Firth of Clyde

“ As a young fellow he had clearly been rather too handsome. That any man with so much of the "beauty of the devil" had been marked by the stars for a tumultuous career was most obvious. There was spiritual tragedy in every lineament. On the other hand, there was no deviltry in the seriously handsome face of the man of to-day. You did not even think first of his good looks, the deeper significance of character had so come to the surface. Certainly, the shadow under which Clyde had lived had fostered the best in him. ”

“ While circles in their veins their sovereign's blood.
Hence bold Bargenny and Belhaven rose;
Hence, Haddington, thy noble lineage flows;
Hence sprung rich Abercorn, a mighty peer,
And Selkirk, ever to the muses dear.
Yet most the name adorns their native Clyde,
Where frequent shine their domes on every side;
Whence, moving graceful, all the active race 760
Rush with their sprightly chief to urge the chase;
Where slily lurking mid his caverned rocks,
By Clyde's fair banks, slow creeps the crafty fox:
Sagacious hounds his tainted track pursue,
He doubles, winds, and shuns the open view. ”

“ The glory and activity of the leading families of this particular city had enormous weight with him—the Nicholsons, the Starks, the Harriets, Griffiths, Finchleys, et cetera. And learning a few days after Clyde's arrival of his somewhat left-handed connection with this world, he was most definitely interested. What? A Griffiths! The nephew of the rich Samuel Griffiths of Lycurgus! And in this boarding house! Beside him at this table! At once his interest rose to where he decided that he must cultivate this stranger as speedily as possible. ”

“ It was terribly lacerating to the feelings of the Briton to be so coolly disregarded and ignored. Clyde had the saw, but he had sense enough left to know that any attempt to use it would attract the attention of his jailer, and end in the loss of the implement, with which he could remove a couple of the slats when left alone, or when all hands were asleep at night. Finding that violence accomplished nothing, he seated himself on his stool,—which, however, was far from being the stool of repentance,—and considered the situation more calmly. ”

“ And yet Clyde having written this, still dubious at moments. Was he truly saved? The time was so short? Could he rely on God with that absolute security which he had just announced now characterized him? Could he? Life was so strange. The future so obscure. Was there really a life after death—a God by whom he would be welcomed as the Reverend McMillan and his own mother insisted? Was there?
In the midst of this, two days before his death and in a final burst of panic, Mrs. Griffiths wiring the Hon. David Waltham: "Can you say before your God that you have no doubt of Clyde's guilt? ”

“ When his complement is made up he will become visible, and a great battle will be fought on the Clyde.
“When Thomas comes with his horses,
The day of spoils will be on the Clyde.
Nine thousand good men will be slain,
And a new king will be set on the throne.”75
You may walk across the Clyde, the prophecy goes on to relate, on men’s bodies, and the miller of Partick Mill (Muilionn Phearaig) , who is to be a man with seven fingers, will grind for two hours with blood instead of water. After that, sixteen ladies will follow after one lame tailor,76 a prophecy copied from Isaiah iv. 1. ”

“ For all that I know, a dweller in Dunbuie might have compasses, like the Lough Crew cairn artist.
If I have established the parallelism between Arunta churinga nanja and the disputed Clyde “pendants,” which Dr. Munro denies, we are reduced to one of two theories. Either the Picts of Clyde, or whoever they were, repeated on stones, usually small, some of the patterns on the neighbouring rocks; or the modern faker, for unknown reasons, repeated these and other archaic patterns on smaller stones. ”

“ On Clyde's delightful banks their mansions rise,
And o'er the stream behold the southern skies.
Where the fair Maidens glide with silent force,
And, close embracing, end their gentle course; 210
Unbounded plenty overflows the plain,
Each bending stalk presents a load of grain;
And every kind a different lustre yields,
With varied beauty to adorn the fields.
See that broad plain which deepest verdure wears ”

“ You are a dear little girl to think of it. And if you really want me to take charge of it, I will. I shall probably see Mr. Clyde sometime, or at least hear from him. But I shall be jealous of Mr. Clyde pretty soon. Here you give me an interesting letter, to be handed on to Mr. Clyde. And Miss Thurston gives me a lovely thick letter--but not for me at all, only for me to hand to Mr. Clyde. Happy Mr. Clyde! ”

“ Dead! He, Clyde, had walked so nervously and yet somehow trustingly beside him but a few minutes before—and now he was dead. The law! Prisons such as this. Strong, evil men who scoffed betimes where Clyde had prayed. That confession! Had he decided truly—with the wisdom of God, as God gave him to see wisdom? Had he? Clyde's eyes! He, himself—the Reverend McMillan had all but fainted beside him as that cap was adjusted to his head—that current turned on—and he had had to be assisted, sick and trembling, from the room—he upon whom Clyde had relied. ”

“ And the father who had died so long ago, who had idolised her as she had idolised him, had never punished without reason. Clyde punished without either reason or provocation. The thought goaded her. No matter what form his anger took she would not give him the satisfaction he always hoped for. She would not let him see the physical fear he inspired that even her courageous spirit could not conquer. It would be worse for her in the end for her apparent callousness infuriated him, but she would rather break than bend, rather die than grovel at his feet which she knew was his desire. ”

“ And so, on the contrary, he drifted—thinking most idly at times of some possible fake or mock marriage such as he had seen in some melodramatic movie—a fake minister and witnesses combining to deceive some simple country girl such as Roberta was not, but at such expense of time, resources, courage and subtlety as Clyde himself, after a little reflection, was wise enough to see was beyond him. ”

“ And he, almost as much as his son, was jealous, not only of the name, but the general social appearance of the Griffiths before the employees of this factory as well as the community at large. And the sight of Clyde here, looking so much like Gilbert and in an armless shirt and trousers working among these men, tended to impress upon him more sharply than at any time before the fact that Clyde was his nephew, and that he ought not to be compelled to continue at this very menial form of work any longer. ”

“ In his uniform—his hair cropped so close, Clyde sat there, trying honestly now to think how it really was (exactly) and greatly troubled by his inability to demonstrate to himself even—either his guilt or his lack of guilt. Was he—or was he not? And the Reverend McMillan—himself intensely strained, muttering: "Wide is the gate and broad the way that leadeth to destruction." ”

“ I venture, then, merely for the sake of argument, to date the origin of the Clyde sites in the dark years of unrecorded turmoil which preceded and followed the Roman withdrawal. The least unpractical way of getting nearer to their purpose is the careful excavation of a structure of wood and stone near Eriska, where Prince Charles landed in 1745. Dr. Munro has seen and described this site, but is unable to explain it. Certainly it cannot be a Corporation cairn. ”

“ He told the story merely to point out that every man had to take his chances,--good luck or bad,--just as it came. He was a great believer in luck. It was his luck to escape and the other man's luck to be convicted by mistake. But he said that the man escaped and was not hung. The Clyde story was so much like Barker's story that I wondered whether it might not be the same, and I went to Garney to ask if he knew whether Barker was the man who killed Henley. ”

“ This was not to his liking, exactly. A man should never neglect these social essentials. Nevertheless, Clyde was a Griffiths and that was enough to cause him to overlook nearly anything, for the present anyhow. ”

“ The reader who desires to be hopelessly perplexed, may desert the contemplation of the Fiscal Question, and turn his eyes upon The Mystery of the Clyde. “Popular” this puzzle cannot be, for there is no “demmed demp disagreeable body” in the Mystery. No such object was found in Clyde, near Dumbarton, but a set of odd and inexpensive looking, yet profoundly enigmatic scraps of stone, bone, slate, horn and so forth, were discovered and now repose in a glass case at the National Museum in Queen Street, Edinburgh. ”

“ Without direct evidence, we cannot assign a meaning to the patterns.
p. 65XIV—THE POSSIBLE MEANINGS OF THE MARKS AND OBJECTS
My private opinion as to the meaning of the archaic marks and the Clyde objects which bear them, has, in part by my own fault, been misunderstood by Dr. Munro. He bases an argument on the idea that I suppose the disputed “pendants” to have had, in Clydesdale, precisely the same legendary, customary, and magical significance as the stone churinga of the Arunta tribe in Australia. That is not my theory. Dr. ”

“ Pick being a wholesale and retail dealer in hay, grain and feed; Mr. Witness, a florist, and Mrs. Throop, a local real estate dealer. All knew Samuel Griffiths and his family by reputation and it seemed not a little interesting and strange to all of them that Clyde, a real nephew of so rich a man, should be here in their midst. The only trouble with this was that Clyde's manner was very soft and not as impressive as it should be—not so aggressive and contemptuous. And most of them were of that type of mind that respects insolence even where it pretends to condemn it. ”

“ Unquestionably Clyde was guilty. And yet here, suddenly, Mrs. Griffiths, very lorn and miserable and maintaining her son's innocence. At the same time there was Clyde in his cell doomed to die. Was it possible that by any strange freak or circumstance—a legal mistake had been made and Clyde was not as guilty as he appeared?
The temperament of McMillan was exceptional—tense, exotic. A present hour St. Bernard, Savonarola, St. Simeon, Peter the Hermit. Thinking of life, thought, all forms and social structures as the word, the expression, the breath of God. No less. ”

“ But must not the truth be shown always? The ways of God were for the best and surely no harm could spring from service in His cause. He must not ask her to lie. But if he said the word, she would so gladly attempt to raise the necessary money and come to his aid—sit in his cell and plan with him—holding his hands—but as Clyde so well knew and thought at this time and which caused him to decide that she must not come yet—demanding of him the truth—with those clear, steady blue eyes of hers looking into his own. He could not stand that now. ”

“ Cecilia's happiness! How to secure that here?—how to save it from the horrible perils which everywhere surround it? Is it to be done by securing her union for life with her brother's murderer? If I know one thing of Arthur Clyde—whom I know well—it is this: that such a crime as that I charge him with, committed under whatsoever provocation, will weigh him down for ever, and make life a perpetual hell to him. The hideous injustice of a union with such a man she must not suffer, whatsoever else she suffer. And that she, like the rest of us, must suffer, is too clear. ”

“ His faith. It moved and intrigued Clyde deeply. Could there—could there? He was so lonely—so despairing—so very much in need of help.
Was it not also true (the teaching of the Rev. McMillan—influencing him to that extent at least) that if he had led a better life—had paid more attention to what his mother had said and taught—not gone into that house of prostitution in Kansas City—or pursued Hortense Briggs in the evil way that he had—or after her, Roberta—had been content to work and save, as no doubt most men were—would he not be better off than he now was? ”

“ And it had been Clyde's compulsory duty throughout the years when he could not act for himself to be in attendance at these various meetings. And always he had been more irritated than favorably influenced by the types of men and women who came here—mostly men—down-and-out laborers, loafers, drunkards, wastrels, the botched and helpless who seemed to drift in, because they had no other place to go. And they were always testifying as to how God or Christ or Divine Grace had rescued them from this or that predicament—never how they had rescued any one else. ”

“ A superstition which has certainly endured to the nineteenth century may obviously have existed among the Picts, or whoever they were, of the crannog and broch period on Clyde. The only a priori objection is the absence of such objects among finds made on British soil, but our discoveries cannot be exhaustive: time may reveal other examples, and already we have a few examples, apart from the objects in dispute.
p. 71XVII—DISPUTED OBJECTS CLASSIFIED
Dr. Munro classifies the disputed objects as Weapons, Implements, “Amulets” or Pendants, Cup-and-Ring Stones, “Human Figurines or Idols.” ”

“ It's a pity more people can't hear you over a drink, without benefit of microphone. A frank question, Clyde: What do you now consider your role to be?"
"An easy question from a friend," Fitchburn said. "I am, as of 48 hours ago, approximately, an apologist for the well-paying Monolithians. And you, Miss Linx?"
"Joy," she said. "A fearful Joy, perhaps, to steal the words of Mr. Cary, but an honest one, I hope. My role? You've already said it, Clyde. Meeting interesting, friendly people, with a loving but calculating female eye to the future. ”