But that fancy was lost in the hours that followed. The three went down to Mercat Cross and found an Aberdeen bus waiting there, ready to leave in a minute or so, crossing the Slug into Banchory, down by Deeside and Dunecht to Aberdeen, turning about and so back again. And they got in the bus, the two pussy-cats polite, not wanting either to sit by the other, manœuvring each to sit by Chris. Chris said I think I’ll sit by myself, right at the front, and went and sat there, the other two on the opposite seat, Ellen by the window, hatless, hair braided, curling long lashes and secret face, Ewan hatless as well, cool and composed, staring about him as the bus moved off. Once he leaned over and asked where they were going, Chris didn’t know, they’d get out at some place they liked.
In a minute, themselves near the only passengers, the bus was climbing Duncairn Rise up to the heights where the men of Montrose had marshalled three hundred years before, suddenly, on a Sunday, over-awing Duncairn and pouring down to a Sabbath of blood. Chris turned in her seat and looked down and saw the white sword gleam of Royal Mile, the haze that lay on the lums of Footforthie, shining boats dipping out to sea in the pelt and shine of the morning tide. And then the road wheeled up and around and paused: there below the Howe of the Mearns, crowned, shod, be-belted in green and gold, silver chains where the Mearns burns wound and spun to the Forthie’s flow, Stonehaven forward, Bervie behind, far off the shimmer where the Grampians rode, the farms gleaming below the bents, haugh on haugh, tumbling green long corn-swaths under the wind. And syne the bus stopped and took on a farmer, thin and mean-looking, he starved his men and ate sowans to his meat, never cuddled his wife except on Sundays and only then if he’d been to kirk. And like a great squat beetle the bus crept on, oh, they were cutting the hay in a park, the smell in the bus, drifting, tingling—Blawearie’s night and days, hush of the beeches in a still July, pastures sleeping around Segget Manse with Robert beside you as you drowsed on the lawn—Robert that you looked at, and he hadn’t a face—
And Chris shook that woe dreaming away from herself, let nothing spoil the sun and the hay and the goodness of being alone and alive, peering through lids at July unfold, birring, up the blossoming Howe, deep-honeysuckled ran the hedges, in parks out bye the gleg-vexed kye were tearing about with tails a-switch, some eident body would have sour milk the night. Ewan and Ellen at last were speaking to each other. Ewan had turned his head and Chris saw the English quean looking up at him, cool, like a virtuous panther-kitten exchanging tail-switchings with a black-avised leopard.
The next thing she knew they were through Stonehyve, windy, guarded by Dunnottar Woods, and were climbing up the heath of the Slug, no hay-smell here but the guff of the heather billowing up to the quivering heights. And there came a sudden memory to Chris—a winter night twenty- three years before when father and mother and Will and herself and the loons long-lost and the twins that died had flitted across these hills in a storm, with battered lanterns in the on-ding of sleet … twenty-three years before. Back and back through the years as the bus climbed the Slug, years like the rustle of falling leaves, dreams by night and dim turnings in sleep, and you were again that quean in the sleet, all the world and living before you unkenned, kisses and hate and toil and woe, kisses at night when the byre-stalls drowsed, agony in long deserted noons, hush of terror of those moon-bright nights when you carried within your womb seed of men—for a minute they seemed no more than dreams as you drowsed, a quean, in the smore of the sleet….
But now below, creeping out of the heat, the Howe left behind, came Banchory shining in its woods and far away the long flicker of the ribboned Dee that went down through the fine lands to Aberdeen. On the sky-line the mountains marched snow-covered, lifting white faces to the blink of July, in great haughs the fir-woods bourouched green, red crags climbed the northwards sky to peer, hands at their eyes, at Aberdeen. Sometimes a body would get off the bus, sometimes it would stop by a tottering gate and a slow, canny childe climb grinning aboard, or a sharp-faced woman, Aberdeen, thin-voiced, thin-faced, with a quick ferret look around, from Chris to Εwan, Εwan to Ellen, syne to the driver, syne up to the roof, syne out of the window, syne folding her lips and her hands, the world well and respectable and behaving itself. And Chris sat and watched the comings and goings, happy and happy and sweir to the bone.
Then at last here was Ewan shaking her: Chris. Where are we going?—to Aberdeen? She said goodness no, she didn’t hope so, though the tickets were for there and ’twas a pity to waste them. And then she looked out and saw flash by a word white-painted on a cross-roads sign, a word and a place she had long forgotten. We’ll get out at Echt and wait the bus back.
So they did, Echt snoozing white in its stour, bairns playing about the doors of the houses, Ewan went into a shop and bought pieces, Chris went to help: loaf, butter and milk, some cakes and a knife, they looked loaded down for a feast or a famine, or tinks on the road, fair shocking Echt. Ellen showed her bit English mettle at once, no pride, she caught up the loaf and the bottles, some of the bairns cried after them, she laughed and didn’t mind, kitten not cat. Then Chris led them off on the ploy she’d planned.
The Hill of Fare towered high in the sun, scaured and red, the flow of heather like a sea of wine, leftwards, dark, the Barmekin haunted even in July’s sun-haze. Chris cried Oh, wheesht! to the others and they stopped, looked at her, listened, and heard through the sun, lonely, unforgotten, never-stopping that plaint, the peesies flying over Barmekin. Twenty-three years and they never had stopped…. And Chris thought half-shamed, in a desperate flyting: Losh, but their throats must surely be dry!
And at last through the litter of the wild-growing broom choking the upward track, they came to the croft of Cairndhu where Chris had been born, rank thistles all about, the windows were shuttered, grass crept to the door, another and bigger farm long syne had eaten up the land and the implements. They poked their heads inside the out-biggings, the barn musty with a smell of old hay, rats scampered there in the sun-hazed gloom, Chris wandered from place to place like one seeking that which she wouldn’t know—maybe something of that sureness mislaid in the past, long ago, when she was a quean. But here was nothing, nothing but change that had followed every pace of her feet, quiet- padding as a panther at night.
When she turned away from the biggings at last she found Ellen and Εwan sitting on the mill-course, speaking low and clear to each other, not to disturb her, cat-like the two of them, unheeding the sun, haunted by no such memories as hers. Daft not to have known from the first that this meant nothing to them, ruined biggings on a little farm: her old frere the land was nothing to them, children of touns by love or by nature, Εwan born in a croft in Kinraddie knew little of the land, cared less, not his job—that was stoking a furnace in Gowans and Gloag’s!
He asked where now, and said Chris was the guide, and she pointed up to the Barmekin shining high and flat in the air against the tops of the further hills: I haven’t been there since I was a bairn. Ellen said Well, you don’t look as though that was long ago, and Chris asked Am I as bairn-like as all that? and Ellen flushed and said she hadn’t meant that—it’s just you don’t possibly look as though Mr Tavendale here were your son. Chris smiled at him. But he is, worse luck, Ewan nodded, a kindly joke in his compass: The luck’s all mine. Come along then. Carry your parcel, Chris?
Chris said shortly she’d manage it herself, she wasn’t in her second childhood, either; and they laughed and went up and left the road and waded through the whins and the broom and over fences and up steep braes, steep so’s you’d to clutch up step by step with handfuls of heather and grass for holds, Ellen flinched with stung legs and Ewan slipped on smooth shoes, Chris laughed back at both of them, shinning the slopes light and free and sure of her hold, she looked back from the uppermost ledge and waved to them, poor fusionless creatures her father would have called them—her father who all his years in Cairndhu had never (that she knew) climbed Barmekin, over-busy with chaving and slaving his flesh, body and soul a
nd that dark, fierce heart, into the land to wring sustenance therefrom. So the whirlimagig went round and on: Father, now Ewan, the hill little to either, only to her who came in between and carried the little torch one from the other on that dreich, daft journey that led nowhither—
But, standing up there, with the wind in her hair, the thought came to her that that didn’t much matter—daft the journey, but the journeying good. And she looked at the slopes gay in their gear, useless and meaningless but fine fun to climb…. The other two thought the same when they came, Ellen with smooth braids tangled a bit, a damp lock over Ewan’s high forehead, they laughed and said things about Excelsior, young and sexless both, like the angels, dark angels, folk of an older stock than Chris’s, intenter and sharper, not losing themselves in heather dreams or the smell of broom. Ewan said he was hungry,—aren’t you. Miss Johns? and Miss Johns said Aren’t I? Hungry as hell.
So they made their way in the brush of the broom along the outer wall of the old Pict fort built by the men of antique time, a holy place before Christ was born, Chris said they’d find shade from the sun in its lithe. Syne they came on a thing they had little looked for, Ewan swore, his old passion for old times rekindled—men had been here, a great gang of them, had torn down the walls and flung them aside, deep ruts showed where the carts had been driven: and within the inner walls of the fort were the char and ash of a great foolish fire.
Some celebration, Chris thought, not caring, Εwan did, he said it was a filthy outrage and justified nothing that had happened in Aberdeen since they told the first of their filthy stories—that was probably before Christ’s coming as well. Chris had never seen him so angered, she herself wasn’t, they were only rickles of stone from long syne raised up by daft childes who worshipped the sun. Εwan said That’s rot. You know nothing about it, and Chris gave a laugh and sat down on a stone, clasping her knees, not caring a fig one way or another. Miss Johns said I agree with Mrs Colquohoun. What does it matter what happens to this rubbish? There are things more in need of worrying about. Ewan turned his grey granite glance upon her: I didn’t expect that you would think different.
So they sulked a bit, sitting each side of Chris, and she didn’t laugh, but looked fearsomely solemn. Then Ewan opened the milk-bottles and got out the bread and Ellen spread out the papers for a tablecloth, two sleek black heads under Chris’s gaze; and they fed her solemn, though Ellen peeped at Ewan through those dangerous lashes—she’d trip on them some time. But he wasn’t thinking of her at all, his mind far off with his ancient men, he began to tell them of that time that had been, how close in the generations these men were, how alike ourselves in the things they believed, unessentials different—blood, bone, thought the same. For if history had any lesson at all it was just that men hadn’t changed a bit since the days of the folk in the Spanish caves who painted the charging aurochsen—except to take up civilization, that ancient calamity that fell on the world with gods and kings and culture and classes—Ellen cried But then you’re a Socialist!
Ewan looked blank, smooth boy face, angel-devil eyes, suddenly dragged from his ancient Picts: What’s that to do with it? And Ellen said Everything. If there was once a time without gods and classes couldn’t there be that time again?
Ewan said I suppose so. I don’t much care. It won’t come in our time. I’ve my own life to lead—and at that the slim quean seemed to forget all her hunger, curling lashes and dimpled ways, she said Mr Tavendale was talking rot, how could anyone live a free life in this age?—capitalism falling to bits everywhere, or raising up classes of slaves again, Fascism coming, the rule of the beast—
Ewan sat and munched bread They won’t rule me. I’m myself. — You’re not. You’re a consequence and product as all of us are. If we’re all the children of those old-time men that you’ve told us about do you think for a moment we aren’t more the children of our fathers and mothers and the things we’ve read and depended upon? Just silly to say that we’re not. And Ewan asked what had that to do with it?; and they lost their tempers; and Chris fell asleep.
When she woke they were nowhere in sight; far off, drowsy, a ring-dove crooned in the little woods scampering down to Echt, remoter still a peesie cried. The sun had wheeled to afternoon, red on the nearer mountain cliffs, blue far in the upper heights. Mountain on mountain: there was Bennachie ahint which the tired folk went in song. Sitting with her hands so propping her, Chris found herself aching, sun-wearied and sad, in the bright day’s glister curiously lost though she knew that Ewan and the English quean couldn’t be far off, they’d come if she cried. Call?—behave like a frightened old wife?
She lay back again in the heather bells, and under her ears heard whispers unceasing, sounds soft and urgent and quieter than mice, the little world of the little beasts about its existence of sowing and harvest, feeding and fighting and a pridesome begetting, moral and urgent and dreadfully unsweir, pelting through lives as brief as a blink as though the blink lasted a hundred years. It felt like God so to lie and listen—so long’s the beasts didn’t come climbing up a stalk and mistake one’s ear for heaven.
When she rose and went to look for the others she found them close on the ruined dyke, not sitting and kissing as they might have been (some sense in that, said her mind, still sleepy), Ewan perched on a stone, hands clasping his knees, looking down at Ellen sitting clasping hers, nice knees and long legs and the lot forgotten, talking, still talking—about history and Socialism and freedom for people in the modern world. And Εwan was saying Yes, that seems sense and I’ll look it up. I’ve always thought Socialism just a measly whine, MacDonaldish stuff and politicians’ patter. Different when you think of it as history making, the working class to be captured and led: all right, I’ll give the keelies a chance. Ellen said And don’t be so horridly superior; you’ll never lead if you can’t be an equal…. Oh, there’s your mother. Coo-ee, Mrs Colquohoun!
It seemed that their talk had run them clean dry, quiet enough in the afternoon quiet gathering up the papers and burning them, carrying the milk-bottles down the hill, the sun was dimming and all about bees homing like drunken men from a pub, one came bumbling against Chris’s face and tangled itself in her hair. She brushed it aside, quickly and quietly, and Ellen shivered I couldn’t do that! Chris asked What? and Ellen said That bee—I’d have jumped and hit it and it would have stung me. I’m a ghastly coward, and shivered again. Ewan didn’t notice, far off in thought, treading down from the breach in the Pictman’s fort to seek the like in the crumbling castle that prisoned the men of his time.
Alick Watson said Och, let the sod a-be. He gave me as good as I gave him; and Norman Cruickshank said He gave you a mucking sight more; who’d have thought a toff Bulgar had a punch like that?
So they wouldn’t have anything to do with the plan of Wee Geordie Bruce to send a bit note, insulting-like, to Tavendale’s address when he bade at home nursing the broken head he’d gotten in that fight with Alick in the yard—Christ, the place was splottered in blood, wee Geordie went out and glowered all about it and nearly got down on his knees to lick it, with his wee shrivelled face and shifty eyes, awful keen on blood and snot. Alick said You’re not right in your head, you wee whoreson, he seemed hardly right himself all that week, snapping a chap’s head off if you spoke to him praising him a bit how he’d bashed the toff Bulgar.
Norman wasn’t much better, they both worked like tinks doing Tavendale’s furnace as well as their own, trying to stick in with the foreman, were they? They got little thanks if that was their hope, Dallas came down and glowered God Almighty, is that the way to work at Gowans and Gloag’s? Alick said to him Ach, away to hell. We’re doing the work of a dozen here—if that doesn’t please you, gang off and clype. The foreman looked a bit ta’en aback, We’ve all to do more than our shift in Gowans, so give’s none of your lip, you Cowgate brat. And Alick said when the foreman had gone what he’d like to give the bastard was one in the guts, syne dance on his face with tacketty boots.
&n
bsp; For Gowans and Gloag were fair in a way, they’d sacked a dozen from Machines that week and were trying to cheese- pare all over the shops, they’d been on to Dallas and gotten out his rag. The apprentice chaps in the dinner hour sat out in the yard and swore at them, and smoked, and watched through the haze from the Docks the swinging cranes that loaded the ships, or the bridges open and a laggard trawler creep in from an antrin night on the sea, lost in the fogs of the Dogger Bank. And Alick said by Christ if he had the guts he’d run off from it all and take to the sea, a fine bit life if it wasn’t that on a ship a common chap was near starved to death. And Norman said that he’d like a farm: and he’d near as much chance of getting that as of wee King Geordie making him his vallay.
Well, you couldn’t but wonder what Tavendale would do when he got back to Furnaces on the Monday morning, stuck up as ever, and acting the toff he looked when he came down and took up his shovel, you keeked sideways and saw he’d no sign of a bandage, froze up and don’t-touch-me-I’m-awful- grand. Syne the work started, all at it hell for leather till the hooter went, no larking or jookery-packery, Alick and Norman not looking at the toff, they were maybe a bit feared he’d reported them.
And then as you all climbed up to the yard the toff turned round to Alick Hello! and Alick gave a kind of a start Hello! and they laughed, and Norman went dandering over Hello! as well, and a fag to the toff Tavendale. You’d never seen him smoking before, but he took it: I’m going down to the Docks to eat my dinner. Coming, you chaps?
A Scots Quair Page 62