A Scots Quair. Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Howe. And then, for she’d clean forgot her in the excitement of the fires, she minded the quean Mollie Douglas—it was as though she saw her white face by Will’s in the firelit dark. I met Mollie Douglas in Drumlithie to-day, she asked me to ask you to go down and see her.
He sat stock-still, he mightn’t have heard, she pushed at his elbow Will! And at that he shook off her hand, Oh, I hear. What’s the good? I can’t have a quean like other folk—I haven’t even a fee.—Maybe she doesn’t want your fee, just you. Will, they’re saying things about her and you in Drumlithie—Galt and coarse tinks like that.—Saying things? What things?—What they aye say—that she’s with a baby to you and you’re biding away from her now.—Galt said that?— Hinted at it, but he’ll do more than hint when he’s not speaking to a sister of yours.
She’d never heard him swear as he did then, jumping to his feet with his fists tight-clenched. That about Mollie—they said that, the orra swine! I’ll mash that bloody Galt’s head till his own mother won’t know it! But Chris told him that wouldn’t help much, folk would just snigger and say there was something, sure, in the story of Mollie’s condition. Then what am I to do? Will asked, raging still, and Chris blushed and said Wait. Do you love her, Will? But she might have known well enough how he’d take that question, maybe he blushed himself in the lithe of the dark, he threw down the paper torches he’d saved and muttered I’m away to Drumlithie, and was running down the hill before she could stop him.
Maybe, as he told Chris later, he went with no other intention than seeing his Mollie herself. But as luck would have it, who should he near run down with his bicycle outside the Drumlithie Hotel but Galt himself, the great creash, gey drunk, and Alec Mutch in his company. And Alec cried, Fine night, Will, but Galt cried Don’t take her out to-night, Will lad, the grass is overwet for lying on. Will stopped and jumped off and left his bicycle lying in the road and went up to Galt—Speaking to me? And the fat creash, panting like a sow in litter and sweating all down the great face of him, hiccoughed drunken-like Who else?—Well take that then, Will said and let drive at the great belly of Galt; but Mutch caught his arm and cried Young Guthrie, you’ve fair gone daft, the man’s old enough to be your father. Will said if he’d a father like that he’d kill him and then go and drown himself; and tried to break away from Mutch and get at the Galt creash again. But Galt was right unkeen for that, in a minute he’d turned, for all his fat, and made off like a hare up the Drumlithie lanes, real swack with his girth and all, and was out of sight in a second.
Well, sure you may be there were claiks enough in Skite for Mutch to get all the story and drive home with it to the Bridge End. In a day or so it was all about the place, Will was the laughing-stock of Kinraddie. Father heard it first from the postman, who waved him down to the road to tell him, and soon’s he heard it John Guthrie went back to Will stooking in the yavil field and said What’s this that I hear about you and some orra tink bitch in Drumlithie?
Now Will had been in a fair fine temper all that day from seeing his Mollie again: and she’d made him swear he’d not fly in a rage or go making a fool of himself if he heard their coarse hinting at her. So he just went on with the stooking and said What the devil are you blithering about? Father shot out his beard and cried Answer my question, Will! and Will said Put a question with sense in it, then. How am I to know what you’ve been hearing? I’m not a thought-reader, and father said Damn’t to hell, you coarse brute, am I to stand your lip as well as your whoring every night? Is’t true there’s a tink called Mollie Douglas that’s with a bairn by you? and Will said if you call Mollie Douglas a tink again, I’ll knock the damned teeth down the throat of you, father though you be.
And they stopped their stooking, glaring at each other, and father made to strike at Will but Will caught his arm and cried Mind! So father lowered his arm, white as a ghost he’d turned, and went on with the stooking, Will stared at him, white himself, and then went on with the stooking as well. And that might well have been the end of it so far as Blawearie went; but that evening they heard a clatter outside in the close and there was the minister’s bicycle and Mr Gibbon himself new off it; and into the kitchen he came and said Good evening, Chris, good evening Mr Guthrie. Can I have a word with Will?
So Chris was sent to bring Will from the byre where he bedded the kye, he came back with her grey in the gills, there sat the minister and father, solemn as two owls in the loft of a barn, it was plain they’d been taking the matter through hand together. Father said Chris, go to your room, and there was nothing else for her but go; and what happened after that she was never sure, for Will wouldn’t tell her, but she heard the sound of the three of them, all speaking at once and Will getting in a rage: and then suddenly the kitchen-door banged and there was Will striding across the close to the barn where he stored his bicycle. Mr Gibbon’s voice cried after him, angry-like, with a boom, Just a minute, Will, where are you going? and Will looked back and said You’re so anxious I should lie with my lass and get her with a bairn that I’m off to try and oblige you. And he wheeled his bicycle out by the honeysuckle hedge and pedalled away down the road and didn’t come back to Blawearie till one o’clock in the morning.
Chris hadn’t been able to sleep, she lay listening for him, and when she heard him come up the stairs she cried his name in a whisper Will! He stopped uncertain outside her door and then lifted the sneck and came in soft-footed and sat on the side of her bed. Chris raised herself on an elbow and peered at him, there was little light in the room and no moon that night though the sky was white with stars, and Will no more than a shadow hunched on her bedside there, with a whitish blotch for a face. And Chris whispered Will, I heard what you said when you went away. But you didn’t do it? and Will gave a low laugh, he wasn’t in a rage, It wouldn’t be for want of prigging by half the holy muckers in Kinraddie if I had. But you needn’t be feared for that, I’d as soon cut my own throat as do hurt to—her.
SO THE MINISTER’S interfering brought no harm, faith! he’d more need to roust round his own bit byre with a clart if Cuddiestoun’s story of the Gourdon quean were true. And soon enough after that a worse scandal went on the rounds about him, folk shook their heads and made out they were fell affronted: all but Long Rob of the Mill, and he swore B’God, it was the best he’d heard since Nebuchadnezzar went out to grass!
And the way of it was that in early November a bit daughter was born to the Manse, and the Reverend Gibbon was proud as punch, he preached a grand sermon that Sunday, For unto us a child is born; and it was so affecting that old Mistress Sinclair of the Netherhill broke down and cried in her hanky about it; but Long Rob of the Mill, when he heard that, said: She shouldn’t take whisky sweeties to the kirk with her. Everybody else was fell impressed, folk who’d been a bit off the Manse for months agreed he’d maybe his faults, the Gibbon childe, but who hadn’t these days? and feint the many could wag a pow like that in a Mearns pulpit. But damn’t! if the next day he didn’t go off and spoil the whole thing, the Monday it was, he was just setting out for the train to Aberdeen, Mr Gibbon, when the nurse cried out to him he might bring a small chamber-pot for the girlie, none in the Manse was suitable. He gave a bit blush, the big, curly bull, and said Very well, nurse, in a bull-like voice, and off to the station he went, it was Fordoun, and left his bicycle there and caught his train.
About what happened after that some told one thing and some another and some told both together. But it seems that fair early in the day in Aberdeen the Reverend Gibbon fell in with some friends of his; and they’d have it that a dram there must be to celebrate the occasion. So off the whole lot of them went to a public house and had their dram and syne another on top of that to keep the first one down, syne two- three more to keep the wind out, it was blowy weather on the edge of winter. Some said that midway the carouse Mr Gibbon had got up to make a bit prayer: and one of the barmaids had laughed at him and he chased her out of the bar up to her room and finished his prayer with her there. But you couldn’t believe every lie you heard.
Sometime