Chae, you can’t sleep there!
So he was hoisted into a chair and was better in a minute when he’d had another drink; and he began to tell what a hell of a life it was he’d to live in Netherhill now, the old mistress grew worse with the years, she’d near girn the jaws from her face if the Strachan bairns so much as gave a bit howl or had a bit fight-fell unreasoning that, no bairns there were but fought like tinks. And Long Rob said Ay, that was true, as it said in the hymn ’twas dog’s delight to bark and bite, and faith! the average human could out-dog any cur that ever was pupped. Now, horses were different, you’d hardly ever meet a horse that was naturally a quarreller, a coarse horse was a beast they’d broken in badly. He’d once had a horse–a three-four years come Martinmas that would have been, or no! man, it was only two—that he bought up in Auchinblae at the fall of the year, a big roan, coarse as hell, they said, and he’d nearly kicked the guts out of an old man there. Well, Rob had borrowed a bridle and tried to ride home the beast to the Mill, and twice in the first mile the horse threw him off with a snort and stood still, just laughing, as Rob picked himself up from the stour. But Rob just said to himself, All right, my mannie, we’ll see who’ll laugh last: and when he’d got that horse home he tied him up in his stall and gave him such a hammering, by God he nearly kicked down the stable. Every night for a week he was walloped like that, and damn’t man! in the shortest while he’d quietened down and turned into a real good worker, near human he was, that horse, he’d turn at the end of a rig as it drew to eleven o’clock and begin to nicker and neigh, he knew the time fine. Ay, a canty beast that, he’d turned, and sold at a profit in a year or so, it just showed you what a handless man did with a horse, for Rob had heard that the beast’s new owner had let the horse clean go over him. A sound bit leathering and a pinch of kindness was the only way to cure a coarse horse.
Chae hiccuped and said Damn’t ay, man, maybe you’re right. It’s a pity old Sinclair never thought of treating his fishwife like that, she’d deave a door-nail with her whines and plaints, the thrawn old Tory bitch. And Long Rob said there were worse folk than Tories and Chae said if there were they kept themselves damn close hidden, if he’d his way he’d have all Tories nailed up in barrels full of spikes and rolled down the side of the Grampians; and Long Rob said there would be a gey boom in the barrel trade then, the most of Kinraddie would be inside the barrels; and Chae said And a damned good riddance of rubbish, too.
They were both heated up with the toddy then, and raising their voices, but father just said, cool-like, that he was a Liberal himself; and what did they think of this bye-election coming off in the February? Chae said it would make no difference who got in, one tink robber was bad as another, Tory as Liberal; damn’t if he understood why Blawearie should be taken in by those Liberals. Long Rob said Why don’t you stand as the Socialist man yourself, Chae? and winked at Chris, but Chae took it real serious and said maybe he’d do that yet once Peesie’s Knapp was builded again. And Long Rob said Why wait for that? You’re allowing your opinions to eat their heads off in idleness, like a horse in a stall in winter. Losh, man, but they’re queer beasts, horses. There’s my sholtie, Kate—But Chae said Och, away to hell with your horses, Rob. Damn’t, if you want a canty kind of beast there’s nothing like a camel, and maybe he’d have just begun to tell them about the camel if he hadn’t fallen off his chair then, nearly into the fire he went, and John Guthrie smiled at him over his beard, as though he’d really rather cut his throat than smile. And then Will and Long Rob helped Chae to his feet, Long Rob gave a laugh and said it was time they went dandering back to their beds, he’d see Chae far as the Netherhill. The storm had cleared a bit by then, it was bright starlight Chris saw looking after the figures of the two from her bedroom window—not very steady, either of them, with shrouded Kinraddie lying below and a smudge there, faint and dark, far down in the night, that was the burned-out steading of Peesie’s Knapp.
AND THERE THE smudge glimmered through many a week, they didn’t start on Peesie’s new steading till well in the February. But faith! there was clatter enough of tongues round the place right from the night of the fire onwards. All kinds of folk came down and poked in the ash with their walking- sticks, the police and the Cruelty came from Stonehaven; and the factor came, he was seldom seen unless there was money in question; and insurance creatures buzzed down from Aberdeen like a swarm of fleas, their humming and hawing and gabbling were the speak of all Kinraddie. Soon all kinds of stories flew up and down the Howe, some said the fire had been lighted by Chae himself, a Drumlithie billy riding by the Knapp late that night of the fire had seen Chae with a box of spunks in his hand, coming from the lighting of the straw sow, sure; for soon as he saw the billy on the bicycle back Chae had jumped to the lithe again. Others said the fire had been set by the folk of Netherhill, their only chance of recovering the silver they’d loaned to Chae. But that was just a plain lie, like the others, Chris thought, Chae’d have never cried for his burning sholtie like that if he’d meant it to burn for insurance.
But stories or no, they couldn’t shake Chae, he was paid his claims up to the hilt, folk said he’d made two-three hundred pounds on the business, he’d be less keen now for Equality. But faith! if he’d won queer silver queerly, he’d lost feint the queer notion in the winning of it. Just as the building of the new bit Knapp began so did the bye-election, the old member had died in London of drink, poor brute, folk said when they cut his corpse open it fair gushed out with whisky. Ah well, he was dead then, him and his whisky, and though he’d maybe been a good enough childe to represent the shire, feint the thing had the shire ever seen of him except at election times. Now there came a young Tory gent in the field, called Rose he was, an Englishman with a funny bit squeak of a voice, like a bairn that’s wet its breeks. But the Liberal was an oldish creature from Glasgow, fell rich he was, folk said, with as many ships to his name as others had fields. And real Radical he was, with everybody’s money but his own, and he said he’d support the Insurance and to Hell with the House of Lords, Vote for the Scottish Thistle and not for the English Rose.
But the Tory said the House of Lords had aye been defenders of the Common People, only he didn’t say aye, his English was a real drawback; and it was at the meeting where he said that, that Chae Strachan up and asked if it wasn’t true that his own uncle was a lord? And the Tory said Yes, and Chae said that maybe that lord would be glad to see him in Parliament but there was a greater Lord who heard when the Tories took the name of poor folk in vain. The God of old Scotland there was, aye fighting on the side of the people since the days of old John Knox, and He would yet bring to an end the day of wealth and wastry throughout the world, liberty and equality and fraternity were coming though all the damned lordies in the House of Lords should pawn their bit coronets and throw their whores back in the streets and raise private armies to fight the common folk with their savings.
But then the stewards made at Chae, he hadn’t near finished, and an awful stamash broke out in the hall; for though most of the folk had been laughing at Chae they weren’t to see him mishandled by an English tink and the coarse fisher brutes he’d hired from Gourdon to keep folk from asking him questions. So when the first steward laid hands on Chae, John Guthrie, who was sitting near, cried Ay, man, who’ll you be? And the fisher swore You keep quiet as well, and father rose and took him a belt in the face, and the fisher’s nose bled like the Don in spate, and somebody put out a leg and tripped him up and that was the end of his stewarding. And when the other steward made to come to his help Long Rob of the Mill said Away home to your stinking fish! and took him by the lug and ran him out of the hall and kicked him into the grass outside.
Then everybody was speaking at once, Mr Gibbon was the Tory lad’s chairman and he called out Can’t you give us fair play, Charles Strachan? But Chae’s blood was up, strong for the Kirk though he was in a way he clean forgot who he spoke to—Come outside a minute, my mannie, and I’ll fair-play you! The minister wasn’t such a fool as that, though, he said that the meeting was closed, fair useless it was to go on; and he said that Chae was a demagogue and Chae said that he was a liar, folk cried out
