Island of Wings Read Free Page B

in a world as strange as this? she wondered. It seemed utterly impossible to man and beast alike, and then it struck her – how would she be able to live here?
    They drew up towards the wind and turned into a wide bay where the treacherous black rocks gave way to a shore fringed by a narrow shingle beach, sloping gently up towards a hamlet surrounded by green pastures. Behind the hamlet the ground rose gradually at first and then steeply to the slopes of Ruiaval, as the Captain called it, to the south and the rugged face of Conachair to the north. The many colours of warm earth, fresh sorrel and young heather were at once pleasing to the sailors’ eyes, which had grown accustomed to a dreary palette of black, white and grey. In the lee of the wind the evening seemed suddenly warm and agreeable. They were beginning to hear new, more vibrant noises carried from the shore – dogs were barking through the cacophony of birds, and Lizzie thought she could hear the mounting voices of excited children.
    As they looked closer the MacKenzies could see little stone structures spotted across the hillside above the village. They seemed almost organic, as if they were growing out of the rough ground like boils. These were cleits – Mr Bethune explained – where the natives would dry their turf and store their food and feathers. The absence of trees was striking. Lizzie had never seen such a barren place.
    On the right side of the bay the sea cliffs, covered in short grass and crawling lichen and littered with more of the strange stone structures, rose steeply towards the high mountain, partly hidden by a great cloud of woolly mist. Small sheep with coats of a blackish brown were clinging to the sheer cliffs, their hooves aptly finding footholds in the most impossible places. Some of them looked up as the cutter drew nearer, chewing in stupid curiosity.
    MacKenzie suddenly gasped as he laid eyes on his church and manse at the foot of the hill to the right. The whitewashed buildings shone brightly against all the brownish green and he was surprised that it had taken him so long to spot his new home.
    The crew were presently busy tying down the lowered canvas sails and preparing the rowing boat. The anchor was dropped into the startlingly clear water and struck sand.
    The MacKenzies waited anxiously as the rowing boat was lowered. It tugged furiously at its ropes and ground against the side of the cutter as a couple of the crew jumped in and turned to receive MacKenzie and his wife. The crew were rather surprised to see that the minister, who had seemed such a land-born gentleman during the crossing, was as steady as any of them on entering the dinghy. Mrs MacKenzie, however, was another matter; she seemed to be in a sort of trance: pale, silent and stiff as Captain MacLeod helped her over the gunwale towards the outstretched arms of his crew below. The hem of her skirt caught on something, and for a terrible moment her petticoat was blown up against her thighs to show her stockinged legs. The skirt freed itself, but the keen arms that caught her as she landed in the rowing boat seemed to the Reverend to hold her tightly for a fraction longer than necessary.
    MacKenzie, embarrassed by his wife’s exposure, was further humiliated to notice that she did not appear perturbed by the incident; indeed she seemed strangely detached, he thought. How could she be so vulgar – and in full view of the sailors? What must they think? He did not have time to dwell on it for too long as the rowing boat set off towards some shelving rocks on the right, evidently used as a landing place. As he looked up towards the rocks which separated the village from the sea he saw a group of male natives running down to greet the boat. Further up the slope a group of women and children were shyly holding back.
    The crew expertly rowed the boat alongside the landing place, and as the vessel reached the rock a group of four or five young native