A Scots Quair

by Lewis Grassic Gibbon

  But she didn’t say that, crouched beside him with her chin in her hands looking at him and loving him so that she almost wept; and was desperate while her mind sought round and round for a way to get at him, to help him.

  And slowly, with a queer unemotion, she realized the only way—if she’d take it for him.

  He’d sat staring out of the window the while, now she ran to that window and pulled open the curtains and stared up at the sky. April was in, the weather would keep all day she thought: Ewan, what are you doing this weekend?

  He said Nothing. Read a book. Hadn’t an idea.

  —I want to go out a long ride on a bus. Somewhere. I get so sick of Duncairn. Will you come with me?

  —Oh, if you like. I’ll be poor enough company.

  She said she’d risk that, she’d go and find out about the buses. Would he be ready in an hour’s time?

  It felt the most crowded hour of her life, dragging on her hat and running from the house down to the bus-stance in Royal Mile, long lines of buses like dozing dragons, the drivers yawning and staring at the sky, staring at newspapers, buses innumerable, with all signs on them: where would she go? Then she saw a bus with glen dye upon it, and she’d never been there, it was safe enough. So she found out the time when the bus was to start, the conductor said in a fifty minutes—Don’t be late, are you bringing your lad? And Ellen said Quite and smiled at him, a bonny black pussy-cat of a creature, he straightened his tie and looked after her—’Od, keeks of that kind were unco scarce.

  But Ellen had scrambled aboard a tram, it shoomed down the Mile as though knowing her haste, she stared in the gaudy windows of Woolies—would that do? for she hadn’t much money to waste.

  So she hurried in and looked in the trays, at the glitter, at the dull dog eyes of the girl at the counter, and foolishly felt sick, sentimental idiot. No, she wouldn’t, she’d get it real, silly though that was!

  Out of Woolies and off the Mile and found a passable place in George Street, and went in there, into a great clicking of clocks and watches, glimmer of silver, and bought what she wanted, and came out in the flying sun-scud of Spring. What next?—This’ll try your courage, my girl.

  It did, but she stuck it, looking cool as a cucumber, the shopkeeper an elderly, slow-moving man, he listened to her wants in the little shop with the ghastly books and the half-hid door, and said he thought another thing better. Had she ever tried it? And showed it to her, and Ellen said she hadn’t, was it really good? And the shopman said Ay, unemotional as a boiled turnip, he could recommend that. And Ellen said Thanks, I’ll have it then. And I’m in a hurry. And he said Fine weather.

  Back to the Mile. And now—what else? Rucksacks? She’d one of her own, Ewan hadn’t, Woolies again and get one for him. Running up through the crowds she looked at her watch and found she had still a half-hour to spare, saw her face as she whipped into Woolies, flushed and dark, that hair on her upper lip horrid in a way, Spanish and nice in another way. Rucksack and straps and she was digging out the sixpences, three of them, and had the thing tied up in paper. Now for Windmill Place again and see Chris after she’d bought some chocolates and fruit.

  Running up the door-steps she peeped through the window and saw Ewan sitting where she had left him, staring out, that nerved her for the thing she’d to do. She ran up to his room and looked quick about and saw the old wardrobe hid in the corner and opened the packet she’d bought from Woolies and stuffed in things from the wardrobe, quick, stopping and listening for feet on the stairs. Then into her own room like a burglar, quiet, panting and working there like a fury, running to and fro and cramming her knapsack, anything forgotten?—Oh Lord, the things from the little shop! Here they were, safe, cheers, that was all.

  Chris was making scones in the kitchen when Ellen looked in, looked sweeter than ever, Ellen thought, lovely those tall Scotch cheekbones, nice sulky face.

  Hello, Ellen lass, come for a scone?

  Ellen said she hadn’t, but she’d eat one, though; and sat on the table, eating it, and they smiled one at the other, mistrust long past. And Ellen said Mrs Colquohoun, Ewan’s not well.

  The lovely, sulky face went dark in a minute, like her son’s then despite all the differences. Where is he?—Oh, nothing new happened. But ever since that time in the jail. I want to take him out to the country—somewhere; and I want to know if you’ll mind.

  Chris looked at her a minute and then laughed, saying they surely could go where they liked, they were neither of them bairns, Ellen nodded and jumped off the table. I know. But I don’t know if we’ll be back tonight.

  And then she thought Ewan’s mother understood, her eyes changed and grew darker and glassed over with gold in that way that Ellen had seen before. She said quietly and kindly: I won’t worry. But, Ellen—

  —Yes?

  —It’s your life and his, but I think I ken Ewan. He’s like this for the time, but he won’t be long. And when he’s once better … he’s a funny lad. I don’t think he’ll ever be any lass’s lad.

  For a second Ellen felt cold to her spine. True in a way—and she didn’t care! Chris liked the gay smile on the scared pussy-face: We’re only going hiking. Bye-bye, Mrs Colquohoun.

  Plodding teams blue steam in the parks as the fat bus grunted up the Hill of Barras, Ellen beside Ewan looked up a moment, he’d just asked, in his soft Scotch voice and as though wakening up, what were a couple of rucksacks for?

  She said For fun. I’ve brought some lunch.

  Below them all the eastwards Howe lay spread, grey saffron and thinly wooded, cold-gleaming under the quick Spring sun—a bare and wild and uncanny land, she’d never be at home here she thought with a shiver, though she trilled her r’s and lived to be a hundred. Hideous country, ragged and cruel … but Ewan’s shoulder against hers sweet.

  And Ewan looked out and saw the Howe and far away high in the air beyond the cold parks and the dark little bourochs of nestling trees under the lithe of the shining hills, the line of the mountains, crested in snow, unmelting, Trusta Peak over High Segget, the round-breasted hills like great naked women waking and rising, tremendous, Titanic. Watching, Ellen saw his face suddenly darken, she said Headache going? and he answered her hardly (poor Ewan!) Yes. I’m all right.

  Down by the Pitforthies and by Meikle Fiddes into the main road winding broad, chockablock with traffic tearing south, loaded lorries and glistening cars, swaying shapes of the great Dundee-Aberdeen buses squattering the ancient tracks of the Howe. Cattle were out from the winter byres, flanks laired in sharn and eating like mad on the thin, lush pastures that couched from the wind under the shelter of the olive-green firs. With a chink and a gleam and a slow, canny stamping the ploughmen faced up against far braes, the dirl of little stones pattered the windscreen as the bus ran through a great skellop of tar, roadmenders resting and giving them a wave, every soul in a fairly fine tune today.

  And then, queerly and suddenly, Ewan’s heart moved. He said to Ellen: We’re into Kinraddie.

  She’d never heard of it, he’d been born here, away up in a little farm in the hills, they’d see the place in a minute or so. And sure so they did, ringed round with its beech, Blawearie wheeling and unfolding, high, Εwan minded a day as a little lad standing by the side of his mother by the hackstock and watching a man in a soldier’s gear going out of the close and not looking back: and his mother paying no heed to the man, the man’s hands trembling as he fastened the gate…. So bright and near and close was the picture he shook his head to shake it away, he’d never remembered it before. That man—his father, he supposed, in the days of the War, going to the War, had he and Chris quarrelled? … Long ago, it had nothing to do with him.

  His movement made Ellen ask if he was cold, and he turned and looked into her face, bright, flushed, little beads of sweat along her dark brows, she had opened the neck of her dress, skin warm and olive, he stared at that, looked like silk, maybe felt like it to touch. She asked, peeping a smile, if there was a smut on her nose?
and saw the grey-gold eyes lose their dull film a moment. He said Nice of you to take me out. No, I’m not cold—and there isn’t a smut. Devil of a stour this bus is raising!

  The roads were dry and they ploughed a dust cloud in the wake of a wandering bouroch of sheep, maa’ing and scattering, the shepherd waved a canny hand to the driver and the driver wormed a canny way forward. Then the bus picked up and shoggled up through Drumlithie, the steeple still there: tell Ellen the joke.

  They both craned out to look up at it, the steeple bell with no church behind; and Ellen’s smooth braid of short-cut hair, blue-black, whipped Ewan’s cheek like the touch of a bird, swift, with the smell of the Spring.

  And his mind at that touch remembered again the Horror: but it was in some way dimmer, queer, as though something were hiding it away. And he sat and puzzled on that while Ellen looked sideways at him and thought in a panic he looked more shut-away and lost than ever, what if she failed?—Oh, she couldn’t do that…. And again that flush started near the tips of her ears and spread out and under, cheekily, and the bus wheeled on and up into Segget, shining half-dead with its whitewashed walls.

  Ewan looked back as they left the place and saw the Manse high up from the toun, and above it the ruined castle of the Kaimes where he’d gathered flints when he was a kid—a million and a half or so years ago. God, what a solemn young ass he had been!

  And he minded the rolling drummle of names of those hill-hidden touns through the parks of which he’d searched out the flints—Muir of Germany, Jacksbank, Tannachie, Arnamuck, Bogjorgan, Droop Hill, Dillavaird, Goose- craves, Pittengardener, Cushnie, Monboddo—he could run the list for a hundred more, queer he’d never before seen those names for the real things they were, the lives and desirings of many men, memories of their hopes and possessions and prides though their own names and dates had vanished forever. And he thought of Trease saying that he and the rest of the Reds were nothing, they just worked the will of history and passed…. And suddenly Ewan’s mind trembled on the verge of something, something that he couldn’t name, maybe God, that made this strange play with lives and beliefs: and it seemed a moment that the shambling bus was the chariot of Time let loose on the world roaring down long fir-darkened haughs of history into the shining ways of tomorrow.

  They came into Auchinblae, clatter and showd, the mountains near now, and Ewan looked out. Ellen had the tickets: where were they going?

  Ellen said she’d taken tickets for Glen Dye but they needn’t go there if he’d rather not. And Ewan looked at her shoes and then at his own and said Let’s get out and climb Drumtochty and then go over to Finella.

  Down in the Strath an hour or so later they came into the road through the Garrold Wood, dark the pines, here the sun was lost. Ewan had taken one of the rucksacks and asked again what she’d brought them for? And Ellen had smiled a secret smile at the road—Oh, for fun!—slim, like a boy, not feeling like one, and stared up through the woods at the heights of Drumtochty towering far in the April air, dark at this time of the year, the sky behind waiting and watching with a fleece of clouds like an old woman’s cap. Ewan looked up when she pointed that out, he said that that was Finella’s mutch, had she never heard of Finella?

  And they sat and talked on a little bridge, the water below spun coolly and softly down to the hidden Luther water, and he told her the tale of the Lady Finella and the old-time wars in the Howe of the Mearns. And Ellen, sleek head uncovered to the sun, listened and asked were those the Covenanting Times? Ewan said Oh no, they had come long after, funny chaps the Covenanters, he always had liked them—the advance guard of the common folk of those days, their God and their Covenant just formulae they hid the social rebellion in. They had fought up here in the 1640’s and away in Dunnottar Castle the gentry had imprisoned and killed them in scores…. And his face grew dark, no boy’s face: There’s nothing new under the sun—not even torture.

  She said gently Ewan, what did they do to you?

  He didn’t change colour or alter at all, just turned and looked at her and began to speak, low and steady, she whispered in a minute Ewan, oh my dear! and then felt sick, knew she’d faint, gripped herself not to, and felt sick again, she’d fail him completely if she were that. So he went on and finished; in the silence that followed they heard the whisper of the Luther hushaweesh in the reeds and far away in the listening trees—long and contented—the croon of a dove, terrible in its soft and sleepy content.

  Εwan took out his handkerchief and wiped his face, and then queerly and tenderly wiped Ellen’s, sweat on it as on his own though the wind blew snell. And holding his hand below her chin something lost ran a strange quiver up his arm, he didn’t heed it, smiling into the misery of her eyes, speaking Scotch who so seldom spoke it, that blunted and foolish and out-dated tool: You needn’t fash for me. I’ve been the gypedest of gomerils to let on and vex you so, but I’m better now, I’ll forget, we forget everything.

  They left the road and went into the wood and were presently tackling the chave of the slopes, sharp and tart the whiff of the broom, crackling underheel the old year’s whins. All the hills and the world in their background stilled except that far off above the ploughed lands that shored red in clay to Drumelzie woods the peewits cried, in a breathing-space they halted and listened, laplaplap. Then they took to shinning the haughs again and saw the scrub open in front and far up, ridge on saffron ridge, Finella riding the southern lift.

  When they gained the utmost ridge in early afternoon the Howe below was mottled in fog, sun with them here in a little hollow high on the crest where they sat and ate the lunch they had brought. Then Ewan lay flat and looked at the sky, hardly they’d talked in the last hour or so, and talked little now, Ellen squatting beside him said You need a pillow, and meant the rucksacks. And then didn’t; and was sensible.

  His head in her lap he lay quiet, nice head, the weight sent through her a queer delight, foolish and tender, she bent over to speak to him. Then she saw his eyes closed: he was fast asleep.

  When he woke he was looking at the westerning sun low down in the Howe of Drumtochty. He ached all over, sun-sleepy, sun-tired, yet vaguely refreshed and his sins forgiven. Then he found where his head still rested, heavy, and started up, Ellen moved at last and cried out at a sudden sting of cramp.

  —Why didn’t you wake me? You must feel half-dead.

  She said, with a pretence at perky Scots, More whole than half, but you slept so sound, and stood up beside him, dark as him. With the drowse still in his eyes he smiled at her: That was nice of you.

  She said absently I thought you were going to kiss me, don’t bother now, there still are some oranges! … But what wouldn’t I give for a cup of tea!

  He thought it must surely be late by now, but she showed him her watch, only four o’clock, they’d have plenty of time to get back to Auchinblae and get a bus to Duncairn in time, the last passed through at six o’clock.

  So they sat down, yawning, and ate the last orange, and Ellen began to speak about Socialism and the world revolution that was coming soon when the workers were led in a sane way to power, no blood and mess, reorganizing things for the good of all, building great healthy cities, schools (what fun there would be in gutting Duncairn!), endowing the sciences, endowing motherhood, no more weeping and no more tears: I couldn’t go on living if I hadn’t that belief.

  And the dark Scotch boy shook his head and said you could go on living though you might believe in nothing at all—like Chris; and that struck Ellen as queer and then as true, and then queerer still. Funny freaks the Scotch, rather dears sometimes…. And she stopped her mind bothering about them at all, only about Εwan, and peeped at her watch when he wasn’t looking, then at the sun and as she did so a long, cold shaft of wind blew up the heath at their feet and they raised their eyes and saw the fringes of the darkness on the land, below them the Howe stirring as though someone had stirred a dark drink in the mixture. Εwan jumped to his feet: Your watch must have stopped. And took her wr
ist: Let’s see.

  The watch had stopped. They packed up the rucksacks and slung them on their backs, Ellen’s mind in a flurry. Shouldn’t she have done it up here?—she could, easily, nothing to have stopped her. Only—a mess; and she wanted it proper. What now, what the devil the best thing to do?

  Εwan called to her not to take that way, the other was the nearest to Auchinblae, she cried back that here was a clearer track and he came to her side and they ran hand in hand, plunging and slipping from tuft to tuft, the woods stared up and came gambolling to meet them, bound on bound, Luther gleaming beyond, up in the opposite heights rode a castle, all curlecue battlements, a pork-pie in stone. Then it vanished from view as they still fell west.

  Ewan said it didn’t matter, over late now to reach Auchinblae, and looked worried a minute, and a clump of larch came and a shoulder of hill and, winding wide and deserted, the road. Ellen stumbled against him of a sudden dog-tired, the outing had won, not her, no need to go on with the thing to the end—oh, thank goodness, for she’d never have managed!

  He said Ellen! in a strange, hushed boy’s voice and put his arms under her arms, she saw his face suddenly blind, she gave a little sob, kissing he drew her tight and a wild fear came and struggled and escaped, she didn’t want to escape him, hadn’t done this to help him, she just wanted him for herself, for delight. And she held him away and told him that and he blushed, funny Ewan who could kiss like so! But his voice was cool and clear as glass: I’m going to kiss you all over. Soon.

  She said that would be fun, trying not herself to go foolish again; and told him to sit down and asked what he knew of the countryside here, he didn’t know much, two or three miles away was a little inn, he thought, he’d once seen it, picture-book place with honeysuckle in the summer…. She said Oh Lord, not honeysuckle! and he said he was sorry, but it wouldn’t be out; and they smiled at each other, stared, laughed, kissed once—too damn dangerous more than once.