Pat McIntosh: The Stolen Voice

‘And you are telling me,’ said Gil Cunningham, ‘that this David Drummond vanished away forty year since, and is now returned seemingly not a day older?’

‘That’s about the sum of it,’ agreed Sir William Stewart. He cut a substantial portion off the haunch of venison on the platter before him, looked round the supper table, and conveyed the slice to his own pewter trencher. Satisfied that all four present were served, he addressed himself to his supper.

‘Not quite,’ qualified his lady. She accepted the sauce dish from Gil’s wife Alys and went on, ‘It was thirty year, for one thing, not forty, and for another I’d aye heard he was eleven or twelve when he vanished, and he’s at least sixteen now by the look of him.’

‘It still seems very strange,’ said Alys, ‘but this is a country where strange things happen, I think.’

She turned to the window, and Sir William’s steward, bare-legged and bearded and swathed in a vast checked plaid, looked enquiringly at her from where he stood by the sideboard. She shook her head and smiled, looking beyond him at the distant view of loch and mountains, woods and farmland, and the long narrow glen of Balquhidder.

They were in the solar on an upper floor of the impressive fortified house of Stronvar, on the shores of Loch Voil. It was a pleasant, comfortable room, furnished in the modern style with light linen hangings and pale carved oak, the open windows bringing in evening air and late sunshine. A pot of herbs smouldered on the sill. Beside Gil’s feet, Socrates the wolfhound sprawled full length, snoring faintly.

‘It’s more than strange,’ said Gil, ‘it’s unbelievable. What do you think, sir?’

‘I don’t credit it either,’ Sir William assured him, and bit a lump off the piece of meat impaled on his knife. Bailie of Balquhidder and second cousin to the young King James, he was a stout, long-nosed man, with the dark red Stewart hair now turning grey and thinning somewhat, and even here in this remote place he was clad in taffeta and velvet to receive guests. His big-boned Campbell wife was equally finely dressed; Gil found himself comparing her unfavourably with his own slender, elegant Alys, glowing opposite him in dark blue silk faced with apricot, her rope of pearls pinned to the bodice with the sapphire jewel he had given her on her birthday, her honey-coloured hair hidden under black velvet. He and Alys had arrived at Stronvar that afternoon, after two days’ journey from Glasgow, and had been made lavishly welcome, but he was still not completely certain why they were here.

He ate for a while in silence, while Sir William expounded on the other unlikely things which were claimed for the neighbourhood, until Marion Campbell, Lady Stewart said, ‘Aye, very true, Will, but the lad is there at Dalriach, there’s no getting round it.’

‘You have seen him, then, madam?’ said Alys.

‘I have,’ agreed their hostess. ‘They hold the tack direct from us, so I rode up the glen to Dalriach a month ago as soon as the word reached me, to congratulate Mistress Drummond.’ Gil appreciated this turn of phrase. ‘The lad is certainly a Drummond, you’ve only to look at him, and the old woman claims she knew him for her son as soon as he came over the hill.’

‘It sounds like one of my nurse’s tales,’ said Gil. ‘How old is Mistress Drummond? Is her eyesight that good?’

‘Oh, a good age. Near seventy, I’d think. Caterin Campbell, poor woman, that’s wedded to her son Patrick, tells me she has eyes like a hawk at a distance, can tell you how many stooks of barley are on the top rig, but can scarce see to eat her dinner.’ Lady Stewart mopped green sauce with a piece of wheaten bannock. ‘So young Davie is welcomed home and established in the midst of the township, and if you set him in a row with the other youngsters — they’ll be his nephew and nieces, I suppose — there’s not a hair of difference between them all, except the changeling.’

Changeling? thought Gil. What does she mean?

‘What about the rest of the family?’ Alys asked. ‘Patrick must be his brother. What do he and his wife think? Are they pleased to see him returned?’

Gil shot her a quick look, but her face was as innocent as her voice. Lady Stewart shook her head.

‘No knowing,’ she said. ‘They would never say to me, of course, if the old woman went against them.’

‘And does he himself claim to be David Drummond?’ Gil asked, staying with the point. ‘Where has he been these thirty years, if so?’

‘I got no word wi him on his own. Aye, take it, Murdo, it will do another meal.’ Lady Stewart leaned back to allow her steward to lift away the platter of meat. ‘He said almost nothing in front of the old lady, I would say out of shyness rather than anything else, and she gave me a great rigmarole about the sidhean on their land, and how the ones who dwell there were envious of the boy’s voice. He was a singer at the Cathedral down in Dunblane when he vanished, you ken.’

‘Sheean?’ Gil picked out the unfamiliar word.

‘ Sidhean ,’ she repeated. ‘It’s an Ersche word. It means a hill where the Good Neighbours dwell. The Fair Folk — the People of Peace,’ she amplified. ‘The one on Dalriach land, away at the head of Glen Buckie, is a great fearsome stony mound wi tall pine trees growing over it.’ Gil recalled more of his nurse’s tales, and nodded, getting a glimpse as he did so of the steward Murdo crossing himself and mouthing something.

‘So we’re to believe young Drummond has been all this time in this sheean?’ he asked.

‘So it seems. Murdo? What do they say in the glen?’

‘Indeed,’ agreed Murdo solemnly. ‘That is what they are saying. He has been thirty years under the earth, and the time passing as if it was no more than a day or two.’

‘Then how’s he got six years older, then, Murdo?’ demanded his master. ‘Tell me that?’

‘I would not be knowing,’ said Murdo, offended. ‘I have not the learning Sir William has.’

‘When did he vanish?’ Gil asked. ‘How long ago was it?’

‘It would be the year of the long drought,’ supplied Murdo, ‘just before St Angus’ fair.’

‘Long afore my time. Sixty-three, according to old Sir Duncan,’ said Sir William. Gil raised his eyebrows, and the other man gestured at the window with his knife. ‘Priest yonder in the Kirkton. He’s been priest here man and boy since James Fiery-Face’s day and longer. They say he recalls the eclipse in thirty-three, though I’m no certain he was here then.’

‘Poor old soul,’ said Lady Stewart thoughtfully. ‘Robert gives me a sad report of him.’

‘Aye, well,’ said her lord. ‘He may not be able to tell his hat from a jordan but he minds the history of the place like no other.’

‘He’s getting childish,’ Lady Stewart explained to Alys. ‘His clerk’s near as old as he is, but we’ve got a laddie to look after him, this past year. It’s made quite a difference.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘The kirk smells better, for one thing. But the old man is sinking now, just this last week or two. He may not have much longer, so Robert says.’

Alys tut-tutted in sympathy, and Gil said, pursuing his own train of thought:

‘So the boy’s been gone thirty years, as you said, madam. How did he disappear?’

‘Set out from the house after a few days’ leave of absence,’ offered Sir William, ‘to walk back to Dunblane, and never was seen again.’

‘It’s a long walk for a boy that age,’ observed Gil. ‘Was he alone? Was it winter?’

‘No, no, St Angus’ fair’s in August. Next week, indeed. He was to meet a friend in Strathyre, another singer, but he never came to the tryst.’