cried then, making no sound, she looked at Will and saw him with his face red and shamed, all three of them thinking of mother, her that was by them so kind and friendly and quick that last New Year, so cold and quiet and forgotten now with the little dead twins in the kirkyard of Kinraddie, piling black with the driving of the snow it would be under the rustle and swing and creak of the yews. And Will stared at father, his face was blind with pity, once he made to speak, but couldn’t, always they’d hated one the other so much and they’d feel shamed if they spoke in friendship now.
So father took up his paper again and at ten o’clock Chris went out to milk the kye and Will went with her over the close, carrying the lantern, the flame of it leapt and starred and quivered and hesitated in the drive of the snow. In the light of it, like a rain of arrows they saw the coming of the storm that night swept down from the Grampian heuchs, thick and strong it was in Blawearie, but high in the real hills a smoring, straight wall must be sweeping the dark, blinding down against the lone huts of the shepherds and the faces of lost tinks tramping through it looking for lights the snow’d smothered long before. Chris was shaking, but not with cold, and inside the byre she leant on a stall and Will said God, you look awful, what is’t? And she shook herself and said Nothing, Why haven’t you gone to see Mollie to-night?
He said he was going next day, wasn’t that enough, he’d be a corpse long ere he reached Drumlithie to-night—listen to the windy it’ll blow the damn place down on our lugs in a minute! And the byre shook, between the lulls it seemed to set its breath to rise and take from the hill-side into the air, there was such straining and creaking. Not that the calves or the stirks paid heed, they slept and snored in their stalls with never a care, there were worse things in the world than being a beast.
Back in the house it seemed to Chris she’d but hardly sieved the milk when the great clock ben in the parlour sent peal after peal out dirling through the place. Will looked at Chris and the two at father, and John Guthrie was just raising up his head from his paper, but if he’d been to wish them a happy New Year or not they were never to know, for right at that minute there came a brisk chap at the door and somebody lifted the sneck and stamped the snow from his feet and banged the door behind him.
And there he was, Long Rob of the Mill, muffled in a great grey cravat and with leggings up to the knees, covered and frosted from head to foot in the snow, he cried Happy New Year to you all! Am I the first? And John Guthrie was up on his feet, Ay, man, you’re fairly that, out of that coat of yours! They stripped off the coat between them, faith! Rob’s mouser was nearly frozen, but he said it was fine and laughed, and waited the glass of toddy father brought him and cried Your health! And just as it went down his throat there came a new knock, damn’t if it wasn’t Chae Strachan, he’d had more than a drink already and he cried Happy New Year, I’m the first foot in am I not? And he made to kiss Chris, she wouldn’t have minded, laughing, but he slithered and couped on the floor, Long Rob peered down at him and cried out, shocked-like, God Almighty, Chae, you can’t sleep there!
So he was hoisted into a chair and was better in a minute when he’d had another drink; and he began to tell what a hell of a life it was he’d to live in Netherhill now, the old mistress grew worse with the years, she’d near girn the jaws from her face if the Strachan bairns so much as gave a bit howl or had a bit fight-fell unreasoning that, no bairns there were but fought like tinks. And Long Rob said Ay, that was true, as it said in the hymn ’twas dog’s delight to bark and bite, and faith! the average human could out-dog any cur that ever was pupped. Now, horses were different, you’d hardly ever meet a horse that was naturally a quarreller, a coarse horse was a beast they’d broken in badly. He’d once had a horse–a three-four years come Martinmas that would have been, or no! man, it was only two—that he bought up in Auchinblae at the fall of the year, a big roan, coarse as hell, they said, and he’d nearly kicked the guts out of an old man there. Well, Rob had borrowed a bridle and tried to ride home the beast to the Mill, and twice in the first mile the horse threw him off with a snort and stood still, just laughing, as Rob picked himself up from the stour. But Rob just said to himself, All right, my mannie, we’ll see who’ll laugh last: and when he’d got that horse home he tied him up in his stall and gave him such a hammering, by God he nearly kicked down the stable. Every night for a week he was walloped like that, and damn’t man! in the shortest while he’d quietened down and turned into a real good worker, near human he was, that horse, he’d turn at the end of a rig as it drew to eleven o’clock and begin to nicker and neigh, he knew the time fine. Ay, a canty beast that, he’d turned, and sold at a profit in a year or so, it just showed you what a handless man did with a horse, for Rob had heard that the beast’s new owner had let the horse clean go over him. A sound bit leathering and a pinch of kindness was the only way to cure a coarse horse.
Chae hiccuped and said Damn’t ay, man, maybe you’re right. It’s a pity old Sinclair never thought of treating his fishwife like that, she’d deave a door-nail with her whines and plaints, the thrawn old Tory bitch. And Long Rob said there were worse folk than Tories and Chae said if there were they kept themselves damn close hidden, if he’d his way he’d have all Tories nailed up in barrels full of spikes and rolled down the side of the Grampians; and Long Rob said there would be a gey boom in the barrel trade then, the most of Kinraddie would be inside the barrels; and Chae said And a damned good riddance of rubbish, too.
They were both heated up with the toddy then, and raising their voices, but father just said, cool-like, that he was a Liberal himself; and what did they think of this bye-election coming off in the February? Chae said it would make no difference who got in, one tink robber was bad as another, Tory as Liberal; damn’t if he understood why Blawearie should be taken in by those Liberals. Long Rob said Why don’t you stand as the Socialist man yourself, Chae? and winked at Chris, but Chae took it real serious and said maybe he’d do that yet once Peesie’s Knapp was builded again. And Long Rob said Why wait for that? You’re allowing your opinions to eat their heads off in idleness, like a horse in a stall in winter. Losh, man, but they’re queer beasts, horses. There’s my sholtie, Kate—But Chae said Och, away to hell with your horses, Rob. Damn’t, if you want a canty kind of beast there’s nothing like a camel, and maybe he’d have just begun to tell them about the camel if he hadn’t fallen off his chair then, nearly into the fire he went, and John Guthrie smiled at him over his beard, as though he’d really rather cut his throat than smile. And then Will and Long Rob helped Chae to his feet, Long Rob gave a laugh and said it was time they went dandering back to their beds, he’d see Chae far as the Netherhill. The storm had cleared a bit by then, it was bright starlight Chris saw looking after the figures of the two from her bedroom window—not very steady, either of them, with shrouded Kinraddie lying below and a smudge there, faint and dark, far down in the night, that was the burned-out steading of Peesie’s Knapp.
AND THERE THE smudge glimmered through many a week, they didn’t start on Peesie’s new steading till well in the February. But faith! there was clatter enough of tongues round the place right from the night of the fire onwards. All kinds of folk came down and poked in the ash with their walking- sticks, the police and the Cruelty came from Stonehaven; and the factor came, he was seldom seen unless there was money in question; and insurance creatures buzzed down from Aberdeen like a swarm of fleas, their humming and hawing and gabbling were the speak of all Kinraddie. Soon all kinds of stories flew up and down the Howe, some said the fire had been lighted by Chae himself, a Drumlithie billy riding by the Knapp late that night of the fire had seen Chae with a box of spunks in his hand, coming from the lighting of the straw sow, sure; for soon as he saw the billy on the bicycle back Chae had jumped to the lithe again. Others said the fire had been set by the folk of Netherhill, their only chance of recovering the silver they’d loaned to Chae. But that was just a plain lie, like the others, Chris thought, Chae’d have never cried for his burning sholtie like that if he’d meant it to burn for insurance.
But stories or no, they couldn’t shake Chae, he was paid his claims up to the hilt, folk said he’d made two-three hundred pounds on the business, he’d be less keen now for Equality. But faith! if he’d won queer silver queerly,