The specific used by Alice in cases of infertility was sage juice, taken daily, and as she prepared a bottleful for Aylie, Jane reflected that its value would probably only be in easing her daughter’s mind. They were both healthy young people and when the time was right, they would have their child, of that she was sure.
She asked no questions about how they had suddenly become so flush with money and Aylie volunteered no explanations. Though Jane had her suspicions it was better not to know the truth, she decided.
The summer of 1837 was the happiest of Aylie’s life. The sun seemed to shine every day and she luxuriated in its warmth like an opening flower. On the hottest days she and Hugh went down to the Bowmont Water that ran near their house and bathed naked, confident that no one could come up their track without Nelson warning them first. They splashed like children in the crystal water, laughing and pushing each other into the pools fringed by tall flag irises, then they lay down on the springy grass, cushioned upon sweet-smelling wild thyme, and made love before falling asleep in each other’s arms, only waking when the golden orb of the sun sank below the rim of the tallest hill that stood guardian over their hidden valley. Their skins glowed berry brown with health and it seemed to them that this blissful happiness would never end.
On 1 August they went again to Melrose’s Lammas Fair, bigger than ever this year, and riotously noisy with the shouts of stallholders and hustlers trying to induce the drifting crowds to spend their money.
Many of the people in the fair crowd knew them and stopped to talk with them, casting admiring eyes on Aylie who looked very handsome in a blue print dress and a large pale-cream straw bonnet with blue satin ribbons. They met Jock Hepburn and his family, and Aylie was pleased to see how tall and strong young Sandy was growing. For his part, Sandy looked at her as if she were a goddess, remembering that when he was small she had looked after him.
‘Do you remember us playing hide and seek in the woods at Charterhall when you were a wee boy?’ she asked him teasingly and he blushed scarlet, the red tide rising up to the bushy ginger hair that was so like his father’s.
‘Yes, I remember,’ he mumbled, staring awkwardly at his feet for he was at the age when boys fall deeply, painfully in love – and the object of this boy’s love for a long time was to be the unattainable Aylie.
Gilbert Kennedy was at the fair, and they found him in the centre of a ring of dapper grooms. He was proudly boasting about a fine pair of horses his master had recently bought and which had pulled the carriage all the way from Yetholm to Melrose in record time.
When Hugh and Aylie joined the group, his father put his arm round Aylie and said to his friends, ‘This laddie of mine’s a grand horseman but his wife’s even better. Aylie’s got the finest hands of anybody I’ve ever seen on a horse – don’t ever stop working with horses, Aylie. Don’t get too grand a lady for that.’
She laughed and shook her head. ‘I’ll never be too grand for horses, Gilbert. I love them as much as you do.’
‘Do you still remember the words I taught you?’ he asked her. ‘You might need them one day.’
Hugh snorted. ‘Oh, you and the Horseman’s Word, it’s a lot of nonsense. You can either make horses work for you or you can’t. You don’t need special words to make it happen.’
Gilbert flashed his dark eyes at his son. ‘You’re wrong. You can say what you like but I know they work. Come on, Aylie, whisper them to me so’s I know you haven’t forgotten them…’
Laughing, she cupped a hand round her mouth and whispered softly in Gilbert’s ear, ‘Balthazar, Melchior and Achitophel…’
His face was solemn as he listened and when she was finished, he straighted up and said, ‘Good, you’ve not forgotten. Tell the words to your children, Aylie, and to no one else. They’re gypsy words and they should be kept by gypsy folk. I only told you because of your gift.’
The mention of children cast a shadow over Aylie’s face and seeing this, Hugh grabbed her hand and led her away. ‘Come on, I’ll take you to get a drink. It’s very hot.’
The ale tent was packed with people and they had to shoulder their way through. In the middle of the sweating throng, Hugh was stopped by a fat, freckled hand on his shoulder.
A coarse voice said, ‘Hey gypsy, you’re getting a bit big for your boots, aren’t you?’ The speaker was the farmer from Myreheugh, the father of Phemie’s baby.
Hugh arrogantly shrugged the hand off his shoulder and glared at the speaker. ‘What would you know about the size of my boots?’ he asked defiantly.
‘Just what I hear. They tell me you’re one of the Midnight Men these days…’
‘I’ve heard the same of you,’ said Hugh, ‘except you don’t ride out. You wait at home and send others out to do the riding for you.’
The farmer’s face darkened. He was obviously well on the way to being drunk. ‘You’re a cheeky young pup. But listen to me and listen well. I don’t want any of you gypsies horning into my business. Take a warning, don’t go running down to Boulmer again or you might find yourself in trouble next time.’
‘When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it,’ said Hugh, and pushed on through the crowd.
Aylie, following behind him, was shaken by the encounter. The sight of the Myreheugh farmer brought back memories of Phemie and the miserable time she had while working on his land.
‘I hate that man,’ she said shakily when they were out in the open again. ‘What did he mean by speaking to you like that?’
‘He thinks he’s got the smuggling trade tied up round here. He’s in it with his brother – the one that sits on the bench – and they’ve had everything their own way for years. He puts up the money and hires people to do the runs for him. Then he takes the profit. That’s how I started, taking loads down for him, and he’s mad now that I’m setting up on my own. He thinks he should be in charge of all the smuggling trade that goes in and out of the district and till I started, he was.’
The girl shivered. ‘But people like him have got power behind them, haven’t they? Oh Hugh, perhaps you should stop now that you’ve made a bit of money. Perhaps we should stick to horse dealing.’
He looked proud and defiant. ‘There’s no way I’m going to stop. Certainly not because that rat of a man threatens me. He’d think he’d scared me off! I’ll see him off, I’m younger than he is and cleverer. Anyway I know that Daniel Fleury would rather deal with me than with him. His whisky’s often watered and Captain Midnight’s no fool. You wait, Aylie, I’ll be King Smuggler round here yet.’
* * *
When October came, the crab apple trees along the road that led to their house were heavy with fruit and the old peddler walked under them to pay his last call of the year. In Aylie’s warm kitchen with the tabby cat sleeping on the hearthrug, he spread out his enticing wares – laces and ribbons, pins and needles, lengths of material and a couple of shawls with red and blue Persian patterns on them, and she made a few purchases.
When he was rewrapping his bundle, he said, ‘You were at Myreheugh when the lassie killed her bairn, weren’t you?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, I was. She was my friend.’
‘Then you’ll be sad about what’s happened to her,’ said the peddler.
‘What’s that? I heard she’d gone a bit strange in the head. Is she worse?’
The old man pulled on his coat and said, ‘Oh aye, much worse. She’s dead.’
Aylie gasped and leant back against the table top. ‘Oh, did they kill her in that awful prison? Did they work her to death?’
‘No, she killed herself. She tore up her apron into strips and hanged herself from the window bars. I heard the story from her father yesterday.’
Aylie was furious. ‘That’s awful, I can’t bear to think of it.’
‘Oh well, she’s out of it now,’ said the peddler and disappeared through the door.
When Aylie told Hugh about Phemie she stormed in rage, ‘He said “She’s out of it now!” Yes, she’s out of i
t and her bairn’s out of it but her wicked father and that man who fathered her baby are still in it and very safe. The people who shut her up in jail and made her mad are still in it. Everything’s rotten, Hugh. You’re right. They’re all bastards! You’re right not to care about their laws.’
A few days later a dark stranger arrived in the yard when Hugh was away and said to her, ‘Tell your man that Captain Midnight gets in in five days’ time.’
It sounded like a riddle. She looked at the man cautiously and said, ‘Captain Midnight? Who’s that?’
‘Just you tell him what I said,’ replied the man, walking off down the road.
When she recounted his words to Hugh, he was delighted. ‘Captain Midnight, that’s what they call the Frenchman Daniel Fleury. It means the season’s on again. He’ll be coming in with a load from the Low Countries. I’ll have to get busy and get my whisky together.’
She followed him across the yard and said, ‘I’d like to ride with you this time. It would be better than waiting at home.’
He gazed at her over his horse’s back and replied, ‘You’d be capable of it, that’s for sure. You’re better on a horse than any of the others – better than me, in fact. But it’s a long way and it’s tough.’
‘Take me with you, Hugh,’ she pleaded and to her delight he nodded his head after only a moment’s reflection.
‘All right. I might. It means we can take another pair of packhorses. Our trip will be even better than last time. Don’t tell your mother though Aylie, keep it to yourself.’
* * *
There was plenty of whisky to buy, for Hugh offered a better price than Myreheugh and the hayloft soon filled up with barrels, so many that it was going to be a problem to get rid of them.
‘We’re going to take a chance, we’ll take them all down to Boomer. With Aylie riding and Abel too, that’ll be eight packhorses,’ he decided.
But two days before they were due to start out, a horse he was shoeing kicked Charlie and broke his leg. He couldn’t ride on the smuggling trip so another man had to be found. Hugh went to Yetholm and came back with a sly-eyed man called Josey whom Aylie distrusted on sight – there was something shifty about him that put her on her guard at once. Josey was to go on the next trip to Boulmer, said Hugh, in spite of the fact that he was a coarse, unskilful rider. He could only cope with one packhorse but he was the only man available.
Josey was very curious, always asking questions. Where did they get their whisky, he asked Aylie and she sent him away with a short ‘I don’t know’.
‘What route are we taking?’ he asked Hugh and in a distracted way, he was told the line across country that they always used. Hugh was very taken up with a new horse he had just bought himself, a truly magnificent dark bay stallion called Jupiter who stood seventeen hands high and was reputed to be descended from the Barbary Arab. Jupiter had come from Newmarket where he had won several races, but the gentleman who brought him north could not ride him and was glad to get rid of him for as much as he had paid – one hundred pounds.
Then, on the day before they were due to leave for Boulmer, Hugh went out and came back with a new mare for Aylie, a deep-chested, strong-boned dapple grey who looked as if she too could bear a line of racehorses. The secret of how much money Hugh was spending on these horses was kept from his wife, for he knew that if she ever found out what he had paid for Jupiter, she would have thought he had taken leave of his senses.
Aylie was still careful with money and buried what she could prise out of her husband’s hands in her stone crock beneath the floor. The crock was almost full of coins now and she planned to give some of it to her mother when the stiffness in her hands made it impossible for her to go on working.
Jane rarely complained but Aylie knew that there were many days when her pains were so acute that even her most effective medicines failed to muffle them.
In the end however their trip had to be postponed because in the night the snow came sweeping over the hills and the storm raged for more than a week, blanketing everything in white and sweeping shepherds and their flocks to their deaths in the muffling drifts. With the ankers of whisky piled up in the hayloft, Aylie was afraid that some snooper would report them to the excise men. No one in their right mind would ever believe that two people needed so much liquor to get through the winter. It would take ten years to drink it all.
Each morning Hugh stood in the doorway, staring out anxiously, searching for signs of a change in the weather. But everything was in the icy grip of winter, and day after day the sky stayed the same dull pewter colour.
‘It’ll have to break soon,’ he told Aylie every morning. ‘We’re missing a lot of trade by this weather. When it does thaw, we’ll have to get all of the stuff out of here fast.’
When the thaw came however Charlie’s leg had still not healed, so they were forced to take Josey with them. Hugh told him to be ready for riding out that night, but later that day they found that Josey had disappeared.
Abel went looking for him and came back to say that he had not been seen in Yetholm. ‘I reckon he lost his nerve,’ he said scornfully. ‘He’s a coward is Josey.’
‘Damn him, just when I need him. I can’t get anyone else now because I don’t want people to know when we’re going out. The excise men have been around asking questions and you’ve got to know who you can trust,’ cursed Hugh.
Aylie was still burning with the resentment that had seized her when she heard about Phemie’s death, and if she had any doubts at all about going on the expedition it was because she had missed two periods and was starting to allow herself to hope that she might at last be pregnant. This was not the time to tell Hugh, she decided, or he might stop her taking part. She’d keep the information to herself and when they got back from their smuggling trip, she’d break the wonderful news to him. She had no fears that the long ride down into England would be bad for her. She was well used to being in the saddle.
The moon was full as they filed out of the yard, Nelson running alongside. While they plodded along she glanced at Hugh and her heart went out to him in love because of the boldness of the bones of his cheeks and high-bridged nose. His face shone like the helmet of a knight, burnished with silver.
He grinned at her and said, ‘Now you know why we like going out under the moon. It’s a magic feeling, isn’t it?’
To a stranger she would have looked like a young boy because she was riding astride, dressed in a pair of men’s trousers and a long greatcoat that swept over the horse’s back behind her. Her hair was tucked into a woollen cap pulled well down over her brows and in her belt was a small knife in a leather scabbard. Through all the long ride her heart was singing wildly and there was no thought of sleep as she stared around her at the expanse over which they passed. The horses plodded slowly along, startled now and again by the rustling of a fox or a badger in the dried bracken and heather that fringed the narrow sheep trails they were following. Hugh took his bearings from some internal compass and the others followed him silently, making little conversation – and when they did, not raising their voices above a whisper. For three hours they passed no houses, but at about two o’clock Hugh pointed ahead and she saw the lights of a building in the distance.
When they drew closer she saw that it was a rough stone house with a low thatched roof. A trickle of smoke was coming from its chimney.
‘She’s waiting for us. I sent her a message,’ said Hugh.
‘What is that house?’ she asked.
‘It’s an alehouse. The smugglers use it a lot because the widow woman who keeps it knows how to keep her mouth closed. We’ll stop in there to rest the horses and have a meal. She’s a good woman is Maggie.’
There was a painted board stuck up over the door announcing ‘Meg Swinton, Ales and Porter’. Inside the single room a fire was burning in the hearth and a plump motherly woman was sitting in a rocking chair with a sleeping cat on her lap.
She beamed in welcome when she saw Hugh and gave
him a warm hug. ‘It’s grand to see you, lad. I thought the snow would stop you but I should have known you’d get through.’
She looked quizzically at Aylie. ‘Who’s the laddie?’
Hugh laughed. ‘It’s not a laddie, Meg. It’s my wife. Take off your hat, Aylie, and let Meg see what I’m saying is true.’
When Aylie’s hair tumbled out of the hat, Meg laughed again and said, ‘My word, you’re a game one, but it would have to be a game one that married my Hughie, wouldn’t it?’
She fed them and they rested in front of the fire for an hour before it was time to remount and head off again. By the time dawn broke Aylie caught her first sight of the slate-grey sea far below them. Even from that distance she could see a furious spume breaking over the rocks and it looked bitterly cold.
‘We’re nearly there,’ Hugh told her, ‘it’s not much farther. Are you tired?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not tired. When do we get to Boulmer?’
‘Oh, in about three hours. We’ve got to by-pass Alnwick because the folk there’ll be getting up soon but when we’re on the flat ground it’s an easy canter to Boulmer village and no one will stop us. They’re used to the riders going by.’
The path twisted sharply down a steep valley side, shaded by pine trees, and at one of the bends a young boy with a sheepdog was standing. When they came up on him he called out, ‘He’s at the Fishing Boat Inn. It’s quite safe, there’s no excise men around.’
‘How do they get away with this so easily?’ she wondered aloud.
Hugh laughed as he told her, ‘The Frenchman has it all organized. Some of the excise men take his money and the ones who don’t are too afraid of him to make things difficult. You wait till you see him, he’s a tough character.’
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