The Patriot

by Nigel Tranter

  "But not the Archbishop of York," Margaret broke in. "He said, in the House of Lords, that the union was little better than a disaster. For England! He said 'God forbid that I should assent to union with a people who are not as much as initiated in Christianity!' Those were the words, were they not, Henry? And added that the Scots were even averse to good English ceremonies and vestments!"

  "The Kirk agrees, at least as to the disaster," her husband commented.

  "The Assembly has decreed a day of fasting for the nation . . ."

  "Johnnie . . . dead!" Andrew said. There was silence for a little.

  The young Andrew tried. "All are now saying that you were right, Uncle Dand. None have a good word for the union. Have you heard - Mr. Paterson's Equivalent money, so long delayed, is now paid - but only one-quarter in coin. The rest but in paper - English Treasury bills which no one trusts. How much the Darien shareholders will get, none know. The Honours of Scotland, the crown and sceptre and sword, have been bundled up in a chest and stowed in the cellar of Edinburgh Castle! Like, some old worn-out lumber. And English press-gangs are already out seizing Scots seamen."

  "Sir David Dalrymple, Stair's younger brother, is the new Lord Advocate," Henry added, "With Sir Hew, Lord President of Session, the Dalrymples have done mighty well."

  "Have you heard the result of the election?" the youth went on eagerly. "Your election? Or at least, Haddingtonshire . . . ?"

  "I think, Andy, that your uncle is scarcely in a mood for all this," his mother intervened. "Later will serve." "I may as well hear it now, lass."

  "The man Morrison of Prestongrange, the salt-merchant, is in - half-wit as he is! Do you know, he believes that the Apocalypse of St. John was written at Prestonpans! Now he represents your old seat, Uncle. In London, of course."

  "In London, yes!"

  "So, Andrew, we hope and believe that they may release you soon," Margaret declared. "Now that, that . . ."

  "Now that I can do them no more harm?"

  She swallowed. "Oh, my dear!" she said.

  "Not that they needed to worry," he went on, levelly. "For I have decided to give it all up - politics. To retire from public affairs. I have thought well and long on this - I have had much time to think, in this place. It is enough. Nothing will change the union now, or Scotland's destiny. The course is set. I am in my fifty-fourth year. It is time that I set a new course, for such years as may remain to me. I have squandered sufficient, in chasing dreams."

  They eyed him with varying expressions.

  "I have achieved little or nothing for all my labours, in nearly thirty years. Whereas you, Henry, have achieved much. It is said that the greatest achievement for a man is to make two ears of corn grow where only one grew before. You have done this. Now, so shall I, God helping me. I shall devote the rest of my days to that - to try to make the land burgeon better. You shall still manage Saltoun for me, Henry, as you have done so well for so long. But I shall seek to improve the land and what it produces. This at least I can still do, for Scotland. For this land desperately needs improvement. For the people's sake, not just for wealth. It could yield five times, ten times, what it does today. In better crops, better seed, better tillage and husbandry, better drainage, better beasts and stock. I have thousands of acres for which I am responsible -not you, Henry, me, God forgive me! I shall make up for the wasted years. And one day, who knows, men may say -'Andrew Fletcher? Was not he the man who put an extra ear on every stalk of corn?' Would not that be an epitaph to work and hope for? Instead of, of . . ."

  Margaret swallowed a lump in her throat. "Andrew - oh, Andrew, that is good, good! My dear, I could weep for joy to hear you say it! For long Henry and I have said this. At last you will gain what you have never had - true fulfilment. Live at peace with yourself, and others. Stay in your own place, tend your own people and your own lands, fight no more battles -save against the seasons and the soil ... !"

  "Wait you, wait you!" he interrupted her, and his eyes had regained something of their accustomed lustre. "I am not going to turn old man, sitting in Saltoun Hall and mumbling of crops and the weather and the price of oats! Heaven forbid! I am going to travel and look and learn. I am going back to Holland, if they will let me - to learn more. There is much that the Dutch can teach us. I mind a mill that Peter van Heel had, at Bergschenhoel, near to Rotterdam, where I lodged for a while. For husking the barley. The most cunning device - machinery of iron. We have nothing of the sort in all these islands. I shall go back there and learn the secret. And there was another mill, I saw elsewhere, a fanner for winnowing grain. I told you of them . . ."

  "And the weaving machines, Andrew — the linen looms you also spoke of. For making hollands," Margaret intervened, eyes shining. "I greatly wish to learn how to make holland linen. We could do great things with that . . ."

  "No doubt. If I have time and opportunity. That would require a trained weaver to understand it. Then there is the making of tiles, for field-drains. Pipes. And pantiles for roofing. We have the clay. The Dutch have the knowledge. . ."

  "Andrew — I could come with you! I have always wished to travel, to see other lands. Henry - we could go also? To Holland."

  "Not all at the same time, my dear. Not myself, with Andrew. Or who would look after Saltoun? You, perhaps. But not Andrew and myself both."

  "Very well, then. I shall go. With Andrew. Andrew - you will take me to Holland with you? And I will take a weaver, to discover this of the looms, whilst you visit the mills. Would not that be splendid? Then we shall make Saltoun flourish indeed -and all Scotland gain!"

  "And what would our good neighbours say, Margaret lass? What would Scotland say? Andrew Fletcher traipsing off abroad with his brother's wife!"

  "Nonsense! At our years! I am not some skittish quean - the mother of seven! Besides, we could travel separately and meet there. That is what we shall do."

  "I do not know . .."

  "She will do it, Dand - if she sets her heart on it. Nothing surer," Henry said, smiling. "Perhaps you are safer here in Stirling Castle! But. . . can you bear to give up your politics? After a lifetime?"

  "I think that I can. I was never a true politician, Henry. I was not cast in the right mould for it. Politicians, I find, must flock together. I have always played a lone hand. And they must compromise and hedge and bargain. They are merchants, in fact - whereas I would rather be a grower, a producer. So I shall turn back to the land, which I should perhaps never have left, and leave the chaffering to those who find it to their taste. And there are plenty so-minded, I have learned - and in the highest places."

  "And all that you have learned and fought for, these long years? Is it all to be forgotten, wasted, lost?"

  "I have still my pen, lad. I shall write. Whilst coaxing that extra ear to sprout from the corn-stalk. Who knows, my pen may prove a sharper weapon than ever my sword has done, or my tongue . . . !"

  "Bravo, Andrew Fletcher!" Margaret exclaimed.

  Historical Note

  Fletcher never did return to politics. He became one of Scotland's foremost land-improvers, along with his neighbour and friend John Cockburn of Ormiston. He did go to Holland in 1710, taking James Meikle, mill-wright, with him, and in due course brought back the secret of pot-barley milling, to establish a mill at West Saltoun, there to this day, and which for forty years was the only one of its kind in the British Isles. Margaret went also and returned with the designs for weaving fine holland linen, for which she set up a manufactory, likewise at West Saltoun, and which became almost as famous and even more profitable. Andrew continued to travel, and was in Leyden the year before his death in Paris in 1716. Margaret far outlived both Andrew and her husband, who died in 1733, living to a ripe old age and seeing both the Jacobite rising of 1715 and the beginnings of that of 1745. Young Andrew in due course became the noted judge, Lord Milton, of Session.

  Each year Andrew Fletcher's memory is celebrated at a ceremony at Saltoun kirk, where his body lies - which is more than can be sai
d of any of the other actors in this story.

  Nigel Tranter Aberlady, April 1980