Bonnie Dundee Read online

  ‘That’s The Ballad of Johnnie Faa. You were singing it that time in the Little Dining-room. And her lord hunted them down and hanged her bonnie Tinkler laddie before his castle gates.’

  ‘Aye, so the song tells. But it doesna tell that nine months later when her hedgerow-bairn was born it was put out to foster, while the lady bore her lord his rightful brood until she dies o’ the last of them.’

  In the silence between us, a fish jumped, close in to the bank.

  ‘Then why is your name no’ Faa, Mistress Darklis Ruthven?’ said I in a while. No question of why would it not be Casselis.

  ‘Because the hedgerow-bairn was a lassie, and married out of the royal tribe of Faa into the witch tribe of Ruthven. And her son, my father, left the black tents of his own people to settle down and become falconer to the last Lord Casselis all for the love of a white-skinned lassie. He was killed taking an eyas from the nest. They say he was drunk at the time, an’ rock climbing’s no ploy for a drunk man. And my mother died when I was born, and so—’

  ‘And so here you are wi’ the stiff-backed Covenanting Cochranes.’

  ‘That was unjust,’ she said after a moment. ‘Here I am with my kinswoman Jean, and that’s a different thing altogether.’ And then on a note of surprise, ‘Why am I telling a’ this to you, Hugh Herriot?’

  ‘Mebbe because you were feeling lonely,’ I said, after giving the matter careful thought.

  She denied it quickly. ‘Why would I be feeling lonely?’

  I could not think of a reason, but I had enough sense to know that it was best not spoken. ‘Och, I dinna ken. It’s awfu’ quiet out here in the glen, after Paisley,’ I said vaguely, ‘quiet enough to make a body feel lonely, most of all in the gloaming.’

  ‘I like the quiet of it,’ she said softly now, as though she were listening to it.

  And for a while it seemed that neither of us had any more to say. We just sat there, listening to the voice of the burn together. It was that evening I found for the first time the goodness of silence shared between companions who do not need always to be talking.

  It was Darklis who broke the stillness at last. ‘What are you thinking of, Hugh Herriot?’

  I said – for I felt that it was but fair, after she had told so much to me, though I would not have spoken of it in the ordinary way of things – ‘I was thinking that when we come to Dundee, and there are merchants to be found, I will spend some of the wedding siller that Claverhouse gave me on more paper and crayons and maybe some good sepia ink.’ And then I wished I had not told her, and was afraid that she might laugh; and I looked up quickly, and realised how long we must have sat there, for the gloaming was almost deepened into the dark – such dark as there is in the North at Midsummer – and I could scarce make out her face among the elder branches, though the flower-curds still glimmered pale.

  ‘No paints?’ she said. And she was not laughing.

  ‘I’d have no time for the grinding, nor for boiling the oil. The paper and the rest will do.’

  ‘You should have taken Mynheer van Meere’s offer,’ said she, gravely, as it might be my mother offering me good advice.

  ‘So you know about that.’

  ‘Aye, Jean showed me the picture of himself. She keeps it among her private things.’

  Pleasure shot through me. But I shook my head. ‘No; I’ve another plan in my mind.’

  ‘Not to bide in the stable-yard all your life?’

  ‘No. In a year or two, I’m minded to go for a sojer.’

  ‘Aye,’ she said, ‘Jean said somewhat of that, too.’ And then, with a kind of softness in her voice, ‘That would be in Claverhouse’s troop?’

  I found my hands were clenched on my knees, and I unclenched them carefully. ‘It’s daft. I ken that.’

  ‘It’s no’ daft,’ said she, ‘it’s no’ daft to seek to follow where your heart’s away before ye.’

  And the quiet settled between us again, filled with the faint suckle of water under the bank, and an owl crying somewhere in the glen woods.

  That time it was I that broke it, and with a blundering question. ‘And you? What will you do, mistress?’

  ‘Now that Jean will not be needing me as she used to do, you mean?’

  ‘She’ll always be needing you,’ I said stoutly, though that was what I had meant.

  She gave a little breathless laugh, and came sliding out of the tree in a froth of pale skirts, and the next instant was kneeling among the flowering sedges on the very margin of the water. ‘Mebbe I’ll wed wi’ a prince. Mebbe I’ll go back to my own people – och, not the People of Peace, the Tinkler folk – who kens what the future has waiting for any of us?’

  The burn made a pool, still and dark, just there above the ford, and she leaned forward, gazing down into the darkness of it. ‘Mebbe if I look – very hard—’

  ‘Don’t,’ I said quickly, ’tis unchancy to play such games.’

  But I do not think she even heard me; for that was when the strangeness began; and suddenly I knew that she was listening to something else, something that I could not hear.

  ‘I have a tune running in my head,’ she said after a few moments. ‘All the while I have been here this e’en – and ’tis no’ just like any tune that ever I heard before…’

  She began to hum very softly. And listening, I knew that it was no tune that I had ever heard, either. If I had heard it, I would not have been forgetting it. I never have forgotten it, I could whistle it to you now. But I will not…

  A strange, haunting tune, with broken double notes in it that made me think of Amryclose and his pipes; but it was no tune that I had heard him play, and the hairs rose a little on the back of my neck.

  Darklis broke off in her humming, then hummed a few more notes, and broke off again. She was leaning further over the water, staring down. ‘Dark, down there,’ she said, half whispering, in a small frozen voice that was not like her own. ‘Black-dark, death-dark…’

  ‘Come back,’ I said, ‘you’ll fall in.’ I wanted to catch hold of her, but something held me from the movement.

  She only leaned the closer, as though something in the black secret heart of the pool was drawing her. ‘Black – and torches – and the world falling – falling –’ Her voice was becoming a wail, taking on the note that I have heard since in women keening for the dead. ‘All things falling – no air to breathe – Jean! Jean, I am coming—’

  Somehow I broke through the thing that held me, and flung forward to catch and drag her back from the terrible place that she was being drawn away to. And in the same instant, out of the stillness of the evening, a sudden flurry of wind came up the glen, shattering the still darkness of the pool, and flinging the flower-curdled elder branches up and over like a breaking wave.

  Darklis flung out her hands as though to fend something off, and twisted sideways, crying out to me in terror, ‘Hugh! Hugh!’ as though I were the natural one in the world for her to call to.

  ‘I’m here,’ I said; and my arms were fast round her, while she clung to me, drawing her breath in great shuddering gasps. ‘All’s well now. Hold close to me, lassie, I have ye safe.’

  Slowly, I felt her come back in to herself. She sat up and drew back out of my arms, gentle like. ‘Did I fall asleep? I seemed to be dreaming.’

  ‘Aye,’ I said, ‘and near enough went into the water.’

  ‘And you caught me back.’ She shook her head as though to clear it. The faery wind had died away as quickly as it had come. Already the moment was past, and she was forgetting whatever there was to forget. At least, I thought that she was forgetting. In after time I was none so sure.

  ‘’Tis getting late,’ I said, ‘will I take you back to the house?’

  She got up and shook out her skirts, and we went back up the burnside. The night had returned to its proper self, a dog barked down-glen from the clachan, and the sky was like green crystal, with just the faint echo of light in the north from the sunset that would linger on there
to join hands with the sunrise.

  And I did not even know that we were walking with her hand in mine, until we reached the gate of the stable-yard, and parted clasp there without another word.

  I waited in the archway to watch her safe to the side door of the house. The door stood open, and old Leezie, the housekeeper, her that was nurse to Claverhouse when he was a bairn, came bouncing through to meet her, scolding shrill as a Leith fishwife. ‘Where hae ye been, ye bad lassie, out this late –’

  ‘Only down by the ford,’ said Darklis.

  And the old crone let out a wail, ‘No’ under the eldern tree – and on Midsummer’s Eve?’

  ‘Why Leezie, where’s the harm?’ Darklis returned, half laughing. ‘Ye can see the People of Peace havena carried me away.’

  ‘Harm? Harm is it? Dinna ye ken yon eldern tree is ca’d the Dark Lady, an’ the pool below her the Dark Lady’s Looking-glass? An’ dinna ye ken why?’

  The door slammed shut behind her skirling.

  9

  Hard Riding!

  SO WE CAME to Dudhope.

  A bonnie place is Dudhope, part castle, part manor house, of warm rose-grey stone, sitting close among its gardens and its stands of oak and sycamore trees, on the slopes of Dundee Law above the old town with its narrow winding streets and crow-stepped gables and the broad bright waters of the Tay.

  A good place to be starting a new life in, I thought, as we clattered through the gate arch into the wide courtyard on that first evening; a warm and welcoming place to become home to my lady and Darklis, aye, and me. But it is little enough the new master of Dudhope saw of his home through the rest of that summer, and the autumn that followed after.

  The West was up in flames again, following a new leader, James Renwick, lately come from Holland. Notices appeared, fixed to the market crosses up and down the Lowlands, declaring war on the King and disowning all authority depending on him, proclaiming that every soldier or magistrate or ordinary man who lifted a hand against the Saints was an enemy of God and the Covenant and would suffer their just vengeance accordingly.

  The Government answered by issuing an oath to be put to any suspect, disowning the declaration. Refusal to take the oath was to be taken as self-confessed proof of treason, and punished by death. Then Master Renwick and his mob marched on Kirkcudbright, murdering Peter Pierson, a parish minister, on the way, and tearing the country to pieces, far and wide. And Claverhouse and his troops were sent down to deal with the mess.

  And when he was not dealing with that, he had another matter to handle – a small enough thing it seemed – for some privates of the Foot Guards had complained to the Privy Council, no less, that Colonel Douglas, him that was brother to the Duke of Queensberry, and therefore an uncomfortably powerful man, had dismissed them and used their arrears of pay to put fine new uniforms on his own company. Claverhouse was one of the Council, and took their part, and was to and fro to Edinburgh on their behalf when he might have had the chance to get back to his wife and home. Once, when he knew that he must go from Edinburgh straight back to Ayrshire again without even a glimpse of his home, he took me with him, that I might carry a letter back to my lady when he left the one for the other. And that was a thing that took a hand in the shaping of my life afterwards.

  This was the way of it. On a wild evening and rain not far short of August’s end, when Claverhouse was in Edinburgh yet again, my lady twisted her heel coming down the great stair, and fell the last half flight. Darklis and the other women gathered her up and put her into her bed, and at first it seemed that there was not much harm done. But in the mid-part of that night one of the grooms was routed out and sent galloping to bring Dr Anstruther up from the town, for my lady had done herself some kind of sore hurt inside.

  Dr Anstruther came, and stayed a long time – an uncommon long time.

  The whole stable-yard was awake and waiting by then, and I mind the odd kind of hush under the wuthering of the storm. And then, with the lanterns scarce lit for the morning’s mucking-out to begin, the steward came with word that someone must ride for Edinburgh to fetch the Colonel back, for ’twas like to go hard with my lady.

  Archie Grier the head groom was fast in his bed with a flux of the kind that turns a man to a green and shivering wreck, the Colonel’s own groom was with him in Edinburgh, and the other two, like the stable laddies, were Dundee-born and bred and had never been a score of miles from home. And that left me, that had ridden the road only a week or so before.

  With a sick and heavy-drubbing heart I dashed up to my sleeping place in the loft, found my bonnet and pulled it down to my eyebrows, flung on my thick plaid, for it was like to be a chill ride as well as a long one, and came plunging back, dragging tight the belt that held it in at my waist, as I tumbled myself down the loft ladder.

  Kestrel and Folly were saddled up and just being led out of their stalls, their hooves ringing sharp on the cobbles, as I regained the yard; and the web cobbles gleaming like fish-scales in the light of the lanterns; and a great coming and going. ‘I’ll come down to the ferry wi’ ye, an’ bring Folly back.’ One of the other grooms was already swinging into Kestrel’s saddle.

  The steward held out to me a wee bag that jinked. ‘Here, stow that in your pocket, ye’ll need gold for the post-horses.’ And as I took it he handed me an old horse pistol. ‘And this in your belt. We’re not in true Covenanting country, this side of Scotland, but ye’ll maybe find a need for it, all the same.’

  I took and thrust it into my belt, though I had never handled such a thing before, and truth to tell, had more faith in the knife that was there already.

  I swung up to the saddle; and suddenly there was Darklis at my stirrup, holding up a bulging wallet. ‘Bannock and beef and something to keep out the cold,’ said she. ‘Ye’ll have no time for inn meals on your way.’

  The lantern light and the first paling of the wild morning splashed together on her face, showing it white and wisht, and her eyes big and aching in the whiteness of it; and I knew in that moment, as I had never quite known before, how much my lady meant to her. ‘I’ll bring him back before the wind changes,’ I said, just for her hearing, and headed for the courtyard and the gate arch. Andy clattered beside me.

  The wind was still blowing in long squally gusts, and the rain chill and driving, more like a November dawn than an August one, as we came down into Dundee town; and the waking candles were still blinking in the upper windows of the tall houses as we clattered through the steep streets, making for the quaysides and the ferry. The Tay is a mile wide at Dundee and all travellers to the South start out that way; but the ferryman was not best pleased to be called out so early and on such a morning, and emerged shaking his head as though he had a bee in his bonnet, and cursing. And when he recognised Andy, his temper did not sweeten, for there was always, by long and sacred tradition, something of a feud between Dundee town and its Constable. But the sight of a couple of silver pieces glinting in the light of the lantern above his door put him in a better frame of mind. And when I had dismounted and turned Folly over to Andy to take back, he led the way down to where his boat was beached; and between us we ran her down into the water and climbed aboard.

  ‘Can ye row?’ said he, unshipping the oars.

  ‘I never have,’ I said, ‘but I’ll try.’ Anything for speed.

  He shook his head, ‘Nay, ye’d be more trouble than ye’re worth.’ And he began to swing to the oars.

  By God’s fortune the tide was at slack water, and so we were able to get across straight from bank to bank. But even so it seemed a weary while before I was scrambling out on the southern shore.

  I paid the man off, and headed for the cluster of cottages about the stables where the rich folk of Dundee kept a few horses for the first stage of any southern journey. The place was up and busy, as well it might be; the Dudhope stable had been starting the day an hour and more ago; and the sight of Claverhouse’s silver phoenix badge in my bonnet soon produced a horse, and I was away
for Edinburgh.

  The wind and rain were in my face as I rode hard along the track that follows the southern skirts of the Ochills, and I drove my chin further into the neck folds of my plaid, and settled down into the saddle, the morning coming up grey and sullen out of the Tay estuary behind me.

  At Kilmany I changed horses, leaving word with the posting people to have two horses ready for the return journey around tomorrow’s noon. That was a wild and maybe over-hopeful guess, but I reckoned it was better they should be on the outlook for us too early than too late. And when I was on my way again, I bethought me of Darklis’s wallet, and got it out and ate as I rode, hungrily for I had had no breakfast, but glad when it was done, for I had no pleasure in the food save for the staying of the hunger pangs in my belly.

  It was still but ten or so in the morning when I clattered into the stable-yard of the inn at Ferny. At first it seemed that there was no one about save a marigold-coloured cat sitting on the mounting block, who glared at me with a malevolent eye. But my shouts brought forth an ancient hostler, who, since there did indeed seem to be no one else, must take my tired horse before he brought out a fresh one. I mind the peaceful dream in which he moved, like someone moving under water, irked me past all bearing.

  ‘I’ve no’ got all day!’ I burst out. ‘I should be halfway to Gateside by now – I must be in Inverkeithing before the Forth ferry closes for the night!’ And then as he showed no sigh of speeding up, ‘Here, man, tell me which horse, an’ I’ll e’en saddle up for myself!’

  He cocked an eye at me then, grumbling, ‘Hoots toots, man, will it be a matter o’ life an’ death, then?’

  ‘It could be just that!’ I almost shouted; and seemingly the desperate need that I had for haste got through to him at last. He stopped dead, with the tired beast half in and half out of the stable. ‘Weel, ye’ll no’ be in Inverkeithing before the ferry closes if ye gang round by Gateside an’ Loch Leven.’

  ‘What way, then?’