glass case that Mistress Strachan had made as a bairn at school.
And then came the clip-clop of a gig, it was Ellison down from the Mains, him and two of his men, and God! he might be little more than a windy Irish brute but he’d sense for all that, the gig was crammed with ropes and pails, Ellison strung out the folk and took charge, the pails went swinging from hand to hand over the close from the well to the childe that stood nearest the fire, and he pelted the fire with water. But feint the much good that did for a while and then there was an awful sound from the byre, the lowing of the cattle with the flames among them, and Long Rob of the Mill cried out I can’t stand it! and took a pick-axe and ran round the back of the close; and there he found the sow was nothing but a black heap then, hardly burning at all, and he cried back the news and himself louped through the smoke and came at the back wall of the byre and started to smash it in fast as he could. Chae followed and John Guthrie, and the three of them worked like madmen there, Ellison’s men splashed water down on the roof above them till suddenly the wall gave way before them and Chae’s oldest cow stuck out its head and said Moo! right in Chae’s face. The three scrambled through into the byre then, that was fell dangerous, the rafters were crumbling and falling all about the stalls, and it was half-dark there in spite of the flames. But they loosed another cow and two stirks before the fire drove them out, the others they had to leave, their lowing was fair demented and the smell of their burning sickening in your throat, it was nearly a quarter of an hour later before the roof fell in and killed the cattle. Long Rob of the Mill sat down by the side of the road and was suddenly as sick as could be, and he said By God, I never want to smell roasting beef again.
So that was the burning of the Peesie’s Knapp, there was a great throng of folk in about by then, the Netherhill folk and the Upperhill, and Cuddiestoun, and Alec Mutch with his great lugs lit up by the fire, some had come on bicycles and some had run across half Kinraddie and two had brought their gigs. But there was little to do now but stand and glower at the fire and its mischief, Ellison drove off to the Mains with Mistress Strachan and the bairns, there for the night they were bedded. The cattle he’d saved from the byre Chae drove to Netherhill, folk began to put on their jackets again, it was little use waiting for anything else, they’d away home to their beds.
Chris could see nothing of either father or Will, she turned to make for Blawearie then. Outside the radiance of the burning Knapp it was hard and cold, starless but clear, as though the steel of the ground glowed faintly of itself; beyond rose the darkness as a black wall, still and opaque. On the verge of its embrasure it was that she nearly ran into two men tramping back along the road, she hardly saw them till she was on them. She cried Oh, I’m sorry, and one of them laughed and said something to the other, next instant before she knew what was happening that other had her in his arms, rough and strong, and had kissed her, he had a face with a soft, grained skin, it was the first time a man had ever kissed her like that, dark and frightening and terrible in the winter road. The other stood by, Chris, paralysed, heard him breathing and knew he was laughing, and a far crackle rose from the last of the lowe in the burning biggings. Then she came to herself and kicked the man that held her, young he was with his soft, grained face, kicked him hard with her knee and then brought her nails down across his face. As he swore You bitch! and let go of her she kicked him again, with her foot this time, and he swore again, but the other said Hist! Here’s somebody coming, and the two of them began to run, the cowardly tinks, it was father and Will on the road behind them.
And when Chris told Will of what happened, next morning it was that she told him when father wasn’t by, he looked at her queerly, half-laughing, half-solemn, and made out he thought nothing of the happening, all ploughmen were like that, aye ready for fun. But it hadn’t seemed fun to her, dead earnest rather; and lying that night in her bed between the cold sheets, curled up so that she might rub her white toes to some warmth and ease, it was in her memory like being chased and bitten by a beast, but worse and with something else in it, as though half she’d liked the beast and the biting and the smell of that sleeve around her neck and that soft, unshaven face against her own. Sweet breath he had had anyway, she thought, and laughed to herself, that was some consolation, the tink. And then she fell asleep and dreamed of him, an awful dream that made her blush even while she knew she was dreaming, she was glad when the morning came and was sane and cool and herself again.
BUT THAT DREAM came to her often while the winter wore on through Kinraddie, a winter that brought hardly any snow till New Year’s Eve and then brought plenty, darkening the sky with its white cascading. It was funny that darkening the blind fall and wheep of the snow should bring, like the loosening of a feather pillow above the hills, night came as early as three in the afternoon. They redd up the beasts early that evening, father and Will, feeding them well with turnips and straw and hot treacle poured on the straw; and then they came in to their supper and had it and sat close round the fire while Chris made a fine dumpling for New Year’s Day. None of them spoke for long, listening to that whoom and blatter on the window-panes, and the clap- clap-clap of some loose slate far up on the roof, till father whispered and looked at them, his whisper hurt worse than a shout, God, I wonder why Jean left us?
Chris cried then, making no sound, she looked at Will and saw him with his face red and shamed, all three of them thinking of mother, her that was by them so kind and friendly and quick that last New Year, so cold and quiet and forgotten now with the little dead twins in the kirkyard of Kinraddie, piling black with the driving of the snow it would be under the rustle and swing and creak of the yews. And Will stared at father, his face was blind with pity, once he made to speak, but couldn’t, always they’d hated one the other so much and they’d feel shamed if they spoke in friendship now.
So father took up his paper again and at ten o’clock Chris went out to milk the kye and Will went with her over the close, carrying the lantern, the flame of it leapt and starred and quivered and hesitated in the drive of the snow. In the light of it, like a rain of arrows they saw the coming of the storm that night swept down from the Grampian heuchs, thick and strong it was in Blawearie, but high in the real hills a smoring, straight wall must be sweeping the dark, blinding down against the lone huts of the shepherds and the faces of lost tinks tramping through it looking for lights the snow’d smothered long before. Chris was shaking, but not with cold, and inside the byre she leant on a stall and Will said God, you look awful, what is’t? And she shook herself and said Nothing, Why haven’t you gone to see Mollie to-night?
He said he was going next day, wasn’t that enough, he’d be a corpse long ere he reached Drumlithie to-night—listen to the windy it’ll blow the damn place down on our lugs in a minute! And the byre shook, between the lulls it seemed to set its breath to rise and take from the hill-side into the air, there was such straining and creaking. Not that the calves or the stirks paid heed, they slept and snored in their stalls with never a care, there were worse things in the world than being a beast.
Back in the house it seemed to Chris she’d but hardly sieved the milk when the great clock ben in the parlour sent peal after peal out dirling through the place. Will looked at Chris and the two at father, and John Guthrie was just raising up his head from his paper, but if he’d been to wish them a happy New Year or not they were never to know, for right at that minute there came a brisk chap at the door and somebody lifted the sneck and stamped the snow from his feet and banged the door behind him.
And there he was, Long Rob of the Mill, muffled in a great grey cravat and with leggings up to the knees, covered and frosted from head to foot in the snow, he cried Happy New Year to you all! Am I the first? And John Guthrie was up on his feet, Ay, man, you’re fairly that, out of that coat of yours! They stripped off the coat between them, faith! Rob’s mouser was nearly frozen, but he said it was fine and laughed, and waited the glass of toddy father brought him and cried Your health! And just as it went down his throat there came a new knock, damn’t if it wasn’t Chae Strachan, he’d had more than a drink already and he cried Happy New Year, I’m the first foot in am I not? And he made to kiss Chris, she
