A Scots Quair (57 page)

Some said they didn't believe it at all, Dalziel of the Meiklebogs a decent-like childe, and an elder of Segget kirk forbye. So he might be, but you knew a man's nature, he needed a woman just now and again—no, no you didn't blame
him
overmuch, but she fairly must be an ill tink, that Else Queen. And you'd look at her hard the next time that you met, not a bit of shame she would show as she passed, just cry
Ay, Fusty Face, so it's you?
and go swinging by with her meikle hips on the sway like stacks of hay in a gale, well-fleshed and rosy, disgusting, you thought, you'd feel as mad as a mating tyke at Meiklebogs and his shameless sin.

But faith! 'twas the same wherever you looked. There was Mr Mowat up at the House, folk said he'd come back from a London jaunt with
two
of the painted jades this time, you'd hear their scraichs all over the House; and once the servant went in of a morning and what do you think he saw in the bed? Young Mr Mowat with a quean on each side, he'd slept with the two and he fairly looked hashed, the bitches just laughed as the servant gaped, and one slapped Mr Mowat in a certain place and cried
Hi Solomon, here's
the head eunuch!

But you couldn't believe all the lies that you heard. Young Mr Mowat was fairly a gent, and right fine if you met him outbye, and speak civil; and say he Rahly was glad that you'd met. He was maybe a bit daft about Scotland and such, and a lot of dirt about history and culture. But couldn't a gent please himself with his ploys, it kept him from wearying and did no harm? When the Mills closed down for a fortnight once, they had over-much stock already on hand, he said he was Jahly sorry for the spinners—and he couldn't say fairer than that, could he now? So you couldn't believe about the two queans, and even were it true 'twas a different thing—wasn't it?—a gent with
his play, and a randy old brute like that Meiklebogs man sossing about with a quean half his age?

THEM THAT SAID
Dalziel was an innocent childe fair got a sore shock ere the year was out, Else at her new place worked outdoor and indoor, she'd to kilt her skirts (if they needed kilting—and that was damned little with those short-like frocks) and go out and help at the spreading of dung, and hoeing the turnips and anything else, she was worth her own fee and a joskin's as well. Well, the harvest came and it came fell heavy, Else helped at the stocking and syne at the leading. That was a windy September day, the other childes were down in the fields, Else and Meiklebogs managed a cart, out in the park Meiklebogs forked sheaves, big and thick, into Else Queen's arms; and she built them round and about the shelvins till they rose four high and syne it was time for Meiklebogs to lead home the horse, Jim, the roan, a canny old beast. So home they would go and the stour would rise under the grind of the iron wheels, up above the Mounth in its mist of blue, Dalziel would look back now and again and see that the corn was biding in place, and see Else as well, lying flat on the top, with her eyes fast-closed, the meikle sweir wretch.

So he led the roan, Jim, up the Meiklebogs close, and round to the back of the Meiklebogs barn, high in the wall a window was cut, and he planned that this load be forked through the window for early threshing with his new oil mill. He stopped the horse and he backed it canny, the roan was old and he gave a bit groan, and Dalziel gave the roan a belt in the mouth, the brute of a beast to groan out like that, folk would think that it was ill-treated. The roan looked surprised, as though he'd done nothing; and Dalziel cried to Else Queen,
Come on, you'll have to be up
and doing some work
.

She cried,
I'll soon do that, you old mucker
, she called him the terriblest names to his face, and all he would do would be to smile shy, and stroke at his chin, neither shaved nor unshaved. So he held, splay-footed, to the front of the barn, and got himself in and climbed to the loft and keeked from the window, and there was Else Queen, standing atop of
the rows of sheaves, her fork in her hand, waiting to fork. She cried
You're fair getting old in the bones!
and flung in a sheaf that near hit his face, he smiled and said nothing, they both set to work, her working as fast and as fleet as you liked, Dalziel inside was bigging the sheaves, ready for the first bit thresh at the place, the sun a blind fall on the cart outside. And once when Dalziel took a keek out he saw the sweat in a stream from Else, and her eyes looked glazed, it would take down her creash.

Well, there happened near next the kind of a thing that surely Else Queen had expected to happen, unless she were innocent as the Virgin Mary, Ake Ogilvie said: and he doubted that. And even She was hardly that now, with Burns a hundred years in heaven.—Folk said
What's that?
and Ake looked surprised—they had surely heard of their own Great Poet? Well, the creature died and he went to heaven and knocked like hell on the pearly gates. And St Peter poked his head from a wicket, and asked
Who're you that's
making a din?
And Burns said
I'm Robert Burns, my man,
the National Poet of Scotland, that's who
. St Peter took a look at the orders, pinned on the guard-room wall for the day; and he said,
I've got a note about you. You must wait outbye for
a minute or so
. So Robbie sat there cooling his heels, on the top of the draughty stair to heaven, and waited and waited till he nearly was froze; syne the gates at last opened and he was let in. And Burns was fair in a rage by then,
Do you
treat distinguished arrivals like this?
And St Peter said
No,
I wouldn't say that. But then I had special orders about you.
I've been hiding the Virgin Mary away
.—That was a real foul story to tell, it showed you the tink that Ake Ogilvie was, interrupting the real fine newsy tale of the happenings down at the Meiklebogs.

For when they had finished with the forking, 'twas told, Dalziel took a bit of a look round the barn and saw he would need a hand to redd up.
Get up from the cart and come round
, he cried down,
I'll need you to lend me a hand in the loft
. Else cried back,
Havers! Do you think I can't jump?
And she put the end of her fork on a stone that stuck out a bit from the wall of the barn, and the prong-end under her arm,
so
, and next minute sailed through the air like a bird and landed
neat by Meiklebogs' side. And then she went white and then red of a sudden and Meiklebogs thought of the groan he'd heard, it hadn't been Jim the roan after all, 'twas Else had been groaning afore, as just now. And he stood looking sly as she sat on the sheaves, her face beginning to twist and to sweat, she said
I'm not well, send off for the doctor
. Then her time came on her and they heard her cry, the fee'd men out in the Meiklebogs fields, and came tearing home to see what was up. But by then the thing was nearly all done, the bairn born out in the barn, and Meiklebogs looking shyer than ever and getting on his bike to go for the doctor.

But faith! that was all he would do in the business. He wouldn't register the bairn his; and when the young doctor, McCormack, came up, and Else was moved to her room in the house, and McCormack said
Is the bairn
yours?
Meiklebogs smiled shy,
No, I wouldn't say that
. And McCormack said
Whose is it, then?
And Meiklebogs never let on a word, just looked past the doctor and smiled shy and sly; and the doctor said
Huh—immaculate con
ception. Something in the air of the Meiklebogs. You've had
other housekeepers ta'en the same way
.

Well, the story was soon all about the place, as scandalous a thing as ever you heard, Ag Moultrie, the Roarer and Greeter of Segget, knew every damned thing that had happened in the barn, more than an unmarried woman should know, she said the bairn was Meiklebogs' image, with his eyes and his nose—and Ake Ogilvie said
Ay,
faith! and his whiskers as well I could warrant
. So Ag told him if he couldn't be civil and listen she wouldn't bother to give him the news; and Ake said
D'you think I'll suffer
for that?
—not a neighbourly way to speak to a woman that was trying to cheer you up with some news.

Soon Else was up and about the place, and the bairn, a loon, tried to get its own back on its father Dalziel, if father he was. Its howl was near fit to lift off the roof, Else let it howl and worked in the parks: as the season wore on, were the weather fine, she'd take the creature out to the parks, and when it came to its feeding time suckle the thing on a heap of shaws. When the fee'd men blushed and looked bashful at that, she'd cry
What the devil are you
reddening for? You sucked the same drink before you met beer
, fair vulgar and coarse she'd turned to the bone, you'd never have thought she'd worked in a Manse. Dalziel would hark, with his shy, sleekèd smile, saying neither yea nor nay to her fleers, she would tongue him up hill and down dale when she liked, and call him the foulest names you could hear. But the foreman said she still went to his bed, or he to hers—ay, a queer carry-on!

Till the business of Jim the roan put an end.

THAT CAME WITH
the second winter's close, when Meiklebogs carted his grain to the station, he'd sold the stuff for a stiff-like price, and put a young fee'd loon, Sinclair his name, on to the carting with the old roan, Jim. He fair was a willing old brute, the roan, he'd pant up a brae till an oncoming body might think from the other side, out of sight, that a steam-mill and thresher was coming that way. But he never would stop, would just shoggle on, with his great wide haunches shambling and swinging, he'd a free-like way of flinging his feet, but he wasn't cleekèd; and he fair could pull.

Ah well, it came white weather of frost, the ground as hard and as cold as iron, ribbed with a veining of frost each morning, folk that you met seemed most to be nose, and red nose at that when it wasn't blue-veined, Melvin at the Arms did a roaring trade, the water-pipes were frozen in the Manse, and the horses of all the farmers out about were brought to the smiddy to have their shoes cogged.

But Meiklebogs was over busy for that, on the Monday morning, the worst of the lot, he sent off Sinclair with the last load of corn; and afore he had gone very far the loon was all in a sweat and a bother with his job, old Jim the roan on the slide all the time, and the weighted cart going showding and banging. Sinclair tried to lead the old horse by the grass that grew stiff-withered by the side of the road; and that for a little while eased up the beast, till they turned into Segget at the top of East Wynd. There was devil a speck of grass grew there, and near Ake Ogilvie's the ground was like glass, and young Εwan Tavendale that came from the Manse had been sliding there a half hour that morning. So
when Jim the roan came on that with the cart he did the same as the Manse loon had done—took a run and a slide, and cart, horse, and all shot down past Ake's like a falling star—so Ake Ogilvie said, a daft-like speak. The lot fetched up near the Sourock's house, the roan fell shaken, but he didn't coup; and nothing of the harness by a miracle broke. Young Sinclair had fairly got a fell fright and he leathered old Jim round about the head with the reins and kicked him hard in the belly, to make the old brute more careful in future.

Peter Peat looked out and he nodded,
That's it, nothing
like discipline for horses and men;
and he looked fierce enough to eat up old Jim, that was bending under the ding of the blows to his patient old head—ay, a fierce man, Peter. And Sinclair, that was only a loon and a fool, said,
I'll teach the old mucker to go sliding about
, and gave the old roan another bit kick, to steady him up, and got on the cart, and sat him down on a bag of corn and cried to the roan
Come on, you old Bee!

So old Jim went on and he fair went careful, flinging his great meikle feet down canny, the loaded cart swinging and showding behind, the road below like a sheet of glass. And he went fell well till the East Wynd sloped, down and round by the Moultrie shop, and there they found it—a slide once again! all the lasses and lads of Segget had been there, the night before, with their sleds and skates, and whooped and scraiched and dirled down the wynd, on their feet sometimes, on their backsides next, near braining themselves by the Moultrie wall, young Εwan Tavendale the worst of them all—he fair could slide, that nickum of a loon, with his black-blue hair and his calm, cool eyes, he'd led the lot and could wheel like a bird just in time to miss the bit wall that was waiting there to dash out his brains.

Well, young Tavendale might, but old Jim mightn't, no sooner did his great bare feet come down on the slide than the same thing happened as before. He started to slip and the cart went with him, it half wheeled round with the weight of its load, and reeled by the wall of the gardener Grant and stotted from that, and the roan was down, braking with its feet, that did little good. Sinclair jumped off and fell
on all fours. As he picked himself up he heard the crash, and the scream that rose with the breaking shafts, and he scrambled erect and looked down the lane; and the sight was a sickener, old Jim the roan had run full tilt in the Moutrie wall, and one of the shafts of the cart had snapped and swung back right in the horse's belly, as though the old brute were a rat on a stake. He lay crumpled up, the cart broken behind him, young Sinclair started to greet at the sight: and the noise of the crash brought folk on the run.

Afore you could speak a fell concourse was round, old Moultrie came hirpling out with his stick, and cried,
What
do you mean, malagarousing my house?
and Jess Moultrie peeped, and looked white and sick; and Ag came out and then nipped back quick, no doubt in order to Roar and Greet. Will Melvin took Sinclair over to the Arms and had a drink down him afore you could wink; and young Sinclair stopped sniftering and habbering about it, he was feared he'd be sacked by Dalziel for this.
And what can I do
in the middle of the season if I lose my job?—I'll just have to
starve. You can't get a fee for love or money, right in the middle
of the winter, you can't. And that old mucker Meiklebogs—
But Mrs Melvin came into the bar and said
None of your
Blasting and Blaspheming in here. You'll have to go out with
your swearing, young man
.