Then Moultrie came in, a slow tap-tap, with his stick and his glare, and stopped half-way, his wife, Jess Moultrie, waiting behind, her hand on his arm, gentle and quiet. But when he moved on he shook her away. Chris had heard the story of him and of her and how he had never forgiven her her daughter, Ag, whom they called the Roarer and Greeter.
The others came in, all in a birn, Chris didn’t know some and of some was uncertain, she thought that one was Ake Ogilvie the joiner; and a trickle of folk from the farms outbye, a spinner or so, but they were fell few, and Dalziel of the Meiklebogs, red-faced and shy, funny how one couldn’t abide him at all.
Syne John Muir finished with the ringing of the bell and came with his feet splayed out as he walked, and his shoulder agley, down the length of the kirk; and went into the little room at the back. Robert would be there and Muir help him to robe. Syne the door opened and John Muir came out, and swayed and gleyed cheerful up to the pulpit and opened the door and stood back and waited. And Robert went up, with his hair fresh-brushed, and his eyes remote, and sat down and prayed, silent, and all the kirk silent as well, for a minute, while Chris looked down at her hands.
Then Robert stood up in the pulpit and said, in his clear, strong voice that hadn’t a mumble, that called God god and never just gawd, We will begin the worship of God by the singing of hymn one hundred and forty, ‘Our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days, pavilioned in splendour and girded with praise.’ Hymn one hundred and forty.
Folk rustled the leaves and here and there a man glowered helpless while his wife found the page; and the organ started with a moan and a grind and the kirk was a rustle with Sunday braws, folk standing and singing, all straight and decent, except young Εwan, a-lean in his pew, and Geddes the Dominie, hand in his pouch.
Chris liked this hymn near as much as did Robert, most folk stuck fast when they came to pavilioned, Robert’s bass came in, Chris’s tenor to help, Mrs Geddes’ contralto a wail at their heels. Then down they all sat; Robert said Let us pray.
Chris wondered what Robert was to preach to-day, his text was no clue when he gave it out. Folk shuffled in their seats, and hoasted genteel, and put up their hankies to slip sweeties in their mouths; sometimes Chris wished she could do the same, but she couldn’t very well, the minister’s wife. And all Segget lifted its eyes to Robert, he flung back the shoulders of his robe and began, slow and careful, reading from his notes; and then pushed them aside and began a sermon on that bit of a spear young Ewan Tavendale had found on the Kaimes. He’d brought the thing up in the pulpit with him, folk stopped in their sucking of sweeties and gaped.
And Robert told of the uses the thing had once had, in the hands of the carles of the ruined Kaimes; and the siege and the fighting and the man who had held it, desperate at last in the burning lowe as King Kenneth’s men came into the castle: and the blood that ran on this ruined blade for things that the men of that time believed would endure and be true till the world died; they thought they were fighting for things that would last, they’d be classed as heroes and victors forever. And now they were gone, they were not even names, their lives and their deaths we knew to be foolish, a clamour and babble on little things.
So might the men of the future look back, on this Segget here, not of antique times, and see the life of our mean-like streets ape-like chatter as the dark came down. For change, imperative, awaited the world, as never before men could make it anew, men of good will and a steadfast faith. All history had been no more than the gabble of a horde of apes that was trapped in a pit. Let us see that we clean our pit-corner in Segget, there is hatred here, and fear, and malaise, the squabbling of drunken louts in the streets, poor schools, worse houses—we can alter all these, we can alter then now, not waiting the world.
Robert had launched his campaign on Segget.
THAT SERMON FAIR raised a speak in the toun, as soon’s they got out Peter Peat said Faith! they’d fair made a mistake in getting this childe. You wanted a sermon with some body in it, with the hell that awaited the folk that were sinners, and lay on the Kaimes with their unwed queans, and were slow in paying their bills to a man. And what did he mean that Segget was foul? A clean little toun as ever there was, no, no, folk wanted no changes here.
Old Leslie said ’Twas Infernal, just, he minded when he was a loon up on Garvock—
Rob Moultrie said Well, what d’you expect? He’s gentry and dirt with his flat-patted hair; and speaking to God as though he were speaking to a man next door—and a poor man at that. Ay, a Tory mucker, I well may warrant, that would interfere in our houses and streets.
Will Melvin said Did you hear him preach against folk taking a dram now and then? And if he himself wasn’t drunk then I’m daft, with his spears and his stars and his apes and his stite.
That fairly got Hairy Hogg on the go. He cried Ay, what was all yon about apes? And him glaring at me like a thrawn cat. If he comes from the monkeys himself let him say it, not sneer at folk of a better blood.
Folk took a bit snicker at that as they went—damn’t, the minister had got one in there! And afore night had come the story had spread, the minister had said—you’d as good as heard him—that Hairy Hogg was a monkey, just.
Well, it made you laugh, though an ill-gettèd thing to say that of old Hairy Hogg, the Provost. Faith, he fair had a face like a monkey, the sutor of Segget and its Provost forbye. He’d been Provost for years, not a soul knew why, or how he’d ever got on for the job; or what was the council, or what it might do, apart from listening to Hairy on Burns. For he claimed descent from the Burneses, Hairy, and you’d have thought by the way he spoke that Rabbie had rocked him to sleep in his youth. His wife had once been at Glenbervie House, a parlourmaid there, and awful genteel; but a thirty years or so in old Hogg’s bed had fair rubbed gentility off of the creature, she was common and rough as a whin bush now, and would hoast out loud in the kirk at prayers till the bairns all giggled and old Hogg would say, loud enough for the pulpit to hear, Wheest, wheest, redd your thrapple afore you come here.
She would make him regret that when they got home, she’d little time for any palavers, her daughter Jean that was nurse in London, or Alec her son that clerked down in Edinburgh. Old Hogg he would blow like a windy bellows about Jean and the things she’d done as a nurse. For when the bit King took ill with a cough she was one of the twenty-four nurses or so that went prancing round the bit royalty’s bed, she carried a hanky, maybe, or such-like. But to hear old Hairy speak on the business you’d have thought she’d cured the King’s illness herself, and been handed a two-three thousand for doing it. Yet damn the penny but her wages she got, said Mrs Hogg; what could you expect? The gentry were aye as mean as is dirt and wasn’t the King a German forbye?
Young Hogg was at home now, on holiday like, he meant to attend the Segget Show. You had seen the creature, wearing plus fours, east-windy, west-endy as well as could be, forbye that he said he had joined the Fascists. Folk asked what they were, and he said they were fine, Conservatives, like, but a lot more than that; they meant to make Britain the same as was Italy. And old Hogg was real vexed, he cried But goodsakes! You’re not going to leave your fine job, now, are you, and take to the selling of ice-cream sliders? And Alec said Father, please don’t be silly; and old Hogg fair flamed: Give’s less of your lip. What could a man think but that you were set, you and your breeks and your Fashers and all, with being a damned ice-creamer yourself?
Alec said nothing, just looked at his quean, and she and him sniffed, she was real superior, a clerk like Alec himself down in Edinburgh. He’d brought her up on holiday to Segget, he called her his feeungsay, not just his lass: she wouldn’t be able to stay for the Show, and if any soul thought that a cause for regret, he’d managed to keep a good grip on himself. The first time they sat down to tea in Hogg’s house Alec finished his cup and looked round the table. Where’s the slop-basin, mother? he asked, to show his quean he was real genteel. But his mother was wearied with him and his airs. Slop i
t in your guts! she snapped as she rose, and less of your Edinburgh touches here!
SEGGET SHOW WAS held in a park that was loaned to the toun by Dalziel of the Meiklebogs. He blushed and looked shy, Oh ay, you can have it, when Hairy Hogg went out there and asked him. ’Twas a great ley park with a fringe of trees, the hills up above, the Kaimes to the left; and early on the evening afore Segget Show there were folk down there making out this and that, the lines of the tents and the marquees and such; the circle where the bairns would run their bit races and folk that thought they could throw the hammer could stand and show what their muscles were made of. Folk came to Segget Show far and about, from Fordoun and Laurencekirk, Skite and Arbuthnott, early on the Saturday Segget awoke to the rattle of farm carts up through East Wynd, down past the Manse, and so to the park, carts loaded with kail and cabbage and cakes, and hens and ducks in their clean straw rees, and birns of bannocks and scones for show, and the Lord knows what that folk wouldn’t bring to try for a prize at the Segget Show.
It was wet in the morning, folk looked out and swore, but by noon the rain had cleared off and soon, as the lines of folk held out from Segget, there came a blistering waft of the heat, men loosed their waistcoats, some took off their collars, and paid their shillings and went in at the gates, all except a crowd of the spinners. They suddenly appeared near the big marquee, and Sim Leslie, him that the folk called Feet, went over and looked at the bunch fell stern, he hadn’t seen them pay at the gate. But he wasn’t keen on starting a row, just looked at them stern: and the spinners all laughed.
There fair was a crush as the judges began, Hairy Hogg was one, the minister another, Dalziel of the Meiklebogs the third. They started in on the hens to begin with, a lot from MacDougall Brown’s of the post-office. MacDougall stood by, looking proud as dirt, he’d won first prize for his Leghorns for years. So he fell near fainted when he got a green ticket, the second prize only and not the red first; and he said to whoever stood by to listen that it was that minister had done this to him, he was scared at the way that MacDougall drew folk away from the Auld Kirk’s preaching and lies. But faith! his Leghorns looked none so well, he’d been mixing lime in their feed and the birds had a look as though they’d like to lie down and burst. But they daren’t, with MacDougall’s eye upon them, they stood and chirawked, as though kind of discouraged when they saw that they’d ta’en only second prize.
By then the judges were through with the hens, the ducks as well, a childe from a farm out near by Mondynes had ta’en every prize there was to be took. Syne the judges turned into the big marquee, to judge the baked stuff and the flowers and the like. The minister was speaking as they went inside; Hairy Hogg turned round to hear what he said; and prompt his elbow knocked over the dish that was set with the cakes of Mistress Melvin. The landlady of the Arms looked at the Provost as though she’d like to bash in his head, with a bottle, and syne carve him up slow with its splinters; but she daren’t say anything, seeing it was him, and he’d given the Melvins the catering to do.
So the Blaster and Blasphemer just smiled, genteel, and got down and picked up her cakes from the grass, the minister got down and helped her; and smiled; (what was the creature laughing about?). But Hairy Hogg said, for the marquee to hear, I want stuff set out plain and decent, not pushed right under my nose when I judge. He spoke as though he were the Lord God Almighty, and the bannocks sinners on the Judgement Day.
They couldn’t make up their minds on the pancakes, there were two fine lots, one rounded and cut, neat-shaped and fine as ever you saw, the other lot not of much shape at all, but bonnily fired, and the judges stopped, and each ate a bit, of the well-cut at first, they weren’t so bad, but looked better than they tasted. Syne the judges bit at the ill-cut cakes, they fairly melted in a body’s mouth, the minister had eaten up one in a minute, and Meiklebogs nodded, and Hairy Hogg nodded, and the Reverend Mr Colquohoun gave a nod. So old Jess Moultrie had the first prize, faith! that was fairly a whack in the face for that Mistress Geddes with her fine- shaped cakes, and her blethering of lectures at the W.R.I. She was daft on the w.r.i., Mrs Geddes, she said that folk in a village like Segget wanted taking out of themselves. So she and some others started the thing, they’d collect at all hours, the women of the place, and speak about baking and minding the bairns, and how to make pipes from the legs of old sofas: and hear lantern-lectures on Climbing the Alps. Well, damn’t! she’d have to do a bit climbing herself ere she learned to bake cakes like the Moultrie wife.
By three nearly everything there had been judged, most of the folk had scattered by then, to see the games in the ring that Ake Ogilvie had set up for nothing, the previous night. And well so he might, damn seldom he worked, you couldn’t get near to his joiner’s shop for the clutter of carts, half-made and half-broken, lying about, and the half of a churn, a hen-coop or so and God knows what—all left outside in the rain and sun while Ogilvie sat on a bench inside and wrote his ill bits of poetry and stite—he thought himself maybe a second Robert Burns. He was broad and big, a fell buirdly childe, and it seemed fell queer that a man like that couldn’t settle down to the making of money, and him the last joiner left in the place. But he’d tell you instead some rhyme or another, coarse dirt that was vulgar, not couthy and fine. He was jealous as hell of the real folk that wrote, Annie S. Swan and that David Lyall: you could read and enjoy every bit that they wrote, it was fine, clean stuff, not sickening you, like, with dirt about women having bairns and screaming or old men dying in the hills at night or the fear of a sheep as the butcher came. That was the stuff that Ake Ogilvie wrote, and who wanted to know about stuff like that? You did a bit reading to get away from life.
Well, Ake Ogilvie, him and his poetry and dirt, there he was, on the edge of the ring. And inside the ring, round about the hammer, were a pickle of those that would try a bit throw. And Feet cried Back, keep out of the way, and went shooing bairns at the ring’s far side; and folk clustered around fair thick to look on, old Leslie and Melvin the judges here.
The first to throw was a man from Catcraig, Charlie Something-or-other his name, and he swung himself slow and steady on his feet and syne took a great breath and leaped in the air, and swung, and syne as his feet came down his arms let go and the hammer flew out and flashed in the air and spun and then fell—ay, a gey throw, folk cheered him a bit. But one of his galluses had split with the throw and he blushed to the eyes and put on his coat.
Syne another childe threw, a farmer he was, the hammer went skittering out from his hand, he laughed in an off-hand way as to say he was just taking part to encourage the others. Syne folk saw that the third was that tink Jock Cronin, one of the spinner breed, he picked up the hammer and waited and swung, and louped, and the thing went a good foot beyond any of the earlier throws that were made. ’Twould be a sore business if the Cronin should win. His friends all shouted, That’s the stuff, Jock! they were fair delighted with their champion’s throw, with their rattling watch-chains and their dirty jokings, the average spinner knew as much of politeness as a polecat knows of the absence of smell. The worst of the lot, folk said, were the Cronins, they bade in West Wynd, a fair tribe of the wretches, old Cronin had once been a foreman spinner till he got his bit hand mashed up in machinery. He’d fair gone bitter with that, they told, and took to the reading of the daftest-like books, about Labour, Socialism, and such-like stite. Where would you be if it wasn’t for Capital? you’d ask old Cronin, and he’d say On the street—where the capitalists themselves would be, you poor fool. It’s the capitalists that we are out to abolish, and the capital that we intend to make ours. And he’d organized a union for spinners and if ever you heard of a row at the mills you might bet your boots a Cronin was in it, trying to make out that the spinners had rights, and ought to be treated like gentry, b’God!
The worst of the breed was that young Jock Cronin, him that had just now thrown the hammer. The only one that wasn’t a spinner, he worked as a porter down at the station, folk said that the stat
ionmaster, Newlands, would have sacked him right soon if only he’d dared; him and his socialism and the coarse way he had of making jokes on the Virgin Birth; and sneering at Jonah in the belly of the whale; and saying that the best way to deal with a Tory was to kick him in the dowp and you’d brain him there. But Jock Cronin worked as well as he blethered, the sly, coarse devil, and he couldn’t be sacked; and there he stood with a look on his face as much as to say That’s a socialist’s throw!
It was Newlands, the stationmaster, himself that came next, you hoped he’d beat the throw of the porter. But faith, he didn’t, he was getting fell slow, maybe it was that or he wasted his breath singing at the meetings of MacDougall Brown, the hammer just wobbled and fell with a plop, if they didn’t do better at the second round and third it was Cronin the porter would grab the first prize.
But syne folk started to cheer, and all looked, ’twas the Reverend Mr Colquohoun himself, being pushed inside the ring by his wife. Ay, that was well-intended of him, now, you gave a bit clap and syne waited and watched. And the minister took off his coat and his hat and smiled at the childe that held out the hammer, and took it and swung, and there rose a gasp, he’d flung it nearly as far as the Cronin’s.
The second bout he landed well over Jock Cronin’s, plain it was between the spinner and him, the spinners stopped laughing, crying, Come on, then, Jock! You’re not going to let a mucking preacher beat you? The Reverend Colquohoun looked at them and laughed, and syne spoke to Cronin, and he laughed as well, not decent and low as a man would do that spoke to a minister, but loud out and vulgar, he wished folk to think that he was as good as any minister that ever was clecked. Then the childe with the galluses threw once again, but he’d never got over the blush or the galluses, he landed fell short and went off the field, and Else Queen, the maid at the Manse, was his lass, and she laughed out loud; and that was ill-done.