A Scots Quair (24 page)

Chris's heart near stopped, but Chae snatched up the sack, hooked it back on its hook again, nobody saw the sight except himself and Chris and maybe Long Rob. But you couldn't be sure about Rob, he looked as solemn as five owls all in one, and was playing as though, said Chae, he was paid by piece-work and not by time.

Between eight and nine Mistress Melon came out to the barn and cried them to supper, the storm had left off, all but a flake that sailed down now and then like a sailing gull in the beam from the barn door. On the ground the snow crinkled under their feet, frost had set in, the folk stood and breathed in the open air, and laughed, and cried one to the other,
Man,
I'll have aching joints the morn!
The women ran first to the house, to tidy their hair, Ewan saw everybody in, except Munro of the Cuddiestoun, he was nowhere to be seen.

And then Ewan heard a funny bit breathing as he passed by
the stable; and he stopped and opened the door and struck a match, and there was Munro, all in his Sunday-best, lying in the stall beside Clyde the horse, and his arms were round the beast's neck, and faith! the beast looked real disgusted. Ewan shook him and cried
Munro, you can't sleep here,
but Munro just blinked the eyes in his face, daft-like, and grumbled
Why not?
Syne Alec Mutch turned back from the house to see what all the stir was about, and both he and Ewan had another go at the prostrate Munro, but damn the move would he make, Alec cried
To hell with him, leave him there with the
mare, she's maybe a damned sight kinder a bed-mate than ever
was that futret of a wife of his.

So they closed the door of the stable and went into their supper, everybody ate near as well as at tea-time, fair starved they were with the dancing and drink. Chris had thought she herself was tired till she ate some supper, and then she felt fresh as ever, and backed up Long Rob, who looked twice as sober as any of the men and had drunk about twice as much as any three of them, when he cried
Who's for a dance
again?
Mistress Melon had the toddy-jar filled fresh full and they carried that out, everybody came to the barn this time except Mistress Munro,
No, no, I'll clear the table.

And young Elsie Ellison, wondering for why the creature should stay behind, stayed herself and took a bit keek round the corner of the door: and there was Mistress Munro, with a paper bag in her hand, stuffing it with scones and biscuits and cake, and twisting her head this side and that, like the head of a futret. So Elsie, fair scared, ran off to the barn and caught at her father's tails and cried
The Cuddiestoun wife's
away home with the pieces,
and Ellison, he was whiskied up to high tune by then, cried
Let her run to hell and be
damned to her.

Syne he started a tale about how once she'd insulted him, the dirty Scotch bitch. But Long Rob and Chae were striking up a dance again and Chris heard no more of the Ellison story, dancing a waltz with young Jock Gordon, it was like flying, Jock's face was white with excitement. The fourth dance Alec Mutch, the fool, began to stiter the floor,
backwards and forwards, he was a real nuisance till he passed Long Rob and then Rob cried
Hoots, Alec, man, you're
feet are all wrong!
and thrust out a foot among Alec's and couped him down and Chae shoved him aside to the straw with a foot and a hand, and played on with the other foot and hand, or maybe with a foot and his teeth, a skilly man, Chae.

Mistress Mutch said nothing, just standing and laughing and smoking at her cigarette. There were more men than women in the barn, though, even when the men made do with a little quean, and soon Chris found herself dancing with Mistress Mutch, the great, easy-going slummock, she spoke slow and easy as though she'd just wakened up from her sleep. Chris couldn't tell what way she looked with that gleying eye, but what she spoke was
Take things easy in mar
ried life, Chris, but not over-easy, that's been
my
ruin. Though
God knows it'll make not a difference in a hundred years time
and we're dead. Don't let Ewan saddle you with a birn of bairns,
Chris, it kills you and eats your heart away, forbye the unease and
the dirt of it. Don't let him, Chris, they're all the same, men; and
you won't well steer clear of the first or second. But you belong to
yourself, mind that.

Chris went hot and cold and then wanted to ask something of Mistress Mutch and looked at her and found she couldn't, she'd just have to find the thing out for herself. Long Rob came down to dance with her next, he'd left the fiddle to old Gordon, and he asked what that meikle slummock had been saying to her? And Chris said
Oh, just stite,
and Rob said
Mind, don't let any of those damned women fear you, Chris;
it's been the curse of the human race, listening to advice
. And Chris said
But I'm listening to yours, Rob, now, amn't I?
He nodded to her, solemn, and said,
Oh, you've your head screwed
on and you'll manage fine. But mind, if there's ever a thing you
want with a friend, not to speak it abroad all over Kinraddie,
I'll aye be there at the Mill to help you.
Chris thought that a daft-like speak for Rob, kind maybe he meant it, but she'd have Ewan, who else could she want?

And then the fun slackened off, the barn was warm,
folk sat or lay on the benches or straw, Chris looked round and saw nothing of the minister then, maybe he'd gone. She whispered to Chae about that, but he said
Damn the fears,
he's out to be sick, can't you hear him like a cat with a fish-bone
in its throat?
And hear him they could, but Chris had been right after all, he didn't come back. Maybe he was shamed and maybe he just lost his way, for next noon there were folk who swore they'd seen the marks of great feet that walked round and round in a circle, circle after circle, all across the parks from Blawearie to the Manse; and if these weren't the minister's feet they must have been the devil's, you could choose whichever you liked.

No sooner was the dancing done than there were cries
Rob, what about a song now, man?
And Rob said
Och, ay,
I'll manage that fine,
and he off with his coat and loosened his collar and sang them
Ladies of Spain;
and then he turned round to where Chris stood beside her Ewan and sang
The
Lass that Made the Bed to Me:

Folk stared and nodded at Chris while Rob was singing, and Ewan looked at first as though he'd like to brain him; and then he blushed; but Chris just listened and didn't care, she thought the song fine and the lass lovely, she hoped she herself would seem as lovely this night—or as much of it as their dancing would leave. So she clapped Rob and syne it
was Ellison's turn, he stood up with his meikle belly a-wag and sang them a song they didn't know.

and then another, an English one and awful sad, about a young childe called Villikins and a quean called Dinah, and it finished:

Chae cried that was hardly the kind of thing that they wanted, woeful as that; and they'd better give Chris a rest about her roses and lips and limbs, she had them all in safe-keeping and would know how to use them; and what about a seasonable song? And he sang so that all joined in, seasonable enough, for the snow had come on again in spite of the frost:

Then Mistress Mutch sang, that was hardly expected, and folk tittered a bit; but she had as good a voice as most and better than some, she sang
The Bonnie House o' Airlie,
and then the
Auld Robin Gray
that aye brought Chris near to weeping, and did now, and not her alone, with Rob's fiddle whispering it out, the sadness and the soreness of it, though it was long, long syne:

and all the tale of young Jamie who went to sea and was thought to be drowned in an awful storm; and his lass married Auld Robin Gray; and syne Jamie came back but couldn't win his lass away from the old man, though near heart-broken she was:

Old Pooty was sleeping in a corner; he woke up then, fell keen to recite his timrous beastie; but they pulled him down and cried on the bride herself for a song. And all she could think of was that south country woman crying in the night by the side of her good man, the world asleep and grey without; and she whispered the song to Rob and he tuned his fiddle and she sang, facing them, young and earnest, and she saw Ewan looking at her, solemn and proud,
The Flowers
of the Forest:

Chae jumped up when she finished, he said
Damn't, folk,
we'll all have the whimsies if we listen to any more woesome
songs! Have none of you a cheerful one?
And the folk in the barn laughed at him and shook their heads, it came on Chris how strange was the sadness of Scotland's singing, made for the sadness of the land and sky in dark autumn evenings, the crying of men and women of the land who had seen their
lives and loves sink away in the years, things wept for beside the sheep-buchts, remembered at night and in twilight. The gladness and kindness had passed, lived and forgotten, it was Scotland of the mist and rain and the crying sea that made the songs—And Chae cried
Let's have another dance,
then, it's nearly a quarter to twelve, we must all be off soon as
midnight chaps.

And they all minded what midnight would bring, and Chae and Rob had the melodeon and fiddle in hand again, and struck up an eightsome, and everybody grabbed him a partner, it didn't matter who was who, McIvor had Chris and danced with her as though he would like to squeeze her to death, he danced light as thistle-down, the great red Highlander; and no sooner was one dance finished than Rob and Chae swept forward into another, they played like mad and the lights whipped and jumped as the couples spun round and round; and the music went out across the snowing night; and then Chae pulled out his great silver watch, and laid it beside him, playing on.

And suddenly it was the New Year, the dancing stopped and folk all shook hands, coming to shake Chris's and Ewan's; and Long Rob struck up the sugary surge of
Auld Lang
Syne
and they all joined hands and stood in a circle to sing it, and Chris thought of Will far over the seas in Argentine, under the hot night there. Then the singing finished, they all found themselves tired, somebody began to take down the barn lights, there was half an hour's scramble of folk getting themselves into coats and getting their shivering sholts from out the empty stalls in the byre. Then Chris and Ewan were hand-shook again, Chris's arm began to ache, and then the last woof-woof of wheels on snow thick-carpeted came up the Blawearie road to them, it was fell uncanny that silence in the place after all the noise and fun of the long, lit hours. And there was Mistress Melon in the kitchen-door, yawning fit to swallow a horse, she whispered to Chris
I'm taking your
room now, don't forget,
and cried them
Good night, and a sound
sleep, both!
and was up the stairs and left them alone.

He hardly seemed tired even then, though, Ewan, prowling
locking the doors like a great quiet cat till Chris called to him softly
Oh, sit by me!
So he came to the chair she sat in and picked her out of it, so strong he was, and himself sat down, still holding her. They watched the fire a long time and then Chris's head drooped down, she didn't know she had been asleep till she woke to find Εwan shaking her,
Chris, Chris, you're fair done, come on to bed.
The fire was dying then and the paraffin had run low in the lamp, the flame swithered and went out with a plop! as Ewan blew on it; and then they were in the dark, going up the stairs together, past the room that had been Chris's and where Mistress Melon slept for a night ere she went back to Stonehaven.

And to Chris going up that stair holding the hand of her man there came a memory of one with awful eyes and jutting beard, lying in that room they came to, lying there and whispering and cursing her. But she put the memory away, it had never happened, sad and daft to remember that, she was tired. Then, with her hand on the door, Ewan kissed her there in the dark, sweet and wild his kiss, she had not thought he could kiss her like that, not as though he wanted her as a man might do in that hour and place, but as though he minded the song he had heard her sing. She put up her face to the kiss, forgetting tiredness, suddenly she was wakeful as never she had been, the sleep went out of her head and body and the chill with it, Ewan's hand came over hers and opened the door.