A Scots Quair Read online

  The undertaker had gone up by then, Uncle with him, folk followed them one by one and came down, syne Auntie beckoned Chris to the neuk of the stair and said Would you like to see him before he’s screwed down?

  Uncle Tam and Long Rob of the Mill were there and as Chris went in Long Rob said Well, well, good-bye, Blawearie man, and shook father’s hand, his eyes looked queer when he turned away, he said He was a fine neighbour and went out and closed the door. Chris stood and looked at her father, seeing him so plain as never in life she’d seen him, he’d been over-restless for that and quick enough he’d have raged at you had you glowered at his face like this. Still enough now, never-moving there in the coffin, he seemed to have changed already since he died, the face sunk in, it wasn’t John Guthrie and yet it was. Uncle whispered behind her, him and the undertaker, and then Auntie was beside her, They’re to screw it down now, kiss your father, Chris. But she shook her head, she couldn’t do that, the room was still as they looked at her, for a moment she felt almost sick again as in those evening hours when that in the coffin had lain and whispered that she should lie with it. Then she just said Good-bye father, and turned from him and went down to her own room and put on her coat and hat, it wasn’t decent for a quean to go to a funeral, folk said, but in Blawearie’s case there was no son or brother to see him into the kirkyard.

  Chae and Long Rob and Ellison and Gordon carried the coffin down to the stair-foot, and settled it on their shoulders there, and went slow with it out through the front door then; and the rain held off a little, wind blowing in their faces, though, as they held down the hill. Behind walked the Reverend Gibbon, bare-headed, all the folk were bare- headed but Chris, Long Rob and Chae stepping easily and cannily, Ellison as well, but Gordon quivering at his coffin corner, he’d have done better with a dram to steady him up. But Chris walked free and uncaring, soon as the burial was over she’d be free as never in her life she’d been, she lifted her face to the blow of the wet September wind and the world that was free to her. Then it was that she saw Εwan Tavendale walked beside her, he glanced down just then and straight and fair up into his eyes she looked, she nearly stumbled in the slow walk because of that looking. They came to the turnpike then, there Ewan took Gordon’s corner and Alec Mutch Ellison’s, and these two fell back beside the minister, but Chae and Long Rob shook their heads when others offered to change with them, they’d manage fine.

  The rain still held off, presently the wind soughing down the Howe died away and a little peek of sun came through, not down the Denburn it came but high up in the hill peaks, the lost, coarse ground where never a soul lived or passed but some shepherd or gillie, you could see them far off, lone and lonesome there on a still, clear day. Maybe so the dead walked in a still, clear, deserted land, the coarse lands of death where only the chance wanderer showed his face, Chris thought, and the dead lapwings wheeled and cried against another sun. Then she ceased from that, startled out a moment from the calm that had come to her with her father’s dying–daft to dream these things now when she planned so much. Step, step, steadily and cannily went Long Rob and Chae, Chae getting bald and sandy in the crown, but Rob still with the corn hair clustered thick and the great moustaches swinging from his cheeks as they turned up the road that led to the kirkyard.

  Then the sun went again, it was eleven o’clock perhaps, and Chris raised her eyes and saw through the trees the blinded windows of the Mains, the curtains were all drawn, decent-like, in respect for the funeral; and she felt a queer, sick thrill just below her left breast, not ill or sick, but just like a starting of the blood there, as though she’d leant on that place too long, and it had grown numb. It was dark under the yews, they dripped on the coffin and Long Rob, then there came a pattering as they passed by slow beneath, and Chris saw the long, oval leaves suddenly begin to quiver, it was as though a hand shook them, and through the leaves was the sky, it had blackened over and the rain was coming driving in a sheet down the brae from the Grampian haughs. It came and whipped the wet skirts about her legs, she saw Long Rob and Chae and Ewan stagger and then stand leaning against the drift, and then go on, not a soul put on his hat, there’d be bad colds by night and ill-tunes over this funeral yet.

  That wasn’t decent to think, but what did it matter to her? She wished she were back in Blawearie, and hoped the minister would not be over long-winded when he said his say. There was the grave-digger, a man from the Mains, a big scrawny childe who lived ill with his wife, folk said, he had his coat collar up and came out below the eaves of the kirk and motioned them along a path. And ben it they went, then Chris saw the grave, red clay and bright it was, not as she’d expected his grave somehow to be, they weren’t burying him in mother’s grave. For that land was over-crowded, folk said that every time the grave-digger stuck his bit spade in the ground some bone or another from the dead of olden time would came spattering out, fair scunnering you. But this was an old enough bit as well, right opposite rose the stone with the cross-bones, maybe all the dead bodies had long mouldered away into red clay here, clay themselves, and folk were glad they left the earth free for newcomers.

  Uncle had come to her elbow then and he stood with her, the others stood back, it was strange and silent but for the soft patter of the rain on the yews and the Reverend Gibbon shielding his Bible away from the wet drive of it, beginning to read. And Chris listened, her head bent against the rain’s whisper, to the words that promised Resurrection and Life through Jesus Christ our Lord, who had died long syne in Palestine and had risen on the third day and would take from that thing that had been John Guthrie quick, and was now John Guthrie dead, the quickness and give it habitation again. And Chris thought of her dream looking up at the coarse lands of the hills and thinking of the lands of death, was that where Christ would meet with father? Unco and Strange to think, standing here in the rain and listening to that voice, that father himself was there in that dark box heaped with the little flowers that folk had sent, father whom they were to leave here happed in red clay, alone in darkness and earth when the night came down. Surely he’d be back waiting her up in Blawearie, she’d hear his sharp, vexed voice and see him come fleetly out of the house, that red beard of his cocked as ever at the world he’d fought so dourly and well—

  Somebody chaved at her hand then, it was the grave- digger, he was gentle and strangely kind, and she looked down and couldn’t see, for now she was crying, she hadn’t thought she would ever cry for father, but she hadn’t known, she hadn’t known this thing that was happening to him! She found herself praying then, blind with tears in the rain, lowering the cord with the hand of the grave-digger over hers, the coffin dirling below the spears of the rain. Father, father, I didn’t know! Oh father, I didn’t know She hadn’t known, she’d been dazed and daft with her planning, her days could never be aught without father; and she minded then, wildly, in a long, broken flash of remembrance, all the fine things of him that the years had hidden from their sight, the fleetness of him and his justice, and the fight unwearying he’d fought with the land and its masters to have them all clad and fed and respectable, he’d never rested working and chaving for them, only God had beaten him in the end. And she minded the long roads he’d tramped to the kirk with her when she was young, how he’d smiled at her and called her his lass in days before the world’s fight and the fight of his own flesh grew over-bitter, and poisoned his love to hate. Oh father, I didn’t know! she prayed again, and then that was over, she was in the drive of the rain, hard and tearless, the grave-digger was pointing to the ground and she picked up a handful of soft, wet earth, and heard the Reverend Gibbon’s voice drone out Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, and leant over the grave and dropped the wet earth; and then the grave-digger was throwing in the turf, the coffin rang as though it were hollow, she stared at it till Uncle had her by the elbow, speaking to her, and so was the Reverend Gibbon but she couldn’t hear them at first; and folk were to say she must have been real fond of her father after all, the best of a coarse
bit family in the end.

  And then she was walking back through the kirkyard and the folk at the gate were stopping to shake her hand, Long Rob and Chae to say they’d aye help her, and Ellison, kind and solemn and Irish, and old Sinclair dripping in the rain, he should never have been out in a day like this. The last was Ewan Tavendale, he said Ta-ta, Chris, his hand was wet meeting hers as her own hand was, but he put up his left hand as well as his right and held both of hers a minute; and he didn’t look ashamed and shy any more, but as though he was so sorry he’d help her in any way, not only the ways he could.

  That was the last of them she saw and the end of father’s funeral. Back in Blawearie Auntie Janet made her strip from her clothes and get into bed, God be here, it’s you that’ll be next in your grave! she cried. And Chris slept throughout the remainder of that day, undreaming, she didn’t wake till late in the night, Blawearie listening and hearkening about her. And then she was afraid, awfully afraid, sitting up in bed and hearkening to that Something that walked the house with sharp, quick footsteps, running so fleetly up the stairs, impatient and unresting, a shadow with footfalls that were shadows; and into the night and far towards the dawn it roamed the house of Blawearie till the cocks were crowing and Uncle and Auntie moving, and Chris didn’t feel afraid at all by then, only lay and wept softly for the father she’d never helped and forgot to love.

  AND THE NEXT forenoon the lawyer man came down from Stonehaven, it was Peter Semple, folk called him Simple Simon but swore that he was a swick. Father had trusted him, though, and faith! you’d be fell straight in your gait ere John Guthrie trusted you. Not that he’d listened to advice, father, he’d directed a will be made and the things to be set in that will; and when Mr Semple had said he was being fell sore on some of his family father had told him to mind his own business, and that was a clerk’s. So Mr Semple drew up the will, it had been just after Will went off to the Argentine, and father had signed it; and now the Blawearie folk sat down in the parlour, with whisky and biscuits for Mr Semple, to hear it read. It was short and plain as you please, Chris watched the face of her uncle as the lawyer read and saw it go white in the gills, he’d expected something far different from that. And the will told that John Guthrie left all his possessions, in silver and belongings, to his daughter Christine, to be hers without let or condition, Mr Semple her guardian in such law matters as needed one, but Chris to control the goods and gear as she pleased. And folk were to say, soon as Kinraddie heard of the will, and faith! they seemed to have heard it all before it was well out of the envelope, that it was an unco will, old Guthrie had been fair spiteful to his sons, maybe Will would dispute his sister’s tocher.

  The money was over three hundred pounds in the bank, it was hard to believe that father could have saved all that. But he had; and Chris sat and stared at the lawyer, hearing him explain and explain this, that, and the next, in the way of lawyers: they presume you’re a fool and double their fees. Three hundred pounds! And now she could do as she’d planned, she’d go up to the College again and pass her exams and go on to Aberdeen and get her degrees, come out as a teacher and finish with the filthy soss of a farm. She’d sell up the gear of Blawearie, the lease was dead, it had died with father, oh! she was free and free to do as she liked and dream as she liked at last!

  And it was pity now that she’d all she wanted she felt no longer that fine thrill that had been with her while she made her secret plans. It was as though she’d lost it down in Kinraddie kirkyard; and she sat and stared so still and white at the lawyer man that he closed up his case with a snap. So think it well over, Christine, he said and she roused and said Oh, I’ll do that; and off he went, Uncle Tam drew a long, deep breath, as though fair near choked he’d been Not a word of his two poor, motherless boys!

  It seemed he’d expected Alec and Dod would be left their share, maybe that was why he’d been so eager to adopt them the year before. But Auntie cried For shame, Tam, how are they motherless now that I’ve got them? And you’ll come up and live with us when you’ve sold Blawearie’s furnishings, Chris? And her voice was kind but her eyes were keen, Chris looked at her with her own eyes hard, Ay, maybe and got up and slipped from the room, I’ll go down and bring home the kye.

  And out she went, though it wasn’t near kye-time yet, and wandered away over the fields; it was a cold and louring day, the sound of the sea came plain to her, as though heard in a shell, Kinraddie wilted under the greyness. In the ley field old Bob stood with his tail to the wind, his hair ruffled up by the wind, his head bent away from the smore of it. He heard her pass and gave a bit neigh, but he didn’t try to follow her, poor brute, he’d soon be over old for work. The wet fields squelched below her feet, oozing up their smell of red clay from under the sodden grasses, and up in the hills she saw the trail of the mist, great sailing shapes of it, going south on the wind into Forfar, past Laurencekirk they would sail, down the wide Howe with its sheltered glens and its late, drenched harvests, past Brechin smoking against its hill, with its ancient tower that the Pictish folk had reared, out of the Mearns, sailing and passing, sailing and passing, she minded Greek words of forgotten lessons, ΙΙαυτα ρϵi, Nothing endures. And then a queer thought came to her there in the drookèd fields, that nothing endured at all, nothing but the land she passed across, tossed and turned and perpetually changed below the hands of the crofter folk since the oldest of them had set the Standing Stones by the loch of Blawearie and climbed there on their holy days and saw their terraced crops ride brave in the wind and sun. Sea and sky and the folk who wrote and fought and were learnéd, teaching and saying and praying, they lasted but as a breath, a mist of fog in the hills, but the land was forever, it moved and changed below you, but was forever, you were close to it and it to you, not at a bleak remove it held you and hurted you. And she had thought to leave it all!

  She walked weeping then, stricken and frightened because of that knowledge that had come on her, she could never leave it, this life of toiling days and the needs of beasts and the smoke of wood fires and the air that stung your throat so acrid, Autumn and Spring, she was bound and held as though they had prisoned her here. And her fine bit plannings!—they’d been just the dreamings of a child over toys it lacked, toys that would never content it when it heard the smore of a storm or the cry of sheep on the moors or smelt the pringling smell of a new-ploughed park under the drive of a coulter. She could no more teach a school than fly, night and day she’d want to be back, for all the fine clothes and gear she might get and hold, the books and the light and learning.

  The kye were in sight then, they stood in the lithe of the freestone dyke that ebbed and flowed over the shoulder of the long ley field, and they hugged to it close from the drive of the wind, not heeding her as she came among them, the smell of their bodies foul in her face—foul and known and enduring as the land itself. Oh, she hated and loved in a breath! Even her love might hardly endure, but beside it the hate was no more than the whimpering and fear of a child that cowered from the wind in the lithe of its mother’s skirts.

  AND AGAIN THAT night she hardly slept, thinking and thinking till her head ached, the house quiet enough now without fairlies treading the stairs, she felt cool and calm, if only she could sleep. But by morning she knew she couldn’t go on with Uncle and Auntie beside her, they smothered her over with their years and their canny supposings. Quick after breakfast she dressed and came down and Auntie cried out, real sharplike, Mighty be here, Chris, where are you going? as though she owned Blawearie stick and stone, hoof and hide. And Chris looked at her coolly, I’m away to Stonehaven to see Mr Semple, can I bring you anything? Uncle Tam rose up from the table then, goggling, with his medals clinking, Away to Stonehive? What are you jaunting there for? I’ll transact any business you have. Their faces reddened up with rage, she saw plain as daylight how near it lay, dependence on them, she felt herself go white as she looked at them. I’ll transact my own business fine, she said hardly, and called Ta-ta from the door and heard
no answer and held down the Blawearie road and ran over the parks to the station, and caught the early scholars’ train that went in to Stonehaven Academy.

  It was crowded fell close, there were three-four scholars in the carriage she got in to, she didn’t know any, they were learning French verbs. And she’d wanted to go back to things as silly!

  They were past Drumlithie and the Carmont then, you could smell the woods of Dunnottar and look out at them from the window, girdling Stonehaven down to its bay, shining and white, the sun was out on the woods and the train like a weasel slipped through the wet smell of them. And there was Stonehaven itself, the home of the poverty toffs, folk said, where you might live in sin as much as you pleased but were damned to hell if you hadn’t a white sark. She’d heard Chae Strachan say that, but it wasn’t all true, there were fell poor folk in Stonehaven as well as the come- ups; and douce folk that were neither poor nor proud and had never a say when Stonehaven boomed of its braveness. And that it did fair often, the Mearns’ capital, awful proud of its sarks but not of its slums; and it thought itself real genteel, and a fine seafront it had that the English came to in summer—daft, as usual, folk said, hadn’t they a sea in England?

  Because it was early in the day and the lawyer’s office still shut Chris loitered on the road in the tail of the hasting scholars, the little things they were, all legs and long boots, funny how they tried to speak English one to the other, looking sideways as they cried the words to see if folk thought them gentry. Had Marget and she been daft as that?

  But the sun was out now on the long Stonehaven streets and Chris went past the Academy down to the market, still at that hour with just a stray cat or so on the sniff around, genteel and toff-like, Stonehaven cats. Down through a lane she caught a glimmer of the North Sea then, or maybe it was the sunlight against the sky, but the smell of the sea came up. And she still had plenty of time.