A Scots Quair

  In a ten years time what things might have been? She might stand on this hill, she might rot in a grave, it would matter nothing, the world would go on, young Ewan dead as his father was dead, or hither and borne, far from Kinraddie: oh, once she had seen in these parks, she remembered, the truth, and the only truth that there was, that only the sky and the seasons endured, slow in their change, the cry of the rain, the whistle of the whins on a winter night under the sailing edge of the moon—

  And suddenly, daft-like, she found herself weep, quiet, she thought that she made no noise, but Robert knew, and his arm came round her.

  It was Ewan? Oh, Chris, he won’t grudge you me!

  Ewan? It was Time himself she had seen, haunting their tracks with unstaying feet.

  BUT THE SPRING was coming. You looked from the Manse at the hills as they moved and changed with each day, the glaur and the winter dark near gone, the green came quick and far on the peaks the blink of the white snow-bonnets grew less, swallows were wheeling about the Manse trees, down in the fields of the Mains you could hear the click and spit of a tractor at work, far up by Upperhill parks rise the baa of the sheep they pastured now on Bridge End. It seemed to Chris when those first days came that she’d weary to death with a house and naught else, not to have fields that awaited her help, help in the seeding, the spreading of dung, the turning out of the kye at dawn, hens chirawking mad for their meat, the bustle and hurry of Blawearie’s close. But now as she looked on the land so strange, with its tractors and sheep, she half-longed to be gone. It had finished with her, that life that had been, and this was hers now: books, and her Robert, young Ewan to teach, and set a smooth cloth on the Manse’s table, hide in the little back room at the top and darn his socks when Robert didn’t see.

  He was out and about on the work of the parish, marrying this soul and burying that, christening the hopeful souls new-come to pass in their time to marriage and burial. He’d come back dead tired from a day of his work, Chris would hear him fling his stick in the hall and cry out Else, will you run me a bath? And because of those strange, dark moods she had met, Chris seldom met him now on the stairs, she’d wait till he changed and was Robert again, he’d come searching her out and tell her the news, and snatch the book from young Ewan’s hand as Ewan squatted in the window-seat, reading. A prig, a bookworm! Robert would cry as he flung the book the other side of the room; and Ewan would smile in his slow, dark way, and then give a yell and they’d scuffle a while, while Chris went down and brought up the tea. From that room you could see all Kinraddie by day and the lights of Kinraddie shine as night came, Robert would heave a great sigh as he sat and looked from Chris to Kinraddie below. Wearied? she’d ask, and he’d say, Lord, yes, and frown and then laugh: Looks everywhere that would sour the milk! But my job’s to minister and minister I will though Kinraddie’s kirk grows toom as its head. And would think a while, It’s near that already.

  FAITH! SO IT! was, nothing unco in that, there was hardly a kirk in the Mearns that wasn’t, the War had finished your fondness for kirks, you knew as much as any minister. Why the hell should you waste your time in a kirk when you were young, you were young only once, there was the cinema down in Dundon, or a dance or so, or this racket or that; and your quean to meet and hear her complain she’s not been ta’en to the Fordoun ball. You’d chirk to your horses and give a bit smile as you saw the minister swoop by on his bike, with his coat-tails flying and his wee, flat hat; and at night in the bothy some billy or other would mock the way that he spoke and moved. To hell with ministers and toffs of his kind, they were aye the friends of the farmers, you knew.

  All the farmers now of Kinraddie were big, but they had as little liking as the bothy for the Reverend Colquohoun and the things he said. Would a man go up to the kirk of a Sabbath to sit down and hear himself insulted? You went to kirk to hear a bit sermon about Paul and the things he wrote the Corinthians, all of them folk that were safely dead; but Kinraddie’s minister would try to make out that you yourself, that was born in Fordoun of honest folk, were a kind of Corinthian, oppressing the needy, he meant those lazy muckers the ploughmen. No, no, you were hardly so daft as take that, you would take the mistress a jaunt instead, next Sunday like or maybe the next, up the Howe to her cousin in Brechin that hadn’t yet seen the new car you had bought; or maybe you’d just lie happed in your bed, and have breakfast, and read about all the divorces the English had from their wives—damn’t, man! they fair had a time, those English tinks! You wouldn’t bother your head on the kirk, to hell with ministers of the kind of Colquohoun, they were aye the friends of the ploughmen, you knew.

  AND CHRIS WOULD stand in the choir and sing, and sometimes look at the page in her hand and think of the days when she at Blawearie had never thought of the kirk at all, over-busied living the life that was now to bother at all on the life to come. Others of the choir that had missed a service would say to her with a shy-like smile, I’m so sorry, Mrs Colquohoun, I was late; and Chris would say that they needn’t fash, if she said it in Scots the woman would think, Isn’t that a common-like bitch at the Manse? If she said it in English the speak would spread round the minister’s wife was putting on airs.

  Robert’s stipend was just three hundred pounds, when he’d first told Chris she had thought it a lot, and felt deep in her a prick of resentment that he got so much, when the folk on the land that did all the work that really was work—they got not a third, with a family thrice bigger. But soon she was finding the money went nowhere, a maid to keep and themselves forbye, this and that charity that folk expected the minister should not only help but head. And they didn’t in vain, he’d have given the sark from his back, would Robert, if Chris hadn’t stopped him, and syne given his vest. When he heard of a cottar that was needy or ill he’d wheel out his old bike and swoop down the roads, he rode with old brakes and they sometimes gave way, and then he would brake with a foot on the wheel, his thoughts far off as he flew through the stour, if he hadn’t a broken neck it was luck. That was his way and Chris liked him for it, though she herself would as soon have thought of biking that way as of falling off the old tower by the kirk, and lippening to chance she would land on her feet.

  Well, so, and most likely sparked up with glaur, he’d come to the house where the ill man lay, and knock and cry Well, are you in? and go in. And sit him down by the bed of the man, and tell him a story to make him laugh, never mention God unless he was asked, and that was seldom enough, as you knew, a man just blushed if you mentioned God. So Robert would talk of the crops and fees, and Where is your daughter fee’d to now? and The wife looks fine, and I’ll need to be off. And syne as he went he’d slip a pound note into the hand of the sick bit man; and he’d take it and redden up, dour, and say Thank you; and after Robert went they’d say, What’s a pound? Him that gets paid as much as he does.

  Chris knew that they said that kind of thing, Else told her the news as they worked in the kitchen; and she knew as well how the news went out from the Manse of every bit thing that was there—Ewan, her son, how he dressed, what he said; and the things they said and the things they sang and how much they ate and what they might drink; when they went to bed and when they got up; and how the minister would kiss his wife, without any shame, in the sight of the maid—Oh, Chris knew most and she guessed the rest, all Kinraddie knew better than she did herself how much she and Robert might cuddle in bed, and watched with a sneer for sign of a son…. And somehow, just once, you would hate them for that.

  You knew these things, it was daft to get angry, you couldn’t take a maid and expect her a saint, especially a lass from a cottar house, and Else was no worse than many another. So in time you grew used to knowing what you did—if you put your hair different or spoke sharp to Ewan or went up of an evening to change your frock—would soon be known to the whole of Kinraddie, with additional bits tacked on for a taste. And if you felt sick, once in a blue moon, faith! but the news went winged in the Howe, a bairn was coming, all knew the date, they
would eye you keen as you stood in the choir, and see you’d fair filled out this last week; and they’d mouth the news on the edge of their teeth, and worry it to death as a dog with a bone.

  But Chris cooked and cleaned with Else Queen to help, and grew to like her in spite of her claik, she’d tried no airs since that very first time, instead she was over-anxious to Mem! Chris couldn’t be bothered in a while to stop her, knowing well as she did that in many a way she was a sore disappointment to Else.

  IN OTHER BIT places where a quean would fee, with the long-teethed gentry up and down the Howe or the poverty put-ons of windy Stonehive, the mistress would aye be glad of a news, hear this and that that was happening outbye, you’d got it direct from so-and-so’s maid. But Mrs Colquohoun would just listen and nod, maybe, polite enough in a way, but with hardly a yea or a nay for answer. And at first a lassie had thought the creature was acting up gentry, the minister’s wife: but syne you saw that she just didn’t care, not a button she cared about this place and that, and the things that were happening, the marryings and dyings, the kissings and cuddlings, the kickings and cursings, the lads that had gone and the farmers that broke; and what this cottar had said to his wife and what the wife had thrown at the cottar. And it fair was a shock, the thing wasn’t natural, you made up your mind to give in your notice and go to a place where you wouldn’t be lonesome.

  So you’d have done if it hadn’t been Ewan, the laddie that came from her first bit marriage, so quiet and so funny, but a fine little lad, he’d sometimes come down and sit in the kitchen and watch as you peeled the potatoes for dinner, and tell you things he had read in his books, and ask, What’s a virgin princess like—like you, Else? And when you laughed and said Oh, but bonnier a lot, he would screw up his brows, I don’t mean that, is she like you under your clothes, I mean?

  You blushed at that, I suppose she is, and he looked at you calm as could be. Well, that’s very nice, I am sure—so polite you wanted to give him a cuddle, and did, and he stood stock still and let you, not moving, syne turned and went out and suddenly went mad in the way that he would, whistling and thundering like a horse up the stairs, with a din and a racket to deafen a body, but fine for all that, you liked a place with a bairn at play; though not aye making a damned row, either.

  So you stayed at the Manse as the summer wore on, and you liked it better, and sometimes you’d stop—when outbye or gone up home for a day—in the telling of this or that at the Manse, and be sorry you ever had started the tale. And your father would growl Ay, and what then? and you’d say, Oh, nothing, and look like a fool, and whoever was listening would be sore disappointed. But you’d minded sudden the face of the mistress, or young Ewan, polite, who thought you looked nice: and it didn’t seem fair to tell stories of them.

  And then, in the August, you were ill as could be, and they didn’t send you off home to Segget, as most others would, to the care of your folk. Faith! you half thought as the mistress came in and dosed you with medicine and punched up your pillows and brought you your breakfast and dinner and tea, that she was well pleased to do all the work, you heard her singing washing the stairs, the minister himself went to help in the kitchen, you heard of that through the half-open door, then laugh as the mistress threw water at him and the scamper of feet as he chased her for that. When next dinner came the minister himself came in with the tray and his shirt-sleeves up, you blushed, and tried to cover your nightie, he cried, All safe, Else, you needn’t be shy. I’m old and I’m married, though you’re pretty enough.

  And somehow you just didn’t tell that outbye, folk would have said that he slept with you next. So you lay in your bed and had a fine rest but that they tormented you to read books and brought great piles to put by your bed, and themselves were so keen that you fair were fashed, they would read you out bits, the mistress or minister, sometimes them both, and you never had had patience with books in your life. You could never get in them or past the long words, some thing there was that stood fast between, though you knit up your brows and tried ever so hard. And you’d drop the damn book when a minute was past and listen instead to the birds in the trees, as the evening drew in and they chirped in their sleep, and the low of the kye in the parks of the Mains, and see through the swinging of the casement window the light of the burning whins on the hills, smell—you smelled with your body entire—the tingle and move of the harvesting land. And then you’d be wearied and lie half asleep, wondering what Charlie was doing to-night, had he taken some other quean out to the pictures, or was sitting about at some bothy fire? And would he come to see you as he’d written he’d come?

  He came that Sunday, and the mistress herself it was brought him up, he stood with his cap in his hands and he blushed, and you did the same, but the mistress didn’t. Now sit down and talk and I’ll bring you both tea. And off then she went, and you thought then, as often, she was bonny in a way, in a dour, queer way, with her hair dark-red and so coiled, and the eyes so clear, and the mouth like a man’s, but shaped to a better shape than a man’s, you stared at the door even after she’d gone, till Charlie whispered, Do you think she’ll come back? And you said, No, you gowk, and peeked at him quiet, and he looked round about as slow as a sow and then cuddled you quick, and that was fair fine, and you wanted a minute to cry in his arms, because you were ill and weak and half-witted. You told yourself that and pushed him away, and he smoothed his hair and said, You’re right bonny, and you said, Don’t haver, and he said, Well, I don’t.

  The mistress and Εwan brought up the tea, then left you enough together alone for the two of you to have wedded and bedded, as you thought in a peek of a thought that came. And you looked at Charlie, he was sitting there douce, telling of his place and the hard work there was, he’d as soon have thought ill as of dancing a jig. Like a fool you felt only half-pleased to know that, of course you didn’t want anything to happen, but at least he should try to make out that he did, it was only nature a man should want that, especially if you looked as bonny as he said. So you were fell short with him in the end, and he took his leave and the mistress came up. And you suddenly felt a fool altogether, you were weeping and weeping, with her arm about you, safe you felt there and sleepy and tired. She said, It’s all right. Else, sleep, you’ll be fine. You’re tired now you’ve talked so long with your lad.

  But you knew from her look she knew more than that, she knew the thing you yourself had thought; and you said to yourself when she left you that night, If I ever hear any speak ill of the Colquohouns, I’ll—I’ll—and afore you’d decided whether you’d blacken their eyes, or their character, or both, you fell fast alseep.

  SOMETIMES A BLACK, queer mood came on Robert, he would lock himself up long hours in his room, hate God and Chris and himself and all men, know his Faith a fantastic dream; and see the fleshless grin of the skull and the eyeless sockets at the back of life. He would pass by Chris on the stairs if they met, with remote, cold eyes and a twisted face, or ask in a voice that cut like a knife, Can’t you leave me alone, must you always follow?

  The first time it happened her heart had near stopped, she went on with her work in a daze of amaze. But Robert came from his mood and came seeking her, sorry and sad for the queer, black beast that rode his mind in those haunted hours. He said that the thing was a physical remembrance, only that just, and Chris not to worry; and she found out that near the end of the War he’d been gassed by an awful gas that they made, and months had gone by ere he breathed well again, and the fumes of that drifting Fear were gone. And sometimes the shadows of that time came back, though his lungs were well enough now, he was sure, though ’twas in the months of his agony he’d known, conviction, terrible and keen as his pain, that there was a God Who lived and endured, the Tortured God in the soul of men, Who yet might upbuild the City of God through the hearts and hands of men of good faith.

  But also Chris found it coming on Robert that here he could never do good or do ill, in a countryside that was dying or dead. One night he loo
ked at Chris and said, Lord! But for you, Christine, I was daft to come here. I’ll try for a kirk in some other place, there’s work enough to be done in the towns. And thought for a while, his fair head in his hands. Would you like a town?

  Chris said, Oh, fine, and smiled reassurance, but she bit at her lips and he saw, and he knew. Well, then, not a town. I’ll try to find something betwixt and between.

  So he did ere a month was out, news came from Segget its minister was dead, Robert brought the news home: I’m to try for his kirk. And Chris said, Segget? and Robert said Yes, and Chris quoted the bit of poetry there was, somebody they said in Segget had made it:

  Oh, Segget it’s a dirty hole,

  A kirk without a steeple

  A midden-heap at ilka door

  And damned uncivil people!

  Robert laughed, We’ll make them both civil and clean, Chris said, But you haven’t yet gotten the kirk, and he said Just wait, for I very soon will.

  Three Sundays later they set out for Segget, Robert to preach there and Chris to listen, it was April, quiet and brown in the fields, drowsy under a blanket of mist that cleared as the sun rose, leaving the hills corona’ed in feathery wispings of clouds, Chris asked their name, and Robert said, Cirrus. They bring fine weather and they’re standing still. There’s little wind on the heights to-day.

  And Chris on her bicycle suddenly felt young, younger far than she’d felt for years, Robert beside her on his awful bike, it made a noise like a threshing machine, collies came barking from this close and that; but Robert ground on and paid them no heed, scowling, deep in his sermon, no doubt. But once he swung round. Am I going too fast? and Chris said, Fast? It’s liker a funeral, and he came from the deeps of his thoughts and laughed, Oh, Chris, never change and grow English-polite! Not even in Segget, when we settle in its Manse!