He nodded, smiling back as he cracked the whip over the pony’s back to absolutely no effect for it maintained the same plodding step. ‘I mind fine. We met at the Fair twenty-five years ago to the day. You didnae think I’d forgotten, did you?’
‘Oh, aye the Fair’s the place for lovers,’ said his wife happily.
‘Tell us the story, tell us the story!’ chanted Leeb who’d heard the account of this meeting many times before but never tired of it. It was difficult for her to sit still but she knew she’d be scolded by her mother if she fidgeted for she was all decked up in starched white cotton with four frilled underskirts that made her dress stick out so far that her brother on the other half of the seat hardly dared move for fear of crushing her. A broad blue sash was tied round her waist and her fair hair beneath a little chip straw bonnet was tied up with more rosettes of the same ribbon.
Catherine never needed much encouragement to launch into her story. ‘I was at the Fair wi’ other lassies from the Makerstoun big house where I was working when I saw this braw-lookin’ lad all on his ain. My word, but you looked grand, Tom. You took my eye at once. I said to my friend that I was going to speak to you and she dared me. So when I got the chance I tripped up right at your feet – didn’t I? I fell flat. You bent doon and picked me up off the ground. I mind it was a rainy Fair that year and the path was covered wi’ mud. I got my dress all clairty but it didn’t matter. I got you, didn’t I?’
He laughed fondly. ‘You got me right enough. We were married by the time the Fair came around again. I was pleased you fell doon because I’d been following you about all day but I was too scared to speak to you.’
She punched his arm lightly and they smiled with love at each other. In spite of his impressive appearance, Tom Scott was a shy man and it took a great deal to break down his reserve. Every year, however, when they went to the Fair, he temporarily lost his inhibitions and became thoroughly frivolous. The children laughed about their father’s fairings because though it was Tom who drove them there, Catherine was invariably at the reins for the return journey with Tom asleep at her side. The Fair was the one day of the year when he let himself go and she made no attempt to stop him. He was allowed to go off with his shepherd friends and spend the day in the ale tent. Not till evening did he rejoin his family and by then he was always happily drunk.
When their cart jolted over the brow of the last hill, the town could be seen clustering cosily around the truncated tower of its abbey on the far bank of the Tweed and Catherine took the opportunity to deliver her annual injunction to her husband. ‘Now Tom,’ she scolded, ‘I don’t want you going off and getting fu’ like you did last year.’
‘I’ll not,’ he promised but both of them knew that her warning was only a formality and his promise was the same. He always had a few drinks more than he should at the Fair and she would have worried if he came back sober, because that would mean he had not enjoyed himself.
They skirted the edge of the Rennie Bridge and joined the end of a long line of carts, traps, carriages and gigs that trailed slowly along the road by the river. Crowds of people were lined up by the verges waiting for friends and relatives for this was a well-known meeting place.
At the approach to the Teviot toll-bridge, a group of girls were giggling together beneath the big trees. Even from a distance Catherine’s sharp eyes could pick out her daughter and she cried, ‘Oh there she is! There’s my bonny Mary! My word, hasn’t she grown? What a pretty dress, it must have cost a bit! Oh dear, she’s a woman now, she’ll soon be getting married.’ Her voice quavered because it hurt her to think that Mary was growing up and changing while away from her mother. Catherine hated to miss any of the precious days of her children’s lives.
Mary had been waiting beneath the trees for about half an hour. As she watched eagerly for the fat pony and the Scotts’ old brown-coloured cart, she saw from the tail of her eye that Jockie Armstrong was hanging about on the other side of the road. She did not acknowledge him and kept on talking animatedly with her friends but she was very conscious of his unwavering stare. It made her feel angry and self-conscious, like a rabbit being hypnotised by a stoat. At last she glanced along the road and saw her family’s cart coming into view in the slowly moving line. All thoughts of anything else were forgotten and she ran forward, smiling with delight and holding up the skirt of her new sprigged cotton dress in both hands. ‘Oh Ma, oh Pa, oh Adam, oh, Leeb!’ she called as she ran and her brother leaped down from his seat to help her in beside her little sister who was so pleased to see her that she forgot her fear of crushing her dress and squeezed up close. ‘What’s the funny smell, Mary?’ she asked.
Catherine’s heart was full but all she said was, ‘You’re looking well, lass.’ Voluble protestations of affection or love would have embarrassed them all, for that was not their style but the day was perfect now that they were all together. Turning in her seat the mother surveyed her daughter with a sharp eye and saw that she still had a maidenly look. So nothing untoward had happened yet. Mary was the perfect lady in her new gown though a give-away triangle of tanned skin on her face showed this was no genteel housemaid but a girl who worked in the fields with a cotton square tied around her head and knotted on her chin. The triangle marked the part of her face that was exposed in all weathers.
Mary was enthusing, ‘I’m grand. I like Morebattle Mains. It’s a good place.’ She leaned forward to kiss her mother’s cheek beneath the feathered hat.
‘You’re not ready to take a maid’s place yet?’ asked the mother cautiously. She herself had worked in a big house and had the snobbishness of an indoor servant about girls who worked on the land.
‘Oh no, Mother, I like field work,’ said Mary firmly. Catherine sighed and accepted that Mary was happier working outdoors than slaving in somebody’s kitchen. Anyway the girl was in the care of Sandy and Lily – good, kind people who could be relied on. She’d have a word with them at the Fair and glean all she could about Mary’s private affairs. Most of all she wanted to know if her lassie had a beau.
Chattering happily to each other they waited to pay their toll and cross over the bridge into the field where the Fair was to be held. They were in good time for it was still only twenty-five minutes to twelve. Not till noon would the festivities officially commence.
The crowd at the toll-gate was happy but impatient. The slowness of the snaking line made them grumble as they waited to hand their coppers to the fat toll-keeper and his wife who stood with aprons held out before them to catch the money thrown in their direction.
‘Sixpence a cart load,’ the toll-wife was calling out as the Scotts reached her. Tom felt in his jacket pocket and handed some coins to Catherine, who carefully counted out the sum in half-pennies and farthings.
‘It’s a scandal asking folk to pay good money to cross the river,’ she scolded as she bent forward to throw her money but the toll-keepers paid no heed. They were used to hearing this complaint.
Thwarted of a reaction Catherine turned to her children and loudly announced, ‘It’s these toffs and their turnpike trusts that’re doing this. When your father and I came to the Fair as young folk, we crossed at the fords for nothing. Now they’ve closed them to force folk on to the bridges.’ She raised her voice so that the other carts around about could hear and several people shouted their agreement back to her. An old man called, ‘Nothing’s free now. They’ll soon be making us pay for the air we breathe.’
Catherine turned to her husband. ‘Do you hear what that old man said, Tom? We’ll soon have to pay for breathing.’
‘Take care, wife,’ was his reply. ‘You shouldn’t be talking sedition in a crowd like this. You don’t know who’s listening.’
His admonition sobered Catherine who folded her hands in her lap, assuming the expression of a well-behaved woman who knew her place in life but her thoughts were still rebellious.
In Lauriston the Cross Keys Hotel that overlooked the square was crowded. Every chamber was full
and the proprietor and his wife rushed around chivvying their servants and placating customers who all wanted food at the same time. Before breakfast was over patrons were already cramming into the first-floor windows to watch for the arrival of the cavalcade from Jedburgh.
William Playfair went for a walk after eating his breakfast and, on his return, was wandering along the Horse Market when he heard a sudden roar of voices and the sound of galloping horses. He had walked right into the middle of a mêlée. A rabble of boys and young men burst out of Roxburgh Street with their arms full of missiles – rotted fruit and vegetables, eggs, stones, clods of earth and horse droppings which they had been saving up for days for this moment. At the same time, Jake Turnbull, with his Jedburgh provost’s chain glinting again on his chest, appeared at the opening into Bridge Street on the opposite side of the square and the mob set upon him, pelting him and his followers with ordure.
The attack was not unexpected. With a whoop like a battle cry and the defiant yell of Jeddarts here!’ Jake’s followers, who had been eagerly anticipating this opportunity, spurred their horses and dived into the middle of the mob, lashing out with riding whips and canes as they went. Bodies were sent flying; the air was loud with curses and imprecations and the watchers in the windows held their sides in glee. A good skirmish between Lauriston’s hooligans and Jedburgh’s dignitaries was an essential part of the Fair Day festivities.
Playfair took one horrified look at the grappling, swearing hooligans and the furious Jedburgh men on the prancing horses and beat a retreat, going round the back of the hostelry to enter by a rear door. On the stairs he encountered Professor Thompson who cried out in glee, ‘A grand fight’s going on down there. Did you see it? Happens every year. It’s Jedburgh’s substitute for a war against the English. They’re a wild lot over there still – descendants of the reivers, you see.’
Playfair nodded. ‘Is that it? I thought it was best to keep away. I don’t want to get my head broken.’
‘Sensible fellow,’ cried Thompson. ‘Are you going to the Fair?’
The young architect nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I stayed on in town so that I could go over and buy myself a new horse because people tell me it’s the best place to find one.’
The Professor tended to pomposity for he was an important man and knew it. ‘You’ll only find a good horse if you’re careful. Know much about horseflesh, do you?’
Playfair laughed. ‘Not a lot, I’m afraid. I buy a horse if I like the look of it.’
‘Thought as much! You’d better come along with me. You’ll get stung badly by the rogues of gypsies at the Fair if you’ve not someone to watch out for you. I’ve a good eye for a horse and they won’t dare take advantage of me. When I pick a horse I look for the same qualities that make a well-bred man… style and depth of chest, good bone and a proud carriage, an open eye and an alert expression. You can always tell good breeding.’
Playfair said nothing but reflected that Thompson’s description could not be applied to his patron the Duke though they did summon up the girl with the glowing copper skin who had danced in his dreams since the dinner party at Havanah Court.
By this time Thompson was ushering him back downstairs again and saying, ‘That’s settled then, you’ll join us. Well be leaving in an hour. A couple of my students have come down from Edinburgh and I’m showing them around the Fair.’
* * *
Sideshows and freak shows; two circuses and wild animal displays; Indian slack rope walkers and musical bands made up of superannuated soldiers wearing faded uniforms; troops of pedlars, gypsies and sharp-eyed dealers in every commodity that country people need; the people who came up from England to buy the cottagers’ bundles of dried flax, honeycombs and home-woven linen; hundreds of horses and beer tents; medicine sellers and two tents where importunate couples could contract an irregular marriage for such liaisons were legal in Scotland, were all already on the field when the contingent from Jedburgh finally arrived, red-faced with outrage and splashed with mud or worse.
Jem’s freak show had been in a good place since midmorning for the waggons had filed out of their camping place before six o’clock. After their arrival at Roxburgh field, everyone in the show except Alice and Billy had been busy driving pegs into the ground, heaving up planks of wood to make a platform and draping sheets of coloured canvas around the walls of a makeshift stage. Even the dwarves hurried about, for each had an allotted task and in time their concentrated efforts achieved a magical, garish, flag be-draped world for the enticement of the credulous.
Jem gazed up at the bright blue sky and thanked the gods for providing a good day. In fact the temperature was still rising steadily and it was almost too hot for comfort. He noted as he wiped his sweating brow with his hand that far away on the western horizon a cluster of deep purple clouds were gathering like a threatening army. There was thunder on the way but with luck it would hold off until tomorrow when he would be on his way south again. He was anxious to hurry Alice out of Lauriston for the discovery that she was wanted by law officers in the town worried him. He was not concerned about what she’d done to earn the law’s disapproval, that didn’t matter a straw to him. He’d protect her no matter what it was.
Usually she took a share in erecting their stalls but this time he’d told her to stay hidden for he was afraid of what would happen if she showed her face in the open. The harried look in her eyes perturbed him and so he gave her the commission of watching Billy who could not be trusted out of captivity because of the strange agitation that still gripped him.
At a quarter to twelve everything was ready for business and Jem went back to his caravan for a wash and a drink of ale. With a big shady hat on her head, Alice was sitting in the shadow of the overhanging roof and she had allowed Billy out of captivity to sit with her. The lad looked peaceful and Jem guessed that she had been dosing him with one of her potions because a half-empty pewter pint pot sat between them. He sank down beside Alice and said, ‘We’re all ready. They’ll be calling the Fair in a little while. Do you want to go up on to the hill with me and hear them call the burley?’
She shook her head but Billy nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said excitedly.
Jem grinned. ‘All right, Billy. I’ll take you up. You stay here, Alice, and watch our things because there’s a lot of thieving hands about. I’ll be back soon.’
She sat with her chin in her hands watching the big man lead off the shambling lad who held on to his hand as if Jem was his father. When he was being good, Billy behaved as if he was a little boy instead of a man who stood nearly six feet tall and weighed more than his protector. For herself she was deeply agitated by the familiar scenes around her. If she turned her head she could see the chimney pots of the town that she had once known so well and her heart hammered in her chest with the pain of her memories. Nerves fluttered in her stomach and made her feel breathless while the calves of her legs were quivering with weakness. The effort it would take to stand up and walk about seemed almost beyond her. And she was afraid, for when anyone passed by, she lowered her face so that her hatbrim cast a wide shadow over her features but her eyes were sharp and watchful.
She sat very still, quivering but alert, until the sound of singing came wafting down from the small hill where Jem and Billy had gone. Then she turned and gazed across the field towards the source of the sound and saw hundreds of people massed around a circle of tall trees that crowned the hill’s summit. She stood up and shaded her eyes with one hand as she listened intently. Eventually she heard the clang of a ringing handbell that seemed to be trying to drown out the toll of the town clock that wafted in competition across the river. Together they were striking midday. ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, TWELVE!’ they rang and when the last stroke boomed out, the handbell began clanging again and a stentorian voice started shouting. It was Jake Turnbull announcing the opening of the ancient Fair. The crowd hushed and all eyes were fixed on him as he called, ‘Oh yea,
Oh yea, Oh yea… As representative of the royal burgh of Jedburgh, of the King and of His Grace the Duke of Maudesley, I declare that this fair dedicated to St James is OPEN.’ Then the crowd cheered and threw their bonnets in the air, happy because, after six centuries of continuity, an ancient tradition was being faithfully carried on.
When the midday bell rang, the Scotts were still fretting in a queue snaking towards the field gate. They heard the Jedburgh Provost calling the Fair and leaned forward in their seats with eagerness and frustration showing on all their faces for on the other side of the hedge, the fun was starting and they were missing it.
‘We should have started earlier,’ said Catherine to her husband who soothingly shook his head and told her, ‘Calm down, calm down, wife. We’ll get there in time.’ The sound of the ringing bell was followed by a wild burst of cheering that made all the horses near them bucket around and even the Scotts’ phlegmatic pony gave a little jump when the din broke out, scuttling sideways as if threatening to bolt, something that it had never done in its life. It was greatly flattered when Adam descended from his seat in the cart and led it by the bridle through the gateway that opened into the Fair field. Rolling its eyes, it mouthed and jiggled on its bit pretending that it was an Arabian racehorse.
A gang of boys were waiting at the Maxton end of the green spit of land between the rivers and as each equipage came through the gate, a boy ran forward offering to take charge of it and mind it for the day if the owner paid him a penny. When a deal was done with the tousle-headed laddie who took the Scott pony, he swiftly unbuckled its harness, upended the shafts of the cart and tied the rope of the pony’s halter to a stake ready driven in the ground. By this time the pony had quietened down and reverted to its normal lethargic self so when the bale of hay, which had been brought from Fairhope for it, was shoved under its nose, it started to tear into its food happily and was quite prepared to pass a slothful afternoon under the trees. The only effort required of it was to flick its tail now and again in an effort to drive away the clustering flies that the hot spell had made so troublesome. When she dismounted from the cart Catherine cautioned the boy to take good care of their equipage and the precious hamper of food inside it. Then the Scott family were ready for the delights of the Fair.
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