A Scots Quair

  So that was Skite, it rose out of its dusts and its ancient smells, the berries hung ripe in the yard of the gardener Galt and he looked at Chris in a queer kind of way when he heard her name. Syne he began a sly hinting and joking as he weighed her berries, a great sumph of a man the creature was, fair running with creash in that hot weather, you near melted yourself as you looked at him. And how’s Will? he asked, We haven’t seen much of him here of late—faith, the roses are fair fading from Mollie Douglas’ cheeks. And Chris said Oh? right stiff-like, and then And I’ll have two pounds of your blackberries too. So he packed her that, hinting and gleying like a jokesome fat pig, she could have taken him a clout in the face, but didn’t, it would only stir up more scandal, there seemed enough and to spare of that. Whatever could Will have been doing; and what had he done to his quean that he’d left her?

  Right glad she was to be out from the stink of Skite with the road of Mondynes in front of her. Then she heard the bell of a bicycle far down the road behind and drew to one side, but the thing didn’t pass, it slowed down and somebody called out, timid-like, Are you Will Guthrie’s sister? Chris turned and saw her then, knew her at once Will’s quean, young and white-faced and fair, and heard her own voice near troubled as the eyes that looked at her as she answered, Yes; and you’ll be Mollie Douglas?

  The face of the girl blushed slow at that, slow and sweet, and she looked away back at the steeple of Skite as though she feared the thing spied on them: and then suddenly, near crying, she was asking Chris to tell Will he must ride over and see her again, come again that night, she couldn’t bear it longer—she didn’t care were she shameless or not, she couldn’t! And then she seemed to read the question in Chris’s eyes, the blood drained off from her face in a minute and then came back, it seemed to Chris she must be blushing all over under her clothes, right down to the soles of her feet as she herself sometimes blushed. But she cried Oh, you think that, like all of them, but it isn’t true! Staring at her surprised and shamed Chris found she just couldn’t speak up and deny that that was indeed what she’d thought, what else was a body to think? Then she found Mollie Douglas’ face bent close to hers, sweet and troubled and shamed as her own. And Mollie tried to look at her and then looked away, blushing as though she’d sink into the ground, such a fool of herself she was making. It’s not that at all, only I love him so sore I can’t live if I don’t see Will!

  So there they were in the middle of the road, so shamed to look one at the other they’d nothing to say; and then a gig came spanking along from the station, at sight of it Mollie jumped on her bicycle again, and wheeled it about, and looked over her shoulder with a smile you couldn’t forget, and stammered and cried Ta-ta!

  But Chris couldn’t forget that look in her eyes, she went home with that in her mind and at supper that night couldn’t take her own eyes from Will. She saw him then for the first time in years, almost a man, with his fair hair waving across his head and spreading to his cheeks in a rust-red down, like the down on a new-hatched chick; and his eyes blue and dark as a quean’s, and kind when they looked at her, sulky when they turned on father. Not that they turned there often, there was never a word between Will and father unless they were clean compelled to it; like dumb folk working and eating together that needed no speech for hate.

  Father ate his supper and climbed down the hill with his gun, Will loitered from door to window, whistling and idle, till he saw right across the Howe, up on Drumtochty hills, something that rose and coiled ash-grey and then darker against the autumn sky, a great shape like a snake there in the quiet of the evening air, with its tail a glimmer that wasn’t the sunset, burning up red in the lithe of the hills. Whin-burning, he called to Chris, they’re burning the whins up Drumtochty way, come on up the moor and have a try at ours. They’re damned sore in the need of it—But I’ve my jelly to make, you gowk!—Oh, to hell with your jelly, well soon be jelly and bones in a grave ourselves, come on!

  So she went, they gathered great piles of old papers for twisting in torches, and made up the brae to the moor. They sat down on the grass and breathed a while, Kinraddie below them all cut and close-stooked, waiting the coming of the night, the lowe of the Bervie lights as the glow of another whin-burning there by the sea. There they spread out to left and right below the moor-gate, Chris held to the left and ran through the whins, stopping to kick holes down close to the ground wherever a meikle bush rose up. Then far round the knowe Will cried he was starting, she saw him a long way off with the sky behind him, and called back All right! and knelt by the biggest bush she’d struck; and kindled her torch and set its light to the crackling dryness of the grass.

  It whoomed in an instant, the whin, she set her torch into it and ran to the next and fired that: and so in and out, backwards and forwards worked round the brae, you’d to speed quick as your legs could carry you to fire the frontward bushes when those behind raged out with their flames and smoke at your hair. In the dry, quiet evening the fire crackled up and spread and roared through the bushes and caught on the grass and crept and smoked on quick, searching trains to bushes unlit, and fired them, half you thought those questing tongues alive and malignant as they lapped through the grass. By the time Chris met with Will at the moor-gate there spread before them a park like an upland sea on fire, sweeping the hill, now the sun had quite gone and the great red roaring beast of a thing hunted and postured unchallenged, all Kinraddie was lit with its glare.

  Will was black as a nigger, his eyebrows scorched, he pulled Chris down to rest on the grass. By God, I hope the fire doesn’t catch on the fence up there, else old Guthrie will be casting me out of Blawearie for bringing his grey hairs in sorrow to the grave!

  He said that sneering-like, mocking at father’s Aberdeen- shire voice, and Chris stirred half-angry, and sighed, and then asked What would you do if he did put you out? and Will said Go—Would you get a fee?—Damn the fears of that.

  But he didn’t sound over-confident, Chris knew right well that he’d find it none so easy if it came to the push, with the harvest over now in the Howe. And then, for she’d clean forgot her in the excitement of the fires, she minded the quean Mollie Douglas—it was as though she saw her white face by Will’s in the firelit dark. I met Mollie Douglas in Drumlithie to-day, she asked me to ask you to go down and see her.

  He sat stock-still, he mightn’t have heard, she pushed at his elbow Will! And at that he shook off her hand, Oh, I hear. What’s the good? I can’t have a quean like other folk—I haven’t even a fee.—Maybe she doesn’t want your fee, just you. Will, they’re saying things about her and you in Drumlithie—Galt and coarse tinks like that.—Saying things? What things?—What they aye say—that she’s with a baby to you and you’re biding away from her now.—Galt said that?— Hinted at it, but he’ll do more than hint when he’s not speaking to a sister of yours.

  She’d never heard him swear as he did then, jumping to his feet with his fists tight-clenched. That about Mollie—they said that, the orra swine! I’ll mash that bloody Galt’s head till his own mother won’t know it! But Chris told him that wouldn’t help much, folk would just snigger and say there was something, sure, in the story of Mollie’s condition. Then what am I to do? Will asked, raging still, and Chris blushed and said Wait. Do you love her, Will? But she might have known well enough how he’d take that question, maybe he blushed himself in the lithe of the dark, he threw down the paper torches he’d saved and muttered I’m away to Drumlithie, and was running down the hill before she could stop him.

  Maybe, as he told Chris later, he went with no other intention than seeing his Mollie herself. But as luck would have it, who should he near run down with his bicycle outside the Drumlithie Hotel but Galt himself, the great creash, gey drunk, and Alec Mutch in his company. And Alec cried, Fine night, Will, but Galt cried Don’t take her out to-night, Will lad, the grass is overwet for lying on. Will stopped and jumped off and left his bicycle lying in the road and went up to Galt—Speaking to me? And the fat
creash, panting like a sow in litter and sweating all down the great face of him, hiccoughed drunken-like Who else?—Well take that then, Will said and let drive at the great belly of Galt; but Mutch caught his arm and cried Young Guthrie, you’ve fair gone daft, the man’s old enough to be your father. Will said if he’d a father like that he’d kill him and then go and drown himself; and tried to break away from Mutch and get at the Galt creash again. But Galt was right unkeen for that, in a minute he’d turned, for all his fat, and made off like a hare up the Drumlithie lanes, real swack with his girth and all, and was out of sight in a second.

  Well, sure you may be there were claiks enough in Skite for Mutch to get all the story and drive home with it to the Bridge End. In a day or so it was all about the place, Will was the laughing-stock of Kinraddie. Father heard it first from the postman, who waved him down to the road to tell him, and soon’s he heard it John Guthrie went back to Will stooking in the yavil field and said What’s this that I hear about you and some orra tink bitch in Drumlithie?

  Now Will had been in a fair fine temper all that day from seeing his Mollie again: and she’d made him swear he’d not fly in a rage or go making a fool of himself if he heard their coarse hinting at her. So he just went on with the stooking and said What the devil are you blithering about? Father shot out his beard and cried Answer my question, Will! and Will said Put a question with sense in it, then. How am I to know what you’ve been hearing? I’m not a thought-reader, and father said Damn’t to hell, you coarse brute, am I to stand your lip as well as your whoring every night? Is’t true there’s a tink called Mollie Douglas that’s with a bairn by you? and Will said if you call Mollie Douglas a tink again, I’ll knock the damned teeth down the throat of you, father though you be.

  And they stopped their stooking, glaring at each other, and father made to strike at Will but Will caught his arm and cried Mind! So father lowered his arm, white as a ghost he’d turned, and went on with the stooking, Will stared at him, white himself, and then went on with the stooking as well. And that might well have been the end of it so far as Blawearie went; but that evening they heard a clatter outside in the close and there was the minister’s bicycle and Mr Gibbon himself new off it; and into the kitchen he came and said Good evening, Chris, good evening Mr Guthrie. Can I have a word with Will?

  So Chris was sent to bring Will from the byre where he bedded the kye, he came back with her grey in the gills, there sat the minister and father, solemn as two owls in the loft of a barn, it was plain they’d been taking the matter through hand together. Father said Chris, go to your room, and there was nothing else for her but go; and what happened after that she was never sure, for Will wouldn’t tell her, but she heard the sound of the three of them, all speaking at once and Will getting in a rage: and then suddenly the kitchen-door banged and there was Will striding across the close to the barn where he stored his bicycle. Mr Gibbon’s voice cried after him, angry-like, with a boom, Just a minute, Will, where are you going? and Will looked back and said You’re so anxious I should lie with my lass and get her with a bairn that I’m off to try and oblige you. And he wheeled his bicycle out by the honeysuckle hedge and pedalled away down the road and didn’t come back to Blawearie till one o’clock in the morning.

  Chris hadn’t been able to sleep, she lay listening for him, and when she heard him come up the stairs she cried his name in a whisper Will! He stopped uncertain outside her door and then lifted the sneck and came in soft-footed and sat on the side of her bed. Chris raised herself on an elbow and peered at him, there was little light in the room and no moon that night though the sky was white with stars, and Will no more than a shadow hunched on her bedside there, with a whitish blotch for a face. And Chris whispered Will, I heard what you said when you went away. But you didn’t do it? and Will gave a low laugh, he wasn’t in a rage, It wouldn’t be for want of prigging by half the holy muckers in Kinraddie if I had. But you needn’t be feared for that, I’d as soon cut my own throat as do hurt to—her.

  SO THE MINISTER’S interfering brought no harm, faith! he’d more need to roust round his own bit byre with a clart if Cuddiestoun’s story of the Gourdon quean were true. And soon enough after that a worse scandal went on the rounds about him, folk shook their heads and made out they were fell affronted: all but Long Rob of the Mill, and he swore B’God, it was the best he’d heard since Nebuchadnezzar went out to grass!

  And the way of it was that in early November a bit daughter was born to the Manse, and the Reverend Gibbon was proud as punch, he preached a grand sermon that Sunday, For unto us a child is born; and it was so affecting that old Mistress Sinclair of the Netherhill broke down and cried in her hanky about it; but Long Rob of the Mill, when he heard that, said: She shouldn’t take whisky sweeties to the kirk with her. Everybody else was fell impressed, folk who’d been a bit off the Manse for months agreed he’d maybe his faults, the Gibbon childe, but who hadn’t these days? and feint the many could wag a pow like that in a Mearns pulpit. But damn’t! if the next day he didn’t go off and spoil the whole thing, the Monday it was, he was just setting out for the train to Aberdeen, Mr Gibbon, when the nurse cried out to him he might bring a small chamber-pot for the girlie, none in the Manse was suitable. He gave a bit blush, the big, curly bull, and said Very well, nurse, in a bull-like voice, and off to the station he went, it was Fordoun, and left his bicycle there and caught his train.

  About what happened after that some told one thing and some another and some told both together. But it seems that fair early in the day in Aberdeen the Reverend Gibbon fell in with some friends of his; and they’d have it that a dram there must be to celebrate the occasion. So off the whole lot of them went to a public house and had their dram and syne another on top of that to keep the first one down, syne two- three more to keep the wind out, it was blowy weather on the edge of winter. Some said that midway the carouse Mr Gibbon had got up to make a bit prayer: and one of the barmaids had laughed at him and he chased her out of the bar up to her room and finished his prayer with her there. But you couldn’t believe every lie you heard.

  Sometime late in the afternoon he minded his train, the minister, and hired a cab and bought the bit chamber, and caught the train by the skin of the teeth. No sooner was he down in his carriage than, fell exhausted, he went fast asleep and blithely snored his way south through many a mile, right dead to the world he was.

  Most of the story till then was maybe but guessing, ill- natured guessing at that, but the porter at the Bridge of Dunn, a good twenty miles south from Fordoun, swore to the rest. He was just banging the doors of the old 7.30 when out of a carriage window came a head, like a bull’s head out of the straw, he’d fair a turn, had the porter, when he saw the flat hat that topped it. Is this Fordoun? the meikle head mooed, and the porter said No, man, it’s a damned long way from being that.

  So he opened the door for Kinraddie’s minister, and Mr Gibbon came stumbling out and rubbed his eyes, and the porter pointed to a platform where he’d find a slow train back to Fordoun. This platform lay over a little bridge and the minister set out to cross: and the first few steps he managed fell well, but near the top he began to sway and missed his footing and flung out his hands. The next thing that the porter saw was the chamber-pot, burst from its paper, rolling down the steps of the bridge with the minister’s hat in competition and the minister thundering behind.

  And then, when the porter had picked him up and was dusting him, the Reverend Gibbon broke down and sobbed on the porter’s shoulder what a bloody place was Kinraddie! And how’d the porter like to live ’tween a brier bush and a rotten kailyard in the lee of a house with green shutters? And the minister sobbed some more about the shutters, and he said you couldn’t lie down a minute with a quean in Kinraddie but that some half-witted clod-hopping crofter began to throw stones at you, they’d feint the respect for God or kirk or minister down in Kinraddie. And the porter said it was awful the way the world went, he’d thought of resigning from the rail
way himself and taking to preaching, but now he wouldn’t.

  Syne he helped the minister over to an up-going train and went home to his wife and told her the tale: and she told it to her sister from Auchenblae: and she told it to her man who told it to Mutch; and so the whole thing came out. And next time he rode down by the Peesie’s Knapp, the minister, a head shot out of a hedge behind him, it was wee Wat Strachan, and cried loud as you like Any chambers to-day?

  NOT THAT THEY’D much to shout for that winter themselves, the Strachans; folk said it was easy to see why Chae was so strong on Rich and Poor being Equal: he was sore in need of the sharing out to start ere he went clean broke himself. Maybe old Sinclair or the wife were tight with the silver that year, but early as December Chae had to sell his corn, he brought the first threshing of the season down in Kinraddie. John Guthrie and Will were off at the keek of dawn when they saw the smoke rise from the engines, Chris followed an hour later to help Chae’s wife with the dinner and things. And faith! broke he might be but he wasn’t mean, Chae, when the folk came trampling in to eat there was broth and beef and chicken and oat-cakes, champion cakes they made at the Knapp; and loaf and jelly and dumpling with sugar and milk; and if any soul were that gutsy he wanted more he could hold to the turnip-field, said Chae.

  The first three men to come in Chris hardly saw, so busied she was pouring their broth for them. Syne, setting the plates, she saw Alec Mutch, his great lugs like red clouts hung out to dry: and he cried Ay, Chris! and began to sup as though he hadn’t seen food for a fortnight. Beside him was Munro of the Cuddiestoun, he was eating like a colie ta’en off its chain, Chae’s thresh was a spree to the pair of them. Then more trampling and scraping came from the door, folk came drifting in two-three at a time, Chris over- busied to notice their faces, but some watched her and gave a bit smile and Cuddiestoun cried to father, Losh, man, she’s fair an expert getting, the daughter. The kitchen’s more her style than the College.