Pat McIntosh - The Rough Collier

‘Little enough,’ returned Alan. ‘I think it’s well kent who’s in charge up there, whatever man’s collecting the fee for the coals. Likely nobody wishes to offend her.’

‘Nobody wishes to offend me,’ said Lady Egidia, ‘and there’s plenty said about me by what I hear.’

I’ll wager there is, thought Gil, hiding a grin.

‘Aye, well,’ said Alan awkwardly.

‘Maister Forrest!’ Hasty feet sounded on the tiled floor of the hall, and the steward turned his head. The kitchen-boy appeared in the doorway, puffing in excitement. ‘Maister Forrest, you’re called for,’ he said, ducking and touching his wide bonnet as he spoke. ‘It’s someone at the yett. They’re saying it’s him from the coal-heugh.’

‘From the — who is it?’ demanded Gil. ‘The man Murray?’

The boy stared at him open-mouthed. He was probably ten or twelve, clad in an oversize homespun doublet and wrinkled hose, the general effect with his broad sagging bonnet very like one of the mushrooms that appeared in the horse-pastures in the dawn.

‘Who is it at the yett, Nicol?’ repeated Alan Forrest. ‘And uncover afore your mistress, you daft laddie.’

Nicol dragged off the bonnet, revealing a shaggy fairish thatch, and ducked again.

‘I never seen them, Maister Forrest,’ he said in alarm. ‘Just they’re saying it’s a man from the coal-heugh.’

It was not Thomas Murray.

Adam Crombie the youngest stood in the stable-yard in the dying light of the April evening, loud and proud as Ivy, broad-shouldered in his blue student gown, and glowered at Gil.

‘Is it you that’s set this nonsense afoot?’ he demanded. ‘What’s it all about, then? Thomas dug out of a peat-bank, and my mother taken up for a witch? It makes no sense.’

‘I never said that,’ said Jamesie Meikle at his elbow. ‘I said it’s no Thomas Murray, and Mistress Lithgo was freed. By this fellow here,’ he added, ‘so you might as well be civil to him, maister.’

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ said Gil mildly. He stepped back, to allow Alan Forrest to offer ale to both men, and nodded to the stable-hand who held the bridles of two sturdy ponies. ‘Aye, take those beasts in, Tammas. They’ll be hungry, if they’ve come from Glasgow today.’

‘Glad? Why should that be?’ said Crombie, emerging from his beaker. ‘Did you look for us?’

‘There’s all sorts I need to know that I’d not wish to ask the women, that one or other of you can surely tell me. Will you come in the house? You’ll not ride on tonight, I hope. It must be another hour to the heugh, and the light’s going. We can feed you and fit you in a corner somewhere, can’t we, Alan?’

‘Aye, very like,’ admitted the steward with faint reluctance.

‘We’ll no be looked for till the morn,’ said Meikle hopefully, ‘and the owls will fly soon.’

Crombie grunted ungraciously, but followed Gil up the stone steps into the house, saying, ‘What’s going on, then? Jamesie brought me a word from my grandam, but all she says is that I’m needed out at the heugh, and what Jamesie has to add to that’s no great benefit, what wi’ a dead man in the Thorn peat-cutting and that fool Fleming trying to blame my mother for it.’

‘That’s the meat of it,’ agreed Gil, ‘that and the fact your grieve’s missing. He went off five weeks since to fetch the dues for last quarter and hasn’t come home.’

‘Five weeks ? Have they no sent after him?’ demanded Crombie. ‘Jamesie, you never said it was as long as that.’

‘Mistress Weir won’t hear of sending after him yet.’ Gil led the way into the hall, just as Michael appeared in the doorway of the small chamber, bowing to those within.

‘Servant, madam, Mistress Mason,’ he said, and turned to leave. He checked at the sight of Crombie, who was staring at him from the hall threshold. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘What are you doing?’ demanded Crombie in return, equally hostile. Gil looked from one to the other in amusement, thinking of fighting-cocks.

‘Leaving,’ said Michael curtly. ‘I’ll carry on down the list the morn,’ he added to Gil, replacing his hat, ‘and report again.’

‘Have you light enough to get home by?’ called Lady Egidia. Michael turned in the doorway, raising his eyebrows.

‘Two mile on the old Roman road, most of it on our own land,’ he said. ‘I don’t need a light. I’ll see you the morn, madam.’

‘Good man,’ said Gil, clapping him on the shoulder as he went past. Michael grunted a reply, ducked round the glowering Adam Crombie, and left the house. Gil led the two new guests into another of the small chambers, and went to alert his mother to their presence.

Once both men had washed and eaten, Crombie in modest state in the chamber off the hall, Meikle in the kitchen with the maidservants giggling by the hearth, they forgathered in the steward’s room with a jug of the twice-brewed. Gil offered a concise account of events so far, to which the young coalmaster listened, frowning.

‘It makes no sense,’ he complained. ‘You say you’ve no notion who this corp might be.’ Gil nodded agreement. ‘As for where Thomas might ha’ got to — Jamesie, can you say?’

‘No,’ said Meikle baldly.

‘And David Fleming calling my mother for a witch. My mother! What’s got into him to do that? That’s bad, isn’t it, Maister Cunningham?’

‘It could be,’ Gil said warily. ‘Any woman as herb-wise as your mother is at risk of being accused like that. Have you yourself aught to add to the situation? I’d hoped you might be able to tell me what’s behind Fleming’s behaviour.’

Crombie was silent, staring into his cup of ale.

‘The corp’s nothing to do wi’ us,’ he said at length.

‘I think he’s been in the peat a good many years. Maybe even before your time.’

‘The clerk was teaching my sisters their letters and a bit Latin,’ continued Crombie, ‘till — oh, last autumn. Then when I was home at Yule he’d ceased the lessons. There seemed no reason for it, but Arbella wouldny hear of it continuing. Whether he broke them off, and she took exception to that, or whether my mother put a stop to them and he took a strunt, or what, I’ve no notion. He’s never liked us, for all Arbella’s done him a good few favours. I’ve aye took it it’s down to his father dying in the Long Shaft, but this — ’

‘This seems to be aimed at Mistress Lithgo herself,’ Gil agreed, ‘and she can’t have been there when that happened.’

‘No, well afore her time,’ said Crombie, and took another pull at his ale.

‘Was Fleming’s father a collier?’

‘No that I heard. He clerked for the place, kept accounts and the like, I believe. What’s that to the point?’

‘Little enough, if that’s the case. And Fleming himself, is he a good teacher?’

‘Who knows. My sisters wereny enjoying his lessons much, they’d no sorrow that they were ended. I just left it,’ he said grandly, ‘lassies have no need of reading, Latin or Scots, so long as they can keep the accounts straight.’

‘And is he liked by folk round about?’ Gil asked, ignoring this statement.

‘No as much as Sir Arnold was.’

‘My auntie hasny a good word for him,’ said Meikle.

‘I was up at Thorn and heard some of her words today,’ Gil said, glancing at him. The collier grinned. ‘What did you mean yesterday, Jamesie, about swearing to something on any relic Sir David could produce?’

Master and man looked at each other.

‘Is that still — ?’ said Crombie. The collier nodded. ‘What a piece of nonsense. We’ve a chapel of St Ninian up by the coal-heugh, maister, and Sir David wants a relic for it. He and Arbella can never agree on what to search for, nor how much to pay for it, nor who should pay. It’s been an argument atween them these three year.’