Pat McIntosh - The Stolen Voice

‘He was sought by all the paths out of Glenbuckie,’ said Murdo, setting clean small glasses on the table. ‘My own father was among those that would be searching. But by then it was over a month since he had left his home, the time it took to be knowing he was not at Dunblane nor at Dalriach neither. You would be grieved to see how my mother wept when he was not to be found. They were thinking he must have fallen into a drowning pool or the like, for all Euan nan Tobar said he had seen him lifted up and borne off, but now it seems they were wrong and Euan was right.’

‘Did you know him, Murdo?’ asked Lady Stewart. He straightened up and looked at her, dignified in his velvet doublet and colourful plaid.

‘I did. We were playing at the shinty together.’

‘Have you spoken to him,’ said Gil carefully, ‘since he came back?’

‘I have,’ said Murdo. ‘I was getting a word with him only on Sunday there, when all of Dalriach was coming down to the kirk, except for Mistress Campbell who could not be leaving the changeling.’ There it is again, thought Gil. Are they serious?

‘Did he mind you?’ asked Sir William abruptly.

‘Oh, he did.’ Murdo laid a dish of what looked like cream before his mistress, and a jug by Sir William’s hand. ‘I had to tell him who I was, but then I was a beardless laddie when he saw me last, Sir William would be thinking, and it was him recalled what we were doing at that time.’

‘And what was that?’ asked Sir William. Murdo looked sideways at him, and he snorted. ‘Some mischief, I suppose. Who else would have known of it?’

‘Just the two of us,’ averred Murdo. ‘And maybe the two MacLarens from Auchtoo,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘and Angus MacGregor at the Kirkton that were there with us.’

‘Small proof in that, then,’ said Sir William irritably, ‘if half the glen was in it.’

Alys, seeing how Sir William’s colour rose, turned to Murdo and said what sounded to Gil like, ‘Jay sho, lair toll?’ Both Lady Stewart and her servant looked sharply at her.

‘ Cranachan , it is, mistress,’ said Murdo, distracted. ‘Cream, and burnt oatmeal, and new raspberries that Seonaid gathered this day morn. And there is the good Malvoisie to go with it.’

‘Ha ma,’ she said, smiling. The hint of an answering smile twitched at his beard and Lady Stewart, lifting the chased silver serving-spoon, said:

‘You never said you spoke Gaelic, my dear. As well as French and Scots?’

‘Murdo, man,’ said Sir William, recovering his countenance, ‘see us anither glass. You’d best ha some of this Malvoisie, and tak a seat and tell us what you know of the matter.’

To Gil’s amusement, the steward accepted the glass of wine with alacrity, but had to be persuaded to sit down in the presence of his lord. At length, formal and upright on a stool by the sideboard, he sipped the golden wine and reluctantly answered questions.

It began, naturally, with a genealogy. Old Mistress Drummond, ‘that is Bessie MacLaren,’ amplified Murdo, ‘a MacLaren of Auchtoo she is,’ and her late husband James Drummond, had had four sons and one daughter who was married to Angus MacLaren and dwelling away along the glen — here Sir William cut off the steward’s intention to detail all their offspring — and one son was now working the farm.

‘Aye, and a good farmer he is,’ confirmed Sir William. ‘Mind you, it’s sound land up Glenbuckie, but Patrick Drummond makes the most o’t, him and his nephew. They pay a good tack, in cheese and flax and two kids every spring.’

‘And the cloth,’ said Lady Stewart. ‘The daughters-in-law,’ she explained. ‘Caterin spins and dyes, she has the best dye-pot in Balquhidder, and Mòr weaves. Lovely stuff they turn out, them and their lassies.’

‘I thought you said there were four sons,’ said Gil. ‘This Patrick, and the one that disappeared and has turned up again — what happened to the other two?’

‘There was James,’ agreed Murdo, counting on his fingers, ‘and Patrick, and Andrew, and Davie. James is dead ten year since, and left Patrick with all the work of the farm, seeing the bairns were young, and Andrew is away at Dunblane.’

‘Canon in residence,’ said Lady Stewart. ‘He’s sub-Treasurer, doing well.’

Gil glanced at her and nodded.

‘What does he make of it?’ he asked. ‘I’d ha thought a churchman would have strong views on the matter.’

‘Och, I could not be saying,’ said Murdo.

‘Patrick could do with another pair of hands about the farm,’ said Sir William, ‘and he and Jamie Beag can as well share the tack with one more. But what Andrew makes of it there’s no knowing, seeing he’s not shown face yet. Carry on, Murdo, man.’

The steward set his empty glass on the sideboard.

‘They are saying along the glen that old James Drummond must have offended the Good Neighbours in some way,’ he paused to cross himself, muttering something in Ersche, ‘for though the farm is doing well the family has no fortune.’

‘They’ve no worse fortune than any other in Balquhidder!’ expostulated Sir William. Murdo shook his head.

‘Sir William would be knowing better than I,’ he said, sounding unconvinced. ‘Davie vanished away, and then his father, James Mor Drummond, was dead in a night, in his full strength, after a day at the reaping, and then Patrick’s first son James Breac was taken of a fever. And after that James, that would be Mistress Drummond’s eldest son, fell in the stackyard, and was taken up for dead, and buried a week after and left three bairns — ’

‘I mind that,’ said Sir William, ‘it was a year or two after we came here. Murdo, you ken as well as I do, in thirty years on a farm, these things happen! No need to talk of offending the — the Good Neighbours. You’d as well say they had a dislike of the name James Drummond!’

‘It could be so,’ agreed Murdo politely. ‘It could be so, indeed, but it would not be the only name they were disliking, for they stole away John the other son of Patrick Drummond and left a changeling.’

‘You mentioned that before,’ said Gil. ‘What makes you say he’s a changeling?’

‘It’s a terrible thing,’ said Lady Stewart. ‘He’s eight, of an age wi my own John. He was the bonniest bairn, bright and forward and talking already at two year old, I mind it well, and then he was changed to this shrivelled creature they have wi them now, willny walk, screaming all the time and eating enough for four.’

Gil thought of the sturdy eight-year-old Stewart who had brought them the welcoming cup of mead, handing the beakers with a solemn greeting in Ersche. It must be painful to compare the two children, particularly for the Drummonds.

‘The bairn was sick,’ pronounced Sir William. ‘They sicken like flies at that age. That’s all it was.’

‘Caterin his mother,’ said Murdo solemnly, ‘that is the wife of Patrick Drummond, was leaving him asleep in his cradle, and she was outside, no further than the spinning wheel at the end of the house, working away, when there was a — a whirl of wind, oiteag sluaigh , travelling on the tall grass stems, went by the house door. And the bairn burst out in screaming, from his cradle where he was, and would never be stopped since that time.’

‘Caterin should have thrown her shoe at them,’ said Lady Stewart, and the steward nodded agreement.

‘Aye, well,’ said Sir William. ‘We get a lot of these whirlwinds in the summer,’ he informed Gil. ‘You’ll be out in the open, not a puff of air stirring, and all of a sudden here’s this eddy crossing in front of you, lifting the straws and the dust. The Ersche says it’s a party o the Good Folk on the way past.’