A Scots Quair

by Lewis Grassic Gibbon

  And not feared at all he looked, Chae saw, he sat there in his kilt and shirt-sleeves, and he looked no more than a young lad still, his head between his hands, he didn’t seem to be thinking at all of the morning so close. For he started to speak of Blawearie then and the parks that he would have drained, though he thought the land would go fair to hell without the woods to shelter it. And Chae said that he thought the same, there were sore changes waiting them when they went back; and then he minded that Ewan would never go back, and could near have bitten his tongue in half, but Ewan hadn’t noticed, he’d been speaking of the horses he’d had, Clyde and old Bess, fine beasts, fine beasts—did Chae mind that night of lightning when they found Chris wandering the fields with those two horses? That was the night he had known she liked him well—nothing more than that, so quick and fierce she was, Chae man, she guarded herself like a queen in a palace, there was nothing between her and me till the night we married. Mind that—and the singing there was, Chae? What was it that Chris sang then?

  And neither could remember that, it had vexed Ewan a while, and then he forgot it, sitting quiet in that hut on the edge of morning. Then at last he’d stood up and gone to the window and said There’s bare a quarter of an hour now, Chae, you’ll need to be getting back.

  And they’d shaken hands, the sentry opened the door for Chae, and he tried to say all he could for comfort, the foreshadowing of the morning in Ewan’s young eyes was strange and terrible, he couldn’t take out his hand from that grip. And all that Ewan said was Oh man, mind me when next you hear the peewits over Blawearie—look at my lass for me when you see her again, close and close, for that kiss that I’ll never give her. So he’d turned back into the hut, he wasn’t feared or crying, he went quiet and calm; and Chae went down through the hut lines grouped about that place, a farm-place it had been, he’d got to the lorry that waited him, he was cursing and weeping then and the driver thought him daft, he hadn’t known himself how he’d been. So they’d driven off, the wet morning had come crawling across the laired fields, and Chae had never seen Ewan again, they killed him that morning.

  * * *

  THIS WAS THE story Chae told to Chris, sitting the two of them in the kitchen of Blawearie. Then he moved and got up and she did the same, and like one coming from a far, dark country, she saw his face now, he’d been all that time but a voice in the dark. And at last she found speech herself Never vex for me or the telling me this, it was best, it was best!

  She crept up the stairs to their room when he’d gone, she opened the press where Ewan’s clothes were, and kissed them and held them close, those clothes that had once been his, near as ever he’d come to her now. And she whispered then in the stillness, with only the beech for a listener, Oh, Ewan, Ewan, sleep quiet and sound now, lad, I understand! You did it for me, and I’m proud and proud, for me and Blawearie, my dear, my dear—sleep quiet and brave, for I’ve understood!

  The beech listened and whispered, whispered and listened, on and on. And a strange impulse and urge came on Chris Tavendale as she too listened. She ran down the stairs and found young Ewan and kissed him, Let’s go a jaunt up to the hill.

  BELOW THEM, Kinraddie; above, the hill; the loch shimmering and sleeping in the autumn sun; young Ewan at her feet; the peewits crying down the Howe.

  She gave a long sigh and withdrew her hand from the face of the Standing Stone. The mist of memories fell away and the aching urge came back—for what, for what? Sun and sky and the loneliness of the hills, they had cried her up here—for what?

  And then something made her raise her eyes, she stood awful and rigid, fronting him, coming up the path through the broom. Laired with glaur was his uniform, his face was white and the great hole sagged and opened, sagged and opened, red-glazed and black, at every upwards step he took. Up through the broom: she saw the grass wave with no press below his feet, her lad, the light in his eyes that aye she could bring.

  The snipe stilled their calling, a cloud came over the sun. He was close to her now and she held out her hands to him, blind with tears and bright her eyes, the bright weather in their faces, her voice shaping a question that she heard him answer in the rustle of the loch-side rushes as closer his soundless feet carried him to her lips and hands.

  Oh lassie, I’ve come home! he said, and went into the heart that was his forever.

  EPILUDE

  The Unfurrowed Field

  FOLK SAID that winter that the War had done feint the much good to Mutch of Bridge End. In spite of his blowing and boasting, his silver he might as well have flung into a midden as poured in his belly, though faith! there wasn’t much difference in destination. He’d gone in for the Irish cattle, had Mutch, quick you bought them and quick you sold and reaped a fine profit with prices so brave. More especially you did that if you crammed the beasts up with hay and water the morning before they were driven to the mart, they’d fairly seem to bulge with beef. But sometimes old Aitken of Bervie, a sly old brute, would give a bit stirk a wallop in the wame and it would belch like a bellows, and Aitken would say, Ay, Mutch, the wind still bloweth as it listeth, I see, he was aye quoting his bits of poetry, Aitken.

  But he’d made silver for all that, Mutch, and many an awful feed had his great red lugs overhung, there in the Bridge End while the War went on. For that was how it struck him and his family, they’d gorge from morn till night, the grocer would stop three times a week and out to him Alec and his mistress would come, the bairns racing at the heels of them, and they’d buy up ham and biscuits and cheese and sausage, and tins of this and tins of that, enough to feed the German army, folk told—it that was said to be so hungry it was eating up its own bit corpses, feuch!

  Though faith! it was little more than eating their own corpses they did at Bridge End. And what little they left uneaten they turned to drink, by the end of the War he’d got him a car, had Alec, it was only a Ford but it clattered up and down the road to Drumlithie every day of the week, and back it would bump to the Bridge End place with beer in crates and whisky in bottles wagging drunken-like over the hinder end. But Alec would blow and boast as much as ever, he’d say the Bridge End was a fine bit place and could easily stand him a dram—it’s the knack of farming you want, that’s all.

  Mutch had just got up and come out blear-eyed that day when the postman handed him the letter from Kinraddie House. So he had one read of it and then another, syne he cried to his wife Nine hundred pounds—have you got nine hundred pounds, you? And she answered him back, canty and cool, No, I’ve seen neither silver nor sense since I married you. Why do you need nine hundred pounds? So Alec showed her the letter, ’twas long and dreich and went on and on; but the gist of it was the Trustees were to sell up Kinraddie at last; and the farmers that wanted them could buy their own places; and if Mutch of Bridge End still wanted his the price was nine hundred pounds.

  So that was how the Mutches left Kinraddie, they said never a word about buying the place, Alec sold off his stock fell quietly and they did a moonlight flit; some said they heard the Ford that night go rattling up by Laurencekirk, others swore that Mutch had gone north to Aberdeen and had got him a fine bit job in a public-house there. North or south, feint the thing more folk saw of him; and before the New Year was out old Gordon of Upperhill had bought up the Bridge End forbye his own place, he said he would farm the fields with a tractor. But damn the tractor ever appeared, he put sheep on the place instead, and sometimes the shepherd would wander into the kitchen where that gley-eyed wife of Mutch had sat to smoke her bit cigarettes; and he said that the smell of the damned things lingered there still, they’d been as unco at changing their shirts, the Mutches, as ever old Pooty had been.

  What with his Germans and ghosts and dirt, he’d fair been in a way, had old Pooty. Long ere the War had finished he’d have nothing to do with the mending of boots, he wouldn’t let the grocer up to the door, but would scraich at him to leave the messages out by the road. And at last he clean went over the gate, as a man might say, h
e took in his cuddy to live with him there in the kitchen, and the farmer lads going by on their bicycles of a Saturday night would hear the two of them speaking together, old Pooty they’d hear, thinking himself back at some concert or other in the olden days, reciting his timrous beastie, stuttering and stammering at the head of his voice. And then he’d be heard to give the donkey a bit clout, and Damn you! Clap, you creature! he’d cry; and it was a fair entertainment.

  But at last it grew overmuch to bear, that was just about the month when the letters went out from the Trustee childes, and folk said that fell awful sounds were heard coming from the Pooty place, the creature was clean demented. Not a body would do a thing till at last old Gordon did, he roaded off with his foreman, they went in old Gordon’s car, it was night, and the nearer they came to Pooty’s the more awful came the sounds. The cuddy was braying and braying in an awful stamash, they tried to look through the window, but there was a thick leather blind there and feint the thing could they see. So the foreman tried the door and it wouldn’t budge, but the braying of the cuddy grew worse and worse; and the foreman was a big bit childe and he took a great run at the door and open it flew and the sight he saw would have scunnered a sow from its supper, the coarse old creature was tormenting the donkey this way and that with a red-hot poker, he scraiched the beast was a German, and they had to tie him up.

  So the foreman went back for his gun and to send a message to bring the police; and when the police came down next day the donkey was shot, and some said old Pooty should have been instead. But they took the old creature away to the madhouse, fair a good riddance to Kinraddie it was. For a while after that there was speak of the Upperhill’s foreman biding at Pooty’s, he wanted to marry and it would be fine and close for his work. And the foreman said the place was fine if you thought of breeding a family of swine: but he was neither a boar himself nor was his quean a bit sow.

  So the place began to moulder away, soon the roof went all agley and half fell in, it was fit for neither man nor beast, the thistles and weeds were all over the close, right they’d have pleased old Pooty’s cuddy if he’d lived to see them. It looked a dreich, cold place as you rode by at night, near as lonesome as the old Mill was, and not near so handy. For the Mill was a place you could take your quean to, you’d lean your bicycles up by the wall and take a peek through the kitchen window; syne off you’d go, your two selves, and sit inside the old Mill itself; and your quean would say Don’t! and smooth her short skirts; and she’d tell you you would be lucky if you got two dances at the Fordoun ball, John Edwards was to take her there in his side-car, mind.

  For Long Rob had never come back to the Mill. It had fair been a wonder him joining the soldiers and going off to the War the way he did—after swearing black was blue that he’d never fight, that the one was as bad as the other, Scotch or German. Some said it was just plain daft he had gone, with no need for him to enlist; but when Munro of the Cuddiestoun told that to Chris Tavendale up at Blawearie she said there had been more sweetness and sense in Rob’s little finger than in all the Munro carcases decked since the Flood. Ill to say that to a man of an age with your father, it showed you the kind of creature Chris Tavendale was, folk shook their heads, minding how she’d gone near mad when her man was killed; as if he’d been the only one! And there was her brother, Will was his name, that had come from the War in a queer bit uniform, French he had said that it was; but them that were fine acquainted with uniforms weren’t so sure, the Uhlans had worn uniforms just like that.

  They had been the German horse-billies away back at the War’s beginning, you minded, and syne shook your head over that, and turned to thinking of Long Rob again, him that was killed in the April of the last year’s fighting. He’d been one of the soldiers they’d rushed to France in such hurry when it seemed that the German childes were fair over us, and he’d never come back to Kinraddie again, just notice of his death came through and syne a bit in the paper about him. You could hardly believe your eyes when you read it, him such a fell pacifist, too, he’d been killed in a bit retreat that they made, him and two-three more billies had stood up to the Germans right well and held them back while the Scots retreated; they’d held on long after the others had gone, and Rob had been given a medal for that. Not that he got it, faith! he was dead, they came on his corpse long after, the British, but just as a mark of respect.

  And you minded Long Rob right well, the long rangy childe, with his twinkling eyes and his great bit mouser and those stories of his that he’d deave you with, horses and horses, damn’t! he had horses on the brain. There’d been his coarse speak about religion, too, fair a scandal once in the Howe, but for all that he’d been a fine stock, had Rob, you minded him singing out there in the morning, he’d sung— And you couldn’t mind what the song had been till maybe a bairn would up and tell you, they’d heard it often on the way to school, and Ay, it was Ladies of Spain. You heard feint the meikle of those old songs now, they were daft and old-fashioned, there were fine new ones in their places, right from America, folk said, and all about the queer blue babies that were born there, they were clever brutes, the Americans.

  Well, that was the Mill, all its trade was gone, old Gordon bought up its land for a two-three pounds, and joined the lot on to Upperhill. Jock Gordon came blinded back from the War, they said he’d been near demented at first when he lost the use of his eyes. But old Gordon was making silver like dirt, he coddled up Jock like a pig with a tit, and he’d settled down fell content, as well the creature might be, with all he could smoke or drink at his elbow, and his mother near ready to lick his boots. Fell gentry and all they were now, the Gordons, you couldn’t get within a mile of the Upperhill without you’d hear a blast of the English, so fine and genteel; and the ploughmen grew fair mad when they dropped in for a dram at Drumlithie Hotel and some billy would up and ask, Is’t true they dish you out white dickies at Upperhill now and you’ve all to go to the Academy?

  He was one of the folk that broke up the ploughmen’s Union, old Gordon, right proud he was of it, too; and faith, the man was but right, whoever heard tell of such nonsense, a Union for ploughmen? But he didn’t get off scot-free, faith, no! For what should happen in the General Election but that the secretary of the Farm Servants’ Union put up as a candidate for the Mearns; and from far and near over Scotland a drove of those socialist creatures came riding to help him, dressed up in specs and baggy breeks and stockings with meikle checks. Now, one of them was a doctor childe and up to the Upper hill he came on a canvass, like, when old Gordon and the wife had driven off to lend help to the Coalition. The door was opened by Maggie Jean, she’d grown up bonny as a flower in spring, a fine quean, sweet and kind, with no English airs. And damn’t if they didn’t take up, the doctor and her, all in a minute, the doctor forgot about the bothy he’d come to canvass and Maggie Jean had him in to tea, and they spoke on politics for hours and hours, the servant quean told, she said it was nothing but politics; and there have been greater miracles.

  Well, the next thing was that old Gordon found his men being harried to vote for the Labour man, harried by his own lass Maggie Jean, it sent him fair wild and the blind son too. But Maggie Jean didn’t care a fig, the doctor childe had turned her head; and when the election was over and the Labour man beaten she told her father she wasn’t going on to the college any longer, she was set on marrying her Labour doctor. Gordon said he’d soon put his foot on that, she wasn’t of age and he’d stop the marriage. But Maggie Jean put her arms round his neck, I know, but you wouldn’t like people to point at you and say ‘Have you heard of old Gordon’s illegitimate grandchild?’ And at that they say old Gordon fair caved in, Oh, my lass, my Maggie Jean, you haven’t done that! For answer Maggie Jean just stood and laughed, shaky-like, though, till ben came Mistress Gordon herself and heard the news, and started in on the lass. Syne Maggie Jean grew cool as ice, Very well, then, mother, I hear there’s a good bed in Stonehaven Workhouse where women can have their babies.

&nb
sp; So she won in the end, you may well be sure, the Gordons fair rushed the marriage, and every now and then the doctor and Maggie Jean would take a bit look at each other and laugh out loud, they weren’t a bit ashamed or decent. And when the wedding was over Mistress Gordon said It’s glad I am that you’re off from Kinraddie to Edinburgh, where the shame of your half-named bairn won’t aye be cast in my face. And Maggie Jean said What bairn, mother? I’m not to have a baby yet, you know, unless George and I get over-enthusiastic to-night. Fair dumbfoundered was Mistress Gordon, she gasped, But you said that you were with a bairn! and Maggie Jean just shook her head and laughed, Oh, no, I just asked father if he’d like to grandfather one. And I don’t suppose that he would. I won’t have time for babies for years yet, mother, I’m to help organising the farm servants!

  Ah well, folk said there was damned little chance of Nellie, the other bit daughter, ever having anything legitimate or illegitimate, she was growing up as sour and wizened as an old potato, for all her English she’d sleep cold and unhandled, an old maid all her days. But faith! you’re sure of nothing in this world, or whoever would have guessed that Sarah Sinclair, the daft old skate, would go marrying? It all came through the War and the stir at the Netherhill when old Sinclair bought up the Knapp and his own bit place all at one whip. Soon’s she heard of that Sarah went to him and said You did plenty for Kirsty and she’ll not be needing the Knapp any more, you can bravely settle me there!

  Old Sinclair, he was nearly ninety and blind, he stared at her like a stirk at a water-jump, and then cried for his wife. And Sarah told them she meant what she said, Dave Brown, the Gourdon childe, would marry her the morn if they’d Peesie’s Knapp to sit down in.