Clear

Ellen Reid, the wife of Henry Lowrie’s youngest son, arrives at Mary’s cottage and helps her pack before she heads south to Penicuik. Ellen tells Mary that Strachan wanted to evict Ivar, but he thought it would go badly, like the incident at Tummel Bridge. Mary hasn’t heard what happened at Tummel Bridge, even though it was in the newspapers, because for the past months she and John have been so focused on the Free Church. Ellen tells her what happened.

When Mary arrives at Penicuik, she’s enraged at Andrew for not telling her about Tummel Bridge. Andrew barely recalls what happened, so Mary tells him: Strachan was evicting a man from his property in a township near Tummel Bridge, and Strachan and the man got into an argument, and Strachan killed him. Andrew vaguely remembers the incident, as Strachan had to go to court, but the law ruled in his favor. He tells Mary that he remembers bits of it, and Mary reprimands him for not mentioning it. At dinner, Mary is quiet and uncooperative, but her anger has ebbed, as she’s decided what she plans to do.

Ivar points out many fish and says their name in his language, which John writes down in his blue book. John finds himself less reliant on the book, as he remembers Ivar’s words for the things that surround them. John’s given up on pretending to be an antiquarian because he cannot explain it in simple language and gesture to Ivar, who doesn’t seem bothered by, or suspicious of, his presence.

John’s use of Ivar’s language is clumsy, but he still likes it when Ivar leans closer after a long day to listen to John’s attempts at explaining what he did that day. When the weather is bad, John stays inside, but when the skies are clear, he follows Ivar around the island, though he sometimes has to ask Ivar to slow down for him because of his injury, shouting “hips,” the word he’s heard Ivar say to summon Pegi (109).

Ivar teaches John more words, many of which delight John, like “Liki,” which describes a ball of cotton yarn that has just begun to unspool. Some words confuse John, especially the variety of terms used to describe weather that seem very similar in sound and meaning. John finds it satisfying nonetheless to see his glossary in his book grow, and it makes up in some way for the loss of his Gospel translations.

John began translating the Gospels in Scots, the language that most of his parishioners speak, when he was a young minister. Since he grew up in Dundee with his aunt and then Fermanagh with his father, he only speaks English fluently, but he has worked to develop a functional understanding of Scots. He seeks to make the Gospels, his favorite part of the Christian scriptures, accessible to more people. John even hired his aunt’s maid Annie to keep his house and help him with his translation. Annie thought it hilarious and thrilling that John planned to have Satan speak only in English.

John wishes he had the vocabulary to explain his translation to Ivar, especially the detail about Satan, which he thinks would amuse Ivar. Ivar sometimes laughs at John’s poor pronunciation of his language, and John wants to hear him laugh and see him smile at him more. John looks forward to Ivar’s smiles, which he describes as “radiant,” and he finds himself excited at the idea of being the reason Ivar smiles (114).

Mary pawns her wedding ring in Penicuik after telling Isobel that John’s journey north was a mistake. Mary thinks that Strachan knew this eviction would go badly and wanted John to have to suffer the consequences instead of himself. Mary considers pawning her fake teeth. She was once criticized by one of her fellow female parishioners at her church before she and John married, as the woman thought jewelry and false teeth were overly extravagant. Mary wrote to John about it, and he advised her that the woman was unkind and to ignore her. John also gave her a wedding ring when they married, illustrating that he tolerates desires and behaviors within her that he wouldn’t within himself.

Mary keeps her teeth, but she uses the money she got for her ring to buy a ticket on a steamer called the Velocity from Leith to Aberdeen and as far north as Kirkwall. She finds the journey dark and dreary until they go past Orkney and she sees the lush green of the islands. At Kirkwall, she buys passage aboard a ship called the Laura headed for Trondheim, and the captain promises to stop at John’s island and wait for her while she collects him.

John struggles to recall how many days he’s been on the island. He thinks he’s been there for 18 or 19 days, so Keane should arrive in about a week. John walks with Ivar as he collects feathers from around the island, and Ivar repeats the words “umbothsman,” which John has deduced is his word for the Lowrie Factor, indicating the islanders used to pay Strachan rent in some amount of feathers. John thinks Ivar will figure out why he is there and assume John means to collect the rent, and John will instead have to tell him that he’s come to evict him and has merely pretended to be his friend.

Ivar doesn’t accuse John, however. He instead approaches the cliff, ties a rope to a metal spike in the ground, and lowers himself over the side of the cliff. John is terrified but doesn’t call after him, afraid to break his concentration. John closes his eyes in fear and waits, and Ivar reemerges at the top of the cliff with a net of eggs and a smile.

Aboard the Laura, Mary is freezing, and the cold makes her false teeth hurt in her mouth. She misses John, his stumbling in the early mornings when he rises before her to work on his translations. She misses his body and their intimacy and imagines him beside her in her squashed bunk. She’s worried about him on the island, as she recollects how frequently he finds himself lost. She imagines him stumbling around lost on the island alone and wants to cry.

Ivar works on his chores, plucking the sheet, when John bursts out of the house holding Mary’s calotype in his hand, which he found hidden behind the white and blue teapot. He shouts at Ivar that Mary is his wife, whom he’s been lost without. John is hurt that Ivar hid her from him, but Ivar doesn’t fully understand what the word “wife” means, though he can infer who Mary is to John. Ivar tears up, and he’s surprised, as it’s been years since he cried. Ivar hides his face towards the hearth and tries to remind himself that people have conflicts all the time, and that this may blow over. If it doesn’t blow over, Ivar doesn’t know what he’ll do, as he can hardly imagine a life without John now.

Years prior, before Strachan stopped coming to collect rent, Strachan arrived after a shipwreck and demanded that the islanders give him anything of value from the wreck or face punishment for being a thief. Most people turned things over, from rope to liquor to a dress Jenny found floating. Ivar, however, found the white and blue teapot, and he buried it, like his grandmother had buried a small golden bird figurine she’d found when she was a girl. Ivar always buried the teapot when Strachan arrived and recovered it when he left. After a few years of no visits from Strachan, Ivar felt safe enough to display it on his shelf.

Now, he can’t look at the teapot without thinking of John’s anger. Ivar warms milk and tries to offer some to John, but John puts the calotype in his pocket and walks out the door.

Mary is delayed a week on Shetland while the Laura receives goods to take to Trondheim. Mary has used most of her money, and she’s still freezing, so she wears every piece of clothing that she’s brought to try to keep warm.

Aboard the ship, she talks with a fellow passenger, a fabric merchant named Mr. Lane, and claims she’s going to help her husband on his mission for the Free Church. Mr. Lane doesn’t think the Free Church will last, and Mary ignores his opinion. She watches the horizon and waits to see the island rise in the distance. She asks a porter named Baxter about the stormy sky, but he tells her not to worry.

John finds himself lost after leaving Ivar’s house. He keeps his eyes on the ground so he doesn’t stumble and fall and eventually slows down, trying to calm himself and his emotions after his angry outburst at Ivar. When he looks around, he doesn’t recognize his surroundings. He sees a mound of rocks that resembles a hermit’s cell, shaped like a beehive. He climbs inside and sits in the dark with Mary’s calotype in his hand. He talks to the calotype, telling Mary all about his journey and his time with Ivar on the island. He also tells her about how he plans to use the 16 pounds to rent them a suitable place to live and find a place to start his church.

John regrets being harsh with Ivar, as he begins to understand why Ivar would keep the calotype for himself. He realizes he can now tell Ivar the truth about why he’s there. John has learned enough of Ivar’s language to cobble together a grammatically challenged, but likely comprehensible, speech. He shies away from the idea, however, not because he’s afraid of Ivar being violent like he once was, but because he’s not sure he can face the pain on Ivar’s face when Keane arrives and kills Pegi, the cow, and the sheep. He’s not sure he can face Ivar looking at him with shock and disappointment, and then never looking at him again. John also regrets letting Ivar take such good care of him. He wishes he could go back to the start and do things differently, but he can’t. John leaves the hermit cell and looks for the mountains to guide him back towards Ivar’s house.