1588 A Calendar of Crime

by Shirley McKay

  The farmer’s sons confirmed the doctor’s tale. Early in the morning of All Hallows Eve, old Adam Cole had walked up to the farm and telt them Ann was dead. One of them had ridden to the town to fetch Giles Locke. He had taken word to the Balfour family. And they had helped the servants move the body to the laich house, where it was cooler, for the wake.

  None of them had seen a stranger in the house. Ann Balfour and her servants kept to themselves. They were seldom seen about from one winter to the next. No one knew them well. ‘You maun talk to Wullie,’ someone said. ‘Wullie brought Ann Balfour’s letters from the town. He kens mair than maist.’

  Wullie was the farmer’s youngest son. He was nine years old. But his testimony was clearer, and far more informed, than his brothers’ was. As well as the letters, he took bread and milk, and physick that the doctor had prescribed. Sometimes, he helped the servants in the house. The wifie had given him a silver penny for it. And there had been another lady staying with them, over the last months. Very auld and fine. She was Mistress Balfour’s sister, and her name was Frances. It was Mistress Balfour who had telt him that herself. She had come there, he said, ‘to help the leddy die. I did not speak wi’ her.’

  Ann Balfour’s servants were sitting in the hall. Hew had little hope of making them confess. He could see by their looks – Adam Cole’s in particular – that they were the stuff that martyrs were made from. Were Catholics all like that? So resolutely sure of their final end, they did not care how hard it was to come to it. Not that Hew, of course, would put that to the test.

  Instead, he showed his hand. ‘That was a cruel trick that you played.’

  He was looking at the wife, for he thought he might have some leverage with her, if any came at all. They had met before. He had fetched her water from the well. Her suspicion at the time had overcome her gratitude. Still, it was a connection he could work upon. The husband at her side sat resolute as stone.

  He saw man and wife exchange a glance. They were at an age when words were not required. The woman spoke for both of them. ‘Ah dinnae ken what ye mean.’

  ‘You let Colin Snell believe he saw a ghost, when it was Ann’s sister sitting in the chair.’

  ‘Ah niver did.’

  Hew had expected that. He did not expect what she answered next, for quickly she expanded, ‘Ah canna help whit was in his mind. Ah didnae tell him that it wis a ghost. He telt it to himself.’

  ‘But you did not tell him who it was,’ he pointed out. It astonished him how readily she confirmed his claim.

  ‘Why wid ah tell him?’ she replied. ‘Why wis he here, but to disturb decent folk’s devotions? He et the pie, and had the cheek to say my mistress telt him to. That wis a wicked lie. Nor am I sorry if he is afeart. He deserves to be.’

  ‘Whisht, woman, will you? You have said enough,’ Adam said.

  ‘Ah will say my piece, or niver speak again. A good pie that was, sent frae the farm fer the funeral.’

  Grizelda blew her nose on a spotted handkerchief.

  ‘That was wrong of him. But why did Ann’s sister not declare herself?’ asked Hew.

  ‘She was grieved, and shy. She had gone above, for a moment’s sleep, and in comes this limmar from the Kirk. Whit was she to do? While he was blundering above us she slipped out. I locked the door behind her,’ she explained.

  Hew shook his head. ‘What you have described is a counterfeit.’

  ‘It is nothing of the kind. It was shutting in a thief, who had come into the house. Now, sir, if you will, leave us to our peace; we are mourning here.’ The old man stood, with dignity, and Hew allowed himself to be ushered out.

  ‘Where is Frances now?’ he asked.

  ‘Far from here, I doubt. Frances comes and goes, and never stays for long.’

  ‘Will she come again?’

  ‘That, sir, I count as unlikely, now that Ann Balfour has gone.’

  There was a note of sadness in the old man’s voice, prompting Hew to say, ‘Forgive me, for I have intruded on your grief. I am sorry for it. And I am sorry for your old friend, Father John. I heard he had died.’

  The old man’s face hardened. ‘Died? Aye, sir, he died. He was broken by men like Colin Snell. They couldnae let an auld man gang peaceful to his rest, but harried and pursued him till his health was gone.’

  Hew responded awkwardly. ‘If that is the case, it causes me regret. It must be painful to you, too, that your mistress did not have in her final hours the comfort of the sacrament which meant the most to her.’

  Strangely, Adam chuckled. Grief could show itself in ways that were perverse. And Adam Cole had doubtless loved his mistress well.

  The question was resolved. No ghost but a sister, punishing a man for intruding on her grief. So Hew was persuaded as he set off for the town, until he met a man who came the other way, whistling as he went, with an apple in his hand. He knew the man at once as the student Henry Balfour, from St Leonard’s College, now at the beginning of his final year.

  ‘Salve, Henry,’ he called out.

  Henry waved at him as he bit into the apple. ‘Well met, and all that,’ he said cheerfully.

  ‘Not so well met,’ answered Hew, ‘if you are truant again.’

  ‘I have leave,’ Henry said, ‘because I am bereaved.’

  ‘Accept my doleaunce, then. Though you seem to be bearing up well.’

  ‘My aunt and I were not close,’ Henry said, biting at the apple once again.

  ‘Was your aunt Ann Balfour?’ The connection, dimly, dawned on Hew at last.

  ‘Strictly,’ Henry said, ‘she was my father’s aunt. Or a second cousin of some sort. I do not really ken, except my father owns the house she lived in. She was one of the papist Balfours, who have brought shame on our family. He let her live there because she was poor, and had nowhere else. He said I could have the house, and the land, if I was prepared to see to her affairs, the funeral and such. So I did. Though it is not so much of a house.’

  ‘I have seen it,’ Hew teased him. ‘And I have to tell you it is full of ghosts.’

  ‘I have no fear of ghosts. Besides, as we both ken, living folk may sometimes pass off as the dead.’ Henry grinned at him. ‘There are still two servants incumbent, both of them ancient and gnarled. They are living, though grimly. I am going now to see what can be done to encourage them a little.’

  ‘The last time I saw you, you were pining for a lass,’ Hew said. ‘I am glad to see that you are more cheerful now.’

  ‘The lass is still a work in hand. I hope to win her back. The house will help.’

  A thought occurred to Hew. ‘Were you at the funeral?’ he asked.

  ‘I was. A sad affair. I had thought the servants would complain, wanting psalms and such, but they made no fuss. I think there was a wake or something in the house. Some superstitious thing. I did not like to ask.’

  Hew nodded. ‘That was best.’ He had the sense that Henry, for all his foppery, would be a considerate landlord.

  ‘Was her sister there with them?’ he asked.

  Henry stared at him. ‘What sister? She had no sister.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’

  ‘Quite sure. She had a brother, though. We do not speak of him.’

  ‘No? Why is that?’

  Henry laughed. ‘Well, we do. In our house, he is something of a jest. We dare to bring him up, to spite our father sometimes, for it makes him cross. But I am not convinced that he exists. He is here and there, and all about, but he is never seen. He is very old, if he is alive. Almost as old as his sister Ann.’

  ‘What do you mean, he is never seen?’

  ‘I suppose because he has to hide himself. When he was a bairn, he was sent away to live among the Jesuits. He became a priest, of the dreadful kind.’

  ‘And I suppose,’ concluded Hew, ‘the name he took was Francis.’ For, he thought, what else?

  ‘Father Francis, aye. Though my dad would flay me if he heard me call him that. I have an idea that his given nam
e was George.’

  Hew bade him good day, and continued to the town. As he put together all that he had learned, a smile began to spread across his face.

  ‘Will you tell the truth to Colin Snell?’ asked Giles. They were sitting in the doctor’s tower, away from prying eyes, and Hew had told his friend what he had found.

  Hew shook his head. ‘I have no proof,’ he said. ‘Besides, it would be cruel. To tell him that his ghost was Father Francis Balfour in a woman’s gown would drive him to despair. He would be incontinent with disbelief and rage. It would send him mad.’

  ‘Still,’ said Giles, ‘can it be kind, to let him go on thinking he has lost his mind?’

  ‘He does not think it now. I spoke to James Melville. He tells me that now that Colin Snell has recovered from his fright – and the rotten tooth that Roger has pulled out – he believes the ghost was part of God’s intent for him. He is very pleased with it.’

  ‘Can that be to the good?’

  ‘James says it is not bad. Colin Snell believes that he should now retreat to a period of contemplation, reflecting on the spirit, and what it might mean. He intends to write it all in a book. I expect his book will be condemned as heresy, by the jealous Kirk. But it will keep him quiet for a while. And his friend Dod Auchinleck has offered him a place tending to the graves in his parish kirkyard. James says it is good of him. The living he has there can barely keep him and his wife and child. But he says that Dod has a good Christian heart. If there is something to be saved inside Colin Snell, he is the man to do it.’

  ‘Graves, though,’ said Giles. ‘Are graves the proper thing, for a man who thinks that he has seen a ghost? They are contradicted for the melancholic mind.’

  ‘Surely it is choler that predominates in Colin? I should think that graves would be the perfect thing,’ said Hew. ‘When he is occupied among the dead, he cannot hurt the living minds of boys like Thomas Crowe, or chase about the country persecuting priests.’

  Giles did not mistake the meaning in his tone. ‘Then, as I suppose,’ he said, ‘you did not choose to tell the truth of it to James?’

  ‘I told him,’ answered Hew, ‘that there was a woman staying in the house, and that Colin’s fevered mind had conjured up the rest. So much I thought was necessary, to prevent further troubling of the servants at the house, who, if nothing else, are deserving of their peace. He passed the news to Colin Snell, who would not hear a word of it. He will not for the world be robbed of his ghost.’

  Giles said with a smile, ‘What! Hew Cullan is colluding in concealing Catholic priests!’

  Hew answered carelessly, ‘As I think I telt you, I have found no proof. The servants at the house will carry their secret with them to the end, and I have no will to hurry them towards it. They are weak and old. And if a person finds some comfort in their dying hours, from the ministrations of a Catholic priest, what harm has been done? They are saved, or no, with or without it, I doubt.’

  Giles approved his sentiment. He was thoughtful for a while. Presently he said, ‘I believe I may have seen him.’

  ‘You have seen Father Francis?’ Hew exclaimed.

  ‘As you ken, I have attended very many deaths. I do not make distinctions for the Catholic kind. Except I have observed that Catholics die good deaths. Often, in the background, I have been aware of an old woman of the house, quiet and reserved, and yet a presence there, who tended to the patients in their final hours.’

  ‘Did you never suspect?’

  Giles shook his head. ‘I never did suppose that woman was a man. Which leads me on to think that Father Francis has assumed the mantle for so long, it becomes his nature.’

  ‘Hidden in plain sight,’ said Hew. ‘And in the perfect place. I almost wish I could have telt the truth to Colin Snell, just to see the fury and the horror in his face, when he understood how very close he came to proving he was right.’

  ‘That would be quite wrong. You seem, if I may say so, pleased with this sad tale,’ said Giles.

  Hew said, ‘I am pleased with it. For it proves a thing that I have often held, that there are no spirits walking in the night. There are disordered shades of men’s imaginations, and the mischiefs played on them, but there are no ghosts, that cannot be unmasked by a rational mind.’

  IV

  CRABBE

  ‘many natural things are taken to be ghosts’

  The eleventh day of November was the feast of Martinmas, traditionally the time for the culling of the herd, when servants were exchanged and rents were paid. At Hew’s house at Kenly Green, his wife was more observant of the rhythms of the land, more conscious of the seasons, than her husband was, and it was she who remarked of the mournful cuddochs that they knew they were going to die that day. ‘They have a premonition of it,’ Frances said.

  Her husband would not have it. He had not spent the term laying ghosts to rest to have them resurrected here at home.

  ‘How can they have a premonition?’ he objected. ‘They are dumb beasts.’

  ‘They feel it. In the same way that they feel the coming of a storm. They are more attuned than we are to the elements.’

  ‘That is not the same.’

  ‘Trust me. I have lived most of my life in the shadow of Leadenhall market. Cows know when slaughter is coming.’

  ‘They ken when they are driven to the killing place. They smell the blood, and fear, of others gone before. But they do not wake up on Martinmas morning lowing to themselves, Oh la and alas, we will die today.’

  Frances said simply, ‘They do.’

  It was not tender sentiment that moved her. She demonstrated that by tearing off a strip from the haunch of mutton roasting at the fire and handing it to Hew. He left it on the plate.

  ‘What? Convicted now?’ She smiled at him.

  ‘It is not that. Keep some back for suppertime. I promised I would take my dinner at the college.’

  It was only half a lie. Giles had proposed they dine in from time to time, to encourage Thomas Crowe. But the dinner would be done by the time Hew came to town, unless he took his horse, which he did not mean to do.

  The mutton was to feed the men who came to kill the cattle in his fields. The kitchens would be filled with clumps of salted flesh, boiling bones and candle fat when he next came home. His house would have the reek of blood, iron dark. Frances oversaw and managed everything. Brought up in the town, she had taken to the land as readily as though she had an instinct for it.

  One that Hew had not. But walking through the fields he felt it, still. November was a melancholy month. The grain, what little of it had survived the storms, had been gathered in. The earth lay bare of fruits, to wait the winter frosts. In the yard by the mill, the sacrificial pig was tethered in its pen. The miller’s boy, John Kintor, raised his pigs with care. When the sow was groaning with a litter in the night, he would scratch her ears. When he called to the piglets, each one by its name, they would run to take the corn husks from his hand. Was it for the sake of their tender flesh he chose the plumpest grains to fill the trough that day? Last winter, he had come shyly with a ham as a gift for Frances. English people did not shun pork like the Scots. ‘This one was Jem. Sweet as a nut,’ he had said.

  Hew did not believe the pig that snuffled in the trough had the slightest inkling that its days were done. And what, if not the pig? ‘There is no beast of the field more loyal and intelligent,’ John Kintor said, ‘and in that may be reckoned some that pass for men.’ Did the heifer that looked up, with its lolling tongue and its doleful head turned towards the sky, harking to some secret whisper on the wind, have a premonition of its own impending death? Hew thought it did not. But he did not pretend to come to grips with nature. His heart was in the town, and with humankind.

  The merchant Martin Crabbe, coming to St Andrews at the killing time, did not know that he was going to die that day. Which is not to say that he was not forewarned, but that he had chosen to ignore the signs. The first was that he woke up in the night, with a grumbli
ng wam, to find his bedsheets sopping wet with sweat. He put it down to sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, following a long day on the road. The second was an aching in his arm and shoulder, which he thought was caused by gripping at his horse. The third was a flux, leaky and persistent, which began to trouble him the moment he got up. He blamed that on the supper he had eaten in the inn, a plate of pickled herring with a roasted egg. ‘That egg was bad,’ he told the lassie there. She insisted that there had been nothing wrong with it.

  ‘It wis never fresh.’

  ‘Ah never said it was. What do ye expect, on a Sabbath evening?’ she answered with a sniff.

  It did not discourage him from a decent breakfast, washed down with a flagon of the strongest ale. He enquired about his dinner, hoping there would be a pudding on the menu, boiled up with the bellox of the morning’s kill. The lassie pulled a face. ‘Hae what ye like, as long as long as ye can pay fer it.’

  He could. He had come a long way since he was a cadger, trudging with his pack. Now he had a shop on the high gate of Dundee, and a part share in a ship. He had a son here at the university. All this he telt to the lass, as she came and went to fill his plate and cup.

  ‘If ye hae a booth in Dondie, why are you here?’ the lassie said. ‘Ye ken there is no market here today? There will not be a fair afore St Andrew’s day.’

  Martin Crabbe was well aware of that. He had no right to trade, outside his own burgh, when there was no fair. He looked forward to the markets where his ship came in. But he was not prepared to wait until St Andrew’s day. He had come ahead, to broker certain deals among the merchants in the town. Forestalling in the market place broke the burgh law. That did not mean it could or should not be done.

  ‘What do you look to buy?’ she asked.

  She had been through his baggage, hussy that she was, and concluded that he had not come to sell.

  ‘Who said I was buying?’

  ‘Well then, what?’

  He had set up several meetings in the inn that day, which would take him nicely through to dinnertime. He told the lassie he would want the finest claret wine, sack and brandy too, to keep the buyers sweet. The inn was in a vennel off the marketplace, and had a reputation for preserving secrecy. None of it came cheap. But he would recoup the cost with what he had for sale.