A History Maker (7 page)

L
IKE ALL WHO LOVED VISITORS Annie had a room with a door onto the veranda of her home, so Wat left Craig Douglas that morning almost unnoticed at first. Near the stables he heard musical jangling and shrill shouts of, “Fall down you're dead!” — ” No I clonked you first!”

In a sandpit by the path a jumble of colourful shelled creatures were hitting each other with tiny swords: infants in helmets and armour which pinged, twanged or clonked under different strengths of blow. They stood still as he drew level then the smallest ran to him and stuttered breathlessly, “When I grow up I'll be a Amazon and kill men like you do cousin Wattie!”

She was a very wee girl. Wat paused and said
politely, “Name and age?”

“Betty. Four.”

“Soldiers don't fight to kill each other, Betty. We fight to win the respect due to courage.”

“Aye but killing men is still fun intit cousin Wattie?”

He shook his head hopelessly and entered the stable.

Three twelve-year-old lads knelt on the floor playing jorries. They sprang up, led the dapple grey from her stall, saddled and bridled her.

“Are you for the Warrior house Wat?” said one,

“Can we come with ye?”

“I'm for a quiet ride on my lonesome lone, men,” Wat told them sombrely, “I'm sorry your brothers got killed.”

“But they helped us draw with Northumbria,” said one gently as if offering consolation.

“Don't fool yourselves, men. Geneva will declare our draw a foul. I know because I was chief fouler. Open that door.”

On the common he found his hands had healed enough to let him mount Sophia with dignity and after waving goodbye rode down to Yarrow. He suspected many eyes now watched him from the big house with the wood behind so did not look back. Wanting solitude he headed downstream toward Mountbenger along a
mossy track between tangled hedges which followed the line of an old motorway.

The air felt close and heavy this morning though little gusts of wind sometimes refreshed it. A dull sky looked full of rain which never fell. Yellow gorse on the hillside was the only vivid colour. A mile above Mountbenger he soaked his legs fording the river and rode up the glen behind White Law, avoiding the houses of Altrieve and Hartleap by keeping to the hillside, and ascending Altrieve burn to the saddle between Peat Law and the Wiss. Though still brooding on the affection and respect he might lose by his quarrel with Annie he was soothed for a while by lonely distances which grew more visible the higher he came. Houses, cultivation, everything human was hidden in dips between a wilderness of grey heights. Vapour from powerplants was buried in ragged cloud which dimmed the highest summits. Nothing he now saw had changed since these hills divided Scotland from England in the historical epoch, the killing time when huge governments had split the world into nations warring for each other's property. He recalled with pride that for centuries the border clans had held aloof from England and Scotland, siding with whichever nation was too weak to
tax them. But theft and murder had flourished in these rough hills too. The old ballads were full of it. The only wealth here had been small black cattle and when illness or famine thinned the herds the wife of a homestead set a plate with a pair of spurs on it before her man when he sat down to eat, a hint that he must now raid the English farms or starve. Yes, it was luxury to fear the ill opinion of the Ettrick aunts more than an empty belly, to worry about an unfair blow struck in a war between willing fighters, to suffer because he had frightened a healthy young girl in a moment of rage. He smiled and heard wind stir the grasses, near and distant cries of the whaups, and once what sounded like voices behind a clump of whins. Crossing a shoulder of hillside with a view into the gardens of Hartleap he saw what seemed half the family down there looking up at him. Later he glimpsed tiny figures withdraw behind the cairn on the summit of Bowerhope Law.

Signs of being watched and followed increased until he emerged from the woods above Thirlstane burn where the watchers and followers stopped trying to keep out of sight. He went down the gully with children of every age between eight and fifteen scrambling and
leaping and dodging along the slopes on each side. The smallest rode ponies, two or three to a back. A surprising number were girls and the whole crowd was too big to be local — several must have come over from Eskdale or farther. Obviously something he did not know had made him interesting yet untouchable; only a huge, communal, fascinated shyness explained the movements of this company which covered the slopes beside him yet stayed out of talking range. His killing of the Northumbrian who held the standard had likely been condemned as a war crime so that Ettrick was now a shamed and beaten clan. Did these children hate or sympathize with him? They probably did not know themselves; they were waiting to learn how he would be received at the Warrior house. Wat feared nobody in the Warrior house, he dreaded nothing but the ill opinion of the women. Determined to learn the worst he sat upright and rode forward with a bold front unlike his usual brooding slouch.

A line of water as pale as the sky appeared above trees below; it was the head of Saint Mary's Loch and the Warrior house flag wagged against it. With various shouts the children raced downhill away from him and in less than five minutes he was alone again. If Sophia had not
been a tired old pony he would have raced ahead of them; instead he paused, tempted by a track which ran sideways to Bowerhope where he was sure of a private welcome from a couple of sisters. Then a gleaming globe spun up from behind a blaeberry clump and hung before his face saying, “What is your reaction to the news from Geneva, Major Dryhope?”

He shut his eyes, clapped the pony's flanks with his heels and was carried straight downhill. He heard another voice, soft and female, say, “By all means treat the public eye with contempt Major Dryhope, but you must have something to say against Geneva's condemnation of your father and clan.”

With an effort he kept his face immobile and eyes shut for at least three minutes. When he opened them the globe had vanished.

The Warrior house was built over the short river flowing into Saint Mary's Loch from Loch of the Lowes. Four steep glass-fronted gables, a central pyramidal skylight, a hexagonal tower faceted with mirrors made it look like a futuristic village in a 1930s Hollywood movie or a postmodern art gallery designed sixty years later. This archaic appearance was enhanced by an absence of powerplant. Wat saw that the plain before the eastern gable was covered by a
standing horde of children too young to be cadets, and adolescents of both sexes, and older men on horseback from houses normally indifferent to warrior business. A greybeard and three younger men from the musical house of Henderland were conspicuous by the instruments they held. The horsemen and pony riders stood right and left of the path to the entrance. As Sophia ambled down it Wat had a dream-like sense of having done this before, then remembered his walk from the stable through the children of Craig Douglas. Passing a group of boys with Annie in it he noticed many of the Craig Douglas children were here too. She was staring open-mouthed with hand half raised as if wanting yet fearing to catch his attention. He nodded absent-mindedly to her for he was trying to understand the mood of this dense crowd gazing at him with no obvious sign of anger or pleasure. Then a shrill voice from behind (and it sounded like Annie's) cried,

“Hooray for Wattie Dryhope!” and the whole crowd began roaring, howling, yelling that too. Through the roar he heard powerful drones followed by vivid squeals. The Henderlands were piping. Their tune swelled up and overwhelmed the welter of cheering and it was the tune of a song everyone had known since childhood. In less than a minute the
crowd was singing —

— so they liked him. Tears of relief streamed down his face though he kept it rigid. He also noticed, without pleasure, public eyes spinning over the heads of the crowd. Recovering most of the assurance he had lost since rolling off the cliff he began to notice something unpleasant in this unanimous bellowing of what had once seemed a nostalgic old marching song —

He reacted by scowling while Sophia, also disliking the noise, broke into a clumsy little gallop which brought him to the porch. Here Boys' Brigade captains, one of them Wat's twelve-year-old brother Sandy, swarmed round him grinning like lunatics and jabbering
something in which
standard
was the only distinct word. He yelled, “Give Sophia a feed ye gowks — let Sandy get me a whisky,” and leapt down and rushed inside.

Within the door he was stopped by a group of veterans: men over forty whose thick beards and moustaches did not hide their scars. Each shook his hand in turn, looking him straight in the eye and giving a firm little nod which struck him as more farcical than the communal roaring outside. Behind the veterans every cadet in Ettrick between eleven and fourteen years seemed crowded into the eastern lobby, grinning or open-mouthed or trying to look as grim as he felt himself. On the stair to the officers' mess the house servants stood like servants in the mansion of a Victorian duke assembled to welcome the young laird home. They were ranked behind the major domo, a stately giant with whiskers bushier than the fiercest veteran's. He said, “Master Wattie, I hope at last I may persuade you to a dram?”

“Thanks Jenny. I have asked Sandy for one.”

“Master Sandy will receive it from my hands.” The major domo led Wat upstairs processionally with Sandy beside him and the veterans in the rear. Martial discipline ensured a decent silence among them but did not lessen the deafening
bellow outside which still made sense to those who knew the words —

The officers' mess was under the gable above the eastern lobby. Wat was appalled by its emptiness. A week ago over two hundred cheerful men most of them in their late teens and twenties, had been drinking, laughing and chatting there; the dozen veterans now converging on the bar emphasized the difference. So did three cripples in orthopaedic chairs playing a game of whist: Colonel Tam Wardlaw, Rab Gillkeeket and Davie Deuchar. Wat had not seen them since the charge downhill with the standard. He went over and stood looking down on the game but they gave no sign of recognition though the Colonel said to the others, “Here comes trouble. I pass.”

“Solo,” said Rab.

“Misère,” said Davie.

Wat covered his embarrassment by saying,

“Northumbria has made a bonny mess of you three.”

“We might have been as fit as you if we'd rolled off a cliff,” muttered Rab.