now, across the years, the words of Jessie MacKnight were terrible to recall:
‘If ye had only waited, Andra, there’s nothing I wouldna have given you.’
Aye: if only he had waited. And what kind of life would he have had with Jessie? What kind of children might she have borne him? A world of difference between hers and Sarah’s – but what kind of world? There had been Richard – now there was David. But a family of Davids or Richards? That might have been possible. His daughters might have been like Jessie – and laughter might have broken against the walls of his home.
Aye: ten thousand times had he thought how it might have turned out – if only he had waited. His life had turned sour thinking of the might-have-been. But life took no heed of might-have-been. Life was – in all its terrible inexorability.
Some day he would have a word with his son David and tell him, warn him of the dangers of not waiting. Caution him to be certain – certain almost as of death – before he made the irrevocable step of marriage. For once the ox had been led to the slaughter …
But for Richard he might not have gone on – might never have slept with Sarah again. But there had been Richard and he had hoped there might be another …
His life had been passed hoping for this and for that. Regretting his marriage, his lack of activity, sighing for the life he might have lived but had not. Above all he regretted his lack of activity.
What activity could have been possible in his corner of the Rhinns? The farmers dominated the life of the countryside and the farmers in their turn were dominated by the landlords. The people had no life. Their best hours were given to the labour of the land. When their work was over they retired to their cot-houses – miserable one-roomed boxes, many of them built of turf-sods without windows of any kind – and there partook of their porridge or gruel and crawled into bed or threw themselves down on a bunch of straw or hay in a corner.
There was no communal life – they might foregather once a week under the one kirk roof – but they each came their several ways and departed their several ways. Only at certain times in their labour were they drawn together – at harvest or threshing or at the potato gathering – drawn together and yet separated by the incessant toil. At meal times sitting in the lee of a dyke they might exchange opinion and banter.
But Andrew Ramsay was isolated from the farm workers. He laboured by himself. He had not the common bond of agricultural labour. His isolation depressed him. He enjoyed contact with his fellow-men – and there was only Sam and the minister. Their talk, in the end, was futile enough. Especially their politics. For how could they translate their political ideals into action? They could theorise – indeed they were always theorising. But their theorisings concerned movements and events far removed from their influence. The Civil War in America – or the latest speech of William Ewart Gladstone – or the Mayor of Birmingham, Joseph Chamberlain. There was nothing that could be done – except talk. And yet, an inheritance from the Chartist fervour of his father, Andrew Ramsay had often thought what a significant achievement it would be to organise the farm and agricultural workers of the Rhinns into a Union – so that they could impose their conditions on the farmers. He had devoted much thought and speculation to the idea – but always in the end he had been frustrated by the impossibility of its realisation.
He was a rebel without an immediate objective. There were not many of his kind in Galloway though they were to be found in plenty in the growing industrial cities. This was his tragedy – that he could not find a way to his fellow-men; that he could not realise his ideals in practice.
He felt he was living before his time. He believed that some day, and some day soon, his ideals would triumph; that man to man the world over would be brothers. A day would surely dawn when men, women and children would cease to be slaves of the men who owned the land; that the land would become theirs to enjoy. But that day would not just dawn – that day would have to be striven for, worked for, planned for and finally fought for. The earth was the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. But not even the children of Israel had entered without pain and travail the land the Lord had promised them.
THE CAPTAIN COMES HOME
In the midst of that summer’s work Captain Richard Ramsay came home. His ship was lying at South Shields and he had some ten days of freedom. He was anxious to see his father.
Andrew Ramsay was working on the march dyke of Achgammie farm, on the brow of a hill, when Richard came upon him. He had not received a letter in months from his son and he did not expect him.
Richard Ramsay was a tall upstanding man. But his face which ought to have been open and smiling, was darkened as if by sorrow – and he had his father’s brooding eyes.
He came up softly behind his father and tapped him on the shoulder. Andrew Ramsay turned sharply. For a second, surprise overcame him.
‘In the name of God – it’s yourself, Dick!’
He grasped his hand firmly and his eyes moistened.
It’s me, father – and how are you?’
‘Fine, boy, fine – and yourself? When did you come home?’
‘I came up from South Shields. Bob Hamilton drove me in from Stranraer.’
‘Aye, aye … Have you been at the Suie?’
‘No … I had my trunk left at the Inn with Bob MacHaffie: you won’t mind ..? It wasn’t too comfortable at the Suie the last time I was home … I’ve got used to a bunk to myself … You’ll understand …?’
‘Fine, boy, fine. I’m glad to see you. You’re looking well. Have ye had a good voyage?’
‘Fair … I’ve nothing to complain of. You’re looking well yourself. How’s everybody at the Suie?’
‘Fine, fine. We’re a’ doing away – busy the now – the hay – there’s no rest here, you know.’
‘Still the way of it? How’s the bairn getting on?’
‘David’s doing fine. Ye remember him?’
‘Oh, he’s the bairn – I wouldn’t be forgetting him. And my mother?’
‘Not so bad, Richard. She has her bit touts back and forward. So ye’re for the Inn? I believe you’re right, Richard – but ye’ll be seeing us?’
‘I’ll be seeing you? God! What d’ye think I came home for?’
To cover his embarrassment Richard pulled a bottle of whisky from the pocket of his blue reefer jacket. He wrenched the cork from it and thrust it at his father.
Andrew Ramsay took the bottle slowly and looked at it and then at his son. The thought which crossed his mind saddened him – so that’s why he’s biding at the Inn. But instantly, looking from the bottle to his son, he dismissed the thought as false and ungenerous.
‘Here’s your health, Richard – and long life and happiness to you, boy.’
He wiped the mouth of the bottle and handed it back.
‘Well – here’s… everything.’
Richard
