Clear

It rains softly outside Ivar’s house. He works all morning to repair his thatched roof, and in the evening he boils milk for his dinner. The days are long this time of year, and Ivar hardly lies down to sleep. He rests as the light of the day fades, but when dawn comes, he rises early. Ivar doesn’t have a mirror, so he doesn’t know what he looks like aside from the rippled reflections he sometimes sees in the pools and puddles on the island. He views himself in the context of his home and the island; he’s tall enough to crouch inside his small, low-roofed home, he’s wide enough to fill the doorframe, and he’s strong enough to accomplish the work he must do. He gives water to his cow and finds his horse Pegi in the field to begin their work.

John empties his satchel onto his bed in Baillie house, which is not as comfortable as Strachan, the landlord’s agent, led him to believe. The bed is iron and without a blanket, and the only furniture is a singular stool. He considers going to stay in the church, but it’s full of hay and has a caved-in roof. He reminds himself that he’s fortunate to have survived his difficult journey and that he’s being paid. He decides to make a fire to warm himself, dry his clothes, and cook something to eat. He will sleep, then investigate the island and find the man.

Ivar leads Pegi down towards the sea so that he can fish. He didn’t go outside much during the spring because he became very ill and then the weather was terrible, so he mostly stayed inside and knitted in Pegi’s company. He remembers this season fondly, as he enjoyed the stillness of barely moving his fingers to knit in the stillness of his home.

As he walks, he collects limpets for his bait box. He realizes he’s hungry, and he decides to eat breakfast to get his strength up. He passes Baillie house, but he sees nothing unusual, which he will later remember.

John cannot light a fire, so he cannot warm himself or cook anything to eat. He eats some fruitcake Mary sent with him before lying cold and wet on the bed until the light of day arrives. He decides to clean himself and remembers where Strachan said a natural spring lies. He gathers his things into his satchel, except for his gun, which he places in his box, and heads out.

He walks towards the spring to lay his clothes out to dry while he washes himself in the water. He splashes in the water and makes a few notes in his ledger before walking down a slippery path and falling, his satchel flying into the water.

Ivar decides against breakfast and collects grass from the inlet for his cow. He looks up and sees something dark floating in the water. When he was sick, he often saw dark spots in his vision, but as he focuses his gaze on the water, he realized something is floating. He wades into the water and grabs the object, finding it to be a satchel. He looks outward and finds no boats or other signs of life. He puts the satchel on his shoulder and takes it home with him.

In his house, Ivar investigates the contents of the satchel. He finds a comb, soap, some sodden pages and a writing instrument, and a framed photo of a dark-haired woman. The woman is as real to Ivar as his memories of his sister Jenny or his mother and grandmother. He kneels by his fire holding the photo of the woman until he props the photo up next to the hearth. He dries the pages, but whatever was written on them is washed away. He lights a lamp to continue looking at the photo of the woman.

The picture Ivar finds is a calotype of Mary Ferguson, taken by photographer Robert Adamson a few months after her marriage to Reverend John Ferguson and six weeks before John becomes poor by resigning from his Presbyterian parish and joining the Free Church of Scotland.

In a flashback, Mary is hesitant, but John insists, as Adamson takes photos of all the Free Church ministers so that artist David Octavius can paint a large canvas demonstrating the historic split in the church, featuring accurate images of the dissenting ministers. Mary is self-conscious of her teeth, leading her to appear shyer in the calotype than she truly is. John is enchanted by the image, keeping it with him so Mary is always with him.

Ivar goes out after fixing his roof to look for evidence of a shipwreck or other source of the satchel, but he sees and hears nothing unexpected. He takes the calotype of Mary with him as he fetches water and goes fishing, and when he eats dinner, he props the calotype up to look at her. He falls asleep with the image between the collar of his sweater and his heart.

In a flashback, Andrew Armstrong writes to his godfather Henry Lowrie on behalf of John, his brother-in-law. Andrew seeks to find work for John until the Free Church can get up and running and provide him with a steady income. Henry Lowrie’s thoughts on the Free Church are unknown, but he views all Presbyterian ministers as the same: They typically don’t object to the removal of people from estates so that they can be replaced by sheep. In fact, the Presbyterian doctrine of providence is useful for clearing people, as it dictates that everything that occurs in life is God’s will and any suffering that happens to people is God’s punishment for their sins.

Lowrie tells Andrew that he’ll send John up to Perth to meet his factor, or agent, who requires some assistance. The Lowries have been slow to clear their land, partly because Henry’s son James is more interested in new and novel ventures in England. However, the Lowrie estate is out of money, and a quick way to increase funds is to remove people from their lands and replace them with sheep.

John and Mary arrive in Perth and meet with Strachan, Henry’s factor (i.e., agent). Strachan explains that John must complete a survey of a remote island that could house over a thousand sheep. John must determine if there has been any deterioration of the island since Strachan last collected rent some years ago. The sheep will take over the island and won’t require a shepherd; a few men and dogs will visit a few times a year for upkeep, but the sheep will mostly look after themselves.

Mary asks why the man currently living on the island can’t stay on as a shepherd, and Strachan describes the man as an unnecessary “encumbrance” to the island (29). Strachan promises the man will be moved somewhere better where he can practice forestry and fishing and be happy, but Mary remembers reading about people who have been cleared that are not happy to leave their land and ancestral homes. Mary asks if the man can keep his livestock, and Strachan says no. All Strachan remembers being on the island are some chickens, a blind cow, and a horse with a strange name. The animals will be killed and the man paid for them when a man named Keane comes back for John after a month.

In the present timeline, John looks like a jellyfish where he lies naked and injured. Pegi finds him first, then Ivar notices him lying there. Ivar sees stones in his mouth and assumes he’s dead until he feels breath coming from John’s mouth. Ivar is upset, as he’s become attached to the calotype of Mary, which he now understands belongs to John. Ivar would’ve preferred John to be dead.

Ivar hesitates, unsure of what to do and wishing Pegi could tell him what to do. A black coat blows in the wind towards them, and Ivar puts John atop Pegi with the coat over him and proceeds with them up the path towards his house.

Ivar wraps John in a knitted shawl and cleans his wounds and sets John’s broken leg. John doesn’t wake from the pain. Ivar falls asleep in his chair, and when he wakes, John is still unconscious. Ivar remembers a man falling from a cliff when he was a boy; the man didn’t die, but he was never fully conscious again. Ivar wonders if that will happen to John. He takes the calotype out and touches Mary’s mouth, wondering what to do.

In a flashback, Mary doesn’t want John to go, but Strachan insists he needs the help. Strachan tells Mary and John that the man on the island is docile and obedient, but he gives John a gun, which makes Mary nervous. John doesn’t speak the language of the island, but Strachan tells him that his boat the Lily Rose will stop off on Orkney, where a schoolteacher lives and can give John a handful of useful phrases and words to communicate with the man. John can also use the gun to shoot birds to feed himself.

Mary is uncertain, but John tries to reassure her. Andrew, their brother-in-law, also assures Mary and John that the island’s inhabitant will be thrilled to leave the “squalor” of his “hardscrabble” life and relocate (41). Mary is still dubious, and she imagines all the people who have been cleared from their lands walking in a melancholy procession away from their homes. John reminds Mary how much money he’ll make clearing the man.

Mary knows John is worried about money. In the months before he joined the Free Church, he worked tirelessly and traveled extensively with the other rebellious ministers to figure out how to finance the new church. All his letters to Mary were filled with financial predictions and records of how much money he spent and how much he was working to save, even beginning to save paper by writing his letters on tiny scraps. John worried about everything, but especially money for the church and money to provide Mary with a good life. Mary tried to assure him that she doesn’t care about money, but John’s worries remained. When he reached out to Andrew about finding a job, he did so behind Mary’s back, and she was upset to discover he planned to participate in removing a man from his home.

As John boards the Lily Rose, Mary regrets quarreling with him over the job. She doesn’t bring up her qualms about his decision to work for a wealthy man, as she knows they’d fight over the separation between the worldly and the spiritual again. She brushes off his collar and tells him goodbye before he boards.