The Testament of Gideon Mack

by James Robertson

  glaikit: silly; fashin’: bothering; birks: birches; seecken: sicken; aince: once; ga’ed: went; socht to speir at: sought to ask; steer: stir; denty fuit: dainty foot; the tither: the other; furth: abroad; thole: suffer; flichterin’: flickering; owre fear’d: too frightened; thereawa’: thereabouts; chapped: knocked; ava’: at all

  ‘Weel, at first the mistress o’ Keldo raged at him, an’ syne she said that Jean was deid an’ nae mair could be done aboot it, an’ syne she grat, an’ at last she composed hersel’ an’ tauld him a story o’ her ain. On ane o’ their first walks in that gloomy place, she an’ her maid had stumbled upon a hidden path that led doun an’ doun into the verra’ he’rt o’ the chasm. An’ there they had come across a black-avised gentleman, dressed in the finest cla’es, danderin’ aside the breengin’ torrent an’ smokin’ his pipe as if he did it every day o’ his life. He greeted them, but they couldna hear a word, sae he led them into a cavern whaur the water ran slow an’ silent an’ black as tar. There was a table an’ chair made o’ iron fixed into the rock, wi’ a chain attached to the chair, an’ twa great slaverin’ hounds sleepin’ i’ the mooth o’ the cave. An’ faur, faur ben, they thocht they could see the faint licht o’ a bleezin’ fire, an’ even imagined they could hear voices – but that surely couldna be!

  threapit: insisted; grat: wept; ane: one; black-avised: dark-featured; cla’es: clothes; danderin’: strolling; breengin’: rushing; faur ben: deep within; gey fear’d: very afraid

  ‘Jean was gey fear’d, but the stranger spak’ wi’a gentle voice, an’ speired efter the leddy’s health in her ain native tongue. “You are sad, and far from home,” he said, “but I have the power to transport you there, where you may be happy again.” An’ the leddy o’ Keldo confessed to Dod Eadie that, tho’ she had merriet the laird, she had done it for siller, no’ for love, an’ that she had anither lover in her ain land that she green’d to see. She had jaloused by noo wha the gentleman o’ the cavern micht be, but she didna care. She said that she wad dearly like to be joined wi’ her lover aince mair. “That may be done in an instant,” said the gentleman, “but your companion must wait for your return at the head of the path.” The maid pleaded wi’ her no’ to bargain wi’ sic’ a frichtsome craitur’, but her mistress ordered her to withdraw an’ attend her at the path heid. Syne the man sent the leddy o’ Keldo owre the sea, by what means she never related to Dod, an’ she was reunited wi’ her lover. Whan she cam’ back, tho’ she felt she had been awa’ for days, only an ’oor had passed. “Whenever you wish it,” the stranger said, “I can arrange for you to make that journey, but there is a price, and that is that you sign a bond assigning your soul to me.” He had the document a’ drawn up, an’ a pen ready for her, on the iron table. Eagerly she sat doun to sign, but there was nae ink. The De’il – for ye may be sure it was he – produced a pocket-knife frae his coat. “Since you will supply the soul, you may supply the ink also,” he said, an’ nicked her airm wi’ the blade sae that the blude trickled oot. She dipped the pen in the wound an’ bent to sign, but again she hesitated. “It is a fair bargain,” she said, “but I would fain make another with you. I pledge to settle the account with a human soul, but let the name be blank. Either, when you redeem the pledge, it will be mine, or it will belong to one far more innocent than I.” By this she had Jean in mind, an’ the De’il, kennin’ her meanin’, wi’ a canny look agreed to her proposal. Whan Dod heard this, he cried oot, “An’ had ye nae he’rt that ye could sign awa’ my dear Jean for sake o’ your ain sinfu’, selfish ways?” “Alas, that I had not!” lamented the leddy, “for I was consumed with my own desires, and thought that I would find some way to outwit him ere the time of reckoning came. And when he claimed her some weeks after, I tried to prevent him taking her, and wrestled with him at the mouth of that horrid cave, but he was too strong and dragged her beyond the dripping teeth of his hounds where I could not reach her. I pleaded with him, and took from my wrist a gold bracelet and threw it over the hounds to him, and said if he would only release her he would have all the gold he desired. But he laughed at me for a fool, saying that he had more gold than he could wish for, and that it was nothing compared with the two souls he had gained – for, he said, by my deeds I was surely bound for his kingdom in any event. And he kicked the bracelet from him as if it were but worthless trash.” An’ the mistress flung hersel’ at the feet o’ Dod Eadie, an’ sobbed for what she had done, an’ begged his forgiveness, an’ tauld him that if he wad gang wi’ her, she wad plead again wi’ the De’il for the lass’s release, an’ if need be wad offer hersel’ in her place, an’ Dod wad ha’e Jean back an’ lead her to safety.

  siller: money; green’d: yearned; jaloused: guessed; craitur’: creature.

  ‘They set aff athout a moment’s delay, tho’ the day was near its end, an’ at the entrance to the gorge the leddy bade him stop. She must gang on alane, she said, an’ he must wait for Jean to be returned to him. Dod was laith to let her awa’, for he didna a’ thegither trust her, but whit else could he dae but stand at the fuit o’ the gorge whaur the water rins oot frae’t, while she warsled up the secret path to the gloomy yett o’ hell? An ’oor passed, an’ syne anither, till it was quite dark, an’ Dod had gi’en up hope o’ seein’ either maid or mistress again. But the mune rose clear that nicht, an’ by its licht he suddenly saw, floatin’ in the dark water, a figure a’ in white. He plunged into the river an’ cairried oot his ain Jean, half-droon’d wi’ ha’ein’ come through the waters o’ the Black Jaws. In a while she recovered eneugh to speak, an’ tauld how her mistress had arrived at a time whan the De’il was awa’ to his kingdom to look owre the torture o’ ither lost souls, an’ his muckle hounds were asleep. She had found the keys to unchain Jean frae the iron chair on which she was bound, an’ urged her to rin for her life, but afore she hersel’ could follow, the hounds awoke an’ lowpit upon her, haudin’ her to the ground till their maister should return. Jean had been keepit as a slave an’ a drudge to the De’il, cookin’ for him an’ servin’ him an’ aye chained to the chair whan he was awa’, an’ she little doubted but that her mistress wad ha’e ta’en her place. An’ frae that day on, the leddy o’ Keldo was never seen by earthly craitur’ again.’

  athout: without; laith: loath; a’ thegither: altogether; warsled: struggled; yett: gate; lowpit: leapt; haudin’: holding.

  XXVII

  Catherine Craigie was not impressed that I was thinking of helping William Winnyford with his exhibition. It was my usual Wednesday-evening visit, and I was determined this time to consult her about the Stone, but rashly mentioned my encounter with Winnyford as I was pouring the whiskies at the dresser. She gave a little sigh of disapproval.

  ‘Don’t be taken in by his nonsense,’ she said. ‘He’s a charlatan. He was round at my door the other day, looking for other people to do his work for him. He got short shrift from me, I can tell you.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He wanted to know all about standing stones. Not like you, Gideon, the first time you called on me. You had a genuine interest in the stones. You wanted to hear what I had to say. This Winnyford character already had his opinion of standing stones, and nothing I said was going to budge him from it. He kept coming back to druids, human sacrifices at the solstice, that kind of thing. Eventually I lost my temper and told him where he could stick his bloody druids. What does he want you to do?’

  ‘Read a paragraph from Augustus Menteith’s “Legend of the Black Jaws”.’

  Catherine snorted.

  ‘Well, that simply underlines my point. Menteith always appeals to people like Winnyford. Can’t tell the fact from the fantasy.’

  ‘Who, Winnyford or Menteith?’

  ‘Winnyford. Oh, Menteith knew the difference all right. He just exploited his resources better. Well, slightly better.’

  ‘I thought he was recognised as the authority on Monimaskit. If it wasn’t for him wouldn’t we have lost half our information about the place?�
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  ‘If it wasn’t for Gus Menteith we might not be wallowing in fairies, ghosts and devils underground. I grant you there is some useful stuff in his History of the Parish, but Relicts and Reminiscences, * which is the one everybody reads, is just tosh.’

  ‘I rather liked the story of the Black Jaws.’

  ‘That’s because you’re soft in the head, Gideon, a necessary qualification in your line of work. That story of Menteith’s is perfectly all right for children, I suppose, but deconstruct it and it just doesn’t add up. He pretends he knew this old woman Ephie Lumsden who told him the story when he was a boy. Well, he was born in 1853 so let’s say she told him it before he was twenty, that would make it 1873 at the latest. Now there have been Lumsdens in Monimaskit certainly, but you can search the parish records all you like and you’ll not turn up an Ephie, Euphemia, Phemie or anything else Lumsden between 1850 and 1880. The Lumsdens were fisherfolk and they caught the cholera in the epidemic of 1831 and every last one of them died. The next time you see a Lumsden here is 1887, by which time Menteith was thirty-four. This Lumsden was a man from Aberdeen and he was hired as a gardener at the manse. His first name was Adam and I’ll bet everybody knew him as Edie. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I think Menteith invented the whole Black Jaws legend and then stuck a convenient name on it to give it a bit of provenance. His book is the only place the legend, so-called, is ever mentioned.’†

  I was, as ever, impressed by Catherine’s astonishing knowledge and powers of recall. Local historians are so often like that: they are walking libraries of information, but with their own idiosyncratic cataloguing systems. Still, I felt it incumbent on me to raise an objection.

  ‘But why would he make it up? Are you saying he made up all the stories in his book?’

  ‘A number. You can tell which ones from the style. The genuine items are often incomplete, ragged at the edges, they lack precise details, they are quite unsatisfactory as crafted stories. The fakes are the highly polished ones. Take the Black Jaws tale. He might have started with some scrap gathered from some old wife, but he simply couldn’t resist dressing it up. Look at the language he puts in Ephie’s mouth. All derived from some ghastly genteel concept of what the guid Scots tongue should look like on the printed page. Those apostrophes all over the place, as if someone’s slammed the book shut on a plague of corn lice. But when Ephie gets to the bits when the Devil and the Lady of Keldo speak, she turns to perfect English. The whole thing’s just not credible as a piece of genuine folklore.’

  ‘What happened to Menteith?’ I said. ‘All I know is that he was killed in the French Alps in 1895. I presume he’s buried in France.’

  ‘You presume wrong,’ Catherine said, ‘at least on a narrow definition of the word “buried”. They never found him. He was trying to get up Mont Blanc. He’d been there several times before – used to climb with all those terribly fierce johnnies in plus-fours and fore-and-afts like Albert Mummery and Geoffrey Hastings and Norman Collie, but they got bored with the Alps and went off to the Himalayas that year, so Menteith went to Mont Blanc alone and climbed with a local guide. It was ironic really, because Mummery was killed in the Himalayas and Menteith was killed in the Alps about the same time. Apparently he and his guide took a wrong turn and fell several hundred feet down a crevasse in a glacier. Presumably they’re still in it, making a very gradual descent.’

  ‘Catherine, that’s terrible.’

  ‘No it isn’t, it’s the truth. Gussie Menteith had no business clambering about the Alps. He should have been tending his flock. And the guide knew the risks of his occupation. Actually I don’t think Menteith was much missed back here. What with his summer mountaineering and his winter scribbling he can’t have got much flock-tending done. I believe there’d been a few polite expressions of dissatisfaction from some of the congregation, but not much more than that. When Menteith didn’t come back from his Alpine adventures, they replaced him with a mild-mannered chap who had giddy turns just going up the pulpit steps, so that was all right.’

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘you have no sympathy for how Menteith met his end, and not much regard for his expertise as a folklorist.’

  ‘That summarises my views very well, Gideon. Which is why I see red when someone like Winnyford seizes on the sort of thing Menteith produced, as if it’s the key to understanding how a community functions. Dabbling, that’s all it is. I don’t know why you want to get mixed up in it. Have you seen what he’s done so far?’

  ‘No, I didn’t think it was open to the public yet.’

  ‘It isn’t – at least the whole exhibition isn’t, and won’t be for months – but he’s building bits of it in a unit on the industrial estate and he’s put two or three items into the museum already, to monitor audience reaction, so I’m told. I thought I’d go and react. It cost me most of a morning and a great deal of inconvenience to get there, but I was determined to see what he was up to. A lot of nonsense, as I suspected. I had to put him right on a few things. Eventually, whenever this blasted exhibition opens…’

  ‘September, I think,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, and that’s another thing, why he needs so long to prepare is quite beyond me. Anyway, eventually he’s going to take over the museum or a large part of it and turn it into a parody of a museum.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s the point,’ I suggested. ‘Perhaps it’s irony.’

  ‘Mr Winnyford wouldn’t recognise irony if it slapped him in the face with a fish. He’s going to set up a whole lot of installations. The ones on display already are sound installations, which is what he’s roped you in for. Do you know what a sound installation is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you. It’s a loudspeaker hidden behind a pot plant. A tape-recorder in a fish-kettle. Mr Winnyford has gone around recording different people talking about Monimaskit and taken the bits he considers meaningful and made loops out of them, and the resulting gobbledegook booms out at you from a speaker, so that you can’t look at a painting without the idiot mumblings of a schoolchild or a man from the pub interrupting your thoughts telling you why they like the painting.’

  ‘What man from the pub?’

  ‘I have no idea. It sounds like he’s in a pub, you can hardly make out what he’s saying. The ones he’s done are all like that – inarticulate, ignorant, inane – even when you can hear them. I can’t imagine how he selected the people he recorded. Perhaps he stood outside Woolworths one Saturday morning with a sign round his neck saying, “Please help. I am not a junkie, I am not an alcoholic, I am a struggling artist.” Honestly, Gideon. Fetch me another whisky and take my mind off it. What have you been up to since the New Year?’

  I refilled the glasses. ‘I’m not sure that you’ll want to know,’ I said. And I told her about the Stone.

  Ten minutes later I was kneeling by Catherine’s chair holding one side of an Ordnance Survey map of the area, while she gripped the other side between knotty fingers and thumb. I traced the tracks through Keldo Woods with my free hand. ‘There,’ I said. ‘Definitely just about there, I would say.’

  Catherine leaned over, peering through reading glasses, and I got a fousty whiff off her, not unpleasant, like an old empty wardrobe.

  ‘Well, you can see as well as I can, there’s nothing there.’

  ‘There’s nothing marked on the map,’ I said. ‘I agree. But there is a stone there.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘I know it’s impossible. But it is there.’

  She released the map and sat back in her chair with a groan.

  ‘Gideon, this map is only five years old. How many years ago do you think all the standing stones in Scotland were identified and marked on maps? The Victorians did it all. You know perfectly well there is no stone at that location.’

  ‘There is,’ I said.

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

  ‘Of course not. Are you calling me one?’

  ‘You’re mistaken. You must be.’

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nbsp; ‘I’m just telling you what I know. It’s there. I’ve seen it. I’ve touched it.’

  ‘You’re imagining things. Standing stones don’t just appear out of thin air.’

  ‘This one seems to have.’

  ‘Well, there has to be a logical explanation for it. Either you were hallucinating, or you dreamt it, or someone is playing a trick on you. Who might want to play a trick on you?’

  ‘A pretty elaborate trick. It’s not cardboard, Catherine, it’s solid rock. And it’s not a dream, it’s real.’

  ‘Next time, take a camera,’ she said. ‘Bring me proof.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ I said.

  ‘Good.’

  We had become abrupt with each other. Well, she was always abrupt, and I had become so. I got off my knees and folded the map, thinking as I did so how total is our trust in maps. We believe what they tell us about solid ground, about earth, rock, water, forests, buildings. We trust in maps because when we test them out, on a walk or a drive, we find, generally speaking, that they are telling the truth. Even if some detail is wrong it doesn’t shake our general confidence in maps. And yet they are only pictures. They are not the real terrain, only representations of it. But our inclination is nearly always to believe the map.

  I looked at Catherine and she was eyeing me over the tops of her glasses. Suddenly she laughed. ‘I’m always suspicious of you, Gideon,’ she said. ‘After all this time I should take you at face value, but I can’t. It’s the dog-collar, whether you’re wearing it or not. Actually it’s worse when you’re not wearing it. I feel you’re in disguise, trying to catch me off guard and mystify me. Especially when you come out with something like this.’

  I said, ‘The day I manage to mystify you Peter Macmurray will convert to Catholicism. You’ve reacted exactly as I knew you would. I don’t blame you. It doesn’t make any sense.’