Funny that he couldn’t do things like sums, you could nearly do them with both eyes shut, and lean back and go off on a think on flints while the other scholars were finishing theirs; and Miss M’Askill would cry out, Ewan! Have you finished already? Show me your sums. And you’d show them to her, she’d stand over close, with an arm around your shoulder, like so; and you’d move away, though as slow as you could; and she wrote in your report to the Manse that you were brilliant, but you hadn’t enthusiasm; you supposed because you hadn’t enthusiasm for cuddling.
It had been different in the first two years, the youngest room with Miss Jeannie Grant, Miss Grant was pretty and laughed at you, and at everyone else, and kept her cuddles for Charlie’s brother, or so you supposed. She was going to be married some time to him, Jock Cronin, that was only a railway porter, Chris said that job was as good as another. But you didn’t think much of John Cronin, yourself, he didn’t believe what he himself said, he just said things and then tried to believe them—you knew that well while you watched him sit, with Robert, up in a room at the Manse, and talk of Segget and socialism coming—it was all a fairy-tale, and he knew it, why didn’t he say the things that he thought?
You said that to Chris and she took your two shoulders, and shook her head and looked at you, strange, Oh Ewan, you’re hard and cool as—grey granite! When you too grow up you’ll find facts over much—you’ll need something to follow that’s far from the facts. And she said something else, about a pillar of cloud, and was suddenly angry, Don’t stare at me so! And you said I’m sorry, and she shook you again. So am I, Ewan—but oh, you’re so cool!
Well, you saw nothing to make you excited, except now and then a broad-flake flint. It was worth reading history to get at these people, the makers of flints and their lives long ago. Though most of the histories were dull as ditchwater, with their kings and their battles and their dates and such muck, you wondered how the people had lived in those times. But especially before the history-book times you wanted to know how men had lived then and had read all the books you could find in the Manse, and got money from Chris to send and buy others, the lives of the people ere history began, before the Venricones came to the Mearns. And young Cronin would listen and say What’s the use? Father says that the only things we should learn are how to fight the capitalists. You didn’t know about them, you asked who they were, and Charlie said Folk like that mucker Mowat.
Mr Mowat lived sometimes in Segget House, but most of the time he was down in London, sleeping with whores, Charlie Cronin said. You asked what whores were and he told you about them, what they did, how they slept for money with men. You said that you didn’t see why they shouldn’t, and Charlie said you’d a dirty mind, and would soon be doing the same as Mowat. That was rot, you hadn’t any use for girls, they could only giggle and drift along roads, with their arms twined, and screech about nothing. Or they played soft games in their own playground, once you’d run through there for a cricket-ball and the bigger girls were playing a game, When will my true love come from the sea; and the silly fools pulled you in the middle and kissed and slobbered you one after the other, you stood it as long as you could, then pushed out, you didn’t want to hurt the fools and you didn’t; but you had felt almost sick in their hands. You told Chris that when she heard about it, she laughed and said All lassies aren’t fools, and they think you a good looking lad, I believe. So you said that you didn’t care about that, could you have a piece now and go up to the Kaimes?
You went often up there to seek round for flints; when they dug the Kaimes they must have dug deep, in a squatting-place of the ancient men, and mixed the flints with the building-earth. You had nearly thirty specimens already, properly labelled in a press in your room, and each described on a ticket near. And you had a catalogue, fairly complete, with diagrams of the ripples, hinge-fractures, the ovates and such, and a drawing of the best, a tortoise-core from the Leachie bents. Most of the stuff was late Bronze Age, when the hunters in Scotland had still only flints.
Dinner-times you went home by the near way, quick, stopping to throw up a stone at the rooks. Robert would sometimes be there at the table, and sometimes was out and about the Mearns, trying to raise his fund for the miners, and raising little but temper, he said. Chris never went with him at the dinner-hour, she would stay at home and help Maidie at work, Maidie couldn’t cook a dinner for toffee.
Sometimes Chris would be out at night when you came back from the school for tea. So Maidie would give you your tea, like a mouse, and you’d have it and help her to clear and she’d say, Oh, Master Εwan, I’ll do it myself, but you took no notice, just went on and helped, not heeding her blether you should do your lessons, any fool could do the lessons in ten minutes. Then you’d climb to your room and look in your press, and dust here and there that tortoise-core, and a fabricator-cone you had gotten near Brechin, and take them out and turn them with care, the light waning and dying in from the window as the day waned west from the slopes of the Howe. And sometimes you’d raise your head and look up, when the sun grew still on the peaks of the Mounth, by the glens and the haughs you had searched for flints, and think of the men of ancient times who had made those things and hunted those haughs, running naked and swift by the sunlit slopes, fun to live then and talk with those people. Robert said that they hadn’t been savage at all, but golden hunters of the Golden Age.
And once Chris came up as you stood and looked at a new ripple-flake you had newly found, a summer night ere you went to bed, you’d taken everything off, to be cool, and stood by the window and traced out the whorls on the red and yellow of the antique axe. Chris opened the door, and you felt the air waft, and turned and looked at her, her standing so still. You asked was anything wrong, she said No, giving a laugh as though wakening up. Only you looked like a hunter yourself, strayed and lost from the Golden Age!
And Else went by, and looked through the door, and suddenly flushed and ran up the stairs; that was just a week ere she went from the Manse.
FAITH, THAT HAD fairly set folk agog, when that coarse quean Else was sacked from the Manse. It just showed you the way that the world was going, dirty spinners that gave you their lip, work hard to get, so many sweir—and ministers that couldn’t look after their queans. Folk said they’d been at it a year and a half, her and Dalziel of the Meiklebogs, afore that Sabbath night in July when Mr Colquohoun came in on the pair, right bang in the Manse’s own kitchen it was, Meiklebogs in the way you’d expect a man in, Else Queen in a way that no quean should be in, with a two-three bits of her rig laid by. The minister had said This won’t do, Else, fair mad with rage at old Meiklebogs, for he himself had slept with his maid, and was over-mean to share the lass out.
Some said that that was all a damned lie, the minister had nothing to do with the quean, she’d left the Manse of her own free will. The Reverend Mr Robert Colquohoun wouldn’t bed with an angel sent down from heaven, let alone a red-faced maid in his house, he was over decent and fond of his wife. But you shook your head when you heard that, faith! it clean took the guts from a fine bit tale. If he wasn’t the kind to go to bed with any bit quean could you tell a man why he was chief with the Cronin dirt, socialists that said you might lie where you liked and didn’t believe in morals or marriage?
And if some childe said that that wasn’t true, you knew right well that he was a liar, you’d seen it all in the People’s Journal, what the coarse tinks did in Russia with women—man, they fair had a time with the women, would you say ’twould be easy to get a job there?
Well, whatever the thing that took place at the Manse, and well you might wyte it wasn’t just prayer—with that scowling brute, the minister himself, and his wife with her proud don’t-touch-me face, and that meikle red-haired bitch of an Else—whatever happened Else left the Manse and took a fee at the Meiklebogs. And what the two of them did when alone, with the night in about and the blinds pulled down, you well might guess, though you didn’t ask. All but Dite Peat, and he said one nig
ht, when Dalziel came talking into the Arms, with that shy-like smile pon his unshaved face, and the yellow boots that he wore for scuddling, Ay, Meiklebogs, you’ll sleep warm now. She’s a well-happèd quean, Else Queen, I should think. Dalziel said nothing, just smiled like a gowk and drank at his dram and syne had another, he hadn’t a yea or a nay to say, it showed you the coarse old brute that he was, and you nearly bursting your bladder to know.
Some said they didn’t believe it at all, Dalziel of the Meiklebogs a decent-like childe, and an elder of Segget kirk forbye. So he might be, but you knew a man’s nature, he needed a woman just now and again—no, no you didn’t blame him overmuch, but she fairly must be an ill tink, that Else Queen. And you’d look at her hard the next time that you met, not a bit of shame she would show as she passed, just cry Ay, Fusty Face, so it’s you? and go swinging by with her meikle hips on the sway like stacks of hay in a gale, well-fleshed and rosy, disgusting, you thought, you’d feel as mad as a mating tyke at Meiklebogs and his shameless sin.
But faith! ’twas the same wherever you looked. There was Mr Mowat up at the House, folk said he’d come back from a London jaunt with two of the painted jades this time, you’d hear their scraichs all over the House; and once the servant went in of a morning and what do you think he saw in the bed? Young Mr Mowat with a quean on each side, he’d slept with the two and he fairly looked hashed, the bitches just laughed as the servant gaped, and one slapped Mr Mowat in a certain place and cried Hi Solomon, here’s the head eunuch!
But you couldn’t believe all the lies that you heard. Young Mr Mowat was fairly a gent, and right fine if you met him outbye, and speak civil; and say he Rahly was glad that you’d met. He was maybe a bit daft about Scotland and such, and a lot of dirt about history and culture. But couldn’t a gent please himself with his ploys, it kept him from wearying and did no harm? When the Mills closed down for a fortnight once, they had over-much stock already on hand, he said he was Jahly sorry for the spinners—and he couldn’t say fairer than that, could he now? So you couldn’t believe about the two queans, and even were it true ’twas a different thing—wasn’t it?—a gent with his play, and a randy old brute like that Meiklebogs man sossing about with a quean half his age?
THEM THAT SAID Dalziel was an innocent childe fair got a sore shock ere the year was out, Else at her new place worked outdoor and indoor, she’d to kilt her skirts (if they needed kilting—and that was damned little with those short-like frocks) and go out and help at the spreading of dung, and hoeing the turnips and anything else, she was worth her own fee and a joskin’s as well. Well, the harvest came and it came fell heavy, Else helped at the stocking and syne at the leading. That was a windy September day, the other childes were down in the fields, Else and Meiklebogs managed a cart, out in the park Meiklebogs forked sheaves, big and thick, into Else Queen’s arms; and she built them round and about the shelvins till they rose four high and syne it was time for Meiklebogs to lead home the horse, Jim, the roan, a canny old beast. So home they would go and the stour would rise under the grind of the iron wheels, up above the Mounth in its mist of blue, Dalziel would look back now and again and see that the corn was biding in place, and see Else as well, lying flat on the top, with her eyes fast-closed, the meikle sweir wretch.
So he led the roan, Jim, up the Meiklebogs close, and round to the back of the Meiklebogs barn, high in the wall a window was cut, and he planned that this load be forked through the window for early threshing with his new oil mill. He stopped the horse and he backed it canny, the roan was old and he gave a bit groan, and Dalziel gave the roan a belt in the mouth, the brute of a beast to groan out like that, folk would think that it was ill-treated. The roan looked surprised, as though he’d done nothing; and Dalziel cried to Else Queen, Come on, you’ll have to be up and doing some work.
She cried, I’ll soon do that, you old mucker, she called him the terriblest names to his face, and all he would do would be to smile shy, and stroke at his chin, neither shaved nor unshaved. So he held, splay-footed, to the front of the barn, and got himself in and climbed to the loft and keeked from the window, and there was Else Queen, standing atop of the rows of sheaves, her fork in her hand, waiting to fork. She cried You’re fair getting old in the bones! and flung in a sheaf that near hit his face, he smiled and said nothing, they both set to work, her working as fast and as fleet as you liked, Dalziel inside was bigging the sheaves, ready for the first bit thresh at the place, the sun a blind fall on the cart outside. And once when Dalziel took a keek out he saw the sweat in a stream from Else, and her eyes looked glazed, it would take down her creash.
Well, there happened near next the kind of a thing that surely Else Queen had expected to happen, unless she were innocent as the Virgin Mary, Ake Ogilvie said: and he doubted that. And even She was hardly that now, with Burns a hundred years in heaven.—Folk said What’s that? and Ake looked surprised—they had surely heard of their own Great Poet? Well, the creature died and he went to heaven and knocked like hell on the pearly gates. And St Peter poked his head from a wicket, and asked Who’re you that’s making a din? And Burns said I’m Robert Burns, my man, the National Poet of Scotland, that’s who. St Peter took a look at the orders, pinned on the guard-room wall for the day; and he said, I’ve got a note about you. You must wait outbye for a minute or so. So Robbie sat there cooling his heels, on the top of the draughty stair to heaven, and waited and waited till he nearly was froze; syne the gates at last opened and he was let in. And Burns was fair in a rage by then, Do you treat distinguished arrivals like this? And St Peter said No, I wouldn’t say that. But then I had special orders about you. I’ve been hiding the Virgin Mary away.—That was a real foul story to tell, it showed you the tink that Ake Ogilvie was, interrupting the real fine newsy tale of the happenings down at the Meiklebogs.
For when they had finished with the forking, ’twas told, Dalziel took a bit of a look round the barn and saw he would need a hand to redd up. Get up from the cart and come round, he cried down, I’ll need you to lend me a hand in the loft. Else cried back, Havers! Do you think I can’t jump? And she put the end of her fork on a stone that stuck out a bit from the wall of the barn, and the prong-end under her arm, so, and next minute sailed through the air like a bird and landed neat by Meiklebogs’ side. And then she went white and then red of a sudden and Meiklebogs thought of the groan he’d heard, it hadn’t been Jim the roan after all, ’twas Else had been groaning afore, as just now. And he stood looking sly as she sat on the sheaves, her face beginning to twist and to sweat, she said I’m not well, send off for the doctor. Then her time came on her and they heard her cry, the fee’d men out in the Meiklebogs fields, and came tearing home to see what was up. But by then the thing was nearly all done, the bairn born out in the barn, and Meiklebogs looking shyer than ever and getting on his bike to go for the doctor.
But faith! that was all he would do in the business. He wouldn’t register the bairn his; and when the young doctor, McCormack, came up, and Else was moved to her room in the house, and McCormack said Is the bairn yours? Meiklebogs smiled shy, No, I wouldn’t say that. And McCormack said Whose is it, then? And Meiklebogs never let on a word, just looked past the doctor and smiled shy and sly; and the doctor said Huh—immaculate con ception. Something in the air of the Meiklebogs. You’ve had other housekeepers ta’en the same way.
Well, the story was soon all about the place, as scandalous a thing as ever you heard, Ag Moultrie, the Roarer and Greeter of Segget, knew every damned thing that had happened in the barn, more than an unmarried woman should know, she said the bairn was Meiklebogs’ image, with his eyes and his nose—and Ake Ogilvie said Ay, faith! and his whiskers as well I could warrant. So Ag told him if he couldn’t be civil and listen she wouldn’t bother to give him the news; and Ake said D’you think I’ll suffer for that?—not a neighbourly way to speak to a woman that was trying to cheer you up with some news.
Soon Else was up and about the place, and the bairn, a loon, tried to
get its own back on its father Dalziel, if father he was. Its howl was near fit to lift off the roof, Else let it howl and worked in the parks: as the season wore on, were the weather fine, she’d take the creature out to the parks, and when it came to its feeding time suckle the thing on a heap of shaws. When the fee’d men blushed and looked bashful at that, she’d cry What the devil are you reddening for? You sucked the same drink before you met beer, fair vulgar and coarse she’d turned to the bone, you’d never have thought she’d worked in a Manse. Dalziel would hark, with his shy, sleekèd smile, saying neither yea nor nay to her fleers, she would tongue him up hill and down dale when she liked, and call him the foulest names you could hear. But the foreman said she still went to his bed, or he to hers—ay, a queer carry-on!
Till the business of Jim the roan put an end.
THAT CAME WITH the second winter’s close, when Meiklebogs carted his grain to the station, he’d sold the stuff for a stiff-like price, and put a young fee’d loon, Sinclair his name, on to the carting with the old roan, Jim. He fair was a willing old brute, the roan, he’d pant up a brae till an oncoming body might think from the other side, out of sight, that a steam-mill and thresher was coming that way. But he never would stop, would just shoggle on, with his great wide haunches shambling and swinging, he’d a free-like way of flinging his feet, but he wasn’t cleekèd; and he fair could pull.
Ah well, it came white weather of frost, the ground as hard and as cold as iron, ribbed with a veining of frost each morning, folk that you met seemed most to be nose, and red nose at that when it wasn’t blue-veined, Melvin at the Arms did a roaring trade, the water-pipes were frozen in the Manse, and the horses of all the farmers out about were brought to the smiddy to have their shoes cogged.