A Scots Quair

  So she whistled to herself, hurrying, and just outside the kirkyard stood the new minister himself, leaning over the gate looking in among the stones, he saw her before she saw him and his voice fair startled her. Well, Chrissie, you’re very gay, he said, and she felt ashamed to have him know she whistled in a kirkyard; and he stared at her strange and queer and seemed to forget her a minute; and he gave an unco half-laugh and muttered to himself, but she heard him, One’s enough for one day. Then he seemed to wake up, he mooed out at her And now you’ll be needing a book, no doubt. Well, the Manse is fair in a mess this evening, spring-cleaning or something like that, but if you just wait here a minute I’ll run in and pick you something light and cheerful.

  Off he set, she was left alone among the black trees that bent over the greyness of the kirkyard. Unendingly the unseen grasses whispered and rustled above the stones’ dim, recumbent shapes, and she thought of the dead below those stones, farmers and ploughmen and their wives, and little bairns and new-born babes, their bodies turned to skeletons now so that if you dug in the earth you’d find only their bones, except the new-buried, and maybe there in the darkness worms and awful things crawled and festered in flesh grown rotten and black, and it was a terrifying place. But at last came the minister, not hurrying at all but just drifting towards her, he held out a book and said Well, here it is, and I hope you’ll like it. She took the book and looked at it in the dying light, its name was Religio Medici, and she mastered her shyness and asked Did you, sir? and the minister stared at her and said, his voice just even as ever, Oh, like hell! and turned about and left her to go back through the terror of the yews. But they didn’t terrify at all, climbing home and thinking of that word he used, swearing it had been and nothing else, should she tell of it to father?

  No, that wouldn’t do, a minister was only a man, and he’d loaned her a book, kind of him though he looked so queer. And besides, father didn’t know of this errand of hers down to the Manse, maybe’d he’d think she was trying to hold in with gentry and would swear himself. Not that he swore often, father, she told herself as she hurried across the brae, and, hurrying, climbed out of the dimness into the last of the May daylight with the sunset a glow and a glimmer that danced about her feet, waiting for her; not often, except when things went clean over him, as that day in the sowing of the park below Blawearie when first the cart-shaft had broken and then the hammer had broken and then he’d watched the rain come on, and he’d gone nearly mad, raging at Will and Chris that he’d leather them till they hadn’t enough skin to sit a threepenny bit on; and at last, fair skite, he’d shaken his fist at the sky and cried Ay, laugh, you Mucker!

  CHRIS TOOK A BIT peep or so in Religio Medici and nearly yawned her head off with the reading of it, it was better fun on a spare, slow day to help mother wash the blankets. In the sun of the red, still weather Jean Guthrie had every bed in Blawearie cleared and the blankets piled in tubs half-filled with lukewarm water and soap, and Chris took off her boots and her stockings and rolled her knickers far up her white legs and stepped in the grey, lathered folds of blankets and tramped them up and down. It felt fine with the water gurgling blue and iridescent up through your toes and getting thicker and thicker; then into the next tub while mother emptied the first, lovely work, she felt she could trample blankets forever, only it grew hot and hot, a red forenoon while they did the washing. So next time mother was indoors she took off her skirt and then her petticoat and mother coming out with another blanket cried God, you’ve stripped! and gave Chris a slap in the knickers, friendly-like, and said You’d make a fine lad, Chris quean, and smiled the blithe way she had and went on with the washing.

  But John Guthrie came home from the fields then, him and Will, and as soon as he saw her father’s face went all shrivelled up and he cried Get out of that at once, you shameful limmer, and get on your clothes! And out she got, white and ashamed, shamed more for father than herself, and Will turned red and led off the horses, awkward-like, but John Guthrie went striding across the close to the kitchen and mother and began to rage at her. What would folk say of the quean if they saw her sit there, near naked? We’d be the speak and laughing-stock of the place. And mother looked at him, sweet and cold, Ah, well, it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve seen a naked lass yourself; and if your neighbours haven’t they must have fathered their own bairns with their breeks on.

  Father had been in a fair stamash at that, he left mother and went out with his face dead-white, not red, and he didn’t say another word, he didn’t speak to mother all that evening nor all the next day. Chris went to her bed that night and thought of the happening, lying close-up and alone, it had been as though she saw a caged beast peep from her father’s eyes as he saw her stand in the tub. Like a fire that burned across the close, it went on and on as though she still stood there and he glowered at her. She hid her face below the blankets but she couldn’t forget, next morning she was able to bear thinking of it no longer, the house had quietened with the folk gone out, she went to mother and asked her straight, she’d never asked anything of the kind before.

  And then an awful thing happened, mother’s face went grey and old as she stopped from her work at the kitchen table, she went whiter and whiter second on second, Chris near went out of her mind at the sight. Oh, mother, I didn’t mean to vex, she cried and flung her arms round mother and held her tight, seeing her face then, so white and ill-looking it had grown in the last month. And mother smiled at her at last, putting her hands on her shoulders. Not you, Chris quean, just life. I cannot tell you a thing or advise you a thing, my quean. You’ll have to face men for yourself when the time comes, there’s none can stand and help you. And then she said something queerer, kissing Chris, Mind that for me sometime if I cannot thole it longer—and stopped and laughed and was blithe again. We’re daft, the two of us, run out and bring me a pail of water. And Chris went out with the pail, out and up to the pump in the hot red weather, and then something came on her, she crept back soft-footed and there mother stood as she’d left her, white and lovely and sad, Chris didn’t dare go in to her, just stood and looked.

  Something was happening to mother, things were happening to all of them, nothing ever stayed the same except maybe this weather and if it went on much longer the Reverend Colquohoun’s bit jungles would soon be sprouting back across the parks of the Howe. The weary pleiter of the land and its life while you waited for rain or thaw! Glad she’d be when she’d finished her exams and was into Aberdeen University, getting her b. a. and then a school of her own, the English Chris, father and his glowering and girning forgotten, she’d have a brave house of her own and wear what she liked and have never a man vexed with sight of her, she’d take care of that.

  Or maybe she wouldn’t, queer that she never knew herself for long, grown up though she was, a woman now, near. Father said that the salt of the earth were the folk that drove a straight drill and never looked back, but she was no more than ploughed land still, the furrows went criss and cross, you wanted this and you wanted that, books and the fineness of them no more than an empty gabble sometimes, and then the sharn and the snapping that sickened you and drove you back to books—

  She turned over on the grass with a jerk when she came to that troubled thinking. The sunset was painting the loch, but hot as ever it was, breaking up for one of those nights when you couldn’t bear a blanket above you and even the dark was a foul, black blanket. It had died off, the wind, while she lay and thought, feint the loss was that, but there was sign of nothing in the place of it, the broom stood up in the late afternoon, not moving, great faces massed and yellow like the faces of an army of yellow men, looking down across Kinraddie, watching for the rain. Mother below would be needing her help, Dod and Alec back from the school already, father and Will soon in from the fields.

  There somebody was crying her already!

  She stood up and shook out her frock and went through the grass to the tail of the brae, and looked down and saw Dod and Alec far b
elow waving up at her. They were crying her name excitedly, it sounded like the lowing of calves that had lost their mother, she went slow to tease them till she saw their faces.

  It was then, as she flew down the hill with her own face white, that the sky crackled behind her, a long flash zig-zagged across the Grampian peaks, and far across the parks by the hills she heard the hiss of rain. The drought had broken at last.

  TWO

  Drilling

  LYING DOWN when her climb up the cambered brae was done, panting deep from the rate she’d come at–skirt flying and iron-resolute she’d turn back for nothing that cried or called in all Blawearie-no, not even that whistle of father’s!—Chris felt the coarse grass crackle up beneath her into a fine quiet couch. Neck and shoulders and hips and knees she relaxed, her long brown arms quivered by her side as the muscles slacked away, the day drowsed down an aureal light through the long brown lashes that drooped on her cheeks. As the gnomons of a giant dial the shadows of the Standing Stones crept into the east, snipe called and called—

  Just as the last time she’d climbed to the loch: and when had that been? She opened her eyes and thought, and tired from that and closed down her eyes again and gave a queer laugh. The June of last year it had been, the day when mother had poisoned herself and the twins.

  So long as that and so near as that, you’d thought of the hours and days as a dark, cold pit you’d never escape. But you’d escaped, the black damp went out of the sunshine and the world went on, the white faces and whispering ceased from the pit, you’d never be the same again, but the world went on and you went with it. It was not mother only that died with the twins, something died in your heart and went down with her to lie in Kinraddie kirkyard–the child in your heart died then, the bairn that believed the hills were made for its play, every road set fair with its warning posts, hands ready to snatch you back from the brink of danger when the play grew over-rough. That died, and the Chris of the books and the dreams died with it, or you folded them up in their paper of tissue and laid them away by the dark, quiet corpse that was your childhood.

  So Mistress Munro of the Cuddiestoun told her that awful night she came over the rain-soaked parks of Blawearie and laid out the body of mother, the bodies of the twins that had died so quiet in their crib. She nipped round the rooms right quick and pert and uncaring, the black-eyed futret, snapping this order and that, it was her that terrified Dod and Alec from their crying, drove father and Will out tending the beasts. And quick and cool and cold-handed she worked, peeking over at Chris with her rat-like face. You’ll be leaving the College now, I’ll warrant, education’s dirt and you’re better clear of it. You’ll find little time for dreaming and dirt when you’re keeping the house at Blawearie.

  And Chris in her pit, dazed and dull-eyed, said nothing, she minded later; and some other than herself went searching and seeking out cloths and clothes. Then Mistress Munro washed down the body that was mother’s and put it in a nightgown, her best, the one with blue ribbons on it that she hadn’t worn for many a year; and fair she made her and sweet to look at, the tears came at last when you saw her so, hot tears wrung from your eyes like drops of blood. But they ended quick, you would die if you wept like that for long, in place of tears a long wail clamoured endless, unanswered inside your head Oh, mother, mother, why did you do it?

  And not until days later did Chris hear why, for they tried to keep it from her and the boys, but it all came out at the inquest, mother had poisoned herself, her and the twins, because she was pregnant again and afraid with a fear dreadful and calm and clear-eyed. So she had killed herself while of unsound mind, had mother, kind-eyed and sweet, remembering those Springs of Kildrummie last of all things remembered, it may be, and the rooks that cried across the upland parks of Don far down beyond the tunnels of the years.

  A MONTH LATER Dod and Alec went back to school and as they left to go home that night first one scholar cried after them and others took it up Daftie, daftie! Whose mother was a daftie? They ran for Blawearie and came stumbling into the house weeping and weeping, father went fair mad at the sight of them and skelped them both, but skelping or not they wouldn’t go back to the school next day.

  And then Will spoke up, he cared not a fig for father now. All in a night it seemed the knowledge had come on him father wouldn’t dare strike him again, he bought an old bicycle and would ride off in an evening as he pleased, his face cold and hard when he caught the glint of father’s eye. Of a morning John Guthrie grumbled and girned at him, crying Where do you wander each night like a tink? But Will would say never a word, except once when John Guthrie made at him and then he swung round and whispered Take care. And at that father stopped and drew back, Chris watched them with angry eyes, angry and frightened in a breath as now when Will spoke up for his brothers.

  Why should they go back? I wouldn’t. Oh, and you needn’t glower at me. You take damn good care you never go near a mart or a market yourself nowadays—I’ve to do all your dirty work for you!

  Father louped to his feet at that, Will was on his as well, they stood with fists clenched in the kitchen and Dod and Alec stopped from their greeting and stared and stared. But Chris thrust the table in between the two, she made out she wanted it there for baking; and they dropped their fists and John Guthrie swore, but soft; and Will reddened up and looked foolish.

  But father that night, he said never a word to the rest of them in Blawearie, he was over-proud for that, wrote off to his sister Janet in Auchterless and asked that she take Dod and Alec in her care and give them an Aberdeen schooling. In a week she was down from the North, Auntie Janet and her man, Uncle Tam he was, big and well-bulked and brave, and his watch-chain had rows and rows of wee medals on it he’d gotten for playing quoits. And they were fell kind, the two of them, Alec and Dod were daft with delight when they heard of the Auchterless plan. But Auntie and Uncle had never a bairn of their own and soon made plain if the boys went with them it would be for aye, they wanted to adopt the pair of them.

  Father sneered and thrust out his beard at that So you’d like to steal the flesh of my body from me? and Auntie Janet nodded, right eye to eye, Aye, John, just that, we’ve never a wean of our own, though God knows it’s not for want of the trying; and father said Ill blood breeds ill; and Auntie said Ay, it’ll be long ere I have to kill myself because my man beds me like a breeding sow; and father said You dirty bitch.

  Chris stuck the dirl of the row till her head near burst and then ran out of the kitchen, through the close into the cornyard, where Will was prowling about. He’d heard the noise and he laughed at them, but his eyes were angry as his arm went round her. Never heed the dirty old devils, one’s bad as the other, father, auntie, or that midden that’s covered with its wee tin medals. Come off to the park with me and we’ll bring home the kye.

  Deep in clover the cows as they came on them, Chris and Will; and they went in no hurry at all, unanxious to be back in Blawearie. And Will seemed angry and gentle and kind all at once. Don’t let them worry you, Chris, don’t let father make a damned slave of you, as he’d like to do. We’ve our own lives to lead. And she said What else can I do but bide at home now?

  He said he didn’t know, but he’d be libbed and pole-axed and gutted if he did for long, soon as he’d saved the silver he was off to Canada, a man was soon his own master there. Chris listened to that with eyes wide opened, she caught at the hope of it and forgot to smack at the kye that loitered and boxed and galumphed in their cloverful-foolishness up the brae. Oh, Will, and you could send for me as your housekeeper! He turned a dull red and smacked at the kye and Chris sighed and the hope went out, he’d no need to answer. Ay, maybe, but maybe it would hardly suit you.

  So then she knew for sure he’d a lass somewhere in Drumlithie, it was with her he planned to share a bed and a steading in the couthy lands of Canada.

  AND WHEN THEY got back to Blawearie they found the row ended, father’d given in to his sister Janet, ill the grace though he did it wi
th. In three days time but three of them were sitting to meat at the kitchen table, Chris listened for days for voices of folk that were dead or gone, both far enough from Blawearie. But even that lost strangeness in time, the harvest drew on, she went out to the park to help with it, lush and heavy enough it had sprung and yellowed with the suns and rains of the last two months.

  He’d no binder, father, wouldn’t hear of the things, but he’d brought an old reaper from Echt and with that they cut the corn; though Will swore he’d be the fool of Kinraddie seen driving a thing like that. Father laughed at him over his beard, like a spitting cat, If Kinraddie’s laughing can make you a bigger fool than nature made you it’ll be a miracle; and don’t fret the sark from your dowp, my mannie, I’ll do the driving. And though Will muttered at that he gave in all the same, for every harvest there came something queer and terrible on father, you couldn’t handle the thing with a name, it was as if he grew stronger and crueller then, ripe and strong with the strength of the corn, he’d be fleeter than ever and his face filled out, and they’d hear him come up from the parks, astride the broad back of Bess, singing hymns, these were the only things that he ever sang, singing with a queer, keen shrillness that brought the sweat in the palms of your hands.

  Now in the park below Blawearie, steading and house, the best crop, and that was the ley, was the first they cut, a great swither of a crop with straw you could hardly break and twist into bands for sheaves. Sore work Chris found it to keep her stretch of each bout cleared for the reaper’s coming, the weather cool and grey though it was. But a sun was behind the greyness and sometimes when you raised your head from the sheaves you’d see a beam of light on the travel far over the parks of Upperhill or lazing across the moor or dancing a-top the Cuddiestoun stooks, a beam from the hot, grey haze of that sky that watched and waited above the sweat of the harvesting Howe.