Pat McIntosh - The Rough Collier

‘A bath? Has he rolled in something?’

‘Gil came back,’ said his mother, ‘lifted a clean shirt and a bannock, and left again half an hour since for Linlithgow or somewhere of the sort, saying he might not be back tonight. He’s not alone, he took that fool Patey with him.’

‘Oh,’ said Alys blankly, over the sudden lurching feeling in her stomach.

‘I have a kiss for you,’ continued Lady Cunningham. ‘I will say, it’s a long time since he kissed me like that. He’ll be back the morn’s night, I should think. Then maybe Patey can get on with his work here.’

He would not wish to delay by waiting for me, thought Alys. How far is it to Linlithgow? Can he be there in daylight?

‘And the dog?’ she said, to distract herself. Socrates sat down as she spoke and scratched vigorously at his ribs with a narrow grey hind foot.

‘That’s why the bath,’ said Henry. ‘Maister Gil said he’s been after a strange bitch up at Forth, and likely picked up all sorts off her. I’d as soon wait till he gets back, but I suppose it had best be done the day.’

Alys looked at the dog again. He grinned at her and thumped his tail; there was a self-satisfied air about him which it occurred to her she had seen on his master at times.

‘I can help,’ she said. ‘He will mind me. What do you put in the wash for fleas or lice?’

The piebald clopped out across the yard as Henry began to enumerate the herbs he preferred for the purpose. Lady Cunningham rose and went forward to feel the horse’s legs. The animal tossed his head, taking the groom by surprise, and she seized the halter-rope with calming words as hoofbeats sounded outside the high gate, one horse, approaching fast. Henry moved quickly to the gate, peered through the judas-hole, and visibly relaxed.

‘It’s young Douglas,’ he said, swinging one heavy leaf wide as Michael slowed to a halt and dismounted before the gateway. ‘We never looked for you till this evening, Maister Michael. Was it himself you wanted, or her ladyship?’

‘Is Maister Cunningham here?’ demanded Michael, leading his horse into the yard. Finding first Alys and then his godmother present, he stopped, stammering a greeting, and bowed to both.

‘My son has gone to Linlithgow,’ said Lady Cunningham, still by the piebald’s side.

‘Linlithgow?’ repeated Michael incredulously. ‘Why? I–I mean, I thought we were looking for the man Murray.’

‘I think this is about Murray,’ said Alys. ‘The sister of the two sinkers had heard they had gone there. I suppose he got confirmation of that at Forth, and he has followed them.’

‘Aye, but,’ said Michael, replacing his hat, ‘Murray never got as far as Forth. That’s what I’ve learned this morning. The trail’s crossed — our man never got beyond Lanark.’

‘I thought you said he had collected the money further on,’ Alys said.

‘Aye, at Ravenstruther,’ agreed Michael. He accepted a second beaker of ale from Alan Forrest, and sat down opposite Alys by the great fireplace in the hall. ‘Alan, that’s gey welcome. I’m as dry as a tinker. That’s what I thought too, Mistress Mason. Turns out I had the wrong questions. I asked, had the money for the coal been uplifted, and their steward answered me, Aye it had. I asked him when, and he checked the accounts and told me what days. I never asked him who had been there, or named any names to him yesterday.’

‘Ah,’ said Alys. Alan set the tray of ale and bannocks on a stool at Michael’s elbow, and withdrew to the side of the hall, listening with interest.

‘So today I rode on to Carlindean, that’s by Carnwath, you ken …’ Alys nodded encouragement, though neither name meant anything to her. ‘Jackie Somerville that stays there’s a friend of mine. He was from home, but I’d a word wi’ his mother, and she called their steward for me, and he turned up the accounts. The colliers lay there just the one night, but even so, there was only the one mess of food written down for their dole. When I said I wondered at that, that they must have eaten frugally for three working men, the steward said, Oh, there was but the two of them.’

‘Two?’ repeated Alys. ‘So we have lost only one? Is it Murray?’

‘Aye. There was just these brothers, Paterson, or whatever their name is. Murray was never there.’

‘So where have you lost the trail, Michael?’ asked Lady Cunningham. She swept in from the stair, restored to her indoor garments, and her grey cat sprang down from a shelf of the plate-cupboard and paraded across the floor to meet her.

‘Murray was at Jerviswood, before they went to Lanark, but not at Carlindean after it,’ supplied Michael. ‘And I went round by Ravenstruther the now and asked them, and he wasny there when the fee was uplifted, and he’s not been there since, either. That’s close by Lanark town, mistress,’ he elaborated, and Alys nodded.

‘Somewhere in Lanark, then.’ Lady Cunningham lifted the cat, which turned its smug yellow gaze on Alys. ‘Do you suppose he’s still there?’

‘Well, if he’s elsewhere, I’ve no notion where it might be.’ Michael sat down again as his godmother settled herself in her great chair. ‘Your good health, madam.’

‘Gil told me Murray goes drinking in Lanark. How big a place is it?’ asked Alys.

‘Big enough,’ said Michael gloomily. ‘It’s a burgh, maybe the size of the lower town at Glasgow. It’s got no cathedral or college to draw folk, but there’s good merchants and tradesmen in the place. I suppose there are five or six streets of houses, and all the vennels and back-lands.’

‘It should be simple enough, I suppose. You must search the taverns,’ said Lady Cunningham, ‘until you find some trace of the man. Someone must have seen him. Do we know who he sells coal to? Whatever householders he called on might have information for you.’

‘Aye,’ said Michael.

‘I could come with you,’ suggested Alys. ‘I have never seen Lanark.’

‘No, I don’t think — ’ began Michael.

‘An excellent idea,’ pronounced Lady Cunningham, making room for the cat inside her loose furred gown. ‘You’ll not be in any taverns yourself, of course,’ she continued. ‘I can trust you to take care of Mistress Mason, I know, Michael.’

‘Oh,’ said Michael, and then, as this penetrated, ‘You can? I mean, aye, you can!’

Alys, with a vivid remembrance of the occasion when she and Gil’s sister Kate had visited a tavern off Glasgow’s Gallowgait, simply nodded.

‘But why has Gil gone to Linlithgow?’ she wondered. ‘He did not say exactly what he had learned this morning?’

‘At Forth? No, he said little but what he thought of the dog’s exploits, and when he would be back.’ Lady Cunningham looked from Michael to Alys. ‘I suppose, if those two men got as far as Carlindean as you say, Michael, they might have completed the round, which I think would take them to Forth, do I remember right?’ Alys nodded. ‘So he might have found word of them there after all.’

‘And word that took him to Linlithgow. I wonder what it was.’

‘If they were to take one or two of the men, mistress,’ suggested Alan from the wall where he was still listening avidly, ‘they would make a faster job of it. Is there much doing in the stable-yard the day?’

‘Nothing that won’t wait, apart from the young horse’s leg,’ admitted his mistress. ‘Aye, that would make sense.’ She cast a glance at the windows. ‘You’d best go, then. The day’s wearing on. And you can get on wi’ your work, Alan, rather than stand about with your ears flapping like a gander’s wings.’

The rain was getting heavier.

‘Good for the oats, I suppose,’ said Michael, as they rode past the fields of Carluke town, one of the Belstane grooms ahead of them and one bringing up the rear. The fine turned earth of the strips showed dark between the narrow lines of rushes in the intervening ditches, and the boy who was supposed to be scaring the crows was sheltering under a white-blossomed apple tree. ‘So long as it doesny get too heavy.’