A Scots Quair (14 page)

So that was the burning of the Peesie's Knapp, there was a great throng of folk in about by then, the Netherhill folk and the Upperhill, and Cuddiestoun, and Alec Mutch with his great lugs lit up by the fire, some had come on bicycles and some had run across half Kinraddie and two had brought their gigs. But there was little to do now but stand and glower at the fire and its mischief, Ellison drove off to the Mains with Mistress Strachan and the bairns, there for the night they were bedded. The cattle he'd saved from the byre Chae drove to Netherhill, folk began to put on their jackets again, it was little use waiting for anything else, they'd away home to their beds.

Chris could see nothing of either father or Will, she turned to make for Blawearie then. Outside the radiance of the burning Knapp it was hard and cold, starless but clear, as though the steel of the ground glowed faintly of itself; beyond rose the darkness as a black wall, still and opaque. On the verge of its embrasure it was that she nearly ran into two men tramping back along the road, she hardly saw them till she was on them. She cried
Oh, I'm sorry,
and one of them laughed and said something to the other, next instant
before she knew what was happening that other had her in his arms, rough and strong, and had kissed her, he had a face with a soft, grained skin, it was the first time a man had ever kissed her like that, dark and frightening and terrible in the winter road. The other stood by, Chris, paralysed, heard him breathing and knew he was laughing, and a far crackle rose from the last of the lowe in the burning biggings. Then she came to herself and kicked the man that held her, young he was with his soft, grained face, kicked him hard with her knee and then brought her nails down across his face. As he swore
You bitch!
and let go of her she kicked him again, with her foot this time, and he swore again, but the other said
Hist! Here's somebody coming,
and the two of them began to run, the cowardly tinks, it was father and Will on the road behind them.

And when Chris told Will of what happened, next morning it was that she told him when father wasn't by, he looked at her queerly, half-laughing, half-solemn, and made out he thought nothing of the happening, all ploughmen were like that, aye ready for fun. But it hadn't seemed fun to her, dead earnest rather; and lying that night in her bed between the cold sheets, curled up so that she might rub her white toes to some warmth and ease, it was in her memory like being chased and bitten by a beast, but worse and with something else in it, as though half she'd liked the beast and the biting and the smell of that sleeve around her neck and that soft, unshaven face against her own. Sweet breath he had had anyway, she thought, and laughed to herself, that was some consolation, the tink. And then she fell asleep and dreamed of him, an awful dream that made her blush even while she knew she was dreaming, she was glad when the morning came and was sane and cool and herself again.

BUT THAT DREAM
came to her often while the winter wore on through Kinraddie, a winter that brought hardly any snow till New Year's Eve and then brought plenty, darkening the sky with its white cascading. It was funny that darkening the blind fall and wheep of the snow should
bring, like the loosening of a feather pillow above the hills, night came as early as three in the afternoon. They redd up the beasts early that evening, father and Will, feeding them well with turnips and straw and hot treacle poured on the straw; and then they came in to their supper and had it and sat close round the fire while Chris made a fine dumpling for New Year's Day. None of them spoke for long, listening to that whoom and blatter on the window-panes, and the clap- clap-clap of some loose slate far up on the roof, till father whispered and looked at them, his whisper hurt worse than a shout,
God, I wonder why Jean left us?

Chris cried then, making no sound, she looked at Will and saw him with his face red and shamed, all three of them thinking of mother, her that was by them so kind and friendly and quick that last New Year, so cold and quiet and forgotten now with the little dead twins in the kirkyard of Kinraddie, piling black with the driving of the snow it would be under the rustle and swing and creak of the yews. And Will stared at father, his face was blind with pity, once he made to speak, but couldn't, always they'd hated one the other so much and they'd feel shamed if they spoke in friendship now.

So father took up his paper again and at ten o'clock Chris went out to milk the kye and Will went with her over the close, carrying the lantern, the flame of it leapt and starred and quivered and hesitated in the drive of the snow. In the light of it, like a rain of arrows they saw the coming of the storm that night swept down from the Grampian heuchs, thick and strong it was in Blawearie, but high in the real hills a smoring, straight wall must be sweeping the dark, blinding down against the lone huts of the shepherds and the faces of lost tinks tramping through it looking for lights the snow'd smothered long before. Chris was shaking, but not with cold, and inside the byre she leant on a stall and Will said
God, you
look awful, what is't?
And she shook herself and said
Noth
ing, Why haven't you gone to see Mollie to-night?

He said he was going next day, wasn't that enough, he'd be a corpse long ere he reached Drumlithie to-night—
listen
to the windy it'll blow the damn place down on our lugs in a
minute!
And the byre shook, between the lulls it seemed to set its breath to rise and take from the hill-side into the air, there was such straining and creaking. Not that the calves or the stirks paid heed, they slept and snored in their stalls with never a care, there were worse things in the world than being a beast.

Back in the house it seemed to Chris she'd but hardly sieved the milk when the great clock ben in the parlour sent peal after peal out dirling through the place. Will looked at Chris and the two at father, and John Guthrie was just raising up his head from his paper, but if he'd been to wish them a happy New Year or not they were never to know, for right at that minute there came a brisk chap at the door and somebody lifted the sneck and stamped the snow from his feet and banged the door behind him.

And there he was, Long Rob of the Mill, muffled in a great grey cravat and with leggings up to the knees, covered and frosted from head to foot in the snow, he cried
Happy
New Year to you all! Am I the first?
And John Guthrie was up on his feet,
Ay, man, you're fairly that, out of that coat
of yours!
They stripped off the coat between them, faith! Rob's mouser was nearly frozen, but he said it was fine and laughed, and waited the glass of toddy father brought him and cried
Your health!
And just as it went down his throat there came a new knock, damn't if it wasn't Chae Strachan, he'd had more than a drink already and he cried
Happy New
Year, I'm the first foot in am I not?
And he made to kiss Chris, she wouldn't have minded, laughing, but he slithered and couped on the floor, Long Rob peered down at him and cried out, shocked-like,
God Almighty, Chae, you can't
sleep there!

So he was hoisted into a chair and was better in a minute when he'd had another drink; and he began to tell what a hell of a life it was he'd to live in Netherhill now, the old mistress grew worse with the years, she'd near girn the jaws from her face if the Strachan bairns so much as gave a bit howl or had a bit fight-fell unreasoning that, no bairns there were but
fought like tinks. And Long Rob said Ay, that was true, as it said in the hymn 'twas dog's delight to bark and bite, and faith! the average human could out-dog any cur that ever was pupped. Now, horses were different, you'd hardly ever meet a horse that was naturally a quarreller, a coarse horse was a beast they'd broken in badly. He'd once had a horse–a three-four years come Martinmas that would have been, or no! man, it was only two—that he bought up in Auchinblae at the fall of the year, a big roan, coarse as hell, they said, and he'd nearly kicked the guts out of an old man there. Well, Rob had borrowed a bridle and tried to ride home the beast to the Mill, and twice in the first mile the horse threw him off with a snort and stood still, just laughing, as Rob picked himself up from the stour. But Rob just said to himself,
All
right, my mannie, we'll see who'll laugh
last:
and when he'd got that horse home he tied him up in his stall and gave him such a hammering, by God he nearly kicked down the stable. Every night for a week he was walloped like that, and damn't man! in the shortest while he'd quietened down and turned into a real good worker, near human he was, that horse, he'd turn at the end of a rig as it drew to eleven o'clock and begin to nicker and neigh, he knew the time fine. Ay, a canty beast that, he'd turned, and sold at a profit in a year or so, it just showed you what a handless man did with a horse, for Rob had heard that the beast's new owner had let the horse clean go over him. A sound bit leathering and a pinch of kindness was the only way to cure a coarse horse.

Chae hiccuped and said
Damn't ay, man, maybe you're
right. It's a pity old Sinclair never thought of treating his fishwife
like that, she'd deave a door-nail with her whines and plaints,
the thrawn old Tory bitch.
And Long Rob said there were worse folk than Tories and Chae said if there were they kept themselves damn close hidden, if he'd his way he'd have all Tories nailed up in barrels full of spikes and rolled down the side of the Grampians; and Long Rob said there would be a gey boom in the barrel trade then, the most of Kinraddie would be inside the barrels; and Chae said
And a damned
good riddance of rubbish, too.

They were both heated up with the toddy then, and raising their voices, but father just said, cool-like, that he was a Liberal himself; and what did they think of this bye-election coming off in the February? Chae said it would make no difference who got in, one tink robber was bad as another, Tory as Liberal; damn't if he understood why Blawearie should be taken in by those Liberals. Long Rob said
Why don't you
stand as the Socialist man yourself, Chae?
and winked at Chris, but Chae took it real serious and said maybe he'd do that yet once Peesie's Knapp was builded again. And Long Rob said
Why wait for that? You're allowing your opinions to
eat their heads off in idleness, like a horse in a stall in winter.
Losh, man, but they're queer beasts, horses. There's my sholtie,
Kate—
But Chae said Och,
away to hell with your horses, Rob.
Damn't, if you want a canty kind of beast there's nothing like a
camel,
and maybe he'd have just begun to tell them about the camel if he hadn't fallen off his chair then, nearly into the fire he went, and John Guthrie smiled at him over his beard, as though he'd really rather cut his throat than smile. And then Will and Long Rob helped Chae to his feet, Long Rob gave a laugh and said it was time they went dandering back to their beds, he'd see Chae far as the Netherhill. The storm had cleared a bit by then, it was bright starlight Chris saw looking after the figures of the two from her bedroom window—not very steady, either of them, with shrouded Kinraddie lying below and a smudge there, faint and dark, far down in the night, that was the burned-out steading of Peesie's Knapp.

AND THERE THE
smudge glimmered through many a week, they didn't start on Peesie's new steading till well in the February. But faith! there was clatter enough of tongues round the place right from the night of the fire onwards. All kinds of folk came down and poked in the ash with their walking- sticks, the police and the Cruelty came from Stonehaven; and the factor came, he was seldom seen unless there was money in question; and insurance creatures buzzed down from Aberdeen like a swarm of fleas, their humming and hawing and gabbling were the speak of all Kinraddie. Soon
all kinds of stories flew up and down the Howe, some said the fire had been lighted by Chae himself, a Drumlithie billy riding by the Knapp late that night of the fire had seen Chae with a box of spunks in his hand, coming from the lighting of the straw sow, sure; for soon as he saw the billy on the bicycle back Chae had jumped to the lithe again. Others said the fire had been set by the folk of Netherhill, their only chance of recovering the silver they'd loaned to Chae. But that was just a plain lie, like the others, Chris thought, Chae'd have never cried for his burning sholtie like that if he'd meant it to burn for insurance.

But stories or no, they couldn't shake Chae, he was paid his claims up to the hilt, folk said he'd made two-three hundred pounds on the business, he'd be less keen now for Equality. But faith! if he'd won queer silver queerly, he'd lost feint the queer notion in the winning of it. Just as the building of the new bit Knapp began so did the bye-election, the old member had died in London of drink, poor brute, folk said when they cut his corpse open it fair gushed out with whisky. Ah well, he was dead then, him and his whisky, and though he'd maybe been a good enough childe to represent the shire, feint the thing had the shire ever seen of him except at election times. Now there came a young Tory gent in the field, called Rose he was, an Englishman with a funny bit squeak of a voice, like a bairn that's wet its breeks. But the Liberal was an oldish creature from Glasgow, fell rich he was, folk said, with as many ships to his name as others had fields. And real Radical he was, with everybody's money but his own, and he said he'd support the Insurance and to Hell with the House of Lords,
Vote for the Scottish Thistle and not for the
English Rose.

But the Tory said the House of Lords had aye been defenders of the Common People, only he didn't say aye, his English was a real drawback; and it was at the meeting where he said that, that Chae Strachan up and asked if it wasn't true that his own uncle was a lord? And the Tory said
Yes
, and Chae said that maybe
that
lord would be glad to see him in Parliament but there was a greater Lord who
heard when the Tories took the name of poor folk in vain. The God of old Scotland there was, aye fighting on the side of the people since the days of old John Knox, and He would yet bring to an end the day of wealth and wastry throughout the world, liberty and equality and fraternity were coming though all the damned lordies in the House of Lords should pawn their bit coronets and throw their whores back in the streets and raise private armies to fight the common folk with their savings.