A Scots Quair (49 page)

Then somebody knew and saw Chris stand near, and cried out
Wheest!
but Chris didn't care; she watched Ewan take the prize and say
Thanks
, calm still, and put the shilling in his pocket, and come walking back to look for her, and stand grave in front of her as she smoothed down his collar. Robert gave him a shake and he smiled at that (the smile that so sometimes caught your heart, the smile you had known on the lips of his father). Then Robert said
Well, since we've won all the prizes, let's go and
look for tea in the tent.

And the three of them set out across the short grass, through the groupings and gatherings of folk here and there, the show was fairly a place for a claik, one gossip would now meet in with another she hadn't seen since the last Segget Show, and would cry
Well, now, it's Mistress
MacTavish!
And Mistress MacTavish would cry back
her
name, and they'd shake hands and waggle their heads and be at it, hammer and tongs, a twelve months' gossip, the Howe's reputation put in through a mangle and its face danced on when it came through the rollers.

There was a great crush in the tent they entered, but Melvin came running and found them a table, the gabble of the folk rose all round about, they nodded to the minister and minded their manners, and reddened when they thought that he looked at them, and took a sly keek at the clothes Chris wore—faith! awful short skirts for a minister's
wife. Mrs Hogg was sitting at a table with her son, him that she'd told to slop slop in his guts, his quean had gone back, and folk saw the damned creature trying to catch the minister's eye. But the Reverend Mr Colquohoun didn't see, you were torn two ways with scorn of the Manse for being so proud, and with sheer delight at seeing the Hoggs get a smack in the face.

Then it was time for the band to begin, folk trooped out to see in the best of spirits, well filled with biscuits and baps and tea; but weren't such fools as go over close to the board where John Muir and Smithie were standing, crying,
Come
on, folk, now, will you dance?
Behind them the Segget band played up, Ake Ogilvie there at the head of it, fair thinking himself of importance, like, with Jim that served in the bar of the Arms and folk called the Sourock because of his face, tootling on his flute like a duck half-choked and Newlands the stationy cuddling his fiddle a damn sight closer than ever his mistress, or else she'd have had a bairn ere this—not that you blamed him, she'd a face like a greip, and an ill greip at that, though you don't cuddle faces. And Feet was there, he was playing the bassoon, he sat well back to have room for his boots and looked as red as a cock with convulsions. God ay! it was worth going up to the board if only to take a laugh at the band.

But not a childe or a quean would venture up on the thing till at last Jock Cronin, that tink of a porter that came of the spinners, was seen going up and pulling up a quean. She laughed, and turned her face round at last, and folk fair had a shock, it was Miss Jeannie Grant, she was one of the teachers, what was she doing with a porter, eh?—and a tink at that, that called himself a socialist, and said that folk should aye vote for labour, God knew you got plenty without voting for't. Socialists with queans—well, you knew what they did, they didn't believe in homes or in bairns, they'd have had all the bairns locked up in poor-houses; and the coarse brutes said that marriage was daft—that fair made a body right wild to read that, what was coarse about marriage you would like to know? … And you'd stop from your reading and say to the wife,
For God's sake, woman, keep the bairns
quiet. Do you think I want to live in a menagerie?
And she'd answer you back,
By your face I aye thought that was
where you came from
, and start off again about
her
having no peace, she couldn't be sweir like a man, take a rest; and whenever were your wages going to be raised? And you'd get in a rage and stride out of the house, and finish the paper down at the Arms, reading about the dirt that so miscalled marriage—why shouldn't they have to get married as well?

Well, there were Jock Cronin and Miss Jeannie Grant, they stood and laughed and looked down at the folk. Syne some spinners went up, as brazen as you like, giggling, and then a ploughman or so, syne Alec Hogg that was son of the Provost, he had up Cis Brown that went to the College, thin and sweet, a fell bonny lass, she looked gey shy and a treat to cuddle. So there were enough at last for a dance, and Ake waved his arms, and they struck up a polka. There was fair a crowd when the second dance came, you felt your back buttons to see were they holding, and took a keek round for a lass for the dance: and the queans all giggled and looked at you haughty, till you asked one, bold, and then she'd say
Ay
.

Charlie, the childe from Catcraig, went to Else, the maid from the Manse, and said
Will you dance?
and she said
Can you?
and he blushed and said Fine. Else was keen for a dance and she left Meiklebogs, he looked after her shy, like a shy-like stot, as she swung on the board, a fair pretty woman. God, you hardly saw her like nowadays, queans grown all as thin as the handles of forks, and as hard forbye, no grip to the creatures; and how the devil they expected to get married and be ta'en with bairns you just couldn't guess, what man in his senses would want to bed with a rickle of bones and some powder, like?

Well, Else was up with the Catcraig childe, it was
Drops
of Brandy
and the folk lined up, Else saw the minister, he smiled like a lad with the mistress herself further down the line. Ake waved his arms and you all were off, slow in the pace and the glide, then the whirl, till the brandy drops were spattering the sky, the board kittled up and the band as well, and you all went like mad; and Else's time when
she did the line she found the minister the daftest of the lot, he swung her an extra turn right round, and he cried out
Hooch!
and folk all laughed—ay, fairly a billy the new minister, though already he'd started interfering with folk, and he'd preached so unco, a Sunday back, that old Hairy Hogg was descended from monkeys…. Had he said that, then? Ay, so he had, old Hogg himself had told you the speak, it was hardly the thing to have said of the Provost, fair monkey-like though the creature was …. And just at the head of the dance as Else flew round in the arms of her Catcraig childe, he gave a kind of a gasp and his hand flew up to his waistcoat and Else cried
What?
And the childe let go and grabbed at his breeks, his other bit gallus had fair given way, he slipped from the board with his face all red, and went home fell early that evening alone, not daring to stay and take Else Queen home.

The teas were all finished and Melvin had opened up one of the tents for the selling of drams, folk took a bit dander up to the counter, had a dram, and spoke of the Show and looked out—at the board, the gloaming was green on the hills, purple on the acre-wide blow of heather. There was a little wind coming down, blowing in the hot, red faces of the dancers, you finished up your dram and felt fair kittled up; and went out and made for the board like a hare, damn't! you might be old, but you still could dance, you hoped the mistress had already gone home.

There was old Smithie, well whiskied by now. He cried each dance till he got to the Schottische, he stuck fast on that and shished so long you thought the old fool never would stop, his whiskers sticking from his face in a fuzz, like one of the birns of hay he would steal. And just as he paused to take a bit breath his eyes lit down on his goodson, Bruce, and he stopped and said
What the devil's wrong with you, you
coarse tink, that lives in my house, on my meal, and snickers
like a cuddy when a man tries to speak?
Bruce glunched up, dour,
Be quiet, you old fool
, and that fair roused the dander of Smithie to hear.
Who's a fool? By God, if I come down to
you
—and he made a bit step, just threatening-like, but he was over-near the edge of the board to be threatening, even, next minute he was off, on top of Ed Bruce, folk were fair
scandalized and crowded about, snickering with delight to see the daft fools, old Smithie and Bruce, leathering round in the grass. But down came the minister and pushed folk aside, angry as could be, and folk stared at
him
.
Get up there,
confound you, the two of you!
he cried, and in a jiffy had old Smithie up in one hand and Bruce in the other, and shook them both.
Haven't you more sense than behave like a couple
of bairns! Shake hands and shut up!

And so they did, but before the night was well done the speak was all over the Howe of the Mearns that the new minister of Segget had come down and bashed Ed Bruce in the face and syne Smithie, and cursed at them both for ten minutes without stopping. And a great lot of folk went to kirk next Sunday that never went afore, and never went again, for no other purpose than to stare at the minister, and see if he'd be shamed of the coarse way he'd cursed.

Well, that was the Segget Show and Games, by eight and nine the older folk were crying ta-ta and talking away home, the farmers in their gigs spanked down by Meiklebogs, the Segget folk dandered home slow in the light, it lay like the foam of the sea on the land, soft, in a kind of blue, trembling half-mist, a half-moon, quiet, came over the hills and looked down on the board where the young still danced. Else sought out the mistress—should she take Ewan home? But the mistress shook her head,
I'll do that. Dance while you're
young, but don't be too late;
she smiled at Else the fine way she had, she looked bonny with that dour, sweet, sulky face, the great plaits of her hair wound round her head, rusty and dark and changing to gold, Else thought
If I were a man myself I'd maybe be worse than the minister
is—I'd want to cuddle her every damned minute!

Young Ewan was beside her, he stood eating chocolate, he had eaten enough to make a dog sick, as Else knew well, but he looked cool as ever, the funny bit creature, and said
Ta-ta, Else. Will Mr Meiklebogs squeeze you under
my window?
Else felt herself flushing up like a fire,
Maybe,
if I let him
, and Ewan said
Oh, do
, and would maybe have said more, for bairns are awful, but that the minister had hold of his arm—
Come on, or I'll squeeze
you.
Ta-ta,
Else
.

SO THE THREE
went home through the night-quiet park, Robert and Chris the last of the elders to leave. It came sudden on Chris, with her feet in the grass, her hand in Ewan's, that that's what they were—old, she who was not yet thirty years old! Old, and still how you'd like to dance, out under the brightening coming of the moon, drop away from you all the things that clung close, Robert and Ewan and the Manse—even Chris—be young and be young and be held in men's arms, and seem bonny to them and look at them sly, not know next hour who would take you home, and not know who would kiss you or what they would do…. Young as you never yet had been young, you'd been caught and ground in the wheels of the days, in this dour little Howe and its moil and toil, the things you had missed, the things you had missed! The things that the folk had aye in the books—being daft, with the winds of young years in your hair, night for a dream and the world for a song. Young; and you never could be young now.

Like a sea you had never seen plain in your life, you heard the thunder and foam of the breakers, once or twice, far off, dark-green and salt, you had seen them play, spouting and high on the drift of the wind, crying in the sun with their crested laughters, hurrying south on the questing tides. Youth, to be young—

High up and over the Kaimes two birds were sailing into the western night, lonely, together, into the night Chris watched them fade to dots in the sky.

THE WHISPER WENT
round the minister had gone, the ploughmen and spinners gave a bit laugh and took a bit squeeze at the queans they held; and some of the folk that were hot with their collars pulled the damned things off and threw them in the hedge. In Will Melvin's bar was a roaring trade, old Hairy Hogg's son and Dite Peat were there, the both of them telling the tale, you may guess, Alec Hogg of the things he had seen in Edinburgh, Dite Peat of the things he had done in London. God! 'twas a pity they'd ever come back. Meiklebogs came talking into the bar, near nine that was, folk cried:
Will you drink?
and he answered back canny,
Oh, ay; maybe one;
and had two or three, and looked shyer than ever. Dite Peat roared
With that down under your waistcoat, you'll be able to
soss up the Manse quean fine
. Meiklebogs looked a wee bit shyer than before, and gave a bit laugh, and said,
Fegs, ay
.

Else had danced every dance since the dancing began. When Charlie from Catcraig, the fool, disappeared, Alec Hogg had taken her up for a while, and half Else liked him and half she didn't, he felt like a man though he spoke like a toff. He asked in his clipped-like way,
You're
Miss Queen?
as though he thought it should be
mistake
. Else answered careless,
Oh, ay, so I've heard. You're the son
of old Hairy Hogg, the Provost?
He grinned like a cat,
So
my mother says
, and Else was fair shocked, a man shouldn't make jokes about his own mother. So after a while she got rid of the creature, and the next dance she had was with Ogilvie the joiner, he'd left the band for Feet to conduct, he swung her round and round in a waltz, his own eyes half-closed near all that time. If he thought your face such a scunner to look at, why did he ask you up for a dance?

Then Feet cried
The last
, and there was John Muir, he'd grabbed Else afore any other could get near, and he danced right well, Else warmed up beside him, he cried out,
Hooch!
and she did the same, if he dug graves as well as he danced, John Muir, he should have had a job in a public cemetery. As Else whirled she saw the blue reek of Segget, and the dusk creep in, it was warm and blue, and the smell of the hay rose up in her face; there was the moon, who was taking her home?