Syne he said of a sudden, a minute or so later, they were past Mondynes and Segget in sight: Do you mind how Christ was tempted of the devil? And so was I till you spoke just now. I’d made up my mind I’d butter them up, in the sermon I preached—just for the chance of getting out of Kinraddie, settled in Segget, and on with some work. Well, I won’t…. By God, I’ll give them a sermon!
THE OLD MINISTER had died of drink, fair sozzled he was, folk said, at the end; and his last words were, so the story went, And what might the feare’s prices be to-day? No doubt that was just a bit lie that they told, but faith! he’d been greedy enough for his screw, with his long grey face and his bleary eyes and his way that he had of speaking to a man, met out in the street or down by the Arms, as though he were booming from the pulpit itself: Why didn’t I see you in the kirk last Sabbath? And a billy would redden and give a bit laugh, and look this way and that, were he one of New Toun. But more than likely, were he one of the spinners, he’d answer: Maybe because I wasn’t there! in the awful twang that the creatures spoke; and go off and leave old Greig sore vexed, he’d never got over the fact that the spinners cared hardly a hoot for kirk session or kirk.
Ah well, he was a dead and a two-three came to try for his pulpit, more likely his stipend, two old men came, each buttered up Segget, you’d have thought by the way the creatures blethered the Archangel Michael could have come to Segget, and bought a shop, and felt at home as he sat at the back and sanded the sugar. Folk took that stite with a dosing of salts, then the third man came and some stories came with him, ’twas the Reverend Robert Colquohoun of Kinraddie, he’d been down there only a bare two years, and half his congregation had gone, they’d go anywhere but listen to him, he was aye interfering and preaching at folk that had done him no harm, couldn’t he leave them a-be? Forbye that he’d married a quean of the parish, and if there’s a worse thing a minister can do than marry a woman that knows the kirk folk, it’s only to suck sweeties under the pulpit in the time he’s supposed to be in silent prayer.
Well, Mr Colquohoun, he didn’t suck sweets, but he did near everything else, folk said, and most of Segget, though it thronged to hear him, had no notion to vote for the creature at all.
But when he was seen stride up to the pulpit, and he leaned from the pulpit rails and he preached, the elders were first of all ta’en with his way, and the old folk next with the thing that he preached, not the mealy stuff that you’d now hear often, but meaty and strong and preached with some fire—and man! he fairly could tell a bit tale!
For he took his text from a chapter in Judges, his sermon on Gath and the things that that Jew childe Samson did, how at last the giant was bound to a pillar, but he woke from the stupor and looked round about, and cried that the Philistines free him his bonds; and they laughed and they feasted, paying him no heed, sunk in their swine-like glaurs of vice. Their gods were idols of brass and of gold, they lived on the sweat and the blood of men, crying one to the other, Behold, we are great, we endure, and not earth itself is more sure. Pleasure is ours and the taste of lust, wine in our mouths and power in our hands; and the lash was heard on the bowed slave’s back, they had mercy on neither their kith nor their kin. And Samson woke and looked round again, he was shorn of his hair, bound naked there, in the lights of the torches, tormented and chained. And then sudden the Philistines felt the walls rock and they looked them about and saw the flames wave, low and sharp in a little wind; and again about them the great hall groaned, and Samson tore down the pillars of the roof, and the roof fell in and slew him and them…. And Samson was rising again in our sight, threatening destruction unless we should change, and free both him and the prisoners chained in the littered halls of our secret hearts.
And maybe it was because it was Spring, new-come, the sun a long, drowsy blink in the kirk, and folk heard the voice of the Reverend Colquohoun like the wind they’d hear up under the hills, fine and safe as they listened below, and who could he mean by Samson but them, ground down by the rents they’d to pay the Mowats? Maybe it was that and maybe it was because folk aye had prided themselves in Segget in taking no heed of what others said, that they licked up the sermon like calves at a cog; and a fair bit crowd watched Robert Colquohoun, him and his wife, she seemed decent and quiet, mount on their bikes and ride home to Kinraddie.
ROBERT SAID TO Chris, That’s the end of my chance. But I’m glad I preached what I felt and thought. But Chris had a clearer vision than his, They liked the sermon and I think they liked you. They hadn’t a notion what the sermon meant—themselves the Philistines and someone else Samson.
Robert stared. But I made it plain as plain. Chris laughed, To yourself; anyhow, we’ll see. And they rode to Kinraddie, and the days went by, Robert didn’t believe he would head the leet. But he found out, for fun, all he could about Segget, from papers and Else and lists and old books, there was less than a thousand souls in Segget, and most of them lost, if you trusted Else. Half of the Segget folk worked at the mills—the spinners, as the rest of Segget called them; the others kept shops or were joiners or smiths, folk who worked on the railway, the land, the roads, and the gardens of Segget House. Robert found an old map of the place and renewed it, playing as a boy with a toy town.
Chris leaned on his chair and looked over his shoulder, his fingers nimble in limning New Toun (where the folk had gone when the spinners came), Old Toun and its winding jumble of lanes that bunched and clustered around the West Wynd. South was the Arms, in the Segget Square, the East Wynd dotted with a joiner’s, a school, a tailor’s shop, a grocery, a sutor’s—and the Lord knows what, Robert said as his pen swopped down the Wynd to the Segget Square. Then it wheeled about and went up The Close to the post-office-grocery-shop combined, dotted the Segget smiddy beyond, and syne lost itself in the Segget slums…. Chris saw on the northern outskirts of Segget two dots for the Manse and the steepleless kirk, and over to the west another one still, Segget House, where the Mowats lived, the old mill-owner new-dead, said Else, and his son, young Stephen, at an English college.
And Robert would whistle as he looked at his map— What mightn’t a minister do in Segget, with the help of young Mowat or the folk of the schools? And sutors are atheists, bound to have brains, and extremely religious, all atheists are. One could do great things with a village League…
Then he would laugh, Just playing with bricks! Εwan, where are those toys you’ve outgrown?
The news that he’d topped the leet at the poll was brought to Robert by an elder of Segget, it was Else who opened the door for the creature, she knew him well, but she didn’t let on. It was wee Peter Peat, the tailor of Segget, his shop stood mid-way the wind of East Wynd, with his house behind it, he thought it a castle. And he spoke right fierce, and he’d tell a man, before you were well in the lithe of his door, that he made a fine neighbour to those that were good, the best of friends to his friends, he was, but God pity the man that fell out with him, he’d never forgive an injury, never. And he was the biggest Tory in Segget, the head of the Segget Conservative branch, and an awful patriot, keen for blood; but he’d loup in his shoes as he heard his wife, Meg Peat that was slow and sonsy to look at, come into the shop, she’d cry Peter, I’m away. Mind the fire and have tea set ready; and he’d quaver, Ay Meg, like an ill-kicked cur. But soon’s she was gone he’d look fierce as ever, ready to kill you and eat you forbye, and running his tape up and down your bit stomach as though he were gutting you and enjoying it.
Well, here he was standing, fierce as a futret. Is the Reverend Mr Colquohoun indoors? And Else said, I’ll see; what name shall I tell him? And he said Gang and tell him Peter Peat’s here.
Else went and found the minister in his study, and the minister said Peat? and looked at the mistress; and the mistress smiled in the quiet way she had, and shook her head, and the minister shook his. Still, kindling or peat, I suppose I’d best see him!
Else went down the stairs to where Peter stood. Come in, and wipe your feet on the mat. He looked
as though he’d have liked to wipe them on her, but he came in, fierce in his five feet two, the minister was waiting and rose when he came. I’ve come from Segget, Else heard the thing say, and the minister answer as she closed the door, Oh, yes? Well, won’t you sit down, Mr Peat?
And then, a half hour or so after that, Chris heard the closing of the Manse front door and syne the scamper of feet on the stairs, she thought it was Ewan come in from his play. But instead it was Robert, he burst into the room, his face was flushed and he caught her arms, and plucked her up from the chair she sat in, and danced her half round the great-windowed room. She gasped, What is’t? and he said What, that? Peter Peat, the tailor of Segget, of course. Then he dropped in the chair from which he had plucked her, and sat there panting, still holding her hands. Christine, you’re now looking at Segget’s minister. And he’s promised that never as long as he lives he’ll pray for All-but the Prince of Wales!
HE TOLD THE story he’d gotten from Peter, and Chris heard it later amended by Else, a warning that folk in a pulpit speak plain. He was fell religious, wee Peter Peat, an elder of the kirk and twice every Sunday he’d nip up and down the pews with the bag; and look at you sharp to see what you put in. And once he cried out to Dalziel of Meiklebogs, that was stinking with silver but fair was right canny, No, no, I’ll not have a button from you! And Meiklebogs reddened like a pig with rash, and dropped a half-crown in the bag by mistake, he was so took aback and affronted-like. That was back a good while, in the days of old Nichols, the last minister but one, he was, as proud and stuck-up as a hubbley-jock, English, and he never learned to speak right; and his prayers at first had fair maddened Peat. For when he came to the bit about Royalty, and he’d pray for the birn with might and with main, he’d finish up And all but the Prince of Wales. Now Peat he was Tory and fond of the Prince, he went home to his wife in a fair bit stew, What the hell ails him at the Prince of Wales that he blesses all but him, I would like to know? And at last he tackled old Nichols on the matter, and the creature gave a bit sniftering laugh, and said to Scotch ears he supposed that All-but was how it sounded when he said Albert. And he spoke this slow, in a sneering bit way, as though he thought Scotch ears were damn poor ears, mostly bad in the need of a clean—when manners were being given out he hadn’t even the manners to stay and receive his, Peter Peat said.
CHRIS WOKE ON the morning of the move to Segget with a start of fear she had over-slept. It was May, and the light came round about five, red and gold and a flow of silver down the parks that she knew so well, she got from bed at the very first blink, Robert yawned and sat up and remembered the day, and dived for his clothes, no bath this morning she told him as each struggled into clothes. He said, Ah well, I’m not very foul, and she thought that funny, and giggled and tangled her hair with her dress; and he said, Let me help, and his help was a hinder, it was only an excuse to take her and kiss her, this day of all
She pushed him away at last and he went, whistling, two steps at a time down the stair, Chris heard Else moving already in the kitchen and when she got down found breakfast near ready, and Else all excitement, and young Ewan up, his knickers pulled on the wrong way in his hurry. She’d to alter that and try answer his questions, and run to help Robert with the very last kist, full up to the brim with books and such-like; and he swore at the thing and Chris sat on the top, and Ewan came running and jumped there as well, and it closed with a bang, and they all of them cheered.
They sat down to breakfast, famished already. Suddenly Else came running in—Mem, it’s started to rain! with her face as though it were raining ink, and thick ink forbye. So Chris had to quiet her, and see Ewan ate, and Robert forbye, excited as Else. Then they heard down the road the burr of a lorry, and Else came again: It’s Melvin from Segget.
So it was, they’d hired him to do the Manse flitting, and had heard his character redd up by Else. He kept the only hotel in Segget, the Segget Arms that stood in the Square, the other inn down at the foot of West Wynd had been closed when the local option came. Will Melvin had been right well pleased over that, he said if this was their Prohibition, then he for one was all for the thing. He’d a face like a cat, broad at the eyes, and he’d spit like a cat whenever he spoke; he aye wore a dickey and a high, stiff collar and a leather waistcoat, and leggings and breeks, and he drove the two cars on hire in Segget, and carted folks’ coals and attended the bar when Jim the potman, that folk called the Sourock, was down with the awful pains in his wame. Will Melvin had married fell late in life, an Aberdeen woman, right thin and right north, she kept a quick eye on the bar and the till. And if she heard a billy give a bit curse, as a spinner or a cottar might do from outbye, knowing no better, they weren’t Segget folk, she’d cry out sharp in the thin Aberdeen: None of your Blasting and Blaspheming in here. So folk called her the Blaster and Blasphemer for short, and if thoughts could have burned she’d have needed to go and take out a life insurance for fire.
Well, here was Will Melvin, he sat in the kitchen, but got to his feet when Chris came in. Good morning, Mem, and Chris said Good morning, and he asked, Will I start then to load her up? meaning the lorry, Chris saw, not herself. And he said he had Muir, the gravedigger, to help, and Chris called in Robert, and he came and scowled because he was thinking of some other thing. But he said, Hello, then, are we all ready? Would you like a dram before we begin? Will Melvin said, genteel, Just a drop, and would have sat and waited for the dram by himself but that Chris asked, Isn’t there another with you?
So John Muir was brought in from his seat in the lorry, he was big and cheery and buirdly, John Muir, a roadman of Segget, and the two had their dram, and John Muir as he drank began to tell them of the awful time he’d once had with a grave. He’d aye had a horror of premature burial, a fell few there were that were buried like that, when you dug up the coffins of folk of old time and the boards fell agley you would sometimes see, through the shrouds, the bones all bulging and twisted, the creatures had struggled down there in the earth, not dead at all, gasping for breath …. Well, he’d been thinking of that one night as he went to dig a new grave by the kirk, it was windy weather on the winter’s edge. He’d only finished digging the hole, and turned about, and straightened his back, when the earth gave way and his feet as well. Next minute his head went over his heels and flat in a puddle of red earth he went, right down at the bottom of the grave he had dug, his head half-jammed in under his shoulder. He nearly fainted with the awful shock, syne cried for help as loud as he could. But he heard long nothing, it was winter time, the light was waning up on the hills, he looked up and knew before long he’d be dead. And he cried again and as luck would have it the old minister heard his bit yowl, and came canny and slow down through the graves, and looked in the hole where John Muir was lying. And he said: Who is’t? and John Muir was sore vexed. Oh, ay, we’ve been introduced, he cried back, so stand on no ceremony—damn’t, get a ladder!
Maybe that was why he still gleyed that way and went with a kind of twist to his shoulder, Chris thought; but Robert just laughed and looked at his watch. Well, this is a flitting, not yet a funeral. John Muir set down his glass and gleyed cheery, Ay, well, it’ll end in that, come time, you’d have thought he had something wrong with his stomach. But he gleyed at Chris cheery as a cock on a ree, and fell to with a will, him and Will Melvin, and carried out tables and presses and chairs, and kists and beds and boxes of dishes, and piled them up till the lorry groaned. Will Melvin near did the same at the sound and went spitting around like a startled cat. Then they drove off, Robert went with them to help, Else went as well in the back of the lorry, clasping the best tea-set to herself, and giving young Ewan a wave as she went.
The rain had cleared and Chris watched the lorry lurch down by the Mains in the flare of the sun, they’d got a fine day after all for the flitting. She liked John Muir, if not Melvin much; but then it was daft to judge folk at first sight. Young Ewan came running and asked for a piece, they sat together in the half-tirred rooms, and
ate some biscuits and looked at each other, with the bizz of a fly on the stripped window-panes. Ewan asked why they were moving to Segget, Chris tried to tell him, and he listened, polite, and then went out and drowsed in the grass till he heard the lorry returning from Segget.
They loaded up the last of the stuff, John Muir climbed gleying up in its midst, and Chris locked the door and left the key for the folk of the Mains to come up and get, hid in a little hole in the wall. Then she went to the lorry where Melvin was waiting, young Ewan beside him, and climbed in as well; and the lorry wound out through the bending of yews where long, long ago the knight Wallace had hidden as the English were looking for him in the wars.
They saw not a soul as they passed the Mains, then they swung out into the road that led south; and so as they went Chris turned and looked back, at Kinraddie, that last time there in the sun, the moor that smoothed to the upland parks Chae Strachan had ploughed in the days gone by, the Knapp with no woods to shelter it now, Upperhill set high in a shimmer of heat, Cuddiestoun, Netherhill—last of them all, high and still in the hill-clear weather, Blawearie up on its ancient brae, silent and left and ended for you; and suddenly, daft, you couldn’t see a thing.
BUT THAT WENT by, Chris glad to be gone; and the lorry switched from the main road’s ribbon up by the old thatched toun of Culdyce, and she saw the Howe spread out like a map, there was Drumlithie down in its hollow, a second Segget, but steepled enough. Mondynes that stood by the Bervie Water, Fettercairn, where the soldiers of the widow Finella had lain in wait to mischieve King Kenneth. All the parks were set with their hoeing squads, four, five at a time they swung by the drills, here and there the hindmost man would stop, and straighten up slow, a hand at his back, to look at the lorry—whose could it be? And all the long line would straighten up, slow, and catch a glimpse of Chris, in her blue, and young Ewan in his, with his straight, black hair.