean, old man?” “Well, I went away out into the country after my lunch to look for birds’ nests. I was with another two boys, but I lost them for a while in the woods, and when I was by myself I came to the edge of a burn, and there was a man sitting on the opposite side of the burn with his back to a tree and a ear on the road behind him that seemed to be his. He was studying a big bit of paper, like yon blue-prints you showed me of the fishing-boat engine. The man kind of looked up, and I saw it was Mr Menteith, but I hid behind a tree, and he never spotted me. I—l was kind of scared, seeing him sitting there, when he said he was going to Glasgow. I didn’t even tell the other boys about it.” David’s face had grown hard. “You’re quite sure it was Menteith, Archie?”

“Yes, quite sure. Unless maybe it was a ghost!” “Don’t you worry, son—it wasn’t a ghost.” David hesitated. “Listen, Archie,” he said at last. “Thanks for telling me about this. But will you promise to keep it a secret between ourselves?” “Sure!” agreed Archie. About ten o’clock that night David called on Jock Galbraith. THE NIGHT WATCHERS.

Miss McGregor was sitting up, still knitting, when David returned home from his visit to Granny Thomson’s cottage. “You delivered my parcel to the old lady?” “Yes, I did. She talked for a long time.” Perceiving that David wanted to be alone his aunt put away her knitting and went to bed, feeling more satisfied than she had been, for some time: On the following afternoon she. called for a feiw minutes on Granny Thomson. The two woman had an interesting conversation. “Thank you,” said Miss McGregor, as she prepared to leave, “for carrying .out my suggestion.” Granny Thompson smiled and leaned forward in, her rocking-chair. “I was glad to do it —for your sake, and for the sake of the two troubled children. I put an idea into their minds, and I had power over them, for though I know you do not believe, Arabella, there was truth in what I told them.” . # * * *.

“I wonder if you’re right?” murmured Jock Galbraith, his brown leathery face assuming a comical expression of dismay and disgust. David shrugged his shoulders. “There’s no other explanation I can think of. Menteith makes it known lie’s going to Glasgow and won’t return for a few.days. While he is away something happens to the Silver Spray. Menteith comes back to Invercon with a smug smile on his face, as if to say, ‘Well, you may have suspected me before, but you can’t now. The skiff was damaged while I was in Glasgow.’ If Archie Grant hadn’t been looking lor birds’ 1 nests in the country, no one would ever have known that in actual fact Menteith took a ear back from Glasgow and hid himself near Invercon.’’

But though Granny Thomson had sown seed, it took long for it to germinate. To outward appearances the struggle between Norah and David remained as keen as ever, and sometimes, influenced by the affectionate presence of Hector Norah wondered if the vision that had come to her were not, alter all, merely a temporary aberration. Miss McGregor passed her in the street with her nose as high as ever, and David, when they met, seemed to have forgotten completely about the night he had accompanied her home from Granny Thomson’s cottage. He regarded her now with cold enmity. His streak of bad luck had, as wisely forecast by his aunt, changed into a spell of better fortune, and, for the time being, lie was able to appease his creditors. Furthermore, it became more and more obvious in the village that Norah’s men were becoming restive and several of them, drinking in the' bar of the Invorcon Arms, had publicly declared that there would soon have to be a show-down. David knew that if> strike should occur in the ranks of Norah’s crews, that would bo his chance to step in. And yet, in his secret heart, ho was sorry for her. He could not bear to think of her facing a crowd of angry men, pleading with them to understand her attitude. He wanted to go to her and advise her as to the best means of dealing with them. Ho wanted to teach her all the methods lie had learned of soothing stubborn men. But—of course all that was out of the question.

“And ye believe he’ll wait till it gets dark and try to damage the Silver Spray?” “Yes Archie saw him studying a blue-print. May have been to guide him to, the vulnerable parts of a skiff’s engine.” “When’s lie supposed to ho returning to Invtereon?”

“Monday or Tuesday, as far as I can make out. Two days from now.” “Then, if he’s going to have another go at the Silver Spray he’ll lia’e to act either the night or the morrow night, if he wants to keep himsel’ clear o’ suspicion?” “Exactly,” returned David, “He chose a week-end so that he’d be certain the skiffs would be in port.” “No flies on Menteith,” said Joclc. “But we’ll catch him red-handed this time if your ideas are correct.” “Thanks to Archie.”

“Ay. He’s a good lad, wee Archie Grant. His sister hasn’t managed to put the evil into his head.” “I really don’t think she’d try to do that,” replied David, rather stiffly. Jock glanced quickly at his master, and had to turn away suddenly to conceal a grin of amusement. It was difficult, he thought, to know exactly how to comment on affairs. David and Norah Grant were apparently deadly enemies ; yet you couldn’t run Norah down in David’s hearing, and, according to the Grant crews, you couldn’t run David down in Norah’s hearing. It was an odd situation. “Well-then,” said Jock, suddenly in control of himself again, “I expect the best thing we can do is to keep a lookout on the pier as soon as it gets dark?” “Yes,” agreed David. “I’ll meet you at the fish-buyers’ huts about eleven. I’ll bring some sandwiches, and some coffee in a flask.”

NEWS OF THE RIVAL. Archie Grant was now rack in school after his illness and had resumed the habit of visiting David on the pier whenever he had time and the boats were in harbour. He was learning the business of fishing very quickly, and it seemed to David that in this boy there existed an instinct for the trade—an instinct without which a fisherman cannot hope to acquire real supremacy. It was odd, mused David, how this sort of thing should run in particular families and how some members of these families should bo gifted and others not. Here was Archie, for example, who knew more about the herring and its capture at twelve years of age”than some men who had spent a lifetime at the fishing; and there was Norah, who obviously understood the glaring lights of town better than the honest drabness of the fishing life and preferred the shoddy attractions of film folk to the solid worth of men who made their living by physical toil and stress.

The night was overcast, and heavy clouds rolled up behind the hills to the south. The moon was late in rising at this time, and not until the dawn glimmered in the sky would it appear, palely yellow like a ghost. The air was mild enough, but it had an edge which penetrated even the thick blue jerseys worn by David and Jock and made them shiver. It was an edge which denoted rain in the offing.

Squatting down, on two upturned casks behind the fishbuyers’ huts, after making sure that they had an uninterrupted view of the Silver Spray moored against the pier directly below them, the two watchers settled to their vigil. No one could approach the skiff without their being aware of his presence, for, unless he choose to swim or use a small boat—which was unlikely—he

That was what David thought. “I wish I could go out with, you one night,” said Archie wistfully. “But I suppose I’d better wait until. Norah gives me permission. She won’t listen

would have to board her by climbing down the iron ladder leading from the parapet of the pier. The thing that worried David slightly was that Hector Menteith might decide to sabotage not the Silver Spray but another of liis skiffs and, in such a case, might get away with his plans before anything could be done to stop him. David was almost completely convinced, however, that the Silvez* Spiny would bo the objective of his enemy, for she was modern, fast and roomy, and her loss would he more serious than that of three old boats. Ono after another tho lights in the village went out, until David and Jock seemed to he sitting alone in the inside of a gigantic black cavern. Spits of rain had begun to fall, but they were prepared for it and donned the oilskins and sou’-westers they had brought with them. They sat hunched against the side of a hut, neither smoking nor talking in case they might betray their presence to anyone near. From the harbour came the steady grinding of the skiffs as their hulls moved in the swaying water and touched ono another. The little waves plashed against the barnacled piles of the pier, sometimes almost soundlessly, sometimes with a smart slap which, in the quiet night, sounded like a. pistol shift. Occasionally, outside the ranks of the fishing-skiffs, a fish would leap from the water and fall with a splash. Somewhere beyond the village, in the farm country which surrounded it on three sides, a. dog was barking; and once Jock imagined he heard the distant hum of a motor-ear. No lights showed in the dark sky, hut lie knew that if Hector Menteith were approaching the village in liis car lie would not advertise his presence by using the headlamps. (To be continued).