Martinmas

by Shirley McKay

  4.

  Crabbe

  ‘many natural things are taken to be ghosts’

  The eleventh day of November was the feast of Martinmas, traditionally the time for the culling of the herd, when servants were exchanged and rents were paid. At Hew’s house at Kenly Green, his wife was more observant of the rhythms of the land, more conscious of the seasons, than her husband was, and it was she who remarked of the mournful cuddochs that they knew they were going to die that day. ‘They have a premonition of it,’ Frances said.

  Her husband would not have it. He had not spent the term laying ghosts to rest to have them resurrected here at home.

  ‘How can they have a premonition?’ he objected. ‘They are dumb beasts.’

  ‘They feel it. In the same way that they feel the coming of a storm. They are more attuned than we are to the elements.’

  ‘That is not the same.’

  ‘Trust me. I have lived most of my life in the shadow of Leadenhall market. Cows know when slaughter is coming.’

  ‘They ken when they are driven to the killing place. They smell the blood, and fear, of others gone before. But they do not wake up on Martinmas morning lowing to themselves, Oh la and alas, we will die today.’

  Frances said simply, ‘They do.’

  It was not tender sentiment that moved her. She demonstrated that by tearing off a strip from the haunch of mutton roasting at the fire and handing it to Hew. He left it on the plate.

  ‘What? Convicted now?’ She smiled at him.

  ‘It is not that. Keep some back for suppertime. I promised I would take my dinner at the college.’

  It was only half a lie. Giles had proposed they dine in from time to time, to encourage Thomas Crowe. But the dinner would be done by the time Hew came to town, unless he took his horse, which he did not mean to do.

  The mutton was to feed the men who came to kill the cattle in his fields. The kitchens would be filled with clumps of salted flesh, boiling bones and candle fat when he next came home. His house would have the reek of blood, iron dark. Frances oversaw and managed everything. Brought up in the town, she had taken to the land as readily as though she had an instinct for it.

  One that Hew had not. But walking through the fields he felt it, still. November was a melancholy month. The grain, what little of it had survived the storms, had been gathered in. The earth lay bare of fruits, to wait the winter frosts. In the yard by the mill, the sacrificial pig was tethered in its pen. The miller’s boy, John Kintor, raised his pigs with care. When the sow was groaning with a litter in the night, he would scratch her ears. When he called to the piglets, each one by its name, they would run to take the corn husks from his hand. Was it for the sake of their tender flesh he chose the plumpest grains to fill the trough that day? Last winter, he had come shyly with a ham as a gift for Frances. English people did not shun pork like the Scots. ‘This one was Jem. Sweet as a nut,’ he had said.

  Hew did not believe the pig that snuffled in the trough had the slightest inkling that its days were done. And what, if not the pig? ‘There is no beast of the field more loyal and intelligent,’ John Kintor said, ‘and in that may be reckoned some that pass for men.’ Did the heifer that looked up, with its lolling tongue and its doleful head turned towards the sky, harking to some secret whisper on the wind, have a premonition of its own impending death? Hew thought it did not. But he did not pretend to come to grips with nature. His heart was in the town, and with humankind.

  The merchant Martin Crabbe, coming to St Andrews at the killing time, did not know that he was going to die that day. Which is not to say that he was not forewarned, but that he had chosen to ignore the signs. The first was that he woke up in the night, with a grumbling wam, to find his bedsheets sopping wet with sweat. He put it down to sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, following a long day on the road. The second was an aching in his arm and shoulder, which he thought was caused by gripping at his horse. The third was a flux, leaky and persistent, which began to trouble him the moment he got up. He blamed that on the supper he had eaten in the inn, a plat of pickled herring with a roasted egg. ‘That egg was bad,’ he told the lassie there. She insisted that there had been nothing wrong with it.

  ‘It wis never fresh.’

  ‘Ah never said it was. What do ye expect, on a Sabbath evening?’ she answered with a sniff.

  It did not discourage him from a decent breakfast, washed down with a flagon of the strongest ale. He enquired about his dinner, hoping there would be a pudding on the menu, boiled up with the bellox of the morning’s kill. The lassie pulled a face. ‘Hae what ye like, as long as long as ye can pay fer it.’

  He could. He had come a long way since he was a cadger, trudging with his pack. Now he had a shop on the high gate of Dundee, and a part share in a ship. He had a son here at the university. All this he telt to the lass, as she came and went to fill his plate and cup.

  ‘If ye hae a booth in Dondie, why are you here?’ the lassie said. ‘Ye ken there is no market here today? There will not be a fair afore St Andrew’s day.’

  Martin Crabbe was well aware of that. He had no right to trade, outside his own burgh, when there was no fair. He looked forward to the markets where his ship came in. But he was not prepared to wait until St Andrew’s day. He had come ahead, to broker certain deals among the merchants in the town. Forestalling in the market place broke the burgh law. That did not mean it could or should not be done.

  ‘What do you look to buy?’ she asked.

  She had been through his baggage, hussy that she was, and concluded that he had not come to sell.

  ‘Who said I was buying?’

  ‘Well then, what?’

  He had set up several meetings in the inn that day, which would take him nicely through to dinnertime. He told the lassie he would want the finest claret wine, sack and brandy too, to keep the buyers sweet. The inn was in a vennel off the marketplace, and had a reputation for preserving secrecy. None of it came cheap. But he would recoup the cost with what he had for sale.

  ‘Aye? An what is that?’

  ‘Ye wad like to ken. Something all the lassies here will want. The ladies at the court will be greening for it.’

  ‘Something bonny, then? Is it a jewel?’

  He fixed her with a stare. ‘Now why do you say that?’

  ‘Because a jewel is small. And can be hidden in a pocket.’

  ‘Been keeking, have ye, lassie?’ he replied.

  The lassie flushed dark. ‘Ah never did. But yer bags are wee. You couldna fit in them onything of worth.’

  ‘Now, is that a fact?’

  The lassie did not like it that she was caught out. ‘Ah dinna think it is onything at all. It is jist a fraud,’ she said.

  ‘Think what ye like. When the ladies clamour for it, you’ll be last in line. Be sure to mak my dennar guid an hot.’

  She was closer to the mark than she could know. Her interest in his empty baggage pleased him. It was his intention to instil an appetite. He had not brought the samples she was after to the town. Truth was, in themselves, they did not look like much. But it was the story that he had to tell that would prove their worth. It was all a question of creating a demand.

  By dinnertime, he had drawn a crowd around him. He told them the story of the Gran Grifon, the flagship of the Grand Armada, which had been shipwrecked off the Orkney isles. Martin had been there on his travels at the time. He saw the ship go down. He had stood and watched, while the devils drowned, in the boiling sea that swirled them down to Hell.

  ‘For they were monsters,’ he said. Recovered from the ship, and washed up on the shore, were artefacts and tools, so cruel in their device they might have been thrown up from very Hell itself. ‘Oh, it would hurt your heart to see those devils’ instruments, strewn on those white sands, still wet with martyrs’ blood.’ To spare the feelings of the Orkney islanders, Martin Crabbe had gathered up the dreadful things, and put them in his barque, and he had brought them home. They might be seen
, for the price of a copy of a pamphlet, in his shop at Dundee, or, to a most discerning and particular collector, they might be for sale.

  The torments were not all. There were treasures too; cups and plates and bowls, and a hundred daggers, of the Spanish kind. Now, he drew one out, to tease them with its blade. Its owner, Martin said, had crawled out from the sea, writhing like a serpent, dying at his feet. Martin Crabbe had found the dagger buried in his breast. He had drawn it out.

  ‘Wha stabbed him, then?’ someone asked.

  Martin brushed him off. He did not care for questions to interrupt his flow. ‘One of his kind. They are devils,’ he said. ‘The blood that had flowed from the life wound was black, black as the dead Spaniard’s heart. You could see right inside it,’ he said. ‘I looked into his face, and saw before my eyes his bright complexion fade. I could have caught it up, and put it in a glass. It was,’ he said, ‘a maist extraordinary thing. I have a picture of it vivid in my mind. The colour fled from him. Here, I have the ring I took from his finger. I have many others, coming in my ship.’

  ‘Many other rings? How many fingers did the devil have?’ the heckler asked again.

  ‘Many other things.’ Despite this irritation, he had made his mark. By dinnertime, his pocket book was filling up with orders. The inn was filling up with fleshers in their killing clothes, come to slake their thirst. Martin found a quiet table in a corner, and called for another stoup of wine. He was waiting for a man called Will, a customer for whom he had a special deal in mind. His shop was an essential link to Martin’s chain. To please him, though, he must please his wife, which would be the key to open up the town.

  Will did not seem keen. He came to the meeting late, and refused a drink. He seemed ill at ease. To make the matter worse, as soon as Will sat down, Martin was obliged to depart himself, on an urgent mission to the jakes. Outside in the yard, he found his shirt and hose again were drenched with sweat, although the damp November air was very far from warm. He could hardly breathe, but found the ruff around him choking like a chain, until he pulled it off. Struggling back inside, he found his prey was just about to leave. ‘Stay, hae some dinner wi me. For you have not heard what I have to sell,’ he urged.

  Will sat down again. He watched, as the lass ran back and forth with bread and cheese and wine, a bowl of mutton broth, and the hot blood pudding. ‘Won’t you try some?’ Martin said, ‘It is very good.’ He felt it bring a flood of colour to his cheek.

  ‘Ah dinna think,’ said Will, ‘you ought to eat so quickly. Or, in truth, so much. You do not look so well.’

  ‘I had a bad egg,’ Martin said. ‘The remedy for bad is to follow it with good, or so I have always found.’ He dabbed his lips, unwilling to concede that at that moment he did not feel so well. He called for more wine, to wash down his queasiness.

  ‘Show me,’ Will said, ‘what you have to sell.’

  This had never been Martin Crabbe’s intent. It was not simply that what he had to sell, without the tale to sell it, looked quite plain and dull; it was also something Will could make quite easily himself, if he put his mind to it.

  ‘Let me first explain to you, how it comes about.’ Martin told his story, which began again with the late destruction of the Spanish fleet. The lass who brought the wine appeared to be bewitched by it, but it failed to have the same effect on Will. Before it was concluded, he stood up.

  ‘I have to go. If you have aught to show, bring it to the shop. That is the provost and the bailies over there.’ This explained his nerves. The man he called the provost caught Martin’s eye. Martin tipped his hat to him, annoyed. So it was the provost chased away his deals. The attention of the bailies now was drawn to him, but he would not be cowed. He would simply have to bide his time.

  The lass came with the brandy. ‘Oh. Your friend has gone. I will never hear the ending to the tale. What is the stuff that all the ladies like?’

  Martin felt confused. A black mist had descended, and a fiery heat. He could not see, or breathe. He fumbled at his neck, to pull off the ruff, but found it was not there. His bowels turned to water, and he felt ashamed. Dimly, he saw that the provost was rising, was coming towards him. He heard the lass say ‘What is the stuff’ and the rest of the world became swallowed in darkness, pulling him down. Drowning, he thought, oh, I am drowning. How can it be. There is the provost. What is the stuff. His eyes were open wide, so wide he felt the weight of them. Yet he could not see. ‘Dead Spaniard,’ he said. That was the last thing, the sound of his words.

  It was hopeless for Giles Locke, summoned to the scene, to insist that Martin’s death had been a natural one. His word was overruled, by men of weight and dignity, the provost and the bailies of the town. ‘With respect,’ the provost said, ‘ye were not here yourself, when the man went down. Ask awbody you like.’ The inn was full of witnesses, many of them fresh from the killing fields. ‘They are acquainted with death. And all of them ken what they saw. He was dragged down to Hell, by a ghost.’

  ‘With respect,’ said Giles, ‘is any one among them trained as a medicinar? Have they ever seen an apoplectic stroke?’

  ‘Well, sir, there is one, whose word ye maun attend to, since he is your own. And he has telt us a marvellous thing, which you have tried to keep from us. He says that the Dead Spaniard has been seen before, in your college kirk.’ When the dreadful words were said a murmuring arose, with one or two among them whispering a prayer.

  It was the fermer, Kennocht Cutler, who was now revealed to be a viper in their midst. He was there by chance, he said, on a sudden urgent quest to purchase aquavite, wanted at the fermary, and on no account to satisfy his thirst.

  Giles fixed upon the fermer a stare full of sorrow. ‘Oh, Kennocht, what have you done?’

  ‘Ye did not it see it, sir. He wis looking at the spirit, right into his eyes, the moment that he fell. He wis trying to tell us when he died. He spake the devil’s name. It was that same ghost that came into our kirk and struck that puir bairn senseless to the ground.’

  ‘Did you see it too? Did any one of you?’ Giles persisted wearily.

  His protests were ignored. For it was plain to all, the Spaniard would appear only a man who was about to die.

  ‘That cannot be the case. For no one has died at the college,’ he said.

  The fermer said darkly, ‘No one has yet.’

  Coming to the college shortly after dinnertime, Hew found himself in the middle of a storm. The provost and his bailies were gathered at the gate, demanding the right to speak with Thomas Crowe. Giles held them off; though Thomas was still safe in the care of Meg, he was now attending to the tearful Malcolm Crabbe, who had been told in a way that was brutal and abrupt that the father he had loved had been carried off by a Spanish ghost. ‘It is Thomas Crowe,’ he sobbed, ‘who has put a curse on him,’ adding fuel and fury to the swilling crowd.

  Giles lit on Hew, and threw him to the wolves. ‘Here is a man who can rid you of your ghosts. Ask him; he will tell you they do not exist, but are conjured up by sad and frantic minds.

  The provost, knowing Hew, fell upon him gratefully. ‘Can you,’ he implored, ‘drive away the spirits that infect the town? For I feel the grip upon us like the plague.’

  Consoling him, Hew said three ghosts were hardly an epidemy. Giles let out a groan, grim enough to muster for a fourth. The provost said, aghast, ‘There has been a third?’

  Hew, to make amends, promised he would rid the town of the Spanish ghost. ‘I know what you believe happened at the inn. But I will prove to you it has a natural cause.’

  It was, he thought, a mere trick of the mind, like the other ghosts. ‘In the case of Thomas Crowe,’ he explained to Giles, ‘I thought, at first, it was a counterfeit, a trick that was played on him, by his colleagues here. It turned out that the trick was in his own imagination. In the case of Colin Snell, what we thought was in his mind, was a counterfeit. But both of them have an explanation, rooted in the physical or the natural world. This third ghost, sur
ely, must be the same. Yet it is Thomas Crowe who is common to them all. His ghost lies at the heart. What made Martin Crabbe speak of the Dead Spaniard, the moment that he died? I cannot see the meaning in it. What was it killed him, Giles?’

  Giles said, ‘Meat and drink. Now I must go and tend to his poor boy, and leave you to confront the devil on your own.’

  Hew spoke to Kennocht Cutler, to the lassie from the inn, and to several witnesses, who had seen Crabbe die. ‘Did you hear him speak his final words,’ he asked them all, ‘or is it that you ken them from report? Were they loud and clear?’ Each one said the same. The words were not in doubt.

  He spoke to Will Dyer, a man that he knew well, and liked. ‘Oh, he had a tale to tell,’ said Will. ‘A dreadful kind of tale. I wonder if he scared himself to death with it. If he robbed the graves of the Spanish as he said, no wonder that the devils came to take him at the end. He said he took the dagger from the dead man’s breast. Well, the dead man came and took it back from him. I give thanks to God I did not buy from him.’

  ‘Daggers,’ said Hew, ‘are hardly in your line.’

  ‘No, they are not. He promised something finer, that was just for me, that everyone would want. He niver had the chance to tell me any mair. But I hae a notion what it was.’

  ‘What was that?’ asked Hew.

  ‘I think it was the flag, frae the Gran Grifon. That was the flagship of the Spanish fleet. The flag wid be a prize, for sure. A Spanish man would gie, and tak, a life for that. I wid not want it, now, at any price.’

  Returning to the college, Hew saw Malcolm Crabbe setting out for home. He called to him. ‘I am so very sorry for your loss,’ he said. ‘And I am sorry, too, I never met your dad, to give him back the books I took from you. Next term, when you join us again, you shall have them back, to remember him.’

  Malcolm Crabbe nodded. ‘He would have liked you.’