Pat McIntosh - The Rough Collier

‘The man’s a fool. I wonder that my godfather keeps him on,’ said Gil. Neither man rose to this bait. ‘Does he have much to do with you up at the heugh as under-steward?’

‘It’s generally him that collects the quarter’s fee,’ said Crombie, surprised. ‘But it’s mostly that he priests for us, seeing he’s chaplain at Cauldhope.’

Behind them, hinges grumbled as the door was nudged open. The colliers looked round, and both stared in surprise at the long grey muzzle and single bright eye which appeared round the edge of the heavy planks.

‘And what about Murray?’ said Gil, snapping his fingers. Socrates pushed the door wider and padded into the room. ‘Is there any reason why the man would vanish?’

‘A whole quarter’s takings would maybe be reason enough,’ suggested Meikle sourly.

‘Is that so? Would he think so? How much should he gather, all told?’

Crombie shrugged, still eyeing the dog with suspicion. ‘Ten merks? Twelve? Depends how much coal he sold last winter.’

‘Hardly a fortune to run off with. What does the man earn in a quarter?’

‘No that much, I assure you.’

‘And there’s the other two lads,’ Meikle pointed out. ‘He could never just ride off and leave them. They’d surely be back to let us know.’ He made a chirruping noise, and Socrates cocked his head at him.

‘And Joanna,’ said Crombie. The collier’s face froze. ‘He’d be daft to go and leave her, the way my sainted grandam’s will stands, unless she’s altered it since I’ve been in Glasgow.’

Socrates left Gil and went to Meikle’s side, nudging at the man’s hand with his long nose. The collier caressed him, fair head bent over rough grey.

‘Has there been any difficulty with the business?’ Gil asked. ‘Has he maybe run off because there’s no coin, rather than a lot of it?’

‘I see why you wouldny want to ask that of my grandam,’ said Crombie with a short laugh. ‘She’d let you have your head to play with. No, so far’s I’m aware there’s naught wrong wi’ the business. Coal comes out the ground, we sell the coal, the customers pay us and we pay the colliers. Is that no it, Jamesie?’

‘Aye,’ said Meikle.

‘And Murray himself. How do you find the man?’ Gil asked the coalmaster.

‘I’ve no need — he’s aye about the house.’ Meikle gave his master a swift glance, and bent over the dog again. Gil looked at Crombie without expression, and he amended his answer: ‘He’s a good enough worker, a good pitman so my uncle Matt aye said, and he would know, but he’s a knack for rubbing the men up the wrong way. Comes o’ being red-haired, I suppose. By Arbella’s way of it, she’s forever having to smooth things down.’

Meikle shot him another of those looks, and busied himself with refilling the beakers. Socrates had laid his head down on the man’s knee.

‘Is he trustworthy?’

‘You keep coming back to that,’ said Crombie, scowling again. ‘Have you any reason why I would find him otherwise?’

‘Not so far,’ Gil said. ‘We’re hunting along the track he should have taken, soon or late we’ll find whether he left it and where, but I want to consider all the possibilities.’

‘Why? It’s our man that’s missing, if he’s missing. What’s it to you?’

‘I was called in to deal wi’ the accusation of witchcraft,’ Gil reminded him, ‘part of it being Fleming’s thought that the corp in the peat-digging was Murray. If I can find Murray that part of the evidence fails.’

‘I suppose so,’ agreed Crombie grudgingly.

‘Do you know where he’s from? Does he have kin hereabouts, or friends?’

‘No,’ said Crombie. ‘Jamesie? And I never had any reason to doubt him,’ he added, ‘but then Arbella keeps me out of the business. Jamesie, has he mentioned kin to you ever?’

‘No,’ said Meikle. ‘He goes drinking in Lanark, times, he might have friends down there. He never talks much to the rest of us at the coaltown, save the Patersons. I’ve a notion he’s from Fife somewhere, like them.’ He screwed up his eyes. ‘He learned his trade at the sea-coal pits by Culross, I think. That side of the water, at any road.’

What would a sea-coal pit need with a sinker? wondered Gil. ‘The salt-boilers must be just this side of the Forth from there,’ he said aloud.

Crombie snorted, and took a pull at his ale. ‘That was a plan Murray had, and talked Arbella into. Daft idea. We’re short enough as it — ’ He broke off, and took another mouthful of ale.

‘It was just the small stuff he wanted to sell them,’ said Meikle, and got a glare for his pains. ‘We canny shift it up here, maister. He might have gone to talk to them.’

‘I know the name,’ Gil said, and drained his beaker, ‘and where they are. I need to talk to them and all. And now I think we should see you settled for the night. You’ll want to be up betimes.’

Out in the stable-yard in the twilight, watching the shadowy dog ranging round checking the scents and adding his own, Gil considered the interview carefully. Magistrand or no, young Crombie did not appear to be a clever thinker, but it seemed as if he was concealing something about his dealings with the missing man. He had claimed nothing was wrong with the business, but he gave an impression of discord among those managing it, and Gil had not missed the last, broken-off remark. If the coal-heugh was not doing well, it might be a reason for the grieve to cut his losses and leave without notice, but what did the salt-boilers have to do with it? And where were the other two men?

Perhaps Alys has gathered more information, he thought hopefully, listening to the quiet sounds from the horses, the rustle of hay in a rack, the clip of shod hoof on cobbled floor. The dog snuffled at a stable door, and its resident snorted in answer. Alys would be waiting in their chamber by candlelight, perhaps reading, or combing down the silken honey-coloured tresses which he loved. He had been dismayed to realize that as a married woman she would have to cover her hair in public.

There were footsteps on the stone stair down from the house door, and he turned to see a dark figure moving towards him. Socrates appeared grinning out of the dark, claws rasping on the cobbles, and bounded towards the newcomer, who paused to greet him and then came forward.

‘Jamesie,’ Gil said.

‘The same,’ acknowledged Jamesie Meikle.

‘Tell me about the salt-boilers.’

The collier’s head moved sharply against the deep blue of the sky, as if he was startled by the request, but after a moment he said quietly, ‘What makes you think I ken aught of use, maister?’

‘I think you’re alert to anything that affects Mistress Brownlie,’ said Gil. There was another sharp movement, and he went on in soothing tones, ‘I’m not suggesting any ill doing. She’s a virtuous woman, I think.’

Meikle relaxed with an audible exhalation.

‘She’s that,’ he acknowledged. ‘I’ve no notion even if she kens what I feel for her, though once I did think — well. Anyway she wedded Murray.’

Poor devil. Love is to his herte gon, with one spere so kene , thought Gil.

‘And?’ he prompted, when no more was said.

‘The salt-boilers. When you buy coal, Maister Cunningham, you buy the great coal, am I right? Pieces the size o’ your head or greater.’

‘I suppose so.’ Gil recalled watching deliveries of coal at his uncle’s house. ‘Aye, indeed, the men bear it in from the cart in huge lumps. Some are so big it takes two to carry them.’

‘Aye. Most folk prefer to break up their own coal for burning, that way they can be sure it’s all good coal and no rock. It doesny all come out the ground in great pieces, though, and we’ve trouble shifting the small coal. But it suits the salt-boilers to take it off our hands at a good price, they’re no fussy about the quality and it saves them the trouble of breaking it. The fire under the pan burns more even and all.’