The Patriot (20 page)

He was fortunate in that it was a market-day and folk from the hilly countryside were already beginning to stream into the town, over the bridge, with their produce and goods for sale at the stalls, loaded on burros and mules. Andrew was glad to mingle with these - b
ut recognised that his garb and
bearing would make him conspicuous. This was scarcely the time or place to try to purchase local clothing. But he did see a youth leading two donkeys, one laden with pots and wine-jars, the other with tall stacks of wide-brimmed hats of plaited straw, one of which he contrived to buy, no doubt paying many times its market price. Under this he felt a little less exposed, although perhaps this was an illusion.

The tide of peasants was going in one direction, at first, into town; however, presently, some men and boys began to straggle back, with the unladen donkeys, to do their day's work in the fields, leaving their womenfolk to sell the produce. When Andrew perceived amongst these the youth from whom he had bought the hat, he attached himself to him, and went off over the bridge in his company, however oddly that young man eyed him. At least no one challenged him.

The youth was returning to
an upland village called Sante
stella, a few miles on the difficult road to Durango, south-eastwards. Andrew sought to gain his goodwill by indicating, in his halting Spanish, that he was escaping from one of the tax-gatherers of the Spanish government, so universally hated throughout the Basque country, who appeared to think that he was a smuggler from one of the foreign ships - this said with a wink, to suggest that he mig
ht be just that. Whether he was
believed he did not know, but at least the young man made no objection to his company, even shared some bread and cheese with him, and by the time they reached his village, was prepared to do even better. He made the most of his opportunity, sold Andrew some old clothing and a tattered cape; and though he could scarcely sell one of his mother's two burros, acted broker for another one, with a neighbour, together with halter and pack-saddle, at a price probably unsurpassed in Santestella in living memory. Thus equipped, and with an adequate supply of very basic foodstuff, the traveller took his leave and the road over the passes to Durango.

A mile or two on, where a track branched off due eastwards, just for safety's sake, Andrew branched off likewise. Such commercially-minded peasants might just possibly be persuaded to sell information about him, hereafter.

So, with his droop-eared, less-than-lively but evidently amiable donkey, he trudged eastwards through the comparatively empty Pyrenean foothills, scarcely able to believe his good fortune.

He had plenty of time now to ponder over his curious attainment of freedom. He could only assume that his presence in Bilbao had become known to more people than he had realised; the fact that the
Helderenberg
master and pilot were in custody was possibly significant. He had heard that there was a small English colony in the town, wine-traders in the main, and one or two Scots amongst them; but he had carefully avoided contact. Presumably amongst these was one, or some, who learned of and sympathised with his position, either as a fellow-Scot or as an English Protestant. And whoever this person might be, he must be influential in some way. Perhaps the Alcade himself had helped, at least so far as turning a blind eye to the rescue arrangements; he had been civil enough at Andrew's arrest. It was an open secret that many of the Basque notables were far from in-accord with the central authorities in Madrid and glad enough to avoid cooperation when it could be done without repercussions. No doubt the warders had been bribed to leave the doors unlocked and to feign sleep, knowing that they would not be punished.

Whatever was behind it all, the thing was heartening as it was welcome. And Andrew Fletcher needed enheartening, at this juncture, almost as much as he needed his freedom.

For the first time for months, he faced the future, however unknown, with some cheer and anticipation.

9

So commenced a most strange interlude in that man's life, scarcely fanciful, for it had reality and incident enough, but as it were unrelated to anything that he had known previously, and free in a way that his exile in the Low Countries, even his long-ago Grand Tour, had never been. He saw none of his own kind or class, nor wished to do so; he went at his own - or the burro's - pace, wheresoever the spirit led him, so long as it was in the general direction of far-away Rome, time utterly unimportant; he derived a simple but real pleasure from seeing new places and new things, perceived much in essential daily living which hitherto he had not recognised or had taken for granted. As a stranger in a strange land he went warily but awarely. All his experiences and contacts were not joyful ones; but he found instruction as well as challenge, of a modest and practical sort, in all. He became, perforce, something of an expert on Spanish character, customs, food and drink, and the Spanish outlook on life, so utterly different from, for instance, the Scots. And he learned to know himself, in consequence, better than he had ever done - which is always good for any man. Born to riches, prominence, privilege, and with the gifts of intellect and leadership, he had nevertheless been largely shielded from much of the elementary frictions and stresses of ordinary life, save for those which his choice of politics as a career had brought upon him. Now, drifting through high Pyrenean Spain with a donkey, he began to catch up on what he had missed - and on the whole enjoyed the experience, even if sometimes only in retrospe
ct. And his guilt over what had
happened at Lyme, although it did not disappear, faded somewhat.

Although on the whole it made an undemanding progress, save in small everyday matters of travel and communication, there were occasional dramatics. There was the night, for instance, in the Jaca area of the upper Aragon valley, when he was set upon by two armed ruffians in the tiny inn where he was the only guest. Afterwards he was not entirely dissatisfied over the way he had comported himself by flooring one of his assailants with a kick in the groin and knocking almost unconscious the other with a half-full wine-beaker - thereby winning himself a distinctly rusty old sword and dagger, whilst leaving one man moaning on the floor as his colleague bolted. Also, since he was certain that the shifty-eyed innkeeper was hand-in-glove with the attackers, he had the satisfaction of not only leaving without payment but of helping himself to a smoked ham for good measure, when he made it clear that he knew better how to handle the sword than had its previous owner.

Thereafter he made his way to the small town of Jaca where he managed to buy a small old-fashioned pistol and some ball and powder, much as he now hated the weapon and what it represented in his life. At least he would travel the more securely.

This purchase left him the more short of money and he began seriously to consider means of spinning out his remaining small funds and even, if possible, of earning more -something he had never before had to think of doing - for it was a long way to Rome. There seemed to be little that he could do amongst these mountain people which they could not do better for themselves. He was beginning to give up hope in this respect when, one night, lodging with an old village priest, he learned that the man, becoming crippled with rheumatic trouble, could no longer write, nor could anyone else in the village. As a result the little church's missals, breviary and lectionary, hand-written, were becoming tattered and unreadable because he could no longer hold pen to transcribe them. Since these were in Latin and Andrew was well versed in the humanities, he spent a coup
le of days there doing what was
necessary, and earned the first wage of his life, modest though it had to be. More important, the priest, much gratified, assured him that he would be welcome at the many small monasteries scattered through those remote valleys, where it seemed - oddly, to Andrew - that monks able to write were in short supply and monastic documents frequently in need of transcription.

So the traveller began to call at the monasteries, and to his considerable advantage. Not only was he indeed able to earn his keep and more, by transcriptions and other writing tasks, but because of what he was able to see and study in the libraries, scriptoriums, repertoriums and museums of these establishments. Always interested in history and mankind's long struggle towards enlightenment, scientific advance as well as better government and justice, he found much to fascinate him in these places, quite apart from purely religious matters, amongst books and manuscripts usually unconsulted for many years. For he was surprised at the intellectual degeneracy of most of these mountain monasteries and conventual houses. Perhaps those in Lowland Spain were in better shape -although he had gathered in Bilbao that the Holy Church, in His Most Catholic Majesty's domains, was presently in a sorry state of backwardness, ignorance and superstition. He found the monastic clergy in the main friendly enough, even amiable and hospitable; but unlettered, not notably pious and seemingly lazy. Their fairly general lack of appreciation of the worth of much that previous generations of their orders had accumulated in their archive-rooms at least held some advantage for Andrew Fletcher; for his own very evident appreciation of these things quite often resulted in him being offered books, illustrated manuscripts and other items in return for his scribing labours, not all of which he felt bound to refuse in very shame. So that, as time went by, his burro became loaded more richly probably than any other donkey in Spain, to its owner's wonder, considering that he was now practically penniless and living from day to day, hand-to-mouth.

To the problem of money, however, in late November, he unexpectedly was presented with a partial solution. He had crossed out of Spain into
the independent little mountain
principality of Andorra, where at its capital town he discovered, of all things, that the chief treasurer of the little state, indeed the banker to the ruling Prince-Bishop, was a Scotsman from Edinburgh, married to an Andorran wife. This individual, John Kerr by name, was in effect almost the real ruler of the place and its five thousand inhabitants, for the Prince-Bishop, being Spanish and holding also the Spanish bishopric of Urgel, only occasionally visited the principality and the Council consisted almost entirely of unlettered peasants. Kerr was responsible for developing tobacco-growing in a big way on the lower mountain-slopes which seemed to be most suitable for the crop, and this was proving a highly

E

rofitable industry, for the smoking of the weed was now eing accepted as providing immunity from the plague. So he had become very rich himself, as well as enriching his patron and indeed the peasantry. Kerr was delighted to meet Andrew, for no other Scot had ever come visiting Andorra in his time; and like all his compatriots in voluntary exile, he loved Scotland the more for being far from it - though without any real intention of returning there. And he knew Haddingtonshire and Saltoun Hall, his father having been a goldsmith and clockmaker in Edinburgh, and in fact having made a special chiming-clock for Sir Robert Fletcher on one occasion, Kerr recollected. A good Protestant at heart, although nominally a Catholic here serving a Catholic bishop, he was agog to hear all that Andrew could tell him about the state of affairs both in Scotland and England - despite being comparatively well-informed already it was clear, as, a banker in a small independent state on the verges of Spain and France, he had to be.

The great advantage to Andrew was, of course, that John Kerr was well aware of the richness of the Saltoun estate and therefore of his visitor's credit. And, being in the money business anyway, he was able to advance cash upon a bill of credit on the bank in Amsterdam which the Scots exiles made use of for their sustenance and where Andrew's substance was known and respected. So meantime the traveller's financial difficulties were over.

Andrew stayed with Kerr and his handsome and hospitable wife until well after the Ch
ristmas season, at their urgent
invitation, whilst the Amsterdam arrangements were being finalised, these taking a considerable time naturally; so that the two exiles were able to bring in the New Year of 1687 in suitable Scots style.

When all the credit facilities were at length completed, Andrew was almost loth to move on. But his presence here would become known in time. Also there would, he expected, be moneys awaiting him at Rome, which must be seen to. And his readings in the monasteries had further whetted his desire to visit Greece, the very cradle of democracy and responsible government. Now, at least, he would be able to head for there in more normal style.

He left his burro at Andorra la Vieja, bought two horses, hired a young Andorran as groom and attendant, and said farewell to the Kerrs - this in February 1687.

He had heard of no hint of any hue-and-cry on his account.

10

Almost exactly a year later, Andrew found himself back in the Stadtholder's palace of The Bosch at The Hague, with Gilbert Burnet, something he could scarcely have foreseen, especially as he had arrived from Hungary of all places. Not that his arrival here was really remarkable; English, Scots and Irish exiles were indeed flocking to Holland again from all points of the compass, drawn as by a magnet, many of them directly from England itself. The reason was simple in the extreme. King James was making life unbearable for all save Roman Catholics, and even for the more democratically-minded and freedom-loving of these. Protestant England was on the verge of revolt and everywhere eyes were turning hopefully towards Holland and its Stadtholder, Prince William of Orange, the Protestant's champion, and his wife, James's elder daughter, who was heir to the throne and herself strongly Protestant. William was a warrior-prin
ce who had even managed to hold
up the victorious march of Louis the Fourteenth of France. Surely he must now come to the rescue of Protestant England, not to mention Scotland.