The Cairngorms had begun to close in and were pressing down on the howe. Carron wood had crept upwards till its trees stood rooted against the sky. Silence had circled all the landscape, and held it trembling prisoner. A peesie had cried through the silence, weeping its grief across the stubble field. Some long, long grief that had found an echo in Janie herself. Her pain became submerged in the peesie’s cry. Herself and the landscape had stood in some ache, waiting for release.
Guard us, we pray
Throughout the coming night.
It was then that she realised why the Minister always chose that hymn to end the Evening Service. Because the aloneness of night was beyond the bearing of the land itself. It caught you, the land did, if you walked it at night. Held you hostage. Clamped and small within its own immensity, and cast all the burden of its own aloneness upon you.
The wind had begun to threaten the air. Passionately she had longed for the wind to come. To blow herself and the landscape sky high into movement and coherence again. Almost she had been aware of the wind’s near fierceness. Ready to plunge the furious hillside burns down into Cladda river. To hurl the straws over all the dykes. To toss the chaff into the eyes of the protesting people, bending before it, flapping in their clothes like scarecrows. To sting the trees in Carron wood into hissing rebellion. To give the land some loud, loud cry, other than that of pain.
‘Aye. But the wind’s hoverin’. She’s goin’ to rise.’
The mill men were clanking out now. Pausing by the back door. Sniffing the night.
‘Think ye that, then, Dod?’
‘I wouldna’ wonder at it. We could do wi’ a breesie o’ wind to dry out the stooks.’
‘A breesie, man! No’ a bloody gale, though! And that’s what’s in it. She’s on the road! A muckle North-Easter!’
They had dragged themselves reluctantly away from the contemplation of the night.
‘Well then, Janie! This time the morn’s night, Quean, ilka bone in your body will be hippit, after a day at the mill!’
‘God aye, Janie! You’ll feel that sore, ye’ll have to lie on your belly!’
‘Never mind, Janie! The first day at the threshing mill is aye the worst day.’
‘To say nothing of the yavins. They’ll have ye itchin’ a’ night. Belly and all!’
‘Coarse things, yavins, Janie! Ye ken the cure for them, though, Quean?’
‘Hardly, hardly, Dod, Janie has never lowsed on the mill before.’
‘Ye tell her, then, Jeems! Ye ken all the answers!’
‘Na, hardly. I dinna’ like.’
‘All right! I’ll tell her masel’! It’s like this, Janie. Ye tak’ off all your clothes. Sark and all. No cheating. And shak’ yoursel’ in front o’ the fire. Just mind that auld Hughie here doesna’ nip up-bye for a wee peep when you’re doin’t.’
Their laughter had shaken the darkness again. They had carried their joke with them, along the stubble field.
‘She’s risin’ already! We’re in for a gale the morn, right enough. You’ll need your goggles on the mill, Hughie. The chaff will fair blind ye!’
‘Never him! Never Hughie! He likes to wink to a bonnie lowser wi’ his bare e’en. That so, Hughie.’
‘Na, na. Na faith ye! Janie’s just some young for winkin’ to yet!’
‘Janie! Janie!’ The Mannie’s voice had assailed the sky. ‘Janie! Where have ye got till?’
‘She’s no’ that young.’ The mill men began to laugh amongst themselves. ‘Harken till auld Thane cryin’ awa’ there. She’s old enough for him to be anxious, now. She’ll soon be ready for the knife.’
‘Janie! O, there ye are! Where are the ithers? Chris! Alice! Donnie! Come on in, now. Come on! The hale jing bang o’ ye! Come on awa’ in . . .’
The White Bird Passes Page 12
