Pat McIntosh - The Rough Collier

‘In two shifts? Do they work by night as well?’

‘No the now, though we used to have two shifts.’ Phemie gave her another of those admiring looks. ‘You’ve a good understanding of this, mistress. You sure you’ve never seen a coal-heugh?’

‘My father is a mason. And my name is Alys.’

They exchanged shy smiles, and Alys went on hastily, counting on her fingers, ‘Eight — eleven men, and the smith and his helper, the saddler, the chandler, a man to see to the ponies, the two who are gone with your missing man. Which reminds me, Phemie, I should like to speak to their kin if I may. I think your mother said they had kin here?’

‘The Patersons? Aye, their sister’s married on one of the colliers. She works in our kitchen.’

Alys nodded, and looked down at her fingers. ‘There must be twenty men here. There are not so many households in that row of cottages.’

‘There’s ten houses. Five-and-twenty men all told, and a few laddies old enough to work. Then some of the women works in the house like Kate Paterson, and I think there’s one or two of them does some weaving and the like. That’s how our Bel learned her spinning, one of the colliers’ wives taught her.’

‘In those little houses,’ Alys marvelled. ‘Did the man Murray dwell there before he wedded Joanna?’

‘In the end house,’ said Phemie indifferently. ‘It’s got two chambers. Likely he wishes he was still there, the way the old beldam gets after him.’

‘Are you saying your grandam disliked Murray? That was not the impression she gave us.’

‘I’ll wager it wasny,’ Phemie grinned. ‘Nor to him, at first. I’ve seen it afore. She’s aye sweetie-sweetie, as smooth as honey, wi’ guests and strangers, but she has a different voice for the household, I can tell you that. Except wi’ Joanna,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘and my brother.’

‘I have known people like that,’ Alys said.

‘Aye. Well, once Murray had wed Joanna, so he was living in the house, in the north wing, see yonder, wi’ the separate door?’ She pointed, and Alys nodded. ‘Arbella began to argue wi’ him, and he wouldny buckle under and do her bidding where the coal was concerned, and the shouting there was! And Joanna weeping, the silly creature, and my brother getting into it and all, when he was home — ’

‘Which side did he take?’ Alys asked.

‘The side that would cause most argument. Raffie thinks he should ha’ been given the charge of the business. He’s two year older than me, he’s eighteen now, he thinks he could run a coal-heugh, for all he’s been away at school and then at the college since he was ten.’

‘I have no brothers,’ said Alys thoughtfully.

‘They’re no worth it, I can tell you. Anyway, Arbella and Murray near came to blows the last time they argued. It seems the coal we’re working has about given out, there’s a throw showed up at the end of the eastmost road.’ She gestured along the hillside.

‘Whatever does that mean?’

‘Times the coal just stops,’ Phemie said impatiently. ‘The men cut along so far and then there’s a break in the rocks and beyond it there’s no coal. They call that a throw.’

‘Oh, yes! I have seen the same thing in the side of a quarry! But there you can see where the band of good stone has gone to, whether it has stepped up or down, and underground one must guess, I suppose.’

‘Aye, or abandon that working and start again elsewhere. Murray wants to do that. Arbella wouldny hear of it.’

‘I can see that she would be angry,’ agreed Alys. ‘Tell me, has the man any friends about the coal-heugh? Is there anyone he would talk to?’

‘What, him?’ said Phemie, startled. ‘I’ve no notion. I think maybe no, but if you ask Jamesie Meikle likely he could tell you. He’s a good man, wi’ an eye for what’s going on. Joanna should have taken him.’

‘I suppose he is working just now. Where do you think Murray has gone?’

‘I hope he’s run off. I hope we never see him again. Or if he’s stolen the takings, we can put him to the horn for that and then get him hanged for thieving.’ Phemie grinned, without humour. ‘I can picture it well, the Sheriff’s officer blowing the horn at Lanark Cross and reading him out a wanted man.’

‘Why do you dislike him so much, Phemie?’

‘He’s a toad,’ said Phemie roundly.

Alys studied her expression. ‘Was he courting you?’

The girl looked down, and then away. Her fair hair blew across her face, and she shook her head angrily, trying to dislodge it.

‘Was he?’ Alys persisted, recalling Michael’s comment at supper. ‘Or was it your sister he liked?’

‘What, Bel? She’s a bairn yet!’ objected Phemie. Alys waited. ‘Aye, if you have to ken. He was courting me last spring. Full of plans to wed me, he was, and build a house over yonder, across the burn from the workings.’ She tugged savagely at a tussock of grass by her side, and scattered the torn stems on the wind. Socrates bounded back to snatch at the nearest, white teeth snapping in his long narrow jaws. ‘Then he saw how Joanna was placed, and went after her hell-for-leather.’

‘How Joanna was placed?’

‘Oh, aye.’ Phemie turned to meet her eye. ‘She’s Matt’s widow, right? Arbella has said she’s to have Matt’s share. Even though he wed her out of hand wi’ no contract or agreement drawn up, even though he died afore he’d bairned her, when the old witch goes — ’ Alys saw the girl’s expression flicker as she heard her own words, but the angry voice plunged on. ‘When the old witch goes, Joanna gets half the business, and the other half goes to my mother and the three of us. No wonder the wonderful Thomas fancied Joanna to his bed.’

‘He ill-treats her,’ said Alys softly. ‘He holds her in contempt.’

‘Aye.’ Phemie tore at another handful of grass. ‘I tellt Arbella of it, the last time he went for Joanna. She wouldny believe me.’ She turned her head away, but her next words were just audible: ‘He would never ha’ treated me like that.’

‘Forgive me, mistress,’ said Joanna, dabbing at her eyes with the end of her kerchief. ‘When I heard you at the outside door the now I thought for one moment — That’s the door Thomas aye uses, rather than come through the house in his muddy boots.’

‘It must be very hard for you,’ said Alys with a rush of genuine sympathy, ‘worrying about your man when nobody else seems concerned.’

‘It’s that,’ agreed Joanna, and turned to the other door of the room. ‘Will you come ben, mistress, and be seated? A wee cup of cordial, maybe, if Phemie’s had you up the hill in this wind?’

‘That would be welcome,’ Alys admitted, following her into a neat inner chamber with a high curtained bed against one wall. ‘The view is interesting, from so high up, but I admit I prefer to be more sheltered.’

‘I found the same, when I moved up here.’ Joanna drew a new-fashioned spinning machine, a well-made item with turned legs and a narrow-rimmed wheel, into a corner away from the window and set a back-stool for Alys. ‘The wind never ceases.’

‘You are not from hereabouts, then?’ Alys sat down on the padded leather and shook her skirts round her.

‘I was raised on the other side of the Clyde. My father was William Brownlie, and held Auldton, by Ashgill. It paid a good rent. And it’s nowhere near so high up as this.’

‘My father is a mason,’ Alys countered. ‘He has charge of the Archbishop’s new build at the cathedral in Glasgow.’

‘And your man is some kind of a man of law,’ Joanna offered. She handed Alys a little glass of something brownish and sticky, and sat down herself. ‘Your good health, mistress. It’s made wi’ elderberries — well, mostly elderberries. The colour was no so good last year, but we put the good spirits to it.’