Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

‘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.