by Pat McIntosh
‘Tell me of Dame Isabella,’ she said to Lowrie, nudging her horse alongside his. ‘Did you know her well? Was she always so – so—’
‘So individual,’ he supplied tactfully. ‘All the time I’ve kent her, aye. But I was away at college most of the year, you’ll mind, so I never got the worst of it. My mother had a few tales of her doings.’
‘Lady Magdalen thinks well of her,’ Alys observed.
‘The old dame was fond of the lady, by what she said,’ Lowrie said. ‘We turn off here, mistress, up the Glazert water.’
‘So she could be good to those she thought well of.’ Alys obediently turned her steed onto the new track, a broad stony trail through the low ground beside another river.
‘I’d say so.’ Lowrie laughed shortly. ‘Whether they wanted it or no.’
‘Had she plans for you?’ she asked innocently.
‘She had. Our Lady be thanked she never got putting them into play.’
‘What, was it not something you would want?’
‘It wasny that,’ Lowrie said, going scarlet, ‘so much as the way she’d have gone about it, ordering Mai – ordering people to do her bidding and handing over a great lump o coin to sweeten the bargain. I’d as soon get a post for friendship or kinship, or even on my own merits.’
‘I can see you’d not want a place bought for you in that way,’ Alys agreed. ‘And yet she meant well.’ She looked about her, taking in the lie of the new river valley. The Glazert rattled in its wide bed, wriggling down the valley floor; flat meadow-lands on either side were full of cattle grazing the new spring grass, herd-laddies from different ferm-touns watching each other warily from the dykes. At a distance, the valley sides sloped sharply. A grete forest that was named the Countrey of Straunge Auentures, she thought. ‘How different this country is from Lanarkshire.’
‘It’s got fields and dykes and houses,’ objected Luke, ‘same as any other.’
‘No, but,’ she gestured with one hand, trying to describe what she could see. ‘The fall of the land, the way that burn has cut into its bank, the slope opposite that, all these. The stone is not the same colour, it must have its own properties, so it makes different shapes of the ground.’
‘I know what you mean,’ agreed Lowrie, looking curiously at her. ‘It changes even more when you get closer to the Campsies yonder.’ He nodded at the hills to the north. ‘They go up in layers like a stack o girdle-cakes, a thing you never see in Lanarkshire.’
‘And yourself, Maister Lowrie,’ she went on. The track was less well maintained than the Stirling road, so they could not hurry. That meant it was much easier to talk, and she was determined to learn what she could. ‘Have you brothers and sisters?’
‘Three brothers living, all older than me,’ said Lowrie, ‘and two sisters much younger, still unwed – though Annabella’s been betrothed since she was four. But my faither’s well able to provide for me,’ he added, ‘whatever the old – lady said.’
‘Indeed, yes,’ Alys agreed. ‘He put you to the college, after all. What are his plans for you? Maister Michael, who will be my good-brother, is to take on management of his father’s coalheugh once he is wed, a great responsibility.’
‘Aye, so he wrote me. We’d thought of the law,’ said Lowrie, his head turned away. ‘Anything but Holy Kirk. I’ve no notion to be a priest, and my faither says he’ll not make me, not when my brother Alec’s doing well at Dunblane.’
‘Nor did my husband wish for the priesthood,’ she said, and thought for a moment of Gil as she had left him asleep in their curtained bed, warm and satisfied, his jaw dark with stubble. No, not a suitable priest, despite all his learning. And this young man, though of course he was not Gil, seemed more estimable the more she talked to him, a clene knyght withoute vylony and of a gentil strene of fader syde and moder syde. ‘The law is a good trade.’
‘It’s a way to win a living,’ said Lowrie.
They rode in silence for half a mile or so, during which Socrates started an argument with a cow-herd’s dog and discovered it had friends; Tam beat them off with his whip, and Socrates made a dignified retreat to his previous position under Luke’s horse’s girth.
‘So why are we out here, mistress?’ Lowrie asked suddenly. ‘Maister Gil never said aught about inspecting these two properties. Does it relate to the old dame’s death?’
‘It does,’ she answered, hoping this was true. ‘It – it arose from something John Sempill said, when I visited his wife.’
‘Him again.’ Lowrie frowned. ‘That was right odd, him having the wrong property in mind. He and the old dame must have been taking in one another’s rents for months.’
‘It is strange,’ she agreed. ‘Where are the two properties? Can we see them from here?’
‘The road-end for Balgrochan’s just yonder,’ said Lowrie’s man Sim. He pointed to a track which led up the hillside towards a group of low cottages. ‘And the other’s no more than a couple o mile further, at the foot o yonder glen, see? We’ll get a good mouthful o Balgrochan ale within half an hour.’
‘So what is it we want?’ Lowrie persisted. ‘Willie Logan the grieve can tell us most things, I’ve no doubt, but is there anyone else we should bid him send for?’
‘Likely not.’ She took a moment to arrange her thoughts into Scots. ‘Principally I wish to find out about where the Ballencleroch rents go, as you say, and what they are, and who is in charge, and what—’ She bit her lip, and then went on, ‘what trouble there might be on the property. But it seems foolish to come all the way out here and not check the other place as well.’
Lowrie looked warily at her.
‘Ride onto the place and ask what the rents are?’ he said. ‘What – where will that get you, apart from hunted off the ground wi a pitchfork? Why does he need to ken the rents?’
She shook her head.
‘We’re looking for anything out of place. I’m – my husband suspects that—’
‘If Sempill of Muirend’s involved,’ said Tam over his shoulder, ‘I’d say aught Maister Gil suspects is right.’
It was less simple than that, of course. For one, she had not thought of the tenants being Ersche speakers.
‘Aye, the whole pack o them,’ said the grieve, refilling her beaker. ‘Seat yoursels, mistress, Maister Lowrie. This bench here’s a good seat, you get a pleasant view o the best land in the shire o Stirling. Aye, there’s one or two has enough Scots to get by at the market in Kirkie, but for the most part you’ll ha to make do wi me. So ask away, mistress, I’ll answer if I can. If ye’re a friend o Maister Lowrie’s that’s enough for me.’
‘But is it my faither holds the feu?’ Lowrie asked bluntly before Alys could speak. Maister Logan attended to his beaker too, delaying his answer in a way which told Alys the man spent most of his time among his Ersche tenants, and then placed himself at the end of the bench beside them, by the door of his house where hens wandered in and out crooning.
Balgrochan lay some way up the slope of the Campsie hills, so the view was indeed pleasant. The Glazert wound its way down a flat valley, the cattle they had seen grazing were now smaller than John’s toy horse, and a lark tossed on the wind above them, its song reaching them in gusts. A man walked purposefully on the track by the river. The far skyline seemed to be the hills of Renfrew and Lanarkshire. Could that be Tinto Hill away to the southeast, Alys wondered? Nearer, two of the Ersche speakers were dragging a broad wooden rake along the ridges of the infield, small birds chirped in the dyke, and several women in loose checked gowns like Ealasaidh’s were gossiping by another house door, with covert glances at Alys’s riding-dress.
‘I’d say no,’ the grieve pronounced finally. ‘That is, I’d say he does and he doesny.’
‘Talk sense, Willie,’ invited Lowrie. ‘Where do the rents go?’
‘Oh, the rents?’ repeated Logan. ‘If it’s the rents you’re asking me about, that’s easy. They go to the old dame, the widow of your uncle Thomas, maister, your grandsire’
s brother.’
‘So it’s her holds the feu?’
‘Oh, that I wouldny ken,’ Logan peered into the jug of ale, ‘for it was your faither let me know I’d to send her the rents and no argument. Three year since, that was, when your uncle Thomas was yet alive.’
Alys glanced at Lowrie, who shook his head, looking blank. Socrates returned triumphant from somewhere, scattering the hens, and sat down at her side.
‘And then,’ Logan went on, ‘I’d a word from the old dame hersel, brought me by the lad that came to fetch the rents, that they were to go to a Lady Magdalen somebody. But since it’s still the same fellow that fetches them away, I made no mind. So that’s how the rents are, maister. As to the feu, I suppose Livingstone o Craigannet thinks he holds it, since he’s gied me instruction on it, but maybe the lady thinks she holds it and all.’
‘Was there no taking of sasines?’ Alys asked. ‘That is why it happens, after all, so that everyone may see who holds the land.’
Logan shrugged.
‘No that I recall, mistress. No since the heriot fee was paid, when Maister Lowrie’s faither came into the property. Ten year syne, that’d be.’
‘And who is it fetches the rents?’ she asked. Logan grinned.
‘No doubt o that, at least. It’s a great long dark fellow, name o Campbell, that turns up just afore the quarter-days.’ Alys closed her eyes a moment in resignation. Of course it would be that pair, she thought. ‘Mind, times he answers to Euan, times to Neil, but it’s aye the same man.’
‘Do you know aught of a man called John Sempill?’ asked Lowrie. ‘Aye, I’ll ha more of that ale. It’s uncommon good.’
‘Sempill?’ The grieve considered briefly, then refilled the beaker. ‘Is that the man, a cordiner down at Kirkie? No, he’s cried Stenhouse. Canny say I’ve heard of a Sempill, maister.’
‘Perhaps at Ballencleroch?’ Alys suggested, scratching the dog’s ears.
‘There’s no cordiner at Ballencleroch.’ The name sounded different in this man’s pronunciation from her own. ‘In fact,’ Logan divulged, ‘there’s no as many of any trade at Ballencleroch as there was. The Clachan’s like to be deserted if any more folk leaves it.’
‘Leaves it?’ repeated Lowrie. ‘Why? Why are folk leaving?’
‘They’re saying the Deil’s taken up residence in the glen,’ Logan said, ‘wi smoke and thunder and foul airs, and hellfire flickering at night. There’s folk has seen it.’
‘What, in Campsie Glen?’ said Lowrie incredulously.
‘Aye, you may laugh, Maister Lowrie, but my boy Billy and a hantle of friends went to hae a look, you ken what laddies are like, and that’s what they seen and all. And one o the deils took a run at them wi a pitchfork, he said, so they fled, the whole pack o them, never stopped running till they came to our house and fell in ahint the door.’
‘They had a bad fright, then,’ said Alys seriously. ‘How old is Billy?’
‘Eleven past at Candlemas, and a sensible laddie for the maist part,’ said Logan, a little defensively. ‘I’d an idea to go mysel by daylight and see what it was that frighted them, but it’s been ower busy, what wi lambin-time, and getting the ground ready for the oats, I’ve never gone yet.’
‘When was that?’ Lowrie asked. Logan glanced at the sky, and counted on his fingers.
‘Six days syne. But whatever it is, it’s still there, for the word is, there’s another family left the Clachan yesterday, feart to dwell that close to Hell’s mouth.’
‘Is it really Hell’s mouth, mistress?’ said Luke.
‘What do you think?’ asked Alys. He rolled his eyes at her, and after a moment said,
‘I think it might no be.’
‘Good.’
‘But I’m no wanting to take the chance,’ he said obstinately.
‘Very well. What will you tell the maister, or Maister Gil?’
‘What do you plan to do, mistress?’ Lowrie asked while Luke digested this.
‘What would you do?’ she countered. The Countrey of Straunge Auentures, she was thinking.
‘Go away and get a Trained Band from Stirling. I’m none so sure the five o us can take on what we’re like to find up the glen.’
‘Six,’ she corrected. ‘And the dog.’
‘Five,’ said Lowrie firmly, and Tam echoed the word. Alys nudged her horse to a faster walk and did not reply. ‘I wish you’d taken Willie Logan’s advice and waited there,’ he went on. ‘His wife’s a decent body, you’d have been fine wi her.’
‘She fed us well,’ said Alys. ‘And the laddie seems truthful enough.’
‘I’d agree he gave us the truth as he recalls it,’ said Lowrie cautiously, ‘but I’d say he’s recalling more than maybe happened at the time.’
‘Oh, yes, for certain,’ agreed Alys.
‘You mean there’s maybe no a giant?’ said Luke, between hope and disappointment.
‘I would discount,’ said Alys, gathering her reins into one hand to enumerate with the other, ‘the flames reaching to the sky, the green devils, the pitchforks.’ She paused to recall what else Billy had told them in hesitant Scots as he stood before the company, wriggling in embarrassment at all the attention while his father looked on proudly, ready to cuff him if he thought the boy was being impertinent. Lowrie had questioned him carefully, but some of the details he had extracted were more credible than others.
‘The giant’s breathing,’ Lowrie said now. ‘As Luke here says, that’s never likely.’
‘It isn’t a giant,’ agreed Alys. He looked at her, startled.
‘They heard screaming,’ Tam offered. ‘And there was black things flying all about like bats by daylight. I heard the laddie say it mysel.’
‘Crows,’ said Alys firmly. ‘Or is it jackdaws which have a cry like that?’
‘Oh, is that why you asked about the trees?’ Lowrie said.
The track from Balgrochan came round a slight shoulder of the hillside and found itself suddenly in the midst of another huddle of cottages, the usual low structures of field stones and turf. To their left a burn hurried down towards the main valley floor, and on its far bank a bigger house of dressed stone, with several shuttered windows and a wooden door, suggested the property was a wealthy one; up the hill to their right, beyond the cottages, stood a small stone church. A few hens scratched round a gable, and a goat bleated somewhere. A trickle of smoke rose against the hillside from the thatched roof of the kirk, but otherwise the place appeared deserted. Alys sat her horse and looked about her, while the servants drew together and Luke crossed himself. Socrates raised his head, sniffing.
‘The kirk?’ Lowrie suggested. ‘Sir Richie would likely stay longer than the rest.’
‘But where have they all gone?’ wondered Alys. ‘I am surprised none of them have taken refuge at Balgrochan.’
Sim had dismounted, giving his reins to his companion, and now ducked past the leather curtain at the nearest house door and peered inside.
‘Taken the cooking pot and the blankets,’ he reported, emerging, ‘but no the bench or the creepie-stools. I’d say they was hoping to come back. They’ve never taken the roof-trees, after all.’
Alys nodded. It still seemed odd to her, though it was completely natural to Gil, that the tenant of such a place by custom supplied his own roof-timbers; if the little house still had its roof, the tenant hoped to return.
‘Let us seek out the priest,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he can tell us what he knows.’
Like the biggest house, the kirk was constructed of dressed stone, in this case a grey and fawn coloured freestone with prominent chisel-marks. She studied it carefully as they walked round to the low west door, but could not recognize any work-hand she knew. Little surprise in that, she reflected, the building seemed fifty years old or more. Narrow unglazed windows gave no view of the interior. Lowrie tried the door as she reached it, but it did not budge.
‘Barred,’ he said, and hammered on the planks with the pommel of his dagger. ‘Si
r Richie! Are you within? It’s Lowrie Livingstone here!’
There was a long pause. Then a faint, quavering voice floated out to them.
‘Come here till I see you first, maister.’
Lowrie, raising his eyebrows, stepped round the corner of the little building, to where he might be seen from the nearest window.
‘I’m no alone,’ he said. ‘I’ve a lady wi me, and four men and a dog. What’s amiss here, Sir Richie?’
‘A lady?’ There was another pause, and then the bar behind the door thumped and rattled into its corner. The door opened a crack, and a wary eye peered out at them. ‘What sort o a lady? Where are ye, Maister Lowrie?’
‘A Christian lady,’ said Alys reassuringly. She bent to find her purse, under the skirts of her riding-dress, and drew out her beads. Clasping the cross on the end of the string, she smiled at the eye. ‘We’re no threat, sir priest.’
‘Aye.’ The door opened further, and the priest stepped back. He was a small man, spare and elderly, one hand at his pectoral cross, a stout cudgel dangling from the other wrist. ‘Come away in, then, till I bar the door again,’ he ordered them, in that quavering voice.
The little building was shadowy inside, the narrow windows admitting little light and the glow of the peat fire against the north wall helping little. Seated on the wall-bench, Alys said with sympathy,
‘Your parish is near empty, Sir Richie. What’s amiss, then?’
‘Oh, Mistress Mason.’ Sir Richie shook his head. ‘Sic a thing as you never heard o. My folk are all feared the Bad Yin himsel has taken up residence in the glen.’ He waved the cudgel northward. Socrates looked up briefly, his eyes catching the light, and returned to his inspection of a distant corner. The men drew closer together. ‘They’ve all run off to stay wi kin in one place or another down Strathblane.’
‘It’s true, then?’ said Luke, crossing himself. The old man shook his head.
