Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘It has a market on Tuesdays, and a wealthy church,’ said Gil, guiding his reluctant horse along the muddy curve of the High Street. ‘You wouldn’t think it paid customs about fifth in the kingdom, would you?’

‘Clearly, you have not seen Irvine,’ said the mason. ‘Where shall we go first? I am both hungry and thirsty.’

Finding an inn, arranging for Matt to stay with the horses, consuming bannocks and cheese and a jug of thin ale, took a little time, and it was past Sext when Gil and the mason walked down to the strand.

There were several boats of varying size drawn up on the shore, loading and unloading. At the far end of a narrow stone wharf, several men were shouting round a crane which they were using to hoist barrels out of a sturdy cog. Larger ships lay in the river, and out in the Clyde, beyond the confluence, two carvels swung at anchor.

‘Where do we begin?’ said Gil in bewilderment.

‘You have been to sea, have you not?’

‘Aye, from Leith. From there everything’s bound for the Netherlands. Some of these could be headed for Ireland, or for France or even Spain. Or for the North Sea, indeed. How do we tell which will be willing to leave us at Rothesay?’

‘You are looking too high. I consulted a map,’ said the mason grandly, ‘and I find that Bute is the island most near to here. We want a fishing-boat.’

‘Does one go through this every time one travels to the place?’ Gil wondered, following his companion along the strand. ‘It would certainly put me off living on an island.’

‘Oh, indeed. Why anyone would go there is beyond me, if he did not have business there. Though at least,’ added the mason thoughtfully, ‘the sea air is good. There is no smell of hawthorn to make one sneeze. Ah — good day, gentlemen.’

The last three vessels drawn up on the shore were smaller than the others. Above them, on the grassy bank, a group of men sat mending nets. They looked up briefly, and one or two nodded in answer to the mason’s greeting, then returned to their task.

Undaunted, Maistre Pierre began talking. Gil, watching in some amusement, appreciated the way the fishermen, tolerant at first, were gradually played in by questions about the weather, the tide, the best course for Rothesay, the best man to sail it. At this point, recognizing that success was in sight and money would shortly be discussed, he turned away to study the fishing-boats.

He was watching the gulls swooping across the sandy causeway to the Castle rock when Maistre Pierre said beside him, ‘Done. We sail in an hour. I have said we return to the inn, tell Matt who we sail with, fetch our scrips. There will be time also to look in at that handsome church and say our prayers.’

‘Good work,’ said Gil. ‘You do realize, don’t you, that you have just contracted to cross the sea in a basket?’

The mason’s jaw dropped, and he whirled to look at the boats. The fishermen looked up at the sharp movement, and Gil saw them grinning.

‘They are quite safe,’ he said. ‘Corachs. I have never set foot in one, but I’ve heard of them. All the old saints used to tramp up and down the sea-roads in these.’

‘Yes, but I am not a saint,’ said Maistre Pierre, staring at the leather side of the nearest boat. It was tilted so that they could see clearly how the hides were stretched outside the interlaced laths and finally stitched to the wooden keel, or perhaps the other way about. ‘Ah, mon Dieu!’

From the stern of the Flower of Dumbarton as she slipped creaking down the Leven on the current, out past Dumbarton Rock and into the main channel of the Clyde, there was an excellent view of the scars of the bombardment which had eventually ended the siege of ‘89. Gil commented on this.

‘And that was a waste of time,’ said Andy the helmsman.

‘How so?’ said Maistre Pierre beyond him.

‘They’d ha given up soon in any case. I heard they were about out of meal. But Jamie Stewart,’ said Andy, by whom Gil understood him to mean the young King, fourth of that name, ‘wanted back to Edinburgh for Yule, and he had this fancy great gun, so they had to bring it down the water and flatten poor folks’ houses with it.’

‘It meant money for some, surely,’ said Gil.

‘Aye,’ said Andy, and spat over the side. ‘And a lot of inconvenience for the rest of us.’

‘And what speed will this excellent vessel make?’ asked the mason, settling himself gingerly on the stem thwart. The woven structure gave noisily under his feet.

‘Three knots,’ said Andy. ‘Maybe four.’

‘A fast walk,’ the mason translated for Gil.

‘If you can walk on the water,’ said Andy, and laughed. ‘That’s a good one, eh, maisters? If you can walk on the water!’

‘Andy, shut your mouth,’ said the master from the bows. He and the ship’s boy were doing something complicated to a mound of ginger-coloured canvas.

‘She may not be so large or so fast as Andrew Wood’s Flower,’ said the mason, ‘but I dare say she knows these waters.’

‘Better than Andrew Wood; said the master, and grinned. This Flower’ll no go aground on the Gantocks.’

Gil sat silent in the stem of the boat, letting the talk flow past him like the grey water, barely aware of the mason’s gradually improving confidence. He was feeling very unsettled. He had been more than five years in France, but since his return he had scarcely left Glasgow, except to spend Yule or his birthday in familiar territory in Carluke. Now here he was travelling again, exploring new places, crossing the water -

‘It is extraordinary,’ said the mason. ‘This river runs not into the open sea, but deeper into the hills, which grow higher everywhere one looks. Tell me, maister, how do you know which of these roadways to follow?’

He gestured at three identical arms of the river.

‘Lord love you,’ said the master, ‘what’s your trade? Mason, aren’t you,’ he added before Maistre Pierre could speak. ‘I can tell by your hands. How d’you know which stone will stay on another and which will fall down? Tell me that?’

‘I see,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘It is a thing learned at one’s father’s knee.’

‘And that’s a true word,’ said the master. ‘Int it no, silly?’

‘Aye,’ said Billy.

‘And there’s the tide,’ said Andy.

‘True enough,’ agreed the master. ‘When the tide’s on the ebb, she’ll take you down the water and out to sea easy enough. But when the tide’s on the make, what then? You’ve got to know where you’re steering for, all right. Billy, have you done with that sheet? We’ve a sail to hoist here.’

And where am I steering? wondered Gil. Which of the arms of the river am I headed for, and will it bring me safe to port, or does it only strike deeper into the hills?

His uncle, bidding him farewell in the dawn, had taken his elbow and said with unaccustomed strength of feeling, ‘You’re a good lad, Gilbert, and I want to see you right.’

‘I know that, sir,’ he had answered, startled.

‘Aye.’ There was a pause, then the Official said abruptly, ‘There’s more roads than one leads to Edinburgh, or Rome for that matter. Are you content with the road we’ve planned for you? The law and Holy Kirk?’

‘How should I not be, sir? It’s a secure future.’

His uncle studied him carefully.

‘You’ve not answered my question,’ he said, then raised a hand as Gil opened his mouth to speak. ‘No. Dinna forswear, Gilbert. I want you to think about it while you’re away. When you come back, you can give me the answer, and I want the truth.’ He fixed his nephew with an eye as grey as St Columba’s. ‘You were aye a poor liar. Like your father.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Gil helplessly, and knelt for the blessing. So now, attempting to put in order the things he needed to ask about in Rothesay, he kept finding his thoughts sliding back to his uncle’s words. Was he happy with the road before him, whether it led to Edinburgh or Rome? If he turned back from that road, what other way through life was there? Bess Stewart had turned aside from the road before her, to snatch at happiness with the harper, and look where it got her. And why did the old man pick just now, of all times, to ask a question like that?