A Scots Quair (58 page)

So Sinclair went out and gaped like a fool at the folk that had come in around to see Jim. He lay with his eyes half closed and at last he'd stopped from trying to rise from the ground, the end of the shaft was deep in his belly and there was a smell fit to frighten a spinner; folk took a good look and went canny away, you hadn't time to stand there and stare, you might be asked to help if you did, let Meiklebogs look to his old horse himself. Sim Leslie, the policeman that folk called Feet, came down and took his bit note-book out and asked young Sinclair how it all happened; and wrote it all down and looked at old Jim, and frowned at him stern; and then wrote some more—no doubt the old roan's criminal record. Syne he said he'd ride out and tell Meiklebogs, and he did, and when Meiklebogs heard of the news he smiled canny and shy, and got on his bike, and came riding to Segget to see the soss.

By the time he did it was nearly noon, Ake Ogilvie down with his gun at the place, a crowd had gathered to see the brute shot; but Dalziel wouldn't have it,
No, bide you a
wee. If the beast should be shot there would be no insurance
. Ake Ogilvie said
Can't you see it's in hell, with the shaft of
the cart driving into its guts?
But Meiklebogs just smiled shy and said nothing, except to Feet—that the horse was his property, and he lippened to him it wasn't destroyed. And Feet said
Ay. D'you hear, Mr Ogilvie? You'd better take
home that gun of yours
. And Ake Ogilvie stood and cursed at them both, and folk were shocked at the words he used, calling Meiklebogs a dirty mucker when the man was only seeking his insurance.

Well, there the roan lay all that afternoon, sossing up the road, and it wouldn't die. Folk came from far and near for a look at old Jim the roan as he lay on his side, as the afternoon waned he turned a wee, and the blood began to freeze round the shaft that was stuck so deep in his riven belly. But what with the folk that came in such crowds, a birn of the spinners down from the Mills, and the bairns as they left the school at four, the roan was splashed an inch deep with glaur and hardly twitching or moving by then. Meiklebogs had sent off a wire to Stonehive, to ask about the insurance, like; but no answer came, and he didn't expect one, he'd the corn loaded on another bit cart and went off home to the Meiklebogs, attending to his work with his shy, sleekèd smile, the insurance his if the horse died natural. Once or twice Jess Moultrie came out to the beast and held a pail for it to drink out of, it slobbered at the warm water and treacle, syne would leave its head lying heavy in the pail, till Jess lifted the head and put it away; and all the while her face was like death, the fool was near greeting over the horse, if she couldn't stand the sight of the soss, why did she ever go near the beast?

It looked like a hillock of dirt by dark, and then Ake Ogilvie that half the day had been seeking the minister, that was off down the Howe, found him at last and told him the tale. And folk said that the Reverend Colquohoun swore awful—
The bloody swine, the
bloody
swine!
—a strange-like thing to say of a horse. But Ake Ogilvie said
it wasn't the horse but the folk of Segget the minister meant. And that was just daft, if Ake spoke true—that Mr Colquohoun could mean it of folk, real coarse of him to speak that way of decent people that had done him no harm. It just showed you the kind of a tink that he was, him and his Labour and socialism and all.

And he said to Ake Ogilivie
Get out your gun
, and Ake got it again, and the two came down, the roan lay still in its puddle of glaur, the cart behind and the night now close. And the circle of folk drew off a wee bit, and the roan seemed to know the thing that Ake meant, for it lifted its head and gave a great groan. The minister looked white as a drift of snow, he cried
Stand back there—damn you, stand back!
Ake, aim canny
. And Ake said nothing, but went up to the roan, and folk looked away as they heard the bang.

Soon as Meiklebogs himself had heard of what happened, and he did that in less than the space of an hour, he was over at the Manse to see the minister, with the shy, sly smile on his half-shaved face. And he said
They tell me,
Mr Colquohoun, that you've had my horse shot down in East
Wynd
. The minister said
Do they? Then they tell you the
truth
. So Meiklebogs said he would sue him for that, and the minister said he could sue and be damned—
And I'll
tell you a thing that I am to do—report you for cruelly by
the very first post. You're the kind of scoundrel over-common in
Scotland
. And Meiklebogs for once lost his shy-like smile.
Say of me again what you said of me now! Mind, there's
a witness to hear us, minister
. The Maidie was near in the hall, he meant her, but Mr Colquohoun was blazing with rage. He said
Get out or I'll throw you out
, and made at Dalziel, and he shambled out, not such a fool as face up to a madman, a creature that fair went mad on a horse.

Nor was that the end of his troubles that day, for when he got home the news had reached Else, she was waiting in the kitchen when Meiklebogs came. He smiled at her shy,
Have
you nothing to do but stand about there and be idle, then? Get
my supper ready, or I'll need a new housekeeper
. The foreman had come in at the tail of Meiklebogs, and he heard every word that the two of them spoke. Else said
Is this true that
I hear of the roan?
and Meiklebogs said
Ay; will you give
me my supper?
and Else said
No, but I'll give you my notice.
I've stuck queer things at your hands, Meiklebogs. I've been
crazed or daft that I've stuck them so long. But I wouldn't bide
another night in your house
. And Meilkebogs smiled sleekèd and shy,
Ah well, just gang—with your fatherless bairn
. And Else said she'd do that, but the bairn had a father, God pity the littl'un, the father it had.

She was greeting by then, she'd been fond of the roan. She hardly looked the Else that the foreman knew well, raging and red-haired and foul with her tongue, she stared at Meiklebogs as a body new waked out of the horror of an ill-dreamt dream; and she packed her things and wrapped up her bairn.

The foreman met her out in the close and asked her where she would spend the night, and he made a bit try to give her a cuddle, maybe he hoped that she'd spend it with him, her a tink-like quean, him buirdly and brave. But instead she banged her case at his legs, near couped him down in the sharn of the close, and held up through Segget and down to the station, and took the late train to her father's in Fordoun—the ill-gettèd bitch that she was, folk said, to leave Meiklebogs without warning like that, her and her blethering over a horse.

THERE WOULDN'T HAVE
been half the steer and stour if Mr Colquohoun had kept to himself. He'd need to leave other folk a-be and heed to his own concerns, him, that tink-cool stepson of his, for one—wasn't
he
the loon that had led the others in making the slide that mischieved the horse? He led most of the bairns in ill-gettèd ploys, folk told after that, though you hadn't heard even a whisper before. ‘Twas said he would sneak in the lassies' playground, and cuddle and kiss them when they were at games, the ill-gettèd wretch, and at his age, too. Ay, Mr Colquohoun was more in need of trying to reform young Ewan Tavendale than interfering with a good, quiet childe like old Dalziel of the Meiklebogs.

Old Leslie said
Ay
—it was down at the Arms—
or
getting that proud-looking wife with a bairn—damn't! is
that an example to show, none of a family and married five
years? Now, when I was a loon up in Garvock
…. and folk began to hem and talk loud, and look up at the roof and hoast in their throats, and you couldn't hear more, and that was a blessing, the old fool could deave a dog into dysentery. But still there was something in what he was saying, other folk had bairns, they came with the seasons, there was no escape were you wedded and bedded. But Dite Peat said
Isn't there, now? Let me tell you
—and he told about shops in
that lousy hole, London
, where things were for sale that a man could use, right handy-like, and what happened then? You never fathered a family, not you, you could sin as much as you liked and pay nothing. And Dite said forbye it was his belief that's what that couple did up at the Manse, that was why Mrs Colquohoun went about like a quean, with a skin like cream and a figure like that, hardly a chest on the creature at all; instead of the broadening out and about, looking sappy and squash like a woman of her age. Damn't, what was woman in the world for, eh?—but to make your porridge and lie in your bed and bring as many bairns into the world as would help a man that was getting old? Not that the London things weren't fine for a childe when he went on a holiday, like. But if he himself were tied up, b'God, he'd take care he'd his wife in the family way—ay, every year, with a good bit scraich when it came to her time, that fair was a thing to jake a man up.

That was a dirty enough speak, if you liked. Folk looked here and there and Jim the Sourock, that had gotten religion, cast up his eyes, he had grown so holy with MacDougall's crush that he called the watery the w.c., and wouldn't have it that women had bodies at all more than an inch below the neck-bone. But Hairy Hogg had come in and sat down, folk cried,
Ay, Provost, and what would you say?
And Hairy said he thought Scotland was fair in a way, and if Burns came back he would think the same; and the worst thing yet they had done in Segget was to vote the Reverend Colquohoun to the pulpit—him and his Labour and sneering at folk, damn't! he had said we were monkeys, not men.

Some folk in the bar took a snicker at that, the story was growing whiskers in Segget, but the Provost had never
forgiven the minister. And Hairy said it was his opinion, from studying folk a good fifty year—and mind you, he was no fool at the job—the minister took up with some other woman. They said that the father of Else Queen's bairn was old Dalziel of the Meiklebogs, but he, Hairy Hogg, had his doubts of that. Had the minister ever cast out with the quean? No, when he'd meet her out and about he'd cry to her cheery, as though nothing had happened. If he couldn't give a bairn to his mistress, the minister, it was maybe because he was hashed other ways.

Damn't, that was a tasty bit story, now, queer you yourself hadn't thought of that. But long ere another day was done the news was spread through the Segget wynds that the Reverend Mr Colquohoun, the minister, had fathered the bairn of that quean, Else Queen, the Provost had seen the two of them together, him sossing the lass like a dog at its pleasure.

Ake Ogilvie heard the tale from the tailor, and Ake said:
Blethers, and even if it's true what has the business to do with
old Hogg? He himself, it seems, has done a bit more than just
lie down by the side of his wife—or that gawpus he has for
a son's not his
.

That was just like Ake Ogilvie, to speak coarse like that, trying to blacken the character of a man that wasn't there to defend himself. Peter Peat said
Well, I'm a friend to
my friends, but a man that's once got himself wrong with
me
—and he looked fierce enough to frighten a shark; but Ake Ogilvie laughed,
And what's Colquohoun done?
And Peter said
Him? A disgrace to Segget, that should be
a good Conservative. What is he instead?—why, a Labour
tink
. But Ake Ogilvie just said
To hell with their politics, I
don't care though he's trying to bring back the Pretender, same
as that snippet, Jahly young Mowat
.

But Peter wouldn't hear the gentry miscalled, and he said that Jahly would come to himself, and take his rightful place, you would see—at the head of the Segget Conservative branch. Ake said
He can take his place on a
midden if he likes—and he'll find they've much the same
smell
. Peter asked what had much the same smell and Ake said
Tories and middens, of course
, and Peter Peat looked at
him fierce, and left; that would learn the ill-gettèd joiner, that would.

Well, the news reached Cronin, the old tink in West Wynd, him that was aye preaching his socialist stite; and he said that he thought the whole thing a damned lie, an attempt to discredit the socialists of Segget. Jock Cronin at the station heard it and said
He's all right, Colquohoun
, in an offhand way, to let you know he and the Manse were fell thick and slobbered their brose from the very same bowl.

Ag Moultrie, the Roarer and Greeter (for short), took the news to the servants at Segget House; and it spread about there, and when young Mr Mowat came home from a trip he had gone to Dundon, he laughed out aloud.
Some
have all the luck. But if Mrs Colquohoun's in need of a bairn
I'll give half a year's profits to provide her with one
.

And you couldn't but laugh at the joke of the gent.

ROBERT WAS AWAY
that New Year's Eve, into Aberdeen, he wouldn't say why; but Chris could guess and had laughed at him.
Mind, nothing expensive
. And he'd said
What, in drinks? I'm going to squat in a pub and swizzle
confusion to all the sour sourocks in Segget!
Chris wished that it wasn't a joke, and he would; he kissed her and went striding away down the shingle, turning about to wave from the yews, his kiss still pressed on her lips as she stood, and tingling a bit, like a bee on a flower.

It was frosty weather as the day wore on, the sky and the earth sharp-rimed with steel, no sun came, only a smoulder of grey, Chris cooked the dinner with Maidie to help, and remembered Else, she'd have been more use. Maidie still
Memmed
like a frightened mouse, and once when up and above their heads there came a crash like a falling wall, she nearly jumped from her skin with fright. Chris said
It's just
Ewan, he's moving his press
, and Maidie said,
Oh, I got such
a fright!
and looked as though it had lifted her liver. Chris left her and went up to Ewan's room, and knocked at the door, he bade her come in, the place was a still, grey haze with dust. She saw Ewan through it by the window ledge, he'd stooped to look in the press he'd moved, it was filled with his precious array of flints.