Читать книгу The Song in the Green Thorn Tree - James William Barke - Страница 14

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After the holiday of the New-Year’s Day, Robert applied himself with renewed vigour to the labour of the farm. This year there would need to be no mistake with the crops.

But for all his hard work on the farm there remained plenty to interest him outside it. John Richmond, after a gruelling time with Daddy Auld and the Machlin Session, had to take his punishment publicly in the kirk and mount the cutty stool three Sundays in succession—as had poor Jenny Surgeoner, already big with child.

Robert commiserated with Richmond. He was in like trouble with Betty Paton and would soon have to go through the same ordeal himself. Fortunately, he was able to have his case brought before Doctor Woodrow’s Session in Tarbolton, since Auld was satisfied with the arrangement that Robert should stand in Betty’s parish, the parish in which the offence had been committed.

He did not relish the idea of having to mount the Tarbolton sinners’ platform; but at least none of his family would be there; and Doctor Woodrow would be milder than Daddy Auld in his rebuke.

And so it turned out. He took the stand with Betty and other delinquents, for there was always a steady flow of penitents in any parish. For all that he got his ditty from Patrick Woodrow, and the ordeal embittered him more than he had thought it would.

Calling in at William Muir’s after his third appearance, he fulminated to some purpose.

“I answer a lot of damned uncivil questions; I pay a gold guinea; I stand three times like a silly sheep and get twenty-one shillings’ worth of moral catechism. Now I’m free o’ any further censure—free of scandal. And what for? For doing the most natural thing in the world; for doing what I was sent into the world to do... But I went about it the wrong way. If I’d gotten a lad in black to mumble some damned cant I’d have been married and I could have battered a bairn out of Betty every twelvemonth. That would have been holy wedlock. But because Betty and I were fond o’ each other and didn’t wait for canting ceremony I’m a fornicator and my name’s clashed round the countryside; and Saunders Tait will be hawking round another swatch of his damned doggerel. That’s Christianity for you.”

“Don’t worry yourself about it, lad,” said Willie Muir. “Nobody pays ony attention. There’s hardly a man in the parish but what’s been through the same. You tak’ things ower serious, Rab. When’s Betty expectin’?”

“May, sometime. May or June. Oh, I’ll stand by the lass. But I’m damned if I’ll go through wi’ ony o’ their matrimony after this. They’re no’ having it both ways. If they’re for branding me fornicator I’ll give them fornication.”

“Na, na: you mauna gang that airt. Let that be a lesson to you. You’ve made a mistake and you’ve paid for it. Let it rest there. There’s an excuse for a lad the first time; but no’ the second, Rab. For the sake of your father’s guid name and memory, dinna let them drive you into open sin. It’s time you were married onyway, Rab. A bastard bairn can give a man a gey sair heart—in after years. Come your ways in, lad, and hae a bite and a sup and think nae mair about it.”

But Robert had good cause to think a lot about his predicament. He soon found that tongues were wagging in Machlin and at the markets in Craigie and Kilmarnock.

Two courses lay open to him. Either he must lie low and wait till the hot breath of scandal had grown cold or he must brazen it out.

His anger was too fierce to allow him to lie low; the wound to his pride was too raw to be suffered in silence; the outrage to his manhood had been too brutal for him not to lash back in self-defence.

He found in Richmond a ready audience for his bitter tirades.

“I’ve seen lads and lassies on the cutty stool I felt sorry for; some of them I laughed at for they needed no pity and asked for none... Aye: I’ve seen all kinds on the stool—except the rich! They never mount the stool; they never have to suffer the indignity of being called filthy fornicators, stinking whoremongers and hell-hardened harlots in the sight of the Lord. Oh no: they pay five or ten guineas into the Poor’s-box and go scot-free. And a damned beg-your-pardon secret and confidential compearing they do afore the Session.

“But the likes o’ you and me, Jock: we’re only dirt to be made into a public exhibition. As if the bluidy canting hypocrites with their screwed-up purse-proud faces weren’t the biggest fornicators o’ the lot. But then they enjoy their fornication under the sanctimonious cloak of religion.

“View it how you like, Jock: their morality’s rotten. It canna be a sin to love a lass or a lass to love a lad. God made us that way—or He didna make us at all. That’s the common sense of it. But we can worship the Lord with our bodies, can’t we? If the act of begetting life isn’t an act o’ worship, then damn me if I know the meaning o’ the word. And by what right, human or divine, does a lecherous little runt like Willie Fisher set himself up to tell me how I’ll put into use the organs that God gave me...”

But Richmond, though he was in the mood for solace, was in no mood for philosophical argument.

“I made a mistake, Rab... I’m getting out o’ Machlin. To hell wi’ it! I’ll go and push my fortune in Edinburgh. The damned thing is that I promised Jenny: of course, I would marry her if ocht happened. I think her folk’ll hold me to it—if they can. There’s nothing for it but to give them the slip.”

“But, Jock: if you promised Jenny you would marry her——”

“Oh, I’ll send for her as soon as I get a good position in Edinburgh.”

“But you love Jenny, don’t you?”

“I liked her well enough. Ach: I’ve been a bluidy fool, Rab. You’re no’ marrying Lizzie Paton, are you?”

“I never promised her marriage.”

“Does that make ony difference?”

“It does to me.”

“Aye; but it doesna make ony difference to Lizzie Paton.”

“I think it does. She kens I didna deceive her.”

“I canna see it makes ony real difference, Rab.”

“Oh to hell, Jock: it makes all the difference in the world. I’ll see Betty right: I’ll take the bairn to Mossgiel if she’ll part wi’ it. You don’t think I’d deny her or throw her in the ditch?”

“I don’t intend to see Jenny stuck either. But—I’m clearing out as soon as I can. I’ve got my fortune to think about. Machlin’s getting ower het a girdle, Rab. Besides, there’s some talk o’ Jenny being sent to Paisley till her trouble blows by.”

Richmond’s attitude troubled Robert. But in the end he was certain Richmond would do what was right by Jenny and marry her. It was just that his trouble was fresh on him and he did not see his way clearly.

Smith, on the other hand, was more keen to listen to Robert’s blistering scorn of the Kirk. It delighted him—so much had he suffered from James Lamie—to hear the lads in black smote hip and thigh. But he was also aware that there was a deeper side to Robin’s revolt: that behind all his scorn there was sound argument and thrilling logic. It emboldened his thought to know that there was a case against the corrupted Calvinism of the Kirk; that the flesh wasn’t something to be reviled and denied but to be accepted as part of life’s glory and mystery.

But Smith had his worries. He was not so successful with the lassies as Rab or Jock. Such of the Machlin belles as he had wooed had not yielded to his blandishments. In the heat of frustrated desire he had had to turn to his mother’s servant, Christine Wilson. He didn’t want to tell anyone about that: not even Rab. Kirsty was no beauty and no maid. She was almost twice his age and had already borne a child to Nance Tinnock’s son.

Still, Kirsty was a woman, even though she was fat, sweaty and coming forty. And when he slipped up in the dark to the attic it was possible to imagine what Lizzie Miller or Jean Armour might be like...

Mary Campbell took much more mollifying.

“You are not the man I was thinking you were, Robert Burns. Och, you are like all the others. And the poor lass: what is to become of her?”

“She’s no poor lass, Mary; and she’s far from feeling sorry for herself. Why should she? She knows I don’t love her.”

“Love is an easy thing for a man like you to talk about.”

“Not love, Mary. Surely you can understand what I mean! I liked Betty well enough. She is a good lass; and she has no regrets.”

“How can you be knowing that? It’s easy for a man to say that.”

“Mary! I never promised Betty I would marry her; never told her I loved her—not as a man must love the woman he marries. Oh yes: we were foolish—or unlucky. We’ve paid our price for it. Even the Kirk has absolved us of any further scandal. Surely you’re not going to hold this between us?”

“First it was your fine friend Mr. Richmond—you made plenty of excuses for him.”

“Richmond, when the time comes, will do the right thing by Jenny Surgeoner——”

“Marriage is the only right thing. But I suppose if lassies will be foolish enough to trust the lying tongues of men they will just be having to pay for their foolishness.”

“But I never lied, Mary. If I’d promised to marry Betty Paton then, by heavens, I’d marry her and defy the whole world. I scorn that kind of lying, I scorn to deceive. If you are going to join with the Kirk in branding me a fornicator, then fornicator I must be.”

“You’re a foolish man, Robert, to be boasting of your sin.”

“Hell, Mary! Do you really count it mortal sin for two young hot-blooded people, male and female—as the Lord created them—to be guilty of sin merely because they fulfilled the letter and the spirit of nature’s law?”

“Och, you’re confusing me with your nonsense of words—knowledge is not at me at all—the way you would be putting it. It’s foolish I am to be listening to you.”

“You know fine what I mean.”

“And maybe even if I were knowing I would not want to know.”

“Who’s doing the confusing now? Mary, lass: you do understand! Betty Paton was—if you like—a piece of folly——”

“A queer folly!”

“Have you never known a moment’s folly, Mary?”

“I have never had any cause to fear I might be standing in the place of repentance—nor am I likely to be in any danger. I would never be so foolish as to be trusting any man.”

“Not even me?”

“You less than any man I know.”

“You like me less than any man you know?”

“Maybe ... it’s because I like you more. No, no ... don’t be putting your arms round me: I can be liking you well enough without that.”

“You’re a rogue, Mary. You know I love you or I wouldn’t be standing here telling you all my troubles and tribulations. God, Mary, but I was angry—and here you’ve got me soothed and quietened till you would think I hadna a care in the world. There’s magic about you.”

“No magic at all. I’m just a poor Highland nursemaid and me far from my own folks and they that speak my own tongue... You said before, Robert, that you and me were the strangers here in Machlin; but you are not the stranger I am. You don’t know what loneliness is with your fine friends here—including Mr. Hamilton—and your family just a mile up the road.”

“Mary, lass, you can be lonely in the midst of a tavern and all your bosom cronies round about you. You can be lonely whenever your heart’s lonely—and I’ve known that loneliness long enough. Maybe Betty Paton crept into a corner of it... Can you understand that? But of course you can. Oh, I know you have another loneliness that I haven’t; and if I can ease that, Mary...”

“Oh, Robert! Why had you to get yourself into this trouble?”

“We’ll talk no more of that. It’ll blow by as these things always do. If I’d known you it would never have happened. When my father lay dying ... No one will ever know what a trial that was. It was then that Betty Paton came to Lochlea. She was a good girl. We were both lonely and we struck up an acquaintance. Many and many a time I was thankful for Betty’s company—for her human laughter—for the words of kindness she had for me. That’s what Betty meant to me. We needed each other in a time of trouble, when my emotions were drained to the last bitter dregs. But Betty never meant to me what you could mean, Mary—what you do mean... Love, Mary, is not a thing that can be ordered in its going or coming. To like a lass and enjoy her company is one thing—it’s natural and right for a lad and lass to like each other. But love—whither it comes there’s no knowing—except that it comes... There’s a worthy farmer friend of mine—John Rankine o’ Adamhill—said to me, years ago, that the heart would tell me when I was in love—that I would know without my brain having to bother about a yea or a nay. I never knew how right he was till I met in wi’ you, Mary. There’s not another lass in all Kyle, Cunninghame or Carrick like you——”

“Och, what kind of man are you at all?”

“A poor man, Mary; but an honest one. I have never deceived my enemies: I haven’t it in me to betray my friends. Oh, I’m not one of your prudent cautious ones, Mary. And the only fame I long for is the glorious fame of a true poet. That and the love of a fine woman and I ask no more from heaven.”

“But I am no fine woman but a poor Highland girl without a penny and without a friend; and who am I to be the fine lady of a fine poet?”

“Fine feathers and fine silks may make fine ladies—and they may well be bitches out of hell for all that. It’s an honest heart and a free mind that matters; and a man is rich beyond the wealth of rubies who can clasp such to his bosom.”

“You’ll have my head turned on me with your talk. Look you, Robert: I’ll need to be going in or Mrs. Hamilton will be giving me a terrible catechising—and her time coming near. It’s the terrible place Machlin: you can’t turn yourself but you see some woman or lass big with child. You would think the men-folks had nothing else to do.”

“It’s the national pastime, Mary: you’ll get used to it.”

“Och, I’ll need to be getting in, Robert. And don’t you be telling Mr. Hamilton—or anybody—of our meeting here.”

There was a soothing, caressing quality about Mary Campbell that reminded Robin somehow of Jean Gardner. Mary hadn’t the flaming beauty of Jean, but she had something of her delicate trembling passion. But there was a maturity, a balance and sureness about Mary that Jean had never known.

And there was the glamoury of her Gaelic tongue and the fascination of the quaint rhythm of her word-patterns.

In a jeering, leering world, Mary Campbell seemed to possess the quiet ecstatic chastity of a saint. Not that she suggested a saint of chastity. Mary was human and she was a serving-lass. She lived in the midst of too much elemental passion and had too much healthy passion of her own to have any ignorant or false notions of chastity.

Robin loved her. But he knew that he could love any woman who was young, attractive and lively in her conversation. He was, indeed, in love with womankind, and womankind were crowding in on his life in Machlin—attractive, urgent and upsetting to his responses.

But, for the moment, Mary Campbell engaged his keenest response.